Tik announced, "We need to get off at day eight. That will give us time to decelerate and go into a parking orbit."
Gus thoughtfully asked, "If it will take us 10 days to get in place and at least 4 -- no make that 5 days to get fuel, how long can we stay there and still have food to get somewhere? How will we know where to go to get food? Like you mentioned before, what will we use for money?"
Ron looked at the inventory and calculated before he answered, "I think we have about two months food. I would say that we can't stay any longer than twenty days. That would give us a months worth of food. We don't know if we'll have to lay low somewhere to dodge the Bugs, so I'd like a little cushion. If the rockets only pick up a dipper full at a time, we're in trouble but I think the rockets do a lot more than that. As for money, Tik, where was that silver and zinc that you saw when you were first checking out the asteroid?"
"There seems to be a fair-sized deposit just to our starboard, right at the edge of the ice field. It appears to be close to the surface also. How will we mine it?" Tik responded.
"I don't know. Maybe one of those weapons uses a laser and we could modify it to cut the silver and zinc. If we could cut blocks or slices, we could move that into the ship. There would be a lot of mass but almost no weight on this asteroid. I hope the weapons use the same fuel as Auntie but I don't know where we will get the extra fuel to start the mining," Ron mused.
"What would happen if we launched a rocket tomorrow or the next day?" Gus asked.
"It would take longer to get there and back but I suppose it would meet us somewhere along the asteroid's trajectory. Let me do some figuring," Ron answered.
He worked on Auntie's computer for several minutes and then stated, "It would take five days to get there and back if we fired it in two days. That would only leave one day before we had to leave the asteroid to decelerate."
Tik interrupted, "What if we didn't get off as we approached? What if we got off two days after we were at the apex? We're going to have to burn fuel so why not burn it to come back to a point rather than stop at a point? It would take a little more fuel but it would give us four more days to mine."
"Boy, we're so good as a team it's almost scary. One thing for sure, by firing a rocket early, it would let us see how much fuel the rockets scoop before we're too committed. Then we can go to plan B if necessary. So tomorrow we need to finish exploring the lower deck of Auntie. The next day we need to defuel the robots and the fliter and put the fuel in one of the rockets. After we fire it off, we need to load all the rockets into the pods on Auntie's outer skin to be ready when the first one comes back. We'll have to concentrate for the next five days on getting water and oxygen. Once the rocket has returned, we need to get additional rockets ready to fire and then we need to start mining. Just think, we'll be doing all of this while we are looking over our shoulder to see if the Bugs have found us. I can see right now that I won't be bored and I don't think either of you will be either," Ron said with a laugh.
They all agreed and decided they would turn in early so they could get an early start tomorrow. If they could finish exploring, maybe they could start with the defueling and refueling. Ron thought he might have trouble drifting off to sleep. His mind was whirling with all of the new things they had found and wondering what they were. It had been harder work using the space suit than he thought; however, so it didn't take long to drop off. The others were the same way.
They were up early and rushed through breakfast. They hurried to the space suits and went through the same procedure as the day before. When they were in the elevator, they dropped 9 levels and stopped. The trio looked at one another wondering what they would find today. The door opened and they stepped into their biggest surprise yet.
They were on the upper catwalk looking down on another cargo bay. This cargo bay wasn't empty like the others had been. There was something that looked like a sail boat and another that was obviously some kind of powered boat. There were several land vehicles and a couple of aircraft. They were all of distinctly alien design. They could tell that two of them were boats because of the hulls and the masts on one. The aircraft had wings but that was where the similarity to any planes Ron had ever seen ended. There were a couple of strange-looking tracked pieces of equipment. These pieces of equipment looked like they pulled a cart which had high sides. It reminded Ron of a pickup box with sideboards on tracks. There were mechanical arms on the equipment that looked like it could pick up items and put them into the cart. There were two other arms, one of which had an attachment that looked like a half-claw/ half-bucket. The other arm had some sort of round tube that looked like it had a glass dome on one end. The floor of the cargo bay seemed fairly crowded because it was smaller than the one above. The rooms along the outside walls were deeper and had to be curved to match the outside hull of the space ship. Ron checked his healer unit and everything seemed normal so far. The trio started down the line of doors opening each one and checking them out.
Ron walked over to one long door and opened it. The room must have been 75 feet long, almost 25 feet wide and 9 feet tall. Both walls were lined with racks that held all sorts of different weapons. Some were so strange he had to guess that was what they were. There were all different types of swords, cutlasses and other cutting-type weapons. There were even maces and different types of war clubs. All of the different styles looked like they came from different planets for different types of creatures to use. The handles were various sizes and shapes with several of them decorated with fancy jewels and gold inlays. There appeared to be different types of side-arms from alien cultures and rifles that matched.
"Wow! Let the Bugs come in about a week. Once we know what this stuff does and how to operate it, the Bugs won't have a chance," Ron exclaimed.
The other two rushed over and looked inside the room. Tik cried in awe, "Oh my goodness. Look at all of those weapons."
"Wow some of these look similar to my ax/hammer. Look at these -- they are similar to the war clubs of the Sandghost. Do you know what any of these are?" Gus blurted out in surprise as he pointed to some weapons that looked like the blasters the Bugs used.
Tik suddenly pointed and exclaimed, "Look. Aren't those stingerrays? They look a little different from the ones the Bugs use. The ones the Bugs have now look like the newer and improved version of these."
"I sure hope we can find information about this on Auntie's computer," Ron declared. "I've never even seen anything like some of this stuff and I don't have a clue how it works. But that is a mystery for another day. We need to press on. My healer unit says everything looks good so far."
The second one they opened was full of some sort of electronic equipment. Tik checked out two or three pieces and declared, "I think this is some sort of remote detection equipment. It almost looks like a miniature version of Auntie's radar/spectrometer equipment. I wonder if this would fly out from here and relay information back. I'm going to have to research this. Those smaller units look like a 3-D camera. Look how small they are. If they were flying, nobody would even notice them."
There was way too much 'stuff' to check out at that time. The trio really wanted to check out this lower level and then get ready to launch a rocket. They closed the door and went to the next one. This room turned out to be the water storage tank. There was a small space with pipes, valves and gauges. Ron looked in and thought it was the distribution center for the water. There was an area in the room that was the purifying unit. On Auntie, as much water as possible was recycled. They moved to the wall at the end of the cargo bay. When they entered the passageway there, they saw it was laid out much the same as top level above. The rooms along the side held a lot of the distribution equipment for electrical and oxygen. The oxygen scrubber was located there with pipes going through the ceiling and floor. Ron looked at some of them and wondered if they piped CO2 back to the conservatory to help the plants grow. The center rooms were deluxe offices and more luxurious living quarters. The other side was a du
plicate of the port side.
They headed down one more level. So far they would have had no problem without the space suits but they all were not willing to take the chance that there could be something bad behind one of the doors. The first two doors had odds and ends in them so they didn't spend any time there. The rest of the rooms on that wall were still part of the water and oxygen tanks with their associated purifying equipment.
The center rooms were where the big surprises really started. Some of the rooms were full of computer, communication and detection equipment. The rooms were obviously climate-controlled. Lights were blinking and the equipment was definitely working. Ron and Gus had to literally drag Tik out of the room. She wanted to start checking everything out but the other two knew they needed to move on.
The next room was a situation/comm room. The walls were covered with giant view screens, one of which showed the asteroid they were sitting on. Another screen showed the ice field and the location of the silver. There were several chairs around the room and a console in the center that looked like it could be the control. Tik sat down and ran her hands over the controls as she stared in rapture at everything.
Ron said, "Gus, you might as well carry her. I know that her legs won't work now."
Gus reached to grab her and Tik growled, "Touch me and you'll lose that finger. I'll bite it right off."
Gus laughed and asked, "How are you going to bite me with that helmet on?"
"I'll jerk it off to get a bite if I have to!" Tik responded.
Ron chuckled as he said, "Now, now you two. We still have another level to check out. What's this?"
He was standing in front of another console. This one had several joysticks and lots of buttons and gauges. It had two screens that were blank right now. Tik moved over to it and studied it for several minutes. Finally she said, "If I didn't know better, I'd swear it's a weapons control center. These joysticks could point the weapons and probably Auntie's computer would track and fire. Hmmm…..let me try to turn it on."
Tik tried the power switch but nothing happened. She moved the joysticks and tried other button but the console was still dead. Ron said, "I'd be leery of pushing buttons you don't know about. It could be dropping bombs or sending out laser beams that the Bugs will be able to track."
"You're right. I forgot myself. Another mystery to solve when I get some time on the computer," Tik cried excitedly.
They noticed two doors that appeared to lead to a closet. When Ron opened the door, there was a shaft that went from the bottom of the space craft to the top. He thought he could see other doors at different levels. Was this another elevator? None of them remembered seeing any small doors like this on the other levels but they had been in a hurry when they looked in those rooms, so it was possible.
Ron led the way to the next room. There was a cross passageway and the door to the next room appeared to be in the center of it. Ron walked over and opened the door. As it swung in, he stopped dead in his tracks. Tik was right behind him and ran into him. Gus was close enough to peer over his shoulder.
There in the room was another flight deck and cockpit. Instead of windows, there were view screens across the nose side of the room. There were more controls, gauges and instruments than in the one above. This looked like the super deluxe model while the one they had been in was the bare minimum stripped-down version. There was another weapons console on the flight deck but Gus wouldn't let Tik touch anything on it. Ron sat down in the pilot's seat and flipped a couple of switches. The screens came to life showing the view in front of the space ship. He felt the controls and knew that they would be live if he wanted to fly Auntie from here. Why would the Alcantarans have two cockpits? Had this been some sort of spy ship rather than just the small freighter it looked like? Tik really needed time to search the computer for some answers.
Ron flipped the switches off and they headed for the other levels. They checked them out and found more mysteries but nothing extraordinary. This space ship definitely had led a double life. The trio was burning with curiosity but they had a schedule to stick to. They went to the upper cargo bay and took their space suits off. They held a council of war and decided they didn't need Tik to help with the rockets so she was going back down to level 3 to see if she could find some answers in the computer. Ron would get the rockets ready while Gus drained the fuel from the fliter and the robots. The first thing in the morning they would take them outside to load in the pods. Ron would program the rocket to launch toward the star and scoop up as much fuel as it could.
Ron and Gus worked late but they were all ready for in the morning. The fuel from the fliter had actually filled two rockets so they still had some fuel left in the robots. They went to the galley to fix something to eat and saw that Tik still wasn't back. Both of them concentrated and said, "Tik, it's time to quit. You need to come eat. Leave something for tomorrow."
In just a short time Tik popped out of a panel in the galley. She startled Gus so bad he dropped his drink. It spilled all over the table and onto the floor.
Tik laughed and asked, "What's the matter, Big Boy? Don't you like my magic lift?"
Gus tried to bluster but his curiosity got the better of him. He asked, "How did you do that? Did you come all the way from the lower deck?"
"Yeah, that's about the only thing I did figure out. See these decorations here? If you push them like this…it will take you to the lower level of the middle cargo bay. Doing this will take you all the way to the bottom and this will bring you up to here," Tik gloated.
"I don't see an elevator. How does it move you up and down?" Gus asked.
"It must work on gravity/anti-gravity. I put a pillow off of one of the beds down there in it and watched it go to the top level. I hit the buttons to bring it down. Then I had to try it for myself. It was quite a thrill the first time, I must say. For me going down is worse than coming up. Here, do you want to try it?" Tik responded eagerly.
"I don't know if it will hold my weight. I think I'd rather be on the bottom floor and only go up one floor to try it the first time. Or better yet, find something that weighs as much as I do and try it," Gus hedged.
Ron laughed, "Yeah, we don't need to have Gus break legs or arms or worse right now. He has to help with the rockets. Not to change the subject, but did you say you didn't get anything out of the computer?"
"I tried everything I could and all I got was what I can get right here. I'll use my mini-computer tomorrow to see if I can do better. Look, when this panel closes, you can't even tell that it's an elevator. I wonder how many other secret panels this ship has. Maybe we'll even find an Alcantaran hiding in the walls," Tik ended in a mysterious whisper.
They talked for just a short while and then decided to turn in. Ron tossed and turned because his shoulders were aching from all the strain of using the space suit the past two days and then the moving of the rockets to make sure the valves were in the right position. His 62 years were catching up with him. Thirty-five years ago, this would have been nothing. Even twenty years ago he wouldn't have felt this bad. He debated about checking with the healer to see if it could do something. Suddenly, he remembered what Kota had said about the bracelet in the storeroom. Maybe it would do something. He quietly got up and slipped out of the room. He went to the storeroom and got the bracelet. He felt the familiar tingle as he put it on. He closed the door and went softly back to his quarters. By the time he got back in bed, he was already feeling a little better. He laid down and in just a little bit, he was asleep. The next morning he felt like a new man. He decided he would keep wearing the bracelet.
After the group had a quick meal, Tik headed down to the main computer. Ron and Gus were heading for the space suits and outside. Tik reminded them to set the air lock so they wouldn't lose any air. They were debating what would be the best way to get the rockets outside when Gus spotted the grav-sleds tied down on the deck. He suggested that they use them to haul all the rockets in one trip. He said the grav-sleds would also lift
them up to the height they needed to load the rockets. Ron agreed and they stacked the rockets on the grav-sled. In short order, they were standing in the air lock at the big rear door. After the air was pumped out, they opened the door and pushed the grav-sled outside.
Gus stopped to check on the controls for the rear tractor beam. Ron forgot they were on a small asteroid with almost zero gravity. Auntie had her own artificial gravity, so gravity was the last thing on Ron's mind. He gave a small push to the grav-sled, leaping on as he did. The grav-sled and Ron shot out the back of the space ship and headed for the shield. There wasn't enough gravity to pull him down and no air for friction to slow him either. He flew across the ice and ran into the shield. The shield bounced him back toward the space ship at the same speed he had left the space ship. Ron let out a yelp as he shot toward the shield and Gus whirled around. Gus saw the problem immediately and flipped the control on his suit to magnetize his boots. When Ron came bouncing back to the space ship, Gus was ready to catch the grav-sled.
Ron grinned shakily and said, "I'm glad we had the shield up. I might be headed off to the far reaches of space on a grav-sled. Thanks for the rescue."
"No problem, it looks like us land-lubbers have some things to learn. I can see we need to talk about some of these problems any time we come outside the space ship. I'll have Tik put in an automatic reminder in the computer," Gus responded with a grin.
Ron flipped his control to magnetize his boots as he stood up on the grav-sled. Gus operated the tractor beam and had it grab the sled. He maneuvered it to the port-side opening. Ron directed him until he could see the pods and then pushed three rockets in. They slid in very easily and once they were in, seemed to be locked in. Gus moved him to the starboard-side and he loaded the other three rockets. He and Gus returned inside the air lock where they closed the outer door and let the air pressure build. As soon as they could, they entered the cargo bay and climbed out of their space suits. They hung them on the rack and hurried to the flight deck.
Alcantaran 1: Alien Abduction Page 16