Galaxy Man

by Mark Wayne McGinnis

  Chapter 38

  Open Space — Onboard the Hound.

  Once inside the lift, Gallic noticed Allison Tillman’s 3D projection. She stood a foot tall on his ComsBand. With every movement of his arm, she moved right along with it. Gallic momentarily wondered what her visual perspective was in that same moment.

  “AI . . . what’s going on with that cross-tube?”

  “Two of the technoids are in the process of crossing over.”

  Gallic could see doll-sized Allison staring back at him and looking anxious. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “What do you mean what am I doing? I’m doing what you suggested,” he replied, as the lift’s lower deck door slid open. Rushing into the huge rear hold area, an area typically used for his repo business, Gallic noticed the air there was very thin—yet still breathable. He scanned the nearly empty hold and quickly found what he was seeking at the far side of the compartment. Five, various-sized tarp-covered items rested along the bulkhead. He unstrapped one of the tarps, pulling the grimy cover away. Lying exposed beneath the bright overhead spotlights was a one-man vessel, called a jumper. Although twenty years old, and not much to look at, it was still space-worthy and quick. Just the thing, he knew, for maneuvering in-and-out of small tight spaces. In the past, Gallic often used the little craft to make in-space repairs or transfer things from the Hound to other vessels.

  “You’re getting into that thing?”

  Gallic didn’t acknowledge her insult. When the curved canopy on the jumper suddenly shot backward he watched a startled Allison flinch on his wrist. He’d forgotten the jumper’s canopy did that. Smiling at her, he asked, “You do know you’re not actually standing here, don’t you?”

  “Ha ha . . .” she said, not amused. “Just remember, you’re going to need me along with you once inside that destroyer.”

  Gallic climbed inside then quickly began throwing switches. Taking the controls, the canopy suddenly slammed forward, nearly decapitating Allison Tillman’s leery projection.

  “Christ! Do you know how annoying that is?” she barked.

  “More than you know,” Gallic said, craning his neck to peer back over one shoulder. He heard the sucking sound—atmosphere being pulled into the Hound’s big captivation tanks—as soon as the jumper’s canopy closed. Now the immense, dual-purpose, hatch/gangway was beginning to open.

  “Kill the lights, AI!”

  The hold lights went out, placing Gallic, and Allison’s illuminated projection, into stark darkness. As he pulled back on the controls, the small ship rose above the deck. Within the compact cockpit space, the jumper was noiseless.

  “Mr. Gallic, two technoids have reached the Hound’s upper-level outer hatch. They are currently attempting to breach the vessel.”

  “Best you clear all upper-level atmosphere into the captivation tanks . . . just in case,” Gallic ordered. The Hound’s hull, and various access hatchways, was made of a heavy, composite material that was nearly impregnable. The ship was a beast! But then they were contending with the most-advanced military technology known to man.

  “That’s more than enough of an opening for me to slide through,” Gallic said. The hold’s rear hatch clanked to a stop, now open about one-third of the way. He maneuvered the ship out into open space.

  “They will have detected you . . . your little vessel,” Allison said.

  “Just direct me to that destroyer’s hidden access panel, okay?”

  “You know it’s not easy . . . me seeing what you’re seeing. What am I . . . floating on your wrist? Can you at least raise your arm up some?”

  “Oh . . . yeah . . . sorry about that.” Gallic lifted his arm up so she could peer through the forward canopy—view what he was seeing. Then, by pulling his elbow back some, so she could also view the various readouts on the jumper’s dash.

  When the nose of the midget destroyer came into sight, she shouted, “Dive! Get below her belly!”

  Gallic did as told. With a quick maneuver, he put the small jumper craft within several feet of the military vessel’s brushed-metal fuselage. Again, Allison looked a bit queasy after the aerial acrobatics. An engineering genius, she had no actual field experience. Gallic followed the contours of the destroyer’s belly until he started to come up on its other side.

  “This is a heavily-armed military vessel. How come we haven’t been disintegrated into dust?” Gallic asked, wishing he’d brought that fact up earlier.

  “I already told you,” Allison said. “Whoever the traitor is . . . the one who first absconded with this highly classified vessel, along with those three technoids onboard, he could have destroyed you and your ship long ago. They want you alive. Probably ordered you not to be killed unless absolutely necessary.”

  The AI reported, “Two of the Hound’s five hatch hinge plates have been blown, Mr. Gallic. Access to the upper level is now imminent.”

  “Well, if they’re looking for me . . . I’m out and about.”

  “They already know where you are,” Allison said. “Slow down near the panels mid-ship area, about one-third the way up the hull.” On his wrist, Gallic could see her leaning forward, squinting. He found it amazing that she could view anything from her miniaturized position on his wrist. Pointing forward, she looked up at Gallic then queried, “See it?”

  Gallic scanned the uneven surface of the destroyer’s hull. A jumble of connecting lines and cylindrical enclosures, the ship seemed to be sprouting an array of numerous antennae. “I don’t see anything that looks remotely like an access panel,” he told her.

  “Look! It’s right there!”

  “That . . . box thing?”

  “Yes, that box thing! You need to move right up to it. I take it that little ship of yours can broadcast a quad-polar maintenance signal?”

  Gallic, staring out the canopy at the square protrusion on the hull, having no idea if the jumper could broadcast whatever it was she said, asked instead, “AI?”

  “Yes, please provide the signal parameters you wish transmitted.”

  Gallic watched Allison tap several moments onto her own ComsBand, then heard the AI say, “Thank you.”

  Allison said, “Get ready, Galaxy Man! They probably have no idea this little panel even exists and will close it soon after they see it’s open.”

  Gallic really hated it when someone called him that. “I’m ready . . . open the damn thing.”

  Barely were the words out when the top of the square enclosure slid to one side. Gallic goosed the controls and the jumper shot forward, clearing the four sides by mere inches. Pitch-black inside, before Gallic could flick the jumper’s running lights on, they careened into something solid. The cockpit’s alarm chimed four times then quieted. Gallic, studying the dash, noticed no permanent damage evident.

  “My fault,” Allison said apologetically. “I should have warned you about the extremely close confines within the sub-fuselage zone.”

  Gallic turned on the running lights, so he could look around outside.

  “Your arm?” she said.

  “Oh . . . sorry,” Gallic said, raising his arm. Together they glanced around the confined space within the midget destroyer’s hull. “Am I reading an atmosphere in here?” he asked.

  “Mr. Gallic, four of the Hound’s five hinge plates have been blown,” the AI said.

  “Yes . . . there’s atmosphere. You need to climb out of that little ship,” Allison said. “You can maneuver around on your own now.” Gallic, watching her on his ComsBand, wondered just how sure she was about that.

  She said, “You’re a policeman . . . out of your element. Right now, you’re in my world, so trust me.”

  Gallic hit the controls and opened the canopy, then momentarily held his breath, waiting for the effects of vacuous space to assault his body. Tentatively, he breathed in. Satisfied, he maneuvered his large frame out of the jumper then stepped onto the reverse side of a bulkhead. “There’s gravity here,” Gallic stated.

  “Good . . . cont
inue this way but tread quietly. You’re a big guy; footfalls will be noticed.”

  “It’s not easy . . . moving around in such a confined space.”

  “Uh huh . . . keep on going.” Allison pointed off to the side, her holographic image providing just enough illumination to see several paces ahead.

  “There! That’s the backside of a corridor maintenance panel . . . the way in.”

  Gallic studied the panel’s flat rectangular surface—about two-feet-wide by six-feet-high—then said, “It’s secured tight. I can see the ends of the mounting screws.”

  Allison, chewing the inside of her lip, let out a sigh. “I forgot about that.” Frowning back at him, she shrugged.

  “This isn’t the first closed door I’ve come across in my career,” he told her.

  Suddenly nervous, she started to shake her head. Too late. After taking a step backward, Gallic quickly stepped forward again while raising his right knee. Propelling his entire two hundred thirty pounds behind the kick, he drove the heel of his boot forward. The maintenance panel didn’t stand a chance. Blown into the inner corridor, it landed with a clang somewhere back inside. Gallic turned his body sideways, clearing the now-open panel, and glanced in both directions to ensure the coast was clear. Only then did he look down at his ComsBand to find Allison Tillman gone.

  Chapter 39

  Open Space — Onboard Trident Military Vessel.

  Gallic froze in place for a moment. Allison, now gone, had been fairly adamant that he would need her help once he was inside the ship. “AI . . . you still here with me?”

  He heard a faint pshhhht sound but that was the extent of it. His ComsBand signal was apparently being jammed so for now he was on his own. Gallic reached inside his coat and found the butt of his Emanuel Dual 5. Withdrawing the dual-barreled, over-under .45, he momentarily thought back to his most recent encounter with the technoid on Spector. Even though this .45 isn’t a rail gun, it still should do the trick.

  Gallic arbitrarily chose to head down the corridor to his right. No more than four strides in that direction a three-legged droid came into view. He’d seen thousands of these mechanical maintenance bots back in the service. Not typically armed, it didn’t mean this one wasn’t. Gallic proceeded forward cautiously. Keeping the Emanuel Dual 5 leveled on the droid’s intelligence core, housed in the thing’s angular hindquarters, it was why the common name for those bots was shit for brains, or SFB’s. The SFB passed by him, seemingly disinterested.

  Gallic continued on, passing by one closed hatchway after another. The vessel seemed to be brand new. No scuff marks on the bulkheads. It even smelled new.

  He knew he was moving in the direction of the bow, he just didn’t know what deck, or level, he was on. A relatively large vessel, it clearly did not have the typical number of active crewmembers. They usually were manned, Gallic estimated, by no less than forty to fifty humans, along with just as many bots. Whoever stole this high-tech ship didn’t think it important, or necessary, apparently, to find a willing crew. Another indication that the intent of the one who stole the midget destroyer from Tillman Industries would be selling the ship off sooner than later.

  When Gallic’s ComsBand suddenly made a noise, he stopped dead in his tracks. Peering down at it, a single line of text flashed.

  Technoid approaches from your six!

  Gallic spun about just in time to see a naked technoid sprinting toward him. It was identical to the one on Spector, from its short-cropped hair, its aquiline nose, and its lack of genitals. Still fifty feet out, Gallic calmly raised his weapon, aimed at a spot between the ‘noid’s eyes, and pulled the trigger. The concussive sound of the two .45 rounds—fired simultaneously—was nearly deafening within the closed space, but Gallic was far too preoccupied to notice. The technoid veered out of the path of the bullets, as though it had anticipated both their timing and trajectory. At twenty-five feet out, and coming on fast, Gallic fired again at the technoid, this time going for a center mass shot to its chest. Still, the technoid sidestepped the rounds—as easily as someone dodging an oversized beach ball. Gallic next did the only thing that came to mind. He turned and ran.

  The technoid’s bare feet made no sound on the deck plates behind him. Glimpsing its passing reflection in a starboard window, Gallic realized his seven-foot-tall pursuer was less than ten feet behind him. Not meant for speed, Gallic was capable of various forms of athleticism. As a teenager, he excelled in the sport of zone ball—an amalgamable of two seasonal sports, U.S. football and British rugby—which gained in popularity during the last fifty years. He also had a black belt in Shwang Shi, a Royal Marines-taught martial art. Not too dissimilar to Kung Fu, it was considered even more lethal in modern times. But running was not one of the sports that Gallic—a powerhouse of muscle mass and brute strength—could boast about. His large size was more a detriment than a benefit. He pumped his arms and legs, no idea where he was heading. A portside window, down a wide perpendicular hallway, appeared on his left. From his peripheral vision, he made out the technoid’s reflection right behind him—it had closed the gap. Extending out its arm, its hand was mere inches from Gallic’s neck and shoulders. Still holding the Emanuel Dual 5, Gallic tried to come up with a way to shoot the thing before it brought him down. In the very next instant, Gallic felt a vise-like grip take ahold around his neck. Then just as suddenly he was lifted off his feet, his legs flailing. A repeat of the last time he met one of these fucking creatures.

  Gallic heard the Emanuel Dual 5 clatter to the deck below unaware he’d even dropped it. Using both hands, he attempted to pry the technoid’s grasp away from about his neck. He tried to speak but no words came out. The technoid then rotated its arm just enough that they were nearly eye-to-eye. The cyborg studied Gallic’s face—watched his mouth as he tried to speak. Again, Gallic’s words were indecipherable. The cyborg’s brow rose, and its head tilted: Curiosity. The technoid loosened its grip enough for Gallic to croak out what he wanted to say.

  “AI . . . Shoot the son of a bitch!”

  Only then did the technoid look left and down the intersecting corridor. A far window, on the opposite side from where they stood, looked across into the Hound. Gallic, unmindful of the nearly impossible angle of fire—the probability he would also be killed—didn’t care. What he did want was to kill one more technoid before it killed him. He was staring at the side of the cyborg’s head when it exploded. Blood, bone, and brain matter splattered onto his face. Tasting the foul cocktail of hot gore, Gallic nearly threw-up. Instead, he found himself falling on his ass onto the deck, while the headless technoid remained standing.

  Gasping he said, “Two for two . . . nice shooting, AI,” Again, he heard the same faint pshhhht sound as before. The AI could hear him yet not communicate back.

  Gallic climbed to his feet and hurried down the perpendicular corridor. He noticed the window had already accomplished a crude, self-repair job on the holes inflicted by the Hound’s external rail gun. In case of puncturing, by flying space debris, or tiny asteroids or meteors, self-bonding glass was an early safety measure all twenty-second-century space vessels were required to maintain to avoid rapid, catastrophic, depressurization.

  Gallic stared across the blackness to his ship and noted the adjoining cross-tube connecting the midget destroyer with the upper deck of the Hound. His ComsBand suddenly came alive. “Mr. Gallic . . . are you receiving?”

  “I hear you!”

  “Very good. I’ve boosted the Hound’s coms signal . . . that and your now closer proximity, standing at that window, has made the difference.”

  “And the two technoids that came through the cross-tube?”

  “One is lying on the deck, near the galley, and the other one is lying close to the control center. Interestingly enough, that one is still standing.”

  “Seems they tend to do that,” Gallic affirmed back. He studied the Hewley-Jawbone carrier—the Hound’s scorched and rusted hull—almost affectionately. Soon after acquiring t
he large transport vessel, he had additional internal security measures installed. Security measures, which included four hidden, tracking, snub-nosed, rifles under the control of the AI. There was a standing order: Unauthorized entry into the Hound by any perceived menace would be dealt with using lethal force. To date, under that same standing order, the AI had killed three humans, and as of now, two technoids.

  “Stand by while I try to connect you to Miss Tillman.”

  Her twelve-inch-high hologram flickered onto his wrist. She looked harried, her typically perfect blonde hair disheveled. “Holy shit! You’re alive!” she exclaimed.

  “Yup . . . still among the living. You look like—”

  “Don’t say it,” she snapped. “You may be used to this kind of craziness, but I’m not. I don’t see how you live like you do.” Using several fingers to push errant hairs back from her forehead, she asked, “What happened . . . with the technoids?”

  “Dead . . . or deactivated. Not sure what the proper vernacular would be.”

  Allison’s brow creased. “All three?”

  “Yeah, all three. One was in the process of trying to kill me . . . again.”

  She stood up taller and let out a breath. “They’re . . . expensive units, that’s all. Many billions of dollars. I’m happy to see you’re still alive, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the fact my company just lost three very important assets.”

  Gallic, already aware she was an intelligent, though sometimes crude businesswoman, wasn’t all that surprised at being reminded where her priorities rested. “I’ll save what’s left of them. Maybe you can . . . I don’t know . . . piece them back together.”

  “They’re not jigsaw puzzles.”

  “I guess not,” Gallic said. “Look, our agreement was for me to find, then deliver the Hayai to you. This has gone far beyond that.”

  “Is this a shakedown, Mr. Gallic?” She seemed amused. “You still haven’t delivered me the Hayai.”