Spacestastic Mysteries

I lifted the flaps of the box. An envelope with the words "Watch This First" scrawled in Ben’s handwriting caught my eye. Picking up the envelope, I removed a small circular disk the size of a button from it. After pushing the disk through a slot on the side of the screen, I instructed the computer, "CHIP, play the disk."

My heart felt as if it had sunk into my boots when Ben appeared on the screen. He sat on the couch in our Base house. His dark-brown hair seemed longer than usual and definitely a lot messier. A full day’s growth covered his chin. From the redness of his eyes and the dark circles under them, I knew something had been keeping him up nights. Ben rarely worried, so if something was keeping him up, it had to be serious.

He began, "Angel, if you are watching this, I must be dead. Knowing you like I do, I know you are sitting behind your desk on the Liberty. You have thrown yourself into your work. You have been doing anything to avoid dealing with the pain."

I looked around, exchanging an amused look with Nate. I guess Ben knew me better than I thought.

"Angel, I love you so much," Ben maintained, casting me a sad yet involuntary smile.

It broke my heart just knowing that I would never hear Ben call me Angel again.

I smiled, putting my hand to the screen. "And I love you," I agreed; tears forming in my eyes. I missed him so much. The hole in my heart that he left when he died ached. I watched him on the screen of my terminal, knowing that my time with Ben ended when the disk did.

Ben paused for a moment to stare at his wedding ring, twisting it around and around his finger. The hunted look that I saw in his eyes made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something was definitely wrong.

"I am in big trouble, Angel. I discovered that the Crimson Fleet have been working on a secret biological weapon. And they have made several attempts on my life and have threatened to kill you and Reggie. I don’t know. Maybe they have already tried to take you out."

"The accident," Nate whispered.

Just then, a bright light from an oncoming car blinded my eyes. Shielding them with my hand, I looked up at the road. A car barreled through the intersection, then sped up and made a beeline for our car. "Ben, watch out!" I heard a deafening crash as metal slammed against metal. A sound that echoed in my ears long after the event. Thrown forward, I felt my body sail through the window shield like a missile flying through a war-torn sky. Pieces of glass erupted over the hood of the car and on the street below. I landed face down a few feet away from the vehicle, lying in a bed of jagged glass. Even though every bone and muscle in my body ached, I lifted my head to look back at the mini-van. I saw Ben's dark head slumped over the steering wheel. When I heard the piercing cry of the sirens seeking us out, I collapsed back onto the asphalt. At that moment, everything went black.

“She foiled our gas and bombs on her vessel, so we are going to have to take more drastic measures. We are going to have to bomb her crew with her on it. She has always been the bane of my existence since she married Josh. He wasn’t supposed to marry her. We weren’t supposed to be family, but he fell for her. Why? I will never know. She is not that pretty, and she is so annoying.”

“Let’s go,” I told my people, leading them over to the Island Committee members’ table. When all of them looked at me, Jake and I flashed our badges. “On the authority of the Intergalactic Intelligence Bureau, you are all under arrest.”

“For what? You have no authority to arrest us,” screamed the man who had pretended to be my father.

“Those humans who brought that Biodome to your planet also made Kilo-Ait…and Sierra-Wun for that matter a part of the Earth colonies pact,” I started, moving around the table. “That means I have all of the authority of Earth to arrest you for the genocide you unleashed on my people and are about to unleash on the people of Sierra Wun.” I stopped behind an empty chair, putting my hands down on it. “There is the matter of creating a disease, killing people with it, taking our people captive, killing people who you abducted, interfering with an investigation.”

Jake moved forward. “The attempted gassing and bombing of a Freedom Alliance MASH SpaceVessel.”

“You cannot prove anything,” the man said with grave deliberation.

“If I were in your position, I would hope that was true too. Unfortunately for you,” I revealed, holding up a chip, “I was recording everything I heard and saw in captivity. I knew the plot. I knew how you created the disease, how you knew the planet was going supernova. Your plot to kill the humans. Then my memory was erased. The fact that it was erased indicates that you know I am telling the truth. Too bad for you that I have the chip and remember everything.”

He stood up and grabbed my arm. “Then we are going to make sure you forget again.”

“I don’t know, but my instincts are screaming. It is not far-fetched to think they have a back-up plan. I am concerned that they have more ‘surprises’ for us.”

He nodded. “Unfortunately, I suspect you are correct.” He rolled up my arm and said, “It is your turn to take the cure.” I offered him my arm, watching him inject me with a syringe. I didn’t feel any different, but I reminded myself what I told everyone else, “It will take some time to start working.”

“As you have told all the other people who were injected today, you need to stay put for the next fifteen minutes to determine if you are going to have any reaction.”

Just then I felt the Lightyears being pushed. Jake and I exchanged a troubled look before my helmsman called over my CommLet, “Kilo-Ait exploded. I don’t know how you cause an entire planet to explode, but it did…and we got caught in the backdraft. We are lightyears off course. I will correct course and…Colonel, the planet disappeared. Our helm is not even reading that it ever existed.”

Jake and I exchanged another troubled look. “Helm, I want to take an alternative route back to where we should be. Science, I want you to figure out what happened to that planet.”

“Why not? I thought that was the point--to find the cure. I found the cure. It works. I know that because I created it while in captivity.”

“That was not the point. You should be smarter than that. We cannot allow you human beings to destroy our planet and get away with it. You come to our planet and set up that monstrosity of a dome that houses humans like you. We lured you all here with that disease to take you out. Someone had to kill all you disgusting humans.”

I trained my weapon on her. “Aren’t you human?”

She shook her head and insisted, wrinkling her nose, “No, absolutely not. I and every member of the Island Committee are Quavetezhdan. We are the Oracle. The people who created this game to lure humans into our trap. Your people have gotten away with invading and stealing people’s land for centuries. It is time you stopped.”

“Except that you are taking out innocents. People, like me and my crew, who did not choose to inhabit your land and steal it. You are not as noble as you think you are. You are killing people because they stole your land. You are also killing people who did nothing to you.”

“You are the worst of them all. Your parents came here, heading that crusade to erect that Dome. That’s why we had to take them out, and anyone tainted by their DNA.”

“My parents are dead?”

She laughed a maniac cackle. “We reprogrammed the DiagnMonitors to read us as your parents. Then we lured you to our planet, mentally get into your brain…and then you married Josh, the only human we would have saved, to save that boyfriend of yours. We had to kill Josh because he kept protecting you and all his friends. We could not have that. You all have to die.” She produced a weapon and shot me in the chest. When I didn’t fall, she kept shooting.

I kicked the gun out of her hand and tackled her to the ground, just as more of her friends jumped down into the laboratory.

Jake jumped in and helped me battle the people.

As Doctor Winehart entered the room, a person with thick hair and skin darker than mine but not as dark as Jake’s, that sported a rugged jaw, cold black eyes, still outfitted in a cappuccino-colored jumpsuit, appeared in the room. He had not walked in. Just appeared.

Jake’s face hardened. He ran his eyes over the man before uttering, “What the-- What the actual hell? How did you just appear here? Why are you here? To freakin’ torture me some more?”

The man and I continued our conversation. Most of the exchange I knew instinctively.

“Let’s dispense with the small talk since we both know we have had this conversation before. You think that you are a match for me…you want to destroy us and the evidence on the planet…and you do not care who you kill in the process. You are going to kill the people on the planet and everyone aboard this vessel.”

“You know too much. You and all your kind have got to die. You all could not leave well enough alone. No. You had to come here with your experimental BioSphere. You had to send your Think Tank here. We had to find a way to get rid of you. One of your people realized the power of those gold flecks, so we decided to come with our own experiments…and happened upon the disease. We spread it among the humans, trying to kill them all, but when that failed, we came up with a plan.”

“Why lure my people to your planet to,” I required, using air quotes, “cure this disease? You did not want it cured. You wanted it to kill all human beings who stepped on your planet.”

“It will until your hand has a chance to heal. It is going to take time to get used to it. I will bring it and the simulator to help you practice getting used to it in a couple of hours.” She looked back to Graham and then at me again. “I am staying on board until you and Doctors Morgan and Riley are recovered.” I remember this. I remember living through this before. Why was I reliving this?

I put up my hand and said with grave deliberation, “Graham, I have lived this before. I remember having this conversation, being in this bed, having this injury. This has been playing out like it did before, so I need you to do something for me.”

Graham closed the gap between the doors and my bed. He came and sat on the edge of it. “What are you talking about?”

“I have lived this before. I know what they are going to do next…and I need you to prevent it. I want Jake brought in here because we have to discuss what is going on between us…”

“I understand that. I will arrange it.” He gave me a sidelong glance and observed, “You look pale and tired.”

“I have lived this before. We found out too late and were about to evacuate everyone, but if we can stop it--”

“Evacuate? Why? What is going to happen that you are going to have to evacuate?”

“They are going to fill the entire vessel with gas. I need you to have my crew check for gas. I also want us to check Kilo-Ait and Sierra-Wun. I have reason to believe they are going to start evacuating because they want to destroy the evidence on Kilo-Ait.”

I sent the information over to Jake and asked, “Do you think this is possible?”

He studied the file I sent him. He looked over at me. “If this is right—and I am not saying it isn’t—if this is right, we have been looking in the wrong direction.”

“I don't know what made me believe that, but I know that I believed it wholeheartedly. Maybe the proof is somewhere in there, but if this is true, Heaven help these people because busted hand or not, I am going after them. How dare they do this?”

“I am right there with you on this.”

Just then CHIP announced, “Major Riley, Bernadette Riley is on the phone for you.”

“Put her through,” Jake said, giving me a troubled look.

“Okay, we are getting you out of there,” a feminine voice said that sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. “You are coming home, so I can take care of you. You and Zariah are coming to live with me. Kassidy has done nothing but get you into trouble. You know she married someone else while you were missing…and she had him killed. Did you know that? She is pure evil.”

“I am a grown man, Mother. I am not coming home to you…and either is Zariah…and you say one more bad word about Zariah’s mother, and I will cut you off. There will be no communication with me or Zariah if you continue this little tirade.”

“She has definitely brainwashed you into believing that I am in the wrong,” she continued, sniffling. “All I was trying to do was protect you and Zariah from her…and,” in between hysterical sobs, “now she has convinced you that I was trying to break you and her up.”

“Isn’t that we just admitted to when you said ‘Kassidy has done nothing but get you into trouble’? She did not have me abducted. She did not kill her husband. This disease did that.”

“Wake up, Son. She created this disease. She has caused all these deaths.”

“So, what who told you that,” he pressed, looking up at the ceiling. “The members of the Island Committee? Stephan? Philippe?”

“Who are these people you are talking about?”

“They are the people spilling the same garbage as you. She has worked tirelessly to cure this disease, but you know, go ahead and believe what you want, but I am not going to associate with you anymore. You are no longer welcome to contact me or my daughter.”

“They said they were going to kill her…that they were going to take care of her…but no, she is alive and well and ruin you and Zariah’s lives. That is unacceptable. She has got you brainwashed into believing that she is the golden child…and I am dirt under your shoe. Snap out of it, Jacob Aaron Riley! You say you are an adult, but you are not thinking with your brain. She is trouble.”

Just then my QuanPad chimed, followed by the decoded information from the chip. I backed it up and sent it to Graham and my attorney, who would send it to the people on my list if anything happened to me. I studied it for a few moments before gasping. “Oh my lands, if this is true… If this is true…this changes everything, and it makes so much sense.”

Jake demanded, looking from me to the QuanPad and back again several times. “What makes so much sense?”

I showed Drew and Jake the information that our friend Fireball decoded from the chip. Just then I felt the building shake, followed by a series of several explosions. The echo seemed so loud in my ears that I feared I would never have full hearing again. “We have to get out of here. They are trying to kill us. The only problem is I don’t know how we are going to get out of here. There are too many twists and turns and hidden rooms.”

Just then there was a huge explosion as the building started to collapse. We searched corridor after corridor for a way out. We felt the walls and ceilings crashing in all around us. I saw my life flash before my eyes as I felt as if I were an accordion being squeezed until the very life seemed to drain out of me. The levels above me crushed me into the growing rubble below. This was it. I didn’t know how I would get out alive, how I would get back to my children, to Jake. Would he survive? Would we both…? What would happen to Zariah?

As I closed my eyes, unable to keep them open any longer, I heard Adam’s voice, “Help is on the way. You will all survive.”

I didn’t know how that could be true, but I also knew that I probably lost the chip in the rubble, making the mission for nought. I did not know if the information transferred to Graham before the explosion. I only knew that this was not the first time they tried to take me out and would not be the last…as long as I kept in-- My mind became muddled. I could not think clearly before I lost consciousness.

“No, no,” urged Josh, “go back. It is not your time to join us.”

“I am not sure I have a choice.”

“Help is on the way.”

“But what kind of life is that going to be? Zariah will have to take care of her disabled mother.”

“You are going to be fine. Yes, you will have broken bones, and there will be a surgery, but nothing that is not fixable. Our children, Adam's children and Zariah need you--the only constant in their lives…and you need to repair things with Jake. Don't let your fears prevent you from being with him. You know you married me to keep him safe, but you and I came to love each other. I only want what is best for you and the kids--all of them…and you are not betraying me by marrying him.”

“Thank you, but I don't know how I am going to get out of here. I know you said we would survive, but--”

“Have a little faith in miracles and that those who have plotted against you will receive their just rewards…at your hands…in this case.”

“I don't know if I have any faith left. I had faith that we would save you…we didn’t. I had faith that we would find Jake, and we did, but I feel like things are never going to be right with him. I had faith that I would make it as a doctor and commander…and I did, but now, look at me.”

Josh insisted, “Everything is going to be okay. Hold on. Help is almost to you.”

“Is this good help or bad help? Is this help that is going to help me live? Or help that is going to make me wish I was…”

“Dani! Live again. You have not been living. You have been responsible. Going through the motions. Start living and have a little faith.”

“Shh! I’ve got you,” someone said in a soothing voice as they pulled me out of the rubble. Every inch of my body hurt, ached as if I had been run over several times by a semi-truck.

For the next hour, Jake tried to talk to me, trying to make me laugh, get angry and forgive him. “Come on, talk to me, yell at me. Just talk to me,” he pleaded. I refused to give in to him. The next hour, none of us said anything until Jake looked around with curiosity. “I remember this place. We used to meet here when you could get away from Josh. I didn't remember that until now. I swear. We used to leave messages for each other somewhere in here.” He searched the tunnel carefully, moving his hand across the wall as we walked.

I didn't remember any of what he was saying. Maybe it was one of those implanted memories. I would remember if I had been here with him, right? I would remember sneaking away from Josh to meet Jake, right? What would we have said? What would we have talked about? Did we talk about the fact that I was marrying Josh to save Jake’s life? Did he convince me to do it? I didn’t remember any of it. If he was telling the truth, why did I not remember? Why did I have implanted memories and missing memories? Maybe Jake did too, I didn’t know. Why all this tampering with our memories? What were these people really hiding?

Five minutes later, Jake reached up into an exposed pipe and pulled out a stack of letters, and as he did, a chip dropped to the ground. I leaned over and picked up the chip. I slid it into the slit in the side of my QuanPad. When the information came onto the screen, it was encoded. “Of course, it is encoded,” I said in a low tone. I sent the file to my friend Fireball. “I sent it to Fireball to decode.”

“She speaks,” Jake quipped.

I rolled my eyes, pointing forward. We continued our trek until we reached a wall. I tapped it several times in an unique sequence before the doors slid open, then I motioned the group inside.

I touched the walls of the room, flooded by memories of fights and tender moments that occurred between Jake and me and me and Josh. I pulled out a blacklight device from my sleeve cuff. I turned it on and flashed it at the wall. I started at the left corner, recording the words that appeared. I remembered I wrote everything I found on that wall in invisible ink when the guards took my research, when they took my QuanPad because I tried to contact the outside world. It was as if it never occurred to them that I might want to go home, to resume my life. They gaslit me by telling me I was specifically chosen for this mission, that maybe I was not up to the task if I wanted to go home, that I was not as smart or as talented as they thought me to be. I remembered feverishly writing all my findings on the walls, the floors, whatever surface I could find. Did I find the cure? I felt as if I did, or was close to it when…when something happened. What happened that prevented me from…I remember being all caught up with the marrying Josh thing because they were going to kill Jake. I wrinkled my brow, getting a sinking feeling in my stomach. Did they know I found the cure or was about to and focused my attention elsewhere? Was finding the cure not their goal? I felt so weak in the knees just thinking about it that I grabbed the back of a nearby chair. Emotions and memories started to flood back with such vigor that I nearly collapsed under them, barely hearing Drew and Jake ask me if I was alright.

Suddenly the doors slammed shut behind us. Then the voice filled the room, saying, “You have returned to the scene of the crime sooner than anticipated, but we are glad you are all here. I’d like to welcome you to the start of the end for you all. Take me to your parents, and marry Philippe, and we will let the others go. You have forty-eight hours to make up your mind. If you choose not to, you and your companions are going to be eliminated. Your time starts now.”