Star Fields

Chapter No. 137. New Power.

Chapter No. 137. New Power.

You never know what's possible.

The explosion caught me off guard, but I reacted in a tiny fraction of a second to stop time, not knowing what I could do to stop the destruction of several thousand androids.

Then I discovered something I wasn't aware of. I could reverse time. It was as if my mind revolted against nature itself and decided that I was determined to stop the androids from being destroyed.

Alexa appeared. "What happened?"

"There's an antimatter missile war head down under this building and it was obviously rigged to go off when I entered this building."

"I didn't detect any explosion, but I knew there was something wrong," she said. "How did you stop it from exploding?"

"I didn't."

She looked at me with a confused expression.

"It went off, so I stopped time before it engulfed me. Then, I reversed time to a point before it exploded."

Her eyes grew. "Wow! I didn't know we could do that."

"I didn't either. It was just my knee jerk reaction."

"So, what can we do to avoid the damage?"

"Send it out of here far enough to avoid the explosion."

"I say we send it out the opposite from where our ship is."

I smiled. "Good idea."

We used our powers to send the missile warhead several million kilometers away before I started time up again. The explosion produced a brilliant gamma ray burst, but it didn't cause any damage.

We exchanged a high five.

"What about the androids here?" She asked.

"They're at very low energy levels. They probably haven't been charged for some time."

"What about the ships in orbit?"

"I'll go check them out while you assemble all of the androids in one place. If I can get the ships up to power, we could send them there to be charged."

She nodded. I teleported to one of the vessels and found that it was on low power mode. No one was on board and I detected no evidence of explosives. Evidently, Tyco figured that I would be destroyed on the planet.

I teleported back to the planet and found that Alexa had assembled all of the androids. They were lying on the floor of the domed structure.

"Wow, there's much more than I thought."

"There's three thousand of them, mostly red and black haired. They're all on very low power mode."

"Let's get back to our ship and organize crews to get the vessels in orbit up and running. We can then transfer these androids to the vessels to be charged."

We teleported directly to the command deck.

"We'll need crews to get the vessels in orbit powered up," I told Judy. "We've recovered three thousand androids that need to be charged. They're at very low energy levels."

"They will be permanently damaged if they're not charged soon," Judy said. "The crews you require have been assembled on the main hanger deck."

"Good. Alexa and I will go there and teleport them to the vessels." I turned to Molly. "We will need to bring these vessels up to spec. After the vessels are activated, you and Alex can go there to begin that work."

She nodded.

Alexa and I teleported to the hanger deck where we found thirty androids standing at attention.

"We will split you up to ten each and teleport you to the three vessels. Your task is to bring the vessels up to power enough to charge androids, which Alexa and I will send up when you are ready for them."

They didn't react, but I knew that they understood what was needed.

When the three orbiting vessels were powered up enough to begin charging androids, Alexa and I teleported them to the vessels, a thousand to each. Our androids there got them in charging stations to begin reviving them.

Marie organized teams of androids to go down to the planet to obtain water to replenish the three vessels and ours. Meanwhile, Molly, Alex and I began the tedious task of adding the changes necessary to make the three vessels capable of spin drive.

While I was helping Alex install the spin mechanism to the antimatter-matter mix chamber, I looked over at Molly. "Why did you choose this particular galaxy?"

"I don't know," she said. "I was taught that a flocculent spiral galaxy doesn't have well-defined spiral arms and no bar. I wanted to find out how it had changed in 65 million years."

"I find it odd that it just happened to be the galaxy we found Tyco's trick."

"Maybe his code left a ghost suggestion in my positronic memory stack. I will submit to a dissection if you wish."

"I would never do that to anyone," I retorted.

"It's not that crazy. Androids have been dissected without harm. It's just a procedure to repair damage. They just remove your skin and organs before disassembling your skeleton."

I felt my stomach objecting to that thought. "I don't care. I won't do that to you."

She smiled, a sign that she had been reconciled to my primacy over the collective.

Alexa appeared. "I discovered the reason she and the other two . . . why they revolted."

I looked up at her. "I thought it was because of Tyco code in their positronic brains."

"Ultimately, that's what it became, but it started out as incipient virus code. I've purged it from all of the ships systems in our fleet, including the three we just acquired."

"Good. Hopefully, that's the end of it."

"I wouldn't go that far. We've gone through several of these computer code hacks, and more seem to appear out of thin air. I believe it could be the result of spin drive quantum effects."

"We need to find out if that's the case," I said. "I don't want us limited to just warp drive."

"Don't worry. We'll figure it out." She looked at Molly. "Right, Molly?"

"Yes," Molly replied. "We will figure it out."

I saw this as a sign that Alexa had been reconciled with the 3 M's attempt to depose me. It meant that things were returning to normal. However, I realized that it would take time for everyone to heal from this latest attempt by Tyco to usurp my authority over the collective, but I knew down deep that we were in for more of his shenanigans.

I teleported to the hidden pool chamber and sat down on a chair in the meeting area off the pool. What happened next took me by surprise.