The Pathfinder Project (11 page)

“We passed a
lot
of
debris on our patrol, Captain,” cautioned Nori bitterly. “I didn’t see anything
that indicated even
one
of our military vessels survived, let alone
anything sizeable enough to launch a counter-strike.” She glanced over at Walt
and the grim expression on his face matched hers. “We can’t get to those people
on Earth. I have family there too but we
can’t
help them. That’s
probably why we haven’t run into other ships – because they’re doing the same
thing we should. They’re pointing to a random point in the sky and saying
‘Let’s go somewhere – anywhere – so that we have a chance to keep the human
race
alive’
.”

The Captain sat quietly, deep
in thought, for several minutes. “Nevertheless, that will be our
secondary
objective,” he decided. “To PTP away means we leave the Brotherhood in control,
at least for the time being.” Dennis was not a man who got upset very often but
Nori could see the anger lining his features as he spoke.

“The primary objective, then…”
she prompted.

“I want Lightning here to
report to the hangar bay,” said Dennis. “And please pick up Corporal Henderson
on your way down there. He’s been on limited duty since his arm was broken and
I think he’s earned a seat on a trip into the history books!”

“Yes, sir!” Walt said, rising
to his feet. He quickly exited the Command Dome.

“Nori, you’re with me,”
Kaufield ordered. “I want you to join me in the Lab wing, where Thomas Roh will
proudly demonstrate for you our new tactical advantage.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” was the
enthusiastic response.

*    
* * *     *

“Are you sure the Captain said
I
earned
this?” Ben Henderson asked as he stepped aboard the shuttle and
sat down in one of the empty chairs.

“Absolutely,” one of the pilots
next to him responded. “I’m Lieutenant JG Bruce ‘Hopper’ Mendez and I’ll be
sitting right beside you on this trip, Corporal.” Bruce took a seat next to
Henderson and began activating the ship’s electronic systems. It had been fully
refueled and was ready for another patrol. “That is, if you need your hand
held,” he needled mercilessly.

The pilot in the front seat
glanced back and smiled. “Hello,” he said cheerfully. “My name is Walter
‘Lightning’ Douglas… I’ll be your pilot for this trip.”

Henderson still looked
very
skeptical. “I don’t know if I trust a branch of the military that has to give
its troops an extra name. Why do they call you ‘Lightning’ anyway?” He held up
his uninjured right arm and wiggled his fingers. “Are you really fast or
something?”

“No. They call me that because
the first time I flew a fighter through a target range, I never hit the same
spot twice,” Walt replied, chuckling. “I have a tendency to
land
that
way, too.” He fired the shuttle’s engines and it began to move slowly forward
at first before finally accelerating out of the
Pathfinder
’s hangar bay
and into the empty darkness of star-speckled space beyond.

“Oh, that’s very funny. Very
funny,” Henderson replied. He glanced over at Mendez next to him. “So why do
they call you ‘Hopper’?”

“You don’t want to know, sir,”
Bruce cautioned.

The shuttle maneuvered carefully
beneath the
Pathfinder
’s hangar bay and drifted back gradually between
the larger ship’s lower wings. Henderson noticed the brilliant white flicker of
the artificial singularity – still burning brightly at the tip of the metal
wand that extended down from the hangar bay’s lower hull. Behind it was a rack
of neatly organized Canary probes, the additional units from the inventory list
that Thomas had mentioned.

“You mean
we’re
the
guinea pigs on this ride?” Ben practically shouted. Hurriedly he began
fastening the safety belts on his seat. “That’s my
reward
for getting
thrown against a wall by a genetically enhanced mutant?”

“Relax, this is technology
that’s been fine-tuned for years already,” grinned Bruce. Despite his
confidence he had a slightly tense expression on his face as the pulsating
white light surrounding them grew brighter and brighter. “Although no human has
ever officially completed a CAS transit before. We’re going to be in the
history books, even if this fails.”

Henderson remained firmly
unconvinced. “Wait a damn minute… aren’t we supposed to send some sort of
animals through first?”

“
Pathfinder
this is
Lightning,” Walt said briskly. “Shuttle Four is in position and awaiting your
go command.” He eased back on the thruster controls and the small cargo vessel
slowed almost to a complete stop, drifting forward just ever so slowly.

“
Shrinking PTP window to match
shuttle specs
,” Glen’s voice stated informatively. “
We have a go.
Prepare yourselves gentlemen
.” He had barely finished the words before a
huge greenish flash filled the windows. Almost instantaneously the windows went
completely black… they were staring at an all-encompassing, empty black void.
All three of them sat quietly for a moment, a little disoriented by the sudden
change.

“Where are we?” Ben finally
asked cautiously. “I don’t see anything out there.”

“You shouldn’t,” replied Walt.
“We call this Bravo Point. It’s been our first planned destination for several
years.”

“Well you could have picked a
better one,” Ben decided. “If you’re exploring space, shouldn’t you travel to
places where there’s something to see?”

“By ‘something to see’ do you
mean
this?
” Walt asked, laughing with amusement. The shuttle rolled
forward until the Galaxy clusters suddenly appeared in the front window. The
view was virtually
identical
to the pictures Thomas had transmitted to
their computer prior to lift-off. Beside Henderson, Hopper smiled in delight as
the Corporal’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped in absolute awe.

“
Lightning, this is
Pathfinder
.
Can you see anything
?” Glen asked. “
Was your trip to Bravo Point
successful
?”

“I’m pretty sure we’re here,”
Walt responded carefully. He too found himself very impressed with the
spectacular display of star clusters. “Hopper, what do you read?”

“All systems confirm the transit
completed successfully,” Bruce said, a big grin on his face. He surveyed the
mass of readouts scrolling across his monitors. “Although I am unable to detect
the PTP window at the target coordinates.”

“
That’s okay, it
is
still there
,” Glen insisted. “
If it wasn’t there’s no way you’d be
receiving this transmission. Make your five minute survey and then return to
base immediately. Don’t worry – if anything goes wrong and we’re unable to hold
the window open for you we’ll move the
Pathfinder
to your location. If
that contingency develops, make certain to move a safe distance away… we will
emerge
precisely
where you did
.”

“Now
that’s
what I call
a reward!” decided Corporal Henderson, smiling from ear to ear. He couldn’t
take his eyes off the wondrous, glittering star-filled galaxy clusters.

*    
* * *     *

Adam had just showered and
changed clothes when his door alarm chimed. He ran a comb through his hair and
wiped the rest of the shaving cream off of his face. He quickly splashed on a
bit of cologne, then called out “Come in.”

The door opened and Nori
entered. She had a huge smile on her face and quickly hugged him. “It
works
,
Adam, it works!” she said excitedly. “We just transported a shuttle over 7
million
light years and then returned it successfully.” She couldn’t contain her
enthusiasm. “You should have seen the
looks
on the faces of the crew
when they got back.
I
want to go next!”

“Thomas will be extremely
pleased with himself,” Adam decided. “Nothing drives him like success.”

“He’s not the only one,”
predicted Nori, leaping into his arms. She kissed him passionately and found
him instantaneously returning the favor. His huge frame dwarfed hers, and he
carried her effortlessly over to the bed. The clean shirt he had put on two
minutes before landed on the floor next to them.

“Okay
Siren
,” he said
somewhat suspiciously, gazing directly into her beautiful brown eyes. “Just
remember that we’re both professionals on this ship and I don’t need you
tempting me into anything that will get me into trouble. These quarters aren’t
nearly as private as the ones we had on the base, so if they call you Siren
because you scream a lot – I want to know
now
.”

Nori slowly, slowly ran her
hands up his chest and then down his sides. Unable to resist, he kissed her
this time… longer and more intensely than their first.

“Think of me as a warning
alarm,” she replied coyly. “I’m letting you know that as of this moment until
early tomorrow morning you – are – in – extreme --
danger
. From
this
,
for starters…” Her tongue unexpectedly found its way into his left ear.

He kissed her again and
casually began taking
her
top off. She turned her back to him and pushed
her hair aside so that he could unhook her bra. “I think this is going to be
more like an air raid,” he decided. “Everything’s going to be happening all at
once for about ten minutes – then there will be nothing but peace and quiet.”

“And then after an hour or so,
the cycle will begin again!” Nori whispered in his ear as she playfully nibbled
away at the lobe. They both landed on the bed laughing and Adam slapped the
button on the night stand next to his bed. Around them, the lights dimmed.

THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

Dennis Kaufield was already on
the bridge that second morning after the attack. Mary arrived early for her
shift, still smoothing the wrinkles from the front of her blouse as she walked
into the Command Center. The Captain was sitting next to her station rather
than in his usual seat near the exits. He was busily making adjustments to a
new laptop that had been installed during the night shift.

“Good morning.” Mary said
pleasantly, taking a seat and beginning a survey of her console. The motion
sensor readouts were all clear, and the person she relieved smiled gratefully
before heading off-shift. She busied herself for several minutes but was unable
to resist teasing the Captain a little. “More CAS equipment?” she asked
casually. “The only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys.”

“Perhaps you’ll change your
mind if this
toy
ends up saving our ship,” responded Dennis. He swiveled
the laptop toward her. “This is one of our newer models, with a dedicated touch
screen. It’s been tied into your motion sensing system so that any objects
detectable in the immediate vicinity will instantly be identified as friendly,
enemy, or neutral targets and displayed on screen.”

“Fortunately there’s not much
else out there right now,” decided Mary. Like her own console, the display
screen he was showing her was blank except for a white dot and a larger brown
dot.

“The white dot is the
Pathfinder
,”
he continued. The brown dot is the large asteroid that we’ve kept between us
and our solar system just in case an enemy patrol PTP transits into the area
looking for us. Watch this.” Dennis grinned, pressing his index finger onto the
screen’s surface. The monitors above them flashed and Mary noted that the white
dot on her screen was now blinking up at her from the
other
side of the
brown dot.

“Instantaneous PTP capability,”
she guessed, glancing over at Dennis with an impressed smile. “You can move the
Pathfinder
to any short-range location with the touch of a finger. Now
that could prove very useful if we get surprised by enemy ships.”

“It is a crucial part of the
contingency plan I’ve been working on with Thomas,” Kaufield noted. “We will
still need to use the computer to coordinate the longer transits, but the touch
screen – when tied in with our motion sensors – works very effectively for
shorter trips around our immediate vicinity. The system knows where everything
is, so all I have to do is press my finger where I want to move the ship and –
zap – we’re there.”

“What’s the colored, vertical
rectangular band on the right side of the screen for?” Mary asked, suddenly
becoming very interested in the new hardware.

“It’s for Z-Axis
three-dimensional maneuvering,” chuckled Dennis, picking up on the curiosity in
her voice. “Your motion sensing equipment gives us the X, Y, and Z coordinates
of each target in the local area. However, the screen is limited to a
two-dimensional  X and Y display. By using one hand for the touch screen area
and the other for Z-Axis scrolling, I can specify plus or minus Z coordinates
and PTP us directly to the same height or depth of a target as easily as moving
across the X and Y area of the screen.”

“Ships using standard PTP would
have a much more difficult time managing the shorter distances,” Mary
commented. “The whole concept of Point-to-Point was created because it takes
too long using standard thrusters to move between planetary bodies. It would
seem the CAS Drive has other advantages than simply increasing the distance we
can travel to.”

“You have no idea, Mary,” said
Kaufield. “The precision of this new system is literally breathtaking. It’s
working exactly as we theorized so we’ve got a definite edge on the Brotherhood
if we run into them again.” He touched the screen again, hopping the
Pathfinder
back to its original position. Once again the brown dot was between the ship
and their solar system. “The computer has been programmed with safeguards, too.
If I accidentally touch a spot that’s already occupied by one of the targets…
well, at least one X, Y, or Z coordinate must meet a safe distance parameter or
the trip is automatically cancelled and a warning tone will sound.”