by Greg Curtis
“It is an excellent stratagem, one worthy of a tactician, and one Prisoner Daryl’s been preparing carefully while you’ve been wasting time and energy arguing about how to divide the prize up before you’ve even found it. We’ve watched with interest as he’s found ways to overcome many of the traps the Caldoronian’s have used before. Things you should all have been thinking about, instead of screaming and fighting amongst yourselves like children. Trying to divide the spoils of the site before even working out how to reach them.” For a while as the captain complimented him and put down the others, Daryl felt like a cat being petted, and it was all he could do not to smile and poke his tongue out at his fellow scientists, but he managed to keep his cool.
“In fact to be perfectly blunt,” as if the captain could be anything else, “I have been quite disappointed by the quality of your work to date. There has been far too much shouting and not enough thinking. This is something that will change.” He didn’t raise his voice at all, and even if he had the translator couldn’t have carried his emotion. But it was a serious criticism as well as an order, and everybody there knew it.
“However, Prisoner Daryl’s plan needs modification. In particular he needs company, and his craft need extensive modification. Especially the subterranean vehicle. It needs much more sophisticated sensors, and a far better shield. Scientist Ryal, you will be in charge of this. I’m sure you will do a thorough job since you will be accompanying prisoner Daryl in it.” Scientist Ryal looked far from happy at the news, assuming Daryl could be any judge of Xetan expressions. But then he was Xetan, and as such inherently tolerant and polite. Daryl thought he could live with him for a few weeks. If he could find a way to fit himself into the bug.
“Scientist Li, you will immediately gather all materials necessary for Scientist Ryal to do his work, and also all materials relating to the space defences used by Calderonians. You will present copies of them to Prisoner Daryl as well and any other information he asks for.”
“How dare you -” Which was as far as the little lizard got before he too was encased in a glowing field. The thought of working for the human was obviously too much for the doctor. The captain’s response was equally clear however. The captain was in charge and he would tolerate no opposition.
“Scientist Tiel you will assume responsibility for running the research facility while Prisoner Li is in the disciplinary wing, and give Prisoner Daryl and Scientist Ryal the information they require. Scientist Yakesh, you will do the same for Prisoner Helos. Two standard days apiece I think.” There was a general gasp and some untranslatable mutterings from the room, but no one said anything, not when they saw the likely consequences. Confinement? Prison? It shocked them more profoundly than they would have admitted. Universities didn’t have disciplinary wings, and if they ever got them, it wouldn’t be the professors who spent time in them.
Daryl groaned as well, but not because he had a problem with them being disciplined. Only with the fact that they would be staying in the same unit as him. Just when he’d thought prison life couldn’t get any worse. And he might even have to stare at their angry faces through the armour-glass cell fronts. But at least the cells were sound proofed.
But with the two of them out of the way, and in such ignominious fashion, he rather suspected the rest would be able to better perform their duties. At least it might lessen the fighting.
“Scientist Larcornia, you and the chief engineer will work with our own weapons experts to develop the weaponry they will need. This will be based extensively on Prisoner Daryl’s experiments.” Scientist Larcornia, a rather overweight Myran, looked as though he’d rather eat a live snake than have anything to do with Daryl or his work. But he said nothing, apparently having learned the wisdom of silence.
“The rest of you will start rereading those reports from the previous explorations, with a view to devising counter measures to the traps. Any new ideas will be reported directly to my first officer, not your lead scientists. From this moment forward you are all my crew, not university staff, and you will follow the ship’s chain of command.”
“As such I expect you to start behaving like Force officers, not poorly disciplined children. Above all else there will be no more back fighting amongst yourselves. Every dispute will be dealt with by Force officers, and any who refuse to comply with their orders will spend time in the disciplinary wing. Do I make myself clear?” Funnily enough he did, and Daryl watched with awe as nearly two hundred scientists nodded, stammered or just blinked their agreement without so much as a twitter of protest. He’d never seen them so subdued.
Of course he knew that the nature of the beast meant that few if any of them would be able to keep their word. Sooner or later most of them would return to their backstabbing, argumentative ways. But at least they would try to contain themselves for a while, at least in front of the crew. For as long as the sight of two of their colleagues in force fields remained with them.
Chapter Four.
Two days before he was scheduled to arrive at their destination and take the Sparrow down to begin work, Daryl’s world was turned upside down once more, as he saw what he had surely never been meant to see.
The work had been going well until then. The Sparrow was being modified according to his initial crude designs and the superior technology of the Interstellar Community. The twenty terrawatt maser unit had been extensively upgraded, with new, tighter focus units and an ultra-fine control system, that would have allowed him to either tan a butterfly’s wing, or blow a hole right through an asteroid.
Naturally he hadn’t actually been allowed to see the new units in depth, which he figured was a good thing. It meant that when all the insanity was over, they were still possibly considering letting him go. He could but hope. Neither though was he going to be flying it. That responsibility had been given to the Targ’s own pilots. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to Daryl, since the captain would surely have expected him to make an escape attempt, and in truth, he would have seriously considered it if he’d thought the Sparrow would have stood a decent chance of either escaping the Targ or making it back to Earth in the next dozen years.
Meanwhile the Mud Bug was looking like an entirely new machine. Shield generators had been boosted over a thousand percent, and armaments installed that would allow him to take out many of the traps from a safe distance. The sensor field was even more advanced and the bug’s cockpits now looked like holovision stations. There were monitors everywhere, multiplying like mushrooms and taking up every available square millimetre of space, until they almost obscured the armour-glass windows.
The scientists too had begun to see him in a new light. From having been a criminal and barbarian, he was suddenly being regarded as a soldier and weapons expert, which was so far from the truth it wasn’t funny. But he wouldn’t complain. While not the scientist he wanted to be thought of, a warrior had some status with them. Enough perhaps for them to no longer routinely dismiss him as a savage.
They also sometimes wished him luck, something that had caught him by surprise the first few times. In time though, he had realised that while none of them would truly mind if he died down there, they were all suddenly hoping he wouldn’t for completely selfish reasons. It wasn’t that his life was particularly important to them. It was the fear of who would be next in the bug. Especially when they’d started reading and rereading the reports of their previous expeditions. Daryl found it hard to believe that they hadn’t studied them in depth many times over, though admittedly even the last city they’d explored, Leschant, had been explored over five hundred years before.
Meanwhile his guards were allowing him a little more freedom, though they still accompanied him everywhere of course. But his schedule had been made a bit more flexible so he could spend more time in the labs, research facility and the Sparrow, checking everything. Every time he went on board the Sparrow, he still had at least four guards with him, which sometimes made things a little tight, especially in the bug, bu
t otherwise he had only the usual one instead. And two of his normal guards, either Halco a Myran, or Bry a Xetan, were actually willing to talk to him.
Through them he was almost beginning to develop a social life. Something in the first month and a half he’d not imagined possible. But against all logic it was. They actually had some respect for him. Not because he was a scientist he suspected. In fact he was sure of that much. Whenever they discussed the other scientists, large parts of their conversations were lost in the translators as they no doubt swore. But because the captain had placed some faith in him, they would give him some respect. That was a big thing for an officer.
As though they were old friends, they’d shared personal information with him, like the names of their wives - make that partners, for Xetans only had one sex - and the number of children they had. Bry had only one, though a second was on the way as it - “she” - was pregnant. Meanwhile Halco had three, all nearly old enough to join the Force themselves, which was his dream for them. Which he’d realised made Halco at least fifty standard years old, probably closer to sixty. He didn’t look it to Daryl’s admittedly untrained eye. But then how could you spot wrinkles in a skin that was already naturally like folded leather? Or white hairs in a hairless race?
In turn they were learning more about him too, which was fair trade. They knew about his parents and sister, all still on Earth and no doubt still biting their nails with worry. And they also knew about his reasons for doing as he’d done. They didn’t agree with them. In fact every time he mentioned humanity’s problems joining the Community or even getting advanced technology, the translator started failing as they clearly tried to tell him no. It would not happen.
That scared him. Not that they should say no, but rather that they should be so adamant in their position that they couldn’t stop swearing. And these were Force officers, the apparently neutral glue that held the Interstellar Community together. Moreover, ones that seemed to like him. If that was their opinion, and they were surely just officers in the Force, representing surely the views of all others, what was the opinion of the Community itself? Surely much worse again. It was as if they all saw something in his people that he himself couldn’t see.
Yet even if that was the case, they seemed to see him as different from his people. Daryl wasn’t even sure if that was a good thing or bad. But either way they treated him with consideration, and just a little bit of respect, which was more than they did with the rest of their prisoners. But then their other prisoners were scientists, who treated them with disdain at best. And once they arrived, escorted by more crew members that they’d no doubt given a hard time to as they were marched off to the brig, they just got worse.
First they’d go through the formal induction, and be stripped, something that seemed to turn half of them into screaming lunatics, and the other half into speechless zombies. That at least though, he could understand. After that, once they arrived at their cell, and had recovered from their shock at being manhandled, they all started blustering, which he couldn’t understand. He constantly thanked the ships designers that the walls were sound proofed. He couldn’t hear a thing, but every so often he looked through his front wall to see the other faces peering back, and screaming, banging things, and generally working themselves into a state.
Daryl felt sorry for his warders. Whatever else they might be, they were just officers doing their jobs, and no one deserved the abuse they were getting. Especially the amount. On any day they now had up to thirty prisoners in the brig, and some days they’d had to open a second wing. Thirty screaming prisoners was simply too much for the warders who now numbered an even dozen. But what was worse was that their prisoners didn’t seem to learn from their mistakes. Helos and Li had both returned within a day of being released for fighting, as well as a dozen others. Not a good look for anyone let alone respected scientists.
Meanwhile the Targ, which he’d finally learned was Myran for talon, was fast approaching their destination. The fourth planet of a system they’d designated QA 40. They’d reached the system, and were now carefully picking their way past the outer planets as the ship swept the space ahead for satellites. It was actually quite an exciting time, as he and the others drew up their plans and hoped they were adequate for whatever awaited them, and the meetings were endless.
In fact he and Halco were heading from the captain’s meeting room back to the lab, when the siren went off. Or rather the strange cacophony of sound that he assumed was a siren. It was certainly loud enough and sent his pulse racing. But what was it? Fire? Surely the worst nightmare for anyone trapped in a ship. Or perhaps a pressure breech as air escaped, a second terrifying nightmare. He turned to Halco to find out, which was when all hell broke loose.
Gravity failed completely as the ship suddenly rocked with an almighty explosion, and Daryl’s stomach leapt for his throat, even as he found himself rocketing towards the ceiling. He barely had time to put out his arms to protect his face, before gravity returned abruptly, and his impact was lessoned. But then he tumbled all the way back down to the floor, three and a half or four long metres below, and the impact knocked the stuffing out of him. It also damaged his leg as he landed badly, and he thought he heard a crack as something in his knee shattered. He certainly felt it as the sudden pain shot through him like a bullet and took his remaining breath away. That was probably the only thing that kept him from crying out like a child.
For ages it seemed he just lay there on the deck, gasping for breath, swearing, and trying to cope with the pain from his knee, wondering if it really was broken, and hoping someone would take him to a hospital soon, and all the while the siren kept blowing and the great ship kept shaking as though a giant drummer was still beating it. The fear kept growing as the thunder refused to stop, and he was terrified that there might actually be no one left in one piece to help him. It sounded like the end of the world.
As the clamour continued, he slowly realised that while the explosion, whatever it was, was still going on, nothing seemed to be breaking loose all around him, and maybe, he dared to hope, it wasn’t as loud as it had been at the start. It felt more like the rumble of an earthquake than bombs exploding, except that he knew there could be no such thing in space. He just hoped it wasn’t air escaping.
Then, just as he was slowly learning to breathe again, over the top of the rumble he slowly became aware of another sound. It was the thunder of feet, lots of them, running, and he realised that the crew, many of whom had probably been off duty, were running either for their posts, or the lifeboats. He seriously hoped it wasn’t the lifeboats. He had no way of reaching his. But at least there were people up and running. People who could help.
Rolling on to his side and using his arms, he managed to look up, and see them in the corridor that crossed the one he and Halco were in, barely twenty metres away from them. He shouted at them, but no one noticed his screaming over the siren and the shaking, and no one stopped running.
Suddenly wondering why his guard wasn’t helping, Daryl belatedly looked at Halco and quickly stopped screaming. The Myran was clearly in a much worse way than himself. For a start he was unconscious, and there was thick clear blood leaking from his forehead. He’d obviously taken a nasty blow to his head. One of his legs was also bent at a strange angle under him, and despite their toughened rubbery bones, he suspected Halco had snapped one. It shouldn’t have really surprised him, though it did. Despite their formidable appearance, and tough leathery hides, Myrans had to weigh nearly twice as much as an average human, and all of that weight had been used against him when he fell. His friend was tough but gravity could be a cruel mistress.
Frightened, Daryl began desperately trying to wake him, though in hindsight that probably wasn’t a good plan. With a broken leg, Halco wouldn’t be able to help him, and at least while he was unconscious he wasn’t in pain. All his shaking and slapping his cheeks didn’t rouse him though, and that worried him even more. His friend, and he had very few of those he
re, was in bad shape, maybe even dying. He knew he had to do something. But he slowly realised he couldn’t do anything. He didn’t know the first thing about Myran physiology, couldn’t find a pulse or even bandage him. Halco needed a doctor. Maybe a hospital. Urgently.
There had to be one on the ship somewhere. That much he knew. But he had no idea at all where it might be. It had to be somewhere in the crew section though, otherwise he would have found it during his normal travel. Which meant he needed to get help from the crew. He kicked himself mentally for his self-involved panic. Getting help was something that he should have done right at the start instead of rolling around on the floor and moaning like a hurt child. Especially when Halco was down and maybe dying.
Slowly he managed to raise himself off the ground, not an easy task with one leg so badly damaged, but he managed it by using his friend’s hip as a platform and then a wall and hopping his way up. Then he started hopping his way towards the corridor where the officers were still running past. At least he noticed as he slowly made his way to the intersection that they weren’t panicking. It seemed a very organised sort of running, with no one grabbing bundles of their valuables and screaming. The ship was in trouble, but it wasn’t being abandoned. He hoped.
