Earth To Nole: Return of the Prince (15 page)

Tomiri said, “No, you did.”

Keele then turned to Kevin and said, “Let’s find out how well you can fly.”

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Far from Mone, somewhere in the outer atmosphere of Nole, four spacecrafts stood in a formation. These spacecrafts had the letters “ROCO” written on them in large. One of them, which stood ahead as if the leader among the four had two roco bots sitting inside the cockpit. The monitor in front of them showed Boriri’s spacecraft with a red circle around it. One of the bots turned to the other, they communicated without uttering a word. In the end, the other bot nodded in acknowledgement and turned on a switch in front of him. The monitor now also showed a crosshair aimed at Boriri’s spacecraft with 3 lines of blinking text which read,

“Target Acquired”

‘Weapons on Standby”

“One life in danger”.

The same bot now pressed another switch in front of him and waited.

“This is Officer Korara, go ahead.”, a hum voice suddenly broke the silence in the cockpit.

“Sir, this is the captain of the primeship and leader of group JB-412. We are monitoring a hum spacecraft leaving the siege.”, the bot said.

“I know captain. Standby while I issue a warning. I am waiting for it to come into the orbit so that we can communicate.”, Korara said.

“Sir, we have a visual of the spacecraft. I can relay your message to the spacecraft from here if you don’t have a direct link yet.”, the bot explained.

“No, thank you captain. I will wait till I have a direct link. I need to warn the hum spacecraft myself.”, Korara said.

The two bots looked at each other. One of them toggled the switch and the call ended. It seemed as if they had agreed to wait.

On the other hand, Boriri looked quite happy in the cockpit of his spacecraft. His seat was pushed back into a recline and he had an eye mask on. A bot sat next to him who was incharge of flying the spacecraft.

The bot said, “We are entering the orbit, Boriri.”

“Hmm”, Boriri acknowledged, he appeared to be half asleep behind his eye mask.

“You seem to be quiet relaxed today. Usually, you are a bit anxious during the flights.”, the bot asked.

“Yes, usually I am. But now I trust you completely. You have brought me here a dozen of times now. I am usually anxious only when I don’t know the pilot.”, Boriri explained.

“Thank you, Boriri.”, the bot said.

“No, no, thank you! I really needed someone who could fly me around. I just hate flying this thing myself.”, Boriri said with a smile. He was still lying on his chair with eye masks on. After a pause, he said again, “Just make sure the communication devices are on. There is an active siege in place. We don’t want to miss any messages, especially from the roco bots.”

“Yes sir. All of the them are on.”, the bot replied with both his palms blinking red. The communications devices were actually, all turned off.

Agnostic to the state of his spaceship, Boriri laid relaxed in his seat. His spaceship headed straight towards the roco spaceships where they waited with weapons which could bring down his spaceship within minutes.

Back on the primeship, the two bots were still waiting for their officer to get back to them. Suddenly, the voice of the officer filled up the cockpit again.

“Captain?”

“Yes, sir. Please go ahead.”, one of the bots said.

“Please be advised that the hum spacecraft is not responding to the messages. I will try again one last time in a few minutes. I advise you to keep your weapons on standby.”, Korara said.

“Acknowledged.”, one of the bots replied.

Here on Mone, Kevin and Keele were flying in a neurojet just above the palace. They both looked nervous. Keele was trying to upload the brainmap into the onboard computer. He had his finger inserted into one of the plugs.

Kevin was waiting for an opportunity to ask, so he did. He asked, “Why did you brain map me at all?”

“Standard protocol, Kevin.”, Keele replied promptly. He was a bit distracted by the procedure he was performing in the cockpit.

“What do you mean? It is normal for you to brain map every child?”, Kevin asked.

“Yes, pretty much. The brain can only be mapped till a certain age so if a bot participates in a delivery then it is standard for him to map the brain of the child. It takes less than 5 minutes.”, Keele replied again. He looked a bit relaxed now because the procedure of uploading the brainmap into the neurojet was done. He slowly took out his finger and said, “it is done”.

“What now?”, asked Kevin.

“I guess, this is it. Let’s try putting that helmet on.”, Keele pointed towards a helmet which was hanging over Kevin’s seat.

Kevin stretched his hands and retrieved the helmet. He asked hesitatingly, “this helmet?”. Kevin was being silly, there was no point in asking which helmet because there was only one in the cockpit. It was clear that Kevin was nervous. He had heard a lot of things about neuro mode from Karbaka and now that he was about to enter neuro mode, he was understandably frightened.

“Yes, let's hurry up Kevin, we don’t have much time.”, Keele replied.

Kevin put the helmet on. The cockpit went dark. Kevin was startled at first but then he simply followed instructions coming to his head. The helmet was actually a neurotransmitter and receptor. It created a bridge between Kevin’s brain and the cockpit’s main computer. Kevin no longer needed a screen or buttons to interact with the neurojet, he was able to do so simply through his thoughts.

His chair went into a recline and he leaned back with it. The voice in his head said, “Valid brainmap found. Initiating calibration.”

Keele saw Kevin lift his arms, move his fingers, tilt his head and turn around on his waist. He knew it was part of the calibration that was going. The onboard computer was trying to establish a link between Kevin’s brain and the flight controls, so that later it could map his actions to flight control operations.

Kevin turned to Keele and said, “It says we will go on a test flight now.”

“This is great, it means the brainmap is correct. Let’s go then.”, Keele replied.

Kevin looked a bit reluctant but he knew this was the only way to save Boriri. He closed his eyes and said, “ok”.

Inside his brain Kevin was able to see everything around the neurojet. The images appeared different though, not what he is used to seeing with his eyes. Hot objects appeared red and cold ones appeared blue. Everything appeared overlaid on a three dimensional grid to help the pilot navigate through the space.

Kevin turned to see what all was around him. This resulted in the neurojet rotating and tilting across various axes allowing him to take a look at the objects surrounding the neurojet. Kevin realised that the neuroject was now an extension of his own physical body. He remembered conversations with Karbaka in which he talked about this. The neuro mode bridges the gap between the flyman and the neurojet. That is the only way the neurojet can be flown at such high speeds. Controlling it via the on board controls will never work because of the physical limitations.

Kevin tried looking down, which made the neurojet dip its nose vertically down. The sudden movements made Keele a bit uncomfortable but Kevin appeared to be fine. In fact, a faint smile was building up on his face. He was slowly becoming aware of the enormous power and flexibility that the neurojet offered. He opened his eyes and turned to Keele, who was holding his seats with both his hands. He said, “I was going to say hold on but looks like you are good.”

“Yes, I am.”, Keele said cautiously.

Kevin closed his eyes again and suddenly the jet flew like a bullet towards the sky. At first Keele couldn’t keep his head straight because of the acceleration but slowly he was able to gain some control as the jet reduced acceleration and reached a certain velocity. Within seconds, Kevin had taken the neurojet in Mone’s orbit. The neurojet now appeared to be moving with a constant velocity.

The voice in Kevin’s head said, “Test flight complete. Calibration complete.”

Kevin turned to Keele and said, “My readings show that I will be be able to reach Nole in 12 minutes and 13 seconds. Any signal from Boriri’s spacecraft?”

“We are very far from Mone’s network so I cannot contact Boriri from here. Can you try using this neurojet’s communication systems to find out?”, Keele said.

“Let me try.”, Kevin said. He was aware of neurojet’s communication system because Karbaka had taught him to use the neurojet albeit in the non-neuro mode. He used the same knowledge to access those systems in the interface inside his head. As far as the communications system was concerned, it was not very different. Although Kevin was struggling to find Boriri.

“I can see Nole and roco spacecrafts around it but strangely I do not see Boriri’s spacecraft. Is his communication system on?”, Kevin wondered.

“Why would it be off?”, Keele said.

“Do you want to wait here or go to Nole?”, Kevin asked.

“I don’t think we should wait here. Let’s get there and wait if we have to.”, Keele responded.

“What is the plan? Are we going to shoot down the roco spacecrafts?”, Kevin asked.

“Yes, if we have to.”, Keele replied.

“Ok.”, Kevin said as he accelerated again. Keele was again thrown off balance, he barely could keep his head straight. Kevin on the other hand rejoiced. He saw the space as never before. The planets and meteors passed him by like trees to a speeding car. The image in his mind showed a lot of information which he was currently not paying attention to. As he kept accelerating, he could see the grid around him bend into a funnel. The voice in his head said, “Velocity is now one-tenth the speed of light, accelerating further would open slip-drives. Caution is advised.”

“What is a slip-drive?”, Kevin asked Keele.

“Once you approach the speed of light the fabric of space-time starts to bend. If you are careless you will slip into alternate time lines. This would be bad, Kevin. Be careful, you do not want to cross over. It is very difficult to find a route back to this timeline. You will have to stick to a particular funnel to avoid travelling relative to time.”, Keele explained.

Kevin could imagine what this could mean. But the funnel in front of him became narrower as he accelerated, he found it difficult to keep accelerating and still maintain the course. He said, “Our funnel is become narrower, what should I do?”

“Slow down. We are already at a very high speed. The closer your are to the speed of light, the narrower the funnel would get. At the speed of light, your funnel will merge into a line and any deviation from it would take you to an alternative timeline.”

“Slowing down.”, Kevin responded.

As Kevin cruised on a constant velocity, the image in his head showed multiple tunnels made of light all around. One of the tunnel, dead straight showed “0 relative to time.”, Kevin understood that this was the funnel he should keep to.

“This looks like a complex video game.”, Kevin said, he appeared a bit anxious now.

“But it is not a game! If you enter the wrong tunnel then you might end up in another reality.”, Keele cautioned him.

Meanwhile the two bots waiting in the primeship for Korara’s message noticed that the screen in front of them was now showing “Weapons Active” instead of “Weapons Standby”. They knew what this meant. Not a moment later, the voice of Korara filled up the cockpit.

“Captain?”

“Yes, officer.”, one of the bots said.

“The hum spacecraft is not responding to the messages. Please send it back to Nole by any means necessary. And, do not try to initiate communication. We have already tried and failed multiple times.”, Korara said.

The two bots looked at each other and nodded in affirmation. They knew what Korara was asking was well within protocol. One of them said, “We are initiating attack sequence. We will begin with the EM missile.”

“This is sad indeed, captain. But we need to follow protocol.”, Korara said before disconnecting the call.

A loud noise woke Boriri up from his sleep. He removed his eye mask to notice that his spacecraft was tracking an EM missile. The monitor showed a countdown timer predicting that the missile would hit in 3 minutes and 23 seconds. Boriri was shocked to see this. He turned to his pilot but the bot appeared to be reset. He tried reviving it but realised that it was futile. It didn’t take Boriri long to realise that he was in a trap designed by Igogo. He looked at the communication device and found it to be turned off. He turned it on and started sending distress signals, but no one responded. Boriri looked at the missile tracker which now showed 1 minute and 56 seconds to impact. He sat calmly on his chair and took out a photograph from his pocket. He had accepted his destiny now, it seemed.

Back on the neurojet, Kevin said, “We would be there in another 5 minutes. Where should we start looking?”

“I don’t know. He could be anywhere.”, Keele replied.

“I need something, tell me something.”, Kevin seemed frustrated. He was not able to find Boriri’s spacecraft in the image inside his head.

Meanwhile the monitor on Boriri’s spacecraft showed 12 seconds. However, Boriri was not looking at it. He was looking at a picture of Moreti. As the countdown reached zero, Boriri closed his eyes. There was a bright flash of light outside his spaceship and the cockpit went dark.