Part 39: Half Crazy All For the Love of You

Chapter 33: Half Crazy All For the Love of You

"Thank you for taking me this far," Hugh said, "but I'm not sure my skills are up to the task before us. If you're going to shut down Mother Brain, I think you might be better served by taking Kain along. He seems to be the one with a talent for breaking things."

Shir nodded. "I think I should sit out the rest of your mission too. Let's face it: we both know that even with my techniques, I'm not a fighter at heart."

"What are you saying, Shir?" I said. "Didn't we just promise to stay together?"

"You know I care about you, Rolf, and that's why I want to give us both the best chance of survival. We nearly ran out of Star Mist when we were fighting that demon; you're better off relying on Amy's medical skills. I can trust you with her for just a little while, can't I?" She winked. "Or are you worried that your feelings for me won't last if I'm away?"

I shook my head in disbelief and laughed. "Shir, you always know the right thing to say to get me to do exactly what you want. Fine, I'll take you back home. But you'd better not run off again."



With Shir by my side, the flight back to Mota felt like it took only minutes.



In Paseo, evidence of Mother Brain's work was all around me. Electricity, running water, all of life's necessities and luxuries: these were all provided by her systems. Even the food we ate depended on rain produced by Climatrol, fertiliser produced at chemical plants and crops that were once designed at the Biosystems lab. By shutting down Mother Brain forever, I was dooming Mota to turn back into a desert. Even if I was doing the right thing, I could hardly expect anyone to thank me for it.

I returned home, where Rudo, Kain and Amy were waiting for me. Kain was lying on the couch, but the absence of empty bottles around him was a positive sign.

"I'm back. Get your weapons and armour: as soon as you're ready, I'll need all of you to fight alongside me."

Rudo acknowledged my return with a nod. "I'm glad to see you all made it back. I'll get my gun."

Kain yawned, stretched and sat up. "Back already? I was jist startin' ta git comfortable."

"Oh, don't listen to him," Amy said. "We're all relieved to see you back in one piece. Where did you go this time?"

"We went into space and fought a demon. I'll tell you all about it on our way to Dezo."



"I'll be waiting for you here," Shir said. "So no matter what happens, you have to come back alive, okay?"

"Don't worry about me. If I've survived you, I can survive anything."




We were armed to the teeth and ready for anything. Even a demon couldn't stop me; Mother Brain should be no problem.



"So that's all I know," I explained. "The birthplace of Mother Brain has been taken over by monsters, led by a demon."

Amy had been listening intently, her eyes growing increasingly wide with surprise as I related the story. "It's no wonder Mother Brain was malfunctioning," she said.

"And you killed it. You killed a demon in a chest on board a spaceship. If I hadn't seen those evil spirits with my own eyes..." Rudo sighed. "We're living in strange times."

"That's fer sure," Kain said. "I got me a grand ol' history o' wreckin' machines, but to be goin' to bust up Mother Brain herself... well, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd do a thing like that."



Our ship touched down on Dezo, and we returned to the Esper mansion. Barring another demon standing in our way, this really would be our final trip to Dezo. We were going to shut down Mother Brain.



"Lutz, I am ready. Send us back to meet Mother Brain."



"Wow," Amy said, looking out a porthole. "This place gives me the creeps. It's like being in Gaila all over again."

"Maybe so," I said, "but this time we're armed. This time, Mother Brain will be at our mercy. And we'll show her as much mercy as she showed us."



I retraced my steps through the spaceship and continued deeper in, past where the chest had been. Just a little further on, a walkway extended through the middle of a thicket of wires and processors. We were entering the core of Mother Brain.



At the end of the walkway was an enormous titanium panel, blocking all further progress. Set into the panel was the face of Mother Brain.

As we approached, the machinery all around us surged to life, glowing with blue light as energy coursed through it.




Beams of light shot from the eyes on the panel, and a holographic projection of Mother Brain flashed into existence before me.

I drew my sword.

"Mother Brain," I said, "your actions are destroying Algo. Shut yourself down now, or I'll have to use force."




Mother Brain knew exactly what she was doing. Not only was she deliberately destroying Algo, she was still trying to blame me for her crimes. I stood in place, shaking with rage, as I faced the monster that I had spent my entire life serving.




Mother Brain had mistaken my anger for indecision. Underestimating me was a fatal mistake, even for a being of her power.

"You dare to taunt me, you travesty of a mother? I stand inside your cold steel heart with sword in hand, and you think that a few words will make me turn back? I know what I am doing, and I know what you are doing. You, murderer of my parents, destroyer of Palm, despoiler of Algo, you believe that there is anything you could do to make me spare you? I will break your death grip on Algo, and I will break you!"

Mother Brain stood impassively, her smug grin still fixed on her face.

"Do you hear me, machine?" I screamed. "I will break you! / Backup"



The image of Mother Brain shone iridescently in a thousand different colours. It was a beautiful, deadly illusion, just like everything else she had created.



A barrage of laser beams fired from the panel behind the hologram. My armour protected me from the full force of the beams, but wherever they hit it became red-hot, burning my flesh.



I charged through the image and swung my Neisword at the panel, but it glanced off, leaving only a slight scar on Mother Brain's metallic face.



Rudo tried a different tactic, firing his Neishot into the machinery to his left. Several components were blown to pieces and others were fused together by the heat of the explosion, creating short circuits that sent blue-white sparks dancing across the wires.



Amy applied a technique to strengthen our defences. She raced to finish it before Mother Brain attacked again, blasting us with another cannonade of glowing death. Amy raised her arm a moment too late to cover her face, and was left doubled over, moaning in pain, the flesh on her face and neck burned in blistering, peeling stripes of red, white and black.

Inside my head, a planet exploded.



Mother Brain, you have made me into the instrument of your death. Nobody, be they man, woman, monster or machine, hurts my allies and gets away with it.

Now, feel my wrath.



Reality felt the force of my will and stood aside. All was fire and thunder and pain in this hell of twisted metal that melted and sparked above and below and around as screaming I tore the stars from the sky and brought them down upon the head of Mother Brain.

I stepped back and drew breath, stunned by the uncontrolled release of my own power. All around me I saw ruined machinery, devastated by my assault. Mother Brain's image was still present, but wavered and flickered wildly. My own allies had not been spared, either: all had fresh burns and wounds. The power I had just unleashed could barely be called a technique. It was a raw expression of my need to destroy my enemy.



Just as the image of Mother Brain was beginning to stabilise, Kain completed a technique of his own. One of the few remaining operational processors self-destructed with a shower of sparks and a cloud of smoke, and the hologram grew fainter and more indistinct than ever.



Mother Brain's lasers were trained on Amy, ready to deliver a deathblow. But before they could strike, she finally released a Nasar technique, instantly healing her burns without leaving so much as a scar. Though she herself was the one in greatest need of healing, the rest of us were glad to be relieved of the burden of our wounds.



Amy followed up her defence with a counterattack, holding up the Storm Gear and using its telekinetic power to send loose wires and pieces of circuitry flying around the room, colliding with each other and further damaging Mother Brain's systems.



Mother Brain opened fire on us, and I felt the rage building within me again. This time, I was prepared for it.

"Amy!" I shouted. "Get ready to heal us!"



When I tore the world apart again, Amy was ready to put us back together.

The room looked like a bomb site. Lines of static now streaked across Mother Brain's hologram, and its movements were jerky and erratic. It was hard to believe any of the computers here were operational at all. Even the solid titanium panel projecting her image was warped and half-melted, and the sculpted form of Mother Brain's face was barely recognisable. What was once a forehead was now a gaping wound with live wires hanging out.



Rudo raised his Neishot, aimed right between the panel's eyes, and fired. Mother Brain gave a final, distorted scream before her image faded away forever. The entire panel, shaken off its hinges by repeated impacts, toppled backwards and fell to the ground with an almighty crash, black smoke still pouring from its wounds.

"It's over," I said, lowering my sword and breathing deeply in a conscious effort to calm myself. "Mother Brain is dead."

"She may be dead," Rudo said grimly, "but I wouldn't say it's over. The natives of Mota and Dezo are used to looking after themselves, but Mota's Palman population have spent their entire lives being cared for by Mother Brain. We don't know how to live without her."

"That's true," Amy said, "but people survived before Mother Brain. I'm sure we'll find a way to survive now that she's gone."

Kain scratched his chin thoughtfully. "So there ain't no Mother Brain no more, eh? That means all the things she did ain't gonna be done no more unless we do 'em ourselves, an' all the stuff she made ain't gonna be made no more unless we make it ourselves."

Amy smiled brightly. "That's the spirit, Kain! If we want to live in a new world free of Mother Brain's influence, we'll have to build it ourselves!"

Kain nodded. "Guess it's a good thing I know how ta make my own moonshine."

I held the Neisword in both hands and silently asked Lutz to return me to Dezo.



Could there still be people living on board this ship after all? If Lutz said so, it was probably true. We stepped over the still-smoking remains of Mother Brain's projector and into the room beyond.



The room appeared to be the main bridge of the ship: it was a vast space with walls lined with control panels and monitors. Inside stood hundreds of humanoids in strange uniforms, all lined up in neat rows as if they had been waiting for us. Were these the creators of the Mother Brain?



I stepped forward between their ranks and walked up to their leader, an ancient, withered man dressed in a similar uniform to the others except for its more elaborate epaulettes. He smiled coldly as I stood before him.



Noah... another of fate's sick ironies, for a wise and peaceful man to share his given name with an evil place like this.

The leader's tone of voice, combined with the fact that I was surrounded by hundreds of strangers, possibly armed and probably responsible for creating a machine that destroyed a planet, did little to make me feel welcome.



He hadn't even told me his name yet. If his intentions were anything other than hostile, he was doing nothing to show it.



"If you're the creators of the Mother Brain, then you're drat right I think you're my enemy. If not, you'd better speak up while you still can."

The leader chuckled softly, as if he found my threat amusing. "Of course we hate you for destroying the Mother Brain."



I wasn't sure what I had expected. It was hard to believe that any human could want to destroy Algo. A lone madman, maybe, but hundreds of people all working together? How could all of them willingly walk such a self-destructive path?

I thought back to the demon in the black chest on this spaceship, and the way it manipulated our minds. Even after its death, these people must still be under its influence.

"We are not people of Algo," the leader said. "We are from a place called Earth. Our planet was green and lovely, and we had a highly advanced civilisation. We are the last of our race."

It was hard to believe what he was saying. These people looked just like Palmans, and he was trying to tell me they weren't even from the Algo system?

"The last...?"



"I don't care what happened to your planet. What the hell gives you any right to destroy ours?"



"Fine. Say what you want."

"We were a weaker people then. Even though we knew about the evil inside of us, we didn't suppress it. We took joy in controlling nature; we didn't realise we were destroying ourselves until it was too late. The death rattle of our planet alerted us to our failure. With the time remaining to us, we built a spaceship to wander among the stars. Then we found Algo. We found the people here living in simple happiness. We decided we wanted this planet. And do you think you can stop us, we who destroyed Palm? You will die!"

Sounds to me like you're as weak as you ever were. You wanted the Algo system for yourself, and so you destroyed one planet and devastated the other two? Just what do you think you've achieved?

Still, with just the four of us against so many... I didn't like our chances. If only the rest of my allies were here.



Shir, Anna and Hugh appeared, all fully armed and ready for battle. Lutz must have warned them of what they were about to face. At the same moment, my mind and body felt refreshed and my remaining wounds from the battle with Mother Brain faded away.

Thank you, Lutz. If I survive, I'll try to find a way to repay you for all your help.



"You blind, murderous idiots! Don't you even realise that you've been destroying the very planets you want to live on?"

My words fell on deaf ears. The people of Earth drew their swords and guns.



If they wanted a fight, we'd give them one they'd never forget.

***

The aliens fought like madmen, charging at us with wild disregard for their own safety. The front lines reached us only to be shot in the back as those behind them tried to fire at us. But however many Earthmen were picked off either by each other's crossfire, my allies' weapons or my own Neishot, there were always more to take their place. Their numbers seemed endless, but I refused to stop fighting. These invaders murdered my family, just as surely as if they'd gunned them down themselves. I'd kill every one of them or die trying.



***

Are we going to die here, out in the vast cold emptiness of space? The Earthmen just keep coming, and my medical techniques can only stretch so far before my strength is exhausted. Still, for Rolf's sake and for everyone back on Mota, I have to fight on. What are the Earthmen even fighting for? They don't seem to want anything but destruction. At this rate, even if they win, they'll destroy themselves too.



***

This here is the most hosed-up poo poo I ever done got myself into. Every time I bash one Earth guy's head in with my mace, I'm lucky if there ain't another comin' up behind me. If'n I git outta this alive, I's gonna git outta the fightin' business fer good. But right now, I gots to show these alien sons of bitches what happens when ya try ta gently caress with Mota.



***

So these people built a machine to enslave Algo. But in the end, aren't they the ones who ended up being enslaved by it, trapped here on this lonely spaceship when they could have just landed on Palm or Mota and lived peacefully as equals? Maybe the idea never even occurred to them. Just goes to show what happens when you let military types run a society. Now they're fighting for their lives, dying by the dozens to our weapons and techniques, and they've got nobody but themselves to blame. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. She who lives for love... well, I'll die some day, but at least I'll die happy. And if I can help it, I won't die here.



***

I raised my hand and concentrated. Five more of the Earthmen fell to the floor, stone dead. I never thought I'd use my abilities to kill humans, but these aliens were acting more like animals than people. They were climbing over the heaped bodies of their own dead to reach us now, throwing away their weapons to better grip the grisly mountain and clawing at us with bare hands once they were within reach. This was what the mentality of survival at all costs had won them: an existence of mindless violence, eventually forgetting even survival for the sake of destroying their enemies. They were a pack of rabid dogs, and we had to put them down.



***

Every time I think I've seen the worst depths of evil that humans can sink to, someone finds a new way to surprise me. A few hunters dealing in arms, running a protection racket, or even kidnapping a few children and holding them for ransom are nothing compared to an army that wants to destroy all life on Algo. And I'm right here to deal out justice. My slashers haven't failed me yet, and if a few hundred aliens with delusions of grandeur think they can kill me, then I'll just have to show them what I can do.



***



The air stank of burning flesh. It was hard to count the number of Earthmen still standing through the smoke of damaged machinery and flaming bodies, but there couldn't be more than twenty or thirty. They'd long since exhausted their own guns' ammunition and were searching the bodies of their dead for loaded weapons, while Rudo and Anna sniped at them from a distance.

It was a massacre -- a brutal, senseless bloodbath. We were tired and wounded, but we were winning. We were finishing the battle that the Earthmen had started four centuries ago.

Finally, it was done. Even the last survivor made no effort to surrender, rushing toward me armed with only a knife before falling to a single stroke of my Neisword.

Out of the mass of the dead and dying crawled the alien leader, bleeding from a deep slasher wound to the chest. As he approached, my Neisword glowed with a brilliant blue-white light.

"Oh, God..." the leader moaned. "Oh, God, what have I done..."

He rolled onto his back, and his trembling hand reached into the front pocket of his uniform. He pulled out a keycard and held his arm out, offering it to me.

"My security key..." he croaked. "Access the logs... read them... learn, so that what we have done may never be repeated..."

His body was wracked with spasms as he began coughing violently. Blood shot from his mouth, covering his uniform and the floor. The keycard fell from his hand as his body convulsed. His death throes were the death throes of his race writ small: violent, prolonged and serving only to draw out the agony of the inevitable. Finally they ceased, and he lay still. He died as he lived: covered in blood.

I knelt down over his body and picked up the keycard. He didn't deserve to have his dying wish fulfilled, but I deserved to know what information he held. I walked over to one of the few undamaged computer terminals, inserted the card, and searched for files on the Earthmen's history.

Four and a half centuries ago, the Earthmen's spaceship, carrying five hundred of the planet's greatest political and scientific minds, arrived in the Algo system. At first, they had watched the system from afar, fearful that landing might expose the people of Algo to diseases which were harmless to the Earthmen but deadly to us. Their aim was to secretly accelerate Algo's technological development until our medical technology was adequate to treat an epidemic.

Twenty-one years after their arrival, a perfect opportunity arrived to begin the process of development. The planet Dezo passed close enough to Palm to alter its orbit, bringing it closer to Algo. In the short term, Dezo's gravity affected Palm's tides, causing major flooding planet-wide. In the long term, Palm's new position drastically altered its climate, threatening to slowly turn Palm into a desert like Mota.

In the midst of the chaos caused by this natural disaster, the Earthmen began building a computer, the Mother Brain, to monitor and control Palm's weather, preventing the destruction of the planet's ecosystem. They correctly believed that by saving Palm from ruin, the Mother Brain would inspire trust in it from the people of Palm, and could then be extended to the other planets of Algo and used to gradually introduce other new technologies. Meanwhile, the Earthmen remained in their spaceship, cloning new bodies for themselves every few years so that they could stay alive and young forever.

Fifty years ago, the leader of the Earthmen began to receive visions warning him that if the people of Algo were not kept under tighter control, they would band together to sabotage Mother Brain's systems and attack the Earthmen. The Earthmen's first response was to order Mother Brain to ban sea travel on Palm and Mota, providing long-distance transportation only to approved individuals through teleport stations. At the same time, the Earthmen's leader stopped cloning his body and allowed himself to age, claiming that he had become immortal. His subordinates began to question his judgement, but controlling the movement of Algo's people seemed like an undeniably prudent move, and so the ban was put in place.

The next step deemed necessary in controlling the people was the banning of space travel. This step took on a new urgency with the development of ships that could travel outside the Algo system, far enough to discover the Earthmen's ship. The Earthmen's leader declared that the people of Algo would never submit voluntarily to such a drastic and permanent restriction on their mobility, and so an excuse had to be provided to allow the ban to be implemented with minimal resistance. The leader's private notes reveal that his visions had also warned him that he must wipe out the last survivors of the Landale bloodline: my parents and me.

Both aims were achieved in a single action by arranging a mining accident on Dezo, and assigning all available agents, including my parents, to travel there and help with the evacuation effort. Mother Brain was then used to send erroneous navigation signals to the ship my parents were on and the ship departing from Algo, forcing them to collide. I could only marvel in horrified awe at the use of such intelligence and resources toward such evil ends.

The leader's writings grew increasingly disturbed and disorganised over the following years, often degenerating into furious rants about the people of Algo and their refusal to properly submit to Mother Brain's authority. He developed a plan to show the people of Algo the importance of Mother Brain: arrange for a series of failures in her systems, to prove to the people that they could not live without her. The rest of the Earthmen, now in thrall to the same demonic master as their leader, almost unanimously supported the plan: the six people who dared to publicly oppose it were jettisoned alive into space.

By the time of Palm's destruction, the Earthmen's leader was clearly insane. He wrote of his delight in the death and suffering he had wrought to prove his supremacy over the people of Algo. But he had also grown complacent: the logs showed no sign that he was aware that I had escaped alive from Gaila. His hubris had granted me the time I needed to collect the legendary weapons of Nei, infiltrate his spaceship, and destroy the Mother Brain.

It didn't have to end like this. If only the Earthmen had resisted the demonic influence directing them to destroy Algo, the technology they brought to us could have allowed humans and Earthmen to live together in peace and prosperity. Instead, they gloried in control, and in destruction of all that could not be controlled. The Earthmen couldn't be held blameless for what they had done: I knew from my own experience that the demon could only amplify desires that already existed. But before their minds were taken by the demon, there was good in the Earthmen as well as evil. Now, all of that good was gone. What a waste. What a senseless waste.

Mother Brain had been destroyed, and the people of Algo would have to learn to live without her. We had won our freedom, at a hideous price. One planet had been destroyed, another was full of mutant monsters, crazed robots and poison gas, and the third was doomed to slowly revert to a desert. I read through the names of great Palman cities -- Camineet, Scion, Abion, Gothic, Bortevo -- and felt like crying. Thousands of years of history and culture had been obliterated in a suicidal orgy of destruction wrought by four hundred and ninety-four aliens and one demon.

And what will become of Mota, now that Mother Brain's systems are shutting down all over the planet? After we depended on her so heavily for so long, what will happen when everyone has to learn to live without her all at once? Will the wealthy hoard weapons and medical supplies, knowing that no more will ever be made? Will there be rioting in the streets? Can civilisation hope to survive when all the luxuries of civilised life are gone?



I turned back toward the rest of the group.

"What did you find out, Rolf?" Amy asked.

I bowed my head.

"I can't go back to Mota."

Everyone stared at me in silent confusion. Shir was the first to speak.

"Say what?"

"How can I look Commander O'Connor in the eye and tell him that he spent his entire life unwittingly serving a demon? I'd rather be remembered as the terrorist who destroyed Mother Brain than tell the truth. It's better for the people to have their myth of a golden age, even if it's a lie. They'll need their myths to get them through what's coming in their future. The rest of you can use the Neisword's power to return to Mota, but I'm staying here. This ship's life support systems have held out for close to five hundred years; even with the damage we've done, they should hold out for another hundred. I'll be okay here. I'd rather spend the rest of my life learning about the Earthmen's history than watching as the planet I fought for slowly decays into a wasteland. And when I grow old, I'll return to Lutz and tell him all that I've learned."

Rudo nodded. "I understand, Rolf. But I won't let your memory be tarnished. I'll go back to Mota and tell the people that you died aboard this spaceship, freeing the people of Algo from the Earthmen's evil scheme. You say the people need a myth? You can be their myth."

"Now wait jist one drat minute," Kain said. "I ain't gonna leave you here to sit alone on a spaceship full o' dead aliens fer the rest o' yer life. If yer stayin', I'm a-stayin' with ya."

"Don't be stupid, Kain. This is my choice; I'm not asking you to join me. Don't you have a family to go back to? What would your parents think if they never saw you again? They must be worried sick about you as it is. Go home and visit them; they'll need someone to care for them when they grow old."

Kain looked visibly relieved that I'd turned down his offer. "I... yeah, I guess that's a good idea. I'll be seein' ya then... or, well, I guess I won't."

"So you're just going to abandon Algo in its time of need?" Hugh said. "Now that Mother Brain is gone, Mota needs you more than ever. Come back with us and help us to rebuild society."

"Mota needs you, Hugh, but not me. Your knowledge of biology is going to be vital to Mota's future, now that people will have to relearn how to live off the land. But all I know is how to fight, and there's been more than enough fighting already, don't you think? The same goes for you, Amy. With Mother Brain no longer producing medical supplies, good doctors will be desperately needed."

"Rolf..." Amy's eyes were filled with tears. "I won't try to argue with you, because it never works. I know you have your reasons. So... goodbye, Rolf. Take care of yourself. I'll miss you."

Amy ran up to me and hugged me. Shir stared impatiently at the two of us as I held Amy until she stopped crying.

"What about you, Anna?" I asked. "Do you have any plans?"

Anna tossed her slasher casually into the air and caught it as it fell. "I'm sure I'll find something to do. In any place or time, there's always plenty of work for people like me."

We were almost done. There was only one more farewell to be said: the last, and the most painful.

"Shir... I wish things could be different. You have no idea how much I wish I could stay with you. But there's nothing left for me on Mota; I just can't go back there. You have your whole life ahead of you: go and live it the way you choose."

Shir grinned. "Don't worry about me. I already know what I'm going to do. Goodbye, Rolf. Have fun up here."

She was taking this remarkably well. I'd half-hoped that she'd at least try to talk me into returning.

I held out the Neisword and concentrated. One by one, my allies laid their hands on the blade and vanished in a flash of light. First Anna, then Kain, Shir, Hugh, Rudo, and finally, after one last, longing look into my eyes, Amy.

I was alone, and as far away from Mota as possible. There was nothing left for me to do but start disposing of the bodies of the Earthmen.

One by one, I dragged the corpses into the airlock, preparing to give them a burial in space. There was no time for ceremony, even if any of them had deserved it. A few minutes into my grim task, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"What the--"

I turned around and saw Shir's smiling face staring back at me.

"Shir! But how did you--"

She waggled a finger at me accusingly. "Don't you remember our promise, Rolf? I'm not allowed to run away from you ever again. So if you won't come back to Mota, then I'll just have to stay here with you. I asked Lutz to send me back; I think he understood why."

"Shir, you don't have to do this..."

She put her arms around me. "I know. But you told me to live my life the way I choose. I've chosen you."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing? I don't want you to rush into this."

"I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't sure."

"We're going to be alone together out here in space, with no other human contact."

"I don't care. You're the only person I need."

"There are about five hundred fresh bodies in the bridge. I'll need your help burying them."

"I don't mind getting my hands dirty."

"I don't think there are any cigarettes up here. You might have to give up smoking."

Shir playfully slapped my cheek. "Don't push your luck."

A red light flashed on the bridge's main control panel, signalling an incoming communication. I opened the comm channel and listened.

"Attention, unidentified vessel. This is the colony ship Alisa III, carrying Palman evacuees out of the Algo system. Our sensors have detected possible life signs on your vessel. If there is anybody on board, please respond and we will render assistance. I repeat, this is the colony ship Alisa III..."