Lives of Future-Past (The Chronicles of Max Gunnarsson Book 1) (6 page)

     “Draagh, I have a question. If you knew I was coming here, and you knew all about my life, then you probably know who’s coming after me, right?”
     Draagh, also relaxing back against a log, nodded his head. “Yes, Max. There are coming. They will reach Sol system, as you call it, by tomorrow afternoon, and then need another day to get into orbit around Earth. Why do you ask?”
     Max shot him a look of spite. “Wait, you know this, and yet you sit here hitting on a pipe and drinking whisky? I really need to make some plans, because there is no way I can go back without showing some sort of success on this trip. It was an incredible risk I took in the first place. Hey! Can you tell me where the surviving humans are? Maybe I can go there.”
     Draagh shook his head side to side, looking down slightly. “No my son. There is no need. We can stay right here. Do not worry, my son. No, no, no. There is nothing to worry about at all. I have a wondrous plan that will all come to fruition quite soon. We are quite safe! Such excitement! This will be most brilliant!” Draagh shot his fist up in the air, almost in a victorious fashion.
    
Great
, thought Max,
he’s loaded. I’m so screwed.
    
     Max woke up to the sounds of birds singing as they jumped from branch to branch in the thick vegetation overhead. His fire had self-extinguished due to lack of attention, but it had only been for effect anyway. His sensor perimeter would have protected him in any case, and the weather in the Urubamba Valley was quite warm, even during the wintertime. Rubbing his eyes, he got up from his blanket and nearly spilling the opened bottle of whisky at his side.
    
Hmm
, he thought,
what a weird dream
. Staggering over to his ship, he went up the loading ramp and into the cargo hold.
God, I’m gonna need some pain killers
.
     He knew drinking on an empty stomach was always a bad bet, so he stumbled up to the gallery and pushed for a painkiller cocktail. Taking it out of the dispenser tray he moved across the aisle to his cabin, opened the door, and almost dropped his newly acquired medicine on the floor. There, on his bed, was Draagh, passed out, snoring, partially disrobed, and wearing what appeared to be some sort of cloth diaper.
     “Nooooooo!” Max painfully yelled out. “Crap, it wasn’t a dream!”
     Max backed up, tossed the pain med concoction down his throat and bounded up the stairs to the cockpit, sitting in the pilot’s chair, trying to get his brain straight with his head in his hands and yelling, “A diaper. Oh my God, he’s wearing a diaper! Draagh! Wake up!”
     Max started clanging some scrap metal pieces together as Draagh tried to get out of bed, but ended up falling on the gray deck of the cabin. Then, quickly righting himself and dressing, he exited the small room with a slight stumble and a feeble smile.
     “Good morning, my son,” he said, in his most authoritative voice, “shall I assist you in preparing to break the fast?”
     “Huh?” replied Max as he dropped his scrap pieces, making loud clanging noises. He then stepped into the galley and grabbed some foodstuffs from the refrigerator. “Naw, that’s ok. I’ll cook up some desa. It’s a camping trip, after all. Just a camping trip on a distant planet - where aliens wiped out the majority of humanity, and military forces are coming to kill me. No big deal - I’ll cook. Not like it’s weird or anything, right? Immortal Viking dude in a diaper?”
     Max made a silly face, which was good, as he had come to terms with the fact that he was in the company of someone with perhaps the ability to save his hide, if it came down to that. Or at least he believed this to be true. Trotting out the back of The Machu Picchu, he used his Stinger on a low setting and torched some wood, starting the fire up again. He then set a screen over the flames and put down his cast iron skillet. Eggs and jraxon meat - that was on the menu. He didn’t have coffee grounds, so they would have to settle for synth’d coffee from the dispenser, but it tasted good anyway.
     Sitting on their respective logs, both men ate in silence. Draagh looked no worse for wear, as he ate the hot meal that Max had expertly prepared in a matter of minutes. Once finished, Max took their plates and set them down off to the side, and then looking at Draagh with a stern expression.
     “Ok Draagh, can you tell me more? You said something about going somewhere, and I have a feeling that you have a lot more to tell me.”
     Draagh went for his pipe, but then reconsidered. “Max, last night our conversation went all over the place. That was simply normal, as we had met for the first time, and you had numerous questions, but now I am going to speak, and I need for you to listen. I need for you to listen, understand and believe everything I am about to tell you. Are you fine with this?”
     Max made a deadpan expression and nodded. “Ok, dude, I’m game. Speak away.”
     “There are many worlds in the universe - yes many worlds. In these many worlds there have been civilizations that have come and gone - empires that existed long before fish on Earth crawled out of the oceans and took their first breaths of deadly atmosphere. Mankind is not alone in the universe, as you already might have surmised. There indeed
is
an alien fleet on its way to Azul, and your people are alarmed - for good reason, I might add. Every society needs to do its utmost to protect itself, but time is not linear, nor is it in a loop. It is more like a - how can I put it - a bicycle wheel. Have you seen the wheels of a bicycle?”
     Max nodded. He had bicycles when he was a child, so he was familiar with the concept of spoked wheels.
     “There is a central hub, from which all of the spokes in the wheel emanate. So look at it like this. The Hub is the center of time. The Hub is timeless. Each spoke is a different timeline, but one such as myself can cross into different timelines if The Hub is used properly. It takes great skill, with only very few beings who are able to do this. However, I am one of them. I watched you from a faraway place for a very special reason. Do you remember how, when you were young and you went for physical checkups, your doctors always seemed to be aloof or disoriented upon performing your examination - if the checkup had anything to do with DNA?”
     Max thought about it for a second, and he
did
remember this happening. He thought it was quite odd, and he also remembered his parents wafting off a bit after some doctor visits.
     “Yeah, I remember something like that. I thought they were self-medicating or something.” Max snickered a bit and then gave his apt attention to Draagh.
     “So, my son. As you do remember this, it had a purpose. I did that to the doctors. Yes, it was necessary - necessary to hide your lineage - your nature and true heritage. Else, you would have been vivisected upon an operating table with no further thought.”
     Max got an alarmed look on his face, as well as a sickening feeling in the pits of his stomach.
     “Um, Draagh, what lineage are you talking about? I should hide being half-dego? I’m just as proud of my dego side as my bacho side.”
     Draagh leaned back a bit and took a sip of his coffee, which by then had gone cold. Then, looking Max directly in the eyes he said, “Your lineage is from a very old subspecies of human. You must understand that there were many subspecies - Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, Modern man, as well as others. The world - this world - it had… energies. It had organisms and features that no longer existed by the time modern society came about. We felt it necessary to prevent access to these energies, and for mankind to develop on his own, as he was most definitely not progressing in a timely fashion. As we go on and get to know each other better I will explain these things to you - and teach you. So, Max, you were not the only one protected. There were countless others on Azul, but there were also others, similar to me, in charge of them. I took a special interest in you for various reasons, but one being that others would simply pass on their recessive genes to further generations, never having had the chance to access their innate skills. You, however, have not been resigned to such a fate.
     Being able to travel through time and space, as I am able to do, we observe, and in some cases, correct. Sometimes in order to correct, we must let tragedy strike. We must let many suffer, so that we may right the wrongs so unjustly thrust upon innocent billions. But this time, Max, we have a very important job to do. We will stop the suffering. It does not happen here, and it ends somewhere else, as this was simply a convenient place for us to meet. Anyway, I need to take you somewhere so I can further help you to realize your potential, and to prepare you for an incredibly dangerous, yet exciting job. However, I would like to take a little trip to a nearby location, so that you may see what you will eventually be up against. You are not to return to Azul - at least not right away, and we have precious little time, so I would ask that you come along with me. It will only take a few moments…. are you willing to come along?”
     At first Max didn’t like this. He had plans, and even though things were not good with his planet’s military, he couldn’t justify running off with some old Viking and leaving his ship. He gave Draagh a roguish expression, thought for a moment, and then shot off some questions in rapid-fire fashion.
     “Will I lose my ship? Will it be safe? How will I get home?”
     “Max,” Draagh continued, “When I am done teaching you what you need to learn, you won’t need a space ship.”
     Max reluctantly agreed, gave Draagh and archaic thumbs-up sign, and the two of them stood up. “Come, my boy. Stand close to me, as you must be in the proximity of my staff.”
     With that, Max stood next to Draagh, who then tamped his staff into the ground with a mild concussive force, causing the two to disappear from the campsite, with nothing left of their presence save for a small whirlwind of dust.
 

     “We enter Sol system in approximately 8 hours, Father. From there it could take anywhere up to 24 hours more to cruise into Earth orbit."
     Ryder paused briefly before continuing, as he stared at the side space console vid screen. The last he had spoken to his father was some 18 hours prior, when he informed him of their proximity, but now that he had a more precise ETA he had initiated contact again.
     “I am retrofitting my Draeder with supplementary fuel extraction equipment and have stashed extended supplies on board. Once there I will install the side space transmitter arrays at the predefined locations and we should be good. Then I’ll find Gunnarsson’s ship and take command of it, giving us our own personal SSCC transport. As the plan goes, once I get his ship I will crash my Draeder and move to a hidden location with Gunnarsson’s craft and wait until the fleet departs back for Azul. I’ll be listed as missing in action. From there we’ll rendezvous at our base on Vela.”
     The plan went further – once his father’s scientists had successfully stolen/extracted all of the SSCC technology and could build hooks drives for a virtually derelict fleet of barges left over from the Exodus, he would take Gunnarsson’s ship back to Azul and return the hero. He would claim he had bailed out of his Draeder after being shot down by Gunnarsson, and then killed the man in hand-to-hand combat. Then, after some weeks, would have found the traitor’s ship and returned it to Azul military. Then he would be able to assist his father with the continuation of their nefarious plans.
     Councilman Johnson beamed with pride; his son was implementing a plan hatched long ago - the re-conquest of Earth. For too long he had been biding his time, surrounded by weaklings who were all too willing to live a peaceful existence. Councilman Johnson wanted power, and he was going to get it, thanks to Max Gunnarsson’s discovery of faster than light travel.
     “Son, I am pleased. Do not let me down. Maintain secure transmissions at all times, and immediately let me know Earth status once you have entered Sol system.”
     The screen went blank, and Lt. Johnson put the console back into the footlocker, pushing it back under the bed. He showered up and got ready for his duty cycle, and thought he perhaps had one more chance to get Jennie into his bed.
 

     In the forward section of the massive spacecraft, Rear Admiral Bagatelle stood on the bridge, overlooking the mad display of colors until it caused his eyes to ache.
     “Turn screen opaque,” he commanded. He knew they would arrive at Sol system in just a few hours, and as it was completely new to anyone from his planet, he didn’t know what to expect. He only knew the mission at hand. He had to capture or kill Maximilianus Gunnarsson, and reacquire the upstart’s vessel before anyone else did.
     Bagatelle had issues back home, and was constantly battling with the authorities over the proper course of action. His biggest headache was Councilman Len Johnson. He had long known that Councilman Johnson had coveted power. It was the man’s nature - he was always trying to lead discussions and operations on the Security Council. In fact, he even tried to take over military operations at one time, albeit in a very sideways manner. Knowing something was seriously up with Johnson’s son, who had been a last-minute placement on the Revolution, he was hoping that Lt. Escalante would at least keep an eye out on the man.
     He was very proud of her – all of her accomplishments, everything done alone and without help. She was the polar opposite of Johnson, who was born into a powerful family and had every luxury handed to him as he grew up. He was only in the military to satisfy a requirement anyway – anyone serving on the Security Council must have performed military service in a commissioned capacity.
     Jennie went about her duty schedule, but also intended to give Ryder a bit of a sideshow. Entering the flight deck, she crossed diagonally to the ops booth, weaving in-between Draeder attack fighters, which were all lined up in perfect formation. She knew that he would see her, so she walked a bit more slowly than usual, and put a tad more swing in her hips.
    
Just a little, enough to be subtly sexy.
    
Through the corner of her eye she saw Johnson and pretended not to see him, but she knew he was watching her. He was working on his Draeder, which was not unusual. Although this was generally the work of the myriad of techs on the flight deck area, he liked to take care of his own craft. He seemed to be quite protective of the general area around his ship, waving techs off who had offered assistance. Nevertheless, she sat down in the ops booth and started going through flight recordings to make sure that none of the Draeders had suffered equipment or system failures in the recent past.
     Moving on, she finished her work looking over the flight logs and moved on to her next duty station, which happened to be the surveillance level’s vid deck. Entering the large, expansive room full of screens, she nodded courteously to the lead tech, and then took out her list.
     “I’ll be going over footage in the editing bay. I am not to be disturbed.”
     The tech again nodded and said, “Aye-aye, Ma’am,” and obediently turned back to his duties, surveying every square inch of the ship, minus living quarters. This was helpful in certain situations, if one knew what he/she was looking for, but this was a tech, and he was just looking for normal abnormalities, such as conduit leaks or broken door sensors.
     Jennie shut the door behind her and sat down at the main screen in the editing bay, where she turned on live cams and zoomed into where Johnson was working on his craft. She wanted to get a close-up of his cute butt and then take some snaps of it and tease him later.
     She was really considering spending the night with him, although it made her nervous thinking about it. She wasn’t sure if it was the right time, as she wanted so much more with him. Zooming in on his location she saw nothing unusual - just someone being slightly anal about his attack vehicle, which made her giggle.
     “God, he’s such a perfectionist,” she thought. She knew in her heart that she could really compliment him in life and help him to reach his true potential - all he needed was a little prodding in the right direction.
     She checked some other sectors on different consoles and then went back to her zoomed view on his posterior, but this time she noticed him look around suspiciously and remove a 1 by ½ meter device out of a box and place it up into the cargo storage of his Draeder. She then saw him lift up some thick tubing and shove it up into the same cargo area.
    
He’s loading up gear so he can refuel himself on Earth!
     Earth, like Azul, was full of saline oceans, and saline oceans had deuterium. Deuterium powered fusion-ion drives, as well as atmo concussion boosters, but Draeders carried enough deuterium to last two weeks at full burn. Johnson had no need for refueling gear.
     Tempted to contact Commander Bagatelle immediately, she held off and started to record Ryder’s activities, which were in direct violation of orders and protocols. She made an educated guess that he was planning to stay on Earth, but as the details of the mission were completely transparent to all officers, she had no idea where his orders came from – most certainly not Admiral Bagatelle.
     Once Ryder had stored everything he needed for his mission, he made a beeline to his quarters and again pulled out his footlocker, unlocking it and opening up the side space video console. His father’s familiar face appeared in the screen.
     “Father, we are nearly in Sol System. My ship has been adequately prepared for the extended operation. I will –” 
     
     Councilman Johnson immediately interrupted his son. “Stop. There is a change in plans.”
     “Father?”
     “Our side space orbital probe detected Gunnarsson’s basic landing zone, and you are to go there immediately and engage him before Revolution’s recon teams can find him. Here is what you are to do.”
     He watched the screen intently as his father gave him instructions that even unnerved the jaded young lieutenant.
    
Oh well,
he thought.
It was good while it lasted. Time for Plan B, I guess.
     Jennie kept scanning all displays, and going back to her view on Ryder it appeared that he had left his Draeder and the flight deck, so she stopped the recording and decided the take the ball into her own hands. She felt she knew him, and didn’t want to accuse the lieutenant of any wrongdoing, so she left her duty station and went to his quarters, where she had hoped he would he would be. She was positive that she had totally misunderstood the whole situation, and that there was a plausible explanation for everything.
     As she approached his door she was surprised to see him exiting while holding the box from underneath his bed. He was also dressed down in his flight gear, which was unnecessary, as there would be no Draeders leaving the flight deck for at least some hours.
     “Ryder – Hi… I saw you leave the flight deck and  - is everything OK?”
     His face showed absolutely no surprise at all – he looked cool as a cucumber. He stared into the eyes of who could have been realistically considered his girlfriend, and simply lied through his teeth.
     “Oh heya Jennie! Yeah, I’m just super excited and want to be ready. You know, I really want to be the one to apprehend that bastard traitor. It could really put me over the top, so if you and I were to do it together we could both benefit – I mean, I think we could make a really good team, don’t you?”
     Jennie melted a bit as all of her suspicions were easily pushed aside by the manipulative lieutenant. Opening his door, he asked her into his quarters. She entered, fully expecting him to give her the details of how they were to emerge as heroes. Turning around she watched as he set his mysterious box down and took her hands into his, her heart racing due to the fortunate turn of events.
     “Jennie, I gotta tell you – being with you is really a lot of fun, and I was hoping that we could have had even more fun together, but it’s not going to happen…”
     “Huh?” she muttered, confused and shocked at his comment which he blurted out with no more passion than when someone was asking for a tomato in the mess hall line.
     “Nope. No más. Sorry.”
     The last thing she remembered was him letting go of her hands, followed by a flash. (*6*)
     Jennie woke up to the sound of alarms and the flashing of a red, rotating light in the room where she was. Her head ached and she felt a definite pain in the middle of her chest. Still dazed, she grabbed the bed frame to her side to help lift herself up, and looking around noticed that she was in Ryder’s quarters.
     Unable to think clearly, the cacophony of sounds – mixtures of alarms and alerts bells – made her head ache even more. She needed to think clearly, so she sat down on the bed.
     “
Ryder – flight suit. Box in his hands. Team… no más. Oh shit,”
she thought to herself as the disassociated images ran through her head, finally coalescing into rational thought.
     Ryder had stunned her and was probably the cause of the alarms, but she had no idea how bad the alarms were. She still tried to convince herself that he was simply out to be a hero, and that his nature forced him to do it on his own – but why would he stun her?
     Gathering herself up, she made for the door. She needed to see what was happening. Exiting Ryder’s quarters she saw techs running everywhere – it was absolute pandemonium, and was not typical of a drill - something bad had happened.
     Stopping a young female ensign, she demanded answers as to what had happened.
     “Ensign – report. Now! What has happened?”
     The younger woman looked at her superior officer with distraught eyes and said, “Lieutenant – where have you been? The second we dropped out of side space someone blew the airlock, and then flew out without even activating the atmosphere lock field. We’ve lost dozens of Draeders, pilots and techs… they’re floating out there - dead in space.”
     The atmosphere lock field, as the ensign called it, was an energy barrier, separating the safe atmosphere of the flight deck from the vacuum of space.
     The young woman looked at Jennie as she started to shed tears. Jennie was about to cry too, now realizing that she had been betrayed. She didn’t want to believe that Ryder had created their current disaster, but all indications led to that hypothesis. She sent the ensign on her way and went directly to the command bridge.
     Running up onto the command center she found everyone in a state of panic. Weapon fire erupted, Bagatelle was barking out commands, and on the giant display panel she saw a lone Draeder blasting away on full fusion-ion propulsion, with the Revolution desperately trying to blow it out of the sky. Further, to her horror, she saw dozens of ships, equipment and people floating dead in space, having been sucked into the void due to the lack of a lock field when the flight deck bay doors had opened.
     “Escalante, where have you been?” yelled Bagatelle, sporting a small dripping of blood from the corner of his mouth. He had been chewing on his lip again, as he usually did when he was under extreme stress. “Report!”
     Jennie was in a near state of panic, not knowing what had happened. She just stood looking at the screen with her jaw agape. Then it started to creep in.

I’m responsible.
She looked at her commanding officer and stuttered, not being able to form the words that she needed to say.
     “Sir, I was watching Lt. Johnson attempting to load what appeared to be some contraband equipment onto his Draeder, so I followed him when he left the flight deck. He… invited me into his cabin and then I think he stunned me, because I woke up to alarms, and this on my chest.”
     She pointed at a light burn mark on her uniform, which Bagatelle glanced at and then nodded, followed by a stern look.
     “Did you happen to record any of his activities?”
     “Yes sir. I was in the editing bay when it happened. I was watching him, as you requested, when I saw him doing something unusual.”
     She partially lied – yes she was watching him, but she was looking at his butt, and wasn’t concerned with any sort of surveillance. She knew that if she told her commanding officer what she was really doing she could be brought up on charges. She had been betrayed, used, and she was starting to get really pissed off about it. She went to the command console and brought up vids of the flight deck and zeroed into Johnson’s activities not long before.
     Bagatelle scanned through the video and closed his eyes with a look of remorse. There was nothing any of them could have done, as this had to have been timed perfectly. The escaping Draeder was identified as Johnson’s, and the lieutenant knew exactly where they were in side space. A pilot was not able to fly the Draeder of another, as each craft had a psionic connection to its designated user. Logs showed that the bay doors had been opened mere moments after hitting normal space, so, in reality, there was not a whole lot they could have done, given the circumstances.
     Bagatelle continued to give Jennie a sharp look, but then relaxed a bit, saying, “In truth, Lieutenant, I believe I was too late to the game. I should have acted sooner on my suspicions. Now we have to hunt down another fugitive, and I have a feeling I know which one is the more dangerous of the two.”
     Swinging his body around, he roared, “GET THOSE SHIPS BACK INSIDE NOW!”
     Jennie took a deep breath and dropped her shoulders, but was still immensely concerned about the current state of crisis.
     “Sir, how can I be of assistance?”
     Bagatelle looked frantically around the bridge, scanned the view screen, and then turned to the attractive lieutenant. 
“Jennie, I need you to put on a pressure suit and run a mag-cat with a grappler on the outside of the hull. Help to get those Draeders back onto the flight deck.”