Читать книгу Adventures of Space Cadets 101: Space Pirates, Allies and Aliens - Darryl Dean Wright - Страница 6

JR had been smuggled onto the One-Oh-One shuttle the night before the launch with the help of his brothers, a pilot named Tim Johnson, and a space marine named Dale Hawkins. It was JR’s weight, and the weight of a big large duffle bag that Earth Defense stopped the countdown for, but it didn’t stop launch.

Earth Defense did not know that the Houstons were prepared to bypass the countdown with the E.D. computers with their own computer program at the last second to launch anyway - a bypass created by a sixteen year old genius.

It was a month later and the One-Oh-One was crossing Mar’s orbital path. Of course Mars wasn’t there yet and would not be there for months. A sub-ship, The Obama, named after an ancient president of the first United States, was radioing the One-Oh-One to come to a complete halt, and to wait for the E.D. ship to arrive for a search and seizure of the criminal, JR Houston. “Do you copy?” They had been sending the same message over and over to the One-Oh-One.

JR was seated up front with his brothers and Tim Johnson. There were five seats in the flight deck. The fifth seat was for anyone invited who might want to peer out the front of the ship to see where the ship was going, or to enjoy the gems and diamonds. So many diamonds in space, and every one of them sparkled. It was beautiful if not monotonous.

JR said that it looked like E.D. had finally caught up with him. The flight deck ignored the E.D. hail. Tim was fed up with the constant hail so he turned the radio off. He said, “Man, that’s annoying!” Tim thought that in space there was nothing to do, so some ensign from E.D. just kept hailing them every other minute.

When he turned the radio off, JR thanked him. JR was getting irritated too. Derek said, “Talk, talk, talk. No one plays music anymore.” Austen laughed at that.

Nobody knew that an alleged criminal was onboard except for family, one pilot, and one marine. There were two crews so anyone that saw him would assume that he was on the other crew, even though his suit and helmet were gold.

JR asked Austen if they did have to stop for E.D., and then he asked, “How are you going to explain my added weight?”

Austen explained to him that under “miscellaneous” weight on the cargo list, “We added a Cross telescope at the last minute. It just so happens to weigh about the same as you, more or less, plus Derek’s and my illegal tobacco, and your, I’m assuming, illegal contraband.”

JR was hoping Austen’s lie would work or he was going to have to hurt some people. As his brothers closed the cabin door and lit up their cigarettes, JR asked, “The area for smuggling is under the seat by the port airlock, but it isn’t big enough for me, where am I supposed to hide?”

Derek told his older brother not to worry as he blew a smoke ring from his mouth. “There is a reason we told you to keep your space suit on.” JR didn’t like where that was going, so he gave Derek “the look.”

Tim laughed and asked Austen what a Cross telescope was?

Austen said that they had all kinds of scientists onboard, geologists, biologists, etc. etc., but that they didn’t have any room for labs, or research mods, but … they did have room for stellar cartography for all of the astronomers onboard. Tim just looked at Austen with a blank stare. Austen realized that he had never answered Tim’s question, so he elaborated, “It’s a big telescope.”

Tim simply said, “Oh.”

The communications console was blinking diligently waiting for a response. Tim was tired of it blinking, so he cut a piece of electrical tape and covered the blinking light.

Derek said, “Brilliant!” A second light on the same console started blinking. Derek said, “Dear God, it's spreading!”

It was the telemetry transmitter next to the radio light. Tim voiced his thoughts out loud, “It’s weird, but it is not E.D. It is blinking on a different pattern, and it’s on sonar, Sir. It is messing up our sonar.”

Derek turned on the intercom and asked Kim Hart to come to the flight deck.

Kim was in the back passenger compartment talking with the closest cadets next to her. Since they were passing the Mars orbital path, Mars became the subject of conversation.

Terry Stevens was engaged in talking about the Mars tragedy that happened before she was even born. Ever since the second Mars colony, New Florida, people had to carry their passports with them into space.

The rebel terrorists on Mars had managed to hire a known terrorist from Earth to enact their movement. No one knew that he was a wanted man and he walked freely among the colonists anywhere in the colony … The first colony.

Then one day, a Mars day, after so much death and destruction, they, the Martial police force, had him cornered, but he was an extremist and insane. He had strapped himself to a mini-nuke. No one thought that he would do it, but they were dead wrong. He had no problem pushing the little red button and taking everyone with him. Where the bomb went off there was absolutely no sign that a dome or colony was ever there. The only thing that remained was a large crater.

Kim was so intensely overwhelmed in the story telling that she jumped when the page came over the intercom. She stood up and excused herself as she left her seat. She smiled at Terry and said, “Looks like the captain wants me.”

Terry slapped her on her butt and said, “You lucky witch; save me some.” Kim smiled and made her way to the flight deck. She felt like everybody was staring at her, though. She was always so self-conscious.

When she opened the cabin door Derek said to her, “Hurry up and shut the door, please.”

She shut the door and began fanning her hands and coughing. “Is something on fire?”

Derek took a drag off the fag and said, “No, why do you ask?” He was having fun at her expense.

She exclaimed, “Oh my god! You’re puffing on illegal tobacco … on a spaceship no less! Are you crazy?!”

Derek smiled at her and said, “You are so beautiful when you’re beautiful.”

Austen said, “You mean mad.”

Derek said, “She sure is.” Austen laughed and tried to calm her down by telling her that the bridge had an expensive fan and filter containment unit, but she didn’t care. She was upset and she let them know it.

She said that she didn’t care and reached over and took Derek’s rolled cigarette out of his mouth, threw it on the deck plate and stepped on it. “Tobacco contains noxious chemicals; you should take better care of your body, Captain!”

Derek said, “Apparently that’s your job, Mom.”

She said, “Men!”

Austen flipped his cigarette backwards into his mouth without using his hands as she went to grab it from his mouth. She gave up and Austen took his smoke out of his mouth. He asked her, “Can you tell us what’s happening with the telemetry thingamabob?” She went forward to the front consoles where Tim was hiding his cigarette. She bent over the communication console to study it. Tim moved over out of her way some. She bent over and ran a diagnosis test on the sonar. JR was checking out her backside. Derek was too, but when he noticed JR was, he picked his cigarette-butt off the floor and flipped it at his brother.

She looked at the telemetry light next to the radio light covered up by electrical tape. “I’m not even going to ask why you have tape over the radio light, but the telemetry light is blinking the pattern, S.O.S. It’s not a malfunction; someone is interfering with our telemetry sonar. They seem to be in need of help.” She turned her head toward Derek for some answer.

That got everybody’s attention. JR asked her how she knew that and Derek answered for her, “Because she’s smart as well as beautiful.” She gave him a big smile and told him thanks for the compliment, and she deeply meant it.

She was wondering who the heck JR was. She still smiled at him and said, “Three long dashes, and three short dashes over and over again, Morse code. Their radio must be broken so they’re interrupting telemetry frequencies, whoever and whatever they are.”

Austen asked Tim if anything was on radar and Tim answered, “No … wait a second, they just appeared on the edge of our radar, and they’re in our path. Let me see if they’re sending out an I.D. tag frequency. Yep, it’s the Cross, registry number, N.A.S.A. 79, and we seem to be headed for it, Sirs.”

Austen said, “Speak of the devil,” and then he put his cigarette out and a ghost of perplexity rippled across his face. He asked no one in particular, “Eccentric Professor Cross’ ship, the guy that invented our new telescope? He never made it to the asteroid belt, so it wasn’t an asteroid?” Tim was agreeing with him.

Derek said, “It wasn’t a comet because it's still there.” Austen and Derek then wondered why the ship out there was listing, what could have happened, plus the fact that the ship’s inertia should have kept it in motion, and yet it was at full stop.

Kim, still fanning her hands at the remaining smoke, realized that Tim still had a lit cigarette. She gave him a mean look, and as he put it out, he told her that alcohol and tobacco had been Earth’s favorite pass times for centuries. Kim countered with, “Chocolate is the planet’s greatest contribution to the universe.”

JR said to her as she sat in the fifth seat, “I just happen to have some with me.”

She didn’t want to be rude to the stranger; he was after all, the only one that wasn’t smoking. She smiled but didn’t say what was on her mind. She also saw a family resemblance to the Houstons. She inquired about that and asked who he was.

Austen immediately changed the subject and told Tim to go ahead and contact E.D. and let them know that they would be coming to a halt to check out the distress signal. “Tell them we had to fix our radio and that they can board us if they hurry.”

Kim asked, “Board us, why?” She looked at JR who was looking so innocently back at her.

Austen told her that there was some kind of mistake … Derek interrupted him and finished the explanation, “A mix up that is. They seem to think that someone is on this ship that is not supposed to be, and they want to see for themselves.”

Austen told her, “We weren’t going to stop for them because we’d have to burn more fuel that we don’t have to speed back up again. But since we have to check on the professor’s shuttle anyway, we’ll go ahead and let E.D. catch up. That way they will see no one is here that is not supposed to be.” Kim accepted the captain’s explanation even though it was a bit cryptic.

One of the classes all the cadets had to take was to never interfere or question operations on the flight deck. Small or complex, or internal, it was just not allowed. Bridge, or in this case a large cockpit, were experienced people who knew what they were doing. Also, this was the captain’s ship and whatever he said was law, either Austen or Derek. Orders were to be carried out without delay, commentary, or critique! If you had any comments, only an e-mail was allowed. Even then they would only be read if the captains had the time or the desire to, or nothing else to do, because everybody always had an opinion.

It was a serious class, but everybody had fun in that class. One time Derek held Kim and Terry after class for disrupting the class. He thought it would be cute to have them play, “Simon says,” but it backfired on him. When he left the class he was so flustered and feverish that he had to take a very, very cold and long shower! How the heck did they manage to turn a protocol class into a dirty game of twister? And why did they have to act so sexy in class?

Still the captains knew she’d keep a secret, especially for Derek. She looked at JR again knowing this must be the guy E.D. was looking for. JR just laughed at her, maliciously raising his eyebrows a few times.

Tim said, “I told E.D. that we had trouble with our radio, that it took some time to fix it. They now have our position, and they said they’d be here in about an hour, and that we should immediately answer the S.O.S.”

Austen said, “No dah! It’s inter-stellar law to answer an S.O.S., no matter the costs. Even a minute could be crucial.”

JR rolled his eyes. Tim said, “Leave it to E.D. to state the obvious.”

Derek asked Kim to go aft and explain to everyone what the situation was. He also asked her to send his son to the flight deck, “We might need him.” His son was smarter than everyone on the bridge, and it might come in handy, he thought.

She got up slowly and winked at her captain and said to him in a sexy voice, “Whatever you say … Captain,” and she left. Derek had a flashback of the “Simon says” game they had played in class that one time.

The three men were all staring at him waiting for an explanation of what they had just witnessed, but all he said was, “Is it horny in here or is it just me?” There was no doubt in Derek’s mind that Kim was a very sexy lady.

Austen and Tim laughed, but JR blew him a kiss and threatened, “You better hope it’s just you, precious!”

Derek told Tim to acknowledge E.D. and to slow the ship down. Then he got on the intercom and told all of the cadets to secure everything and strap themselves in for extreme deceleration. “Then we will be docking to another N.A.S.A. shuttle very soon … Out.” He was glad the ship had artificial gravity, but that was not the time for it.

Tim killed the gravity because that was one thing you don’t want during deceleration, or acceleration. If the gravity was on and someone wasn’t strapped in, they would’ve ended up as a spot on the far wall of the interior of the ship. He used reverse engines first, then docking thrusters to move the One-Oh-One to the weird positioning of the Cross ship. Then he rotated the One-Oh-One to line up one of its airlocks to an airlock of the Cross. Tim was nervous but he didn’t say anything and did as he was told.

Derek told him to hold it there. “We don’t know anything about that ship; if we go for hard seal and open up on a ship with a hull breach, everything on this ship will get sucked out into space through their ship.”

Austen agreed, “Good call, Bro.”

Derek pushed the red button for docking clamps and the magnetic couplings that would keep the ships stationary and connected. Kirk floated his way to the front before anyone else even unstrapped. He jumped in the fifth seat and said hello to his uncle JR like he had known his uncle was on board the whole time. Derek asked his son what he knew of Lloyd Cross. Kirk took a deep breath and started a biography that ended ten minutes later.