Chapter 22: Signal

Chapter 22: Signal

Location: Unknown System; Moon of the third planet

I take out my energy blade, hold it right before me, and activate it. A yellow blade appears before the grey hilt. It’s about 90 centimeters in length and hums with barely contained power. Dangerous! One wrong move and I’ll cut off my hand.

Time to cut a hole. I lower the blade toward the damaged plate of tristanium and slowly press the tip against it. Nothing happens at first, then after almost a minute, the metal begins to take on a red sheen. It’s getting hotter. I try to press the blade further in but besides getting shorter, nothing happens. Right, there’s no solid form to the blade, it’s pure energy.

Finally, after five minutes the tristanium around the blade liquefies and begins to drop down into the structure. I start to move the blade in a circle, big enough that I can fit through the hole. It’s a slow process… a few centimeters every five minutes. I'm more and more amazed by the blade's battery. After several hours the blade is still running strong.

Finally, after three whole hours, I’m about to finish the circle. The round piece of tristanium starts tilting downward. I have about two centimeters remaining. Suddenly the last connection snaps and the piece drops down. It happens so suddenly, that I almost drop the blade in my hand. That could’ve ended badly, careful Sara!

Deactivating the blade, I clip it back onto the magnetic holder at my hips. Then I take a deep breath and jump through the hole. It’s quite the drop and I have to bend my knees a lot during the landing. I probably should’ve teleported down. It’s dark inside, the only light enters through the hole I just jumped through. My spacewalker suit automatically activates the integrated flashlight, and the room is illuminated by a wide beam of light.

“Ah come on, stupid piece of trash!” Maja shouts in outrage and I wonder what’s going on.

“What’s wrong?”

Maja makes a few grumbling sounds before answering. “I lost the connection to the ship again. You’re on your own now, I lost my eyes.”

“Don’t worry, this place looks dead, there’s nothing that could happ…”

Just while I was saying this, a red light starts blinking in the top right corner of the room. After two seconds it cuts off again. Dang it, I jinxed it!

“You jinxed it.” How do I deserve this? I can hear the mockery in her voice.

“Maybe that was the last bit of power left, and nothing will happen?” I mumble without believing it myself.

“As if, something’s going to happen, I just know it.” I put my left hand on the hilt of my laser gun and draw it. Better safe than sorry. Using it should be straightforward, aim and pull the trigger…

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something, but it won’t come to mind. Anyway, thoughts aside, I start walking toward the sliding door that’s positioned next to the previously blinking light. While walking, I take in more of my surroundings. This must have been a bedroom. There’s a bunk bed, a big wardrobe, and a double desk. The walls are metallic grey. All looks uniform, was this a military facility?

On one wall hangs a giant panel of glass, a big crack running from top left to bottom right. Is this a screen? But why would they need something like that? Just fastening a holographic projector to the roof would do the job… And it’s way more interactive.

Whatever, the room is just a living quarter, let’s check out the rest of the structure. I arrive at the door and sigh in relief. It’s not stuck, I can push the two halves to the side and slip through the gap.

Then I jump in surprise, I’m face to face with a robot! Somehow my Space Sense activates and I take a quick step to the side. Just in time! Where I’ve been standing a second earlier, a sharp blade descends, leaving a large scratch in the door that closed again after I slipped through. My eyes are wide and I quickly take a few more steps away from the robot.

While fumbling for my gun, I take a closer look. One thing instantly catches my eye. It’s running on tracks, it’s not floating! Where is the gravity generator? The rest looks roughly humanoid. Extending from the tracks are two legs and a torso, next are two arms, both holding onto a blade that looks sharp as hell. But those are normal swords, no energy blades. I wonder why… The only thing missing is a head, instead, there is a ball, right where the neck should be. It’s about the size of the mage testing orb and full of cameras and other sensors.

A weak point! Just one shoot to the ball and it’s blind, maybe even dead. I aim my gun and pull the trigger. Nothing. Panicked, I take another two steps back. A dead end! The door behind me is closed and I don’t have the time to pry it open. I throw the gun away and draw the energy blade. At least this thing is working.

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The blade bursts to life and I stand here, back to the wall, the robot before me – two blades versus one. I take a swing, the bot lifts one blade to block and swings the other one toward my left leg. Our blades connect, and mine cuts right through the other one. Surprised, I stumble a step forward, not expecting the lack of resistance. That step saved my leg! The robot misses, and I turn around to cut off it’s ball-head.

It stops moving. I did it, it’s dead! After deactivating my blade, I do a short dance in jubilation, then I stop myself. What if there are more? And my gun, what’s wrong with it? It would have been way easier with it.

I walk over to where I’ve thrown it and inspect it. “Hey Maja, do you know what’s wrong?”

“No, I’m sorry it has no wireless connection and I’m practically blind in here. Once you flip the safety switch it should just shoot when you pull the trigger. I don’t know why it didn’t.”

The safety switch! I’m so dumb. How could I forget it? I quickly flip it, aim at the far wall, and pull the trigger. A green laser beam exits the weapon and almost instantly impacts the wall. There is now a small black circle, but that’s it. The walls are very sturdy! The gun is now working, I want to smash my head into the wall. I could have died! I have to stop making mistakes.

Shaking my head, I continue with the exploration. Hopefully, this was the only security bot. A few rooms and three robots later, I’m standing now at the entrance of a big hall. The floor is quite a bit below me, the entrance I just entered through is located at a raised platform. To my right metal stairs lead down. On the floor, there are lab tables, machines, and computer stations.

This must have been a research facility! Maybe even military research, considering the uniform color. I have to check out the computers, maybe there is still some data. Hopefully, I can find out where I am. I take another look around and notice another robot patrolling the room. Sighing, I take out the gun, aim, and shoot the thing right in the ball head at the top. Wow, I’m a good shot! That was like 100 meters. Is this another Space Sense thing?

Now that the room is cleared out, I walk down the stairs and walk over to the computer stations. They look ancient. Just like in the room I entered through, there are no signs of holographic technology. Could it be that this facility precedes holotech? That would mean it’s over 6000 years old. At least that is what I learned in school about the history of holotech, not that I can trust everything the republic says… But it does sound reasonable.

Wow, over 6000 years and everything is still intact… At least everything made out of metal is. Tristanium sure is durable. I have noticed a lot of dust in the facility, but I wrote it off as moon dust that entered through damaged exterior plates. Could it be that the dust is from all the stuff that didn’t survive for 6000 years?

Argh, I’m disturbing a historic site! At least no one is here to lecture me about proper archeological procedures. With a short laugh, I turn my gaze back to the computer stations. I hope they still work. At least the old stuff is intuitive. Right next to the see-through glass screen is a button with the power-on symbol. Shrugging, I push it, but nothing happens.

Frowning, I try the next one with the same result. Either they are not working anymore or power is missing. Hmm, the red alarm light winked out pretty fast, maybe the facility used the last bits of power to charge the security robots. It’s worth a shot, there are portable battery packs on the ship.

Backtracking my way through the facility, I talk to Maja. “So I found some computer stations, but they are dead. I figured it could be a power issue, so I’m about to collect some batteries. Do you think you can connect to the system if it turns on?”

“It should be easy, as long as there is a wireless module somewhere… But let’s take another UC-cable in case there isn’t. We can use your tablet as a relay again.”

That does make sense. The trip back outside goes by without issues. I think I got all the robots! 30 minutes later, I’m standing before the computers again. In my hands a battery pack, my tablet, and a UC-cable. Time to revive an ancient computer.

Let’s hope they used UC-ports back then… I’m in luck, when I open the back panel of the station, not only is there a row of UC-ports, but they also support power delivery! I don’t have to jury-rig the connection to the battery. Excited, I plug in both cables, one to the battery and the other one to my tablet.

I return to the other side of the station and with a deep breath, I push the button again. Please work. A light flickers. YES! The next few seconds nothing happens and I begin to get nervous, then the light turns back on, steady this time. Progress! Two seconds later, the screen comes to life it shows a weird logo with the letters UNE in the middle.

Is that the company logo or something from the military? Next, the screen turns blue, white letters request me to enter a username and password. Shoot, I forgot about that. Now it’s Maja’s turn. “It turned on, can you connect through the tablet? It’s asking for a password.”

“Yeah, I’m already working on it… the security is no joke, this might take a while.”

I bark a laugh. “The security protocols of a General of the Estriduros Republic took you a few seconds and now you struggle with the security of a random company from more than 6000 years ago. The republic sounds more and more like a useless backwater.” Maja huffs in annoyance and I let her do her work.

Not having anything else to do, I walk around and explore the room a bit more. I recognize the machines as milling and turning machines, in another corner of the room are 3D printers, it’s where I shot the robot earlier. Maja’s already at work for ten minutes, I wonder how long…

“Got it! Huh, United Nations of Earth, it’s a governmental facility, no company.”

UNE, United Nations of Earth… Of Earth, flipping EARTH!!! I’ve never run so fast in my life. Less than ten seconds later I am back at the computer station. “Did you just say Earth?”

“Yeah, what’s so exciting about it?”

“Dude, it’s where humanity has its origin, where they discovered magic, and from where all the expansion started! Everything makes sense now, eight planets, the big planet with rings the asteroid belt after the fourth planet, how could I miss this? Thomas never stopped talking about it.”

My thoughts go haywire at the possibilities. This is insane, I’m in the original Solar System, I’m standing on THE Moon. And the cloudy planet below me is EARTH! Holy smokes.

“Oh, so it is a big deal huh, why is no one here anymore?”

My thoughts grind to a stop. “The whole system is supposed to be destroyed...”

“Well, it’s clearly still here, guess your history lessons were wrong. Wait… I just broke through another layer of security. Wow, the scanners here are something else.” Maja stops for a moment and I still try to warp my head around the fact that I just discovered freakin’ Earth.

“There’s a signal coming from the planet!”