Book 2 New Neighbors

Chapter 1

Jake was tired, it had been a very long day. As he laid down he started to think about what had happened in the past two years. It all started two years ago, on this very day. He had been contacted by the AI, Artificial Intelligence, of a very old space ship and told he was a descendant of that race. He had introduced his best friend, Amy, to the AI and found out that she was a descendant also - in fact she was descended from the Captain of the ship. His younger sister, Kate, had followed the two and so she was introduced to AL, as that was what they had named the AI, and had become a pilot. He and the two girls had even had sex together. Now Amy was his girlfriend and Captain of the ship, he was Chief engineer, and Kate was the senior pilot. They had recruited Kate's best friend, Sally, and her brother, John, to join the ship's company. Now Sally was the chief shuttle pilot and John was the Science Officer for the ship. Amy had recruited Sam, short for Samantha, as Chief of Security. Together they had prevented a terrorist attack on the Mississippi River; and then even rescued Ted, who served as First Officer now, after he was shot down in the middle east. After that they had rescued several Russian prisoners from some terrorists and recovered nuclear weapons. The Russians became part of the crew also. They had repaired the ship and made it space worthy again. Ted, in a disguise,  had met with the UN on Earth on told they a little about the aliens. Jake still wasn't sure that was such a great idea. 

After taking over an abandoned colonization ship, the AI was named Carol, they had built a base on Mars and the Moon. Once that was up and running they recruited more people from Earth to settle on Mars, and the Moon. They had built a space platform that served as a shipyard and dry dock. By combining the AIs from both ships they had been able to clone them and create a couple of new AIs to run the bases. Now, they had almost finished the construction of a new ship. This ship would be used to transport colonists to Alpha Centauri to expand their settlements in space. The ship was to be officially launched tomorrow. Yes, it had been a very interesting two years.

Jake was awaken by the sound of the alert horns about six hours after he had fallen asleep. He was on the bridge almost immediately to find out what was wrong now. The ship was on Yellow alert due to the detection of an inbound ship from outside the solar system. The new ship was identified as a transport and appeared to be only using half power. The ship had just appeared suddenly between Jupiter and Saturn, one moment the area was clear the next there was a ship there. AL estimated that the ship would reach Mars in about a day at it's present speed. It would take AL only about six hours to reach Mars from their location on the Moon. Amy came onto the bridge, after receiving a report, she ordered the ship to Mars at maximum safe speed. She also had Mars go to Red alert and arm the defensive stations and weapons.

Amy had launched two sets of fighters, one to stay with her ship and the second to proceed to Mars as backup and support of the forces there. As they got closer to Mars they started to receive updated sensor reading from a drone that had been launched from the platform. There was no reaction from the new ship to the drone. Reading showed no external damage to the ship, shields were up but only minimally. 

As soon as Amy arrived at Mars they were joined by Commander "Nate" Thomas, the Security training director and ground force commander. Nate said he had about thirty pilots ready, in addition to the 200 ground forces that were stationed on Mars, but didn't enough crafts for all of them. Amy and he decided that half of the pilots would come up and half would stay there to backup the pilots staying around Mars. The fifteen pilots and 50 ground troops were loaded aboard and Amy's ship set course to intercept the new arrival. Communications reported that the new ship was emitting a distress signal now. Carol reported that she had made contact with the ship and it's AI was in poor condition due to damage.

Once AL arrived at the new ships position and the fighters were surrounding it, he attempted to make contact and gain access to the ship's computer with slight success. A message was sent telling the ship that they were to halt and state their intentions. There was no reply, but the ship did shut down it's drives. AL continued to make contact and finally got through to the AI directly on a special channel that only AIs could use to talk with each other.  Al reported that the ship had been sabotaged and that the AI was requesting aid for it's crew and passengers. AL told the AI that a boarding party would be onboard shortly. This information was relayed to Amy from AL.

The first ships to land onboard were three fighters, followed by two shuttles filled with troops and support personnel. There were still seven fighters orbiting the ship. After making sure that the landing bay had an atmosphere, Sam lead the first security force out of the shuttle and into the ship itself. The second shuttle unloaded it's troops, all in battle armor, to secure the landing bay. Sam lead her group to the main computer core and gained access with some difficulty due to a language barrier. After gaining control of the internal defense systems Sam called Amy to report. Shortly, John, Jake, and a few engineers boarded the ship and went about their duties of determining the damage to the ship and it's mission.

It was determined that the ship was to go to a new planet with about 500 settlers, who were in stasis, and let them start the colonization process. The AI, who Amy named Cal, reported that there had been a series of explosions throughout the ship and the damage to the controls resulted in a major course change. Cal reported that he wasn't sure where he was in relation to where he was supposed to be. The engineers found that about half of the stasis chambers had either malfunctioned or been damaged and their occupants were beyond help. But the other ones were still functioning and the occupants seemed to be okay. A medical team arrived and took over caring for the ones in stasis. After Cal had been reconnected to the chambers he reported that they appeared to be okay and were ready to be released or awakened. Amy made the decision to keep them asleep a little while longer; at least until she could get all the information possible.

After the most serious damage was repaired, the ship was put into an orbit around Jupiter until Cal could be reconnected completely. This would also give Jake a chance to study the FTL drives and maybe figure out a way to adapt them for their use on AL or Carol. This orbit would also allow John to study the main computer to find any upgrades that might be useful in AL or Carol. While Jake and John did their own thing, Amy, Ted, AL, and Cal got together. Instead of Cal joining via the computer terminal, he just showed up in Amy's ready room in avatar form. This was a real surprise for the rest. Cal even offered to share this technology with AL, and eventually Carol.

"Now that we have had a chance to get used to your avatar form Cal, would you tell us more about your mission and what happened to bring you here to this system?" Amy asked.

"We left Andreus for a newly prepared planet in the Ogano system, about 1000 light years away. We had just cleared our own system and were preparing to jump when the explosions started in Engineering, followed by explosions throughout the ship. Our primary array was destroyed also and before we could switch to the secondary array a poisonous gas was released that killed the crew. Internal sensors detected a shuttle craft attempting to leave the ship. Since the Captain had not ordered abandon ship, I closed the bay's blast doors sealing the shuttle inside. Then there was an explosion in the core that took me off line. But the jump sequence had already been started and we jumped before the destination was verified. My internal chronograph shows we were in jump for three of your months. It was during this time that several of my systems reset and I was able to retake control and exit the jump stream. I ended up here in your system." Cal explained.

"Do you know who was responsible for the sabotage or why it was done?" Amy asked next.

"The person responsible is still in the shuttle, dead I assume as I detected no life signs. As to the reason, there is a growing problem with the settlement of other planets on Andreus. People think that the criminals should be removed and not the general population." Cal replied.

Amy called Sam and told her to have each of the shuttles searched for the body of the saboteur and to have Med Service do an autopsy on it. Amy then offered Cal the choice of returning to Andreus or staying in this system and joining up with them. Cal didn't even pause a second before answering that if there was a planet suitable for his passengers then he would stay, since he didn't like the idea of being blown up again. As Amy and Ted welcomed Cal to the Sol System Sam called and told them they had found the body, but he wasn't dead; he was in a stasis chamber. Ted told Sam to place a guard on the chamber and have it, and it's contents, transported to the brig on board AL. When Amy looked at him, Ted explained his actions.

"From what I have read about AL and Carol, I think we might just have found an "Ensign SuLak" alive. If so, then I for one would like to talk with him. He has been very helpful to us in supplying ships, even if they were damaged. We owe him a chance to explain after all." Ted said with a grin.

Cal commented that there had been a last minute replacement namely an Ensign SuLak. This really peaked Amy's and Ted's curiosity. The chamber was transferred to AL's brig under guard as ordered.