The Space Between The Stars
CHAPTER 1
Travel log of Lieutenant Override
Officer Rank 6, Droid Operations
TRAVERSAL 2486353.92078
In the space between the stars, there is no time. Only distance. And deep, everlasting darkness.
It has been ten days since the Sentinels awakened me from cryo-sleep. Ten days since my new name and rank were revealed. I rose from my cryo-pod, refreshed, and donned my assigned exosuit. My new skin for this spacebound life I am now to live. My new identity.
There are nine of us now. Nine members of this DOJI crew, awake and repurposed. Tasked now with only one mission: To find a new planet, to build a new home, to begin a new people.
My memory returns to me slowly, aided by the ship's archives and travel logs. I do not remember much of my life before, nor do the others. Our focus now is only on the mission. Of salvaging our future, not recollecting the past. Whatever it was that befell us before the launch, it is irrelevant. Only the survival of our people matters now, and the lives of those in the remaining cryo-pods yet to be opened. Only once we have found our new home, our promised land, will we be free to revel in our memory of the past.
Until that time, we move only forward. Always onward, never backward. This journey will be a major change for our culture, a transformation of our existence. It is a shift in our momentum, and we can never go back.
CHAPTER 2
Travel log of Commodore Buzz
Officer Rank 8, Fleet Operations, Command
TRAVERSAL 2486355.18237
I remember fire. And smoke. A planet spiraling into destruction. Whatever it was that befell our world I do not know. I know only the ball of flame diminishing into the distance as I fell into an icy slumber.
Now we are here, light-years from home, on a mission to save our species. Just one fleet of a dozen or more, searching the cosmos for a suitable world to settle. I expect many of the fleets will fail, and fall to eternal rest adrift in endless space. But some, perhaps, will find a suitable exoplanet to colonize. When that happens, my only hope is that the signal of their beacon will be strong enough to reach the other fleets, that we may all converge together once more.
My new name and rank have been revealed to be Commodore Buzz. Such a high level of responsibility I did not expect, yet I shall rise to the challenge. I must, for the sake of my people. The Sentinel automatons got us away from the planet aboard the Javelin, but we the people must do the rest. The arks have been ejected and the Javelin now lies dormant, its purpose fulfilled. The Commander has taken the helm of this ark, Leviathan 7-2, and as per standard operating procedure I am to convene with the captains of the fleet to relay his orders. However there is only one captain yet awakened, Captain Cullen. I shall relay to him the details of our mission for now, and once more captains are awakened I shall brief them as well. Strangely, the reawakening protocol has been slow.
Now our course has been charted, the navigational computers programmed. All that remains is to engage the engines and begin our search in earnest. Endless space lies before us, and somewhere therein, our destination.
But even now, moving forward, I shall never forget the sight of my planet in flames.
CHAPTER 11
The droid bay was dark, lit only by emergency lighting flashing on and off in shades of yellow and red that shone from wall-mounted laser diode lamps. The only sound was the mechanical thrum of a malfunctioning clamp in one of the housing units, a series of large steel cabinets with brackets, beams, and cables for storing and recharging inactive droids. The clamp opened and shut, jolting erratically as it grasped for the missing droid that was no longer there. There were thirty such units lining the mortared walls on either side of the bay, each containing a unique droid of various shape, size, and color. All except the one.
Lt. Override stepped cautiously through the bay, the heavy soles of his boots padding softly against the laminated steel flooring. The lighting reflected off of his glossy blue composite-coated carbon fiber exosuit, shining in alternating hues of violet and green as the emergency lamps slowly flashed in sequence. He came to a stop before the malfunctioning housing unit, the bright blue-irised cycloptic eyeball illuminated across the LED-mesh optical array of his faceplate glancing about as he searched for evidence of the droid that should have been there. It was an empty rack, no machine clamped into its brackets, no power cables jacked into its ports.
“Empty,” Override muttered to himself, flipping a heavy switch to deactivate the jolting clamp. He sighed, trying to fight back the anxiety that was creeping up the back of his neck. Something was not right here, and he knew it. He was responsible for these droids, and one of them going missing without his knowledge had to be a sign of misconduct or foul play. With all of the chatter amongst the crew of conspiracy and treason, it was not a stretch to guess what could have happened here.
As he stood there, dwelling on all the possible explanations for a droid being unaccounted for, his thoughts began to drift. The anxiety was turning to gloom, and Override soon began to feel almost as empty as the housing unit he was standing before. He sighed again, deeper this time, the tired eyes inside his helmet glazing over in oscillating shades of yellow and red. His thoughts drifted to a time before the droid bay. A time before warp travel in a foreign sky. A time before the DOJI.
* * *
NULL WAS HERE, read the tag, layered on the concrete slab in oversprayed swaths of blue, purple, and green. The youth ran quickly from the scene, satisfied with the hastily painted urban mural that he had left on the side of the genetics processing plant. Null laughed, amused by his act of mischief, tossing an empty spray can into an alley as he ran, the clink, clank, clunk echoing behind him, masking the other clink, clank, clunk that awaited him around the next corner. He rounded the rotunda outside the Princeps Freedom Hall and skidded to a halt on the heels of his bright blue Freerunner KiX as he found himself face to face with a Commonwealth Law Enforcement Sentinel.
“Halt, vandal,” the Sentinel said in a distorted generative voice, a hydraulic leg clanking as it stomped on the ferroconcrete sidewalk. The tall figure wore a black and gray skintight uniform over an androgynous faux-skin facade, a plasma pistol glowing green in the holster at their hip and a black ballistic helmet resting on a head of bright red slicked back hair. Red pinpoint LED eyes pierced through the shadows beneath their brow, trained on the boy with an inhuman authoritative gaze. It was the first Sentinel that young Null had ever seen. He was both terrified and enthralled, anxious and obsessed.
* * *
Override stared at the empty housing unit, pondering the missing droid. He had spent his entire career on Figlandia working in robotics, inspired by that first encounter with a Sentinel, aspiring to do something great and help create the next world-changing technology. But that opportunity never came. He completed his education, he found a high-paying robotics engineering job, started to make a name for himself… and then the perforated prefrontal glioblastoma took root.
Three years of treatments, a dozen near-death experiences, four comas, and one risky cybernetics augmentation. It was only then, after having his head filled with tech, that his body chemistry was normalized and he could get his life back on track, starting with the robotics job at the Commonwealth Central Reactor. But of course, the universe always has a plan of its own, and it wasn't long before the reactor was destroyed and the planet scorched. Then there were no more jobs to get, no more technology to innovate. No more world to change.
“And here I am, fixing broken droids and tracking down runaways,” Override said to himself, focusing again on the droid housing unit before him. He turned his attention to the touchscreen interface on the front of the unit and swiped a finger, sighing as he scanned through the lines of code that filled the activity log. He stopped at the final line, reading a particular string of words that struck his interest.
“Question,” Override said to no one in particular. “What is the D-MONIK Protocol?”
A monotone voice replied as a green light illuminated from above. “Unknown,” it said, as a small yellow orb-shaped droid slowly levitated down from an upper housing unit near the ceiling, a small combustion thruster churning as it kept the bot afloat at chest-level. It was ART-26z, the small operations droid that maintained the bay and offered assistance to crew when needed. “That protocol is not recorded in the Technical Operations Manual. Elevation of the inquiry may be required.”
“Thank you, Arty,” Override said, acknowledging the droid. “Which droid was housed here?”
“This is the housing unit of DRGN-86, a load-lifting and freight assistance droid deployed on heavy labor tasks.”
“What was its last command? The log is no longer tracking activity. It only shows that the droid was delegated to the D-MONIK Protocol, and it ends there.”
“Standby, processing now,” Arty replied, it's round white LED-meshed eyes flashing green as it's internal processor hummed.
While Override waited for an answer, he turned his helmeted head and peered down the length of the bay, eyeing each of the dormant, sleeping droids as they sat snugly ensconced in their housing units. There was a long, red, cigar-shaped protocol droid, a short and stout blue cleaner droid, and a gray, bucket-shaped laser-welder droid, among others. A wide array of mechanical servants all created with very different and very specific purposes. As he pondered the droids, he thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking further over his shoulder, Override eyed the droids on the other side of the room, but the only movement he saw was the slow flashing of the emergency lights.
So many droids, he thought, seeing such a wide range of colors and shapes. That's what we are now, we DOJI. Just a bunch of droids. Bags of meat stuffed inside our own droid casing. Rote servants. But who do we serve?
He thought of that Law Enforcement Sentinel he saw on the streets of Centris City. The heavy artillery Spider Tank he saw in the holos fighting off Dissidents in the Holstadt Standoff. The articulated construction droids assembling the Javelin at the Redalgo Space Center. The green-haired Sentinel Assistants commercially produced by Polygon Automation.
So many innovative robotics advancements and technological achievements to aspire to. Null had both the education and the skills to contribute to those kinds of global innovations, but had lacked the opportunities to join in their development. And now, as Lt. Override, he maintained a cadre of low-level error-prone service bots. Not exactly the world-changing role he had been hoping for.
Empty, he thought again. But he didn't mean the housing unit. The cycloptic eyeball on his LED-mesh faceplate collapsed into a thin horizontal line, emulating his actual eyes as he shut them inside his helmet and exhaled. He felt the weight of an extended wake window, of stimulants losing efficacy, and the anxiety of a looming conspiracy that could strangle fleet operations at any moment. Sometimes he wished he could abscond in a Kingfisher-class escape pod and jettison himself into the nearest star system, just to get away from it all.
There was a ding as Arty's eyes flashed white again, and Override turned his attention back to the droid.
“Strange,” Arty said, it's thought process finished. “It appears the droid DRGN-86 was given a new identifier key, which is why the activity log is no longer tracking it. The name of the droid is now DEMN-86, and it is currently no longer aboard this Leviathan-class vessel.”
“No longer aboard the ark?” Override repeated, confused. “What do you mean? We're getting ready to go to warp. Everything should be docked.”
“It appears the droid has left the fleet aboard one of the Atlas-class freighters from carrier Whale-3 and is currently on a vector toward Sector 8.”
“Wait,” Override said, incredulous, his brightly-lit cycloptic optical array blinking in bewilderment. “It… did what?”
* * *
In a far corner of the droid bay, a small red light flickered on in the darkness. An eye, it's crimson LED trained on the bright blue exosuit of Lt. Override, watching as the crewman conversed with the small yellow droid that hovered at his side. A black-clad figure crept stealthily between the housing units, keeping to the shadows under the oscillating emergency lights, out of the DOJI's visual range. A gleam of metal shone beneath their glowing eye, the overhead lights flashing and reflecting off of the cybernetic skull partially exposed beneath the torn flesh of a stoic face, framed by bright green hair. The lurker crouched, under cover behind a dark red droid directly behind the lieutenant, a small plasma pistol held at the ready.
“Something must be done,” they overheard the DOJI say. “Arty, come with me to the Command Deck and report this to the Commodore.”
The Sentinel lifted the pistol, training it on the DOJI's blue helmet.
The emergency lights flashed on, then off. And in the brief darkness, the bright green burst of a plasma blast. Sparks, and the sizzling screech of super-heated steel.
