Ceo

  Command Center

  August 5th, 2133, 16:47 Hours

  “So you're saying the US was here, decades ago?” I asked, the topic of my grandmother a few minutes ago had quickly changed into me inquiring about the US presence on this planet.

  “Affirmative.” GEAR answered.

  “And they didn’t tell the public that a wormhole was in orbit of Saturn, which led to another system with intelligent life on one of the planets?” I asked.

  “Affirmative.”

  “So why’d they leave?” I asked.

  “Firstly this was a space exploration mission that was scheduled to not last any longer than a decade after first arrival at the planet.” GEAR answered.

  “I could see that, but why hasn’t the US come back in larger numbers?” I asked.

  “They did come in larger numbers, specifically they sent a transport ship carrying military personnel supplies about 2 years after the crew of both the Endurance and Indomitable arrived at the planet. Due in part to the two crews having requested it specifically.” GEAR explained.

  “Ok, I can see that. But then did the US military leave?” I asked.

  “They did.”

  “So why did they leave? I can understand why a science and exploration mission carrying a crew of scientists and engineers to leave but why did the military leave?”

  “Due in part to the threats the Hawks posed, along with concerns that the wormhole may not last forever and may eventually close.” GEAR answered.

  “Ok I can see the ladder, but what kind of threat do the Hawks pose?” I asked.

  “From previous encounters with the Hawks, it is advisable not to engage their ship under any circumstances without sufficient teleoperated armor or infantry.” GEAR said, bringing up a report by Lieutenant Hans Gunther entitled ‘Hawk capability and their hostile environmental preferences to humans.’

  “So Gunther was here then.” I said.

  “Captain Hans Gunther is with you here?” GEAR asked.

  “Yes here with us, or someone with his name is.” I answered.

  “Bring him here immediately, James.” GEAR said.

  “Alright, I can directly contact him from here. While you are at it, can you detect radio waves or any type of EM radiation?” I asked.

  “I can detect infrared with the camera system but not radio or microwaves.” GEAR answered.

  “Well that certainly makes sense, you haven’t had contact with anybody lately, we'll scratch that idea then.” I brought out my clipboard, “Would Gunther know what I am talking about if I mention the Command Center?” I asked.

  “If he doesn’t have Alzheimer's.” GEAR said.

  I raised an eyebrow at that, “GEAR, are based on an old military AI program with the you know personality settings?” I asked.

  “I was originally a mechanical robot for the Marines so yes.” GEAR said.

  “I see.” I went back to the clipboard.

  “Lieutenant Hans Gunther, report to the Command Center on the Northern side of the walls.” Orders from CeoofMacNCheese.

  “I sent out the message. It’ll be a couple of hours before Gunther arrives, so before I get distracted with more questions I have about this place, let's repair the communication equipment.” I said, getting up.

  “I would like to inform you that the communication equipment I have here is designed for short range radio communications, not interplanetary distances. The equipment dedicated to that is located at Alpha Base whose status is unknown, the only other way is to get a connection with the satellites in orbit who will then pass the message onto the inter-wormhole satellite.” GEAR said.

  “How long were the communication satellites designed to last?” I asked.

  “No further than the year 2100, including the inter-wormhole satellite.” GEAR said.

  “Great, let's hope one of the satellites were designed with copious amounts of lead around their equipment.” I said.

  “There were probably a couple designed with that though I doubt they would have survived to today.” GEAR said.

  “By the way, what is today's date GEAR?” I asked.

  “According to the internal Atomic clock the date is August 5th, 2153.” GEAR answered.

  “What?”

  “The date is August 5th, 2153.” GEAR repeated.

  “Yeah, I heard you. But you said the year was 2153? So we were sent 20 years into the future?” I asked.

  “You thought the date was 2133?” GEAR asked.

  “Yes, that was the date Pordier at War had shut down their servers, when we got sent here or so I thought.” I said, I was confused and surprised. Has it really been twenty years since Pordier at War? One moment we were in the game and the next here, twenty years in the future.

  GEAR didn’t immediately respond, “Commander, it would be best that we focus on repairing the communication equipment. I do not have the answers you may be seeking, all I know is that you and your people appeared here just a few days ago.” GEAR said.

  “At least answer this question, how long ago were the walls built? You must have seen them being built before we arrived?” I asked.

  “Now that is an interesting question, I sadly cannot answer as well, there have been several billion corrupted files in my system that is around 25% of the currently stored memory alone I am still sorting through and recovering those files, however I will inform you if I come across any security footage that shows the walls being constructed or any unidentified activity.” GEAR said.

  “Thank you, now where is your short ranged transmitter?” I asked.

  A satellite map of the area appeared on my screen, “The Transmitter is located in the center of the complex under a manhole cover, removing it will allow you to raise the transmitter and make any necessary repairs to it.”

  “Where is the repair equipment located?” I asked.

  “The storage closet on the first floor across from the Data center.” GEAR said.

  I nodded, getting up from the chair and out of the office into the hallway, where I saw Lieutenant Bomblitz and Reivax in the security room. “I forgot y’all were here.” I said behind them.

  “Yeah, I heard you, that's one hell of a deep conversation, and the fact the year is actually 2153 is actually not that surprising as it must have taken time to either move, or make our bodies.” Bomblitz said.

  ”Let’s not focus on the date for now, I will be outside working on the transmitter.” I said.

  Bombltiz nodded, “We’ll keep an eye out while you are working.” He said.

  I nodded, and left the door of the security room and headed towards the stairwell, and then downstairs, after another minute of walking, I arrived at the door across from Data Storage, the one labeled Extra Space on the map. Beyond the door was a hallway 10 feet wide with two more doors, the closest one to me currently at the door was labelled Supply Closet.

  I went to the door and after opening it I was met with a neatly organized supply closet, the space to move was limited. But the organization more than made up for it, there were 3 shelves, 5 feet wide and 2 feet deep on each wall to the left and right of the entrance. There were around 4 stories to the shelves or technically five if you count the top of the shelves, with the space between each story being separated by about 2 feet, making the story about ten feet tall.

  The shelves were made out of steel with the supports and the individual shelves being steel, each shelf was labeled with the shelves having a group of items, being tools, power tools, electronics, spare parts, metal 3D printers, and metal 3D printing.

  The tools shelf had tools largely handheld tools, like screwdrivers and hammers, power tools were actually more heavy duty stuff, like saws, chainsaws and drills, electronics were actually two types, literally electronic parts like circuit boards, but it also had consumer electronics like tablets, laptops and chargers. Spare parts were what they say, spare parts with each shelf being broken down into subsections like transmitters or gun spare parts.

  Metal 3D printers had metal 3D printers on the top shelf with each one being quite large, around having 500 mm squared print area. The lower shelves had various types of metal powders, being copper, silicone, aluminum and steel.The 3D Printers had 3D printers on the top shelf, specifically resin 3D printers, the lower shelves had everything one would need for resin 3D printing such as resin, of course.

  I grabbed a laptop from the electronics shelf, opened the lid and pressed the power button. A few moments passed and nothing happened. I held it down for several more seconds and nothing happened again.

  “Not surprising.” I mumbled to myself, closing the top. I decided to keep the laptop with me, it would only need to charge assuming the battery hadn’t exploded yet, though it may need some maintenance. I also grabbed a pre-filled tool box, it would have everything I could need, multimeter, screw drivers, wrenches, a lot of things all I was familiar with. I also grabbed a laptop charger and placed it in the tool box.

  I pulled it up without much difficulty, “Guess all those years in space didn’t transfer over.” I said to myself, it made sense that I wouldn’t have difficulty carrying a tool someone had clearly made with the intention that I would inhabit it.

  I left the supply closet and went back upstairs to Office 1, I placed the laptop on my desk and I then looked for a plug, after a few moments of looking around I found several plugs placed along all the walls, I then plugged in the laptop charger into the wall a green light on the chargers power supply turned on, and I then plugged in the laptop. Opening the top I saw a dim green light next to a small lightning bolt symbol that showed it was charging. Then a few moments later the laptop turned on and started to boot up, it had a similar looking boot up sequence as the computer and then a login screen appeared.

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  It asked for a name and a security code, I inputted my name and then my security code. Soon after logging in, the laptop started its “getting everything ready for you” loading screen and a moment later I was met with a similar looking screen as was present on the computer.

  “GEAR?” I said.

  “Yes Commander?” GEAR answered.

  “Get me the schematics for the transmitter and send it to the laptop that is active here.” I said.

  “You will need to connect to the wifi first before I can send anything to you.” GEAR said.

  I looked at the bottom right of the screen and a no wifi connection symbol showed, I gave a sigh and clicked on the symbol, settings opened and only one wifi network was available. A 8 gigabyte fast connection titled Charlie Base, though it was password locked.

  “GEAR, what is the wifi password?” I asked.

  “There should be a router on the wall to the right of your computer near the ceiling, the password should be written on a piece of paper.” GEAR said.

  Looking at the spot and GEAR was correct the wifi password was written in big letters and was just a randomized code with a letter and number generator. The most basic level of encryption possibly ever, it seemed like the Americans were quite confident that any aliens that did come in here wouldn’t know what they were looking at or what it was for.

  I entered the wifi password, and a moment later GEAR sent a message to my laptop with a notification popping up titled “Short Ranged Transmitter Schematics”. Clicking on the notification a downloadable PDF was the attached file, clicking on it the laptop downloaded and then opened the file. On it was a digitized manual titled the same name, there were several dozen pages in it. I nodded at it, closed the file and allowed the laptop to charge whose estimated charge time was 30 minutes till full for a discharge time of 20 hours. After that I grabbed the toolbox.

  I quickly left the command center and out onto the streets, I looked towards the longest building, the street was devoid of anything, just a flat concrete slab everywhere for the next hundred or so feet. I headed towards the intersection that formed between the buildings. I saw the manhole cover GEAR was talking about, when I was in front of it I placed down my toolbox, crouched down, and began to drag the manhole cover to the side. The Manhole cover revealed a simple square panel with only a handle on it, I pulled on it and the transmitter climbed out of the manhole by a bit. I then began to pull on it some more revealing more of the transmitter which was in a box, after raising to about 4 feet out of the hole the box stopped. There was a handle on the wall titled “Pull down to set up the Transmitter.”

  I pulled on the handle leading to the four foot tall panel. I felt a latch unlock and pulling back removed the wall, revealing a 3 foot wide transmitter-receiver dish. It was in good looking condition, one of the more better looking radios especially when compared to the VSS Jennifer’s radio dish after our first run in with a Martian Warship.

  I looked at the transmitter dish, it looked like it couldn’t be moved around but the fact all the surrounding panel walls could be removed revealed a piece of tape with “NOT MOVABLE!” I gave a slight snicker at that, I looked around some more and I found a simple power switch that was in the off position. Turning on the transmitter had an effect on it, and that was when the dish immediately started scanning across the entire sky, its antenna following a scanning pattern of pretty much 180 degrees scanning. Though after a few minutes of watching the dish do that with nothing to show for it I looked around some more, specifically for a screen. All I found was a built-in type c data connector labeled, “DATA”. I could pull out the cable to about five feet.

  I gave a sigh and headed back inside the building deciding that if anything was going to happen it was to be while I was getting the laptop.

  I arrived at the office, the laptop was where I had left it, and the computer screen was off. I shook the mouse, and logged in. “Hey, GEAR.” I said.

  “Yes Commander?”

  “What is the diagnostic program that the transmitter uses?” I asked.

  “US Space Force and NASA Transmitter dishes use the Analogue-Digital Diagnostic Software.” GEAR said, a notification popped up on the bottom right of the screen.

  It was simply entitled Diagnostic Program, with a file attached.

  I nodded, “Alright good, can you send it to the laptop here?” I opened the laptop, and the screen immediately flicked on.

  “Affirmative.” GEAR said.

  “Thank you.”

  After logging in, a notification appeared on the laptop screen on the bottom right corner, the same message on the computer. I unzipped the diagnostic software download file, the software was downloaded and formatted through the good ol’ wizard. After a quick download process of it asking for permission to be used on either public or private networks and some more formatting. The diagnostic software opened up, the first thing it asked for was to be connected to a transmitter. I looked at the ports the laptop had, and one of them was a c port.

  I unplugged the laptop from its charger as it had 10 hours of battery life now. After that I left back outside with the laptop in hand, I saw that the dish was still scanning the sky. I opened the laptop, the software was still asking to be connected to a transmitter and I grabbed the Type C plug that came from the Transmitter and then plugged it into the laptop.

  This seemed to satisfy the diagnostic software as the popup disappeared and was replaced with several tabs, windows showing waves, and various checks with the words “Signal” and “No-Signal” next to the two systems this thing had.

  It was reporting “Transmitter: No-Signal”, and the “Receiver: Signal”, clicking on the words transmitter or receiver did nothing. Though the tab I was on was titled “General Report” the two windows that were there were titled “Transmission Frequency” and “Receiver Frequency” The Receiver had very little changes in the wave function it had, but the Transmitter had nothing, literally nothing happening with it. Even as the dish was doing its rain dance of scanning the sky.

  The tab I was on was the highest out of all of them which were all labeled, “General Report”, “System”, “Transmitter”, and “Receiver”. Clicking System gave me a basic overview of the entire transmitter's schematics, there was the identifiable dish with the antenna in the center, then the internal electronics.

  Scrolling down revealed a long list of systems and subsystems, all reporting various things such as temperature, clockspeeds, frequency, voltage, amperage, watts. I then began to look for a titled Transmitter and there I found it, a group titled Antenna in a group, dropping it down revealed 64 more items 32 of which being the Transmitter, and another 32 being the Receiver. Everything for the receiver was reporting normally, but the transmitter was another story. The system was getting temperature, but wasn’t receiving anything else.

  Scrolling back to the schematic, looking at the antenna I moved down to the level with the receiver circuit and transmitter circuit, which were located in the middle, I got up and saw the dish was still scanning, not realizing its transmitter was not working. I powered off the entire setup, the dish stopped moving, after that I looked around the middle of the structure that held the antenna, there I found several star screws holding in place a panel. I grabbed the corresponding screwdriver and after removing the panel I was met with two simple circuit boards, which upon closer inspection were really 32 separate circuits for each board. The receiver had 32 circuits as did the transmitter circuit. I saw that the transmitter was connected with only one plug which was universally providing both power and data connection or should’ve been. I unplugged the transmitter and then plugged it back in, then I powered back on the entire system a moment later it continued doing the scanning motion. I looked at the transmitter and receiver circuits, a light for each board.

  I went back to the laptop and scrolled back down to the transmitter data, which was sending. It was receiving more than temperature, voltage, amperage, watts. Yet it was still scanning, I went back to the General Report tab and there the transmitter was sending out a short radio burst every second. The receiver was still picking up cosmic microwave background noise and nothing else. I moved to the Receiver tab, there I saw 32 windows showing a waveform function, there were only small changes on each of the windows, all nearly identical. I moved to the transmitter tab and I was shown 32 windows each one blaring out loud along the 32 frequencies each window represented. The receiver hadn’t picked anything up yet, after that I decided that I had spent enough time here. I closed the transmitter and receiver boards back into the body of the entire radio, screwed it back down and unplugged my laptop.

  “Thank god I didn’t need to use anything more than a screwdriver.” I mumbled to myself , “But that also means we don’t have satellite communications.” I grabbed the toolbox and headed inside, I dropped off the toolbox at the supply closet and got back to the office.

  “GEAR.” I said.

  “Commander?” GEAR responded.

  “The Short Ranged Transmitter is working, but the communication satellites are out. Do you have maps of this world?” I asked.

  “I do, though it is only geographical and likely very outdated politically. The cities that are marked on this map are likely gone by now.” GEAR said, a map was emailed to me. Opening the file I saw a very localized area, covering 500 by 400 miles. Several dozen cities were marked on the map with notably german names with 3 main mountain ranges being the “Western Mountains”, the “Eastern Mountains”, and a much longer and bigger mountain range simply titled “The Wall”.

  I nodded, “Alright, where are we on the map?” I asked.

  “We are currently located in Charlie base. We should be next to the river in between the Western Mountains and the Wall.” GEAR answered.

  After a few moments looking I found Charlie base. There was a town about 20 miles west of our current location across the river simply entitled “Neu Achden”.

  “There are a lot of German town names here, why is that?” I asked GEAR.

  “The files on that are likely a part of the corrupted files.” GEAR said.

  “So the Hawks aren’t corrupted but your information on a place with german are?”

  “Affirmative.”

  I gave a sigh, “Alright, so where is Alpha base and Beta base?” I asked.

  “Alpha base is located in the Western Mountains while Beta Base is located in The Wall range.” GEAR answered.

  “Alright.” I gave a sigh, ‘Alpha base was over 300 miles away. Beta base was much closer, about 150 miles away.’ I thought.

  “What is at Beta Base GEAR?” I asked.

  “Not interplanetary capable communication equipment, that is what I know for sure.” GEAR said.

  “I’m guessing information on that was corrupted as well?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I gave a sigh, “Is it possible for us to get into contact with Beta Base by bouncing them off the Ionosphere?” I asked.

  “Yes, in fact that is standard communication protocol.” GEAR said.

  “So y’all already figured everything out how to make the radio waves bounce off the ionosphere.” I said.

  “For atmospheric conditions 70 years ago.” GEAR said.

  “Still better than starting from scratch.” I said.

  “Can you get started on that?” I asked.

  “Affirmative, it shouldn’t take too long.” GEAR said, a few moments where nothing had happened passed, “I’ve sent a pinged to Beta base, we should be getting a response pretty soon.” GEAR said.

  “Can you show me what you are looking at?” I asked.

  A moment later a screen share appeared showing the software I used earlier to diagnose the transmitter. The transmitter looked like it had just transmitted a short message and the receiver was just picking up background interference when suddenly the waveform it showed shot up in a brief moment of activity.

  “Can you translate it to sound?” I asked.

  Suddenly the most horrid ear screeching beeping and tones started blaring over the speakers, like you were pushing the buttons on a landline really, really fast. It stopped.

  “Is that how the ping sounds?” I asked, I felt like my ears were bleeding.

  “I put the sound into the hearing range for humans, it should’ve sounded like this. *BEEP*, *BEEP*. Two quick beeps.”

  “Well it sounded like you were calling someone really, really, fast on a landline. But the number is 100 numbers long and has to be done within a short amount of time. So you are just spamming all the numbers.” I said.

  “Like I was calling the internet?” GEAR asked.

  “Honestly it sounded more like that.” I gave a sigh.

  “Can you hear this Commander?” GEAR asked, suddenly the most ear piercing note that 50 octaves above the highest flute note played.

  “Dear lord, stop it! It's hurting my ears!” I said holding down flat my cat ears in a vain attempt to get the sound out of my ears but I could feel it in my soul.

  The piercing beep stopped, “Interesting, humans normally can’t hear that high of a sound, which was up to 30 kHz or nearly the equivalent to an A10 note.” GEAR said.

  “Ok, I have cat-like hearing. But why do the speakers have that big of a range of sound?” I asked.

  “I am not sure, but going through Commander Maldonados’ old log files it seemed to have been used as a defence against a local creature. She had designed the speakers to be able to emit a sound up to 100 kHz, mainly to deafen the thing I’ve kept them around since.” GEAR answered.

  “Ok.” Was my only response. “Back to the radio, have you sent more than an automated ping to Beta Base?” I asked.

  “That is not advisable Commander.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I have successfully gotten into the security system of Beta Base but it looks like someone has made the base their home.” GEAR said.

  “Show me.”