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Reunion: Chapter 21

"Wait." Adrian stopped another one of Crane's off topic ramblings. This time, he was boasting about how he hit a soda can out of a general's hand in the galley with a fork. He loved to talk about how good of a shot he was with any and all types of projectiles.

Crane stopped, the light of the monitors dimmed for a moment and then immediately lit up to max brightness. "What?" Crane said. "I was getting to the good part about how he actually tried to chase me. Oh, my God, he had to have been like... fifty... maybe even sixty. He worked so hard to catch me, and I have to admit that he moved pretty fast for someone who..."

"Crane!" Adrian yelled. The AI was like a toddler. He could barely keep his attention on one thing for more than an instant. It was nice at first to talk to someone that wasn't trying to kill him for once. However, the novelty of it quickly faded.

"Sorry." Crane apologized. "Haven't talked to anyone for a long time. I've been stuck here, in this dying ship for so long and when the sensors went off. I got so excited. Sorry if I'm getting too overbearing. I've been told I can be like that at times."

Now Adrian just felt like an ass for yelling. The AI had been without interaction for a long time.

"I didn't mean to yell." Adrian flinched when he turned to the monitor. Whatever painkillers he was on were gone now. "Past few days have been stressful."

"Oh, I imagine." Crane perked up immediately, never one to stay down for long. "While I lost the ability to send out a signal some time ago, I'm still more than capable of listening to passing chatter and man, those people up there. They are mad as hell right now." Crane chuckled and paused to recover to catch his nonexistent breath. "What did you do to them?"

"I existed." Adrian pulled on some of Dog's memories to supplement his own. He could feel all those previous lives of his ancestors who had suffered just as much as he had under the rule of the Dominion. "Do you know what is going on out there? I assure you, it's not how you left it."

"If he's so lonely." Dog said without interrupting Adrian. "We can use him to help us escape. Offer him an out. I'm sure he would be more than happy to get our from this ship and go see just how much it has changed."

Adrian agreed and quickly included Dog's suggestion. "In fact, I'd be willing to show you if you can help me get a ship."

The monitor was silent for a time. "A way off this ship?" He spoke slowly. The screen vibrated, and static flashed across it. "A way to finally get away?"

Adrian nodded. "All we need is a way to get off the planet. I don't know anything about you AI, but I'm sure you can think of something to get both of us out of here."

"Hmm." Crane hummed. "Yes, I think I can think of something. Hold on for a moment while I think of something."

Adrian was expecting to decent wait, but he was right when he said that he didn't know anything about AI. It took Crane all of a few picoseconds to determine a viable exit strategy that he had already calculated to have a near seventy percent chance of success.

"Alright. I have something." He said excitedly. The only thing he had ever been able to glean about the outside world was that there was still humanity out there. Most messages were corrupted by radiation of due to the ship's weak antennae that was already under thirty feet of packed and radioactive dirt.

"Already?" Adrian asked.

"Remember." Dog reminded Adrian. "This isn't just some dumb computer, but a living and thinking being. He can think a lot faster than you or just some standard computer."

Dog was secretly just as giddy as Crane. It was an unusual emotion, but the prospect of having found one of Anderson's most trusted friend and ally. It seemed impossible. The Crane that Dog knew of had been declared dead centuries earlier after the surface of Earth was bombarded with nukes to wipe out the invading AI.

It had been a hard choice for Anderson at the time, and he almost didn't do it because he believed that Crane was still alive. Some of the survivors, picked up a few weeks before the nukes were dropped credited their survival to Crane. There were stories of how he would pick off the grotesque Collectors, an amalgamation of twisted flesh that the AI had created out of their victims to do their bidding, from blocks away.

Crane could have left easily. He could have used one of his private ships that he had to escape and flee to Mars like many did, but he stayed behind to help.

The stories about him went on and on, and then suddenly they stopped. He disappeared. One survivor, the last person to see him, told Anderson that Crane had been covering him, letting him take shelter inside the subway system. The survivor had expected Crane to show up shortly after, but he never saw the Canis again, not even a body.

As far as Anderson was concerned, if there was no body, then there was no guarantee that his friend was dead. Many saw differently, and Anderson was overruled, and he dropped enough nukes on the planet to sterilize the solar system of life. There could be no chances. Nothing could survive and yet here was an AI with the same name and similar mannerisms as the gifted sniper, alive and doing rather well for himself.

Dog currently held back the information. His own excitement wasn't important at the moment. Getting Adrian and this AI off the planet was. This is what he had come here for with Jaina. She believed that this was the key to stopping the Dominion, and he was going to believe as well, it was the only purpose he had for existing. There would be time to explain everything to Adrian about Crane later.

The plan was fairly simple actually. Crane expressed a dislike for overly complicated plans when simpler ideas were available.

"Less likely for something to go wrong because a part of the plan was forgotten," Crane explained.

The plan involved Jeeves, Crane's only surviving service robot from the original crew of the ship. The robot was damaged long ago due to normal decay and didn't have that much range, but all it needed was distract Andrew and his men.

Crane could detect their comm signals and determine that they had several ships landed all around the city and the men were scouting and still looking for Adrian.

"They seem pretty upset about me whisking you away." Crane was doing something; his screen had all kinds of progress bars appearing with screens appearing and tabbing out.

"By the way." Adrian had settled onto one of the seats in the room. "How did you manage to rescue me. I was pretty well surrounded."

"Well." Crane boasted. "Lot's of ships are buried under the dirt. Most are in pieces. Some are intact, and I can hack into their terminals, pump a little juice into their engines and raise them from the ground enough to scare those guys away. It worked long enough for Jeeves to go and get you."

"But none of the ships can leave orbit."

"Hell no." He exclaimed. "If I could have flown out of here, I would have a very long time ago. There may be ships out there somewhere in some underground dock, but nothing close enough for me to do a data transfer."

Jeeves who had finished charging at his dock came to life. "Good day, sir." He stepped out, his rotors whirring. "How may I serve."

"You know fully well what you need to do." Crane seemed annoyed by the robot.

"Indeed," Jeeves replied with no inflection of emotion at all. "I will do what I can, but I fear that I will run out of power before being able to return to charge. Are you sure this is what you want me to do?" It's yellow sensors in its head blinked, and Adrian wondered if that was because the sensors were failing or if it was designed to blink.

"Yeah, go." Crane quickly sent the robot on its way. "No humor, nothing," Crane said to Adrian. "Try spending as long as I have with someone that dry."

"Don't say it." Dog said in Adrian's head. "You've only spent a little while with me."

Adrian didn't poke fun at Dog. Instead, he focused on the plan. "So Jeeves is off to create some distraction. What now?"

"I'm downloading myself to some portable drives. You'll have to carry me, and once you get to a suitable computer, you can plug me back in." A small door slid open in the wall, revealing a bank of hard drives. "I'm compressing most of myself, but I'll have one hard drive that you can just plug in right away if you need my help with anything, such as flying us out of here."

Before Crane finished downloading himself to the hard drives, he finished explaining the rest of the plan.

Once Jeeves had enough of a start to ensure that the distraction would be far enough away, Adrian would put the hard drives, six in total, into a bag and then exit the ship and begin heading to the closest shuttle. Simple.

"Okay, once we start, you're on your own. I can't help you out there. Don't forget to move fast. Radiation isn't as bad as it used to be, but I wouldn't recommend standing around for too long," Crane explained. "Can you handle yourself."

"I can handle myself." Adrian may not have been able to by himself in his condition, but with Dog helping, he was confident.

"Whenever you're ready," Crane said and then the screen faded to black. The white noise of the ship faded away. Adrian stood there in silence for a moment before pulling out the hard drives and storing them in a bag from one of the nearby lockers at the back of the bridge.

"You know how to get off this thing?" Adrian said and buckled the bag close and then swung it over his good shoulder.

"Of course. I've spent time on one of these kinds of ships and even if I didn't. Most ships have multiple ways to get off. I'll lead, you just make sure that no one gets in the way."

Dog did know exactly where he was going and got Adrian off the ship fast and just in time for Jeeves part to kick in.

There was an explosion off in the distance in the opposite direction of where Adrian and Dog were heading. The blast sent a ploom of dust and smoke above the few standing buildings of where Adrian came out of a hatch in the ground, just a block away from where he and Andrew had faced off.

"That'll get their attention," Said Dog. "Alight, let's get moving. We have a bit of a walk to make. Let's hope that we don't run into someone too soon that they can get a message off and cut us off before we get off the ground."

"Right," Adrian nodded and started walking.

Without the suit and the mask, the air was dry and hot. The wind blew sand into Adrian's fur. Earth, from the little he had seen and felt of it, it wasn't an ideal place to live. He wondered why so many wanted to live here when it was still so inhospitable.

"Don't count Earth out of places to retire just yet." Dog defended. "New York was just one of the most heavily hit spots. There are remote areas that I have heard have expansive forests. Fully recovered with little to no sign of war."

"I'll have to take a look the next time I'm not being hunted." Adrian joked and sneezed as some dust got into his nose.

"What was that?" Adrian heard echoes down the road.

"You got to be kidding me." Adrian quickly ducked off to the side of the road and into a building.

"Of all the times you had to sneeze." Dog remarked. "Shouldn't you be able to feel if people are out there?"

"I'm not very good at this." Adrian hissed in his mind and felt out with his mind. He could feel two people getting closer.

"I thought I heard a something over here." One of them said and came around the bed of the block. He had a rifle of a sort, and the other had a backpack with antennae sticking out of it.

"Probably your imagination." The radioman said. "I didn't hear anything."

"Well, you've got those headphones on." The rifleman retorted quickly and gave a long scan of the place with his eyes. Adrian was easily out of sight of them. "Makes you more deaf than my grandfather, and let me tell you how deaf he is."

"Well, there's nothing here." The radioman kicked at the ground with his boot. "We should head back to the shuttle. Andrew was clear that he didn't want the ships unguarded at any moment. We've already been away for too long."

"Let me just take a look around." The rifleman tightened his grip on his weapon and began walking down the street slowly.

"We can't just sit here and waste time." Dog said, and Adrian felt him getting ready for some action.

"Agreed." Adrian closed his eyes and focused on the two. He could feel their bodies, their heartbeats.

With a surge of strength that Dog then amplified, the two were lifted from their feet.

"He's here!" The gunman cried out and managed to get a single shot off before the rifle was torn from his hands. "Call for help."

"Oh God." The radioman screamed. "Oh God." He didn't hear his partner and instead was flailing his arms about, trying to grab anything other than his radio controls.

Adrian threw them together, colliding them hard enough to knock them both out, but not kill them.

"Someone would have heard that gunshot, let's get moving." Dog quickly told Adrian where he would need to go next.

Adrian ran past the unconscious soldiers and went two more blocks before coming across the ship. He ran up to the door and quickly realized it was locked.

"Of course it would be." He couldn't force his way in. That would break the ship's air tight integrity.

"Plug Crane in." Dog quickly said, and Adrian opened up the bag and pulled out the hard drive that Crane had told him would be ready just to plug in.

He plugged in the small metal box, about one pound in weight, into the security console and almost instantly the door opened. Adrian unplugged Crane and ran inside. He went to the cockpit and plugged Crane to the central computer there.

"Miss me?" Crane said as he took control of the ship. He warmed the engines. How good it felt to have control of something that was space worthy. "Buckle up, I'm going for max acceleration."

Adrian got into the pilot's seat and did the straps as best as he could with his one good arm.

The shuttle raised from the ground, and Crane wasted no time. He peeled towards the sky as fast as he could without causing the inertial dampeners to fail.

The sky quickly turned to black.

"Shit," Crane said before any congratulations of celebrations could be held. They weren't close to being scot-free.

"Unknown Dominion vessel." A voice came over the speakers. "This is the Ardent Blade. You have not been cleared for departure from Earth. You are in violation of Naval code alpha three six dash nine beta. Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded."

"Looks like they were expecting an escape." Crane didn't turn off the engines. Instead, he began to turn away from the source of the signal. "Not going to stop us so easily."

"Cease and desist your escape attempt. You are surrounded."

He wasn't wrong. Out of the wreckage field of dead ships came a number of small snub fighters. All were closing the distance.

"Stop, or we will fire to disable. Your safety is not guaranteed."

Crane rolled around the first streaks of laser fire that went wide and hit a piece of floating metal, leaving holes in it. He then pitched the ship perpendicular, stressing the ship's maneuvering thrusters.

Adrian watched as a snub fighter, forced to move or crash into the shuttle, spun at the last second and flew out of sight.

Adrian was thrown into his seat despite the inertial dampeners. "Watch it!" He exclaimed.

"Sorry," Crane apologized. "Haven't flown in some time."

The ship jarred, and alarms sounded. "Ignore that." A spark flew from the console and several lights went out. "Ignore that, too." Power to most of the ship then cut. "Okay, I guess we can't ignore that," Crane said.

"Shit. Can't you do anything." Adrian got out of his seat and peered out the cockpit. He could see a larger ship closing the distance with them.

"I can hack into their comms, and we can listen in on them. But beyond that, no."

"Can't you hijack their ship?" Adrian asked as the massive ship slowly came to a stop over them.

"This ship's computer isn't strong enough to deal with something like this. Not for complete control."

"I guess that the comms are fine. It will let me know when to be ready."

"Ok." Crane hacked into the comm network and put it on over the speakers.

"Sir, we have the ship, and readouts indicate that there is one lifeform aboard."

"Good. Prepare a boarding party and be cautious. I have word from command that this is an extremely powerful Canis."

"Should I inform the team to use lethal force."

"No. We want him alive. Have the Dog Catchers ready."

"Sir! Multiple targets off the starboard bow. Coming in fast."

"I want visual."

Adrian peered out the cockpit, but the ship was facing the wrong direction. He had to simply sit back and listen.

"A heavy cruiser and two destroyers, sir. They're hailing us."

"Put it up."

"This is Captain Riesha of the Silver Wolf, stand down and pull away from the shuttle. We will be taking custody."

"Captain Riesha? There's a general alert about you. I am to take you in. I cannot stand down."

"Pity, I managed to get here without incident, but I guess that will have to change."

"I suppose so. Cut the connection and get to battle stations."

"We're being hailed now," Crane said. "By these new ships."

"Should we answer?" Adrian asked.

"No harm in doing that." Crane let the signal through.

"This is Commander Von of the Silver Wolf. Hang tight. Help is on the way." That was it. The message cut out after that.

"You know him?" Crane asked as he tried to get some of the systems back online. He managed to get the maneuvering thrusters back on and slowly began to turn the ship to see what was going on as the Ardent Blade began to pull away with its fighters and started heading towards the three new ships.

"No." Adrian shook his head and then asked Dog, who didn't either. "No idea."

"I guess that it doesn't matter," Crane said just as the first volley was fired by the ships at each other.