Chapter 40

Year 4, Day 191, Solitude, Terra Prime

Alexander woke slowly, the first thing he noted was that fact his mouth felt like someone had used it for an ashtray, the second thing he noticed was the lack of pain. Oh the upgrade itself had hurt, a lot, in fact it had felt like the blood in his head had been replaced with molten lava, at least it had before he had mercifully passed out, but apart from a general tenderness in his extremities he felt fine. The third thing he noticed was the smell.

Alexander twitched his arm and managed to bring his hand back into contact with the control panel on the chair and released the restraints. As he moved he worked out what the smell was. He'd soiled himself, either while passed out, or during the procedure itself.

With a flush of culturally ingrained shame Alexander gingerly made his way towards the nearest shower.

***

Half an hour later Alexander was feeling much more human, he put his empty coffee cup and mostly eaten bowl of cornflakes in the sink and head towards the lounge room. He'd been out for just over eleven hours, and he knew he should be moving quickly, after all, people were dying on Earth 29. But he rationalised that people were always dying, and he wouldn't do them any good rushing off half cocked. Better by half to work out what his new capabilities were and plan accordingly. He didn't even notice that was contrary to his normal response.

"LVIOS," Alexander began as he flopped down into a large leather armchair, "Please analyze me and evaluate my user level" It was time to see if risking his life had paid off.

"ANALYZING" LVIOS's voice echoed inside Alexander's head, followed by a long pause. "ANALYSIS COMPLETE. HOST-ALEXANDER'S USER-LEVEL CHANGED. REMOVING LIMITERS FROM HOST-ALEXANDER'S ACCESS."

Alexander smiled, he'd done it, and his head hadn't exploded. "What is my maximum transit capacity?"

"UNABLE TO COMPLY. HOST-ALEXANDER'S CAPABILITY IS DEPENDENT ON LOCAL VARIABLES" LVIOS replied.

Alexander blinked, 'this is new' he mused. He'd wondered about different environmental factors beforehand, he had always seemed to have an easier time transiting in space, less headaches after quick jumps. "What variables?" He asked.

"GRAVITY. NON-TRANSIT MATERIAL IN TRANSIT ZONE. ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION. TACHYON EMISSION LEVELS... "

"Enough," Alexander cut LVIOS off. "Use current location as an example and give me a number in kilograms"

"CURRENT CAPACITY FOR SINGLE TRANSIT USING CURRENT LOCATION AS TEMPLATE IS SEVENTY-TWO THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN KILOGRAMS"

"Shit. Better but still not enough" Alexander cursed, then paused, "What about in space?"

"DEFINE LOCATION, DESCRIPTOR 'SPACE' INSUFFICIENT"

Alexander rolled his eyes, and rubbed his face, ask a stupid question, "How about Lagrange 1 around Earth? In kilograms."

"ANALYZING" LVIOS began, pausing for a few moments, "TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND TWO KILOGRAMS"

Alexander nodded to himself, better, much better, but still not that great, the Space Shuttle massed a hundred thousand kilograms itself, he couldn't move much in the way of spacecraft with that. He started to ask another question but stopped and grinned.

"LVIOS, where is the nearest spot for a transit within eighty percent of optimal conditions. Simplified directions." Alexander asked, leaning back in his chair.

"ANALYSING" There was a long pause, and Alexander wondered what sort of calculations could cause such a powerful computer to take so long. "ANALYSIS COMPLETE. LOCATION DETECTED APPROXIMATELY TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED POINT NINE LIGHT YEARS RIMWARD FROM CURRENT LOCATION. LOCATION PROVIDES EIGHTY ONE POINT SEVEN PERCENT OF OPTIMAL REQUIREMENTS"

Alexander jumped out of his seat, unable to contain his excitement, "Mark location as Space-Alpha"

"LOCATION DESIGNATED" LVIOS intoned.

"How much could be transited at location Space-Alpha, in kilograms, rounded." Alexander asked, crossing his fingers and holding back a joyful laugh.

"MAXIMUM TRANSIT CAPACITY AT LOCATION SPACE-ALPHA IS ELEVEN MILLION EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY KILOGRAMS"

Alexander whooped in joy and started dancing around the room, thrusting his hips outwards, pumping his fists into the air. "You're fucked, you're fucked you fucking ugly ape-men, you hear me, you're so fucked that the Robotech Earth would pity you, you fuckers!"

After a few minutes Alexander calmed down and returned to his seat, flopping down onto the dark brown leather. He was still pumped, but decided it might be a good idea to get a clearer idea of what the maximum transit would be like before he tried it. Experience had taught him LVIOS was annoyingly litteral. "LVIOS, please theorise what effect a maximum transit at Space-Alpha would have on me?"

"ANALYSING" LVIOS intoned, and Alexander once again considered changing the voice to something more pleasant, before discarding idea as a waste of time, "ANALYSIS COMPLETE. MAXIMUM TRANSIT, UP TO MINUS THREE PERCENT, AT LOCATION SPACE-ALPHA WOULD RESULT IN HOST-ALEXANDER EXPERIENCING SEVERE MENTAL DISTRESS AND PHYSICAL PAIN DUE TO PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO QUANTUM INTERFACE."

Alex blinked, 'damnit, I knew it was too good to be true', he thought to himself. "LVIOS, would I survive the transit?"

"CONDITIONAL AFFIRMATIVE"

The young Australian growled in the back of his throat, "Conditional on what?"

"RECENT PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO QUANTUM INTERFACE"

"So, what you're saying is that if I haven't done a big transit recently I'm able to survive the process" Alexander asked, rubbing his chin.

"AFFIRMATIVE" LVIOS stated.

"LVIOS," Alexander began, "define prolonged exposure, how long would the transit take, and what kind of cooldown would be needed between jumps? In standard human measurements of time" 'I really need to figure out how to get him to stick to my measurement systems' Alexander thought to himself, LVIOS had a tendency to return to his default settings, which made no sense to a human mind.

"THEORETICAL MAXIMUM TRANSIT AT LOCATION SPACE-ALPHA ESTIMATED TO TAKE APPROXIMATELY THIRTY NINE MINUTES, FOURTEEN POINT NINE SECONDS. SECONDARY QUERY REQUIRES ADDITIONAL DATA, DEFINE CONDITIONS"

Alexander winced, 'forty minutes? that's going to hurt like a bitch', before considering LVIOS request, "Give me two, one standard transit of one thousand kilograms and one maximum transit, in human time."

"ANALYSING" LVIOS droned, "ESTIMATED TIME BETWEEN MAXIMUM TRANSIT AND STANDARD TRANSIT WITHOUT CATASTROPHIC FAILURE RESULTING IN THE TERMINATION OF HOST IS ONE DAY, SEVENTEEN HOURS, ELEVEN MINUTES. ESTIMATED TIME BETWEEN MAXIMUM TRANSIT AND MAXIMUM TRANSIT WITHOUT CATASTROPHIC FAILURE RESULTING IN THE TERMINATION OF HOST IS THIRTY NINE DAYS, ELEVEN HOURS, FORTY THREE MINUTES, NINE SECONDS"

Alexander considered LVIOS's answer, before nodding firmly to himself. 'Okay, so I'm not going to be zipping around the multiverse in a big can of FUCK YOU, but I can work with this.'

***

Ten minutes later Alexander had a workable plan, at least the frameworks of one, and he strode into his office, and tapped the large touch screen dominating the left wall of the room. Bringing up a comm-menu he quickly patched a call through to the office of Mark Clayworth.

"Alex!" Clayworth barked upon seeing Alexander's face, "Where the hell have you done? You can't just piss off like that! What have you been doing?"

"Later Mark" Alexander started to say but was cut off.

"Not later, NOW BOYO!" Clayworth yelled into the comm-line.

Alexander pulled himself up straighter and glared daggers at the video screen, "I said later Colour Sergeant, or are you going deaf?"

Clayworth jumped slightly, before nodding, his face hard, and saying "Aye Sir! Later."

"Now" Alexander started again, "I need you to get sections one through six ready for a mission, full loadout" Clayworth started to interrupt but stopped at a glare from Alexander. "I also want the ESRO flight team ready to go..." Alexander paused, "Make that the entire ESRO space research team, and any engineers that might be useful, I don't care what they say, bring them at gunpoint if you need. I want them all in full armour, break out the stockpile, but use your own judgement on arming them. You have ninety minutes. Form them up at the ESRO main hanger"

Clayworth's face was a mixture of confusion and professionalism, he was clearly already running through what he needed to do, but was confused at the purpose. "Alex, that's a lot of transits"

Alexander smiled coldly, "Not anymore"

***

Year 4, Day 191, Rocky Mountains, United States, Earth 29

The world faded back into view and Alexander glanced around the large room he'd appeared in. He resisted the urge to grin, the bunker looked just like a movie set, down to the presidential seal on the wall behind a large wooden desk, and complete with military officers and harried civilians running around with papers and tablet computers reporting news. He'd taken the time to get into his armour before deciding it was probably a good idea to check on the status of Earth 29.

Still under his stealth field he strode forward confidently, looking for the nearest secret service agent he recognised. Standing next to the man he decided not to be a dick about it, sure pistols wouldn't penetrate his armour, but they would ricochet and in a crowded enclosed space that wasn't a good thing. It only took him a few moments to hack into the 'encrypted' communications they were using.

"Agent Khan, this is Lord Alexander, we've met before" Alexander said into his helmet's comm-unit and watched as the young man next to him jump slightly.

"Yes sir, the President has been looking for you, if you let me know where you are, I can send a detachment to bring you inside" Khan said, his hand going to his earpiece.

Alexander grinned and then frowned, things must be really bad if a secret service agent was using his own discretion to bring unknowns into the base. Then again maybe he had orders to that effect. Either way Alexander didn't have time to worry about it. "No need, I'm standing right next to you, I didn't want to just appear, ricochets are nasty things"

Khan showed remarkable restraint, only turning his head slightly to double check that there was nothing next to him. "If you say so sir,"

Alexander grinned again, "I do, if you'd be kind enough to make sure no-one shoots me I'll make myself visible"

In the end rather than clearing the main bunker, Agent Khan had a brief word with his detachment leader and they shuffled the President off into a side room and told Alexander to join them.

"Lord Alexander, I wish I could say it was good to see you" Melissa Row said when Alexander faded back into view. The woman looked liked she had aged thirty years in the two days since the Kromaggs had invaded.

Alexander glanced at the wooden chair he'd been offered and decided to stand, it was doubtful it would be able to hold his armour clad form. "How are things going?"

"Badly." Row said flatly, "Thanks to our preparation and your technology our forces are holding them back on the ground, but only until that damn ship of theirs in orbit starts bombing them." She paused for a moment, "Where the hell have you been?"

Alexander winced, he'd expected as much, he'd vanished shortly after the Kromagg forces had started sliding in. "Doing something extremely reckless that might win us this war"

Row cocked an eyebrow, her face sceptical. "Really? Going to whistle up a miracle?"

"Something like that," Alexander said, "look, I could try transiting a nuke onto their ship, but I know firsthand that they have the ability to jam pan-d travel, and I'd be no good to anyone if I turned myself into Alex flavoured chunky salsa trying to brute force my way into the damn thing"

Row slumped back in her chair, dejected, "So what's your plan?"

Alexander smiled grimly, "It's like this..."

***

Year 4, Day 191, ESRO Base, Endeavour, Terra Prime

The men and women of the ESRO and EDF were lined up, the former dressed in gleaming white clone trooper armour, the later in the same armour painted in a mix of camouflage schemes, inside the largest hangar of the ESRO main facility when Alexander appeared.

"Attention!" Clayworth barked when he saw Alexander.

The sound of seventy pairs of boots slamming onto the ground made a thunderous racket. The ESRO scientists, researchers, and engineers just milled around looking confused and uncomfortable in their armour.

Alexander strode forward, "Men and women of Terra Prime," He began, his helmet amplifying his words, "today billions of human beings stand on the edge of the abyss, the forces of a hostile empire ready to kill or enslave them. You have all seen what the Kromaggs do to worlds they conquer. We have two choices, risk our lives and help them, or stay here where we are safe and let them perish. I know what I'm going to do, what are you going to do? Do we fight or do we cower?"

"FIGHT" Came the reply out of a hundred mouths and Alexander smiled.