Ascendancy: A Near Future Sci-Fi Thriller

by Randal Sloan

  The group attempted to duck into an alley, but it did them no good. At the last second Zeke rotated his ship, hit the anti-grav, and pulsed the drive. Similar to what Julie had done with the airplanes where she had used the drive pulse to shatter their planes, the drive pulse struck the two buildings on either side of the alley, severely damaging their top floors. What it did to the alley was indescribable.

  Channeling into the alley much like the tsunami a few days before had between the islands, the pulse slammed into the pavement crushing everything in its path and then picked up the men like they were toy soldiers and threw them the length of the alley to crash into the building across the street, shattering them along with any windows within its range. Even Zeke was amazed at the destructive effect. Not that he was sorry.

  He instantly headed back to make sure Julie was ok. But if he had wanted to try his trick again, he was destined to be disappointed. All he got from Julie was that she was really mad. Not even a dash of fear. Not even fear for her companions. As he swooped in to see what was happening, he realized what she was mad about and started laughing. Not a single man had even gotten close enough to her for her to use her knives. And for her, that was close to the range of a handheld pistol. The monks had eliminated every single one of the attackers and had then come forward to bow to her.

  Zeke hit the anti-grav and brought his ship down onto the street in front of Julie. She had finally calmed down when she realized that the leader of the monks was her friend Brother John. She then eagerly returned their bows and rushed forward to give Brother John a hug. As Zeke landed and hit the command to open the door on his ship, he heard sirens as the local fire and police were responding.

  Rushing to the door, he told them all, “Get aboard. I don’t care to wait for them to sort all this out.”

  Julie nodded. She, her companions, and the monks quickly boarded. For Nicole and even Emily, it was the first time they had seen her little ship, and they were amazed at everything they saw. Zeke quickly lifted them into the air, and while Julie gave the girls a tour, he flew their ship toward the school, albeit a little more slowly than in the last few minutes of his flying. After all, he didn’t want to arrive before Julie finished her tour.

  Laughing as he came in for a landing on the school soccer field, he turned to Julie, who had just come into the control room. “Guess you’d better cancel the return trip in the limo and tell security to head on home.”

  “Air Zeke,” she told him. “The only way to travel. Who needs a stinking limo?”

  She quickly finished her tour, Emily not that much interested in the control room and Nicole just a little too interested. She told Nicole. “You get your classes at Space Academy completed and then give me a call. Then I’ill explain everything in here. And we’ll figure out where best to put you at Space Tech.”

  Nicole gave her a huge smile. “I’ve always been crazy about this kind of stuff. I promise you I’ll work hard to be ready and then I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  Julie told her. “Tell you what, when you have your next break from school, you and Emily should come up to the space station to visit. I’ll show you around then.”

  The girls both gave Julie a big hug, and walking arm-in-arm they hurried out the door, going just far enough to be clear. Waving, the pair turned to watch as Zeke lifted the little ship into the air and took off as soon as he was far enough away from them. Zeke, of course, headed back up to Space Tech Station without further incident.

  No wonder they didn’t miss Earth that much. It was just too much trouble.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Rescue

  The much anticipated time had finally come that Julie expected to be able to hear from her father. They should be appearing back in the normal universe at any moment. She nervously made her way down to the control room of the station. She intended to hold vigil throughout the day until they called.

  Knowing it probably wouldn’t be immediately after their arrival that she would hear from them, she felt she had to be there waiting. They would be without power and disoriented at first she knew, but she expected to see them on the detection grid and she expected some type of message as soon as they could get one off.

  As time went by, Julie fretted more and more. She was so certain she had gotten it right. Where were they? At least she should have seen something on the detection equipment. I should have set the network up to send out a general broadcast across that area of space. That way maybe I would have gotten a quicker response from them. She pulled her VR up and checked and double-checked her math. It still came out the same as before. They should be back in our universe and they should be inside the detection area.

  Finally Zeke came in to see her. “You need to go rest awhile,” he told her. “We agreed that we would give it 24 hours before we did anything else. They still had over 12 hours to go and you can’t stay here the whole time.”

  Julie just nodded wordlessly, letting him lead her out and down to her quarters. She barely felt the hug he gave her and didn’t see the concern in his eyes. She had been so certain and now it was as if someone had let the air out.

  After a restless attempt to sleep, she was back in the control room very early. Deciding to dig into the details of the data from all the detection equipment, she realized that it had indeed picked up something, but the AI had mis-categorized the data as a non-ship due to its speed. So her heart skipped a couple of beats. “They are there! But why haven’t they communicated?”

  Picking up on her mental anguish, Zeke came to check on her. “Somebody’s got to fix this stupid AI software,” she told him, pointing to the data.

  “You’re right,” he told her. “Sorry I didn’t catch that.” He looked back up at her, knowing this was actually good news. “So they’re there, just like you said they’d be. Give it 6 more hours and we’ll go there if we haven’t heard from them.”

  She nodded. “I know. Will you stay here with me?”

  “You couldn’t drag me away.”

  Suddenly the radio woke up. “Attention! Attention! This is Doctor Samuel Randolph on board the Space Tech research vessel The Annette calling Earth. Please respond.”

  Knowing that the answer would take minutes to reach them, Julie nevertheless sent an immediate answer. “This is Space Tech Station. Julie Randolph speaking. Send me your position, Dad. I’m coming to get you! Space Tech Station out.” Julie waited for the long delayed response. The wait seemed forever to her.

  “Julie, this is your Dad. I don’t know if you understand our situation. We are a long, long way from home and traveling at a high rate of speed. I don’t know if it’ll help or not, but I’ll transmit our position immediately after this message. Also, we have a large number of messages from each of us to the people we each care about, and so those messages will also follow this one. Please be aware that we have a jury-rigged antenna that we’re using to transmit, although everything seems to be working so far. Annette out.”

  The ship’s coordinates and speed came in shortly after the message. Julie had the com guy send the coordinates straight to the big ship and she sent orders to the crew to get the ship ready for departure. It wasn’t really necessary to tell them the last, because they’d been on hold for a possible departure for over a day, so it wouldn’t take them long to be ready. She waited impatiently while the attached messages came in; she knew they would be very important for their families. Finally, the last one!

  Julie immediately keyed her headset and sent her response. “Julie here again. You have been gone for several months as you probably know by now. A lot has changed here since you left. We have perfected a version of the propulsion system that you were testing. I have a ship ready and we’ll be departing shortly. We’ll be able to get there in just a few hours. Is there anything you urgently require? Space Tech Station out.”

  Turning to Zeke she asked him, “Would you go aboard and double-check everything for me to be sure we can leave as soon as we can? Oh, and get our
envoys on board too. And make sure the corvette did get docked in the bay also. They were supposed to do that.”

  Smiling Zeke told her, “Relax. I’ve got it. You know we’ve been over all of it before, so stop stressing.”

  “I’m sorry, you know how I feel about it. I’ll try to calm down.”

  Finally the response came back. “Annette here. We have a few minor injuries so a medic would be helpful. That and a ride home would be great! Annette out.”

  “Julie here. We’ll be on our way shortly. Oh, and Dad, I’ll get them to package you guys up a news summary. The Organization is done for. We just took care of the last of their ships and their headquarters is a hole in the ground. You and I will need to talk when I get there. I’ve quite a bit to fill you in on. Space Tech Station out.”

  “Ok guys, forward any additional traffic to the New Hope. I’m going there to listen to my message from my Dad. Sending them that news summary and make sure everyone gets their own messages privately.”

  #

  Julie quickly boarded the ship and checked in the control room for their status. They were nearly ready for departure, so she ordered a full speed course to the projected location of The Annette. Then she retired to her private quarters to listen to her message from her Dad.

  “Julie, I'd hoped by this time to be able to spend time with you. I don’t know your circumstances now and how much progress my brother has made with your case. I hope that you're doing well.” That part brought memories back; it had been so long for Julie it felt like the distant past, but to her father it had only been a couple of days.

  “I fervently desire to see you again, and if it can be done, between the brilliant people at Space Tech and the techs on this ship, we will make that possible. I could not risk your safety, but please know that I did watch over you when I could and that your Uncle Ted was there even more.” She smiled when she heard that part of the message. She had figured out that the man she called the librarian had been her father, and afterward had used her perfect recall to see his face over and over, even though he had been in disguise.

  “I know you've figured a lot of it out by now, as smart as you've become. You were always smart, but now you're absolutely brilliant. I saw some of what you could do. Tell your uncle to listen to you. I think a lot of what you were looking at in your experiment is related to what happened to us. I really think it was working too, but we experienced some kind of feedback loop and lost control of it. I couldn’t tell anyone here, but I'm hoping that you can find a way to fix it and come to our rescue. Your uncle will have all the details of the design.”

  Julie knew when her father left his message, he had no idea if she could find a way to make the drives work. For all they knew at the time, their ship was beyond rescue. She was so glad that she had been able to get the drives to work.

  “Listen my daughter, no matter what happens, make sure you become all that you can be. You’ll make a great CEO for Space Tech, and I suspect you've already had to do some of those duties. My biggest regret was, other than losing your mother and seeing you so desperately injured, I was not able to do those duties as well as I should have, and I had to depend so much on my brother. It was still worth it, as my last sight of you proved to me.”

  That brought a shocked response from her. His words about her becoming the real CEO of Space Tech made her realize that she really hadn’t thought about what his returning meant until that moment. She had gotten used to doing the job, and she wasn’t sure she could just turn it back over to him. She knew everyone would expect her to do that. At least he would agree that she had done a good job. Of course, part of it was that the world changing inventions were Zeke’s and hers, and she had a strong vested interest in the future implementation of them. She didn’t want to turn loose of that. Finally, she decided there wasn’t any point in worrying about it. They would figure out something to make it work.

  “I’m nearly out of time so I'll wrap up. I really believe I'll see you again soon and I long for that. I love you very much.”

  That one was simple. She was going to go get him and his shipmates and bring them home. Wiping the tears from her face, she hurried out to the control room.

  #

  Julie let Zeke do most of the piloting. He could still tweak the drives and get a little extra out of them, and she wanted to get there as soon as she could. As they neared the area, she reminded Zeke, “She’s pretty much the twin of this ship, at least before our modifications. So she should look like us anyway.”

  Squeezing her hand, he told her, “Relax, love. I’ve got it.”

  Giving him a big smile, she laughed. “Sorry, I did it again.”

  It really didn’t take Zeke long to find them. He had them on the display and quickly matched speed and orientation. Julie keyed the mike on her headset, “Annette, this is the Space Tech vessel New Hope and we’re on location now. Request permission to connect the docking tube and come aboard.”

  “Permission granted New Hope. And are we glad to see you!”

  The Annette had to stop her spin first, unlike New Hope, which had gravity plates. After they spun to a stop, they quickly connected the two ships. As Julie got up to go toward the docking area, she realized Zeke was holding back.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she told him. “You’re not staying here to postpone this. The back up pilots can take over. You’re going with me, but no, you’re not asking him for my hand. You already have my hand and my heart.”

  “I guess, but you get to tell him. That way I can still hide behind you.”

  “You chicken. It’s not like he can hurt you. I don’t even think I could take you in a fight.”

  “You know, when we’re done with all this, we need to do some more of that kind of stuff. I know I still have a lot to learn from you. And eventually, we’re going to have to teach it to our children.”

  “You’re on bud. Maybe I’ll even get lucky and beat you!”

  By this time they had reached the docking tube, which was made from some of the new materials from Space Tech. Plus, they had added gravity plates across the whole thing, so they were able to simply walk across it as opposed to what they would have had to do in the past, swimming in zero g. Julie led the way with Zeke and the medic right behind, and the envoys behind them. Oh, and the media guy. He was there to get that first picture of the historic meeting with the lost crew, which was going to be a bit odd since The Annette was in zero g.

  We should have brought some of Zeke’s gravity mats, Julie realized. Already, the gravity plates had changed things so much for them that they were beginning to forget about those kind of things.

  They reached the other end, tapping on the door, which immediately swung open. There standing propped against a wall using a hand hold for stability, was her father. Julie forgot all about the media guy and launched herself to her father, with one hand grabbing a handhold and with the other wrapping her father in as big a hug as she could give him one handed.

  Pulling back a little so she could see his face, she told him, “I’ve missed you so much. Even when I figured out what had happened, I wasn’t sure you were going to be alright until I heard that call this morning. Plus, I had to wait months to know.”

  Her father looked at her with tears in his eyes. “I wasn’t sure I was ever going to see you again. Truthfully, to us, we had no idea you would be able to do this. We figured we were doomed to fly further and further away from earth until we ran out of food or water or O2, whichever went first.” He smiled at her, “You’re back to Julie I see.”

  Julie gave him a glare. “You’re lucky it’s been so long. I was mad at you and Uncle Ted for the first month or so about that. Then I suppose I got distracted and forgot about it.”

  Zeke had been floating quietly beside her while she talked. He didn’t want to interrupt them at any cost. But Julie twisted toward him. “And this is one reason I’ve been distracted. Dad, please meet Ezekiel Caldwell, my fiancé who I plan to marry in one week. We were
waiting to get you so you could be there.” Seeing her father’s eyes widen, she went on. “Dad, it’s been months for us. We’ve had a significantly long engagement.”

  “Glad to meet you sir,” Zeke told him. “Everyone calls me Zeke. And I love your daughter very much, more than life itself.”

  “Yeah, he’s saved my life three — no, four times now. Three of those times were at great peril to his own life.”

  The medic had been patiently waiting all this time, but he saw his chance. “Ma’am, sir, if you would direct me where I need to go, I can get started looking at those injuries.”

  One of the ship’s crew had been waiting there with Doctor Randolph. “Sir, if it’s alright with you, I’ll direct him.”

  “Thank you, Jim,” Doctor Randolph said. “That would be great.”

  Next to appear were the two envoys. Julie was not surprised to see James had really good space legs, but when Xiu swam into place beside them she was very impressed. “Bet she’s a dancer!” she thought, but out loud she said, “Doctor Randolph, please meet our two special envoys to Space Tech. Representing our home country of the US, we have Doctor James Hollingsworth, and representing the great country of China, we have Xiu Wu. Both have done an admirable job in representing us to their respective countries.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir,” James quickly told him. “Your daughter has told me a lot about you. You should be extremely proud of her. She’s an amazing girl.”

  “Nín hǎo,” Xiu told him. “It is a great pleasure to meet you. I know my father has always greatly admired you. I’m hoping that he will get the opportunity to meet you in the coming days.”