Deep Space Dead

by Chilvers, Edward

  “We would be better off working on a plan to rescue your daughter then going back to the original plan of opening up the doors and saving ourselves,” said Col Gayze. “The only thing Chairman Bol did wrong was not killing enough people. He had a golden opportunity to salvage something from this catastrophe and instead he chose to put us all at one another’s throats.”

  “And I suppose by that you mean you would have closed off the doors to the Council chambers only and allowed the rest to go to hell?” Said Jak archly.

  Col Gayze shrugged. He did not attempt to deny the accusation.

  “We can argue about this later,” said Arianna, trying to compose herself. “Right now we need to go out and get supplies.”

  “Only I need to go,” said Jak with determination. “You should stay here, Arianna.”

  “It may be my only chance of getting Ambra back,” replied Arianna. “If they see I’m prepared to risk my life they may look better on us, and if we come back having saved everyone with food it’ll be even better.”

  “What if you don’t come back at all?”

  Arianna swallowed hard. “I’m going to have to take that chance. After all, half of the rangers seem to have gone over to Hari Shorr and his group. We can only trust one another.”

  “Your main hope is over here,” said Banda Ure, pointing at the spherical map towards a part of the continent far to the south west. “There are some forests of nut trees which should provide us with protein for the foreseeable future and can presumably mashed down to make a stew which will keep us for a while. If you fill up the net they’ll be enough for a week.”

  “A week,” repeated Jak, rubbing his chin with worry. “And even if we are successful, what then? We risk our lives every time we set out in that thing and if we lose it we’ve got just one rover left. We’ll have to go back week after week. One day we won’t be so lucky. One day we’ll get there and found the revenants have beaten us to it.”

  “We just need to be lucky for a few weeks until the crops come up,” said Gan Cuk. “Presuming the rebels haven’t completely ripped them apart by then.”

  “Take the explosives,” said the mining Councillor Jared Bynce. “I know they don’t do much but they should come in handy against a few revenants and at the very least they’ll create a distraction.”

  “I don’t trust Col,” muttered Arianna under her breath as the meeting was dispersing a little later. “Whilst we’re gone it is a sure bet he’ll be lobbying to open the doors and let the revenants in whilst saving himself.”

  “Not unless he has the control room, he won’t,” said Jak. “Let’s just hope we can trust Barra not to do anything stupid.”

  “Let’s go now,” said Arianna. “Get this whole thing out of the way and over with. Maybe the revenants won’t be so quick in the dark, although I doubt it. They’ve foreseen every other trick we’ve tried to pull. I have a feeling a quick death might be the easy way out.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Jak firmly. “I know you’re keen to see Ambra free, Arianna, we all are. But there’s no use risking ourselves in the dark in unfamiliar territory. And besides, it has been one hell of a day. We need to get some rest.”

  Arianna did not sleep at all that night. She could not get Ambra out of her mind, for this was the longest she had ever spent away from her daughter. An hour before dawn she rose and went to the launch pods where she was surprised to find Jak and Sol already there, making last minute preparations for the mission ahead. “Is everything in place?” She asked nervously.

  “It is,” replied Jak. “I’ve been thinking of the take-off all night. I’m confident I know how to get around those things.”

  “We should go now,” said Arianna with vehemence. “The last thing we need is to have thousands of prying eyes watching us as we take off. Let us go now and be back before most of them are up. We could blindside them with our triumph.”

  “Provided you do triumph,” said Sol with concern. “You know I’m still not sure about this Arianna. Let me go instead.”

  “No,” replied Arianna with determination. “You are the leader now. We cannot afford for you to leave the ship. I am ready. When we come back successful nobody will be able to doubt my determination to save our daughter.”

  15

  Jak brought the rover up really fast and spun it around in a corkscrew motion as the vessel shot out of the hatch. At the same time, from the other end of the ship, Sol fired a plasma missile through the garbage chutes. It was but a temporary distraction but it worked well enough. The revenants charges forwards as one, leapt on one another’s shoulders and launched missiles at the rapidly departing craft but to no avail. Jak was more than ready for them and within a few short seconds the rover was above the clouds and well out of reach of the creatures below.

  Jak pulled back the thrusters and now the rover gathered speed. Arianna looked down to see the valley filled with revenants. The plasma seemed to be having barely any effect on their numbers Arianna looked down again and now she saw the revenants had set off in pursuit of them, moving at an astonishing speed. Jak pushed the thrust down to full speed and the blast powered them away from the area. Within a few seconds they were hundreds of miles away.

  “There must be a place we can go,” said Arianna. “Somewhere that is safe, where they cannot get to us. This planet is vast; there must be an island somewhere.”

  “They would find us,” muttered Jak. “Give it a few days and they would be upon us.”

  “Not if there were few of us,” said Arianna. “What if we all dispersed and went to live in the most far flung areas? Yes, they would find some of us but it would be better than all of us dying, and one day the Confederation will come looking for us.”

  “Maybe,” said Jak. “But we’re hardly in a position to do that right now.”

  “If I thought my dying would keep Ambra safe I’d throw myself out of this damned rover right now,” sighed Arianna. “I know why they took her. They’re after Sol, not me. Why in the hell did he have to step up to take charge?”

  “There are far worse people to take charge than Sol,” said Jak. “Take Col Gayze for example. At least he’s not going to sell everyone short without a second’s hesitation.”

  “We need to be successful,” said Arianna. “If not the likes of Col Gayze will get his way. They’ll close of the airlocks and trap everyone. And if Ambra is there…”

  “Do not think of that now,” cautioned Jak. “Right now we have to concentrate on the task on hand.”

  “How long do you think we’ll have?” Asked Arianna. “Before they catch up with us I mean? I’m sure they must be pursuing us even now.”

  “We are hundreds of miles away from them,” said Jak confidently. “They are at least three hours away from us now and we’re still outstripping them in speed. It will only take us an hour to load up and we’ll be on our way back.”

  As they travelled Arianna looked down sadly at the rolling valleys and acres of rolling countryside that was ripe for cultivation. She looked down at the freshly flowing rivers and the landscape ripe for building a multitude of villages and cities. But it was all an illusion, a trap. Stop to drink at those rivers or lie down a while in the grass of those endless meadows and the revenant hordes would be upon you within a few hours. This entire new world of theirs was like a chocolate box laced with cyanide.

  The rover hovered low over the trees. Jak carried out a scan on the ship’s instruments whilst Arianna’s eyes performed their own scan over the trees. She thought she could see sinister shadows in everything and yet Jak assured her it was all just jitters. The scan came back clear. Jak anchored the ship in the air.

  The gangway dropped down. Arianna and Jak got out and pressed a button. The net emerged from the storage compartment at the bottom of the rover. The net was made of plasma and could be stretched out over a wide area. As they watched the net expanded until it covered an area of three acres around the trees. They stepped back and watched, neither of them speaking for
they well knew the consequences of failure. Jak pushed down the thrusters. There came a low boom followed immediately afterwards by a sign akin to rainfall as millions of nuts now dropped down from the trees. The net rose up again, the gravitational pull causing the nuts to be packed in tightly against one another. Their shells would break against the pressure but Arianna dared say this was a problem that could be dealt with later. The net now rose back up again to form a solid square, almost a box. The entire operation had taken a total of ten minutes.

  “You see?” Said Jak happily as they looked at the bulging net. “Done and with hours to spare as well. Why we should stop for a picnic.”

  “Don’t be flippant,” replied Arianna, although she was smiling too. “We mustn’t ride our luck when at last we receive a piece of good fortune. Let’s just return to the Tula II and get Ambra back.”

  But Jak seemed in no hurry to get back. He was enjoying the cool breeze on his back and the feel of the sun against his face, the rustle and the smell of the trees and greenery all around. “There must be a way around all this,” he sighed as he stretched out laconically and sat down on the grass. “What if we could build walls to keep them out? Electrified walls with force fields reaching high into the sky over many miles? Why we could use the parts of the ship, start small and gradually branch out from there.”

  “And how would we have the time to build such a structure?” Asked Arianna, coming to sit down next to him. “It has taken us an hour to get here. In another two the revenants will be swarming over this place after us.”

  “Maybe we could distract them,” said Jak keenly, warming to his theme. “Drop colonists off at different points across the planet. They would come after us in smaller numbers and would be far easier to take down.”

  “I would say those revenants outnumber us ten to one,” sighed Arianna. “More like they would pick us off bit by bit.”

  “At least we would be fighting,” replied Arianna. “At least we wouldn’t be stuck inside, waiting to be betrayed or starve to death on that damned ship.”

  Suddenly there came the sound of crunching, of wood breaking, of trees being felled at a lightening rate. Arianna and Jak sat bolt upright and stared at one another. “Impossible,” breathed Arianna. “There’s no way they could have…”

  “Back into the rover!” Exclaimed Jak. “Whatever that is I’d rather be viewing it a few hundred feet into the air.” Without another word the two of them leapt up and charged up the gangplank back into the rover.

  “How are they so fast?” Demanded Arianna. “How did they get here so quickly?”

  “That lot above ground around the starship can’t be the last of them,” said Jak as he began frantically pressing buttons to start up the vessel. “I looked on the map just before we got here. There’s a cave network not two hundred miles away. I never thought a thing about it at first but they must somehow be able to communicate with one another.”

  “What are we going to do?” Demanded Arianna.

  “We cannot allow them to latch on to the load!” Exclaimed Jak. “Do that and they could pull us down and it would all be lost. We’re probably not going to be able to come back here again for a long time.” Jak thrust the rover upwards once more but this time the load was heavier and made the ship uneven. The rover jerked sharply upwards and lurched from side to side, almost turning upside down. Arianna and Jak were thrown around the cockpit. Arianna looked down and was horrified to see how the spot on which they had been sitting not one minute previously was now swarming with drooling, bloodthirsty creatures. A revenant leapt up, its claws skimming harshly against the metalwork of the rover and causing a jagged dent. Jak turned the rover sharply sideways so it was unable to gain a hold. The rover hurtled forwards. Arianna looked round to see the trees shaking violently as the revenants pursued them. Jak cranked the rover upwards so it was flying almost vertically and they rose high into the air so they were level with the clouds and were safe, at least for now.

  Arianna pressed the buttons to gain access to an analysis of the cargo. “It will sustain us for a week if we’re lucky and we manage it well,” she said. “Although with things breaking down all over the place it wouldn’t surprise me if the colonists just came in and helped themselves to great armfuls of the stuff, in which case there may be even less than feared.” Arianna had placed a few of the nuts which had been lying around on the floor in her pocket. Now she got them out and cracked one of them against the metal casing of the rover’s dashboard. She grimaced when she tasted it. “Rich and sickly,” she said with disdain.

  Jak laughed at this. “We’ve got salt to go with it,” he said cheerfully. “And I daresay the chefs can work out some other miracle.” At that moment one of the instruments on the holoscreen started bleeping. “It is an electronic signal,” said Arianna as she looked closely.

  “Are you sure?” Asked Jak.

  “Well I think so.” Arianna peered closely at the readings coming through on the holoscreen. “I mean I’m hardly a scientist but I know a thing or two about data analysis and there’s definitely something coming through.” She pressed another button to activate the radio. There came a strange hissing on the other end of a line, static starts then stops. Here and there the noise sounded almost human, but perhaps this was only her imagination.

  “This may be important,” said Jak. “Are you sure it isn’t a duff reading?”

  “I don’t know.” Arianna creased up her face. “I suppose it may have something to with the revenants; maybe their bodies are giving off an electronic charge somewhere, although if that was the case I don’t see why we haven’t picked it up back at the starship. It appears to be coming from far to the north, possibly in the polar regions. We’ll have to see if Prima Blak can make anything of it when we get back.”

  Jak approached the Tula II far faster than he would normally have considered prudent. He had wanted to surprise the revenants and come into land before they realised what was happening but their numbers were simply too many. They surged forwards as the rover flew overhead. Arianna had alerted Sol to their arrival minutes beforehand and now the opening to the landing strip slowly started to open. Jak was through them before they were even halfway, slamming on the brakes at the last possible second. The rover skidded over the metal floor. Jak spun it around on its side and was able to stop it inches before it collided with the wall on the other side. A revenant dropped down and hurtled forwards just as the opening to the landing hatch slammed closed again. Jak opened up the hatch of the rover and leapt out, firing the pistol indiscriminately. The revenant skidded and collided into Jak. Arianna let out a cry as they went down together. She leapt out of the rover, her own pistol drawn although she had never before fired it and approached cautiously. There was blood all over the floor of the landing strip. As she drew nearer she saw the revenant’s skull had been more or less caved in. Jak was struggling to free himself from the embrace of the dead beast. “It is fine,” said Jak, his breathing laboured. “I wasn’t bitten. It is quite dead.”

  Sol and some of the other Councillors came hurrying to help move the beast away from the ranger. Jak sat up and stood gingerly. He was covered in the revenant’s blood and viscera and had been winded but was otherwise unharmed. “Get it out of here,” muttered Jak, gesturing towards the revenant. “Shoot it out of the garbage chute or something.”

  “Wait,” said Dr Palk. “This is a golden opportunity for a dissection. It will help us to know what makes these things tick.”

  “We’ve saved you all,” declared Arianna to the rebels in the arboretum. “And as such you have no reason not to give my daughter back.”

  “No,” countered Hari Shorr. “You have merely delayed the inevitable. In a few days time we will need to make another raid, and then another after that. I know full well we cannot sustain this kind of risk. Come up with some definite answers, a long term solution, and we will see about releasing your daughter.”

  “We’ve kept our side of the bargain,” protested
Arianna.

  “You have done well,” admitted Hari. “And so I shall let you stay here in the arboretum with your daughter, although you shall not leave with her in your company. Chairman Sol, if that is how he now styles himself, can visit when he wants but he shall not stay overnight. Now hand over those supplies to us.”

  “The supplies will be distributed fairly,” said Sol authoritatively. “If you wish you can have representatives making sure we do this but under no circumstances will I tolerate a free for all.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Hari Shorr doubtfully.

  “Maybe I’ll just ask Councillor Herr to open up this space and leave the supplies to the mercy of the revenants, would you like that?”

  “We still have your daughter,” said Hari Shorr threateningly.

  “Harm her and I’ll destroy this entire ship,” replied Sol darkly.

  “You think that went well?” Snapped Arianna afterwards. “Need I remind you our daughter is being used as a bargaining chip in all this? We’ll never get her back.”

  “We’ll get her back,” replied Sol vaguely. “Hari Shorr doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s all mouth and no action. Note how he fled the arboretum where all the trouble was taking place just before Bol closed it off? It was lucky for him but he is a coward too.”

  “Why did you have to take charge?” Demanded Arianna. “Why did you have to put yourself forward? Oh yes, I know there are many worse than you but there are still enough good people left on this Council to prevent the likes of Col Gayze from taking over.”

  “Everybody knows the Council is just a puppet organisation now,” said Sol. “The power structure on this ship has almost completely broken down.”

  “We still have the control room,” said Arianna.