Authors Notes: I'd like to thank everyone for reading my story and e-mail their comments to me. I'd also like to announce that I've found an editor so all the chapters after three will be edited, proofread, and corrected. Thanks Phil for your help.

Chapter 4

Over the next couple of days repairs were moving along smoothly, Mike was in awe at what had occurred in his life recently. Mike was sitting in his room on a warm day, just relaxing and enjoying his private time. Crimson his partner was leaning idly against the door, a cool gleam radiated off of the blade. Mike wondered if Crimson resented being partner with him.

"Now stop that foolish nonsense right now Michael. I choose you as much as you choose me. So deal with the hand you've been dealt," Crimson said offhanded.

Mike was silent with astonishment. Crimson had heard his thoughts, Mike was still getting used to that. Still he thought it was pretty cool to have a sword. Sam had informed him earlier that morning that main power was up to fourteen percent, and Sam had gone off reserve power late last night. Sam had decided that he would wait to inform Mike about that, seeing that he was fast asleep when he went off reserve power. Mike didn't mind one bit, he was exhausted from training with Crimson. Crimson had him running ragged all day yesterday and informed Mike that he was processing nicely. Mike was going to meet the others later to talk about finding a more powerful source of power for the ship. He decided he had enough of lying around and got dressed for a long day's work. Fifteen minutes later Mike was walking towards the tunnel with Crimson and waited at the entrance for the others to arrive. The others arrived with looks of utter exhaustion on their faces, though eager to begin anew today. They all had their swords with them. It seemed only natural. They went into the tunnel and headed for the ship. Sam was already busy with repairs when they made it to the ship.

"Good morning everyone," Sam said. "Captain, can we hold a staff meeting in fifteen minutes? I have some good news to tell everyone."

"Yeah Sam. We'll have it in the galley today if nobody minds. I need a morning pick-me-up badly."

There was a chorus of agreement from the rest of the crew. Everyone headed straight to the galley and poured hot steaming cups of coffee. Mitch had finally gotten Sam to fabricate coffee properly, only after five tries. Mike had asked Mitch to download some Earth style cuisine and beverages for them to eat and drink. The previous menu selection was, well, raunchy at best. Tasted kind of like boiled chicken that had been sitting for five days in the high noon sun. Only one of them was brave enough to try the food (Jack), and ended in the med-bay vomiting and seeing weird colors for the rest of the day. It looked like Mitch's programming was finally paying off. Once everyone was settled in, Sam brought the meeting to order.

"Well, main power is up to twenty percent and the solar panels are running at ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-eight percent efficiency. At the current rate, the ship will be fully operational in nine days. Give or take a day for any last minute complications."

Everyone was silent for a few moments. Mike hadn't expected for the ship to be ready this far ahead of schedule and apparently everyone else was thinking along those lines too. Mike had some questions for Sam.

"Sam, can you activate some more maintenance droids? Cause if you can, we can have them start to unearth the ship."

"Certainly Mike. I have just activated eight more maintenance droids. I have instructed them to attach digging equipment to themselves and proceed to the surface. Captain, I believe that the droids should start at the hole where you first fell in. At that point, is relatively easy to unearth the ship using the hole as a point of reference. The ship is only twenty feet down and about mile long by half a mile wide. It is a good thing that we are in a secluded area or else someone might have seen our activity."

"Wow, I didn't realize the ship was that big," said Mike.

"Well, yes, the design of the ship was supposed to be imposing, against pirates and other such riff-raft," Sam stated.

"Ok, Mitch please report on your end," said Mike.

"I found some very interesting material in the computer core. I've decrypted most of the files with just a few still to go. But what I've found so far is far beyond anything this planet could hope to come up with."

"Really?"

"Yeah, there were also some secret prototype files and upgrades hidden deep within the computer core. I doubt that even Sam was aware of these files."

"Sam, can you confirm what Mitch is saying?"

"After Mitch discovered this hidden information and decrypted them I was able to access them without difficulty."

"So, what's inside of these files and upgrades?" Jack asked.

Mitch decided to field this question, because Sam apparently didn't know what to make of them.

"Well, there appear to be upgrades for the ship and it fighters. Our ancestors and their people couldn't figure out the mechanics of these upgrades for them to use them. So they stored the basic principals of the upgrades in the computer cores of all their ships for safe keeping until the day they finally figured them out. These upgrades include: metaphasic armor, singularity weapons, hyperspace drive, a frequency rotating shield modulator, and some other cool applications that got scrapped at the drawing board."

Everyone in the galley was quiet, some didn't understand some of the things Mitch had just said and some didn't have a clue at anything Mitch had said. Mike was first to ask a question.

"So what does that mean to us at the moment? Can you figure out how to make any of those things work?"

"Well to be honest, I've already solved them and created a few more surprises from the other files found along with the upgrades."

Everyone was in a complete state of shock, even Sam was astonished at what Mitch had said.

"Unfortunately the upgrades for the ship will have to wait until we get to space before we can implement them. The problem with the upgrades in the first place, was a pretty basic mistake done in the calculations. After I over came that it was pretty easy to get them to work. Of course, these new upgrades are going to take up a lot of power to use them at all, but I figure we could find a more powerful source of energy for the ship."

"Anything else?" asked Mike.

"Yeah with the files I found with the upgrades, I was able to construct body armor to use in combat, if the need should ever arise. To be honest I stole the design of the suit from the XBOX games Halo and Halo 2, I just hope I don't get sued by Bungie Studios for stealing their concept. Also our swords can interact with the body armor, control and operate the shielding, environmental controls, and sensor instruments of the body suit. Just like in the Halo game. I should have enough suits for everyone in the next day or two."

The Breaker blades seem to be delighted by this new development and everyone else seemed to be pleased too.

"I've got some other ideas on the back burner for now, until we get into space. I just want to wait till we get the ship off the ground before I make any other changes."

Mike was surprised at the pace that everything was happening at. He would never have guessed his life would turn into an amazing adventure over night. Mike was glad at the progress everyone was making.

"Alright Jack, anything new to report?" asked Mike.

"Yeah, repairs are nearly complete. Weapons are back online, engines are primed and ready for use. Sublight drives will be repaired by tomorrow, but we can't properly test all of this equipment until we get more power. Otherwise everything is in working order; cloaking device, navigation, shield operations, matter transport, communications array, are all operational Captain."

"Ok, then all we need to do is find a better source of power for the ship. Anyone got any bright ideas?" asked Mike.

Both Mitch and Jack raised their hands at the same time. They both looked at each other and smiled.

"Jack you remember that conversation we had a few days ago?" asked Mitch.

"Yeah, the one about alternative power sources."

"Well I was thinking about that and I think I've found a solution to our power problem."

Everyone waited for Mitch to continue. Mitch went on to explain the last couple of days have been devoted to solving their power problem. He was in the science lab exploring and reading the files on what was in the lab. Mitch was scrolling through the files, finding some interesting things, and decided to snoop through the cabinets lining the walls. In the last cabinet he discovered a beaker marked unknown sample. Inside the beaker was a green kind of slime, so he took it over to a table and set it down. Mitch pulled up the file on the sample, but it was pretty bare. Apparently the original crew had picked it up in an asteroid field outside of the solar system just before they were stranded. The science officer thought it had some potential for a power supplement, but it proved to be unstable and he never got a chance to test the substance. Mitch was mulling over the implications of the slime, and decided to test it. Retrieving some silicon power crystals from a nearby storage closet, he took a stirring rod and covered it with a tiny sample of slime. Mitch cut a small fragment of power crystal and put it in the middle of the lab table. He dropped a bit of slime on the crystal and ran for the hills, because Mitch had assumed that the unstable slime would react badly with the power crystal. When nothing happened, he cautiously moved back to the table. The slime had fused with the crystal, turning from a clear color to a nice shade of jade green. Mitch then called Sam and had him construct a chamber to test the new crystal. Sam said he would run a small amount power through the chamber and monitor the results. Mitch put the crystal in the chamber and started to feed ten-percent power into the chamber. The crystal started to glow and pulsate, the chamber was shaking violently, so much so it seemed the chamber was going to tear itself apart.

Sam quickly shutdown the power to the chamber before it reached critical mass. Mitch was stunned into silence, because he had no idea what had just happened. Sam reported that the small crystal generated 1025 power readings, which was enough power to run the eastern coastline of the U.S. for the next two thousand years, without having to insert more power than they just did. Sam analyzed the small crystal and found that the crystalline matrix stabilized the unknown substance by fusing it with it's own structure, thereby, creating a tremendously clean source of power. It took Mitch and Sam a few days to create a new crystal to power the ship and use the new upgrades. Mitch had Sam see if he can replicate either the green substance or the new crystal without too much complication. While Sam was doing that, Mitch brought in Jack to create a new power chamber for the engine room for the new crystal power source. Jack said it would take a few days to build one, but he could do it. Mitch was just waiting for the system to go online before starting a practical test.

Mike's jaw literally hit the floor as he listened to this story. Jack was the only one that was not totally surprised by the news. Mike thoughts were reeling from the shock at what he had just heard. This was beyond anything he had envisioned for a new power source and the implications were mind boggling. Emily seemed to recover first from the shock of this discovery and asked.

"How in the hell did you come up with something like this so soon?" Mitch replied, "Since starting work on the ship and being given all this knowledge, my mind has been in overdrive coming up with new concepts with the technology available on this ship. Plus I had a lot of sugar the other day and I was really hyper. I had to put that energy to use somehow."

Mike was thinking about the future and what Mitch's discovery could mean for the planet. He was already formulating a plan for this planet, when his reverie was broken by the awkward silence. He asked Mitch and Jack when the test for the new power source would be ready. Jack said it would be ready for tomorrow. Mike decided that it was enough for one day and called it a day. Everyone rose from their chairs and proceeded to leave the ship, it was already after six p.m. They would be back tomorrow for the test and if all went well they could have the ship in orbit by mid-afternoon.