Ghosts of Ophidian (11 page)

“I’m thinking I want it open and it won’t open,” Dawn said.

“It’s probably related to the same computer that is their brains and is not yours,” the AI stated.

“Do they have to be nearby to operate the door?” Conner asked.

“I don’t know if it’s a requirement, but they typically are nearby when the door is operated,” the AI replied.

Conner looked over at Dawn, then looked to a different unidentified door behind her. He nodded to it with his weapon, causing Dawn to turn and take notice of it. She stepped aside and took a hold of the lever. Conner nodded and she shoved it open quickly.

The room was dark
. Dawn reached her hand around and felt for the light. It took her a moment to find it before switching it on. Conner kept his weapon trained on the room as he stepped closer, but it wasn’t necessary. The room was so tightly packed with crates that no one could have comfortably hid in there.

He turned around and located another door a few yar
ds away. He rushed over to the other door and opened it before Dawn had a chance to join him. He switched on the light, revealing yet another room, except this one was filled with a bunch of empty crates in disarray.

“What is the room, AI?” Conner asked, kicking ove
r one of the crates as he examined the room.

“It is one of ten mining storage rooms,”
the AI replied, “The previous room that you entered was also a mining storage.”

“Mining? What kind of priority is that for a new colony?” Conner asked, mostly to himself, “The previous room wasn’t raided, but this one was. What do these rooms contain specifically?”

“The previous room was mining support which consists mostly of lighting and ventilation supplies,” the AI stated, “The room you are currently in contains clearing charges.”

“Clearing charges?” Dawn asked, “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“Clearing charges are used in mining to rapidly surpass impenetrable portions of rock,” the AI replied.

“Are they explosive?” Conner asked.

“Yes,” the AI replied.

“And
this room isn’t kept locked?” Conner asked.

“Why would it be locked?” it asked.

Conner turned to Dawn, sharing a look of exasperation.

“The ones who
shut the door on you are probably in the cargo hold, Conner,” she whispered, “And what of the explosives? Who cares?”

“Who-”

She put her hand over his mouth.

“Who cares, Conner?” she whispered, “We’re outnumbered in a three-mile ship where the enemy has the advantage of familiarity. We have the assistance of a computer who denies there is anyone here but the two
of us. Our enemy now has enough explosives to blow this ship to Kingdom Come. Who cares? We already won.”

“We won?” he blurted, only to have her shush him again.

He lowered his voice, “You’re giving up, yet you say we won.”

“What was the initial goal?” she whispered, “To protect the Earth from invasion. If these freaks blow this ship up, we still achieved that initial goal. Not every goal, but
we will have achieved the most important one.”

Conner reached over and closed the door. Then he overturned two of the crates and sat down on one of them. He waved his hand at the other crate, offering her a seat.

“We need to talk,” he whispered, his face next to hers, “If they wanted to blow this ship up, they would have done it right here in this very room. Whatever they stole the charges for; they are to serve a different purpose. I’ll grant you that they sabotaged the ship, but they didn’t sabotage its ability to navigate the stars and they didn’t sabotage the safety of their people. There’s a lot more going on here than hate-filled terrorism like back home.”

“But what else could a room full of explosives be used for? Why did they damage the cables that would have allowed the pilot’s command to wake the Ophidians?” she asked.

“Whether it’s just crazy paranoia or whether it’s a legitimate fear, I don’t know. But what I do know is that they don’t trust the AI,” he whispered, “Everything they do is an effort to separate themselves from the AI. They cut the cables to the cargo hold. They hacked into the brain cables with that yellow thing in there. They have done something to themselves or to the AI’s perception that renders their own existence invisible. Everything tells me they fear the AI.”

“I never thought of t
hat,” she agreed, “But why? The AI doesn’t even seem all that concerned about the happenings in this ship. The only time it got angry was when it realized it had failed in its mission.”

“Maybe they don’t want to go where this ship is taking them,” he said, “I really don’t know.”

“If that were the case, they would have been satisfied when we altered our course,” she said, “Unless maybe they only want to return to their home world. That would mean that
any
other planet would only serve to upset them.”

“That’s as good a theory as any,” he agreed, “That would explain just about everything we’ve seen. Well, except for the theft of the explosives.”

“We need to talk to these Ophidians,” she said, “We need to find out what they know and why they have a problem with the AI. Maybe they know something about the AI that we don’t – something we
need
to know. Maybe we’d be willing to join forces with them if we knew what they know.”

“And maybe they’re crazy,” he whispered.

She laughed, drawing away from him and looking at him. She placed her hand on his cheek, feeling his two days of stubble.

“And maybe they’re crazy, but we’ll never know unless we can communicate with them,” she said, her hand still
gently cupping his cheek, “How will you shave on this ship? How will I shave?”

“You’re able to
grow a beard too?” he asked, touching her cheek.

He leaned in to her and realized
in that moment that she was somehow expecting the very kiss he planted on her lips. The kiss was gentle, tender, and lasted nearly half a minute longer than Conner had intended. He separated his lips from hers and breathed out an apology.

“Why are you apologizing?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean to… I don’t know where that came from,” he said, “I… I didn’t give you a choice.”

“I had a choice and I accepted,” she whispered.

He smiled, “Then I revoke my apology.”

“
As you should,” she said, patting his cheek lightly, “So, returning to our discussion, I propose that we focus on learning their language. We can’t rely on the AI to be our interpreter, especially if we don’t know if we’re able to trust it.”

“I agree, but even while we’re learning the language, I would like to see what we can discover throughout this ship. I’d like to see if there’s anything beyond the cargo bay. I’d also like to look for those explosives. And if possible, I’d like to find out where the AI is technically located and pay it a visit,” he whispered.

“That sounds like a plan to me,” she replied.

Seventeen

Learning the language of the Ophidians proved to be much more difficult than either of them
had imagined. While learning the Ophidian words for specific nouns may have been a fairly simple task requiring only memorization, the verbs and sentence structure proved to be nearly impossible for them to grasp. The AI didn’t lose patience with them even as Conner and Dawn struggled to form sentences that didn’t fit together the same way the English language did.

The language lessons continued for
the next several days while the two of them investigated various sections of the ship. They discovered a multitude of storage rooms, most of which offered them nothing of interest. One room however that piqued their interest was a storage room devoted to cases upon cases of alien rifles and ammunition. The ghosts, a name they now used to refer to the Ophidians who were wandering the ship, appeared to have left the armory untouched. Their plans apparently didn’t require the use of portable weapons.

The ghosts continued to avoid detection throughout a full week of their shipboard journeys. It wasn’t until almost ten days had passed that they finally caught sight of one of the ghosts. It happened on the day they discovered what the explosives were being used for.

As Conner and Dawn had been improving their fluency in the Ophidian language, albeit on a preschool or elementary level, the AI stopped speaking to them in English. This was at Dawn’s recommendation the previous day to which Conner agreed.

On t
he day that they would see the ghost with their own eyes, Conner and Dawn had just finished a lunch of alien corn flakes with some glasses of metallic flavored water. They had just convinced the AI to teach them how to operate the basic controls of the ship’s shuttlecraft. The lesson would take place in the same shuttle bay where they had said their last goodbyes to the BP1 crew.

Conner was leading the way into the shuttle bay when it happened. Barely a moment had passed since the door opened before a metal object clanged loudly onto the floor. Their attention was drawn to one of the nearby shuttles where a red hooded specter
darted quickly out of view.

“Wait!” Conner shouted, changing immediately to their tongue, “Deng lok! Vee oclan ee!”

He shouted the last phrase twice, promising that they were friends. If the wraith had heard his pleas, it ignored them because a door opened and shut somewhere beyond the row of shuttlecraft.

“The door to the middle passage was just accessed,” the AI stated, speaking only in Ah Fidonay.

“It was one of the ghosts,” Dawn replied, speaking also in the alien tongue, “We saw it.”

Dawn and Conner rushed over toward the door where the alien had made its hasty escape.

“I still have no record of any living creatures except the two of you,” the AI stated, “Even a moment ago.”

“We saw it,” Conner said, speaking Ah Fidonay, “You even
told us where it ran to. How can you not see it?”

“As I’ve stated before, I don’t know the answer to this. If you would like me to keep a better eye on things, you can fix the sabotage that was done to the cargo hold,” the AI replied, “Until you do that, I ha
ve very little access to what is going on in the aft section of the ship.”

“Could you speak slower, please?” Conner asked, unable to decipher even half of what the AI was saying.

“Would you like me to start speaking in your language again?” the AI asked.

He sighed, then looked over at Dawn. She shook her head.

“No, it’s best if I learn to keep up. Just please slow down a little if you have a lot to say,” Conner said.

The AI repeated everything it had stated before, but this time it extended the pause between each word. Conner and Dawn approached the shuttle where the ghost had initially been spotted.

“We’re not fixing the sabotage yet,” Conner replied, choosing not to elaborate further on that subject.

As they approached the backside of the shuttle, it became evident that the ghost had been working in the area.
The back hatch of the shuttle was open and metal tools were strewn about on the ground. Conner also noticed several of the shuttle’s padded seats stacked up against the wall.

“What are the ghosts up to?” Conner asked, returning to English.

“I’ll give you two guesses and the first one doesn’t count,” Dawn said.

He turned to her, realizing that her attention was focused on the interior of the shuttle. It was there that he discovered the reason for the missing explosives. Someone was in the process of installing a rear-facing missile launching system in the back of the shuttle. On the floor of the shuttle were three
amateur-constructed missiles, each about six feet in length. Rippling welds encompassed the rockets at random intervals as though the creators of the missiles added coffee can upon coffee can until the missile achieved the necessary length. Instead of coffee cans however, these were built from various cylinders that were readily available on the ship.

The fins and wings that were welded at the front and the back were made with movable steering vanes. Conner pointed these out to Dawn; evidence to him that whoever constructed the missiles was not
really as “amateur” as he’d initially thought. The missiles most likely contained a guiding system, allowing the missiles to be steered toward their target.

“It’s like they’re preparing for a war,” Dawn said, “Why take the time to build-”

Conner reached over and cut her words off with his hand. He then pointed toward the ceiling.

“We still don’t know who the good guys are here,” he whispered.

“But surely this isn’t ‘good’,” she said, pulling his hand away and gesturing toward the missiles, “I’m getting more and more worried the more I see here.”

“I think we need to go aft,” he whispered, “We’ve checked out almost every inch of the forward portions of this ship. I think the answers
we need are aft since that area seems to be cut off from the rest of the ship.”

She looked at him, then down at the missiles stacked inside the shuttle.

“When do we attempt it?” she asked, “They nearly killed you with the door the last time.”

“Let’s do it tomorrow. Only this time, we’re
gaining access by using the leftovers from the BP1 mission,” he said.

She smiled, then leaned in and kissed his cheek.

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.