Graham Heights
Rainier
Chapter 48
Fruitless Endeavor
Fruitless Endeavor
Journal Entry - July 21st 2095
Lt Jason Knorack
Lt Jason Knorack
This Damn game has gone on long enough. I’m going to confront the Captain…
Jason climbed aboard the shuttle and as predicted he was only allowed to bring two other investigators, a DNA scanner and a single bag of forensic tools. It was going to be limiting, but Jason had to go and had to find something to tie Jordy to Julia.
The trip itself was uneventful, the arrival on the other hand went from bad to worse. The shuttle made two passes over the sight and surrounding areas. Lieutenant Finn, one of the triplets told Jason that his team would stay on the shuttle while they did a security sweep. Jason disagreed and the argument escalated until Fin pointed his weapon at Jason and commanded him to stay in the shuttle. Finn’s team departed the shuttle as Finn held Jason at gunpoint until shuttle’s doors closed, then Finn turn his weapon back to the air and gave Jason a smirk and snide salute.
Jason was furious, they would have an opportunity to clean up any evidence the Jordy left behind. Each of the team members carried a variety of weapons and equipment. They could have Tri-corders and other devices that they could use to erase what Jordy was looking for. As the shuttle lifted, Jason moved to the window to watch the marines set up their so called security perimeter. For the most part the team did as expected, each member took a vector and spread out to ensure the area was clear, except for Lieutenant Finn, he walked directly towards the building that the swept road lead to. Jason punched the wall of the shuttle four times in his anger.
Breathing heavily Jason turned around and sank into the seat next to the door. Tiffy just looked at him and asked with little emotion, “Did that help?”
Jason shook his head no.
“Are you injured.” Tiffy continued.
Jason looked at his hand, it was read, but he did not cut himself open. Once he flexed his fingers he shook his head no again.
They circles for what seemed like an hour. Then the shuttle was summonsed and the investigators were allowed to look at the scene. There was little to find. They found some scraps of material with no DNA evidence, some spilled fuel and oil, smashed crates that seemed to have happened recently, but little else. Jason’s team spread out to look in buildings near the large one they had spent all morning in.
Jason went to the building behind to look at some crates that had been recently opened. He was meticulous, if he was going to find anything, it would be small. Indeed the crates had been opened within the last month and they had contained something from Pratt and Whitney, which meant nothing to him at the moment. After coming up empty again Jason kicked a piece of the pallet that had broken off. The board only moved about half a meter, but it did flip over. On the underside, now exposed, were letters that were slightly darker than the wood. But they were not stenciled like everything else, they were hand written. Jason picked up the board and looked at it closely, “SOUTH.”
Jason tested the ink and found that it was blood. He cut a piece off and put one sample in his evidence bag and one in the pocket of this jump suit. He took the rest of the board back to the main building and ran a DNA sample. It was Lisa’s
Because Jason did not bring in the entire piece of wood, just enough to sample, Finn and his men did not see the word South. It was Jason’s hope to employ his AIs over the next week or so combing the entire area South of this location, but how far South? After another two hours of searching, the investigators got together to see if there was anything worthy of a second look. The only thing that could give them a clue was the strange markings on the road. There were four lines running in parallel of each other. Tiffy commented it was more like to pairs running in parallel to each other.
Jason had no idea what would make such lines and decided to take pictures with measurements and analyze it back on the ship. All in all, there was only two clues; The religious group that had abducted Julia, had been here; They were headed South; oh, and maybe they were not as cohesive as they thought. Hopefully that would mean that other clues to their whereabouts were coming.
Finn watched Jason the entire way back to the ship. He knew that Jason had found something, but he was in the dark as to what it was. Now Jason had the upper hand, but for how long. If Finn really thought they missed something and that Jason had any real evidence, there would have been a showdown. There wasn’t, or least not yet.
Once on the ground the two groups separated, Jason and his two AIs went below. Tiffy tried to engage Jason, but Jason signaled for them to not talk. Jason knew the evidence that he brought back was flimsy, too flimsy to build a case on. There was nothing with Julia’s DNA or any evidence that Jordy had been there, so he decided to keep the Ace he had, quiet. Hopefully this would ferret out the guilty party or at least someone that they could coerce into turning on the guilty party.
Once back in their secure compartment, Jason broke his team into two groups. One that was investigating leads that were generated by boots on the ground. These were leads that came in through official channels and were most likely wild goose chases. The second group to include Tiffy would investigate the “South” clue. Their task was simple, the two AI were just going to have to scan every square kilometer South of the take off point in a four degree arc, two degrees East of South and two degrees West of South and out a distance of one thousand kilometers which roughly calculates out to be 35 thousand square kilometers. They were to look for any changes from before the road was swept and after. Then analyse each change and report the ones that do not look natural. And if that does not turn up something then they would extend it another thousand kilometer, which would take three times as long to scrub.
Jason himself took the measurements, found on the ground, and started the painstaking process of figuring out what type of vehicle could have made it. If they knew that, then they could calculate the distance it could have flown which would help the AIs concentrate on that area. Hopefully it would be less than the original one thousand kilometers he gave his team as starting point.
Jason had to take a second and think about what it had to take to putting together something that has sat for eighty years, get it running, airworthy and actually fly it somewhere. Wow, that has got to be the craziest venture ever, but the evidence was there. Something and someone took an aircraft and flew away from the location in the desert. Now to find out what it could have been.
The data base for aircraft was quite extensive on the ship, however the distance between the wheels was just not one of those statical items to be found. It was going to require a Technical manual or a picture with a scale attached so that you could physically measure between the wheels and then use the scale to give you the actual size or distance. This process took more than a week and the end result yielded three aircraft that were close and a dozen possibles. The three closest were the German world war two transport aircraft called a 192 Kurier, and American or British Curtiss C-46 Commando, and the Douglas DC-2 or DC-3, and about four other machines that existed but were unlikely to be in, what use to be the United States, at the time of the fall. The good part was that most of them had about a two thousand kilometer range. , okay not a good part as that put the search into the ridiculous mode with more than one hundred and forty thousand square kilometers to search. Jason instructed the AIs to start at the twenty two hundred kilometer mark and work their way back to the point of origin. This way they might spot them sooner.
Even with the possible range of the aircraft the search has not yielded any evidence that a plane was on the ground within the search coordinates. It was decision time as to how the investigation would proceed. The effort to date has not produced a single piece of evidence that Julia was at that sight or with the religious congregation when they were there. By now Jordy’s disappearance has been a point of conversation and will require its own investigation as there was no evidence to link the two cases.
Jason decided to take the two AIs that were following the bogus reports and have them concentrate on the missing mules. Then Tiffy and Alor-Oh-five-One, who insisted on being called by his full name, were to concentrate on an area fifty miles North and South of the twenty two hundred kilometer range line. If the aircraft did make it that far, it had to be in this area, or they went an entirely different direction and that would take years to search. They were going to need something in the next few days or they would be forced to give up the search.
On Day three they found the Mules, Two hundred and seventy kilometers West of the swept runway and they were headed East. Once recovered the data files were scrubbed only to discover that besides their destination and the last ten minutes of travel the rest of the data had been scrubbed. A constant maintenance and removal subroutine had had been placed in the main processor and every ten minutes their memory allocations were erased and scrambled. This would destroy any evidence as to where they have been and what they have seen, heard or sampled. They had their basic programming in tack and stopped and charged on a regular basis. Other than that, they were blank slates. Not that humans could not have programmed them, it was just unlikely. So, that puts Jordy back in the picture, just not definitively.
The mules reappearance was not enough to justify Jason’s departure from the Creatos, but enough to get a drone fly over, so Jason would get another chance to see what is on the other side of the mountains. This time he would fly the drone South to the Columbia and then inland. Once the drone was South of the old town called Spokane he would initiate a zigzag pattern until the craft reached the town. It would have enough energy to circle a few times and then return to the ship. This way, if Jordy’s aircraft went down soon after takeoff, they would see it. Or and this was a big “OR,” Jordy would see the drone and establish contact. Jason knew that he would not, however the subject of the search was Jordy, not Julia. The Flight was more to establish where Jordy and Julia were not. And if this mystery aircraft had gone down sooner than later, then they might find it and confirm who flew out of Spokane.
That night at home Jason was far away and Lorin had to call him three times. “Honey. What’s wrong?”
Jason’s standard answer did not go over well. He was going to have to explain a few things, as none of it was classified, with exception of the explosion at the cabin, that point seemed to be kept quiet. After hearing all the angles and issues with the investigation Lorin admitted that she had a headache just trying to keep all the details straight. She also excused herself with the kids as she knew that Jason had to justify all the details or they were consumed him indefinitely.
Jason tried to sleep, but was up at three am and could not. He got dressed quietly and left for the ship. It took a while for a shuttle to pick him up and take him out. Since the explosion and Julia’s disappearance the ships were moved out to the middle of the bay for security reasons. This made them less accessible to those that lived ashore and worked on aboard.
When Jason finally reached his desk and picked up the pad he was using to scan the points of interest noted by his team of AIs, he noticed a new email. Jason opened as it was flagged as urgent. He could not believe what he was reading. They were new orders; Jason and his family were being re-assigned to the MayFlower.
Next Chapter
As you know this blog contains two books of the Remnant Series. Graham Heights is book 3 of the series. Below is more.
Book 4: Obsidian Arrows
Book 1 is now available in paperback or kindle The Grey Abyss
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R. A. Legg
R. A. Legg
R.A. Legg © 2016. All Rights Reserved.
