by Grant Fausey
She was petrified.
"I'll have you down in a minute," Jake added, speaking softly. Jennifer nodded, catching her breath. Jake maneuvered the pod, holding onto the cockpit section as he pushed away what was left of the escort vessel wreckage approached the mining rig. He sat forward in his seat, looking out along the edges of his ship while trying to catch a glimpse of the machinery. The huge transport was nowhere in sight. The cargo whale had vanished.
"Thanks..." whispered Jennifer's voice over the intercom. Jake adjusted his controls, and checked his instruments.
"No problem..." he uttered preoccupied with his search for the missing ship, puzzled by the absence of the cargo whale. Where it was worried him; something told him he wasn't finished yet. The mission came with a second part: One that included the cargo ship. He had to find the whale. The jumpship, the tug, its cargo and, of course, its pilot.
"Tracker to Cargo Whale..." he said firmly. There was no hesitation in his voice. "Tia," he continued, "send me an tone. I can't get a fix on your location. I need your ID code." The communications channel answered with static. "Stern to Tia Kern..." he repeated with greater concern. "Tia..."
He paused, listened then continued, this time talking to Jennifer. "Tracker to Star Farer ... do you read, over?"
Jennifer didn't answer.
"Jennifer..." he said again. "Do you have a visual on the whale? My instruments say we're back to where we started from, but the whale is gone." Static persisted. "I can't get a lock on it..." stated the tracker pilot. He pushed forward his controls, moving the ship. The tracker and pod pivoted, doing a complete three hundred sixty degree sweep of the area. His visual reconnaissance was negative.
"My god!" he said realizing what had happened! "They must have been caught in our time wake." Jake stared out the cockpit windows, looking deeply at the mining rig as it towered above him, looming in front of him like some giant submergible pump. They could be anywhere! He thought: In any time. He was right of course. He just didn't know how right.
– 10 –
INTERCOMMUNICATIONS
• • •
THE THIRD UNIVERSE
THIRD DIMENSION
Trigen Three four, the Hauler foreman created by Trinod Rex hurried around the infirmary tables, stopping next to where Hansen laid on the white comfort cushions. Tiana Marie looked over at him, and sighed. Trigen was in silent communication with Jake. They had heard the entire episode and Hansen was ready to go after them. He was ready to help in anyway he could. Mission or no mission, missing team members took a priority. It was the runner's code. However, Trinod Rex had other ideas. He stepped lively through the computer center, viewing the holographic transmission from Jake's cockpit. The image filled the center of the room, projected from a lengthy platform that occupied the facility's central landings, in the lower level, a few meters above the bottom level of the sick bay infirmary.
"All right, Jake..." Trigen Three Four with a series of grunts. "I'll dispatch Flatbed and Zez Lee to your location to handle recovery operations, but don't take any unnecessary chances. Zez Lee can watch over Jennifer on the return trip. She's been through enough. I'd really hate to cramp anything more into her schedule."
"Agreed," answered Jake. The transmission fluttered. "And Jake..." added Trinod Rex. The transmission blanked for a moment, then fluttered back into a clear picture. "Once docking with the whale is complete, send Three Four your damage reports." Jake nodded. "We'll see what can be done to retrieve you and Tia safely."
Trinod Rex flinched.
"We may have to refit you there," he continued. He was genuinely concerned. "Just play it safe."
"Understood," Jake acknowledged. The thought of being anything but safe had never crossed Jake's mind. He was certainly edgy, but careless wasn't in his vocabulary. The transmission ended and Trigen Three Four joined Trinod Rex in the center of the room. He gave a quick look around, taking in all the activities as he stepped up next to the genetics engineer. He made a few computations then started giving orders to the appropriate individuals. Hansen sat up on the medical table.
"I wanna go," he said to Trigen Three Four.
"We all wanna go," barked Tiana Marie, speaking up for the rest of the runner team. "I'm sure with a few adjustments, Thunder One can be repaired and ready to go in no time at all!"
Trinod smiled and the rest was history. The whale's bridge fell dark. Most of the instruments were non operational. The flight deck was smashed. Forcibly shut down by an overload of the systems. A thick, grey smoke hung over the interior, lingering as if it had been there for over centuries. Tia lay draped over her instruments, her face hanging down toward the floor just below the thick layer of smoke. It was as if she had been lovingly set there. The computers popped on and off intermittently, making adjustments to the craft's instruments with a few sparks and an occasional momentary flare up of electrical impulses. Tia moaned, pulling herself up. There was a hint of another; a voice of an unseen person somewhere in the smoke filled surroundings.
"Tia..." said the voice. "You have to wake up. You're in great danger here."
Tia's eyes filled with tears, watering from the smoke that lingered in the air just above her head. It was thick and hard to breath. She coughed, moved around. The voice echoed again, speaking to her from somewhere beyond the smoke, as if it was out of the past. It dredged deep into her psyche, telepathically communicating with her in her mind. The voice seemed nondescript both male and female, but neither one.
"Father?" said Tia, following the first reasonable impulse in her mind. But there was no answer. It wasn't her father. That was for sure. She managed to mutter a few more words, but they were inaudible. It was of no use. She was subdued by the trauma and smoke.
"Tia..." said the voice again. Tia looked up, turned around gazing over the inside of her badly damaged ship. The bridge was smashed, cluttered with collapsed panels, broken conduits, and ruptured duck work. "Remember..." said the voice. "Wake up and remember. You're in danger here."
Tia coughed, this time she strained to see the flight deck through the cloud of darken smoke. The dark cloud was thick around her face, like a mask made out of mud. "Who's there...?” she said harshly, uttering the words in her mind as well as out loud. "Is that you, Samuel? I can't see you." Tia moved like before, but sluggish and drained. She hurt everywhere. Nothing was broken, but she had been thrown across the interior of the tug. Her mind whaled. Her senses were overloaded, her mind filled with the mental abuse of the visions in the fog. She held her head up.
"Samuel," she repeated. "Listen … I … not the one who asked to have you transferred in a cryogenic prison. It's just that we needed to get you out of the universe safely."
"You've been in an accident, Tia..." continued the voice. "Remember the accident?" Tia stammered, attempting to stand erect. But she felt more like an ostrich than a human being. She stepped slowly in the direction of the voice. But there wasn't a direction to travel. The voice seemed to emanate from everywhere at the same time. Tia could feel her legs move, bending at the knee. They were creaking, as she was some old chair rocking on the floor for the first time in years. And there was pain. The ankles worked, but the feet didn't want to move. They seemed hardened, as if laid to rest in a vat of cement.
Tia tried to move her hand to her face. Her wrist slipped along one of the partitions she was draped over, her fingers sliding along the side of the railing until it found a way into the air. The young woman felt like a child; an infant about to take her first step. She widened her horizons. It was inevitable she was going to fall flat on her face, but she didn't. Something moved within her, elevated her beyond the threshold of the death she was experiencing. Her body felt as light as feather, yet it wouldn't rise. All she could do was linger on her own recognizance. For a moment she felt that old feeling of torment from when her parents had died. She was a child again experiencing her mother's death. She had died at her birth. Her father before she was an hour old, during the massacre of I
ntebie four. The regeneration wars left her untouched: the tribesmen raised her, the breed of men born under the protective glove of the Alpha Renetta. She was a Tribesman by right of passage. Born of the human race, elevated to the status of the Kel, even the gift of awareness bestowed upon her. In other words, she was allowed to understand the deep-rooted feelings of another. But this was different. This was unprecedented in all her years with the Tribesmen she had never felt a presence so strong and powerful as this one.
From somewhere within her, she could feel what she could only refer to as the self. Several arcs of electricity arched across the intercommunications device attached to her wrist. Its waves raced along her arm until the reached her temples. Her life was suddenly passing before her eyes. She could see herself. The inner child had awakened. The situation had allowed life to present itself to her––A life that was worth preserving. Tia tried again to muster a movement out of her body, but the fragile state it remained in, held her motionless in the smoke, obscured from view as the electrical arcs danced through the surroundings.
"Can you hear me?" asked the deep throbbing vocalization of another. This one was male, plain and sure. "Can anyone hear me?" said Samuel Nomad. "Help me, please. I think I've been in a crash!" Tia's eyes opened. She was suddenly wide-awake. The sky moved. Clouds swirled in two directions at the same time, forming a transit gateway in the evening heavens. The electrical arcs of the vortex reached out across the threshold of the future wave corridor and a second tracker, this one with the numerals four twenty nine (429) emerged from the gate, transporting a cargo shuttle pod. Four twenty-nine crossed the mining rig, arriving at the docking platform. A swirl of heated gases exhaled from the downward thrusters and the garbling hooks set the cargo pod down between Jake's damaged tracker and the remains of the escort vehicle's cockpit section.
Jake knelt down next to Jennifer Riggs, helping her cover her face and shoulders with his flight jacket. He looked up at the approaching machines and smiled a gleam of confidence. There, in front of him, the searchlights of the tracker crossed the metal deck plates as the craft settled onto the platform landing next to his position. The craft's searchlights were harsh, alighting the surroundings in a blinding mid day illumination. Jake covered his face with his arm, protecting himself and Jennifer from the exhaust wind of the ship's quad thrusters. Jake stayed put in the wake of the blast from the vehicles engine exhaust. It passed quickly and everything returned to a more pleasant normal. The sound was magic to his ears. The engines were winding down. A rescue party had landed. It was a gift from heaven, seeing the bright lights of the pod's illumination strip dim.
The cargo pod door opened and out stepped Zez Lee, holding onto the top of Flatbed Eight's trailing head arrangement. The living machine resembled a complex configuration of forklift, dump truck and living creature. The engine revved and Flatbed rolled out onto the platform on organic treads. "All right," snapped Zez Lee, "let's get to work."
Flatbed Eight nodded. His head was completely devoid of any intelligence whatsoever, but it was just the configuration his components took when they unlocked and lowered into operational positions. After all, he was part of some multi faceted machinery. Jake walked over to the lower hatchway of four twenty nine and secured his flight suit. Afterward, he gripped the ladder and climbed up to the cockpit. Jennifer looked up to Zez and smiled her traditional glare of acceptance. She tried to stand, but staggered. Jake climbed the first few steps into the craft.
"Hang on," she shouted, gripping the lower rung of the ladder, pulling herself up. "I'm going with you."
Jake Stern stared back at her. "NO YOU'RE NOT!" he shouted down from inside the cockpit. His legs were still hanging down through the rectangular opening in the bottom of the ship. "Look at you," he continued. "You can't even stand up."
"I'm going and that's the end of the discussion," snapped Jennifer. Jake was smart. He knew when to shut up, and this time he had no choice. Not even Trinod Rex was going to keep her from his side. He knew he was beaten. Besides, he didn't really like the idea of leaving her behind, but he had to find Tia and there wasn't a way to know what condition the whale would be in. The precious cargo had to be recovered.
"Yes, ma'am," he shouted. "Look," said Jennifer. "It's going to take more than your magical fingers to make this thing work, so I'm going along." Jake acknowledged her with a grin. Jennifer smiled. She looked over at Zez Lee and Flatbed Eight and gave them a parting salute.
"Twenty-one's in good hands," she said lovingly. "In fact its in several pairs of capable hands." The haulers organic technology was important. It needed to be nurtured and cared for, especially when it was as badly damaged as the escort ship had been. "Besides," she said, "I have to go. Twenty-nine's modified to hold two. There's room for me. I have to find out what happened to Tia and the whale. She was my responsibility!"
"All right..." said Jake hastily. "Get on board!" He couldn't argue with logic. "I just didn't think it would be wise in your condition that's all, Jennifer."
"Neither does Trinod," said Zez Lee worried. "Something else could happen to you!"
"Don't worry, Zez," said Jennifer softly. A smile crossed her face. "You just get twenty-one refitted so we can get what's left of Star Farer home." Flatbed smiled. "Right away, Missy. Right away."
"We'll be back in the wink of an eye, Flatbed. Keep tabs on Zez Lee. We wouldn't want either of you getting lost." The cockpit canopy on four twenty-nine lowered into place, sealing tightly as the ladder and hatchway sealed behind them. Jake slipped the headset around his collar and secured it to his flight suit. Jennifer settled in for the ride beside him, strapping herself into the seat just below the command chair. She depressed a switch on her COM panel and the chair rotated into position for departure.
"NAV system coming on line."
"All right," said Jake. "You in?" The question was a rhetorical one. But one that he had to ask.
Jennifer nodded. "All set,” she answered, checking the security of her seat belts and harnesses. "Whenever you're ready."
Jake pushed the throttles forward. Flatbed Eight covered his face, feeling the burst of energy as it rocketed from the quad engine assembly. The craft roared into the sky. Four twenty-nine was airborne. "Tracker on line," said Jake Stern. "Main Frame, give me a steer to the target zone."
In the flight center of the Campus, Main Frame was busy giving clearance for Hansen and his runner team's departure. The sleek silver white Thunder Runner was just clearing the threshold and leaping into time. Its twin pod power grids lit up like a streetlight as the exhaust nozzles opened wide for maximum thrust. "Wait one," snapped Main Frame. "The best we can give you is a probable location. There isn't a shifting field identification marker on the communications up-link." Main Frame paused a moment to make computations. "The Tug must be separated from the rest of the ship. You'll have to make a continuous visual scan."
"That means the whale is either off-world, or it's been destroyed in the travel process," Jennifer said solemnly. Jake fell silent. He looked at Jennifer. "Either way," Jennifer continuing, "Tia is in extreme danger. The tug isn't equipped for sustained operation without the whale."
"Our only hope is that the computers on twenty-nine can bridge the distance between us and the whale. But we'll have to do it with 429's instruments. The emergency transmitter, if it's still working, is only readable in local time."
"That should create a link between you both."
"Yeah..." thought Jake. "That could happen. We should be able to pick them up once we've approached the right time zone. All right, we'll find them, just so they haven't jumped universes."
"You'll have to rendezvous on your own. It'll be tricky, but you should be able to do it, provided you can up-link with the computers aboard the whale."
"Understood. Four twenty nine out!" A ripple moved through the sky like a wave on the ocean. It’s journeying across the heavens emanated into existence from beyond time; from beyond the universe. Jake and Jennifer were a part o
f its transit field. The craft shuttered. Jake looked down at Jennifer; something unknown had entered their universe, something unusual; something that could change the future of their very existence. It was subtle, and nearly unnoticed. But with it came the air of death. Something slipped past Jake as he turned the ship, piloting his craft away from the tower.
The distortion wave expanded in a growing circle like a ripple on the water. The wave circled outward into the universe in a widening ring that extended from one side of the galaxy to the other. Like a droplet on his windshield, the distortion expanded beyond the threshold of his opening transit field. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.
"Okay," he said to Main Frame, not realizing the event that had just transpired. "We're in transit … Beginning shifting field operation––Future wave corridor open. Wish us luck."
Jennifer looked up at him. She realized the implications. They were about to jump into time, speeding across the universe in a motion that took them only moments to complete. She would hardly have the chance to blink and the ship would emerge in some distant time, some distant place. It was all too common. But now she feared it. The thought had a hold on her she couldn't shake.
"Ready rookie?" Jake asked her, laughing. Jennifer smiled at him and gripped his arm, tightly. Jake patted her hand. She wasn't feeling the excitement of the pioneer she was. Instead, she dreaded the moment of their departure. Her stomach wrenched in twisting knots. She was awaiting it with an uncanny anticipation, which raised her blood pressure to the boiling point.
"Ready, Papa!" she answered. "Then here we go..." Jake punched the ship forward across the threshold. The sky swirled at the forefront of a time vortex. The tracker sprayed out in a lush variety of color, expanding and extending, as it's surface details disassembled in an exchange of particles that sent it across the threshold and into the brilliance of the vortex. Zez watched as the ship vanished from the heavens. He sighed. There was nothing like watching the excitement of a departure. He loved the moment. He turned to Flatbed Eight, and helped him as they moved the Star Farer cockpit a section at a time. He waited to lift it onto his companion's cargo bed. It was the first step. One he enjoyed doing.