Chapter 249

As Eric Dean and his sister, Angela Butler, stepped through the Ship's hatch, they felt a slight tingle that barely touched their conscious minds. Eric, an avid target shooter, also sensed a subtle difference in the weight of his 9 mm, but because his mind was focused on the strangeness of the situation and the anticipation of seeing his daughters, he didn't focus on it.

Before the alienness of the room they had stepped into could fully register, Terri and Alice launched themselves at the couple.

"Daddy!"

"Aunt Angie!" the girls screamed.

Terri literally jumped into her father's arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, squealing out, "Daddy. Daddy," hugging her father as tears of joy flowed down her cheeks.

Angela had crushed Alice to her, the females all shedding tears. Eric encircled Terri with his arms, trying to blink his own tears back. "You two okay?" he husked out past the girls' babbling as they both talked at once.

"We're great, Daddy," Terri laughed, then turned him loose to grab her aunt as Eric swept Alice into his arms to hug her for a while.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eric noticed a faint shimmer, then Sergeant Gomez was standing there. Gomez' faceplate retracted into his helmet as he grinned at Dean.

"You were with us there at the house," Eric accused, wondering when someone had invented invisibility, "and you followed us down the street."

"Guilty as charged," the Sergeant responded, amused. "But how could you know I was there? I was very careful not to make any noise."

"Because he's an Alpha," Jeff injected.

Eric raised an eyebrow, but just looked at the Prime.

"I'm Jeff Matthews," the Prime said, "and this is Sergeant Gomez."

Eric introduced his sister and himself.

Jeff motioned down the hallway. "Come on. Let's go sit in the lounge where we can be comfortable. The girls have a lot to tell you, and then we need to discuss some things."

"Eric?" Angela quietly said as she looked at the strangeness around them, not moving.

"Yeah, I know," he responded just as quietly while reaching for her hand, then to Jeff, "Where are we? What is this thing we're in?"

"Daddy, Aunt Angie, it's all right," Terri assured them. "These are really nice people, and they saved us from those awful men. Mr. Matthews', uh, Captain Matthews' team, I think he calls them, came into the house invisible and shot those men with darts. And they shot us, too, but I didn't sleep like they expected me to."

"And that is the crux of our problem," Jeff inserted.

But Eric's voice had turned cold. "You shot my daughters with some type of drug?"

Jeff was suddenly glad that the Ship had removed the ammunition from Eric's 9 mm as he came through the hatch. "Let's go have a seat and get something to drink while we explain things."

"No, I want to know..."

Terri stepped in front of her father. "Daddy, please stop," she quickly injected. "As usual, I've said too much. We weren't hurt, and if I had gone to sleep like they wanted me to, we would be back home now, but..." she continued with a giggle, "because I didn't, we got to find out about the Ship."

Kayla stepped forward and spoke for the first time. "Mr. Dean, your girls were not harmed by anything we did. Please, let's go sit, have some coffee or a soft drink and chat for a while. Your daughters are obviously in good health and bubbling with energy."

"Come on, Daddy," Alice said, grabbing his hand. "We sat at the counter and told the Ship what we wanted to eat, and suddenly, the food was just there. It's so neat. Come on," she repeated, tugging at his hand.

With a grin, Kayla turned and led the way, her fatigues not quite masking the delightfully shaped derrière in them. Eric felt his sister's grip tighten on his arm, the pressure of her nails quite noticeable. "Down Boy," she whispered. "She has a wedding band on her finger."

"I wasn't," he whispered back, but he knew he had been caught, then wondered how he could even subconsciously look at a woman's butt with all that was going on. Before he stepped into the lounge, he realized that he was beginning to trust these people. His daughters were extremely intelligent, and they had obviously accepted this ... situation. Maybe I just need to shut up and listen, he thought as he took in the elegant, but slightly alien-looking room they had just entered.

After Jeff, Eric and Angela seated themselves at a big table, Kayla took their drink orders, then she and the girls went to the counter to get them. That quickly turned into Terri and Alice ordering the drinks.

"That was quick," Eric said as Terri put his coffee in front of him a moment later.

"Just like Star Trek," the teenager responded. "You just tell the Ship what you want, and it's there almost before you get it said."

While Eric was digesting that, Angela nodded to the holo on the far wall. "That's really impressive. It looks like an aerial view of our park, taken in the daytime, of course. But any 3-D television picture I've seen never looked a tenth as good as this still. When the holo showed a car moving past the park, she suddenly got very quiet, her mind beginning to put things together as she realized this wasn't a still picture, but rather a live three dimensional one.

"Actually, the view is zoomed in somewhat," Jeff said as he sent a mental command to the Ship. The scene zoomed out to a much more distant view of the park, crystal clear and seemingly still in daylight.

"But how..."

"We're a couple of miles above the city," Jeff supplied.

"We're on a spaceship," Alice said, grinning from ear to ear.

Eric was shaking his head. "Granted that whatever we're in is invisible – and that's hard enough for me to get my mind around, but a space ship two miles up? We haven't moved."

"You can't feel it move. Uh... her move," Alice said. "Arlene told us the Ship has something that's called 'dampers' that makes the Ship 'inertialess.' You can't feel her move except when she, uh..."

" ... translates," Terri filled in for her.

Alice continued with, "That makes your stomach feel all weird."

Jeff just sat back, sipped his coffee, and let the girls talk, occasionally smiling at some of their terminology and enthusiasm.

Eric put his coffee down, looked at Jeff and motioned toward the screen. "All right, I can see that the..."

"Viewscreen," Jeff supplied.

"Uh, that viewscreen over there is technology that's considerably beyond anything I've seen before, but it's still a bit hard for me to believe that we're..."

While he was talking, Jeff was communicating with Arlene. "Push us on up to low orbit, say two hundred miles, and let us feel a couple of g's acceleration. No more than that. And remember the satellites..." he began, but Arlene interrupted.

"Computing all the satellite and space junk orbits was one of the first things the Ship required of Selina when she first began studying for the navigator position. The Ship said there was nothing to correct after Selina entered her data."

"Take us up, Number One," Jeff said aloud.

"Aye-aye Captain," Arlene responded over Ship's sound system.

Eric was staring at Jeff as the Ship obviously began to move. They first felt a faint vibration, then as the g-forces began to build, they could feel themselves seemingly becoming heavier. The girls sat their drinks down and grabbed the table, their eyes getting bigger. Eric and Angela weren't far behind them.

"You might want to watch the screen there," Jeff said as he motioned. "And ... you're only feeling a small part of the acceleration." After a couple of minutes, he spoke aloud to Arlene again, "Number One, give us a quarter g for a few minutes, please."

The girls really liked that. They giggled as they took giant bouncing steps around the lounge.

"Okay, I stand corrected," Eric said as he motioned for his daughters to return to the table, but there was still a little doubt evident in his voice.

After Arlene had returned everything to normal, Jeff smiled at Eric and Angie as they sat with their eyes locked on the viewscreen. "Let's take a walk down to the bridge."

A couple of moments later, they stepped onto the command center. Arlene and Selina came to their feet and Arlene said in her professional voice, "Captain on the bridge," then reseated herself at the pilot's station. Selina busied herself at her nav station.

"Don't overdo it," Jeff told Arlene via the Ship's mind.

"Aye-aye, Sir," she responded, "but I've been listening. I think Eric still isn't totally convinced that this is actually a spaceship. I've reduced the lighting so the main screen's view is a little more impressive."

And, indeed, it was. Eric, Angie, Alice and Terri literally stood transfixed as the forward screen, which took up the whole front wall of the bridge, displayed the giant ball of Earth, the terminator line distinctly visible, everything so real it felt as if they could reach out and touch it. In the background, there were the faint squeals, chirps and other alien sounds of a working spaceship bridge.

"Shit," Eric mumbled under his breath.

"Convinced we're not pulling your leg?" Jeff quietly asked the new Alpha.

Eric nodded to Jeff. "Sorry. With all that's happened in the last day and a half, I guess I just refused to believe. You have to admit, though, that an invisible spaceship that moves so smoothly that the movement can't be detected..." He let his voice trail off.

"And..." Jeff said, drawing out the word, "she's sentient."

"You're saying this ship is alive?"

"Well, her brain is alive and conscious. She's a rational, living being. Although her brain bears little resemblance to ours, and she's a telepath, as is the race that created her."

The Prime motioned. "Come on; my ready room is just through here. We still have some things to cover."

"Can we stay on the bridge, Daddy?" Terri asked.

"I had rather you come with us," Jeff responded. "I think your father still isn't too pleased with me."

"Oh, Daddy, they didn't hurt us, and the Lieutenant kept me all wrapped up in the blanket as he carried me down the mountain, and they took good care of Alice, too."

A moment later, they seated themselves at a curved table, its top a mirror finish of what appeared to be some type of dark wood with a beautiful grain.

"Eric," Angela quietly said to her brother, "they did bring our girls to us, and they aren't hurt. No telling what would have happened..."

"They sent those bad men to another dimension," Alice blurted.

"Dimension?" Eric sighed out as he wondered what else he was going to hear about.

"They are no longer in this universe – or anywhere else," Jeff responded.

"You killed them?"

"And the other two men who were coming to buy your girls."

Angela spoke up. "I guess I should be appalled that you killed them, but somehow I just want to smile about it."

"I still don't like the thought of you tranquilizing my girls, or whatever you did to put them to sleep," Eric sighed out.

"I understand your concerns, and I imagine I would feel the same way under your circumstances. And ... as it turns out, it was basically for nothing, anyway. We did it to keep your daughters from seeing us, so that we could return them to you without their having any knowledge of their rescue, but Terri here..."

"I saw everything," Terri inserted, her voice projecting how proud she was of herself. "And I listened to everything they said."

Eric let out a sigh. "I can see that asking two teenagers – two very intelligent teenagers – not to mention that they went for a ride in an invisible spaceship..."

Jeff grinned at Eric. "Exactly."

"So, assuming that you're not going to do away with us, what's the solution?"

"We call the solution a block. Everyone on this Ship has the block installed in their brain, and a lot of other people do too."

"And the downside," Eric said, staring hard at Jeff.