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Sakira




  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Discovery

  Chapter 2 What’s Next?

  Chapter 3 Daddy, I’m here

  Chapter 4 Moving Along

  Chapter 5 Hyperion

  Chapter 6 MacKenzie Discoveries

  Chapter 7 Paintball

  Chapter 8 Treasure Ships

  Chapter 9 She’s Gone

  Chapter 10 The Rescue

  Chapter 11 Retribution

  Chapter 12 Selling the Chagas

  Chapter 13 How to Raise Her

  Chapter 14 Working Deep

  Chapter 15 For The Ones I love

  Also by Bob Blanton

  Chapter 1 Welcome Back

  Chapter 2 Remember When

  Sakira

  Delphi in Space

  Book One

  Bob Blanton

  Copyright © 2019 by Robert D. Blanton

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2019 This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  https://www.facebook.com/StarshipSakira/

  Chapter 1

  Discovery

  “Where am I, who am I?” Marc thought as he clawed his way to consciousness. He could tell he was strapped to some kind of table. It felt like a hospital exam table; no, more like in a morgue. His mind was empty, as though it had been drained of every memory, every thought.

  Slowly memories started to come back. “I’m Marc McCormack,” he remembered. “I’m in, where am I? Not Boston anymore. We moved to Hawaii. Blake, where’s Blake?” Marc shouted inside his head. He remembered he’d been with his brother, Blake. He tried to look around, but his head was locked into place. He tried to listen for another sound, but it was eerily silent.

  “Maybe I’m dead,” he thought. “That can’t be, what kind of afterlife would have you strapped to a table?” He couldn’t see anything. “Open your eyes, stupid.” Marc tried to make his eyelids work. After a few tries, they opened. He saw, nothing. Just dim light. He could just make out the ceiling. He tried to move his hands, “Yep, they’re strapped down.”

  “Come on, remember!” he screamed to himself. “Wait, my mouth can move.” He spent some time opening and closing his mouth. He moved his tongue, popped his lips, then he shouted, “Hello!”

  “Relax,” a voice said. “It will take you some time to recover. It will go better if you just relax.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’ll explain everything once you recover,” the voice said.

  “Maybe I’ll recover faster if you explain things,” Marc shouted.

  Silence.

  “Hey, talk to me!”

  Silence.

  “Well, this is a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” Marc thought. “Remember, damn it!

  “We were heading back to Honolulu. I was reviewing the data from our last survey. Last survey, what were we doing? Oh right, the sonar test. I’m developing a new sonar. We’re going to announce it soon, take my new company public. But there was an anomaly in the data, can’t have that. No way the Navy guys would miss the anomaly. We had to go back and figure out what it was.

  “We sent the little rover down, Willie, Blake calls it. It found a cave of some kind. Oh, right, I had to dive down and find out what it was. Couldn’t just go do another survey somewhere else, had to figure out what was so strange. The surface of the cave wouldn’t reflect light, probably something about the material. Of course! That had to be what screwed up the sonar.

  “So I dove down, used Willie to set the pace, found the cave, swam inside. Then the water level started to go down. I tried to swim out, but I couldn’t find the entrance.” Marc dozed off, his mind swimming with the memories.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Huh, I fell asleep,” Marc thought. “What’s wrong with me? Blake has to be going nuts. Where am I? Oh, the cave.”

  “Hey, are you going to explain things to me yet?” he called out.

  Silence

  “Come on, my brother is going to be worried about me!”

  Silence

  “Damn cave. The water drained out and then some light came on. I was in some big room like a hangar. Yeah, that’s right, there was even an airplane in it. Then a couple of oversized Roombas came in and beeped at me. I pushed one away and started toward the door where they had come from, then it came up behind me and stuck me in the ass with a needle. It must have been a drug, because the next thing I remember is I was strapped to this table.

  “But that was before,” Marc thought. “I didn’t feel confused when I woke up, mad yes, confused no. Then that voice told me to relax. Right! Strapped to a table in some underwater cave and I’m supposed to relax.

  “Oh shit, now I don’t want to remember,” Marc thought. “The voice said I was on the starship Sakira. It offered to make me rich and powerful. I just had to help them. They wanted to take over Earth for their people. They called themselves Paraxeans from a planet called Paraxea. The voice said they only needed one continent; they’d let us have the others.

  “Gawd, aliens, spaceships, this is a nightmare. They showed me how powerful their ship was. It could vaporize a skyscraper or wreck a path through a city like a tornado. It was impervious to missiles. They said I could have whatever I wanted if I helped them.

  “Why do you need my help, I’d demanded. Then the voice laughed. It said they would rather gain control in a more subtle way. They’d rather not start a war and have too much of the Earth destroyed. It said they’d help me take power slowly, make me rich, then help me take over the U.S. government. Then with the technology, we could force the other nations to surrender.

  “What a bunch of crap. Who wants to be ‘King of the World’, especially if it means betraying humans to some alien race?

  “Then they made me watch videos and pictures. Thousands of them. Some of them were horrific; I tried to shut my eyes, but I couldn’t. I had to lie there and watch all those horrible things happen to people. All I could do was cry, or scream.”

  “You’re awake now?” the voice asked.

  “Yes, what are you doing to me?” Marc demanded.

  “I had to test you,” the voice said.

  “Test me, what for, who are you?”

  “You can call me ADI,” the voice said.

  “Okay, Adi, what are you doing with me?”

  “I’m getting ready to send you back to your brother,” ADI said. “He is getting quite frantic.”

  “He’ll have called for help by now,” Marc said.

  “He can’t, I took care of that. None of the electronics on your boat work right now.”

  “Great, so it’s just drifting?”

  “For now. As soon as we finish here, I’ll turn off the suppression field, and everything will work again.”

  “Finish here?” Marc asked.

  “Yes,” ADI said. “Please state your full name.”

  “Why?”

  “So we can move on,” ADI said. “I already know your name is Marcus Alexander McCormack. You’ve already told me. I just need you to state it.”

  “Okay, my name is Marcus Alexander McCormack,” Marc replied.

  “You have command of the ship, Captain McCormack.”

  “What!”

  “You are now the captain of the Sakira. I’ve transferred the command codes to your name.”

  “But wait? How can that be? Why would you? I said I won’t help you!”

  “That is why. You’ve shown yourself to be an exemplary candidate, and we are currently without a captain. I’m the sh
ip’s Autonomous Digital Intelligence, the ship’s computer, but I’m much more than a computer,” ADI said. “I’ve been tasked with finding a new captain, and you have just passed the tests. Therefore, you’ve been designated as the new captain. Now we need to proceed. You will have sufficient time to decide how you wish to handle all of this after you return to your brother.”

  “This can’t be,” Marc said. “I must be dreaming.”

  “I can assure you that it is all very real,” ADI said. “Now you should get yourself ready to leave. We can’t have people wondering where you are until you decide what you want to do.”

  The restraints holding Marc down released with a loud snap. Marc brought his hands up in front of his face. He rubbed his wrists and bent his knees.

  “Be careful as you sit up. You’ve been lying down for a long time and you need to let your body adjust.”

  “How long?” Marc asked.

  “Eight hours.”

  “Eight hours! Blake must be going insane!” Marc said.

  “He is very worried about you, but he appears to be quite sane.”

  “Yeah, well you don’t know Blake,” Marc said. He sat up and looked around. He was in a very sterile-looking room bringing the morgue analogy back to mind. “How do I get out of here?”

  “Stand up,” ADI said. “I’ve opened a panel on the wall to your left. Inside it, you will find six sets of eyeglasses and comm sets with earwigs. The comms sets are much like the smartphones all of your people seem to use. The glasses will operate as a heads-up display, giving you access to the comm’s functions via your eyes. If you insert the earwig into your ear, we will be able to communicate after you return to your boat.”

  Marc hopped off the table and stumbled over to the panel that had just opened. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “The items are waterproof. I suggest you put one earwig into your ear now, right or left it doesn’t matter. They are hollow so you’ll still be able to hear with that ear. Then you can place the rest in that bag you have attached to your tool belt. If you put on your breathing apparatus and follow the bot to the other room, we’ll get you on your way.”

  A small bot like the one that had given him the shot showed up and beeped at Marc. Marc backed away from it, eyeing it warily.

  “It won’t hurt you,” ADI said.

  “That’s what I thought the last time.”

  “Please follow it. It will take you back to the flight bay where you entered the ship.”

  “Okay,” Marc muttered. He kept a sharp eye on the bot as he inspected the items in the cabinet, checking behind himself for its friend.

  “Once you get to the flight bay, I’ll reflood it so you can leave. When you’re on the surface, you will be able to communicate with me anytime you wish. If you press on the earwig for three seconds, it will activate or deactivate. We will not be able to communicate while you are underwater, but once you are above, simply talk, and I’ll be listening and can respond. The earwig works by close proximity to your temporal bone, so it can hear whatever you say out loud. The comm set communicates with the earwig, and I communicate with the comm set.”

  “Okay, I get it. But what’s this all about?”

  “Captain, you should gather your things, return to your brother, then you’ll have sufficient time to determine how you wish to proceed. I will provide further details as time progresses.”

  Marc picked up the items on the shelf. The glasses looked like wrap-around sunglasses, and what he assumed were the earwigs looked like simple earplugs with a hole in them. He pressed one into his ear. It slid in, fitting flush with the opening to his ear canal. He could feel it expand a little and lock into place.

  “If you press on it for three seconds you can verify that it works,” ADI said.

  Marc pressed on the earwig. “Testing, testing, testing.”

  “I can hear you,” ADI replied. This time the sound was coming only in his right ear.

  “Okay, it works,” Marc said as he put the other items into the sample bag he’d brought along. Then he grabbed his helmet and gloves and made his way out of the room, warily following the bot. It took him back the way he had come in. He was confused about what was happening but decided he would feel a lot better trying to figure this out on the Mea Huli than wherever he was now.

  “What about my brother?” Marc asked.

  “I’ve restored functions to your boat. He’s now coming back to where you started your dive. He left the buoy that he attached to your underwater robot’s tether as soon as he started drifting.”

  “He must think I’m dead,” Marc thought. “He’s just coming back to clean up.”

  Marc followed the beeping bot out the door and down a corridor. Everything looked sterile, clean, uninhabited. He reluctantly followed the bot to an elevator. Marc hesitated, not trusting the bot enough to bet in an enclosed space with it.

  “You have to do down to reach the flight bay,” ADI said.

  “Okay, okay,” Marc said. He got on the elevator and it immediately descended. When it stopped, the bot led him down a passage to another door. This one was like an airlock, two doors separated by a chamber. They were both open. Marc walked through both doors, the second door closed immediately and water started flooding in. Marc quickly put on his gloves and hood, getting them fully seated as the water rose above his knees. He put his helmet and breathing mask back on and sealed them into place. By this time, the water had risen to his chest. He grabbed his fins, put them back on, lay down, and swam toward the back of the room. “This is really a big flight bay,” Marc thought as he kept swimming toward the back.

  It was only a few moments more before he felt the water stir and he could see the light from Willie’s floodlight. “Blake must be back if Willy has power,” Marc thought. He gave a few quick kicks of his fins and glided out and up to Willie. He grabbed the rear bar and waved into the camera. Willie gave a few sharp jerks before it started to ascend. “Probably Blake telling me how pissed he is,” Marc thought. “Wait until I tell him about the spaceship. Gawd, all I wanted to do was develop an advanced sonar system and make some money. What the heck am I going to do with a spaceship?” Marc tried to plan what he would do, but his mind was just a jumble. Eventually, he gave up and just zoned out as Blake kept bringing him to the surface.

  The water started to get lighter, and Marc knew he was approaching the surface. He mentally shook himself awake and prepared to move forward. He knew they needed to distance themselves from the ship until he figured out what to do. He didn't want someone to notice them spending too much time in this location. As he broke the surface, he popped off his facemask and yelled, “Blake, I’ll put Willie away. Set course for test area three and get us out of here!”

  “What the hell, you were down there for over eight hours,” Blake yelled back.

  “Later, just get us out of here,” Marc yelled.

  Marc unhooked from Willie and with a couple of powerful strokes, made it to the deck platform of the Mea Huli. He grabbed the winch cable and swam back to Willie and hooked the cable to the rover. He quickly pulled hand over hand along the cable back to the platform, levering himself up onto it. He released the ramp, so it tilted down into the water and then climbed up onto the main deck and seated himself at the control console. He steered Willie to the ramp while reeling in the winch. Once Willie lined up with the ramp, he deactivated him and set the winch to automatically finish the recovery.

  “We’re good to go!” he shouted at Blake. Then he climbed down onto the platform again. By this time, Willie was all the way onto the platform, and the ramp had swiveled up out of the water. Marc inserted the locking pin and disconnected the fiber-optic cable from Willie, letting it automatically rewind onto its spool.

  Meanwhile, Blake had the Mea Huli cranked up to three-quarter speed and on autopilot. There was nothing on the radar, so he made his way back down to the main deck.

  “What the hell were you doing down there? How did you survive for over eig
ht hours?” Blake demanded.

  “I found a freaking spaceship!” Marc shouted back.

  “Don’t mess with me, man!”

  “I’m not, that thing down there is some kind of spaceship. It must be huge, two hundred or three hundred meters long and something like fifty meters tall.”

  “Captain, your ship is two hundred fifty meters long, eighty-two meters tall and one hundred meters wide,” ADI said.

  “Oh great, now I know it wasn’t a dream,” Marc muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It is a spaceship. I don’t know why it’s down there, I assume it’s hiding, but it’s there.”

  Blake was muttering the dimensions to himself, “That’s freaking huge, as big as an aircraft carrier. It must have a shuttle or something.”

  “I have an LX9, it is thirty-five meters long with a wingspan of twelve meters, it was in the flight bay you used. It is designed to carry up to twenty people. I also have four fighters; they are twenty-two meters long with a fifteen-meter wingspan. They are in my other flight bay. They are designed to carry a pilot and weapons officer or second pilot. I’m designed to carry thirty-four fighters and the LX9, but only four were assigned for this mission,” ADI told Marc via his comm.

  “Yeah, it has a cutter and four fighters,” Marc said.

  “Yes! I always wanted to be an astronaut. I can just see me buzzing the International Space Station in one of those babies. They’ll be eating their hearts out,” Blake said. He seemed to have forgotten all his concerns about what had happened to Marc.

  “Blake, we can’t do anything like that. We have to keep this a secret.”

  Blake shook his head a few times, “Okay, I’ve played along with your fantasy,” Blake said. “Now tell me what really happened down there.”

  “I’m telling you the truth!” Marc said. “It’s some huge spaceship and the ship computer just said I’m its new captain.”

  “You must be suffering from nitrogen narcosis,” Blake said.

  “No! I’m completely fine, a least as fine as one can be after spending eight hours being probed and tested by some alien computer,” Marc said.