Jess turned the Wanderer towards the crippled cargo ship, opening a channel as he approached.
“Hello the transport. Can you hear me?”
For a few seconds there was silence, then a man's voice replied.
“Hello? Did... did you just destroy the Corvette?”
“Yes. They gave us no choice. Do you still require assistance?”
Jess knew the answer to that already, his sensor scans showed only seven life signs, all crammed into a single section of the ship which was bleeding air and heat. The rest of the ship was already cold and dead.
“Yes! Oh god yes. Please, you must help us.”
“Hold on. We're on approach now. I can see a docking port on the section you're in, we'll be latched in a minute or two. Please get yourselves ready to come across.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll be ready.”
Jess turned off the channel, turned back to Sal.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She drew a deep breath. “Wow. That was, well, incredible. An imperial corvette and you took it out with two volleys.”
Jess grimaced. “Yeah. But that was all we had. The ships reserves are really depleted, but we can use the debris to replenish.”
“What? That was... I wish you'd told me before. Then again, maybe I don't. Anyway, our soon to be visitors. You know they might be smugglers. Or worse. Pirates maybe. Not everyone the Empire takes a dislike to is innocent.”
“I know. The Wanderer can handle it. If they try to bring any weapons, guns or the like, I'll know. And if they try to attack us with anything the ship will intervene.”
“Well, you know it better than I do. What about Matt though? I'd rather he had some peace.”
“You're right. I can set the rear door so it doesn't show at all, they won't know it's there. Once he's well and back on his feet we can bring him up to speed. Lets go back and welcome our guests.”
“Don't you need to guide us in?”
“Not really, the ship can take care of that. I'll just monitor it and I can do that from anywhere.”
“That's something else you might want to keep to yourself.”
They made their way back into the main living area, just as a gentle clang announced they had docked.
“Seals are holding, atmosphere on the other side. I'm going to open both the inner and outer door so they can get across quickly.”
“What? WHAT?”
“It's OK. There's an energy curtain that will hold the air in, even if we were to open both doors onto vacuum. Um... maybe I should have mentioned that.”
“Yes. Maybe you should, Jess. Maybe you should.”
Jess gestured and the inner and outer airlock doors moved smoothly aside to reveal the refugees. Two men, one elderly the other middle-aged, entered the ship first. Both carrying heavy packs. Behind came a middle-aged woman carrying a young baby, leading a boy of two or three by the hand. Last came a younger man, mid twenties probably, and a girl who looked a year or two older than Jess. Despite the smoke stains on her clothes and face Jess couldn't take his eyes from her, she was beautiful. Long blond hair, pretty face and clothes that were tighter than he was used to seeing. With a squeal she ran forwards, throwing her arms around a stunned Jess and hugging him close.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She kept saying. “I thought we were going to die. Thank you.”
Jess could feel himself going bright red. Sal covered a laugh with a cough, not very well in Jess's opinion.
“Maybe we should get away from the freighter?” she prompted.
“Umm... yes.” Jess tried to pull himself together. He closed the outer airlock door, disconnected the Wanderer and pushed them well away from the stricken ship. Then he set the ship to sweeping up the debris from the Corvette. The girl was still wrapped around him, holding tight. He wished she'd let go. Well, maybe not. He did wish that Sal and would take that look off her face though. He turned to the two men who had entered first.
“Sirs, I'm sorry but can I ask you to put the guns in the airlock? The ammunition too.”
The two men twitched guiltily. Jess smiled.
“Really. We won't hurt you, and the guns will be safe. I'm sure you've got them for protection but there are only the two of us, so you have nothing to fear here. And we would feel much happier with the guns somewhere safe.”
The two men exchanged glances, the older nodded. Both turned to the airlock and carefully removed two pistols from their packs, and several clips of ammunition. Jess held himself tensely as they placed the guns on the floor in case they made any sudden moves, but the two men stepped back. The ship confirmed they had no other weapons so he ordered the inner airlock door to close, relaxing as he did so.
“They wouldn't have hurt you silly,” the girl whispered in his ear.
His pulse pounded again, his face felt like it was glowing. Sal still had that look on her face, clearly amused by his discomfort. She stepped towards the rest of their new passengers.
“I'm Sal. That's Jess over there, I'm not sure he's up to speaking for himself at the moment. He seems overwhelmed by the moment.”
The woman with the baby laughed, introduced herself as Kaitlin. Jess missed the other names as the girl squeezed him even tighter, pressing her face against his cheek and whispering in his ear again.
“I'm Alice. You can call me Ali.”
The next twenty minutes or so were a blur for Jess. After a few minutes Alice, Ali, loosened her grip on him, but only so they could sit on the sofa together. She sat pressed against him, holding his hand. He was uncomfortably aware of the heat of her as she leant close. The young man, Robby apparently, seemed to have taken a liking to Sal. One that she seemed to share. As she fussed around making everyone comfortable, showing them how to work the food unit, working out how to get baby milk from it, Robby was never far from her side.
Finally Jess managed to slip away, on the pretext of needing to use the toilet. Afterwards he made his apologies, saying he needed to check their status on the bridge. Sal arched an eyebrow at him, well aware that he could check from anywhere, but she didn't say anything. With a sigh of relief he made his way onto the bridge and slumped into the pilot's chair. The doors for the bridge were still only coded to Sal, Matt and him so he should get some peace for a while.
A while turned out to be a little over ten minutes. The door hissed open to admit Sal and Robby, with Ali trailing behind carrying a mug.
“Jess. How are things?” asked Sal smiling awkwardly.
“Fine. It's slow going but the Wanderer is replenishing its supplies. We're in a better state than before already.”
“Good. Good. Umm... it's been a really traumatic time for Robby. And for me. And, um, well... we thought we might go have a lie down. Get some rest. You know. Everyone else is settling down and... well...” she trailed off.
“You want some T.O.B. time?” asked Jess.
Sal flushed, then smiled gratefully at him. T.O.B. was a prisoners term. Privacy was near non-existent for them. Men, women and children were all mixed together. People still got together, the little privacy they could have came from T.O.B. time. Turn Our Backs. Jess knew the term, knew what it meant. From the occasional stolen glance had a fair idea of the mechanics involved too.”
“Yes. Exactly. Please.”
“No problem.”
Sal and Robby disappeared back towards the living quarters, leaving Jess alone with Ali.
“T.O.B. time?” she asked, walking forwards and leaning against the display board, uncomfortably close to Jess.
“It's, well, it's hard to explain.” he spluttered, feeling his face turn bright red.
“Oh.” she replied with a twinkle in her eye. Thankfully she didn't push it. “I brought you a drink. A hot chocolate. Sal said it was your favourite.”
“Thanks. It is.”
Jess took the drink, struggling to think of something, anything to say. Ali made him feel uncomfortable, clumsy, tongue-tied..
. but he wanted her to stay. Thankfully she showed no signs of wanting to leave, just leant there smiling down at him as he sipped his way through the chocolate. It seemed to calm him down, he felt less nervous, more relaxed in her presence. As he finished it he found his voice again.
“You really are beautiful.” He was shocked to realise he'd spoken aloud.
“Kiss me,” she said, leaning forwards. So he did.
Chapter Five
Jess slouched happily in the pilot's chair, right leg thrown over the arm rest, foot kicking forwards and backwards. He glanced back towards the seat behind where Ali sat. She smiled lovingly at him and he felt sure his chest was going to explode. He half wondered if he was dreaming. In less than two days he'd gone from a prisoner with no hope to captain of the most advanced ship he'd ever heard of, then met the girl of his dreams and fallen in love with her. Amazingly she had fallen for him too. He was even starting to consider asking her Ali to come back to his cabin later. He had a strong feeling she had similar ideas. Now she leant forward, started to rub his shoulders, massage them. It felt wonderful, relaxing and tingling at the same time. He surrendered to the feeling.
A spike of alarm shot through his mind, jerking him back to full awareness. Then another. The scanners picked out two ships, the imperial frigates. They must have arrived at their destination then when the Corvette failed to follow in a reasonable time returned to investigate. He'd planned to be gone long before they returned. The Wanderer had finished collecting all the debris hours ago. Why were they still here? Where had that time gone?
“What is it? What's that alert for?” Ali's voice in his ear made his pulse pound.
“The imperial frigates, they're back. We need to leave.”
“Go. Get us out of here.” She rapped it out almost as a command. Then continued in a soft tone. “Keep me safe Jess. Please.”
Of course. How could he do anything else? Jess reached for the ship's mind, felt the world around him slow. Strangely his thoughts felt clearer too. The ships were close, too close. He threw the Wanderer into a tight turn, acceleration pushing throughout the ship, blasted the thrusters up to full power and shot between the two frigates. Weapons on both gigantic ships swung to bear, but held off firing. A miss and at this range and they'd be smashing through each others shields. Neither captain had expected this move. Of course for most ships it would only buy some time, they would either have to make a run for it or be boarded. Even making it to jump space would only delay the inevitable. The Wanderer wasn't most ships. Before they reached clear space again he stretched out, yanking the ship into jump space despite the masses of the two imperial ships to either side. He'd chosen a path straight towards a blazing blue star, but kicked off onto a new heading almost immediately. Let them follow that course, see where it got them.
The sharp manoeuvring he'd had the ship pull off worried him, someone could have gotten hurt. He checked on Matt first. He was fine, not awake yet but the procedure had completed. The webbing was gone and he seemed to be sleeping well.
Jess paused. How was that possible? The last time he'd checked the procedure had only been a couple of hours in. That must have been ten or twelve hours ago for Matt to now be sleeping off the operation. And he hadn't checked on Matt in all that time? Just what was going on.
He flicked his awareness to the main living quarters, worried that the baby might have been hurt. She was fine, but what he saw chilled him. Robby and the other two men sat at the table, their guns and ammunition in front of them together with several large kitchen knives. He checked the ship protocols, weapon suppression had been turned off. By him. Why didn't he remember doing that? Worse than that, every one of the passengers had been granted full access to the bridge, full control over the airlock. Once again he had granted the access. Something was terribly wrong. Then it hit him. Sal! Where was Sal.
He flicked his attention to her quarters, knowing it might be a terrible invasion of privacy but even more scared of not finding her. His relief at finding her was short-lived. She lay sprawled awkwardly across her bed, still dressed. Her eyes were open but unfocused. Drugged. She lay with a big, stupid looking grin on her face. At least she was safe for the moment. Her door was already closed, Jess locked it. Revoked all access to the refugees. Reactivated the weapons suppression. Anyone attempting to fire a gun was going to get a nasty shock.
Then with trepidation he flicked his attention back to the bridge, not into his own body but using the ships sensors. As he'd feared his eyes were wide, a stupid smile was plastered across his face. He too was drugged. But then, how was he thinking clearly now?
The answer came from the ship, nudging into his thoughts. His brain was being accelerated many times over, supported by the new implants in his head. The electrical activity in his brain could be stimulated and simulated to reach those speeds, the glandular, chemical based thinking couldn't. The implants simulated that as best they could, but only within certain limits. They wouldn't replicate the effects of the drug. That meant if he dropped back to normal thought he'd be lost again. Now that Sal was safe he needed to straighten himself out. He had the ship run an analysis of his blood and brain chemistry, a task made much easier by his implants ability to take direct samples. It quickly identified a number of substances that hadn't been present earlier, when the implants had been growing. One, refined cocoa, was quickly discarded. It came from the hot chocolate, was perfectly natural. Seven others were present. Three were confirmed as mild hallucinogenics, another had uses as a truth serum. The remaining three were unknown. The ship was still able to guide his implants to release counter agents. Over the next few seconds in real time, what felt like long minutes to Jess in his accelerated state, he watched his body start to return to normal. The dilated pupils returned to the merely slack, distracted look they had when he was linked with the ship. The levels of the chemicals dropped away to zero and his implants kept pumping out counter agents in case of a renewed attack. Finally he let his connection to the ship recede, dropped back into his own body.
“Holy shit!” he groaned, doubling over and holding his head. While a prisoner he'd drunk moonshine a few times, had suffered the crippling hangovers it brought. This was worse, far worse. He groaned again, then felt cool fingers on the back of his neck.
“What's wrong my darling?” asked Ali, concerned. “What is it? And what happened? We were rushing between those two ships and then we were in jump space. That's just not possible.”
Jess just groaned again, though his headache was receding a little. His implants had started releasing painkillers, and other chemicals to sweep up the unpleasant residue of the drugs in his system.
“Darling, what is it?” asked Ali again.
Her fingers rubbed his neck, then she leant forward and kissed the back of his neck, leaned round and kissed his cheek. Turned his head to kiss his lips.
Everywhere she touched with her lips smarted, almost burnt, as the counter agents kicked in. Jess pulled away from her, pushed her back with a hand as she tried to lean after him.
“Lipstick? Nice touch. I guess you must take a counter agent, so it doesn't affect you.”
“What? I don't know what you mean.” She flashed him a huge smile, eyes staring into his. Despite everything his heart skipped a beat. She really was beautiful.
“My darling, I really don't know what you mean?” she said leaning in closer again. For the first time he looked at her properly, saw that her pupils were dilated. Realised that she too was suffering the effects of whatever compounds had been fed to him. Now he was able to think more clearly it made sense, explained her manic rush to hug him when first coming aboard and why she'd spent so much time with him.
“Wait here for a moment, please.” he said, forcing a smile he didn't feel at all.
“Of course my love.” She sat back, face beaming with a loving smile.
It made him feel sick, knowing it wasn't real, knowing it was forced on her. He quickly left the cabin, closing the door behind hi
m and locking it. She couldn't do any harm and he didn't want the distraction of having her around while he faced the others.
Robby saw him first. “What are you doing here? Where's Ali?” he demanded.
“She's safely on the bridge. She can stay there until we've flushed whatever chemicals you've been dosing us with out of her. I'm taking back control of the ship. Put down the guns now.”
“I don't think so!”
Robby stood, aiming and firing his pistol in one smooth movement. The sound of the gun firing was incredibly loud in the enclosed space. Almost as loud was the scream Robby let out, as he dropped the half melted remains of the gun, the palm of his hand blistered red from the heat.
“Consider yourself lucky.” Jess told him. “I set the fields to keep your hand safe. I could as easily have let the gun take your arm off when it exploded.”
He didn't know if that was true. It felt like time to stretch the truth a little. The other two men stood, grabbing long knives from the table. Jess raised an energy barrier with a wave of his arm, sealing them off from the rest of the room, and from the table full of guns. He made sure the barrier had a slightly red tinge so they were well aware it was in place. After hammering ineffectively against the barrier a few times they stood still, sullenly glaring at Jess. He glanced around the room the two trapped men to Robby nursing his hand and on to the woman and two children.
“I won't waste my time asking why. We rescued you from certain death, gave you the run of the ship and would have found you somewhere safe to live. We might even have let you stay on-board if you wanted. You tried to enslave us. You tried to kill me. We will keep you fed, looked after. And drop you at the nearest station with a decent sized population explaining exactly what you've done.”
Wanderer's Escape Page 4
