Ranking. pt 6

Mike and Izzy sat at the island in their kitchen enjoying a great breakfast and catching up on the news. The screens that appeared besides their plates displayed everything the Company was making public knowledge. Another low tension morning, after a full night of sleep. Mike and Izzy had gotten used to nine solid hours, and a lack of life threatening happenings. They were never unprepared though, and kept weapons hidden in the apartment at all times. Both of them knew that though they were in the dome, they should always have a plan B when it came to the Company.

TJ and Trace are cleaning out the lab for the first time today, things were getting a little crowded. TJ also created a lab that would work the best for him. There was a giant room with shelves that were stacked with more then enough basic equipment to run a small army. Trace had gotten all of her upgrades, and TJ was running out of new ideas for her. They were a great distance from everything, and were right in the center of the Company. No more then a three minute walk to any of the important buildings. TJ had gotten anything he could have possibly needed. He even got some of his old privileges back, and started abiding some of the rules. He still hated the Board, but he got more inconspicuous about all of his thoughts and ideas. Trace sometimes found him comical when he would become childishly sneaky.



Everyone had settled into a nice little pattern. Mike and Izzy still hung out with TJ and Trace. The team had only trusted Daniel to take the Star Jumper. TJ always checks on the ship when it docks. He might trust Daniel to take it, but not to keep everything up to code. Daniel has his dream crew, and the arm plate with honors worn on his left arm. Everyone had done what they had to do, saved what they had to save, and been what they had to be. All they had to do now was kick back, and finish out life. No more life threatening situations, weeks without sleep, or losing contact with the company.

“So I want to go out tonight with everyone.” Mike paused because the anniversary came to mind. “If you want to” He added. Izzy finished her breakfast and got up after him.

“Yea, sounds like fun.” She said putting her bowl in the dish washer with his. They didn’t say why today was weird, but they both knew why it was.

“I didn’t know, cause it was the anniversary and all...” Mike was sure never to forget that date. She shrugged and thought of an answer. What happened to the ‘not talking about it’ thing that they were doing? She liked that.

“Always was a highlight of the day.” Izzy headed back to the bedroom.

“I didn’t know, and I was wondering.” He said following her. As he passes the phone it rang. He paused to answer the phone. “Hello?” Mike wanted to go spend the day with Izzy, he didn’t really want to talk on the phone.

“We have big problems...” Daniel said trying to catch his breath.

“Go on.” Mike figured he broke something that TJ had built and he didn’t tell him. He leaned against the wall and looked toward the bedroom. Daniel didn’t want to say what he had to say. Mike and Izzy would not have wanted to hear this. “Daniel.... what’s wrong?” Mike asked. Daniel let the words dive out of his mouth.

“I went back to the planet with the generators, and they have ships like ours” Daniel ended up yelling into the phone.

“You went back?” Mike had only heard that.



“They have ships like ours! Right down to the chip interfaced with the-” Daniel tripped into the realization that they could get into the dome. That meant they could be on their way at this very moment. “-with the dome.” He finished quietly.

“WHAT?” Mike tried to keep his voice down so Izzy wouldn’t hear him. He looked to the bedroom door quickly, as if he had expected Izzy to hear Daniel over the phone.

“I already talked to the Board and they’re doing nothing! They’re like ‘We do not see them as a threat’ What kinda shit is that! ‘not a threat’.... they’ll see the threat when they’re being killed by giant spiked ..... things!” Daniel was too angry to complete coherent thoughts.

“Daniel,” Mike paused so he could take a breath. “Calm down, gather a completed story, and meet me at the Board in ten.” Mike had to get a hold of TJ and tell him what was going on.

“Right, Okay. I am going to calm down and meet you at the Board.” He repeated to reassure himself. They both hung up and Mike looked to the closed bedroom door.

“Izzy I’m gonna go over to TJ’s. He’s got some crap to move to city placement... I’ll see you at dinner.” Mike shouted as he grabbed his sweatshirt and opened the door.

“Bye.” She said from the room, and Mike was off. He jogged across the park and barged into TJ’s lab.

“TJ we got problems!” He yelled looking for any sign of movement. TJ rolled around the corner on a chair with giant magnifying glasses on his head, looking at an extensive circuit board. The thin gold lines glistened in the dimming lights.

“What ever it is I can fix it.... but later cause-” Mike decided to interrupt.

“Rathen can get into the dome. Anytime, anyplace. Daniel is waiting at the Board for us.” Mike didn’t have the time to ease into this. TJ dropped the board as he stood.



“Umm... okay.” He jittered around and took the glasses off his head. He looked around then grabbed the pen and paper off the work bench. They left his lab and jogged toward the Board’s offices. Daniel was pacing at the bottom of the stairs talking under his breath.

“Daniel, don’t panic. Tell me exactly what happened and quickly.” TJ said pen and paper in hand. Mike stood and watched what TJ was writing.

“We were called for re-con on the planet, so we landed and I informed them of the precautions. I told them everything I knew. As we were walking the sand, we ran flat into the side of a Jumper. We thought we had gone in circles but the bot said we hadn’t so we continued on. I counted’ two hundred of ‘em ready to go and about a hundred to be worked on. I don’t exactly know when or how they are getting here, but they are.” Daniel rambled. TJ nodded and wrote stuff down quickly. They looked up the looming marble stairs and began to climb. One thousand two hundred and sixty seven stairs later they reached the great marble hall, lined with old pictures and guards.

They walked down the hall and the guards watched their every move. The K-5 got to skip all the paper work because of their reputation. Not too many people were happy about that. Mike stuck his hands in his pockets as they walked past the lines of people waiting to see the Board. TJ was dreading this, the Board always had something to say about him. Daniel had to keep himself calm. They stood in a giant court-like wooden room. Five people sat at a tall desk and looked down on the three people in front of them. TJ already felt the pressure, and was starting to get edgy.

“Daniel O’Conner, current Captain of the K-5, on the team with the generators.” Daniel bowed his head and introduced himself quickly.



“Timothy James, K-5, rigged the generators, holds one thousand one hundred and eight current patents with the Board.” TJ bowed his head and followed Daniels lead.

“Michael Andrews, weapons expert.” Mike didn’t want to talk so he didn’t list his accomplishments.

“Timothy, what seems to be a problem with the utmost urgency?” The icy blue eyes in the middle of the desk spoke. They always chose the most experienced crew member to speak, and that was TJ.

“Thank-you for seeing us. The Captain here has informed us that there are ships identical to ours on an enemy planet. In my opinion and the opinion of my colleagues if the people of that planet were to enter the bio-dome they could potentially wipe out every living thing here. In light of this situation , it would be in the domes best interest-” The female in the middle cut him off.

“-We always have the domes best interest in mind, there is no need to tell us.” She barked at him. The Board consisted of five ancient people who never seemed to die, they were just very old. TJ took a deep breath in frustration and tried to hide the tones of anger in his voice. This was so typical of the Board. He had all of the information and they couldn’t just listen for a change.

“My apologies.” He paused and took another breath before continuing. This was a complete waste of time. “If they get into the dome they will wipe us out.” TJ finally finished his thought and waited for the Board to tell him what they wanted to do, but this part seemed to last for ever.

“What would you suggest we do? Attack a planet that has done nothing to us?” The man on the end chimed in.



“YES!” Mike, Daniel, and TJ all said at once. The woman in the middle must have been having a horrible day, because she was less than tolerant with K-5. They all realized that they had answered a rhetorical question, and rudely at that.

“Well we’re not prepared to do so. You might be prepared to risk the well being of this company and yourselves, but it will not be permitted.” she barked down at them. “Dismissed” She yelled, slammed her gavel down, and waved them out. They left without argument and headed for the park. There was always a quite place in the park that made it easier to think. Mikes hand had slipped over the ring box in his pocket and his mind went to Izzy. As they sat on the park bench over looking the ripple free water each of them felt that they had sufficiently failed in life. Mike was so unsure about proposing to begin with. Now he didn’t want Izzy to think that the only reason he was asking was because they all might be cutting life a little short. Daniel, TJ, and Mike slouched into the failures they felt then with sorrow began thinking about ways around the Board.

“Could we wait to bring Izzy in on this?” Mike finally made a decision about asking Izzy.

“Why?” Daniel asked. They needed all the help they could get. Why would he want to wait.

“Well tonight at dinner...” He paused to pull the box out of his pocket. “I was going to ask her to marry me.” Mike looked to his two best friends for their reaction. He opened the box to show them the ring. A glistening foreign metal encompassed the glowing see through stone that lit the faces of Daniel and TJ.

“Where did you get that?” TJ asked in amazement.



“How come you never told us your name was Timothy James?” Mike asked trying to change the subject. He had finally told someone what he was planning and they seemed to be on board.

“You’re going to ask her to MARRY you!” Daniel grabbed his hand and yelled in excitement.

“Yea, so could we hold off on the whole “end of the dome” thing until after dinner. I don’t want her to think that the only reason I’m asking her to marry me is because we’re all going to die.” Mike killed his own happiness too quickly. He had a tendency to do that.

“Well it takes four hours in slipstream, and at least another hour in piloting. So we should have just enough time to have dinner before we die.” TJ paused and thought to himself for a moment. There was one more thing he had to say. “Worst case scenario: they get past the dome, kill the landing crew and invade the city. Best case: they never actually get here.” TJ figured he would get everything on the table so he wasn’t hated for bringing it up later. Daniel thought about where here was. This was the Company. No one was supposed to be able to dock at the Company who wasn’t part of the Company. The Company landing towers-

“Wait, we could tell the landing crew that they required voice recognition from the control rooms, and soldier ID from everyone. That way they couldn’t get in right?” Daniel worked off what he had heard TJ saying.

“Do we need Board conformation for that?” Mike looked back toward the cold building that stood mocking them.



“No.” TJ paused. “We don’t. You just need someone with a good excuse to get the head Landing Tower chick to send the message to everyone else” TJ said with new found energy. They all ran down the docks and to the main landing tower. They paused in front of the head girl to catch their breath and Mike straightened up to talk first.

“Hey Ashley.” Mike paused for recognition.

“Talk, I got Flame Jumpers coming in and they need help.” She said looking up into the sea of black.

“Well,” Mike paused and looked to TJ and Daniel who had now straightened up and listened closely. Mike Pulled TJ in front of him almost as a shield. “Tell her.” He said looking over his shoulder at Ashley.

“There is a planet in Croatoen and it has ships just like ours, and the people on that planet tore up Armored Fighters and they can get in because the chips are interfaced with the dome, and they are planning to wipe us out, and the Board wont do anything, and I need you to treat every incoming ship as an enemy and require voice identification and ID numbers from the Control Rooms, right now.” TJ said all in one breath, and even Mike was impressed.

“Now requiring voice and ID numbers from every Control Room.” Ashley said into her head phones calmly. “Anything else?” She asked. TJ shook his head no and they left her to tend her Flame Jumpers. ‘Crisis averted’ Mike thought as they walked away. They spent the rest of the day in TJ’s lab testing new and old weapons, and hanging out with Mike before he asked Izzy to marry him. Before they knew it, time had flown by and Mike had to rush home to change for dinner. He burst through the door kicking off his shoes and rushing into the bedroom to change.



“Sorry I’m late, I’ll be ready in twenty minutes!” He yelled turning on the shower. The mirror was already steamed up, Izzy was changed, and working on her hair. If they were going out to dinner then it was something big, or at least that was what she thought. Maybe TJ had some announcement he wanted to make or something. She zipped the back of her black halter dress, adjusted the holes in the front to show the tattoo around her belly button, and line up evenly to her necklace. Carefully she tied her shoes up her leg and fixed her hair. Mike flew out of the shower and started dressing quickly.

“So how was your day?” Izzy asked checking her lipstick one last time before saying she was ready.

“We had some scares, nothing that a race to the docks couldn’t handle.” Mike told the truth, kind of. It wasn’t a lie, there just wasn’t all of the truth.

“Well that isn’t fair cause everyone knows you’re the fastest.” She said grabbing her purse and walking to the balcony. Mike shrugged tucking in his shirt and grabbing his blazer. He was almost ready, and Izzy had probably taken an hour to look the way she did. Mike made some final adjustments as the Ventre glided to the balcony. “Ready?” She asked looking him over. He nodded and took a few deep breaths as he felt the small box in his pocket. The floating restaurant had already picked everyone else up and they were seated in the far corner laughing and talking amongst themselves. There was no one there that night, Mike had made sure that it was just the crew there to see this. The see through floor always set people on edge, but you could not look up to see who was on the floor, only look down at the people below you. As the lights dimmed in the city it became night at the bio-dome, and everyone had retired to their living quarters. Daniel told stories about planets they had traded with and how some of his crew was not too happy about the way he ran the ship.



“So, it’s about that time, anyone have anything to say first?” Trace said and looked to Mike. He looked around the crew as everyone got quiet. The dessert was set on the table, even though no one was hungry, and the waiters were gone. Mike cleared his throat to try and swallow his heart as he got up.

“Please give me your name and Identification number, Flame Jumper.” The landing crew asked as Alec aligned the ship with a dock.

“This is Alec, ID 69-25-73-28-C, I got all sorts of problems in tow I need to land now!” He sounded stressed, the landing girl had remembered him and let him dock all three hundred of his ships.

“Good to hear from you Alec.” She said as she cleared him.

“Could I have some landing crew assistance?” He asked.

“Sure, take the nine hundred and one thousand docks, dock two to a dock, they will all be transported accordingly.”  She made an all call for landing crew assistance. Alec was the first to dock, and the first to get out of his ship to greet the landing crew. Alec then slit the throat of the landing crew worker as his team started attacking the nearest living things. They landed and started to take over dock by dock. A team of Rathen had noticed the flying restaurant and taken a few rocket launchers with them to find it. As the crew glided over another Park TJ got a glimpse of the Rathen and panicked.



“EVERYONE DOWN!” He yelled as they were shot out of the air. The Rathen were happy with the explosion and smoke so they left to find new targets. After some of the smoke cleared TJ opened his eyes and saw nothing but darkness. As he pushed the table off of himself he heard nothing but a dull ringing even though he was sure something had to be making noise. The lights always buzzed in the Company, and radio broadcasts were heard through the night. He couldn’t hear them. He stood letting debris fall to the ground. His lips smeared with blood that trickled from above his eye. TJ’s left arm refused to move. The shoulder must have something wrong with it. After a long time of assessment he started looking for others. He looked off in the distance, like they would be standing neatly at the edge of the wreckage with medics for him.