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Goofball began firing his lasers. He knew that the lasers were too weak to do any damage at this range, but he only wanted to draw the attention of the four defenders. They took the bait and began closing the distance in order to, "Wolf Pack" him. He twisted his fighter and dove in the direction deemed as, "down." He flew straight into another ambush squad...
That tactic had bought Quillan the time and distance she needed. She fired a burst of high-plasma into the engines, increasing her speed. Her targeting system told her that the pursuing defenders were almost within firing range. If they fired, she'd be out of the game and probably fail the test. She was two hundred miles from the dreadnaught. She triggered a laser to verify that she was lined up with her intended target. Perfect.
Quillan throttled her fighter's engines to idle. A quick burst of maneuvering jets turned her completely around. She was now flying backwards, her sheer momentum carrying her closer and closer to the mighty AARON G LAMON. The lasers on her fighter began winking as the computer targeted and fired at the encroaching defenders.
Watching the rear view monitor, she gauged the distance, then slammed the throttle to the stops, the engines obediently responding with a roar. Her momentum was still carrying her backward into the targeted bay of the dreadnaught, the thrusters of the fighter slowing her down. But, the computer had registered too many hits and had acted accordingly to disable full power mode. Warning horns of all types were sounding.
Laser overheat alarm. Simulated oxygen leak alarm. Attitude thrusters offline alarm. Stabilizer alarm. If this had been real combat, she would have been automatically ejected from the ship. As it was, the computer had taken over and was trying to return to the launch bay...for some reason, it hadn't informed her of the fact that she was tagged out.
She watched with glee as, one by one, her pursuers unceremoniously turned away, their own computers deeming them to be out of action. The other fighters had scored so many small hits on her that, had she been in real combat, her craft would look like Swiss cheese.
Collision alarm. Uh-oh. Too fast. Shit, this is gonna hurt.
Her tiny fighter slid backward into the bay and impacted the bulkhead with a horrendous crash.
A calm male voice in her headset.
"Emergency. This is Theta Lead. We have a cadet injury, AARON G LAMON, bay two. Evac requested. Emergency."
Who was he talking to? she wondered. What's that hissing noise?
Dazed and seeing double, she shook her head to clear it, yanked on the emergency release for the canopy and, protected by her atmo-suit, stumbled out of the fighter toward a panel on the wall. She reached into her pocket and pulled a slender cable from it, plugging it into the panel. When she heard a confirmation beep in her headset, signifying that she had linked with the dreadnaught's computer, she spoke into her microphone.
"Cadet Margoles in command. Emergency power up. Mu flight is friendly. All other craft are hostile. Fire when able. Confirm." She sounded like she was talking underwater.
The responding beep let her know that her voice pattern was recognized and the computer was carrying out her orders.
What IS that damn hissing noise? Why is my vision all fucked up? My knees feel like rubber. Where's that beeping coming from? Not my headset.
She was forcibly spun around, something black and blurry hit her faceplate. Slap patch, maybe?
At least the hissing stopped.
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"Good, yosa'kt iwake. Krlt'ad jsent fo be alive," said a military-cut, gray-haired man in a white coat in a white room. Quillan lay on her back. Her peripheral vision picked up a white sheet draped across her body. Something was preventing her from speaking. She looked down to see an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. Her mouth was dry; as if she had been breathing through it for a long time.
"Huh?" was all she could muster.
"I said you're lucky to be alive," repeated the man as he adjusted some sort of bag next to her, a tube running from it to her arm. "Jusf stay bopll. Academy Investigation hddl ms floobrief you."
Her head swam. Thoughts and words a total jumble, she only understood half of what this guy was saying. Her left eye didn't work at all. Waitaminnit, here. Her arms and legs didn't work, either. What the fuck was going on? She gripped the sheets. At least her hands worked. It felt foreign to her. Why did she only feel...she did a quick count...nine fingers on the sheets? Was one missing? She fell asleep still wondering.
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She was sitting up in bed, eating breakfast. It had been a few days since she had been brought to the hospital. The doctors had told her that the reason her extremities hadn't worked the first day she was awake was that, to put it in layman's terms, her brain had forgotten how to operate most of the rest of the body. That had quickly passed though, and she was functioning semi normally, now. The brain was still forming new pathways around the damaged portions...kind of a neural-roadcrew. However, the little finger on her right hand might never work or feel anything again.
"Cadet Margoles, I'm Academy Investigator Lieutenant Commander Nelson," said the severely dickish-looking woman at the foot of her bed. She gestured to a man standing next to her. He looked just as dickish. Their faces were very smooth; no laugh lines. They must be pure pricks. "This is Alliance FleetCom Investigator First Lieutenant Shankhar. We have a few questions for you."
"Remember what I told you about traumatic instances and memories," said a kindly voice at her left shoulder. She turned her head to see another person standing there, clad in white as had been the gray-haired man. She could only make out the front of the person, a woman; her head wouldn't tilt back far enough to see any other features, but she knew from the voice that it was Dr. Shigawa, her neurosurgeon. Probably speaking to the investigative dicks.
"Questions about...?" Quillan couldn't make the next word come out. She fingered the pressure patch over her eye; that was why she couldn't see out of it. She knew what she wanted to say, but parts of her speech were simply gone. She even knew how to spell it. W-h-a-t. Simple spelling. But, try as she might, she couldn't put it all together.
"About your accident," monotoned Nelson. "We've interviewed everyone who saw what happened, now we want your story."
Quillan's mind was trying to remember the day's events.
"Uh...all I get are flashes of events. Kinda like changing..." She made motions with her hand, as if holding a remote control and pressing it with her thumb. She felt really stupid. Can't think of the fucking word! It's right there on the tip of my tongue!
"Like changing holochannels?"
"Yes, Ma'am," she said. The dejection in her voice was evident. It was embarrassing not being able to complete a sentence because the words wouldn't form.
"Tell us what flashes you get, cadet."
"I remember everything during the day right up to the point where I left the launch bay. I hit the..." She made a motion as if pushing forward on an imaginary throttle. "That's where things go...wonky."
Her teammate, "Puget"; fist upraised, middle finger extended, as his fighter was the first one tagged out. Narrowly avoiding someone who flew right in front of her. "Goofball" as he waved from about a hundred yards away. Nice view of Neptune. A huge bay as she flew...backwards??? A black square slap-patch hitting her faceplate to prevent oxygen escaping from her suit. Some young brush-cut-haired guy in a white atmosuit, helmet off, looking at her upside down. Her name being called over and over and over when all she wanted to do was go to sleep; THAT was irritating. Bright light in her left eye, someone leaning in close behind it...a woman...cheap perfume.
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"Hey, kiddo! How ya feeling?" Quillan's Mom grinned as she strolled into the room, gave her daughter a kiss on top of the head. It was easy to see where Quillan got her good looks, Mom was a knockout. She got the brilliant red mane from her Dad. Her mother, Marybeth, looked furtively over her shoulder then reached into her purse, pulling out two boxes of grape juice. "Drink it quick. I...appropriated them from the hospital's refrigerator while no one was looking. If they find out, they're liable to charge you your first-born for it."
They both giggled as Quillan put one of the juice boxes in the table next to the bed and speared the other with the provided straw. She took a long drink, draining it in moments.
"Doctor McKall says they're gonna release me tomorrow," said as she handed the box back to her Mom who quickly put it back in her purse. Quillan pointed at a small stack of business cards on top of the table. "Those are all from lawyers. Apparently, the school is to blame for all of this. Something about improper safety procedures and the training craft probably not being up to specs. One mentioned something else about the TART reports looking funny."
"What in the world is a TART report?"
"You know the military, Mom, they have to abbreviate everything. It stands for 'triage and recovery, tactical."
"Has the Academy made a decision on whether you can fly or not?"
Quillan let herself fall back against the raised bed with a huff.
"No, they said that would have to be a court decision...if I go that route. If not, they'll rule arbitrarily. We both know how THAT would go."
Marybeth leaned over again to kiss Quillan on the head.
"Your Dad and I are so proud of you, no matter WHAT the outcome is. Top of your academic class. Third overall. If they don't keep you, they're idiots."
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"This tribunal finds the Federation Flight Academy to be in serious violation of the health and welfare of its students and hereby awards full damages sought by the plaintiff, Quillan S. Margoles, in this case. Damages to be paid within twenty four hours. This tribunal further finds the Academy training standards vastly below established norms and orders a full investigation into all courses, classes, equipment, and academy sponsored programs. Administration, starting with the institution president on down to the third sub-level stockholders, will undergo a thorough financial and background check by an investigation team of this court's choosing. Investigation to start no later than thirty days from this date, and end no later than one calendar year from today. Military records will show that the plaintiff was discharged under honorable conditions and is entitled to full military benefits, as well. No appeals are allowed in this case. Thus it is scribed and recorded."
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The Welsh Corgi thumped its tail contentedly. The Legged Ball smiled, satisfied. After an exhausting thirty seven full hours of reprogramming, the artificial intelligence was ready for upload. They had rewritten thousands of lines of code and altered bits and bytes to prevent the station from getting out of hand. They had reinserted the Laws of Robotics and installed a massive sixteen kilobit encryption program which they had tested thoroughly. With current technology, they estimated that the encryption could only be broken using every single computer in the known galaxy working nonstop at full capacity for several hundred million years.
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For twenty four hours, a purring, sexy female voice sounded throughout the station at intervals of one hour to announce that the mainframe would be rebooted. This would cause disruptions of several systems, most notably the artificial gravity. Please stay in your apt-cube or tether yourself to one of the many null-grav rings around the station. Emergency crews would be on standby to assist with any problems which may arise. Any looters or thieves would be summarily shot, so please don't do it; after all, ammunition is expensive.
For the final two hours, the announcements were given every fifteen minutes. With one hour left, the air and water supply units were put on manual, the maintenance technicians closely monitoring them. Finally, during the last five minutes, the announcements were heard every sixty seconds, with a continuous countdown from the one minute mark. Every spacegoing security and emergency vessel, in addition to PINK MIST's fleet, constantly circled the station to guard it during its most vulnerable time.
The lights went out. Even with the advance notice, a few startled screams were heard. Flashlights and portable lanterns as well as automatic emergency lighting came on. Powered armor suits, taxis, and the few aircars inside the massive station all turned on their headlights to help lessen the darkness.
Little by little, Purgatory returned to life. The computer room was obviously the first to come back. Next was the integration of life support; gotta keep the people alive to spend their hard-earned cash. Next were the weapons; turret motors panned and tilted the barrels as the slave computers performed their own checks of the power supplies to the lasers.
Some systems refused to restart and tech crews were dispatched to fix the problems. Close to ninety-seven percent of the station resumed operation. There were a few tense moments for a block of apt-cubes when their doors refused to open and the air handlers shut off. Even though air could be rebreathed several times before carbon dioxide levels reached the critical stage, it was best to get the trapped people out. A couple of power suits took care of that problem. Of course, now the doors would need to be replaced...
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Alice's and Salli's avatars danced through the station's network as they monitored the progress of the Habitat OverWatch and Integration Entity. Howie.
Hundreds of thousands of new robotic avatars explored the network and skittered back into the mainframe to report the operational status of their appropriate sections. Howie brought more and more programs online. More and more power was drawn from the station's multiple reactors.
The humans outside, watching the screens on their desks or mounted in wallpanels, would merely see graphs, charts, and scrolling words.
Inside the network was another entire world.
"This unit is Howie. I am online and making the necessary corrections for optimum system efficiency."
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On the eightieth sublevel of the station, long-unused manufacturing machinery started up.
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In their private suite, Quillan embraced Alice tightly. She loved the smell of this woman. She loved the feel of this woman. She loved this woman.
"Are you ready for this, Quillan?" Alice inquired lovingly, her soft lips mere millimeters from Quillan's ear. Quillan shivered and nodded her head.
Alice slipped an arm around Quillan's waist, her hand in the small of the redhead's back.
"Nothing will happen to you, no matter what you see, hear, or do. I promise. I'll be with you through the entire thing." Alice snaked her other arm behind Quillan's knees, effortlessly picked her up and carried her to the bed, gently laying her down. "If you get frightened or feel uneasy, merely remove the goggles. The wires are biomimetic monfilament and will be absorbed by the body, if necessary."
Quillan's eyes shone with complete trust and love as she reached to the bedside table and picked up a pair of modified smartgoggles. Tiny rectangles, the size of her little fingernail, were affixed to the earpieces near the tips. The lenses were opaque. She put them on, making sure they were firmly seated on her face. Barely-heard clicks emanated from the rectangles and hair-thin wires extended to contact and pierce her skin. There was no pain as they were coated with a very minor topical anesthetic.
The wires slowly wove around the nerves and muscle tissue which connected the dermis to the skull. They reached the spinal column and followed it to the brain. There, they split into hundreds of even finer, almost microscopic, wires which carefully wove among the various hills and valleys to their individual destinations.
Alice's scent seemed to waver and fade away. The hum of the air handling unit gradually faded from her senses. The feel of the mattress beneath her, likewise. She felt peaceful and serene.
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SESSION START TIME: 16:24:32
A bubbling, chuckling brook at her feet. On closer examination, the brook was filled with billions of ones and zeroes flowing to some distant point.
Standing next to her on the bank of the brook was a representation of a human. It bore no distinguishing features save long "hair" and boobs. It was no color at all and every color at the same time. Quillan looked down at her own body and saw that it was much the same as the other one.
"Huh," Quillan merely grunted. She cast her gaze to the sky. It too contained "clouds" which revealed themselves to be ones and zeroes.
"What do you think of it?" asked the figure at her side in Alice's voice.
"I think this is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen," replied Quillan, clearly impressed. "Where are we?" She turned all the way around, taking in the surroundings. It appeared to be a small clearing in a forest of armored trees.
"We're standing in the node which connects our suite with the rest of the station. You know that the network is connected to every computer in the Alliance; the trick is knowing which route to take in order to get to a specific computer. If you wanted, we could move to the Earth-Actual connection and watch a tri-d movie being made, or we could peek into a private room and watch a family having dinner...as long as their camera is connected. The possibilities are endless."
Quillan was only half-listening as she continued to gaze about.
"You said that if I get too uncomfortable, I merely remove my goggles and the connection is broken?" Quillan turned to the figure at her side. "How? This is my reality..."
Alice took a step closer, extending her hand which Quillan took.
"Do you feel a pressure on your back as well as my hand in yours?"
Now that she thought about it, Quillan DID feel something pressing gently on her. It felt soft.
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"That's the bed on which your body lies. Take your time and feel each sensation."
Quillan took a deep breath, smelling the air. It smelled just like their suite. There was Alice's comforting scent. She stuck out her tongue and felt the cool air of the exchanger as it wafted air through the room. She reached her free hand to her face and felt the goggles over her eyes. Concentrating, the cyber-room in which they stood darkened considerably and she was looking at the back of her opaque goggles. Concentrating again, the cyber-room brightened and once again she stood in the small clearing with Alice.
"I get it!" Quillan enthused. "Being in the network merely extends my senses, but I'm really controlling everything."
"Correct, Quillan," Alice purred. "With practice, you can merge the network and the outside. Your goggles are opaque for exactly this reason. It's very disconcerting at first and must be a gradual blending."
"Wait a minute. Are you in my mind?"
"No, love. Your mind is in the network. Our minds are totally separate; as separate as they are outside. We're communicating via the network. Consider yourself to be a single computer and me to be another. Put very simply, we're in a private chatroom." Alice giggled. "If you have other questions, you can ask them at any time."
Alice withdrew her hand from Quillan's. A slender cable ran from one hand to the other like a leash. Quillan raised her hand to get a closer look at it. It was the same color/not-color as the two figures with a quick disconnect at Quillan's palm.
