A Scripta

Captain Grey regarded the young woman. "I don't know about you, but I'm not about to risk my life or those of my companions just to 'investigate'."

Devereaux replied, "It's probably the only way we'd find out what's going on."

"Why don't you send a droid?" Chen asked. "Give me a little while and I can reprogram one of these to go in--"

"We possibly don't have time for that," Devereaux stated.

Rusty stood straight. "I'll show you where it is."

Devereaux appraised Rusty, while Moreau snapped, "Think about what you're doing, boy!"

"I know what I'm doing!"

Captain Grey sighed, "Of course he knows what he's doing. His hormones speak louder than his words. If you go down there, Rayna," the captain addressed him, "and you get in trouble, don't come to me for help. I don't have the time or money to babysit you."

"I'll be fine," Rusty said.

Devereaux said, "I can't guarantee that."

Rusty raised an eyebrow, while inside he was bruised. How could she say that? Even though his "visions" couldn't see that far ahead, he had the feeling that things were going to be all right. All he was going to do was take her down to the area he had seen the klaxon go off in, he wasn't going to do any sort of fighting, at least he wasn't planning on it.

Rusty checked the communications array while the two men returned and reported nothing was amiss. No one seemed to be answering anywhere. "Do you want me shut off the distress signal?" he asked, and walked away from the console as the captain replied, "No, just in case the Fleet is on its--" He stared at Rusty for a moment, and Rusty gave him a slight smile. "Sometimes I'm psychic, Captain."

Grey humphed and turned back to Chen and Moreau. "I'm not prepared to fan out into the city to find out what's going on," Grey said. "We stay here and wait for Fleet to arrive."

"Should we stay here, Captain?" asked Moreau. "They might think we had a hand in this."

"Fleet's not that stupid," said Chen.

"I already told them we're here," Grey said. Rusty turned back to the console just as a klaxon went off for a moment, then stopped abruptly. Grey watched Rusty, asking, "Any idea where that--"

"It came from within the building, three flights down."

Grey shook his head. "Let's wait for Fleet. I'm not going down there."

"I'm looking around," said Moreau.

"Don't poke around too much," Rusty cautioned. "Like you said, they might think we had something to do with this."

Rusty glanced outside the viewport to watch the robot drones carry on their programmed work. Just more than an hour had passed when the communications signal went off. "Indiana II, this is the Hefferen. Can you receive us?"

Grey walked over to the comm and pressed a button, "Hefferen, this is Captain Grey of the Irving. We just got here a little while ago and there's no one in the main hangar bay."

"We are sending a landing party. Hefferen out."

The four men took the 'vator back down to the bay to wait for the arrival of the Fleet shuttle. It took about another two hours before the bay doors opened to allow another shuttle into the dome.

Rusty stared at the sleek shuttle. It looked like a typical single-seater, but it probably held at least a three-man crew. He was surprised to see the shuttle doors open and a woman stood at the hatchway, flanked by two young men carrying photon laser pistols.

"Women," Grey spat. "Worst thing they ever did."

Rusty watched the woman step lightly down the ramp. "I am Lieutenant Christine Devereaux of Fleet Command. These are my assistants Ensigns Urla Carpenter and Michel Caron."

"I'm Captain Grey," the captain said gruffly. "This is Chen, Moreau, and Rusty."

She nodded to the men, though Rusty thought she might have lingered on him a moment too long. He preened.

"What have you found out so far, Captain?" she asked him.

"The place is deserted, at least here, though an emergency alarm went off - where did you say, Rusty?"

Rusty tore his eyes away from the woman and looked up at the captain in a deer-caught-in-headlights look. "Sir?"

"The emergency alarm went off," he repeated patiently. "Where was it?"

Devereaux did not smile at him, though Rusty thought she was just inches away from doing so. Rusty stared for a moment at the captain, and ducked, just as Moreau went to slap him on the back of his head. He still caught a glancing part of the blow, but it would have hurt if he stayed still.

"Hey!" Rusty said, and looked at Devereaux. He smiled. She watched him patiently. "Huh, yeah, right. The signal. Right, it came from three flights below this one."

"We should investigate," Devereaux stated flatly.

Grey started moving toward the pneumatic freight elevators, while Rusty and Moreau kept an eye out for any odd movements other than droids. The four men boarded the elevator to the command center, and in seconds - not without a gravitational jolt that sent Rusty's stomach to the floor - they arrived at the command center above the bay's busy floor.

All four men had their hand weapons out as they approached the door to the command center. The door was locked. Grey turned to Chen, who pulled out a small square box. "I'll have it open in less than - "

The doors hissed open. Both men turned to each other, and Chen shrugged. "That's why you brought me along, Captain."

"Almighty droid master," the captain murmured as they stepped into the command center. It was also too quiet, as no one answered the captain's calls.

Rusty went to the command center control panel. "The distress signal's on auto," he stated.

"See if you can contact any other command centers on the planet. Chen, Moreau, take a look around here a little more, see if anyone's hiding in the closet."

The two men nodded and fanned out.

Bagar was a class B star, and the fourth planet in its orbit contained a colony from Indiana, a planet merely five light-years away. The natives of Bagar Four were considered pacifist, and the colony was under a bubble, not allowed to interact with the natives in any way. That didn't stop the diplomats, or those that wanted to be.

Rusty arrived at the shuttle bay, along with Captain Zill Grey, Navigator Chen, and Tech Moreau. Moreau was nicknamed "Billychon", a certain species of fruit from the Gelise system that looked and smelled horrible on the outside, but was sweet and tender on the inside. Billychon acted gruff, seemed perpetually angry, but was always good in a fight.

Rusty took a spot toward the rear of the shuttle, manning its engines. The shuttle roared to life and the four-man crew headed down to the planet surface. Grey tried all the frequencies until he finally got an automated response which allowed him to open the bay doors into the bubble of the city.

Grey kept his communications open in two ways: both in his ear and in his mind. He was in constant communication with the ship due to an implant that only he had, as it was too much money to outfit all the members of his crew with it. He kept the one in his ear as an outward manifestation of the implant, to make others think that was his only communication link. The others had their communication links in their ears as well.

"Take a gun," Grey commanded the three men. Rusty took a hand-held laser, and stopped to take a small dagger, mostly because he saw it in his field of visions. The three men flanked the captain as he opened the shuttle door.

They came face to face with a rotund robot who stood right outside the door. "Any repairs required," the robot said flatly.

"Negative," replied Grey. "Where is your controller?"

"Above," the robot responded, as its visual apparatus pointed upward. Rusty followed its gaze to see a large command center directly above them. Rusty saw some robots running around from place to place, moving things from one area of the bay to another.

"It's too quiet," said Chen. "There's no humans working down here."

"Maybe they don't have any," Moreau said.

This is raw and unedited. This is based on a story that Cold Soldier and I had cooked up about Emerald Flight and my character Rusty Gears and his Emerald Flight. It will probably need some polishing, but here is some of it, or what I can get down during my lunch hour.

Russell Rayna stared for a moment at the readings on the board, glancing back at the engine room. A short, round tub of a man stood off to the side, leaning against a doorframe, grinning from ear to ear, watching Rayna puzzle the problem out.

"Figure it out yet, boy?" he asked, still grinning.

"It has something to do with the vacuum," Rayna said, tapping the board. "Don't tell me. You're going to tell me. I don't want you to tell me."

"Eh, eh, eh," said the man, "What do you think I'm going to tell you?"

"It has nothing to do with the vacuum."

"Ya got that right."

A voice came over the intercom, tinny and ancient. "Engineering."

The man launched himself from the doorframe and looked up at the cieling as he answered, "Yes, cap'n."

"What're you doing, Prax?"

"Givin' Rusty Aisenburgh's Problem."

"Yeah, whatever that is. Listen, I'm going to have to sustain warp drive for four hours. There's an emergency distress call from Bagar Four."

"Let the Fleet handle it," Rusty said quietly.

"I heard that, Rusty. Because we're under the Fleet's protection and we're closest to there, we should at least investigate for them. The Fleet's sending a ship there but it'll take them ten standard hours to get there."

Rusty glanced at Prax and said, "We could find some Ringor metal there."

"Why do you think we're going?" the captain said, his voice carrying a chuckle. "It's not too far out of our way, and if we can exchange some of these damn silkworms, we won't flood the market on Kalor. We'll be the first ship there, and they'll be happy to see us." Thereby, as the Nexus had done on their planet, give them a good deal in appreciation.

"Provided they're not under attack," Prax said.

Rusty looked steadily at Prax, but his mind was elsewhere, searching in his mind's eye for the possibilities that existed, but he couldn't see what was waiting for them at Bagar Four. Only Prax knew of Rusty's ability to see possible futures. Prax had kept quiet, so long as every once in a while Rusty threw him a bone after a poker game or two.

"We're a merchant ship," Prax continued. "We don't have the firepower."

"If there's a battleship there, we'll act stupid and leave," said the captain. "We've done this before, on Pasteur Nine. Prepare engines."

Rusty and Prax moved to different areas of the engine room. Rusty put a transciever in his ear, while Prax did the same and moved to the other side. Prax began, "Warp in five, four, three, two...one."

Rusty held onto a small bar in front of him as the ship lurched slightly forward, slipping into warp drive. He let go of the bar and punched a few buttons on the boards, making sure the warp engines wouldn't slip out of sync. They had four hours of this, which could tax the ancient vessel, depending on what kind of resistance they would run into.

Luckily, Prax and Rusty had kept the engines in good repair so that they could keep up the warp for about six hours at top speed. They reached the Bagar system within three hours.

Prax glanced at the view screen, which was the same view screen that the captain was looking at. "I don't see anything, do you?"

Rusty shook his head. "I can't see anything either way."

"No ships on the dark side of the moon?"

"No ships in the area," he said, glancing at another viewscreen.

"What the hell would they be complaining about?" Prax asked no one in particular.

Again, the tinny voice came over the intercom, "Engineering."

"Yes, cap'n."

"Send Rayna to the shuttle bay. I'm taking a landing party. Nobody's answering."

"Noted," he replied, nodding to Rusty. "Take the rations, just in case."

"On it," Rusty said, as he has already turned his back on him and headed to a small cabinet.