by Clay Moore
Todd listens to his partner crunched his crackers with food base on top. Don took a bite of his own sandwich. It was amazing what the flavor chemists could do to food base. The main reason for the existence of food base was to provide a stable foodstuff that has a long storage life. Theoretically food base in its sealed container could last for 100 years. Food base was not that old, and the test packets that were being held in the Eridani High Guard base were maximum of 24 years old. Next year there were going to open up one of the packages and see how it survived. Todd knew that there was a pool going on in the Eridani Secret Service. He had seen the list of people who have put their money up. It warmed his heart to see that one of the persons who participated was A.
Eventually, both men finished their meal. Todd told Philip to bunk down. Todd would call him in two hours. Todd heard Phillip's breathing even out and slow down. On a two-man team, it got even more lonely when one of the men went to sleep. Todd walked the halls of his mind to keep the boredom away. He did the mathematics of adding four hours to 2130. At the end of this four hours, it was going to be 0130. By the time that they had reached and penetrated into the green space around the Snake, it should be at the optimal time for them, and a wrong time for the guards.
As they moved through the underbrush of the green space that surrounded the Snake, they were taken aback by the lack of patrols. Yes, you put guards at places that needed to be guarded. You also sent guard patrols through any areas that might provide cover for an enemy. Todd figured that the Starport for the personal starship would probably be in the middle of the green space. There may even be some camouflage over the top to make it look like it was part of the green space.
Together they crept through the underbrush generally heading west. Todd and Philip were hoping that they would get near enough to hear either casual banter or a changing of the guard routine. What he saw of the guard situation for the Snake told Todd that he would probably understand the occasional banter. However the meeting went, they were successful at relaxing Anton Hecton. He did not bring up the level of security after the meeting.
It was Philip who first heard the casual banter. He tapped Todd on the right shoulder and pointed with two fingers to the northwest. Two fingers meant that he heard two separate voices. Two guards for the ship that was more than enough to protect the ship during times of peace. They continued their journey because John needed visual images of what he was doing with.
The last few meters they crawled on their bellies. It was boot camp all over again. Then they saw the lights shining their focused beams into the Starport. A gleaming white ship was on the pad. Black cables and black hoses connected to the starship to the standard services a starship needed before being flown. There was compressed air, Radamite, electrical power, and a cable that had to be for communications. The starship was small possibly only 100 M tons. 100 M tons meant just enough room for three or four passengers maximum. Maybe 20 M tons of cargo. There was only one way into and out of the personal starship. That was the cargo ramp. For all of the light on the Starport Todd found it hard to look into the cargo hold. He wondered just what was in that cargo hold. He knew that John would ask a flock of questions in that vein. Right now all that he was tasked to do he had accomplished.
Todd turned to Philip behind him. Todd tapped Philip on the shoulder twice. He pointed back down the way they came. They left on their bellies. Perhaps they could've gotten closer, but they were not wearing their blackout suits. They were in groundling clothing.
They came to a small meadow in the foliage. Todd and Philip stopped. Todd took off his backpack. From it he took out the Hypercom. This station used the Hypercom rather than depend upon the microwave system. Microwave transmitters were cranky things. You needed a line of sight to the receiver, and you hoped that you did not have too much humidity in the atmosphere. All you needed to do was know the number of the Hypercom unit that you wished to call. It was believed by most people that Hypercom signals were unbreakable. From the scuttlebutt in the ESS that may not be necessarily true anymore. The other thing about the Hypercom unit that he had was that all of the manufacturer information was removed. The power pack in the in the Hypercom unit could have supported projected Tri-D, but that capability was removed. Projecting an image was always power-inefficient for the mission. That left voice and an old fashion key system.
Todd powered up the Hypercom. He punched in the number for the office of Edgar Bullon. Then he started to tap out his message on the key. The Eridani Secret Service did not use just the old Morse code. They did one better. They used number sequences and phrases to represent words or other expressions. The message if it was intercepted would actually look like a nursery rhyme or some different innocuous message. They call the system chutes and ladders because of the nursery rhyme inclusion. He was winding up his word when he heard some running feet behind him. There were a lot of running feet behind him. He abruptly changed the normal sign-off one that everyone that read that message now knew that he and Philip had been captured.
Todd stuffed his backpack, Once they had the bag filled they crushed a glass vial in the pack. The bottle contained a slow match and an amount of Radamite. Within a few seconds, their backpacks went on fire. They backed away and then put her hands up as if they were cold.
If the guards did not know where they were, the light from the fire led them in. They burst through the foliage into the meadow leveling their submachine blasters at the two men. Immediately Todd and Philip raise their hands. Right now all it looked like was that Todd and Philip were groundlings gathered around a fire for warmth.
"Hey Stitch, look what we got here. A couple of groundlings. What we do with them?"
"I guess we have to kick them out of the paradise that is the green."
Todd looked at Stitch. Stitch’s men more something that will the little bit like a uniform, but Stitch himself was immaculate in his forest camouflage battle uniform. It was apparent that was the commander of this unit, but he was not a member of it. Tom remembered from his own briefings that Anton like to hire talent. Todd tried quickly scanning the uniform for any patches or recognizable awards. There were no patches forwards, just a flat black medallion with three chevrons.
"Or maybe not," said Stitch.
At that moment the backpack fire chose to extinguish itself. Most of the equipment was melted down to slide, but some of the more incriminating stuff was just deformed and rendered useless. In a battle situation that would've been perfect. In a captured spy situation that could be fatal.
"Let's see what was on your fire." Stitch found a fairly a 66 cm stick. His step toward the two fire remnants. Tom flinched. The four other members of the patrol chambered a round and leveled her submachine blasters at the two men.
“Calmly, boys, calmly." Stitch reached Phillips fire remnants. There was too much slide for Stitch to make any sense of what he was looking at.
It was only when Sticks looked into Todd's backpack that he saw the partially destroyed Hypercom. He knew that Hypercom was not useful anymore, but why would groundlings need a Hypercom. He tested the Hypercom with the end of the stick. He knew it was cool enough to handle when it did not ignite the stick on being touched. He bent down and picked up the Hypercom. It looks like a standard Hypercom unit with only one command. It appeared that the Hypercom can just give audio signals. That was strange. Unknown to Stitch was that the fire was hot enough to melt the key.
When Todd saw that the Morse code key had been melted off the Hypercom unit, he nearly made a noise of relief. That would've given them all up. That was not what he wanted to be known as having done to Philip.
Stitch turned to face Todd. He was throwing the Hypercom up and down in his right hand. "This was in the fire nearest you," said Stitch to Todd. "Why would groundlings need a Hypercom?"
“To make calls faraway." Todd decided to try a little bit of flippancy to see how this "guard" handles that.
The guard did not handle it very well. He punched Todd in th
e face. Todd saw coming, but he was on his knees and could only defray part of the impact. The sound of flesh hitting flesh rang throughout the meadow.
“I would be a little more circumspect in your speech. This is not a world with laws. I could draw out my blaster, and because you are on the land belonging to the Snake, I could kill you. What do you say to that?"
"Why would you be treating an innocent groundling this way?"
"I don't think you are groundlings of this world. I'm gonna have to bring you up before the CEO of the Snake. We will see how he treats probable spies.
"Go ahead and handcuff them. We will take these interlopers into the boss. In so that Hecton can determine their fate."
Two of the other guards took out their handcuffs from their cuff case. They efficiently cuffed both Todd and Philip. While they were doing this, the third guard covered them with his submachine blaster. Once Todd and Philip have handcuffed the two guards lifted them up onto their feet. They pushed both of them towards the Snake and their probable meeting with Anton Hecton.
With the public union of the man in the gray suit with Edgar Bullon, there was no need to have a separate station building. Oliver had his men and other workers move everything into a specialized floor of the Butterfly. This story did not appear on the floor selection for the elevators. To get to this level, you had to know the code and have a specific code disc. You edit the code by pressing the floor buttons in a particular sequence. That allowed you access to the specialized floor. Most of the equipment was small and inconspicuous. They had to use the freight elevator to move the Autodoc from its location into the Butterfly.
John watched this frenetic move was a whole lot of respect for Oliver. Station S was off the air for only 30 minutes. When they came back on Oliver to explain what they did. Within an hour after they did that they received the permission to continue with the move. Once station S reported that they had already moved, there was a very long pause from the monitor. John read consternation in that stop. The people back at headquarters do not like when the people in the field do something outlandish. Moving a station is not something that you did every day. You needed to inform headquarters so that they could discuss it for hours before giving you the permission you wanted. John was of the opinion that every single headquarters person really wanted to be in the field. For some reason or another, they did not quite make the cut for the field agent. They were either missing an eye, missing a leg, or had some other physical or mental problem that prevented them from being able to think on their feet or move quickly enough. John did appreciate what the men and women back at headquarters on Eridani did for them. When everything worked correctly, information would pour into those field agents slates.
John got up, but then realized he was wearing a gray suit., so was Oliver. They both could not be the man in gray. The room that John was in right now was his room, as in office and bedroom rolled in the one. His bed was nothing more than a large cot. His steamer trunk was opened in the corner. From the third drawer of the chest, he drew out a pair of slacks that are used for golfing and a knit shirt of chartreuse. The golf pants were always black. He once heard that everything went with black. So far no one has complained about his color matching on the golf course. Then again John stood 1.9 meters tall. Most men are not likely to comment on another man's color choice when that other man stood so tall.
John put on his shoulder holster. He then put his blaster into the holster. Overall of this, he wore a blue blazer. John looked at himself in the mirror and realize that he was the epitome of comfort.
He walked out of his room. He took the left that would bring them into the central control room. He was greeted by everyone that was not working on a console. He returned the greeting and then added, "is Bullon in his station office?"
A woman stopped, a stunning blonde that likes to have her hair teased up into a self-standing tower on her head. She looked at him, took out her slate, and called up his position. She said, "yes, he is in his station office."
"Thank you — I didn't get your name?"
“I just came in from Eridani. I thought it was getting the station into the back of beyond. Now I see all of this action and movement. Something's going on, and I wouldn't miss this for the world. My name is Felicia G. Knight."
“What does the G stand for?"
“Good."
"Felicia Good Knight-mmmm. Of course, you are. Thank you for your information."
If Felicia was wondering if John was making fun of her, she did not act like it.
John gave her a two finger salute to his right eyebrow. Then he walked to Bullion's office. As the actual station chief, he got the biggest office. That did not mean that it was filled with priceless antiques or things made from rare materials. In fact, when you walked into it you saw that he had a typical metal government desk. The reason why his office seems so cramped was all of the equipment that he needed to send out its information back to Eridani.
Bullon looked up from his slate. His eyes focused on John. He leaned back in his chair playing with the stylus by twirling it between his fingers. Bullon was dressed in a business suit. This was so that he could switch from station chief to CEO of the Butterfly.
“No need to go on formality. If the light above the door is red that means don't enter. I also don't believe that you could enter even if the light were red. I've installed some electromagnetic devices that will hold the door shut, even against an Eridani red rhino."
"I have no doubt about that. That door is either using Battlesuits metal or hull metal."
“A whole metal coating would be too expensive, in most cases, Battlesuit metal will suffice.”
John walked into the office. He stopped and looked up at the light above the door. It was still green. John turned back and looked straight at Bullon who got the message and push the button that sealed them in the office. John continued to walk to the chair that sat in front of Bullion's • desk.
“Is there a problem, John."
“Have we heard from the men on the search mission?"
"I have not, as yet, heard from them. It's starting to bother me too.”
"This mission is central to my mission. There is nothing greater than the need to destroy Anton Hecton. I played my pieces out on the board. I'm closing the noose around his neck, but if I don't know where his personal starship is, then all of what I'm doing here is moot."
“Oliver says that these two men are the best for this kind of mission. Todd is the mission leader because he has done this, both in the Marines and extensively for the ESS. Philip is on this mission because he is a great engineer/technician. On more than one occasion I've seen him cobble up something beneficial out of junk that was around him. If any team could have accomplished this mission, it would be them."
As if to answer their questions the communicator on Bullion's desk rang. Bullon picked it up and said, "you don't say? I would put this on speaker so that John can hear it as well. No need for two briefings." Bullon did as he said he would do. The external speaker came along with the sound of one of the clerks in the central control room.
"As I was telling Mr. Bullon, we have had a Hypercom communication. It is from the team seeking out the personal starship of Anton Hecton. It was encoded utilizing chutes and ladders.”
“You mean they were using the key?" There were very few people who were proficient in using the key. John was one of them, but he didn't remember anyone call Todd being in the group. He looked at Bullon with a questioning look.
“He always does an excellent job for us. I checked the certificates, and they were all in order. I know that this was something that you and your dead wife concocted to fool people. I always thought that it took a couple of people who had a sense of humor.”
