Chapter 12

Luke had been monitoring the conversation between Didgi and James. He couldn't believe what he had heard. Tarra was dead. His little sister was gone. He slid down the wall to sit on the deck. He removed his p-suit helmet and rested his head on his arms, fighting back tears of anguish.

He heard James ask to be patched through to his father on the moonbase. His father was going to be just as devastated as he was. He and Tarra were very close. He felt some of his grief transform itself into an ever growing anger against Dumitrescu and his minions who had unleashed this nightmare on his family and friends.

James waited for the subspace comm connection back to Joe to be established. His own thoughts were a jumble as he worked through the implications.

Subspace communications were not limited by the speed of light. A signal was sent by creating a distortion in subspace that propagated much the same way a radio wave does. The signal did dissipate over longer distances; subsequently very large amounts of power were required to transmit long distances like light-years. There was however a limit to how much power could be pumped into subspace before the distortion itself would decouple from our space-time and the signal was lost completely. Therefore a series of relays were needed to reach across large settled areas such as the Federation. In-system communications were easy and required relatively low power.

"Go ahead James, what did you find?" Joe said.

"Joe, this ship does not appear to be manned. The helm was running a program that was controlling the ship. We still need to verify by searching the engine room, but I believe this was a ruse. The General and Tarra were never on this ship. It was a wild goose chase meant to draw the Didgeridoo away from the moon and Ragnor."

"Wait ... James, Tarra is not dead on the bridge?" Luke's voice quickly interjected.

"No. The bridge is deserted. Unless they were in the engine room when it decompressed they are most likely still alive — just not on this ship. The dive towards the gas giant was probably meant to convince us that Dumitrescu had committed suicide. It all ties together: the quick launch that we were able to detect; the apparent stealth shield malfunction; the sudden redline acceleration. It all points to an attempt to draw us away and then persuade us they were dead."

"Where do you think they are?" Joe wanted to know.

"I'd say they never left the moon. This ship launched from the hills. Dumitrescu must have some hidey-hole up there. He may have had more than one ship secreted in the hills. If so, he could be anywhere if it was stealthed strong enough. We need to find him."

"Finish searching that ship, then enable the distress beacon so a salvage team can recover it later. Get back here with the Didgeridoo ASAP. We'll need her scanners to try and find this hidey-hole or potential extra ship of his. Meanwhile we will start taking apart that residential cavern board by board to find how he got out of there. That may give us the answers we need. Alpha 1 out."

James swiftly finished the search of the damaged ship. As he expected, no bodies were found. The ship had been truly deserted and meant only to lead him on a wild goose chase. He felt like a complete idiot for falling for this red herring. He was over 2 hours away from the moonbase. Whatever Dumitrescu wanted to do with the Didgeridoo out of the way was likely to happen soon.

Tarra's head was starting to pound less and less. She still felt awful and Dumitrescu had refused to give her any pain medication. At least she wasn't sick anymore- not that her stomach had anything left in it.

She was very worried. There was no way of knowing where she was or where she was headed. She was obviously on a ship of some kind. It was a pretty small one judging by the curve of the bulkhead in this compartment. It might even be a medium-sized captain's jitney - typically used to ferry passengers and small cargo between ships.

Her hands and now legs were still securely bound. She had been working to see if she could find a flaw in the plastic bands to exploit. They proved to be immune to her attempts to loosen or tear them.

Dumitrescu had dumped her on the floor of this compartment after she had been sick. She welcomed the relief from his eerie stare. She wasn't body conscious in the least, but there was just something about him that really creeped her out when he was looking at her.

Dumitrescu had obviously done a thorough job in searching her while she was out. He also clearly knew about a chameleon's abdominal pouch as hers was now empty. Her tactical implant couldn't reach anyone. She was evidently out of range or something was blocking the signal. Most likely it was a range issue; who knew where this ship was or where it was headed.

She knew that they were no doubt searching for her. This ship appeared to be too small to be FTL capable. She had to keep vigilant and look for any opportunity that presented itself.

"Alpha 1, this is Beta 2. Come to the last residential building. We've found something in the bedroom closet of the back apartment. Looks like what we've been searching for. There is a ladder leading down." Kevin was staring intently down into the blackness.

"Do not go into the hole, Beta 2. I'll be right there with a micro-probe," Joe replied.

"Roger, Alpha 1."

Joe hurried back to where the search team had found the hole. When he arrived, he fastened the viewer and earplug of the microprobe to his right eye and ear. He dropped the activated probe into the black hole.

The cameras were able to use the little light entering the dark room from above. James saw a small room with an electronic console active against one wall. There was a tunnel that led off the room.

"I don't like the looks of this electronic console. I have no doubt that Dumitrescu has left some nasty surprises behind if we enter into this area. The probe is too small to set them off. I'm going to see if I can go down the tunnel any distance."

He directed the probe to roll off towards the tunnel. Twenty meters into the tunnel it curved off to the right and he encountered a closed blast door that was just out of view of the small room.

Joe sat down on a chair that was against one wall of the bedroom. He keyed his comm to contact Nick.

"Alpha 1 to Beta 4. Nick, I'm going to need your expertise here. Have Georgia relieve you and get over here."

"I'll be right there Joe. Georgia is here in the op center; I'll be there in 10." Nick replied as he rose up and snagged an electronics toolkit from the counter nearby.

Nick hurried though the main cavern. He bounced up the steps of the apartment building and found Joe and the others in the bedroom.

Joe pointed at the hole in the floor of the closet, "That is Dumitrescu's bolt hole. It leads to a small room that has a connecting tunnel to it. About 20 meters down that tunnel is a blast door. I've no doubt there are traps laid in that room and tunnel. Disable them. We need to find out where this all leads to."

Joe handed the micro-probes eyepiece, ear plug and control pad to Nick. Nick fit them on and began the long process of looking for traps.

An alarm light was blinking on the space-bus's control panel. Dumitrescu noted the alarm and knew that his escape route had been discovered. He wasn't worried. By this time, they should be convinced that he had died as his shuttle entered the atmosphere of the gas giant. The signal from the shuttle had ceased just as it should have reached the huge planet.

Now all he had to do was wait for the right time to rendezvous with his starship that was waiting near the moon. He had given them strict instructions to keep near in case he ever needed to get away. The routes he and the Colonel had established for the interdiction patrols had kept that particular ship close at all times.

He flipped a switch that armed the explosive charges in the room and tunnel. He could have set off the planted charges right away, but they had only just opened the trapdoor in the closet. It would be so much better if the explosion could take out a few of his pursuers. He set the timer for 1 hour. If they hadn't tripped it themselves by then, it would blow.

He leaned over to the comm and keyed in the entry that would connect him to his men on the starship...

Joe was getting concerned. They were losing too much time. He had teams out on the moon's surface searching for the exit the earlier shuttle had used. But so far they had not found a thing. They probably would not; no doubt the exit was fully shielded.

Nick still had not disabled the sensors that he had discovered. He was convinced that if they entered without disabling them, they would trigger something nasty.

He didn't even know if Dumitrescu was still on the moon. He could be, but he might have left after his diversion. No sense thinking like that. He had to assume that Dumitrescu was still here and act accordingly.

If Dumitrescu was still on the moon, he must have some kind of plan, some kind of escape route out of the system. A thought occurred to him. He promptly contacted Georgia, "Georgia, patch me through to Colonel Haddis. I need to speak to him."

"Colonel Haddis here."

"Colonel, I'm concerned that the Ragnor fleet ships that are currently crewed primarily by Dumitrescu's people are at risk of breaking the neutrality pledge you gave. I'd like you to order them grounded at the main Ragnor spaceport until our parole negotiations are completed."

The Colonel stared hard at Joe, wondering what was behind the request, "Mr. Donovan, I can not do that. That would put them too much in your direct control before we had concluded those negotiations. However, I do understand your concern. As an act of good faith, I will order that they be withdrawn to orbit the next planet out. My patrol ships will however remain in their interdiction patrol paths until we have concluded our negotiations. Will that be satisfactory?"

"Yes. Please have them withdrawn immediately. Can you dispatch one of your starships to watch over them?"

"Very well. I do look forward to our future discussions. Haddis out."

The Colonel turned to his comm tech and gave the order to have the Ragnor ships withdrawn and for one of this starships to escort them to the parking orbit.

Aboard the Ragnor Starship Hayward, the on duty comm tech received the orders and relayed them to the Captain. He then turned back to his console and murmured into a handheld comm.

Five minutes later, the second officer appeared on the bridge followed by three ratings from the engine room. He cleared his throat.

The captain turned to look at him; he eyed the men standing to the side, "What can I do for you Lieutenant Rasconescu?"

"Captain Bastyan, You will go with these men and not resist. They will escort you to a berth where you will be held until we have recovered the General. We will put you and Commander Murphy in a lifeboat to be picked up just before we leave this system."

"And if I refuse?" The Captain met the Lieutenant's eyes directly, his face showing no signs of fear.

"Then you will be forcibly subdued and hauled off to the berth anyway. The boys might get a little too rough and frankly I don't give a damn if they beat you to death on the way. Easy or hard Captain - your choice. Commander Murphy is already in custody and squared away."

"I don't expect to live very long anyway when Colonel Haddis orders our ships to blast the Hayward to bits. The terms of our contract were quite clear."