by Mark Tufo
“Michael!” Dee admonished.
“Right. Red is for fire, danger. This is your charge.” He was now showing us a series of seven green lights, all of which were lit. “Trigger, barrel, all the rest is the same.” He handed them over.
“Now what?” Cedar asked. “There has got to be hundreds of them onboard this ship.”
“More like thousands. Don’t plan on fighting them. My goal is to get you off this ship and to a Genogerian ship parked nearby.”
“And what of you?” I asked.
“I’ve got to get back to where I’m from. I’m already breaking every known law of physics and I’m sure a few other sciences. I’d tell you what they were, but I never really paid much attention. Usually too busy getting familiar with sweet leaf.”
“Sweet leaf? Marijuana?” Cedar asked.
“Dammit. You weren’t supposed to know that.” He stood as did we. “Reynolds, we ready?”
“Almost sir.”
Streaks of red were blistering down the hallway, coming from the men on the ship.
“Can’t you just tell them who you are?” Cedar asked. “Wouldn’t they stop firing then?”
“Oh, I think at that point they might just deliberately blow up this entire section of the ship. In public, this would be considered some horrible accident…now, if my name was somehow associated with it, they would pretend how distraught they were, but inwardly, they would be thrilled because of what me and my cohorts represent.”
I had no idea what he meant and would have loved to hear some clarification, but we were in an active firefight and were preparing to move. And as much as the man in front of me seemed to be a joker, he was all seriousness now as we got down to the business of escaping.
Michael swore as one of his men was shot and lay bleeding in front of us. He turned the corner and savagely burned through dozens of rounds. Dee motioned for us to get moving, as the covering fire was being leveled.
“Fire in the hole!” Michael yelled.
“Run!” Dee shouted. Neither my sister nor I needed to have worried as our feet left the ground. Wind was whistling past my ears as we moved at a pace I would never have been able to produce on my own. “Cover your ears!” Didn’t hear the last part of that sentence; figured out what it was he was getting at when there was an impossibly bright light followed by the single loudest noise I had ever heard. I could not be certain because of the jostling I was taking on my forced ride, but the walls of the ship appeared to be vibrating from the assault.
“There’s a wall!” Cedar was yelling as the Genogerian was running headlong into one. We were about to be completely flattened between the immovable wall and the unstoppable force. I was trying to twist away, but I was more heavily secured than I had been when I was captured by Haden and tied up. “Slow down!” she shouted.
Just as we were at the point of no return and he could neither stop nor turn, and I was preparing myself for the bone-crushing collision, the wall began to shimmer and then it turned translucent. I was now looking into the dark interior of another vessel. We were jarred as Dee stumbled; there was a drop-off to this new ship we found ourselves in and the hallway we just left. He was still moving, but slowed as we got to the end of the vessel. He quickly placed us down and went back to the front where he began to grab the trailing men and women out of the air so that they would not have the same unexpected, harsh fall. We could see into the ship we had been on; Michael was firing while also dragging the wounded man.
“Down!” Dee shouted to him as he grabbed a large-barreled weapon and poked it through the opening. A green ray of energy nearly as large around as the Genogerian’s head whooshed out of the barrel and narrowly missed Michael. The column expanded until it touched the walls of the hallway where it stopped and solidified.
“Good idea!” Michael yelled as he shouldered his weapon. He grabbed the arm of the injured man and pulled him up and over his shoulder.
“Temporary force field,” Dee turned to tell us.
“Are you alright?” Tallow asked, wrapping me up in his arms.
“I’m fine.”
“Who are these people, Win, and should we be trusting them?”
“Your lives could not be in better hands,” the one called Dee said.
But how does one trust the words of those that have potentially captured you? The only thing I could think of was: why would they bother making us feel at ease if they meant us harm? It was a weak argument, but it was all I had.
“Well that was close,” Michael said as he handed the wounded man to two meddies who immediately brought him over to a table that had medical equipment all around it.
“Close? Michael, your shirt is smoking,” Dee said to him.
“Like I said: close. Dee, help me get our guests buckled in.”
“Are you shot?” The woman I had seen in the pictures was standing there. I felt as if I had hit my head and was staring at a little older version of my sister.
“I don’t think so.” Michael was tapping around his body. “One minute, Tracy, then get us over to Lodilin’s ship…Crazy, right?” Michael said as he saw his wife staring at Cedar then me.
“How is that possible?” Tracy asked her husband.
“Beats me, but if we had any doubts about this mission being worthwhile, I think we can lay that worry to rest now.”
Tracy came over and introduced herself as she helped to buckle us in. Dee was manhandling Serrot, Tallow, and Lendor into their seats.
“I cannot tell you how incredible it is to meet you both. I’m sure you have a thousand questions, and I wish we could go through them all,” Tracy said.
“About ready, woman? Running out of time here!” Michael shouted as the small ship we were on was rocked violently.
“Funny how you tell others that we are running out of time but seldom heed your own advice,” Dee murmured.
“Physician, heal thyself,” Michael replied, though I did not know what that meant. Dee found it humorous.
Tracy left us quickly, her voice coming through the ship’s interior. “For those of you new to this experience, you are going to want to take the small bag to your right and place it over your mouth.” There were groans from the other soldiers as they did just that. All of us except Lendor followed suit, until Michael scowled at him.
I don’t even know how to describe the sensation. We moved so fast it felt as if we were in two places and every point in between at the same time. My brain could not even conceive of what I’d just been through, and neither could my stomach; it evacuated everything within its possession as if I’d had my fill of tainted water. I was embarrassed until I realized that everyone aboard that small ship, even Michael himself, was now stowing the used bag.
“That’s one thing Mad Jack never warned us about. That first flight was umm…unique.” Michael was smiling at me.
“We have twenty-seven minutes!” Tracy yelled as she came back into the crew area. “Twenty-seven minutes Mike, not one second more.”
“How do you recover so quickly?” he asked as he stood with a groan.
“Because I’m not a baby,” she responded.
Dee chuffed. “That is funny because it is true. I have seen you with the slightest of fevers; you appear as if you are in need of emergency medical procedures.”
“Give me crap all you want, Dee. You still look a little tinged behind the gills, though.”
Their words were light-hearted, but they were also hard at work as they helped set up devices that linked our ship to this Lodilin’s, and whatever magic they used to make the metal disappear was employed again. Michael stood front and center as the cold gray metal shimmered, then began to lighten until finally, it was translucent. A few seconds later, the hull was as clear as if it had never existed. We were looking at a short hallway and ten or more heavily armored Genogerian soldiers.
“Thought this was supposed to be clear,” Michael whispered to Tracy out of the side of his mouth.
“Reynolds! Shut the gate
!” Tracy ordered.
“Belay that. No time for another insertion point,” Mike said.
“You’re going to regret it if you get yourself killed,” Tracy said angrily.
Mike turned his head slightly; he had a confused expression on his features. “Yeah, I would think so.”
“You know what I mean.”
“As far as I know, the living can’t haunt the dead.”
“I’ll find a way,” Tracy said matter-of-factly.
“No doubt,” Mike said to her as he took a step forward. “I’m Michael Talbot.” He raised his arms above his head. “I need to speak with High Councilman Lodilin.”
“You are a murderous pirate intent on kidnapping the High Councilman for profit,” one of the Genogerian soldiers shouted back.
“Pirate? I’m not a pirate. I mean, I guess back in my day I downloaded a song or two, but that hardly qualifies.”
“Come forward so that we may apprehend you and execute you for high crimes,” the same guard shouted.
“There’s a problem with that command; there’s no real incentive for me to follow through.”
“Twenty-six minutes, Mike,” Tracy told him.
“Perhaps all the humans look the same….” Dee stepped up and next to Michael.
“Hey! That’s specie-ism.” Mike seemed genuinely hurt.
More than one of the Genogerian guards went to one knee and bowed their heads.
“This is a trick of some sort!” the same guard yelled.
“Perhaps you should let High Councilman Lodilin make that determination, as we are related by blood.”
“Are you hearing this?” the guard asked.
“Drababan…is that truly you? How can this be possible?” A voice came through the ship’s sound system.
“High Councilman.” Dee bowed his head slightly at the words. “There are matters of physics here I could not even begin to explain. Just know that our time is extremely short, and we are here for the same reasons you are.”
“How could you possibly know?”
Drababan motioned with his hand to Cedar and me. I didn’t know what else to do except go to him. Everything we were doing had a heavy dream-like quality. It was so surreal; it seemed impossible it could happen, and I doubted my waking state.
“Dee, I’m not a fan of having them exposed like that,” Mike said quietly, though I heard him.
“These are the humans from Earth: Cedar and Winter Talbot.”
There was a long pause, Michael looked as if he was going to vibrate right out of his skin.
“Why are Genogerians always so deliberate,” he hissed.
“I am sorry that my entire race has not adopted the practice of ‘hold my beer and watch this.’”
Mike turned to the much larger being, a smile beamed across his face. “That is comedic gold, my leathery pal.”
“Twenty-five minutes.” Tracy was looking to a small machine on her wrist and to us and then the hallway beyond with quick furtive movements.
“What happens to us?” I asked.
“Well, the hope is that Lodilin takes you in and gets you far away from here so that one of the destinies that you have laid out before you can become reality.”
“And if he doesn’t? Can’t we go with you?”
He turned and we looked at each other; I could see the worry and pain that flooded through him. “Honestly, kiddo, not much would make me happier if that were the case. It’s just not possible. Like Dee said, we are traveling in uncharted territory. Right now, we’re like bumblebees. Shouldn’t be able to fly, but here we are anyway. All I know with any degree of certainty is we can’t stay here, and you can’t come with us. This gambit has been an ‘all or nothing’ exercise right from the beginning.”
“How dare you!” I shouted. “How dare you put all of my friends and family, our family,” I hit his chest, “in jeopardy?” Michael registered surprise at my outburst, but it quickly moved to internal pain. Yet I felt the need to spur on. “We were making our own way. We escaped the Pickets—a hell you relegated us to for generations. How long did we need to pay for the sins of our fathers? Or mothers, in our case.”
“It’s not like that. There’s so much you don’t know.”
“Educate me then. We’re listening. If you all are so powerful, why didn’t you come and rescue us when we were children or maybe get my mother out of that prison when she was a child!?”
“Winter, we had one chance at this. The sheer number of cataclysmic events we have witnessed as we searched for a linchpin point, someplace where we could change the plotted course of events, to really make a difference.”
“Saving our mother would have made a difference!” I screamed. I was shaking with rage. Cedar came over, either as support…or for comfort.
“Little girl!” Drababan boomed. “This is greater than any one person, greater than any group of people. All of us here have risked our lives for just the smallest of chances to change a great many wrongs and make it right. We have watched billions upon billions die, we have witnessed the worst displays of life’s disregard for itself that it is very possible none of us will ever find peace again, all in the name of this war. We have spent uncountable sleepless nights dissecting timelines and predicting probabilities of success. We have done our part more times over than I wish to count, and now we are passing that responsibility on to you.”
“And what if we don’t want it?”
“Then we will bring you back to the Iron Sides and you can suffer that fate,” he said.
“What’s so bad with that?” Tallow asked. “We get to eat all the food we could ever want.”
Tracy spoke up. “None of you will be alive seven days from now and your deaths were less than pleasant.”
“They were nightmares,” Mike said. His eyes took on a heavy sadness. “I can’t—I won’t allow that to happen. If you don’t want to get on the Genogerian ship, or if they will not let you, we will stay with you until our end in the hopes that you five can make it somewhere, anywhere, and live out your lives unaffected by what happens in the galaxies.”
“Why should we believe you? We don’t even know you,” Serrot stated. “You show up out of nowhere and take us away from the Iron Sides, where we were at least safe, and now you want to drop us off onto a ship with monsters like this one?”
Drababan growled.
Mike dismissed Serrot offhand and looked directly at me and my sister. “Winter, Cedar, in the depths of your heart you know what I am saying is true. How did you feel aboard that ship?” He motioned with his head.
“I felt….” Cedar was thinking about it. “Uneasy, I guess, is the best word I can come up with.”
“I’ll agree with her statement,” I said. “There were some people that were decent to us, and yeah, lots of food, but for the most part they were rude and dismissive, condescending, even. And then there was the fact that they would not allow us to leave our room. They said they plan on taking us back home someday, but I do not believe them. And their commander…he took the Rhodeeshians and…”
“Wait, what?” Michael asked.
“Frost and Ferryn,” Cedar replied, “they took them.”
“Are you telling me that there are two Rhodeeshians on that ship?” Mike paced away from us, took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair.
“Mike, that wasn’t in any of the paths we looked at,” Tracy said softly.
“How much time?”
“Twenty minutes.”
“This isn’t happening.” I watched as Michael stepped onto the other ship, the guards in the hallway did not like that and looked on the verge of sending him home in a variety of independent parts. “Lodilin, your men recognize Drababan. I’m sure your scans have confirmed this. That and the earthlings, you know the importance of them. There is no time to be any more thorough; we have two urgent matters to attend to before we have to go.”
“I’m listening.” Lodilin had come forth through the forest of his guards, though they
looked none too pleased about it.
“There are two Rhodeeshians aboard the Iron Sides. They have been taken captive; we need to get them and bring them back here with your blessing.”
“Impossible. Trekoton, scan Iron Sides for…”
“He tells the truth. Two of the animals are on the ship, Deck A level twelve. It is their medical facility.”
“Guards, bring the humans onboard. Michael, do you wish help in obtaining the Rhodeeshians?”
“No, High Councilman. The best thing that can happen for you is to use plausible deniability, that you have no idea how any of this happened. By the time they figure out the time-trap we placed on their buckle drive, you can be long gone. Tell the council we sabotaged your ship as well and took off with everyone. I know that look, High Councilman, and I hoped we would have a little more time together to go over things, but the Rhodeeshians change everything. They need to be freed.”
“Good luck.” He shook my hand and Dee’s as well.
“Cedar, Winter.” Mike grabbed us tight. “I know you only by the paths I have watched, but that does not stop the love that fills my heart for you both. I don’t know if we’ve made your lives better. Difficult is a word I would use, full of hardship, war, pain and loss, but it is life. We have given you opportunity, potential, and that is what I am thankful for. I truly wish that we could be with you the entire time, it is just not possible. Just know that you do have family and they love you more than you could ever imagine.” He hugged each of us and kissed our foreheads, a move that Tracy mimicked, though she was much more tender where Mike seemed to pull us in tight with a quiet desperation.
I know I was crying; I believe Cedar was as well, though I could not see her through my haze of tears.
“Quiet, little ones,” Dee said tenderly. “You have Talbot blood running through you. I expect nothing less than greatness from the both of you. Do you understand me?” He got down on a knee and hunched over so that he could see into our eyes. “There is nothing the universe will throw at you that the two of you cannot overcome. Now nod your heads that you have heard me.”
