“Come on, Captain, you’re not giving up so soon, are you?”
Jason didn’t like Stalls’ heavily accented voice. He didn’t like anything about Stalls.
“Are you here to talk or fight?”
Jason didn’t wait for an answer. He took two quick steps, a jump and spin in the air that ended with a sidekick that connected his right foot to the bridge of Stalls’ nose. Blood spurted and continued to flow down into his mouth. Stalls spat, then smiled a bloody, toothy grin. Now, also staying low, he came at Jason. Feigning a jab, he punched out with his right and caught Jason’s left cheek, tearing flesh from bone and causing his own blood to flow down his face. Stalls’ men cheered—Nan screamed. Jason was seeing stars. He couldn’t remember ever being hit that hard. He staggered and fought to stay on his feet.
Stalls was on the move again. He swung and Jason ducked. Stalls swung again and Jason blocked and countered with a jab to Stalls’ already broken nose. The bigger man staggered backward, then regained his footing. Jason came at him, swung and missed. Stalls surprised Jason with his speed. He moved in close, then angled in behind Jason and placed his forearm firmly over his throat. Jason fought against Stalls’ hold, making him work for control. Stalls quickly glanced over his shoulder to Nan, and smiled.
Jason moved, bringing his right knee up, then forcing his boot down with all his strength. Comprised of a hardened composite material, the back ridge of his boot heal came down directly on Stalls’ right foot—right where his toes intersected. Although Stalls’ big toe held on, his second and third toes tore away with a relatively clean separation. The move wasn’t pretty, but highly effective. Stalls released his grip and reflexively reached for his damaged foot. Jason knew he was still in trouble and had no more than a second, maybe two, before Stalls composed himself. With Stalls doubled over, again Jason targeted his broken nose—this time with his knee. Stalls went down and stayed down.
Jason turned and saw that Billy was smiling. Nan, on the other hand, had a furrowed brow and was shaking her head. Then her eyes went wide.
How Stalls had recovered so quickly and had found his knife, Jason had no idea. Again, Nan was held at knifepoint.
“Seriously, Captain, you trust a pirate to play fair?” Stalls said, grinning.
“Stalls, you’ve lost control of this ship. Why go through this?”
“Where is my brother? I need to know he is still alive.”
There was no need for Jason to answer. Rustling Leaves moved forward and came to a stop several paces behind Stalls. Seeing movement, he quickly glanced backward over his shoulder. Bristol was still secured under one of the rhino’s arms.
“What have you done to him?”
“He’s fine. Well, a little scratch to his thumb, earlier,” Jason replied. “It’s been attended to.”
“Scratch!” Bristol whined.
“Quiet, little brother,” Stalls said, with irritation.
Nan started to shake. Tears ran down her cheeks. Jason felt his rage building; his fists clenched, knuckles white.
“I’ll be taking her with me, insurance of safe passage.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Listen, you have my word. If you release her now, you’ll have safe transport back to your ship.”
Stalls’ men had their weapons pointing at Jason. Billy, Orion and Rizzo had their weapons pointed at the raiders. At a stalemate again, Stalls looked to be weighing his options.
“Let go of my brother.”
Jason nodded to Rustling Leaves. Bristol fell to the floor.
Stalls released Nan and pushed her toward Jason. She staggered and moved behind him. He heard her whisper something—then she said it again, louder.
“Don’t trust that animal, Jason.”
Stalls moved in closer toward one of his men, grabbed for his sidearm and leveled it in Jason’s direction. Walking backward, he helped Bristol to his feet, and they continued backward into the Deck 2 corridor. His men followed, guns raised high.
Bristol fished in his pocket for something and came out with the little handheld device. In a flash, a large section of the Lilly disappeared, phase-shifted to the multiverse. Jason flinched, expecting to see and feel the vacuum of open space. Before them was another ship, also with a large section missing. Apparently, both ships were butt-up against each other. Not a perfect fit, the vacuum of space was sucking the oxygen out of
The Lilly
from around the edges where the two ships’ hulls made loose contact. One by one, the remaining raiders jumped across the open void into the other vessel. Bristol made a sneering glance in Jason’s direction and was the next to jump across.
Jason was surprised to see Brian rush by. “Sorry, I have some unfinished business with these people, Jason. To be honest, the prospect of sitting in a brig back on Earth doesn’t really work for me. You understand. Say hello to dad for me.” Brian smiled, and he too jumped across the void into the pirate ship.
With a smile, Captain Stalls turned, limped to the edge of the void and jumped. Five seconds later there was another flash and the corridor phase-shifted back to normal.
* * *
Later, Jason found Nan back in her suite, toweling dry her hair. Every muscle in his body ached and his head throbbed. He slowly sat next to her on the bed.
“That’s three, Jason.”
He looked at her, not knowing what to say.
“Twice thrown into Craing cages and now almost raped by a crazed pirate.”
Jason nodded, but still held his tongue.
“I think you know what I’m going to say next.”
He stared at her.
“I want a weapon. And I want to know how to use it.”
“That was not what I expected you to say,” Jason replied.
“I’m tougher than you think. But I’m through being a victim. So if you want me and Mollie onboard this ship, we’re learning self-defense and how to use weapons.”
“Mollie too?”
“Yes, most importantly Mollie.”
“Deal. And I know just the person to teach you.”
“Who?”
“Gunny Orion.”
“She scares me,” Nan said, sounding less sure of things.
“I’ll set it up. Starting first thing tomorrow.”
Jason was being hailed.
Go for Cap.
“I think you should see this, Captain,” Ricket said.
“I’m on my way.”
Jason turned to Nan. “I have to go. Your daughter is still hiding in HAB 4. Oh, I need to warn you about something.”
“Oh God, what now?”
“It’s about Alice.”
“Who is Alice?” she asked.
“Not sure if it’s so much of a
who
as a
what
. She’s a dog-like creature we found in HAB 12. It’s my guess Mollie’s going to want to keep her. Don’t let her pressure you. We can build her a kennel in the hold. I’m just warning you ahead of time.”
“Well, it might be good for her to have a dog. I don’t know.”
* * *
Coming out of Nan’s quarters, Jason nearly walked into Chief Horris.
“Cap, I was just on my way to see you.”
The chief fell into step with Jason. “I wanted to talk to you about the XO.”
“I hear you kept them from throwing his body out an airlock. I appreciate that. His family will as well,” Jason said.
“That’s fine, sir. Thank you. The thing is, Lieutenant Commander Perkins wasn’t taken to the morgue.”
“Where did you put him?”
As they approached Medical, the chief gestured for Jason to turn. “Sir, I did my best to get Perkins into a MediPod, and perhaps save his life.”
“That’s wonderful, Chief. Quick thinking on your part. In here?”
“But Sir … I’d never been trained how to use any of the medical equipment, including those MediPods.”
“Oh, I see; he didn’t survive,” Jason said, his shoulders sagging a bit.
“I didn’t say that either, sir. Best if I show you.” Chief Horris took several steps into the room, went to the control panel for the second MediPod, and a moment later the clamshell began to separate. Jason looked at the dimly lit face through the small window at the top of the pod. Something was definitely wrong. The rest of Perkins’ body came into view.
“I’ve kept him sedated until someone who knows more than I do can address the problem. Perhaps Ricket can help?” the chief asked, concern on his face.
“Good decision, Chief. Yes, best if Perkins is not aware of his condition. At least for the time being.”
Both Jason and the chief continued to stare down at the XO. “And, as I was saying, sir, he seems to be in perfect health otherwise.”
* * *
“Sorry for the delay. Putting out fires,” Jason said, entering Ricket’s domain on Deck 4B. “I need to contact the outpost and we need to get back to Earth. For all we know, the Emperor’s Guard is already there. So we need
The Lilly
back to her old self as soon as possible.”
“The information Bristol provided did, in fact, allow me to re-access the Lilly AI. We do need to do a cold-start and refresh her back to the previous core version.”
“You mentioned you would have to do that. Is there a problem?” Jason asked, looking at the cluttered bench top and array of strange devices. Ricket was impeccably organized, and this mess seemed out of the norm.
“No, and with your permission, I’ll begin the cold-start within the hour. But that’s actually not what I wanted to talk to you about. It seems Bristol was an inventor. In addition to in his own cabin, he had been working here as well. This is his mess. He was building upon some of the technology I had used for the phase-shift belts.”
“Like the devices he made for the raiders to access the ship?”
“Yes, exactly. But there are other items here. Things based on Caldurian technology that I had not thought of,” Ricket said.
Jason picked up the largest of the devices. “What’s this one do?” he asked.
“That one, I believe, is a phase-duplicator.”
Jason’s face went blank.
“As you know, when we utilize any of our phase-shift devices, things are instantly shifted to a designated plane within the multiverse, yes?”
Jason nodded for Ricket to continue.
“I believe this unit functions identically to any other phase-shift device we have, with one significant exception. Mid-way through the phase-shift process, the originating item is phase-shifted again, perhaps over and over. This happens in virtual space—each residing in subsequent, other, slightly out-of-phase layers. Then, as a batch, they are returned back to the originating time-location continuum.”
Jason let that sink in. “So, for example, if
The Lilly
phase-shifts to the multiverse, it could return as multiple versions of itself?”
“Basically, yes. What I’ve been able to piece together from the AI database, and Bristol’s own notes, is he had a problem setting numerical values. For this device to play nicely with physics, and be effective, it would need to be one hundred percent configurable for the quantity and the timeframe. Imagine an infinite number of
The Lilly
s phase-shifting back into one’s own particular time and space. Or producing multiples of herself that never leave your timeframe.”
“Would you be able to design-in those parameters? That would align to the laws of physics?” Jason asked.
“Already have. The answers were there, he just hadn’t discovered them yet.”
“Would it be possible for the duplicated items to interact with each other?” Jason asked, now getting excited.
“Yes, and that’s where things get interesting,” Ricket replied.
Chapter 31
The Lilly
was dead in space and only minimal ship systems had been operational, so the cold-start reset had no real effect on anyone. Within an hour, the ship was back to normal. Jason’s first order of business was to send the necessary FDL markers to the outpost that would allow for bidirectional communications. He was expecting a reply any minute.
Ricket stood with Dira in front of Perkins’ sealed MediPod. Jason found a countertop, grimaced, and carefully leaned against it.
“I don’t understand,” Jason said. “You can save a life, rebuild a heart, for God’s sake. What’s the big deal with simply changing him back?”
“At this point, the MediPod software does not recognize there is a problem. It will take me some time to reconfigure the software parameters,” Ricket said.
“Seems strange this could even happen,” Jason said, looking at Perkins through the window.
“MediPods typically can distinguish the species of the patient. But commands were input improperly. The chief confused the device to the point it defaulted to its default species condition, Caldurian.”
“The issue is, do we keep the XO in stasis while I figure this out, or bring him back now—for the interim?”
Dira continued, “Physically, Perkins will be fine; it’s more a question of how he’ll react to the physical anomaly.”
Jason took it all in. “So how much time are we talking about? Before you figure this out?”
“It could be as long as a week,” Ricket replied.
“What do you need from me?” Jason asked.
“The decision to wake him up or not,” Dira said.
“Okay, I still don’t understand why I’m involved. This is a medical issue, and you are the doctor, right?”
“Captain, the question is, do we need him back on the bridge? He’ll be an able-bodied officer,” Dira said. “If so, we’d like you to be here. Help explain things.”
“So we’ll bring him back while he has the body of a—” Jason stopped and looked through the MediPod’s window—“a Caldurian.”
“That’s right,” both Dira and Ricket said at the same time.
“Fine, wake him up. I’ll tell him about it. You can talk to him about his options, which don’t sound like there are any.”
Dira was at the control panel. In less than a minute, the MediPod was opening. Perkins’ eyes fluttered, then opened wide. Startled, he sat up.
“I’ve been stabbed!”
Jason stepped in closer and knelt down. “Easy, XO, you’re fine. Everything’s fine. Pirates are gone … you’ve been pretty much all patched up.”
Perkins looked somewhat relieved and laid back down. “That pirate, Stalls. He stabbed me in the heart.” Dira, Ricket and Jason watched as he crossed his arms over his chest.