Out of Time by Ryan Matthew Harker (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

Later that night, after the fun, the drink, an intimate date on the town I'm looking down at Sammi as we make love, losing myself to the depths of her autumn eyes, I feel like I could forget about Ras, Adoc, Time Travel, and yes, even forget about TRU. Looking into those eyes, lying in a therapeutically comfortable bed, in a familiar Timeline, I remember what it feels like to be normal. What a good feeling it is.

But unfortunately life, especially mine, is never that simple, and anything but normal.

Dozing off with the most beautiful woman on the planet bare in my arms I wake up sitting in the Captain's chair of the commandeered spacecraft. Noting that I've made the transition into the other reality (existence, delusion, dream) I rub my tired eyes. This is really wearing on my psyche, leaving my feeling more than a tad schizophrenic. I sigh heavily.

“You look tired.” A pair of hands begin massaging the knots out of my tense shoulders. The ghost of Sammi's reflection, behind my own, is superimposed in the glass over the view of the Moon's dark side. She comes around the chair and settles into my lap, resting her body against mine and snuggling close.

-Oh la la-

“Shut up, DOM,” I tell the ship's AI.

“What?” Sammi shifts her body until she can read the AI's lewd comment. She only chuckles as she snuggles close once more. “You shouls get some sleep,” she tells me. Our close proximity muffles her voice and her suggestion only elicits another weary sigh.

“I'm not ready to sleep yet,” I inform her. I'm leaving out the part where I'm afraid if I sleep I may awake in another bed with another version of her. I'm fairly certain this is the main trunk of the reality I've been traveling, and despite how happy I just was in my apartment bedroom with the other Sammi, this is really where I want to be.

“So what are we going to do?” Sammi asks.

“I'm not sure.” I stare over her shoulder at the black circle floating against the backdrop of Earth. I've got the strangest feeling that hidden on the dark face of the Moon this golden palace is somehow an intricate piece of my unique tempoeral puzzle. It warrants immediate investigation. “I've learned to trust my gut over the years, and my gut tells me there's something fishy about that gold structure down there.”

Sammi again twists in my lap to stare out the screen. “So we're going to the Moon?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good,” she says. “I've always wanted to go there.”

I think of the other us having lunch at the Moonview Cafe. “I don't think this'll be much of a vacation,” I mutter.

“Everything will work out,” Sammi whispers. “Come on, we should get some sleep. Sounds like we have a long day of infiltration ahead of us tomorrow.”

I have no choice but to agree and despite my misgivings I allow my beautiful companion the reigns and she leads me to bed.

I've gotta say it's more than a little pleasing to wake up in the same place (time/reality) as when I went to sleep.

While I'm sleeping I dream. When I awake the dream becomes a plan. I dress quietly, careful so as not to wake Sammi, and head to the bridge.

“DOM!” I storm into the bridge hollering. “Get your lazy butt up here!”

-I'm already up here, and, as an advanced intelligence program, I have no butt-

“Whatever,” I read the words and growl. “I need some information about this ship, pronto!”

-My specialty, boss. Whadda ya need to know-

“Do we have any stealth capabilities on this heap?”

-Yes sir we do-

“Well, what are they?” My hands clench the armrests. It's too early to let this glorified coffee maker try my patience like this.

-This ship is capable of faster than light travel, excellent for quickly approaching or evading your enemies in open space. We also have light refraction cloaking panels which, once activated, will render the entire ship invisible to the naked eye and most non-radar based scanners-

“And what about radar?”

-The ship is equipped with a wide range of radar, sonar, and lidar jammers-

Interesting. “And what about weapons, DOM? Tell me this thing is armed.”

-There is a weapons locker located aft in the starboard compartments-

I smile and wait for the AI to continue listing the vast store of armaments I'm sure the ship has. I mean, come on, it's a spacecraft, its got to have guns. Right?

After fifteen seconds of silence, “Well?” I blurt, unable to take the suspense.

-Well, what-

“Well, what about the ship?” I'm literally on the edge of my seat. “What kind of weapons does the ship have?”

-There is a weapons locker in the aft...-

“NO!” I yell. I don't care about the aft starboard storage locker! What about the ship? What kind of weapons does the SHIP have?”

-… … … There is a weapons locker in the aft...-

I drop my forehead into my hand and rub my eyes. “So what you seem pathologically unable to spew from that unstable digital cerebellum you call an intelligence processor is... the ship itself is completely unarmed.”

-There is a...-

I raise my hand. “Enough!” I bark. “If I jettisoned that goldurned werapons locker, and every weapon in it, right out the goldurned airlock, then, what weapons would the ship have?!”

-Without the weapons locker the ship would be unarmed-

I groan. Great! No lasers, no ion cannons, no photon torpedoes, no ship mounted weapons of any kind. Though this isn't the end of the world (not yet anyway, ha ha) it still sucks. All things considered though I'm pretty happy about the cloaking technologies. That's some good news.

“Everything all right in here?” Sammi, her timing impeccable as always, comes in and hands me a steaming cup of black coffee. I accept the cup and sip it, grimacing slightly at the taste. “Sorry,” she says in response to my reaction. “I couldn't find any sugar or cream.”

“It's fine,” I smile up at her. “DOM and I were just discussing the ship's defensive and offensive capabilities.”

“From your yelling I'd guess the news isn't good,” she surmises with a frown.

“Ah, it's not bad,” I say and sip more of my coffee. “That stupid AI was just frustrating me is all.”

-Who are you calling stupid-

I ignore the screentype. “In fact the news is pretty good.” I push myself off the seat. “Come on,” I motion with my coffee cup. “Let's go check out the ship's weapons locker.”

Sammi smiles and raises her cup. “Lead the way.”

I do. We go aft and into the ship's starboard compartments, searching the labels on every hatch until we stumble across the one that reads 'MUNITIONS'.

“I found it!” Sammi calls from my left. I discontinue my reading of a label proudly announcing 'PROVOCATIVE MATERIALS', though my curiosity uncoils in my gut and burns to know what kind of materials the Wolfmen deem provocative.

The weapons locker looks like the other dozen in the room, four feet wide, six feet tall, black burnished stainless steel with a push button combination lock inset on the right side of the seamless face. A blend of their modern and my archaic technologies from the looks of it.

“DOM! What's the combo for the weapons locker?” I demand.

The buttons begin depressing on their own- 5, 2, 8, 0. The seamless face brightens and an eighth inch gap materializes all along the outer perimeter of the locker, as if burned into the steel by a plasma torch. The seam illuminates for only a moment though, not long enough to scar our vision, and then dissipates to leave a door slightly ajar.

“Okie dokie, let's see what's behind door number one,” I grin and open the locker.

The locker's interior is lit by a soft, phosphorescent glow emitting from the burnished stainless walls. Much to my chagrin, unfortunately this dusky light only highlights the disappointing emptiness of the five foot deep space.

My jaw drops and I slam the door shut with no hesitation whatsoever. Once more the locker seals itself, the seam flaring briefly before disappearing without a trace. I curse loudly and bang my fist against the burnished metal. My hopes of an arsenal of cached Wolfman weaponry being stashed in this locker are in pieces. So much for supplementing our own grimly depleted arsenal! Darnit all!

Sammi lays a reassuring hand on my shoulder and I grab in in my own. “Oh well,” I say. “So much for fulling my dream of owning an alien gun.”

“It'll be okay.” she assures.

“One way or the other,” I smirk. “It always is. Come on, let's go back up to the bridge and I'll tell you the plan I dreamed up.”

The ship rises silently from the surface leaving only a small disturbance of moondust, nearly invisible in the mostly midnight darkness surrounding us. With all of its lights out, and fully cloaked to the best of its available technology's ability, I can barely make out the defining sleek contours of the retreating craft.

“We'll be in constant contact,I relay to the ship's AI. “Keep out of sight and be on the lookout for anything suspicious.”

-More suspicious than a giant palace made of gold, you mean- DOM's words are now discreetly printing inside and along one edge of the semi-opaqued translucent solar shield making up the front third of my helmet. Although a standard part of this particular environmental suit's Heads Up Display, I'm already regretting having the cantankerous AI very nearly literally inside my head. Sarcasm is only endearing when properly directed, I.E. not towards me.

“Just stay alert,” I admonish through a groan.

-Aye, aye, El Capitan- My imagination clearly throws me the AI's mocking salute.

“Are you sure whoever is in there won't be able to trace our communications?” We've been over this but Sammi's fear of discovery is no less invalid.

-300 percent absotively posilutely, Miss Sammi- DOM's cheeriness in the face of our current situation is a tad ingratiating, annoyingly so. The venomous warmth in his voice just drips with over the top sarcasm. It makes me want to scream! Instead I take a deep breathe and calm my mind to perfect stillness.

“We've been over this,” I agree. My voice sounds hollow, without conviction within the hollow confines of my helmet. The solar shielding is too dark for me to see the expression on Sammi's face, to see if my words sound more convincing to her ears than they do my own.

“I'm just making sure.” Her tinny voice crackles through my helmet's comset and I doubt my words were very soothing at all.

-Captain, I've reached stationary low moon orbit- DOM informs.

“Good, hold your position,” I tell him. “ We're moving in.”

-Yes, sir- This time there's no trace of the AI's trademark sarcasm.

I ask Sammi, “Are you ready?”

-Yep- Dom pipes up.

“Not you!' Sammi and I bark in unison.

We laugh and she checks her hand cannon. “As ready as I'll ever be,” she replies and we bump heavy, insulated, gloved fists; a gesture I imparted to her somewhere along our way together.

Even with Sammi's hand cannon no more than five steps from me I feel nude with the knowledge that without oxygen my AR is next to useless. I chamber a round anyway, just the act of which makes me feel marginally better. “Well, I suppose,” I grunt and begin walking towards the small lunar ridge separating us from the structure made of gold.

Even with the low lunar gravity the bulky composition of the Orion spacesuits makes our forward progress slow and clumsy. Neither Sammi nor I have any kind of experience in such an environment and the hostility any one simple mistake could expose us to only serves to make us even more cautious. Stumbling around in the dark across airless lunar terrain is far from my idea of a good time. The weights in our boots keep us from bouncing too much, though I'm inclined to believe we may be better off if bouncing along the landscape were an option. I trip on