Nathan Hystad - The Survivors - Books 1-3

“That slows us down a bit, since we were aiming to cut her off on her trajectory. Looks like we can get to that spot in an hour.”

“At least we have time to eat,” Nick said, nearly getting a smile from Clare.

T he wormhole was hard to spot again, but there it was, a window into another galaxy.

“Sending in probes,” Clare said.

“I’m no scientist, but even a theoretical wormhole is near impossible to work, let alone stay open,” I said, baffled by the phenomena.

Clare turned while the probes shot back data. “You’re right. They need an outside force.”

I pondered that before standing up fast, nearly knocking my empty plate over. “Outside force like technology?”

She nodded, pursing her lips slightly. “Sure. If there was a way for them to keep the gateway open, that might make sense. Bear in mind, I have no real understanding of this other than the Hawking books I read in college.”

“Send more probes out. Look for any electrical or nuclear radiance that isn’t coming from us.”

We waited for the results to come back.

“Probe 9351 found something. Wait.” Clare was almost giddy with excitement. “9714 found the same results.”

“Take us to one, please,” I said, standing behind the helm’s console.

Slate zoomed on the coordinates, and we saw a hovering satellite. No doubt this was one of the things keeping the gateway open.

“Look, I find this fascinating too, but every second we stay here looking at this piece of alien metal, Mae is getting closer to her target,” Slate said, clearly agitated.

“Just record their emittance frequency, and let’s get out of here.” I had a plan for when we passed back through the fold in space. If we came back.

Soon we were hovering in front of the wormhole. I was holding the device with Bhlat DNA affixed to its sensors. Just holding it was making me feel better about going into the mouth of the beast.

“Everyone strapped in this time?” Mary asked from her seat.

“Affirmative,” Slate said after a quick scan of the bridge.

“Three… two… one.” Clare eased the ship into the opening, and it felt like we entered the gates of hell. The ship lurched back and forth, like a boat in a tumultuous storm on the sea. The inertial dampeners, already patched up after our last venture, kicked in and out, and it felt like my head was going to rip clean off my shoulders. As badly as I felt, I worried for Mary as we tossed about, but just as quickly as it started, it ended as we exited the other end.

“Are you all okay?” I asked, getting out of my seat to cross over to Mary.

Her eyes were closed, and blood ran from her lips. My hand ran to her face, and her eyes darted open. “It’s all right. It’s just me,” I said calmly.

Her fingers traced her mouth, coming away with her blood on the tips. “I’m fine. I bit my tongue.”

“Well, that was better than the first time,” Slate said, getting up too. The map had zoomed once again, and Clare left the bridge to check on the engineer room. “She’s not using her FTL yet. That could mean a couple of things. Either she’s having trouble with her ship or the target’s near.”

Slate looked every bit as imposing as I’d seen him before. If I didn’t know better, he was itching for a battle; a final showdown.

Clare’s voice came through the console speakers. “Everything checks out here. We should be good to go.”

Mary moved to the helm position, though I could see her wince in pain at doing so.

“She’s slowing down,” Mary said, pointing to the map. “We’ll be at her location in thirty minutes.”

“It’d be a lot faster if we just toss this baby into FTL for a minute,” I suggested, getting a smile in return from Slate.

“I like the cut of your jib, boss. I’ll suit up. Care to join me?” he asked, and I didn’t answer because he wouldn’t like to hear what I really thought. I just nodded sullenly, anxious for a resolution to this chase, but worried about what that outcome would look like.

I felt my pocket for the Deltra device and couldn’t find it. Panic coursed through my body until I found it on the ground across the bridge. It must have gone flying when we were jostled around in the wormhole.

I pressed the touchscreen, and yellow light glowed in a ring around it. Everything looked fine.

“Be careful,” Mary said.

I leaned over, giving her a deep kiss, long enough to make a sailor blush.

“I love you,” I said, hoping it wasn’t for the last time. She mouthed it back to me, a tear falling down her cheek.

Leaving that bridge was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do, and considering what I’d been through, that meant a lot.

“Nick, what are you waiting for? Suit up,” Slate said, causing the doctor’s mouth to fall open.

“What? Me? Out there?” Nick stammered.

“Why do you think I’ve been training you? So you can go home and win the Hill Valley state karate competition?” Slate asked.

“Oh crap, you’re serious,” Nick said.

“It’s time for the big leagues, my friend. Don’t worry; we just need you for backup. We still don’t know what we’re getting into,” Slate said, and I saw Nick’s tense look loosen up a little.

The corridor to the weapons room felt longer this trip.

“What do you think we’re going to find?” I asked Slate while Nick was busy getting his assigned suit on.

“She might be bringing us right into the hive of the enemy. Good thing you have that weapon,” he said, nodding his chin to the device in my hand.

As much as I wanted to protect Earth, I wasn’t sure genocide of a race was the answer this time.

“Of course, we’ll still need to eliminate Mae when it’s said and done,” Slate whispered in my ear.

I solemnly nodded, still not believing we had to kill my close friend. I felt so used by her.

“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll make the shot if that helps.”

It didn’t. “I’ll do what’s necessary.” The words came out, but I didn’t recall saying them.

We got suited up, leaving our helmets off, and lined them beside our weapons in the storage room next to the ropes and tethers. I pushed the pin on Nick’s collar just long enough to see him glow green as Slate held him.

“I’m not looking forward to this,” he said.

“Just press this, push yourself through on this bar” – I lowered the bar from the center of the room – “and don’t forget to strap in. You don’t want to end up floating around in space. We haven’t had a chance to train you on the suit’s propulsion system yet.”

This just made him pale more, if that was possible. A year ago, I would have looked just like him, but I’d been thrown into a desperate position with no other options.

“You guys have to see this.” Clare said through the speakers.

We crossed the ship and entered the bridge, amazed at what we were seeing.

“Our cloaking tech is functional, right?” I asked.

“They can’t see us,” Clare said.

The viewscreen showed us a planet in the distance, and one of the two stars in the system, on opposite corners of the planets, which made for a complicated orbit pattern and had to be hell on days and nights. Maybe whatever life was on them had adapted to that, if there was any life.

Before us was a satellite, a small moon for the closest planet, which reminded me of a sand-colored Mars. The viewscreen zoomed, and there was Mae’s ship, hovering near the moon.

“Look.” Mary zoomed closer and we saw a structure on the surface. It stretched out in an intricate system of halls leading to an assortment of outbuildings. There was obviously no atmosphere, and probably very little gravity, so they had a sealed colony.