Chapter 4

Carl was excited. It was his first leave and a long-overdue chance to get off the ship and see what being a galactic citizen actually felt like. He had spent more than an Earth year as a member of the crew aboard the Merboran, a Bedaxa Corporation class two scout vessel (survey class), serving as the vessel’s ‘Dunkarian’ expert and was more than ready for a break. He still couldn’t believe the vel (the standard 32 earth hour long Unidar day) had finally arrived as he excitedly stepped through the large cargo airlock and into the cramped looking hold of the waiting shuttle.

Quickly walking over to the spot against the rear bulkhead identified by the glowing hologram displayed in his retinal display (and on the holo screen on his wrist that he didn’t even look at), Carl turned and watched as some of his crewmates pushed a few remaining items across the threshold beside him. Once the cargo was positioned over the correct place on the deck, they disengaged the tissue box-sized hover blocks from which the loads had been suspended and secured everything in place, all under the disinterested eye of the shuttle’s loadmaster.

Shaking his head, Carl couldn’t believe that he now didn’t think twice about the ‘miraculous’ technology behind something as simple as the hover blocks. Even though they were merely everyday items to him and everyone in the Unidar, he found them really cool and couldn’t contain his desire – he wanted one. ‘Oh, the things I could use it for!’ he mused as thoughts of moving cords of wood, or an engine block or all the groceries from the trunk to the kitchen in one go, danced in his head. With that simple thought the schematics for the standard Mark 2 CM425 appeared in Carl’s vision and, blinking rapidly, he suddenly knew all of the associated performance metrics including load, lift tolerances, scanning resolution, containment field parameters, energy consumption and even service life.

Having a built-in anti-gravity field generator capable of lifting close to two metric tons, the little box used a variation of a suppressor field to suspend whatever items you wanted below it – just place the box on top and the unit would scan everything between it and the deck and wrap a field around it before lifting everything exactly 6.82 inches (apparently the Unidar standard hatch had a lip 6.78 inches tall ... if it had a lip at all). What Carl really loved was that the hover block scanned the load and rather than just pulling up from the ‘bottom’, it lifted every item individually by wrapping a field around it, so nothing suffered the strain of the weight of whatever was on top of it. Yet the device still lifted everything as a group so that the load stayed exactly as it had been put together throughout the move and even changes in momentum, whether caused by changes in the direction of gravity or by jostling, would not cause the load to shift.

With a quick wave, all but the three others crew members returned to the research vessel and the two heavy hatches began to cycle closed. At the urging of his friend Drallix, Carl activated the suppressor field that would hold him in place in the passenger compartment/cargo hold of the stealth shuttle during the short trip between the Merboran and the Cyaaara, a Bullmarian Anaaati-class cargo ship that apparently was currently sitting at the lagrange point on the opposite side of the sun waiting for the shuttle’s return. That ship would be their ride to the nearest Unidar outpost, which to Carl’s delight was close (galactically speaking) - located inside the habitable zone around what on Earth would have been called Proxima Centauri. According to Drallix, once they had transferred aboard the Cyaaara, it would take them about 5 vels (approximately one Earth week) to travel the approximately 4.3 light years. To Carl’s surprise, he had learned that most of that time would be taken up slowly and stealthily departing the Dunkar system ... wouldn’t be right upsetting the entire Dunkarian civilization by allowing them to spot an extraterrestrial spaceship and rubbing their faces in the fact that they weren’t alone in the galaxy.

Having spent countless hours in his waking free time studying everything he could about the wider galactic community, Carl knew that most vessels in the galactic union, including small shuttles like this one, were equipped with artificial gravity generators and inertial dampeners as standard equipment. The gravity systems were easily tunable to the optimal, species-normal gravity for those aboard the vessel, and on larger vessels, the gravity was adjustable by sections within the ships. The most expensive and luxurious transports and stations took that flexibility down to the extreme; while most of the ship was tuned to the gravity of the predominant species aboard, a massive array of field generators built into the decks, bulkheads and overheads could create rolling gravity ‘hotspots’ that delivered ‘home’ gravity for any individual who required more or less gravity than the preset norm. It was for that reason he was puzzled by the need to do the high-tech equivalent of ‘strapping in’ and turned to his crewmate and friend with a raised eyebrow.

Seeing his look while activating his own field, Drallix chuckled softly. “Zhe stealth field generator iz razer large and takes up a significant amount of room. Because of zhis vessel’s size, trade-offs had to be made. Vith zhe need to trawel betveen our ship and the resupply shuttle visout been seen by the Dunkarians, vhat little room iz left over besides zhis space for passengers and supplies is taken up by the stealth technology...”

After briefly opening his mouth Carl shut it again and simply nodded his head in understanding. In the microseconds between his beginning to form his question to Drallix and it actually coming out of his mouth, his implant showed him just how much room the stealth technology required and how it specifically fit in this vessel with a detailed schematic of the scout ship. The stealth generator did in fact take up most of the space not left for crew, supplies and passengers aboard this class of shuttle. As a result, it was too small for its own artificial gravity generator and was only equipped with a weak inertial dampener.

“Well, this should be fun” Carl replied to the curious look he received from Drallix before flicking over to the outside cameras on his retinal display so he could watch their departure, his hands reflexively swiping open the holo screen on his wrist. He still used the holo screen in public and wore his neural headset when he worked as he and Drallix had determined it was best to keep everyone else in the dark about the fact that Carl had been ‘augmented.’ It was not that retinal displays and the associated neural implants were illegal for galactic citizens; in fact, they were quite legal and very common. They were just not approved for use by non-galactic citizens and as such, all ‘who-mans.’ Apparently despite the fact that he was now officially a citizen, and not for a lack of trying on his part, they would “never be approved for use by ‘lesser beings’ such as humans” according to a very angry Captain Armoniel.

Looking over at his travel companion, he once again thanked his lucky stars that he’d been fortunate enough to become friends with the Cretelian. That friendship, and his status as a galactic citizen and member of the crew aboard a scientific research vessel had been the reason why Drallix had agreed to do the installation. Well, that and the fact that the results from all the assessments Drallix had done had the good doctor thrilled by the potentially huge payday the two ‘vorms’ represented. Carl’s race on the other hand, was the reason the implantation procedure happened in his quarters and why no one else other than the two of them knew it had been done.

It had taken Carl a few days of practice to be able to use the implant seamless and unobtrusively alongside his neural headset and wrist holo. It had taken even more time and effort to set it up so that the regular work and operations that he was doing with it looked to everyone - including to his surprise and delight the ship’s virtual intelligence - as if he were doing them exclusively via the holo and headset. Something about spoofing his digital tracks just seemed to come naturally - like breathing - he just didn’t seem to have to even pay conscious attention to doing it. Drallix had been surprised by how fast Carl had taken up the implant and was relieved that none so far were the wiser. But for that very reason the Cretellian had to restrain his innate curiosity and refrain from doing any detailed analysis of his friend’s brain, as the main medical scanning devices were permanently connected to the galactic network and protocol dictated any scans of a Dunkarian were to be uploaded to the Unidar information collective ... the Merboran 4 was after all a science vessel whose mission was to study Dunkarians.

Before the last resupply run Drallix had ‘accidentally’ requisitioned and received a new, top of the line implant while ordering a replacement for the standard unit he had used for one of the crew from the ship’s stock. Having logged the new unit in as a standard unit and absentmindedly ‘forgetting’ to input its registration code, Drallix now carried the ‘defective’ unit – so denoted in the medical bay’s records should anyone look – and to speed the replacement of the necessary bit of medical kit, he had official business as part of his leave to personally pick up and bring back a new one on this trip. The money they hoped they would be making on the sale of the worms, which currently resided as part of Drallix’s medical supplies in his ‘official’ luggage, would easily cover the cost difference between the advanced unit in Carl’s head and the new standard device whose registration code would get filled into the med-bay’s database as soon as they returned – with the appropriate post-dated time entry courtesy of Carl.

With a loud thunk, Carl felt his stomach lurch as the shuttle disengaged from the ship that had been his only home since he’d been taken from Earth, abruptly leaving the artificial gravity it had shared while mated. Suddenly he was pressed back against the wall as the anti-gravity drive engaged, accelerating them directly away from Earth and towards the sun.

Cycling through the various available external viewer feeds, Carl watched in fascination as they pulled rapidly away from Earth, noting that the Merboran was nowhere to be seen, though he swore he saw sunlight glinting off the solar panels of the International Space Station as the planet receded into the distance. Rapidly tiring of the rather similar views of the stars on most of the feeds, Carl swiped his holo closed and mentally shut down access to the ship’s viewer feeds, automatically setting his implant to the Earth equivalent of ‘airplane mode’ and closed his eyes.

He was excited, anxious and a bit fearful at the same time he realized. True, he was as on vacation but at the same time his leave was shorter than normal. The captain’s message, conveyed through First Officer Pooz, indicated it was due to his not having achieved his first full Unidar rale of service. A galactic standard rale or galactic year was approximately 1.5 earth years long (its duration based upon one rotation of the Malakaian home world around its star) and Carl had still not achieved that milestone. So, while he could not argue that point, at least thanks to Pooz and her advocacy, his full pay for the time he had put in aboard the Merboran had finally been released.

Carl shook his head. He still wasn’t sure why, but the captain seemed to be holding him back at every opportunity and while he hadn’t seen much of him, every interaction made him like the smug bastard less and less. At least Pooz seemed to be on his side. While never openly opposing the captain and always following regulations to the letter, she had managed to upgrade his leave request to the maximum allowable amount of time due for the true number of vel he had served and had assured him that she would make sure he was credited with his full allotment on his one rale anniversary. Thinking about the roots of why the Unidar rale was as long as it was, Carl found it equally hilarious and satisfying that the captain’s home planet was smaller than Earth, though it resided a similar distance away from its similarly sized star. It even traveled slower, taking 420 vel or 560 Earth days to orbit its sun. Perhaps, Carl thought with a chuckle, the captain was compensating for this and perhaps other shortcomings.

Opening his eyes and glancing at Drallix, Carl felt a pang of guilt. He really did feel bad that his interactions had put his friend, and by extension his friend’s family, in a potentially precarious position, but he hoped that the sale of the worms would enable him to pay him back for everything he’d done to help Carl assimilate. Closing his eyes once again, Carl knew that initially Drallix had likely agreed to keep the worms a secret more for the payday than anything else. He reveled however in the fact that since that time, their friendship had grown and he was confident that the secret of the worms and the implant were a safe as could be. Carl trusted the Cretellian with his life and would not trade their friendship for anything.

Carl awoke with a start and realized Drallix was speaking to him.

“ ... and ve vill soon be entering zhe docking bay. You can see zhe hatch opening in zhe lower right quadrant.” Expecting excitement, Drallix was puzzled by the lack of response and turned to see his friend open his eyes. “Carl, are you going to activate your wrist holo?”

Shaking his head and quickly rubbing his eyes, Carl swiped open his holo. “Yup ... thanks. Guess I fell asleep.” Activating his implant while accessing the forward visual feed via both devices, the view popped up on his retinal display before he even finished manipulating the view on his wrist. Momentarily stunned, he could only stare at the scene before him. The Cyaaara was not what he had expected at all; it was a giant matte grey ball with a shimmering white haze covering a fairly large octagonal opening in its lower left side. As they drew closer, he saw the ship was not a smooth sphere but rather had a wild array of bumps, lines and protrusions of all shapes and sizes pointing in every possible direction. Even as he wondered about the shape and began to think about how it might impact how it flew, he immediately ‘knew’ three things compliments of his implant.

One, the Cyaaara was never intended for atmospheric flight so the exterior was constructed with no consideration for aerodynamics and every consideration for maximum interior volume. Two, the anti-gravity drive manipulated gravitational fields so was omnidirectional and unlike traditional human spacecraft propulsion, did not require any type of expulsion ports, fixed or otherwise to move. And three, the spherical shape was one of the most prolifically reported UFO shapes in earth records.

That last very human-centric piece of information surprised him as he thought he would be out of range of his tap into Earth’s internet, especially considering he was on the other side of the sun from the Merboran’s virtual intelligence.

The words <Connection to Dunkarian data systems at 98%> flashed briefly at the bottom of his retinal display before disappearing.

Both curious and alarmed, Carl immediately commanded his implant to not connect to the Internet or any other Earth-based computer systems until further notice. Safe in the knowledge that no one on the Merboran would be alerted by a future connection to the internet from the other side of the sun, he got down to figuring out what was going on. Swiping quickly on his wrist holo, he confirmed that it was currently connected to the shuttle which provided access to the broader Unidar public data systems. While it did have broader Unidar-wide access, he saw that he would have to interface with the craft’s VI and provide his official research authentication to even establish a secure link to the Merboran’s VI, let alone access its connection to the human Internet. How the hell was his implant providing him access without any of those steps?

Suddenly feeling gravity return, Carl switched back to the external viewer feed on his retinal display just as the shuttle passed through the hazy white field and entered a cave-like hangar bay. Crowded across the limited space on the floor looked to be no less than a dozen craft of various configurations including four silver ‘saucers’, once again confirming the success of one Alpha Centauri-based space conglomerate. But something was odd about how the ships were laid out Carl thought as their shuttle swung about and landed with a solid thunk. The ship settled as the suspension in the landing gear took up the weight of the craft with a mild creaking noise and Carl, with a pavlovian response born of too many trips aboard an airplane, released his suppressor field as he would his seat belt at the sound and feel of the plane stopping at the terminal gate. But a hand on his shoulder stopped him from stepping forward.

“Vait a moment Carl.” Drallix gave his best reassuring look as his who-man friend looked at him quizzically. There was a sudden lurch and Carl shot his arms out and bent his knees to keep his balance as the whole ship seemed to drop before once more settling on its suspension.

“What the hell was that?” Carl looked around, noticing the other passengers chuckling at his reaction and the smile on Drallix’s face, and soon was smiling himself.

“Bullmarians are quite pragmatic. Once they encountered favorable relations with a variety of other species they found it was often easier to bring the ship to the level of the floor rather than mess around with all kinds of ramps and stairs.”

Finally understanding what had been missing, Carl felt like smacking himself in the head. “So that is what looked odd about all the other ships parked in the landing bay ... they were all partially submerged into the floor.”

“Exactly.” Removing his hand from his friend’s shoulder, Drallix disengaged his suppressor field and stepped toward the external hatch just as it began spiraling open.

Noticing no one else was grabbing their things, Carl paused next to cargo that was still secured in its own suppressor fields. “Hey, what about our gear? Don’t we have to...”

Pausing just outside of the ship, Drallix simply waved for his friend to join him.

A little concerned about leaving their ‘cargo’ behind Carl had just managed to mutter “Okay, I guess not” when he smelled the air wafting in from the hangar. It was amazing! Quickly exiting the shuttle he stopped just outside the threshold and couldn’t seem to figure out what to process first. The air smelled like a tropical forest after a rainstorm with lots of lightening ... warm, moist and with that fresh ozone smell. The floor he noted, glancing down, matched up to the hull of the shuttle as if it were one perfectly even floor with virtually no hint of a seam, and as he thought about crouching down to take a closer look a dozen flat blue disks glided along the deck in perfect formation toward his feet, making him take a cautious step backwards.

Taking the human by the shoulder, Drallix guided him to the side and away from the hatch, allowing the disks, which had temporarily come to a nervous and jittery looking pause due to the obstruction, continued on their way into the shuttle.

“Come on Carl, get out of the way and let the vlar do zheir work. Zhe loadmaster vill vant to get everyzhing out of zhe ship so he can finish securing the vessel. Zhe Bullmarians vont get zhe Cyaaara underway with an active antigravity propulsion system in zhere hangar.” Seeing his human compatriot’s eyes darting rapidly from one new sight to another, Drallix couldn’t help but chuckle. Putting on his best ‘serious’ face, he smacked Carl in the arm.

“Hey, stop acting like a fucking rube just off zhe boat and stop plastic necking or zhe natives are gonna’ fleece you for all you are worth!”

“What...?” Carl’s rapid thoughts screeched to a halt and he looked at his friend in surprise. “Did you just call me a rube just off the boat?” Seeing the corners of Drallix’s mouth start to turn up, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay ... I’ll try to stop RUBBER necking so I don’t stick out so bad, but I figure as a human, I might stick out none the less. Plus, don’t most species think Dunkarians are the galactic equivalent of imbeciles anyway?”

Wrapping a reassuring arm around Carl’s shoulder, Drallix began walking him across the hangar towards the exit. “Of course not ... our average imbeciles are far more intelligent and socially advanced.”

Carl laughed and realized he was already feeling more comfortable and ... awake, alive and excited. ‘Wow,’ he thought. ‘There must be something about this vessel that is special ... I feel like I could do anything!’ As they crossed the hangar, Carl decided to be a bit less obvious with his gawking and skipped asking Drallix the dozens of questions bouncing around his head. Instead, he quickly accessed his implant and ... knew the answers. Vlar were Bullmarian equivalents of the hover blocks and instead of being relatively ‘dumb’ tools that attached to the top of loads and needed to be guided, they were semi-autonomous units that carried loads from below. The hanger floor of the Cyaaara’s three hangars were comprised of 847.582 trillion octagonal shaped pillars that could be independently raised or lowered more than 15 meters to not only bring most airlocks level with their surface, but also cradle each vessel securely in place. Wondering about how maintenance could be done when half a shuttle was ‘under’ the floor, various moving ‘images’ sprang up in his mind and Carl was impressed with how the pillars could be manipulated to actually roll a vessel in place and hold it in virtually any position desired.