Red Entaries

Thirty

The Pilot said: "no...! You can't hijack this ship." He raised his arms higher as (Raver Sholla, the leader of the Pirates called Raver's Group) pointed a gun against his ear.

"Don't you know this is the Hollowed Eagle?" The pilot spoke again.

Raver nodded with a somber-cold stare.

"The ship is practically a landmark. Don't you know its history and how many people's lives you are jeopardizing right now?" The pilot said.

"I know, thousands." Raver's poker face had yet to be defeated. Her voice fell deeper and deeper. "If you value this ship and the lives of its inhabitants, you'll do exactly what I say or it all goes to hell, do you understand me!"

"Yes Miss, what is it you'll have me do?" The pilot said.

The captain entered the bridge. The man in this moment appeared to have humbled himself and the ship to Sholla's whims.

"I want you to land this ship here and now in the middle of nowhere."

The pilot's voice became startled again. "You can't mean down there."

Raver nodded.

"This ship can't land, are you mad—? In fact it never landed and never was designed to—it won't work not unless you risk us all."

As she felt embarrassed, Raver was about to put her gun against his head and knock him unconscious, but she realized it was a mistake.

"Then tell me Mr. Genius, why then did I hear they would land this bird one day on the Moon where it would become a colony on its own?"

The captain did well to keep a straight face. "Listen, I don't know where you heard that from, but if we try to land this ship it will drop like a rock, trust me."

Raver's tone became more than threatening as she slapped the pilot across the face. "I know how fast this vessel fly's, in fact, I know more about its history than you, so don't tell me that."

The pilot, being red-faced and now hunching over couldn't manage to keep unraveling a slight snicker.

"Stand up straight as a pilot and die like a man, I assure you that you'll be the first to go."

The pilot got on his knees and began to beg for mercy instead.

"Get up, this is what I'll have you do. Order the techs to shoot the old tethers down to the Moon once we reach orbit."

"What are you talking about?" The pilot said.

"Don't play dumb with me—the elevators, you know what I mean!"

"Please don't shoot...but first of all they have to be rigged and brought down by shuttles, not shot. Then they must be blown by an air compressed gun into thirty-feet of solid ground."

"Just do it already, I'm losing my patience with you."

"Miss Sholla, can't you just bring the people down in shuttles for whatever reason you are doing this?"

"Ah, must I explain everything!" Raver said.

"It would help." The pilot said.

"Look pilot, the elevators would be faster than the shuttles, it would take too long." She said.

The captain spoke, complaining to Raver even though he saw the hijacker's Asian eyes widely stretched with a rabid look as if she could strike like a wild beast at any moment. "I have to tell you, Miss." The captain said. He held his head like he was about to be hit. "These tethers are ages old, and these elevators haven't been used since the time way-back-when the Hollowed Eagle was used as a space station."

"I think you're very brave to try my patience this long. But I know what these tethers are made of, they're very durable." Raver said.

"They're gone." The captain gained a shred of confidence back for the crew and for his ship from when he was humbled into a state of mere madness, "the elevators have been removed last month, I'm sorry."

Raver didn't move except for the barrel of her gun all the way down the captain's throat and whispered to him menacingly: "I know the elevators are still here. I saw them when I came in a spaceship from Earth's Moon. And don't tell me the tethers are gone too, oh, that's right you've got a gun in your mouth, fortunate for you. Now tell the crew to rig the tethers to the shuttles once we reach orbit. And don't tell them they think they can escape, or their blood is on you."

The captain gasped for breath and choked as the gun was being removed. "But you don't understand," the captain said. "This ship has grown much since it was a space station. It has a few new decks now, I'm afraid it's going to tear her apart when the weight of the tethers are fully extended, or, possibly worse yet the ships added weight could rip the anchors below ground and the people helplessly in the elevators would be thrown into the cold rocks. The safety thrusters on the elevators are out of date—don't you believe me? It's not safe any longer, please don't do this..."

The captain begged with all his might. Raver just stared coldly as she let him beg his heart out. He kept pulling on her clothes until she finally responded.

"Then I'll send you and your crew into a rocky white grave if that's where it takes you."

"Where here," she gestured for Michael Rahden jr., who was wearing a mask to hide his identity, to pull him off.

"Rahden, make sure you give the captain and the pilot shorter 02 tanks than the others."

"Right," he responded.

"Once they're all on the surface I'll send the beloved Hollowed Eagle on a collision course before we take my speedy spaceship for Red Entaries."

"You can't do this," the pilot came to try his luck with Mike.

"Get off me! You dog, it's already been set in motion." Michael removed his white fingers from the automated control panel for prolonged flights. "The collision descent will take automation after the next two hours where it will then pilot itself and drop like a rock like you so said—you better hurry." He finished gravely.

Wave after wave of zipping stratospheric night lights would meet the destiny of an uncertain future. Tethered from their mother like spiders of a baby size. They all swung with discipline and a plan of action. Down they meet with the white-rocky surface and an anchor to humanity in this lifeless Moon for thousands of miles except for the spear-hooked-heads shot into the cracked-cold-crust, leaving a slit size from shoulder-to-shoulder.

The flight deck now opened its blast doors after her spaceship shot away to Red Entaries where Raver plans to report to her Boss Sr. Rahden, Michael's father.

"The captain spoke on the microphone: "Colonists of the Hollowed Eagle hold yourselves together...and be praised, the first tether is attached on my orders."

"This is Admiral Logan from the Moon Colony First Reach. In having this honor to finish the detained captain's transmission. The second tether has been attached." He could feel a shock wave through his vocal cords.

"Now the third tether is attached. The two lift ports should now have a beeping green light over the adjacent bulkhead above. No time for farewell sentiments, test runs, or even a last minute, just take yourselves as you are and go!" He imagined a trembling pop, as if the Hollowed Eagle was slipping and contorting. "All twelve tethers are now in-ground and working, you can send the elevators down now with the rest of the people, but you must hurry. You are about to crash into the Moon..."

Without the Hollowed Eagle's weaponry, theplanetoid has a greater chance to destroy the Moon with no way to stop it, andthat is what Sr. Rahden wants. Raver and Jr. Rahden also want this to help theCEO, Sr. Rahden, win the asteroid auction because the Moon is where the minercompanies were established in the hopes of winning the auction.