Short Fiction: the Orville - mistakes were made

 Part 7: mistakes were made

"Okay," Captain Ed Mercer was awakened by a distant voice to find himself in a non-functioning medpod. Somewhere at the edge of his field of view a red uniform vanished behind a door. "We are..."

"...somewhere." Ed pushed the medpod cover open and struggled to sit up. With a better view he could now see he was in a shuttle bay. It was twice the size of the Orville's. What caught his attention was the shuttle tipped on its side and jammed up against the far wall. "Huh."

"Did I do that?" Ed got to his feet and walked across to the prone shuttle. There he activated the rear access which oppened part way and halted. It wouldnt open any further until it sat upright. "All right."

"Lets do this." He slipped through the narrow gap and made his way in to the shuttle. There he activated the shuttle systems causing it to move then roll into an upright position. He could now see two green medical uniforms, the bodies in them crushed and unrecognizable against the wall. "Oh God."

Ed was hit by a sensation of Nausea that forced him to vomit on the floor of the shuttle. The memory of what he did to the crew of the Orville weighed heavily on him as he rested his hand on his forehead and breathed deeply. Now here were two medics dead. He didn't even know their names.

"I am so sorry for that." Ed shut down the shuttle and lowered its access ramp. He sat in the pilot's chair for a while, considering how bad it had to get before turning away from the corpses smeared against the wall. Ed turned and looked out the rear of the shuttle only to sight a third body in a green medical uniform. It took a moment for him to realize who it was. "Claire?"





"Holograms are complex." Chief Engineer John LaMarr thought about the nature of Holograms. "They can be highly accurate down to bodily fluids and organs and even holographic brain activity."

"So you are saying that in the holographic environment..." Captain Kelly Grayson stared at Laura Huggins in horror. "...holograms are alive?"

"Yes and no," John LaMarr considered the situation. "Hologrames are a creation of the ship's computer and are kept alive on the holodeck."

"So the Holodeck is like a mother's womb," Laura Huggins added something new and unexpected to the conversation. "And the ship is my mother?"

"Basically Gordon Malloy got the Orville Pregnant." John LaMarr considered that something he was never expecting to say. "This day is just tripping."

"And using Kaylon technology," Kelly stared at Laura Huggins and sat down. "He helped it give birth to Laura Huggins."

"She is in effect..." Isaac stared at Laura Huggins searching for understanding. "...a new form of sentient life."

"If anyone wants me," John LaMarr shook his head at the impossibility of Gordon Malloy surpassing him. "I'll be in Engineering."

...

"Isaac?" It was a moment of soul searching as Kelly stared out the window of her ready room at the debris field of Kaylon Prime, her second glass of Alcohol almost emptied. "How many Kaylon did we... I kill ?"

"All other Kaylon are dead Captain Grayson." Isaac starred out the window at the debris field. "I am the last."

"I meant..." Kelly exhaled and waved a finger above her glass of alcohol hoping for a round number. "...specifically."

"I was not connected to the Kaylon at the time," Isaac determined the number had grown significantly. Every Kaylon Battleship was designed to serve as a seed factory for the construction of a new Kaylon homeworld. "It cannot be determined specifically."

"So... one?" Laura interjected herself into the conversation startling Kelly who had done her best to forget the holographic life form existed. "...on account of the Kaylon being a single interconnected machine and Isaac being separate?"

"That's..." Kelly could see the Kaylon as an uncountable number. "...an oversimplification."

"The other was a more significant organism compared to Isaac," Laura whittled Kelly's genocide down to something far more personalized. "The parent of the child."

"Ah." Isaac understood the concept and a realization spread across the room as Isaac's eyes shifted from blue to red implying he was now experiencing a whole new collection of emotions. "You killed my mother."

"Oh Shit." Kelly Grayson dragged Laura Huggins down behind the desk in the search for cover and pulled Laura in close. "You... start singing now."

"Really?" Laura Huggins had zero situational awareness so the Idea that Isaac might pose a threat was beyond her. "What kind of Music does Isaac like?"

"Gordon mentioned you like to sing," Kelly nodded as she groped around on the desk above her for her personal communicator. "So you know... sing that."

"Okay," Laura nodded and looked about. "But he's gone."

"What..." Captain Kelly Grayson got to her feet. "...the fuck?"