by Travis McBee
“Jon!” Corey cried, “How…why…what?”
“Good to see you too,” Jon smiled
“Were you flying the shuttle?”Will asked perplexed by his friends cavalier demeanor
“Of course not,” Jon laughed, “Some bloke from Starview was driving it. They snuck up on me last night while I was walking upstairs from the Study Hall. They hit me with something and next thing I know I’m tied up in here. Weird huh?” Jon smiled broadly and Will knew instantly of his friends ignorance of wider events.
“Well where did he go?” Will asked peering into the empty cockpit
“Well he punched something into the computer and then slid on out through the airlock. There he goes now!” Jon pointed out the window and Will spotted a figure in a white zegma suit floating aimlessly past the window
“Why would he jump out of the shuttle?” Corey asked amazed by the idiocy of the boy
“Jon,” Will spoke carefully, “What exactly did he type into the computer?”
“Search me,” Jon shrugged, “I can’t fly anything larger than a pod.”
Will exchanged a dark glance with Corey and hurried into the cockpit. The room was choked with flashing lights and Will could have read ancient Egyptian before he knew what was going on. Corey however was a more experienced pilot and saw what the last pilot had done.
“Oh this is not good,” Corey moaned
“What? What did he do?” Will asked already fearing the worst
“He set the auto pilot…”
“Set the auto pilot to go where?” Will didn’t really want to know but he was compelled to ask
“There,” Corey replied simply and pointed towards Broglio
“Let me guess, it isn’t programmed to land either?”
“Nope,”
“Can you fix it?” Will tried not to hope and to his horror found it easy
Corey tapped away on the controls before replying, “I could fly it manually if we could get the auto pilot off, but the little creep locked it.”
“You can override it right?” Will looked out the window and saw that the gray figure of Broglio had grown to occupy most of the windshield.
“Maybe, but it’ll take a while,” Corey said slowly and then looked at the sight Will had just observed, “Don’t have that much time though.” He added quietly
“Can’t you just smash it?” Jon’s voice sounded with the first hint of fear that Will had heard.
“We can’t smash the control panel, we wouldn’t be able to fly it then!” Corey nearly yelled in frustration, “But we might be able to smash the computer,” he added thinking quickly and hopefully
“Where is it?” Will demanded glancing at the gray world that filled the whole window.
“The back of the shuttle,” Corey answered instantly, “If you hit it with one of those clubs it should knock it out. Make sure you only take out the one that says autopilot otherwise we’re done for.”
Will turned and ran down the aisle he had traversed moments before. Groups of boys were drifting forward from the rear of the shuttle and they looked at Will in alarm as he bolted towards the rear of the shuttle.
“What’s going on?” Inquired a black haired boy Will had never talked to.
“Get out of the way!” Will bellowed and raced past without answering.
He arrived at the back of the shuttle and began searching for the autopilot mainframe immediately. There were still several of his classmates standing around the small open area where the rear ramp descended and they looked at him nervously.
“Will what’s going on?” Ryan asked him
“I’ve got to find the autopilot computer,” Will huffed out, “Where is it?”
Ryan pointed casually to a square of metal that sat neatly on the floor. Will crossed to the square and dug his fingernails into the groove that ran along its side. After several failed attempts he managed to coax the slim sheet of metal away revealing a black chasm underneath.
“Will what’s going on mate?” Ryan asked feeling the alarm radiating from Will.
Will glanced solemnly at him in reply before snatching one of the clubs that lay scatter on the floor and dropped into the black abyss he had uncovered. Ryan watched him disappear in quiet whoosh of air and turned towards one of the many windows that lined the ship. Will’s face had been a mask of pure terror and Ryan knew why as he glanced out of the window.
The shuttle was crashing through the atmosphere of Broglio and the wings were growing white with the heat that assaulted them. The shuttle began to jar severely as buffets of air met the speeding hulk. Ryan guessed at Will’s reason for searching out the autopilot computer and uttered a silent prayer for his friend and himself as he strapped himself into a seat.
The hole that Will had jumped into wasn’t deep but it was utterly dark and Will cursed in frustration as he felt along the walls blindly for a light switch. It was natural enough for him to search out a light switch in a strange dark room, but after a fruitless collection of seconds passed he realized that he had yet to see a light switch since leaving Earth a lifetime ago.
Will cursed his misfortune and slammed his fist into the metal wall with enough force with his knuckles to sound in a sickening percussion of cracking. Will cursed the pain that rose from his hand and he hugged it into his other hand while shutting his eyes.
The solid black interior of his eyelids first blinked pink and then turned a vivid shade of red. He yanked his eyelids open and smiled in celebration at the suddenly brightened room. A single light had flickered on mere inches from where his fist had landed jarring it into life. The smile of triumph faded as quickly as it had come as he remembered why he had come to that dark hole. He searched around for the computer, not really knowing what he was looking for.
The room was packed with complicated looking equipment, hoses, wires, and piles of dust that coughed into the air at his every touch. A short walkway of metal stretched towards the front of the shuttle and Will shuffled along it ducking heavy bars of iron that crossed the path at head level.
Fifteen feet along the labyrinth of metal he found the end was blocked by two massive constructs that blinked twinkling lights at him from hundreds of tiny bulbs. Will’s triumphant smile returned as he stared at the objects that he had come for. The twinkling mass of metal was so obviously a mainframe that little doubt resided in his mind as he buzzed the club in his hand into a furious chorus of crackling sparks. He raised the hand to strike the computer and realized as he was aiming that didn’t know which one was his true target. He glanced at the top of each computer and saw a thin sprawl of words written in the perfect script of a computer. The words were written in the strange symbols of Ligurian that Will studied four times a week.
The words were simple and Will knew that he should be able to translate them without difficulty but in his panicked state the words spoke to him as smoothly as if they were muttered by a dolphin.
He knew time was fast running out as the ship let loose a sharp jolt that raked a cloud of dust into the air. He squinted his eyes in protection, raised the sizzling club, and struck blindly into the dust ridden air.
* * *
Corey watched in horror as the dusty surface of Broglio rose up to meet them. Beside him Jon staggered into the co-pilots chair and had turned the same chalky shade of white that he had worn when they had first met under the hail of meteorites so long ago.
The controls remained locked under his sweaty palms and he possessed no control over the ship until Will managed to short out the mainframe in the rear of the shuttle. If he managed to short it out.
Beside him Jon had begun to mutter incoherently as minute details of rivers and hill began to distinguish themselves upon the blank gray canvas that beckoned them down. The shuttle was barely ten-thousand feet above the surface and Corey felt fatalism steal upon him as his doom welled up to meet him.
The board of lights flashed and extinguished themselves leaving phantoms of themselves floating idly through the air. Co
rey swore in horror and knew that Will had taken out the wrong mainframe thus sealing them their doom. He closed his eyes to prepare for death and to shut out the gray planet that was racing up to meet them.
The stick he held in his hands gave a feeble twitch and then launched itself forwards as if a great weight had been tied to it. Corey snatched his eyes open and saw the board of lights twinkling merrily at him. He pulled the stick back with all of his might and felt a twinge of response resonate through the ship in response. Will did it! He nearly laughed in joy but the surface of Broglio was still racing upwards to meet him.
“Jon help me pull up!” He shouted at his petrified co-pilot
Jon didn’t move, instead he sat as still and white as if he were carved from a block of marble.
“Dang it Jon!” Corey shouted at him to little avail and Jon sat staring wide eyed out the front window.
Corey slapped his hand across the board of buttons in a complicated whirl of fingers. The ship jerked roughly and Corey felt the momentum begin to arrest. He pulled harder on the stick that held tightly forward as if a pack of bulls had been tied to it. The ground continued to race toward him, less than a thousand feet away.
Corey let out a roar of energy and used every ounce of strength in him as he pulled backwards on the stick. The stick remained immobile at first and then gradually began to trickle backwards under the enormous force of Corey’s effort.
The ship shuddered as he pulled and slowly the nose began to rise as the ship began to fall. More and more the nose rose until Corey could glimpse a horizon dominated by a red sun that was rising over a new day. The ship was less than a hundred feet off the ground when the nose finally rose so that it was horizontal, ending their downward plunge.
Corey whooped out a relieved laughter and clapped Jon on the back. Jon didn’t feel the slap and his head lolled on his neck in a comical motion. He had passed out. Corey laughed all the harder at that discovery and when Will walked back into the cock pit he was nearly blind from the tears of nervous laughter.
“What happened to Jon?” Will asked concerned.
“He-he-he passed out,” Corey breathed between laughter and broke into a fresh bout of the stuff.
Will let loose a relieved chuckled that paled in comparison to the manic laughter of Corey and slapped Jon hard across the cheek.
“Wha-what did I miss?” Jon said dumbly as he awoke, “Are we dead?”
“Not today,” Corey guffawed and steered the ship upward towards space.
“What took you so long Will? I thought we were done for,” Corey asked when his laughter had died out and the red tinge of the sky gave way to the black beauty of space
“Couldn’t tell which computer was which,” Will shrugged, “I couldn’t understand the Ligurian.”
Corey gave a feeble chuckled at that, “So what did you do?”
“I just closed my eyes and whacked one,” Will shrugged in return
Corey turned to look at Will, his mouth open in amazement, “You could have killed us,”
“Yeah, but we were already going to die,” Will laughed feebly
“Dude, you have got to learn how to read Ligurian at least!” Corey informed him with a bemused look that only appears after escaping certain death
“I will,” Will assured him, “I will.”
Corey piloted the school shuttle back to the cube that was Bridgeworld itself. The hanger door was still open and Corey gracefully slid the ship through the field that kept the air in. He placed the ship down gently next to the round form of the Earth shuttle and powered down the engines.
“That was one heck of an adventure eh?” Ryan smiled at them as Will, Jon, and Corey joined the rest of the group at the rear door.
“No doubt about that,” Will laughed and led the group down the ramp and onto the hanger floor.
As he stepped off the bottom of the ramp a roar of cheers erupted through the massive room. A wall of people ran toward Will led by the Dean herself. She had managed to free the students while they had wrestled the shuttle out of Starview control. Will spotted Abby running in the forefront of the massive crowd of students and he sprinted towards her. They collided in a wind milling hug that lifted Abby’s feet off of the ground. She poured kisses upon his face without caring whether she hit an ear or a mouth.
The crowd roared their approval at the sight and Will felt hands clap his back in congratulations and gratitude. Will was no longer the anonymous figure who had almost single handedly beaten Starview in zegma. He was now the face of the hero who had saved them all and he couldn’t care less.
Epilogue
Will sat dumbly at his desk watching the rain pound itself into oblivion outside his window. The cold rain showed no signs of relenting and Will resigned himself to another uneventful day of reading within his room. A dusty paperback sat on the desk in front of him. He had read a dozen of them so far that break but he felt no burning desire to pick up the book and read so he reflected on the last year of his life and how greatly things had changed.
The gracious reception he had received when he had returned the shuttle to Bridgeworld had been duplicated a week later in a lavish ceremony that had taken place in the cafeteria. Every one of the boys who had crawled through the dust ridden air duct had received a shining medal congratulating them on their bravery. For leading them Will had gotten an even larger medal to go along with a massive plaque that bore his likeness and now hung in the atrium of the school.
The Starview players had received quite the opposite. When they had finally been released from the floors of the school they had been taken back to Starview where they were quickly identified, expelled, and sent to jail where they would remain until Will had long graduated from Bridgeworld.
He had made good on his promise to Corey to learn Ligurian and had studied relentlessly. After a month he had felt secure enough to attempt a day without wearing his lingus. He had done well at first speaking casually to everyone he met and enjoying hearing their voices pure and unfiltered without the lingus translating. However, when he entered his science class, he was bombarded by a flurry of Mandarin from Mr. Kong and was forced to return his lingus to his ear with a defeated smile.
When he had returned home he had expected his parents to be impressed, and they had been. His dad clapped him on the back and told him how proud he was while his mother cried over the details that had endangered her dear son’s life.
What amazed Will the most was how his father hadn’t been overtly shocked by the tale. His father had merely chuckled and nodded his head towards the end of the telling and then proceeded to acquaint Will with a prank he had pulled on some Starview students in his own day. Apparently he had rearranged the navigation computer on one of their shuttles so that it would show up on the wrong side of the universe each time they jumped into warp speed. “It took them three weeks to get back!” He had finished the tale and slapped his legs in his laughter.
Will smiled at the memory of his father’s laughter and reached for the dusty book. He picked it up and began to thumb through the ubiquitous junk pages that proceeded every story. He had just turned the page onto the title page when his micro began to beep from the other side of the desk. He picked it up and pressed a finger casually to the surface. He read quickly and as his eyes darted over the screen his mouth twitched into a smile.
* * *
Anthony leaned back in his chair with a relaxed sigh and raised his cup of steaming coffee to his lips. He smiled as the bitter liquid stung his tongue and rushed it’s hot encouragement to his mind helping it to stay awake.
Anthony smiled to himself as he often did while he was working. He loved his job. Somehow he had managed to land the easiest job in all of Pleasant Valley and he was always thankful for his good fortune when he was able to sit back and relax at work.
Anthony was the night control man at the tiny airport of Pleasant Valley, Alabama and he liked it just fine. The airport was tiny and slow paced during the day and miniscule and
deserted at night. As far as he was concerned he was getting paid, and pretty well I might add, just to sit around and enjoy a good book and a steaming cup of coffee.
He had been working a long and tiresome job directing a warehouse when he had slid open his paper to the classifieds one morning. The job had intrigued him at once and the first night on the job was enough to know he had struck gold.
He often felt sorry for the poor bloke who had preceded him, some guy named Jacob he thought it was. The guy had been found passed out drunk one morning and had been fired on the spot.
Not that it really mattered Anthony smiled to himself over the rim of the cup. He had been working the night shift for nearly six months and had never seen so much as a pigeon land on the black stripe of darkness that was the runway. Some might have called it boring but Anthony was a laid back type of guy and he found it relaxing.
BEEP, BEEP
“What in the world,” Anthony swiveled in his chair and stared blankly at the green circle that was the radar screen.
A blip had appeared on the edge of the screen and Anthony stared at it hoping it would go away after another swipe of the radar. The green line swung around the screen and back over where the blip had been.
“Whoa! What the heck!” Anthony stammered and slopped some coffee over the rim as he sat up in a hurry
The blip had not disappeared, instead another one had appeared next to it and they were both moving closer to town.
One more sweep before I have to call it in Anthony though drearily hoping they would disappear.
The bar of light flitted around the screen one more time and when it passed over the spot where the two objects had been, Anthony nearly knocked his chair over as he reached hurriedly for the microphone. The radar screen now showed nearly a dozen blips of light.
He snatched it up and depressed the button hurriedly, “This is Pleasant Valley airport, identify yourself,” he ordered into the microphone