Chapter 16

The Yellow Beast crossed the restricted area boundary and rapidly approached the Fletcher.

"Far would you look at all this stuff? I've never seen anything like that." Yavi stared out of her window amazed at the strange machines passing by them.

"Me neither. It's like we entered another world or something," said Farhad.

Alex checked the nav computer and then consulted Rosie's small image on his Pocket Pal, which was perched on top of the instrument panel. "How we doing, Rosie? Looks like we should be there soon."

As the bus sailed over a tremendous piece of junk, Alex saw the Fletcher just as it was on Rosie's monitor back in Alpha Station.

"There it is," Alex called over his shoulder to the rest of them.

Mavis looked up from her journal "Where? Where is it?" she asked, "I can't see it."

Ethan pointed out the front view screen, "It's right there, Mavis. If you weren't so busy with your journal..."

She couldn't let her brother get away with that. "Oh right, Ethan. Mister, 'I'm-too-busy-with-the-food-processor to notice anything else.' Have you and the processor had your children yet?"

Ethan was about to say something back to her when Alex chimed in, "All right you two. I got enough going on here. I don't need to listen to that stuff."

The two of them fell silent at Alex's command.

Mavis then thought about what Rosie had shown and said to her. She turned to Ethan and put her hand on his arm. He turned to her. "I'm sorry, Eeth. I didn't mean that."

Ethan smiled back at her.

The Fletcher began to grow larger fairly rapidly. Alex was busy checking the instruments when Rosie's voice sounded from his computer. "Alex, you're approaching too rapidly. You need to begin decelerating now or you are going to overshoot the Fletcher."

"Okay, Rosie," he snapped to the realization of what she had said and quickly pulled back the throttle. The Yellow Beast slowed drastically as the Fletcher now filled the view screen.

Tasha pointed toward the part of the ship where Garth and Red had disappeared. "Look, you guys. There's Red's ship. On that funny looking part."

"Alex, Alex," Rosie's voice had a different tone to it. It was filled with a sense of urgency. "We are close enough now that I can detect a power surge building within Red's ship."

A twinge of panic went through Alex's body.

"What do you mean, Rosie? Is it about to take off? Who's at the controls?"

"I am able to detect that Red Fargo is not on board and neither is Garth," said Rosie.

"Who is it then?" Alex was really getting nervous now.

"It's Fletcher! That's who's inside," said Tasha.

"It has to be. Who else?" added Jody.

"That's it," started Mavis, "That was Fletcher's plan all along! He wanted to steal Red's ship and escape."

Rosie interrupted them, "Alex, Red's ship is about to depart."

"We're at the outer boundary for restricted area Bravo, Lieutenant," Smitty spoke into Cranston's ear. "And it looks like you're dead on."

"I got it, Smitty," Cranston pulled back the power slowing down the patrol craft to a safe speed.

"Jerry, I'm picking up a blip... It looks like it's the bus from Folden we saw before."

Before Cranston could respond, the bright orange flash from Red's ship lifting off the Fletcher gleamed momentarily in the distance.

The two of them looked.

"Whoa, what the heck was that?" said Cranston.

Smitty punched some buttons in front of him to try and get an ID on the ship. After a second he answered Cranston's question. "That was Red's Little B."

"The Rascal?" Cranston was more confused than ever. "If that's the Rascal, then who's driving the bus? The kids? And why are they violating the restricted area?"

"We got no choice, Jer." Smitty said with a tone of regret.

"I know, I know," Cranston depressed the transmit button under his thumb.

"HQ, HQ, this is forty-two. We have a breach in area Bravo. Repeat, breach in area Bravo." Cranston slowly shook his head and muttered to himself.

"Why'd you do it, Red? Why?"

The sound of the Rascal blasting off from the Fletcher still reverberated in Red's head and body. The thought of somebody else at the controls of her ship made her blood boil, and the fact that she let herself get into this situation made it worse.

"Well, what do we do now?" asked Garth.

"We sit and wait. Unless you got a better idea," Red replied.

Another sound of something hitting the outside of the hull vibrated around the room. Garth and Red looked up and around the walls.

"Guess we didn't have to wait that long after all," said Garth.

"Yeah, it's probably the K-P coming to put us in our own little restricted area prison so we don't tell the rest of the world about their little secret." Red mused about their fate.

"I suggest you temper your opinions about the K-P and consider the source, Red."

The pshhht sound of air pressurizing the airlock tunnel grew from the other side of the inner door and then subsided. They both craned their necks around to look at the door. The mechanism from inside the door clanked and then the seal opened just enough.

"Garth? Red? Are you guys in there?" Alex's voice tentatively called through the crack.