“He goes to stop the Great Stone,” Kontar said.
Akila looked at him curiously. “How can you be sure? We cannot understand their words. Besides, how can any one person stop something like the Great Stone?”
“Why else would he take to the sky with such a look of urgency on his face? He must be stopped!”
“Hasani,” Akila said, “what are your thoughts on this?”
Hasani said, “I am not sure. Considering the apparent power of these strangers, and the fact that we cannot understand their words, we risk great problems if we leap to the wrong conclusion.”
Kontar said, “Leap to your own conclusions. I am not going to let the Great Stone be interrupted. It must complete its journey.”
Kontar raised his hands toward the stranger.
“Kontar!” Akila shouted. “No!”
Though, she had to admit, she was not sure if she was more concerned that Kontar might be acting on an incorrect conclusion, or if she simply wanted no harm to come to the man she wanted so badly to flirt with.
Kontar fired his static electricity.
Akila stared in horror as the blasts struck the man in the air. She fully expected him to fall back to the earth, ashen and smoking. And yet, he continued on, as though he had not even felt the touch of Kontar’s electricity.
Impressive, she thought, staring as the man grew small in the distance above them.
The others then attacked, which Akila could have predicted were she not so taken with the man in the air. She would have too, in their place
One of them, dressed in orange, moved as though in the blink of an eye, and was knocking Kontar to the ground. Kontar had been about to release another blast toward the man in the sky, but instead found himself enveloped in his own electricity. He screamed and writhed as the current shot through his body. The speedster would have been caught in the electrical wave also, but his momentum carried him beyond Kontar and out of range.
“Kontar!” Akila screamed.
Kontar fell to the ground to lie twitching, smoke drifting from his body.
Akila could not afford to allow herself to fall into inaction. Kontar might be dead, but Hasani was here and he had to be protected. Guarding these people was her duty. She had been unable to save Kontar, but she was not going to let Hasani go down in battle. The time would come later to debate Kontar’s actions. Right now she had to act.
The best way to neutralize a snake was to take off its head, and this was the course of action Akila took. Without even taking the time to draw her sword, she sprang not toward the speedster, but at their leader, leaping into the air and planting both feet on his chest. With a huff, the man dressed in gray went flying backward.
The girl who was with them then, impossibly, disappeared into a flash of light, and then suddenly materialized in front of Akila. The girl struck at her with a fist, but Akila easily brushed the punch away with an open hand and delivered and palm strike, catching the girl on a cheekbone, and the girl staggered back.
The girl then disappeared in another flash of light, this one much more intense than the first. Akila found herself blinded by the intensity of the flash, and felt the heat on her face. With a scream at the pain in her eyes at the flash of light, she fell backward to the grass.
Time to get out of here, Hasani thought. Their two strongest had been dispatched this easily. He was not going to be taken prisoner.
He was not close enough to help Kontar. Regrettably, his old friend was probably dead, anyway. Instead, he ran toward where Akila lay on the ground, her hands over her eyes. He had no time to prepare for this jump, or to concentrate on the time period he wanted. He didn’t have enough time to expand his time-travel field properly, so he grabbed her by the shoulder to make certain she was pulled along with him. And then they were gone, away and through the strands of time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Scott Tempest scrambled to his feet, gasping for breath from having just taken a two-footed drop kick in the chest. That girl had moved fast – he hadn’t time to even engage his force field.
He watched as the bare-chested one grabbed the girl by the shoulder, and the two simply disappeared.
The one with the long beard was lying in the grass, no longer moving, his body charred and smoking. Scott had dropped the tricorder when he had been kicked, so he now retrieved it from where it had landed in the grass. He focused it on the man lying on the ground, looking for life signs. There were none.
He said, “The man’s dead.”
“What now, fearless leader?” Rick asked.
Scott looked skyward. “We wait for Jake to return.”
Jake continued to power-up as he ascended into the stratosphere. There was no longer enough oxygen to breathe, but he had already powered-up to the degree that he no longer needed oxygen. Even the icy coldness of this altitude had no affect on him.
He increased his speed. The flight controls of his suit were attuned to his brainwaves, so he simply thought the word faster and his speed accelerated.
He suddenly broke free of the planet’s gravitational field, and he felt himself sort of shoot off into space.
Unbelievable, Jake thought, Scott’s theories were right. Jake was flying without an environmental suit in the empty void of space. He felt no discomfort at all as the vacuum of space touched his skin. The cold would have frozen a normal human solid within seconds. And in an absolute vacuum like this, a non-powered human would have exploded if they did not freeze to death first.
He allowed himself a backward glance at the Earth. Amazing. The blue orb, with clouds swirling over the surface, was falling away behind him.
Scott’s flight technology didn’t involve any sort of actual propulsion, but rather a manipulation of gravitational fields. In reality, Jake was simply falling through space. To increase his speed, all he had to do was increase the rate of his descent.
He found himself smiling. For once, for perhaps the first time, he realized he was enjoying the abilities given him by the reactor explosion he had been caught in. For the first time, being the so-called Captain Courageous didn’t seem like such a curse to him.
Sure, he would occasionally joy ride through the skies above the mountain hideaway he now called home, but he could do that simply with a battle suit. He didn’t need his zeta powers for that. But to fly through space with no protective suit, to feel the touch of the empty vacuum of space against his skin, required the unique abilities that were his.
He wanted to check this out further, to see what he could do. He wanted to stand on the surface of the moon. Hell, forget the moon, he wanted to go to Mars.
Yet his thoughts returned to his actual reason for being out here in space. There was an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth of this alternate reality. Even though it was not his Earth, there were still lives to be saved. And what was the point of him having these abilities if it was not to save lives?
He suddenly felt he was having some sort of epiphany. As he flew through the empty void of space, with no protection of a ship or an environmental suit, with the stars shining above and below him, a sudden awareness seemed to come over him. A feeling of maybe connecting somehow with the universe. Of connecting with destiny.
There are no accidents, no coincidences, he realized. Even the reactor explosion that had made him the way he was. It was all part of a grand multidimensional tapestry, in which there was no beginning or end. He was simply one of the many threads this tapestry. Scott had said similar things, but Jake had dismissed them. Now they all seemed to fall into place.
Maybe he was getting space drunk, he thought. Some sort of unexplainable high from flying through the void as he was. And yet he knew it was more than that, as a sort of peace fell on him. A peace he had never known before.
Deep down, he had to admit, he had been harboring at least a little resentment toward Scott because the reactor explosion had robbed him of the life he had planned. But now, as he flew through space, he found the anger was go
ne. Truly gone.
He increased his speed even moreso, wondering what the limits really were. Such a thing can create a stress on the hull of a vessel, which was one of the problems Scott had in designing a ship to sustain long-distance interstellar travel. Jake was feeling the stress also, almost like the fabric of space were somehow squeezing him. But he simply powered-up even more, to a point that the stress was no longer even relevant.
He had no idea how fast he was actually traveling. The on-board computer in his suit, which attuned itself to his brainwaves, said, as though he had asked it a question, “You are now traveling at .238 the speed of light.”
Incredible, he thought. Faster than any human had ever gone before.
Not that he could actually hear the computer, because sound doesn’t travel in an empty vacuum, but he heard it in his mind. Similar technology to what Sammy had used to send an electrical impulse into his brain to make him power-up, when he had been knocked unconscious by tranquilizer darts a year and a half ago.
Powered-up to this degree, which was moreso than he had ever been before, his vision took on an acuity he had never thought possible. A few thousand miles ahead of him was the asteroid. He could see it as clearly as though it were merely a few feet away. And the speed he was going ate up those miles quicker than it took to think about it.
He raised both fists in front of him, and braced for impact, knowing he had to hit the asteroid with enough force to not only break it up, but to send the chunks exploding far enough away that their trajectory would take them cleanly past Earth.
He struck the asteroid.
Even though sound cannot travel in space, the impact sent a shock wave rolling out and away that would carry for miles. The rock broke into a couple dozen large chunks, and a few hundred smaller ones, all shooting away from Jake.
The collision had stopped his momentum completely, and as he floated where the asteroid had been, with his vision now as acute as it was, he could easily see all the pieces of debris. The asteroid had not been pulverized to the degree Scott had said it should be, but it looked to Jake like all of the larger chunks had exploded away from the original trajectory. He was no scientist, and would not even pretend to be, but it looked to him like all of the chunks would cleanly miss the Earth.
“I think we’re safe,” he said, though because there was no sound, he found himself merely mouthing the words.
He began his return flight back to the Earth.
Hasani had been allowed no time to prepare for the jump. He had simply grabbed Akila, and off they went.
He aimed for their home time, but gods-only-knew how close they would be. They might arrive months after their departure. They might even arrive before they had left. Minister Antula had always cautioned against such a thing, because physical laws theoretically would probably not allow two objects to occupy different spaces in the same time. But Hasani had not been allowed time to do things right. He simply had to grab Akila and make a jump. Any jump.
The strain was great, and as he and Akila found the world taking shape about them, his knees shook and then buckled. He found himself gasping for air. His head was spinning.
“Hasani,” Akila said. “Where are we?”
Hasani glanced about. Buildings stood tall, of a type of architecture he had never seen, but they appeared to be damaged and broken. Debris was strewn about the street.
“I was shooting for our time. I think I missed.”
The air was hot and dry, and yet smelled of sulfur and ash.
“How much did you miss by?” Akila asked.
“I can’t say for certain where or even when we are. I can’t even say if we are on our Earth.”
They glanced at the buildings surrounding them. Tall, rectangular shaped. Most of them seemed to be made of some sort of hard, gray substance. Some were made of bricks. There were large glass windows, some of them broken. “This is like no city I have ever seen before.”
She said. “Can you stand?”
He nodded. He thought so. And yet he was not sure. As he got to his feet he wavered a bit, and Akila grabbed him by an arm to steady him.
“This is definitely not home,” he said.
“We must get our wits about us,” Akila said. “Give you a few moments to rest and regain your bearings. Then maybe we can scout about.”
She was rubbing her eyes with her free hand.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“I think so. The woman created a flash of light that blinded me for a few moments, but it is fading now.”
Suddenly, five humans charged at them from one side, and as many more from another. One of them emitted an unintelligible scream. They were dressed in the ragged remains of garments, so ragged she could not guess their style. All were men, with long hair and shaggy beards. Their eyes were wild in what she took to be fury or desperation.
They carried broken boards as clubs, and were raising them for striking as they charged forward.
“Wait,” Akila said, holding up one hand and still supporting Hasani with the other. “We wish you no harm.”
But they either failed to understand her words, or were too crazed to bother.
She ducked beneath the sweeping strike of one, releasing Hasani as she did so, and planted her foot in the wild man’s stomach. A second wrapped his arms about her, dropping his club in the process. She raised a foot to kick away a third attacker, and then, as she was much stronger than any man she had met, she forced her arms apart, breaking the grip of the man behind her. She then whirled around and drove an elbow into the side of the man’s head.
They were then all about her, swinging their clubs. She weaved and ducked, driving a foot into the knee of one man and a fist into the face of another. But she was weakening. The flash of light from the woman had left her feeling dazed. She drew her sword, but then staggered slightly as her balance was becoming a little unsteady. One of the attackers slipped past her, and with a piece of wood, struck Hasani on the top of his skull.
“Hasani!” she screamed.
She struck with the sword, whirling and slashing and thrusting. The unsteadiness now seemed to dissipate in a wave of adrenaline. Men screamed and blood flew, some of it splattering against her and some pooling on the ground.
Within moments, she was standing amidst the carnage, sword held ready in both hands. Sweat streamed down her face and back as she gripped the ground with the toes of her bare feet. Strewn about her were the attackers, all ten of them, now dead.
She sheathed her sword and hurried to Hasani’s side. She found her heart was pounding, and sweat was streaming down her neck and back. Her weakened state was again making itself felt, now that the adrenaline rush was fading.
Hasani was lying on the ground, blinking his eyes, not quite conscious, and not quite not. Blood flowed from his nose, and a stream of crimson ran from one ear.
“You are hurt badly,” she said. “You need a physician.”
“Where?” he managed to say. “We don’t even know where we are.”
She glanced about at the crumbling buildings. An object, possibly a vehicle of some sort, stood silently a little further down the street. Wheels of some inflatable material, doors appearing to be made of metal. Glass windows at the front and sides were broken away, and the metal was streaked with orange rust. On the front was a blue oval containing symbols from a language she had never seen before. FORD.
This was no land she was familiar with. And she did not know if there might be more savages. And if so, how long she could hold them off. She and Hasani would need food and water, and she had no idea where to find them in this hostile world. Most of all, Hasani needed a physician.
“I must jump,” he said weakly. “One more time, I must jump.”
“You can’t.”
He nodded, and then coughed. “I have to.”
“It could kill you.”
“If I don’t, we shall both surely die here, anyway.”
“But..,”
He rea
ched out with a hand that was surprisingly strong, considering how injured he was, and clamped it onto her bare shoulder. “Hang on. I am not sure how smooth this will be.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The team materialized in the hangar deck at the complex in the mountains of Colorado.
Scott looked to Jake and broke into a grin. “I can’t believe it. You just saved an entire world. You just prevented an entire ice age.”
Jake nodded, allowing himself a smile. He dropped a hand on to his old friend’s shoulder. “We saved a world. After all, anything I did wouldn’t have been possible without you.”
“A question I have,” April said, “is who were those people, and why were they trying to stop us?”
“We may never know,” Scott said. “One is dead, regrettably, and the other two disappeared. Apparently some sort off teleportation ability.”
Jake said, “Do you think they had access to technology on our level?”
Scott shook his head. “Not the way they were dressed. I would expect any ability of teleportation was something they could do without technology. Perhaps they were meta-humans.”
Sammy’s face was on the plasma screen mounted on the wall. “All clear, guys. Come on in.”
They stepped through the doorway into the central lab. A large room with lab tables covered with microscopes, computer monitors, gas burners, and other types of equipment. Beakers and pots and stacks of books. Sammy was standing by a lab table, and Chuck was beside him, a beer in one hand.
April said, “So, how’s little Jeffy? Did you guys take good care of him?”
“I don’t know,” Sammy said, in answer to April’s question. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
They followed his gaze to find a boy of maybe thirteen sitting in a chair, his feet up on a lab table. In one hand was an open bag of chips, and he was munching away.
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