Space Trippers Book 1: Trippin' (9 page)

In the main Med-room to the right of the main doorway from the corridor was a large 'L' shaped counter area with all kinds of beakers, glass slides, digital microscopes and other lab materials. There was also an island counter that housed the sink and decontamination devices.

Built into the large 'L' shaped lab counter was the main medical computer terminal where Lola was waiting as Valesque worked to set up a way for her to send a message to her parents.

As Valesque tinkered with her hand held computer that was always at her hip, faint voices and sounds riddled with static were occasionally heard.

"I am looking for a sub-space signal that I might be able to send your message on. The people who receive the signal will have to relay the message on to Saturna 3." Valesque explained as she continued her sub-space frequency scan.

“This one should work." she said, finally deciding on a certain signal. "It is a sub-space music signal. Someone who receives this program should be able to forward the message for us."

Valesque now reached forward and attached her Vid-screen mini-computer to the main medical console in order to boost the signal and hopefully get the message out clearly. Now all that was left to do was to record the message, pirate the signal long enough to send it out and then hope someone listening will be nice enough to relay it.

"I sure hope this is a program signal a lot of people actually listen to." the Engineer remarked as she finished her calibrating. "Ok.. now we start the recording, get ready." she told Lola as she pressed the console's voice log recording button.

"This is a personal sub-space message for the Tech-Labs on Saturna 3. Our ship's communications are non-functioning, please record and relay this message as follows. Repeat: Our ship's communications are non-functioning, please record and relay this message as follows: To Doctors Triumdic of Tech-labs on Saturna 3. This is a message from Scientific Engineer Valesque on the Magellan, your daughter is safe and with me. Her message is as follows." Valesque concluded, nodding to Lola for her to begin, before walking away to give her some privacy.

The Doctors would know not to worry about Lola when they heard she was with Valesque, so whatever Lola added at the end was just for her own piece of mind. This was the first time she would be this far away from her family.

Valesque put her hand to her head as she waited for Lola to finish her message. She had started to feel a little strange when she had first entered the Med-room, a little light headed with a dull throbbing in her inner ears. She had assumed it was a taser residual effect, but she still had it even after her treatment.

The Engineer glanced back over to Lola and saw her still chattering away, she was definitely going to have to edit the message if they wanted anyone to bother forwarding it.

Valesque took the time to look around the still room, noticing as she did so that her ears throbbed more when she looked in the direction of the break-room than when her head was turned anywhere else.

The young Engineer's brow furrowed as she curiously walked towards the break-room door.

She looked back around at the others in the room but no one else seemed to be having any problems. They all seemed at ease and as if they didn't notice anything unusual.

Perhaps something was out of alignment in the systems and it was at such a low frequency only she could sense it.

Valesque pressed the room access button on the side of the break-room's door frame. As the door slid open, a very low pitched drone flowed over her from inside the room.

She went over to the computer terminal on the desk, to the right of the doorway.

Valesque glanced over the terminal's screen as it glowed in the semi darkness, it was displaying a section of the Intergalactic Medical Encyclopedia, apparently Lola had gotten up to volume 'K'.

She sensed the noise was not emanating from this direction.

She reached out and touched the room's light activating panel, sliding her fingers all the way to the top, making the lights shine their brightest and then back down to the bottom, turning the lights completely off before moving the sensors back to the middle setting. The sound was not caused by a malfunction in the lighting.

Valesque turned around and looked over at the food-duplicating unit, but it was not yet active.

Finally, she moved towards the last possibility in the room, the electrical access panel. As she approached the smooth, pale green wall, the throbbing in her ears became stronger.

She pressed the panel release button and a small section in the wall popped out and then slowly rose up out of the way.

As soon as the panel opened, Valesque felt an increase in the low frequency pulse's intensity. Whatever it was, it was in here.

As the access panel moved out of the way and the overhead lighting illuminated the interior of the opening, Valesque gasped in horror!

Amid the silvery wires and multi-colored cables sat a black, metallic, titan spider of a device. Valesque was too shocked to do anything but stare for a moment, taking in the many 'legs' of wiring fanning out from the central device and intersecting every major circuit of the ship.

The alarmed Engineer suddenly sprang forward and swiftly closed the panel as if she feared the spider-like device would jump out and consume her. She turned her back to the panel and leaned heavily against it, keeping it closed as she stared ahead in wide-eyed shock.

"Oh, no." she groaned, trying to come to grips with what she had just seen.

As if things were not bad enough already, and now this! She had hoped she would never see that thing again; that she could forget about ever having created it, but now here it was, on her own ship.

The Space Tripper had returned.

Chapter Four: Suspicions

Apparently, whoever had put the Space Tripper there had wanted to be sure she found it, because she had not created it to be audibly detected. Someone had purposely adjusted its frequency to resonate a tone that only a Virrilian could detect.

They wanted her to find it.

This was very bad.

But at least the device was not yet active, it still appeared to be in its passive mode, but that could change at any moment depending on what trigger it was set for.

Valesque held her hand to her chest, trying to slow down her pounding heart, as she turned over in her mind all the difficulties this new obstacle would bring.

Someone had purposely attached her horrible device to this ship, she did not have time to contemplate on who it had been, the more pressing thing was what to do about it.

If she told the Captain, the woman would be certain to figure out who she was and that it was her device.

The Captain already did not trust her.

A Virrilian on board, who has already angrily confronted her once, and threatened her, Valesque remembered painfully.

The ship was supposed to be going to aid the Earthians in the war against the Virrilians, so no doubt they would think she was a saboteur, especially since it was her device and nobody else knew how to operate it.

At least she had thought so until a moment ago, but obviously, someone knew enough about it to connect it to every major artery in the ship.

The medical electrical panel would have been the best location for it. The medical room had to have access to all the energy and computer sources on the ship, including any back up power supplies.

That is what the Space Tripper fed on; it sucked all the power from the ship once it became active, effectively shutting down everything, including life support systems.

If she didn't tell the Captain, she could possibly escape, she would take Lola with her of course...and maybe Sanic.... and possibly the Yorkie she supposed... but, everyone else on board might be killed. No, she could not do that.

Then of course there was the problem with it being discovered that her device had destroyed them all and she had escaped before it happened and how would that look to the Universal Council.

Valesque groaned at her dilemma. Someone had sure made things difficult for her. She is doomed if she does and doomed if she doesn't.

Well, it had been an interesting life, might as well go out fighting, she thought as she reached the inevitable conclusion.

She was going to have to try to deactivate it.

However, that was a risky idea. One false move and you either kill yourself with a massive power surge and activate the tripper's system, or you live and activate the system anyway.

It was a very sensitive device, one bad move and they could all be sent who knows where as the power drained and all be killed when the life support fails.

Anything could set it off if you tried to tamper with it, but she had no choice because it was on an activation switch somewhere and could go off at any second.

Time was not a luxury she could afford.

She had to figure out how to remove the Space Tripper before it became active and she had to do it fast. First thing she needed were some supplies from one of the engineering or construction areas.

She pushed herself off the wall and headed towards the door to the main Med-room. She was not going to tell anybody about this; it would only cause more problems and slow her down. If she hurried and got it deactivated, there would be no need to alarm anyone else.

And if it went off, well, it was going to happen anyway, whether they were told about it or not.

Valesque was so absorbed in her thoughts she almost ran right into the Lieutenant again as she exited the break-room. He looked as if he had been waiting for her as he stood by the door to the room with his arms folded across his chest, glaring coldly across the room to where Lola and Sanic were talking at the main medical terminal.

"She finished her recording." Tim said relaying the message rather dispassionately to Valesque as he moved slightly from his position on seeing her emerge from the room.

Valesque glanced up at him from her thoughts. Message, right, she thought, have to send the message back to Saturna 3.

Something struck her as odd when she looked at the Lieutenant again. He was not flirting and he was not smiling, actually, he seemed to be looking irritably across the room at Lola and Sanic.

"What is wrong with you?" Valesque asked, surprised at his changed disposition. "Is Sanic cutting in on your time?" she teased, supposing he was bitter about Sanic monopolizing Lola's attentions.

"No one gets in my way if I am interested." Tim replied almost too seriously. "I just don't go for artificial girls." he said with as close to a sneer as Valesque could imagine on his handsome face.

Valesque scowled at the conceited flyboy, as she looked him scornfully up and down. "She isn’t the one I would call artificial." Valesque countered.

Tim turned his head slightly and looked down at her with a half smile; he liked it when she got antagonistic. "Well, it was always said of me that I would go for any female, anywhere. But I do draw the line somewhere." he replied half amused.

"And so you draw the line at Lola." the peeved engineer concluded for him.

“That is interesting, considering how you seemed to be quite into her just a few minutes ago."

Tim smiled, recalling his natural response to a pretty female. "Well, that was before Sanic rambled on about how amazing he thought she was and I found out that she wasn't real."

"I think she is more real than you are, Yorkie." Valesque replied, glaring at him through angrily narrowed eyes. "So what you are saying is you liked her until you found out she was different from you? Sanic is Etherian and I am Virrilian, but you seem to tolerate us just fine. "

Tim smiled his half smile again, "That is different."

"I don't see it as any different." Valesque retorted hotly. "You decided against her after you found out what she was. You had spent enough time with her, flirting, to find out what she is like. That she is a real and a distinct person, just like you and I." Valesque paused for a moment as she considered the unfounded prejudice before her.

"We all come from somewhere, Mr. Baine. We all had a start from somewhere, someone created us. Whether we come from an egg, one parent, two parents, a test tube in a lab or from a workbench, we were all created. Being prejudice about someone just because of how they came into this world is just ignorant. What difference does it make where she comes from? Or what she is composed of? All that should really matter is what she is like." Valesque spouted.

She hated ignorant bigots, probably because she had come across so many herself.

Many people out there had no tolerance for Virrilians.

Tim, who found it uncomfortable to be serious for very long, let out a relenting chuckle. "You are probably right.” he conceded, though not at all changing his opinion on the matter, he was just tired of the conversation.

"But I think I would like to concentrate on carbon based life forms, if you don't mind." he continued, pushing the lock of blonde hair flirtatiously from his eyes as he turned towards the pretty Engineer with his sly, meaningful smile and a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes.

He looked down at the still angry woman before him, taking in how she was just about a head shorter than him, the perfect height. How cute her black, wavy hair was cropped to chin length, and the way it shined blue and red in the light. And how her pale skin accentuated all the pretty features of her face.