Chapter 23

“Dickie call off the time while we are within the tunnel, shut down all non-essential systems that may enable you to sustain the tunnel longer,” Jim said as the station began to gain speed.

“Compliance, Captain, though without the star engines, this is the top speed we will be able to obtain,” Dickie answered as Jim saw that their speed had leveled out. “Five minutes so far,” Dickie said.

Jim and Mary could see that the tunnel was slightly different after ten minutes instead of a steady glow the walls of the tunnel were starting to flash dark every now and then, at fifteen it was occurring with more frequency.

“Dickie shut down every system not essential to life support, shields, and the tunnel drive!” Jim yelled above the noise the tunnel drive was starting to make, “Watch for stress and heat build-up within the tunnel drive!”

“Compliance,” Dickie replied, “the increase in power may extend the tunnel time.”

They all watched as the blinking of the tunnel walls slowed and almost stopped, though their joy was short-lived. After twenty minutes, the walls started to blink slowly again. Jim smiled when they hit twenty-five minutes. They might get further. They’d just hit thirty minutes when the alarms started to go off, Dickie informed them that some of the other systems had shut down with the strain on the reactors. At thirty-five minutes, Jim was hoping they didn’t rip the ship to hell and back. Finally, at forty minutes, Dickie announced that the tunnel was failing. There was an extremely violent lurch, and then they were free.

Touching his ear, Jim asked, “Status report.”

“We have traveled three days closer to the Creca world, though we are still barely out of message beam range. We...,” Dickie started when there was another proximity alert going off, “Captain, I am detecting a large world ahead. From what I have deduced of their language, it is a Krong world, the first I have detected since we entered this area of their space. It holds a rather large number of the King; I am also getting odd readings in the center of a huge building in the largest city.”

Jim rushed to look at the readings, from what he saw it was putting out a lot of energy and...? Em waves? Jim backed away, was it possible that they had stumbled onto the brain hold? No, he didn’t believe that for a second, he was sure his father had something to do with that. Looking closer he could see different energies coming from the building some of them were definitely human!

“Move us away beyond their detection,” Jim ordered as they felt Dickie start the sub-light engines. A few minutes later, they were behind the moon of the planet, “any pursuit?” Jim queried.

“None that I am detecting, Captain. it appears we have escaped before their sensors detected us.” Dickie informed the three.

Amber eyes also grew large when she saw the readings, “Jim you aren’t going to try and go down there are you?” she cried.

“Not unless I have no choice. first, I have to figure a way to keep them alive once they are here,” Jim replied as a thousand ideas flew through his mind.

“Unless you want a major ass-kicking, you had better tell me what’s going on,” Mary advised when Amber backed from the sensor panel.

“We’ve detected human em patterns down there. When I was going through the Krong records, I found that they would take the brains of their strongest enemies. I believe that they took the brains of three of the heroes of the first battle against the Krong,” Jim said, trying not to get too excited.

“Ah, you mean the Stocks,” Mary replied. Though not shocked knowing Mary and the way she had gathered information, Jim was still a little surprised.

“Yes that’s right, the heroes of that attack deserve peace or a chance to live again, I intend to bring their brains on board, though at present I am not sure how yet, as we don’t have the equipment yet, nor the power. I worked on the DMTM and we only have one operating, it would take all three synced with each other just to get one of them and the equipment they are housed in,” Mary nodded thinking a moment.

“I believe that for once I have an idea that you don’t,” Mary smirked as she pulled out the disk Jim had given her before they’d left. “I did a little work on something like what you are describing when I almost killed Anthony,” Mary said, for a moment drifting back in time. “I thought I might have to put his brain in another ‘holder’ while his body healed. The war ended, and I never saw him again, so I abandoned it, which YOU took with you. Had I had it, I might have actually finished the idea.”

Jim again cringed at the mention of the recent argument they’d gone through. As they both looked over the data, Jim became more and more impressed; this was damn good! Hell, with that, it was brilliant!

“I do believe that this would do it, though you might have to find a way to adapt our power source to their machinery,” Jim stated.

Looking over the power readings from the planet Mary just shrugged, “Shouldn’t be too hard, it’s not too different than the power readings of the generators used over 50 years ago.”

Again Jim was a little shocked, he knew that Mary was extremely smart but even he hadn’t seen the similarities of the two. “Come on Jim, you remember that second mission we did to that outer world? I had to adapt to their power generators and they were no different than this,” Mary said, a little irritated that Jim didn’t remember that mission.

Jim could only stand there, his mouth open, though Amber was trying her best not to burst out laughing.

The rest of the day Jim worked on panel seven, it wouldn’t have for them to be taken, right after they got what they were after. Mary had started modifying several power outlets in the heaviest protected cargo bay.

Finally, the seventh panel was repaired. Jim moved over to the eighth, surprised to see that Mary was over half done with it.

“Reporting,” Dickie broke in, “I now have ninety percent control over the station; I have fifty percent control over tunnel drive. I am now commencing auto repairs on reactor seven, which should take two to three hours. With the restart of reactor seven, we should get almost half of the power to the star drive while still within the tunnel. Though I have more control, I estimate that the stability of the tunnel won’t be maintainable for very long. We will need the stabilizers associated with panel ten.”