Salvage-5: The Next Mission (First Contact)
Page 20
“Slavena?” Hargrove said over the wireless.”
“Slavena here,” she responded after taking her headset back from Buster.
Everyone in the medical bay was looking down at Tucker, strapped down to a table, he remained unconscious.
“I need you to come up to the command center. See if you can get your former Captain on the horn.”
“I vill try,” Slavena said, looking over at Cass for approval.
“Go!”
“I am on my vay, Lieutenant.”
Slavena dropped from her floating position over Tucker’s side and pushed off toward the medical bay exit.
Cass had tears welling in her eyes, but continued to hold her weapon on the Gus-clone, “Okay, here he is. What can you do to help?”
The Gus clone reviewed the monitors at Tucker’s head, “He’s fading fast. The exposure he suffered being the main cause.”
“So, I ask what can you do for him?”
The Gus-clone extended his left arm and began to grow some type of device, “He will have to be chipped.”
“Uh, No! Not gonna happen,” Turning to Buster, Cass pleaded, “Tell him he’s not going to chip Tucker.”
“He’s not going to last more than a few more minutes,” Buster added.
“You’re not helping,” Cass turned to Gus, “Can you ensure he won’t become a clone?”
“He will remain who he is, and I have constructed this chip with the needed programming to heal his body,” Gus answered, holding the grown chip injector. A thin thread protruded from the end of a chip, wiggling and twisting looking for its host.
Cass looked over at Buster, and then to Gus and back down at Tucker, “He won’t be cloned...”
“We are too far from the Noosphere complex to download the DNA pattern to our core buffers.”
“Do it!”
Gus held the tip down by Tucker, “Are you certain you wish me to continue?”
“Yes! Just do it before I change my mind!” Cass answered, turning Tucker over for the Gus clone.
Gus cocked the growing piston-looking device and pressed the tip to the back of Tucker’s neck. As soon as it touched, he shot the chip into Tucker.
Then they watched as the chip grew the wound closed. They turned him over, facing the ceiling, still tethered by the medical bay straps to prevent him from floating away.
Buster watched the monitors change as the chip grew inside of Tucker, repairing the damage. Lights flashed across his lifeless face, turning into leads and traces, which flowed down his body to the area of the torn space suit.
“The chip is in the healing process,” Gus noted, “This could take a few minutes longer, but his vitals are returning to normal.”
Cass let out a sigh of relief, “Hargrove, SITREP?”
“Slavena has been calling the Falcon, still no response. They are three minutes until they have targeting solution on the CSMO.”
“Okay, set the CSMO’s systems to autopilot and get back to the Salvage-5! We can out maneuver the Falcon.”
“Roger that!” Hargrove said, nodding over to Samuels, “Setting auto fire as soon as we’re in range. Course is locked to Mathilde.”
Dillan, Samuels, and Hargrove all unstrapped from their consoles and floated back with Slavena to Salvage-5.
“Two minutes to weapons range!” Samuels shouted. Coming up the ramp of the Salvage-5 cargo bay, “Come on Cass, Buster, get Tucker back on board!”
Tucker shot his eyes open. Cass looked down in horror as his eyes changed to that bright familiar green shade. She shot a stare over to the Gus clone, “What have you done?!”
“Help me unstrap him from the table,” Gus answered, busily removing his restraints, “This is the normal reaction, his eyes will return to normal once the chip’s programming is complete and terminates.”
“You better be right!”
Tucker turned his head, still dazed and confused. He wrapped his arms around Gus and Cass’s neck and they pulled him through the corridor to the ship.
“What’s going on? Where am I?” he struggled to ask.
“You’re going to be alright, Tucker. Just stay calm,” Cass said, as they moved as quickly as they could in the weightless environment.
“Come on, already!” Hargrove shouted, which they could now hear from inside the ship, as they came up the ramp.
“I feel strange...”
“You just be quiet Tuck...Go, go, go!”
Sam punched in the cargo bay door code to retract the ramp and sealed the ship.
“Buster, blow this damn hatch, we got to go...NOW!” Sam ordered.
“She’s right,” Samuels confirmed, “They fired all five nukes! Impact in two minutes!”
Buster wasted no time in tying into the CSMO’s computer, blowing the landing bay doors. Sam fired all thrusters and engaged the plasma turbo engines.
“Skids up! We’re off...but I don’t think we’re going to make it. We’re still in the blast zone!”
Cass finished strapping Tucker in his command seat and quickly found her place next to him and cinched her straps extra hard.
Samuels activated his station controls as Sam brought the ship around to full speed and headed directly at the Falcon. He smiled with satisfaction as he pressed a red button next to his left hand controls, “See ya in Hell!”
A bright flash grew from the rear of the Falcon as the explosives tied to her main engines erupted. The detonation blew a hole clear through its hull, causing the ship to list to one side and dive down toward the asteroid’s surface.
“Fire all weapons at those nukes!” Cass ordered.
Samuels was still busy with feeling satisfied, that if he was going to die, at least he took out the Falcon.
Buster took the initiative and activated the turrets on the top of the ship, “I got this! It’s just like a video game.”
One by one, he took aim and fired, taking out four of the five missiles before it impacted the CSMO. The missile breached the rear section of the ship and then detonated. The exploding nuke sent out a massive shockwave, destroying the drive section of the CSMO.
“The ship’s core breached!” Cass shouted.
The resulting explosion sent the CSMO flying apart into thousands of pieces.
The Falcon rammed deep into the alien complex, sending several large chunks of rock up into the flight path of Salvage-5. Then the alien substance began to grow and overtake the crashed Falcon hip, enveloping it in a cocoon-like web.
“We’re not going to make it!” Sam shouted in panic, “Shockwave in thirty seconds! It’s going to take us out!”
Gus floated in the command deck of the salvage ship, just behind Tucker, “There’s only one way out...”
“...and that would be, what?” Cass nervously asked. She watched the Gus clone grow a new feature on the stump of an arm which looked like a plug at its end.
He moved his arm and plugging the end of the apparatus into the back of Tucker’s jack. The two immediately closed their eyes together, and concentrated.
“I have to charge his chip with mine!”
“Gus! No don’t!”
“It is the only way...”
Tucker and the Gus clone opened their eyes wide, extended their arms out before them and seconds before the shockwave would hit Salvage-5, they sent out a wave of energy.
The rest of the crew only could look on as the stars stretched with immense acceleration.
“What just happened?” Sam asked, “We cleared the nuke’s shockwave, but how?”
Gus removed his stumped jack from Tucker, and began to grow his arm back to normal, “We connected our chips together. With the combined power, I changed the ship’s course to Earth at an accelerated speed.”
“Ah huh...” Sam looked back at the Gus clone, “You did what?”
“Check your instruments, Sam,” Cass requested.
“H...how can that be? We’re approaching Earth?”
“It is possible using the alien tech,” Gus offe
red, “You will need to reverse burn in five minutes.”
“Wait, wait...” Cass said, wrinkling her forehead, “I’m picking up some blips behind us.”
“Scanning,” Buster reported, “Some of the asteroid debris was pulled along with us.”
“You guys have any of that alien charge left in ya?” Sam asked.
“Perhaps, a small amount,” Gus answered.
“That’s all I needed to know...” Sam moved the control stick, turning the ship 180 degrees, now traveling backward toward Earth’s atmosphere. She fired full power to her thrusters to slow the ship.
“Sam! What are you doing?” Cass yelled.
“Best way to avoid a ‘roid strike is face it head on and steer the best you can...you guys wanna see about deflecting any of these rocks out of our path before we get rained on?”
Sam maneuvered the ship in and around the rocks, now in their flight path.
“All I know,” Samuels said, “They’re going to get quite a light show down there.”
Captain Rothschild turned the ship to the right and then left, darting in and around the asteroid chunks streaming towards them. Gus and Tucker managed to divert the largest rocks out of the ship’s path with another surge of energy. Sam continued to rock and roll the ship through the rest of the debris, missing the larger rocks.
Tucker, now becoming fully alert of his surroundings, “Buster, I need you to turn on full stealth mode. We can’t let them know we’re back yet. At least while we still have our clone onboard.”
“Tucker?” Cass said, hesitantly, “What are you thinking?”
“You have to agree, Cass. We can’t let them know we have a clone with us. They’ll tear him apart to find out what makes them tick.”
“He is right, Cassandra,” the Gus clone said.
“Activating stealth mode, Commander. They can’t see us.”
“It is not in my programming to allow deceit...”
“Don’t worry, Gus,” Tucker smiled, “You’ll get used to it. You did it well as a human.”
“No, I am afraid that there is only one conclusion to my programming.”
“Gus?”
“My usefulness has expired...I am now a liability.”
“Gus!” Cass shouted.
But her plea was too late as she watched Gus’s eyes turn a milky white color. He cocked his head sideways and opened his mouth, exhaling his final breath, “My...programming...will now...terminate.”
“No! Not again!” Cass yelled. Tears streamed down her cheeks, seeing her friend die once again. She knew he was a clone, and not the real Major Gus Jamison, but it was his exact copy; everything down to his memories.
Tucker turned to Cassandra. She looked into his eyes and watched as they returned to his normal color.
“What the hell happened? Wow! I have such a headache. Did we get off the alien complex alright?”
Cass laughed out loud, “Yeah, it’s Tucker,” then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She smiled in return and giggled, happy to see her lover in one piece, so to speak.
“What?”
“Oh nothing, Colonel,” she chuckled. Then took him by the collar and pulled him toward her. The two pressed their lips together, and kissed passionately before she allowed him to breathe.
“Hey!” Tucker finally pushed back, gasping for air, “Take it easy, Sassy...you act like you haven’t seen me in weeks.”
“Well, close enough anyway...I’m just happy to see you get out of that complex.”
“And I’m just as happy about that. We’ll flush the Gus clone out the airlock. Buster, go ahead and terminate the stealth mode. Sam, contact approach control and bring us in.”
Tucker leaned over and kissed Cassie once more.
“Approach Control, Salvage-5, Request permission to land.”
“Salvage-5, Approach Control. We received your request. You’re ship’s not due for another two weeks.”
“Affirmative, Approach Control,” Sam smiled at the two, “It’s a long story, it’ll be in our report.”
“We are picking up your transponder, Salvage-5. You are clear to land, slow to 17,000 KPH for atmosphere capture and reentry.”
“Roger that, Approach Control...slowing to 17,000 KPH. Preparing for atmospheric reentry...Salvage-5 out...see ya on the ground.”
* * *
Chapter 20
The Falcon
Location:
Kuiper Belt - Asteroid 52 Europa Alien Complex
Earth Date: 04/16/2065 16:20
Several Gus clones armed themselves after the Falcon impacted inside the alien complex, “When you are prepared,” one of them coldly ordered, “Advance the Vanguard troops.”
“We are advancing now.”
“Our programmers will be pleased with us.”
“They might even forget about losing the last crewmen.”
“It was our mistake to underestimate the Keepers in this equation. We will be ready for them in the future.”
The clones looked up in the direction of several human screams, “I believe our first encounter with these new test subjects has occurred.”
“You are correct. They are being captured and prepped for the chip implant.”
“Excellent...I shall ensure we are prepped and ready in the DNA harvesting room.”
A group of the Vanguard cyborg clones pulled a screaming Vladimir and his horrified crew through the passage. They were helpless against the cyborg clones.
“I do not think some of these subjects will survive.”
“Yes, as with a few of the last ones. There are weaknesses within the hosts, preventing a successful outcome.”
“The Captain of the vessel, however, will make an excellent subject.”
“Yes, I do believe you are right about him,” the clone smiled with a nod, “I believe so.”
* * *
Whidbey Island Naval Base & Space Port
Oak Harbor, WA
Salvage-5 Mission Debriefing
Earth Date: 04/17/2065 08:00
Tucker and Cassandra walked down, the never-ending hallway that led to General McKenzie’s office. They could already hear the General spewing expletives, mixed with ‘Colonel’, and ‘that Tucker’.
Tucker, enjoying his usual fine cigar and leaving a smoke trail behind, leaned over to Cass, “We’re not tellin’ the General about my chip, right? We agreed.”
“Don’t worry, Tuck. He’ll not even notice your high riding collar.”
The two stopped at the General’s front desk, “Hey there, sweetie, where’s Nadine? She usually sits here.”
“Nadine has been assigned to another facility,” the snooty, red-haired, receptionist answered.
“Okay then. So what’s got the General all in a tizzy?”
“Need you ask?” Cassie said, nudging Tucker in the ribs.
“Really, I fail to see what the issue is,” turning to the receptionist, “What’d I do this time?”
“You should just go in and see for yourself, Sir.”
Turning back to Cass, “See, she understands. You don’t address me as Sir.”
“No, I don’t because you asked me not to, remember?”
“Ah, right.”
“Go on in, Sir.”
“TUCKER!” they could hear from the closed door, “Get you’re sorry ass in here...NOW!”
“Geez, General. You don’t need to get your panties in a jam...” Tucker said, walking through the door. His ears filled with a barrage of more colorful words.
“...and Major Phillips, you should remain outside for now!”
“Yes, sir,” Cassie said, saluting her General. “It will be my pleasure to remain out here.”
“Close the door, Colonel!”
Tucker closed the door and blew another smoke ring over the General’s head, “Nice to see you too, General.”
“Sit down and shut it!”
“Right,” Tucker answered, and then sat across from the General’s desk.
The Ge
neral remained standing, his hands gripping the back of his leather chair, he peered at Tucker, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you!” he shouted.
“...Mac, I really don’t know what you’re so upset about...”
“...don’t you? Really? You destroyed another CSMO for god sakes, what’s the matter with you?!”
“...General, in all fairness...”
“Did you return it to Mathilde? NO-o!”
“...it wasn’t me who destroyed the CSMO...”
“All those souls lost!”
“...it was our Russian friends...”
“...and what the hell were you thinking? You have no authority to grant asylum to anyone!
“Maybe we should focus on the positive here...”
“...I’ll give you POSITIVE!”
“No, I think I just said I would...”
“You’re walking on a pretty thin wire!”
“Let, me ask you a question. How many did I leave with?”
“FOUR!”
“Right, and how many did I bring back?”
The General didn’t give Tucker the satisfaction on an answer.”
“Nine! That’s right, I returned nine lives, including myself, of course.”
“...and how is it that you were able to return nearly two weeks early? Answer me that?”
Tucker shrugged his shoulders and held his palms up, “beats me, General?”
“Tucker, you’re not going to hijack this meeting!”
“Too late for that,” Tucker crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair.
“I mean it Colonel.”
“I found the CSMO...”
“...that YOU destroyed!”
“We righted the asteroid’s orbit...”
“Almost, but not quite!”
We delivered all the jump-ring parts and repaired it...”
“...by enlisting the help of the Russians? That’s a security violation right there!”
“...and we successfully tested the jump-gate...quite successfully, if I do say so myself.”
“You caused ANOTHER international incident!”
“General,” Tucker held his composure the best he could as he stood up to eye level with McKenzie, “there’s another alien cyborg-clone infested, DNA extracting complex. It’s out at asteroid 52 Europa...”