Now we were moving rapidly towards the null point. The stress levels began to rise, and although our shields were holding, the roller coaster ride began, from which the inertial dampers couldn’t keep up.
We flew on in silence, each person dealing with the buffeting they were receiving. The view was quickly turned off, and we followed where we were on the plot. Eyes darted between the shield indicator and the ship marker.
The closer we came, the faster the shields seemed to be draining. But it was an illusion, as the drain was very slow. At least until we came to the matter stream. Just before we entered I checked the primary shields and they were at seventy percent.
WHAM!
A shudder the likes I’d never felt before went through the ship, and as well as being thrown around in our seats, we all jumped in sheer terror. For a moment I idly wondered why we had seat belts, and not grav seats. When the grav field throughout the ship failed for a few seconds as well, as if in response to my thought, I had my answer. Sometimes low tech was best.
Jane had us quickly back on course, and while draining a bit quicker now, our shields were still effective.
On impulse, just before we entered the null zone, I took back control of the ship. I was glad I did. It felt like we fell out of the matter stream into nothingness, which suddenly wasn’t filled with nothing.
I dragged the speed off us, and stood us up on the right side, as debris narrowly missed us.
"Give me a view!" I yelled, and Jane had the normal front view back in seconds.
My concentration narrowed to the view ahead and the HUD, moving us around the large obstacles, but still taking hits from smaller obstacles I couldn’t avoid, until we were in a clear patch on the other side. I brought us to a stop. The shields were down to thirty five percent. In theory, we were good. If necessary, there was the secondary shield.
"I thought we cleared all that shit up?" said BA.
"We did," said Jane. "But we did it in the future, not now, whenever now is. It seems to be working though."
"What's working?" asked Alison.
"The time shift. If we weren't going backwards in time, none of this would be here."
I wasn’t game to say anything, so I gave Jane back control, and nodded for her to take us out of the null zone.
We started forward, but there was no matter stream.
The buffeting continued.
"Where's the stream?" yelled Amanda.
"In the future," I yelled back. "Thankfully."
Finally, the jolts lessened, and finally stopped. Jane turned us towards the jump point.
The primary shields were at three percent. And we hadn't needed to use the secondary shield after all.
"We made it," I said into ship coms. I could hear the weariness in my voice. "We'll know when we are as soon as we come in range of a Comsat. It will be an hour or two yet. Everyone lunch now, if your stomach will let you, and be back on an alert status in two hours please."
If my luck was running true to form as Jane seemed to think, the nav map would be alerting us to a threat a couple hours out from the jump point, around the time we made a coms connection.
I seriously wanted to go back to bed. Playing dodgems on top of the rough ride had drained me.
"Jane, start the reset of all ship's shielding to normal."
"Confirmed."
For a moment we had no shields at all, but they returned to fifteen percent very quickly, as the indicators changed to showing what our secondary shield gave us in comparison to the normal shields. That wasn’t bad for a lot of small generators putting a single shield around such a large ship. But perfectly good for protecting us from stray space debris. Jane should have the main shields back up before we needed them again.
I staggered out for lunch, followed by a streak of white, and everyone else. I went into my suite to freshen up before eating. After coming out of the bathroom, I sat on the bed for a moment to pat Angel.
"JON!"
I jolted awake, wondering where I was.
"Bogies. And Jon, we still only have secondary shields."
I was instantly awake, adrenalin flowing.
"On my way."
I ran.
The Bridge was full of grinning faces when I rushed in, and jumped into my chair. I looked around, wondering if…
"Gotchya!" came from a dozen voices.
Before I could comment, my PC popped up a warning message. Everyone froze at the same time, leaving me to guess we all received the same message at the same time.
Apparently our PC clocks had determined they were out of sync with standard time significantly enough to demand some attention to fixing the problem.
"Coms back?" I asked Jane.
"Confirmed."
"How far out are we, time wise?"
"Guess."
"One hundred days?"
I was kidding, but it was a number with history.
"Good guess, but not quite."
"How many?"
"One hundred days out of sync, plus the seventeen days we were there."
"Which way?"
"It's nearly four months since we entered the time field."
Exclamations of alarm were coming from all around the Bridge.
"Could have been worse," I said. "We might have had to hide here for the same time period, in order there were not two BigMother's and all of us here twice at the same time."
"Or we could have missed by years in either direction," added Jane.
"Bollocks!" said Lacey very forcefully.
"Oh shit!" said several people at once.
"Jon, you better see this," said Amy, waving at a side screen.
HUNTER MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD.
"That was a headline about three months ago from Earth," she added. "And there's plenty more of this coming in from before and after."
I pulled out my pad, and saw months of downloads pouring in.
I turned to Lacey, giving him the eyebrow.
"Apparently my family issued a death notice a month ago." I looked around the Bridge, and there were several other nods. "But oddly, I have an email here from Bigglesworth, telling me to ignore all such rubbish, as they were told by the administrator at Hunter's Haven of our extended mission, and roughly how long we would be out of touch for."
A lot of people all started talking at once.
I held up a hand. Eventually, everyone stopped, and looked at me.
"Amy."
"Boss?"
"Issue a statement for all media, along these lines. Hunter Security has engaged in two successful rescue missions within the Sirius system. The second of these took us a lot longer than anticipated, and during the time, we were unable to communicate in any way outside the system, which has some natural features which make coms impossible, and travelling through it quite treacherous. The first rescue was of a medical shuttle, and the second was the Mercenary Cruiser Homer, which has been missing for ten years." I looked at Jack, and he nodded. "Both ships were extremely difficult to recover, but were so without casualties from any ship. It is my recommendation this system be made off-limits due to the dangers it presents, and we have vid of a ship graveyard which looks more like an asteroid field, to demonstrate how dangerous this system is. And if necessary I'm prepared to claim this system for Hunter's Run, and station a permanent force at the jump point to turn back anyone stupid enough to enter in future. For those who have been waiting for news of loved ones, all I can say is, sorry for the inconvenience. We had no way of knowing going in on what we thought was a simple rescue, that it would be so difficult, and take so long. We are on our way out of the system now, and everyone will hear from crew members as soon as they can send them. Further information may be made available once we have received all our mail, and decided what to respond to."
Amy nodded, and quickly left to use her office.
I opened ship coms.
"Communications are back up," I said.
"No shit Sherlock!" someone interrupted me with
.
"I can confirm," I went on, ignoring the wit, "we had a time slip of one hundred and seventeen days, and have arrived that amount of time into our future. Everyone will be downloading mail as fast as it can be accessed by the ship's systems. I suggest you send short 'I'm still alive' style messages to those you need to. Please do not mention time travel. At this point, no-one is going to believe us, and before it gets mentioned officially, we need to get our ducks in a row. Our discoveries are momentous, and require releasing to the right people at the right time. A ship full of people claiming to be time travelers to the end of the world, will only have us committed to the looney bin. I regret the need, but Jane will be monitoring your communications in order that anything which needs tweaking, goes back to you instead of being sent. If you want an official statement to give people, Amy is writing it up now, and will be happy to provide everyone with a copy. But I suggest you keep things simple. You're alive, you're safe, you're happy. Fake it if you have to. And you're sorry to have freaked everyone out. Coms are back to normal from now on. You can say BigMother is heading back to Earth, because we are. If you have any questions, ask Jane. Hunter out."
I took a deep breathe, and held it in. Letting it out was like heaving a big sigh of relief.
The Bridge had substantially cleared while I was talking.
I looked across to Jane, but she beat me to it.
A nav map popped up, showing ship movements all the way from here back to Outback.
"Now that’s what I wanted to see," exclaimed BA, beating me to it as well.
I looked at the nav map for a while, somewhat confused, before turning back to Jane again.
"What's wrong with this picture?"
"Wrong?" asked Amanda, suddenly worried.
I grinned at her, and she relaxed.
"It goes all the way," said Jane. "I must have been busy."
"All the way?" asked Aleesha.
"Yes," I said. "Look, we can see ship movement's right down the spine to the Last Hope system, and it looks like all the sectors are filled in as well."
Something caught my eye, and I zoomed the map in.
"Hey look, I own the Dead Man's Chest system. Its showing as officially part of Hunter's Run."
"How did that happen?" asked Grace.
"I guess I'll find out when I dive into my emails."
I suddenly had a panic attack, which lasted as long as it took to do some math.
It was now thirty three days before the Door opened to home. At almost maximum speed, using the drives of all the larger ships, it would take ten or so days to travel from Earth to Outback, give or take some hours.
It was a safe margin at normal speeds, as long as we didn’t stop for anything.
Going home, wasn’t an option any more. I needed answers from the Keepers, and I was bloody well going to get them.
Twenty Nine
"Couple more things you should pay attention to," said Jane, breaking my train of thought about going home.
"Do tell."
"Yes."
"And?"
"Yes?"
"You're not telling."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I shouldn’t have to."
"Huh?"
"You have eyes, but you don't see."
"I've been told that."
"Hmmmm."
"What are you too gabbling about?" demanded BA.
I zoomed the map out and looked again.
"Oh."
"Yes," confirmed Jane.
"Good Oh? Or bad Oh?"
"Good Oh I think."
"Good Oh."
"I'm going to hit you both if you don’t start making sense!"
BA seemed a bit miffed. The rest of those left on the Bridge were grinning.
"You tell her," I said to Jane.
"I thought I just established I wasn’t going to tell?"
"You tried."
"I succeeded."
"In your dreams."
"Let's not go there," broke in Amanda.
"Jon, give," insisted Aleesha.
"Fine. Dead Man's Chest has four white pips in there, which seem to indicate a squadron of Missile Cruisers."
"White is ours, isn’t it?" asked Grace.
"Yes. There happen to be four more sitting in the Enterprise system, somewhat above the jump point. Which could be explained by the fact there is a group of green pips at the jump point."
"Green is friendly," stated Grace. "Who are they?"
"French Fleet," answered Jane.
"Wonder what they want?" pondered Annabelle.
"We'll find out soon enough," I said. "Um, Jane?"
"Yes oh fearless leader?"
"Have they left enough room for us to jump in safely?"
Jane was still for a few moments.
"I’d say yes. But whoever has the watch in several of the ships will be requiring fresh underwear as soon as we do."
We all had a chuckle over that possibility.
I pulled myself out of my chair.
"Bit less than two hours to the jump. I'll be in my Ready Room trying to find some answers to a few conundrums. The rest of you," I paused and looked at them, getting their attention, "answer you're emails, and let people know we're still in the land of the living."
"Confirmed," they all said at once, and laughed.
I walked into my Ready Room, and took the seat behind my desk.
"Jeeves?"
"Yes my Lord?"
"Finger food please."
"At once, my Lord."
I pulled out my pad and looked at the activity. It was still downloading. Just my luck. I finally get up to date with emails, and suddenly I'm nearly four months behind. At the same time. I sighed.
Jeeves came in with some food, and I snacked on it without really paying attention to what I was eating. I alternated drinks between water and ginger ale.
By the time I’d finished eating, the pad was ordering the most urgent emails for me.
The ones I needed to see first were from David Tollin.
But the ones I started with, were from Miriam.
The first of these was encrypted, so I popped it up on a hollo screen only I could see and hear, just in case I was interrupted.
"Hi Jon. Happy Valentine's Day. Will you be my Valentine?"
I stopped the vid right there, with Miriam grinning at me, and had to look it up. Apparently it was an annual celebration of love, although never being an actual holiday. Believed to have begun in the Roman Empire, flourishing in the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, before being usurped by the chocolate and greeting card industries in the nineteenth century. I had to look up what a greeting card was as well, finding it was some sort of hardcopy email. Since the card predated the email, I guess it was the only way possible to communicate non-verbally at the time. There were a number of examples of these greeting cards, containing various forms of hearts, doves, and something called a Cupid. The latter was bizarre enough to look up as well, turning out to be some sort of small flying angelic creature, which shot people with arrows. Oddly though, one of the images contained the picture of a cat tormenting one of these, after having broken its bow, while a couple looked on in dismay. It was all a bit overwhelming.
A note in the family database stated it was another of those things the family had abandoned with old Earth itself.
I turned the vid back on, somewhat alarmed at what might be coming.
There was an elaborate pause as if Miriam was expecting to be hearing something back from me.
"I've been trying to figure out what to give…"
I stopped it again. Give? This involved gifts? I looked further, seeing the commercial nature of the event all too clearly. Not only a card and chocolate was involved. The man was supposed to give a dozen roses to his sweetheart, and both dressed up as far as possible, take her out for fine dining with expensive food and drink. The evening was supposed to end with a good bonk.
I backed up the vid a bit.
"I've been trying to figure out what to give the man who has everything." There was another pause, which I presumed was supposed to be dramatic in nature. "Me!" she ended in a flourish, her suit shifting to a belt, and leaving her standing there naked.
She blew me a kiss, and the vid ended.
The next vid was sent a day later.
"Jon? Did you get my Valentine? Please answer."
The following day, the tone changed slightly.
"Where are you Jon? Is something wrong? Have I done something wrong?"
Things started going from bad to worse.
The next vid was completely indecipherable because of all the crying.
Then, there was this:
"You bastard! You've been stringing me along all this time, and you can't even tell me anything? Even a louse responds to a Valentine with a thankyou but. I hate you!"
I sat there feeling like her hand had come through the vid, and punched me out.
In trepidation, I played the next one.
"Damn you Jon. They say you're dead. You better not be. If you are, I'm going to bring you back, and kill you myself!"
There was one more, and I had to goad myself to watch it.
"I'm sorry Jon. I'm so, so, sorry. I had an email today from your David Tollin, explaining you went on a complicated rescue mission into a system with no coms. He told me he'd been informed by a Keeper something had gone wrong, and we just needed to be patient for your return. Which means, you haven't even received my Valentine yet. I'm so sorry for what I said. Tell me immediately you are back in coms range. You better, or next time I see you, rank or no rank, I'm going to knock your block off!"
I sat back, wondering at the vehemence. She must really like me.
At which point, Aline pinged me with "Happy belated Valentine's Day, Jon."
My blush override failed.
On the one hand, it was really great for the ego to know two incredible women loved me.
On the other hand, three was a crowd.
On the gripping hand, at some point, one of them was going to kill me.
I thought about it for a moment, and opened ship coms.
"Can I have everyone's attention for a moment please? It's come to my attention that we missed Valentine's Day. For those on board who believe, shore leave will be granted when we make the Earth Torus. For those getting frantic messages from your Valentine in your email, please do yourself a favour by responding as soon as possible with the official version of what happened to us. Unfortunately, we were gone for long enough to be assumed dead by loved ones. Please break it to them gently. And if you believe in Valentines, better make it up to them." I stopped for a moment. "Unfortunately, given the nature of the anomaly we passed through, we cannot try again to see if we can get back any earlier. Such an attempt may make things even worse. Suck it up, this is reality. Hunter out."
Hunter Legacy 8: Hero to the Rescue Page 18