The Begining (The Navigator Book 1) (2 page)

However, instead of the whole inside of the plane dedicated to cargo, there was really only room for the truck. The four of them got out of the truck, and led Joe through a door into a comfortable looking waiting area. There were stacked bunks set up along one wall, but there were also comfortable captain's chairs set up around an odd-looking table. Recliners and a couch filled out the furnishings. The floor was carpeted and there were books in a small book shelf. A kitchenette and bathroom were divided by the steps leading up to the cockpit.

In the kitchenette, a young woman was busy with something, but smiled at them when they entered. Joe felt his heart thump when he saw her. She was absolutely one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen.

She was about five and a half feet tall, thin, but not anorexic. She had reddish blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Not much in the breast department, but so far she looked wonderful. Joe briefly he wondered if she were on the menu. He chuckled at that thought, an hour in the men's company and he had already begun to think like a soldier again.

The Ranger went over to the bar at the kitchenette and asked the girl for something. He returned to the chairs shortly with a six-pack of beer.

Joe and the remaining two took seats in the captain's chairs to wait for take-off. “Wow, this thing's nice! The last time I flew in one of these, the seats were backwards and we got to stare at the cargo for the entire flight for entertainment.”

The Marine sergeant smiled. “Well, we do have a little better entertainment on this one. Do you play poker?”

“Normally, my card playing is limited to the games that come on my computer, but I do know how to play some games. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, we have this fancy table here, how about a few hands of Texas Hold 'em?” the sergeant said. “But if you play, watch out for Becky; she's really good." He nodded to the girl.

Once again Joe turned toward the pretty girl as she came out from behind the bar with a sandwich and a couple of cans of Pepsi. “I'm not that good, these guys just have really bad luck.” She walked up and handed Joe one of the sodas before taking the chair next to him. "What kind of cards do you play on the computer?”

Joe shrugged. “Mostly Free Cell, sometimes Spider solitaire, other times, regular solitaire. I use it to work through writer's block.”

“Does it work?” the girl asked, while she attacked her sandwich.

“Usually, although my friends can't figure out why I play Free Cell so much. I guess they just have no luck at all playing it,” Joe said, wondering why this girl would be interested in his card playing. Maybe she was trying to stick to safe subjects. "What about you? What's your favorite?”

She shrugged. “Don't really play them anymore. Been so busy that I never seem to have the chance.” She swallowed her bite. “So, we playin' or what?"

The table was really fancy. It turned out that it was basically one large computer screen. When you covered your cards to see what you have, you simply touched the corner of one to peek under. Just like real cards. It was a trip.

The rest of the guys complained loudly when Joe and Becky kept winning, Joe more than Becky, and it soon came down to just the two of them playing each other. They were so close in skill that each hand was as exciting for the observers as it was for the players.

However, after a few hands of watching, the others seemed to wander off to read or lie down for a nap. Joe noticed that very shortly, even the lance corporal had nodded off. He noticed that Becky gave him a small smile.

“Now that the boys are asleep, you and I need to have a talk.”

“Did you drug them?” Joe said wondering why three highly trained special ops soldiers would fall asleep in the presence of an unknown 'hostile'.

“Sort of,” she said. “Now, you're a science fiction writer; how much do you know about current space travel technology?"

The question was most definitely strange, but considering the situation, maybe not. “Let's see; I know we've developed a form of anti-gravity with mercury gyroscopes. I had heard the folks over at JPL had figured out how to create a warp bubble, but were having some kind of trouble with it.”

She nodded. “Pretty accurate, but a few chapters behind. Would you believe me if I told you that they'd figured out the problems with the warp field, and greatly improved on the antigrav?”

“Yeah, I'd buy that. Science is always well ahead of what they allow to be released to the public. I wouldn't even be surprised if they hadn't developed replicators and or transporters. Although, the last time I'd read anything about that, they had only managed to move a single photon across the country, even I didn't think that was an accurate test; after all, how do they know it was the same photon? Did they check the serial number?”

“There's a replicator behind the bar, and we're not in a normal C-141 aircraft,” Becky replied.

“Again, I can accept that. Take off wasn't anything like I remember it was, and there's been no turbulence at all. Which leads me to ask exactly where are we going?” Joe asked.

“We are going to dock with an orbiting space station,” Becky said matter-of-factly.

“Huh, I've always dreamt of going into space someday. Never thought I'd make it, though. Can you tell me why, or do I still have to wait for that?” Joe asked.

“They fixed the issues with the warp drive, but when they tested it, they discovered another problem; Hyperspace navigation has very little to do with Real Space navigation. In fact, once they tried to program a computer for the job, it wouldn't work. Even though the programmer herself could do it, she couldn't make the computer do it.

“It was later discovered that she wasn't your normal run-of-the-mill genius computer programmer; she had a special gift. One that only about one half of one percent of the total population has. She had the gift to make sense of all the variables involved in plotting a jump.

“That gift is only detectable in how the human mind handles data. Training since birth was tried with very limited results, so a test was developed to identify those few that had this gift.

“Once located, these individuals are recruited so the human race can reach out to the stars. Which is becoming a more and more important job as time goes by. I'm not sure you're aware of it, but there are too many people on Earth. We need to relieve the burden by moving them to another planet,” she said and paused for a drink.

“Okay, so where do I come in? I'm old, fat, out of shape, and I have some serious, incurable, medical issues. There is no way in hell I can perform my old duties, even though from the sound of it, that's not what I'm here for,” Joe asked. He reached into his pocket for his pills. He needed to take some pain pills because his stomach was really beginning to hurt.

She quietly watched him take the powerful narcotics. When he sat his soda back on the table, she continued. “I'm getting there, don't worry. A scientific research base was established on Beta Centauri IV, using that programmer as the Navigator to get us there. At the same time, several normal civilians were also relocated to establish our first off-world colony.

"The original Navigator was closely examined and tested. Her 'gift' was discovered and the part of her mind that handled the ability was isolated. It was discovered that hyperspace navigation had a rudimentary connection with how the game of Free Cell is processed...”

“Wait,” Joe interrupted her. “You’re saying that Free Cell is a test to see who has this gift you're talking about?”

“Yeah, the game itself is an old one, but if you'll remember it wasn't always included with computer operating systems. Only after the connection was discovered did the game become a requirement for every commercially available operating system.

“It took a few months but they started getting results back from internet connected computers. Within a year, eight people had been isolated as having the gift to navigate hyperspace. They were 'recruited' and taken to BC IV to learn how to do the navigation.

“Once those few people got trained, a rather odd side effect was observed; although the Navigators were not actually on a ship with a functioning hyperdrive, there was a slight warping of space-time around them when they practiced or worked through the equations. It had no effect on the Navigators of course, but the people around them started exhibiting potentially dangerous bursts of emotion.

“Dr. Herve Chaves, who was a very gentle, peaceful man by nature, beat one of his lab assistants into a coma for not putting sugar in his coffee. A couple of other scientists experienced memory loss, and one had an emotional break down because she stepped on a bug outside her lab.

“When these people had left Earth only a year before, they had been among the most mentally stable people on Earth. Now they were all rapidly going insane. Since none of the farmers or other folks were having any problems at all, the problem had to have been related to the Navigators.

“In order to test this theory, a small station was placed in orbit, and the Navigators were moved there. There was an almost overnight cessation of symptoms, which confirmed the source of the problem, however, another issue soon arose.

“The small station for the Navigators wouldn't stay put. The station had been created out of an orbital freight shuttle. It only had engines strong enough to get it to the planet's surface and back while carrying supplies and personnel. It had no hyperdrive to get anywhere else. However, at random times it would be in orbit of the planet, or in orbit of one of the moons, or other planets in the system.

When the Navigators would practice, it would open a small rift in hyperspace. The station would then 'fall' through the rift and appear wherever it felt like. Never in 'open space' though, always in orbit around something.

“Gravity was the answer. So one of the longest serving Navigators, suggested moving the station to the LaGrange point between the two stars of the binary system. They were far enough apart to not fry the station in radiation, yet close enough to hold the station in place no matter how big the rift got.

“That proved to be the answer and the shuttle was altered into a real station. Since then, it's been built up to handle our teaching and training facilities, as well as some housing facilities. There really aren't that many of us yet, but most of us don't stay at the Citadel unless we are prepping for a mission or debriefing from one." She paused to let him catch up.

“Okay, I'm with you so far, and I've even figured out that you think I'm one of these ‘Navigators’. But why was I 'recruited' like that? If they know my background like I know they do, they would have known I'd have jumped at the offer, no matter what was wrong with me,” Joe replied.

Becky nodded regretfully. “Yeah, we know you would have. But, there are other concerns you aren't aware of yet. First, your medical issues will be taken care of. There is a way to treat your condition. In fact, that'll be one of the first things that you'll be going through. However is only the first issue; the treatment is very, very expensive and the powers that be will not pay for it to be done to civilians unless they are part of the specially selected colonists. Your wife would have to go through it before she could survive the trip to BC IV. Once you go through it, you're not allowed to go back to Earth.

“If you had been offered the choice, you would have insisted that she come with you or you wouldn't have come. You will be strongly encouraged to propagate your abilities,” She blushed when she said that last part. “While Laura’s inability to have children would have also been repaired, she is not a Navigator.”

Joe shook his head, not understanding. “That still doesn't make sense to me. Laura is bisexual. I doubt she would have said much about my 'duties' once she understood them. Hell, if all of them look like you, she'd probably have been a willing partner! I know you might not understand exactly what I mean, but I do love that woman more than my own life."

Becky nodded sadly. “Yeah, that's the one thing no one seems to care about in all of this. They also don't want you to be able to be influenced. Having your wife with you would leave you open to outside manipulation.”

“Yeah, you mean they wanted to make sure they were the only ones that could use her as a lever if I didn't play nice. I take it they read the report of my last mission with my previous 'employers'. Anyway, there's nothing that can be done about it. I'm sure she thinks I'm dead by now," Joe replied sadly.

“Honey! I’m home!” Laura said as she walked in the door. She was greeted only by a very sad looking dog.

“Hey Sweety, where's Daddy? Did he go somewhere and not take you with him?” She asked, bending down to scratch behind the small dog's ears.

The dog, Merry, had always been a very happy dog. She loved her owners and was always happy and full of energy when they got home. However, tonight, Merry not only looked sad, but she gently put her head next to Laura's knee as if for comfort.

It made the hair on the back of Laura's neck stand straight out and she got a feeling of dread in her stomach. “JOE!” she yelled. She almost ran to the back of the trailer house when there wasn't an answer.

It didn't take her very long to discover he wasn't there. She opened her purse, took out her cell phone and hit the speed dial for her husband. She immediately heard the ring coming from her jacket. Now she was really worried, because she knew Joe didn't even go to the bathroom without his phone.