T ag left the restaurant after talking with Maggie and went outside. He moved out slowly, checking to see if he was being watched, and started walking south. He had no idea where he was going to hide, but one of his first stops needed to be another storage facility just outside the cinema that he had originally followed Richard. “That’s as good a place as any,” he thought. He walked into the cinema and purchased a ticket, popcorn, and a drink, and then entered another one of those boring historic love stories. This was supposed to be about the last world war where some country called Mexico was the dominant world power and was destroyed by six fusion bombs. Tag could remember seeing pictures of the North American continent from space, and even though it was eight hundred years later, those six holes were still visible. That was the last war that humanity fought against itself. Every living soul and all animal life was destroyed in Mexico when those six bombs detonated. The movie wasn’t much of a love story because it ended with the bombs detonating. “I wonder why they keep releasing boring cinemas like this one?” Then he had an insight: the movies were to make sure humans would never forget the inhumanity that they did to each other.
Tag sat in the cinema and watched the movie twice. He looked at his com and saw that it was 3 a.m. He got up, left the cinema, and went outside to see if it was safe to go to the storage facility. There were shadows everywhere except where the cameras were watching. He left the building and walked the five blocks to the storage facility, making sure he stayed in psychic shadows. The key he had purchased allowed him twenty-four-hour access, so he entered and went to his unit. Inside the unit were a small floater and a file cabinet. The file cabinet was actually a disguised armored safe, and inside the safe were credits that Tag had hidden in the event that he would need to hide someday. He removed twenty thousand credits and locked the cabinet. He also removed another item that he slipped into his back pocket. “Time to see Eric,” he said to himself.
He moved the floater out and locked his unit, then moved the floater through the front entrance, making sure it closed behind him and was locked; then he lifted to the travel lanes above the buildings. He was safe from detection in his floater because the Directorate had not been able to place cameras in the air to look at all drivers, and having dark tinted glass on most of the floaters made it virtually impossible to see inside anyway. Registrations could be checked, but Tag had a valid registration on his floater. It had cost him extra, but the former owner had allowed him to keep the registration with the vehicle. He flew north for an hour until he could see the spaceport; then he looked for and found a public parking facility. He flew in and parked his floater on the bottom level, thirty-seven floors underground. There he turned off the floater, reclined his seat, covered himself with a blanket that he had stored under the seat, and went to sleep.
It was dark on the lower level so he slept until the middle of the afternoon. His com went off at 3:30 p.m. and he awoke rested. During the three years he had been hiding he would occasionally go by Eric’s home and see if it was still being monitored. A year ago Eric’s house was covered in psychic shadows for the first time since Tag started living with Richard. “I guess they finally decided that I’m not stupid and they were wasting their time.” Tag wasn’t certain if after Richard’s arrest they might start monitoring Eric’s house again, so he watched the house for three days and it stayed in the shadows. He watched Eric and Leila come and go during those three days. They had gotten married two years earlier after they had finished their advanced career classes. He was disappointed that he could not attend their wedding, but he had taken his floater and parked on the top level of a parking facility near the church. He used a visual amplifier and watched as they left. He noticed that every part of the building and the streets around it had no psychic shadows. Security was watching closely in the hopes that he might show up. He knew that Danielle was there; her light blue floater was parked on top of the church. He could have stayed and tried to get a glimpse of her, but he decided he couldn’t handle the pain it would cause.
On the fourth day he waited until 7 p.m. put on his disguise and went and knocked on their door. Eric came to the door and said, “May I help you?”
Tag said, “Is this the McAnn residence?”
“Yes it is.”
“I have a special delivery for a Leila McAnn,” Tag said.
Eric looked back in the house and said, “Leila, you have a delivery.”
Tag saw Leila come to the door and look at him with raised eyebrows. “I wasn’t expecting a delivery. What is it that you’re delivering, sir?”
Tag reached into his back pocket and pulled out the red-covered test booklet and handed it to Leila. “I think this is yours,” he said.
Leila looked at the test booklet and then looked up at Tag with tears brimming in her eyes. Eric had been watching, and when he saw the man hand Leila a small pamphlet he didn’t make the connection. It was only when Leila started crying that it hit him what it was, and then right after he realized who was delivering it. “Tag,” he said.
“Hello, Eric, hi, Leila.”
Both Eric and Leila ran out and wrapped their arms around him. “I’ve missed my best friend so much,” Eric said.
“We’ve been so scared for you,” Leila added. “I found out after you and Danielle were attacked that it was you who stole my test booklet, and I’ve wondered why you did it.”
Eric looked around and said, “Let’s go inside, and by the way, that fake midsection you have on is not becoming, but I must admit I would have never recognized you.”
“Thanks,” Tag said. “Don’t worry, Eric; they stopped watching your house a year ago. We’re not being watched right now.”
“So what we’ve heard about you is true,” Leila said. “You can see when you’re being watched.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Then why haven’t you come see me?” Eric demanded.
“I wasn’t willing to place you and Leila in danger.”
Eric got a funny look on his face and asked, “And now you are?”
“I’ve tried to minimize the risk. I’ve watched your house for three days and it has not been observed by security during that time. I decided I would come and talk with you to see if you could help me.”
“Before we go into that,” Leila said. “I want an answer as to why you took my test booklet. I’ve been troubled by that since I found out.”
Tag looked at her, then looked at Eric, and then looked back at her and said, “Leila, I loved you since the second level when I sensed you looking at my picture one night in the school annual.”
“You never said a word to me about it, Tag.”
“Me either,” said Eric.
“I know. It was something I kept in my heart for years. I heard you talking to Tara on the floater coming home on the day of the test. I just couldn’t allow your future to be wrecked by something that you couldn’t help. I decided to do something about it. But for those men attacking me on the way back to my house that night, I don’t believe I would have been caught.”
“Tag, why didn’t you tell me you loved Leila?” Eric said. “I’m glad you didn’t because I would have probably never asked her out if I knew, and I would have missed the most wonderful thing in my life.” Leila smiled and kissed her husband.
“While all this was going on, I met Danielle. I loved Leila without ever really getting to know her. I fell in love with Danielle after getting to know her. I stole your test booklet, Danielle stole my heart.”
“She misses you so much, Tag,” Leila said. “She has a hole in her heart only you can fill. She has been promoted three times during the last three years. All she does is work, never taking a day off. It seems every case she’s assigned, she solves. We hear that she has been slotted to take Inspector Connor’s job when he retires.”
“Danielle probably doesn’t realize it, but she also has psychic skills. I can actually see the field around her. She has the ability to see the truth in any situation. That gift will serve her well in the profession she has chosen. But to the issue at hand, I can no longer hide on Earth. There are too many electronic traps waiting to be sprung. I have lost my hiding place, and I know that it’s just a matter of time before they arrest me if I stay. Leila, you work in spaceport operations. Do you know of any way that I can board a ship or take a ship off planet without being caught?”
Eric said, “Tag, you can’t put Leila in that position. It could cause her to lose her job and get arrested.”
Leila put her hand over Eric’s lips and said, “Hush, darling, but for Tag taking the chance he took, I would have never had this career. Did he take a smaller chance when he took that test? Look at what it cost him. He lost his parents and Danielle. He deserves our help and I’ll not turn him down.”
“Leila, I feel terrible. Eric’s right, I can’t ask you to do this.”
“Give me two days, Tag. There may not be anything I can do, but let me at least take a look and see. You can hang out here since no one saw you come in; it’s probably safe as long as you stay inside.”
Tag looked at Eric and saw him nod. “We have a lot of catching up to do, old friend. You need to take off that fake belly and glasses so we can recognize you. Then we’ll sit down and eat.”
Tag smiled, “Sounds good to me. It’s really good to see you again.”
Leila came home from work the next day and told Tag while they were eating dinner, “I don’t think there’s any chance of you being able to board a ship. Anyone that enters must have their retinas and palms scanned for identification. There is only one entrance and only one person at a time may approach the scanner. There’s no way you can hide behind anyone like you did our teacher when we were seven.”
“You remember that?” Tag said.
“Yes I do. And I only really thought about it after I found out that you had stolen my test booklet. I assumed that you used that skill to steal it.”
“I did. And you’re right. If only one person can go through the scanner, there’s no way I could hide behind them. I’m sure there will also be overhead cameras that would also make that impossible. Are you saying, Leila, that there’s no way for me to leave Earth?”
“Just before I left work I ran across a situation that might have some merit. But before I discuss it I want to take another look tomorrow to make certain.”
“Okay,” Tag said, but now he was starting to worry that there was no escape.. “Be patient,” he thought. “If there’s a way, Leila will find it.” He didn’t sleep very well that night.
Leila came home the next day and Tag was waiting for her at the door. “Aren’t you the inpatient one?” she said.
“I’m sorry, Leila. Did you find anything?”
“I think so. But let’s wait until Eric gets home to discuss it. I think he can add insight without letting his emotions color his thinking; like Danielle, he really is quite adept at seeing things clearly.”
That evening at dinner Leila announced, “I think I’ve discovered a possible way for you to leave. We have a ship at the spaceport that has been there for reconditioning. It’s a small one, but it does have interstellar capability. Its owner is a security official that lives on one of the planets we’ve settled out towards Andromeda and he is currently living there while the reconditioning takes place. It was completed last week, so the only thing that remains is for a cleaning crew to go in and clean up the mess that was made by the construction crews. The ship is fully fueled and fully stocked with provisions. If you could enter with the cleaning crew, then you have a chance to take off.”
“When is it due to the cleaned?” Tag asked.
“I scheduled it for tomorrow night at 8 p.m. That’s when the shift change takes place and the monitors won’t be closely watched. You’ll have to use your skills to get in without being seen by the cleaners.”
“That doesn’t give me much time. What information do you have on the cleaners?”
“They board a bus outside the spaceport and then are dropped off at the various facilities that are scheduled to be cleaned. Since the ship is out on the edge of the landing field, it will be the last stop. Security is lax getting on the bus and once you’re on, the bus is usually just waved through the gate. Where security is top-notch is boarding ships. However, construction and cleaning crews have the ships opened and waiting for them. If you can get with the cleaning crew you should be able to get on board. Once on board, you’ll need to hide and stay behind once the crew leaves.”
“I should be able to handle that,” Tag said.
“There’s more,” said Leila. “Once they leave and close the ship you’re going to need the operation codes to be able to power it. I found out that the logs with the new operation codes are in the control room under the pilot’s seat cushion. When you turn on the power, the ship’s computer is going to demand the codes. First enter the bottom code, then the top one, and finally the middle one. You will then have control of the ship. I’ve neglected to ask you, but do you know how to fly a ship?”
“Yes. During the last three years I used one of Richard’s children’s names and enrolled in several commercial pilot schools. Although I’ve never actually flown, I’ve had a lot of simulator time so I feel comfortable that I should be able to handle the ship. The controls are actually very similar to those of a floater. The main difference is when you energize the star drive.”
“Remember, you cannot energize the star drive closer than the orbit of Jupiter. The sun’s gravity will disrupt it if you’re any closer than that.”
“I know it; we went over all that in my classes.”
“I have one more thing for you, Tag.” With that, she opened a box that she had placed in the living room when she came home from work. Inside the box was a white uniform with green lettering on the back that read Spaceport Cleaning Crew. “You’ll need this.”
Tag and Eric both looked at her and Eric said, “How did you get that?”
“Don’t worry, my love, I have my ways and no one can trace it back to me.”
Tag looked at Eric and said, “You really are a very lucky man.”
“I know,” Eric replied.
“There’s one more thing, Tag. We have a large commercial freighter due to lift off at 5 a.m. the morning after you enter the ship. Most of the controllers will be focused on getting that ship lifted through the shipping lanes. Time your liftoff with that freighter. Lift off at low altitude and move out over the city. Your ship is small and there is some commercial traffic over the city that is actually larger than your ship, so you shouldn’t be noticed. Fly south until the spaceport and its sensors are no longer in view, then leave at an angle that keeps the planet between you and the spaceport. After that, head for Jupiter’s orbit and enter the coordinates of where you want to go into star drive. I wish I could give you another alternative, but I don’t see one. Even this one is risky. One thing in your favor is that there is a lot of traffic that comes and goes from Earth every day. Hopefully you’ll be able to hide.”
“I need to start getting ready, but there’s one more thing I need to give you,” Tag said as he handed a sheet of paper to Leila. He told her, “These are the directions and instructions on how to get into my storage space. Inside you will find an armored safe, and I’ve written the combination for you.” He then handed Leila a key and said, “This unlocks the entry to the facility and also unlocks my storage unit. Inside the safe are some funds that I want you to have. The floater outside is also yours.”
“Tag, you don’t need to give us anything,” Leila began, and Tag interrupted.
“Yes I do. I suspect that if I’m not successful in my escape that those funds will go to waste. If I am successful, then I’ll never have the opportunity to use them. Either way, I want you to have them.”
Eric asked, “How much is in there, Tag?”
“Two million credits in one-hundred-credit denominations. Use it whenever you need it, but I caution you to use it wisely and don’t draw attention to yourselves. This will ensure that whatever happens to your jobs, your future will be okay.”
Leila looked at Eric and then said to Tag, “Thank you. We’ll use it when we need to, but we’ll watch over it in the event you return and might need it. My hope and my prayer is that someday all that has happened will be forgiven and you can come home.”
Tag sat on the bus as it approached the spaceport gate. It had been remarkably easy to get on. He just got in line with the other workers and walked right on. “I hope it’s this easy to get on the ship,” he thought. The bus passed through the gate uneventfully and he settled back to wait until it was his turn to get off. He thought back to saying goodbye to Eric and Leila. He could tell they were both worried, but they hugged him, wished him well, and said goodbye. Leila was crying and Eric was trying to comfort her.
Leila was holding her test booklet and she handed it back to him. “Keep this for good luck,” she said. “This really belongs with you.” He took it and put it in his back pocket, hugged them both, and left.
Now he could see the ship he was going to take. She was right, the ship was small; it was only 105 feet long, but that could be a good thing because it would be hard to see. The cleaning crew got off the bus and walked over to the ship that had its port open and entered. Tag walked behind the last cleaner and used his skill at not being seen. Once they were on board he opened the door to the storage bay and climbed in. He moved behind one of the boxes that held the food provisions and lied down. Then he closed his eyes and sensed the three members of the cleaning crew as they moved about the ship. Three hours later the crew left and the port to the ship was closed. Tag waited for an hour, then left the storage bay and went to the bridge to remove the codebooks from under the pilot’s seat. It was 12:30 a.m. so he still had over four hours until the scheduled freighter lifted off. He settled in with the manuals and began to familiarize himself with the ship.
“Four forty-five a.m., it’s time,” Tag thought. He entered the bottom code and waited a moment, then entered the top code and waited again, and then entered the middle code. The control panel in front of him came on and he quickly checked all the gauges to ensure that everything was working. He pulled lightly on the elevation lever and felt the ship rise a few inches, then he lowered it back to the pavement. He looked out of the viewport in the direction of the huge freighter that was preparing to lift off. He was amazed at its size. It was over 2,800 feet long and 350 feet wide. He understood why everyone’s attention would be focused on that liftoff. Then he saw it start to move upward. He immediately pulled the elevation lever and rose to the level of the surrounding fence, then moved in the direction of the city. The ship moved smoothly over the field surrounding the spaceport, and once clear of the perimeter, he took the ship to the upper levels of the traffic lanes and headed south, away from the spaceport. He moved into the commercial level, where most of the traffic was actually larger than his ship and traffic was extremely dense. He avoided going too fast so as not to attract attention, and in less than ten minutes the spaceport was over the horizon behind him. He started to gain altitude moving upward through the atmosphere, keeping the edge of the planet between him and the spaceport sensors. “So far so good he thought.” He added some more speed and turned in the direction of the moon. “I just might make it!”
“Commodore, I have something peculiar here,” Lieutenant Mikado said.
“What is that?” Commodore Kosiev asked.
“I have a ship leaving Earth and heading toward the moon that is not listed on our schedule of flights.”
Kosiev and his squadron of ships had been sent back to Earth for refitting and recreation time. They had been there thirty days, and the only duty they performed was patrolling incoming and outgoing traffic. “Are you sure it’s not on your list?”
“Yes sir.”
“Scan that ship for its identification code, then contact spaceport authority and ask them if they’ve approved this ship’s departure.”
Lieutenant Mikado lifted a com and spoke for a few minutes. “Sir, spaceport authority says that that ship is supposed to be landed at the port. They just now checked and discovered that it was missing. It has absolutely no clearances. They request that we stop the ship and investigate what’s going on.”
“Sound general quarters, pull in the screen. Take us to that ship, helmsman.”
Tag felt the scan of his ship and knew that he had been discovered. He closed his eyes to see if there were any shadows around the ship that he could use to hide and didn’t see any. He went to full speed and ran straight towards the moon.
“Sir, that ship has just increased speed and is accelerating towards the moon.”
“Contact the Destroyers Red Sea and Yellowstone. Tell them to get under way and to move out to the sides of that ship. Contact spaceport authority and get the transponder code.”
“I already have it, sir. “
“Then transmit it and open a communications channel.”
Tag could see the moon getting larger when he heard a voice over his speakers. “Earth ship 12148, you will cut your drives and prepare for boarding. If you fail to comply immediately you will be fired upon.” Tag sensed that they had somehow remotely turned on an electronic beacon on his ship and there was no way to hide from their sensors. He couldn’t let them capture him because they might be able to link Leila to his escape. He decided he would rather die than run that risk so he continued to speed towards the moon, which now filled his view screen. He put the ship on autopilot and went to the back closet and took out a spacesuit, which he quickly put on. Then he sat back down, placed his hands on the controls, and closed his eyes.
“Sir, they’re not responding.”
“Target one of our lasers on the aft engine mount.”
“Ready, sir.”
“Fire.”
Tag sensed the laser was about to be fired and jerked his ship up just as it went through the space his ship had just occupied.
“Sir, the laser missed.”
Kosiev looked at Mikado and said, “How?”
“I don’t know. The ship changed direction just as we fired.”
“Use three lasers; I want that ship disabled. Fire when ready.”
Tag was rolling his ship in multiple directions to avoid the lasers. He could sense where they were going to hit before they actually fired and he moved his ship out of the way. He simply flew into the psychic shadows he saw ahead of his ship.
“Sir, we are unable to hit him with a laser,” Mikado said with frustration in his voice.
“You can’t be serious,” Kosiev said. “Our sensors have confirmed that ship is nothing more than a civilian transport. It doesn’t even possess a screen. How can you be missing it?”
“I don’t know,” Mikado answered. “But it is able to avoid every shot.”
“Then use all eight lasers.”
“Sir, I authorized use of all the lasers more than three minutes ago. We have still been unable to hit him.”
Kosiev was amazed. There was no possible way for that ship to avoid being hit, but there it was, still headed full speed towards the moon. “Arm two missiles and set them to target the transponder on that ship; fire when ready.”
Tag was now flying low over the surface of the moon when he discovered that his time was up. He could avoid the lasers because he could see where they were going to be and knew the path that would avoid them. Missiles were different. He could see that they were locked on his ship and there were no psychic shadows in front of him; there was no way he could avoid them. Not only were they faster, but they could outmaneuver him. He pressed the eject button on the console, felt the floor open out from under him, and felt his chair accelerate out of the ship and drop towards the surface of the moon. The chair automatically turned and fired its small maneuvering jets to slow his forward velocity down so that he could land safely. Tag sat in the chair and saw his ship explode overhead as the two missiles impacted. Then he watched as the surface of the moon flew by under him at a dizzying speed. It began to slow down as his chair’s jets continued to fire; they finally stopped firing at six hundred feet above the surface. He saw a huge crater below him and realized that he was going to land inside it next to the crater wall. The chair released him one hundred feet above the crater’s floor, and he started to fall slowly towards the moon’s surface. He used his suit jets to land him softly in the crater.
“The ship has been destroyed, sir,” Mikado said. Then he looked at his board and said, “We also have a message coming in from spaceport authority.”
“Put it on speaker, Lieutenant.”
The speaker came on and a voice asked, “Commodore Kosiev, did anyone survive the destruction of that ship?” Kosiev looked at Lieutenant Mikado, who nodded and held up one finger.
“Yes, we recorded one person ejecting.”
Then he heard a new voice from the speaker. “Commodore Kosiev, I am Inspector Esa Connor and I am the head of the Americas Security Enforcement Committee. I have reason to believe that the person who stole that ship is someone we’ve been trying to apprehend for more than three years. It is important that he not escape. We are sending you seventeen additional warships to assist you in locating the whereabouts of this person. I have just learned from your military attache that you were firing eight lasers at his ship and he managed to avoid every one of them.”
Kosiev stood up from his command chair and looked out the view screen at the surface of the moon below him. “Yes, sir, that’s correct. We don’t understand how that could happen and we were forced to use missiles to stop the ship from escaping.”
“It has to do with the talents of the person you were chasing,” Esa said. “He knew before you did when and where you were going to fire. I’ll explain it in more detail later; right now I want you to take command of the ships we’re sending and find Thomas Gardner.”
“We weren’t able to track exactly where he landed because our sensors overloaded briefly due to the explosion of his ship. We have it narrowed down to a four-hundred-square-mile quadrant.” Kosiev glanced at Mikado, who was shaking his head and said, “Sir, it might be easier to bombard the surface and kill him than to actually find him.”
“Commodore, you will do absolutely everything in your power to find him and not, I repeat not, harm him in any way. I will be sending someone to your ship he might listen to. They will arrive within five hours.”
“Yes sir. We will begin search operations immediately.”
“Commodore, that young man on the moon possesses a gift that may ultimately save all of mankind some day. It’s critically important that we find him alive.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Do better than your best, Commodore; find him alive.” Kosiev’s com went dark.
Everyone on the bridge stared at each other silently, and then Lieutenant. Mikado said, “I’ve never heard of more than three ships being used in any kind of search operation and especially not warships, and even if we have a hundred ships, we still may not find him.”
Kosiev replied, “Warships have the best sensors and the most highly trained people using them. We’ll have to do our best. This person we’re looking for must be very important for some reason. It appears that we will look however long it takes until we find him. Lieutenant, set up a search pattern that covers the area we think he landed in. We’ll start on one boundary, Red Sea will start on the second, and Yellowstone will start on the third. The next ship to show up will start on the last boundary, and then we’ll work our way inward. As other ships arrive assign them an area to scan. If we don’t find him we’ll start the search all over again. They may force us to go to the surface and find him if all else fails.”
“What about the craters, sir? Their walls are so irregular that someone could hide under them and not be seen by any of our sensors, especially if they turn down the power of their spacesuit.” Lt Alverez, Kosievs’ weapons officer said.
“Then scan an area far enough away from the crater wall and fire a low power laser into it. It might make him leave his hiding place where we can see him. But I want it perfectly clear, you will only fire into an area far enough away from the crater walls so that he will not be harmed, and only if we’re certain he’s not close to our target. Does anyone know who the person is that is supposed to communicate with him?”
Lieutenant Mikado looked at his board, “We’ve just received a message concerning that. It’s a senior inspector from the security enforcement committee named Danielle Ash.”
Annihilation
H e sat on the surface of the moon among the rocks, pebbles, and dust with his back against a crater wall. He had watched as the dust he kicked up running into the crater’s shadow finally settled back to the surface. It had settled slowly in the moon’s gravity like rain falling in slow motion. He was sitting in a shadow cast by the overhang of a crater, staring up at the Earth overhead, which looked huge, with white clouds covering the southern hemisphere and oceans shining deep blue. It was breathtaking and was made all the more beautiful by the stars that surrounded it like a halo. He could see the North American continent clearly with Central City covering most of it, and it reminded him of his home there as a little boy. He decided that if it had to end here, at least he had a spectacular view. The moon’s surface was so bright that he had to put his helmet visor on its highest setting to keep from being blinded. It was pitch-black in the crater’s shadow, but the moon’s surface was brilliant as it sloped away to the far wall of the crater more than four miles away. In its own way, the moon had a beauty in the starkness of its ragged, scarred surface, with every inch screaming its billion-year-old bout with meteor impacts. The one good thing about the titanic struggle was it offered many hiding places.
He would look up and occasionally see the thrusters from one of the naval warships as it maneuvered overhead looking for him. The warships had their own kind of beauty too, and their sleek lines glowing brightly with the power of their screens belied the danger they represented. He wasn’t too worried about being seen because he was in the crater’s shadow and they had no chance of seeing him with the visual sensors. Blazes, he couldn’t even see himself. Since the moon had no atmosphere light was not scattered, so the shadows were pitch-black. The only real risk he faced of being discovered was that one of the warships would get close enough and its sensors would pick up the small electronic emissions of his suit, but even that was a remote possibility. He had turned off most of the suit’s accessories, leaving only his environmental and visual circuits active, so they would have to come very close to detect him.
The warships overhead had been firing energy beams from high-altitude randomly into the surface, hoping to get him to move. Each beam would vaporize rocks for a hundred yards, and one had hit two miles across the crater from where he was hiding. Even at that range his suit had to turn up its cooling just to dissipate the heat. Weapons designed to destroy starships at forty miles just weren’t effective at such short range. They did, however, make a very impressive hole in the moon’s surface. He watched the dust from the beam strike slowly settle back to the surface as the warship moved further along the crater and fired again.
He had counted twenty ships crisscrossing overhead. “Twenty ships! Can you believe it? They didn’t use twenty ships to wipe out the belt pirate fleet of the last dictator five hundred years ago,” he thought. He was genuinely surprised that the fleet would go to this much effort to capture or kill him. Well, maybe not too surprised. After all, they had been chasing him for three years, and now they had the chance to eliminate a prime target. The skills he had used to avoid their capture over the years, coupled with the fact that he had managed to steal a ship that had interstellar capability, only added to their resolve to end this particular problem now. “Some poor flight officer is going to disappear shortly,” he thought, and he felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor fellow, but only for a moment. “Part of the dues for having a high-paying position,” he said to himself. “I wonder where all those people who disappear go? I guess I’ll find out if they capture me.”
He turned on his small suit light, looked at his air indicator, and saw that he only had six hours remaining. He gazed out at the moon’s surface, which was ragged where it had been pulverized over the eons by all sizes of meteorites. The crater he was currently hiding in had been made by a huge impact. The ships had been searching overhead for over two hours since two of their missiles had killed his ship, forcing him to jump to the surface. He saw no evidence of them leaving anytime soon. “I guess they don’t have a sense of humor about ship theft,” he chuckled to himself. He had always been able to cheat death or capture, capture being the same thing as death, by being resourceful and always attentive of his surroundings, using the psychic field, and just being plain lucky. “Looks like lady luck has deserted me,” he thought. He toyed with the idea of stepping out of the shadow and using his suit radio to contact one of the ships overhead; there was a chance they would come down and take him aboard, which would only extend the time until they put him to death. What would probably happen is that they would not waste their time picking him up but just shoot him with one of the ship’s main beams. If he could be certain that they would use the beam, it might be a good idea to step out. At least that would be a quick death instead of suffocating. But there was also the chance that they would want to interrogate him, particularly about how he managed to steal the ship that got him as far as the moon. How could he have known they placed remote-controlled transponders on civilian ships? Once their signal turned it on, their sensors could see him no matter how he tried to avoid them. Even with his special talents, there was no hiding from the ships tracking that transponder. He just couldn’t run the risk of being captured and interrogated. Then they would find out about Leila, and that was one risk he was unwilling to take. He had ejected from the ship just before two missiles exploded it. Fortunately, he was close enough to the moon to reach the surface before his chair ran out of fuel. He could always slowly turn down the heat of his suit and wait until he fell asleep and froze to death. “Ah, Leila, except for you and your test I would still be on Earth playing hide and seek.”
So he sat on the moon, looking out at its ragged surface with the Earth glowing overhead, and thought about his history classes where he learned all that his planet had endured. He could see Mexico and the depressions where six fusion bombs exploded in the last global war. Mankind had come a long way after that last war, from living in caves to interstellar space travel. He reminisced about life and how he had spent most of it being a pain in the grump to the Directorate. He decided that they weren’t such bad people; it’s just that their fear for Earth’s safety led them to control every aspect of existence. Where you work, what job you do, how much you make in credits, where you live, who you marry, how many children you’re allowed, what color clothing you wear, what things are acceptable recreation, and a thousand other details in living one’s life. And anyone questioning these decisions somehow disappeared. It was easy to understand after the final world war when over twelve billion people lost their lives in the nuclear holocaust; those fusion bombs in Mexico put the whole planet into nuclear winter. In the eight hundred years since then, the planet had been rebuilt, wildlife had come back, the population had grown to over nine billion, space travel was developed, and the Douglas Star Drive took mankind out to explore the galaxy. It was one of mankind’s most peaceful periods. All weapons of destruction were eradicated after the last dictator and his fleet of pirates had been overthrown. This led to three hundred years of peace and prosperity for the planet. But that ended abruptly two hundred years ago when one of those interstellar trips out toward the Andromeda Galaxy brought Earth head to head with the Cainth Empire.
Oh, what a wonderful race the Cainth were! They looked like a cross between a four-armed kangaroo and a gorilla. They stood about five feet tall and their legs were short and highly muscled, which made them walk stiffly. They had a very light covering of light tan hair and narrow, totally black eyes above a protruding snout. Their ears were small on each side of their head instead of the long ears of Earth’s kangaroos. They were equally adept with both pairs of arms and could perform four tasks simultaneously. They also had the temperament of a tiger and were just as territorial. As soon as the unarmed Earth exploration ship entered their system, they determined its home planet’s location and then destroyed the defenseless ship. A war fleet was then readied and dispatched to destroy Earth.
Earth had learned its lesson about the consequences of aggression and hostility during six world wars, so the planet was basically unarmed and defenseless, having done away with all weapons of war. Fortunately for Earth, the Cainth were a member of the Alliance of Worlds, which discovered their intentions to destroy a peaceful civilization just in time. There were a number of races in the Alliance that actively disliked the Cainth because of past wrongs, and several of the ambassadors on Cainth notified their home worlds about what was happening. Earth was barely saved by three fleets from other members of the Alliance, but not before settlements on Mars and the moons of Jupiter had been totally obliterated. The Alliance then told Earth that they could have twenty light-years around Earth’s solar system to settle, but that if humans stepped out of line then Earth would see the business end of those fleets again. Since the Cainth Empire was the closest member of the Alliance, they were given the job of watching over Earth
The Alliance ruled its members with a heavy fist, and major violations usually led to the offender facing orbital bombardment. It was at that point that the Directorate was formed by all nations as Earth’s central government to make sure that no one would violate the many rules imposed by the Alliance, which included the twenty-light-year limit, or do anything to antagonize any member of the Alliance when they were on Earth. Weapon development immediately took a high priority, and the government vowed that Earth would not be caught defenseless again. The three hundred years of peace ended abruptly.
One would think that it would be easy to avoid stepping out of line as long as Earth stayed inside the twenty-light-year limit. The problem was that members of the Alliance would come to visit Earth to see its young civilization. Earth’s very existence depended upon no one doing anything that would cause an incident with these visitors. There also had to be central control of all Earth’s space ships to make sure no one violated the twenty-light-year limit. That’s why such tight controls were placed on people’s behavior. A hundred years ago a Cainth noble had the misfortune to die while visiting Earth. Within one week a Cainth war fleet arrived to investigate and take action. Thank the creator that he had died from natural causes and there was a Spejk doctor from the Alliance visiting Earth to confirm it prior to the war fleet’s arrival. The Cainth admiral actually slammed his four arm pads on his ship’s control board because he wasn’t going to be able to eradicate the planet.
On their way out of the Earth’s system, the Cainth encountered one of Earth’s new battle cruisers returning from the Virgo cluster and proceeded to attack it. Unlike the first encounter, this Earth ship had new weapons and was able to hold off its attackers for an hour. It had more than two hundred ships chasing and firing at it, but it still managed to destroy two Cainth destroyers and disable a cruiser and battleship before it perished. The Cainth suddenly realized that in the future it might not be so easy to destroy this young civilization. The final message from the admiral was, “Next time we’ll bring four fleets.”
Even bad things sometimes yield good results. The weapon designers learned a great deal from that battle about the Cainth offensive and defensive capabilities, which would lead to great improvements in Earth’s ships’ armaments. The Directorate felt all along that Cainth visitors showed up looking for an excuse to eliminate a possible rival from the universe. Again, we have to thank the creator that not all races in the Alliance were as bloodthirsty as the Cainth. Another good thing that happened as a result of the Earth’ ship’s destruction was that the Cainth were reluctant to attack with only their fleets. The effectiveness of the Earth ship in battle concerned them, especially since they had no idea how many ships Earth had built. So from that point on, even if they had a reason to try and justify an attack, they had to persuade other members of the Alliance to join them. After a hundred years of hearing numerous petty reasons from the Cainth, most members of the Alliance just ignored them.
So he sat on the moon and thought about why twenty ships were looking for him. He guessed that stealing that ship frightened the Directorate enough to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. “They’re overreacting,” he thought. “Even I wouldn’t dare go outside the twenty-light-year limit. That would put Leila and Danielle in danger and I just wouldn’t do that. I was hoping to make it to a new colony located near Ross 248. Of course, since they didn’t know about Leila or Danielle, they couldn’t trust what I would do. Well, it shouldn’t last too much longer either way. A closer shot from a laser or suffocation would end it.” He wondered how much longer they would continue to look if they didn’t find his body.
He stood up and stretched his legs, moved a little deeper in the shadow, leaned back against the wall to relax, and fell back flat on his back. There was a hole in the wall leading into some kind of a cave. It was in the pitch-black of the crater’s shadow and he had sat down right next to the opening and hadn’t seen it. He stretched his arms out trying to touch the walls but could feel nothing within his reach. He took a few steps further in and turned on his small suit light and immediately saw a body lying at his feet. It had on a strange-looking blue spacesuit that appeared to not have any seams, and it looked to be about seven feet tall. He reached down to turn the body over and as soon as he touched the suit several things happened at once. The opening to the cave instantly disappeared and was replaced by solid rock, lights came on, and he felt and heard a roaring vibration that ran through his entire body. As he fell to his knees in fear he saw a small ship in the back of the cave and knew that because of his stupidity he had just placed Leila, Danielle, and all of mankind on the path to total and complete annihilation.