“‘Hey Sunny’, please stand down and prepare for boarding,” an authoritative voice ordered and I snickered. It was the main reason I’d called my ship, “Hey Sunny.”
“You’re a dork,” Suzie laughed.
I made a gesture for them to be quiet and opened the communication channel, “Hey Gramps. This is Hal of the ‘Hey Sunny’ requesting permission to land on Callisto.”
“You’re dead?” asked the person on the other side. Looks like new of my death had spread quickly.
“Not last time I checked,” I replied, trying not to sound like I was laughing at him, and failing.
“Prepare for boarding. Lower your weapons.”
“Nope, not going to happen. I have complete diplomatic immunity.” It was one of the few perks of being the Sun-Speaker. Like all the other perks, it only worked occasionally.
“All immunities have been revoked due to your death.” I could hear the man on the other side chuckling.
I set the coms to receive only and Janet asked, “What now?”
“Short jump into a field on the planet.”
“No one has ever been stupid enough to attempt a jump onto a planet. If you’re off by a billionth of a calculation we’re embedded into the bedrock of the planet. Can’t we just use your teleporter?” Suzie sounded panicked.
“Sorry Suzie, using the teleporter would be messy this time.” Matter teleportation was highly experimental and teleporting living matter only worked once in a million times. Being a prophet meant I could make the odds a little better.
“Trust me,” I said reaching out and gently massaging her shoulder. “Everything will be fine, we’re too pretty to die.” I winked and activated the Alcubierre Drive, better known as the Jump Drive.
“Where’d they go?” The voice from one of the battleships asked and I cut the coms. We’d made perfect jump, more or less. We’d landed in a tall field of grass about a little closer to the city than I would have liked, but they didn’t really need that overpass did they?
“Hal? Is that your ship parked next to my house?” The coms picked up short range radio frequencies, and this one was coming from the building next to the ship.
“Hey Adric. How’s life?”
“You’d damn well know if you ever sent an email!” Adric didn’t sound amused.
“I’m a prophet. I know either way. I was just being polite. Are you coming or not?” The only answer I got was the hatch door opening and closing.
“We have several police and two fighters on their way to us, I hope you have a plan,” Suzie sounded like she wanted to throttle me. I think it’s the way she says she cares.
The controls told me that the engines needed a half hour to recover from the last jump and that Adric had closed the hatch door.
I turned my chair around and when Adric walked in, I stood up shakily. I gave the boy a big hug and said, “Welcome to the crew.” I let him go, the hug had given me the chance to check his health with my telepathic abilities and make sure he didn’t have any weapons.
“Adric, this is Suzie, security expert, and that’s Janet, medical prodigy. Ladies, this is Adric, mechanical and computer genius.” I introduced everyone and Suzie just scowled. Adric’s mouth gaped when he saw Janet and she had the nerve to blush. I hadn’t seen this coming.
“Adric, the engines need twenty five minutes before we can jump again, could you check and see if you can shave some time off that?”
“Sure boss!” he said semi sarcastically and winked at Janet.
When he’d left, Janet said, “He’s pretty.”
“Doc, he’s a fourth your age,” I warned.
“Only if you’re into the tall skinny pale underwear model type,” laughed Suzie ignoring me.
“I am I really am.” Janet also ignored me. I swear, I get no respect on this ship.
“Five minutes before the fighter’s on top of us.” Suzie said, getting back to business.
From the engine room, Adric said, “Nice stuff down here Hal. I can give you jump drive in ten minutes.”
“Do better. I’ll try to outrun them.”
“Same old Hal.” Adric laughed. I didn’t offer him a job, and he didn’t tell me what had happened to him. We both knew the other one knew.
I lifted the ship off the ground. “Don’t shoot down the fighters.”
“What? But they’re coming in hot!” Suzie didn’t sound happy.
“Trust me, you want these two to live,” The fighter pilots were going to be the great-great-great grandparents of the first human to make contact with an alien civilization which would change the way we see the universe and ourselves.
We took several hits on our way out but I eventually got us out of there. Our jump took us to Mercury.
“I thought the funeral was on Venus?” asked Janet.
“It is, but we need some repairs and I need to pay off an old debt.” It wasn’t a complete lie. The ship had a doctor, a weapons expert, and engineer, now it only needed a pilot.
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