The Dawn of Day - 12. Chapter 12 - The Dawn of Day

The Aryaka and the humans gathered early the following morning in front of the Pyramid of the Elder. Varyuka spoke one more time to his people and then the group left Dharana. They went to the cab stop outside of the city where several air cars waited for them. The cars reached Patha at noon. A dark blue sky stretched over the city.

Patha was the biggest town on Kunjara and the major trade center of the planet. The suburbs stretched far and wide and were dominated by flat houses with two or three stories. A few taller buildings were erected on major crossroads. The air cabs hovered along the streets, their movements coordinated by a computer system that was located in the suburbs of the city not far from the spaceport where they had landed their ship. The men saw the spaceport towers in the distance. A huge disk-shaped spaceship was hovering down.

The cars drove into the city. People got off at every stop. High towers dominated the center. Many buildings were made of a glass-like material, others looked like made of plastics. The traffic got heavier and the sidewalks were crowded with people. Many Aryaka but also members of other species hurried up and down the streets of the town.

Two cars stopped at Patha’s central place. The rest of the Aryaka and the humans got off. An elderly Aryaka, dressed in elegant blue and white clothes, waited for the humans and invited them into his cab. His name was Raktanga. He was a trader with widespread connections. Raktanga told the men he would show them to a place where spacemen preferred to spend their off-ship time. They would meet his nephew Andha in a hotel. Andha had seen the three Aryaka in a spaceport section that was primarily reserved for ships traveling between Kunjara and Izanami and other space stations near the galactic center. The squad had taken their prisoners to the security area of the compound. Andha was supposed to return to the facility around midnight. This was the only chance for the men to enter the site.

The air cab stopped and Raktanga pointed down a street. They got off the car and the men followed the trader down a narrow lane. The quarter was buzzing with people, members of different species, mostly spacemen from everywhere in space. A few individuals wore fanciful clothes, but most were dressed in simple ship suits. They passed restaurants, shopping areas and amusement halls. A pulsating sound was coming from one of the buildings. The alien music was popular. A large crowd of people was waiting in front of the entrance to the Patha music hall.

The trader stopped in front of a sleek tower where ship crews entered and left through a glass door. The Aryaka and the men went into the building. Raktanga pointed at a couch in the lounge area. They all sat down. The men looked around.

Individuals and groups went to a touch screen, pressed buttons and pushed cards into a slit. It was an automatic booking system. A light above the touch screen indicated if a room was available or not. The people usually protested when the light turned from white to red and then they started the procedure all over again. A hatch opened when all was finished. People took a key card from it.

A young Aryaka entered the hotel and joined the men and the Aryaka trader. Andha greeted his uncle, nodded at the men and then pointed at the elevator. The group crossed the hall. The elevator took them to the sixteenth floor. Andha opened a door with a key card and they entered a small, tidy room with a cupboard, chairs, a table and beds. They sat down. Andha took the translation tablet and entered a text. Eric read it and informed the others.

“This hotel is a busy place. People come and go. We won’t attract attention here. Andha is an engineer on a ship that travels regularly between Izanami and Kunjara. The Aryaka know meanwhile that Nahusha and the others will be taken on board of the Izanami ship shortly before take-off. The next flight for Izanami is scheduled in roughly two days. Repair ships also launch from the site. They fly to other planets in the system and to platforms in the asteroid belt. The Elder’s grandson Kumuda works in the department that schedules the departure of the repair ships. He scheduled a flight at about the same time the Izanami ship is scheduled for take-off. The Aryaka plan to get the prisoners on the repair ship without the Izanami squad taking notice at once. The Aryaka think Nahusha and the others might not be fit to fly the ship to the designated drop-out point in space, however. There’s a cold chamber in the security area. You know what it means to an Aryaka. Their movements might be slowed down and their reflexes delayed. We’re ship crew, too. We will take the repair ship to the edge of the system and we will engage the gravitational drive. Nahusha and the others will take over as soon as they can.”

Brandon took a deep breath. “Okay, I have no doubt we can fly the ship,” he said, his voice shaking slightly.

“The Aryaka think we can. I have no doubt we can trust their expertise,” Dave said. “How will we get into the facility?”

Raktanga produced three identity cards. The men would safely pass the controls. When asked how he got the cards, the trader waved his hand dismissively. A trade in hand finds gold in every land, he typed.

A long exchange followed, only interrupted by a meal. The hotel room had an implemented food processor.

They were not the only ones who worked on freeing Nahusha, Vasuki and Shesha. Many more Aryaka worked in the background on perfecting the plan. They communicated through their neural implants. Raktanga and Andha now and then paused the conversation, checked on their incoming messages and sent status updates and messages out.

The trader departed late in the evening. Andha and the humans went to an air cab stop not far from the hotel. A large crowd had already gathered. The employees and workers waited for the cars that would take them back to the facility outside of Patha.

The cabs arrived shortly before midnight at the compound. The people got off the cars and gathered in front of the entrance to the site. The workers had to file through a narrow gate and place their identity cards on a scanner. Two security men in a cube watched the group attentively through a glass pane. One of them was an Aryaka.

Andha and the men approached the gate. The Aryaka in the cube rose to his feet when he spotted them. He pointed into the distance and said something to the other man in the cube. A shout was heard. Another individual shouted back loudly. Two Aryaka had picked up a fake fight. The other security man rose to his feet and tried to spot the fighting individuals through the glass pane. He was distracted for an instant. Andha and the humans took their chance, placed their identity cards on the scanner and swiftly passed the security gate.

Andha showed the men to the hangar where the repair ship was parked. He asked the men to wait for their new contact, gave them a nod and left the hall. The humans had imagined a fairly small vessel, but the disk-shaped ship was bigger than their own ship was. Their new contact entered the hangar. The Aryaka unlocked the ship and led the men onto the bridge. They all sat down in the seats at the console.

The Aryaka took the translation tablet from Eric and introduced himself to the men. His name was Samkha. He piloted a cargo ship that was scheduled for take-off in roughly four days. Samkha had opted to spend his off-time in the spaceport facility. He would train the men and he would stay on board until shortly before take-off. He told the men more of the plan.

The Aryaka would free the prisoners and take them to the hangar where the repair ship was parked. Andha would make sure the Izanami squad would not miss the prisoners for a while. The repair ship would thus have a head start. Samkha had already programmed the ship’s flight to a platform that orbited a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. The humans would have to do nothing, if all worked out and according to plan. They had to take over and fly the ship to the edge of the system only in the unlikely case that something went wrong. The men exchanged looks. They knew all too well that every plan called fail-safe tended to fail in the end.

They had roughly 48 hours to learn the essentials of manual flight and the procedure of engaging the warp drive. Since they didn’t have time for a written exchange, the humans would have to learn by observation. Samkha showed them the menu with the pre-programmed flight destinations, Aryaka-dominated planets and platforms in the adjoining space sectors. The planet Varuna, a trading place for ships and ship equipment, was the preferred flight destination. An Aryaka spaceship would be available for them on Varuna.

The pilot pointed at the console and pulled up a checklist on a screen. The men stared at the unfamiliar lights and controls and the messages written in an unknown language. Samkha assured them that the task was simple. Take-off was automated and the flight was pre-programmed. It was all about engaging the gravitational drive after passing the dwarf planet, drop out of real space and do a warp flight to Varuna. The alternate destinations were programmed only for an emergency case. The Aryaka pressed a button and a screen lit up. The image showed a section of the console and a red arrow. It was a simple manual, pieced together quickly by the Aryaka.

The men focused on the difficult task. They knew they were slow and time was running out fast. They made progress, however, and they finally trained with a simulation program. Samkha encouraged them every so often with a nod. After six training sessions, he told them to rest for half an hour in a sleeping chamber with several cots. The men slept until the Aryaka pilot called them back on the bridge to repeat the training sessions.

The training ended half an hour before the Izanami ship was scheduled for take-off. The Aryaka left and the humans were alone on the bridge. The men were nervous, knowing very well that, if anything went wrong until launch of the ship, they would be regarded as the prime suspects of the release plot. They were sitting in their chairs, staring at the light that would change from red to white when the automated take-off sequence started and Nahusha, Shesha and Vasuki had hopefully entered the ship.

Andha was in the engine room that housed the gravitational drive. He was watching two monitoring screens. One showed the cargo hold of the ship, the other the hangar with the Izanami ship. The huge disk-shaped ship was scheduled for take-off in approximately one hour, but the hatch of the cargo hold was still open and crests were being hovered up and into the ship. The ship’s commander, the officers and the rest of the crew were already on board, but the Izanami squad and their prisoners had not yet arrived at the ship.

Andha was alone in the room. He glanced at the wall where he had removed a square flap and opened an entrance to the maintenance tubes. The tubes led to the electronic hardware that connected the gravitational engine with the computers on the bridge. Andha rehearsed the procedure. He had to be quick. He looked back at the monitoring screens. The hangar hall opened and the Izanami squad entered, dragging the three Aryaka with them. Nahusha, Shesha and Vasuki moved slowly, handicapped by a long stay in the cold chamber. Andha jerked his head in anger but then focused back on the screen. He blocked out every thought and sensation.

The Izanami squad and the prisoners entered the ship. Andha seized the battery-operated hand warmer that he had placed on the console. Many Aryaka carried hand warmers in the pockets of their clothes just in case they experienced a sudden unpleasant temperature drop. The maximum heat output of the hand warmer was 55°C. Andha seized the warmer firmly. It was already hot. Andha put the warmer in a pocket, glanced one more time at the monitoring screens, then jerked around and raced to the entrance to the maintenance tubes.

He crouched down, squeezed through the square hole into the narrow tube and crept forward, wiggling his way past machinery and consoles until he reached a flap that led into the tube to the compartment that housed the chemical reactor, the emergency drive. Andha opened the flap, pulled the hand warmer from his pocket and squeezed half through the flap. He reached out his hand and pressed the warmer on a small black box on a cable shaft. A minute later, an ear-deafening alarm was ringing on the ship. The sensor had measured a critical temperature rise in the compartment that housed the chemical reactor.

Andha pulled back, closed the flap and crept back through the tube. A short time later, he was back in the gravitational engine room. A computer voice announced automatic sealing of the compartment with the chemical reactor in sixty seconds and called everybody to immediately leave ship compartments 0A, 0B and 0C and all corridors leading up to them. The compartments housed the drives of the ship, the emergency drive, the conventional drive for flight through real space and the long-range gravitational or warp drive. Andha closed the entrance to the maintenance tubes, threw the hand warmer in a waste recycling tube and left the engine room quickly. He hurried down the corridor past the arrest rooms that had unlocked automatically to release the prisoners due to the emergency case.