12. “We’ll have to increase our security around our home.”

TWELVE

“We’ll have to increase our security around our home.”

Waldren’s prediction came true within an hour of him bringing all his ship’s systems back online, but not in the way he anticipated.

The shiftgem gate did not possess anyone.

Rather than deal with waiting for us to figure out how to grid the sector, explore like good little lost spacefarers, and take potentially years to locate it, the shiftgem gate solved the problem through the unexpected relocation of our ship. One minute, we were making plans and struggling to come to terms with our status as lost in space.

The next, all ship systems except for life support cut off. Before we had time to panic, the ship lurched, we got knocked onto our asses, and Squeakers took the first flight of her life, albeit aided by the unexpected removal of gravity.

Had gravity been on when the ship had been yanked across space, we would have endured worse than a few bumps and bruises. The lack of gravity turned the entire ship into a hazard, as everything that hadn’t been secured floated. With zero training on how to handle a lack of gravity, I discovered momentum worked in a vastly different fashion. Fortunately for me, I crashed into a wall rather than any important equipment.

Waldren came to my rescue, hauled me to one of the seats, and buckled me in so I wouldn’t hurt myself or someone else. He captured Squeakers, handed her over, and took Palta off to his quarters, where she would remain in her nest until he got gravity online and began rebooting the ship’s systems.

Upon his return, he activated the exterior cameras.

A shiftgem gate glowed around us, and the ship hovered in its heart. Some force maintained the ship’s position while Waldren and the Veloc scrambled to restore the ship’s systems and contain the floating hazards. Much like Melody, the gate sang.

Squeakers only needed a little attention to calm, and the bird cuddled close upon recovering from her fright. I suspected I needed more comfort than she did, as my heart raced at a few thousand beats a minute. The link chips sang, loud enough I struggled to hear anyone speak. Fortunately for my sanity, the noise ebbed and settled to a strangely pleasant background noise. Little by little, my heart rate calmed as well, although I would need a shower to clean away the excess amount of sweat. “Is the ship okay?”

“She’s fine,” Waldren replied without looking my way. “The system shut down when the drive cores activated, leaving the life support system on. As I hadn’t activated the engine, the ship’s systems went into emergency mode. That involves shutting down all non-mandatory systems. On this ship, life support is the sole mandatory system. It’ll take me an hour or so to get everything back up and checked for damage. But the system had enough time to shut down before the drive cores activated.”

“Has this ever happened before?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Alban?”

The Veloc, who waged war with one of the consoles, snorted. His crest feathers snapped up, and a moment later, he cooed. “We’ve been pulled a three-week voyage from Melody. I’m registering the shiftgem gate’s position in our systems.”

With a chuckle, Waldren went over to Alban and peered at the display.

I marveled how the man used all surfaces as launching pads, somehow gliding to where he wanted with the right amount of force to keep from crashing into something. “How do you learn to do that?”

“You mean move without gravity?” Alban asked.

I nodded.

“Our first three voyages are done without gravity to teach us,” the Veloc replied. “We then learn to cope with gravity in space. Each voyage has a two week adaptation period to get used to gravity after floating in space for a few months. We weren’t going to put you through that environment until you healed. It can cause strange consequences on a body. Gravity serves important purposes.”

Waldren bobbed his head, and he typed something onto Alban’s console before floating back to his station. “Do star scans and pipe them to an exploratory map file,” he ordered. “Exclude Melody’s location on the maps with a notation that we have a claim on a habitable world within four weeks of this waypoint. As soon as we have Melody registered as ours, we’ll release an updated map. Run another scanner for any other planets from this location. Our scanner should be able to detect Melody from here.”

“Roger,” the Veloc replied before getting to work.

“Camellia, I’m going to bring the informational database up next. I want you to find the shiftgem section of the archives and see if you can get any matches on the color patterns and gate shapes. That might help us learn which gate this might access.”

“Can a shiftgem gate connect to multiple gates?”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “When you want a specific destination from a gate that has multiple destinations, we have to send a series of pulses to change the gate’s color. Once the gate is the correct color pattern, we activate our drives and make use of the gate. Those gates are pretty rare, however. I know of only six of them in the universe. We’ll probably end up discovering another gate after this, which will be another big paycheck in our accounts. Shiftgem gates are worth even more than habitable worlds.”

My eyes widened. “Finding gates are worth even more than entire planets?”

“They are. In exchange for sharing the location and destination of the gate, we’re paid a hefty sum. Gates that go to exterior space are priceless, but all captains pay yearly fees to help cover the allowances for using the gates. This ship costs ten thousand credits a year for gate usage. There are millions upon millions of ships paying fees. Eighty percent of those fees tend to go to bounties for discovering new shiftgem gates.” He chuckled, paused his work long enough to rub his hands together, and added, “I really might have enough to upgrade the entire ship with this. Sure, we’ll need to do a lot of work protecting Melody, but that’ll be worth it. I’m going to get a dual-drive system, too.”

“Dual-drive system?” I stared at him, struggling to comprehend how he’d gone from his more restrained self to boisterous.

“The ship will have two sets of engines, so the chances of a catastrophic failure preventing space travel are significantly reduced. It’s expensive, but it’s worth it—and if I have the funds, I’ll do a tri-engine system. The third engine would be rigged to replace one of the others if they broke. In space, the loss of an engine can be a death sentence. I tend to do a lot of maintenance work on the engine to make sure there aren’t any issues.” Waldren returned to his station and typed on the console, narrowing his eyes while considering the ship’s output. “All right. The systems seem to be checking out. According to the sensors, we’re being held in some form of gravity well. It’s reporting pressures on all sides of the ship, which is holding it in place. Not a lot of pressure, but enough to make certain we aren’t going anywhere. Engaging the engines will be enough to break the hold. This is good for us because it’s enough to keep us from drifting.”

“Shiftgem gates can do that?”

“Apparently.” Waldren tapped a few buttons on the keyboard. One by one, the lights returned to the bridge, and the ship vibrated as the engine kicked back on. “All right. The systems are coming back faster than expected. It looks like the ship automatically started rebooting the instant we crossed through.”

Alban snorted, and he said, “We’re getting planetary readings already. I’ve located Melody, and there are four other planets within range. I’m getting the scan data. We’re close enough we can issue a claim to them without visual. They aren’t registered.”

“Are they within this system’s Goldilocks Zone?”

“Checking,” the Veloc replied before tapping buttons on the console and monitoring the screen. “Mathematical analysis confirms all planets are potentially habitable.”

“ Four habitable planets?” Waldren paced around the bridge, and the activation of the displays implied he’d gotten the systems up enough to utilize his link. “Can we afford to establish protectorates for all four?”

“We can. If we apply a share to the fees, locating the shiftgem gate and sending the star charts would be sufficient to lay claim over all four planets. If we flag them all for research and non-commercialization, we’d be able to establish the protectorates with ease.” Displaying his teeth, the Veloc raised his crest. “It will take a few months to handle all the paperwork, during which Camellia can pursue her training and other ventures. Her share of the shiftgem gate discovery will set her for life and allow her to pursue her dreams as she sees fit. I am sure the Deltans will still host her even with her fiscal success from this venture.”

“Assuming we make it out of here—and figuring out where the gate goes.”

“I suspect the partnering gate will form not far from our world. We have limited gates, and conditions are optimal for the manifestation of one. This gate clearly is capable of manipulating our ship, so I suspect it is able to get a lock on our home world.”

According to Waldren’s grunt, the Veloc had given him terrible news. “We’ll have to increase our security around our home.”

“The other clans will help with that, as they will be given access to the gate as part of our protectorate. I’ll contact the Crimson Feet.”

Waldren froze. “The Crimson Feet?”

“They love peace as much as they adore violence, and they will lay down their lives to make sure Squeakers and her kin never experience fear. If we involve the Crimson Feet, we will have nothing to worry about. If you upgrade from this beauty and offer her to the Crimson Feet, we won’t even have to pay them for the work. They will use it as part of their yearly rite of passage.”

That got Waldren thinking. “Camellia, the Deltans are capable of handling quarantine situations, so assuming we manage to gate back to regular space, we can take you there first. That’ll let you be in a more restive environment. Our quarantine quarters are less than ideal.”

“We don’t need them often,” Alban explained. “So it would spare you a great deal of misery.”

Aware Squeakers adored Palta and would be lonely without her furry companion, I understood the necessity of my next words, however much I disliked it. “Can you keep Squeakers with Palta?”

“Of course,” he replied, and he offered a small smile. “I don’t know how long Squeakers will live because we don’t know much about her species, but she’s more than welcome to stay with Palta.”

“They get along so well, and Palta would be sad,” I replied.

“Palta would survive with minimal complaining should you take your bird with you, but it might be safer for her to stay with Palta for a while. I don’t know what the Deltans have in mind for your training. Knowing them, they might just toss you into an exploratory group and teach you on the fly. Little prepares someone more than a trial by fire. They’ll keep you as safe as possible, but not completely safe.” Waldren wrinkled his nose at that. “They might not, considering this incident. Only time will tell.”

“Time will tell.”

It always did.

It took Waldren three hours to check over his ship for damage, which was enough time for the Veloc to make use of the scanning systems to get a full chart of the area. One of the planets proved to be a mere hour away, but considering the behavior of the shiftgem gate, beyond getting some long-range telescope photography of the world, which showed every sign of being habitable, he decided we were best off not testing our luck.

The gate had gone through the effort of porting us to it, so he wanted to see what was on the other side.

As he didn’t have a proper pen for Squeakers, I held her on my lap for the jump. The bird enjoyed the attention, made herself comfortable, and waited with admirable patience.

Waldren remained tense throughout the entire process of preparing the ship for the jump, and when it was time to depart, he eased the ship out of the gate’s hold. The gravitational forces released the moment he engaged the engines, which implied the shiftgem gate itself was somehow sentient.

The Veloc had discussed the gate’s probable sentience in hushed whispers and a certain amount of awe.

No one could definitively prove it, but something possessed sentience. Nobody on board believed our trip to Melody had been a coincidence. We still made guesses as to the why. I preferred to think that the shiftgem gate had spotted an opportunity to protect the nearby planets, putting their safeguarding in the Veloc’s capable claws. If I were someone inclined to try to profit off such a peaceful world, I would think twice before testing the feathered murder machines.

I valued my life. I supposed the greedy might not.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Waldren muttered, and he accelerated the ship in the direction of the shiftgem gate.

Like our first jump, white light enveloped the ship. Unlike our first jump, no alarms screamed, and once the glow faded, we emerged into empty space. The ship drifted to a halt. Waldren pressed a few buttons on his chair’s armrest before saying, “We’re clear. I’d like the feathered menaces on board this vessel to start working the star charts while I do a check of all systems. I will be moving the ship a safe distance from the gate in case it is a known gate with multiple destinations.”

Within ten minutes, after doing a basic scan and check of the systems, Waldren moved the ship a safe distance away from the shiftgem gate. Alban took over the console controlling the primary scanning software. “The gate is not registered in the system,” he announced.

“I’d say we’re set for life, but in reality, we’ll walk away with a sliver of the percentage of discovering a pair of shiftgem gates making sure nobody screws around with those worlds.” Waldren heaved a sigh. “Herserael, see if the gate can be locked.”

Shiftgem gates could be locked? Puzzled, I observed the Veloc as he went to one of the consoles on the other side of the bridge and began tapping on the screen. Within a few minutes, he replied, “The gate can be locked.”

“Okay. How can a gate be locked?” I asked, gesturing at the pulsing, colored gate hanging in space nearby. “I don’t understand.”

“Shiftgem gates can interface with ships. We aren’t sure how , but link-enabled ships can sometimes communicate with shiftgem gates. It’s usually yes or no states, but some gates can be locked. Gates that can be locked accept an input code from a ship, register that code, and will not activate again until that code is entered,” he explained. “It’s like a password for shiftgem gates. Most gates won’t or can’t lock. But that just plays to the belief these gates are sentient. If we lock the gate, the worlds we want to protect are a great deal safer—and we can limit who can get to that sector of space without a generational ship.” Waldren stepped away from the console and rubbed his hands together. “This will make our lives easier yet more difficult.”

Alban turned towards me and said, “We will still be paid quite well for having discovered the gate, but as we’re claiming protectorship over all the worlds this gate leads to under conservatory and research rules, we’ll have a lot of paperwork to handle. We should agree to monitor the space for rescue, Waldren. That will cover most of our bases.”

“I was already planning on that. If the Veloc clans work together, we can figure out an arrangement. Do you have a lock on our location?”

After a moment, the Veloc grunted. “We’re within Veloci space, although we’re skirting Cremoran and Deltan territory. We’re a week from a Deltan gate, which will take us to their home world. That should put us at three weeks from getting home.”

“We’ll be a little late, but if we’re that close to a Deltan gate, then we’re in comm range.”

“We are.”

“Once we’re away from the gate, get a comm going with the Deltans, inform them we’ll be bringing Camellia over, and that we need to quarantine due to a new world discovery.” Turning to me, Waldren said, “You’ll be grateful for dodging the Veloc’s quarantine zone and the paperwork generally required. You’ll have to sign some, but the Deltans can help with that. You’ll find them to be nice albeit strange homo sapiens .”

I raised a brow at that. “In the universe’s general standard, aren’t all homo sapiens strange?”

The Veloc hooted their amusement while Waldren grinned at me. “We are. I’d apologize for your experimental voyage being cut short, but I think we’ve all had our fair share of excitement for the next while.”

Truer words had never been spoken.