Alcantaran 1: Alien Abduction (18 page)

Ron asked innocently, "Did you find out what happened to burn everything like that?"

"We think one of the technicians set the switches wrong on the last experiment.
 
We will let you know what the settings were and you can make your own adjustments.
 
What will you need to start your experiments?" the big wig said noncommittally.

"I don't know what equipment you had on board or if any of it is damaged.
 
The stuff in the cockpit all looked burnt but maybe it still works," Ron answered.
 
"After we get started on the clean-up, we will know more.
 
Are you going to let
Kota
come back to help us?"

"You won't need him for the clean-up.
 
The three of you will be enough.
 
When you get everything set up, we will see about bringing him back."

The group turned and left.
 
The trio almost cheered at the prospect of getting back in the space ship.
 
They had come to the conclusion that there was a safety circuit to keep someone like the Bugs from stealing the space ship.
 
They didn't know where the energy pulse had come from but they might find it in the next few days.
 
They all had trouble going to sleep that night.

The next morning Wurden took them directly to the space ship and opened the door for them.
 
He then had pressing business across the hangar.
 
The smell inside hadn't improved in a month so the first thing they did was to set up ventilation equipment to start moving the air around.
 
Gus said there were masks for working in areas where you shouldn't breathe the atmosphere.
 
They all went to the storeroom and got a mask that would fit them.
 
There was a small unit attached to the back to make sure they had a good oxygen supply and it filtered any air from inside the space ship.
 
They had to use the masks for the next week until the mess in the cockpit was cleaned out and the air circulated and was cleaned by the scrubbers.

Just as Ron had suspected, all the equipment in the space ship was toast.
 
They cleaned it all out and started setting up new.
 
Ron was glad to see their idea of dumping the fuel worked.
 
He would make doubly sure that it was in place again.
 
It took more than a week to get everything cleaned out and another 10 days to get the new equipment back into the space ship.
 
Everything was finally ready.
 
Now all they needed was fuel and
Kota
.

The next morning,
Kota
was in the hangar.
 
They had permission to load fuel again and they hurried to get everything prepared for the fuel.
 
While Gus went for the fuel, Ron, Tik and
Kota
headed for the cockpit.
 
Ron could tell
Kota
was excited because his hair, which looked like fine feathers, was wiggling all over his head.
 
They reached the cockpit and
Kota
looked at the other's faces.
 
He sensed that they were up to something and both of them had a big grin.

"What's up with you two?
 
Why are you grinning at me like that?"
Kota
asked.

"We have a present for you.
 
Tik, would you do the honors?" Ron asked as he bowed and waved his hand toward
Kota
.

Tik reached into her tool bag and pulled out the Trader translator.
 
Kota
's eyes widened in surprise.
 
His hand was shaking as he reached for the translator.
 
It was the one the Bugs had taken from him when he was first kidnapped.
 
He was still shaking as he put the chain over his head and touched the translator to turn it on.

"How in the world did you get this?
 
Do the Bugs know that you have it?"
Kota
asked in shock.

"We found this unattended and Tik recognized it as something that might belong to you.
 
We don't believe the Bugs know that it's gone yet, so if I were you, I wouldn't advertise that you have it.
 
Keep it out of sight and don't let on that you can understand any other languages," Ron said quietly.

Kota
was too choked up for words so Tik started filling him in on what had happened over the last 5 months.
 
He looked around with interest when he heard about the Bugs being fried and all the equipment zapped.
 
He asked if they knew what had happened and why.
 
They told him they had a theory but they had to refuel the space ship to test it out.
 
Kota
looked a little worried about that and Ron assured him that they had a plan.

Gus loaded the fuel in and Tik started checking the ship's computer as soon as it came on.
 
She pointed to a warning on the screen and Ron said, "Just as we suspected.
 
The Bugs' translator didn't translate right or the Bugs ignored the warning.
 
I suspect it was the wrong translation because they are deathly afraid of the Alcantarans."

Tik continued with her checks and shortly announced that all was clear.
 
The group immediately started on the next round of experiments that they wanted to try.
 
They energized the shield and then shut it off.
 
They asked the ship's computer for a check on all instruments, gauges and controls.
 
The computer blinked for several minutes and then started listing all instruments, gauges and controls and their status.
 
Tik saw a problem with this.
 
She couldn't access this with her computer so she needed to shut the ship's computer down for a while to install a link to her computer.
 
While she was doing this, Ron let Gus know what was going on.
 
He and
Kota
went to the cargo deck below and they started looking at the locked doors.
 
Kota
explained that the Traders sometimes kept locked doors like this if they had some sort of valuable merchandise.
 
Ron was asking questions about trading experiences until Tik called out that she was ready to proceed.

Tik explained that she had set the computer up with a link that required a biometric signature from her to be able to link to the ship's computer.
 
She would set it up for the other three later.
 
The link only had a range of about 1000 yards; but with a link in the mother ship's computer, she could access the ancient ship from anywhere in the mother ship.
 
Right now she restarted the ship's computer and checked her link.
 
Everything worked!
 
She ran the same test as before and had the results sent to her computer.
 
Now they had something to go on to start making sure the ancient ship could fly.

Kota
asked her to put in a series of signals and codes.
 
He told her that once the ancient ship was outside the mother ship and clear to broadcast, it would signal for help from the Charter Navy.
 
He said it described what had happened to him and gave what information he had about the Bug's mother ship.
 
Tik gave him the present location and heading and he added that to the code.
 
He said the Charter Navy took a dim view of someone like the Bugs setting up slave labor, especially if it involved Charter Alliance citizens.
 
Kota
cautioned that they would have to be close enough to an
Alliance
planet or ship for the signal to be relayed to the Navy.
 
Tik programmed the ship's computer to send the signal any time it received an indication of Charter Alliance activity.

By this time, the end of the day had come and they started shutting everything down.
 
They left the space ship and Ron, Tik and Gus had a lively thought conversation about what they had accomplished that day.
 
When they got back to their cell, all three of them redoubled their efforts to learn their assigned tasks.
 
Ron felt that he was more at ease today with the test because he had a little more pilot knowledge.
 
They had hope again.

They ran tests for the next two weeks and were feeling very confident that the ship could be flown.
 
There were things that needed to be fixed but for the most part, systems were still functional.
 
They were cautiously dribbling bits and pieces of information to the Bugs.
 
They let enough information out to show they were making progress but not enough to make the Bugs want to return to the ship.
 
While Tik ran tests,
Kota
started showing Ron how to fly the space ship.
 
Between the night studies and
Kota
's teaching, Ron was getting a cram course in piloting.

Over the next several months, Tik started developing a list of things that had to be fixed.
 
Kota
started using the ship as a simulator to give Ron a hands-on feel for flying.
 
It was close to the real thing but only flying would really improve skills.
 
At first, Gus just stood by ready to dump fuel but he finally went back to work.
 
Periodically, he would add fuel to the old space ship.
 
He and Tik worked out a system where he almost doubled the amount of fuel he put in.
 
Tik set the computer to show only two days or less of fuel if anyone but the conspirators checked.
 
They watched the fuel slowly increase but it wasn't enough to fly them anywhere.

Ron was getting better as a pilot and finally could do some other tasks he needed to do.
 
His knowledge and understanding of the Alcantaran language had greatly improved.
 
He was searching the ancient ship's computer about the rockets one day when he found out what they were used for.
 
He stared at the screen for a long time, not believing what he was seeing.
 
The doors on the side of the cowling that he and Gus had seen, swung open and would actually catch or launch the rockets.
 
When the doors closed, they automatically turned the rockets to empty fuel into the space ship's fuel tanks.
 
What a great idea.
 
The rockets were big gas cans and they went to the biggest filling station he had ever seen, a star.
 
No wonder the Bugs wanted to find out how to use the rockets and no wonder they had lost the ones they tried.
 
Their translator was telling them to turn the valves in the wrong direction.
 
This knowledge changed the time it would take them to get ready to escape.
 
He asked Tik to find out the position of the mother ship and feed it into the ancient ship's computer.
 
He told her to keep the position updated regularly.
 
He queried the ancient ship's computer about the proper type of star that would act as the filling station.
 
He started plotting the course of the mother ship to see how close it would come to one of these stars.
 
There was nothing close so he asked the computer to calculate the amount of fuel they would need for different stars and made a mental note of it.

After several months of tests, Ron was afraid the Bugs would soon get tired of the little bits and pieces of information so he announced to everyone that they needed to switch experiments for a while.
 
They needed to see if they could open one of the locked doors.
 
They all went to the cargo bay and picked a door.
 
He had called Gus because he wanted him to be there if they could get it open.
 
Tik checked the files and found that particular door.
 
She set about breaking the code that kept it locked.
 
She found out that each door had a separate code and she would have to break each one.
 
She concentrated on this one.

The other three conspirators stood around the door anxiously waiting to see if Tik could get the door open.
 
The Bugs had tried all sorts of tools, lasers and other cutting methods with no luck opening a single door.
 
Ron and
Kota
had figured out that the ship put a protective shield on the locked doors.
 
Any energy used to try to open the doors was absorbed by the shield and fed back into the shields energy source.
 
Even the energy from the lights or star light recharged the shield energy source.
 
The more you worked, the stronger the shield became.

Tik worked the computer for a long time, muttering to herself the whole time.
 
She would get excited when she came close to opening the door and then growl and threaten when it didn't come open.
 
Suddenly she jumped up and rushed to the door.
 
She turned the handle and the door came open.

They all stood staring at the room behind the door.
 
This door may have been sealed for over 25,000 years and they were the first to see inside.
 
The room was small -- maybe 10 feet by 10 feet.
 
It had shelves on both sides and across the back.
 
There were various sized boxes and loose jewelry lying on the shelves.
 
Tik slowly walked in and went to one of the lower shelves.
 
She took down one of the boxes and carefully examined it.
 
It was a wooden box that had delicate carvings on the top and sides.
 
It looked like a jungle scene with trees and vines.
 
The vines had small brightly colored flowers at regular intervals along their entire length.
 
There was an inscription that Tik had trouble reading even with the Alcantaran translator.
 
She brought the box out and set it on a table almost covered with scientific equipment.
 
The group gathered around to stare at the beautiful box.
 
Kota
tried his translator and found out it was worse than the older Alcantaran translator.
 
Tik took her mini-computer and scanned the inscription in.
 
She instructed it to search the ship's computer to find a translation.
 
The computer answered in just a couple of minutes.
 
The inscription was a poem that told you how to open the box.
 
Tik followed the poem as she touched two red flowers, one blue one, a yellow and then another blue.
 
They all heard a small metallic click and Tik could lift the lid on the box.
 
Inside was an electric-blue crystal carving of a strange six legged animal unlike anything anyone in the group had ever seen.
 
It was sitting on a base that looked like black onyx with pale bands of white running around it.
 
The figure was so realistic that it looked like it could move.
 
Tik carefully took it out of the box.
 
Everyone held their breath, almost afraid that a hard breath would destroy the figure.
 
As Tik was setting the figure on the table, her finger brushed the bottom of the base.
 
When she set the figure on the table, the figure moved.
 
Everybody jumped like they had touched a live electric wire.