by Marc Everitt
Stammering, he pressed a button on a control panel and spoke to the station commander, “Sorry to disturb you sir, but I really think you should have a look at this.”
The transmission was relayed to the commander’s office and he, too, was astounded at the destructive speed of the energy ray which had obliterated company scout ship 521-A. After a moment’s thought, the station commander told his duty watch officer to try to resort some kind of calm in the control room and leave the matter in his hands. This was something the duty watch officer was only too glad to do, as he did not have a clue how to explain the new Clancix weapon which they had all obviously just seen, to the company executives back on Earth. Unfortunately, neither did the station commander.
Back in his office the station, the commander leant back in his chair, thoughtful. He was not a clever man by any stretch of the imagination and he knew he would not be able to find the words with which to tell the executives back on Earth that the Clancix had a new weapon. He could not have known that the Clancix had nothing to do with the T’suk creation and its relentless desire to get to its destination as soon as possible. Fingering his favourite ornament, a gold clock cast in the shape of the space station he commanded, the station commander breathed in deeply and prepared to bite the bullet. Dialling the direct code number to company executive Barclay on his vid-unit, the commander set his face in a professional manner and waited for an answer.
Executive Barclay was a large man who enjoyed the pleasure his enormous salary presented him with; especially rare foods and fine wines. It was for this reason that he found taking calls over a vid-unit most disagreeable at the best of times. After all, you never knew who would be calling you and there was no time for his elite team of cosmetic advisors and weight disguisers to apply the three hours of thin-look make up he always wore in public every time he answered his vid-phone. In any case this was not the best of times. Three young models were doing a good job of hiding their disgust at his obesity as they all frolicked naked in his huge bath spa, drinking champagne.
Whoever this is, thought Barclay, it had better be good. Answering his phone, the executive was apocalyptically angry with the station commander and made a mental note to have the other man’s job taken away from him. This mental note was soon lost in filing when Barclay saw the transmission of the demise of the Company scout ship 521-A. Thanking the station commander for bringing this to his attention, Executive Barclay seemed very pleased indeed; not at all the response expected by the hapless commander.
As the vid-unit connection was severed, Barclay thanked his lucky stars that he had been blessed by such good fortune. A new Clancix weapon was just what he had been waiting for. Now it would be impossible for his superiors to refuse funding for his department’s research into alternative weaponry. After all, a war seemed to be on its way and, as all businessmen knew, war meant profit for arms manufacturers.
Executive Barclay was an astute businessman and could almost see the credits pouring into his bank account as a result of this development. Smiling, he wobbled his vast bulk back over to the bathtub where the three young models forced identical smiles of lust onto their faces as their stomachs churned almost in unison.
***
Far across the galaxy, the Illiana was dropping out of its stellar jump speeds. Having travelled a distance that would have taken conventional ships over three years in a matter of hours; the huge energy in the rear of the vessel throbbed loudly over the inane chatter of the passenger compartment. Most people were wondering why the transport was stopping in that particular system. Eli began to collect his assorted belongings from the floor around his seat and urged Taylor to do the same.
“Come on, we’re here. You’re not going to finish that damn cross-word anyway,” he reasoned. It was to no avail, as Taylor seemed totally uninterested in moving from his seat.
“It’s my word search, and I’ll do it when I please,” he replied deadpan.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Eli with a certain impatience creeping into his voice. Just then the stewardess approached the pair from the rear of the compartment, vacant smile still firmly attached to her glossy lips.
“Excuse me, Mr Jackson and Mr West, the shuttle is ready to commute you to the surface. If you could follow me please,” she said in a sweet voice intended to comfort passengers. Eli was far from comforted, in fact he found her rather annoying but at least she had got Taylor moving, albeit grudgingly.
“Never gonna finish that damn thing,” mumbled Taylor as he gathered his belongings and made his way to the shuttle bay at the rear of the transport, with Eli striding purposefully ahead of him. The rear of the transport ship Illiana had a relatively small compartment just in front of the engines which has barely large enough for the shuttle it contained with a metres clearance either side. Eli thought that he was glad he was not going to be piloting the shuttle back into the Illiana and that the pilot must be a very good one; what he didn’t realise was that the pilot was also a very mad one.
The pilot was preparing the shuttle for its short journey to the surface of Graves’ World and was checking the lateral thrusters when Eli and Taylor entered the cramped shuttle through the open hatchway on the left-hand side. The pilot turned to them and seemed to be immensely pleased to see them and welcome them to his tiny ship.
“Come in, come in, great to see you both, my name’s Bob, but you can call me Bob,” the garishly dressed pilot burst into hysterics at his own witticism and did not seem even vaguely put out by the fact that his two passengers were less than amused by it.
“Here we go, disengaging shuttle bay doors, engaging retro thrusters and we’re off. Yeeeee-haa! Hope you fella’s remembered to put the cat out and cancel the milk,” whooped Bob in a fashion not entirely unlike a cowboy from American history. Eli shook his head sadly as he realised that the ride to the surface of the planet would be about ten minutes of cocky showboating and witless banter. Taylor merely gazed out of the window of the cockpit as the surface of Graves’ World ceased to be an ellipse and began to fill the screen.
As the atmosphere began to buffet the tiny shuttle, Bob carried on his one man conversation, “Wooaahh. Getting a bit choppy, these waters. Hoist the main sail! Aye, Captain. Splice the yardarm. Aye aye, Captain.” The pilot had obviously decided he was now a pirate king and his crew all rolled into one. Eli whimpered quietly and wished he were at home on Earth. Taylor wished he could remember where he had left his pen as he could use the time to work on his word search.
The surface of Graves’ World loomed ever nearer, menacing and unforgiving, but this did not seem to dampen Bob’s spirits any, “Wish me luck skipper. We’re going in. Chockie has picked up jerry defences at two o clock and Ginger’s lost his wing man. Never mind chaps, this one’s for Chalky and all the boys who never came back.”
The pilot seemed totally insane, yet piloted the shuttle expertly over the desert plains towards the research station. Eli leaned over to his friend and muttered, “Remind me not to tip him when we get out.” Taylor smirked at this. He was rather enjoying the pilot’s performance.
Hovering over the shuttle pad, Bob slowly lowered the shuttle onto the metal grid and shut the engines down to a standby position. “There you go shipmates. Remember, keep wrapped up warm out there, it’s a bit chilly.” Eli stepped rapidly out of the opening hatch and onto the surface of the planet, followed by a thoughtful Taylor West. Just as the hatch began to close, Taylor’s attracted Bob’s attention and asked through the front window, “You don’t run a book club do you, by any chance?”
***
Out in the desert plains of Graves’ World, the creature stirred, awoken by the shuttle as it passed over the burrow hiding it. It poked its animal head out of its hole and watched the shuttle land in the compound. Although normal circumstances would mean that the creature would be very frightened by such an occurrence, its hunger had now reached intolerable levels and its natural disposition was giving way to fury and desperation.
&nb
sp; It pulled its way out of its burrow and started to amble its way over towards the compound in search of food. With luck its mysterious benefactor would once again allow it access to the compound. The returning shuttle passed directly over the creature’s head, causing it to curl up in a defensive position on the sand plain. It was ten minutes before it carried on with its trip towards the research station and it felt ten minutes hungrier because of that. It felt as if it could probably eat two or three of the creatures inside the fence if it got the chance this time.
***
“They’re here,” squealed Lana in delight as she watched the shuttle depart from the compound’s landing bay. She couldn’t yet see the two engineers she knew to be coming but was looking forward to getting to know them. Her husband was not present in the station’s control room at that time and so could not have witnessed her reaction to new arrivals. If he had, he would not have been surprised by it. As well as Lana Maxwell, Major Hastings and Sara Crick were in the control room surveying the seismic monitors and tectonic radiographs. While the Major paced up and down the room barking orders at no one in particular, Sara sat as a desk studying a printout that the central computer was spewing forth at a rapid rate.
Lana merely gazed into space with a small smile on her face, anticipating strapping engineers entering her tiny realm. As the clock on the wall on the wall rolled around towards seven o’clock standard colony time, the Major began to moan about the whereabouts of Will Shanks who was due to appear at seven for the start of his ‘working’ day. All of the people in the control room knew that Shanks would not be likely to appear before a quarter past seven, but it made the Major happy trying to maintain punctuality.
The Major played with the end of his moustache irritably and tapped his foot on the floor as he waited for Will to appear. It was at that instant that Graves’ World’s newest visitors arrived at the main entry hatch of the research station. The visitor waiting screen flashed into action to show the anxiously waiting Lana a big, dark man and a smaller man obscured by the shadow of the hatchway. Pity, thought Lana, still I’ll get a look at him when he comes in.
“Ah, I see we have guests,” said Sara in her usual professional tone. The Major looked up at the screen, his face a picture of disappointment, “Don’t look like the rights stuff,” he complained. Lana was not so sure,
“I’ll go and welcome them,” she called as she headed out of the control room towards the entry hatch, passing a yawning Will Shanks in the corridor as she did so.
“What’s going on?” drawled Will to the rapidly disappearing Lana.
“Ah, Shanks. I see you’ve managed to drag yourself to the control room, barked the Major in his very best official voice. “Morning, Major, replied Shanks as the younger man made his way out of the control room, heading for the canteen. The Major looked aghast, turned to Sara, who was unconcerned with anything other than her work, and chased out of the room after Shanks.
***
After a few minutes waiting, Eli was pleased to see the hatch opening and even more pleased to see the curvy woman who had opened it for them. Lana smiled at Eli and purred, “Hello there. My name’s Lana,” she held out her hand. Eli took it and shook it firmly.
“Where’s the other one gone?” Lana asked, looking across the courtyard. Eli frowned, realising that Taylor had vanished, and replied that he hadn’t a clue but that she needn’t worry as he often did things like that. Lana smiled as if she understood perfectly, which she didn’t, and led Eli into the station, leaving the hatch unlocked so that the wandering Taylor could let himself in at his leisure. She led Eli along the corridors towards the control room, pointing out areas of interest along the way; her bedroom being chief among them.
“And what is your name by the way,” she cooed softly.
“Eli, short for Elijah. Bit of an old-fashioned name really, I suppose,” replied Eli with a huge smile on his face. He needn’t have worried about how much he was babbling, as Lana wasn’t really listening anyway, she was more interested in trying to undress him with her eyes. Ahead, Eli could hear someone coming from the direction in which they were heading. Turning to his escort he was just in time to catch her surreptitiously loosening her uniform to afford him a better view of her plunging cleavage. Eli gulped silently and began to wish Taylor were with him as he was starting to feel he may be out of his depth.
Taylor, on the other hand, was in his element. He had noticed a new thermo-lock on a nearby perimeter fence whilst waiting for the hatch to open and had wandered off to investigate. This would have been the point where the mystery creature had got in, thought West, and they’ve replaced the lock since then. A little like shutting the stable door after the horse has been massacred and eaten, thought Taylor. West studied the ground around that particular piece of perimeter fence for any tracks that the as yet unknown creature had left for a careful observer to discover. He was completely unaware that if he wanted to see the creature that had killed Jeff Hanley, he only had to look through the fence about 200 metres; and that it was closing on him all the time.
The creature’s hunger was now immense, there could be no refutation of it, and no dissuasion would have any effect on it. The creature could see more food, stood just where its last meal had been. The beast picked up its pace, warily yet purposefully, it felt sure its hunger would soon be satiated.
Taylor stood immobile, as he had been for several seconds whilst he tried to work out how the creature had gone in. All possible solutions were pondered, and discarded until he was left with only one; and that solution left him wishing he hadn’t let Eli go into the station on his own. His head snapped to the left as he thought, for a second, he saw movement in the desert but after seeing nothing out there he lapsed back into one of his thoughtful trances. Inside the compound a secret device of the user’s own devising and construction was utilised and the message it sent to the thermo-lock where Taylor was standing, was received and acted upon.
Unbeknownst to Taylor West, the perimeter fence near to him silently deactivated as the thermo-lock disengaged with no fuss, but plenty of menace. The creature had now closed to within fifty metres and its natural colouring still made it astonishingly difficult to see against the desert plains, even if Taylor had been staring right at it. With West in a thoughtful reverie there was little chance that he would notice it at all, until it was too late. Inside the station, the user of the remote device slipped back to join the others and was glad to see that they had scarcely been missed.
The creature approached to within twenty metres, ready to charge its prey, which was oblivious to its presence, and its hunger burned.
***
A perfectly good dream about mechanical tuna had just been interrupted and Eli’s robot cat was puzzled. His organic master had been gone for less than 24 hours and the fabricated feline knew that it was far too early to expect his return; and yet the cat could hear approaching footfalls on the landing outside the apartment. The robot cat reasoned to himself that the visitor must be someone who did not know that the homeowner was away. The cat, whose assigned name was Benny 4, settled back down to try and resurrect his dream. The expected knock at the door never came; instead a loud banging ensued as the person outside the door attempted to upset the delicate control mechanism for the doors securi-lock.
Awaking with a start, Benny 4 knew there was a criminal outside his home trying to obtain illicit entry. Benny 4 also knew that a felon was no match for a feline.
Carlos Rodriguez’ mind was already on his next job, this place was empty and full of consumer goods. He knew he could get into such a place as easily as he could open a can of beans, but he didn’t know he was opening a can of worms as he tried to force the door.
Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his left shin and looking down, he saw scratch marks in his trousers and blood seeping out of the newly acquired wound. A brief, but conclusive, glimpse of a small, furry paw disappearing into the cat flap in the door told him all he needed to know. A cat, he t
hought, I’ll change my trousers and then fix that pesky pussy. Rodriguez limped off down the corridor, but somehow Benny 4 had a feeling that he hadn’t seen the last of him.
***
Executive Arlen was worried. This was not an uncommon event, but at the moment, he was worried then was usual. Sat in the office, he was waiting anxiously for a vid-call transmission from security officer Maystone; and was distressed that he hadn’t received it yet. Just as he was about to give up hope, the transmission-waiting signal began to glow iridescently. Arlen pressed the receive button, his features looking even more thin and drawn than usual, and saw the burly image of Maystone appear, looking characteristically unpleasant.
“Ah, Maystone. You’ve arrived then I see.” squirmed Arlen, “Is everything in…. er…. order?” The security officer snorted, partly to show his scorn for the pathetic specimen he saw on his vid-screen before him, but mostly because he liked it.
“Well, no. I’m not there yet am I. Damn transport was delayed and we’re only halfway there. Had to wait half a bloody hour to use the vid-unit.” He spat onto the floor of the transport ship, which Arlen was grateful he couldn’t see.
“Anyway…. ah…. when you get there, do you see any problems in staying…. er, how should I put it…. covert?” persisted Arlen with his frown ever deepening.
The security officer looked puzzled. “Covert? Isn’t that where religious women live? Why would I want to stay in a nunnery?” Arlen took a deep breath and tried again,
“Hidden.”
“What is?”
“You are.”
“No, I’m not. What are you on about? Is this some sort of joke?”
