This week’s teaser begins another chapter of my novel, Outcasts of Gideon. For the four people thrown together on the Aion, their aging shuttle is too slow to enable an escape. Their only hope lies in interstellar travel. This can be done through what’s known as a McAfee tunnel or bubble, also referred to as “the empty.” I hope you enjoy it.
The Empty (Part 1)
Dawn watched as Dewey jumped to the top of the ladder leading to the pilot’s cabin. In his hand was the unfilled med kit. He smashed it against the hatch. It shattered in his hand, making very little noise. She wondered if that was what he wanted to happen. He turned, scanning the room. “What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Anythin’ to open this hatch.”
She supposed that was as good an approach as any. They had to get to Bobby somehow, maybe before he engaged the ship’s main engines. She tested her footing. As she stood, her head swam. It was the movement up. She hadn’t left Pyro since landing here months earlier. The thrust didn’t affect her, but it felt like the ship was wobbling. She sat back down.
Her mind jumped to dispatch. The shuttle had departed without warning. Was anyone hurt? Should she notify anyone? She wondered if they were prepared for vacuum. On her feet again, she worked her way toward the entry corridor.
She hadn't made a single step into the corridor before she found her fears confirmed. The main hatch was still wide open. Cool air rushed in. Clouds fell away, marking their rapid ascent in sharp visual detail.
She imagined several people preparing the ship at the time it departed. Had they held on? Had they fallen? She stuck her head out of the open hatch. No one was hanging there. Pulling her head in, she activated the controls. The hatch closed. Quiet stillness replaced the unsettled air. The sound of banging returned from the passenger cabin. She stepped into the hall, shut the airlock, and made her way toward the passenger cabin.
There she found Dewey still working on the hatch. In his hand was something metal. The best she could tell, it was an armrest he’d pulled off of one of the passenger seats. Grant roamed around the room. He stopped at each seat, looking underneath. He came across something, inspected it then tossed it aside. She watched a seat cushion fly across the room. It reminded her that they could lose gravity at any moment. She reached for the nearest empty seat, strapping herself in.
She had another moment to think. The turmoil around her was jarring. It revived what she had experienced with Bobby's alien object. In a way, Dewey’s hammering was like the sounds she heard crashing around her in that haunting vision. It felt like she was seeing through herself from far away. The events seemed increasingly detached and out of control. Everything else was a blur, the gray fog of sudden crisis.
Is that what Bobby saw? she wondered. If it was, it might explain his irrationality. His reaction was different from hers, but his exposure had been longer. Now he was childlike and confused. She understood the confusion. The insistence on going to Earth was still not clear. She lacked details, context. Everything he'd said reflected his obvious deterioration.
Grant and Dewey hurled debris at the hatch. Their futile efforts were almost comical to her. Despite this, she was tense. She needed a resolution. That's when she realized she always had a way to talk to Bobby. She lifted her comm bracelet and typed his number.
He answered. “Sorry, Dawn,” he said without making himself visible, “I have to do this.”
“I’m just hoping to understand why.”
“You’ve seen them. They’re in my dreams. I can’t go to sleep without them hovering over me. I haven’t slept in weeks.”
“And they talk to you?”
“Talk? No. I mean, I guess they are talking, if that’s what talking is for them. But I don’t understand any of what they’re saying. And the dream is the same. It’s always the same. And it ends with me screaming.”
Dewey turned to look Dawn's way. His eyes expanded to saucers. “Is that him?”
“Tell him to open that damn hatch,” Grant yelled before she could respond.
At that moment, Bobby shut down the anti-grav drive. With it, the thrusters fell silent. Dewey grabbed for the ladder. Grant floated upward, away from the seats. After pushing off the wall, he grabbed the closest grip to steady himself.
“Tell me about the dream,” said Dawn, “Maybe it’s like what I saw.”
“Dawn, I need to get in that cabin,” Dewey pleaded. “If he takes us into the bubble too fast, he could kill us.”
“We've got time before we have to worry about that.” Grant was making his way toward Dawn by pulling on the tops of the seats.
“Was it a cloudy landscape where sounds and colors seem to blend together?” she asked.
“Yeah, something like that.”
As he approached, Grant reached for her arm. She pulled it away and glared at him. “Tell him to open the hatch,” said Grant through his teeth.
Before she could respond, Bobby engaged the main drive. Dewey's grip on the ladder faltered, but he was able to hold on. Grant fell into the seats below him. “Goddammit!”
The thrust pressed Dawn into her seat. Not too much. She guessed it was about one G.
Dewey climbed down and made his way toward her. “Dawn, tell him I’ll fly him where he wants to go.”
“Like hell you will,” Grant snapped.
“Mr. Lackey, you know those Damasos officers are gonna follow us. We can get away through the empty. Then you can get rid of that thing you’ve got.”
Grant freed himself from the seat where he’d fallen. As he stood, he glared at Dewey. “That thing I've got is supposed to be on Phaethon by the end of the day. If it’s not, the Damasos will be the least of my problems.”
“Okay, okay. But you know we can’t go to Phaethon now. The planet is locked down and the Damasos are after this shuttle. They’d arrest us as soon as we got there.”
“This is my shuttle, why would they arrest me?”
“Dewey’s right," said Dawn. "If they catch us, they’ll search the shuttle and find whatever that thing is you’re carrying. And Bobby’s device too.”
As she said his name, Bobby opened the hatch to the pilot's cabin. He emerged, taking each step of the ladder slowly. When he’d reached the floor, Dewey rushed past him, climbing up as fast as he could.
“Why are the controls up so high?” asked Bobby.
Grant shook his head.
“We need someone to set the interstellar.” Dawn unstrapped herself from the seat. “It won’t be pointed at Sol, either.”
Bobby sat down in one of the seats in the front row. He closed his eyes, his breath labored.
“Mr. Lackey, we need the interstellar turned on.” Dawn made her way toward Bobby. It was more difficult to walk than she expected. When she reached him, she strapped herself down. She looked back at Grant. “The order needs to come from you.”
“Dewey,” Grant shouted, “Get dispatch on the comm. Tell Prakit I need something from him. Don’t tell him what it is. Then patch him down here.”
“I don’t think we have a full load of fuel,” said Bobby.
“We always run light on fuel,” said Grant. “For this reason, so nobody tries to steal my shuttle.”
“Let’s hope we have enough fuel to get somewhere on the other side.” Dawn scanned Bobby's face. It was a ghostly white. She reached her hand toward his forehead and felt for a temperature.
Bobby smiled. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine.”
“Dewey!” shouted Grant. That's when his comm bracelet lit up. He activated it. Before him appeared the hologram of Pyro dispatch. They could hear a door slam. Prakit's image turned toward Grant. “Prakit, I need you to do something for me. And I need it to stay between the two of us.”
“Mr. Lackey, officers are here. The Damasos! They’re sending a ship after you. What’s happening?”
“Some crazy miner took over the Aion. He says we have to take him out of system or he’ll kill us. He has some strange device I’ve never seen. Says it's a bomb.”
“Out of the system?”
“Yeah, that’s why I need you to activate the interstellar.”
“Activate? I’ve never done that.”
“It’s the same as the system device, but when you engage it, you need to tell it where we’re going.”
From where she sat, Dawn could see the side of Prakit’s head. His eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open.
“What I need you to do is set it for Sol. You’ll see it on the list when you activate the device. Select Sol and we can get this lunatic where he wants to go.”
“Okay, Mr. Lackey.”
Grant took a deep breath. “One more thing, and this is very important. Prakit, I'm counting on you. We're counting on you. After we go through, we need you to switch the device to Mirach. If the officers ask, you tell them you set it for Mirach. We told you to send us to Sol, but you accidentally sent us to Mirach. Can you do that?”
Dawn watched the side of Prakit's mouth begin to twitch. “You want me to lie, Mr. Lackey?”
“Only if they ask, Prakit. Only if they ask. Believe me, I wouldn’t have you do any of this if our lives didn’t depend on it. This guy’s crazy. I need time to get his bomb away from him.”
Prakit shook his head in agreement.
“Thank you, Prakit. Our lives are in your hands.”
Prakit reached before him. While she hadn't used it often, Dawn knew what he was doing. Based on his movements, she could picture him activating the device. She could imagine the destination list being highlighted. His lips moved as he read the options. When he completed his task, he looked up and virtually met Grant’s eyes.
“Don't forget, switch it to Mirach after we go through.”
Prakit nodded and extinguished the feed.
“How far away are we?” Grant shouted to Dewey.
“We’ve got about twenty minutes of hard burn and another twenty to slow us down.”
“Can we go faster than that?”
“I don’t know, Mr. L. I only know my little Phaethon run. The fuel should last, but if we burn too much, we won’t have enough to slow us down. The bubble will crush us.”
“We are going to be followed. We can’t outrun the Damasos, so we need to get as big a lead as we can. You’ll have to risk it. Get us there.”
“The Aion’s old, sir. We can’t burn hot like we used to. Besides, we don’t have the fuel for it.”
“Okay, go as fast as you can without killing us, and save us a little for the other side.” Grant looked toward Dawn and pointed at Bobby. “You’d better strap him in. We may have a bumpy ride.”
“He said he hasn’t slept in weeks," said Dawn.
“Looks like he’s getting some now.”
She turned to Bobby and found that he had fallen asleep. She tested his forehead again. Then she pulled his straps and locked them in front of him. He looked peaceful. Maybe he'd found a way to sleep without the dreams. The thought brought her comfort.
Grant came up behind them and strapped himself in. He was a big man, shaking her seat as he settled. As the engine thrust increased, they were pushed further into their seats. The ship began to vibrate toward a heavy throb, straining with the increased pace. She hadn't doubted its soundness until then. “Does it always do this?”
“How would I know? I haven't been in one of these in years.”