“I’ve got the other planet’s orbit from star system 328E1-whatever-the-rest-is,” Daven reported from Byrani’s side. “I’m figuring out where to place Earth so it emerges from the wormhole a safe distance away from the other planet, but on the same orbit.” Daven sat in front of another display next to Byrani’s, typing something onto a table adjacent to the wall. “After this I’ll calculate the coordinates for where the new wormhole needs to be to transport the other planet into Earth’s solar system.”
“Awesome!” Tiera exclaimed, and a little too loudly. She was experiencing such a weird combination of excitement and anxiety that she felt like she might have a panic attack. Then her smart glass started buzzing in her pocket, and she pulled it out to see it was a call from Leon. Damn it.
“Here,” Darshy said, handing a white jumpsuit to Tiera and forcing her attention away from her smart glass. “This one should fit.”
She put her smart glass down on the table next to her and took the garment from Darshy. Tiera held it against her chest to see if it would really fit—and it looked like it did. “Is there a way to check it for leaks?” Tiera was still having a hard time believing this flimsy jumpsuit would protect her from the vacuum of space.
“It checks for itself once you fasten the helmet on,” Darshy explained, and then his face went uncharacteristically serious. “Oh, and you can’t wear any clothes under it, so you need to get naked.”
Tiera tried her hardest to turn the phrase “I’m so done with you” into a facial expression as she started putting the jumpsuit on fully clothed.
Darshy just laughed. “Okay, fine! I was kidding; don’t get naked.”
After pulling up the surprisingly heavy fabric around her and sticking her arms through its sleeves, Tiera heard another buzz from her smart glass. Darshy gave her a strange look when she checked it, but it was a message from Leon:
“I would have just assumed you slept in this morning, Tiera, but our tracking program says you’re at the Technological University. What are you doing?”
“What is it?” Darshy asked, noting Tiera’s frown.
“Leon—Chief Uedent—knows I’m here.” Tiera typed out a message as she spoke, telling Leon that she was helping a friend with a science experiment. That isn’t completely false.
“Well, unless he gets here within the next 15 minutes, there’s not much he can do about it, is there?” Darshy tried to sound reassuring, but Tiera could tell he was worried.
“Darshy,” she began, taking one of his gloved hands in her own—and surprising herself at how well she could feel things through her spacesuit, “thank you so much for this. I know you’re risking a lot by helping me—you’re in a bit too deep for playing dumb to work, after all.” She gave him a sympathetic smile.
“I know,” he said. “But standing by and doing nothing would make me just as bad as them.” It sounded like he may have said that more for himself than for Tiera.
“The wormhole is almost ready!” Byrani shouted from across the room.
“I transferred all the specs into the remote WG!” Daven shouted after her.
Darshy looked at each of them as they spoke, then returned his gaze to Tiera, cupping his other hand around hers as he did so. “Let’s go save your planet.”
Tiera nodded, and Darshy let go of her hands. He checked his smart glass before calling out, “Eight minutes! How are we on that wormhole?”
“It’ll be ready by the time you have the remote WG harnessed and ready to go,” Byrani said, still facing the screen in front of her.
“Alright.” Darshy nodded, and he and Tiera made their way back to the amplified remote WG and its cart at the center of the room. “Can you help me with the straps?”
Instead of responding, Tiera immediately got to work loosening the thick fabric straps that held the blanket down over the remote WG. Once the straps were off, Darshy pulled the blanket away and started fitting the straps back onto the spherical WG. Tiera stared at her warped reflection in its metallic surface as Darshy fashioned the straps into a harness, leaving a long portion trailing behind like a leash.
“Hey!” a muffled voice called from behind them, and whoever it belonged to started pounding on the cabinets that blocked the lab’s only entry. “What’s going on? I have lab work to do!”
“We were here first! Sorry!” Darshy called back, his hands cupped around his mouth, and then he and Tiera pulled the remote WG and its cart over to the hatch door of the lab’s own WG.
“Right on schedule,” Byrani said, and she opened the hatch by pressing something on her screen.
Darshy hurried back to the closet to grab two helmets, and he helped Tiera fasten hers onto her spacesuit before fastening his own. As soon as the helmet was clamped on, Tiera’s visor lit up, displaying things like body temperature, oxygen level—and an ominous-looking countdown—then she felt something whirr to life in the thick, backpack-like portion of her suit.
Byrani held down a button on her screen and Tiera heard her voice as if she were standing right next to her: “Get in there! Three minutes!”
This is insane, Tiera thought, pulling the WG into the hatch with Darshy and watching the door of the circular white room close seamlessly behind her. Darshy threaded the WG’s leash through one of Tiera’s belt loops, then his own, and then fastened it securely to one of the very solid-looking loops just to the right of the door. They hurried forward, positioning themselves and the remote WG in the center of the room.
“Ready,” Darshy said, his voice clear in Tiera’s helmet, and then with a rush, the room’s air was evacuated. Tiera’s surroundings now flashed and fluctuated, somehow showing both the white of the room and star-strewn space at the same time.
“Oh!” Tiera’s voice caught in her throat as she took it the majesty of the planet before her: a great orb of blue, with white, swirling clouds hiding oceans and continents as they drifted serenely by, purely ignorant of what was about to happen. Of what we’re going to stop.
After that split-second of awe, Tiera and Darshy pushed the cart out of the flickering sphere of the wormhole and into the open space between the Earth and moon. As soon as it left the gravity of Faroa, the remote WG drifted, weightless, until it pulled its leash taut. And then it just sat there.
“Guys! Start the remote WG!” Darshy ordered Byrani and Daven. Tiera looked at the dim countdown on her visor, and it lit up. We hardly have a minute.
“We did start it!” Daven said, sounding frantic.
“What?” Tiera looked out at the sphere, motionless against the backdrop of the Earth, and her heart began to feel like a fist, punching the inside of her ribcage. “Why isn’t it working?!”
“I don’t know—it worked in the simulator yesterday!” Darshy looked from Tiera to the WG, its cold and gray exterior showing no signs of life.
“Maybe the energy transfer takes longer than we thought?” Byrani pitched in, her voice high with stress.
“But how long does it take?” Darshy asked, and while her friends squabbled, Tiera watched her visor’s timer pass zero and go on into the negatives. Each passing second felt like a weight was added to her chest until nearly three minutes had passed—and Tiera was having trouble breathing.
“You guys?” Daven’s voice cut into Darshy and Byrani’s back-and-forth. “Earth is starting to leave its orbit.”
Tiera whipped her head around, looking at the Earth, and then the Sun. “What are you talking about? It all looks the same!” she panted.
“Are you alr—?”
“They must have opened a wormhole about three light minutes away,” Byrani said, before Daven could finish. “What direction is it going?”
“Roughly toward the sun,” Daven answered.
“And how far away is this sun from Earth?” Darshy asked.
“About six light minutes, but that doesn’t really matter. The remote WG isn’t going to be centered between Earth and its moon whenever it activates anymore. And the longer it takes to activate, the high
er chance that our wormhole misses—or cuts a big chunk out of the planet.”
“Then we need to move the remote WG!” Tiera said, her mind in a panic. “Now!” Without thinking, Tiera raced toward the hatch door to the lab, pushing Darshy backward as she went.
“What are you doing?” Darshy demanded, trying to stop her, but Tiera just dodged his reach and pushed him forward—she couldn’t move past him, since the remote WG’s tether was strung through both of their belt loops.
“It has to move!” was all Tiera managed to say before they were both outside of the wormhole and pressed against the generator’s white wall. “Help me!” Tiera reached around Darshy and picked frantically at the knot that kept the remote WG stationary, and he finally understood. Within seconds, the remote WG was set adrift, its strap loose and slithering through the wormhole.
“You guys, we’re about to be out of range,” Daven’s nervous voice announced from Tiera’s helmet. “The remote WG needs to move faster.”
Tiera didn’t need to be told twice. She channeled all of her anxious energy into a mad dash through the wormhole, where space and the white generator room rippled together for only a moment before Tiera made an angled leap for the remote WG—and toward the sun.
Suddenly weightless—and very dizzy—Tiera fumbled for the strap that had left the wormhole just a few seconds before her, all while trying to ignore the concerned shouts of her friends as they echoed around her helmet. It’s not lost yet. It’s not lost yet, Tiera chanted in her mind, trying desperately to fend off her panic. She grabbed the strap and wrapped it several times around her arm before holding it tightly with both hands, then looked up to see the Earth-lit silhouette of the remote WG, growing steadily larger as she hurtled toward it.
As soon as she passed the WG, Tiera gasped at her horrific new view of the distant sun. A thread of fiery gas started to drift from its corona, disappearing into some invisible and distant point. Tiera could feel her panic building. “No!”
With a jolt, the strap in Tiera’s hands grew taut, and she turned around to see that she and the remote WG were moving at the same speed now. “Work please work!” she pled, looking from it to the sun, whose fiery mass was siphoned away more and more with every passing second. It’s not lost yet!
For one silent moment it seemed the entire universe held its breath, watching Tiera and the WG drift farther from her friends and closer to the dark and crushing death ahead of her, when suddenly a shimmering veil erupted from the remote WG, billowing outward with unimaginable speed and enveloping everything around Tiera in the security of escape. Another sun seemed to appear near its dying brother, and a sickly planet was visible in the distance, ready to take the Earth’s place.
“Remote wormhole fully expanded!” Daven reported (over everyone’s cheers), just after the shimmering surface of the wormhole passed through the Earth.
“Then close this end of the remote wormhole!” Darshy yelled, and in a glorious instant the Earth’s old, dying solar system vanished. Now all Tiera could see was the Earth, the moon, and their radiant new sun.
Chapter 28
After taking in her new surroundings for a quiet moment, Tiera noticed something flashing in the corner of her visor—an alert that she had lost communication with Darshy and the others.
Oh crap.
Her thoughts began to catch up with her actions, and Tiera realized that she hadn’t planned beyond jumping out of their wormhole. She hardly had time to panic, however, before her helmet connected to the lab’s intercom system again.
“Tiera! Can you hear me?” Byrani asked, just as Tiera saw something white flash in the distance.
“Yes! We did it!” Tiera could still hardly believe it.
“We did!” Darshy’s voice came in this time. “But there’s still one more step. Byrani, do you have her coordinates now?”
“Yeah, just a sec.”
“Tiera,” Daven said, “we’re going to open a new wormhole where you are, alright? So we’re going to lose contact with you again, but we’ll be right back.”
“Alright—go ahead,” Tiera told him, and the shimmering spot of white in the distance vanished. The communications alert flashed again on her visor, but it was gone almost as soon as it had appeared.
“Ah!” Tiera flinched as ribbons of white light blossomed right beside her, enveloping her and making her fall on her butt at the same time. Tiera tried not to throw up as her body readjusted to Faroa’s gravity, and Darshy’s bear hug didn’t make it any easier.
“That was amazing!” he shouted as he squeezed her. “And look! You’ve still got the remote WG.” The remote WG was just outside of the wormhole, connected to Tiera’s hands like a weird metal balloon.
“Please stop hugging me,” Tiera breathed, and she heard Daven laugh, then Darshy joined in.
“Right,” he said, letting go. He stepped to the side so Tiera could stand up, and then he pulled the hover cart to the edge of their wormhole. “Can you help me with this?” Darshy pointed at the remote WG.
“Yeah,” Tiera said, and they both pulled the remote WG back into the lab’s generator, getting it on the cart before pulling it back into Faroa’s gravity. After tying its strap to the wall again, they were ready to go.
“Alright,” Darshy began. “Byrani, close this wormhole and open up a new one next to the planet we’re replacing.”
“On it,” Byrani confirmed, and the next second all Tiera could see were the white walls of the lab’s wormhole generator. Soon a new wormhole opened, expanding until it nearly filled the room, and a sickly yellow planet loomed ahead of them, its thin atmosphere lacking any clouds to hide its scarred and rocky surface.
Tiera looked around, anxious to see the Earth again, and then she saw it: a cloudy blue marble with its shining dust mote of a moon, soundlessly exploring its new foster home. We really did it. Tiera’s legs felt weak, and she had to lean on the handle of the WG’s cart to stay standing.
“One more step, Tiera,” Darshy reminded her, his voice gentle as it resounded through her helmet.
Tiera nodded, then helped him push the cart and WG outside of their wormhole once more. When their line grew taut, the remote WG was activated again, and after a few minutes’ lag the amplified wormhole burst from the shiny sphere again. As it intercepted the wormhole that connected them to the lab, Tiera was offered one last view of her dying solar system, its starving sun already a fraction of the star it once was.
Thank you. Tiera directed her thought at the barren, yellow planet before her, and then the edge of the wormhole finally passed through it, draping it like a death shroud.
“The remote wormhole is fully expanded,” Daven said tiredly.
Darshy took that as his cue. “Close our end of the remote wormhole,” he told our friends.
In an instant, both the remote WG and its sickly yellow cargo were gone.
The leash-like strap fell slack, severed on their wormhole’s edge when the remote WG left for the Earth’s old solar system. Now all Tiera could see was the space of Earth’s new home.
We did it . . . I can’t believe we did it! Tiera was so happy she could hit something—but she was so tired she didn’t want to. “Darshy, it worked!”
“It did!” he said, and Tiera could see him smiling through his visor.
“Congrats, Tiera!” Daven said through the intercom, but before he turned off the audio Tiera heard some sort of pounding sound coming from the background.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Someone really wants into the lab,” Byrani said. “Can I close your wormhole now?”
“Go for it,” Darshy said.
Space vanished from around them, and all that Tiera could see now was the stark white interior of the lab’s wormhole generator room. A sudden hissing noise came from somewhere nearby. Moving her arm around tentatively, Tiera felt more resistance than before, so she knew the vacuum of the room was being filled with air again.
“I hope you guys are wiping t
hat computer’s memory right now,” Darshy told their friends in the lab. Once the hissing stopped, he took off his helmet, and Tiera followed suit.
“Oh sorry, we were playing rock, paper, sci—of course we’re wiping the memory,” Byrani said through the room’s intercom. She sounded very agitated, and, from the banging noises happening in the background, Tiera could understand why.
The WG room’s hatch opened, and Darshy and Tiera ran out and into the main lab. They hurriedly stashed their space suits in the closet as the staccato coming from the other side of their cabinet barricade grew louder. Do they have a battering ram or something?
Byrani and Daven turned from their computer screens and nodded to Darshy, confirming that all the data from their mission was gone, and Darshy wagged his smart glass in the air with a tight smile to indicate the same. There was no way Origin could figure out how to amplify a wormhole now—at least not from them. All that was left was to wait tensely as whoever was on the other side of those cabinets made their way in.
Or . . . we could just let them in, Tiera thought, then she made her way toward the heavy cabinets. After they shuddered from another blow, Tiera took a deep breath. “HEY!”
The pounding stopped, and Tiera thought she could hear talking on the other side. “Tiera?”
Oh great. Tiera patted the cabinet closest to the door. “Hi, Leon.”
“You’re . . . are you alright?” Tiera wasn’t sure why Leon sounded so surprised she was here—he had tracked her here, hadn’t he?
“Never been better.” Tiera glanced over at her friends awkwardly, unsure of what to do next. “Um . . . would you like to come in?”
After a long pause, Leon responded flatly, “We’ve spent the last several minutes trying to break through this little barrier of yours, Tiera.”
“Oh. So that’s what you were doing.” The awkwardness of the situation surrounded Tiera so thickly that she thought she might drown in it. I’m probably going to jail again. “Uh—we’ll get it out of your way then!” Tiera frowned at Darshy and the others, waving them over to help.
Tiera's Earth (Andromeda 9 Book 1) Page 29