by R. E. Weber
‘Whaaaat?’ he cried out, desperate to sound as surprised as he possibly could. ‘You mean it wasn’t real?’
‘We would never despatch an untrained pre-operative into such a situation,’ growled the Commander. ‘It would be too risky. However the major detail of the mission remained the same as it was when first encountered by our Operative. Once the Operative had completed the mission, he simply reset the research station’s node to allow you to repeat the mission. It was our intention to compare the two reports to see if you were able agree a conclusion.’
‘But something happened, didn’t it?’ said Theo. ‘Something that didn’t happen first time round? Something unexpected?’
‘Correct,’ said the Commander. ‘A disruption field was triggered, shutting down all Zero Point power sources within a hundred thousand hotah radius of the research station.’
‘So the ship was affected too then?’ said Theo.
‘Correct. However First Mentor was able to restore partial power by diverting solar radiation into the ship’s power cells.’
‘Yeh and the station came back on line too. So did my companion.’
‘Most Affinity technology can draw power from an alternate source. The ship would have eventually absorbed enough solar radiation to power itself up. First Mentor simply accelerated this process.’
‘Clever old First Mentor. So what caused it then?’
‘The exact nature of the disruption is still under investigation. However it appears to have been centred on the research station. It also seems to have been targeted.’
‘You mean deliberate – like some sort of weapon?’ said Theo.
‘Correct,’ said the Commander. ‘We are currently searching for evidence as to the nature of the device and its current whereabouts.’
‘But the explosion? Surely whatever it was, was destroyed when the station exploded?’
‘Since we were unable to determine the exact source of the disruption, we cannot be entirely certain of this. But it is possible that we may never retrieve the device nor its remains.’
‘But the research station,’ said Theo. ‘Why did it self-destruct? And the Star Shield Platform? What about….’
‘Unknown at this time,’ interrupted the Commander abruptly.
‘Oh right, so that’s it?’ said Theo angrily. ‘That’s your answer Unknown at this time? I was trapped in that station. I thought I was going to die. I had to blow a hole in the window and get sucked out onto the planet with no space suit. I couldn’t breathe, I...’
‘It would seem,’ said the Commander calmly, ‘that in hindsight, your decision was a wise one. Your method of escape, although unorthodox, was ingenious.’
Theo took a deep breath to calm himself.
‘Well I suppose it worked, didn’t it?’
‘It certainly achieved your aim,’ said the Commander. ‘Such ingenuity could prove useful in your field work.’
‘You mean, if I join?’
‘It is an honour and a rare privilege to receive an invitation to join the Star Agency. Why would you refuse?’
‘I might just want to live,’ said Theo sarcastically. ‘And besides, if I join, the honour would be all yours.’
‘Human arrogance,’ growled the Commander. ‘That is something that we would not welcome.’
‘Your loss,’ said Theo.
‘That remains to be seen,’ said the Commander.
Theo sighed. ‘I’m really not sure. It seems pretty dangerous out there in the Universe.’
‘As I have previously told you,’ said First Mentor, ‘danger is always present. However the Star Agency will train you to deal with such situations if you become an Operative. In addition, you will granted a further inventory of tools to assist and protect you.’
‘You mean gadgets?’ said Theo, grinning. ‘Like night vision, personal shields and all that?’
‘Those and many more,’ replied First Mentor.
‘How long have I got though? You don’t want me to decide straight away, do you?’
‘No,’ replied the Commander. ‘We realise that a decision of this magnitude will require some reflection. You will be given one standard day before this offer is withdrawn.’
‘That’s still not very long,’ said Theo.
‘I am sure that the time will be adequate. But before we continue, I should caution you that, regardless of whether you accept our offer, utmost secrecy is paramount. You must not speak of the events surrounding this mission to anybody outside the Star Agency, and even then, only to those directly related to the mission. It is for the protection of others as much as for yourself.’
‘I understand,’ said Theo. ‘So erm, what should I tell everybody? I mean people, Ruby. She’s bound to ask where I’ve been for the last few days. What’s my cover story?’
‘You have been visiting the Teng Muah Technological Research Academy,’ said First Mentor. ‘They have offered you a scholarship. You’ve been to check out the facilities and decide if you wish to accept. I’ll send a full synopsis to your companion. Read it thoroughly. Do you have any further questions for the Commander?’
‘I... I can’t think of anything else at the moment.’
‘In that case,’ replied the Commander. ‘I will take my leave of you.’
‘Oh right, erm thanks, I think,’ said Theo.
But the Commander didn’t reply. Instead, he simply turned and stomped out of the room.
*
It was certainly good to be back in his quarters on Polisium Prime, but what wasn’t so good was the fact that he had to face Ruby for the first time since the mission. And he knew she would be angry. Angry that he hadn’t been in touch for several days and angry that he’d seemingly ignored all the messages that she’d left for him. But whatever her mood, he knew that he would have to face her sometime. And now seemed as good a time as any. He’d spent long enough memorising his cover story and he was pretty certain that he knew it well enough. But would he be convincing? He wasn’t sure. But whatever was going to happen, he had to face her. So he’d quickly sent her a message:
Hi, it’s me. I’m back. Wanna come round? I’ve got loads to tell you. Sorry I’ve not been in touch. Come round whenever you’re free. Looking forward to seeing you soon. T
That had been two hours ago and she hadn’t replied. She was angry and Theo knew it. She was never going to speak to him again. That was it, the end of their friendship. His life on Polisium Prime would be full of angry silences and stern looks. But then she couldn’t do this; it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t been able to talk to her. He hadn’t asked to be whisked away in the middle of the night to some secret base. And that thought suddenly made Theo determined. Determined that whatever she was going to throw at him, he could take. After what he had been through on the mission, Ruby’s temper seemed like the least of his problems. Or so he hoped.
Theo lay down on his bed, issued the Lights Down command and then closed his eyes. But a few minutes later, just as he was about to drift off to sleep, a sudden loud bleep startled him. Quickly, he sat upright and checked his companion:
Incoming message. Rubina Chaudhry requests immediate entry to your quarters.
Allow
Deny
Converse
Previous
Theo swung his feet off the bed and stood up. He then pulled on his dressing gown, turned to face the door, and rubbed his eyes. He swallowed a couple of times, took a deep breath and selected Allow. Then the doorway opened and there stood Ruby. Immediately, he could see that she wasn’t happy at all. This was it. He was in trouble and he knew it.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ she bawled as she strode angrily towards him. ‘What about all my messages? Too busy to reply to any of them?’
‘I…erm…’
‘You, erm what, Logan? Dog got your tongue?’
Slowly, Ruby walked towards him with a cold, hard look in her eyes, and Theo backed away as she approached. But when he reached the edge
of his bed, he couldn’t walk backwards any further, so he just stood and stared back at her, waiting for whatever was coming. Ruby was now less than a meter away, just glaring at him.
Ruby raised her arm and instinctively Theo flinched, squeezing his eyes shut, expecting a hard slap to be stinging his cheek. But instead, the arm just wrapped itself around him closely followed by the other, squeezing him in the tightest hug he had ever known.
‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she said finally as she stepped back and held his shoulders, grinning. ‘A Scholarship at Teng Muah. That’s brilliant.’
‘You know all about it?’ said Theo, surprised.
‘Of course. When you didn’t turn up for the last day of your Orientation, I checked. Seems you had time to put it in your public diary, but didn’t have time to tell me, your best friend!’
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t, I mean…’
‘I’m kidding. I’m so happy for you,’ said Ruby beaming. ‘Besides, what’s a few days between mates. We’ve got the rest of our lives together.’
Theo stared back at Ruby, a little surprised. ‘Have we?’
‘Oh…. erm…. I mean, you know, we’re here now,’ said Ruby, suddenly stuttering. ‘We’ll probably be staying here for the rest of our lives I guess. Mates forever and all that.’
‘Oh yeh, of course. Mates forever,’ replied Theo sheepishly.
Ruby released his shoulders and stepped back. Then she cleared her throat and glanced away to her left, pretending to look at something more interesting on the floor. Finally, she looked back at him and Theo returned her gaze.
He so wanted to tell her. Tell her everything. How he had been on a secret mission and how he had nearly died, twice. And now, how they wanted him back to train as an operative. But he couldn’t say anything because the Commander had been adamant. ‘You must not speak of the events surrounding this mission to anybody outside the Star Agency’. But surely he could trust Ruby to keep it quiet. After all, he trusted her with his life. And of course he wanted her opinion. He wanted her help, just as he always wanted her help: to decide whether or not to accept. He had already nearly died just on a training mission. So how dangerous would it be once he was a real operative? But then there was the excitement and all the amazing technology he’d seen and used. He would be able to do things he’d only been able to dream about before. And he so wanted to share it all with Ruby. But then what else was it that the Commander had said? ‘It is for the protection of others as much as for yourself.’ And he knew it wasn’t just about trust. Somebody might be able to use, threaten or even hurt Ruby if she knew; indeed, they might be able to get to him through her. And above all, he knew that there was nothing more important than her safety. Absolutely nothing. So whatever he decided, it would have to be his decision and his alone.
‘By the way,’ said Ruby clearing her throat, ‘Have you heard about tomorrow?’
‘Erm, no why, is something happening?’
‘Oh well if you don’t already know, I’m not spoiling the surprise.’
‘Spoilsport.’
‘Hey, don’t push it Logan. You kept me waiting long enough, remember?’
‘Yeh I know, sorry.’
‘You’d better not make a habit of it,’ said Ruby jabbing a finger at him.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ said Theo. But as he stared at her he knew. If he did accept the position, that would be exactly what he would be doing.
‘I’d better go now. You know, get my beauty sleep,’ said Ruby smiling weakly at him. ‘I just wanted to say hi and welcome back.’
‘Oh,’ said Theo, disappointed. ‘Don’t you want to stay for a bit?’
‘Naaa, I’m tired,’ said Ruby, faking a wide yawn with her hand over her mouth.
‘Oh right, well see you then,’ said Theo.
‘Yeh, see ya,’ said Ruby, tapping the back of his hand before turning and heading towards the doorway.
‘Hey, Rubes,’ Theo called out as the doorway was about to close behind her.
Ruby stopped and glanced over her shoulder. ‘Yeh?’
‘It’s good to be back,’ said Theo smiling and meaning it more than Ruby could ever possibly know.
Ruby didn’t say anything. Instead, she just smiled, turned and walked off down the corridor.
Chapter 20 – New Horizons
Theo checked his watch and then stared back at the queue in front of him. It was taking forever to move forward, and he was beginning to wonder how much longer he was going to have to wait. After all, he really couldn’t afford to be standing around in drafty church halls all day when he had so much to do.
He peered around the person in front of him to see if he could see why it was taking so long. At the front of the queue there were two tables, each with several piles of papers and an ink stamp. As he watched, a man at the front of the queue stepped forward. He was then handed a sheet of paper with absolutely tiny writing on it and told to read it as quickly as possible. Once he’d finished it, he was told to sign it and hand it back, which he duly did. Then he had to put one of his hands down flat on the table, and a woman, whose face for some reason was fuzzy and indistinct, stamped it really hard. ‘Ouch’ cried the man as he jerked his hand away quickly. But the woman who had stamped him didn’t seem to care. As the man walked away rubbing his sore hand, the woman just shouted ‘Next’. Then another person stepped forward and the same process was repeated. Theo noticed that there seemed to be two women doing the stamping.
After what seemed like an age, Theo reached the front of the queue and finally noticed that the two women standing behind the tables were Jules and Ruby. Quite why he hadn’t noticed who they were before, he had no idea.
‘Hi, Jules, Hi, Rubes,’ he said cheerfully. But Jules just stared straight past him without saying a word.
‘Here, read this,’ said Ruby sternly, handing him a sheet of paper. Theo looked at the sheet, but it made no sense whatsoever. It was just nonsense about quantum physics. Quickly, he pretended to read the sheet. Then he handed it back to Ruby and, hoping to catch Jules’s attention, put his hand down on the table in front of her, ready to get stamped. Again she ignored him and instead Ruby just lifted up her stamp and slammed it down hard on the back of his hand.
‘Ouch,’ he cried, quickly yanking it away. Then as he held it up in front of him, he noticed that it was now throbbing purple like the hand of a cartoon character that had been flattened by a huge comedy mallet. Moments later, after it had stopped throbbing, he looked back at his hand and noticed that there was a green ink mark with the words ‘Your country needs you’ in the middle. Theo looked at his hand and then glared back at Ruby.
‘What use is that to me?’ he balled.
‘Oh calm down. Go and get something to eat and don’t be so stupid,’ Ruby yelled back.
The next thing Theo knew, he was in the Open Space restaurant alone. Immediately, as he sat down, a hole appeared in the middle of the table and then a plate of fish and chips was handed to him from somebody underneath. Realising how hungry he was, he grabbed one of the chips ready to shove it into his mouth. But as soon as he touched it, he screamed in pain and dropped the burning hot chip on the floor.
*
Theo sat bolt upright in bed, startled at how vivid the dream had been. He’d always had strange dreams at the best of times, but even by his own standards this one had been pretty weird. Why he had suddenly dreamt about Jules when she hadn’t really crossed his mind for some time, he had no idea. But whatever the reason was, he felt very guilty for having put her to the back of his mind, which in turn made him wonder what she was up to right now. Was she perhaps galloping off to school down the rough, narrow, badly pitted tree lined road? Or was she maybe sat in the Library swatting for her exams? Then he wondered if she’d found a new friend to while away her time with, perhaps even a boyfriend. Probably. She had most likely resigned herself to the fact that Theo wasn’t coming back and was busy getting on with her life. After all, he wouldn’t have blam
ed her because he was doing the same.
But none of that really mattered, at least not at the moment. What mattered to him right now was that, today, he had to make one of the most important decisions of his life: whether or not to accept the Star Agency’s offer to train as an operative. On one hand it seemed like the most exciting thing in the universe, being sent on secret missions to other worlds with hi-tech gadgets. But on the other hand, would all his missions be so eventful? Probably not. For all he knew, he might be stuck in Star Agency Command, sleeping through boring lectures about surveillance techniques rather than out saving the Affinity. It might be a long, long time before he would be sent to do anything else remotely interesting.
And of course there had to be alternatives to joining the Star Agency. After all, would it really be so bad going to somewhere like Teng Muah for real? Or becoming a Star Pilot, racing through asteroid fields and dodging spinning space rocks, like a real life Han Solo? He guessed probably not. Suddenly, he realised that he hadn’t really thought about it all. The alternatives had never really entered his head.
Besides which, if he did join the Star Agency, there was the danger. After all, he had been close to death more than once during the mission. No, not just close to death but, for a few moments when his heart had stopped, actually been dead. And it wasn’t by accident either. Somebody had deliberately disrupted the power on the research station, the ship and his companion. And that same somebody had probably initiated the self-destruct and maybe even reprogrammed the Star Shield platform to attack them. Was it the Metah Dah? Or was it somebody else? Whomever it was, had, it seemed, been trying to kill him. What if they tried again? In their first meeting, he had been warned by First Mentor that there were possible dangers. But it was one thing being told about the danger and another thing entirely being thrust right into the middle of it. Of course, he had survived through his own wit and ingenuity, but what about the next time? Would they stop trying to kill him just because he wasn’t in the Star Agency? And would whoever had sent the ships to rescue him, still be looking out for him?