Invisible Hijackers

by D Gemcats Purcell

  He watched the area all around the spaceplane as well as the instrument displays pertaining to radar dopplers scanning for moving space debris or weapons, ever changing displays of the Sun’s radiation, the status of the fusion reactors, the backup energy sources like solar power harvesters that were built in all over the skin of the spaceplane plus those on retractable deployable arms as well as the modular radioactive fission reactor. There were two operators dedicated to monitoring the multiple doors and air locks especially to the outside but also between different compartments within the Celeste. All of these had AI monitoring already but also humans were there to be a backup. So there were several stations on the bridge and there was a back up station in case there was sudden catastrophic carnage here. Each of those back up sub-bridges were in two different parts of the spaceplane plane and in a super emergency could effect the separation of the spaceplane into two smaller but fully functional spaceplanes. So as Jonah allowed himself to absorb the rhythm of flickering dials, the sounds of the instrument beeps and the low murmurs of the operators, so also was he tuned into the flow of the energy and magnetic fields as they ebbed and flowed throughout the ship and the surrounding space, including from the whole BMOS complex. He was now in sync with the energy rhythms all around. He could detect new spikes even from the cranes starting and stopping and activating different parts of their articulating arms. He could feel the general pattern of the human activity buzz. He had become like an energy pattern analyzer.

  Standing there both hands on one of the many consoles, but away from the officers beaten path, he was aware that a few of them slipped glances at him. To them he would appear to be standing loosely with occasional almost imperceptible swaying, staring mostly ahead, face totally relaxed trancelike. When he heard a voice saying, “Yessir, they are docked and it seems all the crew and most of their passengers are now on the BMOS getting treated. Their Captain Mischa is walking. I saw him on the cameras myself. They are doing something a few miles off platform with a robot. No one is talking, I happened to see radar activity and then used the telescope in the OD chamber. I have a friend JT, I’ll see what I can get.” Jonah’s ears perked up. The conversation abruptly stopped and he couldn’t hear the other side. However it had been a sudden brief break in the radio energy pattern that had clued him into listening to that voice. He noted the time on one of the many clocks on the wall of the bridge. He came alive and wrote down the words he had heard, signaling to Captain Ronald who promptly came over. They walked over to a separate console and he told the Captain what he wanted, the schematics of the BMOS and where the OD chamber there would be located and how to get footage from the last few hours of the folks going and coming from that area plus who might a JT be among the Captain’s staff here on the Celeste? He gave the Captain no details. He surely didn’t want to have to explain how he could listen to an individual radio transmission from his head while just touching a console inside the Celeste. Too much to explain is all he could think. The Captain could harbor whatever thoughts he wanted but the less he knew of Six’s capabilities the better long term for Six!

  So Jonah discovered the Observation Deck, but then it became a question of which one! There were four of them on the BMOS! Then getting feed from the BMOS station’s cameras was not impossible, but would have to be handled with great care and diplomacy. The less Commander Ross of the BMOS was told, likely the better. Plus his station was likely to be totally porous with all kinds of listening devices by all different forces, some legit and others from folks who were subversive. He had to be vetted carefully. I did not tell Captain Ronald that we could just hop over there and plug in. “We Six will get what we want and when we wanted it, no holds are barred Brethren!” was what went through Jonah’s head. The Captain went over to one of his attendants who tweaked a few buttons and given the timeline of the transmission, said, “There was an unsanctioned radio transmission that took place yes, ending at that time from an unregistered radio and we have a recording but it is encrypted-seems by the pattern to be military grade encryption. It came from an annex near to control bridge 5. That is an ancillary bridge and we should be able with the cooperation of the Captain Ross to know who was in that location at around that time. It could turn out to be several folks though.” Jonah thought, “Minor stumbling block for us, we will get you little spy.” So the more he thought about it, the more it felt like a surreptitious communication by someone on the BMOS with someone on the ground, likely who wanted to know a lot about what was going on. A powerful owner of Mischa’s spacecraft maybe who is anxious to get updated, or an insurance agent trying to figure out how to start digging up details of the accident maybe. It could be one of the bad guy associates keeping close tabs on the Celeste. At this time it looked slightly suspicious and would need investigating definitely.

  Captain Ronald did not have a JT on board his spaceplane he said per his records. He looked puzzled and then sat himself at a console and spoke into a microphone. A female sounding voice said, “Hello Captain Ronald, how can I help you? The Captain spoke very softly and there was a pause before the voice said, “Yes we have two if you only check first and middle initials and there is a third who used to go by that as a nickname.” A few names and ranks popped up on his console and he pointed at one of his assistants who rushed over. After a brief conversation, the assistant walked back to her own console and spoke to her AI it appears. She turned around, “Do you want me to get them now?”

  Captain Ronald said, “Yes but to the personnel office and do not let them know why. On the double, and monitor their coms for inbound and outgoing especially from the BMOS.” She saluted, “Yes Captain.”

  The Captain nodded toward Jonah, “The young lady will let us know when the JTs that we have are ready for us to check them.”

  I nodded my thanks and felt the presence of Dillion nearby. I went into mind mode immediately updating him about the developments and tuning him into the rhythm of the spaceplane and the MCOS as we both touched the same console. He too would now be in tune like I was. It was really fantastic that the members of Six had become for lack of a better word so interoperable and intertwined mentally. Six hours had gone by and Jonah had barely noticed its passing.

  In twenty four hours the plan was for Six to be invited over after the completion of full Customs and Diplomatic protocols into the BMOS along with Captain Ronald and some of his staff to meet with Commander Ross and his key staff members. There was to be a thank you ceremony for the rescue of the mostly Baclet nationals and a formal debriefing with a link up to the bosses of their Defnet and Securinet plus the political leader cadre. Six will be prepared, fresh and rested while keeping as low profile as possible. The expectation is that Six would get invited to the surface for more ceremonies and hopefully could forge strong links with untainted elements down there to weed out the criminals.

  Jonah got some refreshments and went to the shared shower. He trudged back to his bunk in the same room as his wife and teammate Jessi, who rolled over bleary eyed when he entered. He said, “Sorry Darling for waking you up.” She said, “No my bladder is telling me to get up.” She slipped out of her bunk, with a blanket around her and exited to the communal bathroom which luckily said, ‘unoccupied’ on the door. He heard the door latch with his enhanced hearing and then she was back in her bunk reaching up to him lying three feet above her to intertwine her fingers in his. She knew what was on his mind and said, “Get some rest honey, we both need to.” Eight hours later he woke up to the smell of a delicious breakfast meal parked on the table in their room with some casual clothes stacked next to him on his bunk bed. His stomach gave a hungry lurch as he looked down at her tucking in. He stretched sequentially starting with his arms, moving to his lower limbs then his buttocks squeezing them and relaxing, then his back, abs and chest so that he must have looked like a boa constrictor warming up. He was now warm all over and he allowed himself the two full minutes to really consciously relax all over thoroughly.

  Then
he tuned out the alluring food scent and listened, inhaling the vibes of the ship, sampling its energy. Dillion was up eating too, but Mader was on duty on the bridge doing the third shift. He queried him, “Nothing new” he got out of him. “We have the missiles fully safeguarded, explosives burned up, no longer a danger and all of the dismantled pieces and components are on board getting serial numbers catalogued, residual DNA and fingerprints all filed away to present at the right time to Baclet’s Defnet and Securinet equivalent here. This will be accompanied by all the video data from the drones that first detected them plus those smart torpedoes that defanged them. Plus the Celeste has video feed too from when they got close enough. There is also an analysis of the targeting software on board the missiles as further evidence. It is unmistakably from the Baclet military and they should be able to pinpoint which unit and who had access etc. Also I attended with Captain Ronald when he finally was able to get your prospective JTs off shift to chat. Only one of those JTs could remotely have had a connection with someone on Baclet who turns out to be a junior control second officer under Commander Ross responsible for communication and technical services on board. His name is Robert Mendez. I hacked into the BMOS by walking over to the docking area and he is definitely connected to some undercover units working for Securinet and reporting to its top boss Munchin. He has an in with the accountant for the Mobal group whose daughter he once dated in high school. The daughter later married one of Yashid’s sons. So there is a tight set of connections there, but I have a feeling that Robert Mendez may be working both angles. We will see once we get to be physically close to him.”

  Jonah said, “Everyone should have had at least a good eight hour sleep or more so we need to get together to update everyone and plan for the next twenty four hours when we would be done with quarantine and hopefully get to be welcomed aboard the BMOS and the surface. I think we all look forward to meeting Martinette head of their Defnet as well as Munchin head of their Securinet. They and their subordinates will soon we hope, be experiencing the extreme scrutiny that we Six are capable of putting them through. We need to get to know the hierarchical structure of both their organizations to start with. Commander Ross will hopefully help us with that once he can be approached diplomatically.

  Can we all meet on the bridge in an hour and a half then? It will be Jessi’s shift then for the next six hours.”

  The rest of the group all seemed to agree. Those of us who are free wanted to do light exercise for forty five minutes then freshen up.

  There were two well equipped exercise rooms on board the spaceplane of course and five of us met there. In a low gravity environment despite the use of magnetic booties on our shoes, we found out that adjusting specially padded spring restraints to thighs and ankles as well as arms and forearms did boost our efforts. By adjusting their tensions a good workout was definitely possible and we went at it. It was a happy sweat; we were all exhilarated by the end of it. It went quickly and we took turns peeling off to go to the shared bathroom facilities. Everyone except for Mader was nicely fresh when we linked up on the bridge. We scarcely got any notice there anymore. Captain Ronald obviously had left the bridge under the control of his two main pilot deputies. We all had made sure to stand touching one of the consoles and attuned ourselves to the vibrations, electrical flow patterns and electronic traffic, synchronizing our minds with it. Then Mader gave everyone an update of his escapades, which was mostly a repeat of what he had told me through mind talk before.

  We waved to the controlling pilots on deck and snuck off to one of the adjoining vacant anterooms after we all had done the ‘meet the machine’ deal. There we contacted Jongi, “Are you always awake?”Jessi asked.

  Jongi answered, “No I’m not. At my age, sleep is very essential to my wellbeing. It just so happened that you all rang my head at just the right time. Thank you all once again for rescuing my little nephew Mischa and his crew. He did check in about ten hours ago and sung your praises. He had thought he was a goner! He said he thought he was hallucinating when he heard your voices in his head claiming to be just outside his crashed command module. Anyway I don’t want to hog the conversation here. What are you all planning?”

  Jonah asked, “We need to go into this segment of the investigation with the deck stacked in our favor Jongi. We need up to date intelligence on Commander Ross, Chief Martinette of Defnet here and also Munchin head of Securinet. We need their hierarchy and when they have known attributes or folks with attributes in their ranks. We also need all you can give us about Yashid that super rich but likely Oligarch type since we feel he is involved somehow in the hijacking for money deal here.”

  Jongi said, “Yes, yes Choka, Breecher, Buenafe and I have our sources and have already gone over those characters in as much detail as we know. We could not send stuff like that over any known radio communication encrypted or not. So I will tell you now from my head to yours.”

  She continued, “The folks on Baclet and Threeme have traditions that are, with no disrespect meant, somewhat similar to Noncoms here on Toigan. They have a tradition of brashness, rough and tumble which some still use a very old fashioned word called ‘redneck’ to refer to. They have been explorers in a sort of gold rush way, and that in fact has been an amazing characteristic of human growth and expansion. Their planets were settled long after Toigan and in fact a tough hardy breed was needed to do that. Their society rewards individuals for that. So there are folks among them who pop up with powers and attributes and may get rewarded if they can put it to work yes, but not like here on Toigan where we have gone out of our way to encourage a whole planet wide genetic industry to improve our population. We cherish good governance and reward refinement of the genetic and disease resistant pool. As a result we have had a blossoming of humans with powerful attributes such as you all- Six and Five. We expect to continue down that path of responsible population growth and emphasis on great quality of life for all. Not so on Baclet or Threeme where there is a more laissez-faire attitude to everything with mores that encourage ruthless greed and growth. Sorry to lecture you on this but you need to understand the ethos here. I do recall that we did not put much of that type of info into your immersion training packets to help you in this line of thinking.”

  She continued, “Yes there are always humans who will have a conscience and strive to do the right thing every where you go. Baclet is no different in that regard. Here you may find folks who are playing both sides of the fence and think nothing much of it. So you must process your information that way. Sometimes the least corrupt is what you may have to support over the most corrupt! So you might meet the odd human with powers who is employed to gain an advantage on a competitor or to better interrogate prisoners. Even in foreign affairs, there might be a weak telepath being used to try to gain a diplomatic advantage so you must be mindful. However in our travels, and remember they only live to the seventies to nineties over there, we have met just a few and they were not of a high caliber. They are just the result of sporadic odd mutations rather than the systematic culturing of attributes like Toigan has been doing. Neither Martinette nor Munchin nor any in the hierarchy seem to posses any major power attributes. They may have an odd man or woman yes who will try to help them. We have tried very hard to keep them in the dark about how powerful we can be. So please continue that. Our AI predicts that they may have a total of twenty people on Baclet and ten on Threeme based on genetic sampling that we have surreptitiously taken from among them and from the few gifted ones that we have identified. We know directly of twelve on Baclet alive as we have their DNA plus sampled the quality of their powers but that was ten years ago. So in short be wary, but none that we know of, approach Six’s attribute level. Yashid may employ a few on a freelance basis though, since he is able to. He seeks the advantage at all times; be checking carefully for thought grabbers if around him. There may be a few at their gambling institutions and they can be hired there by the wealthy. Above all use your skills after you test the wate
rs, so to speak. Crack the case and find evidence that don’t involve revealing your attributes of course, to persuade Defnet and Securinet to bring charges. They are quite quick to execute severe wrong doers there too. We often will scramble their brains and neutralize criminals here on Toigan, but not them. Hopefully that helps. You will have to probe them yourselves individually to see who is somewhat trustworthy and who are not. Good luck Six.”

  She said, “Finally, since I have been speaking so much, you Jonah take the lead and spin it as you’re the noncom. They’ll know what that means. You grew up farming but somehow always wanted to fly and so was noticed and you got to meet Jessi a modern by accident and you fell in love. They do like love stories over there. Then you met some of her friends and you started hiking together. Be careful, they may try to hook those of you who are unattached to one of theirs. Finally you all wanted to do exciting things like most teens and went together to get diving, flying and physical training. While in the midst of that in a little village some Outlaw types started kidnapping innocent people nearby and you all sprang into action to help the authorities. You all worked so well together that you were determined to stay together and the Securinet folks trained you in rescue and as a reward also treated you to some spacewalks on a near space hypersonic craft. You loved it so much that you begged for and were sent to this new spaceplane that is the fastest ever. While on it your Captain got the message that there was an ore carrier in distress around Tsatvik from your people here on the BMOS. They would be complimented by you putting it that way. You got lucky and were able to help with that, only to have missiles shot at you. So you are here to bring them the survivors of which at least one is a Toigan. You are also bringing them the pieces of the missiles so that they can investigate it. You sincerely hope to build a friendship with like minded folks especially teens here on Baclet, if you are given the opportunity to visit. Keep it simple, that would appeal to them. If they probe, push Cherese forward as a modern who can sense things sometimes and have helped to save you as a group when in danger. She is petite, pretty and innocent looking and they will want to adopt ‘the cute young lady’. In short she is most likely to come off as non-threatening. So those are the practical suggestions that we the older ones have come up with to best ingratiate you with your soon to be hosts. You are all resourceful enough to play on that general theme.” After a few more back and forth questions and answers, Jongi signed off. We would be on our own to play the diplomatic and investigative game. Unlike on Toigan, here we would not necessarily have the help of the authorities though.