Space Trader (Galactic Axia Adventure) (26 page)

“That would have been most welcome news back on Horicon!” the professor exclaimed.

“But he died.”

“Yes, but the environment didn’t kill him!” the professor declared. “In the last passage that had reference to the large one, there is the first reference to the Red-tails!” he continued. “It is likely that the Horicon visitor died along with the humans in the first wave of attacks by the Red-tails.”

The image on the screen shifted and the professor saw that it was an image of the texts he’d been reading. Ert quickly scanned through it and paused only briefly at each of the sections in question. Then the images changed to a rapid scrolling of human texts, including graphs and charts. Finally, the screen went blank.

“Where would I find environmental data about that human planet?” Ert asked. “I can find nothing in the library or anywhere else on campus.”

“I’m not sure,” the professor admitted. “But I have contacts who might be able to help find out,” he continued as he started scribbling something down. “I’ll get on it first thing when I go back to the lab in the morning.”

“It is imperative that we find out,” Ert stated.

“Because the implication is that there may be other ‘lost’ Horicon missions that survived as well,” the professor said excitedly. “Finding the remains of those missions would be quite a discovery!”

“I’m not thinking about finding the dead,” Ert said seriously. “It is at least possible that some missions did meet with success but were never able to convey it back to Horicon. If there were sufficient numbers of Horicon survivors, then the race might have been preserved.”

“Why don’t you think our suspected survivor never tried to contact Horicon?” the professor asked.

“That answer is also obvious,” Ert replied. “The Red-tails. Communications with Horicon would have revealed its location and it would have been attacked as well.”

“I’m sorry,” the professor said. “But what of the other missions? Do your records show where we might look for them?”

“That is an interesting problem. All of my records are from that one operator and end with my equipment failure.”

“But did he record at least in what direction those missions went?” the professor asked. “From that we could determine what planets they might have landed on.”

“Yes and no.”

“Why no?”

“Because some of those planets were not in this galaxy,” Ert answered.

“The transit tubes!” the professor exclaimed.

“Correct,” Ert confirmed. “The Red-tails were not the first to use the technology.”

“Are you saying that some of the missing missions may have been sent to the Red-tail or some other galaxy?” the professor asked incredulously.

“That is correct,” Ert replied. “We knew of it from both our probes and the Jibbah explorers. But that turned out to be the beginning of the Red-tails coming here. They reverse-engineered our technology and used the transit tubes they created to invade here in swarms.”

“So to follow those particular missions would likely be fatal,” the professor said sadly.

“Not necessarily,” Ert replied. “There may yet be a way.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

We are going to die!

Ian reached for the throttle. Draping his hand over its worn handle, he glanced at his friend Lyyle.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Ian said. “Going into the exit of a Red-tail transit tube. I must be nuts!”

“You and me both,” Lyyle said.

Lyyle swallowed hard. Absentmindedly, he tightened his seat belt and rechecked the readout on the Optiveil. It was obviously working or the surrounding Red-tail ships would have attacked them by now. Realizing that the die had already been cast, Lyyle nodded that he was ready.

Here goes nothing!

Ian advanced the throttle bar. Instantly, the
Cahill Express
lived up to its name and shot forward. Through the front windows, both men saw the exit of a Red-tail transit tube yawn open in front of them. Even while they watched, Red-tail ships exited the transit tube and created an attack formation. This was obviously another large attack group arriving to raid among the human worlds. With trepidation and a short moment of panic, Ian steered the Express through the opening and into the tube, traveling at high velocity in the opposite direction of the Red-tail fleet.

How that Ert character knew a tube would be forming here, Ian didn’t know. But his instincts told him that he could trust Ert on this mission. If not, they’d be Red-tail sushi real soon.

That was another thing that Ian found both troubling and at the same time reassuring—this mission. His natural proclivities were to avoid the Red-tails whenever possible. That made perfect sense because he wanted to die of old age rather than as the main course at a Red-tail buffet. But when Ert had proposed and outlined this mission, he’d surprised even himself by wanting to do it. It was dangerous and had considerable risk involved. There were many unknowns, not the least of which was whether the Optiveil would remain operational under the forces of the transit tube. But Ian and Lyyle both wanted to go. Here was a chance to make a difference—and not a little one at that.

What Ert wanted them to do was simply; go through the transit tube to the Red-tail galaxy to gather information about the variances and pressures inside a Red-tail artificially induced transit tube. They hoped they could maintain communications with Ert throughout their time there. Ert outlined a plan to utilize several known wormholes to channel their signal. Then after collecting sufficient data, the
Express
would return through another Red-tail transit tube. Simple.

Famous last words,
Ian thought.

“I don’t understand something,” Lyyle said.

“What’s that?”

“If those tubes aren’t natural phenomenon like a wormhole, how do the Red-tails create them?”

“I don’t know if I can fully explain it, but I’ll give it a shot.”

Lyyle set the project he was working on aside and focused all of his attention on Ian.

“From what I understand, the Red-tails aren’t smart enough on their own to develop the technology to create their transit tubes.”

“They’re not?”

“Not according to an Axia seminar I attended a few months ago,” Ian answered.

“But how...”

“According to the Axia, the Red-tails somehow got hold of some kind of advanced technology and reverse engineered it to create their tubes.”

Lyyle’s expression of confusion was written clearly on his face. Ian could see that the Vogel scientist did not understand the application of the Red-tail’s technological advancement.

“Don’t you see?” Ian asked. “Due to the incredible distances between their galaxy and ours, they could never have gotten into our galaxy if it weren’t for them finding or stealing somebody else’s science.”

“But that doesn’t explain how they create their transit tubes,” Lyyle replied.

Ian wasn’t sure he could explain the theory behind the Red-tail’s technology but he felt he owed it to his new friend to try. After all, he was being asked to risk his life to prove the Horicon’s theory.

“According to the scientists at the seminar, they distort space itself. They create their transit tube by tearing the very fabric of space which causes it to fold in on itself, allowing them to travel incredible expanses of space in hours instead of years.”

“So without this technology, they’d never be able to...”

“They’d never be able to traverse from their galaxy to ours. The distances would be too great,” Ian finished Lyyle’s sentence.

Lyyle sat back in the comm chair and considered Ian’s words. He knew that in order to fold space the way Ian had explained, it would mean they’d have to tear space at the sub-atomic level, causing space to become not only void, but almost non-existent. Then another thought occurred to him. “Ian?”

“Yes?”

“What do you think would happen if the Red-tails were to inadvertently, or even purposely, use that technology on a planet that depends on nuclear fusion as their main power source?”

“You mean like Vogel?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t know. I suppose it could create a cascading nuclear chain reaction,” Ian reasoned.

Lyyle keyed the
Expresses
main control console panel and entered a mathematical equation unlike anything Ian had ever seen. The results depicted on the screen showed an ever-increasing progression of expanding mathematical expressions.

“Just what I thought.”

Ian looked at the control panel screen but this level of math was far beyond his understanding.

“What’s all that?”

“Don’t you see?” Lyyle asked, tapping the screen. “If this technology were used against a planet like Vogel, it would cause the atomic power of a nuclear source to fold in on itself, tearing the sub-atomic particles into thousands of other sub-atomic particles.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It would start a chain reaction that could destroy the planet, possibly even our entire solar system.”

Ian whistled a low exclamation that seemed to sum up the sudden distress he was feeling.

So this is the firestorm this Ert character wants us to fly into
.

“We must be nuts coming into this thing,” he said to Lyyle.

“You already said that.”

“Yeah, but this time I mean it.”

Ian’s mind overflowed with a myriad of possible things that could go wrong, any of which would likely have fatal consequences. But as much as his mind clamored with dire possibilities, Ian
wanted
to go. That left controlling and focusing his own thoughts to their best advantage as his greatest task. Ian was an improviser at heart. If he could think clearly, the other parts of the process would fall into place.

Remembering how he was able to shove against a scout ship, even though the
Express
was veiled, Ian maneuvered carefully to avoid the oncoming Red-tail ships. If he accidentally bumped a few, someone would grow suspicious. Putting the right clues together could make his ship detectable and he had to avoid that at all costs.

“The stream is lessening,” Lyyle commented about the Red-tail armada.

“How’s the transit tube?” Ian asked.

He swung the
Express
around yet another small group of Red-tail raiders. “The last thing we need is this thing collapsing on us while we’re still in it.”

“Tube integrity is stable,” Lyyle reported after scanning his instruments. Ert had warned them that once all the Red-tail ships were through, the transit tube would collapse. That the exit end would be the first part to close would give the
Express
the precious seconds they might need to race through to the other end. But none of them knew how long it would take to go through the transit tube. Accordingly, Ian was pushing his ship and skill to the utmost to make it through in time.

A sudden shudder ran through the ship when they brushed against a Red-tail scout.

“Sorry about that!” Ian said through clenched teeth as he tightened his grip on the throttle. He lightly brushed the axis ball to give them a hair more room on the next group coming through the transit tube.

“Is it me or does this thing appear to be shrinking?” Ian asked, continuing to slide the
Express
back and forth around the other ships.

“It’s shrinking,” Lyyle reported. “But it’s not collapsing. This just seems to be the narrowing that Ert warned us about.”

“Just what I need,” Ian spat as two larger Red-tail ships appeared heading directly at them. “I’m going to have to slow down a touch. There’s not enough room to squeeze by them!”

“I only detect four of them,” Lyyle noted. “After that there’s only two or three more of the scout class.”

“They should start collapsing this thing soon,” Ian observed.

He brought the
Express
nearly to a stop. Carefully, he edged as close as he dare to the wall of the transit tube. Ert had warned them not to pierce the side. Not only could the forces involved tear the ship apart, it would make them instantly detectable. Add the danger that it could collapse the tube prematurely, or shoot them out into unknown space, and it was enough to raise the hair on the back of Ian’s neck.

Out through the front windows both men could see the larger Red-tail ships loom ahead of them. A collision seemed imminent but at what seemed like the last second, the ships slid past. Ian could have sworn that it was by just a matter of inches. After the last large ship passed, the two scouts Lyyle had detected earlier shot past, trying to keep their position.

“Tube ahead all clear!” Lyyle exclaimed.

“Here we go!” Ian replied as he shoved the throttle bar well into the yellow quadrant. The
Express
shot forward and in seconds was approaching the tube entrance.

“The tube is narrowing,” Lyyle reported. “Flux lines intensifying!”

“Give me an overlay across the front!” Ian ordered. “I’ve got to see those things or I’ll miss our target!”

“Image coming up now,” Lyyle answered. Under Ert’s directions, they had modified two of the emitters to project the images normally seen only on the detector screen onto the front windows of the
Express
as a heads-up display. The appearance from the control seat was of blue and green waves of energy twisting and swirling ahead of them. Ian carefully tried to match the pattern and slip between them.

“How do the Red-tails do it?” Lyyle asked from his station.

“From what Ert told me, it is by brute force,” Ian replied absently. “He said the Red-tails sometimes lose a few ships coming through, but consider it an acceptable loss.”

“Charming,” Lyyle said. “Tube starting to collapse!” he suddenly reported as he double-checked his instruments.

“How much time?” Ian asked.

He pushed the throttle forward against the stops. Behind them, the swirling mass intensified and constricted.

Lyyle studied the monitor. “I estimate fifteen seconds before it reaches our location.”

“Hope that’s enough,” Ian struggled to stay on course between the lines of flux. A shudder ran through the ship.