Chapter 14: Reno Bound and Danger

Ken drove the big vehicle and continued to think about finding people to get to join them. One group he was going to ask was his Dungeons and Dragons group, and the ROTC class. They were going to need military people, so he added his dad's Vietnam buddies to the list, or at least some of them. As the miles went by, everyone else fell asleep to the drone of the tires on the road. Every few minutes they passed a car going the opposite way.

A few hours later, they pulled into Tonopah, Nevada and Ken saw the Tonopah Station, a combination hotel and casino. Knowing they would have food and facilities, he pulled into the place. As he pulled the car to a stop, everyone else woke up.

"Dinner and bathroom breaks guys, I figure we all could use a break."

They all got out, stretching and moaning about the pain in their bodies from sitting so long. As they walked into the building their nanobots began to work to relieve the soreness. Walking through the casino's doors, they headed for the restrooms, and refreshed themselves. When they had finished with the bathrooms, they met back outside the main doors.

They went into the Stage Stop Café, where they sat and ordered dinner. They relaxed for an hour, talking about nothing important, drinking coffee and watching the people come and go in the cafe. They got up and paid their bill. They walked through the side doors, and into the casino, as they finished their drinks.

Wandering through the casino, they watched the people spend their hard-earned money. Ken saw the security guards keeping an eye on them, because they were underaged. After a few minutes, they headed for the door.

As they stepped outside Ken handed the keys to Jen and said, "It's your turn to drive, Sis."

Ken walked out the door with his sister and they crossed the parking lot. As they neared the vehicle, Jen unlocked the doors with the electronic key lock remote. Ted moved around them and opened the door for Jenny, while Ken did the same for Tammy. Jenny climbed into the driver's seat, while Tammy climbed in and scooted over so she was behind the front passenger's seat. Ted closed Jenny's door and climbed in after his sister. Ken closed the door behind Ted, walked around the vehicle, and climbed into the front passenger's seat.

Jen started the SUV up and backed it out of its parking space. Driving out of the parking lot, they turned and started down Highway 6 heading towards Coaldale, forty miles away. Ken drifted off to sleep while Jen drove and more miles went by. They went through Coaldale an hour after leaving Tonopah, and headed north on 95 again, towards Hawthorn.

About forty miles later, Jen was enjoying the night sky and the music of Enya as she drove. She was watching the moon light up the ground and the stars twinkling in the air above them.

"Soon I will be up there seeing it all in person."

Without notice, she felt her communication chip activate and Amy contacted her.

'Jen stop the car and get out.'

Jen pulled the big car over and stopped the engine, and climbed out.

Confused she stood there beside the car.

'Amy what do you want me to do?'

'I set up some scanners hidden inside barrel cacti around the perimeter of the entrance and out on the mountain. The scanners have detected something up in space, out near Mars. However, I cannot make it out without bringing the main ship's scanners online, which your government could possibly detect.

'Sometimes human eyes are better at some things, I want you to go to the back of the car and open your pack, inside you will find some special binoculars I constructed for you, because you said you like looking at the stars.'

'Ok, let me get them out.'

Jen walked to the back of the SUV and opened the glass window. She then pulled her pack to her, and opened it. She rummaged through it until she found the case. Pulling the binoculars out of the case, she noticed that they were a little heavier then her old ones, and they also had several buttons on them, and a small box under one lens.

'Ok I have them, now what do you want me to do?'

'Go to the side of the vehicle, brace the glasses against the roof, and look at the moon. When you have the moon in sight, move the glasses one foot to the right of the moon. Then press the red button on the right side. That button is the zoom. You should be able to make out what my scanners are detecting. You will have to tell me what you see.'

Jen walked around to the side of the car and lay the binoculars on the roof. Looking at the moon, she moved the glasses to the right, and pressed the button. Suddenly, it was as if she had brought outer space and the asteroid belt to her.

'I don't see anything.'

She moved the glasses around slightly, then she stopped.

'Oh my God, it's a ship!'

In the glasses, she now saw a large ship heading out of the system, its engines burning like a flare to anyone who was looking in the right direction.

'Jen press the red button near your left index finger that will activate the recorder so I can analyze it when you get it to me.'

Jen moved her face away from the glasses and looked at the buttons on them, and pressed it with her fingers as she heard a car door open.

Ken woke up when he noticed there was no breeze on his neck from the open window. Looking around, he saw they were stopped alongside the road and Jen was standing outside the car. She was looking up into space with her binoculars. Climbing out Ken walked over to her.

"What are you doing, Sis?"

Jen concentrated on her recording for a second, and said, "Amy contacted me and asked me to check something out for her. Ken there is a spaceship out there."

Surprised, Ken said, "Let me see."

Ken held out his hand for the glasses so he could look.

"Here let me hold them on the ship and I will step out of the way."

Jen held the glasses against the roof steadily, as she slid out of the way so Ken could look through them.

Ken leaned in, looked through the binoculars. and examined the ship, trying to make out some details.

"I see it. It looks like a small cruiser or a large destroyer type. Not sure, of the class, or whom she could belong to, but it is definitely not T'Lari. Amy showed me a lot of alien ship classifications during our training, but from this distance, it is hard to tell for sure."

They heard the car doors open once more, and Ted and Tammy climbed out and walked up the side of the SUV.

"What's going on? Why did we stop?" Ted asked as they walked around the front of the SUV.

Ken moved his head back so he did not knock the glasses out of alignment and answered Ted, "There is a ship heading towards the belt, not too sure who she belongs to, but its proof we are being visited. Also made me wonder if they are responsible for all the satellites we send out that suddenly fail."

'Jenny that should be long enough on the recording, please take the glasses to the car and upload the images to the car's AI by pressing it against the dash. When you hear a beep, the download will be complete.'

Jen lowered the glasses as Ken stepped back from them, while Ken continued to talk.

"That is another thing we will have to check out, when we get out there." Ken looked over at his sister and said, "Jen do you want me to take over driving?"

Jenny looked up from examining her binoculars and said, "If you want to, but I am still able to drive, it's only been a couple of hours since I took over." Walking over to the car, she leaned in and pressed them against the dash until they beeped.

'It's all done, Amy.'

'Thank you, Jenny, I am uploading them now, it's going to take me awhile to compare the images in the ship's databases. Amy, out.'

Ken opened the passenger door as he was talking.

"Ok, Jen you're driving. Wake Ted or I when we get to Hawthorne and one of us will take over for you."

The rest piled back in to the big car. Jen climbed in, and handed her binoculars to Tammy.

"Tam, can you put these back in my pack for me?"

Tammy took the glasses and said, "Sure, no problem."

She turned and reached into the storage area and put them back in Jen's pack.

On board the Tralcan cruiser Vengeance, Lieutenant Kaila sat and stared at her sensor screen. With a sigh, she spoke to her friend Lieutenant Myia.

"This system has so many resources we could use, but the idiots up in command won't do anything about it."

"I know. It's stupid. We should even recruit these humans. They are good warriors. That is what our history books say. They are bloodthirsty! That is what we need right now."

Lieutenant Kaila yawns, and looked down at her board and was surprised to see one of the icons flashing. Activating it, she saw that the ship was being scanned from behind.

Quickly she activated the sensors, and they locked onto the planet and then onto the continent called North America. Doing a quick diagnostic of the scan, it shows they are not the human's primitive radar.

"Captain! We are being scanned from the human planet, and not by their primitive radar. This scan is even better than what we have. There is an advanced race down there, with some very advanced electronics."

Captain Tarlimar lifted his head from the data pad he was reading and got up. Walking over he said, "Not human? Well, that doesn't make sense."

Leaning over the beautiful woman's shoulder, he looked at the scan log and froze for a second. Turning he walked back to his chair and activated the communications system.

"Commander Kalarri, take your fighter and investigate a possible powerful sensor scanner on the human planet, if it's not human, destroy it and return to the ship. Be careful."

Commander Kalarri was flying escort for the Vengeance along with the rest of Ghost squadron when the message came to her from the captain.

Turning on her com unit she said, "Yes, Sir. I will leave the squadron and go investigate. Activating her fighter frequency she said, "This is Ghost One to all fighters, stay with the Vengeance, I will rejoin you, soonest."

A series of 'Rogers' came back over the com unit from the remaining nine fighters. Adjusting the controls in her Sunburst class fighter, she turned the fifty thousand ton fighter around, and headed for the planet Earth.

Her superior sensors picked up the scan, and she pushes the ship up to its maximum acceleration. The computer calculates the distance. It notifies her she can be on site, in ninety minutes. Ninety minutes later, she dropped in over the northern polar cap, breaking the sound barrier several times over, as she passed over the territory called Canada. Arcing the angle downward, she dropped to ten-thousand feet and headed for the target, traveling at twelve thousand miles an hour. The computer came up, and identified the area as Nevada. The target was a ground vehicle. Her sensors locked onto the vehicle, identifying the target. She cut her speed down to six thousand miles per hour and closed on the target that was traveling along one of the roads by a large lake.

Jenny put the Expedition into gear and pulled back out on to the road. Soon, everyone but Jenny was sleeping. She sat there wondering about the strange spaceship she saw in the binoculars. Fifty miles later, they pulled in to Hawthorne. Jen looked over at the boys as they slept, and continued to drive. She headed on down the highway and watched the night sky again. They passed through the town of Walker and headed north along the lake. As they drove up the length of the lake, the dash started flashing warning signal of danger.

The AI shouted a warning: "Incoming aircraft! Mach 8! We have been targeted by a hostile aircraft. Scanning ... Positive ID! Hostile fighter is a Tralcan fighter. They are firing missiles! Going to active defense!"

Up on the roof, the storage compartments flips open and the mini-lasers pop up and open fire. If they could see them, they would look like the old laser cannons from the original Battlestar Galactica series.

Ken snapped awake at the warning. As he sat up the dash folds down in front of him. His side of the windshield turns into a HUD. He could see the small fighter closing in on the SUV and the missiles. Grabbing the joystick, Ken started tracking the incoming missiles. Ken snaps the target circle on the first one as the AI tells him it was a standard Tralcan Air to Ground missile. He pressed the trigger button, and the lasers started firing. They blew the first missile apart less than three hundred feet away. The explosion lights up the sky, and demolishes the roadbed. Jerking the gun around to the second missile, he started shooting at it. He clipped a guidance vane, which sent the missile out into the lake where it exploded.

"Where is he? I don't see him?"

Jen was jerking the car all over the road trying to make the vehicle a harder kill.