Chapter Twenty-Three – Emergency Recall
The soft insistent bleep of the emergency recall signal startled Pete away from the mass of engine parts surrounding him. If that wasn’t enough to get his attention, the constant vibration of the watch on his arm certainly did it. He looked down at it, frowning. Before they’d ever left the ship, it had been decided that emergency recall would only be used in a case of a dire emergency – life and death sort of stuff.
Now, it was sounding. No accompanying voice came from the speaker identifying who had sounded it. Pete replaced the regulator he was inspecting and started off for Holas. As luck would have it, Pete knew exactly where he was. Unfortunately, it was two levels up and on the other side of the warehouse.
Pete rounded the corner at a jog and took the stairs two at a time. Without pausing, he dashed across the short landing and bounded up the second flight. A quick glance showed him the floor was filled with long aisles, each overflowing with all kinds of mechanical bits and pieces.
When they’d first arrived, the foreman had assured them that any part, for any class of ship, for any species, could be found somewhere inside. Pete didn’t know how accurate his boast was, but after seeing floor after floor after floor filled with more bits and pieces than he’d ever imagined, Pete reasoned that it couldn’t be far off the mark.
They’d shown their list of requirements to the foreman, who had promptly passed them on to an office worker. She’d taken their list and asked them to wait. Some time later, she’d returned and handed them a stack of printouts. This they’d studied, finding that it was a list of the parts that they were after and where they could be found in the building.
The easiest thing to do was split up. They’d each taken half of the list and set off in pursuit of the parts. Pete had agreed with Holas that the most efficient thing to do was to inventory the warehouse for the parts and make a list of costs, compatibility and sizes of the parts that were there. They would then compare their lists against the amount of credit they could get from selling what was in the cargo pods before deciding what was needed the most.
Pete had quickly lost himself in amongst the aisles, bins and shelves filled with all sorts of wondrous things. He’d spent happy hours searching out the items, comparing them with the ones around them and scribbling down notes. Occasionally, his path would cross Holas’ and they’d take a quick break and compare their subsequent successes or failures.
Considering that his list was over three-quarters done, Pete had been thinking that he had been doing quite well. Now, he doubted that it’d get finished at all, let alone the fact that they’d probably just wasted half a day when they could have been buying the most important parts straight off.
He spotted Holas at the far end of the third aisle, turned and started jogging towards him. Seeing him, Holas raised his arm in acknowledgement. Pete slowed to a walk as he reached a comfortable talking distance.
“You get the signal?” he asked urgently.
Holas nodded, concern etched on his face. “I was just on my way to find you.”
“How far did you get with your list?” Pete asked as they hurried back up the aisle.
“Only half a dozen parts left to track down. You?”
“Mostly done,” he replied. “What do you think the emergency is?”
Holas shook his large, balding head. “I do not know. Hopefully it is not as dire as someone seems to think it is.”
Pete agreed, but at the same time he couldn’t imagine any of the others signalling recall unless it was a real emergency. They quickly made their way down to ground floor, assuring the foreman that they had seen many parts that they were interested in and that they hoped to be back before too long.
They turned right as they left Womblat’s Ship Parts and Machinery Warehouse, setting course back towards Landing Field Three. That was the procedure that Holas had insisted upon. In the case of an emergency, send out the recall signal and then everyone was to rendezvous back onboard Star Runner. At the time, Pete had only half-listened, he hadn’t expected there to be any trouble on the planet and even if there was, he never would have even thought that it would be considered life-threatening.
He side-stepped many different aliens in his desperate effort to keep up with the rapid pace that Holas set them down the broad street. Once, he needed to nearly dive out of the way of an approaching Dramazan who came in for an unexpected landing. Pete looked around, trying to calculate angles and approaches. He guessed that the golden alien had launched from the third or fourth storey of a nearby building.
A commotion down one of the side streets caught Pete’s attention as they crossed it. He slowed trying to see what was causing random aliens to suddenly launch into the sky, whether they had skin flaps to help them or not. Realising that Holas was getting too far ahead, Pete gave it up and chased after his partner.
Just as his legs were beginning to ache from the constant almost-run that he was forced to maintain, the gates to the field came into view. They jogged through and angled towards the Star Runner. From a distance, the ship itself looked fine. Neither the ramp nor the hatch was down or open, but that was to be expected.
He knew that it would only take a minute to check everyone’s location using their transponder signals, but he wasn’t prepared to take the time. Especially with the way that Holas was acting. Pete looked up at the purple face beside him. It was set, determined, worried. He suspected that it wouldn’t relax into its usual cheery self until Holas had set his eyes on his daughter and knew that she was safe.
As they passed into the shadow of the great merchant vessel, the ramp in the bows lurched out and down.
“Looks like we’re expected,” Holas commented.
Pete found himself slightly annoyed by the fact that Holas was barely breathing any harder than usual after the lengthy distance they’d just hurried through. He followed the large man up the ramp and through the hatch. A short screech caused him to look around. Just before the hatch locked, Pete caught the sight of the ramp retracting.
Holas quickly disappeared up the ladder, Pete following him up the two decks as soon as there was room. A short tremor and the sound of the engines engaging met him as he pulled himself through the hatch and slapped the button to close it. Holas was already rapidly retreating up the ramp. Pete chased after him, managing to slip past and onto the flight deck just as Holas strode through the doors.
Pete took in Alex and Tran on one side of the bridge, Zheen and a strange blue alien on the other and Nick at the helm. Looking past his younger brother, Pete watched in shock as the ground rapidly receded.
“What in the cosmos do you people think you are doing?” Holas boomed in a voice louder than Pete had ever guessed he possessed.
Star Runner Page 23