ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2
Time Rifts 41 — All Stop
Rest and the Big Re-Group
TW: one scene of love making & one of physical violence
Recap TR40 Breakdown: Reypat dispatched repair teams throughout the ship. Specific areas of the ship were covered in ice. Some places were thick with several layers of ice. Military teams in EE-Suits explored the frozen areas. They discovered Five Griz Acks. They appeared lifeless. The five had not appeared on any sensors or scanners.
“It looks as if these five were flash frozen as they stood,” a tech soldier said through the com.
The Captain made a stay-in-place order for all passengers and other non-essential personnel.
Soldiers and tech soldiers in EE-Suits made visual searches for Griz Acks throughout the ship.
Engineering personnel, dispatched to work on power systems, ran there. Flight engineers looked into the jump FTL drive.
Touzdae and Jac transferred from the health center to their quarters by guards and med-techs. Posted Armed guards in weapon-proofed* booths fixed their position outside the hatch.
Current episode: Tau accompanied the Tech Team, a small cadre of soldiers, and a micro nuke. The space-tug morphed through the port side hangar-bay doors toward the bow. The small vessel on thrusters appeared to drift into the inky blackness devoid of stars. On the aft side was a distant arm of the Milky Way. Tau’s presence was required because of his expertise with pre-interrogation environments**. They had packaged the environment according to his exact specifications. It was hand-carried into the main corridor along with Griz Acks remains. Tau conclusively identified two individual Griz Acks. Formerly they appeared as three. The fragments formed irregular pieces with jagged edges.
Did they change? Tau wondered to himself “Or am I paranoid?” he mumbled.
“What? What did you say, Tau?” the escort soldier-tech asked.
“Talking to myself is all.” Tau engaged in a breathing exercise. He stopped, turned toward his escort about to speak, and changed his mind.
Before Tau boarded he noticed a Minus-Ten Nuke. And he asked about it.
“It produces as much heat as a yellow dwarf star. It’s a small radius explosion, enough to engulf the tug,” his tech-escort said. “This one contains the radiation of the blast.”
“I know what it does. Why do we need it?” Tau voiced a rasping sarcasm.
“As a last resort, to blow ourselves up if we need to,” the escort said.
“That’s what I thought.”
Touzdae and Jac slept for 28 hours without waking. When they emerged from the bedroom chamber a meal awaited them from Captain Tommalar’s chef.
They feasted on the meal and made love after a nap.
They made love again in tantric fashion. Tiny feather hands touched them as kundalini energy cycled through her body to his to her’s. Ecstasy flooded them and pushed them into a cycle of oneness.
They lay in repose, separate bodies and in spirit — together.
“Jac, where are you?” Touzdae felt his presence leave.
A moment later she was pulled into Jac’s vision, she saw it all.
Together in an instance, they sent a joint message to Suke with the vision. A short verbal text with recommendations went to the captain.
“That was almost too easy,” Touzdae told Jac as he moved closer.
“Cuddle?” he whispered.
“When this is over, promise me that we will return to Antares Prime so we will settle and nest.”
“Yes, I want that more than anybeing. Peace and love with you in nesting˜,” he said as he put his arms around her.
Work shifted from the FTL drive to the hyperspace drive (HSD). The work proceeded at a fierce pace. As per Jac’s vision.
Tau observed as the team ran passive scans on the Griz Ack parts. The work was intense. The more he stared at the screens the more he perceived slight changes in the fragments. But, the instruments did not detect any changes.
“I need a break,” Tau said aside to his escort tech.
“This work is important, Tau,” the escort tech said.
“Listen,” Tau began — raising his voice. The others glanced at him with disparagement. He lowered his voice and continued: “If I don’t get a break I’m going out an airlock.”
“Before you do anything rash let me ask you this. Do you think my observation of you qualifies me to take over for you?”
Tau asked him some pointed questions…
“Launch another probe, passive scans only this time,” Tommalar ordered.
“Sir, don’t you think we should wait until we examine the last two probe telemetries?” Reypat asked.
“How far along are we with that?” the captain demanded.
Reypat checked his clear-visor screen in front of his eyes.
“Fifty percent done on both probes.”
“I know it’s not complete, but I want a report now. Give it to me now. Or launch the probe with passive scans,” the captain was uncharacteristically impatient.
“Launch the probe. They’re not ready yet,” Reypat reported. “It will be another 20 to 40 minutes, they estimate.”
“You seem anxious and distracted,” Touzdae suggested.
“And how are you not?” Jac wondered with a slight irritation.
“I’m better at blocking it out and holding the space for us right now,” she said without thinking.
“So you feel it?”
“I feel your irritation. It’s not coming from you, me, or us.”
“Where is it coming from then?” Jac half-demanded.
“Do you remember the part of the vision where the Griz Ack ships were trapped in the third alternate dimension?” Touzdae asked. Jac nodded. “The part where it’s collapsing and destroying them?”
“Are you saying — “
“Yes I am,” Touzdae interrupted.
“What exactly?”
Tau gazed out through the forward plasma ports into the black space. A second escort stood near him.
“What the f#@k was that?” Tau shouted.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Tau punched the escort in the gut and kneed his groin. The man collapsed to the deck. Tau walked aft, down a ladder. He opened the outer airlock hatch and stepped inside.
The second mate saw him. He ran to the lock and attempted to override the controls. It was too late. Tau stepped outside in an exo-suit but without a helmet.
Sensors and cameras monitored his movements.
Afterward, a small group watched the recording of the sensors and the camera footage two times.
“He disappeared,” the leader of the small team said.
Footnotes
* weapon-proofed is better characterized as weapon resistant
* pre-interrogation environments — are duplicated “spaces” down to the atomic level. It includes orientation in and outside the space, motion, temperature and humidity gradients, and a gestalt ambiance.
˜ Nesting is a Antarian word for prepping a space for the conception and carrying a child to birth.
more on nesting:
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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. | Vlad Casian