A Warrior's Journey (15 page)

I had come to like the personification of
technology that Abby was made up of very much over the past few
weeks. She was always there with a word of encouragement and an
unmatched level of patience.

“It sounds like you have gained some measure
of faith for yourself Abby.”

Quietly, as if to herself she said, “Perhaps
I have.”

She left me then fading back into the
nothingness that she had come from. During our training to better
help facilitate our instruction she had manifested herself into a
duplicate separate form of herself so she could teach every one of
us one on one.

She had done all she could to prepare us.
Now it was up to us to do our part. God please help us!

I felt the sweat that was beaded up on my
forehead gather into a drop and slip down into my eye. It burned
and I had to blink my way past it, as my hands were locked in
readiness to do something. I don’t know what as it wasn’t time for
me to do anything yet.

If I was sweating, then Torren beside of me,
was likely to be as well. I tore my eyes off the screens in front
of us and the treacherous ocean depths that they portrayed all
around us.

Glancing at Torren I could see he was worse
off than even I was. He was constantly blinking, with sweat
flicking off of his eyelashes. I reached for a cloth and leaning
over I wiped at the sweat on his forehead without blocking his
view.

“Thanks!” He gritted out tersely his focus
on the screen and the controls in his hands.

My eyes were drawn back to the enthralling,
but deadly view of what was taking place around the vessel. An hour
earlier Torren had submerged the vessel in the underground chamber
and moved it out through a narrow underwater cavern that first led
downward and then upward.

It had been totally dark within the cavern
except for the light cast off by the lights on the exterior of the
vessel, which had done a good job at illuminating the way before
us. Now we were out of the cavern and into the small boulder strewn
bay.

Following the course charted for him Torren
navigated the vessel in and around the sharp rocks that projected
up from the sea floor everywhere. On the screen in front of Torren
there was a view of our way forward with and indicator line that
showed the vessels suggested navigation course through the maze of
rocks.

Auto pilot couldn’t be used because of the
unpredictableness of underwater currents and changes to the
topography. Much could change in seven hundred years, but
surprisingly little seemed to have. Torren was doing an excellent
job of keeping the little flashing indicator light that represented
us on or near the plotted line charted out by the vessel’s
navigation control.

As long as the plotted line that snaked in
and around obstructions was green and the vertical indicator line
was blue we were fine. A couple of times one or both of the lines
had flashed yellow in warning and Torren had to adjust our position
either up or down or side to side more heavily.

Suddenly the whole vessel abruptly jolted
sideways and indicator alarms sounded loudly throughout the ship.
Torren’s screen showed red lines and he valiantly tried to bring
the vessel back on course, but something was causing resistance to
his efforts!

He jammed his foot down on a lever on the
floor and the whole vessel lurched forward violently towards a wall
of solid rock ahead of us. He seemed to regain some steering
control and with a shudder that rocked the vessel, we pulled free
of the strong underwater current that we had been caught up in, but
we were now plunging ahead toward the rock wall.

Torren let off on the power and steered
madly away from the looming wall of rock. The rocks grew closer and
closer until they filled the screen, but Torren managed to turn the
vessel and then giving it more power he pulled away from the rocks
and back onto our charted course. As the red line turned back to
green and the alarms stopped ringing I managed to force myself to
breathe again.

Larc had been standing behind Torren the
whole time and now he patted him encouragingly on the shoulder.
Within a couple more minutes we were out of the rocks and headed
out into the ocean that opened up deeper before us.

The auto pilot function clicked on and the
vessel picked up speed as it headed out toward the beacon array
further out in a deeper spot in the ocean. Soon it would be my
turn.

Torren leaned back in his seat and pried his
fingers off of the oddly shaped wheel in his hands.

The cool modulated voice of some woman from
the distant past came out over the vessel’s sound system,
“Approaching transferral zone. All crew members and passengers must
return to their seats and fasten safety harnesses. Secure loose
items aboard ship. Transferral zone in two minutes.”

I started fastening my harness on. My
fingers were shaking so badly it was hard to get the clips pushed
into their slots. Orhanin who sat on my other side reached across
and helped me without saying a word. I nodded my thanks embarrassed
by my jitteriness.

Larc spoke out in a commanding tone,
“Talaric, put on your harness.”

“I’ll ride it out. I don’t like being
restrained.”

No kidding I thought to myself. That pretty
much described his philosophical approach to life in general. Larc
looked sternly at him for a moment, but then gave up.

The two minutes passed by fast. Ahead of us
the beacon array was the only thing that could be clearly seen on
the ocean floor, as it was brightly lit up in the darkness all
around us.

The modulated voice piped up again, “We have
reached the transferral zone. Initializing transferral procedure.”
The nose of the vessel started pointing upward to face at the sky
somewhere far above us. Abby had not mentioned anything about this
vertical aspect of my job!

I breathed out, “Oh God!” even as I heard
Talaric scrambling to get into his harness. Within a minute the
vessel was pointing straight up at the ocean’s surface and moving
sideways to position directly over the beacon array. When the
vessel was over the array it spun slightly around and seemed to
click into place.

We were locked into place on the beacon
array so as to keep us from being sucked up the electro stream to
soon. “Vessel ready for transferral. Please select desired
coordinates and initiate electro stream transferral.”

I swallowed hard and reached my hand out and
up towards the screen in front of me. I started dragging my finger
on the surface of the screen as I leafed down through menus of
options, just as I had practiced in my simulations with Abby. Now
for the big test to see whether or not attempting the mission was
even possible.

I accessed the appropriate file and scrolled
down the list of coordinates to various other worlds in the
registry, until I found the one I wanted at the bottom of the list.
Most of the coordinates I had scrolled down through had red
flashing icons beside them, which indicated one or more of three
possible things.

The beacon array on that world was damaged
or missing, there wasn’t enough water to complete transferral
safely, or the world was not safe to visit either environmentally
or because of enemy influence.

The icon for Earth was green. The mission
was a go, which I informed Larc of. We hadn’t known until this
moment whether or not Earth was still reachable, as Abby could not
validate any information from the beacon array from the underground
chamber.

Selecting Earth as our destination brought
up another screen that asked for the initialization of the voyage.
I had to go down a series of checks that verified that the ship was
fit for electro stream travel. All the checks came back positive.
The green button that initialized the charged energy beam lit up
before me. I pushed it down. The moment after I pushed it the
beaming array folded out from around the vessel to form the
framework of a circle that encompassed the vessel at its widest
point. The button began to flash with green light. I hesitated in
pushing it again one more time.

“Go ahead Zevin. Push it and may God help
us!” Larc intoned deeply.

I pushed it down.

A whirling noise began to sound out louder
as the outboard structure that had folded out from the vessel began
to spin faster and faster around the outside hull, until the whole
vessel pulsated with the vibration of its turbulence. All the
vessels exterior lights, as well as those in the vessel went off,
except for the lights cast off from our screen displays. Very
frightening to say the least.

Abby needed to write a better training
manual for the next bunch of suckers lined up to commit suicide.
Suddenly a bright golden color intermixed with green streaked
upwards through the water to the heavens above. The water around us
became turbulent, as it was sucked up into the vacuum being caused
by the energy particle beam’s path into space. On the display in
front of me there was a long bar with a slow moving green line on
it. It was the indicator for showing how much seawater was still
needed for the voyage.

Abby had said to give a good five count even
after the bar reached full capacity. It was a good thing to have a
little extra water, but not too much.

I could see that the ocean around us had
turned into a swirling whirlpool of turbulence, as water was sucked
into the vortex faster than the ocean could immediately refill. The
bar was full and I counted to five. At the count of five I hit the
green button once more.

The vessel unlocked from the beacon array
and shot upwards with greater velocity than I had ever experienced
before in my life. It felt as if the skin of my face was being
blown inward and I practically couldn’t breathe. We pressed deeply
back into our seats, as we surged upward through the column of
sparking color.

Dimly I thought I saw a bluish color beyond
the walls of energy surrounding us and then it briefly turned red
and then black. It stayed black and the feeling of being glued to
our seats dissipated rapidly and the vessel leveled out and I could
have sworn we weren’t moving at all, but the indicators for travel
said otherwise.

The cool voice intoned once more,
“Transferral successfully initialized. Expected arrival at
destination, Earth in three days, four hours, fifty seven minutes,
and sixteen seconds. It is now safe to remove safety
harnesses.”

The lights came back on as she finished
talking. Everything was on automatic control now in terms of the
vessel’s operation. I could relax now or at least try to.

Something was being handed to me; it was
Torren holding the same cloth I had used on him.

“Thanks!” I said mopping away at my
face.

“Don’t mention it.”

We both sat back in our seats entirely
exhausted from the experience we had just gone through.

Roric unknown to the men on the vessel had
watched the entire training process take place with Krista by his
side on a special display that Abby had set up for them.

When the vessel had left the underground
chamber he and Krista had come back up to their room on the cliff
top and watched from their balcony out toward the distant ocean and
waited.

The transferral beam was clearly visible
even at such a distance with several low mountains in their way of
viewing the ocean. The beam of golden green light had seemed to
reach forever up into the sky. When it began disappearing from the
ground up they both knew that the ship was on its way into space
and God willing, Earth.

Krista watched as she stood within the
shelter of her husband’s arms. Big tears fell down her cheeks; as
she witnessed the column of light disappear from view upwards into
the heavens. She’d just perhaps seen her two sons for the last
time. When the light was gone she turned and sobbed against Roric’s
chest, as his tears wetted her hair.

Roric continued staring up into the sky
hoping against hope for the safe return of his sons and the mission
to be a success, but he couldn’t shake the despair he felt of that
never happening.

I came to the conclusion by about the second
day of our voyage that life on a vessel traveling through space
could be unbelievably boring. I was even starting to look forward
to landing, because it meant that we would get off this miserable
ship, with all its brightly lit technology that I had come to
loath.

I was walking back towards the main control
room in search of somebody to talk to about something, anything in
order to kill the time, when alarm bells went off all over the
place, as the hallway filled with red flashing lights.

I ran the rest of the way to the control
room. What was going on? Several of the others were already
there.

Ileyano turned away from a screen to yell to
the rest of us, “It says we have a coolant leak and that we need to
redirect down another pathway! The redirect valves are under the
floor over there!” He said pointing, as he began to run towards the
spot.

There was a sound of an explosion followed
by the hissing of steam, as a pipe running over head burst and fell
crashing down onto Ileyano’s head. He crumbled to the floor as
steam vented into the room.

Talaric and Larc pulled the unconscious
Ileyano out of the worst of the steam pouring into the room, even
as I ran for the floor panel that Ileyano had indicated. Thanic who
was Ileyanos understudy beat me to it. Throwing the cover back we
starred blank faced into the space that was revealed.

There were four pipes with four differently
colored shut off valve handles. Blue, green, yellow, and red.

“Which one is it Thanic?”

“I don’t know! Abby never showed me!”

I grabbed the green handle and started to
pull it, but Thanic stopped me.