The Split Skies (The Possessor Wars, Book 4): The Possessor Wars, Book 4

by Chad Spencer

  For a moment, Jeff silently continued scooping corn. ‘Why should I do anything for Dirk after how he’s acted?’ he thought furiously. But he knew what would make his father happy.

  Finally, he said, “A peace offering is ok, I guess.” Then he told his father, “The program is uploaded to the ship’s computer. All you have to do is download it to the programmer device and put the nanobots in. It’ll program them automatically. Then you just bring it down to where you want the dome and drop a single drop on the ground. The nanobots do everything from there. When you get done, you connect a pump and a power feed to the sprinkler system. It’s easy.”

  Gently, Kent said, “Thanks, son. That’s a very adult thing to do.” He left.

  Jeff felt good ‘Maybe something good will come from this,’ he mused. After finishing his chores, he had breakfast, showered, and sat down to work on the Living Ship. He had hardly touched it since the others arrived. Late in the afternoon, Danae and Denise wandered in. Watching over his shoulder as he worked, Danae asked, “Jeff?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you read that?”

  “What?”

  “The stuff on the screen. It’s going by way too fast. Can you really read that?”

  Jeff paused. “Yeah. I can read it. I didn’t think it was going that fast.”

  Danae seemed confused. “I can’t even make it out. It just flashes on the screen, then the next thing comes on. How can you read that fast?”

  “I read fast?”

  The datacrown answered, “Correct. You read eleven times faster than the average human being.”

  “Eleven times faster than the average human? How’s that possible?”

  “Insufficient data.”

  “You’re no help.”

  Jeff glanced around and realized that the girls were staring at him.

  “Who are you talking to?” Danae asked.

  Blushing, Jeff pointed and explained, “The datacrown. When I was alone, I got into the habit of talking to it out loud. I guess I gotta stop that.”

  “It told you that you read eleven times faster than a normal person?”

  “No. Average person. I’m a normal person.”

  A fearful look passed across her face. “Jeff?”

  “What?”

  “Are we really? Are we really normal any more? Are we even people?”

  “Of course we’re people. We’re just … people with something extra. We’re normal. We’re just not average.”

  Appearing reassured Danae queried, “Jeff? Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “I flew us down the hill,” she beamed.

  “That’s great!”

  The datacrown interrupted, “You have one new message.”

  “A message?” Jeff asked. “From who?”

  “Insufficient data,” it told him. “The message source is off-planet.”

  “What is it Jeff?” asked Danae.

  “We’re getting a message from off-planet,” he replied. “There’s someone out there.”

  They hurried to the comm panel. Jeff switched it on. “Hmm … “ he mumbled. “It’s coming from the next planet out. Text only. Here it is.”

  The message’s text popped up on the display.

  If anyone is out there, please help me. My name is Amanda and I’m all alone. I’ve been stranded on this planet for three years. Everyone else died. I’ve been alone for a year. There’s almost no power, food, or water left. Please, I don’t want to die alone.

  “The message is repeating,” Jeff informed them. “It’s probably an automated beacon. She may not have enough power for video or audio. I’ll send a text message.”

  Using the datacrown, Jeff composed the message:

  We’re on the next planet in. I’ll find a way to come to you. I was stranded here for a year by myself too. Hold on. We’re coming. We won’t leave you there by yourself.

  He transmitted the message and called his father. Kent answered on his gridPhone. “Hi, Jeff.”

  “Dad, there’s someone on the next planet out. We just got a text message from her. We’ve got to go get her. She’s alone and almost out of everything.”

  Kent’s voice grew serious. “Alright son. I’ll grab one of the horses and ride over.” He hung up.

  Jeff hurriedly packed some clothes and food. A short while later, Kent arrived at Jeff’s farm—with Dirk. “Let’s see the message,” Kent directed. After he read it, he instructed, “We have to go after her.”

  “I’m already packing,” Jeff replied.

  “It figures,” Dirk interjected sarcastically.

  Jeff shot back, “What are you talking about?”

  With a sneer, Dirk accused, “Some girl call and it has to be you that goes after her.”

  “Who said it’s a girl?” Jeff retorted. “She could be old, like Dad …”

  “Hey!” Kent objected.

  “ … or even older,” Jeff continued quickly. “We don’t know anything about her other than she’s alone and she’s running out of everything. Nothing else really makes much of a difference.”

  Without another word, Dirk stomped out, got on his horse, and rode away.

  Shaking his head, Kent resumed, “We’ll go after her right away. Let’s go over to your shuttle, Jeff, and use its navigation computer to plot a course.”

  “It’s already done,” Jeff said, tapping the datacrown on his head. “The planet she’s on isn’t very close to us yet. It’s moving closer. Or rather, we’re moving closer to it. This planet is moves faster in its orbit than that one does. So our planet is coming up on her planet in their orbits. The trip’ll take a month going out and a little over three weeks coming back.”

  “Kent,” Danae broke in suddenly, “You can’t go.”

  Both Jeff and his father turned to her. “Why not?” demanded Kent.

  Danae answered tentatively, “Because of Mother. She’d fall apart if you left her here alone. You know how much she hates it here. She hardly comes out of the house.”

  Kent mulled this over. “I know she doesn’t like being outside. A lot of adults are like that these days. But she’s safe in the dome. She’ll be ok.”

  “No,” disagreed Danae vehemently, “you know she won’t. She’s terrified of this place. She’s so afraid that she hardly sleeps. You’re the only thing that keeps it together for her. If you leave, she’ll go to pieces.”

  “I can’t send my son on a journey like this alone,” Kent asserted definitely. “I can’t leave him alone again.”

  Defiantly, Danae snapped, “You can’t leave your wife here alone. She won’t make it without you.”

  ‘Wow,’ Jeff thought, ‘after the terrible way her mother has treated her, she still cares.’

  With finality, Kent stated, “No. I can’t send Jeff alone.”

  Jeff countered, “Yes you can. Dad, I’ve made it on my own before. Not even seasnakes and fireflies can keep me down. I’m a good pilot. All I have to do is go get her and bring her back. It’s a simple trajectory. I’ll be back in less than two months. Arvix can take care of my farm. The girls can exercise my horses. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Besides, you have to help that idiot Dirk build his house. Knowing him, he’d build it upside down if you’re not there to tell him what to do.”

  Kent was unmoved, but Jeff offered, “Dad, I can make it on my own now. You have a family to take care of. If anything does happen, who would take care of them? If Porsche is staying inside all the time, how can she live? She can’t take care of a farm. Who’s going to do it for her? Dirk? He can’t even figure out how to operate a pitchfork. With some practice, Danae could run the farm. But she doesn’t know enough about it yet. By the time I get back, she’ll be running the place. You can’t go. At least not now.”

  After some additional convincing, Kent finally agreed that Jeff would go alone. Scooping up his supplies, Jeff strode toward his shuttle with the others trailing behind. After loading the supplies into the shuttle, Jeff turned to his father. �
�Don’t worry Dad,” he reassured Kent. “I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “You better believe you will,” Kent stated. “You’re going to be very careful and come back safe. I … I can’t lose you again, boy. You have to come back safe.”

  “I will Dad. No matter what.”

  Jeff hugged his father. Both Denise and Danae hugged him as well. “Come back to us Jeff,” Danae whispered as she held him tight. “We need you.”

  Smiling to them reassuringly as he entered his shuttle, Jeff pulled the hatch closed and lifted off.

  9

  Jeff guided his shuttle toward the Ellsworth. After docking, he quickly refueled and set out on his journey. Turning on the shuttle’s comm system, Jeff tried to contact his father to let him know he was safely on his way. But he was getting nothing but a weird pulsating signal on all channels. He couldn’t get through at all.

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with the system,” Jeff mumbled to himself. “I’ll look at it in a little while.”

  Jeff’s trajectory was already entered into the navigation computer, so he turned on the autopilot. There was little for him to do.

  ‘I’m going to have to find ways to exercise in here,’ he thought. He’d be in the shuttle for the next four weeks. A month in its weak artificial gravity field could seriously weaken his muscles. Jeff decided to use the food containers as weights. ‘It’s a funny way to lift weights, I guess. But it’ll work.’

  When he had made his hasty departure, Jeff was fortunately wearing his datacrown. It was to the datacrown that he turned for entertainment. The device had a huge number of books stored in it, so Jeff spent a lot of time ‘reading’ by having the datacrown play the text of each book into his head.

  Of course, the datacrown also had technical manuals for virtually any device in use. With that information, Jeff was able to completely check the entire communications system. He didn’t find anything wrong. It was working perfectly. Still, every time he turned it on, he got nothing but wild pulsating. He hoped his father wasn’t too worried.

  The trip was pretty boring, but Jeff wasn’t complaining. He settled in and made the quiet crossing.

  On the day he approached his destination, he could see that it was nothing but a cold, empty desert. With this planet’s thin, barely breathable atmosphere, there was almost no moisture on the entire world. ‘How could anyone survive down there for three years?’ he wondered.

  The comm system was still not working, so Jeff scanned the planet. He found the marooned ship and descended toward it. ‘Looks like a Dragonfly-class freighter,’ he thought as he glided in over the chunky vessel. Seeing a hatch near the command deck, Jeff landed by the front of the craft. He exited his shuttle, and walked the short distance to the freighter.

  As soon as the airlock let him in, Jeff went straight to the bridge. He found the main comm system and turned it on. “Attention,” he said, “My name is Jeff Bowman. I’m looking for Amanda. I received your message and said that I would come for you. Please let me know where you are. I’m on the command deck waiting for you.”

  He waited. No answer. Jeff felt the ship shudder. ‘What’s that?’ he wondered. Using the internal scanners, Jeff searched for Amanda. A cold fear gripped Jeff when the scanners showed him that there were no living people besides himself in the ship. “Did she die before I got here?”

  Just to be sure she wasn’t somewhere outside the ship, Jeff activated the external scanners. Examining the countryside around the vessel, Jeff found no life signs. Then the scanner picked up the last thing he expected to see. It was Dirk’s shuttle just leaving orbit above the planet. There were two life signs on board.

  “Dirk!” Jeff screamed. “I’m going to tear your head off with my bare hands!”

  Jeff pounded the switch that activated the external transmitters. No response. The scanners told him that the external antennas were all damaged. “How did she transmit her message if they were all broken?” he demanded of no one.

  “Of course,” he answered himself. “Dirk fried them so I wouldn’t be able to communicate.”

  Furious, Jeff tore out to his shuttle. His worst fears were realized. Dirk had destroyed the engines, power system, and communications system. “He wants me dead,” Jeff said fiercely. Ready to explode, Jeff sat wracking his brains for a way to escape. “Can I use the parts from the freighter to fix this ship?”

  “Yes,” his datacrown answered. “However, the damage is extensive. Repairs would take approximately 1 year and three months.”

  “Is there a way to get the freighter flying?” Jeff demanded.

  “There is no fuel aboard the freighter.”

  “Why?”

  “According to the ship’s computer, this freighter is registered to the Pagosa Springs Colonial Shipping Company. Its name is the Amsterdam. Its logs say that it was in the same wormhole as the Ellsworth at the time the wormhole collapsed. The crew went into cryostasis and made their way here. They arrived three years ago. When the Amsterdam came out of hyperspace, it was much farther from this system than the Ellsworth was. As a result of having to traverse the long distance, the ship landed with virtually no fuel left when it arrived here. The crew detected that the planet Akio was habitable, but could not make it that far.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They started an emergency beacon and went back into cryostasis. After a year the cryogenic units started to fail due to lack of power. Rather than use resources by trying to stay alive, the adult crewmembers left their children in cryostasis and committed suicide. Their logs indicate that they hoped someone would find their children and rescue them. Amanda Meadows, age 17, is the last survivor. All of the others died a year ago.”

  Horrified, Jeff asked, “They killed themselves to save their kids?”

  “Correct.”

  “I wonder why we didn’t pick up the signal when we arrived?”

  “The signal was weak due to lack of power. This planet was on the opposite side of the star system when you arrived on planet Akio. The signal was switched off by Aaron Tracey, aged 16, thirteen months ago, apparently to save power. Amanda Meadows discovered it recently and sent out a new message. Aaron Tracey died twelve months ago in a rockslide when he was out trying to find water to use as fuel. He was unsuccessful. Similar attempts had already been made by the adult crewmembers. All ended in failure.”

  “But the Amsterdam’s just out of fuel? Otherwise, everything is functioning?”

  “Correct. Everything is functional except the external communications system.”

  “So if I can pump the fuel from the shuttle to the freighter, could I get the freighter flying?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Would I have enough fuel to make it back to planet Akio?”

  “Affirmative. However, you could only use the engines to launch the Amsterdam onto its trajectory and to slow down for your approach to planet Akio. You could not run the engines continuously as you normally would. That is the only way to make it on the small amount of fuel you have available.”

  “But it can be done?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  “Six weeks.”

  ‘Six weeks! Dirk will be back in three,’ thought Jeff. Fuming, Jeff scavenged both ships to find the parts he needed. He finally found some spare tubing in the in the Amsterdam’s Engineering module. He pulled a pump out of the plumbing system of his shuttle.

  The day ended, but Jeff continued to work through the night. By morning, he had the pump and hoses hooked up. Nights on the planet were so cold that he had to wait well into the morning to start pumping. If he started any sooner, the water would freeze. Because of the short time available each day for transferring the fuel, two more days passed before the job was done. During that time, he carried his supplies over to the Amsterdam and settled into the captain’s cabin. When the fuel was finally transferred, he disconnected the hose, threw it aside, and lifted off.


  Fuming and cursing Dirk the entire return journey, Jeff arrived at last in orbit around the planet Akio. By then his fury had passed. All that was left was a cold burning for revenge. Knowing that the Amsterdam did not have enough fuel left to land on the planet below, Jeff docked it to the Ellsworth. He took the Ellsworth’s last remaining shuttle and set course for his home. It was near midnight when he landed.

  As his shuttle descended, Jeff was surprised to see Danae and Denise riding toward him on Duke. He strode purposefully out onto the gently swaying grass.

  “Jeff! Jeff! You’re back!” shouted Denise with glee. Both girls dismounted from the horse and hugged him tightly.

  “I knew you weren’t dead,” Danae told him softly. “Dirk said you were, but I knew he was lying. I saw it all Jeff. I saw him hide his shuttle in the freighter’s cargo bay and then destroy your shuttle’s systems with a plasma blaster. I saw you coming back. I even watched you reenter the atmosphere. Jeff, I can see things from far away. Now I know what Eden meant when she gave me the gift of sight.”

  Unmoved, Jeff demanded coldly, “Where’s Dirk?”

  Both Denise and Danae cringed.

  “Where is he?”

  “He … he’s at his new farm,” Danae stammered.

  “Farm? Since when did Dirk want a farm? I thought he just wanted a house.”

  Cautiously, Danae answered, “Amanda, the girl he rescued … she wants a farm. They’re getting married next week. My mom is going to perform the ceremony. She got a certificate to do that when she was on the Sector Council. Jeff, Dirk took all of the animals and tools from your barn. He … he even stole Arvix and Lakota. He gave Lakota to Amanda.”

  Without a word Jeff leaped upward. His wings and tail appeared and he pounded his way furiously into the sky.

  “Wait, Jeff!” he heard Danae yell. “Don’t go!”

  She continued to call to him, but he left her quickly behind. Soaring over the hill, Jeff reeled, looking over the countryside below. By the bright light reflecting off the planet Harriet above them, he easily picked out Dirk’s new dome. He dove straight for it.