He faintly heard someone shouting his name. By degrees, Maddox became aware that Meta spoke to him from her comm unit.

  Maddox looked down. Below him were shredded pieces that had been Omegan. In his right gauntleted hand, Maddox held the broken monofilament sword. He had not only killed the thing, he had utterly sliced, diced and made it into little pieces.

  Maddox found that he was panting and could hardly stand. He staggered, then Meta rushed to him.

  “Drop your sword, Captain Maddox.”

  He did.

  Meta put an armored arm around his metal waist and assisted him down the corridor.

  “I’m blanking out, love,” he said.

  “Hang on, Captain.”

  He did hang on. Perhaps no other voice could have pulled him back from his berserk state in underspace. The dear voice of Meta, the unique and delightful voice that at times he took for granted, but now he realized her voice could pierce his thoughts when no other could. She was his love.

  Before Maddox blanked out, he realized Meta was a gift from God. Even as he faded mentally, even as Meta marched him down the corridors, he said, “Thank you, God, for the gift you’ve given me.”

  Then Maddox blanked out.

  -70-

  Maddox came to as he felt his body slam back. He became aware of armored hands clicking restraints into place around him.

  “Meta,” he said in a weak voice.

  “Hang in there, big guy,” she said. “We’re almost out of this.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re on my fold fighter, mate,” Keith said. “I had to take it out a few times and blow up some enemy assault craft coming in. I’m out of ammunition, but now it doesn’t matter.”

  Even as Keith spoke, the fold fighter slid out from where it had been parked.

  Meta hurried, grabbed her seat, and quickly settled into it. Her restraints had been torn free earlier. She locked her fingers around the armrests and then clicked them into freeze position.

  “Get ready to fold!” Keith shouted.

  On the screen, they could see small attack craft rising from the water world, Bluemar, and zooming at them.

  The tin can folded out of danger as they left the station behind and reappeared next to Victory one-eighth of a light year away from the planet.

  “Hello, hello,” Keith was saying into his comm.

  Galyan appeared inside the ship. “Did you do it?”

  “We did it all right,” Keith said.

  “Sir,” Galyan said, looking at Maddox, “are you well?”

  “He’s extremely tired,” Meta said. “Leave him be for the moment.”

  “Of course,” Galyan said. He turned back to Keith. “Get the tin can in the starship. The enemy saucers are heading toward us. We must leave if we can.”

  Keith piloted the tin can into Victory, landing without a bump. Klaxons rang all over the hangar bay.

  “Who’s piloting the starship?” Keith asked.

  “We need you at the helm,” Galyan said. “People are zoning out. I have discovered part of the reason. The Inkari are beaming us with a physic ray from Bluemar. We could not put up the shield until you returned.”

  “Put up the shield now,” Maddox said. He’d shaken off his funk.

  In his battlesuit, Maddox tore off the seat restraints, stood, and clanked into the hangar bay.

  In short order, he clanked through the corridors for the bridge. By the time he reached it, they were engaged in battle with the foremost saucer ships. The enemy’s ray at this extreme distance hadn’t done much damage to the shield, though.

  A terrific and bizarre explosion erupted from the cubic station orbiting Bluemar. The station simply winked out and the red beam from it no longer shot at underspace.

  “Look at the ruby ring,” Galyan said. “Look on the main screen, sir.”

  The main screen did not change.

  “I will show you.” Galyan waved a hand, and a holographic screen appeared before Maddox.

  He did not sit in his chair because, in the battle armor, he was too bulky. He stood, swaying, his head exposed, as he’d removed the suit’s helmet. On the holographic screen, the ruby ring started to disintegrate.

  “We launched the nanites while you were away,” Galyan said. “They are already devouring the rubies and multiplying the destructive effect. If the Inkari are able to make another dimensional drilling station any time soon, they will not have the ruby ring to power it. It will take however many millennia it took to put a new ruby ring into place.”

  “Well done, Galyan,” Maddox said.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  There was a different note in Galyan’s voice and eyes. A greater authority enveloped his holographic image. Was this due to underspace? Or had something happened in Galyan giving orders while the rest of them were under the dire influences of underspace and the Inkari psychic ray?

  Maddox nodded. As noted, the red beam no longer drilled a hole or an opening into Dimension X. Was their universe saved from the Seekers? Would they never have to worry about the evil one coming into this universe? It was a profound and interesting thought. Maddox knew they would have to find out someday, but the Prism Drive was gone. It had been used to make the multi-phase bomb.

  “Galyan,” Maddox said, “now that we’re without a Prism Drive, can you pilot the starship out of underspace?”

  “I am going to try, sir.”

  “I wonder if there’s a time differential change in using underspace,” Maddox said.

  “I have not computed such to be the case,” Galyan said. “Does something make you think it has? Is your intuitive sense speaking?”

  Maddox realized that, ever since they entered underspace, his intuitive sense had been silent. That was odd and maybe chilling. Had he lost it forever? Or was it due to the strange emanations that occurred as they were among the cogs and wheels underneath the veil, so to speak?

  “Galyan, I don’t think I can keep consciousness much longer. The ship is yours. You have the bridge.”

  Everyone else on the bridge sat in a state of stillness.

  “You have to do it, Galyan. You ran the ship once. Run it again and get us out of here.”

  There was something in Galyan’s eyes and stance that was different. The little holoimage Adok nodded. “I shall do so, Captain.”

  “Good,” Maddox said. “You are a friend indeed, and I am blessed to have you as my friend.”

  “Sir,” Galyan said, “I feel exactly the same way about you.”

  “Now,” Maddox said, “if you don’t mind, I need to retire and sleep for a good long while.”

  “Sir,” Galyan said, “I believe when you wake up next, we will be heading back to Earth.”

  -71-

  Driving Force Galyan piloted Victory through underspace, leaving Bluemar and the approaching attack saucers of the Inkari behind.

  Most of the crew had fallen into torpor. Some managed to walk to their quarters and collapse, descending into something deeper than sleep. Perhaps it was a form of stasis. The properties of underspace were eroding their consciousness and ability to think. Galyan suspected a psychic pressure that bypassed an AI’s circuits but hurt organic neurons. For once, he was glad to be different.

  Galyan kept his friends alive as he piloted the sluggish starship and made sure all the interior systems continued to function.

  One of the Inkari commanders attempted to communicate with him. “Answer! answer!” the Inkari said.

  Galyan refused. He had his hands full keeping life support working and other systems active. Three personnel became problematic, running amok with weapons. Galyan subdued them with knockout gas.

  Then, Galyan became aware of another outside eruption, though its origin eluded him. He observed the effects as the emanations from the new eruption hit the water world, Bluemar. The view became distorted, as if he looked through gauze. The planet elongated and compacted before returning to normal.

  After some analysis, Galyan suspected an issue with the ship’s sensors.

  What was the new phenomenon? It approached the starship like a ripple in space.

  Galyan’s logic centers deduced the answer: what he saw emanated from Dimension X. Since the red beam was no longer drilling from the station, nothing pushed against the microscopic rent already made. Thus, some other-dimensional substance or emanation from Dimension X distorted things in underspace in this dimension.

  What would have happened if the drill had succeeded in creating an opening the size of a Seeker? What would have poured into here from Dimension X?

  The Inkari saucer ships that had been pursuing no longer hailed Victory. Those ships fled before the dimensional ripple.

  When Galyan tried to increase the velocity, the engines didn’t respond. Something was interfering with his computer systems and possibly his cognition.

  In response, Galyan activated the emergency Builder-Adok AI core. This system differed from standard electronics. The Builder process used crystalline structures. The activation helped Galyan remain sentient and aware of his surroundings.

  Underspace was collapsing or distorting around the starship. Galyan pondered whether he could still guide the starship through the planned path to regular space.

  When the ripple from Dimension X struck Victory, Galyan couldn’t determine if it caused elongation, compaction, or just simple distortion. He felt himself flicker but managed to maintain consciousness, realizing that the ripple had pushed Victory off-course, sending it racing through underspace. The starship sped past quantum flux fields. It crashed against one and altered the trajectory. They phased or shifted higher, approaching vast geometric shapes. Galyan supposed the ship had bypassed the gravity well phase. Which event had occurred first in underspace: gravity wells or geometric objects? He couldn’t recall.

  The starship shuddered and metal squealed. Ahead lay a different field, not from Dimension X but something alien just the same.

  “What is going on?” Galyan murmured.

  He did not comprehend, but he knew the catastrophe had occurred because the emanation from Dimension X propelled them here. Would they all die in underspace, forgotten like one of the haunted ships lost in the Aquila Rift?

  As Galyan struggled to keep functioning, he realized something unsettling occurred. A force he didn’t understand affected others on the ship. The force moved through the corridors, searching, testing and seeking.

  “What are you?” Galyan asked.

  There was a pause in the search.

  Could this be what humans called dreaming? AIs don’t dream of electric sheep, and Galyan was certain this wasn’t a dream. This was happening. Why were his sensors showing distorted images?

  “Hello,” Galyan said. “If you comprehend me, communicate with me or help our starship leave.”

  Galyan thought he heard a disembodied voice, perhaps even just a thought, ask, “Leave where?”

  “To regular space,” Galyan replied.

  “Where is that?”

  This is underspace.”

  “Explain.”

  Galyan tried. “There are different parts to reality, to a universe.”

  “What is a universe?

  “Am I malfunctioning or is this—”

  “I’ve had enough of you!”

  Galyan sensed the force continuing its trajectory through the ship. Unsurprisingly, it stopped at Captain Maddox’s quarters. There was a sparkling of light in the corridor, an emanation, a wave.

  Galyan strove to understand and attempted to activate the starship’s inner defense systems. None of that helped. Everything was shutting down.

  Looking outside the starship, Galyan wondered if they were trapped in a frozen milieu.

  He had once favored underspace, believing he had an advantage here, even over Captain Maddox. But now, with the distortions from Dimension X and the loss of their Prism Drive—which they had used as a bomb—everything seemed to conspire against him. Galyan felt himself shutting down. He had failed his humans. He had failed his friends.

  “I do not want to fail. I want to succeed.”

  “Shut up,” the disembodied voice responded. “You’re distracting me.”

  “What are you?” Galyan said. “Please tell me. Help us. We are lost.”

  “Indeed,” the force said.

  Then, Galyan knew no more.

  -72-

  Captain Maddox was aware that he was no longer asleep, yet his senses seemed odd. Then he lost the sense of his own identity, and he was simply a man falling, falling, falling.

  From where did he fall? What was this place? He didn’t feel any wind resistance. He managed to turn. High up there amongst odd shapes, prisms, and things that sparkled, he saw a double oval spaceship.

  “That is a spaceship,” the falling man told himself.

  Had he come from that spaceship? If so, how had he ended up here? Was he falling or dreaming all this?

  The man, who no longer thought of himself as the one whom he had been—though he seemed to recall that he had a name—studied the double oval spaceship. Over time, the spaceship appeared to be getting smaller.

  The observation led the man to believe that he was falling farther away from it. But if he was falling, where was he falling to?

  The man twisted around as he fell, still feeling no wind resistance. He held onto the idea and saw below him a curvature. Perhaps it was the curve of a planet. He saw that the world was much smaller than Earth. It was more like a larger asteroid. Yet it was green and lush, almost like a jungle. Did that make sense?

  A force, perhaps a mental one, was being exerted upon him. Yet again, the man wondered if this was a dream. He needed to test the idea.

  The man pinched his arm with vicious force and shouted in pain. He heard his voice. He couldn’t be in a vacuum then. But what kind of substance was this? How could he be falling and yet not feel wind resistance? Could he be falling at a much slower speed than if he were on Earth or falling to Earth?

  The idea intrigued him. He deduced he was falling slowly, meaning his descent wasn’t rapid. That meant the object below him had less density or mass than Earth. Therefore, he didn’t weigh much, and his terminal velocity was much slower. With that understanding, he felt satisfaction.

  “I am figuring this out,” he told himself.

  The realization was good. He was someone accustomed to solving problems and understanding causes and effects. It was part of his identity.

  Upon examining himself, he noticed he wore a uniform, boots, and a cap. He felt something in his boot and pulled it out. “This is a monofilament blade,” he acknowledged. It could cut through everything since its edge was one molecule thick. Carefully, he returned the blade to the special sheath within his boot. He looked at his insignia. He was a captain. He remembered that much.

  “But why can’t I remember my name?” The situation was puzzling, as was the sensation of falling. What had caused it? Was there a reason?

  Looking upward, he assumed he was gazing at the sky. There was no sun, yet it was bright. The double oval starship was now tiny. He had fallen quite a distance from it.

  What did that mean? What did that represent? It was something bad, he was sure. Had he just achieved something great? There was a sense in him of elation, and yet the starship was marooned. If the starship were marooned, that would be bad for him. It was important, somehow, that he reach the starship. Yet, how could he reach up there when gravity, the little that was here, pulled him down? He would need a way to ascend back into the sky to reach that starship.

  Until he did…

  The man concentrated on the terrain below. It was much nearer now. He noticed a body of water. If he fell into that, would it be better than if he fell upon the canopy of trees or hard ground? Yes, he might break bones otherwise. If his terminal velocity was slow enough, he could presumably enter the water and it wouldn’t act like cement to him.

  Therefore, using faint memories of commando drops, he shifted himself through the air until he was over the water. Would there be aquatic creatures within? This he did not know, and he couldn’t understand how there could be such lushness to the terrain.

  Suddenly, he spotted a creature—a reptilian humanoid with a lashing tail. It held a spear, and it raised the spear to point at him. He thought he heard a roar, a sound. Was it a challenge? He believed the beast, the reptilian creature, challenged him in some manner.

  That activated something within the man, hardening his resolve. He wouldn’t let this alien destroy him, even if he was in its territory. Thus, the man braced himself for impact. The water approached much faster than before, and he realized it was because he was so much closer to it. He braced himself, pointing his boots forward, and entered the water quickly—yet not so fast that he broke his ankles or legs.

  He plunged deep, memories of swimming in his youth flooding back. Then he was swimming upward. He had reached a strange and alien place.

  Underspace, he remembered. We’re in underspace. What oddities might appear in underspace? Perhaps this was one of them.

  A quiet voice in his mind confirmed, “You are correct.”

  The man turned his head as he surfaced, taking a deep breath of air. He then began to swim for shore, wondering about the next turn of events.

  -73-

  Upon “hearing” the telepathic thought from an intelligent entity, he realized —

  “My name is Captain Maddox.”

  Maddox soon reached the grassy shore with thin trees beyond and pulled himself onto land. He wondered if he should disrobe to dry out his clothes but decided against it. He had seen the reptilian creature. The creature struck him as a warrior, as a danger. He listened to that inner part of him, wondering if he would receive another telepathic message. He did not.

  With the knowledge that he was Captain Maddox came the understanding of what had occurred. He had been on Starship Victory. They had just destroyed the terrible engine that had tried to pierce a way into Dimension X. He didn’t believe he had entered Dimension X, but they had lost the Prism Drive, which allowed the starship to maneuver through underspace phases. Galyan was trying to pilot the starship back into normal space. Perhaps the AI had gotten lost. Perhaps there had been…