Chapter 62
The final day of flying passed slowly for the Dragon Riders. The stress of the previous evening had kept all of them on edge throughout the night and so everyone was felling tired. After an extended lunch break near a mountain river in the country of Aceh, they all took a short nap in the shade to revitalise themselves. The larger dragons were happy to join them in slumber while the already rested Terrors scurried around the jungle, discovering many new things they had never before seen, smelt or eaten.
About an hour later, Blue roused his friends and started to get Speedy ready for the last leg of the long journey. As he worked, Calla wandered over to him and tried to raise up a little courage.
"Hey uh... I'm sorry about this morning... I wasn't really myself."
"Oh, who were you?" Blue smirked.
"A bit of a jerk I think" Calla dmitted.
"No, you weren't; memories can be painful and it happens to all of us sometimes, but you have to remember something."
"What?" Calla asked suspiciously.
"I'm wonderful" Blue said cheekily.
Calla smirked, reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"No you're not" she smiled and went to put her saddle on Windstorm.
Even though the dragon could not know about the trauma the young girl had gone though, Windstorm had no trouble picking up on Calla's mood. As she fastened the girth straps around the Nadders chest, a large greenish blue head looked back at her and purred.
"I'll be alright girl" Calla said reassuringly.
Standing up, Calla ran her hand up the dragon's neck and hugged her, wondering how she ever got by without a good dragon at her side; how did anyone?
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Everybody in the control room went about their jobs without fuss or bother. They were also quite calm, except for April and Sarah.
"The launch window will be open for the next series of launches in less than an hour General; shouldn't you be getting down to the staging area?" Sarah asked.
"Plenty of time Doctor Spencer" Sage smirked "Anybody would think you were trying to get rid of me.
"Just wanted to make sure there was no hold up."
"Thank you Doctor, but there is something I would like to see first" Sage said and leaned closer to one of the monitors.
Flicking a switch on the panel in front of him, Sage picked up a desk microphone and spoke.
"Sage to Carson Rake, are you receiving me?"
A few seconds later, the static cleared and the call was answered.
"Rake here General; ready to transmit."
"Good work; point the camera at the rear of the ship and move it slowly forward" Sage ordered.
"Camera?" April mouthed silently to Sarah.
Sage turned a dial switch under the monitor, and the image changed from telemetry information to the live feed from Rake's hand held camera. The picture panned forward along the spine of the MTV as ordered, while Sage carefully studied what he saw, looking for any problems or signs of intended danger. Everything looked as it should so Sarah and April soon started to assume they had dodged another bullet.
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"Blue... how will we know if it's safe to land?" Calla called out as they approached their destination "Sage may not have left yet."
"I'm not sure" Blue replied "We may have to set down a few kilometres away and walk in to see what's happening."
"Hey, I've got an idea" Haley interjected "Some of my friends from El Centro decided to hide out a few kilometres away from the Railgun Complex, rather than live under the yoke of Sage and the Raiders, so we should check in with them first."
"Sounds like a great idea" Blue agreed "Do you know where they are?"
"I know the general area, so I'm sure we'll find them from the air."
"Great; lead the way" Blue nodded.
Given the encouragement he wanted, Boris flew out in front of the other dragons and kept on a south-easterly heading. Haley banked the dragon from left to right as she searched the ground below until she spotted what she was looking for. A small number of tents and rough huts well away from the complex entrance and close to a fast flowing river. She led the Dragon Riders down on the side of a hill, a few hundred meters west of the camp.
"Right then; I'll go make contact and tell everyone not to freak out when they see the..."
"AAHHRRGH!" somebody behind them freaked out.
All heads turned towards the cry where three men, a woman and a baby were making their way towards the camp.
"Gavin relax, it's only me" Haley tried to comfort the frightened young man.
"B-but it's not only you, is it? It's them too" Gavin pointed to the dragons.
The curious Terrors had already started to sniff at the newcomers but Blue held Speedy back when he tried to join them.
"Hey sweetheart, great to see you again but uh... where'd you get the dinosaurs?" Shifty asked.
"They're not dinosaurs, they're dragons" Calla interjected.
"And if you call me sweetheart again, I'll break your nose" Haley added.
There was a brief time of declared disbelief about the existence of dragons, along with a rapid realisation that they were actually staring straight at them. Introductions were eventually made and when Sue heard the names Blue and Abigail Dias, she stepped forward with the baby she had been keeping back and protecting, just in case the dragons had started unexpectedly eating people.
"Blue, Abby, perhaps you would like to meet your little sister Rose Talon Dias."
The thought that the baby in front of them could be their sister had never occurred to them and everyone took a few minutes to fuss over the little bundle until Blue asked the obvious question.
"Wait a minute, why isn't the baby with Mom?"
"Ah that's quite a story, let me explain" Shifty began "Actually there may not be time, so let me sum up; Your Mom and Doctor Spencer have been telling everyone that they had no plans to double cross Sage, but it turns out they do have something up their sleeves; so of course if they get caught, something really smelly may hit the fan. I just found out about it when Mrs. D told me to get Rose out of the complex."
"Wait... you can contact Mom?" Blue asked urgently.
"Well yeah... but only at certain times; let me continue..."
"No time, just answer this; is Saffy trapped inside the complex too?"
"No she's at the ship" Smit told them "She spends most of her time there these days."
"Any guards at the ship?" Blue asked.
"Always; usually half a dozen or so" Shifty replied.
"Okay then..." Blue's mind shifted into overdrive "Haley, take Abby, Gage and your dragons and hide near the entrance to underground road; take the Gronkle too. Shifty, go make contact with Mom... or anyone else inside the complex and give them a message..."
"Maybe I should go back" Sue interrupted "They know me inside so I won't be stopped and questioned."
"But what about Rose?"
"I'll take her" Smit offered "Had a lot of experiences with rug rats over the years."
"Okay fine then" Blue agreed "Me, Calla and a few good Terrors are going to take control of the ship, get Saffy and grab some gear while we're at it. Everyone understand?"
"Yep; just tell me the message" Sue nodded.
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Not long after, Blue and Calla were crouched down amongst the trees at the top of the beach, contemplating the challenge before them.
"Okay there's one on the ramp, I saw two on the foredeck and there is probably at least one aft" Blue noted.
"That's only four, so where are the rest?"
"Your guess is as good as mine" Blue shrugged.
"Well my guess is they are either inside the belly of the ship, or off duty in one of the cabins" Calla whispered.
"As good a guess as any" Blue nodded "I suggest you and I sweep in from above and send the guys on the foredeck out for a swim, while the Terrors disarm the guy on the ramp."
"Then we move aft and play it by ear I suppose" Calla shrugged.
"Unfortunately I can't think of a better plan right now."
"Don't worry, it's a good plan" Calla patted Blue on the back.
"I hope so, well... let's go."
Speedy and Windstorm followed their riders back into the forest where Blue and Calla saddled up and psyched themselves ready.
"Firefly, Daisy, get the gun" Blue ordered the Terrors as he pointed to the man on the ramp.
As soon as the little dragons had scurried off Speedy and Windstorm took to the air and circled around on opposite sides of the ship. Up on the bow, one of the guards noticed something on the beach and picked up his radio.
"Spotter here; can you those things coming down the beach?" he transmitted.
"Affirmative Spotter... what are they?" the man on the ramp asked.
"Well they look like big lizards or really small alligators."
"Some lizards do lay their eggs in the sand, so maybe they're OOFFF!"
"Ramp this is Spotter, can you repeat?" but the radio only gave static.
The second guard on the bow moved up and tried to see what was going on down below.
"Spotter to Ramp, are you receiving me?"
The two men looked at each other from opposite sides of the ship as they removed their rifles from their shoulders, but it was all to no avail. Before they could even attempt to train their rifles down on the beach, they were they were both grabbed from behind and hoisted upward. They each dropped their rifles and cried out in fear as whatever had them swooped down offshore and deposited them in the ocean not far from the beach. Each man struggled for a few seconds to stay afloat in their heavy military gear, until they both sheepishly realised they could touch the sand beneath them.
"Well done everyone" Blue smiled as he and Speedy landed next to the ramp leading up into the belly of the giant tanker.
The ramp guard thought it was bad enough with a couple of small dragons crawling all over him, but now that a Night Fury was staring straight into his face, he began to think his time had finally come, and so he promptly passed out.
"Damn; I was hoping to get some information out of him about the other guards" Blue sighed.
"The other three are off duty; they take four hour shifts" a voice came from inside the dark ship.
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Deep underground in the railgun control room, Neville Sage stared intently at the image on the screen in front of him. He looked for anything out of the ordinary on the Mars Transfer Vehicle; any addition, anything missing, anything that would indicate sabotage. Every now and then Sage would call Carson Rake, who was flying towards the ship in an orbiting capsule, and request a closer inspection of a certain area of interest. When this happened for the eighth time, Sarah and April continued to stay calm, knowing there was nothing for him to find on the ship; but this time he hadn't noticed something on the ship.
"Rake, go back the tenth docking ring; I thought I saw a flash behind the ship."
Doing as ordered, Carson Rake found the light Sage had seen and zoomed in on it. On the other side of the MTV was another ship; a smaller ship that looked like a Winnebago with a weight problem, and with shrimp like pincers protruding from the nose.
"That's a Space Exploration Vehicle" Sage declared "What's an SEV doing out there? Get me Dias on the radio... NOW!"
The radio operator altered the frequency to that of the MTV but no answer was forthcoming. April and Sarah tried to look innocent and mildly surprised but they knew Sage would see right through them soon enough. Oddly enough, he did not even ask the women what was going on, he merely pace back and forth mulling over the situation.
"If Dias is in that SEV, what could he be doing? Or... where could he be going? It's a space vehicle; it can't land on Earth or Mars... it couldn't even make it back to Mars from here... couldn't land on the Moon either so... it could only... GET ME RAKE AGAIN!"
"Rake here" Carson replied when the call was made.
"Look around on the far side of the MTV; particularly where that SEV is headed."
"Roger that sir, visually scanning the area" Rake acknowledged.
Sage went back to staring t the video feed from the capsule and was both excited and shocked when he turned out to be right. If he had not been looking for it, he never would have seen it. A long way out on the far side of the MTV was something big. As Rake zoomed in on the new object, Sage's eyes grew wider and wider. He could see what appeared to be a natural space body over ten kilometres across. Around its equator was a single square truss and it had two circular domes on the surface, about a kilometre in diameter each, and evenly placed on the left and right of the body a few kilometres apart, making it look like it had two massive eyes. As Sage stared at the domes, he noticed each one was revolving in the opposite direction to the other.
"What the... IS THAT A SPACE STATION? ARE THOSE O'NEILL CYLINDER CAPS IN THE FRONT?"
"To tell the truth, it's Deimos" Sarah admitted, realising she could not hide it any longer.
"DEIMOS? THE MARTIAN MOON? WHAT KIND OF CRAP IS THIS?" Sage furiously yelled.
The guards in the room had already raised their weapons and were just waiting for any kill order that may come. Ignoring all others in the room, Sage just spun around and grabbed Doctor Spencer by the collar and slammed her into the wall.
"I want to know what's going on Doctor, and I don't want to hear any double talk."
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Hello again
Sorry this chapter is a little late, I had some minor health problems. Nothing serious but I took some time off to rest. The last four chapters are coming along well so I'm not expecting any more hold ups.
I noticed a week ago that one of my regular readers, FaolenBookWolf has started reading Red Sky Rising so I assume it will be a long time before he/she gets up to this chapter. If you do, drop me a line so I can check the dates and see.
Thanks, Marty.