-8-
Standing in the observation gallery on the upper floor of Main Mission, John Koenig watched as the wormholes became larger and larger in size and scope; Alpha, the Eagles, the satellites, and the eyes of the humans watching the spectacle could see the wormholes popping into existence, and then bursting, but Koenig pictured the space in this sector to be…frothing like the top of a fairy tale wizard or witch's cauldron, the energy rippling down through levels of existence they didn't understand yet.
While Koenig watched the wormholes appearing, he was not oblivious to the last minute preparations taking place; a skeleton crew were in Main Mission right now, the crew either in full space suits, or in the process of putting them on. The rest of the base had been secured; all non-essential personnel were currently in the shelters, under the reluctant command of Alan Carter.
John remembered Alan's reaction…
-8-
"Alan, I want you in charge of everyone in the shelters," John had told the Eagle pilot, making sure it was in a public place. Alan had just spent the last three quarters of an hour locking down all but one of the Eagle fleet.
Instantly Alan was protesting. "Commander, John, you might need me in Main Mission."
John knew he had raised a good point since they might need an Eagle to fly at a moments' notice. "Alan, I need someone from the command council to be in charge. Paul, Sandra, Victor, Helena, and the Kano twins are gonna be with me, in Main Mission, but I want you to keep them reassured."
"What about Simmonds?"
"Simmonds has wrangled with me to let him stay in Main Mission, Alan. That's one of the reasons I want you in the shelters. People look up to you, and if anything happens to me, to the others, I need someone who can look out for the others," John went on, not saying he had hoped Simmonds would stay in the shelters as he needed everyone in Main Mission with skills, not a politician who had a habit of stabbing people in the back over a fantasy that was never going to happen.
Alan sighed, but he understood where his long-time friend and fellow pilot was getting at. "Okay. I'll get down there."
-8-
John walked down the stairs to the control level, grabbing his helmet as he went. "How soon before we're at the wormholes?" He asked.
"Another half an hour, Commander," David replied.
"Any idea which way we'll go?"
"No. The wormholes seem to be interacting with the warp field in the core of the moon, and they're pulling us across space towards them, like a magnet attracting an iron filing," Dashka referred to the weird phenomenon in the centre of the moon which had been there since Breakaway; for reasons they didn't grasp, the moons' core had become…effected by the exotic matter which generated the wormhole which tore them out of Earth's orbit, allowing the moon to travel faster than light. Victor had discovered it and he was befuddled by what caused it, and he had given up trying to understand why it happened very quickly.
Nobody knew how it worked, or even how long it would last. Without it the Alphans would be forced to spend aeons travelling between star systems, lost in space. One of their biggest problems was they couldn't control it, or their course. The warp field seemed fairly week, as it was attracted to large gravity wells, like suns, planets, or gas giants.
"It's another wormhole!" Dashka gasped as a much larger wormhole - John didn't precisely know how large it was, but it filled the screen out and it seemed to dwarf the moon - popped into view. It started off small and then inflated to extremely large proportions. Koenig watched as the wormhole blew up, remaining stable for a while. During that time, he wondered if they would go through this one. The bubble of the wormhole showed a warped view of a distant star system, and - were there four suns there?
To their surprise, another large wormhole appeared. This time it showed what looked like a galaxy - large, glowing with purple light, with three smaller satellite galaxies nearby. There was a strange effect; the skin of the wormhole shimmered and then transformed showing view that seemed to orbit a dozen galaxies.
"Whoa," John whispered.
"What was that?" Sandra asked in awe.
"Did you get that, Dashka?" Victor asked in excitement.
"Definitely, Professor," Dashka was excited.
"What was that?" Paul asked.
"The wormhole mouth, the other end of the wormhole, it shifted to a different location. Their axis must be mobile," Victor replied excitedly. "That means, when we go through one, we could be sent anywhere in the universe!"
"Your too excited about that, Victor," John observed of his old friend with a smile. He knew that Victor had come to terms with the fact Earth was in their past. He was more interested in the future rather than the past. "Do you see us going into one of the larger wormholes?"
Victor shrugged as best as he could in his spacesuit. "I don't see why not. They do exude a stronger gravity, and they seem to last much longer than the other wormholes. Haven't you noticed the larger wormholes seem to stick around longer than the smaller ones? Its like they soak up more exotic matter from the source the wormholes use to feed on, and then they inflate larger and then stay much longer."
"Maybe they do, Victor," John said. "It's just a pity we can't see for ourselves how the exotic matter is formed; that could mean the difference between life or death for us."
"I know what you mean, John. I've wished to study the exotic matter in the centre of the moon for a long time, but we just don't know what to look for," Victor replied.
Just then Helena walked into Main Mission. "I've finished checking the others down in the shelters."
John turned to her. "How are they doing?"
"Some of them aren't happy they're not up here."
"It can't be helped; if there's one thing being thrown through wormholes has taught me, its the less people there are around them, the better. Besides, Breakaway saw us go from a thousand people to three hundred or so. And the base suffered even more the other times."
Helena just nodded approvingly. "I wish some understood that," she replied before she took in the wormholes. "It's weird, seeing them like this. When you think of a wormhole, you just picture a gaping mouth, like in the illustrations."
"They're not," Victor gladly jumped in, enthusiastically picking up a nearby pencil and a piece of paper. "You see, you want to get from A to be, but its too far." He marked out an A and a B on the piece of paper, drawing a line between them. "Now, you bend space to bring them together," he folded the paper and drove the pencil through it. "Here's the wormhole. A hole through a higher dimension. What's a circle in 3 dimensions?"
Helena bit her lip, "A sphere?"
"Yes, Helena, a spherical hole."
Simmonds walked close nearby. He had been loitering in his spacesuit, holding his helmet as if unsure of what he was expected to do with it. But now he saw an opportunity to speak. "Do we know which wormhole we'll be passing through?" He asked. He had been following the talks for a short time.
"No. The wormholes are just popping in and bursting too fast. But when we pass through one, we're going to be transported millions of light years away, perhaps less," Victor replied.
Simmonds didn't look happy about that, but he looked hopeful. "Perhaps….we'll be lucky," he suggested. "Perhaps we'll return to Earth."
John closed his eyes and sighed, not even bothering to reply to the stupid remark. "How are the preparations?" He asked.
"Practically finished," David Kano replied.
"Good. Lets just hope they'll be enough."
-8-
The wormholes filled the Main Mission monitors like giant cosmic soap bubbles. As they approached, the moon would just move from one direction to the next. It was a bumpy trip before they moved towards a larger wormhole.
-8-
In the lower levels of the shelters, Alan walked through the crowd, reassuring as many people as he could, offering a few smiles, cracking jokes even if he wished he were in Main Mission right now, and doing his best to help out. And he was worried about what was going on, remembering the last times they had passed through a wormhole. With a bit of luck, this time they could be lucky many times over.
-8-
The moon headed close towards the huge wormhole, before they passed through it.