Drifter's Run

by William C. Dietz

  Cy bobbed slightly. "Beats me. Let's try something else. Pik will be worried. Tell him we're okay."

  Cap touched a button and spoke into the comset. "Tender to Junk, don't worry, Lando, we're okay. You read me?"

  Nothing but static.

  Cy squirted himself forward. "The blob is blocking our signal. Now ask it to relay our signal and see what happens."

  Cap activated the comset. "This is Captain Sorenson. Please relay the following signal to my ship. Tender to Junk, can you read me, Lando?"

  Lando's voice boomed in over the comset. "Loud and clear, Cap… you gave us quite a scare. What the hell's going on?"

  Cap was just coming to the end of his explanation when the blob disappeared. Cy was the first to notice. "Look, Cap! We're inside the ship!"

  Cap looked up at the view screens and saw Cy was correct. The tender had come to rest in a large open area. There were things around them but only dimly seen.

  "You still read me, Lando?"

  "Crystal clear."

  "Good. The blob thing pulled us inside the ship."

  "How? We didn't see a hatch or anything."

  "I don't know," Cap answered, "but we're here."

  He glanced at the board. "Believe it or not my instruments show a breathable atmosphere. I'm going out for a look around."

  "Be careful, Daddy!"

  Sorenson felt a lump form in his throat. "Don't worry, Mel… I'll wear my suit just in case. I'll talk to you in a little bit."

  Lando sat up straight. "Did you see that?"

  "I sure did," Dee replied emphatically. "The drifter used one of those green blobs to move an asteroid."

  "Well, to fend one off anyway," Lando suggested. "I'll bet it pushes them away on a regular basis. That's how it made the big open space."

  "Sure," Dee agreed. "Now we know how. The question is why."

  The rain made a drumming noise on Cy's metal casing. Good thing he was waterproof. The rain, like the strange foliage to either side, seemed to confirm a complete self-maintaining biosphere.

  Unlike humans and many other aliens, the drifter's architects preferred a natural environment. Natural for them that is. The lighter-than-Terran gravity, alien plants, and slightly humid air seemed strange to Cy.

  The cyborg had traveled quite a ways by now. He'd seen deserts, grasslands, and even a miniature forest of double-trunked trees. Trees that seemed to have special significance.

  Here and there, tucked away among the trees, Cy found dozens of nest beds. That's what he called them anyway and the name seemed to fit. They were depressions really, long indentations in the ground that were padded with spongy stuff and covered with brightly colored blankets.

  What were they? Crew quarters? That's the way it seemed but Cy couldn't be sure.

  There were plenty of paths, narrow winding affairs mostly, which served as highways for a variety of small animals. There were birds too, and small insects, but no sign of sentient beings.

  Missing was any sign of the pipes, duct work, electric conduit, fiber optic cable, and other installations that characterized the interior of most ships.

  At one point Cy had paused to scrape the mosslike growth from the inside of the hull. After extruding a sophisticated electrode, he found the hull material was not only conductive, but heavily laden with all sorts of electronic activity.

  Somewhere aboard ship an extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence was using the hull to route electronic signals throughout the vessel. He couldn't prove it but thought power was distributed the same way.

  Thanks to the special hull material the aliens had been able to dispense with the need for wire, cable, and conduit. It was wonderful, incredible, and absolutely beautiful.

  In fact the more Cy saw, the more he knew the ship was a technological treasure trove, a turning point for any society that owned it. Assuming they could bring the ship out of the belt he and his crew mates would never have to work again.

  Why then did he feel a hollowness in his nonexistent gut? A growing fear that things wouldn't be that simple? He pushed the feeling aside.

  The biosphere came to an end and funneled itself into a sizable lock. From the high overhead and location of various fittings Cy deduced that its designers were most likely tall and skinny.

  The ship seemed to sense Cy's presence and know exactly what to do. The lock cycled closed, then open. Cy came out to find himself floating in the middle of an engineer's dream.

  Here were the technological underpinnings of everything he'd seen so far. Here were power plants that never broke down. Here were racks full of mysterious components, lights that signified things unknown, and a control area like none he'd seen before.

  It consisted of ten black globes. Each globe sat on a white pedestal and helped make a perfect circle. From the chairs located directly in front of the globes Cy deduced they were positions of some kind.

  Squirting himself over to the nearest position Cy extended a cautious pincer. Much to his surprise it went right through the globe's seemingly solid surface.

  There was a brief moment of disorientation followed by the knowledge that he was somewhere else. Somewhere inside a bio-control system, sampling the ship's atmosphere, and balancing evaporation against rainfall.

  Cy jerked his pincer back and the sensation was gone. Holy Sol! What a ship! You could climb inside the controls!

  Cy raced to the next black globe, and the next, finding and identifying controls for the power plants, the green blobs, and the ship itself. Lando would love it! A ship he could fly from the inside out! Assuming they could figure things out, of course. Cy went to work.

  Since Cy had turned right, toward what Cap thought of as the ship's stern, he went left. Most of the ships he'd seen, human and alien alike, put the control section toward the bow. So, why not this one?

  Besides, the launching bay was huge, and full of interesting shapes. What would he find? Valuable cargo? An alien shuttle? Cap set off to find out.

  It was dark in the bay, but true to his word Cap was wearing his suit, so he turned on the helmet light. It threw an elongated circle of light up ahead and moved when he did. At first it skittered across faintly phosphorescent hull material but then it touched something shiny.

  Cap turned his head left in order to aim the light. What he saw made him gasp with surprise. It was an unmanned probe, an old one, pre-Confederation if he was any judge.

  Stepping up for a closer look Cap saw a nameplate. It read "Voyager 2" in Terran script. Damn! He'd have to look it up to be sure, but chances were that thing was more than a thousand years old.

  Cap moved on. The air that came in through his open visor was wet and heavy. He saw a lump up ahead. Turning his head he placed the circle of light right on it. What the hell? Part of a small spaceship. The stern from the look of it. The metal was too torn and twisted to make out more than that.

  The light moved back and forth. Wait a minute, what was that? Something shiny, something round, a satellite! Or was it? He'd never seen one exactly like it. Alien probably.

  And there, wasn't that a message torp? Yes it was. Later he'd open it up and see what was inside. You never know, it could be something valuable.

  And so it went. During the next half hour Cap found fuel tanks, a six-armed space suit with something dead inside, pieces of twisted metal, alien constructs he couldn't name, and a lot more.

  It was as if the ship, or its owners, had a propensity for collecting junk. Not for any special purpose, but just for the heck of it. Fascinating stuff but something to investigate later.

  Cap was just about to break it off and go looking for the control room when he saw something familiar up ahead. Familiar, but not so familiar that he knew what it was.

  His light bounced over metal and slid across the deck. Tilting his head up Cap saw it. A lifeboat. A beat-up lifeboat with a cracked canopy, dented hull, and the name Star of Empire stenciled across its bow.

  Cap began to scream.

  18

>   It took the better part of two days to prepare the tow. Although Cy's investigations indicated that the drifter might be able to proceed under its own power, there was too much they didn't know about the ship's operation, so a tow7 seemed like the best way to go.

  No simple matter in open space and considerably more difficult in the crowded confines of the asteroid belt.

  In order to assure maneuverability it was necessary to mount heavy-duty auxiliary thrusters on the outer surface of the drifter's hull. The thrusters, and the fuel tanks that supplied them, were cumbersome and hard to work with. Even in zero G they had to be guided into place, secured to the hull, and test fired.

  Added to that was the fact that they were shorthanded due to Cap's encounter with the lifeboat. Seeing the boat and the name across the bow had pushed Sorenson into a state of hysteria.

  Hearing Sorenson's screams via suit radio Cy had responded as quickly as he could. A sedative, followed by enforced rest aboard the tender, had helped a lot. Though shaky Cap was starting to recover.

  In the meantime Lando and Dee had been forced to perform almost all of the work associated with placing the thrusters and preparing both ships for the tow.

  Back aboard Junk, and still sweaty from the hours spent in his suit, Lando ran a final check on the auxiliary thrusters. Dee assisted while Melissa kept watch in the tug's top turret.

  By mutual agreement, Lando, Cy, and Dee had kept her in the dark regarding Cap's condition. After all, there was nothing she could do other than worry, so why put her through it?

  Lando tapped some keys on a jury-rigged auxiliary control board. Miles away a thruster fired in response. It shut down a fraction of a second later.

  "Bow thruster, port side."

  Dee looked at the portacomp sitting on her lap. "Check."

  "Bow thruster, starboard side."

  "Check."

  "Midship thruster, port side."

  "Check."

  "Midship thruster, starboard side."

  "Hold… I show a control anomaly."

  Keys clicked under Lando's fingers. The computer ran a diagnostic routine on the starboard side, midship thruster and sent the results to Dee.

  "Anomaly resolved. Control green."

  Lando nodded. "Good. Stern thruster, port side."

  "Check."

  Melissa interrupted. Her voice was a high-pitched squeak. "Pik… Della… I've got something on the sensors! Something besides the drifter I mean. It's big and headed this way!"

  Lando swore softly. Of all times why now? He turned toward Dee. She was gone. The bounty hunter would relieve Melissa and assign her to a less critical weapon.

  Lando spoke into the comset and activated Junk's weapons at the same time.

  "Cy? Listen, we've got company. No ID… but pirates seem like a good possibility. Have you found any weapons on that tub?"

  In between nursing Cap, and doing what he could to assist the others, Cy had been deciphering the ship's systems. He had lots left to learn but had a fairly good idea of what the ship could and couldn't do. None of the ten black globes corresponded to weapons systems so he assumed there were none.

  "No weapons, Pik… at least none so far. It seems our friends are, or were, peace-loving citizens."

  "No wonder they aren't around," Lando said cynically.

  "Well, seal her up as best you can. It's too late to retrieve the tender. Besides, from what we saw earlier, that baby can take lots of punishment. You're safer where you are."

  Cy was just about to point out that personal safety was not his number one goal when another voice cut him off.

  "Well, well. Look what we have here. It isn't the Star of Empire, but it looks like Captain Sorenson found himself a ship, an alien ship at that."

  The audio was being piped over the intercom so Dee and Melissa heard it too.

  Dee said, "Uh-oh, we're in trouble now."

  And Melissa said, "Don't let him bully you, Pik! Show him who's boss!"

  Lando sighed. He should've known. Jord Willer. Hercules was still a long ways off but quite recognizable under high mag. He fired all the weapons delegated to automatic and hoped for a lucky hit. Who knows, maybe Willer had left his force field down.

  No such luck. All of Junk's energy beams and missiles exploded harmlessly as they hit the other ship's protective field.

  Willer returned fire. Because the other vessel was still a ways off Junk was able to shrug it off but Lando was worried. Hercules was larger and, in spite of Junk's considerable weaponry, even more heavily armed. It might take a while, but in an all-out battle the other ship would win. The bombardment stopped as suddenly as it began.

  Willer's perfect face appeared on the com screen. The cyborg's placid features were at odds with his words.

  "You're going to pay for that, Lando. You, and Sorenson, and his daughter, and the bounty hunter. All of you will die. As for the borg, well, he can live. Professional courtesy you know. Never kill a fellow freak."

  Lando decided to stall. Maybe something would break his way.

  "I love you too. But don't count your corpses till you kill them. The drifter's loaded with weapons. Come any closer and we'll turn your ship into scrap metal."

  Willer grinned stiffly. "Give me a break, Lando. I heard the borg tell you it was harmless. Stalling is a waste of time. Save me the trouble. Shoot yourself now."

  Lando forced a smile. "Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying. How did you find us anyhow?"

  Willer shook his head sadly. "Still stalling. Still wasting my time. Well, why not? I'm proud of it actually. The bounty hunter led us here."

  For one brief moment Lando wondered if Della had sold them out. But he knew the answer was no. Her words confirmed it.

  "You followed me? Why you lying pile of chrome-plated crap! I didn't tell you a thing!"

  Willer laughed. "Not directly, my dear, but tell me you did. The confrontation in the museum was staged for your benefit. It provided an excuse to put you out and hide a specially designed beacon inside your body. It was a quick little operation and after the neuro-stim you didn't even notice the pain. Next time you take a shower look for a tiny incision covered with plastiflesh.

  "By the way, both of my assistants had some nice things to say about your breasts. Unfortunately my interest disappeared along with my balls."

  Dee opened up with her energy cannon but it made little difference. The force field around Hercules seemed to expand and contract along with Willer's laughter.

  Sorenson's breath came in ragged gasps and his hands shook as he powered up. First the lifeboat, now Willer. He'd heard the whole thing over the tender's comset. Why couldn't they just leave him alone?

  Cap's hands shook as they moved over the controls. Power up, repellers on, support systems in the green. He touched a button.

  "This is Captain Sorenson requesting permission to leave your launching bay."

  This time Cap was ready when a green blob enfolded the tender and lifted it upward.

  "Cap? Cap, this is Lando. What the hell are you doing? Stay where you are. I repeat, stay where you are."

  There was no reply. Lando watched a green blob erupt from the port side of drifter's hull, drift upward, and pop like an overfilled balloon. The tender appeared as if by magic. It turned and headed away from Junk.

  Lando stabbed a button on the comset. "Cap… where the hell are you going?"

  Willer appeared on the com screen. He gave a throaty chuckle. "He's running away. That's what he does best. The only surprise is that he's sober enough to fly a ship."

  The next voice was Melissa's. "Daddy! Tell them it isn't true! You're not running away, are you?"

  Silence.

  "Damn you, Daddy! Damn you to hell!" Bright blue energy reached out to touch the tender but missed.

  Lando killed power to her weapon. "Stop it, Melissa! That won't solve a thing."

  All he heard was a sob and a click as she dropped off the line. Willer attacked a fraction of a second later. Lando
responded with everything Junk had.

  Energy beams lashed out to link the ships together with a pattern of stuttering blue light. Missiles raced from launchers, torpedoes accelerated toward their targets, and force fields flashed incandescent as they struggled to protect their respective vessels.

  Lando watched his instruments. Before long Junk's defenses would start to crumble. When they did he'd call the others to the bridge. At least they'd be together.

  Cy was angry, damned angry, and determined to do something about it. How dare that chrome-plated space head call him a freak! And try to kill his friends! Well, he'd show Willer a thing or two.

  Cy hovered in front of a black globe. His pincer slid through its shiny surface. Suddenly Cy was at the center of a complicated organism. He had hundreds of hands and arms each waiting to do his bidding. The cyborg found that he could see in a 360-degree circle, and hear along the entire range of radio frequencies.

  Light flared and static rumbled as two ships hurled death at each other. One was larger and he could see its weapons taking a steady toll. The smaller vessel's force field shimmered under a tremendous blow, faded, and flared back up. A few more like that and it would fail.

  Cy made a fist and launched it toward the larger ship. It hit with tremendous force and sent a shock wave up his arm. Cy laughed. He was a god! Able to reach out and smite evildoers with his mighty right arm! He prepared another fist.

  "What the hell was that?" Willer was picking himself up off the deck.

  His pilot looked back over her shoulder. Her dope stick waggled when she spoke. "I don't know, Captain. It looked like some kind of green blob. They launched it from the drifter."

  Now Willer was on his feet towering over the pilot as he examined her screens. "From the drifter, eh? So it is armed. I should've known better than to trust Lando. Well, never mind. Feed 'em a torpedo."

  The pilot raised an unplucked eyebrow. "Is that wise? What'll we have then? A half a million tons of scrap, that's what."

  Willer pulled his blaster and pressed the barrel against her forehead. "Do what I say or I'll kill you and fly the ship myself!"

  The pilot turned back to her board. Next time they hit port she was history. The borg was too weird for her.