The Celestial Minds (Spacetime Universe Book 2)

by J. Benjamin

  Confused, Dev opened his eyes to look back at the center of the action. The red lasers now dimmed so low it was almost impossible to tell if they were still on. The light from the central point disappeared.

  “Is it . . . gone?” Sook asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dev said.

  “The lasers are still firing,” Carlos said.

  Dev followed the lasers carefully. Then he realized what was happening. The light dimmed, but it wasn’t because of the lasers. Rather, it was because something inside the central space was removing the visible light. It was in that moment when Dev finally realized what they were witnessing.

  “Holy fuck!” he shouted. “We can’t see the light because it’s disappearing. That’s an event horizon!”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Sook said. “How can you tell?”

  “What else could it be?” Dev said. “Carlos, back me up here.”

  “He’s right,” Carlos said. Readings show massive energy losses at the central point. It’s . . . oh my God. It’s a wormhole!”

  Sook gasped.

  Dev clasped his hands to his face. “We did it,” he said. “We fucking did it. All these years. All these failures. We finally built an interstellar bridge. Holy crap we did it!” He punched his hands in the air in victory.

  “Can we confirm the path of the wormhole’s trajectory?” Sook asked.

  “I’m trying. This is supposed to be a direct injection to the coordinates we believe Edie Brenner set when they completed the first sequence back in 2081. At least that’s what we scraped from the signals back then,” Carlos explained.

  “Hey! You see that? Is that supposed to happen?” Dev interrupted. At the event horizon, a dim light emerged from the wormhole. The faint white glow flickered like ripples on a lake. The faint wormhole slowly expanded.

  Dev realized they were now staring through, not just the event horizon, but the other side of the wormhole.

  “Well that’s strange,” Dev said. “That wasn’t what I was expecting.”

  A deafening flash ripped through the entire skunkworks station.

  Chapter 48

  Unknown Nebula

  As a kid, Edie dreamt about what it would be like to one day fly through one of the cosmic gas clouds. That dream had become a reality.

  The nebula was a much tougher terrain to navigate than Edie had anticipated. The turbulence was everything she expected it to be, times ten. Levitating over the controls, she worked to keep the ship stable as the winds and blasts of electrons worked to knock them off balance.

  “Hey Agamemnon, how far are we from the jump node?” Edie asked.

  “Ten clicks,” they said telepathically. The Aquarian host vessel shadowed the humans less than half a kilometer behind.

  “Alex, how are we on gas?” Edie shouted through the cockpit and into the main cabin, where Alex stood overlooking the gas containment tank.

  “About three quarters,” Alex shouted back. “Making great progress.”

  “Good, because as much as I love this nebula, I’m starting to get seasick,” Edie said.

  “We’re in space,” Alex shouted.

  “You know what I mean,” Edie shouted back. A blast struck the ship. Miraculously, the A’biran levitation technology did not falter.

  Being anchored to the ship, Edie could also see outside at Agamemnon. The majestic vessel lit up like a turquoise lantern every time a flash of lightning landed against its blue hull. Contrasted against the pink clouds of the nebula, Agamemnon looked like a derelict pirate ship emerging alone from rough and violent waters.

  “Tank now at one-hundred percent,” Alex said.

  “Perfect,” Edie said, relieved.

  “Now we can take it back to New Havasupai and give the terraforming engine the boost it needs,” Alex said. New Havasupai the name they’d chosen for the red-desert world they’d inherited from the Aquarians.

  “Hopefully we can use the auto-fabrik machine to build more auto-fabrik machines and build that permanent structure,” Edie said.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “You heard Agamemnon. We need the gas for the terraforming device.”

  “We’re going to have plenty,” Edie said. Once again, she motioned her hands against the movement of the ship in order to keep it stable. “Besides, we might not be the only humans there for long.”

  “Ugh.” Alex walked into the cockpit. “Are we really ready to be around other humans again? I was getting used to it just being the two of us.”

  “I hear ya,” Edie said. “Look at the bright side. The Aquarians had a plan for us, and we helped make that plan a reality. Now we’re going to be the founders of a new civilization, which future humans will flock to by the thousands.”

  “How will they get there?” Alex wondered. “Agamemnon never really explained that part.”

  “I’m sure they’ll build a node to the Solar System. Let’s face it, things are not going to end well for Earth. What we’re doing right now will offer a new lifeline to all of humanity. If only they knew it. If only they could appreciate it,” Edie said.

  “If only,” Alex repeated. “I just hope they don’t bring those assholes from the Universal Crescent to the new planet. I was enjoying a future without their nonsense.”

  “Hard to say. My guess is they’ll all choose to remain,” Edie said. “Hey Agamemnon. How far are we from the node now?”

  “We are five clicks away,” Agamemnon replied.

  “Thanks,” Edie said. By now, she was getting the hang of the rough and tumble of the nebula. Sure it was a volatile and chaotic environment to fly in. But once Edie had familiarized herself with the quirks of the light-years-expanding gas clouds, she found the flying part easier to master.

  “I still can’t believe we have our own planet now,” Alex said. “Just wait till we germinate the surface with algae, and plants, and trees. New Havasupai is going to be everything Earth once was. Except now it will be a world that can’t be destroyed by fossil fuels, since there aren’t any fossils.”

  “I like your optimism,” Edie said. “Humans always find a way to fuck everything up. Someone, somewhere, with their big ego, will find a way to fuck this up too. Trust me.”

  “And I don’t like your pessimism,” Alex said. “We got the Aquarians, errr . . . Yonapi this time. They’ll help us curb humanity’s worst impulses. You watch.”

  “So we hope,” Edie said. “So we hope.”

  “We are one click from the node,” Agamemnon said. “Prepare the Hypernova for subspace jump.”

  “Good thing New Havasupai has something close to a twenty-four-hour day,” Edie said. “Because I need some shut eye and I need it on a terrestrial planet again.”

  “Amen to that,” Alex said.

  Edie considered how she was going to word her next sentence. “Actually, hope I can keep you up another hour. Got some . . . celebrating to do on this new planet if you catch my drift.” She turned to Alex and winked.

  “Oh . . .” Alex replied with a devious smile. “Someone’s gotta be the first on every new planet.”

  Edie grinned. “Behave yourself. We’re not home quite yet. Almost there.”

  “Aye aye, captain,” Alex said.

  Edie scanned the Hypernova’s systems. Despite the shakes from the nebula, hull integrity was at one-hundred percent and all systems were stable. She’d completed every item on her mental, pre-jump checklist.

  “Agamemnon. Alex. Prepare for spacetime jump.”

  “Acknowledged,” Agamemnon said.

  Edie activated the jump sequence, and the lights of the ship went dark, as did the world outside the ship and her mental connections. Her mind was in the same fog she’d found herself in right before almost burning up in the atmosphere of New Havasupai.

  “No,” Edie panicked. “Not again.”

  She tried to turn, but her neck froze. She tried to move her feet, but they too were immobile. Her entire body felt paralyzed. She had no idea why this was happening to her, esp
ecially now of all times. All she knew was that it wasn’t normal.

  “Alex!” she screamed. “Agamemnon! Can you hear me?” She continued calling their names to no avail. Their presences disappeared. Her calls were useless. In the darkness, Edie felt no other presence but her own, and even from that she felt detached.

  She heard a faint whisper. At least it sounded like a whisper. It called to her from her left. No, it was behind her now. While Edie couldn’t physically move, she directed her consciousness in the direction of the whisper.

  “Who’s there?” Edie demanded. “Show yourself!”

  “Eee . . . deeee . . .” a familiar voice cried back, faintly.

  “Alex,” she shouted back. Edie concentrated every existing part of her that she could muster from within the out-of-body fog. It felt like swimming through a tsunami. The unknown forces that trapped her mind were fighting mightily to keep her there, but she pushed, and pushed, until she felt the weight cave in.

  Edie opened her eyes. Miraculously, she still floated at the pilot’s station. The Hypernova hadn’t left the nebula. Alex lay on the floor with a fresh look of confusion across his face.

  “What the fuck was that?” Alex questioned.

  “You felt that too?” Edie asked, surprised.

  “I feel like I just got mind-fucked!”

  Edie felt a knot in the pit of her stomach as she came to the realization that what happened to her was not only a product of her own physical/mental state, but that it was also happening to Alex. It was external.

  “Alex,” Edie said coldly. “Do you remember when we left subspace and showed up at New Havasupai?”

  “Edie. Are you saying this is what happened to you back there?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “You think so?” Alex repeated.

  “Yes. And now it’s happened to both of us at the same time.”

  Alex’s eyes bulged in horror. “What’s going on here?”

  “I don’t know, but I have a bad feeling about this.” Suddenly, both she and Alex felt a shared surge of telepathic thought from Agamemnon.

  In an uncharacteristic display of valiant force, the Aquarian vessel dashed past the Hypernova. Its hull was a bright, hot pink. Against the contrast of the nebula, it looked deathly, defiant, and out for blood. Then, the visual of Agamemnon appeared alongside both humans. Much like the ship, its mental projection displayed the same fiery pink. It made Edie’s heart jump.

  “Edie, Alex,” the host started. “Go to the node now. As quickly as you can. Do not wait.”

  “Agamemnon, what the Hell is going on?” Edie demanded.

  “We will hold them off as long as we can, but you must go to the node now. Your lives are in grave danger,” Agamemnon urged, which was a behavior Edie had never seen in all her time with the Aquarians.

  “Who?” Edie asked.

  “Edie, you heard them!” Alex shouted. “Go!”

  Refocusing on the Hypernova, Edie mentally linked herself to the engines of the ship, as well as the fuel.

  “Engines set to one-hundred percent, you might want to grab a hold of something!” Edie commanded.

  “What?” Alex said, befuddled. He flew clean off his feet as the Hypernova quickly accelerated to full speed. Alex managed to grab on to a metal bar near the door of the cockpit, though his legs flew above him.

  The Hypernova fired away like a W-shaped comet at the direction of the invisible point in space that would take them to safety. As they charged through the nebula at full speed, the violent forces of the gas clouds and lightning rocked the Hypernova with a turbulence so powerful, Edie wondered if it could rip the ship in half. Even so, Agamemnon matched their speed and flew at their three-o-clock position.

  Edie could sense the node quickly approaching. Just thirty seconds and they would be back to safety again.

  “Engaging jump drive,” Edie said. “We’re almost there.” She felt the ship’s subspace engine come to life. The fusion processes that would interact with the node and open it like a doorway had already begun. This was it. Home.

  Then, the ship’s jump process aborted. The fusion reactors ceased.

  “What the Hell?” Edie said.

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked.

  “The jump drive, it just . . . stopped.”

  “Can you restart it?”

  “I’m trying!” Edie said, frustrated. “It’s not working.”

  Edie focused on the jump drives, but watched with horror as the ship’s main engines also shut down.

  “I’ve lost control,” Edie said.

  “You lost control?” Alex repeated, disbelieving her words.

  “The ship. I’m trying to restart the engines but there’s an outside force that’s getting in the way. It’s as if it grabbed the engines and manually blocked me out.”

  “But if you’re not in control of the ship? Who is?” Alex wondered.

  Both Edie and Alex felt an overwhelming and overpowering force creep into their consciousnesses. It wasn’t the same as when the Aquarians formed a mental bridge. This felt more like a dark storm cloud sweeping up everything on the horizon and blocking out the sun.

  Edie could feel that even Agamemnon was no match for what lay in the depths of the nebula clouds, as it failed to contain the mysterious threat with its own mental defenses. This was apparent when the Aquarian’s mental projection flailed its hundreds of tentacles frantically and urgently.

  She looked into Agamemnon, as did Alex. Together, they held their mental bonds tightly one last time. Two massive beams of green light ripped through the shadows of the gas clouds. The overpowering bursts of energy sliced through Agamemnon with ease. In the blink of an eye, the bright pink vessel exploded into a violent ball of gas, fire, and shards of torn ship. Edie and Alex felt the third presence of Agamemnon violently ripped from their consciousnesses, root and stem.

  Agamemnon, the Aquarian host who had guided them across the stars and shared with them the universe, was dead. The humans stood alone, in their ship, in a dark and deadly nebula. Even that, they no longer controlled. In the direct sight of the Hypernova, a new presence reared its ugly head.

  “What in the ever-living fuck is that?” Edie shouted.

  “God help us,” Alex said in a soft but fearful tone.

  A gargantuan ship slowly emerged from the clouds. The round, silver dome resembled a chrome-plated turtle shell, extending many miles in every direction. The starship was so vast, it looked like it could house Agamemnon times fifty, and that was just the part of the ship exposed from behind the clouds.

  Edie lost control of her own senses as the terrifying source of her blackouts revealed itself. She felt it consume every cell in her body. Every nerve lit up and, in that moment, she felt a pain so intense, she feared she might never awaken from it again. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t, because the force from beyond controlled her vocal cords.

  This was it, Edie told herself. This was how she was going to die. It wouldn’t be as an old woman on a terraforming planet. It wasn’t even going to be at the hands of her enemies. It was going to be in a nebula, far away from any home she ever knew, and nobody would know about it, except for whatever or whoever sat inside that starship. If there was any comfort to come from this moment, it’s that she would die alongside one of the only two people she ever truly loved.

  Though she couldn’t see their faces or hear their voices, she felt them looking into her. They crept up her brain stem and crawled into the crevices of gray matter like ants marching up the bones of an aging wooden house. There were many of them, and they methodically raided her mind.

  Edie realized the truth before the pair fainted.

  The Hypernova’s engines powered back to life, except this time not toward the jump node. A panel on the starship opened to reveal an entryway. The Hypernova slowly flew into the space-faring titan.

  Chapter 49

  New Tokyo Spaceport

  It was a busy day at the spaceport. Sever
al gates lit up with flights to well-known destinations such as Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Sally Ride City, and Olympus Mons. A few months earlier, none of these destinations would be possible, as New Tokyo was on hostile ground with most of the world’s governments. Yet thanks to the heroic efforts of Val and Thomas, humanity was saved from a dangerous standoff with the Aquarian host Minerva, and New Tokyo was welcomed back into the interplanetary community with open arms.

  However, much like Val and Ty’s flight today, most of the flights at New Tokyo headed outbound instead of inbound. Like Ty, many who experienced the full mental impact of the Aquarian hostilities were traumatized and fearful to remain on the moon. In the days after, Val had come to learn that it wasn’t just people in the immediate Research Bay who felt the effects. People far into the halls of the New Tokyo military base felt it and even some as far as Ginga Mizumi.

  Destroying Minerva was not an option. However, containing the kaiju and preventing a repeat crisis, was the short- term solution. Long term, there were discussions about potentially moving the alien vessel to Pluto or even as far away as Sedna.

  They found their terminal.

  “Two tickets to Nairobi, ready to go!” Ty said excitedly while waving two recycled, red tickets. “Did we check our luggage?”

  “I took care of that this morning. Our stuff is already loaded,” Val said. They sat in the waiting area by the gate. “Right now we just relax. I’ve got my book ready. We should be there in two hours.”

  “Insane,” Ty said. “When I was a kid, two hours was how long it took to fly from one side of Kenya to the other. Now we can fly there all the way from the moon.”

  “When you were a kid, passenger skipper craft didn’t exist yet,” Val reminded her.

  “Are you saying I’m old?” Ty asked.

  “I could, but then that would be the pot calling the kettle black,” Val said.

  “Yeah, uh huh. Good save,” Ty laughed. “I just can’t wait to be back in normal gravity again.”

  The fact that Ty was laughing again made Val incredibly grateful. The Ty she fell in love with on Space Station Sagan and eventually married, was back. This would be their chance to start anew and create new happiness after the whirlwind of the last ninety-nine days.