Wanderer - Origins

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Just one hour till the journey would be finished. One hour until Jess finally reached the Wanderer’s home system. The Wanderer’s excitement at the prospect washed over Jess, adding to his own.

He could hardly believe they were so close. It felt like years since the Wanderer had first expressed its desire to return home. In fact it was just a few weeks, but so much had happened in that time it felt far longer.

Jess found himself wondering just what they would find. The system was close to the Empire’s northernmost edge but isolated by disturbances in jump space. The journey in jump space would take only a few days, if it was possible, but in real space it would take thousands of years. The Empire would never have made any efforts to reach the star, especially as to them it was just one amongst tens of thousands of nearby but unreachable stars.

The Wanderer wasn’t any help. Other than the location it had no memories of the home system. That didn’t stop it feeling a powerful drive to return. A drive that Jess had awakened. Amazingly, the Wanderer had been around for tens of thousands of years, but for much of that time its personality had lain dormant, lobotomised. Jess had done something that hundreds of captains before him had failed to do. He allowed the Wanderer to become whole again. And the Wanderer wanted to see its home.

Until escaping on the Wanderer, Jess’s experience of the universe had been limited to prison cells, prisoner transports and work locations which were almost inevitably poorly lit, dirty or downright dangerous — and often a combination of all three. His spirit would have been crushed years before if it hadn’t been for the storytellers.

The storytellers had been the one bright light in his life. Some read from books but most knew their stories by heart. Tales of magic and princesses, of pirates and space battles, of horrors in the night. Some storytellers claimed they themselves had been there, that they had once been mighty but had been brought low by treachery or a misplaced love. Such claims were greeted with scepticism by the prisoners, but the stories were still welcomed.

Sometimes Jess had been lucky and had been around a storyteller for several weeks. Other times months went by without seeing one, but it didn’t matter. As a young boy Jess drank in every story they told. During the spells with no storyteller he remembered the stories he’d been told and made up his own, stories of wonder and valour.

As he tried to picture what the Wanderer’s system might be like he found many of those old memories returning. Would he find mighty space fortresses hewn out of asteroids? Would there be a wide web of delicate structures, woven together? Maybe the planets themselves would be tamed, every planet teeming with life. The possibilities seemed endless.

Even more tantalising were his thoughts about the Wanderer’s creators. What would that race be like? How would they react to the Wanderer’s return, and to Jess being the captain? Had they even survived? Jess felt as much trepidation as excitement, but his course was set. In just under an hour he would get the answer to all his questions, whether he liked them or not.

Just a few minutes now. Jess’s stomach was churning and sweat had broken out on his brow. He still worried over what reception he would receive, but that jostled with new worries.

What if the Wanderer was wrong and the journey didn’t finish? Could he be stuck in this exotic tunnel through space for days? Months? Years? Even if he did eventually get clear, he could be a lifetime’s flight away from any human worlds even without jump space disruption preventing a straight flight.

The idea that the tunnel would be ending soon scared him almost as much. He had no idea how the tunnel would end, or if the Wanderer would be able to survive. At the entrance space itself had been dragged into the tunnel. It almost seemed to be the tunnel. But at the other end space within the tunnel would be pouring out into an existing area of space. What forces might be unleashed? Would space itself buckle and fracture?

He’d find out soon enough. The Wanderer was at least in much better shape than before, though nowhere near fully repaired. Thrusters, shields and jump drives were partly operational. The ship could manoeuvre, take some damage and even jump to safety.

The sharp spike of an alert ran through Jess’s mind. The Wanderer had spotted something. Jess focused in on the area of concern.

The tunnel! Its walls were starting to flex and buckle. Not enough to endanger the Wanderer yet, but it couldn’t be a good sign. Then the Wanderer detected something ahead. An area of space that was moving slowly closer rather than keeping pace with the Wanderer.

The patch of still space suddenly leapt towards the Wanderer. Before Jess knew it the Wanderer was being tossed around like a cork in rough seas. Several structural warnings competed for his attention. Other, more minor, warnings were queueing up behind them.

The ship lurched again as its front end was shoved to the side. Now the Wanderer was travelling sideways. Jess tried to correct but the thrusters were having no effect. They were firing, but something about the environment of the tunnel was neutralising them.

Jess was thrown against his straps as the Wanderer crashed into something. Alarms screamed for his attention at the massive deceleration. What had they hit? There was nothing around as far as the Wanderer’s sensors could tell.

Jess shouted out as another massive blow struck the Wanderer. More alarms came on. Mostly stress overload warnings from within the ship. Jess checked again but there was still nothing to be found.

Another thought sent ice down his spine. The Wanderer was being slowed down. Could it end up being stranded within the tunnel forever? Or until the tunnel collapsed, crushing the Wanderer?

He checked the Wanderer’s speed against the surrounding walls. To his surprise the walls seemed to be holding still. The Wanderer was travelling at the same speed they were. Was that a good thing, though? Or could it mean the tunnel was about to collapse, taking Jess and the Wanderer with it?

He checked the distance to what seemed to be the end of the tunnel. It looked close now, but it was no longer drawing closer. The Wanderer was stranded. Jess poured power into the thrusters again, focusing on trying to move at all rather than straightening the ship. It still had no effect.

Jess was getting desperate. He could only think of one other thing to try. The jump engines. He wasn’t sure they’d even work in this strange place, or what would happen if they did.

Even as he had the thought he felt the Wanderer urging him not to fire up the engines. The ship was convinced it would be a bad idea. Jess wasn’t so certain. Things were desperate. He needed to try something drastic.

Wham. The Wanderer shook as something struck it once more. Jess hardly noticed. He was studying the oncoming patch of normal space in disbelief. One moment it had been close but not that close. The next it was much closer, seeming almost close enough to touch.

Jess checked the recent sensor logs, focusing on how far away the patch of real space seemed. Sure enough, every time the Wanderer experienced crushing deceleration the patch of real space had leapt closer. It was completely counter-intuitive, but it was clearly happening.

Crash! This was the worst so far. The Wanderer picked up a tumbling spin and Jess fought hard to get the ship back under control. It was only as he stabilised the Wanderer that he realised what was wrong with that. The Wanderer’s thrusters had made no difference at all before. Now they worked perfectly!

Jess checked for the tunnel’s walls. He was shocked to find they were gone. The Wanderer had returned to real space. He caught a slight disruption in space behind the Wanderer. He could only tell it was the end point of the tunnel because he knew what to look for.

Then realisation struck him. He had arrived at the Wanderer’s home! He reached out with the ship’s sensors, wanting to drink in every facet of the system. Finally he would know.

The information started to be collated and Jess scanned through it with increasing urgency. Weight settled on his chest, making it hard to breathe. He couldn’t believe what the sensors were showing, or rather what they weren’t showing. Other than the star there was nothing in the system. No planets. No asteroid belts. No stations. No ships. Nothing.

He shook his head in denial. It couldn’t be true. Everything he’d been through, the pain and heartache, the friends he had lost on the way, all of it had been for nothing. All of that so he could reach this empty system. Jess slumped in his chair, head held in his hands, too numb to react. Overwhelmed by the turn of events.