The intensity of the situation was too much for Dewey. He'd never been with a woman before, even just like this, so close. "I..." He was going to say he would stay with her, but a flash in his mind blinded his thoughts.
"Dewey?" Tiffin sounded distant. "Dewey, are you okay?"
He heard her once more, then the sounds in his head drowned her out. He saw her next to him, nestled in close. They were reclined, in some sort of padded chair...or bed. He couldn't be sure what it was. He glanced out a window. Colorful explosions in the distance filled his view beyond the...ship. They were in a ship. He didn't recognize it. He glanced around. It was just the two of them. He felt a great wave of relief wash over him. He looked at Tiffin, nestled next to him. She smiled. Then he heard Jake's voice, "You two alright?"
"Hey, Dewey. What's happening?"
The images faded from Dewey's mind. He realized he was still in his room with Tiffin, but they were standing, not on the bed. And there wasn't a window to look through. He knew he'd seen another vision of the future, but it was different this time—more...distant.
He blinked a few times, then he could see Tiffin again. She looked upset, shocked.
"What happened?" she asked. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry. It...I can't really control when that happens."
"So, you saw something? The future?"
"And?"
"We were together."
Tiffin smiled and hugged him, but he didn't put his arms around her. She pulled back and looked at him. "What? What else did you see?"
Dewey curled his lip inward slightly for a moment before answering her. "We were in space...in a ship. There were explosions."
Tiffin's eyes widened. "Oh. And?"
"Jake asked if the two of us were alright."
"Were we?"
Dewey exhaled and looked into her eyes. "Yes. I don't know what happened...happens...but we were okay. I felt a great sense of relief and..."
"And?"
"You were with me, safe."
Tiffin's face lit up. She smiled at Dewey. "Anything else?"
Dewey gazed into her eyes. "Yes. I'm seeing one more vision of the future."
Tiffin looked confused. "What?"
"This." Dewey leaned in and kissed her.
He felt her relax into his arms as he cradled them around her. Their kiss carried on and they lost sight of all time...except the eternally present moment they were sharing.
Chapter 25
"I don't have time to argue, Sarah. Get them off the ship. Now!" Jake grabbed a few more tools he thought he might need and tossed them into the tote before hurrying out of the tool storage room.
Ten minutes earlier, Sarah had interrupted a quiet moment Jake was enjoying, looking at the starscape through the wall-sized viewing window in the ship's lounge—a rare instance of peace lately, with Tiffin and Dewey part of the crew now. He knew from the sound of her voice, it wasn't good news, but even on her worst days, she never sounded so panicked. When she told him one of the holes Tiffin blasted into the ship apparently hit a critical data channel, he didn't understand the severity of the situation. But when she explained to him that a million-to-one shot the damaged system that was part of a feedback circuit used to regulate the stabilization of the ship's energy core, he immediately understood why Sarah sounded completely freaked out.
"You only have two hands, Jake. Maybe they can help. If you don't get the core containment back in balance soon, the whole ship will be destroyed."
"Exactly." Jake ran down the hall as quickly as he could without spilling the nearly overflowing contents of the tote. "That's why I don't want them on the ship. Get 'em on the shuttle, a safe distance."
"No offense, Jake, but the system is complicated. Tiffin might-"
"Hey," Jake was still running with the tote. "Don't forget, I patched things up pretty good all these years. I can do it."
"But if you don't."
Jake heaved the tote onto his hip, holding it with one hand while he put his other on the security panel to be scanned. "I won't have their deaths on my conscience. Just do it. Tell them I'll explain later."
The door whooshed open as Jake mumbled, "If I get the chance."
Jake stepped inside the room and stared at the large spherical array of curved beams that produced the magnetic field to hold the cluster of riftonium suspended in the air at the center of the structure. It only took him a second walking around the containment device after he set the tote of tools on the floor to notice the surface cracks on the riftonium. They were small, but he knew any such cracks meant trouble, exploding ship sort of trouble, if he didn't deal with them soon.
"So," Jake said, knowing Sarah would be listening through the comm panel in the room. "What have you been able to figure out? What's causing the destabilization?"
"I've ruled out magnetic field fluctuations."
Jake figured as much. The spherical mass of riftonium still looked dead center between all of the field generators. "Right. So, what then? The cleaning coils?" He glanced at the six gold alloy coils suspended from the ceiling by insulated cables and arranged around the magnetic field generators. They smoothed the power, cleaned it of the irregular peaks and troughs that normally came with energy pulled from the riftonium.
"Not from what I'm seeing," Sarah said.
Jake glanced to a large black box nearby. "I guess I need to dig into the transfer system. I was afraid of that."
Jake used his boot to push the tote of tools next to the unit housing the transfer system, which was bolted to the floor. Two sides of the five-foot-high metal box had ventilation slits. A set of hinged double doors in the front provided easy access to the maze of wires and hundreds of microchips suspended in conductive gel. "I hate messing with this thing."
"This isn't routine, Jake. It's not like replacing a dead chip."
"You think I don't know that?" His words sounded more angry than he intended. The stress of the task before had him more than on edge.
He dug through the tote, pulling several tools and a couple of different types of meters from it. "Did you tell them?"
"To leave?"
"Yes!" Jake took a deep breath. "Sorry. I didn't mean to..."
"I told them the situation."
"Good." He picked up one of the meters and opened the doors to the transfer unit. "At least I don't have to worry about them. Tell me when they're aboard the shuttle, and clear of the ship's blast radius." He froze for a moment, then looked at the camera in the room. "Maybe it won't come to that."
"I'm with you, Jake."
"Not like you have much of a choice."
"Well, even if I wasn't part of the ship, I'd stay with you."
"Yeah, you would, wouldn't you. You're as crazy as I am."
"And that's why you love me."
"Til the end." Jake winked at the camera then looked at the guts of the transfer system, moving the probe of the meter in to begin looking for any sign of what was causing the core destabilization. With any luck, he thought, it'll be a bad chip. Easy enough."
Jake spent the next twenty minutes testing scores of chips, switching meters more than once to make sure he wasn't working with faulty equipment, but he couldn't locate the problem. Putting an insulating sleeve over his hand and lower arm, he reached into the conductive gel and gently pulled on the wires, one at a time. None were loose from their connections. He measured the density of the powder in the flow resistors. They checked out.
"Have you checked the central processing hub?" Sarah asked.
Jake looked up at the camera. "You think that's wise? You know how volatile that is. It's not easy to engage both sides at the same time when I can only see part of it. Last thing I want to do is set off a chain reaction and make things worse."
"Worse than everything exploding in..."
"In what?" Jake pulled his hands back from the transfer system. "Something you want to tell me?"
"Two things, actually."
"Give me the bad news first
."
"I did another scan of the feedback circuits that are still working."
"And?"
"We have about five more minutes until the core completely ruptures."
"Shit. Tell me the good news is you're wrong."
"I'm afraid not. Might be even less time."
"Good news? Make it fast."
"I disobeyed your direct order."
"Huh?"
Jake heard footsteps behind him, coming closer to the door.
Jake turned and saw the door flung back against the wall.
Tiffin rushed in, then stopped as she saw him sitting in front of the open transfer unit. She glanced at the ship's energy core, which had begun to make a disturbing crackling noise. "Jake, I'm here to help!"
"What? No!" Jake shoved some of the tools aside and stood. "Why? You're supposed to be gone, with Dewey."
Tiffin glanced back at the door and Dewey stepped into view. He had Squeakers in his hands.
"Sorry, Jake," Dewey said. "We wanted to help. Sarah told us everything."
"Jake glared at Sarah's camera, then looked back at the two of them. "Did you tell you both that the ship is about to explode? And now, you're here! This is exactly what I was trying to avoid." He looked at the camera again. "Sarah, I can't believe you did this. Why?"
Tiffin hurried to the box of tools beside Jake and began rummaging through it. "Where is it?"
"Jake looked at her rifling through the tools. "Where's what?"
"I know this is the box I put it in," Tiffin said as she continued going through the clutter of tools, tossing them out left and right.
"This isn't a game, Tiffin," Jake said. "I need to-"
Tiffin stopped rummaging and looked up at him. "You need to what?" She sounded angry. "Do you you have any idea what's wrong with the core containment system?"
Tiffin's reply, and defiance, took Jake aback. He wasn't sure how to respond.
"Jake," Sarah said. "Let her help. I talked with her. She's studied the system. Apparently she's studied the whole ship."
"Huh?" Jake glanced at the transfer box, then back to Tiffin.
Tiffin was back to looking through the box of tools, which was nearly empty, since she'd throw most of the contents onto the floor. "There!" She grabbed the same small yellow diagnostic tool Jake, when first showing her and Dewey the tool storage room, had suggested she use to take readings from the various ports throughout the ship. "This is it! This is going to save us."
"Oh, great." Jake knew Tiffin had no idea what she was doing. He knew the diagnostic tool she had in her hand would be completely useless. It was made to extract computer-provided data, not take measurements from circuitry or wiring—not that any more of that would help either. "Tiffin, that's not-"
"You're wrong!" She snapped at him. "I just need to get this open." Using her nails to dig into the seem on the side of the device, she tried to pry it open. "Sarah! How much more time?"
Sarah didn't answer.
Jake looked at the camera, realizing he'd done what he could, everything he knew to try had come up short. It was only a matter of time. His heart sank knowing the three of them, and Sarah too, would soon be gone. "How much time do we, Sarah.?" His voice sounded weak, defeated, sorrowful.
"One minute. Tiffin, if you want to try whatever your idea is, you'd better hurry."
Dewey walked over and stood beside Tiffin.
Jake leaned down and started to take hold of Tiffin's arm to help her up, knowing it was about to be over. He wanted to look her in the face one last time and tell her he was sorry.
Without looking at him, she pushed Jake's arm away and again worked to get the device open. A second later, the seal inside broke and she cracked the yellow casing open. "Got it!"
Jake was beside himself. He'd already made peace with the fact that he might die, but Tiffin, and even Dewey, that was too much to take. "Damn it, Sarah! Why?"
As Jake was looking at Sarah's camera he felt Tiffin push him.
"Move," she said.
He stepped aside and looked at her. Her eyes were on two small items in the palm of her hand—a tiny crystal and a small circuit board with several wires dangling from it.
Jake shook his head woefully. "That's just a diagnostic tool, Tiffin."
She ignored him and carried the two pieces over to the open double doors of the power transfer unit. "Shhh. I need to focus." Holding the crystal in one hand and the circuit board in the other, she looked at Jake. "I need you to open the central processing hub. Carefully."
"Why?" He looked at what she had in her hands. "That's not going to do anything."
Tiffin stared him in the eyes. "Did you study the schematics of the central processing hub?"
"How do you even?" Jake shook his head.
"Thirty seconds," Sarah said.
"I know what I'm doing," Tiffin said. "Just do it, please."
Jake exhaled audibly and reached over to the central processing hub, which sat above and behind the vat of conductive gel.
"Hurry!" Tiffin said, scooting closer and moving her hands in just behind his.
Jake flipped the two knobs that held the small panel door in place and lowered the metal sheet, revealing the multi-colored toroid of light within, which floated, held in place, despite the immense energy of it, by the delicate balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces anchored around a single counter spatial point in the center of the moving geometry.
Tiffin looked at Jake. "You should stand back." Still looking at the processing core, she said, "Sarah, the med bay's in working order, right?"
"Yes, but-"
"Good. Here goes." Grabbing one end of a long wire attached to the circuit board, she dropped the rest of it into the conductive gel and simultaneously shoved the tiny crystal directly into the fluxing toroid, holding it there.
Chapter 26
Tiffin felt a strange tingling sensation on the tips of the fingers on her right hand. She tried to wiggle them, but couldn't. "Eh." She wanted to sit up, but something was holding her body down.
"Tiffin," Dewey said softly. "It's going to be okay. Can you open your eyes?"
"Wait. So...we survived?" It was a strain at first, but then she managed to open her eyes. Dewey was standing beside her, looking down at her. Lifting her head, she saw the white strap running across her chest, over her clothes. "Why I am I strapped down? Let me up."
She felt disoriented. The last thing she remembered was pushing the crystal and circuit board into the transfer unit. "Wait." A flash of what had come next appeared in her mind. "It exploded." She turned her head and saw Jake on the other side of her. "Why aren't we all dead." She looked at Dewey, who was smiling at her. "Or are we?"
She heard Squeakers squeak. Turning her head more to look lower, she saw Dewey had him in his hands. "Hello, little guy."
"You did it," Sarah said through the med bay speaker overhead.
"I'm not sure how," Jake said, "but you damn sure did." He shook his head, apparently still trying to come to grips with how she pulled it off.
"Sorry about the straps," Sarah said. "There." She released them, the one across Tiffin's chest and the two holding her legs down to the repair bed.
As Tiffin watched the two retract from the top of her thighs, she noticed the robotic apparatus at the foot of the bed. She remembered from her first visit to the room that it was the equipment Sarah used to perform whatever healing was required—skin grafts, cellular stimulation, transfusions...whatever else was needed. She tried to wiggle her fingers again, and this time she could move them a little. "What's wrong with my hands?"
"Don't worry," Dewey said. "Sarah says the feeling will come back in a few minutes. They were pretty messed up from the energy surge." He was quick to add, "But they should be fine now."
"So," Tiffin said, sitting up. "That's what the explosion was?"
Jake put his hand on the guard rail on the side of the bed. "More of a pulse of energy, really." He shook his head and chuckled. "I still can't believ
e you did that."
Dewey took her hand in his. "I'm still amazed you even knew what to do."
The feeling in her hands had come back enough that she could feel the warmth of his touch.
"Pretty impressive, if you ask me," Sarah said.
Jake crossed his arms and shook his head slightly, looking at Tiffin with a grin on his face. "I've been dealing with that unit off and on for years. What you did never occurred to me. But it worked. How'd you know?"
Tiffin felt proud, but she especially felt thrilled they all were alive. She had the whole thing worked out in her head before she tried it, but right up until the moment she stuck the crystal into the torus of energy, she had some doubt that it would actually work.
Seeing how attentive Jake and Dewey were to her at the moment, she decided to soak it up a little. "That device I made..." She glanced at Jake. "That you found in my room."
"You mean the one you used to tap into the ship without my authorization?"
"Yeah," she said. "That one."
Jake chuckled. "Go on."
"It works really well." She grinned.
"I'm not surprised," Dewey said, still holding her hand.
"You made me the ship's mechanic," she scowled at Jake, but tried to convey she meant it playfully. "Before you decided to get rid of me."
"It was for your safety," Jake said. "Same with Dewey."
"I know," Tiffin said, "but Sarah and I both decided it was more important to disobey you...this one time."
"Mutiny." Jake made it clear he was joking with her.
"When Sarah told me what was happening, why Dewey and I had to leave, I ran the schematics for the ship's energy core through my head."
"You had 'em all in your head?" Jake was clearly blown away by the claim.
Tiffin shrugged. "All Squeakers ever had to keep ourselves entertained was working on gadgets. I guess after a while, you just get a knack for that sort of thing."
"Or you're a genius," Dewey said.
"Aw, thanks, hon," Tiffin said.
"Hon?" Jake sounded seriously uncomfortable, but Tiffin ignored him and continued her explanation, getting a kick out of showing all of them she really did know what she was doing.
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