Warp Resonance

by Cedar Sanderson

  Lia sauntered into the bridge and Sera realized that she really was glowing. Or at least a bit of the air around her was. Sera remembered that Lia had said something about the Spore defenses having some more esoteric properties. “Not something I’m cleared to tell you about yet, duckling.” She had gone onto another topic, then, and Sera had put it out of her mind.

  “Whooh,” the communications man put a hand to his head. “What was I doing?”

  “You have the Birgitte.”

  “I have the Birgitte.” The captain and communications echoed in unison in wooden voices. Sera’s neck prickled.

  “You will return to base with her.”

  “We will return to base.” The captain bent to his boards.

  “You will emit transponder signals enroute.”

  “We will emit transponder signals.”

  “You did not see me. I am not the person you were looking for.”

  “We do not see you.”

  Now the communications man entered codes into his board, and Sera saw the name of their ship, the Dire Star, sparkle into life on her board. Looking up, she saw Lia leaving the bridge, but neither man seemed to notice, busy already preparing to jump.

  Sera leaped up and ran to the airlock.

  ####

  “What did you DO to them?” Sera demanded as soon as Lia stepped back onboard, decontamination finished.

  “Gave them a dose of their own medicine.” Lia replied serenely.

  “What?”

  “I had the medcomp make up a batch of the drug they used to take over the Birgitte. It affects a certain area of the brain that makes it virtually impossible to disobey a command. The Birgitte would have come here, and stopped, I’m sure that is what the captain was told to do, but something went wrong.” she shook her head. “He kept jumping, mostly at random, until they hit Blender. Who knows?”

  “So what now?”

  “We go along for the ride.”

  “Surely someone will notice that we aren’t the Birgitte.”

  “Eventually. What gave you the idea to talk to them?”

  “Well, I thought it would give you time to do whatever it was you were planning.”

  “If I had known it would work that well I could have worn my suit.”

  “About that...”

  “Feel free to speculate, I still can’t tell you all about it.”

  Lia folded into her pilot chair, exhausted. That could have gone... much worse. She looked over at the girl.

  “Good thinking. Now get some sleep. Tricky bit is still coming.”

  Lia closed her eyes herself, still in the chair, reclined as far as it went. It wasn’t the first time she had slept here, and doubtless wouldn’t be the last. Now, if the Gavan Navy was on time and on target, it was all over but the shooting. If not... well, she was very good at talking, and Sera’s face was a weapon unto itself.

  The pirate base was unimpressive, viewed from long distance. An old cargo hauler, surrounded by clutter that winked in the light of the gas giant it orbited. Lia snorted. “Time for us to make ourselves scarce. I think the Admiral can take it from here.”

  Sera, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes and looking much younger than she actually was, asked muzzily, “How do we leave?”

  “Tractor beams are weak forces. If we move fast enough we can slip out of the inertial influence and into free space. They can’t be used on a ship under power, which is why we played dead when the pirates came for us.”

  “Oh. And now we run away?”

  “I’d rather not have to go in there.” Lia replied drily, pointing at the cobbled-up space station looming in the viewscreen now.

  “Me, neither. But what if they shoot at us?”

  “I have a some surprises in this ship.”

  Lia opened the channel to the Dire Star bridge, watching to see if the drug was still influencing the men aboard. They sat at their boards like automatons. The pirate base was hailing, but neither seemed to hear it. She flinched. Even knowing that this was what the Birgitte had undergone, it was horrible to see men whose consciousness was utterly destroyed. She closed the channel and triggered the drive.

  Rolling the little ship away from the bigger pirate, she used the body of that ship to block the space station’s view of her retreat. As she maneuvered, Sera opened the frequency they had agreed on with the Admiral and began hailing the Gavan fleet. Lia ignored her, concentrating on piloting. The further away they could get, the less likely they were to be intercepted.

  She didn’t expect to get all the way out of the system before being detected. Although the Gavan fleet was only a jump behind them, following her bread-crumb trail of active buoys, that might mean hours. She and Sera didn’t have hours, they had minutes, and that only because the pirates hadn’t bothered with a proper sensor array.

  Relying on the enemy’s stupidity wasn’t a great way to win a battle, but this wasn’t a war. All she had to do was to be faster than they, and that much she could do.

  “Sera, strap in!”

  Lia punched the little ship for the outer depths of this solar system, leaping like a gazelle for the safety of the jump limit. A ship had launched from the pirate’s base toward them, but it was in no hurry. She had known that it would pick them up, and seconds counted out here. She could imagine their confusion, and hurried commands. It picked up speed, but too little, too late.

  Pressed back into the acceleration chairs, she and Sera waited silently as the ship drove onward to the limit. Talking was an effort at this acceleration, so Lia kept silent and watched the board. A sudden sparkling of icons at the jump limit forced a whoop from her lungs.

  “Gavan! Welcome and thanks!” She transmitted, as the little ship tore through their formation and out to the limit.

  “Get home safe, Scout. Good work.” the gruff voice of the Admiral came back. “All over but the shooting.”

  “Good luck and good hunting, Sir.”

  They reached the limit and Lia jumped back to safety and the last system they had passed through as a passive captive of the pirates.

  “Homeward bound.” Lia whispered as the ship slipped through the blackness of space. “Time for you to go to school.” She told Sera, who was matching her grin of relief in the other chair. “At least you can write stimulating essays on what you did for vacation.”

  Sera laughed then, and Lia laughed with her.

  Little Lost Bird

  He first saw her when she jumped out of the old oak tree and landed awkwardly. He could tell even from halfway across the field that she had hurt herself - she remained down, in a half crouch, her head bent in a posture that he recognized as bracing herself against the pain. He dropped the reins and took off running toward her, thinking that he really should put up no trespassing signs, and wondering in irritation if she would sue him for having a ‘dangerous tree’. When he reached her, though, and she looked up at him, he forgot his irritation. She had the prettiest face. She was pale, but her wide brown eyes looked straight back at him, and she smiled.

  “Do you think you could call for help? I’m afraid that I have done the silliest thing...”

  He smiled back. The courage she was showing warmed his heart. “I don’t have a cell phone.” he admitted. “But I could take you to the farmhouse and call from there.”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  “Just a minute.” He made her comfortable, and went back to his team to unhitch them. With a slap of his hand, he sent them ambling back toward the barn. They were not averse to a little afternoon break. His horses taken care of, he returned to the girl - no, he thought, she is a woman, a lady - and scooped her up.

  “Oh, no, I am much too heavy.” she protested.

  “No, you aren’t. In fact, you are too light. What have they been feeding you?” he teased. She felt like skin and bones to him. And now that he thought of it, that pallor could be the result of a long hospitalization. She did not answer him, though, but rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eye
s. Only then did he recognize her. He had carried her like this once a lifetime ago, when she was only seven years old, and had fallen into the stream and broken her arm, then fainted trying to walk home. He had been thirteen, and big for his age, but that mile had seemed like forever. He had refused to put her down and leave her all alone, though. She would never have admitted it, but the woods frightened her then. She was Lissia Baxcomb, once his next-door neighbor and playmate, now heroine to an entire grateful world.

  She had been the one to brave the unknown of space in an untested suit, only hours after one of her colleagues died trying to repair a hole in the space station’s oxygen tanks. She had retrieved the body when she was done with her patch job. He had often thought what a long, lonely walk that must have been, bringing a body back around the curve of the station, step by arduous step, in the cold vastness of space. After this exploit, she had returned to Earth to a hero’s welcome, but it was what she did next that turned the world on it’s ear. She had been the first, and so far, only, pilot to fly a faster than light vehicle. She had gone beyond Mars, to the Asteroids, on her first trip, surveying to find if it was worth mining those forsaken rocks for materials desperately needed on an energy hungry Earth. Another trip was planned in a month. She was to go to another star. He couldn’t remember which one off the top of his head, but he knew it was going to be a long trip.

  When they reached the house, she was sound asleep. She did not even stir when he laid her down on the couch in the screened porch. He covered her with a throw and went inside the house to call his sister. She said she would come right away, and he went back out to Lissia, and watched her sleep for a long time. When she finally awake, she blushed and tried to sit up.

  “I have imposed on you. I am sorry.”

  “Lissia, just rest. Tara is on her way, and if you will give me the number I will make that call for you.”

  She grinned. “I had given up on you recognizing me.”

  He laughed. “I might not have, if I hadn’t had to carry you. You have changed so much. It has been almost twenty years.”

  She nodded. “When Dad died and we moved into the city I was a terrible correspondent. Poor Tara. We parted promising to write every day, and I think I must have written her a letter every year after I saw her in the summer vacation, and then by high school I wasn’t visiting anymore...” she raised her eyes to his. “I am ashamed of that, you know. It wasn’t fair to you guys to put you out of sight, out of mind.”

  “How is your mother?”

  “She died two years ago. Cancer. The vaccine came out just before she died, but it was too late.”

  “I am sorry.” He reached for her hand and held it for a minute, and they sat in companionable silence, the warm sunlight streaming in on their bowed heads.

  The slamming of a car door disturbed their thoughts. “That must be Tara. I’ll go help her.”

  “David?” he turned, at the door, and looked at her. “Thank you. I had forgotten how much it hurt, losing you.”

  He knew he must look confused, as he certainly felt that way, but he could hear Tara, so he just shrugged and went to give his sister a hand. Tara already had the baby out, and has balancing him on her hip while she collected the diaper bag.

  “Here, let me.” Dave offered, collecting his chubby nephew. The little boy bounced and chortled with glee when he saw his favorite relative.

  “Thanks.” Tara brushed a lock of damp black hair out of her eye. “Whew, it’s hot. How is she?”

  Dave filled her in as they walked through the house, and then stood back and let the two women, who had been best friends until they were ten, embrace and cry a little, quietly, on one another’s shoulders. Lissia looked more than ever to him like she had been under some severe emotional strain. He thought Tara would be good for her, though. He took little Joe into the other room with him, and made some lemonade. When he came back with it, they were talking, Tara animatedly telling Lissia about her baby, and husband, and new home... all at once, as usual. Dave met Lissia’s eyes over his sister’s head and they smiled at one another.

  “Did you look at her ankle?” he asked Tara.

  “Oh, gosh!” She jumped up. “I never made it to doctor,” she told Lissia, “but I did become a medic like your dad was.”

  She gently probed at Lissia’s ankle. Shaking her head, she said, “does this hurt?”

  “No. I’m sure it is healing nicely and very quickly, though, or my nanobots aren’t worth what the government paid for them.” Lissia commented drily.

  “Nanobots?” Tara asked disbelievingly.

  Dave answered. “Yes, tiny organic particles that are programmed and released into the bloodstream. Theoretically, they can be programmed to heal an injury.”

  Lissia shook her head. “Not theoretically. They do. I would have died if it weren’t for my friendly little bots. It isn’t widely known that my arrival back on Earth was more of a crash landing than anything, and it took the rescue crew a while to cut me out of the wreckage.”

  “Is that why you are so pale?” Tara asked.

  “Yes. The bots use my own resources to repair, and basically starve my system.”

  “Do you need to eat now?” Dave asked, concerned.

  “Yes, please!” she looked up. “I could eat a horse.”

  “Oh! I forgot the team! Tara, can you make her something to eat while I put them away?” he was out the door almost before he was finished talking.

  When he returned the house was redolent of frying eggs, and his sister was preparing a salad in the kitchen. He passed her, and she looked over her shoulder and told him “I left Joe on the porch with Lissia and they seem to be entertaining one another nicely.”

  “Good. I am going to shower and get this horse smell off me. Are you going to eat with us?” he sniffed appreciatively at the pan of welsh rarebit she had simmering.

  “Yes, I called and let Hubs know where I am. He won’t be home early enough to join us. He says hi.”

  “’K” Dave headed out of the kitchen with his mouth full of cherry tomato.

  They ate out on the porch, Lissia sitting up in the comfortable chair that had been Mrs. Holter’s favorite, and Joe in his highchair across the round table from her. Tara was mostly occupied with him, and Dave talked to Lissia.

  “I’ve missed this. It has been lonely since Mom died, and we lived such a sterile life after we left the farm. That, and I have been so tied up in the process of becoming an astronaut for the last twelve years. I haven’t had the time for a family.”

  “You aren’t married?” Tara asked.

  “No, I dated a couple of times, but my heart wasn’t in it. I just never met a man who was more interesting than flying.” Lissia confessed.

  “Here and I thought you were still carrying the torch for my brother.”

  Lissia blushed at this teasing, and Dave wondered why. Then he decided to follow this very interesting line of inquiry. “Still?”

  “Oh, yes...”

  “Tara! hush!” Lissia laughed. “You’re embarrassing me!”

  Laughing herself, Tara continued. “She has had a dreadful crush on you, dear brother, since she was nine.”

  “I wish I had known this before.” Dave grinned. “I never would have let you leave the farm.”

  “Oh, really?” Lissia raised an eyebrow. “As I recall, your most frequent reference to me was ‘the pest’.”

  They all laughed at this, and Tara, who was wiping Joe’s face, said cheerfully, “Where are you going to stay tonight?”

  “Oh, I thought I’d go into town and find a hotel room.”

  Tara looked shocked. “You aren’t going to drive on that ankle yet.” She stated. “Dave, is Mom and Dad’s room in presentable shape?”

  “Yes, of course she can stay here.”

  “Where is you car, anyway?” The ever practical Tara asked Lissia.

  “Parked in the lane by the field.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” Dave offered.

&
nbsp; “Better do it soon, Davey, I need to get Joe home to bed.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go now.”

  He took her bag up to his parent’s room when he came back, and opened the windows. He had the room set up as a guest room now that his parents had moved to Virginia, and it was ready for Lissia, but he thought she would like the scent of the lilacs that grew up to the second story windows on this side of the house. The night was cool, with a little breeze that filled the room with the flowers’ heavy perfume. Then he went back downstairs and carried her up to the bed, setting her down on the edge of it. Lissia reassured Tara that she could manage the bathroom, but Dave slipped into the bathroom and drew a bath. As he knelt by the tub he remembered his father doing this for his mother almost every night. Dave poured bath salts that his mother had left behind into the hot water, and shut the water off.

  Tara gave him a quick hug as he walked her out to the car. “She should be fine, but keep an ear open for her in the bathroom, won’t you?”

  “Yes. I am glad to see her, you know.”

  She met his eyes. “I know. I know how lonely you get out here, whatever you may say.”

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t belong here anymore. She is her own person, Tara. I couldn’t presume to ask her to stay.”

  “You never know.”

  Dave walked back into the house slowly, looking up at the bright stars overhead. They seemed so distant.

  Lissia’s stay lengthened into a week. Tara came over almost every day, even though Lissia was walking quite comfortably after the third day, and they talked and played with Joe on the smooth lawn that overlooked the fields. Dave finished plowing his cornfield with the team, and did the other fields with the tractor. As he explained to Lissia, he really ought to just retire the team, but it made him feel closer to the soil, somehow, to use them and his own power to work the earth. Lissia bloomed in the warm sun and plentiful home cooking, and began to have plump cheeks and a ready smile. She did not talk about her work unless prompted, and pumped Dave for farming anecdotes, and Tara for baby talk.