by Renee Duke
Chapter Sixteen
“Yay, our team!” Nate cried as Leo cut engines and brought us to a stop. “Those guys are on our team, right?”
“Most definitely,” said Chief Rupin. “Unbeknownst to the Association, Ralgonian ships have been around Cholar and Borel for the last three days. These have been following you since you left Borel. Captain Skoko apparently now thinks it is time he drew attention to the fact.”
I blinked. “Skoko?”
“Trok Skoko. Cousin of Quib Skoko, whom you know.”
Mr. Skoko’s cousin immediately broadcast an audio message to all ships present, including ours.
“Stand down,” he ordered. “The shot you just fired was a declaration of war against the planet of Cholar, ally of the planet of Ralgon. Fire again and my ships will have no choice but to engage you.”
“Then prepare to do so,” was Captain Zyoth’s sneering reply. A reply we could hear. Another example of high-tech Ralgonian know-how. “We surpass you in number.”
“But not in technology. Our ships are far superior and will prevail.”
The captains of the Shavoan and Orecian ships must have decided this was no idle boast. Within moments all four came back with, “Acknowledged. We stand down.”
“Cowards!” Captain Zyoth shouted. “Did you not pledge yourselves to the service of the Association of United Planets, just as we of Lurgos did? What if the Ralgonians’ technology is superior, and we must die to return the Association to prominence? It is our duty. Our privilege.”
“Don’t think his pep talk’s working,” Nate murmured as the Shavoan and Orecian ships withdrew.
“It is for his own ships,” said Leo. “They aren’t backing off.”
“Move out of range,” said Taz. “Take your craft from the combat area.”
Leo didn’t have to be told twice. Safely out of range — at least of the Lurgosian ships, I suspect the Ralgonians had a longer one — we watched the opposing forces let loose on one another. The Lurgosians fired three times as many torpedoes as the Ralgonians, but damage to their targets was minimal. The Ralgonians’ counter-attack was much more effective. They never missed and hit the enemy ships in their most vulnerable sections.
The all-vessel broadcasts still reaching us, we heard Captain Zyoth scream, “You will not gain the prize you seek, Ralgonian! You might appear to have the upper hand, but we have resolve. And resolve, coupled with our ultimate weapon is something all Lurgosian ships are equipped with.”
His two attendant ships were crippled beyond being able to move, but his own still had enough power to head our way with the clear intention of ramming us. As it hurtled forward, the Ralgonian ships all fired on it at once. There was a huge explosion, violent vibrations throughout our ship, a feeling of heavy pressure all around us, and then, suddenly, the pressure lifted, and we were in the midst of nothing.
Literally, nothing. Just empty space. No other ships of any kind.
“Enough blasting for you?” I asked Simon.
“Y-Yes,” he replied shakily.
A quick check of Leo’s miraculously still functioning instruments told him we were a long way from where we’d been.
“So, where are we?” Nate demanded.
“Near the Toxic Triangle.”
“You’re kidding. That’s on the other side of Cholar.”
“So are we. That Lurgosian ship didn’t just explode when it got hit. Zyoth must have triggered something. That ultimate weapon he was on about. Pretty formidable one. It drained a lot of our power as well as booting us here. But at least we didn’t wind up in the triangle itself.”
Welcome news, since few ships had ever come out of that triangle. Three uninhabitable planets in that part of the Zaidus system had exceptionally strong, far-reaching, gravitational pulls, and spacecraft — all spacecraft — avoided the roughly triangular area they formed for fear of being drawn down into their poisonous atmospheres.
“Are communications working?” I asked. “Can you get Taz back?”
“I’ll try.”
A few minutes later, the communication screen brought us the slightly out-of-focus features of Taz, Ezrias, and Chief Rupin, who, even allowing for the poor quality of the picture, all looked like they’d aged ten years before their faces transformed with joy.
“You are alive!” said Taz. “Is everyone all right? Captain Skoko was unable to locate you after the Lurgosian ship exploded.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not exactly in his vicinity anymore,” said Leo. “Everyone’s okay, though. Your kids are only bawling because they’re scared.”
Bawling they were, with Jip and Arlyne doing their best to soothe and reassure them.
Ezrias moved aside to make room for a newly-arrived Vostia to step onscreen, and the sight and sound of their parents proved more effective in quietening Challa and Kadi than even Jip’s trusty calming technique.
Once they’d settled down, Taz turned his attention back to our predicament. Upon learning our location, he wanted us to head for one of the independent planets Cholar was allied with and seek sanctuary.
Leo shook his head. “We can’t, Your Majesty. Our power’s down. Considerably down. The only planet we can possibly reach before it gives out is Cholar. If I try to take us anywhere else it will fail long before we get there and we’ll start to drift. Possibly back here, and possibly into the Toxic Triangle.”
Vostia gave Taz an anguished look. “The Association’s fleet assembles above us. If they were to arrive while we were under attack…”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence. We’d be a prime target, and everyone knew it.
Another terrible decision for Taz. Have us risk drifting into the Toxic Triangle or have us make for Cholar and run into a bunch of AUP ships bent on our destruction.
He didn’t deliberate for long.
“Set course for Cholar, Leo. We will do everything we can to bring you down safely. You must try to—”
But at that point communications cut out.
Leo flipped some switches. “We’d better get going.”
“How long will it take us?” Jip asked.
“About three hours. But let’s look on the bright side. Maybe something will delay the AUP Armada and we’ll get there before it does.”
“Even if we do, there are already some AUP ships there,” said Nate. “Are we going to have enough juice left to zigzag around them?”
“Guess that’s something we’ll find out when we get there.”
Before long, Challa and Kadi nodded off, but even though we’d left Borel at night, the rest of us were not inclined towards sleep. Planet-hopping has a detrimental effect on body clocks, and ours were totally out of whack. While Leo concentrated on keeping the zoomer going, Kirsty and Nate prowled restlessly around it, Jip meditated, and Arlyne and Simon came to sit by me in the back row.
I’d tried not to think about our parents’ betrayal, preferring to focus on dealing with the results of it. But, for now, we had time on our hands.
“Jip and I weren’t having much luck quieting Challa and Kadi,” Arlyne ventured. “Good thing Vostia and Taz were available, albeit far away. The kids didn’t seem to mind about that. The sound of their voices was enough.” She paused. “I used to like listening to Mother and Father talk, even if it wasn’t to me. Except for one time, when they didn’t know I was across the room, curled up in our playhouse. I was still quite little, but old enough to know from what they were saying that they hadn’t planned on having me. Not then, anyway. They’d wanted five or six years between children. Like with Neil and Kirsty.”
The AUP Employee Manual encourages employees, particularly upper-level employees, to have kids, but since close pregnancies tend to play havoc with a female employee’s career, those willing to procreate often prefer to have an age gap, although, with the MacGregors, I think it had had more to do with conception difficulties. The sex of the first child is rarely engineered, with various techniques being employed thereafter to ensure the
next is of the opposite gender. One boy and one girl. Replacements for themselves.
I vaguely knew that Arlyne had been an accident. The result of an uncharacteristically uncontrolled burst of passion during a long assignment. But I hadn’t known that she knew it.
“They still had you, though,” I responded. “They could have chosen not to.”
“I know, but I could tell it complicated their lives. That’s why I’ve always tried to…well, tried to be as good as possible, so they wouldn’t be sorry.”
I put my arm around her. “After what Simon and I did to AUP, they should have been glad they had you, just so they didn’t look like complete failures as parents.”
“Even though they are,” said Simon.
“Yes, they are.” The harshness of Arlyne’s tone came as a bit of a shock. “Not long after we got to Cholar, I started watching Taz and Vostia with their kids. And Tolith and Galya with theirs, who are both grown up now. They’re what parents are supposed to be like. Unconditionally loving and supportive, eager to spend time with their children, and prepared to do anything to ensure their well-being, regardless of how old they are. And it’s not just a Cholarian thing. I’ve been reading up on family relationships, and even a lot of Earth families are like that —if they’re not connected to AUP or are just in its lower echelons. For years, I told myself the reason our parents kept missing things like school concerts, and sports days, and such, was because they were in the upper echelons and their jobs were so demanding they couldn’t be with us, even though they wanted to. But they didn’t want to. They’ve only taken us on holiday once, and I’m pretty sure that was to a planet AUP had designs on and wanted them to check out. We helped them blend in with the locals.”
I’d often thought that myself but never voiced the suspicion.
“At least you weren’t made to order,” said Simon.
He was referring to our parents’ accommodation of the Directorate’s request (demand?) for some more high-placed AUP babies after a couple of years in which its personnel hadn’t been very forthcoming in that department. It was around the time they’d planned on having another kid anyway, if Arlyne hadn’t come along in between, so they figured, why not? They’d just made the Top Recruiters list and knew it would show, not only that they could easily afford another child, but that they were both serious about becoming members of the Directorate one day. Almost all the Directors had four children, two boys and two girls, and I’d sometimes wondered why our parents hadn’t as well. Maybe Simon was enough to put them off having another boy.
“Did your parents want you?” I asked Nate as he passed by. “Or were you just filling a quota and AUP got two for the price of one?”
“They’ve always said they wanted us. Even when some of our escapades caused AUP to frown upon them. Not enough to bring about Dad’s dismissal, of course. Until the Horrible Cholarian Business, that is. That probably would have, if he hadn’t already quit.”
“It’s funny,” Leo said from the controls. “The house parents at the guidance home said a lot of the same things Mom and Dad have over the years, trying to get us to abandon our wicked ways, but that was the first time we’d ever really paid attention. Getting involved with Ramsweir must have made us a whole lot more receptive. Or just forced us to grow up a bit. One of those.”
“I wonder how much of what’s going on now he’s responsible for,” I said. “It was him our parents contacted.”
“Were they privy to his first partnership with Drazok?” Nate asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. They didn’t hesitate to come back from a distant assignment when Taz told them we were no longer with our edu-tour group. Not on our account, obviously, but to keep in with Taz because he expected them to come back and, as far as they knew, he was the designated ruler of a potential AUP-member planet and someone they had to try to make a good impression on. The cosmic storms between the Zaidus system and their assignment area forced them to return by quite a circuitous route, and since the trip was far from pleasant, I doubt they’d have bothered if they’d known Ramsweir was working on deposing him. It’s since then they seem to have got cosy with him. He was probably never as far out of the Directorate’s good graces as it appeared and being of use to him gave them the chance to get back into those good graces themselves.”
“Too bad they didn’t just cut their losses and find alternative employment, like our old man,” said Nate. “But I guess, if they had, you wouldn’t have been on Cholar to go rescue the royal munchkins.”
I felt obliged to point out that, thus far, we’d only rescued them from Mux and Zud, and could not consider the task finished until we put them in the arms of Taz and Vostia. An objective it seemed we might be close to achieving as we approached Cholar and Leo had to get us out of the way of about thirty AUP-member planet ships fleeing the scene. And I mean fleeing, with Cholarian, Ralgonian, and some other independent planet ships in hot pursuit. Including some from Borel, which must have officially abandoned its neutrality.
“Looks like His Majesty started the war without us,” said Nate.
“Three of those ships are Sustran,” said Leo. “They must have really moved to get to Cholar’s aid this quickly.”
Remembering the quick-moving race, I laughed, and said, “Sustrans are good at that. Taz must have contracted their government as soon as he suspected AUP might get involved. The others, too. He didn’t want a war, but he’s been preparing for it.”
When the ships from both sides had passed, we moved on into Cholarian space, dodging debris from ships whose missiles must have come back on them, just as Chief Rupin had said they would.
Leo threw open the channel connecting us to Taz.
“We’re on our way in, Your Majesty. Looks like you’ve cleared a path for us.”
“Yes, and it pleases me to say no Cholarian or Cholarian ally has suffered more than minor injury,” said Taz. “I regret the loss of AUP-member lives, but their blood is on the hands of the Directorate. Though sorely tempted to start things myself to ensure a clear path would be ready in time, I did not. The initial order for engagement came from Ambrose Ramsweir. Everyone aboard the first ships to obey him perished when their missiles were repulsed, including the one he was on.”
“Shocked by the carnage, and the prospect of more, the remainder of his fleet chose to make a quick departure,” said Chief Rupin. “I am transmitting landing co-ordinates to you now, Leo, and we will be there joyously awaiting your arrival.”
But such was not to be. Things may have been over for AUP, but not for Drazok. He’d apparently been on Cholar all along and still had a company of minions willing to serve him. As we entered the planet’s atmosphere, our connection with Taz was suddenly broken, displaced by another.
“You little wretches have foiled me for the last time,” Drazok said coldly. “Despite your meddling, the prince and princess shall not be returning to their parents this day. And neither will you.”
He nodded to someone and seconds later we were being fired upon from below.
Leo did his best to dodge them, but lost control after we took a couple of hard hits. Much to our horror, the zoomer began to spiral downwards—straight towards Chorathase.
Chapter Seventeen
Leo jabbed a button and the door leading to the zoomer’s escape pods flew open.
“They’re usually set to land as close together as possible, but there’s no knowing,” he yelled as we made for them.
Four of the five pods were designed to accommodate two adults, the smaller pod at the end of the row being for the pilot. Arlyne climbed into the first pod and I put Challa and Kadi in with her. It launched without difficulty, but the second one, containing Jip and Kirsty, failed to eject. Something was jammed, but after some frantic button pushing it unjammed and their pod went out too.
Simon and I scrambled into the next one, which thankfully went out as smoothly as the first. From its view panel, we watched for Nate and Leo’s pod, but nothin
g came out behind us.
“Theirs must have jammed as well,” Simon said worriedly. “Unless they’re trying to bring the zoomer down as much intact as possible. The escape pods are coded to the onboard computer and it’ll be able to trace them if it’s not too badly damaged.”
“Well, if that’s what they’re doing, they’re idiots. Heroic idiots, but idiots.”
Still very much out of control, the zoomer kept dropping and fell beneath a level from which we could follow its progress.
Our pod’s descent was controlled, but it did not land as smoothly as it had launched. We came down in an open stretch of stubby grassland peppered with boulders. We banged into several and picked up quite a few dents before coming to a halt just beyond the boulders, atop what we quickly realized was a bog, or quicksand, or something of that nature, because we immediately started to sink.
Fortunately, we’d been knocked around so much, the pod doors were facing up and had come open. Stopping only long enough to grab the two survival satchels the pod was equipped with, we clambered out and jumped down onto ground that was painfully, but under the circumstances, pleasingly, solid.
“Well, I doubt the zoomer’s onboard computer will be able to find this pod, even if it’s not too badly damaged,” I said as it disappeared.
“The computer’s gone,” Simon said in a small voice. “The whole zoomer’s gone. And Nate and Leo with it.”
He pointed back the way we’d come in. The type of smoke I could see rising beyond some hills far in the distance indicated our SASC craft had exploded on impact.
“See? It’s crashed and burned. If it hadn’t, they might have been okay. I tried to get orientated as we were coming down, and I’m pretty sure that smoke’s close to, and maybe even in, Chorathase Park.”
“But that’s good,” I said as he fought back tears. “Their pod still might have ejected at the last minute. And, if it did, they won’t have far to go to reach safety.”
Even though the chances of that were small, I thought it would be something for him to cling to. Something for both of us to cling to. My feelings toward the two boys had changed a lot in however many hours it had been since our paths had crossed again. Back on the zoomer, I’d truly wanted their pod to eject. Wanted it to come down somewhere near ours and have them jump out of it ready to trade barbs with me.
