Grace had the face of an angel. Her long, flowing brunette hair raced down the back of her combat fatigues.
She pushed her finger against her ear and tried to keep herself steady in the passenger seat of the 4x4 as it raced along the uneven ground.
“Siyam, please,” she said to the driver. “Can you at least try to keep us steady?”
“I am, I am,” Siyam, the African-American driver, said. He focused on his rear view mirror. “You want us to get pulled over?”
“Sorry, Alex,” she returned to the cables streaking out from her wrist, “I didn’t hear what you said. Can you say again—”
SWWIIISSSHHHHHHHHH!
A deafening, prolonged thunder rocketed through her ears. The frequency forced her to snap the earpiece from her head and fling it to her lap.
“Jesus Christ!” she screamed. “What’s that noise?”
Siyam threw Grace a look of anger as he stepped on the gas, “What’s up with him?”
“He said he was in the bathroom, and then this—Ah, my ears feel like they’re bleeding,” she fumbled for the device and pulled the wire from her wrist.
“Maybe he can’t talk?” Siyam said. “If he says he can’t talk, then he can’t talk.”
“No, I need to know he’s okay. I need to know the mission is on,” she slung the earpiece against her head and spoke into her wrist. “Alex? This is Grace. Do you read me?”
“Yes—” his voice chimed in to a static rumble, “Everything went well, but I can’t talk right now.”
“Did you pass the training? Please tell me you passed at least.”
“Yes, I did,” Alex snapped and hushed his voice, “Where are you?”
Grace looked over her shoulder and watched the border control center disappear from view, “We’ve just passed border control. About five miles from Corsicana.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, the usual,” Grace said, “Those Nazis at border control practically performed a cavity search on Siyam.”
“That figures. Racist scumbags,” Alex snorted through her earpiece, “Any news on where the subjects are headed?”
Grace grabbed Siyam’s left arm and ran her fingers over the ink.
“Hey, what are you—”
“—Shut up for a minute and keep your eyes on the road. I need to look at something.”
She held his arm up and looked at the white ink break apart into thirty separate dots.
“Ten miles south-southwest,” Grace said.
The screen on the dashboard of the 4x4 showed thirty flashing dots swarming toward a dotted line, “We know from Moses’ absorption effort in the compound that they’re chipped. We have their locations on screen.”
“Okay.”
“I just hope we can find them in time. Alive, ideally.”
“Be careful when you get there. USARIC have reprogrammed them. You don’t know how they’ll react.”
Alex pushed through the USARIC reception area and headed for the entrance. An iron bust of Dimitry Vasilov took center stage in the middle of the area.
He glanced at it as he walked into the bright, clear sunshine. The warmth of the sun rays calmed him down despite the noise coming from the launching jets on the airstrip.
“I can’t believe this is where Denny took the shot.”
“Are you there right now?” Grace asked.
“Yes.”
“I made contact with the kid. Jamie.”
“Oh, really?” Alex seemed surprised, “You found him?”
“Yeah, there must be a million Jamie Andersons on Viddy Media. Struck gold on the hundred and twentieth one. You’d have thought those Brits—”
“—Did he confirm Anderson’s involvement with Opera Beta?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Good,” Alex said with relief, “that tallies with what I heard at the briefing. Both ends covered. That’s better than substantiated fact, now.”
“Anderson took Bisoubisou’s place. She’s up there with them.”
“I knew it,” Alex punched the air with excitement. A gaggle of USARIC officials on their smoke break looked over at him in bemusement, “Good work, Grace. That’s exactly what we thought.”
“I know, right? If Beta’s report is correct, then Jelly is the one who decoded Saturn Cry. They’re in receipt of the answer. We just have to hope they’re alive.”
Alex turned away from the spluttering officials and caught the magnificent Space Opera Charlie spacecraft standing proud within its scaffolding in the horizon.
“Five more days, Alex,” she whispered from his wrist.
“You got that right.”
He took in the sheer enormity of the spacecraft standing in the distance, “Five more days…”
CHAPTER NINE
Space Opera Beta hung in the vacuum of space surrounded by zillions of tiny, bright stars. A bright and vibrant Enceladus drifted behind it. The last of its pink light blossomed against the universe’s canvas and swallowed in on itself.
Nothing left. The universe was serene.
Saturn’s surface took up the majority of the view through the windshield by the flight deck, appearing to oversee the vessel like a maternal juggernaut. Her rings no longer revolved.
The communications panel lay dormant, a giant husk of its former self. The emergency strip lights across the ground provided the only indication of life or action aboard the spacecraft.
The communications console rumbled to life. Its light snapped on. The processor fired up as if it was struggling to awaken from a deathly slumber.
WHIRRR-POP.
A shower of orange sparks blew out from the mainframe. Four sides of a rectangle fizzed a few inches away from it. Its outline stormed through the air and produced a full hologram of a book.
Manuel had awoken.
“Oh, my,” he fluttered around and wrestled with the pages between his covers.
FRII-II-ITT.
The sheets shuffled together like a deck of playing cards. He slapped his covers together and fanned every page out like an extended accordion.
“Ah, that’s better.”
He shifted around to the communications panel, “Ooh, we’ve left Pink Symphony, I’m happy to report.”
The holographic tome opened out and cast a beam of green data light at the communications panel.
Each circuit within the mainframe whirred as they fired up.
“This is Manuel. Autopilot of Space Opera Beta. Open communication channels, ports one through one-zero-fifteen.”
The screen on the panel snapped to life.
“Assess current location.”
A slew of white text ran up the screen.
“Feeling better, I see.”
BEEP.
The screen displayed its update:
USARIC S.O.B. SIT-REP_
Date: September 1st, 2122
Location: Enceladus (orbit)
Engine & Payload: Operational
Thrusters (Auto & Manual): Operational
Communication channels: Open
Distance to Earth (miles): 750m
Communication incoming_
“I see you’ve survived whatever happened to us. I thought we’d never see each other again,” Manuel shut his beam off and fluttered up against the screen, “Twenty-one-twenty-two? Did we really skip three years? Feels like it was just yesterday. I guess to us it was, actually. Hmm.”