"Okay, team, good work," Goddard said, pleased. "Dismissed. It's time for lunch."
The team began to file toward the jumptubes, to head to the galley. The crew had been assigned a teamwork exercise, and Goddard was pleased with their progress since the beginning of the trip. They were functioning a hell of a lot more smoothly than he had ever thought possible. Just a few short months ago, they were always second-guessing each other and it was a wonder they'd gotten out of some of the issues they'd had happen so far. He had to give them credit, though. They did do a pretty good job of pulling together when it really counted. But he wanted to know he could count on it, without fail. So they continued practicing teamwork exercises.
Catalina and Harlan were in the lead en route to the jumptube system. As they reached it, Harlan said, "Myself being the good leader I am, I should go first."
Catalina immediately took offense, naturally, and retorted, "Who said you were the leader? I'm the leader, so I should go first!"
Bova rolled his eyes and began to step around the two arguing teens. As he began to hoist himself to the jumptube, an alarm sounded in the Command Post. He stopped with a huff.
"Thelma!" called Goddard. Within a nanosecond or two, Thelma appeared behind him.
"Yes, Commander Goddard?" Goddard nearly jumped out of his skin.
Catalina and Harlan could still be heard arguing in the background.
"Suzee thinks you're full of yourself, too!"
"Oh yeah? Your imaginary friend thinks I'm full of myself. I'm hurt, Cat. Pained to the core!"
"She's not imaginary, she's invisible... how many times do I have to...."
"Why do you do that, Thelma?"
"Well... I..."
"Nevermind that now, Thelma," the Commander ordered, interrupting her. "Can you tell me what's set off the alarm?"
"Why yes... yes I can!" answered the android, cheerily.
Goddard waited expectantly. Thelma simply smiled. He rethought his query, and asked it again.
"What set off the alarm, Thelma?"
"Oh, I do not think you will be pleased. Screen on!" The viewscreen spiraled on to reveal not one, not two, or even three, but four Spung Killcruisers.
Catalina and Harlan stopped abruptly midargument, gaping at the screen.
"Four of them??" Cat shrieked. "Grozit! What are we gonna do???"
"They'll probably blow us to smithereens, so chances are, we're going to die," Bova stated, plainly.
"Oh, Bova, we'll be okay! We've gotten through bad situations before just fine!!" Rosie said, in an attempt to cheer him up.
"I'm not ready to die yet!" complained Bova. "I haven't had lunch!"
"Team! To your stations!" barked Goddard.
As the cadets assumed their positions, Thelma said (right into Goddard's ear, causing him to jump involuntarily, yet again), "Incoming message, sir."
"Put it through."
A Spung warlord appeared on the screen. He grinned and hissed. "Your fate is sealed..." he hissed, before the picture spiraled away, back to the view of the four Killcruisers, poised and ready to fire. Green lights flicked their way down the belly of one of the vessels, until they reached the front, ejecting a green fireball of sorts.
Thelma interrupted, "The Spung have fired a Frag torpedo. Impact in thirty seconds.... twenty-nine... twenty-eight..."
"Mister Band! Evasive maneuvers!" barked Goddard.
Harlan frantically moved the crystals on the console, trying to evade the Frag torpedo. It clipped the tail of the Christa, sending a violent vibration through the ship. Rosie fell to the floor, as did Bova and Cat. Harlan and the Commander bumped heads over the console. Radu was unmoved. Davenport came screaming down the jumptubes.
"What the hell is going on here!" she cried, then upon noticing the viewscreen, she shrieked and fell to the floor.
One of the other Killcruisers fired another Frag. Thelma interrupted the chaos (or added to it?), saying calmly, "The Spung have fired another Frag torpedo. Impact in twenty-seven seconds... twenty-six... twenty-five..."
The Commander barked again for evasive maneuvers, and Harlan attempted to comply. Except that he couldn't seem to get the Christa to move fast enough!
"I can't move fast enough, Commander!" Harlan shouted. "This one's not going to miss!"
"I knew it!" said Bova.
"Brace for impact, crew!" shouted Goddard.
The impact came, and it came hard. The ship rocked even more violently than before. Sparks flew from beneath the navigation console, and Radu took a flying leap to avoid them. Harlan was thrown back onto the floor, and Catalina ended up atop him. Rosie and Bova collided mid-air, and ended up on the floor in a tangled heap. The Commander was thrown into a support, and knocked unconscious. Sparks flew from various panels in the Command Post. The viewscreen picture became blurry.
Catalina looked at Harlan. "Thanks," she said, "... for breaking my fall." She kissed his cheek.
Harlan looked at her for a moment, slightly awed. "No problem," he retorted. "Thanks for breaking my rib!" He struggled to his feet. Another message began to play on the viewscreen. It was fuzzy, but the person on the other end was familiar.
"It's Elmira!" shouted Cat. "Why are you blindfolded?"
"I can't see..." she groaned. She sounded groggy. "I... I'll try to buy you guys some time. You've... got to get... out of here."
"Elmira!" Radu chimed in. "We can't leave you!"
"I'll... be fine... Radu... get out of here.... We'll.. meet again. It's... our destiny." The viewscreen faded back to the Killcruisers once more. Two of them were firing yet again.
"Two... frag tor... tor... torpedoes... on their way!" stuttered Thelma, obviously hurting from the last impact. "Impact in... Impact in... Impact in... Impact in..." She collapsed to the floor in a heap.
Catalina looked to the unconscious Commander, bleeding from a gash in his forehead, and the fainted Davenport, and with a horrified look, asked "Grozit, Suzee, what do we do?!?"
Harlan, who normally would pick on her when she addressed Suzee, didn't this time. "What does Suzee think?" The look on his face said clearly, I can't believe I just asked that!
"Suzee says a blind hyperjump is our only chance!"
Radu said, "But that's risky! We might come out in an asteroid field!"
Bova added, "Or right up next to a sun..."
Harlan hesitated only a nanosecond before he said, "Blind hyperjump it is." And he punched it into hyperdrive. As they came back out of hyperspace, they were no more harmed than before they entered it... and the Spung danger was gone... for now.
"We made it!" shouted Rosie. "I knew everything would be just fi-" An alarm interrupted her happy statement. All eyes flew to the blurred viewscreen. There was a planet just ahead! And they were heading on a crash course!
"Harlan!" shouted Catalina. Harlan jumped to the helm, attempting to maneuver anywhere that wasn't on or in the planet. He steered the ship quickly but cautiously, and appeared he might just be able to avoid the planet. They might skim the top of the atmosphere, but hey, they'd already been through worse, right? Wrong.
In the blurred viewscreen, something rather large appeared. Large and grey. It looked like there may have been craters on it. A moon!
"Harlan!" shouted Radu. Again, Harlan made an attempt at aversion, but this time, it was clear they were not going to miss.
"We're gonna crash, guys!" Harlan cried, "I can't get around it!" His voice was soaked in fear. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!!!!"
And everyone stood paralysed, staring at the blurred viewscreen, watching as the moon's surface came rushing up to greet them. Sparks flew around them, but it didn't matter anymore, they were doomed. Bova was right. They were going to die. And they hadn't even had lunch yet.
The Christa plowed into the moon's surface nose-first. The crew found themselves flung in all directions. Support beams fell. Consoles tipped. Catalina looked over and saw Harlan slumped into the helm. Radu, impaled on a broken support beam. Rosie, crushed under one of the consoles. Bova, decapitated by a falling support beam, which landed on the Commander. And here came a beam, falling on her. She screamed.
Blackness.
That blackness faded to stars, and a dull pain in her forehead. As the stars faded she found herself lying on her back on her bunk. Damned half-in, half-out bunks. Anything woke her up suddenly, and she nearly always smacked her head on the wall. Rosie was by her side, looking at her with concern.
"Cat, are you okay? You screamed!"
Catalina rubbed her forehead gingerly. "Yeah, Rosie... I'm fine. I had a nightmare."
Rosie looked puzzled. "I thought you said you didn't dream..." she paused, then as an afterthought, added, "...much."
"I don't," Cat responded. "But it worries me. Last time I had a weird dream like that, it sort of came true, in a sense. Dram... you remember?"
Rosie nodded.
"I had a weird dream around that time too. And then he showed up."
"So what did you dream about, Cat?"
"I'd really rather not talk about it."
Rosie hadn't pushed. Cat was kind of glad for that at the time, though now she kind of wished she had chosen to tell Rosie about it. She had never wanted to worry the poor girl, especially into thinking something might happen that probably wouldn't. She knew when she dreamt, her dreams didn't usually signify exactly what was going to happen, but hinted at the coming of an incident that had certain similarities. She had a bit of ESP or something, it seemed. Unfortunately, she still hadn't been able to learn exactly what to make of her dreams. This might have been avoidable if she could have understood.
She sat in Suzee's room on Yensid, reflecting on this dream. It had happened similarly, but not. The Killcruisers, the panic, the crash. That all happened. Not the same way, though. She hoped the death and dismembership didn't happen. The last she remembered from the whole experience was the blind hyperjump, and hurtling toward the planet. They didn't have a chance to avert, like in her dream. So the moon didn't happen. But as the ship entered the planet's atmosphere, her connection to Suzee began to fade. She had heard Harlan tell Radu to try and find a place to land. But as the ship sunk deeper into the planet's atmosphere, everything got even blurrier. Not that it was ever particularly clear. It had been kinda purple-hazy to begin with. But it gradually became a blank purple mist that just sort of... dissipated.
It was weird to Cat. It was impossibly strange not having that purple hazy view always hanging around. Nothing to obstruct her view of the dimension she was in at all. She'd gotten used to it after so long... after all, she was all of about five when she first encountered Suzee. And now she was gone. Completely. And here she was, stuck alone in Yensid, while Suzee was in her place... and no way to contact her. She cried. She had no way to know that her best friend was still alive. Suzee's family was distraught, as well. Suddenly, with no warning, their daughter was gone, and this strange girl was in her room. Where was Suzee? they had demanded of the stranger. They were incredulous when the stranger introduced herself as Catalina. It just couldn't be possible! But then, she did look unlike anything they had ever seen before. She spoke of Suzee as if she knew her. She must have been a friend of Suzee's. But they knew all of Suzee's friends. They had never seen this girl before. Cat told them the story of how she and Suzee had met. The more details she shared, the more Suzee's family began to believe her. There was just too much truth this girl was spouting, and Suzee had not spoken to her imaginary... erm... invisible friend in so long that she'd been all but forgotten to Suzee's peers and her family. The strange girl even told them the exact DATE which Suzee stopped speaking to her in public.
Suzee's family had begun to apologise to her profusely about all the unkind things they had said to Suzee about her "imaginary" friend all those times in the past. They had just never believed it was possible. But now they had no choice. The "Imaginary" friend was in their presence now. They bent over backwards to try and make Cat feel at home. Not so imaginary at all, huh? Catalina actually got a kick out of all this, imagining how her friends at home would be doing the same with Suzee. If they were still alive... Cat wished she knew.
She called out to Suzee several times a day, hoping and praying for even the slightest inkling of a response. A couple of weeks went by, and her depression had hit what seemed to be rock-bottom. They must be dead, she feared. There was no way back. And even if she could get back, there was nowhere for her to go, no one to go to. Her life was saved by Suzee's heroic last minute actions, and yet it was ruined at the same time. Here she was now, stuck in her best friend's home dimension, while her best friend got yanked into her own dimension, only to be killed. And it was all her fault. She could have stopped this if she had been able to decipher her dream. She just didn't know how yet. But there was something she could have done, she just knew it. Her dream had come true after all. Sort of, but not. She had to learn to read her dreams.