“Let me give you the grand tour,” Christy said.
“First question,” Kendra asked, “How did the elevator and the bookshelf work? You didn’t do anything.”
“Biometric scanners. If I’m there, it knows I want to come down here. Simple.”
“And if someone is forcing you against your will?”
“If anyone is in the room who isn’t already in the computer, it won’t work. I uploaded you all to the database when you first arrived. It only took a few seconds. Now, let me show you around.”
She showed them several rooms that were each set up like a hotel suite, each with a private bath and all the amenities. There was a gym, a pool, a kitchen, a computer lab more advanced than anything on earth, and a large hangar filled with various spacecraft and automobiles.
“Whoa…are those…” Franklin said, his jaw dropping.
“Yes, there are autos for normal transportation here. Those smaller ships are short range craft, limited hyperspace jump range. You can fit extra fuel cells to get more range but you don’t want to venture more than ten light years in those. The medium ones are shuttles, much like the ones our friends will try to use to deploy troops to wherever they choose to attack. The larger one is a long range craft. You can go across the galaxy in that one, provided you have the time, and it can refuel the cells from stars.”
“How does that work?”
“The ship doesn’t go that close to the star. There is…I don’t know your word for it, something like a drone…that can get close enough to harvest hydrogen and bring it back to replenish the fuel cells.”
“The ships just run on hydrogen?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that. I don’t even understand it completely.”
“You don’t?”
“Do you understand everything about a car engine?”
“Well…no.”
“But you can drive one?”
“I get your point.”
“Anyway, let’s head to the kitchen. I don’t know about you, but I’m somewhat hungry.”
They ate a hasty dinner and moved to the computer lab, but nothing in there looked even remotely familiar to Franklin.
“What kind of computers are these?” Kendra asked.
“These are systems I built myself, a bit more powerful than anything you can buy around here,” Christy said.
“Any way we can get on your network?” Franklin asked, “My phone’s got nothing down here.”
“We don’t want to use our phones here anyway,” Walter said, “The lady can track them if she wants.”
“I got you covered,” Christy said, “Put your phones on these little pads on the desk. It will charge your phone and run it off my own network, which can’t be traced.”
“That's all fine, but what’s our next step?”
“We need to go to the moon.”
“Come again?”
“Well, you need to stick around here in case anything big happens, just do your thing like you’ve been doing. I need to snoop around that moon base, and I might need an extra set of eyes to join me.”
“Won’t that be a bit dangerous?”
“Of course, but I don’t see how we have any other choice. We need to know exactly what they’re up to so we can formulate a plan to stop them. The intel is most likely there.”
“You mean I can go to the moon?” Franklin asked.
“Of course, you and Kendra both.”
“Cool.”
“Don’t be so flippant, young man. This could be a dangerous mission. The fate of your world could be at stake.”
“Since you word it that way, when do we start?”
“Are you sure?”
“Look lady, I’m not sure of much, but saving the world seems pretty cool. I might not get another chance to do something like that.”
“We’re not even sure which world we’re trying to save, or if we’ll be able to.”
“What if you fly up there and those guys are there?” Kendra asked, “Won’t that get a little dicey?”
“That’s where this comes in,” Christy said, bringing up the video feed from the hidden camera, “They hang out where you were taken sometimes. We might get an idea when they’re going to be here, and we can sneak in and get whatever intel we can. We’ll have to make it quick, though. The moon isn’t any great distance away.”
“No great distance?” Walter said.
“Not for the ships they have access to. The small ones I have in the hangar can make the trip in fifteen minutes.”
25
Christy, Franklin, and Kendra were strapped in and ready to take off, but were watching the video feed from the hidden camera in Mixon’s lair, since they wouldn’t take off until they were sure Mike and his friend were there and not on the moon base. The ship was one of the smaller ones she had, maybe forty feet long at the most.
“This is cool. It reminds me of the jets in the Marvel movies,” Franklin said.
“I suppose it’s pretty close, except this one can do a bit more,” Christy replied, “You’ll find the controls fairly close to your aircraft, though.”
“I wouldn’t really know. I’ve never flown anything for real, except in video games.”
“That stick works much the same as in your planes, except that there are no actual control surfaces that move when you move the stick. Everything is done by thrusters that control the roll and pitch, and there are no rudder pedals for the yaw.”
“Come again?”
“You know how in an airplane, you pull the stick back to lift the nose and push it forward to lower the nose, and you pull left to roll left and right to roll right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“It’s the same, except if you need to yaw, or turn the nose left or right without pitching or rolling, you simply slide the bottom of the stick left or right instead of pushing the rudder pedals.”
“I get it,” Kendra replied, “the whole stick slides back and forth,
