by Donald Swan
“Slimy! Dude! You saved my module!” Nick simultaneously crowed.
Sirok’s grin widened as he raised a short, metallic rod into the air.
Nick’s enthusiasm waned, and he jumped back, ready to take cover.
Sirok gave a short, wry laugh. “What’s the matter? Never seen a Dragoran slaver’s prod before?” Sirok’s face scrunched into something resembling a frown, and all four of his eyes faced Nick. “I’ve seen many in my day. Unfortunately, it was always from the wrong end.” Sparks flew from the rod as he pressed a button on the handle. “A good jab from this can render a slave unconscious for some time. Those Dragoran baskurts tortured so many of my people. I wasn’t about to let them get their hands on this module!”
Sirok slithered his short, plump body over to the side of the cockpit. “I knew the spy would be after the module, so I hid behind the seat and waited for them. I never expected it to be her, though,” he said, one eye pivoting back in Arya’s direction. Three eyes still pinned Nick with a googly gaze and noted his concern over Arya. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. She’ll wake up soon.”
“I never expected you to…um…well…rescue Arya.” Nick ended on a mumble. “Or my module.”
All four eyes were on Nick again, and one actually looked a little squinty. “Why do you act so surprised?” Sirok demanded. “I think maybe now you should show me a little more respect. I heard what you said earlier, you know.”
Nick bowed as if addressing a King. “Forgive me, Your Royal Gooeyness. But you do have beady little eyes.” Nick scrunched his face in embarrassment. “Okay, I agree…you’ve saved our butts. I was wrong. Now get your slimy ass out of my module ’cuz I have work to do.”
Karg started to reach for Arya.
“Careful, Karg,” Nick warned. “I fell for her fake unconscious act earlier.”
Sirok pulled himself up and over the side of the cockpit. He dangled for a moment before his metal chariot contraption zipped from its hiding place in the bay and positioned itself smartly underneath him. He let go of the edge of the cockpit and plopped down into the seat with a squish.
Karg retrieved the unconscious Arya from the module. “I’m taking her to Cryo until we can figure out what to do with her.”
“Good thinking. Wait…will that stop those nasty nanites?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know.” Karg shrugged. “It’s the best I could come up with.” Karg turned and headed out the door with Arya over his shoulder.
Nick climbed into the cockpit to prepare for liftoff. When his fingers touched the controls, slimy mucus squished between his fingers. “Oh, man. Slimy, you really need to do something about this!” Nick hollered. He used the edge of his shirt to wipe the gross ooze off his hand as best as he could and then closed the canopy. A quick rundown let him know that all the module’s systems checked out okay. On a whim, he reached into his pocket and rubbed his lucky coin. After all he’d been through the coin was still there, always with him.
Nick maneuvered the module off the deck and through the protective force-field, aiming for open space. “It’ll work.” He pressed his lips together hard, a nervous habit he’d had since childhood. “It sure as shit better work.”
After clearing the hangar door, he looped around in front of the Ashok. “Kyrk, you ready?” He still couldn’t get used to that name. It seemed to roll off his tongue in a sort of joking way that didn’t seem quite respectful. Kyrk! Who’da thought it.
“We’re ready, Bannon,” Kyrk responded. “I just hope you’re right about this.”
“Yeah, me too,” Nick whispered to himself.
He flipped the generator on, and to his relief, a window opened in front of him. He dialed the amplitude up just enough so that the window grew barely large enough to accommodate the Ashok’s huge size. With the Dreadnought in such close proximity, he didn’t dare open the window any larger.
Nervous energy poured through him as his module started into the window. Shit was about to get scary. This was only the second time in his life that he had ventured into hyperspace, and the first time had been completely out of his control. He didn’t know if he could actually do this and control it well enough to drag the Ashok and himself into safety.
“So far, so good.” Nick breathed through the words.
The module cleared the window into hyperspace, the Ashok close behind.
“Come on, baby, hold on. Just a little longer.”
Nick watched his instrument panel nervously, praying the new generator wouldn’t burn out before the Ashok could make it through. And praying he was doing the right thing. Who knew where they would end up or what could be waiting on the other side.
Aboard the Grok….
The Captain of the Grok watched as the Ashok plunged into the hyperspace window. His prize was escaping! The Commodore would not look kindly on another failure. The scales on D’rog’s face rippled as his teeth clenched. Muscles along his powerful jaw quivered while he attempted to control his rage. “Fire upon them now! Do not let them escape!”
Several bursts from the forward guns raced toward the Ashok, crippling its only remaining engine. But it was too late. The ship’s inertia continued to carry it forward into the hyperspace window.
“Follow them in, lieutenant!”
“But, Sir. It’s too small, we won’t fit—”
D’rog stood and, with a single step, he was at the lieutenant’s console. A forearm to the First Officer’s chest hurled him across the bridge and plunged him down hard onto the deck. “Get out of my sight! You’re a disgrace to this ship and the Empire!”
Dazed, the lieutenant hesitated for a moment and then scrambled to his feet. He stumbled into the nearest transport tube, eager to get away from the wrath of his Captain. A blow to the chest was the least of D’rog’s often brutal punishments. Death could be next if the Captain so decided. Dragoran Captains were known for shooting First Officer’s who questioned a command. The lieutenant wasn’t about to press his luck.
D’rog’s gaze never left the console in front of him. He was barely even aware of the sound of the transport tube doors closing behind his First Officer. His only thought was the escaping ship and the repercussions of failure. He pushed the Dreadnought’s engines to their limit and beyond. Life support to non-critical areas of the ship ceased to function as he raced to redirect every ounce of energy to the ship’s propulsion. The loss of a portion of the crew was insignificant compared to the mission at hand. One by one, power to non-critical systems were cut. He redirected power from the artificial gravity in the crew quarters. Every trick he knew to gain more speed. He must get through that window. He must not allow them to escape again!
The ship’s engines neared overload, yet he continued to press on, fearless and willing to suffer any consequence. The gap to his target closed rapidly. Radiation leak warnings flashed on the console as the engine casings melted. Still, he pushed ahead. His only focus was the edge of that window. He watched for any change in the field’s diameter as his ship raced toward the nearing hyperspace opening. D’rog leaned forward in anticipation of reaching the window. He could almost taste victory.
The Grok was within half a click when suddenly the circular window began to collapse.
“Noooo!” he roared long and loud.
He wasn’t going to make it. The window quickly shrank in size until it evaporated into space. The Dragoran ship barreled through the remaining electrostatic discharge moments after the window’s collapse. His prey had escaped to the elusive realm of hyperspace.
D’rog’s scaly brow dipped and ripples shot through his clinched jaw. His head flew back and he released a long, deafening roar, as if every ounce of his being was suddenly expelled from his throat. At that moment he knew he had lost his status, his life, and the lives of his entire family. The Commodore was not one to bluff. Punishment would be swift and merciless. D’rog had failed.
He lowered his head and turned to see an ensign staring at him from a corner of the bridge, fr
ozen with fear. The ensign was dead before D’rog even realized he’d pulled the trigger of his plasma pistol. He looked down at the pistol in his hand, sneered and stuck it back into his holster. He stood there, one hand on the Captain’s chair, staring without seeing, busy contemplating his next move.
In hyperspace….
“Yeehaw!” Nick crowed. “We did it! That should buy us some time.” If he’d done this back home, they would erect a statue and teach his accomplishments to little school kids forever and a day. Out here in space…wherever he was…his mates back on earth might never hear of this, but right now…he was just damn happy to be alive.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I can’t believe I actually did it.”
“Good work, Bannon,” Kyrk replied from the bridge of the Ashok. “We do have one small problem, however. That last blast took out our only operating engine. But we still have thruster control. We should be able to hold position until repairs are completed.”
Nick punched some keys on the module’s instrument panel. “I’m sending you some positional data. Just align yourself with these three gravitational distortions and hold position relative to them. I’m coming aboard.”
“Gravitational distortions laid in. Thrusters at station-keeping. Holding steady.”
The red undulating hues of hyperspace glowed beyond the module’s windows. A familiar lump found its way into Nick’s throat. He swallowed hard and tried to convince himself everything would be fine, but he knew this maneuver was beyond risky. A hunch: that was all he really had to go on. That and very slim data.
He slowed his approach to the hangar bay to ponder the vast red ocean of hyperspace. It wasn’t anything like what he’d expected it to be when he had postulated his theory. He wasn’t even sure what he’d expected. He hadn’t really thought of hyperspace in terms of how it would look. It was amazing to actually see the strange, red underworld. It was almost like looking at a gravitational field chart with gravitational currents and eddies but no planets or stars, only their gravitational distortions.
When Nick realized he’d been staring out the window for a few minutes with his mouth open in awe he decided to speed up his approach. He was anxious to check on Arya and see what kind of data the Ashok’s instruments could gather on this bizarre dimension.
Nick jumped from his module before it even came to a full stop on the bay floor and ran toward the Cryo lab. He called Karg on his com-link as he hurried down the corridor. “Karg. How is she?”
“We had to sedate her just to get her in the Cryo-unit. She bruised up a few of the crew, but she’s in suspended animation now. The cold has slowed the nanites to a crawl, but it hasn’t stopped them completely. If we don’t do something soon, the dran things will sever all her life functions and then probably self destruct. I already have Sirok searching through the Admiral’s files for anything helpful.”
Nick picked up his pace, sprinting down the corridor. “Be there in a second.”
Nick’s pace slowed as he rounded the doorway into the Cryo-unit. On the opposite side of the room, Karg stood looking down into the transparent window of a Cryo-tube. A stream of ice cold vapor spewed from a vent in the end of the chamber. As Nick approached, Arya’s face slowly came into view through the tube’s frosty window. She looked so peaceful, so much like the Arya he had known. There had to be a way they could rid her brain of the nanites without killing her.
Sirok called on the com-link. “I’ve been through all the files, and I didn’t find any more mention of the spy nanites or how to remove them. I’m afraid the Admiral may have felt the information was too sensitive to risk having it in writing. Anything he knew apparently died with him.”
Karg’s shoulders noticeably dropped.
Nick rubbed a palm across his rough, stubbly face as he thought. “Damn, where’s the pot of coffee when I really need it,” he muttered. “Hey, Karg, you think we could reprogram those language nanites to eradicate the spy ones?”
Karg shook his head solemnly. “I thought the same thing. We already tried it before putting her in the tube. That’s when she went berserk, throwing crewmembers around the room. When I was finally able to pin her down, the nasty buggers started cutting the nerves to her life functions. I barely got her sedated and into the tube in time. I have life support standing by, but I fear it will be inadequate in this case. Not only that but the nanites we sent in were transformed into more spy nanites. Insidious, they are.”
Karg’s explanation was cut off when an alarm sounded from the Cryo console. “What is it?” Nick nervously asked.
“Frek, we’re losing her. We can keep her body frozen, but, if this continues, I don’t know if we’ll be able to repair the damage to her brain. From what Sirok found out earlier, once the nanites have accomplished their mission, they self destruct. They literally go through a meltdown, frying the areas of the brain they are in contact with. Once that happens, there is really no hope.”
Nick stared at Arya for a moment, his brain in high gear as he remembered something important, something that just might work. “Wait a minute! This may not be over yet, buddy. I have an idea. Back home they used an EM pulse to destroy rogue nanites. Would that work for these?”
“I think so, but because of their shielding, it would take a massive pulse.” The gaze Karg turned to Nick was two parts hopeful and one part glum. And then it got worse. The big guy started looking sad and hopeless.
Nick didn’t like the pucker face look. Not at all. “Oh, shit. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know how we can generate that kind of electromagnetic pulse in time. We’re down to minutes here.”
Nick grinned. “Rail guns! We got big-ass rail guns, remember.”
Karg’s eyes opened wide. “The forward plasma cannons!”
Karg didn’t even hesitate. He immediately yanked out the hose connecting the Cryo-tube to the wall and yelled, “Coming through!” He spun the wheeled Cryo-unit around, almost running over Nick’s feet as he bolted for the door. Karg raced out of the room and down the corridor as fast as he could get his huge feet to move and still maneuver the Cryo-tube.
A Meth crewmember stepped out from a doorway to see what all the commotion was about.
“Clear the way!” Karg boomed.
The Coranii barely avoided the oncoming tube, quickly ducking back into the room as Karg whizzed by. A few seconds later, Nick almost plowed into the same Meth as he leaned back out into the corridor to watch Karg sprinting down the hall.
“Coming through!” Nick huffed as he tried to catch up to Karg who was now disappearing around the corner.
In the forward gun room, Karg pulled off the maintenance cover of the plasma cannon’s rail assembly. Nick slid into the room just in time to see Karg picking the Cryo-unit up off its wheeled base and placing it on the rails of the electromagnetic drive system. “We need to anchor it in place, or we risk shooting her into space,” Karg said, searching the room with his gaze.
Nick stared at the Cryo-unit lying on the rails. Essentially, one blast would send a magnetic pulse into the Cryo-unit. Problem was the rails were designed to fire huge plasma rounds out of the forward tube and into space. They needed something to prevent the Cryo-unit from being blasted into space while still channeling the linear magnetic pulse into the Cryo-tube. Something metal, and something strong.
Another alarm sounded from the Cryo-chamber. Arya was dying. They had no more time, they had to act quickly.
Nick spun around in a circle as he swept the room looking for something they could use to anchor the Cryo-unit.
Karg reached for a nearby storage locker and ripped the metal unit from the wall, bolts and all. He turned it and wedged it between the Cryo-tube and the plasma cannon’s barrel then positioned himself at the weapons console. Karg paused with his finger over the fire button. “The tube should refocus the field into a static pulse.”
Nick looked at Karg’s hovering finger. “What are you waiting for?”
“If I’m w
rong, we’ll shoot the nanites right through her skull.” Karg took a deep breath, pushed Nick behind him with one swipe of his massive arm, and pressed the fire button. A hollow thump rang from the Cryo-tube as the magnetic pulse discharged along its length. Sparks flew from the display panels mounted on the sides of the chamber, and then all of the displays went blank.
“Quickly! We have to get her into another Cryo-unit. This one is destroyed.” Karg threw the chamber back onto the wheeled gurney, flung Nick on top of it, and shot out the door again. One by one, numerous heads popped out from a row of doorways in the corridor to watch as the strange spectacle passed by.
“Gang way!” Karg roared. He rounded the corner and zipped through the Cryo-room doors, skidding to an abrupt halt in the center of the room.
Nick’s white-knuckle ride had come to a swift and uncomfortable end. He slid off the slippery container and landed head-first onto the floor with a loud thud. By the time he scrambled to his feet, Karg had already transferred Arya’s body to another tube.
With Arya finally secure in a functioning Cryo-chamber, Karg monitored her life signs carefully. “No signs of activity from the nanites. I think we did it. There is some damage to her neural pathways, but I think the med-bots can handle it. We’ll just have to wait until we can revive her to really know how she’s doing.”
Waiting had never been easy for Nick. Especially not under tense circumstances. Through the next grueling two hours Nick did everything from pacing to whistling to annoying Karg with colorful rhymes in order to make the time pass faster. But time was not his friend today, and every minute seemed to pass at a snail’s pace. Every minute ticking by while nothing happened inside that damn Cryo-chamber. He wanted to talk to Arya, wanted to see those cat-eyes open and stare up at him in that way she had when she was clearly thinking he was a cute moron from outer space. But nothing happened.
“All we can do is wait,” Karg told him for the hundredth time since placing Arya in the chamber.
