Alcantaran 1: Alien Abduction (52 page)

Tik asked, "Why did those two sewer crawlers think there were ghosts around?
 
You didn't find more invisibility capes, did you?"

For an answer, Ron turned his shield invisible.
 
Tik yelped in surprise which set the other two into a fit of laughter again.
 
She was tapping her foot, working up an angry reply, when it struck her how those two had been knocked out without seeing anything.
 
She broke into laughter again with the other two.

When she finally caught her breath again, she asked, "Which of you two knocked them out?"

Gus held up his hand because he still hadn't caught his breath.
 
Finally, he said, "You know that
Kota
doesn't believe in ghosts and probably has thousands of scientists who can prove they don't exist, but right now, he isn't sure.
 
I could see it in his face.
 
This may be a blessing in disguise because I'll bet word of this will spread like crazy.
 
Bounty hunters will be a lot more cautious now and I'll bet 50,000 credits a piece won't tempt most of them.
 
As a matter of fact, when the Bugs get word of this, it will answer a lot of questions about missing relics and how we could unlock secrets that left their scientists in the dark for years."

"Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.
 
We need to build on this mysterious legend every chance we get.
 
Drop a hint here and there but don't say anything overtly.
 
This could be an edge that will keep the Bugs and their allies off our backs for awhile," Ron affirmed.

"How do you make yourself disappear?
 
I don't see a cape," Tik inquired.

"Just think 'invisible' when you activate your shield, little one," Gus instructed.

Tik had to try it right then.
 
She blinked out of sight and then back in again.
 
Suddenly, she had a thought.
 
She asked Auntie, "Will your shield do the same thing?"

Auntie replied, "Yes, but before you think of using it on that orbiting ship, you should know that some detectors will pick me up even when I'm invisible.
 
Some of the neutron detectors follow my power supply and engines.
 
If we had something sitting on the ground here that looked like me, we might be able to sneak up on that ship.
 
However; if they have anyone that is only moderately competent, they may spot us and start firing.
 
If they weren't looking for us, we might have a chance."

"Oh well, it was a thought," Tik replied.

She reported that she had inventoried the projectiles and had ordered 100 stainless steel rods of the same diameter and length as Auntie's original rounds.
 
She had ordered 500 of the smaller ones and they all should be delivered early in the morning.
 
She had offered a bonus for the shop to put their order first and to work all night to get them done.
 
Tik headed back to the situation room to finish working on plots for the hyper-space jump.
 
Ron and Gus had Auntie make her shield opaque before they took a grav-sled outside and flew up to the rail gun pods.
 
They had Auntie open them and then they inspected everything.
 
They had her move all the weapons while they were inspecting them to make sure everything was ready.
 
They didn't know if they worked but Auntie ran diagnostics and said it all checked out.

Satisfied that they were as ready as they could make everything, Ron and Gus returned inside.
 
They took the stingerrays back to the armory and reloaded them.
 
They checked their other weapons out of habit.
 
They went to eat and then had a practice session with edged weapons.
 
After they were through, they returned to the living quarters and talked about their dreams and hopes for the future.
 
Finally, when they were relaxed, they turned in for the night.

The trio was up by dawn.
 
Shortly after they ate, Auntie notified them that the projectiles had arrived.
 
Auntie made the shield opaque again while Ron and Gus quickly loaded the projectiles into their magazine.
 
Ron noticed they now had 150 of the large rounds and 600 of the smaller ones.
 
It didn't seem like much but when considering the unlimited plasma balls and then the laser burst cannons, some unlucky Nodac-Liujia warships were going to think there were plenty of rounds.
 
As they finished loading the rounds,
Kota
and
Zibo
came over.
 
Auntie let them in and turned the shield to transparent.

They went to the situation room to see if Tik was ready with the Nodac-Liujia trader ships they had seized.
 
They were only going to use one of them if they could.
 
They hated to damage perfectly good space ships.
 
Maybe they could be used back on their planets.

They went over the plan again to see if they had missed any details.
 
Tik already had the seized ship headed toward the planet.
 
The ship in orbit was trying to contact it by radio.
 
When Tik gave the word,
Kota
and
Zibo
would be ready to take off quickly and head directly at the ship in orbit.
 
That ship wouldn't be able to fire on Auntie for fear of hitting the Traders.
 
Hitting them would be a declaration of war with the Dar Es Salaams and those in the Nodac-Liujia ship knew who would lose.
 
The Dar Es Salaam Traders had a nasty reputation of taking care of those who attacked them.
 
Auntie would take off a short time later and Tik would fly the seized ship into the one in orbit.
 
Hopefully they wouldn't think of one of their own ships as dangerous and would be watching
Kota
and
Zibo
.
 
The group decided they were as ready as they ever would be.
 
Zibo
asked how Tik was going to guide the seized ship and she replied in a smart-alecky manner about the Alcantaran ghost giving her a hand.
 
Zibo
and
Kota
looked at each other, as if trying to decide if they believed in ghosts.

Kota
gave his report on the locals and how they were faring with ending the war.
 
It would take awhile to even get the two enemies together but hopefully once the other side saw the videos, they would be ready to cooperate.
 
The police chief had rounded up the rest of the local cell members and they were rapidly closing in on most of the national members.
 
Fu was very optimistic that things would start progressing very quickly that day.

Tik announced they were an hour away from count down.
 
Kota
and
Zibo
hurriedly returned to their ship and started their final take off checklist.
 
Ron and Gus made a quick sweep of Auntie and then went to the lower cockpit to start the count down.
 
Tik stayed at the console in the situation room to guide the other ship.
 
She wondered how much of Auntie's computer capacity they were using.
 
There were a lot of things to keep going all at the same time.

The ship in orbit was demanding to know who was in the seized ship and what their intentions were.
 
Tik signaled
Zibo
to take off.
 
The ship in orbit continued to call to the other ship but Tik could tell their attention was now focused on
Zibo
and
Kota
.
 
Zibo
was reaching the upper reaches of the atmosphere now and Tik called for Ron to blast off.
 
Auntie gracefully rose from the ground and started to accelerate into the air.
 
She was heavy but still responded like a race horse at the start of a race.
 
Ron tried not to push her engines too hard but he needed to get into space.

Tik heard the ship in orbit screaming at
Zibo
and
Kota
.
 
He was threatening to shoot them out of the sky if they didn't change course.
 
Zibo
and
Kota
remained silent and aimed right for the ship.
 
They picked up speed as they left the atmosphere.
 
Tik pushed the seized ship as fast as she dared and raised the shield.
 
When it was 50 miles from the ship in orbit, the Nodac-Liujians realized they were on a collision course.
 
It was too late.
 
They couldn't move fast enough to get away.
 
The Nodac-Liujia trader fired a plasma ball shot at
Zibo
and
Kota
.
 
It hit a glancing blow to the side of their shield and ricocheted into Europaische's upper atmosphere where it died out. Tik crashed the seized ship into them right behind the nose.
 
The seized ship glanced off and Tik reversed engines to bring it to a halt.
 
Zibo
quickly turned her ship to give the two wrecked ships plenty of room.

Auntie zoomed into space and relative safety.
 
Ron swung her toward the ship that had been in orbit.
 
He told them to surrender immediately or he would open fire.
 
Zibo
was coming in from off of Ron's starboard side.
 
They had the Nodac-Liujia ship in a cross fire.
 
There was no answer from the damaged ship, so Ron had Auntie scan for life forms.
 
There was no one alive!
 
The seized ship had smashed a hole right behind the cockpit and the ship had depressurized in seconds.
 
Apparently none of the Nodac-Liujians had put on space suits or any other protective gear.
 
The thought of that shook the trio.
 
They were sitting with no protection except their shields.
 
They didn't know how long they would survive inside the shields but Tik added a note to Auntie's warnings.
 
She told Auntie to remind them to at least have the space suits in the same room they would be in during risky flights like this.
 
Tik also made a note to check on air tight emergency doors in the space ship.
 
They needed to be able to compartmentalize so they would be able to conserve oxygen if they ever had a hull breach.

Ron launched a remote sensor to check out the wrecked space ship.
 
It flew in through the hole in the space ship's hull.
 
It found six bodies in the cock pit and on the flight deck.
 
Ron sent it to the seized ship to access damage and reported what he had found to
Zibo
and
Kota
.
 
The seized ship had a huge dent where it had glanced off the other ship but appeared to still be air tight.
 
Tik sent it back to the asteroid where they had hidden it before.
 
Ron pulled Auntie close to the wrecked ship and used Auntie's tractor beam to push it back into the orbit it had been sitting in before the crash.
 
They decided to leave the bodies where they were at.
 
They had other things to finish right now and they didn't want to take time to move them.

Kota
reported that the space battle had been seen by both sides of the planetary conflict below.
 
It had hastened the peace process and they were already talking about what they needed to do to prepare to repel invaders.
 
He said they were headed to their hiding spot.
 
He wanted as few traces as possible leading there by the time the warships arrived.
 
Ron finished with his tasks and turned Auntie away.
 
They were going to head in the opposite direction from the suspected entry point of the warships.
 
If they were checking, they might see Auntie's trail and think they were fleeing.
 
Ron was taking his time until Tik let him know that she had the seized ship parked on the asteroid.
 
As soon as she gave the word, Ron pushed Auntie to jump speed and then made the jump into hyper-space.
 
They were headed to another solar system in this galaxy.
 
They would make two more jumps to be behind the incoming warships.

As they came out of hyper-space, Ron spotted some small asteroids 5000 miles in front of them.
 
The asteroids were moving in the same direction as they were.
 
He asked Tik to see if this solar system was inhabited.
 
She reported that there were no planets that would support life.
 
Ron proposed testing the rail guns and laser burst cannon on the asteroids ahead of them.
 
The other two thought it was an excellent idea.

Ron lined everything up and increased their speed until they were within 300 miles of the asteroids.
 
He told Auntie to shoot plasma balls from the two big rail guns and then try to hit flying fragments with plasma balls from the smaller rail guns
 
After a self check on the weapons, she could try one solid projectile from each of the rail guns.
 
Then she should try the laser burst cannons on flying debris.
 
They had enhanced pictures of the asteroids on the view screens and they sat tensely as the miles counted down.
 
250, 225 and then at 200 they all felt a bump like a land vehicle hitting a pot hole.
 
Auntie had targeted the two biggest asteroids, which were about a 1/4 mile wide.
 
The trio held their breath as they waited for what seemed like forever.
 
They were starting to worry that the rail guns hadn't worked.
 
At the end of 42 seconds, the asteroids disappeared.
 
Auntie didn't fire the smaller rail guns because there wasn't anything large enough to be a target.
 
The trio sat in shocked silence.
 
They had never seen anything like this, nor had they heard of anything like it either.
 
Auntie had told them that there was a lot of destructive power in the guns but words did not do justice to the actual event.
 
Ron asked Auntie almost in a whisper, "How far away did you say you could hit something like that?"