Chapter three
Will and Leslie Berrigan
A ship intercom buzzed. Admiral Castro and the delfinians looked up from maps spread on the floor in front of the delfinian travel tanks. “Call me old-fashioned,” said the Admiral, “but there’s something about plowing through a pile of paper maps that lets me visualize where we are going, it helps me think.”
Rima’s voice cut in over the intercom speaker. “We’ve made lunar radio contact,” she reported.
“Make sure the transmission is secure, then run it through to us,” said the Admiral. “Everyone here wants to be in this conversation.”
There was brief squawk of static and then, “Hello? Inocente? This is Leslie Berrigan speaking. Do you hear me?”
“Hello, Leslie. Your voice makes me smile. Its been way too long since we’ve spoken together. How’s Will?”
“He’s a little grumped doing medical research with his wife for a boss, otherwise fine.”
“Why’s he doing medical research for you instead of designing and building spaceships?”
“He says the most experienced engineers and pilots went with you and there’s nobody left here to help him come up with new ideas: The truth is a little different, he’s worried that Use will turn his work to war instead of science.” She paused, then continued. “Here at Luna Science Base we pronounce it ‘use.’ How do you say it?”
“I think everyone calls the United States, use,” answered the Admiral. “And judging by our brief stop in Nation Pacifica,” he continued, “Will’s concerns are right on; he’s not exaggerating.”
“You were there?”
“Yep. We landed at the spaceport and were attacked.”
“Inocente, a lot has happened since you left — Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone is fine. We captured a pilot and she gave us an earful about your youngest children, Kevin and Grace. There are five delfinians with us who wish to be dropped off near the kids. Can you help with that?”
“You brought delfinians? We’ve only received the first two communication torpedoes you sent, Delfinian medical science was mentioned as very advanced. The torpedoes take months to arrive. How did you return so fast? Is it true delfinians were able to utilize joy forces to cure one of your injured pilots?”
“Completely true, and I’ll explain our travel speed later. Delfinian scientists will be arriving soon. Are you sitting down?”
“OK,” she said, using a mom’s best tone of mock exasperation. “I know you, Inocente. What’s up?”
“Delfinians are here to colonize Earth ... And I’ve decided to help them. These are the first five permanent residents. One of them, Sudor, is their president.”
“We are being invaded?” Leslie asked, after a brief moment for thought. Then she giggled.
“I just found out about this myself. Delfinians are mighty upset with the way Cetaceans have been treated.”
There was another moment of silence while Leslie again thought over what she had just heard. They could hear footsteps in the background, then the sound of a chair sliding, and muffled conversation.
“I’m glad you are going to help us colonize Earth,” Cecric said to the Admiral as they waited.
He smiled and was about to tell her how much better it would be on Earth with delfinians around when a male voice came over the radio.
“Inocente? Are you there? This is Will. How’s my ship performing?”
“Fantastic. It’s a great ship, you will be happy to hear of its adventures.”
“I wish we had time to talk about it.” Will responded. “I can’t tell you exactly where to look. Find an island south of the equator nearest a line between Hawaii and Fiji. Drop your passengers there. Can they communicate with cetaceans?”
The Admiral cast a questioning glance to the delfinians. They nodded yes.
“Affirmative,” said the Admiral.
“This radio channel is only briefly secure,” Will’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Delfinians will find who you want if you drop them where I said. I need to cut communication now.”
“But, Will, we’ve brought a huge data record for your scientific study.”
“It’s safer on your ship. Use is too ugly for good science right now. It can be dangerous to discover something the national monopolies don’t like. Worse yet; A complete political wrow erupts if a discovery doesn’t fit into religion.
“Pacifica is blockaded from the sea, it's totally isolated. Nobody knows what’s going to happen after their new president is sworn in. He’s claiming they’ve found evidence of war preparations in Pacifica,” Will concluded, incredulously.
“Can you imagine that?” Will’s voice spluttered as he continued with dismay. “Pacifica is where every extra dime is spent on pollution clean up, not to mention moving cities out of farmlands and sensitive habitats. And all of it is cash on the line, there’s no borrowing money from the kid’s future to buy today’s bombs.”
“Do you need help?” The Admiral asked, pondering an old friend afraid to talk.
“Not now, maybe later. Leslie and I are okay but we’re worried about the kids. Our last word from them is they’re hiding out and working with Dolphins."
“Over and out.”
The Admiral immediately switched back to the intercom. “Take us to ten kilometers above the south pole as fast as you can. Rima, put a chart map of the Southwest Pacific on our wall screen.”
The ship turned and dove almost immediately. A map flashed onto the large screen. the Admiral drew a line with the curser between Hawaii and Fiji. “There’s not much on that line but ocean,” he commented with concern etched on his face.
“That was very fast,” said Perko, also inspecting the map. “The crew set the course and put up the map at almost the same instant. Great spaceship you have here, mate.”
“Admiral, this is your navigator, Rima, speaking. May I suggest a northwest heading from the pole?”
“I thought you were the copilot,” he responded, looking at the route she had put on the computer display.
“Eddy and I figured Liz should be copilot so I can concentrate on navigation and the computers, with your permission of course.”
“There’s a group of islands right there!” Dawn exclaimed, pointing at the monitor excitedly.
The Admiral glanced at the map before responding to Rima, “Okay, you are already doing a great job of it … be the navigator. Tell Eddy and Liz to hug the ground contour at two or three kilometers, drop to fifty meters above maximum sea swells when we reach open ocean.” He next looked more closely at the island Dawn had pointed to on the map. “That’s quite a bit further from the line than I expected.”
“Your friends on the moon seemed very afraid someone might discover where their children are; they didn’t give good directions on purpose.”
“This is far worse than I imagined it could be,” he grumbled.
“What do you suppose Kevin, Grace, and Leona are doing with dolphins?”
Admiral Castro laughed. “Dolphins like to ride waves. Maybe they’re all surfing together.”
“That sounds fun,” Sudor said. “Delfinians like to surf, too.”
“You should all get along swell,” the Admiral commented, wryly.
“What are you going to do after you drop us off?” Cecric asked.
“I’m not sure. This has made me so angry I have half a mind to fly back to the spaceport and start shooting up the place.”
“You can’t do that, Admiral, not without hurting a bunch of young people who are probably just as nice as our new copilot, Liz Yomtov.”
“Yeah, I know, they’ve got us beat because we don’t want to hurt anyone. This is ridiculous. We need a new kind of weapon.”
He paused, thoughtfully, and then leaned against the window, looking outward. “There is one big problem; those nice young people are armed and following orders to hunt us down, or die trying.”
“What’s out the window?” Asked Perko, curiously.
“Hard to say. Just a blur at this speed. It’s blue so we must be past the ice.”
“You look a little glum, Admiral,” Sudor commented with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “We delfinians have a plan now; I find it definitely helps one to keep a cool head and stay relaxed when one has a good plan, like ours.”
“Oh,” the Admiral responded, eyebrows raised questioningly. “What’s your plan?”
“We are going surfing until you figure out what to do.”
The Delfinians all laughed. Perko playfully splashed some water, as if to start a water fight.
Admiral Castro was in the middle of desperately trying to think of a suitable response when Rima’s voice returned to the intercom.
“We have the island on our instruments. Eddy plans to circle around it and then approach with the sun behind us. We are dropping to ten meters.”
A small volcanic island rapidly grew larger on the computer wall-screen. Lush tropical forest lined a white sandy beach. There was no sign of humans as they cautiously approached the shore.
“I’ll open the cargo door,” the Admiral said, beckoning to the delfinians, who vaulted out of their tanks and somersaulted to the door. “We’ll find a place to land and come back to the shore on foot. You explore. Meet us here in one hour.”
The delfinians jumped in turn as soon as the door was open. Admiral Castro watched transfixed as each slowly fell away from him before splashing into the sea.
“Okay, find a nearby place to hide the ship,” he said, speaking in the direction of the intercom and then kneeling to mop water with the already damp towels.
‘I’ll leave the door open unless something goes wrong,’ he thought, feeling the ship turn and settle to a landing. The powerful joy generators slowly wound down to idle as he wrung another towel out the door.
Liz was the first to enter the cargo area. “Admiral!” She exclaimed when she saw him on his hands and knees mopping the floor. “I’ll do that.”
“No, thank you, Lieutenant, I’m almost finished. You open the number four locker and select camouflage netting that matches whatever we’ve landed on. Ask the others to help you cover the ship. Climb topside using those notches in the cargo bay door. There’s a small ladder in a slot behind the shower; we’ll need that, too. How far are we from the beach?”
“Less than two hundred meters. We’re sitting on a lava bench surrounded by trees. There’s a small cliff behind us. The ship is facing directly shoreward.”
“Perfect. Weapons are in locker two. Bring me a stun beam and the ladder, then camouflage the ship.”
“What’s a stun beam?”
“Oh. Right. I almost forgot. Are you signing on with the pioneer space fleet?”
“I’d like that.”
“Will you be more loyal to us than you were to the United States?”
“My loyalty is to Mother Earth,” said Liz. “I respect and support what you are doing, Sir.” She relaxed as soon as she saw from his expression that he liked her answer.
“Did you notify your family?”
“Yes. My parents have passed away but I told my grandparents, though the telephone was tapped and we couldn’t say much. Whoever was listening on the line knows I’ve switched to the good guys,” Liz said, standing taller. “They also know why.”
The Admiral’s face remained friendly but unsmiling, “Our job is to corral a bunch of jerks pushing what they call Operation Freethem. We are here to save Planet Earth without hurting anyone. We have a very dangerous job.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Very well. As Pioneer Admiral, I hereby appoint you a Lieutenant of Pioneer Star Fleet. You are part of my staff and follow my orders, you may resign whenever you wish. You will be trained to fly this frigate by Eddy. Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Forget the stun beam and bring me the ladder, Lieutenant.” He addressed her with an admiral’s smile, then hurried her along with a wink, “Do it now, Liz.” Inocente examined their landing spot more closely as he turned to ring another wet towel out the open cargo bay door. “Paradise,” he sighed happily. “This will be a good base.”