The Off-Worlders

by George Willson

  “What’s happening?” Michelle asked. “That engine started getting a bit noisier.

  “He panicked,” Turner said.

  “He has set the engines into an overload loop,” Blake said as he looked at the wall. “It’s a simple enough process, but doing so will eventually overheat the engines causing an explosion.”

  “An explosion from these engines would not only destroy the ship, but it would also leave a sizable crater as well as wipe out everything within about a mile,” Turner explained. “He is apparently putting all his eggs in the basket of that hunter’s ship, and likely leaving to attempt to fix it.”

  “We have a little time before this goes,” Blake said.

  “You can’t shut it down?” Perry asked.

  “Probably,” Blake said, “but if we do it while he’s still here, he’ll know we’re down here.”

  “And if you wait too long,” Michelle said. “We go up with it.”

  “He would have to leave long before that happens,” Blake said.

  “But he has the matter transporter,” Perry said.

  “Which has to be based on this ship somewhere,” Blake said. “If he blows the ship, he loses that … probably.”

  “What do you mean ‘probably’?” Perry asked.

  “Well,” shrugged Blake, “like so many technological wonders, he could move it somewhere else, if he has the technical know-how, but we’ve learned that he most likely doesn’t.”

  “Why not?” Michelle asked.

  “Because he can’t figure out a simple starter link solution for one,” Blake said.

  “All right, Blake, why don’t you shut that down and tell me about that starter link solution,” Pingrit said from the ladder. While they were all paying attention to the panel, he had climbed about halfway down and had a weapon trained on them. Without even looking at the board, Blake flipped a switch, and the engines wound down.

  “A simple trick, but it did draw you all right out,” Pingrit said. “I saw the panels opened on the bridge, so I knew someone was here. Given your relative resourcefulness, I found it highly likely that it would be you. I’ll have to hand it to you, though. You have impressed the heck out of me.”

  “My pleasure,” Blake said.

  “Now, let’s go,” Pingrit said. “Let’s chat where it’s a bit more comfortable. Your weapon, Turner. Yeah, I know who you are too.” Turner handed over his stun gun, and Pingrit trained his weapon on them as he climbed the ladder. Once at the top, he stood at the head of the short stairway to the bridge which overlooked the ladder to the engine room.

  “Up you go one at a time and have a seat in our luxurious lounge,” Pingrit said. “And if anyone tries reaching for my pistol, I’ll end them. No questions asked.”

  One by one, the travelers and Turner climbed the ladder to the hallway leading from the common room to the bridge. They all walked to the common room where they sat calmly and waited for everyone else to arrive. Turner climbed last, and Pingrit followed him at a double arm’s length distance. They sat at the table, two on each side, as Pingrit stood before them.

  “Now, whyever you’re here doesn’t make any difference to me,” Pingrit said. “This ship is a wreck. I only care about one thing at this point, and that’s getting clear of this planet. I’ve never been anywhere so backwards in my entire life. What did you do to that hunter ship?”

  “Oh, the starter link deal,” Blake said. “You’ve never heard of starter links?”

  “Should I have?” Pingrit asked.

  “How can you fly a ship like this on your own and not know about starter links?” Perry said casually.

  “I wasn’t on my own,” Pingrit said. “You can’t fly this class of ship alone. There were seven of us on here.”

  “Ah, you’re not the engineer,” Blake said.

  “I helped to navigate sometimes, but mostly I was the muscle,” Pingrit said. “Guns and such. I wasn’t on the bridge anyway when we went down.”

  “The ship is in remarkably good shape for having crashed,” Turner said. “Well, from the inside anyway.”

  “It isn’t,” Pingrit said. “We took a lot of fire from some guys who decided to stiff us on payment after they took possession of our cargo.” Pingrit saw Blake start to gesture with his hands and trained his gun on him. “And if you say ‘no honor amongst thieves,’ I will put a hole in your head.” Blake nodded respectfully.

  “They got more hits on us than we did on them,” Pingrit continued, “and they hit us hard. The ship held together, but they knocked out our inertial stabilizers and artificial gravity. Every shot tossed the whole crew around like shaking beans in a jar. I held on the best as I could when I figured out we were going down. I got to the bridge and found everyone there was dead. I knew enough about the controls to try and control the descent. I survived, but the ship can’t take off. Fortunately, we found ourselves a refraction shield we had used to keep ourselves hidden on non-Federation worlds, and the ship is able to draw enough power from the planet’s atmosphere to keep it going.”

  “And your matter transporter?” Turner asked.

  “In one of the rooms,” Pingrit said. “You’re welcome to it. Just tell me how to fix the hunter’s ship. That’s all I need. I won’t even kill you.”

  “Well, that is very kind of you,” Blake said.

  “It's the least that I could do for all the help you've given me,” Pingrit said. “However, if you don't tell me soon, I may change my mind. What are starter links and how do I fix them?”

  “I believe they're still in the car,” Blake said. “There are three of them, and they go in some open slots around the engines at the back of the craft. You can’t miss them.”

  Michelle and Perry looked at Blake wide-eyed as he gave the information so freely. She wondered what Blake was thinking to have stopped him earlier, yet be so willing to give up the craft now. Usually, he was not so easily threatened, so she figured he was up to something.

  “Is that all you need?” Blake asked.

  “Hand over the keys to your car,” Pingrit said to Turner.

  “Why?” Turner asked.

  “Because I need to get the starter links out of it,” Pingrit said.

  “I'm sure I can open the trunk from here,” Turner said. “I believe that's where we placed them.”

  “I said, ‘give me the keys,’” Pingrit demanded as he held the gun up to Turner’s face. “I don’t need you alive to take them from you.”

  Reluctantly, Turner relinquished the keys. “Just leave them in the ignition when you're done.”

  “Oh, this is just one of my insurance policies to make sure you don't run off on me until I can fix the ship,” Pingrit said. “I might have more questions. Like I said, I was just the navigator. I think you all can wait right here until I'm safely away. And when that happens, I'll toss the keys down on my way out. Or maybe you can just call for backup and find your own way.”

  “As for my other insurance policy,” Pingrit said. He walked up behind Michelle and grabbed her by the wrist forcing her to her feet. Blake and Perry instinctively rose up in protest, but Pingrit kept his gun on them. “Sit down.” They complied.

  Pingrit made his way around the room with Michelle in tow to the exit keeping his gun trained on all of them. “I don't want to see any of you following me,” he warned. “If I feel threatened in any way, she’s gone. Am I understood?” They nodded.

  Pingrit dragged Michelle out of the common room to the cargo bay, down the stairs, and out the door. In the field, Pingrit pressed the trunk button on the key fob and the lights on Turner’s car flashed. He forced her to the car and looked in the trunk to find the three large tubes that Blake referred to as “starter links.”

  “Here, carry two of these,” Pingrit said. He put two of them into Michelle’s arms, and he took the third while keeping his gun in one hand. “This way.” He pointed to a grove of trees nearby and gave her a nudge from behind to walk that direction. When they reached the ship she had s
een by the warehouse, Pingrit led her behind the vessel. He put his link on the ground and felt around behind one of the three engines until he uttered an “ah-ha.”

  “Hand me one of the links,” he said. She handed him one that she held. He looked it over briefly, felt behind the engine again, and then put the link in place. He put his hand behind the next engine and requested the next link. This time, with only a glance to the link she gave him, he put it in place. She perceived a low rumble coming from somewhere as she proactively retrieved the one from the ground just as he asked for it. Once more, it was in place. He produced the badge from around his neck and opened the door.

  As he did, a ship emerged over their heads. From the bottom, Michelle could barely make out what it looked like. Pingrit stared at it in horror.

  “No!” he screamed. “That idiot Turner must have put one of those beacons in here.”

  Frantically, he jumped in the ship and flipped switched to power it up. Systems roared to life, and this time as the pitch rose, the rear engines fired up. He pressed the button to close the cockpit as two massive metal arms came down from the vessel and gripped the side of the little ship. Pingrit reopened the cockpit just as the power in the ship seemed to cut out. He jumped to the ground, and the arms raised the dead little ship upwards.

  “I was so close!” Pingrit yelled. He glanced to Michelle. “You know, we’re not done yet. I am getting off this planet one way or another.” He grabbed her wrist again, and they ran across the field back to Turner’s car. He slammed the trunk closed, open the passenger door, and tossed her in. He pressed the lock button on the fob as he walked around the vehicle which prevented her from just opening the door and jumping out. She thought she heard a voice and looked out the rear window.

  Perry was running across the field to the car. Pingrit hit the unlock button once which only unlocked the driver’s side door. He got in without a glance behind them. They had parked a pretty fair distance from the ship, and Perry had apparently not seen them in the dark until they had reached the car.

  Pingrit started the car and roared out of the field towards the exit before Perry could even get close.

  “Your friend made a good effort to catch us,” Pingrit said. “Too bad for him.”

  “Where are we going?” Michelle asked as Pingrit fiddled with the center console.

  “We’re going where as a good citizen, I should have gone to begin with,” Pingrit said. “But as a bad citizen, I was avoiding it since I didn’t want to go to jail. To be fair, I also didn’t know where it was. With his GPS, on the other hand, I should be able to backtrack him to wherever he sends people out.”

  “You think they’ll just send you on your way?”

  “No,” Pingrit said, “I know they have scanning equipment that identifies people genetically. My genetics put me as a criminal in the system, so they would send a prison ship and sufficient personnel to subdue me. I just need to find out what they can do, see what I can figure out, and if it comes down to it, maybe I can use you.”

  “I already said I’m from Earth,” Michelle said. “Turner even put us in there, and it didn’t give him anywhere to send us.”

  “And I don’t believe you,” Pingrit said. “Your knowledge and casual acceptance of all of this is unnatural for Terrans. They’d flip out. You can lie to them all you want, but I’ll figure you out. If you can’t get me out of here, then I’ll find someone who will.”

  Pingrit found the most likely location he felt the house would be. Michelle was not sure since the area was unfamiliar to her, and she had ridden there in the back seat. She hoped that Blake and Perry would figure out where they had gone, and find some way to stop Pingrit.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Pingrit left the room with Michelle, and Blake and Perry had been powerless to stop him. Moments later, they heard the outer door open and close. As soon as the door clanged shut, Turner leaned forward onto the table.

  “Well, the first thing we need to do is find that communication array and get this beacon in place,” Turner said.

  “The first thing we need to do is get Michelle,” Perry said. “Blake, why did you tell him how to fix that ship?”

  “Because it doesn't matter at this point,” Blake said. “That ship also has a beacon in it, so regardless of where he goes, he will be tracked. I was hoping that tow ship would be relatively quick on getting here, and it might be picked up before he ever got it fixed. After all, I didn't give him very much to go on regarding how to fix it. He has an idea, he can find where the parts are, and he can probably see where they go, but it's dark outside, so it’ll take time.”

  “That's why I didn't say anything,” Turner said. “Those smaller ships usually get a response fairly quickly. It's the large ones that can take a little while. If that one lasts the night, I will be surprised.”

  “Yeah, but then he got the bright idea to grab a hostage,” Perry said.

  “We should go ahead and get the beacon in place,” Turner said.

  “We need to go after Michelle,” Perry insisted.

  “And we will,” Blake said. “If he gets that ship fixed, he’ll just leave her out there when he leaves. If he can’t get it, he’ll be back. If we’re standing out there, it might provoke him.”

  “I need to go,” Perry said.

  “All right,” Blake said. “You see what you can see outside the door, but don’t approach them. It’s pretty dark out there, so it seems probable that you won’t see much. Turner and I can find this communication array.”

  Perry nodded and ran after Michelle and Pingrit.

  “All right,” Turner said. “We’ve checked the bridge and the engine, so let’s split up and start with the crew quarters which are on either side of this room here. Let’s spread out and see if we can find anything labeled as communication anywhere on the ship. My hope is that it stands out.”

  The pair split up with Blake taking the rooms on one side while Turner took the rooms on the other. The doorway led into a hallway that went towards the front of the ship and dead ended right behind the bridge. On each side, they found five rooms intended to be crew quarters. In one of them, Blake found the transporter.

  The room consisted of a single column in the center of the room that surrounded a blue light that showed through its sides. Cables led from the column to the edges of the space and were attached to thin structures on the walls, also emitting a blue light, in intervals that divided the room into six pieces in a circle surrounding the central point before leading back to the central column along the ceiling. A fatter batch of cables led from the central column to a hole in the floor next to the door. The whole thing looked practically jerry-rigged in the space as if it not only did not belong here but like it was someone’s personal project rather than a product that might have been produced in a factory at one point.

  He had only ever seen pictures of this technology as no one used it much in his time, but this certainly resembled it. The center column did for certain. It was usually enclosed in some kind of round structure that divided the cabled areas similarly, but he supposed the room served well enough for this crew.

  He considered for a moment why they might not have attempted to use it while the ship was crashing, but he figured it was hard to say what anyone would do under duress. Besides, once the stabilizers and gravity fail, there is not much anyone can do. The human body was not made to handle those kinds of forces. Pingrit was lucky to have survived.

  He moved onto to other rooms that looked well lived in and were clearly used by the crew of seven during their journeys. The crash had thrown everything around the rooms so the beds were bereft of covers which were tossed on the floor, and there were lots of trinkets here and there that they had gathered during their time in space. He found it sad to see the various memories of these strangers because the owners of all of these things were now dead. Through all of their travels, everything came to an end over a dispute about money and a crash landing on Earth.

  After s
earching the rooms, he came across a ladder that ascended above the central corridor from each side. Climbing this ladder, he found a crawl space and at the front of the space just behind the bridge, he found a short piece of equipment which was labeled “communications.” He called out to Turner, and moments later, Turner crawled up behind him and was easily able to locate the port. Turner plugged the beacon in, and a little light started flashing. Once this was done, they met back down in the common room.

  “Shall we venture out to see how Perry is getting on?” Blake asked.

  “Fine by me,” Turner said. “Our task here is finally accomplished, and I’d expect a pickup either tomorrow night or the next. We can leave this jamming field on because they can detect the beacon through it and deactivate it remotely.”

  “Sounds good,” Blake said. They proceeded out of the common room back to the cargo bay. They walked down the stairs and opened the door to the field outside. Blake took a deep breath embracing the open air once again.

  “You know, it really was stuffy in there,” Blake said.

  However, a low hum sounded across the entire area. Blake looked at Turner. “Is that what I think it is?” he said.

  “Sounds like our tow ship is here,” Turner said.

  “Talkisan must have transported the hunter’s ship somewhere close to here,” Blake said.

  A faint sound of shouting echoed across the field, before the hum grew into a roar. A large ship lifted off from a grove of trees several hundred feet in front of the cargo ship. Its design was little more complicated than a rectangular box whose corners had been cut off with a short, blocky half-circle extension at the front and wings with engines mounted on both sides. In the running lights of the bottom of the ship, they could see the little hunter ship attached to it with metallic arms as it flew overhead and towards the heavens.

  “Now where is Perry, I wonder,” Blake said. They heard someone running back to them from the direction that Turner had parked his car.