by GARY DARBY
They were in trouble.
The readings from the sensors indicated that a volcanic eruption was a very real and frightening possibility.
Dason glanced up at the mountainside. He could see Sami and Jy scrambling down the sharp incline, their vapor-barrier boots sending up sprays of dust and gravel with each lunging step.
He turned back to check the seismic display. His eyes widened, and he tried to shout a warning but the words never left his mouth before a devastating temblor rocked the ship with violent, earth-shaking motions.
The shock pitched Dason sideways, his head whipping against the sylcron window. Dazed, he clung to the console board. The earth’s fierce shaking sent the scouter gyrating.
Like a gigantic animal that battled underground to free itself from a subterranean cage, the ground heaved and cracked open in long, jagged fissures that carved the mountain’s flank like deep scars.
Dason thought he could hear the ground moaning as if it was in pain from the vicious shaking.
Righting himself, Dason looked up at the closest volcano. “Oh no . . .” he groaned.
A giant mushroom cloud ascended from the convulsing mountain. It jetted upward with stark yellow-bright lightning flashes that streaked its gray innards.
Giant, fire-hot boulders shot outward in long, soaring arches across the sky.
Dason searched the slope for Sami and Jy before spotting them lying face down about twenty meters from the ship. A figure stirred and tried to rise from the ground.
Savagely, Dason jabbed the comms button. “Sami! Jy! Are you okay?”
Jy replied in a pain-filled voice, “Sami's out. I think I’ve broken my arm.”
“Hold on. I’m coming to get you.” Dason turned to find Bianca trying to stand with a hand pressed to her bleeding forehead.
He slid out of his chair to steady her. “Are you all right?”
“Think so,” she replied. “I hit my head on something. What happened?”
“The volcano’s erupting. Jy’s hurt and Sami’s unconscious. I’m going to get them.”
He tried to push past her, but Bianca grabbed his arm and shoved him toward the pilot pod.
“You stay here,” she ordered. “I’ll go. Be ready to power-boost us out of here the instant we’re inside.” She sealed her helmet and strode over to the airlock.
With taut neck muscles, Dason turned on his heel and entered the pilot’s pod only to find a blinking red light on the panel.
The sensor reading told the story. The inboard belly seal on number three landing strut was approaching failure. If it ruptured, the ship would lose cabin pressure.
He sealed his own helmet but decided not to alert Bianca as staying in their flex-suits as protection against Stygar Six’s poisonous vapors was the least of their problems right now.
There wasn’t anything Dason could do about the strut so he leaned forward, watching Bianca scramble up the slope until she reached the two men.
With Jy’s help, she got Sami to his feet. In faltering steps, they started back down and had almost made it to the bottom when a zigzagging fissure line, like a giant zipper, cracked the slope wide open in its downhill race.
Hot gasses exploded upward, catapulting the three humans skyward in a fountain of rocks and dirt.
Helpless, Dason watched them hit the ground, rolling over and over like lifeless dolls, before stopping amongst blackened and charred rock fragments.
Without warning, the scouter’s whole back end reared up, like a bucking horse, pitching Dason into the pilot’s console. From the thunderous roar, it was clear what had happened.
An erupting fumarole had opened under the engine compartment and now hammered the craft with super pressurized gas and rock.
A dozen or more red lights blinked across the nav board while the computer’s voice squawked, “Hull breach! Compartment one-alpha.”
The explosive force had split open the strut seal. Stygar Six’s toxic atmosphere now leaked into the ship.
Dason called over the communicator, “Bianca! Jy! Sami! Anyone, report.”
No one answered. Dason glanced up, and his mouth sagged. A swirling gray cloud now enveloped the volcano’s top.
He twisted around and raced to the airlock, throwing himself against the cubicle’s inner wall. When the device completed its cycle Dason pushed the slow-opening hatch door open and squeezed himself through the narrow opening.
Speeding down the short ramp, he skidded to a stop. Shrieking gasses pelted him with rocks and gravel. Amidst the dust and blowing smoke, he spotted an arm draped over a large, blackened rock near the craft’s rear.
He rushed to the prone figure and eased the person over. It was Sami. Nearby, another figure lay jammed against a large boulder.
A few meters further, Dason saw someone struggle to stand. Through her clear helmet, he could make out Bianca’s features.
“Bianca, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she answered groggily. “Help me with these two. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Roger to that,” Dason responded grimly. “This mountain is about to blow. Help me with Sami, I’ll get him to the ship, and then come back for Jy. Stay buttoned up, we’ve lost cabin integrity.”
“Okay,” she replied through clenched teeth. With Bianca’s limited help, Dason swung the semiconscious Sami over his shoulder.
Carrying his load up the ramp, Dason maneuvered him into the airlock. He cycled through and put Sami into a troop seat. He slapped acceleration bars across the young man’s chest and legs.
He turned back to the airlock, took a step and stopped. You could leave them, he thought, let them die on this mountain and no one would know.
The thoughts grated on his mind. Sami and I could boost out of here, get away, he thought. After all, if it weren't for Bianca and her crew we wouldn’t be in this fix.
Poison in my body, ready to kill me the second the inhibitor wears off and my teammates having to make a satanic pact with that she-devil out there.
Easy enough to explain that Bianca and Jy were caught in the open by a fumaroles’ blast and that Sami and I had barely made it to the ship in safety.
For several seconds, he stood transfixed, lost in his dark thoughts. Then he shook his head at the harsh notion and let a cooling thought tamp down his malice.
I will magnify my abilities by keeping myself physically fit, mentally alert, and morally just.
Morally just! If he followed his malevolent thoughts, could he ever say he was “morally just?”
No.
He would become one of “them” and there wasn’t anything moral or just in being an OutLand outlaw.
Dason ran back outside and found Bianca trying to drag Jy toward the scouter. He grabbed her arm and turned her around. “Get in the ship. I’ve got him.”
“I can help,” she moaned.
Dason ignored her and shoved her toward the craft. He lifted Jy in a fireman’s carry and stumbled his way toward the ramp. The ground rolled beneath his feet throwing him off balance and he went to his knees.
Pain shot through his legs like someone had stabbed him with a knife. Pushing himself up, he pulled Jy back onto his shoulders and lurched to the ship.
At the ramp, he found Bianca doubled over. “Get him in first,” she commanded through pain-clenched teeth. There wasn’t time to argue, so Dason struggled up the incline and into the lock.
After cycling through, he positioned Jy in a chair and slammed body bars across him. He waited to help Bianca when she came through the lock, but the small cubicle remained in ready mode.
Something was wrong.
He darted back outside and found Bianca crumpled on the ground. In his mind, Dason’s respect for the renegade leader rose.
Realizing that she could pass out at any time, Bianca had sent Dason and Jy into the craft first. With the ship damaged and torn, if she had lost consciousness inside the airlock, there was a chance the computer would not have allowed the outer hatch door to op
en.
Dason and Jy would have been trapped outside in the volcano’s fury with no way to get back into the safety of the ship.
Grasping Bianca under her armpits, Dason dragged her through the airlock. Once in the ship, he heaved her into the closest seat. Her head lolled to one side and she mumbled several words.
Her whisper was raspy and rough through the suit’s external communicator, but Dason understood it well enough that it caused him to stop and gape at her in astonishment.
But only for a second—they were running out of time.
Dason slammed himself into the pilot’s seat and pulled the thrust bars down hard across his body. With a quick jab, he punched the command flight button on the console.
Grinding, grating noises came from the ship’s damaged engines. “C’mon,” Dason pleaded with the vessel, “you can do this.”
Meter by meter the crippled craft gained altitude through the withering gas blasts and rocks that rained down like granite hailstones.
Below him, the ground seemed to crawl by and it was evident to Dason that they had scant power to speed them away.
Wincing from the screeching metal, he wondered just how far the little craft would go before it fell from the sky.
To save power and pick up velocity, he kept the ship at a level altitude just above the surface, trying to squeeze every ounce of energy he could from the wailing engines.
Clearing the ground by mere meters, they passed over the sharp cliffs to drop down close to the chemical lake’s glowing orange liquid.
Satisfied that the scouter held its own for now, Dason flipped open the ship’s communicator. He tried to keep his voice calm and measured, but his words came out in a rush. “Stinger Three to any vessel, emergency, please respond.”
The response was immediate. “This is Lara, Stinger Two.”
Rapidly, Dason explained, “This is Thorne. The volcano erupted on top of us. We’re airborne but with minimal airspeed. I’ve got severely damaged engines and a breached hull. Bianca, Jy, and Sami are hurt and unconscious.”
He peered at his navigation display. “I’m inbound at Mark 170 degrees from the Queen. Request immediate assistance.”
“Understood,” Lara replied. “Maintain your course heading, we’re the closest to you, we’re on our way.”
“Thank you, Two,” Dason replied.
A hand rested on his shoulder. Bianca’s voice was a throaty whisper through her communicator, “Status?”
“Not good,” Dason responded bluntly. “Haven’t had a chance to check Sami or Jy yet, been too busy trying to keep the ship aloft. We’ve lost two main thrusters; the other two are operating at only 50 percent, just enough to give us some altitude and speed.”
He waved a hand at the control panel which was ablaze with blinking peewee sensors. “There are so many red lights for every ship’s system that all I’m trying to do is to keep us airborne.”
Taking a breath, Dason motioned outward. “Stinger Two is on the way, but they’re several minutes out from rendezvous.”
“Keep her going, I’ll check Jy and Sami.”
“Check yourself too,” Dason answered back. “You passed out on the ramp.”
“I will. And thank you, for all of us.”
“You’re welcome,” Dason replied, surprised at the gentle tone in the poacher’s voice and manner.
Bianca turned and gasped. “Look!”
Dason swiveled to stare at where Bianca pointed. A raging, churning supra-heated dark mass raced toward the crippled ship.
Like flaming rockets, house-size boulders shot skyward, leaving trails of writhing dark smoke. Red tongues of flame pierced the blackness while burning gasses exploded in massive fireballs.
Dason’s heart sank.
There was no hope that they could outrun the speeding pyroclastic cloud.
In seconds, the frothing black hurricane would strike and rip apart the wounded ship, along with Dason and everyone else inside.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Star Date 2433.057
Stygar Six
Spinning around, Bianca cried, “Max speed! It’s gaining.”
“The thrusters are red-line now!” Dason yelled back. “The engines can't give us any more.”
“Get above it!”
“Can’t. Not enough thrust, she’s barely staying at this altitude.”
Bianca remained silent as if searching for another alternative to their dire situation. She ran her tongue over her lips before saying, “If we can’t outrun or climb above it, we go below it.”
Dason gave Bianca a sharp look and shook his head. “Bianca, the strut seal is ruptured, remember? We go into the lake; we’ll be swimming in acid in minutes.”
“Understood,” Bianca answered. “We just need to buy ourselves some time until help arrives. Hit the Search and Save button. Prepare to go hard over, scout.”
Dason slapped the S and S button. He didn’t attempt to contact the other ships, once the distress call sounded; there would be little doubt that Stinger Three had gone down.
Dason needed to keep the ship airborne for as long as he could to lessen their time in the acid. Under normal circumstances, to submerge the craft, the pilot used the underbelly thrusters to settle the vessel gently into the liquid.
But that took time, and they didn’t have that luxury.
No, he would keep them aloft until the very last second and then nose-dive the scouter into the thick goop. He didn’t have any idea of the fluid’s viscosity; for all he knew he could be slamming the small craft into liquid cement.
“Bianca, give me a count.” Dason didn’t want to lose his concentration on piloting the scouter by looking back at the churning cloud. He needed every second before aiming the ship’s nose at the lake.
“Roger,” Bianca replied, "Ten. Nine. Eight—"
At “Two!” Dason heeled the craft hard over and pointed the stubby nose almost in a vertical dive. He held his breath as the lake seemed to leap straight up.
With a thundering geyser, the ship split the ochre broth. The sudden deceleration wrenched Dason forward against his acceleration bars.
Bianca yelled and there came a loud thud against the port sylcron shield.
Shuddering from the sudden braking forces the ship plunged downward into the dark abyss. The red-orange light from Stygar’s sun disappeared, and everything turned black.
Though groggy from the jarring impact, Dason righted the ship before it embedded itself in the lake bottom. He couldn’t see the lake’s top, but his instincts told him that the superheated cloud would vaporize the first meter or so of liquid.
For now, he would keep the scouter submerged several meters below the surface.
Dason leveled the craft and flicked on his outboard lights, but the light was so dim in the thick ooze that he couldn’t see much beyond the craft’s stubby nose.
His sonar showed that the craft hovered just above the unseen lake bottom. To each side, the sonar displayed blurry outlines of spire like rock formations.
Dason brought the ship to a halt. Satisfied that it would hold this position, he put the scouter on autopilot and hurried into the troop bay.
He found Bianca wedged in a corner and unconscious from the impact. Dason pulled the slim woman onto a seat and snapped the safety bars across her body.
Jy and Sami both seemed all right, though neither roused from his touch. He mulled over what else he could do to help them when he heard the thrusters’ whine increase beyond what was normal.
The ship abruptly lurched as if a monster Belatar Suction Eel had latched onto the vessel.
Dason slid into the pilot’s seat and checked his controls. The thrusters were operating at maximum, but the ship slid rearward.
He peered out the window to see orange liquid streaming past the nose. With furrowed eyebrows, Dason mumbled in a perplexed tone, “What’s going on?”
Losing buoyancy, the vessel dropped toward the rocky bottom. Dason increased the power to his am
idships thrusters but still the scouter settled downward.
With a solid jolt, it touched bottom stirring up a cloud of fine crystalline particles. For a moment, the craft remained motionless but then Dason felt, rather than heard, a thunderous vibration through the ship’s bulkhead.
Dason snapped his head up. Of course! When the volcano exploded, it must have launched tens of thousands of metric tons of rock and dirt into the frothing soup, sending a monstrous wave upward and outward.
Compressed by the basin’s tall cliffs, the huge crest now sped down the shallow lake, the forward edge sucking up everything in its path.
For a split second, all the liquid disappeared from around the ship, and Stygar’s dim light illuminated the garish lake floor.
Dason had the presence of mind to snap thrust bars across his body just as the mammoth wave seized the craft and sent it spinning in a whirling vortex. The scouter gyrated through the thick liquid, the autopilot fighting to keep the vessel on an even keel but failing.
Dason held onto his armrests, anticipating a violent impact with the lake bottom. He caught the dark shadow of an underwater spire just at the ship violently collided with the craggy tower.
For a moment, the little ship’s nose ground against the spire before it started to lift. Just as Dason thought they would rise above the craggy pinnacle another shadow settled over the craft but from above.
An enormous boulder, either picked up by the wave’s powerful suction or thrown outward from the exploding mountain crashed onto the wounded ship.
Unable to free itself from its massive rider, the vessel slid down the spire’s side to the boulder-littered lake bed.
The wave passed on, leaving the little ship pinned on the lake bed. Except for the muted whining of the still operating thrusters, there was silence in the cabin.
Shaken from his wild ride, Dason was slow to sit upright. Cabin and hull lights flickered, giving him glaring snapshots of his surroundings. He glanced up and his eyes widened as he caught sight of the mammoth slab’s dark shape sitting on the scouter.
With what little power he had left, Dason knew the damaged craft would not be able to free itself from the gigantic pressing mass. The ship was stuck on the lake’s bottom, and there it and its four passengers were going to stay.