Atlantis Rising (2 page)

This development wasn’t good and its master
would be very unhappy. Its master sent it here to secure the base for its
master’s arrival, and now these new people were going to spoil everything. It
slowly made its way back to where its ship had breached the outer hull of the
base. Its master would not receive the report well and it expected a lot of
yelling. It let out another long exaggerated sigh as it shimmered into view.
Things were getting more complex than anyone had anticipated.

It stepped through the collar that attached
its ship to the base and took a seat in front of a small panel. It reached up,
touched a few keys on the console as the display lit up, and came to life.
Alien text scrolled across the screen as it sat waiting patiently.

The face that appeared on the screen narrowed
its coal black eyes. Its dirty blonde hair was in a neat crew cut. Its eyebrows
were absent, replaced by ridges. A look of disgust crossed its face briefly,
“Report.” The face said in English.

The dark grey fur covered being fidgeted a
second before it spoke, "Jah nisju kiaso lihag."

“English! How many times have I told you I am
trying to learn their language before I get there?” he growled in broken
English. “I must be able to speak to these filthy humans and I don't have the
time I need to learn a new language slowly so I have been speaking it
exclusively as have the rest of crew.”

“Sorry, Great Master.”

The being sighed, “I'll give you one thing
Oojoung. I have always been amazed how you covert specialists have always been
able to assimilate a new language so easily.”

“Thank you, Great Master,” Oojoung said.

“Now, give me your report,” the being said.

“Um, the big base has turned its lights on,
Great Master,” Oojoung said.

The being frowned a second then waved a hand
dismissively, “So, it's routine. It will search and find nothing and shut back
down. Have you been able to gain access to the main computer core?”

Oojoung wrung his hands as he said the next
part, “Great Master, Oojoung working on tricky computer. But, Oojoung has more
to report to Great Master”

The being’s eyebrows furrowed, “What do you
mean there's more?”

A small sigh escaped Oojoung’s mouth,
“Hoomans have came here...”

The beings eyes grew wide as his hands
gripped the edge of whatever desk he was sitting behind. “WHAT!” he bellowed.
He raised a third hand and started tapping keys in front of him as another hand
pinched his nose, making him close his eyes briefly. Oojoung trembled in the
silence that followed.

"The power readings haven't changed
enough for the base to be powered up. What are these humans doing?" he
asked. He crossed a pair of his arms across his chest as the others continued
to type.

"Oojoung think one of the Hoomans is now
a Commander person to the base. They're on their way to start the main
reactor," Oojoung said. He tapped a few keys in front of him, which
displayed a lay out of the base and then a blip for each life sign. This didn’t
show where the AI was, but he assumed it was with the Commander Jonathan
person.

“Hrm ... Okay, listen carefully. I want you
to stall them; do not hurt these Humans. I'm curious how far they will get in
bringing the base back on line. Do not directly interfere with them as they
work, but I do want you to keep Offensive systems offline. This base is
important; it is one of the last Eutharan bases in operation,” the being said
calmly.

Oojoung nodded, “Great Master, Oojoung will
do as asked.”

"Oojoung, leave the main computer alone
for now. When we get closer I'll have you do what you were sent to do, so be
ready," the being said. The vid screen dimmed as it was disconnected and
Oojoung found himself talking to a blank screen.

Oojoung stuck his tongue out, gave a small
raspberry to the blank screen, and then gave a small huffed. “Oojoung do this,
Oojoung do it NOW! Yes, right away, Oojoung do what his Imperial Majesty
Prasuh. Stupid meany, Invaru with big head.”

In some ways, Oojoung loved his job; it
provided Oojoung with an opportunity to travel and sneak around. His people,
the Buranis, loved working from the shadows and learning things. However, after
the Invaru enslaved his people, it had become more of a job than a fun game;
thus, his position and job parameters required Oojoung to show deference and
some fear to the ‘Great Master.’ Working from the shadows required acting to
survive, and Oojoung was a great actor. The Buranis’ limited telepathy allowed
them to assimilate new languages rather quickly and once they learned a
language they never forgot it. This ability allowed them to integrate
themselves into a world and learn things. Written language was a bit different,
it took longer to learn, but it wasn’t impossible.

His current master, Prasuh, made the job
almost unbearable. They all did actually. The Invaru, as a whole, were good
people. However, ever since His Imperial Majesty Doxvue took over the empire,
it had quickly gone downhill. Doxvue didn’t care what went on, he gave his
ranking officers free reign as long as he saw his share of the profits. Since
that was all he cared about, the more ruthless the person, the faster they went
up in the ranks.

Ship captains changed as fast as they could
assassinate each other. There were very few ships that still had their original
captains. Only the most loyal crews managed to retain their Captains, these
were the few captains who didn’t fail to show compassion for a person no matter
what race they were. Their ships also became ‘invitation only,’ and only
allowed select people to join the crew manifest. Once invited the new crew
members took years to become trusted enough members to have unrestricted access
around the ship.

If the Invaru had to transport people, they
were unsure of, those people ended up on a special deck and were restricted
there. No one could access important systems from those decks and there was no
way for anyone to move about unescorted. The crew even restricted His Imperial
Majesty to this deck no matter what orders he gave or what he demanded. The law
stated that while His Imperial Majesty could issue orders while in space, he
actually had no command and no authority. The Captain and his ranking officers
were responsible for him and as such their orders were final and to be obeyed.
Because of this Doxvue very rarely left Invaris, the Invaru home world. When he
did leave, he did so only with his most trusted Captains, and even then, he was
very cautious. Once he stepped foot on board a vessel he was a prisoner in
every sense of the word.

The Invaru knew about Prasuh’s mean streaks,
but everyone also knew he was the current Emperor’s lapdog. Oojoung could only
hope that one of these days he would get a call informing him someone killed
Prasuh and he was under a new Master.

Oojoung smiled to himself as he stood and
grabbed a few tools, stowing them in his belt. Once he finished, he reached
over, tapped the strange watch, and then slowly faded out of view.

Atlanta stepped through the doorway that
opened as she approached. Jonathan was close behind and gasped when he saw what
was on the other side. Illumination came to life as holographic displays
blinked on.

The room was huge. A catwalk hugged the wall
in the circular room. Workstations were spaced evenly around the entire room; a
few of the stations did not have displays. The massive column in the center of
the room pulsed with lights blinking to life as the air shimmered.

“Wow,” Jonathan said. He had walked to the
edge of the catwalk and looked up and down. “There has to be another level
above us and I have no idea how many below.”

“Six,” Atlanta said. She was standing at one
of the active stations and reading the display. “This isn't good.”

Jonathan wandered over and looked over her
shoulder, “What?”

“Well, it's worse than I thought. The backup
reactor is failing and the main reactor is flooded,” she said as she pointed to
the column. “Somewhere around here is the leak.” She pointed to a holographic
display that hung in the air. The display showed the main reactor, with a red
line just above the second level from the bottom. “The red line denotes the
level of the water. It's not a large leak; the level is increasing
approximately a foot a day. However, it's something we will need to repair to
bring the main core to full power. I'm downloading the technical specifications
for the core to your nanites; you should have the information you need
momentarily.”

A buzzing filled his head as the nanites
downloaded the information and then filed it in his brain. The information was
placed in such a way that he could access it by thinking about it, and the
nanites would relay the information he needed. Atlanta had explained to him
that, while he did have the knowledge technically stored in his mind, it was
the nanites that allowed him to access the information in an orderly fashion so
he could use it right away. The nanites had turned his brain into a large super
computer with almost infinite storage capacity. Anything he would need to know,
the nanites could download and be there for his use right away. The more he
used the information the less he would need to use the nanites to relay the
information to him. He would essentially be learning, his brain just stored
everything so he could teach himself.

Jonathan nodded as he accessed the
information and pulled out what he needed. The main power core generated power
magnetically. The water would hamper this ability and if ran at full power it
would slowly burn out the main magnetic couplers. The couplers were made of a
substance known as Cardinium, Jonathan did not know the metal in the couplers
produced energy when magnetically charged.

Jonathan stepped around Atlanta and tapped
the holographic display in a couple places. As he did so several spots on the
main core lit up as its programs were rebooted.

'Main power core boot up initiated, ' a bland
computer voice echoed.

Jonathan tapped a blinking yellow square on
the display.

‘Bringing main power core online, command codes
required.’

“Commander Jonathan Hunter,
one-alpha-tango-two-zero-zero,” Jonathan said.

‘Voice print match, fingerprint match,
biometric reading match.’

Jonathan looked at Atlanta and raised an
eyebrow.

Atlanta smiled, “I took a voice print when
you asked about your sister and friends in medical. The rest is standard
information on file from your time in medical.”

Jonathan nodded as the computer continued.

‘Warning flooding on floors four through six.
Proceed with start up?’

“Proceed with startup; bring main power to
45% and hold. Shutdown the main core on decks four through six for repairs.
Open main conduits to secondary reactors and shunt 10% output through those
reactors.”

‘Shutting down main reactor on floors four
through six, main power at 15%. Main conduits to secondary reactors Alpha and
Beta at 35% power. Life expectancy for secondary reactors extended by three
months.’

Jonathan turned to Atlanta who was beaming,
“There that should give us some time to decide what we're going to do and to
patch the leak.”

Atlanta nodded, “I would have never thought
to do that.”

“Do what?” Jonathan asked.

“Shunt power to relieve the pressure on the
two secondary reactors,” She said.

“Well, it will help stabilize them, and we
will be operating at about 80% power output with those two reactors backing the
main reactor,” Jonathan said. He glanced at the display and watched the reading
stabilize as the computer opened the main conduits. Lights brightened
noticeably as the last couple of stations booted up and their holographic
displays winked to life. “There we go! We should be okay for a bit. Now I would
like to get back to my sister and friends so we can discuss what we're going to
do about our situation.”

Atlanta nodded and turned to leave as the
room shook violently. Jonathan stumbled but caught himself before he fell on
his face. Atlanta gasped as a look of horror spread across her face.

‘Warning breech on floor ten, Beta reactor
offline. Closing pressure doors floor ten section five, six, twenty-one and
twenty-two.’

“That secondary reactor just blew up,”
Atlanta said as she stared at Jonathan.

Jonathan’s mouth dropped open. That shouldn’t
have been able to happen.

‘Warning pressure doors in sections five,
twenty-one and twenty-two inoperable. Closing pressure doors in sections one,
three, nineteen, twenty, twenty-four and twenty-six.’

“This isn't sounding very good,” Jonathan
muttered.

"It's not," Atlanta said. “Follow
me, I'm in communication with your friends and have them on the way to meet
us.”

Jonathan just shook his head as the computer
started listing doors that wouldn’t shut and started to try to close others,
“Very bad.”

onathan, Terri, Mike, Brad, Andie, Bill, and
Atlanta
gathered
around a table in a large room. The room had
two levels. The upper level had a long walkway from one end of the room to the
other. In the center, the walkway split into a large oval. Each side of the
oval had two dormant stations with overly large, but comfortable looking
chairs. On the lower level there were another eight dormant stations arrayed
evenly along a table.

“This is C and C, Command and
Control for the base. The large table is what the crew called a planning table.
It is basically a large holographic
projector used
to display schematics and the like. The four stations
above us are Tactical and Air/Space Traffic Control with back up stations …
primary and secondary, if you like. These eight here are Science,
Communication, Engineering and Medical, with their back up stations,” Atlanta
said as she pointed out the various stations.

“Our problem is here,” Atlanta
said.

She motioned to the table in
front of her as a holographic projection popped up in front of her. The table
shimmered as it brought up a rotating display of the base. She touched the hologram
on its base, which caused it to stop rotating. She tapped a flashing red spot
on the display and it zoomed in. Flashing red letters in English and the
strange language said ‘Level 3 Breech (contained)’.

“Over the years I have collected
the various languages of Earth,” Atlanta said. “Displays will register with the
nanites inside you and show you the most common language you know. In this case
it should be English, though if you know another language you could change your
thought patterns and it would change to that language as long as the computer
has it in its data base.”

“Why did you say ‘should be’?
Can’t you see what language it is displaying?” Mark asked.

Atlanta shook her head, “I see it
in Ancient Eutharan and sometimes just as lines of code. Depends on what I’m
looking at and looking for.”

“Eutharan?” Terri asked.

“Yes, this is a Eutharan Base,
one of the last in existence. I have lost contact with the others I once knew,”
Atlanta said.

Terri nodded, “I don’t see
English, I see a jumble of languages. English, Arabic, Russian, the list goes
on. Some of the words are this Eutharan Language.”

Atlanta raised an eyebrow,
“Strange, the Eutharan Empire had people who
saw a
multilingual display. It was the way their brains worked.
Their minds constantly moved from language to language never settling on a
specific one. They were called Cyphers, they could learn and assimilate
languages rather quickly.”

“Sounds like my sis,” Jonathan
said. “She absorbs languages like crazy, and sometimes she will start speaking
one, and not realize it.”

“A Cypher is a very rare person.
Almost everyone throughout the entire universe held Cyphers in high regard.
They had special privileges, and could go anywhere, for any reason. They had
special ships that marked them as such. Attacking a Cypher, no matter the
status of the two empires, was instant death. I should say that other races had
Cyphers, too. However, they were more predominant in the Eutharan Empire,”
Atlanta smiled at Terri. “You have a rare talent. It is one you should seek to
expand. It will be very useful when we get the base operational. I’ll upload
some alien languages I have stored in my memory banks for you to learn. If you
can train your mind to think in one language, it will help with the computer
displays.”

Terri nodded as she stared at the
damaged section of the base.

“A few more things everyone needs
to know about nanites. The nanites will also help you understand a word painted
on a wall or written on a piece of paper. They do this through contact with the
main computer core; they do not store this information. What you see here on
the hologram isn’t really on the hologram it’s in your mind, translated for
you. Though each of you has a basic understanding of Eutharan, you still think
in English,” Atlanta said. “Another thing you need to learn is that you can use
the nanites to communicate with each other. Nanites relay the
conversation
through
a subspace transceiver. It is encrypted,
secure, and instant. No maximum range has ever been found. They also have
limited ability to control systems on the base; if you want a door open? Think
about the door opening. Want a display to come on? Think about it coming on.”

Engineering suddenly lit up and
Brad said, “Cool.”

Atlanta nodded at him, “They also
allow you to interact with the holographic displays, such as this image.”
Atlanta pointed at the damaged section of the base.

“Okay, teach us later,” Jonathan
said. He leaned in and reached up rotating the display so he could see the
damaged sections. “Let’s get this problem taken care of first. Besides, my
brain is about to explode with all this new information.”

“Yes, Commander,” Atlanta said.

She reached down to the table and
touched it lightly which brought up a hologram on the tabletop. Reaching down
again she touched a box with the word ‘copy’ in it, and flicked her finger at
Jonathan. The document copied itself and slid across the table to Jonathan, she
repeated the process until everyone had it. Jonathan rotated the image so he
could read it.

Scrolling across the screen was
information about how many compartments had been breached, the level of power
being generated and in reserve. Also listed was what had caused the
malfunctions to the pressure doors and itemized everything needed in order to
repair them.

“Wow, that’s a lot of damage,”
Mike said. “Twenty-two sections are flooded and the outer shell has been
breached. Is there a way to get a picture of the outside to see the extent of
the damage?”

“We could have used Research arm
two, but it’s flooded as well as arms four and six. We might be able to use the
shuttle or one of the drones. However, the drone would stress my power reserves
and the shuttle is not safe,” Atlanta said.

Jonathan looked up at Atlanta,
“Why is the shuttle dangerous?”

“I used it as a last resort to
save you. However it is way over its maintenance schedule, by a couple of
hundred years,” Atlanta said.

Mike sat down at the Engineering
station and pulled up the sub-routines that controlled the pressure doors. Code
scrolled across the screen as he pulled the information he needed from the data
uploaded by Atlanta. He reached up and touched a spot stopping the code. He ran
his finger across a spot, which highlighted the code, and sat back for a second
as he stared at it.

He reached over and pressed a
small button, which transferred the code to the main table. He then got up and
walked over.

Mike reached up and touched the
code suspended next to the hologram of the base, “This seems to be the main
problem with the doors.”

Atlanta duplicated the code and
pulled it down to the table while looking it over. She looked up at Jonathan as
she spoke.

“This does indeed look like what
caused the problem with the doors. During low power, and down times, the
maintenance bots don’t do maintenance on the doors. It’s to conserve power in
case of an emergency.”

“I can see the need in
prioritization in maintenance,” Jonathan said. “So, it’s not really a code
problem as much as a power problem. What level of power do we need to bring the
maintenance bots online? I don’t really want to have something like this happen
again.”

Brad reached up and touched the
hologram of the base making it zoom back out. He touched another spot and
pulled up the main core and Engineering section. It displayed its power output
as 35%.

“We have to get the power output
to at least 75% before the bots will come fully online. Some of the lesser bots
are already online and working, mainly cleaning bots, but that’s it. To do that
we have to purge the water in the lower levels of the core,” Brad said.

“Okay, how do we do that?” Terri
asked.

“Well, it looks like the pressure
doors actually worked and the surrounding area is free of water. I guess that
is a starting point. If we could rig some type of pump to pull the water from
the room and put it outside that would be the best bet,” Brad said. He reached
out and expanded the view of the lower section of the core.

“Hum, how would you do that? If
we open any door down there we will be flooded,” Jonathan asked.

“We could drop something over the
edge of this level here,” Brad said touching the hologram. “Then when the water
gets too far down we can move down to the next level. All we need are the
supplies to build the pump.”

Atlanta pointed at the hologram,
“Well those lower levels are where Engineering really is located. The computer
core and maintenance shops are down there too, along with bulk storage …”

“Wait,” Jonathan said. “Bulk
storage? How large are those rooms?”

“Why?” Brad asked. He looked up
at the hologram and it hit him. “Oh … OH! That’s not a bad idea at all.”

“What isn’t?” Mike asked.

Brad adjusted the hologram as he
spoke, “If we open the doors along here and directed the water to here.” He
pointed out the path and which rooms he was talking about routing the water
into for 'storage.' “There’s nothing in Mass Storage One and Four. It would let
enough of the water out we could bring the reactor up to full power and shut
down the secondary for maintenance. The bots, once online, would start their
maintenance routines and start patching leaks, like the one in the core room.”

Jonathan nodded as Atlanta’s eyes
widened a bit, “That just might work,” she said.

“One thing bothers me,” Andie
said. She was seated at the Medical station looking over various readouts. No
one had seen Andie move and her being at the medical station had surprised
them.

“What’s that, Andie?” Jonathan
asked.

“Well, where are all the people?
I mean there are no bodies anywhere, no signs of contamination of any kind. So
where did everyone go?” she asked as she turned the chair to face them.

Everyone then looked at Atlanta
as she said, “This very remote base. It did not always have personnel assigned
here. It was more of an outpost. They would come and work for a few years, and
then leave. They would repeat the cycle every so many years. Unfortunately, I
do not know what happened to them. My programs forced me to look for a
replacement, once they didn’t show after five hundred years. It took two
thousand years for your race to advance enough to actually be useful.”

Andie nodded, “Makes sense, I
guess. While you all work on getting the flooding under control, I’m going to
stay here and try to learn what I can about their medical advances. These
people and ours are very close genetically as far as I can tell. So I want to
learn as much as I can about their medical technology as possible. Never know
when we might need it.”

“I thought you could just pull up
what you need through the nanites,” Terri said.

Andie nodded, “Yes, I can. But,
there are some things it’s better to be prepared for before you need the
knowledge. I have had my first two years of medical college, but this stuff is
way beyond anything I studied. The nanites themselves have the capability to
heal the host. They will keep you from getting the common cold and help bones
mend faster. However, they can’t set the bones or replace large amounts of
missing tissue.

“I need time to find their limits
and to see how advanced this race was … what applies to us, and what doesn’t.
There’s a lot of information here, and I have to be able to make sense of it.
I’m still getting uploads of medical data. Sorting through it will take time.”

Jonathan nodded, “I can see what
you’re saying. It’s not like pulling out a diagram of the main reactor and then
looking up how to run a diagnostic on it.”

“Yeah, I might know the symptoms,
like a fever and shakes. But, how many different things does that apply to?
They had the benefit of growing up and learning all this, I didn’t. I might
recognize some things and not others. I have to try to learn as much as I can
without hands on experience,” Andie said.

“Okay, we’ll be working on
getting the reactor up to full power. If you need help call,” Jonathan said as
he tapped the side of his head.

Andie nodded as she stood up,
“I’m going to move back to Main Medical and work from there in case anyone is
injured. That way I’m already there and you won’t have to wait for me.”

Atlanta spoke up, “I have logged
Andie Hawkins as Chief Medical Officer (CMO). I have also logged Mike Anspach
as Computer Specialist First Class (CSF) and Brad Anspach as Chief Engineer
First Grade (CEF). Logging William Hawkins Lieutenant Commander of Base
Operations, I just need to
know Terri’s
interests.”

Everyone looked at Terri as she
blushed and sputtered, “I have no idea.”

“Well, then, I will just log you
as an Ensign, until we find something you like,” Atlanta said. Atlanta made a
sweeping motion. “All rank insignia have been changed to correspond with current
assignments.”