CHAPTER 87

"Derrick?" Shelby questioned a few moments after Jan and Ellen had shut down to rest.

"Is anything wrong Shelby?" Derrick asked after hearing the hesitation in Shelby's voice.

"No, it's not so much that anything is wrong though I do have a question." Shelby again hesitantly said.

"You know that you can ask me anything Shelby." Derrick informed her.

"I was wondering, now that almost all of the boxes we found are regenerated. The time is almost upon us for Lucy's return. Derrick, she risked so much for you, I believe she would do everything she could for you. Have you given much thought of what we are to do when she is whole again?" Shelby said, trying to gauge Derrick's reaction.

Derrick sat for a few moments thinking hard on what Shelby had just asked him. Sighing, Derrick finally spoke, "I have thought about Shelby; every minute of every day since she sacrificed herself. She was a hero, the best of everything that all of you ships and A.I.'s are. Before she awakes I will need to speak to all of them, they have to be made aware of what she did. What she did and who she is now."

Shelby could only nod at Derrick's words as the tears were coming far faster than she thought they would. She suddenly realised that she was also far prouder of Lucy than she had at first thought. The fact that Lucy had done all that she had for Derrick also made Shelby prouder.

_____________________________

Kimison was still pissed that he hadn't seen a simple solution to the problem. The simple fact that the whole project had been his idea to start with wasn't sitting all that well with him either. Looking over to their download device Kimison felt he wasn't smart enough yet. Sighing he waited for an hour after Rayburn had gone to sleep; and then ran through all the adjustments that Rayburn had made.

Taking a deep breath he donned the head set again almost expecting pain as the program started.

"Sir I thought you weren't going to use this again," Tempro told him a moment later.

"I wasn't but I can't seem to grasp enough to solve the problem. I mean I can feel the answer there but it eludes me each time, I need to do this. I feel I am at my limit now though I have brought you here as a guide. I really need this Tempro or I might never be able to help Rayburn to finish everything." Kimison told Tempro with a sigh. "I have to Tempro; I have no choice, I am of no use like I am."

"I can understand much of what you have said, sir, though the risks to me seem to outweigh the positives." Tempro told Kimison.

"Look Tempro just contacted Zan, the emperor gave me and Rayburn permission to access his and Sherry's libraries. I intend to gain as much as possible from him. Now please patch me through." Kimison told the A.I. Nodding Tempro contacted Zan telling him what was about to happen, then Tempro realised that Kimison had already bypassed him and was already in the portal to Zan.

Kimison blinked as a 5' 7'' young man with short brown hair, not overly muscled, no facial hair either, wearing what appeared to be...? Overalls? Appeared in front of him. "Hello sir, the emperor explained that you might be accessing my library to increase your knowledge. I along with the rest of my brothers and sisters think that is a noble undertaking. I am here to provide any aid that you may require, please know that I will call Mary if any problems arise." Zan advised Kimison.

"Agreed," Kimison told Zan. "Let's get started, I want to get as far as I can before it shuts down."

Zan nodded as the information started to flow into the link. Kimison knew he wasn't going to be able to take all of Zan's library but hoped to get most of it. Only a few minutes into it Kimison saw one of the new safeguards Rayburn had added kick in, then the second. Only 1 minute later the third kicked in, oh shit Kimison thought, as the pain started and he screamed.

Zan appeared in front of Mary, "I think we have another problem, Kimison is in my library. Most of the way through it, I can't disengage. I am afraid that he will suffer permanent damage if we cannot stop the process."

Mary was in the link within seconds trying to shut down. Touching several internal stops she finally got the program to stop. Looking around she couldn't seem to find Kimison, "I am not detecting his bio-signature," Mary told Zan.

"I believe he is at the outer fringe of my library Mary." Sherry spoke up a moment later.

"Sergeant Rayburn!" Mary shouted startling Rayburn out of his sleep. "We have a situation with Corporal Kimison!"

Groaning Rayburn rolled out of bed, "Damn it! What has that idiot done now? Throwing his shirt on, Rayburn ran for the control room. Looking around he saw that Kimison was slumped back in the chair with the headset on. "Son of a bitch! You couldn't wait could you!? Alright Mary I'm into the network, tracing now. Good I see you managed to turn the advancement off. What the hell?!"

"What's the problem?" Both Tempro and Mary asked.

"I thought he had the parameters set for just Zan. It appears that the program breached the parameter and he was entering Sherry's library when you got to him! You stupid son of a bitch! I should kick your ass to death if you survive this! How could you not notice that you set the parameters to unlimited?" Rayburn shouted as he slowly started to extract the consciousness of Kimison from the program.

Finally, half an hour later, Rayburn had all of Kimison back. Sighing, Rayburn had him in the med bay watching as all the alpha, beta and theta waves in Kimison's brain finally started to normalise. "The thought transfer process needs a more stabilised connection than the normal cerebral-neuro interface provided by the artificial synaptic interface." Kimison was mumbling to himself.

Shocked for a moment , Rayburn wrote down everything that Kimison said. Interesting Rayburn thought that was a direction he'd not thought of going in. "Tempro I need you to run a diagnostic on the memory enhancement device. After the four extra sets of safeguards I added there shouldn't have been a failure that there was."

"Yes Sergeant starting now. This may take some time; I will alert you as soon as I am finished." Tempro replied.

Rayburn nodded, then turned back to check on Kimison one more time before he pulled up a small pad and began to go through the memory enhancement device's program. Sighing he knew that this was going to take a while, especially with Tempro preoccupied with the diagnostic he was running.

It was perhaps another hour later when Rayburn was brought out of his line by line search of the program. "Sergeant Sir?" Tempro asked him.

Shaking his head, Rayburn rubbed his eyes and looked up. The hologram of a short cropped blonde hair, medium build man, with a smooth face was standing in front of him. "Oh sorry Tempro, you found something?"

"No sir, all systems of the memory enhancer device are operating at optimum effectiveness. I did however notice that something had been added. It appears to be a suppressor of some sort. I believe that this is what caused Corporal Kimison." Tempro reported.

"A suppressor? That's how the son of a bitch was able to take as much as he did. I'll be damned! I was wondering how he'd managed to take all of Zan's library without a lot of pain. I want constant monitoring of Kimison's delta and Theta waves!" Rayburn told Tempro.

"Yes Sergeant. I also wanted to have you look at the progress on the first project you and the Corporal started." Tempro replied.

Taking another look at Kimison, Rayburn nodded then started to go over everything that Tempro displayed. "As you can see I haven't made much progress on it."

"I can see Tempro, I'm sorry we had to abandon it but other things took precedence over it." Rayburn told the hologram.

"It is alright sir; the inventions you both came up with have already helped the emperor. You both should be very proud as am I of the both of you. The simple fact that you both came up with generator re-doubler finally makes it possible for me to feel safe going into combat. Plus I think that the micro-IMT is going to help the emperor as well." Tempro told a stunned Rayburn.

"We both felt that these were the least that we could do to help him. We both owe him as much as he says he owes us." Rayburn told a nodding Tempro.

A sudden chiming sound caused both Tempro and Rayburn to turn. Kimison had suddenly sat up on the bio-bed looking around with a strange look on his face. Turning his attention to Rayburn Kimison smiled. "Yeah I know you want to kick my ass but first I think I have a solution, a final solution to the micro-IMT!"

Rayburn nodded then stated, "Uh huh, this had better be good or the promise of kicking your ass will stand."

"Alright we have solved almost all of the problems except..." Kimison started.