by Chris Turner
Misshapen men, women, or neither, it was hard to tell, came streaming from out of the garbage pits and stinking heaps from all directions, clutching black batons like truncheons, hunks of metal, any weapon they could forage out of those refuse piles. All wrapped in rags, bandaged like lepers, only their fingertips showed, clawed nails glinting through the dirty brown wraps of cloth. Snorkel masks frogged their mouths, black-rimmed goggles on the eyes. Metal caps on the skulls.
The mummy people were coming for us next, but the second ship banked in and sprayed pulse beams at them. They took care not to wipe our ship out. Red fire exploded into the mass of moving figures. Limbs and heads separated from bodies. Starrunner’s rear cannon swiveled, aimed and shot the ship out of the sky.
“Yeehow!” I yelled at TK to get Starrunner moving. I could detect faint motion, for activity still stirred amongst that rubble. The sad, stark reality was if they got the ship, we were sunk.
The old man came huffing and puffing around the side of the smoking metal, hauling Billy by the arm. “Get a move on! More ships can drop on us any second.”
Wren jumped out of the hatch, a fresh AK in her hand, breathless, flushed at her kills. I was warming to this lady.
“Let them come. We’ll let them blow the crap out of these dunghill rats.” She kicked at one of the mummy-wrapped things lying in a smouldering heap after I’d blasted it, their albino heads gleaming ghoulishly in the sun.
I winced.
“The sun eated them up,” crooned the kid, all smiles, the only thing he’d said so far.
“That’s right, Billy. You know it, don’t you?” TK said with a sad laugh.
The mad boys seemed occupied with their spoils, rustling like rats. Two smoking ships and a trio or more of fresh corpses. Needless to say, I kept an eye out for more unexpected crazies as we jogged along Starrunner’s moving flank, putting the hustle on to get the ship away from here.
We left the smoking rubble and the dead vestiges of humanity behind. Despite my gratitude for the quick bloodshed, I almost wished Wren hadn’t blasted both Baer’s ships out of commission. At least then there’d have been an alternative means of escape off this planet, if the old man couldn’t get Starrunner operational.
Rounding a bend out of sight down another sandy corridor, TK aimed the AG jet spurts to guide us between great mounds of crud and garbage.
“How long before they catch up with us?” I asked.
“Half hour, maybe less.”
I pawed at my grimy grimace.
“Don’t worry, I have protection,” TK said.
“It better be good.”
I looked at the old man’s billyclub, the firepipe he clutched in his hand that he’d pulled out from his desert cloak. “That’s all you got? You’re going to get killed with primitive junk like that. Stop the rig.”
He did. I jumped into the hatch, motioning him to stay put. “There’re weapons in the hall aft. Wait here.”
A few limping strides and I was rummaging around through the spare armory rack. Old man didn’t listen and came stumbling down the main aisle with wide eyes, blinking in the semi-dark of emergency light. “Wow, this ship’s something else.”
“I told you to stay out,” I rasped, pushing him back down the hall, leveling my weapon at him.
“Sorry.” He gaped. “Been a long time since I’ve seen an Alpha Explorer, anything remotely like the interior of a working ship.”
Something about the comment made me feel compassion for the man and his plight, marooned here on this trash planet.
“She’s a vintage model,” I said grudgingly. “Couple of gangsters heisted it. They’re no longer with us, so I took the liberty of being its ward. Renamed it Starrunner.”
“A fine name.”
“I thought so.” I tossed him an R3A, a short-range blaster that would kill anything within a twenty yard range.
The kid came in, pointing and gibbering. I backed the two out into the hall by the hatch and gave Wren a helping hand up into the ship. I urged TK and his boy with strong words to get Starrunner moving along with full speed. I didn’t need to repeat myself. This way there’d be no tracks. As long as we gave the mummy boys the slip, the scavengers couldn’t follow us.
Chapter 7
We wound through sandy paths with TK and Billy guiding Starrunner, TK sitting legs dangling out the hatch, looking up along the line of the hull. Wren crouched, flashing me weird, curious looks, until the mounds to either side became less massive and we arched up over a wide, well-trodden path along a ridge. The distant teeth of broken buildings spread below us down a long valley, the settlers’ city: toppled towers, blasted squares, a sight all too familiar for me—some war-torn urban wasteland abandoned for generations.
We came abreast a large mound and TK halted the convoy. We climbed out while the ship remained buoyant two feet above the baking sand. A ruined building hulked to the side, only the corner posts and a few girders showing like the ribs of a desiccated whale.
“Why’re we stopping?” I asked as TK flicked off the jets, leaving a heavy silence over the desert.
“You want to circumambulate the entire planet?”
“Why here? Where’s this safety you promised?”
“You’re looking at it.”
“This broken pile of cement blocks and pillars?” I reached for my gun, temper short, my first impulse to clock him, guessing that the old man was pulling a fast one on me. Wren was looking straight at me with her raven-pearl eyes glinting with something of mirth, watching what I’d do next.
“Relax.” TK held up his hand. He herded me over to the ruin and got me to take a closer look at the pit yawning below. The floor had collapsed long ago, but I saw in the depression below a basement or somesuch, a section of one side which had crumbled over and been tarped up with clever handiwork to blend into the sand and conceal a large space behind.
I stared up at the four stone pillars and a spider-web roof framework. This place could have been a cathedral as easily as a warehouse, or some eccentric’s mansion.
Scratching my head, I watched as TK worked the remote control with a wink at Billy. The propellant steamed and the antigravs guided Starrunner down into the pit.
TK clambered down a steep crumbling staircase and I followed, gripping my gun with a ready hand. He moved over to the tarp, cranked the handle of a hidden wheel cached in the earth and up ratcheted the tarp. A huge work area burrowed within that far side of the pit.
I gave a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be a damned monkey.”
TK did a little bow. “You can congratulate me later, Rusco. Here, Billy, help me guide this thing in.”
I stepped inside the darkened quarters, suppressing a grunt. The place projected deeply into the back of the pit. Old engines, machine parts and housing lay strewn on the sand, rotors and gears and panels, whatnots, some on workbenches and tables. The old man lit a pair of battery-powered lights near the door while Billy guided my ship over the sprawl of engine parts then let her rest by the wall. Wren scooted in before TK closed the flap. “Never can be too careful,” he said with a worried grin.
I could see the desert man had built something of a garage for himself. Tables with hammers, drills, electrical gauges, hoses, cables, salvaged from the rubbish heaps outside. Old vehicle batteries were linked together to give him the power to do his tinkering. “I charge them from solar panels rigged out back where no one can see them. From time to time I need to change them.”
He motioned to a series of jigsaw cutters, pry bars and twisted pieces of metal. “I salvage whatever’s useful from the dump, always more to find even as the years roll on.”
“So I see. Very clever.”
“Never gave up trying to get off this heap,” he said wistfully.
“Some grand little shop you have here, old man.”
He nodded, beaming with pride. “Never had enough of a working engine to get off this rock though. Believe me, friend, I tried.” He picked up a mini pneumatic drill
and smacked it on the table. “Been scavenging parts from these dumps since as long as I can remember. Still haven’t given up on the mother lode. You can appreciate my excitement when I saw your Alpha coming down out of the sky.”
“I bet.”
He laughed at the memory. “I once got an old Rixen Eagle space probe up a hundred yards into the air before she crashed past the washboard wastes other side of these mounds. She still sits there collecting dust. Nearly killed me and Billy.”
“How long to fix this thing?”
“Depends on what’s broke.”
“Well, I can tell you the mobilitors are in bad shape, probably dead. Less than 60% before she went down.” I eyed him, checking to see if the term meant anything to him.
“Mobilitors, eh? They can be tricky.”
“What isn’t?”
“Let’s have a look-see then.” He crouched beneath the underpanel while the AGs kept Starrunner aloft. He unscrewed a panel, crawled up the conduit a ways, gave it a shifty glance. “What have we here?”
He knuckled a fist at the twin Barenium cylinders. I poked my head in and blinked. Barenium cylinders…That much I knew. About waist high. Green in a liquid medium, with a golden glow around the edges. Some unstable isotope physicists had discovered, the liquid masking the radiation somehow, from what I gathered.
“All gunkum to me,” growled Wren, crowding over my shoulder.
“That green liquid there,” he said. “Think of it as a compact potent pressure pump. When excited with photons from that light gun at the end, you’ve got yourself warp power to go.” He waved an erudite hand like a professor explaining something to a young child.
“Left one’s shot. Explains why you were down to 60% integrity.”
I sighed. “So, what’s the damage?”
“Won’t know until I look inside.”
“Okay. Let’s check it out.”
While Wren poked around the cowling, I watched over the man’s shoulder like a hawk as he hiked her up higher on the AGs and got Billy to monitor the power.
He stood back, poking an elbow in my ribs. “Oi!” give me some breathing space, will you?” I stepped back with a reluctant grunt. I didn’t like anybody prodding around my ship. Especially the engines. Not to mention, I wanted to learn something in case I needed to tinker with Starrunner myself some day.
“What gets me is we’re light years from Brisis. How the hell they tracked me so quickly—”
“No mystery there,” interrupted TK. “Your enemies traced the residual Barenium from those leaky seals—Couldn’t have had a clearer signal, active dust on the outer cowling from the burn warp, a clear heat signature. The failed mobilitors would have made even more of a dust trail. You’re lucky to have gone any distance at all.”
I gave my head a sober shake. “Just my luck.”
“In my opinion, Rusco, you’ve had plenty of luck. Nine lives of it.” He squinted hard at the canisters. “I can fix it at 50%. Enough to get you to a proper station.”
“Better than sitting around here waiting for Baer and his bounty hunters to nab us.”
TK grunted. “Let’s get to it then. Show me to the bridge. I’ll check the warp engine controls.”
We went on board, down the main service hall lit in dim crimson by the emergency lights, past the cabins and the head into the bridge, with Billy and Wren trailing like kites in the wind.
I shuttled TK over to the pilot’s chair where the console still blinked and lay bathed in the eerie glow of the emergency lights.
TK sighed. “Bring up the warp panel. These modern interfaces are a little more new-fangled than I care for.”
“As you like.” I hit some side bars on the keypad, showed him the utility menus and he played long fingers along the touchscreen, bringing up a menu. “Varwol 6.0. Mezanine 3.4 kbs. Waxrin thrust gain, nominal. There, Barenium seal. See, you’re too low.”
He played with the sensors and he couldn’t help but notice the iridescent disc that lay three feet away below the auxiliary console. It must have flown free from the strongbox during impact. Could have been it or the box itself that hit me on the head. “What’s this shimmering disc you have here on the floor?” He reached for it.
I snatched it out of the old man’s hand before I remembered how dangerous the thing was, and dropped it like a red hot coal. “Nothing. Just some artifact.” I lanced the old man a wary look.
He did a double take and jerked back his head. “Artifact, my eye.” His eyes narrowed. “That’s why those men were chasing you, right?”
“Forgot to tuck it away in the back. Kinda hard when you’re crashlanding in a garbage pit.” I grabbed it up with my sleeve, laid it out on the control board with care. Something told me to trust the old man, as he’d figured most of it out anyway.
“It’s a small version of something else I saw back on Brisis. Some sort of weapon, I figure. Careful, it’s dangerous.”
He flipped it over in his gloved hands, while Wren came to stare over his shoulder, peering at it with doubt.
“Any more of these things?” he asked.
“None aboard. A larger version of something that looks quite different is locked in a safe place,” I said cryptically.
“What you’ve got here is a phase shifter. Moves atoms around from one time or place to another. How it does it, the physics is beyond me, but I’ve read about them.”
“Even you?” I guffawed. “Thought you were Mr. Fix-it-up and Encyclopedia man.”
“Not me,” he barked, “still a long ways to go. This here’s a remnant of another newfangled tech before the galaxy went to shit.”
I grunted, a thoughtful murmur on my tongue. “Explains how one yobo dematerialized to nowhere-land in front of my eyes.” I wondered how Baer and his idiot hirelings got it. They must have stumbled on it somewhere digging through the many crates of contraband going through their warehouse. Holding out for the highest bidder, like the vultures they were.
TK mused, “In the hands of the wrong people, this device could mean trouble.”
Wren blew air out of her nose. “Don’t you think we’re already on the road to hell, old man? As a species we should have been stamped out long ago.”
“No argument there,” he laughed.
“I think that sinking ship has already sunk,” I said.
“See those key codes or glyphs, bug script?” TK said. “Somehow they set a location. But they’re scrambled or encoded in some cryptic language. Nothing like I’ve ever seen before.”
“Bug, what do you mean, bug?” I croaked.
“Mentera tech, lost long ago—an old alien insect race. Rulers of the galaxy. Good luck finding a translator key.”
“So it’s useless?”
“I wouldn’t say that. The technobrains could probably back-engineer it. Someone with the yols and the clout to organize a think tank.”
“Hence your friend Baer, trying to fence it to someone,” muttered Wren.
Some star lord, if I recall.
“See, I think—” I reached for the thing without thinking, and wished I hadn’t, because TK had somehow armed it with his handling. As soon as I made contact—Zap. I came out in some other dimension, clutching that thing, blinking like an owl.
A sallow dawn greeted me, a snaky loop of smoke misting on the horizon. Cold dry air entered my lungs, very hard to breath. I clutched at my throat, gasping. Aphid-like shapes moved with slow synchrony across a steely grey sky. I saw more there than ever I cared to see in any lifetime.
The eye can only process so many things at once. I dropped to my knees, fiddling with the device, trying to get it to push me back to the place where I came from. But nothing seemed to work and it just pulsed that eerie, iridescent glow all the stronger, like an evil eye while my lungs croaked for air. Clouds, strange life forms flitted over the horizon. Birds, aliens, far-off alien craft? I didn’t know, nor cared to guess. Maybe I was hallucinating. The future, past, present? Could have been all or none. From the corner
of my eye, I caught glimpses of desiccated human bodies lying about. Whatever I did next, fiddling with the script, something jarred the thing back to life.
Zap. I was back in Starrunner, peering up at the hazy forms of figures prodding me. “You okay?” Wren snapped. “You just blinked out there for a second.”
“Holy crap!” I gasped. I sank lower on my knees, chucking the thing aside, as if it were radioactive. “I was out there—somewhere. Some putrid, rotten world. A ruined city. War was in the air, out there, somewhere in time. Alien wars. Strange things roved on the horizon. Decayed bodies all around, leathery skin and old bones.” My voice quavered. “Maybe it was all a dream of the past.”
“Easy, Rusco,” said TK.
“That’s nutso,” scoffed Wren. “You on some kind of drugs?”
“No trip,” I growled. “It was real, right down to my bursting lungs.”
“Your eyes went wide and staring, as if you were a ghost, fading fast. My hand passed right through you,” she said.
TK muttered, “Phase shift, to some far world. Could have been any one of the desolate planets out there.”
The old man placed a hand on my arm. “Can’t let this get into devils’ paws like those after you.”
“Like who?” sputtered Wren. “Some rich, evil buyer trips out to his favorite planetary resort for holidays? I’m shaking in my boots, TK.”
“No, you fool! I mean, by installing one of these devices on a drone or a mechnobot, they can blast any city or space station to smithereens and come back out of it without a scratch. An army of these could—well, make ruin of what’s left of the populated worlds.”