Salvage-5: Another Mission (First Contact) Read online

  “How soon before we lift off?”

  “Going over final checks...uh oh!”

  “Uh oh? I don’t like uh ohs, Captain!”

  “We’ve got more company, and they just scrambled two jets! They must know, Sir!”

  “Don’t wait for an invitation, Captain! Get us up, now!”

  “Yes, Sir...hold on!”

  Sam shoved the thruster controls and pulled the control stick full back. The Salvage-5 rocketed off the ground and shot nearly vertical into the night sky. Tucker was tossed to the back of the ship and held on the best he could, “Samantha!” Tucker shouted, “Was that really necessary?”

  “Sorry, Sir. You said we had to go, so I went!”

  Tucker climbed the deck of the ship and into the forward compartment. He slammed the hatch shut, sealing the cargo bay off. Sam leveled out her flight path as soon as they hit fifty-thousand feet so Tucker could climb the rest of the way into his command seat.

  “Wow, that’s was fun,” Tucker chuckled. “Status report! Are your systems ready?

  “All systems green,” Sam reported, “Ion turbine and thrusters online. Avionics green.”

  “NAV Check.”

  “Yes, Sir. Navigational gyros engaged, prepare for orbital sequence. Course set and verified. They’re trying to radio us to stop. Whattya want me to tell ‘em?”

  “Radio base control and tell them we’re proceeding to secondary coordinates.”

  “You sure that’s wise, Commander?” Samuels asked.

  “Sure, why not? It’s better if they knew where we were off to.”

  “Tucker,” Sam said, shooting him a glance, “I think they’re already aware of where we’re going.”

  “Oh, right. Sure they are.”

  “We’ve left those two jets far behind,” Sam smiled. “Prepare for weightlessness, we’re leaving atmospheric flight.”

  “Navigation: engage secondary target.”

  “Target locked,” Samuels acknowledged.

  “Is the ring running up yet?” Tucker asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m sure he’ll come through, Commander,” Sam smiled, “Buster’s one I would bet on.”

  “Hey, what about me?”

  “I lost that bet, remember, Tuck?”

  “Okay, full power to engines. Increase speed to 20,000 KPH to mag-ring.”

  “Engines are at full power. Accelerating to 20,000 KPH.”

  “Come on, Buster,” Tucker whispered.

  “We’re getting closer, Commander,” Sam anxiously said, “Should I back off?”

  The three saw the 150 meter by 10 meter thick mag ring grow in size as they approached.

  “There!” Sam reported. “The Mag-Ring is charging up!”

  “Samuels, plot our course to 52 Europa.”

  “Course plotted, Commander. We’re all set.”

  “Mag-ring is fully charged and ready,” Captain Rothschild smiled.

  “Okay everyone,” Tucker smiled. “Hold on, this isn’t my favorite part.”

  Approaching Mag-Ring now... in 3...2...1 prepare for spatial distortion.”

  “Let’s go get Cass, shall we?”

  The SSV-5 flew through the charged Mag-ring, sending them on their twelve day journey to the asteroid 52 Europa.

  “Delayed message coming in from Buster, Sir. He says, you’re welcome and to be safe.”

  “Well,” Tucker began to answer as he reached for a cigar, “If I could write him back, I’d thank him. But since I can’t, I’ll just enjoy one of these fine cigars.”

  “I hope you packed extra scrubbers, Commander,” Sam balked.

  “What?” Tucker shrugged.

  “You know what.”

  “Ohhh,” Tucker said, looking at his newly lit cigar, “Pardon me, Samuels, you want one?”

  “Oh, hey thanks, Tuck. Sure,” Samuels said, smiling toward Sam.

  Sam gave them both a roll of her eyes, “It’s gonna be a long, long trip.”

  “Sam? Do you want one too?”

  “No!”

  “Okay, okay, sheesh, where do they find these people?”

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  - Five Months Earlier -

  Whidbey Island Naval Base & Space Port

  Oak Harbor, WA

  Salvage Mission Briefing

  Earth Date: 10/21/2065 08:00

  General McKenzie stood behind a wooden podium. Colonel Tucker Petersen sat in the front row seat. Sitting next to him was Major Cassandra Phillips, as well as the rest of the Salvage-5 crew; Captain Samantha Rothschild, Lieutenant Ted Hargrove, Lieutenant Buster Clark, and Sergeant Samuels.

  “I don’t have to tell you all,” McKenzie began, “this mission is of the utmost critical...”

  “Ahhh, excuse me, General?” Tucker said, raising his hand.

  “What is it, Colonel?” McKenzie sighed.

  “Can we just cut the crap...Sir...and get on with the briefing?”

  “You in any particular hurry, Colonel?”

  “Well, yes...and thanks for asking.” Tucker stood and withdrew a stogie from his pocket.

  “Oh no...you’re not gonna light one here, are ya?” Cass tugged on his sleeve.

  Tucker placed it in his teeth and smiled down at Cass, “Nooo. I would never do that,” he answered as he proceeded to lite the cigar.

  “You’re unconscionable!” Cass rolled her eyes.

  “...General,” Tucker said, grabbing his lit stogie between two fingers, “we’ve been drilling day and night the last several months...”

  “...while we wait...” McKenzie attempted to interrupt.

  “...while we waited for another CSMO to be completed, yes!” Tucker said, raising his voice over the General’s. “This is really my mission. Remember?”

  The General fixed on a hint of green glowing eyes from the Colonel, “Yes. Yes of course, it was all your idea...your planning...so, why don’t you just step on up here so you can tell us, Hmmm?”

  “Thank you, General.” Tucker said, hopping onto the platform. He turned, took a long drag from his cigar and blew the smoke over his audience, “Let’s get right to it then. The crew of Salvage-5 will be commanded by none other than yours truly,” he placed a hand on his chest for a moment, “SSV-5 will be piloted once again by Captain Rothschild, and my senior navigation officer will be Major Phillips.”

  Cass smiled up at Tucker, “Thank you, Colonel. I’m honored to serve.”

  Tucker returned her smile, “Yes, I’m sure you are...” Tucker cleared his throat before continuing, “Lieutenant Hargrove, you’re my team’s munitions expert.”

  “Got it, Sir,” Hargrove nodded.

  “And, I am taking this opportunity to promote you to Captain,” Tucker finished before Hargrove finished his nod.

  “Sir?”

  “Hey,” McKenzie added, “I never got a requisition for a raise in grade.”

  “It’s on your desk,” Tucker answered, “and it’s not up for debate...Sir. Truth is, Hargrove has shown nothing but exemplary performance over this past year. He’s earned this, hasn’t he, General?”

  “Uh, ummm, yeah...Exemplary.” McKenzie said with dazed eyes.

  “Lieutenant Clark, you will be the senior officer in charge of the new CSMO.”

  “Yes, Sir!” Buster said standing to full attention.

  “At ease already, Lieutenant,” Tucker said with rolling eyes.

  “Oh, sorry, Sir,” Buster said. Returning to his seat he pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “SSV-6 and SSV-7 will be accompanying our posse,” Tucker continued. “All three salvage vessels will be neatly stowed in the CSMO’s landing bay. We jump through the gate and arrive at 253 Mathilde in two weeks.”

  “Is that fourteen or fifteen days?” Samantha asked.

  Tucker pointed to Buster, who looked up at Tucker and then as if a light turned on, “Ohhh, right...I get it,” he removed a calculator from his shirt pocket and punched in some data, “Fourteen days, six hours, twelve minutes, a
nd ummm...thirty-seven seconds.”

  “Thirty seven, Buster?” Tucker asked.

  “Well, I guessed on that part, Tuck,” Buster grinned.

  “So, yes,” Tucker said, turning toward Captain Rothschild, “to answer your question, fourteen days and change.”

  “Thanks, Colonel,” Sam said, glancing over at Buster.

  “Stop staring at me…” Buster whispered to Sam. “Do I have a booger on my nose or something?”

  Sam laughed, “Nope, no boogers, Lieutenant, but I do see you’ve been hanging around the Colonel a little too much?”

  “No, now wait a minute, Captain, I think there is a hanger on his left nostril.”

  “What?” Buster said, wiping his nose off. Having no social clues, he changed the subject, “Hey, he taught me how to smoke a cigar.”

  Tucker smiled down at Buster, “We’ll, you did give it the ol’ college try, didn’t you?”

  “Good thing I had albuterol with me,” Buster chuckled.

  “You did cough up a lung,” Samantha said, giving the boy a playful shove.

  “Hey, stop.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Lieutenant,” Tucker grinned, “She’s only flirting with you...nothing to worry too much about.”

  Sam folded her arms across her chest, “I am not flirting!”

  “Are too!” Tucker grinned around his stogie.

  “Ahem!” General McKenzie coughed. “Colonel, can you reel this back in a bit?”

  “As I was saying,” Tucker said, taking control over the room, “Buster, er, Lieutenant Clark will be in charge of the CSMO and getting the civilian mining operation underway. “Dillan Smithton will be foreman over the mining operations. The military will be in charge of security, hence the need for two more SSV’s”

  “SSV?” Buster asked.

  “Space Salvage Vessel and then the number, Buster, remember now? This ain’t rocket science...maybe you’d understand it more if it was?” Tucker said, stroking his chin.

  Buster pointed at Tucker and laughed, “Haa haaa, you got a point there, Colonel.”

  “The two extra SSV’s will be assigned to patrol the sector and control the traffic around the asteroid and jump ring. Once we arrive and the CSMO is underway, the three SSV’s will do a tandem jump to 52 Europa where Salvage-5 last encountered the aliens’ habitat.”

  “Only now,” Hargrove added, “They’ve got the Russians added to their collective.”

  “Yes,” Tucker pointed, “They do indeed. That’s why we need to be quick about our mission.”

  “Are we going to try and recover any of the survivors that are being used for DNA harvesting and cloning?” Sergeant Samuels asked.

  “We have one shot at getting our people out.” Tucker took a deep breath. “We have to go in, extract our people, then deploy our Nuke manually on our way out.”

  “Wouldn’t it be less risky to just fire one at the complex from a safe distance?” Buster asked, “I could do the math and make it happen, Sir.”

  “We could just blow it up, Buster,” Tucker answered, “But we can’t get the survivors out if we do that.”

  “I say we blow that thing to kingdom come,” Buster added. “Why risk more resources?”

  “I’m with him, Colonel,” Hargrove said, joining Buster’s side. “Why do we want to go back inside that complex?”

  “Because we need to get all of our survivors back...” Tucker began.

  “There’s something he’s not telling us,” Buster said, “I can read the Commander’s face...”

  “Okay, okay,” Tucker motioned. “There is another mission objective.”

  “I knew it!” Buster shouted with victory.

  “We’ve been ordered to retrieve a certain piece of equipment.”

  “Wait, what? What equipment?” Cass asked.

  “Apparently,” Tucker explained, shooting a glance at a woman sitting in the very back of the room, “The Company is paying for our little expedition, so we have to kind of do what they ask of us.”

  Hargrove and the rest turned to look at who was in the back, “So, the Company is calling the shots on this?”

  “To put it bluntly, yes,” the woman said from the back.

  “And you are?” Hargrove begged to know.

  “Nadine, I’m a representative from the Company, and yes. I am calling the shots. We fund the expedition. You retrieve us the tech we need, and the Company will allow you to blow the complex. If you choose to rescue anyone, that’s up to you. But you must bring us back a vital piece of the complex.”

  Hargrove turned to Tucker, “Are you serious, Commander?”

  “I wish there was another way, but there isn’t.”

  “He’s right, you know,” Nadine answered, “The Company and the military have a very, shall we say, unique, relationship. If you don’t bring back what we are asking, the Company will pull all of its funding for future projects. All the special programs will be terminated, and will go up for bid in the private sector.”

  “Can we get better guns, Sir?” Hargrove asked.

  “We’re on it, Ted. Special order, just for you,” Tucker winked.

  “Cool!”

  “Alright,” Tucker continued, “once the assault team arrives at 52 Europa’s complex, we will all set down a small distance from the crashed Falcon. I’ve been inside these complexes twice now. I know how we can navigate and keep in communication. Those issues have been resolved; thanks in part to our own Lieutenant Clark.”

  Buster nodded with a smile, “Well, it was really simple once I understood the obstacles and applied the...”

  “And as I was saying,” Tucker interrupted, “We’ll be issued special military armor and high tech equipment that should make us virtually invisible,”

  “Not invisible, undetectable...” Buster corrected.

  “Right. The gist is that we should be able to walk right by the cyborg clones and not be detected.”

  “Until you activate the Radiological device, that is,” Buster again added.

  “You want to do this?” Tucker motioned to the egger Lieutenant, “Never mind, yes. Once we plant our device and set it, there’ll likely be a flood of clones after us. That’s why we need two teams down there. One team will set the device, and the other team will find our people and extract them. If we don’t time this correctly, one or both of the teams will have front row seats for a nuclear explosion.”

  “That’s because setting the device or unhooking our people from the DNA extraction units will alert the cyborgs and they will come,” Cass finished for Tucker.

  “Yes, Major. You’re spot on there.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “Now, once we have our guys located and the device is set, we move out and give our survivors a special headset that will shield them from the clones. They have limited battery and limited distance. They are only to be used as a last resort, because once these headsets are activated, the survivors won’t show on our scanners.”

  “They’ll have to make their own way to the exit points...” Cass said, turning around in her chair.

  “We have five minutes to get clear once the device has been activated. Remember, there’s no way to disarm it once it’s been activated,” Tucker explained.

  “So, that’s why we’ve got to be perfectly synchronized and execute this plan flawlessly,” Cass nodded.

  “Once everyone is back to their SSV, we jet outta there in a hurry. After the blast, we will verify that the alien complex has been destroyed. Then, and only then, will we begin our three day trek back to 253 Mathilde. Refuel the SSV-5 and her team will jump back to Earth. SSV-6 and 7 will resume patrols at Mathilde.”

  Nadine walked up to the front of the auditorium and joined Tucker on stage, “Bravo, Colonel, Bravo...you summarized your mission correctly, with one exception. You omitted the reason for this mission: the retrieval of the alien technology that the Company seeks.”

  “Well, Nadine, why don’t you tell the nice people out there what it is
we’re looking for, then?”

  “The Company is very close to breaking the alien code. We have identified an item of alien tech that is vital to completing our work.”

  “May we ask what it is the Company is working on exactly?” Hargrove asked.

  “No, you may not. That information is above your pay grade. Only the president of the United Territories and the Secretary know of this work. I will tell you that it is the alien computer core that we need. We have one core, but we are unable to make it respond. With a second core, we can reverse engineer it, understand what makes the thing tick.”

  “So, you really don’t know then?”

  “Captain Hargrove, the answer to that is classified. You only need to know that you are to take one of the alien computer cores. It’s grey, shaped like a cube, and has ports on either side. Bringing that piece back to the Company will go a long way toward helping mankind realize world peace.”

  “We’ll do everything in our power to bring that tech back with us, Nadine,” Tucker assured.

  “Thank you, Colonel. Now, you all must take the rest of the day off. You launch at two AM.”

  “Geez, another two AM take off,” Tucker muttered.

  “Where do they find these people,” Buster smiled.

  “Hey!”

  “What?” Buster shrugged.

  “That’s my line, Mister.”

  “Well...it’s a good one!”

  “Alright everyone!” General McKenzie said, stepping back on the platform. “We’ve all got our assignments. You’re all dismissed. Report back at zero hundred and prep the ships for takeoff.”

  The room cleared, Tucker walked arm in arm with Major Phillips. Nadine remained on the platform, waiting for General McKenzie to exit with the others. She stepped behind the curtain up to a balding man.

  “You’re taking quite a chance Nadine,” the balding man said.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Kurtis. I am in control.”

  “Was Tucker able to read your mind at all? He was AMP’d. You do know that, right?”

  “Relax, I said I had it under control. He wasn’t able to read me, I made sure of that.”

  “What about the General? Does he suspect anything?”

  “No, he doesn’t know, at least not yet.”