by Trent Falls
John was able to see around Taos to see Captain Shin sitting on the ramp of the Northwind shuttle.
“Jesus! You saved him?” John asked Taos with some surprise, his eyes still on Shin.
“He is to be our messenger to his people.” Elizabeth explained. “He will deliver the same message to the Xen that we are giving to you.”
“He’s the captain of a destroyed ship. His crew are all dead.” John grumbled, almost pitying Shin. “You should have picked another and let him die. His people will tear him apart to get the answers.”
“He will be prepared.” Taos replied knowingly
Far in the distance the dark peak of the watchtower began to crumble. The sound followed the sight of the falling rock by a few seconds. The rumbling was deep and carried in the wind. The sound was like a low volume earthquake.
“We are erasing any presence of the Norn on this planet.” Alex explained. “We’re leaving.”
John stared at Alex for a minute. It took a few seconds to understand what Alex was saying.
“You’re going with them.” John realized aloud, staring at Alex.
“Yes. I’m going home.” Alex answered.
John chuckled in disbelief. “Seriously? You’re leaving?”
“Yes.” Alex replied.
“Are you ever coming back?”
It took Alex a moment to answer. “It’s very unlikely.”
“Jez!” John breathed. He walked over to Alex and gave him a strong hug. “It’s a hell of a way to end a friendship.”
Alex hugged him back, patting John on the back.
“Damn!” John exhaled again in disbelief as he backed away from Alex. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You and I will always be friends, John.” Alex noted. “It’s time for me to go home, though. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah,” John looked back at Alex soberly, “I know what you mean.”
“Thank you for helping to rescue me.” Julie said, moving in to hug Alex.
“It was my pleasure, Julie.” Alex replied with equal warmth. “You take care of yourself and look out for your uncle.”
“I will.” Julie smiled at Alex as she backed away from him.
“So…” John looked back at Alex for a moment in thought. “If you’re going back with them how do we get home?”
“I’m going back with them on the Northwind.” Alex explained. “I’m giving the Tequesta to you.”
“What?!?” John was shocked. “Alex! That’s a hundred million credit spacecraft!”
“One hundred forty five million.” Alex corrected him. “It’s still being financed so I’ll probably have to stiff the bank on the rest. She’ll get you home at any rate.”
“What about the scatter jammers?”
“I’ll strip them out. I’ll also deactivate the other special mods I’ve done to it.” Alex added. “At any rate I think you’ll have other problems anyway.”
“What problems?” Julie asked.
“It’s nothing.” John tried to cut the topic short quickly. “We left Earth without the EEF’s blessing. No big deal. Nothing that I can’t handle.”
Alex looked at John blankly for a moment. He knew John was being somewhat dishonest but he played along anyway.
There was a minor tremor that quaked under their feet. John, Julie, and Taos looked to their right. The watchtower had crumbled further, as did the chain of black mountains behind it.
“This island will be consumed by the sea.” Taos observed. “There will be no trace of the Norn. You should leave soon.”
John looked towards Alex and Lyle. “No time for goodbyes I guess.” John looked at Lyle in particular. “Anything you want me to tell the folks back home?”
John didn’t really expect a response and thought the question dumb the minute he finished speaking it.
“They know all they need to know.” Lyle replied evenly. “Good journey, brother.”
“You too.” John replied. John then turned to look to his side at Julie. “You ready to go home, kid?”
“Oh yeah.” She exhaled, nodding her head with certainty.
Another quake rumbled through the ground, this one more violent.
“Okay, let’s go.” John noted in response.
“All the access codes to the Tequesta are in the storage bin above the pilot seat.” Alex noted aloud to John. “They’re in a leather binder. I also programmed a flight plan in the computer to take you home. All you have to do is run the plan. It will delete itself from the computer once you emerge into Earth space.”
“Thanks.” John grinned at his friend. “Thanks for everything!”
Another stronger tremor shook the ground.
“No problem.” Alex replied. “Now go! Get Jules home!”
John didn’t need any further conversation. He patted Julie on the shoulder to follow him before leading her back towards the open rear ramp of the Tequesta.
Alex, Taos, Elizabeth, and Lyle all walked across the sand towards the rear ramp of the Northwind. Halfway up the ramp Alex stopped and looked back at the Tequesta.
Julie and John had stopped halfway up their ramp, taking a moment to wave goodbye to Alex.
Alex waived back. He continued up the ramp, closing it behind him.
John hit the switch for the Tequesta’s ramp once Julie was inside. The ship’s cargo hold was massive and empty, yet it felt much emptier to John without its proper skipper. With the ramp shut Julie and John walked towards the front of the ship towards the flight deck. The ship rocked again from a strong quake. It felt like there was a massive storm outside.
Upon reaching the cockpit the first thing John did before sitting down was to flick a covered switch on the console in front of him to his right. The switch deactivated the copilot control.
“You can sit in the right seat but don’t touch anything.” John noted to Julie.
Julie sat down in the copilot seat as John sat in the left seat and began an abbreviated flight prep. Julie’s eyes stared out the forward windows. It was getting dark outside, a bit overcast. There were massive columns of steam rising from the mountains in the distance. The palm trees outside were swaying in the strengthening wind. It was beginning to look apocalyptic outside.
“You can really fly this thing?” Julie observed with some worry in her voice. Her eyes were still fixed ahead, looking outside.
“I was an EEF Marine and a marshal on Proxima Five.” John answered her indirectly as he powered up the repulse emitters. “It kind of makes you learn to do a bit of everything.”
Julie’s kept her attention outside. It was getting bad. The ship rumbled violently from a quake. The shaking stopped once John powered up the repulse emitters and rotated the left handle on his control yoke. The left handle, used in conjunction with a covered thumb trigger that John was depressing, controlled the z-axis of the ship, lifting it up off the ground like a helicopter.
Outside the Northwind did the same to their port side. John paused, hovering the Tequesta to allow the Northwind to depart safely. The massive winged metal shuttle hovered up about forty meters, turned its nose left, and pulsed forward on its four glowing blue rear engines.
“That’s the last we’ll see of Alex, huh?” Julie observed, watching the Northwind leave ahead of them.
“Yeah.” John noted grimly. “Yeah, I think so.”
John raised the Tequesta higher up into the air. Julie and John looked out across the island. Elevated high above the trees they were able to see far out into the valley. The ground was being uprooted in the distance. Large trees were toppled in entire groves. Volcanic dirt was pitched into the sky. There were spots of bright orange red appearing throughout the valley followed by huge volumes of steam and gas.
Lava. The island was already tearing itself apart.
An electronic alarm sounded off on John’s instrument panel. The navigation screen was warning him of the hot air from the thermal vents appearing with the lava flows. An alternate flight path appeared as a
wire frame corridor in space on the screen.
“Buckle yourself in.” John noted to Julie, clicking in the final strap on his own seatbelts as he held the flight controls.
Julie complied quickly, looping the five way strap over her arms and clasping it shut at her chest, all while keeping her gaze pretty much fixed ahead.
The Northwind pitched up into the sky and throttled up, flying out into a growing patch of dark clouds and out of sight.
“So… Alex is really gone. So strange!” Julie noted sadly.
“That’s it.” John muttered. “Sometimes things in life can change that quickly.”
John turned the hand controls of the flight yoke. The Tequesta rotated slightly in the air before surging forward with speed. The acceleration was greater than Julie anticipated. She was surprised at how much she was pushed back into her seat.
The Tequesta soared up through the dark clouds, climbing quickly through the grey mist to break back out into the blue sky. A few faint stratus clouds stretched across the sky. The Tequesta rocketed upwards to cut through the last white veil. The blue of the sky darkened in moments to black. The stars of night emerged ahead.
About two minutes after taking off from the island the Tequesta was out in open space.
John and Julie could see the faint remains of the Ao Shun floating about a hundred kilometers away. It was difficult to make out the debris. It might have remained undetectable had there been less of it. There was just a massive field of metal and trace burning gasses.
“My God!” Julie exhaled in amazement at the sight of it.
“I know.” John said indirectly as he flew the craft. “Look out there.” he took a second to point higher up above the nearby moon. “The Nanjing.”
Julie looked out into space in the direction her uncle had pointed. She could see a small debris field. The most notable feature was the remaining half of its main engine cluster.
“All those people….” Julie could barely compose the thought.
“Yeah. Dead.” John confirmed grimly.
The flight deck was quiet for a moment. It was the quietest moment John could recall in the last few days outside of being EVA out in space. It was actually a welcome silence.
“This is the dark side of being out in space, Jules.” John observed. “Sometimes it’s tragic. Sometimes it’s chaos.”
“I knew how shitty people could be out here, uncle John.”
“Yeah but it’s another thing to see it for yourself in person.” John looked at her for a moment. “You can read about this stuff, see it in a movie or in a simulation but it’s another thing to actually see it for yourself. To be in mortal danger while you’re seeing it for yourself.”
“Yeah it is kind of…. frightening.” Julie couldn’t find words to explain it. She was surprised that her uncle could find that moment to give her a lecture on the dangers of space, but at the same time she knew he was right from having experienced it for herself. What they had just experienced was amazing beyond belief. Julie thought she might have appreciated it more if people hadn’t been trying to kill her while she had been experiencing the events of the last few days.
“They didn’t wipe our minds.” John observed aloud.
“I don’t think they intended to.” Julie noted in response as she looked out the side window towards the stars. “They want us to tell the people back on Earth what they want us to tell them. To grow up, stop fighting, and stop wrecking the environment in the colonies.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” John muttered.
“Given the option of the Norn coming back and annihilating us?” Julie countered.
“Jules, we could tell the ESF that the Norn are coming next year and you’d be hard pressed to change human behavior.”
Julie said nothing in response to her uncle. His life experiences had made him a cynic. Having experienced some of that world herself Julie could understand why her uncle felt as he did. It was a dark and angry world filled with people who hungered for power. It was a world where life didn’t have the same precious value as it did in Julie’s ordinary existence.
John looked over at Julie for a moment. He suddenly remembered that he had killed a man in the seat she was sitting in. The thought of it really bothered him though he kept the thought locked silently in his head.
“So, any ideas of what you want to do after you graduate?” John asked, more as a joke to try and change the conversation.
“How much time has passed on Earth?” Julie asked.
John gave the question some thought. The passage of time seemed secondary to all they had gone through. “Let’s see.” John tapped the keys of the keyboard in front of him to bring up the nav computer’s chronometer. “I left in May…” John brought up the screen. “Wow! It looks like it’s… July thirtieth back home.”
“Damn!” Julie exhaled. “Almost two and a half months!”
“Summer’s almost over.”
“I got accepted into Rutgers but, considering all that’s happened, I think I might want to stay closer to home.” Julie looked at her uncle.
“What were you thinking?” John asked, his mode of thought changing to that of a father again.
“Miami.” Julie smirked.
“The University of Miami?!?”
Julie nodded her head grinning.
“That’s tougher to get into than Rutgers.” John noted.
“It can’t hurt to try.” Julie smirked. “I have the grades to get in, I think.”
“Whatever you do, I’ll support you. You know that.” John said to her in response.
“I guess we can talk about it when we get home.” Julie replied. “I’m really tired.”
“Why don’t you take a nap in Alex’s rack?” John offered. “I’m going to set the hyperdrive to Alex’s course home, lock down the autopilot and have a sleep up here.”
Julie looked at John oddly. “There’s only two of us on this ship. You want us both to fall asleep?”
“It’s not the best idea but we’re both dead tired.” John observed. “We should be okay.”
“We’re in a part of space that isn’t charted very well.” Julie said in argument.
“We can’t run into anything in hyperspace. And if we did hit something at faster-than-light speed there isn’t much we can do to stop it.” John countered.
“It still feels weird.” Julie smirked.
“I tell you what. You get a few hours sleep. I’ll take a stim and keep awake until you get up. Sound fair?”
“Okay.” Julie nodded. “You sure you don’t want to sleep first?”
“I’m good.” John said, bringing up Alex’s flight plan home. “You might want to sit down for a second.”
Julie followed his suggestion and sat down in the navigator seat behind the copilot chair. She strapped herself in as John entered the hyperdrive profile. John entered in a few commands on his keyboard before hitting the FTL switch. The faster-than-light switch activated the Tequesta’s warp drive. The Tequesta shot forward in a blur of speed. The stars ahead glowed brighter and blue-shifted.
“That’s still incredible.” Julie said from her seated position as she looked ahead out the window.
“It is.” John agreed.
“How long’s it going to take us to get to Earth?”
John looked again to his main screen to check. “Uh, about thirty two hours.”
“That’s a long time.” Julie breathed.
“Go get some rest. I got it covered up here.” John gestured with his head towards the rear exit of the flight deck.
“Okay.” Julie smiled. She unbuckled her five-way seatbelt and stood up to leave.
John allowed himself a breath after she left the cockpit. He was tired. He was still in the white pressure suit and was worn down. He didn’t know where his clothes had gone and he didn’t care. All he cared about was that he had rescued his niece and that they were alive.
Their ordeal was over. In a day or so they would be home.
&nbs
p; Chapter 29
Earth space.
Low and Medium Earth Orbit were as busy as any other day. Transport shuttles flew out of and into Yuri Gagarin Spaceport on routine intervals. A large lumbering yellow freighter moved away from Yuri Gagarin on its way out to some outer point in the Solar System. Another large Maersk freighter was undergoing maintenance at the Knowel Anchorage. Smaller commuter shuttles flew up from the Earth and back into its atmosphere, transporting travelers and workers alike on regularly scheduled routes.
The Tequesta emerged from warp just inside the LEO line. The Earth suddenly appeared ahead of John and Julie’s view from the cockpit in massive and imposing detail.
“Shit!” John jumped to the controls of the ship.
“Oh my God!” Julie was startled by the sudden massive form of Earth ahead. “I didn’t think we’d come out this close!”
“We weren’t supposed to.” John grumbled. His right hand flew up to the console overhead. He quickly tapped in the main traffic frequency of Earth Control into the radio. “Pan, Pan, Pan! Pan, Pan, Pan! Pan, Pan, Pan! This is BAE Explorer Romeo Golf Five Zero Nine.” John spoke loudly and with purpose into his headset com. “We’ve emerged from warp too close to Earth orbit. Please respond with instructions. Say again. Romeo Golf Five Zero Nine. We’ve emerged too close to Earth. Please respond.”
“What’s wrong?” Julie asked, suddenly worried due to the tone of her uncle’s voice.
“This ship left Earth without clearance and we’ve come back too close when we dropped out of hyperspace.” John clarified in a purposely calm voice.
Out in space a group of spherical satellites were set in low orbit around the Earth. While each had a large main engine to keep them in low orbit, the round satellites rotated on reaction control thrusters. Each satellite had a main cannon protruding about four feet from their spherical forward section.
The cannons were aimed automatically by computer at the incoming Tequesta.
Bright blue beams of light shot out from each cannon out into distant space; at the incoming shuttle.
“Damn it!” John gripped the controls of the ship.