Ben writes an action packed chapter as the JFSA Olympics goes into space for the war games. We also lose one member of the crew of the Lady Lex, as death hits the Olympics. Read on for an exciting and suspenseful chapter.
The Boys of Lady Lex Chapter 52 "Honor Among Thieves" Written By Douglas DD and Benjamin T. C.
Matt finished packing. It has been a hard morning saying goodbye to a boy for whom he had hopelessly fallen in love. But now he was heading back to be with his father. He wished that he could stay for the remainder of the Olympics, but his father needed him.
After he was through packing, he picked up his gear and open the door to his hotel room. Matt's face turned white as a ghost and his heart stopped. There standing in front of him was someone he wasn't expecting to see, or ever wanted to see again.
"Good morning Matt," said Jake Masters with a sinister grin.
Captain Hatcher sat at the head of the conference table looking at his senior cadet officers. Even though Johnny Cooper was not there because he was stripped of his rank and authority, he was still listening to the meeting. Trevor secretly was carrying a listening transmitter so Johnny could hear what was going on from his quarters.
"I know what the standings are down on the planet and I know what you all did to earn your place in those standings, however this afternoon we are going to embark on a mission that will push everyone on this ship beyond their limits, thus setting new limits. There won't be much sleep, if any, over the next four days. We have the Mother Ship's Battle Competition and the Capture the Flag event," said Captain Hatcher. He continued, "Unlike hockey, baseball and the other team sports, these are single elimination events. We lose, we are out. The more times we win, the more points we earn. In order to stay alive in the Olympics and come out on top, we have to take first place in one of the events and finish no less then third place in the other event."
"It's a piece of cake," said Trevor confidently.
"Not so quick Ensign Collins. These ships and shuttles we will be facing are in better condition, have more recent technology, and more experience cadets in them. It's not going to be easy to place, but just because it's not easy doesn't mean it is impossible. Now, this afternoon we have two capture-of-the-flag events. The first one is against the Monitor'. If we lose against the Monitor', there will be no second game."
"Who do we play when we win?" asked Trevor.
"The winner of the Kritons and Port Royal', but let's not worry about them for now. Let's concentrate on the Monito'r."
After the meeting, all the shuttle crews went to their designated shuttles to start doing preflight checks.
"You saw the way he fights with a sword. He is a coward and a weakling. He will be a weak link, one we can't afford," said Spencer Harris who was getting all hot headed.
"Condor, I am in charge of the `Raptor's' mission and therefore I say Brian takes my job as Science Officer," insisted Trevor Collins.
"Let me get this straight. You are in charge of the Raptor's' missions, but I am in charge of the Raptor', correct?"
"Yes."
"Then I get to chose who will take over the science officer position."
Trevor felt his temper raising. He was in charge here, not Spencer, but he remembered something Douglas told him not so long ago. There is a difference between being boss and being bossy. So Trevor stopped to listen to see who Spencer had in mind. "Who then?"
"Stan Lewis."
"Stan Lewis? That freak? He is a geek, a dork, a nerd. He has no right to be a Bird of Prey." Trevor was livid.
"He knows his way around a shuttle. A lot better then that wuss. I want Stan."
Trevor thought for a minute. He hated to admit that Spencer was right. Stan definitely knew his way around a shuttle a lot better then Brian. Even though Stan was a total geek, he didn't show nearly as much fear as Brian had in the past. But he didn't like the idea of giving in. He thought it made him look weak. But something deep within his mind told him that the "Rapto"r was going to need Stan on this mission. So he gave in.
Ben sat in the pilot's seat, waiting patiently. He was eager to get started. They had arrived at the starting point for the first round of capture-the-flag. He looked out his window and saw some other shuttles standing by as well.
There were a total of five wings in their squadron with four shuttles each in four of the wings and a lone craft in its own wing. Ben knew he had decent pilots in his wing. He had the Buford, the Caulfield and the Fagin. Another powerhouse wing was known as the Musketeers. It consisted of the "D'Artagnan", "Aramis", "Athos", and "Porthos".
Suddenly a steady beeping could be heard over the communications system. It was the radio beacon of their flag. It had been activated. Douglas ordered that channel shut off to quiet the noise. The game of the capture-the-flag had begun.
Ben slipped the Wonder Boy into gear and, leading his wing along with the lone wing shuttle, headed out into deep space, hoping to track the Monitor's Beacon Flag. The Musketeer Wing and the Red Wing which consisted of the "Moonduster", "Cape Crippleshaw", "Gandolph" and "Voldmermort" took off in the direction that had been given to them during flight briefing moments before heading to the starting point. The Green Wing, consisting of the "Sherlock Holmes," "Medea", "Sinbad" and "Hari Seldon" stayed behind to protect their own beacon flag.
"Nipper, send a coded message to the other shuttles in our wing telling them to split off on my command," ordered Douglas; calm, cool and collected.
"Aye Sir," said Nipper as he sent the message from his science station.
Trevor kept eyeing Stan. He noticed that Stan seemed to be uneasy and beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. He kept looking at his watch and seemed to be on the edge of something. But what?
"A message is coming in from the `Wonder Boy'. Standby to split off from formation," said Stan, who felt a sense of relief. He wanted to get far away from the "Wonder Boy" as possible. He knew there wasn't much time, but there was no way he could tell his shuttle commander.
"That's for the others, not for us," said Trevor.
"Sir?" Stan didn't like the sound of that.
"We are sticking close to the `Wonder Boy' to help hide us. Once we get a little closer, we will break away."
Stan quickly looked at his watch. Time was running out. If they didn't get away soon, the "Wonder Boy" would collide with the "Raptor".
"Commander, I'm picking up two enemy vessels," said Andrew sitting at his weapon's station.
"Have they picked us up yet?"
"No, Sir. Their pattern is going around us."
Douglas looked at his command board. "SHIT!!! Nipper, tell the Raptor to break off immediately and go to plan three immediately. Ben, the Monitor's shuttles are forming a Sintar Web, I can tell by the look of those two shuttles pattern.
"Hang on," said Ben as he brought the "Wonder Boy" around fast and furious. Ben could see the "Raptor" slipping into hyper drive and breaking away from them. Ben then slipped the "Wonder Boy" into hyper drive.
"Ben, you will need to do..." Douglas stopped in mid sentence when the "Wonder Boy" started to turn in the opposite direction and head towards the way the "Raptor" went. "Ben, where are you going?"
"I wish I knew. I lost control of the shuttle. She's flying herself."
"I am locked out too," said Jesse, frantically working the engineering controls.
"Son of Bitch, not again," Douglas cursed under his breath.
"We seem to be tracking the `Raptor' and gaining speed on it. If we keep this up, we will collide with them in 3.7 minutes," said Andrew.
The crew of the "Wonder Boy" began working on the problem, trying to find a way to break free of the "Raptor". They just hoped they had enough time and resources.
"Condor, we have a ship hot on our ass," said Dylan the Phoenix, sitting at the weapons station.
"How? There was no shuttle close enough to be on our ass this soon," said Spencer the Condor.
"It's the `Wonder Boy'," Phoenix replied.
"'Wonder Boy'?" said Trevor in disbelief.
"They're gaining on us. If we don't shake them, they will collide right into us in 2. 3 minutes."
The "Wonder Boy" zigged, zagged, and whipped around as it closed in on the Raptor. All of the boys on the "Raptor" were working frantically, trying to come up with a way to break free. But everything was frozen. Then suddenly the "Wonder Boy" broke free as the Raptor broke off and went into the opposite direction.
But before Ben could do anything, they were fired upon by two shuttles from the "Monitor". The "Wonder Boy" fell silent as she took two fatal direct hits.
Stan let out a deep breath of relief. In less the twenty seconds they would have collided with another shuttle in hyper drive and the outcome would not have been pretty. That's twice now that his life was in jeopardy from something when he was told that he would be safe.
"The `Wonder Boy' broke off," said Stan.
"They got hit by the `Monitor shuttles'," said Phoenix as he eased the "Raptor" down, ensuring that they didn't encounter any enemies.
"Set a course for Plan 3 and be on alert," said Trevor. "Stan, how did we end up breaking free from them?"
"I don't know, Ensign. They must have done it themselves."
Ian, who was sitting at his engineering station, shot a confused glare at Stan. How could he not know how the "Wonder Boy" broke free? According to Ian's sensors, a signal was emitted from Stan's science station to the "Wonder Boy". And within seconds the "Wonder Boy" broke off. Ian immediately, out of instinct, started to analyze the signal that was emitted.
"Ensign Collins, I am getting a warning light on the warp drive coupler," said Ian.
Trevor walked over to Ian's station. He knew something was wrong when Ian called him Ensign Collins. And it was confirmed when Ian addressed the problem to him and not to Spencer who was in charge of the "Raptor".
Ian looked up from his station into the makeup covered ensign. All the boys were wearing their Birds of Prey masquerade except for Stan. Even though he was flying with the Birds of Prey, he was not officially declared a Bird of Prey. Besides, it was beneath Stan to wear such ridiculous outfits.
Trevor looked at Ian's engineering panel. Trevor looked at Ian in disbelief. "You sure?"
"Yes," said Ian.
"I need answers and I need them now," barked Douglas. "I want to know what caused that to happen."
"Douglas, the shuttle's sensors picked up a transmission that was sent just right before we separated from the `Raptor'," said Nipper.
"What kind of transmission?"
"I'm not quite sure. But it appears to have come from the `Raptor'."
"Keep looking into it, we need to find out what happened."
"Alright Stan, you better start explaining yourself," ordered Trevor.
"About what?" Stan immediately got defensive.
"You know fuck'n what. You sent a transmission to the Wonder Boy' to deactivate a device on board. The same kind of device that almost caused the Wonder Boy' to collide with the `Lexington' a few months ago."
All eyes were on Stan-even Spencer's eyes. As much as he hoped Trevor was wrong, the one thing he knew about Trevor was that he never lied.
Stan's hand was slowly making its way to underneath his seat. "A device? Really." Stan was nervous and shaking some. His voice was quivering. "
"You've been the saboteur all along, haven't you? You planted the devices on the Raptor' during the secret mission and the first Wonder Boy' incident. Why were you trying to get us all killed. What did you think you were tying to prove?"
Stan found what he was looking for. He gripped on to it and pulled it out as he stood up. Trevor was looking at the front end of a phaser pistol.
"You should have been happy with the fact we broke free and then went on with this stupid game, which you guys will lose anyway."
"What are you going to do, shoot me?" asked Trevor, showing no fear.
"If I have too, I will. But I will spare all of your lives for the time being. Everyone get into your space walking suits."
"Stan, put the gun down," said Trevor.
"I don't want to kill you. That's why I will just eject all of you into space so I can get away. You will have plenty of oxygen until someone finds you and picks you up." Stan's voice was shaking as much as his hands.
"Why did you do it?"
"I'll tell you why. All of you are losers and don't belong in Sol Force. All of us had to work hard to earn the grades that got us into Sol Force. We had to have stainless records to get in. Then a bunch of low life juvenile delinquents gets in because they were on the opposite end of the spectrum. That's not right. You guys don't belong here."
"You son of a bitch. You working with anyone?" Trevor saw that Dylan and Chandler were slowly making their way to their weapons as Trevor held Stan's attention.
"It doesn't matter who I was working with. What matters is that you guys don't belong here. It's over for all of you. There is no possible way for you to win this Olympics. Now get in those suits."
"We're not getting into anything," said Spencer.
Stan turned around and saw that while he was focused on Trev, three other Birds of Prey managed to surround him with weapons of their own.
"Put the weapon down, Stan. It's over," said Trev.
"Ah fuck it," said Stan. He turned the weapon upon himself and fired. The weapon skipped across the deck bumping into Trevor's feet. Everyone stood there in silence as Stan's lifeless body went thud on the cold, hard deck plates of the "Raptor".
"Douglas, the Monitor's' beacon was detected by the Gandolph', but they were just put out of commission," said Nipper as he monitored the games while the others worked on the "Wonder Boy".
"How many shuttles do we have left?"
"The Musketeer Wing is still intact. But everyone else is out."
"Even the `Raptor'?" asked Ben who stuck his head out from underneath his station.
"I don't know. I lost them. So they probably went stealth or something."
"I hope they are able to pull this off."
Ben put his head back under his station. He pushed some cables aside and found the culprit. "I found it. Someone planted one of those deadly boxes again," said Ben.
"Scottie and Jesse took over Ben's spot and worked together to remove it without causing any further damage.
Ian had tears running down his cheeks. Everyone else was stunned. They weren't sure what to do. They never expected to lose a life in a game. But then Dylan broke the silence. "Um...the `Monitor' beacon was located."
Spencer looked at his command panel. Trevor, not taking his eyes off of Stan's dead eyes, walked over to Spencer's chair and looked at the panel too.
Spencer looked up at Trevor. "Orders?"
"Send in the Musketeers."
"Enter!" mumbled Captain Hatcher as he sat at his desk in his ready room. The door opened and in walked Ely, Zjan-Ren, Creevey and Kalon Masters. "Well?"
"All other shuttles have been cleared," said Kalon.
"We found some evidence that Stan was the saboteur," said Zjan-Ren. "He's been communicating with someone on a coded channel. But we haven't been able to find out who it is yet."
"How are the boys?" asked Hatcher.
"A little shaken up," said Commander Creevey. "Chaplain Kyle and Dr. Daniels are with the boys now.
"What's the mood on the ship?" asked Hatcher.
"With the exception of the boys from the Raptor', no one knows what happened out there," said Ely. "So spirits are high since the Musketeers captured the flag and we won the first round. Now the boys of the Wonder Bo'y suspect something is up, especially since they found the device that caused all of this to happen. But we have them quarantined from the rest of the crew until we figure out what to tell everyone."
"Commander, muster the cadets in the hangar in fifteen minutes. I want to address them."
"What are you going to tell them?"
"I don't know."
The hanger was filled with excited energy. Everyone was proud of the Musketeer wing for capturing the flag. There still was hope left for winning the games. Now they had to compete against the Kritons. They figured this was why Captain Hatcher was calling an all-hands on deck. Everyone knew that beating the Kritons wouldn't be easy, especially since they beat the "Port Royal" as if it was were nonexistent. The members of the Birds of Prey and the "Wonder Boy" stood together in a somber mood, not sharing the joy that the other cadets were having.
"Attention on deck!!!" was bellowed through the hanger as Captain Hatcher came up front. Everyone stood proud, tall and silent.
"At ease," said Hatcher. "During this last event, there was an accident onboard the `Rapto'r. Cadet Stan Lewis was killed." There were some gasps and sounds of shock in the hanger. "Although you guys have proved yourself ten fold over, I can not risk the lives of anymore cadets. It's not worth the risk."
"In all due respect Sir, Bullshit!!!" said an all too familiar, thorn in the side, voice from the back. Everyone mumbled at the sound of it. Up through the ranks walked Johnny Cooper who was standing in back next to Trevor Collins.
"I see what you're doing Captain."
"Mr. Cooper, not now."
"Captain, tell them the truth. These cadets deserve the truth."
"Mr. Cooper..."
"There was no accident on the `Raptor'. Stan Lewis killed himself." The cadets started to mumble among themselves. "Captain, I know you are trying to protect what honor Stan Lewis had, but you forget one thing; there is no honor among thieves." Johnny spread open his hands and arms pointing to the crew. "And that is what Stan Lewis was. A thief. He tried to take the one thing you tried to give us. And that was hope. If we quit now then Stan has accomplished what he set out to do. And we can't have that. We can't let them win. Captain, it's that hope you give us that makes every risk worth taking. You're right, something else could happen and cost the life of one of us, but I am willing to take that risk."
"Mr. Cooper, I admire your courage, but could you lead a group of cadets into danger where some of them might not come out alive? There could be more saboteurs or traps for us. Many people don't want us to win and they will stop at nothing. Could you live with yourself knowing that you lead cadets to their graves?"
"Are you asking me or are you asking yourself that, Captain?"
Captain Hatcher didn't say a word. He knew the answer. He admired how Johnny was handling himself. He was speaking the truth with the utmost respect. He was handling the situation as a leader as a...commanding officer. He looked over the 200 faces in front of them. All of them young and had barely begun to live yet. He knew that the chances of another sabotage incident was slim, but there was that possibility. It was time to make a choice that only a Captain could make. He knew if the cause was worthwhile, then the decision was easy to make, but was this cause worth it anymore? He knew the answer in his heart, but he had to speak the answer of his brain.
"Johnny, it's over. We gave it a good fight. It's time to throw in the towel before another life is taken from us. Next time it could be 10, 20, 100 lives. I'm sorry, but the games are over for us."
"Captain, you can't do this to us. We need to finish this fight; the one you started when you dragged us here to begin with. We need to stop being afraid and do what we have to do. Even if we don't win the Olympics we can at least go back to jail knowing we gave a good fight and we didn't give up. But we can't even do that if you throw in the towel. Please Captain, I beg you, give us that chance."
Captain Hatcher looked over the group. They had come such a long ways in a short period of time. Each one of them a little older and a little wiser than when they first came aboard. Hatcher knew that there were always dangers out there, but the dangers that could possibly lurk out there that could take lives could avoided.
"We will be fighting not only the games, but the dangers that people planted who want to see us fail. These dangers could take the any of your lives at any given time because we do not know where, when, or what they are. So anyone wishing to go back to the planet until their safety is guaranteed may leave at this time with no consequences."
The room was thick with silence. Everyone looking around to see if anyone was going to leave. But no one moved. The doors to the hanger remained closed. Everyone stood there, ready to face something that could have grave consequences.
"What's everyone standing around for? We have a Kriton Flag to capture," said Hatcher in a gruff tone. The silence was flooded by cheers and commotion as the boys filtered through the hanger doors heading to their battle stations. The squadron was to depart in 30 minutes.
Todd entered Rich's quarters. Rich was lying on his bed glowing from the victory over the "Gettysburg". And Rich knew that soon he would be glowing ever more when they took the victory away from the "Oriskanee" later that day.
"I just got word from our people back on the planet. Still no sign of him," said Todd.
"Don't sound so worried. He probably got wasted last night and ended up in a gutter. He'll show up."
"I don't know, Rich. This isn't like him."
"Relax, he'll show up in the most unexpected place as usual."
Jake Masters parked his stolen van in a garage. Soon, the two boys were pushed into a cramped small living quarters with two beds. The room had no windows and a single door.
"Okay boys, make yourself comfortable while I go send a couple of messages to your fathers," said Jake as he untied both boys. Jake ignored the babble they projected and proceeded to lock the door behind him leaving the two boys by themselves.
"You ok?" asked Matt.
"Yeah, you?"
"Yeah. Now we have to figure a way to get out of here."
Both boys began looking for a way to escape.
Admiral Whitaker sat at his desk looking at the message that just came across his computer. He pierced his lips together, trying to hold back his rage. Then on a classified system he sent an encrypted message.
Myrna, I need to hire one of your boys. I am told this Dorian Foxx is the best. I will pay whatever he wants to track down and kill Jake Masters and rescue my son from his evil clutches. -PW
To Be Continued...