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Bea, Seamus, Lars, and Sumiko were all outside watching the night sky.
“See that tiny speck of light?” Lars asked Bea. She looked along his outstretched arm and nodded. “That’s the Bontrager II. All we’ll be able to tell when they depart is that it will disappear, I think.”
The ship twinkling in the heavens almost directly overhead.
“What do you mean, you think?” asked Seamus.
“As best Mica and I can speculate from the dynamics, the jump drive distorts the time/space continuum. That creates what used to be called an Einstein-Rosen Bridge,” Lars explained. “It’s not that the ship is any faster moving through real space. Instead, it just creates a worm-hole from one point in space to another. There’s still the transit time,” he concluded.
Oh, look, a shooting star,” exclaimed Bea from where she nestled in her Swedish lover’s arms.
To the right of the speck which was the Bontrager II, a bright streak of light pointed toward the vessel. The night sky suddenly lit up like broad daylight in a brilliant, coruscating scintillation of sparks and streaks. It looked like the grand final at a Monte Carlo fireworks display.
“Well, I guess that answers whether we’ll see anything or not,” Seamus chuckled. But Sumiko had gone rigid in his arms.
“What’s the matter, little one?” he asked, softly and gently.
Sumi pointed mutely at the night sky, where a massive meteor shower had begun streaking and flashing across the horizon.
“Darlin’, it’s just a meteor shower,” he chided gently.
But Sumi wasn’t buying it. “There has never been a meteor shower in recorded history of the planet,” she said breathlessly. “I studied those records in detail while I was at the hub. The planetary protection web disintegrates them at around one hundred miles. They never enter the atmosphere.”
“So either that’s a first, or what?” Bea wanted to know.
Sumiko was now positively ashen and shaking violently.
“Sumi, what is it, love?” Seamus asked, concern written across his face.
“The entire hub population is panicking,” she explained. “They don’t know what it is. They’re concerned enough CS has ordered a lock down.”
“How can you know that when your connection with CS was cut?” Seamus blustered.
“Jovi is telling everyone, across the entire planet.” Sumi began to sob and weep. “The strength of their dismay is palpable. Oh, my heart is breaking. The People felt a deep love and respect for Terse. Now that he is gone, they’re experiencing his absence from the whole.”
“Terse was disconnected from CS months ago,” Bea reminded her.
“There’s a deeper connection between The People than that through which CS controls them,” Sumi informed the three. “His spirit is missing from their lives now. I don’t believe...I can’t feel Terse or Tracy. They’re gone.”
“So the ship departed,” Lars explained. “I don’t understand why that should cause so much drama.”
“No, the ship never left,” she argued adamantly.
“Well of course it did,” Seamus chided gently. “We all saw the effect. And it’s not there anymore.” He pointed in demonstration to the spot where the flicker of the Bontrager II had been moments before.
Sumiko Nagasaki shook her head violently, too distraught to speak.
“What else can it be?” Lars asked.
Now she began to weep, in huge blustering gales of tears and wailing. Seamus, Lars, and even Bea were fully caught up in her hysteria. Bea finally grabbed either side of her head and shook her, none too gently. “Sumiko, what is it? Are we in danger?”
Through her tears, she gasped out. “The ship’s orbit...was at 50 miles...for the range of the teleporter.” Taking a deep breath, she continued a little more steadily. “The atmosphere begins at about 45 miles here. The air density and make up is slightly different from Earth,” she continued to explain. But then she burst into a fresh gale of tears. When the three finally calmed her enough that she could again speak, she sighed in resignation.
“I believe the...shooting star...Bea saw was actually a...missile fired at the Bontrager II. The meteor shower we just witnessed was the remains of the ship...burning up in the atmosphere!”
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