Surviving The Theseus (15 page)

“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.”

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.

An hour later, a small, blue planet loomed.
Rachel throttled down, the mystery team below already informed of
their arrival.

The planet was a small one, more like a moon.
From their distance, you could tell it consisted mostly of water,
except for a gray haziness that Rachel assumed was cloud cover.

“Take it easy,” Blair said, not without some
nervousness in his voice. “Jesus!”

“Relax.” Rachel throttled right down,
stopping three hundred thousand kilometers from the planet, which
she pretty much called The Planet, since nobody seemed to have a
name for it. Death might be a more fitting name for it.

“Why’d you stop? Our passengers won’t like
it.”

“Are they going to come up and yell at me?”
Rachel looked over at Blair, batted her eyes a few times, and then
looked away. “I’m the pilot, and I’m in charge on this ship.
Besides, I’m not going in to a piss pot of mines and killing all of
us.”

“Sorry.”

Rachel looked over at Blair, surprised it
might be a genuine apology. “Wow, Blair, I didn’t think that word
was in your vocabulary.”

Before he had a chance to say anything, she
opened up ship’s communications.

Blair closed his half-opened mouth.

“Hello mystery passengers. I’ve stopped a few
hundred thousand kilometers away. I’ll get us there soon enough,
but when I get closer, I will slow right down as I maneuver around
the mines. If one even flinches at me, I will bail, and this
mission is over. As you were informed before, or should have been,
I am in complete command while you are on this ship. I’ll leave the
channel open so you’re aware of our progress.”

The same deep voice as before, unless they
all talked like that, said, “Thank you, pilot.”

Rachel moved the throttle up, and, five
minutes later, they were very close to the planet, the haziness
revealed as thousands of mines. “That’s more than ten thousand,
just from what we can see, Blair.”

“Wow! That’s amazing. They weren’t messing
around.”

“Watch them, Blair. Let me know if any
move.”

The space before them was littered with gray,
round mines, six feet in diameter. Little cylinders covered their
surface, which Rachel assumed were little rockets to move in any
direction as quickly as possible. Or maybe some of them were
sensors. She throttled down, coasting now.