Chapter No.168. On Hold

Relaxation can be tiring.

Clear blue waves with frothy white crests gently rolled onto pristine brilliantly white sand.  Warm sunlight bathed the undisturbed beach as a gentle breeze caressed it. Sea gulls swooped above waiting for carless fish. Small lizards scurried for cover. Earth was beginning to return to its former glory, especially on the former Riviera.

Molly, Margaret, and Marie lay near to me on beach chairs soaking up the sun.

"This makes me feel human again," Marie said. "This is the way to relax."

"I'm just happy to be not wearing anything," Molly said. "My uniform makes me feel as if I'm encased in a sock."

"If this were in the time before the asteroid collision, we would get arrested," Margaret said.

"This would be really great if we could get tans," Marie said. "We wouldn't have to worry about having bikini stripes. Well, that would be the case if we were wearing bikinis."

"Speaking of tans," Molly said. "Here comes someone who doesn't need one."

Alexa sauntered up and propped her fists into her hips. "You guys are missing the fun of swimming in the surf."

"We're just lounging around here," I said. "Swimming in the surf sounds like too much work."

She waved a dismissive hand before turning and running back into the water.

"I suppose we should get some exercise before we have to go back up to the ship," Maire said.

She stood up and ran toward the water. We decided that she was right and got up to join her.

After swimming in the surf for several minutes Molly, Margaret and I ran back to the beach chairs.

"Doesn't that big dong of yours annoy you when you run?" Molly asked.

"Not really," I said with a smirk.

She laughed.

We ran back into the surf and swam out away from shore, plowing through the waves that rose up to challenge us. After several minutes of swimming through the pounding waves, we came back on shore.

"That was fun!" Marie squealed.

"It certainly was," I replied.

Suddenly, I sensed that Judy needed us.

"We're being summoned," I said after making my uniform appear on me.

They did the same and we teleported directly to the command deck.

Alexa appeared in her chair.

"We have detected a lone Explorer-1 craft approaching the orbit of Jupiter at half the speed of light."

"Are you able to determine who's on board?"

"Our scans indicate a full complement."

I turned to Alexa. "This doesn't make sense for a Tyco trick."

"I would tend to agree, but we know that he's sneaky."

I shook my head. "That's true." I turned to Judy. "Take us to that vessel. Go to Yellow Alert Status."

We approached the ship at a hundred thousand kilometers, matching our speed to its velocity.

"Their warp drive is not active," Molly said. "I'm not detecting any appreciable antimatter."

"There is over four thousand androids on board," Margaret said. "Only three of them are activated."

"This doesn't make sense," I said. "Are they from a different universe?"

"Our scans indicate that they are from this universe," Judy said.

"I have broken into their core processor," Molly said. "The crew manifest indicates that they are all androids, but two of them are former Space Command personnel."

"Do you have their names?"

"Yes. Brian Scott and Janet Forbes."

"Oh my God!" I exclaimed. "Brian and I were academy buddies. I haven't seen him in . . . well, one hell of a long time."

"Did they send a ship out before we launched?" Molly asked.

I tapped a finger to my lips. "Wait a minute. Do you remember that bio habitat storage unit that we found on the moon when we got to our destination near the reptilian home world?"

"Yes! We found that it had supplies and assumed that they had brought it there before our mission."

"Could this be that supply ship?" I proposed.

"If it is, they've been traveling for a long time to get back to Earth."

I stood up. "Okay, I'm going over there." I turned to Alexa. "You stay here just in case."

She nodded.

I teleported to their command deck and found a human-based android male and female along with a non-human android by the name of Judy at the helmsperson position. I didn't consider that to be unusual at the time, but I would eventually learn that it was significant.

Brian stared at me with a frown. "How did you just pop out of thin air?"

"That's because I'm Jason Star, old buddy."

His eyes grew larger. "I don't believe it!"

"Believe it. You preceded my mission to the habitable moon to establish a base."

"Yes, but our return went south because our warp drive failed. We've been running at less than light speed for years."

"I assume that you were sent as part of the Phoenix Project."

"Yeah, but I'm not so sure that it was legit. Tyco had other ideas about what the project mission was."

"Turns out he's become our enemy. I'm the Prime Mover of a rebel android collective that's dedicated in destroying his presence in the multiverse."

Brian squinted. "The multiverse?"

I waved my hand. "I'll explain all of that. Right now, we have to get you to Helios base to upgrade you ship."

"Are you in conflict with Space Command?"

I smiled. "There is no Space Command. Life on Earth was annihilated by an asteroid collision.
We've introduced some humans we found on other planets, but Earth is still recovering from the damage. We've joined a Galactic Coalition of other intelligent species aligned with the reptilians and have spent most of our time rescuing androids that were aligned with Tyco."

"I thought the reptilians were the enemy," Brian said.

"We've made peace with them. Tyco is the enemy, but we have no idea how many of his avatars still exist."

"I hate that bastard," Janet said.

We turned to her.

"I'm sorry," Brian said. "This is Janet Forbes. Tyco murdered us and resurrected us as androids."

"That son of a bitch raped me," Janet said, her face twisted with disgust.

"Yeah, all of the females we resurrected from Space Command were raped before they were murdered. We've added some enhancements to our positronic brains. We'll update you to the new specs."

"Sounds like we need to be brought up to speed on all that's happened," Brian said.

"Yep. A whole lot has happened. We've learned a lot about how we were made and what's in our universe as well as parallel universes in the multiverse. As soon as you get to Helios Station, we'll send a crew to upgrade this vessel to our specs."

Brian made a circular motion with his hands. "Are we going to be able to teleport like you?"

"Yes, and even more."

That made them smile.

I teleported back to my ship.

"I assume you've assimilated them."

"We have," Judy replied.

"I'm scanning them for explosives and Tyco code," Molly said.

"Good."

Brian and Janet didn't arrive at Helios Station unti three days later. Molly, Alex and I went there to check out their vessel's engineering situation. What we found out changed everything.