by G J Ogden
Liberty shrugged, “I think our little crystalline discovery has redefined what’s possible.” Then she tapped away on the keypad again, adding, “But that isn’t even the freakiest part.” The star chart changed to show a number of new contacts, the markers distinguished from the original portal locations by a deep purple hue.
Hudson couldn’t believe his eyes. “Wait a damn minute, are you telling me all of these purple blips are new portals?”
Liberty smiled and nodded. Hudson’s knees almost buckled from underneath him, and he had to grab hold of the headrest of Liberty’s chair to keep from toppling over. “This is incredible,” he said, still struggling to process what he’d heard. “This is the greatest discovery since Captain Shaak found the very first portal.”
Liberty nodded again, “I know. I think, ‘The Devan Portals’ has a nice ring to it, don’t you? Or, perhaps, ‘The Liberty Worlds’?”
Hudson laughed, “You won’t forget me when you’re famous, will you?”
“I’m not making any promises” Liberty shrugged.
Hudson jostled Liberty on the shoulder, but then in his peripheral vision he was sure he caught something moving on the screen. “Did you see that?” he said to Liberty, as they both leaned in closer to the display.
Liberty nodded, “Yes, it looked like one of those blips moved.”
“A moving portal would certainly be something new,” replied Hudson. He was still staring intently at the screen, trying to spot the anomaly again. “We’d need to be careful to avoid those, or we could end up stranded in the ass end of the galaxy, permanently.”
“There!” said Liberty, stabbing her finger on the screen. Hudson looked and saw another blip, but unlike the original portals, or the new purple-colored portals, this blip was red, and larger.
“Is that a portal, or something else?” wondered Hudson, feeling his mouth go dry.
Liberty zoomed in on the area where the red blip had appeared. However, along with some of the purple-colored portals, the red chevron was off the edge of the star chart. Hudson guessed that this meant the blip was a long way from any know region of space.
Hudson rubbed his eyes, and then deliberately forced himself to blink several times. “Is it just my eyes, or is that blip moving?”
Liberty leaned in even closer to the screen, and then quickly tapped another stream of commands into her console. “It’s not your eyes; it’s definitely moving. And it’s also reading differently to the other portals, current and new.”
Hudson sighed and felt the hairs on his neck tingle. His earlier feeling of being on a high was slowly seeping away, and being replaced by a shadowy sense of foreboding. “Do you think it’s a third type of portal?” he asked.
Liberty shook her head, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’d need to study the data some more.”
Then the red blip disappeared from the chart.
“Where the hell did it go?” said Hudson, starting again to feel a little panicky. There was a fine line between the excitement of a new discovery, and the fear of the unknown, he realized. It was like the fragile relationship between love and hate, except more sinister.
Liberty was busy tapping away at her console, her frown deepening by the second. “I don’t know…” she finally answered, “maybe it really is just a blip. I mean, I did cobble together this thing out of scrap and junk from a curiosity shop.”
Hudson was about to agree, when suddenly the red blip reappeared on the screen, but in a different location. “What the hell?” said Hudson, “It’s back, but it’s moved?”
Liberty zoomed the chart back out again and then checked the red blip’s location, relative to its previous position. “It’s definitely back, but from these new readings, it’s perhaps five hundred light years away from where it was.”
Hudson let out another sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Well, whatever the hell it is, it’s still a long way from here. And, like you said, it’s probably just a glitch.”
Liberty sat back in her chair, still wearing an expression that was somewhere between anxious and excited. “I’ll try to iron out the kinks later,” she said, glancing over to Hudson. “The bigger question is, what do we do now?”
“Are you shitting me?” said Hudson, looking at her like she was crazy. “If your little blip detector is right, there’s an undiscovered portal less than fifty million kilometers from where we are right now.” Then he moved back over to the pilot’s side of the cockpit and slid into his chair. “So, the next thing we do is find this portal and jump through it.”
CHAPTER 23
Accelerating and decelerating at one-g for the duration of the journey, it had taken close to thirty-six hours to reach the coordinates indicated by Liberty’s device. With Cutler still absent from their tail – though Hudson had a sneaking suspicion he hadn’t gone far – there was no need to endure the discomfort of high-g travel.
This extra time had afforded them the chance to relax and recharge their batteries. And it had also allowed Liberty to work on her device, which she’d decided to call a ‘scendar’. This stood for Shaak Crystal Energy Detection and Ranging, because of its similarities to Earth-based radar. However, unlike radar, Liberty’s device didn’t operate using radio waves, but something far more alien instead.
Despite Liberty’s efforts to fine-tune the device, the scendar was still picking up the large, moving contact, indicated on the star chart by a red chevron. Worryingly, this contact, whether it was real or just a glitch, still appeared to be creeping ever closer to the network of known portal worlds.
However, Liberty had conceded that the blip had to remain a mystery for the time being. The Orion’s deceleration burn had just completed, which meant they had finally arrived at the coordinates where an undiscovered portal potentially lay waiting. Both Liberty and Hudson were eager to discover whether their new portal was real or just another glitch in the scendar.
“Wow, this place is beautiful,” said Liberty. She was staring out at the planetoid-sized fragments of what remained of Brahms Four. “If this was caused by an asteroid or comet collision, then it must have been one hell of a fireworks show.”
“One best viewed from a safe distance,” replied Hudson. “Say, two hundred thousand kilometers.”
Liberty smiled and tapped a few commands into her keypad. “I’ve just sent you the most accurate coordinates for this mystery portal that I can glean from our navigation scanners,” she said, staring back out at the fractured planet in front of them. “I guess we just fly at it and see what happens.”
Hudson shrugged and nodded, “Not quite as dramatic as Captain Shaak’s portal discovery, but I guess it will have to do,” he said. Then he took hold of the ship’s controls. “Moving us in now…”
Liberty watched the range decrease as Hudson teased the ship towards the location of the portal. As he got closer, he reduced their velocity and switched to thrusters only. There was arguably no need to approach so cautiously, but Hudson wasn’t taking any chances.
“One thousand meters and closing,” said Liberty, sounding breathless. “Adjust zero point five degrees to port... hold it there.”
Hudson had never felt more nervous piloting a starship than he did at that moment. Even his final pilot’s exam had felt less stressful. He found himself sucking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly, as if meditating.
“Two hundred meters…” said Liberty.
Hudson held his course. “Stand by for portal transition and main drive systems restart,” he said, his voice quivering slightly. Then he looked over to Liberty, who was still strapped into her seat. “Don’t you need to be in engineering to restart the drive systems?”
Liberty sat back and raised her eyebrows at him. “And miss the first discovery of a brand-new portal in generations? Not a chance in hell!”
Hudson understood her sentiment, but he still wished Liberty was in engineering. After all, they had no clue what would be on the other side of the portal. If they emerged into an aster
oid field, or close to a black hole, or some other interstellar danger, they’d need their engines back up and running fast. However, if their roles were reversed, Hudson knew he wouldn’t want to miss out either.
“Okay then, hold on to your seat,” said Hudson. “Transition in five… four… three… two… one!”
Each of them held their breath. Hudson’s hands had squeezed the control column and thruster control lever so tightly that his knuckles were white. Liberty’s fingers were similarly taut, as she gripped the frame of her chair with more pressure than a crab’s claw. Both waited. But then absolutely nothing happened.
“What the hell?” said Hudson, checking the coordinates. They were in the right place, but all they had travelled through was empty space. “Did we get the coordinates wrong?”
Liberty was busy tapping away at her keypad again, brow furrowed and eyes sharp. “These are the correct coordinates… I don’t understand it.” Then she glanced over at Hudson, “Bring us to a stop and swing us around; I’m going to try something.”
Hudson did as Liberty requested, stopping their forward momentum and then pulsing the thrusters so that they were facing in the opposite direction. Then he watched as Liberty made some quick adjustments to the scendar device, before tapping at her keypad again.
“I had a thought on the way over here from Brahms Three,” Liberty said. She had apparently predicted Hudson’s imminent question concerning what she was doing. “I think these new portals are not just undiscovered – they’re inactive.”
“Inactive?” Hudson repeated. “You mean like a dormant volcano?”
“Not quite,” replied Liberty. “The portal is still there, but the door hasn’t been opened yet. Which means we need to ring the bell.”
Hudson frowned. “As charming as your enigmatic descriptions are, this isn’t a cryptic crossword club, Liberty. Can you tell me what you actually mean?”
“Fine, forget the analogies then,” said Liberty, still working feverishly. “In simple terms, the crystal doesn’t only receive, it can also transmit. Which means that if I can find the right resonant frequency to match this portal’s Shaak Radiation signature…”
Hudson felt a reverberant thrum pulsing through the deck plating, and then the lights dimmed. In the gloom, he could see the alien crystal glowing brightly. He was about to alert Liberty, but then noticed on his status panel that the Orion was experiencing a massive power drain. He didn’t know which incident to highlight first. However, he wasn’t given the chance to warn Liberty about either, because there was a sudden, bright purple flash.
Hudson and Liberty both shielded their eyes as the intense, ethereal light flooded the cockpit. And then as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. Hudson checked the scendar device again, and the mysterious alien crystal had returned to its normal state. It was now merely passively reflecting the light in the cockpit. He checked his panel, and saw that the power drain had gone, but also that an additional five percent of their fuel reserves had too. He didn’t have an explanation for any of it, but luckily, his plucky, genius engineer co-captain did.
“Ding-dong!” Liberty called out, beaming at him.
“Excuse me?” said Hudson.
“Ding-dong!” repeated Liberty, “As in ringing a doorbell. Come on, keep up, Hudson!”
Hudson rolled his eyes, “So is the damn door – I mean portal – open or not?”
“Only one way to find out…” replied Liberty, waving her hand towards the cockpit glass as if to beckon Hudson forward.
Hudson blew out a sigh and shook his head. “This had better work, otherwise I have another thirty-six hours in deep space back to Brahms Three, with only your crappy jokes to amuse me…” He then pushed the thruster control forward and started to creep the Orion back towards where the portal was supposed to be. The tension and excitement had somehow now dissipated, making the event bizarrely anti-climactic.
“Three hundred meters…” said Liberty, again anxiously watching her instruments. For her, at least, it appeared no less exciting. “Two hundred… one hundred…”
Then there was another bright purple flash, followed by a swirling pattern of dancing light and energy. It was a display that Hudson was intimately familiar with, having seen it dozens of times before; they were transiting though a portal. Then, mere seconds later, they were back in deep space again. However, this time there wasn’t the broken remains of a planet in front of them, but a vivid, light blue orb that shone with the reflected light of a new yellow star. Hudson and Liberty both just sat there, mouths gaping open, staring at the new world. It could have been seconds or minutes before one of them spoke. Finally, Liberty eventually snapped out of her trance and checked her instruments.
“It’s a rocky, terrestrial-like planet,” said Liberty, her voice uncharacteristically shaky. “Vegetative life for sure, looking at the spectra, but other than that, I can’t be sure from here.”
Hudson tested the controls; thrusters were responding, but the main drive system was down. It was the same as any other portal transition. Then he glanced down at the navigation scanner and could hardly believe what he saw.
“Liberty, take a look at where we are,” he said, double checking the readings.
Liberty frowned down at the readout and then ran some distance calculations, based on their location relative to all of the other known portal positions. “Wow, no-one has ever been out this far, or to this part of the galaxy.” Then she beamed at Hudson, “Captain Shaak, eat your heart out!”
Hudson laughed, but then the strange red chevron appeared again on the scanner. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled, sucking the joy out of him like a black hole eating light. He knew he’d need to tackle the subject of what this was sooner or later, or it would drive him insane. However, for now, they had more important matters to attend to. Namely, exploring the brand-new star system and planet in front of them.
“You’ll never guess what else I’m detecting,” teased Liberty.
“A sense of humility?” joked Hudson, but Liberty merely stared back at him, unimpressed.
“No… I’m detecting a Shaak Radiation signature from the planet.”
Hudson sat up in his seat, “You mean there’s an alien wreck on the planet’s surface?”
Liberty nodded, “I think so, but we’ll need to go down there to investigate. It’s an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, a little nitrogen rich, but breathable. And gravity of zero-point-nine-four-g.”
Hudson huffed a laugh. It still blew his mind that all of the planets at the other end of the portals were essentially Earth-like worlds. There had to be a reason, he assumed, but like so many other unexplained phenomena connected to the alien wrecks, it remained a mystery.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Liberty, snapping Hudson out of his daydream. “Let’s get down there!”
“Oh, I’d love to,” replied Hudson, folding his arms and looking smug. “But, aren’t you forgetting something?”
Liberty thought for a moment, but then frowned and shrugged. “Please?”
Hudson laughed and slapped his thighs. “The politeness is appreciated, Liberty, but what I mean is, you need to re-start our drive systems first…”
CHAPTER 24
Both of them gazed over the horizon of the new world from their vantage point on the outer hull of the alien wreck. The Orion gleamed in the near distance, under the warm light of the yellow sun. Hudson had set the ship down about a hundred meters from the hulking vessel, which protruded from the rocky landscape like a thorn. It was the only blot on what otherwise ranked amongst the most spectacular terrain Hudson had ever laid eyes on. Jagged mountains rose out of the plains like giant, broken teeth, with rivers that put the Amazon to shame snaking between them. Three small moons hung above them in the hazy orange sky, each as stunning to behold as the landscape that surrounded them. But despite the planet’s jaw-dropping beauty, the most striking aspect about it was the lack of civilization.
“I’m so used to seeing b
usy spaceports and bustling scavenger towns built up around wrecks like this one,” said Hudson. He was spinning around and around, soaking in the atmosphere. “It looks almost unreal without it, and somehow much more alien.”
“And so much more beautiful,” Liberty added, smiling at him.
Hudson nodded and returned the smile. He realized then that Liberty was seeing the world through the exact same lens as he was. They were both experiencing something that no other human being had done in many decades. The last person to set foot on a new, alien world had died long before either of them had even been born. And now, here they both were – discoverers of the first new alien wreck in generations.
“We should get inside the wreck, and see what we can score,” said Liberty, scanning the outer hull for openings.
Hudson sucked in a deep breath of the fresh, cool alien air. “Don’t be in such a hurry, Liberty,” he said, enjoying the comforting heat of the sun on his face. “Take a minute to soak all of this in. Every last drop.” Then he looked over at her. “And never forget it. Because these are the moments we live for, Liberty. And they may never come again.”
Liberty nodded and moved back beside Hudson, hooking her arm through his. For several minutes they just stood together on the alien wreck, as the cool breeze washed over them.
“How long before they build one of those awful scavenger towns out here?” said Liberty.
Hudson laughed. “Probably not long.”
“I hope it won’t be as big a shit-hole as the one on Brahms Three,” added Liberty. “I don’t want them messing up my planet with sleazy clubs and container-lined streets.”
“I know how you feel,” replied Hudson. “But at least we got to see it like this first.” Then his smile turned more mischievous and his eyes grew wider. “And do you know what else we get first?”
Liberty grinned; she already knew what Hudson was hinting at, and what the answer to his question was too. “We get to pick all the low-hanging fruit!”