by James Darcey
I should have jumped into one of the tubes at random, and escaped. I thought of that a split second after I flattened myself against the wall. Once again luck favored me, and they walked past without a single glance at the strange green girl plastered to the grey walls. They were so engrossed in arguing amongst themselves about an experiment that had gone horribly wrong, that they didn't even pay heed to which tube they stepped into. I guess a yellowish-green girl playing wall ornament on the bare grey walls just wasn't odd enough to be noticed. I wasn't going to take any chances, and stepped rapidly into the one on the left. Wherever they were heading was not where I wanted to be.
In a moment I was staring at a stenciled F on the wall opposite the tube. This was not the floor that held the food locker. Six more bounces through the tubes brought me to the K level, which was where I had been trying to reach. Now it was four passageways toward the rim, and a left turn to find myself standing outside the door with Squinty's disk in hand. I had only watched them open two doors with these things - the door to my cage, and the lab. I held my breath as the disk slid into the slot. The moment of truth had arrived. It just had to work.
I shoved the disk into the slot, just as I had seen Sneering Tooth do it, and the indicator flashed yellow. It scrolled a message that I had used up all of my ration quota for today. What?! The disk slid back out, and dropped to the floor. One more chance - I slid Broken Fang's disk into the slot. The machine actually growled at me as though it thought the disk tasted bad. It refused to even pull it in all the way before flashing at me to remove the obstruction. There was still a bit sticking out of the slot that let me pull the partially melted disk back out.
Now what? I'd left Sneering Tooth's disk back in the room. Why didn't I think to grab that? Maybe, just maybe; I nibbled at the disk, trying to bite off the rough edge. It tasted terrible. I slid the disk into the slot once more, cringing at the growling it continued to emit. It paused and hesitated a few times, but eventually went in all the way. It flashed green and the door whooshed open. More growling came from the machine as it tried to spit the disk back out. It finally came out far enough for me to grab just as the door was starting to close. I yanked the disk free, and jumped through.
Inside the locker was completely different than I had imagined. There was a stack of the simple metal trays, like the one laying on the floor in my room. I didn't need the trays, or else I would have rolled Sneering Tooth off of that one. What I needed was food. Before me stood row upon row of shelves with small packages resting on them - thousands of packages all with labels for things I'd never heard of before. Nowhere did I see stacks of the greenish-brown wafers such as Sneering Tooth had dumped on my floor. I double checked the door; it did say Food Storage Locker. This had to be food then.
A small rolling cart was parked against the wall bearing a few trays with similar packages on them. That settled it then. I ran down the rows of shelves grabbing arm-loads of those packages to dump onto the cart. A few hundred of them fit before there was no more room. I was twenty-one minutes into my escape according to the mental counting rolling through my head. It was time to go before somebody came looking in here. Out the door, I turn right for two cross passages before going up one more level to the docking bays. This time I had the feel for those tubes.
Not a single person was around when I shoved the cart into the glass walled passageway that curved around the docking area. This was the first time in my life that I had seen glass anywhere. Even when Teyrn Elon watched them testing me, it was through imagers. He had quit coming to watch in person about the time that I first started creating tiny arcs.
A little to the right was the first docking port where... Hunter Number One, The Gozku, was not there. My heart skipped several beats about then. After cracking through the security codes for my console, I'd done more than just look at the other prisoners. I had studied the manuals for that ship a dozen times in preparation for this moment, and it wasn't here! But there was Hunter Number Two visible further to the right. It was nearly identical to Gozku, so I should be able to handle it without too much trouble.
The image in the terminal was what it must have looked like new. Now it bore the scorches and pockmarks of a lot of use. I didn't care what it looked like so long as it was gone in a few minutes with me on board. The plan running through my head was repeating the steps listed in the instructions for disengaging the docking lock, and starting up the engines as I shoved the cart along at a full run. A handful of the food packages toppled to the floor as I skidded to a halt at the access panel.
I slid the disk into the slot, dancing from foot to foot in my nervousness. The access card disk pulled the same routine of teasing me by hesitating to enter that slot. I wanted to scream, but I didn't know who might be listening. Instead of the slight hissing and door sliding out of the way, it let out a very angry sounding beep and flashed bright red before spitting the disk back out of the slot. It felt just like Sneering Tooth had gotten one last kick to my belly. This was his last torture, to keep me here when escape lay just on the other side of a door. I could see it too! There was no way I was going to let this be the end. I tossed the fallen packages back on the cart and shoved it back the way I'd come, even faster than before. I could see the corvette ahead. I had read the book for this one also, but it had more control seats. It was meant for a crew of three.
Where the hunter had looked a little used, this ship looked used, abused, and perhaps had a history of running into things. This time I slowed to a walk before stopping the cart, and managed to keep the packages in place. I held the disk up before me, and mentally wished it to work. If willing something had any effect, I would be inside in ten seconds. It had to work. My other option was the shuttles, and they were in the second docking bay which was conveniently on the other side of the orbital lab. If I had to cross that kilometer, I was done for. I sucked a deep breath and jammed the disk into the slot.
Once again it tried that dance of hesitating, and I rammed my palm into it. The disk slid in without further argument. Getting the disk in was one thing; getting it to work was another. It bleeped the angry beep and stayed red. Mentally I screamed. Angry as I was, luck still favored me. I really wasn't thinking anything other than destruction as I let a bright arc tear a hole in the middle of the locking controls. It clicked and the blue light lit as the door slid open. Even though the corvette hadn't been my first choice, it opened where the hunter hadn't. I couldn't afford to be too choosy about what I was escaping in. Anything that would get me out of Teyrn Elon's grasp looked good to me. I'd as soon jump out an airlock than spend another day in that room.
I grabbed the packages off of the cart by the armload, and just throwing them as far as they would go down the ship's passageway. A quick count as I was throwing them said just over two hundred, not nearly enough for the estimated six month trip. High drive was fast, but it still took time to cross the light years. I kicked the last of the packages into the open hatch and spun the cart around for a mad dash back to the food locker.
After I had broken through the security on that data terminal in my room I had found many things that all pointed to one conclusion; I needed to escape. I had started without the least idea of where I was, or what it would take to escape. The more information I dredged out of that little terminal, the better my plan became. When I'd discovered that my mother had come from Terra, Sol, I finally had a destination to reach. The nav charts had shown the Sol system to be about six months out from this orbital lab by high drive; that meant that if these were indeed food that I could eat, then I would need much more of it. Thinking it over for a minute, I realized that yes, I could make it back to that food locker for more of these packages; I had to. I certainly didn't want to starve on the way.
I made it back down through those tubes before I realized that I was going nowhere. I needed that disk to open the food locker, and it was still up there in the docking panel. Back up to the docking bay, and the ruined docking panel there. The disk was st
ill firmly entrenched in the mechanism that I had thoroughly fried. I was busily prying the panel apart when a slender mechanical tentacle snaked in to assist me. I jumped backwards, tumbling over the knee-high bot that had arrived to repair the damage. I nearly put a bolt into it out of exasperation, but it pulled the disk out with tremendously more ease than I was having. I managed to intercept the manipulator before it dumped the disk into the bin attached to its side.
The way back to the food locker was thankfully clear, and I piled the cart full once more with the most random assortment I could find. I didn't read any of them because frankly none of it made any sense at all. I couldn't take the time to go searching for greenish-brown wafers that might not even be called that. Instead I grabbed three from that shelf, and four from there, I'd better snatch two of those also. Back to the ship I went, walking as fast as I could without spilling the whole lot of them across the passageway. This load of packages followed the first in getting strewn down the ship's passageway before I ran back for even more.
I was on the fourth run back to the food locker when disaster nearly struck. Perhaps I should say I nearly ran over a wandering Ttlictil with the cart, and that would have brought my escape to a disastrous end. I couldn't tell if it was one of Teyrn Elon's underlings from the lab, but I sure wasn't going to ask either. As it was I ran off under a barrage of what sounded like words the guards used when something went amiss. I was shaking as I loaded the cart once more. I could feel the knot of panic clenching the muscles between my shoulders, and I was certain that Teyrn Elon would personally be coming through the door to grab me before I could be gone. Two final big boxes balanced on top of the overloaded cart as I wheeled it back toward the docking bay. After the run in with the Ttlictel I didn't want any more surprises. I never wanted to see another scaly set of tentacles waving at me again. Well, maybe just once more as it flopped about under an electric bolt.
I heard the lizards coming before I could see them, but every door along the passageway refused to budge when I tried it. Angry red light after angry red light greeted me. The trio of guards rounded the corner almost tripping over the cart. One of them started yelling at me about leaving the cart where he could trip over it, but his tirade was interrupted by another, who was busy poking a claw through the assorted boxes. That fear of being caught by Teyrn Elon was rising up once more, and I was calculating just how to take on all three of them at once. I could feel the charge tickling my fingertips, but his words shifted my whole thinking. He held up one of the boxes.
"Bring a cart of this to the barracks in an hour, and get a friend to come along also. I like the taste of shivering mammals."
I had no idea just how to respond to that, but they walked off with that rapid sniffing that I knew was a response to humor. I wasn't going to pursue that thought though; he was laughing and I was still free, or nearly so. I wasn't going to be in that barracks in an hour either. In an hour I hoped to be forever beyond Teyrn Elon's grasp. A couple packages fell off in my rush around the corner and I nearly left them sitting in the middle of the passageway, but reason shouted in my brain that they would be too conspicuous too soon. I needed to be aboard the corvette on my way to null point before I relaxed my caution, and before my escape was detected. Who could say if the next lizards along that hallway would be as thick skulled as the last ones. I hurried back to get them and slowed my pace to a nervous walk.
I had been out of my cage for over an hour, and every microsecond I was here increased the odds against a successful escape. I rammed the cart into the ship's hatch, flattening a few boxes strewn along the floor, and hit the control to cycle the airlock closed. That knot of panic that had been sitting painfully between my shoulders was moving into my belly, as the docking controls refused to release. It was probably due to them being tied into the console with the smoking hole in its middle that the little bot was still working to repair. I finally resorted to opening the airlock and scorching the outside controls again before I could release the ship. The airlock cycled closed once more, and I ran through the passageways up to the cockpit. Some of those packages had flown all the way to the bend in the passage as I had tossed them in my haste. My foot caught one and it ricocheted around the bend as I ran. I could pick them up later.
A view-port dominated the far wall from floor to ceiling. The glass from it wrapped around the front third of the cockpit giving a wonderful view out into nothing. I was looking out at the cavernous docking bay with a dark square at the far side. The drawings showed that to be the opening -- my escape route. Freedom was literally within sight. Now all I had to do was to get this ship moving. I'd never seen a ship before, but I did read the manual on this one.
Sitting at the front where the encircling view-port practically surrounded it was the pilot's seat. It seemed big enough to engulf half of my body too, not like the seats some of the lab people perched their butts on. There was a bank of controls that wrapped in an arc before the pilot's seat to give him control of all movements the ship was capable of performing. I'd read that line a hundred times. It had been impressive to see the diagrammed layout in the manual, but the actual controls were even more impressive. I stopped in the middle of mentally listing them to remind myself I still needed to actually escape.
Two more chairs occupied the cockpit, sitting behind and slightly to each side, forming an acute triangle. The seats and control consoles looked similar with the exception that the two rear seats also had fold away upper consoles as well. The manual called the left one engineering, and the right one auxiliaries. The information on auxiliaries had been sparse, with a lot of notes that read 'Dependent upon current configuration.' I could leave that mystery for now. My interest lay in that front seat. That was where I needed to be sitting right now.
I climbed into the pilot's seat, and reached for the engine ignition button -- top row, third from left. It did nothing, even after hitting it several times. The whole control board was dark. Why didn't it have power? Power, power, power..., the engineer's seat! I banged my knee on the console in the haste to switch seats. A quick stab of the finger and... nothing. Panic was doing its best to grab my belly once more as I thought back to all those long hours reading the manuals. I had done everything correctly, then why? I just needed patience, which was something I didn't have much of when trying to escape. A soft hum could be more felt than heard as it seemed to seep through the ship.
OK, so I hadn't remembered the fifteen second reactor startup sequence. As I looked around, I watched as indicators started lighting up on all the consoles. The soft glow of emergency lighting, that I hadn't realized was only emergency lighting, brightened to normal levels. A ring of lights around the ceiling also illuminated, making me realize that I had been running around in near darkness. When the docking had released its hold on the ship, most of the lights had lost power. My run through the corridors had been lit by only a handful of tiny illuminators.
The pilot's seat was where I needed to be, so it was another jump to switch seats, and tapping a few controls to bring up the auto-pilot. My escape was too close and vital to trust it to a pilot that had never touched the controls before, even if that pilot were me. I knew my pilot ability was about zero point one. I thought it would be much better to let the auto-pilot squeeze the big ship through that tiny hole on the other side of the docking bay. The drawings said that it could pass a two hundred meter diameter ship through it, but from here it looked barely big enough to fit a finger.
Step one, plot course through port hatch. Slide the direction mark to there, and there. Go another five hundred meters out before turning, just like the manual recommended. Initiate. The ship spun, and I was flung out of the seat to smack face first into the side view-port -- somewhat painful, majorly embarrassing. Step two, before initiating maneuvering ensure that the engineering officer has activated inertial dampers. The ship straightened up, and aimed its nose toward the exit. As it settled into the new course I could pick myself up off the floor to climb into the engine
er's seat.
A quick stab of the finger activated the inertial dampers that would have saved me from smearing my nose across the view-port. The hole was looming larger, though it still looked too small. I knew this ship had gone there before, so it had to fit. Hurry up and go! Step three, initiate Zeta field. The left side of the engineering board was Zeta field controls. I slid the power field to full and toggled it on. Step four, do not activate Zeta field within atmosphere or five hundred meters of orbital installations. I punched it back off and saw the indicators drop back to the bottom scale. Whoever wrote that manual should put the warning before the instruction!
I sat there watching as the walls slowly slid by. I was headed out to my freedom... at a maddeningly slow pace! The opening loomed ever larger, and finally slid by as well. If the view-port wasn't in the way I could have reached out and touched it. I know that it took less than two minutes to pass through and be free of that place, but it felt like an eternity. I was more exhausted than if I had been running the treadmill for an hour. Never the less, it dumped me out into the black void of space. Only it wasn't so black as I expected. Once I'd found the navigational charts and seen all the solar systems that it listed, I expected to see a few thousand bright dots of stars. There were millions of them -- tens of millions. I could see whole swaths that looked like colored mist sweeping along the reaches of nothingness. Each minuscule speck of light was a star, and many of those stars had worlds circling them. One of them was even my destination.
The ship spun around for a moment, bringing the yellow and blue world past the view-port before settling on a patch of stars that looked no different than the rest of them. That world had to be Trekhll. It was so close that I could be there within hours, maybe less. So could my pursuers. Getting to null point and high drive was my best choice. I had to be past the five hundred meters limit since the ship had spun around, so I started up the zeta field once more. Those indicators came to life with the promise of a fast escape just as soon as I got far enough out of the gravity well. There's a point at which the gravity of planets and such drop below the level that will, how did the manual put it... compressively stretch the the distortion signature of the ship. I didn't bother searching that term, it sounded bad enough without knowing the details.