King Frank was alone on the bridge. Vazquez was unconscious and concussed, lying in the corridor connecting the engineering section to the now vacuous living quarters. Jackson, the young hero, was dying of an asthma attack. Captain Vinn Apple was gasping orders over the intercom, too weak to move further as the corridor slowly replenished the thinning air. King Frank was trying to help the captain, but the atmospheric controls on the Glasgow were not complicated. The best he could do was override the emergency system and open all the other doors that connected to the corridor. Vinn could feel the fresh air washing over him in waves. He breathed deeply three times rapidly, closing his eyes to savour the sensation. He reached to Vazquez and very lightly touched the blue black bruise around her right eye. Her lips moved very slightly and he leaned over to kiss her, more lightly, on her delicious lips. They were dry and cracked.
The Enrilean fighters were scrambled from four different locations. The first wave of fifteen fighters came from the alien capital city on the largest continent. They were five minutes away from intercepting the approaching SS Glasgow. The other lightly armed fighters, in two waves of ten and one flanking wave of five were converging on the Earth ship from two other bases on Enrilea and a training exercise in space just beyond the Relathon home world. They were short range fighters with no interstellar capabilities, lacking the means to enter wormholes or the propulsion system to navigate within them. They were armed with two wing mounted guided missiles and a nose mounted electron cannon designed to damage or destroy the electronic systems in any enemy vessel at medium range. At close range the electron cannon could penetrate light armour or other unshielded areas of a targeted vessel.
Sloane still had not given up hope of catching the Alcatraz class transporter. He didn’t realise that the Glasgow had turned twenty degrees to starboard as King had detected the nearest approaching wave of Intruder IV light assault craft launched from the Imperial capital. Sloane did not know how to ask the Aston’s computer to find and track the SS Glasgow and he did not have the presence of mind to consider exploring the controls on the dashboard and to the side of his seat.
The wormhole exit should have moved to make this bit credible…
Unable to locate a wormhole due to damage to the ship’s sensors, King had the main engines on full power. The ship was already going faster than it ever had - at least with Frank behind the controls. He didn’t know about the approaching fighters. He was concentrating on getting as far away from the Justice Six as possible without realising that the Enrilean warship still hadn’t finished turning to follow. The Glasgow’s sensors were picking up the pursuing Aston Martin. King wondered why the car was heading the wrong way.
The air in the SS Glasgow’s corridor had improved enough that Vinn Apple could get to his hands and knees. Vazquez was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling as she made occasional sighs and grunts. For the first time he looked at Jackson and noted that the young deck hand was in real trouble.
Jackson was pale blue and unmoving. His eyes were slightly open, but they were fixed and staring. Apple grabbed Jackson’s cotton shirt and pressed his ear into Jackson’s chest. He could hear Jackson’s heart beating rapidly, but the young man didn’t seem to be breathing.
“You fool!” he cried out, “Where’s your inhaler?” he patted Jackson’s body wildly, checking all the pockets. Vazquez stirred beside him, her eyes rolling around in their sockets, “Your inhaler! Jonas! Jonas!”
He called out the boy’s name so loudly that King heard him forty five metres and four doors forward. He did not hear the words that Vinn was saying, only the rumbling cadence of his roar. Somehow, however, King figured out what had happened. He looked to Jackson’s coke stained controls and his clip on storage pocket. King squeezed the pocket and felt the hard shape within. He tore the pocket from its thin plastic fastenings and raced out of the control room.
SIXTEEN
2195AD - Jann Linn Mountain.
Silverman’s sunglasses told him that the ambient temperature had reached twenty five degrees Celsius. The sun was up, somewhere above the fog of grey black smoke and the smell of a dead city. The golden green sky was visible, just barely, at the very apex high above Silverman’s head. He looked up at it and wondered what was happening - what was coming next.
“Somewhere up there,” James Quinn said, “My beautiful car is having an adventure all of its own without me.”
“It’s amazing,” Silverman said, “I can’t even imagine what’s happening. But at least there were other survivors. We’re not alone, wherever this is.”
“Hmnn. Whoever’s driving my Aston didn’t seem to think this was a very friendly place. He said he‘d been shot. By the other survivors? By whoever lives..,” he waved his hand around in a wide arc, “…in this place.”
“It’s been about twenty minutes since you handed control of the car over to him. Do you think he’s coming for us? To get us or help us?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn replied honestly, “I’d hoped that he would, but perhaps he was in a bit of bother.”
“He said he was shot,” Silverman said, “How can that be?”
They’d been walking for about three hours, heading down the mountain towards the remains of the city. Jack Sloane’s voice in Quinn’s Aston remote had slowed their descent. Now they were less than a mile from the outskirts of the city.
Quinn hadn’t answered. Silverman frowned. He touched his glasses again and looked towards the city, seeing through the dust and the smoke. He couldn’t see any people - aliens?- anywhere. The skies above were clear. No aircraft of any kind. There were no emergency vehicles on the ground. No flashing lights or sirens. The city had been completely destroyed. He was certain that nobody could have survived whatever had happened here.
“Is it a war then? Are we in the middle of some kind of alien war? Is that what happened to the guy who took your car?”
“Maybe,” Quinn conceded, “But I have no idea how he came by it. We’ll find out, one way or another, I suppose.”
Cass Linn had been watching the two men for about fifteen minutes. She’d heard the transmission from the Aston’s remote and had stumbled across to investigate. It had perplexed her that she had not been able to understand the transmission. She’d sensed it only as an electromagnetic wave. For a moment, she’d forgotten to be afraid even if she was still automatically cautious. She replayed the transmission over and over but it did not make any sense to her. More curious still was the fact that her father’s old spacecraft seemed to be flying around the mountain about two miles north. She could hear her sister calling out in many different voices, but none of Cass’s own communication systems seemed to be working.
The two men were the tallest people she had ever seen. One man had grey hair like her father. She knew that this meant the man was old. But this man was taller than her father, taller than anyone she had ever seen. He was wearing a strange device on his eyes. The device was producing lots of different energies and was very noisy to Cass’s sensors. But she hadn’t seen anything like it - or the two men - before.
Oss Linn moved out of range. Cass looked up to the sky but she could not see the transport ship anymore. She wasn’t worried. In the past hour the transport had appeared and reappeared several times. She knew that Jann Linn was looking for her. Sooner or later Oss would find her and the transport would pick her up.
Cass did not know what had happened to the city. She had formed some conclusions, but most of them were absurd an insane, even if they were vaguely possible. Her first idea was that the sun had suddenly touched the surface of the planet. Her second was that there had been an incredibly intense sand storm in the city. Her other ideas were only vague abstract concepts that she had not followed to any outcome. They involved weapons and explosions, but she had never seen any of those in operation so only guessed about how they might work
She was hiding behind a rock. The rock was about four feet high and she had to crouch to conceal herself. In doi
ng so her damaged left leg had short circuited in several places. The fault messages she was getting from the leg were so severe that she’d had to shut it down. The remaining leg was still intact and operational. She decided that, once the two men went away, she’d dismantle the faulty leg before moving off.
For the thirteenth time, Cass Linn’s damaged power systems shut down without warning.
2195AD - Astin Martin DBS.
The orange planet was getting closer. The Aston Martin had reached one tenth the speed of light and was continuing to accelerate with Jack Sloane’s right food pressing the silver accelerator pedal to the plushly carpeted floor.
“This is a safety warning,” the polite Aston Martin computer reported in a soft and delightfully feminine voice, “The Aston Martin DBS body shell is not rated for speeds above Mark four. Please consider reducing speed to…”
“Thanks,” Sloane interrupted, “But no thanks.”
He’d been pushing the car to its limits for ten minutes, fleeing an enemy that had never managed to pursue him. Hazer Jaxx and the Justice Six were still drifting in space as repairs were being carried out.
“Computer,” Sloane said, “Have you got any kind of sensors?”
The Aston replied quickly and efficiently. Its voice had the English accent of a demure but deceptively sexy executive assistant “Yes, sir. How can I help you? Are you looking for anything specific?”
Sloane shook his head and smiled wryly, “I saw a ship. An Alcatraz class transport. I’ve been trying to follow it.”
“The SS Glasgow,” the Aston Martin computer replied, “I’ve got that ship on my long range sensors. Would you like me to drive you there?”
“Christ, yes,” Sloane almost shouted, “For fuck’s sake, I don’t know why I didn’t ask you to do that before now!”
The Aston Martin’s autopilot came online and Sloane felt the car change direction.
“I don’t suppose we’ve got any way of talking to the… Glasgow?” Sloane asked.
“Of course, sir,” the Aston’s said smoothly, “I’ll try the standard calling frequencies.”
Sloane blinked. His hands were gripping the Aston Martin’s steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He opened his hands and stretched his fingers, wiggling them. He took a deep breath.
“Thanks,” he said.
He thought of Pamela, the little computer that had lived in his pocket for over three years. She reminded him of the Aston Martin’s artificial intelligence. The voices were vaguely similar too, though Pamela’s voice had been… softer.
He shook his head and smiled wryly. Then his face hardened and the smile became a thin fog that faded as if it had ever been there.
SEVENTEEN
2195AD - SS Glasgow.
Nobody was flying the SS Glasgow. Michelle Vazquez was half unconscious in the main hallway, occasionally propping herself up on one elbow before collapsing back onto her side and coughing weakly. King Frank was kneeling over the lifeless body of Jonas Jackson, trying to figure out what to do with the nebuliser. Vinn Apple was kneeling next to the ship’s pilot, his right hand on Jackson’s chest and his other stroking Vazquez’s forehead as she struggled to regain consciousness. The only person left on the ship was Julian Barrett - the “professor” - and he was on the bridge biting the hard skin on his knuckles nervously, oblivious to the approaching Enrilean dart fighters.
Vinn Apple looked across to Frank. Frank did not look back. He was trying to breathe life into the young man who hadn’t taken a breath for seven minutes. Vinn was sure that Jackson was not going to come back to life. His mind was a jumble of confused thoughts as he tried to remember the last thing he’d said to the boy and tried to imagine what he’d say to Jonas’ father.
King Frank was not giving up. He was fond of Jackson. There was something about the kid that reminded him of his own son, who would have been about the same age had he lived.
The first wave of alien fighters were slowing down and curving to intercept the fast moving Glasgow from the rear. The continuing acceleration of the Glasgow was something the Enrileans had not anticipated in such a small ship. The Glasgow was almost travelling faster than the top speed of the single seat dart fighters, but they would intercept before the ship got fast enough to escape.
King Frank had an unwanted flash of memory as he worked to bring Jonas Jackson back to life. He couldn’t bear certain memories and blocked them out. When they did come, they were fleeting patches of sights, sounds and smells that were like knives in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and noted, with a practiced detachment, that they were wet.
It felt like twenty minutes had passed. Apple was sure that Jackson was dead. Frank was massaging Jackson’s heart. Vazquez, groaning, was on her hands and knees. Jackson’s lips twitched. She saw his eyes flicker. She smiled and then closed her eyes again, exhausted. Vinn Apple’s hands were on her face, lightly touching yet insistent. They got rougher and the opened her eyes dreamily.
“Vinn…” she sighed, “Who’s driving the ship?”
Frank rubbed Jackson’s forehead and patted the hair there, pushing it back and squeezing the young man’s temples. Jonas’s eyes were looking in different directions, but he knew who the hand belonged to.
“I’ve got to get back to the bridge,” Frank whispered close to Jackson’s ear. Then he looked at Vinn Apple and blinked rapidly, confused like waking from a dream, “I… I’m sorry. Vinn… I couldn‘t….”
Vinn nodded slightly, holding Frank’s gaze for a long half second. Then the pilot was gone, running back towards the bridge.
Jackson was coughing quietly, wheezing and clawing the air around his face. Vinn handed him the nebuliser, putting it into the frantic fingers of his right hand and helping him grasp it to his face. The little device bleeped, calculating its dosage, then there was a hiss and Jackson inhaled slowly and loudly. Then he coughed, then he inhaled one more time. Quieter this time and much, much calmer.
Frank did not run directly to the SS Glasgow‘s control room. He stopped for two seconds to pound his fist against the cold metal wall of the corridor that joined the bridge section to the engineering and life systems maintenance areas. He allowed himself a second of pain - perhaps even two seconds. He closed his eyes tight and opened his mouth wide. He made a silent scream and his body trembled to contain it. Then, after three seconds had passed, the horror had ended and Frank exploded into the bridge making the already nervous Julian Barrett scream out in alarm.
“Nice to see you too, professor,” Frank Brooks said, “Have you been flying my ship?”
“No… I wouldn’t… I couldn’t!”
“It’s alright, prof, I’m only joking a little bit with you. Now you might want to calm yourself down just as much as you can. You see, right now we’re travelling faster than I even thought this should could go. I’m not really sure what’s holding us together, to be honest. Anyway, have you ever seen a Haliburton navigation system before?”
Barrett was just staring. He was looking at Frank’s gaunt face. Frank was white, his thin skin even paler than usual. He had more than a few days’ worth of grey white stubble and even that somehow looked like it had gone frostier than before. But he still had a faint, lopsided grin. Barrett watched the grin disappear as the King saw the approaching ships.
“Haliburton system, prof? Ever seen one or used one?” Frank touched his hands against the scientist’s cheek, lightly slapping him with the tips of his fingers, “Prof, you need to help me here.”
“I’m sorry. Yes, I’ve heard of the system. But I’ve never used one before. Seen one, yes. Used one, no.”
“Sure prof,” Frank gruffed, “I assume you know what you’re seeing on this scope?”
“Spaceships. Lots of… little spaceships.”
“Great, prof. You got it. Or missiles, but we won’t worry about that…”
“Unless they are missiles that we can’t outrun,” Vinn Apple appeared in the doorway. His long black hair cascaded a
round his shoulders, wet and dirty. Frank was surprised to note that Vazquez wasn’t with him.
“She’s with the kid,” Apple said, “He’ll be fine. Now, tell me about the little ships.”
The Enrilean dart type fighter spacecraft were a very old design, even by Enrilean standards. The basic construction of the fighter had gone unchanged for over a hundred years and the shape had been adapted from a fighter aircraft design that had existed even before the first Enrilean had set foot in space. But it was an effective design. The one man vessels were designed for speed and firepower. Their purpose was to arrive at their target quickly and devastate it with their guided missiles and focussed energy weapons.
“They’re moving faster than we are,” King Frank reported, “And there seem to be about three groups of them coming towards us. The closest group is a few minutes away and looks like they’re flying in some kind of formation - maybe a V or four finger. The other groups aren’t so disciplined, apparently, and are coming in ones and twos. Almost like they’re racing each other to get to us.”
“Thanks Frank,” Apple said, “But tell me something a little bit more practical. Can we get away from them?” he did a quick double take at Frank’s Haliburton console, “Are we really going that fast?”
“Yes we are. Mark five point three eight. I didn't think she could do it either, but we're holding together. As for the first wave, they'll be on us in about ten minutes unless they can go faster than they're going now. Right now it looks like they're pushing point seven C, impossible as that might sound. It’s hard to tell, but they might still be accelerating.”
“I didn't think anything could travel that fast in normal space,” Barrett commented, “How bizarre. How much energy they must be generating to get past Mark Eleven.”
“What about the one that attacked us?” Apple ignored the scientist, “The big ship. is it pursuing? What happened to it?”
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 28