UNIVERSE 69
By: Crystal Child
Chapter Two: Jump
The red alarm lights up the room, silent, but important. I rise from my bed and move to the
desk. Inside the top drawer, there are
pills. I take two.
We are about to Jump through space.
I begin the countdown from 10. I
have 10 seconds to go to one of the hooks, hanging from the ceiling, which is
only about a foot from my head in the corners.
If I’m not holding one, even the pills won’t save me from illness.
I grasp one of the hooks and look down at Tranq. Luckily, he’s still out in la-la land. People who sleep through Jumps aren’t
affected. I’m never lucky enough to
sleep during a Jump.
4…3…2…1… I lurch forward.
Outside my window, the blackness turns to streaks of light as time seems
to slow around me. The streaks explode
into a bright white. I’m lifted off the
ground as the JumpDrives turn off the Gravity systems. I close my eyes and fight the bile rising in
my throat.
We come out of Jump. It doesn’t
feel right. I lurch forward, barely
able to keep my grip on the hook. Then,
the sirens start.
~~@~~
I have a sense of dread as I exit the cabin. Something has gone wrong.
Terribly wrong. The Gravity
systems haven’t turned totally on. I’m
barely able to keep my feet on the ground and when I walk, I bounce
slightly. Tranq is coming, right behind
me, and Jay is rushing down the hall. I
see Shade, farther away, already on her way to where she can help.
I stand there, with Jay as Tranq follows Shade. Jay looks around at the people, then at me,
“Well? What can we do but stand
here? We’ve been suspended from
practically every room during emergencies.”
I nod, “Well, then. We’ll just
stand here until we’re called on.”
It isn’t a long wait.
“What the HELL are you two slackers just standing around for? C’mon.
You two can help me!” An older
guy with graying hair yells and motions for us to follow him. He’s wearing a brown uniform with a patch on
the shoulder identifying him as a member of the engine maintenance crew.
We follow him into the maintenance stairs and down two levels.
“Here. You’ll need these.” He tosses Jay and I uniforms similar to him,
“Don’t want oil on your clothes.” He
doesn’t wait for us to put them on before he moves on. He walks slowly now, checking machines, so
we have time to put on the uniforms. When
we catch up with him, he is leaning forward, rubbing his chin and looking at a
monitor.
“Ever worked the JumpDrives?”
“Uh, Sir…” Jay begins, “I think
you should know that we’ve been ba-” I
nudge him in the ribs.
“Barred from the rooms? Don’t
matter. This is an emergency. Ever worked the JumpDrives?” He asked again.
“I have.” Jay had been down in
the JumpDrives only a few cycles ago (I guess that before I should go any
further I should explain that cycles are the same as two weeks.) I, personally, had only been down there twice
since I started Training, and never to work.
Only to drop off a message and to pick up some parts for my first
Teacher.
“You?”
“No, sir.”
“You any good at engines?” His
eyes scrunch up as he looks me up and down.
“Besides my flying skills, it’s why I’m a pilot.”
“Good. You stick with your
buddy and you’ll be fine.” He turns and
bustles down the long hall again. We
follow and I carefully note that the hallway is quickly becoming thinner as
more machines crowd around us.
The old man pushes through a set of metal doors. The hot air slams into me and takes my
breath away.
“Status?”
A girl with short blonde hair looks up from a HandBoard—an electronic
clipboard—and gives an answer, “1, 3, 6 and 8 are red. And that’s just here in Sector 2.”
“Damn.” The old man slaps a
hand to his thigh and turns back to us, “You two go to 1. If you finish before I get back to you, move
to 3. Then, come see me.”
Jay nods and motions with his arm for me to follow him.
“I’m glad YOU know what you’re doing.”
I mutter as I step up beside him.
He gives a short laugh.
“Come on. 1’s all the way in
the back.”
“Great.”
~~@~~
Jay slides underneath the massive machine. The JumpDrive DOES resemble the engines that move Universe 69…sort
of. The JumpDrives hang from the
ceiling, and are covered by a rounded white plastic covering. Jay has removed the covering from the front
of the machine to reveal a ton of wires.
There usually is a large, shallow metal bowl underneath, but the one
from #1 is not there at the moment.
His hand shoots out, “Hand me a wrench from the toolbox over there.” The toolbox is actually a bag and I have to
dig to find it.
“You know much about JumpDrives?”
He asks.
“Not really. They power Jumps,
that’s all I really know.”
“Want a history lesson?” He
pulls himself from the machine for an instant to adjust the wrench and toss me
a lopsided smile.
“Why not? We’ve got some time.”
“While I’m talking then, can you do a re-route in the R-6 wires?” He points up. I know what he’s saying and I nod. I stand and begin to fiddle with a clump of wires.
He pulls himself back under and his muffled voice carries up through the
hollow center of the Drive, “The JumpDrives were the first thing installed into
the 5 ships. They came in even before
the engines. They were
state-of-the-art, although you can’t really tell anymore. Designed specifically for the ships that
would be used to evacuate Earth.
“When they power up, it takes nearly 30 minutes before they can
Jump. That’s one reason why the Jump
usually comes during Sleep Periods. The
other reason, of course, is so that we don’t have to make so much of the
Drug. But they usually do Jumps during
Sleep Periods because they don’t have to run on a specific schedule, they can
take as long of time as they want. Of
course, they require to make it known before hand, by only a few seconds, that
we’re Jumping. You of all people should
know that part. You never sleep.” I can hear laughter in his voice.
“Anyways, the JumpDrive charges by collecting it’s energy into the
metal pool that’s usually underneath here—which I moved out of the way to over
there—and shoots up through here…” His hand appears in the hollow space in the
center, “and powers up all the machinery in here. Most of the energy is absorbed down at the bottom of the shaft,
for the major machinery inside to work.
Some more of the energy rises and triggers that blue wire on your left,
yeah, that one. Don’t transfer any
power to that one! That blue wire turns
off a part of the Gravity systems.” Jay
emerges from the bottom again and goes over to dig through the toolbox.
There is a spark as I tie the orange and green wires together. Perfect.
“Done with the re-route.” I
say.
“Then stand there and listen to the rest of my lesson.” He grins and slides back under.
“The unused energy is absorbed by the wires that hold the JumpDrive up
and is stored for the few seconds of Jump, before it releases the energy back
down, where it hits the red wire just above the Gravity wire and signals the
main computer that the JumpDrive is ending it’s part in the Jump, then shuts
off the Drive. It hits the blue wire
again and turns on the Gravity again. And the remaining energy is absorbed by
the bottom wires for use next time.
“There were 20 JumpDrives in each ship, but when they were connected, 5
were turned off from each, to be used only in emergencies.”
“Hey, Jay. The Gravity wire’s
been worn away. Could that be part of
the problem for the low Grav?”
Jay pulls himself out and tosses his tool back into the bag before
coming to have a look, “Hm. Could be…”
“NUMBER 1, 3 AND 8 ARE ONLINE AGAIN!”
The woman’s voice rings out, it has echoed off the machinery for us to
hear it. “But we still haven’t found the source of the Gravity system problem!”
The old man appears from nowhere, “Damn machines!” He utters a few more curses, before he looks
up at us.
“Done, eh?”
“Mostly sir. Rage, here, thinks
he found the source of the Grav system problem.”
“He does, huh?”
Jay nudges me, “The wire looks pretty worn out, here on #1. Maybe it needs to be replaced?”
“Well, let’s have a look.”
The old man, who is shorter than Jay and I, has to stand on the tips of
his toes to look at the wire, “Well, I’ll be…I do believe you’re right, son! Hey, Mary!
Get me a new Grav wire!”
“Sure thing, Bos!” The girl’s
voice echoes through the area again, this time by way of hand-held radios.
“Good job, boys. Don’t worry about
replacing it. I’ll do it.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what happened during Jump?” Jay tilts his head.
“Quit calling me ‘sir’…it’s not my name. The title bugs me. The
name’s Bos.” He sticks his hand out.
“I’m Jay, and this is Rage.”
His hand is ice cold in mine, “Rage, eh? Interesting.”
“It’s my Code name. Real name’s
Carl.”
“Ah.”
“What happened during Jump, Bos?”
“Oh yes, that question. Well,
the way it was described to me was that all of the Jumps stopped working just
after power-up over in Sector 4.”
Sector 4 is the 4th ship, “We had to kill all the engines or
the Sector would have been left behind.
No matter how powerful the other Sectors are, they ain’t powerful enough
to carry along a Sector that isn’t working.”
He sighs and adds in a low voice, “Especially since none of the Sectors
have 20 Drives running.
“The sudden shut-off of the Drives burnt out these ones. We’re lucky though. We only had 8 damaged. Sector 1 had one explode in a shower of
sparks. It’s amazing it didn’t set any
other ones off. Sector 1 did lose 9
others, too.”
“Here you go, Bos.” The girl—Mary—appears
and gives Bos the wire and a pair of gloves.
“Well, boys, let me get to work.
Good job.” He nods, “Maybe I’ll
see you around.”
As he turns, he mumbles, “Very good job.”
Jay pats me on the back and heads for the exit.
~~@~~
The heat that I had found myself ignorant of becomes apparent again
when we leave the room. The cool air of
the stairway chills me.
“What now?”
“Lets see if we can find Shade and Tranq.”
“Yeah. They’re probably still
down at their stations.”
“Let’s go.”