“Blow it out of the sky.”
As the Earthship maneuvered, busily avoiding the attacks from the remaining Imperial fighters close enough to engage it, Megabase Cygnus slowly began to turn, re-orienting itself so that one of its arms was pointed right in the ship’s direction. A large circular hatch opened at the end of its arm, the massive, long tunnel on the inside starting to come to life as the glow of furious green energy started slowly building up within it…
In the Entanglement Engine room, Heckubus and Green stared at Shanks as he stood unmoving before the engine, the monk’s arm outstretched, his eyes closed. “What’s he doing?” complained Heckubus. “He’s just standing there not touching anything. I could just stand there and not touch anything!”
“I do believe he’s doing something spiritual,” Green said. “At least… I hope he’s doing something spiritual! Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Yes, well, if you define being spiritual as doing absolutely nothing, then I suppose we three are the most spiritual beings in the universe at the moment!” snapped Heckubus. “Which is probably a good thing considering we’re most likely about to die!”
In the mind’s eye of the monk, Shanks was still gazing at the images falling like water before him. He kept looking for the woman, waiting for his moment.
She is important, he thought. She must be.
Shanks narrowed his eyes, gazing at the images as they fell, waiting… waiting…
His hand shot out the millisecond he began to recognize her image. He caught it, holding it in his grip as the other images raged by, threatening to pull her’s away from him. Shanks gritted his teeth, trying his best to hold on tight.
“I have her!” he said. “She’s here! If she is what you need… focus on her! Hurry!”
The image in Shanks’ grasp glowed slightly as those falling around it began to grow hazy, rippling like waves in the ocean.
“Yes!” Shanks cried. “That’s it!”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Cohaagen as he glared at the map above his control table on Megabase Cygnus.
“Fighter groups Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow have successfully boxed in the Earthship, sir,” reported a technician. “Target is now aligned with the megalaser.”
“What’s the megalaser’s charge?” Cohaagen asked.
“Currently at 35%, sir,” responded a tech.
“More than enough to take out one ship,” Cohaagen remarked. “Gentlemen, it’s time to spring this trap. Order all fighters clear. Prepare to fire…”
“They’re everywhere!” Jack cried as the blasts from the fighters rocked the Earthship a few more times. “They’ve surrounded us!”
“Make a run fer it!” shouted Scallywag. “We just got a little farther ta go before we can hop back inta hyperspace!”
“I’m trying!” Jack shouted back. “They’ve boxed us in!”
Suddenly, the ships in front of them peeled away, flying off. Jack looked at the viewscreen in disbelief.
“Whoa, what just happened?” he asked. “The fighters just flew away!”
“Don’t suppose it’s too much ta hope they just gave up?” Scallywag muttered.
“You know as well as I do we’re never that lucky,” Jack said, checking his readouts. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What?” asked Scallywag, alarmed. “Ya know I don’t like ‘uh-ohs’!”
“There’s a weird energy reading coming from the Megabase,” Jack said. “Like… a BIG energy reading!”
Jack called up a rear view from the ship onto the viewscreen. Directly behind them, Megabase Cygnus had one of its massive arms pointed at them, a glowing chamber at its end crackling with a bright green energy.
Scallywag gasped. “It’s powered up its bloody megalaser!”
“Its what?” Jack asked, not liking the sound of that.
“The weapon designed ta take out Planetkillers,” Scallywag said. “They’re gonna use it on us!!!”
Jack’s eyes widened as his heart practically stopped beating. “The fighters… they were herding us! It was all a trap!” he said, a feeling of dread gripping his chest. “And I flew us right into it!”
Shanks struggled to hold onto the woman’s image, all the other pictures closing in around him, falling faster and faster as they grew and shrank, fading in and out of sight. “Focus,” Shanks said. “Find your Source. Follow it to her. Free her from the others!”
The image Shanks held grew brighter. It began to come into focus as all the other pictures began to dim.
“Free her!” Shanks said forcefully again. “Free yourself! Free your mind! Eldil Meldilorn! Eldil Meldilorn!”
Suddenly, all the other images disappeared. The woman’s image came into perfect focus for the briefest of instants before radiating with the blinding intensity of a star as a great, all-seeing eye manifested behind it.
Back in the engine room with Heckubus and Green looking on, Shanks’ eyes shot open. He gazed at his hand, hovering just over the engine’s casing, feeling his energy still connected with that of the ship. “ELDIL MELDILORN!” Shanks commanded one final time as he thrust his hand against the engine, reaching out with one last burst of his own energy to finally help guide the ship’s energy back into alignment.
The Entanglement Engine’s casing lit up brilliantly, blinding Heckubus and Green, forcing them to cover their eyes as the engine room filled with light.
Megabase Cygnus fired its megalaser, the massive beam of green fury barreling forth, unleashing the raging wrath of its focused inferno upon anything in its path as it screamed forward, heading directly toward the Earthship.
The hull of the Earthship shimmered, filling with a brilliant white light. And mere moments before the megalaser’s beam was to consume it…
The ship disappeared.
Chapter 59
The bridge returned to normal, its viewscreen now displaying a starfield of open space instead of a massive beam of death and destruction headed for it. Jack and Scallywag were both frozen in their chairs, gripping their nearby control panels tightly, eyes wide as their brains struggled to understand their current situation.
“We’re… we’re alive?” asked Scallywag, as though he weren’t completely sure.
“We’re alive,” said Jack, in disbelief.
“WE’RE ALIVE!” they both cheered.
Jack slumped in his chair, clutching his chest as his heart raced a mile a minute. Scallywag hopped up from his seat, laughing like he was drunk, and began to dance a jig in celebration. Dan eyed the dancing Visini curiously before turning to Grohm. “Pardon me, sir, but is that—”
“Not normal,” the Rognok said.
“I see,” the robot replied. “So we shouldn’t—”
Grohm growled.
“No dancing in celebration. Understood,” said Dan.
Scallywag had just finished his celebratory jig of still being among the living when Heckubus, Green, and Shanks came back onto the bridge. Jack swiveled his seat around to look at them. “You fixed it!” Jack said with a smile.
“Was there ever any doubt?” snooted Heckubus.
“Enormous amounts,” responded Green cheerily. “Tons!”
“Quiet, you,” Heckubus snapped.
“Oy, ya cut it kinda close there, gents,” Scallywag said. “But ya pulled through. Good work! Next time we’re in port, drinks be on me!”
“I can’t believe we made it,” Jack said, hopping out of his chair. “I thought for sure they had us! So how’d you do it? What was wrong with the engine?”
“The solution was far too complicated and mind-bogglingly complex to ever possibly explain…” said Heckubus.
“I helped your ship get its Trinity back into alignment,” Shanks said. “It should be fine now.”
Heckubus shot the monk a nasty glare. “Yes, well, our efforts paved the way for him to do it.”
“We were just in the room,” said Green. “We had no idea what was going on.”
“Must I keep telli
ng you to be quiet?” grumbled the robot.
“It doesn’t matter who fixed it – it’s fixed!” said Jack. “And if we made the jump, it means we’re at the Great Seal.”
“Oy, just looks like empty space ta me,” Scallywag commented as he looked at the bridge’s viewscreen.
Jack hopped back into his chair as Green took his seat at the auxiliary systems console. “It’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Jack said. “Alabaster wouldn’t have given us a faulty location.”
“Scanning the area,” Green said. “Oh, my… picking up something nearby… something big!”
Jack turned the ship. Slowly, the starfield of open space was replaced with a massive metal wall, filled with tiny windows and lights.
“What tha blazes…” muttered Scallywag.
“What is that?” Jack asked as the ship finished its turn, the entire viewscreen filled with the wall which appeared to stretch out in every direction, seemingly without end. “That’s not big… that’s huge!”
“I don’t even think there’s a word that can accurately describe that size,” Heckubus commented.
“Extrapolating sensor data now,” Green said. “I’ll have the ship create a representation of what we’re facing.”
A pedestal rose up from the floor of the bridge, a holographic image of a massive metal sphere littered with tiny lights appeared. The entire group looked at it curiously. “Blimey,” muttered Scallywag. “How big is that thing?”
“According to the ship’s readings… it’s approximately a million miles in diameter…” said Green with astonishment.
“A million miles wide?” Jack asked, his brain struggling to grasp how large that could even be. “Just how big is that?”
“A typical diameter for an inhabitable planet with a Terran mass-classification is roughly 8,000 miles,” Heckubus said. “That means what we’re looking at now could hold 125 planets such as Omnicron inside it.”
“Now that is one bloody big space station,” remarked Scallywag.
“It is far too big to be an effective one,” Heckubus said. “It would never make sense to build such a large structure, especially just to house a Great Seal.”
“The Ancients created an entire planet to house the last one we found,” Jack said.
“No,” corrected Heckubus. “You have it backwards. The Great Seal was the thing that created the Ghost Planet. This Great Seal is supposedly responsible for the Portgate network. So what does it need a million miles of room for?”
“I’m picking up some interesting readings from inside the structure,” Green said. “There is a great deal of radiation and electromagnetic activity contained within the sphere…”
A glow representing the readings the Professor was registering appeared within the holographic image of the metal sphere as the Professor added in the new data. It was circular in shape and appeared to be almost, but not quite, as big as the sphere itself.
“Oh!” exclaimed Green as he looked at the image. “Oh, my! It can’t be!”
“What?” asked Jack. “What did you figure out?”
“The readings from within the structure…” Green said, wide-eyed. “They’re consistent with that of a… a star!”
The entire group looked taken aback. “Whoa, hold on a minute,” said Scallywag. “Yer tellin’ me, the Ancients built this massive bloody thing… around a star???”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you!” Green said excitedly.
“Why?” asked Jack. “I mean… it’s cool and all… but why?”
“Oh… it’s brilliant! Of course!” said Green. “That’s why the Portgate Seal is here!”
“Care ta share yer revelation, greenskin?” Scallywag asked.
“It’s a sunshell!” replied Green. “The Ancients actually built a sunshell!”
“What’s a sunshell?” Jack asked. “And don’t say it’s a shell around a sun.”
“Back on your planet, Jack, there was a similar concept your people referred to as a Dyson sphere,” Green explained. “It’s a structure built around a star designed to capture its power output. Essentially, it’s a generator that never runs out of fuel! It has the potential to power anything, perpetually, for billions and billions of years. Such things have been theorized about, but no one has even come close to figuring out how to create one… no one, apparently, except the Ancients!”
“Oy, and what would they need all that power for?” asked Scallywag.
“Aside from the long-term survival and escalating energy needs of a galaxy-spanning technological civilization?” Heckubus replied snootily. “The answer should be obvious, even to you. This, you fool, is what powers the portgate network!”
“Precisely!” said Green with giddy excitement. “So little is known about how the portgates truly operate. But if it is the case that this is what is required for them to effectively function, then that goes a long way toward explaining why no one has been able to truly recreate the science behind them. Oh, imagine the possibilities of what civilization could achieve with this kind of power source!”
“The only thing I’m imagining right now is getting Anna back,” Jack said glumly as he eyed the holographic image of the sunshell. “I hope the coordinates Alabaster gave us are close to where Anna is in this thing, because there’s no way we’ll find her otherwise.”
“Oy, didn’t ya mention before about how yer ship tags those who have used its teleporter?” asked Scallywag. “Can ya find her that way?”
“Yes, I can,” said Jack, calling up a holodisplay for his sensor readings. The ship showed Anna’s location relative to its own. Jack then maneuvered the ship until it was directly above where Anna was located inside the sunshell. “There she is,” Jack said, gazing at his readouts. “Alabaster, I will never doubt you again.”
“Well, that was surprisingly easy,” commented Scallywag. “’Bout time somethin’ worked in our favor. Right, lad, off ya go. Beam the lass up and let’s get out o’ here.”
Jack frowned. “I’m trying, but… it’s not working.”
“Ugh. Did the teleporters break now?” complained Heckubus. “Was it not enough we just repaired the blasted jump engine?”
“No, the teleporter is fine,” Jack said. “It just can’t get a lock on Anna to get her on the ship.”
“Oh, dear,” fretted Green. “The scanners are showing some kind of shielding in the sunshell structure over the area in which the Princess is located. It’s effectively blocking all teleportation.”
“But, my teleporters could get past the shielding on Omnicron,” Jack said.
“Indeed,” replied Green. “But this shielding was built by the Ancients themselves. No doubt they knew how to construct it to interfere with their own teleportation methods such as those your ship employs.”
“That would make sense,” Shanks said. “The Ancients would not want to allow others to simply teleport into the Chamber of the Great Seal. They most certainly put protections in place to prevent all but those who are truly worthy of their secrets from gaining access to it.”
“That would explain why the area the Princess is in is shielded,” Green noted. “From my readings, it would appear as though that is not the case with other parts of the structure.”
“And that would be great if the Princess were in the other bloody parts o’ the structure,” said Scallywag. “But if we can’t teleport her out, then there’s nothin’ more we can do ta stop her.”
“Yes, there is,” said Jack, gazing at the surface of the sunshell with determination. “We can go down and get her.”
The group all looked at Jack, unsure whether or not he was serious. “Come again?” asked Scallywag.
Jack hopped out of his chair and faced the others. “If the entire sunshell isn’t blocking us, then we can teleport down to it and make our way to Anna so we can bring her back up with us.”
“There are sooooooooo many things wrong with that plan, Earthman,” said Heckubus.
“Oy, the robot ain’t k
iddin’, lad,” Scallywag said. “Aside from the small army o’ robots Virtuoso brought with him, we’d be buttin’ heads with the Royal bloody Vanguard. And if what we saw on the Ghost Planet is any indication of what might be down there, that lot could be the least of our worries.”
“We made it through the Ghost Planet, and we can make it through this,” Jack argued.
“I fear this is quite a different situation, my boy,” Green said sadly. “The Ghost Planet was designed to keep people inside it. This place, however… it’s designed to keep people out.”
“You’re our resident expert on all things Ancient, Professor,” Jack said. “What do you know about what’s down there?”
“Just what little I read about in the Maguffyn research concerning the Great Seal,” Green replied. “My focus was more on the study of the seal than on its location. All I know is that the Ancients built three chambers designed to protect it, which no one but those of Legacy Prime can pass through without being subjected to some type of trial.”
“What kind of trial?”
“I fear I never bothered to look into it,” Green said. “All I can tell you is that all who are not of Legacy Prime who have attempted to access the seal throughout the history of the Empire… have met with certain death.”
“And in case it weren’t already obvious,” said Scallywag, “death is bad. Certain death be worse.”
“That’s why we need a plan,” said Jack. “Quick, Heckubus—”
“Let me stop you right there,” interrupted Heckubus. “I may be a genius, but I am no miracle worker. I’m forced to agree with my inferiors on this matter – no amount of planning will be able to get you past the Ancients’ safeguards alive.”
Jack looked at the group pleadingly. “C’mon, guys!” he said. “We’ve faced worse than this before!”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” said Green sadly. “If we go down there, in all likelihood we would never make it to the Princess. I fear we may be too late to stop her from going through with the destruction of the seal.”
Earthman Jack vs. The Secret Army (Earthman Jack Space Saga Book 2) Page 70