“Work with?” The colonel said. “I don’t think so. Because of the time constraint we are under it is imperative that we take over this ship as quickly as possible, to finish what my husband, your general, has started. Then they will work with us to find a solution to this problem.”
“Colonel, more violence is not the solution.”
“With or against, Drababan?” Tracy asked.
“What?”
“Simple enough question.”
“Although we are already suffering serious ramifications to our actions, I am always with, that will never change. Likewise, I hope you will never cease to take my counsel.”
“That is understood. I am taking the bridge. I want the detail protecting the general doubled, and I want an armed detail with you and the engineers as well.”
“What of the Progerian engineers?”
“If they continue to help they can stay; if they don’t want to, then they can find the nearest exit.”
“And by exit?”
“I will not have them murdered in cold blood, but if they impede or threaten my men in any way, they’ll be shot. Give them notice of your orders.”
“Is this course of action meant to benefit our situation or is it solely retribution or revenge for your husband?”
“Of course it’s personal, Drababan. How could it not be? That doesn’t in itself make it the wrong path, though. Either we are frozen in time or we are not. If you succeed in moving us out of here, we must have control of this ship or it’s just business as usual.”
“Michael told me it was never wise to cross words with a woman.”
“He’s smarter than he looks,” Tracy quipped.
Within fifteen minutes, Drababan had the personnel distributed as his colonel had asked and BT had come back.
“Do you have an update?” Tracy asked nervously. “Wait, have you been crying?”
“No.” BT wiped his eyes. “Allergies. He’s going to live,” he said as he made a large sniffling noise.
Tracy gripped him in a hug.
“You are freakishly strong,” BT said as the air was being forced from his lungs. “Why is everyone gearing up?”
“I’m going to finish what Mike started.”
“Let me grab my things.”
“It will be perfectly understandable if you sit this one out, BT.”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. No way I could tell your husband I left you when you needed me.”
“I appreciate the sentiment…”
“Yeah, I know you’re way more versed in the art of warfare. This is more for me. I couldn’t live with knowing I’d walked out in the middle. How’s that?”
“You’re a good man, BT. Someday you’re going to make a woman a very happy Mrs. Tynes.” She touched his heavily tattooed arm. “Now I want to go and kick some alien ass.”
“Where’s Dee? He didn’t agree with continuing the battle?”
“He’s on board, but barely, and only because of his loyalty to us. He’s the meanest, most dangerous pacifist I’ve ever come across. Don’t worry, he’s not in protest, he’s back at engineering seeing if he can free us.”
“What are the odds of that?” BT asked as he strapped on some full magazines.
“About the same as Mike making a good impression when he met my parents for the first time.”
BT started laughing. “Oh yeah, he told me about that. Didn’t go so well, huh? In fairness, though, how was he supposed to know Crazy Beth would show up in a pregnancy suit and claim she was knocked up by him as well?”
“Oh, it had traveled pretty far south long before she got there.”
“He didn’t tell me about that part.”
“It’s a story worth listening to. I’ll give you a taste. My father had bought filet mignon as a celebration. He said he’d even cook them. But you know how big, bad Mike is. No one can grill better than him.” She did a fairly good impression of a boastful Mike.
“That man can’t cook a hot dog,” BT quipped.
“Hockey pucks. He turned those damn filets into charred remnants of themselves. I have never seen anything that burnt, at least nothing that was supposed to be food.”
“That’s pretty bad. Funny how he forgot to tell me about that.”
“That’s just the beginning. Tip of the iceberg. Going to have to wait for the rest, though. Mount up!” she told the troops.
“You up for this?” BT asked. “You should still be in a bed.”
“It’s only a concussion and a torn up shoulder; nothing forty aspirin, fifty stitches and a bottle of Tequila couldn’t take care of.”
“Fucking ouch,” BT mouthed to her back as she turned to lead her troops.
This was an all-or-nothing gambit. No one was left behind in reserve, there would be no quarter. They had to take what they wanted and needed in one single strike because there would be nowhere to come home to and no fallback position. Mute resistance was light to almost non-existent. A couple had attempted to bar the advancing column’s way and were immediately gunned down. After that, it had mostly been retreating forms and closing doors. Tracy had been expecting a pincer movement, much like Mike had encountered, and she was ready with a renderer in front and back. If she was attacked, she felt confident she could repel almost anything.
“I’m not complaining,” BT said, his head on a swivel. “But it seems kinda quiet.”
“Yep. Too quiet. What are these sneaky bastards up to?” It became even more surreal when they approached the bridge and the doors were open. Tracy nodded to Peppard, who advanced slowly. He poked his head in quickly and pulled back. He then poked it in again, this time taking a longer look before pulling back. On the third try, he walked to the opening and looked in.
“There’s no one here, Colonel,” he told her.
“Booby traps?” she asked.
He’d just been about to take a step inside.
“Shit,” he replied when he pulled back. “I never think of that.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Tracy said as she came up alongside him. “Flash grenade.” She held out her hand. She pulled the pin and tossed it into the room as she and Peppard found cover around the side. No lasers burst through the cloud of smoke, a battalion of mutes did not emerge from hidden trap doors, and no secondary explosions turned the bridge into a ruinous montage of scrap metal. They waited a few more seconds as the air filtration system did its work, then they entered.
“What the hell?” BT asked as he sat in the commander’s chair.
“Comfy?” Tracy asked.
“I could get used to it.”
“Gomez, get me engineering on the horn.” She turned to her troops. “If you are flight status certified, get at your designated spot. If you’ve ever wanted to get certified, find a spot you like. The rest of you watch that door as if our lives depended on it.”
“Aye ma’am,” came multiple replies.
“This is sub-commander Szelding.”
“This is Colonel Talbot. I would like to speak with Drababan.”
There were no questions from the sub-commander as he handed the radio off.
“Colonel,” Drababan said.
“Can you give me an update?”
“I have nothing new to relate, though Private Pender is attempting to convince everyone he has an idea. I assume since you are calling from the bridge you are now in control?”
“For what it’s worth, that appears to be the case. We met absolutely no resistance when we came through. Do you have any idea why that might be?”
“Progerians do not possess the deep well of hope that humans and Genogerians draw upon. Their method of dealing with adversity is to destroy it; if that cannot be accomplished, they will oftentimes give up, especially if their leadership is weak. With Supreme Commander Asuras dead, that would appear to be the case. I would like to come up to the bridge, I feel I could be of more help there than I can here.”
“Permission granted. Mike is going to live, Dee.”
r /> “I know. I have an open line to the surgery room.”
“Anything viable?” Tracy asked Dee when he walked onto the bridge.
“Master Sergeant Beckert and Private Pender are in another heated discussion right now.”
“It is my understanding that Private Pender is the one that got us into this particular mess?”
“Yes, but to be fair, he may also have saved us,” Dee answered.
“Somehow, Drababan, getting blown up in space seems preferable to becoming a space statue.”
“Alas, I would rather the battle scenario as well. I have done a lot of reflection on the problem at hand; it is my personal belief that we would not be completely frozen, but merely moving at imperceptible speeds, so slow as to have no visible motion. It is very likely we would keep some sort of faculties.”
“What!?” BT shouted. “Is lizard-man saying we’ll be aware the entire time we’re stuck like mannequins?”
“That sounds about right.”
“Man, I can’t…I just can’t be like that.” BT looked on the verge of panicking.
“Because of my superior mental facilities, advanced thought control techniques, and processing skills, I will last far longer than any of you. Of course, the stress of being immobile forever will eventually snap all of our minds.”
“Oh, this is fucking great. So not only will we know we can never move again but we’ll be fucking fruitier than Talbot on a normal day! This shit can’t get any worse!” BT did a quick circle like he was looking for a way to get out of his own skin.
“How much time do we have?” Tracy asked.
“Thirty, perhaps thirty-five minutes.”
“Gomez.”
“On it, Colonel.”
“Beckert,” came the radio reply.
“This is Colonel Talbot. I am now in command of this ship. I need an update.”
“Well Colonel, you may have the distinction of having the shortest command in history or, well, I guess the longest.”
“Is that funny for you, Master Sergeant? I suggest you get your defeatist head out of your ass and get my ship free from the grip of this nightmare that kid under your charge placed us in. It would be a damn shame to have that distinction for all time, don’t you think?”
“Yes, ma’am,” came the terse reply.
“Out.” Tracy had the line dropped before he could reply.
“Now what?” BT asked nervously.
“Now we wait, unless you want to brush up on some quantum physics and get this problem sorted.”
“Is it just having the name? Is that it? Does that make you just a little bit crazier than the rest of us?”
Dee snorted. “That does seem to be the case,” he added.
There were a few tense moments of silence before Beckert came back on the radio. “We have two ideas ma'am and we’re deadlocked.”
“Give me the quick and easy versions and what you believe to be the outcome or the fallout.”
“The first is a hard reboot of the buckle drive with the regulator back in position. The pros are it should start up and break us free of our present situation. The cons are we would not be up to speed in an already moving worm hole, meaning we would be torn apart over millions of miles.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” BT asked. “That’s option one?”
Tracy gave him a stern look, he shut up immediately.
“And the second?”
“We believe if we fire enough beams in a three hundred and sixty-degree arc and then ignite them with some bombs, we could shatter the time bubble. Pros are we are, once again free from the trap, and cons are that the explosive force could push back into us and we are destroyed.”
“Which one has the engineering department given the best odds of success?”
“The beams, ma’am.”
“What’s the percentage?” BT shouted out.
“Seven percent,” came Beckert’s reply.
“Seven percent is the best odds? Oh man, we’re all going to die.” BT was still walking circles around the bridge. “Where the fuck is Talbot when you need him? At least he’d say something stupid by now.”
“Tell me what to do,” Tracy told him.
Beckert sent the firing array to Captain Fields. Tracy nodded at the man when he looked to her for her command. The beams shot out, heavy blue and red cables of light slicing through the darkness. When they hit the edge of the time bubble, each stopped and became a shining bright star in its own right. When the sequence was spent, they had lit up all of the area around the ship brighter than noon on a cloudless Earth day.
“Charges are set,” Tracy called to engineering.
“Okay. It is imperative that the ionic bomb is placed exactly to the coordinates I’m sending.”
“Bomb, as in one bomb?” Tracy asked for clarification.
“Just the one. The energy contained in those stored beams is several megatons of explosive fury; we just need something to set them off then sit back and watch the fireworks.”
“Before I have Captain Fields place this bomb, what were the odds of success for the reboot?”
“Six point nine five.”
BT broke the sudden breathless silence when he said what everyone was thinking. “I’m pretty sure Talbot would agree with me when I say, ‘fucking eggheads.’”
Beckert again sent the coordinates to Fields, who delivered the bomb. It stuck in the time gel exactly fifty meters from the closest beam concentration.
“Awaiting instruction to detonate,” Fields said, his finger hovering over the button.
“Three, two, one, NOW!” Beckert shouted.
They all watched the screen as Fields hit the button. The explosion hardly looked bigger or more damaging than one gets when they turn the flint on a disposable lighter. Certainly, nothing that was going to shake a ship the size of a large city loose from the grips of a cosmic anomaly. A moment later, they had to turn away as the view screen flared in brilliant hues covering the entire visible spectrum. The screen, not able to keep up with the ever-growing brightness, actually blacked out for a few moments before its sensors were able to work their way through the maelstrom.
There were tense moments where absolutely nothing happened; long enough that Beckert’s heavy sigh came through the radio. “Plan B, then, ma’am?”
“Does that give us a better chance now?” BT asked, hopefully.
The ship lurched violently to the side and then down. Alarms began sounding and emergency lights started to strobe.
“Beckert?” Tracy grimaced as she held on to the seat she was being forced out of.
“Power! Give the propulsion power!” He was ordering someone in his department.
Tracy was unsure how much longer she could hold on, as it was, her fingernails were in danger of being ripped free. Another lurch, this time to the other side and now instead of falling she was being melded into her seat. She readjusted her grip before the ship moved again and she would be at risk of being tossed out.
“Beckert give me something!” she pleaded.
She could hear cheers over the radio.
“I believe that is a good sign,” Dee said dryly.
“Well, look at you, vying for the Captain Obvious award of the day,” BT said, he had his arms wrapped around a console.
“We’re free!” Beckert shouted. Another alarm sounded as heavy debris struck the aft side of the ship.
“Tell me what’s going on, people?” she asked the room, as the crew began to furiously look over their displays. She thought perhaps the ship had sustained heavy damage from the explosions and was even now shaking apart.
“Not us. The debris is not ours!” Gomez had moved over to help the less experienced Frost on the sensor array equipment. “It appears to be Stryver in origin.”
“A whole ship?” Tracy asked.
“Doesn’t look like it ma'am, but a decent portion. If they’re still out there they are in some serious trouble.”
“Long range scans?”
>
“Nothing.”
“Buckle signatures?”
“Again, nothing,” he said after some time.
“Well, that’s one problem dealt with.
Over the ship’s system came: “Emergency buckle initiated. Time to buckle one minute. Emergency buckle initiated.”
“Christ, not again,” Tracy said. “Beckert, stop that damn buckle!”
“Ma’am–I can’t, not unless we risk the previous events happening again and we’re damn lucky to be intact. I wouldn’t recommend that course of action again.”
“Colonel, you’re going to want to see this,” Gomez said.
“Close the bridge doors!” she ordered, fearful that now that the ship was about to be underway again that the Progs would want it back.
The ship had that momentary lag as it created its opening and started its journey through.
“I hate that.” BT sagged before letting go of the console he was holding onto.
Tracy walked over to Gomez’ station.
“Colonel, something weird has happened. We’re much closer to Aradinia than we should be, by almost eighteen months.”
“Get Beckert and whoever he can spare up here.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Mike, I’m going to need you back here soon,” she whispered.
Within fifteen minutes there was a heavy knocking and the guards opened the door to allow Beckert, Pender, and three Progs in. One of them was Imperial Witness Alken.
“We found him in the hallway. He said he needed to speak with you.” Beckert seemed wholly unaffected.
“And the others?”
“Gelp and Sedsen are two of the most qualified engineers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. I can vouch, Colonel, that everything they do will be for the betterment of this ship no matter who is running it. I need them; we need them.”
“Guards.” She nodded that at least three men would be responsible to watch their guests. “Imperial Witness Alken, what can I help you with? And please be brief, we are the midst of an emergency.”
“The ship is yours.”
Tracy wanted to tell him “no shit,” but refrained.
“Under article 24.11 of the United Space Articles, once a ship is ceded it becomes the property of those that take the helm. We did not believe we could break free and we wished to spend our last few moments by ourselves in a manner of our own choosing.”