by Dave Barsby
A single breath is enough to reduce me to fits of angry coughs, while my eyes succumb to the smoke without a second’s thought. Amid the echoing roar still assaulting my ears, I hear Larisa spluttering with all her heart. My ears throb, my chest is on fire, my mouth is drier than sand, my stinging eyes are successfully mimicking a waterfall and my skin feels pleasantly char-grilled. If Hell is as bad as this, I’m selling bibles from now on.
I consider fighting my way out of the cloying smog, but I have no idea which way to head. Larisa is still gripping on to me, coughing and retching. My brain is starting to malfunction, grow lazy, dizzy and incompetent. We’ll have to flee the smoke soon, before excess inhalation takes our lives. I loosen Larisa’s grasp around my waist and take one hand in mine. I begin to crawl, hoping I am heading in a useful direction. I can hear her crawling behind me in stuttering movements. I feel the same.
By the time Rogdo finally reaches us, we have managed to clamber to our feet and struggle through most of the smog. The black smoke now flows like an ocean around our legs, rising to a tsunami further back towards the empty platform. Through streaming eyes, I can see the state Larisa is in – her clothes are filthy, her fair skin blackened by smudges of soot, her eyes red-ringed slits and a few choice scrapes adorn her forearms. I suspect my look is rather similar – that of a person who has managed to survive ten rounds against a volcano.
Only Sanshar is missing from the gang when Rogdo et al arrive. They all stare at us blankly. The still quiet is punctuated only by our coughing and wheezing.
“What…what happened?” Rogdo finally asks. I mimic a ship taking off rather than risk wear and tear on my singed vocal chords. Larisa does likewise by nodding and pointing at my mimicry.
“Well, what…where’s Vitari?” Rogdo continues. “And how did you get here so quick?!?” he turns to me with a demanding voice.
I try mimicking jumping out of the hotel, but before I even begin I know my mime is not going to work.
“Eh?” is the response I get from Tima. Fortunately I am pressed no further for answers, because at that moment the Diablo IV appears over the canopy line of the surrounding trees. It jerkily shifts through the sky until it is poised over the empty platform. As it lowers itself unsteadily to the ground, the rolls of smoke are pushed aside and quickly dissipate into the pleasant atmosphere of Camera-7.
“Well…tell us later,” Rogdo says grumpily as the Diablo IV bounces twice before settling on the concrete. The rear hangar ramp lowers. The crew rush aboard. Fearing abandonment, Larisa and I follow, but our energy isn’t what it once was and we wearily climb the steps to the platform, then sigh as we are faced with the open hangar ramp.
“Come on you two!” we hear from deep inside the ship, an echoing, booming voice that masks its true owner. The ramp is raised as we are still part way up it. Both Larisa and I head immediately and soundlessly for our bunks to rest, sleep and maybe wash. It is an option Rogdo is not willing to give us.
After a brief scuffle and a healthy dose of complaining, Larisa and I find ourselves in the cockpit, watching events unfold. Drift has now taken over from Sanshar at the helm and is driving the Diablo IV through the upper atmosphere like a bat out of Hell [question: has anyone ever seen a bat out of Hell, and if so does it really move quickly and purposefully?]
Vitari’s ship is barely showing on the scanner, but it gives us a rough idea of where to head. Still feeling grumpy about our forced visit to the cockpit, I am unwilling as yet to volunteer the information regarding Larisa’s gauntlet. She seems of the same mind, her oft-perfected ‘miffed’ stare actually looking rather evil when combined with a weary, soot-smeared face.
“Ready to talk yet?” Rogdo asks me. I shake my head. “Well, what is it?” he continues. “You have a teleporter or something?” I continue to shake my head. “Like I care,” he adds, sealing his burgeoning reputation as a spoilt child.
“Sir, we’re getting closer,” Drift points out. “He seems to be waiting for us.”
It is true. Not only is the blip sharper and larger on the scanner, but Vitari’s ship is actually visible through the cockpit window now, a shining, silvery glint among the pinprick of stars.
“Good,” is all Rogdo says.
“And what shall we do when we catch him, Sir?” Drift returns.
“Kill him,” Hiaelia points out succinctly.
“I concur,” Tima adds with rather more panache.
“There you go,” Rogdo offers to Drift. “We kill him.”
Drift swivels round in his chair, leaving the controls to bob gently under their own steam for a moment. “And how do we do that, Sir?”
Rogdo shrugs, confused by Drift’s question. I feel now is finally the time for me to break my silence – if I don’t we’ll have rammed Vitari’s ship up the arse before this conversation has made its point.
“I think what Drift means,” I begin, “is that we don’t actually have any form of weaponry aboard this vessel, so short of a kamikaze ramming we don’t really have any way of killing him.”
Rogdo stares at the rapidly growing lump of metal out the window. His mouth moves briefly, but sound is not forthcoming. Time is running out.
“Maybe we could just follow him from a distance until he lands?” the captain offers, deeply unsure. His inability to make a sensible decision impacts on the psyche of the crew, reducing all of us to just umms and ahhs, as confused as Rogdo himself.
Our decision is suddenly taken from us when a brief flash of light lances out from the underbelly of Vitari’s ship and strikes us squarely on the nose. Normally this would have been cause for a right royal rumble to kick off, but as we are unarmed we can only stare in disbelief as the vessel shakes and small chunks of debris melt away from the forward section, clattering back over the cockpit.
There is another, more pressing problem that at first we completely fail to notice. As Rogdo unveils several new swear words in his tirade, Drift looks on aghast and the rest of us murmur like a properly-trained crowd of extras in a theatre production, something strange starts happening in the front compartment.
I suspect that, like myself, everyone aboard the ship is mildly concerned about damage to sensor and communication arrays when Vitari’s laser blast strikes. We are horribly wrong, having completely forgotten that the first compartment in the Diablo IV contains, for some stupid reason, the engine.
So when Vitari’s ship suddenly races off into the distant reaches of the galaxy and Rogdo presses for an immediate pursuit, none of us notice the strange blue glow emanating from the nosecone until a split second before the wormhole drive is activated. A split-second is not a very long time. Not long enough for you to shout, for example, “Wait!” or “Stop!” or “No!” Well, maybe just long enough to shout “No!”, but let’s face it, who is going to be able to react to “No!” and prevent their hand from pressing a button in half a split-second (or thereabouts)? Really, try it at home, see if you can do it.
So, the warnings are belated, the button is pressed, and the wormhole drive doesn’t quite know whether to engage or explode. In the end, it does a little of both.
14. GRAVITY WELL
Wormholes usually help you travel faster than the speed of light. They open a shortcut in the fabric of space-time and allow you to fly through them, cutting a 17 year light-speed journey down to, say, twelve hours. They are not, however, instantaneous. Not usually. Which is why it comes as a great surprise to us to find we have travelled 1,364 light years in the time it takes Rogdo to finish saying “Don’t press the button!”
Whatever has just happened, it is a scientific miracle, one that would give bespectacled, lab coat wearing boffins wet dreams for months.
We, on the other hand, are not elated to discover a new form of wormhole drive that is far quicker than the most advanced Roto-grav (and, I suspect, actually quicker than the speed at which gossip travels). This may be an incredible scientific discovery, but at present we are more concerned with the following few problems:
1) Where are we?, 2) Where is Vitari?, 3) What just happened?, 4) Will it happen again? and 5) Does that shuddering mean the Diablo IV is about to explode?
The latter question is, in my own opinion, the most pertinent. Maybe followed by the former. The rest in the middle are questions to ask at a later date once mortal danger has been ruled out.
“What the…?” Rogdo starts, getting halfway towards asking question three before giving up. He plumps instead for question one. “Where are we?”
“Is the ship supposed to be jerking like this?” Larisa asks, grabbing a filthy panel board for support.
“Don’t be stupid,” Tima tells her. “Does it usually jerk like this?”
“Then what is it?”
“The engine?” Tima asks Sanshar, who is now pouring over reams of data.
“No,” Drift answers for her. “The wormhole drive’s off-line. It’s fried.”
“Then what is it?” Larisa screams in a panic. I am amazed how well her vocal chords have recovered from the smoke inhalation.
“I don’t know, you daffy bint!” Drift retorts.
Emotions are beginning to run high. Instead of solving our problems we seem to be degenerating into a slanging match while impending death looms ever closer. I feel like shouting “Calm down, everyone” but I really can’t be bothered. This was supposed to be a nice, easy assignment aboard a cruise ship. One year of luxury, followed by a bestseller that pumps enough royalties my way to set me up for life. At present I feel that, should I survive, I will have spent one year in abject misery and/or fear of my life, only to be presented with a lovely hardbound copy of my novel and a total sales count of fifteen (all bought by relatives no doubt). I miss home.
“Wait!” Sanshar calls. “I’ve got it! It’s a largely uncharted area of space.”
“Oh, great, so we’re lost!” Rogdo mutters.
“No, no, most of it was cordoned off and never explored because of something called Adminitus. Which is almost exactly where we are now.”
“What?” Rogdo breathes in horror. I feel my own flesh go pale. No one else seems to understand what this means, what Adminitus is. Which is an ideal opportunity, I feel, for me to explain it all to you, the reader. After all, if mercenaries who spend most of their lives travelling the galaxy have never heard of Adminitus, how many of you will have?
Adminitus was one of those wonderful, clever ideas that just wasn’t thought out properly. A prime piece of planetary real estate not because of its vistas, its climate or unusual mineral properties, but because it was directly in the centre of the largest trading routes in the Western Spiral. This is several hundred years ago, long before the human race expanded beyond their own feeding ground, so to speak. In those days, real estate was a much sought-after commodity, and the position of Adminitus nearly helped it become the first seat of power for the now-defunct Galactic Council. That honour went to the pathetically-named Earth-2 five days before it blew up. The Galactic Council was disbanded after that because their primary duty – to stay alive – failed in less than a week.
Adminitus (its new name befitting its station) was selected to be the administrative capital of the rapidly expanding human empire. To this end, billions of miles of electrical cables were wound around the planet then the entire world’s surface was coated in fifty feet of steel. This steel allowed safe mooring for tower blocks stretching several miles into the atmosphere, and thus the galaxy’s first planet-sized city was born.
It was during the opening ceremony when the tragedy struck. With immense pride, Emperor Eilonwy III announced the opening of Adminitus for business and flicked on the worldwide power grid. Instead of the dazzling show as the world’s surface lit up with clusters of bulbs, there was a far more deadly show in store. The coiled loops of electrical wire magnetised the planet’s liquid iron core to such a degree it actually pulled the steel surface of Adminitus in on itself. The collapse of the entire planet only fuelled the magnetised core further, and the area of space once occupied by Adminitus has now become the galaxy’s only significantly-sized magnetic black hole.
Due to this phenomenon occurring because of someone’s immense stupidity, the history books generally ignore this tragedy. Planets in the local system are not recorded and the magnetic black hole itself is ignored by everything bar navigation systems which are designed specifically to skirt the area.
However, a malfunctioning wormhole drive doesn’t really conform to the usual parameters of navigational programming, hence our arrival within the strong magnetic field. And hence the ship trying to shake itself to bits as sublight engines battle against the magnetic pull.
This is a rather longer explanation of the phenomenon than Rogdo affords his crew. His explanation is simply: “It’s a magnetic black hole. No questions, just get us out of it.”
“Magnetic?” Drift enquires.
“That sounds like a question to me,” Rogdo responds, annoyed.
So without further ado Drift slams the power to the sublight thrusters on max. The ship shakes even more. A few panels dislodge themselves from the beaten cockpit and in the distance, over the high pitched whine of the engines, I hear our few remaining items of tinned food clatter around the storage compartment.
“That’s…that’s not working,” Drift handily tells us. “We’re…umm…we’re going backwards here.”
“Then put the power on max,” Rogdo calls. “Shove the stick all the way forward.”
“It is on max! The only way I can move the stick further forward is if I snap it off and throw it!”
I, like the rest of the crew, look on in silent bewilderment. Only Sanshar is active, scanning reference databases and correlating data as fast as the limp, pathetic on-board computer can manage.
“I’ve got it,” she eventually tells us. “I know what we need to do.”
“What?” Rogdo asks breathlessly.
“Die,” is Sanshar’s response.
“Not exactly the answer I was looking for!” the captain says.
“Well, let’s face it, we’re stuck in a magnetic vortex in a ship made of metal. Not only that, but the ship is old, heavy and weak. If it isn’t ripped apart it will be crushed and we just don’t have the power to drag this lumbering beast out of danger. So, my recommendation is for everyone to say goodbye to each other, have an orgy or whatever it is your last wish may be, then go splat.”
“I don’t think there was much need for a speech of that length,” Tima points out. “Come on, there must be something we can do. How about using the wormhole drive, reconfiguring the engines or losing some weight?”
“The wormhole drive is fried and will not operate without serious repairs,” Drift begins. “We cannot reconfigure the engines because they are too old to be computer-controlled by some moronic jargon-spewing programmer, and as for losing weight, I’ll have you know I am ideal for my height and bone density, thank you very much.”
“Maybe that could work,” Sanshar calls. “Maybe we could lose weight!”
“Stick me on a diet of cress and celery and I will turn this ship around and fly it straight into the black hole!” This, naturally, from Drift.
“The ship…it’s in four sections. You can disconnect each section in sequence. Hold on…” Sanshar rapidly taps away at some keys on the pad, then beams at us and actually starts to purr. “The living quarters. The last section. Release that, let it flow back into the vortex and I believe we will just have the power to break free.”
“Excellent!” Rogdo chimes. He pauses, then quietly whispers to Sanshar: “Are you sure about this?”
“If we do it in the next two and a half minutes, I think so.”
“Good. Everyone here?”
We quickly glance round, doing a head count. All are present and correct.
“Any vital belongings in your quarters?”
Nobody actually says “no” but the silent pause is enough of an answer. Belongings, yes. Something worth risking all our lives for? Errr, maybe a no on that one.
“Then Drift, release the living quarters!”
“Erm…” Drift scans the control panel in front of him and scratches his head. “Anyone see a ‘Release Compartment’ button?” We all shrug and glance round, but there are scant few buttons available to us. Not like in the Diablo III. That had so many buttons, it seemed like you’d need an eight-switch combination to open a door.
Drift himself eventually locates the correct button, though its legend is a little different – Waste Container Removal. It explains the strange smell in the living quarters.
Drift triumphantly exclaims and heartily jabs the button. Nothing happens. This isn’t really much of a surprise. Firstly, our luck hasn’t been too good of late. Secondly, we don’t really expect anything on this ship to work the way it should.
Drift tries jabbing the button again. By now he is beginning to panic and uses more extreme tactics. A vicious jab is followed by a punch, a kick and a scream of “Fucking work!” He is dragged off the control panel as he attempts to bite the button into submission.
“Okay, another plan would be handy,” Rogdo says as Drift is muzzled and harshly placed back in the pilot’s seat.
“Manual releases,” Sanshar says.
“Are there?” Rogdo asks.
“Yeah. Two levers on the inside walls. I can do it.”
“Inside?” I ask. What exactly does inside mean? I wonder. Inside which side?
“Oh, wait a minute,” Rogdo shouts. “Inside the living quarters?!?”
“Manual release seems like the only way,” Sanshar points out.
Ever the bright spark, Larisa pipes up with the one question nobody else dare ask. “Does that mean whoever releases it will be stuck in there and die?”
I slap my hand to my forehead. Rogdo mutters: “Oh, for…”
“I can do it,” Sanshar repeats.
“Wait, let us just think about this here. As Captain, it is my duty-”