Test of Magnitude (The Torian Reclamation) (17 page)

“Brandon, you will need this,” the Sheen stranger said, and handed him his cloak.

Brandon stood up. “How do you know me, and why would I need your cloak?”

“Arkan9 sent me,” he replied. “There is some lotion in one of the pockets. Rub it on your face and hands.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess.” Brandon accepted the cloak.

The Sheen then held a small metal tube up to Brandon’s ear. It emitted rapid beeping sounds like a computer. He did the same to Brandon’s other ear, then turned around and left without saying another word.

Brandon fished around in the pockets of the cloak until he found a small tin. He took it out and removed the lid, but had to quickly replace it due to the blinding light that came forth.

Mip7 laughed. “Looks like Arkan9 wants to disguise you as a Sheen. Here, give me the tin and close your eyes. This is actually a good idea. We’ll get you shined up and hooded, and catch that C2P1 shuttle. I’m sure Arkan9’s friend just reprogrammed your implants so they will no longer identify you as an RL-71 research subject.”

Mip7 painted Brandon’s face and hands.

“Can you see?” Mip7 asked when he was finished.

“Not well. Tunnel vision only. Good enough to travel, I suppose, if you stay a little in front of me and lead.”

“Will do. Put your cloak and hood on.”

The public shuttle spaceship was much bigger than the charter flight ship, but not as big as passenger jets back on Earth. Brandon figured it held about 50 Torians when full. This flight was only about half-full, though. The Sheen disguise was apparently working, as Brandon noticed the natives were no longer giving him a second look.

The flight was longer this time. Mip7 explained they were taking a different route, probably due to the meteor storm. The ship passed a group of odd-looking satellites in orbit around Amulen as they drew near. They were football-shaped spheres with large donut-shaped rings fixed around the outer hulls. As Brandon was watching, a flying saucer coming from Amulen approached one of them. The sphere opened on one end and received the saucer-ship, then closed again with the saucer inside of it.

“Are those satellites space stations?” Brandon asked.

“No, those are interstellar transport ships,” Mip7 said. “That one just received a landing craft. You were brought here in a ship like that—quite possibly in one of those very ships you see there.”

“What an odd-looking design for a spaceship.”

“All transport ships, from every advanced race we have seen, are of that same basic design. Interstellar travel technology requires it, as far as we know.”

“What’s the big ring around the outside for?”

“That’s called the dag, the distortion field generator. It distorts space-time all around it, while keeping the ship in a bubble of its own time. So, it basically bends space to your liking, pushing it behind you, allowing you to go across the galaxy without having to actually travel the distance. Please don’t ask me to explain the science behind it.”

“Okay,” Brandon said. “I saw a video about that back in the gray room.”

“You could have flown them on the flight simulator at Uden, too. Did you see those on the menu?”

Brandon was a little embarrassed. “I think I saw them, but didn’t try them out. I did fly the flying sau—the landing craft a couple times, and spent some time with the shuttles, like this one we’re on. But, to be honest, I spent most of my time with the military fighters.”

“Me too,” Mip7 admitted. “That’s where the action is, right? All those simulated battles. Kid’s fantasies, is all those are, except for the programs where you shoot meteors. There’s never been a space battle around here. I don’t think there ever will be, either—although Arkan9 thinks differently.”

“That interstellar ship where the landing craft just docked,” Brandon said. “It’s getting ready to travel across the galaxy?”

“No, not likely. Torians don’t much go anywhere in the current age. We’ve become somewhat reclusive, and prefer to be hosts rather than guests on other worlds. Space exploration missions were cancelled over a decade ago. That landing craft was probably just a maintenance crew, or perhaps arrived to monitor the meteor showers on Banor today. See the military fighter off in the distance there? If those showers come over to Amulen, they will attempt to protect this fleet from any large rocks.”

Brandon wasn’t watching the fighter craft. He was still looking at the fleet of retired transport ships, and thinking. The Torians had stopped all space exploration missions, kind of like how the USA decided to stop going to the moon in the 70’s. Yet, here was a fleet of interstellar spaceships that the maintenance was being kept up on.

“That’s our ticket home right there,” Brandon muttered.

Mip7 cocked his head. “Can you repeat that?”

“Nothing, forget it.”

Chapter Eight

“What does it say? What does it say?” Brandon’s eyes were darting in every direction at the C2P1 spaceport.

“Calm down, Brandon!” Mip7 said. “Stop thrashing around. Sheen don’t act like that. You’ll call attention to yourself.”

“Well how would you act if you just saw your picture on a wanted poster?”

They were in the main terminal, walking down a corridor toward the flight to Cardinal-4 when one of the screens on the wall flashed a picture of Brandon and Derek.

“This way, follow me,” Mip7said. “Calmly!” Mip7 took him to a waiting area that very much resembled the gate inside a major airport back home. They took two seats facing out the window towards a spaceship parked on the tarmac.

“Is that our flight?” Brandon asked.

“No. This one goes to a C4 spaceport. It’s scheduled to leave at the same time ours does, though. Our gate is directly across the corridor behind us. When they start boarding here, we’ll move over there. We might as well not get noticed around our own gate.”

“What did it say?”

“It said anyone who sees these aliens—that is, you and Derek—is to call spaceport security. Don’t worry. You don’t look like that picture now.”

“I don’t look exactly like a Sheen, either.”

“Close enough, hopefully.”

Just then, an Amulite wearing a thin black neck collar walked in front of them and stopped. He looked at Brandon’s shoes for a long moment, before continuing to the other side of the waiting area.

“Was that a Science Complex director?” Brandon asked.

“Yes, and that wasn’t good. He noticed your gravity shoes.”

“Should I take them off?”

“No, better not. You aren’t used to running without them.”

“You think we may have to run?”

Mip7 looked behind them across the waiting area. Brandon turned his head as well. The one with the director’s collar was pointing in their direction and talking to another Amulite who was wearing a small yellow hat and carrying a stick or club of some sort.

“Yes,” Mip7 said.

At that moment, an announcement came over the speaker system, and everyone in the waiting area stood up. A line began to form at the tunnel entry which led out to the spaceship.

“Maybe not,” Mip7 said. “Follow me.”

They stood up with all the other passengers and mingled into the line that was forming. Fifteen seconds later, Brandon felt Mip7’s leathery hand grab ahold of his. He pulled Brandon out of line and into a short corridor opposite the boarding tunnel. Mip7 was walking faster this time. He released his hand as they came out the other side into another open waiting area, where they fell into the middle of a line forming for a different boarding tunnel. In another minute or two, they were inside the tunnel. Within a few more minutes, they were seated on the spacecraft.

“We should be okay now,” Mip7 said. “They think we were boarding the other ship.”

A voice then came over the overhead audio system.

“We will be departing directly, so please remain in your seats. The flight that was supposed to be in front of us has been delayed, so we will be leaving now.”

A whooshing sound announced the starting of the shuttle’s hover engines. The ship rose off the ground and then up over the terminal. Brandon looked out the window and saw that the flight on the opposite side of the terminal wing was now de-boarding onto the tarmac, where a half dozen Amulites with yellow hats and clubs stood waiting.

“Thanks for keeping your cool,” Brandon said. “That was close. Good thinking. I’m sure glad you are on my side.”

“Yes, that was much trickier than I thought it would be,” Mip7 said. “I guess we need to avoid this spaceport entirely. I will let Arkan9 know. I just hope he checks his messages before doing any travelling with Derek.”

The ship continued upward until the terminal became a distant object in the window. The main engines came on. They took off across the local mountain range, out over the sea, and up into space. The space station then came into view.

So did a bright orange object.

“What’s that, another spaceship?” Brandon asked.

Mip7 peered out the window. “Probably. It’s a little far from the station for a moored ship, though. I hope I’m not getting back just in time to have to entertain a visiting alien. That is my job, you understand.”

The shuttle flew between the orange object and the station. As they drew closer to Cardinal-4, Brandon noticed it wasn’t actually one object.

“Whatever it is, there are three of them,” Brandon said.

“That’s odd,” Mip7 said. “Look, some fighters have scrambled. Maybe they are giving the visitors a royal welcome.”

Brandon saw nine fighters, the type he was used to flying on the simulator, assume a standard military flight formation after emerging from the bottom hangar of Cardinal-4.

Suddenly, an explosion impacted on the outside of the shuttle, knocking all the passengers around in their seats. The shuttle veered left and then went spinning out of control. Brandon found himself hitting the ceiling, then tumbling with all the other passengers along the walls, and then suspended in the middle of the cabin. He was floating there, tangled up with lizard-men arms and legs. The ship was still spinning around them. Whatever hit them must have caused the gravity field to turn off—probably an automatic safety measure, and a good one at that. The explosion didn’t sound like any kind Brandon was used to. It was more like a large sonic boom.

“What happened!” Brandon said. He pushed another passenger out of his legs and twisted Mip7 around by his shoulder.

Mip7 didn’t reply. His eyes looked out of focus. Brandon tried shaking him. Mip7 mumbled something he couldn’t understand, as if he were talking in his sleep. Brandon then noticed all the other passengers seemed to be incoherent as well. They were not attempting to separate themselves from one another, just twisting and bumping around in the air. Some were mumbling like Mip7, and one was singing to himself.

Brandon decided to try to work his way to the cockpit. He climbed over the other passengers, beginning with Mip7, grabbing a shoulder, torso, or leg and pulling himself forward, sending them backwards as he made his way past them. He managed to work his way back to the ceiling, where there were small rails spaced apart from each other that he was able to use as a ladder. When he got to the cockpit door he tried pushing it open, but it wouldn’t budge.

Brandon noticed a lever on the ceiling next to the door and pulled on it hard. The cockpit door then opened. An Amulite’s feet came through it, nearly kicking him in the face. Brandon grabbed the ankles and pulled on them while still holding on to the last rail on the cabin ceiling. The Amulite from the cockpit slid past him and back into the pack of passengers churning in the air behind him. That one appeared to be unconscious.

Brandon made his way into the cockpit by grabbing ahold of structure and protrusions of different sorts on the ceiling and along the walls. The Amulite he sent flying into the cabin must have been the pilot, as another Amulite was strapped down in the co-pilot’s seat, half-conscious and mumbling.

That’s when Brandon noticed that the shuttle, still spinning, was headed directly towards the space station. They would collide with it soon on their present trajectory. Brandon shouted at the co-pilot.

“Snap out of it, man! You need to regain control of the ship!” There was no indication he had heard him.

Brandon pulled himself into the pilot’s chair and strapped himself down. He grabbed the main joystick and tried to move it, but it was locked in place and the ship had no response. He looked the instrument panel over. Everything looked the same as the simulator program, so far as he could tell. Now Brandon wished he had spent more time on the shuttle program, instead of playing with the fighters so much. He noticed a switch with a blinking green button. Wasn’t that the auto-pilot program? It shouldn’t be blinking; it should be either on or off. He pushed it to the off position.

The shuttle pulled out of its spin and surged to the right, the direction which Brandon happened to have pressure applied on the joystick. Now he had control. He could hear the sound of bodies thudding against the cabin walls behind him, however.

Brandon could fly the shuttle. It worked the same way as the simulator program. It was really quite simple and intuitive, which was why he had gotten bored with it so quickly. He slowed their speed and flew alongside the space station, making his way towards the hangar in the rear. He had landed plenty of ships there in the simulator. Brandon took a few minutes to re-familiarize himself with the landing controls. Everything seemed to be where it was supposed to be.