Short Story: Dreams with no Prophecy

“How did we start talking about Joey?” My brother frowned. It was a bit weird I admit.

“Because we were talking about people we know, or knew.” I tried to adjust the flimsy plastic armor plate biting into my shoulder.

“Yeah, but she was a cat.” He leaned back against the netting of the seat and fiddled with the straps, some derision in his tone.

“My favorite.”

He chuckled and shook his head. I just smiled ruefully. A few more pallets arrived on an autonomous lift and were placed in the center of the hold. Neither my brother or I moved as the privates and corporals secured them. That felt weird too, but then we would have been in the way.

I continued, “I think it’s because she lived a long, full life.”

“Yeah, all 19 years. But do you really think so? You always could ‘reason’ your way through anything.” He focused on the tie-downs as the squad finished their work.

I felt a bit defensive, but took a breath before answering. “I was going to say that it really helped me.” I forced a laugh, “But I still can’t reason my way through this mess.” I waved my hand in a circle.

“No kidding. You’ve lived twice as long as that cat.” He didn’t continue down last night’s conversation. It was no use in raging about how in less than 2 weeks we would have a different administration, or in four months I would be too old for the draft. This president wanted to go out with a bang, just like when he came into office with scandals galore.

“Here comes the sergeant. Ready to go back to Texas?”

He grimaced. “Not to put down a riot. Not even just to visit in January.”

“Sirs?” Sergeant Hector stopped and saluted. It was nice that they gave both of us commissions after drafting us for our technical knowledge, but it felt like a dream, a bad one at that. I saluted and felt like I did it wrong. “We are just about ready for dust-off. Two minutes.” Idling engines spooled-up as if on his command. I nodded, and he turned to finish preparations.

“So many almosts,” I said as I pulled out my hardened tablet.

“What?”

“Just so many things that I almost did.” I had to shout to be heard over the engines now. I attached the tablet to my knees so I could use both hands.

“We might get through this.” Strained hope at the top of his voice.

“Against violently celebrating, well-armed voters? So much for ‘great again.’” I hoped the well-armed part was a lie like most of the eight years. But I had to put politics aside and focus on the defense of the aircraft we rode in. If anybody hacked it, my brother, myself, and twenty-six other men and women wouldn’t even stand a chance to see a different world.

***

Dreams with happy endings,
Disappoint when awake.

Phyton: Episode 4

**Previous Episode or First Episode**

Jeff sat down next to him and pulled out a stack of papers, of course they were all blank to Al, but he saw the glasses peeking out of Jeffs shirt pocket. “Aren’t you worried that even knowing that there is alot more information on this case might bias my ‘expert analysis’?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Jeff’s realization and maybe a bit of consternation showed. “But surely knowing that you could be biased would cancel that out, right?”

“I’m not a psychologist, but I already suspected that the agency wasn’t sharing all it knew,” Al shrugged, “Seems to be standard practice.”

“This is the first time I’ve been on a case like this. Have you seen it before?”

“Yes, back during the GMO ban, they used the same tech for documents back when I was part of a team investigating the relevance of the ban. They must have squirreled away a warehouse full of that paper so they could go back to after the secure entity tablets were removed from service.”

“Someone had the foresight.”

“Or the bureaucracy.” They both chuckled, someone near Al’s age was probably being rewarded for keeping the paper around when it had really just been a case of procrastination.

Jeff put on the glasses and started reading. Al watched the countryside flash by below, just a few more years and the cross country hyperloop would open, no more need for long distance flights across the continent. But by definition the hyperloop was a vacuum tube system, so there probably wouldn’t be any views during the journey.

“What do you know about the Fislers?” Several minutes had passed along with the Rockies. Al couldn’t quite read Jeff’s face, what did he know that he was asking this now?

“What the public knows?”

“No, how you know them.” Of course, but then the public probably didn’t know much about them.

“They’re both nice people. I knew both of them before they met. Bright, probably some of the brightest assistants I ever had. They had opposite scheduled days and near the end of the term there was a scheduling situation which brought them in together. They hit it off and it seems to be working for them. They were married a few months after that, quite remarkable the amount of talent between them.”

“They weren’t actually in your field though, right?”

Al nodded, “Gustaf, Gus, was studying to be a medical doctor, but could easily switch realms from human physio to plants in a blink of an eye. I would catch him doing homework in the lab. After the first few times I gave up asking him if he was finished since he was already done. I just gave him more to do.” He paused getting lost in remembering how smoothly and quickly experiments were put together and completed. “And Angela, she was a marine biologist interested in plankton, she also had such a dexterity with machines and programming. Entities that had slowly become useless to me were quite responsive to her. I was there when they met. To me it seemed they covered all the subjects in the world, coming to a consensus and yet somehow getting all the lab work done.”

“Did you attend their wedding?”

“Yes, it was quite the to-do. Lots of appreciative family, both were thought to be too driven to ever reach that point, and the families were happy to be proven wrong.”

“Did you stay in contact with them afterward?”

“Can’t say that I did, saw some posts on the usual sites, about them having a kid, what was that, three years ago?”

“About four and a half, actually.”

“Well time flies. From what I’ve been told, it seems they are doing very well for themselves. And with…”

“Edward, a pretty uncommon name these days.”

“Edward, no kidding, but he’s probably just about ready to go into kindergarten this fall, right?”

“It looks like it.” Jeff tensed.

Al sighed, “What else do we know about them?” He hoped to get a bit more out of Jeff, but it looked like he needed to catch up a bit on the “usual websites” before the Fislers picked him up at the airport.

“A bit.” Jeff glanced at the older man, and back down to the pages.

“Well I guess we'll just have to see, won’t I?”

“Yep.”

The rest of the flight continued in silence.

**Next Episode**

Phyton: Episode 3

Previous Episode

“Good work Field Agent Devney, your new clearance will allow you to access information you will need in California.” Agent Flind pushed a couple of manilla folders across a clear space of desk. “Sir?” Jeff Devney couldn’t help being excited, but he thought he kept it to himself. “Well we can’t send out a ‘green’ agent, so you are promoted to a field agent. For now your AO is just for SoCal and surrounding region. There are a few standby teams that will provide backup.” Flind leaned back in his ancient office chair, “If you need any other agency resources, let me know. And of course if you need any warrants we will have contacts for the appropriate jurisdictions.” Jeff eyed the stack of folders and then picked it up, pretty weighty, despite the digital paper. “Nearly four years ago I would have touched a button and cleared you to look at the info without all this paper, my desk was all but clear if you can believe that.” Flind motioned at the desk as though he wanted to sweep the stacks into the garbage can. “Any other questions?” Jeff thought hard, he didn’t want to sound dumb, just after being promoted, “I guess Dr. Ingram must be getting help, how soon is that?” “Dr. Ingram had two candidates in today that a consulting scientist and I have vetted. Hopefully he will take them, the sooner the better. Oh yeah, with the new clearances, you are actually cleared to know the case, obviously,” Flind indicated the folders, “It’s much more info than we gave the good doctor, but let him figure out most of it on his own. What we gave him will be marked so you know your talking points.” “Shouldn’t he know too?” “It might bias him at this point, and we really need a clear view by an expert. It is a touchy subject because we are dealing with the DoD.” *** Jeff tried not to think too much about traveling through the airport, sure the flights were much faster than when he was a kid, Virginia to LA in two hours, but security had become less efficient, and certainly much less enjoyable with the removal of automatic security agents. He didn’t remember the time before the tall gentle robot giants roamed the free-flowing, traveling masses, silently mixing with the crowd until they noticed something suspicious. A robot would confront the person of interest if they weren’t an imminent threat, or direct a blast of foam to envelope a possible suicide attacker. Jeff had seen a demo in school with a dummy and explosives being engulfed in foam, then the thud of the explosion and a slight distortion of the bubble. Foam was gone too, no one trusted a human to be able to differentiate as well as a well trained system. Manual scanners now throttled the flow of travellers causing them all to bunch into lines, waiting for permission to get on their flight. The number of successful attacks had rebounded to pre-artificial intelligent agent days, the decade and a half that the agents had been in place had only seen three successful attacks on airports, mostly because a large rush of extremists overwhelmed the systems. The party in power poo-pooed the idea that there was a correlation in the rise of successful attacks and their ban on using learning AI agents. Except everyone was an extremist these days, even the extreme normalist, or the extreme consideration-ist, one of whom tried not to have an extreme opinion on anything, or the one who would try to understand every single extreme they came across. Fortunately only a few religious extremist groups practiced violent attacks. Everyone’s views divided them into their own veiled worlds there were far fewer of the violent converts than 30 years before. Jeff wondered about the Fislers, other than the nominal extremism, were they fanatics of a cause? Would it be a bad ending? He spotted the doctor and waved, time enough in the future to consider these possibilities.

**Next Episode**

Unintended Consequences

“What am I charged with?” Dan couldn’t help but lean forward in the chair since his wrists were chained to the middle of the table.

“Terrorist activities and destruction of property.” The detective read from his notebook.

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“We found you standing in front of the property with materials that we believe brought down the building. Do you have anything to say?”

“I plead the fifth.”

“There isn’t much room for that amendment in this current administration, we could send you down with the ‘bad dudes’ and just forget about you for a while.” The FBI agent leaning against the wall mentioned as though commenting that shorts shouldn’t be worn in this weather.

“Is that why I haven’t had the chance to contact a lawyer? And you know that the truth value of whatever you get me to say will be suspect under duress or threats of duress.” Dan tried not to sound too smug, it would just get him in trouble. In fact that may have been too far now that he thought about it. He looked for signs that the agent might be upset.

The door opened and an officer came into the room and handed the agent a clipboard. Maybe a bit of frustration eased from his face at Dan, but was readily replaced with consternation.

“Mr. Forth, I have it here that the building is back to normal, but I saw it this morning and it was just a heap of ash?” Dan stayed quiet, it was certainly good that the building was back, but he hoped it wasn’t back to normal. After thirty seconds of staring at him the agent went on, “Well if that’s the case, let’s go look at it, you too detective.”

***

Arriving in the parking lot in the unmarked black car Dan could see that all the trees around the building were untouched, good. Other than appearing cleaner the building seemed to be exactly the same as when he had set the nanites to do their thing the night before.

The three of them got out with Dan in the middle and still handcuffed. Dan saw the crowd of employees standing at the edge of the police cordon. He was pretty sure that no one would be injured with the nanites’ protocols.

As they approached he saw another agent, probably the one in charge and an officer in uniform talking with the director of the building.

“I can’t let you in there sir, it was a pile of rubble this morning if you remember, who knows how fast it could collapse?”

“Don, I brought him back.”

“Ah good, Sir, this is the man that we arrested on the premises early this morning. Do you recognize him?”

“Never seen him in my life, what did you do with my building?” The man tried to tower over Dan rather unsuccessfully.

Dan stayed mute.

The agent in charge glanced back and forth a couple times. “Alright, let’s go on a little tour, I have a gut feeling about this building.”

“But how do we get in?” The director almost wailed, “There aren’t any keyholes on the doors or rfid scanners.”

Dan spoke up knowing this would link him more than circumstantially. “Engineering protocol 2.22, activate security system.” He was hit from the side and taken down, striking the side of his head because he was still in cuffs. He hadn’t seen that coming.

“What was that?”

“We aren’t in any danger.” Dan managed to say and then groaned. He saw two guns trained on him with the third making sweeps of the perimeter.

“All clear.” The officer holstered his gun and made a move to help up the director who had also been knocked down.

“What the hell did you do?” The agent from the station hauled Dan up to a standing position without the care the officer had observed for the director. Dan gritted his teeth as the cuffs bit into his wrists.

“I activated the building so that the director and his staff can access it. Try it, just walk toward the door as though you were going to work.” The last directed at the director.

The director fidgeted a moment and got a nod of confirmation from Dan. Of course he was starting to feel more of the bruise on his face.

After a few moments the officer in charge said, “Well this has to be the weirdest case to date. If it’s safe,” another nod from Dan, “then we should investigate.”

“Welcome director,” the door slid open as the director finally turned as though to go in. He stopped and the door stood open. “Unauthorized persons accompanying. Should I issue them temporary passes?”

“Just say yes,” Dan whispered.

“Yes?”

“Four passes issued, expiration at the end of today’s work day. Let me know if you need any of them extended or revoked.” The door patiently stayed open while the two agents thoroughly scoured the inside for any signs of threats.

When they walked in the transformation was complete, even though the outside hadn’t changed, other than fixing major flaws that couldn’t easily be seen, the inside was an entirely different building. The reception area was a sunny glade with a desk seemingly made out of interwoven branches that held up a flat surface. Dan smiled thinking about all the work still going on behind the scenes. Next spring the staff would be in for a surprise as they found out that the desk and walls that seemed to be made out of three trunks would leaf and bloom with hypo-allergenic flowers of the appropriate types.

They toured around and were completely engrossed in the amazing internal architecture. After half an hour the director spoke up, “Sirs, this is amazing. I don’t think we need to press charges against this man. In fact if anything he should probably be congratulated. From what I’ve seen and he explained, this is a huge improvement over what we had, and it recaptures space that we could have never used in the old design. On top of that all the things that needed to be preserved were.”

***

Dan opened the door to a knock, a tall burly man stood there. “Are you the guy that rebuilt the building?”

“Uh, yes, what may I do for you?”

“I was out sick last week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, I hope you are feeling better.”

“I would be if I hadn’t been let go.”

“Why would you have been let go?”

“You failed to tell them that the whole building is now self-cleaning.”

“Yeah, so? I figured it was a nice bonus.”

“I was the custodian.”

“Oh,” awkward pause, “Certainly you could better use your talents elsewhere?”

“Ha, what an elitist thing to say, but you won’t be able to tell that to the next guy.” Dan saw the gun drawn and froze.

*End*

*Note: I've always had a bit of a fascination with the idea of how much nano-robotics could do. In college it was an idea of how much a thorough body-wide system of robots could make me an invulnerable hero like the Silver Surfer or later iterations of Iron Man's Extremis armor. Though I have not read either of those comics so I think my influences were from other science fiction books. As I exited the college days of uncertainty I still thought about the nano-robots and how they could be used for construction: give them raw resources and a plan and get a perfect building built in a day or two. Of course there are many issues with that as I address one or two in this story.

I did also write several beginnings of stories hinging on nano-robotics, I started rewriting a few of them this last year. With writing 50k words for NaNoWriMo last year I think that I could possibly finish them and maybe publish. Now that I think about it I have three nearly distinct universes: Nano, Human Galactic Proliferation, and the Halver universe at least in science fiction. I also have a few fantasy worlds, but I really haven't focussed on those for years.

Phyton: Episode 2

**Previous episode**

Al had just picked up his fork for the delivered plate of food. “Al, may I sit with you?” He turned and saw Jeff at his elbow, trying to let people go by in the tight confines of the diner’s aisles between tables. He shook his head exasperated, but said, “Sure” and set down his fork as Jeff slid into the booth opposite. Of course Jeff knew about the diner, Al came here every week after fencing on Wednesdays for the last 20 or so years. In fact Al tried to imagine a time when he had missed this ritual, only conferences, and always the same sunny-side-up burger even if it was late evening. The only change was the company, over the years people had come and gone, including Jeff for a while. “I’m really sorry,” Al snapped back to the present as Jeff pulled out a manilla envelope, he did look a bit sorry, “but the boss said to have another go at you.” He slid the envelope over the table, missing the fork. “What’s this?” Al felt like he was in one of those old spy movie scenes. “A bit more evidence and hopefully quite a bit more incentive.” That was ambiguous, possibly ominous. “So what’s he have that he thinks that you talking to me would help?” Al’s hand hovered over the envelope for a second before he decided to accept it. Jeff indicated the envelope and Al opened it, some sort of teflon if he was any judge, and pulled out the specs and e-paper set. He definitely didn’t feel comfortable with the large glasses frames, it seemed a bit too close to the pair he had finally rid himself of, but between the government being half a step behind with technology and the recent crackdown on autonomous entities it was unlikely that the paper would interface with his permanent contact lenses because it wouldn’t be able to positively ID him. In fact if the heft was any indication the e-paper might be recently dug out of storage, without even a capacity to support a basic entity. The specs were coded to be able to read the phased display of the e-paper, making it legible for him, otherwise it was just a mess of gray lines for anybody else looking at it, though without an entity there was a limit to how thoroughly it could be encoded, anybody could slip on the glasses to read it. “They told me it was rigged to wipe when you took the glasses off, so, uh, don’t move them around your face after you have them on.” Jeff must have been referring to his own fidgeting, Al smiled carefully and looked down at the paper. “Thanks. Do you know what’s on here?” Al asked as the paper and glasses were syncing. “Nope, better that I don’t at this moment.” A grayscale photo of a doting mother and a child sitting on a park bench swam into view as the glasses and paper finished syncing. The concise paragraph below told a few details about the photo: Angela Fisler and son, Edward, in Monterey, CA. Dr. Fisler and husband Dr. Gustaf Fisler run a small lab for the D.o.D. on several internal microbiome projects meant to enhance a person’s survival in harsh conditions. While the work from the lab has been exemplary, there is cause to suspect unsanctioned human experimentation of unknown extent. More thorough investigation is suggested. “Great.” Al sat back, took off the glasses and watched through the reduced view as the page was scrubbed. Rubbing the bridge of his nose he slid the now blank set back to Jeff. “That’s the Angela I know, though a bit older now and a kid…” He trailed off hoping that he wasn’t giving too much classified information away, “If I had known that I might be their only chance for a ‘negative skeptic’ I wouldn’t have been so short with you last time.” “I sure hope that’s a yes.” Jeff didn’t take the materials, but stared at him hopefully. “Yep, so how soon can we get funding for my inept replacements? And probably more liability insurance for the mistakes they will make?” “They won’t be that bad.” Jeff slid the paper and the specs back into the manilla-colored envelope. “How old were you during the crop failure of ‘35?” “Twelve. My parents were certainly worried.” “Well between the large corporations waging a no-seed-crop war and the testing failure it cost nearly a trillion dollars to straighten it out, not something an insurance company takes lightly.” Jeff seemed to mull over it for a few moments, “I think I can convince my boss that we don’t want to have that happen again.” Even though he seemed serious Al could see that he was excited to get a positive answer. “I’ll have information to start the process tomorrow.” “I would really like to get this over with, so sooner is better.”

**Next episode**

Phyton: Episode 1

** This is the first episode in a series. Also take a look at my other stories. **

“Okay, run this by me again, I don’t quite get it.” Dr. Al Ingram stood with his arms crossed studying the shorter man intently. He knew the words the man had just said, but the meaning was nonsensical. The short man wore his dark grey suit, somewhat reminiscent of styles from earlier in the century, with a bit of unease that transmitted itself through his movements.

“Alright,” Jeff ran a thick-fingered hand through his black hair and took a step back, as though he could retrace his words with steps. It also helped him to not look up at such an angle at Al. “You are a recognized skeptic, outside of your own work…”

“And I am never complacent with that either.” Al cut in.

“Right, well we need you to work with the Fislers. We would like you to look into their advances. We believe that you are the best suited for this as it fits your field and you have the clearance.” Jeff finished and stared at Al.

Al closed his eyes and reached up to rub the bridge of his nose, and only realized once again that he no longer had the heavy glasses which plagued him up until six months ago. He stopped midway through and tried to naturally lower his hand without too much extra frustration from the long ingrained habit. He opened his eyes and Jeff stopped fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot.

“First, I am not a microflora expert, I test genetically engineered plants to see how they interact with their environment. Second, they are a husband and wife team that has only a few student helpers, not something a full-fledged researcher can walk into without raising a whole bunch of red flags. And lastly, even though I am trying to mitigate adverse impacts of genetically modified crops before they ever get out there,” he waved his hand,” and I know that there are sleazy genetic engineers, I don’t like your implication that the Fislers might be going beyond a basic symbiotic relation between the microflora and humans.”

Jeff quirked a smile, a bit nervously and defused the argument, “Right the last reason is why we need you there: a negative skeptic, though don’t negative skeptic the Defense Department projects, they don’t like people poking holes where none should be. I’m sure you can pick up an understanding of their work very quickly, right?” It was a near perfect parry, feint, and point. Jeff seemed over anxious almost all the time, but maybe that is why opponents had underestimated him while fencing.

Al shook his head, he decided to ignore the logic, “Look, we’ve known each other for a long time, but I need to continue my work. Things still aren’t getting enough review before going out there, even after the staple-scare of 2035. Thanks, but no.” He ushered Jeff out of the lab thinking: some friend to ask him to spy on other friends.

***

“Sir, he won’t cooperate, and he has some good points.” Jeff stood fidgeting, of course, in front of his boss’s boss.

“Well we can make some good points too, funding cuts,” Jeff tried not to grimace at that, Special Agent-In-Charge Flind smiled and continued, “or extra funding and help. If his lab is in good hands while he works in California, maybe he’d be more willing to go. But I think this will really convince him it’s a good idea.” Flind tapped a manilla envelope nearly obscured by other carefully arranged paperwork, carefully arranged to those who knew him, or at least that is what Jeff had heard about the desk, to him it seemed an indecipherable mess. “Come pick it up when you are ready to see him next, and tell your boss to calm down, she isn’t losing you, I just need your connections.”

“Thank you sir,” Jeff tried not to make it sound too sarcastic. It was tough to work for two bosses, even when his boss’s boss obviously took priority. It was as though he couldn’t convince his boss that he would be back once he finished the assignment. If she really didn’t want to lose him why did she seem exasperated with his fidgeting?

** Next episode **

Short Story: Caught Speeding

*Note: This is not a new concept, but I am definitely practicing writing. Here are more short stories.*

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” An automatic response to really any noise my officemate made, some exceptions.

“This is nuts.”

Not answering directly usually indicated that I should pay attention, but it did seem he was just saying things to be outraged over the most recent political scandal. However, when I looked up the chagrin on his face didn’t seem faked. He slammed his chair back and stood up, paced in the small office and then retrieved the chair . Sitting down he grimaced, and took a breath I recognized as his story-telling breath.

He beckoned me to come around to look at his screen.

He had what looked like a really badly done version of YouTube, yep, GovTube. Nobody watched GovTube unless they were told to. Maybe if the government had made one well-thought-out contract with YouTube more people would have used it.

“Watch this,” he nearly spat and violently slammed the space bar. I only flinched inwardly.

The top view of a red convertible with a single male, obvious from the male pattern baldness and other more subtle hints, was driving, quite quickly along a road in a desert.

“He is going very fast,” I remarked blandly, it was never good to get him more excited, it would just make things worse.

“Yes he is, 162 miles per hour.” The way he said it made me stop watching and look at him. There was a smoldering anger that often came up when people started to do stupid things, or continue without heeding his warnings. But this was different, there was a much deeper connection.

“Wait, that’s you?” I hope I put enough incredulity in the question so he could take it either way.

“Yep, after a conference five years ago.”

“What was observing you?” I went through my knowledge of all the public and military satellites that might record it, “But wouldn’t they have brought this up earlier? Err…” It was a bit of an accusation, him driving that fast, if he had been pulled over he would have lost his job and clearance.

He chuckled wryly. “They certainly shouldn’t have sat on it this long. I wouldn’t have even worked on the project if they had any inkling of this. I didn’t even tell my wife.” He was becoming awfully jovial for a man that was about to lose his job. “Maybe the bureaucracy is just as bad as everyone thinks it is.”

“But five years, I mean it’s more likely that the superluminal satellite project was a success, despite the explosion in orbit.” I paused for moment to do a bit of morbid calculation of the dead project, back then we had amazing offices and dreams that extended outside of the solar system, “The telescope would have just gone through five light years away about four months… ago…”

My face must have looked the same as his, ashen, mouth partly gaping. I saw him start to form words, but I had to be the first to say it.

“That’s more like the bureaucracy I know, what?”

“I can’t believe they are using Dan’s work to nab me, what?”

Space Jellies

“I can just see it now, first alien species discovered. We’ll be famous!” Yasir stood up from his station, arms waving in early celebration.

“Shut up and monitor them. We need to start getting behaviors. Also I would rather not attract their attention. Keep the active sensors off Yasir.” Roger focused on the orbital charts.

“Alright, but really we should celebrate.” Yasir grumbled and sat back in his chair.

“Yeah, later.” Roger growled. For a few minutes the three crew members on the exploration vessel focused on their tasks.

“Look at them, floating in space. They look like jellyfish, maybe space jellies...” Yasir tried to describe them.

“Yasir,” Jane looked over her shoulder from her station and gave him a warning head shake. Roger was studiously ignoring them.

A few more minutes passed. Roger grunted, “Hmm. Looks like they are tacking against the solar wind toward that asteroid field. Unusually dense.” As the pilot, that was saying something; usually only rings around planets gave the small ship any navigational issues, but this was at a trojan point trailing a rather large gas giant. “Zoom in as far as you can Yasir, and send us the views.”

“Sure.” Yasir already had zoomed in as far as he could with one telescope, but Roger rolled the ship just enough to bring both the dorsal and ventral telescopes to bear. Using the telescopes in conjunction meant the computers could interpolate more detail, making the two telescopes act like a larger one.

All three were riveted to the view. About twenty of the massive jellies were circling a section of the cluster, well sphering, but that isn’t really a verb. Yasir watched as jets of matter puffed out from the giants, maneuvering them between the much smaller asteroids. One shot forward through a gap and sent a tendril of gossamer out to a particularly rough rock. But rather than pulling the whole thing to itself a chunk flaked off. Interest turned to confusion as the flake of asteroid developed two bright blue points of light.

“Ion engine signature detected,” intoned the ship’s computer.

They sat for a few moments in shock.

“That’s a ship.” Jane’s voice trailed off.

Roger started to curse with less reserve than normal. His hands flew over controls.

“Rog, three of them see us.” Jane recovered. “They are accelerating for us. Contact in five minutes.”

“I’m going. How’d they see us? Yasir?” Another string of invectives quickly followed.

“I don’t know.” Yasir watched in horror as the one that had caught the ship ingested it and began to process it. First the bright pinpricks of blue died. Pieces started to peel off the ship. Gases started escaping, but they didn’t spread out like in vacuum, but rather bubbled as though inside a viscous fluid. Finally the ship cracked in half. Yasir turned off his screen, too horrified to keep watching.

Jane and Yasir looked at each other as Roger turned the ship and started to accelerate away. She turned back to her station to figure out what was happening. Yasir didn’t really want to turn back to his station.

“At our current rate of acceleration they will catch us in six minutes. How far until we reach the trans-point?” Jane asked.

“Six minutes twenty seconds.”

“Can we give it any more power?” Jane’s desperation started to show through her schooled demeanor.

“Nope, we can’t, our ion spikes are already at max capacity.”

“Max?”

“Twenty percent above recommended, it’s more due to frequency at that point. We’ll hit a third of c right before the trans-point.”

“Are we going to make it?” Yasir asked. Both of his seniors turned to stare at him.

“Not by the numbers.” Somehow Roger’s demeanor was morphing into an oddly jovial one.

“What if we lose some mass?” Yasir tried not to bounce.

“It won’t be enough to make a twenty second difference.” Roger smiled. Yasir didn’t like that smile, it seemed a bit careless in their situation.

“But it might distract them.” Yasir countered.

“He’s got a point Rog. But what can we space?” Jane looked hopeful.

“We could ditch our spare air. Hopefully the recycler won’t cut out on us.”

Jane looked a bit concerned. “What if we spaced half?”

“Half measures so we won’t be eaten? Might as well give them the back half the ship.” Roger waved his hand and laughed.

“Roger,” She almost never used his whole name, working together for ten years called for some familiarity. Yasir wondered if they had ever been in such a dire situation before.

“Alright, let’s keep one of the twelve.” He gestured in a placating manner, hands out. “We are still about ten transits from an inhabited system. If something goes wrong six won’t really do us any more good. One will still work with the suit recyclers though.”

“Let’s start rolling them out.”

The three hurried out of the small bridge and went ten meters back to where engineering started.

A few minutes of lifting the heavy cylinders into the airlock and they were ready to go.

“What about one of the emergency pods?” Yasir asked.

“Might as well. Go forward and launch one. Not both.” Roger turned back to the airlock control.

Yasir sprinted back up the short length of the ship and stood at one of the pod chutes right behind the bridge and in front of the small quarters. He knew the procedure well enough, but in this situation he wasn’t sure how he was going to launch it without being in the pod himself.

He yelled down the length. “I have a problem.” His com blinked on his wrist. Oh yeah.

“Yes?” Roger asked.

“How will I launch this without getting inside?”

“The panel with the red line around it. Lift that. There will be manual overrides. We’ll be right up, just one more thing to space.”

Yasir flipped back the panel and saw a long red handle. “Manual launch. Only use as last resort.” The warning message made him shiver. Who would stay behind if one of the three of them had to launch the other pod manually? He pried the handle out of a clasp and started to pull on it. The first few inches were almost too easy. Red and white doors started to slide closed in front of the entrance to the pod.

But then he encountered a huge amount of resistance. After straining and pulling he put his feet up on the bulkhead and braced to pull sideways. The resistance gave way and he found himself swinging from the bar, feet coming off the bulkhead. His knees landed with a loud noise on the deck. Fortunately there was another spot of resistance, otherwise Yasir would have crashed himself against the oncoming bulkhead.

“Good job Yasir.” Roger never gave complements. Maybe it was sarcasm?

“Thanks.”

“Just need to get it a few more inches. Let me help you.” The two of them pushed it into another clasp. The red and white passage doors denoting that the pod was used closed with a click. The ship juddered as the pod launched.

“Let’s get up there and see what they do.” Jane came up behind them.

They entered the cockpit and took their respective seats. Yasir turned on the screens at his station again.

“Two are peeling off,” reported Jane, “but that big one didn’t take the bait.”

“Hopefully we can transition before we lose anything important.” Roger was almost maniacally happy.

They all sat in tense anticipation, waiting for an imagined but very close doom.

“It’s in range.” A massive spasm ran through the length of the ship. “It didn’t hit too hard. No damage.”

“It’s pulling us in.” Yasir shuddered.

“Trans-point in ten seconds. Please prepare for transition.” The calm tone from the ship’s computer barely registered.

“We are inside, telescopes obscured.” Yasir muttered.

“Transition.” Yasir never liked transitions before, they always made his head ache and his stomach twist. This time he was anticipating it joyfully because the discomfort told him the happy news.

“Whoa. Look at that.” Jane sent a screen around showing an trailing cloud of debris. As the alien’s goo sloughed off of the hull it crossed the realspace bubble into subspace and dissociated into component atoms becoming rainbow colors on the subspace sensor.

“Now, Yasir, we can celebrate.” Roger seemed a bit more dour.

“I think I’m good.” Close calls didn’t sit well with Yasir’s stomach.

“But we discovered two alien species in a single day!” Roger said it with a straight face, much less scary than his smile.

“Two?” Both Jane and Yasir asked in unison.

“Yep, that other ship wasn’t human, or at least nothing I’ve seen before.”

“Yeah, but they have a bug problem.” Jane shook her head. “How will they escape?”

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that we need to get back home after all those supplies we pushed out.”

“Yep, it’s going to be tight.” Jane agreed.

“I thought we only need to worry if we start leaking air.” Yasir stared at Roger.

“We also spaced about a month’s worth of rations. We’ve got about ten days of food for a nine day trip. Not much of a margin of error.”

“Ah.” Of course Yasir didn’t feel like eating right at the moment, but packaged food was certainly better than the recycler’s version.

***

The ship made it back to Earth’s system a few hours ahead of schedule. All the slime had sublimated away before doing serious damage, but one thing still stuck to the hull. None of the ship’s sensors detected any anomalies as it detached itself just as the sun’s strength reached the right parameters. The clear melon-sized envelope expelled a bit of mass, stabilizing its orbit.

*END*

And just for fun here are the Slow Mo Guys with Jelly Tennis.