by Tobias Roote
“No, I meant the clicking noise you make with your throats, it must be very difficult to learn how to do that. The human voice-box isn’t designed to make these sounds.”
“Clicking is our language. We speak it in sea, carries our words long way. Off-landers tried learn, but not possible. It easier me learn Standard.” His puzzled look remained as he realised there was some kind of misunderstanding, but not understanding where.
When Grady realised that the clicking was their natural speech he felt excitement rising deep in his gut, but he needed more information.
He was about to ask another question when his ear-bud burst into life.
“I know you’re enjoying yourself in there, but didn’t they say something about a time limit ?” Shrilla asked.
Grady swung his head away from Kraell to respond to Shrilla. “True, they have a squad of Angels inbound to take us out of here. Guess that means that they don’t want any witnesses,” he replied.
He turned back and spoke to Kraell who was handing back his shoe.
“We need to all get out of here. There are some really dangerous men coming and I think they intend to kill everyone.”
The mutant nodded in understanding. “We ready. Go as soon as open door,” he gestured towards the locked cage.
Rescued by Shrilla
Shrilla watched as Grady got himself captured. He was an idiot, she’d decided. He’d reassured her that he would be able to get inside the big dome without difficulty. Now, he was a prisoner and she, his only means of rescue.
Sitting there listening to his chatter with the mutants she wondered about him and these ‘mutants’. Half an hour later she was no closer to an escape plan. The guards had settled into a long dispute with someone possibly on the Persipis, but that in itself wasn’t the problem. It was how to escape once she had recovered Grady and the other prisoners. There was no way they could clear the area fast enough after she shot the guards. They would immediately direct the Persipis’ sensors and be tracked from space and eliminated.
She turned her field of vision to take in the rest of the camp. The tablet that she carried with her everywhere told her there were now active sensors in the vicinity between her and the bubble where Grady was being held, although they didn’t tell her precisely where. They must have had them turned off before, she thought or they would have discovered them when Grady entered the camp.
She watched as the guards finally moved off leaving a single guard to man the door to the prisoners.
Within a few minutes a strong communication signal coming from the main bubble indicated a potential radio-link, probably with the Persipis itself. Hopefully, they weren’t actively scanning the area, or her attempts to hide might be wasted. She had no idea if her bio-diffuser worked against Core ships. It was only supposed to operate in local areas to confuse static sensors.
A large shadow crossed over her head, the engine noise following a second behind - a corporation shuttle. It descended towards the flat area not far from where Grady was being held. The twin engines fell silent on approach as they were superseded by the landing jets. The ground beneath it blew into four separate disturbed clouds of dust billowing outward from the centre causing Shrilla to hold her breath and scrunch her eyes up as the mini tornado went over her head. The heat of the blasted air burned her skin, but was gone as soon as the shuttle touched down on its pads.
Even as it settled on its landing struts, the side door dropped down on its hydraulics and seconds later the pilot came out and walked off towards the main building leaving the door wide open and amazingly, unsecured.
Shrilla didn’t hesitate and immediately began stalking the pilot hoping to creep in when the alarms went off and before they were reset. It was a very small window of opportunity, but one she could well manage, so long as the guard didn’t see her as she ran through the same area as the pilot’s short entrance. As she split off she kicked something unseen and anticipating the alarm going off, she rolled behind a small bush just as it blared.
Lying there panic-stricken she waited and hoped, not daring to look up in case the movement was detected. Instead, she carefully looked sideways and back until she saw what she was searching for. Sensors were tagged in the ground and hidden behind small tufts of grass. You wouldn’t detect them coming in, but could easily see them coming out. Shrilla reckoned she was past them and hoped there were no more. The alarm that had sounded stopped and the voice of the guard was clearly calling out an ‘all clear’ to someone. She was in.
There was no way to creep up on the guard, he would see or hear her and there was no sense waiting. Either they would succeed, or not and that was that. She knew the moment the crack of the laser beam was heard, that Grady would know she was coming and do what he could to prepare his escape. Shrilla was relying on being able to get them to the shuttle before anyone realised what was going on. Poor choice of venue for a rescue, but the AWA were trained for these kind of missions and Shrilla was more than prepared to kill everyone in the camp if she had to.
Guessing that the pilot had landed to pick up a new cargo and at that time of day meant he would likely stop in the canteen for some lunch, Shrilla reckoned she had a while before the opportunity would be lost. She wouldn’t need long.
Sighting along the short barrel to keep her laser aimed directly where the guard would be just before he turned away Shrilla waited the few seconds it took him and then fired. The crack of the weapon’s discharge was loud in the silence of the camp corner as Shrilla ran towards the bubble. She guessed that someone would be along in the next thirty seconds to see what was going on.
The valve to the bubble was unlocked and she dragged in the dead guard knowing from Grady there would be no others within. When she turned around to view the cage the sight of Grady unharmed, with just bruising around his head left her relieved.
The crack of her laser echoed in the habitat as she flashed the lock off the cage.
She called to them.
“Come on, there’s a shuttle transport waiting outside we can use to escape the camp.” Then she saw the number of prisoners and blinked. “Oh crap !” she uttered realising there were too many for the shuttle.
“Cannot all fit, we go other way,” said a mutant that was standing close to Grady.
She looked up at the face of the mutant and was immediately drawn by the green eyes and the strong features of the human that looked back. She felt a tingle go down her back as she caught sight of a membrane crossing under the eyelids and the nasal openings seemed to open and close quickly. He smiled at her and she saw white teeth that looked sharper than normal. not bad, she thought, quite good-looking for a mutant as her gaze was drawn back to the green of his eyes.
“Some of you can come with us, we can drop you near the sea,” she responded.
“Thank you, Shrill-A,” he said looking at her as intently as she did him.
“Oh ! no problem, Kraell is it ?” she responded watching closely as the mutant’s facial features seemed to ripple. She stepped back a little startled at the discovery that his skin was scaled, but so finely that you wouldn’t know without being close when he did that.
“Yes, Kraell is my name.”
“We must escape now, and quickly.” She picked up the laser rifle and showed it to him. “Do you know how to shoot ?” Shrilla asked him, watching his face keenly for another glimpse of those scales.
“No, Poi don’t use wepp-ons like this,” he answered, shaking his head disapprovingly.
“OK, then stay close to me or Grady as we leave.” Shrilla turned to see that Grady was already at the door preparing to exit.
“Do you have a plan ?” he asked as they rushed to join him.
“Yes, run like fuck and head for the shuttle !” Shrilla responded tartly.
“OK, that’s workable,” Grady nodded seriously, but the corner of his mouth quirked a little to stifle a grin.
Looking out through the door there were no obvious signs of response to th
e disturbance. There was no sign of anything which made Grady suspicious. Shrilla looked out and seeing the way clear, pushed by him and began to move towards the perimeter..
“C’mon, we have no time to lose, the shuttle is only a short distance away.”
Grady, bemused by her sudden aggressive behaviour realised she was right and pulled Kraell close behind him and moved out behind her trailing by a good twenty feet as she sprinted for the shuttle that he could see a ahead of them. The others were all piling out behind them.
Suddenly Shrilla stopped and pointing her laser shot a bolt into the ground near her, first on the left, then again on the right. The crack of the laser fire seemed subdued in the open, then she was off running again. This time she didn’t stop and continued to gain distance from them as Grady and Kraell still worked to get their muscles unknotted from the confines of the e-cuffs.
Grady heard shouts from behind them and glanced quickly to see the nature of the threat. Two guards, both with laser carbines pointing in their direction had appeared. He grabbed Kraell and pushed him ahead so that he could shield him from any stray shots. If their weapons were the same as the guard’s rifle that he had taken, it wasn’t the best on the market and had poor performance at mid-range. If they were excellent shots they might hit him, but it was unlikely and they were now nearly at the shuttle.
Shrilla had vanished inside and was already starting up the engines when Grady pushed Kraell inside and told him to grab onto something and hold tight. Kraell put his head back out and clicked at the others some of whom were wandering confused, while others had already reached the edge of the clearing and were vanishing into the undergrowth. The wandering ones picked up their activity and headed for the trees.
Grady got to the cockpit just as the shuttle came under fire from the two guards who had now been joined by four more who were shooting wildly at them as they ran for the shuttle’s open doorway.
“Close the valve and let’s get out of here,” Grady shouted just as Shrilla launched them into the air over the heads of the running guards who instead of shooting were now diving to the ground to escape the landing stanchions that Shrilla had deliberately not retracted.
Grady warned Shrilla. “Look out for Angels, they’ve been sent in to eliminate us by the corporations. So they might already be inbound.”
“I’ve heard of them, but never come across them. Are you sure they are here ?” she answered while jigging the shuttle to avoid potential fire from below. She thought their main problem would be the Persipis, but it was a research ship so not likely armed with long-range atmospheric weapons.
“Imminent, I would guess from the guard chatter,” Grady replied scanning the sky in front of them as they headed out over the sea.
Shrilla was no longer listening, she had a bad feeling about their escape - it seemed a little too easy now they were away. Not one laser burn on them, or the shuttle and those guards wouldn’t have missed all of the targets. Something wasn’t right and as she thought of Grady’s comment about Angels her concern mounted.
“We got away too easy,” she warned him.
“You think ?” he replied, confirming her worst suspicions.
Angels Wreak Havoc
The weapons specialist knew his job and had the target lined up as they came out of their hiding place hovering unseen and undetected in the jungle close to the camp. Their vessel had waited until they were over the sea, then crept up behind the shuttle unseen due to its inbuilt deflection system and the shuttle’s blindness to their transponder signature. They wouldn’t even be aware the Angels were on their tail without physically looking behind them, which was something that most shuttles couldn’t actually do. They didn’t normally have rear windows and only a single rear facing camera for landing positioning.
“Fire missiles !” called out Olgar as his main gunner closed up the weapons lock on the fleeing target.
“Missiles away, sir.”
Olgar monitored the missiles as they flew straight to the target which also had no monitoring ability for inbound threats. Corporation shuttles were bare-bone craft where everything was excluded except that which was absolutely required to navigate the vessel to a landing on the surface. If they could squeeze one extra load into the vessel or another able body, then economically it was air worthy.
Both smoke trails indicated the direction of the missiles as they homed-in on and hit the port engine. The resultant explosion took out the entire stubbed wing section. Their own vessel was far enough behind the shuttle not to get caught in the flying debris as the ENCIO shuttle went into an immediate and uncontrolled dive. He watched as the pilot attempted to gain some degree of control over the plummeting craft and ordered another salvo to be fired to be on the safe side. They had stipulated no remains and that meant total obliteration.
The shuttle attempted to level out at less than one hundred feet and caught turbulence from the up-draft from the surface. Both missiles slipped wide, but exploded on contact with the sea causing a tumultuous backlash that threw the shuttle directly downwards. Olgar watched as the stricken wreck bounced off, then impacted with a large wave. He smiled with satisfaction as it began to sink. Less debris to remove if it sinks in one piece, he thought.
Chapter Eighteen
Into the Sea
The first they knew of the attack was the moment the explosion catapulted them out of their chairs and across the control panel.
“Ugh ! What the fuck was that ?” Grady moaned as he prised himself away from the navigation panel feeling for anything broken.
Shrilla had been just as badly hit, but was slow pulling herself upright against the gravitational pressure as the shuttle threw itself into a dive from the explosion and the resultant power loss. At their present height flying was impossible as the ungainly flying box wasn’t capable of maintaining any kind of height on its remaining single engine.
Grady glanced back seeing the side of the shuttle was now open to the fresh air of Archon-5. The mutant looked frightened as he peered past Grady at the scene through the cockpit window. Recognising it was the sea that that was coming towards them at a very fast rate he had the good sense to find somewhere to lodge himself.
Grady continued to watching Kraell as he fought to strap himself into his own chair. The mutant, with surprising strength, pulled himself towards a main strut that would offer him some protection. Maybe he had some instinctive knowledge of impact stresses, because he chose the one location that would probably hold fast in a crash.
Grady briefly wondered how the mutant would know how to prepare for a such an event, but the man just grimaced at him, grabbing a loose packing strap, quickly winding it around himself and the strut, bracing for the coming impact. Grady nodded at him approvingly before turning around just in time to see the sea coming up at the cockpit windscreen. He flinched and put his arms up to deflect what seemed an unavoidable crash-landing as Shrilla pulled hard on a combined pair of levers, determined to force them to do her bidding. Something must have given way because they pulled up at the last second and the nose briefly saw the skyline. However, their downward momentum couldn’t be stopped entirely and the section beneath their feet was about to take the impact.
Remembering his crash training, Grady had pulled his feet up from the deck and tucked his heels into the front of the chair. It was designed to absorb massive impact, but if his legs were in contact with the deck when it crunched, every bone all the way to his thighs would shatter and the shock would probably kill him. He glanced up to see what he was likely to hit if his chair broke loose and was relieved to see that he would probably miss the nearest bulkhead. He ducked his head down anyway. Shrilla was doing the same, although being smaller she was able to curl herself neatly into the seat.
The impact, when it came, was bone-crunching, jarring him all the way to his neck. As they hit the top of the first wave, the second wave right behind caused the bulkheads to heave as the acute angle of contact forced the ship’s bow upward
s again. They rebounded into the air and skated the tops of the next few waves while continuing to slow. It would have been a textbook landing had it not been for the sudden water plumes on either side that exploded around them causing the shuttle to keel over from the force of the water hitting them.
Grady hung on to the base of his seat as it bucked beneath him, threatening to break off entirely and send him flying into the main bulkheads. He saw the wall of water towering above them, a direct result of the near-miss of the missiles exploding beneath them. The shuttle got caught in the whipped frenzy of disturbed water and was dragged deeper into trouble. Then the sky disappeared to be replaced with the sensation of rolling as the ship now caught in the heavy whirlpool was sucked beneath the surface.
He looked around, dazed from the few minutes of mayhem. Only now beginning to realise they stood little chance of surviving this. Water was entering from every direction as the impact had broken the back of the ship and they were sinking fast.
He unhooked his seat restraint, but held onto the chair while leaning over to get a better view of Shrilla. She looked as though she had been battered by a bulkhead and was bleeding, but not much.
“Shrilla, wake up !” Grady stretched out and shook her by the shoulder trying to pull her round before they completely sank beneath the roiling waves.
“We have to swim for it before the ship sinks,” he cried, but he could tell she was still only half-conscious and disoriented. He would have to get to her and pull her free from her seat which had buckled from the impact and was now jamming her against the side bulkhead.
As he climbed across, the ship section bucked beneath him as the waves pounded them from above. Now they were below the surface the craft seemed to stabilise a little. He turned to see if the mutant had survived. The man seemed fully aware of their predicament and was quickly, but competently unwrapping the cargo tie that had so far kept him safe. He finished freeing himself, looked at Grady, nodded. Then taking a good look at them both trapped in the cockpit, dived into the breach through the incoming water flooding into the back half of the shuttle. Then, just like that, he was gone.