Jennifer was frozen in shock, bent over her friend, TJ, unmoving, floating at her feet.
Then something else floated out of the containment; a large, fist-sized, nicely spherical stone. Jennifer had no idea what it was or why it was in there with Taylor; she didn’t care. She just reached down, slipping her hands under the limp woman’s arms, and yanked to get her mass moving away from that sphere.
The observation cameras were not missing what was going on here, though, and a second team was flying toward the site from down the hall. Six of them, moving like hounds in full gallop wearing both gecko gloves and boots. They came into view around the gently curving, cylindrical corridor of the engineering section, every bounding leap vaulting them through space till they met the wall/floor again. As they came, they shouted, “All clear. All clear this area. See to your mates.” None of them wore EVA or bio-suits; this emergency was unanticipated.
They headed for the containment module, braking just short of it. Jennifer struggled, shifting the mass of her friend’s body back toward the door of the transfer tube that had so recently been the horrible scene of Taylor’s undoing. Surprisingly, the new team on their urgent errand paid no attention to her or Taylor’s inert form, other than to shout at her, “SEAL THAT DOOR.”
With a burst of energy, she managed to get her friend’s body clear, and she slapped the bulkhead-seal activation. As it slid into place, through the narrowing gap she glimpsed something so odd she couldn’t quite believe it.
The six men who had appeared so suddenly, swarmed the area, one of them moving toward the stone as two flanked him on either side of the module’s open door. The three others held back, observing and messing with the control box. One continued to emphatically urge the crewmembers on out of the area.
This all came about in the first second; in the next, the man who had shouted at her reached for the floating stone just as it disappeared. With a curse and hard grimaces on their faces, his two comrades roughly and hastily shoved him into the space that Taylor had just rolled out of, slamming the door shut. That was all that she saw before the bulkhead squeezed closed.
Jennifer was left alone with the lifeless body of her friend.
CHAPTER 75
EVENT: DAY 18, 0715 UT
The Rapscallion neared Earth-local space.
The ship’s AI had been performing the cascade of the micro-jumps that were employed in-system. During the flight acceleration sequence, Captain Boronson had maintained the drive system gravity-point out in front of the ship. Chasing the gravity-well, like a carrot on a stick, had ramped their speed up to 20 km/s, around 72,000 kph. The wormhole effect-bubble enveloped the ship like an amoebic manifestation, folding space in calculated moments and absorbing the potential debris that could not be accounted for. After the final jump, the point center would be held aft of the ship, executing a hard-braking maneuver, bringing the craft back to standard-engine handling speeds.
Boronson’s team in the loading bay was nearly finished with the containment sphere conversion. Sitting in the Helm Chair, he brought up the view ahead. The Earth was still invisible, an indistinguishable speck of reflected light lost against the star-field backdrop. “Magnify.” The view resolved to a preset level, Earth’s crescent becoming barely discernible. A graphical representation of their destination, Toroid Alpha station, helped to pinpoint the near-invisible planet.
“Engaging micro-sequence,” the AI intoned and the magnified view shifted perceptibly. “Maintaining aligned course for intercept with Dock Toroid Alpha, ETA, station time, 1800.” At this distance the calculated course would be for a dead-on intercept. Boronson had verified the sequence and was on top of things; following a modified protocol, he would alter his heading before final approach.
“Engaging micro-sequence.” The view shifted yet again; the sharp fingers of the Earth’s crescent tips could be made out in the magnified view. Those thin fingers more than half-encircled the speckled luminescence of the home planet’s night-side. Earth’s mostly-dark disc blocked the saturated, starlight radiance of the Milky Way beyond it. “Holding course; next sequence in two minutes.” The graphic overlay of DTA moved through the planet shadow as it rotated. Various readouts fluctuated on the display label as the station moved around toward its dawn point.
Boronson was experiencing a feeling of pleasure. He and his team had successfully achieved the goal of this mission and were nearing home. Two more jumps and they’d be in local space. At that point, 180,000 km out from the station, twice as close to the station than usual, he could perform the emergency trajectory offset. There, also, he would modulate the gravity point, starting the long and severe deceleration. Of course, he and the crew would be unaffected by the heavy Gs while the interstellar drive was engaged. In about three hours, at 10,000 km out, they would switch to standard drive and do their course correction to the station. The final slow-down and docking would take another eight hours.
Because of his experimental upbringing in the military cradle and its guinea-pig reality, genetic manipulation had been employed upon him and his ilk. Laws made it illegal to do this type of manipulation upon Earthborns. The military danced around the issue by never allowing the secret, special “recruits” to set foot on terra firma after their accident and regrowth. They knew little of their birth world.
He and the others had been genomically set with a programmed reaction to performing the requested tasks and orders: the completion of these provoked an involuntary response—a boosted endorphin release. He and his crew worked toward these feelings; it was likely that the rest were having a similar experience, or were on that verge.
The AI reported its completion of the last sequence; they were halfway between Earth and Luna, half the distance of the standard protocol offset point, but DTA would not fire on them, their appearance here was expected under emergency procedure.
Boronson was about to make the necessary adjustments and manipulate the drive’s gravity point-source, when Major Rattana Mason’s voice was in his ear, full of urgency. “Captain. We’ve got an intruder in the engine room. Ahhh, jeezus…”
“Major. Report.” Her use of the idiomatic epithet affected him as much as the clear distress in the communication.
Now the soldier began to shout her response, the dampers shutting down the over-volume in his ear. “AHH… THE VOICES SIR… AHHHH… SIR, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
He heard no other voices in the transmission. His earlier meeting with her, at the mission’s outset, came immediately to his mind. He had suspected she was holding something back but he had trusted her ability to manage whatever it was that she chose not to say.
He replied in normal conversational tone and volume. “Major, take hold.” He brought her location up on the monitor and saw she had her hands over her ears. Still no additional audio came through any feed. “RAT? What voices are you talking about? What intruder?” No physio showed on the monitors, other than her own.
Her only reply was that of labored breath through gritted teeth. He addressed one of the two team members who were working on the conversion, “Jet, you’re closest. Go to Rat. Find out what’s wrong with her. Keep sharp.” Only the members of his special team would have heard the exchange.
“Right away, Captain.” The continued hissing of Rattana’s breath came across the implant frequency as Jet extracted himself from the project. He would get to her quickly.
Voices. She’d said she was having trouble with the fuzzing. Boronson remembered the voices from his early childhood. He’d completely dismissed them, his fuzzing ability so ingrained that it was entirely subconscious at this point. Had been for most of his life.
He still had Rattana on the display and, as he scrutinized her condition, he cocked his head at something that seemed odd. The major’s image shimmered just a little. He leaned forward, quizzing the ship’s AI, “Is there a problem with the optics for this cam?”
“Al
l vid units and feeds are operating to specification.”
“Hmm, well, what caused that shimmer?”
“Please specify?”
He ignored the AI and again attempted communication with his compromised teammate. “Major Mason. Respond; that’s an order.” Nothing. She remained hunched, hands over ears; her implants should have allowed her to hear him, regardless.
The captain changed his course of action at that moment, like the flip of a switch. He was about to seal the woman off from the rest of the crew when Jet’s voice came into his ear. “I see her, sssi… Ahhh, what the… What? What? I don’t… Wait, no… Just stop…”
Boronson had a sinking feeling, literally so, as the endorphin release damped down to zero. Rat shouted loudly to Jet when she noticed him, as if to be heard above some other noise, telling him to get away. The captain’s now-compromised engineer did not respond. Boronson’s endorphin rush crashed entirely. “Jet. What’s going on?”
A second display window showed his engineer’s position. Sunk to his knees, his man ignored him and continued to respond to someone that was not there, hands to head, breaking off each of his sentences, unfinished.
Completely out of character, the captain swore. “Shit.” He moved through a short command routine. On a plan-view of the engineering deck, he closed bulkhead seals with a couple of finger flicks.
He spoke to his other engineer, who was still working on the sphere. “Ing, anything unusual there?”
Ing had been listening, yet remained cool. “No sir, status unchanged here.”
“I don’t know what’s gone wrong with those two, but I’ve sealed that section until we get home. Do you need an extra pair of hands?”
“That would be helpful, sir; Tag would be good.”
“Well, he’ll be there shortly, in fact, I’m assigning several additional personnel to your team, use them as efficiently as possible. Get that trap minimally functional, I think we’re going to need it, ASAP.” He added the final piece of Swan’s proclamation without emotion. “I’m sending Sgt. Crellan to stand by. You know what to do when the trap is functional.” The unwitting sergeant was one of the alone ones; she had been assigned at the last minute to fill Swan’s need for the baiting of the trap.
Boronson reassigned his crew, not understanding what had happened, but believing that he had things under control. So far, it bore no resemblance to the accounts his superior had given him. His checks found no sign of an intruder.
“Center, can you provide any information on the personnel disorder that you’ve just witnessed?” No response. A rush of adrenaline cleared the dregs of endorphin from his system, replacing the crash with a new type of high. He checked the console to find that there had been no signal handshake for the same number of minutes that the strange events had been going on.
Boronson immediately checked the Interstellar drive: offline. He revised his view regarding an intruder.
Extremely bad timing for this. “Ing. Get that trap functional. Now. Tag, keep your eyes open for an unusual shimmer in the air. It may be your only warning. Be prepared to initiate capture protocol.”
“Just minutes from operative status, sir,” Ing replied.
Boronson heard Ing address Crellan, ostensibly calling her over to help with his task.
The ship still traveled at its ramped up speed of 20 km/s. Without that drive, he had limited defense against debris, and only the standard engines to employ for deceleration. They were not going to be anywhere near enough. At this speed they would reach the station in approximately two-and-a-half hours, still traveling at virtually the same speed.
There was no way that they could return home as planned. He had the AI run the calculation; he would make a different type of course alteration, hurtling past the Earth, heading for an intercept with Venus. A hot swing with her would lose some of his speed. They were going to be out here for many months. It did not bother him.
He would make the course-offset correction farther in toward Earth, for the numbers to work out. He estimated it to be about one hour before he would make that adjustment.
Center was going to be unhappy if there was a silent ship aimed right at them. Shortly after that hour, Center would have to take actions.
He spoke to the ship’s AI. “Calculate minimum course correction to negate defensive response from the Targeting Lasers and Toroid Alpha.” He checked the time: 0730. “Prep standard engines for full burn, realign attitude now. Signal me at 0830 for burn activation on my mark.”
Were the Rapscallion to fail in taking this action, the E/SBMMP would effectively vaporize the ship before it could threaten the Earth or the orbiting systems and stations. Boronson was calm though, channeling the adrenaline into a mental clarity; it was the nature sequenced into his genes.
He sent a standard radio message to the admiral, as to his predicament and his intentions. In the same moment, he received a standard-wave transmission sent from Center Comm twelve minutes earlier. He ignored it. When the delayed response came back to his message, twenty-two minutes later, it was Center again, not Swan. They reported that the man could not be raised but the message had been received, they would not be fired upon as long as the correction was made, acknowledgement required.
Boronson did not hear. It was impossible for him to respond, in any case.
* * *
Rattana Mason was in a panic. Just as she’d seen the odd movement, the voices slammed into her head. They were screaming at her to get away. She couldn’t hear her CO in her ear anymore. All sounds were overtopped by the voices. Yet this was not malicious, she recognized them. They had her well-being at heart.
It was just too loud. It wasn’t simply a shouting in her ear; she was drowning in a sea of invisible people, all screaming; a thousand lips to her ear. Individual words were nearly impossible to separate out.
After a few moments, futilely attempting to sort the grating message in head, her teammate, Jet, came into the engine room. She had no sooner yelled his name, to be heard over the cacophony, when the man had brought his own hands to his ears and fallen to his knees. A blur seemed to sit in the air between them for a moment, before it vanished. As he slowly sank further to the deck, she gave up on him as a source of help; he suffered her fate, but the impact seemed to be far more devastating for the man.
She moved toward the door. It was surreal, like pushing through a crowd. The door that Rat had come through was now closed. She pressed on the activation plate; nothing happened.
Bits of sentences sorted from the crashing roar, “…locked in,” the voices offered an impotent explanation. “Get… Helm,” the parsed message was unhelpful; the captain had the Helm, why did she need to go there? ”All… good… dead.” Though darkly portentous, it made no sense.
* * *
It had moved to free its counterpart from the strange, destructible gravity well. In the instant of freedom, that one had snapped back to the familiar realms of origin.
Now, here, there was a strangeness to the food source that presented itself for consumption; the containers of sweet energy appeared to be empty, nor could they be used as the necessary energy conduit. This new paradox was added to the record of experience. Called to feed, it still sensed a number of energy-food sources, and so moved through the space, checking each. The majority were empty, just as the first ones, but eventually a small amount of food was revealed, as well as a container that could function as the conduit to obtain this sweet sustenance. When all sources had been investigated or consumed, it then turned its quantum senses to another trapped equal; it lay along the dimension traveled.
With a twist through its familiar reality it was much nearer to it.
* * *
“CAPTAIN,” Rattana shouted into the ship’s comm, assuming her own had failed. She could not say if he responded. She’d made some headway with the messages being communicated by the voices
, piecing together an understanding. The over-volume still precluded any external sounds, including the screams she imagined must be emanating from Jet, clearly wracked with pain. He began knocking his forehead against the floor as he hunched on his knees.
She hoped, as she shouted her message to Boronson. “SIR. WE ARE BEING ATTACKED BY THE ALIEN DRIVE FORCE. STEER WELL CLEAR OF THE STATION AND EARTH. TRY TO PREVENT CONTAMINATION.” She kneeled and took a fistful of Jet’s short red hair, keeping him from further bloody damage.
Her message resonated through the ship. Several people heard it, though none from her team.
Only the alone ones. They still had their hearing intact—two were dying fetuses and the other, Sergeant Crellan, was insane.
The rest of her team, Boronson included, were scattered about the ship, hunched, hands to their ears, screaming.
Boronson’s overriding confidence had allowed him to fail.
He had imprisoned the only team member who could act to save the mission, and he’d dismissed the need to set the AI to take the calculated diversion on its own. It would eventually do so to save the ship. Center would not wait that long.
* * *
The Comm techs on DTA were extremely distressed not to receive confirmation of course alteration for the Rapscallion, as filed. The clock had ticked away the minutes.
Toroid Alpha went on high alert.
CHAPTER 76
EVENT: DAY 18, 1015 UT
A rhythmic pounding came from within the containment sphere.
“Major,” one of the sentinels spoke into his comm, “you’d better come check this out.”
Parallel Extinction (Extinction Encounters Book 1) Page 39