It seems I have chosen correctly
she said in his mind.
Precisely for what?
Blake thought back.
Realizing the conversation had now switched from what he perceived as verbal to a completely mental exchange
He felt there was a lot he was not being told, and he didn’t like it. This thing had an agenda, and she wasn’t going to share it.
He didn’t think it was a harmful one,
but it was an agenda nonetheless.
He liked this situation less and less by the minute. “We are not done on the subject or my arm, Morgan. There will be a reckoning later.”
Blake could not believe how calm he was,
or that he had not simply gone into a corner and peed himself while jabbering nonsense.
He was always able to compartmentalize things until they were able to be dealt with,
but this went beyond any situation he had ever encountered.
He mentally shook his head.
There was no time to dwell on this now.
“Morgan, how long do we have before they triangulate this signal?” he queried her verbally.
“From the moment, the beacon went online…probably another week in Earth time before they know the general location, but there are places where the signal can be dampened to allow us the time we need to plan. I have brought you on to lead this group. This ship needs a captain, and according to my data, you will do nicely.” She stated.
Blake thought about that for a second.
“You do know I have a real problem with authority, right?” he said.
“Yes, but only when you are not the authority,” she responded as if that answer was all he needed. “Alright. How do I wake up, then?”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
ELEVEN
Meet the Family
Blake’s eyes opened to a shirtless, bald man with a big smile staring down at him.
“OH! He is waking,”
the man said in a heavy Russian accent as the smile on his face grew wider.
Blake felt something sticking out of his right nostril. He reached up and pulled out a small, metal cylinder.
“What the hell?” The man snatched it away and began to peer through it into Blake’s eyes.
“I was looking at your brain to make sure fainting like the little girl did not hurt your head. Morgan says we need you.” The bald man with the heavy Russian accent said.
“You must be Davidovich, right?” Blake said with a sigh, this guy was definitely a little off.
“Davi, yes,” he said and patted Blake on the head. “And you are the Captain.” He straightened up, and it was at that moment that Blake realized the man was very, very naked.
In fact, so was he.
Blake watched Davi walk away and pick up one of the mechanical bots.
He began to pet and whisper to it, as if it were his favorite cat.
“Davi holds two doctorates and is an amazing engineer, but as Aristotle said, ‘No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.’ I’m Shira, your pilot,”
said an unfamiliar female voice to his left.
Blake turned his head and saw an attractive,
raven-haired woman with metal arms and legs looking back at him.
She was also dressed in nothing but what God gave her.
“Oh, fucking hell,” he said and tried his best to cover up while forcing himself to think of every offensive thing he had ever seen just to keep his body from reacting.
To her credit, the woman did her best not to smile. He appreciated that.
“Morgan, we need clothes, please. Now,” Blake barked irritably.
“As you wish,” came Morgan’s voice from the ceiling.
A drawer opened on the far wall.
Keeping his head down,
Blake awkwardly got to his feet, walked over, and pulled out a handful of blue cloth.
“What the hell are these, pajamas?” Blake asked, examining the strange outfit.
“This is an under suit used to cover extremities and allow ease of movement,” Morgan replied.
“I have tailored them to your sizes, and each has your name sewn into it, so please ensure you put the correct one on.”
Blake grabbed his and handed over Shira’s.
They both dressed quickly.
“But, Captain, why wear clothes? They are constricting, and we are in space. We are free to wear birthday suit, yes?”
asked Davi hopefully.
Blake threw Davi’s suit at him.
“Put that on, Fruit Loops. There’s a lady present, and I don’t need the nightmares.”
Davi shrugged, got dressed, and scooped up his metal pet again.
“He’s about twelve beers short of a six-pack,” Blake muttered and stared as Davi continued to caress the drone.
“He’s harmless,” Shira said.
“I was the one who found you right before you took a nose dive. I’m guessing this is your first time on a spaceship,” she said with a smirk.
It was then that Blake realized she wasn’t speaking English. Her accent was something middle-eastern maybe, but he could understand every word. Nanites, that’s what Morgan had said. Something about nanites and translating things, or was that something she had put in his brain just now?
Curiously he looked at Davi and then back at Shira leaning into her he whispered:
“How is it I am hearing perfect English from you, but crazy train over there is speaking broken English with a Russian accent?”
Shira smiled and nodded
“I had the same thought. Apparently, if he decided to actually speak Russian, it would translate for him, but since you and I understand English then it doesn’t bother to translate”
She paused for a second and then said,
“How is you today?”
And Blake heard her speak the broken English phrase in what he guessed was her natural accent, “okay experiment successful” Blake said and laughed, it felt good to laugh,
It beat back the fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, he would never admit to it, but this situation scared the hell out of him.
He did a quick recap in his head Shira spoke a language, and the nanites translated it into his brain.
Fucking A, this is a nifty talent, Blake thought.
“Yeah well, they say it always hurts the first time,” Blake fired back feeling his own mouth break into a grin.
“So, if I’m the Skipper and he,” thumbing at Davi, “is Gilligan, who does that make you…Marianne or Ginger?” Blake asked with a grin.
“What makes you think you’re not Ginger?” she fired back returning his grin.
“I take it Morgan filled you in on the situation?” Her tone was serious as she met his eyes.
“Yeah, sounds like we forgot the paddle. Did you find out anything from her that might help orient us to this little situation here, because the sooner this becomes un-fucked, the quicker we can get it resolved?
“To be honest, I feel like we aren’t being told the entire story, and frankly, it’s disturbing my calm.” He told her and Shira nodded soberly and looked towards Saturn through the screen.
“There is something more going on here, and I too am not sure what it is. She has given clear and concise directions on roles and the current situation, but she doesn’t seem to want to elaborate on anything more than that.” Blake shook his head.
He looked at the two of them and realized that, aside from their names, he knew nothing about them.
“So, what’s your story?” asked Blake.
“I mean, I get this is probably manna from heaven for crazy boy over there, but how did you get roped into this mess?”
Shira looked down at her metal appendages.
“I was a paraplegic before Morgan brought me here. I took a hit in the cockpit of the plane I was flying during the war, and it paralyzed me. Morgan made me a better offer.”
They spent a few moments talking abou
t how they ended up on the ship and about their pasts which led them here. Shira seemed sad when Blake relayed the story that had led to his divorce.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“A lot of people had problems leaving the war behind when they came home. It affects all of us who fight, no matter the country or the war, just in different ways.” Blake nodded his head.
“I know. Sometimes I just wish it hadn’t taken my marriage too.”
They shared an understanding silence as Blake stared past her to the planet on the screen. Something tugged at the back of his mind. “Fruitcake,” he called over to Davi,
“isn’t there some theory about radio signals being warped and intercepted by gravity?”
He asked continuing to to stare at the planet as an idea formed. Davi looked up thoughtfully.
“Yes, Captain, but it would have to be a serious gravitational well to warp our signal.”
Blake nodded.
“Morgan, does this bucket of bolts have a bridge on it?”
A white line appeared, leading through the doorway and down the hall.
“Well now…follow the yellow brick road,”
Blake said as he started walking towards the door.
Davi continued to play with his pet, but Shira followed close behind Blake.
“Sounds like you have an idea, Captain. You want to fill us in, or would you rather just walk around all self-important like?”
Blake shot her an annoyed look.
“Did Morgan bring you up to speed on the whole beacon thing?” he asked.
Shira nodded.
“Yup, didn’t sound like a good thing. What’s the plan boss?”
She quirked an eye at him.
“I assume you have one.”
Blake nodded and smiled
“Yup, it’s called the run and hide.”
They reached the end of the corridor and walked into the room where the white line ended.
Consoles began to light up,
and shutters covering the front screens started to raise.
“Welcome to the bridge, the primary command, and control center of the Nismel”
Morgan stated. Blake whistled at the sight.
The room was a giant circle with 3 monitors, seamlessly tied together along the front half of the wall, facing the front of the ship.
The large display in the center showed their location at the edge of Saturn’s rings.
The screens off to either side displayed statistics and data on the ship.
Closest to the screens were a set of seats with navigation consoles in front and joysticks on either side. Behind the seats, in the center of the room, was a circular planning table.
Rising up off the floor, behind the planning table, was the Captain’s chair and a station near it
Blake struggled with identifying until Morgan put the label of Executive Officer station into his head, that is going to take some getting used to
Blake thought.
Various other stations lined the wall behind them, complete with monitors and controls for different tasks. Morgan mentally fed him the different names and task designations for the stations:
weapons, sensors, communications, and operations. Shira pushed past Blake and went to the left pilot’s chair. She unceremoniously plopped herself in the seat.
“Hello beautiful,” she whispered only seconds before she began flipping switches and setting preferences on the main console.
“How the hell do you know what you’re doing?” Blake asked pointedly.
Shira looked at him and then down at the controls again.
“I’m not sure, but it’s like I have been doing it forever.”
Her hands flashed across panels and dials as she checked statuses and began the sequence to fire up the engines.
She flipped a toggle on her chair, and suddenly her voice filled the ship.
“Davi, get to the engine room We are kicking the tires and lighting the fires. We will be wheels up as soon as you give the green light.”
Shira flipped down the toggle and turned to Blake. “Alright, Captain, while Davi checks the systems, you want to tell me where the hell I am flying this beast too?”
Blake walked over to a circular console in the middle of the bridge.
When he touched his hand to it, a three-dimensional representation of the galaxy appeared. Blake began moving his hands apart, and the projection started to zoom out as planets, and then constellations, were displayed.
He was surprised he was so adept at controlling the console, but then he could feel Morgan feeding him information, and realized what was happening.
He was experiencing what she offered him …knowledge.
It was hard to bring the two realities together. There was the one where nothing was familiar,
and one where he was intimately familiar with everything.
It was almost intoxicating.
He shook off the feeling and got down to business. “Morgan, what type of spatial anomalies will hamper this signal for a bit and give us some breathing room?” Blake asked as he studied the map.
A spot began to blink,
and the map zoomed in on something bright and large.
“What the hell is that thing?”
The moment he asked, the answer popped into his head.
“Holy shit,” he breathed.
Before he could even ask the next question, another blip popped up. He pointed to it.
“Alright, Shira, make this ship go there.”
Shira studied the coordinates and then began entering them in on the computer.
“Ok, there is a jump point one day from here, and from that, four jumps will get us to that point in about six days’ travel time. What’s there?”
She asked turning to look at Blake who smiled and answered
“That, my dear, is the closest we can get to the mother of all black holes. I believe, from my limited understanding, that it will dampen the beacon and allow us a little breathing room while we figure out what our next move is. More importantly, it should keep whoever’s chasing us away from Earth.” Blake flipped a switch on the edge of the console “Hey, Davi, how are we looking down there? I need an ETA, so we can kick this pig and go.” “Everything was shut down by the book,”
Davi responded through the intercom.
“Though I am not sure which book that was, apparently, I know it. The matrix is coming online and should be ready within the hour.”
As promised, the ships external drives soon came alive, washing the debris in the rings of Saturn aglow as the primary drive powered up and began to push the vessel towards the first jump point.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
TWELVE
Road Trippin
The lights of slip space washed over the bridge from the main viewport as Shira sat at the pilot’s console, shaking her head.
She had been at it for hours, reviewing equations and looking at theories, all to try and understand how slip space worked.
She had the base knowledge from Morgan who had told her that slip space was a way for physical matter to get around the laws of physics. Since matter cannot travel faster than light,
slip space allows one to bend space.
It was nothing as neat as instantaneous jumps,
but by bending space and slipping into the area between two physical spaces,
you could defy the laws of physics.
Shira rubbed her eyes.
She was not a damn physicist, and the math had started to hurt her head.
“You know, if you keep that up, you’re going to go blind,” Blake said.
Shira jumped at his voice. She hadn’t heard him enter the bridge.
“Sorry, Boss, just doing some studying,” Shira rolled her shoulders to work the kink out of them, then looked at the time.
Well fucking hell, she thought. No wonder my back hurts.
“Morgan gave us some good intel, but I wanted to understand it as much
as I could. So far, I’m collecting more questions than answers.”
Blake crossed his arms and leaned against the console.
“I get it. So, what have you learned?” he asked.
From the look on his face,
he was genuinely interested,
and that took Shira by surprise.
Shira looked down at her notes and continued. “Did you know the reason we have jump points into slip space is because they are locations with the least gravitational distortions? They are direct calculated paths that will allow us to circumnavigate planets and other solid objects.” Blake turned his head to stare at the shades of crimson washing over the screen.
“I didn’t know that, but it does make a sort of sense. Any idea what would happen if we just decided to enter slip space somewhere else?”
Shira shook her head
“No idea, Cowboy, but I can imagine it wouldn’t be good.”
Blake nodded, seeming to think on it a moment. “Sometimes, this whole thing can be a little overwhelming. I’ve never commanded a spaceship, and now if I fuck up, it could mean the enemy discovers Earth.”
Blake hung his head for a moment and looked up to lock eyes with Shira.
“I might need recommendations, opinions, or even help, so you keep it up. Learn everything you can. Having Morgan is nice, but she’s ultimately an artificial entity, and there may come a time when we need to do something outside of reason and sanity just to survive.” He whispered, his eyes looking distantly at the view screen thoughtfully.
“You know, Morgan tells me that the lights out there are particles and other debris in space. They wash against the high-energy shield that protects us as we travel at this velocity. When we enter this state, we’re no longer a solid object, but more like a faster-than-light energy beam… Or maybe we just travel at faster than light like an energy beam. I wasn’t really paying attention, but the things that pass close to us also enter that state and bounce off the shield that protects us. I don’t pretend to know exactly how that works, and it would probably take scientists from Earth a hundred years to figure it out, but when I look out the main window, I see beauty; I see a wash of colors and hues that give me a peaceful feeling. To me, it’s pure beauty, not complicated math, but that’s the type of person I am”. He said with that distant look.
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