Ricket (Star Watch Book 2) Read online

  Traveler had obviously found the fortitude to enter the access portal and his timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Lacerations crisscrossed both arms and his blood flowed red, markedly contrasting with the white world around him. Unrelenting, Traveler gave the already destroyed tracker bot a final definitive blow with his hammer. He continued to watch the wrecked bot for several seconds, as if waiting for it to suddenly come back alive. It did not.

  Ricket crawled down from the top of the replicator and made his way to Traveler’s side. He had no words to express what he was feeling—what words would even be sufficient? Traveler finally looked toward Ricket and simply nodded.

  The other four had not gone far. Walking now, still out of breath, they approached.

  “You’ve got more lives than a cat, Ricket,” Leon said.

  Hanna, saying nothing, put her arms around Ricket and hugged him close. She pulled away to gaze down at him. “Why didn’t you run?”

  “I don’t know … I couldn’t.”

  Granger, looking serious, said, “There will be others.”

  Ricket faced Traveler and saw he was no longer holding the projector. “The projector?”

  Traveler didn’t answer. Instead, he turned around and pointed. Ricket, his eyes following the pointing finger, spotted the pyramid-shaped device near the opening of the access portal.

  Bristol scurried over and tried to lift it up. Swearing, he asked, “Is this our projector? Why is it so flipping heavy?”

  “There’s a lot packed into it,” Ricket said.

  Traveler, ignoring his bleeding arms, took several long strides and picked up the projector.

  “What now?” Hanna asked. “If there’s more of those things shouldn’t we get back on the Minian?”

  As if on cue, Ricket detected two more tracker bots had entered the MicroVault. “We need to get over to where the Minian is stored. It’s time we got out of here, once and for all.”

  * * *

  As they passed in front of the SpaceRunner, reduced in size and stored in a MicroVault container, Leon said, “Whatever you’re planning, this ship comes with us. That you promised, Ricket.” He raised his brow, not taking no for an answer.

  Ricket checked on the tracker bots’ locations. They were nearly impossible to track with his internal sensors, but definitely closer; he estimated they were still several minutes away. He looked over to Leon’s ship. Truth was, it didn’t matter where he set up the virtual MicroVault terminal and the projector.

  “We must hurry … we have limited time. Traveler, please put the device right there.”

  Traveler placed the projector down and stepped away. Ricket knelt down next to it, putting a hand on one of its sharply angled sides, and opened a link to the device.

  “What are you doing?” Leon questioned.

  “Shush!” Bristol said. “My guess is he’s downloading a shitload of data right now. Let the guy concentrate.”

  Ricket was doing just that and it took him less than a minute. He stood and gestured for Traveler to help him. “Please clear a large space, approximately twenty feet wide, by thirty feet long.”

  Traveler turned to assess the area Ricket indicated. To gain sufficient open space in the virtual corridor, he’d need to move several large container items—one was some sort of flatbed hovercraft. Leon, Bristol and Granger helped, too. It took another two minutes of pushing and shoving before Ricket had his requested amount of open space available.

  The next part would be tricky, and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to accomplish the task. “Beatrice … I need to access the Parcical’s AI, one more time.”

  “That may be impossible, Ricket. The Parcical’s AI has instituted numerous new security safeguards since your previous intrusions.”

  “Can you work in conjunction with the Minian’s AI? Find some alternative method to establish a connection? It does not have to be a permanent one …”

  “We are attempting that now, Ricket … please wait,” the AI said.

  Momentarily distracted, Ricket’s internal, close-proximity sensors suddenly came alive. It happened when both tracker bots had locked on to their positions within the MicroVault. They were now on a direct path, heading their way.

  Beatrice was back: “You are in. You have seventy-two seconds. We won’t be able to hold off the Parcical AI any longer than that.”

  Ricket wasted no time, tapping directly into the Parcical’s internal network. The ship’s AI, instantly hostile to his presence, looked for means to extricate him. Ricket noticed Beatrice and the Minian’s AI were hard at work to keep it distracted and was reminded he had less than sixty seconds before his connection would close. He traveled to the portion of the ship’s network where the MicroVault terminal processes took place, established the necessary back-and-forth handshaking, and eventually gained permission to start an external upload. Less than forty seconds remained.

  With a sense of relief, the immense amount of stored data—the cloned MicroVault terminal program—transferred from his memory banks into the Parcical’s. Suddenly, Ricket felt light-headed. In twenty seconds the upload was complete. He instantly took control of the original MicroVault terminal located within the Parcical and issued one simple command: Project the new, very similar to the original, MicroVault terminal to the designated coordinates.

  Beatrice said, “The Parcical AI is now closing all access to its onboard network.”

  Ricket was only partially listening to her. He had already accomplished what he’d needed to do. In the cleared space before him stood his, and Bristol’s, not-quite-perfect-looking MicroVault terminal.

  Bristol began throwing fist punches into the air and looked ready to burst with excitement. What they were viewing was massive amounts of data, a projected signal, coming from the Parcical. Extricating Ricket from the network was one thing, but not everything. Eventually, that ship’s AI would discover the transmission: It could take ten minutes … or take an hour—but her detection was inevitable.

  Bristol was already standing at the MicroVault terminal’s pedestal. He looked over at the pyramid-shaped projector Traveler had placed in the virtual corridor. Bristol looked at Ricket. “I think it’s syncing with the thing.”

  Ricket was fairly certain it was going to work. It has to. He moved over to Bristol’s side and, as gently as possible, nudged him aside and took over tapping into the pedestal’s virtual display. He entered the last of the commands and looked up. He found Leon and nodded.

  “What?”

  Ricket pointed to the now-empty container directly behind Leon.

  “My ship … you did it! You got her out of here?”

  Ricket smiled. “I did … we did.”

  “And the Minian?” Granger asked.

  “Also gone. I think … I hope.”

  Hanna looked as if she were about ready to give him another hug. He held up a finger. “We still need to get out of here.” He began tapping again at the top of the pedestal.

  Leon said, “There they are! Two inbound tracker bots … can you move things along, Ricket?”

  Ricket saw Traveler in his peripheral vision. His heavy hammer was raised and he started moving his bulk away from the others, putting himself between them and the oncoming bots.

  Bristol resumed standing at Ricket’s side. “What’s taking you so long? Let me do it.”

  “I have it, Bristol. This is a complicated process.” With that, a MicroVault terminal access portal appeared. “Please, everyone … hurry into the portal!”

  “You sure we’re not running head first into open space?” Leon asked.

  Ricket didn’t answer. He was as sure as he could be, but not absolutely a hundred percent sure. If he had done everything right they would enter the portal and exit below on the planet surface, where both the Minian and the SpaceRunner would be waiting nearby.

  Bristol was the first to run into the portal, quickly followed by Hanna, Granger and Leon. Traveler stood his ground while the two thrashing track
er bots rapidly approached.

  Ricket said, “Traveler … we must leave now! Come with me.”

  Traveler shook his head. “Go. I will not run scared and hide from these mechanical demons. I will stand my ground while you escape.”

  Traveler would give his life to save the others and Ricket had little doubt it would be near-impossible to convince him to flee. The bots would be upon him in mere seconds.

  “I am very sorry for this, my friend,” Ricket said, and meant it. Traveler gave him a quick sideways glance and then prepared for the oncoming clusters of spinning buzz saws. Ricket tapped at the top of the pedestal and watched as Traveler’s more than one thousand pounds disappeared from view. The pyramid projector was just as effective moving a rhino-warrior as it was a spacecraft. With any luck, he’d find himself now standing with the others. Ricket took one last glance at the approaching tracker bots and hurried into the access portal.

  Chapter 29

  High Orbit Over Alurian, Gracow CD1 System

  Assailant, Captain’s Ready Room

  __________________________

  Jason waited for everyone to settle down. What he was about to ask Orion, Billy, Rizzo, Jackson, Boomer, and, oddly enough, Chief Horris to agree to, was tantamount to a suicide mission. But with the exception, perhaps, of Chief Horris, danger was nothing new to any of them. The truth was, he wouldn’t ask them to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself, and for that reason he’d be leading the raid.

  He addressed Orion, sitting directly to his left: “Were you able to obtain any more information?”

  “Aye, Captain, although there was only so much I was able to do. I’m sure Ricket or Bristol could have done far more. The twelve Caldurian Master Class ships, four of which we’ve already come into contact with, are nearly identical to the Minian. Perhaps somewhat more advanced … but similar enough that I could piece things together from the nearly infinitesimal amount of sensor-scan data I was able to acquire.”

  “And you’re sure we weren’t detected?”

  “Yes, Cap, I’m sure we weren’t detected, since I camouflaged our scans to mimic their own, constant, virtually identical, inter-ship scans.”

  “So what did you see?” Billy asked, sitting on her left.

  “That most of the vessels are practically ghost ships, carrying only minimal crews. One ship, as we determined before, is manned completely by droids. Another ship exhibits substantial life signs—estimated to have a crew complement of … perhaps five hundred.”

  “How were you able to figure that out?” Jason asked her. “We already knew Caldurian vessels are virtually impossible to scan.” He thought about verifying Orion’s information with the three Caldurian captains, Larry, Moe, and Curly, still held within the ship’s hold. But first hand information trumps the possible lies they’d glean from those three any day.

  “I thought we were pretty clever in that regard. Chief Horris actually helped me. We’ve been cloaked, almost sitting on top of their fleet for some time now. Even tiny bits of data can be analyzed. So it’s based on data packets, which at first seemed to be erroneous environmental data that we were able to pick up. Using that partial data, the Assailant’s AI calculated that the barracks section of that one ship is sucking up about twenty-four percent of the vessel’s total capacity. We can compare this data to our own previous measurement stats from the Minian. Full capacity is close to two thousand occupants. Twenty-four percent, or about one quarter of the ship’s environmental resources, is being utilized. We believe there are about five hundred Caldurians on board, mostly concentrated in the barracks of that ship … the Tall Spire.”

  Everyone looked impressed by Orion and the chief’s accomplishments. Orion continued, “But we can’t get overly excited just yet. Although I can’t get any readings from that cloaked ship, the Parcical, what I’ve picked up from the other ships is that she is far more dangerous than we considered. The technology utilized on that vessel is a factor of one hundred times more advanced than on other ships … frankly, more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “In what way?” Jason asked.

  “Like I said, I’m getting much of my information secondhand, so we need to keep that in mind. The Parcical has practically no overall mass. Sure, she’s cloaked but even taking that into account, the ship is almost non-existent. It’s basically a virtual ship, Captain.”

  No one said anything. Jason tried to determine the implications of such a thing.

  “From a tactical point of view, Cap, how does one destroy … hell, even fight something that isn’t really there?”

  Jason shrugged. “I have no idea, Gunny, certainly not with conventional weapons.” He had a quick thought and asked, “Back to the other ships … do you now know which one is the least occupied?”

  “I do. Other than the ship that is manned by droids, it’s the one under the designation Quantum Lark. Using the same measurement matrix we used for the Tall Spire, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty to fifty souls on board her. Seaman Gordon has been monitoring bits and pieces of barely detectable comms chatter, and we’ve determined that the Quantum Lark just so happens to be the fleet’s command vessel … although the Parcical and her captain, Omni Hobel, are higher up on the command ranking. This really gets into the area of conjecture, but we’re guessing Omni Hobel is the top banana amongst the fleet but the captain, or Omni, of the Quantum Lark, a guy named Stanton, is the chief military guy.”

  “Why so few on board a command vessel?” Jason asked.

  Orion shrugged. “Not sure … other ships in the fleet are fairly sparsely manned. My guess is that they left the multiverse … wherever they came from … in a hurry.”

  “Captain, may I ask a question?” Chief Horris queried.

  Jason looked over at the robust, somewhat befuddled-looking, older engineering officer. “Of course, Chief.”

  “Why am I here?” He looked around the table at the others. “I’m not a battle-hardened warrior like the rest of you.”

  “First of all, a warrior is just as much a state of mind as it is being a good physical combatant. But to answer your question, you’re included because we are lacking talent in one particularly important area, since Ricket, Bristol and Granger are all missing. You know what that is?”

  Chief Horris shook his head, still looking confused.

  Orion answered the question for him. “You have an engineering degree … you know the science behind things at a level the rest of us don’t.”

  “She’s right. You’re now the closest thing to a science officer we have, and you’ll be an invaluable asset for the mission we’re planning.”

  The chief sat up straighter in his seat, emphasizing his ample belly, and swiped at the few strands of gray hair left on the top of his nearly bald head. “Um … I still don’t know what you plan to do, Captain?”

  Boomer, sitting at the far end of the table, and looking exuberant at the future prospect, said, “We’re going to steal another ship. We’re trying to figure out which one … right, Dad?”

  Jason nodded toward her end of the table. “I suspect this fleet’s not going to hang around here much longer. They leave, the odds of finding Ricket and the others become very slim. No … we need to make a move … right away.”

  Horris looked from Boomer to Jason. “Seriously? We’re going to steal a Master Class warship, sitting alongside eleven or twelve other warships?” He suddenly looked ill.

  “We’re not going to do anything we haven’t done many times before. Only this time we need your help in coming up with an idea—something to get the Quantum Lark, since she has the fewest combatants on board, to lower her shields.”

  “Why would she lower her shields?” he asked.

  “Well, she wouldn’t. Not normally. None of the ships in the fleet would. But in order for us to phase-shift a team into the Quantum Lark’s flight bay, her sophisticated Caldurian shields have to come down.”

  Chief Horris scratched the top
of his head and shrugged. “I have no idea. None.”

  Everyone stared in disappointment at the chief.

  Rizzo asked, “Why would any ship bring down her shields?”

  Jason shook his head. “There’s really no need to. Their own cleared vessels can pass through raised shields with no problem … say, to enter their flight bay.”

  “Why do we care if their shields are up?” the chief asked. “We can phase-shift into the Quantum Lark’s bay with or without their shields being up. As you said, we’ve certainly done that sort of thing many times in the past.”

  Orion held up a finger. “Because, Chief, in light of us surprising them earlier … dropping in as we did and abducting three of their ship captains, we believe they’ve modified their shields. They’d be crazy not to.

  “Hell … a ship might explode just attempting to phase-shift in. And if we send in a probe, say to test things, there goes our element of surprise. The original plan was to phase-shift our assault team into the Quantum Lark using their own shuttle. The same vessel we absconded off with down on Alurian. But we just can’t chance it.”

  The chief slowly nodded at that. “Don’t we still have three of their officers locked in the brig?” the chief asked.

  “Actually we have the three officers we grabbed down on Alurian, as well as their three captains all hanging out in Hold number 2,” Billy interjected.

  “So maybe we bring the officers … not the captains of course, but the ones that were on the shuttle. Then if we get scanned, having those missing three also on board, maybe that could take us a step farther getting clearance to enter their flight bay. My guess, they still don’t know what happened to their shuttle … or their officers, for that matter.”

  Jason thought about that. Could it really be that easy? Maybe this idea—to simply get clearance to fly right into their flight bay, was possible. He couldn’t think of a reason not to try. If things go wonky, they could always phase-shift away.