Even though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.

The Space Port was quieter than normal today. Except for critical personnel, the full compliment had gathered into a large assembly chamber on the top deck, and on this deck Angie and her crew stood at attention near a podium while General Wilson marched in. Marty had a cane to steady his sore leg and Jean-Michel was in a wheel chair, but the rest stood proudly.

“Before we start,” General Wilson said. “We will have a period of silence for Brad Wilson and his crew: Yergi Karchenkov and Jeremy Anston, who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of our planet.”

Marty swallowed hard. Angie gave him a consoling glance, but it did little to assuage the terrible hurt in his soul. He had known Brad for a long time, both in the military and during his stint in NASA. If proof were needed that Earth was in a war, this was it.

“And, now,” Wilson said. “It is my distinct pleasure to award the crew of the X-3002 Distinguished Service Crosses for their action in diverting the alien weapon. Everyone on the planet Earth owes them their very life.”

The General also gave Marty and Jean-Michel purple hearts. A lot of French people took pride in the selfless sacrifice of their countryman. In fact, many different peoples on Earth had something to be proud of. This was truly an international crew, and they had saved Earth from certain destruction. Again.

Everyone clapped and cheered. Brian Scott came forward to shake Marty’s hand. “Heroes, one and all.” He grinned as he shook Angie’s hand and the hands of several other crewmembers.

“You’ll have something to tell your grandchildren,” Brian said, still grinning.

I’ll have to find them first, Marty thought.

“I see that they’ve given you the X-3001,” Marty said. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I just hope that I can live up to your high standards.”

Marty gave him a sheepish smile. “Oh, we were just doing what we had to under the circumstances.”

“Don’t give me that. I don’t know if I would have taken that alien weapon into my hangar like you did. It was a very reckless move, but it worked, thank goodness.”

Marty shrugged while he continued to smile.

“Well, I’ve got to go,” Brian said. “We’re going out on the twenty-fourth.”

Marty shook hands with him. “Good luck.”

“I’ll need it,” he said before he saluted and strutted off.

###

Angie was uncertain as to where the Medical facilities were located on the Space Port. She knew that they were on Deck 5, but she had never ventured there before now. When she entered the main door, a nurse’s aide greeted her.

“I’m looking for Martin Sinclair.”

The nurse’s aide smiled and pointed. “He’s down the corridor three doors on the left.”

When she turned the corner into the treatment station, she found Marty sitting on a bench near a water bath with nothing more than a towel around his middle. The smile on her face elicited a bigger smile on his face.

“You’re out of uniform, Lieutenant Commander.”

He laughed. “Is that my new rank now?”

“Actually, you could have made Commander and took control of your own ship, but I need you.”

He laughed. “I thank you, Commander. I have no desire to take command of a ship. I’m very good at being a pilot and shooting stuff, but I’m no good at telling people what to do.”

She tilted her head. “Are you losing weight?”

He frowned. “No, why do you ask?”

“You look thinner to me.” She gestured. “Stand up.”

He gave her a subtle frown before doing as she commanded. She came forward and placed her hand on his abdomen so that she could test its firmness.

“You are thinner, or at least more solid.”

“Oh, I’ve been working out. Onuki ordered Jean-Michel and me to build up muscle strength. She says that it helps our joints.”

“Oh.” She stared at him for a few minutes before grabbing the towel’s top edge and giving it a tug. “Keep it up and you’ll need new clothing.”

“That could be a good thing.”

She tugged harder on the towel, causing him to tighten his grip. She looked into his eyes and hardened her jaw. “Do you like me?”

Marty was taken aback by her directness. “Of course I do. We’ve been together for quite some time and  . . ..”

“I don’t mean that. Do you really like me?”

“Yeah, but there’s the UCC in the way.”

“We’re not in the military anymore. There are no rules.”

Marty grinned. “In that case, Commander, I love you, but don’t let anyone hear that, or they’ll think I’m asking for special favors.”

She grinned. “You are the most difficult man I’ve ever known, but I’ll hold you to that.”

A noise interrupted them. They both turned to watch Onuki enter the room.

Onuki’s face exploded with embarrassment. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Angie smiled. “You didn’t. I was just visiting to see how Martin is doing.”

Onuki smiled at her. “He’s doing fine.” She gave him a mock frown. “But, if he doesn’t keep up his treatments, he’ll not be fit for duty.”

“Hey, I was just waiting for the bath to heat up.”

“It is up to proper temperature. Now, give me your towel and get into it, please.”

He reluctantly unwrapped the towel and handed it to Onuki, and then gave Angie a sheepish grin before getting into the bath. Angie shot a teasing grin back at him before sashaying off.

###

Marty was curious. His encounter with the flat-aliens had been both interesting and disturbing, and he couldn’t wait to see how Ferris was doing with the pupa she had captured on the alien planet. He had heard that the metamorphosis had taken place to produce a baby alien. When he entered the Science Station, he discovered that Ferris had progressed much further than he had imagined.

“Holy sh . . . It grew.”

“Yes she did. Even I am surprised. She’s already four feet high and well developed.”

“Hello, Martin.” The alien pronounced the words with surprising clarity.

“Hello.” He turned to Ferris. “You referred to it as a female.”

“I was wrong about these aliens. They do have sexes, but it’s very difficult to distinguish them. Most of the aliens are female, and that’s their real problem.”

The alien smiled, a gesture that he had not seen on the planet.

“She seems happy,” Marty said. “I like the outfit you’ve made for her.”

“Yes, it’s like a cloak. Most of these aliens grow to five feet or so. The cloak seemed to be the best approach for her shape.”

“She is learning fast,” Marty said.

“Yes. These aliens are very intelligent. I believe that she will do great things living with us.”

Marty offered a smile. “Well, I hope so. We could use another brain on these missions Do you think that Space Command will permit it?”

“Why not? They have no idea what she is or what she can do. Since she doesn’t represent a threat, they’ll look the other way.”

“I guess we’re all treading on new ground these days. Someday, there will be protocols in place for all of this, but for now, we have to make it up as we go.”

“You are correct,” she said. “This is a dream that I thought would never come.”

Marty smiled at her, but inside he was frowning. He prayed that her dream didn't become a nightmare.

###

George took a seat next to Marty and Jean-Michel at the bar. There was a rhythmic pulsing drum sound emitting from hidden speakers, a prelude to a techno jazz masterpiece. Just as the cymbal sound began, the bartender appeared in order to solicit his order.

"A draft," George said, holding his RF card up so that a debit could be made. "How are you two doing?"

Marty smiled. "I'm fine. Jean-Michel here still has some pain, but he's ready."

"Speaking of ready: when are we going out again?"

"Next week, I think," Marty said. "At least that's what I've been told."

"They didn't happen to say where we're going, did they?"

Just then Karl walked up. "It's 51 Pegasi."

The three men turned to look at him.

"Why?" Marty asked.

"It's just another yellow-white dwarf star with the age and metallicity to have habitable planets," Karl said, taking a seat next to George.

"Hopefully, we won't run into the Roswell aliens," George said.

"Hopefully, these Roswell aliens don't reproduce as easily as the flat-aliens," Marty said.

"Speaking of flat-aliens," George said. "How is Ferris doing with the pupa?"

"She's almost fully grown," Marty said.

"She?" George said. "I thought that these aliens were asexual."

"Ferris changed her mind after she checked over her scans of the injured aliens and the one she nursed from a pupa."

“Is she taking it along on the next mission?” George asked.

“Why not,” Marty quipped. “The more the merrier.” He laughed. “If we keep it up, we’ll be not only an international crew, we’ll be a universal crew.”

“Do you get the notion that we humans are not the only smart asses in the universe?” George said.

“It blows my mind that we’ve found this many intelligent species as easily as we have,” Marty said. “The whole galaxy must be lousy with life.”

“I’m not so sure,” Karl said. “There are a lot of main sequence yellow-white dwarf stars, but not all of them have the proper age, stability, and metal to hydrogen ratio to form Earth-like planets. We’ve been lucky because we’ve gone to the right stars.”

“That’s why we need you two,” Marty said. “Angie and I would just go to any old star.”

“That’s one thing that NASA has done correctly,” George said. “They’ve created crews with scientist that know what to look for.”

Marty grinned. “Yeah, I know. Angie and I are in because we can shoot aliens better than anyone.”

They laughed.

###

“We have entered normal space, Angie.”

“Bring us down to 2000 kps, Delphi. Hold present course.”

“Yes, Angie.”

“Maintain high alert status, people,” Angie said as the forward engines fired.

Marty was the first to report. “I’m not picking up any alien energy signals . . . yet.”

After several minutes of silence, Marty turned to George. “You’re unusually quiet, George. What’s cooking out there?”

“This is a very unusual system,” George said. “There are no inner planets. I see five gas giants and one of them is very close to the star.”

“Yes,” Karl said. “It can’t be any more than .05 AU. It has to be hotter than hell.”

“That planet is 0.46 the mass of Jupiter but it’s 1.3 times larger,” George said. “I’m reading a temperature of 1300 K on the surface pointed toward the star. There’s a faint comet tail on the side opposite the sun and the planet has a blue appearance.”

“That’s vaporized nickel,” Anna said. “I’m not picking up much in the way of hydrogen in the planet’s spectrum.”

“There’s another gas giant the size of Saturn about 1.6 AU out,” George said. “It’s much cooler.”

“That one has hydrogen and methane as well as ammonia,” Anne said.

“The star is 1.06 times the mass of Sol,” Karl said. “The radius and luminosity are 1.3 times. Temperature is 5665 K and the metallicity is 160 percent of Sol.”

“If that’s true,” Marty said. “Then, where did the inner rocky planets go?”

“That’s a good question,” George said. “Maybe they got blown out when the gas giants moved in toward the star.”

“Or maybe, they got captured by the gas giants,” Marty said.

“I doubt it,” George said. “Large bodies usually get broken up when they get near a gas giant.”

“This star is older than Sol,” Karl said. “Perhaps it’s near eight billion years. I’m seeing lower hydrogen in the spectra. Yellow-white dwarfs near this age are usually unstable and shoot energetic flares.”

“That’s just great,” Marty said. “There are no inner planets, the star is unstable and we’re not seeing any evidence of life. This is a wasted trip.”

“Are you picking up any signals?’ Angie asked Lia and Brigit.

“No,” Lia said. “All we’re seeing is the usual background noise.”

“I’m beginning to make out moons,” George said. “The second gas giant has a particularly large moon. It shows a water peak and it’s in the habitable temperature range.”

“Adjust our course to orbit the large moon around the second planet, Delphi.”

“Yes, Angie.”

Angie stood up. “I’m going to take a nap so I can do the second watch. You have command.”

Marty saluted. “Yes, Captain.” He watched Angie walk off before he turned to Ferris. “How is your star pupil doing?”

“She’s doing fine,” She patted the alien’s head. “Aren’t you, Honey?”

“I am fine,” the alien said. “I have detected the chlorophyll-a peak in the spectra of the moon.”

“That means that it contains life,” Uma said. “This mission is not a waste after all.”

“She has good eyesight,” Anne said. “I can’t pick it out as yet, but I believe she has.”

“That’s amazing,” Marty said. He looked around at the crew. “I wonder who Angie is going to do the late shift with.”

“Honey has volunteered,” Ferris said.

“She’s been up for quite awhile,” Marty said. “She’ll get tired.”

“She doesn’t need to sleep.”

“That’s ridiculous. Everything needs to dream and the only way to do that is to sleep.”

“Everything you know about does. These aliens have a different brain structure and chemistry. The species that they evolved from didn’t need to dream.”

Marty rubbed his jaw. “I can’t even imagine what it would be like not to dream.”

“We would use our brains more completely,” George said. “We would more than likely have no problems remembering things.”

“You’re right,” Ferris said. “Honey is teaching Jean-Michel things about antimatter and the Viktor Woronowycz’s theories on singularities.”

George smiled. “Anyone who can understand Viktor Woronowycz has got to be smart.”

Marty laughed. “Amen to that.”

###

The late shift is both boring and mind numbing. Needing conversation to stay awake, Angie glanced over at Honey who was absorbed in looking through George’s telescope eyepiece. “See anything good in there, Honey?”

“I see a pretty blue planet, but it has a flaw.”

“A flaw?”

“Yes. There is a smudge on the surface. It could be a structure.”

“If you can see it from out this far, it would have to be quite large.”

“Yes. I would estimate it at a hundred square kilometers.”

Angie swallowed hard before asking the next question. “Do you ever wonder what it is like on your home planet?”

“I have viewed the recordings that Lia made on my planet. I understand the problems that my species faces, but I am only one. I cannot deal with such an immense problem. I prefer to live with you.”

“You’re welcome to live with us, Honey. I just hope that Space Command permits it. I can tell you this. I will do whatever I can to see that they do.”

“I am grateful.” She paused before saying anything. “I am curious about this Delphi. Is it an artificial intelligence?”

“Yes. I suppose you could call it that. Most of us think of it as a very sophisticated computer.”

“You address it as if it is an individual life form. Do you think of it in that manner?”

“Yes I do. Without Delphi, these deep space missions would be impossible.”

"I have studied the complete set of engineering drawings and manuals for this vessel. The computer, as you call it, employs cascaded nanocircuits in arrays designed to emulate neurons. I believe that this arrayed structure allows the computer to learn and grow."

"I'm sure it does, Honey, but I'm not an engineer. I don't know how it works. I just know it does."

Honey smiled, but made no attempt to brag about her superior intelligence.

###

Despite being a moon, the large object orbiting the second planet eerily resembled Earth. The impossible existence of this moon that would be a planet indicated that this system was unusual. How ‘unusual’ was yet to be determined.

"Check this out," George said, pointing to an object emerging from the terminator.

Marty stood up "What in the hell?"

"That's the object that Honey found," George said. "We're close enough to make out details."

"It's a huge city," Angie said. "There must be hundreds of thousands of buildings and other structures."

"There has to be intelligent life here," Uma said.

"No kidding," Marty said. "I wonder why we're not picking up any signals."

"So far, nothing," Brigit said.

"What if they're not using RF?" Marty said.

"What else would they use?" Lia said, sounding defensive.

"How about light?"

"We would see it."

"Not if it in a wavelength we can't see."

"Let's try a swept pulse of x-rays," Brigit said to Lia. "If they're using light below ultraviolet, the pulses should be deflected."

"Do it," Lia said. After several key presses, the communication screen showed a large array of beams crisscrossing throughout the city. "There it is. You should go into communications, Martin."

He laughed.

"We should be able to read the deflections," Lia told Brigit.

"Yes. We may be able to detect modulations."

Marty pointed. "Isn't that a wall running around the periphery of the city?"

"Sure looks like it," George said. "That may be an enclave. I don't see any structures outside of the city."

"We have achieved orbit, Angie."

"Maintain stealth mode, Delphi."

"Yes, Angie."

"Are we going to launch probes?" Ferris asked her.

"You may launch atmospheric and oceanic probes, but keep them away from the city."

"Yes, ma'am."

The probes were launched with little fanfare. The planetary investigative routine was becoming routine.

"I wonder why they live in a walled city," Marty said.

"Maybe there are bad things outside the walls," George said in a facetious manner.

Marty gave him a facetious smile. "I'm not detecting any unusual activity. They must not see us."

"I'm showing only fifteen percent oxygen," Anne said. "There's almost no carbon dioxide."

"If that is true, how come there's all that lush vegetation?" Uma asked. "The forests are extensive."

"That's a good question," Ferris said. "I'm not detecting any sea life at all. That's very odd."

"What about radiation?" Angie said. "Maybe the life that was here has been destroyed."

"Radiation levels are low," Anne said. "I'm not detecting any hydrocarbons or ozone."

"This planet has a strong magnetic field," George said. "It's three times that of Earth. That would protect them."

"Is anyone home down there?" Marty asked.

"There is activity, but I don't see people, just objects moving about."

"Maybe they're robots," Uma said.

"That's not so crazy as it sounds," Marty said. "The big question is: who made them?"

"You're jumping to conclusions," Angie said. "We don't really know what's down there."

"What ever they are, this is what they look like," Lia said before she switched her communications screen to the main screen.

Marty was the first to react. "Wow! They look human."

"What exactly are we looking at here?" Ferris asked.

"This is from one of the laser beams crossing the city," Brigit said.

"They do look human," Ferris said. "However, there are some differences. The necks are longer and the eyes are less recessed, which implies a different skull."

"How could they look so human?" Marty asked. "As you pointed out, George, they evolved on an alien planet."

"That's a good question."

"Any sound with that?" Angie asked.

"None yet," Brigit said.

"I don't like the way that they're moving their heads around," Marty said. "They look artificial."

"The sandstone used in the city is approximately five thousand years old," Uma said. "It is not consistent with the rocks outside the city, which are mostly limestone and basalt."

"Where did they get the sandstone then?" Marty asked.

"I don't know."

"I'm getting a bad feeling in my gut about this," Marty said.

Angie stared at him for a moment. "You think it's a trap, don't you?"

He just shook his head up and down.

"Are the probes back?" she asked Ferris.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Take us out of orbit, Delphi. Take us back the way we came."

"Yes, Angie."

The main screen image of the planet shrank.

"I have an object on intercept," Marty said. "It came from the planet."

"Accelerate to full velocity, Delphi. Full power to the engines. Maximum power to the aft shields."

"Yes, Angie."

The command deck reverberated with the scream of four plasma engines.

"I think this is another antimatter bomb," Marty said. "It has a magnetic field."

"Please arm the Nova device in aft tube one, Delphi."

"Nova device is armed, Angie."

"Prepare to fire it at the object on my command, Delphi."

"Yes, Angie."

"What's our separation?" she asked Marty.

"We're about nine hundred thousand kilometers."

"Please fire the Nova device, Delphi."

"Yes, Angie."

The whoosh of the weapon's departure had an ominous ring.

"Brace for impact," Angie said.

After a suspenseful five minutes, a blinding flash killed the main screen. That was followed by a loud sand blasting sound. Then the high energy particle wave front struck the ship like a nuclear blast, causing the power to go out. The command deck was plunged into darkness and zero gravity. Fortunately, the Antigrav system lasted just long enough to prevent the crew from being flung into the walls and reduced to pathetic blobs of protoplasm.

"I can't get anything back on line," Angie cried. "We're completely dead."

"We had better get some power back," Marty said. "We can't survive without environmental."

"I have no idea how to get anything back on line. We've never had a total system failure."

"I know how," Honey said.

Angie illuminated her with a lamp. "Is there a way to do a manual reboot?"

"Yes. It is possible."

"Do it."

Honey floated over to a section of the command station that had no controls. She pulled a clamp loose underneath the console and removed the panel that it secured, revealing a never before seen series of buttons and switches. She flicked several switches, but nothing happened.

"The main relay is out," she said.

"Do you know where it is?" Angie asked her.

"Yes. There is a panel in the back."

"Go help her, George."

"Yes, ma'am." He drifted along behind Honey to the back wall of the command deck.

Honey pointed to a panel. "The relays for this deck are in there."

George removed the panel and played his lamp on the circuitry. Honey threw several levers and the emergency lights came on, causing cries of relief. She threw a few more levers and the main lights came on along with several view screens.

When Honey floated back to the manual control panel, she went to work in an attempt to get some main systems back.

"I can't get Delphi back," Angie said.

"That may be impossible," Honey said. "The higher processing circuits are not responding because the nanotube interface has been damaged and, according to the manifest, there is no spare."

"That's not good," Marty said. "Without Delphi, we can't get home."

"I can do the jumps manually," Honey said.

"Are you sure?" Angie asked. "The computer does many complex calculations in order to do a jump."

"I can do them."

Angie glanced at Marty, who shrugged. "Well, the first order of business is to get Antigrav on line."

"It will activate in five minutes," Honey said.

"Prepare yourselves, people," Angie said. "We'll soon have gravity."

Honey went back to the manual control panel. "Environmental controls are on, and I am generating antimatter for the first jump."

The Antigrav kicked in, allowing everyone to more easily get back to their stations.

"How will you find Earth's star in all of these millions of stars," Karl asked Honey.

"I memorized all of the star charts. I know which one is Earth's star."

Karl turned to George. "I'm sure that you realize how astounding that is."

"What amazes me is how she knows all about the ship,” Angie said. “I think it ironic that an alien knows more about it than any of us."

"I just hope that Space Command doesn't take her away to study her brain," Marty said.

"They'll do it over my dead body," Ferris said, her eyes indicating the fire in her heart.

Several others expressed support for that sentiment.

"You have nothing to fear," Marty said. "Angie and I will tell them that we won't go out again without her. She will become the ship's engineer and we'll call her Scotty."

That earned him relieved laughter.

Honey went to George's astronomical station. "I will require your help, Mr. Taylor. I will show you Earth's star. I will need you to center it in the main telescope when I tweak the ship's orientation."

"I am at your service," George said.

After Honey aligned the ship, she fired the engines to accelerate to jump velocity. "We will do the first jump in five minutes."

Marty turned to Angie. "I feel lost without Delphi."

"Yes, but we owe Ferris our lives. If she hadn't snagged the pupa, we would have had no chance of getting home."

The jump went much like the previous ones. When the ship entered normal space, Honey and George went to work again.

"How long until the second jump?" Marty asked them.

"It will require several hours," Honey said.

Marty stood up. "I'm going to snoop around in the storage compartments. Maybe the manifest is wrong."

The storage compartments were on the engineering deck. Marty had no idea where to look, but he found a cabinet labeled: Decentralized Electronic Logical Personalized Heuristic Intelligence. He opened it and rummaged through the multitude of cases inside. He found a foot square wooden case that was labeled: Heuristic Interface.

Back up on the command deck, Marty showed the case to Honey. "Is this what you need to get Delphi up?"

She opened it. "Yes. Where did you find this?"

"In a storage compartment on the equipment deck."

"I was in error in assuming that the ship's manifest was correct."

"You know what Benny Hill said about assume: It makes an ass out of you and me."

Honey smiled. "This Mr. Hill is wise."

Everybody laughed.

Honey gestured to George. “Come with me, Mr. Taylor. We will install this.”

She took him and the interface device to the innards of the ship where the main processor for Delphi was located. The chamber required command permission, so they had to call Angie down to go through an elaborate series of security protocols, including retinal scan, fingerprint recognition and passwords. The chamber contained a large round metallic sphere suspended by a force field. Inside the sphere was a beehive of strange looking circuits. It reminded Angie of a large human brain. Honey removed the damaged interface and installed the new one as if she had done it a thousand times.

Back on the command deck, Angie began the reboot of the computer.

The computer lamp flashed. “Decentralized Electronic Logical Personalized Heuristic Intelligence is now on line.”

Everybody cheered.