When the Colonel and the others stood to begin their efforts, I asked Ashley to stay. "Ashley, I know you don’t remember me, but there is something important I need to say. Before this last transfer, to this station, you and I were—were married."
Again, Ashley displayed a skeptical expression. "Mr. Grange, you are an attractive man. I, however, have a difficult time with the whole erased-memory issue. I have been in the intelligence community for a long time, and I don’t recall ever hearing of any other race having that ability. I don’t know what your thoughts are on this at the moment, but for the immediate future, I will be remaining single."
I held up my hand. "At this point, Ashley, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s not something that I am happy about, but I understand. One of my goals through all this will be to see if I can restore everyone’s memories. I don’t yet know if that is even possible, but I will try."
Ashley smiled and left the room. The Colonel and the Admirals were busy talking over the touch-wall. Jon Touchstone had transferred the data I had given to him to his lab and then departed to begin study of it. I was left sitting at the table with nothing to do.
I rose and walked out of the conference room and into the corridor beyond. The station was bustling with activity; that activity would soon be geared towards making war.
I walked back up the transway to the Alpha section. The main hallway was full of activity, with new shops opening every day. The same government that we had known during our last peaceful time in the Mensa sector had been reestablished. I caught Michael Felix walking in the hall.
I stepped up in front of him and spoke. "Where you going, Felix?"
Michael looked up at me with suspicion. "I don’t know who you are, and I really don’t care. I have business to attend to, so please be out of my way."
I smiled. "Polite as always, and of course blunt. Are you involved in politics again?"
Felix stopped. "Politics? Who did you say you were?"
I replied as I stuck out my hand, "Don Grange; we used to be rival Messengers, you and I. We then went on to save the station, and you even became president!"
Felix again looked at me with consternation. "I have no idea what you are talking about, Sir. And my time is valuable. Please be out of my way."
I laughed as I stepped aside. "Now that’s the Felix I know."
As he walked away, he occasionally glanced back with a suspicious look.
I continued to wander the halls of the station, occasionally bumping into people that I had known, until I came to the conclusion that there was not much more that I could do for them. An odd feeling came over me. I was a stranger amongst all the people that I had ever known. Was I completely alone? Had Frig survived? My angst and concern were growing with every hour.
I returned to the Colonel’s conference room and sat with the Colonel and the Admirals for several hours as they hashed out training plans. My contributions were at the minimum. I was not helping the cause. I needed a spark, an activity, something to get the juices flowing, but my mind was drawing a blank. For the next several hours, I sat behind the others as I brooded over what I might do.
The Colonel spoke. "Mr. Grange, maybe you could use a break. You look a little worn."
I replied as I moved to a more stable chair and snapped my helmet in place, "Thanks, Colonel, see you in a few."
I spoke. "Colonel, I think we should try to fire up the gravity drive and move this station next to the other Humans. If we are all working together, we stand a better chance of survival."
The Colonel replied, "See if you can make it happen, Mr. Grange. We have no attachment to our current location."
I stepped out into the hallway to head to the drive control room. As I rounded the first corner, I ran into a familiar face.
For a moment I was stunned. "Frost?"
The sergeant turned around. "Yes, Sir?"
I shook my head. "You can’t be here! You got vaporized by a heavy cannon shot!"
Frost laughed. "I think you need to lay off the hooch there, Sir; I am right here standing in front of you. Am I supposed to know you or something? Turn around, Sir."
I replied as I turned, "What?"
Frost laughed. "No, I can safely say that I don’t know you, Sir. I never forget an—"
I held out my arms. "Come here, Frost. I need a hug right now."
Frost tilted her head to the side and stepped in for a hug. She took a big handful of my hindquarter into her grip. "Aw, prosthetics! Well, I guess I gotta take it when I can get it."
At that moment, Ashley walked around the corner. "Uh, married, us? Really?"
Frost released her grip, winked, and turned to join Ashley as she walked around the corner with a half scowl.
I spoke to myself. "Nice going, Grange."
I shrugged my shoulders as I turned back towards the gravity drive control room. I could deal with Ashley and what she thought she was seeing later, but Frost was alive!
I wasn’t sure why, but I was certain Frost’s survival was of the Duke’s doing. I speculated that he had swept her off the field of battle just as the heavy ion cannon had fired. To anyone who had been watching, she would have appeared to have been vaporized.
I smiled as I turned the corner into the control room, where a handful of scientists and engineers were trying to make heads or tails out of the controls that lined the walls. "Ladies, gentlemen! Let me explain to you what you are looking at. If the station has fuel, we are going to power this thing up and move it to a new spot."
I received blank stares until the scientist in charge stepped forward. "And who are you?"
I walked up to the main console. "I’m Don Grange, and I am here to save all of Mankind!"
I looked around at the faces of those standing around me. "Oh, come on. You can’t tell me that you don’t have a sense of humor. Of course, you are scientists, so—"
I pointed to a set of controls on the left. "That is the fuel-balancing console. It is used to calibrate the fuel feeds for the gravity drive so that all twelve of the actuators contribute the same pull. Here in the center is where you set the coordinates of where it is that you want to go, and over here is the initiator panel. You press each of those twelve buttons in succession and wait for each of those lamps to glow green.
"Over on that wall, those are monitor stations for each actuator. The whole system is highly automated, so, after checking your fuel balancing and entering in your travel-to coordinates, it’s pretty much just punch the buttons and then go."
The chief scientist replied, "Where did you come by this information?"
I replied, "I came by it on the last Grid I was on. We had to send it on its way to keep from getting pummeled. I know you all probably think you just got here, but you have lived your entire lives on a station just like this one. Your memories have been messed with. Now, it looks like we have fuel. The actuator feeds are in balance. Let me enter in these coordinates. OK. Bring each actuator online. Wait a few seconds... and presto, we push the big green button."
The chief scientist spoke. "What did you just do?"
The first actuator sent a thundering clang reverberating through the station.
I replied, "I just pressed the go button. In about ten minutes, we should be on our way to another sector of this galaxy. You may continue on with your studies, gentlemen, and ma’am, but please do not touch any of the controls on this panel. It would be bad for everyone on board."
I turned and left the drive control room. The smile from knowing that Frost was still alive remained on my face.
When I entered the Colonel’s conference room, a team of aides was scrambling around him. "What’s the problem, Colonel?"
The second massive drive actuator clanged into position.
The Colonel gestured. "Are you deaf, Mr. Grange? Something is shaking this station to the core!"
I shook my head and laughed. "Relax, Colonel. That’s the actuators kicking in for the gravity drive. We should have ten more of those in ever-quickening succession. The Grid, this station, should begin to move just after the last one locks in. It shouldn’t take us long, and we will end up beside another one of these stations that houses the remaining Humans."
The Colonel leaned in with a scowl after placing his big hand on my shoulder and squeezing. "Give us a little warning next time, Mr. Grange. Noises of that magnitude tend to get people stirred up!"
I nodded. "Sorry, Colonel. I forgot about the actuators. The gravity drive has only been used a handful of times since I was born. I explained the operation of the drive to your science team. You will want them to keep it a closely guarded secret. The last thing you want is a wacko going in there and kicking that drive off, sending us to who knows where."
Several minutes later, the last of the actuators locked into position and the great station began to accelerate. In just under a week, we would be parked beside the other Grid.
During our travel, I used some of my time to get closer to Ashley. After four refusals, she finally agreed to sit with me for lunch. The Alpha cafeteria was efficiently run for a service that had only been in operation for a little over a month. I sat at a small table that had a view out to space beyond.
Ashley spoke. "Aren’t you eating?"
I laughed. "I guess I forgot to tell you about this suit. I don’t eat and I don’t go to the restroom."
Ashley looked perplexed. "Ah, what is it that you do when the need arises?"
I replied, "Well, this is hardly table talk, but I just go when nature calls. This suit has a bio-gel that circulates and carries off any waste. This filter pack pulls it and recycles what it can. This food pack adds nutrients to the bio-gel that then get absorbed through the skin."
Ashley set her fork down on the table. "That is disgusting."
I again laughed. "Well, if it’s any consolation, you wore one of these for months before being transferred onto this station. You didn’t seem to have a problem with it then. In fact, everyone who first puts it on has that same repulsed feeling. After a few days in it, though, you start to see the benefits. The suit will add years to your life from the nutritional benefits alone.
"It has built-in chemical and hormonal balancers. And it keeps your muscles healthy through a constant stream of micropulses to stimulate them. Has a real nice built-in sleep aid that knocks you out and a stimulant that immediately wakes you up. It really is a marvel of time savings, each and every day."
Ashley picked her up her fork. "It’s creepy is what it is."
After taking a bite of her food, she asked a question. "So, if we were married, why would I go after such a young man? You can’t be more than twenty-two, and I don’t recall ever having a thing for younger men."
I smiled. "I guess I am an enigma. I am two years your senior. This suit, and a DNA enhancement injection I received, both work to make me look younger, and feel younger. My energy levels are even better than they were at that age."
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. "Huh. I need to run that by the Colonel and Admirals. We have my blood to work from, and I have the formula for the injection stored in my helmet computer. I should get Doc Touchstone working on making that injection up for everyone."
I smiled. "After our, your, lunch, of course."
The meal remained casual, with Ashley asking questions and me providing answers. After two hours of conversation, she abruptly claimed to have meetings to attend and left in a hurry. I was disappointed, but I knew I had to be patient.
The week passed quickly, with a second, very similar lunch with Ashley. Each time she began to show interest, she would seemingly shake herself out of it, and then quickly change the conversation. As the Grid came to a stop in the new sector, I had resigned myself to the fact that unless her memory was somehow restored, I would have a difficult time winning her over. The situation had changed. The level of uncertainty about things had a way of taking most of your attention. Again, my strategy was patience.
I walked into the Colonel’s conference room. "Colonel, I’m going to head over to the other Grid. I’ll fill them in on the status here. After that, you should be able to talk with them over the comm."
The Colonel replied, "We’ve been talking to them since this morning. General Hammond seems like he has it together."
I nodded. "I think they are a lot like us, Colonel. They went through a war or series of wars to get here as well. And yes, the general is the right man for the job."
The touch-wall was turned off and the Colonel sat at the table. "Mr. Grange. You talked about the robots you and this Farg had use of. Any chance we can get ahold of a couple?"
I laughed. "That’s Frig, Colonel. And when he gets here, if he gets here, we will have use of the ones on the
Swift
."
I leaned back in the chair. "I wish I had a way to get back to that planet we were on. We left thousands of those bots there."
The Colonel spoke. "I thought you blew the portal when you came back through. Is there any other way?"
I shook my head. "No, once Frig gets... aw, crap! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before, Colonel. It’s possible that the first portal I came through, to the other Grid—it may still be out there."
I picked up my helmet and headed for Alpha Bay. Fifteen minutes later, I was powering out into space and flying towards the point where the first portal had been. As I came closer, the sensors on my HUD began to display signals that were coming from a structure. I pulled up and stopped ten meters from the still-open portal.
I raised the Colonel on the comm. "Colonel, I am sitting here looking at this beautiful portal sitting just in front of me. If I had a brigade of your men with these BGS suits, we could take over this whole complex again."
The Colonel replied, "Aside from the suits, we have no way of getting there, Mr. Grange. The single fighter ship that is being worked will only carry two at a time."
I looked back at the Grid sitting a short distance away. "Colonel, I think I might have a way to get us onto this complex. I’m going to need Jon Touchstone’s help if we do. I’m heading back your way, Colonel. I have a plan."
As I rounded the corner into the Colonel’s conference room, I spoke. "Colonel, follow me to the gravity drive control room. We are going to go for a really short ride."
As the last actuator dropped into place, the Grid began to slowly move. Twenty seconds later, it came to a stop.
I gestured towards Alpha Bay. "Colonel, if you want to lead the way to the space dock on Alpha, I will show you a portal when we get there. I moved the Grid so that the portal should be just inside the bay."
When we arrived, an alarm was sounding and the bay had been sealed. A maintenance tech was checking the seal around an air lock door.
I spoke. "What’s the issue? Why did it seal off?"
The tech replied, "We aren’t certain, Sir. The instruments just started going crazy, showing an atmospheric leak of about two meters’ diameter. It’s just inside the gravity wall, Sir. The air in that bay has almost been completely sucked out."
I rolled my eyes as I looked back at the Colonel. "My fault, Colonel. The Duke’s complex doesn’t have an atmosphere inside. It’s just empty space. The portal I wanted access to is sitting out there in the middle of the bay, sucking all the air out. We are going to have to build some kind of containment structure around it so we can easily pass through."
The Colonel replied, "Why bother? The bay is already empty of air, and we have air locks that we can access to get in there whenever we need."
As I looked through the porthole-style windows on the air lock doors, the Colonel slapped me on the back. "Nice job, Mr. Grange. Now we just need suits and weapons, and we can go kick this Duke’s ass."
I smiled. "I always liked your attitude, Colonel. I think our brains might be wired the same way. Do you have any suits at all that can go off station?"
The Colonel nodded. "We have maintenance suits. That is all we have been able to find."
I laughed. "I remember those things, Colonel. They are big and bulky. Horrible to get around in unless you are in zero Gs. I had to put one on when we took the Grid back from the Durians. Not sure how I survived that whole ordeal, but I’m still here."
Half an hour lapsed before I was ready to pass through the air lock with Jon Touchstone in the maintenance bubble suit. As we slowly walked up to the portal, I suddenly had a feeling of regret.
I spoke. "Doc, we have to be real careful moving you through that portal. If you were to touch the edge of that thing, it would be the end of you. That edge is sitting at or near absolute zero. You’ll flash freeze solid in about eight seconds if you even bump it."
I raised the Colonel on the comm. "Can we get the gravity in here turned off?"
The Colonel replied, "We’ll have that for you in just a second, Mr. Grange."
The loss of gravity was immediately felt as the power level was reduced to zero G.
I turned to Jon Touchstone. "How’s that suit feel now?"
Touchstone moved his arms and legs. "Not bad."
I pointed towards a near wall. "See that hatch over there? It looks to be about the same size as this portal. Let’s practice getting you in and out of that thing a few times before we go for the real thing."
The doctor nodded inside his helmet. "I would like that, Mr. Grange. I’ve seen what near absolute zero can do."