Killing Rhinos

by Herb Hughes

  Finally, with a flare to her movement, she tapped one last time then rolled up the milky sheet and put it back into her pocket. “I looped video of an empty corridor in every optical array from here to the shuttle. If Stephan calls up the video along the way, he will see nothing more than an empty corridor.” Then her face immediately changed back to the distraught look she had worn before, as though she were instantly a different person. “We must get to daddy. He can help. Daddy always helps.”

  She moved out of the door with Ethan floating on the plate behind her. Jack followed then went to her side once they were in the hall.

  He lifted the scrambler and looked it over again. It seemed simple. There was a sliding button on the side and a trigger. The trigger was unlike the triggers he was used to, but it was obvious enough. He didn’t move the sliding button. He was not sure what it did, but the weapon worked the way it was. No need to change anything.

  They were almost to the shuttle bay and had met no one in the corridor. Jack couldn’t believe his luck, but as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, two posthumans, a man and a woman, turned a corner and came toward them. They stopped the moment they saw Diana and Jack.

  The woman, said, “Diana?” in a confused voice. The man did not talk. Instead, he quickly reached into his pocket. Jack couldn’t take a chance. The man likely had a device like Ethan’s, something that could disarm and disable. Jack pulled the trigger of the scrambler. The jagged white beam leaped to the man’s chest before he could get his hand out of his pocket. His eyes rolled back in his head and he staggered and fell, clutching his chest as he did.

  Jack fired at the posthuman woman as she turned to try to help her falling friend. She grabbed her chest and fell on top of her companion. Diana put her hands to her mouth and screamed briefly then turned to Jack and said, “The scrambler was on high. You stopped their hearts. You killed them!”

  Jack said nothing. Anger jumped into Diana’s eyes as she lunged toward him. He lifted the scrambler but she moved too fast. Her reflexes were lightning, faster than a Rhino. She knocked the scrambler out of his hand. It bounced along the corridor then thudded into the dead posthumans and stopped beside them.

  The hand that had held the scrambler hurt more than a mere slap would account for, but he didn’t let that stop him. He punched straight at her face, not taking the split second extra for a roundhouse swing. As fast as he was, she was much faster. Her hands moved in a blur. She blocked his blow as easily as if he were a small child trying to swing. And she was strong, far stronger than he was. She held his hand firmly as she swung with her other hand, catching Jack in the shoulder.

  Jack had been in fights before and had been hit before. Nothing came close. This blow felt as if he’d been struck by Avery’s automobile. If she caught him on the side of the face with a blow like that, his jaw would be shattered. He now understood what Ethan had said about posthumans being physically augmented. This was far beyond human strength.

  Jack backed up a step, ducking down as he did, but it wasn’t fast enough. Another blow grazed the side of his head, catching the edge of his eyebrow and splitting it open, drawing blood.

  If he hadn’t ducked out of reflex, before he saw the blow coming, he would have been knocked unconscious. As it was, he was dazed. He shook his head to clear it just as the third blow caught him in the chest. It sent him flying through the air and sprawling onto the corridor floor where he slid a few more meters. He lay there for a second trying to catch his breath. It appeared that the chances of getting off the station alive were now gone. Posthumans were too fast and too strong. He was no match.

  But he couldn’t give up. Mac would fight back, so Jack had to fight back no matter how futile. He looked behind him for something, anything. The dead posthumans lay nearby on the floor. More importantly, the scrambler was beside them, only a couple of meters away. The red-headed mad woman had made a mistake by knocking him in that direction.

  As Diana stood there triumphant, hands on hips, he shook his head again, trying to clear it from the last blow. Then, as fast as he could, he rolled onto his knees and lunged for the weapon. She hesitated a moment, watching, but as soon as she realized what he was doing, she moved like lightning once again, rushing toward him. He grabbed the scrambler and swung it around and fired just as she was raising her fist.

  Diana’s eyes took on a confused look for a moment then they closed. She fell to the floor. He wasn’t sure where he had hit her or whether she was dead or alive, but she wasn’t moving, wasn’t fighting back. That was all that mattered.

  Ethan, his brain destroyed, was floating on the plate that Diana controlled. Three other posthumans lay on the floor. At least two of them were dead and possibly all three. What was Jack going to do?

  Suddenly the voice that Ethan called Stephan exploded through the silence in the corridor. “Ethan, I have your vitals. You’re okay, but something is wrong with Central. I cannot get a communication through to you. I called up the video from the nearest optical array, but the corridor is empty. Are you hiding somewhere?”

  Jack had to get off the station, and he had to do it fast. He found the control for the floating plate where Diana had dropped it, but he could make no sense of the device. There was no way he could figure out what to push. He scratched his head and took a step back. The plate followed. Of course! The controller was already set to make the plate follow. Jack rushed to the shuttle bay door with the floating plate dutifully trailing behind.

  “Ethan, please respond,” Stephan said. “I’ve now lost signals to others, including vitals. My console must be going bad.”

  Jack set the controller on the floor so that the plate carrying Ethan was directly under the glowing square that opened the door. Blood from his eyebrow dripped down onto Ethan’s white suit. He felt the cut. Superficial. Lifting Ethan’s hand, he placed it on the plate. The door swooshed open!

  Jack picked up the silver plate’s controller and hurried inside the bay, once again using Ethan's hand to close the door. The same trick got him safely into the shuttle. Then he held Ethan’s hand to the green square on the gray control panel. A burst of color and patterns signaled that the shuttle had come to life. Success!

  Jack, doing his best to imitate Ethan’s voice, said, “Station, bay door open.” He tensed. If it didn’t work, everything was over. They would kill him soon enough, but not before they jerked Sheffie’s name from his brain. Perhaps he could use the scrambler to destroy his memory, turn himself into a vegetable. He resolved to try if the escape failed.

  He looked anxiously at the view panel. Blood from the side of his face dripped down onto the edge of the control panel. There was a lot of blood. He felt of the cut again. It was swollen. Perhaps it was not so superficial, but it was insignificant at the moment.

  He hurriedly wiped the blood away with his shirt sleeve then glanced back at the screen. The left edge of the bay door was barely visible. He could not tell if it was opening since it slid from the right. It was taking too long. Had he failed? His hand tightened around the scrambler. Suddenly the right edge came into view, sliding to the left and showing the black of space behind. It worked!

  The moment the door was fully open, he said, “Shuttle, exit bay.”

  Jack jumped as a voice filled the shuttle as though someone were standing beside him.

  “Ethan, the readings show that you are in the shuttle, but there is nothing on the video. A glitch of some sort. I have not received your departure notice. I’m getting nothing at all except your vitals. What is happening down there? Where are you going?” Silence for a moment then, “Did you forget to send in your departure notice? No matter. I need you to put your departure on hold. There is a major disturbance in the corridor, close to where you are. I’m not sure what it is as the video feed is not working properly. Please return to the bay. We need you there immediately.”

  Jack did not say anything.

  “Ethan… Is something wrong?”

  Stephan was silent
for a couple of minutes as the shuttle drifted out of the bay and into space. Jack said, “Shuttle, show prior location.” The screen brought up an overhead view of the area where Jack had tried to kill himself. Killer was still standing there, waiting for him.

  “Ethan, I cannot reach you on your comm chip,” Stephan said. “You are not answering. What is the matter? If you are under duress in some manner, please give me a signal. Ah, hold a sec…” There was silence a moment then, “I have just received a report that Diana has escaped her quarters, but she is dead, as are two others. They were shot in the chest with a scrambler on full force. Ethan, please respond. What in the stars is going on? Did you… No. You couldn’t have. Not you, Ethan.”

  Jack touched a spot on the eastern edge of the screen, not far from where Killer stood. Numbers popped onto the screen at his touch. “Shuttle, land at these coordinates.” He could feel the motion of the shuttle as it went from a slow drifting to tremendous acceleration, moving at greater and greater speed as it rushed away from the station.

  “Shuttle, show station,” he said. The view changed to the receding station. He was moving away unbelievably fast.

  “Ethan, there is someone on the shuttle with you. I am picking up a reading… It’s… it’s Jack Wheat. What in the world is going on? Mr. Wheat, have you rendered Ethan unconscious? He is not responding, but he is alive. Are you controlling the shuttle? If so, stop now. I can disable you. If you do not return immediately, I will do so.”

  Jack pulled the bomb trigger from his pocket. The bomb was supposed to be large enough to destroy an entire planet, so there would be a huge explosion in the sky if he pushed the trigger. That is, if Diana had not lied. He didn’t think she had. Was the shuttle far enough away to be safe? Or would the shuttle burn with the station?

  As the seconds passed, the space station was becoming visibly smaller. Jack raced toward the planet at incomprehensible speed. The station was little more than a dot in the viewing panel seconds later when Stephan’s voice once again flooded the shuttle. “You have left me no choice, Mr. Wheat. I am overriding the shuttle’s controls. We will bring you back to the station. If you are responsible for these deaths, you have forfeited your right to exist.”

  Jack could wait no longer. He did not want to hurt these posthumans, but it was kill or be killed. He pressed the button on the oval box and hoped he was far enough away to avoid being blown up or melted by a fireball. For half a second, nothing happened. She was bluffing!

  All of a sudden he was blinded by a white flash that expanded instantly to fill the screen. He closed his eyelids tight as he turned his head away, lifting his arm to shield his eyes from the brightness. He could still see bright red through his closed lids.

  The shuttle wobbled then lurched strongly, throwing him out of the bodyform and onto the floor. The bright flash died, so he glanced up at the screen. The white had turned to yellow. The yellow turned to orange and then reds mixed with yellow and orange. Pieces of the station flew in all directions, but the pieces were small. There was not much left. None of the posthumans could have survived the explosion.

  It took a few seconds for Jack’s eyes to readjust to the cabin light. He was alive, but the shuttle had not escaped the explosion. It wobbled erratically. Still, it continued to move.

  “Shuttle, show planet.”

  The view changed to the quickly approaching planet. Features were growing larger while he watched. As the shuttle wobbled its way toward the surface, its movements became more erratic. Would he make it back to Agrilot only to crash? Die trying to get home? His stomach churned as he realized he might meet the same fate he had moments ago dealt the posthumans. But Sheffie would be safe now. Thank God he had done that much even if he died in a crash.

  The closer the shuttle came to the surface, the faster the features in the screen grew. The wobble in the shuttle’s flight grew as well. It became more and more intense, more erratic.

  The numbers at the landing spot were still displayed where Jack had touched on the view panel, but they were no longer green. They were flashing brightly in red. He was sure that meant problems, especially since that point was quickly scrolling off the screen to the left. They would not come down at the intended spot. Where would the shuttle land? Or, more appropriately, where would it crash?

  The ground was passing by so fast he was getting dizzy watching it. He turned his head away and looked at Ethan instead. During the turbulence of the explosion, when the shuttle had lurched so violently, Ethan had slid off the silver plate and onto the floor. While the posthuman’s body shifted side-to-side with the wobbles of the shuttle, his movements were those induced by the damaged spaceship. He would never move of his own accord again.

  Would the shuttle explode? Would it break apart? He felt a change in the vibrations coursing through his body. Was the shuttle slowing down? He looked at the view panel. Yes! The land did not rush at him as quickly. He saw a farm and watched it move from right to left then out of view altogether. Another building came into view, and it crossed the screen at a slower speed. The shuttle continued to slow, but the wobble was still there, still intense. If anything, it was getting worse.

  More buildings flashed by. He had just enough time to recognize a few of them. He was on the outskirts of Borderton. It would be a disaster to crash into downtown buildings. That would kill a lot of people, but there was nothing he could do. He had no control. He could only watch and hope.

  As he got lower, treetops and roofs whizzed past at blazing speed. Too fast. Way too fast. He could feel the shuttle trying to stop, but it was not slowing quickly enough. He passed over downtown Borderton. Thank God he was still above the buildings, but he wouldn’t be for long.

  Even though the bodyform restrained him as he was jostled about, Jack grabbed the edge of the control panel and braced for impact. After all, the bodyform’s restraints had not been enough to hold him in place during the explosion.

  He heard and felt a loud thump on the bottom of the shuttle. It lurched to the side. Then there were more thumps as the ship slammed into a forest, ripping off limbs and breaking off the tops of trees. It bounced erratically from blow to blow.

  The shuttle burst through a group of trees and emerged onto an open field. It lowered quickly and bounced, tilting left as it did. There was a massive old tree out in the field, directly in front of him. The shuttle bounced again then bounced several more times in increasingly rapid succession as it moved straight toward the tree.

  Finally, the shuttle dug into the earth, with grass and dirt flying about and covering the view in the panel. All he could see through the flying debris was the trunk of the tree getting closer. He held on even tighter. With a lurch forward, a tilt of back over top, the shuttle dug into the earth and came to an abrupt halt, less than ten meters from the tree.

  Jack did nothing for a moment. He felt drops rolling down his face and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Wet. He looked down at his hand. It was soaked with blood and sweat. He was weak from the mental strain of the ordeal, but he had survived the crash! The lights on the control panel no longer displayed the colorful graphs and lines and buttons. Almost everything was quick flashing red and yellow, definitely not normal.

  Ethan was crammed into the corner between wall and floor, underneath the control panel, forced there by the impact of the crash. Jack felt the posthuman’s pulse. Still beating. He tugged Ethan out and placed the posthuman’s limp hand on the square to shut down the panel. Then he looked up and said, “Shuttle, open door.”

  He heard the sound of static and saw some sparks on the side of the door. It moved enough for him to see a sliver of sunlight along the edge, but no more. If it did not open, how was he going to get out? Had he survived everything only to be trapped in the shuttle and starve to death? He knew of nothing in Borderton that would cut through the strong metal alloy that composed the shuttle’s skin.

  “Shuttle, open door,” he repeated.

  More sparks flew. The door
started to move, hesitated, and then moved again. Suddenly there was a bright shower of sparks and a loud buzz burst through the interior of the shuttle. Jack ducked and covered his head. He could feel some of the sparks hit his arms and hands and the tiny points burned where they hit. Then the sparks stopped and there was only silence.

  He looked up. The control panel was completely dead, no lights at all. He looked at the door. It was open perhaps half a meter, no more, but enough for him to squeeze through. He could see people outside, on the other side of the field. They were running toward him.

  Jack walked to the opening, moving carefully on the unlevel floor. Because of the crash landing, it was sloped at an uncomfortable angle. The citizens of Borderton rushed across the field and up to where the shuttle had stopped, at the end of the wide furrow it had dug through the pasture. They gathered around as Jack slid through the opening and jumped the short hop to the surface of Agrilot.

  “It’s Jack Wheat!” several of them exclaimed.

  Sheffie burst from the crowd and ran straight into Jack’s arms.

  “Oh, Jack! I was so worried with the way you left. You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s nothing,” Jack said. “Everything’s okay now. Everything’s fine.”

  A young woman near the front of the crowd said, “We saw an explosion way up high. It was brighter than the sun.”

  An older man in the middle of the crowd said, “What were you doing up in the sky?”

  Jack looked through the door at Ethan’s useless body then turned back to the crowd and said, “Killing Rhinos.”

  THE END