by M. D. Cooper
“Uh, thanks,” Misha said, reddening further. “I guess I’m not as discrete as I thought.”
Jessica coughed, and even Sabrina made a snorting sound over the Link.
“Sheesh,” Misha muttered.
“Well, tell us all about him,” Cheeky said, folding her hands and resting her chin on them.
“Cheeky, seriously,” Cargo said. “Give the poor guy a break.”
“It’s OK,” Misha said. “I’ve always traded in intel. Sometimes I have to go to great lengths to get it. This was one of those times.”
“Great lengths?” Trevor asked with a laugh.
“Seriously, people,” Cargo admonished.
Iris added.
“I’m with them,” Jessica said.
There was a moment of silence, and Terry couldn’t help but notice that it was Finaeus and the members of the crew from the Intrepid who wanted to take the risk. The original members of Sabrina’s crew seemed less inclined.
“Oh, what the hell,” Nance said. “I’m game. How often do you get to see a dyson sphere around a neutron star?”
“Um, never,” Finaeus said.
“It would seem that I’m outvoted,” Cargo said. “Good thing this isn’t a democracy.”
“What if we send them a message, first?” Finaeus asked. “We send a probe ahead into the DL and pop it out at Misha’s secret spot. We make an offer, get the response and decide if we want to chance it.”
Cargo stroked his chin. “Has merit.”
“Shiiiit,” Terry whispered. “You’re seriously considering this?”
“Well,” Cargo began. “I’m not agreeing to go in, but sending a probe with a message isn’t too risky. We can see what they say, and assess from there. Would only take two weeks to get to a point where we could send the message. Given that it’s three years around Stillwater, the time expenditure is in the noise.”
Terry looked from person to person as the crew all nodded to one another.
“What are you people on?” she asked.
“Oh c’mon, Terry,” Jessica said with a wink. “You told me that you wanted adventure, to see what lay beyond Serenity. Don’t tell me you want to go back before our first stop.”
“What if it’s your last stop?” Terry asked, her voice cracking as she fought back growing panic.
Jessica’s eyes widened and a look of compassion came over her face. “Hey, why don’t you guys keep on without us? Terry and I are going to go for a little walk.”
* * * * *
Jessica took Terry’s hand once they got into the corridor outside the galley, and led her past the doors to the crew cabins toward the ladder that led to the bridge deck.
“C’mon, Terry, I want to show you something.”
“What?” Terry asked
“You’ll see,” Jessica said. “Nothing dangerous, it’s just a view.”
Jessica climbed the ladder and Terry followed silently. She expected Jessica to lead her to the bridge, but instead they took the short passageway aft to a closed door. Jessica slid the door open, revealing an upscale lounge with a magnificent panoramic view.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jessica asked.
Terry nodded silently.
The view outside the window was dominated by the planet Serenity Primus, and its five moons. The Ordus. Her home.
“Until a few weeks ago, this was your whole world,” Jessica said. “Well, not even all of this. If I remember correctly, you had only left Gallas a handful of times. Your home was just one of those dots in the dark.”
Terry pointed at Gallas. “That one, there. Everyone I know is there. On that point of light.”
“Not everyone,” Jessica smiled warmly.
“You know what I mean,” Terry said.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean too,” Jessica replied. “There’re a million worlds and moons like the one you grew up on. They’re filled with wonders, and good people, and things that you can only imagine. And they’re waiting for us to find them. It’s the adventure of a lifetime. Of a hundred lifetimes.”
“You don’t know what it’s like…” Terry said. “It’s too big, there’s too much.”
“I know a bit about that,” Jessica said, and Terry raised an eyebrow, giving the purple-skinned woman an appraising look.
“Oh really?”
Jessica laughed. “OK, not exactly like you, but I didn’t come on this adventure voluntarily. I had only ever flown around in the Sol System on a few short hops before I came out of stasis on the Intrepid.”
“Really? You didn’t tell me that part,” Terry said, wondering what else there was that Jessica hadn’t shared.
“I’m an old woman,” Jessica laughed, seemingly reading Terry’s mind. “I have hundreds of stories I haven’t told you. We could sit up here for a week and I’d still have ones I hadn’t shared. Stars, I’ve been with the crew for ten years now, and I don’t think I’ve told them half the shit Trist and I got up to at Victoria.”
Terry wasn’t certain if the AI was joking or not, but decided to take the statement at face value.
“The point I’m trying to make, Terry, is that I was scared at first. I got wrenched out of my life, never saw my family again—stars, I never got to say goodbye to any of them. I got thrust into this great adventure, gallivanting across space and time…and I love it. I always used to talk with Tanis about settling down, but I sometimes wonder if I could ever do that. I seem to have a wanderlust in me.”
“But it’s been so dangerous,” Terry said. “You’ve careened from one crisis to the next.”
Jessica shrugged. “Yeah, it probably looks like that, but there have been a lot of times when the adventure was seeing amazing sights on new worlds, or witnessing the liberation of a people, or seeing life-giving medicine save a world. Have the dangerous times scared the crap out of me? Space’s deep black holes they have. I’m still worried that I’ll never reach New Canaan.”
“Then why take the risk?” Terry asked. “Take the sure, safe way.”
“Because the safe way is not always the best way,” Jessica replied. “Many times I’ve looked back and evaluated my path. If I had always chosen the safe path, I know I would have died long ago, and would never have seen so much, never have met so many amazing people—yourself among them.”
Terry flushed. She was glad she’d met Jessica. The woman had shown Terry that she shouldn’t be trapped in her life, that she should break free and do what made her happy. So why was she fighting it so much?
“There it is,” Jessica said, gesturing at the slowly shrinking orb of Serenity. “It’s not too late. We can circle back and take you home. I’m certain I can talk to Justina and get you your position back—she was none too happy to lose you in the first place.”
Terry stared out the window, focusing on the small dot that was Gallas. Her home, her life. How could she go back to fixing shuttles, to managing a parking lot of ships? She would spend the rest of her life wondering what she’d missed out on. It would eat her ‘til she was old and bitter.
“No. You’re right, Jessica. The risk is worth it. I can’t turn back now. Let’s go see Star City.”
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
STELLAR DATE: 11.15.8938 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, near the Star City System
REGION: Interstellar Space, Orion Freedom Alliance, Perseus Arm
Sending a message through the reactionless void that was the dark layer was no simple task. To start, getting into position to even send the message took more maneuvering than Jessica had expected.
Jumping directly from an inhabited system like Serenity to Star City would be a red flag to anyone watching their outsystem vector. Consequently, Cheeky jumped Sab
rina toward another neighboring star system. At the midpoint between the systems, Sabrina dumped out of the dark layer and began a long, slow, burn to decelerate and change course.
Sabrina’s engines could effect the maneuver in less than a day, but if there were any Orion Guard patrols keeping an eye on interstellar space around Star City, they would spot a hard burn.
And so, the process of small, intermittent burns began, bringing the ship about and put it on a course for Star City.
Rather than wait the days required for the maneuver, the crew decided that using the SS Sexy to break faster and deliver the probe was preferred.
The small ship would be far less noticeable as it burned hard to change course, and would be able to enter the dark layer, ready to drop the probe in hours, not days.
“We’re on course, at a hair under ten percent light speed,” Jessica announced from her seat in the Sexy’s cockpit.
“Looks good here too,” Trevor said. “Ready for transition.”
“Copy, ready for transition,” Jessica replied. “T-minus five, four, three, two, dumping to the DL.”
In an instant the stars winked out, replaced by the inky blackness of the dark layer. Outside the Sexy’s cockpit, they could see the nose of the ship, illuminated by the running lights, and then there was nothing. It was as though the universe stopped at the edge of the small spacecraft, and beyond was the absence of everything.
Maybe that’s what the dark layer was. The absence of everything.
Well, except for dark matter—which you’ll find when it smashes into you—as well as the Things that feed on it, Jessica thought.
She shook her head, clearing the melancholy thoughts.
“Let ‘er rip,” Jessica replied.
“Yeah, that.” Jessica smirked.
A moment later an indicator flashed on the console, and then the probe drifted ahead of the ship, pushing back the inky blackness, at least a little bit.
“And there it is,” Trevor said. “Our message in a bottle.”
Iris said.
“So that puts its arrival at Star City at just under ten hours,” Jessica said, cross-checking Iris’s calculations.
“Assuming the folks there send it back at the same speed, we’re looking at a minimum of twenty hours.”
“Sounds good,” Jessica said.
Once the beacon was out, and had good tone, they dropped from the dark layer into the brilliant night of interstellar space.
“Always feels good to be out of the DL,” Trevor said. “Somehow it’s different on a ship this small. Feels like its pressing around us.”
“Maybe it is,” Jessica replied.
“We’ve eighteen hours till Cheeky gets Sabs close enough for us to reconnect. Want to boost over to match up with them, or just wait?” Trevor asked.
Jessica tuned and looked Trevor over. “Are you serious? Eighteen hours? Just the two of us?”
“Yeah?” Trevor asked. “You have something in mind?”
“Damn skippy, I do. A rematch for our last game of Snark! You’re going down, mister.”
Trevor laughed and leaned over, kissing Jessica on the cheek. “That’s what I love about you J-Doll, you’re unpredictable. You set up the game, I’ll get some snacks.”
“I thought we agreed not to call me J-Doll,” Jessica said with a raised brow.
“Yeah, I remember you said something like that, yeah,” Trevor said as he ambled out of the cockpit. “I don’t recall ever agreeing to it.”
Jessica stuck her tongue out at Trevor’s retreating form before turning back to her console. She double checked the Sexy’s flight path and sent a tightbeam message to Sabrina before Iris shooed her out of the cockpit.
“You sure?” Jessica asked.
“Thanks, Iris.”
Jessica wondered what Iris did do much of the time. She supposed that when aboard Sabrina, the AI communed in their small expanse, but out here, Iris was alone.
She thought about asking, but Iris already seemed moderately peeved about something, so Jessica didn’t push it. She wanted to enjoy her time with Trevor, not get into some sort of existential debate with her AI.
Inside the small closet next to the first cabin’s door lay the case with the Snark cards. Jessica popped open the case to make sure all the cards and the two sets of dice were there. Sure enough, the game was as she and Cheeky had left it when they had finished their last round before arriving at Serenity.
Jessica had been winning, but Cheeky was the queen of the comeback.
She closed the case and carried into the Sexy’s small galley where Trevor had a bowl of popcorn and two beers set on the table.
“Nice spread.” Jessica smirked.
Trevor chuckled. “I’m certainly no Misha.”
“No, but I suppose you’ll do.”
“Do you believe that line he tried to feed us about how he didn’t bake at his own stand back on Hermes Station?” Jessica asked as she sat and opened the case.
“Not for a moment. I think that Misha loves to cook. Almost as much as he loves to complain.”
Jessica laughed as she picked up her deck of cards and began to shuffle. “That sounds about right.”
Trevor shuffled his cards as well, and then they swapped decks, shuffled and cut and swapped back.
“What do you think we’ll find at this Star City?” Trevor asked as he dealt out his deck, interleaving his cards with Jessica’s as she dealt hers into the stacks.
“Honestly? I have no idea. I mean…it’s a city, wrapped around a star. How utterly nuts is that? It makes the Transcend mine at the Grey Wolf Star seem like child’s play.”
“I don’t know about that,” Trevor said. “It’s going to take quite the sight to top watching a ring of black holes tear a star apart.”
“Good point,” Jessica said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “A relatively stationary world around a star that has to have a circumference in the millions of kilometers is sooooo boring.”
“OK, point well made,” Trevor replied. “That’s pretty intense, I’ll give you that. But it would be way more interesting if something was trying to tear it apart.”
Always with destruction.
Iris said, interrupting the game.
Jessica reviewed the data sent along with the message. Sure enough, the patrol craft was at just the right place to spot Sabrina’s deceleration burns. It was strange. Sabrina was over one light year from Star City. She hadn’t expected the Orion Guard to have patrol craft that far out.
“Looks like we have a longer wait than we’d thought,” Trevor said with a grin.
Jessica smiled in response. “Well in that case, hurry up and lose so that we can get on to other things.”
* * * * *
The probe should have taken at least twenty hours to return. It came back in twelve.
“What?” Jessica mumbled from where she lay atop Trevor, the dull rumble of his breathing vibrating against her cheek. “How’s that possible?”
“Damnit,” Jessica said she rolled off Trevor and sat up.
“No way we can catch up and retrieve it,” Trevor said as he stretched on the bunk, his legs hanging off the end at mid-calf.
“Don’t have a lot of those probes,” Jessica sighed. “Cargo’s gonna be pissed.”
“More importantly, how did it get back here so fast?” Trevor asked. “They would have had to boost it somehow.”
“OK,” Jessica said as she stood and pulled on her clothing. “What’s the message? The fact that you didn’t lead with that has me worried.”
“That’s it?” Trevor asked as he rose. “Just a bit ominous.”
“You’re telling me.”
Jessica looked at Trevor and a smile crept across her face.
“Jess…” he said. “We can’t go off half-cocked again.”
Jessica rose on her tip-toes and kissed Trevor on the cheek. “How long have you been with us? We always go off half-cocked. Stars, sometimes we’re only a quarter-cocked.”
Trevor snorted. “Say that word again.”
“What? Co—” Jessica stopped herself, gave Trevor a judgmental look and sauntered out of the cabin, hearing him whisper “daaaaaamn” as she left.
Five minutes later, they were settled into their seats in the cockpit with fresh coffee and some protein bars to perk them up.
“Message sent to Cargo and the crew,” Jessica said as she re-checked the Sexy’s vector. “They should have it in a few hours.”
If they’re where we think they’ll be,” Trevor said.
Iris said.
“We ready then?” Jessica asked. “Express to Star City is leaving in 5…4…3…2…dump!”