JUST WHOSE BALL IS IT ANYWAY: BOOK FOUR - CAMBRIDGE ANNEX (THE CAMBRIDGE ANNEX 4) Read online

  JUST WHOSE BALL IS IT ANYWAY

  A Cambridge Annex book

  Peter Damon

  Copyright © 2016 by Peter Damon

  Cover design by 1348design

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published by Amazon Kindle

  Contents

  September 1st

  September 2nd

  September 3rd

  September 4th

  September 6th

  September 9th

  September 12th

  September 13th

  September 17th.

  September 18th

  September 19th

  September 20th

  September 27th

  September 29th

  October 1st

  October 2nd

  October 3rd

  October 4th

  October 5th

  October 6th

  October 7th

  October 8th

  October 9th

  October 10th

  October 11th

  October 12th

  October 13th

  October 14th

  October 15th

  October 16th

  October 17th

  October 18th

  October 19th

  October 20th

  October 21st

  October 22nd

  September 1st

  Little remained of the ferry that once sailed the Aegean Sea carrying cars and holidaymakers between the islands. Refitted in Glasgow with the help of the British Navy, it had been transformed into a spaceship designed for travel to and from the asteroid belt using the antigravity chemical the Howard twins had discovered. Not only was the spaceship capable of travelling at nearly 3,000 kilometres per second, but it provided its own gravitational field while doing so.

  Ricky Williams, now the Space Confederation's chief designer, had been a post graduate student at the time of its refitting and had retained a promotional photograph of the ship during its heyday. It now hung on the wall of the ship's spacious meeting room, an attempt to keep some link, tenuous at best, with earth.

  One hundred and thirty-six metres long and with a diameter of fifty metres at its broadest point, it was now shaped like a rugby ball with flattened ends to allow for docking bays at its bow and stern. With little to no heat loss or creation from its propulsion system, and a completely matte black exterior created by a thick rubber coating that helped protect it from meteor damage, the ship was extremely hard to find, even when stationary. Only the American administration, in possession of the one type of laser telescope capable of detecting the craft's gravitational signature, could follow the ship's travels. They had chosen to keep the information to themselves. Meanwhile, earth astronomers both professional and amateur spent hours trying to track the craft. There was even a chat site on the internet dedicated to news of its travels: http://findfreedomone.com.

  For those who manned the spaceship, many of whom had been there at its launch fourteen years previously, life in outer space had not lost its charm. It remained the beautiful, magical, unknown and terrible dangerous place it had always been. Every view, even of earth, was new and exciting.

  The role of the ship had changed. It was no longer at the vanguard of space travel but the focus point of the management team. Here individuals too important to risk where earth might harm them, made their home. They were in a situation where travel through outer space was less dangerous than living on earth or on an orbital station. Most of the management team resided here, including the Bennett family.

  At that moment Michael and Heather were in the main meeting room, seated at the large wooden table that could comfortably sit twenty. The floor was richly carpeted, and subdued lighting cast a warm glow over the spacious room and its furnishings. The decor was that of a modern business room with walls of solid beech wood, the panels decorated with photographs of the places they had been and the people who had visited. If the thirty-odd signed portraits of dignitaries and world leaders past and present didn't impress, then images from Mars, the asteroid belt and other locations in outer space would. The old ship that had once sailed the Aegean Sea had come a long way.

  Michael and Heather were in a reflective mood, saying little as they each considered their main problem, one that was not on the agenda for their forthcoming meeting but nonetheless, vitally important.

  "She's nearly fifteen," Michael Bennett reflected.

  "I know our daughter's age Michael," Heather snapped, her shortness betraying her agitation. Truth was, while both parents loved their daughter above all else, they could rarely agree on to how to handle her.

  "I didn't mean it that way," he told his wife, reaching for her hand along the table so he could link and entwine their fingers. "I was just thinking how much we've achieved over the last fifteen years, and yet not achieved, if you know what I mean."

  Heather nodded. "That's so often the problem Michael. It's fairly easy to find at least one problem to discuss other than our daughter," she complained, in the same mood as he.

  He nodded and considered. There had barely been fifty of them when they'd lifted the old Emma Maersh container ship from the Philippine Sea. The ship had been filled with an unlikely mix of individuals. There had been a contingent of idealistic Cambridge university students unwilling to give their discovery over to any government or private enterprise. Then there were travellers from Essex out to make money from space debris and finally Michael himself, a dried up intelligence officer who had found refuge in the bottom of a bottle from a world that had killed his wife. Finding Heather along the way had been a completely unexpected bonus.

  Stupidly, he had thought getting into orbit would have been enough to establish their right to keep the Howard's technology to themselves. For some reason beyond his understanding, he had truly thought that being in orbit - providing a platform for Cambridge University to offer educational and scientific facilities unrivalled by anything anyone else could provide - would be enough.

  "Why the shake of the head Michael," Heather asked, watching him as she often did, enthralled by the minute movements in his features as he worked on a problem or a puzzle.

  "Reminding myself how stupid I can be at times," he smiled, but sadly.

  "In respect of our daughter, we all fall into that category," Heather chuckled, little knowing her husband's thoughts had once again slipped away from the main issue.

  "She's a handful," he agreed, forcing him to think about their daughter and not the dozen other problems that needed his attention. It wasn't that she was disobedient but that she was skittish, too often distracted by new opportunities that took her attention and swept her off in a new direction. That wasn't to suggest that she was irresponsible, because she took her responsibilities extremely seriously, too seriously for someone of her age.

  "What do you expect from a girl raised in outer space and without people of her own age to play with?" she asked rhetorically. They both knew the problem and the reason for it; it was a non-confrontational solution that eluded them.

  "Well, whatever her maturity, I still think her too young to go into the Frankie Hill Space Academy," he t
old her. In fact, if he had his way she would never attend the academy. Not until the life expectancy of a space traveller improved by at least a decade, possibly two.

  "Well, she's often there, participating when permitted, practicing on her own whenever she finds the time and the opportunity. You know she's already the most competent SUV pilot they've got, even if she's not got the licence?"

  "Yes, but it's one thing to do what you feel comfortable with, or enjoy doing, and another to have to do the whole curriculum, whether you like it or not," Michael pointed out. He doubted his daughter would stand doing some of the seemingly unrelated aspects of the travellers training. There was just so much to distract the girl.

  The training program to become an outer space traveller was an arduous five-year course and the dropout rate was high. The original travellers who had taken on the role would never have passed the rigorous training had it been there at the beginning. On reflection, many more might have survived if it had been there. Michael had to turn away from that thought. Each death weighed heavily on him. Each lesson learnt was another rod for beating him. No, he definitely didn't want Wez becoming a space traveller. Better if she helped her parents with the administration of their growing enterprise. The Space Confederation didn't run itself, for all the assistance they received from Cambridge University.

  "I don't think Wez would feel that way - but let's not argue on that. I happen to agree that the academy is the wrong place for her at the moment," Heather agreed.

  "You do?" Michael looked at his wife suspiciously. "So what do you think she should be doing?" he asked.

  Heather took a deep breath; one Michael recognised and prepared himself for her statement. "I think she should experience life on earth," she told him, and swept on before he could flare up. "Normal life, living with a family perhaps, someone with links to us obviously, but so remote no one would guess she was ours.

  "She'd get to meet kids her own age. Listen to music and hang out in coffee shops. Go to discos. Ride a bike. Go shopping for clothes!"

  "You want her to have the same experiences you had when growing up," Michael summed it up.

  "Not because I want her to, but because I think she needs it.

  "Michael; if it was up to me I'd keep her close and never let her out of my sight. I'd give her things to do and hope she'd enjoy doing them, but she won't. She doesn't want to be Mummy's puppet any more than I wanted to be anchored to my mother's apron strings when I was that age."

  He shook his head. "I'm just so afraid for her Heather. She and Frankie Junior. And the other kids too of course, but mostly those two," he admitted. "Everyone on earth must know our kids are our most vulnerable point," he explained. "I couldn't bear it if anything happened to them because someone has an issue with me," he told her.

  "We can't protect them by fencing them off from life Michael," Heather insisted.

  "Well, Frankie seems happy to stay on Mars with his mother," he pointed out.

  "For the moment," Heather agreed. "But have you seen the subjects he's researching? Advanced engineering texts, mechanical engineering and electronics. He's extremely bright. He spends hours talking to Ricky Williams, Leanne Adler and Sally Locke. He also grabs lifts from passing travellers and turns up unannounced on Earth Station Two to talk to some of the old crew; those who knew his father."

  "How do you know that?" Michael asked.

  "The same way I know you know exactly where Wez is every hour of the day," she smiled. Only medical staff were authorised to access the information held on the RFID chips that everyone out in space carried subcutaneously. However, Heather had clearly used the same levers as Michael had to get Paul or Gail, their directors of medical sciences, to grant access.

  Michael glanced at his watch. As usual, they had a busy schedule in front of them and the forthcoming meeting couldn't be postponed or delayed, even by ten minutes.

  "Don't do that," Heather told him crossly.

  Michael rose to pace the room. "The practicalities!" he groaned, forced to face the issue at hand.

  "You know the travellers hold her in as much esteem as they hold Frankie Junior. None would cause her harm and all would rush to her rescue if anything should happen to her. They'd all judge it an honour to have her stay with an earth-based part of their family."

  "Pardon? Have her stay with an earth traveller?" he asked, his pacing coming to a stop as he started considering the implications. "Would we tell Gordon?" he wondered.

  Heather relaxed. If Michael was wondering whether to involve the head of their earth intelligence bureau then he had already overcome his lesser concerns.

  "I think we're going to have to, though not in any detail," she admitted. "She'll probably be attending a school, might need to visit a doctor and I think it would be good if she had some sort of bank account she can lean on if she ever needs to. All those will need her to have UK identification," she explained, her period in the British Constabulary coming in useful.

  Michael turned and moved slowly to the tea dispenser and Heather rose to follow, waiting for him to speak. He was beginning to like the idea. After all, how dangerous could living on earth be when compared to their life in outer space?

  "We need to find a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend with whom she can stay. Perhaps someone who missed the first lift because of age, then circumstances made it impossible. Something along those lines," he mused, hoping such an individual existed.

  "So who do we involve up here? Maddy?" she asked, taking the cup Michael passed to her.

  He nodded without the need for further thought. "She can involve a small team from the initial group who came up with us, anyone she thinks necessary to place her and then watch over her. I don't want Gordon's people involved in her day-to-day," he agreed. "They don't know us well enough," he admitted.

  He shivered with premonition. Had their life in outer space changed them so much that they no longer trusted anyone from earth?

  +++++++++++++++

  If someone was looking at the particular part of outer space six hundred kilometres immediately above the city of Cambridge, England, at that particular moment, then they would have seen Freedom One appear as if from nowhere, stopping with an abruptness impossible for any other type of vehicle. Their gravitational power source protected those within from the forces of inertia that would have otherwise squashed everyone flat against the bulkhead. Instead, they continued their day-to-day activities unaware that motion relative to the planet above them had stopped, or indeed that they had moved at all.

  Allan Blake watched the monitors for a few moments, worried that his proximity to earth would cause some hostile act. He'd been piloting Freedom One for just over fifteen years and had hoped that enough time had elapsed for earth to become reconciled to the fact that they were not going to share their technology with them, but it didn't seem that way.

  "Madeleine Hill is requesting permission to board," Matt told him from his station a few metres forward of his own.

  Allan's fingers had already tapped the control board while Matt was talking, and had subsequently seen Samuel's craft angling in from Earth Station One where it maintained a lower orbit, motionless relative to the European mainland.

  "Prepare the dock for two incoming," he murmured, conscious of Matt's fingers already moving on his control board, his own screen alerting him by a change of colour to the rear doors spiralling open. They had angled their doors facing outer space rather than facing earth. It was another attempt to stop earth seeing any light emissions from their spacecraft and, with any luck, miss their presence. Not that they intended to remain for long. Once their guests had arrived they would move out and take up station above the moon; somewhere close enough to enjoy a feel of being home but far enough away to have ample warning of any missile movement. History had taught them to be prudent.

  Allan and Matt knew their craft inside and out and knew each other nearly as well. They were certainly very good at anticipating each other, which was all to the good gi
ven the number of attempts earth had made to disable them, even destroy them.

  If you can't have the craft, then a few pieces would do. You could learn a lot from just a few pieces of spaceship - as the space travellers had found out when they had retrieved pieces of the International Space Station sixteen years before. If it hadn't been for the retrieval of vital parts of the station, no one would have known a rogue CIA agent had sabotaged it. That indicated the extent to which some would go to obtain HYPORT, the chemical compound that was the basis of their phenomenal space-going abilities, but could be adapted just as easily for use on a bus, a train, ship or an aeroplane.

  "I'll leave you to it," Allan told Matt and saw him wave in response before he crossed to the door to walk the three paces aft and enter the ship's largest meeting room.

  Michael was already there quietly talking to Heather, each helping themselves to a drink from the dispenser at the side of the room.

  "Hi. How's Wez?" Allan asked the girl's parents as he joined them in getting a cup of tea.

  "Fine, I think," Michael said, and grinned somewhat awkwardly. "You know, I've not seen her for a few days," he admitted, winking at his grinning wife.

  "And doesn't know how to use his phone to stay in touch," Heather rebuked him. "She's helping out on Mars for a few days," she explained and dug her tablet from the thigh pouch of her suit to show him the few pictures she'd received.

  "I hope she's not missing her studies while playing around with Frankie junior," Allan told her. The children were fourteen now, Wez slightly older though you'd not know it to look at the two of them. Frankie Junior already had his father's height and aloof manner. Wez, whether it was their relative ages or mind-set, had a knack of bringing out the child in him, the two of them often getting into trouble. They had an uncanny ability to take any piece of machinery and make a toy or game out of it. Nor were their games restricted to the crafts and facilities within their authorised reach.

  "Yes, I know. Fourteen going on thirty," Heather sighed, shaking her head at the complexity that was their daughter.