Terran Homecoming

Chapter 12

Inside of the confines of Kieran's quarters Lt. Michaels works tirelessly for six hours attempting to crack open the contents of his console. Kieran's door slid open that made him turn his head seeing Martin walking inside.

"Any luck so far?"

"No," he said, shaking his head in defeat. "I feel I have tried everything even trying to create a back door."

"We need to know what's on there."

He continued typing away looking for some kind of work around.

"I know. Why did he leave the ship in the first place?"

"I have no idea."

In that moment the whole screen came to life showing his full desktop.

"That did it," Michaels said, starting to search though everything. "Looks like he had some communications from someone who was very good at hiding their tracks. Kieran was given an encrypted code key."

"An code key? I thought only higher ups had access to those," Martin said, taking a look at the screen. "You think you can descramble the messages?"

"I can at least try. I know it won't be easy."

"Keep at it," he said, patting his shoulder.

As Michaels went back to working on descrambling the messages Martin could hear Aiden's voice chime in.

"Bring the scout ship back down," he said, sounding serious. "I need to come back."

"What's wrong?"

Martin and Christopher both looked and listened to Aiden's voice.

"It's something that I need to confirm," he replied. "Did you find anything from Kieran's room?"

"Yeah, Michaels was able to decrypt his console and found he has been talking with someone using a encrypted code key. What is this all about?"

"I will tell you when I get back."

After some of the army officers gave Aiden a ride back to the ship that took him back to their main ship, Aiden went directly to his office tapping into his Terran library index. He kept perusing the archives but still heard Martin coming inside.

"Aiden, I know you." he said, looking at him. "I saw your face when you came in here and there have been very few times I've seen it."

"Kieran used implantation on the man who shot Anderson."

"You're serious? That hasn't been used since...but that was like ten years ago and everyone involved was put away."

"I took a look inside the shooter's head and saw him, it was Kieran. That's why I am looking back to the events of what happened."

Martin looked stunned slumping down in a chair across from Aiden's desk.

"What are we going to do?" he said, looking solemn. "We can't have it happen again on Earth after it looks they have been able to trust us. All of the ground work that you have built would be for nothing."

Aiden stopped on an entry pulling up a file silently reading to himself shaking his head.

"We have to find him now and question him."

From outside of the room where the last vestiges of Kieran were left behind, a young hotel desk clerk in his twenties walking by could hear a loud banging coming from a nearby trunk.
He tried opening the front door seeing it was easily unlocked searching for the trunk release reaching under and popping it open. The desk clerk right away heard somebody gasping for breath seeing a man in nothing but his underwear barefoot laying inside of the trunk.

"Oh my god, thank you," Thomas said, slowly sitting up. "I've been trying to cry out for help for hours."

"Uh...do you know how you got in there?"

Thomas stared straight ahead trying to think but producing a blank slate in his mind.

"You know I have no idea." he said, standing up slowly looking around. "Where am I?"

"You are at a motel in town."

Thomas turned around looking at where he was at seeing a few store fronts across from and other cars whizzing by up and down the street.

"But I know I was out somewhere off outside of here."

He kept looking around until it started to slowly sink in.

"My wife! I know! I had a half day of work and told my wife I would be home soon....I was driving...but after that I don't remember."

"You can come into the office and call her if you'd like."

"Yes! Please!? She is probably worried out of her mind!"

*************

Aiden and Martin walked over to Michaels sitting in front of a console on the top deck.

"Bring up Kieran's service record."

Lt. Michaels tapped a few keys bringing up a photo of Kieran next to his basic resume showing his years of service and where he went to school.

"Doesn't look like there is anything out of the ordinary," he said, scrolling down. "Graduated from the Terran Corps. Had a few prior assignments before coming on board here."

"Open a line to Area 51," Aiden said.

Then Michaels access the communication array and said, "Okay, they can hear you."

"Area 51, this is Captain Aiden asking for permission to access your network of security cameras."

"What are you looking to do, Aiden?" Mark said.

"We have a photo of our officer and we are looking to match him to see where he went after the shooting."

"Alright, we will give it to you."

"Thank you."

Soon at once Michaels screen was awash in several different cameras.

"Where would he go?" Aiden asked, looking curiously.

"He is on his own with no resources," Martin said. "He would have had to get his hands on some Earth money definitely."

"Some of the cameras are just showing people's faces outside."

"They are called automatic teller machines," he replied. "They withdraw money from banks. Kieran could of probed it and used it to give him some."

"Going through all bank cameras."

The cameras quickly spun through several images until it suddenly stopped on Kieran when he withdrew his $5000.

"Found him," Michaels said, blowing up the photo. "It's a bank from the closest town."

"You want to investigate this?" Aiden asked.

"Sure, why not?" Martin replied smiling. "If we are going to be moving here hopefully going to have get myself acclimated."