'...yes.' Samej nodded, stroking his chin. 'Indeed.'
'They are both headed for the same place very soon Captain.'
'I knew that. Set course for that place.'
There was a pause as the ship's engines fired up of their own volition. 'What are your plans, Captain?'
Samej grinned back at the cheesecake. 'I'm going to go to the replicator and get some cake, then after that we're going to save the day!'
Whether it was the statement of intent at devouring its replicated brethren or the likelihood of getting an incoherent answer, the computer chose not to comment any further.
With a blast and a surge into the purpley-blue tinge of hyperwarp, Samej and his crew of one cat and a holographic cheesecake set off into the heart of Voravian space.
Mr. Tibbums was decidedly unimpressed with the service that had been rendered by the loud and screechy one thus far. Fortunately the heated spot that he had chosen to curl up in had been reinstated so his plans to take over the ship and depose the Captain would have to wait for the time being.
Soon... after a bath, and maybe a spot of milk, Tibbums would be ready to take out the screechy one.
He dreamed of it, twitching happily atop the console as it thrummed away underneath him.
Chapter 47
! ! !
Phil stared out at the strange green forcefield they were being kept behind. He had failed, he had failed them all and now he was going to have to watch from the sidelines. At least he was back with what was left of his crew, though none of them had risen yet from the punishment that had been inflicted upon them.
He was responsible for that. He was the Captain, and he had failed them. If only he had somehow found a way to disable the weapon permanently, but no. Instead he had been humiliated by both Hanniman and Burroughs before being dragged here to slump in this cell with the very people he had failed. Poor Trigger and RJ hadn't deserved this...
No, he wasn't going to think that way. He had tried his absolute best, hadn't he? So what if he hadn't succeeded? They were still alive, weren't they? And where there was life, there was hope.
He suspected that life was probably going to consist of a lot of these cells unless he could do something about it, but what?
Come to think of it, where was Trigger?
'Pssst.' came the sound from beyond the forcefield, but Phil's straining eyes couldn't detect anyone that could make it.
'Not quite, Captain. I'm just around the corner.' as the square-cut afro slowly loomed into view he realised that Trigger had somehow ended up on the other side of their forcefield.
'How the... How did you get there? Didn't the guards spot you?'
Trigger shook his head. 'Apparently nobody pays attention to an Ensign these days. I used that to my advantage and followed RJ here to the cell. They forgot to throw me in so I just stood outside until one of you woke up.'
Phil rubbed his groggy head. The whole thing seemed much too implausible, was he still dreaming some kind of concussed sleep?
'Oh no.' the Ensign moaned, slinking away out of sight again. 'Captain.' he hissed. 'Guards are on their way, look sharp.'
Phil tried his best to think of scissors and swords and cutting implements but failed to see how doing so would help get them out of trouble. The sounds of booted feet cut his imagination short sharper than any knife could.
'So these are the prisoners then?' a stocky old guard blinked at Phil and RJ in turn, adjusting what looked to be a pair of spectacles over his rheumy eyes. Space spectacles. From space. Once again Phil reminded himself that he wasn't in the future.
'These are the ones that have been causing so much bother, yeah.' a portly younger fellow in similar uniform stated. 'Apparently the fatty is the Captain.'
Phil thought that was very rich coming from a man who was almost his girth, but for once managed to keep his mouth shut.
'So what's to be done with them?' the first one said, raising his voice so Phil could hear quite clearly what was in store for him.
The second guard scratched his button nose with a hairy hand, clearly uncomfortable. 'Seems there's a bit of a complaint in upper management about what to do with them. Left hand says execute while the right is trying to imprison them.'
'They look pretty imprisoned to me.' observed the first guard. 'Strange that there was only two of them... wonder if the rest will be looking for them?'
'There's no way of them breaking out of this cell anyway. Not without this security card.' said the second, brandishing a yellow card clearly within Phil's sight. 'They'd somehow need to overpower us, get the card, use it on the forcefield and then get back to disabling the weapon before escaping in the only available shuttle in the docks by masquerading as the pilots.'
'So what you're saying is they'd need to sneak up on us, take our weapons, stun us with them and lock us in the cage, then use our authentication card to access the computer in order to locate where the weapon is relative to these cells before disabling that and then making it to the last shuttle available before overpowering the pilots and waiting for the dignitary before departing safely for Earth?'
'Indeed, that's precisely what I'm... argh!' grunted the second one as he was stunned by his own weapon. The first one flailed blindly at the assailant but was about as much use as a paper towel in a nunchucks contest, he promptly decided to join his fellow on the deck plating.
'Nice work, Ensign.' murmured the now-conscious RJ from the corner. 'That was a very helpful pair of guards.'
Phil aided RJ in rising to his feet but it appeared that the Texan had slept off the more debilitating effects of his punishment. They then chucked the guards in the cell and followed their unwitting instructions to the letter.
'It looks like they were bringing us food.' Phil's stomach informed the others as he pointed at the trolley. 'I guess they'd have put the forcefield down at some point, right?'
RJ nodded. 'I don't hear any alarms going off, that's generally a good sign.' he turned his attention to Trigger now. 'That was a ballsy move, sneaking about the place like that when you could have been discovered at any minute. Discover anything while we were gone?'
Ensign Hawkins went from beaming to slightly disheartened over the space of one sentence. 'I... I just followed you sir. I'm sorry.'
That was when it came to Phil.
'Trigger...'
'Yes, Captain?' the man looked up at him with some trepidation.
'You know the way that nobody pays any attention outside of our crew?'
A lengthy pause was required so that Trigger could breathe evenly again.
'Yes... Captain?' he managed.
'I need you to do our first plan on your own by sneaking into the weapon room and destroying it.'
Several minutes later, after they had revived the prone form of Trigger Hawkins, he reluctantly acquiesced to his Captain's orders.
He tugged at the uniform uncomfortably, and couldn't shake the feeling that this was all going to go horribly wrong.
'I have the utmost faith in you Ensign. If they didn't see you when you were captured they most certainly aren't going to see you wearing the uniform of one of their operatives... No matter how baggy the uniform may be on you.'
Trigger nodded sadly at RJ, realising through the man's calming words that he had no choice in the matter and that a horrible plan was better than no plan at all given their situation.
'Pardon me for asking sir, but what is it you and the Captain will be doing while I'm disabling the weapon?'
RJ shrugged. 'It's the Captain's plan, I'm guessing we're going to hide somewhere or see if we can make our way to the shuttle. Would that be right, Captain?'
'Yes.' Phil nodded, though in truth it looked like RJ had just formulated the plan for them. 'We shall do that. Exactly that.'
Trigger sighed. 'I guess I had better be on my way then. When you hear all the alarms go off you'll know that I've either been caught or the weapon is disabled.'
'Don't we have some way of telli
ng if he's going to be joining us?' Phil asked RJ, still clearly at sea with regards to what technical limitations had been imposed upon them.
RJ studied the brim of his cruelly flattened hat as if lamenting its mistreatment more than his own. 'Let me just look here and see...' he started running his fingers over it and Trigger heard a clicking sound, followed by a slight indentation in the base of the hat. RJ's hat had a secret compartment!
'If you take this.' he said, passing a small microchip into Trigger's outstretched palm. 'That will let me know where you are. If it stops moving for more than a few minutes after the alarms go off then we'll take the shuttle without you.'
'Assuming the dignitary the guards mentioned doesn't get to the shuttle before you do.' Phil added, not exactly exuding confidence at the number of things that could go wrong with this plan.
'I best be getting on my way then.' Trigger said quietly, hoping that saying the words wouldn't cause everything to go horribly wrong.
RJ clapped him on the shoulder and for once he didn't jump. 'Good luck Ensign... not that you'll be needing it of course.'
Phil offered similar sentiments and with that they were off in search of this shuttle bay, leaving Trigger alone with a forcefield and two incapacitated guards, one in a state of undress.
He really didn't need to get captured here.
Making his way clear of the bodies in no short order, Trigger found himself wondering just how he was supposed to get back to the weapon without having a clue where he was going. They had confiscated his scanner and he was completely blind without any assistance... Unless...
Sprinting back to the forcefield, he lowered it and resuscitated the older guard who still had some of his clothes on.
'Huh... what the... eh?' the man muttered, coherence not the highest on his list of priorities. 'What happened?' he eventually managed.
'You were... er... ambushed?' Trigger hedged. 'By... by the prisoners! They were able to get the forcefield down and overpower you. I need to get back to the weapon in time to warn them.'
Fortunately Trigger's paper-thin excuse was enough for the groggy guard, who clearly wasn't having the best of days in the mental department.
'If you just take the fourth turning on the right and follow that through to the junction on the...' he stared up at the confusion in Trigger's eyes. 'Oh, actually. Computer!'
'Yes Senior Officer Jensen?' the sweet voice chimed in.
'Show this young whippersnapper the way to the weapon, would you?'
'Certainly, Senior Officer Jensen. Have a nice day.'
A series of arrows lit up on the floor upon the computer's finishing of the final sentence. Trigger promptly knocked the man out again and started following the route to his mission objective. He didn't know if it was the uniform of RJ's confidence in him, but he was feeling distinctly more stealthy and capable than before. If these sort of guards were the only opposition between him and disabling the weapon then this should be a cakewalk, right?
Trigger reminded himself after that thought where it was he was trying to infiltrate. The Human Genome Station. The biggest and scariest place in the galaxy when it came to spies and mad scientists. Not the place he wanted any part of if he were remotely sane.
Then again, given a choice between this madness and continuing to follow Captain Darwin's blundering he knew which was better for his sanity.
He followed the arrows carefully, ignoring a series of similarly-clad individuals that were walking down the corridor on various errands. Occasionally he would spot one of the higher-ranking officers following a number of men on their hands and knees being whipped about the corridors in some kind of bizarre training ritual.
He spent most of his time wondering how the Captain and RJ were getting on in acquiring that shuttle, mainly to avoid having to think about what it was he was doing currently and wetting himself or running the other way. Yes, that would most definitely blow his cover.
Before he knew it the arrows ceased, pointing with some finality toward the large set of double doors in front of him. Now all that was left to do was wander in there as casually as possible and destroy the weapon without getting fried. He pocketed the transmitter that RJ had given him with sweaty fingers and took a deep breath before continuing.
Oh yeah, now he remembered. The whole three rooms thing. They had made it to the second room before they were gassed and his colleagues had been taken away, it had seemed hilarious at the time but in hindsight he hadn't enjoyed crawling blindly about the base for a few hours completely ignored.
Come to think of it, now he realised why he had been ignored in the first place, the whole base had grown accustomed to seeing operatives crawling about.
His brain was going a mile a minute, trying to think about how to best approach the test of the three rooms in order to get to the weapon, when the doors promptly opened of their own accord.
'Can I help you?' a suspicious-looking scientist said to him as the doors shut behind him.
'Yes.' Trigger said simply, and blasted him.
Well, that was easy. Trigger thought this to himself as he donned the fallen man's science coat and science gear and science things. Science.
Adjusting the spectacles so he could see, Trigger proceeded through the door as if he belonged there, trying his best not to shake at the prospect of being gassed again, or worse, if this went wrong.
The other scientists completely ignored him as he made his way through to the weapon room, though it would seem that the door was locked and guarded by the same operatives as before.
Well, this wasn't promising. Here's hoping that his new disguise would afford him more opportunity than his previous attempt.
'State your business.' the guard said. He didn't look like the previous guard that he had encountered while with the Captain, much to Trigger's relief.
'There's a malfunction with the weapon, I need to tend to it before it goes critical.'
The guard frowned. 'It's a weapon, not a reactor. How's it going to go critical?'
Trigger tapped the name plate on his coat pocket and feigned an importance that he didn't feel. 'Who is the scientist here, hmm?'
The guard mumbled something that didn't sound very complimentary but relented with his inquisition. Apparently Trigger had guessed right and the scientists were afforded more importance than the military personal on the station. The doors unsealed themselves and slid open to reveal the weapon.
It was a huge cone-shaped device that pulsed rhythmically in time with some strange stalk-like things with big glowy orbs atop them. He had expected a large gun with a computer panel on the side or something, instead he was greeted by something that looked like it came straight from a 50's science fiction flick. Trigger hadn't the faintest idea how he was going to disable this thing.
'Well? Are you going to go in?' the guard asked, growing more suspicious at Trigger's gawping.
Not needing any more prompting, Trigger paced his way in, trying his best not to run as the double doors closed behind him, resounding ominously and sealing him in there with the device he was supposed to sabotage.
'Now what?' he muttered to himself, nerves starting to get the better of him in this enclosed space. Where were the other scientists?
'Ah, there you are!' piped up a high-pitched voice from the centre of the machine. 'Just the man I was looking for.'
Trigger stared at the talkative machine aghast, not knowing what to say to the weapon.
'Well? Don't just stand there, come up and give me a hand with this!' a bald head peered over the edge of the main cone and beckoned him up a ladder which was swaying dangerously under the man's lack of balance. 'Never could get these things right.'
'Couldn't get what right?' Trigger asked, trying to sound as normal and routine as possible.
'Ladders. They're a real nuisance, but they don't allow the jet packs in here. The energy interferes with the machine's operation, causes it to go hay-wire.'
'Yeah, of course it does.' the Ensign
in disguise replied, starting to piece together what it was he had to do. 'Where do they keep those jet packs anyway?'
'Why, they're located in a storage not that far away from here. I'm sure one of the guards would be able to show you where it is.'
This proposition didn't fill Trigger with anything but dread, but he tried his best not to let the alarm show on his face. 'I don't suppose you could show me where this storage compartment is, could you?'
The scientist stared at him as if he were mad. 'You want me to get off this accursed thing and walk you all the way to the storage compartment so you can stare at the jet packs?' there was an edge to the voice that indicated to the Ensign that this most certainly wasn't an option.
'Okay, I'll go ask the guard instead.' Trigger said, turning back to the doors and hoping they would let him out again.
'Hey... Hey!' the Scientist yelled behind him, clearly unhappy at the lack of assistance rendered to him with regards to the stabilisation of the ladder.
Trigger hoped he fell for all he cared, making his way back through the mercifully opening doors to speak to one of the guards stationed beyond. The man stared at him in confusion, given that he had just gone in there less than five minutes ago.
'As Junior Scientist I have been sent on a mission to acquire a jet pack.' he stated in as officious a voice as possible. 'You are to assist me in acquiring one for the delicate work that needs to continue if we want the weapon to be fully operational when the Voravians arrive.'
The guard shrugged, clearly not pleased at having to take orders from someone as insignificant as Trigger but not overly bothered at being given the opportunity to stretch his legs.
'So what do you need the jet pack for?' he asked as they walked together down the winding corridor. 'Seems a bit of an odd request from one of you scientist types.'
Trigger froze on the inside, his feet making a remarkable effort to keep moving forward and his face refusing to betray that he was terrified of the man seeing through his wrinkled too-large uniform and discover the would-be captive masquerading within. 'I... that is... it's much too complicated to possibly put in words that you'd understand.'
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