'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 28: Control

“This,” said Irvn, “is the Ship’s bridge, or control centre.”

Gemma looked around her. 

It was a large horseshoe-shaped area, maybe 20 metres across at its widest point, dominated directly ahead by a panoramic view of space that curved round on both sides. Facing this, arranged in a matching shape, were a number of consoles, like large desks, inset with illuminated switches and glowing displays - and behind each of these was an anatomically shaped seat. It reminded her a little of a large TV studio, with a constant stream of images - pictures, symbols,  text - cycling across every screen.

To get here, she and Irvn had left the ship’s main wheel and entered the central axis. As they negotiated a succession of walkways and hatches, Irvn told her more about the ship.

“Everything that matters most is in this central core,” he said, “ propulsion engines…life support systems…the control centre…”

He stopped at one hatchway - larger than the rest - and opened it to reveal a huge hangar-like space, with what were obviously two small space craft, parked side by side. They looked a little like the locomotives on high-speed trains, with steeply raked nose sections that slanted rearwards into coach-shaped bodies, stubby wings on either side and skid-like landing gear below.

“Ship’s shuttles,” he said, closing the hatch and striding on so quickly she almost had to trot to keep up.

He stopped at another and opened it. Inside she could see racks of silvery space suits.

“Why so many?” she’d asked, doing a rapid count that reached 30 before he closed the hatch.

“Crew numbers are usually ten,” he explained, “then - in addition - there are scientists, technicians, military…”

“Military?” she repeated.

“I suppose you’d call them Marines,” he said, “like you’d find on any large surface warship on Earth.”

“So what’s their purpose?” she said.

“Protection…defence…” he replied awkwardly, “…you never know who you might…run into,” 

“Tell me about it,” she’d said, just as they’d reached a final hatch that closed off the walkway and opened directly onto the bridge.

When she’d done looking about her and taking it all in, Irvn led her  over to what looked like a circular table, but turned out to be a horizontal screen about a metre in diameter. 

“I think you might find this interesting,” he said.

 He touched one of many controls around the perimeter and the screen came to life.

“This is your Solar System,” he said.

Gemma looked down and saw an image of the Sun, surrounded by all the planets, their orbital paths marked by thin glowing green lines. As she watched, Irvn zoomed in on the third planet from the Sun which was instantly recognisable as Earth.

She felt a tug of emotion as she realised she was looking down on her world. A world she’d been snatched from barely 24 hours before. Somewhere down there, school was going on as usual, someone else presumably taking her class of hormonal adolescents in her absence - while Brian bored the socks off his.

“What do they imagine has happenedto me?” she said out loud.

“They’ve been told you had to leave suddenly - a family matter.”

“Who told them?”

“We took care of that,” said Irvn, “they received emails and texts…” he hesitated, “…which they understood to be from you.”