Cut and Run
Chapter 1: The Decision

Copyright© 2022 by C.Brink

Year 3106

I gradually became aware. It was like very, very slowly waking up from being unconscious, a lucid but focused dream slowly becoming reality. My thoughts were a confused jumble of random images that slowly coalesced into vague memories that made little sense. Random faces appeared. Some seemed familiar while others were strangers to me. More images and scenes came and went. One particular recurring scene was of a small house sitting on a grass-covered prairie. Another repeating image was that of a strange animated dark gray manikin. It was moving, so maybe it was a robot or android.

The passage of time was difficult to judge in this weird shifting fugue state. I became aware that I was blind, or maybe I was simply in total darkness, but I missed the sensation of sight. I started to discern true physical sensations and became aware of the rhythmic motions in my chest which meant I was breathing. My perception of a second rhythmic sensation resolved into my heart beating slowly. I began feeling pinprick sensations spreading up and down my body as if my legs and arms were now receiving nerve stimulations.

More time passed and the mental and physical sensations continued to grow. Suddenly I was jarred out of the sluggish recovery by the forceful motions of a breathing tube being quickly withdrawn from my throat. Until it was removed, I had been unaware that a machine had been breathing for me.

I quickly felt the lack of oxygen and I was forced to take over the effort of breathing. I strained and gasped with the effort and managed to take in a deep wheezing breath. Adrenalin surged through my body and my feeble heart rate increased as I half panicked. I calmed myself as my breathing improved quickly. Soon, I was breathing steadily on my own without feeling the need to cough.

“Please state your name,” a generic and mechanical-sounding voice said.

The voice seemed to come from all around me in the darkness. As I processed the sounds into speech, it occurred to me that I did not know who I was. Facial images continued to flash in my brain while I struggled to remember my name. More time passed but I was unsure whether it was seconds or minutes.

“Please state your name,” the voice repeated.

I felt the sensations of a slowly brightening glow registering on my optic nerves. I was not blind after all! The glow was reddish and I realized that my eyes were shut and I was seeing an exterior illumination source through my eyelids. I struggled to pry them open and felt my eye muscles strain and flutter. What was going on? I tried to clear my throat and speak.

“uuhha ... who ... are you?” I manage to finally croak out. My voice sounded very high-pitched, almost like that of a young child.

“Incorrect name response. Possible query detected. Attempting reply. This unit’s designation is the E.M.A.”

E.M.A.? The letters jogged a memory. I concentrated and began to remember details. The letters were the designation of some sort of computer program. E.M.A.? I think I called it ‘Ema’ for short. The letters stood for something. I remembered that the ‘E’ stood for ‘Emergency’.

“Ema? Emergency ... something?” I said before pausing. I could not recall what the rest of the letters stood for.

“Incorrect name response. Possible query detected. Attempting reply,” the mechanical-sounding voice again stated.

“E.M.A. is the abbreviation of Emergency Minimum Awareness. Due to the need to preserve maximum energy resources for later use, this minimum awareness program is currently active,” the voice explained.

A few seconds later Ema repeated its previous question, “Please state your name.”

What in the heck was happening? Again, I struggled to remember my name but nothing seemed to fit. I ran through a few dozen familiar names before I came to Joan. That felt close! Was my name Joan? No, it did not seem quite right although the name triggered strong feelings in me. Maybe she was a close friend or family member.

“I don’t remember. I’m trying to think,” I managed to squeak out.

“Incorrect name response.”

The voice continued after another pause, “Be aware that with your biological shell now minimally revived and functional, rotationally induced gravity will now be suspended. At the conclusion of the following maneuver, you will be fully weightless. Please do not be alarmed,” Ema said.

I felt a distant rumble or vibration accompanied by a faint hissing noise. I felt a change in pressure on my back and side along with a gradual feeling of becoming lighter. While these changes were happening, I continued attempting to get my eyelids open. They must have been slightly stuck or matted closed as they suddenly popped open and I was able to see a blurry glow directly in front of me. I continued to blink weakly, trying to bring the glow into focus.

“Please state your name,” Ema again questioned.

My vision gradually cleared, and I could see that the glow was coming from a display screen located above my head. It was showing an incomprehensible grid of figures and numbers. The sight reminded me of other times I had awakened. I suddenly realized that I had been awoken in a similar fashion many times in the past!

What had we called the process? Bio-suspension? I was being awakened from bio-suspension! I felt myself calm slightly at the realization that I had survived this many times before. As I relaxed, my thoughts cleared enough that my name popped into my head.

“John,” I squeaked out finally, “My name is John Abrams.”

“Response partially correct. Partial name accepted,” the mechanical-sounding voice of Ema replied.

Partial name. What the hell? Did it mean I was to include my middle name? No! I remembered! I was not the original John Abrams Prime. I was officially John Abrams Secundus, the copy. The true original John Abrams was back on Earth. I remembered giving myself the designation when I was first told that I was a mind-data copy of his. ‘Lucky John’ was what John Prime had nicknamed me after he had heard of my choice of suffix.

As I pondered my name, I recalled that there also were many other John Abrams wandering around on the Earth besides the John Prime and me. The forty-seven clones created by the master AI which it had used to populate the new template colonies. Those colonies had been established across the planet in every type of biome possible.

In the case of the clones, it was decided to append the old geographic locations to the clone copy’s names. Thus, alphabetically we had John Abrams Albania to John Abrams Zambia with forty-five other John Abrams ‘someplace’ clones in between. The other template colony humans had also appended their names in the same fashion. It seemed to work. The children of the colonies had either followed the same convention or came up with some other unique name if they wished.

“Please state your current location?”

My reprieve from the insistent questioning was apparently short-lived. Where was I? Hmm. I seemed to remember that in the past when I had awoken in this manner, I had been in an underground bunker. No ... I remembered waking in a submarine! Its name had been Nautilus!

I was about to answer Nautilus when I realized that I could not be in a submarine. My weight was decreasing rapidly, and Ema had mentioned that induced gravity was being suspended. That meant I must be in space somewhere.

“I’m in the orbital station?” I answered, again with that weird, high-pitched, child’s voice.

“Incorrect location response,” Ema replied.

Hmm ... If I was not at High Castle then I must be somewhere else in space. A spaceship? That jogged a memory. Yes! I’m on a spaceship. More memories revealed themselves and I recalled the large spaceship being constructed in lunar orbit. What was its name? Run away? No... Run Like Hell. That was it!

“I’m on a spaceship named Run Like Hell?”

There was a slight pause.

“Response partially correct. Alternate nickname accepted,” Ema replied.

Alternate nickname? Oh yeah! Run Like Hell was my nickname for the ship. Her true name was Evadere. That was Latin for ‘escape’ or ‘flee quickly,’ hence my better nickname. I recalled that escape had been the main purpose for building the spaceship. We were rushing to escape the coming of our enemy the Assemblage!

As I recalled the enemy’s name, I also remembered the ongoing threat they presented to the Earth and all the humans on it. Their advance scouts had already devastated my world a thousand years ago, nearly eradicating humanity in the process. They had left an AI to rebuild and prepare the Earth for their arrival. I had stopped that AI, but the enemy in their billions were still on the way.

I felt a strap release from my forehead, and I struggled to lift my head. Because of the diminishing gravity, I was able to do so. I looked around and saw that I was in a small, sterile white enclosed cylinder.

There were numerous retracted mechanical devices on the cylinder’s walls all around me. I must be in some sort of medical treatment unit or crèche. I looked down to inspect my body. What I saw jolted me. I was in a child’s body! My small arms and legs were those of a toddler. If I had to guess, I’d say I was in the body of a four-year-old.

I tried to raise my arms but failed as they were still held down by straps. I saw that I had medical probes inserted in each arm. These leads or feeders were connected to small medical units strapped to my tiny upper arms. They reminded me of the floaties children would wear while swimming.

Looking lower, I saw a similar device attached to my left leg near my groin. This unit had leads that extended to both my tiny penis and below, probably to my anus. They must be handling any waste this body might generate. Both of the devices attached to my arms and the one attached to my thigh were featureless and smooth, clearly not needing adjusting or monitoring by humans.

“What is your destination?” Ema asked, interrupting my self-inspection.

Huh! Her question brought me out of the shock that seeing my strange body had caused. What had the voice asked? Where was I going? Well, I remembered we were fleeing the solar system so we must have been heading to the stars. What star? I remembered that Alpha Centauri was one of the closer star systems to Sol. Were we heading there?

I remembered it was a binary star and would make for a harsh living environment, so I doubted that was our target. I suddenly recalled discussions about Alpha Centauri where it was deemed to be too close to the Earth. If the Assemblage did succeed in its colonization attempt, we wanted our escape colony to be further away. Another star system came to mind. Tau something ... Tau Ceti!

“Tau Ceti!” I answered, “We are heading to the Tau Ceti star system. Are we there? Have we arrived?” I was suddenly excited at the thought of seeing new worlds.

“Correct destination response. Possible query or queries detected. Attempting reply. Evadere is still in transit. It has not yet arrived at Tau Ceti.”

I felt the rumbling stop and the hissing fade away to nothing. I was now fully weightless and began floating free. All was quiet for a few seconds before a new whirring sound started. I felt my body touch the padded liner of the cylinder. We must be moving again. From the tug, we were heading in a new direction. I again inspected my strange body. I suddenly recalled the reason for its extremely small size.

To limit mass to a minimum, everything about our ship was minimized. This included our life support systems and even our very bodies. Although it was intended that I and the other human cargo would spend the journey as non-corporeal digital mind-data, there were a small number of tiny biological shells aboard for emergency use.

The intent was to not use these minimum-sized shells at all. Instead, once we arrived at our destination, full-sized, more-standard biological shells would be custom grown for our use. I’d expected to wake in a body similar to one I’d left behind in Sol system. Or, possibly, in a shell modified to suit the local environment we would find. Now, I found myself in one of the emergency-only, miniature shells. Something unexpected had occurred.

“Retracting rotational gravity pod. This will take approximately forty seconds,” Ema explained.

Gravity pod? I tried to remember details of the ship and its living quarters. A large silver cigar-shaped rocket came to mind but my memories included that craft taking off and landing on the Earth so it was not Run Like Hell.

Ema spoke again after twenty seconds, “Background Radiation levels decreasing. Overall exposure remains within safety margins.”

Radiation! What the hell? “Is there danger? Were we in some sort of accident? Did something hit us?”

“Possible query or queries detected. Attempting reply. Evadere is currently operating at optimal condition. Your current emergency shell is functioning within operating parameters. Current danger levels are relatively low and within margins. There have been no notable accidents or unexpected equipment failures.”

“Then why is there radiation?” I asked.

“Possible query detected. Attempting reply. Gravity was required to properly revive the emergency biological shell. Thus, the medical unit in which you reside was taken outside the central, heavily-shielded, long-duration storage area of Evadere and moved to an outer area of the vessel where it was spin-rotated to simulate gravity. Your reviving biological shell has resided in that state for the past fifty-six hours. During this time radiation exposure and potential biological damage due to impacting high energy cosmic ray particles was heightened,” Ema explained.

More came back to me. Ema’s explanation reminded me that Evadere in her interstellar mode was not designed to have simulated gravity. But the stored biological shells needed gravity to be revived. So, the medical pods were designed to be temporarily repositioned to the outer, roomier areas of the vessel where they could be spun up to simulate gravity.

There was a bump and all sense of motion stopped. I once again floated free of the padded liner I was laying on. The pod I was in must now be fully retracted and safely back inside the more-shielded areas of the spacecraft. With my arms now free I was able to feel my head and face. My head felt HUGE! I remembered that although this shell was miniature, my skull and brain were still normal-sized. This was needed to provide my mind-data the physical brain capacity to think and fully reason properly. I carefully felt around the base of my skull.

As I suspected, there was a large transceiver unit embedded under the skin of my bare scalp. The emergency shell had artificial neural filaments woven through its brain and these needed the transceiver for rapid mind-data transfers. I was a cybrid, a true little monster. I was glad there were no camera feeds or mirrors.

Other fun facts of this emergency shell came to mind. I recalled that over eighty percent of the shell’s heart capacity was used to simply supply oxygenated blood to the brain. Also, the shells small lungs lacked the capacity to fully oxygenate the blood, so the arm shunts were used to augment the blood oxygen levels. I would not be able to do much physical activity in this state. Luckily, the shell was not intended to move about doing repairs or any real work.

Ema let me be for the moment as I drifted about in the now-weightless pod, I began to recall more details of Evadere and its planned voyage. I remembered the history of how it had been constructed. The frenzied first decade after we had defeated the enemies’ master AI presence in that final battle at its space station in Earth orbit.

After I had regained control of the Earth and the solar system, Naomi, the AI under my control and now running all automation and other AIs worldwide, had used most of the Earth’s available resources to quickly construct this first interstellar capable vessel. It had been a no-frills venture in many ways as we had wanted to send some of humanity off to another star as quickly as possible.

Why the rush when they were still a few centuries away? We had been unsure of what early measures the Assemblage could take as it approached from interstellar space and wanted to get some of our eggs into another basket.

“What year were you born?” Ema asked, resuming the questions.

I flashed back to my childhood. I had been born in the second half of the twentieth century. Nineteen sixty-eight to be exact. The year humanity first circled the moon and a year before it landed humans on it.

“Nineteen sixty-eight,” I answered. “Why all these questions?”

“Correct age response. Possible query detected. Attempting reply. The E.M.A. is attempting to gauge the current functionality of the cerebral portions of your biological shell. It is also considering your mental awareness levels.

“Various questions will be asked, and your response will be used to determine your revival status. The biological shell may have suffered cerebral damage during suspension or revival. Or your mind-data may have degraded over the last one hundred eighty years. Or there may have been download transmission errors.

“The tests will reveal the extent of damage or degradation, if any, which may have occurred. Please direct your attention to the written questions now appearing on the display screen. Answer each query to the best of your current abilities verbally. Note, your response times will be used to augment the accuracy of your responses.”

I saw the display screen’s graphical data blank out and be replaced by a series of questions. The first thirty were mathematics. These started very easy with simple addition and subtraction. Soon they ranged into multiplication and division. Algebra and geometry were next, and I began to struggle remembering seldom used concepts and functions. The machine did not indicate if I was answering correctly but simply displayed the next question after each of my answers.

Following the math came historical questions. I found these easy up until the questions began covering periods after the Earth was attacked back in the early twenty-first century. I struggled to recall some of the more recent events which had happened after that time. It occurred to me that I had undergone many periods of bio-suspension during these time periods and my memories had been adjusted and altered repeatedly.

It was likely that the adjustments had affected my ability to clearly remember certain details. I was able to answer most of the questions eventually and noted with a bit of relief that my memory seemed to improve as the questions continued. I recalled waking up in the twenty-sixth century in the nearly- destroyed underground bunker located near my rural home in South Dakota. A relocation trip to another undamaged bunker in Tennessee soon followed.

Then, nearly eighty years after that trip, I was again revived from bio-suspension and sent on an urgent flight to South America, where I had rescued a woman named Ana Branco. She had been an agent of the rogue elements opposing the master AI in control of the solar system and that trip resulted in my learning the truth of the Assemblage’s attempt to wipe out my planet. It had also provided me the tools and knowledge I would later use to successfully fight back and revert local system control to humanity.

Later, after nearly three more centuries of additional bio-suspension, I had been awakened to begin an expedition to Sri Lanka. This expedition’s purpose was to learn the secrets of the rogue elements which had been active on the planet resisting the Assemblage’s colonization attempts.

The rogue elements had been sent to our planet by another alien race known as the Hemru. It was Hemru computer viruses and algorithms that allowed me to overcome the master artificial intelligence which the Assemblage had installed to control our solar system. After the history questions, there were a few dozen logic and comprehension questions. Finally, the display screen went dark.

“Test results indicate that you are functioning at a seventy-two percent mental level. You will now be rendered unconscious for approximately four hours to allow for your brain to fully integrate short and long-term memory chains. If this is successful, your functioning mental levels should be above the minimum threshold required,” Ema said.

I had had just about enough. What was going on here!?

“What the hell is going on? Why have I been awakened? Where are we?”

“Multiple queries detected. Attempting reply. Evadere’s trailing very-long-baseline sensor array has detected an anomaly that requires decisions to be made which are beyond the capabilities of the E.M.A. As the controlling biological presence, you have been revived to make these decisions. Evadere’s current location is 6.02 light-years away from Sol system. Remaining distance to Tau Ceti is 5.91 light-years. A sedative is being administered now. Further details will be given at the termination of your unconscious state.”

No! I wanted answers. I felt a cool sensation enter my arm through the attached IV. It quickly spread.

“What year is it? What was the anomaly?” I managed to ask, quickly growing sleepy.

“Multiple queries detected. Attempting reply. The current year is 3106. It has been 156.07 years since Evadere departed Sol system. The detected anomalies are a series of high-energy photon and radiation events which have occurred along the projected course and current estimated location of the Assemblage ark ship approaching Sol system. The signatures are indicative of massive matter-antimatter annihilation events.”

My brain was shutting down while I mulled over what Ema had said. Something had happened to the enemy ... or they were possibly doing something unanticipated. I lost the fight to remain awake and fell unconscious.


The lights in the medical chamber brightened rapidly jarring me awake. I was able to open my eyes quickly and easily this time. My thoughts seemed much faster than before. I looked around and observed that I was still floating free in the small medical pod. My strange miniature body was still naked except for the attached medical devices. Thankfully, it was comfortably warm.

“I’m awake,” I said quietly.

“Please answer the questions which are now displayed on the view screen,” Ema said without even a pause or greeting.

“Good morning to you too,” I muttered.

“Possible deviation from question-and-answer protocol. Invalid response ignored. Please answer the questions which are now displayed on the view screen.”

I realized that it was futile to argue or banter with this simple program and got busy answering the questions. They were the same type as before and this time I was able to answer them much more quickly and without as many blanks in my memory. After I had finished there was a pause as the E.M.A. program determined my mental status and how to proceed.

“Current mental functions estimated at ninety-two percent. Minimum threshold exceeded. Information on current situation will now follow.”

The screen lit up showing a simplified course map. Sol system was shown towards the lower left of the display. A second star system was located near the upper left and this was labeled with the name of the ship’s destination, Tau Ceti.

A dashed line between the two was clearly our course. A flashing indicator appeared just past the half way mark which must have been the present location of Evadere. It was heartening to see how much progress our craft had made over the last one hundred and sixty-five years of travel. At the same time, I was over six light years from my original home! I began to feel alone.

A new flashing indication appeared off towards the lower right of the display. I estimated the bearing from Earth to this new indication was not quite ninety degrees off the bearing between Earth and Tau Ceti. The distance between the Earth and this signal was about two-thirds the distance between the Earth and our destination star.

If it was to scale, it meant that the location of the detected anomaly and the enemy ark were currently about eight light-years away from Sol.

“Nine Earth days ago, the trailing very-long-baseline sensor array first detected high energy photons emanating from this location,” Ema’s monotone voice said.

“The location falls within the Assemblage approach vector. The expected probability cone of the course likely to be taken by an approaching Assemblage colonization ark as it travels towards Sol system.”

A new colored conical shape appeared on the display. Its narrow point was centered on Sol system and the slightly wider point led off to the right of the screen. I recalled from my pre-embarkation information and planning sessions that this had been Naomi’s best estimation of the course vector the enemy would take as it approached the Earth.

She had been unsure of how much variation the enemy’s course would have as it passed the various star systems between Sol and the Hemru home world. She was also unsure of the extent of the maneuvering capabilities of the Assemblage ark possessed although this was likely minimal. Also, as the ark’s course passed near the star Procyon, there was a chance that the Assemblage might colonize that system as well. If so, its course would be further altered.

On the display, the area of the detection indications became enlarged. Sol and Tau Ceti fell off the screen to the left as the area of the new detections grew larger and became centered. Ranging bars at the top of the display showed that the area enlarged at least a thousand times. When the display froze again there was a line of seven indications. They were sporadic but clearly linear.

“Over a six-day period, these seven events were detected. The first anomaly was furthest from the Earth. The most recent anomaly detected was the closest. Parallax indicates that the distance between the furthest detection and the nearest detection is approximately 16.1 billion kilometers. This correlates to an object traveling at approximately 7.5 percent of the speed of light over the six-day period,” Ema explained.

I was familiar with that speed. That was the best-guess speed of the Assemblage ark ship. We had learned this from both the Hemru data modules and the captured information in the data archives of the Master AI presence.

“Our array has detected the Assemblage?” I asked, my excited voice even higher sounding than before.

“Possible query detected. Attempting reply. There is a 98.18 percent probability that the anomalies are emanating from the object known as the Assemblage ark vessel,” Ema replied.

“What caused the high energy photons our sensor array detected? You mentioned antimatter. Are they using it to send a message or something? Are they possibly trying to change course?”

“Possible query or queries detected. Attempting reply.”

There followed a long pause and I realized that I had better separate and clarify my questions for this simplified program.

“The precise explanation for the detection anomalies remains unclear. Probability of it being caused by a message transmission is low as previous messages from the Assemblage ark were of a different nature. Probability of a course change by the ark unlikely due to spectral analysis of detected high energy photons and particles,” Ema answered.

“What is the most likely explanation for the detections?” I asked directly, trying to simplify my question for the limited program.

“Query detected. Attempting reply. From the analysis of the detected photons and other high-energy particles, it is most likely that multiple, massive antimatter-derived explosions have occurred on or near the Assemblage ark vessel. Indications include consistent with a metallic asteroid being exposed to direct multiple full annihilation energy releases.”

When Ema finished her reply, I just floated in my pod thinking. We had detected seven explosions from the expected location of the approaching Assemblage fleet. The timing of the explosions seemed random and not a signal or pattern. The particles detected indicate an accident or attack of some sort.

“Could they have suffered some sort of accident?” I asked.

“Query detected. Attempting reply. The highest probability is that the Assemblage ark was attacked by an outside source. Furthermore, due to the ark’s relatively high rate of speed, the attack likely originated from a location which the ark had already passed.”

My first thought was the Hemru! Maybe they survived and were able to prevent the Assemblage from taking control of their system. If they did, then they may have acted against their enemies and launched a retaliatory strike. I remembered discussions with Naomi about the possibilities for Sol system to do the same if we successfully deflected the Assemblage colonization.

“Were the Hemru responsible for the attack on the Assemblage?”

“Query detected. Attempting reply. The Hemru species is the most likely source of the attack observed on the Assemblage ark vessel,” Ema said.

Wow! Enemies of our enemies and all that! Our unknown ‘friends,’ the Hemru, had struck a blow against our common enemy. And, they had done so before the Assemblage had arrived at Sol. Maybe the attack had damaged the ark enough to prevent their colonization attempt at Sol system?

“Is the assemblage ark still functional?” I asked.

“Query detected. Attempting reply. Current status of Assemblage ark vessel is unknown. The very-long-baseline array is not sensitive enough to directly observe the current remaining capabilities of the ark vessel. Furthermore, there is a small possibility that the explosions were defensive in nature. If that is the case, then the ark itself may not have been damaged.”

We were too far away to know for sure. From nine light-years away it was a miracle that we were able to detect the explosions at all. Only the fact that the current sole purpose of our array, at least for the first three centuries of our journey, was to focus on the enemy’s estimated approach vector helped. After three centuries, the array had a more morbid purpose. It would then have the job of watching Sol closely to try and detect any sign that humanity had survived the enemy’s passage.

Still, if the anomalies were signs that the enemy ark had been attacked, Earth’s chances of prevailing against the Assemblage might now be higher. I continued to ponder the matter as I floated around in my dimly lit medical shell. It finally dawned on me that the information the E.M.A. program had just revealed did not fully explain why I had been awakened.

“Ema, why did you revive me at this time? What is the nature of the emergency?” I asked.

“Multiple queries detected. Attempting reply. A mission-critical decision point has been reached. The decision will directly affect both the continuing success of this mission and the survival of the mind-data of John Abrams along with that of the other humans currently stored aboard Evadere,” Ema answered.

“Explain the critical decision point?” I asked.

“Query detected. Attempting reply. A decision must be made whether to continue on with the current mission or to attempt to send a long-range data transmission to Sol system. The transmission would contain all data regarding the detection anomalies at the estimated location of the Assemblage ark vessel.”

Of course. I recalled how fragile our mission was and how limited Evadere’s capabilities were. Interstellar travel required an enormous amount of energy. We were carrying all we could and that was the minimum needed to get the job done. Our vessel was as small and as low-mass as possible and we did not have much in the way of spare energy, materials or ... options. To send a message of any import all the way back to Sol system would require that we fire up our main drive.

This was non-trivial and would have three main consequences: The first was that we had only so much fuel and energy and what we had was needed in order to slow down and achieve some sort of usable orbit at the destination system.

The second consequence was that if we did use our drive, even though it would be used in low-impulse graser (gamma-ray laser) mode, the thrust would still impart some motion to Evadere. Even minimal, that motion would cause the vessel to drift ahead and out of alignments from the cleared “cone of safety” formed by our leading graphene shield disks.

These disks were currently located hundreds of thousands of kilometers in front of us, traveling on the same heading and speed as the main vessel. There were dozens of the disks, each spaced tens of thousands of kilometers apart in a linear arrangement. Each disk was a few atoms thickness of graphene but they were spun out to various large diameters depending upon their distance from the ship.

The smallest of these shields, located nearest to Evader, was slightly over two kilometers in diameter. The next disk beyond was larger and that trend continued until the last disk, located furthest ahead of Evadere.

That final disk formed the wide, bow of the conical safety zone and was over a dozen kilometers in diameter. Despite their thinness, each disk was still massive enough to fragment interstellar dust particles and prevent them from later damaging the main vessel following behind.

If anything got through the multiple disk layers, it might still be deflected or destroyed by a high-powered laser on Evadere’s nose. If not, oh well, failure was always an option with interstellar flight. Maybe the next vessel would have better luck.

So, to summarize, if we fired up our drive and used it as a message graser, we would lose our primary debris and particle shield. Once the communications attempt was concluded and Evadere back on course, it would have to produce and deploy replacement graphene shield disks. This would take even more precious energy and deplete more of our finite supply of carbon reserve material.

A third consequence was that, for the same reasons as the second, we would also lose our trailing very-long-baseline sensor array. Each of these widespread receivers had minimal maneuvering capability. After firing the graser, Evadere would eventually move too far ahead from the trailing array to remain in proper communication. Although it would not be fatal to the mission, the loss of sensor capability would still be significant.

“Ema, what will transmitting the data to Earth do to our chances of safely reaching Tau Ceti?”

“Query detected. Attempting reply. Processing ... Please stand by.”

I waited. After a dozen seconds without an answer, I began to wonder if it would be worth the energy cost to order the full ship’s artificial intelligence be brought online. That AI’s physical processors were not only currently powered down, but also packed away and stored behind additional EM and particle shielding to limit radiation damage to its more sensitive nano-electronics.

The downsides to activating the full AI are that it drastically increases the energy consumed and also subjects the AI to high-energy particle damage. We needed that AI to be fully functional once we arrived at Tau Ceti. I decided not to risk it and to continue waiting for Ema to answer. Its radiation-hardened ruggedized processers were far less capable than the full AI but still should be up to the task if given the time. I could spare an hour or day if needed.

Finally, Ema spoke. “Successful mission completion estimates are currently at ninety-two percent, plus or minus eight percent. If a long-range data transmission using the main drive is sent, the successful mission completion estimates drop considerably to forty-seven percent, plus or minus eighteen percent,” Ema reported.

Wow. Best-case odds if we transmitted were only sixty-five percent. The worst-case odds were twenty-nine percent. Those were dismal. Ema kept quiet as I thought over our dilemma.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes I asked, “Ema, what are the chances that the sensors deployed back in Sol system detected the same energy signatures which Evadere’s array just did?”

“Query detected. Attempting reply. Processing ... Please stand by.”

Again, there was a significant delay while the program considered the question. Finally, nearly eight minutes later an answer came.

“Detection of high energy particles by Sol system sensor array estimates are seventy-one percent, plus or minus twenty-nine percent. Although, due to the high energy particles arriving nearly head-on to those sensors, it is improbable that any would have been able to detect the angular separation of each individual detonation as precisely as Evadere’s trailing very-long-baseline sensor array did.”

There was that. Since our course departing Sol system was at almost a right angle from the Assemblage approach vector, also known as the AAV, or the course at which the arriving Assemblage ark vessel was approaching Sol, we had the better ‘view’ so to speak of the incident. Was that additional bit of information important enough to risk not only this ship and its mission, but my life and the stored mind-data of my fellow humans?

“Ema, if we send this transmission, will we know if it is successfully received back home?”

“Query detected. Attempting reply. No.”

OK ... that was brief. I asked the program to explain.

“Due to the delay of 12.13 years minimum between sending and receiving signals, Evadere’s trailing very-long-baseline sensor array will have long been left far behind and useless. Therefore, no signals from Sol system will be able to be received until, and if, we arrive at our destination and a new long-ranged detection and communication system can be constructed;” Ema answered.

That would be a long wait; almost one hundred and fifty years. During that period of time, we would have no way of knowing if Sol system remained free of the Assemblage. I continued to mull over the dilemma. There had likely been other follow-on interstellar vessels constructed after we left. They had already left Sol system or would soon be leaving.

The plan had been to continue constructing more advanced and capable craft as time and materials allowed, up until the Assemblage actually passed Sol system. This meant that as much as I personally disliked the thought, we were somewhat expendable.

Hell, there were likely other copies of John Abrams on those ships so some version of me would go on. As far as the other humans currently stored on Run Like Hell, they also likely had copies on the other vessels. If one copy was lost to the vastness of space as the vessel drifted on into eternity, there were still others. But they were not awake and it was really up to me. The decision became simple. I would send the message.


The E.M.A. program had one more decision for me to make. Did I want the ship to expend energy to scan my current mind-data version active in this emergency shell and over-write the version already in storage? Hell, I’d only been awake for one day. Was it worth it? In the end, I decided that the ship’s log of the event would suffice to explain my actions and memorialize my brief existence.

The second, secret reason I was against the idea was that I was ashamed. A large part of me had wanted to skip sending the message back to Earth because of the risk and I was embarrassed by my selfish thoughts. By not updating my scan, those cowardly thoughts would be lost forever.

Now that the decisions had been made, Ema intended that I be immediately rendered unconscious, and my emergency shell be placed back into suspension. I overrode that to remain awake for just a bit longer. This way, I might get to experience the satisfaction that we had gotten the data transmission sent off to Sol.

Also, there was a small chance that something unexpected would occur during the transmission process which might need my input. Remaining awake would spare the additional time and energy of having to revive me again. Also, maybe I just did not want to die quite yet.


So here I was, floating in zero-G in my small medical pod and watching the display which projected the countdown to the transmission attempt. Over the past hour, I had listened to and felt the groans and vibrations from the ship as Evadere fired its thrusters to orientate its ass-end towards Sol (or, where Sol would be in six years). It also had to physically reconfigure the main drive for the data transmission.

This included withdrawing the boosters (the hydrogen injectors located in the aft portion of the drive assembly which functioned like Evadere’s afterburners to use an aircraft term) and repositioning the high energy collimators onto the gamma diffraction modules. The collimators were used to properly lase the gamma rays into a coherent focused beam.

As the countdown reached zero I imagined one of Evadere’s ‘special’ ESUs, or energy storage units to be precise, being prepared for use. Instead of how a normal ESU functioned, which stored a vast quantity of electrons in an artificially-created pocket of subspace, these ‘special’ units stored positrons, the antimatter opposite of the electron.

The special ESU’s had been one of the ‘miracles’ of the post-enemy AI era. The concept of positron storage had been known previously and had even seen limited usage by the assemblage mostly in weapons. Naomi and Uxe, my genius second wife, had worked together and refined the idea enormously. They had managed to produce new more-reliable hardware and methods, which were able to deal with the exotic particles without randomly blowing itself to smithereens.

The process was still imperfect, and any given usage of the drive still presented a tiny, miniscule chance of failure. But the benefits of the vast compact energy storage offered by the new units was so great that the risks were deemed acceptable. Still, I couldn’t forget that using the drive as a message graser increased the number of uses of the antimatter system tenfold. Thus, the overall risk to the mission was also increased greatly. I decided it was best to not dwell on the worst-case outcome as I would never know if the gamble failed.

But, back to the drive and special ESU. When the countdown hit zero, very powerful and precise control magnetics, cooled to almost absolute zero, guided the positrons from their safe pocket of subspace and brought them into contact with electrons provided by the normal ESU’s. The result was complete annihilation of the particle pairs.

Unlike the reactions of normal antimatter and matter, electron-positron annihilation produced mostly much easier-to-handle and lower energy photons. Still, these photons were very high-powered gamma rays which were dangerous to both the vessel and its crew (me!). I hoped and prayed that the hundreds of diffraction modules, that lined the drive core like the kernels on a corn cob, worked as intended.

That was to collect all the gamma energy leaving the core in the forward direction and to all sides. The collected energy was redirected and collimated into a powerful beam pointed rearward, effectively converting Evadere’s main drive into a powerful graser. The graser beam was modulated to transmit data and sent off towards Sol.

The diffraction modules also formed a near-perfect gamma shield, at least in the energy band being produced by our drive. I was extremely grateful for this as it prevented me and the rest of the vessel from being fried like a bug in a zapper.

I felt the straps tug on my arms and legs as the weightlessness disappeared under the small amount of thrust provided by the now-active transmission beam. It was only a few hundredths of a G, much less than the nearly two gravities which the drive would have produced had the hydrogen afterburners been active. I would never get to experience that thrust level though as the active fusion control magnetics would have scrambled the neurons of anything active in a biological shell.

As the signal continued to be sent out from the ship, I began to realize that we had not exploded ... this time at least. I felt pride in this vessel. Its creation had been a miracle meld of both machine and good old fashion human ingenuity. The positron storage and gamma-ray diffraction technology were both new and relatively unproven.

When Evadere had left Sol system, Naomi, Uxe, and a team of others had been busy trying to further improve the devices. It was hoped that future vessels would be more reliable and maybe even higher powered. Hell, there was a decent chance that if I arrived at Tau Ceti, I’d get to meet a version of myself already living there. But, for now, I was still the Guinea pig. Lucky me. Secundus also meant ‘lucky’ right? I was counting on it.


The first data transmission took only twenty seconds. Evader would repeat this quick initial burst two more times over the next three hours. Then, tomorrow it would send the bulk of our anomaly detection data over three repeated, much longer transmissions. After that, it would be up to sheer luck and the diligence of the sensors back in Sol system to do their job and receive our data. This would occur in just over six years when the signals finally traveled that far.

I did not stay conscious after the first initial transmission, having decided to turn myself off to save power. I’d waited just long enough to know that a signal had been sent. Our drive had performed in message mode. The downside to that bit of good news was that I got to actively chart Evadere slowly but increasingly beginning to drift away from both the forward shields and the trailing sensor array. We would definitely be losing both. Our mission odds were quickly dwindling.

Before ordering myself into oblivion, I made a final closing personal note in the ship’s log. “Fuck it; you only live once right?” Let my future version (assuming he survived) figure that one out! I signed out of the log and told Ema goodbye followed by ordering it to put me under. The simple program never acknowledged either the goodbye or the order. As I faded away, the old saying came to mind. ‘You only live once.’ Here’s to that not being true.


Year 3106 (Approximately one month later.)

Sol System:

The defensive AI known by contemporary humans as Minervus noted the unexpected report just received from its very-long-baseline sensor array located in a distant polar orbit around the Sun. An energy detection had been observed at the expected location of the approaching Assemblage ark vessel.

The AI quickly compiled the data and sent copies off to the other major intelligent presences busy in Sol system. It also sent the conclusions it had reached from its own analysis regarding the sensor data, most importantly that the detections were not likely to be any form of long-distance communication sent from the Assemblage to the Earth. It had been expecting such communications, but for the last two decades, none had been received.

Over the next two days, due to their various scattered locations around the solar system, the other three major AI presences acknowledged the data transmission and returned their own independent analysis. Additional information was needed and the consensus was to continue to collect data for now. Optical observations would be undertaken and a second, more sensitive long-baseline array would be constructed and added to the data collection effort.

As had been the case for the past nine years, no reply other than “Acknowledged” was received from the Naomi over-mind AI based on the Earth itself. This was perplexing. Minervus realized that soon actions would need to be taken on that issue. For now, the AI charged with the defense of the Solar system continued to collect data on both situations: the one still light-years away, and the second much closer.

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