by Chris Ward
Caladan’s head snapped around. ‘What? Did I miss something? Dad?’
Paul grinned. ‘Can’t you see the resemblance?’
‘Are you sure you want me to answer that?’ Caladan turned to Harlan5. ‘I think need to get me up to speed.’
‘Certainly,’ Harlan5 said. ‘However, first, I would very much like to have it removed from my shoulder. I have no … privacy.’
‘If you can’t hang on, I found a pickaxe in the shuttle over there,’ Caladan said. ‘What do we do after that?’
Harlan5’s remaining eye twinkled. ‘Well, I didn’t say anything because at first I thought it was a background echo, but after I analysed the transmission, my programming realised I was right.’
‘About what?’
‘Yours wasn’t the only mayday signal the Matilda picked up. There was another.’
‘Where?’
‘It came from Abalon3.’
Caladan looked at the others, remembering what the droid had told him on the Shadowman command ship.
‘Lia,’ he said. ‘She’s alive.’
‘There’s a good chance.’
‘Ready the ship. We’re going after her.’
‘I’m afraid that won’t be immediately possible. The ship requires some repairs.’
‘Why does that surprise me?’ Caladan turned to Teer Flint. ‘How long will it take?’
The technician shrugged. ‘About ten Earth-days, give or take.’
Caladan nodded. ‘Get it done in five. We’re leaving this rock behind.’
Teer Flint grinned. ‘Aye, aye, Captain.’
As Beth and Paul headed off to assist the refugees, and Harlan5 and Teer Flint returned to the Matilda, Caladan turned away, looking up at the sky.
‘Hold on, Lia,’ he whispered. ‘We’re on our way.’
* * *
END
Untitled
Characters, races, places in Fire Flare
Jeeeb – large doglike creatures with an extra set of muscular arms at the front, with palms covered in spines
Tolgier – speak Tolgierian
Needeleen – unexplained race mentioned in Chapter Two which have a love of torture
Bilbing – tribes native to Cable’s frontier lands
Human-Droll – species mentioned in Chapter Seven having a language Lia can speak, but no other details given
Ween – catlike creatures seen on Docrem2
Marfanti – huge, lizardlike creatures from Rubin in Areola System
Loam snake – deadly snake living on Vantar’s lower levels, mentioned in Chapter Thirty-One
Blingdil – lizard bodied, spider-legged creatures from Rubin in Areola
Untitled
Characters
* * *
Lianetta Jansen
Caladan
Harlan5 – general maintenance and service droid manufactured by Gorgo Droid Company Ltd. out of Galanth in Phevius System
Beth – young girl from Rail in Areola System
Paul
* * *
Teer Flint – lizard-bodied, spiderlegged Blingdil shipyard owner from asteroid Docrem2 in Trill System. Son of Jacob Flint, supposedly deceased.
* * *
General Grogood – a human reduced to a head inside a life support system
Captain Adams –- a Jeeeb, first encountered in Upton on Cable
Revel Sind – a Ween, officer in General Grogood’s command, and entrusted with the safekeeping of the general’s head
* * *
Places / Planets
* * *
Docrem2 – Asteroid blown out of Cable’s orbit and heading for Trill Star.
* * *
Upton – small frontier town on Cable. Built on the back of a giant lizard
* * *
Dynis Moon – outlying moon around Cable
Vintol City – ruined city damaged by a crashed Shadowman battleship
* * *
Ships
* * *
Matilda
* * *
Seek-and-destroy unit – usually three ships that travel together when hunting for landed spacecraft: a larger, more powerful gunship or a reconnaissance scanner and two fighters to strafe survivors or engage any defenders.
* * *
Lumbar X transportation barge – a rubbish space ship mentioned by Teer Flint in Chapter Twenty-Five.
* * *
Gondor 3 Interplanetary shuttle – looks like a turd wrapped in aluminum foil
* * *
De-transmission ship – a Shadowman craft, two Earth-miles long, blocks transmissions between ships, making them unable to communicate during a space battle.
* * *
Class-12 Battleship – Shadowman ship, seven Earth-miles long, contains ninety gunships and/or eight hundred fighters.
* * *
Whorl – a popular card game in the Estron Quadrant
* * *
Duforn Giant Limbless Lizard – an enormous and ancient race of extremely inert but giant snakelike creatures, native to Cable in Trill System
