Chapter 505

The Prison Planet

... Jasmine snatched on her coat and weapons to hurry out behind Morales, who, like the others, stopped in the deep shadow just beyond the entrance to stare above them.

The General, who had been farther away, grabbed his crossbow and followed everyone out.

“What in the hell is that?” Morales whispered as he too stared upward.

“Colonel?” both troopers called out as soon as they saw Jeff.

“At ease,” Jeff absently returned even as Ship’s message touched his mind.

“I grew lonesome without you, My Prime,” she projected.

“What the hell is that thing?” one of the troopers said into the stillness while unconsciously fingering his weapon. Everyone was leaning back to stare at the unbelievably huge apparition hanging directly above them.

“It’s just Ship without some of her being hidden in another dimension,” Jeff returned.

“That... monster is Ship?” the other trooper asked in hushed tones as he no longer stood atop the big rock above them.

“Are you sure, Colonel?” the General asked from directly behind Jeff.

“Positive,” the Prime returned as a grin touched his face.

Hovering, yet making absolutely no sound, was Ship in all her ... majesty. Only an idiot would think she was anything but a battleship. Beautiful and alien, she was unimaginably huge in her fully extended state while hovering just above the tallest trees, her enormous size causing the whole area to be in deep shadow.

“Oh, my,” Diana whispered as she snuggled close to her husband in the cold. “I know that she told us that part of her was in another dimension, but I never expected her to look like this.”

“Why not?” Jeff asked. “She has told us over and over that most of her was in another dimension; otherwise, she would never have fit in the General’s underground hangar, nor the field behind the Retreat, for that matter.”

“Nor in any other hangar on planet Earth,” the General inserted, awe creeping into his voice.

Arlene stepped closer to snuggle to Jeff’s side as she stared up at Ship. “Daddy, trying to follow all those angles, or whatever, makes my eyes hurt. Is it just me?”

Kayla was shaking her head as she moved closer. “Me, too. It’s as if those things, whatever they are, aren’t quite there. Like Arlene, they seem to hurt my eyes when I try to follow their outlines. But ... it only takes a glance to realize just how alien Ship really is,” Kayla said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“What’s holding that thing up?” Morales wanted to know, goosebumps tingling his neck. Then, “Oh, shit. Is it here because of what’s in the ice cave?”

Jeff turned to Morales. “A reasonable question under the circumstances, but she has nothing to do with the booster station – as far as I know, that is. That’s my ship up there and we just call her Ship. She’s a sentient being, and she told me that she was lonesome without me,” he finished with an odd catch in his voice.

Morales could hardly tear his eyes from the seeming endless acres of odd plains, abutments, angles and protrusions that shimmered above them, the whole coming together to spell alien, yet the majesty of the thing seemed somehow beautiful.

“How the hell did she find us?” the General wanted to know.

Selina spoke up. “I can find Earth from here...” but her voice trailed off as she thought to qualify the statement, “... with the use of the astrogator’s station to assist in navigating the dimensions,” she added. Remembering the voyage in Ship’s academy when she and Diana made their way home from another galaxy, she continued, “It would be exceedingly interesting and enjoyable.”

“We need to talk. Take me up, please,” Jeff sent. Moving a step away from his wives, he said aloud, “I’m going to...” but he had forgotten to tell Ship when, so she assumed immediately.

Ship’s tractor beam, augmented by a variation of the inertialess drive, snatched the Prime through Ship’s hatch and into the ship herself faster than the eye could follow. Had it not been for the inertialess component of the tractor beam, he would have been bloody paste.

Morales had been looking up at Ship when the beam snatched Jeff. “What happened to him?” Morales queried as he stared at the place where Jeff had been two seconds ago.

Diana shrugged. “He must have been talking with her and asked to be brought inside,” she reasoned.

“But, but...” he stammered. “The Colonel just ... disappeared. Is that thing safe? Is he safe?” Morales asked, reasonably.

“He’s her Prime,” Kayla responded with pride. “He might as well be part of her. I suspect that she would destroy Earth itself to keep him safe.”

That took a moment for Morales to compute. Then, “But where did that thing come from, and what the hell is it doing here?”

Diana turned to him. “She came from Earth. She usually sits, or hovers actually, in what is essentially our back yard near our outside shooting range. But, most of the time, she remains invisible.”

“Invisible?” he repeated incredulously. “How could that monster...” After a second, he continued, “If that thing’s, uh, propulsion system or whatever is holding it up, fails, it will flatten us,” he stated, grimly.

Arlene turned to him. “She would never hurt us, and she uses the dimensions for her power source, so she won’t run out of power – ever.”

Morales just stared at her, but before he could comment, a hatch opened and Jeff suddenly seemed to appear near them.

“So, why is she here?” Diana asked.

“Well,” Jeff replied somewhat sheepishly, “like I said, she got lonesome and decided to follow us.”

“But...” Diana began.

Jeff broke in with, “Remember, I’m her Prime. Sometimes, it’s hard for me to fathom just what that seems to mean to her, but she knows where I am, much as my wives do. My fault. I didn’t tell her to stay on Earth, but if I’m understanding her correctly, this is just a quick jaunt for her.”

Diana hesitated before, “I understand knowing the general direction you happen to be. All of your wives can do that, but how does that relate to 2214 being in another dimension? Could she find this place again without your being here?”

“Well ... I asked if she could easily find her way back to Earth. Uh, I am an engineer, remember, but the math I received – if it is math – is beyond anything I can comprehend, at least right away. The symbols, if that’s what they are, seem to have a sort of depth to them, three dimensional – somehow. Just ... having those ... equations, whatever, sent to my brain made me feel as if I were falling into them.” Then with a sigh, “I don’t think my brain was designed to think like that.”

Selina took Jeff’s hand. “My Prime, it is not that difficult if you are given time to become accustomed to it. Perhaps acclimated would be more precise? Since Ship is a telepath, there is a mental/physical aspect to her description of almost everything, particularly her equivalent of math.” After a slight hesitation, she went on, “Please, when we leave, may I return to Earth aboard her? That would provide an invaluable experience and would allow me a true test of my developing knowledge of dimensional astrogation.”

“If all my mates agree, we’ll all go back aboard Ship. Just don’t get us lost,” he teased.

Selina’s countenance lit like the proverbial Christmas tree. “Thank you, My Prime,” she said while hugging him fiercely.

“So, you really talk to that ... thing?” Morales asked.

Jeff turned to him. “Well, not at first. In the beginning, she was only able to share ... concepts and whole clumps of knowledge, I suppose you could say. But over time, she has learned to ... share smaller clumps of knowledge until the sharing almost equates to sentences of thought. If we are in a hurry, I just open my mind, so to speak, and allow her to share all my thoughts. Generally, she now has little trouble in unraveling my ideas, and ... I’m gradually getting more accustomed to the sharing until I can usually ‘hear’ it in something approaching sentences.”

“Well, that’s about as clear as mud,” Morales said with a grin.

“Yeah, I know,” Jeff returned, “and I apologize for being so vague. I’m pretty sure that telepaths are able to communicate many times faster than humans, because, I think they bypass converting concepts into words, speaking them, then the other person translating the speech back into concepts. From what I gather from Ship, they just eliminate the intervening process completely.”

Jasmine moved up beside Jeff. “I was always off-planet when that,” she said looking up, “was at the base, so I never got to see it.”

“Her,” Jeff corrected.

“Sorry. Her. Uh, is there any way that Morales and I can ... I mean...”

“Have a tour? Sure. But why don’t we get our personal things together first, so we can take our belongings up as we go?”

“Oh, I was hoping you would stay for lunch, at least.”

“Well, we...”

“We’ll be glad to stay,” Diana broke in with a grin. “Besides, we still have some things to discuss about the wedding before we go.”

“Oh, uh, sure. That was what I meant,” Jeff said with a chuckle, everyone aware that he had been corrected.

The General grinned, having experienced that form of correction many times in the past.

The women started back inside, Jasmine saying something about having put on a pot of dried beans to cook as soon as she got up this morning. “The peas cook much faster, so I put them on a half hour ago. Everything should be ready shortly.”

Just before going through the door, Diana called out to Morales. “We need your measurements, so please come inside.”

“I don’t...” Morales began, but Jeff interrupted.

“Just give up and do whatever they want as far as domestic things are concerned. They’re going to win in the end, anyway, and it will save a lot of hard feelings if you just go with the flow. I think that’s basic marriage rule number one, but Diana says I’m still in the process of learning that. Just remember, they own over half the money and all the pussy. Give in gracefully to the things that don’t really matter to you, but do to your wife. Save the arguments for the things that you will not back down on.”

“Good to remember,” Morales agreed. Laughing, the men followed the others back inside where Morales called Jeff and the General over. “Uh, gentlemen,” he quietly said, “I could use a little ... help from you.”

“Help?” Whitworth responded as he glanced at Jeff who shrugged his shoulders.

“Yes,” Morales returned, obviously embarrassed. “The bucket of brains there, well, I need you to piss in it,” he hurried on.

“Piss in it?” the General said before he caught on.

“Uh, I’m going to set it outside, but I don’t want to leave it out there long enough for the brains to freeze, so if you have to go...”

“So,” Whitworth said, fighting a laugh. “How much do you need?”

“Quite a bit, Sir. If you or the Colonel would mention it to your security, I should have enough to start working on the hide late this afternoon.”

Chuckling, Jeff picked the bucket up. “I’ll take care of asking security. Coming General?”

As they walked out the door, Jeff with the bucket, Morales passed a look with Jasmine who was grinning from ear to ear. “We’ll be back in a few,” Morales told her.

Jasmine, fighting a giggle, told them, “We’ll all stay inside until you return.”

Diana, Arlene and Kayla were looking blankly at the men, but after a second, Selina began to giggle. Diana was next to figure it out, and as she started to chuckle, so did the others.

Later as Morales took the bucket back inside with the covering again snugly in place, Diana smirked as she asked, “Everything okay, Guys?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jeff returned. Well, at least she didn’t ask if everything came out okay.

“Thanks,” Morales told Jeff and Whitworth. Then very quietly, “Without your help, Jasmine and I would have been drinking water all afternoon trying to conjure up enough piss to work the brains into it.”

The women finished lunch as the men sat by themselves chatting. Jeff caught Morales’ eye. “As soon as I get back, I’ll order a couple of sound suppressors for your rifles. I didn’t have any really good ones that would fit your weapons, or I would have brought them with me.”

Morales frowned. “I thought those things were illegal,” he began before suddenly cutting the sentence off. “Oh, I guess they aren’t here, huh?”

“And, they aren’t illegal on Earth, either – if you purchase the expensive license for each of them.”

“Fuck that,” the General said. “I don’t need a license, and I’m sure the armory has a couple that will work, or they can order some if they don’t have the correct model in stock.”