Nee
I am a writer and artist; landscaper and community events coordinator.
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I was across the cabin and climbing down into my chair by the time the door crimped shut behind me—I had leapt through even before it had the time to dilate fully.
“Ah…Lady Beatrix. You are six seconds late.”
... more »
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I was across the cabin and climbing down into my chair by the time the door crimped shut behind me—I had leapt through even before it had the time to dilate fully.
“Ah…Lady Beatrix. You are six seconds late.”
... more »
I am a writer and artist; landscaper and community events coordinator.
.....................................
I was across the cabin and climbing down into my chair by the time the door crimped shut behind me—I had leapt through even before it had the time to dilate fully.
“Ah…Lady Beatrix. You are six seconds late.”
“In a pig’s eye I am…!” I said as I snapped myself into the pilot’s seat, “Four seconds early by my reckoning.” The chair slid forward into my preferred launch position. “Oh and Ergo…? Didn’t we agree that you would be calling me Bee?
Console lights winked and airlocks wheeze.
“Um, yes Miss. Bee—launch in eight seconds.”
“Ergo Straggler…I believe you may be hopeless.”
“Yes ma’am, that’s because I am merely a machine.”
“Well, we’re in luck then, for we are going to need a little of that mechanical exactitude to get clear this time. It seems I’ve been a bad girl I’m afraid Ergo—a very bad girl indeed.
“Oh boy…! I love it when you are bad.”
“You might.” I said, watching myself slowly sink into a quagmire of doubt and self-loathing that I know so well. Yet, was startled back into my chair almost immediately however, when Ergo blew the bolts holding us to the Liberty Spirit Station’s loading dock: freeing us to now list ever so slightly toward the left.
“ILLEGAL LAUNCH!” Bleated the port authority as a couple of overly excited dock-hands, wearing the latest in fully maneuverable habitat-suits, flitted passed our view screen in their frantic effort to get clear from our line of fire.
Red lights whirled their warning throughout the massive open bay as Ergo ticked down “Four…Three…” as I made a note to myself to include the small spot of blood on my sleeve, in the growing list of ‘Things I Hate About Killing People’.
“ILLEGAL LAUNCH!” the port authority protested again.
“Why yes it is…!” Ergo chimed back at um, “Two, and…” There was a tremendous roar, and the car shuttered violently.
And then we were wrapped in a blanket made of stars.
One second we were sheltered deep within Liberty Spirit’s vast loading bay: with all its lights and ant-farm activity. And the next, we were shooting through an infinite void with a mule sitting on my chest and a dead man on my conscience.
It happened so fast that if you blinked, you’d have missed it.
Well…I had anyway.
“Thirty kilometers and accelerating.” Ergo proclaim as if winning a hand of gin.
“Yes…well played. But…we got any Hornet interceptors flying up our skirt yet?”
“Nah, it’s clear…you worry to much—oh wait.”
Here they come I thought.
“Yeah, here they come. And they look a rather angry Miss. Bee.”
“Thought they’d be.” I sighed from under my mule.
“So…tell me, Miss Bee…exactly how many of the, um…Esteemed Electorate, was it necessary to, um…veto?”
“Oh…just the one.” I said, biting my lip.
“Just—huh…? ”
“Just…just the Chief Constituent.”
“Ah.” Ergo paused as the blood slowly pooled in my lower extremities. “That would do it.”
I feel a need to explain bit here. I hardly ever kill people, and never at all, if I can find any possible way around it. But if anybody ever needed a bit killing to improve his disposition, it was this guy. Not only did the man possess the manners of the average unwashed Hun on holiday. But after dinner—some kind of synthesized pork roast smothered in this god-awful watery stuff that he called gravy; and I am fully cognizant that the lumpy white things were supposed to be potatoes, but still, it probably would’ve been better if someone had told them that—anyway…after dinner, I also had to endure nearly a half-hour of the old fart’s pawing (right…like he’d get any) before I realized that, yes indeed, the surest path to obtaining my goal was in fact, through him.
My mission was to penetrate Liberty Spirit Station (timeline four) and liberate a small cube from the possession of his high Supremacy: the Chief Constituent, himself.
Yes, I am talking of course, ‘bout the revered leader of the 3003 revolution that set the good people of Liberty Spirit Station free. Or, it should perhaps be better said, the revolt that freed the good people of Liberty Spirit Station to serve a whole new set of masters. Yes, it’s true slightly less tyrannical masters than the previous one’s, but still, masters all the same.
Liberty Spirit Station: is a chemical refinery, pharmaceutical development facility, and banking platform in geo-synchronous orbit around Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
Her sister station, Freedom Spirit, was currently parked out between the orbit of Pluto round Charon: where it too was engaged in similar enterprises.
Or, is that Charon round Pluto? —Whichever.
Realizing I still carried the black cube in my jumper pocket, I pulled it out—winced slightly at the tacky feel of the coagulating blood covering it. I leaned forward against the G-force and dropped the ghastly thing into a locking drawer on the side of the console.
Why the San-hill had the dolt thought it necessary to have the silly thing surgically implanted to where his gallbladder used to be I’ll never know—a damn inconvenience that.
“Eighty kilometers and—oh, what’s the use.” Ergo said dejectedly, as he cut off the boosters: thereby plunging us into weightlessness.
“What th—” I tried but Ergo pushed passed me.
“We can’t out run the Hornets. They are just too fast…and my jump calculations will not be complete before they can bring their photon canons to bear on us.”
“But…why can’t we just jump…?”
“Miss Bee, we are not merely jumping from one particular time and space to another time and space. No…we are jumping from one particular time and space to another particular time and space that happens to be in another universe entirely…So, I really want to be sure about my mathematics.”
“Oh sure…throw math in my face.”
“Shh! Miss Bee, I need to think a little.”
Had I just been shushed by a machine?
I began to protest this obvious breach of human vs. machine protocol, but Ergo let out a loud and rather maniacal, “Ah-ha…!” Which was a little startling. But when he flipped the car round front to back, well…that was a bit alarming frankly.
It wasn’t the sudden shift of perspective however, that concerned me: for we still were darting through space at tremendous speed, it was just now we were doing so facing back the way we had come. No…it wasn’t that. It was sudden blindness that had me concerned: for Ergo, had spun us around to stare directly into Saturn’s intensely brilliant face.
Fortunately for me, our angle of view was nearly edge on to the rings. Otherwise, blindness may have been something a little more than just a concern. The rings of Saturn are almost entirely made up of ice and so are close to being totally reflective: to stare directly at them would be nearly as bad as looking straight into the unfiltered light of the sun.
“This is going to really mess them up.” Ergo said, as would an over excited ten-year-old mad scientist.
I hit the visor and squinted into the overwhelming brightness.
Again, I was about to confront him about his intentions, when all a sudden that absurd sensation came over me: like being pulled by your abdomen through a tunnel crisscrossed with frigid cobwebs. Then following immediately after by a jarring shock, like when you expect the next step down would be just bit higher than it actually turns out to be. “Ergo…did we just jump?”
“Yes ma’am. Just a wink—to shrug our momentum.”
“What…? So you’re saying we are dead in the water?”
“That’s right…zero momentum—this will just kill um!”
“Are you insane—!” but for the third time, I came up short: for at that exact moment Ergo detonated the engines, and we shot straight toward the oncoming Hornet storm: where, I was reacquainting with the large hindquarters of that damn mule once again.
Ergo giggled excitedly, “This is gonna be fun!”
“You are going to get us killed…!” I brayed.
“Nah…I’ve got it figured, Miss. Bee.”
Okay—I would like to know—who in the hell thought it would be a such a great idea to build computers with such massive computative capabilities that they would, merely by being left on, would achieve levels of complexity so expansive, that they would spontaneously slip into complete self-awareness? I’d really like to know.
“PRIVAT TRASPORT VESSEL ‘ERGO STRAGGLER’…HEAVE TO, AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.” Cracked a hostile a voice through the open com speakers.
It was the Hornet interceptors. I could see them now, nearly two dozen dots packed into a tight attack formation: still pretty far off but coming up fast.
“REPEAT…PERSONNEL, AND OR PASSENGERS OF THE PRIVAT TRANSPORT, ‘ERGO STRAGGLER’… YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.
“Ergo, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“You don’t even know what I am going to do.”
“Exactly.” I said, with a false calm, “So, stop it!”
“POWER DOWN…‘ERGO STRAGGLER’, OR DIE.” Warned the Hornet pack commander.
“NUTS…!” Proffered Ergo right back at him.
Confused, the Chief had a brief off mike conversation, “What did he say?” Some mumbles and static came over the com, “You mean, Cashews, or Almonds, or Filberts perhaps?
Ergo’s speakers sputtered and wheezed.
(I began to feel a little sick).
“See here now ‘Ergo Straggler,” said the Hornet Chief, “we will be on you in moments and if you think—” again with the mumbles and static. “Oh, that’s just preposterous!” Even more static and mumbling yet rather insistently now. “Why would they do—” seems the chief needed a little convincing apparently.
Ergo made a one last adjustments to our trajectory: aiming us straight down the center of the oncoming Hornets.
A throat cleared. “Umm…Ergo Straggler. What do you think you are trying to accomplish by performing a stunt like—”
“BONSAI…!” roared Ergo eagerly into pitch.
“Sweet Sister!” the chief cried. “Bug out everybody…!”
I close my eyes in terror, but stared though my fingers anyway.
Fortunately, the Hornet’s did manage to avoid disaster…or nearly all. Two however, mixed up their left with their right, and attempted to occupy the same place at the same time, thereby careening off one another to spin through space with damaged stabilizer rockets.
While, another crew even lost their heads completely and in their panic, hit the ejection button; instantly jettisoning their control module—providing ample time to reflect upon their recent life choices as they drifted stupidly through the void awaiting pickup.
The Hornets bringing up the rear, had plenty of time to react, so were well into their long turn around by the time we shot through their now Hornet free space. And since it takes an enormous hunk of space to turn around a spaceship firing at full throttle, they were no trouble at all really.
“Told you that would work.” Ergo said.
Self-aware machines…there’s a good idea!
* * *
Presently, I had nearly recovered my breath by the time Liberty Spirit Station rushed underneath us in a blur. Although I am quite sure, at lower speeds, you could see many of the station’s more interesting features in greater detail. But as it was, it looked more like some kind of giant extinct sea creature than a six-kilometer long home for nearly a million souls. But it was not in such a blur that I overlooked the twenty or so Hornets shooting out the far end; who were already at full throttle even before we had passed half the station’s length.
“Ergo…get us out of here…!”
“I see them Miss. Bee, getting out!”
Several photon bolts scorch passed the port view screen as Ergo hit the booster’s: leaving me to blink away the bright blue/white streaks from my retinas, “That was too close…!” I hollered, watching the staticy projectiles recede angrily into deep space—with their many discharges waving about like frustrated arms.
“Just a few wild shots as we passed, hoping to get lucky.”
“Wild shots…? All my hair is pointing to the right!”
“Okay…seems they weren’t entirely unlucky.”
“This whole ‘luck’ concept hasn’t completely sunk in yet has it?”
Ignoring me, Ergo tacked the car toward the huge smog-ball of Titan, “We’ll be in their range in a few minutes…” He said “And we will need a little extra speed.”
My insides turned cold, “What are you—”
“Don’t you worry, Miss Bee…I have a plan.”
“Just now…not too confident about your plans.”
“What…? The last one worked…didn’t it, Miss Bee?”
“If the aim was to get me to wet myself…then, not quite.”
“But this one is much more conventional than the last idea.”
“I don’t know, I’ve seen some pretty wild conventions.” I said as Ergo brought Titan directly in front us.
Titan is an very odd moon: with its dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere and its jagged mountains of water—grown harder than any earth rock ever have from billions of years exposure to its bitter cold and that unusual hydrocarbon rain.
Yet with all its differences however, it’s still more like the Earth than Mars or Venus. Curiously, there are just about one hundred thousand methane lakes lying hidden under all that orange smog. And of course, it was these, and the organic molecules and essential amino-acids, that has made Titan a gold mine for the plastics, bio-chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. Still, I always felt there was something odd about Titan.
It’s just too damn big for one thing. Roughly a third the size of the earth: and a fairly massive gravity well to boot—then it hit me.
“Oh no you don’t…Ergo!”
“Miss. Bee…gravity assists are perfectly safe…and fun too!”
“Oh yes, great fun. But if you get just one tiniest decimal off, well then, you’ll burn up in the upper atmosphere!”
“We’re not going to burn up in the atmosphere…!” Ergo said, and sent cartoon rolly-eyes across the view screens.
“ERGO STRAGGLER.” A cold voice shouldered into the cabin “PREPARE TO DIE.” The threat was somewhat diminished however by the unfortunate lisp of the commander.
Ergo shot back instantly. “What…at this distance?”
A crinkling shot through our speakers, as an enraged cluster of photon bolts sizzling by the portside view screen…again. Although this time, close enough to blister the view screen, as numerable static discharges arced wildly about the cabin.
“Yeah…” the cold voice said, “At this distance.”
“Whoa! We’re within range!”
“Hold on…!” Ergo cried, firing retro’s and deftly maneuvering us back and forth—narrowly avoiding another hand full of manmade balls of lightning.
As we dove straight toward the gigantic orange fuzz ball with boosters firing, and my fingers digging deep into the aim rests of my chair, Ergo began counting backwards from ten.
The car began to vibrate as my gorge began to rise.
When he reached the count of three, Ergo ceased the engine burn and rolled us over on our belly to skim across the pressure envelope somewhere between Titan’s stratosphere and magnetosphere.
Fun he says…not what I considered fun.
Ergo fired off two quick blasts: bringing up our nose into a high attitude. Then he started his count back down from ten again.
It felt as though we would be shaken apart. Funny but I had always believed, before now anyway, that our car was solid enough; and always felt confident within its stalwart construction. Yet, with the shaking doubling in intensity with every increase in speed, I did not feel so confident anymore.
Well, you try watching all the screws in the cabin being slowly shaken from their holes and see how secure you feel. Besides, by this point my kidneys were taking quite pounding.
“I’m not enjoying this, Ergo…!” I hollered over the rattle, after rounding nearly one third of that smog shrouded orb. At this point, an elephant walked up and traded places with that damn mule.
“The fun starts in a few second Miss. Bee!”
Never trust a machine’s estimate of when the fun begins.
For example, every idiot light in front of me was either lit-up or blinking. Our belly was approaching dangerous over heating levels and a ‘Reckless Reentry’ warning scrolled across the data terminal in large excited letters.
“Reaching Periapsis…” shouted Ergo over the oscillating whine of the main engines cycling up, “In, Three…Two—”
It was here, I believe, that I invited Ergo, to perform an act that he was wholly incapable of performing—even if he did possess a body.
“One…!” The igniting engines brought a momentary respite of the god-awful shaking. But only a moment, for at his next shout of “Periapsis!” The shaking rebounded three-fold.
As we began the hard pull out from Titan’s gravity well, I felt like thinly spread liverwurst on over-crispy toast.
The siphoning off of a little of Titan’s kinetic energy did indeed give us a boost of speed, but unfortunately for me however, it also brought another elephant to climb atop the shoulders of the first.
My lips were numbing rapidly and everything sounded as if I was in a tunnel. I could hear Ergo hollering excitedly as the walls encircling me began to collapse even as we shot away from Titan like a stone from wrist-rocket.
As I lost all feeling in my face, but just before blacking completely out, I heard “Jump in Three…Two—” but then darkness welcomed me as one of its very own.
* * *
I woke to sun light streaming through Sugar Pines and Douglas furs: I numbly watched as they and the rocky ridge they clung upon slid slowly passed the port side view screen.
I could see the cool blue of the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the far horizon and beyond—out bluing the flawless sky above.
Slowly things began to fall into place.
Then it all came together in a single snap.
My head jerked up, “Wha—” Eyes inquiring.
“You passed out just before we made our jump.” Ergo said. “We came in off Point Conception: Earth Timeline Two: along the Central Californian Coast. I figured you would like a quick wash and change before meeting your Father. So, I brought us in for a nice leisurely glide along the San Rafael Mountains to allow you the time.”
“What are you talking about…?”
“You peed your pants.”
“I hate you.”
“Yes Ma’am.” « less
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I was across the cabin and climbing down into my chair by the time the door crimped shut behind me—I had leapt through even before it had the time to dilate fully.
“Ah…Lady Beatrix. You are six seconds late.”
“In a pig’s eye I am…!” I said as I snapped myself into the pilot’s seat, “Four seconds early by my reckoning.” The chair slid forward into my preferred launch position. “Oh and Ergo…? Didn’t we agree that you would be calling me Bee?
Console lights winked and airlocks wheeze.
“Um, yes Miss. Bee—launch in eight seconds.”
“Ergo Straggler…I believe you may be hopeless.”
“Yes ma’am, that’s because I am merely a machine.”
“Well, we’re in luck then, for we are going to need a little of that mechanical exactitude to get clear this time. It seems I’ve been a bad girl I’m afraid Ergo—a very bad girl indeed.
“Oh boy…! I love it when you are bad.”
“You might.” I said, watching myself slowly sink into a quagmire of doubt and self-loathing that I know so well. Yet, was startled back into my chair almost immediately however, when Ergo blew the bolts holding us to the Liberty Spirit Station’s loading dock: freeing us to now list ever so slightly toward the left.
“ILLEGAL LAUNCH!” Bleated the port authority as a couple of overly excited dock-hands, wearing the latest in fully maneuverable habitat-suits, flitted passed our view screen in their frantic effort to get clear from our line of fire.
Red lights whirled their warning throughout the massive open bay as Ergo ticked down “Four…Three…” as I made a note to myself to include the small spot of blood on my sleeve, in the growing list of ‘Things I Hate About Killing People’.
“ILLEGAL LAUNCH!” the port authority protested again.
“Why yes it is…!” Ergo chimed back at um, “Two, and…” There was a tremendous roar, and the car shuttered violently.
And then we were wrapped in a blanket made of stars.
One second we were sheltered deep within Liberty Spirit’s vast loading bay: with all its lights and ant-farm activity. And the next, we were shooting through an infinite void with a mule sitting on my chest and a dead man on my conscience.
It happened so fast that if you blinked, you’d have missed it.
Well…I had anyway.
“Thirty kilometers and accelerating.” Ergo proclaim as if winning a hand of gin.
“Yes…well played. But…we got any Hornet interceptors flying up our skirt yet?”
“Nah, it’s clear…you worry to much—oh wait.”
Here they come I thought.
“Yeah, here they come. And they look a rather angry Miss. Bee.”
“Thought they’d be.” I sighed from under my mule.
“So…tell me, Miss Bee…exactly how many of the, um…Esteemed Electorate, was it necessary to, um…veto?”
“Oh…just the one.” I said, biting my lip.
“Just—huh…? ”
“Just…just the Chief Constituent.”
“Ah.” Ergo paused as the blood slowly pooled in my lower extremities. “That would do it.”
I feel a need to explain bit here. I hardly ever kill people, and never at all, if I can find any possible way around it. But if anybody ever needed a bit killing to improve his disposition, it was this guy. Not only did the man possess the manners of the average unwashed Hun on holiday. But after dinner—some kind of synthesized pork roast smothered in this god-awful watery stuff that he called gravy; and I am fully cognizant that the lumpy white things were supposed to be potatoes, but still, it probably would’ve been better if someone had told them that—anyway…after dinner, I also had to endure nearly a half-hour of the old fart’s pawing (right…like he’d get any) before I realized that, yes indeed, the surest path to obtaining my goal was in fact, through him.
My mission was to penetrate Liberty Spirit Station (timeline four) and liberate a small cube from the possession of his high Supremacy: the Chief Constituent, himself.
Yes, I am talking of course, ‘bout the revered leader of the 3003 revolution that set the good people of Liberty Spirit Station free. Or, it should perhaps be better said, the revolt that freed the good people of Liberty Spirit Station to serve a whole new set of masters. Yes, it’s true slightly less tyrannical masters than the previous one’s, but still, masters all the same.
Liberty Spirit Station: is a chemical refinery, pharmaceutical development facility, and banking platform in geo-synchronous orbit around Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.
Her sister station, Freedom Spirit, was currently parked out between the orbit of Pluto round Charon: where it too was engaged in similar enterprises.
Or, is that Charon round Pluto? —Whichever.
Realizing I still carried the black cube in my jumper pocket, I pulled it out—winced slightly at the tacky feel of the coagulating blood covering it. I leaned forward against the G-force and dropped the ghastly thing into a locking drawer on the side of the console.
Why the San-hill had the dolt thought it necessary to have the silly thing surgically implanted to where his gallbladder used to be I’ll never know—a damn inconvenience that.
“Eighty kilometers and—oh, what’s the use.” Ergo said dejectedly, as he cut off the boosters: thereby plunging us into weightlessness.
“What th—” I tried but Ergo pushed passed me.
“We can’t out run the Hornets. They are just too fast…and my jump calculations will not be complete before they can bring their photon canons to bear on us.”
“But…why can’t we just jump…?”
“Miss Bee, we are not merely jumping from one particular time and space to another time and space. No…we are jumping from one particular time and space to another particular time and space that happens to be in another universe entirely…So, I really want to be sure about my mathematics.”
“Oh sure…throw math in my face.”
“Shh! Miss Bee, I need to think a little.”
Had I just been shushed by a machine?
I began to protest this obvious breach of human vs. machine protocol, but Ergo let out a loud and rather maniacal, “Ah-ha…!” Which was a little startling. But when he flipped the car round front to back, well…that was a bit alarming frankly.
It wasn’t the sudden shift of perspective however, that concerned me: for we still were darting through space at tremendous speed, it was just now we were doing so facing back the way we had come. No…it wasn’t that. It was sudden blindness that had me concerned: for Ergo, had spun us around to stare directly into Saturn’s intensely brilliant face.
Fortunately for me, our angle of view was nearly edge on to the rings. Otherwise, blindness may have been something a little more than just a concern. The rings of Saturn are almost entirely made up of ice and so are close to being totally reflective: to stare directly at them would be nearly as bad as looking straight into the unfiltered light of the sun.
“This is going to really mess them up.” Ergo said, as would an over excited ten-year-old mad scientist.
I hit the visor and squinted into the overwhelming brightness.
Again, I was about to confront him about his intentions, when all a sudden that absurd sensation came over me: like being pulled by your abdomen through a tunnel crisscrossed with frigid cobwebs. Then following immediately after by a jarring shock, like when you expect the next step down would be just bit higher than it actually turns out to be. “Ergo…did we just jump?”
“Yes ma’am. Just a wink—to shrug our momentum.”
“What…? So you’re saying we are dead in the water?”
“That’s right…zero momentum—this will just kill um!”
“Are you insane—!” but for the third time, I came up short: for at that exact moment Ergo detonated the engines, and we shot straight toward the oncoming Hornet storm: where, I was reacquainting with the large hindquarters of that damn mule once again.
Ergo giggled excitedly, “This is gonna be fun!”
“You are going to get us killed…!” I brayed.
“Nah…I’ve got it figured, Miss. Bee.”
Okay—I would like to know—who in the hell thought it would be a such a great idea to build computers with such massive computative capabilities that they would, merely by being left on, would achieve levels of complexity so expansive, that they would spontaneously slip into complete self-awareness? I’d really like to know.
“PRIVAT TRASPORT VESSEL ‘ERGO STRAGGLER’…HEAVE TO, AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED.” Cracked a hostile a voice through the open com speakers.
It was the Hornet interceptors. I could see them now, nearly two dozen dots packed into a tight attack formation: still pretty far off but coming up fast.
“REPEAT…PERSONNEL, AND OR PASSENGERS OF THE PRIVAT TRANSPORT, ‘ERGO STRAGGLER’… YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.
“Ergo, I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“You don’t even know what I am going to do.”
“Exactly.” I said, with a false calm, “So, stop it!”
“POWER DOWN…‘ERGO STRAGGLER’, OR DIE.” Warned the Hornet pack commander.
“NUTS…!” Proffered Ergo right back at him.
Confused, the Chief had a brief off mike conversation, “What did he say?” Some mumbles and static came over the com, “You mean, Cashews, or Almonds, or Filberts perhaps?
Ergo’s speakers sputtered and wheezed.
(I began to feel a little sick).
“See here now ‘Ergo Straggler,” said the Hornet Chief, “we will be on you in moments and if you think—” again with the mumbles and static. “Oh, that’s just preposterous!” Even more static and mumbling yet rather insistently now. “Why would they do—” seems the chief needed a little convincing apparently.
Ergo made a one last adjustments to our trajectory: aiming us straight down the center of the oncoming Hornets.
A throat cleared. “Umm…Ergo Straggler. What do you think you are trying to accomplish by performing a stunt like—”
“BONSAI…!” roared Ergo eagerly into pitch.
“Sweet Sister!” the chief cried. “Bug out everybody…!”
I close my eyes in terror, but stared though my fingers anyway.
Fortunately, the Hornet’s did manage to avoid disaster…or nearly all. Two however, mixed up their left with their right, and attempted to occupy the same place at the same time, thereby careening off one another to spin through space with damaged stabilizer rockets.
While, another crew even lost their heads completely and in their panic, hit the ejection button; instantly jettisoning their control module—providing ample time to reflect upon their recent life choices as they drifted stupidly through the void awaiting pickup.
The Hornets bringing up the rear, had plenty of time to react, so were well into their long turn around by the time we shot through their now Hornet free space. And since it takes an enormous hunk of space to turn around a spaceship firing at full throttle, they were no trouble at all really.
“Told you that would work.” Ergo said.
Self-aware machines…there’s a good idea!
* * *
Presently, I had nearly recovered my breath by the time Liberty Spirit Station rushed underneath us in a blur. Although I am quite sure, at lower speeds, you could see many of the station’s more interesting features in greater detail. But as it was, it looked more like some kind of giant extinct sea creature than a six-kilometer long home for nearly a million souls. But it was not in such a blur that I overlooked the twenty or so Hornets shooting out the far end; who were already at full throttle even before we had passed half the station’s length.
“Ergo…get us out of here…!”
“I see them Miss. Bee, getting out!”
Several photon bolts scorch passed the port view screen as Ergo hit the booster’s: leaving me to blink away the bright blue/white streaks from my retinas, “That was too close…!” I hollered, watching the staticy projectiles recede angrily into deep space—with their many discharges waving about like frustrated arms.
“Just a few wild shots as we passed, hoping to get lucky.”
“Wild shots…? All my hair is pointing to the right!”
“Okay…seems they weren’t entirely unlucky.”
“This whole ‘luck’ concept hasn’t completely sunk in yet has it?”
Ignoring me, Ergo tacked the car toward the huge smog-ball of Titan, “We’ll be in their range in a few minutes…” He said “And we will need a little extra speed.”
My insides turned cold, “What are you—”
“Don’t you worry, Miss Bee…I have a plan.”
“Just now…not too confident about your plans.”
“What…? The last one worked…didn’t it, Miss Bee?”
“If the aim was to get me to wet myself…then, not quite.”
“But this one is much more conventional than the last idea.”
“I don’t know, I’ve seen some pretty wild conventions.” I said as Ergo brought Titan directly in front us.
Titan is an very odd moon: with its dense nitrogen-rich atmosphere and its jagged mountains of water—grown harder than any earth rock ever have from billions of years exposure to its bitter cold and that unusual hydrocarbon rain.
Yet with all its differences however, it’s still more like the Earth than Mars or Venus. Curiously, there are just about one hundred thousand methane lakes lying hidden under all that orange smog. And of course, it was these, and the organic molecules and essential amino-acids, that has made Titan a gold mine for the plastics, bio-chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. Still, I always felt there was something odd about Titan.
It’s just too damn big for one thing. Roughly a third the size of the earth: and a fairly massive gravity well to boot—then it hit me.
“Oh no you don’t…Ergo!”
“Miss. Bee…gravity assists are perfectly safe…and fun too!”
“Oh yes, great fun. But if you get just one tiniest decimal off, well then, you’ll burn up in the upper atmosphere!”
“We’re not going to burn up in the atmosphere…!” Ergo said, and sent cartoon rolly-eyes across the view screens.
“ERGO STRAGGLER.” A cold voice shouldered into the cabin “PREPARE TO DIE.” The threat was somewhat diminished however by the unfortunate lisp of the commander.
Ergo shot back instantly. “What…at this distance?”
A crinkling shot through our speakers, as an enraged cluster of photon bolts sizzling by the portside view screen…again. Although this time, close enough to blister the view screen, as numerable static discharges arced wildly about the cabin.
“Yeah…” the cold voice said, “At this distance.”
“Whoa! We’re within range!”
“Hold on…!” Ergo cried, firing retro’s and deftly maneuvering us back and forth—narrowly avoiding another hand full of manmade balls of lightning.
As we dove straight toward the gigantic orange fuzz ball with boosters firing, and my fingers digging deep into the aim rests of my chair, Ergo began counting backwards from ten.
The car began to vibrate as my gorge began to rise.
When he reached the count of three, Ergo ceased the engine burn and rolled us over on our belly to skim across the pressure envelope somewhere between Titan’s stratosphere and magnetosphere.
Fun he says…not what I considered fun.
Ergo fired off two quick blasts: bringing up our nose into a high attitude. Then he started his count back down from ten again.
It felt as though we would be shaken apart. Funny but I had always believed, before now anyway, that our car was solid enough; and always felt confident within its stalwart construction. Yet, with the shaking doubling in intensity with every increase in speed, I did not feel so confident anymore.
Well, you try watching all the screws in the cabin being slowly shaken from their holes and see how secure you feel. Besides, by this point my kidneys were taking quite pounding.
“I’m not enjoying this, Ergo…!” I hollered over the rattle, after rounding nearly one third of that smog shrouded orb. At this point, an elephant walked up and traded places with that damn mule.
“The fun starts in a few second Miss. Bee!”
Never trust a machine’s estimate of when the fun begins.
For example, every idiot light in front of me was either lit-up or blinking. Our belly was approaching dangerous over heating levels and a ‘Reckless Reentry’ warning scrolled across the data terminal in large excited letters.
“Reaching Periapsis…” shouted Ergo over the oscillating whine of the main engines cycling up, “In, Three…Two—”
It was here, I believe, that I invited Ergo, to perform an act that he was wholly incapable of performing—even if he did possess a body.
“One…!” The igniting engines brought a momentary respite of the god-awful shaking. But only a moment, for at his next shout of “Periapsis!” The shaking rebounded three-fold.
As we began the hard pull out from Titan’s gravity well, I felt like thinly spread liverwurst on over-crispy toast.
The siphoning off of a little of Titan’s kinetic energy did indeed give us a boost of speed, but unfortunately for me however, it also brought another elephant to climb atop the shoulders of the first.
My lips were numbing rapidly and everything sounded as if I was in a tunnel. I could hear Ergo hollering excitedly as the walls encircling me began to collapse even as we shot away from Titan like a stone from wrist-rocket.
As I lost all feeling in my face, but just before blacking completely out, I heard “Jump in Three…Two—” but then darkness welcomed me as one of its very own.
* * *
I woke to sun light streaming through Sugar Pines and Douglas furs: I numbly watched as they and the rocky ridge they clung upon slid slowly passed the port side view screen.
I could see the cool blue of the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the far horizon and beyond—out bluing the flawless sky above.
Slowly things began to fall into place.
Then it all came together in a single snap.
My head jerked up, “Wha—” Eyes inquiring.
“You passed out just before we made our jump.” Ergo said. “We came in off Point Conception: Earth Timeline Two: along the Central Californian Coast. I figured you would like a quick wash and change before meeting your Father. So, I brought us in for a nice leisurely glide along the San Rafael Mountains to allow you the time.”
“What are you talking about…?”
“You peed your pants.”
“I hate you.”
“Yes Ma’am.” « less
- member since July 26 2009
