Chapter Eight
A RIDE ON PEGASUS
Placing the marker back on the stand, Captain Scarburg turned to the group sitting at the table, “This may sound strange, but each of you has voted on the accuracy of the information on this chart. You acknowledged the accuracy of my chart by placed your initials next to the statements which you agreed on, making them so big I can see them without my reading specs’.” Captain Scarburg then stepped out in front of his easel, picked up his camera and snapped a picture of his notes complete with their initials. “Just a picture for my files,” he said flipping a cover sheet over from the back to hide his notes.
Turning toward the conference table, “Say cheese,” as he clicked a picture of everyone sitting at the table. Walking back to the podium he picked up a black leather bag. The bag was about the size of a small duffle, and he unceremoniously swung it over his shoulder. “Lou, Sam Lin, Si Lei would you please come up here and assist me?” The three did as Grandpa beckoned. Grandpa handed them a security tag and instructed them to insert the tag’s metal prong through the two closing tabs of the bag and firmly attach the tag to the bag. Once attached the seal would have to be broken in order to open the bag and remove the contents.
“What is the purpose of the security tag Captain?” Lou asked.
“All in good time, Lou, all in good time. I left something back in the lab facility concerning this meeting. I must get it before I continue. Krista, please play the CD that I gave you earlier. It will document all the details of that fateful November 22, 1963 day at Dealy Plaza, Dallas, Texas. That information will refresh your memory concerning the attempted assassination of President Kennedy. We can talk more about it when I return.”
Captain Scarburg walked briskly across the room toward the door. As the ‘click-clack-click-clack’ of his boots echoed off the hard oak flooring, they all sat staring at each other with a quizzical look on their faces.
Before reaching the door, Captain Scarburg turned, smiled at the group and said, “You all be on your best behavior, don’t mess with my board and remember this room is wired with state of the art technology – you will be watched.” As he spoke he snapped another picture of the entire room.
Their questioning expressions would have been hard to miss. ‘What is he up to?’ Wondered the group.
“Back in a minute,” he said opening the door.
The time was 2:15 p.m., Monday November 19, 2012.
Blast off was scheduled for 2:30:00 exactly. Blast off!! What was this talk of a blast off? Blast off of what?
Forrest and the others sat in the conference room waiting and wondering what was happening. Grandpa was sure acting strangely. What was he up to?
Everyone in the room realized the Captain wasn’t being truthful, but what was the truth? The SCAR team in the conference room had forcefully suggested Forrest use the Mindtraveler to follow and observe whatever his Grandpa was doing, and they needed a report from first hand
This is the device the SCAR group in the conference room was trying to get Forrest to use - once again to spy on his Grandfather. Spy may not be an apt word, it may be a tad strong in this case, but that was exactly the intent.
SCAR is a total team, they check and balance each other - one member doesn’t get into danger or become overextended and find himself or herself in trouble totally alone. No member has to bare the burden of SCAR’s responsibility when tough decisions have to be made. Since Forrest had used the Mindtraveler before, they thought he would agree. They were wrong - Forrest wanted no part in spying on his grandfather. The last time he tried sleuthing he found out more than he wanted, or needed, to know. This time they would have to wait until Captain Scarburg returned to find out where he went and for what purpose.
The time was 2:18:45.
Captain Scarburg walked across the hall to the elevator. Entering the elevator he inserted his access card allowing him authorization to the floor labeled ‘LAB’. He pressed a four number combination on the keypad, which only gained him entrance to the lab located in the sub-levels of the office building. Any visitor to the restricted area must possess an access card and code numbers just to get to the lab level. Once there an armed guard greets the visitor as the elevator door opens. The guard will check credentials before allowing entry into the area where Pegasus is located. These procedures are strictly enforced. Deadly force is authorized if warranted.
In the middle of this glass and stainless steel room, a room as sterile as any hospital operating room, sat the most glorious, dazzling object one could imagine. It was bathed in the glow from dozens of lights focused on its polished titanium skin. At first glance, it resembled the Saturn nose cones, which carried the astronauts to the moon and back; but after closer examination it looked more like a ‘flying saucer’. This engineering marvel was not of this world either. Well actually that particular one was. Pegasus had been constructed in the SCAR laboratory, but the blueprints that provided its design were provided by documents found by Captain Scarburg in Cambodia. The documents were part of a huge stockpile of extraterrestrial material found at Pac Toul. Captain Scarburg, Spook, Tinker, Sam Lin and Si Lei were all instrumental in returning the documents to the U.S. for SCAR’s use.
In fact, that was the purpose for the formation of SCAR - to decipher and build the apparatuses described in the alien documents. SCAR did not invent any of the mechanisms. They have existed all along on the planet Sunev, but now Earthlings have been allowed to use the alien technology to re-invent these gadgets and machines for mankind’s benefit. Some of SCARs inventions are: cellphones, communication satellites, personal computers, flat screen televisions, digital cameras, compact discs, video recorders, the internet and the lists go on and on. The exciting part is SCAR has only decoded roughly one-fourth of the entire alien collection of documents and blueprints. It makes one wonder what marvelous inventions future generations will discover in the remaining papers?
On the exterior surface of the silver Pegasus SCAR had etched a two-foot circle divided into four equal sections. Each quarter section contained the following: the first section had an outline of a man's face; the second represented a lion; the third was a bull and the last one an image of an eagle.
SCAR used these four symbols because they were the same images inscribed on the alien flying saucer that transported the scientists held hostage at Pac Toul, Cambodia in 1967. These aliens had been visiting the Earth for thousands of years, and at each location, they left a face, a lion, a bull and an eagle carved, chiseled or painted on a rock, a monument or entwined within an engraving or painting. Always inscribed in a circle divided into four segments. The symbols are always there; however, in most archaeological digs, due to the long passage of time since the aliens left them, and most time those on the archeological dig do not know what to look for, and they may never discover them.
When cleared by the security guard, Captain Scarburg hurried over to the Flight Director’s (FD) office. The FD’s office, and a number of other offices formed a circle around the interior wall leaving Pegasus sitting majestically in the bull’s eye of the large circular room. Its gleaming metallic surface glistened in the bright light. The FD was the leader of the entire flight control team consisting of approximately fifty people. He was also the person who would give the go ahead for Pegasus Control Center to begin the countdown. The FD would continue to monitor the Transport Launch Sequence (TLS).
The TLS was required prior to the initiation of the alteration of the molecular structure or transporting as it had begun to be called. The four primary flight computers on Pegasus monitored all of these split-second transporting events. The object, or in this case, a human body, had to be scanned, and all the billions and billions of molecular data separated and stored as information in the computer. Once transport occurred the computers must re-arrange the molecular information back into the exact configuration they had been in before they were dissected into billions and billions of bits of computer datum.