The Third Craft

by James Harris

  “You’re certain there are five?” Grayer knew that each scout ship held a crew of five.

  “Yes, sir. Five in total.”

  “You say they meet monthly?”

  “They meet on a specific day each month.”

  “A pattern. I see – that way they don’t have to risk using phone calls or notes to organize meetings. What’s the pattern, Hill?”

  “It’s simple enough. It’s the number of the month doubled. That’s the date of the month they meet, every month right on cue. For example, June is the sixth month. They meet on the twelfth of June.”

  “Good work, Hill. It’s August. Today is the fourteenth. If your formula works, they will meet this month on the sixteenth, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Fax me the coordinates, will you? I’ll handle it from here.”

  “I take it that the assignment’s over then?” Hill asked.

  “Yes. Unless you have screwed up. Then you’ll hear from me.”

  “We haven’t screwed up, Commander. You’ll be pleased with our intell.”

  “Oh, one more thing. Did you ID any or all of the four other men?”

  “Nothing positive.”

  “Well, how about pictures? You must have photographed them as they came and went.”

  “Yes, sir, we’ve got some long-range photos. I’ll have them couriered to Washington for you. We circulated them discreetly to see if any department personnel recognized the men, but none did. We had to be careful who we asked, in case these men were high ranking.”

  “Thanks. I gather you are not close by or you would bring them yourself.”

  “Correct, Commander. We were reassigned this morning after a debriefing.”

  Grayer exploded. “Debriefing! Debriefing with whom? This was supposed to be a tight op! What happened to that?”

  “It is, sir, it is. Except that I report to another department. I have a boss, sir. We were on loan to the DoD. God, three years was a long temporary assignment, don’t you agree?”

  Grayer sighed. “Fine, Hill. Forward whatever intell you’ve got.”

  “On its way, Commander … Well, I think it is, anyway. I had to turn it over to my bureau chief. You understand.”

  “What frightens me is that I do understand, Hill. Please tell me that H and his people will not see the file.”

  “Count on it, Commander.”

  It was early morning, August 16th. As the commercial jet lifted off the tarmac, Grayer absently touched the folded report in his breast pocket. The exact location of the silo was verified with the DoD. There were classified satellite photos and coordinates in the report. Hill’s file had arrived that morning, hours before he had to leave for Colorado.

  The file was sparse and the photos were lousy. Grayer wondered what the team had done with their time. Three years had yielded scant results. However, the time and location of the meeting place – and probably the whereabouts of the spacecraft – made up for the shortcomings. He was anxious to get to the site and verify that Alpha II was there and in what condition. Grayer planned to recover the spaceship and transition the rest of his crew using Alpha II’s chamber. Stell, without his scout ship, would be isolated and powerless to attack Grayer and his family. Grayer could then pick off Stell’s men one at a time.

  The Secretary of Defense gave his approval for the trip. He insisted that Grayer take an armed helicopter and crew to the silo. Grayer was adamant that no one but he should go into the silo for one obvious reason: If there was a spaceship inside, the government could not risk any leaks of the discovery. The helicopter crew was instructed to return to the silo at 1900 hours.

  The black chopper blew a massive dust cloud as it descended near the silo entrance. While all appeared quiet at the silo, the support team was keenly alert.

  The abandoned silo was hardly visible from the air. The VSTOL helicopter touched down several yards from the rusted corrugated-steel entrance. There were four fully armed airborne military personnel on board the helicopter. All they knew was that one of their own, AIA, was putting himself in direct danger. They knew he was both a fellow fighter pilot and an intelligence officer, not a suit. He got full respect.

  Grayer emerged from the helicopter wearing a lightweight bulletproof vest, infrared headgear, and a sidearm.

  One of the specialists leaped from the craft immediately after Grayer. The rotor blades of the chopper kicked up a cloud of sand. With hand signals, the soldier charged across the desert floor and flattened himself against the wall of the entrance to the silo. His yellow-tinted goggles protected his eyes. There was a stainless-steel keypad. He fished out a secret code from his jacket and punched it into the pad. The rusty door squealed open. He motioned to Grayer, who was right behind him.

  Grayer smiled and patted the soldier on the shoulder as he charged past him. Once inside the silo, Grayer turned and tipped his finger to his helmet. The soldier saluted and punched in the closure code. There was a thick grinding clunk as the door closed. The sound echoed in the deep cavern below. The chamber was thrown into darkness. Grayer was now entombed.

  His nostrils caught the wafting dank smell of aging concrete and oxidizing metal. There was a distant sound of dripping water. He stood still and waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Soon he was able to distinguish dim lights on the sides of the cavernous cylinder. He saw perforated metal steps leading down the side of a spiral concrete silo. His flight boots rang heavily on the stairs as he descended.

  At first it seemed weird to Grayer to hear the sound of steadily dripping water in the desert, but then he realized that the silo was just like an underground cave. A man-made cave, but a cave nonetheless. Its concrete sides leached water. Lime oozed from the concrete like pus from a wound. The place had the musky odor of an ancient grave.

  Grayer followed the staircase down into the bowels of the silo. Light came from glass-encased low-wattage bulbs embedded into the concrete wall. They were housed in a rusted steel mesh that protected them from accidental breakage. Grayer had no idea where the power came from, but the dim bulbs burned steadily.

  The cylindrical silo was fifty feet in diameter and extended two hundred feet down. The bottom wasn’t visible in the weak light. The ancient missile that had occupied this space had long since been reassigned, Grayer figured, because of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It was probably part of somebody’s recycled BBQ by now.

  With some trepidation, he eyed the corroded bolts that attached the winding staircase to the putrid concrete walls. There wasn’t much life left in them. A few had broken off, and the staircase wobbled. They could fail at any time. Suddenly, a glint of silver caught his eye from down below.

  There it was, a silvery sleek beauty of a craft. It took your breath away. The otherworldliness of it! Grayer felt pride, exultation, and delirium, all at the same time. It had been many years since he had gazed upon one of his ships. His ticket out of here! Stell was going to be stopped.

  Grayer clanked down the stairwell toward the silvery object. Once at the bottom, he raced toward the craft.

  Bang! He charged face-first into a simple remote molecular Repeller unit and was thrown backward, landing on his backside on the rough concrete silo floor. He wasn’t hurt, but he was angry at himself. He couldn’t believe his stupidity and carelessness. It was as if he had forgotten all that he had known.

  He pushed angrily. The Repeller spat out static electricity, and the air seemed to wobble. A ten-foot hole of crackling energy formed in the Repeller’s field of protection.

  Grayer strode toward the craft warily but with confidence. This craft belonged to the House of Narok, after all. Technically, it belonged to him. Why not take it?

  His House.

  His program.

  His ships.

  Just fly away, he thought.

  He palmed the outside skin of the ship and the entrance door flicked open silently.

  The ship recognized him and welcomed him. Grayer felt exuber
ance and comfort in the knowledge that Alpha II had survived.

  “Scout ship Alpha II,” he said as he walked toward the control room.

  “Welcome, Prince Kor. Your command?”

  In the control room, Grayer slung himself with familiar ease into a command chair.

  “History files. No, wait – show me the ship’s diagnostics first.”

  “Main view screen,” the ship said.

  As he examined the diagnostics, the smile on his face faded into a quizzical look.

  “Alpha II. How is it that you are nuclear-powered? Is something wrong with your anti-matter capabilities?”

  “Anti-matter containment field was breached in the crash landing. The field failure is fatal.”

  “Fatal?”

  “Affirmative. Fatal.”

  “Hold on! I was told that you were space-ready.”

  “Negative. Not space-ready. Anti-matter damage is fatal. Do not attempt departure from resident host planet. Fatal containment breach.”

  Grayer stormed out of the craft. He was overcome with many thoughts; high on the list was Stell’s claim of a space-ready craft. Stell had exaggerated about the flight capability of the ship. He really was marooned! They all were.

  Outside the ship, he looked up into the silo’s pitch-black ceiling. Even if space flight was impossible, local flight was no doubt feasible. He would take the ship from Stell and his crew, but first he had to find a way out of the silo.

  Grayer wondered how long the ship had been here. The silo cap was closed tightly, allowing no outside light to filter in. There was fresh air, however. In an effort to figure a way out, he began to explore the silo area around him.

  There has to be a way to open the silo hatch, he reasoned.

  He encountered a second set of steps leading upward to a small platform. The platform led to a door. He shoved open the heavy, ruststreaked door, which had been designed to withstand the heat and explosive force of a launching missile.

  Inside the eight-by-eight room was an array of dusty consoles covered with buttons, knobs, and glass gauges. Three moldy green-and-gray TV monitors were lined up along one wall. The room was illuminated by a few light bulbs encased in red glass. Grayer went from station to station. He saw nothing of interest. The equipment appeared to be for monitoring the missile’s readiness to launch. This room was not the missile command center.

  Grayer continued his exploration. He left that room and climbed more stairs to another platform thirty feet up. It, too, had a fortified door, and it was ajar. He entered cautiously and peered into the shadowy depths. This room was larger. It was lit by a half-dozen red bulbs strategically placed around the ceiling. A series of fluorescent fixtures appeared inoperative. A line of computer-monitored consoles filled one side of the rectangular room. Opposite the console tables was empty space. Marks on the floor indicated where equipment had previously been unbolted from the floor.

  Grayer began to examine the center console, and understood almost immediately that this console operated the silo’s missile-deployment mechanism. There was a series of switches connected to a fail-safe mechanism, which in turn was connected to a telephone, now missing. This phone had presumably been a direct connection to the Pentagon or the White House, which would have given the final fail-safe orders to launch the missile.

  Grayer fiddled absently with a few switches. He figured that in order to get the spaceship inside the silo, there had to be a command device to operate the silo cover. Something had to open the lid.

  And there it was, a checklist taped to the console. The hatch deployment was part of the countdown mechanism. On the right-hand side of the center console were three large switches above a yellow-and-blackstriped strip of tape.

  He threw the first switch. It had the Roman numeral – I – Initiate Sequence under it. There was a sudden, belching, honking noise. It was the warning signal to clear the area. He winced as it boomed on and on.

  Next he threw the switch marked – II – Hatch Deployment. There was a solid rumbling sound, then a slow grating noise, like a giant sewer cover being twisted open. One of the console monitors flickered to life of its own accord. The monitor showed the lid of the silo, split in two, the halves slowly retracting toward the outer perimeter of the silo wall. When it finished, there was a gaping round hole in the desert floor. The monitor’s camera showed the exposed sky in black and white. Grayer could see billows of sandy dust flowing down into the silo.

  Finally, he threw the switch marked – II – I Ready Launch. He was not quite sure what to expect, already having achieved what he wanted – opening the silo. Instantly a siren began to wail in concert with the honking warning horn. What a racket! A series of small orange lights flickered to life on the console. They were beside a bank of pressure gauges, which indicated the static hydraulic pressure of hidden pipes or lines. After a minute, the orange lights changed to green. The pressure gauges oscillated about the 130 mark.

  While Grayer couldn’t hear any new noises above the din, he felt movement. The room’s iron door clicked solidly as half-inch steel locking pins jammed into the doorframe. Grayer tried without success to activate the monitors until one responded, again seemingly of its own accord. It seemed to be the output monitor for a security camera that looked down into the silo. At first Grayer saw nothing unusual, but then he observed the floor of the silo rising. There must be pressurized pistons, he thought, pushing the floor upward.

  The camera caught a glimpse of the shiny hull of the spacecraft. More and more of the spaceship became visible on the monitor’s screen. The floor’s movement stopped abruptly about twenty feet below ground level. Eight locking pins burst outward like talons, securing the missile floor into the side of the concrete silo. Then there was dead silence. The system had shut down. It must have timed out waiting for further instructions.

  Grayer waited and waited. Two hours went by. Suddenly the wailing and honking started up again. The system must be on a default auto timer, Grayer thought. The “all clear” was sounded and the locking pins retracted from the walls. The giant floor began its descent. When the floor had reached the bottom, the doorframe lock pins released. Grayer was free to leave the room and move about. He flung open the door and looked around. Everything was back the way it was. The spaceship was back down at the bottom of the silo.

  Remind me not to press the third button, he thought to himself.

  Grayer scurried down the stairs and re-entered the craft.

  “Computer.”

  “Welcome, Prince Kor. Your command?”

  CHAPTER46

  Grayer was seated in the control room.

  “Scan perimeter.”

  “No humans. No life signs.”

  “360 monitors, please.”

  “360, done.”

  The entire control room was engulfed in a total-surround picture of the ship’s surroundings, even the floor immediately below. Grayer examined the display and saw that all was quiet.

  “360 off, please,” he said.

  “360 off.”

  “Ready command change to Kor.”

  “Not ready.”

  “Prepare for takeoff. Make ready command change to Kor.”

  “I am sorry, Prince Kor, that command has been codified in the name of Prince Stell. There is no override command available.”

  “I understand. Stell has priority command and only he can override.”

  “That is correct.”

  “What about my priority royal code?”

  “Disabled by Commander Stell.”

  “How to undo command?”

  “That information is not permitted by auto-order of Prince Stell.”

  Kor slammed his hand down on the console. There were a few moments of silence. “How was the command given and verified as Stell?”

  “Signature code recognition.”

  “Once you recognize his Signature, the command reverts to a variable pilot so that anyone of his crew can pilot the craft.”

 
; “Correct. Once Signature coding is established, piloting is variable for the sake of convenience.”

  “Of course. Does the command reinitiate automatically?”

  “No. The command code must be established in person each time. The default is no command code. Piloting defaults to variable.”

  “That’s what I thought. I guess we have to wait for Stell.”

  “Correct. Only Prince Stell can cancel command or operate this craft.”

  “And then anyone?”

  “Correct. Unless LOCKOUT is reprogrammed by Prince Stell once again.”

  “Exiting. Erase all history of this visit.”

  “Sorry, unable to comply.”

  “I understand,” Grayer said, and he left the craft.

  He chided himself for failing to anticipate Stell’s preparedness.

  He had a daunting task. Stell would have to be captured in order for him to re-activate the spacecraft. Only Stell’s Signature would unlock the LOCKOUT command. If anything happened to Stell, it was unlikely the craft would be flyable. What a mess.

  Grayer’s plan to capture both the ship and the crew had fallen apart. He needed to ambush Stell and capture him. Then force him to re-engage the piloting system of Alpha II. Grayer could then fly the craft away. Grayer had to admit it wasn’t much of a plan, but he had to recover the spacecraft at any cost. He had the craft at hand, and he wasn’t about to let it slip through his fingers. If he couldn’t capture it, at least he could prevent Stell from using it.

  He hoped Stell would show up first and be alone. If it was everyone at once, he was in trouble. He had light small arms weapons and they outnumbered him five to one. Confrontation was out of the question. Because of his Signature, he couldn’t hide without being detected. Grayer looked at his watch; they were due any time soon. He had led himself into a potential trap. If Stell wasn’t alone, his best chance was to hide out until the chopper returned at 1900 hours with armed troops.

  Grayer began to explore his surroundings. An enclosed concrete cylindrical bunker was not an ideal theater for battle. He considered escaping from the silo, but rejected that also. Up top, it was open desert; he would easily be spotted. In addition, his Signature would be detected as soon as the enemy approached. His Signature, he knew, was a bodily harmonic that pulsed at regular intervals at ultra-high frequencies. Because it was UHF, it required line of sight to detect it. He was better off hiding within the concrete bunker, which would shield his Signature.