by Tammy Walsh
“I don’t need any money. I need some information. She got on a passenger ship about thirty minutes ago. I need to know if the ship would have hit hyperspace yet or not.”
“I’m not sure about this…” Brislax said.
“Listen, uncle,” I said. “Nobody will hear about this, I swear. You’re not even doing anything wrong. When I was a kid, you were always nice to me. You were nicer to me than I deserved. I know that. But I also know that if there’s a chance I could be with Vicky, I want to take it. Please. She means everything to me.”
Brislax let out a deep resonating breath. I could imagine him running his hand through his thinning hair. He always did that when he was forced to make a tricky decision.
“You know, they don’t always stay young and beautiful,” he said. “Maybe you’re on the right track already. I often wonder if I should have sown my wild oats a little longer.”
The idea of Brislax sowing any oats was enough to turn my stomach. But I didn’t add pressure on him. Let him make his decision. Hopefully, in my favor.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me get down to my study and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“Thank you!” I said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Don’t thank me yet. Any minute now, she could be hitting hyperspace. She might have already. Then there would be no catching her.”
Brislax struggled down the stairs in his house one laborious step at a time. His feet were thick and swollen with gout. They barely fit on each step as it was. His wife refused to have wider steps installed as she believed it made the house look “cheap.”
I wanted to scream at him to hurry the hell up! But he was already doing me a favor. Could I really get angry at him now?
Then I heard a door open and something rattled inside.
I ground my teeth so loud I thought he might hear it.
“Are you opening the refrigerator?” I said.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Brislax said. “I could do with a little snack.”
I heard rustling and crunching as he picked up a packet of something and bit into it.
“Can you take it to the desk with you, please?” I said with my head in my hands.
“Sure thing.”
Then I heard more tinkling glasses and plastic pots.
“Now what are you doing?” I said.
“I’m thirsty,” he said.
He tugged on the pull ring before downing a mouthful of calories. He uttered a satisfied “Aaahhh!”
My hands gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. A couple even popped.
I was heading across town in the direction of the spaceport. It was still a long way off.
I glanced over at that button again. If I pressed it, there would be no turning back. I would be removed from the traffic route and allowed to drive off the grid.
It was useless if Vicky was already in hyperspace.
But there was another angle to this I wasn’t considering.
If it turned out she hadn’t passed through the hyperspace gate yet, I would need to be as close to the spaceport as possible. Then I could take off—illegal as it was without a valid permit—and rise through the atmosphere. Artificial gravity inhibitors made rising at escape velocity much easier over the spaceport’s runway.
My shuttlecraft was small but powerful. It was capable of interstellar flight, though it was only capable of the slowest light speeds.
Brislax groaned as he got comfortable behind his desk.
I decided I had to take the risk.
I slapped my hand on the button.
The engine roared and the lights on my dashboard flashed red. The entire shuttlecraft expelled itself from the traffic line.
“Your vehicle has malfunctioned,” Computer said. “Please drive to the nearest service depot as soon as possible.”
“Cancel warning message,” I said.
I traveled at the same speed as everyone else only in the next lane. I increased speed and pulled ahead of the shuttlecraft that had been in front of me.
The driver noticed me and double took my vehicle. He glanced at the back and front seats, expecting to see someone having a baby, heart attack, or some other emergency. When he saw none, he waved his fist at me.
The alternative was letting Vicky slip through my fingers.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
Not while I had a chance to prevent it.
I increased speed.
“Any update on the information yet?” I said into the communicator.
I swung around another shuttlecraft and dipped underneath it. I immediately swung left.
Another a shuttlecraft crossed my path, inches from my windshield. I spun the controls to avoid it and almost struck another shuttlecraft.
I decided to travel away from the regular lines of traffic. It would make me easier to spot if there were any police around but at least I could be safer.
“Information coming up now,” Brislax said, munching on some crisps.
“Why is your engine revving so loud?” Brislax said.
“No reason…” I said. “I guess it must need fixing.”
“I would get it looked at if I were you,” Brislax said. “All right, what have we got here? What’s the flight number?”
I told him and he tapped the keys on his ancient keyboard.
“According to the records, it has already taken off,” he said.
“I know that already,” I said, swerving around a huge shuttlebus. “What about the hyperspace gate?”
A huge passenger liner took off from the spaceport. It looked far too large to defy gravity.
“Vicky’s ship is just outside our planet’s atmosphere,” Brislax said.
“Can you send me the coordinates?” I said.
“Sure. But you know, they’re not going to delay jumping into hyperspace just because you ask nicely.”
“I know,” I said.
“The ship’s waiting in line. Estimated time until departure: fifty-eight minutes.”
Fifty-eight minutes.
It would take me at least twenty minutes to break through the atmosphere. Thirty at the outside. Then there was the journey time to the ship.
That left me with maybe eight minutes to play with.
Maybe less.
I was getting closer to the spaceport. It reared large in my windshield.
A drone flashed with a message: GROUND BOUND TRAVEL ONLY
I overtook the other shuttlecraft forced to travel at ground level. No vehicles were allowed to travel over the spaceport.
Unless you were driving an illegally chipped shuttlecraft…
Now was when I had to bite the bullet. If I was going to take off, I had to do it now. Spaceport security would chase—and catch—me eventually.
Then I would be in serious trouble.
Now was the point of no return.
Was I going to do this?
I had no choice.
I increased speed and yanked back the steering wheel.
The shuttlecraft reared upward, suddenly facing the sky. The force shoved me back into my chair. I didn’t head directly up, not just yet. First, I needed to get a little more altitude.
I struck the button again and hit the turbo booster. It forced me even deeper into the leather of my chair. The giant ship I spotted earlier was still in the process of breaking through the atmosphere. I drew alongside it.
I could imagine the security vehicles scrambling, rushing to come and arrest me. Ordinarily, I would have been cheering them on from the safe confines of my armchair back home. This time, I was on the crazy team of love.
Go me!
The shuttlecraft shuddered. The fastenings rattled and something flew off. I sure hoped it wasn’t an important part.
Please hold together.
Please hold together.
I glanced at the clock. It was just as I thought. It would take me twenty-four minutes to escape the atmosphere.
&n
bsp; I was almost there…
“What’s going on?” Brislax said. “My Creator in heaven! That’s you, isn’t it? You’re the nutjob on TV at the spaceport? You’re on the news! And they’ll know I was talking to you while you were doing it! I’ll be an accessory!”
“Don’t worry!” I said through gritted teeth. “This has nothing to do with you.”
The shuttlecraft groaned loudly. Any second, it was going to be ripped apart.
It was designed to do this, I told myself. But that doesn’t mean it has to enjoy it.
“The Creator high above!” Brislax said. “Something else is happening! I knew it! I knew this was going to happen!”
“What?” I said. “Is it Vicky’s ship? Has it already taken off?”
“No. It’s not that. It’s—”
His words were warped and garbled by static.
“Uncle?” I yelled. “What is it?”
I passed through the atmosphere, the ship rattling like a geriatric patient carrying a box of bolts. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the noise faded.
I was on the cusp of space. I glanced at the monitor, back at my own planet.
Now, I was a wanted fugitive. I couldn’t turn back now, not that I wanted to.
I turned toward the two ships waiting to approach the hyperspace gate. As I drew up to girl’s ship, its identification number stenciled on the side, I breathed a sigh of relief.
With me approaching the ship, the pilots wouldn’t be allowed to enter the gateway. Not when it endangered others’ lies.
Even the idiot with an illegally chipped shuttlecraft.
“Wait…” I said.
I noticed something very strange about Vicky’s ship. It almost looked like…
The blood drained from my face, and it had nothing to do with the lack of gravity.
“Changelings?” I said.
It must have been what made Brislax start gibbering nonsense before the transmission cut out.
He was well-known for his crazy conspiracy theories. They always came to nothing.
Except this time.
He appeared to be right. The Changeling ships opened fire on the transport ship.
They were attacking us.
And right now, they were boarding Vicky’s ship.
Vicky
I coughed and sputtered as the pod roof whirred open. Waking up for the second time in one of these damn infernal machines was a lot easier than the first. Still, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.
I blinked, and my eyes felt raw. While I’d been asleep for that fraction of a second, instead of the few hours that might have passed when we went to bed each night, this time, in reality, days or weeks or even months might have passed.
My dreams had been fraught and rolled from one into another, all starring the same one-man cast.
Dyrel.
A shame I couldn’t control my dreams. I would have focused only on happy memories, and not the heartrending final scenes of our doomed relationship.
Still, it was over now, no matter how much I might wish it wasn’t. I was on the far side of the galaxy and I would never see him again.
I groaned as I pulled myself out of the pod and swung my legs over the side.
Funny, I thought. My legs didn’t feel weak and drowsy. The world didn’t spin beneath my feet either. And although I still felt a little sick to my stomach, I didn’t feel anywhere near as rough as I had the first time.
Was that because I was now a frequent intergalactic flyer?
Sitting across from me, sitting on the edge of their own pod and gradually blinking awake, was a very docile-looking creature that reminded me of a sheep. It stared at me, but wasn’t really. Its mind was far away and distant, still recovering from the flight we’d undertaken.
Lights flashed beneath my feet and along the floor. They sent a shiver of pain into my brain every time they pulsed. I wished they would turn the damn things off.
Just what you needed after a long sleep.
A figure came hustling down the aisle between the twin row of pods. It was a flight attendant. She wore a tight and very revealing red uniform. Her expression was dark and clouded over with concern.
She turned and held out her arms to address all the travelers at once.
“Everybody out!” she said. “Everybody out of your pods! This is an evacuation! This is not a drill! Everybody out of your pods! This is an evacuation…”
She repeated the warning over and over.
I wasn’t the only passenger struggling to compute her words.
The flight attendant moved further along the row of pods and repeated the same message.
Evacuation?
Not a drill?
What was happening?
I got to my feet and stumbled into the footpath between the pods.
All the pods had opened, the lids hanging open like snapped nutshells. I didn’t believe they were all for Earth.
They wouldn’t open the pods for every single destination, would they?
It didn’t make any sense.
Evacuation.
This is not a drill.
My stomach clenched.
I was a nervous flyer at the best of times. Add to the situation that there was some kind of emergency and we were evacuating…
Things were clearly not going to plan.
Why did nothing ever go to plan?
My stomach performed somersaults. This was the reason I didn’t like my feet to leave the ground.
Because of situations like this.
We were evacuating.
Something had gone terribly, horribly wrong.
I dressed as quickly as I could and followed the white strobe lights on the floor. The other passengers mumbled and murmured to each other, no one quite sure what was going on.
“Please, head to the escape pods!” another flight attendant said, waving her arms and motioning for us to keep on moving.
“What’s happening?” the sheep-like passenger asked. “Why are we evacuating?”
“There’s time for answers later!” the flight attendant said. “Right now, you must proceed to the escape pods! Please proceed to the escape pods!”
Either the flight attendants weren’t telling us anything for a reason—blind panic was my guess—or they didn’t know what was going on any more than we did.
I wasn’t sure which situation frightened me more.
I followed the crowd, which grew thicker as we approached the escape pods.
Teams of flight attendants motioned for us to form a series of lines. They were long.
I leaned over and spied a group of ten travelers climbing into an escape pod. They strapped themselves in beneath a flight attendant’s watchful gaze before the attendants climbed out and hit a button. Orange warning lights flashed as the door hissed shut. The escape pod launched and headed for the nearby planet.
The nearby planet.
Now, I was no expert when it came to planetary geography, but wasn’t that the same planet we had taken off from?
We’d never left?
We never even jumped into hyperspace?
What the fuck?
They put us unnecessarily to sleep and now they realized they’d forgotten to run a full safety check?
I folded my arms and tapped my foot. The manager of this company would be getting a firmly worded letter of complaint from me the moment I returned to the planet’s surface.
I expected a full refund.
My line stepped forward as the next ten passengers prepared to climb into the next escape pod that slotted down from above. An attendant ran them through the process. The passengers watched, enrapt, and more than a little confused.
I knew exactly how they felt.
This didn’t seem real.
I boarded this ship to go home and get as far from Dyrel as I could. Now I was heading straight back to his planet?
Maybe he would come see me.
Maybe he would come check to make sure I was okay.
I couldn’t deny the thrill it gave me.
The flight attendants motioned for the passengers to step forward and climb aboard the pods.
Somebody screamed at the far end of the evacuation room.
Great. Screamers. Just what we need right now.
Above us, a series of bright lights struck the ceiling like a laser light show.
The passengers panicked and pulled back, heading backward, toward us, crushing those behind.
I noticed the threat and stepped out of my line. I ran back to the gangway I’d come down to reach this room.
Another series of plasma shots struck the ceiling.
The passengers screamed even louder.
I wasn’t the only one who had the idea to escape whatever was happening in this place.
But I was the only one who heard the heavy thumping footsteps ahead of us.
It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that the creatures making those loud stomping noises might be the same that carried those blaster pistols and shot plasma at the ceiling.
I threw myself down and lay on the floor behind an open pod. Each thumping footstep sent a tremor through me as the creatures stepped into view, plasma rifles aimed at the passengers who hadn’t been so quick to hide.
They raised their hands.
“Please,” the sheep said. “Don’t shoot us.”
“Back!” the creatures said. “I won’t tell you again.”
They pumped their rifles, what was meant as a threat.
It worked. The passengers turned and headed back toward the escape pod room.
I lay perfectly still, praying the creatures wouldn’t turn to look at me.
They looked like something from a bad B horror movie. Their limbs were long and skinny and coated with what looked like a hard shell. Their antennae almost grazed the ceiling. They looked like giant insects.
Giant insects from hell.
Whatever these creatures were, they were dangerous and I had no intention of being held captive by them.
Their footsteps shook the gangway as they maneuvered the passengers back.
I sank back and slipped into the nearest empty pod. I lay on my front, waiting to see what would happen next. It was the best hiding place I could find.
At least, for now.
Everywhere else, I was exposed.
I would leap out the moment the creatures had moved away.
