If I Had a Wish ...
By Shawn Jackson

Jalin sighed as he stuffed a jacket into his knapsack and pulled the drawstring closed.  Then he sagged against the wall to stare off into space, thoughts spinning.

It had been almost eight years since he had been home.  Eight years since he had seen his family.  This was supposed to be the year he'd finally get home for the holidays, finally see his mom and dad, the twins and his baby sister.  This year, damn it!

Yet, here he was, nearly a hundred thousand light years away in a different part of the galaxy, with no possible chance of getting home in time.  As Star Trek's Scotty used to say: 'ya cannae break the laws of physics!' and despite it being hundreds of years since that old sci-fi program was on the airwaves and new laws getting discovered in the meantime, those laws still said it was impossible to cross a hundred thousand light years in less than three days.

As he thought about it a bit longer, Jalin could feel hot tears making their way into his eyes; tears of frustration and emotional pain.

"Something wrong, kid?" a quiet voice asked in slightly accented Common Tongue.

Savagely wiping away the nascent tears before they could blur his vision, Jalin twisted towards the voice's owner.  In doing so, found himself looking at a relatively short, slender individual, nearly hidden beneath a heavy cloak and hood of dark gray and purple.

"Hey," the voice said from the shadowy depths of the hood.  "I know you.  You're Jalin, that new bio-engineer working on the Tolston Project, the human."

"Yeah, that's me," Jalin said a bit more gruffly than he originally intended.  Clearing his throat, he straightened up.  "And you're the energy field specialist, um, ... Krundle, Kranky, ..."

"Kringle," the diminutive person supplied and Jalin nodded.

"Right.  Kringle."  He rubbed tiredly at his face for a moment.  "No, there's nothing wrong.  Why do you ask?"

The small person cocked his head to the side as if listening to something.  Then he was speaking and Jalin swore he could hear a smile in the guy's voice.

"No reason, kid," he said in that quiet voice of his.  "I see you're packing up your stuff.  Heading somewhere?  Maybe home?  I hear it's a holiday on one of the human worlds, what was it called again?  Dirt, Stone, Soil, ..."

"Earth," Jalin smiled wryly as this time it was him supplying the name.  "Yeah, it's Christmas in a couple days."

"Christmas," Kringle repeated almost musingly.  "A non-universal Earth human holiday with a faint nod to certain religious sects as a day of importance.  More often it's used an excuse to take time off work, eat ridiculous amounts of food and give outrageous gifts to each other as tokens of respect and admiration."

Jalin stared at the diminutive alien for a long moment before his voice caught up to his stunned thoughts.

"Uh yeah, something like that," he managed.  "You seem to know alot about it."

Kringle shrugged.

"I like to know a thing or two about alien cultures, especially what they do in their recreational time," he said.  "Bit of a hobby, really.  Tells me what is truly important to them."

"You ... can get all that from their holidays?" Jalin asked, clearly puzzled.  Kringle nodded.

"It's logic, Jalin.  What do you do when you have spare time?  I don't want specifics, just a general notion."

"Uh, what I want to do, I guess."

Kringle nodded sagely.

"Exactly.  What you want to do.  Most mortal creatures engage in activities during recreation that they want to do, something that's important to them.  Perhaps only in the moment, but it's importance to that individual in that moment cannot be questioned.  When you look at it from a cultural point of view, if a culture engages in the same activities during their recreation, then those activities are important to the culture as a whole."  Kringle made a dismissive gesture.

"It doesn't matter the reason as to why it's important.  Religious, historical, sub-cultural; it all adds up to that group of people doing the same thing because it's important to them."

"Fair enough," Jalin said with a frown.  He wasn't exactly expecting a philosophical discussion at this point in the day, but there it was.  Then Kringle was recapturing his attention as the small alien leaned towards him.

"But I sense there's an underlying reason for you wanting to return to your Earth for this holiday.  Not for the gifts, or the religious observations; something else."

Jalin couldn't help the sigh that managed to escape his lips at Kringle's observation.

"No, it's not,' he said.  "Another tradition important to humans during this holiday is getting together as families and renewing family bonds.  I haven't seen my family in over eight years and so had hoped to do so this Christmas."  He sighed once more.

"But Christmas is only three days away and I'm a hundred thousand light years from Earth.  There's no way I'm going to make it there in time and see my folks.  No way."

Kringle peered into Jalin's obviously unhappy face for a long moment.  Then he was nodding as if decided on something.

"You know, that sounds like a pretty good reason to want to go home," he said.  He paused to take a quick look around.  "I was about to do the same.  If you like, I can give you a ride.  Earth's on the way for me."

Jalin frowned.

"Earth is like a hundred thousand light years from the station, man," he said.  "Even with best available technology, it'd be weeks before I got there.  Hence the problem."

"Ah, but I don't use best available technology to get around," Kringle said mysteriously.  "I use something ... a bit better."  Then he was turning to quickly move towards the nearest exit.  "My ride's parked down in the shuttle garage.  You coming or not?"

Sighing once more before shrugging in resignation, Jalin threw his bag over his shoulder and began to follow the strange, little alien.  Even if it was a wild goose chase, it wasn't like he had anything better to do.  Besides, this Kringle seemed fairly convinced he could help.  Might as well check it out while he could.

A couple of turbo lifts later, they were in the shuttle garage, the place where the giant station they worked on stored it's shuttle craft.  As soon as his feet were on the garage deck, Kringle was heading directly for a vehicle set in a far corner, covered with a maintenance drape so no details were visible.

Not that it had much detail after Kringle pulled off the drape either, looking like a giant metal egg sitting on its side, with one tiny red egg sticking out the tapered end and eight set along the edge touching the deck.

"Well," Jalin began as he drew close.  "It's ... impressive."

"Isn't it, though?" Kringle replied with a clear note of pride in his voice.  "The best trans-dimensional sleigh credits can buy!"

"Did you just say ... sleigh?" Jalin hesitantly asked before the first part of that sentence sunk in.  "And trans-dimensional??"

"Yes to both questions," Kringle said with a merry laugh.  "It's the only way to defeat physics and travel hundreds of thousands of light years almost instantly.  Sliding through trans-dimensional space."  He paused to look over at Jalin.

"It's the only way to fly."

A wave of a small, gloved hand sent a ripple of red light washing over the giant silvery egg and the smaller red eggs along the bottom and in the nose came alive with a shimmer of energy.  Then, with a barely audible hum and a rhythmic pulse of light from the smaller eggs, the egg slowly lifted off the deck.

"We have lift off!" Kringle crowed even as another wave made a door appear in the egg's side before it swung down into a handy ramp.  "Shall we board?"

"I ... don't know," Jalin stammered with uncertainty.

"C'mon, kid, what's the problem?" Kringle said with a laugh.  "There's nothing to fear here.  I mean you no harm.  I just want to give you a ride home so you can spend some time with your family."

Abruptly he leaned forward to peer intently up into Jalin's troubled face.

"Or don't you believe I can do it?" he asked in a strangely soft voice.

Jalin immediately threw up his hands.

"No, no, of course I believe you can, Kringle," he hastily assured the diminutive alien.  "It's just that I haven't actually traveled trans-dimensionally before.  Until you mentioned it, I didn't even know such a thing was possible!"

"Not many do," Kringle revealed in a conspiratorial whisper before turning to bound up the ramp.  "C'mon!  I'll show you how it's done!"

Once inside the craft, Jalin was even more amazed at how spacious and comfortable it was, the cockpit a place of reclining leather seats, velvety walls and multi-colored displays.  Taking the seat on the left, Kringle touched something on the panel in front of him that closed the door and sent a thrum of power through the strange vessel.

"Alrighty, the rondear are warmed up and ready to twist space," Kringle began before Jalin interrupted.

"Did you say ... reindeer?" he asked, eliciting a laugh from the diminutive alien.

"No, rondear." Kringle then spelled the word out for him.  "It's the term in my language for the dimensional thrusters attached to the bottom of the sleigh.  But I can see where you would make the mistake."  He leaned forward to touch something on the control panel.  "Plugging Earth's coordinates into my rusdolf, ..."

"Rudolph??" Jalin asked again.  "I swear you said ..."

"Rusdolf is the word for navigational array in my language.  The 's' is silent."  This time Jalin could hear the grin in Kringle's voice as he once again spelled the word out.  "My apologies; sometimes I slip back into my native language for more technical terms."  He made an adjustment and Jalin could feel the vessel began to move before inertial dampeners came online.

"We used to locate worlds in this dimension by zeroing in on their magnetic poles, since magnetic fields are distinctly detectable from trans-dimensional space."  He paused to glance over at Jalin, who now sat somewhat uncomfortably in the right hand pilot's chair.  "I believe we used the North Pole for your world."
"So you've been to Earth, then," Jalin noted and Kringle nodded.

"Frequently.  At least once a solar year," the small alien added.  "It's a tradition in my family that we started a long time ago, visiting worlds and observing their cultural activities."

There was a subtle shift then:

"And now we're in trans-dimensional space," Kringle said as if it were an every day occurrence.  A curving space just ahead of the pilots' chairs shimmered with light before clearing to show an incredible scene.

It was space, but unlike any space or vision of space Jalin had ever seen.  Instead of the black velvet of the void, broken by glowing clouds of dust and gas interspersed with distant stars, it was a writhing expanse of ever moving cables of light and shape.  So completely did the cables fill the expanse that Jalin could see nothing else.

"What ... what are those things?" he asked in a whisper, pointing out at the cables of light and energy.

"Ah, those are dimensional conduits," Kringle revealed.  "The very underpinnings of Reality itself.  Ensuring that energy and matter stay in balance as the multi-verse continues to expand."

"Multi-verse?"

"I'll explain it to you some day," Kringle said somewhat evasively.  "In the meantime, we need to get you to Earth!"

He leaned forward and touched something on the panel and abruptly they were moving towards one of the conduits.

"Probability drive activated.  Moving towards a conduit that may or may not connect us to Earth's local space and time," Kringle said as the sleigh slid through the conduit's outer sheath in a cascade of light to enter what appeared to be a corridor made from pure energy.

"Going forward."  He paused.  "Or backwards.  Maybe even sideways.  It all depends."

"On what?" Jalin whispered as the conduit rushed in a blur of light by them.

"On what you decide it to be," Kringle said with a laugh.  Then the view was exploding into a million shooting stars before, with the abruptness of diving into an abyss, it was normal space outside.  And, against that velvety, diamond-sprinkled black hung a familiar blue and white globe.

"Earth," Jalin breathed, not entirely believing his eyes.

"Why, so it is," Kringle said nonchalantly.  "Just in time to drop you off and head back home so I can join my family in our yearly traditional trip."  The hood swung back in Jalin's directly.  "Unfortunately I can't return and pick you up, mostly due to us being on that trip, so you'll have to make your own way back to the station."

"No problem," Jalin said.  Then it hit him in a rush of emotion as the view finally sunk in.

He was home.

"Best Christmas present ever!" he whispered, tears coming back to his eyes as he thought of being able to finally see his family again.

"It's what we do," Kringle said with just a hint of smugness.  "I'm going to activate a site-to-site matter transporter to put you on your folks' front porch."

"Thanks," Jalin replied, looking over at his small benefactor.  "How can I ever repay you?"

"Leave some milk and cookies out for my dad when he drops by Christmas Eve and I'll call it square," Kringle replied, touching something on his control panel.  "No matter how many worlds he visits, bringing their people special gifts to uplift their spirits, he always says Earth milk and cookies are the best!"

"Wait, what?  Milk and cookies??  And how do you know where my parents ...?

The inside of the sleigh disappeared in a flash of light as Kringle activated his matter transporter.  An eyeblink later Jalin was standing on his parents' front porch, bag over his shoulder, staring at the door.

"Live," he finished lamely.

What the hell had just happened?  Did he ... did he just get a ride across the galaxy from an alien with technology to access inter-dimensional space and an uncanny knowledge of Earth holiday customs?  Or the son of ol' Saint Nick himself?  Or both?
He turned to look out into the darkness beyond his parents' porch light.  And immediately smiled when he saw a snowflake slowly tumble through his vision, the harbinger of many more to come.  They would have snow for Christmas, a miracle in an age where weather control was absolute.

'Nope,' he thought, his smile growing.  'I'm not going to try to explain it, or question what happened.  I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I'm here.'  He glanced skyward. 

"Thanks, Kringle.  For making my Christmas wish come true," he said in a quiet yet thankful voice.  Then he was turning to the door and lifting his fist to knock.