Chapters (48)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Table of Contents
- Chapter One: Fender Bender
- Chapter Two: Bigfoot Burrito
- Chapter Three: Treasure Hunt
- Chapter Four: Open Sesame
- Chapter Five: Central Intelligence
- Chapter Six: First Flight
- Chapter Seven: Park It
- Chapter Eight: Next Steps
- Chapter Nine: Search Strategies
- Chapter Ten: Overflight
- Chapter Eleven: Barn Doors
- Chapter Twelve: Saturn Fly-By
- Chapter Thirteen: Getting a Clue
- Chapter Fourteen: Hacked
- Chapter Fifteen: The Spy Game
- Chapter Sixteen: Investigations
- Chapter Seventeen: Break-In
- Chapter Eighteen: Battening Down
- Chapter Nineteen: Shoring Up Defenses
- Chapter Twenty: Third Time’s the Charm
- Chapter Twenty-One: Proxy
- Chapter Twenty-Two: Rescue
- Chapter Twenty-Three: Chase
- Chapter Twenty-Four: Spies R Us
- Chapter Twenty-Five: Surveillance
- Chapter Twenty-Six: Making Plans
- Chapter Twenty-Seven: Going In
- Chapter Twenty-Eight: Infiltration
- Chapter Twenty-Nine: Accidental Captive
- Chapter Thirty: Interrogation
- Chapter Thirty-One: Reaction
- Chapter Thirty-Two: Kidnappings
- Chapter Thirty-Three: Reviewing Options
- Chapter Thirty-Four: Public Debut
- Chapter Thirty-Five: Distractions
- Chapter Thirty-Six: The Big Reveal
- Chapter Thirty-Seven: Regrouping
- Chapter Thirty-Eight: Waiting for Results
- Chapter Thirty-Nine: It Hits the Fan
- Chapter Forty: Disassembly
- Chapter Forty-One: Wrapping It Up
- Chapter Forty-Two: Negotiations
- Chapter Forty-Three: Coda
- About the Author
- About the Publisher
“Hmm, okay, so a lot of traffic in and out,” I said. “But it seems risky to park that close.”
“Why? What’s the alternative?” Nat asked. “Park a mile away and hike it? That would get old pretty fast.”
“Maybe it did get old pretty fast,” Patrick said. “They might have started off parking a long way away, then got lazy as everything became routine and nothing bad happened.”
I couldn’t help a chuckle at the thought. “That sounds a lot like something humans would do.”
“Laziness is not a uniquely human trait,” Sheldon said. “Although you seem to have elevated it to an art form.”
Patrick looked up. “Again, meow.”
“You make it so easy,” Sheldon replied.
“We need a strategy,” Nat said.
I nodded. “Well, we’ve got the cloaking detector. Do people at Harris walk around outside on their lunch hours?”
“A little bit, but we have a cafeteria in the building. And the executives have their own dining area upstairs, of course. People from the smaller businesses generally walk to one of the fast-food joints or the food trucks that park on the street.”
“Well that’s good,” I said. “You could go for a stroll with a detector under your jacket and no one would be suspicious.”
Nat hesitated, then nodded. “I guess so. It’s not much of a plan, but it’s all we have right now.”
Chapter Fourteen: Hacked
Chapter Fourteen: Hacked
Home.
The re-hangaring was performed without effort, the wagon doors opening and closing at Sheldon’s transmitted command. In no time the Halo was safely parked, undercover, and invisible.
I walked down the airlock steps, closely followed by my friends. I turned at the bottom and said, “Okay, Sheldon, close it up.” The airlock staircase rose slowly into midair, then disappeared.
Nat put her backpack and laptop on the workbench. “It seems like an odd thing to say, but I’m glad I’m back. Space travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, even on a luxury flying saucer.”
Patrick put his hands on the small of his back and arched backward. “Next time, let’s get Sheldon to assign us staterooms or whatever it is the scientists lived in.”
Patrick’s phone dinged in his pocket. He looked down but didn’t pull it out. Moments later, Nat’s phone dinged as well, then mine.
Nat did take her phone out and look at it as it dinged several more times. “Of course. Every notification and text and whatever that we haven’t been getting while we’ve been out of range has just dumped onto our phones all at once. Yee-hah.”
I looked at my own phone. Two texts from my mother, a couple from other friends, a bunch of Facebook and Twitter notifications, some other miscellaneous things. I was just reading the second text from my mom when Patrick yelled, “What the fuck?”