-SALOON AT THE EDGE OF EVERYWHERE-

Chapter Thirty Three

The Professor had been waving Rufus’s cell phone about as Rufus finished his call to the Obama. “Candybar is on the phone,” the Professor explained.

“Rufus, where the hell have you been?” was Candybar’s first question. Rufus told her very quickly what was happening, and that shut her up.

“I just need you to stay cool Candy girl, and quietly tell the others what is going on. Don’t do anything yet, but be ready if I call you back, got it?” Rufus finished.

“Oh yeah, sure,” said Candybar, and she did indeed sound cool.

“Let me talk to the little Warlord for a sec,” Rufus told her. While he waited he made a small movement of the control stick, and the ship, which had been hovering about a foot above his mother’s house, began to rise and move forward. Rufus was thrilled. What little boy has not dreamed of finding a space ship on the roof of his house and taking off on a daring adventure? Well, forget the daring part, if you can, Rufus almost laughed to himself.

“Rufus, what a pleasure to hear your voice,” said the Warlord’s voice over the phone.

“Listen, Warlord, we got trouble, and I need you to be ready,” Rufus said, more commandingly than he had really meant to sound.

“Yes, Commander,” snapped the Warlord, “At your orders.”

Rufus told the Xxo, “Candybar will fill you in. I hope I can take care of this by myself, but if things go wrong, I need you to stay close to a guy named David Glassaway, he’s the…”

The Warlord cut him off, but only because time was of the essence obviously, “The CEO of Enzyme. Yes, Commander, he is here now. Shall I take him into custody?”

“No, just keep close enough to grab him if he tries to leave in a hurry. And he has some of his people with him, and maybe some security goons, so be careful. Use Ox and some of the other guys if you need to, but don’t let that little weasel out of the building if you can help it. I will call back as soon as I can.” And with that Rufus concentrated on flying the ship to where he thought it needed to be.

Rufus took the ship up and began a wide, sweeping turn to the left, and she responded like a dream. Within seconds they were over the horse track in Albany at about 500 feet of altitude, and heading south along the edge of the bay. Rufus kept an eye on the launch’s blip on his scanner display. As he reached a position over the Oakland end of the BayBridge, he turned right, heading for Treasure Island.

He made a gesture over the consol to activate the comm system, and said, “Pilot of the launch from the Obama, can you hear me?”

“Uh, yes, sir, loud and clear,” said a young-sounding voice. Why are they all so freakin’ young, Rufus wondered sadly?

“Did the Captain speak to you, son?” asked Rufus.

“Yes, sir. She said I was to follow your orders, sir.” The pilot did not sound all that thrilled, to be honest. Well, neither am I, Rufus admitted to himself.

“Just keep your approach nice and steady. You won’t see me on your sensors until I am right on top of you, but you will most likely see me through your window, so don’t panic. I am going to fly very close to you in the opposite direction, but don’t worry, I have no intention of running into you. I don’t have insurance for my new vehicle yet.” Rufus hoped a little humor would help ease the tension the young pilot must be feeling, but he had no way to know that his plan backfired. The pilot was now convinced that he was dealing with a crazy person. Well, that’s hardly the first time someone came to that conclusion.

“Oh,” Rufus went on casually, “and when you get that launch landed, get everybody out as fast as you can. I mean run, and try to find some cover as fast as you can. The landing field is built on a foundation of big rocks, so maybe just land near the edge and then get everyone into the rocks and get your heads down. You may not have a lot of time.”

In the seat beside the pilot, 2^nd Lt. Sarota exchanged glances with the young Navy ensign at the controls. “I’ve met this Rufus guy,” said the Marine, “I think we should do just like he says.”

The ensign just nodded resignedly.

The Professor looked at Rufus and asked, “What are you planning on doing, my boy?”

“Just a good old fashioned game of chicken, Professor,” Rufus replied with a grim grin.

Rubar, the Reaver commander, was piloting the second Reaver ship himself. He didn’t want any mistakes. This job would be easy, but it would require a little finesse to slip away after without being seen. He grinned in anticipation. The Reavers lived for combat, even one-sided slaughter. Especially one-sided slaughter. He felt saliva drooling from one of his lower-jaw tusks. What was it humans called it? Oh yes, like shooting fish in a barrel. You had to love the humans. They didn’t even keep their fish in barrels as far as he knew. Funny, soft-skinned humans.

His ship was coming up fast behind the human ship, and he flicked a hand at the control panel, activating his targeting and weapons systems. He wanted desperately to use the magnetic mini-rail guns for the kill, but a seeker-drone would turn the human ship and the beings inside into a cloud of particles, and that is what Dalton had told him to do. He fingered a small knob on his control stick with his thick, stubby fingers, as close to tenderness as he was ever likely to get, and watched the sensor display projection. He glanced out of the cockpit viewing window. Any second now…

And that’s when he spotted the other ship. It almost seemed to have been hiding behind the launch itself to leap out and surprise him, and he was definitely surprised. A collision alarm began to sound. That ship was coming in his direction, no, on second consideration it seemed to veer slightly, and was now heading straight at his ship. At their combined closing speed, Rubar didn’t have time to do anything at all but hope his safety restraints and ejection pod would help him survive, and even this seemed like too much to ask.

At the very last instant, the other ship, which Rubar could now see growing horrifyingly larger with each microsecond, did a neat wing stand and passed Rubar’s ship with only feet to spare. Was that my other ship he somehow found time to ask himself, because it sure looked like my other ship? And then the ship he was piloting gave a strange bounce like a rubber ball hitting the ground at an angle, and Rubar’s ship was spiraling through the sky over the San Francisco bay. Rubar held on for dear life and tried to regain control. What the hell was that, he found himself asking himself?

Well, what that was, was Rufus’s risky little gamble. He knew, from his romantic interlude with the stone, that the Reaver ships had a force field around them that would protect them from many kinds of weapons, and were also tied into the stealth capability of the ships as well. Rufus also knew that two of these force shields would short each other out if they struck each other with enough force. Hey, would the memory stone lie to its new boyfriend? Now both ships had lost their protection, and they had lost their stealth cover as well.

High above, a sensor tech on the Obama said, “Captain, I have two new contacts near the launch. They weren’t there a second ago.”
“Mr. Blacke, can you hear me?” asked the young Captain after signaling her signals officer to open the comm line.

“I’m a little busy, Captain,” replied Rufus, and indeed he was. Piloting the ship now felt a lot like riding a very angry bull. He had hoped his ship would survive his little experiment, and it had, but the jolt was tremendous, and the ship was flung off at a spinning, twisting angle.

Meanwhile, the pilot of the launch did a high angle landing on the Treasure Island landing platform, bringing the vessel down near the edge of the pad. 2^nd Lt. Sarota had already briefed his Marines, the prisoners, and the Navy launch crew, and they all scrambled out and ran for the rocks. This turned out to be a very good thing.