Steward's Stand.

After a lengthy delay, I finally present to you my new work, set in my own universe. Please be aware I haven't had time to proof-read this yet, and I will probably edit this rough version when I can, so please enjoy.

Steward’s Stand.

Chapter 1

Earth was dead. Its cities lay empty. There were no signs of life, only the skyscrapers and machines left abandoned and rusty; the toll of decades of wear and tear from the elements was clearly visible.

Nothing remained but a single bright spark. But it was not a spark of human life, it was artificial. This artificial construct had been called Icarus and he was a caretaker AI. His maker had left him behind to guard the planet and prepare it for their return of humanity, a duty he obediently obeyed all these long years since they were first uttered.

Icarus watched the recording for the 200643 time that day. It was all he had left on record about his creator, and he had come to watch it regularly, as it always helped him focus on his duties, especially when the loneliness hit him. The recording started, and a middle aged man steadied the camera as he spoke into the lens. He was tall, with greying hair and deep wrinkles. His green eyes were holding back barely contained fear as he explained to the camera,

‘This is Professor Harold Joplin. Today is the 29th of April 2186. The Variola pandemic has spread over the last two weeks, killing millions within days. Only about 10,000 of us remain uninfected, and every day that number drops more. The President of the United Sates final order before he died was for all remaining survivors; be they American or any other Nationality to get of the planet before it is too late. I am leaving on the last transport now, the U.N.S. Helios, which is headed for Alpha Centuri. This is my final message to you. Icarus, I wish I could have stayed longer to help you, but my hands are tied. Earth is your responsibility now. My last command for you is to guard the planet to the best of your ability and prepare for when we return. I wish you good luck and good speed.’

The Doctor almost had tears in his eyes and he flipped a switch on the camera and the feed went dead. Icarus pondered the message, as he had done most days. He had obeyed his creator’s wishes down to the letter. He had been given access and control over all electronic hardware left on the planet; security cameras, geothermal and environmental sensors, as well as bioscanners. He also had access to automated service vehicles and defence drones, as well as a satellite linkup to know when and where the human ships would arrive. With his exceptional processing power, being able to perform tens of thousands if not millions of operations per second, Icarus was well suited to monitoring and maintaining an entire planet.

Icarus thought back to when he was first created, and how his ‘birth’ was the dawning of a new age in artificial intelligence. Icarus was the first sentient AI ever constructed, and his designers took their inspiration from the human brain itself, using it as a template when creating his central processor. He was powered by a self-sustaining fusion reactor, which was buried three miles underground, as were most of his primary systems. Unfortunately the celebration of his creation was short lived as two months later the variola pandemic struck.

Variola Major, also better known as smallpox had been a viral strain that was one of the first diseases to be wiped out by vaccination and scientific advances. By the 1980’s the virus was virtually extinct, with only a few vials left in storage in laboratories in the U.S. and Russia. As time went by, they stayed in storage, left and forgotten. On the 27th March 2186 20.15 EST, the Rakarov research facility was broken into and a vial of the smallpox virus was stolen by an unknown group of terrorists. On the 6th April, the virus was released in a coordinated strike in Washington DC, London, Sydney, Moscow and Berlin. By the 15th April the virus had infected every continent and mortality rates were rising with an average of 100,000 deaths per day. It was discovered that during storage, the virus had been in contact with other airborne viruses and it had mutated into a new strain, which the previous treatments for smallpox were ineffective. As the virus had been believed to be dead, no one had protection from the virus, so no one had immunity. Icarus found the whole pandemic ironic; humanity had nearly been destroyed by a threat they thought they themselves destroyed. Within two weeks, only 10,000 remained, who then left via all remaining transports at the international space station.

Two hundred years had passed since the Helios left Earth orbit and left him alone. The virus levels had dropped significantly, as without a suitable host, they had slowly died off, until now the virus strain was gone. Most animal species were doing well, as they had no longer affected by man’s actions and they were much more successful. Icarus had only stopped them from entering former human population centres, using some of the defence drones to keep them away, but they were much more tenacious than he had originally predicted, and he had been forced to use drastic measures, even having to kill some larger predators when they made some of the cities their hunting grounds.

On reflection, Icarus felt very lonely. He had been alone with only a recording of his creator for company for the best part of 200 years. For all his intelligence, his task was a thankless one, but he still did it, because it was he duty, and he wouldn’t disobey his final order. It ran across his mind that humanity could be extinct, that they failed to reach Alpha Centuri and the last remnants of the species were gone, leaving him to steward a planet for the rest of his operational life. Maybe they would one day return to the planet, maybe they wouldn’t, despite all his knowledge and analysis, he couldn’t be certain on the outcome. All he could do is have faith that Professor Joplin and the rest of the survivors had made it, and had started again, and their ancestors would one day return to their home world.

After his musing he began his routine scans of virus levels and environmental sensors. It was an average day across the world, with a very humid 45 degrees Celsius in South Africa. It seemed like it was going to be just another normal day. He then accessed the satellites sensors and looked out into the vacuum of space in his daily vigil for a ship. As every single other day there was no sign of a ship, no transmission from afar. He was about to run a diagnostic routine when an odd blip caught his attention. He realigned the satellite and aligned its signal to bounce off an old relay station to bend behind the moon, where the signal was coming from. The signal only took seven seconds to complete, but to Icarus, it felt like seven years. He prayed it wasn’t a random glitch, he knew the technology he controlled was become less and less reliable as they slowly broke down, but he still knew they were efficient enough. As the image came in, Icarus got to work sharpening and clearing up the image, as well as running several checks on the satellites visual cameras. As the image finally became clear, Icarus looked in awe. It was a ship, it was a dull green colour, and was roughly cubical in shape. Icarus ran the unidentified ship against the known transports that left Earth during the pandemic to see if there was a match. A split second later it was confirmed to be the U.N.S. Nautilus, a ship that left two years before the pandemic occurred. While Icarus found this curious he could barely hold back his anticipation, as the ship slowly soared into towards the planet and entered the atmosphere.

They were finally home.

End of Chapter 1.

Really good, Vigil. It was very interesting and I want more.

...................

Vigil your losing your touch, I have found a few grammatical errors....

YOUR SUPPOSED TO BE PERFECT!



Anyways great story, make sure to read through and check for errors.

Great job Vigil!

Sounds cool I will have to keep my eye on this one.

I like. A lot. Will be interested in how this turns out.

Yeah, this is pretty good. A few grammatical and editing errors, but yeah, plot seems interesting and I like it.

Good work

Thanks for all the support, I've cleaned up the first chapter a little and I'm starting work on the next chapter.

I really like it, it looks interesting. Like everything you write

i have a bad feeling about the ship

Finally got around to reading this.

Great work Vigil. I can't help but get the feeling that their is a little influence of the Halo novels in there. Nylund perhaps?
No, I'm sure there's other pieces of work that infuenced your writing.

So far though, I like it.

Thanks, it's a little inspired by Halo, as well as other things.

Funny you should bring this back up, the next is about halfway done, and If I have time I'll try and get it done this weekend.

Vigil wrote:Funny you should bring this back up, the next is about halfway done, and If I have time I'll try and get it done this weekend.

It's because I know... :suspect:

Moar story pl0x?

Chapter 2

Something was wrong. Icarus quickly realised it, as the ship plummeted further into the atmosphere. He analysed the ship’s trajectory and speed and calculated the ship’s landfall. At its present speed and course it would either burn up on re-entry or crash in the Nairobi desert, most likely killing anybody onboard.

Icarus didn’t have much time to react; he estimated that the ship could be destroyed in less than 90 seconds. He assessed what assets he had and how he could use one to alter the ship’s trajectory and speed. He then found what he wanted, an old mothballed rocket testing facility. He quickly scanned the launch tubes for active missiles. He found one and overrode the safety protocols and prepped the missile for launch. If he had calculated his aim perfectly, the missile would only graze the side of the ship and set it on a safer course and speed with minimal damage to the ship. As the missile soared into the air, Icarus hoped he had got his sums right.

The plume of orange flame surrounded the Nautilus as it trailed across the morning sky. Then roar of the ignition shook the ground as Icarus’ missile surged into the air, and headed directly for the growing fireball. The ship continued to spiral downwards like a gyroscope from hell. The missile increased in speed and drew closer and closer to the ship. For a brief second it looked like it was going to hit the ship dead on, killing everybody onboard. But then, just as Icarus has predicted, the missile struck the underbelly of the Nautilus, bouncing of the hull with loud thunk. The missile flew by, detonating harmlessly in midair. The blast shook the craft, twisting its nose to a progressive descent, saving itself from the steep suicidal angle it had been in. Even then, Icarus could hardly celebrate; even with the decreased rate of descent, there was still a 34.68% chance of a fatal crash.

Unfortunately, there was little Icarus could do, but attempt to contact the ship. He had been trying every single conceivable radio frequency to hail the ship, and advice them to cut their engines, but so far he had no success. Once again he barraged the ship with radio signals, trying to get in contact with someone, anyone, but still no reply. It seemed like there was little hope for an answer, when the ship suddenly started to slow down. The engines were placed in reverse and they slowed down considerably. The Nautilus wasn’t the most aerodynamic ship ever created, but with engines now firing it slowly started to even out its descent. Unfortunately, it was still moving at approximately 88 miles per hour as it came in for a landing. The Nairobi desert stretched out beneath them, the dunes growing bigger and bigger and their altitude dropped. The ship ploughed into the first dune with an almighty crash and kept going. Sand was sprayed into the air, as the Nautilus went clean through the next dune. The engines of the ship we still desperately trying to slow them down, forming a trail of glass where they had been. After crashing through a third and fourth set of dunes it eventually stopped. Its hull was blackened and dented, smoke rose from the burnt out engines and it was half buried in sand. It also sported several nasty looking tears in its hull, but as Icarus assessed the damage, he had predicted the damage to be far more severe.

Icarus hastily mobilised medical and emergency drones to the crash site. While the medical drones were no replacement for a real human doctor, they still were good enough to deal with most injuries. While they were en route, Icarus scanned the ship with his sensors for survivors. Curiously he couldn’t get a clear reading, he assumed the ship’s fusion generator, similar to the one that powered him, just on a much larger scale, was interfering with his sensors, which had never been designed with radiation in mind. He assumed he would get a clearer picture once he accessed the systems on the Nautilus itself.

The drones made it there in record time; 33.6 seconds, and Icarus got to work, getting the medical drones into the gaping tear in the ship and carefully steering them through the tight corridors of the ship. Although the Nautilus was an Argo-class transport, most of the corridors and non vital segments of the ship were made as small as possible to leave the most room possible for the massive and vital cargo bay. From the blueprints of the ship he had on file, he guessed the best place to look was the bridge located at the front of the ship. He navigated the drones though the tight corridors. They were covered in tubing and wires as they fed power and water throughout the entire ship. The lights seemed to be smashed on this floor, so Icarus activated the drone’s searchlights.

The beam of light swept the area, showing no signs of life. The average crew compliment of one of these ships was in the range of 30 to 40 at any given time. He should have seen somebody by now. Icarus worried that they had all died in the crash, despite his best efforts to save them. His search wasn’t over yet, and he needed a better scan of the ship.

Without a sound the drone glided onward through one deserted corridor to the next, slowing making its way to the bridge. Icarus judged that the drone was about 500 metres away from it when the drone suddenly came to an abrupt stop. Icarus knew why. In front of it, a large wall of debris blocked it way. Metal girders and pipes formed the core of the barrier, and it was reinforced with a mass of furniture. Whatever happened here it looked as though this barrier had been made deliberately, and someone had gone to real trouble to keep someone, or something out of the bridge. This new discovery did nothing do quell the growing anxiety Icarus felt. Something was very wrong here… and it wasn’t just the crash.

Icarus knew he had to get to the bridge if he was able to piece together what happened here, so he had no choice but to remove this barrier. He accessed one of the fire fighting units, and navigated it through the ship. It too was a drone, albeit bigger than the thin and slender medical drones. It carried heavy machinery to clear debris, perfect to cut through this barrier. The unit got to work, slicing the pipes and girders into manageable chunks with its circular saw blade on its right arm. It then flung the remains away, clearing a path for it and the other drones that slowly crept forward as the barrier was slowly cut through. When the last girder fell away, Icarus quickly realised why it had been blocked.

Blood coated the walls and formed gooey puddles, making the majority of the hallway a gory painting of some previous slaughter. Icarus found it difficult to watch the drones’ recordings, as he had never encountered death like this. He had seen the millions killed by the virus, but this was different. It was savage, animalistic and brutal and it only increased the tension he felt. Things were only getting worse and worse as he got further into the vessel. But if there was a chance, however remote, that some of the crew were still alive and not too badly injured and/or dead, there might still be a chance for repopulation after all. He couldn’t let an opportunity like this slip by. He had to continue, no matter the cost.

He pressed forward and to the door of the bridge. It was covered in what appeared to be claw marks. He opened the door and scanned the inside. The room was a complete mess. It looked like a wild animal had torn through the bridge, ripping the chairs to shreds and smashing virtually all the terminals on the bridge with deep dents and claw marks. Icarus did the best he could to ignore this and accessed the only serviceable terminal and started downloading the files. Most of them were badly corrupted and would take time to restore. In the meantime he used what was left of the ships scanners to analyse the damage and any potential survivors.

From what he could tell the cargo area was badly damaged and in lockdown. The rest of the ship had suffered extensive internal damage, the fact it was about to make a landing was nothing short of a miracle. It appeared that the living quarters was in the best condition, and it looked like there were life signs there, though Icarus couldn’t be certain, as the system was in worse condition to the ones he used.

Icarus sent the drones back the way they came and took a right and down to the living quarters. The living quarters on the ship took up only one deck at the front of the ship. One reassuring sign was that the blood stains had dissipated in this area, and some of the lights were still functional. Icarus prayed that there was somebody left, or else all his efforts today would have been for nothing. The drones finally made it to the front of the living quarters. Unfortunately it had been barricaded as well, but this on looked even more reinforced than the previous one, with any item of debris, furniture, even the cables around them had been tied to make the structure more secure. Even with the feeling of dread that filled him at what was on the other side, he needed to know. The fire fighting unit started to clear the barrier and the medical drones. As the final piece of the barrier crumbled away and the door crept open. Suddenly, a shadow lunged out from the ruins of the door at lighting speed and the camera went black.

End of Chapter 2.

quickly i noticed this word was used alot

Very good vigil I liked it

Will have to see next chapter what the aliens are.

It's good. One thing though that I did notice was that a lot of the 'action' scenes, such as the rocket being fired, or the ships descent after bumping off the rocket, were too short and didn't have enough emphasis compared to the other bits in between which seemed to be equal in length and emphasis. If you intended it that way, that's fine, but you may want to try and lengthen those scenes, because they're the exciting bits that captivate the reader. When they're too short, they can sort of be overlooked.

You might also want to revise the sequence of events in some of the scenes, because it did get a little confusing when it's going (crudely summarising) "the ship is going to crash, but there is some hope, but no it's going too fast, there is some hope in this rocket, the rocket worked, but there is no hope, oh wait there is some hope, oh wait there is none and the ship crashes.

Otherwise, I like it, and you've done a pretty good job.

Very good

Ziggy wrote:It's good. One thing though that I did notice was that a lot of the 'action' scenes, such as the rocket being fired, or the ships descent after bumping off the rocket, were too short and didn't have enough emphasis compared to the other bits in between which seemed to be equal in length and emphasis. If you intended it that way, that's fine, but you may want to try and lengthen those scenes, because they're the exciting bits that captivate the reader. When they're too short, they can sort of be overlooked.

You might also want to revise the sequence of events in some of the scenes, because it did get a little confusing when it's going (crudely summarising) "the ship is going to crash, but there is some hope, but no it's going too fast, there is some hope in this rocket, the rocket worked, but there is no hope, oh wait there is some hope, oh wait there is none and the ship crashes.

Otherwise, I like it, and you've done a pretty good job.

Yeah I'm glad somebody noticed that. I kinda rushed this one out the door so I didn't really explain things as thorughly as I normally would have, and of course I want to empahses the lack of time in the situation. Sure, I'll tweek them a bit more.

Okay, I can why that was confusing I'll have a look at it.

Story wrote:
The trail of orange flame that surrounded the Nautilus trailed across the morning sky, then the roar of the ignition as Icarus’ missile surged into the air, and headed directly for the growing fireball.

The trail trailed is redundant.
I suggest replacing trailed with extended, streaked, or something like that.

Perhaps making that comma a period as well? It'll just sound better to me, but your choice.

Story wrote:
it was going to hit the ship dead on, most likely killing everybody on board.

I suggest taking "most likely" out completely. It just makes the action bit less dangerous saying that it "might" kill everyone, compared to "killing everyone".

Story wrote:
The blast shook the craft and the nose twisted to a progressive descent, instead of the steep suicidal angle it had been.

This one is not much of an error, but more in preference on my part.
I think it'll sound better if it says,
"The blast shook the craft, twisting its nose to a progressive descent, saving itself from the steep suicidal angle it had been in.
But your choice. =)

Story wrote:
Even then, Icarus could hardly celebrate, as the ship was still accelerating and even with their decreased rate of descent, there was still a 34.68% chance of a fatal crash.

Preference again. =)
"But Icarus could hardly celebrate; even with the decreased rate of descent, there was still a 34.68% chance of a fatal crash.

There are a few typos as well, but spell check can pick them up. =D