Twisted Spaces: 1 / Destination Mars

by E. N. Abel

  ''To the greatest warrior of all!''

  ''From Master Yoda we know that war makes nobody great. Enough dancing. What's your issue with me? Why are you betraying us?''

  ''You know me as Reyd Shagan. But my true name is Afarid, Pari Afarid.''

  Simone quickly entered the name into her computer, but Mike waved her off: ''Sister of Kaamraan Afarid?''

  ''Sister of Kaamraan Afarid.''

  To everyone's surprise Mike switched the communicator off, leaned back, took a very deep breath. Wiped his face with his hands. Shook his head sadly. Gave Alex a sign. The chief engineer picked up a pad computer and entered some commands, nodded wordlessly. Mike switched the comm link on again. ''Pari, you don't have to do this. Please rethink.''

  ''Like my brother, I am a member of the revolutionary guards. You are my sworn enemy. And the executioner of my brother.''

  Marlene and Simone inhaled sharply, but again Mike waved them off.

  ''We are talking about the same Kaamraan Afarid, are we? The Iranian Major.''

  ''Yes. Kaamraan Afarid, hero of the revolution.''

  ''Kaamraan Afarid, mass murderer of Baghdad, butcher of Schiraz, slaughterer of Tehran.''

  ''He only killed infidels. And enemies of the state.''

  ''How can little children be enemies of the state? Or toddlers? That monster killed whoever he wanted, whoever crossed his path. Piece of shit even sent a six year old girl after us, strapped to a bomb satchel.''

  ''This discussion is fruitless. I have beaten you. I have stolen your secret, and you cannot stop me, cannot follow me. The revenge is mine.''

  ''The war is over, Pari. You are not your brother, you don't have the blood of his victims on your hands. So I am giving you one chance. One chance only. Heave to, immediately. Return to base.''

  A shrill laughter was heard: ''Michael MacMillan, thousand times cursed leader of A-Shaitan-Allemande, you can go to ...''

  Alex tapped at his pad. In two camera windows on the main screen a blinding yellow-white bolt swished past as fast as thought, missing the distant sledge by a few dozen meters.

  ''That was a warning shot. For the sake of the Reyd we loved.'' Mike's voice was pure ice. ''Heave to.''

  A moment of silence prevailed, then the sledge accelerated further.

  ''By the way,'' Simone suddenly spoke up, ''You might wonder why you couldn't send the stolen data to Earth. That's because I prevented any outside transmission during the last days. Even now you can't contact your allies - because that buggy miraculously has no VHF radio on board and the one in your suit doesn't work. Guess why.'' She paused a moment, then went on: ''We couldn't risk someone taking a closer look at the design data, couldn't have you validate your loot. Because it's a fake, another trap. The design is faulty. And whoever builds that machine and switches it on, gets hurt. Big time.'' A short, spiteful laughter. ''You have lost, Reyd, or Pari, or whoever you are. Beaten by the infidels you so despise. The secret you carry is a lie, and we have targeted you with a beam weapon. Better heave to.''

  The sledge continued in silence. Mike looked at Alex, nodded. The Chief Engineer tapped the pad again, and a second streak rushed past the small vehicle, this time much closer.

  Suddenly the buggy slowed down, came to a halt. Before anybody could react, the communicator sounded up again: ''Allahu akbar!'' On the screen a tiny star erupted, expanded, died out.

  A full minute of quiet contemplation followed, then Mike spoke up: ''Guess he is.'' Turning to the others he added: ''Case closed.''

  The five sat a while in silence. Finally Chan looked at her friend: ''So you had the particle cannon already finished, didn't you?''

  ''Yes, darling. Since Christmas.'' But there was no triumph in Alex's voice, only sadness. ''Dimitri is outside, servicing it.'' He shook his head: ''To have to use it against one of our own ...''

  ''Damn! Bloody fanatics!'' Mike slammed his fist on the table, summarising it for them all. He took a deep breath: ''Captain to crew. One of ours has died. So I am ordering all off duty personnel to assemble in our hall at midnight. There we will pay tribute to our valued Reyd Shagan, the woman we liked and loved, tell her story and mourn her passing. The ceremony will be transmitted to our webserver at CERN.'' For worldwide distribution, he didn't have to add. Mike switched off the intercom, then added to his friends: ''I'll shove this stunt so deep into the throats of those fucking mullahs that they'll choke on it for a thousand years.''

  Chapter 123

  Moon

  Thursday, 05.01.2017

  Alex entered the galley in the early morning hours, being forced out of his warm bed by an irresistible need to quench his burning thirst. The evening before he had tried his hand on a new pasta creation, but must have overdone it with the salt. Fortunately he had been the only test eater, so his little blunder had no further consequences. Not wasting any time he rushed through the entry to the kitchen unit, filled a glass with water and chugged it down. He wanted to refill it a second time, when he felt a presence behind him. His first impulse was to dive for cover, but he could suppress it fast enough. No Taliban here. Space Gremlins, maybe, but surely no crazy-eyed rag-head with a gun. He turned and scanned the room. It took a moment, then he saw a man sitting at a table in the farthest corner, hiding in the shade of a cabinet. He looked closer - and recognised Mike, staring into a drink, obviously lost in thought or memories. Alex guessed that Marlene was asleep, so his friend probably wanted to be alone. He silently topped off his glass, turned and tried to sneak out, but Mike suddenly looked up, recognised him and waved him over.

  ''Come, sit.'' Mike pointed to the empty seat across from him, produced a second tumbler, placed it on the table and filled it up. Alex took the chair, sat, eyed the half-empty bottle. Desert Spirit it said on the plain label - that hellish poison Mike's former unit fancied. Curious he took a good swig, immediately coughed: rock hard bourbon, liquid fire.

  Mike laughed, refilled his friend's glass. Alex took another sip, coughed again. Not as bad this time. ''Damn,'' he said, pulling a grimace, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand. ''Who the fuck produces this ...''

  ''... panther piss,'' Mike completed. ''A small American distillery in the Mid-West. We had to swear never to reveal its name.''

  Alex laughed. ''No wonder.'' He took another sip, balanced out the explosion in his mouth, coughed. ''What puts you here at this ungodly hour?''

  Mike looked back into his glass, swirled the golden content. ''Dune country.''

  ''Walking down memory lane? That Afarid guy?''

  ''Yes.''

  ''Where did you meet him?''

  ''In Tehran, 2012.'' Mike sighed. ''Five years by calendar, a thousand by life time.''

  Alex leaned back, took another careful sip. This time it tasted more like bourbon, less like sulphuric acid. ''What happened?''

  ''We ran into him. Major Kaamraan Afarid.''

  ''Tell me.''

  ''That name still makes my blood boil,'' Mike replied. ''It was in May. After a week of heavy combat, the Army had driven the Revolutionary Guard out of Tehran's city center and into a suburb. From there, with massive air strikes, into the hinterland.'' Mike paused shortly, refilling their glasses. ''The Iranians reacted the only sensible way, by retreating as orderly as possible and by leaving some of their own behind, to disturb and slow down the advancing enemy. These soldiers were all members of the Ruhollah Chomeini unit, a feared elite troop. They delivered a second wave of house-to-house combat. Fierce and bloody.'' Mike took a sip from his glass, eyes in the past. After a moment he continued. ''In the end the US commander, a General Henry McNiff, pulled the plug and asked Warrington for his troop. So we were sent in, me and my gang. We did it our way, the old way. Roman style: after dark, with a silenced pistol in one hand, a short sword in the other. Ancient predators, hunting for souls.''

  Again a short pause developed.

  ''We struck out of the darkness at night and from the fog screen McNiff's smoke bombs produced during the day; the
action was strictly close-quarters of the fiercest kind, like on the battlefields of the Medieval Ages. In the end it got so bloody, that even the guards flinched. It took us three days and nights of continuous combat, then it was over: we had flushed them out. Later the bean counters reported over two hundred officially killed opponents, but that was bullshit - we took out far more.'' He smiled sadly. ''Actually only a few escaped that slaughter, and I guess they were traumatized, fearing shadows in the dark and bare blades the rest of their days.'' He laughed bitterly.

  Alex's eyes opened wide. ''You went after the Revolutionary Guards with just your platoon?''

  ''Yes. Twelve brave souls, or rather twelve abso-friggin-lutely fucked-up, brain-dead murderous maniacs. Depends on whom you ask.''

  ''And you fought for three days non-stop?''

  ''Again - yes. Magical Margaret was with us and kept us up and running, with her 'Combat Juice'. Some kind of high-powered amphetamines, original recipe from the labs of the German Waffen-SS - s'far as I know. No pain, no fatigue, no wound shock, no FDA approval. But twice the physical strength and fifty percent faster reactions. Seventy two hours max, then breakdown, one week offline.''

  ''Wow.'' Alex shook his head. ''A horde of invincible demon warriors from the dark ages, gushing straight out of some hellhole and slaughtering off the believers. No wonder they flinched.'' He clicked his glass against Mike's and both drank.

  ''See,'' Mike said, ''it may have sounded that way, but we neither hated the majority of them, nor did we look down on them. They were just defending their own against an invading army.'' He paused shortly, took a sip. ''Business as usual - if it hadn't been for the fact that they were the executive arm of a horror regime that had butchered legions of unpopular people, we even could have developed some respect - and killed far less of them. But in our view they were just some kind of new age Nazis, and we knew all about that breed. Only cure for real world Nazis: remove them from Earth.''

  ''Again: wow! What happened then?'' Alex instinctively knew that there was a 'then'.

  ''A few of the guards still stayed behind, hiding in the ruins. They continued to run interference: a sniping here, a bombing there. Basically they fought a fight that was already lost, but they slowed down the advancing regular forces.''

  ''One of them was Afarid?''

  ''Yes. A name well known to the locals. A name that meant horror, pain and barbaric violence. He must have hidden somewhere in the ruins, like the cellar of a bombed out house - we never found his base. Anyway, he organised his own little guerrilla war against us, and a very effective one. He wasn't bound by any laws of ethics; he just needed to kill off troopers, no matter how. So he came up with this idea, the idea to hang satchels filled with Semtex and ball bearings on little children, send them to lingering groups of American soldiers - and remotely detonate the packs, watching from a cover close by.''

  ''What?''

  ''Wasn't that unusual, back then. Several cases are known from Vietnam and later from Kosovo and Bosnia.''

  ''Damn.''

  ''Yes, damn. It was the 16th of May. I remember it as if it were yesterday: a brilliant and sunny morning. We were standing in a group in front of a teahouse in a suburb of Tehran, a zone that was considered safe. The teahouse was still operating and I had bought a round for us. We were relaxed, chatting and joking about nonsensical things. I was standing on the porch of the shop, waiting for the tea tablet, when I saw a young girl running towards us.'' Mike paused a moment, stared into his drink again, as if the golden poison could focus his thoughts. ''I needed a moment to detect the bag the child had slung behind her back - and immediately knew what that meant. But it was too late. Too late to stop her safely, too late to have the tech sergeant activate the jammer. Only one way to rescue my men ... Jules' Glock jumped into my hand as if by magic, bucked, and the girl's head exploded in a flash of blood - just twenty meters away from us.'' He sighed. ''Some nights I still see that picture.''

  Alex understood; he felt the burning guilt radiate from his friend.

  ''The bomb was detonated anyway, but my boys knew the sound of my Glock and immediately dove for cover. Most of the frags just washed over them, but one caught me, cut right through my cheek.''

  ''Your trademark.'' Alex looked at the scar.

  ''Yes. We immediately started the hunt for the attacker. With a rapid counterattack we caught him red-handed, before he could escape. We had him surrounded and disarmed in no time.''

  ''And?''

  ''He had some more satchels with him, and that was that. Carl liberated a rope and Major Kaamraan Afarid ended dangling from a lamppost. Carl even took the precaution of restraining his hands with a belt made from raw pigskin. Can you imagine?''

  ''That was futile.'' Alex shook his head. ''Those monsters were not religious.''

  ''You are right, of course. He wasn't afraid to miss entering paradise because of being made impure. But many of those passing the corpse during the next days were believers ... and the rumour spread. The locals quickly found out who had executed that bastard, and nobody dared cut him down.'' He sighed, swirled his drink.

  This Alex also understood. Wordlessly they clinked glasses and both men finished off. Although an atheist, he sent a silent prayer for the soul of that little girl to the Almighty, and added one for Reyd, the latest victim of that animal.

  ''Go back to Marlene,'' he finally said.

  Mike nodded, stood. ''Night.'' He walked to the entrance. Then, in the door, he hesitated, turned back to his friend: ''You know, sometimes it's a pity you can kill a man only once.'' That said, he left the cantina.

  For a minute Alex sat at the table, considering. Mike was right: some people needed to suffer the agony of dying over and over again for their deeds. Well, one could still hope: maybe there was a hell after all. He drained his glass, stood and then went back to his bunk and his own sleeping girl.

  Chapter 124

  Cape Canaveral

  Saturday, 07.01.2017

  Marlene was highly impressed. The NASA engineers had outdone themselves: everything on the new sphere was a bit better than required by the original construction team; more modern, more expensive, more fit-for-purpose. Simply better. They had even painted the ship's name on the golden hull: Deep-Space-One, just as the crew had baptised it. Meanwhile, fitted with Alex's antigravs and fuelled with an antimatter injector from CERN, she was now floating beside her elder sister, ready for take-off. Marlene saw that the new crew was already assembled below the craft; they had been airlifted from Geneva to Cape Canaveral the previous night. Proud and full of expectations, posing in new, light-grey uniforms for the NASA photographer who was taking archive and press shots.

  In a wide half circle around the scene stood a larger crowd of family members, among them her parents and her brother, watching in silence and with mixed feelings. Many of them had travelled from around the world, by invitation from the famous NASA, to attend this historical event involving their children. They had all heard Michael MacMillan's laudation about Ellie MacMillan, her self-sacrifice for the mission. They all had listened to the speech on behalf of Reyd Shagan, alias Pari Afarid, the woman who had been raised by hateful old men, conditioned to infiltrate the Group and ultimately to try and steal the priceless secret. They all had come to realise that space was not the only danger to their loved ones, their daughters and sons.

  When the photographer was done, the crewmembers joined their families for a last farewell. Hugs and kisses were exchanged, welcome and goodbye at the same time. Tears were flowing, the departure expected to be in just a short while. So they were astonished when Michael came forward and addressed them all. His tone was quiet but serious.

  ''Crewmembers, parents, sisters, brothers, friends. Our little fleet is now ready for departure, to take off for the biggest adventure of all times: the endeavour to reach another solar system. This undertaking is immensely dangerous - so dangerous that we can't even express the risk in numbers. We are going to enter the unknown territor
ies.

  ''You all know the final goal of this mission. You all have heard that we have developed a technology to shorten the journey from years to seconds. In our normal space-time this is not achievable. To cross the abyss between the stars, we have to leave the universe of Albert Einstein and move through a very different, very alien dimension - which we baptised hyperspace.

  ''To explain what hyperspace is, one requires higher mathematics; there are no human terms to describe it - only these two: it exists and it's different - very different. Now, the jump through hyperspace has never been done before, not even in test flights. So that's what we'll do next: first run a series of checks and tests and then perform unmanned jumps. If they are successful, we will send a human through hyperspace. We don't know if it's safe; we don't know if it's feasible. We don't know if it we can repeat it safely once it worked. We don't know, we don't know; unknowns and uncertainties everywhere. The survival rate is virtually zero and we will all probably end up in the history books as the biggest fools in human memory.''

  He paused, looking into worried faces. ''Time to reconsider. So I, Captain Michael MacMillan of the Stardust and elected leader of this expedition, am giving all of you your first order for this mission.'' He waited a moment, then went on: ''NASA has booked a hotel for the crews and their families. I hereby order you to go to that hotel and stay there for the next twenty-four hours together with your loved ones. It will be the last chance for a long while. For some of us it might even be the last time.'' He let his words hang for a moment. ''Those of you who reconsider and change their minds can stay behind - the hotel is booked for two weeks. We will not judge you. Those of you who want to continue, assemble here tomorrow at 12:30 latest. Your buses are waiting over there.'' He pointed to a row of buses. ''Dismissed.'' He watched the group leave, then, to Marlene's surprise, turned and walked over to his One-O.