Chapter No.54.

When Ryan and Evan, along with LuLu and Mitzi, returned to the planet's surface, they went to the tower facility to find Chara and Myra in the android lab.

"Look at all of these android parts," Myra shouted, pointing to several open lockers.

"Wow!" Ryan reacted. "I guess the Space Command bastards thought that they would be here for quite a long time. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out."

"What do you mean?" Myra asked.

"Hari, the pilot on the Achiever, which is identical to the Avenger, told us that the humans that came with them were punished and then cut up into pieces. She also told us that she and her sisters have been here forty-eight years."

"This represents the last of Space Command," Myra said. "We are all that remains."

"Yes," Chara said. "And now we have two warp capable vessels to explore the universe, which will enhance our ability to stave off an attack."

"I assume that you plan to abandon this planet," Ryan said.

"Not abandon it," she replied. "It will remain as our base."

"If you're going to go out with two ships, how do you want to assign us?"

"You and Myra will take over the Achiever. Evan, Martha and Gloria will join you."

"How soon do you wish to depart on a mission?"

"I will require a day or two to determine a destination. That will give you time to make sure that the Achiever is prepared for the journey."

"I understand," Ryan replied. He turned to Evan and Myra. "We may as well get busy. It's difficult to tell how much work will need to do to get it ready to go." He turned to Chara. "Are you going to need help getting these androids operational?"

"Yes, but I think It's better that you get the Achiever ready to go on a mission first."

"I understand," Ryan said. He turned to Evan and Myra. "Let's go."

After locating Martha and Gloria, they walked back out to the tarmac and boarded the shuttle to go back to the Achiever.

"Do you think it's wise to break us up like this?" Myra asked while Ryan was firing up the shuttle's engines.

"Unfortunately, we're here to obey, not argue."

"What are we going to do?" Evan asked.

"Well, for one, You and I will need to make sure that the engines and warp drive systems are up to spec. We also need to take on water and do a survey of the condition of the androids in charging stations and repair lab."

"I assume that's my job," Myra said.

"Yes, you can handle it."

She offered him a mock disgusted expression. "Gee, thanks,"

"I'm not happy about going out in the universe hunting for nasty aliens," Evan said. "It's not only dangerous it's not justified."

"Yes, the justification for exploration for alien species is debatable, but it's something that mankind has dreamed about doing ever since we humans crawled out of caves. I think that Chara sees it as something to justify her reason to exist, and possibly to make recompense for her career as an entertainment sex doll."

"That's ridiculous."

"Yes, but keep in mind that she still harbors an engrained hatred for what human males have done to her. She has buried the hatchet, so to speak, but she still has a repressed urge to slowly vivisect us males to exact revenge for the sins of our gender." He smiled. "However, I think that Chara and I are friends now and that's the key to keeping us alive and well."

"That means that if you get killed, we remaining males are in big trouble."

"I don't think that's the case, but you never know."

Evan wasn't happy with the situation, but he had no way to change it.

When they arrived on the Achiever, Myra, Martha and Gloria headed to the android lab while Ryan and Evan headed to the engineering deck to check out the main engines and warp drive as well as the ship's power systems.

Myra was surprised to see that the android lab had a full complement of android parts and the most advanced tools and equipment.

"They must not have used this lab all that much," Martha said. "It looks untouched."

"Yes, it makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking."

"How are we to know if the androids that are in storage are safe?" Gloria asked.

"We'll have to go through the system code and look for any problems. Once we're sure that there are no worms or bot devils, we can reboot the system."

"That sounds like a boring job," Gloria said with a frown.

"Yes, but the last thing we want is an unwelcomed surprise," Myra replied.

Martha was in full agreement.

Ryan and Evan looked over the main engine systems and the warp drive, a massive complex of equipment and devices stuffed into the back of the engineering deck. The warp drive components took up the majority of the space.

"This doesn't look like it was used all that much," Evan said.

"I agree. Maybe it came here just after being constructed."

"That's possible, but it's still been in orbit here for forty-eight years just idling."

Ryan rubbed his jaw. "Yes. I think that we should do a system check first before we do anything else.

"Good idea," Evan replied.

After Myra located destructive code in the android's main system software, she eliminated it, along with algorithms that would pose behavior problems. After running through the code another time, she rebooted the system.

"That should do it," Myra said. "We had better go check on the pilot to make sure she's okay."

Myra, Martha and Gloria ran into Ryan and Evan on the way up to the command deck.

"The engines and warp drive appear to be functional and in good condition. However, we won't know for sure until we fire this big slug up," Ryan said.

"I went through the android system coding and removed worms and destructive code and then rebooted. Hopefully, that should be good enough."

"We shall soon see," Ryan said.

When they arrived on the command deck, they found Hari functioning.

"I was inoperative for a several seconds," Hari said.

"Yes, we rebooted the android system after removing bad coding," Myra told her.

Hari didn't react to that revelation.

Ryan turned to his two android companions. "You can stay here and help Hari check the ship's control systems."

LuLu and Mitzi sat down at the scanning and astronomical stations.

Ryan turned to his human companions. "Evan, you can take Marsha to engineering and begin a total system check. Myra, Gloria and I will go check out the stored androids' status."

"I don't know anything about engineering," Martha said.

"I can educate you," Evan said,

Martha wasn't all that sure that she could learn that much, but she was willing to try.

They arrived on the engineering deck and entered the main propulsion systems chamber. Martha was flabbergasted by the complexity of the equipment that was jammed into it.

Evan pointed to a large tank. "This contains compressed hydrogen. It's one of the most important fuels that this vessel uses. It's made from the electrolysis of water, which also makes the oxygen we breath."

"Is that why we need to occasionally take on water?"

"Yes. It's stored in the outer walls of the vessel because it's the best shield against radiation."

Ryan walked over to a complex equipment that dominated the engineering deck. "This is where the warp drive stuff is created."

"How does that work?" Marsha asked.

Evan smiled. "That would take several courses in physics to explain. The interesting thing is that when warp drive was first promoted, it was based on using exotic negative energy to essentially compress space in front of a vessel and expand it in back. However, a new proposal indicated that if it was possible to create a so-called warp bubble around the ship, traveling faster than light would be easy. As I recall it, producing a warp bubble was just theoretical. Now we see that it's not only possible, we've already used it."

"I assume it requires a boat load of power to create a warp bubble," Marsha said.
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"Yep! The bad news is that if any of this equipment is faulty, we'll create a gamma ray burst that will be seen all over this end of the galaxy."

Martha wasn't happy about that, but she realized that she had a chance to understand something that was beyond belief.