Lefi art work by @dm7 please go check out her blog. :)
The hum of computer systems shutting down and that little touch of misdirection woke Lefi as she sat in her pod awaiting arrival back to Nevia. "Computer?"
There was no response.
"Computer?"
Nothing
"Hey, what's going on?"
Red blinking light upon Lefi's vision, signalling low nanobot count; "3%"
"What the..."
Lefi resorted to checking the on-board computer systems in her pod.
Systems down.
Thrusters offline
Life support critical.
Communications offline.
She tapped three times on the pods inner interior, which then mirrored her surroundings and allowed her to look into space.
A large spacecraft appeared in her sight. What is that? she thought.
"Computer?" She queried once more, no response.
The spacecraft looked damaged. A huge opening, break, in the hull became visible as her pod slowly inched towards it. She could see humanoids standing on top of it, four figures. They appeared to be looking directly at her.
At least they don't look like Time Ghosts she thought.
7% available nanobots. They're regenerating fast, wonder what killed them off?
"The pod is coming in Sir." The scrap hunter informed the ships captain.
"Excellent, and there were no life signs correct?"
"Well, no there weren't. But there is now..." The scrap hunter said, looking at his feet on the ground.
The captain, with a flash of anger grabbed the man's shoulder pulling him to his knees, "what do you mean there are life signs now?" He yelled.
"I am sorry Sir, our scans showed no life signs before we hit it with the electromagnetic guns, forgiv--"
The captain released him, turned to the pod being beamed into the space craft. He watched it as it grew in his sight, then disappeared as it slowly flew under the spacecraft.
"Go fix the sensors, obviously they're broken, if not, and this happens again, I will kill you," the captain said, as he walked over the edge of the surface of the craft, continuing upside down towards the bottom surface of the craft.
The captain, Squer, and his crew, had stolen their craft; once bright and shiny, now covered with graffiti and forced entry craters from the surface of the hull to the inside of the ship. It was ugly, and a wonder that the ship could fly and hold life support. Squer, as well as stealing the ship, also stole an extended life support shield; which extended beyond the ships hull, allowing them to stand on "deck", and peer into the stars without the confinement of the ships interior.
That's odd... Lefi thought to herself, as she watched Squer walk off the edge, and as he appeared to be walking upside down.
20% available nanobots
Augmentation available. Lefi grinned.
"What should we do with the life form captain?" A crewmen asked.
"Depends on who and what it is."
The pod slowly entered the ship's interior. Hovered for a moment, then softly landed within the cargo bay area.
"Human." The crewman said.
"Lady human..." Squar responded, as Lefi extended one foot out of her pod, then the next, stood and stretched extending her arms and hands high. She yawned.
"Are you responsible for disabling my pod?" She asked.
Squar and his crewman looked at each other briefly, "My apologizes, 'mam, my crewmen thought your craft to be empty. We were merely attempting to drag it in, label it as space junk and then sell it," he said, bowing before her apologetically.
"Sounds like you need new sensors." Lefi said, skeptical of the two men.
"My words exactly," Squar responded. "May I offer you drink and substance while we repair your craft?"
"No."
"Sir, our systems show the pod's trajectory originated from Neptune."
Squar responded by jabbing the crewman in the jaw, knocking him to the ground and unconscious.
Lefi, observing, didn't flinch a muscle. "Please direct your ship to Nevia. I have urgent business to attend to."
"Nevia?" Squar said, with a slight surprise in his voice. "No. We cannot go to Nevia. We're outlaws," he said laughing.
50% available nanobots.
The crewman woke from his unconscious state, spit out a tooth and wiped the blood off his chin, picked up his handheld computer device, as it hovered inches above the cargo bays floor. A warning; nanobots detected.
"Sir!" He said, raising to his knees, then feet, "Sir she's bearing na-"
Squar took to his gun, shooting the crewman. "Now, listen lady. As you can see, we don't mess around here. You're not going to Nevia, we're not going to Nevia," he pointed his gun at Lefi, "but you are going to tell me what you were doing on Neptune, and what treasure is there," he said, smiling.
Squar looked even uglier now, he was large, almost eight feet tall and towered over Lefi. Walking closer towards her, he expected Lefi to cower. She didn't. He squinted one eye, took to picking at his beard while querying his mind as to the possible reasons Lefi had such a brave demeanor about her. He holstered his gun, spit the rod of metal he was chewing on to the ground and created distance between his feet, giving him an even greater appearance in size. "Who are you?" He asked lowering head and eyes to level Lefi's.
"I'm your reaper." Lefi said, tilting her head to the left.
80% available nanobots.
Squar laughed hard and loud. It went on for several moments and became contagious. Lefi started to chuckle along with him.
"Nah. I change my mind. After you tell me what you were doing off in the outer rims, around Neptune, I'm going to keep you alive," Squar said, then interrupted by Lefi.
"From the top down, or the bottom up?" She asked.
"What?"
"Bottom up then..."
Lefi made sure to mentally program the nanobots to hold Squar upright and from falling to the floor as the ate away at his feet, then to his knees, up to his thighs and torso. Squar screemed, as he watched his body disintegrate before him. He survived --probably-- long enough to question how his body held from falling, and then, long enough again to understand it was all part of Lefi's horrow show.
"Computer?"
Yes. I am here.
"What? When do you come back online?"
Moments prior to landing within the ships cargo bay.
"Are you serious? Why didn't you say anything?"
You did not ask me anything, and there were no immanent dangers.
"Alright, I guess. Um, when is the pod ready to fly?"
It is ready now, if you depart now you should be in Nevia within 2.7 days
Lefi took notice to the crewmen hiding in various areas of the cargo bay. She spotted a young man, standing in shock after witnessing Lefi's magical destruction of his captain.
"Hm. You there." Lefi said.
The dirty, young crewman looked behind him, then back to Lefi, "Me?" he gestured, didn't speak.
"Yes. You are captain now, take this ship to Nevia. And alert the proper authorities of the activities of this ship. Also, I want a full download of the ships computer logs. Might be something useful, or at least, your sensors might have picked up something interesting. I take it it their not connected to the solar system communication array?"
The young man's eyes became larger, he shrugged his shoulders as to gesture his ignorance.
"No matter. You'll do as I say?"
He nodded vigorously.
5.2
Nevia, previously know as earth in prehistoric times, shinned a magnificent silvery-blue as Lefi approached. "My home, even if it be unrecognizable to my home."
After time destruction, Nevia, reformed by Tanis, was home to all people of all time. Over the centuries, due to over crowding, differences in governance, opinion and even discrimination, so fueled the populating of Venus, Mars and many of the moons in the solar system. Wonder if Tanis is awaiting my arrival.
He was, and as Lefi's pod entered orbit, he held his hand to the clouds, surrounded the pod with his nanobots, and quickly pulled the craft to the ground not far from where he stood.
"Lefi..." he said, while waving his hands to gesture blowing the craft away from around her. It did so. She stood.
"You're alright? We lost signal, then we noticed the disturbance, and I thought you were..."
Lefi ran up to Tanis, and hugged him tight. He held her back.
"What happened?" He asked.
"You didn't see it? I told the computer to upload all the data," she responded, looking up at him, both hands on his chest.
"Yes, but, there was a long period of time where, we still could not open communications with you."
"I know, there was slight damage to that. I could have fixed it up, but I --"
"It's fine. Just as long as you're fine."
"But, Tanis, you didn't see it, in the upload?" She asked again.
"No? What it?"
"Computer, didn't you upload the Time Ghost video, the fight, the battle I had with it?" Lefi asked her computer.
*I did, though that portion of the data is corrupted. I have been working on a simulation, it is almost complete."
"Time Ghost, Lefi? What are you saying? You saw Narlend? Or, who?" Tanis asked.
"I can't tell the difference between them. Yes. A Time Ghost, he was trying to disrupt and or destroy my research. But he was too late, and the computer system has information of their origin."
Tanis looked the sky, with a worried face. Then to Lefi, "We'll leave that to the others, for now, let's go catch up."
Lefi smiled.
They walked hand in hand.
"Tanis, the computer mentioned the Time Ghost was from another universe. What do you make of that?"
"It's what I've come to suspect, though, it still wouldn't make sense as to why they would go to such trouble to aid in destroying our timelines. It doesn't make sense at all."
"Maybe sometime in the future we mess it all up?"
"Yes, perhaps, though then that would mean that the Time Ghosts failed in their means of action, since they have come back. If they, in the past, planned to destroy our time or us, they would have succeeded and would not have returned. Which is puzzling to me, we have three great forces within our solar system, and they all appear to be telling us a different story. And they all appear to be absent or hiding."
"Do you believe still that Narlend may have been trying to help us?" Lefi asked.
"I don't know anymore. If you would have asked me prior to hearing of the arrival of the Time Ghosts, I would have told you no. Now, I am not sure."
"Do you believe the Elaakian will reveal themselves now as well, since the Time Ghosts have returned?"
Tanis paused in his walk, "I sure hope not."
Super 🤓