Chapter Eleven: Of Teseracts and Rock Music
Alternatively Titled: In Which the Plot is fired out of a canon into the stratosphere and finally kicks in.
We were meant to live for so much more,
But we lost ourselves,
Somewhere we live inside,
Somewhere we live inside,
We were meant to live for so much more,
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside.
We want more than this world's got to offer,
We want more than this world's got to offer,
We want more than the wars of our fathers,
And everything inside,
Screams for second life,
Yeah.
We were meant to live for so much more,
But we lost ourselves,
Somewhere we live inside,
Somewhere we live inside,
We were meant to live for so much more,
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside.
Hannah's rock music was thumping through the Maru. She always played it when they were in the 'tween, the non-time and anti-space between teseracts, waiting to arrive in a specific time zone. Depending on how precise they needed to be, it could take anywhere between five minutes and an hour. But they always had to be ready, should anything unpleasant happen to find its way on board, and, considering the amount of unpleasant things the Maru had encountered during it's time on the Andromeda, the likelihood of such an event occurring was high.
Trident had an urge to head for the communal quarters and start beating a tattoo on his drum kit, if only for the stress relief. Crouched in his chair, Khayos was thudding his head to the heavy bass beat of 'Nickleback', whoever they were. Hannah's antique record collection, which she had taken over from her mother when she died, was vast and varied. But it served as a distraction.
The two seventeen year olds were in charge of monitoring the teseracts from the cockpit. While Trident beat out a rhythm on his consol, Khayos's keen blue eyes darted swiftly over the Maru's readouts. "Next teseract in three… two… one…"
A blue wave of crackling light blasted through the Maru, making the entire structure shudder, metal bolts groaning in protest. Then came the sound they had all been dreading. A screeching, howling, blood-chilling sound.
"Khayos, duck!" Trident was on his feet with a force lance in his hand before the teseract had left.
Khayos flung himself off his chair and flattened himself just in time for a Magog to go flying past him, hissing in fury. Trident fired twice, killing the creature the second time, before diving for the com. "We have Magog!"
Hannah appeared in the doorway, dragging the still-twitching body of another of the creatures, "ya think?!"
Hope's voice came over the com, "Khayos, we have to get rid of the Magog! If we arrive in the time zone, we'll end up bringing them with us!"
"I'm working on it!" Khayos yelled back, already back at his station, frantically flicking switches as he felt for the next teseract, "but it may be too late for that! We're only two teseracts away!"
"Well, this aughta make a good first impression!" Hannah cried, taking aim at another Magog as it appeared in the doorway to the cockpit, "hey mom! It's great to be here, haven't seen you in a while, but what the hey, we brought some nice friendly dinner guests!"
"Hannah, this is no time to be flippant!" Hope could be heard not only over the com but in the room just beyond the cockpit, accompanied by more squealing magog and blaster fire.
"I wasn't being flippant!" Hannah called, loosing a blaster bolt into the chest of another Magog.
"Yes you were!"
"Was not!"
"For God's sake, you two!" Trident fired his force lance at an encroaching monster and ducked as Hannah took one out behind him, "we're up to our necks here! Argue when we aren't about to be eaten alive!"
Khayos flipped another switch, the hairs on the back of his neck rising, "next teseract in three… two… one!"
Blue light swept through cargo freighter, followed by a very nasty crunching sound.
"Khayos, what was that?" Hope demanded, suddenly appearing through the cockpit doors, still being defended by Hannah and Trident.
"Aw, crap!" Khayos felt panic rise like bile in his throat.
"Khayos, answer me!" Hope ordered.
Khayos hardly looked up, frantically making adjustments to the consoles around him, his tale thrashing wildly in fear, "I think we just lost our main drive!"
"What?!" Hope stared at his younger brother incredulously.
"The teseract drive is gone!" Khayos slammed his fist down onto a console in frustration, "it just blew itself out! We're stuck!"
"You did not just say we're stuck!" Hannah cried. "Where the hell are we?!"
"I'm working on it, I'm working on it!" Khayos waved a hand at her.
"Well, our nice friendly dinner guests seemed to have decided to stay!" Trident observed, over the rock music and screeching Magog, killing another by extending his force lance and spearing it.
Hope ran a desperate hand through his hair, "alright. Kay, get us into a time zone, as close as you can, I don't care how you do it, just get us there! Trident, stay here and cover him. Hannah, with me, we've gotta get rid of these Magog!"
As the older pair departed, Trident positioned himself firmly in the middle of the cockpit doorway, dropping into a ready stance. Clenching his fists, his bone blades flared upright instantly, and he squared his shoulders. Khayos glanced back at his friend, and felt a little safer. Nothing was getting past Trident.
Khayos knew teseracts. He knew how they worked, on an instinctive level that was very hard to describe. In the same way Hope knew how to navigate possible futures to arrive at the right one, and Destiny knew how to find people, no matter where, or when, they were, so Khayos could work his way through the teseracts. He knew both Hope and Destiny would feel them coming and going, probably more than he did. But Khayos alone could jump easily from one to the next, could predict exactly when and where the next one would dump them. This was what he did. It was why his mother had named him as she had. Teseracts were chaos, and that was where he thrived.
Now, however, his senses were scrambled, and he was desperately grasping at the last threads of intuition. Without the drive they had installed in the Maru's heart, they were floating free, completely at the mercy of the teseract field itself. If they were going to get out of this one intact, let alone anywhere near the place they had intended to end up, he was going to have to be very, very careful. One wrong move and they were soup, quite literally.
This was gonna be like threading a needle, with really thick string and the tiniest of needles.
"You okay, Khayos?" Trident asked, calling over his shoulder as he guarded the door.
"Fantastic." Khayos answered, sarcastically. He could feel another teseract, and knew it was now or never. They would have to ride this one out if they wanted to end up where they needed to be. It would at least, he reckoned, place them within about ten or twenty years of their target, which wouldn't be too bad. Except they would have to wait ten or twenty years for what they wanted to do to actually happen…
He grabbed his com, "alright people, hold on, this is gonna be rough! Next teseract in three… two… one!"
The teseract hit the ship with a violence that seemed to shake the vessel to it's core. Khayos heard Trident knocked off his feet, but bit his lip, ignoring it, feeling time and space merge into one sickening blur around him. "Engaging slipstream drive!" With a juddering groan the slipstream drive powered up, pitching the Maru off it's course, and, abruptly the slipstream ignited into existence all around them. It was going through them, over them, around them. Khayos could see outside the ship, could see his own insides, could see Trident's heart beating, could see the magog crawling all over the ship, could see time itself spinning away from them.
And then, with a jerk that flung him from his seat, they were pitched out of the 'tween back into reality, into the universe, into time itself. Khayos sat up, gasping for breath, and hauled himself up to peer nervously out of the Maru's viewing screen.
He found himself looking at the inside of the Andromeda's hangar bay.
"We're here," he whispered.