by Saxon Andrew
Chris watched the T-Rex attack the Jenze and turn to go back into the forest. Then he saw the Ninja disappear from beside the Cheops. It reappeared in the clearing, rotated rapidly, and landed. He watched as Jillian emerged from the ship and started searching for the Jenze weapon. He had another display with a wider view of the area Jillian had landed. As she circled the yellow bush, he glanced at the other display and his heart went into his throat. The T-Rex had returned for the top half of the meal it had left behind, and was staring at Jillian. He watched as Jillian found the weapon and turn to run back to the Ninja. She wasn’t going to make it. The T-Rex was moving at full charge and would get to her first. He grabbed his tablet and pushed auto.
Jillian couldn’t find the weapon. She knew it had to be here. She circled the bush and saw it stuck under the bottom in the yellow branches. She wrenched it free and sprinted toward the Ninja. That’s when she saw the T-Rex bearing down on her and knew she wasn’t going to make it. Her first thought was overwhelming sadness at what she had done to Chris. Then she heard a whine and a bright white beam shot out from the Ninja and blew the T-Rex’s head off knocking the body ten yards away. Jillian saw the ground getting darker. She dove into the Ninja’s port and pressed her remote.
Chris watched as the asteroid came screaming in and knew it was going to be close. He hit the weightless button on the tablet and the Ninja shot off the display faster than he could see. He hit the weightless button on the Cheops just as a giant explosion of fire, molten rock, and dust shot out of the screens slamming into the Cheops. He slammed the power button on the screen emitters just as the Cheops was hit by the onrushing explosive material.
Jillian rolled into the Ninja’s entry port and hit her remote. She rolled to the back wall as the Ninja accelerated at high velocity, then she noticed on her remote that the ship had been shifted to weightless. Chris must have enabled the weapons to kill the Tyrannosaurus and put the ship into weightless mode for it to escape. She jumped up, ran to the bridge, and enabled her boards. She brought the Ninja to a full stop and turned it around. The Sensors came on line and she saw a huge black and red cloud expanding a hundred thousand miles in front of her, “Oh no! The explosion followed her through the screen. She scanned for the Cheops and it was not in her scans. “Chris! Chris! Answer me!” Jillian started sobbing uncontrollably. He had saved her, but she had cut it too close. He was right. There just wasn’t enough time. She accelerated forward and scanned the expanding cloud. Nothing. She put her head in her hands and wailed her grief. Chris, oh Chris, I’m so sorry.
“I hope you have some aspirin. My head is killing me.”
“CHRIS!”
“Hey, not so loud. I banged my head on the board.”
“I’m going to kill you. You’ve scared me to death. I thought I had lost you.”
“Look off to your left.”
Jillian extended the sensors and saw the Cheops three hundred thousand miles away. “What happened?”
I had to hold the view until you were clear and the explosion came roaring out behind you. I shut down the emitters, which turned on the force field. The small part of the blast that made it through the screen pushed me out here.”
“Are you ok?”
“No, I have a cut on my forehead that is messy and I’m light headed. Why don’t you come back? I’ll open the landing bay and lay on the floor. I’m really dizzy.”
“Chris! Chris!” Jillian turned the Ninja and accelerated to the Cheops. She took the Ninja through the port and hit the pressurization signal. She stood at the rear port jumping up and down on her toes for what seemed like forever. Finally the buzzer announced the bay had been pressurized, and she raised the port and sprinted through the ship to the bridge. She found Chris unconscious on the floor with blood starting to pool around his head. She tore off her shirt, pressed it on his forehead, and turned him over. She held it tight against his head and rocked with him in her arms. She looked at his calm face and knew she loved him to the depths of her heart. He had to be all right. She couldn’t go on without him. She held him close and kept pressure on his cut as she gently rocked him in her arms.
She held him for what seemed like hours, but it was only fifteen minutes. She was gently swaying and singing the juke box song softly, “….now with every sweet caress, on my darling how I bless, that little jukebox…”
“You look good without a shirt, Dr. Gordon. Is it that hot in here?”
Jillian looked down and saw his eyes were open. She leaned down and tenderly kissed him. “You knew that blast was going to hit you?”
“Yes, but had to do it.” She lifted the edge of her shirt from his forehead and saw the bleeding had stopped. “How does it look?”
“It’s just above your scalp line. We’re going to have to remove the hair and stitch you up.” Chris gave a heavy sigh. “What’s wrong?”
“Now you won’t love me anymore because I’ve lost my overpowering good looks.”
Jillian smiled and said, “You could cut your whole head off and you’d be the most beautiful person in the world to me.” Jillian looked around and said, “Stay here. I’m going to get the Novocain and stitch you up. I don’t want you trying to stand up yet.” Jillian took her pants off, rolled them up, and put them under his head.
Chris looked at her and smiled, “You must be burning up. However, you are just so beautiful.”
Jillian leaned down, kissed him, and ran to the medical storage room. She put on a scrub suit and a mask. She went through the closet and found what she needed, then returned to the bridge. She found Chris sleeping on the floor. She knew one of the symptoms of a concussion was drowsiness. She would have to keep a close eye on him. She prayed it wasn’t serious. She began injecting the Novocain, and slowly used the surgical gun to remove his hair from around the wound. She then stitched the open wound up and covered it with a bandage. She used a gravity gun to make him weightless, then picked him up and took him to the bed. She undressed him and covered him with a blanket. She stayed by the bed waiting for him.
The Moet attack craft was roaring into the atmosphere when the pilot looked in his rearview scanner and saw a small white ship suddenly appear where the Jenze had been killed. “What the..?” He pushed the craft over and tried to level out to go back, but then the asteroid struck so he pulled the nose up and hit full acceleration. The massive cloud of red hot debris shot up into the atmosphere and he saw it was gaining on him. He barely made it out of the atmosphere as the dust from the explosion flew past him. He knew he was dead, but then he saw open space and the two main ships moving toward the planet. “I’m going to send you a recording of something that happened.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. But whatever it was, it’s been destroyed.”
Christopher woke and opened his eyes. He saw Jillian lying on the bed beside him asleep, and he reached up and felt his head. The bandage was there and he knew he must have slept through the stitches. Well, score one for me. His body hurt all over and when he looked up at the ceiling, the room started spinning. He closed his eyes and it stopped. He opened them again and saw Jillian staring at him. “How long have I been out?”
“Only about six hours. You’re coherent, so you must not have had too bad a blow.”
“I feel like my worst hangover ever.”
“Do you want to go to sleep?”
“No, I think I should stay awake. I’m experiencing vertigo, so I don’t think I can stand up.” Jillian looked at him and slowly shook her head. “What?”
“You did all those things to the Cheops and Ninja because you anticipated what would happen. It was the controls on your tablet that saved me. I wondered why you made all of those modifications, but you knew I was going to make the attempt even back on Earth.”
Chris closed his eyes and said, “You do have a way of getting things done your way.”
“That’s true, but you were taking care of me even when I didn’t know it. You saved me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jillian smiled, “You were also willing to sacrifice yourself as well. I will never question your decisions anymore.”
“Are you saying that if I say no to putting yourself in danger, you’ll listen?”
Jillian smiled, “I will if you will.”
“Hey that’s not fair. You’re one ahead of me. I get at least one to catch up.”
“We’ll see.”
I want to try and stand up.”
“Why?”
“We need to get back. I suppose you retrieved that Jenze blaster?”
Jillian jumped up, “I completely forgot about it. It’s on the Ninja.”
“Hey, where ya going?”
“To bring it to the bridge. I’ll also bring the gravity gun to make sure you don’t fall.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Hemon and Sasha were on board the EG Ship Alexandria headed out toward the orbit of Neptune. They were still thirty minutes away traveling at three quarter light speed, and he was going there to trial the new communications system. “Dolly, we’re approaching the orbit of Neptune. Do you still have a good contact?”
“You’re coming through loud and clear. I’m amazed that you’re almost four light hours from us and we’re communicating with no loss of time.”
“I guess if you trick the universe, there are things that can go faster than light.”
“We still need to know if it will work in Sierra Space. Check in with us before you jump out.”
“I will.” Sasha looked at Hemon and flipped on the force field. “Why did you do that?”
“Because you never know when an enemy ship might show up. Out here there’ll be less warning if they do appear.”
“You’re right. Thanks for being on your toes.” Hemon watched his board and saw that they had crossed the orbit of Neptune by six thousand miles. “Dolly, we’re jumping.”
“Go ahead. As soon as you’re out of normal space, give us a call.”
Hemon hit the jump button and the Alexandria disappeared. Green featureless space surrounded them and Hemon looked back and saw the green space was boiling and turning in on itself. “Dolly, we’re out.”
“Well, it looks like the system works. There is no measureable delay in your transmissions.”
Hemon looked at Sasha and said over the communicator, “We’re going back into normal space and come home.”
“Good idea. Hustle and we’ll meet for dinner.”
“Keep it warm.” Hemon hit the jump button and the small ship disappeared from Sierra Space.
Out in deep space between the galaxies a giant blue ship stopped, spun, and turned a broad dish shaped structure on its surface toward a distant galaxy. It spun again and turned it toward another galaxy. The ship began rotating rapidly searching for the source of the signal it was receiving. Nothing. The giant ship continued to receive the signal intermittently but could not determine the place it originated. It seemed to fill the universe. The huge dish turned back toward a distant galaxy and a message was sent. Somewhere there was a competitor.
Chapter Thirteen
Chris sat in his command chair and held his head for a moment.
“Do you want me to drive?”
“No, I need you on the weapons console.”
Jillian looked up from her board and stared at him, “Why would you want that?”
“I need to know what the heart of the Alliance is really like.”
“That’s why you wanted to tell that Alliance Commander that we were going after a Jenze weapon?”
“Yes, and they may not be cooperative when we return.”
Jillian turned her display back to the recording of the Alliance Battleship, “That’s a huge ship. Can we stand up to it?”
“It appears to have the same beam weapons as the ship we captured. As long as we don’t just sit and allow them to hit us continuously, we should be fine. I know we can outrun them.”
“We could just not go back that way.”
“It would make it much more difficult to get home. I took my readings there from outside the galaxy. We should go back to that place.”
Jillian smiled, “You mean, we must go back to that place?”
“That’s what I said.” Chris looked at his board and looked out the viewport at the cloud of dark gas drifting in open space between galaxies, “Someday someone is going to stumble across this cloud and wonder how it could have gotten out here. It is going to drive them crazy.”
“Kinda like Puma Punku did to us.”
Chris nodded and said, “We’re going straight to the location where I took those readings. Are you ready?”
“Do you want the force field on?”
“No, I don’t want them to know we have one. Just keep your scanners active and if the energy level goes up in their hull, activate it.” Jillian nodded. “All right, jump in 5,4,3,2,1, 0.”
The Cheops disappeared.
Six weeks had passed, and L’grae waited in his chair. He wondered if the strange ship had been destroyed, but decided that it was the only hope for his ship’s salvation. He had to wait; otherwise he and his crew were lost. He wondered several times where the ship was going to get a Jenze weapon. The ship had jumped out toward the open space between galaxies. Could they have found a Jenze ship?
“Sir, we have a ship breaking back into normal space.”
L’grae sat up straight and stared at his display. YES! It was the ship. He nodded toward his communications officer, and then raised his hand to the Weapons Officer to be ready. Both of them nodded. “Welcome back. I was beginning to wonder whether or not you were still alive.”
“You’re still waiting. Did my readings help you?”
“Immensely. We found what we needed at the first location. Did you find what you were searching for?”
“Yes we did. Will you excuse me a moment? I need to take a reading to return home.”
L’grae dropped his hand and the huge silver battleship rushed up close to the small white ship. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to require you to hand the weapon over.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the Alliance will welcome us back as heroes if we bring it to them.”
“You’ll only strengthen their hold over your worlds. You won’t be helping your families.”
“Even so.”
“What will you do if we refuse to give it to you?”
“I don’t want to fire on your ship, but I will.”
“You could destroy the weapon. Then what?”
“Don’t think I won’t do it. We’ll just go back to the civilization you led us to and become the rulers of the planet.”
“What?!?”
“It’s almost funny. What are the odds that the very first set of readings you gave us was to a planet that was civilized? They had rudimentary space flight, but no stardrive. We had to destroy a couple of their cities, but they gave us what we wanted; just like you will if you want to live.” L’grae waited, but there was silence. He knew the being on the other ship was still there; the connection was still solid on his board.
“Sir, a force field has just powered up around that ship.”
L’grae didn’t want to destroy the ship and endanger the Jenze weapon, but he had to stop the ship from jumping, “Weapons, hit the engines.”
A bright beam shot out from the Alliance ship and hit the small white ship in the tail. The beam was stopped. L’grae was shocked that a small ship could have a screen that would stop his most powerful beam. “Hit it with four beams!”
The four beams lashed out, and again were stopped. Then L’grae realized that the small ship could have jumped away by now but didn’t. That scared him, “Fire all weapons.”
Eight beams at a time fired on the small ship as the battleship rotated, and thirty missiles launched at the ship which looked like it was in the middle of a huge explosion. He continued to fire, then heard over his panel, “I’ve been sitting here thinking about just how evil the A
lliance must be to have created people like you. I was going to let you go in peace, but after telling me your plans to enslave an innocent civilization, I realize I can’t.”
The bridge crew watched the small ship absorb their fire without any obvious damage. L’grae looked at his Navigator, “Get us out of here!” He reached for his panel but he was too late. A blinding white beam shot out, penetrated their force field, and hit their ship in the tenth deck just above the engines. It went right through the stardrive.
The Navigator yelled, “They’ve hit the stardrive! Now they’ve hit the engines!”
L’grae knew his ship was dead in space. It wasn’t going anywhere. He jumped back on his communicator and yelled, “Can’t we negotiate this?”
L’grae waited, then heard, “Just like you negotiated with the cities you destroyed? I hate what you represent, but most of all I hate you for soiling my soul for having to remove you.”
L’grae watched the bright white beam flash in and knew it was targeted on the reactors and weapon’s storage. His last thought was that at least his family was being cared for by the state.
Chris and Jillian watched the giant silver ship explode and scatter debris out in all directions. Chris said, “I’m so sorry. I thought we could just let them go their way.”
Jillian stared at her display, “You have nothing to be sorry for, my Love. I actually feel better knowing that we have saved a civilization from that scum. I’ll actually sleep better knowing there’s one less monster loose in the galaxy.” Jillian turned to Chris, “How about you? Are you going to be ok?”
Chris shrugged, “Well, putting it that way, I have to agree. At least we now know why the Moet and Alliance are fighting.”
“Why is that?”
“Neither one of them could ever trust the word of the other. I don’t see how there can ever be any peace between us and them.”
Jillian shrugged, “Well, let’s go home.”
“We’ll be there momentarily. Hang on.”
Jillian looked at Chris and saw him struggling to see the controls on his board. Then she saw his face was white. “Chris, lie back in you chair. I’ll take us in from here.”
