Space Chronicles The Beginning

Chapter 12

The Zohar, an ancient Jewish text on mysticism, describes the female nature of God.

Angie watched the image of Jupiter with its giant red spot slowly recede on the main screen. Many of its larger moons were visible despite the myriad of stars populating the background of the image of this Jovian system. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Despite the fact that the X-3001 was limping along with only two engines it was still making good time. The hapless crew had been forced to make three jumps and wait several days between them to recharge antimatter. But, here they were back in the good ol' Sol system.

"I have a COM request from the X-2001, Angie."

"Open COM, Delphi."

"COM open, Angie."

"This is the X-3001. What is your location?"

"Hey, Angie. You guys okay?"

"Hey, Brian, we're a little banged up, but we're all okay."

"We have you on visual. You're not kidding. What happened?"

"We were in the biggest battle I've ever seen. We may be the worse for wear but we kicked the hell out of a huge alien fleet."

"You guys have all the fun."

"It wasn't fun, believe me."

"Where's Marty?"

"He, George and Uma are still trying to make repairs. Our weapon systems are off line."

"Well, not to worry. We're here to escort you back. Just relax and let us do the fighting."

"How do like the X-2001?"

"It's great. We've ferried science crews out to the Centauri system. Going through a jump is wild, but it's great to be going out to other stars."

"Have you run into any Roswell aliens?"

"Not yet. When we went out to Eris they were gone. I guess you scared them away."

"I doubt it. Hey listen, I've got to work on the navigational array. I'll catch you later."

"Okay, Angie. See you."

"COM is down, Angie."

"Thank you, Delphi."

"You are welcome, Angie."

"Who was that?"

Angie turned to watch Marty, George and Uma return. "Brian. He's escorting us in the X-2001."

"That's great! He's moving up. Good for him." He sat down at the navigational station. "We got the weapons back, but just barely. I wouldn't recommend getting into a battle any time soon."

"Now that Brian is here, we'll be okay."

"Have you gotten anything back from Space Command?"

Angie sighed. "Just an acknowledgement, that's all."

"Are we in the dog house again?"

"Who knows? They're all a bunch of desk jockeys."

Marty laughed. "Yeah, but they pay our salaries."

She dismissed him with a wave and a mock frown.

###

Several days later, the X-3001 was finally approaching Earth. As the Space Port's image grew larger, both Angie and Marty saw that things had changed.

"Is that a new ship?" Marty said, his voice increasing an octave.

"Sure looks like it," Angie said, her voice lowering an octave.