by Grant Fausey
"Channel open," acknowledged Mains. The big communications board lit up with the image of an old man in his early hundreds. "Michael Tyler," he said identifying himself as he answered the call.
Vex Redford looked up at the old man and smiled. It took a moment to focus, but when he did––Oh boy. "VEX REDFORD!" shouted Michael Tyler. "You old opportunity dog. Heard you'd be calling. What can I do you out of?"
Vex Redford laughed. Answered sarcastically: "You haven't changed in twenty years, Michael Tyler.”
‘You didn’t expect me to did you?”
No––but that’s not why I called. I've a mission for you, if you you’re not getting too old!"
"To old too!" he coughed. "I might be old ... and I might be grey ... but I'm never retired enough to say no to Vex Redford.”
Redford knew he could depend on his old friend. “Hell ... you'll probably call me after I'm dead and have a job for me from the grave.”
“Now," he laughed, "what's all this about? What's so damn important you’d risk a trace to talk with me? Now, that'll be something worth talking about, won't it?"
"No doubt, Michael!" said Vex. "No doubt."
"What's on your mind, Vex?"
"I need a little favor..."
"A little favor," clamored the old man.
"Right ... now that'll be the day!"
"We've uncovered a little plot against humanity. It includes the Earth Corporate … the system itself is in danger."
"All right," he answered him choking. "But since when have you had a heart for the survival of Earth Corporate?"
"Since this morning, Michael, if that's any consolation. I met a young lady." Michael Tyler had no choice but to smile. He knew it had to have something to do with a woman. "She's not your ordinary 'run of the mill' human, Michael.”
"Never thought she would be, Vex..." he answered. "So what's so special about her?"
Vex hesitated. He wondered if Michael Tyler was ready for what he had to say, or if he already had some idea of what he was going to tell me about? He remembered a conversation from long ago. Michael was nearly twice his age then. It was obvious he still had all his mental capacities now. He had to take the chance, so he talked in a hurry.
"She's undergoing a kind of metamorphosis, Michael," he said bluntly. "One that could change the face of humanity and alter our future to the point of eliminating the existence of both Earth Corporate and all of us!"
The image of the Senator sat up in the chair, moving forward to the edge of the seat. "All right, Vex," he said bluntly. "You've got my undivided attention.
“What's so damn important you need me to do it." Vex leaned forward; his face drawn tight with conviction. He was well aware of the implications. He thought long and hard before he opened his mouth, continuing his conversation.
"It's just a simple thing, Michael," he said firmly. "I need you to deliver a message to the Chairman of the Directive inside the Earth Corporation Alliance."
Michael's eyes opened as wide as saucers as he sat back in his chair. The Chairman himself, he thought. The old Senator hadn't addressed the chairman in years, decades even, and now Vex Redford, an outlaw was asking him to step into the hornet's nest with his eyes open ... and, on his behalf, no less.
"Tell him Vex Redford is back," snapped the old space dog. "And don't pull any punches, Michael. Tell him all his wildest nightmares are about to become true.
“All hell is about to break loose and neither of us can win this thing alone. He's going to need my help; our help, and we're going to need his. I want to talk with him directly, on a secure channel. Call me back when you have him on the line."
Vex hesitated, remembering the events of his past. They were friends for a long time with the director, but circumstances shifted them to opposing sides. Now, circumstances were going to force them back together: This time to save the universe. "Oh, and Michael," he said wildly focused. "One last thing––I need to talk to Maccon. Keep an eye on Cobson Rondell. There's something not right there. It's just a feeling, so watch your back, okay?"
"Understood," answered Michael. Vex Redford turned from the screen and looked back at Katrina and Laura Anne Walker. "By the way, Michael. Who told you I'd be calling?"
Michael smiled. He knew the answer. All that was left was to find the Pteranodon.
Hansen's Thunder Runner emerged from the vortex, entering the worlds of the Jurassic period. A huge volcano spouted lava, filling the air with ash, soot and smoke. Pools of molten rock moved across the surface, toward the horizon. It was truly a prehistoric world, one Hansen had not seen before. At least, not so close up and personal.
Thunder One streaked beyond the horizon, hurtling across the sky above the rugged terrain. Suddenly, the instrument panels lit up like a Christmas tree filling the cockpit with the sounds of bells and whistles, alarms sounding everywhere. Every piece of equipment suddenly went operational, scrolling readouts.
Tiana took tight hold of her controls, spinning her seat around to face the rear of the vehicle. "I've a lock on," she screamed. "Two three two, point twenty three ... looks like a reflection. An echo of something."
"Coming around," said Hansen. He immediately turned the controls, banking the runner into a wide circle. They were heading back the way in which they had come. "Look sharp, Hudson!"
Hudson Warner adjusted the gunnery assault pod, tracking the echo signal that Tiana had locked on to. "All set here," he said to Hansen. "Take us in, Skipper!"
Kyle Travis looked up from his instruments and started spouting off phrases in an alien dialect. "More power to the shields, Mr. Sulu."
Jason Tennerick laughed and added his own thoughts on the matter, "Engage," he said pointing a finger. The crew laughed. Thunder one shot over the top of a mountain ridge, hurtling down into the valley below. A startled look crossed Hansen's face. He was overwhelmed at the amount of light pouring through the windshield upon him.
"What is that?" shouted Tatiana then everything went white. Before them in the hollow of a valley, a pillar of light lifted from the surface of the planet. Within it a brilliantly lit structure hovered above the surface of the Earth, rising above the clouds. Tatiana looked up in awe as the interior of the ship flashed white. Everything went black. The crew of Thunder one laid stretched out on medical beds in the medical facility. They were in a different dimension, a different time zone, and a different future.
The runner emerged into Dranger's Canyon like a duck floating on its back in the middle of the river under its own power. Remote controlled by its own computer counterparts. Only in this future the river was made of mist and it was chilled by the night air. "Holly shit..." mutter Hansen. "What hit me, a truck?"
"Tatiana?" he uttered. "I'm right here," she answered with a cough. "Travis?"
"Hudson?"
"Can any of you hear me?"
"Tennerick?"
"It's all right, Skipper," said Tennerick. "We're all here. Trinod Rex smiled and spoke to the group in a calming voice. "You're safe. Your crew is safe too." Hansen looked up, watching his approach. A million things ran through his thoughts––the impact of the light. The transit fields, Tatiana screaming; Hudson opening fire. It was as if everything had been a dream.
"Where am I?" Hansen asked finally. "When am I?"
"You're home, Hans."
"Home," sighed Hansen. "In the Mansion?"
"Not exactly. You're in my home: My medical facilities, specifically. We found you floating in the fields out by Dranger's Canyon. I think you found what it was you were looking for. At least, you kept talking about it."
"I'm delirious?"
You all were. We had quite a time getting you all down here to med lab."
"How long?"
"Three days by our calendar. But whatever it was you found, it was already gone by the time we recovered you. According to your ship's logs, it wasn't ever really there. Somehow the device displaced time and space. You're logs show a definite attachment to the future with a foothol
d touching back to the past. Just don't know what future or past you were in," said Trinod Rex. "Our translation shows you existing your jump into an infinite corridor which was linked to an infinite number of futures and pasts: An infinite number of universes. Any idea of where you were?"
"No..."
"It wasn't a runner," said Hansen, flashing back to the encounter as he remembered his ordeal. "It wasn't anything." Hansen considered the past, the valley with the essence of a ship in a vortex. It was the middle of the day, but the brilliance of the pillar of light rising from the surface of the planet, blotted out the sun. Its surface was so brilliant it washed out the land, not just his glistening eyes. Hansen remembered losing control, the ship going automatic. Being hit by the tremendous brilliance of the structure. It lifted him from his seat. It lifted everyone from his or her seats.
"Oh," continued Trinod Rex, trying to comfort him. "It was something, Hansen. There was something there. We're just not sure how to categorize it yet, that's all. But believe me, we'll get to the bottom of it and you'll be right there beside us." Hansen looked up, his eyes widening. It wasn't Vex Redford who was standing over him, but rather, another man, someone he didn't know. Trinod Rex.
Trinod left the medical lab and entered the CIC lounge. The bright holographic image hovered above the center of the conference table, in the center of the lounge. Across the dimensions of time and space, in a future not unlike his own, Vex Redford stared at the same device, watching, studying and wondering about it. He had no idea of what it was, exactly, or what it was becoming. There was no way of telling from when or where it had come. There was no way of telling were it had already been. The entire matter was a mystery, one that his team had uncovered. Vex Redford leaned into the center of the table, addressing the image of the pillar of light close up and personal.
"What are you?" he asked it in a curious voice. "When are you?" He paused, pondered the thing. "Where did you come from?" he asked it. But there was no answer, only the familiar buzz of the intercommunications device. "But most important," he continued whispering to himself. "What do you want with us?" No one answered his queries, not even Mains. There was no answer to be discussed.
Mains didn't have a clue as to the "things" origins or its uses. There wasn't even a computation he could do to help find the answers Vex Redford sought. He knew the adventure had just begun and that the encounter was far from over. He could only hope that the mission would find a conclusion. Hopefully the reality of the situation would be realized. Vex Redford was going to have to depend on the Earth Corporate Alliance. And that was a fate he didn't want to put odds to; the world held in the balance. The fate of the future depended upon it. In fact, the fate of the universe was at stake.
Trinod Rex stepped around the table in his own conference room, excited at the possibilities. Somehow, he knew the persistent efforts of this gallant team from another time would deliver him to the pre destined arena where they too would make the most startling discovery of their young careers.
THE COMING OF
HAULERS INCORPORATED
DESTINY: The common occurrence of arriving at the place one wants to be, at the time one wants to be there, when all that determines what one needs to be is where one wants to be…
From the Journals of Maccon
– 9 –
FLIGHT PATHS
• • •
THE THIRD UNIVERSE
THIRD DIMENSION
Samuel Nomad could hear a conversation going on in the background, but the language was indistinguishable. Something he had never heard before. There was no doubt about it; he was on his way to the far side of the galaxy, but why? It didn't make any since. Why return him to the Source now, today? Obviously Renniska Brennan had something to do with it, but what? It was a mystery that needed facts. "Understand," said the unfamiliar voice in the darkness. "We've made the stop as requested. The cargo is aboard and in hibernation status as directed."
Hibernation status," utter Samuel repeating the phrase in his mind. Why would anyone, especially this engineer, want him to put into a stasis field for transport? What was at stake? What was so important that he had to be moved from one universe to another without anyone knowing who or where he was? Cold storage was for convicts and Samuel Nomad wasn't a convict! He was a patriot! How long had he been in stasis? How far had he traveled before his senses returned to him? When was he due for thawing out? Suspension? Or was he just going under an anesthesia?
The facts eluded him. There were a million questions. His body wasn't cold, but then, it wasn't warm either. He was obviously under the control of some sort of life support system. But who was it that didn't want him to thaw out? Renniska Brennan? A fact came to mind. Why go to such elaborate maneuvers to shift his location unless his life was at stake? It was a good question. One that demanded his immediate attention, but his brain felt so numb he couldn't move.
"We've cleared the jump gate," said the soft feminine voice of his pilot from somewhere in the darkness. Samuel thought. Tried to think at least. He knew his abductor was a feminine. But a female what? There were over a thousand species on the stations. Hundreds of them destined for New America on Earth. Traffic was heavy to the new continents of the Earth: A real travelogue, on the entertainment circuit. Not since the time of Atlantis's heyday had the Earth been visited by so many species in such a short amount of three-dimensional time. Samuel wasn't sure whether or not he, himself, could be considered some sort of special attraction. The thought had crossed his mind.
Samuel listened to his jailer, cleared his faculty as much as he could. There were the sounds of distant machinery, heavy equipment pounding and churning into the depths of an unseen world. There were also the faintly garbled transmissions of scratchy communications, static with broken lines of dialogue that filled with voice tracks in the airwaves. He could almost feel the change in the star fields. The setting was easy to envisioned: An evening sky filled with the rays of a setting sun; wisps of color in the cloud formations; monstrous darkened mountains. Like a vision he was seeing the world through a third eye.
The rumble of the distant machinery grew louder, more constant; almost rhythmic in its repetition. Samuel could almost see the great mounds of earth being gobbled up at the base of the mining platforms the Industries used. The towering darkened shape of a planet rig. The starship he was aboard lingered some distance from the threshold of the landing pads, destined for a place in the heavens were the rig mined the core, channeling the planet into extinction. He could feel the rhythmic bulk of the complex pile driving mass as it churned its way deep into the planet. The fireflies at the base moved delicately through the night sky, just above the weeds darting back and forth across the horizon: A beautiful sight; a glorious setting dressed in the darkness of the Industries.
"Orgus Two," said the voice in the unfamiliar language. "This is Star Farer approach DSMP."
Finally, thought Samuel. He knew his location.
DSMP stood for Deep Space Mining Platform. Samuel knew the phrase, but it wasn't from his own universe; he had obviously changed universes and that meant he had traversed futures. A fact that still eluded him … why take him to an alternative future? "Resupply for depot one-two-nine-six," continued the feminine voice in the strange alien tongue. "Departure: 23:50.7 Arriving: 19:30.7 Nominal. 19:30 Hours."
"Understood," said a husky, masculine voice over the intercommunications device. A man was on the other end, or at least a male something or other. It was evident this future was no more familiar than the one he had just been through to get here. The language was different, still foreign. Something he wasn't familiar with. The dialect was similar to English, but not the version he had learned to prepare him for his trip to Earth.
Samuel strained trying to hear the words, never really able to depict the dialect. It was a useless cause. The other could get him nowhere. The risk to his mind had increased. His internal vision was less cloudy, more directed to the search beacon that illuminated the grou
nd from one of the fireflies. The light traced the surface with a glow as it moved away from the platform. The light electrified in his mind, like a searchlight crossing the street to hit him in the face. One of the fireflies, a four-pod, multi-armed vehicle with the numerals 421 clearly visible along its side, passed overhead, its light passing through the cockpit windows and onto the top of his cryogenics pod. The machine moved off in the direction of a massive swirling energy vortex that filled the evening sky.
Samuel felt the ship shutter then squeal at the stress of the transition. The craft passed through the threshold of some kind of transitional barrier: A distortion field of some type. Wherever they were, it wasn't where he wanted to be. Distortion waves meant trouble. He was in the heart of something big here––not on the books so-to-speak. It was obvious they were changing dimensions, probably destinations. The mining rig was a point of reference: Something to lock onto when they entered the threshold of the distortion wave. It was possible the Earth itself didn't exist in this new universe. Samuel took in a deep breath, but his lips and nostrils never moved. His mind reacted realizing life itself was never going to be the same.
Shifting field operations were complete and the ship's readouts dominated the instrument screen in the front center monitor of the escort ship's computer screens. The Haulers Incorporated cargo whale and its smaller mosquito shaped escort ship cleared the vortex, hovering in plain view, not quite visible through the cockpit window of the ship awaiting Samuel's chauffeur.
The soft, feminine voice expressed relief. They had arrived at the jump off point to the next leg of her journey. "Four Twenty-one..." said the voice tired, but with as brisk. "I'm delivering blockbuster. It's over to you. Have a good flight." The pretty young pilot, Jennifer Riggs, leaned forward and sighed. Her long dark hair and light green colored eyes glistened in the rays of the searchlights as she adjusted the controls with some uncertainty. Apparently she was a newcomer to her profession. "Four twenty-one," she repeated. "I'm delivering blockbuster. One jumpship and cargo container ready for transfer."