“In here, sir. Mike, get in and get down. We’ve only a few seconds.”
With hurried care, Harry placed the two appliances he was carrying on the ground then flattened himself into the shallow depression as Jack and Mike did the same on each side of him. The ground trembled. Then, with a roar, the shockwave blasted over and past them. Rock, dust and loose shards from the outcrop showered around them followed by a roiling cloud of dust and a wave of hot gas.
When everything settled, Harry eased himself to a sitting position then stood and scrambled up the side of the outcrop. Above them towered a column of smoke crowned by a flattening and spreading mushroom head. His lips drew into a thin line inside the helmet even as he noted that the wind was carrying the cloud away from them. “Very well, Senator,” he murmured. “Should I survive, you and those who support you will pay for this. By heaven, though it imperil my soul, I shall repay you.” He turned as the others joined him. “It would seem we will have to make shift with what we salvaged and what we can find here, fellows. At least we may be certain of one thing: if there are any other inhabitants of this godforsaken place, they will see that great cloud and come to investigate it. Let us take stock of what we have and decide how to continue.”
Kali smiled as she listened to the report from her lead daemon—the title the assistants and members of an assassin’s team used. “So Heron should be where we can collect him and his crew later for some sport?”
“Yes. I convinced the Senator they’d die a slow and unpleasant death there.”
“Good. I’m assuming they have enough to keep them alive until we can retrieve them, is that correct?”
“Of course. It will be a good test of their abilities. If they succeed unaided until we retrieve them, they will have proved themselves truly worthy prey and give us considerable pleasure in the hunt.”
“Excellent. I call dibs on Heron. I’m just the right hunter for a man of his stamina, and he’s the perfect prey.”
Her sly grin betrayed her thoughts, and the man said, “Well, I wouldn’t know about that…”
“Anyway,” she deflected, “if they fail, there will be others.” Kali paused. “Where is the Senator now?”
“When we learned that the Fleet intensified their search for the Voyager, she transferred to the yacht owned by Al-Khalifa Financial Group. Her associates in the Senate are promoting the idea she’s been kidnapped.” The daemon laughed. “They planted an amusing conspiracy idea with one of their more gullible contacts that she might have been illegally arrested and ‘disappeared’ by no less than Fleet Security itself. It went viral within hours.”
Kali smiled. The Al-Khalifa yacht? That meant Zorvan must know of it, and of the Senator’s folly in becoming directly involved in the attempt to seize the patrol ship. “Very good. You are, I hope, close to the Senator?”
“Of course, Kali. We will keep her safe.”
Kali laughed. “Do so, but I suspect her usefulness is almost at an end.”
The destruction of the gig deprived them of anything that could be used as a tool. Between them they had no weapons of any sort, and the ration packs would sustain them for several weeks, longer if they could find a way to supplement them, but after that, they would have to survive by their wits alone.
“Without the right sort of tool, sir, there’s no way I can get this damned thing off you.” Jack had spent the last ten minutes trying to prise open the locks that clamped the helmet in place. “It’s metal—probably a titanium alloy by the looks of it—so I can’t break the damned thing apart either.”
“I suspected as much.” Harry hesitated. “With it on, I cannot eat normally, but if you can fashion a tube, I can at least drink.”
“I’ll sort that out right away, sir.”
“Thank you. We must still determine whether there is any water here, and shelter of course, since it is likely the nights will be cold in this arid climate.” He looked at the depression they were in. “This could have been formed by water, but is more likely to be the result of wind.” He considered their options. “We will spend tonight here and decide how to go on once we can take stock.”
“Right you are, sir. Come on, Mike, let’s get that shelter rigged up.”
Harry left the men to it and clambered out of the hollow to scan the area where the detonation of the gig had not only destroyed the small launch but had formed a crater and left a swathe of devastation around it. Clearly, they had been lucky. He tried to use the vision enhancing visor Jack Proctor had grabbed as they abandoned the gig, but gave up in frustration when he couldn’t see sufficiently into the viewer, and found that the helmet was emitting some signal that interfered with the electronics of it anyway. The nearer sun was low on the horizon, and the shadows were lengthening as he scanned the landscape in all directions from the top of the outcrop.
A movement in the extreme distance caught his eye, but he couldn’t make it out. “Mr. Proctor, can you spare a moment? I need your eyes. I can’t use the viewing visor wearing this infernal helmet.”
Jack scrambled up beside him and took the instrument. Slipping it over his head, he adjusted the focus. “Where do you want me to look, sir?”
“Starboard, about thirty degrees from your present heading. There’s something moving in that sector.”
Jack turned carefully. “No, nothing—wait, I see it. Some kind of animal, sir, a big one. Bloody hell!” The exclamation was accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. “Shit…sorry, sir. Something just attacked whatever it was. Seemed to come from below it though. Now it’s just laying there.” His eyes widened in horror. “No f*cking way. Oh, my God, it’s like a huge scorpion, and now it’s dragging the other animal behind it!”
Harry turned and looked at him. “So there are animals on this godforsaken world, which means there must be water and something to eat. If we can find the water, and it is drinkable, we can survive a little longer. Come on, Jack, let us get that shelter up and see if you can find something through which I may drink—or better, get this damned head prison off.” Harry led the way down to where Mike Dorfling waited beside the shelter dome. If what Jack had witnessed was a predator—and there could be no doubt of that—any attempt to move from this place would be perilous indeed. Yet he could not see any other option open to them. They had to move to find water, and that meant traveling across this wasteland.
He gripped his fists so that the nails dug into his palms. He would survive, and so would these lads. The Senator and the rest of her vile traitors would face justice if it took the last breath in his body.
Admiral Petrocova looked up as her door slid aside. “Welcome, Commander O’Connor, please take a seat. We’ll be joining the Lagan and her escort within hours. I think you know what I need you to do on her.”
Ferghal seated himself and nodded. “Aye, ma’am, I think so. Lagan trusts me, but she’s unhappy about losing Harry—Commander Heron—and doesn’t like Lieutenant MacKenzie-Banks.”
She grimaced. “Admiral Le Jeune isn’t sure of him either. Banks seems to have some very odd friends and a few very shady contacts. Well, he’s not my problem now.” She picked up a tablet and pushed it across the desk. “We’ve had something of a break. We traced the Harmony Voyager, but we lost her again when the task group sent to retake her and bring her home were surprised by a Charonian force.” She got up and paced. “Damned nuisance. Unless we can capture her and examine her navigation data, we have no idea where they jettisoned Commander Heron and his gig crew.”
Ferghal looked shocked. “Do not say so! If we cannot find them soon, they have no hope of survival. Is it not already two weeks since they were set adrift?” He was on his feet. “Have they not searched all the possible planets where we know the Voyager dropped out?”
She shot him a look of frustration. “We have, and a couple of possible alternatives on speculation, but so far … nothing.” She threw her arms in the air. “Nada, not a damned thing. We’re even trying to analyse th
e beacon signals—did you know about them? No one else did until Hermes told you and you passed on that information.”
Harry and his party were still alive, largely thanks to two things. First, someone had tripled the rations normally carried in the gig’s emergency supply pack, and second, they’d found shelters cut into rock outcrops that were obviously the work of humans.
“This was made with some heavy machines, sir,” Jack Proctor commented. “The finishes on these walls and the precision is too fine to be done by hand.”
“If you’re right, Jack, let’s hope whoever it was is still around, and when we find them, they’re amenable to welcoming us to their world.” Harry tried to make the helmet more comfortable, but the sweat and grit were chaffing at his neck, and the thing trapped the heat around his head. “I just hope they’ve got something that will get this damned thing off me!”
Mike Dorfling returned, having explored a passage that linked to several more chambers. “There’s a fair size tank through here, sir, if you want to try getting some water under it.”
“Good idea.” Harry laughed. “It might even cause the thing to dissolve.”
The water didn’t dissolve the helmet, nor did it disable the electronics, as Harry had hoped, but it did afford him some relief. All of the shelters—Harry could not think of them as more than simple lodges for passing nomads—were obviously long abandoned. Tracks in some and around others suggested they were frequented by the planet’s rather unpleasant and aggressive creatures.
So, reluctantly, they kept moving, by Harry’s estimate about ten miles each day. If they were lucky, they found one of the rock cut shelters, and if not, they had to use the survival dome. They took care to avoid animals while trying to find water and anything that might indicate other inhabitants. It was hard going, as they had to take shelter during the hottest part of the mercifully short day, and they daren’t move at night. The twin suns were always low on the horizon, suggesting they were somewhere in the higher latitudes of this place, and the shortness of the days suggested a higher than usual rate of rotation for the planet. He’d based the direction of travel on a glimpse of what had looked like a lake or a small sea as they passed over it during their descent, but he wasn’t at all sure he had the direction right. Now they were aiming for a prominent mesa that appeared to have the sort of dwellings certain ancient peoples on Earth had built into cliff faces.
“The replicator’s a goner, sir.” Mike kicked the thing. “Power pack’s dead. It least the water refiner still works.”
“Pity. Well, no point carrying it any further then. Strip anything we can use from it, and we’ll leave it here.”
“We’re still not sure of direction, sir.” Jack offered Harry a flask of soup he’d concocted and guided the tube toward the small mouth opening in the helmet. “At least we know we’re not going in circles.” With his free hand, he gestured around them. “Now that we’ve found this ridge to follow, we can keep clear of those giant man-eating scorpions.”
They’d had a narrow escape when they came upon a large herbivore grazing on the leathery plant life. It had rushed blindly away and blundered into one of the predators. They’d at least managed to get a good look at that creature. The brute stood on four short legs not unlike those of a lizard. The body was wide and flattened, with an armoured carapace, the head large, the gaping maw of the mouth armed with vicious teeth, but the tail was like a massive whip, and armed at its tip with a poisonous spur it used to immobilise its prey.
Harry nodded. “At least we know what to watch for now. The beast lurks on the plains and among these plants. Up here on the rock, it should be more visible.” He sucked listlessly on the tube. The soup was tasteless, and he’d had enough of it now to last a lifetime.
Something his mother used to say popped into his mind: “Your stomach won’t complain.”
Let’s hope not, he countered in his thoughts.
What a sorry state to be in. He had no idea where they were or where they were going. He only knew that they must find somewhere safe to shelter with a water supply they could rely on. Food was another matter. Without the replicator there was no way of converting what they could find into something they could digest. Without any weapons, they had no means of defence against anything that attacked them.
Mike Dorfling eased himself down and removed his boots, a slow and painful process. “These won’t last much longer, and my feet are a mess as it is.” He grimaced as he examined his sore and bruised feet. “Think the Fleet will find us, sir?”
Harry hesitated. “I should think so, but they’ll have to find the Voyager first.”
“That could take a while,” Jack interjected. “I hate to be negative, sir, but we’re low on everything, and I’m damned if I can see us getting off this rock.” He stood and walked a little distance away.
“That’s true, but I prefer to remain positive.” Harry handed the flask he’d now emptied to Jack. “Thank you for your efforts to feed me, Mr. Proctor. I fear I shall not be able to enjoy soup for a long time once I am free of this infernal helmet.”
Jack laughed. “I’m better at keeping the coms units going than at cooking, sir. I’ll see if I can improve the taste.”
“The taste is as good as can be expected,” Harry countered, “but if Mary ever says she’s making soup for supper, I shall run for the hills!”
Their laughter rang out in the barren desert.
“Niamh, I’m so worried,” said Mary. “There’ve been no messages from Harry, and if I know him as well as I think I do, that’s usually not a good sign. What is going on?” Mary’s voice betrayed her concern.
“I feel your pain, Mary dear, truly I do. Something momentous is happening, but neither James nor Theo will tell me anything. It makes me so angry, and it frightens me a little if I’m honest.”
“There are all sorts of rumours flying about, and I have the most awful feeling that Harry is in danger.” Mary sniffed back tears. “He’s missed four of our regular link calls, and now I can’t even contact his ship because the Lagan has been placed under a coms blackout, not a good sign.”
“Is that so?” Niamh frowned, the flame in her hair spreading to her cheeks as her anger rose. “Right. That does it. Theo or James are going to tell me what is going on or there will be hell to pay.” A thought occurred to her. “Now that you mention it, Ferghal was moved to a new assignment without notice three weeks ago—and he isn’t taking any link calls either.” Her eyes flashed. “Leave it with me.”
“Thank you. I just know Harry is in trouble. I can feel it.”
Niamh hedged. “Well, there are a number of things happening here at home that may be connected, my dear. Have you watched the news lately? There was a report of a cruise liner overtaken by pirates with Senator Samland on board. That damned woman is always involved when something dirty is going on, but no one can ever prove anything because her goons do all her dirty work for her. I wonder if she’s involved in this. Theo will know.”
Niamh brightened with an effort. “Now, tell me how your tour is going.”
Mary attempted a wan smile. “My tour? It was going well, but now I’m having trouble keeping my concentration. I made a few small mistakes in the prime piece of my last recital. The critics weren’t kind.” She made a face and tried to laugh it off. “I guess I’ll have to put more effort into practice and try to focus on the music at the next performance.” She wasn’t quite ready for small talk yet, and the subject of the previous topic nagged at her. “You mentioned Senator Samland. She’s here on Helles. I saw her stepping into a hotel as I was being driven to mine. I’m sure it was her—an imposing woman with a very striking face. I’ve met her a couple of times.”
Niamh was suddenly very alert. “You’re sure it was her? Do you remember which hotel?”
“I’m pretty sure it was her I saw striding into the Helles Olympus Hotel as if she owned the place, very upmarket. I’ve stayed there before, but it’s far too bus
y for my liking. I prefer somewhere quieter when I’m touring.”
Niamh smiled. “Of course. Now dear, I must go. Try not to worry. I’ll get to the bottom of this, and I’ll be in touch as soon as I do.”
“We’ve had word that Security have arrested the Senator.” Valerie Petrocova smiled as she looked at Ferghal. “She’s on Helles, and won’t be leaving in any hurry, nor will any of her entourage.” She placed her elbows on the desk and fiddled with her tablet. “That’s the good news. The bad news is we still don’t know where they marooned Harry.” Her frown deepened. “We do know he was landed on a planet which is mainly desert, and that he’d been fitted with some device that prevents him interacting with any computer network, AI or otherwise. What we don’t know is where he is!” Her hand slapped the table. “None of her people know, and that damned woman left the choice to the pirates, and they are engaged elsewhere with the Charonians and the Voyager.”
“That explains why Lagan lost touch with Harry,” Ferghal mused. “The device, I mean. If they still have the gig, they will be able to keep going for longer than most.”
“They don’t have the gig.” The Admiral’s anger showed. “Apparently it was programmed to self-destruct ten minutes after landing. The Senator seemed to think she’d been quite clever doing that.” She pushed her chair back and began to pace. “Give me five minutes in a room alone with her and she’ll regret ever having been born.”
Chapter 13
Harry Heron: Hope Transcends Page 12