The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (3 page)

“Focus.”

He reached out
his arm, aware of the annoying twitch caused by the massive adrenaline dump,
and turned the time index dial to just after he’d opened the window. “There,
close enough.” His finger hesitated over the play button. He sucked in a breath
and pressed it.

Through his
headset, the truth of what had happened was revealed in horrifying detail, the
voices of the Omega crew clearly definable through the chatter.
‘Something’s
wrong. The window’s expanding…it’s headed straight for us! Get to the EVA
suits. Now!’
Then the screams, the horrible screams suddenly cut short.
Chatter from Serenity base continued for a few more seconds, then silence.

Nick swallowed
hard. Not long ago he’d been safely cruising the Lagrange point between Earth
and the Moon. Now he was lost in a nightmare of undulating red hues. How the
hell was he going to get home? Was it even possible to get home? Could he even
face going home after knowing the terrible fate of the Omega? One thing he knew
for sure, he was on his own. There was no hope of being rescued from
hyperspace. He hadn’t prepared for this contingency. As if he
could
have
prepared for this. The ship’s supplies were limited. A bottle of water, a
protein bar, and enough oxygen for a short mission. That’s all he had. He would
only last hours, at most a day, if he couldn’t find a way out of this
hyperspace wasteland.

He sat there
pondering his own mortality. What a stupid way for it all to end. He had so much
potential. There was so much he still wanted to do. All the planning, and for
what? Twelve people dead, a state of the art station destroyed, and him stuck
in a tiny spacecraft in…somewhere. But Nick had never been one to give up
easily, and he wasn’t about to now. After thinking over his options, he took a
deep breath and flipped his helmet visor down. The only thing he could do now
was attempt to open another window. A window back to normal space-time. Maybe.
Hopefully. He wasn’t sure of anything at this point. This was all new, and so
very little was known about hyperspace. Was it even possible to open a window
from within hyperspace? Would it be big enough to get through?

The unique sound
of Velcro broke the silence as he pulled the flap on the chest of his
spacesuit. He reached into his pocket and rubbed the lucky coin that he had
safely tucked there before the launch. The familiar feel of the good luck charm
between his fingers somehow helped him gather his courage.

“Better to die
quickly than suffocate in hyperspace.”

The thought of
sudden death reminded him of the power feedback. Not good. Could he risk that
power surge happening all over again? He paused to think it through before
throwing any more switches. The surge must have been coming through the probe.
It’s the only thing that made sense. There was a good chance he could avoid
another catastrophe if he turned the probe off. He chewed his lower lip, deep
in thought.  He had an urgent need to  get back to his own
territory.  He had to know what had happened back there. What if people
were trapped in the station wreckage? There might be something he could do to
help.  If anything, he needed to report what he had learned. The Omega
crew deserved that much at least.

Deciding he had
no other option, he turned the hyperspace generator on to full intensity. To
his surprise a circular disc appeared in front of him. The spiraling disc
expanded rapidly, opening a huge hole in the center as it grew. Stars peeked
through from the other side of the open hole.

“Thank God,” he
sighed, relieved to see something familiar again. “Please let this be my ticket
home.”

Suddenly, the
radio came to life with the chatter of multiple voices. “
Grhorykz satyra
komas terok ka nok
.”

Nick turned up
the volume and listened carefully to the strange voices. “What the…? What
language
is
that?”

Nick was only
fluent in English. But he’d been exposed to quite a few languages during his
stint with the International Space Alliance. What he was hearing on the radio
was unlike anything he had ever heard before. It sounded like Russian, only
backwards.

“Hjasd kuscv
kasemd.”

What the hell
language is that?
He tried the radio again, hoping to hear a familiar
voice. “Serenity Base, come in. Serenity, respond please.”

As his module
neared the window into normal space, he caught movement out of the corner of
his eye. Something large and fast had entered the window from the top left and
was on a direct collision course with the module! He instinctively rolled
right, punched the throttle, and cleared the window just in time to avoid
getting hit. A shadow passed over his module as the massive object blocked out
the sun.

“Damn that was
big!” He banked the ship to get a better look.

As he came
around, the view out of the cockpit window almost left him speechless. “Uh,
Serenity? Serenity, are you reading this?” he stammered in disbelief.

This couldn’t
be possible!
But there was no denying it. A large alien spaceship had
plunged halfway into the hyperspace window. A really
huge
ship. The kind
of ship that made Earth’s biggest transport ships look like mosquitoes. Nick
stared with his mouth wide open. Following close behind the massive ship was a
second, slightly smaller vessel. The two were locked in battle, exchanging
weapons-fire. Brightly colored flashes blazed across the inky backdrop of
space, exploding on impact with their intended targets. It all looked like a
scene from the old sci-fi archives he used to watch—that vid of rebels fighting
against the evil empire.

“I must be
dreaming,” he muttered, still staring slack-jawed at the massive ships. Nick
figured that any second he’d wake up all sweaty with his dog Mooch slobbering
on his face, wanting to go for a walk. “Yeah, that’s it, just dreaming,” he
said, hoping to convince himself. 

Boom!
A
bright flash of green light washed over the cockpit. The module shook
violently, jarring Nick out of his daze. Sparks flew from the console as a ship
not much bigger than the module buzzed by at blazing speed.

Kabooom!
A huge explosion, the magnitude of a nuclear blast, came from the direction of
the large ships. The blast lit up the module’s cockpit with an intense yellow
glow. Nick jerked his head around to see what had happened. The hyperspace
window had collapsed with one of the ships partway through it. The immense
forces tore the giant vessel to pieces in a second. Hit by the debris, the
second ship broke in two. Waves of explosions rippled across the torn and
twisted sections of the ship as they tumbled through space. A quick glance at
the instrument panel confirmed his suspicions. The field generator was dead.
Whatever they had fired at him had fused the circuits in the generator.

Boom! Boom!
Boom!
Three more blasts hit the module. “Shit!” It was all happening so
fast there was no time to think. He was under attack, that much he was sure of,
and he wouldn’t last long if he didn’t do something quick. Dammit, the module
wasn’t designed for this kind of pounding. No weapons, thin titanium-aluminum
shell, and if those blasts hit the fuel…. “I’m dead.”

The module was
only a science ship. Fly straight, run an experiment for half an hour, and then
head home. “You would think just once one of my plans would go right,” he
muttered as his eyes searched the surrounding space for something, anything
that would help.

Then he spotted
his escape.

“Asteroids!
Perfect. You bastards don’t know what you’re in for. You just shot at the wrong
guy!” Nick Bannon was good at flying by the seat of his pants. In the past he
had spent a fair amount of time hot-dogging it around the moon. Lately all he
could get away with was a little free time in the flight simulator. Now all
those late nights spent goofing-off in the simulator, seeing how many Gs the
module could take before ripping apart, was about to pay off.

Nick steered for
the asteroids. He quickly avoided one then banked and rolled around the next.
There was no time to ponder who was attacking him. All he had on his mind was
saving his own butt by whatever means necessary.

Boom!
A
blast of enemy fire blew chunks out of a nearby asteroid. Lumps of rock slammed
into the module, causing minor damage to the starboard side. The impacts shook
Nick in his seat. “That’s not good.” Those chunks of rock could kill him as
easily as enemy fire.

Focus. You
can shake these guys.
Nick pushed the module to its limit and beyond. He
knew engineers usually covered their asses by adding safety margins to their
calculations, and he was betting the module could withstand more than the
simulator program said it could.

The attacking
ships hung in close, trying to get in a lucky shot. Sweat streamed down Nick’s
face as he attempted to out-fly his mysterious opponents. With a burst from the
forward thrusters, he abruptly reduced speed and pulled up hard, sending the
blood to his feet. The space suit squeezed his legs tight in an attempt to keep
enough blood in his head to prevent a blackout. But the pursuing ships clung
like beggar lice. The pilots following him were good. Too good. Maybe, just
maybe, he was out-matched.

As the blood was
forced from his head by the intense Gs, Nick’s vision began to fade. He
squeezed his glutes for all it was worth and struggled to stay conscious
against the loss of oxygen to his brain. Just at the edge of unconsciousness, a
bright flash lit up the asteroid field. This time the flash was orange. It
could only mean one thing. One of the attacking ships had been destroyed by an
impact with an asteroid.

Nick pushed back
on the stick just enough to let some blood get back to his brain. His attackers
were learning, adapting to his maneuvers and anticipating his moves. But one
thing that they didn’t count on was his unpredictability. Flying by instinct
and only guessing at the outcome was what had given him a reputation as a risk
taker. Some just saw him as crazy. Others thought he was some genius hot-dog
pilot. His friends called him ‘
Bannon the cannon.’
But some at the
I.S.A. liked to refer to him as ‘
loose cannon.’

He rounded one
small asteroid, then another. In front of him, a huge rock tumbled head-on
toward him, its ice-crystal covered surface glistening in the light of a
distant star. Nick smiled. This was going to be close.

The enemy
anticipated his next move. They expected him to roll and pull up hard to clear
the asteroid. Instead, Bannon pushed down on the stick in a last ditch effort
to outsmart them. Firing the top thrusters, he attempted to clear the massive
rock upside-down. Blood rushed to his head from the negative Gs. His eyes felt
like they were going to leave his skull, like corks from a popgun. The straps
over his shoulders strained to hold his body in the seat as the surface of the
asteroid whizzed by above him. Then everything started to go red. Too much
blood to his brain. He had pushed himself into a redout. It was a potentially
deadly situation. Consciousness slowly began to slip away. He fought against
the blackness overtaking his brain. “Just a little more.” He only needed to
hold it together for a few more seconds and then he’d be clear of the killer
rock.

The unexpected
tactic had the enemy pilots scrambling to reacquire their target. Caught by
surprise, they rolled over in a desperate attempt to keep sight of the module.
In the chaos, they didn’t notice the small, fast moving chunk of ice-encrusted
rock barreling in on a rogue trajectory. The rock plowed into the lead ship,
driving the sleek craft sideways into its wingman. Both pursuing ships lost
control and slammed into the huge, oncoming asteroid. The explosion was the
last thing Nick remembered before passing out. And passing out in an asteroid
field was the last thing he wanted to do.

He was only
unconscious for a moment before a piece of debris glanced off the cockpit
cowling, creating enough noise to rouse him from his slumber. Around him
hundreds of asteroids floated in an ever-changing landscape, bumping randomly
into each other in an unpredictable rock soup.

“Ha, it worked!
You’re one damn lucky son of a bitch, Nick Bannon,” he crowed. He was alive,
but he needed to get out of this asteroid field before his luck ran out. If he
could just shake off the grogginess. Nick struggled to focus his eyes on the
instrument panel. He needed to get the tumbling module stabilized before he had
an up close and personal meeting with an asteroid. With a few well timed bursts
from the thrusters, he was able to right the craft and proceed on course to
what looked to be the edge of the massive floating cluster of rocks.

As he reached
the far side of the field, he rounded a massive icy asteroid. From behind the
huge, floating boulder, the silhouette of a ship came into view. “You gotta’ be
kiddin’ me!” Would he ever get a break?

Upon second
glance, the ship seemed to be lying there motionless. The unknown alien craft
was large. Smaller than the huge vessels he’d seen earlier, but still much
bigger than anything from Earth.

Earth. Where
is
Earth? His attention shifted to his family back home. By now, they must be
worried and wondering what had happened to him.

“I guess Hank’s
going to win that bet, after all. He may have trouble collecting though.” Nick
let out a half-hearted chuckle. But his feeble attempt at humor did nothing to
cheer him up. The reality of the situation was beginning to sink in. “Damn,
where the
hell
am I, anyway?”

A survey of the
surrounding star patterns led him to a disturbing conclusion. The lack of
recognizable constellations meant he was nowhere near Earth, and the ugly truth
was he could be anywhere in the
galaxy
. He could have even popped out of
hyperspace into an alternate universe. Until today, hyperspace was only
theoretical. No one had ever traveled through it, and he didn’t have a clue
about what would happen when he came out. He could have ended up anywhere, or
even in any
time
.