The Shores Beyond Time Page 4

  “We have orders to enforce compliance if necessary—”

  “Last thing,” said Mina. She dug around the inner lining of her pod—there it was. She picked up a slim cable that attached to her link at one end. At the other end was a small sensor that affixed to the beacon’s circuitry. This setup allowed Wesley’s app to measure the relative strength and direction of Liam’s signal, in order to determine how close he and the Cosmic Cruiser were to the Scorpius. He’d synced the app to Mina’s stasis controls, so that whenever—if ever—Liam and her parents finally got within range, she would be awakened from stasis no matter what.

  A light blinked in the app, indicating that it detected the beacon. “Okay, I’m ready.” Mina lay back and, with a deep breath, engaged stasis. As the pod lid hissed closed, as she buckled herself in, she stared at the beacon. Come on, just one flash before I go under. . . .

  But the beacon remained dark as the gas swirled around her. Mina saw the two bots gazing down at her and shut her eyes. Arlo, she thought, a fresh well of sorrow opening within her.

  Come on, Liam. . . .

  The world receded again, into gray, into silence.

  EARTH YEAR: 2256

  TIME TO CENTAURI A SUPERNOVA: 2H:37M

  Light again. And that weird sensation of having sensation, of being again after a long cold nothing.

  A foggy view of a cavernous ceiling. Closer, something was floating above her, oval shaped, and sliding out of her view.

  Mina blinked, felt the sting of her dry eyes.

  I’m in a hangar again. That’s a skim drone up there.

  Her lungs filled, then breathed out, the air adding condensation to the already moist flex-glass lid of her stasis pod. Twitch of her muscles, thump of her heart, a sore sensation in her chest, in her throat, a dull ache in her skull.

  Thirty-three years . . . had it really been that long?

  A light caught her attention. She twisted her sore neck to see something flashing on her link. Blurry . . . She blinked, moved her cold, twitching fingers to her eyes and rubbed. Looked again and saw a message: Target Proximity.

  What did that mean? . . . But then she remembered the app, the beacon.

  Liam! Mom and Dad!

  The top of her pod hissed and yawned open. Mina lurched up, unbuckling, but immediately slumped against the side. Her vision spun, pain thudding in her head, a sour taste in the back of her mouth. . . . Were they really at Destina? She fumbled for her link and opened the home screen. Earth year 2256—April 18, as if Earth days even mattered out here.

  A whoosh of thrusters overhead. That skim drone she’d noticed was across the hangar now, slipping into the airlock, the giant inner door beginning to slide closed behind it.

  A familiar shape out of the corner of her eye: Mina craned her neck and spied her family’s Cosmic Cruiser. They’d made it! But that skim drone . . .

  “Liam?” she croaked.

  The little craft hung there in the airlock, almost out of view. Is that— “Liam!” she shouted. “Wait!”

  She tried to push up, get to her knees—

  The entire hangar rumbled and a piece of tile smashed to the metal floor.

  Finally, she registered the spinning red lights. The blaring of alerts. They were under attack again.

  The airlock slid shut. Where could he be going? What was happening? Mina grabbed the beacon, not bothering to snap the casing back on, and stabbed at the button. As she did it, she dragged herself over the side of the pod and stood on wobbling legs.

  come back

  She stared at the beacon but Liam didn’t reply. Another terrible rumble, everything rattling around her, making Mina stumble. She gritted her teeth and hurried toward the cruiser, tying her cold, damp hair back as she went. The airlock door on its side was open. She stumbled up the steps, into the familiar old hunk of junk.

  “Hello? JEFF?” No answer. She ducked into the cockpit, but it was empty. The cruiser shook and she was thrown against the wall. Bracing herself, she moved to the back of the ship. Two empty stasis pods in one compartment. In the other—

  Tears sprang from Mina’s eyes as she raced between the two pods. “Mom! Dad!” There they were, their faces shaded by burns, but alive and peacefully asleep. Time seemed to loop on itself, as if she’d just seen them a few days ago—which in a way, she had. Saying good-bye to them at their apartment door on Mars, Mina remembered how she’d hurried through their hugs and brushed off Mom’s love you and how she’d been way more concerned with getting out of there with Arlo—

  Arlo.

  Mina fell against her mom’s pod and sobbed, all of it hitting her now, finally. He was really gone. Forever. All the danger she’d faced back at Delphi, and the distance and loss and time that had passed, that still had to pass . . . And where the hell had Liam gone just now?

  “Mina? Is that y-y-you?” said a staticky, robotic voice.

  “JEFF!” She whirled and stumbled back to the main cabin. The floor shook again. Fresh spots in her vision. “Yeah! It’s me! What’s going on?”

  “I am currently in command of the Scorpius,” said JEFF, her family’s personal bot, over the cruiser’s local link, “though I have initiated a wake-up sequence and a command crew should be here sh-sh-shortly. We are under attack from the hostile Telphon force—”

  “Who? Is that who attacked us back at Delphi?”

  “Yes. The starliners Saga and Rhea have attached their magnet tethers and are beginning to tow us away, as the Centauri A supernova is imminent.”

  “Supernova? What do you mean? Another one?”

  “Correct. We are about to deploy a counterattack against the enemy ship that should—”

  Mina’s head hurt with the details. “JEFF! I just saw him leave. Where did he go?”

  “He believes he can s-s-save Phoebe.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Aboard the enemy craft.”

  “They captured her?” Mina glanced at the rear compartments. “Her parents too?”

  JEFF didn’t answer for a moment. “It is more complicated than that. I do not know that now is the time to explain fully.”

  “Okay . . . so Liam is flying after the ship that’s attacking us, in a skim drone? And there’s another supernova?”

  “Acknowledged. Red Line for our safe departure is in twenty-five minutes.”

  “Does Liam know that?”

  “He is aware of the danger, yes.”

  “But he’s going to get killed! You have to send someone after him!”

  “I am afraid that is not p-p-possible. All available processing power is being routed to rebooting the Scorpius, in order to get away from the supernova in time, and also to firing our countermeasures. We have devised a strategy to destroy the Telphon ship.”

  Mina could barely keep up. “But you just said Liam was headed for that ship!”

  “Affirmative. I warned Liam against this as well. However he was still insistent on going after Phoebe.”

  “There has to be something you can do!”

  “This is a difficult situation by any calculation,” said JEFF, “but it is my duty to act in the best interests of the human fleet as a whole. I will be back in touch shortly.”

  Mina threw up her hands. “Are you kidding me?” They couldn’t have gone through all this just to lose each other now! There had to be something—

  “Mina.”

  The voice came from behind her. She turned, and before she could believe what her mind was telling her, she felt her heart shiver in the strangest way. “Liam?”

  He was standing right there, not two meters from her. Her little brother, same as ever, in his black thermal wear and some kind of strange silver hoodie, and also what looked like a Haishang Dust Devils team shirt beneath that. He smiled, and Mina ran to him and threw her arms around him. “You’re okay!”

  And yet the second she hugged him she knew something wasn’t right. The buzzing sensation, the way he felt cool to the touch, too cool . . . She pulled back, let
go of him. “What’s going on?”

  Liam’s mouth scrunched. “I know it’s strange. I’m here, but I’m also not. I—I just came to let you know that I’m safe.”

  Mina eyed him. “Came from where? I just saw you leave. JEFF says you tried to rescue Phoebe—”

  “I did . . . I mean, I am doing that, where you are. But . . . a lot has happened since then.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Liam made a strange face, wincing like his head hurt. And it almost seemed as if his body rippled, like she was looking at him on a holoscreen. Except she’d hugged him. He was here . . . or was he?

  “Listen, I can’t stay much longer. I just didn’t want you to worry. Don’t want Mom and Dad to, either. The supernova blast: you can use it to propel the starliners out of here. We timed it just right.”

  “What do you mean, timed it just right? We’re trying to get away from it.”

  “I know. Tell JEFF that they can use the solar sails, if they haven’t figured that out already. The blast will occur when they are at exactly the right distance to use its force and not be damaged by it.”

  “Liam, stop! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Who’s we?”

  “I, um—” His body contorted. His hand leapt to his head as if he was in pain, and somehow, a ripple of static seemed to rush through him. “Sorry, I don’t have much time. But you have to be far enough away from the rifting event that will occur afterward, so that it doesn’t destroy the ship’s systems and leave you guys floating in space.”

  “I don’t know what any of that means.”

  “I know. Just tell JEFF, okay? It will work. You’ll make it safely away. That’s all that matters right now.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll be all right. Trust me.” He winced again, balling his fists.

  “You’re not all right, Liam, I can tell.” Mina’s eyes welled up. “Why does it sound like I’m never going to see you again?”

  Liam smiled. “You will. Someday, I hope. . . .”

  “What are you saying?”

  He grimaced. “I have to go. You have to go. Tell JEFF what I told you. And take care of Mom and Dad.”

  “Liam!” Mina shouted. “Don’t leave!”

  “I have to.”

  “Then tell me where you are! I’ll come get you.”

  “You can’t. There’s no way . . . just get yourself to safety, okay?”

  “No, I’m going to find you! You hear me?”

  “Mina, don’t. I, um, I love you. I’m going now. Bye.”

  And he was gone. Just like that. Mina stared at the space where her little brother had been. “Liam!” she shouted, but the cabin was silent, empty. Had that even just happened?

  She wiped away tears, fought off a surge through her body to just collapse on the couch. All of this was too much. . . . “JEFF!” she shouted. “I need you now!”

  “Yes, Mina,” he replied over the local link.

  “I just saw Liam. I think. I mean, it was him, but he wasn’t here, not really. It was like he . . . appeared? And we spoke, and then he was just . . . gone.”

  “I s-s-see.”

  Mina cocked her head. “Why don’t you sound surprised?”

  “Well,” said JEFF, “since Liam discovered the chronologist’s watch technology on Mars, he has been able to accomplish various feats that defy what we would call the normal laws of space-time.”

  “You’re going to need to explain what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, I would be happy to, but at the m-m-moment—”

  The ship rumbled again.

  “I know, I know: supernova, alien attack.” Mina rubbed her face. “Okay, listen: Liam said that you can use the supernova blast to propel the ships to a safe distance from a rift or something.”

  “Acknowledged. Liam had previously mentioned to me something about the universe collapsing.”

  “Well, he didn’t say that, but about the supernova: He said they’d timed it perfectly?”

  “Who is they?”

  “I don’t know! But he said to use the solar sails and that would get us away safely. And he said you’d know what this meant.”

  “Just a moment, I am calculating . . . why y-y-yes, it does seem that with our expected velocity, and the timing of the supernova, deploying the solar sails will allow us to achieve a significant speed boost. It—that is fascinating.”

  “What is?”

  “According to my calculations, when the supernova occurs, we will be at exactly the right distance to achieve the maximum possible thrust increase. Any closer, and we would have risked damage to the ship or the passengers. Any farther, and we would not have achieved quite as high a velocity. It is, mathematically speaking, perfect timing.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Earlier, Liam stated that the timing of this Centauri A supernova was not an accident—that he believed the Drove were intentionally trying to kill us.”

  “The who?”

  “The beings that Liam believes are responsible for causing our sun to go supernova. Liam has encountered a metal-suited man during his travels, who he believes is their leader.”

  “Hold on. These . . . the ‘Drove’—they’re different from the telephotos?”

  “Telphons. Yes, they are two different species. But it seems that Liam’s suspicion was wrong: this new data suggests that the blast is in fact timed to help us, not to harm us. Though that cannot be more than coincidental, unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless this is another example of your brother’s anomalous behavior in space-time.”

  “Okay . . .” Mina shook her head. “So now what?”

  “The crew has just arrived, so in a moment I will be able to r-r-relinquish command of the Scorpius. We are about to launch our countermeasure at the Telphon ship, which will hopefully destroy it; well, not hopefully when it comes to Liam—”

  “It’s okay,” said Mina. “I don’t think that’s a danger for him.” She felt a weird sensation as she said this. Not quite relief, because she did think he was in danger, she just wasn’t sure yet from what.

  “Acknowledged. I am handing off systems operations now. I will be back in touch shortly.”

  “JEFF, wait.” But JEFF didn’t respond.

  Mina looked around the silent cabin and swore to herself. All of this was crazy! Telphons? The Drove? Time traveling? And where exactly was Liam? Was there any way she could find him? He told me to go. . . .

  Arlo said that too. And he’d been right. And yet Mina wasn’t sure she could stand losing Liam, too.

  “Mina? Hey! Are you in there?”

  Footsteps on the stairs, in the airlock.

  Mina turned and suddenly someone was rushing at her.

  “There you are!” Shawn threw his arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Hey!” His short curly hair brushed against her chin. She gently pushed him away. “It’s good to see you too. Is your dad—”

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” said Shawn, out of breath. “They had me stored like six levels down. The alert woke me up. About Liam. Dad synced my link to yours, to go off if he was nearby.” Shawn glanced around the cruiser. “Where is he?”

  Mina explained as best she could, about Liam taking off after Phoebe, about the supernova, but she decided not to mention Liam’s most recent appearance, or the strange things he’d said, adding simply, “I think they’re okay, for the moment.”

  “That’s good.” Shawn looked at her, eyes wide with concern. “And you’re okay, after stasis?”

  “Close enough.” But her mind drifted to Arlo again, and some tears escaped, which she quickly wiped away.

  “Hey, it’s, um, it’s okay.” Shawn patted her arm awkwardly. “My dad went to check the bridge, but he said if your parents were here, we should get them to the med bay. Are they . . .”

  “Yeah, they’re in back. Alive.”

  “Nice. Dad said they’r
e going to need treatment as soon as possible. And also, the sooner they recover, the sooner we can find out what happened on Mars. Dad thinks the accident at the Phase Two research station might be connected to whoever keeps attacking us.”

  “The Telphons,” said Mina.

  “The who?”

  “I don’t know, they’re some kind of alien army or something.”

  Shawn’s eyes widened. “Aliens? Are you serious? Man, I knew this trip was going to be more dangerous than they said! What kind? Like, I mean, what do they look like—”

  “I have no idea. JEFF might know, but he’s busy.” Another wave of feeling overtook her. She just wanted to sit down, to go back into stasis, to not feel this grief, not be in this moment at all—but no. Come on! Her parents were injured, her brother missing, the entire fleet in danger, and she could help. One thing at a time. “Let’s just get my parents to the med bay.”

  They hurried to the rear compartment. Shawn looked from her parents’ pods to the empty ports where two other pods would have been. “Where are Phoebe’s parents?” he asked.

  “I think they’re with these Telphons, too. Like they got captured or something.”

  “This all seems pretty weird.”

  “Tell me about it. Where’s the closest med bay?”

  “Dad said it’s toward the bridge.”

  They activated the magnetic systems, and the pods levitated off the floor. Mina pushed her dad while Shawn pushed Mom, and they guided the pods out of the cruiser and across the hangar. Another rumble and a shriek of metal, the floor vibrating and making them stumble.

  “That does not sound good,” said Shawn, glancing warily at the walls and ceiling.

  “Nope,” said Mina, following his gaze.

  In that exact moment, Mina’s beacon blinked a single time beneath her thermal-wear shirt, but neither of them noticed.

  They loaded into one of the elevators, rode up twelve levels to the main deck of the forward section, and pushed the pods down the wide hallway to the double doors of the med bay.