The Spindle Station: Book 2 of the Alliance Conflict (19 page)

Crista said, “This human is really heavy, can we just dump him on the floor?”

Lorano responded, “I don’t see why not.”

Victor said, “Yeah, the human will wake up and think he fell onto the floor.”

They all looked pleadingly at Carank. Carank shook his head and sighed. He said, “No, we will have to put him on the bed. We can’t hook the monitoring system to him if he is lying on the floor.”

They all lifted and heaved Colin’s trunk onto a medical bed. His head was face-down on the bed. Then they grabbed his legs and swung them onto the bed. They swung him a little too far and Colin wound up banging into the wall. Carank rolled him back onto the bed and adjusted him as much as possible into what he hoped was a normal sleeping position.

Lorano asked, “How long until he fully regains consciousness?”

Carank said, “Well, he has been frozen for 16 days. The Solarian settings kept him alive, but certainly weren’t ideal. His body is still in shock and needs time to recover. He should be fully functional again in an hour or two; three at the most. As an aside, with the data collected from the process, I can create a new profile for a human that will be much better.”

Lorano gave Carank a strange look and said, “He lived. Besides, humans are never going to use the stasis pods. However, if you want to waste your time then be my guest.”

Lorano activated the force field over the door to the infirmary and the walked back to the bridge. Two hours was an approximation; they really didn’t want the human waking up prematurely and wandering around the ship before the others arrived.

Victor and Crista’s baggage was neatly packed and sitting in a pile in the middle of the bridge. Victor made a final check that all of their baggage was present. He didn’t want to leave anything as they may not see the
Sunflower
for some time.

Even though they had discussed it last night, Carank felt the need to review it again. He said, “Victor, are you sure you want to stay on Earth?”

Victor replied, “Yes. As we discussed, I am technically the owner of Victory Games. Everyone thinks that I came back from vacation to be present for the official launch of the self-contained heater and air conditioner. It would be extremely suspicious if I leave again just before the launch.”

Lorano asked, “Why do you care?”

Victor said, “If Crista and I leave again at the exact same time 70 humans disappear, the other humans will certainly notice and will find us complicit in their disappearance. It will be virtually impossible to collect a third batch if required.”

Lorano waved his hand dismissively. He said, “I actually thought this time was easier than the last. Besides, we still have Crista’s idea. What was it?”

Lorano paused for a moment to think and said, “Oh, I recall now. We simply tell the recruits that they won a free cruise. Get them on board, drive to the middle of the Caribbean, sink the cruise ship, and transfer them to the
Sunflower
. Easy. We probably should have done that this time.”

Carank couldn’t help himself; perhaps he had been around Lorano too long. Carank said, “Depending upon the type of ship, you paddle it, row it, sail it, steer it, or pilot it. You don’t drive it.”

Victor sighed. They had already had this argument and now Carank was emulating Lorano. He said, “Yes. But then we would have to fake their deaths. There would be several legal ramifications for those humans when they returned.”

Lorano said, “The humans could just say that they were stranded on a tropical island somewhere.” He started humming a show tune from a human television show he had watched about the very same subject.

Victor was tiring of the conversation. He changed subjects by saying, “The
Vista
is hidden on the back side of the moon. As soon as you reach Earth’s outer orbit, send a signal to have it engage autopilot and follow your trajectory back to Earth.”

Carank said, “Well, then I guess this is goodbye for now.”

Victor loaded their bags on a spare hovercart and he and Crista left the ship. They walked across the hangar and entered the secret corridor. Just inside the doorway Victor deactivated the hovercart. He then closed the entrance to the hangar, thus sealing the corridor from the upcoming blast of
Sunflower’s
sub-light engines. Finally, they headed down the secret corridor back to his office.

………………….

Lorano activated his communication device and called Jim Donovan. The moment the connection was established, he said, “What’s the status?”

Jim replied, “I am at the VCLC headquarters. People have been arriving for the last 40 minutes. I just took a headcount and we have 69 people – the original 20 pilots plus 49 new members. It appears we are still waiting for one more.”

Lorano said, “No delays. Proceed without him. Also, have Ace report to the bridge before anyone else boards.”

Jim replied “Understood” and tucked his communication pad into his pocket. He found Ace and told him about the bridge duty.

Jim then stood on a table. He waved his hands and said, “Can I have everyone’s attention.”

As they were collecting around him, someone said, “Is this a joke? This is an empty building.”

Jim responded, “No. This is not a joke. Everything is real.” Jim waved for his pilots to come close to him. When they were standing next to him, Jim continued, “I am Jim Donovan, your new commander / boss. I also happen to be the commander of the Lost Squadron. Standing next to me are the other 19 members of the squadron. We have been working at the secret facility for the past 8 months.”

“Where,” someone in the back shouted.

Jim said, “Clearly this is not the secret base. It is just a rally point. The location of the secret base is a secret. When we hired you additional people, we took great care not to broadcast the location of our actual base. Don’t worry though, it isn’t far from here.

The same person shouted, “What have you been doing at the base?”

Jim answered, “The first phase of testing has gone extremely well. In fact, the first phase has gone so well that we now need additional resources to expand the program into a full test.”

Jim paused and let the double speak sink in with the crowd. There were no immediate questions, so Jim continued, “Please pull your vehicles into the building and gather all of your equipment. There are three busses waiting outside.”

Jim continued, “One more thing. Before we go to our secret location, we are going to perform a team-building session. We have contacted Victory Games in nearby Akron, Ohio. They have just completed building a new full-scale simulator of a cruiser. They have given us permission to be the first group to use it.”

Everyone scattered to fulfill Jim’s order. The Lost squadron members did a final facility check to ensure that all people were on busses, all gear was stowed, and all vehicles were parked in the building.

Jim boarded the first bus and sat next to Billy Blaze, his wing mate. He saw that Blaze was strumming an acoustic guitar. Jim waved to the bus driver to leave and said to Blaze, “I didn’t know you played.”

Blaze played a few chords for Jim’s benefit and responded, “I just like to horse around with it. I was a little upset that I didn’t bring it with me on the last tour.”

About 40 minutes later the group exited the buses and entered the hangar. Most of the new members ran their hands along the hull. One said, “Wow, they finally built one with the correct material specification.”

Another said, “Wow, the exterior seams are invisible. The quality of work is phenomenal. This ship looks like it could actually fly into outer space.”

A third laughed and said, “Well, they have to do something with all of the money they are making from the video game.”

Ace walked to the
Sunflower’s
exterior passageway. He noted that it was already open and the gangway was down. He walked up the gangway and to the bridge.

Jim spoke loudly so that everyone could hear him. Most weren’t that far from him, but the hangar was huge and sound didn’t carry very well inside it. He said, “The simulation will start as soon as everyone is aboard. Please line-up in single file in front of the main gangway. You will enter the ship based on your crewmember designation. Pilots first, then engineers, then crewmembers, and finally marines.”

The members of Alpha Squadron quickly made their way to the front of the line. The marines had little difficulty finding the end of the line. The middle, however, had developed a problem. Russ was standing there and shouted, “Jim, come back here, we have a problem.”

Jim walked back and met Russ. Russ pointed to the 4 engineers and said, “We are an engineer short. Further, these 10 aren’t sure what role they are supposed to have.”

Jim addressed the 10 in question. He asked, “What roles have you done before?”

One stepped forward and said, “Well, I have performed all roles. I can fly a fighter, calibrate the reactors in engineering, perform most required maintenance, fight like a marine in a boarding party, and I have even tried the officers’ roles.”

Jim responded, “So you are a jack-of-all trades and a master of none?”

The man chuckled at the joke and responded “Yes” and the other 9 behind him nodded their heads.

Jim said, “Well, as you can see we already have a full complement of pilots and marines, so those roles are out. We also have engineers. I think you 10 are best suited for crewmembers for now.”

Everyone walked up the gangway and entered the main hangar. The pilots followed Blaze straight toward where the fighters were stored. All others turned left and headed down the caribou corridor. The engineers followed Jim, the crewmembers dispersed into various parts of maintenance, and the marines followed Russ to the lower section.

The remaining members of the Lost squadron hurriedly loaded everyone’s bags onto the
Sunflower
. They left the bags in a giant pile on the floor of the hangar. As soon as the last bag was loaded, Jim signaled Lorano.

Lorano activated the control to open the large hangar doors. He then switched the
Sunflower
to blimp mode. Lorano said, “Ace, you are cleared for take-off. Activate the power generator and take us to the moon.”

Ace replied, “Shouldn’t acting Captain Clowy give the command?”

Lorano replied, “She is feeling a little nippy at the moment, but she should be returning to the bridge shortly.”

Ace replied, “Running check. The ion generator is already on-line and ready to go. Now leaving for confirmed coordinates that will take us past the moon and to a point away from all gravity signatures.”

Ace eased the cruiser out of the hangar and up through the atmosphere. Again, Lorano noted how smooth and crisp the ship responded when Ace was flying. When they reached the moon, Lorano sent the activation code to Victor’s mini-freighter to return to Earth.

Carank checked the stasis pod one final time, then reached out and hit the reanimation button. A few minutes later, Clowy revived and the pod door opened. Carank unfastened the chest strap. Clowy stepped out and stumbled. Carank caught her and gently set her back on her feet.

Carank said, “Everything worked perfectly. Thank you for participating in the test.”

Clowy yawned and asked, “Did the test work okay? Am I still alive?”

Carank: “Perfectly. How long did you feel like you slept?”

Clowy: “Slept. Only a few minutes.”

Carank replied, “Switching subjects, I have great news. The ship carrying the replacement human crew just docked and transferred the new human crew to us. We are ready to jump back to Waylon as soon as you are ready to go to the bridge and give the command.”

……………………..

Colin O’Neal woke with a terrible headache. He nearly rolled off of the bed, but caught himself just in time. He looked around the room. He had played enough simulations to recognize that he was in the infirmary of an Alliance cruiser.

He slid his feet down carefully off of the bed and stood up. He must have stood too fast because his legs felt rubbery and he almost fell. He braced his arms on the bed and tried to shake the wooziness out of his system. Eventually, he was able to stand.

Colin couldn’t remember where he was or what he was doing. His last memory was starting a really unusual simulation. He thought that perhaps he was still in the simulation – maybe he got hurt or something. Colin realized that he heard voices in the corridor and stiffly stumbled out the door and into the caribou corridor.

Colin nearly ran into the group as he exited. Fortunately, one of the other players caught him and eased him into an open area. The man said, “Hello, my name is Jim Donovan, who are you?”

“Colin, Colin O’Neal.”

One of the other engineers said, “I don’t remember seeing him before. I don’t think he was on any of the busses.

Jim nodded his head in agreement and said, “I don’t recall seeing you earlier. Who are you, or more importantly at this moment, what do you do and why are you here?”

Colin waved his arm and said, “Way too many questions. I am the chief engineer at a nuclear power facility in Sandusky, Ohio.”

Jim asked, “Did you recently change jobs, perhaps a new one with really high pay, great benefits, but at a secret location?”

Colin responded, “Yeah. I remember. Some recruiter called me and offered me a job. She seemed kind of pushy, so I declined her job offer. Then she got really mad and started yelling at me. She said that she was going to come my house, shoot me with a stun gun, and drag me to the new job.”

Jim shook his head and thought about Crista. He said, “Well, it appears that she did exactly that.” The other engineers nodded in agreement. Jim continued, “Since you are here, it would be a shame not to participate. You are standing in an Alliance cruiser.”

Colin asked, “What is objective of the simulation?”

Jim said, “The details of the mission haven’t been revealed to us yet.”