Long Shot

by Christopher Williams

  He slowly rolled over to look back at the prison ship, and the sight that greeted him nearly made him lose control of his bodily functions. His brain, which just moments ago had seemed so hazy and sleepy, immediately became alert and focused.

  The shuttle was nearly on top of him and it looked like it might just plow right over him, at least that was his first thought, and then he saw the maneuvering jets. The shuttle was intentionally trying to slow as it approached him. He scanned the shuttle’s exterior, but could see no signs of an airlock, and then he realized what their insane plan was—they expected him to ride the shuttle the remaining distance to the escape ship.

  Russell’s heart sank as he realized there wasn’t any other option. The shuttle didn’t have an airlock and there wasn’t time for any other rescue attempts. Even if there was another shuttle with an airlock on the freighter, there wasn’t time for this shuttle to land and the other shuttle to come back and get him. Although, if the truth was told, he seriously doubted whether there was another shuttle. Most likely it was catch hold of this shuttle or die.

  Russell’s eyes grew wide as he watched the shuttle growing ever bigger. Damn, that thing’s huge! It probably wasn’t that big, really, but his perception of it, at that moment, was that it was going to crush him.

  He continued to watch it slowing down and then he caught a glimpse beyond the shuttle and for the second time in seconds, he nearly pissed himself. They weren’t alone; the prison ship was bearing down on them and it was gaining.

  Captain Rogers smiled viciously as she watched the small shuttle slowing down in front of them. A focused scan of the area in front of the shuttle had picked up the barest of life signs. She thought she knew what that meant—there was a person out there and the shuttle was trying to save him.

  A feeling of triumph surged through her as the shuttle slowed even more. It was almost over. She was going to destroy that shuttle and then the freighter, too. So far, the freighter hadn’t moved, hadn’t adjusted course, and that meant something to her as well; there wasn’t anyone left on the freighter. The freighter crew had consisted of just one person or maybe a couple of people. Regardless, the entire crew of the freighter was now on the shuttle. Destroy the shuttle and that would end this nasty little mess. There would be repercussions because of this near escape, but it would not end her career—at least it wouldn’t end her career with her under arrest.

  She glanced around the bridge. The ship was still barely functional; more than half of the systems remained offline, but they were beginning to come up slowly. She glanced to the weapons console. The ship’s armaments were still offline and Commander Griffith was pacing back and forth behind the terminals. She knew what was bothering him—his career would also be affected by this mess.

  An alarm klaxon started blaring and she glanced over to the engineering station. The engineering tech, Ensign Youngstrom, turned wide-eyed to look in her direction and she nearly laughed. The look on the young man’s face was comical. “Relax, Ensign. It’s just the proximity alert. See if you can turn it off.”

  The ensign swallowed hard and shook his head. “No, Captain, it’s the reactor coolant. It’s overheated and on the verge of meltdown.”

  Captain Rogers rushed over to the engineering station, with Commander Griffith right on her heels. She felt just a touch of apprehension. She didn’t really believe the engine core was about to melt down, more likely, the young and inexperienced Ensign Youngstrom was miss-reading the sensors.

  Reaching the station, the Captain looked over Youngstrom’s shoulder and her heart nearly skipped a beat. The sensors did indeed suggest they were about to experience a main reactor explosion. “That can’t be right,” she said slowly. “Those sensors must not be online yet.” She motioned over at the manual sensors. “If there was a problem, we’d see it there too.”

  Commander Griffith took a deep breath as he remembered the earlier alarm. “Captain, we did have a light on the manual safety alerts earlier, before all this began.”

  The vein was throbbing in Captain Rogers’ forehead again. “And you’re just now telling me about this?”

  “I’m sorry, Captain. As the regular sensors were online, I made a note to discuss it with engineering,” Griffith said, but the Captain was no longer paying attention.

  “Helm, full stop! Engineering, immediate shutdown of the main reactor!”

  “It’s too late, Captain,” Ensign Youngstrom said. “The meltdown has already started. We have to jettison the core immediately.”

  The Captain opened her mouth to issue the command, but she never got the chance. An enormous explosion seemed to shake the entire ship. Moments later there was a rushing sound as if they were in a wind tunnel.

  Aaron was staring at the monitor, watching as the prison ship bore down on them, so it was reasonable that he detected the first signs of the meltdown. It didn’t happen all at once. First, there were some small explosions from the rear of the ship, near the main drive, they looked like small geysers ejected vapor into space. These smaller explosions were followed by a larger more brilliant explosion. Still, Aaron knew these were just the preliminaries, the main event was still to come. “The core’s melting down—she’s about to blow.”

  At Aaron’s words, every eye turned to the monitor. Everyone watched the meltdown except for Adam. At Aaron’s words, his hands began to fly over the console. He fired the top nose thrusters and, at the same time, he fired the stern bottom thrusters. The shuttle bucked and then stood up straight on its nose.

  Then the affects of the explosion washed over them. The shuttle was buffeted too and fro, causing people to fall over each other. There was some shouts and curses, and also some strange popping sounds that sounded like bones breaking.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Aaron demanded.

  “Trying to save Russell’s life,” Adam snapped right back.

  It took him a second, but he quickly caught on to what Adam was trying to do. He was trying to protect Russell from the blast by using the shuttle as a shield.

  Russell was watching the shuttle slow as it neared him. He kept trying to take deep calming breaths, but it wasn’t helping. He had a very bad feeling about how this was all going to end. He couldn’t help it; horrible images kept popping into his mind.

  A brilliant flicker of light from beyond the shuttle’s stern caught his attention and his eyes widened in alarm at the sight of the prison ship beginning its meltdown.

  The shuttle fired four of its thrusters at once and stood up vertically. It’s nose was straight down, or at least what Russell perceived as down. The belly of the shuttle was facing the exploding prison ship, shielding Russell from the explosion. He had just a moment to be extremely relieved when the force of the reactor meltdown slammed into the bottom of the shuttle and propelled it hard into Russell.

  The shuttle slammed into him with excruciating force and he nearly blacked out from the pain. He reacted by instinct and tried to wrap his arms around a small nozzle on the shuttle’s hull. He screamed at the pain in his left arm and immediately clutched it to his chest. He managed to get hold of the nozzle with his one good arm—he just wasn’t sure if he keep a grip on it or not.

  Inside the shuttle, Adam was frantically trying to hold it together. The shuttle was being bounced around by the force of the prison ship’s explosion. Despite his best efforts, the explosion propelled them forward and, for a brief horrifying moment, he just knew he had killed Russell.

  Susan quickly put a hand on his arm and said, “He’s alive and holding on to the shuttle’s hull. Just bring it in carefully.”

  Adam exhaled slowly and then quickly righted the ship and turned it towards the freighter. He landed the shuttle with exaggerated caution; the last thing he wanted was for the shuttle to stop suddenly and Russell to go flying into a bulkhead.

  In addition to needing to be careful for Russell’s sake, there was another more urgent problem. The shockwave had damaged the shuttle. The damages were minimal
, but they did affect the handling of the small craft and were another reason that Adam was sweating as he brought the craft in slowly to the freighter’s open hangar bay.

  The freighter’s hangar bay was small, but it easily accommodated the shuttle.

  Adam barely breathed the last few moments, but with a jerk and a horrible scraping sound, the shuttle came to a halt on the hangar deck.

  “Jessica,” Adam called, “I’m opening up.”

  Jessica had been left near the shuttle’s main door for a reason. As the shuttle door swung up and the stepped ramp swung down to the deck, she led the exodus from the shuttle. She quickly reached the deck and moved over next to the single entrance to the rest of the ship. She turned and waited, both her hands inside her jacket pockets. Inside her pockets, both her hands were sweating as she held onto the two plasmic pistols. She swallowed hard and hoped that she wouldn’t have to fire them.

  Chapter 28

  The prisoners slowly filed out of the ship. Some of them limped as they walked and others cradled hurt arms to their chests. A few even collapsed to the deck and just lay there.

  Jessica craned her head, looking for Susan or Aaron, but they had been far forward in the shuttle—it would take them a while to reach the ramp. She was still nervously waiting when the first prisoner tried to go around her into the main part of the ship.

  She didn’t recognize the prisoner. He was maybe forty-five years old and his graying hair was cut short. He looked fit and also sort of mean. He had a nasty scar down the left side of his face and he was striding purposefully towards the hatch. Jessica stepped to the side, blocking him from going any farther.

  The prisoner turned his gaze on her and she nearly shivered. It would be easy enough to imagine this man as a psychotic killer, and after all they had just broken him out of a prison ship.

  He tilted his head to one side. “You don’t want to mess with me, little lady.” Even the man’s voice was a bit scary—it was deep and threatening.

  He took another step forward and stopped as Jessica pulled the two plasmics from her pockets. She didn’t point them at anyone, but just held them ready. “No one goes in,” she said simply.

  The prisoner didn’t back away or even swallow hard, instead he smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile, more like a scary smile. He took another step forward and stopped again when Jessica pointed one of the plasmics right at his face.

  The man didn’t blink or back away, instead he studied Jessica. She got the feeling this wasn’t the first time someone had shoved a gun in this man’s face. “No one goes in,” she repeated.

  The prisoner watched her for another moment, like he was judging her, and then he nodded. “I believe that you wouldn’t hesitate in pulling that trigger, but the problem is that there are a lot more of us than there are of you.”

  “True enough,” Aaron called as he walked through the main throng of prisoners. Susan was following him, but Adam had remained atop the shuttle ramp. All three of them had exchanged their plasmic pistols for shorter, automatic fire plasma carbines. Aaron lifted the carbine slightly higher as he walked. “These would probably even the odds. Don’t you think?”

  The prisoner in front of Jessica turned his back to her so that he could face Aaron. “So what? You broke us out of that ship—just to kill us?”

  “Not at all,” Aaron said, coming to a stop in front of the man. “I meant what I said earlier. All you have to do is behave for a short while and we’ll turn you loose with a new identity and maybe even a little pocket money.” Aaron motioned with his gun towards the prisoner. “What’s your name?”

  The prisoner looked around the hangar, most of the prisoners were tensed up—they knew that things could go bad real quick. “My name is Eric,” he said slowly, giving himself some more time to judge the situation.

  Adam was still standing atop the stairs to the shuttle, he had his carbine pulled into his shoulder and he was pointing it in the general direction of the mass of prisoners. Susan had stepped around Aaron and was standing beside Jessica; she had her carbine pointed right at Eric’s back; she wasn’t even being coy about it. If things went bad, she meant to blow a huge hole in the man’s back.

  Jessica’s eyes widened at a rather unexpected sight. Russell was on top of the shuttle. He had removed his helmet and sat along the periphery of the roof with his feet and legs dangling over the edge. He looked half-dead and he held his left arm cradled to his chest. Nevertheless, he held a small plasmic pistol in his right hand and looked in good enough shape to back Aaron’s play, if necessary.

  Eric sighed deeply. “You want us to stay in the hangar bay?”

  “Sort of,” Aaron replied. He turned and motioned on beyond the nose of the shuttle. Against the far wall was a collection of small cubes, sixty of them to be exact.

  Eric’s forehead furrowed in confusion as he studied the cubes and then his eyes widened in recognition. “Oh no,” he said and his face took on a slightly frantic look. “I’m not going back into any cell—you might as well shoot me now.”

  Aaron smiled and spoke quietly, “Relax, it’s not what you think.”

  “Listen,” Eric said, and his voice still held that note or urgency. “I will not go back into a cell.”

  “That’s right!” one of the other prisoners called out from behind Aaron.

  He turned and lowered his carbine; the nearest prisoners began hastily backing away. He didn’t mind turning his back to Eric as he knew that Susan and Jessica had his flank.

  “You gonna kill us now?” the black prisoner with dreadlocks asked.

  Aaron swiveled his gun to point at the man. He raised his voice and said, “Anyone who won’t go in the holding rooms will go out the airlock.”

  “Holding rooms?” the black man sneered. “Call them what they are—cells.”

  A brief silence ensued and Aaron considered how to act. He could start shooting, but that would turn extremely bloody quickly, and he wasn’t really a murderer. He killed when it was necessary, right now, he didn’t think it was necessary, at least not yet. “What’s your name?” he asked, speaking to the black prisoner. “Just your first name,” he added quickly.

  The big man tilted his head sideways and didn’t answer right away. Finally he said, “Thomas.”

  Aaron pointed his gun at the floor and began slowly walking to his left. He spoke loud enough for those in the back of the throng to hear. “Tell me Thomas, what would happen if we let you pick out a new identity right now, gave you your new papers right now, and then let you pick your destination right now?”

  Thomas looked wary but he answered the question. “I’d be a happy man, right now.” There were a few snickers from the back of the crowd, evidently they agreed with Thomas.

  Aaron smiled and nodded. “I bet you’d be happy, until, that is, one of your fellow prisoners got caught.”

  Thomas looked confused and he looked away from Aaron, out over the crowd of prisoners.

  “You see, Thomas, you are an escaped prisoner. You escaped from a Miram Union prisoner transport, and then that transport was destroyed. I daresay the Unionists will want to get hold of you, and very badly.”

  “So?” Thomas demanded. He looked to be getting angry.

  “So?” Aaron repeated. He motioned to one of the prisoners, an old man with an overly large belly. “How long do you think he could resist an interrogation at the hands of the Unionists?”

  Thomas glared at the old prisoner. The old man seemed to melt under the heat of Thomas’ gaze and he tried to push his way back into the crowd of prisoners.

  “And not just him, how long do you think you could resist a Unionist interrogator?”

  Some of the anger went out of Thomas’ face at that question. He appeared to know the answer. Thomas would break under the interrogation techniques; everyone broke sooner or later.

  “What is your point?” Thomas demanded, but his tone lacked some of the earlier fire.

  Aaron continued walking slowly through the cro
wd. “My point is that the last thing you want is for everyone here to know your new identity. You should want as few as possible to know your secret. And when one of these fine people gets caught, they’ll not tell a thing about you, because they won’t know anything.” There was a pause and no one said a word. “That’s what the cells are for. They are soundproof. You’ll be fed well and we will interview you individually to find out where you want to go, but the others won’t know any of your information. It’s safest for you, for them, and for us.”

  “I still don’t like it,” Eric said. His jaw was working furiously and he was staring daggers at Aaron.

  Aaron took a deep breath, suddenly he was so very tired. “I don’t care if you like it, that’s the way it’s going to be. Those of you who refuse the cells will go out the airlock. We will, of course, show mercy and shoot you before we put you out into vacuum.”

  “How long?” Thomas asked.

  Anger was quickly reaching a boiling point within Aaron. “I don’t know,” he snapped, “probably at least a week.” He motioned toward the cells with his carbine. “Now get in the cell.”

  Thomas stared long and hard at Aaron, and for just a moment Aaron thought the man would refuse. Finally, still grinding his jaw, Thomas turned and walked toward the cells. The other prisoners followed, and in short order, the prisoners were quickly all assigned a cell.

  Before the last door had closed, Jessica and Adam were already pulling Russell from the shuttle’s roof. The poor man looked like he had gone through the wringer. With Adam half-carrying, half-leading Russell, they managed to get Russell into the living quarters of the ship.

  As soon as they lowered Russell to a bed, Jessica was busy shooing Adam out of the room and began tending to his injuries.

  Susan and Aaron locked the thirty-fifth, and last, prisoner in one of the holding rooms. Thomas had been right that these were, in fact, cells, but Aaron had also been right when he said there was a need for absolute secrecy.