Seeker of Moons (Cassidy's Command Book 1)

by Geoff Workman

  “He was unlucky to get hit like that but the plasma got through. Shiner had decided to wear only one layer of his undervest so the plasma filled the void and his arm is a real mess,” confided Bambi.

  Kyle released his visor and the smell of burning flesh in the air lock was gut wrenching but he needed to concentrate on his friend. “Shines, it’s going to be OK don’t worry, nurse Bambi has filled you full of nice medicine and we’ll get you to sick bay as soon as we can, just sit tight for now.”

  Bambi then lead Kyle over to Freeman, who had taken a projectile shot straight through the thigh and was lying on his side trying to keep the pressure off but was still in command of his senses despite the pain.

  In respect of Freeman, Kyle said, “How’s it going Sir?”

  “Very ‘buggerin’ painful thanks,” he said trying to smile through the pain. “You did well Getaway, everybody did well, I am proud of all of you. I could kick myself for getting this, we have state of the art armour and an ancient bolt weapon takes it out but it was at zero feet from one of the prisoners.”

  Prisoners, that was news to Kyle but again the focus had to be on his crewmate. “The time for heroes is done for today and I am going to put you out whether you like it or not.” Before Freeman could protest, he lifted the small flap on the Secom's breastplate and under a red cross emblem were four coloured buttons, he pressed green for anaesthetic and black for wound seal. The same thing could be achieved through the visor menus but people in pain find it difficult to focus on multiple screen options.

  “Has anybody reported in to the Sub?” Kyle asked Freeman, who was beginning to lose consciousness.

  “No time yet,” said Freeman, whose breath was starting to labour.

  “Don’t worry Sir, I will report in shortly but I am sure that she has been observing us on the cameras,” and with that he saluted saying, “see you in the sick bay sir.”

  Kyle next turned to Bambi, "Where are the prisoners?” She beckoned him to follow her and they found Buzz Watabe waving his gun over two female pirates who were sitting back to back in front of him.

  By now all the remaining defenders had their visors up so they could communicate face to face. “How’s it going Buzz?” called Bambi.

  “I am fine, but we are going to have to do something with these two wildcats.”

  “Any suggestions of what we can do with these ladies, Kyle?” Bambi said sarcastically.

  “I am afraid this one is down to you, we cannot risk that they might take hidden weapons into the Brig and they need debriefing now if you know what I mean.”

  Bambi moved forward to take control, “OK girls, on your feet, now start losing your clothes and drop them in a pile in front of you”.

  This command was met with a torrent of foul mouthed abuse and one of the girls who was called, ‘Ramona’ said, “I ain’t doin it, I got rights.”

  Bambi was not up for a challenge and snarled back, “If you still have clothes on by the time I count 10, I will shoot you dead and save the courts the trouble, one, two,” and by seven both girls stood in just T-shirts and briefs.

  “I said all your clothes,” snapped Bambi, who flamed a short burst of plasma from her rifle to show she meant business. After some hesitation Ramona raised her T-shirt above her head and there taped to the hollow of her back was a flat knife around six inches long. Bambi walked behind her safe in the knowledge she was being covered by the two men and yanked the knife, tape and all off Ramona’s back causing a yelp of pain. “Now get those briefs down we don’t want any more nasty surprises do we?”

  The focus now switched to the other girl called ‘Angel’, Bambi waved the muzzle of her carbine at her, and this time there was only skin under the T-shirt but when it came to the briefs, once they had been removed there could be seen a flat leather pouch taped to her inner thigh. Again Bambi snatched the offending item away before tossing it to Kyle, who delved inside as best he could with his gauntlet on and turning the pouch upside down he shook three very sharp and shiny razor blades out. “Hmm very nasty, what are you intending to use these for young lady?”

  “I need to shave twice a day,” Angel sneered back.

  “I’ve not seen any of these for light years but I don’t doubt that in the wrong hands they could take somebody’s throat out,” said Kyle. “Bambi, I suggest that you and Buzz escort our naturist visitors to their new quarters and if they can behave themselves we will get them new clothes in the next couple of hours.

  On the way back see if you can find a couple of air trolleys and we will get our comrades down to the sick bay.”

  The others trooped off to the Brig, they looked an odd group, one heavily armoured Trooper in the lead, two naked, bald and tattooed young women in the middle and a second bulky Trooper bringing up the rear.

  Kyle went over to the air lock communicator unit and called up the bridge, Esther came on screen, “How’s it going Sub?” he asked in a nonchalant sort of way.

  “We are good here but have not seen the excitement you’ve had, I’ve been keeping an eye on developments and you guys have performed unbelievably. I will need a full report for the records but let’s do that later after the Secom and Shiner are sorted out.

  It may not be healthy to be here for much longer and we will be firing up the engines in around thirty minutes so let’s get the air lock cleared as soon as possible. Leave the bodies for now we will deal with those once we are underway. Just one more thing, the sensors show that there is one more life form in the air lock and whoever it is can be found in the cockpit of the Tender”.

  This was a body blow for Kyle as he had had enough killing for one day but he was going to be sensible about this and wait for the others to come back. On their return he pointed out the issue of searching the Tender and asked Bambi to go in as his wingman. It is fair to say that Buzz was not happy about being passed over but as Kyle explained he is the size of a small house and clearing corridors on a relatively small ship is not what he was made for.

  On the other hand Buzz was big enough to lift the casualties on to the air trolleys and with a bit of improvisation he had them floating behind each other and they were soon on their way to the sick bay.

  This left just one matter, Kyle and Bambi wanted closure, “Visor down, suit check, weapons check,”

  “All checks green,” responded Bambi.

  Kyle entered the open cargo door first and was very careful to ensure that nobody was hiding out in that area. The lights of the Tender had been dimmed, so to compensate they activated the light beams on their rifles. They worked their way forward, expecting a shot out of the dark at any time but edged right up to the cockpit door, without challenge.

  They both nodded to each other indicating readiness and Kyle put his powered boot to the cabin door which flew open. He burst through sweeping his gun from side to side and after a quick assessment lowered it.

  In the pilot’s seat was a middle aged woman in a Seven Moons flight suit but she had been tied to her chair and gagged. Bambi gently tried to remove the gag and got a “What the hell kept you?” for her trouble, despite the lack of thanks both Kyle and Bambi continued loosening the woman’s bonds until she was free.

  Bambi demanded to know who this woman was and she responded by saying “My name is Kira de la Croix and I am, or was, a Tender and Shuttle pilot on The Moons but what are CBF troops doing on board?”

  Kyle answered, “We might look like Troopers but we are part of an engineering team who landed in response to the ship’s distress beacon and our ship was destroyed, marooning us here. I think we should get you to our Sub-Officer on the Bridge, she may need your help.”

  Chapter 5

  Running for Home

  Buzz arrived at the Sick Bay and as soon as he opened the door the lights came on, a figure waddled up to the reception desk.

  “Nurse Betty 2671, how can I help you today?” said the Hu-mechy in the white nurses outfit. When stationary and at a distance she passed for human, Betty 2671
, having a pale skin tone, shoulder length blonde hair and blue eyes made a very passable female. Unfortunately once she moved, the illusion was totally shattered because the development engineers had lacked the funding to build in a human gait and this resulted in a side to side wobbling action.

  “Nurse, I have two casualties, who need urgent attention for wounds,” Buzz pleaded.

  “I will take you through now to see the Doctor, please bring the first patient and go to Bay Two.”

  Buzz took Shiner into Bay Two and started to remove his armour with the help of Nurse Betty. He baulked when he came to the burned arm, for it was difficult to decide where the blackened skin and undergarment started and finished.

  In waddled a Doctor Hu-Mechy, who burst through the swing doors heading straight for Shiner with a medical kit in hand. “I’ll take over now nurse, please place the patient on the bed.” The Doctor reached up to a gantry overhead, pulled it down by its handle and shone a bright light at the injury, next he pulled down a flexible pipe, which disgorged an anaesthetic gel over the wounded arm.

  Matters are in hand here please take the next patient into Bay Three and Buzz hurried off to deposit Freeman. A further nurse, Fiona 1147 was waiting to help. A similar routine followed but this time Nurse Fiona had to remove the leg section of Freeman’s armour with an angle grinder, which Buzz had to admit was expertly done. After a short delay the doctor raced into the room in the standard ungainly waddle and again used the overhead gantry to administer the initial medication, tools to cut off the metal rod protruding out of Freeman’s leg and then he pulled the remnant out.

  The Hu-Mechy turned to Buzz and in a very matter of fact way said, “Both patients will survive. They will receive excellent care here but for the moment need rest. You may visit in exactly thirty four hours, good day.”

  It was all strange to Buzz but he was sure his comrades were in good hands and as he had been dismissed from the Sick Bay, he decided to re-join the others on the bridge.

  He hopped on an air scooter and in a few minutes was back with his comrades.

  At the front, sitting in two of the pilots seats which had not been destroyed in the first attack, were Esther and Pixie, they had set up a table between them that was full of operating manuals and star charts. Behind them in the Navigators Suite sat a woman who Buzz did not recognise, this surprised him but he decided to take it in his stride. Looking round for Kyle he saw that his friend and Bambi were sitting in two of a bank of four forward facing seats and strapped in as if ready for take-off.

  “Mind if I join you?” asked Buzz, already sitting down in the end seat next to Kyle, “who is the new woman?” he ventured.

  Kyle replied, “Oh that’s Kara, she too was a crew member of The Moons but was captured and made to fly the Tender, we found her tied up on board.”

  “OK so what’s happening?” questioned Buzz, as he too followed suit and buckled his seat restraints.

  The answer came directly from Esther who shouted over, “Are you all set back there?”

  Bambi answered, “We are all ready, Good Luck Sub.” She looked past Kyle towards Buzz, “They have been cycling the main reactor for a few hours now and they think that there is sufficient mass to risk running the Matter Reactor.”

  Esther looked back again, “Here we go fingers crossed everybody.”

  Pixie could be heard reading instructions to Esther, who then tentatively pressed various keys on the master control panel and entered machine code into the system through the keyboard on the Pilots console. The three Troopers still in their armour had all removed their helmets and noticed a subtle vibration within the ship along with a feint humming noise. Kyle’s gauntleted hand was grabbed by Bambi and she whispered, “Look at the star patterns they are changing, we must be moving.”

  Moving they were and speeding up all the time. There was a lot of dialogue between Esther and Kara as a course was plotted for their escape. Once Esther was happy that their flight was going to plan, she set the ship’s auto pilot and asked Kara to do the same with the autonav system.

  “Pixie, assuming things stay as they are, we should arrive at the Cerebus cloud in around twenty three hours and the automatic systems should be able to handle that for us. I want to have a quick get together with the others, so I need you to keep an eye on the systems and sensors until I get back, can you do that?”

  “No problem Sub.”

  Esther rose from her seat and invited Kara to join the group who moved to the usual conference table. After some brief introductions for Buzz’s benefit, Kara was asked to explain what she could remember since the first pirate boarding.

  “I believe that you have already had a description of events as experienced by Pixie and Secom Freeman and I suppose my story begins the same way. I was in the hangar talking to the service crew, for a brief second the general alarm sounded, the next thing I knew was a blast of some sort of energy had knocked me down and left me and all those in the hangar semi-conscious. By the time I was on my feet I was staring down the barrel of a blaster, some of the crew tried to fight but they were short of weapons and were dealt with very quickly.

  Once the fighting stopped we were split into two groups the younger and the older and of course I was placed with the older people. The pirates moved the younger people into the main corridor for transportation but there were too many for their ship. Then one of the bad guys must have remembered seeing my pilot’s emblem on my flight suit and I was ordered to fly the Tender you saw, with the rest of the prisoners and their guards. It was only later that I learned they had executed all the other older crew members, so I suppose I was lucky.

  I flew alongside the pirate’s ship for just over two days and we landed at their base on the planet of “Chamtofi”, it was a miserable flight as you can imagine, no food or drink and our captors were in no mood to make life easy.

  Chamtofi is designated as an open planet, the government such as it is, turns a blind eye to the activities of criminals and pirates as long as they pay the hefty taxes levied on them. The group that captured us are controlled by Darian Kurko and they operate from their own fortified town of Walendia and that is where we landed. All the prisoners from both ships were briefly re-united before the women were segregated and lead away to I don’t know where. I was made to wait with the men, who were interrogated individually to find out what skills they had. I would say of the fifty or so that were processed, around twenty were kept as engineers or labourers in Walendia but were still confined in the stockade at night. The rest were kept locked up all the time.

  Those jailed, myself included were housed in a poorly built barracks, I was billeted with the only other woman that I saw, who was a Doctor and presumably deemed to be of value. There are some events I am not able to tell you about, except to say, I and the doctor had to suffer a degree of brutality and abuse.

  Anyway if we co-operated they gave us some food, though it was little more than stew and bread but we got to meet some of the other prisoners.”

  Esther broke in to interrupt, “Did you happen to meet anyone from our old ship the Seeker?"

  “As a matter of fact I did, a very pleasant young man called Lengo something or other, he arrived very recently.”

  This was too much for Bambi, who broke down sobbing, “He’s alive, thank God.”

  “Yes Lengo is alive but he has had a couple of bad beatings, the pirates are hard task masters and their unrealistic demands are frequently not achieved which means a thrashing from those sadistic morons. My doctor friend patches up the casualties as best as she can but some die, it doesn’t worry the pirates as there are always more prisoners arriving. I gather from Lengo that the female crew have again been sent away but there are another two crewmen from your ship with him.”

  There are survivors from other craft too and they all tell the same story, from nowhere an alien ship appears, it’s certainly not a pirate ship but it must be an ally as it does their dirty work for them and must pinpoint a stricken ship ri
pe for attack. Nobody has seen the alien ship planet side and nobody knows who or what is inside it.”

  “Kara, what do you think happens to the women?” asked Esther.

  “Nobody knows but I don’t think it’s going to be good. To conclude my story, after a number of days of menial work in the main prison camp, I was brought back to the Tender and told to fly it full of that rabble back to the Moons.

  On the flight back one of the pirates who was supposed to be keeping watch on me said that they were aware that someone was repairing the Moons and we had been sent by Darko to find out what was happening. When I landed the Tender they tied me up and I think you know the rest.”

  “Thank you Kara, I cannot begin to understand what you have been through but I do know that your help now is heaven sent,” declared Esther, who sat back in her chair and clearing her throat looked at Kyle, Bambi and Buzz. “You three and our two colleagues in the sick bay have been heroic today and I cannot believe what you have achieved. You deserve a rest and some relaxation but I am afraid all you have is tonight because I need you back working tomorrow, early.

  The three of us on the bridge are going to try and make good our escape, we will have to work two on and one off to make sure that we maintain maximum speed towards the Cerebus Cloud without damaging the power plant but let’s make no mistake, this Darko character will be furious and is probably sending interceptors after us already. Once in the cloud, we will plot our course en route for the next cloud gateway, which is the Mephisto Cloud and if we make it there, we have a choice of safe planets to aim for.

  While we are trying to fly this giant, I want you Getaway to arrange a work schedule to take images of the dead pirates, then dispose of their bodies in the vacuum.

  Keep an eye on the prisoners and here is a warning, the two ‘she cats’ are dangerous, especially to men so make sure that always two go to feed and check on them and Bambi must always be one of the two.

  Also it would be good if you could spend some time in the sick bay sharing some time with our wounded.