“Understand, this is not a bluff. I will release the virus if the document is not signed and placed in public record within twenty-four hours.” He looked off to the side.
“It is now June 22, 3024 at 4:00 P.M. CST. You have until June 23, 3024 at 4:00 P.M. CST.”
The screen went black.
Silence filled the cockpit. Mom stared at Earth as it shimmered outside the window.
“Noah, can you confirm Haon’s location? He should be within range of our sensors.”
I ran a broad-spectrum scan, then shook my head.
“I don’t see him at all. No life-signs. No engine signatures. No warp signatures. But it makes no sense. He has to be there. The strength of the transmission indicates it was within visible space around us.”
“Then where is he?”
“Hold on,” I said. “I think I’ve found something.” I flicked an image from the monitor onto the main screen.
“Computer, can you enhance grid forty-seven, triple R?”
At first the image on the screen seemed to show nothing but empty space. Then a small flash of light reflected from something slowly spinning in the darkness.
“Enhance five hundred percent.” The object enlarged until it was readily visible. “It looks like a small probe, or drone of some kind.”
“Of course. Haon wouldn’t risk detection in our time-stream. The Poligarchy keeps a pretty close eye on Earth, ever since Haon’s attack on the Air Scrubbers seven years ago. He must have jumped back in time to hide, recorded that message, and sent it forward in that drone.”
“So he could be anywhen?” My heart raced. We’d spent six days chasing him across the solar system and he wasn’t even here.
“I don’t imagine he’d jump too far back. Most likely he’d go to just before the Poligarchy started being so vigilant. But you’re right, Noah. We have no way of knowing when.”
“What about the stars?”
My mom and I turned to face Adina.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“The stars behind Haon.” Her voice was excited. “When we hunted, night was the best time to determine our location. No matter how far we were from our cave, the elders could return home by the stars.”
“That’s brilliant Adina,” Mom said.
“I told you she was amazing, Mom.” Adina’s face grew red.
“Computer, please replay previous transmission,” I said.
Haon appeared on the screen again. “To the Poligarchy…” I wiped my hand through the image and fast-forwarded until Haon stepped aside.
“Freeze there.” An image of Earth, shimmering against the starry expanse, filled the screen.
“Computer, can you calculate the date based on the visible star clusters?”
Glowing lines appeared on the screen, flashing between stars, forming constellations. A stream of numbers scrolled up the side, faster than I could read. After a few tense moments the numbers stopped and 3010 +/- 60 yr. appeared on the screen.
“An exact date cannot be calculated without knowing the precise location the images were recorded from. The closest guess would be the year 3010, plus or minus sixty years.”
I slumped in my chair. That meant he could be anywhere between now and eighty-five years in the past.
“What do we do now, Mom?”
“I’m sorry, ” Adina said. “I thought it would work.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Mom said. “That was an amazing idea. The computer just didn’t have enough information.”
She stood with her hands on her hips and frowned at the screen.
“I don’t think we have much choice at this point. Move us into orbit around Earth. Haon will have to return by tomorrow to find out if the Poligarchy met his demands.”
I confirmed the DUV III was on the correct course to achieve orbit. We would reach Earth in seven hours.
“Noah?” Mom said. “What do you think your father did after you and Adina left?”
“It wouldn’t take much imagination for him to figure out where we’d gone once he figured out I didn’t take Adina home. He must be furious.”
I suddenly felt ashamed. My dad had no right to keep the truth from me, but he didn’t deserve what I’d put him through.
“I’m sure he was disappointed,” Mom said. “But he’s probably more worried than anything.” She joined me in looking out the window. “I just wish there was a way to contact him.”
“I’ll bet Hamilton could figure out how,” I said.
“Yes, but Hamilton couldn’t pilot a ship the way you do. We all have our gifts. That’s why Team Zarc is so good.”
I laughed. When I was younger, Mom and I used to pretend we were a family of superheroes, rocketing around the solar system righting wrongs and saving the helpless.
“Can’t you use these comm-link things to contact your father?” Adina tapped her ear. Not only was her Triple-B a translator, it also had a built in comm.
“Well, the comm-link only works in close proximity to one another,” I said. “But we do have long-range systems for talking to people. We can communicate with Mars, even Venus from here. So it’s not really a matter of distance, it’s time. We can’t communicate back through time.”
Adina thought for a minute. Her face lit up.
“If your father waited for you to come back from Earth, then realized we most likely went to save your mother—”
“Then he may already be here!” I swiveled my chair from the window.
Mom was studying Adina, a bemused look on her face. Adina seemed to surprise her at every turn.
I punched up the long-range comm on my screen.
“Computer, send on all frequencies encrypted to the ARC’s cipher key.” I looked at Mom. “Do you want to send the message?” I hit record.
“Noah, this is Hannah. I’m okay. Noah and Adina are with me, and we’re almost to Earth.” She sighed, lifted her chin, and went on. “Haon has a nano-virus. If he releases it in the atmosphere, all our efforts will have been for nothing. Earlier today he sent out a transmission with his demands.
“We’ve determined he’s not in the present. The computer calculated he could be anywhen between 2050 and 3024.”
She paused a moment, sighed, then continued.
“I’ll send everything I have on the virus, but there’s not much we can do if he releases it.” She muttered under her breath, “If Randolph Fletcher was still alive and I had a hundred years, maybe we could stop it.”
In her normal tone of voice she said, “Please, Noah, if you receive this transmission, we must find a way to stop him, at all costs.
“End transmission.”
The three of us sat and listened. Nothing came over the comm’s speakers but static. Mom looked desperate, but there wasn’t much she could do.
“Computer,” she said. “Please continue sending the message on all bands in a continuous loop. Relay it on all beacons between Mars and Earth.”
She pulled the data crystal from her pocket and handed it to me.
“Encrypt this and attach it to the message.”
I looked at Adina and Mom. “Now all we have to do is hope Dad gets the message in time. I bet he’ll have an idea how to locate Haon.”
Mom sat staring off into space while I uploaded the data crystal.
“Mom?”
She looked up, “Yes.”
“Who’s Randolph Fletcher? You said his name when you were talking to Dad.”
“He was my mentor in graduate school.” Her face lit up. “The greatest microbiologist who ever lived.” She laughed. “Your father and I actually met in one of his classes. Honestly I’m not sure what your dad was doing in that class, but I’m glad he was.”
I struggled to imagine Mom and Dad before they were, well, Mom and Dad. I couldn’t do it.
“He founded the LCAS, the Lunar Center for the Advancement of the Species, in 2929. It was a sort of laboratory for all the best thinkers of the time—physicists, biologists,
linguists, paleontologists, martianologists, philosophers—basically anyone who had a desire to advance the human race spent part of their career at the LCAS.”
“Did you go there?”
She shook her head. “Sadly the funding dried up. The Poligarchy decided it was too costly and didn’t produce a large enough return on their investment. Dr. Fletcher died shortly after the LCAS closed their doors in 2999—their seventieth anniversary.”
She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“He was a good friend.”
Three hours later I was sitting on the floor in the cockpit. A strap over my lap, connected to grommets in the floor, held me down. Obadiah floated nearby, sound asleep. Adina sat cross-legged in front of me.
I held up my hand. “Hand.”
Adina repeated: “Hand.”
I pointed to my nose. “Nose.”
“Nose.”
“Eyes,” I said.
“Eyes.” As she said it, hers twinkled with delight. I’d never seen eyes so full of life.
“You’re getting it!” I felt my cheeks burning.
I waited a moment to be sure my voice wouldn’t quaver. “Ears.”
“Ears.”
Then I held up my hand again.
“Hand,” Adina said.
“Very good, you’re catching on quick.” I circled my hand around my face. “Face.”
“Face.”
I really liked looking at her face. Embarrassed, I looked to see what Obadiah was doing. Still air-sleeping.
I turned back and pointed to my nose again.
“Nose,” she said, grinning.
The computer crackled behind me, “…just left the surface…”
I twisted around, bumping against Obadiah, who careened across the room, hitting the wall. He yelped and gave me a dirty look. I unstrapped and pushed to the pilot’s chair.
“Computer, isolate signal and clean up.”
“…I’m on my way. I may have an idea how to stop Haon.”
“Dad, it’s me, Noah.”
“…I don’t have time to explain but I should be there before him.”
“Computer, why can’t he hear me?”
“The message was sent thirty-two minutes ago.”
I opened a comm-link to Mom, who had gone to the bunkroom to rest.
“It’s Dad.”
“I’ll be there in a second.”
I turned back to the computer. “Can you play back the whole message?”
“The message was on loop. Recording now.”
I waited impatiently for the computer to start the message. Mom burst into the room.
“Where is he? Is he on his way?”
“I don’t know, the computer’s recording his message now. It was a looped transmission just like ours.”
“Message recorded.”
“Playback from the beginning, please,” Mom said.
Adina put her Triple-B in her ear.
“I’m relieved to hear you’re okay, Hannah. I didn’t receive your message until we were already in orbit around Mars. I just left the surface—there was something I had to do first. I know time is tight, but I’m on my way. I may have an idea how to stop Haon. I can’t explain now but I should be there before him. I love you.
“And Noah, we need to have a talk when we see each other again.”
“End of transmission,” the computer said.
Mom gripped the back of my chair. “That’s it? That man drives me batty sometimes. What’s he mean he can’t explain now?”
“What do we do?” I said.
“We keep going.” Mom buckled in the seat beside me. “What’s he up to? He’s got the Morning Star, which can travel faster than both the DUV III and Haon’s XB Class ship, but there’s no way he can get here in time.” Mom’s face went pale. “Unless… No, surely he wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Never mind, I’m sure your father knows what he’s doing.” Then she muttered, “If not, he’ll have me to answer to.”
“It is not our policy to negotiate with terrorists.”
The leader of the Poligarchy tilted his perfect head of hair back and looked down his hawkish nose. His smooth complexion hinted at the years of drugs and surgery that kept up his youthful appearance. I had no idea how old he was, but Mom said he had been Prime Senator when she was my age.
“You must understand, Mrs. Zarc—we simply do not have the resources to stop this… madman. The ships stationed on the moon can’t handle inter-atmospheric flight, for obvious reasons. And we most certainly cannot agree to hand over Earth to a group of thugs.”
I’d never been to Venus, but “thugs” wasn’t a word that seemed to fit the people living there.
“What do you expect us to do, then?” Mom’s voice rose slightly, then she checked herself. “Prime Senator Sarx.”
“You will do what you have always done. Defend the Earth and be her one hope for a bright future.”
Political speak for you’re on your own.
“We’ll do our best, sir.” I could see the disappointment in Mom’s eyes. What had she expected—a fleet of warships?
“Please keep my secretary apprised of the situation.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The Prime Senator waved his perfectly manicured fingers. The screen went black. Mom slumped in her chair.
I had to admit, Sarx sure didn’t seem like the benevolent leader I’d been brought up to believe in.
“Sorry, Mom.”
“It was no more than I expected. Just less than I’d hoped.”
We were nearing Earth. Adina returned to the window where she’d been sitting, watching for any sign of Haon’s ship. My instruments showed nothing but empty space between us and Earth.
“Sometimes I really wonder if—“
A bright light flared on my screen. A ship was moving towards us from the far side of the planet. I looked at the clock. Haon’s twenty-four hours had just expired.
“Right on time.”
I put the display on the main screen. Adina pressed her face to the window.
“Is that him?” she said.
I looked out at a black smear covering the top half of the North American continent and part of the Atlantic. Sunlight flashed off a ship dropping quickly toward the atmosphere.
“It couldn’t be anyone else.”
I applied reverse thrusters. Maybe we could stop him before he entered the atmosphere. I glanced at the screen, making slight adjustments to our course—
A dozen or so ships materialized out of nowhere. The blips converged on Haon’s ship.
“Whoa, where’d they come from?”
Mom frowned at the screen. “I’ve never seen ships like that before.”
“Computer, identify class please,” I said.
“Unable to identify.”
“They look almost like DUV class, but much bigger.” Mom enlarged an image of one of the ships. “And they’re armed.”
Sure enough, there were rocket arrays under each wing.
“They have warp manifolds.” I glanced at her. “They’re jumpers!”
“Whoever they are, they’re going after Haon,” Adina said. She moved away from the window and back into her seat. Anticipating a bumpy ride?
“Let’s just hope they’re on our side,” I said. “We could use all the help we can get.”
I increased the throttle on the reverse thrusters and allowed gravity to tug the DUV III toward Haon’s ship and the small fleet surrounding him. At first he seemed unaware of the ships—then he nosed into a steep dive.
“He better be careful or he’ll burn himself up.”
“Save us the trouble,” Mom said.
Haon’s ship began to glow. Half the fleet behind him nosed down too. Within seconds they were burning into the atmosphere.
“What are they doing?” I’d read about some crazy maneuvers, even tried a few in the simulators, but what they were doing was sui
cidal.
Haon’s ship flared, a burning meteor plummeting toward Earth. Then he vanished. One moment his ship was a fireball—then he was gone.
“He jumped on entry!” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Unfortunately, the ships pursuing him weren’t all as quick. I watched, horrified, as two of them exploded after the heat caused by atmospheric friction burned into their fuel tanks.
The remaining ships in orbit winked out. They must have locked onto Haon’s warp signature somehow. I looked at Mom. “What now?”
“I think we should continue to de-orbit,” she said. “He needs to get into the lower atmosphere to release the nano-virus.”
I inched the ship’s nose up slightly. Already we were catching the top layers of the atmosphere—I was able to use the friction along her lower hull to slow down further.
“He’s back!” Adina shouted.
I looked out the window. A ship spiraled toward Earth, surrounded by burning debris that looked like the remains of at least two ships. For a moment I thought there’d be no pulling out of that dive, but somehow Haon managed it. Chunks of burning metal bounced off his ship as he got it under control and leveled off.
Had I inherited some of my piloting skills from—
“Can you get us down there, Noah.” It wasn’t a question. Mom was getting a little frantic.
I adjusted course to intercept. The ship started to heat up as it plunged into the atmosphere.
“What do we do when we catch him?” I brought up a projection of Earth on the holoscreen. A red flashing light showed Haon’s ship somewhere over the Pacific, and a green flashing light showed the DUV III over the northern reaches of Africa. There were no other ships.
“For the nano-virus to have maximum effect, he has to find the ideal location for it to spread.” She looked at the holoscreen. “I think he’ll release it over the equator, up about six kilometers.”
“So we have to stop him before he descends that far.”
“Somehow, yes.” She massaged her eyelids with her fingers. “I wish your father hadn’t listened to me. I was the one who insisted we not have a weapons system on board the DUV III.”
Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble (Noah Zarc, #1) Page 15