Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1)

by Richard Fairbairn

  Cass Linn was a beautiful crumpled silver trash can lying inelegantly amongst sheets of multi coloured overheated metal, burned out slivers of brittle wood and other unrecognisable shapes of debris. There were huge sheets of corrugated steel over a hundred meters across lying nearby, some of them intact and others bent and twisted like some giant madman’s origami. The skeletal structure of the warehouses remained, build in older times from sturdier materials and protected from the worst of the blast by their distance from the impact point. Some of the original paint could still be seen where it had been shielded from the blast.

  Fires burned here and there. Electricity sparked. Plasma gas clouds drifted high in the sky, still spewing from the destroyed coastal power station. The sun was shining brightly in the sky but there was so much dirt in the atmosphere that the city was lit like a dull winter’s evening. The glow of the plasma clouds gave the city a mottled cast.

  Cass Linn was alive. Suddenly, after yet another eternity of nothingness, she was aware.

  Her real time clock had stopped working. She had other, less elegant, ways to determine the passage of time, but she preferred her built in clock. She tried restarting her clock. It worked. She listened for the city time beacon, but she couldn’t hear it. She could see that something interesting had happened to the city. Something quite disturbing.

  Her short term memories had been corrupted, but she recalled the shuttle as she sighted it now lying on its side under one of the torn off ore roofs. Then she remembered Zinn’s men. She didn’t feel afraid anymore. That part of her was still not quite working. She didn’t feel anything.

  She managed to stand. It took about ten minutes to do so. Some of the motors in her limbs were damaged. She had to relearn how to stand. And her power generators were working so badly that she was weakened beyond anything she’d experienced. But she eventually was upright and she staggered across to pick up the sidearm that one of Zinn’s men had dropped.

  She recognised the gun. It was the same four barrelled pistol that Zinn carried and that her father had adjusted for him many times. Somehow, she decided that the pistol might be important. She took it into her metal claw hand. She crushed the grip slightly before she found the right way to hold it. A lot of her body was not functioning as it should.

  She started back the way she’d come. The mountain hadn’t really changed much. There was a lot of rubbish and debris in her way now, but the way back was clear to her. But it was going to take a lot of time. Her primary power cell was damaged. She was working on reserve power, and the reserve generator was not working terribly well.

  She felt the urge to rest. She wanted to find somewhere quiet and shut down for a while, but other urges warned her that it wasn’t safe to shut down. Jann Linn had programmed her carefully. Even though she wasn’t feeling fear anymore she still experienced urgency or, more correctly, a strong insistence to get to safety – to get home. She staggered and moved more slowly than she could ever remember, but at least she was on her way.

  2195AD - Spirit of the Future Rabbit Shuttle.

  The woman with the head injury had died. Silverman was never sure if she’d ever been alive the whole time he’d tried to tend to her. He wasn’t sure if dead people bled. Didn’t the heart need to beat to push the blood out? She was still bleeding but now he was definitely dead. Quinn had confirmed it. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  “Mathew,” He said, “You did a splendid job looking after this woman, but her troubles are over now. Ours, on the other hand, are far from over.”

  There were three other survivors aside from Matt Silverman and Jim Quinn. Two of them helped as Quinn and Silverman moved the dead body onto the floor. The other woman stayed where she was. She hadn’t spoken or moved or made a sound, but she was very much alive. Matt caught the eye of one of the men as they wrestled with the stiffening corpse. He nodded softly and the man nodded back. As soon as the dead woman had been lain down, both the men returned to their seats and strapped themselves in as the pink rabbit childishly continued to remind everyone.

  Quinn rapped his white knuckles against the rabbit’s face.

  “We need to find out what’s going on,” Quinn said matter of factly. Silverman was slightly taken aback by the fact that Quinn seemed to be directing most of his observations and… attention on him. “Come on now!” Quinn shouted at the man behind the Plexiglas, “Let us know what’s going on!”

  The pink rabbit didn’t disappear, but its crazy animations gave more insistent suggestions that everyone should be seated. Quinn and Silverman ignored its insane dance as Silverman hammered his fist against the rabbit.

  The catatonic and anorexic looking female passenger made a sound for the first time. She screamed. She screamed at the top of her voice.

  “Will you two idiots just sit down!” she cried in a shrill and piercing voice that cracked. “Please?”

  Quinn furrowed his brow. He glanced towards Silverman and then back towards the woman. Her straggly black hair still covered her eyes, but her head was turned towards them both instead of facing forward in terrified paralysis.

  “I beg your pardon,” Quinn said evenly, “But why exactly do you think we should sit down, madam?”

  Her face was contorted with something that looked like rage and then was sudden confusion, then terror. Then the rage returned. When she spoke her voice was full of authority and every word came with great absoluteness.

  “Because… Because the stupid fucking dancing pink rabbit is telling us to!”

  There was absolute silence. The faint sound of the shuttle’s engines could be heard. It seemed that even the pink rabbit had stopped to absorb what had happened. Quinn was the first to break the impasse. His wrinkle skinned face creased at the corners of his mouth and his eyes narrowed. He started to laugh in a very slow, low sound – almost like father Christmas. Silverman could see the female passenger’s facial features get even more confused as he too joined in the laughter. Silverman didn’t even know what he was laughing at, but he was. And everyone in the shuttle was laughing – except for the torn faced woman.

  “Have you all gone insane?” the thin woman screamed, “We’re all going to die!”

  Silverman had tears in his eyes. He looked at Quinn. Quinn was smiling wryly, and laughing but without a sound.

  Suddenly the pink rabbit was replaced again by the fat flustered face of the sweaty pilot. His small eyes darted from person to person as the laughter died out. He stared at the crying woman for a long time then he stared first at Matt then at Jim Quinn.

  “We only train on the shuttles once a year,” The pilot said, “I’ve not flown one of these things since I started working for Flyways.”

  “I don’t doubt that you’re doing a marvellous job,” Quinn said calmly, “But we’re a little bit confused and concerned back here. What’s happened to the ship? The other passengers? This shuttle’s almost empty.”

  Silverman looked at Quinn without speaking. The thin woman was laughing or crying now. He couldn’t tell which.

  “I’m sorry,” The pilot’s face was very red, “I didn’t mean to…” he shook his head to clear it, “The ship. Spirit’s gone. Something happened. An accident. I’m not in contact with anyone else. I can’t see any stars or space outside. I…”

  “Let me see,” Quinn demanded with sudden and surprising authority, “Open the glass and let me look.”

  “The pilot shook his head apologetically. “It doesn’t open,” He said, “They’re two different sealed compartments. But it looks like we’re still inside the wormhole. Hang on!” he fumbled with some controls and the pink rabbit finally disappeared. Jim Quinn and Matt Silverman pressed their noses against the glass to see beyond it and into the control room. The crazy haired woman was suddenly between them, pushing in. Her elbows were sharp and hard. Her breath smelled like she’d eaten something quite terrible.

  “We’re still inside the wormhole,” Silverman said.

  “How can that be?” the woma
n said, almost shrieking.

  “The accident must have happened inside the wormhole,” Quinn speculated, “What happened to the cruise ship?”

  “Kaboom!” the pilot said, “Ka – bloody – boom and a half that’s what. I was running, running out of my quarters first thing I knew it. I could feel the deck getting stretched and stretched under my feet. Then I was the only one running and I looked over my shoulder to see the emergency doors closing. Fucking Hell I didn’t know there were so many of those doors. I’m just glad I was on the right side of them. I… I know plenty of people who weren’t.”

  He stopped talking and was contemplative. So were Quinn, Silverman and the other passengers. But they weren’t as thoughtful as they were impatient.

  “It’s a terrible business alright. I’ll agree to that as much as any man right now. But we really need to know where we are, you see? It’s important for us to know that.”

  The man with the red round face blinked. His eyes were blank for a second, then they had life and light again. Then they were narrow and suspicious, his normal countenance Quinn correctly reckoned. But there was a different emotion there now. Something hopeful and useful. Maybe thinking of the people he’d just left behind had made him consider the new people he now found himself with. Maybe, Quinn thought, we’re more than just cargo.

  “There wasn’t any time for anything. I don’t even remember waking up. Just running. And I’m no runner, me. I’m too heavy for that, see. But I was running as fast as I ever have. Somehow I had half my uniform on as the first door started to close in front of me. I got under it, somehow. I heard screams behind me. Passengers, I know, shouting for me to open the doors,” He shook his head quickly, annoyed, “Damn it how could they expect me to open the damned doors if I didn’t even know the doors were there to begin with!”

  “Of course,” Quinn soothed, “But the shuttle? How did you get to it?”

  The pilot waved something attached to his necklace. A small golden horseshoe shaped object roughly the size of his eye. “This identifies me as a shuttle pilot. Most of the crew are trained to pilot these things. It’s not rocket science, I mean. I just press the button and tell it where to go, mostly – once everyone’s on board,” He glanced quickly at all the empty seats, “Anyone could fly this thing,” Then, as if he regretted uttering such a thing, he added “I guess.”

  “I’m sure that’s not the case at all,” Quinn said calmly, “So you’ve no idea what happened to the ship?”

  “Kaboom is what happened, but exactly what made it go kaboom is beyond me Mr passenger, sir.”

  “So what’s the procedure?” Silverman interjected, “What do you do? What do we do? Do we stay in the wormhole? Can these shuttles even be in the wormhole?”

  “No,” Quinn was the one who answered, “They can’t. We shouldn’t be in the wormhole. The accident happened inside the wormhole?”

  “I don’t think so,” The pilot said, “According to the log Spirit crashed into something as it exited the Joan Gallsin gate…”

  Quinn’s voice almost erupted, “You have the log there? For God’s sake man let me have a look at it.”

  “Who or what is Joan Gallsin?” Silverman muttered, subconsciously touching his glasses. The heads-up display in his right eye showed a brief frown as the glasses failed to contact any network for a response to his question. But Quinn was answering even as the pilot protested his authority over the log.

  “An explorer,” Quinn remarked, “One of the first wormholes. A door to nowhere. A door I didn’t think we used anymore,” He regarded the pilot again, “Come along now, man. I can read the log, believe me. I was reading them before you were born – back when we were still discovering the wormholes.”

  “You’re a pilot?” Crazy Hair said. Silverman mouthed the words too.

  “A long time ago,” Quinn said. Then, with deliberate calmness, Quinn looked through the Plexiglas and deep into the frightened little eyes of the big faced man who trembled there “I can interpret the log in a way you can’t have been trained to. I may even have a better crack at piloting the shuttle. Back in the day, I was a pretty good pilot.”

  The pilot looked embarrassed suddenly.

  “I don’t…” he said quietly, “I don’t know how to open the glass. They never showed us. Or I forgot.”

  Quinn smiled warmly and nodded slightly.

  “That’s a good man. Look for a small blue button by your right knee. Its shaped almost like a little thumb, strangely enough. Just give it a little flick and the glass will disintegrate.”

  The pilot hesitated. Silverman could see it. He turned slightly towards Quinn and so did the lady who was too thin. Quinn licked his narrow lips, his tongue almost brushing his moustache, and he was about to say something more when the pilot flicked the switch.

  The glass shattered with a loud crack. An instant before the thousands of tiny glass pieces started to fall to earth they disintegrated into dust; the dust vanishing completely a second later.

  “Marvellous stuff,” Quinn remarked absently, waving his hand where the glass had been. “Quite remarkable,” He reached his hand out to the pilot and stepped into the cockpit, sharking the man’s hand lightly, “Now then. Let’s have a look at this log and see if we can find out what’s become of the Spirit of the Future,” His brilliant white teeth shone as he smiled warmly at the still startled blue uniformed man. “The name’s Quinn. Jim Quinn.”

  “Ivor,” The pilot smiled thinly, “Ivor Jones. From Anglesey, New North Wales.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Quinn grinned, “Wow, the wormhole really is quite pretty from the inside. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one.”

  “Let’s just hope we keep seeing it from the inside of the shuttle,” Matt said.

  “Indeed,” Quinn smiled wryly, “That would be ideal.”

  Ivor Jones smelled of some liquor Matt could not identify. He was squashed to the side as everyone rushed forward. Silverman, made a barrier between Quinn and the other passengers. He braced his arms against the sides of the cockpit and glared at the other two male passengers to keep their distance. The crazy haired woman was standing slightly in front of him. Her hair still covered most of her face still, but Silverman could see that her gaunt features had aged her. Her wrists were thin skinned and bony. Her nose was a witch’s sharp and gnarled root. Her dark eyes were deep in their sockets and her mouth was cruel. She smelled of cigarettes.

  “It’s Alice,” She said, “My name.”

  “Matt,” Said Silverman. She put her hand out to him as if to shake it, but he didn’t notice and she witheringly pulled it back again.

  Jim Quinn pulled himself onto the pilots seat. Silverman thought he saw the old man wince in pain, but he wasn’t sure. The wormhole’s blue neon hue lit up his face, which was suddenly set in a grim and bold determination. His long fingered hands found the controls easily and with a sureness that filled Silverman yet again with more confidence in the strange white haired oldster. But when Quinn spoke Matt felt his stomach turn into a tight, cold ball..

  “Wow, we really are inside the wormhole,” He grinned with clenched teeth, “Isn’t that something else?”

  The shuttle didn’t have a name. It was shuttle 5. There were seventeen shuttles, each with a compliment of twenty passengers. Shuttle 5 had seventeen passengers from the centre section of the Spirit of the Future. Of the eight shuttles that survived the accident, shuttle 5 was the one with the most passengers. Shuttle 2 had left with just the pilot.

  Shuttle 5 was in normal space. Some of the wreckage from the centre section of the Spirit of the Future had been blasted back into the wormhole, but not shuttle 5. It was sitting motionless in space whilst eighteen strangers shouted at a dancing pink rabbit and a pilot desperately called for help.

  Another two of the surviving shuttles were talking to each other. Another three floated pointlessly and hopelessly thousands of miles apart, adding to the vast scrapyard of debris around the exit point of the Joan Gallsi
n wormhole. The others were meandering around as the occupants tried to work out what had happened.

  In all there were two hundred survivors. Fifty of those were still in the wreckage. Like Jack Jefferson Sloane, some survivors were sealed in their rooms or in corridors or public rooms. Some, like Sloane, were lucky. The local emergency systems in their sealed off sections were working normally. Oxygen was being recycled, the artificial gravity was working and the temperature was being kept liveable. Others were not so lucky. Most were already dead. Some were yet to die.

  2195AD - EWS Justice Six.

  The Enrilean starship Justice Six was taking part in a long range communications test when the Empire council sent an urgent transmission using the very fabric of space-time as an ultra-faint conduit. Ironically, the transmission would have arrived thirty minutes earlier if the Empire had used the improvements that the Justice Six was testing. But the message was sent using the existing setup and thus arrived later than it could have.

  The Justice Six’s captain was Hazer Jaxx, a crippled and embittered Enrilean ex secret serviceman. He was the most dangerous kind of Enrilean. Jaxx was a Crystallist - a true believer in the ancient ways.

  Crystallism was the only religion permitted by the Enrileans. The Relathon people were forced to submit to Crystallism too. The old Relathon beliefs were no longer practiced or permitted. All places of worship on Relathon’s massive continent had been changed into Crystallism temples hundreds of years earlier. The religion was as old as Enrilean society itself. Everything Enrilean was directly controlled or indirectly affected by it. All of the people obeyed it whether they believed or not.

  The Justice Six was one of the twelve large ships that Enrilea had in space. The thirteenth ship had been the Hard Edge. Six of the big ships were far, far away exploring the unknown reaches of the galaxy. The five that were still within communications range had suddenly been alerted to the disaster on Relathon – and the destruction of the Hard Edge.