Squad 51, man trapped in spaceship,1215 Beech Street. 1-2-1-5 Beech. Cross
street Vernon. Time out 11:36
Captain Stanley shot a curious look at Roy and Johnny who were running
in from the day room where they had been fixing lunch. He had the mic in
his hand about to acknowledge the call. “L A could you repeat that?
Man trapped where?”
Spaceship is what the woman said, 51
“Gonna be one of those days, I guess. KMG 365.” He had written
down the address and went over to the squad to hand it to Roy as soon as
he had replaced the mic.
“I’ll get Chet to take over lunch and don’t worry, we’ll
save you some. Space travel can really work up an appetite, I hear,”
the cap laughed.
Roy just rolled his eyes but Johnny muttered under his breath as the squad
pulled out of the station. “Chet better not ruin lunch.”
“Johnny, it’s tuna sandwiches. What could he do to them?”
“You know Chet. He likes to add a little of this and a little of that
till the food is unrecognizable,” Johnny complained. He looked at the
address to see if it looked familiar. After a while you got to know all the
kooks in your district but he didn’t think they’d been to this
place before. “Spaceship,” he scoffed. “So much for the nice
quiet day we were having. I told you it wouldn’t last, didn’t
I?”
“Yes, you did,” Roy agreed. He wanted to placate Johnny all he
could. He didn’t need two crazies to deal with when they got to the
scene.
They pulled up to the curb where a white haired woman was flagging them
down.
“What seems to be the problem, ma’am?” Johnny asked as they
gathered their equipment from the squad’s bays.
“That old fool,” the woman sputtered. “Ever since he retired
he’s been getting nuttier and nuttier. It’s getting so I’m
ashamed to face the neighbors. But this...this takes the cake!”
“Your report said something about a man stuck in a spaceship,”
Roy said curiously.
“Ya gotta see it to believe it. Come on around here.” She led them
to the backyard. “If this isn’t the most ridiculous looking sight
you ever saw I’ll be very surprised,” she said as she opened the
gate and motioned them to go ahead of her.
They had seen a lot of ridiculous looking sights in their line of work but
the homemade contraption before them was certainly right up there. A cylinder
about 9 feet long was resting on a painter’s scaffold. It was encased
in what looked like hard plastic and was at least ten feet off the ground.
The whole thing was painted silver and the words Orion Space Fleet were
emblazoned on the side in large day glo letters.
“That them parry medic fellas, Gladys?” asked a voice from within
the structure.
“Yes, Frank.” Gladys was disgusted.
“Come around to the viewin’ port sos I can see ya,” Frank
called out.
Neither Johnny nor Roy knew what or where the viewing port was but they walked
around the ship anyway. They couldn’t make heads or tails out of what
they were seeing. It looked more like a pile of junk than anything else.
“What’s your names?” the crotchety old man demanded.
“I’m John Gage. This is my partner Roy DeSoto.”
“Roy? Don’t like the name Roy. Had a boss by that name once. A
regular SOB, he was too. Is that there Roy like that?”
A smile danced across Johnny’s lips but he tried to remain serious.
“Ah...maybe at times.” Johnny played along with the guy while watching
Roy’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. Roy was pretending to be
cool but Johnny suspected the conversation was making him bristle a little
bit.
“Figgers. They’re all the same, ain’t they? I like the name
John, though. A good solid upstandin’ name.”
Johnny flashed Roy a grin of triumph but then got back to business. “Are
you hurt, sir?”
“Ain’t a question a bein’ hurt. I can’t stand
up.”
“We’ll be right there,” Johnny assured him. The call had been
for a guy that was stuck. All they had to do was get him out and they could
go back to the station for lunch.
“No! No! No! Ain’t room enough in here fer both of ya. I only give
John permission to board my ship,” the old man hollered.
Roy and Johnny exchanged glances. This time Roy flashed Johnny the grin of
triumph. Johnny just sighed and decided to play along with the old guy. Anything
to speed this up. He was really getting hungry now. “Ah...well..thank
you, sir.”
They both approached what they supposed to be the belly of the ship. Like
a WWII fighter plane, the hatch was located there, about three feet over
their heads. Roy handed Johnny the box he carried and gave him a leg up to
the hatch. They weren’t sure what equipment Johnny would need to free
the man but their usual response equipment would be a good place to start
and Roy could bring him anything else he might need.
“Gladys, you and that Roy feller get over there where I can see ya,”
the old man commanded.
“Okay, okay,” Roy said as Johnny disappeared into the
contraption.
Once Johnny was inside it took a few minutes for his eyes to adjust to the
darkness. The only source of light was coming from the lighted displays in
what Johnny assumed was the cockpit. An impressive array of gauges and levers
were also evident there. While his eyes were adjusting, he heard the solid,
dull thud of the hatch closing. Instinctively Johnny tried the handle. Being
locked in with this guy was not his idea of fun. He pulled on the handle
but he couldn’t budge it.
“Don’t bother tryin’ to open it, son,” the old man smiled.
“It won’t open for ninety days. By then we’ll be safely in
the Orion system.”
Johnny looked confused. “We?”
“Yes. I decided to take an Earth specimen with me.”
“A what?”
“I think the scientists on my home world would be interested in one.
Don’t you?”
Johnny sighed. This guy was nutty as a fruitcake. He decided to keep him
talking and try to somehow get word to Roy. “Ah..why me?”
“I read about you paramedics in the paper. Might be handy to have a
guy with medical skills along for the trip,” the old man declared but
then seemed to forget Johnny was even there. He began talking more to himself
than Johnny. “Retire me, will they? This’ll show um.”
Johnny tried to retake control of the call. “Where are you hurt, sir?”
“Who says I’m hurt? I just said I couldn’t stand up and I
can’t -- I got my seat belt fastened,” the old man laughed.
Johnny was starting to lose his cool. “Look, your wife called us and
said-----”
“She called because I told her to. I had to get you here somehow,
didn’t I?”
“Look, Mister, calling out paramedics on a false alarm is a serious
thing ---”
“You pipe down, you ungrateful little brat,” the man hollered with
such ferocity that Johnny shut up. “I offer you the chance of a lifetime.
The chance for glory, adventure, a whole new destiny and this is the thanks
I get?! Take your hat off in the company of your commander.”
Johnny had forgotten he ever still had his helmet on. They hadn’t gotten
a chance to ditch them before Gladys had herded them back here. He took it
off. He might be stuck here longer than he had originally thought. This guy
was going to have to be handled with kid gloves. He tried to rope in his
anger. Not an easy thing when he was hungry.
“Look at that long hair? What are you some kind of hippie?!” The
old man continued to rant.
“No. I’m a paramedic. We help people who are hurt or in trouble,”
Johnny shot back forgetting his resolve to be patient. “If you are neither.
I’m leaving.” Again Johnny tried the door.
“I told ya, it ain’t gonna open. It’s on a time lock. You
might just as well sit in yer seat and strap in. I’d hate ta see ya
killed during the blast off.”
“What blast off?” Johnny asked wondering how much of this trip
was in this guy's head. He slid into the empty bucket seat behind the
“commander” and groped around for the seat belt. He might as well
play along. Anything to keep this guy calm.
“T minus ten minutes and counting,” the old man said pointing to
one of the gauges in the dashboard. Johnny peered at it and saw that it was
a clock. This gus was really nuts. Maybe Rampart would give him permission
to sedate him before he hurt himself or anyone else. He decided to stall
for time.
“Why do you want to go to space Mr --”
“On Earth I am known as Frank Nolan but I am from the Orion system and
my real name is Tryxnaa. It is time for me to return to my home world. I
have gathered enough information about this planet. I even have secured a
specimen for further study.” The old man launched into a long lecture,
as Johnny had hoped he would.
While he was talking, Johnny set up the biophone. “Rampart. This is
Squad 51.”
“Go ahead, 51, but speak up, we can hardly hear you,” Dr Brackett
advised.
“What’s that?” the old man demanded, craning his neck around
his own seat to look at Johnny. He had stopped rambling and was looking like
he was potentially violent as he glared at Johnny.
“It’s ahhh---”
The old man’s arm snaked back and snatched the receiver from an unsuspecting
Johnny. How he moved so fast was anyone’s guess. “Who is this?”
he yelled angrily into the phone.
“This is Dr Kelly Brackett at Rampart Emergency. Who is this?”
“Doctor? I don’t need no fool doctor. That’s why I snared
me one a them parry medics,” the old man snarled into the phone, then
handed it back to Johnny. “Hang it up,” he commanded.
“But Mr. Nolan,” Johnny began.
“I said hang it up!” The old man forcefully tossed the phone back
to Johnny and it took him across the face.
“Ouch!”
“Johnny, are you okay?” Brackett asked.
“Boy! You’re makin’ me mad. Hang that fool thing up. NOW!”
the old man roared.
“Okay, okay.” Johnny was nervous and unsure about whether he should
respond to Brackett or not. He hoped that they were hearing enough to get
the picture and somehow alert Roy to the situation. He could see Roy out
the viewport chatting with the wife. Maybe she would let him know how crazy
her husband really was. Johnny knew that it was too dark in the spaceship’
for Roy to see what was happening in here for himself. He didn’t want
to have to try and overpower the old man. There was too much potential for
injury that way.
“NO, wait a minute.” The old man suddenly changed his mind.
“Maybe it is a good thing to have ground communications. Not quite as
good as TV coverage but it’ll have to do. Okay, go ahead and talk to
them while I make all the necessary last minute preparations for take off.
T minus 8 minutes and counting.”
As the old man busied himself Johnny put the receiver back up to his ear.
“Doc?”
“I’m here, Johnny. Are you okay?”
“I guess so. Are you getting this?” he asked quietly.
“What exactly is going on there?”
“Well, Doc, it’s like this. I’m on this spaceship and we’re
going to be blasting into outer space in about 8 minutes.” Johnny tried
to reveal the situation without making the old man flip out.
“I see,” said Dr. Brackett thoughtfully.
“Mr Nolan --”
“Commander Nolan,” the old man corrected him sharply.
“Excuse me. Commander Nolan is approximately 70 years of age --”
“My Earth body is 67 but my true age is 739 of your Earth years,”
the old man snapped.
Johnny had hoped he was too busy to listen but decided that repeating what
the old man said would really help Rampart understand what he was up against.
“Excuse me again. He is 739 years old and he’s an inhabitant of
the planet Orion.”
“Orion is a star! Don’t they teach you firemen anything?!”
The old man once more launched into a lecture.
“I understand your situation, Johnny. But I really need a set of vitals
before we can sedate. A medical history would be a great help. Is he a psych
patient?”
“He should be,” Johnny said quietly, wondering how the heck he
was going to ask that.
“Let me talk to him,” Brackett ordered.
Johnny hoped that Brackett realized what a short fuse this guy had. “He
wants to talk to you, sir,” Johnny told the old man, handing him the
phone.
“Mr. Nolan? First off, let me thank you for allowing me to witness this
dramatic occasion.” Brackett played into the man’s fantasy. Tact
was not generally his long suite but he had read between the lines enough
to realize that Johnny could be in a potentially dangerous situation with
this guy. Brackett wondered where Roy was but tried not to let any of his
attention wander from this conversation. He wished he hadn’t told Joe
and Dix to go ahead and go to lunch together since it was a slow day. He’d
like to have someone on the land line to the Fire Department to find out
all he could about this call.
“Well, well, well. You’re welcome, Doctor,” the old man
smiled.
“As a fellow scientist, you understand the importance of acquiring all
the data possible to document this auspicious occasion,” Brackett continued
to feed the man’s ego.
“Yes, yes of course.”
“I’d like to make note of all your vital signs and so forth. For
the official record. Just a formality really. A kind of last minute, pre-flight
check up.”
“Makes perfect sense. Why didn’t they send you instead of this
long haired fireman?”
“Well, Mr. Nolan, you understand how it is. The help you get these
days,” Brackett chatted on. He hoped that Johnny couldn’t hear
everything he was saying to the man. “The fireman has the equipment
to give me the readings I need. So, with your permission, we’ll proceed.
Hand the phone back to the fireman so I can give him his
instructions.”
“All right but it’ll have to be quick. Only 4 minutes till launch
time.” He handed the receiver back to Johnny.
“Doc?”
“Go ahead and get me some vitals. I don’t see any way around sedating
him but I need to know what’s going on with him as much as possible
first.”
Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted to put this guy under and get
out of this hot, crowded, dark space capsule or whatever the heck it was.
He unstrapped his seat belt and worked his way around the seat in front of
him as much as he could to take the vitals and report them back to Rampart.
The man seemed to be ignoring what he was doing as he busied himself with
the dials and levers in front of him. “Gladys,” he suddenly called
out. “You and what’s his name get over there in the bunker behind
them sandbags.”
Roy and the woman looked at each other in disbelief.
“Go ahead, Roy,” Johnny hollered, not wanting the man to become
upset again when he was so close to being able to sedate him. “Dr. Brackett
is aware of the situation.”
Roy shrugged and he and the woman walked across the yard to the barricade
that was constructed of piles of sandbags and got behind it.
“T minus 60 seconds and counting,” the man said jubilantly.
“You’d better sit back down and strap yerself in, boy.”
“In a minute, sir. I have to get the rest of your vitals for --”
He held the phone to his shoulder with his chin. He’d sent the pulse
and respirations but getting the BP cup around the man’s arm was proving
to be a struggle.
“You don’t have a minute. You have 19 seconds. 18 17 16...”
Johnny tried to ignore the man as he counted down. He gave up on pushing
the sleeve of the man’s space suit up and wrapped the cuff around his
arm over the thin shiny material. It would just have to do. The count down
was making Johnny inexplicably nervous.
Brackett was stamping his foot impatiently waiting for the rest of the
information. “Come on, Johnny. Come on,” he muttered. Suddenly
the sound of an explosion blasted out of the radio at the base station. He
desperately called Johnny but got no answer.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The explosion knocked the 'rocket’ from its precarious position. What
must have been the engine separated from the rest of the structure and started
a fire on the lawn. The woman screamed but Roy ignored her. He ran to the
squad and grabbed the fire extinguisher and a crow bar. He was getting Johnny
out of that thing now!
Roy easily put out the grass fire then he ran up to the rocket and slid the
crowbar into the edge of the viewport. He popped the safety glass window
out in one piece and looked into the interior of the ship.
The man now seemed meek. “I told him to strap himself in. I never intended
for him to be killed.”
Roy looked at Johnny who was slumped on the floor at the man’s feet.
“Fractured his skull on the control panel. All that long hair didn’t
protect him a bit,” the old man went on casually.
Roy reached in through the window and tried to reach Johnny.
“Johnny?” he called. Johnny was just beyond his reach but the biophone
was now dangling over the man’s seat so he picked it up. Brackett was
frantically calling out to Johnny also. “Rampart?” Roy responded
as he pulled himself in through the small window.
“Roy, what happened?” Dr Brackett demanded.
“I never gave you permission to board my ship!” the old man cried
out angrily. He was obviously getting his second wind.
“You just shut up!” Roy completely lost it. “You old fool,
if he’s hurt I’ll send you to space myself without a rocket!”
he yelled furiously.
“Well you needn’t shout,” the old man muttered quietly.
“What happened, Roy?” Brackett repeated calmly. He had to keep
Roy calm since he was the hospital’s eyes and ears in the field. It
was very uncharacteristic of Roy to lose control on a rescue but he could
understand how volatile this situation was.
“There was some kind of explosion,” Roy said as he fought to get
himself back under control. “This contraption fell off its rigging.
It was about a ten foot drop.”
“Johnny?”
“He’s unconscious. Hold for vitals.” Roy put the phone down
and carefully rolled his partner over in what little space there was. Judging
from the dent in the control panel, Johnny had hit it pretty hard. Roy began
taking his vitals and reporting his findings to Rampart. He was adjusting
the BP cuff on Johnny’s arm when he noticed that he was beginning to
come around. He clicked on his penlight to check Johnny’s eyes.
“Ugggghhh,” Johnny groaned. “What happened?”
“You didn’t quite lift off,” Roy grinned at him.
“Ain’t he dead?” the old man began again.
“I’m not going to tell you again. Stay in that seat and shut up!”
Roy exploded at the old man, shaking the phone at him.
“Roy,” Johnny gasped. “I’ve worked with you for four
years. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you mad. I was about
to sedate him. He can be violent.”
“So can I,” Roy said with a smile that the man couldn’t see.
“Them Roys are all alike,” the man muttered under his breath. “A
right cranky lot.”
Roy ignored the man and continued his assessment of Johnny. When both he
and Rampart were convinced that he had no broken bones or serious injuries,
Roy helped him out of the spaceship. They were surprised to find the yard
filled with police. Evidently a neighbor had called about the explosion.
An ambulance had also been called. Roy went ahead and sedated the man as
per Rampart's orders. Soon he and his two patients were on the way to Rampart.
One of the policemen on the scene was going to follow in the squad. While
victim one was dozinng and causing no trouble at all, the nervous agitation
of victim two was made Roy very glad to feel the ambulance suddenly reverse
directions indicating they had arrived at Rampart.
As soon as his gurney was moved, however, the old man woke up and began
hollering. “This is a hospital. Let’s have some quiet around here.
Now!” Roy commanded. Magically the old man became silent once more.
The attendants took the gurney into the ER and Roy walked Johnny in also.
Johnny had refused to get on a gurney, insisting that he was all right. Roy
stayed close to him in case he fell. He had been unconscious. Roy was not
ready to believe him that he was fine until a doctor gave him a clean bill
of health.
“Take him into Four,” Dix directed the ambulance attendants. “If
he gives you any trouble let me know and I’ll send Roy in to yell at
him again,” she instructed. She and Joe had arrived at the base station
in time to witness the last part of the call.
“Are you okay, Johnny?” Brackett asked as they headed down the
hallway.
“Yeah, just bruised my shoulder a little. That was pretty smart the
way you tricked him into letting us get his vitals,” Johnny said
enthusiastically, never realizing that he was being tricked into Treatment
Room Two himself.
“It was smart all right,” Brackett muttered. “Could have gotten
you killed. Roy was the one that talked to him the right way, as it turns
out. Is that sore?” He indicated Johnny’s shoulder. He’d seen
him rubbing it.
“A little,” Johnny admitted. He automatically sat on the exam table
and let Dixie unbutton his shirt. He was oddly preoccupied as Brackett examined
him. “Roy,” he said suddenly. “What if that thing had really
gone into outer space?”
“Don’t worry about that, Junior. Something like that would have
never made it into outer space. I doubt it would have even cleared the house.
The best you could have done was to crash and burn someplace,” Roy
teased.
“Thanks a lot. I think Mr. Nolan might have been right about you
Roys,” Johnny muttered.
Just then Joe Early stepped into the room. “Well, Johnny, you’ll
be happy to know that your friend from the planet Orion is going up to the
psych ward for a nice long evaluation.”
“Star Orion, Doc, not planet,” Johnny corrected him.
“Whatever. I really came by to tell you that the police department dropped
off your wheels.” He handed Roy the keys to the squad.
“Good. If we’re done here how about we stop for a burger on the
way back to the station. I’m way too hungry for a lousy tuna sandwich
now.”
Roy looked at Brackett for conformation.
“If he’s hungry, I’d say he was completely back to normal.
Or maybe I should say all systems go -- isn’t that what you astronauts
say?”
“I am no astronaut. Just one very hungry hose jockey,” Johnny assured
them. “I’ve had more than enough of space, thank you very
much!”
“Well then, Roy, by all means, take this space cadet out and feed
him,” Brackett laughed.
“Agghhh,” Johnny groaned. He figured it was just the beginning
of the space jokes he was going to be subjected to for the rest of the day.
He definitely needed to get a burger or two under his belt to deal with it.
Especially Chet. Maybe he could convince Roy to yell at him if he became
too much of a pain in the butt.
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