Phil III
The Hanger
Current Update: 12/2/2005 7:05:15 AM
Sergeant Anderson said to the boys, “You need to process through security it’s the door to the right of the hanger,” he motioned to a sign that read, “SECURITY.” The Sergeant opens the door and they enter.
Processing consisted of fingerprinting; retinal imaging, and signing multiple documents, which described in detail all of the things that could happen to them if they blabbed anything. The surprise was the last process of the security check, “UGC Mental Scan.” Dan and Eddie met their first alien, a security officer for the UGC in an USAF uniform wearing a Colonel’s insignia. His nametag read Colonel Teiam.
Eddie said, “Hey dude you’re going to have to do something about those eyes. Wow! Three fingers.”
Sergeant Anderson said, “Gentlemen please show courtesy to the officer.”
“I’m sorry Sarge, said Eddie this is too weird. Can I start over?” “Please do quipped Anderson.” At this point Eddie pops to attention and gives the alien a salute. The alien returns the salute. Eddie was giggling under his breath at the three-finger salute when he heard a voice in his mind, “That’s better young man, now I will look into your psyche to test for talent and reliability.”
Eddie felt a sensation that he would later describe as a spider crawling around in his brain it was an eerie, but not unpleasant sensation. Dan had his turn with the same results except the alien officer remarked to Sergeant Anderson, “control capable,” in a muted raspy voice that sounded like a bad record.
Dan heard his dad’s voice somewhere in the dark cavern that was the hanger. The only thing he could see were camouflage tarps draped over dark aircraft size objects. Anderson guided them through the hanger till they could see an illuminated area. Phil’s voice was coming out of an opening in one of the tarps. Looking inside they could see Phil and two alien’s working on a round sphere with what looked to be bundles of fiber optics. Dan noticed that these aliens looked different they had smaller eyes. “Hi Dad,” said Dan. “What you doing trying to make this thing go through the roof?” “Yep!” Phil pointed up to a distant hole in the distant ceiling, you’re supposed to fly this out through that hole. “Think you can do it?”
“How much clearance do we have up there to get out?” Said Dan.
“Don’t sweat it you have a couple of inches.”
“You never make anything easy.”
“Come in and I’ll introduce you to my helpers, these are the two UGC pilots who will give you guys a check ride, come on in” Said Phil
.
The boys entered the hatch, they could see a well-organized space full of devices they didn’t understand, the sphere with the optic bundles was being attached to a mount by one of the two aliens. The other alien was looking at the boys with his tiny mouth contorted into what resembled a grin, an unnatural perhaps even painful grin. Eddie whispered under his breath to Dan, “I wonder
what he knows that we don’t?”
Phil gestured to the first alien and introduced him as Zpath and the other as Colmotdn. Colmotdn flashed the same fake contorted smile to the boys making them even more uncomfortable. The group moved up a ladder into the control cabin, they could see four seats facing what was obviously a control console. Eddie asked, “Where’s the windows.” “Don’t need any said Phil,” He threw a switch and the walls became transparent they could see everything in the hanger as if it were brightly illuminated. The whole cavern was filled with vehicles like the one they were in. “Wow! Where did all those come from?” Asked Eddie. It was then that Zpath spoke to the group using telepathy. “The other vehicles in this room belong to the UGC and are here by treaty with the USA. This vehicle belongs to USAF it is a test vehicle used to prove access to the Universal Matrix. The UGC upon successful completion of testing would then recognize your people as galactic citizens.
“Take your seats boys and we’ll fire up the artifice for static testing, he motioned to the seats in the cabin. We have the vehicle all ready now. ” Phil said as he finished installing the huge mounting bolts for the round sphere. The cabin had six seats four of them were much larger than the other two.
Eddie took a seat; Phil grinned and said, “Nope that’s the pilots seat you’re the co-pilot take the one to the right.” Eddie switched seats and started tinkering with the controls.
Phil said, “I wouldn’t do that you might splash us against the walls.”
Eddie let go of the controls as if he was snake bit he then sat in his seat and noticed an Ice Chest with a flip up lid bolted to the floor. Flipping up the spring-loaded lid he saw that it had sandwiches and beer. He could read the Budweiser label. “What the heck is this for? Asked Eddie.
“The aliens want us to duplicate everything that you guys were doing when you took off in my car. They believe that the alcohol might have had an effect in Dan’s mental link to the artifice. Which reminds me, “We have to have a serious talk about drinking and driving before you ever drive another of my cars.”
Eddie without asking picked up a bottle and handed it to Dan, “Party time old buddy.”
Dan retorted with, “Where’s the girls?”
Eddie grins and says, “We have to go somewhere in this new version of a 68 Buick, might as well go looking for the Slammers. Huh? Hey! Officer Zpath do you have one of those fancy beaming machines in here?”
Zpath telepathically talked to the group, “The matter dissimulator-assimilator-transporter is installed but it is still UGC technology.”
Eddie asks, “Can I use it?”
Zpath replies, “What for?”
Eddie says, “We might like to pick up some people to study up close.”
“That’s what we use it for, you can’t operate it but we will assist in transporting any biological samples or even solid objects. ” Replies Zpath.
Eddie, always the generous host, hands Phil a bottle of the brew. Phil declined, “remarking at least one of us needs to be fully functional; you guys might need to operate in an altered state. For this trip, I want to be wide-awake.”
Eddie then handed each of the two gray aliens a bottle of bud and was surprised when they accepted. Everyone had a drink; the aliens could barely fit the top of the bottle in their tiny mouths.
Phil pointing at what was obviously a control device in front of his seat said, “See the control pad on the console? Take the grips and I’ll turn on the simulator system and we will do a few practice takeoff’s” When the simulator was turned on by one of the aliens, Dan could see a vertical yellow beam of light that exited the round hole in the ceiling. What happens now is only a simulation so don’t get excited if you crash. You are supposed to intuitively learn how to control the spacecraft using the control system. Each finger provides an input function on the control pad.
Dan spent a few minutes crashing into the walls ceiling and other UGC saucers before he started to get the feel of the control system. It was awesome, you just had to move the control forward capture the beam and pop out the hole like the cork out of a champagne bottle. After exiting the hanger the simulator took him on a trip of the planet. He could navigate by following his position on a holographic globe that hovered over the control console. At high altitude the moon and near planets became visible at low altitudes he could see surface geographic features, mountains, deserts, rivers, and cities were indicated.
Dan asked, “What’s the range of this vehicle?”
Zpath answered, “It should function properly until the next maintenance cycle in approximately three hundred earth years. In inter-dimensional mode it can travel anywhere in the known universe. Expand your navigation range to get the feel of long distance travel.”
Dan experimented with the controls until he could zoom the navigation range. He found Luna and saw some text data pop up in the display it read 25.00321 M2O. “What’s that mean Dan asked? “
“Minutes to orbit, was the answer.”
“He’s trained, It’s time to take the vehicle into flight” Said Colmotdn telepathically.
William W. Brownson
http://starshipalpha.com
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