Part 4 - Part 01

“When you’re ready take one of the shuttles and go to the other facility. See if you can find the machine and bring it back. Take someone with you to help carry it. Also look around and see if there is anything else of value you can scrounge,” I replied.

“I’ll go right now but I need the coordinates. I’ll get them from Enai, my old partner,” he said and turned to Captain Orihci to ask him if he wanted to go with him.

I immediately intervened and said, “I’ll need Captain Orihci here. He can’t go with you. Find someone else, perhaps one of Enai’s associates who might be familiar with the facility layout.” I paused for a moment and added, “You don’t have to go right now, it’s getting late and will be dark soon.”

“The sooner the better. It’ll be daytime on the other side of the planet. I want to be back before morning, get some sleep and join you for the morning meeting. Okay?” replied Ukasnek.

Both the Captain and I smiled and shook our heads, giving him our approval. The Captain then yelled something to him, which the translator couldn’t translate, before Ukasnek disappeared into the facilities in a hurry.

“If there is anything to be found I’m sure Ukasnek will find it! Now let’s go to dinner and bring a bottle of that good stuff” said Captain Orihci with a tone of confidence in his voice.

Double trouble

Just as we arrived at the usual dinner table we were joined by Amih and Ireva, and later by Enai and his associates. After they greeted us the associates sat at their usual table away from us but we could still hear them arguing and settling their differences. They weren’t at all like Enai. They were timid and shy but very loyal to Enai. When they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about they spoke in a different language. From what Enai had told me they spoke many languages; at least five.

Everyone around our table looked tired and a bit distracted. They didn’t want to talk much about anything. Only Amih spoke up at one point reminding us of how anxious she was to find her sons.

“I hope they’re still alive. I’m sure they were brought here. Ukasnek told me so. He followed the ship that brought them here. We need to find them… as soon as possible. I want to see my boys again and soon…”

At this point Ireva interrupted her and said, “I guess you’re overtired Mother. I’d better take you to your room,” and they both walked away. Beyond saying “goodnight” no one said anything else, not even Captain Orihci. We continued drinking in silence until Ukasnek and Enai’s associate burst into the dining area to give us the bad news. Captain Orihci spoke first.

“You’re back so soon? What happened?”

“It’s bad… It’s so bad. The facility is still burning… smoldering… but that’s not the worst of it. There’s a toxic cloud hovering over it which prevented us from getting near it, never mind inside. We had no protective gear in the shuttle so we couldn’t get into the facility. Not without being poisoned. I’m sorry our mission was a failure,” said Ukasnek.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll ask the people of Ostikon to send us more machines. The moment the Ostikon crew arrives and makes sure their equipment is compatible with ours, we’ll ask them to send

us another five machines…” I said and invited them to sit with us and have something to eat and drink.

Ukasnek sat with us while Enai’s associate went to the other table to tell them what had happened.

Feeling a bit better for not scolding him, Ukasnek began to tell us the details of his experience as if it was some sort of adventure story. At one point he asked Enai to find him protective gear because he was willing to go back. While recounting his story Ukasnek said something that caught Captain Orihci’s attention.

“While we were circling around looking for a way in that wasn’t contaminated, we spotted a small but very slick triangular ship fly out of the facility. I’ve never seen a ship like that before… and wondered what it was doing there?”

At this point Captain Orihci interrupted Ukasnek’s story and said, “I have!”

We all turned and looked at the Captain with much interest.

“Some years ago I ran into a small fleet of those ships. They were flying over one of our planets at the far end of our galaxy, looking for precious metals. I found that out later after I sent investigators to the planet’s surface. They told me the little ships were looking for gold. The locals told them they’d stolen their gold. The moment I came into contact with them I ordered them to leave but they refused. I knew there was a mother ship lurking around somewhere because the little ships were too small to venture out this deep in outer space on their own. So I ordered my crew to look for it. They found it hiding in space debris above the planet. I fired one round from one of my bigger cannons into the space debris near it to show them that I could see them. They instantly ran. We didn’t hit their ship. It wasn’t our intention to destroy it. But they got the message and disappeared. Now I see they are back. Perhaps it was a mistake to let them go.”

“I know for a fact that there’s a lot of gold in that facility. It belongs to the people of our galaxy. We can’t let them have it. We need to

stop them. You have to get your ship flying again and this time you have to shoot them down,” Ukasnek told Captain Orihci, sounding concerned.

“I can’t even if I want to. I have no crew…” replied the Captain and was interrupted by Ukasnek.

He turned to me and said, “Then you must go up and stop them. You have the firepower and from what it looks like you don’t hesitate to use it.”

“Calm down Ukasnek, don’t insult the man. He did what he had to do for our sake because we didn’t do what we should have done… protect our people and our planets,” interjected the Captain.

“Are they dangerous? Will they attack this facility too if they find out we have gold here?” I asked.

“That’s not the only problem. If they see all our ships, including my destroyer, parked there they’ll destroy them before we have a chance to fly them again,” replied Captain Orihci.

“Can you call for help?” I asked.

“I could but how’s that going to help?” As far as I know none of the planets have military ships or any other kind of defense. They were disabled by the robots just like my ship was disabled and they are all probably sitting in some valley here of this planet,” replied Captain Orihci.

As we sat there in silence, the Captain looked at me and said, “There is a solution! You have to go up and chase them away. You have to go as soon as possible. Go now, before they have a chance to scan the entire planet… if they already haven’t… If they did and found our ships sitting there unprotected they will destroy them.”

“But…” I said with an anxious look on my face when Captain Orihci interrupted me, “I know what you’re going to say… You have no navigator. So, you managed to find my ship without one right?”

Before I had a chance to say anything, Enai interrupted and said, “I’ll navigate for you. You know I can. Just like I did before…”

At the same time Ukasnek spoke up and said, “I’m coming too, I can show you where I saw the little ship…”

“Go now and don’t worry about things down here. I’m sure you’ll be back in a couple of hours,” the Captain said as Enai, Ukasnek and I dashed towards the exit.

It took us about a minute to get into the air and another for Enai to enter the coordinates. And even though I wasn’t sure what we were doing, let alone being able to find the little ship in the same area hours later, I pushed the ship to the maximum speed recommended for flying in the atmosphere and we were at the other facility in minutes. When the area was in full view I could see the ugly cloud covering the complex. I flew all around looking for the little ship but it wasn’t there. We didn’t know how to operate the ship’s sensors so we depended on our sight to find it. We couldn’t tell if the ship was hiding because we didn’t have the aid of our sensors.

Enai decided to transmit a warning message in all languages, the ones he spoke, and on all frequencies warning ships to stay away from this area, not only because it was toxic but also because the facility was protected and belonged to the people of this planet. But I guess Enai’s message must have been misinterpreted. The aliens came for us. They probably figured we were staking our claim on the facility and wanted the gold for ourselves. The instant Enai stopped transmitting we were swarmed by more than a dozen little ships swooping down on us from every direction and then disappearing after they took shots at my ship. I don’t know if they didn’t have the firepower to disable us or were just trying to scare us off. I flew slowly in a straight line for a while as they continued attacking us.

When I looked at Enai and Ukasnek I saw fear in their eyes. They both looked worried. They figured if this continued the hull would be breached and we’d be destroyed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. They’re moving so fast I can’t even aim the cannons at them,” I said.

Unfortunately that didn’t ease their anxiety and they began to look even more worried. To reassure them that we would be okay I said, “Don’t worry the hull of my ship is impenetrable to their little blasters. But I do need to somehow bring them in line with my ship so that I can at least fire at one of them.”

So with that I flew my ship straight up into outer space, turned around and waited for them. But they didn’t show up. For some reason they decided not to chase us and disappeared back onto the surface. They probably figured they’d frightened us and we’d left for good.

Then, just as we were sitting there thinking about what to do next, we were blasted on the side so hard that we were sent into a dizzying spin into outer space. I guess they were aiming for my ship’s engines but had no idea how hard our hull was. They were probably aiming to split us from our engines but failed. I fired my stabilizer rockets which cut out my engines but managed to stop the ship from spinning. We were now sitting ducks. Fortunately my plasma cannons were still charged so when the ship came around to finish us off, probably thinking that our engines were dead, I fired one of my cannons at it but missed. I missed because I couldn’t aim the cannons properly without the aid of the engines. To avoid the blast, the alien ship flew above us and into outer space. It then turned around and came at us from the side to avoid being shot at, probably thinking our engines were still disabled. But before it reaching firing distance I had my engines working and lined my ship up on a collision course with them.

“I’ve got them now, no matter which way they go,” I said and fired one shot.

It was a direct hit on the ship’s front. Unfortunately it caused no damage. The alien ship absorbed the blast. It was big ship. Again it flew above us but didn’t fire. Why it didn’t fire, I don’t know. I turned us around and went in pursuit. We caught up to it fast.

Enai, for some reason which he didn’t explain, opened a channel and asked the ship to stop running so that we could have a civilized conversation but the ship kept running. I fired my last charged cannon and hit its engines. It slowed down. Enai repeated the message while I recharged the plasma cannons and activated the torpedo. Again there was no answer, so I opened the torpedo tube hatch and was ready to blast them out of existence.

“Don’t do it!” Enai yelled. “You don’t want to start a war.”

At that very moment we saw a string of little ships coming fast straight for us, so I fired one of my plasma cannons at them and took out four with a single shot. By now the big ship had recovered from my blast and flew away. The little ships followed and they all disappeared from view. We didn’t go in pursuit.

Enai looked worried when I looked at him but before I had a chance to say anything Ukasnek interrupted and said loudly, “What a story this will make. Let me tell it…”

Immediately after that Enai said, “I’m sorry for interfering back there. It wasn’t my place. You’re the Captain and I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You should have blasted the bastards to pieces. They’ll come back, mark my words…” interjected Ukasnek.

“No problem Enai. I know you’re far wiser than me and I trust your judgment. If these people are smart they’ll realize what happened here today. Not just that we didn’t destroy them when we had the chance but that we are reasonable people…”

But before I could finish Ukasnek interjected and said, “Let’s not forget that we have superior ships and firepower.”

“They’ll take that back to their planet and hopefully stay away from us. Had we destroyed them, their people would probably have sent a search party to look for them. And when they found them… dead and their ship destroyed, they would have come for us. They’d seek

retribution which, I’m sure, could potentially escalate into war,” I added.

“Only time will tell! Now let’s go home. I have a story to tell,” Ukasnek said smiling.

“I guess we won’t be sleeping tonight?” I said jokingly and engaged the ship to maximum speed.

It only took us a few minutes to get back and we found Captain Orihci waiting for us in the dining area with an almost empty bottle in his hand.

The moment he saw us he said, “I saved the last drop to toast your victory if you came back or drown my sorrows if you didn’t. I’m just kidding, I knew you’d be back and exactly in less than two hours as I predicted.”

“I guess we should let Ukasnek tell the story before he bursts from excitement,” I said and went back to my ship to get another bottle while Enai left and went to bed. He had a lot to do the next day.

When I came back Captain Orihci said, “Congratulations, we’ll pin yet one more medal on your chest. Unfortunately you did as I did. You made the same mistake. You didn’t take them out and… I’ll have to agree with my friend here… they’ll be back.”

“Well, all I can say is that I have a somewhat clear conscience. I didn’t kill everyone today,” I replied and added. “Let’s talk about something else and enjoy our drinks… for now. We don’t know what kind of shit we’ll run into tomorrow.”

The next morning I heard loud thumps coming from outside my ship. I was slumped in my Captain’s chair asleep. Captain Orihci and Ukasnek were sleeping, slumped on the other chairs. My ship stunk of booze. I opened the hatch. Ireva started yelling at the top of her voice in a language I didn’t understand. She came up to my chair and motioned with her hand. She was fanning away the smelly air in front of her nose as she slapped my universal translator on.

“It stinks in here! I’ve been looking for you forever. Did you forget about the meeting this morning?”

“What? Oh yeah, the meeting,” I said and tapped the Captain and Ukasnek on their backs to get them moving.

“Enai briefed us on what happened last night. Also you need to make contact with the super soldiers as soon as possible. We’re getting reports that they’re stirring and some won’t eat their breakfast,” said Ireva and yelled. “Now let’s get going. You can eat breakfast after the meeting is over.”

“I can tell you one thing, not only is she smart, she’s tougher than both my two boys combined,” said Captain Orihci to me quietly as we followed Ireva back to the meeting room. We were unwashed and smelled of booze; like hobos.

Well informed of the battle we’d waged against the aliens the day before, everyone stood up when we entered the conference room. Captain Orihci leaned towards me and in a quiet voice said, “Let’s see what they’ll do when they get a load of your aroma.”

I didn’t reply.

I sat at the head of the table with Captain Orihci and Ukasnek sitting beside me on each side. After I apologized for being late, I asked the attendants to excuse me for a moment while I determined what was stirring the super soldiers. That took only a few moments.

After that, one by one the meeting participants took a turn to bring us up to date with the previous day’s progress. Everyone was impressed with how well everyone else had done, given their inexperience and the lack of resources they had to work with. Maybe that was my perception or maybe there was a will and cooperation but, no matter, the place was ready to function after one day’s work and all we needed now were the machines.

We were informed that Enai’s associates had furnished Amih and Ireva with the universal translators, space and furniture for the reception area and the help desk. They had found and tested all

necessary transmitters, as well as the spare ones and each one of Enai’s associates was successful in communicating with the super soldiers. They’d also found places to install the machines after they arrived. Amih and Ireva furnished the reception area and found volunteers to do the work not only in the reception area but also in the accommodations.

When everyone was done reporting I thanked them for their great work and apologized for being distracted with other matters. I then asked them if they had any questions or concerns. No one said anything. I suspect they had concerns but didn’t want to bother me with the details given the state I was in.

“Thank you. The meeting is adjourned except for Enai and his associates. You stay behind. I have some technical questions for you.”

When everyone had left I said, “As you know sometimes I have to leave the facility for an undetermined period of time, like last night for example. So I want to ask you what will happen to the super soldiers if I don’t get in touch with them… if I don’t return… on time?”

Enai took the question and answered, “From what I was told and from the tests we conducted here in the past, super soldiers need to be in constant contact with… you know… the lead robot. If they lose contact for a prolonged period of time, say not more that six hours, they’ll start stirring. They’ll look for that soothing voice in their heads and if they can’t reacquire it the soldiers will soon start walking. They’ll walk all over the place, usually in a straight line, oblivious of everything and everyone around them. If the soldiers are armed they’ll fire at anything that they perceive to be a threat to them, like sudden motions and things like that…The soldiers will continue to search until they reacquire the voice or until they die… from thirst, hunger, or even exhaustion. It won’t be a pretty picture.” After pausing for a moment, Enai continued, “Worse than that is if the soldiers do acquire a voice, say the voice of one of these robots we have in the facility if they become active, or the voice of a loose robot drifting somewhere in the forests. Then we’re in real trouble. Once they bond with the robot, like they did with you, we’ll all be

doomed; perhaps more so than we were with the big robots. It’s scary and you must take care so that that never happens.”

Suddenly everyone in the conference room looked worried, except for Captain Orihci who was slowly turning into a comedian. I don’t know if he was doing this to ease the tension or to make light of the situation.

He leaned over and said, “It sounds like Enai just crowned you king and gave you a job for life.”

I couldn’t help it and laughed out loud, which was inappropriate given the situation. But to cover it up I said, “You have nothing to worry about Enai, I’ll be here for as long as I’m needed and I’m sure you and your associates with your great technical abilities will find a solution.”

I then turned to Captain Orihci and said, “You remind me of Delche back in Ostikon.”

“Oh yeah? How so?” he asked.

“You’re both full of…” I replied.

Captain Orihci then said, “What if you remove the chip from Otsiron’s neck and place it in someone else. Would they be able to do what he does?”

“No!” replied Enai, “The chip can’t be removed without killing the host.”

“Okay then, but can a new chip be inserted into, say a young person, and can they do what I do?” I asked.

“It’s never been tested and we no longer have the equipment to do it with. It was destroyed remember? And besides, I would never do that to another human being,” replied Enai.

“Can we reprogram one of the robots to do it? Make sure it’s incapable of doing harm?” I asked.

“No! The robots we have are tamperproof and will explode if we attempt to do anything to them,” replied Enai.

“How about a computer, then? Surely you can program a computer to do the daily routine stuff that I do with them…” I said and was distracted by whispers coming from Enai’s associates.

“Well, according to my shy friends here… We can do that and we’re now kicking ourselves for not thinking of it…”

“But there’s a small problem, the transmitters we have can only talk to one soldier at a time and we have almost a million soldiers…” explained one of the associates.

“So, then you transmit the message one million times. You can do that, right? Computers can do that in seconds, right?” I asked.

There was silence in the conference room.

After looking at his associates for a moment and doing some calculations Enai said, “Yes, we’ll do that and let you know when we’re ready to start testing.”

“Please work on this later, after we complete the DNA work,” I said.

“We’ll work on this until we get the DNA machines. When the machines arrive we’ll work on them, I assure you. Okay?” replied Enai and they all left the conference room in a hurry.

“I guess we’d better go too,” I said. “We need to get washed and eat before the machines arrive.”

After we went away and washed, we returned to the dining area and ate some leftovers Ukasnek had scrounged for us from the kitchen. The dining room was closed and the kitchen staff were preparing lunch.

Before we finished eating someone passing by told us that the communications tower was looking for us. Given that none of us

knew anything about the communications tower or how to contact it, Captain Orihci, who had been there before said, “Let’s go, I know the way. I’ll take you there.”

So we got up, left our food behind and went.

“We have to get some portable communicators,” I said.

“We have plenty of them on my ship,” replied Captain Orihci.

“And some side arms too…” added Ukasnek. But before I had a chance to reply he added, “For defense you know!”

“Who’s manning the tower?” I asked.

“Volunteers, Enai and his associates trained them and put them in charge,” replied the Captain.

The moment we entered the tower a young man ran over, looked at me and said, “Sir, we received a call… They’re arriving right now.”

He was much too excited and spoke too fast for my universal translator to keep up, so I pointed him to Captain Orihci who said, “I’ll take care of it.”

“It sounds like they’ll be arriving early,” said Ukasnek.

“Who?” I asked.

“Our machines.”

“So, let’s go out there and get them,” I said.

Ukasnek made a hand motion to Captain Orihci who then waved us to go.

A moment later we spotted a small shuttle looking for a place to land. Ukasnek waved it to land behind my ship on the grass. The sun was in our eyes so we couldn’t see the second and much larger ship following it.

“How big are these blasted machines, that it takes two ships to deliver them?” asked Ukasnek with a frustrated but curious tone of voice.

After the first ship landed six people came out. They were greeted by Enai and his associates who’d gone over when the shuttle landed. They picked up the machines, which looked much smaller than ours, and went inside. The other ship continued to hover above as if supervising the situation. Then it suddenly landed in front of us, in front of Captain Orihci’s shuttles. A hatch at the front of the ship began to open. The ship looked luxurious inside as if it belonged to a king or an emperor. Two big armed guards stepped forward and took their place on each side of the hatch.

A man dressed in what looked like ceremonial dress came out of the hatch and yelled “Arrest that alien!” pointing at me.

My universal transmitter said, “I’m not an alien…” but that didn’t match my lip movement which was immediately detected by the man who was dressed like an emperor, convincing him that I was.

At this point Ukasnek ran inside to get Captain Orihci to straighten things out. In the meantime I raised my arms slowly and, suspecting there might be trouble ahead, popped a vial of fire water into my mouth and turned on my transmitter. When the guards saw my arms moving up they pulled out their weapons, trained them on me and started walking towards me.

At that very moment Captain Orihci ran out of the facility’s main entrance and yelled “Wait, wait, wait…”

The guards stopped moving.

“Who are you?” yelled the man who looked like an emperor.

“I’m Captain Orihci, Captain of the Galaxy Trader warship, the Second Destroyer.”

“Arrest him too. He’s a traitor, he surrendered his ship… our ship, to the aliens,” he ordered and two more armed guards came out and rushed towards the Captain.

“What’s going on?” I asked the Captain who was now near me.

“I don’t know!” he replied sounding frustrated.

As the four guards kept coming for us, I turned towards the emperor and said, “I will allow you to arrest me. I don’t care under what charges but I won’t allow you to arrest the Captain under those bogus charges, which I know aren’t true.”

Then the emperor yelled, “You have no authority here! Arrest them both!”

At that point I picked up the two armed guards coming for me and tossed them at the other two armed guards going for the Captain. The four landed on their butts and began to fire their weapons at me. The charges stung like bees but they couldn’t bring me down. People started coming out of the facility to see what was happening. They were followed by fully armed super soldiers running as fast as they could. They were all coming for us.

“Stop firing!” I yelled. “Or all of you will be dead!”

The soldiers must have sensed my distress and came to my rescue. Nine was leading and was the first to reach me. She got in front of me, placed her long rifle at the guard’s head, the one who’d fired last, and was ready to pull the trigger.

“No! Stop!” I yelled and the entire line of soldiers, hundreds of them, stopped running. I then pictured them surrounding the ship and they began to do that. Nine stayed with me despite my suggestion for her to join the others.

Our hostile guests stood there motionless as the number of soldiers around their ship multiplied. I offered my hand to the guards sitting on the ground and, one by one, they stood up and placed their weapons back in their holsters. Nine wasn’t going to take any

chances so she kept her rifle trained on the guard closest to me. I saw Captain Orihci pass by and ask me if I was all right. I said I was. He then told me to hold tight and not shoot anyone until he came back.

At that point he shoved the emperor out of the way and climbed inside his ship. Moments later more people started coming out of the ship. Two more men came out, wearing fancy clothes, and eight more male armed guards. The last two to come out were women whom I assumed were the ship’s crew. After looking around I waved at Ukasnek to come over. I asked him to get Enai and tell everyone outside the facility to go back to work. When Ukasnek came back with Enai I asked them to disarm the guards. Enai did. Then I ordered the super soldiers to go back to their barracks and disarm. I asked Nine to stay with me for a while.

When everyone had left and we were alone with our guests I asked the emperor, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The moment he stirred Nine pointed her rifle at him, which looked more like a cannon given its size.

When he got up enough courage to speak he said his name, which I didn’t catch, and that he was the governor of the 22nd planet of the Galaxy Trader consortium and that he had been sent here to investigate the alien invasion and the war raging in this part of the galaxy.

“If you were sent here to investigate shouldn’t you be asking questions instead of arresting people?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. I guess he felt it was in his best interests to keep quiet.

I then turned to Ukasnek and Enai and asked, “Do you know this guy?”

They both said no

Ukasnek then said, “I guess he doesn’t know that the war is over. When Captain Orihci ordered the machines, something in the central government must have been flagged so they sent him here to investigate. But instead of investigating he wanted to show us how tough he was.”

“So, your Galaxy Trader consortium likes to play dirty… and here I thought you were such good people…”

I heard a couple of the guards laugh. I thought that was good, at least they had a sense of humour.

I then turned to Nine and said, as always you’re my saviour and pushed her rifle down to point towards the ground in front of her.

I then turned to Enai and said, “Enai, please tell me why the soldiers are still armed? Didn’t we have them disarmed? Where did they get these guns?”

“No Sir! We can’t disarm them. Their weapons are part of them. They can’t exist without their weapons. That’s how they were programmed. Each soldier has a unique weapon registered to them and they are the only ones that can operate them. This protects them from their enemies using the weapon against them. The weapon must be either in their hands or in their holster at their station in the barracks,” replied Enai.

“Oh, that’s smart. But where did Nine get her weapon? We had no weapons in our room? Was her weapon hidden there from me somewhere?”

“No Sir. As she got anxious without you we had to move her back to her station in the barracks. When the servers delivered her food they found her stirring. I used my own crown to order her go back to her station in the barracks,” replied Enai.

“I see,” I said as I looked around. The crowd standing in front of the main door had disappeared. Our unruly guests stood there motionless watching us; especially Nine who was holding a large gun in her hands. They were listening carefully to our conversation.

“What’s Captain Orihci still doing in there? Who is he talking to for so long?” I asked.

“These bastards have no respect for our planet, our traditions, our language, or for us. They treat our planet like it’s their breadbasket and us like we’re their slaves. Look at them… The cowards! I spent my entire life running from them. I’ll bet they’ve never seen a gun pointed at them like this before in their entire lives. Well I have… pointed at me by the likes of them! This is Captain Orihci’s and my planet! Not theirs! What gives them the right to come here and harass us… and push us around…” protested Ukasnek.

“Stop talking!” I said. “They haven’t done anything to us… yet. Let’s wait for the Captain and see what he has to say before we judge them harshly…”

I saw apprehension on the emperor’s face. He swallowed hard.

“Are they really unaware of what happened here on this planet or are they pretending to be tough guys and want to push us around? You saw him order his guards to fire at me, right? That’s attempted murder, right? I asked Ukasnek with a serious look on my face. But he knew I was joking.

“Yes, yes. I’m not a lawyer but I know that shooting someone carries a heavy penalty on this planet…” said Ukasnek.

Just then Captain Orihci popped out of the ship and yelled, “Let them go. They are free to leave.”

Without saying a word Enai gave the guards their guns back and, like the rats that they were, they quickly scurried onto their ship and left.

“Well, you were in there a long time. What happened?” I asked but Captain Orihci’s attention was drawn to the facility entrance.

I turned around to look and saw a group of people coming out, looking at us.

“I’ll tell you later. Right now I feel the need to tell everyone, so why don’t we go to the communications tower and make a general announcement,” replied the Captain.

Things are starting to look up

On our way to the tower, after I’d dismissed Nine and sent her back to the barracks, Captain Orihci looked at Ukasnek, Enai and me in that order and said, “You’d better have more rakia in that ship of yours because it’s time to celebrate my promotion. You’re looking at the new governor of this planet.”

We were so happy and excited when we heard the news that all of us cheered and spoke at the same time.

“Congratulations man I’m happy for you. But I have no idea what this means… if it’s good or bad for us… because I know nothing of your political system or your politics.”

“Me neither… Now excuse me, I need to go in there…” he said and entered the tower.

After he went inside the soundproof booth he spoke on the P.A. system for about twenty minutes. He addressed everyone in the facility and informed them of what had happened outside earlier that morning, what had happened the night before at the other facility and what we were working on to help the families of the super soldiers find their missing relatives. He told them that we were about to be visited by people from Ostikon in a few days and that we were expecting a visit from the Galaxy Trader central government and that he had been appointed Governor of this planet.

“What visit from the Central Government? Are they sending another useless government bureaucrat like the one this morning?” I asked the Captain the moment he stepped out of the booth.

“No!” he replied. “Come with me. Let’s go to your ship and have a drink. We’ll talk there in private.”

The moment we stepped out of the tower, people in the hallways stopped to congratulate the Captain. Some looked curiously at the burn marks on my upper body, which I’d forgotten about.

“They think you’re a super super soldier…” the Captain said jokingly and Ukasnek laughed.

Enai looked a little puzzled. “I saw you get jabbed by the robots before you were a super soldier and you didn’t break down. It puzzled me then and it still puzzles me now. How were you able to endure the pain of the plasma spears without collapsing?”

When I didn’t answer Enai said, “You remember? When the big robot wanted you to bow before it and you refused?”

“Wow, it must have been some sight to see…” Ukasnek said sarcastically.

“I took a few drops of a chemical… It’s called fire water. I was given a jar of it back in Ostikon. I don’t know what it is or how it works. I was told to be careful with it because it’s poisonous and very dangerous. All I know is that it gives me super strength. I only use it in emergencies.”

“I’ve heard of that stuff before but I thought it was only a story… a story made up to entertain children. When I was a young child my grandfather told me the story. He said ‘A long, long time ago there was a burning planet where fire constantly fought against water, each trying to impress the gods. Who was stronger water or fire? In the end the water turned out to be stronger because it put out the fire. But in the long years they fought, the water took some of the fire’s strength. That’s why it’s called fire water. When you drink it the water releases the fire within it…’ That’s what we were told,” said Enai.

“Well, nice story but the fire water appears to be real!” said the Captain and sat down on the spare chair inside my ship. “I’m thirsty, hungry and I have a headache.”

While the other two sat down I went to get us each a bottle of water and a jar of meat. The Captain gulped the water down and finished the meat fast. Then he reached inside the box where I kept the bottles of rakia and pulled one out. After looking at it for a moment he said, “We’d best enjoy this one… it’s the last one.” Then he got

up, grabbed some cups, filled them half full of rakia and passed them around. Before he took a sip he said, “To our friendship, adventures and future headaches.”

“I second that!” added Ukasnek.

“What a whirlwind it’s been for me and the damage I’ve done in the hands of those damned robots and mad scientists. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to undo some of the damage I’ve done. To our friendship and to a brighter future” said Enai and we all took a sip. He looked at Captain Orihci and said, “Thank you for referring to me as a ‘brilliant scientist’ back there during your speech. But, given the harm I’ve done, I don’t think I deserve such a compliment.”

“I’m sure we’ve all done things we’re not proud of… but we need to look ahead now. With my friend here as the boss of this planet, I’m sure the authorities will cut us some slack. As for me, all I want is to live like a person and not like a dog,” said Ukasnek.

“What I didn’t tell them during my speech was that the central government will be sending an investigative commission to look at every detail of what happened here from before the start of the war until today. God help us all. I’ve always been suspicious of bureaucrats and how they might misinterpret things, especially your actions,” the Captain said while looking at me.

“There is an old saying – You can’t get into trouble if you do nothing but the moment you do something you are in trouble. I just have to accept that… But then, there is the alternate option…” I replied.

“And what’s that?” asked Enai.

“I’d rather not say but… if you insist… Theoretically let’s say, I will not voluntarily allow them to railroad me or my friends to take the rap for doing what was necessary to survive. As for me personally, I did voluntarily jump into this mess with both feet… I have a lot to answer to for that. But I only went on what I knew, on what I had been told… I came here to stop a war, a war that was consuming

millions of people, and I did. Not just from here but from Ostikon and its sister planets. If they want to judge me for that, so be it,” I replied.

“You’re right. We had little choice in what we did. But you, your story is different… you volunteered for this. Yours is a greater story; a hero or a villain. You sit on the verge of glory, of being judged as a hero for ending the war and for saving millions of young men and women from here and from Ostikon. You also sit on the edge of the precipice of being judged as a villain for taking down the robots along with so many lives. How can we be sure that the Galaxy Trader government wasn’t the sponsor behind the two mad scientists? And if it was, guess who they’re going to put the blame on for ending their big project? Us of course!” said the Captain, paused for a moment and continued. “What puzzled me from the beginning was why were they building such a large army and most importantly for whom were they building it? This was a big, big operation. Who could afford such a big operation and what were they going to do with this army? Think about it! This is something that has been bothering me since the day Ukasnek gave us the news about this place,” said Captain Orihci.

“And what about me and my associates? We helped create this mess. We volunteered our services because we needed work and because we were good at what we were doing… In the beginning… But then the robots turned us into their slaves… Yet still we kept working for them. We could have escaped? I escaped… I could have left permanently but I didn’t,” said Enai.

“Don’t beat yourself up over this Enai, your daughter was here… you couldn’t leave… you wanted to help her… I still think you’re our best hope of getting to the truth, not only of what happened here but also to find a solution to save the soldiers,” I said.

“Well, compared to you I’m a saint… A regular run of the mill…” said Ukasnek when we heard a female voice yell.

“I knew I’d find you here drinking!” It was Ireva and she just walked in on us. After she came up the ramp she grabbed a

discarded cup on the floor and shoved it towards her father who was holding the last, almost empty bottle of rakia.

After Captain Orihci poured the remaining liquid into Ireva’s cup he said, “Enjoy it my dear, you have the pleasure of drinking the last drop of rakia we have… There is no more…”

“In that case I’ll drink it straight and enjoy it…” she said and gulped it down in three quick gulps. When she was done she said, “The machines are up and running. We installed two in the lab and one in the reception area. Any final instructions before we start them?”

“Yes,” said Enai, “on top of collecting DNA and contact information, please instruct the crew to take pictures of everyone whose information is added to the database. We may need it to visually identify the subjects. Also record if the soldier is male or female. That’s all I can think of for now.”

When Ireva left we followed her. She led us to the lab. We inspected the new machines and met the new crew operating them. After Ireva informed the associates of the changes, she left. One of Enai’s associates came over to tell us that he was going to the facility shops to look for cameras. Enai instructed him to integrate the camera into the system and make the process seamless.

“That way it will be faster, more efficient and we can avoid errors.” After looking into the distance for a while Enai said, “It just occurred to me… If we had all the machines in one lab we’d only need one of my associates here to bring the soldiers in.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Captain.

“Well, we already have the crew to operate the machines, one crew member per machine, right? Now all we need to do is get volunteers, one per machine to take the blood and put it in the machine and another to enter the soldier’s number and sex into the computer. The computer will automatically take the picture and acquire the DNA from the machine,” Enai explained.

“What about the associate? You said only one associate…” declared the Captain.

“You see, all the machines will be in the same room. If we can accomplish that then we’ll only need one associate to bring the soldiers here. He will line them up in the hallway and when a machine is free he’ll escort a soldier there…” explained Enai.

“Then what?” asked the Captain.

“The associate will tell the volunteer operating the computer the soldier’s number and sex and then go and get the next soldier and take him to the next free machine,” replied Enai.

“What happens to the soldiers when they’re finished working on them?” asked the Captain.

“Before he introduces the next soldier, the associate will dismiss the first soldier and send him or her back to the barracks,” replied Enai.

“I think that will work…” said the Captain.

“This way the other associates will be free to do other jobs, like the automatic transmitter you asked us to build,” Enai said looking at me.