Читать книгу Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Space Pirates, Allies and Aliens - Darryl Dean Wright - Страница 10

Deep Space Station Jupiter, or some might call it Jupiter Station, was a monumental achievement by Earth. It was the farthest outpost Earth had built. It took nine years before it was finished and was the only outpost built past the asteroid belt. It was a research facility to study Jupiter. Their priority was to figure out if it was possible to turn Jupiter into another sun in case one day the Sol (Earth’s sun) dies out and becomes impotent. Jupiter was always Earth’s back-up plan.

A total of thirty-eight techs, scientists and assistants were stationed there. Every year the planets expand in the solar system, and everything moves away from the sun as it grows bigger. Earth’s lunar satellite comes closer every year. So mankind looks to Mars as the sun gets hotter and bigger with age. Still, there is time to find answers; at least that’s what everybody hopes. Lead scientists still hoped there were other planets to inhabit, but intergalactic travel still wasn’t available as of yet.

Austen was a bit confused; he asked Tim if the radio was still being jammed. Tim replied, “Nope, everything is kosher.”

Derek raised an eyebrow and repeated to Tim, “Kosher?” Tim shrugged his shoulders.

Austen said, “Use our thrusters and circle the station slowly, but be very careful.”

“Aye, Captain, thrusters engaged, circling the station, Sir”, Tim said. He was confident in his skills as a pilot.

Derek was on the ship’s intercom, “Brace for impact!” Austen looked at his brother like he was mad! Derek pushed the button again and said, “Not really people, I was just joking around … Strap in though. We’re here, and thank you for flying Houston.” They could hear some of the cadets complaining, but there were more laughs than complaints. Derek waved behind him at the crew.

The ship angled toward the station, but it was slowly moving to its right. As they came to the other side of the station, they had to go straight up for a hundred feet quickly! There was the biggest ship the Houstons ever saw and they thought that they had seen it all. This ship was bigger than any E.D. cargo ship. It was also a lot prettier and graceful.

Derek moved out of his seat and leaned forward, “Wow, will you look at that.” He rubbed his eyes thinking it might be an illusion. He asked his brother why they didn’t buy a ship like that, and he was serious.

Austen finally recognized it from a history book of long ago. “They built three of those ship - two of them in Vegas and one from New York. They were listed as money makers, and that one there was called, “Queen Elizabeth.” That ship is well over a century old! As far as anyone knew none of them exists today. It sure looks good.”

Derek said, “It is in awfully good shape for a ghost ship!” Then he said, “All of a sudden, it doesn’t feel kosher anymore.” Tim looked at him smiling and Captain Derek asked him to try and contact the ship. Tim said that he had already tried, but no answer.

Austen said, “The lights are on, but no one is home; this is damn strange!” He looked at his brother, and he was thinking out loud, “How does E.D. lose its communications?” He turned their search lights off of the large ship. He remembered that these ships were called luxury liners. He told Tim to be careful again.

Tim lowered the ship again. Since they had passed the ship, he was still moving to the right, but he brought it in a little closer. They came around the front so they could see inside the station’s large window.

Two men out of uniform except for their hats stood up and waved at the bridge of the One-Oh-One. Kirk entered the bridge as Austen and Tim were waving back. Austen said to Tim, “Regulations must be slack this far out. No uniform, long beard and that one there is wearing sunglasses … in space?” The one with the long beard wearing a leather vest stuck his hand on the window holding four fingers up.

Austen gave him thumbs up; he knew the man meant docking bay four. Tim kept on going while Austen put his hand over his ear more or less asking about their radio. The one with the shades put his two fists in the air, his right fist went up, and his left fist went down indicating that the radio was broken. Tim said, “Their radio is broke.”

Derek came up behind Tim and stuck his thumb up in the air and over his shoulder for Tim to move out of the pilot’s chair as Austen and Kirk sat down quickly and strapped in.

Derek sat in the pilot’s chair as Tim took Derek’s chair. Derek said, “I always wanted to do this,” as his left eye twitched and he laughed like a madman. He slowly pointed the One-Oh-One ninety degrees to starboard, and then slowly hit the thrusters till he aligned the airlocks up and brought the ship in delicately. “Hard seal, like a gentle kiss; lights green and I’m just that good!” Derek bragged. Of course he had over three thousand hours logged in flying Austen’s freighter.

Austen said, “Not bad, Bubba.”

Derek still bragging said, “I don’t know why they call it, ‘Hard seal’, because that was pretty easy!”

JR threatened, “Shut up!” He sounded irritated. He had been cooped up with his brothers too long.

The flight crew and JR left the bridge and walked into a barrier of loud and excited cheering! Everybody was happy to be there finally, but they had no clue as to what was about to happen next.

The cadets had made it; they were at the Jupiter Station facility. They were all in a hurry to leave the One-Oh-One to stretch their legs and walk more than ten feet at a time. They waited as Austen made his way to the hatch.

Austen looked above the starboard airlock to visually see the green light that should be on and lit to verify a seal. He knew it would be, but in space it doesn’t hurt to be careful and triple check everything. Everyone was crowding him as he opened the hatch.

Kirk realized that he had the android’s remote control in his hand, so he went back to the flight deck and set the thing down in the fifth seat. When he returned, he froze at the doorway entrance. He saw all of his crew with their hands in the air. He looked at his father who was waving one hand nonchalantly for Kirk to back up. Everyone was backing away from the hatch. Something was wrong! What was going on, he wondered?

A bald, big muscled pirate entered through the hatch. He was leading with a semi-automatic weapon. There were several raggedy looking pirates behind him, also carrying assorted fire-arms. They were fanning out around the cadets. The big leader had a fake Australian accent when he spoke, “Everyone just calm down and do as aye say, an ya might get out of dis alive! Now, who’s in charge round ere, eh?” He was looking at each cadet trying to figure out who was in charge on the boat.

All the cadets looked to Austen and Derek. Austen figured that his brother would speak up at the same time he did. He looked at Derek and nodded. Derek pretended to take a step forward as Austen did, but as Austen stepped forward, Derek took one step back by way of “Moonwalking.” Austen saw him in his peripheral vision and just sighed. He’d have laughed under different circumstances. So would've Derek, but he considered himself as a lover, not a fighter.

The pirates were certainly outnumbered, but they had the advantage with all their weapons. They ordered everybody to sit down. The bald pirate ordered two of his lackeys to search the rest of the ship and they took off.

Kirk had seen enough, so he picked up the android's remote, and then he grabbed his uncle’s gold helmet. He knew that he only had seconds. There was a clicking noise a second before the pirate entered the bridge. It was close, but the false panel was already closed when the pirate entered. The pirate started to leave when he heard something. Kirk’s heartbeat was racing as he put JR’s helmet over his head. The pirate moved forward with his gun leading the way to the front consoles. There was a low beeping sound; he tilted his head so his good ear could tell where the sound was coming from. It was the far right console where a light was blinking on and off. He could read a little bit, but it was slow going as he sounded out the jumbled letters; DISTRESS. He reached over and flipped the toggle turning it off. He smiled to himself when the noise stopped and the light went out. He left the bridge at the same time the other pirate came back from searching the back of the ship.

“They had a distress signal going off in the cockpit,” the cross-eyed pirate told the bald pirate. The pirate looked at Austen as Derek sighed knowing Kirk had gotten away and even turned the distress signal on. Good-boy, he thought.

The bald guy with earrings and tattoos asked Austen why his beacon was on. Austen improvised and smartly said, “When we hailed the station and didn’t receive a reply, we turned it on because it’s our S.O.P.”

“What the heck is a sop?”

Austen explained that S.O.P. means standard operating procedures. “We are by the book.”

Baldy said, “Well I am not!” He asked the little guy if he had turned it off, and the pirate shook his head yes.

The handful of pirates surrounded the seated cadets. The leader made the first row with the captains stand up and disembark the ship. “And no funny stuff! Oh I’ll have to take ya down, get it? got it? good!”

Austen whispered to Derek, “No brains.”

Derek whispered back, “No looks.”

Austen whispered, “No kidding.”

Austen was the first one off the ship while Derek slowed to take the rear of the line. When the bald guy left he yelled to his people, "Keep an eye on 'em." The cadets were marched down a corridor that had carpet on the floor and windows all along the outside of the hallway. Derek acted like a tour guide the entire trip. When they all arrived at the far door on the right, the pirate in the front of the line opened the hatch and went in first.

The cadets were highly trained in all kinds of scenarios, but nobody expected pirates. Still, their training kept them from panicking, or doing anything stupid. They trusted their captains to get them out of the situation.

There was another pirate in the room sitting in a chair; he pushed the control button to open up a large static free room. Through the see-through, unbreakable glass, you could see that it had been emptied out, and in exchange for the equipment was the entire station’s personnel.

Derek was the last one in, and as he was headed towards the makeshift prison, he noticed an airlock above the chair outside of the static-free room. When they were all in, the pirates locked the door, and then two of the pirates left the room. Derek said, “We’re here.” Other cadets were complaining to themselves but they kept quiet.

“Well hello there. I’m Commander Winston, John Winston. You must be Captain Austen of the One-Oh-One.”

Austen introduced his brother and the rest of the cadets, and then he asked the Commander, "What the heck is going on here?" Commander Winston sat back down on the floor like all his people were doing, so all of the cadets followed suit.

“We only had six low-yield lasers that we use as torch-cutters. Never ever thought we’d use them for self-defense. Who would ever imagine that someone would attack an E.D. outpost? Pirates … unbelievable! We expected you guys two days ago. When we saw that big cruiser show up and dock with us, we had heard you had more money than God, so we thought it was you and that your communications were out. I personally went to welcome you – who I thought was you – to the station. As soon as their hatch opened up, I got this.” He pointed to a bruise on his forehead. “An army with weapons came in and took the place over in less than four minutes. We aren’t really trained for this kind of guerilla warfare, and we don’t get much information out this far. Heck, we only see Earth Defense once a year for supplies, information and transfers.” The Commander took a deep breath and then continued, “Almost two months ago, we were told a couple of millionaires were going to visit us for a tour of unlimited time, and that E.D. complied with it. We were in fact looking forward to the visit.”

Derek interrupted, “That would be trillionaires, Commander.”

The Commander apologized then continued, “They said something about a harbored fugitive and that you guys would probably end up getting arrested. If that were to happen, you would probably not make it here. I figured with your kind of money, a cruiser was exactly what I expected. They never did mention what kind of ship you had.” He touched the bruise on his head and winked. “If you did show up, you would be more than welcomed. We couldn’t wait for some visitors to break up the monotony, but all we ended up with were space pirates! I’ve seen it all now, but I still can’t believe it!”

Derek said, “I can’t believe it myself; it’s like a bad book! But now that we know what is going on, I promise we will get out of this,” he added roguishly. He was going to think of something; he always did.

The hallway they had gone down was long and very quiet. Kirk had watched his dad and uncle forced to go into a room. The two pirates were walking back to the One-Oh-One by themselves. Kirk didn’t know what to do, and he only had a certain amount of time due to the small oxygen tank hooked up to his suit. Right then all he could do was count his people leaving the ship until he could come up with a plan. He thought to himself, There’s no way JR would let himself be captured … What is his plan?