Sleeper Seven

by Mark Howard

  Jumping back into her craft, she requested — and was given, to her immense relief — manual control. Navigating forward, she entered the forest, heading towards the area where the Jeep had disappeared. Maneuvering carefully among the trees, she found the craft small enough to slip between most of them, and smart enough to automatically tilt when she failed at estimating the clearance properly. She could clearly see branches and underbrush striking the craft; inside, however, it was silent but for the slight hum at her back. What she couldn't see was any sign of the Jeep: no trail to follow, no headlights, nothing. After several long minutes of fruitless zig-zagging, she feared she had lost them.

  Raising the craft above the forest canopy, she scanned below, yet found nothing. Looking back up, she noticed a faint glow about a mile distant, and assumed it was the Jeep. As she moved the craft closer to it, she discovered a halo of pulsating light within the forest below, alternating between pure white and white with a reddish tint to it, without any visible source. Descending back into the trees, she found herself engulfed within this light, and upon opening the hatch to listen for any associated sounds, discovered the forest to be utterly silent — with the notable exception of numerous songbirds chirping and flitting about the trees, tricked as they were into thinking it was daylight.

  From below, she followed the light upward until finally discovering the source. It was what she didn't see, though, that defined it, and why she couldn't see it from above. Darker than the pre-dawn sky surrounding it, a tremendous triangular form the size of a football field hovered just above the treetops, seemingly punching a hole in the firmament.

  Maneuvering her craft directly beneath the massive form, she found that although the shape was perfectly equilateral, the corners were not sharp, but beveled, like a billiard rack. Below the rounded corners were large circular impressions, each harboring within it a perfect sphere of roiling, white fire. These three spheres were the sources of the white light, and yet despite the startling brightness, Jess found she was able to look upon them without discomfort.

  After a moment, the domes of white fire suddenly darkened. As her eyes adjusted, Jess saw they were still there, but they now emitted a darker amber glow, not even bright enough to light up the treetops twenty feet below them. The dimming of the lights also revealed a smaller red light in the center of the ship's underbelly, which slowly pulsated on and off at one second intervals. Other than these lights, she could see no markings, protrusions, or appendages of any kind — the ship was exceptionally sleek, and appeared more than a bit sinister. As she watched in awe, the huge ship began to simultaneously rotate and slide away, silently and effortlessly, as though on rails.

  So far, Jess had successfully pushed certain pressing thoughts to the back of her mind, but her strategy had now become untenable: this gigantic, silent...thing...could only be an otherworldly craft. And if her target had boarded it, well then this whole mission was something other than she had imagined it to be. An apprehensiveness towards her own craft also took hold: the similarity to this mother ship, the small size of the seats, the ability of the gentleman to control it...she now felt certain her craft, as well, was not of earthly origin.

  Closing the hatch, she rose above the trees and followed the larger ship from a safe distance. As the red light pulsated, its reflection on the ship's underside revealed subtle patterns etched into the surface, whether Hieroglyphic or geometric she couldn't quite discern. While attempting to memorize these patterns, the ship seemingly blinked out of existence. Hearing and seeing nothing, she noticed the treetops below where the ship had stood were strangely unaffected: not a single branch was swaying. Doubting herself, Jess began to wonder if she ever saw anything at all. Piloting her craft higher above the trees, she once again spied the amber lights of the ship — now a mile and a half distant.

  As it was once more moving fairly slowly, she sped up to catch it, but as she neared it the large ship halted, then initiated a rapid ascent. Banking her craft upwards, she attempted to intercept it, but the three amber lights turned pure white again as it shot vertically skyward in a flash. Following the faint light trails left on her retinas, Jess looked up and spotted the ship several miles up, the three massive lights now appearing as a tiny triangle — indistinguishable from faint stars in the dark blue pre-dawn sky. Defeated, she gave up on any idea of catching up to them before they shot off somewhere else, and aborted her climb.

  Then she remembered — she had other ways of traveling. After descending into the trees, she lay back and dropped out of her body. She set her intention, and the tunnel formed around her as the pulling sensation drew her forward and up. A moment later, she stopped, and the brightness of the tunnel slowly melted away.

  She was aboard the ship.

  ~ 37 ~

  After remembering to dial down her vision as Terry had instructed her, the first thing Jess noticed was how small the inside of the ship was, considering the apparent size from the outside. She stood in a circular room twenty feet across, and ten feet in height. The walls and ceiling were curved, with the texture of brushed aluminum, but a gunmetal grey coloration. Embedded into the perimeter wall encircling the room was the exposed half of a large, two foot diameter glass tube. This circular tube contained a silvery liquid which spun counter-clockwise around her. The flow exhibited a corkscrew pattern internally, manifesting as rapidly forming and deforming swirls along the sides of the glass. Running above and below this tube, two strips of soft white light-emitting material illuminated the space.

  Besides the liquid tube, the other prominent feature was a four-foot diameter cylinder anchored in the center of the space. Halfway up the side of this cylinder a wide lip extended outward, functioning as a workspace that supported four computer workstations arrayed crosswise from each other. Most surprising of all, however, were the four young men with crew cuts that manned these stations, none more than twenty-five years old, and all clad in olive green one-piece flight suits with green suede boots. It was clear to Jess immediately that this behemoth was not of alien origin.

  The four men, facing each other over the central cylinder, were intently focused on their consoles. Each man's shoulder sported an identical circular patch, consisting of a black triangle with a picture of the Earth — not centered on the United States, but the Atlantic ocean oddly enough — superimposed on it. Two gray lightning bolts were striking the planet from space, and the perimeter of the patch had the words Omnis Vestri Substructio embroidered on it.

  The men, quietly uttering commands or responses to each other via headsets, were all snugly strapped into their seats with four-way restraints, which appeared to Jess as life-size versions of infant car seats. Four fold-down jump seats with similar restraints were embedded into the wall behind the men. Above each jump seat, a set of hand-holds led to a hatch on the ceiling. Only one of these jump seats was occupied, by her gentleman, whose freshly bandaged head lolled against the side supports as he dozed with eyes half-shut.

  The space was spartan and clean, but did have certain items of flair, providing it with a measure of personality. Sitting below a large American flag pinned to the perimeter wall, one pilot, his name patch labeled THATCHER, sported a small stuffed purple bunny that hung from a silver chain clasped to his breast pocket. To the right of Thatcher, another man, Finn, had a small picture tucked into the lower right corner of his monitor: a silver disc-shaped UFO, with the words "WE'RE HERE" typed underneath. Across from him, the third man, Franti, had an older red iPod secured to the side of the large central cylinder with a length of duct tape, while the headphone cord ran to a port in his console. Finally, the fourth man, Hardin, had no flair at all at his station; she assumed correctly that he was the Captain of this vessel.

  "Stea-dy ten thousand," the Captain uttered into his headset. "Red One re-questing exit clearance." He spoke the way all pilots are taught to speak in flight school: calm and measured, oozing with self-confidence, and with a slight southern drawl.

  "Exit clear
ance granted," he announced to the crew. "Re-questing approach clearance."

  More typing, more waiting, and finally: "Approach clearance granted. Sync one, two, three."

  "One-two-three synced," Franti replied.

  "Acoustic dampener disabled," Finn added, as the roar of a jet-engine on full thrust arose from outside the ship. "Camo disabled."

  "Plasma envelope one-zero-zero. Disruptor steady at four-five even," Franti added.

  "Drop one-two-three to ten. Maximum disruption," the Captain ordered.

  "Dropping to ten...Disruptor tracking."

  The roar outside faded, but inside, Jess watched as the gray lines of the swirling material suddenly elongated, accompanied by a loud hum emanating from the ring. The ship began to shiver and shake, and she noticed the purple bunny attached to Thatcher's pocket jostling about as if in slow motion. Looking around, she saw the same effect with the gentleman's hair; it would rise and fall with the ship's movement, but in delayed, slow-motion waves.

  "Disruptor at eight-five dot niner. Lifting to one-zero-zero," Franti announced.

  As they accelerated, the ceiling and floors transitioned from opaque to transparent; whether they were windows or high-def displays she couldn't be sure. Jess watched the darkness of the forest below recede until the line separating daytime and nighttime — the terminator — appeared on the landscape below, splitting it in two.

  Rising further, the curvature of the earth became visible below, and Jess looked up to discover twinkling stars in the emptiness above. Except for a slight pull, Jess didn't feel the effects of this meteoric rise, most likely due to her lack of mass in this state, she guessed. The physical occupants didn't appear to be affected by this acceleration either, however; at this rate, they should be flattened into into their seats, yet they were comfortably poking away at their consoles.

  "One-zero-zero. Holding for dock," Franti announced, as they came to a gentle stop. It had been less than a minute since they were no higher than a hot-air balloon, and yet here they were now, at the edge of space. Jess was alternately amazed at the capabilities of this ship, yet dismayed at the billions spent on conventional means of transportation — risking the future of the planet with carbon emissions — when this technology was available, and clearly had been for some time. But that was something to ponder later.

  A few moments after stopping, darkness spread over the upper panels, blotting out the stars. Several long seconds later a clink sounded, and one of the hatches opened with a hiss: the one above the gentleman. Unbuckling himself, he bowed to the men, then climbed up into the hatch.

  "Happy trails, Senator," Finn called out after him, as the Captain shot him a dirty look. After the hatch closed with another hiss and clink, and the twinkling stars above returned, they all seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Thatcher was the first to break the silence.

  "Was he one of..."

  "No...no, he wasn't," the Captain slowly replied, cutting him off. A few moments of silence elapsed, then the Captain spoke again. "Dock complete. Transport complete. De-sync one-two-three."

  "Requesting minimal dampening for re-entry, sir," Franti asked, with the slightest of smiles.

  "Do we have enough cap charge?"

  "Yes sir, full charge banked."

  "It's been a good days work," the Captain replied, looking at his watch. "Granted."

  Thatcher responded to this with a loud clap as the others busied themselves again at their consoles.

  "One-two-three de-synced," Franti announced with newfound enthusiasm.

  "Acoustic dampener maintain disable. Camo enabled day mo-" Finn began, before the Captain interrupted him.

  "Disable camo. Let's give the early risers a show."

  "Disable camo," Finn repeated slowly, "yes sir."

  "Plasma envelope decreasing to one-zero even," Thatcher said.

  "Disruptor to zero on my count," Franti relayed. He locked eyes with the other two pilots as they coordinated their final commands.

  "Three...Two...One...Drop."

  ~ 38 ~

  The loud hum issuing from the tube ceased, as the spinning liquid halted and instantly solidified. As they quickly lost altitude, Jess began to drift upwards, while the pilots lifted in their seats, held back only by their harnesses, as though plummeting through the first drop on a roller-coaster. Finn even held his hands up, grinning ear-to-ear. Buffeted on all sides, the ship began rocking back and forth, accompanied by unsettling metallic creaks and groans from the stresses on the superstructure.

  "It's getting a little squirrelly already, give us ten more on the envelope," the captain requested, betraying a hint of nervousness.

  "Envelope to twenty," Thatcher replied. The buffeting began to abate, though their speed kept increasing.

  Franti, reaching forward, held his finger above the play button on his iPod while looking at Thatcher expectantly. Thatcher then performed something on his console which killed the cabin lights and illuminated red dots of emergency lighting along the floor. Apparently that was the signal, as Franti pressed play and Starships by Nicki Minaj began to fill the cabin.

  They continued to fall, gaining more and more speed, for another half-minute. By the time the song reached its crescendo, the buffeting had returned, along with the creaks and groans, which began to drown out the music. Compensating, Franti increased the volume.

  "On my count!" Franti shouted over Onika's auto-tuned voice. "Three...Two...One...Engines Online!"

  Each pilot coordinated their commands as the thrusters roared to life, propelling them horizontally through the fall. Finn, taking the brunt of the sudden acceleration, was pitched down and back into his seat. Thatcher and Franti slid sideways, straining against their harnesses, while Captain Hardin shot forward, his five-point harness the only thing keeping him from receiving the Heimlich maneuver from the edge of his station.

  A vicious shaking consumed the ship as the whine of the engines crescendoed, and the darkness below gave way to large swaths of green and gold land as they were catapulted into daytime. Though still very high up, Jess watched the earth speed by beneath them, by her reckoning at least twice as fast as the snails pace seen from the window of a commercial jet.

  "OK boys and girls, show's over," the captain announced as the acceleration slowed, "Now let's get some real speed going, not just the feeling of it."

  "Yes sir," Franti replied. "Thatcher, envelope to one hundred, s'il vous plait."

  "Envelope push complete," he replied after a short delay.

  "Acoustic dampener enabled," Finn added.

  "OK, discharging cap into disruptor and setting to max," Franti announced.

  The roar of the engines receded to near silence, only to be replaced by a loud hum from the circular tube as the material inside began to melt, creating streaks on the glass as it spun around within. The land traveled by even faster as the liquid gained speed, and in a few minutes the varying colors below were replaced by the crystal blue of the ocean.

  Though they were traveling much faster than her smaller craft, after twenty minutes there was still nothing but blue below them, and she began to worry about her body. She thought of popping back to check in, but was concerned she wouldn't be able to make it back to the ship, and didn't want to miss this opportunity to see what would happen next.

  The pilots talked casually throughout the journey, but nothing useful was revealed about the gentleman or the circumstances surrounding his capture and return. It seemed these guys were no more than space-faring taxi drivers.

  "Twenty-two minutes out," Thatcher announced. "Camo enabled, day mode."

  Soon they were over land again — North America, she assumed — and continued on across the continent at a slower pace for another hour. Taking the scenic route, they flew low over forests and open plains, but mostly followed the waterways. If they were minimizing encounters with the populace, she figured, then they were fairly successful. Of the few people she did glimpse below — a lone backpacker, a woman on a horse, and
later a group of river kayakers — none showed any sign of having seen them, even though the shadow of the ship speeding along the ground was clearly visible. They zipped by so fast, though, that by the time anyone could turn their head to look, the ship would have been gone.

  "Slow to six hundred and drop the mast," the Captain suddenly ordered.

  "What's up Captain?" Thatcher queried.

  "We're gonna make a call."

  "Slowing to six...and...deployed, sir."

  "Hail Bender Mountain."

  ~ 39 ~

  Thatcher smiled wryly.

  "Bubble check?"

  "Bubble check," the Captain confirmed. Grinning surreptitiously at each other, the pilots busied themselves again at their consoles.

  "Bender Mountain, this is Red One," radioed Finn.

  "Bender Mountain, go ahead Red One," came the reply within seconds.

  "Do you require a bubble check," the Captain interjected.

  "Yes sir, we are in need of a bubble check, please provide ETA," replied the voice on the other end. They could hear whoops and howls in the background before the transmission cut out.

  "We are ten minutes out, approaching from the northwest. Please verify no cabling or other obstructions between the bubble and the barracks," Finn radioed.

  "Standby Red One...confirmed, bubble to barracks is clear."

  "Please verify status of air traffic and...oversight."

  "Optimal conditions here, sir," came the reply.

  "Six minutes. Over and out."

  "Retract the mast and change course for Bender as appropriate, gentlemen," the Captain ordered.

  "Yes, sir," they replied in unison.

  Soon they encountered foothills which led into more mountainous terrain, the ship tracking closely to the rising ground and plateauing out upon reaching the peaks. Jess figured they must be in the Rockies somewhere.

  "Twenty-four miles out and locked, ETA two minutes," Thatcher announced. Their consoles displayed the snow-covered peak of a lone mountain in the distance, adorned with a large geodesic dome, and a small barracks on a nearby ridgeline. It looked to Jess like some sort of military radar installation.