JMJ
Chapter One
It's a small Endless Void, after all
On the outskirts of Cluster-Space a lone ship watched sentinel. It was, of course, connected to other ships in a well-coordinated communication network, but it appeared solitary with Cluster Prime a glowing orb behind surrounded by the clusters of moons and planetoids that made up their domain. A strong metallic sheen of bronze from the planet reflected the golden brilliance from the artificial ring created millennia ago by the ancient peoples of the planet, nearly forgotten by time and space.
The guard unit in the ship, however, was bored. Three years was long enough to sit in space with nothing happening even with generous vacations and even more generous allowances for casual attire and comfortable ergonomic seating. Though, all that generosity did often leave not enough people to guard if there was a real threat. One guard, as robotic in build as anyone from Cluster Prime, stared with glazed eyes that shone with the brilliance of that golden ring, but it was a glaze that was as empty of much else under those heavy brows as the grumbling sound of the oil smoothie reached its zenith between straw and the bottom of the can.
"Y'know," said the second guard a little less bored swinging his short legs under his swiveling floating chair, "we've never actually done much of a drill before. What do you think would happen if the Prime Guard was faced with a real emergency? Do you think we'd be able to handle it? I mean we lost our military. I mean, with good reason, because they were all corrupt and consisted mostly of drones and all united in an absolutely disgustingly evil hive mind driven by a mad dictator queen, but if there was a real invasion, wouldn't we… I dunno... fail epically?"
"We're at peace now," shrugged a Third with a lazy smile and an even lazier shrug. "And we're a technologically advanced race of autonomous robotic organisms. There's slim chance that we have the slightest thing to worry about, especially with a ruler as caring and negotiable as Queen Vega! The total opposite of that unyielding, unfeeling old space-witch Vexus."
The Second shrugged but a lot more stiff. Then he drummed the edge of the consol with the flat-clawed digits of a flat hand.
"What? You prefer Vexus?" sneered the Third.
"No, of course not!" sniffed the Second. "I just think…"
"Aww, you're always thinking, and see you have a right to think under Queen Vega, am I right?" demanded the Third. He shoved the back of the First Prime Guard. "Yo, I said, 'Am I right?'"
"But we don't think," muttered the Second.
The First, who had been sucking on that straw like a mosquito sucking a dead carcass the whole time, stopped just then and popped the straw out of mouth, enough that his optical sensors popped with it.
"Maybe that's something there," he muttered in awe.
The other two looked.
"It's just a ship!' said the Third.
"Yeah, it's moving kinda fast, though," said the Second.
The First threw his empty can over his shoulder and took up the com link. "Come in, approaching ship. You're going too fast for entry into Cluster-Space."
The ship did not latch onto frequency.
"Maybe we should blow it up," suggested the First with a pout as he locked onto the configuration of the ship so that they could get a good look at the outside hull onscreen.
"No insignia, no identification of any kind," muttered the Second nervously as he studied multiple computer screens. "And it looks kinda old and rusted out. From what I can tell, there are no life forms and very minimal power. The emergency power seems to be all in the thrusters. I don't even think it'll make it to the actually atmosphere of Prime."
"We should just freeze it, duh," said the Third.
"Uh… don't know the freeze button," said the First.
The Second rolled his eyes. "Didn't you read the manual of this thing?"
"Well, yeah, but I couldn't remember every button. I mean, c'mon," said the First with a lazy stretch of his very flexible arms behind his head. "Don't you remember it?"
"Well, yes, but, that's not the point. I don't think I feel safe with a pilot who doesn't know his ship," said the Second.
"That's because you think you want to be pilot and are upset because they felt sorry for him and let him be pilot," teased the Third.
The Second huffed. "You don't choose someone for an important position just because you feel sorry for—"
Klink!
"What was that?" quivered the Third leaping onto the Second.
There was a pause for a few minutes, and the First pressed some buttons on the consol. Then he scratched his broad chin. "Hmm, I think the ship hit us."
"Don't be stupid, it couldn't have," said the Third. "It would have crashed right through us if—"
"It must have run out of power just as it collided with us," muttered the Second as he threw the tiny Third off of him and brushed himself off.
"Hmm… then maybe you two should go check out this odd ship," said the First.
He picked up a new can of oil smoothie out from under the consol.
"Why aren't you coming?" demanded the Second.
"I'm staying with the ship," said the First.
The other two looked at the reclining pilot, frowned darkly at each other, and then grabbed the larger bot and forced him with them into space to help. Once outside with their somewhat transformed bodies for space-travel through the use of their very useful golden chips three years redistributed to the people of Cluster Prime and the surrounding Clustered Planetoids, they shivered a little. There was the thrill of transforming, of course, but then there was the fear of the ominous vessel before them.
It was an eerie, rusty, moaning, creaking, grimy thing like a big dead dump truck. At least, it looked dead. Somehow it felt alive and ready to pounce like an intergalactic vampire to feast upon freshly oiled and healthy gears, and wiring.
"What if it's carrying a rust-disease and all the inhabitants were rusted out to deactivation?" shuddered the Third.
The Second winced.
The First blinked with a vacant sense of worry, but he was the first to set forward with a fist turned into a weapon and a face shielded for protection against an intake of a horrible infestation through his larger oral ventilation system than most.
"Wait!" hissed the Second.
The Second and Third looked at each other quite surprised at the courage of their pilot, and soon followed looking guilty, though reluctant. They put up their shields as they entered the eerie place beyond. It was totally black inside. Not even emergency lighting was present, and their sudden headlamps pierced like blades into the thick ethereal aura. They would be beacons to every boogeyman that likely lurked in every ominous corner or even stabbing into them to cause them to be aroused to vengeance.
It was an empty shell of a ship, though. Had the lighting been at full capacity, it would have taken a swift sweep to look through the place. What could be seen with each turn of the head as a deep sea diver surveying a sunken sailing vessel, it looked like metal-munching piranhas had taken bites out of walls, computers, and shafts so that it was a wonder that the outside hull did not look as much like Swiss cheese as the interior did. The investigators huddled together and twisted about in unison to every creak and crick of the exhausted husk.
The corridors were scary enough, but the bridge was sparking weakly through its sliding door halfway open. The trio was afraid to enter as they each pictured a different sort of larger-than-life enemy trying to fix some insidious device of unknown technology to work well enough to suck out their essences just as their heads might appear in view, but in unison they peered into entrance.
Pause.
There was a great bulk leaning heavily over the consol where the nose of the prehistoric shuttle had rammed into the guard cruiser— a bulk that had limbs. Two were bent into a kneeling position on the floor; two very thick ones were thrown irregularly over the controls; two very spindly ones between were sticking out only partway from the main bulk of the shell. There was an evident head buried behind a thick arched back and a pair of what looked like smashed up wings. A couple other protruding appendages here and there made the figure look like a damaged Swiss army knife, but even without the face, this figure was a very recognizable one.
It was a household figure with a household name more intransient in the minds of the citizens of Cluster Prime than any boogeyman even if most had never seen him in person. The trio almost wished they were seeing an inter-dimensional energy vampire than this well-known conflicting image that was too close to home for comfort— a notable who had once inspired the strength of Cluster Prime and now represented its tyranny under Vexus almost more than the picture of Vexus herself, because this was the arm of her power.
"Commander Smytus!" the trio screamed.
They leapt into each other with the clamor of tripping over pots and pans over a messy kitchen floor. In seconds they were all limbs over the corridor moaning and groaning as though they had been shot at and wounded by the beast beyond, and yet the one thing to come through the doorway was the continued sparkling light and the sound of emotionless buzzing of some small machine on the fritz.
Pop, pop, pop. Three quivering pairs of eyes popped out of their sockets on wiry lines to peer with the utmost care in through the doorway once more.
The sizzling sparks came from the opposite direction of the motionless form of the notorious commander and illuminated him for dramatic effect. Opposite of this, in the very back of the bridge, looked like an oil brewer had been snapped off the wall and had spilled a little oil on the peeling floor-gloss. The sparking did not come from the remains of the oil brewer or they all would have been in danger and possible both ships might have already been blown to pieces because of the friction and the oil. The sparking came from a loose wire still in the wall.
The Pilot was the first to pull himself from the quivering trio, possibly because he was too lazy to remain afraid of nothing happening. He adjusted his headlamp with airiness unwarranted, brushed himself off, sucked his optics back into their socket-holds, and then slipped through the opening left to him even if his stubby legs made the way in a little clumsy. It ended with him landing on his cranium, but he reoriented himself at his own pace when the other two remained where they were in silence.
He looked at Smytus' hull. It might as well have been a gruesome, humiliating statue of him unmoving with his face and chest against the consol. The Pilot made a slight clicking sound behind his set of what might have served for teeth although they were in actuality two sealed pieces behind the openings of his oral cavity. With care, he strolled over to the broken oil brewer and the pool of oil beneath it. He stuck out a digit and, though he looked once more over his shoulder at his smaller companions and even more briefly at Smytus' back, he stuck the digit into his mouth and analyzed the flavor.
"Hmm…" he mused rubbing his chin. "Mmmph… I'd say it's that cheap low-grade stuff with little nutritional value made by the Bot Trades of Andromeda's Belt. Eight—ngh—nine Prime lunar cycles passed the date, and... let's see. An added H20-based lubricant in a last desperate attempt to make it worth the trouble of consumption even if it made the taste worse. Sad, really. Wonder how long he lived off this stuff. It'd do nothing for very long if he had no other source of nutrients."
He turned then to the others with a shrug.
The Second frowned. The Third pouted.
"Well, if only you were as good a pilot as you were at navigating sustenance," sighed the Second.
The Third snorted with amusement however jittery.
They both looked at Smytus again, and followed the Pilot along the circular domed bridge. The Third hesitated further but the Second whipped out a scanner and proceeded with nervous tension that rattled his innards to the great bulk at least four times his size. Perhaps the Third had reason not to approach as he was half the size of the Second. But ever before he used the scanner, he picked up a loose piece of metal and used the smallest point to poke Smytus on the knee.
Squeezing his eyes shut he braced himself for a violent reflex, but nothing happened.
"He's out like a light," said the Third.
"Oh, I thought he was totaled," shrugged the Pilot.
Now with more courage and ignoring his companions, the serious-minded Second focused his scanner right where Smytus' core would be through his chest from his side.
"He's still not beyond the limit of being functional," said the Second after a pause. "There is still an energy reading."
"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" asked the Pilot rubbing the side of his head.
"Well, he's not moving," shrugged the Third. "Can he hear us?"
"Unlikely," said the Second, "but I suppose it's our duty to bring him into custody now and report this for further instructions on how to deal with him in this condition."
"Aww!" complained the Pilot. "You mean we gotta fly back to Prime with that thing?!"
"Why don't we just leave him?" said the Third. "It's not like he deserves to be restored. He'll be beyond repair no doubt soon enough anyway."
"No," the Second declared with drama enough for a fanfare. "It's our duty to report this. If there is evidence of an enemy rebound, he will know. Now that he is alone and in this terrible condition he'll have loads to spill!"
"Spill what?" sniffed the Third.
"He already spilled the oil over here, and he's as dried out as rusted hair drier," said the Pilot.
"Oh, come on you rudimentary-processors, you're just afraid a wreck as damaged as this ship he's in is gunna kill us on the way home, are you?" demanded the Second.
"No," said the Pilot.
Slam!
"AH!" screamed the trio.
They scurried out of the bridge like frightened space mice.
It was a long time before they looked again, but all they saw was that Smytus' inert heft had fallen onto the floor.
#
Spinning.
The ship?
No, it was his head. His aching lightheaded cranium.
When was the last time he had felt at full capacity? It had to have not been since XJ-9's defeat of the Cluster. The end of the reign of terror that had made Vexus' the most feared name in the cosmos. It marked the end of the prosperity of Cluster Prime and the end of the thousands of years of strength and security, which Vexus had given her people with the help of Commander Smytus.
The end of Commander Smytus? Never!
The lightheadedness from lack of fuel and an inadequately repaired body being forced beyond standard limit by an unstoppable and unbreakable mind would not be enough to stop that mind from reaching his goal.
What was that goal?
To get repaired first, right? Then to come back? He would come back. Commander Smytus, Destroyer of Worlds could not, WOULD not be defeated.
But this stupid ship was less capable than his own body or mind. After that explosion it was a near miracle that he had survived, and he appreciated that. He would not waste it. The fact that he was picked up by a smalltime scavenger that was kicked off his own ship with zero difficulty was also a stroke of luck even if he had had to keep wits about him too in as poor condition as he had been, but then Commander Smytus had always relied on his own power more than any kind of mere luck. This ship was a piece of junk as luck would have it.
It had not been that Commander Smytus had damaged it in trying to frighten the puny flesh-creature. Of course not! Commander Smytus had aimed his fear-tactics well. It had been how weak this useless heap of metal was. Now he was not going to be able to reach a safe place to recover his body much less this ship, but he would not give up. He refused.
I won't give up, he forced through his mind even as he feared his own fuel supply's limit. "I must make this go faster. I know a place on a moon just outside of Cluster-Space that Vega will know nothing about. I will go there to refuel. To revive myself. By myself!"
He did not add to himself that he did not know the first thing about the mechanics of Cluster biology. He would figure that out when he got there. Perhaps in his lightheaded state, however he had not made the best choice in putting this crummy ship into full throttle. He was so weak anyway, and he was so unprepared for the force of the thrust. He was unable to steady himself, unable to brace himself, unable to remain conscious. Had he been fighting consciousness that hard?
And now?
He did not know how long this had been going on, but he had to stop the thrust. Yes, that was it. Stop the speed this ship that was so fast and so furious that his head was spinning like a top as the bolts and seals of the ship rattled around him. His core was overheated on overdrive. His processors unable to keep up. His dried out valves burned. He was fried. He could barely think. He could barely see.
He tried to reach out his hand for the throttle. He thought he had it. Empty air met him. He realized that his hand had flexed with sluggish result far less than he had commanded. He heard in throbbing echoes through his head, the squealing "eep!" of some tiny pathetic thing.
The scavenger come back?
"Not possible," his voice cracked as he tried to open his eyes. "Too fast. Too far. Not…rrrghgh…"
Sounds faded. He could no longer be in denial about his condition. Trapped in his own mind for the moment, he thought hard enough to realize that if there was another voice aside from his own, that it was the voice of a new scavenger or at least some new curious prier.
In the endless void that the universe was, he could be anywhere by now. Surely, not even close within the proximity of Cluster Prime. And he was so weary, so woozy. This was death. It was only his tremendous strength and mental power that had caused him to last this long. No other creature could have survived as long as Commander Smytus. Yes. At least he had that, but…
ZZzztss!
"Rah!" he squealed.
Something burned through his system to his core, but it did not singe so much as cause his inner-workings to settled down. A grinding sensation had ended that he had not realized had been there until it was gone.
His cooling fans were running and he panted hard in automatic response to get the fans circulating to his overheating insides, but they were already cooling. They were already easing. Everything was becoming easier or at least less painful. Lubricating oil was running through him again. He did not feel so close to death. Cruel bruising and heaviness was abating however time-consuming.
"He's conscious," said a voice.
It was a Cluster voice as the first voice had also been, he realized. At least it was no voice of the usual fleshy vocal chords of most known races. Cool blue light bathed him. The sterility was the metallic world of the Cluster. The sounds of crisp clinking and smooth computers humming were very familiar to the sounds of his people's technology. It was almost like being put into the crib of his infancy in a way that made him feel sentimental. Nostalgic? He finally forced his optical system to full capacity again, even before he focused his vision, he knew that this was not all a good thing to be among his people from whom he had been banished forever with no uncertain terms.
Yet he could not help but think that in this wide, wide universe, what were the odds of ending up where he had desired even with his ship pointed in this direction before passing out?
The pathetic little nurse was gazing down at him. A pathetic little doctor was scanning him. He was on a very low gurney table just moments after being recalled from the terrible brink of his own destruction, and even as he forced himself to move a little just to prove to himself that he was not immobile, he knew he was powerless against them. As humiliating as this was, he relinquished pride at least for the moment as he knew he was in good hands for his recovery if nothing else. As they administered some more remedial oil into him he was grateful for it no matter the consequences later. Even the toughest warrior knew when to bide his time, and he would for as long as it took.
NOTE: The title is a bit a obscure, but it is a reference to a poem that I particularly like about the sun rising after a dark and seemingly endless night Bayard Taylor called "Morning".