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Chapter Five: Consequences and the World Above

QZ, Jeff and of course The Captain sat in a room, wondering what they did. Pondering the consequences of their actions. Was their really a fleet of Noxian ships around the solar system ready to strike, could they survive another attack, they barely survived the first and their was nothing to suggest another battle would lead to their victory.

They all pondered about it. The Captain took the rational path thinking and using his previous experiences to put together a foggy future and QZ the robot or cyborg, he was took the logical path, calculating the best course of actions to take that would have the least deaths and least damage. Jeff however, was thinking about his life, for all of it he had wondered where he had come from and he had an answer; all he had to do was use QZ to contact another ship.

All three looked at each other, and back down at the ground. They weren't exactly Marx or Aristotle but their actions after words would have serious repercussions if they didn't think it out clearly. Half of the actions were spelled out in sand, like a massive obvious message. "Don't contact anyone else for the lives of everyone in the hydrosphere and on the planet." They wondered however if some other race, perhaps similar to the ones that left Earth still existed.

One he ship, all of them had at least once seen an Earth type animal, so they assumed that it wouldn't be unreasonable that someone else had a ship filled with them. Perhaps they would be friendly to their own kind and welcome them to space. Another part of them told them that perhaps there was a rule not to contact civilizations like theirs, a Main Rule, sort of thing.

"Ok, we shouldn't contact other races until we have an idea of what they would do to us. I'm all for a little anal probing every once in a while if it gets us to space." Jeff crudely added to the conversation before getting a look from The Captain and shutting himself up. They looked again at each other before taking at look back down at the hydrosphere floor and trying to decide on anything.

"Information received: perhaps we should go to Noxian craft and see if their data bases have any viable information that we could possibly use to make our decision." QZ suddenly piped into the conversation. He mentally decided to make it unanimous and the crocodile stood up and walked out of the dark room turning on the lights.

The Captain and Jeff groaned at the lights invading their unadjusted eyes but nevertheless decided to follow QZ up to the ship. The crocodile was right in that the ship was fireproof, one would think in the void, the shadow of space, you wouldn't need fireproofing but QZ decided to prove the, wrong.

The ship was moved from the dock on top of the hydrosphere and to a more reasonable side dock on the side of the sphere. They entered the ship and ignored the multiple piles of ashes on the floor, deciding that would be another day's council. They looked around and the ship was in good condition as a raging fire was burning inside of it an hour ago.

They reached the main console of the ship and already they noticed people had started to move a lot of the equipment to outside of the ship and into the hydrosphere where it could be stored and put to use. They started up the console, a Windows HP 4200 Ship edition logo popping up on the screen.

"Well look at this, the ship's name is the Void, how interesting is that, and she is five hundred years old." The Captain said reading off random trinkets of information that popped up on the screen as she booted up. He looked at it in amazement, never seeing an operating system this advanced.

"Well that is quite something." The Captain said as he examined the computer, it seemed to be multiple times quicker and stronger than QZ. He looked around and started up the computer file system. It seemed to be a basic file explorer, a black background with a green text.

He looked at it and the most obvious to click was, "In case of emergency". He touched the screen and the program activated. The screen flashed and The Captain looked at his cohorts as he wondered what the program was for. The alarms blared around the ship and a flash-drive popped out of the computer port.

"Information: Ship return system has been activated, suggested course of action evacuation." QZ pipped up, returning to himself and relaying information to The Captain and Jeff. Jeff and The Captain looked and realized that they might of screwed up a bit.

The Captain grabbed the flash drive and pulled Jeff with him as the ship started to rumble. Airlocks around them were starting to close, steam blasting out of the locks as they tightly closed keeping in the sir. QZ was following them as he scanned around them, they looked forward and the large airlocks were starting to close.

He jumped forward over the original verti-dock and went towards the current dock. QZ jumped in front of him knowing what was happening. With his spare hand, the Captain firing a sonic wave. He and Jeff blasted forward, his longcoat fluttering in air as he "flew" through the dock and back into the hydrosphere.

The airlock closed in front of him with another steam click, before the hydrosphere's did the same. The ship's engines started up shaking the hydrosphere as it undocked. The ship started to float displacing some water and shaking the hydrosphere further.

Jeff and the Captain grabbed onto some railing, and QZ stood unaware or uncaring towards the ship as it took off and rattled the hydrosphere. Luckily it looked like everyone was out of the hydrosphere by the time the ship took of and a majority of its equipment was removed.

The Captain sighed and didn't know what to do. He looked around, they didn't know if enough of the equipment was removed and couldn't work out if enough technology to advance the Hydrosphere was present. He looked around and people seemed to be looking at him.

"Ok, we've lost some equipment but it looks like their are enough that we might be able to salvage something from this. I don't know what's inside this device, but it looks like it holds some data, but way smaller than what we have." The Captain said to his group as he looked around, and then at his flash drive. He didn't know what the device was for, but it might be able to help them.

He walked down the hallway, his longcoat flowing behind him as QZ and Jeff joined his entourage. He walked into the second floor lobby and dropped down a few floors and into the Hydrosphere's main computer room. QZ hooked himself into the computer system and scanned the system.

"No Noxian files found stuck in the system, it does not seem that we have any plugs to connect into that flash drive, however with a little manipulation of my hands I can create a plug to plug into the flash drive." QZ raised his hand on the top of his fingertip, a square hole formed in his finger.

"Well that works in this situation, but should we do this. What if they have some sort of virus system, we could be allowing them access into the entire hydrosphere again, possible manage to communicate with the entire Noxian fleet." The Captain said as he considered not running rashly into the situation again.

"What if..." Jeff said speaking up with fear but power in his voice. QZ and the Captain looked at him and wondered what the Noxian could have to say. "What if you have QZ scan it, he on multiple occasions show to resist the Noxian's programing. He could do like a Virus scan on it." Jeff suggested to him wondering if that would be possible.

"That is a possible use of my program. Disconnecting from main computer system." QZ said as his mechanical eye glowed and the computer screen sent up a notification confirming the situation. "Trust me, there's no reason to be worried about this."

"Fine, but I am still your master. The second you detect even the most risky program you are going to tell me, confirm." The Captain said as he considered what to do with the flash drive. Jeff and QZ had no idea what was causing his newfound fear, but it probably had something to with his death.

The Captain took a gulp and plugged the Flash Drive into QZ's finger, it fit snug and tight into the robotic crocodile's port. His mechanical eye flashed between blue and red as it scanned the contents of the flash drive. Jeff and The Captain stood silent as they considered what was happening. They waited a few seconds in the cold computer room, waiting for the results of the scan to come back.

QZ's eye flashed green signalling he was completed with the scan and the flash drive blinked. "Conclusive scan suggests that their is no evidence of any virus on the drive, it is completely ok to plug this into the computer system. Actions suggested: plug it into the system."

"We'll if you say so, then let's do this." The Captain said as he gave the go for QZ to reconnect with the computer. QZ's eye flashed and the notification on the computer appeared. A black box appeared and a program started to run as soon as QZ connected.

"Running connection program." QZ said. The black box seemed to run down through a series of commands as it prepared for a final situation. However, no one would have predicted a sudden video to appear on screen, a blurry video but their seemed to be human in the camera image.

"Hello Void, we have received a distress signal from you ship what is the nature of your emergency." An officer said as she looked at the screen and looked at the rag-tag group looking as confused as she. "I knew it, they finally attacked Earth. Ugh this is going to be a lot of paper work."

"Ok, so you have recovered an emergency flash drive from the crash of the void by activating the emergency program. It contains a copy of all current systems contained on the ship, it should be upgradable to all your systems and might be auto upgrading your systems now." The officer said explaining the situation to the three stuck on Earth.

"Wait who are you, are you in league with the Noxians trying to kill us all and take back the Earth, we've already done one ship so two thousand more shouldn't be a problem." The Captain said quickly returning to his old self and boas ting to the officer.

"No, the Noxians you encountered were rouge, they wanted to make Earth their empire after their planet was destroyed. Did one survive, because we can take him prisoner for you." The officer said as she noticed Jeff on the screen making out his Noxian-like figure.

"No, he is an Earth citizen. He was lost by the Nox and now he's our fighter." The Captain said as he gave Jeff a reassuring pat on the back. They looked up at the camera and wondered what would happen next. "So we took some equipment off and by that I mean most, but I think we may have sent the ship back to you, so can we keep the equipment?" The Captain said knowing that taking with permission is better than borrowing unknowingly.

"Well in a normal situation we would teleport the equipment off your planet, but in your situation you seem to know what to do with it. Perhaps you can rejoin your planets when you figure out how to launch a warp capable craft off of water, even we can't do that. As for the equipment, it will help you just make sure your robot helps you so that you don't accidentally rip a hole in the fabric of reality." The officer said explaining what they were going to do.

"As for the ship, she is quite old so we were about to sell it to a bounty hunter, and decommission the Nox, we figured they were going to something but they struck quicker than we thought. But thank you for dealing with the situation, just don't do anything rash with the equipment. Over and out." The officer said promptly shutting down communication.

"Well... that was quite quick." Jeff said to the Captain as they decided what to with their information. "If they know we can handle ourselves why don't they take us into space, and why are we still back here. Why didn't they take us?"

"Because the world above still doesn't trust us, they probably believe that we are still acting like cavemen, even though we have worked harder to survive on this planet after they left it to us." The Captain said trying to explain the situation, "QZ, search their database for any rules about interactions with lesser species in their civilization path."

QZ's eyes blinked as he recieved data from the flash drive, interpreting it and changing it into words for his companions to understand. "In the occasion that you are forced to interact with a species that has yet to achieve warp travel, you are to blend into the culture for all interaction and assure the species of their future without giving them any technology. This ideology should be held above all others." QZ said without a breath passing. The Captain looked at Jeff, knowing that he was correct, and that the world above looked down at them as lesser species.

"They can't possibly look down at us, we were the same cultures. We just got left behind, they can't judge us like that just because we didn't get on a ship before it left. They couldn't possibly expect all of us to get on the ship at once, they would have needed to take multiple trips." Jeff said, studdering as he tried to defend the organization in space.

"No, you don't get it. We could have all made it, but they left us here on purpose because they believed that we would survive in an aquatic world. All the aquatic species were left, and they were shy about it. It took me this long to figure it out, but why did they have to leave us on this hellhole!" The Captain yelled as he let out some anger.

"Then we stay here, because one day they might have a way to reverse what happened and we will be welcomed like heroes back into society, because we didn't complain and we keep the Earth safe from Noxian attackers!" Jeff yelled as he returned fire, being the hopeful to the Captain's newfound cynicism.

"That's not how it works, it took me all this time to see it but no is grateful for anything. You can't see it with all of your tinted glasses but, anytime anyone does anything they don't get any praise or thanks for it. When QZ saved all our asses, no a single person said a single thank you to him because he was a robot." The Captain said making a point as he explained.

"And what do you think QZ honestly cares, he is a robot a fully fledged robot. Do you honestly think in that thick shark-orca skull of yours that he cares about what people think of him. I wish I could do that, so that I didn't get nervous before I speak my mind." Jeff said yelling out and suddenly a three of the reached a better understanding of each other.

The tension cleared in the room as The Captain and Jeff realized something about each other. QZ unclicked from the computer and put himself in between the two. "Come on you two, fighting is not going to solve anything. We needed to get going anyway. The Noxian gave us a whole bunch of equipment and I can give it to the other's hydrosphere's OSes." QZ suggested to them as they realized their mission.

"Well then that sounds like quite the plan to follow, I think the hydrosphere can handle itself now, but you can monitor all the wavelengths for emergency signals and entering ships." The Captain said as he was convinced by QZ for the plan.

"God, you will do anything for that lizard." Jeff said to himself as he left the room following QZ and The Captain as they left for their ship. He sighed and realized that he was going to have to keep The Captain from doing anything rash with QZ. He followed out into hallway, keeping up with the two as they left for the ship.

"Oh, you decided to come I thought you were going to stay with the hydrosphere." The Captain said as he saw Jeff following him and QZ into the ship. They were ready to leave and upgrade the other hydrospheres. He laughed at the two as they looked at him.

"No way, I'm with you. Someone has to babysit you two before you cause the death of the world, so I think I am going to stick around." Jeff said as he decided to officially join the crew. He looked around in the doorway, and jumped over the middle chair and into the cabin.

"Well then we're off, let's see if we can avoid snapping at each others neck, but now we have a mission to do." The Captain said as he accelerated his ship off the dock and out towards the sea, the three unlikely strangers all working together towards one goal as friends.

However, as the Captain drove off he looked around at his companions, and in his mind he was worried. His newfound worry wasn't because of a newfound conclusion and was instead of a vision he had, as he died and saw the afterlife.

...

The Captain closed his eyes as he bled out on the floor of the Noxian ship and passed on to the next life. His body was tingling and his soul felt lighter than air. He floated above his body and suddenly he floated away, past the Earth and into space.

"Hello my child, it is time to explain." The Captain looked around and he was in a white void, the exact opposite of what he thought the afterlife would look like. However, he was shocked when he saw a glowing spirit in front of his body. "I appeared to you before, to you and QZ."

"So that wasn't just a dream, what do you want me for. I'm dead, and there's no way I'm coming back with the Noxian invading the hydrosphere, they'll kill everyone before my body reaches the medbay." The Captain argued to the spirit.

"No, but someone you can trust will bring you back. However, I am taking the opportunity to talk to you because once the Noxian threat passes there will be another threat started by one that you trust. You are doing fine with your mission, but once the next threat passes I will indulge you and your group as to your destinies." The spirit said explaining the situation to the shorka.

"Can't you tell me know?" The Captain asked whining.

"Sorry, no time. You're already returning to your body. Time goes faster here." She said as the white background disappeared and instead the Captain appeared inside a cloning tube, with Jeff pressing the buttons on the control. Outside of the cloning pod the entire medbay seemed to be filled with water.

...

The Captain looked around his cabin, accepting the possibility that one of his friends were going to cause the next threat. However, as he drove off into the sunset QZ was quietly and unknowingly running a trojan virus, gained when he scanned the flash drive.

QZ's eye flashed red, and the program was starting as it ran the Noxian nano program.