by M. J. Konkel
The altcar door opened, and we entered after glancing both directions down the hall. The car rose swiftly to the top floor. Dr. Z led us off the car, turning right and marching down a small hallway, and then right again down a larger hallway.
“Dr. Carlsgood’s lab is the last one on the right,” Dr. Z informed us. He marched up to the door and pushed a button on the door. Chimes sounded on the other side. I saw a small metal plate above the button. Neptune Carlsgood, Ph.D.
“Yeah, yeah! I’m coming,” a woman yelled from behind the door. “I have important work here you’re interrupting.”
The door opened and a small thin woman appeared, dressed in a white lab coat. She cocked her head to the side. “What do you goons want this time?”
Dr. Z fumbled with his helmet, so I reached over and turned the button on the side of his helmet to slide up his faceplate.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?” Dr. Z asked.
“France! Is that really you?” the woman screeched. “What are you doing in that silly outfit?”
“Well, now there’s a good story. The Spit--” Dr. Z began to explain.
“We don’t have time for stories,” I interrupted.
“You damn Spits, leave my friend alone,” the woman demanded, stepping out into the hallway with hands on her hips. I admired her for standing up to me while thinking I was a Spit, but we didn’t have time to waste.
“Oh, these are not Spits, Nept. These people saved me from the Spits,” Dr. Z explained.
“You’re in danger here. We’re all in danger,” I said. “We gotta go.”
“Nonsense. I’m not going anywhere,” Neptune objected. “The Spits think I just make useless little molecules. They have no idea what they’re for.”
“That has changed,” Dr. Z said. “They know I was testing new materials for their spin properties. And that I had a breakthrough. Your NC-3249-16 is the one. They will trace it back to you.”
“It worked?” Neptune seemed stunned. “I can’t believe it. I hoped, but … We did it?”
“You can chat later. We gotta go,” I interrupted.
“The Spits know about NC-3249-16?” Neptune pressed.
“Only that we made some kind of breakthrough,” Dr. Z replied. “They know nothing of what it was though.”
“Spits will be crawling all over this place soon,” I reminded them.
“He’s right,” Dr. Z agreed. “You can’t stay here.”
“But all my work.” Neptune stared into her lab through the open door.
I realized at that moment the Spits might not need her. They could get what they wanted from her lab. I could not let that happen.
“Where do you keep all your notes?” My eyes locked on Neptune’s.
“They’re on my computer in the lab,” Neptune replied.
“Any other copies?” I asked.
“They back up automatically onto my pad.” Neptune patted a pocket on her lab coat.
“But no others? Anybody else know about your work?” I had to be sure.
“No. Nobody else knows, and this is my only backup. Why?” She asked.
I didn’t answer her as I received warnings from Drummer. Besides, I didn’t think she would have liked my answer.
“I’m taking fire down here!” Drummer must have replaced his helmet again. “I got two of ‘em before they realized I wasn’t one of them. But now there are three more shooting at me from the next building over.”
“Hold them off for a minute,” I ordered. “Enceladus, Drummer’s taking fire at the front door. Take these two down to the back door and get Dr. Carlsgood into a suit.”
Neptune seemed hesitant, but Dr. Z grabbed her hand and pulled her along toward the far stairwell.
I wished I had brought a couple of explosives. Then I stared ahead. Duh! I was right outside a chemistry lab.
I pushed the door open. Fume hoods lined three of the walls. Robotic arms spun along inside of them, whipping up materials with new structures and new formulas from instructions Dr. Carlsgood had programed. Other robotic arms grabbed bottles off shelves opposite of the hoods and delivered them into the hoods.
I glanced up the stack of shelves. I reached past the arms and pulled down large brown glass bottles. Benzene, ethyl acetate, tetrahydrofuran, toluene, hexane. I smashed the bottles on the floor, against the walls, and against the computer next to the lone desk. Huge puddles covered the floor, and fumes of organic solvents filled the air. I popped my faceplate back down to keep from breathing the fumes.
I scanned around for something to start a flame. Then it occurred to me I had the something in my hands. I ducked out the door and fired one flechette through the doorway.
Flames erupted and pushed out through the doorway as I raced down the hallway. I heard the first explosion behind me before I reached the end of the hallway.
“Drummer, fall back inside and get to the back door.”
“Understood. There are at least five comedians out front now,” Drummer reported. “Make that four.”
I raced down the stairwell behind the others and caught up to them just as they exited out onto the first floor.
“Shit!” Enceladus exclaimed, pushing us back out of the main hallway. “They’re by the back entrance too.”
Spits by every exit and the building burning down over our heads. I had no idea of which way to turn to get out of this trap.
Chapter 24
“What the heck do we do now?” Enceladus seemed to be looking at me.
But I was at a loss. Should we try to shoot our way out the back? That was probably suicide. It was an even fight, except that more GATs were sure to arrive soon. And they only had to hold their ground, and time was not on our side.
“Follow me!” Neptune reopened the door to the stairwell.
“You’re going back toward the fire?” I exclaimed.
“What fire?” Neptune held the door and turned toward me.
“Never mind,” I said. “Where’re you leading us?”
“Down to the UH,” she replied. “What fire?”
“Just go!” I shouted.
She frowned before she turned and strode through. Dr. Z and Enceladus followed. I held the door for Drummer firing at the back entrance as he sprinted up the hallway.
He spun and fired two quick bursts toward the front entrance before he scrambled through the doorway right behind me.
“UH?” I asked.
“Underground Highway,” Neptune explained without breaking stride down the steps of the stairwell to the basement. “It’s what we call the tunnel system between the campus buildings.”
We reached the basement and then raced past dark lab rooms until we reached the end of the hall. Ahead was a double door, and Neptune pushed one and went through.
I realized we were right below the front entrance. To our right was a door with an exit sign above it. The front stairwell. Spits could pour out of it any second if they figured out which way we went.
I glanced to the left. The doors were wide open in that direction, and I stared into what appeared to be a maintenance shop. I turned and raced toward a bin.
“What’re you doing?” Drummer yelled. “Those bastards are gonna be on us any second.”
“Just watch the stairwells for a moment and cover me,” I yelled back.
As I hopped back toward the tunnel doors, Drummer fired off a couple of bursts of flechettes.
Two Spits who had been coming through the stairwell door at the other end of the hallway fell, propping the door open with their dead bodies. A third Spit did not appear, so perhaps they were scouts sent down to check out the basement. The Spits would now know that we were down here though.
We both scrambled through the tunnel doors, and I turned and place the bar I had picked up across the handles of the metal doors. That wouldn’t hold the Spits back forever, but it would buy us some time.
We raced to catch up with the others as they followed the twisting tunnel. After about a hundred me
ters, loud banging came from behind. Spits were now trying to get through the doors we had barred. We soon came to a door that Neptune pushed through.
“Where are we?” Dr. Z asked.
“This is Mahesh Hall, the geology building.” Neptune strode forward. She continued to the middle and stopped at the altcar.
“Where are you leading us?” I asked.
“To the roof.” She huffed from exertion before she entered the empty car. “Get in.”
“The roof?” Enceladus questioned.
“There’s a quadcopter up there. Belongs to the institute.” Neptune pushed a button on the control panel as the last of us boarded. The altcar shot upward.
“You can fly it?” I asked.
“Me? No,” she said. “But certainly one of you soldiers can.”
“I don’t know how,” I confessed.
Enceladus shook her head.
“I can fly one,” Drummer said.
The door opened, and we popped into a small utility room. A light suddenly illuminated the mostly barren room. Neptune marched straight to the opposite side and pushed through the door there.
The local star, Ursa Phinia, peeked through the cloud cover up over the far edge of the roof. Square in the center of the roof, a quadcopter sat on a large painted cross mark. The four large blades above the blue chassis looked too close together, like they would cut each other apart as soon as we started it up. I then realized two of the blades were higher than the other two, and the timing of the blades was most likely synchronized.
Neptune headed toward the quadcopter, and the rest of us followed close behind.
“Get in and buckle,” Drummer yelled. “And nobody better complain about my flying. It’s been a while.” He hopped around and jumped into the pilot’s seat.
I was the last one out the door from the utility room, and I sprinted to the quadcopter.
“Hurry!” Enceladus shouted in a high-pitched voice as she slammed the door down closed on her side.
Neptune jumped into the front passenger seat and slammed her door.
“Which way is our ship?” Drummer asked.
I glanced down at my wrist pad. “It’s to the left about 100 degrees.”
The craft started to lift off as I slammed down my door. I had not even buckled yet.
On the roof of the next building, I spotted two Spits. One vigorously pointed at us, and then both raised their rifles toward us. The quadcopter clearly was not armored. Flechettes would pierce right through its sides and take out critical components. Maybe even us.
But then a portion of the roof next to the Spits exploded. Flames shot up, and the Spits lowered their rifles and scrambled toward the roof’s exit instead of shooting at us.
“What did you do to my lab?” Neptune screamed.
I ignored her. “Didn’t you hear me?” I shouted at Drummer. “Our ship is back that way. You’re going the wrong way.”
“Are you complaining about my flying?” Drummer questioned. “Because if you are, so help me, I’ll pull over and …” He banked us up over the top of ridgetop and then turned toward the northeast.
“Is this more to your liking now?” Drummer asked.
“Yeah, it’s good.” I suddenly realized Drummer’s little maneuver might have bought us a few extra minutes if somebody below reported our last heading to any fighter craft already scrambled toward our location.
“My lab,” Neptune softly moaned.
Thirty minutes later, we were at the top of the atmosphere. If all we had to do was get into space, we were there. But we couldn’t create a stable wormhole in a gravity well. Even a shallow one could disrupt the wormhole and create an unstable black hole instead. Technically, a small black hole doesn’t blow up – it evaporates instead. But so fast that the radiation given off in the process heats up everything around to a very high temperature. The ship that surrounds the black hole blows up instead in spectacular fashion.
My preference was to keep all my atoms in close proximity to each other, so we had to find a gravity valley or a gravity saddle in order to create the wormhole. A null gravity (or at least close to null gravity) location such as at a La Grangian point or in interstellar space. A temporary null gravity point between worlds would do. A position that would be a La Grangian point if not for the orbits of other worlds that would disturb any object resting there.
As soon as we got above the atmosphere, I angled our trajectory away from vertical and cut the thrust back to 1 G. We still accelerated but now on an outward spiraling trajectory.
I scanned the radar, searching for the destroyers. They were smaller than the carriers, so I knew I should be able to tell them apart based on the strength of the return signal. Besides, the carriers were supposedly gone.
I spotted the first destroyer. It appeared coming over the horizon behind us in a tight orbit around Bahram. That was not good for us since they would be less than 25,000 klicks away, within the range where I could not dodge plasma bolts coming in at 4% lightspeed.
Within ten seconds of spotting the destroyer, plasma bolts starting streaking past us from its direction.
Besides increasing thrust, I had two additional options, and I had taken both of them before even the first bolt flew past us. I did not keep the ship on a straight course but rather added a jitter to it and to our velocity as well. And hoped that a lucky shot didn’t take us out. And I took us down closer to the edge of the atmosphere to put the destroyer back over the horizon behind us.
We could take a number of hits from a plasma cannon the size of the one on the corvette. The cannons on the destroyers were of two sizes, but both were a lot more powerful than ours. It would take two hits, maybe three hits at most, from their smaller cannons to take us out. Any additional hits would obliterate us. Their bigger cannons would only need one hit to obliterate us.
The destroyer fell back toward the horizon behind us, and the barrage of plasma bolts died as they skimmed along the top of the atmosphere. The destroyer then dipped out of sight.
Then I spotted the second destroyer. It came around in the opposite direction straight over us. They were creating a pinch, and we were being squeezed right into the middle of it.
The second destroyer was still in a much higher orbit, but they were slowly losing altitude. I quickly estimated in my head how close the second destroyer was going to get to us. It was going to skim over us at about 25,000 klicks. A little close for comfort.
Plasma bolts streaked toward us from the second destroyer. I saw them in time that I could maneuver the ship enough to dodge each one. Instead, those bolts rained down on Bahram’s atmosphere. Soon though it was getting harder to react to each incoming bolt. I started to dodge as soon I saw the light from an approaching bolt, even before I could calculate its trajectory. I just hoped I didn’t dodge us right into the path of one.
Soon I was able to once again calculate the bolts’ trajectories and dodge the ship around each one.
Then the second ship came up above the horizon behind us. They fired at us again too. Although, both were far enough away, I could calculate all the bolts’ trajectories, there were now twice as many coming at us. It was beginning to resemble dodging raindrops in a storm.
The bolts soon became farther apart though, and the rain of plasma bolts ceased. We were out of their range. Eventually, decoherence breaks up plasma bolts, and they dissipate, becoming no more dangerous than the stellar wind.
I calculated the position for the null gravity point between Dosei and Bahram, noted that the one inner moon was not in a position to matter in the calculation, and plotted a course for the point.
I cut the rear thrusters, rotated the ship, and fired the bottom thrusters on low. That gave us a partial gravity with the floor being downward.
I stared at Benjanin. I didn’t know what to say. When he turned toward me, I nodded toward the autosurgeon room.
Benjanin immediately shot out of his chair as did Morgan. I dreaded following them. After an injury like Luc
i’s, how could she possibly have survived all the stresses of the high G maneuvering that I had put her through? After she had lost so much blood? But I followed them. The others followed too.
Benjanin and Morgan disappeared into the room, and then I peeked in. I was expecting the worse and readied myself for it. But what was I going to say to them? “Sorry” just didn’t seem to cut it.
Tubes stuck out of Luci’s arm, and a mask covered her face. A white wrap covered her mid-section. I squeezed over to the control console and read the info from the screen above it.
Luci was still alive. That was the good news, but she was still in critical condition. Yet, I thought it was a miracle she had survived my flying.
“What does it say?” Benjanin glanced at me. “Is she going to make it?”
“Lot of it is stuff I don’t understand,” I admitted. “She’s lost a lot of blood, and I can’t be certain. But I think she will be alright.” I felt less certain about that than I let on, but they needed hope.
I left them behind and returned to the bridge. I had to ensure everything was ready for entering the wormhole. We would be there in an hour.
I had been aboard the Spitnik’s Fist when the Imperial Pride had slipped through a wormhole. What I had witnessed then was a purple ring roughly a few klicks wide, and then the destroyer simply vanished with the purple ring as it shot away into space and was gone in less than the blink of an eye.
After that, I read everything I could find in the databases about the wormholes. Some of it was even understandable. Apparently, the rings glow even brighter in the ultraviolet just beyond the visible. As the space is warped and stretched, energy is emitted as photons, and that is what we see. The part that actually tears to create an opening is only a small hole in the center of the ring, only a small portion of the total ring. The hole itself appears as a black sphere if you could freeze frame it. It takes about a second to form once the generator is turned on, and then the hole stays open for only for a few microseconds before collapsing, enough time for a ship up to about a klick long to be safely engulfed into the wormhole. The wormhole shoots past at 630 klicks per second. That’s about two-tenths of a percent of the speed of light. The manuals said the wormhole doesn’t actually move, but rather the ship with us in it, the stars in the galaxy, and the galaxy itself all move relative to the hole. That doesn’t seem to me what I had observed, but okay, everything’s relative.