Chapter 5

For a second I couldn't even remember where I was. I looked around slowly, trying to remember, and then suddenly, in a tidal wave, all the recent memories came flooding back. Joining them, was the pounding in my head which was now back at full strength; it was at least as strong as when I had woken up when I first 'joined' the ship.

As those memories came flooding back I quickly decided that I would have preferred them to stay missing for a while longer. I was about to enter a combat duel that I had no hope of winning, and my death before the day was finished seemed inevitable. Although, at least I would have it easy, compared to what I could imagine those sick pirates would do to the women. Who in their right mind wanted these types of memories and thoughts. My life used to be so easy, I had my own business, a nice house, and generally didn't have too much trouble finding a girlfriend. Admittedly none of the girlfriends had lasted long in recent years. There were bad memories from before the last couple of years, but I had done a good job of suppressing them.

If only I hadn't decided to try to help a crashing aircraft. There really should be a warning sign on the approaches to an aircraft crash, telling people that if they approach any further they could end up on a prison spaceship having to deal with crazy pirates who want to kill you and that's if the voice didn't dematerialize your brain first. There was some good things to it though, like having six women that I was meant to be able to command to do anything I wanted. Though was I really able to take advantage of them like that? I didn't know what their crimes were, but somehow I saw them as victims in this thing just like I was. However, it really didn't look like I would even live long enough to find out if I could take advantage of them. No, give me the life of an ultra slave on an ultra slave planet, I decided.

"Sir, you need to get into position," Nereis's voice called out.

Taking in my surroundings once more, I turned slowly around the room. Nereis, Aellai and the unknown woman were still sat in their chairs. I really needed to find out her name. The white panel on the wall was still blank, so there was no chance of seeing any birds returning to their nest in the pirate's beard. At least it seemed as if he was kind to animals. I expect there weren't many trees in space, so offering the birds a home like that was nice.

After returning to my required position on the red mark, I turned to Nereis and gave her a small smile. I knew that I would very likely lose this duel in record time, but I couldn't even start to think of what the pirates would do to her and the other women. Maybe it would be more humane to kill us all now. No, I couldn't think like that, there was a chance that I could do something. Maybe once I was in control of the pod, I could fly straight at the pirate's ship and take out the control room or some other critical part. I just needed to know where the control room was, or what part was critical.

It was then that I realized that I didn't feel any different to how I had done before the info-merge. Where were these new memories or knowledge that I should now have?

"I don't think the info-merge worked," I said.

"What? That's imposs... ," Nereis started to say, before she stopped herself, gave a small smile and then continued, "I mean, I've never heard of that happening before, Sir. Why do you think it hasn't worked?"

"Because there is no new information flooding through my mind."

"You need to focus, Sir. Sorry, I should have told you. I just keep forgetting that you have never had an info-merge before. You need to focus on the information that you want, like you would focus on trying to remember an old memory that you hadn't thought about in years."

How do you focus on something that you know nothing about? I started to think about how you would fly a small spaceship. Not knowing what these pods actually looked like, I took a guess and imagined a long round pod with a couple of engines on the side. With that image in my mind, I tried to focus on how you would control it, but not one single new memory entered my mind.

"It's not working,"

"You need to trigger the memory, Sir." Nereis explained.

"Sir, we have launched the pod, so if we establish your connection with it now, that should be enough to help you trigger the memories. It will also give you a bit of time to practice with the pod before the duel starts." Aellai added.

"Let's try it," I said as I stood in the dead center of the red mark. I really had no idea of what to expect. Sometimes I was just about starting to believe that I might be on a spaceship while at other times, I thought at best that I was on a low budget movie set. A movie that had spent all its budget on the materializer special effects, so all it could do for the rest of the set, was to add a few LCD panels and a couple of projector screens.

"Initializing phase one of pod redirection," Aellai's voice announced.

Two white objects appeared in my hands. Each one shaped somewhat like a flattened egg, but with a hole in the middle. They had appeared in my hands, in such way that my fingers were gripping them through the middle of this hole, with my thumb resting on the outer surface. I could also feel that there was a button under each finger and thumb.

"Phase one complete. Initializing phase two of pod redirection," Aellai announced.

The tingling sensation returned to cover my body. However there had been no slow build up this time. The sensation had hit suddenly and covered my whole body at the same time. The blackness returned to fill my vision. They had told me that I wouldn't be on board the pod, but I was now wondering if I was in fact being teleported onto it, as the feeling was similar to when the voice had transported us to the control room. Maybe they had lied to me.

As the tingling sensation started to dampen, I realized that there had been no bright light this time, so maybe it hadn't been a transportation. Suddenly thousand of little colored lights flooded into my vision. Scattered everywhere were these tiny little lights, some white, while others were yellow, and yet others were red or orange. There must have been millions of them. By turning my head I could see that they were in every direction. In certain directions, blue or purple cloud like formations could be seen. I was in space, and I couldn't see any part of the control room. They had teleported me.

"Phase two complete," Aellai's voice announced. Her voice was from exactly the same position as it was before, just as if I was still in the room with her.

"This is impossible," I said, hoping that Nereis wouldn't be too angry with me for borrowing her phrase.

Normal feelings returned to my body as the tingling sensation finally ceased. Although it felt different, as I could no longer feel the floor underneath my feet. I wasn't only in space, it felt like I was floating in space.

Looking around, I started to wonder where the pod was. Did I have to find it and climb into it myself? How was I even breathing? How was I alive and just floating in the middle of space in a green flight suit.

"Sir, focus on the controllers. The memories should follow," Aellai told me, her voice still coming from a position only a few feet away.

Focusing on the two white controllers, I tried to remember how to use them. Memories that I knew that I shouldn't have, started to creep into my mind. The first memory told me, that the thumb button on the controller that I held in my right hand was for the main thruster. The harder I pressed it, the more thrust would be generated. Now all I had to do was find the pod, so I started to have a look around.

"Wow," I exclaimed, as I found that I could actually rotate my whole body. Although I couldn't feel the floor, I found that whenever I wanted to rotate my body, I could actually feel a force acting against my arms and legs. The only way I could even think of trying to explain it, was that it was as if I was floating inside a sphere. Most of the time, I couldn't feel the surface of that sphere, but whenever I wanted to rotate my body, I would then be able to push against that inner surface of the sphere.

"Wow! I exclaimed for a second time as the two ships came into view. A large, dull, red planet could be seen in the distance behind the ships. Looking at the two ships, I hoped that the larger gray ship was our prison ship, but knew that the small orange ship was more likely to be it. The gray ship was shaped somewhat like a tapered cylinder, but it also had a row of much smaller cylinders sticking out from it. There were also numerous other shapes and features covering its surface. It wouldn't have seemed too much out of place in any standard space based movie. The orange ship, that I was hoping wasn't ours, was a box. A box with slightly rounded edges but a box none the less. Maybe from a different angle, I would have been able to see some features on it, as I assumed that it must have had some engines somewhere, but from my current angle it just looked like a box. If I found a really large version of those orange Nike shoe boxes and put it next to this ship, it would have been hard to tell the difference.

"Please tell me that the orange ship isn't our one," I asked.

"Normally prison ships are either orange, red, or blue, but I'm not sure what color this ship is, Sir," Nereis answered. "From your current location, it should be the one on the right."

The box. So not only had I found myself stuck on a prison ship, but it was a box that was painted orange. How could we be taken seriously in an orange prison box? No wonder the pirate's had laughed at us. Was the humiliation part of our punishment? Of course maybe a lot of spaceships are orange; I wouldn't know. At least it looked quite big, but then again that could have been just an illusion. I didn't even know if I was looking out from my own eyes or from a camera. So I had no reference to even start to guess the size of the ships. All I knew is that the gray one looked as if it was at least three or four times the size of the box.

"At least if we find an orange star, and put that behind us, then most other ships shouldn't notice us," I said.

"Sir, you need to focus on the controls," Aellai told me. "We don't have much time left."

"Where is the pod," I asked, as I was still confused to why I couldn't see this pod craft.

"You are connected to the pod, Sir."

"I am?" I asked. Very gently, I pressed my right thumb down onto the button. The sudden movement of the two ships towards me, joined the sensation of acceleration that I could feel from my body.

"How do I stop," I asked, as I realized that the pirate had been wrong. I wasn't going to fly into an asteroid, no I was going to splatter myself against the side of my own ship.

"Turn your body and then use the thruster again, Sir," Aellai told me. "Also, Sir, the other ship has reported that its putting back the start time. Officially they should have forfeited the duel if they couldn't make the agreed start time, but I don't think they are going to agree with that. At least you get a bit more time to practice."

Turning, so that I was now facing away from the ship, I once again pressed my thumb gently down onto the button. The feeling of acceleration or was it deceleration, once again followed. Turning my head around to look, I could see that my approach to the ship had stopped, however the ships were now actually starting to get smaller. I had over used the thruster.

Once I had finally managed to come to a complete stop, somewhere near to my starting position, I knew that it was going to take a while to get used to these controls. One thing that I didn't understand the reason for was that if I released the thruster button, then I would gradually slow down. As far as I knew, in space when an object was moving at a certain speed, it should generally remain at that speed until another force is applied. Of course there would be gravity from stars and planets, but I didn't think they were causing this slow down. Maybe its just designed that way to make it easier to control.

I didn't have time for any more practice now, so I once again focused on trying to remember all the other controls. This time, the memories came pouring into my mind at the same time. The thumb button on my left controller was for the shield, while the top two fingers buttons on each controller were for the weapons, and the bottom two buttons on each controller were for the secondary thrusters. The first weapon was a focused beam weapon, a bit like the standard laser beam weapon. While the second weapon fired a particle wave. The wave didn't do as much damage as the laser beam, as it caused more of a crushing effect, but being hit by it could easily distract an opponent, and it also would drain more energy from a shield. Each pod only had a limited amount of energy on board. Firing weapons or using the shield would deplete that energy store. How hard the weapon buttons were pushed would determine how much energy they fired with. The shield would use energy all the time that it was on, and it would also use extra energy to stop the weapon beams. The amount of extra energy that it would use depended on the weapon type and the strength of the beam.

"Test your weapons, Sir. Only use low power beams but we need to check they work." Aellai instructed.

While thinking that it was a bit too late to find out that they didn't work now, I did as I was instructed. With my left hand, I pointed away from either ship, and as gently as I could, I pressed the button under my left index finger. I really should have been expecting it, but the surprise was just too much for me. Well that was the excuse that I was sticking with. As I had gently pressed the button, a blue laser like beam had shot out the end of my hand. However, the surprise had caused both of my thumbs to press down onto their respected buttons, as well as my right index finger pressing its button down. The pink particle wave that shot out of my right hand, disappeared harmlessly into the distance. While the right thumb button being pressed, also wasn't that much of a problem as I wasn't facing either of the ships this time. However, the left thumb button being pressed, was a problem, as it had caused the shield to activate. The shield had actually been a disappointment. I had been expecting a proper spaceship type shield that covered the whole ship, or in this case the whole of my body, but even though it was made up of some type of energy force, this shield was actually about the size and shape of those medieval shields and was placed just in front of my left hand. The bigger disappointment was that I still had my index finger pressed gently on its button, so the blue laser beam continued to fire out of my left hand. This laser beam being fired out of the hand that had a shield just an inch or two in front of it, could only lead to one outcome. The laser beam hit the back of the shield and deflected back toward me.

"Aaah," I called out, as the pain struck my left shoulder.

"Its just a minor wound, Sir. I'm sure it happens to everyone when they are first learning." Nereis told me.

"I thought that this was all done by remote control. Why can I feel pain?"

"It's remote direction, Sir. There is a two way connection between you and the pod."

"Now you tell me. I would have tried not to have shot myself if I had known," I answered sarcastically, although it wasn't her fault that I had shot myself.

"It's always a good idea not to shoot yourself, Sir, but no real damage done. Only a minor flesh wound to the pod. The Artifice will apply some dressing to your shoulder to stop the bleeding."

"Bleeding?" I asked, as I looked down at my shoulder to see a small hole in the flight suit and some blood dripping out.

"Sir, we have an incoming communications request from the pirate ship. Do you want to accept it?"

"I guess I should, but make it so that they can't hear us yet. In case we need to discus something before responding."

"That's what I like to see. Someone who sticks to the rules and thinks that if the other side can't turn up on time to kill him, then he will start the job himself," I heard the pirate captain's voice say, while laughter yet again filled the background.

"You mean he could see that? They have been watching?"

"I expect so, Sir. They will have their external sensors turned on, just like we have." Nereis answered.

I really had to kill them all now, there was no other way of stopping word of this from spreading. The women I could at least order not to say anything, or make them wear ball gags for the rest of their lives. Although what could anyone expect. I had never seen a laser beam shoot out the end of my hand before, and I had never seen an energy shield before. Also shouldn't an energy shield absorb the beam rather than deflect it?

"Are you not going to answer us? Are you too embarrassed?" the captain continued to taunt. "Don't worry we are going to come out now and finish the job that you started. We had thought about just waiting for you to kill yourself, but we didn't think we would survive that. We would have died from laughing first and then you would have won."

"Sir, we have their two pods on sensors. I'm initializing your combat display," Aellai said.

Before I had a chance to ask what the combat display was, I started to see those strange symbols in my vision. From the new memory that entered my mind a moment later, I at least now knew that the combat display was something like a military heads up display, but it was no use to me with those symbols.

"Aellai, I can't read these symbols, I need it in English."

"English, Sir?"

"Yes, the language that we are speaking."

"You mean common language eta, Sir. Changing the display now, Sir."

Whatever she wanted to call it, the symbols quickly changed to English. Along the top of my vision was a row of letters of numbers, that my memories told me were for various status information. Just below that row and in the center of my vision was two sets of numbers, that I noticed changing with my every movement. These represented my heading. They were similar to an aircraft heading, but with two separate numbers to cover the extra dimension that navigation in space added. Two diamond shapes could be seen near to the center of my vision, they were both moving and had two sets of numbers near to them. These diamonds were to highlight the two approaching pirate pods. One of the numbers was their distance from me, while another was the amount of power that they were emitting. The numbers that represented their distance, read 745.302 and 745.301. These distances were measured in plethrons. However, my new memories didn't include anything that would actually tell me how long a plethron was. There was a few other letters and numbers around the display, that my memories didn't seem to cover. As I focused on the two approaching pods, my vision seemed to automatically zoom in on them.

"What the hell are they?" I asked as their shape became clear. "Are they robots?"

"What, Sir?"

"Those things approaching. I thought they were meant to be pods? These look like humanoid robots."

"They are pods, Sir. Pods generally have a humanoid shape. Just like your one does."

"Why are they called pods then? When you said a pod, I was expecting some sort of egg shape craft."

"Sir, we don't really have the time for this now, but they are called pods because many years ago, they were generally capsule shaped, but over time they changed and advanced." Aellai explained. "We only have thirty seconds until the start of the duel. As soon as it starts you want to head for an asteroid field. You will stand no chance in the open. There is a cloud at heading 023, 193 and at a distance of 525 plethrons."

After checking my own heading, I looked over my right shoulder to try to see this asteroid cloud that she was talking about. I couldn't see anything, but had to take her word that they were there.

"Fifteen seconds till the start, Sir." Aellai continued her count down. I wasn't sure if it was standard to have this count down, or if she was doing it because she was nervous.

If she was nervous then that made at least two of us. I now had less than fifteen seconds of certain life left, after that who knows how long I would last. I also now knew that this duel was a bit more dangerous than I had first imagined. The pain and hole in my left shoulder, made it quite clear that if my pod was destroyed then I couldn't really expect to survive. At least I was glad that it was myself doing the duel and not Aellai. If I had known that it could directly injure or kill you then I wouldn't have even suggested that she did the duel.

"The duel is commencing now!" Aellai declared.

I took one last glance in the direction that the pods were coming from, checking their distances one last time. They were both around the 294 mark. I then started to turn my body to face the direction that Aellai had given. I squeezed the thruster button, as soon as I was facing towards the asteroids. As there was nothing in my vision, other than the millions of stars and nebulae in the background, I had to rely on the sensation of acceleration that my body was feeling, to even know that I was moving.

"He wants to play hide and seek," came yet another taunt from the captain.

"Cut the communications if all he is going to do is to taunt me," I instructed.

"Yes, Sir, but you need to increase your speed. They are gaining on you."

Thinking that it was a crazy idea, I squeezed the thruster button down harder. Not stopping until I could feel that it wouldn't go down any further.

"If their sensors can detect me, what is the point of hiding in the asteroid field?" I asked Aellai.

"The sensors are limited in the asteroid field as they have trouble telling the difference between a pod and an asteroid. Also the pod's sensors only work in the direction you are facing, so you can still sneak up behind one of them. The same goes for the other way round though, they can sneak up on you. You now have 345 plethrons left to go, Sir."

About fifteen seconds later, I could finally make out some objects in the distance. They looked like they were approaching fast, or rather that I was approaching them fast. I was going too fast, I'd never be able to navigate inside the field at this speed, so I started to turn my body around.

Facing away from the asteroid field, I could once again see the two approaching pirate pods indicated on my display. They were now only just over 120 plethrons away from me. I realized that I really couldn't afford to slow down until I was inside the asteroid field. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. It was looking like I had a choice between slowing down and nearly certainly being killed by them or risking it and flying at nearly full speed into an asteroid field and hope that I didn't end up splattered across the side of an asteroid.

"What weapon range are we using," I asked, after having tried to think of what the weapon range of a pod was and remembering that there were different range settings that could be used in a duel.

"Standard setting, Sir, so 1 plethron."

Looking back over my shoulder, I could see that the asteroids were still approaching fast. Deciding that I had no choice, I turned back to face the asteroid field, I was going to have to try to steer my way into it before I decelerated.

I doubted that my own eyes would have been able to even see them, but looking through the pod's eyes as I was, I was able to zoom in on the asteroids. There was quite a few big asteroids but most of the ones that I could see, looked quite small. Although I was certain that they were bigger than I was. Suddenly remembering the info-merge again, I tried to focus on tactics for inside an asteroid field, but nothing came to me. Surely they wouldn't have given me an info-merge on tactics and then directed me to a location where those tactics didn't cover.