The Trimedian

by Dangerous Walker

  "Look we have to rescue Julianna and we only have time to wing it, so let's wing it."

  "I don't remember a time when we weren't winging it," sighed Milk.

  "As de man says, dat's what make it an adventure. Here be de lifts."

  "Wait, wait," said Milk as they reached the lifts, "How're we going to get down to the prison level?"

  Chase looked at Jimmy and then looked at the lifts and then looked at Milk and then back at Jimmy, back at the lifts and finally back to Milk.

  "These things are called lifts, they take people up and down," he said as if to a child.

  Milk sighed.

  "I mean they're not just going to let us wander onto the prison decks are they? There's not going to be a button marked 'prison'. There's going to be guards, guards with guns who will catch us if they see us."

  "Catch and shoot," Jimmy pointed out, "or maybe just shoot."

  "Ahh, but I have a plan for that," said Chase triumphantly.

  They both looked at him.

  "And?" asked Milk.

  "Well Jimmy and I will take you down as our prisoner."

  "Dat's it?" asked Jimmy with a hint of disbelief; well more than a hint, but he managed to disguise some of it as belief.

  "Got anything better?" asked Chase.

  "Well?" started Milk, but he didn't have anything better, didn't have anything. The whole thing was ridiculous, there was little to no way that they would get out of this alive, but then they couldn't leave Julianna to her fate either. And hell, he'd gotten out of plenty of tough scrapes with Chase before hadn't he?

  Oh well?

  "Let's go then," he said and pushed the button for the lift.

  Turned out there was actually a button labelled 'prison' which Chase smugly pushed while looking at Milk. Who ignored him.

  The lift descended and Jimmy and Chase stood either side of Milk who held his hands behind his back, they stuck close in the hope that no one would spot the fact that he wasn't actually tied up.

  As previously pointed out this was not going to win Ictopia's annual 'Best Prison Breakout Award, planning category'; that would go to Chubby Bermann who, having lost the previous year, deliberately got caught and locked up in order to escape and win, yeah it wasn't the best plan, but you had to admire the man for determination.

  The lift stopped and they walked down a short corridor of lifts and into the control room for the prison. There was a main computer console in the middle and four barred gates leading off, presumably to the cells. There was just one man sitting at the console and no sign of guards.

  There wasn't really a need for guards, no one was going to try and break in and if anyone broke out they would find themselves on a whole ship full of the type of people who put them in prison in the first place.

  "Hi there," said Chase and the man looked up at them with a smile.

  "Hi over there too," he replied. He was wearing a brown uniform, and I mean, who chooses brown as a good colour for a uniform?

  "We're bringing this man in for stealing; he needs to be locked up."

  The man looked perplexed.

  "Why would you lock him up for stealing?" he asked.

  "Waddaya mean?" asked Jimmy also perplexed.

  "Well stealing isn't a prisonable offence on a Durden ship, is it?"

  "It isn't?" asked Chase.

  "Well, no. I mean we go about stealing all over the Universe, it would be a bit hypocritical to punish someone just because they stole from another Raider, wouldn't it?"

  Milk sighed a big it's-always-something sigh.

  "Right, of course," Chase tried again, "he's actually in for murder; he murdered someone in order to steal from them."

  "Sorry, chaps, again murder is not a punishable offence, we murder people all the time."

  Jimmy rubbed his forehead in disbelief.

  "Hang on a minute would you?" asked Chase.

  "Of course," said the man.

  Chase tugged the others over to a corner where they huddled for a moment in conversation; they then retook their positions either side of Milk who, once again, had his hands behind his back.

  "How 'bout prison breaking?" asked Jimmy.

  The guard thought for a moment, "Not sure."

  "But you break out of prisons all the time, right?" asked Milk.

  "Well, yeah," the guard said unsuredly.

  "So it would be hypercritical of you to stop one, right?" Chase pushed.

  "Well, erm, yeah, I guess it would be," said the guard more sure now; I mean the logic fitted, right?

  "OK, well it's good to get that sorted, isn't it?" asked Chase.

  "Defo, mon," replied Jimmy.

  "Bit of a relief actually," agreed the guard.

  Milk stepped forward.

  "We're going to have to tie you up, I'm afraid," he said and Jimmy passed him a length of electrical cable that was handily sitting in a box labelled 'deus ex machina'.

  Have you noticed how there's always a bit of rope or cable laying around when someone needs one? It's because rope is intrinsically altruistic and in fact gains great pleasure in life by helping people tie things up. Rope will, therefore, go to great lengths to be in the right place at the right time.

  But where were we? Ahh yes, Milk is going to tie up the poor guard:

  "Now, I'm not sure I can allow you to tie me up, you know?" said the now uneasy guard.

  "But you do tie people up frequently?" asked Chase.

  The guard sighed and drooped at the same time.

  "Yes, yes, OK, get on with it."

  And they did.

  When he was nicely tied up Jimmy connected his small portable computer into the main one.

  "Cherry, locate the cell of Julianna, please," he said.

  "Do I have to?" came back the tinny reply.

  "Yes, babe."

  "You know, you'd be better off without her," suggested Cherry.

  "Just do it, Cherry," Chase commanded.

  "Fine, fine, I was just saying how a woman slows you down, gets captured?"

  "Cherry," Chase broke in.

  "OK, OK, let's have a look then, no need to get shirty. Here it is, cell 1969."

  "T'anks, Cherry," Jimmy thanked, "but screw it, can you open all the cells?"

  "Sure why not, I'm only happy doing other's wishes. Master," she added sarcastically.

  But she did what she was asked and the four barred gates slid open.

  The three of them walked to one of the gates and then quick walked back to the computer terminal as a flood of people from many different races came, well, flooding out of the cells.

  "Jimmy, find out where the escape pods are," Chase told his friend and then stepped up onto the console.

  "Everyone, everyone," he called, "you are free, but you will have to escape the ship on your own, we're never escape in such a big group. The escape pods are," he looked down to Jimmy who looked up from the computer.

  "Some on every other deck, but the most are on the very top and bottom decks," he shouted over the murmur of the crowd.

  "OK, everyone got that? Try to stay in small groups and get to the escape pods. They should take you to the nearest planet which is Peskini. Now go," he commanded.

  The people, men and women, mostly women, streamed past them and out of the prison area, and in the midst of them Julianna found them and hugged each in turn.

  "About bloody time," she grinned.

  "Hey, we're a team aren't we?" Chase asked and Julianna could do little more than nod.

  "Let us be out of here also," Jimmy said.

  They went out of the prison area and ran past the people waiting to grab a lift and those piling up and down the stairs at the end of the corridor.

  "Computer says dat dere be a door at de end, service entrance, we should take dat," Jimmy called as they ran.

  They hit the door, which thankfully no one else had spotted and found themselves in an empty, drab corridor.

  "Where does this go?" asked Milk.

/>   "Seem to have some maintenance rooms, but should lead to de hanger. Long road we gotta travel," Jimmy informed them.

  "How long do you think before the guard sets off an alarm?" Julianna asked.

  "Not long, I didn't tie him up very tightly," Milk replied.

  "What?" Chase asked exasperated, "Why the hell not?"

  "Well, he seemed such a pleasant man, couldn't bring myself to hurt him."

  "You'll be the death of me," Chase said as he threw up his hands.

  "Not if you get me killed first," Milk replied.

  "Dat seem more likely, Chase," commented Jimmy.

  They ran along the corridor ignoring the doors to left and right. According to Jimmy's computer said corridor would lead them almost all the way to the hanger, but they hadn't got far when Cherry piped up.

  "The alarm has been triggered in the prison area," she said seriously.

  "Valkswagon," exclaimed Chase even though he had been expecting it.

  "How long before they track us down?" asked Milk as they continued running.

  "It be a big ship, mon, but not as long as we need."

  They simultaneously pulled their guns, Milk giving a spare to Julianna.

  "So what's the escape plan?" asked Julianna.

  "Get to the hanger and meet with The Wild Rover," Chase explained.

  "That's it?" she asked shocked.

  "Great isn't it?" said Milk.

  "They're scanning the ship," informed Cherry.

  They piled through a door and into a similar corridor.

  "They've got you," Cherry said and she sounded a bit worried.

  "Time to expect company then," said Chase.

  They ran and hit another door, through that into another corridor.

  The door at the end of corridor opened and armed men started through, but Chase and Milk cut them down with laser fire.

  They jumped over the bodies and kept going.

  "Wait," shouted Jimmy as he stopped by a door, and they all pulled up. "This door should lead us to a translift, get us to the hanger quicker."

  "Go for it," said Chase as the door at the end of this corridor opened and laser fire burst forth from it.

  They bundled through the door into a room full of electronic parts and Jimmy led them through another door that lead to a wide, lit corridor.

  They burst into the corridor much to the surprise of the people walking up and down it and followed Jimmy at a run. Someone shouted at them and a laser blast zinged past Julianna's ear; she turned and fired, dropping the woman.

  And now they had a problem, everyone on the ship was a Raider, everyone was armed and dangerous at all times.

  Other Raiders pulled their guns and the fleeing party had to run, duck and shoot along the corridor.

  "So this is a running battle, is it?" Milk shouted over to Chase.

  "Remember to not get shot in this one," came the reply.

  "I'll shoot you," Milk shot back and then shot a Raider ahead of them before he could unholster his gun.

  Chase shot another man as he cocked a shotgun; Julianna spun and shot someone firing from behind them.

  Jimmy stopped ahead of them at the translift that went horizontally through the ship.

  They had to wait and grouped in a crouch and fired in all directions as now hoards of armed Raiders spilled down the corridor.

  Cherry hacked into the system and winged a translift their way, it arrived as the corridor became filled with laser smoke and they leapt inside.

  "I've hacked the system," she told them, "they can't stop the lift nor see where it is going."

  "But they'll cover the hanger anyway," said Milk.

  "Yeah, yeah, they will," agreed Chase. "Doc?"

  "I'm here."

  "Time to bring The Wild Rover in,"

  "Wilco," he said brightly.

  "He's enjoying this," exasperated Milk.

  "He not be getting shot at," pointed out Jimmy.

  The translift slowed.

  "Put your guns away," commanded Chase.

  "What? You want us to get shot?" asked Milk.

  "No, but we will if we have our guns out."

  "You're banking on the Doc?" asked Julianna.

  "I'm banking on them wanting to catch us, not shoot us."

  The translift stopped and the doors opened to ten heavily armed men led by Bob.

  "Bob! What a lovely surprise. Didn't think we'd see you again so soon," beamed Chase.

  "And I neither you," said Bob aiming a pistol at Chase.

  "Ahh, you know, I missed that cheeky grin of yours."

  "And you will soon be missing your cheeky grin," Bob told him.

  "Still sour about being locked up, huh?" asked Milk.

  "Something along those lines, yes," Bob replied to him. "Out of the lift."

  They stepped forward out of the lift and the Durden Raiders stepped back holding their machineguns on the group.

  "So now what? You gonna just shoot us?" asked Jimmy.

  "Oh no, no, we're going to torture you and have a doctor on hand to keep you alive as long as possible," Bob told them with a nasty grin.

  "Well as lovely as that sounds, we've actually already got a doctor on hand," Chase said and nodded his head to the hanger's opening.

  The Durden Raiders looked to see The Wild Rover hanging in space.

  And then it opened fire into the hanger.

  The gang whipped out their weapons as a docked space ship exploded and Chase shot the surprised Bob neatly through the forehead. Milk took down another two, Julianna took out three in a swift motion, Jimmy shot two and Chase took the last two.

  Raiders were now running to and fro trying to escape The Wild Rovers deadly cannons. Another ship exploded and fiery debris landed in a fuel dump which promptly exploded.

  Chase and the rest ran towards the hanger's opening as Hendricks brought the ship in. It hung there still firing, covering their retreat. Now other Raiders were appearing and firing at the ship; Julianna clocked up another four, Milk another two, Jimmy took only one (but it was a damned good shot if he said so himself) and Chase wiped out seven with his twin pistols.

  The ship landed with a bump and Julianna and Milk covered them as they boarded the ship. Once aboard Chase took the controls and lifted off as Cherry kept the anti-personnel canons blazing. The ship turned and rocketed out of the hanger.

  "Nice work, Doc," Chase said as they all took seats.

  "It's been awhile since I flew, I'd forgotten how exhilarating it is."

  "It's not over yet, there are still plenty of ships in that hanger," said Milk.

  "This is where it gets really exhilarating, Doc," Chase said as he took the ship in a wide turn. From there they could see hundreds of escape pods zinging from the ship, it was like an asteroid rain.

  "They're not going to let those pods escape," said a worried Julianna.

  "Dat's why we gonna stick around and protect them, right, mon?"

  "Too damn right," said Chase. "Time to see what this baby can really do, Doc."

  "We got Durden fighters exiting de hanger," Jimmy said looking at his computer screen.

  "Cherry take the Lechance into weapons position," commanded Chase. "Milk, you and Julianna take weapons control."

  All space ships have a mechanism that gives the ship a small gravitational field, it means that things don't break and fly off into space and that people can go out and fix things without equally flying off into space. The Lechance when shifted to the middle of the bottom of the ship however, projects a much bigger gravitational field and the designers of the ship used this as a weapons system. The Vulcan class ship can eject various weapons that will float around the gravitational field and can be controlled remotely.

  The Lechance moved into position and Chase told Cherry to release the Merrill guns. These are two spheres that had lasers opposite each other.

  In the ship Milk and Julianna's seats automatically turned to face forward and locked in; a screen came down
in front of them showing a view from the Merrill guns and a control pad that looked a lot like a play-station controller was stored in the arm of the chair.

  Julianna looked at the controller.

  "I can't do this," she insisted.

  "You can, it's quite easy," soothed Milk. "You're controlling just one gun, use the left thumb stick to move the gun and the other one to spin the gun. When a ship comes into your vision press the blue button to lock on and the red button to shoot. Press the yellow button to flip 180 degrees."

  "That's what you call easy? Why can't Cherry do it? Not me."

  "Because you're better than her," Milk explained.

  "It's not that," retorted Cherry, "it's that I am a computer and work on logic and algorithms, I don't have instinct and cannot predict something that works on instinct; that may dive or spin at illogical times."

  "And she's a rubbish shot," added Chase.

  "Shut up," Cherry harrumphed.

  A Durden fighter shot past them and Milk moved and spun his gun till the ship came into view, he locked and fired blowing it up.

  "Come on, Julianna, got lots of fighters coming up on our rear," Chase urged.

  She took a deep breath and spun the gun, flying it up and toward the back of the ship. At least ten ships were in her screenview still a good distance away and she pressed the blue button and a red triangle appeared around one of the ships, she hit the red button and saw a laser beam shoot into the distance, but the fighter was too far away and dodged it.

  They were now flying through the rain of escape pods and Chase dodged and weaved through them, then pulled a U turn and sped towards the fighters.

  "We're going to go straight through them, make them choose between the pods and us," Chase told them. "Get ready, gunners to hit as many as you can."

  "Just hit the blue button and then the red button over and over, Cherry will lock on to the ships for you," Milk encouraged.

  "OK, OK, I'll do my best," she said trying not to show her nervousness, if she failed to hit these fighters they might destroy the pods containing innocent lives.

  Good, no pressure then.

  On her screen she could see the fighters getting bigger; they were like a swarm speeding towards them.

  "Reckon dis is gonna work, bro?"

  "I'm banking on them not realizing how fast and nimble this ship is, they see big and think slow."

  "Ten space pounds I can take out ten ships as we fly through them, Doc," Milk wagered.

  "At these speeds? No, not more than five," Dr. Hendricks replied.

  "It's on then," Milk looked at him and winked.

  "Comin' into deir weapons range," Jimmy announced and sure enough the swarm of fighters opened up a barrage.