Starcorp 1: Escape from Sol
The Other Son

“This way,” Adam beckoned with a wave of his hand.

Adam, along with three of his closest friends, had just recently penetrated the lower levels of the Starship Amaterasu. This was no small accomplishment, even for an adult schooled in the science of computers and electronics. However, for fifteen-year-old Adam Beck, it was a challenge that he could not resist.

Getting past the doors that blocked the passages to the lower levels was the easiest part of getting past the starship’s security. These entryways were not designed with maximum security in mind. These areas had to be accessible enough for the ship’s maintenance crew to quickly get into on a regular basis. Compared to the security systems guarding the hatches to Engineering and the Command and Control sectors of the starship these doors were practically unlocked. The most challenging part of penetrating into the sub-levels of the starship was fooling the sensors. It was common for the location of everyone aboard a spacecraft to be continuously monitored. And certain areas aboard all spaceships were off limits to anyone without the proper security clearance. This was no different aboard the Amaterasu. Adam and his friends had no clearance beyond the residential levels. To enter any other part of the ship was supposed to trigger an alert in the ship’s Security Center.

Procuring the security clearances necessary to move about in the depths of the starship was no small feat. The ship’s mainframe computer maintained a vigilant watch over all corridors of the vessel. Fooling the computer was the only way to enter a forbidden area without setting off an alarm. This Adam did ahead of their descent. To the mainframe, he and his friends were Transport Systems Technicians moving about in the catacombs of the starship.

Adam devoted little effort to his school studies, and he regularly ditched classes for more entertaining pursuits. His high IQ did nothing to excite his enthusiasm for academia. Despite this disregard for his studies, he had sailed far ahead of his peers scholastically. Several of the classes he was attending were collegiate level courses. He had been classified as a mathematical genius three years earlier. He was deemed above average in all other courses, but most believed this was because he put little effort into them. School was not a challenge for Adam. What did hold his intrigue were computers.

In his thirteenth year of growth, Adam was writing complex computer code to the amazement and occasionally to the annoyance of his parents. In the past, these programs had no effect on the ship’s mainframe and the databases that it interfaced with. As a practice, Adam restricted his mischievous activities to private sector systems. His latest program was the first departure from that rule. This he did almost by accident. While exploring the Amaterasu data network, he discovered an encrypted backdoor portal to the maintenance employees’ database. For Adam, the challenge of hacking into it was almost irresistible. After more than a month of trying, he managed to do just that. It was his need for gratification that compelled him to make use of this accomplishment. Without a second thought, he listed his three friends and himself into the database.

Daniel and Wendy were accustomed to getting reports about their youngest child’s mischievous activities. As he grew older, his intellect, increasingly, became the mechanism that created the trouble he got into. The CED administration advised Daniel and Wendy to replace a constructive outlet for Adam’s genius. They feared that boredom coupled with his abundance of energy would get him into trouble someday. Daniel and Wendy gave little time or thought to this suggestion. Up until this moment, Adam had done nothing of large significance to warrant any great concern. Daniel and Wendy were supremely proud of their youngest child’s extraordinary intellect. To all else they were blind, for the most part.

“Come on,” Adam encouraged as he hurried down a grated walkway.

The swooshing of transport pods could be heard rushing by in the distance from where Adam and his friends were located. They were four levels beneath the Promenade. A dimly lit lattice of walkways, piping, conduits, stairs and ladders all worked together to configure an elaborate, three-dimensional labyrinth that ran along the boundary of the habitat’s circumference. So complex were the sub levels that small signs with three character location identification codes were employed at every junction. They were used to help guide the technicians to where they were going. Adam gave no thought to these signs. His destination was any area that he found intriguing enough to explore. They all understood that their way out was up.

“Where are you going, Adam?” Rick Marshall inquired as he followed a step behind.

“I just want to see what’s down this way,” Adam returned without a break in his pace.

Rick was Adam’s closest and longest friend aboard the Amaterasu. They shared a need for adventure and a propensity for getting into trouble. He and Adam were the same age. Rick, however, was not the academic equal of Adam, but this was understandable. There was only a minority of people that passed through the educational systems of the starcorps that were the equal of Adam’s intellect. Rick’s deficiency in this area was in one respect his saving grace. He lacked the technical expertise to tamper with electronic systems. This kept him slightly below the radar of CED Administration. To the school personnel that kept track of juvenile mischief, he was noted as a friend of Adam and little else.

The two other friends of Adam that were sharing this adventure with him were thirteen-year-old Eric Pearce and Fourteen-year-old Jaime Logan. Both were connected to this group by a need to share in the escapades that Adam and Rick had a talent for. They followed along willingly, but they contributed little to the endeavors that they participated in. Adam and Rick were always at the lead of their adventures. They fed off each other’s hunger for diversion, often competing to be the more daring of the two.

“The transport tubes are down that way,” Jaime warned with a hint of concern in his voice.

Jaime was not telling Adam anything he did not already know. The sound of the pods swooshing by was the allure that was guiding him. Rick noted this compulsion a moment earlier and promptly directed his thinking towards the prospect of exploring the tubes. He and Adam were soon in a race to lead the way. The sound of the transport pods rushing by grew noticeably louder with every five yards they traversed. It took them less than a minute to reach the outer boundary of the transport tubes and the door that barred their entry.

Security clearance was needed to unlock the door. This was no problem for Adam. He touched his com-link bracelet to the door’s control panel. The image of a numerical keypad appeared in the panel’s display. After keying in his passcode, the door unlocked. The red light on the door’s control panel turned green at that same instant. A second later the door slid open and Adam led his three friends through the portal.

“Way to go,” Rick promptly acknowledged as he followed through the doorway.

This portion of the transport tube was a thirty-yard-wide corridor on lower level four. The passageway was fifteen feet high and it extended all the way around the starship. The pods were propelled along magnetic fields generated between the ceiling and the floor. Large circular vertical shafts could be found at distant intervals fixed within the side walls. They were always situated in pairs, one for going up and the other for going down. From here, the down tubes led to the parking garage, one level down. The up tubes led to the upper levels and to the hub of the starship. A four-foot-wide railed catwalk extended along either side of the corridor and ended at the vertical tubes. Maintenance doors provided entrance onto the catwalks at either end.

Adam and his compatriots were transfixed by the sight of transport pods gliding back and forth at rapid speeds. Each of them had been in the interior of one of these spherical, hollow, balls on hundreds of occasions. It was the sight of them racing down the passageway that held their fascination at this moment. Their amazement held for more than a minute. At the end of this time, they began to move down the catwalk and away from the door that they came through.

Time and again, as the four explorers moved down the walkway, they were buffeted backward and forward by the wind generated by the fast-moving spheres. The pods traveled down six separate lanes. The three lanes on the near side of the corridor moved all pods from left to right. The three lanes on the far side of the corridor moved the pods in the opposing direction. The center two lanes were the ones most frequently used. The spheres in them often went by in strings of two, three, four, five and six. The lanes to either side of the two center lanes were used less often, and the pods within them moved at a slightly slower speed. The outside lanes were infrequently used and moved decidedly slower to the pods to their lefts. They were always slowing for entry into the next vertical tube or accelerating to merge into the lane to its left.

After another three minutes of walking, Adam and his friends came across a pair of vertical transport tubes. The walkway they were on came to a stop there. An exit door for the transport corridor was situated there. Adam ignored it and stopped to look out across the passageway. Eric and Jaime were puzzled by his decision to stop, and they exhibited this with perplexed expressions. Rick was quick to note where Adam’s attention was focused and promptly began to grin in reaction to this awareness. He instinctively knew that Adam was thinking about crossing the corridor to the walkway on the other side.

“I dare you,” Rick coaxed with an amused expression.

Adam was quick to pick up this challenge. After pausing to give Rick an audacious smile he climbed over the waist high walkway railing. Eric and Jaime watched him do this with shocked expressions. They both had their doubts that Adam could cross the corridor without being struck by one of the pods. And they were quick to tell him so.

“Come on, Adam, stop playing around,” Jaime instructed with more than a hint of concern in his tone.

“It can’t be done,” Eric insisted an instant behind.

Rick’s take upon this act was very much the opposite of his two friends. He believed it could be done. Just the same, he shared Jaime’s and Eric’s hope that Adam would not try, but this was only because he wanted to do it first.

“You better time it right,” Rick warned with a mischievous smile. “If you get hit by one of those pods it’s going to hurt, a lot.”

Adam acknowledged this warning with a look and a smile. He then turned his attention back to the transport pods racing by in front of him. He began timing their movements and estimating his own against the space of time between the pods. Every other second, he would switch his gaze from one direction to the other and back again. After more than a minute of this, he leaned out towards the corridor.

“Don’t do it, Adam,” Jaime implored with a wide-eyed expression.

Adam gave no thought to his plea and continued to switch his attention back and forth at the oncoming pods. There was a one-foot drop down to the transport pod corridor. Adam stood on the ledge, holding on to the railing, as he made his final calculations. Half a dozen seconds later he made his leap onto the corridor floor. With three long strides, he raced across the first lane and into the second. He hesitated there for a second with a wide-eyed look of dread. He gauged the approach of the transport pods to his left, and those crossing his path in the third and fourth lanes. The pod in the fourth lane was coming from his right. Shortly into this calculation, he raced across the third and fourth lanes and came to a stop in the fifth. It took little more than a second for three pods in the fourth lane to pass behind him. An instant behind that he raced back into the fourth lane in time to let two pods go by in the fifth and one in the sixth. A second after stopping, he raced back to the second lane to evade pods crisscrossing in the third and fourth lanes. He quickly panted away two breathes as three transport pods whisked by in front of him. As he did this, his head turned left and right six times so that he could estimate the transit time of each new pod that came into view. With his third breath, Adam raced across the third lane an instant ahead of a pod passing through and came to a halt in the fourth. His sudden stop saved him from colliding with two pods going by in the fifth lane. Within a second’s time, Adam assessed that he needed to vacate the fifth lane and avoid the sixth and fourth lanes. Amid the shouts of warnings from his friends, he spun about and raced back into the third lane in time to evade pods rushing by in lanes four, five and six. No sooner had he done this did his friends begin to scream at him to watch out for a transport pod racing towards him. Adam had already factored its approach into his decision to stop there. With a look of heightened apprehension across his face, he lingered in the third lane for as long as he dared. At the last instant, he raced across the newly cleared fourth and fifth lanes and into the sixth. Without a pause, he jumped up onto the ledge on the far side of the corridor and leaped over the railing to the walkway on the other side.

The moment that Adam had both feet planted on the walkway he turned about and stretched out his arms in a triumphant gesture. He held that posture for three seconds as he flashed a smile back at his three friends. At the end of this time, he crossed his arms and gave Rick a smug look of satisfaction.

“Okay, my turn,” Rick shouted across the corridor with no hesitation.

Rick was eager to duplicate Adam’s accomplishment and was confident that he could so. This was not entirely cockiness on his part. He was every bit the daredevil that Adam was and decidedly more adept at physical activities. He promptly climbed over the railing and began gauging the flow of transport pods for the right moment to start his crossing.

“Don’t do it, Rick,” Eric urged with a nervous shake of his head.

Rick gave no thought to Eric’s entreaty and continued to make his preparation to cross the passageway. Thirty seconds into this wait, he commenced his dash. In little more than half the time that it took Adam, and with one less back step, he reached the other side. No sooner had he scaled the railing did Adam begin to applaud his friend with several claps of his hands. His face was nearly stretched into a grin as he did this. Rick was equally pleased with himself.

“Okay, who’s next,” Rick called out towards Jaime and Eric.

“No way,” Eric responded with a shocked expression and a shake of his head. “I’m not doing that.”

“You guys are crazy,” Jaime yelled out a second behind and with a large smile on his face.

“Come on, it’s easy,” Adam grinned back as he beckoned with his hand.

Eric was decidedly averse to attempting the crossing and showed as much with a step backward. He flagged both hands into a negative gesture and shook his head as he spoke his response.

“No way…”

Eric was the least adventurous of the four of them. He was often the last to try something new, and he was the one that was most likely to not try at all. Daredevil activities were not in his nature. Adam’s and Rick’s proclivity for dangerous acts was not the characteristic that attracted them to him. His association with Adam and Rick was based, primarily, on age and proximity. The number of juveniles in most starships rarely reached ten percent of its population. Eric did not have many choices for friends that were a comfortable fit for his age. His close association with Jaime was a major reason for his friendship with them. Jaime was well liked by Adam and Rick. His company was sought out regularly.

Jaime was much more likely to follow Adam’s and Rick’s lead. He was not as mischievous as they, but there was nothing that they would do that he would not try if challenged. His pride would not permit him to be perceived as the lesser of his friends. This was a condition that was coming into play at that moment.

“Come on, Jaime,” Eric beseeched after noting that his friend was yielding to Rick’s and Adam’s dare. “You’re not going to do it?”

Jaime’s only response to this was a shrug that suggested he felt compelled to try. After this, he began to scale the railing. Adam and Rick cheered Jaime on as he positioned himself to make his dash across the corridor. After more than a minute of contemplation, he made his leap to the corridor floor. His three friends watched with expressions of amusement, excitement and dread. The dread was on Eric’s part, and the amusement belonged to Adam. His delight was heightened with each close encounter that Jaime had. Rick and Eric yelled out warnings and directions as Jaime zigzagged back and forth across the floor. Shortly past thirty seconds of dodging Jaime was conflicted by the near simultaneous approach of nine transport pods. Two of the pods were approaching him in the fourth lane. Three were approaching his path in the third lane. Four more pods were approaching his path in the first, second, fifth and sixth lanes. Jaime did not know which way he should go. Rick and Eric yelled out conflicting instructions. After a moment of hesitation, Jaime concluded that he had no way out. In that instant, he closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact that he expected to receive, and then there was nothing. Jaime opened his eyes a second later in response to the sound of Adam laughing with reckless abandon. Despite this, his first thought was to look towards the two pods that had been racing towards him. At that moment, he noted, to his surprise, that the pods had stopped three feet away from him.

“What happened?” Eric called out to Adam from across the corridor.

Adam gave no response to this question. He allowed all to watch without distraction, as the pods moved to the next lane over at their earliest convenience, one after the other. After doing this, they continued on their way.

“You knew,” Jaime shouted at Adam after a quick turn of his head in his direction.

Adam was all the more amused by Jaime’s fierce reaction. His laughter increased in intensity for a few seconds more, and then he gave his response.

“Yeah,” Adam yelled out with a large grin on his face. “How crazy do you think I am?”

Rick had no knowledge that this would happen. His initial expression was one of surprise. He quickly discerned what had happened and joined in on Adam’s mirth.

“The pods have proximity sensors,” Adam explained with a large smile.

Both Jaime and Eric took this information with reluctant smiles. Jaime shook his head in reaction to his thought that he should have known. Eric quickly put his thoughts into words.

“You dick!”

This remark engendered more laughter from Adam and Rick. After several seconds of fretting Jaime and Eric joined in on the guffaw. Their mirth went on for another fifteen seconds. During this time, Jaime walked across the corridor without regard for any oncoming pods. Shortly after he climbed over the railing, and onto the catwalk, Eric crossed the corridor in a similar manner. The pods either stopped or evaded him as he made his way to the other side.

It did not take long for Rick to conclude that they could replace nothing more entertaining on the lower levels than this. Adam was quick to agree. Jaime and Eric shortly followed their lead. Together they spent the next hour testing themselves against the onrushing transport pods and each other. They kept a count of the times each of them caused a pod to stop. The accepted goal of the play was to tally the fewest disruptions in the movements of the pods. At the back end of this time, Rick held the smallest count with four. Adam followed him with six. Jaime was in third place with a total of seven stops, and Eric came in last with nine. Their amusement with this game was still in full bloom when these numbers were tallied. This was the count when something unexpected brought their sport to a halt.

“Stop what you’re doing,” a deep voice boomed from down the corridor.

Adam and his friends came to a sudden standstill in response to this command. They quickly looked about them and counted a total of seven men approaching their location from both ends of the corridor and from either side of it. Three of them were maintenance workers, and the other four were security officers. Adam and his friends saw no recourse but to concede to their inevitable detention and waited for this to happen. The security officers took them into their custody in short order. They promptly pulled their identifications from the ship’s personnel database and listed their malfeasance onto their records. All this they did within the first ten minutes of contact. At the end of this time, they escorted the four juveniles to the Amaterasu Security Center and commenced to question them for the particulars of their circumvention of the starship’s security system.

Hacking into the security system of a starship was a serious offense regardless of the starcorp it belonged to. The prospect of being expelled from the community was nearly a mandatory punishment for an adult that perpetrated such an act. The only considerations that had the potential of lessening the punishment were the intent, the target and the age of the offender. Luckily for Adam and his friends they met the conditions for all three considerations. The target of their security breach was not considered a sensitive area. The intent behind their actions was deemed to be little more than a mischievous act, and their young age supported this assessment. Their parent’s records also worked in their favor. It was for these reasons that the Amaterasu Prosecutor’s Office decided to forgo charging the four boys until after conferring with the RG01 Starcorp’s Board of Directors. All there knew that the boys could face charges of breaking and entering and/or trespassing and computer hacking. The four boys could face expulsion from the starcorp if found guilty of any one of these offenses. The head prosecutor was not inclined to inflict a punishment this drastic, but he preferred to know the thoughts of the Directors on this matter before dismissing this option.

Daniel and Wendy had recently settled into the apartment following their evening at the tennis tournament and the restaurant. Sawyer and Daphne were with them when they received the call regarding Adam’s detention. Daniel and Wendy arrived at the security center fifteen minutes after that contact. Before they could collect Adam, they endured another thirty minutes of summary, counsel, and clerical prerequisites. At the end of this, they left the Security Center with their third child in tow.

“What the hell was on your mind?” Daniel growled at his youngest child.

Daniel commenced his reprimand three seconds after the front door to their apartment closed shut. Wendy waited her turn to express her displeasure. She stood well behind her husband to give room for his aimless pacing and theatrical arm gesturing as he spoke. Sawyer and Daphne were present as well. They had been waiting there for their little brother to come home and for news about his fate. They stood back to the edge of the room to give space for the full range of their parent’s displeasure.

“Do you want to be sent back to Earth?” Daniel questioned with a shocked expression.

With his head lowered, slightly, Adam shook out a no along with a shrug.

“You’re endangering the whole family with these pranks,” Daniel roared back with outstretched arms. “What are we supposed to do if they decide to kick you out of here?”

“I don’t know,” Adam responded at close to a whisper.

“You can do so well here,” Daniel roared at his son. “And you’re just pissing that all away.”

It was no secret to anyone in the family that Daniel and Wendy had high expectations for Adam. Their youngest child’s exceptional intellect was their proudest achievement. All their efforts to dote on their elder two children to an equal extent paled by comparison. In the eyes of Daniel and Wendy, Adam was the star of the family. He was the member of their number that they expected to go far in this new existence.

“What were you thinking, Adam?” Wendy implored with an astonished expression.

Adam avoided the gaze of his mother as he listened to her displeasure.

“I thought because there’s not a lot of security down there no one would care,” Adam explained dejectedly.

“This is RG01,” Daniel yelled back at his son. “This entire starcorp is a top-secret installation. Security is watching everything—How could you be so stupid? You’re smarter than this, Adam.”

Daniel’s angry rebuke caused Adam to feel and look even more dejected. After a moment of indecision, he whispered out, “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Daniel’s rage was weakened by his son’s pitiful display. After a few seconds of pacing, he turned to Adam and began to speak to him in a conciliatory tone.

“Adam, I understand that you’re eager to apply this extraordinary gift of yours to something, but this is not the way. When we get past this—If we get past it—you can never do anything like this again.”

“What were you thinking?” Wendy questioned an instant behind with a shake of her head.

Adam had no ready response to this. He did consider the risk of toying with the pods, but it was the risk that excited him. For Adam, his immediate world was boring. His high IQ, his abundance of energy, and his addiction to adrenalin pumping excitement made it impossible for him to remain within the confines of his adolescent world. All that he could see and perceive looked like toys for him to play with. His enthusiasm for life would not allow him to accept limitations on where he could go or what he could do. Audacity was always at the lead in his mischievous endeavors. The risk and danger within an act that he perceived to be doable made it even more irresistible. An arrogant assumption that his intellect was the equal of the endeavor always backed up this inclination.

“Honey, things like this go on your record,” Wendy admonished softly. “Something like this can cause you to lose opportunities.”

“I know, Mom,” Adam consented with a despondent expression. “I won’t do it again. I promise.”

Even as he made this promise Adam knew that it was unlikely that he could keep it. Adam always knew when he was doing something he should not, but this had no effect on his conscience until after he got caught doing it. He suspected that some future event, or situation, would prove too tempting for him to ignore. Despite this awareness, he wanted to be true to his word to his parents.

“I don’t want you going anywhere other than school until after the hearing,” Daniel directed sternly and with a point of his finger.

Daniel paused after this statement to give his son a look of sincerity. At the end of this, he put a question to his youngest son.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Adam responded with a downcast look. “I’m sorry I pulled you and Mom away from your days off.”

“We weren’t doing anything more important than you,” Wendy fervently reacted. “We’re just worried for you. We want you to have a good life.”

Daniel spoke up behind his wife with nearly as much warmth.

“You have so much potential, Adam. And we’re very proud of you, but you can’t just go around doing anything you want. Bad decisions can have consequences.”

Several seconds later Daniel decided that he had said all that needed to be said. He turned about and set off for his room. Wendy lingered behind for a few seconds more and then followed her husband. As soon as they were gone from the family room Adam turned his attentions to his siblings and the disapproval he expected to hear from them.

“There’s going to be a hearing?” Daphne questioned with a look of exasperation.

“In a few days,” Adam reported solemnly.

“What’s going to happen at the hearing?” Sawyer asked with a look of puzzlement.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Daphne patronized loudly. “They’re going to decide what to do with him.”

Accustomed to his sister’s sharp remarks, Sawyer took the criticism stoically. After taking a moment to ponder it, he asked the question that resulted from the effort.

“They won’t send him back to Earth?” Sawyer inquired of Daphne with a bewildered look. “I mean, Adam is an adolescent.”

“He’s a delinquent,” Daphne sharply corrected. “He broke into a high-security area of the starship.”

“It wasn’t a high-security area,” Adam insisted with a quick response.

“It was a locked off part of the starship,” Daphne argued back. “The only way you could have gotten in there is by hacking into the starship mainframe.”

This remark produced the hint of a smile on Adam’s face. Despite the disappointment and inconvenience this had caused his family, Adam was still proud of his accomplishment. Shortly he gave voice to this feeling.

“There’s not many that could have done that,” Adam spoke up with an expression of excitement in his voice. “You should have seen the faces of the people in Security. Even Mom and Dad were impressed.”

Adam’s ego was often the mechanism for his troubles. Accomplishing what others could not was becoming an increasingly powerful motivator in him. At this moment, it was his need for acclaim that was causing him to boast of his achievement.

“And you’re proud of that?” Daphne challenged with a fierce look on her face.

“I just mean that it wasn’t easy to do,” Adam returned apologetically. “You have to admit that’s pretty impressive.”

Sawyer had no response to this. He knew that his brilliant little brother had done something remarkable. He envied Adam his extraordinary intellect. He wondered if he would act any different if had his brother’s genius for math and computer science.

Daphne had no envy for her youngest brother’s intellect. She was happy for him when he was not an annoying little brother. She regularly sought out his assistance with her studies and, during most occasions, she genuinely enjoyed his company. This event, however, was not one of those occasions, and she was quick to express this temperament.

“Pretty stupid,” Daphne flared back at Adam. “You need to understand one thing, Adam. I’m not getting kicked out of RG01 or sent back to Earth because of you. I’m old enough to change my membership status to independent. And I will if the Directors decide to kick you out of here. I don’t care what Mom and Dad decide to do—I’m staying here!”

Daphne displayed a fierce scowl as she lingered behind that statement. Several seconds later she turned about and set off for her room. Adam and Sawyer watched her leave with shocked expressions.