That Which One Begins - Chapter Two Uncharted Space far over the event horizon, 1450 hours The mammoth spaceship lumbered peacefully along. Its fat, guppy-like shape was appropriate for its lazy pace. The corroded and encrusted giant had grown ancient seeing this route for a thousand years and more without ever knowing haste. In all of those millions of miles, there had never been hurry. Everything would be there when they arrived, just as everything had always been where it had been before and before... And before. So, the ship passed along its casual way, just as it had always done. Having completed a typical stop at a typical planet, this cargo ship of interplanetary traders continued quietly, moving beyond the planet's largest moon on course for the next system. Travelers along a trade route on a quiet business day in a remote part of Space. As the mastodon of a trade vessel rumbled leisurely from a particular spot in Space, a brilliant pinpoint of light flickered once at that very same spot. The ship didn't notice or seem to care, content to continue on its way. The same pinpoint of light flickered again just before it exploded violently into a blinding temporal rift. The wormhole ejected the Sabre III in an immense burst of energy. Explosive shards of blinding light lashed out from the wormhole as the craft fired from the center of the rift like a bullet from a gun. Shaking violently, the Sabre produced a cacophony of groans, rumbles, squeaks, alarms, and rattles. William fought desperately against the multitude of forces that fought just as hard to tear his ship apart. Every alarm and warning light that still functioned shrieked and flashed wildly, trying frantically to warn the pilot that something was failing or had failed or might fail if the present conditions continued. The vicious shaking and vibration tore at pilot and ship as William struggled to keep his eyes focused and his mind focused as well. In the back of his mind, he expected the Sabre to come apart at any second. The instant the wormhole released him the Sabre yawed violently to starboard, slamming him hard into the side of the seat from the new force vector. William found it almost impossible to breathe. He could feel everything happening to him, but could see nothing but a sea of incandescent blue dots, the relics of the intense flashes of light that had surrounded him in the wormhole. With his eyes closed tightly, the blue dots changed to purple and then to red until they slowly began to fade. William opened his eyes to see the horror that had been hidden behind his blindness. The windscreen was filled with the image of a large moon that loomed directly ahead, so close that he could clearly see the ridges of the ejecta that spread out from many of the largest craters. Shaking off his initial shock, William quickly estimated that if he hit the atmosphere sideways at this speed, the Sabre would snap and tumble hard enough that the force of it would probably break his neck. At least, he calculated, he wouldn't be alive to experience the final breakup or the incineration through whatever thin atmosphere there was. His main engines were down and without the APU--faulted and inoperable--there was no chance of restarting them. A thought occurred to him that it was hopeless, a thought that only stole a moment from him before his training took charge of his mind. William deflected the side-control stick fully to straighten out the powerful spacecraft, but the side-firing thrusters were also faulted and offline, their alarm lights joining with too many others on the panels that brilliantly announced their uselessness. He had to get control of the Sabre or he'd be spending eternity as part of a crater on the moon that grew larger by the second. Another idea entered his frantic mind. Fighting the side loads, William fought to reach forward, his fingers barely touching two red and white barber-pole switch covers of the port and starboard Solid-Core Rocket Away-Modules. The acronym was certainly appropriate--SCRAM. Those rockets were the only way out of a failing spaceship. They were the lifeboats, minimal pods that could keep a pilot alive for about a month. Only a complete idiot would throw them away, but then only a complete idiot wouldn't realize that he must certainly be more than one month away from home. With a desperate grunt, William stabbed at the switch cover, flipping it up and away from the exposed toggle switch. Focusing completely on the shiny toggle bat, William stabbed again, his fingertip snapping the switch to the other position. An adjacent red indicator flashed rapidly five times before the SCRAM ignited. Since the SCRAM faced aft, its blistering white flame blew forward, past the forward windows. William hadn't released the locks, so the force of the rocket pulled the Sabre around, correcting the wild yaw, unloading much of the forces that had held William captive in his seat. He could now easily flip up the second switch cover and wait. When the ship was just about straight, he fired the starboard SCRAM with a quick flick of the second switch. The force of both solid rockets running decelerated the Sabre with a suddenness that flung William forward against his seat harness. Each SCRAM had an endurance of only about six seconds, but they changed the trajectory of the ship enough that he could feel the hull bounce along the thin atmosphere of the moon. Relieved, he closed his eyes for a moment, grateful that the immediate danger of slamming into the moon was now gone--then the port SCRAM rocket exhausted its propellant and his eyes opened wide. With the starboard SCRAM still going strong, the ship instantly spun crazily, skipping like a whirling stone across the 'lake' of the moon's thin atmosphere. The forces inside the ship were agonizing as William desperately fought to keep from losing consciousness. The surface of the large moon flashed by the forward window repeatedly before passing under the Sabre III. The starboard SCRAM rocket then, mercifully, shut down. Without side-thrusters there was little William could do immediately to stop the imposed spin. Switching the remaining direction control system to manual, William nursed the port side up and the starboard side of the Sabre down by making the craft slowly roll within the spinning motion. Rotating the ship this way, he hoped to reorient the remaining thrusters to counter the rotation. Slowly, as a result of his unorthodox maneuvering, the Sabre stabilized out of the spin. He now had control of the ship--just in time to face the next threat. A large planet had been hidden from view behind the moon and it was now making its presence felt. Without main engines or directional thrusters, William could only sit by helplessly for the hours it would take to reach it. His forward velocity and his direction of flight were unchangeable. William's "bullet" was spent. William helplessly watched the great blue planet grow to fill the forward windows. He felt himself lift slightly in the seat as the Sabre surrendered completely to the insistent gravity. With the only luck of the day working for him, the ship slipped into the atmosphere at nearly the optimal angle before it began its long descent to the surface. With the thin, high-altitude atmosphere flowing over its stubby wings and tail, the Sabre settled down into more normal flight characteristics. The useless thrusters were no longer needed since the Sabre had atmospheric control surfaces along its wings and tail. William shut all of the remaining directional thrusters down. As long as the computer stayed up, he would fly with the control stick. William straightened himself in the seat and pulled the straps a little tighter. A quick glance at the panel told him that his engines were still offline. With the APU faulted, there could be no engine restart in flight. He was now flying a glider--a very big glider. "Alright, hot-shot," he mumbled to himself. "Let's see you dead-stick forty tons of shit and keep it all in one pile." The planet below was covered in water except for a huge central landmass just below. He tried to keep the ship heading for the center of that. The Sabre III could do a water landing... But only one before it sank like a stone. Most of the instruments were inoperative. His small altimeter--not a primary instrument for a spacecraft--indicated negative five hundred feet. That was obviously screwed up and he jammed a piece of paper over it so he wouldn't accidentally use it in the confusion. Estimating his altitude to still be well over one hundred thousand feet, William knew it would take quite a while to reach the surface. Keeping the speed down by keeping the nose up, the ship flew in atmosphere pretty well without power. Pretty well, that is, in spite of the fact that he knew that she was coming down like an express elevator. It had been years since William had done any atmospheric flying and, for a moment, he remembered back to those early days when he could look around during a flight and see blue sky, not black. For a brief instant, William wondered if he would ever see those days again, but his attention shifted back to flying as if it were the answer to his question--the only answer. For nearly two hours, William swept the Sabre in a wide circular pattern, spiraling down toward the surface, but now that same surface was coming up fast. On the way, William had been searching for a suitable place to set the spacecraft down, but most of the western half of the land was filling quickly with cloud cover. He knew that he would only get one shot at the landing. Everywhere below him, the surface was studded with rocks. William strained forward in his seat to catch a glimpse of any kind of flat surface, but there were only boulders and rock formations in every direction. A doubt invaded his mind, a single doubt that made him wonder whether he was actually going to walk away from the Sabre. "Damn," he cursed quietly to himself. "Damn it all... shit." William was down to less than three thousand feet as he swept around a small mountain. Passing close to the rugged peak, William saw the same landscape appear behind it. Nothing but rocks, except... "I'll be damned." There, dead ahead of his course, was a perfectly straight and long ribbon of cleared ground, not twenty miles away. The elation William felt at the sight was quickly set aside as he prepared for the landing on the unexpected dirt clearing. Perhaps, he thought, there are intelligent beings somewhere on this planet and they have flying machines too. "Damn," he muttered as he began shutting down everything he didn't need for the landing. "I just hope they're friendly." He debated whether to deploy the landing gear. With all that extra drag hanging under the Sabre, his glide distance would be halved, but if he could save the ship, he just might have a chance to get home. His judgment told him it was worth a chance and he slid the gear handle down. A loud beep signaled that a circuit protection component had lifted. A glance at the System Status display told him that it was for the gear. William touched the appropriate section of the display to approve a reset and again the beep insisted that the gear was still malfunctioning. He shook his head as he took the now useless landing gear system offline. "Just not my day," he muttered with contempt for the failed landing gear. The clearing was coming up fast now. William knew he would make it, but only by the smallest of margins. He had to hold a precise glide speed to get every inch out of the glide he could. Still, holding the nose of the large ship up and maintaining the best glide speed, the ship screamed toward the surface too fast, much too fast. The Sabre III hit tail-low just at the threshold of the clearing. The impact tore the atmospheric control surfaces from their mounts, flinging them crazily away through the air. With the tail tearing deeply into the ground, the nose slammed hard onto the dirt surface, knocking the wind out of William and buckling the hull at the center. The screeching sound of tearing metal grinding along the ground at nearly two hundred miles an hour tore at William's ears with its overwhelming volume. Tan dust blew everywhere throughout the cabin, blinding and choking him. It felt like his shoulders would tear from his body as the straps held him back against the incredible deceleration. The heavier engines wanted to swap ends with the lighter nose and when they finally had their way they caused the ship to ground loop violently. Dirt filled the exhaust nacelles as the stern of the Sabre III dug into the ground, creating perfect brakes. She slid to a stop with the entire aft section buried under acres of tan dirt and stone. Within the cabin, William coughed roughly as the tan dust settled around him. His right hand shook a bit. "Well," he said aloud, trying to calm himself down, "not a bad landing, all in all." William then noticed that the side-controller stick that he had gripped so firmly throughout the landing, making adjustments and precisely controlling every aspect of the landing, had broken off in his hand, probably early in the landing. He had flown nothing, controlled nothing, and now knew that he had been along for the ride in his 40-ton sled. He raised the useless device before his face, stunned at what he was seeing. "Lucky bastard," he mumbled, suddenly feeling ill.   Unknown planet, unknown quadrant, 1845 hours Dust circulated and spun around him as it rode the drafts from where his movements had disturbed it. The mains had been off since final approach, rendering the Sabre III inert and silent--no systems buzzed, flashed, or beeped. There were no signs of fire or other dangerous remnants of the crash, only a pilot alone with his thoughts in the wreckage of his craft. He knew there was an atmosphere since he had just flown through most of it. The question of whether it was breathable didn't need to be asked either. The shattered hull was more than porous enough to let an abundance of outside air into the ship, along with a few tons of tan dirt, dust, and rocks. If the air was toxic, he was already dead or soon would be. The air smelled clear, sweet, like it was going to rain. William gripped the large knob at the center of his harness and gave it a hard twist. All five restraints retracted into their coils like fingers from a hot stove. He stood from his seat and stepped toward the rear to inspect the hatch. The hull was wrinkled severely around the dark, metal-alloy hatch, but he pulled the release handle out from its stowed position anyway and tried to rotate it. As he expected, the hatch wouldn't shift toward him to break the seal to the hull. He tried again, pulling as hard as he could, but the distorted hull had compressed against the hatch, locking it firmly within a tight, alloy grip. William examined the seam where the hatch and the hull met one more time. Nodding a bit, he concluded that there was little choice. He'd have to blow the seals. He returned to his seat to touch a fingertip to a blank piece of frosted plastic amid a field of blank pieces of plastic just to his left. The small gray window came to multicolored life to tell him that the reserve batteries were still alive and well. Releasing his touch, the plastic returned to its former gray appearance. The sudden sound of random tapping on the top of the hull made William jump from surprise. His head snapped around toward the rear of the ship and his eyes slowly rose upward as if he could actually see whatever was on the other side of the hull. The tapping sounds were rapid and sounded as if tiny, galloping horses were prancing around up there. All William knew was that something was on the hull, it was alive, and it was moving forward. William felt the cool composite grip of his Colt sidearm in his hand, but he left it secure within the dark, woven thigh holster. Whatever was on the hull might just be checking out this new bit of hardware that just fell from the sky. Go ahead and look, he thought, just don't get nasty or anything. William wasn't about to start shooting first and took a long breath to stay calm. The sounds were now just above the forward windows. They paused. William crouched behind the heavy metal pilot seat and peered around the side. A thin black stick appeared at the top of the center window. It slid slowly from side to side, examining the smooth surface. A second and third stick joined the first just before a creature slid awkwardly down the slanted window to the surface of the Sabre's nose. It was the biggest damn spider William had ever seen. Dark brown and furry with those black sticks for legs, the creature was a meter across from the tip of one leg to the tip of the opposite leg. The body was longer than it was tall or wide with a round head of sorts in the front. The creature landed ungracefully hard on the Sabre's metallic nose, using more of its head and body to stop the slide than its legs. William remained silent, watching it struggle to its feet to shake the fall out of its head. The spider hesitated, looking from side to side a moment before turning toward the human who watched from within the slippery windows. Its eyes were like glass beads, round, glossy black, and without whites. Below the eyes, no nose was evident and only a trace of a mouth, no more than a line in the fur, was seen. The creature had eyelids that flickered more than they blinked. The beady black eyes saw William immediately, a lone figure watching from his hideout, yet the creature merely stared, nothing more. A few uncomfortable moments passed before William stood from his crouch and the two beings regarded each other in silence. Although he kept his hand on his weapon, William sensed a peaceful intent in the creature. Slowly, cautiously, he raised the ends of his lips into a smile. The creature leaned forward a bit and slowly rotated its head. The obvious curiosity of the spider only caused William's smile to deepen. William nodded once and the creature, unbelievably, returned his smile. "Well, I'll be damned," William muttered behind his own grin. "This thing's intelligent." William raised his hand slightly in an unsure effort to make some sort of greeting. He really wasn't sure whether to hold his hand out with palm up or wave or just how he should approach an unknown species in greeting. He regretted not attending the latest Species Protocol seminars, but would do the best he could, given this opportunity. Unfortunately, the opportunity was about to unceremoniously end. The spider creature took one step to its right, unaware that the nose of the Sabre curved sharply down at that point. Losing its footing, the creature scrambled wildly with all eight of its legs in a desperate attempt to remain on the nose of the spacecraft, but the smooth metal hull offered no suitable footholds. The creature slipped over the side, its landing unseen but heard as a dull thud. William winced at the sound. "Well," he groaned, "so much for first contact." William tried to peer down through the side windows, but could see no sign of the lost representative from this strange world. He waited a few more minutes to see if it would return, but no more tapping sounds on the hull were heard. It was time, he decided, to leave the ship and see for himself. Retrieving a set of keys from a side pocket of his flightsuit, William separated a circular key with a red plastic handle and knelt down on the deck behind his seat. The spring-loaded lid of a small compartment flipped open when he pressed and released a round, metallic latch button. Inside the three by five inch hidden compartment was a gleaming keyswitch and a single red indicator. William fit the key into the keyswitch and the red light illuminated, indicating its acceptance of the key and that the circuits were operational. A glance back at the hatch reassured him that he hadn't left anything near it. Covering the side of his head nearest the hatch, William gripped the key and turned it once, twice, and on the third turn closed his eyes. Like a string of huge firecrackers, small explosive bolts detonated in series around the perimeter of the hatch. These explosions severed the entire frame of the hatch from the hull with the precision of a metalworker. Even before the last bolt blew, the hatch assembly sagged outward, pivoting on the remaining bolt, to tumble to the ground below. The cabin was filled with acrid smoke that cleared quickly as the breeze flowed freely through the large opening. William coughed once, but stepped quickly to the opening, filled his lungs with air, and had his first clear look at an undiscovered world. It was a desert landscape, with few trees and little sign of water. Everywhere were stones and boulders studding the tan surface in random but continuous patterns that extended as far as he could see. In the far distance, a chain of mountains loomed, appearing now as the truly imposing and rugged giants that they were rather than the insignificant wrinkles as they had appeared from high altitude. William remembered his visitor and leaned out to look forward. The scattered dust just below the nose confirmed that the creature had fallen to the ground. The tracks leading away to the nearby rocks told William that the creature had not been badly hurt in the fall, at least not badly enough to prevent him from leaving. William opened the five storage lockers and collected what material he had on board. For an hour, he inventoried everything and stowed his goods at the aft bulkhead. He had some survival food and water, his personal gear including his uniforms, the shelter of the Sabre, and one weapon, his sidearm: a standard-issue, carbon-fiber Colt Model 2112 .41 bore particle pistol. It was a reliable weapon, but had been in service a very long time. The service still issued them for only one reason: it could stop a charging rhino or Arion Beta with one shot. Most pilots wouldn't fly without one strapped on. Lowering himself to the ground with a rope ladder, William stood briefly to look over the damage to his ship. What wasn't buried looked pretty bad. An engine nacelle rested just under the nose of the Sabre. This could only mean that it had been torn from its mounts in the tail and dragged the length of the ship, gutting the Sabre like a fish. She was done and William sighed, patting the hull with his hand. "Sorry, my girl," he muttered to his lost ship. "I wish I could have done better for you." William turned away from the Sabre to check on the weather overhead. Clouds had been moving in and the solid, gray overcast hung low as nothing more than a benign scud. Probably wouldn't rain, he determined and an idea to explore a bit was quickly approved. William walked carefully around the mass of dirt and rocks that had been piled up behind the Sabre in the landing. A ten-meter high boulder shielded him as he peered around it without seeing any threats. He was, he decided, quite alone. Kneeling, William picked up a handful of the tan dust that covered the surface of the planet. Rolling a bit of it around in his fingers, he found that it had the consistency of fine talc, glittering slightly when viewed from different angles. "Silica maybe?" he thought out loud. "Or some kind of..." William detected movement overhead. What he saw when he looked up brought him quickly to his feet. The otherwise motionless overcast of gray clouds swirled inward along the tip of a straight-line course that passed directly overhead, moving away at a high rate of speed. Something was flying through the clouds, creating powerful vortices. "Holy shit," he muttered nervously as he watched the trail of that 'something' within the swirling clouds take a sudden turn to the right about a quarter of a mile away. It only traveled a few hundred meters before it instantly reversed course. Whatever it was, it was not mechanical, not moving like that. William put his hand on the Colt. "Damn!" he mumbled with amazement. "That's some..." A massive hand from behind grabbed William solidly under his neck and flung him hard against a huge boulder. The stars in his eyes cleared quickly as a muscular arm pressed brutally against his neck from the front, trapping him against the wall of rock. The cold steel of a weapon dug into his cheekbone, forcing his head to the side. Straining against his attacker, William looked into the angry face of an agitated Arion soldier and froze. Releasing William's neck, the Arion pulled the Colt from William's flightsuit and demanded answers. "Kon'tre cing'la'tok!" he bellowed, pressing both weapons into William as a threat. "I don't understand your babble, pal," spat William though clenched teeth. "KON'TRE CING'LA'TOK!" the Arion repeated loudly with a stern nervousness. He stole a glance at the sky. That glance told William everything. "You don't know what that was either, do you, pal?" William murmured as a slight smirk of satisfaction came to his lips. Seeing the expression, the Arion jammed the Colt hard into William's stomach to remove it. He wanted answers--NOW. William grimaced and nodded once toward where they had seen the clouds swirl. "Earth guys," he grunted through the pain of his stomach. "Ert?" The Arion thought a moment. "Terran'a?" "Yeah, that's it. Terrans. That's right. Hundreds of us, all over the place. Sabres? You know about Sabres, dickhead? Huh? Traynors? Boom, boom, boom?" "Sabre'tre dano," thought the Arion out loud. "You bet your ass they're 'dano', you piece of shit." William had no idea what 'dano' meant, but he was certainly enjoying seeing the effect his words were having. The Arion did not look pleased. A Terran on the ground was one thing, easily dispatched in close combat, but he definitely looked like he didn't want to tangle with Terran fightercraft overhead. For a moment, judging by the worried look on the Arion's face, William entertained the thought that the Arion just might let him go. He was wrong. "Lantre'de!" commanded the Arion, releasing William from the wall. The Arion slipped the Colt into his belt and motioned with his own pistol for William to start walking. "Lantre'DE!" William was looking down the barrel of an Arion "GAR" disruptor pistol, one of the nastiest weapons in the known Universe. The effect of being hit by the blast of one of those weapons was brutal. You were shattered from within, torn to pieces by the disruption of the forces that bind material at the molecular level. Unfortunately, it did so in such a crude manner that the victim was shredded not atomized. The excess energy of the blast served merely to consume the severed pieces in the heat. "LANTRE'DE!" he demanded for the final time. The GAR was abruptly raised at arm's length to point at William's head. William nodded once, turned, and started to 'lantre'de' down the road followed by the Arion. "You just wait 'til my fly-buddies find you, asshole," William bluffed over his shoulder. The Arion only spat on the ground and glanced nervously up at the sky behind him. Next Chapter That Which One Begins, Copyright © 2001 by S.T.MAC