by Chris Reher
Nova looked undecided.
“He could be hurt,” Cyann said. “If he’s so powerful, why doesn’t he just come over here? Something is keeping him. We have to help.”
“We do,” Jovan said firmly. “If for no other reason than to get the voices out of Cy's head.”
“I will stay here,” Tychon said to Nova. “Let them make the jump and take a look around. Then report back here. We have to start probing exits anyway to find where the cloud is coming from. Might as well start there.”
“You don’t want to go?” Anders said, surprised.
“Our mission is the cloud. If that means finding Kiran in the process, then I’ll be very happy. If not, we’ve still got a problem right here. Taking both spanners into the breach is not something we should risk.”
“I could stay here,” Jovan offered.
Tychon smiled. “You belong on the Scout, Explorer. We’re just a couple of old soldiers getting ready to blast rocks out of the sky. That's our job.”
“Speak for yourself, you,” Nova elbowed him lightly. “Old soldiers, indeed!”
“So it’s decided?” Cyann said eagerly. “We can go?”
“You’ll take two of the Eagles with you,” Nova said. “And let me be clear. You’re to have a look around. If the cloud is approaching from there, gather what data you can. Mostly, we need to know how much time we have before it gets here and if it’s actually as dangerous as we think. If it is, return here and we’ll take this ship through. I’d rather deal with this thing outside of Trans-Targon if we have a choice.” She turned to Cyann to make her next point. “Only after you’ve got what we need about the cloud will you go looking for clues about Kiran. If we’re in a first contact situation you’re to return here before making any moves in that direction. I want nothing but ‘yessir’ on that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Anders said with a wink. He came to his feet and stood by the door to the hallway. “Let’s get busy. Nigel, get an inventory on our coolant situation. Cyann, get the lab ready. Set up a separate database that we can ship back to Targon. I want to suck up as much information about that sector as we can grab.”
The others filed out of the room but Tychon remained seated and put his hand on Cyann’s arm until they were alone. “Are you prepared for this, Little Blue?” he said. “This could be a dangerous jump.”
She looked up into his serene, much-loved face to see the blue eyes scrutinize her intently. “Yes,” she said at once. “I need to do this.”
“I’m sorry that we didn’t tell you more about Kiran. Nova wanted to. I wanted to. But other than breaking any number of rules, what would it have accomplished?”
She shrugged. “He’s my brother. I would have liked to have known the truth about him.”
He picked up a loose strand of her hair and pushed it behind her ear. “Your brother is gone. He disappeared before our eyes in more ways than one. Don’t forget that. He is the Tughan Wai and we know nothing about him.”
“He is your son!” she objected. “And he needs us.”
“He’s killed nearly a thousand people,” he reminded her. “Many of those died only because he wanted them to. And he’s become those people. Soldiers, rebels, geniuses, monsters, healers and murderers. Who knows how many he’s taken since then? We have no way to know which of those have shaped him into whatever he is now. You need to stay objective, no matter who you think he is.”
She nodded. “What if we do find a monster?”
“Jovan will know what to do. I won’t ask anything of you that will hurt you.”
“And what if we find your son?”
“If you find Kiran, we will bring him home.”
Chapter Seven
Usually, there never seemed to be enough time to run through the hundreds of items on the pre-launch checklist before a scheduled takeoff. So often, Anders had to harangue his crew to get the last of the supplies on board, flight plans approved and laid in, ground services signed off, equipment checked, pre-flight completed – all before the Scout finally rose above the Chalyss valley and headed into space.
This time it felt like she was the only one ready to go and she ached to feel the ship power up beneath her feet already. Cyann sat rigidly at the com console in the Scout’s cockpit, working with Anders in the main lab to sync their systems with the Union ship. But most of this was done. Now she wanted to get on the way, to see what lay beyond this keyhole only a few minutes and countless light years away.
The cockpit lights had been lowered and even the overhead screens were muted to allow Jovan to prepare for his leap through the breach. The Delphian lay motionless on his couch, already communicating with the ship’s processors via his neural interface to calculate their way through sub-space.
A slight shudder moved through the Scout when first one, then the other Eagle connected to a docking port on either side. The Union ship slipped from the overhead screen when Jovan rotated the Scout away from there to give them room to maneuver. Cyann adjusted an external camera to keep it in sight. There was something assuring about its cumbersome bulk, orbiting over the oblivious planet below, prepared to protect it from whatever would come through the breach.
Her mother’s image appeared beside the main view screen. “The cruisers are docked. Let’s hope you won’t need them.”
“Don’t worry so, Colonel,” Cyann said. The small, heavily armored Eagles were primarily ships of war, often deployed in battle alongside Air Command’s fighter planes but with far greater range and arsenal. More agile than the Scout, these two would add firepower should their exit lead them into unfriendly territory. “I’m more worried that we’re leaving you short of cover.”
“Have you seen the pistols this bucket is carrying? I made sure we got properly outfitted before we left Targon.”
“I’m sure you did,” Cyann grinned. Nova was no fonder of warfare than any of them, but weapons of any kind had always held her fascination. Along with the physicists and geologists sent along on this mission, her expertise would ensure that, if left with no other option, no organic debris made it past her guns alive.
Nigel stepped into the cockpit. “All systems green,” he announced and took his seat in the co-pilot’s couch. He would take over to stabilize the ship when they emerged from sub-space when Jovan would likely be in no condition to do so. “Anders is going to ride this out in the lab. Ready, Jovan?”
“Ready.”
Nigel began to power up the ship’s propulsion systems, like Jovan now connected to the machine by his neural interface. A low whine emitted from the lower level of the ship. Slowly, the Scout and its two hitchhikers pulled away from the Repha Zi and headed toward the keyhole, gaining speed with every second that passed.
Cyann turned back to Nova’s image on the screen. “We’re off. See you in a day or two.” She shut the com down and secured herself into her seat. The Scout handled most jumps with ease but this was a long one and she had landed on her head more than once before.
The Scout sped toward the microscopic breach in space, ramping up its forward motion even as Nigel began to feed its energy into the slowly expanding aperture. “Full negative, compensating for the birds,” he said for her benefit, moving no more than Jovan did as his commands were relayed directly from his interface to the ship’s systems. Cyann watched, fascinated, as the indicators on the console in front of them responded to his mental signals without delay. “Jovan?”
“Almost,” Jovan replied, focused entirely on the ship’s processors probing far ahead, deep inside the fissure, seeking the exit that Kiran had promised. “Taking a while.”
“Can’t slow now,” Nigel reminded him. “Converters are full up.”
“I don’t see it. It should be there. I know those numbers are right.”
Cyann studied the screens. They would be at their entry coordinates in moments. The new gate was already large enough to allow the ship’s passage and soon the energy flow would make it impossible to swerve away. To enter without a mapp
ed exit would leave them stranded in sub-space. None of those lost in the breach had ever returned to describe the experience.
“Go or no-go?” Nigel said, a nervous edge roughening his voice. “Not going to hold this much longer.”
“Cyann,” Jovan snapped.
She leaned forward and gripped the hand he extended. Instantly, she felt the mental contact not only to him but also to the ship. It was as if he was no longer contained by the familiar boundaries of Jovan, but had become part of the tremendous processes needed to penetrate into sub-space. Was this what deep-space navigation felt like? She was part of something so infinite and untethered that she nearly pulled her hand out of his grasp, afraid to look deeper into the mind and machines that made this all possible.
His grip tightened painfully and she remained linked despite her fear, contributing her small Delphian talents to help him find their way to the correct exit. Together, they directed the processors to override the usual protocols to give preference to Kiran’s supposed location.
“Got it,” he exhaled forcefully but did not release her hand.
Cyann squeezed her eyes shut when the Scout shot forward into the breach and her world disappeared. Her mind rebelled at the sudden loss of every one of her senses, leaving it to grapple with the absolute nothing that had removed her reality. Nearly overpowering vertigo felt like the inside of her head was perhaps on its way elsewhere and she realized that she had never taken a jump this deep and this long.
It was over within seconds. Cyann dared to open her eyes to see Nigel leaning over the cockpit console to visually check the commands his brain fed into the navigational controls faster than his hands ever could. He was mumbling to himself about coordinates and trajectories and a possible coolant backwash – things he always mumbled about after every jump. The Scout was jarred when first one and then the other Eagle disengaged from their ports to start scanning the vicinity as far as their sensors ranged. Except for a brief, coded blip to report a successful traverse, they would maintain radio silence.
She became aware that Jovan’s hand still lay limply in her own, disturbingly cold. She unbuckled her restraints to move around his bench. “Jovie?”
He lay with his eyes closed and she had to put her hand on his chest to assure herself that he was even breathing. His face seemed younger, somehow, without the hard blue of his eyes seeming to pierce far beyond what most people saw. He did see more, of course, as a result of his training and his breeding, but at this moment he seemed almost like someone who needed the healing he so freely dispensed to others.
“He still with us?” Nigel said.
She looked up, startled, and pulled her hand back. But Jovan reached for it again and held it in his. “He is,” he said faintly. “Or he will be.” A long silence followed and Cyann did not dare to move as he found his way back from wherever the tremendous mental strain of the jump had taken him.
“Cyann!” Anders’ excited voice reached them through an overhead speaker. Jovan winced.
“All is well,” she reported.
“Get over here!”
Jovan squeezed her hand. “Go,” he said. He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “He sounds like he’s ready to bust a vein.”
Impulsively, she bent and kissed his cheek. “Sleep, Jovie. Nigel will make you a big dinner when you get up.”
“Hey! And who’s gonna make my dinner?” Nigel said.
She grinned and left the cockpit to hurry through the narrow corridor and into the lab space. A sudden deadening of the air around her informed her that the area had been sealed as much as possible from the electromagnetic interference of the ship’s processors and engines. “The Scout’s fine,” she said, stepping into the main lab. “Nigel didn’t shout about things as much as he usually does, even. I think he has to admit that Jovan knows what he’s doing.”
“Yes, yes, look at this!”
Cyann came to the bank of screens arrayed along the bulkhead. Some were scrolling long rows of data confirming the information pouring into their information system. Others had started to return real-world imagery of their location via the powerful telescopes mounted fore and aft. Still more scanned radiation and space debris for useful bits.
She frowned, a little disappointed. “Nothing much out here.” She switched one of the sensors to display more details. “A binary star. No satellites. Not even a single exoplanet. Nearest star system a hundred and twenty light years. One big empty.”
He nudged her and pointed at another screen. “Except for the mother of all asteroids coming right at us.”
“What?” She squinted at the data displayed in front of her. “Oops. You’re right. But those numbers look off. Any chance at a visual?”
“I hope so, shortly. Definitely something odd going on with this fellow.”
She sat down at the console. “Slow, though. Definitely not going anywhere fast without jumping through sub-space.”
He nodded, ruffling the short white hair on his head into a spiky mess. “How much time do we have?”
“Not much! Twenty-five hours,” she said, meaning the Scout’s usual time increments which were similar to Delphi’s. “So much for it taking years to get here. Oh, got a sketch.”
He looked up when she switched an overhead display. A graphic representation of the asteroid appeared there, showing a few large central pieces surrounded by a mass of smaller, irregular drifts of space debris. “I guess we were right to call it a cloud,” he said. “Big pile of rubble.”
Cyann frowned. “Is that correct? Look at the size of it!”
Anders leaned closer. She raised both eyebrows when a muttered string of curses escaped his lips, not something he usually did in front of his brother-friend’s daughter.
“What’s got Uncle Anders’ wobbly cheeks shaking like that?”
Cyann turned briefly when Nigel sauntered into the lab. “Our visitor,” she said.
Nigel looked up. “Shit.”
They stared, awed, as the Scout’s programs extrapolated how the object would appear from various angles. Nothing they had brought with them would more than fragment the smaller companion pieces; perhaps crack the more massive objects. They would simply spread out the hail of meteors over a broader range, still large enough to survive atmospheric entry in large numbers. Some of the virologists’ proposals to simply blanket the asteroid with an anti-viral agent if one could be found in time suddenly seemed utterly absurd.
“When?” Nigel said, coughed, and said it again when the first attempt at the word didn’t quite make it.
“Not enough time to go back home and get us a bigger pistol,” Cyann said. “It’ll get to Trans-Targon; that is certain.”
“We better get back there,” Anders said. “Send the Eagles back to civilization to get something in place that’ll take this thing out before it gets too far into the sector.”
“We can’t leave right now,” Cyann reminded him. “The leap to get us here took all Jovan has. There isn’t any way he can jump us back now.”
Anders looked up at Nigel who nodded. “Rough ride,” he confirmed and flung himself into his dilapidated couch. “The processors are going to take a while to cool, too. This gap’s a bitch to span.”
Cyann chewed on her bottom lip. “We’re making assumptions here. How do we know this thing is even what you call the Genesis Cloud, Nigel? That’s still just a theory. It’s an asteroid heading for Trans-Targon, that much we know. But we still don’t know if it’s the same stuff that came to Delphi. We haven’t found Kiran. He could have sent his message from somewhere else. The alien pod could have picked up that virus along the way.” She put her hand on Anders’ arm. “Let’s pretend we’re astrobiologists and check this thing out.”
He smiled wanly. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s see what we can squeeze out of the sensors until Jovan comes around.”
“Five or six hours should be enough,” Cyann said. “After that he’s just being lazy. Once we’re back we can leave this problem t
o the experts. If there’s a way to neutralize this thing they’ll find it.” She returned her attention to the overhead image of the asteroid, still rendered as a wireframe based on sensor readings. She added some false color. “Not a lot of craters,” she said. “Could even have an atmosphere of sorts.”
“Surely it would lose that in sub-space?”
She nodded. “Definitely some gravity. Those larger pieces of the cloud aren’t budging in relation to the main bodies. It probably sloughs off the smaller bits when it gets too close to other gravity wells.”
“That whole end is blurred. Sensors aren’t even getting to the surface,” Anders said. He turned to Nigel. “Care to lend us your brain, young man?”
Nigel sighed and moved from his lounger to the console. “I doubt there’s anything we can figure out that Nova’s people can’t.” He looked over the data. “Whatever is going on at that end is interfering with the Scout’s feelers. Could be an energy field of some sort.”
“How so?”
“Well, something’s causing it to open keyholes. Can’t do that without an awful lot of energy.” He scratched his head. “Could be a big chunk of negative mass.”
“Then you’d hardly have an asteroid following around in its wake,” Cyann said.
“Could, if the keyholes are what’s attracting the mass. Things would get really contrary to expectations.”
She nodded, looking up at the display. Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”
“Hmm?”
She tapped the screen to zoom into the image. “On the side of that big chunk.”
“Can you get closer?”
She pulled the display up a little more. “Doesn’t look natural.”
Nigel whistled. “My my, what have we here?”
“Transfer it to the hologram,” Anders said.
