Date point: 4y 10m 3w 5d AV
“Kendra? I need to speak with you. It’s important and I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Dad? What’s wrong? What do you mean, ‘not a lot of time?!’ Are you sick?!”
“No, no Kendra, I’m perfectly healthy. And you’ve gotta stop assuming the worst about my health, please. This is about something else.”
“…you did it didn’t you? You found someone to take you into space.”
“Yes, I did. But there are some strings attached that I can’t break. I can’t tell you who I’m going with, what I’m doing, or when I’ll be back. I’m going to be off-planet very soon. Tell your brother and sister for me, won’t you?”
“…alright Dad. I’ll tell them. Just promise me that you’ll be careful. I’ll write you ok? You can get emails and stuff, right?”
“Kendra… I’m not allowed to contact anyone while I’m gone. I’m sorry. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“…I understand. Dad? Whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, don’t die, alright? I don’t want to bury you yet.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Frank hung up.
Jason was leaning against the wall, flanked by his personal living statues, waiting for the old guy to finish his phone call.
Frank’s call turned out to be taking the longest out of anyone’s. The kid, looking subdued and silent since the briefing, and having been finished before anyone, was waiting in the hallway when Jason had finished his call to his girlfriend. Ted had come out of his empty office looking as though he’d had a rough call. Jason noted that he was wearing a wedding ring and assumed he must be leaving a worried wife and kids behind.
At last, Frank exited his room, wearing a troubled expression. He seemed to shake it off as he saw his crew mates.
“Last one then? Figures; my daughter always was a chatter-box.”
Jason turned to one of his statues, “Good to go?”
“Right, follow me please, gentlemen.”
Robert Frost felt like he’d stepped out of the stifling corporate hell that was an office building and been dropped into a mad scientist’s paradise.
Following the meat heads in big suits, they’d crammed into an un-marked elevator and gone down what must have been more than a dozen floors, which was odd considering they’d only been on the fifth floor.
As the elevator doors opened, Robert had to stifle a gasp. Beige walls had given way to a hallway of thick plate glass windows, with massive football field length clean rooms walled off from the walkway.
Engineers could be seen assembling some of the most cutting edge tech Robert knew about; all of it based on alien design plans.
They walked past force-field generators, kinetic projectile energy cannon prototypes, with capacitor banks the size of cars, alien pulse fire weaponry, star-ship thrusters big enough to fly a 747 by themselves, several robots were constructing small objects, which he thought might be warp drives, which Robert thought only militaries had specs for, and lastly a massive reactor, which looked like it would be capable of powering half of a cities power grid.
The hallway of wonder came to an abrupt end when Robert walked right into his handlers back. They had stopped while he was drooling over the engineers work.
The group had stopped in front of a doorway at the end of the hall marked DECONTAMINATION.
“Gentlemen, you will now be processed to enter the clean room area. All of your possessions have already been decontaminated and are awaiting you on your ship. Once inside the decontamination chamber you will strip off your clothing, which will be taken to be sanitized, after which you will also be sanitized. After removing your clothing and being sanitized, replacements will be provided for you.”
God, if I hadn’t poked one of these stiffs in the face when I was collecting things from my apartment, I’d be sure that every person who wore a suit in this building was a robot, thought Robert. He hoped that none of these guys would be coming on the mission. The handler had been quite upset with him for poking him.
The four men filed into the chamber and began to do as instructed, Robert seeming to be more self-conscious than the other guys.
When they were all in their birthday suits and avoiding each other’s gazes, they gave their clothes to one of the handlers who was now holding a canvas bag.
“Gentlemen, this is where we leave you. There will be someone on the other side of the chamber waiting to receive you.”
Thank God, thought Robert, no more meat heads. They reminded him horribly of the people in high school he’d worked so hard to escape.
The suit closed the door and they all began to walk away, leaving the four men alone.
“Fuckin future of humanity right? Feels more like the first day of prison to me.” said Frank, the old guy.
“You’ve been to prison?” asked the military stiff.
“Worked in medical at one for a couple of years, back in the eighties. If I’m right, we get the hose now, and the de-lousing after that.” he said, grinning.
As though someone was listening, vents in the ceiling opened and began to spray freezing soapy water over every inch of the room. The old guy started laughing as he began to casually wash his hair.
Robert was disgusted with his situation. He’d almost not agreed to take the job. He thought that his decision might have gone that way if he’d known about this. But he needed the money, as he’d made a laughing stock out of himself at his last job, and returning to his parents was out of the question.
“Kid, stop looking like you’re pondering the meaning of existence and wash yourself! That’s the only way to get them to turn the water off!” Ted, the scientist was looking at him, half amused, half annoyed.
Hurriedly, he began to scrub his hair and body with his hands and, soon after, noticed that there were no longer any suds coming from the ceiling, and began to rinse himself off in the regular water.
Abruptly the water stopped and both the old man and the scientist sucked in a quick breath.
“What’re you two do-?”
But his words were cut off as a hole opened in the wall next to him, causing him to look at it while still speaking. The briefest moment of clarity was interrupted by a very large volume of a white powdery substance, shooting out of the hole with a solid ‘thump’, filling his mouth, nose, and eyes, and suddenly weighing down his wet hair.
Swearing and coughing harshly, Robert wiped his eyes to see all three of the other men looking at him and laughing at his predicament.
Just like another day at high school, Robert mused.
“Kid, haven’t you ever been through decontamination before? You must’ve worked in some kind of robotics place to get this job.” Ted asked.
The man looked like the ugliest powdered donut ever made.
“We did-didn’t have these back where I worked. Didn’t n-need clean rooms.” he wheezed.
A shower head, this time a real shower head, extended out of the wall next to each man. The other men turned to their showers, which were now spraying mercifully warm water, and began to rinse their hair and bodies of the fine powder covering them. Robert moodily washed his mouth out and began scrubbing himself again.
Once they were all clean, a buzzer sounded and the door on the opposite side of where they had entered was opened.
Expecting to now be given clothes, they walked through the door. Instead they were met with a woman’s voice that said, “Hold still!”
“What? Why? Are we not clean enough?”
“We’re going to use some new tech that we recently installed in all our clean rooms. Hold still!”
As they all stood there, bewildered at being yelled at by some unknown woman, who they realized was probably looking at them while they were all naked, a loud buzzing noise sounded and they felt a wave of energy wash over them.
“What the h-?”
But Ted didn’t finish his sentence as he began to lick his teeth with a confused expression on his face.
Robert realized that his teeth felt…clean. Unnaturally clean; to the point where it felt wrong.
As they all stood there, licking their teeth, another door opposite them opened.
Holding the door open and standing next to a cart with four bundles of white clothing, was another group of handlers, wearing the same suits as the men who’d just dropped them off.
“Gentlemen, get dressed please.”
God damn it, thought Robert.
They were met by a kind looking man who appeared to be in his fifties and wearing a full length white coat.
Frank stopped with the group waiting to be given further instructions.
“Welcome, you all know why you’re here, so let’s get down to the brass tacks. Your space ship is behind that door.” he said, pointing past some double doors, set with small windows that allowed a view of some object that had a square look to it.
“Now, you’ll see that in just a minute, but first I’m going to show you some of the equipment you’ll be using on your mission.”
He held up some small devices and a few syringes.
“These are your inhibitors implants and injections. They will make it so that regular germs and micro-organisms in your body don’t kill every alien you come into contact with.”
“We’d like to avoid pissing off the locals, yeah.” said Ted.
Next, walking over to what looked like four closets, the man opened them and revealed what could only be described as astronaut suits, though not like any Frank had seen before. They looked…sleek. More form fitting and with hands that looked like they would allow more dexterity than the bulky moon mission suits.
“These are your EVA suits. They have been custom made, using measurements taken from your medical exams and have been customized to suit your needs where necessary.”
“Wow.” said the kid. “Your fabrication team must be good if you made these that quickly.”
“Some of the best, sir.”
The man in the coat coughed, indicating that the equipment showing would now resume.
“You will each be given a sidearm of our non-lethal T.A.S.E.R. weaponry, should you find you need to defend yourself personally. They pack the same punch as the ones police use, 50,000 volts and around .02-.04 amps, but, unlike theirs, these use a subsonic graphene super-conductor round, similar to a pistol cartridge.”
The man showed them what, to Frank, looked like a black controller to a Nintendo shooting game, roughly the shape of how a pistol was supposed to look. In his other hand he raised a small cartridge that looked to be about the size of a .45 casing. It had two small barbed prongs on the front it. He was thoroughly unimpressed.
The man in the lab coat seemed to gather this fact as, smiling, he turned to the silent handlers who had been motionless for the duration of the presentation.
“Alright guys, whose turn is it?”
Becoming living creatures again, they looked uneasily at each other.
“Brian, you’re up. I got hit yesterday.” And one of the suits was pushed forward, away from the others. The man had a distinctly forlorn look.
The man sighed, “Do it Professor.”
In one motion he raised the little gun and pulled the trigger. A muffled report was heard and a sharp crackling noise filled the air as the man bowed at the waist, arms curling in front of his chest. He’d lost full control of his functions, falling backwards and being caught by several of his fellows.
“I forgot to specify that these weapons are non-lethal to humans only. They will be quite lethal to any intelligent alien life you come across. They might even just go right through them.”
Rather more respectful of the toy gun, Frank eyed it as the Professor put it back down onto the table he’d grabbed it from.
“Frank, you have a special piece of equipment assigned to you that will help you with the manual labor you will be expected to complete during the mission.”
“What kind of special equipment?” asked Frank, suspiciously.
Walking over to another closet, this one larger than the ones holding the EVA suits, the man opened it, grinning broadly and causing the robotics kid to make a jealous noise behind Frank.
“This is a third generation exo-suit used for construction in shipyards. They’re on generation five now, and we had this one in mothball when we found out you would be on this mission. It’s been heavily modified to remove any features that would be useless to you. I figured you wouldn’t be needing a sixty pound torque wrench the length of a broom handle any time soon, so some things were removed.”
With the flip of a switch, the exo-suit slid forward on some rollers underneath the floor of the closet and came to a stop with a soft ‘click’.
Frank thought it looked magnificent, and understood Robert’s jealousy. It stood about six and a half feet tall. It had a heavy, reinforced, spine made to carry loads that no human could be expected to lift. Strong cables attached to hydraulics connected the arms and legs to the spine. The arms had open bottoms and straps every few inches, so that the bottoms of the wearer’s arms would be exposed, to easily slip in and out of the suit. The tops of his forearms and biceps would be covered in what looked like a heavy stainless steel, which looked like it had some heavy pitting in it, likely from deflecting large debris raining down from welding machines. On the end of the arms, the hands looked like metal gauntlets with hinges in them, placed along the outside edge, that looked like they would swing open and attach to the back of the hands, allowing ungloved hands to do dexterity work. His legs looked like they would be entirely encased. Heavy clasps along the outside edges of the legs were open and showing more straps that would be buckled around each leg once the leg was closed. The chest area had what looked like a rib cage which opened at the center outwards, allowing him to climb in and then close the rib cage over his body. Along where the base of the neck would have been, a large and heavy steel cowl extended up, close to where the skin of his neck would be and covered over the top of where his head would sit, but had a fully open face, so as not to obscure his vision.
As though required to shatter its sense of perfection, the scientist said, “Now…there are a few…problems, with this suit.”
Frank deflated slightly. Of course there are problems, he thought. Weren’t there always when someone came down and gave you a gift from heaven?
“See, this thing has a two-hundred pound battery powering it. This battery lasts approximately five minutes; and only when moving itself, as opposed to carrying around a steel girder.” The scientists coughed awkwardly before saying, “And it takes around four hours to recharge the battery…”
“Well, what good is that then?!” Jason said, exasperated. “You can hardly get any real work done in five minutes.”
“Hold on, I haven’t finished. This suit was made to be run on shore-power. Meaning it’s meant to be plugged into a power source while it’s doing its heavy lifting. It can run until the power source runs out of juice, in that case.”
“Why the hell have the battery then?” grumbled Frank.
“Because,” spoke Robert, pitching in. “It has to move itself from power-source to power-source in the shipyards. Doesn’t it?”
“Correct sir.”
Mollified, Frank and Jason’s eyes went back to examining the suit.
“Wanna try it on?” said the white coated professor, an anticipatory gleam in his eye.
“You’ll have to shoot me with your Nintendo gun to stop me!”
Frank walked forward past the man without realizing that he’d caused him to ‘huff’ slightly about his Nintendo comment.
“How do I work these straps?”
Gruffly, the man said, “First, facing me, away from the inside of the exo-suit, place your feet into where your heels should go, and lean back until you’re touching the spine.”
Frank obliged, gingerly maneuvering his body against the hard metal, finding that there was comfortable padding where his body met the suit.
“Now, slip your arms into the loosened sleeves of straps into the arms of the exo-suit.”
Frank obliged again, this time rather uncomfortably due to having to lift his arms up.
“And now?”
“The suit needs to hear your voice before it ‘knows’ you.”
The lab coat pressed a button on a tablet he pulled from his pocket.
“No one else speak, please.” he said to the three men behind him, who had been perfectly silent the whole time, watching with a healthy amount of jealousy and amusement at their colleague in a metal suit.
“Frank, when you hear the tone from the suit, say your full name, occupation and the name of your favorite book.”
“Can do.”
The man tapped a button on his tablet and Frank heard a soft ‘beep’ next to his right ear.
“Frank Mark Clark, retired pharmacist, Moby Dick by Herman Melville.”
A soft beep in response was heard, along with a snort by Ted Burnquist.
“Your name is Frank Mark Clark?! Your full name is three syllables and rhymes?!” Ted burst out laughing and was joined by both Jason and Robert in his mirth.
The lab coat wearing man, smiling again slightly, looked at Frank.
“Tell the suit: Fit to person and activate.”
Frank, doing his best to ignore his crew mates laughing said, “Suit: Fit to person and activate.”
In less than a second, Frank felt his body hoisted upward as pneumatics under his feet raised him up several inches, the straps around his forearms and biceps tightened to a comfortable snugness, and the legs clamped closed and he felt the straps in those tighten as well. A heavy ‘clunk’ sounded as the rib cage closed and Frank suddenly realized he could move uninhibited.
He leapt off of the platform that he was standing on, and a resounding ‘CRASH’ reverberated through the room as the exo-suit cracked the tiled floor it landed upon.
His crew mates were no longer laughing at him. Instead they were now staring apprehensively at a steel exo-suit weighing seven hundred pounds, piloted by a crotchety old man, as dust settled around him.
“Well,” said Frank smugly, “how do I look?”
“Like Tony Stark broke out of the retirement home.” said Jason.
Everyone, including the lab coat was bent over laughing, while Frank fumed furiously.
“Alright guys, that’s all I’ve got for you. These will all be loaded onto the ship while you’re taking the tour and getting some training on the systems you’ll need to operate.”
The old guy had removed the suit. Everyone had stopped laughing under penalty of death by giant metal suit, and Frank had given it a command, which had been told to him by the lab guy, that released him.
After extricating himself and giving them a bracing smile that meant he didn’t intend to kill them all in their sleep, he had fallen back in with the group to listen to their presenter again.
“Head through those double-doors behind you and you’ll get to see your ship.” he said smiling.
As the four of them headed to the door, the old timer paused and said, “We never got your name, sir.”
“Oh, just call me Ericson.” he said, flashing another smile. Jason paused as he saw Frank freeze in the middle of turning and stared at the man. He looked like he was about to speak.
Seeming to think better of it, he turned to the doors again and muttered something that sounded like, “Corporate espionage bullshit.”
Nonplussed, Jason glanced at Professor Ericson again, who was still smiling, then turned and followed the others.
“This is our ship?”
The statement echoed in the basketball gym sized room.
Robert was being let down in a big way.
“It looks like someone welded about eight or ten shipping containers together!”
“Kids got a point.” Ted muttered.
“Hey! Don’t say rude things about my baby!”
A young woman was striding up to them, looking very unhappy with Robert.
She was the bookish type, with thin black framed glasses, wearing a lab coat and simple clothing underneath it, just jeans and a t-shirt and black flats. She also couldn’t have been more than twenty.
Robert Frost went beet red.
“What makes you think you can walk in here and criticize my work?!” she demanded of him.
“I-I didn’t-no, it’s not what you-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-.” he stammered, making himself go redder, if that was possible.
“Real ladies man this one.” whispered Ted, nudging Frank in the ribs.
“He’s off to a good start. Rolling over and showing your belly is the best way to let a woman know that you’re innocent; like a puppy. He’s well on his way to a bitter divorce.” whispered Frank with an impish smile.
Ted, seemingly no longer amused by Robert’s floundering said, “Ma’am, the kid’s right. Byron said he had some of the best ships money could buy. This isn’t one of those is it?”
The woman, turning from a quailing Robert, looked at Ted. She bit her lip and said, “No. This isn’t. We built those ships after years of research and nearly five-hundred million dollars of testing and raw materials. This was built out of spare parts over the course of about twelve days.”
“Twelve days?” exclaimed Jason.
“We’re all going to die.” grumbled Frank.
“No, no listen. The only thing that was redesigned due to time constraints was the hull and the weapons systems!”
“Were listening. Explain.”
“We had enough spare parts lying around to build an entirely new ship, but not enough time to make all the contours that the original designs called for on the hull. The hull is still made out of the same radar absorbing material the others were made out of and has the same starship armor underneath of that. It’s also got the same radar absorbing paint over all of that as well!”
She seemed to be pleading with them to agree that the ship was as good as the others.
“And the weapons systems?” questioned Jason.
“Well…there are none.” she said, blushing herself now.
“I was right; we’re all going to die.”
“Why can’t we have one of the three that didn’t disappear?” asked Ted.
“Because, Mr. Byron doesn’t want to risk another loss of one of those ships! Please, listen! These ships were designed to operate at the highest levels of discretion. We used the bulk of our half-billion dollar budget, on making these things all but invisible to radar! There’s an entire electronic warfare suite to that can jam enemy sensors. The hull absorbs almost all energy directed at it, and bounces the rest off into the wrong direction! And! If you actually do get into a fight, the ship is equipped with decoy beacons, heat flares and chaff that should give you plenty of time to get away!”
She was close to tears now. Hardly the angry scientist who had stormed up on Robert for saying it looked like welded together shipping containers.
It does rather look like a giant metal brick, thought Frank.
It was a long rectangular shape, with what he assumed was the front, due to the windows, being around the same length as the front of four shipping containers laid next to each other, and maybe two high. In length it looked like it might be around four large shipping containers laid end to end.
Jason seemed pensive; thoughtful. “Ok. Right, so, you say that this thing has no weapons systems to speak of, but that we can hide from pretty much anything that needs hiding from. Does it have shields? Can it take a hit?”
Feeling that she might be finding a believer in Jason, she enthusiastically said, “Well… It has shields. We had just enough time to add the force field generators. Those were installed this morning and finished testing while you were in decontamination. And the source of power is the same one used by the Myrmidon, it’s called WiTChES, and uses super-capacitors to store the energy made.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Can it take a hit?”
“Well…no. The shields are meant to deflect space junk really. We can’t generate enough power to make them viable to hold off heavy plasma bursts or rockets. Not even the first ships could.”
“I’m seriously regretting taking Byron’s money right now.” grumbled Ted.
“…alright. Alllllright… I’ll fly this hunk of scrap. I want to see the specs on those tests though. On all the tests, for everything, on this bird. I want to know what this thing is capable of before I trust it in a life or death situation.”
“Are you referring to take-off, Captain?” muttered Ted.
For the first time assuming his role as Commander, possibly because of Ted’s use of the word ‘Captain’, Jason said, in a tone he hadn’t used before now, “Alright, no more complaining. This is the ship we’ve been given and we’ll make it work for what we need. We shouldn’t need weapons as long as we’re never seen, and everything else is still up to the standards Byron said he paid for. No more griping.”
They all grumbled an assent, even Robert, who hadn’t dared speak for a while now, and then they remained silent.
The girl looked relieved when she heard Jason’s words.
“Where are all the workers? The people who built this ship?” Jason asked, looking around the huge abandoned room.
“They aren’t cleared to know anything about this mission. We had to send them away. They don’t even know why they had to build this ship.”
“Fair enough. Now what?”
“Alright, now we have to go over how you guys are going to fly and maintain this thing. We have a simulator that I’m going to have you guys run through until we’re all satisfied.”
Date point: 4y 11m 0w 0d AV
“Are they ready?” Bryon asked, looking at the video monitor.
“They’ve completed the training simulation five times now without missing anything.”
“That’s not what I was referring to Jennifer. Are they ready to do this? Mentally.”
“They’re as ready as they’re ever going to be, sir. Even so, they’re all a little unstable. It’s all you can expect after such a rushed recruitment. I have a few concerns about Burnquist, about how he might be distracted by some of the issues causing his family problems, but they shouldn’t be too bad, as he won’t be able to contact them.”
“And Frank?”
“Frank is the best out of all of them, sir. He’s found his purpose again, and he’s going to be trying to help people who need it. He’ll hold under the pressure.”
“…alright. Send them out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nine people were gathered on the platform in front of the open airlock that led into the loading bay in the side of the ship. All four crew members, dressed in snappy uniforms made to fit easily under their EVA suits, the young scientist woman, the Professor, Jennifer the psych-profiler, the Dr. who had gone over their medical test results and one handler, silent and professional as ever.
“I figured there would be more of a crowded send off.”
“Sorry Mr. Nolan. No big farewells from fans. Not on secret missions.” said the Professor.
“Figures.”
“There’s only one last thing for you gentlemen to do before you leave.” said the psychologist.
“And what would that be?”
“Name the ship. We left it unnamed for you.”
All of them turning to look at each other, Ted said, “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s bad luck to leave a ship unnamed.”
Frank, a pondering expression on his face, seemed to be ahead of all of his crew mates.
“How about, The Reclamation?”
“As in reclaiming our missing ships?”
“Yeah.” Frank said, feeling sheepish.
Jason pursed his lips. “I like it. It’s as good a name as any. We are the crew of the ship Reclamation. Reporting for duty, ma’am.” he said, direction his attention at the doctor.
“Now that that’s settled. Time to go gentlemen. Mr. Byron is watching.” said the handler, pointing at a camera in the corner along the distant wall.
The four men nodded and turned to get onto the ship. Turning around, Ted placed his hand on the button that would close the door, and held it there as the ramp ascended.
Just before she was out of sight, Robert blurted out, “I never got your name!” to the girl who had terrorized him.
Smiling slightly, with the door seconds from closing, she said, “Clara. Clara Ericson.”
The five people still on the platform, just as the door closed, heard, “Oh, I swear to GOD!”
And then there was silence.
Looking at his daughter, Professor Michael Ericson said, “I take it they weren’t happy about not having any weapons, right?”
Clara Ericson, grimacing, turned to her father and said, “Not in the slightest.”
As they turned to walk away, the suit wearing head of security Mr. Williams said, chuckling at Jennifer and Dr. Billings in his deep bass, “You told one of them that your last names were Ericson, didn’t you?”
Professor Ericson groaned and looked at his colleagues, “Again?! Once wasn’t enough? You had to mess with one of these guys as well?”
Unable to keep straight faces any longer, the Harvard educated doctors burst into fits of laughter. “We couldn’t resist!” she wailed. They’d been friends since college and couldn’t resist messing with the occasional person, with all this cloak and dagger stuff going on all the time.
“Which one of them was it?” asked Clara.
“Oh, it was Frank. We figured we’d get the best reaction out of him when he met you two.” laughed Dr. Billings.
“I even stole your name plate from your office door the day I interviewed Frank!” wheezed Dr. Jennifer McAllister, looking at Clara.
“Unbelievable. You’ll be lucky if he ever trusts either of you again if he finds out.” Professor Ericson said, smiling in spite of himself.
“It’s fine.” said Clara. “I didn’t need to make them go through the old decontamination process, but Robert just seemed so awkward, I knew it would be hilarious to watch.”
Dr. McAllister and Dr. Billings renewed their laughter, and even Mr. Williams let out another chuckle.
As they all backed away from the ship, as the drive could be heard spinning up, Jennifer said, “We needed a good laugh. We’ve haven’t had anything to be happy about these last few weeks.”
The ship vanished in a shimmer of rippling light.
“You’re right.” said Clara solemnly, her smile fading. “We haven’t.”