REDEMPTION TRAIL

Tears streamed down the side of Chellaina's face in the dark ruins of the disaster shelter. Her heart-wrenching cries of agony had been reduced to a feeble, exhausted sob as her hopeless efforts to free her leg faded with her strength. It had been quite some time since the rumble; the dust had long since settled, the creaking stopped, and the air was becoming noticeably stale.
Chellaina laid on the cold, cluttered floor in tears with her leg still pinned under a piece of debris. Her frail body was uncomfortably draped over several rough chunks of concrete, and her fine, silky clothes were torn to hanging, tattered shreds. She drew an erratic breath, then sobbed as she used the last of her strength to prop herself up on one arm.
Chellaina looked out across the blackness of the shelter, "Fenny?"
She waved an arm through the darkness in search of anything within reach. After feeling nothing but air, she turned her attention to the floor and the debris scattered across it.
"Where are you, Fenny?"
Her hand wandered over numerous chunks of fallen concrete, bits of steel, powdery dustbut nothing that felt like a body, an arm, or even a boot. She frantically combed the ground in search of her fallen hero, reaching out farther and farther across the debris.
The pain in her leg escalated as she strained to extend her reach; she thought that, perhaps just another inch and she would at least be able to touch her husband before she died. She spoke to the darkness in a bleak, frightened whisper.
"Please don't be dead, Fenny."
She pulled at her trapped leg and strained her muscles in hopes of reaching just a little farther into the darkness, but felt nothing other than fallen concrete. Finally, she gave up in despair; her body went limp, then she began to sob on the cold, debris-cluttered floor.
"Dear God," she begged through dirt- streaked tears, "please don't let it end this way!"
She laid on the dusty collection of crumbled concrete and criedshe could do no more. She succumbed to the fact that she was trapped, that she would suffocate in a matter of hours, and that her husband would suffer the same fateif he was still alive somewhere in the God-forsaken darkness.
Chellaina's sobbing came to an abrupt halt when she heard an eerie noise somewhere in the darkness; it wasn't a comforting noise, like the sound of a man stirringit was a frightening noise, like the sound of the roof creaking.
Several small pieces of concrete fell from the ceiling; Chellaina covered her head. Less than a heart-beat later, a tremendous crash echoed through the shelter as another piece of the ceiling came smashing to the floor. It was immediately followed by the sound of smaller debris, then the slow, creeping cloud of dry, choking dust began to drift through the shelter. Chellaina just laid there on the floor, waiting for the entire shelter to cave in on top of her.
The eerie, unforgiving silence returned to the shelter. The ceiling stopped creaking, the debris settled, and the dust was beginning to thin out. It was then that Chellaina noticed something peculiar; her leg did not seem to hurt as much as it did before the crash.
Chellaina struggled to push herself up to somewhat of a sitting position. The change in her posture caused her trapped leg to rotate slightly; she couldn't move it at all before. Chellaina drew a quick, excited breath as her hand followed her leg down to the slab of concrete that had her pinned.
It did not take long for Chellaina to realize what had happened; the falling debris shifted the slab of concrete, causing it to tilt in her favor. She reached down and felt the wound left by the weight of the slabthere was enough room to get several fingers between her leg and the concrete. She soon discovered that her leg was able to move about freely under the confines of the slab, though she could not pull it out because her ankle was too wide to pass through the narrow gap between the concrete and the floor.
Chellaina's fingers returned to the painful wound left by the concrete; she was puzzled by the fact that her brittle leg bones weren't broken. She felt around under the slab and soon discovered why; there was a smaller piece of concrete under the slab, which had been supporting the bulk of the slab's weight.
Chellaina's excitement grew when she realized that the small chunk of concrete that saved her leg was now loose. She frantically tugged and pulled at the piece of debris, moving it just an inch or so at a time. She thought that if she could get the debris out from under the slab, then, perhaps she could free her leg. She tugged and jerked on the piece of concrete, despite the fact that her strength was spent, her muscles ached, and her stiff joints were being bent beyond their normal limits.
After several lengthy minutes of fighting with the concrete in the darkness, Chellaina finally managed to remove the small piece of rubble. Just as she had hoped, the modest space left by the small piece of concrete gave her enough maneuvering room to pull her leg out from under the slab.
A excited, relieved smile came to her dirt- streaked face as she gently rubbed the strained muscles in her leg.
"Thank you, dear Lord."
Almost immediately, Chellaina turned her attention to the darkness that was once just beyond her reach. She crawled on her hands and knees with no regard for the pain in her leg, or the pain of her bony knees against the jagged chunks of concrete. Her fingers wildly searched the floor for her husband.
"Fenny? Where are you, Fenny?"
She searched the scattered debris for quite some distance, though she wasn't sure of her direction. Everywhere was the same thing; concrete, dust, and bits of steel. She crawled across the rubble and wasn't even aware of the fact that her knees were bleeding as her hands frantically searched the ruins. Suddenly, her fingertips swept across a tough, smooth fabriclike that of a pressure suit.
"Fenny!"
She let out a gentle sob of relief as she clamored to The General's bodythough her greatest fear was yet to be confirmed or denied. The General was on his side, propped up by the life support pack on his back, with his arms and legs lying askew among the rubble.
Chellaina struggled to get her ear against Fenton's chest; she sat perfectly still and even held her breath as she listened for a heartbeat. A frightened anxiety crept into her as she listened; there was absolutely no sound coming from Fenton's body.
Her hope began to diminish drastically when she was unable to detect any sign of breathing. Chellaina had prepared herself for the worst; she knew from past experience that scant vital signs could be hidden by the thick, durable material of a pressure suit, though some sign of life was usually evident. She drew an uneasy, erratic breath, then reached up toward The General's neck.
Her frightened, trembling hands slowly crept toward the hero's juggler vein; this would be the moment of truthand Chellaina was not sure if she would be able to face it. Her frail, slender fingertips gently came to rest on his juggler vein, then Chellaina broke down in tearshe was alive!

The long ordeal since the rumble had left Chellaina weak, exhausted, and in pain. She laid there for quite some time, holding onto her husband's unconscious body. To her, he was a beacon in the darkness, a strength, a shelter from uncertainty. After living a long and fulfilled life with the greatest hero in history, Chellaina was now content to die quietly by his side. Tears continued to run down her face as her lungs labored for an adequate breath in the closed, failing air.
Chellaina's misty eyes idly gazed into the blackness as memories of her hero passed through her head. She remembered back to the day when she first saw him on her operating table; he was in a spacesuit, bloody and unconscious. She remembered how worried she was for his life, how badly he was battered, and how difficult it was to cut the spacesuit off of him without aggravating his injuries.
Chellaina's hand began to wander frantically across The General's body. She remembered that the uniform they had cut off of him nearly a century ago had a small flashlight in a thin, narrow pocket on the sleeveshe wondered if this uniform had one as well. Within seconds, Chellaina's hand came across the pocketand the pencil-sized flashlight. She let out a sigh of relief as she pulled it out of the pocket.
Chellaina fumbled with the flashlight for a moment or two, then clicked the switch on the back. The century- old batteries were dim with age, but the faint light that they managed to cast was more than enough to pierce the absolute blackness of the disaster shelter.
The light quickly swung to Fenton's blood- covered faceChellaina drew a quick, frightened breath; the sight reminded her so much of the day they met. With pains-taking movements, she hobbled over the rubble to get above his head and have a closer look at his injuries, though it had been quite some time since she was a doctor.
Tears filled Chellaina's eyes as she checked Fenton's injury; he had apparently been struck on the side of the head by a piece of falling concrete. She laid a gentle hand along his cheek as she inspected the wound. It was difficult to determine the extent of the damage; the two inch gash in Fenton's head was covered by a thin layer of fine, powdery dust, which hid the finer details of the injury underneath.
Chellaina instantly swung her light toward the ruins of the storeroom; she wondered if she might be able to find her old medical case among the rubble.
A bright, hopeful smile came to her face as she started to crawl across the rubble toward the ruins of the store room. She thought that there still might be some useable field drugs in her bag. For the first time since the cave-in, she had a plan; she would try to use the field drugs to bring Fenton back to consciousness. She was certain that The General would know what to do about the air, survival, and how to get rescued. All she had to do was save her herohe would take care of everything else.

Cassie nervously eyed her watch as she floated idle in a dim, narrow corridor of RQ-733. She maintained her position by holding onto a dusty pipe while Krey wrestled with a stuck hatch, which separated them from the bridge of RQ-733. He had taken his shirt off, sometime during the battle, and was pushing pounds of solid, bulging muscle into the stubborn handle.
"Damn thing," Krey grumbled as he wrestled with the hatch.
"Maybe there's no air on the other side of it," Cassie suggested.
"No..." Krey paused to grunt and grit his teeth as he put more effort into the task. "...It does this from time to time."
Krey took a deep breath, then made one more assault on the stuck handel. His muscles bulged, his face turned red, and entire body began to shake and vibrate. After a second or two of Krey's abuse, the latch finally began to cry uncle with a series of squeaks and moans.
"Here it comes," he grunted.
The latch finally gave in with a loud heavy click, which ominously echoed through the massive, dilapidated hull. Krey paused for a moment to catch his breath, then proudly opened the hatch. His outstretched hand gestured toward the bridge, which was hardly any brighter than the corridor.
"After you."
Cassie stepped through the hatchway into a large, pentagon-shaped room, whose haphazard d‚cor reminded her of a gorilla's cage. There was at least ten or twelve feet between ceiling and floor, though one could hardly tell which was which because tattered, dilapidated seats were mounted in front of consoles on both the ceiling and the floor. Six or seven ropes had been strung up at various places between the floor and ceiling, as well as three or four that ran the length of the bridge.
One such set of ropes had been tied to a makeshift, zero-gravity bed, which looked somewhat like a hammock with a large, human-sized pocket. Another set of ropes was tied to the corners of an old rug, which was stretched out perpendicular to the floor and ceiling in an effort to create a partition. Behind the rug was a makeshift shower, which had been fashioned out of a large, industrial-strength plastic bag, along with several towels, a shaving mirror, and a very old bag of laundry. The sight reminded Cassie of a homeless refuge set up in the corner of an abandoned warehouse.
"Care for a beer?" Krey asked as he made his way to a refrigerator, which formed the cornerstone of his rug-like partition.
"No," Cassie replied flatly, "And I don't think it would be wise to start drinking."
"Doesn't matter."
Krey opened the refrigerator and pulled out a zero-gravity canister of premium Milwaukee Brew. Cassie noticed that the refrigerator was predominately stocked with beer, though there was also some wine and several vintage snack cakes, which were well past their prime. As near as she could tell, there was absolutely nothing in the refrigerator that resembled food. Krey slid the beer into a pocket on his pant leg.
"This is just the living section"
"How nice," Cassie's voice was clearly sarcastic.
Krey's demeanor changed to something less friendly, "Business is conducted at the front."
With that, Krey slammed the door on the refrigerator then reached for a rope, which was strung roughly parallel to the floor. He started following the rope hand-over- hand as the rest of his body drifted precariously in the zero gravity environment.
"C'mon. This rope leads to the controls."
Cassie waited for Krey to get a comfortable distance down the rope before she followed his example. The rope was at least thirty feet in length and ran the entire distance from the back of the bridge to the main flight controls at the front; Cassie shook her head in disbelief almost every inch of the way. Most of the equipment seemed to be in various states of disrepair, and literally everything was covered with dust, dirt, grease, or grime of one sort or another.
They passed several ragged, battered seats mounted in front of neglected, broken-down consoles. Most of the consoles were dominated by huge square holes, out of which hung an assortment of frayed cables and bent tubing. Everywhere she looked seemed to be some kind of reminder that the ship was not entirely in one piece; missing equipment, bent or broken pipes, patch cables running from one console to another, and whatnot. She noticed one place where an access panel had been removed to make room for a pair of locking pliers, which was being used to hold a broken bracket together.
"What do you think of the view?" Krey asked as he pointed to a huge five-foot viewport, which was partially obstructed by a protective iris stuck somewhere between open and closed.
"This is crazy," Cassie muttered, "This junk-heap will never make it through the time barrier."
"Have a little faith," Krey assured her. "Have you given any thought to where you want to go?"
"Theti."
Krey stopped for a moment to look back at Cassie, "Why the hell do you want to go all the way out to Capellathat's 47 light-years away!"
"I don't need a reason," Cassie insisted. "You agreed to take me wherever I want to goand I want to go to Theti."
Krey shrugged his shoulders as he continued down the line.
"Okay, Theti it is."
The end of the line was tied between two seats, which were mounted behind the flight controls at the very front corner of pentagon-shaped bridge. The pilot's seat was in extremely poor condition; one of the armrests was missing and the cushion had been replaced by a pillow, which was secured to the bottom of the seat with several bands of thick plastic tape. The copilots seat had both armrests, but the bottom cushion was missing and the backrest was tattered with tufts of stuffing poking out of it in various places.
The instruments and displays in front of the flight controls were, for the most part, intact, though several pieces of equipment were missing and one or two of the display screens were cracked and useless. An uneasiness crept over Cassie when she looked up at the huge forward windows; one of which was also cracked.
Cassie pointed to the crack as Krey positioned himself in his seat, "How long has that windshield been cracked?"
"Don't get excited," Krey muttered as he strapped himself in, "Only the outside layer is cracked."
Cassie shook her head as she maneuvered her body into the cold, hard copilot's seat. "This isn't what I bargained for."
"What did you expect?" Krey snapped, "A luxury yacht?"
"No, but I assumed"
"This is your last chance to bail out," Krey warned. "If you want to leave, do it now before we cross the time barrier." He shook his head to emphasize his point, "Once we're in the time continuum, I'm not going to turn back for you or any one else. Do I make myself clear?"
There was a tense moment of silence as the less than friendly faces stared each other down. It was Cassie who finally broke the silence.
"Solaunch it and be quick about it."
"I never met anyone with such a shitty attitude," Krey muttered as he flipped several switches in rapid succession. A few of the displays and instruments in front of the flight controls came to life as a result of Krey's efforts, though many of them stayed dark and dormant.
A low, throbbing rumble began to reverberate through the dilapidated hull; Cassie's eyes grew wide with concern, "That antimatter reactor won't make it to Theti."
"It will." Krey kept his attention on his instruments, "The vibration settles down once the reactor gets up to speed."
Cassie shook her head, "You're not going to use the time distortion engines here, are you? You'll drag half of these other vehicles with you!"
"What do I look likestupid?" Krey kept his eyes on a the engine instruments as he dug his beer out of the pocket on his pant leg. "The auxiliary power units don't workwe have to run the generators on the time distortion engine or else we won't have enough power to operate the conventional engines."
Krey brought the nozzle of the beer can up to his mouth, then pressed a button on top of the can as he took a drink.
"You shouldn't be drinking during a critical phase like this," Cassie warned.
"This is my ship and I'll do what I please."
Krey flipped another switch on the console as several more instruments came to life. Cassie shook her head as he took another drink. Krey set the beer in a drink holder, which was jury-rigged to the side of the seat, then cracked his knuckles and reached for the stick.
"Hope you're ready for this," he warned.
Krey pulled back on the stick for just a moment or two; they heard a short hiss from the attitude engines, then the nose of RQ-733 slowly began to tilt upward from the mooring orbit. The laser-riddled hull began to creak and moan under the strain.
"You haven't even laid in a course yet!" Cassie criticized.
"There's nothing to lay a course into." Krey paused to take another drink of beer as the nose of the massive craft continued to rise. "I sold part of the navigation computers to pay a stupid UN fine."
"What are you going to do for a courseguess?"
Krey nodded, "That's exactly what I'm going to do."

Two of the three, huge nozzles at the rear of the craft suddenly came to life as a 200-foot tail of fire lit up the mooring orbit. The mammoth, lumbering craft slowly began to move out from the mooring orbit, leaving behind an abundant collection of screws, nuts, washers, and other assorted bits of metal.

Chellaina wept among the ruins in a dark corner of the store room as she tried to free her medical case from the rubble. The case was hopelessly stuck behind a large piece of equipment and laid half-buried under an assortment of debris and rubble. The air was dangerously thin and her frail strength grew weaker by the minute.
The biggest obstacle keeping her from her case was a sizeable chunk of concrete, which was wedged between the equipment and the wall. She had already cleared out what little debris she could and had been unable to make any progress in quite some time. Finally, with the air spent and her strength failing, she decided that, perhaps, she should return to Fenton's sidewhile the opportunity to do so was still at hand. She sat up against the bulky piece of equipment to catch her breath before crawling back to The General.
The equipment that stood between her and her case was of considerable size; it was roughly square when viewed from the front, stood waist-high, and was about half as deep as it was wide. It was a nondescript piece of equipment with absolutely no features other than a cooling vent and a handle, which was mounted on a fairly large access door on the side.
After taking a moment to catch what little breath she could in the stale air, Chellaina reached up for the handle in an effort to maneuver herself out of the corner that she had precariously dug herself into. She tried to use the handle to assist her movements, but, after applying just a modest amount of pressure, the door popped open. To her surprise, a light came on in the opening behind the door, followed by the sound of an electronic voice.
"Ready. Please initialize."
Chellaina's squinting eyes were used to the dim flashlight; she struggled to focus on the brightly-light compartment inside. As her eyes became accustomed to the light, she realized that the compartment had a control panel, a speaker, and a long, narrow cubby hole in which a computer keyboard was stored edgewise.
The electronic voice repeated itself.
"Please initialize."
"Oh, dear!" Chellaina brought a worried hand up to her mouth. She knew that Fenton had stored a wide variety of World War Five equipment in the shelter, including items that were potentially dangerous, such as small weapons systems and explosives. She hoped that she did not inadvertently trigger something that would ultimately bring death or destruction. After studying the equipment for a moment or two, Chellaina realized that something seemed familiar about that particular piece of equipment, as if she had used something similar to it during her military days. She tried to remember; was it dangerous?
"Environment corruptPlease initialize."
Tears of joy began streaming down Chellaina's face when she realized what it was; it was an emergency life support system, like the back-up systems they used in military space vehicles. It all started coming back to herthese life support systems were required for shelters and space vehicles, in case the main environment systems failed. Its primary function was to convert exhaled carbon- dioxide into breathable oxygen, using an artificial photosynthesis process, though it was also capable of producing power, maintaining temperature, controlling humidity, and provided basic emergency radio services.
Chellaina also remembered that the portable environment system had another, creature-comfort feature that was standard on most equipment over 150 pounds; it was mounted on a set of tank-like tracks and could move about under its own power. She drew a quick, joyous breath when she realized that the environment system could not only fix the air; it could also move itself away from the trapped medical case.
Chellaina's short-lived joy was quickly restrained when she turned her attention to the complicated control panel; the controls were clearly marked, but she had problems making any sense out of them. She tried to remember what each of the obscure controls were for, but time and age had diligently hid those memories.
"It's been so long."
"Improper commandPlease initialize."
It was then that Chellaina noticed something printed on the inside surface of the door; it was a body of text labeled `Operating Instructions.'