Chapter 36 Aiden
Aiden
Aiden squeezed Darren’s hand, the solidity of it acting as an anchor to reality while his mind worked to catch up to what his eyes were witnessing.
There were two suns and not one. Two bright stars that gave the silver forms of the cruisers a tinge of orange and made the Maine’s cockpit look like it was on fire.
“We made it,” Darren whispered in a slightly shaky voice.
“We fucking did.” Bea shot up, her eyes wide and shocked. Her hands flew across the central console, but the Maine had lost all its power and refused to respond. “C’mon, baby, don’t be dead on me.”
“Bea!” Nyle’s voice rang in their earpieces, crisp and full of worry. “Can you guys hear me? Are you okay? Oh, please, tell me you are okay!”
“Nyle! Shit, baby angel…” She grinned, flopping back into the chair with an audible sigh. “This was so awful.”
“Bea…I thought we lost you,” Nyle croaked, sniffling on the other end. “I’m so glad you are fine.”
Something in Nyle’s voice twisted Aiden’s stomach. A bad feeling raised his hackles and lodged a lump in his throat.
“Nyle, is everyone okay on your end?” Darren cut in, walking over to Bea and draping an arm over her chair. Aiden followed, scanning the lifeless tech around them. “And, also, I think we might need a lift.”
“We… lost one cruiser,” Nyle said, his voice turning somber.
Heavy silence replaced the air of relief in the cockpit. Bea’s expression dropped and Darren’s jaw clenched.
“Nyle, is Nan…?” she said carefully, furrowing as she glanced out of the viewport.
Aiden did the same, counting five cruisers where there should’ve been six.
The lingering discomfort from the jump made him shudder.
It still felt like there was static buzzing right under his skin, a leftover side effect of whatever the process of going from one universe to another really was.
They’d known the risks of course, they’d been prepared for them, but it still hurt to lose so many people who’d willingly chosen Darren’s side.
“She’s fine!” Nyle rushed out, exhaling deeply. “And everyone else, too! Just a bit shaken up from the jump, but otherwise… holding up. As for needing a lift, Kristen and I are almost at the Maine’s airlock.”
Bea stood up, flicking red curls off her cheek. “I’ll come down and let you in.”
Kristen halted her. “Wait. I… think I can see the problem. Nyle… go get suited up. I’ll need your help.”
“Suited up? You’re going out?” Bea protested, crossing her arms and frowning. “We don’t even know if our suits are any good here!”
A silent pause ensued. Aiden looked at Darren and then at Bea, concluding that Nyle and Kristen were currently putting on the suits despite Bea’s concerns.
“We do and they are. We already tested them,” Nyle said on the other end, trying his best to channel his usual self. “Oh shit, Kristen. I can see where they got hit. There’s something attached to the hull.”
“That’s gotta be what killed our systems,” Bea said more so to herself than Nyle.
“Yeah… Uh, Kristen and I will take care of it, so I’m gonna click off! Be right back,” Nyle said, sent her a kiss, and clicked off.
Bea sighed and folded her arms behind her head as she stared at the ceiling. “Guess we wait now.”
“I guess we do,” Aiden agreed, then shifted his attention from her to Darren who’d moved over to the weapons system near the elevator, likely to inspect them. He wasn’t doing that though; he was looking at Aiden with a tight expression on his face.
Aiden approached him, clasping his shoulder gently.
“We made it,” Darren said, sounding both ecstatic and tired. “Us and…” He clenched his hand in a fist. “Almost all of the cruisers. And Marcus can’t follow us here.”
A sense of something fundamental spread through Aiden, making his breathing hitch.
Marcus didn’t know about the multiverse.
He didn’t have the jump drive schematics.
They’d left him behind and in the dark, along with the rest of humankind.
They didn’t have to run anymore or to hide.
They didn’t have to pretend they didn’t know the truth.
They were… free and about to start a new life.
“He can’t,” Aiden echoed, wrapping his arms around Darren and pulling him close. “We really made it.”
They held each other, content just to do that until the adrenaline had left them both.
Then they returned to the bench and waited alongside Bea in companionable silence until Kristen’s call came.
He instructed them what to do so they could restart the Maine and the custom system purge Nyle had designed could flush the virus that had taken its systems down.
“Okay, B, reboot and it should work now,” Kristen said when Bea finished following the last of his instructions.
Bea started up the central systems and the ship woke up with a gentle shudder.
Her fingers tapped across menus, pulling up readings and diagrams as she and Kristen read out outputs and compared parameters to ensure everything was in order.
Before they’d even finished, Nyle burst into the cockpit and threw himself at her, locking them into a tight hug.
“You scared us for a second there,” he chastised, pecking her on the lips. “I’m so glad you are okay.”
“Marcus really didn’t hold back this time,” Kristen commented as he entered the cockpit a few seconds later, holding a device the size of a suitcase. “This is some experimental hijacking tech. And the ships you ran into near the Moon were as well.”
“Good thing we won’t have to worry about any of that anymore,” Bea concluded, hopping up and giving Kristen a passionate smooch.
“Do you three… want some alone time?” Darren said, giving them a fond look. “We have to figure out what we are doing and where we are going, but we can handle that on our own.”
Nyle shook his head and winked. “Don’t worry about us. We are resourceful. Get a line to George and Nan. They should have some scans by now.”
“Okay.” Darren chuckled and tapped on his earpiece. “George, you should be able to connect to the Maine now.”
“Hello.” George’s face came up on the main screen as soon as Bea accepted the video feed from the cruiser Astero.
He looked tired and a bit somber himself, the loss of one of the ships clearly weighing on him, too.
“I… can see you’ve been told about the cruiser.
We lost a lot of good people today. May they all rest in peace.
” Smiling without it reaching his eyes, he nodded at someone near him after a pause of silence.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us that can’t wait, I am afraid.
Paying our respects will have to come later.
I’m pinging you over the scan results we have.
” A moment later, the screen split into two, one half showing George’s face and the other a scan of the star system.
“We can’t get a read on the entire system, but there are two habitable planets in this sector, both with atmospheres and water. ”
A second holoscreen slid down from a seam along the ceiling, displaying the two planets’ data.
The first one was about the same size as Earth, and according to the scan results, comprised 95% oceans with 5% land in the form of a single continent.
It looked promising, save for the low temperature that averaged minus seventy degrees Fahrenheit and the hurricanes that seemed to ravage its blue surface.
The second planet, on the other hand, was smaller, though closer to the two suns. The deserts that spanned its landscape gave it a yellow-orange color, and as far as Aiden could tell, there was not even a single body of water.
“George, are you sure about the second planet?” Darren asked, having made the same observation as Aiden. “I’m not seeing any water.”
“Yes, hold on.” Manipulating the view remotely, George zoomed in then loaded a cross-section of a cliffy area. “While the surface is too dry and generally inhabitable, there is a system of underground caverns, rivers and a massive ocean,” he explained, indicating the blue-colored lines and areas.
“What’s the purple?” Bea asked.
“Flora.”
Aiden glanced at the rest of the data, noting that the temperature below the surface of the desert planet was mild and gravitated between sixty-five and eighty degrees. Aboveground, the average was a hundred-fifty degrees during the day and minus ten at night.
“The caverns seem like a better option, but… there is no natural light,” Aiden said, wondering how the lack of sunlight might affect things.
“Yes,” George confirmed. “I spoke to my head geologist, and he’s confident we could find a workaround.”
“Are those two planets our only options?” Darren said, spinning the desert planet’s 3D visualization around.
“In this part of the system, yes. We could travel further, though with our current capabilities it will take us a few months to even reach the edge of the area we’ve scanned. This system is gigantic compared to ours.”
Darren’s brows scrunched in thought. “Have the ships head to the planet with the caverns. Let’s see if we can make it work.”
“I’m sure we’ll figure something out. And if not, we can always look for a better place later.”
“Want me to take the lead, Darren?” Bea chirped once George hung up, her hands grasping the ship’s controls.
Darren looked at Aiden, a goofy smile sliding on his face. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, captain,” he said and draped an arm over Aiden’s shoulder.
Aiden laughed as did the rest, a sense of budding excitement making his stomach flutter. He looked out just as the cruisers fell into a formation and let the Maine pass so it could lead them to their new home.
For the first time in two years, he felt truly ready for a new start.