The Well of Forever: The Classic Sci-fi Adventure Continues (The Star Rim Empire Adventures Book 2)

by R. A. Nargi

  Before I could answer, the sensor alarms started going off like crazy.

  “What is it?” Chiraine asked.

  We all crowded around the console.

  “We’re detecting massive energy leakage from the control station,” Narcissa said.

  “Have they started blowing it up?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s the reactor.”

  Ana-Zhi threw herself in the pilot’s seat. “If that blows, it will take us out for sure. We need to get out of here.” She looked up at me. “You okay with that?”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  Chiraine pulled me close in a comforting hug.

  “More bad news!” Narcissa said. “That jump ship is heading our way.”

  “Not if I can help it.” I ran for the gun turret and climbed up.

  “Incoming!” Narcissa shouted.

  “Incoming what?” I yelled, as I braced myself in the gunner’s seat.

  The ship’s klaxons blared so loudly that I couldn’t hear Narcissa’s response, and then an explosion rattled the ship. We’d been hit. Hard, by the looks of the warning indicators.

  Just then I felt the jump of our repulsors engaging. Thank Dynark.

  “Ana-Zhi, get us out of here before they freeze us! Narcissa, watch the thermal dispersers!”

  I didn’t have much hope that we could do much damage to the Baeder, but I wouldn’t mind trying to taking a few pot shots at their hyper-Vs, not to mention the jumpship.

  The AI-assist informed me that torpedoes were loaded and—

  An urgent voice came over the comm. “Jannigan, stop the ship!” It was the voice of my father. “Stop it now!”

  “Ana-Zhi, did you hear that? Initiate braking. Full stop!”

  “Aye aye.”

  “Dad? Where are you?”

  “Coming up on the lower bay. Open up for me. I don’t have a lot of control with this thing.”

  Someone had routed the external video feed of our aft bay hull camera to my weapons display.

  I felt my mouth go slack as I saw the Sean bot flying through space right towards us, hugging what appeared to be a tall cooling canister shooting gas out of one end.

  “I don’t believe what I’m seeing!”

  “Believe it, kid,” Ana-Zhi laughed.

  “Narcissa, prox plates off!”

  “Off!”

  “And the doors—”

  “Opening!”

  Another klaxon sounded, but a different tone than the battle alarm.

  “Radiation surge!” Narcissa said.

  “Get us out of here, Ana-Zhi!”

  “First go. Then stay. Now go. Make up your mind!”

  “Dad, you in?” I asked.

  “In.”

  Narcissa closed us up and switched back the proximity plates—just in time. Another shot from the Baeder rocked the ship.

  “That’s going to leave a mark,” Ana-Zhi said.

  “Why aren’t we moving?” I asked.

  The color seemed to drain from Ana-Zhi’s face. “I don’t know. I’m pushing the repulsors all the way.”

  A loud grinding sound reverberated throughout the ship. It didn’t sound good.

  “We’re caught!” Narcissa said, as she frantically cycled through control screens.

  “What do you mean caught?”

  “Something has locked on to us and is pulling us back towards the station.”

  That was impossible.

  “Jannigan, look!” Chiraine pointed at our main viewport which was displaying a split screen, showing views from the forward and aft cameras.

  The space in front of our ship looked perfectly normal, a field of stars with a glimmer of one of Yueld’s moons. But the view in back of the Vostok, towards the control station, looked like something I had never seen before.

  Huge crystalline planes of color twisted into existence, surrounding the station.

  “What the hell?” Ana-Zhi gasped.

  The station itself seemed to collapse in on itself in slow motion, almost as if it was being crushed by negative pressure. Then I noticed that the star field behind the station was moving too. The stars became blurred streaks of light, almost as if they were a watercolor painting in the rain.

  “Are you guys seeing this?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Chiraine said. “It’s incredible.”

  The ship’s power flickered and everything went dark.

  “Not again!” Ana-Zhi said.

  But then aux power kicked in and the screens faded back on. The image on the viewport got stranger and stranger.

  Swirls of colored fog shot through with bolts of lightning seemed to envelop us, drawing us ever closer to the collapsing station.

  “Engine status?” I barked.

  “Who the hell knows?” Ana-Zhi said. “I’ve got the pedal to the metal and we’re still not moving. Correction. We’re still being pulled backwards. At a rate of one point five kilometers an hour.”

  The grinding sound was back, louder than ever.

  “Is that the engine?” I asked.

  Ana-Zhi shook her head. “I’ve never heard anything like that before.”

  “The good news is that there’s no sign of the Mayir,” Narcissa said.

  “Where did they go?” I asked.

  “No idea. They’re no longer on any of our scopes.”

  My heart wouldn’t stop pounding through my chest. “What the hell is happening here?”

  A voice from behind me said, “What’s happening here is that I finally got the goddamn Levirion to work.”

  My father actually sounded happy.

  “What does that even—”

  Before I could even finish my sentence, the ship heaved, moving faster than I had thought possible. It was way worse than when the cthulian got us.

  Suddenly, up was down and down was up.

  I was deafened by the sound of metal on metal, a deep, intense ripping sound. It was the sound of the ship tearing itself apart.

  Then everything went dark.

  17

  Some time later, my body jolted and I gasped for air. I felt my heart pounding in my chest and I tried to open my eyes, but all I could perceive was blackness. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t feel anything.

  I was disconnected. Disconnected from everything.

  I couldn’t even think straight. I didn’t know who I was, or where I was, or even when I was. Panic welled up inside of me.

  What was happening?

  The only thing that I recognized was the infinite blackness surrounding me.

  I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust, so I could see something. Anything.

  But there was just blackness.

  I had no sense of time, so I didn’t know if I was floating there for an hour, or a day, or a week, or a year, or even my whole life.

  But eventually I became aware of something other than the blackness.

  This other was like the blackness, but a little different. Like a hazy gauze over the black—a slightest, barely noticeable blot of almost-black.

  As I fixed upon this mote, it seemed to pulse. And then, over hours (or days or weeks or years), it brightened.

  It was a pinpoint of light now. Far away. Impossibly far away. Farther than any star.

  But as I stared at it, the light grew larger—like I was being pulled into it.

  Again, slowly at first. Then I had the sensation of moving—of flying. Right towards it.

  The light was an asteroid, and then a moon, and then a planet, and then a sun.

  And then my whole world.

  For a time I felt warm, enveloped in the embrace of healing light. I curled up, pulling my knees to my chest, and fell asleep.

  When I awoke, some time later, I opened my eyes to see my bedroom. I blinked in disbelief. It couldn’t be.

  I bunched up a handful of bedclothes. They felt like my sheets. Fine weave Palanese cotton. I brought the fabric up to my nose and inhaled th
e scent of sweet perfume. Lirala’s perfume.

  Was she here?

  I sat up and looked around the room. Everything was as I had last left it. My jacket—the one I had worn to my birthday party concert at the Wardley O2—was thrown over a chair.

  “Lir?” I called.

  No response.

  “Lirala?”

  A noise came from the bathroom.

  I crawled out of the big circular bed and stood up. “Anyone there?”

  “Just me, sir.” Mr. Jeris, my medical bot, wheeled out of the bathroom. “How are you feeling this morning, sir?”

  “Feeling?”

  “You indulged quite a bit last night, if I may say so. Even more than usual. However, it was your birthday, so I have been instructed to make allowances.”

  “Wait a minute, what day is it?”

  “Why, it’s July 2nd.”

  “And the year?”

  “2358.”

  “And we’re in New Torino?”

  “Of course, sir.” He wheeled closer. “Why are you asking those questions, Mr. Beck?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not really sure.”

  “I think it’s best if we run some tests.”

  “I don’t want to run tests. Just give me some hydria and I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m afraid I will have to insist,” the bot said. “Company orders, after all.”

  I knew better than to argue with Mr. Jeris. A BoDyn 9250 was more than capable of overpowering me and administering any test it wanted. But more to the point, the medical bot had been placed with me to monitor my health and well-being by Beck Salvage as part of my employment contract.

  I lay back on my bed while Mr. Jeris pressed one of his sensors into the crook of my elbow and another one against my neck.

  “Just taking a quick blood sample,” he said.

  Fifteen minutes later, after a brain scan, and a dozen other tests, he pronounced me completely healthy, other than some slight dehydration.

  I got my hydria and also some B-stim. That and a cup of fresh-brewed Ardovan moxa got me thinking clearly.

  But that was the problem. I remembered everything that had happened over the past eleven days—everything except how I got back home, and what actually happened to those eleven days.

  Mr. Jeris said it was July 2nd. But I knew it was really July 13th.

  Where had those eleven days gone?

  I walked out to my balcony overlooking the Arden and just stood there, drinking my moxa and wracking my brain.

  After nearly an hour I came up with a few possibilities about what had happened to me.

  Number one: it was all a dream—an incredibly elaborate, incredibly detailed dream.

  As weird as it sounded, this was the most likely explanation. Although I had never had a dream as detailed as this before, I knew a bunch of my friends who gushed about their own weird dreams.

  Kailee Pohl, who dated Blieggs for a while, would always bore us with long accounts of her incredibly vivid dreams. I kind of wished that I had paid more attention to those stories.

  Possibility number two was related to possibility one, but it was a little more ominous. What if those memories had been implanted into me? As part of my work for Beck Salvage, impersonating my father, I had regular sessions with Aman Piettow and his accelerated learning team. If Piettow could implant factual information into my brain, who was to say he couldn’t plant fictional information there as well? The past eleven days could just be an AL implant.

  But why?

  The final possibility was the weirdest. What if I had actually experienced the events of the past eleven days? What if—somehow—the Levirion had returned us to our own galaxy?

  My mind raced as I considered the ramifications of this. Why would Mr. Jeris—and, in fact, all the systems in my domus—have been modified to make me believe it was July 2nd?

  If someone wanted to keep our expedition secret, why wouldn’t they fabricate a more likely scenario? It would be much more convincing to leave the timeline as it was and just create an explanation for my apparent memory issues. I could have had a skimmer accident easily enough.

  All this conjecture made my brain hurt. And it was frustrating because I didn’t have enough information. What I really needed to do was to make some calls.

  The first person I called was Lirala. Her face popped up in the overlay, and she didn’t look happy to see me.

  At the best of times, Lir had a naturally cruel-looking face, despite her countless cosme treatments to make it rounder and softer. There was something in her eyes, a hardness, that couldn’t be altered by surgical procedures.

  “So,” she said. “You finally called to apologize?”

  “Apologize?”

  She hung up on me.

  I called her back.

  “What?” She glared at me.

  “Lir, listen a sec—”

  “I don’t have time for this, Jannigan.”

  “Something happened.”

  “Yeah, I know something happened. You’re an asshole.”

  “I mean, with me. Something happened to me.”

  “If you say that it was a joke, I’m going to come over there and cut your fucking—”

  “Lirala! Stop!” I took a deep breath. “Something happened to me, health-wise.”

  “Bullshit. With your high-end genetics, nothing’s ever going to happen to you.”

  “Well, something did. With my memory. I need your help. Can you come over?”

  “No, I fucking can’t come over. I’m on my way to brunch with Monelle and Eveily. Eve’s got a new face and I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “Cancel.”

  “No way, Jannigan. Especially after what you did to me last night.”

  “Whatever I did, I’m sorry, Lir. I’m really sorry.”

  “I don’t believe you, Jannigan.”

  “Let’s talk about it. Come over after your brunch.”

  “I thought you had to go to work.”

  “No,” I said unconvincingly. Of course, I had no recollection of needing to go to work. “Come over.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Please, Lir. I need you.” I knew that need was one of her trigger words.

  “I said that I’ll think about it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not agreeing to anything, Jannigan.”

  “I know.”

  “But if I do come over, there’s going to be a price,” she said ominously. “Some things that I want to do—that you have…resisted.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good.” She broke the connection.

  I didn’t want to think about Lir’s conditions right now. Whatever they were, I’d be able to deal with them—if I was sufficiently medicated. Best to put it out of my mind.

  I was ready to make my next call. To my uncle Wallace at Beck Salvage.

  His assistant Verity appeared on the overlay. She had only been with the company for about six months, and I didn’t really know her as well as some of the other employees.

  “Hello, sir.”

  “Hello, Verity. Is my uncle around?”

  “He’s in that SPDR meeting until the end of the day. I can leave a message that you called. Is it urgent?”

  “No, not urgent, but I would like to speak with him.”

  “Of course, Mr. Beck.”

  “C’mon, Verity. You know you’re supposed to call me Jannigan.” I smiled at her.

  “Sorry, Jannigan. I’ll make sure your uncle knows you called.”

  “Thank you.” I was about to end the call when I got an idea. “There is one other thing you might be able to help me with. I’m trying to reach one of our expedition team members.”

  “Oh?”

  It was definitely an unusual request. I never interacted with our expedition staff. Well, until eleven days ago. “Her name is Ana-Zhi Agrada. Can you track her down for me?”

  “Sure, let me check the roster. One second, Mr.—” She cau
ght herself. “Jannigan.”

  I gave her my most winning smile. “Thank you, Verity.”

  While she ran through her datapad screens, I pretended to look busy, checking my Aura offscreen. Less than a minute later, Verity announced that Ana-Zhi had been located on Tor-Betree.

  That was where she had been eleven days ago, preparing for the mission.

  “Send me her contact info and the routing data, please.”

  “Will do. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Yes, are we launching any expeditions from Tor-Betree in the next week or so?”

  I noticed that she pursed her lips and looked down to the right.

  “Um…” she said, clearly not sure if she should answer that question.

  “That’s okay. I’ll ask my uncle. Thank you, Verity.”

  “My pleasure.” She looked relieved to get off the call.

  I went back inside, refilled my moxa cup, and wandered into my lounge. I was very curious about Ana-Zhi, but before I could make the call, Mr. Jeris wheeled in.

  “How are you feeling, sir?”

  “I’m feeling fine.”

  “May I check a few things? Blood oxygen levels? Heart rate?”

  “Why not?” I let him do his thing for a few minutes, and then when he was done, I ordered the med bot out of the room.

  “Don’t you want to know what I found?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Hmph!” He did a fair approximation of sounding miffed, then wheeled out of the room.

  It was odd. I had lived alone for the past eight years or so, but for most of that time, I wasn’t really alone because Mr. Jeris was always around. Most of the time he sat quietly in his medstation closet in the master bathroom, but occasionally he’d come out to check on me. And that was strangely reassuring.

  I leaned back on my very expensive wormcloth-upholstered Finn Kubler sofa, opened my overlay, and routed a comm request to Tor-Betree spaceport.

  Unfortunately, Ana-Zhi didn’t accept my call.

  I know she received the request; I got a receipt, but for whatever reason she didn’t want to talk. So I was reduced to leaving a message.

  “Ana-Zhi, we have a lot to talk about. Please call me as soon as possible. Thanks.”

  I honestly didn’t know if she’d call back or not. If this whole thing was in my imagination, she’d have no idea who I was—other than recognizing my name. But if my memories were true, then there was a chance that Ana-Zhi might remember as well.