In the depths of space two ships glistened in the night. One a blocky rendition in red and grey, somewhat resembling a bastardized son of a wet navy battleship and a skyscraper, the other a white craft with accented blue trim, in a ring and rocketship design. The white ship glided slowly away from the red and grey vessel, the stenciled letters PROTECTOR III visible on it's side, while the other blocky ship cast dozens of small sensor satellites to monitor the situation.
On the bridge of the Protector 3 both crew and assistants manned their posts, extra seating having been manufactured specially for the occasion.
"Fred reports the engines are working Commander." Alex reported. He seemed to be attempting to look bored, but a nervous tik tweaked his right eye every now and then while his hand idly tapped a nervous beat on his console.
Jason glared angrily at Alex, almost saying something again about 'staying in character', but he let it slide.
"Very well 'Dr Lazarus', tell him to maintain power levels." He turned to Tommy in the control seat. "OK, bring the time knot drive online, set course for Pluto and give me a reading."
Tommy nodded nervously, tapping his touchscreen panel and carefully adjusting his heading. Licking his suddenly dry lips he checked off icons on the display, then typed a curt message one handed to Alex on an internal IM system. Jason turned as Alex snorted, attempting to turn it into a sneeze.
"Commander?" Came General Colson's deep tones from behind him. "Is everything OK?"
Jason sighed.
"Yes general, everything is fine."
A few seconds later there was a 'ping' sound from Tommy's control panel and a multicolored display lit up. After peering at it for a few seconds he turned to Jason.
"Uh, looks good Commander. We have a distortion space map for the course. Looks solid. Should I Tie It?"
Jason winced. Yeah that nickname for engaging the time knot drive HAD to go!
"Engage the drive Tommy. Twenty percent power."
A hum pervaded them, even up here on the bridge, then the view screen lit up with a scene from engineering, Fred in the foreground with fingers jammed in his ears.
"Uh, Commander? I think we need to... sort of tune it a little." A screaming whine overlaid his speech making it almost inaudible. "Just hold it at..." he turned to look at Max who was mouthing something while holding ear muffs on his head. "... uh ten percent for a minute? Yeah, thanks."
"Yes, it's obviously working perfectly." Colson said with a snort.
Jason tried to ignore him and shouted above the din to Fred.
"OK, holding at ten percent!" He nodded to Tommy and the whine grew a little quieter.
After a few seconds the whine started to diminish and finally disappeared.
"Hey, great going guys! Ya got it!" Fred said to the engineering team before the view switched back to stars.
"I take we're good to go?" Jason said, looking over his shoulder at Alex, who just shrugged at him.
Closing his eyes Jason wondered 'Why me?'. Taking a deep breath and praying it was all working he turned back to the monitor.
"Alright, power back to twenty percent, then engage time knot drive Lieutenant."
Tommy nodded nervously and slowly tapped on the controls. Ahead of them space seemed to compress, twisting into swirls of light. Then, with a streak of distortion, the ship catapulted forwards.
The bridge juddered slightly, and then the view screen showed twisting swirls of purple light for a few seconds. Before anyone could react they vanished in another swirl of light, and then stars snapped back into view.
Jason slowly got out of his chair and grinned, staring at the viewscreen where a dim crescent was visible, with a second crescent almost as large just beyond it.
"Pluto and Charon gentlemen, the official edge of the solar system." Jason paused, remembering a tidbit of information from one of the Questcons. "If you ignore the Oort cloud anyway."
"We did it!" Gwen said, before reigning herself in. "Which, of course, I never doubted."
"Congratulations." Colson said sourly, leaning on Jason's chairback. "Now, please get us back to the Dauntless. I'd like to confirm the setup for the time knot drive before we leave the solar system. Eventually the Dauntless has to get this thing working too!"
Everyone was rushing now it seemed. Last he'd heard they were spending at least a couple of days with the dauntless going over the new systems that had been installed. Guess the race around the asteroid belt was off. Tommy would be gutted!
"Well?" Jason said, striding into the engineering section.
Fred looked up, the stick of a lollipop sticking from his lips as he grinned at Jason.
"Oh, hey Commander. What brings you down here?"
"The engines Fr... Tech Sargent Chen."
Again he caught the wince. Well, Fred could damned well get used to it!
"Oh, don't worry, just a little resonance problem." He said patting a large grey cowling that was still humming faintly. "Max had some goo that damped that down real good."
"Goo?" Jason wondered what... On second thought. "Never mind. Is it fully operational now? Can we head back in system again? Without any problems."
"Oh sure. We're good." He said, a silly grin on his face. Actually, Jason could rarely remember a time when Fred didn't have a silly grin on his face.
There was a thump from behind the cowling and a curse, then Max slowly crawled out from behind it, covered in grease.
"Ungh! I thought these things would be self maintaining or something." He muttered, then saw Jason. "Oh. Er, Commander." He seemed caught, unable to decide whether he should salute or not, his hand wavering awkwardly.
"At ease crewman." Jason said with a smile. "So, how are you finding the new Protector?"
Max glanced around nervously.
"Oh, she's fine. Little different than I expected, but the tech's incredible. Some of it anyway." He gave the cowling a scowl.
"Good. We'll soon be heading out. Colson wants to head back to Dauntless just to update them on the time knot trial, then immediately head for the rendezvous with Malthazar." He glanced between Max and Fred. "Neither of you have a problem with us heading into deep space with the engines right now? No lingering problems or doubts or... anything?"
Both shook their heads, Fred still sucking on his lollipop.
"Great!" Jason said, clapping and rubbing his hands together. "Well, keep up the good work men!" and he turned and headed out.
"Does he know how condescending he sounds when he says stuff like that?" Max said sidelong to Fred.
Fred just grinned.
"Naah, not a clue."
A few hours later, somewhere in a twisted, distorted pocket of reality, lightyears from Earth (if distance has any meaning here) the Protector cruised down the purple corridor of it's own making, heading out towards the rendezvous with Malthazar.
"Cheese balls anyone?" Tommy said, stepping onto the bridge. "These guys came on with a pretty good chef huh?"
Jason glared at Tommy. Cheese balls from a 'pretty good' chef? Tommy's standards must be pretty low. Still, he was hungry.
"Uh, sure Lieutenant."
The viewscreen showed the purple tunnel ahead as they cruised superluminarily... or whatever the word was. Superluminry? Super... whatever, faster than light at any rate.
"Do they have soda?" He asked as Tommy put a little cup of cheese balls on his chair arm.
"Oh heck yeah. Pretty good rootbeer too. But don't go for the beer. I think there's something wrong with the food synthesizer or something." Not the chef anymore if there's problems huh? Jason smiled.
"Fair enough." Jason said, then turned to the conn. "Flight Leftenant, how's the course going?" Jason said to Jeremy, pronouncing the British version of 'Lieutenant' carefully. What was with that anyway? They even spelled it 'Lieutenant'. Brits were just weird.
"On course so far sir. Flight controls stable in supraluminairy flight." Jason tried to memorize that. Surely Jeremy knew what he was talking about. "Estimated two hours to rendezvous with Protector 2."
"Good good. Keep it up. Shift change in an hour?" He said glancing at a clock on his chair display. He'd prefer it if Tommy was back at the controls when they met with Malthazar.
Both Jeremy and Tommy nodded as Tommy headed out. Probably to get more cheese balls.
"Sir." Anderson said from science console. "I'm reading some instabilities from the fusion core. I don't understand it, we've used these reactors for years. Something must be interfering with the primary plasma flow."
Jason turned his chair around and looked at Anderson.
"Is there any danger?"
"Right now? No sir. It's minor and systems are compensating. I'd suggest going over it when we get back to base though. This shouldn't be happening."
Jason nodded, but was worried. On the show when someone said 'It'll be fine' when a problem showed up, something always went horribly, horribly wrong! Have to talk to Fred later, maybe he can do something with the thing?
He sat back to wait for them to finally arrive. To be here, out in space again, cruising through... whatever that purple stuff was, it was good. Smiling Jason wondered how Malthazar was doing. Well, he guessed they'd find out in a couple of hours.
