by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Voyage of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
The idea of anti-noise defrag couplers may have been completely fake, something that the two dogs had invented as a way to trick the Zakonraptors into letting them steal the device used for shrinking all those poor, hapless creatures to a microscopic scale, but Lt. Lee really did have an idea for how to make it work better. If the creatures — or anything else one might want to shrink — were encased in a hyperspatial slipstream, then the folds of that field would protect anything within them from the natural decay that happened when they came into contact with matter still obeying the normal laws of physics. It wasn’t a permanent solution, as hyperspatial slipstreams require a great deal of energy to sustain. However, if one could shrink an object like, say, a spaceship, even for only a short time, then it would be possible to apply an external force to that object and — because of its effectively lowered mass — propel it as a much higher velocity than would otherwise be possible.
Higher velocity.
That’s right.
Higher speed.
If they could shrink the Wanderlust and then hit it with an external force, they could send the ship flying towards the Milky Way much, much faster than would be possible without the effects of shrinking.
So, while Lt. Lee worked on locating Lys, so she could be teleported back to safety on the Wanderlust, Lt. Diaz was kept plenty busy finishing up wiring the shrinking device into the Wanderlust’s zephyr drive. She’d gotten some of the work done while keeping the Zakonraptors distracted from Lt. Lee’s machinations, but it was a complicated device and, of course, none of it had been designed to interface with Tri-Galactic Union technology.
Tri-Galactic Union spaceships were beautiful, sleek, innovative designs. Elegant, even. But they weren’t designed well for playing nicely with outside pieces of technology. Lt. Diaz supposed they were kind of like the Tri-Galactic Union itself that way. Beautiful and idealistic. Idealized. But when they came into contact with the dirty, ragged, day-to-day rest of the universe, well, sometimes there were casualties. Because if you weren’t willing to play by the Tri-Galactic Union’s rules, then they’d rather argue you to death in the cold vacuum of space than ever compromise.
Lt. Diaz believed in compromise. And right now, that meant breaking off pieces of less essential Wanderlust systems so that she could splice, solder, and otherwise mutilate them into working as adapters between the zephyr drive and the Zakonraptor shrinking device. Because if they were going to use the device to shrink an entire spaceship, it was going to need way more power than the Zakonraptor scientists had been using to shrink down individual animals to microscopic sizes.
For better and worse, the Zakonraptors had already done quite a bit of damage with the work they’d been doing, trying to strip the Wanderlust down for parts. So, there were plenty of broken pieces already strewn around to work with. It would be hell fixing this all back up later, but also, it would give the Xolo-Lupinian something to do. She hadn’t managed to care about any hobbies, but she did enjoy engineering work. And there’d be plenty of repair work called for if they survived and managed to get the Wanderlust back on the road to the Milky Way.
“I found her!” Lt. Lee suddenly declared, his fluffy fountain of a tail wagging behind him.
“She’s still alive?” Lt. Diaz woofed urgently, immediately laying down the tools she’d been using.
“Her life signs wouldn’t have shown up on the scan if she weren’t,” Lt. Lee woofed, sounding less encouraging than either of them would have liked. The truth was, even though he could vouch for her being alive, the Papillon had no idea what kind of state she was in. “I’ve teleported her directly to her cot in the barracks. Whatever state she’s in, I figure she’s better off there than lying on the teleporter pad.
“Yes,” Lt. Diaz agreed. “We can worry about conserving power when we get out of here. What about the rest of the Wanderlust crew? And have you seen any sign of the Zakonraptors being aware of what we’re doing?”
“The rest of our crew is all clustered together on the planet’s surface. I can have them back here momentarily…” For a few beats, the Papillon was too busy working the control panel to say anything. And when he looked up again, his small muzzle had split into the brightest grin Lt. Diaz had ever seen. That pretty little dog could melt a polar ice cap with his smile. It was a crime that the universe hadn’t been giving him more reasons to smile lately. But right now, he had a really good reason…
All around them, quantum energy fizzed and sparkled, glowing golden and coalescing into familiar forms — seven of them, ranging in size from smaller than the Papillon to nearly as big as the Xolo-Lupinian herself. The smallest one was Cmdr. Chestnut the golden-mantled squirrel, and the largest was Captain Carroway the fluffy, angry-looking Norwegian Forest cat.
“It took you long enough, Lt. Lee,” Captain Carroway snapped, immediately locking eyes with the beaming dog. His tail was wagging fast enough to power a motorboat.
“Yes, Captain,” Lt. Lee woofed, completely unbothered by his feline captain’s cantankerous demeanor.
Lt. Diaz’s brown eyes narrowed watching the interaction. Something had shifted inside the Xolo-Lupinian during the last few hours as her mind had blended with the Papillon’s. She understood the captain better somehow, and the way the cat capriciously flipped between friendliness and gruffness didn’t seem so strange and fake. Foreign perhaps, but not offensively so. Simply a different way of being.
“Catch me up,” Captain Carroway meowed, her gaze shifting between the two dogs and then moving outward to take in the wreckage that had been made of her previously pristine engine room. The rest of her crew stood awkwardly where they’d materialized, each of them waiting for whatever orders she might give, contingent on what Lt. Lee and Lt. Diaz had to tell her.
The two dogs looked at each other, each trying to assess who should tell the tale. For a moment, Lt. Diaz almost missed being able to share her thoughts with Lt. Lee, but then the Papillon extended a paw towards her in a gesture clearly indicating she should take the floor.
“Risqua betrayed us,” Lt. Diaz said, the words burning as she spoke them. Technically, the reptile-bird had betrayed them all, but the Xolo-Lupinian had fallen for her lies the hardest. “She turned the Wanderlust over to a Zakonraptor research base. We’re still inside it, trapped in docking clamps.”
Captain Carroway’s tufted ears flattened, and she glanced around herself as if she almost expected Zakonraptors to come climbing out of the walls.
“We teleported all the Zakonraptors aboard the Wanderlust as well as Risqua down to the planet’s surface,” Lt. Diaz continued. “However, the ship is in need of some repairs, and Lys may be in need of medical attention.”
At the words ‘medical attention,’ Korvax squeaked with worry and Ensign Mike’s toadstool cap head tilted forward. The toadstool officer’s row of slit-like eyes blinked, and they asked, “Where is she?”
“I teleported her directly to her cot in the barracks, and we haven’t had a chance to check on her yet,” Lt. Lee barked.
The toadstool officer scurried off quickly toward the barracks without another word. They’d saved Lys’s life once before, and they didn’t want to see their good work undone. Korvax followed along squeaking and chittering, “Oh, poor child! I’m coming for you! Hold on, little one! Your Korvax is coming to take care of you!”
Lt. Diaz and Lt. Lee shared a look. They’d both experienced first hand now the amused forbearance Lys felt about the way that Korvax coddled and babied her. She loved him very much, as he’d been her caretaker since she was just a tiny squiggle of a caterpillar, but she was old enough now to see how overprotective he could be.
Ensign Melbourne took advantage of the interruption to step toward Lt. Lee and place a ghost-white paw on the Papillon’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you again,” the tomcat meowed.
After sharing thoughts for so many hours with Lt. Lee, Lt. Diaz wasn’t at all surprised to see the Papillon pull the lanky white tomcat toward him into an awkward side hug. The Papillon closed his eyes, enjoying the moment, and the white cat’s whiskers rose in a very pleased grin.
Captain Carroway and the two Morphicans looked unimpressed by this public display of affection, but Cmdr. Chestnut’s face brightened. The golden-mantled squirrel looked positively delighted, and it caused Lt. Diaz to remember and think about how much he had encouraged his crew to stop and find joy in every moment they could when he was the captain of the Last Chance. Sometimes he and Maple — the only other squirrel in the crew and the other officer who had died due to Captain Carroway’s choices — had very nearly made a game of finding happiness in the smallest things possible, almost competing for who could find the most genuine happiness in the most minimal, barely noticeable minutia.
Once Maple had noticed the lovely way that the light fell in a particular corner of the bridge of the Last Chance, and she’d synthesized a small prism to hang there. The crystal had cast little rainbows across the control panels whenever there was a sun shining on the main viewscreen, and so Maple had turned her moment of small, private delight into a lasting source of happiness for others as well.
At least, it had lasted until the Last Chance was destroyed by Captain Carroway’s choices, and Maple had died.
Lt. Diaz hadn’t thought about that prism in months. She would’ve bet her right front paw though that Cmdr. Chestnut thought about it every day. The Xolo-Lupinian felt abashed by her previous callousness to her friends and their own mourning. Maybe she would look for some places to hang prisms in the Wanderlust when they were back on their way. In memory of Maple. She was sure Cmdr. Chestnut would like that.
“So, we need to repair the ship and escape from a Zakonraptor research base,” Captain Carroway summed up. “Do we know how long we have before the Zakonraptors become aware of the fact that we’ve taken back the ship?”
“It’s hard to know for sure,” Lt. Lee woofed, “but so far as I can tell, the Zakonraptors simply don’t have teleportation technology of their own, and I had our teleporter disable any communications devices that the invaders of our ship had on them when they were beamed down to the planet. So, as long as no one aboard the base was expecting them to check in, the fact that we’ve retaken the Wanderlust may go undetected for a while.”
“They certainly don’t seem to have noticed so far,” Lt. Diaz woofed drily. “But we should still get moving on our plan as fast as we can.”
“There’s a plan?” Captain Carroway meowed, sounding intrigued. “Do tell.”
“There is,” Lt. Lee confirmed soberly, his tail slowing behind him. “But you’re not going to believe it.”
“I just watched a moon crack open and a giant turtle came out,” Captain Carroway countered. “Try me.”
So, the two canines explained their wacky plan to Captain Carroway. To her credit, the Norwegian Forest cat kept a straight face all the way through. Cmdr. Chestnut and Ensign Melbourne didn’t do so well — there was definite smirking from the tomcat and at least one chuckle from the golden-mantled squirrel. The rabbit-like Morphicans merely looked at each other in sheer bewilderment.
To be fair, it was a far-fetched plan. But Lt. Diaz still hoped that it could lead to their ship being far-flung across this galaxy. If they could just reach the far side of the Tetra Galaxy, the Wanderlust could take the wormhole-like nexus passageway there back to Ursa Dentatus, and it would be a short trip from that galaxy through a second nexus back to the Milky Way. Just two hop-skips and a jump, and Lt. Diaz could go home to Lupinia again. She could see her parents and brother. She could tell Wilder’s family that he had been brave until the end.
“So, what do you think?” Lt. Lee woofed nervously when they’d finished explaining the plan. “Can we try it?”
“Can you shrink my ship down to the size of…” Captain Carroway trailed off, waving a paw for some help from the officers who’d presented the plan. “The size of what?”
“A grain of salt?” Lt. Diaz suggested, running a few quick calculations in her head. “Yes, I think that’s about the size we’d end up.”
Captain Carroway shook her head disbelievingly. But when she spoke again, the cat said, “You want to know if you can shrink my ship down to the size of a grain of salt, explode an entire moon around it like the explosion in the barrel of a gun, and launch us halfway across a galaxy before bringing us back to a normal size. Is that right?”
“I’m not sure the explosion in a gun happens in its barrel,” Ensign Melbourne meowed.
“Oh, who cares,” Captain Carroway meowed back, right over him.
Meanwhile, Lt. Vossie muttered, “Guns are primitive, dangerous technologies anyway. A part of pre-uplift history best left forgotten.”
“That’s rich coming from someone armed with a blazor right now,” the white tomcat pointed out, gesturing at the weapon strapped to the rabbit’s hip.
The Morphican, however, merely rolled his eyes in response and smoothed out one of his long ears. He didn’t have to state his arguments out loud. They were all far too obvious.
“Yeah, okay,” Ensign Melbourne admitted pre-emptively, knowing he’d been defeated without the rabbit having said a single word. “You’re right — blazors are far more civilized, controllable pieces of technology with a lot more different uses. I just get excited about antique, human artifacts. Even the ones that probably should have never existed.”
Before the captain could regroup enough from this tangent to make a final pronouncement on the miniaturization plan, Korvax’s pointy snout poked around the open door to the engine room and squeaked: “She’s okay! Lys is okay, everyone! Just a few cuts and scrapes that Ensign Mike is taking care of — oh, that toadstool fellow is such a good doctor! So, you can all relax now!”
Then the hedgehog alien turned his prickly back to the officers gathered in the engine room and scurried off again, presumably back to Lys’s side. His priorities in all of this were perfectly clear.
The Norwegian Forest cat captain sighed deeply, and at first, Lt. Diaz thought she was expressing annoyance at Korvax’s single-minded tunnel vision, only focused on Lys and not the overall situation they were in. But then, remembering the way that Lys had felt about Captain Carroway, the Xolo-Lupinian found herself reassessing the cat’s reaction. Her deep sigh might have expressed mild annoyance with Korvax, but the Norwegian Forest cat also looked genuinely relieved to hear Lys was okay.
Maybe it was a remarkable thing worth valuing that this fluffy feline was willing and able to take in stray travelers and officers from an enemy vessel and treat them as much like full members of her crew as if they’d all trained at the Tri-Galactic Union academy and earned positions on the Wanderlust in a more typical way. As much as Lt. Diaz admired Cmdr. Chestnut and kind of resented that he’d willingly taken a demotion to work under this cat, she had to admit that the golden-mantled squirrel — for all his strengths — probably couldn’t have done as good of a job at keeping this ragtag crew together and moving forward as Captain Carroway had done.
Just as Lt. Diaz was beginning to feel really good about Captain Carroway for the first time — like deeply grateful that the cat had carried them all this far and would actually get them home one day, hopefully one day soon — the Norwegian Forest cat drew another deep breath, shook her fluffy head ever so slightly, and announced, “It’s just too risky. Everyone, get to work on fixing up the ship, and start figuring out other options for getting us out of here. We need a new plan, and we need it fast.” She gestured at different officers and sent them to different parts of the ship to begin assessing the situation for themselves, and once everyone had their orders, concluded, “I’ll be on the bridge.”
Lt. Diaz was stunned. It had never even occurred to her that Captain Carroway might simply and straightforwardly veto her and Lt. Lee’s brilliant plan.
Continue on to Chapter 16…