Space Trippers Book 1: Trippin' (22 page)

Valesque looked a bit flustered as she glanced at all the seemingly accusing faces surrounding her. At this rate, if she could not express herself calmly, nobody would believe her.

Presently the Captain’s Second in Command Fazar spoke up, he had not been with them earlier on the Control Deck nor when they had gone up to verify the charts on the Star Deck, because he had been down in the Med-room waiting to be treated for a slight shoulder injury.

Now as he was getting abreast of the situation he had to cut in for the Virrilian’s defense. “It is said ‘The harder you have to fight to hold specific assumptions, the more value there is in letting them go.’” Fazar began calmly as he leaned back in his seat near the Captain.

His heavily lidded eyes looked directly as his Superior Officer as he continued softly, “In case of dissension, never judge till you have heard the other side.” he advised the short-tempered woman.

“Are you suggesting she is innocent?” the Captain wondered incredulously. “The facts are plain, she is the inventor of the only known space warp device, she admits it was used on this ship. What more do we need to know, besides how to get back?” she argued, disliking Fazar’s easygoing approach to all the problems they faced. He was the one who had tried to get her to be nice and diplomatic with the Virrilian saboteur to begin with.

The round wrinkled man resembled a tortoise even more as he pursed his lips and closed his eyes before replying in his heavily accented voice, “It better to risk saving guilty person than to condemn an innocent one, as they say.” he remarked in defense of his diplomatic tact.

“I believe you can judge character of someone by how they treat those who can do nothing for them, I have known the young woman for many year and have found her to be very good character. I would like therefore to hear her out. As said ‘there no better way to judge the future but by the past’.” he quoted. “If you do not mind, Captain, I would like to attempt get the facts of this case myself. If you please take my seat, I continue investigation.” the older man prompted as he raised himself up from the chair and offered it to the aggravated Officer.

Valesque breathed out a sigh of relief at this turn of events; it seemed she was going to get to tell her side rationally after all.

“Now, Miss Valesque, I call you still because that how I have come to know you. I admit, I had my suspicion you were Virrilian Scientist we had heard much controversy about all those year ago. But did not matter as been said, 'Things that are already done, is needless to speak about...for things that are past, is needless to blame'.

However, for sake of your accusers would please relate to us the circumstances as they occurred.” he requested considerately with a bow to the onlookers as if he were her defense attorney addressing a jury.

“The circumstances?” Valesque repeated puzzled, “Where do you want me to begin?”

“I am sure we all find it very enlightening if began with your reason for inventing a space warp creation, through the turbulent affairs that arose from it and how we got to this point today.” he prompted his witness.

“Oookay.” Valesque replied uncertainly as she turned to her attentive fellow crewmates. Where to start?

“Well…..” she hesitated as she thought of her approach to the subject of her reasons for creating the device. “As many are aware the Virrilian race, my race, do not approve of you choosing your own path in life.” she began simply.

“I have always been interested in science and inventing so of course they wanted me to do something opposite of that. Of course….I left and I attended the Intergalactic University. During school and even upon graduation I had a dream to appease my people, so I began work on a weapon.” she admitted with downcast eyes. “But I could not bring myself to create something that would really harm anyone. What I devised was a space warp. Surely if you could get rid of your enemy without having to kill them it would be the better solution.” the Engineer exclaimed, still believing in her ideals.

“But as the Captain had mentioned I had already been disowned by my family and my race, and the Virrilian council did not approve of the plan, so I was again rejected. At this time there were other factions wanting me to sell them my plans, but they all wanted it for war and greed and by that time I had regretted the entire idea. So I refused any offers on it and intended to destroy the entire project.” she explained with a remorseful sigh as she remembered those times.

“However, someone broke into my secured lab and stole the Space Tripper before I had a chance to dismantle it. I have to admit, I was relieved it was gone, and I honestly believed no one else knew how to operate it.” she added defensively.

“The word got around about my having sold the Tripper to the enemies of my people in the war, and so I was exiled and told if I ever entered their space again I would be executed. After that, I moved around a lot, trying to find my place in the universe outside my home planet. I finally ended up on Saturna 3 with plans in hand for my grand scheme of a large scale science exploration vessel.” she concluded.

“A peaceful science vessel with foursquare firing capabilities and four level, dual oscillating shields?” the Captain laughed cynically.

Valesque’s dark, red lips pressed into a tight frown as she glared at the provoking Military Officer. “An exploratory vessel needs full defensive capabilities.” the Engineer maintained. “Foursquare weapons mean no part of the ship would be vulnerable at any given time. That would be essential for a vessel which would be observing a Super Nova explosion, or traveling through an asteroid storm where debris is coming at you from all angles.” she revealed with a furrowed brow at the Captain’s obviously single-minded use for weapons.

Valesque did however suppress the urge to tell the antagonistic woman exactly what she thought of her cynicism.

The Captain looked unconvinced as she geared up for another assault. “You also claimed your space warp device vanished and yet there was one on this ship wasn’t there? And very conveniently for your intentions of keeping us from taking this vessel to Corseccan space, I might add.”

Valesque scowled again, “Are you insinuating I purposely installed the device I have regretted building for five years on my own ship?” she growled in disgust.

“Of course!” Fairbanks affirmed, “In order to keep from going back to your native sector, and to keep your precious ‘exploration’ vessel from being in a war.”

“So you think I intentionally chose to get stuck out in the middle of who-knows-where with
you
? Not to mention being stuck out here on an unshielded, unarmed and incomplete ship for who knows how long, with
you
!” the Virrilian emphasized negatively.

“I don’t know how the Space Tripper got on this ship, but when I discovered it in the Med-room while I was being treated, I was just as surprised and alarmed to see it as you.” Valesque related.

Tim and Sanic were a bit surprised at hearing this, they had been with her when she had been in the Med-room and she had not mentioned anything to them about it.

Come to think of it though, they each thought to themselves, it would explain a lot of her odd behavior lately. Why she had seemed so nervous and distracted.

Sanic particularly remembered her anxious look in the Engineering room when she had found the fault in the engine’s output. And then there was the device she had been making when they had walked in on her in her lab. And how she had disappeared without a word.

Many things started to fit together and make sense as they reminisced about the past day’s events.

“So, you have known it was aboard this whole time? Yet, you kept silent about it. That spells either a guilty conscience or the deliberate act of a saboteur.” Fairbanks said in another accusing tone.

“ I chose
not
to alarm anyone else.” Valesque corrected, “I knew that if the Space Tripper was revealed that I would become suspect and that would slow me down in trying to disarm it. From the time I found it I have been trying to deactivate it before its preset trigger went off. All I was successful in doing however was getting the feeders out of the emergency power system before it was activated; by I assume…the red alert.” she informed them after having considered the circumstances. “Otherwise it would have used up even what little back-up power we have in the jumps.”

Fazar mulled over the story Valesque had related in his head as the Captain gave a dubious snort and turned away.

“Hmmmm….” he pondered aloud about to begin his closing remarks, “it been said ‘You cannot change anything unless you first accept it’” he cited.

“We now must accept, no matter circumstances, we have been sent through a space warp. We need to move past the reasons and onto what to do about it, as is said ‘Forget everything except what you are going to do now’.”

“Right now, I say we make the Doctor return us to known space so we can get back on our course.” Captain Fairbanks agreed heartily.

Valesque grimaced at the unfeasible order. “Ummm....that…..is not really possible.” the Inventor reluctantly pronounced.

“What do you mean it is not possible? Just send us back the way we came.” she insisted, distrustful of the Virrilian’s hesitation to do as she was asked.

“You are forgetting... I designed it to be a weapon. I never intended anyone to get back.” she paused, not sure how they would take the next news. “You see, we did not go through just one space warp.” the nervous Virrilian explained.

This seemed to peak Sanic’s interest. “You mean we did more than one jump?” he asked in wonder at the sheer possibility. “Even so, it should be possible to trace a path back and reverse the jumps to the original position, right?”

“Yes, in theory…that might work. But do you remember all the times the ship lurched forward and then stopped and instantly jumped again?” she probed. “And do you remember the strobe-like flashes of light?”

They all agreed they had remembered successive flashes as the ship had rocked beneath them.

“Well……was anyone able to count how many flashes of light there were?” she inquired again, knowing full well they had gone by too quickly to count. “Because…that is how many jumps we did before the Tripper used up all of our power.” Valesque winced at admitting the problem.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

At last it was Sanic who spoke again. “That would mean we did possibly hundreds of jumps in just a matter of seconds.”

“Exactly.” she agreed, he had hit the problem right on the head. “You see…I devised the Space Tripper to send enemy ships through a space warp never to return. In order to do that, they had to not know where they were or how to get back.” she clarified. “So I made the Tripper use not one but…multiple jumps. It will actually just keep jumping until the power runs out, while ricocheting you in all directions.”

Valesque paused for a moment before she continued; she had just remembered some of her earlier problems. “In fact, who ever had set up the Tripper had also hamstrung the engines. So the Captain could not get a faster speed no matter what the output was set at, because the energy was bled away and saved up for the jumps. They had been very clever in getting us as far away as possible.” she noted slightly impressed.

“Then why did you not fix the engines right away?” the Captain asked bluntly.

“Because, if the Tripper had sensed the power dissipating it would have activated before too much energy was lost in the engines.” she stated simply, annoyed the Captain could not even understand something that elementary. “I was trying to avoid it going off at all, I was not
looking
for ways to activate it.” she scowled.

“As Ensign Sanic suggested, why not just go back the way we came, it took just seconds to get here, it should not take that long to get back.” Fairbanks suggested, tiring of all the scientific babble.

She just wanted a plan to get back home and on their way to the Corseccan Galaxy.

Valesque gawked at her incredulously; had she not listened at all?

“I am sure even Sanic realizes that in order to reverse a jump you…”

“Have to know the exact speed, place and length of the original jump.” Lieutenant Baine finished for her.

The Virrilian Engineer looked at him in astonishment, even the Yorkie could figure that much out!

“E….exactly” she stuttered in utter shock at him saying something so rational.

“You would have to have kept an exact record of each jump.”

“Why not just point the ship in the direction we came from and just do some jumps until we get to a familiar place.” the Captain asked impatient to get on the move again.

“You could end up anywhere.” Sanic and Valesque replied in unison, both a bit alarmed at the very idea.

“You could end up even farther away and more lost. You could theoretically jump for years and never get back to a recognizable place.” Valesque added, she had calculated all these possibilities when she had designed it after all.

Captain Fairbanks frowned as she ran her hand over her sleek red hair. “So you are saying we are stuck out here.” she confirmed steadily.

“We could try to ascertain which direction we came from originally and try going back that way without a jump.” Tim recommended. “Of course, depending on where we actually are, it could take quite a few years to get back even at L3.”