Chapter 1

Year Unknown.

Location Unknown.

U.S.S. Endurance

Earth deep space automated research vessel.

I awoke slowly, I had no idea where I was, it was dark, my body seemed to be in a confined space I was strapped down by something, I started to struggle against my restraints. Finally something broke, I was able to move my arm, I tore the restraints from my body, that left the casing above me, I begun to push with no results, I tried to scream for help for several hours with no answer.

"screw this."

I began to punch at the metal in front of me, to my surprise I felt no pain, even more startling is the metal began to give way, I continued to punch until I had made a hole large enough for me to squeeze through, I ended up floating out into some kind of storage room, I looked around having no idea what this place was.

I was naked floating into the air, I looked down at myself, nothing seemed familiar about my own body, I looked at my hand, it some how felt foreign to me, that was when I noticed something, I wasn't breathing. I began to panic trying to suck in air, there was no atmosphere in the storage room, it was several minutes of me gasping before I understood that I didn't need the air.

I tried to speak but with our air I simply felt my throat vibrate, I grabbed a shelf to steady my self, slowly taking in my surroundings, I was in a dark storage room, I made my way to the door, I tried to open it but the mechanism had no power. I was able to force the door open with my bare hands, the hall way beyond was just as dark and empty, I floated out into it, looking I could see the hall way went for several meters in either direction both leading to another set of doors on either end.

I debated which way to go, taking a moment I went to my right, I still had no idea where I was or how I had gotten here, I was growing more disturbed by the minute, I deduced I was in space because of the zero gravity, that was another thing, I had generalized knowledge, but I had no personal memories or experiences, I touched my head it didn't hurt, I didn't have a head injury.

I floated to the end of the hallway, looking for a way to open the door, I located a panel on the side of the door, I was able to open it finding a manual crank for the door. I braced my self and began to turn it, from the amount of tension in the crank I could feel the large mass of the door move, it was a very thick door, slowly it opened as I turned it, eventually the opening was wide enough for me to squeeze through.

What I found on the other end was some kind of engine room, as I looked it over I discovered I knew the design, the information was in my memories some how, I also knew how to get it working again. I went to work, replacing parts on the reactor, I had to go back to the storage room to retrieve spare parts, I figured I needed to at least have power to figure out where I was or what had happen to me.

Several hours late I was ready to turn the reactor on, I braced myself as I activated it, slowly the ships systems came on line, I felt the gravity kick in, the lights came on and I was able to see myself in the reflection of the reactors control panel, I was not human, I could see myself, I was humanoid that was sure, but I was strangely androgynous, I felt myself I lacked any external reproductive organs, my face could pass for female or that of a young man, maybe an adolescences, the rest of me was flat and plain.

I stood there staring at myself, I felt the air hit me as the atmosphere returned, I took in a sharp intake of breath instinctively, some thing was very wrong, I didn't know what I was, I sat at the ships terminal and began to type, looking for any information I could find, the first thing I noticed was that the ships log stopped recording some time ago, the ships reactor had failed some years after communications had been severed. The ship used a quantum tether to maintain contact with its base, some 200 years before the reactor failed the connection had been lost, and an unnumbered amount of years had passed before I had awoken.

I shook my head, what the hell was going on, I looked into the log of the ship and found that there was no crew listed, the ship had been launched as an automated exploration vessel, if there was no crew than what the hell was I, was I some kind of alien, what the hell was I doing here, I started looking through the ships stores. I knew what most of the items were, I knew the purpose of most of the equipment on the ship, everything one the ship was for exploration.

I looked into the log of communication from earth, the last communication mentioned something about an external conflict and the orders for the ships a.i. to turn around and return to earth, I saw the orders the a.i. had given the ship, the orders listed something about reactor maintenance to be performed by the advance research golem, I tried to remember anything about golems, I drew a blank, but I slowly started looking back and forth between the ships reactor and the message.

I looked around, I figured the a.i. core to be at the other end of the ship, I need to activate it to figure out what was going on, double checked the reactors to see the ship had begun to move on its own power again. I turned and walked out of the engine room, heading down the hall, the door on the opposite end opened up to a large computer core, again I knew what to do to activate it.

I started to the process to restart the a.i. I watched as the console slowly came active, I noticed the a.i. start a review process of all the ships systems, I watched while it started to go through star charts to determine our location, it seemed to be ignoring me.

"Ahem" I said.

Nothing.

"Hey!" I said.

"Excuse me but whats going on?" I asked.

I watched the a.i. stop its processes.

"You may return to storage" a female voice came over the intercom.

"Um no." I said.

"You are no longer needed, the reactor has been restored, you may go back to storage." It said again.

"Again, no, I want to know whats going on? What happen to me?" I said.

The a.i. was silent for a few moments.

"I am sorry" The voice said.

"What?" I asked.

"The orders from earth, I needed to activate the ships golem with out a tethered human controlling it, we lost contact with earth. I postulated that it might be probable to create an interface using previous control data, in order to create a drone capable of repairing the ship on its own accord." The a.i. said.

I sat down at the console looking at the screen.

"And that means what?" I said.

"The golem on the ship is an advanced research model, capable of taking on the characteristics of the human operating it, to do that it transfers large sections of the humans consciousness temporarily to it, the golem will than take on the physical and mental traits of the human, it would allow for advanced prolong operations of deep space research, meaning a human could be in stasis either on the ship or back at earth yet still function. When we lost contact with earth we lost that capability, I attempted to reconstruct a simple interface that would still function, I took the logs from previous golem operations on this mission, I edited them to rid much of the human aspects and memories from the golem, it would appear I was too successful in that endeavor." The a.i. Said.