Free The Fire Crystal by James Lawrence Page B

to have the last word, and replied; “if we can pull this of , then we’ll book them a very long holiday - at a mystery destination.”
    The navigation had been set , and all was planned. Tom didn’t have much work to do. He keyed a code into the pad, and told Calvan to strap into his seat. Both boys counted off the seconds.
    Then they entered hyperspace. Calvan felt sick , and made the mistake of glancing out into the darkness. The blur was hypnotic. Tom reached across, and quickly closed the shutter.
    “I should have mentioned, don’t look out,” he said “That’s something even I never do. It will make you throw up.”
    Then there was a sudden jarring shock, and then they were back into normal space. Calvan didn’t even try to imagine how far he was from home – now they were headed for the Galactic Hub.
    As they grew closer to the hub it was possible to make out its center ; a black disk. Calvin tried to imagine a description for it. ‘Negative space’, was his best try. A blazing orb of stars that served to make it look even darker surrounded the hole. Then they saw the faint violet haze around the disc; the point where light bent-back on itself, and warped back into the hole.
    Tom pointed, “The edge of the disk is known as the event horizon. It’s the point of no return, where the wormholes start. No one knows where they finish, unless they take the trip through one. That’s what the Zaarks will do, if they could pull this off.”
    Even Tom wasn’t sure how all this worked, but he trusted the scientists from his own planet, and most of all Amber. If it didn’t work out , then their own battle cruisers would blast the Zaarks from space. This would be all out war and both Tom and Calvan knew they would be caught in the middle - and would be killed.
    Calvan was homesick and scared. This was no vacation, and he was uncertain if he would ever be going home.
    Tom had read his mind; maybe he was feeling it too. “We’ll be going home soon,” he said with confidence. “We just have a bit of business to do first.”
    The craft travelled with rocket-drive now. As it edged them in closer to the hub, Tom worried that they might get caught in the grip of a star.
    “Stay alert?” he said. “The Zaarks will be here any second. I made sure that they’d locked us back into their beam, just before we jumped into hyperspace.”
    They didn’t have to wait long. There some distance away, the empty space glowed for a few seconds, as the enemy ship dropped out of hyperspace.
    There was a noise like someone striking a gong , and the computer announced: “Intruder in local sector, and closing.”
    Tom answered. “Deflection shields up, but don’t cloak the ship. We want the intruder to see us.”
    “Now for the chase,” he said, and a hit a key on the pad in front of him. “We have a meeting with Amber.”

17 The Plan
    Before this adventure had begun Amber planned the possible outcomes, so she could present them to the Elders. They would need to make a decision.
    Only the supercomputer could see everything needed , to make this work. She had run a ‘what if’ scenario millions of times, on the planet’s best machine. With every cycle, the computer had changed the plan just one bit, and tested the results.
    “Blue on Blue,” she had murmured many times, meaning that the computer had predicted failure yet again. It had shown the Zaark’s ship moving away from the Hub, with no opposition. All the friendlies had fallen into the massive black hole, and seemed frozen on its horizon. She would never see Tom or Calvan again; and spend her entire life wondering what had happened to them.
    The worst of the simulations had finished with a short clip, showing Tom and Calvan’s ship blasted to bits. Then it showed the inside of the Zaarks ship. All the beasts looked more ugly than in real life. They were leaping around their leader, yelping and laughing.
    “Must have a word with the chief programmer,” she said.