The Lost Colony, DM Arnold [ebook reader for laptop TXT] 📗

dropped the limp body to the deck. Mos then tackled the astral navigator, wrenched the stunner from his hand and threw the man against a bulkhead. He slid to the deck, bleeding from his ears.

“The stunners have no effect on them!” the first officer shouted. Nyk picked up the stun wands and tossed them to the other novonids. Mos was chasing Zane around the bridge.

“Stop, Mos!” Laida shouted. “MOS! STOP!”

“They killed the white one!” Mos shouted.

“No, Mos,” Nyk said. “She's only stunned.”

Mos stopped and stood, breathing heavily. Nyk and the others rounded up the crew at stunner-point. “Watch them, Mos. I'll find some rope.”

He returned with lengths of polymer fiber cord and began binding their wrists.

Laida knelt and held Andra. “How is she?” Nyk asked.

“Coming around, I think.”

“Andra -- are you all right?”

“No more pomma beer,” she said and held her head. “Please.”

“Take them to the barracks deck,” Nyk said. “We'll tie them up and you can guard them, Mos.” Mos nodded.

Nyk looked over the crew. “Now we have a real problem,” he said. “The captain is dead and the navigator is so badly injured I had to put him into stasis. We're who-knows-where in space, and out of range of the comm net. We have to figure out how to fly this bucket.”

“Force one of them to fly it,” Mos suggested.

“Do any of us have the knowledge to know if they're flying it where we want to go? Someone is expecting an illegal shipment of fieldworkers. If they fly us there, we're sunk.”

“It's a chance we'll have to take,” Laida said.

“No -- unless we can monitor our position, we can't risk it. I don't trust any of them.”

“I'll help you,” came a voice.

“Who said that?” Nyk replied.

“I did,” said Zane. “Andra and I are bonded. She is my Academy sister. Brothers and sisters come to each other's aid.”

“Do you trust him?” Nyk asked Andra.

She looked into Zane's pale blue eyes. “Yes -- I do.”

“Untie him,” Nyk said to Mos, using Varadan. “He'll help us fly this ship.”

“Why should we trust him?” Mos asked.

“He and Andra are bonded. Would you trust another of your own kind?”

“Not necessarily,” Mos replied.

“Our choice is to trust him or be stranded here.”

Mos complied and untied Zane.

“You'll spend the rest of your career swabbing decks,” the first officer shouted, “if not in irons!”

“Or decorated,” Nyk replied. “Mos -- if any of them move -- stun them.” Mos nodded.

Zane accompanied Nyk, Andra and Laida to the bridge. “You're a communications technician,” Nyk said. “How can you help?”

“I'm studying for my certificate in astral navigation,” he replied.

“I suppose we don't have to get home -- just far enough inside the comm net to make a distress call.”

Zane sat at the astral navigation console and brought up charts of hyperspace contours. Andra sat beside him.

Nyk regarded her. “Andra -- if the tables had been turned -- if it had been us tied up and under guard, and Zane needed help... Would you have helped him?”

Andra looked up at Nyk. She glanced at Zane and shook her head. “Please, Nyk -- let's not go there.”

“Would you have?”

Her eyes brimmed. “Please don't make me go there ... please...”

“Okay -- we won't go there.” She smiled. “I'm beginning to understand Kronta's caution, though.”

Nyk looked over Zane's shoulder. “Well?”

He brought up a plan of the galaxy and pointed. “We're here ... and Floran's here.” He pressed a key and an ellipse was highlighted on the map. “This is the range of the comm net.” He pressed another key. “Here's the galaxy in elevation... again, you see the extent of the net. We have to get from here ... to here.” He pressed more keys. “These are hyperspace contours. We must keep to those with neutral time gradients... What I must do is to plot jumps from contour to contour in a pattern that will take us within the comm net... Not an easy job.”

“Take your time,” Nyk said. “Let's get it right.”

“We have some time,” Zane replied. “The fusion reactor hasn't come back online yet.”

“It'll do that by itself?”

“It's in an automatic restart program...”

Nyk paced as Zane worked his control panels. “Okay -- I've punched in the coordinates, and set the warp coil energy level.”

“Let's charge it up,” Nyk said. “Is the reactor back on line?”

“On line... Charging -- ready for jump.”

“Belt yourselves in,” Nyk ordered and sat in a jump seat. “Activate.”

Zane pressed a control to close the flash shields. The warp indicators flashed blue. He held his hand over the trigger and pressed it.

The thud of the coil discharge reverberated through the vessel. The flash shields opened to a spinning starfield. “Control the spin,” Nyk ordered.

“That's the pilot's job,” Zane replied.

Nyk sat at the helm. He grasped the unistick and began to counter the spin.

“I didn't know you could do that,” Andra said.

“It's just like a big shuttlecar,” Nyk replied.

“Let's reconnoiter,” Zane said. “Triangulating position...” He operated the beacon locator. “We're lost. I have no idea where we are.”

“Can't you find triangulation beacons?” Nyk asked.

“No -- which means either we're so far from them to be out of range, or our time gradient wasn't neutral.”

“Don't panic,” Nyk said. “Relax and think it through.”

Zane cradled his head in his palm. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths. “Okay... I was right -- our time gradient IS off.”

“By how much?”

“Positive two thousand years.”

“Two thousand? Into the future?”

“That's right -- I must've got the coil energy level wrong ... or something.” He began to perspire. “That was Lesson One ... time gradients -- avoid them at all costs... We might've emerged from the jump in the center of a star ... or a supernova ... or in the galactic core...”

“Might-haves don't count,” Nyk replied.

“Now what do we do?” Andra asked.

“The hyperspace gradient maps don't show time deltas that large... I don't know what to do! We're hopelessly lost and I don't know what to do!”

Andra spun his seat so he faced her. She grasped his temples in her hands and looked into his eyes. “Zane... Remember your academy training. Panicking won't do you or any of us any good. Do you remember the exercise?”

Zane was hyperventilating. “No! No...”

“Of course you do,” she said. “I'll do it with you... Look into my eyes ... Take a deep breath -- one deep breath.” She drew in a breath, held it and released it through her teeth. “Relax... banish anxiety ... close your eyes ... you are master of your mind.”

Zane's breathing began to slow.

“Think clear,” Andra said. “Your mind is clear -- like a pristine pool. Make your mind like water....” Zane opened his eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then,” she said. “Let's figure out what to do. Your mind is clear and fluid. You have capacity to solve this problem. Think, Zane, of a solution.”

Zane thought more. “I know! We can backtrack.”

“Backtrack?” Nyk asked.

“Yes -- the navigation computer remembers all jumps so we can program a complement and jump back to where we started.” He looked up. “It's a failsafe for just such an incident.”

“That must've been what happened to the Floran,” Nyk mused. “They got an energy level wrong -- and they didn't know how to compute a complementary jump.”

“Take your time and make sure you get it right, Zane,” Andra said.

“Not a problem -- it's all automated. All I do is recall the previous jump...” He pressed a panel. “... then invert it. Ready?”

“Go for it.”

The flash shields closed again and Zane triggered the jump. He brought up the galaxy plan. “See? Here we are... Position verified by triangulation beacons. We're back where we were. So ... let's start over...”

Andra looked at the galaxy plan. “Zane... How many jumps does the computer remember?”

“All of them -- it's how we transmit courses to other vessels.”

“Then -- why don't we jump all the way back to Varada?” She pointed to the navigation display.

“I thought you wanted to be in range of the comm net,” Zane replied.

“We left a comm relay there,” Nyk said. “Varada IS in the net -- for the time being, at least.”

“Here's the jump history,” Zane said. He pointed. “Here's Varada...” With his finger he traced the jumps. “Here we are, now. It's five jumps backward.” He traced the return route.

Laida approached Nyk. “Nykkyo -- you're not considering going back to Varada, are you?”

“It might be the surest way.”

“Please don't return to Varada. I'm dead there. So are the others.”

“The BSS will protect you.”

“I'm beyond their protection, now. They'll claim I'm a menace -- and I am. I've tasted too much freedom. They'll have me put down. And Mos -- he's killed a man. They'd kill him, for sure -- the others, too.”

“What about the ferals? We can turn them over to the BSS.”

“The BSS can't help them, either.”

“What do we do, Nyk?” Andra asked. “Take a chance on jumping forward or jump back?”

Nyk paced the bridge. “We have lives at stake...” he mused. “Technically, this is Floran soil. The Varadans can't demand we return any of the novonids ... even though they're Varadan subjects ... they'd need to extradite them and we have no extradition treaty ... on the other hand, Floran authorities might prefer to turn them over to avoid an interplanetary incident...” He looked at Zane. “Zane -- do you KNOW what went wrong?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I was following the wrong contour -- I entered the coordinates for this one...” He pointed. “...but the energy level for this one. We want to follow this contour...” He pointed again. “It will put us within two jumps of T-Delta ... one jump to within the comm net.”

“You're sure?”

“I've double-checked.”

“Well,” Andra asked, “what do we do?”

Nyk looked at Laida. “Please,” she pleaded, “not back to Varada.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law. We have the novonids in our possession. Let's keep it that way.” He turned to Laida and spoke to her in her tongue. “No, Laida -- we're not going back.” He faced Zane. “Jump forward.”

“Coil charging,” Zane said. “Coordinates set ... energy level entered ... on your command, captain.”

“Do it.”

The flash shields closed and the indicators flashed. The discharge shook the ship. Nyk pressed the control to open the flash shields and grabbed the unistick to control the spin. He saw a white indicator flash on the pilot's display. “What's this?” he asked.

“Low power,” Zane replied. “We have enough reserve for one more jump.”

“We can't be out of fuel.”

“No -- but the main reactor went offline again. I know nothing of fusion reactors. I don't know how to restart it.”

“I doubt our engineer is trustworthy...” He looked at the chart.

“Here's our new location,” Zane said pointing. “If we follow this hyperspace contour, it takes us inside the comm net.”

“We have enough power for one more jump... Make it a good one, Zane.”

Zane's fingers flew across the navigation computer touch screen. He wiped perspiration from his brow. “Okay -- all set. I've tripled -- quadruple checked the figures. This jump will do it.”

“It had better do it,” Nyk replied. “Trigger it.”

The ship shuddered from the jump. The white indicator on the console flashed to red. “No more power,” Nyk said. “We couldn't have jumped back to Varada if we wanted to.” He took his handheld from his sash. “Comm net uplink -- we have signal lock.”

“I'll send a distress call,” Zane said.

“No -- Let me contact Kronta first. Then, we can make a distress call and send transponder coordinates.”

“...this is unbelievable,” Kronta said. “What is the status of ship and crew?”

“Our fusion reactor is off line, but we have adequate auxiliary power for communications and life support. We know our position and we are within the Floran comm net -- obviously, or you and I wouldn't be having this delightful conversation. Captain Hayt is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Yes -- one of the novonid men broke his neck in an altercation. It wasn't intentional. I have the body in stasis.”

Kronta rolled his eyes. “And, the rest of the crew?”

“Our astral navigator suffered a head injury and I put him into stasis, also. The rest of the crew is confined to one of the settlers' barracks.”

“I'm dispatching a deep-space shuttle with a salvage crew. They will have explicit orders that they are under my and only my command, and they'll bring the 501 back to Floran. We'll start sorting out the mess after that.”

Nyk stepped to the bridge. “I have the communication parameters for the transponder,” he said. “Transmit it on these and only these channels. They're encoded for ExoService headquarters use only.”

Zane nodded.

“We don't need any help from Gamma-5. Keep transmitting until we get a reply.”

“Yes, sir..”

Nyk strolled back to his cabin. Andra joined him. “I think we really are in trouble now,” he said. “Seymor's right -- I do have an unfortunate tendency to let my emotions cloud my reason.” He shook his head. “We should've let the crew take