Conquest: A New Home

Now, back to the ship drifting in space…

There was a man called J-

"GET THE GODDAMN PLASMA WELDER!" Jumar cursed as he tried using graphite nanofiber flex tape to seal the small breach on the hull. "WE ARE GOING TO GET F.U.C.KT!"

"SHUT UP!" A mechanic named Kaylen screamed back. "THE FLEX TAPE CAN HOLD! THERE IS NOTHING IT CAN'T FIX-"

As Kaylen was about to finish her sentence, a shard of metal pierced the tape, tearing it apart like nonexistent material.

The small hole expanded, triggering an immediate response from the system and initiating a lockdown.

Kaylen and Jumar felt the horrifying zip of air as it left them in a swift depressurization sound before everything went silent.

(Get the emergency kit!) Jumar mouthed towards Kaylen. (We are fukt if we don't…the f.u.c.k are you doing?!)

Kaylen was not paying attention and was instead trying to breathe in the nonexistent air like a fish out of the water. Except that she was floating and was writhing around like a spastic worm.

Jumar rolled his eyes as he grabbed a railing in the eternal module and sent himself soaring across the room, landing on the wall next to the emergency panel.

Jumar grabbed the latch open and pulled out the canister of emergency oxygen before tuning the regulator and pressing his lips against the mechanical mouthpiece, the silicon giving in to allow a flow of air to his lungs.

Jumar then hovered near Kaylen and wrenched her near before shoving the mouthpiece into her mouth.

The girl then greedily s.u.c.k.e.d out the air before putting a thumbs up.

Jumar rolled his eyes at Kaylen and floated towards the workbench, pulling out the plasma welder from the magnetic charging port.

Jumar exhaled his breath as he inhaled the last bit of oxygen from the canister before placing the compound repair sheet over the hull breach and sticking the plasma needles into the gaps.

Sparks flew all over the place as if miniature explosions resulted from the purple arc of electricity surged into the plates that near instantly heated them up to above a thousand degrees, barely the same levels as thermite.

Once the silent arks of sparks and light came to an end, the system recognized the breach has been dealt with and let the air flow back in.

Slowly, the ringing noise in Jumar's ears ceased and came the muffled sound of a pressurized pipe blowing out wind before his hearing had fully returned.

"F.u.c.k.i.n.g hell…" Kaylen wheezed. "I thought flex tape was a universal fix…"

"If it was, we could have used it to fix the glaciers 700 years ago." Jumar rolled his eyes as he leaned to a railing on the wall. "That was close. We only had three breaths of oxygen to spare for that one."

"Of course. Sure, sure." Kaylen rolled her eyes. "Anyway, we just got out of cryo, don't push yourself."

"Goddamn cryofluid has gone to your brain hasn't it?" Jumar scoffed. "You did worse than a space amateur when the module depressurized."

"Hey, at least I'm alive." She shrugged. "Right, SOCS?"

Jumar and Kaylen looked at each other in silence before breaking off.

"SOCS?" Kaylen asked as she faced the camera. "Report."

No answer.

"Shit, something is wrong." Jumar grabbed Kaylen's arm. "We need to go and check his mainframe."

The two of them rushed towards the connector rooms, zipping past the other damaged modules before swiping a keycard on a hatch access port.

The light turned out red, with a blinking red text saying: Systems Down.

"We need a manual override." Kaylen took the lead as she pulled out a screwdriver from her pocket and unscrewed a panel. "This will take some time, try to contact the others."

"Copy." Jumar nodded as he pressed the button on his transceiver to broadcast across all channels.

[This is dispatch 7. All units be advised, outer module hatches in D6 are shut down. SOCS currently out of service.] He reported.

[This is main control, we are trying to get SOCS back online, there seems to be some interference within his system.]

[This is dispatch 2. There has been a detected malfunction in A3. The carbon scrubbers are on reverse.]

[This is Greenhouse control! We have a situation here! SOCS is offline, primary life support systems are malfunctioning. The secondary A.I modules are unresponsive! We are trying to do a manual override, requesting additional aquatech personnel!]

[This is EXO 5! Another hull breach detected in external module cabins in sector E7! Cannot proceed to repair, unknown threat has been detected, requesting evac of all personnel on E7!]

[This is Dispatch 11 on E7, unable to evac, hatch doors unresponsive to both manual and remote override! Requesting EXO unit assistance on airlock E4!]

[This is EXO unit 15 en route. Standby for spacewalk.]

Loads of messages flowed through the comms on Exodus starship, no one knew why or how it was all happening at once.

All they could do was try and do their best to remedy the situation.

"Something is wrong here… The solar storms should not have affected SOCS' mainframe…" Jumar mumbled as he thought deeper.

SOCS, or what was formally known as Systems Oversight and Control Service, was the main A.I of the Exodus starship that handled actual human interactions. All other A.I.s were simply made to do the primary execution of tasks, while SOCS was made to make interacting with these A.I.s a lot easier.

SOCKS held a lot of significance, especially in archiving data, such was the reason for the A.I to be placed in a special containment ward together with all of the mainframes. SOCS was encased in class 4 suspension and class 9 EMP insulation, there was no way a solar storm could interfere with his systems.

'Unless…' Jumar grit his teeth. 'There has been a mole amongst us…'

There were more than 2,000 passengers aboard the starship, it would have been easy to sneak anyone in and hack SOCS on a remote terminal and place a sleeper virus.

'Impossible…' Jumar shook his head. 'The terminals themselves ae pretty hard to even get close to.'

The terminals were only accessible by Class 6 personnel and above, having only 50 or so personnel on such level, it would have been too obvious on who did it.

"F.u.c.k.i.n.g hell, just what is going on…" Jumar hissed as he punched the panel he was latched on to.

Jumar watched with clenched fists as the aluminum panel crumpled up and slowly swing outwards, the contents of which drifting out into zero gravity while having a slow spin.

Juumar watched as a high pressure coolant cable inside the was loosened after he had punched it, allowing icy blue droplets to start spewing into the air, smashing into a million more tiny droplets as they collided with surfaces.

"Ah, shit." Jumar growled as he quickly took a wrench and quickly fastened the loose cable in place.

"Ahh the smell of flourine…" Kaylen smirked as she worked on manual override, sifting through bundles of wires with amazing proficiency. "I wonder which idiot screwed up this time that its started to smell like toothpaste in here…"

"Shut up." Jumar growled as he wiped his forehead off some coolant that managed to spray on him. "I'm still pissed at how a f.u.c.kin' solar storm could make SOCS shit himself."

"Well, we did get hit by a few debris and had a number of breaches to the external modules." Kaylen shrugged. "I'm almost done here on my end, be sure you're done with yours."

"Seems like the slowpoke is making herself somewhat useful." Jumar smirked as he watched the female mechanic try to stay in place with the velcro on the panels but still fail to grasp a concept of using her free hand to actually hold herself steady.

Kaylen did not respond and concentrated on working on the circuitry with beads of sweat falling down her pale face as she worked with her slender arms to wiggle a screwdriver in a chaotic mess of wires an circuitry.

Jumar marveled at how her ungraceful figure held a womanly appeal that could make many men lose some brain cells for a few moments just to gawk at her perfectly toned body, testament to this was how accentuated her curves were in the baggy green jumpsuit she wore.

Problem was…

"I told you already, I have a girlfriend. F.u.c.k off." Kaylen sneered at Jumar. "Do you want a piece of me that badly? Aww… I might just let you touch if you beg so desperately~"

Jumar cringed. 'I might just get infected with your stupidity.' He thought.

Jumar picked up a floating bottle from the panel he just broke and noticed that one of his gloves was stained with some bright green gunk with some clumpy dark green material scattered around.

'Strange. The coolant is blue. Why is this green stuff here…?' Jumar felt skeptical about the material and activated his IRIS chip implant.

IRIS, formally named as Information Recognition and Interfacing System and was the most commonly implanted cybernetic enhancement among humans. It offered a solid database platform, scanner features, navigation options, personal assistance, a stupid degree of personalization and even transcription functions without having any invasive neural tapping. IRIS did not have the ability to transmit signals to the user's brain since IRIS displayed it in a holographic detail in the user's cornea, this meant that IRIS did not pose the threat of having severe backlashes on remote hacking or virus infection and malware corruption.

IRIS had a feature of appraising materials with the built in scanner. Normally, IRIS would only be able to tap into a graphic scan and try to asses a material with microscopic lenses then try to find a match for material in personal database. If IRIS could then not find any matching information on the personal database, IRIS will interface with a GEN 4 or above databank system to find matches, in this case it would be SOCS or it's information sub-A.I., BULS, formally known as Browsing Uplink Library System.

However, the information that IRIS got was:

[Unknown Lifeform (Now Temporarily Known as creature 0911251)]

[Status: Dead]

[Discovered by: Jumar Ordis, Class 3 Engineering Personnel of Exodus Starship]

[Discovery date (Millenia:Century:Decade:Year:Cycle:Hour): 3:6:4:8:136:16]

[Properties:]

[Silicon Based Lifeform]

[Natural Radiation Affinity]

[Sodium Potassium Biomechanical Life Support System]

[Anaerobic]

[Neural Membrane]

[Extreme Temperature Resistance]

[Low Oxidation Point]

[High Voltage Biocomposition]

[Message from the Research and Development: Congratulations on discovering a new lifeform! The RnD sector would like to cooperate with you on researching this new discovery. Accept Y/N?]

Jumar gawked at the IRIS prompt.

New Lifeform? As in an Alien species, inside the ship's coolant system?!