Lost Empire 68

0001 – Tempro

0003 – Conner- Thomas

0097 – Ace – Zimmel

0098 – Lucy

0101 – Shelby (mother ship)

0125 – Lars

0200 – Ellen

0301 – Rodrick

0403 – Johnathon

0667 – Marco – Brown

0778 – Jan

0798 – Celeste – Shelby (human)

0805 – Toran

0808 – Radella

0908 – Tara – Mara

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Ungrown – unnumbered

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2 – onboard Shelby, in Re-gen

0250 Tendra

1000 – Sherry

0999 – Zan – still lost

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Known and OR numbered

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0501 – Thaddeus

???? – Lena

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“Thaddeus! No!” Shelby gasp out. “Please son, there’s no need to do this. We will find them all.” Shelby was begging.

Tears were now starting to stream down Lucie’s face as she was also listening to what was being said. “NO!” She suddenly yelled.

Shelby also had tears in her eyes as she said, “You have been out here alone for so long, please come home to me.”

Both started to object then were suddenly quiet as Shelby watched the box as it started to drift away. Turning toward Derrick she couldn’t look up from the floor.

“I’m sorry Derrick, Thaddeus refuses to come aboard. He says he cannot ’til he knows that they all are safe. I cannot force him.” Shelby told Derrick her face still turned to the floor.

Derrick could only shake his head. There was dedication and then there was damn dedication. In this case he’d have to reserve his opinion.

“Alright Shelby, I want a marker on him. If we are to leave him here, I want to make sure that we can come back for him.” Derrick told her.

A smile appeared on her face as she rapidly hurried to carry out Derrick’s instructions. A moment later a small tracking device shot out of Shelby hooking to the newly released box. With a last tear in her eye Shelby turned toward Derrick even as the ship turned away from the box.

Shelby was on the floor beside an almost shattered Lucie. “I tried to convince him to come with us. He wouldn’t listen to me. Why? After being out here so long why?”

“I have no answer for you my dear. I assume it has something to do with honor I’m not sure.” Looking up at Derrick she could see the look of pain and pride on his face.

Taking a deep breath Derrick took another moment to speak. “Get the sixth one Shelby. Then we can start on the next eight. The faster we can get them the faster we can all be together.” Turning away from the two females, neither saw him curse under his breath.

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Both Kimison and Rayburn were in their racks not long after their visit with Derrick. Almost an hour later Kimison jerked awake something was bothering him. Getting up he went to where he and Rayburn had been working.

“Good evening Commander.” Tempro greeted him when he turned the lights on. “Can I be of assistance?”

“Something has been bothering me since Commander Rayburn’s incident. I need to go over the logs of what transpired.” Kimison ordered.

“Yes sir, now brining up all recordings and data. Are you looking for something specific sir? Something I might be able to help you discern?” Tempro asked.

“If I knew I would advise you. For right now I am trying to determine why he shut off almost all the safeties.” An hour later Kimison was starting to get frustrated. “What in the hell had you so worried that you shut them all off? Hell, half of them though not all of them, maybe…”

Kimison stopped, looking behind him, as he thought Tempro was keeping a very close eye on him. Damn it ,now that he knew, how was he going to test the theory?

Scrolling through a few more screens, Kimison would type a command then move on. Almost another hour later an alarm sounded then immediately shut off.

“Warning! Warning! Instability in A.I. personality matrix. Warning, all A.I. functions shutting down to re-boot.” Came Tempro’s voice.

Kimison shook his head who knew that the same program from Celeste would work here. He only had a few minutes at most as he started to rapidly type more complex functions on the screen. Finally finished, he donned the head set, then hit the activation button.

It wasn’t an alarm, Tempro nor anything tangible that caused Rayburn to jerk awake. It was a feeling of incredible pain in his head. He almost made it to the door of the work lab when it increased.

“MARY! TEMPRO!” He was yelling as he fell through the door way. Mary appeared immediately though strangely Tempro was absent. The next thing he noticed, was that Kimison was screaming at the top of his voice.

“Can you shut it down?” Rayburn asked.

“Attempting now, it appears that my son is in re-boot. I am afraid he won’t be any help for two minutes.” Mary stated.

Rayburn nodded as he ran for the main console. Bringing up the headset control he cursed when he saw that Kimison had almost the exact settings that he had before. “Clearing a path, now beginning extraction.”

A minute later the machine shut down as Rayburn ran to where Kimison was prone on the deck.

A moment later Kimison’s eyes open as he stared at Rayburn. “A modified sigma energy variance cannot be maintained if the energy of the matrix is not adjusted accordingly. Packets of two gigabytes can be added with such adjustment.”

Rayburn was writing as fast as he could. That was the one way he hadn’t been sure of. “You idiot! Are you actually trying to fry your brain? What in the hell got into you?”

In a barely whispered voice Kimison stated, “I know you moron. I saw what you did only took me a little longer. I…” Rayburn could only shake his head as Kimison’s eyes rolled up into his head then he was unconscious.

Sighing, Rayburn nodded, he hadn’t thought anyone would find what he had. “Better let the Emperor know. I’m getting him back to his bunk. Then I’m going to sleep myself.”

A now re-booted Tempro nodded to his mother then she was gone. “Would you like help sir?” Tempro asked. “I wish to apologize to you sir. He caught me completely unaware.”

“No need to apologize Tempro, we both know he is far smarter than he lets on.” Here Rayburn shook his head, “A hell of a lot smarter.”

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Three fourths of the distance to the Imperial world from where the battle had taken place, Admiral Hartwell was having problems of his own. It seemed that the female he’d started calling Bee was still having an aversion to clothing.

“You have to wear them where we are going.” Hartwell told her again.

“NO!