Ship's Log

by Lawrence P White

  Jarl grabbed Arlynn’s arm and pointed to a newly cleared pathway leading straight as an arrow to the far side of the cavern. Smoke poured heavily from a circular opening there. Surveying the damage with looks of horror and dismay, they both agreed that something must have shorted out the controls for the ship’s laser and caused it to discharge. The beam had exploded out of the ship, disintegrated everything in its path. The beam probably continued far beyond what they could see. For all they knew, it might have opened a new exit to the outside.

  Klaxons blared, and bright lights came on throughout the cavern as Jarl and Arlynn raced to the last ship. Inside, they fanned their lasers across control panels, but the damage was probably not enough to disable the ship. They raced for the power room where Jarl worked on several of the coils mounted to the field generator. He sliced most of the way, but not all the way, through their mounts with the laser. Though he was not certain of the coils’ purpose, he was confident they would fail with just a little jostling.

  They left the ship at a dead run, then skidded to a stop when Arlynn yelled and pointed a with raised arm. Thick smoke from the laser strike was spreading across the cavern, but on the far side of the cavern, a huge maw had opened to the outside.

  Of course! The Harbok had opened the main entrance. Maybe they could get out that way.

  Scattered groups of Harbok wafted their way through the haze and smoke, coughing and confused, all of them in various stages of undress. None of them appeared to be armed. Jarl led as they scrambled from one hiding place to the next.

  Smoke rolled across the hangar floor in waves. As they neared the center of the base, Jarl, choking and fanning the air with his arms, rounded a huge crate and literally careened into a lone Harbok. Both fell to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, with Jarl on the bottom.

  Their eyes locked for an eternal moment, then the Harbok readied a warning cry. Jarl, despite his beliefs, placed his laser against the Harbok’s head and pressed the button. Arlynn gasped. Then, with her eyes clamped tightly closed, she turned and retched.

  She had no time to be sick. She scrambled to Jarl’s side and struggled to remove the heavy corpse, then she turned to help him up. His eyes were screwed shut in pain. She took both of his shoulders in her hands and shook him hard, then she slapped him across the face. That got his attention.

  “My leg,” he moaned between clenched teeth.

  The leg was bent at an odd angle near the ankle, broken. Arlynn looked around in consternation, then she yelled into his ear over the sound of the klaxon, “You will not give up! Wait here!” She dragged him up against the crate and started searching for something to use as a crutch.

  They were far from the exit. Arlynn knew she could not support Jarl, carry the bag, and hide from the Harbok all the way back to the ship. She had to find another way.

  The Klaxon abruptly died, and her options evaporated. Knowing there was no alternative, she reached decisively for the bracelet on her ankle and keyed in a code. She turned back to Jarl, hoisted him to his feet with his arm across her shoulders, and headed for the heaviest smoke, still dragging the bag of stolen parts. Jarl exchanged the laser for his blaster, though his eyes spent most of the time shut in pain.

  It had to happen. Passing under the last ship with their vision severely restricted by smoke, Arlynn spotted a group of a dozen Harbok. They saw her as well. As they started moving toward her, Jarl’s blaster went off, almost right under her chin. She collapsed to the floor, taking Jarl with her. When she looked up, she saw the Harbok scrambling for cover, though one writhed in agony on the floor. Jarl fired several more shots to keep them down, then he and Arlynn crawled on their bellies toward the brighter light of the opening.

  Sporadic blaster shots passed behind them in the thick smoke. Jarl held his fire, letting the smoke camouflage their progress. Moments later, though, the smoke thinned for a moment and they were exposed. Jarl, lying on his back, fired madly toward a Harbok hefting a blaster as Arlynn dragged him by the collar toward cover behind a towering crate. The Harbok stood up in a crouch and sprinted to the side, firing as he ran, but he collapsed when Jarl’s shot struck true.

  The light pouring through the opening failed. Arlynn turned with a look of horror, expecting to see that the force field had reenergized and closed their exit. Instead, what she saw brought a lump to her throat. Looming out of the smoke, the black snout of Jarl’s ship glided majestically, silently, without apparent concern into the carnage within the cavern, blocking some of the light and gently scraping aside everything in its way. Smoke swirled about the ship and the combatants as she frantically pushed keys on the bracelet to command the ship to stop.

  Jarl turned to her with a look of awe, then he remembered his job and started firing again. Arlynn frantically dragged him toward the ship, which was itself now bearing the brunt of the Harbok blasters. That was of no concern to her—the ship was impervious to these small weapons. The smoke intensified again with the ship partially blocking the opening, and Jarl held his fire, concentrating instead on crawling toward his ship. Arlynn drew her own blaster as she forged ahead with the bag of stolen goods.

  As she approached the ship, she keyed the bracelet. The door opened, and a new source of light from inside the ship pierced the smoke. The Harbok responded with a rapid volley of blaster and laser shots toward her, Jarl, and the empty opening to the ship. Then the Harbok rushed the ship. Jarl fired madly, followed a heartbeat later by Arlynn. Several Harbok fell. The rush failed, and two more Harbok fell as they retreated. Before they regrouped, Jarl pulled himself to a sitting position against a heavy crate with his blaster held before him in both hands. He set up a continuous pattern of fire.

  “Get to the ship,” he yelled.

  She ran in a crouch, the bag held protectively in her arms. She leaped through the door, flung the bag across the floor, and turned to lay down covering fire for Jarl. Just then, Jarl went down amid a hail of blaster shots. He collapsed into a crumpled heap on the floor of the cavern.

  Without thinking, she jumped down from the ship, screaming his name, then she opened fire on the first Harbok she saw moving through the smoke. He went down, and she moved her aim to the next. That one also fell. Then all the remaining Harbok concentrated on her, firing wildly. Somehow missing her, part of the barrage impacted harmlessly on the skin of the ship, but some shots found their way into the ship itself to wreak havoc. She dove back through the door and slithered on her belly until clear of the opening. Shots ricocheted all around her. The engineer’s panel, located directly across from the door, took a terrific beating. Then the computer compartment just aft of the engineer’s station took two hits, the first blowing away the cover, the second penetrating to the interior. No! There would be no escape if the ship failed to function.

  She crouched down beside the doorway, flinching as blaster shots exploded nearby, to peer carefully at Jarl. It only took a moment. In her heart, she knew he was gone. Firing several quick shots without aiming, she stood up and threw herself across the open door to touch the door-close pad.

  A searing pain engulfed her as she slapped the pad. She was hit! With a shriek of terror, she collapsed as the door snicked shut.

  Her next recollection was of lying helplessly on the floor engulfed in pain, her mind only functioning at a primitive level. She was aware enough to know she was hurt, and she was aware enough to know that, unless she did something soon, her mission and Jarl’s death would be wasted. She willed herself to move. Crawling was acceptable, walking was not possible. When she found the courage to look, she saw why. The left side of her body had been turned into a frightening mess of exposed flesh, blood, oozing fluids, and black and red tendrils of peeling flesh.

  Thoughts of the Harbok, the cavern, and the sound of shots echoing off the sides of the ship receded from her reality. Her focus narrowed to reaching Jarl’s seat, nothing more. She clamped her teeth together and closed her eyes, forcing her arm and leg to move, each small motion a victory. Wh
en she reached the command chair, she set a new goal, focusing all her energy on getting into the seat. Her burns screamed in protest, but from within her detached reality it did not seem to matter.

  Barely able to think, she desperately wanted to break out the medical kit for painkillers, but survival demanded escape from the Harbok first. She was only inches away from one Harbok ship and close to three others. Not only that, she was inside their base. Surely, they must have more powerful weapons. It was just a matter of time before they got their act together.

  Backing the ship out was not a problem. If she made a mistake, the ship would not permit itself to be damaged. It was much too smart to allow that. She touched keys on the armrest, and the ship shot backwards. As soon as she cleared the entrance, she reversed direction. She was halfway through a steep climbing turn, the ship’s belly directly in line with the opening into the base, when a Harbok fighter loosed a shot from inside the base. Her ship lurched, something she had never felt before, and her screen blanked.

  She’d been hit! Worse, her shields were down.

  She slapped the control for maximum shielding and forced herself to concentrate. The fingers of her right hand danced across the keyboard on her armrest to activate the tactical mode, the standard method of flying the ship during battles. Her screen blanked momentarily as it reset itself, but then it stayed blank.

  This was not right.

  She quickly reconfigured to the normal flight mode and reduced shield strength slightly. She was alone and climbing away from the base. A few keystrokes caused the display to scroll through various views outside the ship. There was no one behind her.

  She leveled off and increased speed, then she turned in the general direction of her own ship some one thousand miles to the southwest. How badly was this ship hurt, she wondered? She called up the tactical mode again, but the screen remained blank. That meant her fighting mode was dead. She still had control of the ship in its normal mode, but without the tactical mode, it would be time consuming to look behind her. She would be at a serious disadvantage if the Harbok came after her.

  She experimented cautiously with the controls and realized that the ship’s movements were also restricted. Could one well-timed shot by the Harbok have done so much?

  She thought about the blasts hitting the interior of the ship, particularly the compartment housing the main computers. She needed to get back there and examine the damage, but if she managed to get out of the seat, she knew she would never get back into it. Panic threatened, and she struggled hard to keep focused. She was her only means of rescue. She could not allow herself to collapse as she so wanted.

  Then she remembered. Jarl! He was gone. And she had killed. She had taken the life of another being. She closed her eyes, wishing with everything she was that she could go back in time just a few hours and make different decisions. Such an incredible nightmare.

  The ship lurched. She instantly came back to the present with wide, fear-filled eyes. Yes, her screen glowed—she had taken a hit. The screen would soon refresh, that was not a concern, but who had shot her? She turned sharply and dove for the ground, held that angle for a moment, then executed a steep climbing turn and flipped onto her back. Reducing shield strength slightly, she let her sensors refresh the screen.

  There it was—a Harbok ship above and to her right. She activated the laser weapons system, quickly locked onto the target, and fired. The Harbok responded with a glow and sprinted away, then it reversed course and shot back in front of her. She fired again, then without waiting for results, she twisted the stick and jammed the speed lever forward, sprinting away.

  Where was it? Without the tactical mode, looking behind her ship was cumbersome. She took more hits, but the shield was holding so far. She needed to get off-planet, but the wounded ship would not respond to those commands. Where else could she go? This was Jarl’s ship, one of the newest armed fighters. Her unarmed exploration vessel was still functional, but she could not afford to lead the Harbok to it. What could she do?

  Crack! Hit again! She flipped the ship onto its back and dove, reversing direction. There it was. Probably surprised that she had finally done something, the Harbok stopped in mid-air. She locked on and fired twice. Its shield lit up, and it shifted away from her at high speed. She turned and headed southwest, with no destination in mind other than her ship, though she knew that going there was out of the question as long as the Harbok was here.

  She had nowhere else to go. She wandered, constantly jinking the ship to avoid the Harbok’s attempts to breach her shield, knowing that it was just a matter of time before another Harbok joined this one. That would be the end of her.

  How badly had she and Jarl damaged the other ships? At least she could see this one. That meant they had successfully damaged its cloaking device.

  Her thoughts returned to the gray bag. Her people needed its contents. She was in their newest and best-armed ship, but she was at a severe disadvantage with the computer system and herself damaged. What could she do?

  The solution horrified her. It was not her way. It was not who she was. Killing was wrong. Yet there were no other options if she was going to get the bag back to her people.

  She would have to stay and fight.

  Chapter Ten

  Greg adjusted his headset, then he checked his position on the chart, but his mind was focused on the decision Arlynn had made. The choice would have been simple for him, but from the little he had learned about her in the past few days, he knew her choice had been difficult and complex, very much at odds with her beliefs, and all this despite horrific wounds. She had placed her mission above her morals, and the choice did not sit well with her.

  He turned to her and found her staring at him with an uncertain look in her eyes. He reached a hand out and caressed her cheek. “I appreciate what the choice meant to you,” he said. “I personally think you chose well, but it’s not my place to judge. I hope your people will not judge you harshly.”

  She took his hand and pressed it harder to her cheek with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she said softly into her microphone, “You have a gift for saying just the right thing.”

  “We’ve both been making hard decisions lately. Thank you for trusting me with your story.”

  “You earned the right, Greg. Had you not come to my rescue, I would be dead now. My fight with the Harbok ship is hazy. I don’t understand the feelings I felt when pulling the trigger, but the feelings were there, and I remember them.”

  “Why did the Harbok ship blow up? Did you hit it?”

  “I hit it many times, but I don’t know if those hits caused its destruction. To explain our weapons and shields would take more time than we have and would involve subjects I am not permitted to discuss with you. Let me just say that some luck is involved in getting through a shield, a direct hit does not usually penetrate, and even when it does, it must hit something critical. There is tremendous energy in these anti-ship lasers, but the ships are capable of dissipating large amounts of that energy. I might have hit something vital while it was concentrating on you, or the damage Jarl and I did while we were in their base could have caused a catastrophic failure.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “I had no idea why it was so interested in you until Nancy explained about the microphone. Why did you stay in the area?”

  He grimaced. “How far away could I get in this floatplane? I got the impression you were staying with me, that you needed help. Eventually your shield failed.”

  She looked at him strangely. “You knew? You figured that out in the middle of a battle? Is that part of your warrior training?”

  That angered him. “Arlynn, I’m not a warrior, at least no more warrior than you are spy. And thinking under the pressure of battle is no different than thinking under any other pressure. You do it or you don’t, you play the game with whatever cards you’ve been dealt. I was scared during most of that battle. If you want to talk about warriors, remember it was not I who pulled the
trigger on those Harbok. In fact, I wept over their deaths. The whole thing is tragic, as is almost all fighting. And don’t confuse what I said with right and wrong. I’m not at all sure how to apply that to fighting. In some cases, fighting might be necessary, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s tragic. You and I might differ by degree of dislike for war, but we both agree that war should be avoided at almost any cost. Just be careful tossing around terms that fit you too.”

  She looked like she had been slapped. He watched a variety of emotions cross her face, but to her credit, he never saw belligerence. She settled on sorrow, and his heart rose in his throat. He wanted to reach out to her, but he could not bring himself to do so. He concentrated on his flying. When he turned back to her, she waited with an outstretched hand. He lightly touched the tips of her fingers. In turn, she grasped his hand tightly, searching his eyes for something.

  “The day will come when I am forced to confront these issues,” she said. “There is truth to what you say, though just a few days ago I would not have believed you. For now, I can only say there is more to you than meets the eye, if I have the idiom correct. I like the Greg Hamilton I’ve met.”

  He basked in the warm feeling her words gave him, but not for long. She had to understand who Greg Hamilton really was. “You have the idiom correct. And I’m almost sorry to say this, but it’s important that you understand something. I did not realize who I was helping during that battle. I thought I was helping one of our own planes. Had I known that you, too, were a UFO, I would have acted differently. I never intended to choose sides in your war with the Harbok. Do you understand that I still haven’t?”

  She nodded. “You have made it abundantly clear that you want to remain neutral, and I support your position. That does not mean I thank you less or that I think less of you. I am alive because of you. We are linked in a way I will never forget.”

  “Hmm,” he mumbled. Then louder, “Linked enough to take me with you?”