Invisible Hijackers

by D Gemcats Purcell

  After they had gotten some food down, they gave us a review on how things were proceeding. They had gotten into the banks and other networks and could pounce at any moment that they liked. They were so far able to confirm and trace most of the loot from two years ago and who got what. They had tracked down communication logs between the key players and the underlings. Those folks had disguised instructions very smartly among innocuous sounding signals between ground stations and space outposts that no one would expect to have piggyback data attached. Once the Departments discovered the ruse though, the whole scheme was split wide open and years worth of archived communication was being mined. There was clear tracking now of the whole enterprise. These were solid and would stand up in any court of law it seems. They still had tons of thorough plodding to do to ensure that everyone who played any role would be caught by the dragnet. This criminal enterprise needed to be pulled up fully from the society, leaves, branches, trunk and roots too, every last little root! Munchin grew more animated as he spoke and Martinette was nodding vigorously. These men truly took their responsibility seriously and passionately. They really wanted to make their society better. Humans everywhere really were all the same, good and bad. It was a refreshing way to start the day on a planet not our own, sharing with our kind. They took pride in their jobs. We felt privileged to be in a position to lend them some assistance and glad that this would help them tackle future crimes. Most importantly, they would now know that their brethren on Toigan would unselfishly help them. We in turn could expect them to ‘move mountains’ to help us.

  “The one fly in the ointment was that we have not yet pinned down the location of Professor Wainscot to see if we could make it safer for you all to take down the cloak.” said Martinette. Just then he looked down at his wrist and tapped his left earlobe. He listened and said,

  “Ok we got him.” We are going to go to a camping park right under our nose ten miles from here where he has been located. Can you come with us?” He then mind spoke saying, “You will be better at reading his mind than I have ever been able, so we need you.” He then said a few words into his communication system and we knew that drones plus two staffed autos would accompany us for safety. Jessi, Mader and I would go with Martinette.

  16. PROFESSOR WAINSCOT

  We left directly from the cafeteria, threading our way through long mazes of corridors to a loading dock, after numerous checkpoints and security scans. Initially all three cars had their blinkers flashing, but once clear of thicker traffic the drive became sedate and two of the vehicles peeled off to go sit at different entrance/ exits to the park. We very slowly drove in almost as if sightseeing or on just routine patrol. The car, at our suggestion stopped more than a block away at an area for kids amusement and we left our driver. With Jessi between us, we walked like almost a family scoping out the campground which did not have a gate but had obvious cameras and security signage to advise visitors who did not belong to turn around. There were a few folks walking their dogs and we smelt breakfast cooking scents. “No 15 on the right,” Martinette said.

  “Uncle Wainscot,” Mader called out as we walked up toward the door of a large RV with a wizened white bearded gentleman sitting on a folding chair and table combo who looked up quizzically. He said, “I do have nephews yes, but none of you are them.” He canted his head a bit to the left squinting at Martinette. “I know you. You’re with the space agency aren’t you?”

  Chief Martinette sighed, “Nowadays I can’t do anything without being pegged. Good day Professor Wainscot. We are so sorry to barge in on you so early in the morning, do pardon us.” The professor got up and walked over under his awning to a stack of folding chairs and pulled out one placed it next to him, “Please young lady, do have a seat next to the old man. I don’t get many visitors. The men can help themselves to a chair.”

  After we were all seated, he said, “Can I get you something, maybe to drink?” We were all seated, relaxed legs crossed looking around at the small animals and birds foraging for their breakfast thinking that this was an idyllic spot with a little brook trickling down stream in the background. His mind was calm if slightly curious. I could feel a drone curling one mile up, too quiet for normal folks to hear. I reached out around myself and all was quiet with no dangerous overtones snaking around us.

  Jessi after feeling his vibes decided to work on him, “Professor we are from Toigan and came all the way here after getting Mr Martinette chief of Defnet to help us locate you. We were called to rush over from our planet to try to rescue a crashed crew and their passengers over on Tsatvik. Only one person was killed and we were blessed to be able to help. They would not have lasted long.” He seemed totally focused and intent with his sharp blue eyes not leaving her face. She continued, “They were transporting a space tug, a very valuable cargo of refined ore from Trat to the Baclet space complex. They had been blasted away from the ore barges and that’s how they ended up crashed. Then the ore disappeared and we think that two vessels glimpsed have hijacked it, but try though we may, we cannot see them with normal sensors. We suspect that they are...” He completed her last word, “Cloaking! Oh my golly, I would say God, but I don’t believe in him or her the traditional way.”

  He put his head down and said nothing for about a full minute, “So you are here to see if I can help you?” He paused, “It certainly is the right thing to do. You must know that the consequences for me will be life shattering, even life ending really. I must not be selfish though. The establishment here,” pointing at the Chief Martinette, “did not ante up funds for my research even though I tried to tell them how useful it could be. Finally one of my students told me that his father who had large interests in developing space vehicles would like to hear about my work and that he liked to help getting new technologies developed. So I made the pitch and then with the generous funds provided got it to where you can with a device in a two by six foot box cloak one football field. In space it would do much better though I never got to see it do that personally. I made only two and he bought them and the rights for it. He paid me handsomely but asked me to shut it down which I was unhappy to do, but who pays the piper calls the tune is an old human saying that’s definitely true. I kept copies of my work safe though - did not completely destroy it and realized that he may use it for nefarious purposes, so I left several documents detailing everything so that if anything happened to me, the story would come out. So yes I am quite comfortable financially, truly wealthy compared to what I would’ve had if I had gotten just my professor’s retirement. What have I unleashed? Sorry I don’t pay attention to the news, so I was not aware. I can give you whatever you need to uncloak the device yes but I can’t be sure that they haven’t improved on it. I’d say that’s unlikely though. His name is Yashid and the son is Jimblatt.” He sighed, “He will kill me for this. I learned about that pushy ruthless man over the years. He is dangerous.”

  The professor paused and Jessi reached over touched his knee and said, “We are going to take him down Professor, he and whoever has been helping him. We will just have to keep you sequestered for a week we expect, then it will be all over.” He said, “Governments say those things young lady, but are terrible at keeping promises. I will die for this. You are young so you are naive and still believe in good wishes.” Jessi sat up and signaled us to do so. We formed a solid barrier against prying eyes. She said, “What you say is true generally Professor, but please do not take a promise from us lightly.” She gently picked him up in his chair four feet off the ground and he was left suspended mid air with his mouth opening and closing like a fish caught out of water. No one was touching him. She said, “We will sequester you. You will be untouchable while under our care. We have already got our own cloaking devices that we captured from some criminal elements on Toigan and we have experimented on them so we know that the right combination of intense electromagnetic pulses will weaken and cause it to self destruct. We also know that humans will be harmed permanently if they stay under th
e cloaking field. What we hope to get from you for our safety, is the proper combination of frequencies to defuse your invention.”

  She gently lowered him to the ground and said, “Sorry we have advanced tremendously on Toigan, way beyond anything you might have envisaged. We are here simply to help you and yours, including purging your planet of the terrible human parasites preying on you. Later today we will be going up top and getting into our spaceplane that can go at 0.7 of a light year and we will go in a few minutes to where we know they are. We want to be able to disarm them without loss of life for either party, them or us. At the same time we will be dismantling their network by the roots here. In two days we should have everything taken care of, but we will keep you safe for as long as it takes to bring the evidence before the courts. The only question is whether you will help us to be safer as we accomplish this task Professor.”

  He shook his head, “Here I was thinking of you as a beautiful innocent teenager. Young lady and gentlemen I would be honored to help. Come, come.” He turned around, opened the door and we followed him in. He said, “You may want to wipe the recording on the cameras here before you leave.” Jessi said, “Consider it done Professor. “ Mader made an exaggerated show of reaching out to touch the camera.

  The professor went to his desk picked one of his pens and said, “Its all in there.”

  Mader gently took it from him and holding it in his hands, closed his eyes and said, “Thank you. I have all the pertinent frequencies. We can replicate and program our torpedoes to give a burst of it.” Mader slipped the pen into his pocket. Chief Martinette said, “It would be nice if you would take a sachet of personal effects and just come with us. We will have your RV put under guard.”

  He went to his bedroom and grabbed a few things plus his portable computer and once they were in a piece of luggage, which Mader took out of his hand to carry, the Professor walked over to his nearest neighbor to ask that the couple keep an eye out and to let them know he had paid for two security people to check on his RV.

  We walked back to the auto and our driver. We slowly oozed out of the park and back to the Defnet Head Quarters. The Professor was given a badge and some security hand-holding on what not to do In terms of going online or making calls etc. He was promised that he would get to see footage that we would send back. He seemed very happy at the precautions being taken to safeguard him and everyone connected to him with drone surveillance and close monitoring round the clock on his two daughters’ families unbeknownst to them. They had all been told that he was traveling to give a few lectures and would be ‘out of pocket.’ That was in fact not terribly unusual for him, so his absence shouldn’t arouse suspicion.

  Six, Chief Martinette and Chief Munchin had a final planning meeting before they were to take their leave from Baclet and head up top to the BMOS. This included their most trusted leaders and thoroughly went over the different phases of the dragnet to capture and neutralize Yashid and all of his family, particularly Jimblatt. There was fine tuning on the timing of arrest of his paid informants and facilitators. It all had to be done with precision, so that one part of the network would not be able to alert the other part and allow the criminals to go into hiding. The traitorous fellow Gentry Smith on the BMOS also had to be taken down before he could send signals to the buddies concealed with the ore out in space. So we agreed on some signaling language the would indicate need for help, presence of grave danger, need to abort the operation etc. We also made clear to them that in the future, should there be a crisis here on Baclet, those codes could be used to communicate the need for help to us on Toigan in the same way. They seemed really reassured to have us make such an offer.

  Just as we were finishing our session with the Baclet top law enforcement personnel, we got wind of a small delegation from Trat Mining Conglomeration itching to have a word with us. We were on our guard since we did not know the agenda. It turned out though that is was the CEO of Trat Mining Conglomerate along with some of his Vice Presidents, who just wanted to have private moment of thanks. Mr. Korigan as he called himself, was ushered into the small meeting room where we had just finished. There was an apologetic look on the face of Chief Martinette who clearly knew that we just wanted to get going, but sometimes it was necessary to satisfy the powerful political winds that were blowing. The TMC was too big in his world to say no, without an overwhelmingly good reason. We of Six were here to please and make his life easier, not harder. So we all stood and graciously gave off the most welcoming vibes to Mr. Korigan and his entourage. He seemed to get it saying, “Thank you so much for taking the few moments to listen to us. We heard that you were to be on your way up to the top and BMOS soon, and we just couldn’t bear the thought that you might be gone for perhaps years without us really thanking you for all you’ve done for us so far and particularly our space workers and engineers who had been marooned and close to death when you got to them. Most of them have gotten back down here to the surface and we truly have gotten to understand more so, how heroic a job you’ve done. Our shareholders are truly indebted to you and your bosses on Toigan for responding so timely. We are giving all of those involved a year off with full pay so they can spend time with family and friends plus avail themselves of counseling to get over their near death experience too. We hope that you and your whole team will be able to help us put an end to this whole saga. Mr. Martinette told us that he is hopeful on that front. One final request that we have is that, if able, you can take back the heroic Captain Mischa to Toigan for a well deserved rest and relaxation with his family. We understand that you will be headed home to Toigan very soon.”

  When he stopped, Cherese piped up, “You are welcome Sir and thank you for the kind words. No doubt, you and your company would do the same for us if the situation was reversed. We are glad that all are well and please convey our condolences to the family of the poor gentleman who passed away before we got to your team. May we enquire about the injured and paralyzed gentleman.”

  He said, “He is still up on the BMOS where the medical team was able to operate on him, laying down some sort of tissue scaffold at the point of the spinal cord severance and using growth factors to induce nerve bundle growth plus implanted electrical wires to stimulate the nerves so that his muscles get to still work out in his lower limbs and they’ve stabilized the fractured back bones. Anyway that’s how they explained it to us. He needs to stay up there until his healing is advanced, since any jarring on the ride down to the surface will be detrimental we are told. Captain Mischa has spent a lot of time with him. We are getting his wife and two sons trained for space flight since they have expressed an interest in going up there to him. That should do him a whole lot of good really.”

  Cherese said, “That is very thoughtful of you and your people to undertake to do that. We will have to broach the topic of Mischa traveling with us on the Celeste with the Captain himself of course.”

  Mr. Korigan clearly appreciating the compliment said, “It’s really the least we can do, honestly. Also from a corporate point of view it is good for our employees to know that we will turn over every stone, so to speak, to responsibly help them. So thank you again. Be safe in your travels.”

  With that they all shook hands and walked off, leaving us free to focus on our exit from Baclet surface to the top.

  17. CLOSING THE TRAP

  After the many hours of review with each subgroup alongside Chief Martinette and Munchin, we felt that all the big things were now in place. Mid-afternoon we were loaded up for the quick one hour flight to our launch pad. There we got a lecture on emergency escape procedures and were strapped in for the ride back to BMOS. It was the usual multiple stage chemical rocket and there were thirty two people on board. We plugged into it to do our own personal checks of the circuitry and were pleased with the results.

  Overall the ride was smooth and most importantly safe. As we were boarding we got very sincere handshakes from the two Chiefs and video good luck wishes from the core groups worki
ng on the project. Even Yodel sent us a thank you telepathic message. We felt that we were leaving good friends behind. Three hours later we were greeting Commander Ross. We made sure to seek out a few minutes of his time, letting him know that Captain Ronald would be getting in touch with him in a few hours with some special instructions that needed to be followed promptly and exactly and that he would receive confirmation of this at the same time from Chief Martinette. We were back in low to no gravity yay!

  After appropriate thank you and clearing the usual protocols, we were zipped over to the docking area and walked across back into the Celeste. Captain Ronald was there to greet us along with two of his top officers. We had brought him some mementoes from the BMOS and from Baclet too to adorn his quarters. All Captains keep tokens of new ports or in his case planets visited. If he hadn’t before, we just got him started. We checked into Yashid’s head back on the surface and there was no sign of alarm from him. He was angling for a romantic tryst with one of his regulars from his casinos. We really wanted him to remain oblivious to the coming of his personal Armageddon. Given half a chance we would volunteer to be there face to face with him when it happened. We would be more needed though at the unveiling of his cloaked vessels and the recouping of his stolen loot. Hopefully the two Chiefs on the ground on in Baclet would share some footage with us of him being rounded up and getting his rights read to him, or whatever they do on Baclet.

  Anyway, it was time for a debriefing with Captain Ronald. First we went back to our quarters on board, dropped off our packs, took turns using the restroom. As agreed, we met the Captain in the Observatory room after having done our signature security sweep again of the whole ship with particular attention to the bridge and such sensitive spaces. All were negative. Our plans were on time and so was the Captain.