I Fell from the Moon

I woke up after sleeping out. It was noon and I slept for over a day. After eating some, I went for Noroom's office.
"Ah. You're awake. Did you get enough sleep?" Noroom asked.
"Yes. I feel great. How's the phoecon and drones working out?"
"We've been making drones since you finished the plans. But you forgot to ask Punom for a control program. I had Nimon add the one Punom wrote," said Noroom calmly.
"Oh. And the Phoecon?"
"You can put the Phoecon in the assembler now. We're leaving for the Lhukos system later today. We picked up broadcasting signals from the Libri race there a few years ago."
"How far away are they?"
"127 lightyears. It's been 133 years since they started broadcasting. From what we've seen they're a peace loving race, with only democratic governments. I believe they've started to explore space by now."
"I doubt they've discovered any faster than light travel methods. If so, they would have visited us by now."
"Exactly. That's why we're bringing plans for your hyperspace jump as a gift."
"Good idea. We'll need allies since there are hostile races in this galaxy."
"Yes indeed. We recieved some armor suits from the military, by the way. You should have a look at them. See if you can improve them."
"Will do."

I went to my office to get the phoecon ready. I had a look at the plans and increased the cabin size. "It'd get a bit crammed with Noroom inside," I thought for myself while chuckling. I stopped the drone production and commanded the phoecon to land in the assembler. A few minutes later, it was ready. It seems the armor suit plans were also in the database. The military armor suits were legendary for their amazing power and weapons. It seems the military engineering team tried making them fit for space by adding gravitators and insulation. But that was all. We'd run into the same problems we had with the phoecon during battle. I added the new absorbant coating, a disintegration field generator, the improved plasma battery and radiaton and gravity pulse weapons. With the new shields, the thick armor was no longer needed, so I removed it. Without its armor it would simply be a power suit. The armor suits were already made, so I could add the modifications to them directly via the assembler. Their compartments were attached to the lab assembler, so I could just activate it to start the modification. After a few minutes the suits were ready.

I entered Noroom's office with the news.
"The Phoecon upgrades are ready, and the suits," I said.
"Great! This means we're ready to leave. Are you ready?" asked Noroom.
"Yeah. I just need my backpack and gravipack."
"Tell Nimon and Punom to take the power suits with them."

Later on, we were standing in front of the assembler on Lumino.
"This is it," Quala said.
"Our adventure is just beginning. Libri will only be our first encounter," said Noroom.
I opened the assembler, and the upgraded Phoecon was standing there.
"All aboard, the fun is about to begin," I said.
I sat down in the co-pilot seat, and Gemoc took the pilot seat, Mecolo, Quala and Noroom, took the passenger seats.
"To infinity and beyond! Or something like that," said Mecolo.
"Yeah. Beyond infinity," said Gemoc as he plotted a course for Lhukos and activated the hyperspace jump.

I used the time before the debriefing to gather my thoughts and come up with a few new ideas. I was in my own world of thoughs.
"Hey mr. philosopher! Are you coming for the debriefing!? Quala asked loudly.
I was startled and looked around with a confused look. Quala chuckled.
"Uh. You scared me. Oh, It's time."
We met up with Gemoc then Mecolo and everyone walked to the meeting room.
"Bah! I'm fed up with all these secrets Noroom is keeping. I bet he'll have something up his sleeve after the meeting as well," said Gemoc.
"Oh shush. You knew he had to keep Drauzors augmentations secret or else he hadn't been allowed to work on facility," said Quala.
We entered the meeting room and Noroom was working with his notes.


* * *


"Welcome. I gathered you here to discuss the Phoecon test mission, the hostile ship, the alien and Dr. Launch' augmentations. The mission was a test flight mission where Dr. Launch would observe mr. Nencho test the Phoecon defense systems and test the new warp capabillity. Afterwards a unmanned hyperspace test was to be done. But it turned out that the Phoecon was put to a more hands-on test. Let's discuss the mission from the start. Dr. Launch and Gemoc. What happened when you were about to start the mission?" Noroom was looking at me and Gemoc and I took the word.


* * *


"We were standing outside the assembler on Lumino. I was about to instruct Gemoc to enter the Phoecon. The first test was going to be weapons and shields." I looked at Gemoc and he continued:
"Before Drauzor could say anything, we were fired at with a particle beam, and barely managed to enter the Phoecon before we were fired at again."
Noroom continued:
"We should have foreseen this. I knew there had been activity around Qeba-9 but assumed it was friendly. So much for being gullible. But. We can avoid it happening again.
The military has some drones with more powerful weapons and defense systems. We can probably adapt them to defend Qeba-9.
What happened after you entered the Phoecon?" Noroom asked while looking at me and Gemoc. I answered:
"After countless hours of simulator training, Gemoc knew exactly what to do in the event of a battle. I enabled the force field as soon as we entered the Phoecon and Gemoc did an evasive maneuver. Gemoc was fast, but the hostile ship was faster at aiming. Our Plasma battery was drained too fast, as the force field used more energy to repulse the hostile fire."
Gemoc continued: "I decided to run a special maneuver I call electron. In this maneuver I circle randomly around the enemy while I fire away. But sadly I didn't foresee the enemy's ability to expand its force field. So the Phoecon was hit."
Gemoc looked at me, and I continued:
"We had to retreat, because our defense and weapons were too weak. I instructed Gemoc to head for the atmosphere. But our energy was drained too fast."


* * *


Noroom looked disappointed.
"I asked my contacts in the military for energy based weapons and defense systems, since the Phoecon was to be operated entirely with electricity. But it seems like the energy demands were too large. Should we use a separate amunition storage?" said Noroom while looking at me.
"No. The problem is the limited plasma battery, the slow recharge speed and the limited firepower. But I have a solution. The current version of the force field is repulsive. It stops the energy of weapons from hitting the hull.
The phoecon solar surface currently only absorbs light, but I can make it absorb everything from gamma rays to radio waves. Having a shield that repulse these energies is a waste.
My idea is to make a force field that disintegrates atoms, so the Phoecon surface can absorb the remaining particles.
These particles can be used to store energy, and power a particle weapon.
I also have an idea for a weapon capable of penetrating a force field. The gravity pulse."
Noroom looked pleased with the suggestions:
"Seems like we're better off by developing defense systems for the Phoecon ourselves. We'll need weapons and a defense system based on your ideas.
Perhaps drones based on these technologies would be better suited for space. Could you create the weapons and drones, Dr. Launch?" Asked Noroom.
"Once I've created and added the new systems to the Phoecon, I can use the plans in drones as well. I'm in."


* * *


"When you were attacked by the hostile ship, you tried fighting, then retreating. But you didn't make it to Qeba-9?" Noroom continued.
"I commanded a retreat to Qeba-9 where the hostile ship couldn't follow. But before I reached the atmosphere, our energy was running dangerously low from the repeated attacks on our force field.
So I saw no other solution than to take us out into hyperspace, a space outside space, even though I didn't know if we would be disintegrated. Luckily we stayed intact," i said.
Gemoc continued:
"Hyperspace didn't have any special influence on the Phoecon or ourselves. But all the shifting shapes made me disoriented, so I had to navigate using the holomap," said Gemoc, and I continued:
"Since I now knew the nature of hyperspace, I knew the gravity fields from the gravitators would leak to conventional space. We went to Sacolon to recharge our Plasma battery before going back to rip the hostile pilot to pieces by intersecting with the ship and using a boost from the gravity wave engine. Gemoc did as I told him and he injured the hostile pilot, allowing us to take the ship to hangar 1 on Lumino."


* * *


"And that's where I, mr. Punom and miss Nimon saw the hostile ship for the first time. Nimon suggested to hack through the hostile ship's defenses." Noroom had a habit of calling Plimoxes by their title and last name from the special forces.
"I figured out that the only way in was through the communication system. I knew Mecolo could figure out the alien computer systems," said Quala.
"The hostile ships communication system was connected to the internal computers but sandboxed. It had a strong layer of security before the internal computers. I found a vulnerability they hadn't thought of, but I had to use brute force to exploit it. Afterwards it was easy to deactivate the defenses," said Mecolo, while Gemoc rolled his eyes because of the geeky language. Mecolo humored Gemoc.
Noroom looked disapprovingly at Gemoc, before he continued:
"We have yet to identify the alien from the ship. But as I though the alien was unconcious and maybe dead from the antigravity burst, I entered the hostile ship and dragged it out. It woke up and tried attacking, So I tried to keep it down. But it was too strong and threw me into the cieling. Illegally but luckily, Dr. Launch had hidden some weapons in the spacelab. And since Dr. Launch was a weapon I kept in the spacelab, he was able to fight the alien."
Noroom checked his notes.
"So Dr. Launch. Thanks to your weapons, special muscle fibres and your NIC you were able to defeat the alien. But frankly, I can't remember how you defeated the alien."
"When my NIC fired, everyone, including the alien paniced. My reaction time must have increased tenfold, because everyone looked like they were moving slowly. I was able to rush towards the alien, stab it, give the forcefield sword a strong boost and etch its insides to dust. All in an instant," i said enthusiastically.


* * *


"I've decided that the spacelab team will be traveling through the Andromeda galaxy and meet new races. As we've seen, not all of these races are going to be friendly. So we need to be able to avoid contact, defend ourselves, and run from the enemy. One part of this is the equipment you're going to use," Noroom was looking at each one in the team as he was talking, "but more importantly, Dr. Launch needs to be able to control his augmentations. Let's start with the augmentations you already know, and you might have yourselves as well."
"Like me, he has a space exoskeleton, is able to survive without air and has improved vision," said Gemoc.
"I have improved muscle fibres my self, but Drauzor's able to store static energy and release it all at once in his," said Quala.
"My cognitive abilities have been enhanced so I'm able to handle math and relations in programming better. Drauzor is extraordinary in physics, science and engineering," said Mecolo
"I have a much higher tolerance of gravity. Other than that, I have no idea about any of my other augmentations," i said.
"You're able to heal your wounds faster. Your NIC can be triggered by imagining that your death is imminent. This might sound like a joke, but you're able to generate a repulsive force field which can be used to stop weapons and launch enemies into the air. Your abilities will evolve gradually when used, through the means of genetic mutation."
"What? I'm going to develop tentacles or become a eight legged monster?" i asked in disbelief. Noroom smiled.
"Yes!" Noroom exclaimed with a grin.
"Aaah!" I got so horrified, I screamed.
Everyone laughed.
"Ha ha ha. I'm joking. Your mutations are controlled by your subconcious sense of self. Any change in appearance is higly unlikely. Because we subconciously think we're more handsome than in reality, your appearance will not become worse. In fact, I'm so envious. Look at this old saggy body," said Noroom while showing his plump torso.
"Your appearance will stay as good as it's now."
"Wow. Thank goodness," I said.
"Well. This concludes the debriefing. After the improvements to the Phoecon are ready and the drones are in orbit around Qeba-9, we're heading for other solar systems in the Phoecon," said Noroom.

The assembly of the Phoecon on Luminio is complete. Gemoc and I went to the moon base to test it. Gemoc as a test pilot of course. This is Gemoc's first time in space. I had to go during the first launch of the phoecon myself, because of my knowledge of wormhole portals. Like me, Gemoc has a space exoskeleton, can gather energy from light and has improved vision and reflexes, making him a perfect pilot for the Phoecon.

We stood outside the assembler on Lumino. A assembler basically uses nano technology to assemble almost perfect products of any kind. This time it was the finished Phoecon in the assembler. I opened the assembler and there it was. The finished phoecon. But as I was about to say Gemoc could enter via radio, suddenly, something flashed behind me and the ground shook. It was a unknown hostile ship. It had just fired a particle weapon on us and missed. Gemoc, which had lots of training in the flight simulator yelled over the radio that I had to open the phoecon hatch. I alredy did before he could finish his sentence. We entered the phoecon as quickly as we could, and Gemoc took the pilot seat, and activated the shield. Gemoc knew exactly what to do, as he took off and piloted away from the ship. Foom! The hostile ship hit our shields with a missile. Energy down to 88%. I could see the ship status from the nanodisplay in my eyes. The Phoecon systems integrated well with my internal nanomachines. I could see the energy rebuilding as Gemoc was trying to evade the particle weapons and the missiles of the hostile ship. Foofoofoof! Three pulses of the particle weapon hit the ship. Energy down to 74%. Gemoc suddenly turned the ship around. Now we were facing the hostile ship.

"What the heck are you doing?" I yelled to Gemoc.
"Relax. I know what I'm doing. I need to concentrate while doing this" Gemoc became entirely focused and throttled as fast as the Phoecon could towards the hostile ship, stopping straight in front of it. I was amazed by his reflexes. I could never have achieved that. Then he started circling around the ship quickly, changing directions extremely fast, and firing our laser at the ship. The hostile ship had shields as well and Gemoc fired away from all directions. As I watched our energy lower steadily as he tried destroying the shields of the hostile ship, the ship suddenly expanded its shields quickly, throwing us off course before contracting its shield again. Energy down to 40%.

"We're not going to defeat it. Head for Qeba-9!" I instructed Gemoc.

Gemoc moved the ship towards the atmosphere as fast as he could, as the hostile ship continued firing its particle weapons at us. 30%. We were running dangerously low on energy. 20%. We weren't going to make it. Our only choice left was hyperspace. We could be disintegrated as we pass into hyperspace, or we could stay intact. 10%. Without telling Gemoc i activated the hyperspace jump. Suddenly everything seemed to turn inside out. It was like looking at everything from the inside, seeing strange 3D crossections of the space-time continum. I could somehow see space bending and twisting, and wormholes stretching out between eachother. It was the wormholes between each city on Qeba-9. I could also see the inside of the hostile ship and how it was patrolling the area, looking for us. But my vision of everything seemed to gradually switch between various angles. It was horrible to look at so I looked away. At least the interior of the Phoecon was in plain old 3D, and Gemoc was alive as well, but looked as horrified as me.

"What is this?" he asked.
"It's hyperspace," I said. "It's where all the wormholes on Qeba-9 go through. We're seeing everything from a direction that doesn't exist in our ordinary space.
"I can't fly through this. Everything is shifting shape and I'm completely disoriented."
"No. I never meant for us to fly using the conventional ship controls here. We're going to navigate using the gravity of celestial objects. Gravity is the only force of our space that acts out here as well."

I deactivated the transparency of the cockpit window, and enabled a hologram map of the solar system.

"The ship autopilot reads the gravity from the Phoecon sensors and navigates accordingly. We're going to destroy the hostile ship by going to Sacolon to recharge, then use the gravity wave engine to destroy the hostile ship's crew from hyperspace. The course plotter works exactly like in 3D space. Try plotting a course for our sun, Gemoc."

Gemoc looked at the hologram. We were orbiting Qeba-9 at the moment. He touched the model of Sacolon and the coordinates and direction showed up. He touched the coordinates and our ship flew to Sacolon in an instant. I brought the ship back from hyperspace. And everything turned normal. We were orbiting Sacolon and our energy charged up in quickly. I brought the ship back to hyperspace and Gemoc plotted the course back to Lumino. I stretched the hologram out so we could look closer at the area around Lumino. The hostile ship was now hovering over the moon base.

"I bet they're trying to destroy the moon base. We need to stop them," Gemoc said.
"Make us intersect with the ship cockpit. When we're ready, charge up the engine for a boost. The sudden antigravity should disintegrate the crew," I said.

Gemoc reached for the control device.

"Don't!" I said. "Touch it and we won't know where we'll end up in hyperspace. Use the holomap instead."
"Sorry. I forgot."

Gemoc touched the ship on the holomap. The coordinates appeared. He adjusted the angle and position to intersect with the ship cockpit and touched the coordinates. The holomap spelled out a warning:

"The selected coordinates will result in impact with object. Proceed?"

I looked at Gemoc and said: "It's OK. Since we're in hyperspace we won't touch the ship."

Gemoc activated the course and the Phoecon intersected with the hostile ship. He charged the engine and plotted a course to Lumino. Then he activated the boost and brought us to orbit around Lumino. The hostile ship stopped moving around on the map.

"I think it's safe now," I said and brought the ship back to conventional space. I activated cockpit translucency and as the map predicted, the hostile ship had stopped moving around and was orbiting Lumino idly.

"You can use the control device now, Gemoc. Take us above the hostile ship and I'll grab on to it using our landing gear claws. We're going to land it in the hangar on the moon base."

Gemoc moved above the hostile ship and I stretched out the claws and grabbed it. Gemoc moved the Phoecon firmly and I dropped the hostile ship off in the hangar. Gemoc landed the Phoecon. The hangar was shut off and filled with air.

We went out of the Phoecon and stood in front of the hostile ship.

"There might be survivors inside. But we need to get into the ship. Let's get Quala and Mecolo to take a look at it," I said.

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It was time to go to the debriefing meeting. Basically the space program leader Noroom were to hold a brainstorming meeting between my team and the mission control. We discussed the events during launch, after launch, and during the establishment of the moon base. I explained how the Phoecon got caught by gusts but broke free thanks to the autopilot, how navigation in space and landing on Lumino went, how I almost drifted into orbit during my moonwalk and how the establishment of the moon base went including the nanobots using the Phoecon as building materials.

Later we discussed solutions to the issues during the mission. It was decided not to do anything about the launching process from Qeba-9 since we'd be launching spacecraft from the spaceport being built on Lumino at the moment. It was however decided to make a jetpack for moon and spacewalks in order to avoid drifting out in space. A new model of the Phoecon was to be built in a new moon lab as well. The new Phoecon was to have body-stasis for long journeys in space, warping to overcome the speed of light, energy weapons and shields in case of hostile spacecrafts. I also presented my idea for a hyperspace jump engine. It took some explaining but my suggestion was recieved well.

When the meeting neared its end I thought what happened in the break room wasn't going to be mentioned. But then Noroom asked everyone but me, Mecolo, Gemoc and Quala to leave the room.

"Do you know what you're here for?" asked Noroom, looking at me like he expected me to answer. I looked at the others and it didn't seem like they knew. But as I was about to say something, Quala suddenly said:
"It's about what happened in the break room before launch." Noroom looked stunned. Quala was a quite the insightful Plimox. That's probably why she's a technician here, even being able to repair new equipment made by me.

Noroom finally came over the initial shock and continued: "How you figured that out is a mystery to me, because you should have experienced memory loss from that event. When our biolab created Dr. Launch fifteen years ago we didn't create him especially for the space program, although he proved to have excellent cognitive abilities making him perfect for it."
This came as a shock to me. I knew I had special augmentations, but not that I was made in a lab.
In disbelief I asked Noroom: "So you're saying I was some kind of lab experiment?" Noroom looked a bit surprised over my reaction. "That's a very harsh way to put it. You're just as much a Plimox as these three", he said while making a gesture with his hand in the direction of Quala, Mecolo and Gemoc. "I'd rather say that your augmentations were given lots of care by the finest biological laboratory on Qeba-9. We did however try to put as many augmentations in your genes as possible".
I felt more comfortable about it now. Basically I had gone trough the same process as other augmented Plimoxes, with a fertilized egg cell getting gene modifications before it was put back to grow naturally.

So I had to ask: "So that halicunation thingy I had in the break room was one of the augmentations, right?" "Yes. It's called the NIC or nerve impulse controller. It makes brain impulses go crazy. Specifically in the vision and fear centres. It works on all lifeforms with brains that use electronic impulses. They start hallucinating inverted colors and become extremely scared. So what happened before your NIC got activated, Dr. Launch?"
Noroom seemed to want something he knew confirmed.
"Well. I was waiting for the launch and got really nervous. Then suddenly black turned white and white turned black. Everything had the wrong colors. I thought I had become so scared that I halucinated. And then I saw Mecolo, Gemoc and Quala trip over stuff in the room, while running for the door. Mecolo even hit the wall before finding his way to the door."
The others looked quite puzzled. It was almost like they didn't remember. Norom clearified: "Basically, subjects with NIC will trigger it when they're very scared. They'll start to halucinate and emit a special electromagnetic field. This electromagnetic field will induce fear and a inverted colors halucination. Another effect of the NIC is memory loss during its effect. The NIC going off is one of the problems we predicted could happened if we let Dr. Launch work with other engineers", Noroom said while playing with his neckwhisker. "But we figured it was worth it because of the possible benefits to Qeba-9".

"So basically, you need us to keep quiet about this", Gemoc said in a monotonous tone suggesting he knew the routine that was coming. Gemoc really hated that he had to agree to the lab security clearance for some reason. Noroom was quick to answer: "If society found out we could have some of them demanding this augmentation for their children. And when there's demand there's service. And it's really not something we want random plimoxes to be able to do." Noroom had to have long discussions with Gemoc when he was hired to make him agree to the lab security clearance. "Basically, your current security clearance allow you to handle information used in the space engineering projects you've been working on. However, information about Dr. Launch' special augmentations require top level security clearance."
Noroom transmitted the agreements and each of us played them back. Gemoc was clearly not happy but he finally submitted the agreement back as well.
"This is so you can keep working with Dr. Launch. And I might have some new work for you later that require this clearance. This concludes this meeting. You can go back to work. I'm looking forward to our work in the future."

Gemox went to to train in the flight simulator, Mecolo to work on the Phoecon computer systems, and Quala went to do maintenance on the lab after our work before the last launch. I went to work on the new plans for the Phoecon.

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We presented our results for the global space program management, and they approved launch and opening of a wormhole portal on Lumino. A permanent moon base will also be established, built by nanobots which will build the base instantly after the portal is opened. There are also plans to build a spaceport later on. The Qeba-9 trade organisation are really anxious to start intergalactic trade since it will stimulate our economy plenty. Sadly, this might mean the end of my time as the top player of Qeba-9's space engineering. But I'm still going to be Qeba-9's first space traveler. I've been selected to pilot the Phoecon because of the special properties of my body.

As I've said earlier I'm an augmented plimox. Gene augmentation is quite common here on Qeba-9, and not only my brain was augmented. My body has a special flexible exoskeleton that preserves inside pressure in the vacuum of space. My limbs are thin in order to keep my body weight down. Still I'm able to stay upright on Qeba-9 due to a improved type of muscle fibre in my body. Unlike regular plimox, my eye size is four times larger than usual. This will make flight in space much easier to me. I can also extract energy to survive from light alone.

The launch cave has been made ready. We're going to launch the Phoecon with a huge catapult. This is in order to pass the surface gusts which can catch the Phoecon and smash it into the ground. Higher in the atmosphere, being caught by a gust isn't too severe since the autopilot will make sure the craft keeps elevating. While I'm capable of building a catapult able to launch the Phoecon into orbit, it would smash me inside the Phoecon during launch. I'm able to whitstand fifteen times the gravity of Qeba-9 without being hurt. So the catapult was built with this in mind. We mounted the Phoecon in the catapult and mounted the wormhole generator inside, which was specially built to be lightweight and shock resistant.

I'm ready for launch now and I'm sitting here in this break room, recording this log, waiting for launch. The launch could go seriously wrong in every way. The catapult could fail and smash me before I leave the cave, the gusts of the surface could catch the craft and leave me stranded on the surface to starve to death. The engines could fail and I could suffer the same fate. That's just a fraction of the ways this could go wrong. I was so nervous the room colors turned inverted earlier. I thought it was a hallucination until everyone else in the room freaked out and ran off. I have no idea why it happened, but it must be related to the special properties of my brain.

Well. There's my signal. I have to go now. If this is my last log, it means things went horribly wrong during launch. Goodbye until the next time, if there's going to be one.

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