by David Smith
She snapped back to the job in hand. 'Anyway, it's keeping them out of my way for the minute. I, on the other hand, know exactly what's wrong with the drive, as I can smell your handiwork a light-year away. What I can't figure is why you've done it. That's essentially the reason for my visit. I know you won't 'fess up yet, but once I've executed a few of your crew in front of you, I suspect it might loosen your tongue. No hurry though, I'll let you stew on that for a little while before I start. How about 0800 tomorrow morning? Is that good for you? Not doing anything else around that time? Excellent!' she grinned.
Dave could sense her excitement at the prospect of executions, and he could see a flush in her cheeks as she spoke of it.
Her smile slipped. 'I'll be down at 0800 with the first of your crew members, and I'll watch and enjoy. There's nothing like a little execution to get the juices flowing first thing in the morning' she watched his face intently for any sign of a reaction. 'I'll come down every hour after that too, with another member of your crew. In my role as Magistrate I’ve authorized executions by over a hundred different means of varying messiness. I may have to come up with something new with so many traitors to get through. And I won’t be asking you anything. I’ll just off your crew, one, by one, by one . . . until you beg me stop. Then I’ll off a few more, just because I can. We'll see how long it takes for you to let me in on your little secret.'
She turned a teetered off, wafting the smell of soft leather, expensive perfume and unflinching evil.
After she'd left, Dave slumped onto the bunk. He'd never felt so completely powerless, or so alone. Did he have the stomach to watch every member of the crew die to prevent the Magistrate finding out about the warped-drive? Even if he did, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't find some way of unlocking the system anyway. It might all be for nothing.
He was still agonising over this sometime later when the door to the Brig opened again, but it wasn’t the Magistrate this time. The sultry Latina that ASBeau had identified as the Tiger's previous Helmsman, Lieutenant Delgado, strutted into the Brig.
Like all the female crew she wore the spectacularly abridged version of uniform that was the norm in this universe, but on her it seemed to fit perfectly. She was lean, and just slightly muscular, and walked with a poise and confidence that marked her as a dangerous opponent. She stopped by Dave's cell, and was about to speak when she spotted something low down on the row of projectors that emanated the force-field to seal the cell. She stood up, span about and shouted at the guard. 'You! There's a row of faulty emitters on this cell! Why haven't you had it fixed?'
The guard was flustered by this unexpected assault 'I'm sorry Lieutenant, I hadn't noticed a problem. Where are they?'
'Down here, look . . . ' she beckoned to him.
'They look ok to me . . . '
She moved back and beckoned the second guard 'Show him what I'm talking about . . . '
The second guard leant down and looked at the array too. 'Sorry Lieutenant, I . . . '
He was abruptly silenced as she pulled out her phaser and shot both of them in the back.
Dave jumped up in shock. 'What . . . who . . . '
Delgado lowered the force-field and beckoned him out of the cell. She dragged the two unconscious guards into the cell while Dave was still standing in dumb amazement and reinstated the force-field. She moved with a grace and precision that was fascinating, and had released most of the other prisoners before Dave had pulled himself together enough to ask "What the hell is going on??'
She explained without breaking stride. 'I'm rescuing you, you moron! We don't have time for explanations now. Down on the surface of the planet there are rebel teams trying to de-activate the bomb Grosvenor has planted and also make sure the Marines are disabled. In the meantime my instruction was to free you and get you back to your ship so we can take out ISS Tiger. As it stands Joynes and Beauregard have left a small team in Engineering and on the Bridge over there and a Security team on the hangar deck to guard you crew. We need to get back to free the crew first, then take the Engine Room.'
Dave was still lagging behind the game. 'But we can't use the transporters and we'll never manage to steal a shuttle?'
'It's already taken care of' Delgado stated bluntly and pulled out a communicator from the top of her boot. 'Tigereye to Slick: Are you ready?'
A hushed reply came 'Yes but hurry up, I haven't got long!'
Delgado breathed a sigh of relief. 'Dolplop will drop ISS Tiger’s shields and then stay on the Bridge to buy us some time. Drop us in the Shuttle Maintenance Workshop on board the other Tiger, and then follow across yourself with the weapons.'
Dave felt the familiar unnerving tingle of a transport beam and was midway through saying 'Wait!! What about LaCroix??' when he realised it was too late and they were already back on his own ship.
Delgado had heard him, and turned to O'Mara as soon as they arrived. 'Get to the Secondary Transporter Room on Deck 14. Your LaCroix is in the Operating Theatre of the Sick-bay. YOU MUST LOCK ON AND TRANSPORT THE ONE FURTHEST FROM THE DOOR' she stated very, very firmly.
As O'Mara left, there was the ringing, whining sound of another transport being made and Dave was stunned to see the familiar round and ever-so-slightly greasy face of Kennickie appear from inside the glowing lights. He looked flustered and agitated and hurriedly passed Dave and ASBeau a phaser each before dropping a heavy kit bag he’d had over his shoulder. "Hurry, it'll only be minutes before the crew on Goldberg realise what I've done.'
--------------------
On the Bridge of ISS Tiger, Joynes sat glowering at a schematic of the other Tiger’s drive systems. He was no engineer, but there was no reason that it shouldn't work. His failure to get the drive running had left him in a foul mood, even more so since the Captain had ordered him to come back to the ship and sent that treacherous bitch O’Mara over to try and sort it out. He felt like cutting someone's bloody head off.
He was still contemplating how he could prove O’Mara was a rebel, or a spy, or a traitor when he had a call from the Captain in the Sick-bay.
LaCroix sounded dizzy and confused, but still angry. ‘Joynes! Someone has beamed the other LaCroix out! What the hell is going on??’
Shaken out of stupor, Joynes hastily checked the transporter records, but was embarrassed to find he couldn’t access them. He tried calling the Transporter Room but there was no-one there.
Slightly confused, he said ‘Captain there’s no sign of any out-going transport from Tiger, sir’.
He could hear the sound of teeth gently grinding before the Captain exploded ‘THAT’S BECAUSE OUR TRANSPORTERS DON’T WORK AND HAVEN’T WORKED FOR OVER A YEAR, YOU MORON!!!! Dieu me donne la force!’
Joynes waited nervously as the Captain struggled to contain his explosive temper.
His voice shaking with barely suppressed fury, the Captain continued. ‘Contact the other ship and Goldberg and find out which conducted the transport. Then go to that ship and kill everyone who might have partaken, with the exception of my duplicate. Do you understand?’
‘Yes Captain!’
‘Then tell me what your instructions are.’
‘I’m to find out which ship conducted the Transport, recapture your duplicate and kill anyone who was involved.’ Joynes smiled. That was the sort of instruction he liked: Simple, concise, and with permissible execution by unspecified means.
‘Good. Go to it’ said LaCroix ‘But Joynes . . . ‘
‘Yes Captain?’
‘If you fuck this up I’ll have you executed with a cheese-grater.’
‘Aye Captain.’
The Captain closed the link and Joynes called O’Mara on the other version of Tiger.
‘O’Mara, someone has hi-jacked the Captain’s double. Check your transporter logs: has anyone beamed in?’
‘I’m busy down here Joynes, can’t you do it?’ grumbled O’Mara.
‘Only if you beam me across, I can’t afford to waste time on a shuttle’ Joyn
es said irritably.
O’Mara didn’t want Joynes hanging around anymore than he wanted to be in her company. ‘Hang on then . . . no . . . nothing. The Transporters here are all powered down, no transports since yesterday.’
‘Ok. I’ll try Goldberg’ he said and cut the link.
O’Mara went back to her work, trying to find out what the hell was wrong with the drive system. Several key systems didn’t seem to be working including shields, but there was no obvious reason why . . .
She paused. Her sense of treachery and deceit were finely tuned after three years aboard ISS Tiger. Who the hell would want to hi-jack the Captains double? It obviously wasn’t anyone from Tiger. It certainly wasn’t her team. And she couldn’t imagine the Magistrate would be even remotely interested in the Captain’s testicles (or lack thereof).
No, there was only one possible explanation. Somehow the prisoners must have escaped. The game was afoot and with a thrill of excitement she realised it was nearly time to make her play.
She called Chief Benoit who’d been working on the ship’s weapon systems. ‘Chief, are the phasers and torpedoes armed?’
‘Yes Ma’am, as instructed we’ve manned all weapons, and got the thrusters and impulse engines ready to go.’
‘Excellent. Meet me on the Bridge with the rest of the senior science team. We may need to go to battle-stations imminently. O’Mara out.’
--------------------
Delgado switched on the monitor on the desk. A camera on the Hangar Deck showed the Tiger’s crew, hands tied, standing in clusters or slumped on the deck near the Hangar’s huge clam-shell doors. Guarding the entrances were a dozen security men, all heavily armed and armoured.
‘There’s too many of them. We’ll never be able to get close enough to take them all out!’ groaned Dave.
‘We don’t have to’ said Delgado grabbing Kennickie’s kit-bag. Opening it up, she pulled out several uniforms and said ‘Get changed, and be quick about it.’
--------------------
On the Bridge of ISS Tiger Joynes was getting more and more frustrated. He’d attempted to contact Goldberg, but for some reason they couldn’t get an answer from the ship. Shearer had confirmed that their out-going comms had failed, but couldn’t see why. There seemed to be a problem with the system software.
He was still pondering whether or not he dared admit this to the Captain, when Beauregard squawked ‘L'autre navire est en train d'armer phasers!!’
He didn’t need to speak French to understand this. ‘Red Alert! Shields up, arm phasers!’ He knew they were in trouble, as the other ship was physically stronger then this tin-foil death-trap. He cursed that ass-hole Carstairs and his stupid prank, and smiled as he remembered carrying on the ancient British tradition of ‘transporting aussies.’ He also had fond memories of his gratuitous revenge on Chef Burns too: He’d managed to force-feed that idiot chef nearly twenty kilos of Transporter Chief haggis before his stomach had burst.
On the view-screen, a bolt of orange nadion particle energy seethed past the ship, missing it by a few hundred meters, but snapping Joynes back to reality.
‘Ils ont pas soulevé leurs boucliers!!’ shouted Beauregard.
‘What??’ shouted Joynes
‘They haven raysd ther shields like, y’naw?’ translated Shearer.
‘What??’ shouted Joynes again.
‘They said they haven’t raised their shields, Commander’ said Lieutenant Lyle.
A second salvo of phaser fire slammed into ISS Tiger, physically rocking the huge vessel, but her shields held and no serious damage was done.
Joynes knew he had to act quickly, as without her shields ISS Tiger’s tin foil hull would be devastated by any phaser strikes.
It never occurred to Joynes to ask where Lieutenant Delgado was, or check in with the security team he’d assigned to guard the other ship’s crew. Instead, he smiled, as whoever was manning the other ship had just made a rookie’s mistake. It was a mistake that they’d pay for with their lives. ‘Target her Bridge, fire on my command.’
He was pretty certain the other LaCroix couldn’t be on the Bridge yet, as he’d been anaesthetised for the operation. He might be able kill everyone he needed to in a single volley.
He was just about to issue the command when a bright purple-green streak flashed in front of his eyes.
Tearing his eyes away for the view-screen, he saw one of Dolplop’s tendrils had flashed out and wrapped itself around Beauregard’s throat.
Beauregard let out a strangled gasp and his face instantly turned purple as Dolplop’s stingers pumped lethal amounts of neuro-toxins into his blood-stream. Another tendril lashed out, catching Lyle across the shoulders, and she slumped forward with one last orgasmic moan, twitching spasmodically.
‘Death to the Terran tyrants!!! Long live the Rebellion!!’ Dolplop’s translator squawked, and he used his tendrils to grab the furniture, dragging himself closer to Joynes while cutting off his possible routes of escape. Joynes barely had time to raise his cutlass to fend off a tendril that shot out directly towards him.
He slashed at another tendril, then ducked and rolled away as more flew towards him. He’d never trusted slaves like the Vosgeanns. They were useful, yes, as they never slept, but their simmering hatred was always there, bubbling away under the surface. He’d be more than happy to eliminate this traitor.
Shearer made a break for the turbo-lift, but Dolplop flicked another tendril out, catching her on the smooth skin exposed by the skimpiest PVC shorts in the fleet, and with a squeal she flopped forward, paralysed before she landed face first on the floor.
Joynes’ razor sharp cutlass slashed through another two tendrils that snaked his way, and gained him enough time to draw his trusty old blaster with his left hand. Less sophisticated than a phaser, it was an old weapon that used radiation to simply incinerate anything it was fired at. There was no fancy stun setting, no kill. Just incinerate. Joynes loved that gun . . .
He raised it and fired straight at Dolplop.
Joynes had never been the brightest of people, and years of drug abuse had definitely slowed his mental processes down, but even he had just enough time to realise that firing a heat-ray at a giant bladder of pressurized methane and sulphur dioxide gases probably wasn’t a good move.
The fire-ball consumed the Bridge and everyone on it.
--------------------
Down on the surface of Todot Hahn, Dave Hollins led the small rebel force into the ruined city, closing carefully on the Imperial forces. They’d by-passed the automated security systems and were undetected as they approached the large, abandoned municipal building in which the Imperials had set up their base.
There were only a dozen Security men, and a half dozen scientists. They’d beamed the personnel down and used two large shuttles to land the heavier gear that they’d brought. As he peaked through his binoculars he caught sight of a familiar looking leather-clad figure amongst the enemy.
So Magistrate Isobelle Grosvenor had come in person. He ground his teeth. He had a personal score to settle with her. She’d overseen the torture and execution of dozens of his best people. His comrades. His friends.
He signalled Sergeant Belle, and her team began the attack. They skilfully sneaked forward, and as one threw a stone to distract the nearest guard, Belle silently approached him, placed a hand firmly over his mouth and rammed a dagger through his spine.
Dave winced. He had no stomach for such closer quarters blood-letting. He’d much rather place his faith in a good phaser. Peaking over the top of a ruined wall, he took aim and disabled another guard. As he did, Stallworth and another member of the team opened fire. More of the Imperial troops were felled, but just when it seemed they’d be able to walk into camp, one of scientists chanced to step outside for a breath of fresh air. He saw one of the guards fall and immediately turned and ran screaming in alarm as he did so.
The time for stealth had gone, and with a roar, Sergeant Belle shouted ‘Up
an’ at ‘em!!’ leading her team on a full frontal assault. All hell broke loose. Flashes of phaser fire were met with screams of pain.
The Imperial troops weren’t taking prisoners and disintegrated a couple of Belle’s team, but numbers were against them and as Stallworth and Hollins attacked from the other side, the Imperial troops were caught in a cross-fire and quickly disabled.
Hollins moved forward with the troops, desperate to get to the Magistrate, but a roar of lift-thrusters told him he was too late and he could only watch in frustration as a shuttle took off and headed into the sky.
Damn her! He’d been so close to catching up with his nemesis. He didn’t allow himself to worry about it; he had other things to do. Inside the building he found the remaining scientists cowering around what he assumed was the mega-bomb. All they had to do now was disarm it.
--------------------
Delgado marched a hand-cuffed Hollins onto the Hangar Deck and shouted ‘Security team! Attention, get over here now. I’ve captured the enemy leader trying to sabotage the ship. He’s the most dangerous man in the Empire and I want all of you here guarding him while I find out how he escaped.’
Startled, the security team members looked at each other uncertainly until they were herded towards her as ASBeau and Kennickie shooed them away and took their places guarding the huddled crew. ASBeau waited until all of them had nearly reached Hollins and Delgado before calmly levelling his phaser and starting to shoot them in the back. He prided himself on his proficiency with small arms and had downed three of them before they even reacted. Kennickie had followed suit and bagged another, and as the remaining security team span to face them, Hollins and Delgado drew their phasers and began picking them off too.
Caught in a cross-fire, the security team didn’t have a chance. One of them grabbed the nearest member of Tiger’s crew and attempted to use them as a human shield, but as he did, a very, very grumpy peguin pecked hard at his ankle, bringing a howl of pain and allowing the crewman to break free. Both Delgado and ASBeau reacted instantly, hitting the hopping security guard squarely.
