by Richard Fox
“Fifty?” Lincoln straightened, looking at his own chrono. He grimaced. “Son of a bitch!”
Hale chuckled. “I told you.”
The young engineer glared at them. He opened his mouth to respond, but another voice cut him off. The soft, almost childlike voice echoed through the Franny’s cargo bay. “I am not sure I understand this activity. How is it that one of you is sad and the other is happy, but the outcome of the task was the same?”
Lincoln groaned. “What, you expect me to be happy I just lost a half day’s pay?”
“Well, I'm happy about it,” Ears said.
“In most games, there’s always a winner and loser, Yesarin,” Hale explained.
Ears hopped to the deck, then leaped onto one of the crates beside Lincoln and extended a small pad. “Although, far less winning in Lincoln’s case.”
Reluctantly, Lincoln extended his own pad and a second later Ears tapped his with a finger and bowed.
“Why thank you, good sir.”
“Let’s get all the cargo secured,” Hale said. “I want a final systems check on the new drives before head out to the jump point.”
Lincoln stuffed his pad away and reached for the tie-down straps lying on the deck. “The drives are fine, Cap, I’ve been over them a hundred times.”
“One more check won’t hurt, Lincoln. And with the distances we’re talking about, we definitely can’t afford any mistakes.”
“Captain Hale,” Yesarin said, “I would like to point out that Being Lincoln is correct. The drives and associated control systems are fully functional and operating well within established parameters. My monitor routines are constantly updated with data from all ship’s systems.”
“I knew installing that damned AI on board would turn around to bite us in the ass,” Ears said.
Lincoln laughed. “Yeah, now there’s two know-it-alls on board.”
“One, actually,” Ears corrected. “And he’s decidedly more charming, too, even with this damned implant.” He rubbed behind his oversized, heart-shaped right ear.
Hale checked his chrono. “Let’s meet in the galley in 20 minutes. Yesarin, would you let Kenzie and Wilson know?”
“Yes, Captain Hale. I will let them know.”
“Thanks.”
Twenty minutes later, the crew of the Franny were gathered in the ship’s small commons area. Kenzie, a tactical genius and Hale’s second in command, leaned against the counter, nursing a mug of steaming hot chocolate. Lincoln sat at the small table in the center of the room finishing a bowl of something Hale didn’t even want to imagine. Ears was lounging on the only couch in the room, which was bolted to the deck along the port side bulkhead. Wilson, their one-time black-market fare and now accidental crewman, had grown less and less of an ass during their several months’ stay in the Prestar system; he stood along the aft bulkhead, next to the exit, his arms crossed.
Kenzie looked up as Hale stepped through the hatch. “What’s the word, boss?”
“Word is we’re leaving in the morning. Yesarin is busy working through the calculations now and should have the exact numbers ready by tomorrow.”
“So much for an all-knowing AI,” Ears said.
“Hey, give him a little bit of credit,” Hale said. “It’s only the largest wormhole jump anyone’s ever made in human history. I’m willing to give him a little bit of a cushion.”
“I’m ready to be home,” Kenzie said.
Hale nodded. “I know it’s been a long trip for everyone, and not one we’d anticipated…”
“That’s an understatement,” Wilson said.
Hale ignored him, continuing, “But that being said, I wanted to personally thank all of you for all your hard work and patience over the last few months. I know this wasn’t what any of you signed up from when we left Utaro, and I know you’re all extremely excited to get back home.”
“Yeah, I’ll finally be able to spend all of Lincoln’s credits,” Ears said.
The engineer glared at Ears. “I hope you’re happy, taking food out of my kids’ mouths.”
“You don’t have any kids.”
“Not that you know of, anyway.”
“Oh, God,” Kenzie said. “That’s a scary thought.”
Lincoln leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the table. “Look, all I’m interested in is lying on a beach somewhere, soaking in the rays and drinking my body weight in alcohol.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I can feel my sunburn itching already.”
“Lotion, Lincoln,” Kenzie said. “It’s available for a reason.”
Lincoln shook his head. “Doesn’t help. I have to burn, then I’ll turn a nice golden brown.”
Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
Hale cleared his throat. “We’re probably going to be under a lot of scrutiny when we get back, especially from STA, but I think once our story gets out, the pressure from the Transit Authorities will be relegated to the background. I’m sure it will be a while before we actually have some alone time.”
“Vultures,” Ears muttered.
Hale couldn’t disagree. “I want everyone to try and get a good night’s sleep tonight. It might be the last we see in a while.”
Two
Despite his suggestion to his crew, Hale didn’t sleep at all that night. He decided to stop fighting the losing battle and made his way to the bridge. At five in the morning, ship time, it was quiet. The bridge displays were switched off, the only light coming from dim panels in the ceiling and the orange light from the Prestar sun.
“Good morning, Being Hale,” Yesarin said, his voice emitting from the bridge speakers.
“Good morning, Yesarin.”
“I imagine you’re wondering how my calculations are progressing?”
Hale grunted at the understatement of the year. “It’s been on my mind, yes.”
“You’ll be pleased to know that they are almost complete. I have isolated the gravitation and quantum signatures of your galaxy and have identified the location of the Sol System. There are, however, some factors which I did not foresee in my original calculations, which are requiring a significant portion of my intelligence to investigate.”
“What factors?”
“It is my understanding that your people do not have the technology to employ our wormhole generation equipment.”
“That’s correct. We just use the ones that are naturally occurring.”
“Indeed. However, I am picking up a significant fluctuation in the fabric of space time on the outer edge of your solar system.”
“What kind of fluctuation?”
“Unknown. I detected them several days ago; however, the magnitude of the disturbances has been growing increasingly more dramatic. I have been using them as an anchor point for my jump calculations.”
“A man-made wormhole,” Hale thought aloud. That’s an interesting development. “Is that going to affect your jump home?”
“Because of the distances and math involved in my calculations, it is difficult for me to be entirely certain about the origin and identity of the energy variance, but I am 98.7421% certain that the disruption in the space-time continuum is indeed a wormhole and I will be able to use it for our path.”
A grunt behind Hale pulled his attention away from the data scrolling down the now active bridge displays. Ears stood leaning against the hatch-frame, arms folded across his furry chest.
“You’re really comfortable trusting a computer that spent a few thousand years lost in hyperspace to get us back home without any issues?”
“I was not lost in hyperspace, Being Ears, I was—“
“Yeah, same thing.” Ears climbed up the bulkhead to his crash couch, mounted just behind and above Hale’s pilot seat.
“Hey, if you’ve got any better ideas for crossing the fifty thousand light years to get home, I’d love to hear them.”
“My calculations are quite infallible,” Yesarin said.
Ears flicked his ears. “Oh, quite.”
Hale ignored him. “When will you be ready, Yesarin?”
“I am ready now.”
Hale couldn’t help the surge of anticipation that flowed through him. He forced calmness into his voice. “Would you please let the crew know?”
“Of course.”
Five minutes later, Kenzie was climbing up the ladder at the front of the bridge. She dropped into her seat to the left of Hale’s and activated her screens. “Well, I hope this is better than the last time.”
Hale grinned. “You’re not the only one.” He used his i3 chip and accessed the ship’s comms. “Lincoln, how’s everything look?”
“One hundred percent, Cap. New drives are purring like a kitten.”
“Mr. Wilson, all strapped in back there?”
“Strapped in and ready to go.”
“Okay.” Hale pulled his harness tight. “Let’s go home.”
Three
Franny's transition through the wormhole, back into normal space, was nothing less than a gut punch to her crew. Hale doubled over and grabbed his stomach as his insides twisted, and held his lips closed against the threat of vomiting all over his console. To his left, Kenzie was groaning and struggling to undo her harness. A series of high-pitched screeches echoed through the Franny's cockpit as Ears curled into a little furry ball.
Hale got his harness off and rolled out of his chair, going to his hands and knees on the deck. He dry heaved twice, then, using every bit of willpower that he had, he forced himself to take a deep breath, pushing away the urge to throw up. He looked over at Kenzie, who was leaning back in her chair staring at the bridge’s ceiling, body stiff with concentration.
Without taking her eyes from the ceiling, Kenzie said, “I’m never jumping through a wormhole, ever again.”
Hale looked up to the chattermonkey’s crash couch. “Ears, are you all right?”
A small face looked up at Hale, bright eyes wide with fury, his ears standing erect. “I'm freaking done with wormholes.”
“Yesarin?”
“Yes, Being Hale?”
“Did we make it?”
“Yes, Being Hale. We have arrived near the outer rim of the solar system, in orbit of a planet approximately the size of your Earth. However, the levels of iron and copper are much higher than your current data of your homeworld, according to your computer. The planetoid’s magnetic field is nearly double and the surface gravity is four times that of Earth.”
“You mean you didn’t see that in your calculations?” Ears asked.
“Even my programming has its limitations. However, diagnostics confirm all my systems are operating within normal parameters and biological scans of the crew show everyone has come through the path unharmed.”
“Relatively,” Ears said.
“The source of the temporal variance I detected prior to jumping through the path is located on the surface. There appears to be a small outpost there, and I am picking of signs of biological life on the surface as well. The electrical and mechanical systems appear to be similar in construction and function as other human buildings I have encountered, however, the computer language and several other minor factors bear slight differences from known systems.”
“Did you say there are people on that planet?” Hale asked.
“That is correct.”
“Well, can we talk to them?”
Kenzie tapped away on her console, working in tandem with Yesarin. “It’s not a very complicated system, we should be able to… yeah, that’s it.”
Another panel opened on Hale’s display, informing him that a connection was being established. As lines of code scrolled down his display, he couldn’t tell who was doing more work, Kenzie or Yesarin.
Ears crawled onto Hale’s shoulder. “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
“Hmmm,” Hale said, rubbing his chin. After all they’d been through, Hale was inclined to agree. Necessity, however, won out. “I’d like to know what who’s out here.”
“I’ve got their frequency, Hale. Visual’s coming in now.”
Hale leaned forward, looking at the grainy 2D image. “There we go.”
An overweight man, wearing a patch over one eye and what looked like the mangled remains of an EVA suit, was leaning on a crutch, staring off camera. Half of one leg was missing and there appeared to be some kind of robot sitting on the man’s shoulder.
The room he stood in looked like it’d been through hell.
“What a dump!” Ears said. “And who’s the space pirate?”
The man smiled, looking off camera to someone standing just outside of view. “I am Fazion Sedaris,” the man said, turning back to the camera. “Looks like you have a starship.”
Off screen someone said, “Looks like we have options.”
Hale glanced over at Kenzie, whose expression seemed to mirror his own confusion. “That’s right.”
“And you’re human?”
“Last time I checked,” Hale said.
“Well, this is getting off to a great start,” Ears said.
Hale cleared his throat. “I’m Captain James Hale, this is Kenzie Clark. You guys look like you’ve been through hell and back.”
“Ain’t that the truth. Who sent you out here? UEF? FCF?”
“No one sent us out here. What’s a UEF?”
Fazion frowned. “United Earth Foundation, the ones who paid for us to come out here and research exotic matter and wormholes. No one other than a few really important people even knew we were out here. Figured they received one of our emergency calls and sent you guys out here.”
Hale shook his head. “Sorry, we got here mostly by accident.”
“That’s an understatement,” Ears muttered.
“Hmmm,” Fazion said, the little robot moving around the back of his neck to the opposite shoulder. “Well, accident or no, we’re glad you’re here. Our long-range communications equipment got knocked out during the fighting. You guys can get us home, right?”
“That depends on how many people you have down there.”
“Six, including myself.”
“Well, we don’t have room for that many, we can probably take two at the most. But that depends on where you’re headed, I guess.”
“Hey, man, anywhere but here. I’m just ready to go home.”
“I know the feeling. Give me a few minutes to talk it over with my crew and we’ll get back with you, figure out who you want to send along. Hale out.”
The screen went dark and Hale turned to Kenzie. “What do you think?”
She shook her head, giving him a sardonic half-smile. “Nothing can ever go strictly as planned with you, can it?”
“Hey, it’s not like I wanted to pick up hitchhikers. Honestly, finding some stranded people in the middle of nowhere isn’t what’s bothering me, what’s bothering me is why everything is so different here.”
“And what the hell was that little bot on his shoulder?” Ears asked.
“I was able to connect to their computer network on the surface,” Yesarin said. “It appears as though that robot is what Being Fazion uses as his visual interface.”
“What?” Kenzie asked.
“He’s blind?” Hale asked.
“In one eye at least,” Yesarin said.
“But that still doesn’t explain why everything is so different.”
“My guess,” Yesarin said, “is that the variance in the wormhole signatures I detected was possibly a rift in the temporal fabric of space-time, and because we used their wormhole signature as an anchor for our own, we passed through the rift.”
“Okaaay,” Hale said, trying to guess what the AI was trying to say. “So that rift made things different somehow?”
“Not quite, Being Hale. There is a working theory throughout the Prestar quantum science community, that our universe is just one of many and that there are an untold number of alternate realities unfolding around us at any given time.”
“What, like a multi-verse?”
&nb
sp; “Precisely. It has been theorized that if one could build a bridge between the two universes, one could travel them, arriving in different realities and even different times. The temporary possibilities are endless.”
“So, where precisely are we?”
“The data suggests that we have crossed over one of these bridges and arrived in a reality not too dissimilar from ours. Without more exact data, I can’t tell you specially the date, but judging by the technology and conditions of the humans on the planet’s surface, I would estimate this time period to be close to our own, plus or minus fifty years.”
“Fifty years?” Kenzie let out a breath. “So, the people we know in our universe, are they here?”
“I have insufficient information on multi-verse theory to make an informed decision. The possibility does exist: however there are endless factors affecting whether or not you, or someone you knew in your prior universe are alive now, or even existed at all.”
Kenzie’s shoulders dropped. “Wow.”
“Yesarin?”
“Yes, Being Hale?”
“Can we get back to our reality?”
“Again, my knowledge of multi-verse theory is limited. However, even if that were not the case, I do not believe we would be able to. Someone in our universe would have to open a wormhole similar to the one here, with the same temporal variance and quantum signature, and we would have to be looking in the right location.”
“So, we’re stuck here, no matter what?”
“Yes, Being Hale. That is correct.”
“Fantastic.”
Four
Hale looked up from his display as Kenzie came up the bow ladder. “Our guests settled?”
Kenzie pursed her lips, eyebrows arching. “Well, our cabins aren’t really designed for someone that guy’s size, but they’ll work for short term. That robot of his really creeps me out.”
“This whole thing creeps me out,” Hale said, not wanting to admit it. “He said Mars is where his UEF commander Skarsgaard is based out of, I think that will be a good place to start.”
Lincoln leaned over Kenzie’s seat. “I can get us within two million kilometers, the drives are only about seven percent charged. It’ll take another day or two for them to fully recharge.”
