The Conspiracy Game: A Tully Harper Novel: A Tully Harper Novel (The Tully Harper Series Book 1)

by Adam Holt

  Tabitha and Sunjay both entered about the same time, but we really didn’t talk, just nodded at each other like we were between classes in school. I just didn’t have much of anything to say to them right then, nothing that they wanted to hear, anyway.

  Trackman and Sawyer entered last, but they entered separately. That seemed promising, I thought. Maybe my lie did some damage to Operation Close Encounter.

  The hatch to the Flight Deck opened. Buckshot poked his head through. “Well, we’re at the Lagrangian Point and we’ve got a visual on something. Y’all get yourselves up on this Flight Deck and have a look-see.”

  Breakfast could wait. It would be pretty cramped with all ten of us in there, but I guess we could all get a good look at our destination. We crowded behind and around the chairs on the Flight Deck and looked out the window at an unidentified object. We could also see a 3D model of the object in the middle of the room.

  It looked like, well…

  “…Is that supposed to be the runaway comet?” Sunjay asked. “It just looks like a big, dirty snowball.”

  He was right. Smudges of brown and gray splattered the comet’s white surface, which looked grainy and rough.

  “That’s our comet, alright. It’s just too far from the sun,” said Buckshot. “That’s what our instruments suggest. See the comet symbol here: ☄.” He pointed to the 3D model and a list of elements popped up beside it with the wave of his hand. “You can see here: the rock and dust keeps it all stuck together. But there’s plenty of methanol, ethanol, formaldehyde, and ammonia near the surface, too. Those gases all start burning off when she gets closer to the sun. Then you’ll get that big ole tail that you can see from Earth.”

  “That does look like a comet. That’s the simple answer,” said my dad. “The only problem is…”

  “How does a comet stop?” blurted Sunjay.

  “Right,” said Buckshot, “comets don’t have emergency brakes.”

  “Where’s LG Alpha?” asked Trackman. “Any signs of it at all?”

  “None,” my dad said.

  “That’s disappointing. The fuel on board was worth billions of dollars. The Alliance will have to hear that news immediately, Commander.”

  “You don’t seem too concerned about the folks on board,” said Buckshot.

  “Well, that goes without saying. Of course I am.”

  “We won’t be making reports either way,” said my dad. “As of a few hours ago, we lost communication with Earth and Tranquility Base. We’ll keep trying to contact them, but we ran into some kind of interference.”

  “A solar storm could interfere with communication,” Moreline said.

  “Or mechanical failure. That would be the simplest explanation,” my dad said.

  Why do you keep looking for simple answers? I caught myself before I asked that question. Things were only getting more complicated as we went along. We had no escape pods and now no communication. Sabotage was the simple answer. Operation Close Encounter seemed to be working perfectly.

  My dad continued, “Let’s scout the Lagrangian Point for a few hours. The space station is cloaked, so it could be hidden nearby. If not, we set a course for the Moon. We can deliver the Device as promised.”

  “No, Commander, we won’t,” said Trackman.

  He pushed his way from the back of the room toward the front where my dad sat beside Buckshot. “As Alliance Field Operative, I am authorized to deal with such unforeseen circumstances, particularly those that might benefit the Alliance.”

  “How can a stationary comet profit us?” Buckshot said. “It’s interesting, but we don’t have the equipment to tow it back home.”

  “That’s true, but you haven’t told us the full story here. I’m looking at your 3D model and wondering one thing. Why can’t I see below the surface of this comet?” He pointed to the center of the 3D image, which looked completely hollow. “This is not a normal comet. If it were, I would agree with you that we should continue our search for LG Alpha immediately. However, this is an anomaly. We need to explore, so I propose we send an away team to the surface to collect more data.”

  My dad shook his head. “That’s an unnecessary risk, Trackman. This comet isn’t going anywhere. That might just be a faulty readout on the computer. There will be time for research later.”

  “Quite the contrary, Commander. This ‘comet’ already moved once. We will make time for research now.”

  My dad rubbed his arm and popped his knuckles. I could see he was digging in for a fight. “The Space Alliance has always lived by a code, and part of that code is ‘Safety Before Profit.’ We put profit before safety with the Harper Device, and I will not do that again.”

  “Point taken,” he replied, “but an empty comet looks harmless to me. I say we explore.”

  “On whose authority,” said my dad.

  Trackman laughed. “Stars, not mine! I’m merely an advisor. But I do have this.”

  He reached in his pocket. Who knew what he was about to pull out? I didn’t want to find out. I launched myself across the Flight Deck and kicked him into the control panels at the front of the ship with my best karate kick.

  “Dad, get him before it’s too late! Sunjay, grab Sawyer!”

  I held Trackman in a bear hug for a moment, waiting for him to fight me. He wasn’t going to take down my dad and act out his evil plans without me stopping him! My adrenaline went through the roof, and I expected a brawl would occur behind me in a matter of seconds. I prepared for the worst.

  No one else in the room moved, including Trackman, who just sort of let me squeeze him. Then he coughed.

  “Ouch,” he said, calmly. “Commander, could you tell your son to unhand me? He has a surprisingly strong grip for his size.”

  “Oh, stars,” said Tabitha. “Tully, let him go.”

  I opened my eyes and looked around. Trackman was sandwiched between me and the control panels. I felt my father’ hand on my back. He pulled me away gently and gave me a polite shove back toward the rest of the group, whose eyes were all the size of Jupiter’s moons.

  Trackman straightened his uniform.

  My father lit into me. “Tully, what in the name of the solar system! Control yourself, son! One more outburst and I’ll…” My dad paused. “We’ll talk about this later. For now, if you can’t stay calm, get off my Command Deck. Trackman, you were saying—“

  “Before I was tackled, yes.” He reached in his pocket and pulled a small black cube from his pocket. An image of a man in a three-piece suit sprang to life—it was Charles Meteroff, the President and CEO of the Space Alliance. He wore a black jumpsuit with the Space Alliance logo on his shirt pocket and three gold stripes on each arm. His black beard and bushy eyebrows moved more than his mouth when he spoke.

  “To whomever it concerns,” he said, with a slight Russian accent. “I issue this directive, Number 3.14, on behalf of Gallant Trackman in regards to The Adversity. If at any time during this mission he sees fit, he has permission to direct the mission’s efforts and change objectives to achieve Space Alliance priorities. To the commander and crew of The Adversity, my greatest thanks. Godspeed to you all. I sign and authorize this statement, CEO Charles Meteroff.”

  The image hung in the air for a moment. My heart fell through the floor. Trackman hadn’t been reaching for a weapon, he had been reaching for something just as deadly. I thought I had checkmate, but the game was far from over. Trackman adjusted a ring on his finger and addressed my dad.

  “So you see, Commander, this mission is still in your hands, I suppose, but I will be calling some shots from here. Space is a business, and you’ll agree that businesses require a certain amount of risk to be successful, and people willing to take those risks.”

  “We came out here on a repair mission. Then it was a rescue mission. Those were our concerns. I don’t think landing on the surface of an uncharted comet is in anyone’s best interest.”

  “I suppose you will find out soon. Please make plans for your away
team, sir, and please try to control your son.”

  SWIMMING IN THE AVALANCHE

  We all pushed back through the hatch toward the Observation Deck and dispersed. Everyone avoided me, like my space madness was contagious. Tabitha and Sunjay pulled me aside.

  “Tully, what in the world?” Sunjay said. “You still have jellyfish on the brain?”

  “I thought he had a weapon,” I said. “I know it sounds crazy to you guys, so don’t worry about it.”

  “You’ve got to get back to reality here, Tully,” chimed in Tabitha. “It’s just adults trying to work out what to do in a pretty shifty situation. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Yes, you’re both right. We’ll all be fine. The Device fried my hands and my brain. Cut me some slack. I’m going to catch hell from my dad about this already.”

  He called me into his quarters about an hour later. It was the first time I had even been there since our holophone conversations months ago. His room wasn’t much larger than the infirmary, tiny compared to my cage or Queen Envy’s monstrous room. I sat on his bed and he took his chair.

  “Tully, I know you’ve got this conspiracy all worked out in your mind. It’s obvious to me what you’re thinking. I just need to remind you of what I said the other day: ‘Remember my words.’”

  “I do, dad. I remember,” I stammered, “But what am I suppose to do when some guy reaches into his pocket and pulls out—“

  “…A video cube?” he finished. “Well, you should watch the video. Listen, you’ve been through a lot out here already. It probably doesn’t help that I’m a bit on edge about this exploration. There are lives at stake, but that does not excuse me either. I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you in front of everyone. I am sorry about that, but we’ve got to stay calm out here.”

  “Easier said than done,” I said.

  He nodded. We looked at each other for a moment. He looked tired again, like he had when he returned from his last mission. The streak stood out in his hair under the bright lights in his cabin. He rubbed his hand along that red line and sighed.

  “Did you know that I survived an avalanche once?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” I said, securing myself to the bed with a strap. Then I remembered the avalanche from my Vision.

  “If you have ears, use them right now, okay? It happened before you were born when I was a ski instructor in Breckenridge.”

  “You were a ski instructor?”

  “For a few months to earn some extra money after college. So I was skiing in the backcountry in Colorado all by myself. It wasn’t the best idea, being out there all alone. Nobody knew my location. It was peaceful afternoon until I heard this enormous crunching sound behind me. I looked back and saw the snow behind me starting to move and realized what it was. My first instinct was to ski away, but the snow would have caught me. Fortunately they had trained all the ski instructors on avalanche procedures, and I knew my only chance was to follow my training.”

  “What did you do?”

  “As the snow caught up to me, I threw away my poles, kicked off my skis, and prepared to swim. That’s what they trained us to do in an avalanche. Snow acts like water when it is moving, so I closed my eyes and imagined myself in a turbulent ocean. I was swimming in the avalanche.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Sure, but I didn’t panic. I trusted my training. I kept my head above the snow and struggled to stay afloat. When the avalanche finally stopped, my nose was barely above the height of the snow pack. I dug myself out of the avalanche and walked the rest of the way back to safety. I could have died that day, but my training saved me.”

  He pushed himself further into his chair. A wave of calm washed over me. I could see where he was trying to go with his story.

  “So what happens if all my conspiracies are right? What happens if Trackman wants to take over the ship?”

  He tousled my hair. “One avalanche at a time, Tully. Now I need to prepare for this comet exploration,” he explained. “Just don’t go tackling anymore Space Alliance employees and things will be fine. And I won’t tell you what to do about Trackman, but I think…”

  “…I owe him an apology,” I said.

  It was true. I had tackled him pretty hard. Of course, he was still plotting our doom and I would tackle him twice as hard the next time he reached in his pocket for who knows what. Hopefully someone else would follow my lead, but that didn’t seem likely.

  If I can stay calm, I might figure things out in time to save us. Besides, the chess match backfired on him. Trackman may think I’m confused about whether he is evil or not. And if I apologize, I thought, I’ll seem more confused. That’s my only advantage—to make him think he has the advantage.

  The bed held me in place as I closed my eyes. The smart fabric sheets wrapped around me—or maybe my dad tucked me in—but before I knew it I was fast asleep. When I awoke, the room was empty.

  THE RING

  I found Trackman on the Observation Deck. He took my apology as I thought he would. “I expected you might come to your senses, Tully,” he said, holding out his hand. “Sometimes boys get the craziest ideas in their heads. All is forgiven—if you will kiss this ring.”

  For the first time I clearly saw his signet ring. It was made of white gold, and an image of the Earth was carved onto the top. What is above the Earth though? A strange flying object hovered, with three red rubies for its lights!—No, wait, it’s just a crown. None of the other crew members wore jewelry, not even wedding bands. Who did he think he was, some sort of king? And I was supposed to kiss his ring? Oh, stars. I didn’t see that coming.

  “Problem, Tully?” he asked.

  “No, sir. I am sorry for how I behaved.” I guessed this was part of swimming in the avalanche. I bent over and kissed his ring.

  “You should be. Now I have to check with Sawyer on Operation—I mean, our comet exploration. You are dismissed,” he said, smiling.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, and floated calmly away. My hands trembled. I wanted to punch a hole in the wall, but that wouldn’t do any good. I might need my hands later.

  It wasn’t long before the away team donned their spacesuits to explore the unidentified dirty snowball that was still about a mile away. They—my dad, Sylvia Moreline, and Lincoln Sawyer—would take the last of The Adversity’s only small transportation vehicle, the CERBERUS. Like a lot of the Space Alliance’s vehicles, CERBERUS was an acronym, but I couldn’t remember what it stood for at the time. It did look like the three-headed dog from Greek mythology though. My dad operated the steering and thrusters from the middle head, while Moreline and Sawyer fit into the other heads and operated the arms (or paws) of the vehicle. Of course, no one needed to “man” Cerberus at all. The Flight Deck could control the vehicle, but with all the communication problems and no escape pods, nobody wanted to risk losing our only remaining small craft. They brought a laser drill to bore into the snowball to see what was below the surface.

  The rest of us—Sunjay, Tabitha, me, the Queen, Buckshot, and His Creepiness—gathered on the Flight Deck and watched the Cerberus depart. It looked like a big ship up close, but as it crossed into the deep space between The Adversity and the snowball, I got an icy feeling in my stomach. My dad was on board that tiny craft with a psychotic android. He was about to land on the surface of a mysterious stationary comet. I caught Tabitha glancing at me once or twice. I only hoped she would be ready to back me up if this was part of Operation Close Encounter. She was probably worried I would tackle someone without any warning.

  “What’s the rate of travel? How long will it take for them to reach the surface? Will the drilling take long?” Sunjay was beside himself with excitement and worry.

  Buckshot sat in his chair in the Flight Deck. “Shoot, this whole operation may take a few hours, Sun. It just depends what they find when they get over to that chunk of dust and ice. Lemme ask you a question: why don’t you just sit back and enjoy the show?”
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br />   Sunjay was about to ask another question, but Queen Envy patted him on the shoulder. Sunjay kept a lid on it for the most part after that.

  Things happen slowly in space sometimes, not like in the movies, where you see a rocket ship do a 180 degree turn and fire off into the distance with its laser cannons blazing. Those guns usually make sound—there’s no sound in the vacuum of space. It took the vehicle half an hour to reach its destination. A few thrusters fired as the Cerberus approached the surface of the snowball, bringing it almost to a standstill for what seemed like five minutes. Touchdown was so slow we didn’t notice it. We only noticed when the three cockpit doors opened and the away team stepped out. They stood on the comet.

  “Hmm, I’ll be darned,” said Buckshot. “That’s a lot of gravity.”

  “Agreed,” said Trackman. “That almost seems impossible. This object appears to be only about a mile across and shouldn’t have much of a gravitation field.”

  Tabitha tugged my arm. Sunjay leaned in. “That’s really weird. Tully, isn’t that weird?”

  “Yeah, it’s, well, impossible,” I explained. “Things have to be enormous to have much noticeable gravity, like a planet or a sun. Unless there’s something unbelievably heavy in the middle of that comet—“

  “—Which is also impossible,” said Sunjay.

  “You probably want to keep your eyes on the 3D model now, kids,” said Buckshot. “They just started drilling.”

  We watched the 3D model in the middle of the Flight Deck. A red beam appeared to show the progress of the laser drill. The red beam crept into the crust of the comet. Arrows popped up on the screen: “graphite” and “water” and “methanol,” all the ingredients of your usual comet.

  “About what we expected,” said Buckshot. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his seat. Queen Envy plucked at a tentacle on her dress. It looked like we were in for a few hours of boring programming—like golf on Aunt Selma’s television. Very slowly the drill bit through one layer, then another, then another. That’s when it happened.