Waiting

by Gary Weston

  'Sounds like quite an adventure, Anne.'

  Lee chuckled and replied, 'One to tell the grandchildren about. Which reminds me. I happened to mention to him, just conversationally, that you found him attractive.'

  Cormack pulled up sharply. 'You told him what?'

  'Oh, come on. Don't deny it.'

  Cormack started walking again, so fast that Lee had to practically run to keep up with her. 'I rather think that is none of your business.'

  'Agreed. But I think you really should make it yours. Mark your territory, so to speak.'

  'Excuse me? I am not a cat on heat.'

  Lee said, 'Of course not. You do fancy him then?'

  Cormack stopped at the surgery door before entering. 'Between you and I, yes. Thanks for the heads up.'

  Lee grinned and said, 'You're welcome. Go get him, tiger.'

  They entered the surgery and found the three men sitting in the waiting room. 'You first, Anne.'

  It took twenty minutes to examine Lee, Friar and Clifton. Finally, Jacobs was the last one.

  'Right,' said Cormack. 'Off with your suit and underwear. Let me have a good look at you.'

  Chapter 37

  Bridget lay on her bed fully clothed, apart from her boots, much going on in her head. For one, her feelings for her mother. As the commander general, she had her total respect. In the early days of the latest war, the enemy the Futurians, had the upper hand when it came to numbers and equipment. They had used the relative calm between the wars to build up their capabilities, whereas the politicians led by President Sol Maxim, president of the Western Tricor, had naively dismissed the possibility of another uprising by the oppressed Futurian Union and had drastically cut the budgets to the military, in favour of spending on infrastructure.

  It had only been the fortitude of Loretti and other generals that the Tricor had averted a disastrous defeat. By the time they had caught up with resources, many had died and it took the brilliance of Loretti to regain the upper hand. She was utterly ruthless and often led from the front, her own Spider battle cruiser at the forefront of the fighting, defeating her opponents both on the ground and in the air. The mission to save the human race, instigated by Jarvis Jacobs was one of the things the Western Tricor had funded at the expense of the military, even reluctantly working with the Futurian Union as a way of maintaining the fragile peace, unaware that the enemy was merely using the time to build up a formidable resistance.

  When the next war had restarted, the Goliath had set off to Spero on its ten year mission, the terraformers sent ahead two years earlier to make the planet habitable on their arrival. When the mission was at that stage and the war had restarted, the politicians of the Western Tricor began redirecting personnel, equipment and funding away from the Base back to military use. Only a token personnel were left to keep the mission operational, under the command of General Gunther. The politicians had little to do with the mission now, everything concentrated on the war effort.

  It didn't surprise Bridget that her mother still kept some of her attention on Gunther and the mission. But what was really going on? Strange messages about even stranger radio signals emanating apparently from space, from an alien civilisation? When those signals had been sent was it seemed, impossible to determine but according to her father, something was going on between Loretti and some as yet unidentified man. It had concerned Gunther sufficiently to sabotage the communications between the Goliath, and shut down the terraformers, possibly putting the mission and those on the Goliath in danger. The terraformers had been stopped by her father as a desperate measure to buy time for the mission by delaying the Goliath from landing.

  As all these things were spiralling around her mind, something else demanded her attention. The words of the tortured Salamandra.

  'Is that all you know? Loretti. Don't you even trust your own daughter enough to tell her the truth?'

  What on Earth did that mean? It could have easily have been Salamandra's way of needling Loretti, or he could actually have information that would be useful for Gunther.

  There was only one way to find out. She got off the bed and pulled on her boots. She opened her door and checked the corridor was clear, then she got in the elevator and pressed H. As the door pinged open, a solitary guard stood up and saluted.

  'At ease, corporal,' said Bridget. 'I want access to Salamandra's cell.'

  'Of course, Captain Loretti.' He started keying in the code to open the heavy steel door. 'Want to try getting him to talk do you, captain?' he said with a grin. 'I do like to hear them screaming.'

  'I do want information from him, yes,' replied Bridget.

  'Lovely. Just don't you go killing him off, hey? The general wouldn't be pleased with you if you did.'

  Bridget detested everything about the guard, but smiled and said, 'Just a little chat. I thought I'd try a little subtlety instead of brute force for a change.'

  The guard shrugged. 'And good luck with that, captain. You would be in the general's good books if you got something useful out of him.'

  'You see right through me, corporal,' whispered Bridget with a wink. 'Could be a promotion in it for me if I'm successful. It would be a nice little surprise for my mother, so keep this between you and I, yes? You look after me, I'll look after you.'

  The sleazy corporal winked back at her. 'Our little secret, captain. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In you go and good luck.'

  The guard pushed the door open and Bridget stepped inside, the door closing behind her with a clang.

  Chapter 38

  'Everything seems to be in excellent working order, Captain Jacobs.'

  Jacobs adjusted his underwear, donning the dressing gown provided by the doctor. 'Hrmm. Thank you, Doctor Cormack. Good to know there's life in this old dog yet.'

  'Indeed,' said Cormack with a grin. Once assured Jacobs' medical condition was as it should be for a man of his mature years, she couldn't resist nibbling his ear and kissing his neck. Pleasantly surprised at first, he had returned her amorous advances, and mutually enjoyable kissing and caresses ensued, and they both found difficulty in restraining themselves from going further, but professional propriety won the day.

  'I err...should be err...duty calls and all that,' said Jacobs, awkwardly.

  Cormack found Jacobs boyish floundering appealing, but only allowed a slight smile to betray her thoughts, lost on a man.

  'And I have my duties, captain. But I'm off duty in an hour. Perhaps we could have our meal together. I would love to hear more of your adventures on Spero. Just out of scientific interest, of course.'

  'Of course. I look forward to your company. Oh. I'll take my suit for cleaning. That dust will take some shifting.'

  'It'll keep. I'll take care of it. Run along. A shower wouldn't come amiss.'

  Jacobs instinctively raised an arm and sniffed his armpit. 'Being cooped up in a suit for hours on end can do that to a person. I'll see you in an hour.'

  'Missing you already.'

  Jacobs gave a slight wave of his hand and left the surgery.

  'I do like you a lot, Jay Jay,' Cormack said to herself, 'but I can smell your suit from here.'

  Cormack gathered up the dust and grime encrusted suit, picking it up gingerly with just her thumbs and fingertips. 'Only a man could get this dirty. Oh my. What have we here?'

  Chapter 39

  'Just what I need,' groaned Salamandra. He spoke with an awkward lisp with his swollen mouth and two missing teeth. 'A Loretti visiting me in the small hours. I assume it's the small hours. Difficult to keep track of time down here.'

  'I just want a chat,' said Bridget softly so the guard outside wouldn't hear. 'I tend to kill cleanly, not torture for hours on end.'

  'You might be doing me a favour if you did kill me.'

  'We're all living on borrowed time. There'll be nothing to fight over soon. That rather makes your reluctance to talk even more pointless.'

  Salamandra said, 'I'm finding it hard to say anything with a mou
thful of dried blood.'

  In one corner of the cell was a tap which dripped water continuously into a rusting bucket, left un-repaired to inflict an annoying plopping sound around the clock. A battered ladle hung from a bent nail in the wall by the side of it. Bridget filled the ladle and lifted Salamandra's head to allow him to drink.

  'Thanks.'

  'No good to us if you die of thirst. Have they fed you?'

  'Slops the pigs wouldn't eat. Does your mother know you are here?'

  Bridget said, 'She'll find out eventually. You are second in command of the Futurian Union.'

  'That depends on if Changah is still alive. Is he?'

  'I've heard nothing to the contrary. But things change by the hour out there.'

  'True. Why...' He paused to lick his swollen lips and Bridget let him have more water. 'Thank you. Why are you being nice? Just a different approach to extracting information?'

  'That's for me to know and for you to find out. I'm not here to waste my time about where Changah is hiding out or where your mobile laser vehicles are. We'll destroy both eventually.'

  Salamandra wriggled on the bare steel bed, difficult to do with legs and arms secured to each corner with chains. 'Not without severe losses on your side. So what do you wish to talk about? The weather?'

  'Earlier you said something which intrigued me. You said, "I wonder what else she's told you. About Spero." What did you mean by that?'

  Salamandra studied Bridget's eyes, as if boring down deep into her mind. 'It is mankind's last hope to survive. Isn't that all there is to know?'

  'What do you know of the radio signals? The ones not made by humans.'

  Salamandra's eyes narrowed as he studied Bridget's face, then he laughed. 'Oh, too priceless. I really can't believe she hasn't told her own daughter.'

  Even though Bridget wasn't the one chained to a steel bed, she felt as if she had lost the advantage. 'I may know something you don't. The mission is in jeopardy.'

  Salamandra was clearly shocked by that and he rolled his eyes at the mould encrusted ceiling. 'That really is unfortunate. The mission is really the only thing worth fighting for now. Everything else is just garbage.'

  'You believe in the mission?'

  'You said it yourself. Our time on Earth is at an end. On the mission are the embryos of every race on this planet, including mine and yours. If that fails, it really is game over.'

  Bridget wanted to believe Salamandra wished the mission to succeed more than anything. It was probably the only thing they had in common.

  'Tell me something. If you were free right now, what would you do? Keep fighting a war nobody can win or try to do something useful and help save the mission?'

  Salamandra rattled his chains. 'A rather pointless question, don't you think?'

  'Perhaps.'

  Chapter 40

  'I'm surprised you called me back to the surgery,' said Friar. 'Anything wrong? Shall I strip off again?'

  Doctor Cormack said, 'You are fine. Nothing to worry about. This is what I wanted your opinion on.'

  'Easy. It's a spacesuit and it stinks.'

  'It also has puncture marks in it.'

  'Really?' said Friar picking up the suit. 'Let me see. Where?'

  'Here on the back. Just below the helmet collar lock. See them?'

  'Not really.'

  'Try holding them up to the light. That's how I noticed them.'

  Friar did as Cormack suggested. 'Oh. I have them. Two tiny pinpricks. Who does this belong to?'

  'It belongs to Captain Jacobs. What do you suppose caused the holes?'

  'Hard to say,' said Friar. 'We each have two complete suits. Most of us just use the one, keeping the other for when we settle on Spero. A few suits look pretty shabby now. Take Steph Fowler, our mechanic. I swear that thing walks around on its own sometimes.'

  Cormack said, 'Dirt is one thing. These are two tiny holes.'

  'Hmm. Could have been punctured anytime in the last few years. Don't worry about it. We have a patch repair kit for small damage like this. Once cleaned, one can be stuck on. They have a special adhesive once the little cover is peeled off.'

  'Joe. You seem totally unconcerned by this.'

  'Why shouldn't I be? I thought this was common knowledge. With the best will in the world, suits are prone to leak occasionally. A tiny prick like this would hardly be noticed.'

  Cormack chuckled. 'No comment. I know very little about suits. Jay Jay was outside the shuttles in space in this suit. Wouldn't that be dangerous? Deadly even?'

  'Not at all. Sure. If I'd noticed this on my suit before a space-walk I'd insist in slapping a patch on it. But if it happened whilst actually in space, say by a tiny speck of space dust, the pressure in the suit would compensate for what would be a tiny leak like these. Wait a minute. Jay Jay had to do a space-walk from the damaged shuttle to mine. It's possible his suit was hit by a couple of tiny micrometeorites on his way over.'

  'That would have killed him though, wouldn't it?'

  Friar said, 'Let me guess. You were off with a cold or something when we had the lecture on spacesuits.'

  'Don't you mock me, Joe Friar.'

  'Sorry. Anyway. Our suits were based on the most basic design. If you follow their logic, we don't have to rely on them much in theory. If the Goliath lost pressure and air, at least half of us would be in the pods asleep and perfectly protected. In an occurrence of a hull breach, much of the ship automatically seals off most of itself and the air and pressure would build back up again. Once on Goliath, allowing for the terraformers having done a halfway decent job of it, again no suit needed. Of course, there is always the possibility of a repair crew going outside, but what we have is adequate for that purpose. We do have a couple of suits with backpacks with small jets for propelling those around, but safety lines work well enough. Same for space-walking.'

  Cormack said, 'So cheap and basic.'

  'Makes sense if you think about it. More money for other things. Most of our suits are based on a simple design from twenty twenty-five.'

  'You still haven't answered my question about leaks.'

  Friar said, 'Ok. The truth is, most suits probably leak a little sometime or other. They're built up of several tough layers, so a rip in the outer layer causes little harm. If Jay Jay's suit had suffered a puncture by micrometeorites during the walk-over, he wouldn't even notice. The suit would automatically compensate. That uses more oxygen of course, but fortunately they weren't outside long enough for it to be a problem.'

  Cormack said, 'I feel like a fool now.'

  'Well, I'm available.'

  'Behave, you. I'll just get his suit cleaned and patched up. Please don't mention to Jay Jay how dumb I've been.'

  Friar winked and grinned at the doctor. 'Our little secret.' He paused at the door. 'He's a lucky man.'

  'OOh! Wait till I see that Anne Lee.'

  Chapter 41

  'Corporal. In here now,' Bridget demanded.

  'Please tell me you haven't killed him? I've only another twenty minutes until my shift ends and I can't be done with all that paperwork.'

  The corporal stopped in his tracks when he saw the prisoner was no longer chained to the bed. He opened his mouth to speak, but Bridget's arm wrapped around his neck stopping him breathing. She held onto him as he dropped to his knees, his face turning purple as he struggled.

  'Is he dead?' asked Salamandra.

  'Of course not. No need to kill him. Now swap clothes with him. The replacement guard will be here in minutes.'

  Salamandra pulled off his shirt and Bridget could see the work Naylor had done on his body. And yet he had endured and still not talked. He dressed in the guard's uniform and they lifted him onto the steel bed and chained him as Salamandra had been but with his mouth gagged.

  'Let's go,' said Bridget.

  'Wait.'

  Salamandra found a rough filthy blanket and covered the entire body. 'Maybe the next guard will think Salamandra has died and his pal here has gone to
fetch someone. Might buy us some time.'

  'Nice thinking. Now move it.'

  Bridget locked the door after them, slowing entry even more. 'Listen. The elevator's coming down.'

  'The stairs,' said Salamandra.

  They took the concrete stairs two at a time, but Bridget stopped on the first landing. 'The basement, not the ground floor.'

  They entered the huge basement which turned out to be the weapons and equipment room.

  'Aladdin's cave,' declared Bridget. 'Make yourself useful.'

  They donned body armour and strapped it quickly on then put utility belts on, each festooned with armed hand-lasers, knives and grenades. Both selected yard long battle clubs to carry with them.

  'Is that a way out?' Salamandra asked.

  'A delivery hatch for larger weapons. The alarms will go ballistic the second we touch it.'

  Salamandra heaved up his club ready to use. 'Then you do the touching, I'll be the welcoming committee.'

  Bridget kicked the code locks to pieces, slid the thick steel security bars away and swung open the delivery hatch.

  'Going somewhere?' said a huge security officer, who was flanked with five others almost his size. All had laser rifles pointed at the intruders.

  Salamandra rammed the sergeant hard in his midriff, Bridget deflecting the laser with the club before taking down three others with a swipe at their legs. Lasers and clubs were aimed in all directions, the bulbous business end of Bridget's club became sliced off and dropped to flatten a soldiers toe and as he hopped around in agony, Salamandra brought his own club down on the other foot. A solid punch from Bridget laid the man out cold.

  'That was fun,' said Salamandra. 'Mind if we go now?'

  'This might help,' pointing at a neat row of fully fuelled stingers.

  Bridget fired up a Stinger and Salamandra did the same to one of its stable-mates. They roared out of the storeroom, and headed up the stairs towards the ground floor main entrance hall. Security alarms were blasting off all around them and armed security officers poured from every door. Ten dived out of the way of the two stingers as they raced over them. Huge wooden doors were blasted to splinters by two rockets from the front of Bridget's stinger and they were outside. Ahead was the force field.