Escaping Relativity
Chapter 2

It took Xander more time than he wanted to get to The Allegiant Docking Station. It was the largest Docking Station in the known universes, and because of it’s size and import, it was where they found their standardized time and measurement increments. The four terms Sojo had given him, was four satellite rotations around the Docking Station; four sets of twenty eight hours. Taking a deep breath, and turning on the speaker systems, he pinged the Control Center. Xander shook his head and tried to concentrate on landing.

“Tracker 1 to Control,” Xander spoke into thin air.

“Control to Tracker 1,” a deep voice responded over the speakers, requesting Xander to speak back.

Xander didn’t want to ask for anything, much less to land. He wanted to shoot someone, and that Rynthian he had seen behind Brick earlier, would do nicely. How could everyone else in The Universe continue to move and work and live while Brick was being held hostage?

Xander had promised his dad he would take care of his little brother, and boy had he screwed that up! What had he been thinking, taking him on and training him to be a Tracker? Xander should have left Brick’s ass at the Academy!

“Tracker 1, requesting permission to dock,” Xander finally answered.

“Bay 4A. Acknowledge your business.”

Another deep breath, Xander didn’t have time for this. Time was against him, and he was running out of it.

“To speak to one of the Allegiant Representatives about the JUMP Machine. My name is Xander Collins. I’m the Master Tracker, and I’m looking for the girl.”

“Affirmative, continue to Bay 4A.” The voice commanded. There was a new urgency in his voice, whoever he was.

Everyone knew who Xander was, he probably didn’t even need to give his last name. All he really needed to say was “Xander, the Tracker”; but there was no margin for error when it came to The Allegiant. As good as they were for The Universe, they were sticklers for the rules, and if one hair was out of place, he could find himself in a puzzle prison for the rest of his life. Especially when it came to her.

Pulling in line with the entrance, he let the Docking Station do what it did. Flipping a few switches, he turned off all systems and let his Velociraptor 360 be pulled in by their technology. Spinning around, Xander got out of the captain’s chair and walked halfway through the ship, unlocking the hull and letting it decompress to match the outside airlock. As anxious as he was, he would never be in that much of a hurry. Being late was way better than being dead. Unless he was late and his brother was the one who ended up dead for it.

Shaking off the thought, Xander took another deep breath. At the last minute, he decided to leave the weapons on board. Taking them with him to a peaceful negotiation could start the whole thing off on the wrong foot. Xander placed his palm to the wall a few feet over, and a panel slid back showing every shining and every flat-black, deadly weapon known to man-kind. Well, honestly every weapon smaller than three feet long, and known to those who had five fingers­­­­––which was most of the sentient beings he had come into contact with.

Shit. He was doing it again. When he got nervous or worried, he tended to ramble, and if he wasn’t rambling out loud, he was rambling in his mind. This wasn’t good. He couldn’t face The Allegiant like this. They would call his hand and not help him. He had to make a JUMP, it was the only chance he had left. One more JUMP. Get it together Xander.

Un-strapping the regular hardware from his body, he put each weapon back into the hidden panel. By the end, he decided to keep one firearm in the small of his back, just in case.

Just in case they didn’t check, and he needed it; and just in case they did check. A man of his particular skill set shouldn’t be without at least one weapon, it would look too suspicious. On top of that, he took his jacket off and threw it into the open doorway of the sleeping quarters.

Let them see his weapon. If they were interested in an open and honest meeting, he would give them open and honest.

The ship finished it’s calibrations, and the airlock swooshed from the atmospheric compression being released. Once the door unlocked and opened, the stairs descended out of a compartment right underneath the doorway. Dipping his head slightly, he stepped down onto the first step, and immediately saw three armed Allegiant Guards.

“Xander? Xander Collins, Master Tracker?” The guard standing point asked.

They were all in the same uniform, and most of the humans looked the same, as they were bred in an incubation facility on an unknown planet. Every generation was bred and trained to be better than their predecessors at their designated jobs. Each new batch of them were broken down into categories of training; some were Technicians, some were Guards, some were Armed Specialists, and some were Scientists. Each ones improved the next ones. It was creepy and efficient all at the same time.

“Yeah, that’s me. Are you going to take me to The Allegiant Rep.?”

“We’re instructed to bring you to a conference room, Sir. We do not have clearance to know who will be meeting you there.”

“Of course,” Xander said, agitation pulled the muscles in his neck taunt.

Normally, these things didn’t upset Xander. Normally, nothing upset Xander. Normally, he was more calm than a droid on safe-mode; but this wasn’t normally. Brick was being held by The Dilligara, and Xander’s only chance at saving his brother was being given commission to use The Allegiant’s JUMP Machine. JUMP was an acronym for Juxtaposition Universal Mapping Program. The JUMP Machine allowed for a person to travel between time and space with coordinates provided by the programmer, unless they had the one person who could control it with their mind; The Time Keeper.

The lead guard took point, and as soon as Xander turned, one of the other two grabbed his weapon out of his inner belt holster. His mouth muscles twitched and smiling was suddenly a hard thing to not do. Damn but they were predictable.

“Come on, you wouldn’t expect any less from a Tracker, especially me, now would you?” Xander asked the nameless guards.

“Just keep walking,” one of them said, but this time, they trained their weapons on Xander. It gave him the familiar itch between his shoulder blades and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, but he knew they wouldn’t pull the trigger. How did he know? Being a Tracker meant he just knew those things.

As soon as they walked out of Bay 4A, the door closed behind them, the panel beside it showing Xander his baby was nice and safe.

Next, they walked down a seemingly endless hall of gray and white. Panels were discretely hidden behind the geometric shapes on the walls which Xander knew from experience were there to make any part of the Docking Station securely detach from the rest of the floating city. There were precautions on top of precautions, and every evolution of security took place on The Allegiant’s pride and joy before it took place anywhere else in The Universe.

The enormous station, was more than a refueling stop, it was a pentagon shaped city afloat in the Tralick System. It was home sweet home to nearly one hundred thousand people. They all worked, lived, and raised families here, and he was hoping they knew how easy it was for The Allegiant to push a button and disconnect parts of their lives. He wondered if they would do the same to him; push a button and disconnect the biggest part of his life. He couldn’t let them, he wouldn’t. He didn’t care what it would cost.

His thoughts led him to another disguised panel with a small sign next to it. Before he could read the sign, the door opened, and they shoved him into the room. There was a desk sized table with two chairs, and a suspicious looking wall. Those bastards put him in an interrogation room!

He probably shouldn’t have mentioned the girl. But damned if they didn’t already know, they were the ones who found out about her in the first place.

He waited and he waited, and time was a luxury he didn’t have. Finally, he stopped pacing and stood in the far corner of the room, his back literally up against the wall.

He hated this shit.

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