by Saxon Andrew
He arrived at the Tablet and found Dolly at the computer. “Well, good morning!”
“Sorry, Dolly. My alarm didn’t go off.”
“I know; Jillian shut it off. She felt like you’ve been pushing yourself too hard and needed the extra sleep.”
Chris looked around and said, “Where is the Pit Bull?”
Dolly smiled, “She has Jeff waiting for you at the entrance with a skimmer. She wants you to come and help them with the Cheops.”
“The Cheops?”
“He’s the Pharaoh the Great Pyramid was named after. Cheops was the Greek name given him. I think they’re ready for you to check the connections on your device’s emitters.”
Chris started to leave and turned back, “Dolly, I notice you and Jeff…”
“I’m going to marry him.”
“What?!?”
Dolly turned around and said, “Sit down a minute, Chris.”
Chris sat down next to her at the terminal, and Dolly looked at him, “When you were taken from the bar by Jillian and the two Alpha Agents, I was really scared that you were in big trouble. I noticed that one of the Agents had a name sewed on his uniform that said J. Garcia. I went back to my room after notifying the Tutors what had happened and did a search on that name. I finally found a match in the Marine Corp Special Ops. I dug deeper and was blocked by a highly classified designation.”
“I’m sure that didn’t slow you down.”
“No, it didn’t. I found that after Iran detonated that nuke over Jerusalem, Israel the United States was given twenty four hours to remove their important people before they retaliated. His unit was one of the initial teams to land in Tehran to save the United Nations embassy staff. I had to break through three more blocks, but discovered that his team was attacked and pinned down under heavy crossfire. Seven of them were wounded and lying out in the open. Jeff, ignoring an order from his commanding officer, went out into that devastating fire, and pulled all seven back to safety. He was hit three times; once in the arm and twice in his legs. He still ignored the pleas of his team, and continued to pull his brothers to safety. Five of them lived. Jeff was in intensive care for three months and came out of it ok. You know how good our medical regeneration techniques are now?”
Chris nodded.
“Although our country no longer gives medals for bravery since we joined the world government, he was given the Medal of Honor by former President Williamson. No one knows about the award but those in his unit, and he will quite likely be the last American to ever receive it. He deserved it and a lot more. I viewed a video of the ceremony and Jeff refused to accept the medal, saying that he did nothing more than what they would have done for him. I saw he meant it. He only agreed to it after the five survivors persuaded him that the two that died would insist he accept.”
Chris looked at Dolly and saw something in her eyes he hadn’t seen before, “He’s a true warrior, Chris. His heart is pure, and he understands what it means to fight for a cause. He was promoted to the Alphas and slated for future command. I didn’t know if you were safe, but I knew you were not being mistreated or taken for a bad reason. He wouldn’t have allowed it. I decided at that moment that I had to find him and get to know him. It was fate that sent him to pick me up to bring me here.”
Dolly paused, and then slowly shook her head, “He challenged me about how I knew he was brave and I told him what I had done.” Dolly reached and pulled a chain from inside her top, and Chris saw the Medal hanging on it. “He told me that my courage to come here and tell the truth regardless of consequences was much more courageous than what he did. He insisted that I take this.” Dolly smiled and said, “I have found what I’ve been looking for, Chris. I may have more intelligence, but he has the inner qualities that make him so much more than I could ever hope to be. I will always be safe in his arms. I love him.”
Chris leaned over and gave Dolly a hug, “I’m certain I’ll never have to worry about your safety. I am so happy for you.”
“Thanks. Now you need to go to work.”
Chris gave a heavy sigh, “You’re right. I’ll see you later.”
Dolly yelled as he walked away, “It won’t be that bad!”
“You have no idea.”
Dolly smiled and turned back to the computer terminal.
Jillian looked at the command control panel and shook her head, “Why hasn’t the generator reached full power?”
The head engineer shouted from the other room, “We can’t bring it to full power until the engines are brought on line. We can’t risk a spike in the current that would damage the circuit boards in the primary coil conduits. We’ve given you enough power to test the board, Sir.”
Chris walked in just as Jillian began running a test of the stardrive’s memory board. “Reporting for duty as ordered.”
Jillian looked up and smiled, “Why don’t you come and help me go through this navigation system?”
Chris wondered about the smile, but came over and sat in the second chair next to the panel, “What’s going on?”
“Having a stardrive is fine, but finding your way around our galaxy is not going to be easy. We have to be able to come back to where we started. If we jump out more than a hundred light years, our solar system will just be a point of light among thousands of others, and it will be changing position after we leave. This system will lock in the Earth’s position relative to the Galaxy’s main features and hopefully allow us to make our way home.”
Chris watched the simulation and said, “This is a little scary.”
Jillian frowned, “What do you mean?”
“Those main features will also be changing position at a rate of more than thirty miles a second, and they are not moving at the same rate as our system.”
Jillian furrowed her brow and said, “I see what you mean.”
“And it gets much worse if you go out five thousand light years, as I suspect we’ll have to do to see the building of the Great Pyramid.”
Jillian leaned back in her chair and sighed, “It looks like this is doomed from the start.”
“Not really.”
“Why do you say that?”
Chris looked at the screen and said, “I mentioned earlier that we are going to go out and capture light that left Earth.” Jillian nodded, “Well there is a minute amount of decay in light as it travels through space. My device will capture it and determine how long that light has traveled based on the energy difference between it and what it was when it originally left. It will tell us exactly how many light years, minutes, or seconds it has traveled. That means if we orient the ship perpendicular to that light, we just jump that distance and we’ll be back, or close enough to adjust and get back.” Jillian immediately saw it. “Theoretically, as long as we don’t jump further than the light from Earth has traveled, which is about a billion light years, we should be able to find our way home.”
Jillian slowly shook her head, “Is your device capable of discriminating that difference over the extreme distances we’re talking about?”
“I trialed it with light that traveled from Earth to the moon and it read it exactly. We can jump out to Mars and take a measurement to confirm it, but I know it will accurately read it.”
“Chris, the atmosphere on Earth has changed numerous times during its different ages. The reading you take now won’t match the reading from the time of the pyramid builders. Will that be a problem?”
“I’ve done a huge amount of work on that with Dolly’s help. The main thing that we use to program the sensory program is the bulk gases. Nitrogen and oxygen are the main components of the atmosphere, and those ratios have not changed significantly since before land animals first developed. Carbon levels have changed as well as other trace gases, but the main ratios have been consistent.”
“What if there is another planet with the same makeup as Earth?”
“Dolly did the computations, but she insists that the ratios would differ. Maybe not by much, but it would
be enough to distinguish it as being different.” Chris saw Jillian’s nervousness and said, “Tell you what; here’s what we can do to make sure before we make a catastrophic mistake. We’ll jump out two light years to make sure we clear the ort cloud. I don’t want to emerge back into normal space and be hit broadside by a rock flying at thirty kilometers per second. We’ll take a reading and see if it’s accurate. We’ll also do a 360 degree turn and see if there are any other similar wavelengths out there. If there are, we come back and find another way. The sun will be the closest and largest star to our location so I’m sure we’ll be able to get back.”
“Did Dolly say what the probabilities of another planet with identical readings were?”
“Within twenty thousand light years they were six billion to one matching exactly.”
Jillian smiled and said, “I’m going to have the engineering team slave the navigation board into your sensors. Thanks; you’ve helped a lot.”
“You’re welcome. I also want to thank you for going dancing with me last night. I really hope I wasn’t a jerk. I never remember what happened the next day, and I hope I behaved.”
Jillian smiled, “You were the perfect gentleman.”
“Good. I was worried about that. I also want to say that you were devastatingly beautiful last night. Your dress was gorgeous, and it made me feel great to see all the envious looks from the regulars. I sincerely appreciate your putting up with me on my dance night.” Chris saw her nod, and then turned to go check the status of his emitters in the main landing bay.
Jillian watched him go and began to understand why he was admired by his students. She knew she was beautiful; she had been fighting off men for as long as she could remember. Her interest in hand-to-hand combat was originally inspired by the overzealous efforts of some of her suitors. Dr. Connor had not made a pass and had been professional in his dealings with her. He had also just corrected a major part of her planning by suggesting a different means of navigating the galaxy. He hadn’t made her feel bad at not seeing the obvious, and had made the suggestion in a way that allowed her to still be the decision maker. He didn’t challenge her authority, and she knew after the way she had been treating him he could have very easily delivered his punches via sarcasms.
They should be ready to leave in a couple of weeks. She actually hoped they would go dancing again in a week. She also noted that Dr. Connor had a very athletic body. But she wasn’t going to tell him how she knew. It surprised her that he was gentleman enough not to question how he was put to bed. She smiled, and then decided that Dr. Morris could handle the change in the navigation system. She left to go work on the Ninja. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it, but one never knew what would happen. Everything could be lost if she did.
“Have you found out what is being done in that building?”
The large heavyset man lowered his head, “No, Iman. We have not been able to penetrate their security.”
“What readings have been taken?”
“There are radioactive emissions. The building’s walls blocks most of them, but enough are escaping to allow us to see that the substance is highly enriched.”
“What does that mean?”
“Either they have a very powerful bomb or a powerful reactor. The particles leaving are very excited.”
“Ummmm. If it’s a bomb, we could use that for our vengeance.”
“Even if it’s a reactor, we could explode it and do massive damage to the port and the city next to it.”
“Before I send the Mujahedeen to die, I must know for certain that what we need to make the infidels pay for their attack on the Holy Places is there. Get someone inside.”
The large man bowed and said, “Iman, the facility is guarded by Alphas.”
The Iman took a quick breath. He knew that no one could get close to the building unless they passed the Alpha’s scan. If they scanned someone that didn’t show up in their database, they were killed instantly. This was not something he had counted on. However, the only reason that Alphas were there was because whatever was in that building was considered extremely important. This gave credence to Kahale’s readings. “Do we have the necessary weapons to get in?”
“I have gathered our best armor and weapons. This will probably be our last chance to make them pay for the Jews dropping those nuclear bombs on Tehran, Mecca, and Medina.”
“They won’t be dropping anymore.”
“No, but the faith has lost so much, Iman. Not only our holy sites, but the other ten cities that had a billion of the faithful. Who could have known they had so many nuclear warheads? Now many of the faithful hold us to blame for that loss.”
“We will see each other in heaven. This will be our last act, and we will die doing what we know to be right. I will be joining you in the attack.”
Kahale smiled, “I never thought you wouldn’t.”
Chris looked over at Jillian and furrowed his brow, “Jillian, why is this landing bay so large? We could do this with a much smaller ship.”
“I’m taking a smaller ship with us.”
“Why?”
“Against the possibility that something breaks and we need another way to get home.”
Chris thought about it and shrugged, “Ok. I just wondered. How are we going to get this thing into orbit?”
Jillian said, “We’re going to reduce the ship’s mass with the anti-gravity device.”
“What anti-gravity device?”
Jillian stood and said, “Come with me.”
Chris followed her out of the ship’s construction facility to the building holding the tablet. They walked up to the tablet and stopped directly in front of it. Dolly looked down at them from her terminal, and Jillian said, “Would you do the honors?”
Dolly smiled and picked up a small device that looked like a water gun. She aimed it at the tablet and pulled the trigger. Chris watched and didn’t see anything happen. He looked at Jillian with raised eyebrows. Jillian smiled, “Have you ever wondered how the ancient Egyptians were able to build the Great Pyramid?”
Chris nodded, “It has held my curiosity since I was five years old. Why do you ask?”
Jillian placed her hand on the huge tablet, “How much do you think this tablet weighs, Dr. Connor?”
“At least ninety tons.”
Jillian grabbed a small handle on the side of the tablet, lifted it off the floor, and moved it three feet to the right and put it back down. She did it with only one arm.
Chris’ eyes were wide and he sat down on the floor. Jillian said, “Now you know how they did it.”
“How long will it remain at that weight?”
“Until Dolly hits it with the neutral setting on that gun. That is how we are going to lift the ship. A small helicopter or carrier can do the trick.”
Dolly said, “Personally, I’d just attach a couple of weather balloons and let them take it into the upper atmosphere.”
Jillian smiled, “You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly how we’ll do it.”
“I guess if there was any doubt, that device proves that advanced aliens were responsible for the pyramid’s construction.”
“Maybe.”
Chris looked at Jillian, “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, we have the stories of an advanced civilization beyond the pillars of Hercules. It was called Atlantis. How do we know this anti-gravity device didn’t originate there?”
Chris just looked at Jillian through his eyebrows. Jillian continued, “We have too many clues that there was an advanced civilization during that time in history. We can’t just assume it’s not true. Especially in light of what we’ve seen here.”
Chris looked at the tablet, walked over, and moved it back to its original position. It weighed less than a pair of his boots. “Has anyone tried this with an aircraft to see how fast it would fly with little or no weight?”
Jillian tilted her head, “Yes, we tried it with my old Corvette.”
“And?”
“Well, Arnold insisted that we put the car on remote and just send it straight up into the atmosphere. We assumed we could just bring it back down. We set the weight at less than a tenth of an ounce and then fired the thrusters.”
Dolly said, “I’ve got it on video if you want to see it.”
Chris looked at Dolly, and then said to Jillian, “Just tell me what happened.”
“It disappeared. It ran out of the range of the remote control in less than a tenth of a second; that’s why I had to buy a new one. According to our satellite systems it was approaching the speed of light as it flew by the moon in less than eight seconds. The last we saw of it was when it hit Jupiter. There wasn’t much of an explosion because the skimmer’s mass was so small.”
Chris pulled out his calculator and began entering numbers. Dolly said from the raised terminal, “You don’t need to do that. I’ve already run the calculation.”
Jillian looked up at Dolly frowning, “What calculation?”
“Well, if you assume that Vette weighed less than an ounce but was traveling close to light speed, it penetrated Jupiter’s atmosphere so fast that it wouldn’t leave any trace. However, even though it only weighed an ounce, it was twenty eight feet long. At that velocity, it probably left a crater on Jupiter’s surface more than two hundred miles across. We just didn’t see it because of the thickness of Jupiter’s atmosphere.”
Jillian looked at Chris and he nodded. Chris then said, “If we can reduce our mass to less than an ounce, the engines on the Cheops should push us to light speed almost instantly. Reverse thrusters will also stop us just as fast.”
Jillian said, “Well, that’s a good thing.”
Chris shook his head, “Yes and no. You haven’t thought it through. How do we fly a hundred miles or just a mile?”