Chapter 3

The next day went by very slowly for Mike and Emily, time seemed to just slow down and torment the both of them. Around one o'clock Mike found Jack Turner outside the autoshop smoking a cigarette. As Mike was going to go up to him, two guys appeared out of nowhere, and attacked Jack. Mike was in action before he knew he was doing anything. Both attackers were over six feet tall, and out weighed Mike by fifty pounds each. One had Jack's arms restrained behind his back, while the other pummeled him with his fists. Mike charged towards the attackers and slammed into the guy giving the beating, like a professional linebacker for the NFL. The guy he tackled didn't know what hit him and they both hit the ground with a loud thud. Jack was just starring at Mike in surprise, then realized his captor had loosened his grip. Jack yanked himself free and drove the palm of his hand into his captors' nose, breaking it on contact. Mike's right shoulder went numb after he tackled the perpetrator, he heard with some satisfaction a popping sound coming from the big goon. The fight was over before it even started. Mike picked himself up off the ground as teachers were running towards the confrontation.

They asked what had happened, both Mike and Jack told them that the two goons jumped Jack and Mike jumped in to help Jack out. The police were called, where they placed both goons under arrest, and took them off to the hospital to get looked at. Mike and Jack were allowed to leave. Jack stopped Mike once they were out of the room and halfway down the hallway.

"Thanks for watching my back out there, man. That was some tackle you gave that guy." said Jack.

"Your welcome, though getting into a fight wasn't on my list of things to do today. Anyway what was that all about?" asked Mike.

"Well they are the Welsh brothers, and I had just broken up with their sister, Tina. Apparently Tina didn't like being dumped and had her brothers try to explain it to me. Then you showed up and you know the rest." said Jack.

"Look Jack, I came here today to ask you a very important question, and maybe let you in on the greatest discovery of human existence."

"Well you certainly piqued my interest," said Jack, "so what's the deal?"

Mike told Jack that he needed him for an engineering job, and that his reputation spoke volumes regarding his mechanical expertise. But Mike wouldn't tell Jack what the job was, until he agreed to come and see it for himself. Jack was reluctant to agree to this, but Mike had just saved his butt, and he owed him one.

Emily had a difficult time tracking down Mitch down, she spent half the day combing his usual hangouts. She finally found him in the Burlington county mall playing video games at EB Games. Mitch was surprised Emily was looking for him, barely anyone notices him nor would they want to look for him. Emily started with idle chitchat, asked how he was doing. He said he was fine, but was wondering why Emily was looking for him.

"Mitch, can we talk in private for a few minutes. I'm doing a survey for psychology on young males and how they would want to change the world, if they could." Emily was lying through her teeth, hoping Mitch wouldn't get squeamish about why she wanted to talk to him. Emily and Mitch went down to the food court, which was fairly empty. They sat in a far corner with two sodas that Mitch bought for them. When they were comfortable, Emily asked some basic background questions. After five minutes background information, Emily started her real questioning.

"Mitch. If you had a chance to change the world, how would you do it?"

"Well that is a really good question. First off, I would try to get our country off of fossil fuel resources and on to a cleaner source of power. Then contribute money into an organization trying to cure deadly diseases. That's all I can think of at the moment."

Emily thought his answers were good. Emily asked him to meet her later at Mike Anderson's place for another little project she was working on. Mike and Emily met back at Mike's place around two o'clock. Mike told her about his encounter with Jack and that he would be here around three to see what was up. Emily thought that was good news and told Mike that Mitch would be here at three also. Jack and Mitch arrived at Mike's place early, and were surprised to see each other there. Before they could ask any questions, Mike and Emily had them walking towards the tunnel. Mitch looked questioningly at Mike and Mike shook his head Yes. With that they all went down into the tunnel, moving at a fairly good pace, tripping every once in a while on some loose stones. When they arrived at the ship both Jack and Mitch looked like kids in a candy store. Their excitement soared when they met Sam. They agreed to whatever Mike and Emily had to say. Three hours later, both Jack and Mitch were brought up to speed and were willing to help repair the ship. Jack was now Chief Engineer and Mitch was now Science Officer. Jack and Mitch made their way to main engineering and asked Sam for a detailed scan of all the ships' systems.

Sam brought up a three dimensional image of the ship and all the damage was outlined in red. Both Jack and Mitch agreed that main power was their first priority. Jack looked at the image. Power circuits that were damaged or fried from sabotage had to be replaced immediately. Jack went to a storage area and found replacement circuits, cables, tools, and a few maintenance droids. Mitch was inspecting the damaged circuits and found the device causing the power drain. A small black square device was hidden behind a junction station. Mitch disabled the device and solved one of their many problems. Now they could replace the power that was lost, without fear of a power drain. Jack and Mitch would work together trying to solve the power problem, but would need help from Sam on what kind of power they could use. Sam could use solar energy, but it would be very slow to get to full power. Since becoming active Sam had been scanning for alternative power sources. Sam told them of a nearby factory that had processed silicon circuits that could be used to covert solar energy into the power they needed. Jack knew about the factory. It had been shutdown two months back, because of lawsuits by environmentalists. Jack told them there were piles of silicon circuits lying behind the building. Sam said the more they could get the better. Mike said he could borrow a friends' trailer and they could haul the circuits back for Sam to convert for his use. Emily, Jack, and Mitch waited with Sam while Mike went to his friend to barrow his trailer. An hour later Mike walks back in and said they could go now. They all piled into Mikes' car with the trailer already attached. The trailer was eight feet long, six feet wide, and had a safety rails on all of the sides with a ramp on the back. Five minutes later on a deserted factory driveway they checked to see if anyone was watching the factory. They made their way to the back of the factory. No one was around to disturb them. Sam hadn't been kidding; there were several piles of silicon circuits stretching for about a quarter of a mile. Each circuit weighed about ten pounds, so they all did multiple trips from the piles to the trailer. After half an hour the trailer, as well, as Mike's trunk was full of silicon circuits. As they headed back to the ship, everyone was abuzz with excitement.

When they arrived back at the tunnel there was a lone maintenance droid waiting for them. The small group looked at the droid questioningly, until Sam announced that the droid was there to help them unload the circuits. It took little over an hour to unload the trailer and Mike's trunk. Sam was very pleased with how many silicon circuits they had brought back with them. He said that the circuits would take at least five hours to convert and then install the solar panels. So with that they called it a night, when they had emerged from the tunnel it was dark out and it was well past midnight. They agreed to meet back here tomorrow nice and early to work on the ship. Around nine the next morning they all met at the tunnel, all prepared for a long day's work. Mitch was the odd-man-out, because he was the only one who brought a medium size red cooler.

"Mitch, why do you have a cooler?" asked Emily.

"Well, if we're going to be working all day on the ship, I thought I might as well bring some food and drinks for lunch."

"Oh. Ok." replied Emily.

They set off down the tunnel and when they arrived at the ship Sam informed them that the circuits were installed and were producing a significant increase in power. At the current levels of power intake, it would take nine weeks to reach full power. Sam could take himself off of backup power when the power level reached ten percent. At the moment the power level was at four percent, and would take two more days before Sam could go off of backup power. Everyone said that was good news. Sam also informed them that he had now reactivated five more maintenance droids to help with the repairs. Mitch and Sam were working for four hours on finding more powerful resources to use for the ship. While Sam worked scanning for additional power sources, Mitch was in la la-land; he was accessing the ships main computer core and the information stored was thousands of years more advanced than anything on the planet. Mitch thought, "The beings that created this ship and all of its technology were more advanced, but couldn't fix their own ship when it was damaged." They seemed to lack creative thinking that Mitch and the others possessed naturally. Mitch routed through the files for the rest of the day, finding surprising little tidbits of information. The beings from this ship had over seven hundred elements on the periodic table. This ship had shields, particle weapons, a cloaking device, and fighters with the same capabilities. Mitch also found a small treasure trove of top-secret information stored deep within the computer core, some were experimental upgrades for the ship that didn't quite work or just seemed impractical at the time. From these upgrades Mitch was getting all sort of ideas for the ship and for Sam, the only problem was getting them to work. Mitch felt sure he could do it, he had a very creative imagination.