Starfire and The Planet Killer

by Christine Westhead

  It revolved slowly to face them, revealing a small Aurian man with a pinched little face. His black, shiny peaked cap was so far forward that he had to lift his head in the air and look down his nose at Erion. He rose from his seat and sniffed with a thinly disguised air of irritation. All the operators looked up from their posts, able to carry on with their boring, but necessary tasks while taking in this new turn of events.

  "Back to work!" he snapped, and the operators all looked back to their screens.

  They were colloquially called 'Passers', which meant they intercepted a random percentage of all communications throughout the Federation, checked them for anomalies and manually routed them towards their destinations. There were just a few stations of this type throughout the galaxy, usually sited on small worlds in uninhabited parts of the galaxy. Passers were a close knit community, for they were not allowed to mix socially with anyone else. In this instance, the Castillon tower would be home, workplace and recreation to its five thousand occupants. The only contact they had with the outside was through the information they channelled from one part of the galaxy to another. Consequently, Erion's arrival had caused heads to turn her way.

  The supervisor stepped forward, peering up at Erion with an air of self importance. He took her pass and returned it to her without looking at it properly, assuming that Erion and Hal had already been cleared through Main Reception as landing protocols demanded. It never occurred to him that someone would gain entrance to his little kingdom, other than through official channels and Erion had to stop the supervisor from checking.

  "Why was I not informed that a personal visit was to take place?" Erion had been about to smile in a suggestive way, then thought better of it. This man obviously respected efficiency so she saluted smartly and held out her hand for the locked case Hal carried, snapping her fingers with impatience. Hal stepped forward and held out his wrist while Erion triggered the release mechanism of the chain that held the case. She opened the case the same way and held up the papers inside so that the supervisor could see them. He lost his sneer for a moment. "A Grade One security check! I was not informed."

  "No one was informed," snapped Erion. "How could we carry out a surprise inspection if you knew we were coming? Please clear this room at once."

  "Now look here," the supervisor made to step forward but Hal barred his way. Erion continued,

  "We have information that you have a rogue passer working from this station." The man drew himself up to his full height and still only reached her shoulder.

  "I assure you, Commander, there is no one here who would do such a thing."

  "I will ask you once more to clear this room." Erion put a hard note into her voice. She dared not risk a glance at the time on her com link, but she knew it was running out. Some of the passers leaned backwards and twisted their heads to look at the supervisor, unsure of what to do and a few of them were whispering together. The little man sighed and spoke into a microphone on his desk.

  "Clear the room, all passers clear the room. This is not a drill." He did not like the idea, that was plain, but he could not question the orders of a Lieutenant Commander of the Galactic Police, which is what Erion claimed to be. He watched while the techs rose from their chairs and walked away, obviously through many exits down the long room. A dozen or so filed past Erion and Hal and the supervisor reluctantly followed them. Hal closed the door and leaned on it while Erion reached hurriedly inside the large case and drew out a shining metal tube.

  "Did you get the key?" asked Hal. Erion grinned and held up a thin, flat, embossed metal card on a tiny chain.

  "His nose was so far in the air when he saw those papers, he never noticed me slip it off his wrist. Go watch them while I switch cores and set the charges." Hal opened the doors again and went to stand on the other side of them, holding his carbine across his chest as he had seen Federation guards do when they were trying to look important. In the main control room, Erion quickly slid the key into a slot on the supervisor's desk. The main computer's memory core raised silently up on its plinth and Erion carefully removed it, placed it on the console and inserted the dummy core she had brought with her. That done, she placed the real computer core into the case and snapped it shut giving a smile to herself as she caught sight of the fake papers the supervisor had seen. From the lid of the case, she opened a panel and took out several small flat, oval objects. They were magnetic and she placed them on several surfaces around the room, pausing only to set a timer before placing and setting the next. She was just fixing the last one to the main computer when the doors slid open and Hal yelled across the room to her,

  "Move it Major, we got trouble."

  Outside the doors Hal stood tall and straight as the supervisor and his staff waited impatiently.

  "What's she doing in there?" demanded the supervisor, stepping forward. Hal moved the carbine and aimed it at the furious man. He raised himself to his full height and glared up at Hal from under his hat. "I've had enough of this," he squeaked. "I don't care what clearance she has, I'm going to check up on her." He raised his hand and pointed to the young man behind the podium. "You; Idiot! Put a call through to Main Reception and…" He stopped in mid sentence, gazing at his empty wrist. He opened his mouth wider as if to shout and Hal shot him at almost point blank range. His scorched body left the ground and shot horizontally across the hall to cannon into the terrified, screaming Passers. The bewildered guard glanced between his dead supervisor and the large red panic button on his podium. In the split second he was deciding what to do, Hal took quick aim and shot the guard. The blast caught the young man on the side of the head and he hurtled backwards and banged his head on the wall. His body rebounded off it to slide slowly down the side of podium, his hand just missing the vital red button.

  "Get the hell out of here," snarled Hal to the panic stricken Passers as he herded them into the aircar. "This place is going to blow." Aircars universally had seating for eight people on their benches but all of the passers crammed in like sardines in their terror. Hal set the aircar for the lowest level, took out the internal communicator with a quick blast from the carbine and slammed the door mechanism with the heel of his hand. Erion was at his side in a flash, passing the supervisor's key to him. Hal called for another car, seeming calm as he waited for it to arrive. Opening the door, he inserted the supervisor's key and programmed the aircar to take them to the landing pad. The supervisor had priority, so whatever happened now, the aircar would not be stopped. He removed the key and handed it down to Erion, who was kneeling beside the supervisor's body. She replaced the key back on his dead wrist and accepted a hand up from the tall Terrellian. She caught sight of the unconscious guard, slumped against the wall. He had fallen on his new lunch box, which had burst open, and sandwiches, biscuits and treats littered the floor around him. She raised a questioning eyebrow.

  "He moved just as I fired," explained Hal. Erion looked away to hide her smile. Hal was a professional gunman and never missed. He had grazed the young man on purpose, knowing that if he spared him, the guard would have been accused of collusion. This way, he would keep his life, keep his job and probably get a medal for being wounded in the course of his duty.

  Side by side they entered the aircar and closed the door. The little shuttle sped silently downward on its way to the plateau landing pad and Erion glanced at her wrist.

  "Ten minutes yet," stated Hal. "Our ship should be within range of their sensors any second." Five seconds later, a loud klaxon sounded and the light in the aircar changed to red. Erion held her breath, praying that it would not stop. It braked momentarily, then carried on at a slower rate. The aircar juddered and swayed slightly and Erion caught Hal's eye.

  "We must be crossing the bridge," he answered her unspoken question and seconds later the door hissed open to the sound of a raging wind. Rain blew into the spherical compartment, mixed with hail that was almost horizontal in the screaming wind. Hal moved forwards and Erion stepped behind h
im, using his armour as a shield against the elements. She squinted past his tall frame, trying to make out the dimly lit metal struts that supported the massive signal receivers, their huge dished faces pointing skyward, with long antennae standing out from their centres like spears.

  She felt Hal stiffen and raise his carbine. She drew her own hand weapon and peered around him, relaxing and grinning as she made out the bedraggled figures of Raan and Delta Ten lurching towards them through the maze of struts. Raan shouted something, but his voice was lost in the howling wind. Hal gestured to his helmet and Raan nodded, raising his wrist to shout into his com link. Hal nodded back and grabbed Erion's arm, dragging her forward against the wind to follow Raan and Delta Ten towards the spaceship landing pad. Their aircar had stopped short, and they would have to make the climb. By rights, the aircar should have taken them to the top, but the alert must have frozen all aircar traffic. This was as far as they were going to get.

  It was a massive structure, as big as a dozen games fields and perched thirty feet above them on a sturdy metal framework. A dull tremor shook the ground under their feet and Raan raised a thumb in triumph. Their charges had gone off, sealing the sleeping guards in their quarters and leading their pursuers downward.

  Delta Ten accepted the precious case from Erion and moved to the metal ladder that ran to the top of the platform, alongside the aircar tube. His android frame was immune to the buffeting from the wind and sleet and he began to climb the ladder steadily. His orders were to reach their Planet Hopper which was hopefully waiting for them on the platform above. He reached the top and peered over the edge, his strong sensors piercing the darkness to make out their dimly lit ship, which squatted some fifty feet away, its forward cannon pointing at the smoking remains of the traffic control tower. He sprinted towards the lowering ramp and leapt aboard, throwing the precious data pack onto an empty seat.

  "I am going back to help the others," he stated to its open mouthed pilot. "The main charges will go off in fifty seconds. Do not wait if we are not here. You must get the data pack to Gant." He turned and hurled himself out into the darkness to meet Hal and Raan, who had Erion between them. Delta Ten scooped her up over his shoulder and they half ran, half staggered towards their waiting Planet Hopper.

  A massive explosion rocked the platform and they all fell into a tangled heap at the bottom of the Planet Hopper steps. Its pilot, a pretty, young Terrellian woman with a mop of brown hair and wide hazel eyes, was waiting at the hatch. She wore a battered, Aurian Space Marines, one piece khaki flying suit, a standard gunbelt with a small hand pistol butt forward on her left side, and marine issue, lace up boots. Like Erion and Raan, she was also branded a traitor and deserter, and since they had all met on that ill fated mission, they had not spent much time apart. She did a quick body count and turned to sprint to the pilot section. More explosions began to rip through the structure and the platform began to move to the accompanying sound of groaning metal.

  Passing a hand over various crystals, the pilot fired the engines. Already on emergency stand by, they roared into life immediately. A glance at the screen in front of her showed that her passengers were aboard and the hatch was closed. She hovered both hands over the lift-off crystals and raised them up. The platform started to tilt to port and the starboard side rose up to the sound of screeching metal. She raised her right hand higher to compensate and the little ship's right wing lifted. With gritted teeth and a good few curses, she coaxed the little Planet Hopper into the air, its starboard ski just brushing the smoking roof of the Starport control tower as it crumpled away from them to crash onto the rocks, thirty feet below. Then the craft was turning away and gaining height, buffeted by the high winds.

  Her friends forgotten for the moment, she waved her hands frantically over several coloured crystals, compensating for every off course movement of the little vessel. When they were clear of the mountains, she engaged the ship's main drive and the Planet Hopper shot away into the upper atmosphere. Once above the clouds, all the buffeting ceased and she relaxed slightly, turning the ship away from the small planet. As she looked down, she could see dull red flashes below as the fires took hold. 'Let them get out of that!' she thought to herself as she steered the shuttle to its mother ship, waiting silently in stationary orbit above them. Raan, dripping wet and shivering, slid into the co-pilot seat beside her. He flashed her a wide grin.

  "Hi Starfire."

  "Hi yourself," she answered. "Did you get it?"

  "We got it!"

  "Good! There's Grennig up ahead. Help me line her up."

  They skirted a small moon to see their corvette, the Grennig, hanging in space above them, its shape blotting out the stars. It was large, sleek, and as it could also fly in atmosphere and under water, it was aerodynamically shaped and tapered sharply towards its nose, which ended in a graceful prow. Painted in a dark grey that was almost black, it was covered in lines of shiny, brass rivets, which was the fashion in ship design a hundred years ago. It was a graceful, elegant ship but looked very old and convincingly out of date. The Alliance Shipwright, Con Tranter, had upgraded the ship to such an extent that it was now one of the fastest in the Galaxy and the upgraded specs also included their capacity for battle. Two massive fusion thrusters were set high up at the stern and were housed under an aileron with a slanting, pointed tail-fin.

  Starfire lined up the Planet Hopper under the massive engine array and used the maneuvering thrusters to turn the hopper around until the rear engine was facing the ship. Raan, still sitting beside her, on her left, but with a blanket draped around his shoulders, opened the rear cargo doors of the Grennig, and the Little Dragon reversed into the cavernous hold. They waited until the cargo doors closed and a green light on Raan's console told him the cargo bay was pressurised.

  Hal slapped his hand on the inside hatch ident and the hopper door split and opened up into the cargo bay. The lower portion dropped down to reveal a short flight of steps and they all ran to the aircar tube in the centre of the bay. The Grennig was a huge ship and had its own basic, internal aircar system. The main central shaft ran from bow to stern along the length of the ship with various links to go up and down the four decks at several points. They entered the little sphere and sat on the circular bench seat that ran around the centre.

  "Pilot Section," stated Raan, as he was nearest to the voice com by the side of the door. The shuttle rose for a few seconds, then set off down the back bone of the ship. It slowed to a halt just over ten seconds later and the door slid open at aircar hatch six to reveal a small, hexagonal hall.

  It was walled with satin steel and had a chequer-plate floor. Three aircar doors and three internal hatches were placed alternately around the six walls and the centre of the floor was taken up with a circular hand rail. A circular staircase went up and down as far as the eye could see and they skirted it and headed straight in front of them for hatch number three, the pilot section. It too had six sides and the front and two adjoining sides had sloping, plexiglass windows which gave a direct view over the prow of the ship. Apart from the entrance hatch, a worktop ran all round the room, covered in various dials, crystal and screens.

  Starfire and Raan rushed forward and sat in the twin pilot seats in front, while Erion sat on Raan's left, facing a window at the navigation post and Delta Ten, facing the last window, sat on Starfire's right at the main computer. There was a gunnery post on either side of the hatch and Hal slid into his seat on Del's right, at the starboard gunnery station.

  "Signs of pursuit?" asked Erion.

  "None, Major," answered Delta Ten in his usual calm voice.

  "Course is plotted," she stated.

  "And locked in," added Raan.

  "Okay Lieutenant, smiled Erion, "take us home."

  Chapter 2

  "Course laid in," said Erion.

  "And locked," added Raan, making a minor adjustment. Starfire waited for the onboard systems to accept the changes and reported all was well.
r />   "We have go for the jump to Kelorus," she said.

  "Jump," commanded Erion. Starfire touched a crystal and the ship hurtled forward in the blazing corona effect that was light speed.

  "Light point two please Captain," said Starfire, calmly.

  "Point two, aye," Raan made the necessary adjustment. As the pilot, Starfire, the lowest rank of the three, was in command when they were in flight.

  Although they were no longer in the Aurian Space Marines, they all felt more comfortable acting as if they were. Delta Ten usually addressed them by their military ranks anyway, unless they were under cover and Hal rarely spoke at all. It was unusual in an Alliance ship, but it worked for them and so they stuck with it. Erion, the Navigator; Starfire, the Pilot; Raan the Soldier; Delta Ten the Engineer, and Hal was Offence. His title was officially 'Defence' but because he rarely gave any opposition the chance to fire first, Erion had changed it. Starfire wanted Delta Ten to make him a badge, but the Hal hadn't seen the funny side, narrowed his eyes and threw her the 'stare'. Apparently, the 'stare' was reported to be the last thing a lot of his losers ever saw. It never had the same effect on Starfire and she dissolved into fits of laughter.

  "Light point two confirmed," said Raan, calmly.

  "Status please Del?" asked Erion.

  "We will enter normal space in nine point six hours, Major," answered the android.

  Raan turned around in his co pilot chair and leaned an arm across the back of it. "That's it, guys, we're good to go," he stated. "Man, I need a hot shower and some dry clothes."

  "Stop whining, Captain," began the warm, dry Starfire. "You don't see the others, complaining do you?" Raan didn't answer her but stood up and gently swivelled her seat around to face Erion, who was huddled under a similar, warm fleece. Starfire shook her head, sadly. "The last hope for the Galaxy!" She swivelled her pilot's seat to face them. "Next time we go on a raid, someone else can fly the Hopper. That waiting around is damn hard on the nerves."