Invisible Hijackers

by D Gemcats Purcell

Jongi woke up with a start, sweating heart racing and in a panic. She forced herself to calm down. Now fully awake, she took a couple of deep breaths. “It’s been so long since I felt like this. Horrible dream,” she muttered out loud. Choka her husband, a light sleeper turned over and said, “Yes, I was having trouble falling asleep and you were certainly very disturbed for the last fifteen minutes.”

  She said, “Oh my gosh. Do you remember Mischa my sister’s son, my nephew. He was calling out to me saying send help and you could see fire around him. He looked distressed and he was screaming. Oh my God Choka, isn’t he interplanetary now on Threeme or one of its moons. It felt so real. Could it have been real? Let me call Buenafe.”

  Choka felt alarmed. He could not remember his dear wife having such a disturbing dream and waking up so distressed. So now he wasn’t even making an attempt anymore to try to fall asleep. He got up with her and sat on the edge of the bed watching as she voice commanded a hook up with Buenafe the head of the Council on Interplanetary affairs. “I am so sorry to bother you at this late time of the night Mark but I got woken up by a distressing event that I’m almost scared could be real. I have a nephew who pilots a space cargo ship based out in Threeme and his name is Mischa. I just had this extremely vivid dream where he was calling me and asking me to send help right away as he was surrounded by fire. Could you please check on him for me. I’ll wait up.”

  Jongi went to the bathroom. Within ten minutes her vidcom rang and it was Mark Buenafe calling back. “Yes he is or should be in command of a cargo freighter transporting refined rare metals from that big mining moon closest to Threeme called Trat headed for our neighbor planet Baclet for the orbital manufacturing plants there. He had taken off from Trat ten days ago and should be enroute. We know he already triggered the proximity sensors on Buboni as he approached and then passed it on the way to the moon Tsatvik. However we can’t say for sure where he is now. His freighter usually swings by fairly close to those moons to get a gravitational speed boost. If he sends a distress call it will take over an hour to get here and that’s if it was sent within line of sight of us. If he was behind the moon, we may never get it. However we have proximity sensors on Tsatvik too, it’s just that it takes a while to get picked up by Baclet orbit stations. I am awaiting a response from Baclet orbit communication but it takes twenty minutes to even get my message to Baclet. If he has a problem then it likely would be on or around Tsatvik which is a very dangerous place to be stranded. In one hour we will know a bit more.”

  He continued, “In the meantime I will have Toigan main orbit station put out an alert and start to bring our fastest space rescue ship up to power. It takes three hours to fully power her up. The problem is that we will need extremely tough fighters to safely tackle Tsatvik and rescue any survivors who reach the surface. There are so many viscous predators there that almost no one who lands there is able to survive for long and I don’t have any real special forces up top now, just a few air force type men.”

  Jongi plopped down on the bed but carefully. When you are in the three hundred year old range, you have learned to take care of those old bones. No matter how well those bones have been cared for, they still are a lot more fragile than when they were twenty years old. She reached out to squeeze Choka’s hand, “I guess it was real then.”

  To Mark she said, “I am going to operate on the possibility that he was reaching out to me telepathically and that there has been some kind of disaster. I am going to mobilize Team Six to go up top and be ready to get on with the search for Mischa. Do you know how many souls are on that freighter Mark?”

  Mark Buenafe responded, “Usually five souls man those freighters, but sometimes a few men mostly miners hop onboard too as staff rotates in and out of the mining camps and smelters. Baclet should be able to give me that information.”

  Jongi who was now convinced that there was indeed an ongoing emergency said, “Let me know the closest field from which we can get our Team Six to board an emergency flight to go to our orbital station from where they can head to Tsatvik. This is an emergency and I will call Breecher in Securinet to provide clearances.”

  Mark said, “They will be mobilizing their resources on Baclet too, but they are a very underdeveloped planet in terms of rescues with not much human talent. They maybe well able to send someone to find and pinpoint the wreckage but would likely not be able to go down to the surface of Tsatvik and provide care or even effect an evacuation. But they would be closer than we are to the moon and therefore and should do what they can. It would also help us if they did locate the wreck and survivors too. The one helpful thing is that Tsatvik is on our side of Threeme now so that keeps the distance reasonable for now.”

  “Thank you Mark so much. Let me know when you’ve got more definitive information,”said Jongi.

  Mark said, “As soon as I know something pertinent, you will know shortly thereafter.”

  Jongi started pacing, “I suppose we need to get Breecher and Team Six on board now.” She voice commanded Breecher as he was on her speed dial list. She said, “Breecher sorry to wake you up, but we have I believe, an interplanetary crisis that we need to mobilize resources to deal with. I am awaiting confirmation from Buenafe, but we need to act fast here if it is confirmed to be real.”

  She then went on to explain her strange dream which was, it seems, a telepathic cry for help from one of her nephews Mischa who is captain of a valuable metal ore freighter coming from the closest of Threeme’s moons Trat past Buboni it’s second, where it already seemed to have passed by but no confirmation of it passing by the third moon Tsatvik. His freighter seems to be in the vicinity of Tsatvik based on our current information. She explained that Baclet orbit will be just now getting the query sent by Buenafe. Then there will be turn around time to answer our questions. Just then a second call came through from Buenafe priority level 2. She put Breecher on hold and took the call.

  “Baclet main orbiting space station BMOS main base sent us a message that there has been a disaster of some type affecting a high priority freighter with highly refined ores and other supplies and it likely crashed on Tsatvik,” he said. “But there is a twist in that the ore containers all twelve of them including the ones with deuterium concentrate kept beeping their identifying beacon signals for another approximately one hour before being turned off one by one. Only the command and cabin quarters identifying signals went offline suddenly. With no ID signal and no response to interrogating signals by the way-stations strung along that space route, it seems likely that something caused the crew quarters to separate from the ore carrying cargo pods and there could have have been some sort of disaster. We are running the AI algorithms now but it does seem like there could have been some nefarious activity here. We are really concerned here about a hijack situation of the cargo and harm done to the crew. Baclet says that there were the usual five crew and ten miners joined them to rotate out since they’d brought in ten new miners to the moon Trat. After the ID beacons went offline on the cargo pods, long range telescopes saw two small vessels actively maneuvering around those cargo pods. These vessels had similar outlines to a couple of spacecraft previously identified in another much smaller hijacking of a completely robotic spaceship only two years ago.”

  Jongi said, “That’s it then. I didn’t realize that Mischa was such a powerful telepath. He was able in his distress to break through to my mind even asleep. Time for action then Buenafe. I am going to talk to Breecher about Six intervening here. They are by far the best asset we could use to try to effect a rescue in such dangerous circumstances. Could you get clearance from the Baclet authorities since although we have treaty agreements, we do not want to step on any political toes over there. Since Breecher and I have great relationships with Six, it might be best if we broached the situation with them. In the meantime if you do your part in arranging transport to our main hub up top and the fastest ship for them, we will get our group ready.”

  Buenafe said, “Sounds like a good pl
an, will do.”

  2. SHIPPING UP

  Jessi and Jonah were in bed and he was snoring softly but she had woken up gone to the bathroom and had just slipped back gently under the covers next to him. She shivered with pleasure, to feel the heat of his body just inches away. They had been married not quite six glorious weeks. They had had a wonderful roaming honeymoon doing eclectic things. They had taken long daily walks on Jonah’s family farm, gone to help Moog his brother and his new wife Juliana at their farm too a few villages away, to help with getting the new acreage they’d purchased fenced in and in ship shape! They’d taken a commercial flight with two other couples to a couple of National Parks for sightseeing. It had been so nice to do things with Cherese and Arthur plus Mader and Adrianna. That huge joint wedding had happened at Jonah’s family farm. Then when they had gotten back, all of team Six and team Five had gotten together in the city of Pommerose to have dinner together. Earlier in the day all of them had gone back to the Aquatic Training Institute (ATI) dive training center and done some shallow underwater work with the latest rebreather systems which is virtually identical to the back packs used in space for extravehicular work or on planets without safe breathable atmospheric conditions. They had all been pleasantly tired.

  Jessi and Jonah had gotten home as it turned dark at his farm, gobbled up the delicious dinner his Mom Elma had cooked, bid goodnight to her and Jonah Sr and retired to bed early. After rambunctious bed play, they’d fallen asleep blissfully in each other’s arms. Suddenly both their vidcoms chirped softly. That was very unusual indeed. The sound wasn’t from her parents nor Moog. Oh really, it sounded like Breecher. She reached and grabbed both, silencing them. Jonah stirred and drunkenly asked, “What?” while reaching over toward the side table. Jessi placed his vidcom in his hand and he turned over onto his back rubbing his eyes. They both turned on the voice button as Breecher said, “Sorry I know it is 230 am but we have a level 1 interplanetary crisis for you. This is one for rapid deployment to Tsatvik. Let me know when all of you are awake enough for a full discussion. I note that you all have logged on. I will give you ten minutes to get in ship shape and ready to make notes when I call you back.” Thankfully our underwater work today was fifteen hours ago and six feet down or less, enough time to degas. We won’t have to worry much about getting the bends as we were going into low ambient pressure environments up top.

  They both jumped out of bed, heading to the bathroom grabbing clothes as they went. Jessi hit the shower while Jonah the toilet and then quickly shaved, cleaned his teeth and jumped into the shower as she hopped out and started toweling herself dry. They knew that all of Six were engaged in the same dance and they knew that airborne transport would be landing at each of their homes within a few minutes. This was a level ONE emergency. They knew that there was a spaceship being fueled right now and crew being mobilized to pilot it. The wheels of Securinet and Defnet would be turning in overspeed and likely had been turning for a while before they got the final call up.

  Breecher came back online as promised in ten minutes on video this time. They could see everyone was logged in. They had done call up drills before and by now it would have been declared to be one if it was. So this was no drill! Jessi was shaking with excitement she could feel as her shoulder touched his. They both had their pre-packed rucksack already sitting at their feet on the floor and their specialized rebreather backpacks right next to it.

  Breecher said, “The best information we have is that a freighter coming from Trat commanded by Mischa who is Jongi’s nephew is no longer contactable around Tsatvik. The habitable command module and crew quarters ID Beacons suddenly stopped broadcasting while the cargo pods containing highly refined and valuable ores, some radioactive, only stopped their ID beacons an hour later one by one and the long range sensors on Baclet orbit control picked up two highly maneuverable ships around the cargo pods which at that time seemed on a continued course tracking toward Baclet. Then the sensors could no longer pick up either the cargo pods nor the other vessels. Clearly there must be some kind of diversion and possibly cloaking going on. So we know for sure that something is wrong. We know that Mischa was able to contact Jongi by telepathy asking for help obviously in distress and in a dreamlike state she could see that he was surrounded by fire. So he must be a powerful telepath and if he is alive, that would be a sure fire way for you in Six to locate them. As you know, even if they landed somehow safely somehow and are miraculously surviving, that planet does not have a very good atmosphere and there are tremendous dangers to humans there with the worst possible predators like zinbeests and even vishes waiting to catch a meal. They likely do not have weapons either except flares and fire axes. Also the crafts which were picked up looked similar to those that had attacked and hijacked a drone cargo ship two years ago and they were never found. So the plan is to pick you all up, bring you to the air-force base in Pommerose where you will be shuttled to the Mitchell base about two hours away. As soon as you land, you will board the rocket plane to the main orbital space hub. From there you will be in our fastest space plane the Celeste with the new SuperDrive technology six hours from now. I am downloading all the appropriate data into your vidcoms now so that you can study up. This is going to be dangerous folks but you have prepared well. You will each carry two blasters when going down to the surface. Just make sure to keep their power sources out of the weapons until you are about to hit the surface. Any questions?” There were a few questions from Matt and they all started to listen for the arrival of their transports once Breecher answered those.

  Six now reached out to mind speak briefly with Jongi, “Thank you Six, I wish I could go too, but age and fragility will not allow. Be safe. I arranged to have some personal clothing from Mischa sent to your rocket to meet you. Being in proximity to his scent, his essence may strengthen your ability to link up with him telepathically if he is still able. Choka and I will be with you in spirit and I’m not sure how well we will be able to thought speak at that distance but we can try. I want you to mostly save your telepathic energy for out there trying to reach the missing folks. See you all back here safely soon.”

  Mader, Matt, Dillion and Cherese were picked up by ground transports which hurried them through the city to the outskirts where the huge Air Force base was located. Jonah and Jessi snuck into Jonah’s Dad and Mum’s bedroom and gave them a brief hug through their sheets and told them that there was an emergency out in space at Tsatvik the 3rd moon of Threeme past Baclet and they were going to go up top to try to save a lost crew of fifteen men. Jessi mind spoke to her parents to let them know what was going on. The transport whirred onto the farmyard driveway which was a very thoughtful place to alight on a farm. It might surely have spooked the horses in the barn out back if they had landed behind the house. Knapsack on their backs and lugging their rebreather packs, they both hurried on board with Jonah Sr and Elma now fully awake waving at them from the front porch in their night clothes.

  When they landed a few minutes later at the base the other members of Six were there already. One of the service people, a red haired young lady with a small package carefully wrapped handed it to Jessi. It said ‘do not open until ready’ on it. Jessi minds spoke to the rest of the team that it felt like clothing, likely those of Mischa. It would have taken some arranging to get his clothing here on time from wherever he lived but Jongi managed to get it done though.

  They were hurriedly put in a van and driven up to a lurking aircraft with four huge jet engines and mounted under its wing was a large missile with rocket engines. They could hear the whine and subdued roar of the two jets on the far wing already up and running. They gasped when they saw the contraption. It looked like a missile mounted under the wing between the two starboard engines with two rocket engine nacelles projecting out of its tail. They had read about such crafts yes, but had never seen one nor heard of its use recently. It harked back to old technology. Was that what they were to go up top in? Right on cue, the driver of their transport s
aid, “This is your ride this morning. So it is a change in plans; you are not going to take off from Mitchell base. We managed to procure this alternative and it means you will be taking off directly from here in Pommerose Air Force base. It is the fastest way to Main Control Orbital Station and its all we could muster on such short notice. The jet will take you up to 60000 feet in forty five minutes and will drop you all off and you will surge up to the five hundred mile mark in less than two hours to dock. It will be some beastly acceleration. This way you cut three to four hours off at a minimum from what it would otherwise take for you all to get to your departure from the MCOS. When you get to the control center up top, you will be fed. It is wise to have an empty stomach now and make sure you strap in real tight.”

  There was a little drop down step to get up into the little craft which had looked almost too small to hold all six of us really from a distance. One service member climbed in and we handed over our knapsacks and rebreathers one by one. He rapidly shuttled back and forth and then finally we got to board. Each of us were strapped into seats that reclined slightly. We were as a group given a little tutorial on the abort procedures, manual control and docking plus emergency shut down and parachute procedures. Communication was standard with other training on spacecraft that we’d received. All of this was filed away and touching the manual controls after the electrical system went live allowed Mader and I to quickly run the circuits through our minds. So far it all checked out, no obvious faults in the electrical nor among the computers and their backups. “Good luck and safe trip” the service member as she exited and closed the door behind herself. We verified green light, so yes the door is reporting itself fully locked. The vibrations that we had begun to experience before the door was sealed indicated that the jet engines on their carrier aircraft was already firing up on our wing right next to where our craft was mounted. No time to waste was the motto around here. We were going to space using old fashioned but reliable technology but it didn’t matter; we were finally getting to do a real interplanetary mission.