Surviving The Theseus

by Randy Noble

  “Really,” Blair said, making quick glances over at Rachel. “Hope it was good.”

  “Oh, it’s all good, man.”

  “Hi Rachel,” Blair said.

  “Blair,” she said and nodded to him.

  “Awesome. You have the hole ready for insertion.”

  Eric laughed. “You bet, buddy. Insert away.”

  Rachel smiled.

  Blair did not get the joke; she could tell from his serious look.

  “Any chance,” Eric said, “you can explain what this thing is?” Eric looked over at a large, cylindrical device, a big donut, with a thin metal ring around some green globular gooey substance. It looked like the circular end of a bubble-blowing toy, but one made for giants. It was six feet in diameter.

  “No can do, Eric. Sorry. You probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. It’s pretty technical.”

  Eric frowned for a second, and then a smile spread across his face again. “No worries, mate,” he said in his best imitation of an Australian accent, which sounded pretty bang on. “As long as I get paid, I do as I’m told.”

  Two hours later, after Eric told several stories of dares and double dares, Eric was gone and the cylinder was installed in the hole. It was secured flush to the floor, sealed with a super epoxy Blair had brought. It was Rachel and Blair alone.

  “You wouldn’t tell Eric, but you can tell me. And spare me the bullshit that I won’t understand.” Rachel looked directly at Blair as she spoke, but he couldn’t maintain eye contact.

  “I can’t.” There was fear in his voice.

  Chapter 27

  Rachel and Blair sat in one of the ship’s many bars, away from a small crowd. The place was nothing special to look at. Tall, round, glass-top tables, wooden stools, hardwood floors, and a long, dark wooded bar against the far wall, with two bartenders mixing drinks.

  “I’m flying the ship. I have a right to know.” Rachel stared at Blair, never wavering with her gaze. She took two big gulps of a lightly colored, chilled beer, closing her eyes briefly as its flavor washed over her taste buds. Her eyes continued to stare into Blair’s.

  Blair looked away. “It’s complicated, and I don’t just mean the technology.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes.

  “I could get in really big trouble, like fired, or worse, dead.”

  “You’re being dramatic.” Even though she knew it to be true. He was leaving her no choice; as much as she didn’t want to, she figured it was the only way. She had already been arguing with him for an hour and was getting nowhere. She needed to throw him off, fluster him, get him out of his comfort zone of being the one with power over her. “I’ll fuck you, if you tell me.”

  Rachel watched as a dumbfounded look morphed over Blair’s face. That did it. He was all hers now. The nerve of him trying to hide pertinent information from her, information that could decide the success or failure of her part in all this, in getting paid. Getting paid was everything, the only thing, the only reason she would consider having sex with Blair. After this, it was all gravy. No more worries. No more lying to her mother and no more shot nerves getting away with things. No more hiding. No more pretending to be someone she was not. No more.

  “W-what did you say?” Blair visibly trembled.

  “You heard me. I’ll give you a half hour. Anything you want to do, at my discretion, of course.”

  Blair’s face became a darker shade of red by the moment. “R-really.” Rachel tried not to wretch as she noticed Blair look her up and down through the glass top table, her skirt intentionally short, her shirt tight against her body, and her ample breasts. His greased down, long black hair was repulsive, and that stupid, prickly goatee would not be pleasant on her skin. The crooked nose was a distraction and she was not normally attracted to overweight men, at least not one with a personality like Blair’s.

  Rachel uncrossed her legs and re-crossed the other way.

  Blair visibly swallowed. “Ummm, okay.”

  Excitement and terror oozed from his pores. He seemed a paradox of emotion, his face red, sweat beading on his face, a drop collecting on his off-kilter nose. Blair swiped his arm over his face, wiping the sweat away, sniffing after he did so. Rachel cringed. She would need more beer, much more beer. Luckily, Blair could talk endlessly about his work, so she had some time. “You first,” she said, and Blair began.

  Chapter 28

  “You have to understand that this is all to be kept confidential. It’s proprietary to TRAST and I can go to jail for telling you.”

  “Of course,” Rachel said. Rachel tried to remember what the hell TRAST stood for, and then it popped into her head: Technology Research for Advanced Space Travel. It was known as the place where geniuses worked. Several things came out of it, including the gates used for traveling great distances in space, and the matchstick markers. Some hefty technology few understood the complications of.

  “We’ve developed -- and by we I pretty much mean me -- some technology, specifically for this . . . mission.”

  Rachel smiled. It was not easy, but she managed one.

  Blair sniffed again, his nose running, probably from all the excitement. He started talking about the Theseus and its doomed journey with a mystery ending unsolved to this day. “Nobody was recovered, just piles of clothing like they all stripped down and jumped out the air lock. The ship was in orbit around the planet we are going to, with one warning written, we think, by one of the crew. It was scrawled across the control room observation window in white marker: ’Avoid Planet -- All Will Die.’”

  Blair paused, probably for effect, Rachel thought. He sniffed again, loudly, a distinct sound occurred as something moved in his nose. A booger, no doubt. Disgusting. He continued. “Regardless of the warning, they sent a team down to the surface of the planet, and none returned. They sent two more teams, but they were not heard from again after they broke atmo. That’s short for atmosphere, by the way.”

  “Thanks, Blair. I’ve actually used the short version before, too.” She had a tone of sarcasm, but Blair either didn’t pick up on it, or he was too arrogant to notice.

  Rachel looked around the table they were at, buried in a corner of the bar. Nobody was around.

  “After that,” Blair said, “they sent another team up from TRAST, who inspected the ship and brought it back to their main research facility, which is where I work. It’s the most prestigious of their locations.”

  Rachel did not respond, but it seemed as if Blair was waiting for one, some recognition probably. Yes, Blair, the great and amazing.

  “Nothing unusual was found, other than some carbon residue on and around the clothing, as if the people disintegrated into nothing. No sign of anything else was found.”

  “What were they looking for?”

  Blair sniffed again. “Anything. Probably some sign of a xenomorph.”

  “English, Blair.”

  “An alien. Anyway, the planet was taken off the charts. Actually, the whole system it is in was taken off the charts. It became off limits. TRAST was contracted, soon after, to develop a forced trajectory path between all gates, which became the markers we have today. No one, other than military, would be allowed off the grid. And a separate contract was given to a third party, unknown, to develop a sentry system around the planet. From what we understand, because this was all a hundred years ago, with almost no documentation on any of it other than word of mouth, there are over ten thousand sentry mines around the planet covering any possible way through.”

  That was impressive, if it was true.

  “One hundred years? How do they even know the mines will still work?”

  Sniff! “Because, someone, whoever started all this, was informed from somebody else who saw activity through a long range telescope installed on the nearest gate to the planet. Occasionally, a meteor makes its path toward the planet, but never gets there. The mines sense the object’s movement, the meteor, and one mine locks in on the object before it gets close, rockets itself at it
, and destroys it. There has been this kind of activity as recent as a month ago. The mines are working fine. I’d like to talk with whoever built them. They were ahead of their time. Nowadays, we could kick their ass with what we can do.”

  “So how the hell can we even get close?”

  “Rachel, don’t you have faith in me, in TRAST?”

  That would be a resounding No! but she would never tell him that. “Of course.”

  Chapter 29

  The cockpit of the shuttle was small, but a comfort for her to be in that space. In fact, she didn’t feel more comfortable anywhere else. Thoughts of the night before, of Blair’s sweaty, alien touch disgusted her, but at least it was over quickly, as she suspected it would be. In and out, and that was pretty much it.

  Rachel wondered why the hell she had to drag information out of Blair, especially since flying through mines was a need to know piece of information for a pilot. Why the hell did the government, or whoever the hell hired all of them, hire Blair? There was no doubt he was smart, but his personality was intolerable. And, guessing by performance, he was probably a virgin just a few hours ago.

  She wiped him from her mind. It was time to prep the ship. Eric’s voice came over the speaker on her console. “Giant Hands, this is Lady’s Man. What’s your status, over?”

  Rachel laughed out loud. “Lady’s Man, this is Confused. It sounds like this is Destined-To-Be-Alone-For-The-Rest-Of-His-Life Man.”

  Eric laughed, placing a bigger smile on Rachel’s face. “That’s cold, Sasquatch. Seriously though, what’s your status?”

  As she talked, Rachel flipped switches, turning on systems for flight and reading the thin monitor in front of her, looking at status checks as ship systems came online.

  “Everything is green. Ship prepped and ready for start sequence. Nice of you to take the graveyard shift, Eric.”

  “No choice. Not my usual shift though. I should be six sheets to the wind by now.”

  Rachel could see Eric across the shuttle bay from her window, sitting in the glass encased room used for scheduled takeoffs and landings. He was the only one in the bay, other than her.

  “So,” Eric said, “are you going to tell me what those things are all around the ship?”

  “I have no idea.” But she did. Blair told her the night before. The “things” Eric referred to were black, dime-sized devices, an inch thick, which, according to Blair, would create a light bending shield around the ship that would invariably render them invisible. Invisible to anyone looking out the window at an unscheduled ship leaving the bay, and, in theory anyway, invisible to the mines around the planet they planned to get to. There were hundreds of them, all over the hull, which Blair installed an hour before.

  “As long as I get paid, I don’t care.”

  “Me too,” Rachel said. “I think you know as much as I know, Eric.” Or as much as she knew.

  “Fucking secrets, man. No thanks. Once you’re gone and back, I’m getting baked. Six hours is a long time before freedom from my mind. If you don’t come back, a missing shuttle will be impossible to explain.”

  “Faith, little one.”

  “Maybe if normal sized hands were going to be controlling the ship, there would not be so much call for concern.”

  “Ha ha. Bastard.” Rachel smiled and then sighed. This was it. The one job to end all jobs, except the future plans. Her plans. Not someone else’s. Did it occur to her that the powers that be might not let her live, even after a successful completion? You bet. It was a chance she was willing to take. Had to take. Not a question in her mind, just a mild concern that popped into her head from time to time, which she always pushed back. Not much longer and it would all be over.

  An hour later, Blair was in the cockpit with her, and the engines were running. A low, thrumming sound ebbed through the ship. It relaxed and soothed her. “Seriously, we can’t even meet them?”

  “Nope,” Blair said. “They are probably all piled into the engine room right now, at the ready, maybe watching the video I prepared on how to use the travel tube. Other than voice communication, we’re not to engage them physically at any point, unless there are any issues with the tube device.”

  I’ll bet you’d like to engage them physically, she thought and smiled.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “Nothing. Continue.”

  “Well, not much else to say. We fly out there, get into geo-synchronous orbit over a large land mass, and then tube down to the surface, come back after a visit, and fly back.”

  “And the whole thing about nobody previously coming back alive, or at all for that matter, doesn’t faze them?”

  “I’m assuming they are heavily armed.”

  Fuel was wasting, but they had to wait for Pyramid to move through the next gate. That was their window. Once they passed through, they would be at the gate closest to the planet, giving them six hours to get there and back before Pyramid reached the next gate. If they missed the boat, so to speak, they would have a lot of explaining to do. “Any speculation,” Rachel said, “as to why all this? Why now?”

  “Not sure. Maybe just morbid curiosity, someone needed to know and had the money and resources to make it happen. Or they think it’s a habitable planet, which stands to make them a lot of money if they can make it work. Natural resource hunt. But what I really think this is all for is they want what nobody has discovered: intelligent, alien life.”

  “Do you think the intelligent, alien life will mind meeting morons with guns?”

  “If history is any indication, I would say they would mind a great deal.”

  Eric’s voice came over the speaker. “We just jumped. Ready when you are.”

  For the first time, Rachel spoke to the military crew in her ship. She selected ship communications on her console. “We are ready on your go.”

  Rachel looked over at a nervous Blair, and then a deep voice boomed back over the speaker. “Good to go.”

  They sounded tough, but who knew. Rachel selected external communications. “Okay, Eric. Track us out.”

  “Good luck,” Eric’s voice came over the speaker.

  "Thanks Eric." Rachel closed communication so Eric would not hear. “Engage our stealth system, Blair, once we’re out.”

  A female automated voice came over the speakers in the bay, as yellow warning lights started flashing all around the bay. “Decompression in one minute. All personnel must move to safe zones now. Follow the yellow arrows. All personnel must move immediately to a safe zone.” The voice continued to count down, giving warnings every fifteen seconds.

  “ . . . Five, Four, Three, Two, One,” said the automated voice.

  The door beside the shuttle slowly opened, air sucking out into space. Seconds later, the platform the ship sat on slid outward, and then tilted down. The door closed. Rachel punched the ship’s communication control again, opening the channel. She always gave a play by play of what she was doing. That’s how her mother taught her. Don’t leave anybody in the dark. Let them know what you’re doing. It keeps people at ease.

  “We are out and the outer door is sealed.”

  Blair pulled his right arm up to his mouth and pulled back his sleeve, revealing what looked to be a watch. He spoke into it. “Blair Campbell. Active. Go stealth.”

  Rachel looked over at Blair, having no idea if it worked or not. Blair looked at a video feed on his watch, and she quickly caught a glimpse of what he saw. It looked like the side of the Pyramid, and a shuttle launch platform with no ship on it, other than three spikes attached to nothing. Impressive. Probably inflating his already over-inflated ego.

  Blair nodded at her, even though she knew they were good to go.

  Rachel punched a red button with Magnetic Coupler written on it. “Releasing couplers.” She wondered how Blair would achieve the next miracle, which would be getting past the markers without getting disabled and dragged back. “Purging.” Rachel grabbed the yoke and clicked a button with her other hand and then
reached for the throttle. No new technology, just old-fashioned controls, which she preferred.

  The shuttle slowly moved up and away from Pyramid One. The landing spikes retracted back into the ship. Rachel had her coordinates locked in, but chose to fly manually. “We’re on our way. ETA one hour.” Rachel turned off communication.

  Blair reached inside his pants pocket and brought out a device that looked like a small flashlight. It had three buttons, from what she could see.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “It is.” Blair clicked a power button and a light at the end of the cylindrical device flashed red over and over. He then selected a Search button and the light turned solid green. “There are only two in existence, both developed by TRAST.”

  “We could sell that and never have to work again.”

  “We would be hunted.” Blair clicked on the Enable/Disable button. “We should be good. The matchstick marker device on our shuttle should be disabled.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” She had no doubt it would not be a problem. As she watched the proximity gauge for the marker go past 500 meters, she confirmed it. They were on their way.

  She accelerated as fast as the ship would go, which was faster than normal after some modifications that Eric did. One hour to a planet that would normally take four hours to get to with a shuttle.

  Blair raised his arm in front of Rachel so she could see the invisible flying ship.

  She feigned surprise by widening her eyes and opening her mouth in awe. “Wow, space. It’s amazing.”

  “No, no. It’s the ship. I have a camera on top. We’re invisible, so to speak.”

  “That’s cool,” she said, both with some reverence and with sarcasm. Can’t totally knock him off his pedestal. He probably thinks he impressed her the night before.