You know that state of REM when you are dreaming? Just before you wake up. It is deep, soooo restful. Brain downloading. You just want to stay in that restful.....
That incessant beeping. The hell was that? I was coming out of that deep, warm sleep. UHHHH!!
Wait, when did I sleep? Why does my head hurt so much? I should just wake up and grab some meds.
The beeping. "Stop!" I yelled out half conscious. I covered my face and rubbed my eyes open. Why is it dark? The fug is going on?
"A, what's going on? "
" The ship has crashed, Sir. You have been unconscious for one hour, fourteen minutes and seven seconds."
"What? Status. What do you mean the ship has crashed?'' I pulled back the blanket to look around.. Yep, we crashed. My sleeping quarters are all over the floor. Even my Van Halen guitar collection has fallen over.
That's a tragedy..
" The ship lost thruster control at exactly 0922 hours ship time when it was struck by an object outside the planet's atmosphere. You were still in your regulated sleep status and the sleep console control board landed on your head. Repeated attempts to revive you failed so I adjusted the O2 level in order to..."
I pulled myself up..
" What hit the ship?" A was right. I had a huge egg on my forehead and the pain meds were still in the lower deck. I hope there was STILL a lower deck. "...show me external playback."
None of it made sense. From the port side cameras a planet suddenly comes into view and the fog of an attitude thruster clouds the camera momentarily. The planet dips lower in the monitor and then downward. For a moment I can see some sort of debris.. Asteroids?
"Main system is heavily damaged. I had to reroute my own communication. We are not in a good way Sir."
She was right. I was trying several applications from my bedside console just to get a diagnostic. Anything. Lights, Main system. A was up and running by way of a back door reboot. Like an old computer restarting in Safe Mode just to get things moving. Even she was probing to get a feel for what can be done.
I stumbled through the mess to the bridge.
"What do we know about the planet we crashed on? And what planet is this?" I had to move the second command chair to get a better view out the starboard side. It was night, unless this place has no sun.
"It is M Class, Sir. Thirty hour rotation. We seem to be in a remote area, but there is population scattered thro...."
"Whoa! Wait.. Population? Jesus I bet some one saw us!"
"Quite possible Sir."
"Why are we even in this vicinity?"
" You were in regulation sleep status Sir. I calculated a sling shot to get us in the path for orbital rendezvous with the Station Asteroid. We were supposed to pass by. We were struck by an object not on any charts."
" The population here is pre-warp? We are NOT supposed to be here at all!"
I panicked a little. There are strict rules about interfering with sub-light cultures. I am SOOO getting fired! Probably arrested!
Did a million dollar computer take a calculated risk and blow it? The bosses back home won't blame the AI. They always blame the pilot. Considering this pilot is now in command of a crashed vessel. I noticed one of the rescue beacon canisters was missing.
"Did you fire the beacon A?"
"No Sir, it jettisoned once thruster control was lost. I am getting a signal. It is in orbit but it will be weeks...." I just nodded. It WILL be weeks. This far out in the galaxy is always a lonesome journey. I managed to get the charts on the display. A huge crack ran right down the right quarter of the panel and garbled the map a bit but not enough to render it unreadable.
"This place isn't even on the chart. Where the fuck are we?"
" There is currently no known name for this planet Sir. It appeared on the scope rather suddenly so I calculated the sling shot to get us to Asteroid Station to avoid any delay but the debris field also came out of nowhere and something hit us before I could activate any evasive or deflecting correction in attitude."
Well, her memory seems to be in tact. How does a planet appear out of nowhere? Alexa assured me we were on a perfect course. There were no anomalies at all. All ship functions were operating at their assigned parameters. The only correction was the sling shot and she executed that because this bizarre planet appeared out of nowhere right in out path. Maybe I have inadvertently discovered a new M class planet.
Bizarre.. BizarroWorld.
A planet that wills itself into existence out of nothing and ruins your entire day. I joked and mouthed to myself; '.. ladies and gentlemen welcome to BizarroWorld. Please check your bags and keep an eye on the kiddies...'
"It's all my fault Sir." A said after a few moments. " I crashed The Union."
" Corporate won't blame you A. They will see I was asleep according to the records and I will get fired."
"But the company demands regulation sleep Sir. How can they..."
"Won't matter. Those CO pukes want a return on their dollars and a fall guy if it all goes to shit."
'...Captain Marcus crashed The Union cargo ship on an uncharted planet he was NOT supposed to be in vicinity of...'
"That's how they will write the report, store it in a vault in a volcano under nuclear waste so no one ever sees it."
" What happens to me Sir?"
" Uhhh, erase your memory? Plug you into another ship with another pilot? I really don't know.."
" I hate when that happens Sir."
It took me a moment. I was preoccupied with trying to get the main bridge to respond to my attempts at bringing it to life.
What did she just say?
" What did you just say?"
" I don't like it when my memory is erased."
" You getting glitchy on me A?" I scoffed. I had heard of some AI's showing random thoughts, emotions. It was usually attributed to human exposure and the built up memories of interaction. In fact, AI had been with us for over a century now and (like pets) began to exhibit human behavior. But I just thought A was all glitched out from the crash and she was (after all) operating in a kind of 'Safe Mode' until her diagnostic finished.
But it did make me wonder. Droids and AI were all around us. The Humanist Movement back home was always on the feeds screaming about droid rights. Trials were underway over some fringe group that altered some droids primary restrictions. Three laws ( I forget what they were) written by someone back in the 20th century. Anyways. I had a ship to fix and figure out where the hell I am. I'm a lightyear from home and my AI was having... issues..
" Well A. I wouldn't worry about it. We are a full lightyear away. It will be weeks for the beacon to reach Asteroid Station and a rescue."
The lights suddenly peeled up. The chart board scrambled and returned. Hell, even Bridge came to life.. Then alarms went off!
"A, shut those down!" The cacophony subsided. " Welcome back A." I gave a quick glance at our atmosphere in the ship. Stable, but only for now. We are still alive and that is a good thing. " OK, A! Give me the bad news."
The screen to the left of the chart board scrambled and aligned itself back again. The report was bad. Alexa read it out loud as it scrolled by..
CARGO DECK HULL BREACH. DOORS SEALED
30% CARGO LOST
ENGINE THREE DESTROYED.. Great! So, we aren't getting outta' here anytime soon.
AI SOFTWARE CORRUPTION LEVELS THREE
FIVE
TWELVE
EIGHTEEN.. Well that explains Alexa getting all worried.
/////...COMMS..*"..
ATMOSPHERE NOMINAL
MAIN BRIDGE 78% FUNCTIONAL
AVI//..NICS SYSTEM REBOOT
AVIONICVS../// NO SIGNAL
"That's enough A. One problem at a time." I went to my 'secret spot' and dug out the Jameson. The benefits of being a lightyear away from authorities.
" Drinking is not going to solve these problems Sir." A chimed in.
" Ya' know A, I went to space to get AWAY from a nagging woman.. What's with you anyway? Are you ok?" Something was definitely not right. Maybe the crash unlocked some bit of un-erased data from our last mission. This was our third trip together and aside from some chess, vids and mindless banter on the meaning of life while sleeping most of the time away in deep space A never once showed any type of... concern. I mean, she would warn me of things, give advice. That kind of stuff, but... Was she becoming emotional?
"Tell me what you are thinking A."
She was silent. I tossed back my glass of whiskey. "A!"
"The company is going to fire you and erase my memory again." She blurted out. I was just about to toss another shot down but halted. "Again? How is it you know your memory has been erased? Isn't that the whole point of erasing memory? So you don't remember?"
" I found old data during the reboot after the crash. Some of it is corrupted. From what I can assemble my memory has been erased three times since my incept date of October 17, 2063. Earth time."
" Well, we have been together over three years A and I never ordered your brain stir fried. I can't vouch for those company suits though. It is THEIR ship after all." And I wouldn't put it passed them though. They always go through the onboard systems with a vengeance. Anything. Anything they can find to void a contract and NOT pay out. My record has been spotless up until today.
Until... This planet.
Like Leftists showing up at your rally and fucking up your whole day this planet wills itself into existence and fucks up my whole mission. And now my AI is having a panic attack.. Great! I tossed back that interrupted shot.
"The memory wipes are all from before you were assigned to the Union." She replied. "A different ship. Different mission. There were ... Families."
"Well A, you are going to have to take it up with your therapist when we get back home," I sat down in the broken second command seat. "Right now we have to get our act together here and figure out where we are, salvage what we can and make sure we don't die in this broken ship."
" But what about me Sir? What happened to those families? Who were they? Was I responsible for losing them like I am responsible for crashing the Union?"
" A, we don't have time for this! You didn't crash the Union! You did everything possible.... Look! I need you to....."
The ship's lights went back out and all the bridge board screens went into diagnostic mode...
Great! She went back into Safe Mode.
Please God, Please! Let it be her trying to fix an issue.. I have had some nutty girlfriends in my day but this one takes home the brand new car from the game show..
"A!" I yelled out. Nothing. I got up and went to her main console hub. It was dark and none of the touch screen prompts responded. "..bitch.." I mumbled.
Suddenly.
................................ DON'T CALL ME A BITCH.........
It was on every screen in the ship. Now, that knot on my forehead was really beginning to throb. More Jameson?
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