ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2

Time Rifts 38 — Plans and Snags

The Beginning of The End

Recap — TR37: Towards a Final Solution: “What final solution?” Captain Tommalar demands to know. Jac explains they did it before and it would take ten hours. “Too long,” Tommalar says. Touzdae pulls the captain aside and explains an alternate plan. Tommalar approves and gives Touzdae a task in the plan.

With the help of the seers, the team could predict when three or four ships of the Griz Ack Reptoid Warriors would arrive down to the second. The mines were repurposed to work with the effects of the Faster-Than-Light jump. The plan worked as predicted. Three of four ships were transported to an alternate third dimension with a short life. The fourth ship stayed out of range, monitored, analyzed, and predicted the end of the Mu’s jump.

Upon arrival 13 Griz Ack attack ships descended on the Mu’s position. The Mu jumped into the alternate or the 2nd dimension where the duplicate Mu was stationed.

They execute a six-minute jump. Jac and Touzdae examine the download from Tu Mai in a holographic matrix. And was cut short when the jump ended. Nuclear detonations appeared ahead. But they originated in the primary reality — breaking through in the second reality.

About to make a one-minute jump when a Griz Ack is located on board without triggering a breach alarm.

Current Episode picking up where we last left-off:

“There were no hull breaches, no transporters detected. This is near the five vaulted lock-down chambers. Sensors read that the Jax Kristos Chamber has no life forms inside,” COS reported.

“Scan the other four chambers for humanoid life forms and/or reptiles.” Tommalar.

“Aye sir,” three techs said.

“Three of the remaining four are undergoing transformations. The fourth remains human,” one of the techs said.

“Double-duty Lock-down on all the lock down chambers. Arm explosives and eject the vault immediately.” Tommalar continued. “Infection detectors?”

“Down.”

“Exosuits for all aboard. Are they down everywhere?”

“One hundred feet out functional. No infection detected.”

“Lock down all areas without operating detection sensors. Execute Bio-Hazard protocols. Send a tech team to examine the sensors for tampering. Make sure they are wearing exosuits,” the captain covered it all.

“Chambers ejected. Further orders?” the COS.

“We wait until we’ve jumped and then blow them.”

“I’ve found the location of former Jax Kristos. Via cameras. He’s a Griz Ack. On the run, so fast!” a tech reported.

“Jump, one minute and send techs out immediately after. On my order,” Tommalar barked.

The protocols were set in motion, the countdown began and jumped.

“Scan for Reptoids. And nukes,” Tommalar ordered. “COS did the vault-chambers explode?”

“Checking,” COS (Chief of the Ship, and Executive Officer) — Reypat. “There’s a debris field consistent with the size of the chambers.”

“Clear of nukes and reptoids,” one of the techs reported.

“Recheck, continue enhanced passive scans only,” Captain Tommalar reiterated. “And get me Suke.”

“We are ready,” Suke said, absent an exo-suit as the door to the bridge slid open. She stood poised at the opening to the bridge. Suke drew Captain Tommalar to her. As she walked backward he followed. Once through the bulkhead and the security scanners she stopped.

“Why the secrecy?” Tommalar asked in a low tone.

“The walls have ears,” she said. Through telepathy, she conveyed her concerns and some tentative plans.

“These are a good set of plans. How will you eject the — ” Suke put her long finger to his lips. “Keep it on a need-to-know basis.”

“Yes, I see, good idea,” the captain whispered. “I approve. Go ahead. Wait,” he took out a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote her a note. “All right — go now.”

She smiled put the paper into her long white coat and left.

“Not another weapon!” Touzdae protested as she walked in with three vegetarian sandwich wraps.

Geordae was busy testing a new laser.

“It’s a deterrent,” Jac said. “It doesn’t kill them. It hopefully will force them into a hibernation cycle.”

“Oh! How is that?” Holding onto her sarcasm she looked to Geordae. She expected him to speak. He laid the nozzle of the gun down on the stone workbench and took off his goggles.

“Every time an ordinary weapon fires at the alloy that makes up their suit — they heat up. They get energy from it. The heat from the weapon adds fuel or energy to their suit somehow.

“This instrument will cool the suit down rapidly to freezing, in theory.” Geordae stopped. “Unfortunate it is — we don’t have enough time to reproduce many of them. It requires bulky equipment to fire.”

“Hungry?” Touzdae asked. She made an offering of the sandwich wrap as a way of peace toward Geordae.

“Yes,” he smiled. He took a bite, smiled again, and went back to work.

Suke walked into the bio-synthesis chamber. Her colleague Bita-Ba was working with a team of three. Suke observed. Bita-Ba and her team finished injecting biomass and DNA into the matrix of four bridge officers.

“Looking good,” Suke said aloud. Will the officers be able to operate these holos on the main bridge?

Reypat is coming down to test out his model in five minutes or so. Bita-Ba sent the thought to Suke.

Good work. After the preliminary test make a telepathic link to us in the Alabaster Disk Chamber. We will need your input. From all four of you. Suke concluded her thoughts to the team leader Bita-Ba.

Suke and Bita-Ba’s team acknowledged the mutual telepathic messages.

“Let me get this straight,” Touzdae — nervous and fidgeting, began. “You’re bringing the Mu into the primary dimension while charging the FTL drive. Once through you want Jac and I to flip the ship upside down — relatively speaking. You suspect the invisible Griz-Ack in superior stealth ships are beyond our sensors. They are amassed awaiting our return to the primary dimension,” Touzdae said. And Tommalar cut in.

“Not suspect, we have Suke and the seers’ precognitive visions of the Griz-Ack taking over the ship. So we’re letting them do that.”

“What!? Crazy plan!”

“Their plan is to take the bridge. We’ll let them do that.”

“I’m not seeing the big picture. How do you plan to get into the main dimension?”

“There’s no time to explain,” he checked his chronometer. “Jac is waiting at the ship’s center. Everything is planned to the second. You need to go to ship’s center where Jac is. Trust me. Trust the plan.”

Tommalar turned and gave hand signals to transport Touzdae to Jac’s location.

As the molecular transporter began its cycle the power cut off. Auxiliary power kicked in about fifteen seconds later.

Touzdae was gone. A telepathic message floated in the air but was unreadable.

It was for Tommalar. His shock at the power failure sent him into a small panic, temporarily blocking the thought. He calmed himself with slowed breaths. One word came through in his mind:

Trust m — from Touzdae.

Tau led the Duplicate-Touzdae toward the ship’s center.

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Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. Blessings, Passion, and Grace on your journey. May whatever your looking for — find you.

[This is a fictional story. Like all fiction, elements of truth are present.]

(If you do NOT wish to be tagged, let me know, and I’ll tag you not):

Barbara Murray | K. Pearson Bradley | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Dr. Preeti Singh | Pene Hodge | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | Lee David Tyrrell | DL Nemeril | David Price | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | Libby Shively McAvoy | Alison Hollingsead | Marcus aka Gregory Maidman | Bruno T.