Nathan leaned back in his chair, taking another drink of water as he thought about what Jalea had revealed to him. The rebels were fighting a guerrilla war rather than a large scale organized conflict. They were stealing ships and supplies, making changes to them to fit their needs, and getting covert support from the locals. They certainly sounded like freedom fighters rebelling against a corrupt and repressive government. But Nathan had been a student of Earth history. And he knew that there was often a fine line between revolutionaries and terrorists. And more often than not, the difference only became apparent after it was too late.
“So how did you hear of Earth?” Nathan felt it was time to change direction, and he had been curious about what she knew of his home.
“On my world, there is legend. Long ago, our people came to Parule from another world. The legend says, the people on that world once came from Earth,” she explained. It was apparent by the tone of her voice that she had never truly believed the legend. “But, it was only story, told to young children. Many believe. Many still speak Angla and teach children. My father was such man.”
“Really?” Nathan had finished his lunch and closed up the container. “And what did your father teach you of Earth.”
“Earth is where all humans came from. But long ago, they leave quickly. Terrible evil on Earth. It came to all her worlds. So people, they go to stars. They hope evil will not follow.” Jalea ate the last piece of food in her kit and followed it with a drink of water before continuing. “Sometimes, parents tell children to behave, or evil will find them too.”
“Does the story say what kind of evil?”
“No, but it is only story. No one truly believes this,” she asserted.
“But you believe it?”
“Maybe a little,” she confessed, a tiny smile on her lips.
“Do many others believe?”
“Some. But they not say, they afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Takarans not believe. They say all come from Takara, not Earth. If you not believe as Takarans, you not live.”
Then they are fighting against religious persecution. Suddenly, they were starting to look more like terrorists than revolutionaries. He was beginning to wonder how far he could trust them. Perhaps Cameron had been correct. Perhaps these were not the kind of people they wanted as friends.
“Do others in your group speak Angla?”
“Yes, some. Those from other worlds. But Takarans not learn Angla, not safe.”
“What about on Parule?” Nathan was hoping to find a world where they might be able to communicate without having to use the rebels as an intermediary.
“Yes, most people on Parule learn Angla. It is language of all worlds.”
“A universal language, of course.” Nathan remembered from history that English had been the standard language spoken throughout the core at the time the bio-digital plague had struck.
“Is this not why your people speak Angla?” Jalea looked intrigued.
“Sort of, I guess. There are many different languages spoken on Earth, but we all learn English so that we can all communicate…” Nathan stopped in mid sentence, noticing the look in her eyes had changed.
“Then you are from Earth?” Nathan didn’t notice that her English syntax had suddenly improved.
“Well, yes, I thought we explained that…” Nathan stopped in mid sentence, noticing another change in her eyes. The intrigue had suddenly vanished, replaced by that same cold determination he had seen earlier on the bridge.
Jalea relaxed slightly, leaning with her elbow on the arm of the chair in which she sat. “Then I must ask you, Nathan. Are you evil?”
Her question had been asked in near perfect English, and Nathan felt a chill go down his spine. So overwhelming was the sensation that Nathan was startled when Cameron entered the room with Abigail hot on her heels.
“Nathan, we need to talk,” Cameron insisted. She noticed that Nathan seemed a bit shaken, yet Jalea was calm and relaxed. “Nathan?” she repeated.
He looked up at Cameron, seeing the urgency on her face. He looked back at Jalea, recomposing himself. “If you would excuse us a moment, Jalea?”
Jalea bowed her head respectfully, rose from her chair and strolled out of the room. Cameron watched her curiously as she exited, wondering what she had interrupted.
Cameron was about to start talking when Nathan held up his hand indicating that she should wait. Finally, when he was sure that the door was closed and Jalea was out of ear shot, he spoke. “What’s wrong?”
“We’ve calculated our position, Nathan. And it’s not good.”
“And I’m supposed to be surprised?” he responded sarcastically.
“You will be,” Cameron promised him. “We’re more than a thousand light years from Earth.”
There was a moment of silence. Nathan looked at Cameron with disbelief. He looked at Abigail, and then back at Cameron again. “You’re kidding, right?” Cameron didn’t speak, but her expression gave him his answer. “No, I guess you wouldn’t be, would you.”
“Certainly not about this,” she assured him.
“A thousand light years?” he repeated.
“Yup.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” Nathan exclaimed. “Please, Cam! Tell me you’re kidding me?”
“Sorry.”
Nathan couldn’t believe his ears. After all that they had been through, to learn that they were so much farther away from Earth than anyone had ever thought possible.
“There’s gotta be some kind of mistake here,” he pleaded. “I mean, come on, a thousand light years?” Nathan turned to Abigail, “Abby, how the hell could we jump a thousand light years?”
“There’s no mistake, Captain,” Abigail apologized. She felt that it was somehow her fault that they were stranded so far from home. “I checked the calculations several times. We are one-thousand and seven light years from Sol. Of that I’m sure. As to how, my best guess is that it had something to do with the shock wave from that antimatter explosion. Maybe it somehow added additional energy into the fields? I just don’t know yet.”
“Well, now how long is it gonna take us to get home?” He already knew he was not going to like the answer.
“That’s at least a hundred and ten jumps, maybe more. If everything goes well, maybe three or four months. But…”
“…Fat chance of that!” Nathan squawked. “I mean, considering how our luck has been so far!”
“You have to remember, Captain, that this is only a prototype model. I cannot guarantee that we’ll get ten jumps out of it, let alone a hundred.”
Nathan thought hard. There had to be a way out of this problem, he just had to think of something. “What if the FTL field emitters were operational? How long would it take us then?”
“About a hundred years,” Cameron reminded him, knowing that he should already be aware of that fact. “We’re only rated for ten times light, remember? Besides, it would take weeks to get those emitters back online. And we’d have to take the jump drive off line in order to do it.”
“What about the comm-drones the Takarans use? Jalea said they can do a hundred times light. Maybe we could adapt their technology into our systems?”
“That’s a bit of a reach, don’t you think?” Cameron was getting tired of Nathan’s desperate scramble for an immediate answer. “You might as well face the facts, Nathan. We’re stuck out here for a while.”
“There has got to be a way to get back,” he insisted. “I mean, we got here in a single jump. So there must be a way to get back in one. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
“If our assumptions about how are correct, then yes it is possible. But figuring out how to do that could take even longer than it would to make the hundred jumps home.”
Nathan leaned back in his chair, thinking. He was the captain now. And his last orders had been to get the jump drive back to Earth as soon as possible. Not only was the fate of his crew resting on his shoulders, but also quite possibly the fate of his entire world as well. He hoped his lunch wasn’t going to come back up.
