author's note: If none of you have read The Last Survivor I suggest you do so, it will help you understand what is happening in this story. (you can read it here) The story behind this story is that I woke up after I wrote The Last Survivor and decided that I hadn't finished Alicia's tale. I spent a few hours drawing up the plot line and possible ideas for a new saga. I normally don't write pure science fiction. Sci-Fantasy is more my thing. It was a blessing to write though even if its been years since I sat down and pounded something out that even resembled pure science fiction. Exile, another story that I worked on in 2003 was my last attempt at a space tale. It sadly failed and I decided to put my attention in other directions after I started work on Shattered Earth. Anyone who has not read either can do so at my website. Link to my website here

As I started work on the Prometheus Files as I decided to name it today as I realized that the tale would most likely take place over thousands of years. I found that the concept of a person who existed in a starship and had spent her entire life in space, barely remembered having a real body would be an interesting challenge. She doesn't even think she is part of the human race anymore. As you read the story its an important thing to note. Imagine alienating yourself from humanity so long you forget your human yourself. Another interesting problem is her participation in this AI war. In The Last Survivor I hinted that she actually knew the personalty behind the AI personally, and she herself had slew it. It will certainly be fun to write that out. Pondering the concepts of future technology is going to be interesting. I've described to you that alicia's ship is actually made up of nanobots, she can form it to whatever purpose or shape she needs. Its like a favorite shirt though, and she actually prefers one shape and form to others as I will explain through out the work. The curren't "modern" form of starships are living tissue instead of nanotechnology. The problem is that this has been the norm for thousands of years. I never said though that it was better. I've never written down this path and that should pose another enjoyable problem, how to build traditionally "mechanical" devices out of living tissue instead. Such as thrusters, stardrives and other components. I guess I'll figure it out as I go.

I hope you people enjoy reading this next chapter its only the first part. I'll appreciate comments if you can give them, as I am basically groping in the dark here.

The Prometheus files

Chapter 1: the Echo’s of War

Alicia Dax’s sensors told here the object was still producing a heat source but it seemed as lifeless to her as anything in this forsaken star system. During the AI wars it had be scoured of life and now was home to only a few dead worlds. This had to be it, the object she was sent to find by Prospero, he had left her one last message before he was killed, saying that it was important if HE was back.

The cargo hold opened and a drone slowly pushed the pod inside, its little thrusters maneuvering it to the waiting jaws of a team of analyzers. Alicia manipulated them as if they were her own hands, which in effect they were. She was a brainship and had no real hand to inspect the curiosity with. All she had was the product of her nanotechnology that enabled her to build what tools she needed. Sometimes she wished she had taken the time to refine her analyzers so they weren’t so clumsy.

Giving a mental sigh, for the last almost nine thousand earth years she had been an explorer, rarely finding something more interesting than an artifact from some lost alien civilization, that she didn’t even bother to intensely study. Artifacts littered the milky way, indicating that it once had possessed not one interstellar race, mankind but a multitude of them. For some reason hundreds of thousands of years before man had even discovered fire, civilizations had died abruptly and suddenly all ceasing as if blown out like a candle.

It made anyone who strived to study xeno-archeology a bit nervous. It sometimes chilled Alicia to the bone when she thought that only a few hundred thousand years ago this galaxy had been teeming with trade, art and culture from a hundred alien races to be suddenly extinguished by some unknown force. Even so, what ever had happened had happened and it was something for someone else to shudder over not her.

This was not an alien artifact however. She could see the unmistakable lines of script on the object marking it as a product of man. It identified it as belonging to the Genco Ltd, some corporation that must have died out nine thousand years ago along with this whole star system. She smiled at the reference. Corporations had died out with the AI war. She hadn’t missed them. Alicia was probably the only soul alive that could remember being in the clutches of global corporations. As she pulled up Genco’s records she found it had been a small endeavor, not one of the mega-giants that had tried to enslave humanity out of greed.

It had been a small genetics company that had moved away from Earth’s laws to continue its research shortly before the AI war. Like many things of that era the company had been run by a brain-hive. Most of the things in this system had been. Human bodies being to frail at the time to travel the vast distances through timestream.

For a second she paused. What if this was this was the company’s brain? She might not be the last one any longer. The brain could be implanted into a ship or a mechanical body such as Prospero had used. Then she would have someone to talk to.

Finally finding the cargo plate, she put a reader thumb on its surface to see what its data was. If she would have had a face it would have turned white. All of the inspecting analyzers spun around and bumped into each other in agitation, sort of like Alicia’s way of expressing trembling hands.

It was a stasis pod. The internal scan had come back and she didn’t need to look at it to know that inside lay a human boy child that had slept for millennia.

Alicia knew that she didn’t have any faculty to cater to a child. For one thing she had not pressurized her half-mile long ship in here entire career. It was certainly possible. But it would be just easier to turn the boy over to his human brethren and be done with it.

The note, Prospero’s last will and testament rang off in her mind. It had said to keep it safe, the object was the last hope for humanity now that the brain ships were gone. Alicia knew she owed Prospero her life, in the war he and his twin brother had saved it.

It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t deserve to hold anything so important to the human race when once she had almost destroyed it. It was one of the reasons that she had eventually shunned herself from them. After a while she couldn’t bare to look at them anymore without the overwhelming shame.

No one knew that little footnote in history but her and Prospero. Prospero had known why she had done what she had and he had forgiven her. Alicia however, had never forgiven herself.

In her mind she wept. Her thoughts ones of indecision and confusion, her cries of rage and grief as the final battle played through her mind.

This isn't bad, though it does go a bit into info dump for a while. Nothing really happened either, and it was a bit short. Maybe it's because I'm reading without the background of the other story - this was a little confusing. But this is interesting, and I figure someone needs to tell you how they felt about reading this.

Keep up the work.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I've not written any pure sci-fiction for a very long time, about five years now and I didn't know if I still had it in me. Alicia as you understand is a brain in a mechanical starship body. An interesting concept. Her idea of time isn't the same as others and she doesn't consider herself human any longer. The idea of the story is simple. The redemption of Alicia Dax. How to put her back into the human race. That is what this story is about as well as a struggle for the survival of humanity.

I probably won't be able to post farther on this until later this week, still working on other projects but I'll have the next/rest of this chapter by the weekend and you can see what happened in that last fateful battle. The story will probably go at a slow pace for a while until I have time to write a few chapters at once. Thanks though I wasn't sure if anyone even read it

It does help to have read The Last Survivor first, because it more or less explains things (as a prologue, I guess). I didn't think it really went into an info dump (may have been because I read the first prior, maybe not). The concept behind this is still good, and I still like it. =).

Looking forward to more. =).