by Peter Telep
"This one you can leave alone if you want to," Yolanda said. "The answer's obvious."
"Then why did you ask?"
"It's what you say around the answer that's helpful."
"So I couldn't have said yes or no."
"Not that you couldn't have... you wouldn't have."
The link speaker crackled a moment, then the ship's captain spoke. "ETA to wormhole: five minutes. All personnel to assigned stations." He repeated the message as Yolanda rose.
Kylen scooted out of the bunk, moved to her friend and embraced her. "Thanks," she whispered.
"I don't know if we got him all out of there. But just think about what I said. New life ahead. Old life here."
"I will."
"Coming with me?"
"Go on ahead. I'll catch up."
Yolanda left, shutting the hatch behind her.
Kylen went to her bunk and slid out the paper Nathan had given her. She still had not read it. She would wait, as he had asked her. Yolanda would want her to read the paper now, then toss it. Instead, she folded the paper once more, making it smaller, and decided she would take it—take him—with her.
I'm sorry, Yolanda.
She left the cabin, and within two minutes was suited and sitting next to her friend, strapped to her seat in the colonist compartment. She kept Nathan's note tucked under her hip, hidden from Yolanda's view.
A panel in the ceiling flipped down, and a three-by-five-meter video screen descended and locked into place. After a buzz, multicolored snow filled the screen, then an image rolled and stabilized: a forward view into space.
In the center of the viewer lay the wormhole. It made space look as if a plug had been pulled and the universe was being sucked down a cosmic drain. Unlike a black hole, which drew the light and life out of everything around it, wormholes occasionally spat back glowing particles from the other side. Kylen was not into the physics of the whole thing, just the beauty of it. The swirling. The blue and white and yellowish light.
"It sure is pretty," Yolanda said. "But I can't help thinking of it as an orifice."
"You mean like a mouth?" Kylen asked.
"I was thinking of—"
"Oh... "
Yolanda nodded. "Yeah. And we're headed right up it."
"ETA to wormhole: forty-five seconds..."
A forked tongue of blue light rose up out of the wormhole and then dissipated.
Yolanda gasped. "My God, the thing's hungry."
"Twenty seconds..."
Kylen put her hand on Yolanda's wrist. "I know what we're going to talk about over lunch."
"What?"
"Some of your heartbreaks."
"Oh, no. That's level-seven info. Priority."
"Ten seconds..."
"Oh, shit," Yolanda said. "Here we go."
Together, they counted off the remaining seconds. Before they got to one, if felt as if a hand vised itself around the cutter, a hand that was, in fact, the gravitational pull of the wormhole. Kylen thought she heard the hull groan in protest.
Strange, elongated shapes made of light or darkness, depending upon which caught your eye, shot at them and rolled past the screen. Then the cutter shook violently. The time-matter effect that her instructors had warned her about took hold. Kylen looked down at her hand, and when she moved her fingers, it seemed the action was delayed. She thought about moving her thumb. What felt like a second passed, and then the thumb moved as though underwater. She glanced at Yolanda, who lifted her arm up and down in the odd slow motion produced by the wormhole.
"Seeing it on discs is one thing. Experiencing it is another," Yolanda said. Her words were as altered as her movements. Indeed, Kylen could discern them, but they were much lower in pitch than normal and bore the slur of a drunkard.
A small circle of normal-looking space expanded from a point of nothingness in the center of the viewer, surrounded by the rushing walls of the wormhole. The diameter of the circle increased steadily until it swallowed all four corners of the screen. For a brief moment, a fuzzy, multi-colored ringlet, a ghost image of the wormhole, appeared against the starfield, then it came at the screen and vanished.
"Wormhole exited. Switching to aft view," the captain said.
As the colonists broke into a round of applause, the wormhole was displayed on the viewer. The abyss looked exactly as it had when they had entered it, only now, to Kylen's relief, it shrank as they moved away from it.
"I believe forward view contains something you might want to take a look at," Overmeyer said coolly, trying to suppress what Kylen knew was a wellspring of joy.
There it was. The magnificent green and blue planet of Tellus. Two of its eight moons, one full, one a waning gibbous, glistened in the distance. The planet's atmosphere created a hazy halo that was more than a little fitting. Had she arms, they would have been outstretched, welcoming the colonial cutter.
"Proximity beacons located. Signals are good. Retro rockets engaged."
For a moment, being in the cutter was not unlike being in the full inertia of an abruptly slowing ground vehicle. Kylen's harness tightened automatically, then slackened.
Studying the planet, reveling in its beauty and feeling her heart thumping faster and faster, Kylen didn't realize what she was doing until it was too late.
I'm excited? Yes! I want to be here. This is it. It's what... we... dreamed of.
Suddenly, it was a rainy day at the beach, and feeling good about anything was an act of betrayal. He wasn't with her to share in it.
"Trans-Tellus injection complete... prepare for entry."
The colonists around Kylen slapped shoulders, blew kisses, and waved fists in the air. Yolanda was no exception. She threw off her strap and tried to give Kylen a hug, though her flight suit and helmet were in the way.
"We're here!"
"Yes we are," Kylen said, hearing the lack of emotion in her voice.
As Yolanda buckled herself to her seat, Kylen furtively withdrew Nathan's note from beneath her thigh.
I'm not on the planet yet, but this is close enough, Nathan, and I can't wait anymore...
She began reading the note, hearing Nathan's voice in her head:
Five billion years from now, maybe to the day, the sun burns ninety percent of its hydrogen. A balance is destroyed. More energy is created than released. Quickly, in a few million years, the sun radiates all of its potential power.
The star swells. Mercury. Venus. Earth. Disappear. Swallowed. The sun truly, finally, touches the sky. Life vanishes.
Eventually, the sun shrinks, decreasing to the size of the Earth, which reappears from the Red Dwarfs grasp. With no gravity to hold it, the Earth slowly floats away.
She looked up from the page to the viewer. They were streaking toward the dark side of the planet. A large land mass, mottled green and brown, was half-draped in darkness at the bottom of the screen. She tossed a quick look to Yolanda, saw that her friend was deeply involved in a conversation with the doctor, Drake, then turned back to the note.
Elsewhere... stars are born. Other star systems, older, larger... continue to breathe. The Solar System dies of crib death. If that's what it takes...
An explosion rocked the craft. Kylen slammed back into her seat, the note falling from her grasp. The ceiling above the viewer caved in, dropping the screen in a shower of wires, deck, fire, smoke, and sparks. Cabin lights went out. Amber-colored backup lights winked on in their place.
"Yolanda! What the hell was that?"
And even before she could get the question out of her mouth, Kylen had turned to look at her friend and saw that the young woman's visor had been shattered by a knife-like fragment of flying deck plate. A mist of blood dotted the inside of the visor, obscuring Yolanda's face.
"Yolanda!" Kylen shook her friend who wasn't moving. Yolanda didn't react. "You can't... no... ohmygod."
Another explosion threw everyone to the right, as if tossed by an eight-foot breaker.
"We've got damage... level ten...
level five ... what the hell are—"
Internal power died. Darkness. Screams of terror echoed off the shattering, spark-spewing hull of the compartment.
Kylen thumbed off her restraints. She climbed out of her seat, adjusted the O2 flow knob on her helmet, then rushed to the nearest porthole.
Her jaw dropped as she watched three trios of spacecraft strafe the cutter with weapons' fire. The many eruptions, some distant, some inside the compartment, nearly sent her to the floor. She kept a strained grip on the sill of the porthole and studied the flat, black, triangular fighters. Sleek dorsal fins jutted from their backs, fins that, like the fighters' wings, narrowed to sharp tips at the rear of the craft. The metallic sharks wheeled sharply around for another run. She backed away from the porthole as they targeted the cutter.
A direct hit sent her crashing to the floor. Her visor smashed against the deck but didn't crack. Her right thigh shuddered as a small shock ran through it, and suddenly, her airflow was gone. She unfastened the latches on her helmet, then twisted it off. Smelling the frayed wires and smoke, she resisted the temptation to pull in a long breath. She chanced a little air, then coughed and began to choke. Through tearing eyes she saw that nearly every control panel in the compartment billowed gray smoke illumined by the random flashes of overloads. She crawled forward, reached and found Nathan's note, even as the ship vibrated with a force that threatened to tear it apart. She felt the cutter dip into the planet's atmosphere like a sinking ocean liner. With the air growing thin, and salvos of alien fire still blasting off pieces of the craft, she pressed Nathan's note to her lips and closed her eyes.
eight
"Where are they?"
"Don't see 'em yet."
"You ain't gonna see 'em until it's too late."
"See if you can pull them up on LIDAR."
"Nothing. No contacts."
"Give them a minute. They'll show."
"Yeah, rushing the bad guys is rude."
"PEOPLE. CUT THE SKIPCHATTER UNLESS YOU GOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY!"
A glassy black sea speckled with light lay serenely before Nathan. He adjusted his grip on the stick of the Marine Corps SA-43 Endo/Exo Hammerhead fighter, then checked the heads-up display superimposed on the canopy. Data bars within the HUD told him all systems were in the green. He looked above to the Light Detection And Ranging image. The LIDAR was devoid of enemy craft, yet he knew they were there. He grew tense within his helmet and pressure suit, then reminded himself that he was at the tip of a spearhead of warplanes, and each cool, mean craft, with its forward-swept wings that supported proximity guns and multiple laser cannons, could bite a lethal chunk out of anything it encountered.
But then he re-reminded himself that an ace can fly a piece of garbage made from tape and coat hangers and still inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. Pilot equals everything. Was Nathan up to the task? He knew one thing. His inexperience kept creeping into his voice. "All right. Let's check them again, people."
"Come on, Nathan," Pags moaned in Nathan's link.
"Do it," he replied flatly. "My twelve, low and high, is clear."
"Red Leader, R-Three. My two to four is looking good," Shane said.
"This is R-Two," Wang began unsteadily. "And, uh, we're okay over here."
"R-Four?" Nathan asked.
"What do you think?"
"R-Four. Report properly."
"Our six and three are full of nothin' but space."
"R-Five. You're up."
A loud yawn crackled through Nathan's link. "Yup."
"Yup, what?"
Hawkes dropped his voice in an overwrought attempt to sound serious. "Seven, six, and five, low, high, and any other ways you wanna look at them, are clear."
"R-Six. I'm clean all around," Damphousse reported. Something flashed on Nathan's periphery. He turned his head. It seemed the stars blurred as though suspended above a barbecue pit. Then his heads-up display went wild:
Blip-blip-blip-blip-blip-blip.
Six targets knifed into his two o'clock. His NAV system was already plotting an intercept course and targeting locks were already hovering across the display.
"This is Red Leader. Six contacts at two o'clock. Confirm."
"Red Leader, this is R-Three. Confirm. A-O-A: fifteen degrees." Shane sounded intense.
And then Pags, all business, added his voice to hers. "R-Four. Confirm. Check six."
Nathan's suit kept him too cool to sweat, and there was definitely something unnatural about that. His pulse, rocketing at least as fast as the Hammerhead, should be accompanied by clammy palms and soaked brow. He eased back on his stick while he checked the LIDAR. The bandits were moving behind the wing. "R-Five, check six! R-Five, check six!"
He waited for a few seconds. Nothing.
"Hawkes! Answer me!"
Dead air.
Nathan looked back to take physical account of the wing. Wang was on the right, Shane the left, both in the first division. Pags, the tank, and Damphousse made up the second division. He focused on the tank's fighter, directly behind him. Though he couldn't see Hawkes, he imagined that the pilot had his feet kicked up on the console and was snoring. Or, perhaps, was flying nonchalantly with his link turned off. Either way, the tank was screwing up royally.
"Enemy craft have us locked on!" Shane announced.
Nathan's HUD showed that the bandits had banked left and rolled around to the wing's six o'clock. "Juke right! Buzz east!" he ordered.
Nathan cut the stick, rolling his Hammerhead tightly in an evasion tactic that he hoped the others would follow. Indeed, the HUD confirmed that one, two, three, four Hammerheads were behind him as he came out of the roll, pulled the stick back, and engaged full thrusters to begin a seventy-five-degree climb.
Four? There should be five of our wing behind me. And I know who's not following...
"Hawkes!"
The tank's fighter continued on a straight path, oblivious to bandits, orders, and the universe.
"Hawkes!"
Nathan looped around, sticking to his original plan to fall low and then come up at the enemy's six.
"All fighters! Break off from leader!" Shane cried. "Nathan! YAW TO EVADE!"
"R-Three! What are you doing?" he asked, dumbfounded.
Then Nathan's jaw nearly fell in his lap as looked dead ahead. The LIDAR sounded an alarm to underscore the nightmare image:
He was headed straight for Hawkes's fighter.
A yawn from Hawkes sounded through the link as Nathan tried—at the last possible second—to drive his stick forward and dive beneath the oncoming fighter.
The nose of Hawkes's Hammerhead, with its small, slightly upturned forward wings, filled Nathan's view. Then the thermoplastic canopy shield abruptly shattered amid a torrential river of fiery hell.
"Pags, look—"
"Oh, shit!"
"Pulling up! Can't hold ..."
"Adios."
Nathan saw the other ships go down like dominoes behind him, one exploding after another, complex machinery and fragile flesh and bones turned to wreckage and ash in the vacuum of space.
Punching straight up, Nathan's gloved hand connected with the plastic. "Damn!" His cockpit powered down and the canopy rose slowly. He looked over his shoulder and spotted Sergeant Bougus leaning into Hawkes's cockpit. The D.I. appeared to be floating in space.
"YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE DEAD!" Bougus waved a hand, gesturing to the other ships. "THE ENTIRE WING IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!"
The starfield around the ships faded into the antiseptic white walls of the simulator room. The only section remaining of the Hammerheads was their cockpits, each interlinked with the others to simulate attack formation fighting.
Unfortunately, they simulated it a little too well.
Nathan hung his head out of his cockpit and shot back a menacing look. "You stupid tank!"
Shane had her gaze locked on Hawkes. "What were you doing?" Her tone sounded as if she were giving him the benefit of the doubt.
"Screwing up is what he was—"
"YOU TWO SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU'RE DEAD!"
Shane looked at Nathan, pursed her lips and shook her head. Nathan nodded then glared at Hawkes.
The tank smiled. "What're you so upset about? This ain't real."
Bougus went to seize the tank's collar, then made a quick fist and held himself back. Nathan dug his own fingernails into his palm. Bougus shouted, "SOMEDAY, NUMBNUTS, IT WILL BE REAL!" Then the sergeant grew quiet, a volume that seemed much more dangerous to Nathan. "You'll be in the middle of a hairy-assed furball and you will"—he resumed his shout—"DIE! With you around, the wing doesn't have to fear the enemy!"
Nathan gritted his teeth. "I should have blown your ass away."
The tank fired off a look that had challenge written all over it, and Nathan imagined himself taking the look, chomping down on it, swallowing it, then vomiting it back into the tank's face.
And then Bougus was in Nathan's face. "Is that right? GET OUT! GET OUT OF THAT COCKPIT! EVERYONE... OUT! OUT!"
Nathan unplugged the computer cable that attached his flight suit to the cockpit, then hustled out to join the rest of the recruits.
"OVER HERE! TOGETHER!"
The group formed a semicircle around Bougus, with Nathan and Hawkes on opposite ends.
Bougus turned to Nathan and pointed to the tank. "You! Grab his ass!"
Nathan grimaced. "Sir?"
"THAT'S AN ORDER! GRAB IT! EVERYONE LINE UP AND GRAB THE ASS OF THE MARINE NEXT TO YOU!"
As Nathan grasped the tank's butt, he saw Pags maneuver himself to a place behind Damphousse. She smirked at Pags. Nathan withdrew his hand from the tank as Shane stepped in front of him. He reached out to grab her.
Hawkes then cut between Shane and Nathan, blocking Nathan's hand. The tank locked a paw into position on one of Shane's cheeks.
Nathan's breath quickened. He considered yanking the tank around and beating the lousy pilot's face into a purple sheen, but then Bougus would take him into the latrine and do the same to him. Resignedly, he resumed clawing the tank's butt, feeling the bile build at the back of his throat.
