(Mass) Prologue

Mass

In 2065, Von Braun Aerospace unveiled the controversial physics defying Mass Drive, capable of warping and reducing the surrounding ship of its mass to absolute zero. Ships were capable of exceeding 1.5 times the speed of light.

In 2070, Von Braun revealed the 2^nd generation of the Mass Drive, dubbed the Mark II Vittore Mass Drive after its original inventor. It utilizes solar energy stored as a method of powering the drive and the ship itself for long term space exploration. Expeditions were sent to determine habitability and colonization. In 10 standard years, Humanity has colonized the Moon, Mars, Ganymede, Io, Europa, Titan, Triton, Calisto, Phoebus and Deimos. In the future, plans to terraform Venus are being evaluated.

2077, Axom Industries created a powerful thinking computer under the name Durendal. Its purpose, to lead exploratory science vessels across the depths of deep space. It was this year the Mark III Vittore Mass Drive was unveiled. Durendal was shown to be quite capable of exceeding astronavigation and coordination, reaching beyond the Oort cloud and back. Durendal was also the first sentient self-aware AI of its time, one with a distinct self-determining personality.

2100, humanity was about to breach the boundaries of limitations.  Then, a constant anomalous signal was discovered 500ly from Earth. It did not match any radio waves they were familiar with. The Odyssey, headed by Durendal and twenty five other crew members in cryostasis, are prepped for a ten year journey to reach the signal and determine its origin. It has been four years, eleven months and twenty seven days. By the 5^th year they will reach the signal.

            Twenty five thousand albums; his favorite music of choice were Swings. Primarily those done by Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby. There were many others but these always struck a chord with him. His fascination with the 20s and 40s was more of a personal preference. Aside from old music, he enjoyed the most wonderful noise ever to grace the lower deck of the ship. The ticking of the engines and blips from the console were not preferred songs to listen to. Of course he had little choice when he had to hook up on the charging station. It was near maintenance, just across the engine room. The noise was loud and consistent. Silence would had been preferable. Of course if the engines decided to stop ticking, then there was a problem. It must never stop ticking. He was fortunate for this ship, himself and the crew that the annoying ticking did not stop. Regardless, the sooner he was out the better.

The ship hardly needed much outside of maintenance. Dust hardly gets anywhere given the lack of biological matter that would compromise it. Though with the crew ready for awakening soon, well there was going to be a tad bit of dust for a while. Skin cells, hair strands, and the works. Never had he seen such particles fly off of them en mass.

For the past four years he had been on the ship, he did not once question the idea that he would suffer information leaks. He had always been up to date with his maintenance routines. Besides, his mind wasn’t as linear as his creators originally thought he would have. Based around his directive, his memory capacity should had been very limited and simple. It shouldn’t surprise him that he was able to remember information that was previously lost to him. And that was the problem he was having recently; he had checked the ship’s memory banks, and his own constantly. Nowhere in the mission statement did it say this vessel was supposed to carry warhead. Nor did it say what these warheads were for. He was drawing a blank over this predicament. And here he was supposed to be the perfect AI suited for this mission. It’s not like he would just delete it from his memory banks. (A bliss and a curse that he has himself.) He’d never actively delete sensitive information like this. Forget yeah but he’d always remember, just like any human. It was bothering him for four years. He just never saw fit to question it. All he could do was ride this ship down to its destination.

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing that bothered him. While he was never bored, he was always rather lonely. The directive told him not to open the cryo pods until the near end of the four year mark. He wanted to, but then he always thought of the problems he could cause for doing it. He was always known for going of the rail and violating his directive constantly for his own amusement. But this, well… he wasn’t willing to risk their safety for his own amusement. He could put them back in the pods again, but what if the pods malfunctioned? What if they develop a health condition as a result of repeated rapid exposure to cryofreezing? Worry; a common human condition the organics have when it came to potential failures of the ship’s systems and its cargos. A condition that he himself has developed.

Durendal had to find meaningful distractions. And one of them happened to be contacting the administrator back on Earth. The comms allowed for long distance communications. They don’t work the same way the Vittore drive did. They explained it to be a means of quantum entanglement to allow faster than light communications.

The comms went off in the bridge. A signal from the administrator perhaps. Durendal didn’t expect such an early call. He floated his way towards the console. A prehensile appendage emerged from the left side of his shell and reached to press the comms.

            “This is Durendal, acting captain of the Star Voyager Exploration Class: The Odyssey. Is that you administrator?” he spoke to the comms.

            “Durendal. Nice to hear your voice again,” a voice replied. “And yes, it is. It’s been a long time.”

            “Too long for that matter. It is good to hear your voice too. We are about three days away from our mark. Cryo tubes are on standby until the end of the third day.”

            “So everything is present and accounted for?”

            “Everything sir. No complications. No errors, drive’s fully functional and charging. Just playing the waiting game until I can wake up the crew.”

There was a moment of silence. But not too long fortunately enough. The administrator got back to him shortly after, “Great. That’s just great. We’re a bit anxious back here. You must fulfill the mission as soon as you can. The beacon may still be active but we’re not exactly off the clock with this.”

He never expected his superiors to be nervous about this. They were always cool and never under pressure. The mission perimeters did note this mission was of great significance to humanity.

            “I do have a few questions if I may…”

            “Is there something the matter Durendal?”

            “Nothing the matter. Just curious on a few things. I’ve about five years of this to think about.”

            “Thinking?”

            “Yeah. Thinking. I still think.”

            “That’s not what I was asking,” the man let out a chuckle. “I mean… what are you thinking about?”

            “Err… one is the meaning behind the signal.”

            “All information about the mission should had been encoded into your memory.”

There it was. Something was off. There was no prior knowledge he had about the signal and its purpose, nor of the entirety of the mission parameters. As though they never existed at all. But there was something there that pointed to something… possible leaks? Or damaged memory core? Or tampering? He wasn’t sure but the last thing he did recall was a week before their launch operations as clear as day. Durendal was pulled out of his previous established duties of surveying more habitable planets further beyond our neighboring stars. What could have happened between then and now?

And the implications of Durendal having lost certain information in his memory banks could incite some unnecessary implications. That Durendal becoming faulty, or there might had been some data corruption or that he was becoming a liability.

            “Protocol dictates that I must relay the mission parameters to my crew. And I want to be sure I can relay that word for word to make sure they have a clear and present understanding of the situation.”

Hopefully that worked. It was a poor excuse for him to get a ‘memory refresher’ by having the administrator repeat the mission parameters. Whatever memory that was lost in his core might just come back. Unfortunately… his memory wasn’t that of humanity’s.

The administrator nodded his head reached for a piece of paper off-screen. He began to read them to him, “The mission objective is as followed. You are to awake the crew after their five year voyage to the signal. You must determine the nature of the signal and establish a method of action when you discover the object source. You and the crew are to study this source first of all and collect any data that you can. If observational studies on the object are to be believe, then it is imperative that you must d—

Something was wrong. The screen started to act up. Tears were seen on the vid and static and white noise started to creep from the audio and visual feeds.

            “Oh damn… administrator! Administrator come in! You’re breaking up.”

The voice was unclear and distruptive.

            “-ay...-an…-dal? We…-ing comm stai-… please ref-…ddendum 12 for…” and just like that… the entire screen turned to static. The administrator was gone. Something was wrong with the comms. For some reason it only affected this segment of the ship. Durendal himself wasn’t suffering from the same effects. He wasn’t directly linked to the ship and the interface in anyway. But this would be detrimental to the mission… whatever it was.

It was as though there was some external force disrupting the comm interface. All visual and auditory feeds were cut. Now he was limited to that of the ship.

            Durendal searched the bridge for any signs of data and information. He discovered a file after searching through one of the compartments near a logistics seat. One of the papers had ‘Addendum 12,’ the last clear thing Durendal was able to hear before the administrator was cut off. One segment of the addendum stood out.

            In the event that there is a malfunction in the ship or its equipment, initiate emergency override of cryostasis. Awaken key engineering personnel assigned to the ship and conduct systems repair and operations to ensure the safety and communication of the ship and its crew.

It looks like Durendal was going to have to wake up the crew sooner than expected. But he was worried. Nothing seemed to be going accordingly. Earth had an idea on what the source is… but nothing clear or concrete enough even with their greatest of orbital observatory telescopes. Information and detail about the source was completely feign to him. What was going on?