by C. M. Kane
To distract her more from her hidden memories Tae decided on a new tact of her own, she asked Brightmoon what had occurred between Vulcan and her while she was gone. She found the ship to be strangely reluctant to divulge what had happened, but after a little prodding of her own Brightmoon opened up and showed her. She started with the intense fear she had felt when she couldn’t go with Tae to protect her, then she moved on to Captain Settria ordering the removal of one of her panels, and of the her own retaliation. Tae felt Brightmoons rage as she did her own. They had been told never to touch her, and yet the stupid woman still couldn’t help herself. She then felt the frustration and fear in Brightmoon at the thought of losing Tae on top of this outrage. Her rage and frustration had started to build rapidly, but knowing Tae would not like her to start killing any crew like she wanted to; she had started firing upon Tartarises small moon to vent her anger. Soon she showed Vulcan’s words of friendship and his offer to help. He was going to find Tae for her, he said he was a friend, this was a concept she understood. Tae listened as Vulcan asked Brightmoon gently for her co-operation in turning the life support systems and turbo lifts to the bridge back on. When she realized she had followed Vulcan’s words of friendship with a little trust of her own Tae praised her, she felt the warm glow of satisfaction and pleasure at her praise.
Just like Tae, Brightmoon enjoyed being told she had done the right thing. After that Brightmoon opened up about her friendship with the God, along with her reasons why she had let him into her “laboratory.” Tae felt her enjoyment at sharing small problems with Vulcan, and her pleasure at his reasoning them out. Tae had a picture of her old cat Bubby enter her mind, quickly followed by a picture of Mr. Willard’s retriever Raider. With a start she realized exactly what Brightmoon was telling her in pictures instead of words. She saw Vulcan as her pet! Tae had Bubby, Mr. Willard had Raider, and Brightmoon had Vulcan. As soon as she made the connection Brightmoon let her feel her satisfaction so she knew she was right in her reasoning. It took Tae another five minutes before she could stop herself from laughing hysterically. Poor Vulcan, she had a feeling he had no idea that this was how Brightmoon saw him.
After some “girl talk” as Tae called their friendly banter, and a couple of songs to help them both get back into the rhythm of each other’s minds, Tae returned to the subject of the predictions. They went over everything Latrissa had said in minute detail, trying to see if there was anything she may have missed.
I have to agree with Zeus on this one, she told Brightmoon. I don’t see how there being blind, or not alive like you are, is both their weakness and their strength, but Latrissa seemed pretty adamant about it. Anyway, the star charts are nearly all over here now, we are just getting the last of them from Lord Apollo now, along with his information on different Titans that could be in their attacking fleet. It’s time we started to study, my friend, because if we are to have any chance of living through this, we have to figure out a way to defeat a fleet of ships just like you.
She felt Brightmoon shudder and knew instinctively she was afraid. Much to her amusement she could also feel a part of her consciousness sneakily trying to edge its way into Tae’s memories of the cave that she was keeping from her. She shut down that part of her thoughts and felt Brightmoon immediately start to sulk.
Maybe later, when all this is over, at the moment we need to focus on the problem at hand, and believe me, if I start to think of what happened, then my mind is going to be back there for quite a while, instead of being here where it’s needed. She felt Brightmoon back off and they settled down to begin their studies together.
Once again Tae lost track of time until she was finally satisfied that both she and Brightmoon had a decent grasp on the many of the different Titans they could be facing, and what she saw had horrified her. Cronus, and from all information his brother, Hyperion, had not only strip mined their own planet, but had been in the process of doing the exact same thing to the sixty three planets and moons that they held dominion over. Along with that they had enslaved the differing species on the planets they held, and basically worked them until they died. She shuddered in horror at what they had done, was this similar to what her own ancestors had done to earth? If so, then she was thankful the gods had returned when they did, she’d hate to think of what condition her home would be in now if they hadn’t. For the thousandth time over her lifetime she wondered how the ancestors could they have been so filled with greed and stupidity as to do such a thing to themselves, not to mention all the other inhabitants of the planet? How could they have been so unutterably stupid? Even now there were still parts of Earth that were being terra-formed back to its original state.
She dismissed her thoughts of the past to concentrate on the here and now. So far everything was going as planned, and at least now that she had finished learning about the individual Titans she could relax a little before she started on the star charts. She was about to get up and go to the mess hall to grab something to eat when the alarms started.
She swept the sensors over Brightmoon immediately, the first thing she noticed was a miniscule numb spot in a part of the Dreadnaught in the number two Hanger, and it was starting to spread outwards, albeit very slowly.
Brightmoon immediately related the talk that Vulcan had had with her about the Felice being shipped out. Tae quickly realized the bombs hadn’t left Hanger two yet, and were in fact, sitting loaded inside a large troop jumper ready to leave in a few hours time. With dawning horror she also knew that at least one of them had begun to leak.
Tae could feel Brightmoon starting to panic. She got a blast of information regarding the theory of the containment system that she and Vulcan had built. She then told her that there was a statistical risk that the system could break down at any given time. After discussing it with the others they had thought it might be worth the risk, and given the time constraints they were put under, it was the best they could do given the materials they’d had to work with.
Tae knew she had to think and act quickly; she sounded the automatic alarm for the Hanger to be evacuated and then told Brightmoon to get Vulcan to meet her in there. Opening her eyes, she then leaped from the chair in a panic as the entire bridge crew looked at her.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ she yelled as she bolted past the Captain and into the Turbo lift. As her vid ball made to follow her she told it to stay put, for once it obeyed. Brightmoon knew it would soon be rendered useless if it followed her.
‘What’s happening?’ Captain Settria asked in concern at Tae’s sudden movement and the look of panic on her face.
‘The Felice is leaking!’ said Tae, just as the turbo lift door closed cutting off any further communication. Tae took every short cut she knew of; when she finally made it to the hanger she was met by Vulcan, who had rushed to her aide as soon as he was informed by Brightmoon that something serious was amiss.
‘The containment system for the Felice is leaking,’ said Tae as she ran up to him. ‘We have to get it out of Brightmoon before the bloody thing fails completely or we’re all dead.’
Vulcan swore under his breath as they both rushed into the now deserted hanger. ‘Well at least there’s no-one else in here to worry about,’ said Tae as the sprinted across the floor to the Jumper.
They tried the jumper’s doors but they refused to budge, the Bombs had been stored directly behind them so they would be the first thing affected.
‘Stand back!’ said Vulcan as he ripped a piece of metal off of a nearby lifter. He then rammed it into the streamlined door seal and wrenched with all his might. When he’d made a small hole he jammed the metal rod in a little deeper and wrenched again, after three more goes the door opened. Tae could only marvel at his strength, those doors were designed to take heavy Zap gun blasts, and grazing by even more powerful Pulse cannons. Obviously the builders hadn’t counted on a muscle bound god with a large chunk of metal.
They ran straight to the controls and pressed the start button, the Felice hadn�
��t spread quite this far yet. Vulcan sat in the pilot’s seat, not bothering to strap himself in as the jumper started to rise shakily; he quickly started to move towards the hanger doors, when he was five meters away from them the jumper simply crashed to the floor, all power completely gone.
As the jumper fell Tae was thrown forward hitting her head, she sat up groggily as Vulcan turned to her. ‘We’re out of time; we have to get this jumper off of the ship now, can she still open the Hanger doors?’
Tae knew what he was saying, or rather what he wasn’t saying; they would have no time to evacuate the hanger themselves.
Tae nodded. ‘I think so, now let’s go, we’re not going to die that easy.’
They both jumped up and ran from the jumper as Tae screamed for Brightmoon to open all the Hangers inner and outer doors. Both Vulcan and she knew they couldn’t fly the jumper out, and as the containment system was about to collapse completely, their only other option was to blow it out into space by opening the doors and decompressing the entire hanger. Unfortunately, she also knew she’d never be able to hold on to anything when this happened, she simply wasn’t strong enough, and she had no breather mask anyway. As the turbo lifts were on the opposite side of the Hanger, her only chance was to make it to another jumper. As they hit the ground running the Hanger doors slowly started to grind open. She’d only gone a half dozen meters towards the small jumper she had used when she visited the Olympus when she felt the sudden suction grab her, it was then she knew she’d never make it. She was going to die. Well damn!
She was both surprised and relieved when she felt Vulcan’s hand reach out and grab her own as she continued to try to run with him. He had slowed down for her, and now he was literally dragging her across the intervening distance between them and the little jumper. It was only his immense strength that made it possible for her to continue. As he threw her into the jumper and struggled in himself, Tae hit the locking mechanism.
She turned to him in gratitude, ‘Thanks, you saved my life’ she said breathlessly.
Vulcan smiled. ‘You saved mine first when you defeated Hera, besides, this is my fault. I knew there was a probability of this occurring, but it was the quickest solution we could find at the time. We thought if we started with this containment system we might be able to work out the problems and upgrade the bombs as we went, obviously we was wrong, and now we’ve jeopardized everyone.’
Tae made her way to the pilot’s seat and switched on the outside viewers. They watched as the troop jumper started to shift, suddenly it simply flew sideways out the door, as if pushed by a giant hand; obviously the outer space doors had just opened.
Tae contacted Brightmoon through the shuttles communications system to make sure she was okay, only to find their plan of decompressing the Hanger hadn’t quite worked as expected. The troop jumper was now hooked up sideways on Brightmoons partially open space doors, and the containment system on several of the Felice bombs was now seriously leaking. She knew they weren’t going to last much longer, she had to think of something else before it was too late. Already the Brightmoons main systems were being affected by the rapidly spreading radiation. Tae could feel her fear and desperation despite being away from the star chair.
‘SHIT!’ She said loudly, before she quickly explained the situation to Vulcan. What could she do she thought desperately, her options were limited to the shuttle she now sat in, and even that would lose power right alongside Brightmoon when the now rapidly spreading radiation reached her.
She looked at the control panel in front of her; she was now left with only one remotely viable option. What the hell, she thought. She was in the pilot’s seat this time so the decision was up to her. She felt warm blood from the cut on her forehead trickling down her face as she came to terms with her decision.
She turned to Vulcan, an apologetic half smile on her face. ‘Better strap yourself in this might hurt a smidge; if by some miracle we manage to survive that is.’
Vulcan looked at her for a moment, then after quickly realizing what she intended to do, he found himself grinning at her. ‘The universe favors the bold, or at least that’s what I’d like to think, either way I’ll keep my fingers crossed,’ he joked.
Tae started the jumper and lifted off; she then moved over to the middle of the hanger and lined up the open doors. ‘And so begins the last ride of the Snuggle Bunny,’ she laughed. Then she pressed forward heavily on the accelerator button.
The small jumper shot forward, building speed rapidly because of the small purple crystal shards that had been installed in it. Just as it reached the Hangers inner doors the engines went dead, due to the rapidly spreading Felice radiation. Tae had to hope it was too late to make any difference to her plan to use the small jumper as a battering ram. They were already weightless because of the decompression, and now they had some pretty decent speed, all she could do now was sit and wait for the inevitable to happen. As they quickly shot down the darkened tunnel, a large shape suddenly loomed ahead of them. The troop jumper was hung up between Brightmoons partially open space doors like a bloated corpse.
Tae turned to Vulcan. ‘I wish we had some music for this. I think maybe ACDC’s Highway to Hell is kind of appropriate right about now,’ she said thoughtfully. And then they hit.
The force of the impact knocked the larger jumper clear from where it had become wedged, it spun slowly out into space, drifting straight back towards Tartarise, as if its cargo was intent on returning to where it had originated. The smaller jumper’s nose was flattened inwards as it collided heavily with the much larger troop carrier. They had hit low down in the forward section of the trapped ship knocking it loose, but this had sent the smaller jumper sideways into the bottom of one of the large space doors. From there it rebounded backwards into the side wall of the Dreadnaught, thankfully bleeding off most of its speed. Luckily its momentum now forced it backwards and up at a gradual angle, its nose swung around just before it hit the ceiling with a sickening crunch, slowing the small jumper even more. It rebounded back to the floor then up again at a much gentler angle. This time when it hit the top of the tunnel it stayed there and continued on in a basically straight course. It scrapped along with its nose pointing back the way it had come, showering them in sparks and lighting their way as it went. As its momentum slowed even more it moved down and slightly away from the ceiling before encountering another slight bump at the middle safety doors. From there it started to drift back down the tunnel at a far more sedate pace.
Tae groaned in pain as she recovered from the buffeting she had just received. She was pretty sure she’d broken some more bones judging by the amount of pain that radiated from her collarbone and ribs, and for some reason her left leg felt like it was burning. She looked down and found a piece of metal from the instrument panel was jammed through her upper thigh, effectively trapping her in her seat. Thankfully there didn’t seem to be much blood, she thought the heat from the bar might have seared the wound as it went in, despite the pain she counted herself lucky. She quickly tried to check what was left operational on their small craft with her left arm; her right arm and shoulder simply hurt too much to move. She swore to herself lightly, there was nothing by the looks of things. How the small jumper had even stayed together after the crash was a testament to Brightmoons engineering skills, but she didn’t think their oxygen was going to last for long, even if they hadn’t sprung a leak as yet.
‘Damn, I’m still alive, well that’s surprising,’ she heard Vulcan saying from her left, she looked over to see him looking at her.
‘You’ve looked better,’ she croaked. He had an large ugly gash across the side of his face that was bleeding freely, his nose also appeared to be badly broken, and his left arm seemed to be at a couple of odd angles. He had also become personally acquainted with two metal rods that were protruding from the front of the jumper on his side. The first seemed to have missed his head by centimeters and was now lodged firmly in the headrest of his seat, right besi
de his pointed ear. He wasn’t quite as lucky with the second rod though, that one was currently lodged in his lower left hand side. Tae thought it had probably skewered him and was sticking out the back of the seat.
Vulcan grinned at her. ‘Speak for yourself, you won’t be winning any beauty contests for a while either you know.’ He looked around shaking his head in wonder. ‘Damn, how the hell did we do that? Better yet, how the hell are we still alive?
He looked at the only semi operational com-screen that had just came back on in front of him and was now flickering intermittently, that’s when he started to laugh. ‘Did you know that we’re actually drifting back towards the hanger? We just passed the middle safety door,’ he said as he took note of their position.’
‘I do aim to please you know, why do you think I’m in such high demand?’ Tae said before adding, ‘and please tell Loki to remember this when it comes time for a pay rise.’ She realized with surprise that if she wasn’t in so much pain she’d actually be having fun bantering with Vulcan, she was feeling incredibly cheerful for some reason.
Vulcan laughed, and then grimaced at the pain his own laughter caused. ‘You really are quite a woman, Tae, and if you weren’t Loki’s I’d make you mine in an instant. Now let’s hope Captain Settria doesn’t take too long to send out a rescue crew before our oxygen runs out. I’d really hate to survive what we just did only to die because someone didn’t think to check if we were still alive. I mean, the bragging rights for this little adventure will last me at least a couple of decades.’
Tae found herself blushing at Vulcan’s words, the way he had said she was Loki’s had sounded like so much more than she was just his employee, or was she just imagining things? She hoped not, because just before they had hit the troop jumper, when she had thought she was going to die, she’d had her own shocking epiphany. Tae had realized with a sudden startling clarity that her feelings for the dark eyed God went far deeper than just simple lust.