Chapter 22

The wormhole drive opened a hole in space near Erosia and the test ship with two souls on board left. The two pilots remained asleep and didn’t know what happened or even that they were successful in the testing of the engine. They had slept through all of it.

The ship exited the wormhole and entered normal space near where they had left a little while ago.

The ship immediately ejected the life pod as Resort allowed the power source in the ship to ramp up without control. The life pod powered up its engine and shot forward away from the ship. The little life pod had Resort’s mind in it and was safe from destruction. Resort also started the download of the virus that Scientist Gary had installed into the network. The code went out and found every reference to the wormhole generator engine designs and deleted them. It wiped out Scientist Gary’s computer, his personal data and everything about this project. It was his final decision and final revenge against those who would exploit the technology for their own means.

As the life pod entered the atmosphere the other part of the ship exploded. The matter-antimatter mixture went super critical without monitoring. The ship was destroyed. Nothing of the ship was ever found.

“Resort, are you there?” command and control called out as the ship entered normal space and the download started.

“Affirmative Control. Resort is safe with two souls on board.”

There was an audible sigh of relief over the comms from the command and control people. “Resort, proceed to the landing zone.”

The download finished and the worm virus started its job of wiping out all of the records it found about the wormhole engine throughout the whole network.

“Affirmative Control, proceeding to the standard landing zone.”

The explosion was seen by everyone throughout the whole system. It looked like a small sun had just popped into existence then disappeared. The shockwave hit a bunch of satellites and ruined them, but no one was hurt or killed by the explosion. Just some property damage.

“Control, this is Captain Hugo and Captain Suzy, we are alive and back in control of the lifepod.” Captain Hugo said coming out of hypersleep. Captain Suzy was also coming awake and started to check the instruments while Hugo did the same thing ensuring that their reentry into the atmosphere would go according to plan.

Their life pod came into land and the recovery team ran out to help them out of the pod and to plug it into the network to download all of the data from their trip.

Hugo and Suzy left the ship as the General runs up and starts to demand to know what happened to the ship.

“Explain yourself. What in the hell happened up there?”

Captain Hugo looked at his partner who had the same bewildered look on her face. “I have no idea.” Captain Hugo said.

The general huffed, crossed his arms, and sent the pilots to change out of their suits and meet him in the debrief room.

“Captain Hugo, you first. What happened?” the General said from the podium after everyone had changed clothes.

“We launched as you saw, and once we arrived at the designated position, we started the engine and everything went green just as it was supposed to. The wormhole opened, and we shot forward into it. The next thing I know, we were waking up with command and control yelling at us.”

“Resort, why were the pilots asleep?”

“Standard procedure and part of the plan General. As soon as the ship leaves normal space, the pilots are to be put into hypersleep to preserve resources and to protect their mental state during flight. When we didn’t arrive at the correct destination, they were left in hypersleep. We reversed our flight and have arrived back here.”

“What about the explosion?”

“That was an unforeseen event that I didn’t expect.” Resort said.

The General huffed again, and started pacing the room. He looked at Captain Suzy, she looked back at him with nothing to say.

“Dismissed.”

The two Captains stood, saluted the general and left the room.

The General sat down in one of the chairs, “Resort.”

“Yes, General?”

“What really happened?”

“Just as we told you. Why?”

The General breathed, “Because I don’t believe it one bit. Something happened and I want to know the truth.”

Resort’s voice changed and Scientist Gary’s voice came over the speakers. “General, if you are hearing this, then the wormhole engine works, but you will never be able to use it or recreate it for a long time. I have released a virus to delete any mention of the engine so that you can never make another one. Thank you for helping me to make this decision. May your failure live with you forever.”

“That bastard. What did he do?” he said, rushing to a terminal and started looking up the project files. Nothing. The designs were gone. The logs were gone. Even the personal logs that Scientist Gary created were all gone. He then went into Resort’s logs and found holes, major holes that should have been there during the trip. He saw the logs where holes now stood. Even the internal security logs had holes in them.

He pounded the desk, sending the keyboard flying and cursed. His boss would not be happy to lose a billion dollar test ship and a learned scientist with his knowledge and experience. Yes, he was an ass and trouble maker, but the world lost a good mind and that too would be a problem for him and his government.

The general thought about using his sidearm weapon on himself, but his training kicked in and kept him from wasting his life in this single lost battle. He filed an after action report and moved on to his next assignment. Scientist Gary was not thought about ever again.

Gary al-Hakim woke up in the spare bedroom to the crying of a baby. Caleb woke up hungry and needing to be changed. Gary rolled over and got comfortable again and tried to go back to sleep. His bladder didn’t let him and he got out of bed and went to the bathroom.

When he came out, Amelia was sitting in a chair in the main room with Caleb attached to her breast and her other breast bare to the world. He paused and looked at the naked breast. She saw him and smiled at him. “Good morning Gary.”

“Um, hi. Sorry for staring. Still getting used to this.” he said.

“No worries. Major and I understand. Come sit down and talk to me while I feed Caleb.”

He moved to the chair next to her and tried not to watch the baby feed, but he failed. He sat watching the baby eat, her nippled being pulled into his little mouth as he suckled. Amelia sat there looking down at her baby, a happy smile on her face. Contentment on her face.

“You seem to enjoy this.” He said to her.

“I am. I had no idea what I was missing. I never had a chance to be a mom. Now, I can’t imagine not doing this. This little baby came out of me. I grew him in my belly. He came out of me and now I’m feeding him with the milk from my body. I feel complete Gary.”

“What does Major feel? Has he ever said?”

“No. You know him. The strong silent type. But I’ve seen him smiling when he helps with Caleb. I’ve seen him carrying Caleb around with that look of pride on his face like, I don’t know. Like Caleb is the most precious thing to him and he is proud, a pride that I don’t remember seeing before.” she said, taking Caleb from her breast and putting him over her shoulder to burp him.

They fell silent as Caleb burped and had a little spit up. Amelia cleaned him up and just held him, his naked face against her naked skin.

“What am I going to do in this world?” Gary asked, after a couple minutes of silence.

Amelia looked at him. She opened her mouth to answer him, but then closed it. “Find a new career Gary.” she finally said to him.

“Yes, but what?”

She finally smiled at him. “You need to learn how to take care of babies and help women birth them. I think there is going to be a burst of babies being born over the next few years and we are going to need people who know how to birth those babies.”

He looked at her, doubt on his face. “Really?”

“You may not know this, but the birthrate for this world is nearly zero.” She held up her hand to forestall his comment. “Layla can tell you all about it, but she has been keeping people alive through the medical nanobots for a long time. Major and I are going to change that and that change is going to result in many babies being born and people are going to be needed to birth those babies. You may have been trained to do, whatever you do, but I am sure that you are smart enough to learn all you need to know about babies and how to birth them. I believe in you Gary al-Hakim.”

He leaned forward so that his elbows were on his knees and let his head fall so that his chin was on his chest. Tears actually fell from his eyes as emotions came over him. “No one has ever said that to me. Thank you Amelia.”

She moved to sit next to him. She pulled his head to her shoulder and showed him tenderness that really got the waterworks running and he cried on her shoulder.

Major came out of the bedroom and found a grown man crying on his mate’s shoulder. He left them alone and got the coffee ready.

Gary finally got a hold of himself and let go of her. “Have you agreed to any of the requests on your phone yet? You need to find that release and try to make a connection with someone. You need someone.” she said, holding his face in her hands.

He smiled and nodded his head. “I know. I just don’t know. I’m just not sure.” he said, then fell silent.

“Gary, you won’t know until you try it.” Major said, holding his coffee and watching them.

Gary got his phone and opened the permissions app. He found more than a dozen requests from women near him. He scrolled through the list looking at all of the profile pictures. “Which one?”

“Find one that strikes your fancy. Someone who you think is pretty. And when you meet, make sure that they know you’ve been gone for a while and that you are out of practice. I’m sure that they will understand.” major said. He remembered his first time and the amazing feeling it was to have his manhood embraced by Sarah’s pussy for the first time. That hot, wet, tight embrace of a pussy; it makes him smile when he thinks about it or when he makes love with his mate. Her body feels just as wonderful as the first time they were together. Major sighed a happy breath at his memories then focused on Gary he scrolled through the people who had pinged him.