Many thanks to Grundy_Golem for his help with the editing of this chapter

Progenitor


Chapter 14

After everyone had said good night to each other, they all went to their quarters for the night. Jake, upon arriving in his quarters, accessed the terminal there and asked AL what had been on the "letters"? AL told him that the sheets contained some personal correspondence and the instructions as to where and how to place the explosives. When asked about the origin of the instructions, AL replied that the origin could not be determined. Jake asked for and received a copy of the instructions. After reading over them, he had AL copy the instructions to Amy for her to look over also.

Amy was just getting in bed when she was notified that she had a message. After looking over the message she decided to leave it for the next day as it didn't appear too important.

John had also gone straight to his quarters and was reading up on some of the scans that had been done of Earth. Noting the location of the nuclear material that had been the cause of Ted's arrival, he looked closer at the area scans. The scans showed that there had not been any further activity in that area since the shuttle left. The most recent scan, about two hours old, did not show any life signs. John requested a "live scan" of the area if possible. AL replied that he had a scan that was about 15 minutes old, but that the satellite was not in a good position at this time. John looked over the scan and still found no evidence of life in the area. "This will need further study in the morning", John thought. With that he went to bed also.

Sally and Kate, after getting back to their room, decided to take a shower and then go to bed. Sam had gone to the Security Center after leaving the Mess Hall. She did not trust Ted yet and wanted to see what he did. Sam had AL setup a monitoring program for Ted's quarters. Then she tried to access the Marine database to see what she could find out about Ted, she did not find out anything more than he had already told them. Sam left the monitoring program running and went to bed herself.

The next morning Sam reviewed the security monitoring program and found that Ted had not left his room since entering last night; she terminated the program. Sally and Kate were up as soon as they were called. They both were very excited about getting to fly more today, and maybe even further out. Everyone else was not as easy to get up, AL had to wake Ted three times before he rolled out of bed. Jake and Amy got up without much problem; John was a little slow to get up, but he did after the second call. Everyone met in the Mess Hall for breakfast and coffee.

"What's on the agenda for today" asked Ted as he started on his 3rd cup of coffee.

"That depends on what you learned last night. Your first assignment is to find some more security personal. Next, I need you to review the file on some "letters" found in the quarters of one of the saboteurs. Then give me your opinion.", Amy instructed Ted.

"Now as to you two girls, excuse me women, I believe that AL has you set up to do more flying today; I won't be able to join you though" Amy added.

"Jake, I need you to see if you and John can find a way to better utilize the power and to get the base back in to full power all over. I know this sounds like a lot of work; but, I think we may need that power very soon. After talking with Sam, and seeing for myself the type of people involved with the nuclear material, I think our country is in for a big surprise. I intend to try and prevent that from happening, again." Amy said. "Now if there aren't any questions; I guess we had all best get to work. Sam would you come with me?" Amy added.

"With what, or where, do I do all this?" Ted asked.

"Oh; I forgot you haven't had the tour yet. You should be able to do most of this in your quarters, or you could do it in your 'office' if you like. I'm sure AL has already explained about the history surrounding this base, if not ask him and he will. You can follow along with Sam and I and we will show you around; or, you can just explore on your own. Everyone of us is responsible for knowing our way around. Especially since we are the ones in charge, even after we gain more crew, we are the ones everybody will look to for answers" Amy explained.

"Oh; before I forget, again, there will be a staff meeting at 6pm here in the Mess Hall. We will all report on what we have accomplished today and what still needs to be done. As I said a few minutes ago, I really want to get this base back up and running as soon as possible. Any more questions?" Amy said.

There weren't any more questions so everyone went about their duties. Ted went to explore by himself. Amy and Sam went to Amy's ready room to talk. After they had arrived, Amy asked Sam about the program that had been watching Ted. Sam explained that she had been unsure that Ted could be trusted so soon and had wanted to make sure that nothing happened. Sam apologized about her actions; Amy just nodded and told her that it was okay and that she understood that Sam was just doing her job. With that said Amy went on to talk to Sam about what was really on her mind.

"Sam, we really need to find a way to acquire that nuclear material. There are two reasons for this, 1) we need the added power here on base, and 2) I don't want more US servicemen to be killed because of that stuff. And, I don't want more of it being sent to the US like the first batch. Did you ever find out where it came from and where it was headed?" Amy asked.

"My sources then said it was headed for Memphis, and it appeared that the origin was somewhere in the middle east. The stuff was stolen from an US base somewhere and had been left mostly untouched except for the firing mechanism which had been replaced with a 'foreign' one." Sam replied.

"I don't like the way things are looking here; first we find a nuclear bomb headed for a major US city, then we find a stockpile of nuclear material in the dessert in the middle east. Someone sure seems to have it in for the US. have there been any other countries with the same problem, that you know of?" Amy replied.

"There have been similar incidents in the UK and there are always bombings at US bases and Embassies", Sam added.

The two girls talked for several hours about different ways to gain the nuclear material and what would be needed to accomplish that task in the way of equipment and manpower. They also talked about what Sam thought would be a good way to get more security forces, in case Ted didn't come up with any ideas. Amy had not told anyone but Jake about the programming that AL had inserted into everyone so that they could not talk about the base except with each other; she wanted that to remain a secret for a while longer.

Around two o'clock Ted came to the Ready Room to make his report on his progress and ideas for getting more crew on base. As to the need for security personal, his suggestion was to acquire them the same way he had been, just take them and make the offer. Amy and Sam both rejected that idea as impractical, not to mention a serious violation of their freedom of choice. While they were discussing this Jake came in and reported that he, John, and AL had found a way to better utilize the power, but that they could not get full power to the whole base with just the little material they had at this time. The four of them were still talking about this when there was an alarm sounded and all the lights went to red followed by an announcement that there was an emergency landing taking place. Everyone hurried to the flight deck to see what was happening; Jake and John were both concerned for their sisters at this point. When they got to the flight deck they were refused entry; when asked AL told them it was for their protection in case of a major accident. He also told them that both girls were okay but they were requesting the emergency landing for an unknown reason.

After Kate and Sally had landed, and the access doors opened, everyone began talking at once until Amy yelled for quiet. Amy asked both girls why the emergency landing, what was the matter? Kate, being the most in control, answered that they had been inbound from Mars when they saw a "spaceship" approaching the moon from the direction of Earth and they thought that they might be seen. Also, they had noticed that they were receiving much more radar-like activity than when they left earlier. Amy told everyone to meet in her Ready Room in 10 minutes.

Once everyone was in the room, Amy asked AL what had happened that he was supposed to be keeping an "eye" on the two girls. AL explained that he had noted the approaching craft but since Earth was always sending off some kind of space probe he had discounted it. Also, it appeared that the radar-like activity was directed specifically at the ships the girls occupied and was of such a tight beam that it had gone unnoticed by him. Anticipating this line of questions he had analyzed the data from the fighters and found that the signal was from an orbiting satellite around Earth. When asked he showed a hologram of the satellite, it was the Hubble!

"AL, did you intercept the transmission from Hubble to Earth? And if so, what did it show?" John asked quickly.

"Actually, the data was an alert that the satellite had detected something but could not obtain a picture of it and was sending the data for further analysis. It had locked on to a moving source and was being directed to monitor the path of that object. The craft that Kate and Sally had seen was launched from the 'manned space station' in orbit around Earth." AL replied.

"The space station doesn't have anything like that; or least not as far as I know" John said.

"Well, it appears that they do; since they did launch. The real question is what type of craft was it that they launched?" Amy asked.

"The craft appears to be a probe that has taken up orbit around this moon" AL replied. "You could shoot it down without any problem. It is too small for a cloaked shuttle to approach without notice of the change in attitude by the ones controlling or monitoring it" AL added.

"What do we do now? We can't let the base be found, or noticed; suggestions anyone" Amy asked.

While everyone else was talking, Jake had made up his mind. He excused himself and left the room; no one seemed to notice, except Amy. Jake went directly to engineering and had AL run a simulation and give him the results. The results looked good to him, now to convince the rest of the crew, especially Amy, that he idea would work. He called Amy and asked where everyone was then went to the Mess Hall to join them.

After everyone else had told about their day, Jake gave them his idea to deal with the probe in orbit around the Moon. He would have AL transport him, in a "Space suit", to right beside the probe. Once there he would open it and disable it; failing that he would place an explosive charge on it and they could detonate it from the base safely. Jake explained that he had found the environmental suits stored in engineering and that there were also some extra-vehicular suits available. He had checked them out and now had five of each ready to go.

Everyone started talking at once, Kate and Amy were the most vocal in their objections. Jake assured them that AL had rechecked the suits and that they were operational. He also explained that either way the people who sent it would not know what had happened to their probe. This brought up the fact that as far as anyone knew the only people on the space station were the Russians at this time. 

"Won't you be visible? If you are seen then they will know that someone or something is on the Moon." Ted interjected.

"With the Moon between Earth and the probe we will both be unseen. If I have to explode it then it can be written off as a meteor strike. If I disable it then they will assume that it just failed." Jake replied.

"If the Moon is obstructing their view then why not just capture it, reprogram it, and replace it?" Amy asked.

"Because that would take too long and it might be missed. With the satellites around Earth they were big enough for a shuttle to approach and they just seemed to go off-line for a period of time, but they were still there and could be detected from Earth" Jake explained.

"I want to know why the Russians have the capability to do an orbital launch without anyone knowing about it. If they can do that then they could just as easily launch a preemptive strike from space against any country" Sam said and Ted seemed to agree with her completely.

"AL can you scan the probe and see what type of instrumentation it has? Also, is this a new type of satellite for the Russians? It appears to have reached here very quickly, when was it launched?" John asked.

scanning . . . "The probe is not emitting any signals at this time, it is on the back side of the Moon. It was launched three days ago. Previous scans show that it is doing a photo scan on each pass." AL replied. "It appears to have been put together very quickly and transmits in a burst after every three passes." AL added.

After much discussion, it was decided to take Jake's idea and try it; AL had assured them that he could bring Jake back quickly if the need arose. They decided that the best time to do this would be when the probe went behind the Moon and while it was night time in the US.

When the time came, Jake had little problem gaining entry to the probe and disabling it. After he was finished he attached a small compressed air cylinder to it so that they could adjust it's orbit at a later time to make it "crash" so he could really go over it. Once he returned to the base, Jake gave a full report to the rest of the crew.

A few days later the probe crashed into the Moon. It was retrieved by a maintenance drone for dissection and study. It was found that the probe was indeed hastily constructed from spare parts; the reason for it's construction was still unknown.

During this time Kate and Sally had become more proficient in the operation of the fighters and shuttles; even Amy had spent more time in a shuttle. They all had been participating in the classes that Sam had setup for them. The only one of them that could come close to Sam's expertise was Ted, and he shot almost as well as Sam. In the self defense classes they progressed at a fair pace.

It had been about a week since they arrived and now came the question of how to extend their stay permanently. Sam and Ted would both be staying on base, but the rest wanted to move there as well. They didn't have much time left to answer this question.