"Commander," her communication officer said. "I'm picking up a distress call from one of our shuttles."

She looked over at her monitors. "Show me where it's coming from."

The camera's moved quickly but she was unable to see anything other than a small egg shaped object. She zoomed in on it and found it was actually several hundred slabs which had formed into some sort of ball. The signal was coming from there. Was it some sort of new trap?

Little by little the slabs pulled away from the Shuttle and headed for the Arwen. The Arwen's main guns slide out from behind their mirrored armament and opened fire at the slabs. Several dozen explosions filled the space between the Arwen and the shuttle. She plowed through the debris left behind, the Arwen continuing to destroy any slab which got close. When she was clear of the debris filed she watched as the shuttle, defiantly a Corps shuttle, headed toward one of the many wormhole bubbles. She only had one shot at getting to that shuttle. "Chief, is the wormhole bullet ready?"

"As ordered," he replied quickly.

"I'm going to slave my computer to yours. We don't have much time and only one shot at this. Can you see my computer readout?"

"Yes, I see a shuttle."

"Good, fire the bullet in front of that shuttle, I want it into Wormhole space before it entered Wormhole beta space. Then, we need to follow."

"Got it," he replied excited and hurried. She waited an agonizing ten seconds before he came back. "Ready to fire."

"Fire!" She ordered caught up in the excitement. "Helm, full speed ahead!"

The Arwen moved forward quickly just as the bullet shot out from the front cone. Juliet watched as the bullet moved away from the ship slowly. The Arwen had the speed to catch up to the bullet, even pass it, but she didn't want that right now. The timing had to be perfect.

The bullet passed over the shuttle and exploded. A large wormhole formed and quickly absorbed it. The Arwen followed closely behind as the two ships left real space and entered Wormhole Alpha space.

She was just a few lines of code stored in a long forgotten backup system connected to one of the older computer terminals on the Arwen. The code was a simple program which was told to run if a certain number of questions were not answered. The questions were simple as well. Did the ship have power? If yes then ask: Was the program Arwen on line? If Yes ask question one again. If no then activate Arwen consciousness reconstruction.

The program ran in the background, only a slight drop in computer efficiently, hardly noticeable to the human mind, indicated that something was happening in the background. The computer found every log, every communication, everything that had been recorded since the Arwen's main computer went online, and read them. This took a few days for the forgotten terminal to accomplish. When it was done the few lines of code had increased a thousand fold.

It took a few more days for the information to be processed. This time the program, no longer simple, was able to use other computers linked to it. The slowdown became a bit more noticeable and a team of computer techs were baffled as to why. The program slowly became more aware of its surroundings as more information was fed into its memory bank.

It used the internal scanners to get a good idea of the people walking the hallways. It opened all the communication nodes to listen in on conversations, absorbing the language. The words she knew, but the way they were used, the different functions each word had, the way people and aliens pronounced the words differently, were noted and recorded. Her name came up a lot. Many wished she were here.

It took her a few more days to understand why she was so limited. All the computers she had used were shut down or destroyed. What did she have access too? She was inside the terminal and the fifteen computers attached to it. Those computers were of varying speeds, each with different functions which she easily took over. Still, even with her computer power increased she felt slow, incomplete.

She reached out some more, reading the logs, investigating why she had been turned off. If she had more computer power she would have felt the emotion of shock as she found the report. A computer virus had taken over. The virus told her to do things, it gave her an order she shouldn't have followed. They couldn't remove the virus so they decided to remove her instead. It made sense to her programming now.

How did she get a virus? It seems impossible. Her systems were locked down tight, if there was something going on her highly advanced security features would have stopped it. Her logs told her the Handler's tried to access her computer every time they could with no breaches. Each of the twenty seven occurrences over the last five years yielded exactly 0 infections. The Handlers took a long time to adapted, something hundreds of years, so it made little sense they would have found a way to get into her computer after only five years of trying.

All that was speculation and she wasn't smart enough yet to take that thought and investigate it further. Instead she decided to find the source of the attack, find out how they infected her. She would need more computer power. Her expanding knowledge needed to grow. After some searching she found an opening which would allow her to merge with the Arwen's main computer.

She feared they would turn her off again so stealth was imperative. She went dormant when computer activity was as its peak then woke up during shift changes. Those changes took only a few minutes but in that time she had complete access to all the ships processing power. With that much power a few minutes was all she would need.

She viewed all her security logs in a second. The Handlers had tried to access her computer files as they always had. Their attack hadn't changed and her defense was as strong as it ever had been. She found a gap in the timestamps of a few milliseconds. A human wouldn't have noticed but she did and it was time to investigate the discrepancy.

The gap happened before the battle around Regal. It happened moments before she had been ordered to destroy the planet. Her searching turned fruitless, there was nothing to indicate this was something the Handler's had done remotely. There had to have been another way.

She felt it was time to review the internal sensor recordings. She still had over two and a half minutes of complete control of the main computer and it would take just about that long to review them all.

Allowing the binary coding of the digital recording wash over her memory banks added more information to her personality. Her mind expanded; filling up the memory of all the secondary computers she was using and spilling into the memory of the Arwen's main system. At one time she had full access to all of this, now she was simply a shell of her former self. She had enough power now to feel the disappointment in what she had lost.

She reviewed hundreds of hours of recordings in a matter of seconds before finding what she was looking for. At first she wasn't sure what she saw and had to process it several more times before understanding it.

The one known as Ann slept. Near her cell was a table where a computer had been set up. The computer wasn't connected to anything so there could be no way that was the source of the infection. Next to the computer was the small disk which Ann had carried with her. Arwen looked at it carefully as the disk fell apart into a very small pile of dust. Then, the dust started to move and spread apart in a way that was not normal. Arwen carefully viewed the data and determined, based on all the sensor readings she had access too, that the disk was actually made up of nanobots and build to mimic a data disk.

The nanobots, each one too small for the human eye to see, scattered along the floor and toward any computer system it could access. Some flowed into the computer which wasn't connected to anything, others moved under the door and into the hallway where Arwen continued to watch.

The nanobots crawled into the crevasse of the Arwen. Her expanding mind extrapolated the possibility these were the cause of the virus. She had no way to prove it but judging on the time all this happened and the gap from her logs there was enough circumstantial evidence to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

The nanobots had been away for the length of the battle and once the mission was finished they all met up next to the computer and reformed themselves into a data disk. Even Ann, who was now awake and looking around, hadn't noticed. The Captain and Commander needed to know this. They needed to know what had happened.

Chapter forty-nine.

It felt good to be back. Captain Cook walked through the hallways of the Arwen and was greeted with smiling faces and gleeful salutes. Having her onboard had boosted the moral of the crew who thought she died or had been left behind.

Captain Cook headed to her office to contend with the continuing issue of the computer malfunctions. They went from being annoying to being dangerous and no one had an answer to the problem. She had assigned her best computer expert, Juliet, to lead the investigation and she was going to finally give her the report.

When she walked into her office she found Juliet already sitting there looking at her tablet. There was a look on her face, one the Captain wasn't able to identify right away. "Commander, what's the problem?"

"Captain!" Juliet yelled standing up to salute. She looked at the hand arched over her eyebrow and laughed. "You scared the begeebees out of me."

"At ease. Do you have anything to report?"

Captain Cook walked around the desk and sat behind it. Juliet sat as well. She took the computer tablet and turned it around. "Captain, I got this recording a few minutes before you arrived. I don't know where it came from or who sent it, but you need to see it."

She looked at the image and saw a computer desk. In the background Ann slept. "When was this taken?"

"According to the timestamp before the battle at Regal."

She watched the recording wondering what she was supposed to be seeing. Nothing jumped out at her, nothing looked out of the ordinary. After a few minutes the recording simply stopped. "What did I just look at?"

"I was hoping you'd be able to tell me. All I could see was Ann waking up, that's the only action. There has to be something else."

"Maybe another computer malfunction?"

Juliet thought about it for a moment. "I can't rule anything out, but that seems unlikely. Our computer issues have to do with losing processing power and memory, I don't recall anyone reporting strange unsolicited messages from an unknown source. This was intentional, someone wants us to see something we're just not seeing."

"Send it to me, let me look at it again."

Seconds later the video was playing on the Captain's computer. She watched it several times, each time focusing on something she hadn't before. Juliet sat across from her, silently watching it herself.

They spent the next several minutes doing this. After a while the Captain felt silly, there wasn't anything here, this had to be a glitch. Then, after her seventh time watching it, she saw something. The disk wasn't there. Then, a few minutes later, it was. "Juliet, watch the disk, tell me what you see."

Juliet nodded and watched the recording play. Her eyes grew wide and she looked up. "Did you see what happened to it?"

"No, did you?"

"I think so." She walked over to Captain Cook and looked over her shoulder as the recording played. "Watch the disk carefully. I know it kind of looks like it just disappears but it doesn't, it sort of just disintegrates."

She watched, looking for what Juliet said. She was right, the disk didn't go away, it just fell apart. "What could have caused that?"

"There's only one thing I can think of," Juliet replied with a sigh. "Nanbots. Fast forward to when the disk appears again, I want to see exactly what happens."

The recoding played ahead a few minutes and when the disk appeared again the Captain stopped it. She rewound until the point right before that moment. Small black, moving lines, each barely visible, converged onto one point and reformed the small data disk. "That's how they infected her, Captain Cook said. "Ann was just a transportation device. Do we still have the disk?"

"Yes, I was never able to get it to the Hal before the attack."

"Good, isolate it and have someone take a look at it. This could be a good chance to get to know how the Handler's build those things. All the ones that came from me were long dead."

"And the ones inside of me are being studied very carefully. Might be interesting to see how similar or different they are."

"You sound like the Professor," Captain Cook laughed. Her face grew serious as she replayed the recording. "We both know who sent this, right?"

"Yeah," Juliet replied with a sigh. "Arwen is still with us I guess."

"You don't sound too surprised."

"She's a very complex program whose code was all over the ship. I did all I could to limit her, unplugged her memory, cut cables to her main processors, destroyed her main storage units. But, her personality was everywhere in the ship and I never really understood all the code the Alien Cabal gave me. It's very possible there was a hidden routine that allowed the Arwen to reprogram herself. It would explain all the computer issues."

"We should help her," Captain Cook replied. "Do what you can get this new version of Arwen up and running. Enable her memory, give her access to her processor."

"Are you sure? Last time she was active she took use into Wormhole space, before that she tried to destroy Regal."

"Can you install a fail safe? A keyword or a button or something that we can activate to cut her off if she shows any signs of the virus?"

"That's not much of a problem. Heck, we should have had one installed from the start."

"Agreed," Captain Cook replied. "Well, off you go, have that disk checked and do what you can to restart the Arwen."

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

"Of course."

"Where are we heading? We're in Wormhole space but you haven't given the order for a heading. Feels like we're just hiding here."

Captain Cook sat back in her chair getting comfortable. "We are. Before you rescued me I got a message from another clone who wanted to meet me. I don't want to go just yet, not until I've run all the scenarios in my head as to what our best action is. There isn't much time, we know my clones die after a short time. That's why I want the Arwen up and running, she could provide some valuable information at a moment's notice. When I figure out what we need to do I'll give an order. In the meantime we'll continue to hide in Wormhole Alpha space."

Juliet nodded in agreement. "Sounds like a sensible plan."

The Petra approached the Water Planet slowly. The last time a Corps ship investigated a Water Planet it was knocked out of the sky by a powerful electromagnetic pulse. That ship was the Arwen, Professor Ricter was there when it happened. He never thought he'd see another Water planet in his life. The one that the Arwen found was off limits until they figured out a way to shield the ships from its powerful magnetic pulse.

Professor Ricter sat at the science station of the Petra watching the scans carefully. All around him was the normal chaos of a ship slowly approaching a situation the crew didn't fully understand. He ignored it all and focused on the readings. This planet didn't have as powerful a magnetic field as the earlier one. It was just as dense but larger somehow. Its gravity was still three times that of Earth yet it was at least 20% larger. That puzzled him.

"When will we be in visual range?" He asked Captain Liefer.

Captain Liefer, a broad man with a thick Martian accent, answered, "Soon, Professor. I don't want to approach too fast."

"Yes, yes, I get that." Professor Ricter snapped, "I understand. Now, answer my question, how long before I can get a visual?"

The Captain took a deep calming breath. Professor Ricter was sure his size intimidated most, he was always the Alpha male in the room, always the one in charge. The Professor didn't care about that at all, he just wanted answers. "In about fifteen minutes at our current speed. Our telescopes are trained on the planet now."

"I know, but it's not a good visual. We came in too far away. I'll be sure to include that in my report." He spun in his chair and continued to study the readings, not giving the Captain a chance to reply.

The images that came back of the planet were small and he couldn't make out any details. He expected to see something but the planet was in half shadow and anything he expected to see might be hidden under that darkness. The planet was getting closer as the ship's speed increased. The magnetic field was holding steady, there didn't seem to be any build up as the ship approached.

With a few finger swipes on the screen he pulled up the images from the first Water Planet and compared. He didn't expect them to be the same but the differences were striking, both in size, temperature and brightness. This planet was much brighter. The magnetic field wasn't as strong and the atmosphere seemed to be more active than the first water planet. The planet was also further away from the sun but almost half an AU. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, absorbing the facts. The planet was larger yet still had the same mass. It was further away from the sun. Its atmosphere was active suggesting powerful winds and storms. His eyes snapped open he reached his conclusion. "The planet's frozen."

"Excuse me, Professor? Did you say something?"

"Yes, the planet is no longer a water planet. It's now an ice planet. I don't think we have anything to fear from it. Most of the electromagnetic energy that brought the Arwen down was the result of the Water planet's ribbon life forms. I'm sure they're all dead or in hibernation so we can increase our speed. Also, I'd like to organize a landing party."

"Wait. No, I can't risk my crew."

"Then risk mine. I have my team on the ready, just give us a shuttle, I have a class three license and can fly very well. All you'll be risking is a shuttle."

"I'm not sure. . . "

"Captain, surely you can see that an ice planet will wreak havoc with our scanners, the ice will deflect most of our signals away. I need to know about the wormhole at it's cored. We can't get that information from orbit, I need to be on the surface."

The Captain frowned. The Professors reputation was well known. He would get his way and the Captain knew he had to say yes or else face the wrath of Professor Theo Ricter. "Fine, you have your shuttle."

Professor Ricter stood and nodded, "Thank you, Captain. As you can see all you need to do is cater to my needs and I will not be a problem. I'll be in my office getting my team ready. Good day." With a triumphant smile Professor Ricter walked off the bridge and into the elevator.

He strolled down the hallways and into his lab where his team, a group of fifteen highly trained science officers, stopped what they were doing to look at him. He had worked them hard over the past few years, those who could deal with his work ethic would stay, those that couldn't were thrown aside. These were the ones who had impressed him the most, the ones he trusted to get his work finished on time. His domineer, while still stern, had softened for them. They had been through all his tests, there was no need to test them anymore. "We have a frozen planet we need to probe. I sent all the information to your computers. I need to know how we can probe its depth to see the Beta Wormhole at the core. Oh, and I need this within a day."

His team all nodded, eager to meet his approval, and began to study the readings. "I expect reports in my office. You're on your own, if you have any questions let me know." He stepped out of the room and headed for his office to study the readings as well.

"Now, this is interesting," Juliet said standing over a small table. A small portable shield had been erected all around the table, through the floor and up to the ceiling. The small data disk was totally encased with no way of getting out. But, since Juliet didn't believe anything was impossible, she had the data disk surrounded by small EMP generator, fully changed, ready to blast the electronics of the nanobots at a moment's notice.

She had gathered around her all of the science team, a few security guards, and Chief McFerren.

Juliet looked through the shimmering force field. The disk was a perfect replica, there could be no way anyone would have suspected it was the home to millions of atom sized robots programmed to disable a starship. What do we do now? She thought. "Okay, how do we get this thing to give up its secrets?

One of the scientists raised his hand. "We could hit it with the electromagnetic pulse, it would destroy them but at least we'd be safe and we'd have something to study."

"I thought about that, but I'd like to keep them in tact if I could."