Chapter 15

The sphere we had just entered was dark with only dim emergency lights flickering above the airlocks, according to the map it was where I would find a spacesuit. The 6pack surrounded me with 3 in front and 3 more behind me, 2B and I were in the middle. This sphere had a number of small buildings in it, holding a number of items, from emergency spacesuits to battery packs and assorted tools needed to make emergency repairs to the station. There were a number of these spheres which were a part of the station, it was a testament to the design of the station, it had been built to be repaired if needed. We traveled across the sphere until we stopped near the far airlock next to a small building. I walked over to the door and opened it, observing the racks of suits hanging up. I grabbed the closest one and looked at it, shaped like a backpack with a rigid frame it was a white color with several straps on it.

Taking my time to figure out how it works I slipped it on and fastened the waist straps. Then I clicked on the 2 straps that crisscrossed my chest. In the middle where all the straps joined was a button. Pushing the button I heard a quiet hum begin and then felt a slight prickly feeling as I was covered in what looked like an orange energy haze. Within seconds the haze had solidified and I was encased in a suit of material, then with a click, I felt a small nudge near my neck and a helmet suddenly encased my head. Immediately a HUD appeared that showed energy levels and the air supply.

The tech was amazing, we humans had not progressed this far in our development of space suits, ours were still large and clunky, many of them were powered exoskeletal in nature to provide assistance in moving heavy and awkward items in space. The problem with heavy things was not so much the weight of the item but the mass. Once something heavy began to move it needs a lot of strength to control it, and that is what the exoskeletal suits provided. The suit I was wearing was designed to provide safety in an emergency, it was also equipped with several small rockets on the main body of the backpack that would fire a compressed gas to provide thrust. I was able to pull up the manual of the suit from the onboard computer, it was not an AI but was a complex interface computer. You would target your destination and the computer would take over flying you where you wanted to do.

The 6 pack crew did not need anything, they were fully combat ready in space or in an atmospheric setting. I affectionately looked at the beer cans and at 2B, we were as ready as we were going to be. We entered the airlock and cycled through to the outside of the station. I drifted out of the airlock and stared at the many spheres that were connected together. I could see into many of them, they contained living ecosystems, the life of the planet Mars. Many however were empty and dark, devoid of life and several showed structural damage. Fighting had taken place in many areas of the station, with the 2 separate races of Martians engaged in combat, one trying to save what they could of the planet and the other race following a mad religion of death and destruction, their only goal to destroy the station and all it contained.

The battle had been fierce with both sides taking losses until the stations AI had moved the station into a time-space vortex where time did not exist. Unfortunately, the AI had shut down or been damaged resulting in the station being stuck for hundreds of years. All living sentient beings had come to the end of their days leaving only droids to continue on the battle. My goal was to avoid the spheres containing any ASHOES droids and enter the station as close to the central command sphere, the command central where I hoped to access the stations AI and bring the station back to normal space. If that did not work it was on to plan B, I just wish I knew what the heck plan B was. If this did not work I was not sure what I would do, 8 years had passed me by and I needed to get back to normal space.

We entered next to command central and allowed our scanners to check through the damaged sphere. Fighting had been intense and the signs of damage were everywhere. We slowly made our way to the airlock that led to command central. As we passed through the tunnel we came to the entrance airlock that opened into the command sphere directly. It showed signs of damage with discolored metal and pockmarks on the frame. It had taken several direct hits from heavy energy beams. The ceiling showed the wreckage of swivel mounted energy beam weapons that had been deployed in the defense of the station. I was surprised at the fact that energy weapons had been used and yet the passageway was still intact.

“What do you think?”I asked, “Will we be able to get in through this airlock or are we going to have to go outside and try to cut our way into the sphere?” Looking at all the droids that surrounded me I was struck by the thought that a cyborg was leading a small group of droids, no biologicals involved. My game had certainly changed, it was now my life. As I stood there thinking about all this I realized that it was not all bad. I was rich in the game, richer than I had ever been in the real world. I owned property, had my own ship and had a claim on an abandoned Russian military base hidden in the asteroids.

In many ways I was doing well, sure I had lost a few levels but not enough for it to make a huge difference. I was stuck with 5 basic abilities but could find and use any future/ alien tech I could locate. Which is one of the reasons I wanted this station so badly, it was full of amazing tech, things like the spacesuit I had on. Once I had Noa properly reverse engineer it I would make a fortune on the stuff. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that I was basically a lab rat for the corporation. My musings were interrupted by a familiar weight around my shoulders, my Me’kima had returned. “Where were you, my little friend?” I asked. Instead of an answer, I was aware that the little beast was fast asleep. He seemed a little larger, he was growing.

2B called out to me at that moment, “Duke we have been analyzing the problem and unfortunately we do not see any way into the command center. The attackers could not blast their way in, nor can we. The entire sphere is armored and self-contained, it even has its own power supply. The hope was to bring the station out of this time loop and back to normal space. Unfortunately, we do not believe that will now be possible. However, we think that we have a solution to you returning to normal space. If we can access one of the shuttle bays, it may be possible to find an undamaged shuttle, with that you should be able to make the jump back to the solar system.”

2B stopped talking and I immediately began to consider what he had said. If the entrance to command central was blocked then this was my only choice. Returning with a shuttle was not what I had hoped for but at least I would get back and I knew where the portal was that could lead me back here. Calling out to the whole group I began to plan our trip to the shuttle bay. There were three of them, and all three were offline. We would have to make our way towards then to determine if anything could be salvaged or used. The nearest one was actually only a few spheres removed from command central.

Turning around we began to travel towards the spheres. Fortunately, we encountered no opposition to us and arrived at the shuttle bay. 2 of the 3 spheres we had traveled through had been damaged, with no life in them at all. The third one was a desert setting, with hardly any life visible, but 2B assured me that the sands held many life forms. It reminded me of Mars as it is now. Dry, dusty and both cold and hot. The only difference was the lack of wind. Leaving the last sphere we were soon at the final airlock. It showed no signs of damage and was still self-powered.

Pushing the button to open the airlock we waited as it cycled through and then entered the sphere. The sphere had been built in three levels with all of them open to a large space in the center. Each level contained several ships, many of which were damaged. There was a large jagged hole in the roof of the sphere, it looked like a torpedo had blasted its way in and then the secondary explosion took place. “2B, you are with me, the rest of you fan out and begin searching for a ship that is undamaged or can be easily repaired, Canadian, you are in charge. I will search the bottom level.”

2B and I began to walk the circumference of the room, stopping at each ship to observe the damage and make notes of what looked like it could be repaired and what could not. In the end we found one shuttle, that was not damaged, but unfortunately, it had been in for maintenance and would not be flying without some work. The two teams also had mixed results with only one other possible ship found. It had taken damage in the body of the ship. This area housed the crew's living space as will as the small hold. The shuttle was divided into three sections, the rear of the shuttle held the power plant, and generators needed to power the ship's ability to make wormholes and gravity fields.

The Martian ships did not use fusion drives or any other tech that Humans used with the exception of maneuvering rockets and they were for emergencies. Instead, the ship would create a constant stream of artificial miniature black holes whose gravitational pull would encase the ship. Just as the ship was about to enter the black hole, it would be powered down and another one would power up, This could lead to the ship moving at extraordinary speeds, in couple space. For travel to more distant spaces, the ship would create a field of black holes and then somehow use the gravitational forces created to fold space and time, which resulted in the ship traveling a great distance in a relatively short field of time.

The best way to visualize it is to see a sheet of paper. You are on one end and your destination of on the other. Now if you fold the paper in half, you and your destination are very close to each other. You just need a way to fold the paper or in real life space and time. If you can do that then it is a simple matter of entering an opening and popping out another one at your destination. Of course, there is nothing simple about the actual math and mechanics of how it is done. Human tech was not at the point where this was possible, Martian tech was, simple as that. The space station was stuck in between these 2 points in space and time and until it could be brought back online it would remain where it was, in its own pocket universe.

The shuttle, on the other hand, could still travel, its generators capable of opening up a wormhole and allowing for the shuttle to get back into normal space. At least that was my hope. We began by going over the shuttle in fine detail noting all the structural damage as will as what was needed for internal repairs. The job was simple to outline but complicated to do. All the holes had to be sealed, and the unified platform that the shuttle was built on strengthened. If the shuttle buckled from the gravitational pull that it would be subjected to, that would be the end. The wiring also had to be gone over, while all spaceships were designed with redundancy by having triple wiring, and Martian ships were no different from Earth ship's in this regard, a short or an improper ground might cause feedback to the computers running the ship.

The main batteries of the ship had discharged over the centuries, the ship had been on an umbilical cord, piggybacking the space shuttles power while docked but this sphere had not had power for a long time. The first thing to do was to make sure the wiring repairs were completed. I had 2B call up NTB the repair droid and direct him to the shuttle deck. Once he arrived I explained what we needed. NTB immediately began to scan the shuttle and connect sensors and power packs to different ports.

Being curious I asked, “What are you doing?” NTB swiveled a camera to focus on me as he continued to work then he spoke, Speaking in Earth terms, I am measuring the resistance of the flow of electrons within each circuit. I am making sure that the resistance is within specifications, and that if there is a fault I can isolate each circuit to and trace the fault to either repair or replace whatever is needed. I am also running diagnostics at each junction and at each microcontroller. Plus there are thousands of what you call NPN and PNP switches. I am making sure that they are functioning in both sinking and sourcing actions. I am also doing a myriad of checks on all the batteries and capacitors to make sure they are functioning within spec.”

I interrupted NTB at this point as my interest was rapidly decreasing. “Tell me how long till the shuttle will be ready to undergo a power test. It is important to make sure that we don’t throw all our resources into this repair job and then find that there was hidden damage that can’t be repaired. If that is the case then we must move on the next shuttle bay. Thinking of this I called out to Corona who was passing by with a sheet of metal. “I am delegating you to try to make your way to the remaining shuttle bays if it is safe to get to them, enter and explore then report back to me if any of the shuttles are in better shape.”

Having done what I could to make sure that I had my bases loaded, I moved out of the way, the droids were working at a fast pace scavenging items and moving things, I would be in the way if I tried to help. Calling out to 2B I said, “Can you download the pilot's manual and flight sim for me to review, it will give me something to do as I wait here?” Once it was downloaded I began to review it and then spent the next 25 hours running a virtual sim on piloting the shuttle. Having an advanced CPU for a brain was opening all kind of opportunities for learning for me.