Back in the hold, John finished his explanation of their strategy to Jack, “Once we have closed this access hatch, we will be essentially sealed off from the rest of the ship. With the captain ashore and Chief Engineer Bill Shadley … ‘detained’ in your quarters, no one can open these ports without one of the sealed emergency codes which are reserved for active combat. In fact, even if there is an emergency tonight, the first lieutenant and acting captain will find that even the emergency codes will have mysteriously ceased to work.”

Jack shook his head a little and thanked the gods, not for the first time, that this man was on his side. Then he shrugged and smiled resignedly. John returned the major’s smile with one of his own and nodded toward the crates, saying, “Now, I’ve lined up the first eight of these along the edge of the open hatchway. Now I am going to jump down to the bottom of the main hold and you are going to stay here and push them, one by one, over the edge. I’ll catch them below and stack them up, then come back up here and line up the next eight. Sound good?”

Jack’s eyes widened once more, “Wait a …” he managed to get out, but before the rest of his objection registered, John had grabbed one of the crates, hefted it over his head and stepped off the edge. Jack stepped quickly to the side of the hole and looked downward in time to see the top of the crate stop with a thud at the bottom of the dimly lit space below him, then shift to one side revealing an unharmed John Hunt as he placed the heavy box in a corner.

John looked up expectantly and Jack stared at him. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this. But after a moment of looking down at the sweet-looking face of the Agent, he shrugged and set to. Stepping back he jammed his shoulder up against the first crate and heaved. It slid slowly forward, and then, with a sudden flood of speed it was gone, falling down into the darkness. Again Jack watched in amazement and again the crate seemed to hit solid ground, but this time without any perceptible noise. It just stopped, hung there for a moment, and then was hefted aside easily by the comically innocent-looking lieutenant.

Jack shook his head, reconciled himself that he was a long, long way from Kansas, and started heaving the big boxes over, one by one, into the waiting arms of his superhuman friend below.

* * *