CH7

Rick activated the intercom. "We're approaching the target system," he informed Alexis who was probably sitting on one of the two beds using her computer. It only took a moment for her to open the door, jump into the other seat, and activate her restraint system.

One step was now almost complete, just a few more steps to go and they would be learning everything there was about their Explorer ship before taking off into a section of the galaxy where their people had never gone. "Hang onto your lunch, exiting FTL in three ...two ...one." They both felt the pull of sudden deceleration to normal space.

At first Alexis thought they had come here for nothing, just like she had feared until she remembered this planet had one natural satellite. It was a big dead rock circling the planet. "I was thinking that we could hide out here for a few hours since we're ahead of schedule and decide what to do," Rick suggested.

A Courier ship and decent enough sensors. Nothing like what an Explorer ship would have or even any of the military ships that were in service. They were, however, going to have to get closer and land somewhere since they didn't have a shuttle.

Rick dropped down to the surface and worked his way over to an edge, just far enough that they could see and scan the planet and hopefully hide in the background noise of the moon. "It's pretty," Alexis said as she looked at the blue and white planet. It looked nothing like their planet at all. They both got to work.

"It's an active planet. I've got low strength, low band communications all over the place. Millions, make that tens of millions," Rick said about what he had found. "It's a dirty planet, too. The atmosphere is polluted in the extreme much like our planet was before they built all of our scrubbers. Even the orbit of the planet is filthy. There are thousands, tens of thousands of pieces of junk in orbit," Alexis stated, suddenly not impressed with her dad's choice of planets. "This is interesting, I'm reading a station of some kind in orbit. I think it's manned. It's not very big, maybe about twice our size. Power output is incredibly weak. What are they using to generate power? Bicycles?" Their planet had three stations, one of which was almost as big as this planet's natural satellite. The next biggest was military.

"The planet is just a little under 75% water, most of it salt water. Two main continents with a number of islands, most are really small," Rick told her. "And they named their planet 'Earth?' Only 25% of the planet is dirt and they named it 'Earth.' Why didn't they name it Water?" Alexis was definitely not impressed.

"Most of the population appears to be in these two areas." Rick brought up an image of the eastern seaboard of the United States and Europe. There are other concentrations, but these appear to be the largest two." Rick pointed to the window that was now showing what he had found. "And where are we going?" Alexis had mostly adjusted to her dad's ability to be right. He called it 'Faith.' She called it an ability, one she didn't understand. At any rate her dad was gifted.

"Here, this big bright spot along the coast right here." Rick put his finger smack on a large city in the northeast of one of the main continents. "It looks like it's dark so we should probably get moving. Since they have junk in space and a manned station, I'm guessing they have figured out at least how to get off their own planet. Maybe come down here at this place and skim the surface of this ocean till we find a place to land. We can start our search when the sun comes up," Rick said and Alexis switched to scanning the rest of the system.

"Looks like they have found a way to get to the next planet in the system, too. I'm reading the same types of junk in orbit and a few on the surface. All of it's small and not a threat. Nothing else is in the system," Alexis informed him. "Then let's go find our third person shall we." Rick cleared the window and brought up the power. Moments later they were hurtling through the atmosphere over the South Pole then leveling out just about twenty feet above the surface, traveling to the designated point at just under Mach 5. "I'm reading objects on the surface of the water, several in the air, and even three below the water. Only the ones high up in the atmosphere have any real speed to them. I don't think any of them are armed." Alexis kept studying her screens while Rick looked at what she had and adjusted his course to miss the majority of them.

"Mostly quiet though the target is presently experiencing heavy weather disturbances. I think its called snow. ...Can we play in the snow Dad? I've never actually seen it before." Alexis was looking at him while smiling and had her best "PLEASE!?' face on. "We can stop somewhere for a moment so you can experience snow." Actually Rick was silently thrilled too. Like his daughter, he had never been in snow before. "YES!" Alexis launched her hands up in the air. Maybe coming to this backwater world wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"Reducing speed," Rick told her and took the ship to below Mach 1. "See if you can find us a good place to land. Something that won't scare the locals too much," he asked her. Alexis looked for a spot as Rick came into the city over a river. "How about here?" She brought it up on the screen for her dad to see. "It's kind of centrally located and from what I read, this ship can just hover above the water and our transportation also hovers," she offered. "Works for me, one small lake here we come. Any particular reason for this location?" Rick was curious. "Our planet doesn't have anything like this. It doesn't even have lakes let alone oceans. It's cool and I want to see." He chuckled; his little girl was a born Explorer.

It was impossible to remain completely hidden and Rick noticed that he flew right over a number of metal objects that were traveling on snow-covered roads. The wind was also giving him a little trouble. Unbeknownst to either of them he was parking directly in the middle of the Jacquline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

"Shutting down systems and placing the ship in continual hover mode. We're going to need to make a stop at this system's sun to scoop up some fuel before we leave. How we doing on time?" Rick asked. Alexis looked at her watch. "A little under 2.5 days before the first thirty minute alert alarm."

"How about a nap while we wait for the sun to come up?" Rick suggested. Alexis turned off her restraint system and went into the main cabin to lie down for a couple of hours and just relax.

"Wha... what!?" Rick was annoyed. His daughter was shaking him and pinching him. "OW! I'm awake! What's wrong? Are we sinking?" Rick went straight into panic mode since he was still barely awake. "We overslept, the sun has been up for hours," Alexis said. "That's nice pumpkin." He rolled over to get further away from his daughter, only to turn back over. "Say that again." He was awake now. "We overslept Dad, the sun has been up for almost six hours!" They had lost the time they had gained getting here.

"Go change clothes, I'll grab a couple of snack packets and we can eat along the way," Rick said which had Alexis pulling out clothes and walking into the bathroom to change. Now dressed in fresh clothes, her dad shoved two packets at her and went into the bathroom before collecting clothes to change into. "Dad, you forgot..." The door closed. "...your clothes." He was standing there and sighing heavily. "God, my back teeth were floating." He continued to relieve himself and flushed it into a holding tank. Stepping back into the main room he pulled out some clean clothes and went back into the bathroom.

"Here's your suit and I'll take this one. It should be enough to last us for a few hours and keep out the cold of this planet," Rick said, since they were designed to keep whoever wore them in perfect comfort, hot or cold along with an oxygen supply and scrubber. Alexis placed the disk on her chest and pressed a finger in the middle until she was completely surrounded. Then she saw the visor come down over her face. To him she looked like a scaly version of herself with a golden-faced visor over her face. He did the same. "Systems check?" he asked over the intercom. "All green. 8.34 hours till the scrubbers need cleaned," she told him. "I have 8.37, sounds like we will be using your time."

Next he pulled out a colored cube that looked like it had a rainbow all over it and then he opened the main door. A courier ship was meant to go from one planet to the next so it didn't have an airlock like the Explorer or military ships had. Rick placed it on the water, tapped the top, and watched as it unfold into their transport. It had already detected it was on water so it was already in hover mode. "Grab the two spare suits, we may need them and the snack packets," he told her as he went through the opening and sat in one of the two seats.

"Here Dad." Alexis handed the items across and climbed into her seat. She spun it to face forward and activated the passive restraint system followed by Rick doing the same. He touched a pad on his console and the ship's door closed; he brought up the power and they were off.

If anyone saw them they would look strange. Their transport looked like a clear bubble on all sides that shimmered a little. It had a flat bottom that was just inches above the water. They left a small wake behind them as it skimmed over the water. The seats they were sitting on were mostly clear except for the silver-colored support system and the console that was in front of both of them. It wasn't exactly the fastest thing, but it was smooth and thanks to their suits, it was comfortable.

They could see the snow blowing in the powerful wind. By the time they were off the water they could see the snow piling up into berms up against the buildings. "This is sort of familiar." Alexis looked up at the several tall buildings on either side of the road Rick was going down. "Not so sure about the materials they used to build some of these buildings, but it does vaguely look like home." Alexis looked everywhere and left the driving to her dad.

"What's with the lights that are changing colors? And why don't all of them work?" Alexis had seen a number of them by now. Some were red, others were green, and a few were yellow but none of the colors lasted for very long. "Traffic control maybe?" Alexis was guessing. "DAD!" She saw this yellow monster with black round things front and back coming down this little hill towards them. Except by now it was spinning its way down the hill hitting things on either side of the road which kept them trapped on the road as it spun their way. "DAAAADDD!" She watched their little pod just hop over it when it got close as Rick added power to the lifters. She twisted in her seat watching the yellow thing spin its way to the bottom of the hill where it finally stopped after slamming into something that looked a lot like it, just a different color and style.

They continued on and Alexis pointed at something which had Rick coasting through so she could get a closer look. There were a number of short columns that were colorful. Each had three yellow buttons on them that had numbers on them. "Can you stop for a second?" She started using the screens in front of her. "It's a dispenser of combustible fluid, highly flammable and explosive. There are thousands of gallons of the stuff below ground," she informed him. "One of the tanks is leaking into the surrounding ground." She kept looking. "It's a mess down there. There are cables and tunnels all over the place. Some of them are ancient in construction while others look newer. What a mess." These people had a lot to learn. "Thanks Dad." That was his signal to keep going.

Eventually they actually saw an occasional person out walking, braced against the wind. Each of them gawked as they passed them by.

Then they were forced to stop when they found a bridge across a river that was filled with abandoned cars. They had seen a number of them already, but this was the first time for such a large group. "Now what?" Alexis asked. She didn't think they could just float over this mess. However she watched her dad work his way backwards a little and then went down an embankment and hovered across the river which was flowing fast and was really wide. "It looks old," Alexis commented as she looked up at the suspension bridge. "It needs to be replaced badly; look at all the exposed steel that's rusting." She silently urged her dad to go faster in case the ancient thing finally decided it had had enough and collapsed down on them. Rick went up the other side, hopped over a barrier, and started down another road.

The buildings here were all shorter than the ones on the other side of the bridge. They also looked even older and in serious need of replacement. They even saw lightweight items floating down the road by the wind along with several things flapping wildly. "Dad?" Alexis wanted to have faith in her father, but his planet was just... "Have some faith Alexis, just a little more." He was doing his best to not try and force a direction that they went. He was actually barely touching the controls and made turns without really meaning to. The longer they traveled the more butterflies he had in his stomach. He was about ready to burst when he suddenly found them turning into this little alley that was filled with he didn't know what.

The wind was blowing down the road he had just left leaving snow berms up against the side of a building. Rick stopped and he could feel and see his hands shaking, badly. "Dad?" Alexis had never seen him like this before and actually reached out a hand to grasp one of his. "We walk from here. Down that way." He pointed in front of them.

They were out and walking and leaving prints in the snow. The wind wasn't bad in this tight space and thanks to their suits they didn't feel the cold. They found a person lying on the ground up against a large brown object that had wheels under it. Rick was down in his knees and forced whomever it was over on their back. It was a woman and her face was red with a lot of white. Everything was covered and they saw nothing but her snow burnt face.

Alexis got down on her knees, took out a device, and turned it on. She skimmed it just above the woman's body from head to toe. "It's a female," she confirmed, "relatively young. I'd say 19 to 21 at the most. Her extremities are beginning to show frostbite. She's malnourished and her blood work looks... She has drugs in her system! Drugs that aren't helping her any, they're actually doing damage." Alexis started pressing panels on her device. "C17H21NO4. It's a stimulant and affects the brain. It's addictive Dad." She looked at him. If this woman was their third they were in trouble. "Her?" she asked him point blank.

"What else pumpkin?" Rick needed to know what they were up against. "No current injuries. She had a broken arm years ago, likely when she was five or six years old. It has healed nicely. She's amazingly tall given what I know about the people on this planet. She's also filthy and hasn't cleaned herself in days, maybe a week or more, possibly longer. She's not pregnant and there's no internal damage that I can find at this time. If we leave her here she'll be dead before nightfall. Frozen solid by morning. She's also received a minor concussion lately, which would help explain why she is unconscious," Alexis added.

Rick lifted up a plastic bag that had frozen produce in it which he discarded. "We can't get her into one of the suits dressed like this. Help me get it all off her," he asked Alexis who put her device away then took out another one. Alexis used the laser to start cutting the coat off of the woman followed by the boots she was wearing. The only problem was it took a little time and without the coat and boots she started to freeze even faster. "I think she can keep the rest of the clothes." He took out one of their spare space suits, placed it on her chest right between her breasts, pressed the center, and watched it encase her.

"We need to get her into our transportation," Rick told Alexis. That was the next difficult thing. "You take her legs and I'll take everything else," he said. "What are these things? They were inside her coat." Alexis held up something that looked almost frozen already. "Food maybe." To Rick it was a good sign. She came out in this mess to find food which told him she didn't want to die. Even if she was in bad shape. It left him with several questions. "Alright, help me lift her up," he told Alexis who took the woman's legs and lifted with Rick taking her shoulders and most of the weight. Alexis wasn't the strongest person but she made it to their pod."It's going to be crowded Dad." Alexis stated the obvious. "Help me get her sitting inside and you're going to have to sit in her lap."

It wasn't the easiest thing but they had her in Alexis's seat sitting up. Now came the next difficult part. Alexis had to climb inside over the woman and sit in her lap with her bent forward and her head almost in her lap. "Can we go now please?" It was extremely uncomfortable. "On our way," he remarked.

Rick followed the same route on his screens that he had used to get there. "Are we there yet?" Alexis was in pain. "Just reaching the lake now, I can see our ship in the distance, I think." Vision there and back had always been questionable based on where in the city they were. Out here on the lake the blowing snow limited their visibility.

Rick backed up and pressed the spot on the panel that would open the door to their ship. "Can you climb out or do I need to cut you out?" he inquired and watched Alexis work her way backward until she was standing next to her dad still bent over. "I think my back's broken." Alexis couldn't stand up straight without pain.

Alexis took her legs while Rick took her shoulders. Alexis was going backwards bent way over. "Not sure you thought this all the way though Dad. Three of us and only two beds." Alexis pointed out a problem that she hadn't thought of before they even left home. However, Rick braced her body against his, let go of one shoulder, and slammed his hand up against a panel before putting it back under her shoulder. Alexis watched as a box with a clear top on it slid out from under one of the beds. "A medical pod! NICE." Alexis was finally impressed with her dad's planning.

"The other bed has one under it too." Rick smiled wide. "We just have to figure out how to get your bent back and you into it." Moments later Alexis watched the woman in her medical pod slide back in under the bed after making sure the pod was functioning correctly.

Alexis complained with every movement she made and was forced to make by her dad so she could get into the other pod. Tears were rolling down her face from all the pain. "You're a terrible patient," Rick informed her, teasing her a little. Alexis shot daggers at him. "Hush, just turn the pod on." Alexis watched herself slide in under the bed as the clear panel slipped closed over her. It wasn't total darkness as she could make out various lights. "Display analysis," Alexis commanded and watched as the panel above her lit up and ran a scan of her body. "It's just muscle spasms." Alexis tried to relax with that knowledge, however her body refused to cooperate and mostly she just felt pain. The medical pod was automatic and as much as she wanted to tell it what to do, she bit her tongue and just waited.

Meanwhile Rick went into the cockpit and got them into orbit, not caring who saw what anymore. He now knew they couldn't follow him and would simply chalk it up to an unidentified object that they couldn't follow after he broke orbit. The screens looked clear as he made his way towards this system's sun. He raised shields long before he got there and dove down into it with the scoops extended. Once the tanks were full he broke orbit from the sun and activated the FTL. They were a full day ahead of schedule and so long as nothing bad happened, they would reach home and actually get to go home with their third before their meeting with the director. "I hope she's ready for this," he said to himself. They may have their third but what if she didn't want to be a third?