by John Jonas
CHAPTER 12
Cindy Young had been taking the anti-telepathy drug for a week now, and her connection to her brother Drago had been slowly severed. She learned a lot about her brother during this time, both from sharing his thoughts and talking with him at night after his days at the Space Command. It has been less than a week and she wanted to get to know him better, but lately she had caught herself thinking more and more about Jarvick. She was staying with her brother at his place but gladly went with him during the days of preparing the ship so she could get close to him. She found him quite attractive, but there was something else she couldn’t explain that made her want to get to know him better, too.
The retrofit of the cargo ship was finished on the sixth evening and Jarvick told Drago to load everything he will need onto the ship; they were to take off the next morning. Cindy had spent the days in the Space Command office, reading about her home planet Gavilon and watching the men work on the ship.
The next morning, everything they would need was loaded on the ship, and the three of them boarded it and prepared for the long trip. The massive roof was opened and the ship slowly lifted off the ground and exited the hangar. Jarvick was at the controls and Drago sat in the copilot position, with Cindy standing in the back of the bridge trying to stay out of the way. The front screen was open so they could see Gavilon and its oceans getting smaller as the ship made its way into space. The larger moon, Eos, was off to the right and a small orange dot to the left was Ios. Jarvick closed the front screen and programmed the navigation computer the same way he did on the first trip, hyperlight until Jupiter; and then sub-light speed after that. He turned to Cindy and said “Drago and I need to talk about a plan, why don’t you go down to the hypersleep compartment and we’ll be down shortly.”
Cindy left the bridge and Jarvick asked “What do we need to get that thruster engine going again? Can we re-use it?”
“First, we have to find it. Then we have to refuel it.” Drago said.
“I assume you mean refuel it with uranium.”
“Yes. And you know what that means.”
Jarvick shook his head “That means we will have to go back and talk to my brother.”
“Yes, it does.” said Drago.
“That’s going to take more time, time that we are already running short of.” Jarvick pounded his fist on the control panel.
“Then we better get to hyperlight speed”. The both of them stood and began to climb down the ladder toward the lower compartment.
Three weeks later, Jarvick was the first to emerge from hypersleep, and he woke Cindy first. He had planned this in order to administer her anti-telepathy drug before waking her brother, then he would wake up Drago and give him the same medication. Neither had received the training to deal with their inherent telepathic connection so the drugs were a necessity. After waking Drago, Jarvick climbed up to the bridge and checked on their position. The navigation system indicated that it had just dropped out of hyperlight and was nearing Jupiter. Jarvick slowed the ship and began searching for the asteroid just as Drago entered the bridge.
“Why are we slowing down now? We are a long way from Earth.”
Jarvick touched the control panel and said “We need to find your thruster engine before we go to Earth. There’s no use in picking up the uranium if we don’t have the thruster.”
“Oh, good point. Any luck yet?”
“I just now located your asteroid, it’s just ahead. Then we can scan for the thruster.” Jarvick opened the front screen and Jupiter came into view on the left side of it just as the CAS light and alarm lit up on the panel. “There is the asteroid, now if can just find the engine.”
Jarvick manipulated a few more controls and the computer screen displayed a large green object in the center. A yellow line scrolled across screen from top to bottom, hesitating at the large circle in the center then continued down to the bottom. Drago said “Try looking on the other side of it.”
Jarvick moved the controls and the ship began to circle around the asteroid to the other side. He then started the scan again, the yellow line moving from top to bottom, it pausing at the circle in the center. This time, however, a small dot appeared near the circle. “There it is!” The ship moved closer to the asteroid and stopped about a mile above the surface. On the front screen they could see Drago’s Ion Particle Beam Thruster, drifting in space paralleling the asteroid; the tip of the huge cylindrical nozzle blackened by the previous use.
Jarvick turned to Drago and said “Go suit up and let’s capture that thing in the cargo bay.” Drago left the bridge and descended the ladder; passing by the crew quarters and on seeing Cindy, he said “Better suit up as a precaution. We’re going to decompress the cargo bay.” He found his suit in the utility locker and put it on, then exited the lower level and opened the airlock. Entering the massive cargo bay, he remembered what he did to Hemet, and wondering what the detective had in store for him after all this, IF they were successful.
“Ready for decompress” he said as he reached the control panel for the mechanical arm near the rear door. Jarvick must have adjusted the gravity a little because he felt slightly heavier, then the red light in the ceiling started to flash and alarms sounded. The rear door began to open and Drago could see that Jarvick had rotated the ship so that the thruster was floating near the back of the ship about a hundred yards away. “Back a little farther” Drago said and the thruster began to move closer as the mechanical arm extended and touched it. “Hold it right there!” and then the arm locked onto a cable that was attached to it and pulled it closer. The cable was for the pallet gravity controls, and the pallet was still attached. Drago pulled the huge thruster engine into the cargo bay where the built-in gravity system pulled it down to the floor. It settled with a gentle thud as Drago said “You can close the rear door, we got it.” When the door was closed he could see that the decompression light turned green, and then heard Jarvick say “All clear.”
Drago was examining his engine when Jarvick and Cindy entered the cargo bay and he heard “Wow, that thing is huge. Is it still usable?”
He turned to Jarvick “I think so, I don’t see any damage.”
“Let’s get it tied down, we have to get moving.” Cindy watched as the two men strapped down Drago’s thruster, then they left the cargo bay through the airlock. When the three of them reached the bridge, Jarvick sat down in the pilot’s seat and said “I have to get through this asteroid field faster than I should, but we are running short on time. I’ll need your help, Drago.”
“Yes sir, Captain.” Drago sat in the copilot seat and the two of them were busy for the rest of the day. Cindy had gone down to the crew quarters to read, and when she returned, the front screen was open and she could see the cratered surface of the moon. The men had stationed the ship on the back side of it, just as Jarvick had done the last time they were here.
“Drago and I are going to jump down to Earth, Cindy, do you want to go home or stay here aboard the ship?”
“I’ll stay here; that asteroid isn’t aimed at the ship.”
“Okay, we should be back in a few hours. Don’t touch any of the controls; it would be better if you waited in the crew quarters.”
Jarvick and Drago descended to the cargo bay utility locker and donned their jump belts, which had been pre-programmed.
Jim Wilkins was sitting in the small cafeteria enjoying lunch when Jarvick contacted him.
Jim, we need to meet outside. It’s a matter of life and death. URGENT.
He shook his head and tried to clear the cobwebs, then he realized who it was. Uh Oh, he thought, Jarvick is back. He took his tray to the trash and left the cafeteria, turning right toward the elevator. When he got to the parking lot, he could see two men standing outside the gate. He recognized Jarvick and the other man looked vaguely familiar.
“Jarvick, good to see you again. What brings you back here?”
“Good to see you, too, Jim. We are going to need your help, Earth is in danger.”<
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“How, or why is it in danger?”
“This is Drago, the guy who stole your uranium. Remember seeing him on the video?”
“YOU!??! You’re the one?!? I’m calling security, Jarvick.”
Jarvick held out his hand, palm toward Jim, “Wait Jim, I arrested him and he is my prisoner. He will pay for his crimes on Gavilon when all this is over. Right now I need you to convince your superiors to release some more uranium so we can save this planet.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
Jarvick explained to Jim about the asteroid on its way to destroying Earth, how Drago altered its path, and they only have a few days left.
“How much uranium do you need?”
Jarvick turned to Drago, who said “Twice as much as I used last time. Six cylinders.”
Jim shook his head “I’ll never be able to get authorization for it. I think you’re going to have to get it the same way you got it the last time.”
Jarvick asked “Why not? Your planet is going to be destroyed!”
“I know that, but we will have to explain the whole story to the Department of Energy, starting from the existence of another Earth-like planet, to us being twins, and so on. They will never believe us, so I suggest you think up another way.”
Jarvick thought a minute, then asked “Do you still have that homing beacon you found in the vault?”
“Yes, it’s in my lab.”
“Put it back in the vault.”
Jim nodded his okay, but then asked “Why can’t you just jump in there like you do when you come here? You don’t need a beacon for that, do you?”
“No, but we aren’t jumping into a room full of radiation and interference.”
Jim then said “Okay, I’ll let you know when I have it in place. I’m going to have to think up an excuse to go in there, so give me an hour and I’ll let you know.”
When Jarvick got the Okay, I’m ready from Jim, he and Drago jumped in and took six cylinders of uranium and jumped out. Jim was in the security center performing a conveniently timed maintenance update on the camera system, so the cameras were off. He would deal with the inventory discrepancy later. Jarvick and Drago appeared in the cargo bay on the cargo ship, holding three cylinders each.
“Get that thing refueled, I’m going to the bridge.” Jarvick went through the airlock and climbed the ladder. Cindy saw him and climbed up after him.
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes, now we need to get back to the asteroid as soon as possible.” Jarvick touched a control and the moon disappeared from view on the screen.
“That asteroid should be well past the asteroid belt and close to Mars by now. We’ve only got a few days to get that thing to change directions. I hope Drago can get his thruster to work again.” Jarvick put the ship into sublight speed and watched the monitor. After an hour he slowed the ship and changed modes on the navigation computer to look for the asteroid. He saw it appear on the monitor, showing up as a green circle in the center. He touched a button and stood to leave the bridge, Cindy following behind him.
Entering the cargo bay, Jarvick asked “How is the refueling going?”
Drago was screwing one of the cylinders into the side of the thruster. “It’s going to be another couple of hours before I’m ready. The last time I only used three cylinders and it burned for ten hours. We are going to need better than twenty hours to get that asteroid to change directions enough to miss Earth, and that means I have to use all six.”
“Understood. Let me know when you’re ready, I’ll be in the crew quarters getting some rest.” Jarvick went into the crew quarters and tried to sleep, but kept thinking about the asteroid, how it had already passed the Mars orbit, and was hurtling toward Earth, the next planet in its path. He had the navigation computer match the speed of it in order to stay near it, and was just drifting off into his nap when he heard, or rather thought They see the asteroid, Jarvick. The space agency’s on Earth have discovered it and know we are in danger.
The message from his brother surprised him, he didn’t think Jim would learn how to use his gift so fast. Jarvick decided to reply; You learned fast, brother. Are they planning anything now?
Not yet, but they are talking about using the orbiting lasers to try and destroy it.
Jarvick thought That would be a very bad move, it would only turn one asteroid into a thousand.
We are about ready to try the thruster; I hope they wait before they attempt anything.
He didn’t get a reply from him, and Jarvick was now too worried to sleep, so he left the crew quarters and went to the bridge. He looked at the front screen which showed the gray surface
of the enormous boulder and thought he should prepare for the next step. Taking control of the
ship from the autopilot, he moved it closer to the asteroid and rotated it ninety degrees to
become parallel to the surface. After extending the landing gear, he felt a slight bump as he set
the ship down against the surface and put it into a gravity hold. Touching his comm button, he says “Drago, how long before you’re ready?”
“Just finishing up now.”
When the thruster was offloaded onto the asteroid, Jarvick moved the cargo ship to a safe distance approximately one hundred miles away. The front screen was on, showing the asteroid in the center. Drago retrieved the suitcase sized controller he used the first time he deployed the thruster and opened the cover.
“I’m ready to ignite it, Jarvick.”
Jarvick paused a few seconds, then said “I’m starting a record of this on the computer so let me count it down.” Touching a button on the command console, he started counting “3.. 2.. 1.. GO!”
Drago moved his hands over the controls and they watched the screen.
Nothing happened.