The Dane Commission (The Dane Chronicles) (45 page)

He remembered the old space shuttles,
and how they had been hurled into space on rockets. Now they took off and
landed like planes, under their own power. Still though, he wondered if it felt
any different.

Through his window he could see the
tiny lights of the city below.

Onward and up they careened. The
relentless push of the thrusters always there.

Just when he thought he was surely
going to pass out, they broke through the atmosphere. His window revealed the
blackness of space, and stars… the most he’d ever seen.

The cabin was quiet now, calm.
The Commander spoke over the intercom.

“Mr. Dane, we have left the earth and
are heading to rendezvous with the Hermes probe in 1 hour and 29 minutes. You
may now resume communications with the ground. If you need assistance, please
raise your hand and any of our mission specialists can help.”

Ryan leaned forward, and activated the
communications console. The screen came to life showing the face of Jack
Stevens on the display.

“Ryan you made it. I knew you could do
it, how’s space travel?”

Ryan couldn’t help but smile, he felt
like a kid again.

“I have to admit, that was awesome. I
think I could get used to it.”

“How much time until you reach the
probe?”

“About an hour and a half.”

“Do you want to talk with your friends
at IntelliHealth?”

“Yes, that would be great.”

His screen divided into two displays,
one with Jack’s face, and the other with the familiar IntelliHealth logo. After
a minute, the second display showed his friends all gathered around Jim’s
monitor.

“Hello Ryan, we can see you. How’re you
doing up there?” asked Jim.

“This is pretty sharp, you should try
it.”

“So what’s your plan?” Jeff asked.

“We’re going to try and bring that
probe back. Right now we’re still heading towards it,” said Ryan. He shifted in
his seat, and tried to lean closer, but the belts held him tightly to the seat.

“Is there any change in the news down
there?”

“No, no change. IntelliHealth is shut
down, and SID is still in the probe.”

Ryan was disappointed. He had hoped for
some new detail that would make this mission easier.

“Okay, well lets keep the channel open.
I’ll contact you again when I have news to report.”

Cohen leaned in, “We all believe in you
Ryan. Good luck, and Godspeed.”

The screen went black again.

“Ryan try to rest,” it was Jack. “You
still have over an hour. I’m monitoring your mission, so if you need anything,
I’ll be here the whole time.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

He leaned back and looked at the time
display at the front of the cabin. It was just after midnight, his time. He
closed his eyes and tried to relax.

The hour passed quickly, and he noticed
that the mission specialists were each beginning to arrange their equipment.
They were preparing to power down and contain the probe.
Fifteen minutes later, the Commander said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have
arrived.”
Half floating, and half walking he made his way back to the passenger area.

“Which of you has the access codes for
the probe?”

One of the mission specialists raised
her hand.
“If you are ready, please transmit the codes.”

She returned to her console, typed a few keys and hit the transmit button.

Her display showed the probe status. It
remained unchanged, indicating the probe was still accelerating away from
Earth, on course for the Mars moons.

She transmitted again.

Moments passed.

Still no change.

She tried a third time.

Another specialist raised his hand,
“Sir, I have an incoming message
from the probe
.”

Surprised, the Commander turned around
and said, “Did you say
from the probe
?”
He moved to the man’s console.
“Put it up on your screen; let's see it.”

The man nodded, typed a few keys and
his display lit up as it revealed the message from the probe. The message read:
‘I have won.

I will wait in the heavens.

I will travel the solar system, and
when I return, at my zenith, I will blanket the Earth with my signal. Your
children’s children will come unto me, and know me for their god.

I will welcome them and they shall be
joyous at my holy return.

I have won.’

There was silence in the cabin.

The Commander turned to Ryan, “What is
your opinion, Sir?”

‘Well,’ he thought, ‘my opinion is that
SID is one goddamn evil machine.’

“Commander, how close are we to it?”
Ryan asked.

“Robbins, please give us the distance
to the target,” said the Commander

“Yes sir, we are about 800 meters
away.”

“How long do we have before it gets
away?” asked the Commander.

“Our window for action is closing now
sir. At the probe’s current rate of speed, we have about twelve minutes to do
something.”

“Ryan looked down at the two displays,
and saw they were both active. Jack was staring back in one, and everyone else
was in the second.”

“Commander, we need that probe. Can you
ram it?” Ryan asked.

“I’m sorry, did you say to ‘ram’ it Mr.
Dane?”

 
“Yes.”

Turning around the cabin, the Commander
said, “Does anyone here have information regarding the mass of the probe in
comparison to the mass of the shuttle? Is it possible to create a model for
impact?”

One of the specialists was already
nodding, “I do.” He was typing furiously at his terminal.

The Commander moved behind him and
watched as the data formed on his display.

“Command Pilot Robbins, we are feeding
you telemetry data, do you see it?”

“Yes sir.”

“Is it possible to strike the probe as
indicated, and survive?”

 
“One minute sir.”

They waited while the Pilot considered
the model for impact.

“It’s possible sir, but I cannot
guarantee the safety of this ship.”

“Mr. Ryan, should we try it?”

He knew the information SID held
hostage was worth their lives.

His mouth was dry. He answered in a
low, calm voice.
”Yes.”

“You heard the man, lets do this,” the
Commander ran/floated back to the cockpit.

Seconds later, the thrusters on the
shuttle fired briefly for a course change, and then fired again for the proper
acceleration.
They lurched forward.
Suddenly, one of the specialists said, “Look at the probe everyone, its
thrusters are firing too.”
“It’s moving out of the way,” said Robbins over the intercom.

“Damn it. Mr. Dane this option has
expired,” said the Commander’s voice over the intercom.
“We only have time for one shot, do we launch the missile?”

Ryan thoughts were white-hot agony.

The future of his son, of children
everywhere, was on that probe.
He looked at the message from SID still displayed on the screen across the
cabin.
It couldn’t be allowed to go on.
It must end here.

Seconds passed, “Mr. Ryan I’m afraid we
need an answer now.”

Suddenly, Jeff was yelling at him over
the monitor.

“Ryan we have it! We have it! Thor
broke the code, we have the data!”

“What? Thor is dead,” said Ryan.

“No, Ryan. Jim lied, he’s been using
Thor to crack SID’s database and he did it. We have the data!”

Over the intercom, “Mr. Dane this is
your last chance.”

“Fire Commander! Fire now, destroy that
evil son of a bitch!” Ryan yelled.

Ryan heard a whoosh from below, and
then all of their windows flared with light.

Moments passed.

Finally he heard the hum of the
intercom.

“This is Commander Graff. That was a
direct hit, scratch one
‘evil son-of-a-bitch’
. Thank you Mr. Dane, our
mission is complete.”

“Buckle up folks, we’re headed home.”

CHAPTER 19

“We keep
moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious
and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
 
-
Walt Disney

Ryan woke up in his bed late the next
morning.

The house was quiet.
He remembered Jean and Alex were still in Florida.

The last week seemed like a dream.
Something that kids might imagine.

He yawned, and pulled himself out of
bed.

The phone rang; it was Cohen.

“Ryan, wonderful, you’re awake. We
would like very much to come see you.”

He was exhausted.

“Eric, I think I need to-“
”Wonderful, we’ll be there in about an hour.”

Eric was smiling when he hung up.

Ryan realized he didn’t really have a
choice.

 
He walked to the shower.
The water was warm, and it felt good to be clean again. He still wore a
wristband from the doctors on the carrier. It said, ‘World Space Program,
Mission Advisor’, followed by some sort of bar code, and a chip. He thought he
would leave it on for a while, Alex would think it was ‘super cool’.

He was stiff and sore in places from
the last few days, but after everything that had happened, he couldn’t stop
smiling. He got dressed, and put on some coffee. It was over, really over. He
couldn’t wait to go get back to Jean and Alex.

There was a knock at his door.

He opened it to find Jim and Jeff, and
Eric and Rosemary.
”Well done Ryan, well done indeed.”
They rushed inside.

Rosemary hugged him, while Cohen was
vigorously shaking his hand.

Then Jeff was hugging him and Jim shook
his hand.

And so on.

It went on for some time.
They talked about everything that had happened, and they wanted him to describe
the big ‘showdown’ at the end.

“Yeah, and what do you mean Jim lied
about Thor?” said Ryan. “If Thor didn’t get wiped out, then who did? I saw it
happen.”

Jeff was smiling, as he turned to look
at Jim.

“Well Jim, I think you better explain.”

Jim was looking through Ryan’s
refrigerator, where he found a beer and opened it. He turned around smiling.

“Well, you wanted me to sacrifice both
of the twins to fake out SID. It was late; I was tired, and pretty bummed out
about it. I was in the process of changing their network identification so I
could move them from the Research Network, to the Hospital Network, when it hit
me.”

He downed the beer and set it on the
bar.

“I remembered a kind of a
super-computer I had locked away in a server room upstairs. It was a cluster of
computers that I had scripted into a reasonably powerful, single machine. I
called it Gamera because it was fast, but pretty clunky. It would over-heat for
sure, but next to Loki, it could appear to be Thor. So I took the real Thor off
the network, and identified the cluster as the new ‘Thor’ next to Loki.”

Jim, looking very pleased with himself, grabbed a second beer.
 

“Then I hid Thor and put him to work on
SID’s database.”

The doorbell rang again, and Rosemary
opened the door.

“And he did it Ryan,” said Jeff excitedly, ”Thor was able to break the lock. It
was marvelous.”

“Yes it was; it was marvelous indeed.”
Ryan looked around to see Jack Stevens standing in the doorway, smiling.