2142 – Halfway
Between the Earth and the Moon
Drake’s voice trembled. “They are sending us a homing signal
to follow in order to land us in their internal docking bay.”
“The belly of the beast,” Sarah said in a flat tone. She
walked to the captain’s chair. “What do you think, Jack?”
He exhaled. “So far, so good. He’s probably feeling smug
that he kept us out of running position. Classic military tactics.” Jack leaned
forward. “Helm, lock onto the signal and follow it at docking speed. Nothing
alarming, strictly by the book.”
“Aye, aye.”
Kate sighed loudly from the weapons and targeting system.
“All these targets and nothing to shoot at.”
“How accurate do you think you could be without the
computer?” Sarah turned and asked her. In response, Kate raised an eyebrow and
gave Sarah a disappointed look. “Oh. Right,” Sarah said, turning back to Jack.
“Alright, back to business. We land. We walk out. Assuming they don’t
immediately shoot us –“
“Which they won’t.”
“Assuming they don’t, then what?”
Jack shrugged. “This guy wants to meet me face to face and
get a read on me. I’m sure of it. He wants to know if I’m talking out of my
ass, that much is for sure, but his curiosity is piqued in other ways, too. I
think we’ll have that dinner, and he and I will have our meeting.” He rubbed
his head with both hands. “The rest is timing. We have to buy enough time to
put the rest of the plan into motion.”
Ben interjected. “And my father?”
“He is supposed to be at dinner. Give him what he needs –
quietly – and make sure he is ready to run at the drop of a hat. When we get
the signal, we’re going to have about ten minutes, maybe less. And then…” he
stopped visualizing what the final stage of the plan was supposed to look like.
“And then Kate will have all the targets she could ever ask for, and hopefully
she’ll shoot every last one of them.” He smiled. “While Gina does some fancy
flying to get us out of here, of course. Come on, guys… we have gone over this
a lot in the past few hours. We can do this. We can. Stage one went perfectly,
didn’t it?”
A look passed between the rest of the bridge crew. Stage one
had taken a miracle to succeed. Miracles, like lightning, weren’t exactly known
for striking twice in the same place.
Richard felt a rumble pass through the shuttle. “What the
hell?” he dropped his tools and raced to the pilot’s seat. A quick look through
the window told him that his worst fear was coming true.
“Nononononono! You’re supposed to land with us! You’re supposed
to land with us you stupid alien bastards! Nonononono!” Droplets of sweat
appeared on his forehead and began dripping down his face, and against
everything he knew was useful, he began to panic. Richard’s breathing became
heavy and labored, and his vision started to blur. Ity was at that moment that
he realized just how much trouble he was really in.
“Hyperventilating. Not good. On low oxygen in the shuttle,
not good. Pass out and I have no chance. They all die if I pass out. They all
die if…” he held his breath for a moment, “they all die if I don’t figure this
out right now. Come on, Richard, think!”
He looked through the window again and saw the path the
Rea’Cerb was taking. It took a long five seconds, then “Yes!” echoed through
the shuttle. He made some mental calculations, offered a silent prayer to the
universe that they were correct, and then made his move.
Flicking off the life support system so that the shuttle was
little more than dead metal, Richard placed his helmet back on. He gripped the
manual release and counted silently to himself. As he neared the end, he
wondered what the odds were that he, the unluckiest man on planet Earth, could
benefit from a miracle twice in one day.
“Not very damned good,” he whispered.
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