"Yeah," Lin answered. "The computer is not taking control. It's like our old GPS systems on Earth. The stupid thing keeps telling us to go the wrong way."
"The computer cannot be stupid," Portia corrected her. Since she was essentially a computer as well, I imagined an attitude in her tone that simply wasn’t there. The unit had failed to take offense no matter how poorly she was treated.
"Well, it is acting stupid," Lin informed her.
"I think I found the problem," Nancy said. "The rip-jump engine hasn't shut down yet. We have system thruster control, so it isn't interfering with that."
"Will I have to fly this bird manually all the way to the station?" I asked. I was almost excited at that prospect. Space flight could be quite boring at times.
"You will not be permitted to dock the ship on manual control," Portia informed me. "The issue must be resolved before we reach final approach. I recommend solving the problem at this time. May I assist?"
"Oh no!" Nancy said as I felt a slight rumble in the floor beneath my feet. I recognized that feeling as the rip-jump engine beginning to do its thing. The device with world changing power was quieter on our ship than the Chargreuse. I assumed that was because it was new. When the vibration increased, I wasn't sure what was happening.
"We are ripping!" Lin screamed in panic. Her calm concern tossed aside finally.
"Where?" I asked. "Back into the hole we just came from?"
"No, captain," Portia announced, completely maintaining her professionalism. "Our ship will rip a new hole in the fabric of space in six seconds to send us into the alternate universe..."
The nausea returned as the lights dimmed. My screen went blank. I knew that it would remain that way until we ripped back into our own galaxy. Pilot control would be locked out. I could switch to monitoring systems, but I’d rather get control back instead.
"Where are we going?" I demanded to know. "What is our target destination?"
"I don't know!" Lin yelled even more panicked than before. "The ship just ripped a new tear in space without our permission! We don't have a destination locked in!"
"May I assist with the analysis?" Portia asked calmly. I knew that she was already monitoring more of the ship’s systems than the three of us could possibly do at once. She just wouldn’t share a solution until invited to do so.
This was actually some pretty scary shit. There were horror stories of ships that disappeared into the other realm never to return. Is this how it happened? Were we going to die? On the very first trip of our new spacecraft?
"Yes," I relinquished my fear of the android getting involved. It couldn't possibly get any worse than it currently was, unless maybe we exploded without knowing what the hell was going on?
I was never fond of the alternate plane of existence. I didn't like the lack of control. The immense amount of trust that I had to place in the ship's computer. The beyond, as it sometimes was called, was basically a two-dimensional blanket with buttons that attached to our universe at points we referred to as nav-holes. Those were doors for safely transitioning from one realm to the other and back. When an existing hole did not exist, like in the early days of rip-jump technology, a new hole would have to be ripped. That could be dangerous.
The parallel universe allowed us to move quickly along that blanket without fear of colliding with another ship. However, that was only when our target destination was locked in before we ripped over. There was no steering, accelerating or braking in the beyond.
"There is a faulty coupling in the navigation portion of the shift inverter," Portia announced after just five seconds. "A section of code to override the issue has been corrupted. The repair must be made manually."
"Where are we headed?" I asked the robot. "Once we get the coupling repaired, where will we be? Do we need to rip another hole to get back? How can we do that without navigation?"
"The reentry point is always programmed before entering this side," Nancy announced what we already knew. She appeared to be as scared as I was, only not hiding it near as well.
"Nowhere," Portia answered in her now annoying monotone, yet soft female voice. "Same place. Yes. I can handle it."
"What?" both girls replied as they failed to interpret our android's short answers to the four separate queries that I posed.
"We are sitting still on the other side?" I asked. "I didn't know that was possible."
"It isn't," Nancy said stubbornly, rejecting our fourth crew member's first situation report of her young career. “You are reading it wrong!”
"This chance occurrence has never before been documented," Portia rebutted. "The navigation tear is being held open by our engine. Technically, we are neither here nor there. The Terran Capsule's computer claims that replacing the coupling gives us a ninety-seven percent chance of returning to the exact same location in the Andromedas system."
"Claims?"
"My calculations place our chance at nearly a hundred percent," the stress-free reply came back. "The repair will take me less than six minutes to make. Shall I proceed?"
"Yes," I told her in a kinder tone than I had previously used toward her. I suddenly realized that this was karma on a galactic scale. We shunned the most knowledgeable and capable member of our crew because she wasn't human. Then we immediately were thrust into a situation where we were heavily dependent on her. I didn’t like being taught a lesson any more than other people, but I wouldn’t let my pride stand in the way of learning from it.
