by Jean Kilczer
“Dammit. Something sharp!”
“Hurry, lad. I've got to pee.”
“What?”
“I didn't want to wet meself!”
“Oh. There's nothing here.” I opened the storeroom door a crack and peered into the empty galley.
“Where are ye going?” she whispered on a note of desperation.
“A knife!”
“Hurry. I'm about to pee meself anyway.”
I slipped into the galley, rummaged through a drawer of utensils, found a serrated steak knife and hurried back to Shannon. “I got it.”
Voices!
“Uh, oh.”
Was that Rowdinth shouting?
I cut through the ropes quickly and went to listen behind the door. “Pee in the sink!” I whispered.
A door to the galley slammed open. I heard quick footsteps click on the bare floor.
“They will pay for this insult to me and to my fellow Vermakts!” Rowdinth shouted as he strode into the galley. “There can be no compromise with the degenerate government of Alpha!”
“But General,” that was Lennie, the younger scientist, “my father and I have to test the weapon before you use it on the Sol System. It might still need tweaking. In fact, this solar system would be ideal for the test.”
“Why do you disobey my orders?” Rowdinth screamed. “High treason is punishable by death!”
“Shut up, Lennie.” That would be his father George.
“Providence has chosen me for a great mission,” Rowdinth shouted as he paused by the storeroom door. “My people will never again be the underclass of the worlds.”
The leader of the Vermakt people was a real one-note vis. Did he ever talk about anything else but his great mission? Did he ever wonder if a fresh uniform was waiting for him on the laundry room rack? I hoped not.
“Shannon,” I whispered and pointed to the post.
She hurried back to it buttoning her pants and sat down with her hands behind her. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the closed door.
I quietly backed away from it.
“They will learn the consequences of their futile attempts to deceive me. I am my people's messiah.” The storeroom door rattled as he pounded on it. “I alone have been given the mission to raise the Vermakt race to their exalted place as the leaders of the worlds.”
Yada. Yada, I thought.
More pounding on the door. “Never again will my people suffer ignominies because of the degenerate criminals of Alpha.”
I wondered if he were trying to convince the two scientists or himself.
“Yes, General Rowdinth,” George said softly. “I understand your pain, my lord.”
“My pain is beyond anyone's understanding, especially a Terran who eats rats! I will destroy this ship, and everyone on it, including myself, before I suffer the insults of those miscreants on Alpha any further.”
“The weapon is ready, General Rowdinth,” George replied. “You are free to use it however and whenever you deem it appropriate.”
Well, there goes the hoax theory, I thought.
The storeroom door suddenly flew open and Shannon was bathed in light from the galley.
I flattened against the wall behind the door and breathed quietly through parted lips.
“We will see,” Rowdinth said to Shannon from the other side of the door, “if your government will destroy a ship with three Terrans on board.”
Make that four, I thought.
He slammed the door shut.
Even in the pale light of the single bulb, I saw Shannon shaking.
The footsteps faded toward the lounge.
“I will have my revenge!” I heard Rowdinth howl.
I shook my head. He sounded like a caricature of himself. A windup tyrant. How did the pragmatic, industrious Vermakt people ever make this lunatic their leader?
Shannon was shaking badly as she stood up. She clung to me. I hugged her and rubbed her back.
“There must be another hatch,” I said, “even if it's just an emergency exit. If we can make it back to the pod, I'll call in the coordinates and let the fleet blow this ship all over space.”
A general quarters alarm suddenly sounded.
I bit my lip. I didn't want to tell Shannon that Rowdinth was calling his Guards to their battle stations as he prepared for liftoff and an encounter with the fleet.
“He's about to leave the planet, now isn't he?” she asked.
I nodded. “By the time we find the emergency hatch, his Guards will be swarming all over the ship.
As though on cue, the engines whined to life.
We sat down and held onto the post as the ship lifted and the darkness of night was replaced by the star-strewn infinite blackness of deep space.
There goes plan A, I thought, and wished I had a backup plan B.
Chapter Twenty
“Agent Hatch, this is Commander Ca Prez.”
Joe went to Sojourner's cabin and picked up the mic. “Yes, Commander, this is Agent Hatch.”
“Did Jules leave Sojourner yet? I've been awaiting his arrival.”
“You mean he hasn't arrived yet? He should have been there two hours ago!”
“Did you receive a distress call from the pod?” she asked.
“No. That dumb –“ Joe glanced around. Chancey, Doctor Stone, and Huff had followed him into the cabin. “I can tell you where he is, Commander. He's on some planet in this system where Rowdinth landed his ship.”
“Why would he choose to do that?” she asked.
“Why indeed.” Joe glanced at Chancey, who threw up his hands in a gesture of futility. “He's attempting to rescue the Terran woman,” Joe told her, “before we engage General Rowdinth.”
Chancey shook his head.
“I should have known that was his plan.” Joe hit a fist on the control board.
Doctor Stone sat down in the co-pilot's chair. “Would the military destroy Rowdinth's ship with Doctor Rammis on board?”
Joe glanced up at Chancey.
“What would you do, Doctor,” Chancey said tightly, “if the general was on his way to destroy Earth?”
Huff sat on his haunches. He whined and swung his head from side to side. “My Jules Terran friend,” he murmured miserably.
“I'd try to negotiate,” Doctor Stone told Chancey.
“Doctor Stone,” Commander Ca Prez called from the radio, “we have attempted to negotiate with General Rowdinth. He is completely unreasonable. Doctor Chang and Alpha's psychiatric team have concluded that he's undergone a psychotic break with reality.”
“Commander Ca Prez,” Joe said, “the fourth planet of this star system is an Earth-type world capable of supporting Terran and Vermakt life. I'd suspect that if Rowdinth's ship made planetfall, that's where you'll find them.” He let out a breath. “All of them.”
“We've already probed that planet,” Ca Prez answered, “and discovered the general's landing site. But his ship is gone. We believe he's heading toward your solar system.”
Joe heard her hiss out a breath.
“I'm sorry to have to tell you this,” she said, “but we believe he's given up his scheme to acquire the gold bullion and intends to take revenge on your homeworld.”
Doctor Stone looked pale as she gripped the edge of the control panel.
“Still sound like a hoax?” Chancey asked her. “Let me sit there, Doctor.”
She stood up unsteadily, a stricken expression on her drawn face.
Chancey sat down and flipped a switch on the control panel.
“Chancey,” Joe said, “prepare the ship for a jump to – “
“Sol System,” Chancey interrupted. “I'm on it, Joe.”
“Commander Ca Prez,” Joe said, “I assume the fleet is bound for the Sol System as well?”
“As soon as all ships are in formation, we will make the jump.”
“Has W-CIA contacted you with orders?” Joe asked her.
“We have been cleared to attack and destroy the ge
neral's ship upon visual contact.”
Joe sat back in the chair and saw Chancey stare at him. A bleakness of soul numbed the pain of knowing that Jules, and possibly Shannon, too, would be among the dead. More likely, the missing. What would he tell his granddaughter? That her father had sacrificed his life to try to save Earth? Little comfort to a seven-year-old who asked about her dad on a regular basis. “The damn fool!” he muttered.
“If he's on Rowdinth's ship,” Doctor Stone said, “he must be Rowdinth's prisoner too.”
“God only knows,” Joe responded, “what he must be.”
“He's a loose cannon, is what he is,” Chancey said.
“Ten Lords,” Huff whispered, “keep my loose cannon Terran friend well and I will never ask for any other ever thing again.”
Chapter Twenty One
I draped my arm around Shannon's shoulder as we watched the stars take form through the storeroom's small porthole. In the distant reaches of space, a type-G star emerged. Our own sun? But why had Rowdinth chosen to jump parsecs away from his target, Earth? I pointed at the sun. “That's our star, Shannon. Somewhere out there our homeworld is orbiting it.”
She gazed out the porthole. “Aye, but for how long?”
“Aye is right.” I pictured Earth, the majestic snow-peaked mountains, the awesome sweep of oceans, a planet losing species but still swarming with such a great variety of life that it's difficult to comprehend. Of Sol's eight planets and all their moons, Earth alone was a gem of life spinning in what astronomers and astrobiologists liked to call the Goldilocks Zone. Never too close to the sun or too far out in its orbit. A habitable planet all year round. Could the madman really reduce it to a burned-out cinder? He seemed to think so, and so did his rogue scientists. Unless I could sneak that table-top planet killer into the airlock and shove it into space.
We watched ole Sol grow in the porthole. I could understand Rowdinth's madness and his hatred of Terrans who helped to keep aggressive Fartherland out of the Worlds Government, with all its amenities of free trade and the exchange of technology. But how to explain two Earth scientists who would see the destruction of their homeworld for some pieces of gold?
“I'd better go an' sit by that post,” Shannon said. She went there, sat down and kept her hands behind her back.
I returned to my place behind the door and rested my head against the wall. If I managed to get the weapon into the airlock, I'd have to stay with it so that in those last seconds of remaining life, when the outer lock opened to deep space, I could roll that doomsday device-on-wheels out there.
Unless I could find a BioSuit, or even an old bulky spacesuit.
Shannon was watching me. I smiled half-heartedly. She knew the end was near for both of us, either by Rowdinth's hand, or the Alpha fleet. I reached into my pocket and took out the two candy bars Huff had given me. Thanks, Huff, I thought. “I'll share,” I told Shannon and tossed her one.
She picked it up and smiled.
Lisa had called her first taste of an avocado “green chocolate.” My eyes blurred as I unwrapped the candy bar. My little girl, safe on some colony planet. Did she ask about me? We had grown close during our dangerous times on Halcyon together. I wiped tears and took a bite of sweet chocolate.
For the first time, I felt no animosity toward Charles, Althea's new husband. Joe had said he treated Lisa well. What more could I ask of him? Someday, I'd be a dim memory in my daughter's mind, and hopefully, Charles would give her the support and love a girl needed from her father, from “the first man in her life,” as dads were called.
“What are ye thinking?” Shannon asked softly.
“Oh, just what might have been. You?”
“Aye.” She nodded and I realized she was also choked up.
I put down the candy bar and stood up. “Well.” I saw the fear in her eyes as she got to her feet. “I'm sorry I couldn't do more to save you, Shannon.”
She came to me and wrapped her arms around my back.
“I did the best I knew how,” I added and kissed her head.
She leaned her head against my chest. “I was hoping fer a lifetime o' holding you like this, lad. But 'twas not to be.”
I rumpled her thick red hair.
“Remember the song?” she said. “Tis you must go away an' I must bide?”
I nodded and felt tears slide down my cheeks and into her hair.
She looked up at me and her face was also tear-streaked. “Well, I'll na be biding. I'm coming to help you, whatever it is ye have in mind.”
“Shannon. You stand a better chance staying right here.”
“I know ye be trying to protect me, Jules, but we stand no chance at all that I can see, except to try to save our homeworld. The banshee be wailing fer both our names.”
I stared above her head through the porthole. Where were we? Maybe this jump so far from Earth was a miscalculation on Rowdinth's part.
“What the hell is that? Wait, Shannon.” I went to the porthole as a planet-sized wandering black hole swam into view consuming gas that swirled around it.
Shannon followed me.
I heard the ship's engines fire and felt the kick back as the ship maintained a safe distance from the hole's event horizon. Anything that ventured past it was sucked in, including light.
“It's a black hole!” Shannon said. “I've seen pictures o' them. Why are we so close, do ye think?”
“I don't…” I shook my head, at a loss for answers. “I don't know.”
The engines kicked in again, moving us away from the hole. At least the madman wasn't out to commit suicide by black hole.
“Wait a minute!” I slid to the floor with my back against it. “Wait a minute!”
She slid down beside me. “I'm waiting, lad.”
“Dark energy is a repulsive force,” I said.
“Aye. So ye have told me.”
“And primordial black holes wander the galaxy. And if an intermediate one like that one out there…” I pointed up at the porthole.
“Were to get pushed into our solar system?” she said. “Is that what ye be sayin'?
“Oh, my God! The weapon can't destroy Earth. Doctor Stone knew that. She was right!”
“About what?”
I jumped up and stared out the porthole again. “Do you know what would happen if a large black hole like that one made it into our solar system?”
“Sure an' I haven't the foggiest.” Her green eyes widened. “But I think it wouldn't be a good thing.”
“Christ and Brahma!” I squeezed my forehead between hands. “First the comets from the Oort Cloud would get thrown out of orbit and start hitting the inner planets like spears!”
She leaned against the wall. “An' then?”
“And then Earth itself…”
“I'm na so certain I want to hear this.”
“Earth would be torn from its orbit by the black hole's immense gravitational field.” I pictured our homeworld ripped apart and bleeding her hot magma into space. “Then Jupiter would attract the hole and get eaten,” I whispered hoarsely. “And then…” I leaned against the wall next to her. “And then the sun itself would be torn apart and drawn into the black hole.”
“Pray heaven!” She took my hand. “Our own world an' our sun ripped apart like spears and eaten by that monster out there?”
I looked around. “I need a weapon.”
I used the serrated knife to cut the tie-downs on boxes and rooted through them. It was mostly ingredients for the sous chefs, and the necessities for a long voyage. But I found a tool bag that was used for light repairs on the ship. I took out a slim metal rod with two holes and a screw tip. It had the weight of a good weapon. I stuffed it behind my waistband, along with the knife, and covered them with my sweater. “Shannon? If anything happens to me and you can make it to the weapon –”
“I'll do me best, lad.”
“That's all either of us can do.” I kissed her forehead and went quietly into the galley.
Sha
nnon followed.
Voices!
She backed into the storeroom as the far door swung open and two Vermakt Guards stopped in the doorway, looking shocked when they saw me.
One unholstered a stingler. I threw up my hands. “Don't shoot! I surrender.”
The Guard strode up to me, his gray forehead wrinkled around bristly hairs. “How did you find the general's ship, Terran, and how did you get past the Guards to board her?”
“The hatch.” I shrugged.
“The hatch? Smartass Terran.” He smacked me across my face.
It didn't hurt that much, but I fell against the counter and doubled over. “Don't hit me again, please,” I whined and slid the metal rod from behind my waistband.
His companion chuckled. “Terran coward. They are all alike. No honor or courage.”
Jack Cole, my spiker friend from Syl' Terria, once told me, “If you're holding a weapon on some tag, don't get too close. You give him the chance of swiping it away.”
I launched myself at the close Guard with the stingler and swiped it out of his hand. Vermakts are stronger than humans, but they're slow and bottom heavy. I struck him with the rod just behind his narrow snout. He sagged and went over like a bowling pin.
I ducked behind the table as the other Guard moved back and drew his weapon.
Uh oh!
The zap of a stingler. The Guard cried out. His shot went wild as he slumped to his knees, then kneeled over, motionless. A trickle of blood seeped from a small hole in the side of his head.
Shannon stood, legs braced, the unconscious Guard's stingler still pointed in her hands. She smiled. “I told ye, lad, tis better if I come along instead o' biding.”
We dragged the two Guards into a corner of the storeroom and I tied the unconscious tag's hands and feet. Shannon found a pair of dirty socks in the laundry basket and tied his snout shut. He'd breathe Okay through his nostrils. Like horses, the Vermakts were nose breathers.
“It won't be long,” I said, “until their friends come looking for them.”
“Then we'd best be gone from here.”