Uncharted Read online

  Uncharted

  Copyright 2015 Daniel Day

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and didn’t purchase it, or it wasn’t purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Navigation

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter One

  “This way Commander,” the United Intergalactic Federation Sergeant said, grasping Reyes’ left elbow firm enough he could feel it. The prisoner’s hands remained bound behind his back by way of the pressure sensitive, razor sharp, tensile wire set in place by the Artakkian guard.

  “Transport was scheduled for tomorrow. Did something change?” the former Intergalactic Discovery Space Vessel Commander asked with a raspy, less-used voice.

  “No Sir, my… Commander… wanted to see you first,” the UIF soldier responded while the two made their way through the corridor before stopping in front of an out-processing window.

  “Reyes, Earth,” the Sergeant said to the Artakkian through the makeshift window cut out of the rocky wall.

  The guard swiveled in his seat after keying a code into the transparent tablet mounted on a desk in front of him. A cranking and winding of gravel on metal sounded from within the room behind the guard and shortly thereafter, a paper-like box slid from a metallic dumbwaiter marked “Reyes, Earth.” The Sergeant thumbed his signature on the bio-pad and thanked the guard in Artakkian tongue. The former Commander, Reyes, and the UIF Sergeant turned and continued their way through a short hallway to a common area for out processing.

  “Commander, our Vanguard’s program will transport us to a secure location on Earth,” the UIF Sergeant said, opening the exit door that led into the processing room. “Travel should take ten or twelve weeks. I’ll make sure you get a good hot meal on the way,” he continued, while setting the two parcels he brought back from the window alongside a medium sized Biological Sustainment Unit suitcase on the floor.

  ∞

  Mathematically speaking, ten to twelve weeks of space travel only lasted about nine hours. The warp drive, which activates at roughly half the speed of light, bent space and time, but resulted in the destination being much later in date than the short ride would cause to think. Science could probably explain this, but all Reyes knew was that he would be taking his last breath in less than 12 hours. The thought of death was kind of mind numbing though.

  Earlier in life as a soldier, he had imagined himself dying in battle, or at least a freak accident while partying. But, in fact, he had turned on his home world who was conspiring to overthrow many systems, sending them into total anarchy. By his taking of sensitive data and journeying to the Artakkian planet, he thought he was doing the ‘right thing’.

  ∞

  The Sergeant turned and removed the tensile razor wire that bound Reyes wrists, “I’ll wait here, Sir,” the Sergeant said, “Please be brief. We are on a tight schedule.”

  Reyes at first had not noticed the UIF Sergeant’s military etiquette, but in the past few minutes, he recognized that the Sergeant referred to him as ‘Sir’ and ‘Commander’ more than normal for a prisoner salutation. “What’s with all the respect, Sergeant?” Reyes asked.

  The UIF Guard eyed Reyes. “Protocol Sir,” he hesitantly replied. “We don’t have much time,” he said, nudging Reyes towards an adjacent changing room alongside the wall of the room.

  ∞

  Being a prisoner of Artak was literally hell. Most of the buildings were made of the stone mantle natural to the planet. The world resembled much of the Earth’s makeup but orbited much closer to its local star. The closeness of the star in turn often soared temperatures beyond 65° Celsius. In addition, the planet does not rotate on a wobbling axis like Earth and rotates unilaterally throughout the year. This prison, in fact, was on the equator of the planet. The climate is always a blistering hot condition.

  Like Earth, Artak has vegetation, wild animals, seasons, rain, snow, and complex cities. Artak is also the most intelligent humanoid life in the cosmos. However, unlike Earth, Artak rotates oppositely – the sun rising from the west. The massive planet’s mantle is interconnected and surrounds the North and South oceans. Atmospheric levels are slightly lower than Earth also and sometimes can cause excruciating headaches.

  The oxygenated corridor is where humans, Adroitians, and Andromedans are imprisoned. Oxygen, Nitrogen, Helium, and Argon, the natural gasses of Earth, pump into the oxygenated corridor and provide some relief from the Artakkian air. Most of the head pain comes during the middle season, a season far more climatic than an Australian summer of Earth. As temperatures soar, mechanical maintenance is more often. As the maintenance occurs, the systems require shut down, leaving prisoners in the oxygenated corridor, in an impeccable tortured state, only relieved by the restarting of oxygenation systems.

  To withstand climatic elements natural to Artak, humans, and allied system inhabitants, wear BSU suits. The suit is a Biological Sustainment Unit and is artificially intelligent, able to adapt in many atmospheric conditions. The material matter of the suit is resistant to flame and chemical acidity. The BSU exterior is manufactured with Hexa-snake Armor, a nanoscale armor plating invented by humans to protect against man-made projectile weapons. The suit defends little against plasma-laser impact or knife attacks; its design was intended for providing sufficient bio-sustainment capability during exploration missions, not so much hand-to-hand combat, or alien ammunition.

  ∞

  Reyes moved the parcels into the room provided, closing the door behind him. While rifling through the effects box in the changing room, he pondered once more how the Artakkians, the supposedly most intelligent life in the cosmos, could overlook the evidentiary accusation of conspiracy against Artak, even with hard proof in hand. These same thoughts had become a past-time during imprisonment and the subconscious thought was now so habitual, they simply became part of everyday life.

  He equipped the BSU suit, began startup procedures for the built-in monitoring systems, and stowed the few effects into the cargo holds of the suit; a small pocket blade; his identification card; his grandfather’s Cyan emerald ring; and the few Earth coins he carried. It wasn’t much and he had forgotten about the coins. Reyes inspected the additional box Fox had given him, finding that he was unable to open it. A small slit opening on the face of the box indicated an access card was required, something Reyes of course didn’t have.

  The locked box wouldn’t fit in any of the cargo holds of his BSU, so he was required to carry it. He turned, making way to the entrance of the room while leaving his prison uniform neatly folded on the chair behind him. While extending his hand to open the door, a deafening blast burst the door open. Dust, smoke, and flame-filled in the room and into his unprotected lungs. The force launched him through the air, smashing the chair he had just placed his uniform on in his falling wake. Dazed but conscious, he donned the BSU helmet, as naturally instinctive as possible, exactly as he had trained to do for so many years prior to imprisonment. He managed to work his way to the side of the now-demolished door.

  Chapter Two

  In Artakkian atmosphere, an explosive weapon causes devastating effects. The composition of methane and nitrous gasses exuberant in the air, combined with a blast from an explosive device can magnify the blast and increase damage up to 10 times more tha
n its normal capacity.

  Reyes had only been in prison for two years but knew technology hadn’t advanced enough for a plasma-based weapon to cause this magnitude of an effect. Only one weapon could do what had just happened, at least with the given parameters: Artakkian prison guards, prisoners, and the UIF transport team on site at the facility. He concluded that the explosive was that of the archaic mass-produced hand grenade.

  The device was probably a similar model to the heavily produced M61 from Earthkind’s recent history of terror wars, but he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure of is that whoever set off the device was intent on killing many people in one instance.

  Reyes hadn’t noticed or paid much attention to the UIF Sergeant’s equipment belt while he moved him from his former cell confinement to their current locale. He probably would have figured it was a required asset for UIF transporters anyway, aside from the fact that the arming of manufactured hand grenades was against all neutral arms and peace treaties between Artak and Earth’s system. Of course, it was possible the UIF Sergeant concealed and stowed the explosive prior to retrieving Reyes, keeping it hidden from apparent view of any Artakkian guard. But why would he use it now?

  ∞

  “Commander, are you okay?” the Sergeant asked, dimly making an audible sound through the ringing in Reyes’ ears.

  “I’m fine. What the hell was that?” Reyes asked, still under cover behind the remaining rock-wall of the changing room.

  “UIF. Can’t explain now. You need to open the case I gave you,” he responded when plasma fire from his rifle cut off his words.

  “It’s locked,” Reyes said, eyeing the case once over and waiting for the gunfire to subside.

  “Startup ARIA,” the Sergeant said, letting loose a burst of eight or nine plasma rounds, “the AI has the code.”

  ∞

  ARIA or Artificially Real Intelligent Automation is the standard for UIF forces. Each officer within the UIF received a standard issue of the self-customizable version of the software. Self-customization allowed the AI abilities to learn user actions, reactions, vocabulary, pattern of speech, and most every other way of life for the user. This particular version packed many programs into a small onboard computer, unlike the back-mounted pack of the first-generation versions, able to complete algorithms and logic faster than a recently produced super computer.

  ∞

  “ARIA, Start-up,” Reyes said, pressing the familiar red push-to-talk button on his left arm control pad. He knew the standard procedures for clean booting the AI system, the process being the initial startup of the Artificially Intelligent system.

  Subconsciously he found himself dreading the long learning process the AI would have to go through in order to customize it to suit the user. It would be at least 45 minutes until the system accustomed to his voice patterns and directly read neural information.

  “ARIA Started. Hello Commander,” the AI sounded through the internal speakers mounted in the helmet.

  “ARIA, unlock this case,” Reyes said not catching the familiarity of the interfaces monotonous voice.

  “No hello commander?” the AI asked in an all too familiar sarcastic programming.

  “Hhhhoooolllllly shit...” Reyes said, emphasizing the glorified word and tilting his head slightly back in awe and relief.

  It was his AI. The Commander’s first AI that knew everything about him, his complete childhood they discussed over hours and hours of boring mission traverse. This same AI could recognize his speech pattern and determine if a passive or active tone was required to suit his emotional state. He could think of nothing more than ‘amazing’.

  His ARIA, in fact, was installed. There was no shred of doubt about that. However, Reyes found himself asking ‘Why?’ in thought. It made no sense whatsoever to Reyes. He would have to shelve his curiosity for now. Something or someone was outside the room, gunning for either Artakkians, the UIF Sergeant or himself.

  “Hello ARIA,” Reyes said, moving his eyes back to the locked case releasing a breath he had not known he was holding.

  “The case is unlocked Commander,” she said while a simultaneous click vibrated through the case.

  “Thank you, ARIA,” Reyes replied, not wanting to wait before finding out what the hell was going on. His ARIA couldn’t lie – she was his AI which he custom programmed during their first intergalactic journey. Reyes removed her ability to lie, keeping her job short, sweet, and simple.

  Reyes opened the case, revealing what appeared to be a weapon of some sort. It was very different, more advanced, than any UIF weapon he had encountered in the past. “What is this ARIA?” Reyes asked, removing the weapon from its housing.

  “This is a P-9 Electromagnetic Pulse and Infrared Laser System, or EPIL,” ARIA said technically.

  “What does it do?” Reyes asked, “I mean how it works.”

  “Connect the weapon to port 5-7,” she responded, providing a blinking LED light at the end of his BSU suit right sleeve.

  Reyes held the weapon in his right hand and a wireless connection established to his BSU providing a ‘Connected’ icon on the visor of his helmet heads up display. “Okay,” he said.

  “Think of a target being neutralized while aiming the weapon in the general area of the target,” she said providing clear-cut, to the point directions.

  This was something he trained ARIA to do. The AI program, unless specifically configured by the user, provided kindergarten level instructions to the user. His AI learned that he does not like the long version of something.

  Reyes held the weapon up and aimed at the partially smashed chair laying strewn across the floor from his earlier collision. Instantaneously, maybe faster, as he thought about firing the weapon at the debris a flashing, narrow stream, of purplish-blue and red burst of energy blasted across the room, turning the debris to less than ashes.

  “Electro, Magnetic, Pulse, Laser...,” he said, eyeing the weapon, “I get it,” he finished soon enough for two blasts of green and blue projectiles to impact near his head leaving large spherical burns into the rock wall. “Friendly fire?” Reyes asked reactively ducking away from the impacting projectiles.

  “Auto-sequencing. This weapon will not fire at a friendly target,” She responded.

  “Sergeant, I’m coming out,” Reyes said aloud.

  “Covered Commander,” the Sergeant responded, firing intermittently at whoever it was assaulting them.

  Reyes peered the scene before exiting and found the entire room near obliteration from the initial blast. He located the UIF Sergeant covered behind an M3 composite shield the Sergeant must have deployed. Reyes made his way in a crouched run to the Sergeant’s position and the M3 composite shield sensed his life behind it and automatically widened its coverage area.

  The blue, yellow, and green projectiles affected the shield integrity as the two kept covered, each impact weakening the shield more and more. It was clear now that whoever was attacking them wasn’t UIF and seemed to be after the UIF or maybe, Reyes himself.

  “Who is that?” Reyes asked, looking over the Sergeant briefly for wounds.

  “UIF,” the Sergeant said again while reloading a plasma burst magazine into his collapsed shoulder-fired rifle.

  “UIF? What?” Reyes asked, confused.

  After loading his magazine and eyeing a target the Sergeant responded, “I’m not UIF. I can’t explain. If I don’t make it, ARIA is programmed with a recorded message. Let’s focus on getting out of here – together, for now.”

  Reyes caught himself faintly noticing the offset rank, misaligned nameplate, unrecognizable shoulder patch, and tattoo behind the Sergeant’s ear. It was becoming clearer that the Sergeant was, in fact, not UIF. There was no chance in hell the UIF would let a soldier keep a tattoo and Non-Commissioned Officer found with deformities within his uniform would at least be carrying a boot in his ass from his superior.