Loner in Space

by Steve Simons

  Paul glances at the display again and smiles as he sees that the second craft is following his path closely. Another sound is heard and Paul takes this as his clue to change course and not before time, the leading jet fighter has released a missile. Paul gets really excited, as he sees that the second craft has followed his lead and also changed course, but as it is behind Paul, the course change has a disastrous effect, well disastrous for them that is. The missile finds the second craft and explodes causing considerable damage to the craft and it dives straight for the ground. The second jet seems to be following it down, presumably monitoring its flight path to make sure it doesn't crash into any buildings or people. Paul piles on the acceleration and climbs at rapid rate. The jet fighter tries to keep up and releases another missile.

  Paul says, You shouldn't have done that, save it for the others. It's then that Paul has an idea. He slows up and changes course, making his flight path much shallower, hoping that the missile can follow him. He takes it above the other craft, then descends over the top of them, the missile following still. There's fire from the other four craft. Paul's craft is hit and alarms sound, but the hit must have been nothing vital, as Paul finds he still has control over his craft. Paul takes advantage of this by accelerating away and upwards. The missile is still following him.

  There is a sudden explosion of light points on the tracking warning display. Paul swings the craft around and shortly sees the source of the display, the leading craft has been blown to bits, it must have either moved or hit the missile with its weapons. Just what Paul was hoping for, well the end result anyway. The effect of the exploding craft on the remaining three is quite interesting, they have all separated and are dropping away from the scene of the explosion. Paul decides to take advantage of the chaos and he flies under the nearest craft, diving down. He hopes that the craft will take the bait and follow him down.

  At first the craft either doesn't see Paul's craft or it is ignoring him. Then suddenly it changes course and follows him down. Paul makes many course changes, as he does not want to be the target of their weapons. He dives down even further, there's a crash from deep within their craft as something hits a wall or the floor, due to the kick in of gravity again. Paul hopes its not his friend Dr Greenstuff. He keeps an eye on the door as well as the weapons alien, the widow and the tracking display. Paul thinks, 'No wonder these aliens have six eyes, you need them for this sort of thing.'

  Alarms sound again as a jet fighter comes in hot pursuit.

  'Right on cue, lets hope that we are not going to be it's target. Mind you that's all down to me.' thinks Paul.

  Paul is most alarmed to see that the following craft has lost it's nerve and broken off. Paul changes course also. This must be the maximum height of the jet fighter, as it does not follow them, as they rise up again. Instead it swings round in an arc presumably predicting their new flight path. Paul decides that he'll try and trick the other alien craft into following him. He buzzes the craft, passing quite close by but, from the underside. Taking a gamble on the fact that the warning systems do not warn about the presence of their own craft. Paul's craft emerges some way ahead of the craft. He maintains a straight flight path for a while, then slips off to the left. He just hopes that the fighter jet is somewhere in this region soon. The other craft seems to be taking the bait, it fires upon Paul's craft, but just at the time he changes course. Paul prides himself on predicting the craft's reaction. Paul's craft dives even further. The other craft follows and fires again. This time, it has hit part of Paul's craft. Again alarms sound. The warning screen is showing a diagram of the craft and it is flashing in the region of the room with the vending machines.

  'Cancel lunch plans.' thinks Paul and he immediately changes course, as he's not going to give the other craft the chance to get a more accurate pot shot.

  There's another alarm, it is the Jet fighter back again, but a little too close for comfort. It has fired a missile. Paul takes evasive action and heads upwards, hoping that he can lose the missile again. He scans the tracking display and apart from the craft that was following his craft, there are no others in range. Paul wonders where the other two have disappeared. The one that was following Paul, is now taking no chances and is fleeing the area, presumably figured out Paul's plan to lead the missile into its path. This leaves Paul out on his own, to deal with this missile. He hopes he can outrun it, like he did the last one. Paul makes the craft climb at a rapid rate and the missile follows, it still seems to be keeping up. Paul hopes that it will soon run out of fuel and continues his craft's climb. Weightlessness starts to kick in again. Suddenly there's an enormous bang and the craft becomes unstable and starts to descend, spinning as it goes down. The missile follows the craft's downward path. Paul tries in vein to regain control, but is unable to do do anything. As gravity bites again, the craft accelerates even faster. Paul realises that he must regain some sort of control. He experiments with the controls, not trying to fly the craft in a normal way, but trying short blasts of the engines, along with unusual setting of the directional and levelling controls. The missile seems to be gaining on the craft and will, if Paul cannot find a way to control its flight path, hit soon.

  Paul realises that it is some time since he has turned to check on the alien at the weapons station. He quickly looks round and finds that it is frozen to the spot in fear.

  Paul thinks he now has some understanding of how to achieve controlled flight of sorts. Paul applies what he has learned of the craft's current state and attempts to steer a course away from the missile. He manages to escape the missile for a few seconds, before it changes its course to get back on track. Paul tries another course change, but it backfires and brings the craft even closer to the missile. Paul quickly changes the course again, to get further away, but it takes too long to kick in and the missile just touches part of the craft, which accelerates away in response to Paul's piloting. The missile explodes, sending the craft hurtling towards the earth.

  Paul tries again to regain control, but is unable to achieve any form of control. Instead the craft continues to spiral earthwards. Paul decides to go in search of Dr Greenstuff to see if there are any emergency escape measures the least being parachutes.

  Paul walks over to the door and he signs to the remaining alien, that it is to stay here. He also signs that he is going to get help. Although the alien understands the first, it clearly is confused by the second. So Paul signs that he will be coming back. Then he sets off in search of Dr Greenstuff. As the control room door opens, Paul is shocked at the litter lining the corridor. There's also the rushing sound of air. Paul cautiously emerges into the corridor, but is glad to see no-one there. As he looks to the left, he sees that the door to cabin 4 is open and it seems to be the source of the rushing air noise. The outer wall must have been breeched by one of the hits. Paul carefully walks over towards the door of cabin 4 and sure enough there is a massive hole in the outer wall, charred and ripped metal edges are all that is left.

  There is some bedding flapping in the wind, it is just hanging onto one of the jagged edges. There's very little else left in the cabin now. Even most of the floor has been ripped away. Paul looks back at the corridor, it is then that he notices that the right hand wall is no longer smooth, instead it has several large bumps sticking out into the corridor. No doubt caused by the instant de-pressurisation of the explosion. Paul looks back at the cabin door, there is no sign of damage to the door frame, which would indicate that the door was already open when the explosion occurred.

  Paul goes back to cabin 3, the door opens to reveal an empty cabin, with bent walls and the floor has a large depression in it towards the window. Apart from this, the cabin looks normal. Paul shifts his attention to cabin 5. As the door opens, Paul is shocked to see Dr Greenstuff laying on the floor in a pool of brown liquid. Most of the walls are also splatted with the liquid. Paul rushes in to see if Dr Greenst
uff is still alive. He kneels beside Dr Greenstuff calls to him, tries to move him and is surprised how easily he moves. There is no sign of life in Dr Greenstuff's eyes. There's no sign of breathing. Paul feels desperate but doesn't know what he can do for Dr Greenstuff. He rushes to fetch the alien in the control room, who is now at the navigation desk desperately trying to gain control of the craft, like Paul had tried to do. It looks up as Paul re-enters the control room, the fear in its eyes unmistakable. Paul tries to explain why he wants the alien to come with him, but the alien is desperate to stay and try and gain control of the craft. Paul convinces it to follow him. As they pass cabin 4, the alien is as shocked as Paul had been. Then when it sees Dr Greenstuff, it rushes to his side, just as Paul had done. It checks for vital signs, then looks up at Paul, the sadness in its eyes plain to see. It shakes its head and its head falls in sadness. Paul rushes to Dr Greenstuff's side. He reaches out and grabs his hand. The tears flood down his cheeks. Whilst Paul had only known Dr Greenstuff for a matter of days, a friendship bond had formed between them, quite how strong, Paul had not realised until now. He cannot believe it, Dr Greenstuff gone.

  ~~~~~~

  Chapter 19 - As If That Isn't Bad Enough

  The alien pulls at Paul, but Paul shrugs it off. The alien does not give up. Paul eventually stands up, the alien catches sight of his tears. The alien pulls Paul towards him and hugs him. Paul was expecting the alien to try and overpower Paul and he is totally surprised at the reaction, but finds it somewhat reassuring. After a few moments the alien leads Paul back to the control room and the navigation desk. They both sit down and the alien shows Paul a combination of control moves and indicates that Paul follow suit. Paul thinks that there's no harm in trying out the alien's idea. So they both set about their synchronised effort.

  Paul gets all excited as he sees that the alien's idea is working, they have regained some control of the craft, it has ceased spiralling now. The alien indicates that they introduce some more vertical thrust to slow the descent speed. As the craft starts to spin again, they repeat their earlier moves and it has the desire effect. The downward descent is starting to slow now. They pile on a bit more thrust and it has the desired effect and not before time either, they were running out of height to play with. The craft is now gliding down. Paul hurriedly looks around for a landing site.

  Suddenly the pair of them jump as the Jet fighter buzzes them. Paul asks the alien if it knows how to make a radio announcement, but it does not understand what Paul is saying and indicates that Paul concentrate on their navigation. Paul can see the sense in what the alien is saying. The jet fighter can surely see that they are in a bad way and couldn't harm anyone. Paul suddenly spots their opportunity to land and points it out to the alien. They do their moves again and manage to align the craft with the selected landing location. The craft glides in, Paul keeps an eye on the gradually decreasing height, as well as the heading of the craft. If only he had some idea of the horizontal speed. This is all seat of the pants flying. Paul has no idea about the craft's current stall speed or other flight factors. They just have to do what seems natural for the circumstances and so far it seems to be paying dividends.

  Here comes that annoying jet again, if only it would leave them alone, they have enough to worry about concentrating on heading for their landing strip. Paul knows they are on the last leg of their journey now. Paul checks height and course. He adjusts the speed of descent as he feels its a bit too fast, he just hopes that the effect is not to increase horizontal speed. The direction is spot on. Now its just a case of waiting for the final approach.

  The selected landing site comes ever closer, but seems to take an eternity to reach.

  Here comes that jet again, its even closer this time.

  Finally, here comes the final approach. Decent rate seems about right, course bang on. Paul judges the horizontal speed to be a bit fast, so he tries to adjust this and to his dismay, the craft starts to spin. The alien looks at Paul in disbelief, as if he had attempted to sabotage their landing. The pair work at trying to stabilise their heading again. After much fiddling about, they manage to get the craft back on course. Paul abandons any hope of slowing the craft up.

  'Here we go then.' thinks Paul as they come down, he braces himself for impact and shows the alien what to do.

  When the craft hits the ground, it is still moving at some speed and tries to plough up the ground. This is despite the fact that Paul and the alien have already killed the engines. The ride is rough for Paul and the alien. They are thrown about in their seats, their heads repeatedly hitting the back of the chairs. After some minutes, the craft comes to a halt.

  The alien is unconscious and Paul knows that they have to get out of the craft as quickly as possible, in-case it explodes. He unstraps himself and then the alien. He lifts the alien out of the chair, does a fireman's lift type of carry and heads off for the entrance. The doors trigger easily. When Paul reaches the exit, he is most distraught to see that there is earth banked up, blocking the doorway. Paul retreats, heading back to cabin 4. The tear in the side of the ship is clear of any obstructions.

  As Paul surveys the opening he wonders how he is going to get through it and the jagged edges, especially as he has the alien in tow. He just knows he has to do it though. Paul gets as near to the edge as he can. He sees what appears to be a soft patch of ground below them. It is covered in grass. Paul wonders how he can get the alien down there. He won't be able to throw him, he is equally worried that the alien may get caught on one of those jagged edges. Paul carefully puts the alien down he also decides that it is time to lose the suit that he has been wearing, especially as the air is getting rather thin now. Paul struggles with the suit for what seems like some minutes, but must have only been seconds. He is glad to breath again the air or earth. Paul then goes in search of something that he can use to lower the alien to the ground.

  Paul remembers the bedding in the cabins. He rushes off to fetch this. He decides to skip cabin 5, the though of seeing Dr Greenstuff again is too much. He gathers bedding from the other cabins. Ties it together to make a long rope. Then re-surveys the ripped edge of the cabin and is glad to see a spot where there is a reasonably clear edge. Paul ties the rope round the alien's chest. Making sure that his knots are secure, but not too tight, after all he doesn't want to harm the alien any more that he is already injured. Then Paul eases the alien to the edge. He secures the other end of the rope to one of those loops on the wall (the ones that can be used in the weightlessness of space to stabilise oneself). Paul sits on the floor, grabs his improvised rope in two hands. He puts one foot against some metal that is sticking up. With his other foot, he gently pushes against the alien's arm. He hopes that he doesn't bruise the alien, he has suffered enough already. The alien's body slides over the edge. Paul tenses the rope and takes the strain, gently easing the alien to the ground. He just hopes that he has made the rope long enough. This task is quite painful as the alien is quite heavy. Paul will be glad when he feels the rope slacken off as the alien hits the ground.

  There's suddenly a tearing sound. Paul lets the rope go down much faster, he just hopes he can get the alien to the ground before the rope fails altogether. It is quite tiring to keep up this rate of controlled drop. The tearing sound continues. If only Paul knew how close the alien is to the ground, he'd know just how long he has got to keep this up. Paul is worried that working at this rapid rate, he is going to mess up positioning of his hands and as a consequence the rope will slip. The chances of Paul being able to regain control would be nil if this happens. He has to concentrate on what he is doing. If only that incessant tearing would stop.

  The rope suddenly becomes lose, all the weight has gone. Has the rope finally broken or better still has the alien reached the ground?

  Paul gets up and rushes over to the edge, there's the alien on the ground and..... oh no..... the rope
had broken, but thankfully not too high up. Paul just hopes that the alien is alright.

  Now Paul has to turn his attention to how he is going to get to the ground. He looks back at the rope snaking its way across the floor. There wasn't much rope to go anyway. Paul picks the rope up and drops the remaining slack over the side. It still isn't enough to reach the ground. Paul looks for somewhere else to tie the rope that will give him some extra length, but there is nowhere else that would be as secure. Paul remembers cabin 5, he will just have to be brave and try not to look at Dr Greenstuff. His own survival is more important now.

  As the door opens, Paul is most shocked to see that Dr Greenstuff has gone, although the brown patch is still where he was lying. Paul realises that the crash must have caused Dr Greenstuff's body to roll away. Typical that it should roll to the place where the bed is. Paul does not dwell on the existence of the body being near him. He grabs the bedding and runs back to cabin 4.

  On reaching cabin 4 again, Paul raises the rope again and ties the new bedding securely on. When he lowers the whole rope again, he is disappointed to see that it is still some way from the ground. Paul knows he will just have to jump the last stretch. Paul lays down and slides himself over the edge. As it comes to the last bit, Paul searches for somewhere to grab onto, so he can ease himself down to the rope. He sees a ledge to his left. He reaches down and grabs hold. A pain shoots through his hand, there was obviously a sharp edge underneath that he had not spotted. What should he do, try and find another spot and run the risk of finding another sharp edge, or just stick with what he has found. Paul decides to stick with what he has and minimise the damage. He swings down and catches the rope. As his injured hand also grabs the rope, Paul sees that the injury looks and feels worse than it is. He scrabbles down the rope as quickly as he can. He doesn't want this one to break. He soon finds himself at the bottom of the rope. The gap between the end of the rope and the ground is little more than he'd like, but here goes.