Part 2
The launch of the granilith was no less impressive from Michael's point of view. After 'zapping' himself inside, he wasn't really aware of seeing out of it, couldn't feel his physical body or the granilith cone itself, but he was definitely able to sense the surroundings. He could see various odd mechanisms moving within the mountain, getting ready for the launch. And there was no way of missing the moment when he was ejected out of the solid rock and into the stratosphere, in what seemed like a single moment.
For an instant he was panicking... despite all of the instructions that he'd memorized about how to STEER this thing... there was no reference point that he could relate them to, no physical controls that he could manipulate. But a second's thought reassured him on that score. The granilith was programmed to enter Warp space automatically as soon as it was far enough from a locus of gravitational force.
And sure enough, as soon as the Earth had dwindled to a marble in the sky behind him, there was a sensation like a clap of thunder, and he had a body and a place to put it again. He and Isabel and Tess were standing in a rough circle, wearing the clothes that they had had in the pod chamber, inside a room with rounded, vaguely bullet-like contours. Colored clouds were streaking by outside the 'room', whose walls seemed to be made of frosted glass, at incredible speeds.
Knowing that there wasn't a moment to lose, Michael dashed towards the prow of the 'ship', the nose of the bullet which was pointed in the way that they seemed to be going, and waved a hand up near one of the walls. Sure enough, a star map appeared with touch-sensitive controls, and he scrolled around frantically, trying to get his bearings and remember the star maps from the printout. Suddenly, impulsively, he reached underneath his shirt to the waistband of his pants... and drew out the battered pages of the destiny book printout. Good, he hadn't imagined taking it back from Max as they walked up to the pod chamber. Crazed now, he scrambled to find his place among the white printer sheets.
"I think you'd better stay back," Isabel said from behind him. "Just let Michael get on with the steering, and you and I can sit back and enjoy the ride." There was a soft pop. "Oooh, cool, a couch!"
"Do you really think you can stop me if I decide I want to choose where this flight is going to take us??" Tess growled.
"I think we can make it difficult for you... and trust me... if you're in the mood to take charge and make choices, there is NOTHING I'd like more than to make things difficult for you, you crazy slut," Isabel vowed. "I will make sure we all crash and die, if I have to, rather than let you deliver us, and this relic, whither you will."
That was about when Michael finally found an agreeable destination, and tapped on the appropriate star on the control display. There was a definite sensation of centrifugal force as the granilith changed course, the color patterns outside curving, and slowing, and then shooting off in new directions. Grinning to himself fiercely, Michael locked the helm to accept only his own palmprint for further course changes, and then stood up to join Isabel and their prisoner.
The room looked very different now. When it had first appeared the space had been empty except for the walls and the three of them. Now, not only had a couch appeared, but two chairs, a coffee table, some curtains hugging the curve of the glass walls, and two lampstands. Isabel and Tess were each drinking what looked like cherry cokes with extra tabasco, and there was a third glass sitting on the coffee table, waiting for him. (On top of a coaster, no less.)
"We can create matter out of pure thought, in here," Isabel explained as he sat down. "Handy, to say the least. Any idea how long it'll be before we get where we're going??"
"Not really... hours at least, maybe days." He sighed. "The two of us had better sleep in shifts, just in case." He didn't mention his 'palmprint lock' on the navigation controls... better to keep that a secret from Tess until she actually had a chance to try a course change. He wasn't entirely sure that it was a precaution that could keep her out forever, after all...
Liz stared dully at the 'warp wrap' sitting in front of her, feeling stunned and overwhelmed by everything that had happened over the past few hours. Maria and Kyle, sitting in the same booth at the Crashdown, seemed to be reacting the same way. Max had gone off to make some telephone calls as soon as they got back to town -- apparently he had chucked his cell phone into the ravine as well as his Jeep, convinced that he would never be needing it again.
"Liz." She looked up, very slightly, to see Jim Valenti sliding into the bench opposite her, next to his languid son. "I realize that you're probably feeling very depressed this morning, but..."
"Why would you say that?" she asked, puzzled for a moment.
"Well, with Max and the others leaving, of course... Max??" Jim looked up in surprise as Max approached the table. "I... was there a change in plans? Are..."
"A bit of a change, yeah," Max said, shaking his head slightly. "Michael, Isabel, and Tess still left, though hopefully Michael and Isabel, at least, will be back soon. I stayed behind." He left it at that... Liz realized that he probably didn't want to drop the 'psycho Tess' bomb on Mister Valenti in public, especially considering that he was the one who had brought Tess to the Valenti house to stay there.
"Alright. You're going to tell your parents about Isabel having left??" Jim asked, still obviously trying to reorient. Max nodded, and after a moment grabbed a chair from a nearby table to swing around to face the booth. All of a sudden, Liz squeezed into the middle of the bench seat on her side of the booth, right up next to Maria, so that there would be room for Max to sit there. It wasn't just that she wanted to be as close to Max, (metaphorically,) as they used to be... people swinging chairs up to the booths like that was a pet peeve of hers. The space between the booths and the tables was an area that people should be able to move through unimpeded, especially the waitperson.
Max noticed the room that she was making for him and flashed her a small smile as he sat down. Valenti apparently had decided to continue with his old thought. "I'm not sure if you're still investigating Alex's death, Liz, but I actually found out something interesting today."
"What?" The case of Alex's death had been closed, apparently, but Valenti didn't know that yet of course. She was curious as to whether this new clue of his was something that would point towards Tess or some bit of meaningless (relatively,) trivia. "What is it??"
"Something from the initial search of the car." Valenti passed a white sheet across the table, apparently a copy of a photograph of a plastic bag with some very tiny items inside it. "Apparently something broke in the crash, although they couldn't figure out what -- there were loose screws and pieces of plastic and casing... something electronic, maybe, although there isn't enough to be sure of what."
That got everybody's attention. It didn't seem to fit in with what they'd discovered about Alex's death (and Tess) so far, and it didn't sound irrelevant. Was it possible that there was something they hadn't figured out yet... something even Tess hadn't known perhaps? Or something she had kept from them even in her confession? "Is there any possibility that this thing was... alien in origin?" Max asked in a whisper.
"I thought of that explanation, but it doesn't seem to fit," Valenti replied, his own voice scarcely any louder. "The screws are standard number two screws, nothing unearthly about them at all, and a bit of the plastic casing has a fragment of the letters 'R-E-A' inscribed in it, probably from 'made in korea.' If you want my guess, whatever this thing was, you could probably buy it at the radio shack in the mall."
"It wasn't a part of the car stereo?" Maria asked.
"No, there doesn't seem to have been anything unaccounted for there."
"And no other trace of this mystery device??" Liz asked. "Then apparently someone tampered with the crash scene before the police got there."
"I dunno," Kyle put in. "Maybe... the killer put those things in the car beforehand, to draw attention away from... herself."
"I doubt it," Max countered. "Her best cover was making the crash look like accident, or like a suicide alternatively. Anything that doesn't fit into either theory works against her, and I can't say that these..." he tapped the items in the picture meaningfully, "fit into either theory."
Valenti at this point was looking from face to face. "Away from herself... her best cover... You talk as if you know who the killer was!!" he hissed. "Max, I thought you said the girl at Las Cruces wasn't..."
"She wasn't," Max agreed almost without voicing the words. "We'd better take a walk."
As Max stepped slowly down the porch stairs at his house, he saw a familiar dark-haired figure on the other side of the street. He and Liz met up on the sidewalk near a corner of his front walk.
"Waiting for me to come out??" he asked with a smile that would hardly have qualified as a happy one.
"I didn't really feel like knocking on the door," Liz admitted. "Thought about trying your window, but..." She left the conclusion unsaid and shrugged. "You're out here now. How did things go with the parents?"
"Worse than I thought," Max muttered, and Liz took in a sharp, sudden breath. "As soon as I said one thing about Isabel going off looking for where she really came from, they had all kinds of questions for me. Did she have a lead, did either of us even have an idea where to start looking. Did I know how to reach her or would she be checking in with me. Did we know how many con artist there were in big cities who made out like bandits just off adopted children trying to find their birth parents..."
"Oh, wow," Liz said, impulsively taking Max's right arm in both of hers, hugging it to her side. "And you didn't really have any answers that you could give them, did you??"
Max shook his head sadly, and began to walk down the sidewalk, Liz staying next to him. "So, any word on how the rest of it goes??" he asked softly.
Liz took a second to guess what he meant by 'it', and then nodded vaguely. "You had the hardest part. I don't think anyone has noticed that Tess isn't still at the Valenti's yet, and it'd be suspicious if they mention her without a good reason to. Maria wants to keep Michael's apartment ready for when he gets back... I've told her that I'll chip in for the rent if it comes to that."
"Me too, of course," Max said. "Probably shouldn't ask Kyle or Mister Valenti... they're having enough problems with the bottom line right now as it is." He perked up as another thought hit him. "Michael probably didn't take his cash reserve with him when we were getting ready - there'd be no use for it where we were going anyway. I don't think he'd mind too much if we spent some of it on his rent. For that matter, I think Isabel has a little stashed away too, though I'd rather not draw on THAT unless we have no other choice."
"Of course," Liz agreed. All of a sudden, she seemed very... unsettled, about the simple intimacy of holding Max's arm against her body. Max was far from unaffected by it himself... there was so much baggage that had been brought out in the open over the past few days. But he was still disappointed when she let go and gently drew back.
"Liz... there's a lot we have to talk about," he said softly. "I know that you might not be ready to face things yet... but I wanted to put this out there. I think I'd rather get into it all sooner rather than later. Okay, I've said it."
"Max... all things being equal, I'd want that too, but--" Liz shook her head and bailed out of that sentence. "I'm not there yet, but hear this. I don't blame y-- actually, I guess I kinda blame you. But I'm more angry at MYSELF right now than I am mad at you, believe it or not!"
"At yourself??" Max came to a sudden stop next to a red station wagon, and reflexively drummed his fingers against the top of its roof. "What have you done that you need to be angry at yourself for?? I'm the one who... who threw away the trust you had in me, who..."
Liz didn't seem to have heard a word in that speech. "You... you're doing it. You're tapping your fingers. Oh, my god."
"I am??" For a second, he didn't even understand what she meant, before he realized that he was, indeed, rhythmically drumming on the top of the car. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bug you, it was just a habitual..."
"Don't you understand what this... no, no, I guess you don't. There's no way you could have." Liz frowned to herself, biting the tip of her bottom lip in that really cute way that she had.
"No way that I could understand WHAT??" Max asked, flabbergasted. He didn't get an answer, though -- Liz had moved onto a fresh realization.
"Oh, mygawd... Maria's mom, she's probably still freaking out. I've gotta get over there and scope out the situation."
Max still didn't understand, but at least this was something he felt he could help with. "I'll drive."
"No... probably better if you stay out of her way, just in case she's put together anything about you healing Brody's brain. And you've got your own freakout to get ready for, unless I miss my guess." She looked around, as if weighing her options, and then turned around to face him. "Besides, you don't have a car anymore, do you??"
"I can lend you the keys to my dad's, if you won't need it long."
"Nah, probably better not, though thanks for offering," she assured him. "I'll be okay. Listen, call me tomorrow, okay??" She rushed up and kissed him softly on the cheek.
"Sure, okay." Max shook his head slightly as the girl he loved dashed away.
Kyle frowned a little in concentration as he examined the small bedroom. Tess had gone, probably never to return, so he certainly didn't see any reason to keep sleeping out in the living room. He didn't feel like making a whole bunch of changes either, though, which meant that he was left with an odd sensation of intruding on her personal space. Well, that would probably go away with time.
Tess had never had that much in the way of 'stuff', and some of what she had she'd taken with her. At least she'd never actually gotten around to painting the walls of the room pink with her alien powers. Kyle had to chuckle a little at the thought: Tess Harding was one of the least 'pink' teenage girls that he could think of, offhand.
He wandered up the hall, through the living room, and noticed his dad sitting quietly at the dinner table. "Hey, how's it going?" he called softly. Jim turned to look at him without saying anything. "Still having a hard time getting your brain around it, huh??"
"I remembered something today that I haven't thought about in years and years," he said. His voice seemed detached and somehow faraway. "Something that happened... well, quite a few years before you were born, before I met your mother, even. It was my first year as a deputy, back when Rick Austin was the Sheriff."
"Ummm... okay," Kyle said uncertainly. He waited, but his father didn't continue the story right away. Kyle pulled a chair away from the table and sat down, waiting.
"I was the new kid on the force, and was getting a lot of routine foot patrol assignments in the quieter part of town. There had been no action of interest for days before I happened to catch a burglar right in the act."
Jim Valenti jr paused at this point in the tale. "I recognized him... Ross Kellerman, a friendly guy who'd been a year ahead of me in high school. I had heard stories about how he had been shaken up when his brother died in 'Nam, and been fired from his job at the foundry. And now he was trying his hand at robbery to feed himself. It was horrible, and I felt pity for Ross."
"You did?" Kyle echoed in surprise, and then thought a little himself. "Yeah, I guess I might have too, if I had known him before he was a crook, I mean."
His father nodded. "So... well, I didn't report the crime. And I gave Ross all the money I had on me at the time... not a lot, but enough that he wouldn't need to worry about eating for most of a week. And I let him go, of course."
There was something Kyle didn't like creeping into his Dad's tone of voice, just around the edges. "Dad... what- did something happen? Did Ross do something afterward?"
He laughed hollowly. "Doesn't take much brains to guess that, does it? Well, yeah, he took my money and bought a hunting knife at the general store... and then went right back not half an hour later and tried to rob the store, with that same knife!" He let out a low groan. "What Robbie Aaron was thinking of in the first place, just selling it to him without even thinking anything was wrong, I don't know. But... well, things ended badly. Robbie was stubborn, tried to fight back, and by the time the Sheriff got to the scene, Ross had a revolver bullet in his head, and Robbie was lying behind the counter, bleeding to death of a stab wound in his shoulder. They only just managed to get him to the hospital in time to save his life, and he didn't wake up for nearly a week."
Valenti suddenly focused with all the energy of a blaster ray on the face of his son. "That's when I learned... it's a great temptation to feel sorry for someone who's lived through painful circumstances. Makes you feel good to protect someone like that, I think. But you can't afford to forget that living through that might make a person dangerous." He sighed heavily. "Wouldn't have thought I could forget a lesson like that."
"Dad, about Tess..." Kyle started, and then couldn't think of how to finish the thought. As painful as his father's story had been, it kind of said everything that needed to be said. So Kyle changed the subject. "Dad, is there something going on about the Sheriff's office? How is it that you found out that stuff about Alex's car, today of all days? That case has been closed for a month, and you're not even working there anymore." Something occured to him. "Unless they're offering you the job of Sheriff back."
Valenti laughed wryly. "Well, doesn't seem like much chance of that, but yeah, something is happening." He took a breath. "The city council is moving Tim Hanson back down to the ranks: they don't think he was ready for the responsibility of being Sheriff after all."
"Oh," Kyle said, confused. "But if they won't bring you back..."
"Judge Lewis has talked to Owen Blackwood informally about possibly choosing him for the post, and Owen came to talk to me about several things... about finding out that Hansen withheld evidence from the report on Alex's death, for one thing. Also about bringing me back into the force as one of his deputies... possibly his senior deputy. Owen doesn't want to get busted down for incompetence as well, and he thinks having me as his right-hand man might help."
"Wow," Kyle muttered. "What do YOU think about that prospect, Dad?"
"Well... it's tempting, though I might have a hard time with the guys, Tim especially, being brought back in as their field sergeant, essentially. On the other hand, it kind of makes sense. I wasn't relieved of my post as sheriff for any lack of competence, I like to think, but because I'd misused the trust of the town for the sake of a different loyalty. As senior deputy, I'd have less power to abuse, and I think I'd be more careful about a conflict of interest this time." He sighed in thought. "On the other hand, maybe I should ask Owen to just make me a deputy of the ranks."
Kyle smiled. "Maybe. One way or another, I think it'll be good for you to go back to work at the Sheriff's station... if Owen or whoever else will have you, and if you can stand the comedown from being 'Homo numero una.' It's been weird, seeing you kinduv at loose ends since you were let go."
His father nodded. "So, umm... how are your final exams coming, anyway??"
Maria slowly turned the knob on the front door and pushed gently. It swung in several inches without resistance, and Maria turned to Liz, standing beside her and slightly behind, and made a face of pure terror. Liz rolled her eyes slightly, (though not without a bit of sympathy,) and waved her on. Maria opened the door further and stepped in, tentatively calling "Um, mom?"
"In here, honey." One after the other they stepped cautiously over the threshold, and through the rooms, guided by the memory of how Amy DeLuca's voice had sounded, until Maria and Liz were looking at her as she sat at the kitchen table, holding a mug of something steaming in front of her. Taking a very small sip from it.
There was a very resolved look on Mrs. DeLuca's face, and Liz tried to fight down the sudden nervousness she felt by asking herself what was in the mug that she was drinking of. As Maria smiled tentatively, Liz inhaled deeply and strained to detect any trace of scent. Certainly not any variety of coffee; she'd have been able to tell easily if it were. Probably not one of the herbal drinks she sometimes brewed either. Actual tea? Perhaps. The alert posture would be consistent with a moderately caffeinated DeLuca, from Liz's considerable experience.
"I've had quite a day, and put some surprising things together," Maria's mom opened. "I don't really like the conclusions that I got to in the end."
"Umm... mom," Maria tried to interrupt, pulling up a chair and sitting down, but Amy didn't let her.
"I'm sorry, girls, but let me finish, please?" Her tone of voice would allow no alternatives. "Brody Davis... held the three of us, Sean, Max and Tess hostage in the UFO center... raving about someone named Larek, and calling Max 'Zan' -- in general going on and on about aliens and UFOs. You were trying to convince me to keep quiet about the whole thing after he let us go, for the sake of his daughter... Max was trying to bully me into it too, I refused..." She shook her head in confusion. "And then that Tess girl looked at me, then closed her eyes and concentrated... and I forgot!! Everything was different, and I thought that we'd been trapped there in the UFO center because the doors locked when the power went out, and none of that stuff about Brody and the hostage crisis occured to me anymore. It went clean out of my head for WEEKS... until last night."
"For the sake of argument," Liz said calmly, "how can you be sure that what you're remembering now is the reality??"
"Well, for starters, after confronting Sean about it and using my very best 'stern Aunt Amy' act, he confirmed it," she said. "Filled in a few details that I hadn't mentioned myself. And I really don't think he was just playing along because he was scared of me." She looked up at Liz, her eyes narrowed. "Partly because if he was, I really don't think he would have made up the tidbit that YOU had bribed him into keeping silent, by agreeing to go out on a date." Liz shifted uncomfortably.
"So where does that leave us?? The two of you are implicated in a conspiracy to cover up an alien-related incident, and someone changed my memory in a way that is CLEARLY beyond the conventionally possible in order to shut me up. I've started to wonder about a good many other things... like all those mysterious camping vacations and road trips and all the other times that the two of you or your friends have disappeared on over the past few years. Every time, Maria, that you went on a 'sleepover' to Liz's place and told me to call one of you on your cell phone rather than bothering Liz's parents.
"The hubbub about that guidance counselor vanishing two years ago... and the police said that you - Liz, and Alex were the last ones to see her. Rumors that Jim was investigating Max... and there was that scratching guy who got thrown out of the UFO convention! Jim finding that kidnapped girl out in the woods and losing his job -- even you girls' on and off romances with Max and Michael... everything seems to be a piece of this same pattern. I can't see the connections, but I feel them, just out of reach."
She took a deep breath. "I'm not going to 'freak out.' I'll try my best not to get upset and judgemental before looking at the situation from your point of view and giving you the benefit of the doubt." She leaned forward. "But I want to hear the TRUTH, the *whole* truth, and nothing but the truth -- and I wanna hear it *NOW*!!"
The two teenaged girls shared one more panicked look, and then Liz blurted out, "Well, I suppose it all started on the day that I got shot to death."
"Ohhhee," Max moaned, lying back on the couch in Michael's living room. "How did you get through this, Kyle??"
"Well, I think it was a little different for me," Kyle said quietly, looking at the other boy empathetically. "But what I held on to was... that I was getting back to myself. The center of my being... though you might not want to phrase it that way. It's a healing, in a way... shedding something constricting your mind and re-discovering freedom."
"But once I'm free, how do I come to terms with what I've done," Max muttered slowly through his growl of frustration.
"That one, I'm not so sure of," Kyle admitted. "On one hand, it wasn't really me, or us, who did those things. But I'm not sure it was entirely not-me, not certain whether Tess could have done what she did if there wasn't some place deep inside that didn't care about Alex." He sighed deeply. "But I know there's a part of me that DID care, and that Tess silenced that side of my mind. So I do what I can to make restitution to the people who have been hurt, and I keep moving on. What else is there to do??"
"You know, that's actually not bad in the 'insight' category," Max muttered. "Well, I guess you had to get lucky one of these months."
Kyle's backhand impacted resoundingly on his shoulder, and Max groaned a little. "Hey, hey, hey... in enough pain already. I don't need any extra abuse right now."
"Hey, you started it," Kyle complained. "Well, if I don't get to hit you, then I'll be playing Michael's Xbox until you're finished with the mental torture of your de-mind-warp." He started to get out the game console, then paused. "What... what does it feel like? I mean, Tess changed my memories and made me do things that I wouldn't have done. It was pretty clear what would happen when that wears off, what I would remember. But she didn't do any of that to you... she was just affecting your emotions, right?? What's it like to... well, for that to go away??"
"I... I'm not sure how to explain it," Max admitted. "None of the facts of the past few months have changed, yeah. But... I can look back, and I can remember how I felt in a circumstance... when I was alone with Tess, in an arguement with Liz or Isabel. I can still remember how I felt, but that emotion is..." he shuddered violently. "It's like that feeling was an eel that got stuck in my brain, from one of those corny scifi movies... and no matter what I do, I still can't claw it out, because what I did, and the emotion in that memory, are locked in place." He sighed.
"I guess all you can do now is mend the fences that you kicked over," Kyle agreed. "Did you talk to Liz yet?"
"A little, this morning, just before it started. I think she realized what was about to happen, she saw me tapping my fingers, and decided that it'd be better to scram until I was myself again." He sighed. "Thanks for meeting me here, Kyle. It's... it's slightly better to not have to go through this alone, to be around someone who knows at least vaguely what I'm talking about."
Kyle shrugged. "Yeah, well... you'll owe me one for later I guess." And he started up the video game.
"No, no, no... I hate to, but I have to insist," Mrs DeLuca said softly as they walked down the street. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on everything else, but in this, you have GOT to be pulling my leg. A giant blue crystal alien jellyfish??"
"Ridiculous as it sounds, mom, I'm dead serious," Maria insisted. "I was there in the DuPree's basement, and I saw it with my own eyes. You can ask... ah, there he is now." Sure enough, Jim Valenti was waiting for them at the end of his front walk. Maria had called him a little earlier to let him know that they were walking over.
"Hey, Amy," he said as they got there, taking her in his arms and placing a quick kiss on her cheek. "How do you feel?"
"A... a little shaky, I admit," she said softly. "Holding it together for now. PLEASE tell me that you have some coffee brewed!"
He smiled. "It's waiting for you in the dining room."
"Okay." As they headed to the porch, she asked Liz "Now, there's one thing I don't understand. If these Gandarium were like crystals big enough that you could hold one in your hand comfortably in your hand... how did they infect and hybridize cells??"
"Well... it's complicated, and I'm not sure I understand it completely myself," Liz admitted. "The best I can figure is, the crystals were actually colonies of millions or hundreds of millions of individual gandarium, each of which were really tiny, about as small as our cells -- or maybe smaller. Not sure if there's anything more I can say that will really help explain it..."
Michael snapped to full alertness with the sensation of a slight inertial tug pulling him sideways. As far as he could figure, any REAL inertial effect in warp flight, if the concept of inertia was even relevant any more, would probably have sent him into the walls at about ten thousand miles an hour. But the granilith seemed to be rigged up to use these gentle 'tugs' as a cue to signal automatic course corrections. That had been a big one.
He stood up out of the couch he had materialized to sleep in, (a futon that turned out to be surprisingly comfy,) and summoned a soft light with the wave of one hand. Figuring out how to dim the granilith chamber for sleep had taken them nearly an hour.
Isabel had stood up near the table as well. "Is this it??" she asked nervously.
"I'm not sure," Michael said as he hurried up to the nav controls. "It was hard to... um, to be sure about the rate of our progress..." He noticed in passing that Tess' eyes were fluttering, though he wasn't sure if that meant she was already awake, waking up, or just dreaming. He called up the star map. "Yeah... looks like we're almost at final destination co-ordinates---" Right then a violent shaking shook the chamber, followed by an 'inertia tug' forwards, which suggested that the G was slowing down.
Isabel moved slowly towards him, until she was next to Tess' bed. She was still wearing the same black v-neck top and gray pants from when they had first got to the pod chamber that day... it hadn't seemed worth trying to change clothes for bed, especially since they were supposed to be watching Tess every minute. She had been on watch while Michael slept. "I think we're..." the whole vessel trembled again - "-- encountering higher gravitational forces."
Another sideways push. "Course correction," Tess said, clearly resolving the question of whether or not she was asleep. "Michael, can you get that little screen of yours to give a countdown for when we transit out of warp spa--"
The reason that she was interrupted, of course, was that the Granilith left warp space at that precise instant, abolishing the chamber and everything that they had made inside it. The granilith popped into existence in a stellar system a few hundred parsecs away from earth, a metallic cone flying towards one particular world at half a million miles per second and slowing down as quickly as it could. Michael, Isabel, and Tess, along with all that they had brought with them, were reduced to matter and energy held contained within the granilith's power matrices... the three of them conscious, but unable to communicate or affect the granilith or its environment.
As it fell whining into the atmosphere of the planet known as Stellynfrus Gamma and streaked through its sky... finally landing at speeds in excess of R17 in the middle of an unearthly wetlands forest!
TO BE CONTINUED...