We were on our way back to the underground entrance when I sprung my idea on the others.

“I have an idea,” I said. “I don’t know whether it’s feasible, but it could get us back to the ship if it works.”

“What’s your idea?” James said, looking excited.

“We could use the Data-Bridge to function as a computer to get the shuttle operational. If we could get the shuttle’s systems on line, I know that I could get us back to the ship.”

“That could work,” Alisha said. “Do we have the fine tools to work on your idea?”

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s get into the shuttle and see what we could do.”

Once inside the shuttle, I was able to manually pump air back onto the crew compartment and turn on lights to allow us to work on modifying the Data-Bridge. I take that back: to allow Alisha to work on the Data-Bridge. I served as the helper.

“I think that I can rig an interface to the shuttle operations module,” she said. “Being that this is capable of connecting to a data source, I should be able to make it connect to the shuttle system.”

After about an hour of adjusting circuits and changing some programming, Alisha was ready to give it a go. She turned the Data-Bridge on and began entering commands to establish a connection to the shuttle operations control.

“I think I have it,” she announced.

Suddenly, the main shuttle power came on.

We cheered.

“Okay people, buckle up. This is going to be a rough ride.”

I used manual controls to fire the thrusters that propelled us into the air. Then, I fired the main engine to shoot us back up out of the atmosphere.

“The ship should be at twelve point two four degrees Right Ascension and forty point five four degrees Declination,” Marie announced after consulting the scanner module.

I moved the stick to the right to bring the shuttle the correct approach angle. “See if you can activate the radar unit.”

After a few minutes, Marie turned to me. “I’ve got it functioning, but I can’t pick up the ship.”

“I don’t like the sounds of that,” I said.

“Oh, wait a minute, I have it now,” she said.

I symbolically held a hand to my heart. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Change course to twenty five point six degrees,” Marie said.

I moved the stick up a notch.

“We should be seeing the ship as soon as we move past the terminator,” Marie said.

“I see it,” I said a little too excitedly. “I’ll have to adjust our velocity a bit.” I backed off on the throttle, which fired forward thrusters.

The range finder indicated that I was on target to rendezvous with the ship in ten minutes. All I had to do was use the thruster to keep the ship in the finder’s crosshairs.

“Hopefully, the ship still functions,” James said.

“You and me both,” I said. “We’d have to rig a more powerful computer to get us back to Earth, but even that wouldn’t guarantee our success. Without the super computing power of COMA we could be destroyed by an asteroid collision.”

“It’ll be okay,” Marie said. “I said a prayer.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

I adjusted the closing velocity in order to get us near to the front of the ship. Once I close enough to the shuttle hanger, I turned the shuttle around so that it could back onto the bay. At this point I said a silent prayer.

“COMA, open the bay door.”

“Yes, Ryan.”

I blew out a relieved breath when I heard that sweet digital voice.

Once the bay door was open, I fired thrusters to back the shuttle into the hanger. The bay door closed and I manually began the slow pressure adjustment to get us acclimated to a lower air pressure.

“We’ll have to spend the next twenty minutes in here,” I said.

“Break out the cards and we can play a game of gin rummy,” James said with a playful grin.

“At least this ship appears to be uncompromised,” Marie said.

“We must find a way to keep it that way,” I said. “If the e-ghosts hack into COMA, we’re toast.”

“Why would they hack into the ship’s computer?” Alisha asked.

“They want us to stay on this planet,” I said. “That’s their purpose--to capture intelligent species and keep them in their little zoo.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Marie said.

“To us, but not them,” I said. “We’re dealing with artificial intelligence here, not human reasoning.”

“My scans indicate that we’re free of nitrogen narcosis,” Marie said. “There are no indications of nitrogen bubbles in our blood.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. “We’ve been breathing air at twice the pressure we’re used to. We should have excess nitrogen in our blood.”

“Well, we don’t.”

I thought about it for a few minutes before I manually caused the air pressure in the shuttle to drop back to one atmosphere.

“I don’t feel anything,” I said. “How about you people?”

“I don’t either,” James said. “How are we going to explain this?”

“We won’t right now,” I said. “Let’s get back into the ship and get this bucket back to Earth.”

We climbed out of the shuttle and entered the axis tunnel that went back to the crew compartment. We didn’t even bother going through decontamination. The fact that we could get infected with some alien pathogen didn’t seem to be important.

When I got into the crew compartment, I made a bee-line to the command center.

“COMA, commence the return protocol as soon as possible.”

“Engine ignition will commence in twelve point six minutes, Ryan.”

Marie sat down next to me. “Something’s happening,” she said in a panicked voice.

James and Alisha joined us. “What’s wrong.”

“Something’s happening . . . outside . . . “

I pressed a button to activate the main screen.  “Oh my God!”

“We’re screwed,” James yelled.

Marie held hands to the side of her face. Alisha’s eyes grew large.

I shook my head and assumed that this was the end.