THE VROL TRILOGY (10 page)

The screen went blank, and Lt. Johnson
put the console back into the footlocker, pushing it back under the
bed. He showered up and got ready for his duty cycle, and thought
he perhaps had one more chance to get Jennie into his
bed.

In the forward section of the massive
spacecraft, Rear Admiral Bagatelle stood on the bridge, overlooking
the mad display of colors until it caused his eyes to
ache.

"Turn screen opaque," he commanded. He
knew they would arrive at Sol system in just a few hours, and as it
was completely new to anyone from his planet, he didn't know what
to expect. He only knew the mission at hand. He had to capture or
kill Maximilianus Gunnarsson, and reacquire the upstart's vessel
before anyone else did.

Bagatelle had issues back home, and was
constantly battling with the authorities over the proper course of
action. His biggest headache was Councilman Len Johnson. He had
long known that Councilman Johnson had coveted power. It was the
man's nature - he was always trying to lead discussions and
operations on the Security Council. In fact, he even tried to take
over military operations at one time, albeit in a very sideways
manner. Knowing something was seriously up with Johnson's son, who
had been a last-minute placement on the Revolution, he was hoping
that Lt. Escalante would at least keep an eye out on the
man.

He was very proud of her - all of her
accomplishments, everything done alone and without help. She was
the polar opposite of Johnson, who was born into a powerful family
and had every luxury handed to him as he grew up. He was only in
the military to satisfy a requirement anyway - anyone serving on
the Security Council must have performed military service in a
commissioned capacity.

Jennie went about her duty schedule,
but also intended to give Ryder a bit of a sideshow. Entering the
flight deck, she crossed diagonally to the ops booth, weaving
in-between Draeder attack fighters, which were all lined up in
perfect formation. She knew that he would see her, so she walked a
bit more slowly than usual, and put a tad more swing in her
hips.

Just a little, enough to be
subtly sexy.

Through the corner of her eye she saw
Johnson and pretended not to see him, but she knew he was watching
her. He was working on his Draeder, which was not unusual. Although
this was generally the work of the myriad of techs on the flight
deck area, he liked to take care of his own craft. He seemed to be
quite protective of the general area around his ship, waving techs
off who had offered assistance. Nevertheless, she sat down in the
ops booth and started going through flight recordings to make sure
that none of the Draeders had suffered equipment or system failures
in the recent past.

Moving on, she finished her work
looking over the flight logs and moved on to her next duty station,
which happened to be the surveillance level's vid deck. Entering
the large, expansive room full of screens, she nodded courteously
to the lead tech, and then took out her list.

"I'll be going over footage in the
editing bay. I am not to be disturbed."

The tech again nodded and said,
"Aye-aye, Ma'am," and obediently turned back to his duties,
surveying every square inch of the ship, minus living quarters.
This was helpful in certain situations, if one knew what he/she was
looking for, but this was a tech, and he was just looking for
normal abnormalities, such as conduit leaks or broken door
sensors.

Jennie shut the door behind her and sat
down at the main screen in the editing bay, where she turned on
live cams and zoomed into where Johnson was working on his craft.
She wanted to get a close-up of his cute butt and then take some
snaps of it and tease him later.

She was really considering spending the
night with him, although it made her nervous thinking about it. She
wasn't sure if it was the right time, as she wanted so much more
with him. Zooming in on his location she saw nothing unusual - just
someone being slightly anal about his attack vehicle, which made
her giggle.

God, he's such a
perfectionist
, she thought. She knew in
her heart that she could really compliment him in life and help him
to reach his true potential - all he needed was a little prodding
in the right direction.

She checked some other sectors on
different consoles and then went back to her zoomed view on his
posterior, but this time she noticed him look around suspiciously
and remove a 1 by ½ meter device out of a box and place it up into
the cargo storage of his Draeder. She then saw him lift up some
thick tubing and shove it up into the same cargo area.

He's loading up gear so he
can refuel himself on Earth!

Earth, like Azul, was full of saline
oceans, and saline oceans had deuterium. Deuterium powered
fusion-ion drives, as well as atmo concussion boosters, but
Draeders carried enough deuterium to last two weeks at full burn.
Johnson had no need for refueling gear.

Tempted to contact Commander Bagatelle
immediately, she held off and started to record Ryder's activities,
which were in direct violation of orders and protocols. She made an
educated guess that he was planning to stay on Earth, but as the
details of the mission were completely transparent to all officers,
she had no idea where his orders came from - most certainly not
Admiral Bagatelle.

Once Ryder had stored everything he
needed for his mission, he made a beeline to his quarters and again
pulled out his footlocker, unlocking it and opening up the side
space video console. His father's familiar face appeared in the
screen.

"Father, we are nearly in
Sol System. My ship has been adequately prepared for the extended
operation. I will -"



Councilman Johnson immediately
interrupted his son. "Stop. There is a change in plans."

"Father?"

"Our side space orbital probe detected
Gunnarsson's basic landing zone, and you are to go there
immediately and engage him before Revolution's recon teams can find
him. Here is what you are to do."

He watched the screen intently as his father
gave him instructions that even unnerved the jaded young
lieutenant.

Oh well,
he thought.
It was good
while it lasted. Time for Plan B, I guess.

Jennie kept scanning all displays, and
going back to her view on Ryder it appeared that he had left his
Draeder and the flight deck, so she stopped the recording and
decided the take the ball into her own hands. She felt she knew
him, and didn't want to accuse the lieutenant of any wrongdoing, so
she left her duty station and went to his quarters, where she had
hoped he would he would be. She was positive that she had totally
misunderstood the whole situation, and that there was a plausible
explanation for everything.

As she approached his door she was
surprised to see him exiting while holding the box from underneath
his bed. He was also dressed down in his flight gear, which was
unnecessary, as there would be no Draeders leaving the flight deck
for at least some hours.

"Ryder - Hi… I saw you leave the flight
deck and  - is everything OK?"

His face showed absolutely no surprise
at all - he looked cool as a cucumber. He stared into the eyes of
who could have been realistically considered his girlfriend, and
simply lied through his teeth.

"Oh heya Jennie! Yeah, I'm just super
excited and want to be ready. You know, I really want to be the one
to apprehend that bastard traitor. It could really put me over the
top, so if you and I were to do it together we could both benefit -
I mean, I think we could make a really good team, don't
you?"

Jennie melted a bit as all of her
suspicions were easily pushed aside by the manipulative lieutenant.
Opening his door, he asked her into his quarters. She entered,
fully expecting him to give her the details of how they were to
emerge as heroes. Turning around she watched as he set his
mysterious box down and took her hands into his, her heart racing
due to the fortunate turn of events.

"Jennie, I gotta tell you - being with
you is really a lot of fun, and I was hoping that we could have had
even more fun together, but it's not going to happen…"

"Huh?" she muttered, confused and
shocked at his comment which he blurted out with no more passion
than when someone was asking for a tomato in the mess hall
line.

"Nope. No más. Sorry."

The last thing she remembered was him
letting go of her hands, followed by a flash.

Jennie woke up to the sound of alarms
and the flashing of a red, rotating light in the room where she
was. Her head ached and she felt a definite pain in the middle of
her chest. Still dazed, she grabbed the bed frame to her side to
help lift herself up, and looking around noticed that she was in
Ryder's quarters.

Unable to think clearly, the cacophony
of sounds - mixtures of alarms and alerts bells - made her head
ache even more. She needed to think clearly, so she sat down on the
bed.

"
Ryder - flight suit. Box in his hands. Team… no más. Oh
shit,"
she thought to herself as the
disassociated images ran through her head, finally coalescing into
rational thought.

Ryder had stunned her and was probably
the cause of the alarms, but she had no idea how bad the alarms
were. She still tried to convince herself that he was simply out to
be a hero, and that his nature forced him to do it on his own - but
why would he stun her?

Gathering herself up, she made for the
door. She needed to see what was happening. Exiting Ryder's
quarters she saw techs running everywhere - it was absolute
pandemonium, and was not typical of a drill - something bad had
happened.

Stopping a young female ensign, she
demanded answers as to what had happened.

"Ensign - report. Now! What has
happened?"

The younger woman looked at her
superior officer with distraught eyes and said, "Lieutenant - where
have you been? The second we dropped out of side space someone blew
the airlock, and then flew out without even activating the
atmosphere lock field. We've lost dozens of Draeders, pilots and
techs… they're floating out there - dead in space."

The atmosphere lock field, as the
ensign called it, was an energy barrier, separating the safe
atmosphere of the flight deck from the vacuum of space.

The young woman looked at Jennie as she
started to shed tears. Jennie was about to cry too, now realizing
that she had been betrayed. She didn't want to believe that Ryder
had created their current disaster, but all indications led to that
hypothesis. She sent the ensign on her way and went directly to the
command bridge.

Running up onto the command center she
found everyone in a state of panic. Weapon fire erupted, Bagatelle
was barking out commands, and on the giant display panel she saw a
lone Draeder blasting away on full fusion-ion propulsion, with the
Revolution desperately trying to blow it out of the sky. Further,
to her horror, she saw dozens of ships, equipment and people
floating dead in space, having been sucked into the void due to the
lack of a lock field when the flight deck bay doors had
opened.

"Escalante, where have you been?"
yelled Bagatelle, sporting a small dripping of blood from the
corner of his mouth. He had been chewing on his lip again, as he
usually did when he was under extreme stress. "Report!"

Jennie was in a near state
of panic, not knowing what had happened. She just stood looking at
the screen with her jaw agape. Then it started to creep
in.


I'm
responsible.
She looked at her commanding
officer and stuttered, not being able to form the words that she
needed to say.

"Sir, I was watching Lt. Johnson
attempting to load what appeared to be some contraband equipment
onto his Draeder, so I followed him when he left the flight deck.
He… invited me into his cabin and then I think he stunned me,
because I woke up to alarms, and this on my chest."

She pointed at a light burn mark on her
uniform, which Bagatelle glanced at and then nodded, followed by a
stern look.

"Did you happen to record any of his
activities?"

"Yes sir. I was in the editing bay when
it happened. I was watching him, as you requested, when I saw him
doing something unusual."

She partially lied - yes she was
watching him, but she was looking at his butt, and wasn't concerned
with any sort of surveillance. She knew that if she told her
commanding officer what she was really doing she could be brought
up on charges. She had been betrayed, used, and she was starting to
get really pissed off about it. She went to the command console and
brought up vids of the flight deck and zeroed into Johnson's
activities not long before.

Bagatelle scanned through the video and
closed his eyes with a look of remorse. There was nothing any of
them could have done, as this had to have been timed perfectly. The
escaping Draeder was identified as Johnson's, and the lieutenant
knew exactly where they were in side space. A pilot was not able to
fly the Draeder of another, as each craft had a psionic connection
to its designated user. Logs showed that the bay doors had been
opened mere moments after hitting normal space, so, in reality,
there was not a whole lot they could have done, given the
circumstances.