Chapter No.123. Maiden Run.

The fleet is ready for action . . . almost.

While an army of androids were busy completing the construction on the other four decks of the new vessel. Molly, Alex and I were busy down on the engineering deck installing the most important system of the ship. The central computer core was more important than anything else because it controls everything.

After installing the computer system, we had to copy all of the data that existed on the Exploer-2. This immense amount of data was critical because it contained the core programming to not only run the ship but also to maintain the nanobots that existed in all of us, and our positronic brains were intrinsically connected to this system.

The main computer also contained the personality data and memories of all human-based androids. That includes the command staff and the rest of the android crew, twenty-four thousand in all. This very critical data was also kept on the Explorer-2 and on the Helios Station that orbits the sun. By duplicating this data, we were covering our bets in case something happened to one of the sources.

We also copied all of the Human cultural data to the new vessel. This data represents all of the recorded media of humanity. It includes all of the movies, radio and TV shows, sporting contests, art, books, music, plays, operas, musicals, historical documents and everything else of value. We were in actuality preserving the history of human life, which had been effectively destroyed by a large asteroid.

"This is boring," Molly said. "It's taking a lot of time to transfer all of the data."

"It's no wonder. It's billions of times more data than had ever been generated by humans."

"Is anyone ever going to look at all this?" Alex asked.

"I don't know, but I feel that it's our responsibility to maintain it for as long as we can."

"Who cares who won some Super Bowl centuries ago?"

"I don't know, but at least we can go back and see what happened. We have lots of time to do so."

Alex smiled. "Yeah, you're right. I keep forgetting that."

"Where are you planning to go after we get this big ship finished?" Molly asked.

"We'll take it on a warp trip first and then try the spin drive. Hopefully, they'll check out."

"They should," Alex said. "We went over all of the components with a nanoscale."

I chuckled. "Yeah, that was tedious but necessary to make sure we're not going to blow up."

"The main way to prevent any disasters is to make sure that there are no Tyco code snippets in our computer core," Molly said. "I'm not going to be satisfied until I go through all of it."

I knew that all of this had added anxiety to them, but her attitude was correct. We had to be sure.

The big day for the maiden launch of the Explorer-3 came as expected. The command staff gathered on the command deck and prepared for whatever would happen.

I sat in my captain's chair with Alexa at my side.  Molly, Marie, Margaret, Alex, Alicia, Vince and Victoria were at their assigned stations, while Judy and Madison were at the helm and weapons station.

"Okay Judy, take us up out of the galactic plane. I think that twenty thousand light years would be sufficient."

"Yes, Jason."

The vessel accelerated away from Earth and after reaching seventy five percent of the speed of light, went to warp,

"So far, so good," Alex reported as he watched the engineering data.

It required twenty minutes to reach the position I had asked for. During this time, we all collectively held our breaths.

Everything performed as expected.

"Okay, take us to the Centaurus Cluster. Put us near NGC 4696."

"Why there?" Molly asked.

"It's a large elliptical galaxy that's surrounded by lots of other elliptical galaxies. I'm curious as to whether it contains any intelligent life."

"I don't know," she said. "It has a humongous supermassive black hole.'

I shrugged. "It might be interesting."

We were there in a few minutes. A large galaxy dominated our main screen with lots of red dwarf stars and older main sequence stars.

"Well, it looks like the new vessel is okay."

Alexa turned to me. "What? You weren't sure?"

"You never know. That's why we embark on a maiden voyage."

"All of the engineering data is within specs," Alex reported.

I stood up. "I think that I'll go and check out my new quarters while Molly and Margaret hunt for possible inhabitable planets."

Alexa gave me a solicitous look. "What about me?"

"You're second in command. You have to stay here."

She rewarded me with a smirk.

I decided to go down to my quarters the old fashion way instead of just teleporting there. The instant I entered my new quarters I was greeted by Alice, Ellen, Betsy and Ben.

I looked around. "What do you think? Is it adequate?"

"it is more then that, sir," Ben said. "We each have our own rooms. I haven't had anything like that since I became an android."

His statement made me cringe. I hadn't realized that the androids that we thought were really just machines had human thoughts and aspirations. I also forgot that many of them were humans in their former lives.

Suddenly, I realized something was wrong. I teleported to the command deck.

"There's a large fleet of ships approaching," Molly said. "I don't know what their configuration is."

"Go to Red Alert. Prepare for combat."

"We don't have our robotic ships with us this time," Molly pointed out.

"We'll just have to see how good this new ship really is," I said.

The approaching vessels began firing intense energy beams at us. Judy immediately began maneuvering around to avoid their fire. Madison began returning fire using our updated multi-directed weapons system. The attacking ships split up and maneuvered to surround us.

"Take us out of here with the spin drive, Judy."

She immediately engaged and we were back at our solar system.

"I guess they didn't like us encroaching on their territory."

"Ah, they followed us," Molly said.

"Alert all of our fleet . . . wait, I have an idea. Madison, fire an antimatter missile right into their formation."

She did, and the missile flew at near light speed to their location before detonating. The gamma ray blast hit against our shielding, causing an intense ringing.

"I suspect that this was a Tyco trick," I said. "How did he know where we were going?"

"I'm working on it," Molly said as she furiously began working at her station.

"It's coming from one of the androids. I think it's Felicity in engineering. She has one of those explosive devices in her."

"I thought that I got rid of all of them. Evidently I was in error." I teleported to engineering and found Felicity.

"It appears that you still have an explosive device in you and it also has a sensor tied to Tyco."

She looked at me with a shocked expression.

"I will remove it," I said just before I made it disappear. "There, you're free of it now."

"I am grateful," she said while looking like she was going to faint.

I went to her and hugged her. "You'll be fine now."

She gave me a weak smile. The other androids in engineering saw what I had done and were pleased. But what they told me next shocked me.