"So then you are saying all intelligent life descended from one race, one planet?" asked Paul.
"Yes," was the Professor's simple answer. "We've changed, of course, adapting to our unique environments. But we're all brothers under the skin, so to speak."
"And somewhere in there, all those civilizations, the key to the prevention of eventual extinction was lost," guessed Jack.
“Correct."
"And you truly expect to find it?" To Jack it sounded more hopeless than before.
"All we have to do is track those civilizations backwards to Base Alpha," said Walt confidently. "The answer will be there."
This was a lot to absorb in such a short time, destroying most of the theories they were taught and grew up with. Hell, most people didn't even believe in extraterrestrial life, and here they were, finding out they were even related to it. The pilots sat quietly and sipped their drinks.
Walt glanced at his watch. "Oh, heavens, I'm due on the bridge! I've got to go." He headed for the door trailing puffs of sweet smoke. "Oh, by the way," he said pointing with his pipe, "I'm guessing you all have those little Acrilee or Baltec tracking buggers stuck on your heads, go see Doc and have them removed." The door swished closed behind him.
He was right, except for Derrik, they all had them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
FREEDOM: TONTURIN SPINDLE SPACEPORT, TYREEA SECTOR
The Freedom had been docked at Tonturin for almost a week, taking on supplies and trading some of what they'd recovered from the pirate depot for Interstellar Trade Credits or ITCs as they were called. (A monetary unit that was constant almost anywhere). From the profits, the crew was paid a comfortable salary and was happily spending it at the hundreds of shops and restaurants on the station.
Tyreea was a quiet sector, rich in trade and completely neutral in UFW/pirate conflicts. Jack compared it with WWII era Switzerland and wondered how that precarious position was mastered and maintained.
Strange dreams plagued Jack's sleep for a week or two after the removal of the Acrilee's homing beacon and control chip, but the truth was not so shocking or uncertain as it would be for someone back home. His mind quickly accepted and regained its normal equilibrium, as did Paul, Mike and Brian.
The four pilots sat in the sand and watched the waves roll in from the artificial ocean, watching Fritz run through the water. "Y'know, I was hoping to be home by Christmas," said Jack, watching a handful of sand run through his fingers.
"Yeah," said Brian, "but who knew that star in Pitkin would go super Nova..."
"Or that we'd have to escort that Brugarian freighter two weeks out of our way," added Mike.
"Yeah," interrupted Paul, "but they paid us good money for that."
“I guess for the most part," said Jack, "we're not doing too bad." He watched Ragnaar practice hand to hand combat with an invisible opponent, further down the beach.
"So, what did you get her for Christmas, Jack?" asked Brian, changing the subject and breaking the silence. Jack dug a small box out of his jacket pocket and opened it for all of them to see. The large triangular stone sparkled with an intense fire.
Mike let out a low whistle. "Nice rock! Is it a diamond?"
"Well," said Jack, "they have another name for it, but basically yes, it's a real diamond. Think she'll like it?"
"Hell, yeah!" exclaimed Paul, "give it to me and I'll marry you!" He made a kiss face and Jack pushed him away as the others laughed.
"Hey!" whispered Mike urgently. "Put it away, here she comes!" Jack stuffed it back in his pocket.
Alité strolled up, a small shopping bag in her hand and Jack gave her a hand as she lowered herself to the sand. She sat cross legged next to him and rubbed her round belly. "Only two more months," she announced, "I'm not sure I can wait that long."
"You're lucky," Mike told her. "Human women carry for almost twice as long."
She shook her head. "I can't imagine it. It must be torture."
"That's what I hear," said Brian. Everybody laughed.
"Merry Christmas," Jack told her. He pressed the small satin covered box into her hand. He had explained the reasons and customs of Christmas about a week before.
"For me?" she squealed. "What is it?"
"Open it and you'll find out."
The little box protested with a tiny squeak and her eyes sparkled a curious green as she lifted the lid. "Oh my," she sighed. A tear ran down her cheek.
Jack's heart dropped. "You don't like it..." He should have known better than to try to buy jewelry for a Princess.
"Oh no," she breathed, "it's beautiful."
"But..." He indicated her tears as he pulled the ring from the box to put on her finger.
Alité smiled as he slipped it on her. "I never had a ring before... a Princess is not allowed to wear one until she's betrothed or married." She kissed him. "It's simply the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Paul nudged Mike and Brian. "Let's take a walk," he whispered. The three men departed quietly, and Fritz followed them down the beach.
"Now you," said Alité, handing Jack the bag she held.
From it, Jack drew out a robe of heavy blue satin, detailed with dark blue velvet and richly embroidered in gold on the breast pocket and around the cuffs. His initials and a crown adorned the pocket. It was unquestionably the finest robe he'd ever seen. He smiled broadly and held it up, "Truly a robe fit for a k..."
"Prince," she interrupted, her eyes now a sparkling azure blue. "My Prince."
"Well isn't this sweet..." Sitting in the sand, neither Jack nor Alité had seen or heard LaNareef approach. Jack turned. "No, no, Captain, don't get up. I want to remember you just like this..." a Mercon blaster dangled from his right hand. "You aren't worthy of this woman. You disgust me. You aren't even Velorian." LaNareef raised the barrel of the blaster and pointed it at Jack's chest. Jack had the strange feeling he'd been there before, but in the stress of the moment could not pinpoint why.
"What are you doing LaNareef..?" asked Alité cautiously.
"I am going to kill him," he replied bluntly. "Then I will kill his bastard child..." He pointed the gun at her. "Because in the eyes of the Royal court, you are not really married..."
LaNareef was well out of Jack's reach and rock solid. Completely cool. Jack had no expectations of being able to draw him off guard. He looked around the beach for help but saw no one, the stretch of sand was completely deserted, artificial dusk was approaching.
"And then," continued LaNareef, "I will kill you, Princess. Because you are a dirty slut and have disgraced our people. You are a traitor." The hair on the back of Jack's neck stood up and he shifted his position. LaNareef smoothly moved the blaster back to bear on Jack. "Please, Captain, I would enjoy that." He clicked the blaster's safety off. "It would give me great pleasure to kill you in an attempt to attack me." He sighed. "No? Oh well..." He appeared to be thinking for a moment, then added, "You know... perhaps I would let you go if you begged me to spare your life... of course, I would still have to dispose of her."
"Keep dreamin'," growled Jack. His fingers dug into the sand, he wondered how fast he could throw it and roll. He worked his other hand out from Alité's grasp.
"Say goodbye, Captain..." said LaNareef coldly. He rested his finger against the trigger.
Jack tensed and held his breath, his hand clutching the sand, unsure how to time his actions.
There was a brief fraction of a second when a large shadow crossed them... Jack's mind raced ahead, all time slowed down. LaNareef squeezed the trigger and the beam of the blaster lanced out... his feet levitating off the sand. The hot crimson streak passed above Jack's head and he could hear the electric sizzle. The couple looked on, as the hapless LaNa
reef continued to rise from the sand, arms flailing, the blaster dropping to the sand.
Ragnaar snarled, a sound equal to that of a full grown male lion as he lifted LaNareef from behind. LaNareef screamed in agony as the fingers that pierced the muscles of his back squeezed his spine like a pneumatic vice. His cry cut short to a strangled gurgle as Ragnaar's other hand crushed off his windpipe.
Raising LaNareef above his head, Ragnaar violently wrenched his helpless victim, crushing and breaking his neck and snapping his spine simultaneously. He tossed the lifeless body into a heap on the sand. "Traitor," he snarled. He turned to Jack and Alité who still sat in the sand, stunned. "Are you alright, Captain? Miss Alité?"
"Fine," said Jack in amazement. He took the hand offered him and rose from the sand. He pulled Alité up with him. "How did you do that, Lieutenant? I never heard you." He wiped LaNareef's blood from Ragnaar's hand on his own pants.
"Practice," said Ragnaar. "I couldn't let you see me either, or he might have known and killed you before I reached him." He leaned over and picked up the blaster off the ground. He straightened up and kicked sand on LaNareef's body. "Honorless trash," he told the corpse before turning away. "You were never alone," he assured them, as they walked across the beach. "Ever." He pointed at Fritz, the other pilots and three of the Freedom's security personnel who ran towards them through the sand.
"As you know," explained Ragnaar, "weapons are not allowed on the station. We knew he would try for you today when one of our security people saw him purchase the blaster from a black marketeer this morning. All we had to do was give him an opening to get him to commit himself..." He handed the confiscated weapon to a security woman from the space station. "Sorry I could not tell you what we were doing..."
Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Don't apologize for success, Lieutenant. Not ever." He extended his hand. "Thanks. I owe you one." The story of the Lieutenant carrying him into the sickbay after the collision flashed through his mind. “It occurs to me that I owe you two...
Ragnaar paused and shrugged, smiling, “Who's counting?”
■ ■ ■
The crew of the Freedom thoroughly enjoyed their time off at the spaceport, recreating, studying or sending messages to family and loved ones.
Slivers of information on InterGal News suggested warring religious factions on Alité's planet had split the population into several main segments. It was thought but unproven that LaNareef may have been a member of a fanatical organization dedicated to the preservation of racial purity on Veloria. Alité had chosen to believe the conflict between their friendship and his strict beliefs drove him to the point of madness. After the Freedom departed, the incident at Tonturin Spindle Spaceport was never mentioned again.
Time came and went and so did the Genesis Gates and systems, mostly unnoticed as the crew strived to maintain and perfect the Freedom. With the aid of Professor Edgar's software abilities and Hecken Noer's hardware wizardry, the Freedom's sensor array improved to exceed even UFW technology and her engines could match the speed of even the newest ships.
The fighter squadron had taken on a confidant and fluid appearance, becoming more cohesive and practiced. As a point of pride, each pilot had his or her own fighter, complete with their names and kill badges listed on the fuselage near the cockpit. Several new pilots had been recruited from the crew and could be seen training daily in the flight bay.
The sectors were fairly quiet and other ships were for the most part, few and far between. From time to time, this uneasy quiet gave Jack a feeling of great foreboding for which he had no concrete reason. Several times they passed warships from one side or the other, hustling off to some urgent destination. But never once was the Freedom considered a threat or challenged. A yellow alert was an occasional occurrence. A red alert was a rarity.
The only sector of any consequence was the Verondo Sector. A UFW convoy stretched for about two hundred miles, patrolled by destroyers and heavily armed gunships. The Freedom's crew counted close to seventy vessels of all sizes. Something monumental was going on and it was uncomfortable for Jack to think about how close it was to home.
A day later they spotted a pair of battered, battle-blackened pirate cruisers which passed at a distance great enough for the Freedom to be invisible to them, but close enough for the Freedom's sensors to be able to see them quite clearly. It would have been possible for the Freedom to steal close enough for a quick fighter strike that would incapacitate or even destroy them, but the Freedom was on a mission. They were going home.
Two days later came the biggest event since their departure from Tonturin Spindle Spaceport... the birth of Colton Thomas Steele.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
NORTHERN UNITED STATES: FROSTY RECEPTION
The northern half of the United States was blanketed in a late winter storm, the kind Mother Nature saves up for. It always seems the worst snows came in the death throes of winter, when it refused to give way to the passage of time and yield the coming of spring. If that wasn't severe enough, the broadcaster on the Late News announced, the Arctic cold and heavy snow was causing rolling brown-outs around the Great Lakes where the storm was the worst.
The Chicago area was covered in over twelve inches of fresh snow and the storm was dumping more with no sign of letting up. The plow crews would have their hands full in the morning.
The Invader was a cross between a shuttle and a gunship. Smaller than a shuttle, it was faster, heavily armored, well armed and specially designed for forays into hostile or unknown territory, it would hold a crew of three and ten troops or passengers. Presently it held five, Jack, Brian, Mike, Paul and Alité... six if you counted Fritz, down through the clouds over Lake Michigan. Its dark form and sharp menacing angular lines gave it a particularly evil look.
"Man, this stuff is thicker than pea soup." Jack leaned forward and adjusted the range of his forward sensor sweep pattern. “I can't see a damn thing...” he was flying on instruments and 3D image mapping only.
"I sure wouldn't want to be flying a regular bird in this stuff," said Brian from the copilot's seat.
Jack looked out the cockpit window at the stubby wings covered in ice. "We'd drop like a stone..." he commented. The Invader was flying on a combination of standard flight principles and anti gravity. The wings and tailfins were more for steerage in atmosphere than anything else.
"You'll drop free of the clouds in twenty seconds," announced Mike from the navigation and sensor station behind Jack.
"Any air traffic?"
"None. Even looks like O'Hare's socked in."
"Good." Jack pulled the Invader's nose up and level only about a thousand feet from the surface of the partly frozen lake and nudged the throttles forward. The shoreline was barely visible through the densely falling snow as they flashed over the northern Chicago suburb of what Jack guessed to be Winnetka. A rolling brown-out followed the Invader along the coastline like a strange shadow, streetlights flickering off then back on again as it passed.
The lights of downtown Chicago suddenly appeared through the swirls of white and Jack yanked the throttles back and dropped the speed brakes, banking the Invader through a right hand turn. Fritz braced himself against Brian's seat to keep from sliding. At a quarter to three in the morning, parts of the downtown area as well as its famous Rush Street nightclub district, went momentarily dark. Party-goers experienced only a momentary inconvenience as the Invader moved on.
The Invader reached the northwestern Chicago neighborhoods in an amount of time that seemed miniscule to Jack. He always remembered Chicago, where he'd grown up, to be an expansive city. It seemed so small now. He cut the power to the main engines, leaving the warmers on and maneuvered on the anti-grav system only. Reducing the power to the system, he dropped the craft
to a height of about two hundred feet and coasted over the houses at about forty miles an hour. Between the blanket of white and the falling snow, he had to look carefully so as not to miss the landmarks he sought. "There it is..." he pulled back on the stick and the Invader slowed. "Anybody awake down there?"
Paul was watching the Red Eagle the 3D ground-mapping infrared scanning system. "There was a vehicle parked on the street you just passed that had a strong signal, looked like there was someone in it too..."
■ ■ ■
The two Colombian men sitting in the four wheel drive Blazer parked down the street from the Steele residence were arguing when the engine quit running.
"I don't care what you say, we don't need to be here! Who the hell would go anywhere in this weather?"
"Look said the other, Marcus says we sit here so we sit here. Do you want to explain to Mr. Vasquez why we didn't stay all night?"
The first man looked at his watch. "But it's three in the morning! It's snowing like the North Pole and this character's been missing over a year. If he ever showed up, which he won't, it wouldn't be tonight!"
When the truck's engine sputtered and died, so did the conversation. The man behind the wheel attempted to restart it. It refused.
"What's wrong?"
"How the hell should I know?" said the man behind the wheel. "Do I look like a mechanic to you?"
"I don't care what people say about America," grumped the man in the passenger seat, "I hate this place, it's foul air, it's pale people... I'd rather be back in Colombia, it's warmer. I want to go home.
Wings of Steele - Destination Unknown (Book 1) Page 47