3:13:58
Dale Powers: Confirmation on trajectory. They’re definitely coming at us on a collision course.
3:14:01
Captain Turner: Shit! (pause) Helm! I know this ship is not designed for evasive maneuvers, but I highly recommend anything you might suggest. Get us out of this, Helen! Dale, can you get anything on visual that could help? Identify the bugger!
3:14:12
Johan Belcher, Ekwan Nipiwin and Henrietta Maria arrive and, seeing the approaching ship on main monitor casement, quickly take their stations. Captain Turner sees Alex enter, motions for him to stay where he is.
3:15:01
Dale Powers: Negative markings, Captain. The shape of it is unfamiliar. It’s not NASA or CSE.
3:15:05
Johan Belcher: ESA doesn’t have anything like that either.
3:15:08
Ekwan Nipiwin: Is not Japanese. It looks private.
3:15:10
Captain Turner: What? Are you trying to tell me—
3:15:12
Ekwan Nipiwin: Pirates did not die out in the Caribbean; they merely evolved. I say we are being attacked by pirates. And if you consider the information we have on board this ship, it’s no wonder why.
3:15:34
Alex Manez leaves portal of command bridge unnoticed.
3:15:35
Captain Turner: (shakes her head) How did they know! No one on this ship leaked any information!
3:15:40
Dale Powers: It could be anyone in any of our agencies. There are dozens of people who have access to, government information. Not to mention hackers, of course. Or other governments. When you consider everything, I agree with Ekwan; it’s not exactly a surprise. We should have anticipated something.
3:15:45
Captain Turner: Anticipated? We’re not a military ship! We’re scientific! This kind of shit is not supposed to happen!
3:15:48
George Eastmain: Whether it’s supposed to happen or not, I just picked up a radar sensor reading on that ship’s forward hull. It’s a can-opener.
3:15:53
Captain Turner: A what?
3:15:54
Ekwan Nipiwin: The front of the ship is a spike that punctures the hull of the victim’s ship, at the same time inserting a reverse claw that will pry open our hull like a can of sardines.
3:16:03
Captain Turner:You mean they’re going to ram us?
3:16:05
Ekwan Nipiwin: Yes. Also, if we do not don our suitshields, we will quickly run out of air and pressurization.
3:16:11
Captain Turner: Shit and damn it all! Helen!
3:16:21
Helen Buchanan: Sorry Captain. At current velocity, any drastic alteration in course will tear us apart.
3:16:26
Captain Turner: How long until impact?
3:16:28
Helen Buchanan checks trajectory computer, requests confirmation
3:16:39
Helen Buchanan: Collision imminent in five minutes, twelve seconds…mark.
3:16:42
Captain Turner: All right. All hands to don suitshields. If they want the frigging ship, they can have it. Dale, can you erase all main computer files?
3:16:47
Dale Powers: Affirmative…entering command codes now.
3:16:50
Captain Turner: Helen, eject everything from payload bay, let them chase the TAHU and everything else from here to forever. Everybody else, to the security receptacles.
3:16:59
Dale Powers: All non-essential files deleted. Confirmed. All essential files awaiting command code for deletion.
3:17:00
George Eastmain, Ekwan Nipiwin, Henrietta Maria, Johan Belcher leave posts and head for security receptacles.
3:17:03
Captain Turner: Voice print confirmation: Captain Justine Churchill Turner, Orcus 1. Security Code: Alpha-Alpha-Alpha-Zeta-Alpha-Turkey-Chicken-Rat. I never got around to changing it.
3:17:09
Helen Buchanan: TAHU and payload ejected, Captain.
3:17:10
Dale Powers: All essential files deleted. Main systems shutting down.
3:17:13
Captain Turner: Good, now both of you to your security receptacles. (Turns around)
3:17:20
—Where’s Alex!?
__________
NASA Orcus 1 :
Sol System :
Flight Path Pluto-Luna
For the first time in months—the first time since he realized his parents had died—Alex was truly scared. Petrified would be a better word, but semantics was beyond him right then.
He had sensed the approaching ship minutes before the Orcus 1’s sensors alerted the command crew to its presence. At first, he had thought it was merely a rendezvous ship previously arranged by NASA or CSE, but when the klaxons sounded his curiosity and confusion had brought him to the command bridge where he learned the truth.
Pirates.
And Alex had no illusions that their purpose was anything but to kidnap him. No stranger to the EarthMesh, Alex knew that no information in the world was failsafe. Someone must have hacked the Orcus 1’s transmissions to NASA and pieced the clues together. They knew Alex was alive, and potentially the key to light-speed travel.
A valuable commodity, to say the least.
It took him three minutes to unfreeze his paralyzed muscles. Once the captain knew of the impending collision between the ships that would destroy the Orcus 1, all hands would be ordered to their respective security receptacles. They would jettison the crew’s receptacles before impact, and the pirate ship would alter course, hunting down each receptacle in their search for Alex.
But he would not be among them.
There were enough receptacles for the original crew. He was sure no one would have the presence of mind to think of Alex’s survival; even if someone did offer him a receptacle in their stead, he would not accept. He had something else in mind.
He raced for his old security receptacle from the TAHU in the payload bay. It was his only chance. Standard procedure dictated that all receptacles be fully charged at all times; and that included the one from the TAHU. Although none of the Orcus 1 crew had thought to recharge the receptacle, Alex had taken it upon himself to do the job one night a few weeks back. It had been a simple task after accessing the SOP files from the main computer banks.
He congratulated himself on his forethought.
It would take the pirates hours, perhaps even a full day, to hunt down the Orcus 1 security receptacles, only to discover their quarry not among them. By that time, the emergency alert to Earth would bring military vessels patrolling the asteroid belt to the rescue, and the pirates would have to flee or die. All the while, Alex would be in his old security receptacle in the ship’s payload bay, unharmed.
Thirty seconds after dashing from the Command Bridge, Alex reached the payload bay and hurried to the ruins of the TAHU. He crawled through the wreckage to the security receptacle and fastened himself in, initiating a priority code he had programmed. For eighteen hours, he would be safe.
Closing his eyes, he trained his mind outside the Orcus 1, and tried to locate, with his mental capacity, the oncoming pirate ship.
Just as he was getting a fix on them, and began to magnify his outer vision, there was a deep mechanical rumbling under him, shaking the security receptacle violently.
“What the—?” he called out, steadying himself inside the receptacle.
He interfaced with the status monitor. “Condition?”
The monitor computer could accept voiced queries, but could answer only visually on the screen. In standard computer typeface, the words appeared.
: Unknown interference with SC stabilizers : Sensor findings inconclusive : Waiting :
“Link with Orcus 1 computer,” he ordered.
: Link established : Waiting :
“Computer. What is the cause of re
cent vibrations in payload bay?”
: Vibrations in payload bay caused by executive order to eject all contents in payload bay by Captain Justine Churchill Turner at 3:16:50 p.m. EST : Waiting :
“Computer!” he shouted. “Abort! Abort! Abort!”
: Unable to comply : Waiting :
Alex did not have long to wait; at 3:17:08, a loud grinding noise filled his ears, blocking out any other sound, blocking out even his thoughts, as the payload bay door opened and the airlock pumps jettisoned the TAHU, the security receptacle, Alex, and a few dozen other objects into space.
Alex ground his teeth together as a sudden motion slammed him face first into the security receptacle’s monitor. His elastiplas restraints bit deep into his ribs and thighs.
Within moments, silence replaced the grinding, and Alex’s equilibrium returned. He could feel himself rotating at a slow rate. As for his velocity and trajectory, the security receptacle was useless in that regard.
Feeling the panic well up in his throat like hot bile, Alex forced himself to calm down and let his outer vision do for him what the security receptacle sensors could not. Within moments, he found that steady mental rhythm that allowed him to see outside of himself, to see outside of the tiny receptacle into the vastness of the beyond.
Thirty degrees or so from the zenith of his trajectory, he saw the Orcus 1. From his viewpoint, it was the NASA craft that was rotating in wide circles around his position, getting farther and farther away by the second.
He saw a smaller ship approaching the Orcus 1. Instead of continuing its trajectory, the pirate ship’s port thrusters fired, and it changed position, altering course to intercept Alex.
At that point, Alex could have cried at the way things had turned out.
He was completely helpless.
__________
Quantum Resources, Inc.:
Toronto :
Canada Corp.:
Michael slammed his fist down on his desk. The windows in his new fourth floor office in the Quantum Resources, Inc. complex north of Toronto rattled from the vibrations. In the hall, his administrative assistant stopped the dicta-shell, glanced up through the semi-transparent fiber wall.
“What! This had better be some kind of sick joke! This is the goddam twenty-first century! Things like this don’t happen!” Michael could barely contain his anger.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we just received the NASA-slaved EPS transmission from the Orcus 1’s security camera confirming their S.I.D. call.”
Calbert Loche was trying hard not to notice his superior’s ire, knowing it was not directed at him, and continued with his report.
“At approximately 3:23 p.m. EST, an unmarked aggressor bore down on a collision course with the Orcus 1. For some reason, the Orcus 1 ejected its payload moments before impact, and the aggressor altered course for intercept. There are no standard operating procedures for a pirate attack. Captain Turner was just doing what she thought was best. She was making it up as she went along, and only had a few moments to make a decision. NASA has cleared her of any culpability.
“Captain Turner confirms there was a single life form reading in the ejected payload, that of Alex Manez, who is now in the confines of the attacking ship. What he was doing there, I don’t know. The payload bay was off limits, but Alex must have thought it a good hiding place.
“The Orcus 1 had no hope of pursuit, and its sensors were jammed and they lost the aggressor’s signature emissions. The Orcus 1 is continuing final approach to Luna, and will arrive in fourteen days. NASA has a dreadnought-class protector less than a hundred gigs away, and is sending it to follow the aggressor’s last known trajectory, but the chances of picking up its engine emissions signature is minimal. The Earth Space Traffic Commission has been alerted, and will investigate, on a random basis, ships entering Earth orbit over the next thirty days.”
“For what that’s worth!” Michael blurted. “A couple of bottles of whisky is enough to get those damned commissionaires to look the other way for five minutes. Damn!” he cursed. Turning to Loche, he spoke through gritted teeth. “You know what this means?”
“It means someone out there knows all about Element X, and probably has information we don’t. That information, I would assume, indicates that Alex is more involved in this than being a hapless bystander. Captain Turner’s reports on Alex are less than forthcoming; Alex has been affected somehow, the kidnappers know more than we do about it, and they took him because of it.”
“The possibility occurs to me that either we’re not the first ones to encounter Element X, or that someone is reading every file we transmit.” Michael paced up and down the office. “We need more information. I want everything we’ve got on anything to do with Element X, Alex, Orcus 1, Dis Pater, Macklin’s Rock, everything, collected. I want a special team set up to investigate this—take people off the element searcher team if you have to. There’s something about all of this that we’re missing. Something right in front of our noses. God, I hate being left in the dark; it’s infuriating. I want answers!”
“I’ll get right on it. I know just the people to use.” He left Michael to brood by himself.
The Director of Quantum Resources did not brood long. There were just too many bits of disjointed and seemingly unconnected data, and too many pieces of this grand puzzle that did not connect in any way. There was too much that he did not know.
Over the past few months, he had been busy getting Quantum Resources off its feet. Although they did not have any product to show for their efforts yet, their charter provided for a lengthy R&D lapse, considering the scarcity of the element around which their company was based.
Of the forty-seven employees at Quantum Resources, thirty were collating data and trying to determine relationships among asteroidal figures to narrow down the conditions where Element X might be found. It was an astronomical task, but had about as much chance as randomly picking an asteroid and physically surveying it.
Ten employees were engineers determining properties of Element X based on sketchy data, and attempting to develop theories on possible uses of the mysterious element.
The remaining seven, including Michael, Calbert, and Raymond, were administrative. As it stood, Raymond Magrath was more than capable of handling internal administration by himself. Calbert was effective as a liaison between Quantum Resources and their parent corporations. Michael did not have any concrete task before him except for the odd meeting between NASA and CSE execs.
He decided to roll up his sleeves and get himself immersed hip-deep in this investigation. It was time to get down and dirty.
The first question on his mind, something that had been bothering him for a number of months, was Captain Turner of the Orcus 1. Her reports to NASA were inconsistent.
When dealing with the technical aspects of the mission, such as current shipboard conditions, the ongoing investigation of the TAHU, and transmission of theories put forth by the scientists aboard concerning Dis Pater, she was exhaustive. Concerning Alex, she was elusive. Although her statements were anything but brief, the content never changed: Alex was fine. Alex was doing well. Alex was normal and healthy.
Obviously, somebody thought Alex was extraordinary enough to stage a pirating and kidnapping of the young boy. Captain Turner had spent the better part of five months with the youngster; she had to have seen something out of the ordinary.
Turning to his desktop, he entered a high-security password in his computer, typed an encoded EPS message. He directed his transmission to intercept the Orcus 1.
*
To Captain Justine Turner, Orcus 1
From: Director Michael Sanderson, Quantum Resources, Inc.
Security: Level 1 Clearance
I have been apprised of the attack on the Orcus 1, and the subsequent kidnapping of Alex Manez. I appreciate the extremes to which the abductors have gone to complete their task. All measures are being taken by your and my governments to find Alex.
It has come to
my attention that Alex may have been affected by exposure to the element we are temporarily terming “Element X” in ways that we have not yet fathomed; we suspect the third party involved has obtained information about Alex that may make it imperative we recover him, beyond the obvious reasons to do so. It would be helpful if you could provide me with any observations, however mundane, you have made about Alex that may not have made it into previous reports.
Director Michael Sanderson
Quantum Resources, Inc.
*
He tapped the SEND option on his console. It would take more than twenty minutes for the message to reach the Orcus 1; an additional amount of time for the captain to form her response; and another twenty minutes for the reply to reach him. Still, Michael checked his computer a dozen times that hour for messages.
When his secretary informed him she was heading off for lunch, Michael realized he was hungry. To clear his mind, he put on his overcoat and gloves, and took a walk down the street to the Webster Family Feed Company for a ham on rye and a tall glass of unsweetened iced tea.
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