A sudden jolt threw Charline sideways against the arm-rest of her seat. The bumps continued, the ride becoming even rougher than it had already been. Charline sucked in a sharp breath - then understood. The shuttle was hitting the upper atmosphere. She exhaled the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. They'd made it. The other ship couldn’t grab them now. She could feel the pilot relaxing next to her, too. Nonchalant as he might have acted about the whole event, it had clearly been out of the ordinary enough to unnerve him. They were safe, at least until after they were on the ground. Then all bets were off, Charline figured. She’d need to stay alert.
Some backup would be nice as well. She tapped out a quick message to John, alerting him of the potential trouble coming her way. With any luck he had some assets on the ground which might be able to keep her and Beth safe after they landed. Charline was suddenly wishing she had her rifle back. Even though she’d hated using it to shoot the Naga, she was a fine shot. With the current gun control laws, it was too big a risk. If she’d been caught with an unlicensed firearm she’d be detained, the sample would be found…and she didn’t even want to think about going down that rabbit hole.
Charline finished her email and looked out through the cockpit windows. Was that sunlight glinting off metal, somewhere above them? Had they missed being caught by such a narrow margin that she could actually see the other ship? Who the hell were they, anyway? Her gut said that they didn't just happen to be flying on the same path she was taking. She didn't believe in that kind of coincidence.
Charline missed the company of the rest of the team. She'd been in dangerous situations with them. But she'd never felt so alone before this trip.
Three
The loud beeps broke into Andy's dream like a bull in a china shop, rousing him like a splash of cold water to the face. For a moment he didn't know where he was. The dream he roused from had seemed so real! The brilliant green water was vivid in his memory, and the waves washing by overhead had felt familiar as the back of his hand. But when he opened his eyes he saw the static illumination of artificial lights instead of sunshine. He was surrounded by cool air, not warm water. He looked around blearily, trying to figure out where he was.
The soft blanket covering him up, overhead light panels, the bed beneath him, the desk and book shelves nearby the bed - he recognized it all. He was back at John's base. On the moon. It was even his bed, thank goodness. The docs had made him stay a couple of days in the med lab after they'd removed the thing from his ear. Just to be sure, they'd said. But being stuck in medical had him worried the whole time. What if there was something they weren’t telling him? He hadn’t relaxed until they released him from their care at last. It was nice to be back in his own quarters.
Andy's hand reached up to his ear reflexively to make sure it wasn't there again. While he was their captive the alien Naga had inserted some sort of slug-like creature into his ear - their answer to language translation. The thing picked up what was said nearby, translated the words into thoughts, and transmitted them into the mind of the being carrying it.
Andy shivered. He could still feel the slimy thing slipping into his ear.
The beep came again and he was awake enough this time to hear that it was his radio chirping at him. He hauled himself over to the chair where he'd dumped his clothes last night. The little radio he used to reach his team on base was still pinned to his shirt. He plucked it off, put the earpiece into his ear – a sensation uncomfortably close to the slug – and pressed a button.
“Andy here.”
“Andy?” It was Dan. “Wondering why you're not down at the meeting yet.”
Andy looked at his watch. It was already quarter past nine? He hadn't overslept so much since he was a teenager. How had that happened? Usually he would be up and moving before seven. He didn’t even need an alarm, thanks to habits formed from his Army years.
“Sorry, Dan. Be right down.” He was already throwing on clothing, running fingers through his hair.
“No rush, Andy. We'll still be here. John made coffee; I saved you a mug.”
“Thanks. See you in a flash!” Andy clicked off the radio, cursing under his breath once he wasn't broadcasting. How the hell had that happened? Underground on the moon, there was no sun to tell him when to wake up. But he'd never had this problem before.
“Must still be more wiped out than I thought,” he said aloud.
It didn't take him long to slip on a shipsuit, the one-piece outfits most of them wore up here. They were bland, but Andy was used to uniforms. They made him comfortable. He'd been Army for a decade, and that sort of thing stuck with you. He darted into the bathroom and took in his haggard appearance in the mirror, cursing again. A few quick swipes with a razor took care of the worst of his scruff, but there wasn't much he could do about the dark circles under his eyes. If he was oversleeping, why did he look and feel so tired? He'd be glad to get a cup of that coffee. Maybe it would help him wake up.
He left his room, the doors sliding apart. He shook his head for the hundredth time. John had said he'd built those doors with the zippy sliding effect so they would close automatically in case of a pressure loss. “They're a safety feature!” John had protested. Andy rather thought John had built them that way because that's how high tech space doors looked in all John's favorite sci-fi shows.
The secure elevator down the hall was a more serious matter. It was big, and had buckets of security built into it. Cameras. Retinal scanners. Palm prints. If you were not on the list of authorized personnel, you were not going to have a good time getting in there. Andy was on the list, of course. So was everyone else involved with the Satori – John's secret starship, hidden in the basement of his helium-3 processing plant.
The elevator whisked him down at enough speed that his feet left the deck a little in the low lunar gravity. Then it settled to a stop, his feet gracefully finding their places again.
“Last stop, everyone out,” Andy said to the air. There was no one else here. Anyone else who had business down below would already be there, this late in the shift. He'd gotten off the elevator only one floor from the bottom of the entire complex. The lowest level was the hangar. The floor he was on housed the offices and labs which supported the starship project. Andy took quick steps down the hall toward John's conference room, passing a row of huge windows on his right. They all looked down into the hangar, which was full of activity.
The starship Satori was a mess. She'd had explosives go off in and on her, been shot up by alien fighters, and even lost a wing in Dan's last Hail Mary attempt to save some of the crew who'd been pinned down – Andy among them. The engineering crews were hard at work putting her back together again.
They'd learned that the universe was a hostile place. The sooner the Satori was flying again, the better he would feel.
His walk carried him right by the lab, where samples of things they'd brought back from their journey were being studied. The cubes they'd found on that faraway world – tiny remnants of the race that had built the Satori's wormhole drive. The weird blood from the ratzards that Charline had been smart enough to grab. Bits of Naga technology like the energy rifles they used. And of course, the slug they'd pulled from his ear. He shivered at the thought of the thing.
And kept shivering. He jerked to a halt when he realized he couldn't stop shaking. Andy leaned one hand on the wall next to him, trying to hold himself up. But his arm had no strength, and his legs wouldn't keep still. The tremors increased.
Why was he on the floor? He must have fallen there. His arms and legs wouldn't respond to his commands. They just shook and shook. He stared helplessly up at the ceiling. A yell for help came out as just a quiet croaking sound.
His tremors increased, shaking his entire body now. Andy squeezed his eyes shut against the raw terror grabbing him in the gut. He'd never felt like this – never been so out of control. Try as he might, he couldn't get his body to stop.
As soon as Andy closed his eyes, he heard t
he rush of water all around him, the roar of surf pounding against rocks, the susurrus of receding waves whispering through the sand. He felt the water close over his head, cool and calming. The water told him to relax, and he did. The water spoke to him, saying he would be safe.
Something told him this was wrong. He wasn't underwater. He was on the floor, shaking - some kind of seizure. He needed to get up, to get help.
The water told him it was time to rest, and let go.
Andy tried to resist, but the cool thoughts were overwhelming.
He let them carry his mind away to a quieter place.
Four
Charline stepped off the shuttle, following the med techs as they wheeled Beth's still-slumbering body out. Her feet felt like lead weights. The travel bag she carried weighed down her arm like it was full of rocks, instead of a change of clothes and her laptop. Her whole body felt like she was walking through thick soup, and she almost stumbled stepping out of the hatch. The pilot caught her arm.
"Easy there," he said. "Give yourself a few hours to get used to being back under Earth's gravity."
It was a problem she hadn't thought about much before. Everyone had been so excited to be exploring alien ruins on a distant planet, there hadn't been time to feel tired then. And then they'd been in danger - a desperate fight to stay alive had been a great way to keep going. But now? She'd only been back on the moon a couple of days, then another day in zero gravity flying back to Earth. She caught her breath and straightened her back. That was going to be an issue at some point. She wondered if John had thought about it. He could rotate the helium-3 work crews back and forth from Earth to the moon, but what about the small, carefully selected team working on the Satori? If they stayed on the moon too long, they would all lose muscle tone and have a real problem when it came to returning home to Earth. It wasn’t like they could easily find more crew to do the work, either. The less people who knew about the Satori, the better.
"Thanks," she said. "I'll be OK."
"I'm sure you will," he replied. He took a step back so that she could pass more easily, and she continued down the ramp onto the runway. Hard tarmac, blazing heat, and an arid, dusty wind greeted her. In an odd way, it felt familiar even though she'd never been to Texas. It was uncannily like the one alien world she'd visited.
She looked back over her shoulder and saw the pilot talking into his radio. He was looking at her while he spoke, and his eyes somehow looked less friendly than they had before. She wondered briefly if she had done something to offend the man, but then the look was gone, replaced by the bland smile she'd seen him wearing most of the trip. She shook her head. Was it paranoia if you had good reason to think people really were out to get you?
A silver air-car glided toward her from the control tower. On the side of the car she could see the logo of John's company. She shook some of the tension from her shoulders. John had assured her that a security escort would be waiting for her as soon as she arrived. Another would follow Beth to the hospital and watch over her there. With unrest on Earth increasing at a steady rate, not to mention the strange ship which had tried to intercept them, he wasn't taking any chances.
The door to the car opened and three men spilled out. They all wore identical grey jumpsuits, and each carried a sidearm holstered at his hip. One stepped off a bit on either side of her, facing outward. They didn’t draw their weapons, but seemed ready to use them. The third man walked straight toward her.
"You look like a living cliche," Charline said.
The man's serious face broke in a huge smile. "We're security forces. We're supposed to be a cliche," he said with good humor. "You must be Miss Foster? I'm Pete Adams. Mr. Caraway asked us to meet you here."
"He told me. You know where we're going?"
"No, ma'am. Mr. Caraway said you'd give us destinations, and we'd get you there."
"So if I told you I'm here for a getaway vacation in Hawaii...?"
"Then we'd be with you on the next flight, ma'am," he replied. "But Mr. Caraway doesn't usually put this much effort into employee vacations." His smile was still there, but she could feel the curiosity boiling just under the surface. Something about his mood was infectious, and she felt better just talking to him.
"I need to get to the University of Texas campus in Dallas." That was where Dr. Paris would meet her; she had a lab there.
"We'll have you there in an hour. Climb aboard."
Charline followed him to the air-car. He opened the door for her and gestured for her to step inside. The compartment inside the car was spacious, and she settled herself into a seat and set to buckling herself in. Pete and one of the other guards climbed into the rear space with her. The other must be up front. Pete closed the hatch behind them, locking it down before he settled into his own seat.
"Ever flown in one of these?" he asked.
"Something similar," Charline replied, thinking of the Satori. "But no, not just like this." She had to raise her voice as the turbines under the wings began spinning up to full power.
"If you need to talk to the pilot, this hatch leads into the cockpit area," Pete said, gesturing with his hand. "Separate pilot and passenger spots for security reasons. Behind you," he said, pointing at another hatch above her head, "there's a secure area. Really a vault. We store things there when security is an absolute must. The space is bullet proof, fireproof, water tight, and big enough to hold all the luggage of a company exec on a week long trip."
Charline raised an eyebrow at that last.
"I know," he said, seeing her look. "It took some doing, but we crammed it all in there."
"So, what's your name?" Charline asked, turning to the other guard.
"Cory," he replied.
"Just Cory?"
He nodded his head. His eyes were distant. He might be hearing what she said, but he wasn't really paying attention to the words.
"Cory's not much for talking," Pete said, giving the man a glare. "But he's got good eyes, and he know his job. Mr. Caraway doesn't hire anyone who isn't top of the line for this sort of gig."
"Oh, I know John's that way," she said. "I wasn't questioning either of your qualifications."
But something about Cory rubbed Charline the wrong way. He was tense. They were in the air, and should be pretty safe up here. And there he was sitting like he was ready to explode out of his seat at any moment. Maybe he was afraid of flying? Or just stressed out about the assignment? But she couldn't shake the feeling she'd had ever since the odd experience on the trip down - the sense that something was up.
Quietly, she shifted her hand down to her cargo pocket again, running her fingers over the vial to assure herself it was still there. The movement caught Cory's eyes. She saw him glance down at her leg, and eased her hand away. She didn't need to be advertising that she was carrying something of value. Not even here, and especially not to someone that her gut told her was hiding something.
Five
Pete’s conversation kept Charline’s mind well-occupied during the flight. It turned out that he was at least casually familiar with cyber-security. Enough to be dangerous, he said, and she laughed in response. He was more than willing to listen to what she said on the subject, though, and his banter made her forget about Corey’s quite demeanor. Maybe the guy was just having a bad day. His boss certainly seemed to be all right. Before she knew it, the air-car was slowing down and then stopped moving forward altogether. Charline felt her stomach lurch as it eased its way toward the ground.
"We're here," Pete said.
Charline looked out her window and the university campus. It spread out over a sizable chunk of land. Here, the lawns were well-watered, and a few trees provided the promise of cool shade. The air conditioning in the car had taken the brutality away from the Texas heat, but Charline wasn’t looking forward to stepping back outside again. The air-car was dropping toward a landing pad atop one of the taller buildings.
"You did better than that hour you promised," she said. "Only took f
ifty two minutes."
"We aim to please," Pete said.
Charline popped an earbud on, flicked the switch, and said aloud "Call Doctor Paris."
There was a ringing tone in her ear as her smartphone dialed out.
"Linda Paris here." The voice on the phone sounded younger than she'd expected. She realized she'd heard 'professor' and automatically associated the title with the dusty old men who'd taught so many of her own university classes. This woman clearly wasn't from that company!
"Dr. Paris, my name is Charline. I was sent here by John Caraway to see you. Can we meet?"
"Yes, of course. I've been waiting for your arrival. Mr. Caraway called ahead and told me you'd be here shortly."
"Great! I'm, um, up on the roof."
"Landing pad? I know where you are. I'm in the same building. I'll be right up." The call clicked off.
Charline left the earpiece in and grabbed her bag. The air-car settled gently to the rooftop, and the engine whine decreased to a dull rhythmic sound. Pete unlocked the hatch and opened it, stepping out ahead of Charline. Cory followed behind. Both men returned to a quiet alertness as they left the cool interior of the car for the scorching rooftop. Charline appreciated their caution. She was still expecting some sort of snatch and grab at any time. Having the security with her eased a little bit of the worried feeling in her stomach.
The rooftop was completely clear except for a glass room on one end that housed an elevator door. Those doors slid open, and a woman stepped out into the glass room. That had to be Dr. Paris. Charline set off across the pad toward her, flanked on either side by the two guards.
Paris looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. She had long brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail. Gold wire glasses framed a narrow boned face with a deep tan. The outfit made Charline smile: a white lab coat over a black t-shirt and bluejeans. Not typical professorial attire, but then John had a habit of seeking out the eccentric, and that's what Charline thought she'd want to wear if it was her working in a college lab. John also tended to find people who were excellent at what they did, but Charline wondered if the young woman before her would be up to the challenge she was about to present.
Adventures of the Starship Satori: Book 1-6 Complete Library Page 26