Free Teleport This by Christopher M. Daniels Page B

during life than before or after.
    Gilbert also spent time trying to locate Earth using the ships navigation system with the hope that Jon had sent him here because Ellie was close to Earth and she could possibly swing by and drop him off. He asked Ellie about the possibility.
    “Since you were able to teleport off your planet,” said Ellie, “it must be on the universal grid, meaning they had detected life there already, but weren’t ready to make contact due to your lower than average intelligence.”
    “Now you’re just being abusive,” said Gilbert.
    “That’s half the fun of talking with you,” said Ellie.
    “Yeah?” said Gilbert with a smile. “What’s the other half?”
    “Down boy, stay focused. Can you describe your galaxy?” she asked.
    “Sure, it’s spiral, about 100,000 light years across, maybe 13.4 billion years old, moving at about 630 km per second, around 300 billion stars in it. It has a binary component and they’re grouped with about 50 other galaxies.”
    “Pretty typical stuff.”
    “Alright, let’s see, there are two real gaseous galaxies alongside it with a hydrogen vapor stream connecting them that warps my galaxy as it passes through. And it will collide with its binary galaxy in about three billion years. My planetary system is on the outer rim, yellow sun, Earth is third of eight or so planets, depending on how you count planets.”
    “Okay, let’s see what we can come up with. Computer, see if you can find the galaxy and star system we’re discussing.”
    “Sure thing,” said the ship’s computer. “Just so you know, that description doesn’t match the galaxy were in right now, so it’s anywhere from a couple days to months or years away.”
    “Keep trying,” said Ellie. “Just don’t crash into anything while you’re looking.”
    “Will do. I’ll get back to you in a minute or so.”
    “So it’s probably out of the way?” asked Gilbert.
    Ellie thought about it, “Yeah, well, don’t worry, if it’s close by we can try to work it into the flight plan.”
    “Found it,” said the computer. “A week away at our standard cruising velocity.”
    “Which direction?” asked Ellie.
    “Left. And a bit downward.”
    “So too far away?” Gilbert said somewhat hopefully.
    “I’ll need to see if I can line up any work that takes us that way,” said Ellie. “Not too much going on over there on the left and I need to finish this job first so we’re a week or so away of even starting to get there. Jon will probably be in touch with teleport codes long before that. Why don’t you just hang on here for a bit and see what happens.”
    “Great. Fantastic,” said Gilbert as if his wildest dreams just came true.
    “Just go to the cargo bay and help Holt prepare for unloading.” Holt was Ellie’s all purpose crewman and most things that required manual labor fell to him.
    “Aye-aye, Captain.” And Gilbert was off like a boy going to his first circus.
    “Hey, boss, what’s shakin’ between you and the newbie?” Talia, the ship’s tactical officer, had caught the last bit of the exchange between Gilbert and Ellie. She was the security Ellie had mentioned earlier, an expert at hand to hand combat with all the right implants.
    “I think he’s got a crush on me. He has that love struck look on his face that makes you want to punch him in the mouth.”
    “Anything I can do to help?”
    “Yeah, go over there and punch him in the mouth.”
    “You got it.”
    “Hold on, don’t punch him in the mouth.”
    “Gut then?”
    “No.”
    “Knee him in the groin?”
    “Definitely not, I might need that later. Just forget I said anything.”
    “Can do.”
    Ellie could tell from the blank look on Talia’s face that she just erased the past thirty seconds from her memory. “Hey, boss, what’s shakin’ between you and the newbie?” she said.
     
     
    They arrived at the mining camp right on schedule. Ellie’s chief job as captain was to see that the cargo