MAYA:

A Science Fiction Odyssey

Part Six

by A.D. Jackson

If you missed previous chapters of "Maya", please check the archives.

She had a body. The last thing she remembered was the sensation that there was nothing--the absence of substance. Her mind had been clearly there, but her body ceased to exist.

She couldn't see. She felt her eyes. They were wide open, but there was only blackness. Perhaps there was nothing there for her to perceive.

Sensations began to slowly creep into her body. Her back ached. There was something pressing hard and uncomfortably against it. She lay prostrate, her arms spread wide as though to balance her against the hard cold floor. Pebbles. That's what it is that she felt. They poked through the thin layer of clothing she wore. She began to remember. They were swimming; scuba diving of the coast of Bimini. There was something. A bright light. She didn't understand what had happened, but she could remember it all. Her body dissolving in the dark water inside the temple. There were others there too. Intense light. A tunnel of spiraling colors.

Then she came to rest here. Where? She didn't know. Prickly pins tingled through her feet and legs. How long had she lain there as the blood rushed back into her limbs? She could feel are arms again. She could feel her hands. In her hand she could feel it. The orb was still there.

Voices. Singing against the back of her skull. A chorus. Thousands calling out. What was it? She opened her eyes again. Only this time she could see. And this time she wished her eyes were closed.

The chimera hovered over her. Shimmering. She was afraid, but she didn't feel the fear. Even though her eyes had been in absolute and complete darkness, they did not have to adjust to the sudden presence of light. Strange, she thought. It did not light up the room, or wherever it was she lay. It simply…was.

It moved in closer. She wanted to speak, to cry out, to scream, to tell it to leave. But instead she simply lay there. It spoke to her. Not in a language she could understand, but in thoughts and impressions, and emotions. Closer still. It reached out toward her with what appeared to be a translucent arm. Down toward her forehead. She lay motionless and let it happen.

Again the room turned to black. Everything faded away. Her thoughts became slippery. All sensation was gone. Once again--Jenna Munro was no more.

ORBIT

"What is it?" Kobayashi said.

"For someone so brilliant you seem ta ask some o' the stupidest questions," Henrickson replied.

Kobayashi shot the cocky young pilot a glare sharp enough to kill.

"Enough of that," Truman said. He turned to Kobaysashi. "It's a planet."

A small green gem hung behind a ring of icy rocks in space. If not for the desperation and severity of the moment, Truman might have actually taken the time to appreciate its beauty. Here they were, obviously millions, perhaps trillions of miles away from Earth, looking upon the face of some unknown planet. If they even hesitated to feel the power of the picturesque scene, they knew they would die.

"Do you think you could give us enough power to get us there and land?" Truman said to Kobayashi.

"I...I don't know."

"It was an order. It wasn't really a question"

Silence.

"I'll have it done."

"Now that's what I like to hear," Henrickson said, slapping Kobayashi hard on the back. "Saving my skin is a good thing."

"Yeah," Kobayashi replied. "Something I seem to be doing more and more lately."

"Just keep the tab running son. You'll get your payback I'm sure." Henrickson moved toward the forward display. "Get me walking alive and well down there and I'll make sure you get all you got coming."

"Truman," a voice said from one corner of the room. It was Richardson, a small, blood spotted bandage on her left cheek. "I need to talk to you…all of you."

***

The all hovered around what, a few hours ago, had been a spotless, and pristine Captain's Ready Room. They all tried to bury the emotion of being there, amid all of the momentos of the captain. Pictures, souvenirs, some of them hung weightless detached from their small magnetic harnesses. Just as with the planet swinging outside. They didn't have time to allow themselves the luxury of mourning.

"I ran a star-chart," Richardson began. Her Scottish accent rolling thick. She usually tried to annunciate so that her crewmates could understand her, but now she was too weary, concentrating on the mess they had found themselves in. "We're pretty far away from earth, as you can imagine"

"Where?" Truman asked.

"This planet is orbiting the star Sirius."

"Serious?" Henrickson said. No one took the time to bother a response.

"Anyhow," she continued, "Somehow that gate, pushed us out here. I won't pretend to even begin to understand the how of it all, but here we are."

"And what about the planet?" Brickstone asked. "General consensus is that we should land there? How do we know we can even survive there? What its temperature is? If there are any hostiles there?"

"Well to answer some of your questions," Richardson answered. "Most of our sensors are damaged pretty badly, but I can tell you that the thermographic scan shows that most of the planet is fairly warm, between twenty and fifty degrees centigrade. Plus or minus thirty in a few regions, but for the most part it looks pretty warm."

"And the atmosphere?" Brickstone

"From the greenish hue, and non-uniformity of the topography by looking at the thermal charts there's either a lot of vegetation or…" Richardson shrugged her shoulders.

"Great. Just great. If there's no breathable air down there then we might as well stay up here in space."

"No." they heard someone say. Sarah Sanders hung tightly to the door, dressed in a dark blue medical jumpsuit.

"Sarah, you shouldn't be up. You still look weak. Get back…" Truman said. But Sarah wouldn't let him finish.

"No. This…" she began, stopping to gain her strength. "All of this isn't…can't be a coincidence."

The entire room was silent. They listened attentively.

Except for Henrickson.

"I gotta hear this," he said, nudging Richardson in her side with his elbow.

Sarah drifted toward the circle of floating officers. Truman rose quickly and grabbed her, helping her come to a slow gentle stop.

"All of this. These last few weeks. The signal on Pluto, the Lady Grey disappearing, and now us, here, orbiting some planet that is orbiting some star. All of this can't have happened by chance."

"So what are you trying to say then?" Brickstone asked.

"I don't know what, really. But I do know…I feel, that we're supposed to go to that planet. And that when we arrive there we will be okay."

"Who let her out of sick bay again?" Henrickson said whispering in Richardson's ear. "Oh yeah. That's right. The doctor's dead."

"So we are supposed to needlessly risk our lives on the hunch of some half-delirious, recently unconscious carbon-miner?" Brickstone interjected.

"Yes," Truman said. "If that's the way you want to look at it. Yes."

Silence.

"So lets get to work people. I want us to be planetside within twenty-four hours."

***

It felt like it had been a hundred years since the last time he had spoken to his daughter. One hundred years since the last time they had sat down and she had filled him in on her life, her goals, her dreams, and her loves. In actuality it had been five years. The last time he had seen her was three years prior. She lay strapped to the medical bed in sickbay. Her body betraying the dizzying events of the past few days that her mind had gone through. He moved closer to her looking at her face. Just like her mother. With the same pig-headed stubbornness to match.

"Hi dad," she said. She hadn't even opened her eyes.

"Sarah…" Truman said. "Hun, how are you feeling."

She finally rolled her head toward him and gracefully, if the term could be used for a movement so small, opened up her eyes. "Fine," she said. "Weak, but fine."

"So," Truman said pausing nervously. "What the hell happened to you down there." He stopped again, thinking about what he had just said. "Or rather, back there."

"I don't know really. We went into the temple and we, Harry and I, found that alter room. We tried to contact the ship but there was too much static. We walked toward the hallway to see if the signal would get any clearer, then eventually we made our way back outside. But the Lady Grey was nowhere to be seen."

"But how did you…how did we find you two the way we…found you." He looked down at her. She breathed a heavy sigh, and closed her eyelids tightly. "If you don't want to talk about it now…"

"No," she stopped him. "It's okay." She spoke to him as though she were replaying the images in her mind and simply told him what she saw. As though she were in a trance, a hypnotized patient recalling the events of some as yet unlocked past. "We sat in the shuttle for hours. Trying to find any sign of what had happened. I was the one who noticed the energy readings. They were coming from between Charon and Pluto. We were going to take the shuttle up. But…"

Truman laid an anxious hand upon her forehead.

"Something happened to Harry. He changed. He had been outside tuning the sensors. When he came back he was more aggressive. Angry. He wanted us to wait. We began to fight. He pushed me. I hit the control panel. The air began to escape. We both got our helmets on just before it was all gone. He started chasing me. I don't know why, but I ran toward the temple, the only place I felt that I could be safe. The alter room. I hid inside there. I shot at him and he retreated toward the corner. Then I saw…something. Something else."

"What?"

"I don't know. But it touched me," she said while opening her eyes again. Truman could tell it ended here. Her face told him either that she could not remember what had happened next, or if she did remember, she wasn't going to tell him. "The next thing I can remember was you looking into my face. That's it."

"Hmm…" was all that Truman could muster.

"Mom," she said. "How's momma doing?"

"Fine. She must be worried sick by now I can imagine. First her only daughter disappears then her husband goes looking for her and he disappears as well. She's had better days I'm sure."

"Yeah," she said knowingly. "That she has. I don't want her to worry too much."

"She'll be okay. Your mother's pretty strong. Just like her daughter," he said smiling. "Besides. Don't worry. I'll get you home."

"I won't be holding my breath."

"And what's that supposed t mean?" Truman said in a still joking tone.

"I don't take you at heart with most of the promises you make is all."

Suddenly he turned serious.

"Now this is the real Sarah I know. The one who can't talk to her father for more than five minute before they both find themselves in an argument."

"Sorry."

"No you're not," he said. "You just can't forgive me can you?"

"Well," she began. "You think I haven't spoken to you all this time because I've been busy. That I lived halfway across the solar system because I needed a little 'space'?"

"This is about your brother I know Sarah. But he wouldn't want you to be carrying on this way."

"How do you know. You didn't care about him when he was alive. Me too for that matter." She turned her head slowly. Her eyes looking into his. They semed to burn with the fire up genuine bitterness fueled by hatred. "You wouldn't know what he wanted. You didn't even know him. You don't know me."

He began to launch in a tirade. It was funny in a strange sense how easily they had fallen back into their usual roles. Neither time nor actions could seem to mend these wounds. How could they, he supposed, when all they had done was bottle up their feelings instead of working them out? Perhaps the stubbornness she displayed was just as much a trait of her father's as it was her mother's.

"I'm going to get back to the bridge." Truman said floating across the room. The doors to the medical bay hissed open. "If you need anything, let me know." He exited the room.

Sarah lay there, not realizing what she had really just said. All she knew was that she hurt. That she had hurt for the last six years, and seeing him again only awakened the anger within her.

"You know…" she heard a voice say from across the room. It was Henrickson. He held a bundle of bandages in his arms. One roll floated away as he nervously floated toward her. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop. Kristal needed some more bandages. Mine are coming off a little too."

"It's alright…"

"Henrickson's the name, by the way." He pivoted his body then pushed off the floor and headed for the door. They hissed open again. "Access hatch from the ceiling. That's how I got in by the way." He exited to the hallway. "It's not really my place to pry," he said turning quickly, overcoming the hesitation he obviously had been feeling. "Your father's a pretty good guy. He's got his problems like everybody else. But he's a good guy."

"If you only knew the half of it you wouldn't be saying that. Trust me."

"Maybe so." Henrickson said turning down the hallway again. "But he did give up everything on Earth, his wife included, to come find you didn't he?"

The doors hissed closed, leaving Sarah to herself. The thoughtful words seemed to reverberate within her mind.

THE ENTRY

"Alright, let's do this," Henrickson said. He sat at the main pilot's chair at the conn.

"Kobayashi" Truman said into the microphone of the headphone he wore. "Power her up."

"Aye sir," a disembodied electronic voice replied. Truman could hear the nervousness even after it had traveled through miles of wires of the Valkerie.

The ship had been on minimum power for the last twenty-four hours. Heat had been kept low; any non-essential ships systems were left on stand-by. Even the medical bay where Sarah and a few others lay incapacitated was left to barely enough power to face an emergency if there was one.

Slowly the ship seemed to creak, and pop, like some old athlete who thought he was still young enough to run without stretching first. Truman could hear the stress as inertia-filled metal twisted and stretched.

"Okay," he said in a low, hopefully inaudible breath. "This ought to be interesting"

The trajectory that Richardson has extrapolated took then just above the thin ring of ice and rock that circled the planet. Truman could see how lovely it really was. A green hue from the planet lit his face and cast the bridge in a soft emerald light. A thin black shadow from the ring traced a path across the surface. He couldn't believe he was seeing something so magnificent--so beautiful. And still what he could concentrate on the most was his life--and the fact that it could possibly be ending any moment.

Attenuating engines fired.

"I've plotted a landing site here" Richardson said pointing to a small red circle on the holo-globe representation of the planet. "Was reading an energy spike of some sort there."

"Then there is where we are going to go," Truman finished.

Henrickson piloted the ship slowly toward the planet. It's nose tilting slightly down. "I don't think I'm going to like this."

***

The Valkerie hit the planet's atmosphere with a sharp, sudden jolt. Her hull buckled as immediately it began to feel the strain of the pressure that were sure to only be beginning. Her nose pulled up slightly. The bottom side of the hull was beginning to glow a dull red. Re-entry was the event the crew was most sure that the ship could have withstood under normal circumstance. But these weren't normal circumstances. The hull had already been compromised, the nano-manufactured metals had already been strained well beyond whatever tests the scientists and engineers had designed it for. She began to burn white hot.

The Valkerie broke through the clouds. Truman couldn't make out the surface from the forward display. He, along with the rest of the crew shook violently in their seats. He just hoped that Sarah would be okay.

Smoke. It filled the bridge. The ground rushed below them at incredible speeds. Truman could hear the engines attempting to power down. But judging from the way things looked, they might not have had enough time to stop.

The ground rushed at them closer. Faster.

Trees. They skimmed the canopy of thick growth, snapping a path of foliage as they fell from the sky. Large wooden giants broke like toothpicks.

"Hold on everyone," Truman shouted at the top of his lungs. "Prepare for…"

Impact.

THE SECOND AWAKENING

They stood over Jenna again. This time though they had bodies. She could see them--perceive them with her five senses. Yet she still could not move. It was from exhaustion and not any type of restraint she noticed, not feeling anything of the sort around her wrists or legs.

She heard their voices clearly. Ancient. Different. Garbled. Clear. She heard them all. And what was stranger, she understood them

"She is almost ready," one of them said. She looked toward him but couldn't make him out under the lighting of the room.

"Yes," another voice said. "It is almost time."

Yet another voice came from the back of the room.

"Very well. It begins."

To be continued…