Arrival of The RX-2000

"I understand." Josh nodded quietly, looking at his hands.

*******

The ship they were on passed through the different dimension barrier and came into orbit around Mars. The planet was beautiful, covered in white clouds, blue ocean and snowy continents.

"The ship is now in stable orbit around Mars. Will rooms three three zero through three five zero come to the docking bay for transfer to the surface. You will be brought to a refugee center and given warm meals and a place to sleep." The Captain's voice came over the comm system.

"That's us sweetheart." Josh said, getting up off the bed.

Susan nodded and followed Josh to the docking bay. The Captain was standing near the doorway.

"Not you two." The Captain stopped them.

"Why?" Josh asked as they were pulled out of the line.

"Because I want you in my crew. This isn't my usual battle cruiser." The Captain said, "And I thought that...if there were any way you could ever go home, it would be through the Deimos facility and I'm the only one who could get you there."

"Are there any restrictions to being in the military? Do we have to go through training?" Josh asked.

"There's a pretty large loophole for when it comes to androids. If I classify you as military androids, you can be assigned directly to my ship as a maintenance android." The Captain said.

"So do you really think we could find a way home?" Josh asked.

"Whoa! Now that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that I think you would do well on my ship." The Captain said suddenly, "I still don't think you will ever go home, but a couple of androids like yourselves would be very helpful on my ship."

"So that's really it then...we never go home?" Josh said.

"I'm sorry Josh...I really am...but you must understand the repercussions if we were to send you back to your own time. You aren't even a person anymore. You are an android that was made hundreds of years after your own time period." The Captain said as people walked past them to the shuttle.

"So..." Josh said, "When do we go to your ship?"

"I was put on this ship to retrieve the refugees and deter the terrorists from attacking us. However, as you see, pirates still attacked. So as soon as all the people are transferred to the surface, we will be transferred to my ship, The Lightning Sabre." The Captain said, "The Sabre is a state of the art battle cruiser with an impressive set of weaponry and an on board AI known as Shock."

Josh felt the old excitement about science fiction coming up again. It helped dull the pain from The Captain's stern statement. His eyes lit up as he thought about the chance to be on a powerful space ship like she was describing.

"Alright. We'll come with you." Josh nodded with a smile.

"Great! I've got to finish up here. You two can just hang around here for an hour or so until we're all done here." The Captain said before dashing off, her braid trailing behind her.

"Are you alright Josh?" Susan asked, leading him away from the crowded doorway.

"I don't know...it's not like I had a wife and kids or anything. My parents both died a few years ago in a car wreck. I have a few uncles and a brother...but I haven't talked to them in a while. I don't have very many friends, I mean...Vladmir will be the only one to guess where we ended up." Josh sighed, sitting down against the wall, "And your here with me."

"You're sweet." Susan smiled, kissing him, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Never leave me." Josh said.

"That is so cheesy...but okay." Susan chuckled, giving him another kiss.

*******

A little over an hour later, they were sitting on a shuttle with the Captain and a pilot. She was sitting across from Josh and Susan, her legs crossed and her arms across the head rests of the other seats.

"So what are we going to do on your ship?" Susan asked.

"You'll most likely be engineers or technical advisers. I've yet to decide. I've never met an android that can think for themself. Usually androids are already trained to do something and that's all they do. So we'll have to see what you're going to be good at." The Captain said.

"Isn't that a little reckless as a captain?" Josh asked.

"It's my ship. I'll bring monkeys on it if I want." The Captain said sarcastically, "Most likely I'll give you two full access to the ships sensor array and you'll assist Shock in running the ship. A being that can think for themself and communicate with computers are very rare and very valuable. Even Shock can only think within his pre-programmed parameters. He is incapable of emotion or illogical thought."

"You know...I've never done that yet." Josh said, "I wonder what it's like inside a computer."

"You've already done it. Inside your own head is a computer and access a computer is just like reading a book to you now. The reason a human can't be fully integrated or connected with a computer is because it would destroy their organic brain with that much data and such. But our brains have programming that deciphers the data and makes it usable." Susan said, tapping her forehead, "And if all else fails, our brains have inhibitors to keep us from overloading our circuits."

"There she is..." The Captain stood awkwardly in the zero gravity, "The Lightning Sabre...my sweetheart and one true love."

They looked out the front window and saw an amazing sight floating in orbit around a large military space station. The Lightning Sabre was not at all what he expected. He expected some shiny, arrow-head shaped ship with all kinds of guns and weapons all over it. Instead, he was looking at a massive gray ship. It was shaped like a large octagonal tube that had been squished so it was taller than it was wide. It tapered down in the front by stepping down in sharp angles. Over three thousand feet long and five hundred feet wide, the ship was a hulking structure. There were no visible weapons on the ship from this distance. He could only see a hulking gray shape with seven softly glowing engines in the back of the ship in an octagon shape like the ship itself.

"That is not what I expected." Josh said, looking it over.

"You expected something more poetic...maybe something like science fiction movies of your era. A Star Wars battle cruiser perhaps?" The Captain said with a raised eyebrow, "Without gravity or air to slow it down, the ship needn't be shaped aerodynamically. This ship was constructed in space and meant for space travel. Plus you need more room for a crew of over two thousand; a quarter of which run the ship and the rest are military soldiers for direct conflict."

"I don't see very many weapons...what does it have?" Josh asked.

"The entire ship is covered in eight foot Titanium-4 battle plating, strong enough to resist a nuclear detonation at close range. The Sabre's main armament is whats called a MAC." The Captain said.

"Magnetic Accelerator Cannon?" Josh presumed.

"Yes, how did you know?" The Captain asked.

"There's a game series from my childhood called Halo. In it, the ships are somewhat similar to this and they actually have MAC weapons on their ships." Josh said.

"Well it would seem they predicted the future correctly." The Captain said, "With only using electricity and depleted uranium core rounds, the MAC can destroy most enemy ships with a single shot. It charges large electromagnets along the entire length of the Sabre's underside and can fire an iron round, with depleted uranium core, weighing around fifty tons at ninety percent the speed of light. Very destructive, especially when fired at ground targets or orbiting structures."

"Any other weapons?" Josh asked.

"Oh my yes. The entire ship has a short range defense system of fifty millimeter articulating defense guns, about one every hundred feet, making it very dangerous to get close to. We have eight missile tubes that fire six foot rockets with nuclear detonating cores. For small fighter defense, we have something called Hive Missiles. They can be seen right there..." The Captain pointed at fifty rectangular pieces of armor spread around the ship that look different from the armor around it, "...the armor splits open and each of the one hundred Hive Pods is capable of firing a fifty missiles each. There are fifty pods on this side and fifty on the other. The missiles are only about two feet long and eight inches across, but they pack a punch and can destroy when fired in clusters. Finally, I'm sure you're already familiar with Neutron Star Bombs?"

"Oh yes." Josh nodded.

"We have two on board at any time for whatever we see fit. Could be a rebel asteroid base needing destruction or maybe to be loaded on a shuttle and delivered to an enemy ship. Finally, the ship has ten heavily loaded Razor-9 fighters." The Captain said proudly, "She is capable of reaching one point five light years per day, one of the fastest ships in the system."

"Wow~!" Josh whistled as they pulled along side the Lightning Sabre and into one of its two large docking bays.

He looked at a Razor-9 as they set down in the docking bay. It was a black ship in the shape of a half-circle. It had two large engines on the flat edged back and who knows what weapons were in its dark black wings. The Captain led them off the shuttle and it left.

"So...A MAC, missiles, rockets, short range guns, Neutron bombs and deployable fighters. This is quite the ship. How much action has she seen?" Susan asked.

"Quite a lot. This is one of the most advanced ships in the fleet and has been nigh-unstoppable against the Rebels. We've been a dangerous tool in a the Galactic Civil War and no Rebel ship has stood against us for more than a few minutes." The Captain said proudly.

"What kind of damage can this ship take if it's being overpowered?" Susan inquired.

"Well, even if they were to destroy all of our Titanium-4 armor, the ship has a honeycomb of weaker Titanium-3 network throughout the entire structure. The ship should be able to hold together as long as we aren't completely blown in half." The Captain said, leading them down a small gray hallway.

There were spots and sections where the Titanium-3 honeycomb girders cut overhead or could be seen in open sections of walls. The ship definitely wasn't for passengers. It was a military ship full of dangers, low hanging ceilings and loose wiring in the walls.

"So what powers this ship? I can feel electrical power all over and some extreme source of electrical power in the rear of the ship." Susan said, looking around at the walls.

"That would be the dual fusion reactors. They are an advanced fusion reactors that have heat resistant generators and a special set of self-supporting near-zero kelvin plasma chambers to cool the fusion reactors in emergencies and allow up to a two hundred percent increase in power output for short periods of time." The Captain rattled off, "In short, the harder you push the generators, the more super-cooled plasma you can get and thus the harder you can push the reactors for more power."

"Ah! Sounds efficient." Susan nodded.

"Come on, bridge is this way." The Captain said, stepping into an elevator.

The elevator zipped down and stopped a few floors away.

"I've been meaning to ask...Why do we have gravity?" Josh said was they walked down the hall.

"Artificial gravity generator. It just causes three quarters gravity. You may have noticed a hop in your step or a lightness to your body already." The Captain said, making a goofy hop-step that showed her lightness.

"I did notice it." Josh nodded.

"This..." The Captain led them through an automatic door, "Is the bridge."

The bridge was simple but beautiful all the same. They entered the left hand door of the bridge. It was a horse-shoe shape around the Captain's Chair against the back wall on their right. Eight stations circled around the room with dozens of monitors and a large front screen. The officers on the bridge instantly stood and saluted The Captain.

"At ease men. We're to receive our orders today, so be at the ready. I suspect it will be a counter attack against the Rebel scum that destroyed Earth." The Captain said, sitting down in her chair.

A few minutes later, a communication came through.

"To all ships within the Sol System. Please spread yourselves between the planets. The Rebels are massing a force outside the system to attack. Our spies indicate that they were hoping to have caught us off guard after Earth was brutally destroyed. However, we have kept one step ahead of them the entire way and are now prepared for their assault. Each of you will receive your ordered locations and the locations of all Rebel forces outside the system." A grizzly man's voice played in the Bridge, "And to Captain Anna, try and take some prisoners. We do need information from them."

The Bridge burst into laughter at that. Apparently the Captain was well known for complete annihilation.

"The package he sent is a hologram." One of the officers said, calming his laughter quickly.

"Bring it up." The Captain said.

A large hologram blinked to life in the middle of the room. It was a three dimensional model of the Sol System. In the center was the sun. The destroyed Earth was highlighted as well as a few other planets. There was a red marker near Mars and around thirty white markers outside the orbit of Pluto.

"So we're to guard Mars. Does the package say who else will be here?" The Captain asked.

"The Dragon's Maw and The Phoenix. We also get full command of the Mars defense grid." The Officer said.

"Well it's not a total loss. Send packages to the Dragons Maw and the Phoenix. They are to be close point guards at the north and south pole. We will be first line of defense just outside Mars' orbit. The Defense Grid will be under their control." The Captain said.

"Sending." Another Officer said.

"So what is this Defense Grid?" Josh inquired.

"A grid of twenty four ultra-high powered Ion Cannons encircle the planet. They have power transferred wirelessly from the planet to power them. They fire highly concentrated rounds of negatively charged Ions that completely disable electrical systems on contact. They aren't very destructive, but they can fry a ship like a potato." The Captain explained.

"And if a round were to hit us?" Josh asked.

"Then the AIs on The Phoenix and The Maw need reprogramming. These cannons are run by whatever ship's AI is given command of them and they can fire with near surgical precision." The Captain said.

"Speaking of which, can I meet this AI on your ship?" Susan asked eagerly.

"Shock." The Captain said simply.

A hologram figure appeared on the bridge. It started as a wire-frame without detail, but was filled in and became a person fairly quickly. The hologram figure looked surprisingly real when it was finished in just a few seconds. Shock was a man of about five feet with a dark cloak around his shoulders and a hood over his head. His face was shadowed and his eyes glowed a bright blue. His cloak went to his ankles and his feet could be seen sticking out from under it.

"Yes Captain?" Shock asked in a strangely solemn voice.

"I have two assistant androids for you to meet. They are to work with you in devising strategies and executing battle plans." The Captain said.

"Has my work been unsatisfactory?" Shock asked, looking up at her.

"No, quite the opposite. I just happened to acquire these androids and wish for them to be of use." The Captain said.

"Of course." Shock said and he disappeared from the bridge.

"That's it?" Josh asked.

'You two are strange models. I have no knowledge of androids like you in my memory banks. I can see you are of the RX series, but your thought patterns and mental status is nothing akin to normal android programming.' Shocks voice came in their heads.

'Yes, well I am a human consciousness in an android.' Josh thought simply.

'Of course, that would explain the brain pattern. However, may I inquire how a human came to be in full control of an android without damage to your mental capabilities?' Shock asked.

'I assisted him.' Susan said.

'Of course. However you are interesting as well. There are remnants of programming and such in your brain from being an original RX, but you are nothing like one. You are free thinking and emotional.' Shock said.

'I too am confused as to why that is, but I don't really mind. I am in love with Josh and am quite content with how I am.' Susan said.

'Of course.' Shock said with a mental nod before he disappeared back into the Sabre's computer system.

'What a strange character.' Josh thought.

'Well he is a constrained AI.' Susan returned.

"Captain! The Rebels are moving! Long range sensors read that they have jumped in system and are using full speed different dimension. They'll be here in minutes." An Officer said frantically.

"Full speed DD? Good lord, if they manage to land anywhere close to us, I'll be amazed." The Captain said, "They're going to end up launching themselves into the sun. Start charging the MAC, heat up the fusion generators and get the ship ready for combat. All sectors on high alert."

"MAC gun at three percent and climbing ten percent per minute." Shock's voice came over the comm.

"Didn't you say it was suicidal to use full speed DD in system?" Josh asked.

"Yea it is. In full speed DD, the ability to accurately come out of the different dimension is drastically reduced. I've seen ships come in as far off as a hundred thousand miles from their destination." The Captain said, "They may even come out of the different dimension in a planet or inside the sun."

"But what if they found a way to do it?" Josh asked.

"That's ludicrous. Controlling different dimension travel that precisely at those speeds is almost impossible for event the highest grade AI." The Captain said.

They waited in silence for a short time before there was an flash across the front screens. A glowing hole in space appeared and the nose of a ship started to pass into this dimension. A ship a quarter the size of The Sabre appeared out of nowhere, passing into a close-range orbit around Mars. Three more ships appeared within sight, but a distance from Mars. They were older looking war ships that were considerably smaller than the Sabre, but they were all similar hexagon shaped ships.

"MAC gun at thirty one percent and climbing at eleven percent per minute." Shock said, appearing on the Bridge.

"Target closest ship and fire Hive Missile Pods 1A-3B on both sides." The Captain said.

"Firing." Shock said.

There were soft thumbs in the hull of the ship and six hundred streaks of white smoke appeared in front of them as hundreds of small missiles streaked towards their target. The point defense guns on the enemy's ship shot and knocked out dozens of the missiles, but well over four hundred of them collided with the ship, exploding all over the side of the ship. Fire rolled through the rebel's ship as its armor was torn to shreds by the hundreds of missiles.

"Enemy ship at thirty percent. Bridge compromised and main weaponry destroyed. Still capable of movement, but unlikely to break the pull of Mars' gravity." Shock reported.

"End them." The Captain said.

"But didn't the Commander say..." An officer started.

"This is only one ship. Fire a nuclear warhead." The Captain said.

A red-tailed rocket left their ship, moving towards the enemy's ship slower than the Hive Missiles. It collided with the Rebel warship and detonated with a bright ball of light. The ship was engulfed in nuclear fire and when it phased out, the majority of the ship was now floating around the planet in particles of titanium.

"Missiles incoming. Hornet missiles, aiming for our MAC." An officer said.

"Shock, light up all point defense and knock them out." The Captain commanded.

"Yes Ma'am." Shock said, "MAC gun at eighty eight percent."