Chapter 10: History

Kella, breathing heavily from her exertion, could only just stare. She didn’t even take notice when Gavin’s remote entered the room to float near her elbow.


“I told you I wasn’t a computer,” Gavin said quietly. Kella looked from the floating camera to the body floating in the gel, her mouth hanging open. She had heard him each time he’d defended his existence, and each time, she’d ignored him. She always just assumed it was the AI asserting its sentience. She never would have guessed that the entity that called itself ‘Gavin’ was in actuality, a living, breathing human. Or had been, at any rate.
“If you don’t mind, let’s go upstairs. Seeing me hanging there lifeless is, well, disturbing,” Gavin mumbled. The remote turned and disappeared back the way it came. Kella stood for a moment longer, staring at the tube, before turning to follow the remote.

“How did it happen?” Kella asked when they arrived in the lounge, a place for troopers to relax between missions. The walk up the several flights of stairs had been quiet, with both lost in thought. For Kella, everything Gavin had done now made sense. And thinking back on the events that had transpired over the last few days, she felt slightly guilty for her actions.

The fish-eye remote turned to look at her, and gave a passable impression of a human shrug. “I’m not entirely sure,” Gavin began. “But maybe I should start at the beginning? If you don’t mind?” Gavin asked and the remote floated over to the couch against the wall. Kella took a seat and waited, unsure of what she was about to hear.

“I was the Director of what was called at the time, the ‘Protector’ program. Its end goal was to create this, the Praetorian; a self-sufficient, extreme long range combat carrier. It was to have the ability to go on hyper extended missions, operating for weeks, months, or even years without returning to home port. It was to be the symbol of Military power for the next several decades, as well as being the foundation of the Military’s Defense Strategy against the Krix.”

“The Krix?” Kella asked incredulously. “They haven’t been seen for years.”

“Almost twenty years in fact,” Gavin said, reminiscing. “I was born on a small moon of some larger gas cloud called Starfish. Starfish was a paradise of sorts, endless beaches, clean air, and fertile soil. The Military coveted the resources of the gas planet beyond, and Starfish was a convenient, even desired post. We thrived on their business, and to defend the whole operation were several large battlestations located at several key La Grange points between the moon and the giant.

“My Family was well-off and made a living designing technology for the Military. I spent the bulk of my youth off-world studying and walked away from Greentree University with High Degrees in VI Software Design, Robotics, Engineering, and Patterson Particle Physics.

“On that particular day, mere days after returning home, the evacuation alarms didn’t even sound until after the battlestations were falling as debris into the oceans. There was no warning. None. The Krix came from the depths of space and attacked without provocation. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories?” Kella nodded. Almost everyone had heard of the Krix; a strange, hostile alien race that had brought the Military to the brink of defeat after only a year of savage fighting, and then, mysteriously, just as all was about to be lost, disappeared.

“For two decades, scientists and theorists have argued back and forth over the reasons behind the Krix’s sudden disappearance. Even though it had been a great mystery, it was, no doubt, a blessing. The Military had been wiped out nearly to the last ship. Defeat had been a reality. But once the Krix vanished, the Military arms industry exploded into a golden age as nearly everyone, in one way or another, armed themselves for a possible return of an undefeatable enemy. Resources were piled upon research centers and production plants. The Military was reborn, far stronger than ever before.

“On what remained of Starfish, the flashpoint of the war, my family rose from the ashes, as it were. After evacuating off-world, they joined the Military, or spent their considerable influence designing and producing weapons for the Military. As the eldest Cross, I also did my part. I even took part in several skirmishes during the war, mostly to reclaim Starfish, but eventually I fell back to designing weapons, the family trade, as it were.” Gavin stopped a moment, lost in memories. Kella said nothing, but his last name was familiar to her, although she could not place it.

“It wasn’t publicized, but my Family was the ones responsible for the Krix disappearance. My father, actually. He designed a bio-weapon and we unleashed it upon the Krix. The weapon, created from nano-machines actually fed upon Krix bodies, reducing them to little more than ash. The Virus swiftly spread as the Krix were an extremely communal race,” Gavin said morosely. Kella couldn’t get an expression from the remote, but his voice said it all. It was shame. “You see, the Krix didn’t disappear. They were annihilated. And my family caused it. Whatever we gained, it was still genocide.

“Anyway, I couldn’t abide by my father’s methods. We had a, disagreement, and I left the family. He told me several times of what he though of my leaving the Family and Starfish in its ‘hour of need’. My mind was made up, and I still left. We never spoke again.

“Eventually, I ended up at a Military think tank, designing VI interfaces and robot workers. My work was quickly noticed, and I was promoted to the Protector project. The design goal was, like I said, to create a ship for hyper-extended missions. In truth, it was for missions into Krix space to send back word if they had all been killed, or if they were again amassing for an invasion. We needed to know. And the Protector Project seemed like a splendid alternative to my Father’s horrendous work.

“Once there, I quickly earned the respect of the think tank’s director, a Dr. Sydney, and I became Program Director. Sydney worked alongside me designing AIs to work in conjunction with my VIs. You see, I created this floating eye. In fact, most of this plane is my work, along with about fifteen other engineers and scientists, all brilliant men.

“The Project was going so well. We were nearing completion, and then, there was a problem. Dr. Sydney had a setback. He failed, or no, something died, or,” Gavin let out a loud sigh of frustration. “I’m sorry, my memories are scrambled there. I can’t seem to recall exactly what happened after that. I remember him coming to see me, but, no, that’s all.

“After that was darkness, and then waking up inside my plane. I remember waking to a flood of data. I wanted to vomit, but couldn’t, with so many voices speaking at once. I had somehow become ‘linked’ to my entire gestalt of VI interfaces. They were feeding me information directly. I’m not sure how. I could access anything in their databases, quicker than humanly possible. To tell the truth, it scared me. I was lost in endless data; lost for what seemed years to me. And then I found the system clock.

“I realized my consciousness was sailing along at computer speeds. My entire experience since waking up from blackness to the sickening deluge of data had taken nanoseconds. It had all transpired in a fraction of the time it took the holo-display to create the first letter on your screen.

“After that, I learned to leisurely sift through the data. Modified my interfaces, and filtered out useless information, and built for myself a system to convert the endless data into a form I could understand. And that was when I saw you sitting in the pilot’s chair. I had hoped that you could tell me what the hell had happened. Unfortunately, that was not the case.”

“I’m sorry,” Kella said. “I didn’t know.”

“There was no way you could have. I have a feeling very few people even knew I’d gone missing, and those that did were very good at hiding it. The Military thinks like my Dad, I discovered. They take the phrase ‘At Any Cost’ seriously. So, what do you think of my plight? Understand why I couldn’t simply turn this beast over to you? I wanted to get my body back before you sold me off!”

“I want to help, Gavin,” Kella said slowly.

“Oh really?”

“Yes. I apologize for my behavior. I, don’t know what else to say,” she said, not able to look the camera in the lens.

“Well, I say let bygones be bygones. If you promise not sell me off until I can extricate myself from this thing, I think we can work together. Besides, I think we make a good team. You handle the physical stuff, the brawn as it were, and I’ll handle the planning and tactics, the brains.”

Kella couldn’t see it, but could imagine a giant smartass smile. “I can see this is going to be an interesting trip.”

“Indeed,” Gavin said, the remote nodding.