Harry Heron Savage Fugitive

by Patrick G Cox

  An idea came to her. She found her coat and slipped out, instructing the transport module to take her to the ancient church that bore the plaque commemorating Harry and Ferghal’s disappearance in 1804, and their presumed death.

  In the quiet of the ancient church, she ran her fingers over the worn brass of the plaque, tracing the lettering as she read its inscription.

  In loving memory of Henry Nelson Heron, Midshipman, serving aboard His Most Britannic Majesty’s Ship Spartan 74 guns.

  Lost at sea in a sea-fight with two frigates of the French Fleet the 30th day of November in the year of our Lord 1804.

  Born 20th May 1789.

  Died at sea 30th November 1804.

  Also to the memory of Ferghal O’Connor, Boy Seaman, and sometime stable boy in this Parish, friend and companion of the aforesaid Henry, lost in the same sea-fight.

  Born 11th February 1787 and died at sea 30th November 1804.

  She murmured a prayer for their safety, and said, “Not yet. Please not yet.”

  Chapter 15 — Contact

  Harry awoke from a dream of walking with Mary along a deserted beach, and had the distinct feeling that he was not alone. In the months that he and his crew had been living in these buildings, they had learned that any movement activated the lights in their living quarters, but there must have been no one moving about on this night because the interior was dark — unless whoever was here was invisible to the sensors, or the sensors were programmed not to respond to their movements. He tensed and listened then rolled off his bed and dropped into a crouch with his weapon ready. The lights came on at his movement.

  He stared about the room. There was nothing other than his own belongings stored where he had placed them. Everything seemed normal, but the feeling of someone or something in the room was overpowering. Then it registered — there was something. He could smell it. But what was it? And more importantly, where was it?

  A memory tickled his consciousness and clicked into place. He replaced the plasma projector in its holster and sat on his bed. He placed his hands palms up on his knees and spoke in a quiet voice.

  “Show yourself, please. I know you do not understand me, but I hope you understand that I mean you no harm, and I think you have a peaceful intention as well.”

  A large Canid materialised near the wall. Harry recognised him as the leader he had interacted with previously. For several moments, they assessed each other. The Canid placed a small object on the floor and pushed it toward Harry. As the creature moved, Harry noticed its cloak, and realised that must play some part in the Canids’ apparent ability to vanish from sight and reappear.

  “You want me to have this?” Harry asked. He reached for it cautiously, and when he picked it up, he felt a tingle in his fingers. It was compact and lightweight, and its surface shone with a luminescence from within. Harry looked up and smiled, hoping the Canid would correctly interpreted this as an expression of friendliness.

  “Thank you. But why do you bring it to me?”

  A series of growls, barks and other sounds issued from the device, and startled him so completely that he almost dropped it.

  The Canid growled a rapid response, and a voice from the device said, “I am Grakuna. Attend me. We go to the pack den.”

  The Coxswain, accompanied by TechRate Hill, crowded into the doorway. “You okay, sir? We’ve had visitors again.” He stopped when he saw the massive Canid leader, and his jaw set in a hard line.

  “How’d he get in here?”

  The device in Harry’s hands growled and yipped.

  “What the hell?” yelled the Coxswain, and he moved to advance.

  “Easy, Swain,” Harry said as the Canid adopted a threatening stance and produced a weapon. “My visitor brought this device, a most useful one, I think, for it serves as a translation tool.”

  The visitor uttered a series of canine-like yips and barks.

  The device spoke again. “We serve the Provider. We are instructed to help you. You must come to our den. Your presence here is a danger to us.”

  The Coxswain sensed a trap. He’d grown up in the rough parts of Manchester and was nobody’s fool. “You’ll take a couple of the lads with you, sir.” It was a statement rather than a request.

  “Very well, Swain, and I shall want you to keep track of where he takes us and how we get there. Make sure you take particular note of the entrance.” Harry thought for a moment. “Let Errol, there, and Hodges come with me. I shall want the rest of you to make sure we are ready to move at a moment’s notice when I return. Apparently, we must relocate. Have the men ready.” The device growled and yipped a translation.

  The Coxswain looked unconvinced. “I’m not sure you should do this, sir. Maybe I should go.”

  The leader responded with a rapid-fire series of sounds, which the device translated as, “You must all come now. You cannot delay.”

  Harry frowned. “Why can we not remain here? Why the hurry?”

  “Those who seek you are close. If you remain, they shall find you and discover that which is not for them.” The visitor adopted an aggressive tone. “They cannot be permitted to cause further damage to our Provider.” The gesture took in the entire structure around them. “We will assist you if you assist us in protecting the Provider who shelters us.”

  It took Harry a moment to interpret this. He was still hesitant. His people were safe and comfortable here. True, they were short of suitable clothes and food, but they were warm enough and able to survive. Then again, perhaps this help could give them the means to do more, perhaps even to strike at the Consortium forces that shadowed their every move.

  By now the rest of the team were grouped in the corridor outside, alert and ready with the few weapons they had. Taking in their ragged appearance — he was the only member of the group still beardless — he considered his options. So far, he had been unable to think of anything more than defending themselves if they were attacked, and to keep running. Perhaps now they had a chance to take a proactive role in the battle against the Consortium.

  He reached a decision. “Very well. Swain, clear the decks. We’re all going. If the Consortium has a patrol nearby, we cannot linger.” He grinned at a sudden thought. “They must be having a bad time of it in this brutal weather.”

  Harry was not wrong. Outside the temperatures were very low, and the winds carried fine grains of ice at speeds that stripped coatings from metal surfaces. Men moving about in these conditions needed protective suits, a necessity that had all but trapped Harry and his men inside the buildings since the snows had arrived.

  “If you’re sure, sir.” Coxswain Abram Winstanley looked dubious. Turning he gave a series of rapid-fire orders, and the men scattered to obey.

  Two miles away, a Consortium patrol commander deployed his search teams into the first of the alien structures. This was the fifth city they had searched. To his second in command he remarked, “These bloody places are creepy. Every time our tech teams set up their equipment to examine them, the Rotties appear from nowhere and chase them off. Where the hell they come from is a good question, because they don’t live in them. They just defend them as soon as anyone tries to cut a wall or force anything open that looks like a sealed door.” Indicating the cluster of buildings, he added, “Just look at these structures — nothing like anything we build, and just standing empty, but they’re well maintained. And what the hell are they made of? According to our people it’s some sort of organic material.”

  “Yeah.” His second in command nodded. “I heard about that. There’s something hiding here, and they say it is some sort of life form, but also some form of advanced tech that the Board can’t wait to get their hands on.”

  “Be worth something if they do. No one knows what generates the power these buildings run on. It’s nothing like anything we use,” agreed the senior. He spotted the signal indicating the building was clear. “Next one over, Sergeant,” he ordered on his link. “Funny th
at there’s no sign of the Rotties either.”

  “Maybe they’ve finally given up.”

  “Doubt it. The Colonel says we’ll be making a full assault to take control of several of these places so the tech geeks can do their thing as soon as summer comes.” The vehicle shuddered in a sudden blast of wind. The Commander grimaced. “I’m sick of this search. It’s tying down two battalions of our troops, and besides, I don’t think the Fleet runaways are still alive in this weather. If they are, they won’t be any sort of threat when we find them shivering and huddling in some dank cave, miserable wretches.”

  “I hear you,” said his second in command. “And from what I’ve heard, one of them may be Heron, best friends with that prisoner O’Connor they’re holding in the Iso-lab.” He glanced at his patrol commander. “I heard that wild Irishman made a real mess of their system.”

  “What, did they let him loose or something? Idiots!”

  “No, more like he broke loose. They say he got into the AI in his head while they were trying to find out how, and he altered vital parts of the program and made it fail.”

  “That so?” The Commander chuckled. “There must be something in it. Our orders are clear that if we capture this lot, and there’s a Sub-Loot with them, we’re to make sure he gets knocked out and kept out until we get him to the Base lab, so if he’s really that unchained, well, let’s hope one of the other squads finds him first.”

  Harry and his team followed the Canid leader down a ramp into the bowels of the building, struggling to carry their possessions and everything they had acquired during their long stay on this planet. Before departing their campsite, they tried to eradicate every trace of their presence, but time was against them, and they had to move out quickly. As they followed their guide, Harry was conscious of the fact that evidence of their stay would be visible to any reasonable search.

  Reaching a chamber they’d explored several times, they were surprised to find there was now a circular door leading into a tunnel in one wall.

  “Bloody hell,” exclaimed the Coxswain. “Why didn’t we see that before?”

  “More important, Swain, where does it go?” said Harry, giving him a sidelong glance.

  “It resembles the Unterbahn,” remarked Rasmus. When he caught Harry’s baffled look, he added, “The sub-surface transport system in our major cities.”

  “Ah.” Harry nodded. “I thought that might be what you meant. But the question, my friend, is where does this go, and how can we be certain our pursuers will not follow us?”

  “There will be no pursuit.” The voice startled Harry. He glanced at the device in his hands then looked at the Coxswain and Rasmus. It took him a moment to realise that only he had heard the voice. Light began to dawn in his mind.

  “You’re an AI?” He concentrated his thoughts, as he would have done to converse with the Daring.

  “I am the Keeper, Protector and Provider of the ones you call the Canids.”

  “Why are you helping us?”

  At first, there was no response, and Harry had time to wonder if he had asked the wrong question, but then, in his thoughts, he heard the deep voice of the Provider’s reply. “They plan further attacks on us. You must help my people stop them.”

  Harry took a moment to digest this, conscious now that everyone was staring at him, including the Canid. He let his question form. “Can you help us to free our friends and provide the means to destroy the enemy?”

  “I may conceal you and provide you with the means of shelter, food and movement to your destinations. I cannot provide you with weapons. Those you must construct yourselves, though I can provide the materials.”

  “Very well,” Harry acknowledged. “Then let us make our escape from here. We will need a great deal if we are to defend you.” To his companions he said, “Well? Let us go. It seems we have a task to perform in return for our safety and comfort. I will explain it as we go.”

  The Coxswain glanced at him, uncertain of what was really going on, but he kept his thoughts to himself. To his men he said, “You heard the Lieutenant. Move it! We haven’t time to hang about.”

  Chapter 16 — A Near-Run Thing

  Danny concentrated on his targeting screen. The Vengeance was taking a lot of damage. A number of systems were inoperable, and several of their weapons emplacements were damaged. Within the Weapons Control Centre, several consoles were out of action. The smell of burning metal tinged the air with a metallic taste.

  One of the operators had suffered burns when her console failed and she was caught by the flash; another had serious wounds caused by the destruction of a display screen.

  Danny locked his array onto the enemy flagship and warned his TechRates to stand by. “They are in range in twelve seconds,” he added. “Prepare to fire.”

  “Ready!” came the responses.

  “Fire! Concentrated bursts on my aiming point.”

  The bright bursts of incandescence lanced from the projectors, their focus on a damaged section of the enemy ship’s hull, which blossomed in a flare of destruction as a large section of the hull tore away. Danny’s targeting shifted to a cluster of what he took to be communications antennae.

  “Shift target,” he ordered. “Fire on my command.”

  “Ready.”

  “Fire.”

  The array disintegrated and large chunks of the other ship erupted as the bolts tore into her hull.

  “Admiral, we’ve lost the inter-ship coms array. We are trying to reroute through the long range system, but we can’t contact the Fleet.” The Communications Officer’s voice betrayed his desperation as his team struggled to reroute their communications. Mounting damage to all systems was making it increasingly difficult to keep in contact with all the Fleet components. Without the inter-ship link, Admiral Gratz had lost the ability to direct his fleet.

  “Prepare my barge. I’ll shift to the City of Richmond. At least from the barge and the Richmond I can talk to the fleet.”

  “The launch bay for the barge is inoperative, sir. We can get a launch away from the after hangar though.”

  “Make it so. The City of Richmond has a command suite I can use. Tell Captain Ahmadi to provide me with cover for the transfer. I’ll alert the Richmond from the launch.”

  “Yes, sir.” The Flag Lieutenant hurried away to make the arrangements.

  Admiral Hartmann of the North European Confederation Fleet studied the dispositions of her fleet and their enemy. “Give me the latest on the position with the landing ships.”

  “Our LSPs have been inserted, ma’am. Our cruisers have knocked out two of the Consortium Landing Ships and damaged the third. The troops are on their way down, and they are being engaged by the rest of the enemy’s cruiser squadrons — it’s fairly evenly matched now.”

  “Very well. Have we any resources to support them?”

  “Not at present, ma’am.” The Plotting Officer ran a check on dispositions. “We can give them some small stuff, but nothing more.”

  “Ma’am!” A Lieutenant called the Admiral’s attention. “Their flagship has just launched a barge — someone heading for the city class ship beyond her.”

  The Admiral stood and stared at the display. “Hmm . . . that may be the break we need. Order Victorious to close with her and engage them with everything they have,” she said. “I’d guess we must have knocked out something on the Khamenei. Gratz is trying to shift his flag!”

  “They’re recovering the barge.” The voice of the scan operator cut through the Control Centre.

  “And they’re trying to disengage. Do you want us to pursue?”

  The Admiral considered this. “Negative. They’re moving behind another minefield. Order our ships to regroup. We’ve achieved our first objective to get our troops on the ground and to knock out their landing ships. Once we’ve regrouped, we can tackle their minefields again.” She paused. “Get me the damage status on our ships, and send the LSP force some assist
ance.”

  Captain Curran spoke through the link. “Admiral, the enemy is reforming and making for the LSPs’ position. I recommend pursuit and engagement.”

  “Very well, swing us past the minefield and resume attack formation please, Ben. This isn’t over yet.”

  A new voice on the comlink caused the Admiral to pause. “Flag from Constellation. Captain Hopkins of the NASF joining with my escorts, Admiral. Where do you require our services?”

  “Constellation, you’re very welcome. Assist the Parramatta and her squadron defending the LSPs — they have their hands full.” Hearing Captain Hopkins’ acknowledgement, the Admiral turned to the Flag Lieutenant. “That’s unexpected but welcome. The Constellation was with the North American Fleet at New Washington. Admiral Howland must have detached her and sent her on.” She flexed her shoulders to ease the tension. “It looks like they’ve finally declared themselves active for the WTO.”

  “I’ll signal our thanks,” said the Lieutenant, but no sooner had he got the words out than the ship convulsed and an alarm sounded. “Damn! Hull breach. Everyone into survival suits — now!”

  Danny felt himself lift from his seat and land heavily, first colliding with one of his TechRates and then with a console as air whistled out of the compartment. Dazed, it took him a moment to realise what was happening. When his head cleared, he struggled to get his survival suit on. Immediately he discovered he had a problem — his left arm dangled at his side, broken and useless. Desperate, he forced the suit onto his body, ignoring the pain.

  “Here, sir, let me help you.” A TechRate steadied him, wrestling the suit closed. The man bundled Danny into the escape hatch and followed to cycle them through. Already the smoke was thinning as the immediate fires died from lack of oxygen. He looked at Danny’s pain-pinched face through the visor. “I’d better get you to the medics, sir — your arm doesn’t look too good.”