The Anzu: Alec

The Anzu: Alec

  Mary S. Sheppard

  Copyright © 2016 Mary S. Sheppard

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  For pictures related to research done for this book, check my Pinterest page at

  https://www.pinterest.com/maryssheppard/spaceship-anzu/

  You can also visit my website for more information at https://www.maryssheppard.com

  Cover photo by Matthew G. Sheppard

  The Mission and the Aliens

  The Zandu Mission Statement:

  A multi-species crew will participate in the exploration of space. This includes but is not limited to planets, moons, galaxies, and space anomalies.

  The spaceships: The Zandus built all the spaceships and four are configured for human crews. Each ship is divided into seven Sectors: Engineering, CCN, Security, Technical, Medical, Food and Quarters. CCN includes Command, Control, and Navigation. The Food Sector is where the food is created, but food is dispensed through converters in many places on the ship, including the bar and the lounges.

  The crew: Beside humans, there are four species currently on board the ships, the Zandus, the Lolas, the Thebes and the Shapers. All are intelligent, biped, two- armed species that breathe some mixture of air (to be adjusted individually), and can live and work with other species in close proximity.

  Zandus - from planet Zolog: usually between 1.2 and 1.5 meters (4 to 5 feet) in height, their bodies are a mix of organic material and energy. They are roundish in shape, and their skin is a luminescent white. They have two arms and can attach mechanical implements on the ends of those arms depending on task. They are either male or female.

  Food: mineral shakes once per day, can process alcohol

  Examples: Chief, the captain

  Lolas - from planet Dracon: Larger than most humans, their reptilian skin can be green, blue, or purple (the color does not necessarily mean male or female). They have two large webbed feet, three eyes, two arms and two hands with five digits on each hand. As a species they work hard and usually play even harder. Lolas have females and males.

  Food: eat most anything cold.

  Examples: X, Z, CC, TT, DD

  Shapers - from planet Forom: Adults range between 1.5 and 1.9 meters. In their natural shape they have two eyes, two arms, and two hands with four digits each. They can change their shape, but there is a limitation on how much they can change. So an additional arm or eye could be formed, but it would not work like the others. On the ship they usually show themselves as a mix of Lola and human. Their species has females and males.

  Food: energy pellets twice per day.

  Examples: Jamous (Jamez), Denabulus (aka Denab)

  Thesbes - from planet Thesbeen: This is an all female species and is usually taller than 1.7 meters (68 inches). Their slender bodies have 2 arms and 2 hands with four digits each. Their faces have delicate features, two large round eyes, which come in various colors, and are mostly framed by long wavy hair. They can read the auras of many species, including humans and Lolas, and this way they can determine truth from lies. They need to sleep more than other species on board, preferring ten to twelve hours. All Thesbes are usually the experts in the field they work in. There are seven Thesbes on board the Anzu.

  Food: grains and seeds five times per day.

  Examples: Hazel, Tania, Rhoda

  Time - the Zandus have divided their time into units similar to humans and they translate to seconds, minutes, hours and days, but they are all based on a decimal system.

  50 seconds = 1 minute,

  100 minutes = 1 hour,

  20 hours = 1 day

  Table of Contents

  The Mission and The Aliens

  Chapter 1 - The Anzu: Engineering

  Chapter 2 - The recruit

  Chapter 3 - A new diver

  Chapter 4 - Cate

  Chapter 5 - The life liquid problem

  Chapter 6 - Swim together

  Chapter 7 - The new planets

  Chapter 8 - Alive or not

  Chapter 9 - Internment

  Chapter 10 - Internment, day two

  Chapter 11 - Alumina 2, again

  Chapter 12 - No Change is too minor

  Chapter 13 - Final filters

  Chapter 14 - Alumina 2

  About the Author

  Chapter 1 The Anzu: Engineering

  It was almost one year, he thought as he tightened the fastener. He was lying on the metal grating underneath the large turbine, not the most comfortable position, but soon he would be finished. He adjusted his breathing tube to get closer. The tube in his nose gave him the right air mix for a human. All the different species on board wore such tubes, except for the Zandus and that was because they had built the spaceship.

  Yes, next week would be one year. He had to admit it had gone better than he could have hoped for, when he signed up. Initially it was a six-month commitment, and at first, he had wavered. Missing home would not be a problem, but he had been worried that with few humans out here he would have to depend mostly on the aliens for everything.

  Regardless, he had gone and filled out an application. Then he was one of the few selected, and it was at that point that he realized that the opportunity was too great, what was left on Earth was too little and six months was not such a long time.

  He had been right and as the first six months passed quickly, he had extended his contract. Now he was sure he would renew the contract again, he loved this job.

  “Are you almost finished?”

  Alec turned to the voice. It was the green guy. The other one from the same planet was almost purple. The color was not an indication of their sex and in this case both of these aliens were male. “Almost done, X.”

  These aliens liked very simple names and this guy was ‘X’ while the other one was ‘Z’. He hadn’t gotten around to asking what happened to ‘Y’, or in fact to some of the other letters of the alphabet.

  “I’m glad you’re done Alec, Chief wants to have a word with all of us.”

  “Sounds like trouble.”

  X broke out laughing.

  It wasn’t that funny, thought Alec and wondered if his translator was working correctly.

  Everyone on the space ship had to wear translators to communicate. In fact, some humans needed them to communicate with each other, as they did not speak the same language.

  Communication mix-ups had happened when the alien ship first arrived to Earth. As the ships hovered over Earth, people had panicked, naturally thinking that this was the beginning of an invasion. Alec remembered the news reports, the soldiers patrolling his neighborhood, the planes in the sky and the tanks rumbling on the streets, as if any of that would have deterred the aliens if they were intent on destruction.

  They were not and it took weeks to convince people that this was not an invasion; it was an invitation to be part of a multi-species crew that would explore the galaxy. Earth had been invited to participate as the human race was getting close to developing real space travel.

  The people from Earth felt they had had space travel for decades, but all they had to show for it was a smallish base on the moon and in 2030 they had established an outpost on Mars.
Still, their efforts were sufficient to be invited said the aliens.

  The aliens next asked any interested humans to submit their resumes and they had selected one hundred to join the crews on four ships. It was then that the aliens discovered that many languages were spoken on Earth and that one group of humans might not understand another one. In addition to the language barrier, there were cultural differences and on top of that you had to add the religious differences.

  They had assumed all humans were ‘humans’ and had been surprised that one small planet would have so many impediments for integration. At least the language problem would be solved with the use of the translators. Everyone on board wore one and they worked flawlessly.

  “Tell Chief, I’ll be there in a sec,” said Alec.

  “Okay,” said X as he walked away chuckling.

  The chief engineer came from a different planet than the green, blue and purple reptilian skinned guys. Those guys were Lolas and the chief engineer was a Zandu. Unlike the Lolas that were all organic, the Zandus were a mix of physical form, energy and machine. The chief engineer, like most Zandus, had picked a name that went with his job and he preferred to be called Chief.

  “This morning the life liquid sensors lit up again,” said Chief. “The pre-fan filters need to be replaced again.”

  All five coworkers looked at Alec.

  There were five species on board the Anzu and all were represented in Engineering. Besides the Lolas and Zandus, there was Thesbes and the Shapers . All of them had found that Alec could swim well. He had been chosen as the ‘go-to’ guy for this job.

  Alec sighed, “Right. I was just wondering, it hasn’t been three months since we changed them, weren’t they designed to last three months?”

  “Yes that is the specification, but they need to be changed now,” said Chief.

  “Maybe the system is getting old and should be thrown out, trashed,” suggested Alec. It was a joke. He knew the ship had undergone extensive renovations to make it ready for the humans, but it was a new ship.

  “Obsolescence is such an archaic concept,” said Chief. He laughed and the others joined him. “We don’t use that word anymore.”

  “Really.” Even after a year, Alec was still learning new things everyday.

  “We do not trash anything. All things can be reused,” said Chief.

  “The rest of us already know this, but your species is… newer,” said Hazel.

  She was being diplomatic. She probably was going to say ‘inexperienced’ or ‘backward’ thought Alec.

  Hazel was a Thesbes, and like the other Thesbes that Alec had met, they were tall, slim and delicate, like branches on a willow tree. Most Thesbes had large, round eyes that came in a variety of colors, and in Hazel’s case they were a deep brown.

  Looking at Hazel, one might think that she would not do well in the rugged engineering environment, but she did great moving gracefully among the machinery, even with the layers of floating gauze that the Thesbes normally wore. She was also gifted in power mechanics.

  “Alec, you should get ready,” added Chief.

  Alec walked over to the hatch and started to strip down to his underwear. There was one thing he had definitely learned. Humans were looked at as the junior species.

  The attitude was prevalent across most of the aliens he had met except Jamous, a fellow engineer and a Shaper. In his case, it was completely opposite and Jamous had told him that he felt very compatible towards humans.

  “I think I should have been a human. My name could be James,” he had confided to Alec when they first met. Then he had changed his name officially to Jamez, to make it more human, but still a bit different.

  Most shape shifters on board presented a form that was part Lola and part human. Alec thought it was a convention they had to fit in with the rest of the crew. In the case of Jamez, he looked pretty much all human.

  “The suit is ready,” said Z as he handed Alec the sterilized, slimy, wet suit that would cover him completely, from head to foot.

  An AIRS bag containing the right air mixture for humans was attached. Different AIRS could be attached depending on the species that was breathing.

  They had gotten used to him being the primary swimmer and he wondered who would do it if he weren’t here anymore.

  X and Z had done it before, but he also knew that one time Z almost didn’t make it back. X and Z’s physique was larger than his and that could be a problem in some of the smaller spaces.

  Alec took a deep breath from his oxygen tube, detached it and started to pull on the suit. The headgear had the communication module and a light and when he put it on he was able to breath again.

  Even though the air on the ship had a heavy content of argon and helium, much more so than Earth’s air, it also had oxygen and nitrogen, so it wasn’t deadly to humans. Everyone knows that breathing helium makes your voice squeaky and breathing argon makes your voice lower, so Alec did not know what would actually happen if he took a deep breath of that combination, but frankly he didn’t want to experiment.

  Z opened the hatch. The difference in pressure between the engineering room and the conduit kept the liquid from coming out, but one could see it moving swiftly.

  Alec took the filter carrying case, walked through the shower, which was the final cleaning stage, and then he waited. This was the worse part of this job; he actually hated swimming in that muck.

  “All right, stopping the flow now,” shouted Hazel.

  Alec looked at the dark liquid below, gauged the speed of the current and stepped down the hatch. Immediately he was swept towards the fans. They had been shut down, but the liquid still had movement and Alec used it to his advantage, to get to the fan filters more quickly. There were four filters located just before the fans and there were four other filters located in the other direction, near the influx of the life liquid. Those had been changed just a couple of weeks ago.

  By the time the current took him close to where the filters were, he had slowed down significantly and he started to swim. The extra lighting he had asked for in this area was working well and it made his job easier. He didn’t have to get to close to the filter to see that it had turned light brown. It should have been white.

  The previous time he had been down here, just a month ago, the filters he replaced were light yellow. Two months before, the filters he changed were still mostly white, although he had changed them right on schedule. Something was polluting the liquid and it was getting worse.

  He pulled the old filter off, packed it in the case and attached the new filter. He moved to the next filter, did the same process and then headed back.

  He could only change two out of the four filters at a time. They had determined that being in the life liquid thirty minutes was about the maximum for humans.

  Even then, when he climbed up to engineering, he flopped down on the floor to catch his breath. Swimming in the goo seemed to take it out of him. Luckily he didn’t have to do it often.

  “You look tired my friend,” said Z. “I can relate.”

  “Yeah, maybe I should hit the gym more often.” He handed the case over.

  Z took one of the filters out. “It is brown,” he sounded surprised.

  “Let me see,” said Chief. “Open it up.”

  Z unfurled the filter carefully.

  “I’ll notify the captain. This looks very bad,” said Chief.

  Chapter 2: The recruit

  The next morning Alec was working on the air filtration system when X came up to him.

  “Good, I’m glad I found you,” he said.

  “Yep. I was checking the air filtration system.”

  “Do you think this may affect the life liquid filter?”

  “I don’t know, but I needed to check it anyway.”

  “It will have to wait. Chief needs you, right away. The new worker is coming and we thought that if she saw another human she might feel more welcome.”

  “Yeah,” said Alec turning back
to his work. He had been happy on board the Anzu and he wondered if having another human in the group might change the dynamics of the group, especially being a female.

  “You don’t think that seeing you will make her feel more welcome?” asked X.

  “That is not my job. I’m not here to make everyone feel better.”

  X broke out laughing. “That is very true,” he said and walked away.

  Alec closed the panel and followed him.

  She was pretty; grant her that, he thought. She was probably in her early thirties, light brown hair, two eyes, nice. She greeted everyone in the correct fashion for each race, obviously trying to make a good impression with the team.

  She shook his hand as she introduced herself. “Cate.”

  “Is that spelt with a ‘c’ or a ‘k’?”

  “A ‘c’.”

  “So its cat with an ‘e’ at the end?”

  She nodded and looked strangely at him.

  The translator had to be broken, thought Alec. That was supposed to be funny. Then he noticed that her translator had not converted his words, English had to be her primary language.

  Then Jamez walked in. Jamez was looking very human today. Muscles pressed against his tight t-shirt and his face looked somewhat like Chris Pratt.

  Cate stared.

  “Hi, my name is Jamez,” he shook her hand gently.

  “I’m Cate, nice to meet you.”

  Alec tried not to laugh. Jamez was his friend.

  “Alec, please show Cate around,” said Chief. “Jamez? A word in my office.”

  Cate turned to Alec and she wiped her disappointed look, but he didn’t care. He would show her around quickly and get back to more important things.

  “So why did you choose engineering?” he asked as a way to make some conversation.

  “I like machines.”

  “So do I,” he admitted. “Over people?”

  “No.” She looked at him strangely again.

  He did. Machines were easier to understand.

  “How long have you been working here?” she asked.

  “Almost a year.”

  “That is a long time. Are you going to renew?”

  “I’m considering it. I enjoying this work, I’m learning and I like my coworkers.”