Ancient's War 01 - Shadow Run

by A. C. Ellis

  Still, she knew she had to convince him. If she hoped to clear herself, she had to somehow verify her story. She had to establish at least the possibility of her story being true.

  Her LIN/C would do her no good. Its record could be altered.

  Then, suddenly, she knew what she must do. It might not work—and even if it did work, it might not convince him—but she had to try.

  As she formed the thought in her mind, she felt all three pendants hanging from their chains around her neck become hot, even through the heavy fabric of her uniform. The headache increased, and instantly she stood behind Renford as he gazed at thin air before his desk. She reached out and touched his shoulder.

  He tensed, then turned around, his eyes large and round with shock. His mouth worked silently for several seconds as he tried to speak, but he made no sound.

  “I know,” Susan said, stepping around the desk, to its front. He turned slowly, his gaze following her, still unable to respond. “I felt the same way when I began to realize what was happening.”

  After a few seconds, Renford closed his eyes and shook his head. “That’s…something,” he said when he finally opened his eyes.

  Susan nodded. “Now do you believe? Can you believe that what I said happened actually took place?”

  “Let’s say I’m a lot closer to believing you than I was a moment ago. At least now I can believe in the possibility of it all.”

  “Is that enough for you to help me?”

  He stared thoughtfully at Susan. Finally he said, “Yes, I’ll help you. You know orders have been issued to shoot you on sight?”

  “No, I didn’t know. Then what do I do? How do I get out of here?”

  What made me say that? she wondered. She knew she could leave any time she wanted. Although she didn’t know where on the lunar surface Photon was located, all she had to do was think herself aboard, and the pendant would do the rest.

  Then, she knew why she had asked.

  “You can’t leave here wearing a Fleet uniform,” Renford said. “They’ll be looking for a woman in a Fleet Captain’s jumpsuit.”

  He stood and went to the door on the far side of his office, and Susan followed. The door irised open and she followed him through.

  They were in Renford’s living quarters. A desk almost as large and ornate as the one in his office sat in the middle of the room, and against the far wall sat the largest bed she had ever seen. Several holo-phones filled the wall to her left. On the right wall hung more paintings like the ones that hung in the Admiral’s office, all of which she knew were authentic.

  Renford went to the closet on the far side of the room and it opened. Hanging in it were more clothes than Susan could have possibly imagined. He took out a black jumpsuit, then turned and held it out to Susan.

  “This should fit fairly well,” he said.

  It was a Base Security uniform—the sword and shield insignia stood out over its breast. She looked at him questioningly.

  “Sometimes it’s necessary for me to be out in public without being recognized,” he said. “And sometimes I have to go places and do things only Security can go and do.”

  Susan nodded and took the jumpsuit, and Renford turned back to the closet. He took a Base Security cap from the top shelf, and a holstered blaster pistol, then turned and gave both to her.

  “Put the uniform on,” he said. “I’ll be waiting in my office.” He turned and walked to the door. It irised open and he turned back to her. “Remember, make yourself look as different as possible,” he said. Then he again turned to the door and stepped through. It irised closed behind him.

  In spite of everything, she couldn’t help but smile as she stripped out of her soiled, burned and torn Fleet jumpsuit. Renford was certainly a citizen of Luna. He had been stationed here so long, its provincialism had become ingrained into his personality. She knew exactly what he had meant when he said to try to make herself look as different as possible. He had meant she should bind her breasts. But he’d been unable to say it.

  She removed the soiled wrappings on her hands and arms, then stepped to the mirror beside the closet. She stood for a few seconds, observing her nude body. There was certainly no doubt that Renford had been right. The more she could look like a man, the better off she would be.

  She went to the closet and found a long silk scarf in among the items of clothing. Tucking one end under her right arm, she brought it tightly across her breasts, flattening them against her chest, then tucked it under the other arm. Leaning to one side, she caught the loose end and tightened it around her back, then again stretched it across her breasts. There was enough scarf to go around her once more before she tucked the end in beneath her left arm.

  Again she stood before the mirror. Not the best job, but it would have to do. Concealed beneath the jumpsuit, she might just pass for a man.

  She got quickly into the jumpsuit and fastened it up the front. After strapping on the holster, she put the cap on her head and again looked at her reflection in the mirror. It was no good. Although her breasts would no longer betray her, her hair hung long and shining from beneath the cap. And her prosthetic hands—the plastic synthetic skin burned off—would give her away, as well.

  Turning from the mirror, she scanned the room. The drawers set into the wall beside the bed had to hold a pair of scissors. She went to the drawers and searched. Within seconds she found them.

  She went back to the mirror and took off the cap. Taking a deep breath, she hacked at her hair with the scissors. After less than a minute, she was finished. It wasn’t a very good job, but it would have to do.

  As she placed the soiled bandages back on her hands, she asked herself, What next? And suddenly, she knew. She didn’t know how she knew; she simply knew.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  She stood in a deserted corridor, before a closed conventional door, the snowflake pattern blossoming in her mind and the mantra on her lips. Although the door was unmarked, she knew that beyond it was an operating room. She was again in a hospital.

  But this hospital was Earth-side; the gravity was Earth’s. She was ten years in her own past.

  The headache burned behind her eyes, considerably more intense than it had before this jump. She couldn’t concentrate. Yet she knew she had to concentrate with all her mind; she had much to do.

  In her right hand she carried a blaster pistol, while the one Renford had given her only a few minutes before was still holstered at her hip. She had stolen the weapon she held after she’d made the jump to this time. For what she must do, she needed a functional blaster.

  Reaching out, she turned the door handle. It twisted beneath her grip and she pushed the door open and walked through; she was in the operating room.

  It was empty. The surgeons and technicians who would soon fill the room had not yet arrived, and her own past self had not yet been wheeled in, unconscious, on a gurney. Still, all the equipment was laid out, ready to go.

  She went to a wheeled tray beside the operating table and scanned the instruments. The laser scalpel, forceps, and various other surgical instruments were positioned neatly and precisely on one side of the tray. On the other side was a pair of prosthetic arms and hands, covered with flesh-colored plasti-alloy. Beside them, still in its mold, lay the metal skull plate that would be inserted in her past self’s head.

  Carefully, she pried the plate from its mold, and it popped out with little effort. She tossed the skull plate into the corner of the room beneath a low equipment bench, then lifted one of the pendants from around her neck, parted a link of its silver chain, and detached it. She threw the chain beneath the equipment bench with the skull plate.

  Positioning the lump of dull gray metal in the center of the mold, she made certain the blaster was on a low-power setting.

  She trained the weapon on the lump of metal at short range and pulled the trigger. The pendant melted instantly, precisely filling the mold. It would cool quickly, and by the time the surgeons were ready to
implant it, it would be at room temperature.

  She tossed the blaster under the equipment bench as well, then stepped away from the tray. That part was done. But there was still more she had to accomplish before she was finished—before she could jump to Photon.

  Turning, she stepped to the door, opened it, and produced another jump as she stepped out into the corridor.

  She was in another corridor. No longer on Earth; the gravity was Luna’s. The crowd was huge, and shop fronts lined the corridor on either side. This was the exchange area, on Fleet Base.

  To her left, fifty feet down a side corridor, stood the curio shop she had visited less than a week ago. Within, she knew she would find the old man.

  But it was not him she was interested in. Not yet. It was the only other occupant of that shop for whom she had come.

  She eased back into the crowd, into a small dark space between two shops. Lifting one of the two remaining pendants from around her neck, she placed it out of sight, in the pouch at her waist. Then she drew the blaster pistol Renford had given her and waited. The blaster would not function in this time: she knew that. But to accomplish what it must, it didn’t have to.

  She didn’t have long to wait. In less than a minute she spotted her other self emerging from the branch corridor. And in that instant that other self spotted her.

  A look of pure horror washed over the other’s features as Susan brought the blaster pistol up, centering it on her other self through a gap in the crowd. Then the other disappeared.

  Just as Susan knew she would.

  Quickly, she holstered her weapon; she didn’t want the rest of the crowd to see it. She couldn’t afford to cause a panic like she had in Times Square so many years ago.

  She knew what she must do next. She had to jump thirty or forty years into the past, while maintaining her spatial location here in the Fleet Base exchange area.

  But exactly what time should she jump to? It had to be precise, so she would end up when she knew she must.

  Or did it? Could she simply jump to any time between thirty and forty years? Would she be guaranteed to end up where she had, because she had?

  Either way, she had no choice. She did not know the exact time she must achieve, so she could not possibly achieve it. And so, she split the difference— thirty-five years into the past.

  At first she thought her surroundings had not changed in the least. Then she noticed that the crowd was considerably thinner than it had been an instant before. And the shops were slightly different, too. They looked somehow newer. Yet she was still on Luna, definitely in the Fleet exchange area.

  She started for the side corridor where the curio shop was located. There was less dust on the corridor floor than there had been the last time she had been here. Before she reached the shop she stopped dead in her tracks, a cold shiver running up her spine.

  The sign above the shop’s entrance was different. Where before it had read, Eddie’s Out-System Curios, it now read, Sylvia’s Fine Clothes.

  She glanced around. Most of the shops seemed to house the same businesses they had in her own time, but a few did not. There was an arcade where there should have been a small Greek restaurant, a low-grav gym where an electronics repair shop stood in her time. And where the curio shop should have been stood a boutique.

  Had her jumping around somehow altered the past? She knew it had to some extent, but had she caused this? Had she so changed what she thought of as reality that she would never be able to bring about what she knew she must in order to succeed?

  Perhaps not. Maybe this far back, the curio shop had been a boutique. But if that was true, how could she possibly sell the pendant to the old man?

  She went down the short corridor to the boutique’s door and it irised open. Inside were racks of clothing. She stepped back into the corridor and the door irised closed.

  There was no doubt about it—this was not the correct time. She had gone too far into the past.

  But how far up the time line into the future should she go? A year? Two years?

  One year, she decided, simply because she had to decide something. She formed the thought in her mind, then jumped.

  The headache flared behind her eyes. Then the snowflake pattern and the mantra. But neither seemed to work any longer. As before, the headache remained worse than it had been after her previous jump.

  And the sign remained the same.

  But perhaps…

  She stepped to the door and it irised open. Within were the shelves she remembered from her own time, although they were considerably less cluttered.

  Once inside, the door irised closed behind her. She took the pendant from the pouch at her waist, put it back around her neck with its twin, then started down the aisle between the rows of shelves.

  “Can I help you…?” came a familiar paper-thin voice from behind.

  She turned around. The man didn’t look much younger than he had been in Susan’s time.

  “Tann—,” she started, making her voice two octaves lower than usual. But then she realized she probably shouldn’t give her real name. “Hansen,” she finished, “Brian Hansen.”

  “Can I be of some assistance, Mr. Hansen?” Her disguise had worked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I would like to sell one of these.” She lifted the pendants from around her neck.

  “Just one?”

  She nodded. “I must keep one.” She put one in the pouch at her waist, then held the other out to the old man. She felt the weight of the pendant in the pouch disappear as he took the one she offered.

  “I’m afraid I can’t give you much for it,” he said. “Where is it from?”

  “The Crab Nebula, from a planet circling its star of origin.”

  He nodded. “What is it?”

  “Just a pendant. Jewelry.”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, I can’t give you much.”

  “That’s fine. I just want to sell it.”

  “I could give you a bit more for both.” Susan shook her head, and he shrugged again. “Follow me,” he said.

  She followed him to the back of the shop. The same green terminal sat atop the desk as had in her time. She almost pulled her LIN/C from its pouch, then noticed there was no slot to receive it in the terminal. Now, more than thirty years before she had first met this man, the LIN/C hadn’t yet been developed.

  “Didn’t there used to be a boutique here?” she asked as the old man sat and began typing at the terminal.

  “Yes.” He worked at the keyboard as if unaccustomed to using it. “They went out of business, and I took this spot over three weeks ago. I haven’t even had time to change the sign outside. By the way, how did you know I was here?”

  “A friend told me,” she lied.

  Again he nodded. “I don’t know what to call this place when I finally get around to having a sign made.”

  “What’s your name?” Of course, she knew what it was.

  “Sims,” he said. “Roger Sims.”

  Her heart stopped beating. His name was wrong. It had to be Eddie. She thought fast.

  “I don’t think that will look good on the sign.”

  “Why not?”

  “Somehow, it just doesn’t sound right.”

  She was quiet for a few seconds, thinking. Where had Eddie come from?

  “What’s your middle name?”

  “Edward.” And she breathed a silent sigh of relief.

  “How about using that in the sign. Maybe Eddie’s Out-System Curios?”

  The old man repeated the name. Then was quiet for a few seconds. Finally, he said, “It does sound good. I just might use it.”

  He handed Susan two and a half credits, and she put the money in the pouch that only a few seconds before had held the other pendant. “Thanks,” she said as she turned and walked to the door.

  The old man followed. On her way down the aisle Susan heard him drop the pendant on a shelf. The door irised open.

  “Come again,” he said as she
stepped out into the corridor.

  “I will,” she responded without looking back. She didn’t tell him it would be thirty-six years in the future.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Photon, she thought as she stepped out into the corridor. The ship would be her next destination. To Photon, and her own time.

  Yet, she didn’t know where that ship was located. It had been moved from its hangar, somewhere out onto Luna’s surface. But to where?

  Hyatt’s private launch site—wherever that was.

  Perhaps she didn’t have to know exactly where it was. She had just jumped to a time she had not been sure of. Maybe she could do the same with space.

  Of course she could; she had done precisely that the last time she had jumped to Photon. The ship had been in deep space then, and there was absolutely no way she could have known where in space it was located.

  The headache pounded behind her eyes, scattering her thoughts. She needed all the concentration she could gather in order to do what she knew she must; she would have to center her entire attention on getting to Photon if the process was going to stand even the slightest chance of working.

  Clearing her thoughts, she drew in a deep breath, then formed the vague thought of the time she wanted, planting it as firmly in her mind as possible. Finally, she visualized the ship.

  Instantly, the corridor around her vanished…

  …to be replaced by Photon’s no-nonsense interior.

  She let her breath out in a burst.

  Rounded corners. Light blue colored cabin. Acceleration webbing. A sparse simplicity that seemed absolutely ridiculous. This was the ship—it was Photon.

  But was she in the right time?

  There was only one way to know for certain. She shuffled to the webbing and strapped in, then pulled her LIN/C from its pouch at her waist. Positioning it above the slot in the control panel, she hesitated.

  She didn’t know what she should expect. The familiarization session Hyatt had promised had never materialized—there hadn’t been time—and she didn’t have the slightest idea how she would go about piloting this ship.