by GARY DARBY
“Shut up!” the young woman snapped, her blues blazing in anger. “If you couldn’t get the others then you should’ve just stunned her and left her. By now they’ve alerted the preserve rangers, and we’ll have half the planet scouring the woods looking for her and us.”
“But boss,” the target of her wrath pleaded, “we couldn’t just leave her. I think maybe she saw us. If she did, she could identify us to Imperium Police.”
“Maybe!? Maybe she saw you!?” the woman exploded in fury. “You turtle-brain, she saw you and the ship when you brought her back here. You dosed her again, right?”
“Yeah. We dosed her really good this time. She’s out,” the man replied. “But what are we going to do now?”
The poacher called Bianca declared, “This is what we’re going to do. You two check the three traps we set this morning. Lel and I are going to check the one we set midday.
“Then he and I will put the ship into ready configuration for flight. Once your skinny tails are aboard we’re going to boost out of here.”
“And the uh, young lady?” another man asked.
“She’s got to go with us until I can figure out what to do with her,” Bianca replied in a cold manner.
“Huh? But that’s kidnapping!” the man protested.
Dason could almost hear the woman groan in response. “And what do you call it when you stun someone, drag them through the jungle and put them aboard a ship against their will?
“A polite invitation to a party? You idiot, you’ve already snatched her. Now go—get out there and check those traps.
“And remember, the fix is in for only two more hours and then our stooge goes off duty at training control. If we don’t lift by then, planetary radars will pick us up, and we’ll have to sit here until Imelda makes another payoff.
“But I’m not going to stay in this stinking hot jungle another hour with our guest on board! So we lift with or without you in twenty minutes. Now move!”
The two mumbled replies and hurried away. Dason and Sami poked their heads up to watch the two pairs split and go off into the jungle. Once out of earshot, Dason whispered over the communicator, “Nase, Shanon—”
“Go ahead,” Shanon responded.
“Rendezvous time. Burnt tree, right side of the clearing, three meters in. Careful, at least four poachers in the area.”
“Understood,” she replied. “We saw them, on our way.”
Sami spoke to Dason earnestly, “There’s only four, we can take’em.”
Dason asked Sami, “Are you sure there’s only four? Might be more in the ship, you know.”
Sami opened his mouth, shrugged. “Didn’t think of that.”
“But,” Dason responded, “we at least know TJ’s alive and where she is.”
“Check,” Sami agreed. “And not only that but they let us know they’re planning on blasting outta here in a few minutes. We need to do something and quick before those four honchos get back.”
Several minutes later, a soft click-click like the sound of a bird tapping its beak against wood echoed nearby. The signal repeated itself. Dason spoke softly over the comms, “Got it. Bushes four meters from burnt-out tree.”
In a few moments, Shanon, and then Nase poked their heads out from under the underbrush to join Dason and Sami. The young scouts put their faces together, and Dason recounted the poacher’s conversation in quick, but muted tones.
When he finished, Shanon asked, “So what now?”
With a slight shrug, Dason replied, “It’s obvious we can’t wait until they get back. No one’s answering the emergency call, so I’ve got to go in for her.”
Sami whispered, “What’s this I business, did my lousy hearing not catch the we part?”
Dason shook his head. “These are bad people with bad weapons. They’re playing for keeps. I lost TJ. I am not going to risk losing all of you. I go in. Alone.
“You three go to ground and keep watch. If they space and TJ and I don’t get out, or if something happens to us, well, head for training control and get help.”
The three listening novices glanced at each other with arched eyebrows. Sami gestured toward Shanon, “Do you want to do the honors?”
Shanon bowed her head to Sami. “With pleasure.”
With studied formality, she turned to Dason. “Novice Scout Thorne, under Star Scout Regulation one-alpha dash three, subparagraph six, I relieve you of duty as team leader.
“Justification: Mental stress has affected your ability to make rational decisions. Do the other team members concur in this matter?”
Nase nodded his head and replied, “Yes,” followed by Sami’s, “Without a doubt.”
“Wait a minute,” Dason countered. “I’m not overstressed, and what regulation is that? I don't remember any such reg that covers relieving a team leader.”
Shanon sniffed with a delicate air. “We studied it the two days you spent in the hospital with your broken leg. Your fall off Half Dome, remember?
“You were very stressed then, too. Forgot to set your grav-piton’ deep enough in the rock fissure.”
“I did set my piton’ deep enough,” Dason replied in a dark tone. “The rock fractured under the weight.
“And I wouldn’t have broken my leg,” he continued, turning to Sami, “if someone had been paying attention to my belay line and slowed me down before I hit the ledge.”
Sami looked at Shanon with sad eyes. “Tsk. Tsk. Selective memory. Stress does that, you know. Short-circuits the mind, causes a dysfunction in the uh, well, you know, where your brain remembers things.”
Nase reached out to stop Sami. “TJ—cruiser.”
Dason shook his head and half-laughed. “Okay, okay,” he grumbled. “I recognize a conspiracy when I see one. I give up, we all go.”
“Conspiracy? Please,” Sami retorted, “it’s more of a democratic mutiny.”
“Call it what you want,” Dason declared.
“Enough chatter. I’m going in for TJ. You want to come? Fine. Let’s assume there are no poachers in the ship. Shanon, rear-guard on the ramp. Nase, you and Sami with me. We’ll figure out the rest when we get inside.
“Questions? No? Scouts Out.”
The four sprinted across the clearing, hoping that there wasn’t anybody left in the cruiser or that the poachers outside wouldn’t spot them.
Hitting the ramp at a dead run, Dason, Nase, and Sami sped up the incline and threw themselves through the open airlock hatchway into the ship.
Dason turned and poked his head out. Shanon slid to the ground and made herself small against the metal ramp’s base. “Shanon, you okay?” Dason asked through the comms.
“I’m okay,” she replied. “Not a lot of cover, but it’ll do.”
“How about visibility, can you see around the ship?”
“This side, yes,” she answered. “But the strut-pylons are blocking some of my view of the other side.”
“Guess it can’t be helped,” Dason responded. “Do your best to give us a heads up.”
He turned and joined Nase and Sami in a short entrance corridor. With backs to the metal wall, they listened for anything that might give them warning that the poachers knew they were aboard.
But only the metallic clicks and whirring’s of the ship’s machinery disturbed the silence. So far there didn’t appear to be anyone else in the vessel.
Creeping in silence with their backs against the smooth metal bulkheads, they came to a corridor intersection and stopped.
Dason poked his head out and looked both ways, but didn’t see anyone. He whispered, “It’s clear. You two go forward, I’ll head aft. If you find TJ, get her out quick.”
His face became firm, his jaw set. “With or without me, understood?”
The two nodded and slipped around the corner. Dason moved along the deck plates towards the craft’s rear.
He crept up to the first inset bulkhead door and ran his hand over the entry pad. The door recessed into the wall, and he found hi
mself looking into a small stateroom that appeared to be a poacher’s sleeping quarters.
The small, fake Womba Bear on the narrow bed made him think it must be the female outlaw’s room. He shook his head in puzzlement.
The stuffed toy, mimicking the star beast’s soft texture didn’t match the rough and tough personality the young woman had presented out in the jungle.
Dason pressed the button to close the door and continued down the passageway. Two more doors led to empty rooms. Nearing the narrow corridor’s end, Dason found a transverse passageway which led him to a series of compartments.
He waved his hand over the entry pad and the door slid open. A soft, dim light permeated the chamber. Inside, Dason found two stasis chambers, each holding a sleeping star creature.
The first held an animal he didn’t recognize, but inside the second slept a beautiful rainbow-colored Gallor Mountain Sheep from the Shengar planetary system.
Dason’s gut feeling told him that the poachers had caught these two within the training grounds and it was probable that there were more XTs aboard.
He stepped from the ship’s hold and started down the passage when he heard Sami’s voice in his earpiece. “TL, this is Searcher One.”
“Go ahead.”
“Found her! She’s in a small infirmary; unconscious but looks okay otherwise.”
A heavy load seemed to lift off Dason and in a voice tinged with thankfulness he ordered, “Get her out. I’m on my way to the entry hatch.”
Dason turned to rush back to the main passageway when he heard Shanon exclaim through the comms, “TL, we’ve got trouble! Bad guys inbound.”
Dason raced down the metal tunnel. “Do they see you? Can you get away?”
“No, to both. If I try to run across the clearing, they’re going to have a clear bead on me. I may be fast, but not faster than a laz-gun shot.”
Dason made the only decision he could think of and ordered, “Get inside the ship. Stop at the first intersection. I’ll meet you.”
Without stopping, he asked, “Nase, Sami. Can you wake TJ?”
“That’s a negative,” Sami answered. “We tried. She’s really zonked.”
“Stand by,” Dason replied, “and don’t move her just yet.”
Running hard, Dason tried to think of what to do. Jump the four poachers after they boarded the craft? Risky business, knives and hands against L-guns in a close-quarter fight.
The entry hatch! Could they seal the airlock and prevent the renegades from entering the ship?
There might be another entryway to the vessel that the scouts didn’t know about, but it was doubtful. Most small space cruisers like this one had only one main cargo or passenger portal.
“Shanon,” Dason spoke with urgency, “see if you can retract the ramp and seal the lock so the poachers can’t get in!”
“Understood,” Shanon replied.
Dason struggled with what to do with TJ. If they tried to carry her and got into a fight with the poachers while she was unconscious, she could get hurt, even to the point of putting her life in jeopardy. If they left her there, at least she would be safe for the time being.
He agonized over his choices before saying, “Sami, Nase, leave TJ for now. Meet us at the main intersection. If we can’t seal the ship, then we’re going to have to either jump these guys when they board or find a hideaway. Fire it up, we don’t have much time!”
“Roger,” Sami replied. “We’re gone.”
Dason rushed up to Shanon. “No good, Dason,” she began. “They’ve preprogrammed the door to a secure code. If I had more time, I might be able to do a workaround and close it. But not now, they’re almost here.”
Dason looked at the tiny computer keypad and then at Shanon’s anxious face. “I should have thought of bringing you in and sealing the hatch in the first place. Now we’re trapped.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Shanon replied. “None of us thought of it either.”
Dason thought for a second, grabbed her shoulder and pulled her way. “Head for the intersection,” he ordered.
Dason and Shanon raced for the T-section where they almost ran head-on into Nase and Sami. The three looked at Dason, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to make the next decision.
Taking a deep breath, he met their expectant gazes. “The Scoutmaster once said that only the foolish die a foolish death. Let’s not be foolish.
“We’ll choose our own time and place to fight. But this isn’t it. Let’s see if we can find a place to hide on this rust bucket. Follow me.”
Shanon gripped Dason’s arm. “What about TJ?” she demanded. “We can’t just leave her.”
“Shanon,” Sami interjected, “TJ’s in stun sleep. She had a cut on her head, but someone had covered it with InstaHeal. If they meant to hurt her, or do worse, they wouldn’t have given her first aid.”
From her taut expression, it was clear that Shanon struggled with Dason’s decision before she gave a curt nod of acceptance.
“Head aft,” Dason ordered. Before they reached the crosswise portal, gruff, angry voices came from behind them.
The poachers! Entering the ship and arguing among themselves.
Dason scanned the passageway and gestured toward a nearby compartment hatch. “In there.” The door led to a small, empty cubicle.
Pointing, Dason murmured, “See that grill where the bulkhead meets the ceiling? It leads to the service ducts that—”
“Run the vessel’s entire length,” Shanon finished for him.
“Right,” Dason replied, “and wide enough and tall enough for us to hide in.”
Dason reached for the hatch’s release button. He glanced around, saying, “Better hope this thing isn’t patched into some monitor board on the flight deck. Be just our luck to have some flashing pee wee light give away our location.”
“No choice, push it!” Sami declared.
With a quick jab, Dason hit the tiny button and the grill swung down and to the side. He pulled Sami over and gestured upward. “Give me a boost.”
With his feet locked in Sami’s hands, Dason reached up, grabbed the lip of the opening and with a little help from Sami, leveraged himself up through the hatch and into the duct.
Turning to lie on his stomach with his head and shoulders jutting over the opening, he directed, “Nase, then Shanon. We’ll pull you up, Sami.”
One by one the three climbed through the metal portal. Once inside, Dason hit the reset button on the duct wall and the hatch securely sealed itself.
He leaned back against the bulkhead and took a deep breath. Bundles of micro cables and finger-sized silvery tubing were pressed against the conduit’s walls. It was cramped, but there was enough free space that it was well suited as a hideaway.
With a loud sigh, Sami lay down on the floor, his head resting on the hard metal. Nase and Shanon both half-sat against the wall, their heads resting on crossed arms on their knees.
Their expressions told Dason that not only were they weary, but the day’s adrenaline rush was wearing off and in its place there was a deep sense of anxiety. He felt the same with one overriding thought; what was going to happen next to them and to TJ?
A rumbling vibration through the metal walls announced that the poachers had begun powering up the vessel’s propulsion engines.
Nase gave Dason a questioning glance. “Grav generator?”
Dason shook his head. “I don’t know. Do you think they’d boost out without revving up the artificial gravity?”
The roar grew louder and louder. Dason reached over to push Shanon and Nase to the floor.
“Hold on,” Dason directed. “If they didn’t fire up the grav generator, we’re going to have to ride this out without grav seats, and it’s going to hurt.”
Moments later, Dason felt like someone, no, several someones, had jumped and landed squarely on his chest as the space cruiser blasted off from the jungle and headed off into the cosmos.
Chapter Seventeen
The Poacher’s Ship
Agonizing minutes later, the ship powered down. Dason and his teammates roused themselves from the conduit’s metal plates. Dason grimaced and sat up, rubbing one shoulder that the acceleration force had bent into an awkward and painful angle.
“Everyone okay?” he groaned.
“Ugh,” Sami wheezed. “What sat on me, a coupla thousand kilograms of Sumo Beast?”
“Wow,” Shanon gasped. “How many g’s was that?”
“Not sure,” Dason replied as he stood on unsteady legs. “But I can tell you it was more than I’ve ever taken in the centrifuge. That hurt.”
“Hot, quick burn on standard propulsion through the atmosphere,” Nase observed.
“They were in a big hurry,” Dason observed, “to get off-planet.”
“I know this sounds like a dumb question,” Sami muttered, “but do we have any idea where we’re headed?”
They exchanged glances, aware that they had no idea of the ship’s course, and worse, how were they going to get themselves, along with TJ, off the poacher’s vessel.
“Okay, no answer to that one,” Sami replied, “how about this then, what do we do now—sit here and pick lice out of each other’s hair?”
Shanon made a face. “Yeck. That sounds like good clean fun.”
Dason stressed in a firm voice, “What we need to figure out is what the human lice in this ship are up to, and most important, check on TJ.”
Glancing up and down the head-high metal tube, he said, “We can use these conduits to move around the ship. If we’re careful, they won’t know we’re here.”
Gesturing toward a plate on the bulkhead, he noted, “We're at bulkhead thirty-six, center-line conduit. This is our base point until we find something better.”
He thought for a second. “Shanon and I will go forward, see if we can check on TJ. Nase, Sami, head aft and poke around. If you find their armory, see if you can grab some weapons. We’ll meet back here.”
“And if we can jump a bandito or two, and take them out, do we?” Sami asked.
