Escape to Earth-Living Legends (12 page)

• • •

Jay and Josey docked with Michael’s ship and Jan moved her ship slowly until the seal was made. She stood up and walked to the port and saw the green light illuminate. She closed her eyes and pressed the panel opening her portal door. Michael stepped into her ship smiling and stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at her with his mouth open. Jan sighed, “Do I look that ridiculous?”

Michael couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He tried to speak and Jan sighed and closed her eyes. “Jan, I understand why you hide.”

Jan shook her head, “I really don’t think you do.”

“You hide because if anyone saw just how beautiful you are, they would be stunned senseless.” Jan had on a uniform that fit and her long blonde hair hung in a long braid down her back. Her blue eyes were mesmerizing.

“You’re not being honest, Sir.”

“Jan, I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful and that includes Josey and everyone else I’ve ever met. You are absolutely perfect.” Michael shook his head and said, “Let’s go do this, shall we?”

Jan led the way through the ship to the bridge and Michael sat down in the command chair, “Is this panel connected to the computer you want set up?”

“Yes Sir.”

Michael said, “What is your name?”

“Langley, Commander.”

“I’m going to insert this data-block into your panel and start the download. If you have any questions while it’s downloading, let me know.” Michael inserted the block and the lights on the panel began flashing. After a few minutes they heard, “I can hear the scouts you mentioned earlier.”

“Do you see the way to shut down your receiver?”

“I do.”

“The important part of your telepathic module is the broadcast shut down mechanism.”

“I see it. Why is it important?”

“Because the Legends, and I suspect some of their tools, are telepathic. You can shut down your broadcast mechanism and listen in without your thoughts being heard.”

“Cool.”

“The third circuit allows you to transmit thoughts you hear electronically so Jan or anyone you want to send them to can hear them over a loud speaker.”

“Just a moment.” They waited and suddenly heard multiple voices coming out of the wall speaker.

Michael said, “As you become familiar with the system, you can focus on just one thought stream and eliminate the others.” Suddenly, one voice was heard over the speaker. Michael looked at Jan, “I’ve never seen a computer adapt this fast to the transfer.”

“Langley is a pretty special computer, Sir.”

Michael stood up and turned toward the port. He smiled and said, “Just like his pilot.” Michael walked off the bridge and left Jan with her mouth open. Jan caught up with him before he exited her ship and said, “Sir, I didn’t think anyone would see me like this.” Michael looked at her in silence. “It’s just after you said you saw I was hiding, it occurred to me that I really didn’t remember what I looked like. I took all the dye and contacts off and then put on a uniform that fit. I don’t remember looking like this.”

Michael smiled, “The butterfly has emerged from the cocoon. How do you see yourself?”

“I see a stranger in the mirror, Sir. I didn’t have time to change back before we were ordered to launch.”

Michael smiled, “Jay became something he wasn’t while he suffered from Eric’s death. I don’t know what drove you into hiding but the world is less beautiful because you do. I apologize for putting you in this position and I won’t reveal your secret to anyone.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Michael walked through the port and Jan closed it. She saw her reflection in the stainless steel covering over the port and stared at it. She shook her head. What had she become? She was less than plain when she dyed her hair and put on the oversize uniforms six years earlier. What she saw looking back at her was…was…someone else. She reached around to untie her braid and stopped. She was a living, breathing, walking lie. She could see the Commander’s expression when he saw her and he was amazed. Heck, she didn’t even have any makeup on. She released her braid and sighed. Should she come out of her cocoon slowly? She continued to stare at the reflection and she turned around and looked at her back. Oh my! She had curves she didn’t remember either. She took a deep breath and said, “Today is the first day of freedom. I will hide no more.”

She went to the bridge and activated her monitor. She often turned it off when flying with Jay and Josey so she could do it wearing little or nothing. They were used to it. Jay appeared on her monitor and said, “This new system is…”

Jan saw him staring at her and she said, “Issssss?”

“Who are you?”

“Come on, Jay. It’s me.”

“Josey you need to see this!”

“See what?”

“Link with me.”

Jan saw Josey appear beside Jay on her monitor and Josey’s mouth fell open. “Who are you?”

Jan blew out a breath, “IT’S ME!”

Josey stared at her and said, “Oh…my…God!”

“WHAT?!?”

Jay said, “Jan, I never suspected you were this gorgeous. But I should have known.”

Jan softly said, “Why?”

“Because someone with the gentle and beautiful spirit you possess would have to be beautiful.” Josey sighed, “There’s goes my attentive audiences.”

“Josey, you know you’re prettier than me.”

“Oh, if that were only true. However, I am so proud of who and what you are. Why did you…”

“Come out of my disguise?”

“Yeah.”

“The Commander pointed out to me that he saw I was hiding. I wanted to see what I looked like. When I started hiding, I didn’t look anything like this.”

“What did you look like?”

“You know the too large uniforms I’ve been wearing?”

“Yes.”

“They were a snug fit. My hair was frizzy and wouldn’t hold any kind of shape. My eyes were constantly red from allergies. I guess I…I don’t know…changed.”

Jay laughed out loud, “Boy, have you ever! I’m going to personally thank the Commander for pointing it out to you.”

“Why?”

“Do you have any idea how much jealousy Josey causes from hanging out with me? Now with you, I’ll be insufferable.”

Jan laughed out loud. Josey smiled, “I’ll tie a rope to you at the next dance and throw you out on the dance floor. I’ll grab those that fall off.” The three went back and forth and laughed for an hour. Jan was indeed free.

M
ichael listened to the scouts reporting in to Hengel and so far nothing out of the ordinary had happened. A conversation was intercepted between two scientists and Michael focused on it. “It appears that the new space is too small for any of the Director’s ships to enter.”

“Fifty feet is not much room to work with.”

“The new probe with its disruptor beam barely fits. So far, we have not detected anything near our galaxy.”

“Do you think that the attackers use this space?”

“We’ve been given the recordings of the last battle and the ships the enemy used were only forty five feet in diameter. They could fit inside it.”

“But the least little wobble and they would be thrown out.”

“Then where do they go?”

“I have no idea. Could there be another space we don’t know about. Some kind of no space of something?”

“Your imagination is running wild. No space would be no distance. If there’s no space, there isn’t anything.”

“I know. This new space we’ve found must be what they use to disappear.”

“If that’s the case, firing a disruptor in it will cause a major disruption of it.”

“How major?”

“About a third of a light year.”

“Would it affect the void or normal space?”

“No, at least it hasn’t in the experiments we’ve done.”

“So if they attack again, we fire a disruptor in that space and they can’t use it to avoid our weapons.”

“That’s how I see it.”

“We need to contact the Director and see if he wants us to start building those probes.”

“Has the Director approved building a small ship to go into that space?”

“He has not! He doesn’t see any benefit a small ship would give him.”

“Those small ships that attacked were pretty deadly.”

“I know, I know! But the Director is of the opinion that they were only successful because they could use that space to avoid our weapons. If that space is removed, the enemy’s ships won’t stand up against our larger battleships.”

• • •

“Angelo, send a transcript of that conversation to Amanda and Trevor’s attention. I want a copy also sent to Budge asking if he knows of any way to prevent the Barrier from being disrupted.”

• • •

Jan listened to the two Scientists and shook her head. The only way their attacks were successful was due to their being able to go into the barrier when too many beams or missiles hit them. And this new Monster had planet-sized disruptors. Langley had linked the conversation to Josey and Jay and they were just as concerned as Jan. “Does this end our previous tactics?”

Jay slowly nodded, “We can’t avoid being hit. The barrier allows us to control the number of times we’re hit before we are damaged.”

They looked at Jan and saw her resting her head on her hand. Jay said, “What are you thinking?”

“The real issue is time.”

“What do you mean?”

“We skip in among the enemy formations and open fire with our DE Beams and missiles. While we’re firing at them, they fire back at us, right?”

“Your observation is impeccable.”

Jan looked at Jay, “Don’t get cute. I was just thinking that one of the things our new ships can do, well, even the old ones could do it too, is fly faster than the speed of light in normal space.”

“How do you fire a weapon at a target moving that fast? I’m good but I don’t have near the reflexes to pull that off.”

“Why would you have to fire?”

“Excuse me? But WHAT?”

“What would happen if you locked the disruptors down to constant fire and flew through their formations at light speed?”

Jay stared at Jan on the monitor and then he looked at Josey who could only shake her head. “Jan, I don’t know if something like that is possible.”

“I don’t, either.”

“Then why in a drunken barmaid’s apron would you suggest it!?”

“I was just thinking that if most of the reactor’s power was sent to the disruptors, and the rest to the thrusters, we would blow by them too fast to be targeted. If the DE Beams are at close to full power, they should slice a ship in half as we passed. If all three of us were stacked on top of each other…”

“If a DE Beam can be fired with any focus at that speed, you might have something. But trust me on this, avoiding anything in your direct path might be a problem.”

“I keep thinking about a little fact that was in Boy’s Life fifty years ago.”

“Boy’s what?”

“It was a magazine that was written for Boy Scouts.”

“Where in seven hells would you see a magazine written for Boy Scouts that is fifty years old?”

“I had a lot of time to look at things in the Fleet’s data banks while cleaning bathrooms, Josey.”

“What was the fact, Jan?”

“A weather announcer on a TV station showed a photograph after a hurricane of broom straws that were blown through a telephone pole and into the wall behind it.”

Jay looked at Josey and then at Jan, “Maybe I’m just dense; how does that relate to what we’re discussing?”

“The straws went through the telephone pole without leaving a hole.”

“Say what?”

“The pole was right up against the wall and the broom straws were sticking directly out of the bricks in the wall. The only way they could have come in at that angle was to have come through the telephone pole. The pole had no holes in in and x-rays showed that there weren’t any, even small ones.” Jay and Josey stared at Jan and she shrugged, “If something is moving fast enough, it will go through an object without leaving a hole.”

Jay’s eyes narrowed and he began doing some mental calculations. “I guess the molecules just pass through each other without making contact.”

“I’ve also read in Astronomy Today, May issue 2015, that the space between an atom’s nucleus and its electrons is actually, relatively speaking, greater than the distance between the sun and its planets.”

Jay stared at Jan and leaned back in his chair, “I’ve often looked at finding a novel way to end my life and now I know I should have come to you for suggestions. This is crazy!”

“Jay, what happens to a physical object that is moving at or close to the speed of light?”

“It becomes little more than an energy wave.”

“And energy waves can pass through…”

Jay rolled his eyes, “Pretty much everything. But this would be an energy wave with more than a hundred tons of mass.”

“What will the gravity compensators do?”

Jay rolled his eyes again and said, “I saw a bug on the ceiling.”

Jan giggled and Jay said, “You need to give me some time to think about this.”

• • •

“Commander!”

“Go ahead, Hengel.”

“I’ve just intercepted a communication from a ship’s pilot that he was moving out of orbit and headed out of the galaxy.”

“Notify every scout to keep an eye and mind out for that ship.”

“Are you going to attempt to intercept it?”

“No, I want it followed.”

“They can detect us in the barrier.”

“We’re staying out of the barrier and following it in the void.”

“Sir, a ship that large can carry a sensor array as large as those used on a planet.”

“Just give me the line it takes and I’ll get ahead of it.”

“What if there are ships waiting for it to defend it against discovery.”

“What are you suggesting Hengel?”

“I didn’t hear a direct thought but I sensed the pilot was moving to meet something or someone.”

“Hengel, what would you do if you were moving that ship?”

“Sir, if it were me, I’d have one of those ships that launches barrier probes and I’d have one disrupting the barrier all the way to its destination. I would also have ships hidden behind a black cloud in the void along its path.”

Michael shook his head, “I suspect it will change course at some point before moving toward its final destination. Its initial line of departure will be a decoy.”