Chapter 1: Wakie, Wakie, Eggs and Bakie

I'm cold, I mean REALLY cold. I don't know how long I've been out, but I never expected this. They had warned us to expect some disorientation and they didn't lie. I could feel myself warming up and could tell that I was in what they called jokingly "Warm Liquid Goo Phase", to me it was not so funny. As my body returned to what I now called normal, the liquid around me drained off, the neural and biological interfaces' were disconnected. I once again had full control of my body, I opened my eyes and slammed them closed again "BRIGHT LIGHT, BRIGHT LIGHT", what a way to grab a nasty headache. I checked to see if my wireless connection to the complex computer was functioning by requesting light levels be reduced by 75%, for a moment I got nothing back then, !!!!!:Warning:!!!!! =Power At Danger Levels= :Critical Failure Of Primary Systems: - :Secondary Systems Are Offline: - :Primary And Secondary Battery Systems Are Exhausted: - :Final Redundant Battery System At 47% And Falling: - :Unable To Connect To R.A.D.C.: - :Waiting For Further Instructions:. Thinking to myself "Well, that's a fine how do you do. You go to sleep for a few years and everything goes to hell." I didn't know it at the time, but I was more right than I could have imagined. I opened my capsule and climbed out, yes the light was better and I could see the pods around me were dark and not opening. Walking over to the closest pod I looked in, only to find the shell was empty. Trying to speak for the first time I croaked out "Ann (A.[Artificial] N.[Neural] N.[Network] or sometimes 'Annie' to us) report location of remaining team members". A programmed female voice spoke over the speakers, "Occupants of chambers two through ten have been purged as per emergency protocol. As commander your life was highest priority, all others were sacrificed to maintain the integrity of your chamber". My jaw dropped, everyone else had died so I could live ... All gone to keep me alive ... Was I that important? I sure as hell didn't think so right now, but the important thing right now was to get the systems back up and running before everything shut down and I became entombed here. Checking with ANNie I found that the primary reactor was not only offline, it was a large piece of slag (non-radioactive), secondary power was out, but could be repaired from components in stores, so for the next twelve days and nights I replaced parts, scrounged materials, applied vast amounts for elbow grease and human coolant factor. In the end, secondary power (a small tokamak reactor) began producing power at 95% capacity, which meant that everything with a few exceptions (space defense grid, particle defense cannons, point defense lasers, and all energy based offensive systems) were online, if I had about two months of time and the rest of my team we could have rebuilt the primary tritium/thulium crossbreed reaction chamber, but as it stands now I had power to bring up the external sensors and communications. First I took the slag heap of the last reaction chamber to the refuse recycling tanks for the Alchemator. Story Pause== Science Time Our version of replicators were not as nice as those of 'Star Trek' in that you fed it energy and got matter in whatever form you wanted. Ours required both energy and a mass of a similar sort of matter. The matter was then twisted, pulled, folded, spindled, and mutilated until it was reshuffled into the form and type of matter you required. The down sides (yes, more than one) 1: The more different the base/raw material from the finished product, the longer and the more power it took. 2: Mass size/weight needed to be as close to the same as possible. 3: If you try to change something from more than one isotopes(element) to another, in either direction on the table, then you get a highly unstable mass of radioactive sludge that tends to act a lot like nitroglycerin in a tornado. So if you want to shuffle around pig and get beef, that was OK, but if you figured you found the Philosopher's Stone and wanted to make gold from lead, then please do, but not on my planet thank you. You could do it, but you had to do it one atom at a time, which depending on how much mass you wanted to work with and the amount of energy you had available to put into the transformation, could take a very long time. 4: The denser the element (greater the atomic mass) the more of both time and energy it takes to effect the change. In a lot of ways it was still easier to just make stuff out of iron, steel, silicone and ceramics, it does allow for a great recycling process. Science time over== Story Unpause Dropping off the chamber I headed back to the control room "ANNie" I said "Start a scan of the outside environment and try to contact RADC to find out what our status is, also see if you can find out what the proper date and time are." Walking into the control room I started going over the system holographs to find out where I should be concentrating my efforts next (it looked like medical could use a bit of love and attention on the autodoc circuits). About this time ANNie spoke up, "Commander, I still have no connection from RADC or any of the other military satellites, with the exception of 37 of the geosync birds." Pausing for less than a second (which is like years in computer time) "I have connected to I.S.S. number 3 (International Space Station) 'Alamo' (named such because over half the cost of the station was footed by the state of Texas), it's mainframe 'Davey' has informed me of several things that I believe will come to a shock to you as they have to me." This caused me to pause for a moment. What could be so bad that would make a computer (even an A.I. as advanced ANNie) to slip a cog? "O.K. girl spill it." I could actually hear her draw in an electronic breath, "Sir, seventy percent of the population of the Earth has been extinguished, of the remaining human population (and in some cases I use the term 'human' in a broad analysis) thirty percent resides in underground bunkers, undamaged by outside effects, but getting dangerously close to moderate genetic inbreeding chromosomal damage. Forty percent live above ground in small settlements and have minimal to moderate radiation damage to their genetic tissue and can still breed true with minor amounts of assistance, however infant mortality rates are between fifteen to thirty percent, depending on the amount of medical help available as well as the level of technology used. The remaining thirty percent are mostly above ground in very small groups, those in this category are best described as 'mutants' and vary in different classes. Of these mutants none can breed as 'true' humans any longer and from Davey's observations they are starting to band together in larger and larger groups." At this point ANN paused again, I said to myself "Great now for the other shoe to fall". She continued "Sir, Davey has evidence of landing over the world by no less than four different alien races and can confirm that at least two others have destroyed I.S.S. numbers one, five, six, eight, ten, eleven, and twelve, numbers four and seven are currently occupied by one race each and they have been modified. Former I.S.S. 4 and 7 are currently being used for the collection and processing of humans to be sent out of system for purposes unknown. Davey have also picked up a strong signal being sent out of system, he believes that this signal is broadcasting the struggles of the remaining population for entertainment purposes. These aliens have also introduced a retrovirus into the ecosphere that is causing further mutations in the flora and fauna of the planet. Lastly I have synchronized my chronometer with that of Davey's, it seems you were in hibernation for a longer period than was anticipated." I spoke up "Just how much longer? What is today's date?" I got no answer "ANNie, what is today's date? Tell me, that is an order!" "Commander, according to Davey's Atomic Clock it is Thursday October Thirty-First, Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventeen. It is three hundred and one years past your initial revival time." Great I thought I guess I must have hit the snooze button one time to many