Chapter 259

Time drifted on. The mist disappeared and the forcefield ceased to exist. Jeff sat up. His wives reached out a hand to touch him, all talking at the same time as they asked if he was all right. Their concerns brought a catch to his voice as he repeatedly told them he was fine. "How's Mayberry?" he asked, but as the women moved out of his way and he stepped from the healing Chamber, he saw that the pilot's Chamber was still closed.

Diana grabbed his hand, then seeing that it was healed, kissed it. She looked down to check on the cut in his thigh, but even his uniform had been healed. "Ship informed me his healing would take longer," she told her husband. Then as she threw herself into his arms stifling a sob, "What happened, Baby?"

Jeff hugged her tightly, hesitating for a second as all his wives crowded around to hug, or at least touch him. "I need to discuss that with the General," he responded, looking over the top of his wives' heads to lock eyes with Whitworth who was standing several feet away. The Prime kissed and hugged each of his wives before reluctantly pulling away, and after catching the General's eye again, nodded down the hallway.

"My Ready Room?" he suggested to his superior.

Whitworth nodded.

"Jeff, your team is waiting for you," Diana said as she motioned down the corridor.

"Meet you there in a minute, Sir," Jeff said as he hurried to speak to his team.

A few minutes later, Jeff and the General sat at the long table. Arlene came in with coffee, while Selina brought a plate of cheese and crackers.

As soon as the door closed behind the females, Whitworth turned to Jeff. "Pilot error or mechanical problems?"

"Mechanical – definitely. And if I were to guess, I would say sabotage. There was a loud noise and the engine stopped instantly. A gust of wind drove us into the cliff face, but we were on the way down almost instantly. Mayberry is a damn good pilot. This should not go against his record. I'm sure forensics will..."

"The helicopter fell right on top of the Daisy Bell. Between the aviation gas, the hydrogen, and the oxygen to increase the temperature of the fire tenfold, there is little left of the helicopter. What is left is a mangled and melted mess. You might as well have turned a giant acetylene torch on it."

"Like I said, there was a loud 'wham, ' the whole thing shook, and a second later we hit the rock face."

"And you pulled the pilot out and saved his life," Whitworth added. "The camera angle is bad, plus the distance, but even so, it's obvious you were carrying the pilot when you came out of that copter."

"He would have done the same for me," the Prime argued. Then quickly changing the subject, "He hit his face and head really hard. Diana tells me that the Ship said it would take a while, but the Chamber will heal him."

Whitworth, as he had already done several times, took a piece of cheese and put it between two crackers. "Damn, I didn't realize I was hungry until I ate one of these things."

Jeff let out a chuckle. "I could eat the north end of a south bound moose right now."

"The healing?"

"Yeah, I guess. Whatever. These crackers aren't going to do it, that's for sure."

"Your team?"

"I stopped in to see them, as you know, then sent them back to resume what they were doing when we fell off the mountain."

"The crash team is going to want to talk to you."

"Yes, Sir. But, I won't be able to tell them much more than I've just told you. Maybe Mayberry can add something when he comes out of the Chamber."

"You really think it was sabotage? And while I'm asking questions, why in the hell were you on that helicopter, anyway?" Whitworth asked as he turned steely eyes on his Colonel.

"Well, the tech had to..."

"Bullshit, Colonel! You might snow your wives with that, but..."

"I had to, Sir."

Whitworth paused, then, "Precog again? You knew it was going to happen?"

Jeff took a sip of his cooling coffee before sitting the cup down to look at the General. "It doesn't work that way with me – when it works at all. I ... just knew that I had to go."

"Lieutenant Mayfield said you were certified to..."

"I lied. It only took a few minutes on the Internet to find out everything I needed to know. Hell, anybody could operate the Daisy Bell once you know how it's supposed to work. The pilot helped me choose the areas where the snow needed to be moved and he hovered at the correct height. All I had to do was charge the Bell and fire it off."

"In other words, you faked it just to be with him when he crashed?"

"Not that simple, Sir. I just knew that I needed to be there and I was reasonably certain something was going to happen. I had no idea what."

"Same thing you've done on missions, over and over again, right?"

"Well, I..."

"I keep in touch with my people, Colonel. Hell, everybody at the base knows you are a precog. You always seem to know a few seconds before an ambush happens. How many of your team have you pushed aside a split second before they would have died from enemy fire? As I've said before, they would follow you through Hell and back, and somehow, I don't think that's much of an exaggeration. But risking your life under the present circumstances is not acceptable, and I am not pleased about your taking more risks again this morning. We've discussed this before, and neither am I pleased about what happened this morning. You came within a gnat's eyelash of dying.

"Oh, I'm grateful that you saved Mayberry. You managed to live through the crash and save his life at the same time, but ... think about what would have happened if you had gotten yourself killed. Chances are this Ship we're sitting in would have kissed Earth goodbye and headed home – wherever home is. Because you wanted to save someone's life, you might well have endangered..." There was a pause. "Fuck it. You survived, but I'll tell you now, if you manage to get yourself killed..." The General's voice changed. "Dammit, Jeff. You're more than my Colonel; you're my friend. My brother Alpha. Our Prime. You can't keep doing this shit. Why the hell do you think I've stopped sending you on missions? You're the only one this thing we're sitting in will obey."

Jeff didn't want to poke the bear, but added, anyway, "That might not be entirely true. She responds to Arlene. The Ship not only accepted her as my second, she suggested it."

The General stared at the Prime. "'Second, ' Colonel. Second. First Officer is second in command. I don't want to find out the hard way that Arlene's authority comes only through you. For all the work my scientists did, for all the time they spent studying this thing we're sitting in, they learned absolutely nothing that she didn't want them to learn, and I'm almost certain that little bit came because you told her to. Why in the hell do you think I let her sit out here in back of your home instead of having her return to the base?" Whitworth took a breath to calm himself. "Back to my previous statement. My people learned what you told the Ship to let them discover. Tell me I'm wrong, Jeff."

The Prime cleared his throat. "Well, I did suggest that she allow them to learn a few things. It..."

"Exactly. So why should I pay all those people to keep farting around in this Ship when they could actually be accomplishing something somewhere else? Besides, unless I miss my guess, she saved your life today, right?"

"Definitely," Jeff admitted.

"And you learned to call her mentally only a day or so before your life depended on being able to do that, right?"

"Sir, I don't know..."

"Neither do I, Colonel. Neither do I. But I do know better than to fuck with whatever is going on. I'm beginning to think that being around you is a hell of a lot more productive than having all those scientists trying to reverse engineer this Ship. But dammit, quit scaring the fuck out of me. I'm getting too old to watch you fall off a fucking mountain."

"Me, too," Jeff said with a laugh. "Me, too."

Mayberry sat up in the Healing Chamber, a puzzled expression on his face. "How do you feel?" Jeff asked as he looked down at the pilot.

"I, uh ... Colonel, where am I? The last I remember ... Oh, shit..."

"Our ride and that rock face didn't get along well together," Jeff said, offering a hand.

Mayberry came to his feet and stepped out of the Chamber. "But how did we..." he started as he looked around at the alien surroundings. Realizing where he must be, "Hey, we're on the Ship, aren't we? How did I get here? Did we..."

"Come on. Let's go to the lounge and get some food into our bodies. Both of us need a little extra after being in a Healing Chamber. While we're eating, I'll tell you what happened."

As they walked down the hallway, Mayberry wiped a hand across his face. "My face tingles a little, like I've been in the wind or something, but the skin feels really smooth ... Did I..."

At a thought from Jeff, the Ship converted a wall panel to a mirror. As Mayberry stood looking at his image and tentatively touching his face, he went on, "What did it do to me? The skin feels smooth, like it is new or something."

"You smacked your head and face against the side of the mountain. Ship repaired you, and she tends to make things better than they were originally."

Mayberry shook his head, still staring at his image.

Jeff touched his shoulder. "Come on, I'm hungry and I suspect you are too."

In the lounge, Jeff and the pilot sat at a table while Diana and Arlene ordered an assortment of food from the Ship and brought it to the two men. After thanking the women, Mayberry protested, "I'll never be able to eat all this, but it sure looks good."

"It's my wives' cooking, programmed into the Ship's database. As to your not being able to eat it all, you might want to wait to comment until after we've finished. Although the Ship provides most of the energy to heal with, we still come out of that Chamber needing extra food."

There wasn't a scrap of food left on the table when the men were done.

The General walked up behind Mayberry. "How are you feeling, Son?"

The pilot bounced to his feet like a jack-in-the-box, but Whitworth put a hand on his shoulder to encourage him to sit down again. "Relax," the General said as he sat. "I just need to ask you what you remember about this morning."

Arlene placed a cup of coffee in front of Whitworth. After thanking her, he turned back to the pilot, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, Sir, we had a perfectly normal run until we were maneuvering to get that last blockage. I had just started to pull up when there was an ... explosion, I guess. Something made a loud noise, I felt a shock run through the airframe, the engine stopped, and the controls went slack in my hands. I'm sorry, Sir. That's all I remember until I woke up and saw the Colonel standing over me."