The Mission

Chapter 8 Narrow Escape

Allie felt numb; she couldn't believe that she might never hear her best friend Ally again. Charles had been working on Ally's circuits for over two hours, he'd almost had to shut part of Cici's circuits off, he'd been begging Charles to save Ally. Charles had been through its systems almost twice, though he'd replaced close to half of the systems major circuits he still had no idea why Ally still wasn't active.

From what he'd seen the by-pass had absorbed ninety percent of the overload so if anything Ally should still be half active. Charles had stopped the Time Raider not sure that he could maneuver the ship close enough to the capital planet for them to use the MTM to set down in the empire city.

Cici was finally quiet it seemed it too was to the point where it was numb. Another five hours and Charles had finally repaired everything that had burned out, flipping the last of the circuits on they all waited.

"Ally?" Alatem said, "Can you hear me?"

For a moment Charles thought he might have forgotten something, then there was a massive feedback signal then they heard a voice.

"Beginning primary start-up, loading all parameters, now initiating, loading of all security programs, working," came a very mechanical voice.

"Charles!! What happened to my Ally?" Alatem said as she rushed to his side.

"I warned you, I wasn't sure I could get this much of her back, I still need to load another program or we are in trouble," Charles replied. Alatem just nodded as she watched Charles work.

A moment later they heard, "Accepting primary protocol, Princess Alatem, is primary, Charles Ricksome is primary, secondary. As per all directives no living entity is allowed on board without permission of either. The AI Cici is allowed access to all base systems, including navigation, time slip protocol, MTM operation, all protocols loaded awaiting commands."

Alatem turned away hiding her face in her hands her sobs ripping at Charles heart; with all he'd done he still hadn't found where Ally's personality circuits were. Thinking a minute Charles tried to think of where in all these systems, where Ally actually was, if he could then there might be a chance.

Thinking a minute Charles looked at Alatem.

"Allie, we need to inform your father that there was a problem on the ship, that you have a tech here and you need the specs for the AI," Charles said.

"No, that might arouse more suspicion from him, he is already close to guessing everything. I think we need to contact the techs themselves, it might be better in the end although," Alatem thought a moment, "they are fiercely loyal to father."

Within an hour Charles had the plans but then they had the Emperor to deal with, "Alatem what happened?"

Sighing Alatem knew that she had to deal with this sooner or later better now than then. "The ship was attacked by raiders, I barely escaped after Allie destroyed them, but Papa Allie sustained damage." Alatem started to cry hiding her face she almost whispered, "I may have lost her Papa, the tech that is here managed to get the systems back on, but that's it. Oh Papa, I can't lose her, I can't."

The Emperor sighed he never seen his daughter this heartbroken before, it almost killed him to see her like this. "Let me talk to the tech Alatem," drying her eyes but still sniffling, she motioned to Charles.

Charles had been prepared for this; Alatem had described in detail how the techs were. "Your majesty, is this really necessary?" Charles said a shimmer cloak around him.

"Yes damn it," the Emperor said exasperated, "Is there any chance to repair the Allie unit."

"As I said I don't have time to talk if I am to save the best computer we have ever engineered," Charles replied.