The One_A Cruise Through the Solar System

by Eric Klein

  While Englehorn is trying to understand what is going on with the ship, two men in ship uniforms come into the pool area and spot us. The taller pulls out some sort of gun. “There he is,” he says, points it at us and pulls the trigger. Without thinking I push Fay and her dad out of the way and land hard on the deck in what was supposed to be a diving roll. But as I go to tuck and roll, my left arm does not respond, and I do more of a belly flop.

  “Sam, cut it out, you idiot. We need to bring them to the new Captain. He can decide what to do with them.”

  “But, Frank, he said that it would be better if the old captain was dead. I thought that was why we kept trying to kill him all these times.”

  “Yes, but that was before, so he could take command. But now he is in command and the old captain designed this ship, so he may be useful to the boss.”

  Herding the three of us, they guide us to the lobby. My left arm can move, but I’m leaving a trail of blood drops as we go, still too much in shock to feel much of the pain.

  While we are waiting for the elevator, Frank lets Fay look to my arm. “What were you thinking? You took a bullet for my father!”

  “Given all that has gone on, it seemed more important to keep him alive.”

  “You could’ve been killed.” Tearing a piece of cloth from her shirt, she binds my upper arm. She hugs me tight.

  “I guess I didn’t take the time to think it through.”

  Dave wipes a drop of my blood from his cheek, “Well, I, for one, am grateful that you didn’t ‘think it through.’ If you had taken the time to do so, that flechette would probably have killed me. That makes three times you have saved me. I can’t repay you, but I won’t forget it.”

  This gives me a chance to look at the weapon that shot me. After all, it is still pointed at me from only a meter away. IIt looks like a regular pistol. Looking closer, I see that the opening of the barrel is not round like a regular gun, this one has a narrow slit.

  “What, ain’t y’all never seen a flechette gun before? They’re great in no weight. No recoil, fly straight and will puncture a space suit while leaving a hole that is easy to repair. Best of all, a guy that has a hole in his space suit is not interested in fighting no more.”

  When we enter the bridge, an officer whom I have not met turns to face us – and the look on Fay’s and Dave’s faces tells me they know who he is. “Ah, Dave. I was wondering when you would show up. Good work, Sam and Frank. I’ll make sure that the King knows that you are the ones who captured them. I see that Mr. Armstrong was injured. Not trying to get away, was he?” Turning back to the Captain, he says, “I have special instructions about the two of you, but I see no reason why Mr. Armstrong can’t share your fate.”

  Two crew members come out of the elevator. “Captain, we found this girl wandering around while everyone else was asleep. She attacked us when she saw us. She even bit Tex before we could stop her.”

  One has a deep bite mark on his bare right arm. When they lift their prisoner we can see Dodge with a bruise on her mouth and the start of black eye.

  “Well, Ms. Dunning is up to trouble again, I see. Sam, help Tex put her in the storage room with the rest of them. The King can decide who to keep and who to space.”

  The four guards take us down to a lower deck storeroom. Unlike my expectations, it is not empty. Ethan Laidlaw is lying on the floor near the further corner, his uniform jacket under his head as a pillow. Sam shoves us each into the room, while the others keep us covered with their flechette guns.

  Laidlaw sits up. “Greetings, Captain. Sorry to see you locked up down here, but I guess it was to be expected after they failed so many times to kill you off.”

  “Ethan, what are you doing here?”

  “From what I can understand, I was in their way. Seems that the reason your original first mate, Mike Lally, had his ‘accident’ was so they could make Jim first officer. That way, when they took you out, even for a little while, Bill could take command. As it was, it took until today for him to figure out how to wipe the record of me replacing Mike and to change the date of your foot replacement surgery as an excuse to take command.”

  While Ethan was explaining I whispered to Brain, “See if there is any communication traffic going on.”

  “Yes, there is, but it is not on the normal frequency, and it’s encrypted.”

  “Can you decrypt it and put it on the IR bands, please?”

  “Yes, BJ. I will need to get enough samples to try to decrypt them. Depending on how much they use out-of-ship communications, this could take a little bit.”

  “Dodge, can I have the last of the charms from your bracelet?”

  “What? BJ, did you say something to me? I was listening to Ethan.”

  “Yes. Can I have the last of the charms from your bracelet?”

  “Why? I have lost the others and it is special to me.”

  “I need it to communicate outside the ship.”

  Eyes wide open, “How did you know?”

  “When I noticed the charms that first night at dinner, you had seven of them. Now you only have two. Soon after you went ashore on each planet the local security teams went nuts about security, as though they needed to show that they were serious about their job. Guards are always extra efficient just after something goes wrong, when people question how efficient they had been. I only suspected until the sphere with the dent went missing at Mimas. Until we went there, I did not know what the Death Star was. So, it was not hard to guess that your charms were color coded to match each of our stops and that they contain entangled communications modules that do not connect through the official Ceres station. I’m guessing that they were meant to help organize an uprising.”

  “And I thought the plan was undetectable. Here it is, this one was for Mimas. They were having so much fun playing the Star Wars rebels that they wouldn’t take it. Seems that they enjoyed playing the rebels but not really being part of a real rebellion.”

  “I finally figured that out this morning, when I got a glimpse of Mimas. Your charm was modeled on the Death Star.”

  Brain announces softly, “BJ, I have the communications decrypted.”

  Ethan Laidlaw perks up at this. “Wait. What do you mean you have decrypted their communications? My military wristpad could not decrypt it.”

  “Ethan, I must have missed something. Why do you have a milspec wristpad?” I asked him in return.

  “I’m an unassigned patrol agent. We were watching the launch of this ship and became concerned when Mike had his accident. Skiing just before a launch was out of character for him. He hated cold weather, and never took chances in the last few days before launch. So my superiors convinced Dave’s investors to let me take Mike’s place just in case.”

  “That makes sense. This ship has a lot of new tech and some serious brains aboard. You asked about my wristpad. For my work, I have been fiddling with Brain for years, adding new features and increased processing. By now he is as powerful as most city AIs. I need him to be this way in order to fix them. Brain, how did you crack it so fast and what are they saying on the comms?”

  “BJ, their communications keep repeating one term that was either a name or a title. So I substituted King for that word and ran combinations. The one that clarified it was the announcement that there is a ship docking. They keep referring to it as being the ship of someone they call ‘the King.’ A team has just reported that they have moved the last of the crew that is not complicit and the other passengers into the ballroom. They are all unconscious. Some of the men are being quite suggestive about what they want to do with the women.”

  “We don’t have much time before they come for us. Brain, can you integrate this module to make contact with another station?”

  “Not directly, but I can print an adapter that would enable me to do it.”

  “Please print whatever you need.�
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  “Print? How can he print anything?”

  “As I said, I have modified Brain. When working on some of the more complex systems I can be deep inside and need a chip, tool, or adapter. I can spend the time to climb out and then go looking for one. Or Brain can print it out for me. He has a small storage, just enough for printing circuits.”

  “Adapter ready. Please open the chip case and connect to my I/O port using the adapter.”

  As I am connecting the communications module, Ethan asks to send a message.

  “Brain, can you set it to reroute to official channels via local routing?”

  “Yes, Ethan. Destination?”

  Ethan gave Brain an alphanumeric code that was not like any user identification I recognized.

  “Officer of the day. Report.”

  “This is Agent Ethan Laidlaw, unattached. Voice and visual confirmation, please. The L.S.S. Venture has been hijacked; the Captain and his family have been imprisoned with me aboard ship. Our last known location was a close approach to Skull Asteroid at oh four fifteen, on our way from Mimas toward Dione. Send an armed search party.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Brain spoke up before Ethan. “Sorry to interrupt, BJ, but I’m getting shipboard communications indicating that ‘the King’ is on this level and heading towards us.”

  “Brain, silent mode. Record all communications for summary.” Two flashes as an acknowledgment. I remove the adapter and chip and hide them inside Brain’s compartment.

  Shortly afterwards we can hear them opening the door. In walks a large man with black hair graying at the temples.

  Captain Englehorn jumps. “Schrödinger’s cat! Jake Kong, how can you be here?”

  “Hi Dave, surprised to see me? Naturally, you thought I died. But, no, I survived. My escape was planned. The accident was supposed to render the base incommunicado and listed as lost. That way we could’ve built up our operation there. The explosion was part of the diversion to take them offline. But you were on the line with Shelel when the lines were cut, so you came back and saved them. And I made my escape via the hole in the dome.”

  Jake Kong brushes his hair back and continues. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would have succeeded. Shelel would have been mine, and we would have had the richest living possible as my pirates attacked the local asteroid miners and planets. Instead, I had to retreat to our secondary base and work on building us up again.

  “This is why my backers and I sponsored your development of this ship – so that we could hijack it as a better and more flexible base of operations. But it is lonely out here, and the men were getting restless. We organized the pageant on your maiden voyage so we would have beautiful women as wives for my space pirates.” His face breaks in a rueful grin. “A bit cliché, I know, but it has worked since the founding of Rome.

  “The science conference was initiated to get the best space physicists and engineers in one place so that we could get them to work on new designs and improvements for us, both in terraforming our asteroid, but also for better ships to keep ahead of the patrol. Those that were invited, and subsidized in order to make sure that they would attend, are the best practical technical people for implementing the new theories into our fleet of ships. It was a glorious irony that you designed and built this for us, and were chosen to captain on it – just so I could get my revenge.

  “Oh my, you sly dog! You got me monologuing! I can’t believe it. Leave them locked up in here until we dock. Then I will tell you when to bring Fay to me.”

  Chapter 21

  “Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,

  And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

  Yet I will try the last. Before my body

  I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,

  And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

  Macbeth Act V Scene VIII by William Shakespeare

  “Brain, report.”

  “BJ, they are preparing to land on Skull Asteroid. All of the other ships have already landed in their main hangar bay, from what I can detect activating visuals.” Brain’s holographic projector shows us a view of Skull Asteroid. “The pirates have hollowed out behind what looks like the right eye for their hangar bay, using the shadow to prevent it from showing up in visual images. They have prepared the left eye for the Venture to land and have begun the landing procedures.”

  Five minutes later we can feel a slight shudder as the ship comes to rest in a docking cradle. “BJ, the hijackers have been given orders to collect all of the sleeping passengers and crew and bring them to a holding cell on the asteroid. We are to be left locked up until everyone else is clear.”

  “BJ, can you have Brain make contact to that same code again?” Ethan asks.

  “Brain, please reestablish contact.”

  “I’m sorry, BJ, I cannot connect to the other end’s server. I suspect that Dodge’s friends shut it down when they realized we were using it.”

  “That sounds right. My friends are a bit paranoid about getting caught, and the idea that their system was being used to connect to the very government that they are protesting probably caused them to pull the plug.”

  “OK, nothing we can do about it right now.”

  A short time – which seems like a lifetime – later, Sam and Frank show up to get the four of us. We are led to the ballroom, which now is set up as a throne room with just the one oversized chair for Kong. It seems that he had the 3D printers working overtime to print the chair using the shapes of different spacecraft out of stolen metal. For some reason, Sam calls it the Iron Throne. James Flavin and Jackie Silver, the valet who showed me how to tie my tie, are already there in front of Kong.

  “Free to go? Are you stupid? No one from the Venture is free to go. The solar system needs to think that the ship was completely lost, or they will come looking for it. That was why you were told to send out the distress message and then take the Ansible module out. As far as their systems show, the ship is gone and the entangled electrons are just loose. This means that all passengers and crew need to disappear with their faces and ident chips never to be seen again. Those willing to conform to my rules will do fine; those who don’t will be forced to work in mining or get spaced.”

  “We had a deal!”

  “Yes, Jim, we did, and I’ll honor it. I promised that if you helped me capture the ship, you would never need to work again. You and your lady would live in luxury for the rest of your lives. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to kill you. You are both free to live your lives in luxury as I promised, but it must be here. You can never return to your old lives.”

  Smacking him in the head, Jackie says, “Damn it, Jim! What have you done?”

  “Now for you four. I have had my revenge and, like Jim here, if you behave you will be allowed to live to a ripe old age. Dave, you will be required to work with the other engineers and scientists to improve this asteroid and ships, to keep us ahead of the patrol. You prevented me from having Shelel as my wife, and now she will be a widow while her daughter will make an even more beautiful pirate queen for me. Each of you will do what I want, or the others will suffer. Take all of them back to the storage room until we have resolved the rest of the scientists’ fate and know how many there are to accommodate in the labs.”

  A larger group of guards returns us to the storage room.

  When they have locked us in, Bill goes and sits alone in a corner; not even Jackie goes to offer him any comfort.

  After a few minutes Dave goes over to Bill, who cringes as if he expects to be hit. “What have you done to my ship and Vena?”

  “The ship is fine, but I had to disable most of Vena’s functions, leaving only the automatic controls for the life support. Kong’s people plan to replace or reprogram her to obey them.”

  “So here we are, locked up again with no future but as his tech
slaves,” Dodge pouts.

  The Captain grins wolfishly, “Now, Dodge, I vote we escape and try to get away with what we know.”

  “But, Captain, how? There is only one door and we heard it click as it was locked.”

  “Call me Dave. Remember, I helped design and build this ship.”

  “Yes, I reviewed the designs you filed in the ship’s registry office.”

  “What was filed was the ‘plan.’ But as we built it there were some parts that did not match the original, and I never had a chance to draw up the as-built designs to submit. So there are a few things about this ship that I’m the only one aboard who knows. Not even the ship AI knows some of them.” Walking over to where we originally found Ethan lying, Dave says, “This wall backs on the elevator shaft, but the floors are either wider or narrower than the one above or below them to accommodate the octahedral shape. This floor is different and there was an irregularity in the shape of it. So there is a walk-way around the elevator shaft.” He taps on a section of the wall, and a door opens into a black space. “Now if you will turn on your wristpad lamps and follow me, we’ll see what we can do to save ourselves.”

  “What about us?” Jackie asks. “Are you going to leave us here to wait for that monster to be ready for us again?”

  “Well, I should. Several times Jim tried to have me killed off since we were boarding in New York, and he has committed mutiny. I can’t leave you here to tell in case they come back to check; it would be better we are all missing. But if you both agree to help us get free and rescue the rest of the passengers and crew, I’ll let you come along to help. But I warn you, any attempt to alert Kong and you will both wish you were dead.”

  Looking at Jim, Jackie says, “Understood.”

  “Agreed. I just wanted to get enough for us to retire so Jackie and I could start our dream. I never expected him to kidnap and enslave everyone and to lock us up. You can count on us.”

  “And if you really do help, Dave and I will mention it in our reports,” says Laidlaw.

  “Ethan is right. In spite of everything up until now, if you help fix it we will put in a good word for you in the inquiry.”