Chapter Five – Trapped!
Alexander lounged on the couch, going through the information that he’d downloaded onto his pad about wormholes. As much as he hated to admit it, the work that he’d done with Alana that morning had been really interesting. The database didn’t have much more than what Alana had shown him and he still had no idea how any theory could be proven, but it made for some interesting reading.
He reached out absently and grabbed the bowl of spaghetti from the floor. He rested it on his stomach, twirled the fork and brought up a huge mouthful. It was then that the comm beeped. Alexander sighed, put down his fork and bowl and rolled off the couch.
“Hi, Commander Bradford, what can I do for you?” Alexander asked as he punched on his end of the vid-link.
“Ah, Alexander, I was looking for young Peter,” A.B. scowled.
Alexander frowned. “I thought he was on duty in Engineering.”
“He’s supposed to be. But he seems to have disappeared,” the Commander explained. “I sent him to move some cargo from Work Pod Nine to Storage Bay Thirty-Seven after a quick stop at Auxiliary Communications. He hasn’t reported in and the work hasn’t been done.”
“That doesn’t sound like Pete at all,” Alexander said slowly.
“No. It doesn’t. I was hoping that he might have gone home for some reason.”
“Sorry, Commander. I haven’t seen Pete since breakfast this morning,” Alexander told him.
A.B.’s scowl deepened
“I’m off duty at the moment. Would you like me to have a look for him?” Alexander offered.
“Thanks, Alexander, I’d appreciate that,” A.B. said.
Alexander nodded. “I’ll let you know if I find him.”
Commander Bradford gave a curt nod and disappeared from the screen as he cut the connection from his end.
Absently, he tucked the pad with Alana’s information about wormholes into his pocket. Sighing, he picked up his untouched bowl of spaghetti, left it on the bench and headed for the door. He hoped that he’d be able to find his brother quickly. Re-heated spaghetti was all right, but he much preferred it fresh.
The door opened as he approached, but a flash of a maroon flight jumpsuit had Alexander jumping to the side.
“Watch out, Nick!”
“Hey, Alex. Where ya going?” Nick asked as he rushed through the door.
Alexander frowned. “Alexander,” he said automatically.
Nick grinned. “So, where ya going, Alex?” he asked again.
“Pete’s disappeared. Commander Bradford’s asked me to have a look for him,” Alexander explained.
“I’ll come too,” Nick said, and, whirling, led the way back through the door.
Alexander turned left, heading towards Auxiliary Communications, Nick at his side. He glanced at his brother from the corner of his eye.
“So, what happened to you today?” Alexander asked casually.
Nick looked up quickly. “Oh, nothin’ really. O’Lochlan just caught me coming out of the sim. My own fault really. If I wasn’t already late for class, I would have checked before I came out.”
“What’d Dad say?”
Nick shrugged. “The usual.”
Alexander raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“Yeah and I’m, uh, I’m banned from the sims for a whole month,” he added quietly.
“Serves you right,” said Alexander unsympathetically.
“Don’t you start,” Nick growled. “Where we going, anyway?”
“There,” said Alexander, pointing up the corridor.
“Pete was supposed to stop here on the way down to Pod Nine and Bay Thirty-Seven,” Alexander explained.
They stopped at the door and Alexander punched the button to open the door. Nothing happened.
“Doesn’t look like Pete’s been here,” said Alexander.
Nick grinned. “You really think a locked door would stop Pete?”
Alexander rolled his eyes.
“Give me a sec,” said Ace, getting to work.
Alexander turned his back, partly to avoid seeing his brother breaking into a secure area and partly to shield him so no one else would see him breaking into a secure area. He turned back at the sound of the doors opening behind him and walked in, Nick half a step behind.
The room was empty.
“No Pete here,” said Nick.
Alexander nodded. He turned to go and felt his foot bump against something. He looked down, bent and stood up again, a half-eaten apple in his hand.
“He’s been here, though,” he told his brother.
Alexander knew that Pete would eat as many apples as he could get his hands on. But he was always very careful never to leave his cores lying around.
“Hey, Alex, look at this!” Nick called.
He had wandered over to the far side of the room. Half-hidden behind a console was Pete’s bag and lying just beyond it, was his tool pouch. Nick picked them up.
“There’s no way Pete would go anywhere without his tools,” Ace pointed out.
Alexander’s frown deepened. He moved over to one of the consoles and input his access code. The screen flashed into life as Nick came to stand beside him.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked.
“I’m going to access the internal sensors to find him,” Alexander explained.
“Aren’t you going to contact Mum or Dad first?” asked Nick, sounding a little surprised.
Alexander shook his head. “Not just yet. They’re both still on duty.”
Normally, he knew that he’d be the first one to contact his parents or a superior officer, but just this once, he decided to try something else.
“How are you going to find him? Using the sensors?” asked Nick, looking intently at the screen.
Alexander nodded. “We’ll start with where he’s supposed to be.”
He brought up the schematics of the outer ring. Over fifty small red blobs were moving around the screen. Zooming in on their quadrant of the station, the red blobs were reduced to a mere handful.
“This is us here,” said Alexander, pointing out two of the blobs towards the top of the screen.
His finger then trailed down and slightly to the right. “This is Pod Nine and Bay Thirty-Seven.”
“Is that Pete?” asked Nick, looking at the red blob in the storage bay.
“I’m not sure,” said Alexander slowly. “Commander Bradford did say that he’d already checked the bay and that Pete wasn’t there.”
“Well, someone’s there now,” Nick pointed out.
Alexander let his eyes rove over the screen. Most of the red blobs were moving around. The only ones that weren’t were the two of them and whoever it was in the bay.
“Whoever it is, they haven’t moved at all. I think we’d better have a look there first,” said Alexander.
He quickly shut down the console and headed towards the door where Nick was already waiting for him.
“Here, you look after this,” said Nick handing him Pete’s bag.
Alexander slung the bag over his head and shoulder, identical to the way Nick was wearing his, and led the way out. He noticed Nick sliding Pete’s tool pouch into one of the pockets of his pant’s legs.
Within minutes, Alexander and Nick were striding out of the turbo-lift and across to the entrance of the storage bay.
Alexander pressed the door control and was half-surprised when they obediently opened. The bay itself was huge and half-filled with various sized storage containers. Some were twice as big as they were; others were barely larger than a packing crate. There was no sign of Pete, or anyone else for that matter.
“Maybe he’s somewhere behind all this,” Nick suggested doubtfully.
“It’s worth a look. You go that way,” said Alexander, pointing off to the left.
Alexander quickly lost sight of his brother as the containers came between them.
“Not
hing this way,” Alexander called, coming to a dead end.
“Same here,” Nick called back.
Thump. Thump thump.
Alexander stopped, turning.
“Did you hear that?” he asked as Nick came up to him.
It came again. Thump. Thump. Thump.
“It’s coming from. . . that one,” said Ace, turning and pointing triumphantly towards the sound.
The container he was pointing at was one of the large ones, nearly twice as tall as they were and almost as wide.
Thump thump thump. Thump thump thump.
The banging was getting faster, louder, more insistent. Alexander reached up, releasing the half dozen latches in quick succession. He grabbed a hold of the handle, nodded to Nick and pulled. The door swung wide and Pete stumbled out, his arm up, shielding his eyes.
“Pete!” Nick exclaimed.
“Are you all right? What happened?” asked Alexander, trying to get a good look at his brother in the small space.
“You don’t know how good it is to see you two,” said Pete.
“What happened to you?” asked Nick. “We found your bag and tool pouch back up in Auxiliary Communications.”
Pete’s eyes slid past his brothers and Alexander saw them go wide.
“He heard something he shouldn’t have,” a deep menacing voice answered.
Alexander whirled around to find O’Lochlan standing behind them, a laser pointed steadily at their chests.