by Jim Laughter
Her shoulders slumped in response.
“Now,” he continued, “I want to hear your version of what happened.”
∞∞∞
With bleary eyes, Jake Sender reread the text on the computer screen in front of him. Finding errors he’d overlooked the first two times, he started making the necessary corrections. He’d already spent two full days getting the article ready to submit to the magazine publisher.
Scanning his corrections, he heard Sherry’s van pull into the driveway of their home. Breathing a silent sigh of relief at her safe return from running errands, Jake saved his file on the computer and pushed back from his desk. He was standing and stretching the kinks out of his back when Sherry walked into his study.
“Ohhh,” he moaned now that he had an appreciative audience.
“What’s wrong?” Sherry asked with concern as she set down her briefcase.
“Just feeling a little stiff,” Jake said, stepping stiff legged away from the desk. “Especially this confounded artificial leg of mine.”
“That leg has always been stiff,” Sherry countered. “Ever since they replaced it with titanium.”
“You never let me get away with anything!” Jake limped over and gave Sherry a kiss on her cheek.
“How’s the article coming?”
She plopped down in one of his easy chairs while Jake sat opposite her. She kicked off her shoes and put her tired feet up on the large foot rest.
“Good ’nuff I guess,” Jake said. “I think I’ll make the deadline.”
“You should. You’ve been at it off and on for over a week now.”
“I know, I know. How did your day go?” he asked, diverting the subject away from himself. He reached for the ever-present teapot.
After pouring a cup for Sherry and handing it to her, Jake refilled his own cup and sat back in his chair. Kicking off his house shoes, his feet soon rested next to Sherry’s on the foot rest.
“As good as can be expected, I guess,” Sherry said. “When I dropped off that paperwork at the adoption agency, they tried to saddle me with another case study.”
“I assume you successfully escaped.”
Jake took a sip of hot tea.
“What kind of fool do you take me for? Of course I did!”
“Just checking,” Jake said defensively. “As I recall, you always were a soft touch for charity cases.”
“Especially crippled military veterans,” Sherry added and nudged Jake’s artificial foot with her toe.
They sat in companionable silence for several minutes before either spoke again.
“So what are you going to do about Leatha’s letter? Isn’t Agnes already planning to go?”
“Wild horses couldn’t stop her,” Sherry said with a smile. “But as for myself, I don’t think I can spare the time to do it justice.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Jake said, taking another sip of tea. “So I’ve been thinking about a letter I received from Stan this morning.”
“You got a letter from him and didn’t tell me?”
“How could I tell you? You’ve been gone almost all day with your errands.”
“And just what did he have to say?”
“Just that he and Leatha want me to perform the ceremony,” Jake said coyly. “Especially since I’m in effect the father of the groom.”
“Are you going to do it?” Sherry asked, suddenly doubtful.
“I was thinking of suggesting something different,” Jake answered. “I was going to suggest that either we both officiate, or that you do it alone.”
“Now that certainly sounds interesting,” Sherry replied. “I think I might like that. Doing it together I mean.”
“That’s what I thought you might say,” returned Jake. “This way you can let Agnes have fun coordinating the whole shee-bang to her heart’s content.”
“Why don’t you let me write the reply?” Sherry suggested. “That way I can answer both letters at once.”
“Go ahead, my sweet,” Jake said, slipping his house shoes back on. “I for one have to get back to the salt mines.”
Sherry blew a kiss at her husband as he ambled wearily back to his office.
∞∞∞
Delmar came groggily awake still slumped suspended in his safety straps. With an effort he sat up and tried to clear his aching head. Looking out through the front windows of the Cabbage Patch, he saw that he was in low orbit around an unfamiliar planet. A glance at his instruments told him that he still had enough power to land safely.
With practiced care, he engaged the controls from where they’d zeroed themselves after the auto-pilot had disengaged. The Cabbage Patch responded, but more sluggish than before. Relying more on instinctive skill than anything else, Delmar lowered the crippled ship through the atmosphere. He had no idea where he was but trusted that the navigational emergency system had guided him safely to the preprogrammed planet.
Piercing the thin cloud layer, Delmar found himself only a few thousand feet above an arid desert region. He saw only a few primitive habitations and quickly searched for a safe landing zone. A signal from the instrument panel alerted him to the imminent failure of the ship’s main power cell. He angled his crippled ship downward toward a rocky canyon.
Spotting a level area, Delmar brought the damaged ship in to land in the limited area. I better hide this thing, he thought when he realized his ship would be easily visible to any Red-tail scouts or hostile natives. He spotted a cave nearby which he gauged visually to be of adequate size. He lifted the ship and carefully backed it in through the natural opening.
Almost immediately after the ship touched down, all power failed and Delmar could hear equipment around him slow to a stop as it starved for power.
He unstrapped himself from his control chair and carefully stood up. Unexpectedly, his head swam and he had to fight to keep from losing consciousness. While he stood there panting, he realized that his faceplate was open, an indication that the atmosphere was breathable.
He sat back down on the arm of the control chair and peeled off the pressure suit, glad to be free of its smelly confines. He noticed that it had sustained several tears and would probably be of little use in the future. He had to stop several times to try to clear the ringing in his ears.
After letting the suit drop to the floor, Delmar tried desperately to take stock of his situation. Try as he might, he couldn’t come up with any more of a plan than to get to one of the crude settlements he’d seen while landing.
Careful not to move too fast and set his aching head to swimming again, Delmar opened the hatch manually and exited into the cave. Using the outside security access, he closed the hatch and resealed the controls. He took his bearings once more and staggered out of the cave into the bright sunlight beyond.
∞∞∞
“I don’t care who we’re talking about!” Clay Boren exclaimed as he paced the floor of the master bedroom. “I believe Melissa!”
“I do too,” his wife agreed. “But the Administrator has already suspended her.”
“That’s what I don’t like,” Boren said, sitting down on the bed beside her. “They’ve already passed sentence against her without giving her any credence or checking with us.”
“Don’t forget about their judgment against us. They’re going to charge us for the repair to the equipment, along with time lost and any medical needs of the instructor.”
“Well, I for one don’t like their heavy-handedness,” he said, standing up again. “I’ll check into what we can do tomorrow.”
“What should I do about Melissa?” Beverly asked. “She’s heartbroken about this.”
“Keep her home tomorrow while I check with the Administrator,” her husband answered. “I don’t intend to let them turn her or us into their scapegoats.”
∞∞∞
Swinging his advance scout ship around a cluster of stray asteroids, the pilot slowed as he approached the coordinates for the sector mothership. Command had
lost contact with the base ship over a week ago when she hadn’t reported to her new assignment. He was running lead for the new command ship that was en route to this location.
His call for approach clearance remained unanswered and he was surprised to receive only static over the comm. As he drew near the mothership’s last known location, he passed through a small gas cloud which momentarily obscured his vision.
When his front view screens cleared again, the pilot gasped involuntarily. Spread out around him in all directions was wreckage and debris. He allowed his courier ship to drift forward and was quickly surrounded by the burned and blasted pieces of many ships, all of them Axia. Scattered among the wreckage were the charred bodies and dismembered pieces of countless Axia Troopers.
“Red-tails!” exclaimed the pilot to himself. “Filthy beasts!”
Near the center of the debris field, the courier ship pilot saw what could only be the shattered remains of an Axia mothership. He turned on his photo array to record the debris field.
Without warning, a heat ray seared past the nose of the courier ship. Another ray scorched through his communications array and seared away his long range antenna and emergency beacon. Reacting immediately, the pilot slammed the throttle forward and spun the little ship into a corkscrew dive and accelerated away from the floating wreckage. Behind him several Red-tail scouts gave chase but were unable to hit or overtake the faster ship.
As he pulled away from his pursuers, the pilot mentally cursed himself for his own negligence. Feeling complacent as he’d approached the coordinates of the mothership, he’d neglected to watch his detector screen. He’d made the near-fatal assumption that the normal defensive globe maintained around motherships would have cleared the sector of any Red-tail presence.
A glance at his flight recorders told him they’d recorded his errors for later review. More importantly, they also contained a visual record of the debris and wreckage he’d just discovered.
Continuing to accelerate away from the scene of the debacle, he keyed his long-range transmitter, only to be met by a near deafening static discharge. He knew his only course of action was to circle back on his route and intercept the new mothership which was still two sectors away.
Under normal conditions, this would be a leisurely four-day cruise, but this was an emergency. He pushed his throttle forward deep into his red zone. He knew the strain could be fatal to his ship but now wasn’t the time to worry about such things.
Two days later the scout approached the mothership. He knew immediately from his sensors that the defensive perimeter was doing their job. Using his short range transponder, he requested emergency priority status on landing and asked that the sector commander be notified. Upon receiving immediate landing instructions, the pilot angled toward the mothership and the landing bay waiting for his incoming ship.
The scout vented as it came through the bay doors and touched down on a static pad. A concerned sector commander watched from the control room as the pilot exited his ship and bay crews began to cool down and service the small ship. Noting the recorder canisters in the pilot’s hands, the sector commander knew that serious news was about to be placed in his lap.
An hour later, the projector ran through the last of the horrible images of the blasted mothership. The commander motioned for the lights to come back up and then spoke to his assembled command staff.
“Troopers,” he began simply. “We have a problem. I called you in to see these recorded images without preamble or explanation so I can get your freshest reactions.”
The grimness of their expressions told him their feelings without a word being spoken.
“As far as can be determined, the mothership was destroyed in an overwhelming attack that was not detected,” the sector commander stated. “Quick analysis of the first part of the record shows no sign of the perimeter picket ships that should have detected any Red-tail ships within several elms. It has been surmised from the few images of the mothership that all picket ships and scouts had been recalled and were in static dock.”
A gasp escaped from someone down the table.
“I realize that such an action is against standard procedure, but that’s not what this meeting is about,” the commander continued. “What we’re faced with now is how to route this Red-tail incursion. This meeting is now open for your suggestions.”
∞∞∞
Sinister eyes watched the man dressed in black stagger along the trail leading out of the box canyon.
“Where did that stranger come from?” one grizzly character asked his partner.
“Ain’t got one clue,” the second man answered. “I don’t like him snooping around up here.”
“You think he works for the sheriff?”
“No,” the second man replied. “Look at him. I ain’t never seen nothing like them clothes, especially in town.”
“I say we jump him, knock him in the head and dump his body somewhere,” the first man suggested.
The second man continued to watch the stranger.
“He ain’t got no weapon, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
The desert heat was taking its toll on Delmar as he tried to find his way out of the canyon and to the crude town he’d seen in the distance. Even though the Axia tried to avoid contact with the inhabitants of backward planets, Delmar knew he needed medical help or he might not survive.
Staggering along the rocky trail, he thought he heard the scrape of something following him. Glancing around all he saw were the boulders and outcroppings of the dry desert canyon. He shook his head and feared that he was beginning to hear things. Delmar resumed his trek along the dry wash where it passed between a stand of large rocks.
Suddenly, his vision exploded with stars as something struck him hard in the back of his head, sending him sprawling in the dust and gravel. A boot forced his face down further into the dirt as rough hands searched him.
Before Delmar could even think of moving, a second hard blow to the back of his head caused his mind to explode in pain. He felt himself being roughly thrown over the back of some sort of strange pack animal. His head dangled dangerously close to a large rock outcropping, twice striking its sharp edges protruding at odd angles along the narrow trail.
From his precarious point of view, Delmar could see through blurred vision that he’d been carried to the edge of a steep canyon wall.
“This will do,” he heard a rough voice call from somewhere behind him. “Dump the body!”
With the flash of a sharp knife, the rope securing his hands and feet was severed. Delmar found himself falling through space, then rolling and bouncing down the rocky incline of the canyon wall. At one point he heard the material of his utility uniform tear.
Just when he thought he was about to regain his balance, Delmar felt himself falling through the air again, this time to land hard on a large rock at the bottom of the deep ravine. His head smashed against the formation and a ribbon of pain shot through his body. Only the welcome blackness of unconsciousness saved him from a universe of agony.
Chapter Five
Captain Leatha Morton watched in anguish while the shipyard workers tramped in and out of the Aurora. Her companion slipped an arm around her shoulder in comfort.
“How will I ever get her clean again?” Leatha complained. “I know they have to do all of this work, but can’t they at least wipe their feet first?”
“It’ll be all right,” Stan assured her, turning her away from the sight of her ship resting in the cradles with her ribs exposed. The modifications on the Aurora were progressing well but Leatha was anxious to fly again.
As they walked away from the ship they noticed a knot of troopers talking angrily about something. Curious and yet cautious in case trouble might be about to erupt, Stan and Leatha approached the group.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” Stan asked a trooper standing near the edge of the group.
“Haven’t you heard? There’s been a major Red-tail incursion out on
the rim.”
Stan arched an eyebrow at the news. It never ceased to amaze him how the grapevine could flash news across the galaxy faster than the official comm system.
“You’ve got to be kidding?” Leatha said. “I thought we’d managed to secure a solid defensive border.”
“Apparently not,” Stan said. “You sure this isn’t just some sort of cruel joke?”
“I wish it was,” the trooper answered grimly. “Word has it that a mothership got blasted with all of her picket and scout ships onboard.”
“What kind of fool would fail to keep his pickets on station?” Leatha asked, disbelief registering in her voice.
“Do you know which sector this happened in?” Stan asked.
“I’m not sure,” the trooper answered. “But from what I heard, it’s out in sector 2046-W.”
Leatha immediately gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. She turned to Stan and noticed that his face had also gone ashen.
“I know,” he said grimly and squeezed her shoulder. “That’s the sector Delmar was just posted to.”
∞∞∞
“So you see Mr. Boren, we had to discipline your daughter for the willful destruction of school equipment,” the School Administrator said with condescension. “We can’t let the rebellion of one disorderly student disrupt our entire educational environment.”
Frankly, Clay Boren did not see. He knew that Melissa and the student this administrator described bore no relationship to each other. For over an hour now he’d listened to the prattle of this paper-pushing pencil neck. His patience was starting to wear thin.
“But it was not Melissa’s modifications to the circuit that caused the bench to burn out,” Boren said carefully.
The Administrator gave him a longsuffering look.
“It was only after she’d put together the circuit in the book, under the direction of the instructor, that the bench blew.”
“Tut-tut, Mr. Bordon,” the Administrator admonished.
Clay frowned at the butchering of his name.
“We have the trained observation of the instructor that Melissa made unauthorized modifications to the circuit.”