The door to Operations opened and Ramirez walked in and the Captain smiled. Ramirez was her last name and she demanded on being called by it. He was the only person on board who knew her first name but he kept it to himself out of respect.

  Ramirez was, what she liked to call, Latina. She was of above average height, thin, fairly muscular, and was in charge of security on board the Necronomicon. She didn't have any formal training in the military but had adopted a military style of life after being brought on board. She was rarely out of uniform when on duty and ran her security teams with an iron hand that made the AI Psi proud. In her youth she had been a gymnast and an accomplished soccer player and had later studied martial arts; achieving black belts in Koppo and Shotokan as well as ranking tiger class in Muay Thai. She had dark and smooth skin like Vanessa's, but her's was marred by a few small scars from battles of long ago. She squeezed Robert's shoulder as she passed him and sat in her chair beside Vanessa, joining in on their conversation.

  On the far end of the U-shaped table was the ship's science officer. Sandra was a woman who, in the day and age of contacts lenses, corrective laser surgery and artificial corneas, always insisted on wearing glasses. She was tall, thin and, when engrossed in something she found fascinating, fairly anti-social. From Thailand originally, Sandra had a bachelors degree in biochemistry and a masters in physics. She was working on one for mathematics in between studying and writing for her PhD. She took work on board the ship to help give her the peace she desired to continue her studies and take part in the exploration of the unknown. If anything scientifically ground-breaking was to occur in space, it was a good bet that the Necronomicon would be the first to investigate it. It was one such occurrence that kept her glued to her computer screen as she viewed all the information that Psi had collected.

  There were three seats that had yet to be filled. One of them belonged to Krista, the first officer and right hand of the Captain. She was standing next to him discussing philosophy with Alyssa who was glowing happily on the wall.

  Krista had had a rough life growing up in the inner city of New York. She spent most of her younger days on the streets and had a fairly long criminal record with the authorities. They had eventually gotten tired of her and gave her a choice : prison or the military. So she became property of the state and enlisted in the United States Army. They gave her a broad based education and trained her in the arts of warfare and diplomacy. She eventually became an Army Ranger and had a number of prestigious battle ribbons on her lapel. But Krista wasn't comfortable with her role in the military; she disliked the mindless attitude that she was expected to adopt and had difficulty accepting some of the missions she was given. After doing a bit of research and reading up on past operations such as Iran/Contra and Project Pegasus, she began to refuse her leaders' orders and was labeled a renegade and targeted for termination by the government. She was liberated and brought aboard for her protection, and her expertise; she never looked back or regretted her decision.

  The Captain looked up at the clock on the wall.

  "Well, I guess we should start this meeting."

  Krista looked up from her discussion with the AI. She was tall and in great shape, as well as having an unusually large and fairly firm chest. Her dark brown hair was short in the front but went down to her shoulders around the rest of her head. She preferred wearing spandex bodysuits instead of the blue and gray jumpsuits provided as standard uniform.

  Alyssa faded out.

  "Not waiting for everyone?"

  "No, we need to get ready. Sit down."

  Krista walked to her seat at the end of the table and next to the two empty seats. He looked out over everyone and ran his thumb nail over the scar on his cheek.

  "Good morning everyone. I'm sorry to have to wake some of you up so early but the situation warrants it. At approximately four forty-five, ship standard time, an unknown object entered our solar system at speeds well over 186,000 miles per second. Psi has been unable..."

  The door opened once more and Brian and Gryphon walked into the room. Brian adopted a sheepish look and Karen shook her head and smiled. Gryphon was wearing one of his characteristic grimaces.

  "Good of you two to join us."

  "Sorry sir." Brian laughed at the situation and sat in his seat.

  Brian had had a love for tinkering ever since he was a child. His parents were continually frustrated when they found he had taken apart one of their favorite appliances and was unable to repair it. Though they couldn't stop him from dismantling their things, they could teach him how to put them back together. He was fascinated how everything worked, the microwave alone keeping him enraptured for the weeks surrounding his seventh birthday before he moved on to the toaster and food rehydrator. He began building his own machines before he was ten and started creating useful ones at age thirteen. His parents enrolled him into private schools that specialized in engineering and electronics. When Brian was seventeen he played a major role in the design of a new type of engine system that incorporated superconductive plates that lowered the weight of an entire ship, allowing it to travel at faster than conventional speeds using less propellant and keeping overheating problems to a minimum. Along with the discovery of cold fusion and the invention of the fusion reactor, ships had a near inexhaustible supply of fuel and energy and exploration of the solar system had become possible. The Necronomicon's engines were enhanced versions of Brian's early designs and were the most advanced ever created by humans. He couldn't help but come aboard.

  Gryphon said nothing and just plopped down in his chair. He stared at the Captain with the same grimace he had walked in with.

  Gryphon was shaping up to be a major disappointment. He came from a rich family and had lived a fairly sheltered life when he was young. His parents kept him in front of the television or at his computer while they busied themselves with their own affairs. He grew up with electronics and spent most of his time on the internet and surfing the web. In efforts to gain the attention of his family he would create rather nasty viruses and unleash them into privately owned databases and government power stations. Gryphon was particularly proud of his work on a program that left the entire eastern seaboard without electricity or water for the first two months of 2034. He had no formal training but had become an accomplished programmer and, when he became an adult, was sought after by a number of the world's top software providers. His problems with authority kept him away from serious work and the Captain picked him up to help keep the ship in order; he also secretly hoped the environment would aid Gryphon in developing better social skills and teach him to become the leader he was capable of being.

  He wasn't.

  "As I was saying," the Captain looked up from Gryphon and scanned the rest of the table. "Psi has been unable to gain a better fix on the object but I have Gus working with the mining colonies on Ceres to see if we can use their equipment to get a quicker look at what's coming at us."

  The AI panel lit up and Alyssa's symbol brightened.

  "Excuse me sir."

  "Yes Alyssa?" Her face came into view and the blurry representation floated eerily as it talked.

  "I'm patching Gus through to you now."

  Using the AI's in such a manner wasn't necessary, but everyone liked them and tried to include them in all of the ship's business. Gus's smiling face appeared on the small view screen mounted on the wall. He had a shaved head with only a small amount of fuzz covering it and a thin mustache over his big and smiling teeth. Robert mimicked the smile and took a deep breath.

  "GUSTAVO!," he bellowed proudly.

  "ROBERT!," Gus rolled the first 'r' as he answered. They both nodded and Gus looked back at the Captain. "Sir, I have attained the full cooperation of the mining company. They will let us use their sensors in whatever capacity we need."

  "Excellent Gus."

  Karen opened her computer panel in the table before her and began to type in commands as the Captain continued.

  "Send them our thanks and tell them we'll return the favor when we can."

  "Yes Captain. And sir?"

  "Yes?"

  "The owner of the mining company sends you her ... warmest regards."

  Everyone around the table began to hoot and wail. Vanessa whistled.

  "All right, settle down people." He turned back towards Gus who was rapidly wiggling his eyebrows. "Thank you Gus. That will help make my day smoother."

  Gus pressed a button and the screen went blank.

  "I've established an uplink with the colony's systems sir." Karen cracked her knuckles and looked up. "We should be receiving visuals of the object shortly."

  "Psi?"

  The AI panel lit back up with Psi's symbol and face. Where the bridge had individual panels for each of the AI's, there was only one panel in most of the other parts of the ship that the AI's had to share.

  "Yes sir?"

  "Put the long range sensors up on the view screen and prepare to add the pictures from the colony's sensors."

  "Yes sir."

  The screen lit up with the same images that Robert and the Captain had seen on the bridge. The blinking light was close to passing Jupiter's orbit.

  "This is incredible." Sandra was looking at her screen with sparkling eyes behind rectangular glasses. She was thumbing through past sensor logs and was tracing the object's flight path. "It really was going faster than the speed of light! Do you guys know what this means?"

  Brian was shaking his head as he smiled an excited smile.

  "This can't be a natural phenomenon. It has to be made by some sort of alien intelligence. What are they using over there to go so fast?"

  "Maybe anti-matter and warp drive?"

  "Maybe Karen, just maybe."

  "It is slowing down though, right Captain?"

  "It is Krista, we're tracking it's course and plan on intercepting it when..."

  "Actually sir," Karen looked up from her screen, "if it stays on it's current course and maintains constant deceleration, it will come in contact with the lunar surface."

  "It's gonna crash on the moon?"

  She turned at Robert's question.

  "Yep. In a little under two hours I should say. Hold on," she squinted at her screen, "we're receiving visuals from the colony now."

  "Psi, put them up on screen."

  Data from the long range sensors faded and space filled the screen. Errant asteroids floated by but everything else seemed calm.

  "Magnify, and clear up the image."

-     -     -

On to Page 3

-     -     -

Back to Necronomicon Index