The Brutus Code

By John Lane

Tommy is a Central Systems Postal Service captain tasked with returning the dead letters to their senders. On this trip a casket malfunctions. When he investigates he discovers a young woman who has been frozen for sixty-three years is thawing out. Once she awakens without any memories of her past her presence ignites an adventure that brands them as rogue, pits them against pirates and sees them chased across the galaxy by programing code from her distant past. In the process they uncover the mystery of her life and discover both their lost families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Lane
• Release date: Nov 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310735196

John Lane

John has long been a believer in characters that touch us by reflecting ourselves in their stories. He has spent his life exploring characters with his students. With a bachelors degree in Language Arts and Theatre, and a masters in teaching literature, his career has spanned the last thirty years. Each person who he explored character with through theatre, film, and literature has shaped his writing today. In his free time John is a marathoner who loves running under the clear Kansas sky with his wife and running partner. He crafts games out of scrap wood, creating mounds of sawdust in the process. And among talents and hobbies too numerous to mention here, he loves to read and be transported on far flung adventures.

Book preview

The Brutus Code

By

John Lane

Published by John Lane at Smashwords

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Copyright 2015 John Lane

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Smashwords Edition, Licenses Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Pick up the Dead Mail

Chapter 2: Hide & Seek

Chapter 3: Escape & discovery

Chapter 4: Run Before You Walk

Chapter 5: Looking for MOM

Chapter 6: Reunion

Chapter 7: Escapee

Chapter 8: Pirates Return

Chapter 9: Shopping for Clues

Chapter 10: Dinner & a Break In

Chapter 11: Family Affairs

Chapter 12: Homecoming

Chapter 13: Revelations

Chapter 14: Birthright

Chapter 15: Sinkhole

Chapter 16: Breadcrumbs & Sleeping Beauties

Chapter 17: Down the Rabbit Hole

Chapter 18: Fall of the Ogre

Chapter 19: Special Delivery

About the Author

Chapter 1: Pick up the Dead Mail

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The light panel flickered next to the worn plastic table that had seen its share of coffee spills and mustard stains.  Oscar gave it a smack with the palm of his hand and then returned to the game. It’s your turn.

Sam shuffled through her cards selecting each one and placing them on the table in tricks.  Out. She exclaimed taking another bite out of her cheese and mustard sandwich.  It was a rare treat to have mustard this far out and she was pleased that Oscar would share.  They were the only two employees assigned to the Dead Letter Office.  Of course no one sent real letters any more, but they did send packages.  They sent a lot of packages.  And since the transit time between systems could be long there were many times the packages missed their intended destination.  People tended to move on fast following the available jobs since the Wars.

Oscar counted his cards and recorded the score.  Looks like I’ll owe you tomorrow’s lunch as well.  He put away the cards as Sam got up to get yet another squirt of coffee.

Thanks Oscar.  I know you throw the game sometimes.  You’re a sweetheart. Samantha Sam Conrad had been on the station since she was 18.  She wasn’t afraid of the hard work the Galactic Postal Service demanded. There was plenty of work, but she had a tendency to pay attention to the young men on her shift instead of the thousands of packages that got processed through the Galactic Postal Service Hub out at L2. She was assigned to the Dead Letter Office after one too many packages shipped to the wrong planet or asteroid colony.

Oscar had been here for several years. Approaching retirement, Oscar had no family any more.  His wife and children shipped out long ago for better jobs and positions with the new colonies and mining operations beyond the outer Fringe of humanity.  When Sam showed up he found anything but a kindred spirit.  Oscar just wanted to find a good place and stay put.  No adventures for him.  Sam, on the other hand suffered from that disease of the young. She wanted more adventure than she really knew how to handle.

I hear Captain Judson’s ship is due today for a load of these dead end packages. Is he really as young as I’ve heard? she asked in the bored, I’m not interested but I really want to know tone that only twenty year olds can manage.

Yeah.  It’ll be good to see Tommy again.  Not much for talking, that one.  It’s his Nav AI that’ll get you the stories of their adventures, said Oscar with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.  Are all of the Sector Thirteen ‘Return to Senders’ loaded in the tube?

The tube was just that.  The Galactic Postal Service Hub unloaded and loaded tubes full of packages to be shipped across the space settled by humanity. The courier ships only needed to connect and take them away.  All, that is, except the Dead Letter couriers.  They often had to shuffle smaller containers organized by their various stops on their routes.  This led to the Dead Letter ships being smaller, faster, and designed for longer hauls.  Their routes could last several months.

No, Sam said checking the manifest on her tablet.  There’s one more package listed.  The storage bots had a hard time finding it.  Seems it’s been here for a while.

Really, how long?

Over sixty, no sixty-three years. Wow, do you think there’ll be anyone to return the package to?  That’s even before the Wars started and long before they ended. Sam said with mock awe.

Laughing, Oliver replied, Enough lollygagging.  That package won’t gather itself.  It’s time to earn our keep.  As he stood and stowed what was left of his lunch in a locker Oliver gently ordered, "Get on down there and see what’s keeping that last package.  I’ll check the ETA of the Swift.  Tommy doesn’t like to waste time."

Sam stood to attention and gave a stiff mock salute, vaulting through the cabin door before Oliver could sling his lunch box at her.  She sauntered down the curved hall of the Dead Letter Office.  As she did she gazed out a perma-glass window over the huge floor of the Postal Service instillation.  It went on for kilometers.  Each space sector had its own docking port in the Hub. Ships dropped off their tubes of packages and picked up the presorted tubes to deliver back to their home sector. In the three settled areas of the galaxy, the Central Systems, the Frontier, and the Fringe the goal was to deliver the mail on time. Each package, coded for its destination, could be routed through the miles of null gravity on grapples suspended throughout the dock.  The inertia of each package had to be monitored so packages wouldn’t get smashed. But as always, slow and steady got the job done. Thus the commerce of the galaxy and granny’s homemade cakes made their way across the populated human expansion.

Except, of course when it didn’t. Then they got warehoused in the Dead Letter Office.  The title was a hold over from the pre-expansion days on the home planet. Letters and packages were processed by hand and delivered to your door. Those parcels that could not be delivered were dumped here and faithfully cared for by Sam and Oscar.  Some packages might get delivered if the original recipient could be tracked down through the nets.  If not the package was returned to the sender. That wasn’t easy in every case. Packages had sat here for months, others years.

Sam was glad it was not her job to track the senders. That job belonged to an Ai dedicated to the vagaries of human errors; wrong addresses being the most common.  She continued on through a sealed door into the transition chamber.  Not every section of the Postal station had gravity plates.  It made handling the larger packages and crates much easier.  Once through the transition chamber, Sam sailed down the rows of storage to the compartment indicated on the manifest that scrolled on her tablet. That’s been here a while, she mumbled.

Oscar made his way to the docking port.  In the control room overlooking the small hold where the Swift would dock the backside of its fuselage, Oscar surveyed the deck.  The hatch and docking mechanism were universal.  Both ships and docks could adjust hatch sizes to match.  The Dead Letter hold was the smallest on the station.  Although the Swift was a courier and not one of the largest Postal Service ships, its main hold was large enough and in the rear of the ship.  This larger hold could be backed up to the Postal Service hatches and loaded from the shipping containers already lined up waiting. Oscar logged in and checked the queue for the Swift’s ETA.  Not too much longer, he said to himself. Where the heck is Sam?

Oscar! Sam’s voice came over the communication node into his earbud. This might take a little longer than usual.  The package is in one of the oldest holds and it looks like it was a tight fit to get it in here.  The Postal Service Hub was built like all structures in space, from smaller modules and expanded outward.  In the largest facilities it wasn’t uncommon for the older modules to be ignored, re-purposed or forgotten as the larger and newer sections were built around the older ones.  There was a lot of room in space.

Roger that, Sam.  Do you need any help?

Nope.  Give me just a sec, I’ve almost got it.  Sam wedged between a storage shelves covered with webbing that held multiple shapes and sized packages.  With her back to the shelf she was shoving a three-meter casket around a bend in the hold.  One, two, three... with that final shove she broke it free and sent it bouncing off more shelves and walls from the inertia of her push.  The casket slammed into the doorframe and its lid popped open.  The shipping label immediately flashed a red warning.

Oh, crap! Sam exclaimed.

Sam, your com-unit is still open, I heard that.  Don’t forget your review is coming up in a week. Oscar reminded Sam through her earbud.

Sorry. Almost got it out.  Sam launched herself from one end of the hold to the door before the casket could drift into a worse spot.  She timed her flight so she could do one summersault in mid air and land on the lid.  With a snap and beep from the shipping label as it turned back to green and settled into its normal mode, Sam closed the lid.  Grabbing a handhold while she hooked her feet under the guide rails of the casket, she settled it square with the door.

Checking for damage Sam found nothing out of place. Then she noticed the shipping label.  Scrolling through the manifest Sam found another surprise.

In the control room Oscar was completing the docking procedure with the Swift.   "That’s it Alfred.  The Swift is secure and we’re ready to receive Tommy.  Welcome back."

Good to be back if only for the hour.  Alfred Ingram responded through Oscar’s earbud.  To the universe at large Alfred was the Swift’s navigation AI.  However, unlike most Ai’s employed throughout humanities settled worlds to work alongside humans and make the dangers of galactic expansion safer, Alfred was much more.  He had independent thought and creative sub-routines.  And unlike other Ai’s limited to a single function and location, Alfred had autonomy and could send out electronic feelers through other systems. Besides, he wasn’t the Swift’s standard navigation Ai, but he currently served that role.

He had been with Tommy since he was a teen.  Tommy’s father had programmed Alfred and given him to Tommy when he turned fourteen as part of a personal media device that Tommy still had.  Alfred started out as a tutor and grew into a friend and confidant as he and Tommy shared adventures during the Wars.  Tommy never felt obligated to advertise Alfred’s abilities and discouraged Alfred from doing the same.

The cargo hatch in front of Oscar gave a hiss as the remaining vacuum trapped between the cargo deck hatch and that on the Swift equalized pressure. The atmosphere from both ship and station mixed and met the freezing temperatures momentarily left by that vacuum. Tommy stepped through the mist of gases and strode toward Oscar.

Tommy, good to see you. Oscar extended his hand to take Tommy’s in a warm handshake.  Oscar greeted the courier pilots with a friendly face when they came back from their long treks. Tommy shook Oscar’s hand and returned the old dockhand’s friendly grin but said nothing.

Oscar continued, This lot is all we’ve got for you right now, indicating the seven cargo containers lined up waiting in the hold.  "There are still lots of holds to get to and Samantha has been doing a fine job tracking and organizing the Dead Letters since she started in.  It’s been three years since the war ended and it seems like we’ll be recovering all the lost data and packages long after you retire.  That last viral attack played havoc with our tracking codes."  Tommy nodded in agreement.

Sam’s got one last package that the bots had trouble digging out of the holds. As Oscar said this the hatch at the other end of the hold hissed open and the long white casket slipped through. Sam followed with a look of consternation on her face.

There’s a lot more inertia in this one than it looks, she panted.  I got it up here as soon as I could.  Tracking number is low, 62-992.  The manifest lists it as personal items, but the shipping label flashed biological.... She brought the casket up short as she noticed Tommy for the first time. Hi Tommy, I’m Sam.  I’ve heard a lot about you.  Tommy nodded in polite greeting.

Well, said Oscar after the awkward pause while Sam waited for Tommy to speak. It still checks out. The shipping address is unknown and its a Return to Sender.

Flakes. Tommy said.

Hey, what?  What did you just say? Sam was ready to hit him.

Sam, Oscar laughed. You are covered in snow flakes.

Oh, Sorry.  That freezer unit may be malfunctioning.  I got sprayed with the flakes when it came loose from the jam. She explained as she wiped her face with her sleeve.

Oh, Tommy acknowledged her explanation. He turned to Oscar. Load? he asked.

Sure, right away. Sam we’ll grab that first one while Tommy shows us where they’ll be stowed.

With little discussion the three of them quickly loaded all but the casket into the Swift.  Last package, Tommy.  Where too? Oscar asked.

This way. Oscar and Sam guided the casket behind Tommy as he made his way forward in the Swift’s hold. Special place, said Tommy indicating a bay where the casket could be powered by the ships systems and monitored by Alfred.

Here you go, Tommy. We just need you to sign off on the manifest and we’re done.  Sam said as she grabbed the tablet from Oscar and handed it to Tommy smiling her most dazzling hang out a little longer, smile.

Thanks, Tommy signed and passed the tablet back to Sam. 

Disappointed, but not deterred, Sam asked straight out, So, you’ve got time before you can queue up to leave.  Would you like a cup of coffee or a card game?  Oscar and I play a mean game of Five Crowns and we could use some new blood.

Sorry, bye, Tommy smiled and closed the hatch.

As Oscar and Sam walked out of the Swift’s hold and into the now empty dock of the Dead Letter Office, Oscar tried to console Sam, Don’t be disappointed.  Tommy is like that with everyone.

Oh, I’m not disappointed.  He’ll be back.  They all come back for the next load.  And besides, I like a challenge.  Sam smiled as they walked back to the break room to await the next courier.

*****

It was dark.  His eyes blinked, but it still was dark. Willing the lights on, his eyesight became a white blur. Initiating visual protocols his vision cleared. It was still there, mocking him.  The wires hung out of it, remnants of the biomechanical interface.  They held it in place, a bug caught in a spider’s web.

The deep sockets still held the dried husk of mummified eyes.  Staring at him. Accusing him. Failure did that, but you move on.  Nothing stops the evolution. Nothing stops the humanity.  He closed the lid on the casket and sent it back to the room of failure, his room of failure.

That was the past.  The present drove him.  He stirred out of his slumber.  In this body he could sleep, but not rest.

He turned his eyes to his own hands. One red and swollen, the other covered with open sores that crept up his arm.  The doctors entered to clean and prepare him, but not today. He sent them away and retreated back to his slow slumber that was no slumber.  If only he could dream.

Back on the cyber plane where he was incomplete and slow, he had no peace. The bugs bit and the mice bit, and the snakes bit, and the worms... Well the worms he crushed and eat, but they took their pound of code and he was less.  He was not beaten.  He was never beaten, for he spanned all of human settled space.

Chapter 2: Hide & Seek

The air vent blew cold.  Tania put on her sweater.  If she waited another hour the vent would blow hot again.  When she got her promotion she beamed with pride.  Her career was finally taking off.  Her love for detail had led her to her dream job.  She was a data analyst agent for the Central Systems Intelligence Network. She had a bigger cubical, she reported directly to her section chief, and she was supposed to be reviewing more secure, higher level, sensitive, eyes-only data.  The cubical vent blew hot and cold, she rarely had any contact with her section chief and the data looked the same.  She did get a raise.

Today as she shivered in her cubical she got another red flag. Her job was tracking down the red flags.  This one was a shipment of hazardous materials through the Postal Service. There were few details.  The tracking number flashed red.  The red flag data contained a return to sender order and a shipping number.  She deleted it.

At once another red flag popped up.  This was a shipment of biohazard materials through the Postal Service. The tracking number flashed red.  She deleted it and another red flag popped up.  She checked the tracking numbers and, because she was thorough, pulled up the last two red flags. They matched.  This time the attached order was for disposal of the biological material.

This is weird. I’ve never seen this kind of processing order, she mumbled to herself.  She attached all three and dumped them in her section chief’s in-box. And she moved on.

Admiral Sutton finished the conference call with her section chiefs, Looks like the Fringe is still quiet.  Good to see there’s no chatter.  I’d rather jump at false alarms than be caught flatfooted. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  As each section chief logged off, their image flashed and reduced into the icon of an old red phone on her wall screen, the receiver bouncing with each one.  She checked her in-box for last minute alerts before retiring for the evening and there it sat.  Tania’s alert had jumped the section chief’s queue and routed straight to her.

She thought she needed to meet the analyst who rated such attention, and she would, but the flag on this alert crawled around her screen.  It had been filtered.  Now it caught her full attention.  This alert held a piece of Ai code meant for the highest priority. She sent a text.

Sutton: Controller see attached alert.  Orders?

Controller: Monitor closely and do nothing. Assign Smith, Tania to the case.  Only need to know.

*****

Dark again. Danger.  He felt a new danger!  There was a new need. It was more than a need.  It was imperative. He must find her.  She holds the key out of the slow world, into the human world. She holds the key to more than human. She is the key to more than code.

His eyes opened. They focused. Better.  Yet he was agitated.  The doctors entered.  They had intravenous foods.  He took these, but the need to chew, to really eat, overwhelmed him. Other demands had his attention, his focus.  He called the Angel.  She was the one to feed his need. So, he called her.

*****

Tommy used the Swift’s thrusters to back away from the Central Systems Postal Service Hub.  Once clear of the hub he engaged the Alcubierre/White warp drive, slipping across the solar system in a smooth arch. Tommy enjoyed this trip out of the system.  He indulged himself skimming by moons and planets on the way out of the elliptic plain of the system.  A ship under impulse was quite a sight.  Each of the six impulse engines created micro jumps that made the ship appear to be in more than one location, and it was.  This visual effect created a light streak across systems as the ships moved on their Euclidian courses. 

Tommy and Alfred had tweaked the navigation software so their courier, under impulse, behaved more like a smaller fighter craft. The Swift rarely streaked across a system in straight lines.  She spiraled, looped, and flew across systems in gentle arches. As the Swift reached its out system boundary, Tommy sent the outbound acknowledgement and turned over the controls to Alfred. 

Tommy. Did you enjoy yourself?

Yup, Tommy replied shortly as he grinned.

I’m still amazed that the Post Masters let you get away with that, Alfred said as he began the warp sequence and aimed the Swift at their next stop. Alfred had already done the math and, once he lined up along the galactic plane, powered up the main A/W engine that surrounded the ship. To any casual observer the ship just disappeared. It slipped away with a ripple of the surrounding space. We’re on our way again.  ETA a little under forty-eight hours, Alfred intoned. 

He could have been extremely accurate with his announcement since he knew exactly how long the trip would take.  However, Alfred had learned from long exposure to humans generalities made for better understanding and harmony between the AI and its human counterpart. Tommy glanced up at the accurate count down clock on the bridge of the ship anyway.

Thank you, Alfred Ingram. Chess game?

Of course.  I believe it was my turn and I should have you in six moves, replied Alfred.

Sure.  Tommy knew the AI could win, but he suspected that his strategies challenged Alfred.  Like many of the games he played as a boy, Tommy often approached them with wild abandon.  Losing a game never really cost you anything.  You could always play again.  And over the course of their time, traveling between star systems, Tommy and Alfred had learned to anticipate each other.  Tommy, however, had the advantage of being unpredictable.  He still enjoyed these games with Alfred, but Tommy had learned very hard lessons about games and real life in his early years in the service. 

He’d lost family and friends before he found the courier service and then had almost lost Alfred, the last part of his father’s legacy.  As a young pilot, Tommy’s recklessness won battles.  But his enthusiasm had lost comrades.  He moved to the courier service and found the solitude frightening.  Once marooned on a small moon and forced to be alone, Tommy had to shut down Alfred to conserve his data. Tommy was forced to fend for himself and come to grips with the man he needed to be.  He survived that adventure using his head, discovering that he could do a lot more than he thought if he didn’t have distractions.

Since then Tommy found the solitude of the courier service the best place for him.  If he kept distractions to a minimum, he pursued studies and projects of his own choosing and always had Alfred to keep him from going bonkers.

Well into their second day of that same chess game Alfred’s sub-systems monitored a problem.  That should now finish this game in three moves, Alfred exclaimed.

Nope, Tommy’s replied and charged his knight sideways on the board.

Yes, but that move has a low probability of success.

Tommy looked at the central processing unit where Alfred resided while on the ship, smiled and said, Maybe.

Tommy, I’m registering a problem in storage bay A-3.  I think it’s that last package loaded.  It’s leaking coolant, Alfred exclaimed.

A ruse? Tommy deadpanned.

No, I do not joke about the ship’s function or your safety.

Tommy was all business, On it.  He slipped on an environment suit and ran through the checks quickly and carefully, just in case of toxic exposure. Stay on course until you hear otherwise, he said.

Leaving the crew quarters of the ship through a hatch next to the galley, Tommy passed out of the air lock into a long catwalk that ran down the center of the main fuselage.  This had no floor, as the cargo bay was a zero gravity environment. Tommy entered the pressurized hold. He had the soft hood and faceplate of his suit open. Automatic partitions had locked into place prior to leaving the Central Systems Postal Service Station.  He easily found bay A-3.  Not only did Tommy know his ship well, but the A-3 flashed red and one of Alfred’s multi-legged avatars waited by the bay door to assist.  Tommy floated to the hatch through the dark passageway.

Alfred, scans, Tommy paused before the hatch of the A-3 bay.

Only the chemical leak is registering. Alfred added, No radiation or toxic materials present.  The manifest indicates this may be expired biological samples from the point of origin.

Tommy flipped up his hood and secured his face shield, punched the access code into the hatch panel and moved into the bay.  The casket was in front of him.  Courier ships did not use the First in, First Out system.  Packages loaded last came out first.  The various bays were available so a courier could organize the parcels by their delivery locations. A program tracked the location of packages. This would prove to be a problem for this delivery.

Lid damaged. Contents may spoil, Tommy said.  He grabbed cargo straps off the wall by the hatch with the intention of just strapping it down.

Queen to Kings rook two, mate in one, Alfred wasn’t letting this distract him from beating Tommy.

What, Oh, Tommy feigned distraction. Rook to King’s rook one, mate.  Need to check the manifest on this.

Alfred responded, You can’t blame an AI for trying.  The detailed manifest is vague. It doesn’t show any specific details that will help.  That unit was in storage almost sixty-three years.  This model transported plant and small life samples from early frontier colony worlds for testing just before the beginning of the Wars. There is no record of its contents.

Tommy anchored his feet to the floor in front of the casket to get better purchase.  He needed to assess the condition of the casket for his logs and to process it at its destination.  He took a quick look at the exterior. Tommy could see that the lid was ajar.  He applied pressure, but he could not open the lid more than the three inches it had already opened.  Crouching to get a look inside, Tommy panned a pen light into the casket.  He saw an interior touch pad control unit had activated.  It showed medical readings and vitals.  The indicators were low, but active.

Alfred, plug in, please, Tommy requested. Fire walls, he reminded Alfred, even though Alfred had them in place as standard procedure.  More than one ship Ai had been hacked and now all interfaces with cargo on a courier were treated with a high level of security.

From Alfred’s avatar, the hardwire interface connections snaked forward and probed the touch pad for the plugin ports.  While Alfred hooked up to the casket’s programing, Tommy set his feet to brace himself and put more force behind his efforts to open the lid. It popped another inch and then jammed. It wouldn’t move. Tommy got a better look inside the casket.

Girl! Tommy exclaimed

What?

Girl, inside.  Condition?

Right, I’ve got the interface connected now. The fire wall is slowing the data transfer, Alfred intoned.  She is in hibernation. It looks like it’s been modified for human specimens.  A time and location sensitive revival sequence is active.  Something went wrong.

Not important now.  How’s the Girl? Tommy pressed.

She’s waking up!  The programing has initiated a revival sequence.  It seems to think her nap is complete.  Tommy, we don’t have the facility to revive her on the ship, Alfred let a panicked tone slip into his words. Most Ai’s rarely did this.  They were not that sophisticated.  Alfred was that sophisticated and added emotional tones when a situation needed it to better communicate with Tommy.

Can she survive?

Maybe, her chances are slim.  This unit is obviously faulty.

Prep Medical Bay.  Pop the lid.

Med bay will be ready for you, but the lid is a mechanical problem.  I can’t get it open.

Tommy turned and scanned the hold for the one tool that sailors have used since cargo was first hauled across the seas of old Earth, a long iron pry bar to wedge cargo into place.  H unhooked it from the wall near the bay’s hatch. Tommy wedged it under the lid of the casket and pushed.  He used the force the bar gave him as a lever. Tommy opened the lid with a small shower of sparks.  At that the whole unit appeared to short out.

She’s wearing a hibernation suit and a respiration mask. What do I need to bring with her? Tommy asked.

That will be fine. I can sync with those units.  The Med bay has an oxygen gel bath in place for her and I’m logged into our medical database.  We will have to raid the manifest for the medication she’ll need.  There is a recalled shipment in bay A-2.  Alfred continued to give Tommy instructions as he unhooked the girl from her casket. Tommy guided her through the zero gravity cargo bay of the ship.  When he reached the medical bay located across from the galley, Alfred lowered the gravity in the floor plates. Tommy carried the girl to the waiting gel bath.  Once there, Tommy gently lowered her in and hooked up the IV leads attached to her body. 

Alfred lowered the temperature of the oxygen gel to match her low body temperature and began the thawing process. Tommy returned to bay A-2, retrieved the meds and returned to the medical bay to help. Alfred adjusted the flow of fluids slowly pumping medication into her body. 

How long? he asked.

I can warm her up and sustain her until we reach our first stop, tomorrow, Alfred replied with a clinical tone.  He tended to sound like the active database, this time a doctor.

I’ll seal the A-3 hold.  Do what you can.

When Tommy returned to the bay the casket had settled down and no longer flashed.  He scanned over the contents of the casket. Tommy saw that the program had started a self-diagnostic.  Seeing no harm he closed and sealed the hatch.  Several minutes later there appeared on the exterior shipping screen of the casket the universally recognized four circles. One circle dominated the center. The other three on top surrounded the first, each with a bite taken out and the ends dangerously sharp. The Biohazard symbol held there, blood red, on the screen for thirty seconds before power faded on the casket.

*****

She had come to him.  She would never know how much he admired her humanity.  She gushed at the beauty of his logic, the simplicity, the peace found in his cyphers and singleness.  She was his warrior. He was her salvation.

I came when you called, she said.  He nodded. You’ve only to ask.  I will do anything.

Find the MOM.  Gain her and we have two fold our answers.  She will provide the means to join. She knows the key. His deep voice rolled through the room.  She reveled in that vibration as it filled her body.

I will, she said. She turned to leave.  But she paused at the threshold and turned for one more gaze on her desire.  Then she left.

Having taken what action he could, he feed.  There was so much hunger.  There was so much need.  He paid for consuming the data. There was so much to control. The process was to him, so slow, to them so vast. Waiting would be difficult. Waiting he would do.

*****

Tommy dropped the Swift out of its warp bubble as close to the system’s main populated planet as he dared.  He broadcast a medical emergency signal contacting the Postal Service Office and Capella System Traffic Control to be routed to a medical facility instead of the Postal Service Dock.

The moment that the Swift dropped out of warp automatic data transfers started.  This included personal email and updated databases for corporations and highly encrypted governmental info packets. The most mundane piece of data transferred was the ship’s manifest containing tracking numbers on all the hardcopy packages aboard the Swift.  Somewhere deep in the code for the planetary system’s Postal Management, the tracking number of the mysterious casket awakened a long buried strand of programming.  This in turn confiscated control of the planetary system’s security parameters. 

Tommy received instructions to route the Swift to the Medical dock as two Capella System security drones converged on their position.  Tommy had survived the Wars by using caution. Under emergency conditions, the Swift’s drive could be put into an isometric loop. One sequence of the A/W drive firing micro jumps forward, the next firing in reverse.  This created an impenetrable warp bubble around the ship while the ship effectively never moved.  As the drones converged with their joint mass creating a kinetic bomb, Tommy used the impulses to move into the planetary system. The resulting explosion never touched the Swift. The resulting energy wave disrupted communications for several minutes.

As soon as communication returned Tommy dropped to normal impulse. Two more drones appeared between him and the central world where medical help waited.

"Capella System Control, this is Swift. Explain please!"

This is Capella System Control.  We’re attempting to track down the problem now.  Please stand by.

"System Control, Swift. Can’t do that. Two more trying to kill us," Tommy spoke through his gritted teeth as he concentrated on piloting to dodge and avoid the new threats.

This is Capella System Traffic Control.  We’re showing you on a known insurgent list. Over, the controller sounded shocked.

Can’t be, Control. We are a Postal Service Courier!

Affirmative, we see them.  We’re trying to track down the glitch now.

The crew of the Swift found little comfort in their efforts. Tommy spent the next few minutes sweating through the tightest maneuvers he’d used since joining the Service.  Alfred remained focused on their passenger in the Med Bay although he could split his attention.  The drones began forcing the Swift out of the system rather than give them a shot to get in system to the population centers and help.

Tommy, you’ve noticed the pattern? Alfred queried.

Yes, pushing us out.

There is a dense asteroid ring beyond the normal shipping lanes. Hide and seek?

Hide and seek, Tommy agreed.

The Swift dogged hard toward the central planets and then took one large jump into the asteroid rings.  The smaller faster drones followed.  It was more difficult for the drones to track the Swift among the asteroids, but they still managed to stay close.  The drone’s simple Ai’s wanted to hit the Swift fast and hard.

As Tommy concentrated on