“Won’t be the same without Rosie,” Phil said, a note of sorrow suffusing his tone. “The rebellion in this sector needs a strong, experienced military leader. Ever thought that could be you?”
Grady hesitated. The prospect of assuming a larger role in the rebellion wasn’t one he’d ever entertained. Now he wondered if Phil was right. He and his crew could make a real difference to the rebel cause and help win the war.
Then he remembered where they were. This wasn’t their corner of the multiverse. They had friends and family waiting back home and, if Fidelon was right, an emerging threat to face, of which the Interstellar Coalition’s leadership was utterly unaware.
He thought about his mother, the one he had grown up with, not the alternate one in this parallel universe. She was dead, her life cut short years ago. There was no going back, no rewriting of history, however painful the events and the resulting emotional scars.
Even if his alternate mother were to accept him as her son—which was by no means certain—it would never be the same. She wasn’t his mother. She was a stranger, just like the other members of his and Tara’s family in this dimension.
He toggled the comm. “Don’t sell yourself short, Phil. You just led a successful battle. I think New Heb already has its military commander, and it’s not me. And I’ve a feeling Major Kotov will fill Rosie’s shoes just fine, however reluctantly. Along with Captain Prentice, I think you three are just what the rebellion needs to go from strength to strength in this region. And, perhaps, take the fight to the core worlds before too long.”
A resigned sigh resounded from the speakers. “Well, if I can’t change your mind, on behalf of the rebellion, I offer my thanks to you and your crew. You’ll always have a friendly welcome and a home from home should you ever find yourselves in this reality again. Safe travels.”
Grady thanked Phil and thumbed off the comm. He scrubbed his hand through his hair and turned to Tara. “You made the right decision, Bro,” she said. “We don’t belong here. I miss our family, our real family. Let’s go home.”
He pictured the last time he and his father had spoken. Harsh words had been uttered on both sides, his father not attempting to hide his anger and disappointment at Grady’s decision to abandon the family business and join the Earth Galactic Space Navy. While Tara might be welcomed with open arms when she returned to the New Ireland colony in their own reality, he wasn’t so sure he would be.
He shrugged the thought away, squared his shoulders, and signaled to Tara: “She’s all yours, Sis.” She tossed him a slight bow. “Acknowledged. I’ve got the con.” She leaned forward, gripping her joystick, and swiped at the copilot’s holo. “Course laid in. Alright, people, let’s do this. We’ve got an alien invasion to fend off.”
Fatigue dragged at Grady, his eyelids drooping, as he keyed the internal comm, notifying crew and passengers to prepare for the jump to FTL. “Destination, the last recorded coordinates of Fidelon’s mothership. After that, with any luck, our home galaxy.”
As he settled deeper into the chair, Grady downed a mouthful of coffee and set the mug aside. Rubbing his temples, he closed his eyes. I should go to bed, he told himself. I’ve had plenty of excitement for one day. He allowed his thoughts to drift, reviewing all that had happened since Adventurer and her passengers and crew found themselves transported to an alternate reality.
Something niggled at him: the strange dream while he slept in Cavalier outpost’s medbay. Had the oracle, or an entity like it, tried to reach out to him in his mind? It’s the only explanation that makes sense, he mused. But if so, why?
Fidelon had left without warning to investigate a loss of communication with one of his monitoring stations. Had he run into trouble far away, perhaps in another dimension, and attempted to contact Grady through the oracle using long distance telepathy, to warn him or ask for help? If that was the case, what would they discover when they reached Epsilon’s last known location? Would the alien’s enormous vessel even be there? And, if it wasn’t, what then? How would they return to their own universe?
Grady brushed his hand across his brow and stifled a yawn. Everything hinged on locating Fidelon again and, in particular, his ship with its ability to manifest wormholes on demand. The oracle, and the gift of the artifact it gave Grady on Yerconam, seemed inextricably linked with Fidelon and his warning of a potential incursion by energy vampires. There’s still so much we don’t know or understand if we’re to help save our galaxy from invasion.
A new, disturbing thought wormed its way into his mind. Perhaps because he was dog-tired and in pain, his leg throbbing once more, or this was the first opportunity mentally to rehearse recent events, but he found himself asking a troubling question, one he suspected he’d been avoiding. The timing of Fidelon’s abrupt departure—leaving Adventurer alone against a squadron of pirate ships—had bothered Grady ever since it occurred.
He’d pushed the concerns to the back of his mind, with more urgent matters to contend with. Now, as the ship got underway and having nothing to do but relax, he forced himself to face the doubts bubbling beneath his conscious thoughts. Could Fidelon’s coincidental disappearance have been orchestrated? Was an unseen force—the energy vampires, perhaps—manipulating the alien, luring him into a trap?
Or, even more worrisome, what if Fidelon had departed on purpose, abandoning Grady and his crew to an uncertain fate? Fidelon had produced no evidence to support his assertion of an impending invasion of the Milky Way galaxy by energy sucking creatures he called Manteku. Maybe there was more to the danger than Fidelon disclosed.
For that matter, what if Fidelon was not what he seemed? Grady had survived the war by taking nothing for granted. Should he accept what the alien told him at face value, or seek clarification—proof—before helping to introduce Fidelon to the Interstellar Coalition’s leaders?
He cracked an eye at the sound of a contented chirrup. Gizmo lay curled on the blanket beneath Tara’s console, his front paws tucked under his head. The creature had settled in well since Tara adopted him on that moon, fast adapting to life on board the ship. Yet the animal represented another puzzle.
Gizmo had only misbehaved once since his arrival: when he first met Fidelon. The alien had been equally disconcerted. Why? At the time, Grady dismissed the incident as unimportant. Now he wasn’t so sure. Could there be a deeper reason for the mutual antipathy?
He let his eyes close again, shifting on the seat to ease the ache in his leg. Another mystery to solve. Before that, let’s not forget, there’s the not so inconsequential challenge of making our way back to our own reality, he reminded himself. And then we must decide what to do about the most pressing problem, a potential, and hostile, alien encroachment into human space—assuming the messenger’s account of the menace can be believed.
Finding the means to return home. The shape of the translucent stone—the oracle’s present—flashed into his mind. It had saved Chalmers and him on Yerconam by opening a portal back to Fidelon’s vessel. If he somehow activated it again, would it be able to transport his entire ship this time? If it did, would it return them to their own reality, or to a different—possibly more deadly—dimension?
He decided the risk wasn’t worth taking, at least not yet. If Fidelon and his mothership can’t be located, then we may have no choice but to rely on the mysterious relic.
It seemed to possess a mind of its own, though, appearing and disappearing at will—like manifesting at the underground river on Yerconam without Grady’s conscious involvement. Was it a danger to the ship and everyone on board? He toyed with the notion of flushing the artifact out of the airlock, but sensed it would return to him undamaged no matter what he did.
What if it decided to act unilaterally and transport them to who knew where—such as a parallel universe in which the laws of physics as they understood them didn’t apply?
Their voyages—and troubles—might be only beginning.
the end
~~~
If you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to rate it on Amazon. The Galaxy Flux series continues in book four, Deadly Surge, coming fall-winter 2024.
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