by Grant Fausey
"Roger, Star Farer," said the cool, masculine voice of Jake Stern over her intercom. "We'll take it from here. Have a good trip back!" Jake flicked a switch and continued. "Tug 124, this is Four twenty one. Stand by for lock on."
"Understood," answered the rugged, harsh female voice of Tia Kern, the jumpship captain with a smile. "Blockbuster standing by." It was the best news she had had all day. Her seat belts were too tight. Her pants were crawling up her legs and she was just plain uncomfortable.
"It's time for a cool one," said Jennifer into her mike, "This is racking my nerves."
"Understood," answered both Jake Stern and Tia Kern at the same time. But neither of them had time to think about relaxing. The hand off was already in progress and the slightest slip up now could spell disaster. The tracker pilot expertly handled the controls of his tracker 421 vehicle, taking over the job escorting the huge cargo mover. "First day jitters, rookie?" he said, asking Jennifer the obvious question. There was a bit of a half smile in his voice. "You'll be fine once you're back in papa's arms."
Jennifer's voice sang out over the intercommunications device screaming in Jake Stern's ears. "Oh yeah," she shouted boldly. "And when might that be, Tracker?"
"Sooner than you think, Star Farer. Sooner that you think!" Jake Stern laughed. She was cool, but not stupid. He liked that. Her responses were always important to him. Jennifer smiled too. She was one up on Jake, and that meant a lot to her. There was sort of lovers rivalry going on between them. A competition that meant a lot to both of them, even if neither one of them would admit it. Tia smiled and shook her head. She gripped the controls and throttled up her craft, adding power to the drive systems for departure.
"How long you been out here, sailor?" asked Tia over an open line so both Jake and Jennifer could hear her. Jennifer chuckled to herself. The ploy was amusing.
"To damn long..." he moaned, trying to keep up his wit. "Two years, forty seven."
"Nights?" countered Jennifer Riggs before Tia had a chance to react. "I'll be waiting..." Jennifer snickered. "I'm out of here, Tracker," she said with a smile on her face. "Stay close Tia and don't let him pull one over on you!"
"Roger that..." snorted Tia.
"Hey..." interrupted Jake Stern realizing he had been had. "See you on the upside, Jennifer." Jennifer smiled, pressed down on the double foot pedals and pushed the power controls forward, adding thrust to the main drive of her engines. The escort vehicle began to maneuver, but awkwardly. Jennifer opened the throttles a little more, keeping tabs on the backpressure building between the opening arms of the cargo ship and the tracker vehicle. Tia watched carefully too, there was a thing she was going to be able to do it something was going to go wrong. Maneuvering was necessary; there was no way she was going to be able to make the adjustment. The ships were just to close to avoid the inevitable. The escort ship was going to hit the transport.
The escort vessel's revolving center blades fanned out in the wake of the transit field assuming position, and started to spin wildly. A piece of the engine's main drive mechanism slammed into the top of the cargo mover, warping a new vortex field into existence as it shifted the pitch of the drive blades. The escort vessel sprayed out in a rainbow of colors streaking forward into a single white point. Then it happened, Jennifer slammed against her seat. The ship rocketed forward on a direct course into oblivion. Red rings of pulsating light slammed into the ship, completely encircling the craft covered in the glowing fireball of reentry. Like a rock dropping below the surface of a still water pond the ship passed through the threshold of an unstable transit field, being enveloped by the space surrounding the jumpship's engine assembly.
The vehicle jumped universes, warping both time and space into a new doorway into space. One created by an uncontrolled access to an unknown destination. The light from the threshold of the time vortex poured through the cockpit windows, blinding Jennifer. She screamed frantically, grabbing at anything in front of her. Her hands did a frenzied search for the controls as she tried to throttle down her engines. But it was too late.
"Star Farer..." screamed Jake Stern's voice over the intercommunications link. "Jennifer, are you okay?"
Static replied: A fleeting signal, filled with the carrier waves flashed on his instrument panels. The feeling of danger flew through his veins. Jake knew suddenly he too was at risk. Jennifer was in jeopardy. Even the cargo whale itself was in peril. There was no way of communicating the situation to the jumpship, the tug or the attached cargo whale. Tia had to ride out the wave to where ever it was going to end up. Jennifer's vehicles was committed to an unknown and unwanted transit one that was going to take her straight to hell. Jake Stern was right behind her, drawn into a needless confrontation with the unstable future wave corridor.
Jennifer's ship was out of control.
"I'm spiraling..." she screamed. "Can't keep my directional guidance stabilized. I'm losing it. I'm out of control..."
Jake's tracker burst through the vortex right behind her, sucked into the vacuum of the transit field by the sheer force of the velocity of the escort's departure. Brilliant rings of lightning flashed around the circumference of the vortex, shifting and spiraling as they vanished through the openings to the rear of the wake. The ship splashed though the openings like a rock tossed into a calm pool of glittering liquid. The event ended with a powerful bang!
"Did you hear me twenty-one?" screamed Jennifer hysterically. Jake heard her all right. It was just that he was to busy trying to right his own ship to answer her. The controls were frozen and he was in a deadly tumble, spiraling out of control in an energy wake that was growing by the moment. If he didn't regain attitude control within the first thirty seconds, he never would. "I've four minutes until an inter-dimensional eruption," shrilled Jennifer's hysterical voice over his intercom.
The intercommunications device rumbled with static. Sweat poured over his lips. Death was staring him in the face. But still he raced on. Not able to do anything else. The spiraling corridor of lightning raced toward him from out of the depths of an infinite blackness. The void engulfed everything, even the view from the cockpit windows. The sensation was like a boat caught in a whirlpool.
"Hang on, Jennifer..." Jake screamed. His eyes widened, taking in the full view of his situation. "I'm switching to DCS ranging!" He said to himself.
Rage consumed every fiber of his body. Every hair on his head stood on his head. Little blue arcs of electricity ran up his arms from the controls. His craft was still on its side, spiraling in a wake of the turbulence that at any moment could consume his ship. A computer graphic overlaid his heads up display with a graphic screen clock that started counting backwards from three minutes, fifty-nine seconds.
"Twenty-one..." screamed Jennifer. "I'm skipping time lines... I'm caught in the vortex."
Jake's tracker continued to traverse the spiraling time tunnel with a deadly inaccuracy. The systems were still unable to bring the ship to the appropriate attitude. Jake was beyond feeling the beads of sweat running down the sides of his forehead. His clothing was soaking wet. His lips were quivering now. Jennifer frantically attempting to correct the mounting problems by throttling back. If she could just keep her grip on reality, she had a chance at surviving, if she couldn't she was as good as dead. Stone dead. And flirting with death was something she wasn't fond of. There had to be a way of helping her. Jake had to reach her before she puffed into a ball of lightning. But catching up with her was going to be nearly impossible, unless he could figure out a way to bridge the gap between them and come out in front of her.
"Come on," shouted Jake, slamming down on his computer keyboard. "We have to make a jump. That would do it, but how? If we could only just get out of the ship's gravitational wake, we could do it." "Have to think," he continued. "Have to snap clear of the course like a rubber band and come back at her from another direction. Yeah, that might do it. Have to end up in front of her."
Jake gripped the controls as tight as he could. It w
as worth a try." I ... an't ... get ... ta ... nose up ..." yelled Jennifer, her voice carrying over the static. Again she was echoing over the intercommunications device with a drowning static that made it nearly inaudible. "I ... m ... losing ... vector lock!"
"Vector lock to where!" shouted Jake, pulling the controls back hard against the lower instrument panels. Blood rushed from his head, he could feel the ship hit a time jump full on. They were jumping dimensions again. There was no way of knowing were they were going to end up. The counter in front of him moved again, running through three minutes, forty-five seconds. The ship righted it self. Jake ground his teeth. Sighed relief.
"I'm shifting universes again..." Jennifer clamored. "I'm in some other kind of reality." The counter turned again, running through three minutes, thirty seconds. The surface changed abruptly, shattering the environment against the force of the machine's energy wake. The trailing envelope widened the impact zone, slamming the ground with gale force winds. The escort vessel emerged from the time tunnel in a ripple, flying across the treetops of an evergreen forest. The trees shattered, branches splintered, colliding with the track like match sticks against a fire. Again the counter moved. Two minutes, fifty-five seconds. Time was running out. And fast.
"Three minutes to intercept..." announced the tracker's computerized voice as the machines systems came back on line. The identification program was up and working. At least, he had control. But still five seconds had to be made up. Reprogrammed the computer wouldn't work. There wasn't time. He was going to have to scram the systems into a contingent. Hoping one would lead to the successful end of his emergency mission. The escort vessel spiraled across the molten surface. A volcanic eruption filled Jennifer's cockpit windows. She had to find something to latch onto and fast. A rock flew past, and then a ledge. She extended the small garbling hooks along the bottom of the ship. Put the effort to a gallant try. The arms extended, swinging forward.
If they didn't latch on, it could possibly slow her down. The smaller appendages ripped away, pulled from the underside of the ship with an explosive force that nearly ruptured the outer hull. The array of wires and connections were immediately exposed to the elements.
"I've lost an arm," wailed Jennifer. "The pod's cracking up..." Jake followed the smaller ship through curls of molten lava, being sprayed by the hot stone fibers like a paint spray of liquid earth. The rock riveted the ship, scrolling the paint back. The escort's dislodged appendage rocketed past the nose, being tossed behind into the gale force wind. The escort ship leaped back into the course. The lightning rings rippling along the edges of the ship's hull, pressing hard onto the out of sync, rotating fins. The effect was forming transit fields, producing doubled and distorted images as it tore away at the hulk of the machine. Sparks flew from the instrument packages.
"Four Twenty-one ... hurry," shrilled Jennifer one last time. "I'm running out of time." The counter ran through two minutes, twenty seconds. "I can't control it..." Jennifer was hysterical. The view was changing so rapidly everything was different from moment to moment. The reality of one world became the next. The ground was littered with the cumbersome war machines of another universe. A battle fought and lost by an unknown species of an unknown race. The confines of the derelict ships tracked across the horizon, like fireballs emerging from one threshold to another.
Jake banked the tracker hard, hitting the walls of the energy wake. The instruments sparked, exploding with rippled that pierced the outer hall. The lower rear fin struck the wedged between two stone pillars. Star farer shattered into an exploding fireball just ahead of the tracker, pitting the surface and the front of Jake's hauler with countless pieces of debris. Large, armor piercing shaped hunks flew backward away from the smaller ship, impacted the front slope of the tracker's upper fuselage. Jake had no choice. He activated his survival pod.
"That was close..." snarled Jake Stern. "Too close..." The universe became visible between the rings. Something was coming through the threshold at them. It was brilliant, the most luminous thing Jake had ever seen. The counter flashed red, running through the final seconds. The image became clear. In moments they would be in the threshold of the beginning of time. The most spectacular sight known to man: The universe collapsing, rushing backward toward the moment of its birth. The escort ship emerged from the threshold, its lower engine assembly erupting into a trail of flames. The trailing shockwave collided with the force of a whirlwind. The collage of flying debris wracked over the surface of the tracker from every direction.
Jake did everything possible. He just couldn't break the strangle hold on his craft. He pushed the throttles forward to maximum, banked the ship hard in a collision of epic proportions. Sparks and smoke filled the cockpit; electrical arcs raced across the surfaces of the tracker's command module windows. Jake was out of control too. The escort ship was disintegrating right in front of him, hit by hundreds of distortion waves. Then, without an inkling of what happened, the escort burst through the side of an ancient orbiting derelict ... a starship older than the universe itself––the legendary New Haven America.
The distortion waves crushed the threshold of the vortex, rupturing the side hull of the mile long craft. The upper part, the main decks of the cigar shaped vessel rippled in the distortion waves, being shredded by the force of the shockwave. The inner sphere of the central structure imploded, hurtling in upon itself in a series of implosions. The escort ship hurtled away from the mass of the explosion, tumbling out of control. The pod sealed its fate, shattering its hold on the vessel.
Jake felt the controls loosen under his fingertips. He pealed away from the body of the ship. The light of the explosion glistened off the metallic surface. The tracker followed the shockwave, free of escort ship's energy wake. Jake pivoted the craft, coming to grips with the reality. He had separated from the transit field. The tiny tracker came to a new course, it power levels returning to normal. Jake made a ninety-degree turn. The ship changed horizons and warped into another vortex, heading in an entirely new and very different direction.
Like a phoenix emerging from the ashes, the tracker exited in front of the escort path, colliding with it in a thunderous explosion of disintegrating metal, plastic and computer parts. They had become a fireball. The trackers claws latched tightly on to the explorer's rescue pod and Jake closed his hand around the escort vessel. The sky flashed white with the essence of creation. The colors rippled out as distortion waves across the universe, forming the beginning of time.
A new universe formed within the universe beyond the world the tracker orbited. Jake gripped the pod tight, clamping down on the rescue pod's latches. Two secured, the tracker dropped from the sky, spiraling downward as if it were under auto rotation. The ships dropped toward the surface of the planet below.
Jake pressed his controls forward; bring the ship back under his control. The entire universe began to change. He was moving through time again. But on this occasion, his machine was under his control. The collision of matter and antimatter expanded, creating a new and wonderful beginning to the universe which it first obliterated.
Behind the tracker, Jake Stern could see the horizon change with the speed and direction of his ship. He was gliding across the surface of the same newly forming planet. His speed increased and the surface appearance swiftly changed. Over a thousand millennia passed into eons of evolution. Forests stood where there was once molten rock. The light of the big bang, still visible in the sky, painted a tapestry more beautiful than one hung in any gallery. It was magnificent.
The pod and tracker came to rest, hovering above a field of fallen trees and scrolled foliage. Jake adjusted his controls, and pulled the pod up for inspection. He looked deep into the battered cockpit window, and smiled. "I've got you, Jennifer," he said candidly. "Can you hear me? Escort explorer..." The pod, badly bruised and dented, could still sustain life. His readings told him at least that much. There was the low, nearly inaudible whimpering of its occupant. "I have you escort..." whis
pered Jake into his intercommunications device. "Let's go home."
The words were magic to Jennifer's ears. She wanted nothing more than to follow him home. In fact, at this moment, she was willing to follow him anywhere. She just wanted feel the protection of his arms. The tracker pivoted slowly, moving with the pod to a new course of speed and direction. Light filled the vortex as the future wave corridor formed around the ship, warping out of the setting in a bath of blue white light. Just as the ship crossed the threshold, an appendage fell from the underside of the machinery, piercing the ground with a force that sliced deep into the surface. It stood like a monument to the event ... a column of dust and debris set amongst the rising ash of a newly forming world.
At the end of the journey, the tracker and the rescue pod slipped silently out of the vortex crossing the threshold back into reality. The remains of the massive mining platform hovered above the forest; it's grinding, pulverizing light diminished to nothing more than a scattering of shadows. The last beams of hope shimmered down upon the ancient remains of a collision, which now resided encased in the earth, buried in the surface: An artifact surrounded by the ruins of a stone temple, a simple place of worship.
Jennifer shivered in the pod; her nerves a shambles. She hugged the side of her seat cushion whimpering, trying to regain her composure. The tracker and escort pod trailed off, hovering at a mere glide pace as they lumbered toward the huge hulk of the towering mining rig.
"Tracker on line..." said Jake Stern into his static filled microphone. He paused after the transmission and caught his breath. "Hang in there Star Farer..." he whispered over his intercommunications device. "We are not home, Jennifer, but at least, it's a place to make repairs." Jennifer half acknowledged him, dealing with her own sense of shaking.