David Richards Roberts Cameron (RotSA)

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=By monbvol=
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==Part 1==
A private little area not far from the Gymnasium
University of Sevon V
Sevon V, Raven Alliance
12th June, 3141
Roughly 14:00
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Victoria circled David, adjusting his graduation robe and hat.
“Vicky, I swear you keep hovering around me like this and my girlfriend will get jealous.” David complained.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Helena asked.
“Yeah, Mom. I guess I’m both too much and not enough like you. I want to see what else is out there and Kira wants to come with me. I know it’ll test our relationship being out there like that but I like her.”
“Then go get your diploma. I’ll make sure Esme doesn’t give you too much grief. We’ll wait here for you so you can keep your cover as a ‘Roberts’ and not a Cameron. Then after the rest of your siblings get their diplomas too we’ll all have a nice meal afterwards. Just the seven of us.” Helena smiled.
David rushed off, clearly excited.
“Just to be clear you don’t have any feelings towards my children now that they are all adults do you?” Helena asked.
“Helena, I am a Cameronist but of all the Camerons I am devoted to you above all others. So no. I would not dare think of pursuing a relationship with your children. Though it was a little awkward there during their teenage years and they developed the inevitable crushes. We AIs may be rather far removed from our original human source, but we are rather aware of what our human forms present as and what most humans consider them in terms of appearance.”
“Yeah I know. You’ve all been hit on by a lot of humans that didn’t know better and some that did and hit on you all anyway.”
“Helena, I know what is really eating at you. You’re worried you’re going to lose track of him like you did Stacey. Esme won’t let that happen. She knows how much he means to you so she’ll be sure to make it possible for you two to keep in touch.”
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==Part 2==
Port Orphan, Periphery
19th July, 3142
David looked around the massive docking bay. Part of him still couldn’t believe he was finally here.
The hustle and bustle of the station was the equal to the stories he heard from his mom and even Uncle Daryl.
But that was to be expected with the discovery.
It had been made nearly a decade ago but there was still so much to chart, catalog and still to be discovered.
“You must be David. I’m Phoenix. I’m your ride to catch up to Esme. I was told to expect another to be coming with you.”
“Yeah, turns out my girlfriend had undiagnosed TDS so we broke up after our first jump.”
“Ouch. Well then good news, I’m not a pleasure cruiser so I’m double justified in putting you to work while we catch up. It’ll help keep your mind off your breakup and see this ring? Yeah. Means hands off or you’ll have to answer to that fine piece of ass over there.”, Phoenix indicated a middle aged blond woman talking to a dock worker.
“And let me guess if I make a move on her, I have to answer to you?” David still found the woman attractive despite the age difference between them.
“Oh no. She’ll let you know what to expect herself, but then again I’m quite able to do the same.” Phoenix smiled.
“Well I was raised right so you two don’t have to worry about that.”, David shook his head.
“Well then let’s get you squared away. Your degrees? Quite a collection for someone your age.”
“Yeah we all took after mom like that. All overachievers academically.” he admitted
“Well none of them will be much help with what I’m going to have to teach you.”
“Let me guess. Mucking out the waste systems?” David chuckled.
“Oh no. Worse than that. I’m going to make a navigator out of you. You failed to take the one major that would have really helped you become an explorer and I’m going to fix that. So be ready for some rather complex math and in a hurry because I will test you on how to compute jumps without the computer.”
“Ugh. Unlike Mom, I never quite had the knack or love of complex math. This is going to be torture.” David lamented.
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==Part 3==
Zenith Jump Point
Uncharted system, Deep Periphery
1st September, 3142
David was now aboard Erinyes.
It made a good change from the cramped conditions on the Bonaventure but he was finally here.
“So David ‘Roberts’ is it?” Esme was clearly only entertaining the ruse of his assumed name.
“Yes, ma’am.” He answered.
“Please, I’m out of the service. So go ahead and call me Esme.”
“Okay Esme.”
“Honestly I thought about vetoing this stunt of yours, your mom and I go back a ways but you already know that. But she gave her blessing and you are an adult now…for what it's worth!" she chuckled, "alright, they gave me the brief on your formal schooling, and I'm sure Phoenix did her level best to drive you crazy with Navigation tasks." she gestured to the model floating on the holostage. "This, is Seventh Wonder…and it is a wonder. We still don't have a rosetta stone worked out for the language of the people who built it-their electronic systems degraded so much we're having to extrapolate from residues left behind after thousands of years."
"Thousands?" David asked, a little stunned.
"Nearest we can tell from isotope decay in the structure, best guess, plus or minus fifty thousand years, is that the ring station was built around the planet sometime between the late ice age on Earth, and the founding of the first civilizations in Mesopotamia." she sighed, "We do know what they looked like." she waved for him to follow her, and she led him down to a cargo area. "See, they were space-faring of a sort-no jump drives, no jump cores we've been able to find, but…"
"Those are solar panels."
"Yes, yes they are. She nodded, "What else do you see?"
He walked around the shuttle-sized vessel. "It's never going to fly in an atmosphere." he judged, "Pressurized segment?"
She tapped a midpoint on the ancient, pocked hull. "Here." 
"These aren't weapons."
"Nope."
"They're electric-ION thrusters?"
"Pretty big ones, wouldn't you say? A lot of material for half a gee, but the fuel range makes a modern Star League shuttle look like a waddling fat-man who falls down after a few steps."
He looked at her, "what do you mean?"
"Try 'burn duration' you can measure in Years." she told him, "They weren't an FTL culture. There's also a fusion toroid in there, but it doesn't look like it's for running the thrust."
"What's it for?"
"Iron trace suggests it's for powering a magnetic field." she said, "That, and the cockpit's got enough plumbing to qualify as a Cryosleep chamber."
"So…interstellar?"
"Probably not." she shook her head, "No, this guy was parked on a rock in the outer oort, looks like maybe he screwed up his ice harvesting gear, but it left us with a ship, and a well-preserved corpse for the medical people to look over. They're not too different from us, a slightly different oxygen carrier molecule, makes their blood blue like a horseshoe crab, but they're definitely carbon based, forty six and two, but that's more because chemistry is chemistry. Left-handed sugars instead of right-handed, we'd be poisoned eating whatever his family lived on, but…"
"So…really alien."
"And apparently really extinct." she said, "Sometime before we really had good bronze tools."
The corpse was dessicated, but it was jointed in a similar way to humans-the lower leg was longer, the upper leg shorter, the arms followed the same pattern, ending in three-fingers and two thumbs on ball joints that could face either way.
"Two eyes, two structures that are effectively ears. Minimum energy build, just like human beings." she stated, "Doc Martinez tells me our boy's mouth is lined with tooth-and-tongue analogs that work better as an omnivore."
"So what am I supposed to do?"
"You'll be joining the ground search team on the station, looking for clues to help us figure out their language." she told him, "something killed this world, but not so completely it can't be terraformed, and some of the isotopes and alloys suggest some interesting tech divergences, so you're here to do the same thing I've been doing since we found the place-learning."
“Sounds great.” David smiled.
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The End
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David Richard ‘Roberts’ Cameron
David Richard ‘Roberts’ Cameron
David Richard ‘Roberts’ Cameron