Chapter 3

Ethan stared out of his window at the vast amount of junk in front of them.

"My God. It goes on forever. How did all this stuff get here anyway?"

"I betcha Garth could answer that." Alex called to Garth. "Hey Garth, how did all this stuff get here?"

"Well let's see," Garth began speaking to the back, but continued looking forward. "If I remember from my history lesson. They realized in about twenty fifty that all the stuff falling back into the atmosphere was hurting the Earth."

"Isn't that when the Kohlner Patrol formed?" asked Jody.

"You got it Jody. Hans Kohlner made a deal with the governments that he would collect all the junk floating around and keep it safe from the Orbit Stations that were being built."

"He was the one who invented the Gravity Lasso Beacons," offered Farhad.

"Give the boy a high capacity memory chip," chuckled Garth. "Once he did that everything from obsolete satellites to the spent carcasses of ancient rocket boosters and old stations was put there. The Zone continued to expand with the Lasso Beacons being moved out to accommodate more and more junk. They put tight controls in place in order to protect the marketplace from inferior parts from Scrappers. As the patrol's power grew their ships became the fastest, largest and best-equipped force around. The government of Earth had enough to deal with and contracted with them to provide protection around the globe as well as throughout the Zone."

"So they're like hired guns?" remarked Tasha.

"I guess you could put it that way Tasha. Hans Kohlner was also instrumental in the whole Fletcher Mars Colony Mission."

"He was?" asked Jody. "But wasn't he pretty old by then?"

"Kind of, but by that time, Kohlner pretty much controlled everything Fletcher did. The Bio-Mechs, the Mars Mission, Fletcher could hardly make a move without old Hans the Barbarian breathing down his neck." Garth instinctually scanned the instrument panel and then looked outside the windows to make sure they were staying a safe distance from everything.

The bus began to pass various objects large and small, Garth was very careful to monitor the small attitude reactors to stay clear of hitting anything.

"How come everything isn't drifting around?" Jody asked.

Farhad and Yavi answered together, "Because the Gravity Lasso prevents objects from shifting more than five percent from where they're placed."

Ethan strained to look out the window as they drifted by all the strange objects.

"Mavis, look at all this stuff. It is so skizmoid."

Mavis glanced out the window, "That's nice, Ethan," and then went back to writing in her journal.

"All you ever do is write in that stupid journal. You're missin' some pretty cool stuff."

"Ethan, when this journal is published and I'm a famous author, then you'll thank me."

"Mavis, if your journal is published, I'll go on a diet." Ethan said with confidence.

Mavis smiled, also with confidence, "You got a deal. Get ready to be thin."

We have stumbled onto the Kohlner Junk Zone. So far there's nothing to dock with yet. Just passing a lot of old junk and stuff. It's so weird out here, being so far away from the Transway or any of the Orbit Stations. I'd be really scared if I were out here alone. I know that if we found some kind of ship that was half working I could get everybody to help fix it. Garth might be hurt, a little, so he couldn't fly it, but I could also. It would be hard and flying through the Junk Zone dangerous, but somehow I would make it through, save the ship and everyone on board. We'd dock back at Folden and the whole station would be there to greet us back as heroes. Making Ethan go on a diet is another story.

She rested her pen for a moment, looked up at Alex, smiling and sighed to herself.

Alex leaned in towards Garth. "What do you think Garth, you see anything yet?"

"Not yet, Alex, just a lot of old satellites and rocket boosters. Nothing we could hope to even remotely use to dock with."

Garth scanned the hundreds of objects in his view. Dozens and dozens of old communications satellites mixed with the discarded technology of bygone eras. It reminded him of the acres and acres of old space planes lined up in the desert after The Bio Wars. He spotted some of the old Cutlass Class ships that he started working with early in his career.

"Hey Yavi and Farhad. Look over there..." He pointed of the left. "You can see some of the old Cutlasses." The old ships were sleek, aerodynamic and fast looking; something that would be more common place in a comic book or digi-pix show.

"They were twenty years old when we got em' and really something. Faster than all get out." Garth continued.

"But Mr. Garth. Weren't they big inefficient fuel burners?" said Yavi.

"I suppose Yavi." Garth said, "but that was in the early days of Lockheed-Epoc Systems. They could only afford older models then."

"What about The Fletcher?" asked Jody

"The Fletcher?" said Tasha. "Until Farhad told us about his uncle, I thought it was just some story our parents told to scare us."

"Au contraire. The Fletcher was indeed a real ship. Destined to fail from the start. I'm sure all your parents remember when it was built and when it was destroyed," said Garth.

"Our parents sure do, even though they were kids when it happened," Mavis remarked. "They talked about watching the recovery effort on the news."

Garth put up his hand. "Hold on guys." He looked hard out the window, his eyes growing wide as if he were seeing a ghost. I don't believe it, he thought. Could it be? No... it is!

In the distance, an object appeared and began to grow larger. An object all too familiar to Garth, but one he had never expected to come across so readily.

"Well, my young space drifters; I do believe that our sanctuary has been found."

They all chimed up in unison.

"What is it?"

"Are we saved?"

"What are you talking about? There's nothing there."

"Do you think there's food on it? Whatever it is."

"Calm down, calm down. What it is, is the old Alpha Station. A perfect place for us to settle onto and fix this old beast. It'll also be a good learning experience. It's not often you get to visit things you can only see in Digi-pix."

"Just like an adult," Tasha abruptly commented, "always wanting to turn everything into a lesson."

Alex, could not let her get away with it. "God forbid, Tasha, you might learn something."

"Garth. Do you think they'll be any air in the station?" Farhad's eye were wide.