Death Ship - SDD Five, Part Four

It was late afternoon in the town of Lincoln. Lincoln was one of four towns in the colony named after presidents of the old United States. Scott had forgotten how much he missed the warm sun on his face. On the corner just ahead Scott spotted Riker’s Bar. That’s where the corporal told him to go.
Scott sat at the corner of the bar. A few minutes later a man came in and sat next to him. Without an introduction and without looking at Scott, the man said, “Put your hand on the bar, palm up.”
“What?” Scott asked.
“Do it, or take a walk.” the man answered still without looking at Scott.
Scott put his hand on the bar. The man grabbed his hand and poked his finger with a needle.”
“Hey!” Scott yelled.
“Here I thought you marines were supposed to be tough,” the man gibed.
Scott stood up, “You know what kind of marine I am when I knock you on your ass.”
The man calmly injected Scott’s blood into the analyzer as he talked, “Relax Lieutenant. This is standard procedure.”
“I didn’t come here to go through some bull shit procedures.” Scott replied, “I came here to talk to people who understand my problem.”
“OK Lieutenant, you’ve checked out. We have to do these things one step at a time. This is an important time for people like you and me.”
“So what’s next?” Scott asked.
“Strip search; believe me Lieutenant, I don’t like this anymore than you do.”
“Look buddy, I’m not. . .”
“Just follow me Lieutenant. Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible shall we.”

On board Raven Valerie was helping Matthew Bushman and Alan collect more information. She rolled in a piece of equipment that was in the ship’s storage area. Then she asked, “Gentleman, may I get a retina check please. It’s procedure.”
“Of course.” the men responded.
After the conformation of clearance was provided Alan said, “My my you have yourself there a complete ship diagnostic unit. Considering the clearance check I’d say it contains the Gama-47 component.”
“That’s exactly right Colonel Erskine.”
“Please lass,” Alan said with a smile, “call me Alan. I’d feel much more comfortable.”
“OK Alan,” Valerie said with a smile, “I can see why you’re so successful. Now this particular unit was owned by Dan Naponiello a space dock worker at the New Baltimore space dock. I’ll skip the details of how it and Mr. Naponiello got on the alien ship with us. If you are interested you can read about it in the classified files under the code name Valerie’s Children.
“That’s a lovely code name.” Alan said.
“How it got that name is also explained in the file. Anyway this equipment was used to translate the alien language and to teach the main computer of the ship Earth Common. It contains thousands of entries from the alien ship’s logs. Shall we start digging gentleman?”
“Valerie dear girl,.” Alan said.
Valerie looked up surprised at the way she was addressed.”
“Oh no offense meant Commander,” Alan said with his disarming smile, “it’s just my way. A thousand pardons if I’m out of line.”
Valerie smiled again, “None taken Alan, and now I know why Susannah is so tickled with you.” Valerie then turned to the other member of the team. “Matthew, I can call you Matthew can’t I?”
“Call me Matt, “Matthew Bushman answered, “Matthew sounds more like your captain.”
“Fair enough, Matt do you ever get a word in when you two are in a woman’s company?”
“Rarely,” Matt said with a smile.
“OK, back to business.” Valerie announced, “ What were you going to ask Alan?”
“Well I just wondered if you would explain a bit more about the portals. It seems that they are the key to this entire mystery.”
“You’re right Alan.” Valerie said then started an explanation, “The aliens have a system of portals spread throughout this part of the galaxy. Their ships used them for all interstellar travel. The ships could only travel sub-light without the aid of the portals. There is one more important factor. One portal seems to be linked to one other portal. This means if we know what portal the ship is near, we’ll know the only other place it can go in one jump. If we can find a map of the portals, we could nail down where the ship is. We know they must have jumped from the Tau Ceti system. With a map, we would know exactly where they went.”
“If it made the trip in one jump,” Alan added.
“Correct Alan,” Valerie responded, “However that is likely to be the case since there were no other sightings in any system, not even brief ones.”
“Interesting,” Matt said, “If that was their one and only way of interstellar travel, then we can probably assume that any star system they mention had a portal somewhere near it.”
“Excellent Mat,” Valerie said, “Let’s start digging.”

Scott mentally breathed a sigh of relief as the men finished checking him over. They did not detect the nano-transmitter that Matthew Bushman inserted into the right heal of his foot. Scott was led to a field outside of town. In the middle of the field was a well, built from an ancient design. It was part of a historical exhibit. When they got to the well the men pointed to the rope hanging into the mouth of the well. One man simply said, “Down you go.”
Scott look at the man and he said impatiently, “Climb down the rope Lieutenant; I’m sure you’ve done it plenty of times.”
Scott grabbed the rope and hoisted himself up and started climbing down. As he did, the water at the bottom of the well slid away to reveal a room buzzing with activity. At that point the rope began to lower. Scott took a strong grip and rode into the room below.
Several uniformed men met him at the bottom. “Hello Scott, nice to see you again.”
“Michael Blanchard, what the hell?” Scott’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets, “You were listed as killed in a shuttle accident four months ago.”
“Well, it was necessary Scott,” Mike answered; “our operation required my full attention. What the directorate had me doing was a waste of my time. Our organization has plans to take humanity into a new era. The galaxy is a tough place. Humanity has to get tougher if it’s going to survive.”
“I agree with that Mike,” Scott said keeping up the front, “I had enough of the directorates pandering of the Takelvee. They are a menace to the galaxy, and I say get rid of them one and for all.”
“I glad to hear that Scott. We are very happy to have you with us. You have some special knowledge that we may be able to use.”
Scott tried to act surprised, “Really, what can I know about that you don’t already know?”
“Come come Scott,” Mike said with a smile, “Raven wasn’t all that isolated out there on the line. We know very well that you went to Righteous for a briefing. We also know that Raven was pulled off the line early. Now what would Raven’s people know that would make them special? Can you tell me that Scott?”
“We were pulled off the line so that we could brief the directorate on everything we knew about the alien ship we discovered. That was done when we went to Righteous.”
“If that’s true Scott, why then didn’t Raven return to the line?”
“We had less than a month left of on the line. They just cycled us a bit early.”
“Maybe,” Mike said, “maybe not. Maybe Raven has joined the directorate’s team that is searching for their missing Waller. You know their weapon of last resort.”
“That may be,” Scott replied, “I wasn’t around long enough to find out.”
“I heard the details from our sources on Raven. You got a bit hot, didn’t you Scott?”
“Sean Murphy has been in my squad for quite a while. He was a good man. They just ignored his death like it didn’t happen. No counter attack, not even a fortification of the line. Raven should have been in the spearhead of an all out assault on the Takelvee. Instead it was pulled off the line and sent home. I’d had enough.”
“Quite timely, I would say. You were getting thrown off Raven just when they were looking for people that thought like you did.”
“Hey,” Scott snarled, “you guys have checked me out six ways from Sunday. If I’m still not clean enough for you, send me back up this damn rope, and we’ll forget the whole thing.”
“Scott,” Mike said staring straight into Scott’s face, “from this point on if we think you are not loyal us, we’ll be sending you up that rope in a body bag. You can count on that. Now, let’s continue. As you probably have guessed by now, the name of this group is Final Showdown. As the name implies we intend to, as you say, have it out with the Takelvee once and for all. Once we crush those four armed bastards we’re going to take their planets and show them how they really should be run. We have a timetable Scott. Humanity will be the supreme ruler in the known systems of the galaxy in twenty years. Now you are going to have a few briefings, then you are going to go back to town. A room has been booked for you at the Stars and Stripes Hotel. You’ll love the place. It’s full of old United States antiques. Tomorrow, return to Riker’s Bar. Someone will be there to give you your assignment.”
“Is that it?” Scott asked, “I just supposed to sit around in a bar until someone shows up to tell me what to do?”
“That’s right Scott.” Mike answered, “Be there by nine.”
“Hey I’m a squad leader, not a lackey.” Scott said.
“You are a team member now, and you have a special job to do. We’ll see you tomorrow. Go through that door to the right and you’ll get your incoming briefings.”
Scott stared at Mike, then walked down the hall. Two men followed close behind.