“Very,” I told him. “Whose idea was this room anyway?”
Magnus’ gaze moved to Natalia. “My wife’s.”
“Great idea, Nat,” Mary said. “What a perfect respite from the daily grind. Your crew must love you for it.”
“Hopefully, they do,” Natalia said. “I’m not wearing a uniform for this journey. I’ll be a passenger like you. We’ll have to find something to occupy our time, Mary.”
We chatted for a while and ate some food while mingling. I had a chance to meet some of the crew, and in a couple of hours, my head was swimming and my belly was full. Jules was off to the side of the room, falling asleep near the water. Most of the crew had departed, and soon it was only our close friends left at the festivities.
“My dad would have loved this,” Suma said. We all sat in a row along the pool, staring toward the greenery across the room.
Slate returned from the buffet tables with a plate of pizza. “I wish Karo was here.” He bit into a slice.
“Has anyone heard from them?” Natalia asked.
“I was there a couple of weeks ago,” I told the group. “He says hi to everyone.”
“And how are he and Ableen doing?” Loweck asked.
“As well as can be expected. Who knew popping out four kids at a time was a Theos thing?” I said, receiving a laugh.
“He has his hands full,” Magnus said, glancing at his own sleeping kids.
“And his feet,” Slate said between bites. He offered the plate to me, and I shook my head.
Nick and Clare arrived, and the mood in the room changed. I couldn’t wait any longer. “Guys, what’s going on? Can you tell me yet?”
Magnus stood first. “No, but we can show you.”
Mary smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “You go with them. I’ll take Jules to bed.”
Nat stayed behind with her, and the rest of us followed Magnus. Hectal and Rivo chatted at the edge of our group, bringing up the rear.
It took about ten minutes to arrive at a doorway, this one with two bulky armored guards, holding heavy weaponry in their hands. They seemed familiar. Rivo greeted them, and I recalled why they’d been recognizable: the portal room on Bazarn Five. The taller frowned at me. “Dean Parker,” he said with a growl.
“Great. You two are here. Were you fired from your other gig?” I asked, and they didn’t reply. “You’re all being overdramatic. Whatever this is can’t be that…” The door opened, and the guards stepped to the side. Magnus took the lead, but I could already tell what we were walking into.
It was a portal room. On board the Horizon.
Three
The walls were clear glass, and hundreds of miniature symbols lit up as we entered. In the center of the room sat the portal table; a spectacular green-hued crystal hummed below it, powering the Shandra.
“How did you do this?” I was hardly even aware I’d spoken.
Clare stepped forward, the emerald light shining against her pale skin. “We relocated one from a doomed planet.”
“Doomed planet?” I spun around, suddenly feeling like the room was too small for all of us to be inside it at the same time.
“Dean, this is a good thing. The Shandra was on some forgotten world and was about to be destroyed by a supernova. We relocated it, that’s all,” Magnus said.
“Who’s we?” I asked. Had Mary known about this? Jules was the one who’d ensured the portals stayed functioning after the Theos were sent away by Karo and Ableen. They’d all taken on a green glow instead of blue ever since, and I hoped no one connected the dots, considering it was the exact same color as my daughter’s bright eyes.
“Garo helped.” Magnus glanced over at Rivo, who stood up taller, proud of what her father had done.
I let it all sink in, and Slate walked over to the table. “Pretty cool, hey, Boss?”
“You know what, this is pretty great. And it works?” I asked.
“Tried and tested. It’s a fully functional portal,” Clare told me.
Magnus came to my side and stared at the illuminated portal stone. “With this, we can move to and from surfaces easily, and now that we have the full Crystal Map, we can identify worlds with portals much easier. Think about it. You can keep working on Gatekeeper things while you’re aboard, if you want. We even have ten Gatekeepers on the ship with us, and they can continue exploring and doing whatever Sarlun has in store from them from the comfort of the Horizon.”
Something about having a portal inside our ship set off alarm bells in my head, and I wasn’t sure why. If they considered it safe, I knew I should too. I pushed my concerns aside for now.
“I think this is going to be fantastic. Mary’s not going to let me go anywhere, though, is she?” I laughed. The truth was, I didn’t want to depart on some foolish mission, not with my family on board.
“Probably not, but you can go have your meetings with Paul on Earth, we can check in with New Spero, we can have visitors on board like Terrance and Leslie.” Magnus listed off more benefits, and I couldn’t argue the fact that they were solid reasons to want the portal on the ship. The only nagging thought was the green light and the memory of Jules touching the stone on the Theos home world. The words We can help kept replaying in my mind.
Slate glanced at Loweck. “We can also stay updated on those guys who attacked the Gatekeepers’ Academy. If I ever get my hands around their necks…” Slate mimicked crushing someone’s throat, and Loweck offered him a quick shake of her head. He shrugged and stopped. “You get my point, Boss.”
“Okay, you’ve all sold me. This is going to be a great adventure.” I scanned the room, meeting Rivo’s eyes, then Hectal’s, seeing Suma without her beau, and then Clare and Nick, as well as Magnus, Slate, and Loweck, and it was almost like having the whole team together.
There were a few missing, but I knew Karo couldn’t make this one. Rulo was gone, and Regnig was a reclusive telepathic birdman, but with the portal, I could visit him, even persuade him over here for a tour.
“A great adventure indeed,” Magnus said, and we exited the room. I was the last to leave, and I peered over my shoulder as the lights dimmed.
“One last drink?” I asked Magnus quietly. I was exhausted and could tell he was too, but I wanted a minute alone with him.
“Sure. I have just the place,” he said. “Goodnight, everyone. I trust you can all make it safely to your rooms unchaperoned?”
Slate saluted him. “Yes, Dad.” The others laughed, and they all walked away from us down the hallway, leaving us alone with the immense guards.
“Gentlemen,” I said to the two from Bazarn, and headed in the opposite direction with Magnus.
“What do you think?” he asked me. The bravado he’d been carrying all night was gone, and I saw the worry lines in his face, along with the concern etched in his voice.
“I think you’re going to be a great captain and leader. I also think this is the sexiest spaceship ever created.” I laughed, and he joined me.
“You’re not kidding. Remember all those missions, the misadventures, the rescues, the losses along the way?” he asked as we went.
“I remember,” I admitted.
“Let’s avoid all of that this time. It’s our turn to do some good. That’s why I’ve chosen something a little unconventional for our first mission,” he said.
“What? Unconventional?” It was as if he’d read my mind. The entire reason for wanting to chat solo was to see where our first mission would lead us.
We walked through the corridor to the front edge of the ship, and the locked elevator opened at his arrival. “Bridge,” he said aloud.
“Yes, Captain,” a British woman’s voice said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The woman? Ship AI. KIM. Stands for Kinetic Information Monitor. KIM’s easier.” This elevator was smaller than the others, and the walls weren’t glass or see-through. The entire trip only took seconds, and the door slid open, revealing a dimly-lit room.
&nb
sp; Lights flashed on as Magnus stepped from the elevator, revealing a state-of-the-art ship’s bridge. It was similar to the Keppe ship he’d commanded, but there were subtle changes. We walked inside, and I ran a hand across the top of the soft beige leather captain’s chair. It had a seat beside it about four meters away, and two helm stations near the front of the bridge, roughly ten meters from the widescreen viewer. Behind the captain’s chair was a wall of monitors, consoles, and blinking lights.
He powered up the console at the right helm station, and the viewer activated, showing Haven below. Our ship was slowly rotating around it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked.
“I’ve always loved seeing worlds from above like this.” I plopped onto the helm seat beside him.
“So have I. Dean…” Magnus started, and stopped himself.
“What? You can say it.”
“Are you sure you don’t want the honor?”
“Of what? Being Horizon’s captain? No way, bud. That’s all yours,” I told him truthfully.
Magnus leaned over in the seat, slowly creeping lower in it. “I’ve heard the whispers. Everyone was surprised you weren’t in charge of this bad boy. Me included.”
I raised my hands in supplication. “You know I didn’t want this.”
“It was your idea,” he said.
“For you to captain. I’m done with taking charge. I never meant to become a leader of anything,” I said.
“Some people are born leaders, Dean, even if they don’t know it. You’re that person,” he told me.
“If it makes you feel any better, I look terrible in that shade of blue,” I said, and he barked out a laugh.
“God, I’m glad you’re coming with us. It’ll be like old times, won’t it?” he asked.
“I hope not. We were always being shot at,” I said.
“Touché.” Magnus keyed in some commands on the console, and a map appeared. “This is where we’re going.” The viewer zoomed and showed a foreign system. There was a star and a few asteroids in a line, but no planets.
“What is this? Seems a little dull,” I said.
“You told us about that little globe-sized planet from Fontem’s collection. We did some digging, with Regnig’s help, and we think this is where they’re from.” Magnus tapped his finger on the console.
I didn’t know what to say. “We’re going to bring it and drop it off? I don’t understand.”
“We put some feelers out among the Alliance members, and there’s a race out there that claims to have shrunk a planet. They used the globe world as proof and forced half a dozen other places to pay them to prevent the same occurrence on their planets.” Magnus raised his eyebrows.
“Mag, this had to be an awfully long time ago. I seem to recall something about thousands of years, maybe more,” I told him.
He sat up straighter. “It was, but we located their world too.”
He had me interested. “And what’s the plan? Head there, find some old bones, and interrogate them?”
“Dean, our mission is to explore. That’s the whole point. We’re working for the Alliance of Worlds, and there are still a lot of valuable allies to be made out in the universe. Ones we don’t know of yet. It’s our job to find them and offer them a position with us, to schmooze them and set up trade routes,” Magnus said.
“And what does this have to do with anything you were talking about?” I asked, staring at the image of the nearly empty space where the globe-sized planet had originated.
“Their world was chock-full of Rutelium,” Magnus said, as if that explained anything.
I drummed my fingers on the console, waiting for him to go on.
“It’s an element that used to be placed in drives before we harnessed singularities and backed them up with Inlorian coils,” he said.
I was losing my patience. “And what does that have to do with our mission?”
“Don’t you see?”
I shook my head.
“The element can still be harvested and used in drones. Clare says it will work far better than the technology we’re currently using. Once everyone shifted to a new way of building our hyperdrives, the Rutelium became obsolete,” Magnus said.
“And you want to go there, harvest it, and use it to make a bigger, better drone than the rest of them. Okay, I’m capturing your vision. What about the locals?” I asked.
“No one’s seen them for a very long time. Could be they up and ran. It seemed to happen a lot over the millennia.” Magnus switched the viewer to a flight plan.
I thought about Sterona and hated that I still didn’t know their fate. I had half a mind to find out. We’d cleaned the portal stone out when we forced the Iskios inside Mary to enter it, leaving us stranded, but since Jules had activated the entire Crystal Map once again, I knew we had access to return.
“This is your planned route?” I asked as I stood up, walking in front of the viewer.
Magnus moved to my side and pointed to the midway location. “That’s where we find what we know of as the Tri-System Station. No one has ventured past there for ages; at least, none of the Alliance members,” he explained.
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Dean, it’s a hard place out there in space. As we know, everyone and everything wants to kill you. They stay away because they don’t need to explore that avenue,” Magnus said.
“Not even the Keppe?” I prodded.
He returned to the console, and soon there were hundreds of streaks on the viewer over the zoomed-out map. It was in 3D and he rotated the view, allowing me to conceptually understand the multitude of directions and regions of space the Keppe had explored on record. I was certain there were a few they hadn’t disclosed.
“Not even the Keppe,” he said.
“So how do you know where the world is? The one with the blackmailing planet-shrinkers and the quarry of Rutelium.”
“It was in the database we obtained from the Kraski ships. They mentioned mining there but never got around to it, from what we can tell,” he said.
“Great. That’s comforting,” I told him. “So this is a mining expedition, mixed with hopeful dreams of sending the shrunken world back to normal, and also a diplomatic envoy?” I thought I had the gist of it.
“You bet. Are you ready for this?” he asked.
“For what? I’m not part of the crew,” I said.
“No, but you’re our official Alliance of Worlds ambassador.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and before I could say anything, he walked away, smiling at me from the doorway. “Have a good night, Dean. Glad to see you’re on board.”
I stood there, wondering what I’d just agreed to.
Four
“Are you sure we should be here?” I asked Slate from the corner of my mouth. The bridge crew on duty was mostly familiar faces to us. Loweck was behind Magnus, where she could handle the weapons systems if necessary. Slate had cut his hair to his military days’ length and had shaved his beard off, trimming off years as well as hair. He looked closer to twenty-five than his real thirty-five. Clare stood proudly for the monumental moment, her fiancé Nick at her side.
I noticed the glint off the pilot’s clunky head, and was thrilled to see Dubs was part of the team. He’d been freshly painted and wore a blue uniform like the rest of the crew. He hadn’t seen me yet, and I was anticipating speaking with him later.
Beside Dubs was a man I hadn’t met but had heard was Ensign Peter Tran. He was equipped with the translator modifications and was acting as the bridge’s communications officer.
Mary and I were in street clothing, not uniforms, but we’d dressed up for the occasion: she in a long blue dress, me in a blazer and jeans. I felt out of place on the bridge of a starship. Everyone else had a place here, a position, and a duty. The two of us stuck out like sore thumbs, but no one seemed to care. Magnus glanced over and gave me a wink.
He nodded to Ensign Tran, and the viewer changed to a picture of inside the Gatekeepers’
Academy below, on Haven. The seats were packed, and I saw members of the Alliance from all sorts of races. Padlog, Molariun, Inlorian, Keppe, Motrill, and others were in attendance, and I hoped we’d do them proud. We had at least two of every race’s members on board, representing them with honor. I was proud to be a part of this occasion.
Magnus cleared his throat. “Greetings from the bridge of our Alliance of Worlds flagship, the Horizon.”
The crowd cheered, and he gave them a minute. “We’re about to lead this vessel into unknown space, seeking allies, protecting those in need, and cataloging everything we’re able to. This is an exploration vessel, and our contingency of Gatekeepers will ensure their high level of protocol is met with each stop we make.
“Thank you for being part of this monumental day.” More cheering, and the crew clapped in sync along with the people on the surface. “We’ll be in touch, and wish us luck as we explore new horizons.” The screen went blank, and Magnus sat firmly in his seat, nodding to Slate.
“Dubs, bring us out,” he said softly. You could hear a pin drop as the android keyed in the commands on his helm’s console. Our ship rotated around Haven and pulled away slowly. There were at least a dozen other vessels in space surrounding Horizon, visiting friends wanting to watch the departure of the huge starship.
I was nervous, expecting something to go wrong. Was one of these ships going to attack us? Were we about to meet an enemy as we pulled away from Haven? Were the human-like aliens in the V-shaped vessels going to attack the planet as we departed?
Mary seemed to sense my mood, and she leaned in.
“It’s okay, Dean. This is going well,” she told me, and I gave her a smile.
We moved away with our in-system thrusters, and once we were ten thousand kilometers from the planet, Dubs’ gaze carried toward Magnus and rested on me. He raised a hand in a wave, and I waved in return.
“Captain…” He always called me that, so he was clearly addled by the thought of two captains on the bridge at the moment. “Captain, would you like me to set course for the Yon system?”
Magnus was sitting now. “Dubs, set course and increase speed.”
New Horizon (The Survivors Book Nine) Page 3
