Callisto Deception

by John Read

  “Thanks,” Amelia whispered.

  “Here’s how it’s going to work,” H3 said. “John, come with me and we’ll unlock the ship, and send it on its way. Amelia will continue her cute little standoff. Any deviation from the plan, and my team has orders to kill Mr. Patel here, and blow up the cabin.”

  H3 got out of the boat and began walking up to me and Amelia. I noticed he was wearing CDF armor, a bulletproof vest, and helmet. In one hand, he carried a side arm. As he got closer, I clocked my gun, so angry I was still debating whether to shoot him

  He got closer, and called me out: “John, come with me, leave your weapon.”

  I looked at Amelia, and handed her my gun.

  I walked toward H3. I could tell he was scared, his secret hanging by a thread. He raised the gun to my face. For a moment, I thought he was going to shoot. I could tell he hated me with everything in his being, but this was a standoff. If he fired, it wouldn’t end well for anyone.

  “You son of a bitch,” Amelia whispered, just loud enough so that he could hear.

  H3 took another step forward, positioning the gun only centimeters from my face.

  Then I heard it. A voice from the boat. “Good bye, my friends.”

  The soldiers looked at H3, waiting for orders, not sure if they should shoot.

  H3 was infuriated, and looked down toward his guards. “Shoot him!” he yelled.

  But Kevin hit a trigger he’d been hiding in his belt, and the C4 he’d secretly hidden beneath his tunic exploded. In one thousandth of a second, Kevin was gone.

  The boat’s hydrogen tanks ignited in the blast, and the lake was illuminated like day. I could see the whites of H3’s blue eyes, and in them, I saw the realization that he felt truly alone. The shockwave from the explosion almost knocked me off my feat, but the blast had disoriented H3 as well.

  H3 began to regain his composure, and as the pistol approached my forehead, he said, “Listen here, you sack of shit.” The gun was firmly pointed between my eyes. “There’s only one person calling the shots around-”

  My hand rose to meet it, pushing the gun to the left, tilting my head to the right. Amelia screamed. H3 pulled the trigger, the gun fired and the bullet struck a nearby tree. I yanked his arm down and around, pivoting my body, twisting the gun out of his hand, breaking his fingers. He groaned. “That’s for Kevin.” I kicked his leg from the left, taking him out at the knee. I wound his arm behind his back and broke it at the elbow, and H3 screamed in agony. “That’s for threatening my family.”

  Amelia ran over, ripped off H3’s helmet, and pressed her rifle to his head.

  “Will the spacecraft read the bios off a dead man?” she said. It was an idle threat.

  I wrestled the fugitive to his feet, and began dragging him toward the cabin.

  “We can make a deal,” H3 said, holding his broken arm against his chest. “I’ll let you leave, just leave me here on Callisto.”

  “You have no leverage, old man.” Amelia pressed the rifle into his back.

  We approached the cabin. I realized Marie had shut off all the lights; she was probably terrified.

  “Marie, it’s us!” I yelled as we approached the cabin. “It’s all clear.”

  We opened the door, and Amelia grabbed H3, forcing him up the stairs. As H3 approached the airlock, it registered his presence and hissed open.

  I found Marie and the kids, hiding in the bathroom.

  “I heard an explosion, what happened?” Marie said.

  “I’ll tell you once we’re onboard,” I said, realizing I had tears in my eyes.

  Marie carried Lise while I grabbed Branson’s hand and led the way to the ship.

  With H3 on board, the ship came to life. “Welcome back, Henry,” the ship’s computer said.

  Marie’s face contracted with anger when she saw H3. She rocked back, ready to throw a punch.

  Amelia grabbed her arm. “There’ll be time for that later.”

  “He is not coming with us,” Marie said.

  “Nope,” I said. “He’s not. Just until we reach orbit over Callisto.”

  “Where’s Kevin?” Marie said, looking around.

  “He’s …” I looked at Branson, who was strapping himself into a chair, “gone.”

  The interior of the spacecraft was nearly identical to the one we had taken from Mars on our trip to the moon. With the ship under gravity, chairs with seat restraints had risen from the floor, ready for launch.

  I took Kevin’s stolen CDF watch out of my pocket and pressed it to the consol.

  The computer came online, generating a new authorization profile as Kevin’s program cycled through a list of commands.

  “Okay,” I said, reading off a display near the front of the craft. “The computer has transferred control from H3. Marie, get the kids secure,” I ordered. “I’m going in.”

  Two VR crèches located near the front of the spacecraft served as the cockpit. I threw myself down into the right crèche. Zippers self-climbed from my feet to my neck, securing my body into the resistance suit. I pulled down the face mask, and immersed myself in the cockpit.

  “Amelia, this thing has a gun, right?” I said.

  Amelia flipped through a menu on the console. “Affirmative. Someone has modified the asteroid guns to serve as defensive weapons.”

  “Outside!” Marie yelled, as a fighter-plane-like spacecraft streaked past.

  Then another identical craft flew by in pursuit. Guns blazed from the pursuing craft as the leading spacecraft blew to pieces.

  I activated the ship’s short range optical wavelength transmission system. “Orville here. Avro, do you read me?”

  “Avro here, five by five.”

  Avro’s JJ flew past the starboard side of the cruiser, tipping its wing in the classic pilot’s hello.

  “Good to see you, brother,” I said. I was about to tell him about Kevin, but couldn’t bring myself to yet.

  “Everyone secure back there?” I said.

  Amelia was busy duct taping H3 to a seat. “Almost done here,” she said. Amelia had wrapped a piece of tape around H3’s mouth. Confident H3 was secure, she climbed into the AR crèche beside me.

  “Get us out of here,” Marie said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Retracting the hatch,” I said. The ship rumbled as the systems came online. We heard the mechanical creak of the retracting jet way.

  “Temperature and pressure nominal,” I read off a checklist. “Cryogenic tanks at one hundred degrees Kalvin. We’ve got to cool the tanks to ten degrees before trans-solar injection. The computer says that’ll take at least ... thirty minutes.”

  “Shit, that long?” Amelia said.

  “We’re talking about a pretty long engine burn here. It’s not only Callisto’s gravity we’re escaping from, it’s Jupiter’s.”

  “Just get us off the surface, would you?” Amelia said.

  I pushed a virtual control column forward and blue flames emerged from the bottom of the spacecraft. The acceleration pressed us into our seats as the cruiser lifted off. Augmented reality fully replaced my view of the ship’s interior, granting me a 360-degree view of the outside.

  Avro fell into formation with the cruiser. He’d adjusted his AR permissions to allow me to see into his cockpit. “There.” He pointed. “Head to those mountains while we wait for the cryo tanks.”

  “Roger that,” I said. “Heading toward the mountains.”

  Amelia had swung her seat around, scanning the surroundings. “We’re about to have company!” she yelled. “Bogeys in pursuit, it looks like more of our JJs.”

  “Shit,” I yelled, my senses heightened by a renewed desire to protect my family.

  “I’m on it,” Avro said. “Dropping back.” He banked away, thrusters glowing against the darkness of the moon.

  “Go get ’em,” I said.

  H3 moaned from behind the duct tape. His eyes bulged and his head twisted from side to side.

  Marie sat in a seat next to H3. “Wait,” she
said. She unlatched her harness, and reached over to H3, tearing the duct tape from his mouth. H3 winced in pain, as the tape ripped his skin.

  “Tell them to back off,” Marie said. “Tell them you are onboard, and not to attack us!”

  H3 swore then said, “I instructed them to destroy this ship as soon as it took off.”

  “Get on the god damned radio!” I yelled.

  “The channel is open,” Amelia said.

  “It’s no use,” H3 said, “they’re not listening.”

  “Try!” I yelled.

  “CDF Forces, this is Henry Allen the Third, do not shoot at the cruiser, I am onboard, I repeat do not shoot!” H3 looked at me. “It’s no use, John. They have orders to ignore any transmissions from this vessel.”

  “Do you have any suggestions?” I said.

  “None that matter,” H3 said. “You’ve killed us all.”

  “Put that tape back,” Amelia said. Marie grabbed the roll from the seat pocket, extracted a fresh stretch of duct tape, and wrapped it twice around H3’s head, before strapping herself back in.

  Once in the mountains, I banked around a tall peak. I swung my head to keep one eye on the approaching bogeys.

  “I see their transponder signals,” I said. “Can they see us?”

  “Affirmative,” said a familiar voice with a distinct Punjabi accent.

  Anyone looking at my face would have seen me go white, the blood draining away.

  The voice was Kevin’s.

  “The JJs have formed a virtual network,” said Kevin’s voice over the ship’s internal speakers. “We’ll need to break the connection if we’re going to have any success hiding in those mountains.”

  “Amelia, what the hell is happening?” I said.

  “I … I don’t know,” Amelia replied.

  “I am Kevin’s Turing avatar,” said the voice. “Kevin knew you couldn’t live without him.”

  “Kevin’s Turing, huh?” I said. “Alright KT, how can you help us?”

  “I have silently activated the enemy’s JJ training profile,” Kevin’s Turing said. “We will use that to our advantage.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Can you help me get a lock on the bogeys?”

  “Both this ship and our JJ’s are outfitted with superior electronic countermeasures. Weapons must be aimed manually, visually, and at close range to be of any affect.”

  “Then it’s going to be a fair fight,” Amelia said.

  “If you consider we’re outnumbered, six to two, then yeah, that sounds fair,” I said.

  I piloted H3’s spaceship between two mountains. Avro banked out of sight, taking another route.

  “They’re closing on us,” Amelia said.

  “Roger,” I said, banking around the crest of a hill.

  One of the JJ’s fired, and a rock ledge exploded at my three o’clock. There was no way our ship could take a single hit from those guns.

  “Dammit,” I yelled. So much for trying to hide. “Amelia, start shooting!”

  Amelia unloaded several rounds on the attackers, but the shots missed, as the targets were several miles behind us, and too small to hit directly. However, several of her projectiles impacted with the mountain peaks, sending a shower of dust and debris in our wake. The pursuing JJs changed course to avoid it.

  “KT, can you operate the other gun?” Amelia yelled.

  “I would, but I am busy right now,” KT said.

  “Doing what?” I yelled, wondering what this Turing program could possibly be working on.

  “Shopping,” Kevin’s Turing replied.

  A moment later, another JJ appeared, rising from a nearby canyon. Its lights were blinking, sending Morse code, a series of dot and dashes that I couldn’t help but read.

  S-c-h-r-o-d-i-n-g-e-r,

  “You’re such a nerd!” I said.

  “What the hell?” Avro yelled over the comm.

  “The ship is not real, Avro,” Kevin’s Turing said over the inter-ship channel. “I’ve silently activated the Jupiter Jumper flight training profile; and the ship belongs to their Turing instructor, me.”

  “Good work, Kevin, get in position to draw their fire,” Avro said.

  I turned to Amelia. “Should we tell him?” I asked. “About Kevin …?”

  “Wait until this is over,”

  Avro banked his JJ around a mountain, flanking one of the pursuing JJ’s. He had a shot, and took it. The pursuing JJ exploded; the bolts from Avro’s gun cut through the spacecraft as if it wasn’t even there. Avro pulled up to avoid the debris.

  “Kevin, can you make another bogey?”

  “Negative,” Kevin said. “Any new spacecraft will violate the Schrödinger protocol.”

  I looked to port. Two CDF JJ’s flew parallel to us about a mile out.

  “Amelia, do you see …” I said as the enemy spacecraft banked towards us.

  “I see ’em,” Amelia replied. “Take cover behind that ridge.”

  “Roger that.”

  The pursuing JJ’s approached fast, and Amelia held her fire. I activated the thrust reversers, a feature designed for runway landings. The spacecraft ground to a halt, hovering just beyond the ridge.

  Amelia fired, aiming at the crest. The tiny projectiles left our spacecraft at nearly the speed of light. We jolted to starboard, a byproduct of Newton’s second law.

  The ridge exploded, and rocks shot into space at deadly speed, creating a cloud of flak, like in the skies over Berlin in World War Two. The pursuing JJ’s hit the debris at several thousand miles per hour, and exploded.

  “Got ’em!” Amelia yelled.

  “Nice work. Only three left,” I said, accelerating out from behind the ridge. “We’re running low on thruster fuel, I’ll need the rest to achieve orbit of Callisto. Avro, can you cover us?”

  “Roger, covering.”

  I pulled up, hitting the autopilot, and double checking the navigation aids as we raced for orbit where, if all went well, we’d dock with Avro, and then initiate the eleven-minute burn to exit the Jovian system.

  I pulled off the visor and looked back at Marie. She had Lise secured to her chest, and I was surprised the toddler wasn’t crying. Branson sat in his chair wide-eyed. Whatever he’d thought his dad would be like, this probably wasn’t it.

  Through the windows, we could see Callisto falling away.

  I slipped back into augmented reality. “We’re sitting ducks up here,” I said.

  “One bogey, headed your way,” Avro said. “Kevin, time to draw them out.”

  “Roger that.” Kevin exited the canyon, taking pursuit of the lead bogey as it approached our ship. He twisted his virtual JJ left and right, knowing they were going to take him out, but staying alive as long as possible, giving Avro time to plan his attack.

  The two other enemy JJs came in from the side, flanking the Turing’s craft with gun’s blazing. The virtual spacecraft exploded. Inside each of the pursuing enemy spacecraft, the CDF pilots would have been notified of the deception, informed that they’d just killed a decoy.

  It was the distraction Avro needed. He pulled around, taking out one of the flanking JJ’s, then the other. The ships exploded in flames, arcing down to the surface before impacting, creating new craters on Callisto.

  Only one bogey left now. Avro pulled up, and with the pursuing JJ only a few miles behind us, he took the shot.

  “That’s all of them!” Avro yelled.

  “Yes!” I yelled, and tossed off my headset.

  Kevin’s face hovered on the forward display.

  “We should tell him,” I said

  Amelia looked at me and sighed. “Wait until he’s inside,” she said. “KT, please deactivate the Turing.”

  Avro docked on the spacecraft’s belly, and floated out into the cabin. Amelia grabbed him, and they spun around in a zero G embrace. Lise was crying, her body unused to zero gravity. Marie floated the kids into one of the staterooms, turning on the entertainment system and waiting for Lise to calm down before j
oining us back out in the main cabin.

  Avro took off his VR hood, and looked around. “Where’s Kevin? What’s H3 doing here?”

  Tears welled in Amelia’s eyes. “Kevin’s dead.”

  “I don’t understand,” Avro said. “His ship wasn’t real?”

  “His ship wasn’t,” I said. “And neither was he. Kevin saved us, by bringing us H3, and leaving his Turing avatar to unlock the ship.”

  Avro turned to H3, looked at me. I hit a button on the console, and Kevin’s face appeared on the screen.

  Avro turned to the screen. “Kevin wanted me to say good bye,” said the Turing. “He also wanted me to tell you to knock H3 out, put him in your JJ, and send him into a high radiation, low orbit around Jupiter.”

  H3 groaned behind his duct tape gag. Avro turned, and slugged him in the face. The punch was so hard it knocked him unconscious.

  “I’ve programmed the orbit into the JJ,” Kevin said. “And deactivated the radio. He won’t be found until we want him to be found.”

  “I guess if they want him, NASA can send another team to pick him up,” I said.

  We tossed H3’s unconscious body into the JJ’s spherical cockpit. Avro grabbed a rifle, and went inside, using the butt of the gun to smash every computer interface. He came out, and sealed the door, leaving H3 alone inside without an AR suit.

  The JJ dropped away, its thrusters fired, and it sailed off toward the gas giant.

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Amelia quoted.

  “And dead weight,” I added.

  “Will he die?” Marie said.

  “Unlikely,” Kevin’s Turing said. “The ship’s auto-chemo machine will treat his radiation sickness as fast as the tumors grow, and there’s plenty of supplement and water.”

  The four of us floated near Kevin’s image. It was time to say farewell.

  “Goodbye, friend,” Avro said, glancing at me and Amelia. We nodded, and Avro keyed in the commands to deactivate the avatar.

  Marie noticed the tears my eye and placed her arm around my back. “My friend Lise has a saying I’ll never forget. It’s the most profound thing I’ve ever heard, and I think it applies to your friend.”