From the Torment of Dreams

by Iain McKinnon

  The Helmsman aboard the Ptolemy looked up at his commander in puzzlement, “The incoming vessel has not fired a single shot, nor has she tried to evade Sir.”

  Worried by the lack of aggression the Commander of the Ptolemy went over the scans of their enemy.

  “How could a ship this size get so close without being detected?” asked the Flight Officer.

  “She's unpowered!” suddenly the answer was all too clear, “There's no engine noise to give her away because she has no power to her engines.”

  “The Ironclad has confirmed the cruiser is the N.S.V. Dominion, Sir,” relayed the fight officer, “But she was reported destroyed at the battle for Greda.”

  The Flight Officer looked back at his readouts, “The gravitational analysis is weird, according to this she doesn't match the mass of the Dominion, she's about ninety percent too light!”

  The Commander shook his head, “She's an empty hulk. She's been catapulted towards the convoy and allowed to fall into sensor range.”

  “You mean it's a decoy to strand our fighters!”

  “The fighters were their intended target all along. What's their status?” the Commander demanded of the Flight Officer.

  “The information is sketchy, Sir. Their signals are being jammed from buoys released by the Neotrans. From what I can tell a second group of ships has powered up from within the asteroid field and is attacking.”

  “Damn!” the Commander cursed, his face purple with rage, “Turn this ship around!”

  The Ptolemy turned again, caught in a bizarre game of piggy in the middle.

  Before the Terran flagship could get within range the guerrillas fled, leaving behind them a swath of broken and destroyed Terran fighters.

  Along with the returning craft the Ptolemy's signal operator could make out half a dozen distress beacons from crippled Terran ships.

  Baxsell watched the large grey hull of the Ptolemy bear down on him. The other Gredans' fled but Baxsell had no intention of leaving.

  A pool of fresh vomit soiled the salvaged life pod. A watery trail of sputum trickled from the corner of his mouth. He hadn't been able to eat anything for days now. His only source of nourishment came from the intravenous drip in his arm, but even without food the radiation sickness periodically made him spew up the remnants of his stomach lining.

  Baxsell snorted out a stinging wad of sputum from his nose. Like the vomit before it bobbed around the cabin in the zero g before colliding with a solid surface it could adhere to. He wiped the back of his wrist across his nostrils to clear away some of the mess before cupping his pounding head in his hands.

  His hair was reduced to a couple of tufts on what had become a bald pate. The burnt skin was weak and it split at the slightest provocation. Red bloody welts covered his body like volcanoes.

  Baxsell didn't know if it was the painkillers or his malady that dulled his mind but he was weary and tired. His broken body was stiff and sluggish; his thinking clouded and prone to wander.

  He would only have had a few days left to live if he had chosen to stay on Greda anyway. The blast he'd caught on board the Spirit of Tristia had seen to that. The Doctors would have given him a terminal shot of painkillers if he had asked for it and he had seriously thought about it. What kept him going was that he had the mission to complete. Maybe then his death would have some meaning. It was his idea but that didn't make it any easier.

  “Is there a God?” he asked himself, “If there is, will this exclude me from heaven?”

  He would find out shortly. It was oddly exciting to him to think that in the next ten minutes he'd have the answer to an age-old mystery. Even if there was nothing it would still be a liberation from the pain.

  Through the transparent canopy of his Trojan life raft he could see the flash emitted by his emergency beacon reflected on the Ptolemy's underside. These escape pods were no more than the ejected cockpit of a fighter. Uncomplicated and sparse they served to keep a pilot alive until rescue. Nothing more.

  There had been plenty of them to salvage after the battle for Greda but at the time there had been no conceivable use for the ejected Terran pods.

  Baxsell had changed that. He sat on top of a forty-megaton bomb. It was leaking some radiation but Baxsell was too far gone to notice or even care.

  The Ptolemy would undoubtedly pick up the excessive gamma rays. They would think that it was nothing more than spillage from a destroyed fighter's reactor.

  Baxsell waited to be picked up. His pod would be taken on board where he would detonate the device. Baxsell thought of the immortality that he would gain if Neotra won the war.

  “There’ll be statues and books to my daring exploits and patriotism. On the other hand if the Alliance win I'll be branded a psychotic terrorist.”

  Ultimately he'd never know.

  He would have liked to have known the outcome. He would have liked not to be dying. He wanted so much to see tomorrow, to feel well again. He wanted a rich meal and the warmth of a loving woman. He wanted to go back in time and say no to fighting in the war. But he couldn't. And as much as he wished it nothing would change.

  On board the Ptolemy a puzzled deck sergeant queried his C.O. “Sir we've had thirty seven fighters come home. There's five still out there intact but crippled. Of a further ten ejection pods released, three are still waiting to be hauled in, and a confirmed thirty nine have been destroyed.”

  “I don't have time for this right now! I've got one of our boys coming in on a damaged pod, it's been scorched pretty badly,” said the C.O.

  “That's ninety one ships. Sir, we only launched ninety.”

  Baxsell waited for the air lock to seal behind him in the hope that his cargo would cause more damage from being contained in the hull.

  Inside the foul smelling cockpit Baxsell said his last words. There was to be no eulogy to his endeavours, no poignant epitaph.

  “Tig. You're it!”

  He pressed the button and the detonation charge went off, vaporising him as it unleashed the atomic furnace.

  The explosion spewed out of the landing bay tearing apart everything in its path.

  The skin of Bucky-Carbon along the starboard side of the Ptolemy blew off violently into space, propelled along by a billowing nuclear fire. Her adjoining panels buckled and snapped under the intense pressure. From behind them could be seen the radioactive light that burned all that it touched.

  The firestorm blew through bulkheads designed to save the ship from a direct hit but against an internal explosion like this they were woefully inadequate.

  The fabric vaporised or melted allowing the tide of molten destruction to rip deeper into the heart of the Ptolemy.

  In less than a second the fire had swept through the whole ship annihilating every living being.

  The mightiest warship in the Terran fleet had been reduced to scorched chunks of radioactive fuselage that spun off aimlessly into space.

  Section 27

  Another airport, and like the one they had left hours before, this too had felt the ravages of war. Dirty black craters dotted the airport, the main hangars bombed out of all recognition.

  Wearing the olive green army overalls, they had been discharged from the hospital in, Lan and Jackson stood out from the personnel around them. The orderly had joked when he issued the garments, “One size fits nobody, if it's comfortable bring it back and we'll change it.”

  Even with their ungainly cut it was a blessing to be in something other than the smocks provided by the hospital. For months now they'd had to make do with paper night-gowns and housecoats.

  To Jackson, leaving the hospital brought a torrent of emotions. Finally he was healed of his physical injuries. Finally he was away from the boring monotony of the ward. Finally he could escape the place that had been the scene of so much physical pain.

  As Lan and Jackson stepped off the plane the heat struck them. It was like walking into the blast from a jet exhaust.

  Lan was amazed, never before had he
experienced a hot wind. Back home in Euler the wind was always chilly and cold, even in the weak Marineris summer. The hospital in Jala where he and Jackson had spent most of the winter was far closer to home than Lan had realised.

  Only now that he could see the contrast had he made the connection.

  Lan considered taking another swig of his drink to cool himself down but in the oppressive heat he knew it would be warm and flat by now.

  “I'm glad you brought me here; this place is great,” Lan praised Nicola's choice of night club.

  “It's a great place to pull,” said Nicola.

  “Got anyone in your sights?”

  “Yip,” said Nicola casually.

  “Who?”

  “I'll give you a clue,”

  Nicola wrapped her arms around Lan's neck and pulled him close.

  Her lips pressed gently against his. Slowly she pushed harder, more vigorously against Lan's lips.

  Lan wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly. Holding her close sent him flying into a state of euphoria. Her young, perfect body gently writhing up against him. A white, heavenly light passed through his whole being and Lan felt he was being touched by an angel.

  Nicola let out a soft moan of appreciation at being caressed.

  Slowly she pulled back.

  “Was that nice?” she asked him mischievously.

  “Yes, the best,” Lan struggled to answer through his state of exhilaration.

  “Let's go somewhere a little more private,”

  “...let's go Private!” one of the flight crew shouted to Lan as he stood in the open doorway of the transport plane.

  Jackson turned on the runway and called back, “Come on Lan, let's see if we can find our ride.”

  Lan touched his lips where Nicola's kiss still lingered. He took a deep breath and tried to shake off the memory before stepping off the gangway.

  Nasim boarded the aircraft that would take him away from Mendus. He wasn't sorry to leave. In the end Kalim had come round to his way of thinking and the pair has struck up an understanding, if not a friendship.

  Nasim was being sent away to train with some other men. It seemed that Kalim's associates wanted the blue-eyed man who had murdered his family. Nasim was not naive enough to imagine that this was all for his benefit. They would have their own reasons but as long as they were compatible Nasim saw no reason not to play along.

  Until coming to Mendus he had never seen a plane before. The whole idea of flying kindled Nasim's boyish excitement. It had been like his first visit to the lay with his mentor to journey to dreaming worlds.

  Now that he stood up close he examined the plane with great care, fascinated by its form. The fuselage was small compared to some of the transport planes that had stopped off at the airfield that morning, but he could tell it was a substantial weight.

  Nasim marvelled at the aircraft. It had the form of a bird; wings, tail, beak, he could even imagine the wheels as the claws, but its still grace lacked vitality.

  As an apprentice he had studied the carcases of animals. It came back to him how light and delicate birds’ bones were compared to other animals.

  This aircraft looked neither light nor delicate yet he had watched as planes like this one took easily to the skies.

  It seemed an impossibility. Yet here, it was far too mundane to be miraculous.

  Nasim boarded and was shown to a seat. The plane was almost empty with only a dozen other passengers, all of them in military uniform. Nasim still wore his rough hand-made leathers that looked so out of place amongst the urbanisation of the airport.

  The aircraft taxied down the runway to its take-off position. He gazed at the other aircraft safely tucked into their bunkers of concrete and corrugated iron. Each half dug out stockade was lined with sandbags and covered with a dome just tall enough to fit the plane it encased.

  The jet reached its take off position and the engines on either side roared as they built up to full power. The plane remained stationery, held fast by its brakes. Nasim looked out of his porthole at the engine strapped to the wing. From the cone of the jet's engines came the shimmer of a heat haze, its unpresumptuous distortion little indication of the thrust they possessed.

  He sat there watching the shimmering flow of super heated air, mesmerised by the power. Suddenly the plane broke loose and hurtled up the runway. The noise was tremendous and there was a pressure against his chest from the speed of acceleration. Within seconds the undercarriage was off the ground and the aircraft was travelling skywards. The flaps slipped into their housings and the noise abated somewhat.

  Nasim's hearing felt stodgy from the take off so he stuck his little finger into his ear and wiggled it. He looked across the cabin to the rest of the passengers. One of the soldiers onboard gave an expansive yawn, his mouth so wide open and so protracted that Nasim could have counted his teeth. The soldier's mouth closed slothfully.

  Nasim had caught the infection, with a deep breath he drew in a lung full of air. With his jaw opened wide and his eyes squeezed tight shut his ears popped. The gentle burst of air pressure cleared his hearing. Nasim was visibly surprised at the clarity. He had been unaware of how impaired his hearing had been from the take off.

  Nasim smiled at the unimagined joy of ears popping. He turned and looked out of the small round porthole on his left, smile still firmly planted across his face.

  On the mountainside he had watched eagles hunting, often meditating to become one with the animal’s spirit but never in his clearest visions had he travelled so high or so fast.

  To avoid being shot at from orbit the aircraft flew below the cloud level. This was something unheard of for a commercial vehicle but the practice did lead to a spectacular view for any passengers.

  Nasim watched the countryside roll past his porthole. Below, the fields were an irregular mix of shapes and colours. A shattered mosaic of greens and yellows rolled out before him. Occasionally he would see a town with its buildings extending along the banks of a river or the side of a road. For the most part, the dull light of this cloudy day made it difficult to distinguish between such features.

  His excitement at flying never waned during the whole journey.

  Like on his first trip to the lay, Nasim's perception had been opened once more. Not the expanse inside but the enormity of the world on which he lived. Here he was passing over mountains and valleys, villages and cities it would take months to walk to. All that land, all those people. People just like him; thousands, maybe millions of individuals all with hopes, dreams and aspirations.

  The sheer scale of it was mind numbing. But the potential for all those unknown wonders below filled him with excitement.

  The bombed-out airport sat in an expanse of yellow sand dunes. Jala had been further south and closer to Neotra's pole and considerably cooler. Jackson's keen eye for nature noticed the difference in vegetation as he made his way with Lan to the remains of the main terminal. Even though the plants in Jala were gripped by the frosty hand of winter the vegetation had been far more lush and prolific. What trees there were here had thick, hard barks to retain moisture, but the majority of the foliage was made of small squat bushes. The yellow and ochre sand that the vegetation endured looked almost welcoming next to the charcoal black of burnt-out buildings. The airfield bore many scars of battle, its runway riddled with freshly repaired shell holes and fresher still craters. The body of a massive transport jet split in two and still smouldering had been shunted to the side of a dune just off the tarmac.

  “Dangerous place to stay,” Jackson said to Lan pointing out the carcass.

  Dotted around the airfield were ground-to-air missile sites and anti-aircraft batteries. Near to where they had landed, parked under flimsy camouflage nets, were five sub-orbital fighters. A number of soldiers patrolled around the perimeter. A handful of engineers were doing final checks before the pilots boarded. Shoddy and with thick stubble, the aircrews wore a look of fatigue.

  As they passed they saw o
ne pilot kneeling on the ground praying, it was almost an act of desperation. Hung under the wings of the aircraft were large bulky missiles.

  “Too big to be air to air,” Jackson correctly surmised, “they must be satellite breakers.”

  “What do they do?” Lan asked.

  “Missiles launched from planes that break through the planet's gravity to attack orbital targets. Heard about them in the customs service. There was a worry that they might be used against our patrol craft if smugglers could get their hands on them.”

  “Ah,” Lan said, “a fleet thing. They don't teach us grunts about that sort of stuff.”

  “So what do they teach you?”

  “Not much I guess,” Lan's eyes narrowed as he thought back through his haze of memory, “Cleaning, there was a lot of cleaning. Boots, shirts, barracks, guns. Oh and shooting of course, I did a lot of shooting. Won recruit honours on that.”

  “Yeah, what's that entail?”

  “It's a time trial of three different distances,” Lan held his arms up as if he was holding a rifle and squinted an eye down an imaginary siight, “ten shots prone, run forward, ten shots squatting, run forward again then ten shots standing and then you run back to your start point.”

  “So you're a crack shot then?” asked Jackson.

  “Yeah, I could have stayed and gone on to sniper training but that would have meant staying in Euler for another eight weeks and I wasn't up for that.”

  “So you don't miss the place?”

  Lan shook his head, “Na, it's warmer here. I like that.”

  “Me too. When I went for walks in the hospital grounds my leg throbbed from the cold.”

  “And the burn on your cheek went bright pink, I could always tell when you'd been outside.”

  The two laughed and walked across the concourse in search of their ride.