Chapter No.49.

The next destination turned out to be more problematic. Chara took the Avenger out of warp a million miles from a habitable planet orbiting a M-class red dwarf star. The planet had an atmosphere, but it was 1.5 times the size of Earth's, a possible detriment to being truly habitable, at least for normal biological life.

"This planet is home to an intelligent species," Alma said. "There is a space vessel in orbit."

"I'm detecting all sorts of electromagnetic signals," Myra said. "I will search for modulations."

"Ah, there's a vessel approaching from behind us," Alma revealed. "I am receiving a communication request."

"Does it have video?" Chara asked.

"Yes."

"Put it on."

The image on the main screen surprised Chara. It was that of a definite robotic creature, and it resembled what humans would expect, a face with two eyes and a mouth, but they were not of human origin. The eyes looked like two bulging glass spheres with no obvious iris. The mouth looked more like an open circle, possibly a speaker.

The sounds it made were not something that even Chara could decipher. She had to wait until Myra obtained a translation out of the universal translator. Surprisingly, that happened much sooner than expected, and Chara wasted no time in introducing herself.

"We are machines created to resemble biological creatures," she said. "We are here to explore not invade."

"We are the Invictus," the machine person said. "We must inspect you."

"We wish to inspect you," Chara retorted.

"Meet in the middle." The machine person said before dropping the communication link.

"I'm not sure how that's supposed to happen," Ryan said.

A large flat object exited the alien vessel and slowly moved to a position in between the two vessels. It had a cylindrical object in the center.

Chara turned to Ryan. "We will go in a shuttle."

Ryan wanted to argue the safety of such a move, but he knew it would be a waste of time. He went with Chara to the hanger deck and boarded a small shuttle with her. After the hanger deck's atmosphere was evacuated, Chara moved the shuttle out of the hanger and on a slow trip to the alien object. When she arrived at it, she slowly sat the shuttle down near the cylindrical object, which appeared to be made from some sort of metal. Suddenly, a flexible tunnel appeared out of the cylinder and moved over to the shuttle's door and fused to it.

Ryan and Chara walked through the tunnel to the cylinder where the robot was standing alongside two other robots. The cylinder had a breathable atmosphere, and this fact gave Ryan a bad feeling about the situation. How did the robot know what sort of atmosphere was required for a human? Chara didn't need oxygen, but he did.

"We will take control of your vessel," one of the robots said, his vocalizations being translated by a portable universal translator that Ryan held.

"We will resist any attempt to take over our vessel," Chara replied.

"Then we must use force," the robot said before he raised his hand holding a weapon.

Chara reacted fast, but not fast enough to prevent the robot from firing its weapon at Ryan. The energy blast tore into his chest, causing blood to blast out. She had concealed a weapon of her own and fired it at the robots, disabling them. She immediately picked Ryan up and carried him through the tunnel to the shuttle. As soon as she got him inside, she flew the shuttle back to the Avenger.

"Move away and destroy the enemy ship, she ordered even before the shuttle had sat down in the hanger or it had been pressurized.

The enemy vessel commenced weapons fire on the Avenger, causing damage to its hull shielding, but Alma returned fire, causing severe damage to the alien ship. She backed away and pursued a course that quickly had the Avenger circling the planet while firing back at the pursuing enemy ship.

As soon as the hanger was pressurized, Chara carried Ryan out of the shuttle and on the way to a medical center on the quarters deck. She knew that the enemy weapon had probably killed him, but she was not going to stop trying to revive him.

Alma, on the other hand was doing all she could do to avoid the enemy craft. She needed to trick the enemy into a deadly manuver, so she plunged the Avenger into the planet's atmosphere. It was big risk, but it was the only way she had to cause the enemy to slow enough so that she could fire a missile at it.

Chara got Ryan's dying body into a stasis chamber and activate the process of stabilizing any decomposition, hoping that the nanobots would prevent his brain from shutting down.

Alma's idea proved to be the right move. The enemy ship was having trouble maneuvering in an atmosphere, allowing her to put the Avenger in the right position to fire a missile and then exit the atmosphere, but she was running out of time.

Chara heard the explosion of the enemy vessel and realized that Alma had fired a missile at the enemy ship while in the planet's atmosphere. She was too busy to worry about it. She was doing everything she could to revive Ryan by using the stasis chamber's various protocols for medically treating humans.

Alma pulled the Avenger up out of the planet's atmosphere just in time to avoid a tremendous explosion when the enemy vessel crashed onto the planet's surface, obliterating the structures for over several square miles. As Alma fired the engines to move away from the planet, she was able to see that the enemy vessel had created an immense crater where the alien city once stood.

Chara could only watch the process of Ryan's healing. His nanobots, along with more that she had injected into him, were busy repairing the horrendous damage to his tissues. She realized that his brain was still alive, but just barely. She hoped that she had gotten him into the stasis chamber in time.

Alma placed the Avenger in a high orbit around the planet and began firing plasma balls down at the remaining enemy structures, an action that would change how the androids would deal with future threats.

The humans gathered at the evening supper to discuss the latest situation.

"Does anyone know if Ryan's going to recover?" Evan asked.

"Chara is working on him," Myra said. "She thinks he will survive, but she doesn't know if he'll be fully operative."

"He's not a fucking android," Martha said. "He's a human. He's either dead or alive."

"She believes that he is alive, but just barely. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

"If he dies, we're in deep trouble," Evan said. "His relationship with Chara is what's keeping us alive."

"I don't think that's necessarily true. They need us to repair them. Killing us would place them in danger if they encounter an alien force that is more capable then what we've seen so far."

"I still hope he survives," Myra said. "He's our best hope on this ship of fools."

Everyone could agree with that, but they were still worried about life after Ryan. They knew that he was the only human who has established a true relationship with androids. Most of them were convinced that androids were on a course to take over Earth and that Ryan had aborted their plan.