Chapter 7
Will was waiting to see the Prime Minister, with Becca sitting on his left. They had arrived, as they had been told to, at nine o'clock but had been waiting for nearly half an hour and Will was beginning to wish he were somewhere else. Unlike some of the other areas he had seen on Cantabrigia, the Prime Minister’s offices looked well presented and thoroughly modern. Luckily, Will had managed to get his communicator back from Kat. Although she was reluctant at first, she realised that he would need it for his meeting with the P.M., so had reluctantly agreed to return it to him, on the proviso that, at the end of the meeting, he would return it to her.
‘You can go in and see Mr. Allen now’ said the Prime Minister’s aide, from behind his desk.
‘Thanks’ replied Will, feeling as if he'd just been called into the office of his old head teacher at school. He'd done that all too often and it wasn't normally a pleasant experience, having been somewhat adventurous as a schoolboy.
A smiling Henry Allen greeted them as they opened the door to his office. ‘Come in. Sit down’ he said, holding out his right hand to greet them.
Pleasantries over and seated, the P.M. said ‘Mr. Hunt, Becca tells me that you have some information that you think we need to know about.’
‘Yes, Mr. Allen. It's hard to explain and what I'm about to tell you may sound like the ravings of a madman but please bear with me. I have some videos and images that support what I have to say. First of all, I don't belong here. I was born in a parallel reality, similar to this one, but slightly different. In that reality, I lived with a version of Becca here for about five years. In my reality, I knew her as Becky. My alter ego in this reality is married to Becca and they have a daughter at college. In yet another reality, one I left only the other day, my alter ego there was married to a woman called Kate and they have a seven year-old son. Less than a week ago, I found myself in that reality and we found a base on the fifth planet out from the sun, which I know as Zeon. I gather that you call it Nyx. The base was full of armaments and there were two spaceships. The owners, if you like, were from yet another reality and seemed to be preparing some kind of attack. They seem to have developed a means of transferring between realities in a controlled way and may well be planning to attack this reality as well. The people from that reality speak a language called Esperanto, which I gather is rarely used in either this or my reality, or at least, where it is, it's a long way from here. I'm here to suggest that it would be worthwhile for your military to take a look at the planet to see if there is a base on it. If they don’t find anything, it’s simply a few hours lost. If they do, however, you will should to empty it of all weapons and spaceships.’
‘That’s four realities, at least, then. So, why exactly should I believe you and not consider this as some weird story that will waste a lot of time and effort to investigate?’
‘Let me show you my images before you make up your mind. Some of them are from the inside of the base. I’ve been informed that the device I'm using is considerably more advanced than anything you have here.’ With that, Will showed him the images and videos, both holographic and two-dimensional that he had take since he switched from his own reality. Some showed Billy, some showed Billy, Kate and Peter and some showed the inside of the base he'd been in with Billy.
The Prime Minister looked at the images in silence. ‘Thank you for the show, Will. For now, I'll go along with what you have to say but I have to admit to some misgivings. I’ll see if I can arrange with the navy to take you to Nyx to take a look for this mysterious base. If it is as well equipped as you claim, then urgency is of some import. I will ask to see if that can be arranged for this afternoon or tomorrow. I already have a meeting arranged later this morning with the Commodore, so will ask her if it's possible. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another meeting shortly and need to do a small amount of preparation for it.’
Three hours later, Will was on board a navy cruiser heading towards the small planet Nyx. The ship had a crew of fifty but there was an additional team of ten marines on board that would be used to investigate the base, assuming that there was one on the planet. He was sitting in Captain Rajan Samra’s office, alongside Marine Major Liz Holmes, facing the Captain's desk. After the meeting between the Prime Minister and the Commodore, the Commodore had instructed that the investigation of Nyx should include Will, in order, she hoped, to save time.
‘The Prime Minister asked if we'd take a look and the Commodore promised him that we would, so we'll do what they agreed to’ Captain Samra informed them, looking and sounding as if he considered the trip to be a complete waste of time.
‘If I could show you some video footage of the planet's surface, might that help locate the base?’ asked Liz ‘We ran a training exercise here about ten years ago and decided we needed to have a good idea as to what the planet had in store for us, so recorded the surface in some detail. We didn’t identify anything artificial, which suggests that the base you’re expecting wasn’t built at that time.’
‘I'll take a look and see if I can recognise the general area we found the base, which would speed up the search. I'm not sure I’ll remember the exact location but if I can recognise the terrain we found the beacon in, I'm sure that would help. We had the advantage of being able to follow a directional radio beam onto the planet but that method isn’t an option for us here. However, once we got to the planet, we did manage to pick up something in the infra-red, as the radio receiver equipment generated a very small amount of heat, pushing it above the background temperature, so I suggest we don’t just use visible light, just in case there’s something like that here. We didn’t have the kit but you might also try something like LIDAR or any other tool you may have to examine the surface.’
‘If there is a base down there, what can you tell us about it?’ asked the Captain.
‘I would have preferred to have shown you but I’m afraid that my communicator, complete with its images, is currently being investigated with a view to working out how it can produce the holo images that it does. While I was able to use it when I met the Prime Minister, I’d agreed to return it to one of your companies to see what they could do to reverse engineer it. However, assuming it has the same layout as the one I went to, there are two large hangers, one behind the other. The front hangar had two space ships in it. The rear one was full of explosives and weapons. Large doors that allow the rear one to be sealed off and kept airtight divided the two hangars. On one side of the dividing doors is a small office that can also double as an airlock. That’s where I literally stumbled upon a switch that allows you to move between realities. In the far corner of the rear hangar is a door to a set of offices and a small number of prison cells. This door was also an airlock, so I didn't need a helmet in that part of the base but that may not be the case in all realities. The rest of the base was airless, though. One of the offices, at the end of the office area corridor, was that of General Willem Gott, who interrogated me and then had me put into one of the cells.’
A short while later, Will was examining the images and maps provided by Major Holmes. Despite knowing roughly what he was looking for, he was struggling to find the approximate location of the base. As he looked through the data, he managed to pin down the location to one of three possible sites. When he discussed these with her, she was able to inform him where they were on the planet, which allowed him to eliminate one of them, as it turned out to be south of the equator, when he knew it was in the northern hemisphere. That left two possible areas to look at in more detail once they arrived within range. Having informed the Major, Will went to the observation area, so that he could watch progress of the search for himself.
An hour later, they were over the first of the two areas Will had identified but, after two hours, the Captain decided that they were wasting their time there, so flew to the other location. After half an hour, they found what they were looking for.
As Will stood there looking at the enhanced image of the base, he heard the ship's loudsp
eaker system ‘Will Hunt to the bridge. Will Hunt to the bridge.’ As he entered the bridge, Captain Samra turned to him and said ‘You were right, Will. There is a base here. The Major has asked if you would like to join her and her team as they investigate. The decision is yours.’
‘Thank you, Captain. I’d love to. I'd be interested to see how this base compares to the one I was in in the other reality. I may be able to speed up the investigation slightly by giving additional information to the Major once we’re inside.’ Despite giving the impression that he was looking forward to revisiting the base he was, in reality, feeling somewhat nervous, having had a less than positive experience when he was in the one in Billy’s reality.
‘I agree. You need to join her team in the shuttle bay. I'll get someone to show you the way and help you find a suit that fits.’
Thirty minutes later, Major Holmes and her team, along with Will, were approaching the base. Will pointed to the left of the massive doors to show them the entrance.
In case the base was occupied by enemy troops, the Major and her team entered the base first. A quick check showed that the base was unoccupied, so they called Will on the radio and he went inside to join them.
Once inside, Will looked for the light switch and turned the lever to illuminate the vast space. One of the team gasped in surprise at the illuminated hangar. Will noted, however, that there was only one ship present, rather than the two that had been there in Billy’s reality. There also seemed to be nothing else in this hangar. While he needed to take a look at the rear-most hangar, all of the weapons and such that he and Billy had seen in the alternate forward hangar seemed to be absent.
Will turned to the Major ‘This hangar is less full than the other one I went to. I suggest that the first priority is to get that ship out of here, as its presence could prove fatal if the enemy arrive whilst we're in here. If the ship is the same as the one I’ve already explored, there should be breathable air inside, so you shouldn’t need helmets. You’ll need to translate the controls, which are written in Esperanto. The bridge is at the end of the main corridor that runs from the entrance. Other than that, I suggest we go into the rear hangar and the offices to see what, if anything, is back there.’
Major Holmes agreed, then despatched two of her team to examine the spaceship and another one to find the controls that would open the main hangar door.
As they entered the inter-connecting office at the rear of the first hangar, Will explained that it looked identical to the one in the other reality. He also pointed to a control box like the one that Billy had nudged and had resulted in them being catapulted into the other reality. He had no desire to do that again, so carefully picked it up and placed it onto the desk next to the ancient-looking computer terminal.
‘That thing is the switch box that will take us to the enemy reality, which we don't want!’ Will informed the team.
‘Noted’ responded the Major and ordered two of her team to empty the room of anything that could provide further information on the enemy's plans and take it to the ship, taking particular care of the switch box.
With that under way, they entered the rear hangar. Will sought out the light switch for this space and, once it was illuminated, noticed that this hangar was full of armaments in much the same way as the one in Billy’s reality.
The Major immediately recognised the threat and arranged for the hangar to be emptied. Due to the quantity involved, she also contacted the ship and requested additional support and another shuttle that could be used to ferry the armaments across to the ship. Although they may have been able to use the enemy ship, she wasn’t sure how long it would be before the two marines on board managed to get it airborne and felt it safer to use their own equipment to transfer it to their ship, just in case they flew the enemy ship more erratically than would be prudent. The plan was to move everything from the base and leave it on the planet’s surface some distance away, so that it would be difficult for the enemy to find it. A low-powered radio beacon would be placed with it to help the team find it later.
Once this work was under way, Will took the Major and two of the marines to the rear of the hangar and into the equivalent of the administrative area he had been escorted to only a few days before. Once there, the Major checked there was breathable air and, once satisfied that there was, indicated to others that they could remove their helmets.
‘At the end of this hallway is the office of the general, Willem Gott. You might like to have a good look at his office, in case there's anything useful in it’ said Will.
An hour later, the General’s office had been stripped of anything that could be removed, the materials loaded onto the shuttle and the remaining rooms and prison area examined. None had anything that would help them in protecting their reality.