The Rebound Effect--Chapter 1
The Rebound Effect--Chapter 1
Lady Mercury watched intently as the data scrolled across her terminal. It wasn't very often that one got to witness something as spectacular as the formation of a black hole, but that was exactly what was going on.
Few other events would warrant a personal viewing, but here she was, drifting through space halfway across the galaxy in her tiny observation vessel, the Hermes.
The event was well underway by the time they had come out of warp, and the apex was fast approaching.
"Ma'am, my terminal is showing that we just lost contact with Earth Central," her co-pilot nervously interrupted.
"It's probably due to the rapid flux of the gravitational field," she replied, distracted by the incoming data from the collapsing star. A faint sense of foreboding tickled the back of her mind, "But it would be best if you attempt to reestablish contact."
The sound of rapidly typing seemed to fill the small craft's control room, and Mercury's sense of wrongness grew.
"Ma'am, no luck, I can't get a link to anything within the Solar system. And not only that, but I've also lost contact with the base on Apollo III."
Mercury sighed. This was all probably nothing, but her first duty was to the safety of her Queen. "Deploy the reconnaissance drone and set a course for Earth."
He rapidly obeyed and within a matter of minutes, the ship was coming about to begin the long trip home.
"Ma'am, contact lost with everything on the other side of the Gambian Belt."
Mercury nodded slightly. ‘Always trust your instincts, girl,' she admonished herself. ‘You're getting slow in your old age.' Her lips settled into a grim line. Things had been silent for dozens of centuries, and now everything was going to hell all at once.
She turned to her pilot. "Full speed toward Earth, and put the contact map on screen."
Soon she was staring at a simplified map of the Milky Way with all human and alien worlds and bases highlighted in green. Well, the ones that were still sending "alive" messages were highlighted in green, a vast expanse on the left side of the map was in red. Red was for worlds that should be sending "alive" messages, but weren't.
Earth was in the middle of the dead worlds.
Even as she watched, the tide of red dots expanded outward slightly. She began to calculate rapidly. "Change course for Centauri IV. All possible speed."
According to her math, which was rarely wrong, they should arrive at Centauri IV shortly before the encroaching wave. She prayed that it wasn't a mistake.
***
Lady Mercury awoke slowly to the dull red lights of emergency power. Her last memory was of a watching a glowing wave of energy consume the planet below them and then feeling the shock as it hit her tiny vessel.
Groggily, she began to take stock of the damage to her body. Dozens of bruises, some quite large, and a twisted ankle. Not too bad, considering whatever hit her appeared to have taken out most of the life in the galaxy.
Slowly, she began to take stock of her surroundings. Two things caught her attention immediately. One, the contact map, which was still on the terminal screen, was showing quite a bit of green, though not as much as it should, and may of the dots were in the wrong places. Two, her pilot was gone.
He wasn't dead, he was just gone. No body, no scorch marks, nothing. In fact, the ship seemed to have taken no substantial damage other than the missing passenger.
Well, it's not like she needed him to get home, but he had been kind of cute... She frowned and cut the thought off before it got started. Worry about the Queen first, and then about everything else.
Without much trouble, she got the ship back to full power and back into motion.
As she powered through the solar system, heading for deep space where warping was safe, her instruments registered a distress call from just outside the orbit of the eight planet.
Frowning slightly at yet another interruption, she changed course to intercept.
Soon she was upon the source, what looked like an escape capsule floating in the midst of a vast debris field. Maneuvering carefully, she brought it into the tiny hold of the ship and pulled away. Setting the autopilot for Earth, yet again, she went to find out exactly who or what had needed her help.
***
Inside the warm jelly that filled the interior of the pod, a humanoid woman floated.
In fact, if Mercury didn't know better, she would have sworn that the girl was her sister or daughter, but she knew she had neither. On closer inspection, she found that the woman didn't look all that much like her, after all. Mostly it was the blue hair and the headband that did it.
‘Might as well ask her who she is,' Mercury decided and pressed the buttons on the capsule's control board that would open it and revive the occupant.
In a matter of minutes, the pod had dissolved to a pool of goo and the woman was beginning to come around.
"Mihoshi..." she murmured distractedly. "Going... kill you..."
Mercury waited patiently as her guest regained consciousness. She knew very well how much fun waking from stasis was.
"Oh... my head," the blue haired woman (not Mercury, the other one) muttered as her eyes finally opened. "Where am I?"
"On board my ship, mind telling me exactly what you were doing floating around in a pile of wreckage that doesn't seem to have been a space vessel?"
"Weren't a space ship, was a house. Who are you?" She was slurring her words a bit, almost drunkenly.
"A house? How strange," Mercury smiled slightly, mostly out of gladness that she wasn't the one suffering from a stasis hangover. "As for introductions, how about we get you cleaned up and talk in the control room? Would you like some tea?"
"Sounds good," the woman muttered and tried in vain to get to her feet.
"Here, let me help you," Mercury said as she offered the woman her hand, which was gladly accepted.
***
"So, Kiyone, you're in the, what did you call it again?" Mercury took another sip of her tea as she carefully watched her guest.
"Galaxy Police. Don't tell me you don't know who we are." Kiyone took a sip of her tea as she studied her rescuer carefully.
"Actually, I've never heard of them before today. Of course, the way things have been these last few decades, I could have missed something like that." Mercury sighed lightly as she tried to remember the last time she had time for something so simple as watching the news and couldn't.
"We've been around for seventeen hundred and fifty three years," she decided it was time for a change in topic. "What about you? I thought I was familiar with most of the major nobility, but I don't recognize your name."
Mercury smiled faintly. "I'm not noble, by any means. Well, in so much as my birth parents were nobles."
"Ah, but you introduced yourself as "Lady"?"
"Force of habit. You can call me Ami," she grinned broadly. "No one ever does, but I have to try."
"Okay, Ami," Kiyone grinned slightly as well.
"It's one of those things that gets thrust upon you once you've defeated a certain number of "Evil Menace Set to Destroy the Universe"s, I think it's five, but I'm not sure."
Kiyone grinned. "Guess I have two more to go." She took another sip of tea then looked up, startled. "I can't believe I've forgotten to report in!"
"Oh, you can use my comm system if you like."
"Thank you." Kiyone bowed slightly and moved forward to the control panel. After a few moments of fumbling with the unfamiliar equipment, she found the right frequency.
The lieutenant's face appeared on the screen. "Kiyone? Is that you? Thank God! You're alive!" He looked near weeping. "Listen, Mihoshi's gone out of control, she's in the Solar System. You've got to go and keep an eye on her, you're the only one she'll listen to! If anything happens to her, I'll lose my job!"
Kiyone scowled. ‘I spend who knows how long floating in space because of that bubble head, and now they're trying to give me another assignment with her? I can't believe this!' "Sir, I have to decline. I don't have a ship, and if you think that I'm going to spend even another SECOND on the same assignment as that-"
Mercury broke in, "If you need a lift, I'm heading to the Solar System right now... In fact, we'll arrive in just a few days." ‘Besides, I need to find out exactly who the "Galaxy Police" are and what they are doing on Earth. Possibly they have something to do with this latest phenomenon.'
Kiyone gaped in dismay. "See, Kiyone," the lieutenant said. "You'll be able to rejoin your partner in no time at all!"
Kiyone sighed in frustration. It was always like this. No matter what she did, she couldn't escape HER. Never, ever, ever. She wanted to cry.
END
Tim Williams
https://www.angelfire.com/tn/twillia/
twillia4@utk.edu
