by Chad Spencer
“Yeah but where is this gas giant? It’s not Asiel.”
Hugh hesitated. Jeff pressed him for an answer with, “What is it, Hugh? Where are we?”
“We’re actually nowhere,” was Hugh’s answer. “At least, nowhere in our universe. When we passed through the wormhole, we ended up in another universe.”
Jeff growled, “I’m serious Hugh!”
“Unfortunately, so am I. We really are in another universe. And a really small one at that.”
Setting the autopilot and letting go of the control spheres, Jeff once again could see the bridge around him. “What do you mean?” he queried.
Hugh displayed an image on the ship’s main screen. “This is the data I got when we came through the wormhole,” he explained. “We’re in a star system with one star and at least four planets that I could detect. There might be more. The gas giant we’re above is about twice the size of Saturn. It has well over a hundred small moons, bigger rings than Saturn, and a 26-hour day. As far as I can tell, there are only five stars in this entire universe. But look here. See this blue glow coming from the space outside the system? That’s actually the end of the universe. That’s the only thing it can be. This universe is only about 21 light years across. That blue glow is Doppler blueshift.”
“Doppler blueshift? What does that mean?”
Hugh grew intense, “It means that the universe itself is getting smaller. The edges of the universe are moving toward us. And there’s more.”
A sense of foreboding welled up in Jeff. “What do you mean, more?”
“Time, Jeff. If the data on this end of the wormhole is right, there’s been a time shift. Time in this universe moves faster than time does in ours. If I’m right, one year in our universe is 4,800 years in this universe. It took us nearly an hour to drop from the mouth of the wormhole into the atmosphere and get to here. Not even one second has gone by back home.”
Jeff thought for a moment, scratched his head, and commented, “I can’t decide if that’s good or bad.” Then he asked, “Another universe? Are you sure Hugh?”
“Yup. It’s called a pocket universe. It’s like a bubble on the surface of another bubble. It probably broke off of our universe naturally a long time ago. And that wormhole fragment from the disaster 20 years ago formed a passage between our universe and this one.”
“Jeff!” called Danae. “We’re getting messages from some of the others.” Danae shook her head and scowled at the information on her readouts. “At least three of the fighters were lost. Their last transmissions said they were falling into the planet below. Their crews didn’t get out in time. All of the other fighters that I know of broke up on the way down. I’m getting transmissions from a lot of their crewmembers. They’re in life pods and are floating in the same layer in the atmosphere that we are. But they’re scattered everywhere across this gas giant. I can’t reach all the crewmembers, Jeff. I can only account for about half of them. I don’t know what happened to the rest. They may be out of communications range.”
“Anything from Akio?”
Danae just shook her head.
Jeff worried, “What about Harriet’s ship?” Amanda shot a dark look at him, but said nothing.
Danae replied, “I don’t have any word on them.”
That shook Jeff. But doing his best to stay focused, he turned to Amanda and asked, “Amanda, how much maneuverability do we have?”
“Almost none.”
“Can we go after those life pods?”
“Yeah, we can do that much. There are a few right nearby.” She stopped and corrected herself. “And by that I mean within a couple of thousand miles. We can’t go that fast, so it’s going to take a few days just to gather up the pods nearby.”
“Let’s do that then,” directed Jeff. “And we’ll make as many repairs as we can. How long until we get the ship spaceworthy?”
Amanda shook her head. “I don’t know, Jeff. We’re really damaged.”
“We can’t get out of this atmosphere?” questioned Jeff. “How long can we stay aloft?”
Amanda replied, “As long as we want. Gravity mirrors work by reflecting gravitons. The mirrors are made of crystals. When we want to change how much gravity a mirror reflects, we use electrical fields to change the polarization of the molecules in its crystal matrix.”
“Yeah, I know that much. But what difference does it make?”
“If you give a gravity mirror the right charge, you can lock the molecular alignment in place. Then you don’t need to do anything more. The mirror will always reflect a fixed amount of gravity until you put a different electrical charge on it.”
Jeff understood, “So you’re saying that if you polarize the crystal matrix right, you don’t need to use any more power or fuel to keep it reflecting. And we can just stay floating here in the sky for long as we like.”
“Right,” Amanda agreed with a smile. “Starship engines don’t normally lock their gravity mirrors like that because they need to maneuver the ship. So the mirrors are constantly changing the amount of gravity they reflect. But when you just want to float over a planet, you can lock your mirrors and float without using any more fuel at all. I’ve locked our mirrors. And I had Danae radio all of the life pods we’re in contact with to lock their mirrors too. So they can keep floating until we come pick them up.”
“But they can’t all fit on this one ship,” objected Jeff.
Nodding, Amanda agreed, “No, they can’t. But at least we can all get together and find a way to run tethers to all the life pods to link them together. People can take turns coming aboard the ship.”
“But that’s not a long-term solution,” muttered Jeff, scratching his head. “We have to find a way back into space.”
Amanda nodded and returned her attention to the Chief Engineer’s workstation.
The fighter wafted along through the blue expanse as bright, fluffy clouds drifted past them. Everyone that could help with the repairs was assigned to help. Jeff had Joe Lau pilot the ship because Joe had no engineering experience. Sirsen Suzuki monitored the computer systems and the radio.
Hours went by as one repair after another was completed. With everyone working and the nanobots helping, the repairs went well. But as the day wore into evening, Amanda approached Jeff.
“Jeff, we’ve done almost all the repairs we can do. We’ve been synthesizing parts as fast as we can. But the tanks don’t have many raw materials left because we drained them so much repairing the ship during the fight with the Takhti. We need to find some asteroids so we can get more. I’m not sure we can get the engines working well enough to reach escape velocity from this planet. We could end up stuck here.”
Jeff manically demanded of himself, ‘What do I do? What do I do?’ With no answer forthcoming, he stalled for time by responding, “Let’s just have everyone finish what they’re working on and we’ll eat dinner. We can all talk about it together and see if we can come up with anything.”
Amanda agreed. After another hour or so, they sat down to a meal prepared by Arvix. As they ate, Jeff presented the problem to the crew. Hugh didn’t hesitate.
“We can probably get what we need,” Hugh told them. “This is planet is a gas giant with its atmosphere in layers. Elements that are lighter than air are in the layers above us. Elements that are heavier than air are in the layers below us. Most of the elements we need are heavier than air. We can get what we need by sucking in gasses from the lower layers. But our systems aren’t repaired enough for that. We can’t go down there because we can’t use the ship’s artificial gravity system to counteract the planet’s gravity. It’s still not repaired. The only reason we have gravity now is because we’re getting it from the planet. If we go down to the lower layers, we’ll be crushed by the increased gravity. The only thing I can think of is to get into the escape pods and send the ship down there on autopilot.”
Amanda countered, “What about the really heavy elements? We need materials that aren’t floating around
in this planet’s atmosphere.”
Hugh nodded and replied, “This ship’s nanobots will make them for us. I mean, theoretically, all we need is hydrogen and the ship can make every other element from that. It would just take a really long time. If we mine the layers of this planet’s atmosphere and make what we can’t get, then we should be able to finish repairs in a few weeks–maybe. It might take a couple of months.”
“Months?” wailed Tiffany. “I can’t live in an escape pod for months!”
They were interrupted by Sirsen Suzuki’s voice over the comm system. “Captain,” he called, “I’m picking up transmissions from a several hundred miles away–both audio and video. It’s not in a language I recognize.”
Without hesitation, they left their meal and went to the bridge. Stepping through the door, Jeff asked, “Is it someone from the battle?”
Sirsen Suzuki shook his head and replied, “No. They’re definitely not colonists–at least, they’re not from our colony. I can’t figure out what language they’re speaking. The computer doesn’t recognize it at all. It’s saying that it has roots in both English and Russian. That’s all I know right now. The computer is compiling a translation matrix from what it’s seeing and hearing in the video.”
“Put it up on the main viewer,” directed Jeff.
The viewscreen came alive with a video stream of a primly dressed young woman. Her hair was in a neat bun high on her head and her impeccable dress was a bright pastel yellow. She seemed to be instructing people how to raise a particular type of plant. “It looks like a 3V show,” murmured Jeff. “One of those do-it-yourself shows. Only it’s not in 3D. It’s in 2D.”
“Should we investigate?” asked Sirsen Suzuki.
Turning the new development over in his mind, Jeff thoughtfully replied, “I think we’d better stay focused on rescuing the life pods.”
Sirsen Suzuki informed him, “Three of the life pods are within a hundred miles of the source of the transmission. They’re right on the way. Most of the rest that we can get to right away are just beyond it. So it’s not really going out of the way.”
“Well … yeah … I guess we could check it out. If there are people here in this pocket universe, maybe they’ll help us in the fight against the tahkti. Even if they don’t, maybe they can help us get off this planet.” To Joe Lau he directed, “Set a course and take us to the source of those transmissions. But the life pods are the highest priority.”
Nodding, Joe placed his hands back on the blue control spheres and started the ship moving.
As the hours wore on, they finished all the repairs they could do. At Hugh’s suggestion, Amanda set the ship’s intake vents to pump air into the tanks that normally held raw materials for repairs.
Amanda added, “At least we’ll be able to condense water out of the air and keep our fuel tanks full. We won’t run short of power any time soon.”
“What about food?” interjected Milford.
Hugh replied, “That’s probably not going to be a problem either. At least, not right away. We can synthesize some simple types of synthpaste from the elements in the atmosphere. It probably won’t taste very good, but it will be edible.”
Shane Ratcliff, a colonist who had a background in biology, countered, “We can’t live very long on that. Synthpaste made out of just the gasses in a breathable atmosphere won’t have everything we need.”
Nodding, Hugh agreed. “That’s true. But I think it will keep us going until we can get the ship repaired and get out of here.”
Deciding that they had done enough for one day, Jeff put the ship on autopilot and set the proximity alarms to wake them up if anything got near the ship. Then they all went to bed to get what rest they could.
Early the next morning they reached the first of the life pods. As soon as they approached, the hatch popped open and out flew Kasumi. She teleported herself inside the fighter.
“Kasumi,” exclaimed Hugh. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Where’s Sebastian?” Kasumi blurted out without acknowledging Hugh’s greeting. Jeff thought that Hugh seemed to wilt a little.
“We haven’t found him yet,” Jeff informed her. He noticed that Hugh turned back to his tactical console. “Who’s in the pod with you?” he asked her quickly.
“Ikko,” Kasumi answered. “She’s an android. But we take care of her just as if she were a person.”
Amanda suggested, “Well if your pod has an android in it, maybe we can send over a couple of Tiffany’s androids.”
“That’s a good idea,” agreed Jeff. “Hugh, can you get a couple of Tiffany’s androids and teleport them over?”
“I’ll do it,” Kasumi asserted in her eternal monotone. She headed for the ship’s common area.
After enduring Tiffany’s protests at being temporarily deprived of some of her androids and programming the pod to follow the fighter, they continued their journey. About that same time, Jeff relieved Joe Lau at the helm, who was glad to get some much-needed rest.
A couple of hours later, they arrived at another life pod. This one contained two colonists who had been engineers on another fighter. Jeff directed that they be teleported to the fighter and that more of Tiffany’s androids be sent to the life pod.
About that time a radio message was relayed in from some of the most distant life pods. Danae told Jeff, “They say they’ve gotten radio transmissions from more life pods that are too far around the planet for us to contact. So a group of them are pulling together and going after them.”
Jeff instructed, “Pick a rendezvous point and tell them we’ll meet them there in five days. That should give them time to gather up some of the survivors.”
Danae nodded and relayed the message.
Hours passed. Jeff instructed the crew to disassemble one of the ship’s blaster cannons.
“But none of the parts are useful for repairing what’s broken,” objected Amanda.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jeff told her. “We’ve got enough people on board who can fly so that we can go outside, pull the entire gun apart, and feed it to the ship bit by bit. The ship can process it down to its component elements and then use them to synthesize the parts we need. Who knows, we might even be able to fix the engines enough to get back into space.”
“Good thinking,” complimented Amanda. She left the bridge to get started on dismantling the gun.
Jeff stopped the ship so they could disassemble the cannon and begin cutting it apart. They fed the parts they pulled off into the ship’s mouth-like scoop.
As they were working, Jeff saw a glint far in the distance. He went back to the bridge to use the scanners. Sitting in the pilot’s seat, Jeff zoomed his view of the surrounding sky in on the faraway object. What he saw was simply unbelievable. Wafting its way through the sky was the most amazing animal that Jeff could imagine.
“Hugh!” Jeff exclaimed. “Do you see that huge animal on your scanners? Look at the size of that thing! It’s longer than this ship!”
To Jeff the graceful life form was amazing. Its skin was made up of large, shiny scales that bounced back a rainbow of colors when the sunlight hit them. A row of huge, golden, bird-like wings ran down each side of its generally oblong, whale-like body. They fluttered minimally as the animal used them to steer itself rather than propel itself. Under each wing was a set of large slits that looked like the gills on sharks. On its upper and lower sides were appendages that looked a lot like white sails, and the creature was shifting them this way and that to catch the wind.
The front of the creature’s body was formed into a massive jaw. ‘I wonder what it eats,’ Jeff thought as he watched it move. The rear of its fluid form ended in a tail with both vertical and horizontal flukes.
“How does it stay aloft? Jeff asked no one in particular. “It can’t be flying with just its wings.”
Hugh immediately responded, “You’re right. It can’t. There are gravity mirrors inside its body.”
“Gravity mirrors? That’s i
mpossible!”
“You’re right,” agreed Hugh. “But it’s true. I can’t explain it. But that thing has about thirty perfectly formed gravity mirrors spread all through its body. They’re about the size of a basketball–about the size of our maneuvering mirrors.”
“How could a life form have gravity mirrors in its body?” Jeff wondered aloud.
“No idea,” Hugh responded.
They left the mystery unsolved for the time being and went back to disassembling the cannon. By the time they were ready to go to bed, Amanda reported that by sacrificing two of the eight guns, they had been able to repair the ship’s artificial gravity field.
“That means we can take the ship down in to the lower layers of the atmosphere now,” she explained. We don’t have to stay for months in the pods while the ship collects what it needs to repair itself.”
Tiffany interjected, “Can’t we just take apart more of the guns and fix things that way?”
“We could,” Amanda told her. “And it would help speed things along. But it won’t be enough to get our main engines back online. And we still won’t have all of our computer systems back up. But if we used all the guns, we could get our computers, environmental systems, and most of the propulsion system running again.”
“I don’t suppose we could put it all into the propulsion system, go into space, and then get materials for the rest?” suggested Jeff.
Shaking her head, Amanda replied matter-of-factly, “Only if we want to die. Computers and environmental systems are required for us to stay alive in space.”
Jeff said, “Ok. Then that’s what we do. We’ll work on it it tomorrow. Right now, as many of us that can rest should rest. Kurt Hyde can take the helm until we get to the next pod. Everyone else should sleep while we can.”
And so another night passed on the ship. About two in the morning, they reached a pod with more colonists. In spite of her wailing, the last of Tiffany’s androids ended up in the pod.