Atlantis Rising (32 page)

“Goodbye, Princess Hunter…”

ors felt a sharp pain under his arms, which caused his fingers to
go numb. His gun fell from his lifeless hands, and Terri fell forward when he
released her hair. She scrambled away from Vors as a look of confusion crossed
his face. He couldn’t figure out what had just happened. He willed his hands
and arms to work and nothing happened. His confusion turned to fear as he
realized he was helpless.

Something hit his lower back
causing him to drop immediately to his knees when his legs fell out from under
him. Vors tried to regain his feet only to find his legs were unwilling to
cooperate with him.

“What the hell?” Vors yelled.
“What kind of weapon is this?”

However, when Vors looked up at
Jon and his people he could see the surprise on their faces too. It was
painfully obvious to him that no one knew what was happening to him, as the
pain flared in his unresponsive limbs. His arms and legs felt like they were on
fire, and Vors screamed in pain. His marines backed away from him, as he looked
over his shoulder searching for the source of his pain.

Something grabbed his chin in a
steel grip as Vors looked up at Jon as if pleading for him to do something.

“Please,” Vors said. “Help me, my
Prince.”

Before Jon could reply or anyone
could do anything to help Vors his eyes opened wide as they looked to his right
side.

Silence had enveloped the stunned
room as the crowd heard a whisper.

“Bad man hurt Terri person,”
Oojoung’s voice said. “Hurt pretty Terri when she wasn’t Princess. Then hurt
poor Terri when Princess. Time to die, evil man who would hurt precious Terri
person.”

A loud pop filled the corridor as
Oojoung twisted Vors head almost completely around. His eyes blinked for a
second before they glazed over and he slumped to the ground. Vors’ marines,
those that still had their weapons, moved towards Vors’ body as the air
shimmered between them and the now dead Vors.

Oojoung faded into view facing
the oncoming marines. He was crouched ready to spring. The marines stopped
short and a few ran into each other as they all stared open mouthed at the
Buranis standing before them.

Oojoung let out a low growl that
was almost bear like as he lowered his head ready to pounce.

“Who is next for Oojoung’s
smackings and teachings?” Oojoung hissed.

Two of the marines raised their
rifles and took aim at Oojoung. They faltered as Oojoung let a grin spread
across his face. “Oojoung wants reasons, please shoot Oojoung,” Oojoung said.

One of the marines powered down
his weapon, and laid it on the floor. However, another marine decided to try
his luck and whipped his gun up pulling the trigger. A bolt of energy lanced
out, and hit the ground where Oojoung had just been standing. Before anyone
could react, Oojoung sprang into action. He leapt forward with such speed it
was almost impossible to see him move. Before the astonished marine knew what
happened Oojoung was standing in front of him gripping the bottom edge of his
helmet.

“DIE!” Oojoung howled. He
wrenched the helmet forward and a sickening crunching sound filled the air.
Oojoung released the helmet and the marine fell to the ground dead, hands still
holding the rifle.

“Next?” Oojoung said.

His voice was quiet, but carried
through the whole corridor.

Jon finally recovered enough from
the small display to speak.

“Enough! Lay down your weapons
and surrender,” Jon said.

Oojoung took a few steps back and
oddly enough shielded Jon and Terri. The last few of Vors’ marines still
holding weapons looked at each other, and then they laid their weapons down.

Marc shook his head in disbelief
as he looked at the two dead figures on the floor.

“I’ve never seen anyone move that
fast before,” Marc whispered.

A hint of fear crept into Marc as
he realized that, had Oojoung really wanted to leave, he could have at any time.

“Marc, have them escorted to the
brig. We’ll figure out what to do with them, later,” Jon said.

He knelt down next to his sister
and asked, “Are you okay?”

Terri stood up, and brushed
herself off.

“Of course I’m all right. He
pulled hair like a little girl.”

Jon laughed as he stood up and
nodded, “Good, I was worried about you.”

“Nah, I can take care of myself,”
Terri said. “I was just waiting for an opening.”

Oojoung scoffed.

Terri glared at him, “I was,
Oojoung. It was a good thing you came along or I would have done worse. I was
just about to make my move.”

“Uh huh,” Oojoung said.

“I was,” Terri said. Her full
attention was now on Oojoung. “You taught me very well.”

“How come precious Terri get
captured if Oojoung’s teachings so good?” Oojoung said.

“He caught me by surprise is
all,” Terri said.

“Oojoung never surprised,”
Oojoung said. “Oojoung never been captured.”

“Right,” Terri said. “I guess you
were staying in our brig for the comfort and food.”

“Oojoung wanted to stay,” Oojoung
said.

A big smile was on his face.

“Sure,” Terri said.

Marc had returned and caught the
last part of the conversation. “I think he is correct. If Oojoung had wanted to
leave, I doubt there would have been anything we could have done,” Marc said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Terri said.
“Even if he could have escaped at any time…”

“Yep, Oojoung wanted to stay,”
Oojoung said.

Terri glared at Oojoung as he
interrupted her. “He would still have to be captured before he could escape,”
Terri finished.

Oojoung’s smile evaporated as
fast as it had grown. Jon, Deatra, Gilas, and Marc laughed as Oojoung got a
confused look on his face. Terri folded her arms, as she stood there happy in
her logic. Oojoung raised a finger as if he was going to say something, and
then stopped and scratched his forehead.

“Oojoung has to think about
this,” Oojoung said.

He started to wander off, and
Terri followed him trying to get a few more pokes in. Deatra motioned to two of
the Royal Guards, and they took off in pursuit of Terri.

That got a few chuckles from
everyone who had been in earshot.

“Those two are something else,”
Jon said.

Marc nodded, “Yes, they are.”

“I don’t think I have much to
worry about, with Oojoung watching over my sister. I think she’s in pretty good
hands,” Jon said.

They had started walking back
towards the command deck, Deatra and Jon’s Royal Guards in tow.

“Okay,” Jon said. He looked
directly at Deatra as he spoke. “It’s time to have a discussion about the
events of the past few days. Ghost, contact the
Scythe
and clear them to
disembark. Have Mike, Brad, Illus, Vaes, Carex, and Carla meet us in the
conference room.”

Jon sat at the end of a long
table as people arrived. Once everyone was there he started the meeting.

“Mike,” Jon said. He turned
slightly to look at him. “What’s the situation with
Atlantis
?”

“We’re working through her code,
now,” Mike said. “However, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s
going to take time to nail down the problem code's location.”

“Excuse me,” Gilas said. “What
problem code, and does this affect Tatiana and the
Titan
?”

Mike turned a bit so that he
could see them both. “Tatiana, yes. The
Titan
, not so much,” Mike said.
He looked up at Jon waiting for some type of signal.

“Go on, we’re all on the same
side here,” Jon said. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. Ghost
shifted restlessly behind him as she listened to Mike.

“The problem is that Atlantis and
Tatiana have a subroutine in their matrix that is unwanted,” Mike said. “We
have to correct this problem before we bring them back online. Tatiana was
taken offline just a while ago and we’re running diagnostics on both of them
now.”

“Ok,” Gilas said. “What
subroutine?”

“Oh sorry,” Mike said. “It’s a
flight to protect subroutine… well, that’s what I call it. Any Eutharan vessel
with an active AI that has a Royal on board and comes under attack will attempt
to retreat and flee if it sees the battle might go wrong.”

Gilas frowned, “Okay, so?”

“So?” Jon said. Jon turned to
look at Gilas and brought his hands down.

“Yeah, so what,” Gilas said. “How
does this affect the ship? It sounds like a good routine to have in place for
safety.”

“You don’t get it,” Jon said.
“Think about it this way. You’ve been in a battle and have major damage. You’re
hiding behind a planet in low orbit effecting repairs. No one’s around, and the
Princess is aboard. Suddenly six Invaru battleships and a carrier jump in
system and start searching for you. Tatiana calculates the odds of you being
found, and destroyed. She doesn’t like the odds, so in response, she breaks
orbit and makes a dash for a fold point. You might make it or you might not,
you would have survived had you shifted your orbit and hidden in the magnetic
poles.”

“I would just order her to stop,
and to move to the magnetic pole,” Gilas said.

“That’s the point,” Mike said.
“You can’t. Once this subroutine is tripped, she has complete control. She then
has only one job, and that is to return to the closest safe haven.”

“Oh,” Gilas said.

“The ships are still useable,”
Mike said. “I have restored a simplified AI to help run the functions of the
ships.”

“What about Ghost?” Jon said.

“She doesn’t have this routine
because she is a station AI,” Mike said. “She’s actually helping us track down
the subroutine that controls this behavior.”

“How much time until this is
corrected?” Jon said.

“Two days or two weeks,” Mike
said. “I really have no idea. There are millions of lines of code to filter
through.”

“Well, keep me posted then,” Jon
said.

“Will do,” Mike said.

“Marc,” Jon said. “How are the
new people adjusting?”

Marc leaned back a bit as he
spoke, “For the most part, quite well. We’ve had a few problems here and there,
but nothing my team couldn’t handle. We’re still fitting people into places
where we need them. Right now it’s by request, and skill. There are a few
holdouts, but we’ve made it perfectly clear the ADF needs everyone. If they
can’t choose, the ADF will draft them. That made a few step up and a few
grumble about, how did they put it, slave labor.”

“You tell those hold outs if they
don’t want to help we will take them back to Earth and drop them off if they
would rather be there,” Jon said. “Right now choosing an occupation is a
luxury, and we need every able-bodied person doing something. There might come
a time in the future where people can choose what they want to do, and not
serve in the ADF, but that time isn’t now.”

“I’ll pass it on,” Marc said. “We
have enough men in the marines now to dispatch units to the
Atlantis
and
still keep a sizable force on the station. I’m going to be assigning the more
seasoned units to the
Atlantis
. As we get more trained we’ll shift more
to her or other vessels as needed,” Marc said.

Jon nodded, “Sounds good to me.”

“What are we going to do with the
crew from the
Arc Light
?” Marc asked. “We have had them pinned down, for
the better part of two days.”

“That could be a problem,” Jon
said. “I’m of the mind to let them go on their way, and return to Eutharan.”

“Why?” Deatra said. “You claimed
the vessel. Most of her crew will want to stay with it, and with you.”

Jon looked over at Deatra with a
questioning look as he spoke, “I was joking, I don’t need to start another
war.”

“No, the Princess is correct,
Jon,” Gilas said.

Deatra glared at Gilas who
quickly corrected himself, “I’m sorry, Prince Hunter.”

Illus and Vaes chuckled as they
looked at each other.

Jon sighed, “We’ll get to that in
a second, and trust me I want to get to it.” Jon rubbed his temples.

“Well, the issues are kind of tied
together,” Deatra said.

“Oh, how so?” Jon said.

“We are what my people call
‘bonded,’” Deatra said.

She gave Jon a half-grin, in an
apologetic way.

“Bonded?” Jon said. “Care to
explain that?”

“My people call it Bea’mao, the
bonding of souls,” Deatra said. “Eutharan females when they get of age, seek
out their bond mate. Usually it is someone they know, and their mate isn’t hard
to find. However, sometimes a female will go her whole life without finding her
mate. No one knows why this happens but it does, and those females never marry
or have children. The bonding starts the female’s cycle and allows her to have
children.