The second drive back to LAX-SP was fraught with tension. Alekai and Jesse sat in the back seat of the truck staring out the window at the scenery passing by.
Bringing the Gear along had completely blown their cover so there was no longer even a reason to continue the farce of being a married couple with the less-than-stellar names.
The fact that they were both considered deceased by The Powers That Be was another wrinkle that they did not know how to deal with.
Unlike the last time, Tom said nothing this time as he drove the delivery truck with the Gear, folded up into a cube and lashed to the back of the large flatbed he used to haul trees.
He had covered it up as best he could with a large green tarp but the Gear's feet were so large they still stuck out anyway.
The biggest issue was that Tom did not have a ticket to get on the starship. There wasn't enough time to order one and even if there was, this particular flight was no longer even selling tickets.
The passengers had all boarded and were in their seated positions ready for lift-off, but the flight had been delayed for some reason having to do with final security checks and clearances.
Or so they were told.
Truth of the matter was, they were waiting for Alekai and Jesse, along with their Gear Bessie.
Once the rag tag group made it to LAX-SP, a special convoy led them through the spaceport and into a large hangar where they were told to park the truck.
A portly man in a yellow construction hat came out with a handheld device and scanned the truck and the Gear for anomalies. Once he was satisfied that there were no explosives or any dangerous chemicals, he turned to Alekai and Jesse.
"We need to get the Gear onboard. You two are going to have to walk it into its storage space. This thing is too heavy for us to haul in there."
Alekai and Jesse glanced at each other.
"We need one more ticket on the starship for my dad." Alekai indicated with his head at Tom's direction.
"That's not the deal here."
Alekai shrugged. "Then I guess the Gear stays on the truck and he drives it back home."
The man paused and then looked at his watch. He didn't have time to deal with this shit.
He tapped on his mobile device with an obvious air of annoyance.
"Yeah, it's me. I need another ticket to be issued under Security Detail…name?…I dunno. Just leave it blank for now…Yeah…send the ticket to my device and I'll forward it to him."
He muttered a few final things into his device and then shoved the mobile device into his breast pocket.
"It's done." He waved his hand. "Get the Gear into place and your dad gets a ticket onboard."
"Ticket first. Then we move it in place." Alekai insisted.
"It's coming. I just ordered it. But we only have fifteen minutes left to get the Gear stowed or we miss the window to get out onto orbit."
"Then I guess your people need to move a little faster, huh?"
The man shot Alekai a vicious look. "It's a digital ticket. I'm getting it now."
He aimed the mobile device at Tom's passport. A thin green beam shot out of one end of the mobile device and hit the disc on Tom's chest.
"There you go. Now move the Gear."
Tom grabbed his passport and ran his finger over the front. "Yep. I got my ticket. I gotta add my name to it real quick. You kids hurry up and move the Gear."
Alekai and Jesse had barely turned back towards the Gear still on the truck when voices floated into the hangar through the inner hallway.
"Tom Duncan? THE Tom Duncan? Is that really you?"
Alekai and Jesse looked at each other.
"I'm Nir Ray, Captain of the Anastasia. Are you the Tom Duncan who flew the Royal Tatiana twenty years ago?"
Tom slowly turned to the tall skinny man dressed in Captain gear, flanked with a tiny assortment of staff officers around him.
He slowly nodded, his eyes guarded.
"Yep. That there be me. What can I do fer ya?"
"Oh my goodness!" Captain Nir Ray laughed with exultation. "You're a legend! A living rock star!"
"Did you know that your procedures for flying the Royal Tatiana all by yourself into Wasp territory and rescuing Queen Midalia is now required reading for astronautics?"
"It is?" Tom Duncan looked unimpressed.
"Absolutely! Please come with me. I would love to pick your brains about a few of those puzzling details, like when you…" the Captain of the Anastasia, along with his small retinue of staff officers, led Tom Duncan away, completely ignoring Alekai and Jesse.
They shrugged at each other and clambered onto the truck bed to uncover Bessie and take her off the truck.
It took Alekai and Jesse most of the remaining fifteen minutes just to get the Gear into its designated space.
The cubicle was one of many on the second floor of the four floor engineering deck. It was barely a box large enough for Bessie to curl up into.
Upon voice command, Bessie folded her body into a cube-shaped storage unit and backed herself into the tiny cubicle.
Her eyes dimmed as she went into sleep mode to preserve energy. A single tiny green blinking light on her forehead was the only indicator that she was not completely defunct.
The glass door slid shut, encapsulating her within the small cube that had been created specifically to fit the standard size of a Gear.
Once Bessie was stowed away, Alekai and Jesse returned to the first floor to meet up with Tom Duncan.
As it was, they didn't even have enough time to get to their assigned quarters because Captain Nir Ray was such a chatter box.
He was such a huge fan of Tom Duncan who, as it turned out, had been an illustrious Captain of a golden era of starship astronautics. Or so it was written into the history books of astronavigation.
Since Captain Nir Ray used up so much time chatting with the crew and staff, Alekai and Jesse never even got a chance to head up to their quarters.
They ended up strapped to the staff chairs out on the lower deck with the rest of the engineers and the deck crew as lift-off commenced.