Source: http://adairhart.com/series/TheEvaranChronicles/TheHumanfactor.aspx
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 10:42:15+00:00

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Commander John Holind did not know what death was like, but if he had to guess at the sensation, then the cold, dark feeling that crawled around him would be it. He tried to open his eyes, but something kept them closed. Trying to move any body part was equally useless. Images of his family entering cryo sleep popped up in his mind. Although he could feel how tense his body was, the images made him relax some.
Bits and pieces of feeling returned to his body. The temperature around him increased, and he was able to wriggle his fingers. After a few moments, he could open his eyes and was greeted with a frosted glass shield. It came back to him why he disliked cryo sleep so much. The going-to-sleep aspect was nowhere near as difficult as the waking-up part. He had heard stories of people waking with completely different personalities or, even worse, psychotically insane.
He could feel himself going from an angled position to a horizontal one. With the glass shielding defrosting, he was able to see out into the cryo chamber, where the ship’s crew was maintained. Clamps and restraints released their grips on him, allowing him to move around.
The frosted glass shield slid back, and the warm blast of stale air hit John in the face. He coughed as he moved his hand over his mouth. Sore muscles and a headache reminded him that he needed to take his postcryo medicine. He struggled to sit up. Each motion was like a dagger cutting into him. After a moment, he was able to slide his legs off to the side of the slab he was on. With a tap at the slab’s edge, a soft, retractable tube extended out. He grabbed it and put the end in his mouth and then squeezed. His face scrunched as a vile-tasting fluid burst down his throat. As bad as the medicine was, he knew it would stabilize him. At least his sense of smell was returning, and the sterile odor of the room filled his nostrils.
“An anomaly has taken us off course and sent us to our current location. The stars do not align with the time period of AD 5244,” said Salazar.
“AD 9000. Do I need to repeat it a third time?” asked Salazar.
John used the slab to stand and, after allowing his legs to adjust, stumbled over to the locker nearby. After grabbing his regular suit, he headed toward a small room where he could shower and get dressed. Once that was done, he headed to the command center.
As he walked, he could feel his strength returning. Having a warm shower made everything feel better. He had taken a caffeine pill and was beginning to come to terms with what Salazar had said. The distance he spoke of seemed incredulous, not to mention the time difference, but Salazar was not one to lie, not that he could even if he wanted to.
When John arrived at the command center thirty minutes later, he surveyed the high-tech room. Screens hung on the wall, and a circular table stood in the center. Lights from all the screens and digital devices illuminated the area. Several of the crew had already taken their posts at the workstations scattered around the room, but the person he was interested in talking to was already at the table. As he expected, Holly Evans had her crisp blond hair pulled back, and her suit was impeccably clean.
The rest of the command crew, numbering about seven, had joined Holly and John at the table.
“This,” said Holly, interacting with a console on the table.
A projection shot up showing the view from the front of the ship.
John gulped as he saw the outline of a patch of space. It had a frazzled edge that reminded him of electricity. The pure black inside the anomaly seemed even darker than the surrounding space. As the ship approached, its speed picked up.
“The anomaly pulled us out,” said Salazar.
“You’re telling me this thing might be … alive?” asked Holly.
The projection changed to an overhead view of the Milky Way galaxy. It was segmented into four quadrants, with Earth in the lower right. A red dot indicated Earth, and a green line snaked out. Where it hit the anomaly, a straight line shot across the galaxy and to the top-right quadrant.
“I assure you that I’m not shitting you,” said Salazar.
One of the crew members gulped before raising a hand.
“Go ahead, Sarif,” said John.
John shook his head. “Even with condensed-space travel, it would take a long time, and that’s assuming all the space between here and there was peaceful. We know … that isn’t the case, based on this situation. What if another anomaly appears? Not only that, but we’re thousands of years in the future. How do you travel in time?” He knew space-time anomalies were not unheard of but were considered extremely rare, and by some accounts, mythical. The Xavier was living proof anomalies were real.
Another member raised her hand.
“Go ahead, Asura,” said John.
A silence spread as the members nodded their heads.
“Move like you have a purpose!” said John in a crescendo tone.
Holly nodded and took off.
John sat down in one of the large command chairs nearby. They were in a new environment, with an unknown status. This would be a challenge. Failure was not an option. He glanced at the screens as they lit up with astronomical data. Several other colonization ships had left Earth Prime, but seeing another human outside what was on his ship seemed so far away. Communication with Earth would take a long time, even with condensed-space transmitters.
The safest path was to establish what he could and then go from there. He would make sure this colony would not only survive, but thrive, and would make sure to let every alien in this new environment know that humanity had arrived, and humanity was not to be messed with.
Dr. Albert Snowden held his breath as a pack of Utahraptors sniffed around. They were about fifty feet away, investigating the area. He found it interesting that they had a light coat of feathers, but he knew they probably did not fly. Growing up, he had thought all dinosaurs had scaly skin, and from the media he had consumed, he had a frightening image of what a Utahraptor was. With digitigrade legs, standing about five and a half feet, with a vicious snout filled with teeth, they were ominous-looking. They reminded him of large, brutal turkeys.
After a few minutes, the lead raptor raised its head and uttered a shrill cry, and the pack dispersed.
Dr. Snowden exhaled slowly and glanced over at his niece, Emily.
He nodded. “Well, let’s get inside the Torvatta’s shielding. While I always enjoy a good science experiment, this one was a bit scary.” He tapped at a button on his formfitting dark-gray survival suit that had a repulsion blaster and an energy shield he could activate. It was given to him by Evaran, the powerful being that Dr. Snowden and Emily traveled with through space and time aboard the Torvatta, Evaran’s ship. Emily had her own suit from a previous adventure, and it had a heavier look due to the padding. Dr. Snowden’s eye caught sight of V, Evaran’s trusty mobile artificial intelligence, in orb mode, hovering nearby.
“Analysis. The creatures were unable to detect you. The test was successful,” said V.
Dr. Snowden nodded. He enjoyed traveling with Evaran. His light-gray padded suit with multicolored lines, utility belt and handle, forearm bands, and metallic boots were unique, and even with a light breeze, his hair never moved over his fair-skinned face. Dr. Snowden had come to appreciate Evaran’s insight and mentor-like friendship. His intellectual curiosity was one of the traits that Dr. Snowden related to.
Dr. Snowden pulled out his personal support device. He had come to rely on his PSD for many things. It was pen shaped and could extend morphable matter along with shooting stun, repulsion, and mist beams and sticky globules. There were even survival features, such as dimensional mechanics to house food pellets and the ability to purify water. Adding a grappling beam was something he had wanted for a while.
Dr. Snowden jumped as Emily shot out a beam.
They assembled just inside the shielding and stood on the light-blue energy ramp, which extended out about ten feet from the disc-shaped Torvatta.
The raptors approached the stealthed Torvatta and walked up to the shielding.
Dr. Snowden gulped. To be so close to such a powerful creature was unnerving, but exciting as well. They would not be able to come through the shielding, not much could.
Dr. Snowden furrowed his eyebrows and looked into a raptor’s eyes. An image formed in his mind, showing the area as seen from the raptor’s perspective. The area was painted in gray, with a white spot where the Torvatta would be. Green outlines of fellow raptors came into view. What surprised him was the wispy, gaseous structure in front of the raptor. The gas morphed a few times until it covered an area about the size of the Torvatta.
“Yeah, getting the same thing,” said Dr. Snowden.
Emily laughed while shaking her head.
“Acknowledged,” said V. He flew into the Torvatta.
As the Torvatta ascended, the raptors peeled back in surprise.
Dr. Snowden focused and could see that the raptors viewed the Torvatta taking off as a sharp burst of white smoke. It seemed to spook them, as they scattered away.
Dr. Snowden’s stomach churned. The last summons they had answered took them to AD 3104, where he met Jane Trellis, a time refugee he still had feelings for. She had almost traveled with them, but instead opted to stay in the current timeline. He exhaled from his nose.
“Then our next experiment will have to wait. Let us see what the summons is,” said Evaran, gesturing toward the Torvatta’s side entrance.
They exited the ramp and entered the Torvatta.
Dr. Snowden never got tired of seeing the familiar set of dimensional doors, command chair, U-shaped seating areas on the sides, and elevator to the roof. The front half of the ship had transparent walls and ceiling, as well as a semitransparent floor with barely visible gridlines, making it seem like the command area furniture was floating.
Evaran turned left from the entrance and headed toward the third dimensional door.
Dr. Snowden knew that to be the conference room. The two before it were the holo room and the living quarters. Three other dimensional doors were to the right and led to the medical lab, research lab, and maintenance area. Once he arrived at the conference room, he took an immediate left and headed toward the replicators to get a cold drink.
Emily already had hers and was seated at the table alongside V. Evaran moved to the head of the table.
Dr. Snowden got his drink and joined them.
“And much farther, it looks like,” said Emily.
“Have you been to that region of space before?” asked Emily.
“I have, but not that exact area.” Evaran’s eyebrows raised slightly as the edges of his lips moved up a quarter inch.
“You’re excited!” said Dr. Snowden with a laugh. Although Evaran seemed emotionless to others, Dr. Snowden had learned the facial gestures that indicated Evaran’s mood.
“Well, I’m ready to explore,” said Dr. Snowden.
“An admirable trait of your species,” said Evaran.
“Like the Draidjens,” said Dr. Snowden. He shivered a bit as the Draidjens’ human-sized snakelike image appeared in his mind.
“Let’s do this!” said Emily.
“Yes, let us do this,” said V. He raised one of his four segmented arms toward Emily.
She smiled as she high-fived V.
Emily fidgeted in her seat as the others assembled in the command center in the front of the Torvatta. It had undergone some changes recently, and the mostly transparent front half still took some getting used to. She sat in the left U-shaped seating area.
“All right,” said Dr. Snowden. He knew that profile one made the Torvatta unscannable. Profile two allowed the Torvatta to be scanned, but it didn’t register the dimensional doors and instead would return stats on a small, cramped ship with low power and functionality.
“V, take us one light-year away from the summons point,” said Evaran.
Emily enjoyed watching V’s four arms fly over the angled holographic multilayered interface that hovered over a U-shaped console. She had tried to understand how the interface worked, but it displayed massive amounts of information. Although she could see the individual parts, she was not sure what most of it meant.
The Torvatta ascended into low Earth orbit. Once there, it shot out a silver beam that formed a circular portal with a gold border and a rippling light-blue surface. The Torvatta flew through and exited into a patch of deep space.
The outside faded out, and then faded in.
“Initiate stealth mode,” said Evaran.
“Acknowledged. Torvatta stealth mode engaged,” said V.
Emily examined the interface windows that appeared on the transparent walls. It looked like they were hanging in space. One of them showed the outline of the Torvatta, and an outlined area with the word stealth was highlighted green. From what she understood, the Torvatta’s stealth mode was unique, in that most star ships could easily be detected by their engine output. While the Torvatta could as well when it was using thrusters, it could burst forward and then strengthen the shielding, making it impossible to detect as it used inertia to move.
Her eyes were drawn to the overhead view of the galactic region they were in. She knew the Torvatta could scan about ten light-years out in all directions. A solar system appeared and some gas clouds, along with something about one light-year away.
The Torvatta accelerated toward the object. As the object came into sight, the Torvatta’s transparent walls outlined the object in green.
The Torvatta flew around the ship, scanning as it went. Details popped up on the display.
A data window popped up from the floor near V and showed the symbols.
“Like we did with the Kreagan colony ship before,” said Emily. She remembered the approach from a previous adventure, where they helped the Fredorians achieve their destiny.
The Torvatta lined up flush to one of the hatches.
Dr. Snowden and Emily nodded.
“Analysis. That is Emily’s line,” said V, hovering near Dr. Snowden.
Dr. Snowden grinned as he activated his helmet and then followed Evaran to the Torvatta ramp.
Once everyone had assembled in front of the Draidjen ship’s hatch door, Evaran scanned it with his ring.
“Anything interesting?” asked Emily. She could see the details from Evaran’s scan inside her helmet but was not sure what some of the details were showing. Although she had been studying engineering under Evaran’s and V’s tutelage, the knowledge was vast and oftentimes she felt overwhelmed.
The console lit up, and the door unlocked.
“Okay … that’s a little odd … ,” said Dr. Snowden.
Emily laughed. “Yeah, right.” She grabbed the large door handle and pulled back.
The door opened, revealing a dimly lit room.
Evaran scanned around while Emily closed the hatch door.
After a minute, the door in front of them opened into another room.
“Let me guess … a decontamination chamber,” said Dr. Snowden.
“It would appear so,” said Evaran as he strode forward.
After they stepped inside, the door behind them closed and purple beams washed over them. Once finished, the door in front of them opened, revealing a small cargo bay. Large metallic structures stood with cubbyholes dotting the sides, each filled with metallic containers. The large structures stood in parallel rows on the sides, with smaller ones in the middle of the room.
“Acknowledged. Mapping mode engaged,” said V. A flash of red light pulsed from V as he flew forward.
Emily enjoyed seeing the mini map fill out inside her helmet as V flew around. It intrigued her why V chose to focus his scans on some things and not others. Although everything was tagged, she noticed that he tended to highlight objects that looked like tools. Maybe to get more ideas for enhancements.
Evaran headed over to one of the large structures. On the front side of it was a powered-up interface.
Emily and Dr. Snowden huddled around Evaran.
A small box flew forward and hovered in front of them. A moment later, the holographic image of a bald, fair-skinned human male in a white robe appeared around the box.
“Yes … by humans,” said Zeta-12, glancing at Dr. Snowden and Emily.

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