A blip flashed on the 3D map on the bottom right side of the viewscreen: the same map that showed on my chair’s sidearm console tablet.
“That’s them. Setting course for intercept. They haven’t hit the high-velocity drive yet,” Mary said. They were more than a few thousand kilometers away, with a two-hour head start on their side.
“I’ve started to charge the drive. Should be operational for in-system FTL in two hours.” Clare stood at a console to the port side of the bridge, stood straight-backed, wearing her uniform with pride. She knew that ship inside and out, and I was sure she was going to be a great asset to the team. Not only that, but she was always a positive presence in the room, no matter where she was. It was hard to be in a bad mood with her energy lifting up the people around her.
We lifted through the atmosphere and shot into the massive expanse of space. I stood, seeing the moon ahead. It was such a different experience this time. This time, we knew what we had to do. Mary shifted the trajectory, pointing us away from the sun. The map showed the current position of the solar system’s planets, each on their own pattern of rotations around the system’s star, our sun. The blip of our target Kraski ship was on a line toward Mars.
“Slate, can you give me a tour of the supply room?” I asked the beast of a man. He’d just been standing, there watching space through still eyes.
“Sure thing, boss,” he said, and I thought it might be the first time I’d heard the guy speak. His voice was higher-pitched than I’d expected.
“I’ll be in the storeroom,” I said to Mary, who just nodded, focusing on her task at hand.
Slate led the way out of the bridge, down the hall, past the engineering room, and into the center of the ship. Crates were strapped to the walls. Upon closer inspection, I saw they were labeled. Food products on the left, from floor to ceiling.
“Boss, here are the clothing crates. We have medical supplies here,” he waved to the stack of crates on the right side of the room. “Toiletries here. And you saw the food supplies.”
“How about those?” I asked, nodding toward some large steel boxes in the middle of the floor.
He shook his head. “You don’t want to get into those yet. Armaments. Lots of them. Grenades, more pulse rifles than the few of us could ever use. Always better to be overprepared than underprepared. A few secrets, I’ll show you later.” Slate had a twinkle in his eyes, and I saw what turned this man’s crank.
Nick Ellis, the doctor, sauntered in, whistling when he saw the crates piled up.
“How about we get some of this sorted and organized?” I asked them. “There’s a small medic room near engineering. How about you start there, Doc? Slate, let’s get this kitchen set up, and the beds while we’re at it.”
Nothing was ready in the ship. The president hadn’t expected a long-range venture with a crew, so nothing was set up for us. I didn’t mind, because it allowed us to bond by setting it up. Some sweat equity at the start of the journey.
“Sounds like a plan,” Nick said, grabbing a crate down with Slate’s help.
Soon we were organizing what we needed, Nick setting up the medical station, then adding linens and pillows to the bunks. Slate and I filled the shelves of the kitchen and I found a coffee maker, brewing some fresh-ground beans to keep everyone going. All in all, it took us just over two hours, and I brought coffee up to the bridge for the ladies on duty.
“Dean, I’ve been thinking,” Mary said, smiling at me as she took the coffee cup. “If we can’t catch them here, maybe we should follow them secretly. We might want to see where they go. It could teach us a lot. Maybe we can find where the Bhlat are and take the offense to them.”
I hated the idea but didn’t want to dismiss her right off the bat. Maybe she was right.
“Let’s see how this goes. Maybe we catch up today and stop them, even if it means I’ll never get to eat the dehydrated food I just lined the shelves with. Patrice and Heart wanted us to stop them right away. I’m not sure I’m up for breaking those orders. Especially with the huge guy in the store-room on their side,” I said.
“Just think about it,” Mary said quietly.
“Clare, how are we doing on the FTL drive?” I asked.
She smiled. “Under an hour left before we can fire it up. What’s the plan?”
“Mary, what do you say when it’s ready, we jump closer to them? I have to think they know how to use their drive too. Maybe they just haven’t yet because they don’t know we’re coming after them. Appear right up their ass and blow them away.” I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as capturing them. I wasn’t going to even try to kid myself.
“That’s exactly what we should do. I just assume they’ll …” The blip on the screen flashed. “Shit. They activated it.”
The blip was accelerating faster. We traversed through space toward their trajectory, and all we could do was watch as their ship kept getting farther and farther away.
“That’s what we have tracking for,” Clare said as we watched the blip get smaller as the map expanded. My gut was telling me we were in for quite the chase.
“We wait until the drive’s charged, then follow them just like the plan accounted for. Is there something to eat in the kitchen?” Mary asked, stomach growling at the mention of food. As if on cue, mine followed suit.
“I’ll go whip up some omelettes. Nothing like pre-beaten eggs from a cardboard container. Everyone good with that?” I asked.
Clare said she was, and I walked over to Mae, who was still nursing a swollen eye. “Mae, why don’t you let the doctor assess you finally? Maybe take something and rest for a bit.”
She looked at me, her one open eye intense. “I just want to catch them, Dean. I want to go home. I… I let them get away.”
We hadn’t heard the whole story from her yet. She got up and followed me into the kitchen, where coffee still sat in the maker. I offered her another cup and she nodded to me. I wanted to give her a big hug and tell her everything would be okay, but I could tell it would only upset her more.
“What happened?” I asked, grabbing a frying pan.
“I know you had your big event, but I felt like it might be just the time someone would make a move. With the whole base distracted, it only made sense.” Mae sipped her coffee.
“If you thought that, why didn’t you tell anyone? It does make sense, but sometimes the most obvious things are the ones we miss first.”
“Everyone was just happy, and I didn’t think there was a way they could escape, so I hung out by the prison, just laying low. At the ten PM guard switch, it went south. I snuck in behind him and saw him let Terrance out first. I tried to intervene but got a beating for my troubles. Soon Leslie was there, kicking me too. That’s who we’re dealing with here. They’ll do anything for their cause.”
I cringed, thinking of my friend getting pummelled by two people. No wonder she had become so closed off-lately. She’d been through so much.
I walked over to her where she sat and pulled her toward me, being careful her bruised face didn’t get hurt. I held her head to my stomach and leaned down, kissing the top of her head.
“I’m sorry, Mae. I’m sorry we weren’t there for you. Never again,” I said, and she cried into my shirt.
Doctor Nick started into the room, saw our intimate moment, and slowly backed away. I hoped he saw it for what it was, not something else. That was all we needed with a crew of six people.
“I love you, Dean,” she said, her hand holding mine. I knew what she meant. We weren’t in love, but she was like a sister to me, and I a brother to her. It was a bond we would never shake.
“I love you too,” I said.
Mae got up, and we made breakfast for the crew in silence, working in the small space like we’d been doing it our whole lives. By the time we brought the food to the bridge, Clare had a look of pure joy on her face. It was a little unsettling, considering the circumstances.
“It’s ready. Let’s blast across this galaxy,�
�� Clare said.
Mary shrugged her shoulders and pressed the glowing green tablet button. Stars stretched out around us on the viewscreen.
“Anyone for eggs while we make history?” I asked.
FOURTEEN
“Don’t look so worried. Mae has it under control,” I said. We were lying on the bed in our own bunk room, face to face, heads on pillows. We had been soaring through space for hours now, not catching up to our target but keeping on their tail as best we could.
“I know. It just seems like so much. I still can’t believe we’re here, racing past Mars, only half a day after we watched our friends getting married. Do you wish we had gotten married?” Mary asked.
I hadn’t given that a lot of thought. “I’m happy just being with you. A label at this time is really just that, a label. It doesn’t change anything.”
She closed her eyes. “You’re right, honey. I’m going to sleep for a while, okay? Try to get some sleep yourself.”
I closed my eyes too, noticing the missing dog at our feet. Even through all the unknowns, the body knows when it needs to recharge, and in moments, my mind stopped racing, drifting off into a well-needed slumber.
A few hours later, I was awoken to the sound of Mae’s voice over the comm-system. “All crew to the bridge.”
Mary was already up, putting her jumpsuit back on, and I fell right in behind her. I felt rested, but wished I had time to brush my teeth or freshen up. I made a quick pit stop in the washroom and did just that after relieving myself. I wasn’t going to be of any use wetting myself on the bridge.
When I crossed to the bridge, Nick was behind me, and he called up. “Any idea what’s going on?”
I looked back. He was in a bathrobe, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. His eyes were sporting some serious red veins, and I expected his first attempt at sleep on a spaceship was a failure.
Slate was standing tall behind Mae’s console, with Mary and Clare flanking her. They were all looking at the viewscreen.
“The icon blinked out here,” she said, highlighting the spot on the map, “but the tracking still seems to be working, unless there’s a major glitch in it.” She looked over her shoulder to Clare.
Clare stood there, perplexed look across her face. After a moment, a light bulb went off, and I could see recognition wash over her. “Holy shit. The reason the map went all funky and tiny like that is because it was zooming out. Somehow they travelled from here” – she pointed to a spot on the tablet screen – “to here.” Another spot way to the right.
“Just how did they do that? We’re operating the same drive as them,” Mary said.
“I have no idea. To travel that far would take something entirely different. Something we don’t have. Maybe…” She stopped, tapping her finger on the back of Mae’s chair.
“What is it? What could do that?” I asked, losing my patience. If we lost them now, on day one, we were hooped.
“The only thing I can think of is a wormhole of some sort. We didn’t find the technology on their ships, though,” Clare said. “That’s the only reasonable explanation I have.”
A wormhole. This just kept getting more convoluted.
“So what do we do? Wait until we catch up to the spot they disappeared at and see if we can duplicate it?” Mary asked.
“What’s our ETA to that spot?” I asked, a nervous energy coursing through my veins.
“Just under two hours,” Mae confirmed after tapping a few glowing buttons.
Two hours to travel FTL toward a spot where our target ship blipped out and moved thousands of light years away. If we didn’t get the same hop, we would never be able to catch them. The whole escape would be successful, and we would be heading back to Earth with our tail between our legs, preparing for an all-out war.
“Then that’s what we do. Pray for the same wormhole to be there,” I said, and we all kept staring at the map, a light blip across the stretched-out expanse, glowing, letting us know our target was still out there.
_____________
“I hate waiting around,” Mary said as we sat in the eat-in kitchen.
The table was bolted to the ground and would sit all of us if we crammed in there. We sipped tepid coffee and batted ideas back and forth. Really it was all speculation, because we couldn’t know what we were going to arrive to.
“What are the options if the wormhole, or whatever the hell it is, isn’t there any longer?” I asked, sure I could guess what they were. I just wanted Mary to reconfirm to me what I already knew.
“I’d say the first option at that point is to turn around, hightail it back to Earth, tell the powers that be what we found out, and hunker down, preparing for a war that may or may not ever come to us. I hate the idea of living in constant fear of invasion. The world can’t deal with that after all we’ve been through.” She took a drink from the cup and set it down, wrapping her slender fingers around it.
“Option two?” I asked.
“Option two: we keep going, take months to get where they are, thousands of light years away, and hope this ship is really built for it. We may be too late then, but at least we’ll know one way or the other.”
“Option three?”
“We say screw it, head to Proxima b, where we meet up with our friends in a few months, and start over on a new world.” She smiled at this one, and I knew that option probably suited her as much as it did me, but we couldn’t do that. We had too many people back home relying on us.
“So now what? We play the wait and see game?” I knew it was only a matter of minutes before Mae called us to the bridge and we saw firsthand what was left of the “leap” spot, as we started calling it.
Slate came in the room, and I noticed he had to turn sideways to get through the doorway. His short blond hair was a little messy. Probably coming from a quick power nap. I used to tease Magnus about being too big, but this guy was next level.
“Slate, what’s your story? And where’d you get that name?” I asked, truly intrigued by the man.
He shrugged, grabbing a cup of coffee, and sat down at the end of the table so we could both turn and face him.
“Name’s really Zeke Campbell,” he said nonchalantly.
“You don’t look like a Zeke,” I said, trying to hold back a laugh.
“No kidding. My old sarge started calling me that when I was just a private. He found out I painted, and said I was like a rock but had many layers. Ergo, I was Slate from then on.”
I did laugh then, and soon Mary was laughing beside me, and even the ever-serious Slate was grinning.
“Where are you from?” Mary asked. He was Army and she was Air Force, so they had more camaraderie between them than with an accountant from upstate New York.
“Grew up in L.A. near the water. Loved to surf,” he said, staring into his cup. “My older brother shipped off to the Gulf War when I was just a kid and died two months later. It broke my mom. Anyway, at that moment, I started to plan my revenge. I was just eight years old, but in my heart, I told myself I was going to find who killed him and make them pay. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was too much for a little kid. I started to work out as soon as my mom would let me, and against every wish of hers, I joined the Army when I was eighteen. I saw a lot of tours in the Middle East, and killed a lot of men, but none of it ever brought me the redemption I dreamt of as that little boy. It just… I’m sorry. I don’t talk about it much, so when I get started on it, I guess I can’t stop.”
I thought about running through the massive Kraski vessel with the Shield, killing what was left of an entire race. “We do what we have to do, Slate, and we have to live with it after. I’m glad we have you along. I look forward to getting to know you better,” I said, and meant it.
“Same here.” He smiled again.
“We’re about to shut the drive down,” Clare said through the computer’s wall speaker.
“I guess we find out what’s next now. No more speculating.” Mary stood, and we followed h
er out to the bridge, where Clare sat to the left, Mae still in the pilot’s seat.
Mae got up, relinquishing the seat to Mary. Her face was impassive, impossible to read. She looked worried, and we all were at that moment, hoping there would be a swirling wormhole or something to carry us across the universe.
“Drive down, normal engines on,” Clare said, and the viewscreen showed distant stars slowing from lines to points in space once again.
“Where is it?” I asked, looking around for a sign of the anomaly. I walked over to Clare, who was quickly typing in something on her console’s tablet.
“I’m not picking anything up. Shit. It’s gone.”
We stood there, frustration enveloping us. The mission had failed.
FIFTEEN
“Where’s the exact point they took off from?” I asked, curious more than anything. Before we started to debate the options Mary had suggested in the kitchen, I had to see it. I had to be sure.
Clare hit some keys, and a distant point on the viewscreen lit up. Mary maneuvered over to it, slowing the ship’s speed as they approached.
“Try one of the probes, maybe?” Slate said.
“What probes?” Mary asked.
“They didn’t practice with them, but we created some probes that are essentially nanotech. They’re tiny probes we eject, and they act as sensors for surrounding areas. We don’t have scanning technology like in the movies unless we’re right up on something, but the probes can be sent into atmospheres and will send back weather, gas levels, that kind of stuff,” Clare said.
“Clare, did you invent these?” I asked, and she blushed, answering my question immediately. “Good call, Slate. Send them off.”
We watched the monitor as blue lights indicated where the probes were. Three went flying toward the mark, and readings were being sent back to our ship.
“Wait. There is something there,” Clare said. “The radiation level changes.”
I saw the middle probe disappear from the monitor. “It’s gone!”.
The Survivors: Books 1-3 Page 34