by M. Alan Marr
“Why curious?”
“Cygnus is a military research and development center. It’s also where we build our fighters. You think the gravity on Bellerophon is bad, try Cygnus.”
Chaz recalls what Dev said about the cockpits. “Extremely strong materials . . .”
“Say again?”
“You said the cockpit and canopies are made of extremely strong materials.”
“All manufactured on Cygnus. Metallic and crystal alloys smelted in heavy gravity are immensely strong. Cygnite alloy makes carbon steel look like tissue paper.” Dev shakes his head. “Attacking Cygnus was a long shot even for the Yeti. It’s well-defended and a very difficult environment for the Yeti to operate in.”
“How so?”
“Their technology becomes very unstable in that gravity. Slower, far less maneuverable, even deadly for the Yeti inside their own ships if they accelerate too quickly or make too tight a turn.”
“Jeez, what’s it like on Cygnus for us?”
“I’ve never been there. There really isn’t much of a population there. That billet is highly specialized. You’d have to spend years on Bellerophon just to have the gravitational conditioning to even qualify for a billet on Cygnus. Even then you’d require special equipment for quite a while.”
“Sounds lovely.”
“Between you and me, I think that’s what Idris was waiting for. That’s why I wanted to speak to her before issuing orders to Earth.”
“What happens when people leave Cygnus?”
“They have medical issues.”
“How come?”
“Imagine your heart conditioned to beat in a 6g environment. Then imagine how your blood pressure would spike if you showed up on Earth.” Dev chuckles, “You’d have to take medication to keep your heart from beating right out of your chest. You don’t see them very often, but you can always tell if someone is from Cygnus by the way they move; they have a sort of bouncy gait to their walk, like those images of your astronauts on the moon.”
“Wow.”
“If a Cygnan shook your hand without thinking, they’d likely break it. That being the case, they generally avoid physical contact with off world residents. Some people think they’re aloof, but it’s because of the environmental challenges they face when they leave Cygnus.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“Most civilians in the Crown are content on their own worlds. They rarely ever leave. But just like on Earth, people make changes. They travel for academic and professional reasons, and also for pleasure, but home is home.
“Interesting.” Chaz considers the recent attack. “Do you think the attack on Cygnus was just a way to get new intel on your defenses?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they figured out we can’t just send new people there. If they had taken out the Tech Corps in Cygnus, we’d be hard-pressed to build new ships.” Dev shakes his head. “I’m not sure what’s next in the Yeti playbook, but my gut feeling tells me we can expect to see a lot more of them.”
“The Admiral said Commander Dev is rarely wrong.” Chaz knows Dev doesn’t like overt praise, so he adds, “He also said Midshipman Dev is another story.”
Dev laughs. “I will never live that down.”
Chaz turns serious. “We have a huge job ahead of us.”
“That we do. So the more you learn, the better off we will be.”
“What kind of weapons do the Yeti have? Looked a lot different from your stuff.”
“They have a type of electrostatic meson weapon.”
“It almost looked like lightning.”
“Yeah. It’s a subatomic weapon that randomly rips apart the target. Our fighters are pretty tough and can usually sustain multiple hits, but if it connects just right, or if two Brigands concentrate their fire on you, then it’s pretty much lights out.”
“Ugh.”
“However, we discovered it’s a solid fuel weapon. Every time they fire, they burn away part of it. If you can keep them shooting, they’ll eventually run out of ammo.”
“What about our weapons?”
“Obviously you can run out of missiles and projectiles, but our energy weapons draw directly from the reactor supply.”
Chaz stands at the navigation table on the control deck poring over the display and his operations guide. Dev isolated course changes to the flight panels and workstations so Chaz can manipulate the holographic controls without affecting the ship’s course. The holographic displays can be configured with a multitude of options to view systems, maps, detection images, or even text in a 3D holographic projection, all of which Chaz is gaining familiarity and hands-on experience with.
While Dev makes a slight course correction on the flight panels, Chaz practices manipulating the various detection modes on the holographic display. A 3D rendering of the Recon ship is currently being projected, which Chaz turns and rotates using both hand gestures and the keyboard controls. The ship’s image suddenly turns inside out.
“Shit—Uh, Dev?”
Dev looks over and sees the problem and smiles. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I just made the whole ship go inside out.”
Dev joins Chaz’s side. They look at the interior of the ship and in fact, see tiny live representations of themselves standing next to each other. Chaz raises his arm up and down and sees the tiny holographic Chaz doing the same.
“Wow. Cool.”
“You went into internal detection mode.”
“Ah, detection mode . . . here and here.” Chaz presses two keys, and the image turns into a spectral color display, then the normal external graphic of the ship in flight.
“Some of these buttons are blank,” Chaz says.
“Yeah. Many of the keypads are multifunction controls. The keys will populate with appropriate icons depending on which systems you’re using.”
“You have an interesting mix of buttons, switches, and touch sensitive panels.”
“Yes, we do. You’ll see physical controls—buttons and switches—used in most main-system access. Tactile panels, the touch-sensitive stuff, is usually a non-critical subset. Most flight controls use physical switching systems, mainly because we operate in varying gravities. Tactile panels require more attention. And in combat we don’t want your attention drawn to manipulating a tactile panel when a physical keystroke can be initiated with muscle memory.”
“You guys have thought of everything.”
“Just long experience. We’ve developed these systems over quite some time.”
The next day, Earth is in sight. The sails have been furled and stowed, and the ship’s passive stealth systems initiated. Braking thrusters fired outside the system have been slowing the Recon ship for the last hour. Though they can’t feel the deceleration, their velocity is steadily decreasing to system maneuvering speed. Dev accesses the communications relay buoy left in orbit and checks the Swiss bank account at one of the workstations. “Hey, it’s official, we’re billionaires. They updated the interest in the Swiss account.”
“You’re a billionaire,” Chaz says, not looking away from his work. “I’m a mere two hundred twenty-seven millionaire.”
“Yes, I don’t know how you go on.”
Chaz has a curious thought. “How much is all that gold and stuff we’re carrying worth?”
“The ingots are probably worth ten million,” Dev says. “The ancient coins, maybe two hundred million.”
“So wait, you’re accessing your accounts. Won’t they pick up the transmission?”
“No, this is a point-to-point back link with the relay buoy.”
“Like a back channel.”
“Right.” Dev explains, “The buoy is tapped into Earth’s com network. If anyone is monitoring us specifically, they’ll think the signal originated on Earth.”
“Is it okay to check my e-mail?”
“Absolutely.”
Chaz enters a few commands restoring the navigation table to normal ops, and then moves to the couch and pow
ers up his Ti-Phone and sees he has a lot of unchecked e-mails. He reads one from a friend and colleague at work. “I should reply to this one.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s from a captain friend of mine. He noticed I haven’t been flying much.” Chaz begins typing. Hey bud, no foul play. He glances at Dev. “Yeah, not much,” and then continues typing, Dev had some business to attend to and needed my help on an international project. Should be back soon. Thanks for thinking of me, Chaz.
Dev’s Ti-Phone rings. He checks the screen. “The lawyers are trying to call.” Dev keys the ship’s com system, rather than answering on his Ti-Phone. “This is Dev.”
“Ah, you’re there, sir.”
“Williams, yes,” Dev replies. “How are you?”
“Fine, sir, are you back in Atlanta?”
“Not quite.” Dev looks at Earth out the forward window. “We’re close. Should be back tomorrow.”
“Well, sir, I won’t keep you, but I wanted to let you know your airplane charter has been set up. You’re booked on the BBJ as requested, with what the charter company called ‘your usual crew’ minus the first officer who, and I quote ‘went to upgrade.’ I take it that is an aviation term Chaz will understand.”
Dev smiles, “It means he was promoted to Captain.”
“I see. In any case, Captain Fitzgerald will have a different first officer. Beyond that, I placed a call to the vice president of Boeing Corporate Aircraft Sales and let him know you are prepared to buy immediately. I’m flying to Seattle in an hour to cover the preliminaries before you arrive.”
“I bet that raised an eyebrow or two,” Dev says.
“I believe so. I let them know you have been flying all over the world in the BBJ and that you wanted something bigger. They have a BBJ-900, a 757, two 767s, and 787 in corporate configurations and available for your perusal.”
Chaz leaves the couch and chimes in. “Bill, it’s Chaz.”
“Hello, Chaz.”
“Listen, I don’t want to dick around here. Tell Boeing our next stop will be to Toulouse to the Airbus factory. Also, let the Boeing guy know my qualifications.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t imagine these things are flying off the shelves, so work some magic.”
“I’ll do my best.”
There is an alert tone heard in the ship. Dev quickly responds. “Williams, we have to go. I’ll call from Atlanta.”
“Yes, s—” Dev severed the communications link before the lawyer could finish.
“Why’d you hang up on him?” Chaz says.
“We’re coming up on Earth’s scanning range,” Dev says, moving to the pilot station. “Up-regulating the stealth system. No more voice transmissions from the ship.” The hull closes, shutting out the windows and any energy signatures that might otherwise escape from the ship. Outside, the skin of the ship turns very dark to blend with the blackness of space. Energetically, the ship will not register on any radar or thermal detection systems.
Onboard preparations are made, which consists of basic clean up and stowing of all the loose items. Since they have several hours until they can safely make their descent, Dev and Chaz load up the Range Rover with the cargo boxes. Chaz opens one box and sees the pile of coins. “Whoa,” he marvels. “those are gold doubloons.”
“Brought back during your 18th century.”
“These are worth a fortune!” Chaz says. “Seems a waste to sell them to that dick.”
“We’ve got a boatload of them,” Dev says dismissively. “Literally. A Spanish galleon loaded down with these sank in deep water in 1798. We knew it would be centuries before anyone on Earth could ever reach those depths, so our guys went down and salvaged them.”
Chaz closes the back gate to the truck, and they return to the control deck.
Three and a half hours later, they head back up to the canopy for one last look. Earth is now close and all around them. The Recon ship settles into a western descent above Africa.
“Wow,” Chaz marvels. “It’s really something to come home to.”
“This is the same exact view I saw when I first arrived,” Dev says, gazing at the planet. “Seeing your own world after a long voyage makes the distance . . . disappear.”
“I think you’re right.”
The computer signals three short tones.
“We’re three minutes from reentry,” Dev replies, while heading back down to his pilot station. Chaz follows and takes the portside station. Dev double-checks the readings on the lateral panel. “Stealth system is stable. Approach course available. Position of the space station?”
Chaz presses a few keys on his panel. “I have the ISS,” Chaz says, while looking at the orbital tracking display. “It’s just about on a hundred eighty-degree relative orbit. Looks like our re-entry point will have us well below them before our courses intersect.”
“Very good, Commander.” Dev smiles.
Chaz is happy to oblige. “I almost feel like I’m not a passenger for a change.”
Dev inputs a few commands. “Speed set. Descent course is set.”
“Detection is up and plotting all air traffic.”
Dev checks his chronometer, which has realigned itself to local landing site time. “It’s almost 0400 at the lake. Initiating reentry.”
In a replay of events six months ago, the Alabama sky delivers guests. The Tertian Recon ship descends quietly toward the lake. Dev makes a considerably slower descent in order to reduce the amount of inertial energy and gravity wave the lake will have to absorb. Since they have to sink the fighter, Dev doesn’t want to churn up the water any more than necessary. Security scans detect no unwitting passersby or energy signatures near the property. The only gawker is the resident owl in the large tree by the lake.
Dev puts the ship close to the surface of the lake a quarter of a mile downrange of the beach. He lowers the hull slightly into the water and releases the fighter, which settles and begins to sink. Chaz has a hologram of the fighter and the underwater lake bed on the navigation table and uses the hand controls to remotely access the fighter’s gravity drive and tweak her down safely to the bottom without capsizing. The bottom of the lake looks good, and the fighter settles gently into the silt.
“Fighter’s down safely, Dev.”
“I hope you closed the windows.”
“Very funny.”
“Regenerative systems are initiated,” Dev says from the pilot station. “You ready to go?”
“One sec.” Chaz verifies the instructions in his guidebook and slowly enters the sequence in the computer display to remotely shut down the onboard systems in the fighter. “If I’m reading this right, the fighter is powering down.”
“Good man,” Dev replies, easing the ship forward. “I’m putting us in position near the beach. If you take care of the truck, I’ll finish up here and be down directly.”
Dev prepares to transfer operational control of the Recon ship to his Ti-Phone. Chaz hurries down to the cargo bay, deactivates the cargo restraint system and lowers the boarding ramp. He gets in the Range Rover, starts the engine, and very carefully, backs out of the ship. The extra weight of the gold in the back is noticeable and requires a little extra gas to get going. Moments later, Dev walks down the ramp with his golden Ti-Phone at the ready. First command closes the boarding ramp. Next command sends the ship toward the center of the lake. Chaz watches with amazement as the large vessel gently eases into the water, once again creating a steamy geyser near the engine ports. The Recon ship sinks to the bottom, churning up a dirty mix of silt and mud in the process. By daybreak, the sediment should settle and everything should appear normal. Dev enters a last control input to his Ti-Phone to verify all primary systems are shutting down in the ship, with the exception of the regeneration and security systems. The display shows the ship is Grav-Locked, watertight and secure.
Chaz runs a three hundred sixty-degree scan with his Ti-Phone and nods to Dev. “All clear.”
Dev looks at Chaz and smiles. “Welcome home.”
Chaz smiles and takes a deep breath and immediately crinkles his nose. “It smells here.”
“You got used to clean air.”
Chaz laughs and looks at Dev and turns serious. “Shit—”
“What?”
“We’re still wearing our flight suits.”
“Ah, damn it.”
In direct contrast to their drive to the lake, Dev drives back to Atlanta calm and collected. Chaz is now the pensive one, lost in thought at what lies ahead. The fate of the world rests squarely on him and Dev. They need an aircraft. They need to find a secure base of operations. Most importantly, they need to figure out how to recruit four more unsuspecting Earth pilots.
Both men are tired, but they can’t afford to stop anywhere since they are wearing Tertian flight suits. As all of Chaz’s camping gear is presumably somewhere on Lyra, they have nothing else to wear. No matter. Dev doesn’t speed (much), and the windows of the Range Rover are tinted. Chaz had the good sense to lock up their weapons in the back, so at least if they get pulled over they won’t have to explain why they are armed with X-ray guns. Despite that precaution, Chaz has a detection grid pulled up on his Ti-Phone so he can see where the police cars are hiding along their route.
A few hours later, Dev parks the Range Rover in the secure garage at the Gillespie next to the old Bronco and Chaz’s Porsche. Chaz insists on waiting in the truck while Dev fetches a valet cart. That in mind, Dev takes the elevator directly to the penthouse and quickly pulls on a pair of sweats over his flight suit and boots. On the way out of the closet, he grabs one of Chaz’s running jackets and then takes the elevator down to the lobby for the cart. The doorman offers to help, but Dev declines and quickly wheels the ornate valet cart back into the elevator and down into the garage.
Chaz dons the running jacket and pauses near the back of the truck, while one of their neighbors drives past on their way to work. Dev and Chaz act casual and wave at the driver as he passes. Time, at this point, is not on their side, as other residents are going to be leaving for work. Together, they heave the heavy box of gold bars onto the valet cart. Even with Dev’s strength, it takes effort to move the six hundred-pound box. The smaller boxes are stacked on top of the larger, and the carefully guide the trolly to the elevator. Once inside and safely on the rise to the penthouse, the boys sigh in relief.