On the other side of a space anomaly, Rover Pilot Nureen Keala came face-to-face with her childhood hero. Problem: Creed died fifty years ago in a devastating space battle. Telepathically linked with a shapeshifting creature named Tessur, Nureen had to get her scout craft repaired and get off the Borealis, but she wasn't sure who she could trust. Certainly not this Tedrin Creed look-alike, and maybe not even Tessur. Forget the TPP. Tedrin Creed had been stuck on the Borealis five years, after falling through the space anomaly during a massive battle. He doubted Nureen's claim to be a Rover -- the uniform and technology were totally wrong. Problem: she sure reminded him of his best friend, "Killer" Keala. Bigger problem: the anomaly was closing, time was running out, and he had to convince someone he didn't quite trust to escape with him now -- or never.
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EXCERPT
Nureen closed her eyes, even though she couldn't see anything other than the inside of her craft. That was exactly why she needed to close her eyes -- there was nothing, not even darkness beyond the viewport, and all her screens were filled with static. She gulped, feeling her insides trying to rearrange themselves again, and opened her eyes. If she ever let on that she had gotten space-sick, her fellow crewmembers would never let her forget it.
That was assuming she would get out of this alive.
I can either hold our matter together, Tessur responded, or access your memories and units of measure to answer your question. Take your pick.
You don't have to get snippy.
Sorry. I realize this is pretty frightening -- no, actually, you're not frightened. Angry, knocked off balance, confused, but not frightened. You are made of rather sterner stuff than the usual unwilling traveler, aren't you?
Who was--
And here we are! Tessur sounded vastly relieved. If he had been something other than a sweet-smelling fuzzy blanket wrapped around her, Nureen thought he might have been sweating hard enough to drown her. My ship was pulverized by those horrendous hive creatures. It wasn't worth what I paid for it, but it was all I had. If you could make arrangements to drop me at... Oh... my.
"Oh my what?" Nureen rasped, as she skimmed over her console, bringing sensors back online and taking in the readings. Even before the first visual came through her scorched video feeds, she knew it had to be serious if Tessur sounded so disconcerted. It was hard reading someone else's emotions if all she had was a voice in her head and no face -- and no real experience -- to help her interpret.
I've never been in this particular dimension before. Sorry. Tessur slid off her shoulders and melted into something that resembled a neon green puffball with multiple gossamer wings. It floated at her shoulder level, with maybe thirty centimeters between them, and she had the distinct impression that he looked over her console with her, even though he didn't have eyes.
Nureen stared at the image of a massive mechanical construction hanging before her, several thousand kliks away, in high orbit around a devastated-looking planet. She had thousands of images of different worlds in her memory -- a good pilot knew how to make visual identification of the various civilized worlds without having to depend on mechanical memory banks -- and this place was too striking to be easily forgotten. And that meant if she couldn't recall it, then she had never visited this world or seen it in anybody's log records before.
And Tessur hadn't seen it before, either.
I do believe we've discovered a new dimension.
"Ya think?"
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