by R.E. Rowe
Chapter 15
Jayden jerked himself upright when a loud whack vibrated the metal hatch door to their quarters.
“Rinse and scrub, rebel battalions!” Altair3 bellowed, thumping the metal wall again with a huge steel hammer. “Teaching in ten. I’ll zoom again in five. Be willing.”
Jayden stretched and glanced at Nora, then at Parker. Both of them were awake and sitting. “Time to put our game faces on.”
In five minutes, Altair3 returned and led them back inside the railroad-car room.
“On your bellies, earthworms,” Altair3 said, pointing to the chairs surrounding the metal conference table.
Rhea2 rushed in wearing a tight brown leather body suit with gunmetal chains. Yellow jewelry dangled around her neck. Small silver chains decorated with red gems adorned her hands and wrapped around her wrists, then attached to a diamond ring on her middle fingers. Silver eyelids. Sparkling gold lips. Lime-green skin.
Jayden thought everything about her clashed, but it didn’t stop him from doing a double take. Girls from Andromeda were pretty hot, even with freaky flower-fern hair and screechy balloon voices.
“Operational names?” Rhea2 asked.
No one replied.
She cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Tell me what name you wish to use. We don’t use real names around here for obvious reasons. Ever.”
Jayden realized she meant gamer names, and raised his hand. “Killgeek.”
“Zeekmo.”
“BBgun.”
“G-striker.”
Jayden peered at Cleo, waiting for her to chime in. When she didn’t, he whispered to her, “Those are our online gamer names. Just make something up. Andromeda girl is right . . . It’s better than using your real name.”
Cleo stared blankly at him, and then at Parker. “Any ideas?”
“Well?” Rhea2 asked. Clearly, girls from Andromeda weren’t very patient.
“How about ZapperGirl?” Parker blurted out.
Cleo grinned. “I like it,” she said nodding, and then clapped her hands. “Call me ZapperGirl!”
Nora rolled her eyes.
“Thank you, Earth child,” Rhea2 said. “Next, you all must learn a few skills before you’re useful to us in next raid. First thing, we don’t do hand-to-hand. Killgeek, G-striker, and BBgun, there are no robo pods here. Sorry for you.”
“What about blasters?” Parker asked.
“Afraid not. We have no blaster weapons that can hit a shape-shifter Zepar. We use wearable electro-shock weapons instead that deliver a bolt of electricity.”
“Like a Taser?” Parker asked.
“No. ES wearables are more advanced than your simple Earth shock weapons. We wear them on our hands, knees, and elbows. Each delivers a bolt of electricity up to a distance of two meters.”
“Those sound like the same weapons I used in that game the first time I took your flag,” Nora whispered.
Jayden raised an eyebrow but didn’t turn his attention from Rhea2.
“Additionally, we have high-energy electromechanical pulse wafers. Each one is stored in wire mesh cover. Set timer. Leave it and run. Disables all electronic devices and weapons in an area where activated.”
“A pulse?” BBgun asked.
“Sounds like an electromechanical pulse,” Parker said. “You know, an EMP, a super powerful energy burst. Sort of like what a nuke does, but without a massive explosion. Doesn’t hurt people, just destroys anything with an ‘on’ switch.”
“That’s it?” Jayden asked.
“Do not underestimate these weapons, Earth boy,” she replied.
Jayden was about to argue, but remembered they were playing along at the moment. He kept his mouth shut.
“What about lasers?” Parker asked. “We saw a kid get blasted by one.”
“Laser weapons are built into a Zepar’s physical structure. Zepar use a small handheld activation clicker—one button to paint a target with a laser mark, one button to blast painted target with a high-powered laser. Clickers work only within specific areas.”
Cleo groaned and scratched at her head. “Why is everything so complicated?”
“What else do you have?” Parker asked.
“We have fighter carriages, mostly UFOs, a few Atilla Draz carriages, and two galactic transport carriages that we use to travel across Milky Way.”
“You jacked them?” asked Nora.
Rhea2 glared at Nora. “We say ‘borrowed for our cause.’” She sucked in a long, squeaky breath. “All models of carriages require dark energy for power to travel within a star system and operate basic life support systems, food production, and essentials. All require neutron star refueling to enter the space between the space after every three to four flights.”
Cleo held her head. “Neutron?”
“What happens if the spaceship runs out of fuel during travel in the space between the space?” Nora asked.
“No place to land,” Altair3 said. “Ever.”
“He means you die,” Rhea2 added, eyeing Nora.
“Nice . . . not. How many rebel bases are there?” Parker asked her as if she was their middle school science teacher back on Earth.
There he goes again, Jayden thought, always the teacher’s pet. He rolled his eyes.
“Presently . . . twenty, but we only use three at one time. We move bases every 604,800 PSR1a2b3 rotations.”
“Rotations?” BBgun asked, glancing at the others.
“Rotations of a pulsar named PSR1a2b3,” she replied.
“How long is that?” Cleo asked.
“Roughly, seven Earth days,” Rhea2 said. “Other notable points of interest . . . There are Ga data station nodes every parsec. Each node connects to all stations within one parsec.”
“What’s a parsec?” asked Cleo.
BBgun sat up and chimed in. “A parsec equals a little over three light years or about nineteen trillion miles.”
“Let me guess, the astronomy class you took?” Jayden whispered.
BBgun shrugged.
“What about the Ga computer network?” asked Nora.
Jayden discretely winked at Nora. He knew where she was going with that question.
“You will not understand,” Rhea2 replied. “It is best to skip over that information.”
Nora lowered her voice and said, “Try me.” Her eyes narrowed.
Jayden felt his stomach gurgle and squirmed.
Rhea2 turned her head slightly and gazed curiously at Nora. “If you are interested, Zeekmo, I will tell.” Rhea2 paused as if to collect her thoughts.
She gazed at Nora for a moment, and then continued. “Ga computers use quantum technology. Photon-shifting communication using entangling particles . . .”
Jayden’s eyes slid out of focus, and he turned away. These details he’d leave to Nora for obvious reasons. He counted the lights in the room, then the chairs, then tattoos on Rhea2’s neck. Before long, he ran out of things to count.
Rhea2 was still droning on about Ga technology. “Encrypted with quantum encryption algorithms that no one in either of our galaxies has been unable to decrypt.”
Nora’s shoulders stiffened.
Jayden sat up straight and braced himself for a brawl. His bet was on Nora. She’d just been body slammed by the fern-headed girl from Andromeda. Rhea2 was right about one thing. He had no idea what quantum encryption meant. But he bet Nora did.
Nora cleared her throat, and Jayden braced himself. She narrowed her eyes at Rhea2, and then began spewing words. “You mean the computers are based on quantum mechanical phenomena, such as, superposition and entanglement to perform data processing operations. Whereas most Earth-based computation is performed by digital computers where data is encoded using only silicon-based technology that uses binary digits, representing a one or a zero. Simply put for Andros children, Miss Andromeda, the computer can be in more than one state simultaneously.” She ended with a huff.
Jayden seriously thought Nora was g
oing to flip Rhea2 the bird too, but she didn’t.
Rhea2 took a short step backward and raised one eyebrow at Nora.
“You were right,” he whispered to Parker. “She had an awesome MIT tutor.”
Parker grinned without shifting his eyes from his twin sister, seriously watching her back.
“Have you attempted to hack in?” Nora asked. “Maybe using an entangled qubit-state machine or a polarization-hacker-bot?”
Jayden knew Nora was scheming. Looking for an angle, some weakness she could exploit after Rhea2’s galactic class from hell.
Rhea2 shifted her weight and looked down. “Ah, well, no, Zeekmo. We have not.”
“Why not? After all, you’re Andros. I hear your people work in mines and pass gas. That’s got to be mentally difficult, right?”
Oooooh! Nice one. Jayden smiled.
Rhea2 cleared her throat and tried unsuccessfully to lower her voice. Her pitch rose with each word. “We have not tried to break their encryption,” she said, glaring at Nora, “simply because it is unbreakable.”
“I see,” said Nora with a smile. “Perhaps an Earth child should give it a try.”
“Perhaps,” Rhea2 replied. Her face suddenly changed from light green to hunter green with a touch of fuchsia.
“Point, Nora,” Jayden mumbled.
“I suspect whoever invented a way to use quantum mechanics to convert and transport particles in the form of waves could hack their system,” Nora added. “Like the way you transported us to the conference room when we first arrived at this base. Our bodies converted from particles to waves, then back into particles, right?”
Rhea2 nodded. “But the range is limited.”
Two points, Nora, Jayden thought. He cleared his throat, trying to get Rhea2’s attention. It was time for him to defuse the situation. If they ever wanted to jack a transport to get back home, they needed Rhea2 as an ally, not an enemy.
Rhea2 quickly composed herself by drawing in a wheezy breath. “Yes,” she said, turning to Jayden. “You have a question?”
“You said we’re going on a mission, right?” Jayden asked. “Well?”
She nodded. “On every Space Command base exists a carriage hub. Your first mission will be to fly one UFO to carriage hub, and then fly five UFOs back to our base.”
They all sat up in their chairs.
“Is that how the raids work?” Parker asked.
“What do you mean?” Rhea2 asked, questioning him with her eyes.
Parker swallowed hard. “We just surprise them, do a grab and dash? No pray and spray?”
Rhea2 cocked her head to the side. She tapped at her earplug translators.
Nora huffed. “He wants to know if our mission is just to jack stuff,” she said. “You know heist, take, steal, snatch.”
“Ah, steal,” Rhea2 said. “Yes. We borrow.”
“When is the raid?” Parker asked. His gaze fixed on Rhea2.
“Oh, man, I’ve never driven a freaking UFO before,” Cleo said, holding her face in her hands. “Zeekmo did, like, all the driving when we left the training base.”
“No problem. I’ll walk you all through it,” Nora said softly. “It’s like driving a car.”
“Oh.” Cleo lowered her voice to a whisper. “Never driven one of those either.”
BBgun fidgeted in his chair but stayed quiet.
“Once you suit up, I will provide coordinates,” Rhea2 said. “You simply proceed to coordinates. Once your UFO punches back into space, you go to Zeta109b’s third moon—”
“Isn’t that where we were fighting on the front line?” Parker asked.
Rhea2 nodded. “Flight pattern will appear on your display. The transportation hub is orbiting Zeta109b’s third moon with approximately three hundred Space Command UFOs. Once in range, Zeekmo will stay on UFO while the rest of you transport to hub using the quantum transporter. There, each will acquire a UFO. Then return to coordinates on this paper.” She handed each of them a small piece of paper with six sets of numbers on it. “Simple. Punch numbers into the coordinate dial in sequence shown on paper.”
“Will we have other rebels backing us up?” Parker asked.
“No. You are on your own.” Rhea2 glared for a couple seconds, then tightened her lips, focusing on Nora. “Do not allow coordinates to fall into hands of Space Command for obvious reasons.”
BBgun leaned over to Parker and whispered, “What obvious reasons?”
“They’d figure out the location of this base, duh,” Parker whispered.
Rhea2 ignored their whispered conversation as she continued. “Once you punch into space between the space, Space Command cannot track you.” Rhea2 gazed fixedly at each of them. “Any questions?”
They reluctantly shook their heads. Everything was about to get crazier.