The Plight of the Bumblebee: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“Oh boy,” Joe muttered, as the Starmen raced back to the Red Tiger. “This day just keeps getting stranger.”

“I don’t understand it,” Mark said thoughtfully. “Why would the drone ignore a direct order and evacuate the space station with the data core? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“All I know,” Zip said, “is that if we don’t catch him we’re going to have a huge problem on our hands. I don’t even want to think about what evacuating this station would mean.”

The three Starmen weaved their way through the pandemonium inside the darkened space station and made it to their hangar.

“Of all the rotten luck,” Joe said as they boarded their shuttle and prepared to leave. “Do you realize that if the hangars were without power the drone would never have been able to leave? And just how are we supposed to find the drone once we get into space, anyway?”

“We’ll just have to do the best we can,” Zip said.

Joe sent the signal to open the hangar doors. Once they opened he blasted the shuttle into space, and then had to immediately slow it down.

“Watch it!” Mark yelled, as a massive space freighter loomed their way. Joe turned the shuttle away just in time and desperately tried to cut down his speed.

“What a mess!” he muttered as his hands worked the controls. “Everyone depends on the space station for flight control information. Now that nobody has it everyone is flying blind. It’s all I can do to keep from hitting something.” Joe carefully weaved the ship through the massive traffic jam. He was a good enough pilot to avoid collisions but they weren’t making very good time.

“Of course,” Joe said after a brief pause, “we still have our original problem. How are we going to find out what ship the drone took?”

“Call up the space station and ask them,” Zip said. “Even if their computers are down there has to be someone there who knows what ship was in that hangar. Once we know its transponder number we should be able to track it.”

While Joe tried to keep the ship from being destroyed in a collision Mark attempted to raise the station. Several minutes went by before he was able to get someone to answer his call, and it was ten minutes after that before Mark was finally given the information he wanted.

“This is the one you want to track,” Mark said as he typed some information into the shuttle’s console. “It’s not a very fast ship so we should be able to catch up with it.” The computer recognized the tracking information and brought it up on their overhead display.

By this time Joe had piloted the Red Tiger beyond the immediate vicinity of L5. He looked at the dot on his overhead display and plotted its course. “It appears to be headed for Earth,” he said after a few minutes. “If he keeps on his current course he’s going to land somewhere on the East Coast of the United States.”

“Can you arrange to be there when the ship lands?” Zip asked.

“I think so,” Joe said. “He’s gotten a good head-start but we should be able to make up the time.” Joe entered an intercept course into the ship’s computer and then settled back into his chair.

“We really should call Richard,” Zip said. “I’m sure he’s got to be wondering what is going on and we did promise to let him know as soon as we knew something.”

“Do we know what is going on?” Mark asked. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Well,” Joe said, “we can always tell him that Xenobots have invaded the L5 space station and are trying to destroy the Earth’s oceans, and that we’ve got to stop them before it’s too late!”

“Uh-huh,” Zip said skeptically. “What about the drone?”

“It could be a part of their evil plot!” Joe said, warming to the idea. “They’re forcing everyone to evacuate the base so that they can have it all to themselves.”

“Or not,” Zip replied.

“Or not,” Joe agreed.

“I think the problem is tied to their new drone system,” Mark said thoughtfully. “Maybe the addition of the drones hasn’t gone as well as they thought, and the computer has been doing strange things because it just can’t handle them. The fact that the drone just headed off into space after being told to repair the data core sounds like a piece of defective equipment to me. That could explain the whole mess.”

“Sounds good,” Zip said. “Let’s contact Richard and fill him in. If we can’t retrieve the data core in time then I’m sure SE’s help will be needed to evacuate the station.”

“We’ll get back,” Joe said confidently. “After all, what could happen?”

* * * *

Fifty minutes after leaving L5 Joe Taylor landed the Red Tiger in a small, grassy field. The drone had chosen a small town on the eastern shore of New Jersey as its landing site and Joe arranged for them to be there well before the drone touched down.

“We should have no trouble intercepting the drone and retrieving the data core,” Zip remarked as they stepped out of the shuttle.

“We just have to make sure we don’t damage it any further when we’re retrieving it,” Mark warned.

“We don’t want to make things even worse than they already are. We only have three hours before the station has to be evacuated, you know.”

“Hey there!” someone behind them shouted. They turned around and saw an agitated old man hurrying their way. “What do you think you’re doing there, landing this flying piece of junk in my field?” he asked, brandishing his cane at them.

Zip took a step backwards, surprised. “It’s an emergency,” he said. “A robot has stolen the data core from the L5 space station, and we need to retrieve it before the whole station has to be evacuated. We don’t have much time.”

“A likely story!” he roared. “Runaway robot indeed. Do you guys think you’re Starmen or something? Now you listen here: you get that ship out of my field or I’ll have you all arrested for trespassing and vandalism!”

In the distance, the Starmen saw the ship they had been tracking make a low pass over the city. It was coming in for a landing. Zip realized that the Starmen didn’t have any time to waste if they wanted to catch it before it escaped again.

“I’m sorry,” Zip said, “but we don’t have the time to move the ship right now! We’ve got to go, but we’ll remove the ship as soon as we can.”

“You bet you will!” the old man yelled as the Starmen ran off into the distance. He picked up his cell phone and began making calls. “Young people these days,” he muttered. “What’s the world coming to?”

* * * *

The three Starmen raced down the street, heading roughly in the direction where they saw the drone’s ship land.

“I thought he was going to land nearby,” Mark said.

“I guess he changed his mind,” Joe replied. “I sure wish we had brought our red Starman suits. Zip, are you sure that there weren’t any in the shuttle?”

“Definitely,” Zip said. “I wasn’t exactly planning on making a trip to Earth today.”

Joe took out his compad and activated its tracking function. He soon found the drone’s shuttle – a half-mile away. “We’d better hurry,” Joe said. “If it gets out of sight we’ll never find it.”

The Starmen were able to reach the site within five minutes but found it abandoned. A quick search of the ship turned up nothing. Small tire tracks led from the ship to the road but after that there was no further sign.

“So, what do we do now?” Zip asked.

“I can’t get a fix on the droid on my compad,” Joe said sadly. “It’s a small metal object and there are all kinds of those around here.”

“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Mark said. “Maybe someone saw it go by.”

“I suppose we could start asking around,” Zip replied. “Which way should we go?”

Joe thought a moment. “Well, the tracks lead to the road, and there’s only one road around here. We took the same road here and it didn’t pass us, so it must have gone the other way.”

“Sounds good,” Zip said. “Let’s get going.”

As the Starmen jogged down the road they saw a red-haired lad coming toward them, riding on a bicycle.

“Hey there!” Joe called out. “You haven’t passed any robots, have you?”

The lad eyed them curiously, said nothing, and pedaled harder. He was soon out of sight.

“He ignored me!” Joe said indignantly.

“Maybe he thought you were crazy,” Mark said helpfully. “How many people do you think come out this way looking for runaway robots?”

“Thousands, I bet,” Joe replied. “Maybe this is where the drone came from. Maybe this is its long-lost home. Maybe it’s returning to the halls of its ancestors.”

“There just doesn’t appear to be anything out here at all,” Zip said. “We’ve jogged for nearly ten minutes and haven’t seen anything but countryside. Does anyone even live out here?”

After a few more minutes they came upon a small country village. The Starmen saw a handful of old houses, a few run-down stores, and a decrepit train station. A few people were milling around, going about their business.

“Excuse me, miss,” Mark said to one lady who had just stepped out of a nearby store with a package in her arms. “Have you seen any robots walk this way?”

The lady eyed him oddly. “No, young man, I have not, nor have I seen any elves or dwarves. If I do, though, you’ll be the first to now.” With that, she hurried off down the street.

“This is not going well,” Joe remarked, after that same question elicited similar responses from everyone else in sight. “You’d think they’d never seen a runaway robot before.”

“Let’s try the train station,” Zip said. “Maybe the drone’s on his way somewhere else.”

“They why not fly there?” Joe asked reasonably. “Why stop here and then take the train to his final destination?”

“Maybe you can’t fly to where he is going,” Zip said mysteriously.

* * * *

The tiny train station was composed of a single wooden building that sat beside a high-speed railway. “I bet not many trains stop at this station,” Mark said. “This doesn’t look like a major metropolitan area to me.”

To their surprise, as they stepped onto the platform they saw that there was already a small high-speed train sitting at the station. “Look!” Joe shouted, pointing. The three of them just caught a glimpse of the drone boarding the train!

The three Starmen raced after it, only to be stopped at the door of the train by a conductor. “Tickets, please,” he said.

“It’s an emergency!” Zip said. “A robot just boarded that train with a data core that it stole from the L5 space station an hour ago. We’ve got to recover it before the station has to be evacuated! We don’t want to ride the train – we just want to get our robot back!”

“Tickets, please” the conductor said calmly.

“A robot just boarded your train,” Joe said in a strained voice. “Didn’t you notice?”

“The robot had a ticket,” the conductor said, “which is something you seem to lack.”

“It’s an emergency,” Joe repeated.

“It always is,” the conductor said calmly.

Zip sighed. “Just go buy three tickets,” he told Joe, “and hurry.”

* * * *

Joe sped off to the ticket booth in a sprint and was thankful (though not surprised) that there was no one in line.

“I’d like three tickets,” he told the lady inside the ticket booth.

“Where would you like to go?” she asked him.

“I don’t care. I just want three tickets for that train that’s about to leave any second with a robot on board.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you three tickets with no destination. You have to tell me where you want to go.”

Joe sighed. “Fine. Give us three tickets to the Aquapolis.”

The lady typed at her computer for a minute. “I’m sorry, but this train doesn’t go there. The nearest train that stops at the Aquapolis is 40 miles from here.”

“Oh. So where does this train go?”

“Just about anywhere. I don’t know exactly; I’ve never taken it.”

“Ok,” Joe said slowly, then he got an idea. “A few minutes ago a robot purchased a ticket from this ticket booth. Where did it want to go?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t see any robots. They don’t often take this train.”

Joe noticed that two people were now in line behind him. “What is the name of this town?”

“Sharps Chapel,” she replied.

“Ok, I’ll take three tickets to Sharps Chapel. Can you do that?”

“I suppose,” she said, surprised. She typed away at her computer. “Ok, that will be $89.72.”

Joe opened up his wallet and took out his SmartCard. “Here,” he said, handing it to her.

“I’m sorry, but we only take cash.”

“Cash!” Joe said, surprised. “Do they still have that?”

“The sign says cash only,” the lady said, pointing to a faded, illegible sign that was posted on the ticket window. “That will be $89.72.”

The line behind Joe had grown larger and the people were starting to grumble. “Are you going to pay the lady or not?” the person directly behind him said. “We don’t have all day!”

“ZIP!” Joe yelled.

Zip came sprinting over. “The train is about to leave!” Zip said. “What’s taking so long?”

“We have fallen among philistines who will only accept cash. You don’t happen to have $89.72 on you, do you?”

Zip shook his head, took out his wallet, and handed a $100 bill to the ticket master without saying a word. She calmly took it, gave Zip his change, and handed him his tickets. “Enjoy your trip. Next!”

Zip and Joe sprinted over to the conductor. “Sharps Chapel!” Zip said in surprise, looking at the destination printed on his tickets. “Where’s that?”

Joe sighed. “Don’t ask.”

Zip handed the tickets to the conductor and then the three of them boarded the train. The conductor gave out one final “All aboard!” and then the train began to pull out from the station.