Rigg did not remember the paper he’d been handed on the TubeShock experiment. He’d signed it without reading more than a half of the first paragraph.
Charlie Rigg touched Bonneville’s waist just above the right pocket of her silver grey blazer. Her hip bone lay beneath. He rested his thumb on it for a moment and considered touching her backside which lay just a few inches away. Kildare’s screen angle wouldn’t allow him to see. Rip Tranmore was standing at the incident room door, watching carefully. He tried to catch the President’s eye. He was going to shake his head. But Rigg didn’t look in Tranmore’s direction. He removed his hand swiftly. The secretary for defence was talking again. The slight sideways glance had made him withdraw his hand. Now he watched her expression, searching for the hint of a ghost of a spark that had ignited their passion at the Berlin centre some months ago. He hadn’t seen her since then. Not that they’d avoided each other. But neither had tried to contact the other.
“That’s the preferred opinion right now – that Spirit somehow came apart and was completely destroyed and changed the location of the Gallsin wormhole exit point. It’s possible that this shift in the wormhole caused the destruction of the alien city known as Jann Linn City. We don’t know for sure. It’s even possible and just as likely that Spirit of the Future emerged from the new exit point and smashed into the planet, destroying itself and the city in the process. We can’t know if that’s what happened but it would explain the aggressive acts of the Enrilean people.”
“Aggressive acts,” Rip Tranmore grunted in the background, “Murderous, hideous, murderous rampage. The Goddamned fucking, fuckering bastards.”
Bonneville shot Rigg one of the looks he recognised. Charlie frowned towards the squashed, obviously hair plugged middle aged man. Tranmore showed his old friend the palms of his hands and backed off a half pace. He went quiet, head bowed slightly.
“I sure as shit didn’t think my presidency would climax with a fucked up interstellar war,” Rigg said, “We need to get Armstrong the Hell out of there fast. Get our shit together back here. Get ready for anything they’re going to send after us.”
Kildare was nodding slowly. His mouth was open slightly in something like surprise but also a bit like shock.
“I’ll have the order relayed immediately,” He said after a very brief moment.
“You… ah do that,” Rigg said, staring at the good looking young man for a long time. He turned away, looking for Rip Tranmore. “And someone get me something to eat, someone. And a drink. A shake,” He caught the defence secretary’s eye, “Fuck it, someone get me a Southern Comfort.”
2195AD - SS Glasgow.
The SS Glasgow had exited the ether gate suddenly and without warning. The opening created by the remote gate key had hurtled the Spirit of the Future’s shuttle out of the ether gate and the Glasgow had inadvertently plunged through the hole in its wake. The event had not gone well for the ship or its crew.
Three years earlier Vazquez had persuaded Vinn Apple to make changes to the electronic systems throughout the ship. Recent financial difficulties had made the cost of this a hot discussion point for the couple. Vazquez did not know that they’d never argue over the expense of that upgrade again. She was unconscious in his cabin. The Glasgow’s jury rigged inertia compensator had faltered for the tiniest of moments but enough for the beautiful Puerto Rican to be thrown against the bulkhead. Vinn and King had put her into her quarters and the professor (as Julian Barrett had now been named) was watching her. Only the upgraded electronics had prevented the ship from tearing itself apart as the new backup system had sprung into action following the loss of the main system..
“She’ll be okay,” King stated, seeing Apple’s concerned face, “It’s a mild concussion, if that. I’ll bet you fifty dollars that her greatest problem will be the blow to her ego - she’ll worry that we think she’s got a glass head.”
“God, I don’t think that,” Vinn sighed, “Thank God she’ll be okay. I felt the lurch inside my, like my lungs were going to come through my mouth. I’d hate to think what would have happened if we hadn’t made those changes Michelle kept troubling me over. Its unthinkable, damn,” he bared his white, large teeth in something that wasn’t quite a snarl or a growl.
“Most likely we’d never have known. We’d be strawberry jam all over the inside of the hull. Someday I’ll work out the actual G force we’d have been subjected to and I’ll tell you.”
“Maybe later,” the young Jackson interjected. Then, cheekily, he added, “Maybe not at all.”
The professor was on the bridge. He was the only one there. He’d satisfied King that he actually did have some knowledge of the Glasgow’s ageing navigation system and had come there to nursemaid the systems as they came back online. The other eight super tourists were in the recreation room making occasional noises on the intercom. Barrett ignored them. He felt he was different to them now. No longer a tourist. He was an adventurer like his paid escorts. He hadn’t connected with any of the other passengers since starting the trip. He’d tried to, but five of them had already formed into a clique that he quite obviously was not invited into and the other three men were stargazers - non academics who had simply come along to look out the window and enjoy the view.
He watched the navigation computer struggling to find the ship’s location. There were subtle alarms on the bridge that he did not register. He’d never heard them before and did not know that they meant another ship was approaching. Luckily, when he touched the intercom to speak to the Captain, King heard the tones.
“Shhh!” King shouted.
Barrett, in a panic, released the intercom button. Moments later, King called back.
“Professor, stay quiet.”
Barrett cupped his chin in the v between his thumb and forefinger. His moustache was damp from his own sweat. The area around it where he shaved less than frequently was becoming a tiny forest.
“Don’t touch anything!” King said abruptly. Then there was silence. The tones that Barrett had been listening to were getting louder and closer together. Instinctively, Barrett knew that they meant something was approaching the ship. But he imagined an asteroid or a piece of debris from a shuttle, the Spirit of the Future or perhaps even the Glasgow itself. Barrett moved towards the console that was beeping. He didn’t know the layout of the bridge and did not know that it was King’s short range sensor array that was giving a proximity warning.
The Enrilean destroyer Justice Six was five thousand kilometres ahead of the drifting Earth Ship. Hazer Jaxx was watching the little ship carefully, full of the greatest passion to incinerate everyone on board.
“Captain,” the communications officer dared, “The Empire have indicated that we are to avoid further conflict while they evaluate the situation.”
Jaxx considered this briefly.
“That’s very kind of the Empire to offer its advice on how I should interpret my command and my religion,” Jaxx said, “But I’ll keep my own counsel on how this spear is aimed. We’ll be arming the bullet guns now. This is another stain we’re going to clear away before we collect the scientist the Empire are so disgustingly besotted with.”
The crew on the Justice Six did not agree with Hazer Jaxx. Most of them believed that retrieving Jann Linn was the most important matter. For thirty years the old man had given the Empire the greatest of its technologies. His accomplishments were too many to count and every ship in the fleet now carried his signature in at least one or more of their systems But Jaxx was the captain of the ship and his crew had always obeyed his orders - without exception. They knew that Jaxx would destroy this new craft before travelling to Relathon. They just hoped he would get it over with quickly.
FIFTEEN
2195AD - EWS Justice Six.
Jack Sloane was alive. The heavy lead bullet from Jaxx’s four barrelled hand cannon had grazed his skull, gouging an eighth of an inch out of the bone above his right eyebrow. The Enrileans had left him for dead and had tosse
d his body next to the debris recovered from the crash scene. He lay there now with his eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been pretending to sleep, but it must have worked as the voices nearby seemed calm.
Sloane listened carefully. The voices were about ten metres distant. He opened one eye very slightly and could see shapes in the distance moving. They gradually came into focus and he could see that there were two people. Black combat boots. Laces. Heavy rubber soles. That’s all he could see. A large silver object filled the room. Impossibly, he realised it was an Aston Martin DBS. With the personalised number plate QUINN.
He considered the situation carefully. He’d been in his room - sealed off as part of the cruise ship’s wreckage floating in space. The door, instead of exploding open and exposing him to the deadly vacuum of space, had opened to reveal three men in uniform. He did not remember what had happened next, but he somehow knew that he’d been shot. Several shots had been fired. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done not to move his hands to his face and to lie there still, listening and watching and wondering how much of his head might be missing.
He closed his right eye and he could still see the backs of the armed men. He closed the other eye and the pain hit him like a bright spear of energy stabbing into his mind. But he could still see the men ahead of him.
There was laughter. The men were laughing. And there was another voice; tinny and quiet, but familiar. It was Pam. He strained to hear and turned his head slightly. There was a strange ringing in his ears. A high pitched whine. But he could hear Pam’s little voice and it sounded like she was arguing with the two men.
“What are you?” one of the men laughed, “What’s your purpose?”
“I’m not authorised to answer your questions. Please return me to my registered owner.”
He watched the men carefully. They were tossing Pam back and forth between themselves. He got a quick glimpse of the firearm one of the men carried. It looked unlike any weapon he’d ever seen before. The men looked strange too. Short, stocky bodies. Not dwarfish, but somehow shorter than they should have been.
The men continued to taunt his handheld companion. She was not protesting anymore and was silent. One of the men dropped Pam and she hit the ground with a clatter. Sloane was in the middle of getting onto his haunches when the Enrilean soldier saw him moving.
“By the name of the Gods,” the man said. He held onto Pam with one hand and raised his firearm with the other. Jack Sloane realised, startlingly, that these English speaking men were from another world. He was more surprised about that than he was to be looking down the barrel of a carbine.
“What do we do?” the other soldier asked. His weapon too was aimed towards Sloane, “He’s alive! The Captain killed him!”
The men stepped towards Sloane. Closer, their features were much less human than they’d appeared before. Each man stood about five feet five inches tall. They both were very fair skinned - Scandinavian in their skin tone. And their hair was so blonde it was almost white. Their eyes were larger than a man’s - and less oval. Neither man seemed to have eyebrows, but their hair might have been too fair for Sloane to see.
“How are you alive?” the nearest man said, his accent totally unrecognisable to Sloane but his tone obviously confused and excited, “How can you be living?” then to his comrade he commanded “Tell the Captain. He has to know what’s happened here.”
The second soldier did not speak. A strange look was exchanged between the two men. Alien or not, Sloane recognised that there was a disagreement between them. He put his weight onto his left knee, slowly pushing himself to his feet. He continued to watch the stubby firearms. Unblinking, he stared at the first soldier’s barrel. The second weapon was aimed towards the ground, the soldier’s finger no longer on the inside of the trigger guard but resting, quavering, on the outside.
“Go!” the first man commanded, “At least get help, fool! He’s no God! He’s a man, like us. Now get the Captain.”
Suddenly, there was a flash of light. It was like lightning had struck inside the storage room. Jack Sloane’s personal assistant had overloaded her power supply, giving her owner the distraction he needed. The first soldier screamed. Sloane lunged forward, covering the five metres between them in less than a second. Blinded by the light, the soldier did not see him coming. The second soldier did, but dropped his weapon in terror. Sloane stepped right into the first soldier and kicked him hard in the lower abdomen as he wrenched the rifle out of the man’s hands. The soldier was stunned and Sloane managed to take the weapon with ease. He smashed the heavy butt of the short rifle into the alien’s chest just below the neck and with a grunt the man fell to the ground.
“Fucking freeze!” Sloane jerked the gun towards the second soldier, who stared at him with jaw agape; “Stay very still or I’ll fire - I’ll kill you,” as he spoke his fingers probed the gun gently, searching for the safety catch. He found something that he thought might be either the safety catch or a mode selector. Given the attitude of the weapon’s original owner, Sloane reasoned the gun was ready to fire. “I don’t want to kill you,” he added, seeing fear in the young man’s eyes, “I just want to get out of here.”
“You speak our language.”
“Kick your gun towards me,” Sloane ordered, “Carefully, or I’ll have to fire. I don’t want to kill you,” he repeated, truthfully.
The soldier complied, but he did not stop staring incredulously at Sloane. The first guard soldier groaned at Sloane’s feet. Sloane glanced down at the man and noticed that his left hand was blackened and smoking. Beside it, Pam lay smouldering. Sloane bent down to look at the little device, but she was too hot to hold. Her screen flickered and, as her light went out for the last time, Sloane saw the faint outline of a heart flashing before the screen went dark.
He dismissed the first soldier, whose ruined hand was causing him quiet agony, and rounded on the second man.
“What is this place? Where am I?”
“You’re on board the Justice Six.”
“How did I get here? And what do you mean by Justice Six? What kind of name is that?”
“How can you…?”
Sloane moved his finger inside the trigger guard, “I’m the one asking the fucking questions, son,” he said with deliberate menace, “What do you mean, Justice six? Where am I? What the fuck is that doing here?” he gestured towards the slightly scarred tungsten silver Aston Martin.
The first soldier’s right hand moved. Sloane turned instinctively, the barrel of the carbine following his eye line. He was looking at a sidearm aimed, waveringly, at his midsection. He hesitated, staring at the small man’s blue grey eyes. Sloane felt or imagined or saw the soldier’s index finger move inside the grey plastic trigger guard. There was a rattle as Sloane’s short barrelled weapon discharged in his hands, an explosion of blood and guts as a stream of explosive tipped bullets tore the soldier’s torso apart.
The second soldier screamed a single high pitched note and ran off. Sloane sighted the rifle and touched the trigger. He hesitated. The soldier disappeared through a sliding door. Moments later, a low honking alarm started to sound. Sloane was already picking up the fallen sidearm and sliding it into his pocket. Then he tried the Aston Martin’s door which, of course, was locked. He looked around. The room was about thirty metres long and ten metres wide. It was full of debris from the Spirit of the Future - including his own room. There were bodies too, he saw. Passengers from the ship, he guessed. Some had been stripped. Sloane incorrectly imagined that the aliens had stripped the bodies after murdering them. In truth, he was the only living survivor that had been brought on board the Justice Six. The bodies that had been recovered by the Justice Six had been laid in the cargo bay exactly as they’d been brought aboard. The naked victims had had their clothes torn off by the ferocious torment of being blown into space from the disintegrating Spirit of the Future.
Sloane tried the Aston’s door one more time, b
ut it did not budge. Then, out of impulse, he rushed round to the passenger door. To his surprise, it opened. He jumped inside, fighting panic, throwing the carbine ahead of him. He closed the door behind himself just as the Enrileans stormed into the cargo area.
He ducked down behind the steering wheel and hid. There were shouts. They were looking for him. He looked at the gun. To his surprise, the words “mode selector” were stamped into the metal above the trigger on the left side.
“English?” Sloane grunted “Now that‘s fucking bizarre.”
2195AD - SS Glasgow.
The SS Glasgow was unarmed. Despite her battle with the USS Drake, the heavy battleship Justice Six was still combat ready.
Captain Vinn Apple looked at the approaching spacecraft. It filled the screen ominously.
“That’s an alien spaceship,” Julian Barrett said, “Yes, sir. That’s not one of ours. And it’s pretty big – about the size of one of our larger frigates. The Jupiter class…”
“Thank you, professor,” Jackson remarked. Apple glared at him angrily. Jackson looked away quickly. Barrett approached the big view screen and pointed his crooked bony finger. His narrow eyes twinkled.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 26