A Warrior's Journey

by Guy Stanton III

  Torren looked at her incredulously, “You have something that can generate lightening on this ship?”

  “Not exactly, but we have something similar to it yes. Your ancestors through precise calculations of math, astronomy and much trial and error mapped out where the available worlds for habitation in this galaxy were. They sent unmanned ships to those destinations and when a successful pairing was made they dropped beacon devices into the deeper parts of the oceans of those worlds. Now because of that water vortex travel is made much faster and safer because of those existing beacon arrays. Tracking devices on this vessel focus in on those beacon arrays and send a burst of electrically charged power out through space towards those beacon receiving sites. Now this is what happens when the power is sent towards the beacon array on a distant planet.”

  She began moving the pointer stick again. The rounded end of the pointer touched the other bubble’s surface which bowed out around the intruding force. The bubbles bowed out surface touched the other bubble’s surface and the two joined together to form a connected double bubble sharing each other’s atmosphere at one point.

  The end of the pointer, which symbolized our vessel was inside the second bubble. We looked around at each other in amazement at the process by which our ancestors had learned to travel between different worlds.

  Our attention was brought back to Abby, as she began talking again. “When the highly charged energy is shot out through space at tremendous speed toward the beacon array on another world it forms a cylinder shape that is void in the middle. The void is calibrated to just fit the dimensions of this ship. As the void is created by the fast moving hollow beam of energy a vacuum occurs within the void. The charged energy is not enough to convey our vessel up the void and through space. A conductive material is required, which is supplied in abundance in the form of salt water from the ocean. Salt water is best because it is more conductive to electric charge because of its chemical content of dissolved metals and salt. The vacuum within the void is open on the seaward end and it sucks up massive amounts of seawater until there is enough water to provide a very thin coating to the sides of the tube formed by the energy beam. Once enough water is acquired the vessel enters into the electro stream and picks up speed as it’s powered up by the electrical conductivity of the surrounding matrix of charged power. As the vessel travels through the void the charged energy collapses and the water is released into space. When the vessel reaches the other world it is plunged several fathoms down into the ocean where it disengages from the particle beam. It can then travel fully submerged or on the surface of the water. The water used in this process of travel is lost forever into space so it is unwise for there to be excessive water vortex travel, as it lowers the available amount of water that a planet has. Takeoff of the vessel on the world of origin has to be centered over the beacon array of that world. If the vessel was not centered over the homeworld’s beacon array an error could occur in the calculations for the travel telemetry through space and the vessel could veer off course and be lost in space or collide with a landform upon entry of the other world and be destroyed. Another caution of water vortex travel is that if you do not wait until there is a sufficient amount of sea water taken up by the vacuum the energy particle matrix could run out of the conductive strength to hold the vessel on its journey and collapse dumping the vessel out into a vast stretch of insurmountable space. Thankfully the whole system is completely automated and you shouldn’t have any problems at all.”

  Oh God! I do not want any part of this mission.

  Please let me wake up to all of this having been only a nightmare and not the reality of my likely soon to be demise!

  “Oh and one more thing in regards to water vortex travel. It is very obvious when exiting and entering a planet via this means of travel, as the electro stream is brightly lit up throughout the entire process.”

  I heard Larc and several of the others groan. There went the element of surprise.

  “It is an unavoidable part of the process I’m afraid and can’t be shielded.”

  We were so going to die!

  Our training progressed and the trepidation we all had at the handling of the technology decreased slightly, as we became more proficient at our duties on the water vessel. We had to learn each other’s duties as well as our own, in case of casualties during the mission.

  It was agreed to by all that Torren would stay on the vessel during the entire length of the mission, as he displayed the best natural ability of grasping the complexities of the vessel’s navigation system. I wasn’t especially thrilled about that because I was his understudy and with him out of harm’s way that meant I would be going ashore with the team to potentially face even greater technological nightmares. I was such a coward.

  My primary job was initializing the charged energy beam and hooking up with the beacon array and what followed until the vessel was firmly in the water vortex and moving. Torren was my understudy, as it was possible for us to do each other’s tasks from each of our assigned consoles if it was necessary.

  Weeks went by until Abby finally informed us that she thought us ready to make the journey. She insisted that we rest for a few days before starting, as sleep was likely to be in short supply over the coming days.

  We had no contact with the outside world for the length of our training and we were to have none now either, which hurt, as I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye to either mother or Gavin. I lay on my narrow bunk, but sleep would not come to me. The intense pressure of the situation didn’t seem to be impacting Talaric much, as his snores resonated throughout the room annoyingly.

  All he was tasked with doing was opening and closing the hatch! While an important task it was none the less as simple as could be and almost impossible to mess up. If I messed up in the performance of my task we could all be blown up into a million little bits or worse yet drop out of the electro stream and drift aimlessly in the fast voids of space while our life support systems failed one by one and we all starved to death.

  I rubbed at my eyes furiously. I could see that grim future becoming an all too real possibility. I wasn’t going to sleep so I might as well get up. I got up quietly and walked down the hall to the main operational room of the vessel and sat down in my consol chair. Abby had dimmed the vessel’s lighting to help us sleep and perhaps calm our moods down some. She appeared beside me standing, which didn’t surprise me much.

  “You should get your rest Zevin.” Abby said softly.

  “Not going to happen I’m afraid.”

  I stared at the complexities of the screens and technology in front of me. “Were our ancestors more proficient than we are or something, because even after all my training I feel completely unnerved at the prospect of even attempting to do my task!”

  Abby paused for a moment, “They were born and raised around the technology and were more comfortable with it because of long usage. It is not easy by any standards Zevin, even theirs. Something else that also helped them was that they lived longer on average than people do today and if they chose to they could encourage a higher brain output than is common today.”

  “If this is supposed to be your way of offering comfort you can stop anytime!”

  “I won’t lie to you Zevin. It is an extremely complex and difficult mission that you are about to undertake. And the likelihood of success is not very good, but there is something to put your hope in.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “There is an indefinable quality that I have seen in the men of your family over the years that has not dimmed with the passage of time and the loss of natural abilities or even the loss of the skills of handling technology. In fact I would say that I have not seen this indefinable quality shine brighter than it does in your father and I see the same quality and strength of character in you too. I am encouraged to believe that the quality I have seen exhibited throughout your family line stems from the belief you have placed in your Creator. There seems to be an un
deniable validation of that belief you have in your Creator, because over the years I have seen and witnessed things happen that cannot be explained by any natural phenomena or quantifiable data that I can measure and analyze. So what I’m trying to say Zevin is that even though things in the natural sense of order don’t look good, there is still hope because of your relationship with your Creator. As your own ancestors and your father put it, ‘All things are possible for our God to accomplish.’”

  I had come to like the personification of technology that Abby was made up of very much over the past few weeks. She was always there with a word of encouragement and an unmatched level of patience.

  “It sounds like you have gained some measure of faith for yourself Abby.”

  Quietly, as if to herself she said, “Perhaps I have.”

  She left me then fading back into the nothingness that she had come from. During our training to better help facilitate our instruction she had manifested herself into a duplicate separate form of herself so she could teach every one of us one on one.

  She had done all she could to prepare us. Now it was up to us to do our part. God please help us!

  Chapter Eight

  Pressurized

  I felt the sweat that was beaded up on my forehead gather into a drop and slip down into my eye. It burned and I had to blink my way past it, as my hands were locked in readiness to do something. I don’t know what as it wasn’t time for me to do anything yet.

  If I was sweating, then Torren beside of me, was likely to be as well. I tore my eyes off the screens in front of us and the treacherous ocean depths that they portrayed all around us.

  Glancing at Torren I could see he was worse off than even I was. He was constantly blinking, with sweat flicking off of his eyelashes. I reached for a cloth and leaning over I wiped at the sweat on his forehead without blocking his view.

  “Thanks!” He gritted out tersely his focus on the screen and the controls in his hands.

  My eyes were drawn back to the enthralling, but deadly view of what was taking place around the vessel. An hour earlier Torren had submerged the vessel in the underground chamber and moved it out through a narrow underwater cavern that first led downward and then upward.

  It had been totally dark within the cavern except for the light cast off by the lights on the exterior of the vessel, which had done a good job at illuminating the way before us. Now we were out of the cavern and into the small boulder strewn bay.

  Following the course charted for him Torren navigated the vessel in and around the sharp rocks that projected up from the sea floor everywhere. On the screen in front of Torren there was a view of our way forward with and indicator line that showed the vessels suggested navigation course through the maze of rocks.

  Auto pilot couldn’t be used because of the unpredictableness of underwater currents and changes to the topography. Much could change in seven hundred years, but surprisingly little seemed to have. Torren was doing an excellent job of keeping the little flashing indicator light that represented us on or near the plotted line charted out by the vessel’s navigation control.

  As long as the plotted line that snaked in and around obstructions was green and the vertical indicator line was blue we were fine. A couple of times one or both of the lines had flashed yellow in warning and Torren had to adjust our position either up or down or side to side more heavily.

  Suddenly the whole vessel abruptly jolted sideways and indicator alarms sounded loudly throughout the ship. Torren’s screen showed red lines and he valiantly tried to bring the vessel back on course, but something was causing resistance to his efforts!

  He jammed his foot down on a lever on the floor and the whole vessel lurched forward violently towards a wall of solid rock ahead of us. He seemed to regain some steering control and with a shudder that rocked the vessel, we pulled free of the strong underwater current that we had been caught up in, but we were now plunging ahead toward the rock wall.

  Torren let off on the power and steered madly away from the looming wall of rock. The rocks grew closer and closer until they filled the screen, but Torren managed to turn the vessel and then giving it more power he pulled away from the rocks and back onto our charted course. As the red line turned back to green and the alarms stopped ringing I managed to force myself to breathe again.

  Larc had been standing behind Torren the whole time and now he patted him encouragingly on the shoulder. Within a couple more minutes we were out of the rocks and headed out into the ocean that opened up deeper before us.

  The auto pilot function clicked on and the vessel picked up speed as it headed out toward the beacon array further out in a deeper spot in the ocean. Soon it would be my turn.

  Torren leaned back in his seat and pried his fingers off of the oddly shaped wheel in his hands.

  The cool modulated voice of some woman from the distant past came out over the vessel’s sound system, “Approaching transferral zone. All crew members and passengers must return to their seats and fasten safety harnesses. Secure loose items aboard ship. Transferral zone in two minutes.”

  I started fastening my harness on. My fingers were shaking so badly it was hard to get the clips pushed into their slots. Orhanin who sat on my other side reached across and helped me without saying a word. I nodded my thanks embarrassed by my jitteriness.

  Larc spoke out in a commanding tone, “Talaric, put on your harness.”

  “I’ll ride it out. I don’t like being restrained.”

  No kidding I thought to myself. That pretty much described his philosophical approach to life in general. Larc looked sternly at him for a moment, but then gave up.

  The two minutes passed by fast. Ahead of us the beacon array was the only thing that could be clearly seen on the ocean floor, as it was brightly lit up in the darkness all around us.

  The modulated voice piped up again, “We have reached the transferral zone. Initializing transferral procedure.” The nose of the vessel started pointing upward to face at the sky somewhere far above us. Abby had not mentioned anything about this vertical aspect of my job!

  I breathed out, “Oh God!” even as I heard Talaric scrambling to get into his harness. Within a minute the vessel was pointing straight up at the ocean’s surface and moving sideways to position directly over the beacon array. When the vessel was over the array it spun slightly around and seemed to click into place.

  We were locked into place on the beacon array so as to keep us from being sucked up the electro stream to soon. “Vessel ready for transferral. Please select desired coordinates and initiate electro stream transferral.”

  I swallowed hard and reached my hand out and up towards the screen in front of me. I started dragging my finger on the surface of the screen as I leafed down through menus of options, just as I had practiced in my simulations with Abby. Now for the big test to see whether or not attempting the mission was even possible.

  I accessed the appropriate file and scrolled down the list of coordinates to various other worlds in the registry, until I found the one I wanted at the bottom of the list. Most of the coordinates I had scrolled down through had red flashing icons beside them, which indicated one or more of three possible things.

  The beacon array on that world was damaged or missing, there wasn’t enough water to complete transferral safely, or the world was not safe to visit either environmentally or because of enemy influence.

  The icon for Earth was green. The mission was a go, which I informed Larc of. We hadn’t known until this moment whether or not Earth was still reachable, as Abby could not validate any information from the beacon array from the underground chamber.

  Selecting Earth as our destination brought up another screen that asked for the initialization of the voyage. I had to go down a series of checks that verified that the ship was fit for electro stream travel. All the checks came back positive. The green button that initialized the charged energy beam lit up before me. I pushed it down. The moment after I pushed it the bea
ming array folded out from around the vessel to form the framework of a circle that encompassed the vessel at its widest point. The button began to flash with green light. I hesitated in pushing it again one more time.

  “Go ahead Zevin. Push it and may God help us!” Larc intoned deeply.

  I pushed it down.

  A whirling noise began to sound out louder as the outboard structure that had folded out from the vessel began to spin faster and faster around the outside hull, until the whole vessel pulsated with the vibration of its turbulence. All the vessels exterior lights, as well as those in the vessel went off, except for the lights cast off from our screen displays. Very frightening to say the least.

  Abby needed to write a better training manual for the next bunch of suckers lined up to commit suicide. Suddenly a bright golden color intermixed with green streaked upwards through the water to the heavens above. The water around us became turbulent, as it was sucked up into the vacuum being caused by the energy particle beam’s path into space. On the display in front of me there was a long bar with a slow moving green line on it. It was the indicator for showing how much seawater was still needed for the voyage.

  Abby had said to give a good five count even after the bar reached full capacity. It was a good thing to have a little extra water, but not too much.

  I could see that the ocean around us had turned into a swirling whirlpool of turbulence, as water was sucked into the vortex faster than the ocean could immediately refill. The bar was full and I counted to five. At the count of five I hit the green button once more.

  The vessel unlocked from the beacon array and shot upwards with greater velocity than I had ever experienced before in my life. It felt as if the skin of my face was being blown inward and I practically couldn’t breathe. We pressed deeply back into our seats, as we surged upward through the column of sparking color.

  Dimly I thought I saw a bluish color beyond the walls of energy surrounding us and then it briefly turned red and then black. It stayed black and the feeling of being glued to our seats dissipated rapidly and the vessel leveled out and I could have sworn we weren’t moving at all, but the indicators for travel said otherwise.