Nova Wars

The whole ship was silent, dimly lit, as Hetmwit moved through the corridors. He knew that if he was a trained ship security troop he would have been able to devise a proper sweep route that would cover the entire ship with ease. Maximum efficiency and little to no doubling back or checking the same passage or room twice.

But he was a robotic maintenance and repair specialist.

So he wandered through the ship, getting lost several times, and once realizing he had been going in circles for half a day.

He ate out of cans and containers, slept in his room, used the fresher, and kept searching.

No bodies. No piles of clothing. No random jewelry or implants.

Just everyone put up and put away with nobody around.

The few logs he was able to access, since he wasn't exactly a data-slicer or haxxor, all ended about the same time. As near as he could figure, it was right about the time he'd half-woken up to the room spinning, realized he was drunker than he had thought, and put his foot on the floor so the room would slow down and stop.

Some logs even stopped in the middle of being written.

Some terminals had been left unsecured, but after a time limit the security programs has locked out the keyboard until a password was put in.

He sat at several consoles, staring at the keyboard and the screen, wondering just how he'd figure out what the passwords were. He moved around the dataslates, tapped some of the sticky-notes, then eventually got up to wander off.

After some time, he sat in the Officer's Mess, eating a bowl of pudding with sweet frosting on top, and staring at a data slate.

He knew he was not the smartest Pagrik in the universe. No, he was perfectly ordinary.

But he was content with that.

When he was younger, his mother, who sometimes forgot he existed, had sat him down and told him a secret.

"People deride the ordinary. The average. The mediocre. Everyone goes on and on about rising above, only accepting excellence in themselves and others. Well, Hetmwit, my little average love, make no mistake," she had said after forgetting he existed for two days. She had motioned around them, at the skyrakers, the monorails, the parks, the signs, at everything. "All of this? Designed and envisioned by great people," she leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "Built and maintained and paid for by average, normal, common people."

She leaned back. "People like you, my little heart, are the builders of society that they are the building blocks and foundation of. People deride the cogs in the machine, but without those cogs, there is no machine," she had rubbed his head. "Never let anyone make you feel inadequate, my perfectly average love. You are society. You are the Pagrik."

The memory faded and Hetmwit smiled. He knew his mother was often startled to receive gifts form him, gifts from a child that she often forgot.

But her words had made it so that he was content with who he was and his place in the universe.

He listed down his problems and options, as if his situation was a malfunctioning robot and he needed a checklist to go down to determine the standard repair.

He had no idea where everyone went: Severe Difficulty, Minimal Importance.

After all, what was he going to do when he found out, except know where they went?

He had no idea where the ship was: Severe Difficulty, Minimal Importance.

All the could think of was perhaps figuring out a way to send a message to have someone come get the ship, and since he was aboard the ship, him.

He had no idea what happened: Moderate Difficulty. Minimal Importance.

What was he going to do about it?

Aside from that, he didn't really have anything he could figure out that he needed to discover the answers to.

He had food. Enough food for the 24,568 crew members for 15 years.

He had water. The recyclers would take care of that.

He had atmosphere. Even if the scrubbers cut out, he'd still have around three years of air.

He had warmth. He had power.

He was just alone.

Hetmwit leaned back in the chair and stared at the datapad.

Once he finished his pudding, he had a snack of meat with gravy, then made his way back down to the central computing core chamber. It took a minute of waving his hand in front of the sensor for the computer to recognize he was there.

"Online. Ready for input," the computer stated.

"Where is the ship located?" Hetmwit asked.

"Insufficient data. Location unknown," the computer, which Hetmwit has started thinking of as "Ceecee" in his head, answered after a moment.

"What kind of data do you need?" Hetmwit asked.

"Access to external sensors, full processing power, and database cores," Ceecee answered.

Hetmwit thought about that for a second. "How do I get that to you?" he tried.

"Insufficient data," was the answer.

"How do I turn on the rest of your servers?" Hetmwit tried.

"Restore power," the computer stated.

Hetmwit sighed.

"Great. Side quests," he mumbled, getting up out of the chair. "I hate side quests."

"OK, turn on the primary reactors," he said.

"Cannot comply," the computer said.

"Come on, Ceecee, work with me. Why not?"

"Reactor must be restarted and supervised manually," Ceecee stated.

Hetmwit sighed. He got up, went to the publications locker, and got out of the manual for the starship reactor operations.

After four hours he pushed the book away. It wasn't complicated, it just had so many steps and so many things to do in a particular order, he knew it would take weeks or months of training for him to be able to so much as understand what all the readouts meant.

"It was worth a try," he told himself.

Walking back to his work area, he sat and stared at the robots.

None of the standard automation robots were outside of their charging cradles. He had not seen any maintenance or repair robots running around doing unknowable tasks. He stared at one robot in the cradle for long minutes.

HIGH THREAT ENVIRONMENT REPAIR/MAINTENANCE DRONE - SEMI-AUTONOMOUS DRONE

Curious, he checked the robot's capabilities.

Highly resistant to radiation was the top one. Its armor and sealed body made it resistant to corrosive gasses or liquids.

He stared at it for a long time, then checked its available functions.

It took him nearly an hour to find what he was hoping for.

Checking the manual he had brought with him, he realized that the ship's primary reactors required crews of at least twenty per shift. Checking the manifest, he found that he had nearly six hundred robots qualified for the work.

He sat and thought about how he could get the robots to restart and man the reactor.

After a bit he moved over to the Chief Maintenance Officer's terminal. He knew the password, the Senior Commander had found it easier to just tell Hetmwit his password and login than give it over every time.

Hetmwit punched in the correct commands to make the computer systems that were online think that in two days there would be a scheduled test of the robots to ensure that in the case of an emergency, the reactors could be restarted and manned by robotic drones. The reactor control rooms would be listed as 'lethal environment' for the test, which was to run for an unscheduled amount of time.

Hetmwit spent the next two days working slowly and steadily. He had to delay the test by an hour when one robot decided that it wasn't going to do anything that Hetmwit had ordered it to, instead returning to the charging cradle and ignoring Hetmwit.

Finally, it was ready.

"Here goes nothing," Hetmwit said to himself. He activated the "autonomous hazardous environment test" and watched.

The robots all jumped from their cradles and rushed to the reactor. They took sensor readings, did preliminary preventive maintenance and service checks, then took up stations in the three reactor control rooms.

The lights suddenly brightened.

On his terminal the computer was dutifully reporting: "Primary Power Plants: Online"

Hetmwit jumped up and hurried to the computer control chamber. He knew not to run, that was a good way to hit a low hanging object in the corridor and knock yourself out. The door took him twice to get the sensor to recognize him, but it opened dutifully once it determined that opening and closing the door would clear and reset the sensor.

He moved in and sat down in the chair.

"Ceecee?" he asked.

"Online," the computer said. "Ready for input."

"Sensor sweep. One light second around ship. Place data in holotank four in this room, this ship center of tank and maintain focus upon this ship," Hetmwit said slowly and carefully.

"No input detected. Waiting," Ceecee said.

Hetmwit tried three more times, the fourth time was when the ship's computer announced it was working.

After nearly a minute the holotank flickered to life.

The ship was tiny, just a little dot, but it was bright bluish-white, pulsed and had a carat around it.

There were dozens of marks around the ship in the three hundred thousand kilometer radius.

Hetmwit blinked, staring. He got up and moved to the holotank, tapping one of the sparkles.

UNKNOWN VESSEL: 13.4 km long, 8.1 km wide, 1.92 km thick, 214.5 gigatonnes - Zero Power Readings

That made him blink. The vessel he was on wasn't nearly as large.

He tapped the closest dot, a merely six thousand kilometers away.

UNKNOWN VESSEL: 5.4 km long, 2.2 km wide, 2.02 km thick, 18 gigatonnes - LOW POWER READINGS

He tapped it again and flicked it at a nearby holotank. That holotank came on, flickered a few times, then showed the other spaceship.

Where the ship he was was basically a long tube, flattened on two opposing sides, with a mid-ship bulge and a bell housing at the rear, the other ship was obviously made by crazy people. It had a curved forward prow, one side was relatively flat while the other had large protrusions. The engines at the back were set in five stacks of alternating four and five engines.

He stared at it.

He wasn't a trained sensor tech or warfare tech, but he could tell that the ship in the holotank, for all its alien appearance, was not a peaceful vessel. Everything about it screamed that it was the type of vessel that wrecked other people's day.

"Computer," he called out.

"Online. Awaiting input," Ceecee answered.

"Are you at full processing power?" he asked.

"Affirmative," Ceecee answered.

"Contact the vessel in holotank nine," he tried.

"Cannot comply. Foreign vessels may only be contacted by order of an executive officer with confirmation by Contact Officers and communications officers," the computer said.

Hetmwit sighed. He got up and left the room, the door opening after only two tries, and moved to the documentation locker again. It took him almost a half hour to find what he wanted.

"FIRST CONTACT PROTOCOLS" was the title.

He spent three days reading it, then read it again while taking notes. Then he went to the Learning Center and authorized himself a correspondence course in the matter. It took him almost a week of watching videos, doing practical exercises, and taking tests, but he passed with an 82%, feeling rather proud of himself.

Before taking the course, he had no idea that the ship's computer contained something called a 'lexicon' and had the ability to facilitate translations between foreign species lexicons and its own.

He took the data and a few programming cores he had loaded in the educational center down to his work area. He selected a robot that looked vaugely like Pagrik and began working. He added additional memory and computational units, painted it in bright and cheery colors, made sure its head looked like a happy Pagrik, then loaded the programs.

He then changed it from a structural maintenance semi-autonomous repair drone to a detached training assistance autonomous drone.

He patted it once as he passed it by, where it was hanging in the charging cradle, as he left the robotic repair and maintenance bay.

He returned to the computer core.

"Computer," he stated.

"Online. Awaiting input."

"List xenocommunication officers and enlisted," he said.

"Zero found," the computer said.

"List crew members."

"Zero crew members found."

Hetmwit sighed. "List crew members."

"Zero crew members found."

"List crew members."

"One crew member found. Robotic Maintenance and Repair Technician Second Class Hetmwit - 991723," the computer said.

"Log Hetmwit 991723 completed correspondence courses," Hetmwit said.

"Task complete."

"Log Hetmwit - 991723 as Xenocommunication specialist on the job trainee for cross specialty training and service member educational improvement," Hetmwit said.

"Hetmwit - 991723 has been logged as a xenocommunications specialist. Error, no supervisor found," the computer said.

Hetmwit smiled. He had realized that the computer might object.

"Log Unit Smiley as autonomous robotic training supervisor," he said.

The computer sat for a moment, so he repeated the command until the computer chirped.

"Logged," Ceecee said.

"Open communication channel," he tried.

"Attempting communications with unknown vessel," the computer said.

He waited for a while.

"Computer?" he tried.

"Online. Awaiting input."

"Status?"

"Attempting to open communication channels. No response. Retrying in thirty seconds," the computer said.

Hetmwit sighed. After a while he went and got something to eat. Then he studied another correspondence course. Then he went to bed.

When he got up, there was still no progress.

Hetmwit stared at the massive ship hanging in the holotank.

You're empty too. Only someone didn't get missed. There wasn't anyone like me aboard, he thought.

It made sense that without someone living to open the channel, the other ship wasn't answering.

He sat down and thought through his actions. Going off of his training and what he knew.

It was two days later he suddenly sat up in bed.

He was rated for exterior repair automation supervision!

He jumped up, went through the fresher, got dressed, taking time to take off his boots and repolish them before putting them back on, then went to the external maintenance air locker.

He looked over the suits, making sure he checked the model number.

Then he rushed down to one of the flight bays.

He didn't know how to fly a ship, but that didn't matter.

He had used robots to fly a dropship before, so he could repair damage to the exterior of a vessel. It was routine and simple as long as all of the safety checks and precautions were taken.

He looked over the vac-suits in the dropship.

The one for technician work was the exact model he was rated on and had used several times before.

The model of dropship didn't have a robotic pilot, but Hetmwit knew that was easy to fix.

He went down to his workshop, chose a robot nearly at random, then set to work.

Four days later and he was done.

He cleaned his work area, paying particular attention to cleaning the floor of all debris as he slowly thought it through.

There was no reason the other ship wasn't dead too.

He supervised the two robots moving to the dropship, then returned and reconfigured another robot. This one to carry supplies.

He loaded the dropship with food, atmospheric tanks, and, after a realization that the other species might drink something like sulfuric acid, water supplies. Some clothing. Some books.

He then unloaded the dropship and moved everything to an emergency services dropship usually used to help colonists. That one had sealable bays, hospital beds, and other supplies.

It took him only two hours and eight tries to get Ceecee to recognize that he was leaving the ship to offer aid to the stranded xenospecies ship.

He found himself coming up with things he had 'forgotten' to do, including taking another correspondence course, inventorying what he was taking eight times, triple checking the robots and adding two backups for each sitting in the medic drop-cradles, walking through the ship 'just one more time' looking for someone else that might have magically appeared.

Hetmwit realized he was procrastinating.

He dressed carefully. Shipboard duty uniform. Tools. Vac-suit. Integrity field generator belt.

He clomped his way to the launch-bay.

The robot in the control room of the launch bay waved at him and he waved back.

He sat in the co-pilot's seat, reached over, and turned on the robot.

The robot was silent, but he could tell by the flickering telltales that it was communicating with the robot in the control room. There was a vibration that Hetmwit knew was the atmosphere being pumped out of the flight bay. Then the doors slowly cracked open.

The starship he was heading for wasn't even a pinprick. It was dark and silent, lost in the blackness of space.

The dropship lifted up on repulsors, oriented, then swept out of the bay.

The ride was short, only two hours.

The robot made multiple flybys of the xenospecies ship.

Being only a kilometer away let Hetmwit feel the sheer size and bulk of the alien ship. He could see gunports, cannon barrels, launch tubes and bays. The particle screen that his dropship had passed through was powerful enough that it had almost collapsed the dropship's particle shields.

He tried hailing the xeno-vessel but got no response.

The dropship sat only five hundred meters from the hull of the alien vessel as Hetmwit sat and thought.

He went over the full color video slowly, looking for hatches.

Finally, he found what he was looking for.

Hatches surrounded by a yellow stripe that had diagonal black bars in the yellow stripe, high powered lights pointing at the hatch and away from the hatch.

Hetmwit knew a maintenance hatch when he saw it.

Interestingly enough, there was a flat, clear area surrounded by machinery that had several hoses coiled up and hung on them.

He knew a landing pad when he saw it.

Humming to himself, he turned on the brightly painted robot, ordered it to follow him, and suited up.

His boots clonked against the hull, the vibration creating sound in the atmosphere of his suit, as he moved up to the hatch.

It might not be universal, but Hetmwit was pretty sure he'd be able to find what he was looking for.

It was so obvious, Hetmwit had to keep from laughing.

A thin panel of glass covered a wheel that was painted red. He couldn't understand the lettering, but he made the robot scan the lettering and add it to the xeno-lexicon for additional data.

He broke the glass, which turned into little squares instead of shards like had expected. He watched the glass fall slowly to the deck plating.

Either the ship was large enough to generate its own gravity field or the ship had artificial gravity that extended past the hull.

He looked over the pictograms, carefully memorizing the order, then followed it. Throw this bar lever. Pump this lever till the light turns green. Start cranking the wheel.

The hatch suddenly pulled open.

Hetmwit hurried inside.

There, he found another manual system and slowly closed the external door.

The airlock was dimly lit.

Hoping the ship didn't have aggressive security, he opened the interior door and looked into the chamber beyond.

Multiple types of suits hanging on the wall.

He raised his eyebrows in shock. He could count at least a dozen species suits.

Still, he closed the airlock door and moved to the far end.

The brightly colored robot followed, pausing over and over to scan pictograms, images, and writing on the walls, floor, ceiling.

The door opened when the robot came into view.

Taking a deep breath and gathering up his courage, Hetmwit stepped into the interior corridor of the xenospecies warship.