The Quantum Connection

said knowingly.

How did she know about Clemons? I accidentally thought on the top layer of my mind and it was communicated.

How did I know about Clemons? Mikhail told me. He is apparently some American physicist and is responsible for inventing the propulsion system for the U.S. Air Force vessel that shot us out here. The Grays know all about him for some reason. 

On a deeper level of my mind I immediately thought of Senator Grayson from the SSCI. During his abductions they must have learned all of our National Defense secrets. This was no good, but there was nothing I could do about it right this second though.

'So, the Grays knew how to make a human-designed warp engine?' I asked Tatiana.

'Sure they do. They don't need one since their engines are thousands of times faster and more energy efficient. But they are easier to build than it is to repair the alien space drive.'

Mike! Why didn't we think of this? We should've thought of it—after all, I had all that knowledge downloaded into me. I was beginning to realize that having knowledge and being smart were two different things. I would have to get Mike to work on improving my cleverness, wit, and general problem-solving abilities.

Sorry, Steven. It never occurred to me. Perhaps you were sidetracked with the other problem we have been working on. 

'How long have you been working on this?'

'Only about a week or so. It was hard doing it when you weren't around, since you are always around. I got chances here and there when you would go off to the bridge by yourself. What are you doing up there anyway? Oh well, doesn't matter. I would've asked for help but I wanted to surprise you with it. You're surprised, right?' She looked concerned only about the surprise.

Tatiana had a knack for saying a lot in one breath. A lot of times she would only seem interested in the last thing she would say. Until later, of course, when she would ask why I never answered her question. Women!

'Surprised! I had no idea! This is great. How fast does it go?'

'Well, why don't we sit down and eat some cake and then we'll try it out. But my initial calculations suggest that it will go about thirty-seven hundred times the speed of light. We should be able to get home in a few hours. Mikhail and I made some modifications to the field coil design that made it about ten times faster than the Clemons design. But enough of that, blow out your candles before they melt the cake!'

'Uh, okay.' I bent down and blew on the candles. They wouldn't go out.

'Ha, ha, ha.' Tatiana giggled like a schoolgirl.

Mike, make sure they go out this time when I blow. 

Okay, Steven. 

'I must be getting old,' I put on a show for Tatiana and then blew the candles right out.

Tatiana frowned. 'Aww! You cheated. Cheater.' She punched me on the arm and frogged it pretty good.

'Shit!' I cursed and punched her back, but not nearly as hard.

CHAPTER 15

We decided that we would warp back directly to the Moon and contact the people who we'd learned lived there. It made sense that if they were the ones trying to defend the Earth from the Grays then the Moon was where we should take our ship and all the knowledge we had discovered. The Grays apparently knew almost everything about the human race that there was to know. Neither of us liked that. If they ever decided to conduct a final invasion, they would have more than enough information—not to mention technological advancement—to totally wipe us out. That brought up another point. Why hadn't they wiped us out already instead of playing with us for thousands of years? Nothing made any sense. What was the Gray motivation? Why were they toying with us and abducting us and killing some of us? It didn't matter. Tatiana and I didn't like it, and it had to be stopped.

We dropped out of warp on the far side of the Moon and I'll be damned if there wasn't a huge lunar base there. Three warp ships with U.S. Air Force markings met us with full force. Fortunately, Tatiana had the foresight to suggest we sit in our safety chairs and had them materialize before we warped. We had to take evasive maneuvers to keep from being blasted back out into deep space again. There were no g-forces this time since we were inside a warp bubble and the spacetime inside the bubble was simple one-gravity space. The alien's quantum string spacedrive would allow a ship to travel much faster but it required some type of inertial damping system. I think I like the warp drive better.

So we didn't really need the chairs. One of the vessels fired several warp missiles at us. We warped past Mars and up out of the ecliptic plane and were still being pursued by the missiles. Mike flew the ship and I had a communications system set up and began hailing the Earth ships. Tatiana found the weapons and blasted one of the warp missiles off our tail. We finally went to maximum warp speed and left the other missiles in our space dust!

We warped out a few minutes and then went back to the Moon. This time I continuously hailed the Earth ships. The bathroom wall navigation map showed that the Earth ships were still out at Mars looking for us. So, I sent a hail toward Mars and waited for the slow, normal speed of light microwave signal to get to them. This time of year Mars was about seven minutes away by lightspeed. Seven minutes and thirty seconds later the ships warped from Mars back to the Moon.

'Please do not shoot! I repeat please do not shoot! I am broadcasting a standard digital video signal at two point three one gigahertz along with this radio signal. There are two humans, one American and one Russian aboard this vessel. We have liberated the vessel from the aliens and discovered your lunar facility. We need to communicate with you please! I repeat . . .

Steven, there is a video signal being received. Do you want to see it? 

Yes, Mike.