Progenitor
Chapter 21
Day 8 0600
Jake had one of the navigators and one of the pilots on the bridge with him. He gave the order to engage the cloak so that another pilot out in space could see if the ship was visible. Now came the test, Jake had the pilot slowly raise the ship to 1000 meters. The pilot outside called and asked when they were going to move so he could get out of the way. Jake smiled as he replied that they were already off the surface. Jake then had Gregori, who was the on duty science officer, to check if they had been seen from Earth. Monitoring the satellites was a routine task and there was not a single indication of their being noticed. Jake asked their "escort" to set a course away from Earth towards LaGrange point 2. The ship would follow about 30 seconds later. After the fighter had departed Jake had the navigator set the same course and proceed at slow speed. There was just a very faint feel of motion and then everything was still. But the viewing screen showed that they were moving!
Once they were at their destination Jake got brave and told the fighter to orbit the ship and double check that they were still cloaked completely. When the response was positive, Jake set a course for the back side of Mars, so as to hide the ship from Earth when he de-cloaked, and had the fighter to follow them. Jake slowly increased their speed until they were going as fast as AL considered safe within the system. There were no problems noted. Once they had reached their second destination Jake de-cloaked the ship so that the fighter could land. He then set a synchronal orbit so as to keep Mars between them and Earth.
At 0800 when Amy came to the bridge she was surprised when Jake told her where they were. Amy had the following announcement broadcast throughout the ship:
"This is the Captain; I wanted to let everyone know that we are now orbiting the planet Mars. And I wanted to personally offer my thanks to all of you for your tremendous work in getting us back into space. I can now tell you that we will be going to the very edge of this solar system to attempt to intercept a derelict space ship which, if not deflected, would impact Earth and quite possibly end it's existence. With your help and hard work this will be a successful mission. There will be a senior staff meeting in one hour. That is all."
There were cheers and gasps throughout the ship.
Once everyone was present, Amy got the meeting going. She notified them that they would spend the rest of the day getting ready to intercept the alien ship. They needed to be prepared for any emergency. Jake was to find a way to restore power to the ship. John was to gain access to the AI and disconnect it from the ship, so it wouldn't attack them, until they could explain what had happened. Sam and Tasha were to take a group of Security personnel and search the whole ship for any signs of trouble. Ted would be in charge of the new ship while she stayed on this one. The first priority was security, then restoring power, and getting the ship ready for their use. They would use both shuttles and fighters to board the ship by landing in the Flight Bay. This would also give the two-person fighters some practical time with their ships. When she asked for opinions and suggestions there were only a few:
These were the only suggestions that came to mind.
The rest of the day was spent getting everything ready for the boarding. Each person that would be going on to the ship was fitted with an environmental suit, and it was tested. Each and every fighter and shuttle was launched and the pilots given time to get used to the feeling of space and to get more practice in landing on a space ship as opposed to a stationary field. Jake and John made sure that the "box" was ready and had assembled several different types of connectors to use on the computer core. AL was requested to make a much larger "box" to be used to restore power ship-wide if on board power was a problem. Each of the Security detail was to be armed with only side arms, with more powerful weapons available on their shuttle should the need arise. The whole ship was a beehive of activity. It was decided that they would leave for the intercept point at midnight.
Day 9 0001
Amy had gotten up and assumed command for the initial departure, not that she didn't trust Jake, she just couldn't sleep. This was even more exciting than the first time she flew into space on that shuttle. All small craft were aboard, and none of the crew was even aware when Amy issued the order to break orbit and proceed to the rendezvous point. As they got further away Amy had the cloak dropped and the speed increased to full system speed. There wasn't any noticeable change inside but the view screen showed that they were moving much faster.
When everyone else woke up later that morning they were only a little surprised that the ship was enroute to their destination. There would be no flights today so that he pilots could rest up for what might be a very long shift. The security detail was practicing with their weapons, the engineering detail was getting the last minute equipment ready, and Jake? Well Jake was sound asleep in the bed with Amy and Kate in Amy's suite. Amy had left instructions for the bridge to call her about an hour before they arrived at the new ship.
The trip didn't take near as long as they had thought it would; even with Ted having the navigators plot several new courses for practice. Ted even had the weapons console manned for practice. The science station was busy monitoring for anything that they hadn't seen before, which was a lot.
1500
Amy, Jake, and Kate were awaken when Ted called to say that they were about an hour out. After the three of them had showered and dressed they went to the bridge. The view screen showed that they were going much slower than earlier, as they were getting closer to their destination. Amy could see the new ship on the screen and asked for the magnification to be reduced. She was told that the current magnification factor was 1x. This ship was huge! When they got to the location, Amy had the first set of fighters lift off and do a once around to make sure there weren't any changes from the last time, when Kate and her wingman were here. There had been little change, even in position.
Once the fly-by was completed three one person fighters approached and landed on the new ship. Within 5 minutes, the security shuttle landed and unloaded the two teams. There would be a 10 minute wait before Jake and John would be allowed to land. This gave the Security teams a chance to look around. Once Jake and John were on board, Sam and two other security people escorted them to the computer core, thank goodness AL had the layout of this ship correctly.
Once at the core, John started to disconnect the main computer from the ship's network. Then Jake and he used the small "box" to connect power to the core. The AI came up immediately and tried to access the rest of the ship, but could not. John used an older override code to gain access to the AI and instructed it to standby for contact from their AI, AL, who would explain what was happening. Once AL had connected to the new AI, he started the explanation. This took about 30 minutes before the new AI would accept the report.
Jake left the core after AL had initiated contact and went to the main engineering deck to see about the power situation. There seemed to be plenty of power available but there were many overloaded circuits. Jake called Amy and asked that his crew be sent over to start the repairs. He sent one of the security to escort the team back to engineering. Jake started clearing some of the outages; the first thing he restored power to was the maintenance circuits so the onboard maintenance droids would start to repair the hull. Nothing happened the droids just stood there. Then Jake remembered that the computer was "down" and called and asked John if control could be reconnected for the droids. John told him that he would need another 10 minutes for AL to finish with the new AI.
By this time the rest of the crew had arrived and were complaining about no elevator service. Jake asked them if they really wanted to be stuck inside an elevator until after they had the power on and stabilized? That put an end to the complaints. Jake set the priorities for reconnection of power as maintenance droids, engineering, hanger deck force field, life support, and finally general power for the ship. Suddenly the droids came to life and immediately started about the ship to seal the hull breaches. Heaven help anyone who got in the way.
1900
Most of the breaches were sealed, at least on the inside, and life support was working full force to re-establish an atmosphere throughout the ship. The hanger deck was first as that was the biggest single space and it would allow the pilots to exit their craft. Maintenance was the second most in priority.
Jake had returned the main ship and left his senior person in charge on the new ship. John had elected to remain on the new ship to continue working with the computer core, Jake had even made sure that the core had atmosphere as soon as possible. After giving Amy an update, Jake went to bed; it had been a very long shift.
Day 10
As soon as Jake woke, he called to check on the new ship and to see what progress had been made during the night. Fred was the one who reported that they had about 75% power restored. He also said that after the computer was reconnected the work went much faster as the maintenance droids had started to repair the systems. Jake checked on his own ship next, everything was normal. After a nice hot shower and the second cup of coffee, Jake felt human again. When Amy came in for breakfast she joined him at the table. He told her what he had found out this morning, but she had already called the other ship herself. After they both had finished breakfast, the two of them went to Amy's office and she called a meeting with the rest. Even John was summoned.
Once everyone was there, they each gave the group an update from their own point of view. Sam reported that they had found the remains of the crew, most still in their inactive stasis chambers dead. A few had been found in the passage ways, also dead. All the bodies were stored in an empty storeroom that was just off the flight deck and all environmental controls were shut down there to preserve the bodies. Kate reported that the hanger had been made operational and had full atmosphere once the force field was back up. Also that several of the craft there were examined by the mechanics, mostly out of curiosity.
John then told everyone that he, AL, and Carol (that was the name he decided on for the new AI) had been able to reconstruct most of what happened to the ship and how long ago. He had to rewire several of the connections that had been damaged, but could not find why Carol thought her shields were up and they weren't. He had requested that one of the engineers trace the whole pathway when he got the chance so as to locate the problem.
Jake said he would make sure that this was taken care of as soon as possible. Jake then told everyone about his departments progress. He also said that he wanted to convert the power system to something like theirs when they had the chance. Then Jake asked the question that was on everyone's mind "What do we do with ship once it is fully restored?"
After talking it over amongst themselves for a while they decided to see what the two AIs had to suggest. When asked, AL said that Carol had requested to speak with his Captain about that very matter. Amy asked that AL inform Carol that they would talk later, after more repairs were done. AL relayed the message. And then said Carol had another request, she wanted to know if she could redesign and keep the power supply that John had connected to her. She liked the shear power and cleanliness of that source. Once again Amy said wait. but that it could probably be arranged. Amy told everyone, AL include, that there would be another meeting at 1500, and that Carol was to be included. AL said he would help set this up, as this was a first for Carol and he both; the interconnection of AIs. With that the meeting was ended.