The Long Road Home

by Max Swan

  “Gordon,” he called out

  Blake’s head popped up. “Colonel?”

  “Communications have gone down again, that means we’ve lost telemetry to the drones. Get down to the communications hub and check it out will ya,” Nadir ordered.

  “Sir, I mean no offence, but that’s more up the Lieutenant’s alley, than mine. I still have so much work to do here in Enginelab,” Blake said sounding tired.

  “Get your ass to the communications hub now, Captain,” Nadir said, spitting as he said it.

  “Yes, sir,” Blake said with a sigh.

  Suddenly, Nadir became aware of a low pitched humming coming from one of the stations in Enginelab, and walked toward it.

  “I’ll meet you there shortly, Gordon,” he told Blake whom shrugged, picked up his tool box, and walked to the lifts.

  The first thing Nadir noticed about the station in question is the screen flashing a red color. Nadir touched the screen and the readouts sprung to life in a whirl of colors. He read it carefully: Impact in four hours, twelve minutes, and counting. He touched the screen and brought up the readout in more depth, staring at it with a deep frown. A torpedo had been fired, and is locked onto Major Goddard’s shuttle.

  He suddenly let out a cold laugh saying to himself, “Well looks like your goose is finally cooked, Goddard.” Then he said loudly, “Computer, activate emergency security shut down. Authorization Nadir.”

  The computer responded, “Voice-recognition pattern accepted. Please state who has exception?”

  Nadir thought for a moment, then said, “Myself and Captain Blake.”

  “Confirmed, shut down in progress,” the computer reported.

  Then taking one last look at the stations readout, he turned and walked back to the nearest wall of flesh, touched it, and vanished.

  Chapter 5

  Captain Blake approached the door to the communications hub feeling put upon given the work still required of him in Enginelab. Communications is a specialist job, not an engineers, he thought to himself sullenly. Above the door he could see a red light blinking, he knew immediately they were now in a security shut down. All the critical areas on Ship will now be locked, with limited access. He stood before the door and pressed a button, then the computer asked loudly in a friendly voice, “Please state your name.”

  He cleared his throat and said, “Captain Gordon Blake, SSM,” He waited.

  The computer replied, “Voice-recognition pattern confirmed. Access granted.” He entered the darkened room nervously. Pulling out a torch he switched it on and swept the room finding no one there.

  The Communications Hub consisted of six computer stations arranged around a large spherical monitor. At the top and bottom of the spherical monitor silver cables that normally flashed with color ran into the floor and the ceiling connecting to Ships computer, and the tendrils that made up the sensor hub that also acted as antenna for communications. The large spherical monitor usually showed many small rectangular squares on it that indicated people using it at the time. The stations; like the sensor array, were used to monitor the performance of the system and to calibrate it. They could also monitor crew and passengers using communications systems privately or in their work at any time. The stations were all dead, however, none had been smashed like at the sensor hub. The communications hub is dead with no obvious damage to indicate why.

  Blake had a panel off the wall when Nadir arrived inside the hub, saying, “Gordon? Gordon?”

  Blake turned saying, “Over here.”

  Nadir walked toward him, saying, “Have you found anything?”

  “I think the problem is the power connection. The damage has been done elsewhere, because I can’t find any here,” Blake replied scratching his head.

  Nadir stopped in front of him, “We need to find it, and fix it fast.”

  Blake shrugged. “Yeah? Who we gonna call?” he asked.

  “A colson4 has been fired from the J Deck battery. Goddard and Barrett might appreciate a warning, as in a few hours it will kill them,” Nadir said grimly.

  Blake paused to let what Nadir had said sink in. “It could take days to discover why the power is cut off here. So Goddard is fucking screwed, this time,” he said, then smiled faintly.

  “Even so, we’ll need communications at some stage. So keep working on it,” Nadir said.

  “Yes Sir,” Blake said with a salute, and with that Nadir vanished once he touched the fleshy wall.

  *****

  “Earth Distance two-hundred-thousand two-hundred and fifty-five kilometers, and counting. ETA four minutes,” the shuttles Computer announced.

  “Confirmed. Begin slowing,” Replied Paul. The gravity-well moved to the aft of the shuttle counteracting against the forward motion, making it slow. The sudden gravity shift made their bodies strain against their seat harnesses. Earth grew larger on the monitor, and eventually filled it.

  As the shuttle reached the thousand-kilometer mark Barrett announced, “Orbital velocity reached.”

  Paul looked across to Barrett and said, “Is Ship back on the air yet?”

  She looked at him eyebrows drawing together, “No. I’m worried about them.”

  Paul sighed. “The faster we do our job, the sooner we can get back and help them,” he said.

  Barrett grimaced, “How do you suppose we can do that without Mr. Crimpson, or access to Ships database?”

  Paul pointed to his eye saying, “First we use this.” He followed this by tapping his finger on his temple. “Then we use this.”

  Barrett screwed her nose up at him. “Have you ever used that? Could be dangerous.”

  Both suddenly burst out laughing, and eventually Paul said, “There’s hope for you yet, Captain. OK, let’s get to work eh?” They began working at their consoles using the shuttles sensors to scan as much information as they could gather.

  Barrett highlighted an orbiting object and zoomed in on it making its image appear on a monitor. “This satellite is used for communications. There’s hundreds of them in varying orbits around Earth. Some are for scientific study, global positioning, and military applications, but most are for communications of some sort or another,” she reported.

  Paul nodded, and touched his console saying, “Look at this.” On the monitor, what looked like an old airplane made Barrett wonder how it could get into space? Paul’s subdued laughter got her attention.

  “You recognize this?” she asked.

  He turned and looked at with surprise, “You’ve never been to the Kennedy Space Museum?”

  She looked away saying quietly “I’ve never been to Earth, Major.”

  “What? Surely you’ve been on a Ship that’s come here?” Paul asked surprised.

  She turned and faced him, eyes hard. “I’ve never been to Earth, Major.”

  Paul raised his hands in appeasement. “OK sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Anyway they called this type of vessel a ‘space shuttle’, it’s propelled into space by powerful rocket boosters, then lands on Earth like an airplane. Used in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.”

  “That’s consistent with the broadcasts we picked up. Still, why is Earth at a twenty-first-century level of technology in the twenty-fifth century?” she asked, scratching the back of her neck.

  Suddenly, Paul nearly jumped out of seat. “Holy fuck! Look at this!” he shouted. He worked his console until an image of the American continents showed up on the monitor, in closer detail. They looked at the continental configuration in silent confusion, not moving or breathing.

  “What happened to the USA and Mexico?” Barrett finally said.

  All the East Coast of the USA is gone, and where Mexico, Panama, Costa Rico, and Guatemala should be, there were a scattering of small islands. The North American continent is separated from the South American one. While the southern states of America looked either gone or changed, and Cuba looks much smaller. Something big had happened here.

  “This Earth
isn’t ours,” Paul mumbled in shock.

  Barrett did a double take, “That’s crazy talk.”

  Paul looked at her in deep concentration. “You studied physics, right?”

  “Yeah, but nothing like this,” she shrugged.

  “Well I remember our Professor talking about how the universe is made of dimensions, he called them branes. The void is the space between branes,” Paul said in a rush.

  Barrett frowned. “Like parallel universes or something?”

  Paul stared at her eyes wide. “Exactly, a parallel universe would explain why this Earth looks different, and why the technology doesn’t match the date.”

  She guffawed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No it’s not, think about it.”

  “How the hell did we get into a parallel universe then Brainiac? It’s impossible.”

  Paul looked down and frowned, then turned to her and said, “I’ll leave that one for Dex to answer. I’m good, but I’m not that good.”

  “Well if you’re right, then I’m definitely not going to be the one to tell the Colonel,” she said pointedly. “Hang on there’s a transmission coming through,” she said suddenly working her console.

  “Is it Ship?” Paul asked hopefully.

  “It’s from Bolaris,” she said, “Oh fuck, it’s Garan!”

  Paul started working his console as well. “I’m not detecting any Garan vessels in this sector,” he said.

  “I can translate it. Wow, it’s an old encryption. Hang on,” Barrett said. Then she touched her console and a Garan Officer appeared on the monitor above them.

  Garan’s had scaly, rust-colored skin with a large head, lizard like eyes, two small slits for a nose, and a small mouth with sharp teeth. Their necks muscular, but slim and long. The Garan on the screen wore a gray uniform, which shimmered like glass. It had no adornment on its uniform, except a small circular pin that resembled a laurel wreath surrounding a black star. The Garan rank pin for a Prime-Commander. It spoke in a clicking, wheezy sounding voice. The translation appeared below the video, in text:

  Sub-Commander Giani, we’ve received your final report about planet three-X-five-nine-seven, and have decided to begin acquisition. Under the Emperors beneficence, you can start softening local resistance. A fleet left Bolaris two (Garan) days ago under Prime-Commander Ulamey. Prime-Commander Belfortaas, out.

  Barrett scowled in disgust, “How long will it take a fleet to reach Earth from Bolaris in the twenty-fifth century?”

  “Roughly twelve Earth weeks, if I remember my history,” Paul answered.

  “History?” she asked then it hit her, “Oh shit, you mean: ‘The Battle for Sol’?”

  “It’s the mid-twenty-fifth-century isn’t it? Exactly when it happened to us. Humanities first contact with an extraterrestrial species,” Paul said.

  “So if they’ve ordered stage one to begin, a Garan vessel must be here,” she said, looking alarmed. An alarm suddenly sounded and the shuttles console began flashing red. Paul and Barrett looked at each other in unbelief. “I wish we could contact Ship,” Barrett said, and sighed.

  *****

  Nadir moved toward the Bridge through Ships flesh having noted that Lieutenant Huang had finished removing a communication hub from a shuttle. Dexter had the idea of communicating with the recon-drones using a cell. Then streaming the information from the cell into Ships computers systems. The problem is to get the cell to cope with the data streaming through it, as they’re not built to cope with this amount of data flow. Two previous attempts already had made the cells overload and explode. Dexter decided to use a shuttles hub instead of a Cell, but it had to be directly connected to a station on Ship, and a makeshift antenna, so it can contact the recon-drones transmitters. Nadir emerged at his station, and jumped up to face Dexter working on station at the rear of the Bridge. “How goes it Mr. Crimpson? The Lieutenant is on her way with the hub,” he said.

  Dexter turned to face him, he appeared flushed with sweat visible across his forehead. Dexter knew what were at stake here. Not only his best friend’s life, but one who could protect him from Nadir and Blake. “I’ve finished modifying the inputs for the shuttles hub, so once Lieutenant Huang arrives we can get to work,” Dexter replied.

  As if on cue, the Bridge door swung open and Lieutenant Huang walked in followed by the antigrav platform. “Did someone mention my name?” she said with a smile.

  Nadir smiled at her. “Good work, Lieutenant,” and he walked over and lifted the hub off the platform, straining at the weight of it, placing it down next to the station Dexter worked on. Dexter grabbed the power cable and connected it to the hub. Then he knelt, reached in unscrewing a thick black cable inside, and removed it.

  “Lieutenant, hand me that black cable on the station,” Dexter asked which she did, and he screwed it in. Then he stood and moved to the console on the station and touched a glowing yellow light. The hub powered up and numbers began to run across the console as Dexter sent a test signal to the recon-drones orbiting Ship.

  They waited, and eventually stations began starting on the Bridge again. “Looks as if systems are go, sir,” Dexter said to Nadir, with visible relief.

  “Can we use the drones to contact the shuttle?” Nadir asked.

  Dexter looked at the readouts. “I think so. Let’s try it.”

  Nadir rushed across the Bridge to the communications station and touched it and to his utter relief a worried looking Major Goddard and Captain Barrett appeared on the main monitor, with some static. “Major? Are you receiving?”

  Paul looked over at Barrett and said something they couldn’t make out then he yelled, “Sir, the signal is weak, but we’re receiving you.”

  “Sorry I don’t have time to explain. A colson4 torpedo was fired from here several hours ago targeting the shuttle.” Nadir yelled back.

  “Great, that’s all we need given what’s going on here,” Paul said.

  “What’s going on there?” Nadir asked ominously.

  “We had better show you, otherwise you won’t believe us. Hang on.” Paul said, then turning to Barrett and saying something. The image of the two changed to an image of a familiar looking space-vessel firing on Earth.

  Lieutenant Huang rushed to the security station and began analyzing the data coming from the shuttle. “Sir, it’s a Garan Warscout, late twenty-fourth century configuration, Crew of seventy-five, atomic based hyperdrive, with ten forward and ten aft disruptor banks, and six forward and four aft torpedo tubes. The Warscout has electronic-shielding ability, but it’s not activated.”

  “I don’t think they’re expecting any resistance,” Dexter said.

  Nadirs jaw hung wide open as he stared blankly at the images for a moment. Then, as if waking from a dream, he suddenly said, “Major, that torpedo is two-minutes away from you.”

  Paul grimaced. “Don’t worry, sir, I have a plan,” he said. Then the shuttle began moving and stopped less than twenty meters from the Garan Warscout, off its starboard bow. He turned to Barrett and said, “I want you to get into this seat and when the countdown clock reaches ten seconds, activate that course.”

  He pointed to his console and she nodded saying, “Where are you going?”

  “To turn off the shuttles locator chip. An old Greeter trick from way back,” he winked, and jumped out of his chair, moving quickly, to the back of the shuttle. Barrett jumped into his now vacant seat, putting the seat belt on, and waited.

  On Ship Dexter turned to Nadir saying, “Sir, the Major has moved the orbit of the shuttle to twenty meters off the Warscout bow.”

  Nadir jumped to his feet bristling in anger. “Major, I don’t give you permission for this,” he shouted at the monitor.

  Although they could only see Barrett on the screen who looked worried, they heard Paul’s voice clearly, “Need I remind you, Colonel, that as Ship’s Greeter I have command in the field. You’re going to have to trust me for once in your life.”

  Nadir picked up his
water bottle and threw it across the room screaming, “How do you know there aren’t more Garan’s in this sector that’ll come looking for us once you destroy that Warscout, you fucking moron!”

  The shuttles computer suddenly announced, “Warning: torpedo impact in T-minus ninety-seconds, and counting.”

  Barrett blushed, but she answered the Nadirs outburst at Paul, “Sir, we’ve detected no other Garan vessels in the solar system. Besides, it doesn’t fit their MO with a planet at this level of technology.”

  “You had better explain yourself, Captain,” Nadir demanded.

  Barrett looked around to find Paul, hoping he might help her, but he were still trying to find the locator chip. Probably his plan all along to leave it to me to explain everything to Nadir, she thought angrily. She took a deep breath and said, “We intercepted a message before the Garan attack, from Bolaris. The Garan’s are going to invade Earth. The attack fleet is on its way, and will be here in three-months.”

  Dexter gulped, making Nadir look at him. “The Battle for Sol,” he said.

  Nadir felt as if he wanted to scream at the obstinate Greeter. “Goddard, I ordered you not to interfere with history, do you hear me? Destroy that torpedo, immediately,” he shouted at the monitor.

  Barrett looked confused about what to do, her hand hovered over the console. Paul called out from behind her, “Belay that order, they don’t know what we know!” She tentatively pulled her hand back, which made Nadir stamp his foot in anger.

  Paul started to speak, when Barrett said, “I’m detecting Earth attempting to communicate with the Warscout.”

  “Can you broadcast it to us?” Dexter asked.

  The speakers in the shuttle crackled, and a man’s voice speaking English pleaded with desperation for a ceasefire. “Unidentified space vessel, we mean you no harm! Please stop firing on us.” This message is on a loop, so it’s repeating. However, the Garan vessel continued firing at the surface of the planet targeting large cities across the globe.

  “Captain, what’s the damage from the Garan attack?” Dexter asked.

  Barrett rubbed the sweat from her forehead. “New York, Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, and Sydney have been wiped off the map,” she said.