Past and Present
Chapter 11
We Don't Have to go Looking For Trouble…
Tracy Reager
Galen was lying in his bed, thinking about nothing in particular when he heard a knock on the door. "Hold on." He got up and put a shirt on, then went over to the door. It opened.
"There's some strange message blinking on the monitor. I can't make it out." Dureena told him. They walked back to the control room.
"It's just a message saying the Excalibur changed location. Computer, ETA?"
"Forty-five minutes."
"I think I'm going to take a shower again before we get back." Dureena told him.
"No." Galen shook his head.
"What? And why can't I?" She looked at Galen, and realized he wasn't talking to her. He had a horrified look on his face.
"Matthew, what are you doing there?" Galen looked at the screen in disbelief.
"Galen, is something wrong?" Dureena looked puzzled.
*************
"Captain, message coming in from Galen." Matheson said.
"Put it through." An image appeared on screen. "Galen, so nice of you to finally check in. Where are you?"
"That's unimportant. You need to leave that area immediately." Galen said forcibly.
"What? Why?" Gideon looked at Matheson, who just shrugged his shoulders.
"I can't tell you why, you just have to trust me. You're in a lot of danger. Leave now before something happens!"
"Galen I just can't leave because you say so. Just give me one good reason and…"
"We lost the transmission sir." A nav tech interrupted.
"Can you get it back?"
"I'm trying, but we're being jammed."
"Ok, battle stations. Looks like we're about to find out who sent that message." Gideon replied.
**************
Galen lowered his head when the screen turned off. "Ship, try and reestablish connection."
"Connection error…invalid location."
"Galen, what's going on?" Dureena asked. She was starting to worry, but tried not to show it.
"Do you remember when I said that the mages went into hiding?"
"Yes."
"The planet they are on is shielded and cloaked. Somehow the Excalibur managed to find it, and I doubt the Circle will let them get away knowing where it is."
"If it's hidden, then why doesn't this Circle just let them alone? After Gideon realizes there's nothing there, he'll just leave. No one will ever know." Dureena offered.
"Because he's been there for almost two days searching for something."
"How do you know that?"
"I back tracked the Excalibur's records." Galen explained. "Apparently, they got a report of a moon there from the Rangers and came to investigate. I guess Matthew's curiosity got the better of him and he decided to keep searching when they saw nothing."
"They could still just leave him alone. We'll be there in forty five minutes, after that we can convince Gideon to leave. He'll never know." Dureena offered.
"You don't understand. By staying there those two days, the Circle will think he knows something. Whether or not, they question him or just shoot them down is their call. I just hope Matthew can buy some time until we get there." Galen sat down in the chair.
"But I thought you were kicked out, what makes you think they'll listen to you?"
"Because I'm one of them, not an outsider. If I can prove Matthew had no idea about the hiding place, they should let him go."
"Should? That doesn't sound like very good odds."
"It's the best I can do. It's not my fault they're paranoid and believe everyone is out to use them."
"They actually believe that?" Dureena almost laughed. She could just picture in her head a group of mages huddled in a room afraid to step outside.
"Some do. I don't know why." Galen paused to think about it himself.
*************
"Lieutenant, are you picking up anything on the scanners?"
"No sir. Should we jump to hyperspace?"
"No. Something is or was here."
"How do you know?"
"From Galen. He wanted us to get out of here, which means he knows something."
"Oh my God…" The nav tech stared out the window. Outside was a bluish-gray winged creature, just floating in front of the Excalibur.
Gideon looked out as well for a few minutes then suddenly remembered something. "Wait a minute; is that thing showing up on the scanners?"
"No sir." Matheson replied, a little confused.
"It's not real…it's a hologram." Gideon looked around at everyone's confused faces. "Remember the dragon from Regula 4? That was created by a technomage and didn't show up on the scanners either."
"Could it be that mage again, uh…what was his name?"
"Alwyn. It could be. Open a channel and broadcast this message. This is Captain Gideon of the Earth Alliance Starship Excalibur. We know that the thing we're seeing isn't real, so you can stop with the tricks who ever you are. We're investigating possible leads for a cure and would appreciate it if you would leave us alone so we can go about our business."
The crew sat in silence for a few minutes, and then the creature disappeared. "See nothing to worry about." Gideon said, but he spoke too soon. "Oh hell…" Outside ten black flyers stopped in front of the Excalibur, preventing it from going any further. Everyone on the bridge was paralyzed with fear. The memory of Galen firing on them was still fresh in their minds. And he was only one ship, now there were ten. A lot of them were even surprised to see another mage, since Galen was the only one they ever met.
An image of a man in his forties appeared on the screen. "You've entered restricted space; may I ask what you are doing here?"
"We're investigating a lead from the Rangers. I'm sorry; we didn't know anyone was here. We'll just turn around and leave." Gideon replied. Tiny beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.
"I'm afraid we can't allow you to do that. You know where we are. Now how did you find us?"
"I told you we're investigating a lead from the Rangers. They give us coordinates; we go there and search for a cure."
"And how did they find out about this place?"
"I don't know, they don't always tell us where they get their leads from." Gideon replied. He was going to ask Matheson to try and contact Galen again, but decided to keep that to himself.
"You have thirty minutes to find out. I'll be in contact with you…and Captain, don't try to run." The message disappeared.
"Sir should we launch fighters?"
"No, it wouldn't do us any good." Gideon wiped his brow. "Alright people, we have half and hour to find out some information. Lieutenant, find Max, tell him to find out any information about this area. Find whichever Ranger gave us this report, I want to talk to them." Gideon went into the conference room.
************
"Galen what are we going to do?" Dureena exclaimed. "They won't do anything to the Excalibur will they?"
"I don't know. Hopefully Matthew won't do anything stupid and they might let them leave." He went through a systems check, and turned off some unnecessary functions to boost extra power to the engines. He knew he needed to get there and do something, but he wasn't sure they'd listen to him, even though he told Dureena otherwise.
************
A half hour later, the crew of the Excalibur was no closer to finding any information than they were two days ago. Everyone's nerves were frayed and it wasn't helping.
"I told you Captain, IPX has no records past sector 900. If it wasn't explored by Earthforce, we usually stay away from it. Trust me if I had anything I would've given it to you!" Max shouted at the Captain.
"I'm sure you can across some unofficial records Max." Matheson retorted back. He was having the hardest time dealing with this. Not only did he have a headache from all the shouting, but he could feel everyone's strong emotions pushing at his mind.
"I won't deny that there are unofficial records, but those things take time and passwords to get into. And those passwords require money or favors, none of which we had any time to get."
"Alright, since we don't have any real information, let's make some up and buy us some time." Gideon offered.
"Time for what?" Max snapped back.
"I have a feeling that Galen is close, hopefully we can stall these guys until he gets back."
"What do you think he'll be able to do Captain?" Matheson asked.
"I don't know, but they are his people, maybe they'll listen to him."
"Incoming transmission."
"Put it through." Gideon went and sat in his chair. Matheson stood to the right of him and Max to the left.
"You should be fortunate Captain; I had some matters to attend to and gave you an extra five minutes. You better have something good for me." The mage said.
"Yes we have something, but you have to come over here to see it. It's a paper document."
"This had better not be some trick." The screen went black. One of the flyers moved away from the rest of the group.
"Are you insane? Why the hell did you just invite him aboard?"
"Calm down Max. I have never met anyone that would fire on a ship with their own people on it."
"And what are we going to do about this paper that we don't have?"
"I have Sarah working on it." Gideon walked into the hall and motioned for them to follow.
"I'm Captain Gideon, welcome aboard."
"Where is it?" The mage asked, ignoring Gideon's welcome.
"It's right this way. I'm having my team go over it; we're still trying to see where it came from." Gideon looked over at the man, but he could tell that he wasn't interested. They walked into Medlab. "Ah Doctor Chambers, our friend here would like to see that paper."
"Sir about that paper…Jamie accidentally spilt water on it and we can't make it out." She could see a disgusted look on the mage's face. "But I did scan a copy of it, just before she did it. Let me go get the data crystal for you." She walked off. The mage was standing against the wall watching everyone.
"Captain, I would also like to take a look at the actual paper."
"What good will it do you if it's illegible?" Max asked.
"It doesn't matter; I would like to see it."
Sarah walked back in with a box of data crystals. "Sorry, I accidentally put it in my personal collection." She was about to give it to him when Jamie bumped into her, knocking the crystals all over the floor, along with some medical equipment.
"I'm so sorry Doctor Chambers. Let me help you pick then up."
"I have no idea which crystal it is now. If you just give me a moment, I'll go through them…"
"That won't be necessary. I'll go through them myself and send the others back to you. I want off this ship; you people are an accident waiting to happen." With that he grabbed the box a stormed back to the flight bay.
"You do realize that you'll never see those again Sarah?"
"That's ok Max, there's nothing important on them anyway." Sarah grinned.
"What was on them?"
"Remember that data crystal you once gave me Max?" Gideon started to smile as well.
Max looked confused at first, but then a look of horror came across his face. "You gave them that?! Are you insane, now they'll surely kill us!"
"Hopefully it will keep them busy for awhile." The three of them headed back to the bridge, while Sarah and Jamie cleaned up the mess in Medlab.
On the bridge, Max was arguing with Gideon. "Why don't we just open a jump point and get the hell out of here?"
"Obviously you didn't hear the part of the conversation were they said if we run, we die! Besides, their ships are faster anyway."
"Captain, look at it this way, either way we're screwed so we might as well take our chances. Now if we open a jump point in between us and them, we have a head start. Who knows, we might take a few of them out with it."
"Max, that's low even for you. I will not just kill them in cold blood. And a few second head start won't help us; we'll still be in range of their weapons."
"But Captain…" Max didn't get a chance to finish his sentence when the Excalibur shook.
"Captain, weapons fire from the Mages, minimal damage." Lt. Matheson called out.
"Guess they didn't buy it." Gideon sat down in his chair, thinking about his options.
"Captain Gideon! I do not appreciate being mocked and thought of as some mindless fool." The Mage shouted on the view screen. "These data crystals are fake! There is nothing on them but some sick man's idea of entertainment." Eilerson turned bright red and Gideon tried to hide his amusement. "Now I was being totally serious when I asked for answers and yet you've managed to screw something so simple up. That last shot was a warning shot, there won't be another. You have two minutes to tell me where you really got this location from."
"Ok, sorry for trying to deceive you. The truth is we really don't know where it came from. We spent the thirty five minutes you gave us trying to find out anything, but the Ranger that the information came from can't be located. Either he doesn't exist and someone was trying to set us up, or he's on a secret mission."
"And what did you hope to gain by sending us these fake crystals?"
"We were hoping you'd leave with them, so we could leave. Look, we've searched our log books on Earth and with other sources and we couldn't find any record of this location. Now all we want to do is leave, I promise there will be no record of this visit or where it's located." Gideon bargained.
"I'm afraid that's not possible. Perhaps if you would've told us the truth from the beginning, I would've let you go. But you didn't, so there fore I won't." The screen went black.
"Who's idea was it to lie anyway…I really don't want to die." Max said sadly.
"Shut up Max." Gideon snapped back. "Lieutenant, are they powering up their weapons?"
"Unknown, the scanners can't pick up anything."
"Just great." Gideon looked out the window. Suddenly a bright orange ball started to come towards the Excalibur. "Oh hell…" Gideon tightened his grip on the chair, bracing for the impact. He glanced to the left and saw a jump point opening and a sleek black craft emerged.
Galen was monitoring the situation from hyperspace. He really didn't want to confront anyone from the order and hoped that Gideon could get himself out of it, but no such luck. He quickly jumped to normal space and maneuvered his flyer in front of the Excalibur. The energy ball impacted on the top side and pushed him backwards.
"Minor damage." The computer replied.
On the bridge, the entire crew sat in stunned silence as Galen took the hit for them.
Galen quickly opened a channel to both sides in hopes of avoiding further weapons fire.
"Well Gideon you seemed to find some more trouble. What seems to be the problem?"
Gideon was never so happy to see Galen before as he was now. "I was just doing my job when we were ambushed."
"Galen…haven't seen you in awhile. Are saying that you know these people?"
"Yes, and I'm sure if you tell me what the problem is, I can try and fix it." Galen replied.
"You friends here have discovered our hiding place. I wanted to know how they did it, but they insisted on playing a joke on us, so I decided to destroy them."
"If you'll just give me ten minutes, I'll find you an answer."
"You'd better hurry up, I'm losing my patience." The screen went black, leaving on the image of Gideon.
"Matthew, meet me in the docking bay." Galen cut the transmission and flew towards the Excalibur.
Gideon stood in the flight bay waiting for Galen to come out of his ship. After a minute or so, he walked over and the ramp lowered. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he walked onto the ship.
Galen was in the control room going over the Excalibur's logs trying to find an answer to their problem. "What took you so long Matthew?" His annoyance showed.
"I wasn't sure if you were coming out or not. So what do you have?"
"What do you mean, what do I have? This is your mess; you should get yourself out of it."
"Well we tried, but that would have led to our untimely deaths."
"What were you thinking when you decided to play a trick on them? Did you actually think they wouldn't figure it out?"
"I was trying to buy some time."
"Time for what?" Galen glared at him, but Gideon didn't have an answer. "Start from the beginning and tell me what happened."
"We got a location from the Rangers, they said they didn't get a chance to check it out yet, but since we were close by, we should go. We got here, found nothing and decided to stick around to see if the message was a setup or not. After two days, they showed up."
"Do you remember which Ranger sent you the message?"
"Uh, I think it was Carvin something…"
"Carvin?" Galen repeated it, double checking to make sure he heard it right.
"Yes, why?"
Galen back tracked the Excalibur's position to when they received the message. "Your message was false, it came from the planet."
"What planet?" Matthew looked really confused.
"The one the Mages are on. It's right out there, you just can't see it." Galen closed the ramp and the ship lifted into the air. "Dureena be careful, I'm taking off." He said over the intercom. As soon as they left the hanger a large object appeared in the background on the screen. In front of it when ten smaller objects.
"Whoa…"
"Now what?"
"You're ship can pick them up."
"I would certainly hope so." He opened a channel. "Molin, the message that led them here came from the hiding place. One of you sent it."
"Impossible, I think you're lying to me Galen."
"No, it's the truth. I'm sending you the file now." Galen sat and waited for Molin to go over the data. Meanwhile Gideon was finding it hard to keep from drooling over the flyer and resisting the urge to just start pressing buttons. He felt like a kid in a candy store, there were so many things he wanted, but could probably never have.
"Well, you seem to be on to something Galen. I believe what you say is true, now I just have to find out who sent that message."
"So you're not going to kill us? Gideon asked.
"Not at present, but that could change. Galen follow me." Molin flew off towards the planet along with two other flyers. The other seven remained around the Excalibur. By this time, Dureena came back up to the control deck and was amazed at what she saw.
The four flyers passed through the defense net and descended through the atmosphere. The rocky surface stunned Matthew and Dureena. Both of them were expecting some kind of exotic planet. Galen followed Molin into the hanger and landed near the exit. He waited for the area to re-pressurize before leaving. "Both of you are staying here. Dureena, please explain to Matthew the defense system so he doesn't hurt himself."
"No way in hell am I staying here! Not this time Galen!" Dureena shouted.
"I have to agree, as the Captain of the Excalibur. I'm ordering you to take us with."
"No, it's too dangerous. I can't protect you from all of them." He lowered the ramp and walked out. It shut behind him.
"Dammit." Gideon cursed. He paced around the hanger. "What was that defense system he was talking about?"
"If you touch something you're not supposed to it shocks you."
"That's pretty harsh."
"It hurts too." Dureena replied. "Now what are we supposed to do?"
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to search for some rubber."
"Rubber?"
"Electricity doesn't go through rubber." Gideon replied with a sly smile.
"Not a bad plan, let's go." They walked back into the main area of the ship.
***************
Galen walked behind Molin lost in his thoughts as they passed through the endless gray corridors. He was not happy to be back in this place. He felt like he was trapped in a cage, and the circumstances didn't help much either.
***************
"I can't believe there is no rubber on this ship!"
"Well what would he use it for it there was any?" Dureena asked. Gideon just shrugged his shoulders. "Wait what about the tires? Do you think we can get to them from in here?"
"It's worth a shot, but I think Galen would be pretty pissed if we slashed his tires." Gideon looked around. "But he might have some spare parts lying around." Dureena grinned and followed him to the cargo hold. They searched through various items until Gideon found a tire. "Ah ha."
"Great, so how do we use this to help us?" Dureena inquired.
"Well we pushed it against the control and see if they work; if not…at least we tried." He walked to the control panel and pushed the tire against it. A shock hit it, but not Gideon. The light blinked green and the ramp lowered. He turned and smiled at Dureena, "Bingo." They walked down the ramp into the hanger, ready to explore the Mage hiding place.