The Third Craft Read online

  Hawk approached the body and peered down. “He’s human! Thank God. I don’t think I could deal with some alien right now, thank you very much.”

  The two of them gently rolled the body over.

  “David! Dr. Bohr!” they said at the same time.

  Almost at that very instant, Bohr’s eyes flickered open and he looked around, dazed. He frowned, and then he recognized the boys. Saying their names, he struggled to get up. He sat on his haunches to rest for a moment.

  “Dizzy a bit. Sorry,” Bohr managed to say.

  “David, how did you ever find us? How did you get aboard?” Hawk asked.

  “Help me get to the bridge, will you boys?” Bohr said weakly. “There’s much I have to explain.”

  When they were seated facing the panel, Bohr looked around with satisfaction. “It’s just as I had imagined. Magnificent, isn’t it? I couldn’t get the monitors to work for me. Had to wait for you boys to work this damned thing.”

  The twins were both surprised and relieved that Bohr was here to share in their discovery.

  “The third craft,” Bohr said. “I often dreamed of finding a vessel identical to the one that we found in the desert. Now here I am sitting in its control room!”

  “Will you tell us what you know about this ship?”

  “I suspect we don’t have enough time for that before the rest get here.”

  The twins looked at each other in alarm.

  “Let me explain. If you will recall, Peter Wright was aboard the helicopter that landed close to the crash site. He, Connelly, and the pilot. The pilot stayed with the helicopter while Wright and Connelly investigated the crash site. When they got to the site, they ran into the two of you, climbing up the hill away from the craft.

  “While you and the Major were talking, Peter maneuvered himself around to your motorbike. Coincidentally, he had just visited MI5 before leaving England. They lent him a prototype of a new homing device. Very powerful. New chips and tiny battery. He pulled it from his pocket and slipped it under the seat of the motorbike when no one was looking.

  “He had the frequency programmed on his satellite telephone so he was able to track your bike wherever you went. When you landed here, he and I followed your signal. You must have had the bike on board. We didn’t tell the others because we weren’t sure the bike and the ship would be together.”

  “Fine. But how did you get inside?” Joe asked. “I thought I was the only one that could do that.”

  “I theorized how to gain access to the craft from my studies of the Los Alamos wreck. It operates in two ways. First, mechanically, using electromagnetism to trigger the opening device. Or it – and by it I mean the ship’s brain – is able to recognize the person and opens the hatch for them when there is some recognizable gesture. It took some time, but I was able to trigger the door to open magnetically. I went in, but Wright refused to. He said someone had to keep watch.”

  “And …?” Joe said.

  “And nothing really. I explored the ship. I was able to see an intact ship identical to the Los Alamos wreck. It was fascinating to see how close we’d been when we were guessing how it all came together. We were mostly correct. Your father was instrumental near the end of the research. He had a very good feel for where things went. He helped us make it all fit together.

  “This ship has recognition capabilities. It didn’t respond to me. I guess it saw me as an intruder. I found the control room. I sat where we are now. There must be some biological activation code because when I attempted to touch the panel, there was an audio sound like a warning. I pulled back my hand. The lights on the panel dimmed as if in some kind of sleep mode. Since I knew nothing about how to operate the machinery, I decided to vacate this room and explore elsewhere.

  “I had spent twenty years examining one of these starships. I wasn’t about to give up easily. I wandered down various aisles and passageways. Portions of what I had learned from Los Alamos came back to me. I found the Learning Stall by sheer accident. I had no idea where it was located on board, because all we had found were fragments of the ship. But I knew what the stall could do.”

  The twins looked at each another in concern.

  “After I entered the room, the door closed behind me. There were three lights. I pressed the buttons at random. All of a sudden, there was this green goop flooding the room. The level rose so fast I didn’t have a chance to think. Next thing I remember is seeing you boys.”

  “Do you recall being totally submerged?” Hawk asked.

  “No, not really, but I could have been.”

  “Do you feel changed, different? More aware of, well, things?”

  “Nothing.”

  “David, you said that you left Peter Wright waiting outside. We didn’t see anyone.”

  “No doubt. That must have been hours ago. He probably went for help. If that’s the case, you boys have a time-constraint problem.”

  “He’s right, Hawk,” Joe said. “I’m sure Wright will lead the others here. What do you think we should do?”

  “Good question,” Hawk said. “I don’t think we should just give up the ship. Who are we giving the ship up to? Who are these people, really? They don’t act like any government people I’ve ever heard of. These guys tried to shoot us a few hours ago.”

  “Shoot you?” Bohr sounded shocked. “You must be mistaken.”

  “Hey, they shot at us. Probably to scare us into stopping, but it was a shooting nevertheless. My guess is that there is way more to this story than we’ve been told.”

  “I agree with Hawk,” Joe said. “They claimed to be government agents, but they came after us with a vengeance. They fired at us. We barely escaped. What happens if they figure we’re better off dead than alive?”

  Bohr had been thinking deeply. He slapped his knee gently. “Boys, we have to get this spaceship out of here before Peter and the others return. We need time to figure out a plan. I agree with you, this shooting business sounds wrong. We have to find a secure hiding place for the ship.”

  “David, are you planning to come with us?”

  “If I’m welcome.”

  “Of course you are,” Hawk said. “We can use your experience.”

  “We should leave now.”

  “Not without my bike, we don’t!” Joe said.

  “Joe’s right,” Hawk said. “We should take the bike with us. It saved my neck once already.”

  “I’m going outside. I’ll bring it in after I remove the homing device,” Joe said.

  “Are you sure you want to take that chance?” Bohr asked. “What if the others arrive or have already arrived and are waiting for you? There could be an ambush waiting for you.”

  Joe commanded a sensor monitor to activate. He studied the monitor. “Looks quiet out there.” As he left the control room and exited the ship, he said, “I won’t be long!”

  Moonlight filtered through the damaged parts of the building. Joe’s eyes traveled around the perimeter of the inside of the structure. Everything seemed OK. He proceeded to the front doors, his hands resting on the swaying broken door. Cautiously he peered through the opening, sensitive to any unusual activity or movement. All was dead quiet. Too quiet was what Hawk had said earlier.

  Joe couldn’t see his bike from this distance. He knew it was about three hundred yards back down the road. He decided to jog. The less time he was exposed, the better. He ran through the parking area down to the road. He watched both sides for an ambush, and ahead for any headlights. All was quiet except for the crunching of the gravel under his sneakers.

  He caught a glimpse of his yellow bike ahead, partially hidden in the bushes. In his excitement he failed to notice a pothole and went over on his ankle. He broke his fall with his hand, and he yelped as the gravel particles dug into his palm, ripping the skin. He got up on one foot, then limped and hopped toward his bike.

  Just then a car appeared and began accelerating toward him. Joe could see a cloud of dust scatter from the wheels. With rene
wed vigor, he hopped and hobbled toward his bike. He frantically fished for his keys in his pants pocket as he bounced down the road. The key chain caught on the inside of his pocket lining and he gave it a sharp tug. The lining tore and the keys flew out of his hand onto the gravel. Joe immediately fell to his knees, groping for the keys. The car was almost on him.

  He spotted a glint of a metal key reflected in the moonlight. He grabbed at the key chain, wrapped the keys safely in his palm, and jumped to his feet. He stood up in plain view of the car’s headlights.

  Joe ignored the pain in his left ankle and ran for his bike. He jumped aboard. The engine caught, second try.

  The car braked and turned into a lazy half-spin in the loose gravel. The driver attempted to point the nose of the vehicle directly at Joe, but it was too late – it had already traveled past the bike. The car was swallowed up in its own dust cloud. Joe used the opportunity to jerk the Suzuki out of the bushes and around the back of the car. The passengers were half in and half out of the vehicle as he howled past them on the bike. Back into the car they jumped. Two huge plumes of dust erupted from the rear wheels as the car lunged forward.

  Joe traveled the three hundred yards quickly. He laid down a full throttle. The bike approached eighty miles per hour, close to its top speed. As he neared the arena, he glanced back at the car right on his tail. He charged at the arena’s busted doors and drove straight through. He didn’t dare slow down or they would be on him. He raced up beside the spaceship and abruptly hit both brakes at once. The bike skidded and screeched, nose down. He held out his hand in the Open Door command. The door opened as he passed. At that exact instant, the chase car exploded through the remainder of the arena doors and bore down on Joe.

  Joe laid the bike down in a curve so tight that one peg lit up sparks as it grinded the concrete floor. He finished the circle neatly and sped toward the open hatch door.

  Inches from the door, he hit the rear brake hard and lifted the front forks in a circus-like wheelie. The bike slammed against the fuselage as the handlebars refused to squeeze through the opening. The maneuver had not gone as he had imagined. Joe was thrown over the handlebars straight through the opening and flung tumbling down the passageway.

  Joe scrambled to his feet and limped back to get his bike. He grabbed the bent handlebars and twisted them sideways to help ease them through the opening. The handlebars cleared. He grabbed the bike frame and began to wrestle the bike inside.

  There was a flash of light. He glanced up and saw a car’s headlamp. He couldn’t believe his eyes – the car was going to ram the ship! He dove backward out of the way. The car plowed into the rear wheel of the Suzuki, propelling the bike forward. The bouncing bike flew past Joe, barely missing him. There was an explosion as the car’s grille burst through the portal of the ship. A cloud of wet antifreeze and particles of plastic and metal blew over Joe.

  The crushed metal car hood, complete with dangling chrome hood ornament, stopped inches from his nose.

  Joe tried to close the door. It began to close, crushing pieces of metal and plastic in its path, but then it stopped suddenly. There was an audio warning alarm. The door began to reverse itself and open. Joe quickly stopped it; he did not want to leave an opening for his attackers. He stared at the wreck and pondered for a moment. He thought he heard voices coming from inside the car interior. That gave him the motivation to move. Quickly. He limped toward the control room, pulling himself along the walls.

  Hawk and Bohr practically fell out of their seats when they saw him come in. They rushed to his side. He was covered in blood from many tiny cuts courtesy of the exploding car grille. His kneecap was scraped and his jeans were tattered.

  “God, Joe. You’re a sight!” Bohr said. “What happened? We felt the whole ship shake.”

  Joe looked down at himself. “It’s not as bad as it looks. We don’t have much time, I’m afraid.”

  He limped over to the panel and touched. The green-gray walls disintegrated and were replaced by a 360-degree total-surround visual of the inside of the arena.

  Bohr gasped, absolutely stunned by the magnificence of the sight. Hawk and Joe had seen this trick before, so they focused on the task at hand.

  “Joe, there seems to be a Chevy up our ass,” Hawk observed caustically, pointing to a monitor showing the partially destroyed sedan sticking out of the craft.

  The images were difficult to distinguish in the poor light. “We need more light,” Joe said matter-of-factly. “Watch this, Hawk.” Ignoring the blood dripping from his many wounds onto the pristine control panel and floor, he made a strange gesture in the air.

  At that moment an observer standing outside the ship would have seen the entire fuselage begin to glow – dim at first, then brighter and brighter, pulsating. The light enabled the trio to see into the shadows. The darkness melted away quickly until they spotted their pursuers. Four men were standing in a group, staring at the spacecraft. The men, aware that they had been seen, remained perfectly still.

  Bohr pointed toward the destroyed doors at the far end of the building. “Look, there’s Peter. It looks like another car is behind him in the parking lot.”

  Hawk nodded toward the men. “Joe, I’m thinking these were the guys that chased you in here and almost killed you.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing, Hawk.”

  “This picture is very wrong. They don’t have a scratch on them. Their car is totaled and they walk away without a scratch. I swear their hair isn’t even messed.”

  “Great seatbelts,” Joe said softly. He was trying to recall a memory that was relevant to this situation, but it wouldn’t come.”

  Hawk grabbed Joe’s arm. “Look, it’s a tow rope!”

  “Peter has brought them a rope to pull the wreckage from the ship,” Bohr guessed. “They’re going to use one car to pull the other out of the ship and gain access through the portal.”

  “I think you’re right,” Joe said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “And fast!” Hawk’s voice went up half an octave.

  “Hold on,” Bohr said, grabbing Joe’s arm before he could program the liftoff. “Let them hook up the rope to both vehicles. “They don’t know how well, or poorly, you can fly. Hell, they don’t even know if we can take off. Let them hook up, and then blast off.”

  “I don’t know about blasting off, but I think I see your plan,” Hawk said. “It’s a smart way to dislodge the wrecked car.”

  “It’s risky, David,” Joe said. “If we don’t take off fast enough, they could gain access to the ship. Then we’d be done for.”

  “Joe, if we do nothing, we’re done for,” Hawk said. “Let’s try it.”

  There was no time to quibble. The men had attached the towrope from the frame of the one car to the twisted frame of the wrecked car. Joe confirmed that the antigravity generator was powered up. Just as the car by the door engaged in reverse, Joe engaged takeoff.

  The ship began to rise sluggishly. Joe’s heart hammered against his chest. Having never maneuvered like this before, he didn’t know what to expect. The drag from both cars was more than he had anticipated. The vessel crashed back down onto the concrete floor. They were sent sprawling. Joe jumped back up to his feet and ran to the panel.

  He upped the power and repeated the takeoff sequence. The craft lurched upward and the thick nylon towline snapped taut. The craft was about a dozen feet off the ground. One of the men ran toward the ship, jumped, and caught the line. He began to work his way toward the hull of the craft. The spaceship continued to climb but the movement was jerky. Joe applied more power. The ship rose twenty-five feet into the air. It dragged the tow car skidding across the concrete floor, its tires screaming in protest and gushing out black smoke.

  The man was scurrying up the rope like a rat. He was balancing somehow on top of the rope, not hanging upside down by his feet and hands. The trio looked on in alarm. It was an unnatural sight.

  “If he makes it to the door, he’ll be abl
e to enter once the wrecked car is wrenched free,” Bohr said.

  “My thought exactly,” Joe said, applying more antigravity lift.

  The ship bumped up against the roof of the arena. They were up about forty feet. The second car was dangling, swinging from side to side like a body from a hangman’s noose.

  “Give it more juice!” Hawk said.

  Joe complied and the ship began to tremble in protest. Suddenly a pair of overhead steel girders failed simultaneously. The spaceship exploded through the roof in a shower of wood and steel. There was a tremendous cloud of dust, then a sudden lurch upward. As the tow car caught in the superstructure of the arena’s roof, there was a momentary tug backward. The lower car ripped the jammed auto from the side of the fuselage, and both cars came tumbling down like broken kites.

  The tow car was first to land. It blew all its tires on impact. The force of the fall broke the spine of the vehicle. The other car was already damaged, but it managed to compress itself like an accordion as it slammed into the thick concrete floor. The dust and grime of twenty years exploded over the floor like an atomic bomb.

  “Shut the portal, Joe!” Hawk yelled.

  Joe closed the door remotely from the control panel, and the ship catapulted skyward.

  CHAPTER14

  High above the arena, the trio gazed down through the transparent floor of the ship at the commotion below, happy to have escaped their attackers moments before. The sleek spaceship hovered soundlessly at three hundred feet like a hawk hunting mice. Its speed was zero knots. The sensation on board was not unlike the buoyancy one feels in a hot-air balloon. There was no sense of motion or height – just a sense of omnipotence.

  A yellow-white ball of flame erupted from the car wrecks tangled on the arena floor. A bright cascade of sparks from a battery short had ignited spilled gasoline. The fuel caught fire with a whoosh as the gas greedily sucked in oxygen. The concrete floor became a sea of whooping flame as the fire traveled from one pool of spilled gasoline to the next. Human figures could be seen scurrying from the building out to the safety of the parking lot. They threw open the doors of a truck and piled inside.