Prologue
Space Station Dragon Star, a silver sphere with docking ports and sensory arrays, hung in the darkness of space.
Nine small satellites orbited the station. Each designed to cancel out electromagnetic waves emitted by the station, making it invisible to anyone or anything more than two kilometers away. The station was located in a small, dead star solar system, far from the normal trade routes and outside any League or Terran jurisdictions. It was not listed on any official maps and its survival depended on its privacy. The only way to find it was by knowing the single radio frequency emitted by the satellites, a homing beacon. The station’s source of income was highly illegal scientific research.
Inside the station, near Docking Port 16, two human figures in dark blue security uniforms, complete with lowered helmet visors, moved quietly and quickly toward an air lock connecting with a small, red ship. The smaller of the two carried a bundle wrapped in soft, brown fabric. The other figure stopped, checked to see if they were being followed, and punched in the code to open the air lock. They moved quickly through the ship’s entrance and to the pilot’s and copilot’s seats.
As they sat, the smaller one, placed the bundle gently on the floor between them, and ran her eyes over the console. Pressing two of the communications system’s buttons, she connected with the station’s intercom system.
“Hurry!” she said. “They’ve sounded a yellow alert on level 3. They must know we’ve escaped.”
The small space ship disengaged its magnetic docking anchors and left the space station, moving immediately to maximum acceleration. It required five minutes of warm-up time before it could shift to faster-than-light speeds.
Within seconds, alarms went off in the station’s two defense systems, which had been used in drills, but never in real combat. Lasers and force field shielding were in one section and missiles were in another. The two systems had been deliberately designed to be autonomous, with entirely different crews operating them. Both sections followed the instructions of a single tactical commander, who was currently racing toward his office and yelling into his wrist communicator, “Destroy that ship!”
Both sections obeyed his orders. Two missiles, one after the other, and a laser beam immediately followed the path of the ship.
They took evasive action. The ship swung to the left with the laser trailing behind it. In the process, the laser sliced into the lead missile. Shrapnel from the explosion detonated the second missile and gave them chance for escape.
With the laser beam following, they flew behind one of the cloaking satellites. The station vanished from their screens as they passed the satellite. The laser sheared the cloaking satellite in half, causing the station to suddenly reappear on their screens, and continued to follow them.
Inside the station, two more missiles were being prepared for launch. The tactical commander, now in his office and watching the developments on his holoscreen, roared his frustration, slamming his fist on the desk.
“Cease laser fire and shoot off two more missiles!” he bellowed.
The laser ceased and the ship’s pilot crossed his fingers, looking at the station through the rearview screen. He held his breath, anticipating. They had gotten this far on a fifty/fifty ratio of intelligence and luck, not having known about the laser defense system. The next few minutes would determine if their escape plan would work.
In the missile room the gunnery officer followed his orders. The first missile fired, but the second one seized and began its detonation sequence. A technician ran towards the missile, hoping there was still time. There wasn’t.
The missile had been sabotaged. It sat in its launching armature, one of twenty missiles lined up for rapid fire, machine gun style. The technician’s eyes widened and tracked down the row of deadly cylinders as he realized if this missile exploded it would set off the other nineteen. His second realization was he was too late to stop the detonation. Whoever had sabotaged the missile system knew the station’s crew had gotten into the sloppy habit of checking only the first three missiles during the daily reoccurring maintenance schedule.
Seconds later the space station exploded, a brilliant flash of red and yellow light against the background of black space and pinpoint stars.
Inside the small ship the bundle began to cry. The copilot pulled off her helmet, exposing the face of an attractive woman with curly, blonde hair. She lifted a dark-haired baby from the brown fabric and held it in her arms. The pilot glanced at the woman and child. The glance became a look. With a deliberate snap of his head, the pilot refocused on the rearview screen and the control panels. The single remaining missile was closing in fast.
The small red ship began moving in an ever-enlarging spiral as they had originally planned. The missile followed, gaining on them faster than they had expected. The small ship shifted course suddenly, heading back towards the debris of the station and passing through the empty center where the explosion had occurred.
Deep inside the missile, its magnetic brain became confused and distracted. One of its subprograms would not allow it to aim for the space station. Additional confusion was created by the lack of a cohesive space station form. The space station existed in a form the missile’s brain could not comprehend. Question marks appeared on its viewscreen and it overlayed an outline of the station where it should have been located. Rather then hitting the station, the subprogram initiated a self-destruct sequence.
The missile exploded.
The pilot pulled off his visored helmet to show a light skinned face, with a thick, blond beard and short, blond hair. A few moments later he allowed his shoulders to sag, the adrenaline rush used up and exhaustion setting in. Now he could allow himself to relax. In spite of some unexpected surprises, their plan of leading the missiles back through the debris of the station had worked. They had escaped.
The woman held their black-haired, six month old son, Christopher, her arms wrapped around him protectively. Her green eyes sparkled, and she felt an overwhelming sense of relief. They were safe. Their son would have a normal life and so would they. She placed her hand on her husband’s thigh.
“We made it,” she said.
He looked at her and smiled.
Edward and Laura Black were both astonished they had escaped and survived. Now, they could return home to Mars and pick up their lives. It had been nearly fifteen months since their kidnapping, and Laura’s forced pregnancy. Their escape had not been as much of a risk as complacency would have been. If they had not escaped, they would have faced a scheduled execution, and their son would have had to endure any number of experimental procedures as a human guinea pig.
Edward felt no guilt about blowing up the station. It had been a “them or us” situation and, like most husbands and fathers, he would do whatever it took to protect his family. He could rationalize away any guilt with the knowledge the people on that station would never again kidnap innocent people and force them into slavery as human experiments.
Edward and Laura wanted their black-haired, dark-eyed child to grow up a free man. They had risked their lives, and his, in a desperate and successful escape attempt. Edward set their course for Mars, brought up the force field, shifted to “fatal” speeds, and slumped back into his seat to relax and appreciate the moment.
The year was 2297.