Hyper
Chapter 5 – You Have the Ball

[Location: Aboard the Class Three, Planet Earth Refugee Transport, Elysian Fields]

Jozef keyed the mic and with a Ukrainian accent said. “Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5, this is the Earth transport, Elysian Fields. We are entering your space sovereignty and request a docking position. Copy.” He slouched in the leather covered co-pilot’s seat with his left foot resting on the edge of the control console. With his elbow stuck into the armrest, he rested his chin on the top of his hand holding the mic and waited for an answer. None came.

He huffed in frustration, keyed the mic, and repeated himself. “Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5, this is the Earth transport, Elysian Fields. We are about to enter your space sovereignty and request a docking position. Copy.” The leather that covered the seat underneath him creaked as he squirmed.

A few seconds later the communicator speaker crackled and a pixilated voice message was returned. “Copy Elysian Fields, this is Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 traffic control actual, granting docking privileges in bay number three. Once successfully docked, remain inside your vessel until the quarantine sniffer gives clearance for you to disembark.”

Jozef turned from his co-pilot seat and barked to Jack. “You heard the man. Set us down in dock three.” He carelessly tossed the mic back onto the control console.

Jack did not answer, but began to adjust the controls of the transport in preparation for landing.

From outside of the flight deck a voice chimed in. “They’re gonna be pissed when they see what we brought ’em.”

Jozef leaned back in his seat and slightly turned his head toward his unseen companion. “Hey, Tom, listen up. Don’t worry about what I got goin’ on. You just do what I tell you.” The muscles in his jaw clenched firmly.

Tom answered, “Hey…I’m just sayin’.”

“Yeah, you’ve been sayin’ a little too much lately. Why don’t you and Ruben check on the prisoner and make sure his cage is secured?”

Jozef turned back in his seat and watched Jack as he adjusted the controls and guided the ship toward the decontamination depot. Jozef was not trained as a pilot even though he sat in the co-pilot’s seat. He was the squad leader of the group and made sure everyone knew it. He didn’t have a problem with running the show and telling everybody what they needed to do.

Jozef leaned back again and rolled his eyes. “Yah know, I shouldn’t have to tell you to secure the prisoner’s cage every time we land. It’s part of standard protocol and that’s what I pay you for. Oh, wait a minute. That would require you to actually think, which if I remember correctly isn’t in your job description.” He snorted a chuckle and looked forward again.

Footsteps could be heard leaving the area outside the flight deck and heading for the rear of the ship as Tom and Ruben followed Jozef’s order. Tom replied using a smug and sassy tone. “Whatever.” The volume of his voice lowered as he walked further away. “Ya freakin borscht filled bastard.”

Jozef smiled at the rude comment and looked forward out the window. Borscht was actually one of his favorite foods when he was a small boy in the town of Horodenka in the western part of Ukraine. Borscht with a few slices of buttered bread was a meal he fondly remembered eating with his mother when he was a child.

Jozef Baca had lived his whole life in Horodenka before the worldwide infection. He had completed middle school and the first two years of high school before dropping out. At age sixteen, he got a fulltime job at a shipping warehouse as an inventory grunt. The work was hard but Jozef was young and strong and enjoyed being out of school as well as having money in his pocket.

While Jozef worked at the warehouse he became friends with a young guy that had been connected to organized crime. The guy had been planted in the warehouse to alert the local crime boss when shipments of weapons and prescription drugs had arrived. Within a few days of delivery, the loads of guns and drugs would be stolen by the minions of the crime boss and then illegally sold on the streets.

Because of his relationship with his warehouse friend, Jozef was able to get a job within the organization. A few weeks before his nineteenth birthday, Jozef was hired as a bartender at a local pub and worked there for six years. But his position of tending bar was actually a front for his job as a soldier in the Russian Crime Syndicate.

He made frequent visits to local business owners to remind them that their protection payment was due and the dire consequences if they were late. In most cases his large physical size and intimidating looks were enough to remind the store owners what they needed to do, but every once in a while, he came across somebody that wasn’t so easy to do business with.

He had an eight-inch scar under the right side of his chin that was a gift from an uncooperative shop owner that didn’t want to pay his protection money. The shop owner had tried to slice Jozef’s throat with a straight razor, but fortunately for Jozef, the blade was positioned a little too high and missed the jugular. There was a lot of blood, but he lived. The shop owner wasn’t so lucky. It was about that time when the world-wide infection started.

While most of the criminals locked up in penitentiaries on Earth had been left behind, there were a few that were allowed to relocate to Mars. The relocations had been lobbied for by a powerful drug company called Elixer Pharmaceuticals. The top executives at Elixer had ties with officials inside the U.S. Government and were able to bend the rules in a few instances that allowed some of the world’s most dangerous and extreme criminals to be moved from Earth to Mars.

Elixer had planned to psychoanalyze specific prisoners to help in the development of a personality altering drug that would be created in their new red planet research facility. They also planned to use the prisoners as beta-test subjects for the drug once it had been developed. The lottery ticket that Jozef drew, provided him with the job of Transport Security Squad Leader with the drug company.

As they glided closer to D.D.315, Jozef repeatedly opened and closed the cap of his cigarette lighter between his thumb and forefinger. It was a nervous habit that he had picked up some years ago. He wasn’t a big fan of atmospheric flight and absolutely hated space flight. It wasn’t the long gentle trips through space that bothered him, but anytime he was in a craft that was going to launch or land, he was nervous.

He stopped his twitching for a second and looked down at the lighter. It had been a gift from his older brother when they were back in Horodenka. It was made of brushed stainless steel and on one side there was a small picture of a beautiful woman wearing a bikini. The picture of the bikini clad woman could be seen when holding the lighter in the normal position, but turning the lighter upside down caused the woman’s bikini to disappear.

Jozef looked away from the entertainment of his lighter and glanced out the window. Then he pointed to the left and snapped at Jack, “There. Bay number three is to your left. The one with the enormous number three painted on the side of it.” He huffed, “Fuckin’ schoolboy.”

Jack ignored Jozef’s insult and silently made more adjustments to the transport’s controls and pointed the Elysian Fields in the direction of dock door number three.

While Jozef had been born into one of the roughest neighborhoods on the planet, Jack’s luck had been just the opposite. Jack had frequently talked about his happy life on Earth during the trip and it made Jozef’s stomach turn. He despised Jack because of his good fortune and had created the condescending nickname to release some of his own angst whenever he felt the need.

Jack Ford had grown up in Junction City, Kansas in the United States. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a stay at home mom that had a part-time job with an email marketing company. Jack was wholesome stock. He was the president of his high school class and had sunk the game winning basket to lead the Junction City Flyers to a basketball state championship. He had attended Kansas State University and graduated with a degree in Engineering Drafting.

During college he watched a video about small engine airplanes which convinced him to take up flying as a hobby. He had mastered single engine planes right away and continued his training so he could pilot more advanced aircraft. After graduation, he found a job as a draftsman at a local tool and die shop in Junction City and continued to fly during his free time.

After a few years of being locked inside of a drafting office, he quit his job as a mechanical draftsman and was hired by Astral-Express as an upper atmosphere hyper-sonic transport pilot. With a bit more training, he graduated to Space Transport Pilot Grade C and made runs to manned stations orbiting Earth.

He had been married two years before the infection started to a pretty, church going girl that he had met while shopping at the grocery store. Luckily, the lottery ticket she received allowed her to relocate to Mars and continue to work as a nurse.

Jozef would grit his teeth every time he saw the snap shot of Jack and his wife hanging in his bunk. He had paid for female companionship in the past, but he never had a loving relationship and it made him despise Jack even more.

Being that transport pilots were a hot commodity, Jack had been excluded from the lottery. He had been offered a position by Elixer to fly their space transports between Earth and Mars, carrying prisoners they wanted to psychoanalyze. He agreed to accept the job, but on one condition: after a four-year period, he would be allowed to relocate to Mars to be with his wife. Jack always talked with his shipmates about starting a family one day, even if it was to begin on the red planet. Wanting to get him onboard, Elixer agreed to his request, hired him, and designated him second in command on the Elysian Fields.

Jozef had made it perfectly clear that he was jealous of Jack, and even though he was a skilled pilot of a class three space craft, he gave him little respect.

Jack sat back in his seat, keyed the mic, and said in a calm voice that flowed like warm butter, “Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5, Earth transport Elysian Fields has a trajectory of niner five three point one, heading for dock number three. Craft speed is one point eight nine and dropping. We will be at your door step in fourteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Initiating auto-guidance sequence. You have the ball.”

A few seconds later a response came through the speaker. “Roger that, Elysian Fields. This is Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 traffic control actual. We have you on DRADIS and a lock on your auto-guidance. Dock doors are open and we have the ball. Sit back and enjoy the ride; we welcome your arrival to D.D.315.”

Tom came back to the flight deck with a report for Jozef. “I checked on our guest. He gave me a lesson in verbal abuse, so I guess you could say he’s just fine. His container is secured for landing.”

Jozef turned in his seat slightly but not far enough to actually look at his coworker and responded with a condescending tone. “Good. You and moron number two buckle in for landing. Keep your eyes on the Hellraiser, I don’t trust that asshole for a second.”