Chapter 7
Crucis One
“So, why don’t we use jump technology?” Ben asked Jedrek while they strapped down some supplies in the cargo bay of the Zephyr. Kara was with them. “I asked a pilot about it once, but she just said it was because space rocks could merge with you.”
“Well, that’s it in a nutshell,” Jedrek answered as he secured one of Rangi’s large weapons cases. “It’s all about the unknown, right? When a ship jumps from one spot to another it basically bends space and time, much like a transit tunnel does. The difference is, the ship disappears from one spot and reappears in another. The problem with this is that when it reappears it merges with the space it’s jumping to. If a ship jumps to the location of an asteroid, the two objects merge. That’s because two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time.
“Space isn’t exactly full of rocks and debris floating around everywhere, but bureaucrats don’t care about that. They want to regulate and they use every excuse they can to do it.
“When scientists first started to test jump technology, one of the ships that was involved with their experiments jumped into a bed of small rocks. The captain of the ship had a rock the size of a fist merge with his brain, killing him instantly. And several of the crew members had rocks merge with their legs, chest, arms, you name it. It was devastating. They couldn’t even count the number of rocks that merged with the frame of the ship.”
Ben looked over at Kara who had a disgusted look on her face. She’d studied all of this before but the thought of having a rock appear in her brain grossed her out.
“Didn’t they scout the area they were jumping to?” Ben asked.
“I imagine they did,” Jedrek said with a shrug of his shoulders, “but think about it. Space is black. Unless there’s a star or some other type of light source nearby, you can’t see anything. And things like small rocks and debris can’t be picked up by radar and they’re hard to spot with the naked eye, unless there’s a lot of ‘em. In that case, the light reflecting off it will make it look like a cloud or something. I know they jumped near a planet. Could’ve been debris of some type.
“Gate’s kind of work on the same principle as jump technology, but it doesn’t require a ship to disappear and reappear. They just travel through a tunnel, or a wormhole if you will.”
“Well then, why aren’t all ships equipped with Splitzer T’s? It seems like they’d make commerce and travel easier.”
“Are you kidding?” Jedrek asked with canted eyebrows and a fluctuated tone. Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Well, Ben, it’s like I just said. The government wants to regulate travel – heck, they want to regulate everything. Makes them feel powerful and important. It’s about control. They don’t want people going out and exploring on their own, starting rebellions or homesteading on unknown or unregistered planets. That’s why they’ve invested so much in permanent, stationary gates. They can keep track of every ship that goes through them.”
“That sounds authoritarian to me,” Ben said. “Shouldn’t people be free to travel when and where they want without being monitored by the government? I mean I say that, but it’s a big universe. I don’t know how they could keep track of everyone. But then, I don’t know much about politics, so…” He let that hang as his mind traced back to that incident with Ms. Missy in Tine Corp City.
“Well, as for politics, some people care more about safety and security than they do about freedom – which is a debate for another day. But we can’t complain too much. At least we have some freedoms. Those poor blokes in the Alliance don’t have any.”
“So why doesn’t the Federation do more to help them?”
“What, like go to war to free ‘em? You have any idea how many people would die in an all-out war? There’s enough death and destruction in this smoldering cold war we’re stuck in.”
“I don’t mean war. I don’t know – maybe more political pressure.”
“Politics is fickle, Ben.”
“I guess so,” Ben said as they heard a beeping sound come over the intercom meaning someone was about to speak through it.
“You guys about ready?” They heard Captain Baas ask them.
“Yes, sir, just strapping the load down now,” Jedrek replied.
“All right. We’ll be leaving in fifteen mike, so hustle up. I need you in the engine room to make sure everything goes okay. We’ve never opened a gate this far before with this system.”
“Copy that, sir. I’ll head over there now,” Jedrek said. “You two might want to go up to the living quarters and strap in…just in case.”
Ben and Kara did as instructed, joining Rangi and Warrina who were already there. The plan was to open a gate well outside of radar from the planet. They’d use the ship’s stealth capabilities to move in close enough to remotely hack into any satellites or other ships around the planet. After they successfully blinded the Alliance’s satellites and ships, Ben and Kara would drop down to the planet in an egg pod and search for her father.
The engines roared to life causing a dull vibration through the ship’s walls. A few minutes later the ship bumped and rocked as it disembarked from the dock and made its way to a good spot to open the gate.
“Okay folks,” Gedeon said rather nervously over the intercom, “we’re about to open the gate. Hang tight.”
Traveling through Triple Ts was easy as there were stationary gates on either side of the tunnel. With the Splitzer T Navisystem, a new gate was created at the point of origin and at the destination. Since the destination gate was essentially a blind opening, there was a risk of it opening up in a moon or a star if the calculations were off, even slightly. At least they’d be able to see the other side before they passed through it. The bigger problem was the amount of energy that it took, and the overall stability of the gate as a result.
Ben and Kara sat quietly next to Warrina and Rangi. The tension in the air was as thick as fog.
“I still think we should make multiple gates and hopscotch to it,” Rangi nervously said. “And we should’ve reconned this place before hand, ya know.”
“It would have been nice,” Warrina replied. “But creating so many gates uses too much power. It’s expensive. And you know Stoddard told us not to recon it.”
“Why did he tell you not to?” Ben asked.
Kara, who was sitting so close to him that their legs were touching again, anxiously said, “He probably didn’t want them getting caught.” Ben could tell the tension was getting to her now.
“Which makes sense,” Rangi admitted. “Tactically speaking, it’s just better to go in a little more prepared when you can. Right now, we’re going in blind.”
“That’s comforting,” Ben said sarcastically.
“It is what it is,” Rangi said, and as soon as he did the ship began to bounce as if it was banging through massive turbulence. The lights flickered on and off several times in rapid succession while crashing noises could be heard from loose objects in the ship banging against each other. “Good godfrey!” Rangi shouted in an embarrassingly high-pitched chortling voice.
Kara was so unnerved by the commotion she reflexively reached a hand down to Ben’s inner thigh and gripped it tightly, but he was so overwhelmed with anxiety he didn’t notice it.
The ship continued to bounce and jerk for another ten seconds before it abruptly stopped as if it had never happened at all.
“Um…oops, my bad,” Jedrek said over the intercom. “Sorry about that folks.”
“Do I dare ask?” Gedeon replied.
“You can always ask, sir,” Jedrek chortled.
“Will I get an answer?”
“Depends on if you want an honest one, sir. But we’re okay.”
“Do any of you care about how we’re doing in here?” Rangi cussed in a dramatically pained voice.
“Warrina, is the baby okay?” Gedeon asked.
“He’s just being a boob, Captain,” she replied with a faux grin aimed at Rangi. He smirked back at her.
Ben felt a twitch on his leg and that’s when he discovered that Kara’s hand was on it. She was paying such close attention to Rangi and Warrina she didn’t realize that it was there either. He reached down and cupped his own hand over it, gently wrapping his fingers under her palm, but she reflexively jerked her hand back.
“Oi! I’m so sorry,” she apologized, her Irish accent accentuated, and her face flushed in a deep red that matched her hair. “I didn’t know my hand was there.”
“I wasn’t trying to move it,” Ben whispered back. “You can put it there whenever you want.”
She looked at him amiably and curved her lips as if telling him it would never happen again.
A door to the corridor that led to the ship’s cockpit slid open and an uppity Captain Baas walked through it. “We’ve made it,” he said too cockily, in sharp contrast to his earlier apprehension before leaving Rona. “Cadence did a preliminary scan and has already discovered at least three orbiting satellites, but no ships. It looks like they have a base station on the planet’s smaller moon.”
“There’s more than one?” Ben asked.
“Yeah, it surprised us, too,” Gedeon replied. “The planet’s a little bit bigger than Earth, but it has two moons that are about half the size of Earth’s moon, and one is smaller than the other. The smaller one is about twenty degrees higher in orbit than the bigger one, and it’s not quite on the opposite side of the planet. I’m curious how the two moons affect the planet’s tides, but that’s obviously not important now.
“Looks like there are 3 large continents separated by vast oceans, and hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller islands around the world. Cadence is setting us down on the backside of the larger moon. We’ll get to work as soon as she lands.”
Cadence and Jedrek eventually joined them around a large table in the living quarters after the ship’s landing and the engines were powered down. Ben, Kara, and Rangi were standing around the table. The captain was busy typing on a holographic keyboard on the table while watching a VisiScreen, trying to establish an uplink to the satellites orbiting the planet. He was excessively cautious in circumventing the satellites’ computer firewalls to avoid drawing the Alliance’s attention to his nefarious intentions. Cadence pulled up another holographic keyboard and VisiScreen opposite him so that she could help.
“Looks like we’re in,” he finally said a few minutes later. “Interesting. They’re definitely monitoring the people on the planet. In fact, right now they’re focused on a village. Oh, wow,” he said excitedly. “Take a look at this. Talk about perfect timing!”
He tapped a button on the keyboard and a crystal-clear aerial view of a large Medieval-like stone castle emerged above the table. The quality of the holographic 3D image was perfect. The castle was dark grey, with impressive cathedral-like steeples. The view panned until a large mosaic-stained glass window came into view. The mosaic was an image of a man and woman looking up in reverence to a divine being. Above them was a gold star.
“Oh, my goodness!” Warrina gasped. “That’s religious!”
The view suddenly zoomed out. The castle grounds were enclosed by a large stone wall that was circular in shape and evenly spaced from the castle. Outside the castle walls was an expansive village, comprising buildings and huts of various sizes and shapes. Some were made of wood, others from stone and rock. The village surrounded the castle on all sides so that the castle looked like the pupil of an eye.
Two stone-paved thoroughfares made their way to the castle through the village. Each one was wide enough for a horse and buggy to pass by on either side of each other.
The image zoomed in on a commotion on one of the main thoroughfares. The commotion looked like hundreds of knights on large, horse-like animals with long, shaggy hair, speeding their way out of the village. The lead knight carried a large flag bearing a green cross, surrounded by a yellow sun-like dot. This cross only had one set of arms, but they were canted slightly upwards like a stick figure reaching its arms up in praise.
“Check that out, Kara,” Ben said to her. “That’s not the same group we saw back on the Zeus. Their cross is different, and their colors are green and yellow.”
“Aye, it isn’t the same, is it?” she replied, transfixed on the image. “These guys look like they’re ready for battle.”
As if on cue, the image zoomed out high into the sky, passing a few clouds, then zoomed back in on a grassy field north of a high mountain range, where another army was formed, divided into divisions.
“That’s the group we saw! They have that red grapevine cross!” Ben said excitedly. They watched as one of the knights broke ranks from this group and rode up and down the line in front of him.
“Look at that,” Gedeon said. “He’s giving them a pre-battle pep talk. He must be their leader. It looks like there’s going to be a battle between the red and green armies. How cool is that? Too bad there’s no sound.”
Jedrek, ever the comedian, seized the opportunity. “Men of the Red Brigade!” he said aloud as if channeling the leader of the Red Army in a broad Scottish accent. “What does this battle mean to ya? Do ye fight fer yer lands? Do ye fight fer yer freedom? Aye! As fer me, I fight fer me lady lass!” The others started to laugh, which only egged him on. “She tons O fun, with a plump ole ass. But she refuses me love’n, ‘less I prove I’m a man.
“So, fight with me, brothers! Fight fer yer lands! Fight fer yer freedom! And fight fer me lady lass, or I’ll have her smother ye with her rippling mass!” This sent the others reeling with delight. They all whooped it up until the other army entered the field.
“Oh, my gawd, look at that!” the captain nearly shouted. “That Green Army’s not stopping! They’re charging full speed ahead!”
“Aren’t they supposed to form up so their leaders can meet in the middle?” Kara asked.
“This ain’t Earth, kid,” the captain told her as the image zoomed in on the charging Green Army. The Red Army immediately broke formation and charged as well. They separated into two distinct ranks, leaving only a thin line of knights in the middle, hoping to envelop their enemy on both flanks, but the ploy didn’t appear to catch the Green Army off guard. Like a fluid wave, dozens of knights in the advancing Green Army pulled back into rows, creating several points and dips in the line, and then their flanks yielded enough to create a formation that looked like a half-moon with spikes jetting out.
“Bad move on the Red Army’s part,” Rangi said. “They massed their forces on their flanks. Their middle’s too thin. It looks like they were counting on their superior numbers, but it’s a mistake. The Green Army can cut the middle and separate the Red Army’s forces.”
The picture zoomed in as both sides converged in battle. There were close-up images of the knights killing each other with large swords, axes, and morning star weapons. Severed limbs and lopped-off heads flew through the air.
Within minutes, the Green Army cut through the Red Army’s thin middle line separating the two flanks. The Red Army was now forced to fight on two fronts while the Green Army rounded its flanks to form a circle.
“You were right,” Warrina said to Rangi. “The Red Army’s screwed now. They had superior numbers, but their strategy was crap.”
The image panned to a large knight in the Green Army with a long beard split into two braids. He had jumped off his horse-like animal and was engaged in battle with two other smaller knights from the Red Army. The larger knight wielded a long sword in one hand and a spiked morning star in the other. One of the Red Army knights lashed at him, but his lash was greeted by the other man’s morning star to his face. The spikes dug in so deeply that the large knight wasn’t able to pull them out before the other knight’s companion lunged at him. The larger Green Army knight whipped his sword downward, deflecting the feeble attack while simultaneously letting go of his morning star. He swung his body around to generate more force, and with a powerful swing, he cut the smaller knight in half at his abdomen.
“Oh, I think I’m going to be sick,” Kara said as her face started to turn a shade of green that nearly matched the Green Army’s colors. She turned her head away and closed her eyes. Everyone else stood in utter awe at the carnage.
“I’m starting to feel kind of guilty,” Jedrek said to no one in particular. “I hope the fat chick was worth it.”
“Yeah, too soon,” Warrina said. “Captain, I don’t think we need to watch this. Captain…”
Gedeon was so transfixed by the battle that he wasn’t paying attention to what Warrina was saying.
“Gedeon!” Cadence shouted. He jerked his head up and looked at her. “Time to turn it off,” she said pointedly. He nodded his head and did as she commanded.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, but he didn’t expand on it. “That’s pretty brutal stuff. Kind of makes you appreciate lasers.”
“I’d say,” Rangi agreed.
Gedeon began typing on his holographic keyboard again and looked back at his VisiScreen. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “I’ve located the coordinates of the last duress signal that Kynan sent. It’s pretty far from where that battle is. It looks like it’s about two hundred miles south of them.” He pulled up a zoomed-out display of the area. “It was just over that mountain range, right there. Hold on, I’m going to dispatch one of the hacker probes.”
He tapped a couple of buttons on the keyboard, and a few minutes later, they saw a live image of the mountain range appear.
“That’s impressive,” Kara said.
“Tricks o-the trade, me dear,” the captain replied in Irish. “I guess you could say we’re full of surprises.”
“What are hacker probes?” Ben asked, more to distract his mind from thinking about the grotesque battle they had just witnessed than real curiosity about the probes.
“They’re tiny probes about the size of a basketball,” the captain replied, “completely undetectable by radar because of their small signature. Cadence fired off a dozen of them before we landed.”
“Are they in the atmosphere?”
“Oh no, they’re still in space. We’re using them to hack into the satellites and the Alliance’s base station on that other moon.”
“So that’s how you do it? That makes sense. I thought the video we saw of that battle was coming from the satellite.”
“Oh, it was. We were watching what the Alliance was watching. That’s why we couldn’t control what we saw. The hacker probes just relayed the video to us. But those probes are pretty versatile. They can take their own video, which is what we’re seeing now.”
The mountain range was majestic with towering pine and maple trees and rocky cliffs. A series of narrow waterfalls was seen flowing over one of the cliffs, entering a steep draw. A narrow river at the base of the waterfall wound its way into a small mountain valley where it converged with a shallow lake. Tall green grass and budding orange and red flowers surrounded its shore.
“How beautiful is that?” Cadence asked. “I could live there.”
“It sure would beat living on a space rock,” Warrina agreed.
Past the lake was a large, forested area that appeared as if an asteroid had pummeled into it. Hundreds of trees were charred, and over a dozen were uprooted. A long trench ruffled the ground in a straight line until it abruptly ended at a large unnatural mound.
“Wow, look at that,” Gedeon said. “According to the computer, that’s about ten klicks from the last known location of the duress signal. And it looks like the duress signal came from that area right there,” he continued as a circular beam pointed out the area he was referring to. “How did the Alliance miss that?”
“Who says they didn’t?” Cadence asked.
“Fair point. There doesn’t appear to be any buildings or manmade structures on this side of that mountain range,” Gedeon continued. “I think the best landing spot for the egg pod will be that small clearing right here,” he said as the beam covered the area he was referencing. “It’s a few klicks away, but it’s probably the only place we can land this ship if there’s an emergency.”
“It looks like sunset in that area will be in about two more hours,” Cadence said while looking at her own VisiScreen. “And there’s a storm rolling in.”
“Oh great,” Ben complained.
“Actually, that’s perfect,” Rangi told him. “The storm will give your egg pod cover from both Alliance scouts and the indigenous people. And it will mask the pod’s electrical signals.”
Gedeon looked at Cadence and asked, “How long until the storm covers the target area?”
“About four hours,” she replied. “It should last a couple of hours at least.”
“Okay, good,” Gedeon said with a nod. “Let’s do the drop in about five hours from now. Ben, Kara,” he said, focusing his attention on them. “As you know, the egg pod is traditionally used as an escape pod by most ships, and it can fit up to five people. It can withstand a drop into a planet’s atmosphere, and it has limited flight capabilities, allowing it to both land and take off from a flat surface.
“This particular egg pod you’ll be in has been highly modified. It’s one of our treasures. After the initial drop, it will fly itself to the pre-designated coordinates that Cadence will input into its navigation system. The drop will be fast and bumpy, especially after you hit the atmosphere. It’s going to be like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.
“The biggest problem with the egg pod is that it can only reach about sixty thousand feet after it takes off from the surface. It can’t breach the atmosphere going back up, so you’ll need to call us when you’re ready to come back. We’ll drop in low enough to scoop you up out of the sky, and then we’ll bolt out of here. Don’t forget, you can only take enough provisions down there to last about two days; that’s all that will safely fit in the pod. If you can’t find Kynan in a reasonable amount of time, you’ll need to come back, and we’ll try to figure out something else.”
“Will we need to do any manual flying?” Kara asked him.
“No,” Gedeon replied, “but you might have to launch it if we can’t. It’s just a matter of pressing a button on the VisiScreen. We’ll also download a program to your Simpad that will allow you to remotely start it if necessary.
“Anyway, before you lift off, all you’ll need to do is contact us, and we’ll remotely send the navigation and flight instructions to the computer.”
Ben and Kara both nodded their understanding, and then they all set about getting ready for the mission.
Ben and Kara’s first stop was to Warrina’s medical room, where she gave them a large medical kit and a couple of pills. One was for motion sickness, and the other was designed to constipate them so that they wouldn’t need to do number two while down on the planet. It wouldn’t stop them from needing to pee, though. She warned them that she was going to give them a pill after they got back that would flush them out, and she regretted saying as much as soon as she did. She should have known that telling two teenagers of the opposite sex something like this would result in immature, if not embarrassing, comments regarding the other’s bowel movements.
Cadence spent the next three hours running scans between them and the space above the designated drop zone to check for other spaceships. She discovered that a squad of four Galactic Hawks flew security patrols around the planet every thirty minutes.
In addition to the security patrols, there were three satellites in the area where they planned to execute the drop, and another half a dozen in different areas around the planet. They had to assume that the satellites had radar capabilities, which they also calculated for.
Adding to their problem was that the moon they were hiding on was orbiting faster than they had originally anticipated, and they were now about halfway around the world from where they wanted to be. On the other hand, they would be making the drop on the dark side of the planet, which was a benefit.
The essence of the operation was speed and precision, which heightened the danger. Cadence would need to fly to the crest of the atmosphere as fast as possible and then fire off the pod while banking away from the atmosphere. If she got too close, the gravitational pull from the planet would force her to adjust her speed, which could be disastrous for Ben and Kara in the pod. After analyzing all the variables, she determined they had a window of between 60 to 90 seconds before something, or someone, would detect them.
Cadence input the data she had gathered into the navigation computer and had it create a series of flight routes to the drop zone that would maximize the benefit of their stealth capabilities while minimizing their exposure to human eyes from passing patrols. The computer gave her three viable options, which she ran by Captain Baas. After a brief discussion, they opted for the second option. They would be more exposed, but it would allow for a less angled bank and drop, which would better protect the teens.
Ben and Kara spent the rest of their time prepping for the drop by putting on digitized exosuits and loading their borrowed infantry patrol packs with provisions. Rangi also gave them both a familiar sidearm, an M-29 dual-action pistol that could fire a .45 caliber round and a 30-gauge laser bolt. Kara was particularly fond of this weapon, and she shot it very well during their training back on Planet Hell. At the time, Ben was a little jealous of her shooting skills, but she reminded him that she had grown up around firearms. Ben had never touched one until that first day of shooting.
The egg pod they would use was so named because it was shaped like an egg. It was twelve feet tall and ten feet in circumference at its widest point near its lower half. Usually, egg pods were white in color and reflected light, making them easier to locate by search-and-rescue ships. However, the Crew had painted this particular one a dull black so it wouldn’t reflect light, making it stealthier.
Four heavy-duty legs extended from the bottom of the pod when on the ground, and between the legs was an extendable propulsion engine that coned downward when deployed. After launching off the ground, the legs would retract, and the propulsion engine would extend out further, giving the pod more lift. As the pod landed, the engines slowly retracted and the legs extended.
The interior of the pod was also circular, with an enclosed bench seat that ran around the inner wall, except where the oval-shaped door was. The bench seat was enclosed so that the occupants could put gear in small compartments under their seats.
At the center of the pod was a three-foot-diameter console with a flat, table-like surface for accessing a VisiScreen and a holographic keyboard. Wrapping around the console was a bar that the occupants could hold on to while in flight.
Jedrek assisted Ben and Kara with putting their gear into the pod, during which time he also showed them how to operate several of the pod’s special features. If they wanted, they could turn on the outside cameras, which would broadcast images of the outside to the walls, making them appear as though they were looking through glass. Kara shot that idea down immediately, but conceded to Ben that they could allow it only after they stabilized in flight. Jedrek also showed them how to operate the communications system and the pod’s duress signal, even though both were equipped with a portable TCL.
It was now time. Ben and Kara nervously strapped themselves into the pod, and Jedrek double-checked to make sure the buckles were properly secured before he closed the hatch. Then they felt the pod moving into the launch tube. The anticipation crept inside their ribcages like caterpillars climbing a branch to find a place for their cocoons.
“Are you nervous?” Ben asked Kara, who was strapped into the opposite side of the pod, “because I am. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Neither have I,” she replied as she looked at him dead in the eyes. Now that he could see them, he could tell that she was horrified. “I even peed before we left, but…” she let the sentence tail off.
“Is it the drop that’s got you nervous or that we’re going to look for your dad on a strange planet?” Ben asked her.
“I don’t know. Maybe both? I’ve been on countless rollercoasters and Sky Drops at amusement parks, but nothing like this.” Ben couldn’t relate. While the amusement park on LG4 had supersonic rollercoasters with drops up to 300 feet, he’d never been on a Sky Drop before. It was the closest thing to a 5,000-foot freefall that people could experience without parachuting out of a ship. “But I’m also scared of what we’ll find down there. This is my dad. What if he’s not ali…” she stopped mid-word. The thought of her father not being alive was too much for her to bear.
An emotion welled up in Ben, betraying his promise to himself. As if compelled by Man’s primordial instinct, he began to unbuckle his straps.
“Ben, what do you think you’re doing?” Cadence scolded him over the intercom. She had been watching them through the internal cameras.
“Nothing,” Ben replied as Kara looked up at him in surprise. “I’m just moving.”
“We’ll, you’d better hurry,” Cadence said earnestly. They could tell by the stress in her voice that she was a little nervous about the mission herself. “I’m lifting off in ninety seconds, and you’ll be dropping forty-five seconds after that. We can’t miss our window!”
“I got it,” Ben said as he sat next to Kara and began strapping himself in quickly. She leaned over and helped him as best she could.
“What are you doing, Ben?” she said under her breath, even though she knew Cadence would be able to hear it.
“Going against my better judgment,” he told her. After he finished clasping the last buckle together, he interlocked the fingers of his right hand with her left hand, and he rested them on her lap.
“Thank you, Ben,” she told him affectionately as they felt the Zephyr lifting off the moon. As it did, the cocoons in their stomachs opened, and butterflies began to flutter uncontrollably. The ship then flashed forward with enough G-force to press Kara’s lighter body against Ben’s heavier body, not that he could tell because of the pressure of the G-force. Kara let go of Ben’s hand and grabbed onto his inner thigh for leverage while grabbing the bar in front of her with the other.
Moments later, they felt the ship begin to bank, and then another powerful thrust of G-force pushed them back into their seats as they were fired out of the launch tube. Both thought they heard someone say ‘Godspeed’ over the intercom, but they couldn’t be sure because of the banging noises around the egg pod and the pressure of the G-forces that obstructed their inner ear.
In a matter of seconds, the G-forces gave way to a maddening sensation of free-falling. The rush was more exhilarating than either of them expected. They both yelled out in excitement as much as they did in fear as they grabbed the bar in front of them with both hands. They soon felt the egg pod’s lone engine kick on, and the pod’s descent began to slow and somewhat stabilize, but they still felt turbulence caused by the storm raging around them.
“Oh, my gawd, that was the scariest, funnest thing I’ve ever done!” Kara said excitedly.
“Tell me about it!” Ben yelled back.
“I take it you two are okay?” They heard Cadence say over the intercom.
“Heck yeah, we are!” Ben shouted too loudly. The ship lurched to the side and vibrated, causing the pair to white-knuckle the bar.
“It looks like you’re still in the storm, so you’re probably going to experience a bit of turbulence for the next few minutes until you land,” Cadence told them, explaining the obvious.
“Yeah, we gathered as much,” Ben replied as he turned on the outside cameras, revealing the dark gray clouds that surrounded them. The gray clouds seemed to glow as lightning erupted in the distance. Rain spattered against the egg pod as they closed in on the surface.
“Okay, guys, we’re going dark for the next twenty-four hours, just to be on the safe side,” Cadence told them. “We have a link to your exosuits so we can monitor your vitals and location, but we’re not going to verbally communicate with you unless we have to. The less exposure, the better. Which, by the way, don’t forget to power off the computers after you land, just in case the Alliance is monitoring the planet for electrical or computer usage. So far as we can tell, the lighting from the storm successfully masked the pod’s electrical signature during the drop, but once that storm dissipates, you’ll lose that advantage.”
“We understand,” Kara said as they felt the pod’s legs extend for landing. They felt the soft touch of the ground a few seconds later.
“Be safe, you two, and good luck. Out.”
“It looks like it’s just us,” Kara said to Ben as they unstrapped themselves. She looked at the wall around them, which displayed the darkened landscape outside. It was still pouring rain, making it difficult to see anything clearly. “We’ll stay warm enough in our exosuits,” she said in case Ben was concerned about getting cold.
She shut off the computer systems, causing the outside imagery to disappear, and then the engine shut down on its own. An emergency blue light from the ceiling came on, more of a glow than a real light.
“Do you want to wait until the storm lets up before we leave?” Ben asked her.
“I think so. In fact, we should probably wait until sunrise. Walking around on an alien planet in an unknown forest in a lightning storm in the middle of the night probably isn’t the safest thing to do.”
“Right,” Ben said, smiling at the mouthful of words she’d just spat out. “I guess we can try and catch a few ‘Z’s then, eh?” He unfastened the drop-down holster holding his gun and put it in the compartment under his bench seat.
“Guess so. As soon as I go pee. And don’t ya dare turn on that wall!” she chastised him playfully with a deep Irish accent.
The images that popped into Ben’s mind made him blush. He picked at his ear and then scratched his head with nervous tension prior to saying, “You’re a brave soul, Kara. I wouldn’t go out in that crap. I’d just pee in a bottle.”
Ben then learned another valuable lesson about antagonizing her playful side. “Aye, well, maybe if I was a boy and I had boy parts I would. But I’m a girl, and I have girl parts, so I can’t.”
His face turned a shade of red that made Kara’s hair jealous. She saw it immediately and thought about pushing his innocence buttons a little harder, but the urge to pee made her decide against it. Instead, she grabbed her pack from the compartment under her seat, reached into it, and pulled out a poncho and some tissue paper. Ben opened the oval escape door manually for her, and she exited with a small lit flashlight in one hand and tissue paper wrapped in the poncho in the other.
She came back up the steps a few minutes later with the poncho over her head. Ben closed the door behind her, and then her wrath of manipulative indulgence began.
“Oi, I can’t believe you’ve never had a girlfriend, Ben.” Target acquired and hit – a perfect gut shot. He wasn’t nearly confident enough for this conversation. He had a feeling he was about to be taught another valuable lesson from the Kara School of Social Pain. “Why is that?” I mean, because you’re, like, a perfect gentleman. It’s overtly romantic in its own way. If you were a vampire, you’d be Zane.”
“Pff…” Ben retorted with a squinting smile.
“Okay, maybe you’re more like Voltos!”
Ben rolled his eyes. He knew that Kara was a calculated person, and so there had to be a reason for this play. It wasn’t because she was interested in him; why would she be? So, he surmised that she was eager for a distraction to keep her mind off her father, and the best way to do that was by toying with him.
He decided to relent, being a “gentleman” and all. She needed the distraction.
“Well, like I’ve told you before, most of the girls I knew were from the orphanage. And the nuns did a pretty good job of keeping us in line, being a Catholic orphanage and all.”
“Do you still get nervous around girls?”
“Well, the only girls I’ve been around the past month besides you have all been over forty. I mean…I don’t know…I’ve never really flirted with a girl before.”
“Whaaat?” Kara dragged the word out. “You flirt with Warrina all the time! What are you talking about?”
She always knew exactly where to stick the knife and when to turn it. “I do not!” he countered anxiously.
“Don’t lie! I’ve seen the googly eyes you make for her. You have a crush!”
“No, I don’t!”
“Don’t be ashamed,” Kara began, but then retracted. “Well, be ashamed. I mean, she’s over twice your age. You don’t really think you have a shot with her, do you?”
“I’m not looking for a shot with her! And I’m not ashamed about that either!”
“Not ashamed about what, Ben? Crushing on her or not having a shot at her?”
“Both!” Kara’s green eyes lit up at his misstatement, and he realized his mistake as soon as he saw his reflection in them. “I mean…augh…I mean, I’m not ashamed of NOT wanting her and NOT having a shot with her.”
“Then why do you give her googly eyes?”
“I don’t give her googly eyes!”
“Yes, you do!” Kara’s mischievous grin should’ve betrayed her, but Ben was too flustered and untrained in teen-girl machinations to pick up on it.
“No, I don’t!”
“Aye, I wish you’d look at me that way,” another tactical blow accentuated by her accent. First a gut shot, then a headshot. She was out of his league.
“Now you’re just being mean,” Ben retorted with a snide voice.
Kara smiled flirtatiously at him and laughed. In her mind, it was all just playful banter. And it really was meant to distract her from thinking about her father. But Ben couldn’t control his budding feelings for her, and in some ways, her prodding only hurt them. He didn’t want to betray his feelings, but he also couldn’t risk her dwelling on her father. There was only one thing to do – turn the game back on her, by giving her a hint of the truth.
“Well, Kara,” he began, “from this day forward, I swear my heart and soul only to you. You are my dearest love and the only woman in the universe I ever want to be with.”
Just as Kara started to formulate a witty response, Ben said something absentmindedly that he immediately regretted, “And as soon as we do find your dad, I intend to ask him for your hand in marriage.” He recognized the mistake as soon as he said it.
Kara’s clever smile disappeared, and she looked down at her feet and said, “Now you’re the one being mean.”
“Oh crap,” Ben replied shamefully, pulling his head back. “Kara, I…I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to say that. I’m an idiot, you know, I always say stupid things. I mean, I know you were just messing with me to keep your mind off of him. That much I figured out. I just…Well, I just got caught up in it.”
“No, you’re right, Ben. I was just mess’n with you so I wouldn’t think about him. That’s what I do when I get anxious. That’s why I don’t have a lot of friends.”
“What?” Ben asked in disbelief. “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“It’s true. I don’t. I moved around a lot because of my parents’ divorce and my dad’s job. My mum’s an addict, and you know what my dad is. I’ve been in and out of a dozen all-girls preparatory academies all over the Federation. Girls are vicious, you know. I was always the smartest one in all of my classes, and I consumed myself in my studies to try to keep myself from thinking about my mum and my dad.
“The other girls, all GenMods, the lot of them, always picked on me because I was always an outsider to their little clicks. And most of them thought it was strange that I wanted to go to COTA. It’s not something that prissy little rich girls want to do. It’s too manly for them, I guess.
“Anyway, there’s only so many ways to deal with it. You either shut down, you fight against it, or you just brush it aside like it doesn’t mean anything to ya. I eventually learned how to do all three. The fighting got me kicked out of more than one school, though.”
“How did you make it to COTA if you got kicked out of school so many times?” Ben asked curiously.
“Remember when we first met, and you ribbed me about being connected? Aye, well, Colonel Stoddard’s the connection.” Ben nodded his head in understanding. “And, I’m sorry, but I lied to you about COTA. I thought things would get better for me after I got there, but they didn’t. You have no idea what it’s like being the youngest member of that academy.
“All they do is smoke you the first month. It’s all yelling, getting in your face, running, doing pushups, pull-ups, and sit-ups. Do this, do that. Go here, go there. And somewhere in between, you manage to go to class, where you get overwhelmed with homework that you can never finish in time.
“The guys are all horn dogs, and the girls are all jealous of the new girl because she’s getting all of the attention from them.”
“So, I take it you have a boyfriend?” Ben struggled to ask, afraid of the answer.
“Are you kidding me? When do first years ever have time for a boyfriend?” Ben’s heart started to flutter fast, and she could tell, so she decided to shoot a bullet through it. She looked up towards the ceiling in reflection and said, “But I managed to find someone – just a friend, mind you. He’s as handsome as he is strong. And he’s the most romantic person I’ve ever known. He’s been there for me since day one. I don’t know if I’d have made it this far without him.”
She looked back at Ben, who had a screaming look of defeat panned over his face. He knew he shouldn’t have asked, so he had only himself to blame.
“I’m kidding, Ben,” she couldn’t handle seeing his pathetic look any longer. It was too pitiful, even for her sadistic mind. “I’ve never had a boyfriend. Certainly not at COTA. In all truthfulness, I did start to like a guy there once. We kissed a few times, but he bailed after he figured out that I wouldn’t go all the way with him. Looking back on it, I think I only kissed him because it got my mind off of things. It was a distraction – a stress reliever, I guess. It didn’t work for very long, though.”
“So, you’ve never…you know…done the deed?” Ben asked, embarrassingly.
“No, Ben,” she began slowly in order to dramatically emphasize the point, only because she knew it would press his innocence buttons, which would turn him that shade of red that she loved to see, “I have never had sex. I am still a virgin. Are you?”
It worked; he turned bright red again, but he kept his composure. “You know I am,” he replied. “I think my actions speak for themselves.”
“Oi, ya didn’t visit the red-light district on LG Four, eh?” she said, trying to egg him on.
“W-well,” Ben stammered disjointedly, “first off, there aren’t any on LG Four. Secondly, I’m only sixteen, and I’m pretty sure you have to be at least eighteen to go to one. And finally, well, I guess you can say that I’m saving myself.”
“What, like for marriage or something?”
“Actually, yes,” his reply sounded less embarrassed than he was. “You can blame it on the values that the nuns instilled into me, I guess. I don’t know. It just seems right to me.”
“You sound defensive, as though there’s something wrong with it.”
“I guess there is in today’s society, isn’t there?”
“Today’s? It’s been this way for hundreds of years, Ben. I thought you said you studied history?” Ben shrugged his shoulders at her sarcasm. “I’m not going to hold your values against you,” she continued. “I made the same promise to my dad. I think he’s resigned himself to the idea that it’s a promise I’ll eventually break, but right now, I don’t have any intentions of ever breaking it.”
Ben squinted his left eye as if he was perplexed, and then he said, “Really?”
“You’re not the only person with values. Ha, what are the odds that two sixteen-year-old virgins would be sitting on an alien planet in the middle of the Alliance talking about sex?”
“Right now, I’d say the odds are pretty good,” Ben replied, and they both laughed.
“We still have a few more hours,” Kara said. “What do you say we catch up on that sleep we talked about earlier?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“Good!” Kara exclaimed as she plopped her head down on his lap and put her feet up on the bench. “I’m sure your lap will make for a fine pillow…just don’t let your gun poke me.”
Ben’s eyes got as wide as an owls, and his face turned as red as a sunburn as he remembered that she saw him put his gun away.
Kara closed her eyes, reveling in her sweet victory.