Johann Quisumbing

A Fictional Series by J Quisumbing

Chapter 9 continued

Before Alicia could ask another question, the admiral’s radio suddenly squawked, “Neptune… Neptune, this is Pegasus. How do you read, over?”

He lifted it close to his mouth.

“Neptune, here. Pegasus, do you have a sighting?”

“Roger that, Neptune. Heavy patch about 8 miles north-west from your position…”

Sensing that Alicia was going to bother him with more questions, Tess headed her off.

“The admiral is talking to our eyes in the sky,” she explained pointing up in the sky. Alicia and the cameraman searched the sky but clearly could not spot an aircraft.

“I don’t see the helicopter anywhere.”

“It’s a remote controlled drone about the size of an albatross. It’s not so easy to spot.”

“Really? Who’s flying it?”

“Well, we have three pilots. But by the sound of the voice, that would be Major Roque.

Major Jer Roque was having a late coffee. He was up much earlier hoping to join the admiral on Ito’s boat but when he saw the camera crew and that exasperating woman, Alicia Buenaventura boarding, he begged off. Instead, he took over the piloting of a drone.

Oceanus have three of them. Two of them are fixed wings and doubled propped. Both have the wingspans of seven feet. The third is a military-grade octocopter. Each drone was remotely operated in three secluded control rooms within the bow superstructure.

With coffee in hand, he went up to the third deck where the control rooms were located. He walked up to the hatch designated “Pegasus”, one of the fixed winged drones. Jer pursed his lip. He didn’t really like this drone. It still had glitches. He went in and jovially told the usual pilot to go get himself a hefty breakfast. When he climbed into one of the control chairs, the drone was already up in the air, 10 miles out, flying in an expanding circle. Before him were four screens, the largest of which was dead center. Two flanked the center monitor while the fourth was perched just above it.

He spotted Ito’s boat and the two others on the left monitor. By the sizes of the boats on the monitor, he estimated he was three miles away. The autopilot was maintaining an increasing orbit of the boats. This provided the pilot to utilize the drone’s incredible functional camera lenses which Jer was meticulously scanning. Then looking at his center screen, he spotted a distant discoloration. Using the mouse, he dragged a targetting square around the discolorization then clicked enlarge. A seperate window appeared with a zoomed-in view. He adjusted the focus and smiled.

Jer then turned the autopilot off, took hold of the joystick and banked the drone toward the target. Eight minutes later, the drone decreased in altitude and was circling the area.

“Gotcha!” he said to himself.

To be continued…

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Note from the author:
Oceanus Adventure is a fun effort on my part to enter the wonderful world of creative writing. It’s a story of a group of people who launched themselves into the Pacific Ocean on an artificial island to solve the Great Pacific garbage patch. My hopes is that this will end up into a TV series.

Comments and idea suggestions will be most welcomed. I hope you enjoy.