The Unscheduled Mission (25 page)

“Apollo 11,” Park replied. “He was the one who had to stay in orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin landed and did the first Moonwalk. I always felt sorry for him. He came almost all the way, but had to stay in orbit.”

“Okay,” Arn shrugged. “Collins Base it is. We’ll so declare it with Max’s installation.”

“Why Max?” Park asked. “I’ve got nothing against him, but there are a heck of a lot more Mer than there are of us. Shouldn’t one of Terius’ people be in charge? The Lord knows they deserve it.”

“Max was Terius’ choice,” Arn told him. “It’s the same old argument we got about making sure our ships had human captains. He’s convinced that if the Mer were in charge of that base the Galactics would destroy it without any hesitation.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Park shook his head. “With a few exceptions, most of the people of the Alliance don’t even understand why the Mer were being quarantined.”

“You could be right, but Terius doesn’t want a Mer in charge,” Arn informed him. “The way he tells it, the Galactics’ government still see the Mer as being unnatural and not to be dealt with, even if many individuals do not agree. But if it is a Human base…”

“I see his reasoning,” Park replied, “but I disagree with his conclusion. The Alliance isn’t going to like the fact that we own it either. I just hope we have time to finish more ships before we have to defend it.”

Maxwell Bains arrived at Collins Base on the third day after Park had arrested Governor Vextor. Rather than holding a long and formal ceremony, he merely shook hands with Park and then went to work. “I’ll be leaving
Defense
here with you,” Park told him, “along with all the security men and women. Keep an eye on the Alliance personnel.”

“You’re taking Vextor back to Earth aren’t you?” Max asked.

“I’m tempted to make him walk all the way,” Park told him, “but yes, “we’ve rigged up cells on
Phoenix Child
for him and his surviving guards, but keep an eye out. According to Captain Farmet there are at least half of a dozen of Vextor’s men who are unaccounted for. Ask Farmet more if you need to. He seems to be cut from the same cloth as Dannet is. He’ll keep his parole and that of his people. The rest of the Lagina Base people, well that’s up to you, but half of them are scientists and businessmen from what I’m told, and the rest are political paper-pushers. There are only about one hundred people left here who are from the Alliance anyway. Most of the military were on the ships we fought.”

“And Colonel Theoday has his hands full with them it sounds like,” Max nodded.

“That’s why I need to get back to Earth,” Park told him. “They’re not all like Dannet and Farmet, evidently and Arn thinks my presence will keep them in line.”

“Given your reputation as ‘Black Captain McArrgh,’ he may be right,” Max agreed.

“I really wish I could live that down,” Park admitted. “I was just being silly, but I forgot the Alliance wouldn’t know that. Well, we’re leaving in an hour and I still haven’t packed. Good luck, Max.”

“And you, Park.”

The trip back to Earth was quiet and for the next two weeks life seemed normal once again until an Alliance ship entered the system and started to approach the base on Luna. Park and Arn were on their usual perch on top of Van Winkle Base when Marisea came rushing up to find them. “Iris sent me,” she told them breathlessly. “You need to get down to Central Ops immediately.”

“At the spaceport?” Park asked.

“No time for that,” Marisea told him, reaching out and grabbing his hand to hurry him along. “They’re relaying it to the Ops room here.”

When they arrived, Iris quickly explained about the ship, adding, “And just as Collins Base was hailing them, this broadcast started.”

“…and report.
 
Repeat. Attention Alliance ship! Moon Base Lagina has been invaded by the Pirates. Do not approach under any circumstances. Return to the Alliance and report that we need military support to crush the Pirates and their abominable allies. We are being held hostage and forced to work in slave-like conditions. Return to the Alliance and report. Repeat…”

“Well, isn’t that one hell of a thing?” Park remarked. “Are we forcing anyone to work up there?”

“Of course not,” Arn growled.

“And that signal didn’t come from up there,” Iris told them. “It came from Van Winkle Spaceport. I think we’ve been giving our hostages a little too much freedom and they, or some of them, managed to patch into our broadcast equipment.”

“Is there any chance we might stop that ship?” Arn asked.

“None at all,” Iris replied as the message to the Alliance ship finally squawked into silence. “Oh good, that means we found the transmitter. Now we need to find out who planted it.”

“Assuming they weren’t stupid enough to stay with it,” Park added.

“We need more ships,” Arn commented. “We should have had someone up there to catch the incoming ship.”

“Too late for that now, but Ronnie’s nearly finished converting the two captured ships into something we can fly,” Park told him.

“Why couldn’t we fly them before?” Arn asked.

“Have you seen the controls they had?” Park asked. “Like nothing we have in our ships. No matter what they do in the movies, it’s nearly impossible to steal a ship, especially when all the readouts are in a language you can’t read, until you’ve had training. Ronnie’s been refitting the controls for us on the smaller one of them and working out a simulator for the other.”

“Why not just convert them both?” Arn asked.

“It takes too long,” Iris replied. “Ronnie and Velvet are only working on this one so they can figure out how their systems work. And if we can learn their ship controls don’t have to convert any others we happen to capture in the future.”

“You expect to capture more?” Arn asked.

“It’s faster than building them,” she retorted. Her torc chimed and she answered it, “Fain here. Where? On our way. Arn, we’ve found the transmitter down in one of the old storage rooms.”

They rushed down and soon found a small blue plastic box filled with audio-channel comm. equipment. “Have that thing dusted for fingerprints,” Arn ordered. “Then digitize what you find and check our Alliance hostages for matches.”

“Check everyone who found the box and has handled it too,” Park added, “although it’s nicely smooth and shiny plastic. It should take prints well if no one wore gloves.”

Unfortunately, the only fingerprint they could find belonged to their own security team, but Arn had no illusions that it might be coincidence that Captain Barth Fizhbin accosted him a few hours later concerning the living condition of his men and their lack of communications with their home worlds.

“You and your men have been enjoying a little too much communications, if you ask me,” Arn told him. “I’m moving you all out of Van Winkle base and outside of town as soon as a new fence can be built.”

“A fence?” Captain Fizhbin asked, sounding offended. “You intend to imprison us like common criminals?”

“No, I intend to imprison you like enemy combatants,” Arn replied, “or prisoners of war. Your predecessors here lived up to their paroles. They behaved themselves and seemed amazed even that we treated them so fairly and gave them the freedom of the base. You have been here in my office every day to make some demand or other because the same treatment everyone else got was not good enough for you. Well, this morning someone or more of your people jeopardized the security of my base and I’m not going to take any further chances on you. You tell your people to pack their bags because tonight you’ll all be sleeping out in tents.”

“Tents?” Fizhbin asked incredulously. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Not according to the ambassador from Dennsee,” Arn shot back. “Of course you don’t have to sleep in tents, you don’t even have to put them up if you don’t want. I wouldn’t want anyone to think they are living in slave-like conditions.” When Fizhbin flinched, Arn knew he had struck pay dirt. “And if I catch any of your people trying to break into the broadcast industry again, you won’t like the consequences.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fizhbin denied.

“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” Arn laughed and dismissed Fizhbin and had him escorted back to his quarters to start packing.

Meanwhile on Luna, Max Bains was having some trouble of his own. The Alliance people there were not trying to rebel in any way, but as many of them were businessmen, they complained they were suffering great losses due to the lack of communication with their concerns outside the system. When Max explained that he was not keeping their ships from landing in Collins Base, none of them believed him and several tried to lead the Alliance workers on the base out on strike in an attempt to close down the power and air plants.

The plant workers, however, while loyal to the Alliance, were far from suicidal and promptly turned the businessmen in to Max Bains and his administration. “We’re not asking for any sort of thanks,” their representative told Max. “We did this for us as much as anyone. Only a fool would attempt to poison his own air. We only ask that you get them off this world before they find a way to kill everyone.”

Max complied and had everyone involved shipped down to Earth on the next available ship and Arn had them locked up with Captain Fizhbin and his crew. Fizhbin and his people were not through making trouble, however.

One afternoon, roughly a month after Park had returned to Earth, James Hardin, a former marine major and Van Winkle Town’s Chief of Police found Park working in the simulator Ronnie had built with the larger of the two Alliance ships in mind. “What are you doing?” James asked curiously, stepping into the simulated bridge.

“Just getting a handle on how their ships fly, Jim,” Park told him. “It’s not really possible to lift one of these with only one man at the controls, so I’ve had to simulate the rest of the crew. I may have to pilot
Turnabout
myself so I need the practice.”

“
Turnabout?”
James asked.

“The larger of the two captured ships,” Park explained. “Iris decided to rename it.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be bad luck?” James asked.

“I’m not particularly superstitious,” Park replied, “but that applies to sea-going vessels. I never heard of any such thing in regards to spaceships.”

“A ship is a ship,” James pointed out.

“
Larm
wasn’t all that lucky a name for it in the first place,” Park pointed out. “Changing the name couldn’t hurt. So what brings you here, Jim?”

“Looking for you, Park” he replied. “A couple of my boys found a bit of suspicious activity out in the camp.” The camp was what they had all started calling the large fenced-in area where the prisoners had been forced to pitch their tents.

“What sort of activity?” Park asked.

“They’re digging a tunnel out toward the eastern fence,” James replied. He pulled out a computer pad of the sort that had been state-of-the-art in the late Twenty-first Century. Park was reminded of the one he had so carefully customized and then insisted on taking with him in his stasis tube. It currently sat, rarely used, on his office desk in the base, because he had come to prefer the Mer-built torcs.

“That’s not suspicious, Jim,” Park laughed, looking at the display James had brought up on the screen, “I don’t suspect, I know precisely what they are doing. I guess they thought we had no way to detect that sort of thing. They’ve been underestimating us from the start.”

“My guess is they think that fence is just a fence,” James replied. “They don’t know we put all sorts of sensors on it. Do you want us to break it up? Collapse the tunnel?”

“Not just yet,” Park decided. “I’m not sure, but you probably should have taken this to Arn.”

“You’re in charge of Space, aren’t you?” James asked. “They’re spacers, aren’t they?”

“They are, but they are military prisoners,” Park replied. “Possibly the ones Max shipped down here are civil prisoners, but either way Arn is in charge of the base and the town. In any case, unless he says otherwise, I’d like to just keep an eye on them. They could simply be testing our defenses, if we let them know we can see what they’re doing now, they’ll only try something else. They haven’t even made it as far as the fence yet.”

“Just watch them?” James asked.

“Well, unless Arn says otherwise,” Park told him. “I have some suspicions as to what they are up to and tunneling out on the side facing away from town is just a way they think will hide their activities from us. It’s certainly not the way they want to go if they get out.”

“Why not?” James asked.

“What’s out there for them?” Park countered. “A lot of nasty critters that can eat an unarmed man for breakfast, and by unarmed, I mean not carrying around an assault weapon. The best they are likely to have are whatever they are using to dig the tunnel and a sharpened shovel won’t help much against a grazer or a neocroc, will it?”

“No, sir,” James shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to try it. But do they know what’s out there?”

“We’ve warned them,” Park replied. “If they ignore the warning we can chalk it up to evolution in action, but I don’t really think they’ll try striking out across wild territory. There’s nowhere for them to go out there and they really ought to know that. Ghelati is the nearest Mer city and they can’t expect a warm welcome there even if they find it. No, just keep an eye on them and if they do get out, tail them, but let’s wait to see where they go before closing in.”

“You think you know, don’t you?” James asked. “Where?”

“Um, I’m only partially sure of that, but just keep a team at the spaceport if that tunnel gets as far as the fence,” Park told him.

Three nights later, Park’s suspicions bore fruit. Captain Fizhbin led the prisoners through the tunnel and out of the camp. Then, as James Hardin’s men tracked their progress through Van Winkle Town, Fizhbin and his people did, indeed sneak into the spaceport. Once there, they made a long circuitous route through the shadows of the buildings, carefully avoiding the illuminated areas.

They moved carefully and kept themselves to groups of only two or three, but Park and James were already in place to watch them all as they climbed the stairway to
Turnabout’s
airlock hatch. In twos and threes, they ran stealthily across the dark stretch between the nearest hanger and
Turnabout
and then up the stairs, all too clearly visible to Park and James using infrared and light-enhancing equipment. Finally, when all were on board the ship, Park looked at James and said, “I think we can arrest them now.”