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.
Meanwhile, in the engine room, Captain Carroway kept pressing Ensign Diaz, gently but firmly, to think harder. They needed a way to help the Waykeeper, while also escaping from the incoming fleet of Zakonraptors themselves.
The wolf-like officer kept insisting it couldn’t be done. The fur on her hackles had raised, and a growl crept into her voice as she countered every one of Captain Carroway’s proposals. The Norwegian Forest cat’s suggestions barely deserved the word ‘proposals.’ It was more like she kept rattling off the basic specs of The Wanderlust — electron torpedoes, blazor canons, lumo-projectors. None of it was useful or inspiring, and Ensign Diaz felt increasingly wild and angry listening to the cat pressure her.
“No matter how well-armed we are,” Ensign Diaz snapped, “we’re one vessel, and there’s a whole fleet coming! You’ve already had the whole crew brainstorm. Why are you pestering me like this? I’m not a miracle worker.”
“I don’t believe you,” Captain Carroway meowed. “And based on how Commander Chestnut talks about you, I don’t think he’d believe you either.”
“You don’t believe me that I’m not a miracle worker,” Ensign Diaz woofed in a stunned tone. This big fluffy cat was unbelievable. She seemed to think that if she just stood by her ideals, everything in the universe would fall into place for her.
The universe didn’t work like that. At least, it never had for Ensign Diaz.
“What about the vacuum bomb idea?” Captain Carroway pressed. “The suggestion from last time–” The Norwegian Forest cat pedaled one of her forepaws in the air, like she was trying to pull a memory back to her.
“What? The thing about firing the vacuum bomb so that it dissipates across the Waykeeper’s hyperspatial slipstream? That was always a crazy suggestion.”
Captain Carroway’s pointed ears flickered, wanting to flatten in irritation at this Xolo-Lupinian who didn’t even seem to be trying. But instead, she held them upright, and she stared the wolf-like officer down.
It was a moment of patience, a moment that could so easily have not happened, so easily have gone in a different direction.
But it went this way.
And Ensign Diaz stared right back at Captain Carroway, wanting to chew her out and complain more to this rule-follower who had fired the exact same vacuum bomb they were still discussing at a sun only a few days ago, killing one of her best friends. The wolf-like officer wanted to give Captain Carroway a real piece of her mind, lecture her about the natural wonders of Lupinia and how it was cats and dogs like Carroway who were causing that lovely world to be destroyed by Reptassan colonizers who’d moved in and begun strip-mining beautiful forests.
But Captain Carroway wouldn’t care.
Lupinia was galaxies away.
And suddenly, a spark flashed in Ensign Diaz’s mind. A connection drew between the idea of firing the vacuum bomb into the Waykeeper’s hyperspatial slipstream and the fact that, somehow, firing that same vacuum bomb only a few days ago had thrown two spaceships halfway across the cosmos.
But it was impossible.
Ensign Diaz didn’t even know where to begin, trying to calculate how the power of a vacuum bomb, interacting with the Waykeeper’s slipstream, could echo in a patch of space several galaxies away…
Except, that wasn’t true. Mathematical equations started pouring through Ensign Diaz’s head, and she could barely turn toward a computer console and begin typing numbers and variables with her paws fast enough.
Captain Carroway watched the Xolo-Lupinian work with the smugness that only a cat can express. Her whiskers rose with the Cheshire smile curling its way across her muzzle.
The moment had passed, and now, The Wanderlust and her crew were set on a course Lys had chosen for them.
Ensign Diaz finished her calculations and shook her head, disbelieving her own work, right in front of her, staring back at her. “It’s not possible,” she woofed softly to herself.
But of course Captain Carroway heard. The Norwegian Forest cat was standing right beside the Xolo-Lupinian, watching her work, failing to understand all the mathematical equations now written on the computer screen but still gamely continuing to try. “What’s not possible?” she asked softly, barely a whisper.
Ensign Diaz continued to stare at the mathematical equations covering the computer screen as she spoke, almost as if she were talking directly to the work she’d been doing and not answering the captain at all: “If we fire the vacuum bomb directly into the path of the Waykeeper, it will… flinch? To change course and avoid the explosion. But since it travels by way of hyperspatial slipstream… it doesn’t flinch or, uh, change course, rather, in the same way as any other vessel…”
Ensign Diaz’s soft woofing tone was raising in volume, getting more excited and confident as she talked her way through the calculations she’d just done. Suddenly, the Xolo-Lupinian turned toward the Norwegian Forest cat beside her. Ensign Diaz narrowed her eyes and looked Captain Carroway directly in the face. “I can get us home,” she woofed, tail wagging behind her.
“Really?” Captain Carroway breathed, too surprised and emotional to put any real voice into the word.
“Yes,” Ensign Diaz confirmed, but then a look of uncertainty flickered across her face, skewing her muzzle into a frown and causing her bat-like ears to flag. “I think so. Let me double-check.”
Ensign Diaz’s paws returned to the computer console and flew over it like they had a life and mind of their own, like she was playing a concert piano, or maybe like her paws were dancers and the equations she was writing were the steps of their dance.
Captain Carroway watched Ensign Diaz’s paws fly with bated breath, almost afraid that if she breathed, it would make the Xolo-Lupinian’s discovery disappear. The equations were so delicate, a single breath might melt them, like snowflakes in a beam of sun.
But Lys had chosen this reality.
The Wanderlust and Waykeeper were set on a course, and nothing Captain Carroway did at this point could change that.
Ensign Diaz shook her head again. “I can’t believe it,” she woofed. “I just can’t believe it.”
“What?” Captain Carroway asked. “What can’t you believe?”
At this point, a small crowd had gathered at the entrance to the engine room, eagerly watching the captain and engineer. Ensign Melbourne was still on the bridge, piloting the ship, with Ensign Werik working a support console and Lt. Cmdr. Vossie manning the captain’s chair. But Ensign Risqua and Lt. Lee, along with Commander Chestnut, were all crowded at the mouth of the engine room, watching what was happening between the Norwegian Forest cat and Xolo-Lupinian.
“We have a choice,” Ensign Diaz said, turning firmly away from the equations she’d just written. “If we fire that vacuum bomb into the Waykeeper’s path, we can cause this whole world turtle to flinch in one of several directions.”
“What is the choice?” Captain Carroway asked, a gulf hollowing out inside her as she realized: whatever the choice was, it would fall on her shoulders.
“The Waykeeper’s hyperspatial slipstream is extremely powerful,” Ensign Diaz intoned, sounding like she was speaking down to a child, presumably for the captain’s benefit. “And the explosion of a vacuum bomb is extremely powerful too.”
“Yes, of course,” Captain Carroway agreed impatiently. Fortunately, her patience was no longer necessary. The moment of realization had passed. All that was left was for the players on the board to play out their parts, exactly as Lys had seen they would, before they passed far enough into the future that the many threads she’d seen would become tangled again, indecipherable to her.
“Combining those two powers was strong enough to fling two vessels across the cosmos, bringing us here,” Ensign Diaz woofed. “I’ve calculated paths that would allow us to travel back home, while also flinging the Zakonraptors in the opposite direction–”
“Excellent!” Captain Carroway exclaimed, feeling a rush of joy that she hadn’t expected. It was wonderful to be exploring the universe, and she probably wouldn’t keep her captain’s chair long once they got home.
But they would be home.
Except, then, Ensign Diaz explained the alternative.
“–or we could fire the vacuum bomb in a slightly different direction across the Waykeeper’s path, and the force from the vacuum bomb and the flinching would be applied to.. well… a different object.”
“What object?” Captain Carroway asked, her ears splaying in confusion. She couldn’t imagine what object would be more worth moving than their own ship and the Zakonraptor fleet.
“Lupinia,” Ensign Diaz answered.
And standing in the doorway to the engine room, Commander Chestnut gasped.
Continue on to Chapter 29…