Itineris

[Vogel]

Lieutenant James Doyle of the 92nd International Volunteers Squadron was a comatose body strapped into a free-floating Minuteman spacecraft that was in high orbit above a ringed planet.

His mind had finally caved in on itself; after repeated mental assaults by absurd circumstances and harrowing experiences, Doyles psyche was no longer able to simply forgive and forget, nor was it able to continue functioning with its recent explosion of stimuli. After several bouts of what could only be described as space-time warping, the Alliance pilot was in no condition to keep operating, and as such his mind shut itself down in an attempt to force a fresh restart and piece things together.

The only thing Doyle was aware of was that he existed. His thoughts were too shattered to form any cohesive ideas, his mind too exhausted to start generating thoughts to begin with.

While it is conceivable that his journeys were instantaneous in nature, and that the presence of his ship in each place provided some stable mental foundation, the physical effects of this kind of warping on his body was as yet unknown, no doubt having some kind of effect on the situation.

In any case, perceived time for Doyle dragged out to immense proportions; minutes seemed like hours, seconds seemed like days. He hardly realized he was staring out the canopy for the better portion of his lethargy.

Eventually, however, Doyles mind began the aching process of recovery. The human mind is surprisingly resilient in such instances where it is given room to recuperate, and here was no different. The beleaguered pilot began to take note of his surroundings, the canopy bow, the box Jax had installed, the planet in front of him, the slow thrumming of the idling engine. Thoughts began to coalesce once more, rationality returned, as did emotion but in a much subdued state.

He was back again. He was back at this place, wherever it was, with the strange people and their highly advanced technology. For whatever reason he could not hope to fathom, he had been sent back to his proper place and then shoved right back. It was like being thrown into a cell and being given brief glimpses of the outside through the cracks in the door.

With a groan, Doyle sat himself up in his ejection seat and tried to stretch, although this was thwarted by the tiny cockpit. The fuel gauge of his ship was still reading in the range of 86%, and all systems appeared nominal. The box Jax had installed was still functioning, albeit if a few flashing lights indicated operability.

God he muttered, Here again

It was a little difficult bringing his arms up to grasp the yoke and throttle, but he managed it all the same. He twisted the fighter around a bit to look at the surroundings.

Yep, definitely back.

Now wheres that gate

Hmm? Hello? came a voice through the speakers.

Doyle bit off a curse; of course, he was back with these people who could hear any transmission he made, no matter what encryption he used. The push-to-talk button on the throttle had been clicked down so that it locked into place until pressed again, transmitting his voice wide out into the open.

Goddamned transmitter, he said with a groan, mashing down the button. He couldnt risk being detected out here in this place; his anonymity thus far was his ace in the hole, the one thing that might keep him alive long enough to truly figure out what was going on.

It was now his duty, if not his destiny, to figure it out. Either that or he simply had no other choice.

In any case, the line of rings was now recognizable as a trade lane, and would be far more fuel efficient to use than trying to skip across the whole system on nothing but inertia. Doyle set a course for the nearest set and punched the Search button. On cue, the green lights on it went solid, and the Transmit button sent the ribbon of light coursing through the four pieces.

He had to get to that planet, the one that looked like Earth. He needed to know. He had to know.

Before he knew it, Doyle was sitting at the massive jump gate again. Naturally he was apprehensive; the last time he tried this thing it sent him to what was left of Pluto. That image had, ironically, burned into his mind, and it still haunted him even after his restart. But he knew what he had to do, and hit the Search, Decode, and Transmit buttons.

The gates four prongs spread open like the gaping maw of some giant beast, and within its gullet laid a glistening portal of light.

He gripped the yoke tightly and increased the throttle.

One small step for a man.



One giant leap in the right direction.

This was certainly the system he had been in before, the one where he saw the false Pluto, the world covered in water, where that one woman tried to

Contact him.

Hed have to consider that for later; whoever those people were detected him as some kind of aberration and would no doubt be looking for him. Whether or not they would be on his side was obviously up for debate, but there were more important things to deal with.

He needed to find that planet, the one that looked like Earth.

What was it? Where was it?

Doyle looked down at the communications section of his cockpit and frowned. Keying that unit on virtually any available frequency seemed to broadcast it universally as far as these people were concerned. He couldnt send anything privately, or restrict who to send it to, not that he was aware of any groups here to begin with.

I have no choice, do I?

Shifting a little in his ejection seat, he keyed the comms.

Can anybody here tell me where, uh

Uh? Whats uh? Damnit, Jimmy, the planet!

The, uh Earth like planet is?

He didnt know what else to call it. Would that be sufficient?

California Minor is at coordinate E-6, an unknown voice responded.

Suddenly Doyle realized how stupid this course of action was.

Coordinate Echo Six of what exactly?

He had no star charts, no maps. The inertial navigation system in his Minuteman had long since been confused; it was only designed to track its course within the scope of a single star system, and how far had he traveled from that?

Er, perhaps you mean another planet? the voice asked in reply.

I guess so, Doyle muttered, in reality wishing he hadnt said anything, It looks like, uh It has oceans and continents on it

He heard a faint chuckle, and no more responses came after that.

Goddamnit, it was through another one of those gates I remember, he said to himself after switching off the transmit button, It has to be somewhere around here...

The lanes Damnit, of course! They lead right to them, just ride around and look for it!

As hed reasoned before, not a lot of people seemed to care about his presence, so he figured that using the lanes wasnt too much of a danger. For now at least.

He took a lane to another gate, but didnt believe that it was the one he was looking for; hadnt he crossed this entire place from another angle?

So he took another. It landed him in front of the water world.

No good, he thought, How big is this place, anyway?

He saw the next series of rings ahead and started pushing up the throttle when something off to the left moved in his peripheral vision. His eyes shifted over to focus on the object, and at that moment he almost wished he hadnt.

My God

It was quite a large ship, its design reminiscent of the others hed seen in this place. Huge cannons were mounted all over the prow which was shaped like the knife edge of old sailing vessels. It was cruising around very slowly, with no real obvious objective.

I hope its just on patrol, he whispered to himself as he kicked in the afterburners to close the distance to the next ring.

Another jump landed him in front of a barren-looking world with a station in orbit. Nondescript. A few ships were floating about but none of them appeared to pay him any attention. There was sporadic chit chat over the comms, but nothing directed at him, nor anything that sounded like any kind of alarm or danger.

So he took another lane.

And landed in front of another gate.

I hope this is it, he thought while nervously punching the buttons on the box, Dont feel like getting sent back to Pluto

A smoldering rock in space, superheated, boiling, scalding.

He shivered and kicked his little snubfighter into the light.



The first thing that caught his attention was the rings dead ahead. The second was the haze of debris fields that seemed to glisten in the light of the nearby star. The third was the planet he was looking for.

James Doyle heaved a sigh and gave himself a mental pat on the back. Hed made it this far, though God only knew how.

Just a few more lane jumps.

His mind seemed to toy with the idea of this being some sort of closure, when in reality it was only the slightest sliver of it.

Jump number one. It spat him out in front of a large station with numerous craft speeding about. It gave him the impression of a traffic jam rather than the operations of a military in space, but then again it appeared that space travel was common for these people.

It was common for Doyles people, too. Only they were wedged into small ships as refugees.

In any case, a second set of rings pointed directly at the planet. His heart started racing as his little fighter skipped around between the mass of ships and hit the ring.

But the cascade of light didnt last long; with a massive jolt that was but barely absorbed by the inertial dampeners in his fighter, the fiery tunnel split apart and spat the Minuteman into open space.

His heart was only racing more as he instinctively spun his ship, and his neck, around as far as possible in order to survey the situation.

Beams of light, obviously weapons discharges, were dicing through the stars from all directions. The wings of small fighters flashed the light of the star at his eyes while they rotated around to dodge a massive blast from what looked like a destroyer.

Doyles military instinct kicked in, and he finally looked down at his sensors readout, something he hadnt done at all while he was in this strange place. But it was no use; the screen was nothing but a massive coursing wad of unknown contacts with flickers of false targets, obviously decoys of some sort.

Only the LPI would work with foreigners! a gruff voice hollered over the radio.

When it comes to you people its welcome! another retorted.

This situation, like all the rest, made absolutely no sense to the poor Lieutenant. But what did make sense was the fact that ships were exploding less than ten kilometers from where he was sitting.

Anxiously he looked over towards the planet. Silhouetted against its nostalgic surface he saw the next ring of the lane. Without a moments hesitation he sent his fighter screaming towards it and started mashing the buttons on the box like there was no tomorrow.

A jolt, a flash, light, and he was there.

Earth.

Or something.