Beautiful, vivacious and made to order! The Android PAnd0RA 001 returns in the last week of November in a new episode and with new cover art! The uncannily human-like android is finding her mission to 'bond' with her new human companion challenging. What does one do when their companion sees them as nothing more than an a machine? Not even a planetary network full of data holds the answer to that difficult question. Somehow PAnd0RA must solve that equation. She'll get her chance during a big upcoming event aboard the Corporate Interstellar Transport DROMEDARY! Meanwhile, the owner of that mysterious BOX wants it back and is going to take extraordinary steps to retrieve their property. Here's a sneak preview from EPISODE TWO:
MILKY WAY GALACTIC AUTHORITY EREBUS Class Deep Space Planetary Station -
OASIS 10
Station Commander Sette Clavon waited anxiously as a single technician worked the hard light display’s Particle Wave Receivers controls. To have been awakened in the middle of his sleep cycle for reception of a classified transmission of personnel from PROMETHEUS GROUP Security was unsettling. For an MHG 1.5 like himself gaining command over a DSPS had been a monumental achievement even if he only got to see actual sunlight once every ten Earth Standard Years on his leave cycle. One of the major downsides of commanding a critical jump point in a Black Zone between five stellar systems was having to oversee important transmissions such as this. The arrival of a classified team from the Galaxy’s think tank could not be a good thing.
The Commander watched the viz feed as a large Direct Transport Cube coalesced inside the Reception Chamber. He whistled between clenched teeth at the thought of those inside it undergoing direct site to site Particle Wave Transmission. Direct Transmission was a much faster method than traveling by transport as there was far less mass to compress within a warp bubble. However, the bubble time from site to site could last for decades! No one could travel in this manner without being in stasis.
Problem was even in stasis, the mind must have periods of activity in order for humans to be fully functional upon arrival. On rare occasions, the activity cycles are not properly calibrated to match the individual. When a person is brought out of stasis, they are always disoriented. If their mental activity cycle was off calibration for decades, the individual would come out of stasis quite mad often, violently so.
Amber scanning beams swept over the Cube revealing six stasis containers and one large Transport BOX. Each beam after having swept over a container registered with a green ‘CLEAR’ graphic on the technician’s display. The beam scanning the BOX suddenly flashed red and the display’s AI audio feed said, “Warning! Unauthorized unknown materials detected. Initiating security containment field.” Abruptly a blue hard light energy field enveloped the BOX and the Commander exclaimed, “What in the Stygian Cloud did they bring aboard my station?” The Display’s AI then announced, “Unauthorized unknown materials contained at Level 6. Stasis Cycles complete. Six personnel are now online.”
Pointing to the display the Commander said, “Technician, display arriving personnel files. To the Commander’s dismay five of the files were blocked by the red CLASSIFIED graphic. However, one was viewable. A 2D image of a dark-skinned high-level Modified human male stared at him with fierce eyes making Commander Clavon involuntarily flinch. “PROMETHEUS GROUP Security Operations Officer Rewar Talvi? Who in the Black Cloud was this savage and what were he and a classified team doing on my station?” It would be several minutes before the arrivals would be cleared to embark the station. Somehow, Commander Clavon did not believe he would like the answers.”
© 2012 H. Wolfgang Porter. All Rights Reserved.
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