ARC OF THE IMMORTALS: Book 1 — Pursuit
Chapter 4.2 — The Impossible
Jac scrambled back into the melding chair. It rose up into the Bubble turret. Touzdae ran to the weapons console in the aft part of the bridge.
[a scene of violence]
Touzdae and Harry glanced through the overhead through the observation portals. Fish’s shield deflected the larger chunks of ice. Laser bursts, Nez Fish’s aggressive countermeasures, pulverized the ice into millions of tiny pieces.
“Fire. You got a clear shot. Fire!” Harry shouted as an intense particle beam saturated the Fish’s aft section and blinded them.
Fish responded reflexively by shutting the windows down to black. Harry moved forward instinctively, tears running from his eyes. He fell in a chair and depressed some firing buttons. Jac and Touzdae, having received the light on full writhed on the deck in seizure.
Short bursts from Fish’s aft weapons array fired. Red beams lobbed over the top of the Needle Craft piercing its shields and hull as it moved in alongside the Fish.
Instinctively Fish rolled over, and away. She dropped down, releasing canisters of explosive charges in her wake. Explosions pulverized the Needle Craft’s shields. The action rendered Pursuer’s craft helpless and vulnerable to total destruction.
Jac groaned as Fish released a pink mist from above. His body ceased quaking and he righted himself and stood up. He checked Touzdae for a pulse. He dragged himself to the melding chair. Harry was out, unconscious, sprawled over the secondary weapons board.
The melding chair absorbed Jac.
“What the hell happened?” Harry demanded irritated as he woke.
“I saved everybody and now the Needle Ship’s shields are in flux. Jac, your turn,” Fish.
“Jac, fire. The Pursuer is vulnerable. You can kill him. What’s he waiting for? Jac, kill him. Kill him. Fish?” Harry.
Three beams shot up from Fish. One beam neatly sliced through Pursuer’s newly erected aft shields rupturing the unprotected ignition chamber. The second beam took out the forward targeting sensor array. The third damaged a relay. A sensor sweep revealed intermittent power to the interdimensional field generator.
“Possible damage to is transdimensional jump drive,” Fish reported.
Pursuer fired a wide particle beam that missed. It shattered three ice rings.
A Jump tube formed between the shattered ice rings. The Space Fish leapt inside it.
Jac emerged out of the melding chair.
“Why didn’t you finish him when you had the chance? What the hell is the matter with you?” Harry hollered.
“I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why I couldn’t do it.”
“I wish somebody could explain what happened back there.” Harry fumed.
“Yeah, Jac. I mean I know you’re a good guy, but isn’t this carrying it to the extreme?” Touzdae wondered on the edge of accusation.
“Brotherly Love,” Fish was casual.
“What!? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Harry.
“I don’t know where it comes from, The phrase — ‘Brotherly Love appeared from my memory trove.’” Nez Fish.
“What the blazes does it mean Fish?” Harry.
“I don’t know. Ask Jac,” Fish responded.
“Well, Jac?” Touzdae.
“What I do know is that a man of peace and compassion doesn’t kill people if he doesn’t have to.” He paused.
“Touz, could you check on the status of the jump tube, something is off.” Continuing:
“I don’t know. All I know is that I couldn’t kill him. You’re right. I don’t know why. Believe me, I have searched myself. Without an extended meditation I can’t give you an answer because I don’t have one. I can only say that I am a man of peace and compassion and that will have to be enough.”
Touzdae sat at the helm. She looked up at the small space where Jac and Harry stood — almost in each other’s faces.
“We have a problem. It’s the worse thing. The integrity of the tube is fine for the time being. The problem is that we’re going in a circle,” Fish reported.
“That’s impossible. Isn’t it?” Harry.
Jac sat down next to Touzdae at the Navigational Console.
“It’s not impossible. It happened once before. But it’s very difficult and tricky to get clear of it.”
“Explain it to me. Please,” Harry pleaded.
Jac turned around and faced Harry.
“The speed increases exponentially with each turn. The circle becomes tighter. But that’s not the only problem. If it gets too tight we could go backwards in time. Ordinarily, time travel might be a good thing. This kind of travel creates holes in the space-time continuum where alternate universes start to bleed into this one. And there’s the possibility that we could get lost forever in one of them.”
“It gets worst than that. Jac we have an intruder in your cabin. And Jac, it’s you, almost,” Touzdae with pressured speech.
“That shouldn’t have happened. — -How did that happen? Harry perplexed.
“ — -How did that happen?” Jac asked Fish.
“That first particle beam that Pursuer fired had some encoded stuff in it. It left a residue of material in the aft part of my body that was below my sensor threshold at that time.”
“Weaponry?”
“None. The good news is, that he’s not completely formed yet. I’m not even sure if he’s a being in this dimension. But he does have a similar genetic structure as you, Jac, which is curious,” Fish reported.
“That’s what Pursuer was designed to do, genetically morph itself into it’s — ah — prey…” Harry stated.
“Can you give us a visual?” Jac asked Nez.
“No, visual sensors are out in the Captain’s Cabin. He is in your chair, though. There is a remnant of a robotic tool arm. I’d be careful of that.” Fish.
Jac turned to Touzdae. She anticipated with: “Yah, I’ll start working on the Looped Jump problem while you take care of It.”
Jac disappeared through the hatch.
He climbed down the ladder into the main salon. On his way aft through stores, he picked up a knife, a laz pistol, and a personal defensive shield.
“Fish, any movement or change of position of Pursuer, I want to be informed immediately.”
“Of course, Jac. Calm yourself. Do the Twelfth Breath Exercise,”
“Good idea. I’ll do that.”
Jac started a series of controlled breaths.
Before he could finish he entered the cabin. The lights dimmed and didn’t change as programmed. It was dark at the far end of the cabin. Jac’s chair faced the transom windows that filled with the slight curve of a circular jump tube in view. Jac approached the center of the cabin and stopped a few feet from Pursuer’s position. The chair swung around and the overhead light came on.
Jac was shocked. Like looking in a mirror almost. The Pursuer’s face was Jac’s face. The Pursuer’s body — Jac’s body, except the left arm. It was a robotic tool arm dripping goo on the deck.
“You’re wondering why I’m not attacking you?” Pursuer paused, “I can hear your thoughts.”
Jac remained silent, mute, one hand on his laz pistol.
“It’s because I’m not all here. I just came here to toy with you, to let you know that I’m going to make you suffer before I pulverize you. Then I will take your miserable little life and you will be mine. I love to see good people like you suffer. And you know why? Of course not; because I’m superior, and you’re a nothing…
“Shut up.” Jac fired his laz pistol straight into the groin of Pursuer. It’s body shattered in three pieces and vanished. The beam from Jac’s pistol tore a huge gaping hole through the bottom of his cabin at the emergency escape hatch. He and some of the cabin’s contents were sucked out into the space of the jump tube.
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