Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 (15 page)

Chapter 13

"…What've you got for me, Mike?" Crash asked Anders some time later, as both men broke for a quick bite to eat.

"Well, lessee," Anders mulled, as he bit into a bologna sandwich. "The few signals I got all seem to indicate some sort of a planetary survey. The LGMs have surveyed sectors C-4 through F-10, and H-12 through M-20 in three consecutive transmissions. I have no idea where on the planet those sectors are, though; no reference points are given in the broadcasts at all."

"Hm," Crash mused, taking in the information and considering it. "You got an orbit for me yet?"

Anders grimaced his displeasure. "Yeah, but it's not very good," he admitted in annoyance. "I don't have enough observations to refine it at all."

"And?"

"It's polar," Anders told him. "Here's the plot on a map, as near as I can make it."

Crash took the crude ground track Anders handed him and studied it. "Huh. Well, that's a logical orbit for a planetary mapping--" He broke off, staring out the closed window at the crystal clear mountain stream outside.

"What is it?" Anders queried.

"Something Jet said on the fake transcript," Crash said, eyes wide with realization.

"Which was?"

"‘Tighten your straps and hold on. This one's gonna be rough.' It's the exact same thing he said on a mission we flew in Nam."

Anders shrugged. "So?"

"He said it when two MiGs spotted us during a mapping mission in North Vietnamese airspace."

Anders stared, grasping Murphy's train of thought. "Dear God, they must've seen the alien craft," he murmured, shocked. "He sent you a message. Did he know you would be on any investigation?"

"Not really, but it stands to reason," Crash admitted, with a mixture of pride and sheepish embarrassment. "I'm considered one of the top entry phase specialists in the industry."

Anders nodded, convinced. "He knew. It's a message."

"Yeah," Crash agreed, nodding in consideration. "Yeah, that's gotta be it." He was silent a moment. "But… why?"

"Why what?"

"Why lotsa stuff," Crash answered in frustration. "Why the survey? Why take astronauts captive? Why not kill ‘em? For that matter, why not just make contact?"

Anders sighed in frustration, and returned his attention to studying a printout. "This doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?" Crash turned to look at him.

"This last signal," Anders waved the printout. "Came in the day before you arrived. All it says is, ‘We have located it. We will recover them.'"

Crash stiffened in sudden illumination. "Roswell."

"What?" Mike turned his full attention to Crash.

"Jet WAS sending me a message! See," Crash explained in excitement, "in ‘Nam, Jet and I were trying to find a squad stranded behind enemy lines after their ‘copter crashed. We were scouting the terrain, trying to find signs of them! That's what he was trying to tell me! He knew I'd be involved in the investigation, and would remember the situation! The LGMs are looking for their crashed Roswell squadron!"

Anders covered his face with his hand. "The crash remnants are supposed to be at the Groom Lake facility in Area 51. Hangar 18, I think. At least if you believe the UFO gurus."

At that comment, Crash remembered the odd little man he'd met at the gas station in Las Cruces.
Damn. Did he have something to do with this, too?
he worried.
Was I under surveillance, back there?

Crash nodded, his face grim. "No wonder the ‘Groom Patrol' is after us."

"What do you mean?"

"Mike, according to the UFO fanatics, what's the condition of the Roswell aliens?" Crash pressed.

"Oh, dear God," Anders groaned in understanding. "They're all dead."

Crash nodded unhappily. "And Jet and the rest of the
Atlantis
crew are POWs, in what may be Earth's first interstellar war," he finished.

* * * *

"No, you're not," Anders averred.

"Look, Mike," Crash explained, in the bedroom throwing his few belongings back into his duffel bag, "somebody's gotta try. And there's only one place I can think of that might give us some clues as to what the hell is going on."

"I know," Anders agreed, "but not alone."

"Mike, I don't wanna drag you into a hornet's nest," Murphy said, not even trying to disguise his distress in both his voice and his gaze as he pleaded with his friend. "So far, everyone else around me has bitten it. And if I hadn't seen the Groom Patrol first, I'd've bit it, too."

Anders squared his shoulders, blue eyes determined. "You're not dragging me anywhere. I'm volunteering."

"You can't."

"The hell I can't. I already did. Look, Crash," Anders admitted, realizing the time had come to confess, "I… have an obligation."

"How you figure that?"

"Because my government approached me to investigate this."

"WHAT?!" Murphy spun and stared at his friend in total astonishment, jaw slack.

Anders sighed in embarrassed vexation. "I wasn't quite straight with you the other day, mate. I… I'm sorry. I didn't really discover all of this six months ago. I realized it right after I got back State-side a little while back, after meeting with some members of the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation while I was in Sydney. They asked me to analyze some data their people had, and let them know what I found. So when I got back here, I started going through my own data, and comparing it to theirs. I turned up what I showed you. I got the nice little visit from the blokes with the sunglasses right after that. Then I got out my Dob and got serious. My govvie blokes must have realized something like this was going down; it's why they approached me." The scientist paused, and met Murphy's eyes. His own were solemn. "If this is real, it's going to take every free nation we can manage, working together, to stop them. I have to do this, Crash. My government's counting on me."

Murphy stared at Anders, anxious. "Oh, shit. I don't like this one damn bit, Mike. That makes it even worse than I thought."

"I know, Crash," Anders murmured, moving to stand directly in front of his friend, so he could look Murphy right in the eyes. "But… I don't think I could live with myself if I didn't at least try. You're my mate, Crash. Don't ask it of me."

Crash sighed in defeat, and sat on the bed. "All right."

"Great. So how the hell do we get into Area 51?" Anders wondered, hoping Crash had some ideas on the matter.

"We let ‘em take us," Crash smirked then. "Point this rolling stealth bomber toward Vegas."

* * * *

"Scenic route," Anders grinned, piloting the RV, now christened the Cheyenne Mountain, or just Cheyenne for short, down gorgeous, lonely back roads in Arizona. They had left New Mexico some two hours before, meandering through the many national forests and Indian reservations in the region, pretending to be tourists so as not to attract attention.

"Yeah, well, I could have done without the sight of that roadblock in Show Low," Crash grumbled. "I thought sure that cop recognized me."

"Why? Everyone thinks you're dead in the house fire. Remember, we saw it in the paper at the gas station," Anders pointed out in an effort to soothe Murphy's jittery nerves.

"Maybe. But I called the physics department after that. Anyway, if these goons checked what's left of my house…" Crash shot Anders a concerned look.

"Yeah," Anders agreed, subdued. "You're right. And they did. They're way the hell too thorough not to."

"Yep. So THEY know I'm alive. If they faked the Shuttle crew deaths, it'd be a piece of cake to fake mine, then put out a phony alert to law enforcement to find ME. And who knows what kind of APB info they'd use? Take my face, but stick the name and history of some damned gory, sick murderer on it, or something."

"Could be. But the look on that state trooper's face was priceless," Anders chuckled, replaying the scene in his mind. "‘May I see your identification, sir?' ‘Oh, okay, the pink teddy bear's got it.' Pink teddy bear?! Where the hell did that come from? And were you playing
Forrest Gump
or
Rainman
?"

"Beats the hell outta me," Crash admitted with a sheepish grin. "To be honest, when I opened my mouth, I think my brain disengaged."

Anders' grin grew even wider. "Time to change your shorts?"

"Nah. Close, though."

"Whatever," Anders laughed. "He bought it."

"That line of yours about the lobotomy almost blew the whole thing, though," Crash retorted, irked. "Hell, Mike, don't you know what the word ‘subtle' means? I about spit my coffee in the man's face when you came out with that."

By now Anders was howling with laughter. "Dip-diplo-macy was never-never my strong suit," he gasped.

"No shit," Crash agreed, grinning at his guffawing friend. "Remind me not to send you out to the little green men under a white flag of truce."

"Never mind," Anders dismissed the incident with a chuckle and a wave of the hand. "Next stop Phoenix, and then it's on to Las Vegas, post haste."

* * * *

Brown and Jones bent their heads together over Jones' computer screen. "Yeah, they're on the move again," Jones noted, studying the display. "Headed west, it looks like."

"But where?" Brown wondered.

"I can guess," Jones said, with a grim, knowing smile. "If you were in the States, looking for alien anything, where would you go? Or rather, where would you try to go?"

"Ah," Brown realized, smirking gleefully. "Right where we want to go ourselves."

"Area 51?"

"Exactly."

* * * *

Blake presented himself to the Officer of the Day, file folder in hand.

"Yes, Stargazer?" the OD asked, condescending.

"Got it, sir," Blake replied smugly. "At least, I think I do."

"Let's hear it." The OD was brusque.

"If my suspicions are correct… and they should be; I've known Anders for years…" Blake began.

"Yeah, yeah, spit it out, Blake," the OD interrupted, impatient.

"Divert the motorcade."

"What motorcade?" the OD asked, a blank expression on his face.

"THE motorcade." Blake gave the man a cavalier grin. "You know--a certain campaigning official? A certain HIGH LEVEL official?" He began humming "Hail To The Chief."

"Oh. THAT motorcade. Where to?" The officer's pomposity seemed to deflate.

"Phoenix."

* * * *

Anders made a spur of the moment decision as they traveled through the picturesque, but somewhat poor, reservation. He turned in at the reservation's trading post, and parked the RV.

The post was an attractive, sprawling, one-story adobe structure, well built and designed as a southwestern gallery. Many wings branched off the stolid main building. The large front double doors were of solid redwood, aged by the weather to a beautiful silver patina, and ornately carved in the Spanish mission style. "Hitching posts" of gnarled, weathered pinyon pine stood duty as curbs along the edges of the parking lot.

Murphy stared at Anders. "What gives?"

"We're supposed to look like tourists," Mike shrugged, somewhat diffident. "And I need to stretch my legs before my damn hamstrings cramp up. Besides, I promised Cayleigh a present." He threw Crash a sheepish grin, unbuckling his seat belt and standing.

Crash's eyebrows rose devilishly. "Boy, she's got her hooks in you, pal, but good." He leered as he ribbed his friend hard.

The jibe didn't faze Anders in the least. "Yeah, ‘bout like you and--" he broke off, catching himself before he could hurt his friend.

But it was too late. Crash sobered instantly, pain filling the dark brown eyes. "Yeah. ‘Bout like me and Gayle," he finished the sentence before turning away to hide his expression.

"Aw, damn. I'm so sorry, mate," Mike said, contrite, staring at Murphy's back, upset. "I didn't mean… I was just firing back at ya…"

"I know," Crash murmured. "You had every right to. I shouldn't have said that."

"Ah, you were just giving me grief, and I know it," Mike responded. "To be honest…" His voice tapered off.

"What?" Crash asked, hearing an odd, worrisome tone in Anders' voice, and turning back in concern.

Anders stood, very still, in the front of the RV, between the cockpit seats. His face was paler than normal, his blue eyes distant, with a disturbing light in them. "To be honest… I'm beginning to wonder if… if I'll ever get back to Cayleigh. These blokes, whoever they are… Crash, they play for keeps." His somber gaze returned to the here and now, and he stared at Murphy.

Crash returned the gaze for a moment, worried at the sudden change in Anders, then put a firm hand on the other man's shoulder and squeezed, reassuring. "Hang in there, Mike. We'll make it."

Anders shook his head, determined to make Murphy hear. "Listen, Crash, I'm serious. If… if something should happen… contact Cayleigh, and tell her… tell her I love her. Always have, always will." The scientist paused for a moment, swallowing, trying to remove the lump in his dry throat. "Tell her I'll… I'll wait for her. On the other side." He grinned, but his blue eyes were strained. "She knows where."