The darkness lifted a little and in the haze Jimmy could hear a soft, soothing voice calling to him. His eyes wouldn’t open and his right arm lay limp at his side, cold as a chunk of ice. The cold spread up his arm like liquid fingers, inching toward his shoulder.
“Julz.” He heard himself say the name, but knew his lips hadn’t moved.
“I’m here.” She was close, her voice, strong and calm, brought light to the darkness fogging his mind.
“Where?”
A sudden warmth burned through his veins, starting at his right hand and chasing the cold still spreading up his arm. Her fingers slipped perfectly between his. Her skin was cool, soft, not at all what he expected. Suddenly Jimmy’s mind was racing with images of the time he’d spent on Terra, as a Select in the Millennium Program…
For the first few years, Jimmy lived in the compound with Hima and their eight bunkmates. The coursework was rigorous, the instructors were worse. Failing wasn’t an option unless you enjoyed punishment, and the punishments were harsh. Ground into them by their instructors, the Order became their life. At night, when Jimmy lay sleepless in bed, the Order disappeared, replaced by visions of home, his family, and his friends. He missed home.
Space, that final frontier he’d always dreamed about exploring was nothing like he imagined. But, and despite the reality he lived every day, his dream still lived. Perhaps even more so now that so many of his questions about space were being answered. Were there other planets, other solar systems and galaxies like his? Was there life on those planets? Was there a better, faster way to travel through the vastness of the Big Unknown?
Yes. Yes. And, oh my, yes! The answer to those questions stunned Jimmy, initially, and when the shock wore off, that same, stomach tightening excitement, that mind-consuming need to explore was still there, eagerly awaiting its opportunity for fulfillment.
And then there was Julz. Julz-Rok…
Jimmy was in his second year of the program and just starting a rigorous course of defensive tactics when he met Julz. She played an enemy in the role-play tactics tests. Julz was brutal, on everyone, powerful, cunning, and fast. Then they’d met. It was a fight talked about by everyone in the program.
“Hey, you in there, bonecrusher?”
He heard her voice again, and it ripped him from the whirlwind of memories her touch had sent him into.
“I’m here.” There was something unnatural about the way this kind of communication felt.
“Well, good, but I need you here. Can you manage that?” Concern, genuine concern flecked her usually casual tone. Something was wrong.
The cold crept slowly back into his arm, the leaden weight feeling even worse than before. “What’s wrong?”
Silence was the answer to his question. He concentrated, reached out with his mind, trying to get to Julz, to see what she was seeing, but he couldn’t find her, and then suddenly he was out of his body. A fleshless soul standing at the side of the med-unit his body was plugged into. Julz was at the control panel for the unit, punching keys as fast as her fingers could move. The life support systems seemed to be failing. Jimmy looked at his body. He looked at peace, restful, uninjured.
Suddenly Julz was screaming into the com-link. “I don’t know what’s wrong!! His vitals are all over the place!!”
“Julz.” Jimmy tried calling out to her. She paused, turning slowly around and staring at the spot where his soul stood watching her. He smiled. Even agitated as she was, rocked with fear and worry, she was beautiful.
“James?”
“I’m right here.” And suddenly he was back in his body, eyes fluttering open, and turning his head slowly to look for Julz. “Hey, everything alright?”
Julz turned, first to him, eyes wide, then to the control panel. Ya, everything was great. “I just had the strangest…” Jimmy smiled as his eyes slipped closed once again. “James? James.”
Jimmy sat up, pulling the warmer blanket around him as he did it. “We need to get to the control center, bad guys are coming.”
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Chapter Seven
Med-units scurried across the hangar floor, treating the nano-tech troopers pummeled by Hima, Mul-Rok, and Julz, and then mentally disarmed and immobilized by Jimmy. Amidst the first-aid chaos stood a man draped in heavy red robes, hemmed in gold and that sapphire blue like the blood inking every Terraling’s veins. The man’s face hid in shadow under the heavy hood drawn up over his head.
"Your orders, Master?”
Terraling Master Du-Voz turned to look at the Graumaling Select standing off to his right, the Select careful not to obstruct his Master's view of the empty hangar. The Graumaling was a fierce looking sinewy humanoid with agate colored skin. Thick tufts of quill-like black hair sprouted from his shoulders like patches of grass and ran down the center of his back and the backs of his arms.
“We’re going to Earth, Pausha. Get my cruiser ready while I address The Brethren about my concerns.”
A grin broke across Pausha’s face. “As you wish, Master.”
"Your orders, Master?”
Terraling Master Du-Voz turned to look at the Graumaling Select standing off to his right, the Select careful not to obstruct his Master's view of the empty hangar. The Graumaling was a fierce looking sinewy humanoid with agate colored skin. Thick tufts of quill-like black hair sprouted from his shoulders like patches of grass and ran down the center of his back and the backs of his arms.
“We’re going to Earth, Pausha. Get my cruiser ready while I address The Brethren about my concerns.”
A grin broke across Pausha’s face. “As you wish, Master.”
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Chapter Six
“STOP!”
The word sprang from Jimmy’s lips with such force, his vision blurred and his head swam. The ringing in his head brought his hands instinctively to his ears, covering them and pressing in as if his head might explode. The last thing Jimmy remembered was the cool stone of the hangar floor on the skin of his face and Julz calling his name.
What Jimmy never saw was the effect his single word had had on the situation. The blaster rifles carried by the nano-tech troopers burst into a dozen pieces, the energy chambers exploding in perfectly contained balls of red flame. The troopers themselves found themselves suddenly pinned to the hangar walls, unable to move, unable to continue the fight as their armor fell to the floor in pieces underneath them.
Julz and Hima retreated to where Jimmy had collapsed to the floor. Mul-Rok was not far behind them. Hima scooped Jimmy up off the floor, casting a wary eye toward the pinned down troopers.
“He’ll hold them there until we’re safely away. Get him on-board, Hima, into the med-unit, now.” Julz started to follow Hima onto the ship, but Mul-Rok stopped her. “Help me finish. It will do none of us any good to leave unprepared.” Julz hesitated, her desire to tend to Jimmy painfully obvious on her face. “There is nothing you can do for him, Julz.”
She turned to her father, “I can be the first thing he sees when his eyes open again.”
“If we don’t leave this place now, he will never open his eyes again.”
Julz knew her father, knew his love for their world, their way of life. Something had changed him. Something awful forced him to forsake all he had ever known. She could see the anguish in his eyes, but knew the resolve she heard in his voice. Mul-Rok believed this was the only chance any of them had at survival. She couldn’t see deep enough into his thoughts to understand the danger he sensed or see what it was they needed to survive, but her father’s heart and mind were true. She had no choice but to follow his lead.
Without another lost second, fuel cells slammed home while crates and provisions found their way into cargo holds along the underside of the vessel. Julz worked quick, finishing the work the four of them had been doing before the troopers arrived in minutes, and without ever moving from where Jimmy had fallen to the floor. When she’d finished, Julz followed her father onto the ship, the hatch lifting from the hangar floor and sealing itself seamlessly into the ship’s exterior.
Mul-Rok tapped the com-link on his wrist as he strode through the ship’s corridors toward the command center. “Hima.”
“Ay, captain, still getting our boy strapped into your wee incubators, sir. Gonna need a few more minutes here.” Came the Nevarian’s reply in the best impression of Star Trek’s Scotty he could muster.
“Julz is on her way. I need you in the command center before I get there.”
“On my way, Captain.” The alien had a gift for Earth-based dialects. It was uncanny. Hima spent hours in the Terraling’s vast multi-media library of information learning everything he could about American Pop Culture, especially when it came to science fiction. Hima found Earth’s idea of alien life amusing.
Hima sat patiently at the helm when Mul-Rok entered the command center, his massive hands dancing across the control panel in front of him with practiced confidence.
“How come we’re still on this planet, Hima?”
“Thought ya might like to sit down first, Captain, this ain’t gonna be no pleasure cruise.”
Mul-Rok found his chair and sat. “Hima, you’re the last of the Nevarrian Royal Family. Earth slang does not become you.”
“You liked the Scotty impression better, I get it.” Hima stroked the throttle keys and the cruiser shot into the moisture rich, night sky of the planet Terra. Within seconds the cruiser cleared the planet’s atmosphere and raced into space.
The word sprang from Jimmy’s lips with such force, his vision blurred and his head swam. The ringing in his head brought his hands instinctively to his ears, covering them and pressing in as if his head might explode. The last thing Jimmy remembered was the cool stone of the hangar floor on the skin of his face and Julz calling his name.
What Jimmy never saw was the effect his single word had had on the situation. The blaster rifles carried by the nano-tech troopers burst into a dozen pieces, the energy chambers exploding in perfectly contained balls of red flame. The troopers themselves found themselves suddenly pinned to the hangar walls, unable to move, unable to continue the fight as their armor fell to the floor in pieces underneath them.
Julz and Hima retreated to where Jimmy had collapsed to the floor. Mul-Rok was not far behind them. Hima scooped Jimmy up off the floor, casting a wary eye toward the pinned down troopers.
“He’ll hold them there until we’re safely away. Get him on-board, Hima, into the med-unit, now.” Julz started to follow Hima onto the ship, but Mul-Rok stopped her. “Help me finish. It will do none of us any good to leave unprepared.” Julz hesitated, her desire to tend to Jimmy painfully obvious on her face. “There is nothing you can do for him, Julz.”
She turned to her father, “I can be the first thing he sees when his eyes open again.”
“If we don’t leave this place now, he will never open his eyes again.”
Julz knew her father, knew his love for their world, their way of life. Something had changed him. Something awful forced him to forsake all he had ever known. She could see the anguish in his eyes, but knew the resolve she heard in his voice. Mul-Rok believed this was the only chance any of them had at survival. She couldn’t see deep enough into his thoughts to understand the danger he sensed or see what it was they needed to survive, but her father’s heart and mind were true. She had no choice but to follow his lead.
Without another lost second, fuel cells slammed home while crates and provisions found their way into cargo holds along the underside of the vessel. Julz worked quick, finishing the work the four of them had been doing before the troopers arrived in minutes, and without ever moving from where Jimmy had fallen to the floor. When she’d finished, Julz followed her father onto the ship, the hatch lifting from the hangar floor and sealing itself seamlessly into the ship’s exterior.
Mul-Rok tapped the com-link on his wrist as he strode through the ship’s corridors toward the command center. “Hima.”
“Ay, captain, still getting our boy strapped into your wee incubators, sir. Gonna need a few more minutes here.” Came the Nevarian’s reply in the best impression of Star Trek’s Scotty he could muster.
“Julz is on her way. I need you in the command center before I get there.”
“On my way, Captain.” The alien had a gift for Earth-based dialects. It was uncanny. Hima spent hours in the Terraling’s vast multi-media library of information learning everything he could about American Pop Culture, especially when it came to science fiction. Hima found Earth’s idea of alien life amusing.
Hima sat patiently at the helm when Mul-Rok entered the command center, his massive hands dancing across the control panel in front of him with practiced confidence.
“How come we’re still on this planet, Hima?”
“Thought ya might like to sit down first, Captain, this ain’t gonna be no pleasure cruise.”
Mul-Rok found his chair and sat. “Hima, you’re the last of the Nevarrian Royal Family. Earth slang does not become you.”
“You liked the Scotty impression better, I get it.” Hima stroked the throttle keys and the cruiser shot into the moisture rich, night sky of the planet Terra. Within seconds the cruiser cleared the planet’s atmosphere and raced into space.
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