Twinks in Space: Destination Unknown - Part One - 25. Chapter 25 - The Children

“So, what’s the plan then?” Captain Suoki asked, looking over the children. Many of them were not in great shape.

Lyoth responded. “Once we reconnect with the Cometskipper, we’ll figure out where to bring the kids. There has to be some sort of facility that can help them. This shuttle’s cavitation gauge says there are only 19 more minutes of hyperspace travel before we arrive at the destination Fonith gave us.”

Phentrom spoke up, “Suoki, why don’t we make a list of the kids with their names and the severity of their injuries.”

“That’s a good idea. It’ll be useful when we get someplace where there are people who can help them.”

Then Phentrom noticed something about the children’s clothes. “What does I.C.U.A. stand for?” He pointed to one of their shirtsleeves. “All of them have I.C.U.A. printed on the arm. What is that?”

Captain Suoki looked confused. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

He and Phentrom had only written down about half of the children’s names and their ailments, when Lyoth called from the front of the ship, “30 seconds until we exit hyperspace!”

“Where do you suppose we’re about to end up?” Phentrom asked Captain Suoki.

The captain shrugged.

As the stolen cargo vessel re-entered normal space and Lyoth saw where Fonith brought them, realization set in and he gave a knowing nod. The Cometskipper was already docked at a medical frigate stationed just off a gargantuan free-floating space station that was run by a scientific conglomerate representing multiple planetary systems.

“We’re at a hospital ship!” Lyoth called back.

The frigate hailed the cargo vessel.

“Welcome to the medical ship, Hope 11. How can we help you today?”

“We are part of a rescue mission,” Lyoth replied. “We’re returning from a deep space quadrant, and we have 37 injured children on board who need medical treatment. We’ve tried to catalog some of their names and issues.”

“Bring them right in,” the voice on the other end of the connection instructed. “Docking Bay 7-D, fourth level.”

“7-D,” Lyoth repeated, “we’ll be right there.”

He docked the shuttle, and several teams of medical technicians were waiting to help the children off the ship. Fonith and Stawren were also outside the door, and once the children were taken into care, Fonith instructed Lyoth, “Disengage from the frigate and dock with the Cometskipper.”

“Will do,” he replied.

He closed the hatch, launched the shuttle from the medical ship, and flew it farther out from the base and the frigate to wait for Fonith’s ship. Lyoth, Phentrom, and Captain Suoki watched the Cometskipper detach from the hospital vessel, and it joined them in the void. The two ships connected their airlocks and the five individuals were reunited.

Captain Suoki scooped up Froufrou and asked the others, “Okay, what’s the plan now?”

“As far as I know,” Lyoth replied, “the plan is still to head to Allthrin with Stawren,” and he nodded to her, “in order to acquire a new community ship. Then we go after the Ulaa-Lah.”

“How are we supposed to track it?” Captain Suoki asked.

Lyoth sighed. “We haven’t figured that out yet.”

Phentrom was still holding the paper in his hand that contained the children’s names and their ailments.

Fonith pointed at it and asked him, “What’s that?”

Phentrom looked down at his hand. “Oh, shoot, I meant to give this to the doctors! It’s a list of the kids’ names and what happened to them.” He pulled a guilty expression. “Not all of the kids, actually. We didn’t get to some of them. Can we transmit this information to the hospital ship?”

Lyoth smiled at his beloved. “I’m sure the doctors have already gone through this exact process themselves.”

“Can I see that list?” Stawren asked. “Maybe my auntie Thia can find out some information about those kids based on their names. Did you get any other information about them, like where they were from or anything?”

Phentrom and Captain Suoki looked at each other. “We were so focused on their injuries that we didn’t think to ask any of them where they were from.”

“They all had the letters I.C.U.A. on the sleeves of their shirts. Maybe that can help.”

Stawren wrote the acronym down on the paper with the children’s names and grabbed Fonith’s XG4, as the others discussed what to do with the stolen shuttle.

“We need to ditch it,” Lyoth stated.

“Why don’t we leave it on a nearby planet?” Phentrom recommended.

Captain Suoki shrugged. “Or we could find an uninhabited remote rock to dump it on.”

Fonith scrunched up her face at them and smirked. “Boys, we’re going to blow it up.”

The three men looked startled. “Oh, we are?” Lyoth replied. “Of course, we are,” he added, and he laughed at himself. “Of course, we’re blowing it up!”

Phentrom looked worried. “But why? Shouldn’t we keep it and use it?”

“No, Fonith is right,” Captain Suoki replied. Froufrou was still in his arms, but the dog had fallen asleep listening to the discussion. “There’s a good chance the shuttle has a tracker. We don’t know who this I.C.U.A. group is, and the kids were talking about an Organization, but that’s also a mystery. I don’t think we want whoever they are to come after us.”

“We don’t want anyone hunting us,” Fonith added. “That shuttle is like a beacon to anyone who might be looking for it. We need to cut off our trail.”

She sat at her ship’s primary console and disengaged the stolen shuttle. It began to drift away from the Cometskipper, and Fonith activated her ship’s standard engine. She piloted it a safe distance from the shuttle, and she opened fire. The bolt of energy from the Cometskipper caused the stolen vessel to explode with a multicolor burst of flames that vanished in an instant.

“Goodbye,” Fonith said to its remains, as she activated the Cometskipper’s cavitation engine, and her starship disappeared into hyperspace.