“Wormholes,” Blossom explained, anticipating our question. “Shortcuts through the galaxy.”
“How long to Earth?” Jolie asked.
“Depends on traffic,” Blossom said. “We haven’t scheduled a trip through the Central Wormhole Transportation Authority, so we’ll have to take our place in the access lane.”
The image on the screen magnified, showing three wormholes. Each were faint clouds of gas pinwheeling into voids that looked like holes punched in the fabric of space. A grid appeared on the screen and dotted flashing lights funneled into and out of the wormholes. An arrow pointed to a light that joined one line arcing toward the wormhole at our upper left. Symbols lit up above the light, and I assumed one of them was our ship joining the queue.
“Seems pretty orderly considering the war against the Nancharm,” Jolie noted.
“Commerce has to keep churning,” Blossom replied. “Cold fusion powers our ships but it’s money that makes everything run.”
Blossom’s eyes followed the symbols scrolling across the screen, left to right. “According to the traffic report, they’ve rerouted the trans-galactic turnpike because of construction in the 47 U Majoris Bypass.”
The screen switched to a forward view of saucers approaching a wormhole, our lane of traffic spiraling toward the black center. I didn’t know much about wormholes or quantum physics. The best I could remember was a show on the Discovery Channel talking about stuff getting zapped to another dimension as sub-sub-atomic particles. My gut lurched in dread. To hold myself steady, my hand grasped the edge of a wall panel and my toes clutched the insides of my shoes.
“We’ll have to detour through the Denebola Sector.” Blossom kept reading. “That will delay our arrival at 43 Zeta Twelve.”
“What’s that?” I asked, trying to sound curious instead of anxious as hell.
“You know it as Earth.”
The ships in line zipped into the wormhole.
“How much of a delay?”
“Considerable. Maybe as long as two minutes.”
The saucer in front of us elongated into the wormhole and disappeared. It was our turn.
Next stop … home.
And Phaedra.
***
Chapter Thirty-seven
The view screen remained fixed on the center of the wormhole, a whirlpool of gray mist that receded into a distant black dot. Symbols flashed staccato-like all over the screen. The two Wah-zhim pilots made final adjustments on their controls, then paused, their bejeweled fingers hovering above the buttons. Blossom sat upright, appearing just a bit tense.
Carmen and Jolie swung their gazes at me, and I tried to act all ghetto-cool behind a taut smile.
Our saucer sped to the wormhole. Points of light streaked past us, like fireflies sucked into a vacuum cleaner. The wormhole filled the view screen and though the saucer made no change in attitude, I felt a whoa! top-of-the-roller-coaster moment. My throat clamped tight, my guts somersaulted, all followed by a whoosh! And we dropped.
Or so it felt.
The view screen showed us zipping through a tunnel of blurry lights. The pilots toggled buttons and nudged the control levers. The symbols on the screen slowed their flickering. A collective whew washed through the bridge. Blossom drummed her fingers on the dais console. Jolie crossed her arms and stared at the screen. Carmen leaned against the bulkhead beside the dais.
The tunnel forked ahead. One of the pilots tripped a short lever and a yellow arrow on the left side of the screen blinked. We followed the left fork and the pilot flicked off the signal. But the ship held rock-steady. The wormhole rushing by made the whole experience seem fake, like we were watching an IMAX movie.
“How fast are we going?” Jolie asked.
“Just a tad over the posted limit,” Blossom answered.
“The galaxy is huge,” I noted. “Getting to Earth will take time even at this speed.”
“We’re in the HOV lane,” she replied.
I thought about the little of my science classes that I remembered. Time should slow inside the ship as we approached the speed of light, though it would continue at its normal rate in the world outside, which should play hell on everyone’s calendars. But that didn’t concern the Wah-zhim. Plus we were hauling ass way past the speed of light. An impossibility according to Einstein. Maybe as smart as Albert was, he hadn’t gotten past remedial extraterrestrial physics.
I watched the Wah-zhim at work and wondered what it would be like to command this saucer. Put that on my business card. Felix Gomez. Detective vampire. Starship captain.
We blasted through another wormhole interchange. After a while, accelerating to warp factor whatever lost its novelty and the sensation was like standing in the crosstown bus waiting for the next stop.
A new set of symbols lit on the screen. The pilots became more alert and adjusted their controls. Up ahead, the sides of the tunnel unraveled and Presto! We were cruising past a planet the color of red dirt.
Blossom said, “Mars.”
Back in the hood, baby.
An orange aura blossomed around my hands and arms. I glanced at my torso, legs and feet. The aura shimmered around me bright as a flame. I looked at Carmen and Jolie, and similar auras sheathed their bodies, head to toe.
They gawked at me, eyes shining red as burning rubies. Our supernatural powers were back. My kundalini noir spiked with joy. I had no clue why we had our powers here and not on D-Galtha. But no matter. We pumped our fists and shouted, “Yes!”
Blossom reacted to our outburst with a bemused smirk, though she had no idea what had just happened to us vampires. A yellow aura only we vampires could see shined around her. The color was typical for an alien, and it sparked with puzzlement.
Jolie clasped her hands like she was holding a pistol and aimed it at me. “Once we corner Phaedra, I got dibs on the last double-tap.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said. “Whoever gets the first chance at the killing blow, go for it.”
“How far to Earth?” Jolie asked. It was a simple question but one loaded with anticipation and vengeance.
“Thirty-million miles, give or take,” Blossom answered. “We’ve had to slow to sub-light speed so it should take about five minutes.”
The view screen shifted toward a very bright star. Our sun. The white ball of light looked so friendly, and to be honest, I missed its gaseous smiling face.
The screen shifted again and aligned on a planet surrounded with a faint glow. The screen reset and the planet got bigger in stuttering increments until it appeared as a blue marble bathed in clouds.
Our beautiful Earth. No place like home.
This close to our turf, my thoughts turned to Coyote. I hoped he was okay. What loomed ahead, though, was the upcoming battle with Phaedra. As long as we could avoid her psychic mind grip and dodge whatever tricks she pulled out of her wicked little ass, we should be able to beat her. Somehow.
“Are you going to beam us down?” I asked.
“Say what?” Blossom asked.
I explained what I meant. Blossom tried to keep a straight face, then cracked up. She said something to her pilots and they guffawed out loud.
Blossom wiped her eyes. “No, I’m not going to”—she made air quotes—“‘beam you down.’ We’re going to land.”
“What about the quarantine?” I asked. “You’re not supposed to land on Earth.”
Blossom tossed a dismissive wave. “The Galactic Union is in disarray. At the moment they have bigger gogzams to fry than watching what goes on in this corner of the Milky Way.” She pressed buttons on her console and the hologram reappeared in front of the dais.
The hologram projected snapshots of tropical landscapes. I guessed the Amazon, Africa, Southern India. The snapshots disappeared into a fuzz of light and reformed into a hemisphere of the earth’s surface.
Blossom leaned from her couch to study the view. “Where do you live?”
Carmen spun the hologram like a gl
obe. “Take us here.” She centered the 3D image on New Mexico and wagged her fingers to magnify the scene. Necklaces of tiny lights snaked over the darkened landscape, headlamps from lines of cars cruising the night highways.
Blossom touched a button. A filter of bright daylight bathed the landscape. She frowned. “A desert? You live in a desert when you could live in a jungle paradise?” She shook her head in bemusement. The hologram map resumed its nighttime shade and zoomed in until we could see individual cars moving on the roads. They crawled along like roly-polies, cones of light beaming from their heads.
Carmen turned the map until we were above the basin. The spire of Fajada Butte was on the left, the mesa on the right. The trough of Chaco Canyon lay in between. I studied the features to get my bearings and searched the edge of the mesa until I spotted a mobile home the size of a matchbox. Coyote’s casa.
Yellow light flicked through the tiny windows. I leaned close to the hologram for a Peeping Tom glimpse of my ancient undead friend.
The ship rocked beneath us.
“Earth’s atmosphere,” Blossom explained.
“Won’t the saucer glow from the heat?” I asked.
She chuckled. “If you’re worried that we’ll be spotted, forget it. We’ve got our cloaking shield activated. Where do you want to land?”
I spun the hologram and pointed to a spot on the mesa behind Coyote’s mobile home. “How far are we now?”
Blossom pressed a switch. The forward screen showed a map of New Mexico. We were north of Gallup headed east. “Hundred miles.”
My kundalini noir hummed with pleasure. A last-ditch battle with Phaedra notwithstanding, I was eager to plant my feet on terra firma.
A window at the right side of the main screen showed a cartoon depiction of the saucer in overhead view. Rays pulsed over the ship. “Radar,” Blossom noted.
The radar beams converged on us. She jabbed at buttons. “Hmm.”
I didn’t like the sound of that “What’s going on?”
“For such a primitive species,” she answered, “you humans sure catch on quick. Now I understand the need for the quarantine. Your electromagnetic locator technology is now sophisticated enough to detect us up to Level Four mode.” Blossom stroked her chin.
“What does that mean?”
Blossom trumpeted a command. The chief pilot flicked a switch.
“It means we’re going to Level Five jamming. Duh?”
A fan of pink sparkles swept over the picture of our saucer.
“What’s that?” Blossom asked, her unease obvious.
Carmen touched her temples. “Psychic energy sweep.”
“Phaedra?” Blossom asked, her anxiety pumping up.
“No,” Carmen replied worriedly. “It’s electronic in origin.”
The two pilots bleated excitedly. The front screen showed the fan collapsing into a line of sparks headed right at us.
“They’ve locked onto us,” Blossom shouted.
“How can that be?” It was my turn to sound as nervous as our captain.
Blossom zoomed in and pinpointed the energy emitter, a tower mounted on a large truck parked at the base of Fajada Butte. A fleet of Humvees surrounded the truck.
“Zoom in,” I ordered.
The hologram magnified until I recognized the markings on the truck. Unfortunately it was the one wild card I’d forgotten in this escapade.
Goons working for the federal government. Cress Tech International.
Our welcoming committee.
***
Chapter Thirty-eight
Blossom shouted commands to her pilots. They frantically manipulated controls to react to the surge of radar and psychic energy signals. They managed to break the radar lock, but the psychic energy ray remained pinned to us.
One of the pilots turned toward Blossom and yelled. All of the Wah-zhims’ auras sparked with panic. Blossom scrambled from the dais, waddled across the bridge, and stared at the view screen and the forward console. Red and yellow lights flashed across the instruments.
Alarms screamed. Blossom and her pilots shouted back-and-forth. The pilots punched buttons and frantically adjusted their controls. The deck leveled. The alarms died out, and most of the warning lights dimmed.
“Any ideas where to set down?” Blossom asked. The screen refreshed with a map of New Mexico and it showed us heading to Fajada Butte. “I’ve shifted maximum power to our cloaking device. That should keep the radar from tracking us.”
Carmen replied, “But they’ll lock on again when they sync the radar with the psychic energy ray.”
“We’ll be low to the ground. Below the radar as it were.”
Carmen shook her head. “Wouldn’t do any good. Psychic energy isn’t affected by ground clutter.”
I didn’t have to think much about what this meant. “They’ll be able to pinpoint our landing spot.”
On the front screen, the green radar beams swept blindly for us, but the trail of pink sparkles remained fixed to our ship like a tether. The radar aligned on the sparkles, then drifted away on account of the Wah-zhim jamming. But the psychic energy ray could track us to touchdown, after which the Cress Tech guards would be on us like bloodhounds.
The pink sparkles stopped.
“The hell …” Jolie said.
“Maybe they had a malfunction,” Carmen explained. “Or someone is interfering.”
“Who?” Blossom asked.
“Does it matter?” I rushed to the front screen and pointed at the map, to a spot close to Coyote’s home. “Put us here. On this mesa.”
“Better not,” Blossom replied. “Too high on the terrain.” She selected a point west of Farmington and gave orders.
The saucer wheeled to the left in a turn so steep that we almost tumbled over one another. The screen switched to a panoramic night view of the topography zooming beneath us. Yellow lines outlined terrain features, and orange symbols danced over the screen. The saucer leveled off in a flat glide over the open, uneven ground.
“Phaedra is not your only worry,” I said. “Cress Tech and the government are obviously interested in the potential of psychic energy. Your ship is an unexpected dividend. They’re going to pull out all the stops to find you.”
Blossom waddled back to the dais and climbed to her couch. “Shit. The bad news just keeps coming, doesn’t it?” She touched buttons on her console. A panel in the floor opened. Jolie and I had to step aside when a totem pole-like cylinder pushed up. It extended to a height just above my head. Tiny lights glowed beneath its darkly-tinted surface and gave the device was a sinister don’t fuck with me appearance.
“If it looks like the ship or any of us are going to get captured,” Blossom gestured to the device, “I have to self-destruct.”
***
Chapter Thirty-nine
The self-destruct device loomed in the center of the bridge, its lights blinking in homicidal-suicidal fury.
“If that thing goes boom,” I pointed to the device, “how big a blast are we talking about?”
“Ever hear of the Tunguska event?” Blossom replied.
Jolie and Carmen smirked at her.
“Of course,” I answered. “Hang out long enough with vampires and you become a walking encyclopedia about the weird and bizarre. The Tunguska event was an explosion that flattened a Siberian forest in 1908 and—”
Carmen interrupted. “Supposedly it was a huge exploding meteor.”
“Right …” Blossom rejoined in a sarcastic drawl. “Like the way this ship is not here.”
“One urban legend says it was a malfunctioning flying saucer,” Carmen added.
“Oh, it malfunctioned all right,” Blossom explained. “When that ship’s gravity redirector failed, it tripped their self-destruct device. And ka-blooie. Forty kilotons worth. What happened to them is taught in interstellar flight safety 101.”
“Who was on the ship?” I asked.
Blossom shrugged. “Someone who wasn’t supposed to be here.”
>
By now our saucer was skimming low over the desert, rocking like a subway car during rush hour. Jolie, Carmen, and I jostled against one another with every jarring bump. We watched the vista scroll past on the forward view screen, mesas on our right, mountains on our left.
On Blossom’s command, the pilots slowed the ship. We braced ourselves for a tight turn. The saucer slipped to the right and eased over a hummock separating two gullies. A herd of deer looked up, twitched their ears, and bounded out of sight.
“I thought we were invisible,” Jolie noted.
“We are,” Blossom replied, “but animals of all species can be remarkably aware.”
She directed the pilots to land in an arroyo beside a large mesa. The saucer settled into a hover. I heard servos whine and the clunk of what had to be landing struts locking into place. We descended into a cushioned stop.
Blossom hacked into a nearby cellular tower, got on the Internet, and within seconds had found a US government topographic map of the area. She overlaid that map on the one already posted on her forward screen. We were tucked against Piñon Mesa, eight miles northwest of Farmington and about two and half miles west of state highway 170.
Blossom slid from her couch and stepped from the dais to the cockpit door. It opened and the green lights on the floor showed us the way out. Carmen, Jolie, and I got ready to file out. Our auras brightened in anticipation of at last setting foot on planet Earth.
Blossom braced an arm across the doorway to block our exit. Her wrist bangles clacked together. “So this is it, Carmen?”
To get this exchange in perspective, Blossom weighed maybe a ton. When on her hind legs, she stood over eight feet tall. She had a trunk, ears the size of hubcaps, and legs and arms as big around as telephone poles. She wore a voluminous pleated skirt that presumably hid equally voluminous pudenda. Yet at the moment her voice quaked with heartbreak. I should’ve been drawn into the moment, but the juxtaposition between Wah-zhim and human as lovers was too damn strange even considering that I had boinked Moots.
“I guess so.” Carmen sounded wistful.
Blossom wiped a tear.
Arms open, Carmen stepped forward. Blossom crouched and they hugged. Blossom stroked Carmen’s head with delicate pats of her immense hands. Their auras fused like big swirls of glowing jelly.
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