Aces

by Alanson, Craig

  Manny pouted, disappointed. The control card was plugged back into the slot, all the screens were active. But without the control card's password, the shuttle wasn’t going anywhere. He had tried everything he could think of, to the point of randomly pressing buttons. Not even the radio worked.

  His one success had been to get the shuttle’s door closed and locked. That gave him a small measure of security. The gun was currently sitting on the seat to his right, because he couldn’t fit in the pilot seat with it in the holster. He had no confidence in his ability to use the heavy gun anyway.

  There was a whirring sound, and the shuttle’s door began to slide open! Manny struggled to unfasten the pilot seat straps. Idiot! Why had he strapped himself into the seat of a shuttle that was firmly attached to a ship? He barely got the straps off and lurched for the gun, when he saw a thing come through the door. A robot, holding a gun. Manny dove into the copilot seat, rolled so that he was wedged behind the seatback, and held onto the gun with both hands. He swung the gun around shakily. It was so heavy he couldn’t control it, the weapon’s barrel hit the shuttle’s throttle control, and almost fell out of his hands.

  The robot had its gun pointed straight at Manny. Manny closed his eyes, waiting for-

  “Manny!” His sister’s voice scolded. “Put that gun down! It’s dangerous.”

  “Kaylee?” He shouted, astonished.

  His sister nodded. “This is Rocko. He saved my life.”

  “Twice.” The robot said simply, stowing its weapon in a holster. “You are Manuel?”

  “M-Manny.” He let the robot take the gun away from his numb and shaking hands.

  Kaylee jerked her thumb toward the airlock. “Who’s the guy sleeping in a puddle of spit outside?”

  “I think he’s the pilot, I- how did you get here? Where did- Rocko come from?” Manny wanted answers.

  “Later.” Kaylee responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. The big sister was back, and she was in charge. She tilted her head inquisitively at the display screens. “Can you fly this thing?”

  “No,” Manny said sarcastically, using his tone of voice to imply how dumb the question was, “even if I knew how, I have the pilot’s control card, but not his password.” He plopped down, sullenly, in the pilot seat.

  “I know the password.” Rocko offered.

  Brother and sister looked at the robot in surprise. “Really?” Manny asked. “Can you fly it?”

  “No, I am not programmed as a pilot.” Rocko took a step forward, and typed the password into the pilot’s console. An icon in the lower left of the main display stopped blinking, and switched from ‘Standby’ to ‘Active’.

  “Cool.” Kaylee announced. “Get it started, Manny.”

  “It’s not that simple! This is a real spacecraft!” Manny protested, hands in the air. “Do we even have to leave?”

  “Uh, huh.” Kaylee said as she pulled Manny’s backpack from the copilot seat and sat down. “There are four pirates, plus Rocko the robot here. One of the pirates is stuck in a crate, we don’t have to worry about him. The one in the corridor, what happened to him?”

  “I injected him with tranqulizer.” Manny said with a shrug, as if it had been nothing special, something he did every day.

  “Really?” Kaylee looked at Manny as if she didn’t recognize her brother. In fact, she didn’t. How did her annoying little creep brother get replaced by a young man who knocked out an armed adult, by himself? “That was pretty smart, bro. That makes two down. There’s two more, and one of them, Rocko says, is the leader, the guy on the intercom.” She looked at the displays in front of her, and reached toward one of them, “So we need to make sure they can’t get off this ship-“

  “Don’t touch anything!” Manny said angrily. “It’s not a toy.”

  He expected a sharp-tongued retort, and had one of his own ready. But Kaylee had changed, as much as Manny had. “Sorry.” She said, putting her hands in the air. “You’re the pilot, Manny.”

  The pilot wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Kaylee, I can’t fly this shuttle. We’ll blow up, or crash into something, and get killed.”

  “Could you call Seth? He’s a real pilot.”

  Manny looked at the radio controls. “I’ll try. Hello? This is the pirate’s shuttle, this is Manny, in the pirate’s shuttle, calling Seth. Or Mom. Or the captain. Anyone. Come in. Please.”

  Gina, having nothing else to do while they waited to fall out of orbit, was sitting strapped into her chair, idly fiddling with the radio. She didn’t expect to accomplish anything, since the radio jamming was still active. The instant the jamming stopped, she would know, because she was monitoring the radio beacon signal of the mining camp’s landing pad. When the message came through, it was on a different frequency, so she missed the first part before she switched over. “-is Manny, in the pirate’s shuttle, calling Seth. Or Mom. Or the captain. Anyone. Come in. Please.”

  After the initial soaring elation at realizing the children were not only alive, but had control of the pirate’s shuttle, there ensued an argument about what to do next. Joy insisted her children stay right where they were, lock the shuttle’s door, and wait for the Navy. Her children wanted to fly off to rescue her, immediately. Schroeder and his crew were in the middle, mostly because Schroeder considered the odds of a twelve year old boy rescuing them were nil, at best.

  Seth broke the deadlock. “We can do this.” He said urgently. “Listen, most of flying a shuttle in orbit is programming the flight computer and pushing a button. I’ll tell Manny exactly what to do, and then he’ll sit back, and let the computer fly the shuttle.” Seth was exaggerating slightly, a forgivable evasion, considering the circumstances.

  “It’s not that easy.” Joy retorted hotly. “Computers can’t fly the shuttle if anything goes wrong. You’d be risking my childrens’ lives. No way.”

  “Joy,” Seth said quietly, “we need to get them away from there, anyway. If the shuttle stays attached to the ship, the pirates will find a way to get inside, and your children will be in danger again. The pirates have the access codes, it’s their shuttle. And, if the shuttle does undock, we need Manny to fly it away somewhere, so it doesn’t drift and collide with the ship. We also want that shuttle as far away from Nightengale as possible. The pirates may still have missiles, if they still have someone inside their ship, they could fire on the shuttle.” Seth was guessing. It was a good guess, it was what he would do, if he were a pirate, in that situation.

  Schroeder cleared his throat. “Seth is correct, Ms. Sanchez. The fact that your children are in the shuttle does not mean they are safe.”

  Joy’s resolve weakened. “I don’t see how asking Manny to fly makes them safer. He’s never flown anything before.”

  The children had been listening to the exchange. Kaylee spoke up. “Mom, you're not here. We’re doing this. You can ground us if you want, later, but we’re coming to get you.”

  “You listen to me, young lady-“

  “Not listening! We are not listening to you. Not this time. Seth, we need instructions. Or Manny is going to do the best he can, by himself.”

  Manny, intending to give his mother a boost of confidence, instead had the opposite effect. “Yeah, I can fly this. It’s just like a sim. It doesn’t look hard.”

  Joy clasped her hands in front of her face, as she floated in Ace’s bridge. A sim! Manny thought this was all a game. Without Seth to guide them, her children would not survive. “Seth,” she said, looking meaningfully at the ship’s navigator, “you get my children away from there safely. Safely. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Manny, you need to listen to me very carefully, and repeat back to me exactly what I say-“

  Following Seth’s instructions, Manny and Kaylee, working together and cross-checking everything they did, got the flight computer programmed with a course to intercept the command section. They undocked, popped the thrusters to move clear of the freighter, and fired the main engine.<
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  “If we can use the radio, can we call my husband?” Joy asked anxiously.

  Gina shook her head. “I tried that. The radio is still being jammed, the shuttle’s signal I think is being relayed through their ship. They can talk to us, and we can reply, but that’s all.”

  “So we wait.” Joy said with disappointment. Now, they weren’t only waiting to die.

  CHAPTER 17

  With the loss of the box, and now the danger of wild animals roaming the ship, Valjean decided to cut his losses. Wild alien predator animals, running loose on a starship! There was no way, in the vast ship, he could find the alien thing his employers wanted. He would get back to the shuttle, and he and Becker and Dooley would get the hell away from Ares as fast as they could. He had one missile left, intended to be used for destroying the mining camp, eliminating witnesses. Now, he would instead have to use it to destroy the freighter, make sure no one ever discovered what item he had been looking for. And get rid of those two brats. He wanted to kill them so badly he could taste it.

  The one missile he had left could not destroy the entire ship, the freighter was too big. He regretted the loss of the explosives Taney had carried, those charges, if placed carefully, and set off while the ship’s fusion reactor was active, would have vaporized the ship. There was nothing Valjean could do about that now, he certainly wasn’t going back for Taney. That thug was probably in the belly of those beasts.

  How best to get back to the shuttle? Valjean shuddered when he thought of how far a walk it would be, through all those dimly-lit compartments, with an unknown number of vicious beasts. No, he would go where he knew there were no animals: outside. Running as fast as he could, Valjean headed aft, toward a maintenance station he’d seen before.

  Valjean was sweating like a pig in the e-suit, the cooling system wasn’t working properly. He trudged across the outside of the cargo pod, making sure one foot was magnetically locked down, before lifting the other foot. It was a slow process and he was in a great big hurry. Becker wasn’t answering his calls on the suit’s radio. The shuttle wasn’t far now, around the corner of the pod.

  Except it wasn’t!

  Valjean rose over the corner, expecting to see the sleek shape of his shuttle, instead, there was an empty docking station. “Becker!” He shouted. “I’ll get you, Becker!” He raged into his radio, which was equipped to bypass the jamming.

  Wait. Valjean looked around to get his bearings. His ship should be nearby, parked stationary in relation to the freighter. Yes, there it was, a bright dot. He thumbed the control to magnify the view out the suit’s visor. His ship leaped into view, large as life. No shuttle. There was no shuttle attached to the Nightengale. Maybe Becker had not abandoned him? Valjean sighed with relief. No, Becker wouldn’t bailout like that, that pilot was still expecting a big payday from Valjean, he didn’t know Valjean didn’t have the alien thing. Maybe Becker had simply moved the shuttle to another docking port, for some reason.

  But where? Valjean considered walking over to where the shuttle had been docked, in case Becker had left a note. That was stupid. There had to be a way to contact Becker. As Valjean looked up at his ship, and something bright in the distance caught his eye.

  His shuttle! It had to be. And the engines were firing, taking it away! “Nooooooo!”

  Manny kept his finger poised above the main engine cut-off button, ready to act. He watched the chronometer, counting down. Seth said this engine burn needed to be eighty seven seconds, no more, no less. Manny was pressed back in the seat, the rocket thrust of two Gees making it feel like someone was sitting on his chest. He hardly noticed. He was flying, flying a spaceship! In the left-hand seat, too. Pilot in command.

  Eighty seven seconds was a long burn, apparently. Seth had explained they didn’t have time for a normal rendezvous maneuver; slow down a bit, and let the command section catch up to them. On the next low spot in its orbit, what Seth called apogee, the command section was going in, and going down. There wasn’t much time. In fact, Seth was guessing somewhat, it couldn’t be helped.

  One minute to go. ”Sixty seconds, Kaylee.” Manny reported. Kaylee nodded from the copilot seat, and gave him a thumb’s up. Manny unexpectedly found himself admiring his sister. She was kind of cool, he had to admit. More than kind of, she was cool. How had that happened?

  Valjean seethed with anger. The shuttle was headed away from Nightengale, using what looked to him to be an insanely long engine burn. The light blinked out, the shuttle was coasting toward, what? Where could Becker be going? Not far, without a hyperdrive.

  Unless Becker had another ship hidden somewhere? The thought of being double-crossed chilled Valjean, a career double-crosser.

  Valjean checked his e-suit’s oxygen supply. Plenty remaining. He couldn’t stand outside the ship forever, what to do now? Get back inside, and see if he could come up with a plan to salvage his plan, or at least, escape before the Navy arrived.

  He trudged over toward the airlock where his shuttle had been docked, and stopped close by to peer inside a porthole. What was that? A body, lying on the floor? Valjean cupped his hands to block out the star’s glare, and pressed his helmet to the porthole. He gasped in shock. Becker! He recognized the ridiculous alligator-skin cowboy boots Becker always wore. What the hell was going on? If Becker was inside the freighter, then who was flying the shuttle?

  “Dooley!” Valjean spat the name out. Dooley was not, so far as Valjean knew, a pilot. Nor was Dooley bright enough to have planned to double-cross anyone. He found it hard to believe that Dooley had stolen the shuttle. Perhaps there had been at least one adult crewman aboard the cargo section, an adult crewman who had used the children as a decoy? Valjean switched his suit radio to the shuttle’s frequency, and growled “Dooley! If that’s you in the shuttle, I’ll kill you! You hear me? I will find you, and I will kill you!”

  In the shuttle, Kaylee noticed a light on the radio console blinking. She looked at Manny, who held up his hands in a ‘who knows’ gesture. Kaylee pressed the button, and said “Hello?”

  Valjean hadn’t expected a reply, through the jamming. It sounded like–

  No. It couldn’t be. A girl’s voice? “Who the hell is this?” He demanded.

  “Who the hell are you?” Kaylee shot back. She thought she recognized the oily voice.

  Valjean’s anger boiled over. This was too much to bear. Who were these brats? They stole his shuttle? He cut off the radio, and shouted out his anger inside the helmet, pounding his fist against the freighter’s hull. When he had control of himself again, he opened the radio. “I am what you call the pirate. What are you doing in my shuttle?”

  Kaylee thought for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. “Right now, we’re sitting with our feet up, eating some snacks.” She taunted.

  “You stole my shuttle, you brats!”

  “You stole my shuttle. Boo hoo.” Kaylee repeated in a mocking tone. “Shut up, loser.”

  “Los-“ Valjean bit his lip. He tried a new tactic. “I can self-destruct that shuttle, any time I want.”

  Kaylee looked at Manny, who looked to Rocko for advice. The robot pointed silently to the control card, plugged into the pilot’s console.

  “As if!” Kaylee shot back. “If you could do that, you would have done it already, bonehead.”

  “Yeah,” Manny added with bravado, “you must be the dumbest pirate who ever lived. What pirate school did you flunk out of?” Manny looked back at Rocko, whose massive form was squeezed into one of the passenger seats. “We got your robot, too.”

  “Uh huh, and hey, that dum-dum guy with the robot? I think he’s locked in a shipping crate.” Kaylee said with a barely suppressed giggle.

  “I’ll blow up this damned ship!” Valjean screamed.

  That made sister and brother pause. Jen was aboard the ship. Kaylee turned off the radio. “Manny, you think he’ll really do it?”

  Many thought for a minute. They were risking Jen’s life. If she were still alive.
“No way. He still wants the alien thing. And he’s on the ship.”

  Kaylee turned the radio back on. “And blow yourself up with the ship? Duh? I don’t think so. But if you want to blow up the ship, go ahead, we don’t care.” She said, with her fingers crossed.

  “You kids bring that shuttle back here right-“

  Kaylee interrupted. “Mister pirate?”

  “Yes?”

  “Bite me.” Kaylee turned the radio off, leaving Valjean to sputter and rage to himself.

  “Should we tell Mom, and the captain, about him?” Manny asked.

  “No. Maybe later. It’ll just make Mom more worried.” Kaylee herself wasn’t entirely sure her brother was right about the self-destruct.

  “OK. Thanks, Rocko.” Manny said.

  “You are welcome.” The robot replied.

  “Rocko,” Kaylee asked, “why are you helping us? That pirate guy owns you, right?”

  “Correct. My current owner is Colin Dooley, the man you met, who is now in a shipping crate. Before Dooley owned me, I was owned by an Army major, who purchased me as Army surplus, after my model became obsolete.” The robot said, without a trace of emotion. “Major Thompson and his family were stationed on Brekka, which is an outpost world, and can be dangerous. He purchased me to be a guardian for his two children. My processor and base code were modified by Major Thompson. When he was transferred to Earth, he couldn’t take me with him, so Major Thompson sold me to a dealer, where Dooley found me. Dooley did not know I had been modified.”

  “So, you’re programmed to protect kids?” Manny asked.

  “Correct. I cannot, by action or inaction, allow a child to be harmed.”