Flux Runners

by William Joseph Roberts

  “Yeah, it does. See,” Rachel said pointing at the first selection on his screen. “This is yes and this one is no. I don’t care who you are, yes always comes before no.”

  “And exactly how the hell would you know? Met any nice aliens before?”

  “No, but that’s beside the point. If I’d have met aliens before now, I’d be a queen and you’d be on your knees, eating fish bars, and begging for more.”

  “Why do I even bother?” Wes mumbled to himself. “You’re not right, you know that?”

  Rachel’s right hand slowly extended toward Wes’s console. He quickly smacked the back of her hand. “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?” She reached for the console again. Her eyes locked onto him, unblinking.

  “Stop that!” Wes shouted. “Stop before you get us all killed.”

  “Both of you stop it before I come back out there!” Krista yelled from the Captain’s quarters.

  “See what you did? You pissed Mom off,” Rachel said, laughing.

  “What? I did?” Wes shouted. “You’re the one trying to kill everyone.”

  “No, I’m not,” Rachel said. She reached for the console again, yanking her hand back just as Wes swatted at her with all of his might. His palm planted firmly on the face of the console. An electronic tone bleeped back at his touch. He moved his hand to see the suspected yes button flash, then disappear.

  “Shit,” he said with a panicked squeak. “See what you made me do?”

  The console chimed with an odd warbling jingle as a new series of glyphs appeared on the screen along with the same selection buttons as before.

  “See, I told you it’s a survey,” Rachel said proudly. “You’ll have about four or five of them and then you’ll have to give it a star rating or whatever symbol these guys use for ratings and surveys,” she said then turned back to her console as if nothing odd or out of the ordinary had happened.

  “It’s not a survey!” Wes wiped a hand down his face in frustration.

  “Yes, it is. See, watch this,” Rachel excitedly said. From the depths of her flight suit, the neon pink double-headed phallus appeared once again and struck a mighty blow against the unsuspecting control console. With a flourish of her martial skills, she twirled her weapon of choice, grazing the tip across Wes’s cheek, then the other and quickly returned the phallus to its previous hiding place.

  Wes sat motionless. His left eye twitched spasmodically as a look of perplexed disgust varnished his face. “I’m not even exactly sure what the hell just happened.” He let out a long sigh.

  The console replied with a short sequence of electronic beeps followed by another series of glyphs.

  “Dammit, Cheezy!” Wes shouted. “Why? Why do you always go on these psychotic trains of thought when our lives are possibly hanging in the balance?” He hovered over the control console to protect it from another strike. “Are you that insane? Or do you just not care if any of us live or die?”

  Rachel rolled her eyes and sighed. “But, Wesley, I do care,” she sobbed. “Why does everyone think that I’m crazy? I’m not crazy.” A single tear rolled down her left cheek. “I just want to be loved, man. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less. Just love ...”

  “Oh shit,” Wes said apologetically. “I’m sorry, Cheezy, I didn’t mean …”

  “Gotcha!” With a blinding dash of speed and skill, Rachel produced, struck and returned her weapon to its holster in the span of a heartbeat.

  Wes flinched as she snatched for her arm and fell atop the console. An oddly loud beep blerp replied to his caress of the console. Warning alarms ignited across the bridge.

  “What did you do Geek?” Rachel shouted over the alarms.

  “Me? You’re the one that’s trying to kill all of us,” Wes shouted. He turned down the volume on the alarms. “We’re being targeted. Munition Inbound. Contact in five.”

  “I swear to all of the Gods that I am going to feed you both laxatives until you crap yourselves to death!” Krista shouted from the now open door of the Captain’s quarters.

  “Hi, Mom! Wes did it! It wasn’t anything to do with me.” Rachel flashed a quick smile back at Krista.

  “Four,” he shouted. “And no, I didn’t!” He turned in his seat and looked to Krista. “We have a missile or something locked on and heading right for us.”

  “Oh shit.” Krista ran for the Captain’s seat like her ass was on fire. She strapped into the five-point harness and pressed the ship’s intercom button. “Everyone listen up! You have two seconds to bend over and kiss your asses goodbye. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb up here are getting us shot at!”

  “Three.”

  Rachel slammed the throttle forward and pulled the control yoke to her chest. “I am Tweedle Dee,” she crooned. The ship rolled to the right as the nose pitched upward. The positive g-force pushed them all into their seats.

  “Firing countermeasures!” Wes furiously tapped at the controls. “Two!”

  The ship nosed over into negative G’s and side slipped to the left as her massiveness gently rolled to the right. Rachael cut the throttle and pulled the yoke back hard. She quickly keyed the comms. “Willy, I need full burn now!” She released the yoke, slid the harness straps over her shoulders then slammed the throttle forward and smacked the big red button that was mounted to the side of the throttle quadrant.

  Wes turned to Rachel with a look of horrific shock. “What the hell, nothing happened. One …”

  “Willy! I need full burn now!” Rachel pounded her fist down onto the big red button.

  “That’s it! Been nice knowing y’all,” Krista said as she curled into a seated fetal position, her eyes squeezed closed in anticipation.

  A heavy metallic thud impacted the lower hull and resonated throughout the ship as the alarms went silent.

  The intercom chimed to life. “What have you run into this time, Rachel. I’m going to put you in a suit and make you fix the damage,” Willy said.

  “Oh my God! We’re alive!” Wes jumped from his seat and did an odd truffle shuffle happy dance.

  “Not exactly by the numbers, but we survived. Looks like the thing was a dud,” Rachel said.

  “Doug had better damn well not leave you two alone again,” Krista said. “You two cause nothing but trouble. Now, are we done? Can we please be done, now? Cause if you’re done, then I’m taking my ass back to bed.”

  Wes snapped his fingers. “Numbers! That’s it!” He stared off into the space of deep thought. “Those glyphs were numbers!” He leapt back into his seat and began tapping away at the console. “If I have the computer do a comparison on those series of glyphs, assuming that they are numbers and the alien race that created those satellites used a base-ten numbering sequence then …” He watched the screen as the known glyphs ran through a sequence of number matching. “If we get at least two out of ten numbers to lock into place then we just need to send a message again in order to gather more data and decrypt at least the numbers in their language.” He excitedly squirmed in his seat like a child waiting for a bowl of ice cream.

  The ships comms chimed to life. “Hey Wes,” Doug yelled. “What the hell just happened? Is everyone alright over there?”

  “Come on baby, come to daddy.” Wes crossed his fingers as he watched the numbers cycle across the screen.

  Rachel keyed the comms, “The Geek may be about to have a geekgasm. I don’t think there’s any blood left in his brain at the moment.”

  “No, I am not. I think I figured out what went wrong after Rachel almost killed us all. We accidentally started what I think is a security passcode.”

  The console beeped as two numbers locked into place with the existing glyphs. “Hell yeah!” Wes shouted with a fist pump to the air. “That’s two, just one more and I’ll be able to figure this out.”

  “And all of that means just what exactly?” The frustration in Doug’s voice was heavy and thick.

  “If I’m right, when this algorithm finishes, we’ll know the numerals f
or this alien language. Then I send another signal to the satellite grid and run the additional glyphs that come up in the data message. Once I have an idea of what we’re dealing with, then I might be able to figure out how to bypass the defense system.”

  “Cheezy, do you think you can outrun one of those missiles if they launch again?”

  “As long as Willy is ready for a burn, then yeah. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Okay then,” Doug continued. “I’ll get Trae to park us behind one of these big rocks. You do the same with the Betty, just in case. We can transmit our comms through the probe that Fergus launched.”

  “Gotcha, Cap. Will do,” Rachel said.

  “Three, four, woot! We just got four numbers!” Wes did his seated happy dance.

  Rachel backhanded Wes across the shoulder. “Hey, did you catch any of that, Wes?”

  “Yup, and it looks like we have four of their numbers to work with.” Wes brought up multiple software windows on his screens and tapped the comms. “I’m tied into the probe Cap. Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll send the signal.”

  “The Betty is in position,” Rachel said.

  “Same here,” Trae came over the comms. “Secured for station keeping.”

  “Send the signal, Wes,” Doug ordered.

  Wes tapped the controls. “Copy that, Cap. Signal sent.”

  “Incoming data stream,” Rachel announced.

  Wes worked his electronic wizardry and accessed the signal. Four new glyphs appeared on the screen with the same selections below as before. “We’re in, running decryption software, now.” Wes tapped at the console. The known glyphs appeared on the main viewscreen, aligned with four of the numbers on a number line. Below this, the new glyphs appeared with numbers cycling through the sequence beside them. Slowly, the numbers locked into place, filling in the empty fields. “One, seven, six and four. Woo! Now we have an idea of what we’re looking at.”

  “Okay, Geek, but what does it mean?” Doug asked over the comms.

  “I have no Earthly idea,” Wes said. “But I started another piece of software to see what the numbers may relate to. It might take a little while to process, but the more data we have the quicker it’ll be.”

  “So hit the button Geek,” Rachel said.

  “What? No. Do you really want to get shot at again?”

  “You have a fifty-fifty shot at being right. Considering everything else against us, those are pretty damned good odds.”

  “Just hit the button Geek,” Doug said. “Considering there aren’t any signs of patrol ships, and the fact that the last shot was a dud, I think it’s safe to say no one’s home and haven’t been for a while. Hit the damn button, Geek.”

  Rachel giggled. “Ooo … Ooo, I wanna do it.” She reached across the console to Wes’s touchscreen. Her finger hovered just above the screen as she pointed back and forth at the two selections. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” she sang as she pointed.

  Wes swatted at her finger. “Are you seriously making a decision like this based on a grade school rhyme?”

  “Yup.” She smiled wide and jabbed her finger at the first selection. “Mo!”

  The console beeped and the display changed to a new series of glyphs.

  “I’ll be damned,” Wes gasped. “You didn’t kill us.” He eagerly shuffled the data from the new selections to his decryption software screen.

  Rachel poked at the same button again and the console beeped.

  Wes smacked her hand away. “Oh God, we’re gonna die.”

  “Will you two pull it together,” Doug ordered. “What’s going on over there?”

  The screen flashed with a message written in the strange alien text that scrolled vertically down the screen. Abruptly the screen changed to a rendering of the asteroid field with a list of coordinate points to one side.

  “I think we’ve been allowed safe passage, Cap,” Wes said. “This looks like flight path guidance to something planet-side.” He studied the data with fascination.

  Rachel craned her neck to look at his screens. “What the hell do you mean flight path? Let me see, Geek.”

  “If you would wait just two seconds, I’ll send it over to your console.” He tapped at the controls.

  “God, Geek, come on already.” Rachel rolled her eyes, slouching in her seat.

  “There,” Wes said. “Are you happy now?”

  “Yes, now shut up.” Rachel stuck her tongue out at him. “Hey, Cap. Somehow the Geek’s right. This looks like flight path guidance. It lands us in the northern hemisphere of the second planet. I can’t make out anything except the numbers yet, but that’s what it all looks like to me.”

  “Set a course and stick to the flight path,” Doug said. “That defense system could power up again if we deviate from the course. Let’s get these birds on the ground, do a few repairs and get our bearings before we do anything else.”

  cHAPTER 11

  Unknown Red Giant star system

  2nd planet, Northern Hemisphere

  May 25th, 2176 / Midday (Betty time)

  D oug sat silently against the seat of his rat-rod like hoverbike. He leaned over, reaching for something deep within the starboard saddlebag. The bike’s landing gear foot sank awkwardly into the loose sand. He retrieved a datapad, then shifted his weight to where it was before, relaxing against the bike once again. The red giant loomed low in the sky, partially hidden behind the remains of the ancient, but dead metropolis that surrounded him. Low in the sky before him, three large moons hung brightly in what he guessed was the evening sky. Long shadows stretched across an expansive canyon that lay before him.

  “There has to be something good out of all of this,” he sighed. He scrolled through a list of ships supplies on the datapad.

  Three months worth of freeze-dried rations, one month of perishables and just over ten thousand liters of freshwater in reserve, he thought. We shouldn’t have a problem with water rations as long as the recyclers don’t break down again. Four months of supplies can be rationed to five or six if we really try to stretch it out.

  He tucked his head inside of the vintage looking vest that he wore to light a cigarette. Ragged strings of the roughly cut vest fluttered in the dry breeze. Small holes and thread-bare spots peeked out between a myriad of pins and patches that covered the gray corduroy garment. The sharp grating crackle of the flip lighter disturbed the serene silence as he struck the flint over and over again.

  “Fucking, hell!” The datapad soared out of sight over the canyon’s edge. “Can’t I get a break!?”

  He took a deep breath, then tucked his head once more. A small, blue flame flickered to life within the lighter’s chimney. Quickly he took a long drag from his cigarette. He took in the scenery that surrounded him. The ancient monoliths of a long-dead society stood tall and proud against the ravages of time and the elements. Across the dry, abysmal canyon lay more of the same structures that surrounded him here. The strangely shaped skyscrapers jutted from enormous sand dunes along the wide canyon, stark white against the dark brown dunes of fine sand. The structures resembled the tall slender stalk of asparagus with their bulbous tops stretched high above the ground.

  This must have been a sight to see in ancient times, Doug thought. I bet it looked something like those old pictures of New York city from before the Hell years. Three moons over the bay with the city lights reflecting in the water. He stood and shielded his eyes from the glare of the red star. The structures of the opposite shore had silently defied the eons, but they fought a losing battle. Foundations of those closest to the edge had crumbled in places. A number of the ancient alien skyscrapers had fallen victim to gravity, collapsing into the precipice. The scars of time showed on the surface of all of the surviving structures. Sections had crumbled away in spots while the remaining walls had been scoured smooth by sand and wind.

  No telling how long any of this has been here, Doug thought. There might even be some decent salvage left lying around or buried in these ruins. Thi
ngs in the deserts and pyramids back on Earth were preserved for a few thousand years. “Makes sense to me that the same would hold true for this desert.” He grunted a laugh then took another long drag from his cigarette. The smoke rolled slowly from his mouth into his nose. The first order of business is food and water. There’s no telling if or when we can get back to Earth. We might be stuck here permanently. Not a sign of life anywhere, yet. Wouldn’t that be something? An entire star system to ourselves. How the hell do you put a claim on an entire star system?

  The radio on the bike crackled to life. “Hey Doug,” Krista said. Concern laced her voice.

  He turned and hit the radio switch on the bike’s dash. “Go ahead.”

  “The kids think they’ve got something figured out and need you to take a look. Will you be coming home soon?”

  Home, He thought. He took another slow drag and let the thought linger. I guess that rusted bucket of bolts is the closest thing any of us have ever had to a real home. He hit the switch again. “Yeah. I’ll be there in a bit. I’m about twenty klicks South of you.”

  “Okay, I’ll let them know.”

  “Hey,” Rachel interrupted. “Ask him if he’s going to take that windscreen off and ride that bike like a real man or not.”

  “Will you shut up and get back to whatever the hell it is that you’re supposed to be doing,” Krista said.

  “Tell her not to worry about it unless she’s going to ride with me. I’ll be back shortly, packing up now,” Doug responded.

  “Copy that,” Krista’s tone was resigned.

  He lit another cigarette from the smoldering stub of the previous one, then strapped on his helmet. The pulse drive rumbled to life with the push of a button and the bike immediately hovered inches above the ground. Doug mounted the bike and rolled the throttle. His metal steed leapt forward an instant later. A rooster tail of sand blossomed and rose high into the air behind the bike as he cruised through the dead streets of the alien city.