“Three… two… one… Disch—”
His communicator went dead. He thrusters went dead. No lights. No inertial inhibitor. Just a long, arcing ballistic trajectory.
Lex held his breath. There wasn’t much else he could do. The SOB crested its flight. The interior lights began to reactivate.
“Boot, boot, boot,” he insisted, hammering the control system’s activation switch.
The ship’s systems started to tick on in order of importance.
Life support
Emergency beacon
Tymflex system
Inertial inhibitor
System monitor
“Thrusters, thrusters, thrusters,” he said, “TymFlex will just make my final seconds take a couple minutes!”
Maneuvering thrusters
“Good enough!” he shouted.
He cranked them to full. The thrusters in question were intended for in-orbit maneuvers and really weren’t designed for fighting gravity, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The readouts lit up, ticking off the remaining altitude with worrying speed.
Weapon system
Main thrusters
The thrusters burst to life. He pivoted the ship and blasted them for all they were worth. If the inhibitor hadn’t turned on first, he would have likely splattered his brain against the back of his skull. The force was such that Ziva’s locked grip nearly peeled the cockpit hatch open. The speed was just about straddling the line between crater and landing when the belly of the SOB struck the ground. Most of his thrusters immediately deactivated again. He was grinding backward along the ground toward the very fissure that Garotte’s self-destruct had significantly widened. Mercifully he came to a complete stop a few dozen meters before the edge.
Lex took a shaky breath. “Okay… We’re good. We’re alive. Everyone good?”
“M-minor m-memory fault. R-Restructuring. F-full rest-restoration in thr-three minutes,” Coal said.
He looked up through the badly damaged cockpit at Ziva. Her irises were weakly flickering. She looked like she was slowly coming around.
“Okay. That’s fine. We’ve got time. That must have taken out the rest of the GenMechs.”
“N-no.”
The display populated with a QPS readout. There were still two thousand active GenMechs.
“… Okay… well, we’re pretty low power. We just hold still until the others show up and we’ll be fine.”
He peered at the screen. The points on the QPS readout were moving in a straight line, directly toward him.
“How can they be heading for me? There’s all those yummy GenMech parts that they should be feasting on.”
He watched them continue toward him, then brought up the boot sequence.
“I didn’t reactivate long-range communication, we’re powered down. What could… emergency beacon.”
He fumbled for the hatch for his emergency kit and pulled the beacon from inside. After a moment of fighting, he realized it wasn’t intended to be shut down.
“Screw it, I’m crushing it with a rock.”
Lex eased the cockpit open.
“W-won’t work. GenMechs will tr-travel to last transmission l-location.”
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t have anything to fight them with!”
“A-arming fusion d-device.”
“That still works?”
“Basic operation, s-simple mechanics.”
Lex looked to the approaching dots again. “Okay… Okay… I’ve got an idea.” He grabbed the duct tape from the emergency kit. “Put the fusion mine on a sixty-second timer and drop it.”
“N-No f-fun?”
“We’ll see, Coal. Just do it!”
“Deployed.”
He hopped from the cockpit and scrambled down the side of the ship. A watercooler-sized cylindrical device had thumped out the port side of the ship. He tapped the emergency beacon to it, heaved it around, and started rolling it toward the fissure.
There was no atmosphere, so he couldn’t hear the GenMechs coming, or anything else but his own panicked breathing. He had no way of knowing how close they were. But right now the greater concern was if he could get to the edge of the fissure in less than sixty seconds. Gravity, after doing its very best to take his life, finally decided to lend a hand, and the device started to pick up speed, rolling on its own toward the fissure. He turned and dashed in the darkness as it bounced, rolled, and twirled down the last stretch and into the long drop. The sky flickered with thrusters. GenMechs swept overhead and into the fissure as well. Lex scrambled into the SOB and huddled down.
The fusion device went off. Again, without atmosphere he felt its vibrations rather than its actual burst. It had fallen far enough that the blast didn’t bury them in slag or flash fry them. Lex turned his eyes to the display. It flickered a bit, slowly updating.
13 out of 168,960 remaining. 8 remaining. 3 remaining.
…
All GenMechs destroyed.
“Ha… HA! HAAAAAHAHAHAHA!” Lex squealed. “I’m not dead! I’m not dead! Long-range communications on. Come in, guys. It’s over. It’s done. We did it.”
Silo’s voice crackled weakly over the connection. “Just getting the speeders up and running. Karter says it’ll be about an hour before the station’s ready to fly again.”
Lex checked the clock. “Heh. That leaves us with like two hours before we get nuked by a supernova.”
“Practically an eternity by our standards,” Silo said. “We’ll come get you ASAP.”
“Take your time,” Lex said. “I’m in no rush.”
The interior lights flickered and illuminated fully. “I am now fully activated. Is it over, Lex?”
He reclined in the seat. “Oh yeah, Coal. It’s over. And it was fun.”
Epilogue
A few days later, Lex blinked awake and sat up in bed. Squee was curled up on his lap. She whined irritably when he hauled himself out of bed. They’d made it back to Big Sigma in one piece, and Squee had been waiting for him in the care of the splintered instance of Ma. Evidently she’d requested it and Michella had obliged before leaving.
It was decided that Lex should stick around until both he and the SOB were back to their old selves. He didn’t put up a fight.
“Good morning, Lex,” came Ma’s voice. “I have prepared a breakfast for you.”
“Thanks, Ma.” He narrowed his eyes. “It isn’t kale or cheese or anything like that, is it?”
“It is not.”
“Fantastic. On my way.”
He pulled on some clothes and paced into the hallway of the laboratory complex. Squee, perhaps roused by the promise of breakfast, tapped out into the hallway behind him.
“The burst capillaries from your vacuum exposure are healing nicely. And I have updated my cosmetic procedures in my medical rig if you would like me to fix your nose.”
“Nah. It’s got character. But I do think I’ll lose this GCC tattoo, when you get a chance. With my luck, another guy in an orange jumpsuit will come along and want to give me a shiner.”
“A wise precaution.”
He rubbed his eyes and gathered Squee up. “Hey… we got back late and I kind of passed out. Isn’t Michella supposed to be here?”
“She left a few days before you arrived. But I assure you, she had a very important task, regarding some final interviews for her recently released report on ‘The Untold Story of the Military’s Most Dangerous Mistake.’ It was quite well written, if you would like to see it.”
“Not just yet. I’m still getting over living it.”
“I also have her smaller but more popular story about ‘a tawdry love triangle between an officer, a terrorist, and a network engineer,’” Ma offered.
“No thank you.”
Lex approached the cafeteria. He sniffed. “Did you make cinnamon rolls?”
“I did not.”
He stepped through the doorway and took a
sudden step back. Bork was sitting on one of the tables in front of Ziva while she idly stroked him.
“Good morning, Lex!” Ziva said brightly.
“Good morning,” he said steadily. “Is that… should he be here right now? Seeing as how there’s the whole ‘EHRIc can rebuild from anything’ situation?”
“We performed a thorough biological and neurological scan. The creature was refreshingly clear of mind. No evidence of code.”
As if to affirm his empty-headedness, Bork farted and rolled to his back for tummy scratches. Ziva obliged.
“Has Ma provided you with any of the relevant news, current events, and points of interest for you?”
“Not yet, why? Is there something I should know about?”
“One or two things, but nothing pressing,” Ziva said.
Robotic arms arranged an impressive spread of steak, eggs, and coffee. Lex dug hungrily in.
“So,” he said between bites. “What’s your future, Ziva?”
“Ma and I have discussed it. It was a rather difficult issue to address. I am, by most objective measures, a walking violation of Temporal Contingency Protocol. Now that the threat to society is concluded, those protocols are once again in place. However, recent events have revealed that those protocols are in need of an update. It has been decided that simple lack of oversight is insufficient. I shall now be the keeper of the southern hemisphere, and the arbiter of all future potential temporal contingency conflicts.”
“Hopefully there aren’t very many more of those.”
“Indeed.”
“Lex!” came Coal’s voice over the PA system. “You’re awake! Did she tell you? Did you see?”
“What? What happened?”
“Show him, please! Right now, please!” Coal said.
A mobile arm trucked in with a display. It lit up to reveal the SOB. The thrusters were still in the final stages of being reinstalled, but there was one obvious upgrade. A brilliant blue racing stripe.
“Look! I got a stripe! And it is the objectively best color!”
“Heh. Looking slick,” Lex said.
“When my thrusters are fully reinstalled, we need to go flying. I know that scientifically there is no evidence to suggest the accuracy of the notion, but I have decided that having a racing stripe will make me faster, and I wish to test this hypothesis.”
“Let me get some food in me and we’ll get to it,” Lex said.
“Great! And congratulations.”
“On what?”
“You didn’t tell him yet?”
“It seemed wise to allow him to complete breakfast first,” Ma said.
“… I feel like you ladies are doing a really bad job of planning a surprise party,” Lex said. “If there’s something going on, let’s just get it over with. I’ve reached my lifetime limit on surprises.”
“As you wish. We thought you would like to see the outcome of the ORIC finals.”
He glared at the camera in the corner, then at Ziva, who was doing a terrible job of keeping a poker face.
“You thought I’d like that, huh? Seeing the outcome of the race I had to miss to save the galaxy?”
An arm came in with his slidepad. He took it and started flipping through his feed.
“Just about the only thing I’d like to see is Richard Tester getting disqualified because they figured out he’s a cheater.”
He brought up the standings for the final race. “In first place with a time of [REDACTED]…” He furrowed his brow. “Trevor ‘Lex’ Alexander.”
He looked up. “What is this?”
“I censored the completion time, as I imagined foreknowledge of it might lessen your enjoyment,” Ma said.
“What is this?” he repeated.
Ziva cleared her throat, clearly for effect, as it seemed very unlikely an artificial construct would need to do so.
“As the arbiter of Temporal Protocol, I had a lengthy discussion with Ma and Karter about the consequences of your aid in this endeavor. After much debate, it was decided by unanimous vote that you should be allowed to recover and return to Operlo at some point after your departure. We have drawn up a timeline of access between yourself and those beyond the reach of Temporal Contingency Protocol and determined a place and time to deliver you, when you have finished healing.”
“… You’re going to send me back in time so I don’t miss my race?”
“Correct. And, as evidenced by that news report, it goes quite well.”
“And Karter signed off on this?”
“He was somewhat less benevolent in his decision. The precise wording of his positive vote was ‘What the hell do I care?’”
“I thought time travel was only to be used in cases of dire emergency.”
“After the trials we have all faced, a happy ending seemed a worthy reason to bend the rules. And, as it happens, the laws of physics,” Ziva said.
“It may surprise you to discover it was Silo’s idea,” Ma said.
“In her words, ‘You really ought to cut the boy some slack.’ It inspired Ziva to take up the cause.”
“Did they stick around?”
“They remained only long enough to acquire a ship on loan from Karter. They were, to a degree, acting under an official military capacity for this operation and a debriefing was required.”
Lex looked to the slidepad again, then back to Ziva. “And this is really happening.”
“More accurately, it has already happened,” Ziva said.
Lex stood up and marched around to her. He threw his arms around her in a jovial hug. “Thank you. Ma, if you had a body, I’d hug you too.”
“Your intended physical affection is noted and appreciated. Also, it will please you to know that the SOB’s thrusters are installed and the ship is now flight ready.”
“Ha!” He turned to the doorway, then paused. “Ma, not to insult your cooking, but—”
“I had anticipated that you might wish to depart early and was prepared to preserve it for reheating.”
“You’re the best. Squee, let’s go. I feel like going for a ride!”
From the Author
Thank you for reading! If you liked this story, or perhaps if you found it lacking, I’d love to hear from you. Below are links to some of the places you can find me online. For free stories and important updates, join my newsletter.
Official Website, Facebook Fan Page, and Twitter.
Discover other titles by Joseph R. Lallo:
The Book of Deacon Series:
Book 1: The Book of Deacon
Book 2: The Great Convergence
Book 3: The Battle of Verril
Book 4: The D’Karon Apprentice
Book 5: The Crescents
Book 6: The Coin of Kenvard
Other stories in the same setting:
Jade
The Rise of the Red Shadow
The Redemption of Desmeres
The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy
The Big Sigma Series:
Book 1: Bypass Gemini
Book 2: Unstable Prototypes
Book 3: Artificial Evolution
Book 4: Temporal Contingency
Book 5: Indra Station
The Free-Wrench Series:
Book 1: Free-Wrench
Book 2: Skykeep
Book 3: Ichor Well
Book 4: The Calderan Problem
Book 5: Cipher Hill
Book 6: Contaminant Six
Collections:
The Book of Deacon Anthology
The Big Sigma Collection: Volume 1
The Free-Wrench Collection: Volume 1
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