by Pirx Danford
The way back was arduous, so we were happy when after half of the distance the tunnel was already cleared up.
Even as both of us were not very large persons we had to mind our heads within the tunnel.
After our successful return and having put the inanimate freight on a chair and tying him up good I had to laugh, it was a scene like right from a movie set.
“Now we just have to darken everything and have a light shine directly into his face and it would be perfect.” Agatha looked at me uncomprehendingly and I realized yet again how different our wolds were.
The daze was meant to last for a hour, with the state the tunnel had been in, we probably would not have managed to be back in time, as it was we had a few minutes more to prepare ourselves for the confrontation.
Interrogation techniques certainly weren’t among my talents and a short discussion with Agatha revealed here to be equally clueless about this area.
So I decided to stick to what I was best in and spice it up with a few supplements taken from movies I had seen.
After we finished with our preparations I realized that the setting was not very different from the joke I made earlier.
The prisoner sat turned towards a huge screen and towering at each side two maintenance robots were guarding him and indeed there was a lamp ready, which should bedazzle him when he woke.
As I turned on the lamp I hoped Agatha had grasped my explanations about the concept of good cop and bad cop. With a sluggish shaking of his head the Flying Hustler awakened, after he loudly sucked a dangerously long strand of drool back in he slowly raised his head. That was when I stepped before the lamp and into his line of sight and hoped it would look like I came out of the light.
“Welcome to the wonderful world of technology” I said with portending spreading out my arms.
“Do you know who I am?”
Agatha wasn’t waiting for long, when no reaction happened she stepped up from my side and slapped him without hesitation right in the face with her flat hand.
“Answer!” Wow - I could never threaten anyone as convincingly, on the other hand a great amount of Agathas anger was genuine.
I grabbed her for the next strike upraised hand and charmingly coaxed the prisoner “Now come on and talk else I cannot hold her back.” He swallowed nervously and said “No” while shaking his head.
It was obvious he couldn’t make head or tail of the situation.
“So why did you attack us?” He looked to the ground at that question, however when Agatha bore down on him he hurriedly replied “We received your description from the Benefactors soldiers with the orders to either capture or kill you.”
I silently swore to myself, at the flight from the waking area I had been much more visible as I had believed to have been.
It was clear that we would not get any useful informations from the guy, so this was already the end of the interrogation, but now the more difficult part would ensue.
“We would like to show you something.” I explained “but first let me introduce myself. I am Helen your new maintenance technician and there is something you urgently need to see.”
After we loosened his bonds a bit we played the advertisement of the colonization mission, which had driven myself and so many others to volunteer to the madness of this generation flight.
Which kind of reaction I expected had not been clear to me, but the glazed eyes and his mumbling “the legends are true” were a very satisfying reaction. When he looked at me with an idolizing look I savored to push him into elation with the the words “Yes and soon we reach our goal.” It was an euphoria we were about to turn against him soon.
“Should we untie you?” I asked “Or do you still want to kill me?” His awestruck “No” left no doubt that he was sincerely impressed.
We untied him and guided him to a table at which we three took place in such a manner that another screen was in his line of sight.
On the table we had placed tea and some synthetic cookies. While we were sitting together homely, a rendering of the ship turned on the screen.
Agatha as well as I were watching our prisoners face from the corners of our eyes and were hoping our plan would work out.
As the ship was overspread with red breaches and broke apart his eyes widened and his face turned pale.
Agatha looked at me questioningly and I nodded.
Obviously furious she jumped up and barked “Well do you think this is a game? This” and she waved to the screen “this is what is in store for us!” silently I had stepped to her side “Calm now, you are frightening him. Its at least another 20 years until its about to happen.”
I was very aware that those words would not frighten him less and that was planned as well.
He gulped “But why?” he managed to say and I rejoiced inwardly. “Come I’ll show you” and I lead him to the terminal on which I had done my analysis.
Using a blueprint of the ship I explained how the sectors were structured and then I showed him the rift along the ships hull.
“And when we need to break in the future, this is where the ship could break apart.”
Searching I looked into his face “Without help I won’t be able to accomplish anything. So much has to be repaired that I won’t be able to do that all by myself, especially not when people are trying to kill me.”
He did believe me, that much I could see, but he was at a loss.
“How could I help? None of the others would believe me if I told them.”
“Does your troop have a leader?” I asked “And do you believe, that you could convince him to meet with us?”
He considered our question a while, after affirming that there was a leader.
“Oh, what is your name?” Agatha asked, eying her suspiciously because of the sudden friendliness he replied “I am Hask, Hask Brenner” towards me he continued “Our leader is Jorn Kimming and I very much doubt that he would let himself be convinced. Sorry.”
I hesitated a while and then I asked the most difficult question “We expected as much. Would you be willing to lure him into a trap?”
After some persuasion finally Hask agreed to help us. We risked telling him how we had managed to capture him and as the Flying Hustlers hadn’t seen where we came from, we all quickly agreed to just repeat the plan.
I crafted a stun gun for Hask, but set it so it couldn’t fire into Marples or Bees direction as a precaution.
Psyched he soaked up my explanation of how to use it and I happily appraised him to be a loyal ally.
Sadly not everyone would be brought to their senses that easily.
If the Benefactor knew about the ships situation, would he be willing to end this madness?
There was no time to waste, ask explained that his comrades surely would have sent a runner to call for reinforcements, or maybe even the soldiers of the Iron Warriors.
As the tunnel had been cleaned farther than the 200 meters towards the hatch, it did bot even take us 10 minutes to reach the exit.
To be extra careful I held Marple out of the slightly opened hatch, but our luck held and Marple gave us green light to proceed. Silently we climbed out and with help by Marple and Bee we quickly located the remaining fighters. They weren’t split up in small groups anymore, in fact they had made a small camp directly in front of the centers entrance door.
I hadn’t created assisting glasses for Hask, so I had him look through Marple at a magnified image of the group. Which I must admit was somewhat uncomfortable, Marple had become more than just an object to me.
Nevertheless it was helpful, as it allowed Hask to quickly spot Jorn within the group, it was a blond giant with a red scarf who was pacing up and down nervously through the group and every now and then watched the entrance with an intensely angry look.
Well I certainly were not planning on letting myself be catched just so he could sleep easy this night.
We drew back a little and discussed our next move, after Hask assured us that indeed all war
riors were assembled at the camp bar the quickest runner, we decided to stick to our original plan.
Hask would go into the camp and report that he managed to flee and offer Jorn to show him the tunnels entrance.
Should the whole troop move it would become very difficult, but we just had to risk it.
Agatha took cover near the hatch and I behind some trees at about half of the way. It didn’t take long and and the group split up, some followed Hask to the tunnel, but Jorn stayed at the camp.
Yes now it would become difficult!
I contacted Agatha using the radio link of the glasses and informed her about the impending fight, then I hurried up to join her.
We had set up so we were at opposing sides of the very small opening the tunnels hatch was located at.
After a short while Hask appeared with 9 other warriors closely following, when they had left the cover of the trees Agatha and I opened fire, Has stunned two of his comrades with shots in their backs.
With the moment of surprise on our side the warriors had no time to use their spears or bows and the surprised yelling was hopefully swallowed by the forest.
Still we had underestimated Jorn, Hask stood close at my side when suddenly I saw an arrow protruding from his shoulder, the tip emerged scattering some drops of blood on his back.
I dropped to the ground and targeted the forests edge from the corner of my eye I saw Agatha follow suit.
Marple displayed the readings of six additional attackers on her display and I studied their positions.
The fighters had taken cover, so I shot aimlessly to give Agatha time and swiftly she crawled towards the trees to flank the fighters.
A brazenly protruding head following Agathas movement fell victim of an aimed shot of my gun. At my side after first having dropped on his knees Hask collapsed to the ground falling like a cut down tree, beating in the arrow to his shaft.
If he would survive? The arrow seemed to be far away from the heart.
Now Agatha was ready and the flushed fighters quickly fell under our fire.
A short check revealed that Jorn was not among them.
We decided to tie them all up and coop them up in the tunnel, but firstly we fixed Hask up with a makeshift bandage and had him moved back to the central by one of the robots.
The plan went down completely wrong and as we moved our fresh captives into the tunnel one by one an anger rose within me.
After finishing Agatha barely was able to keep up with me, only three other warriors remained with Jorn and were eying the forests edge nervously, when I emerged from the trees with my two guns at the ready they shouted startled.
Quickly I fell the first two, then I loudly yelled “Jorn!” as a third shot stunned the last of his three followers.
He didn’t had his spear close so he had drawn his knife.
Calmly I approached him and cold anger filled my words.
“Why do you all want to kill me?” his perplexed look escaped his face, which went completely loose as the shot I triggered hit him straight in the chest.
Quickly we tied the four up and moved them straight through the main entrance into the maintenance center.
We checked on Hask and to our wonderment found his wound to be completely harmless, odd that it had him keel over like this, at the discussion how to get through to Jorn we very much could have used his advice.
Soon we agreed that our earlier play would not work on him, so we decided to try just presenting the facts, if he was willing to believe us surely common sense would get the upper hand?
We moved his 3 companions down into the tunnel and I assigned one robot to guard them and another to the larger group back at the hatch. Should someone unexpectedly manage to escape, so I would get notified instantly. Without assistant glasses or a key card they were stuck in the tunnel anyhow.
Before Jorn awoke suddenly Hask was moving at the cot we tucked him in at after taking care of his wound.
I hurried to his side and when he woke disorientated with a start I soothingly pushed him back down.
He groped his shoulder and asked what had happened. After a short depiction of the battle and the following events I asked why the arrow had knocked him down so brutally.
“Eh, well… when I saw movement between the trees I was about to shout a warning and draw the gun, so uh, when the arrow hit me I must have pulled the trigger.” I couldn’t suppress my laughter, he had totally stunned himself.
“Traitor” behind me Jorns voice thundered and Hasks face went ashen. “No worries he is tied up well.” I assured him and faced the challenge to get through to Jorn.
We had placed him at a table and I sat down in front of him, as his angry look was piercing me with imagined spears.
“Hask might have saved your lives.” I pointed to the screen to my right, on which a rendering of the ship was turning. “Do you recognize this?” He only took a quick look and signaled his disinterest by a shrug of his shoulders. “Well do you know who I am and why it is you are supposed to kill me?” “Well I assume you are one of the sleepers. Good for us you made it out, now we can get a huge bounty for you.” “Well no matter how much the Benefactor is offering you, when you all are dead it won’t do you any good won’t it?” I stood up and too position at the side of the screen, so Jorn would pay close attention.
“This is the spaceship we all live within. Soon we will need to initiate the breaking sequence and now watch closely.”
On the screen the ship broke apart, but in contrast to Hasks shocked reaction Jorn was completely unimpressed, at least outwardly.
I had to come up with an idea to crack him, so I let the recruitment advertisement run, went over to Hask and waved Agatha close.
“He stays obstinate” I complained “Maybe it will help if I soften him up a bit” Agatha offered, when Hask offered helpful advice “Jorn isn’t stupid, show him more tangible proof. We all remember the time when our ancestors were cruising the outside. Scarcely anyone of us Flying Hustlers believes into the lies the Iron Warriors are spreading.”
The next hour I count among one of the most taxing ones of my whole life.
We lead Jorn through the central, showed him the tunnels and tried everything to convince him that it wasn’t a fairy tale by the resistance, but that the spaceship was very real and the threat we were facing was as real as well.
After the first three tries of attacking us with bound arms we had him carried after us by two robots at his sides.
Nothing worked, he eyed us with undiminished blood-lust.
We moved him down to the tunnel to join his three companions.
At a loss we sat around the table, eventually Agatha went and prepared some tea.
The mood was gloomy, at Agathas question if we really would need the Flying Hustlers as allies I put a map of the rifts location on screen. “Look the rip lies completely within their territory, or am I wrong Hask?” the next 15 minutes went by with Hask matching the world as he knew it with the displayed sectors. At the end it turned out that the rift even stretched along the territory of 5 tribes of the Flying Hustlers. The tribes lead a partial nomadic life, but usually stayed within a territory which they claimed for themselves.
I sighed “Oh well, if we can’t get rid of them all we have to find a way to win them over, if we do not mend the rip, even breaking slowly will have the ship falling apart.” Agatha and I looked at Hask who was deep in thought.
This was were our choice was paying off, indeed he made up for his lack of muscles with smarts. After a while he exclaimed with a big grin on his face “I believe this could work, its a bit complicated so listen closely.” Following that we learned that his tribe, the Red Backs was split in two political camps, mostly the current leader Maximus Saltsten was in control, yet he had made quite some severe bad decisions lately and Gurd Fenman was slowly taking over and was about to contest Maximus position as leader. So if we could convince either Gurd or Maximus, the division of the tribe would play into our hands.
Hask was optimistic that he could convince Gurd to meet with us. The camp of the Red Backs was only 2 hours away, the runner sent earlier was even capable to do the distance in one hour.
To avoid bumping into the reinforcements Has had to leave right away and would need to take a detour.
In the meantime Agatha was busy setting up the nearly empty storage rooms of the maintenance center with small cells for our prisoners, while I was tinkering with something one could call a propaganda device.
I had the fabber construct a device much similar to the learning tablets, but with headphones and no integrated loudspeakers. It was a flat platelet, which on activation would first play the advertisement as it had proven to be effective followed with an animated depiction of the ship breaking apart with an explanation by me as voice over.
The script had been drafted in less than 10 minutes, but to record it with my voice having enough pathos to drive the point home cost me nearly half a hour.
“Welcome aboard the Starfarer one, for over one thousand and five hundred years we are moving through space, yet very soon” and here I had to laugh out multiple times before I managed to exclaim with hyped-up exaltation “we will arrive at our destination!” followed by a sinister “Unless we die.” To which the ship burst apart with loud explosions.
“I am your new technician Helen van Scharl and I require your assistance. Everyone who refuses to help is condemning all of us to certain death!”
In the last sequence I addressed the viewers directly,with a recording of myself speaking straight into the camera.
Agatha had to laugh loudly when she saw the video, but reckoned that it would fulfill its purpose very well.
In the meantime she had readied 20 jury-rigged cells, which was not least owed to her mastery of the drones and robots. Firstly we moved Jorn in a cell, then we singled out one of his three companions and tried out the effectiveness of the device on him. He tried getting off the headphones by violently shaking his head, but went quiet after the promo music played and took in the next six minutes quietly.
