“Vac, if you even think of surrendering, I’ll kill you,” said Tanda. “Skagans never surrender. Glory, Sex and Death, remember?”
“Seconded,” added Suzanne. “You are not callously betraying my man. We are all in this together.”
“Ha, ha, er, only joking,” said Vac, looking sheepish. “Of course Skagans never surrender. I wasn’t really going to yield. We will blast our way out.”
Tom had been gazing out of the window at the pinpricks of light that were the surrounding fleets. “No, there are too many of them. I’ll hand myself over. It’s been a good adventure. Thanks for that, Kara. I met the girl of my dreams.” He reached over and squeezed Suzanne’s hand. “I’m not having her blown to pieces on my account. I’ll give myself up, if I can work out how, and risk that breeding thing.”
“Sorry,” said Vac. “We are going down fighting.” He got back to the controls. “Come on, start blasting. What’s up with you?”
Tom was staring blankly at his console. “If you’re not letting me give myself up, it would be nice if you showed us how to work the weapons.”
“Of course,” said Tanda, “follow me. Thump the button with the spiky star on it. Right, you now have in front of you a holographic sphere, a representation of the area surrounding us, up to the range of the weapons. Put on the pair of black finger-pad gloves wired to the console–you might have to leave a couple of the fingers empty. I think it was designed for some other species. Put it on as best you can. Right? Now move them through the sphere. The object is to squeeze the red spots, which represent enemy ships, between the pads. The guns will automatically target and fire. Easy?”
“Easy, I suppose. I’ll give it a try. Ready Suzy?”
“Yeah. Coming or not.”
“Right, I’ll see if I can force us though the blockade,” said Vac. “Once we get clear, we should be able to outrun them. For the Skagans, Glory, Sex and Death!”
“Glory, Sex or Death,” corrected Tanda. “I’m not sure I’m that committed yet.”
“Long live the Skagans,” muttered Kara, “if they don’t get blasted to pieces by an enemy fleet, that is.”
Vac thumped a button marked with a hammer symbol and the ship leapt forward in attack mode, energy absorption shields fully powered.
The red spots in front of Tom started to converge on the centre of his sphere. He tried to squeeze one of them, but it slipped out of the way. Their ship rocked as a barrage of fire hit it broadside. Vac wrestled with the controls—Tom noticed later that the steering handles were actually shaped like a pair of brawny arms—and the ship steadied on its course towards the smallest group of attackers.
Practice improved their skill, and the number of spots impeding their progress reduced, as the void around them became studded with energy bolts. The ship rocked again, as another multiple barrage threatened to tear them apart.
“Great!” yelled Tanda with excitement. “Target rich environment. We can simply shoot at anything.”
“I don’t call being blasted to oblivion ‘great’,” shouted Suzanne through the din. “Have you gone totally insane, or something?”
“Battle fever,” replied Tanda, snubbing out another red spot with elegant skill. “Our energy shields actually absorb the power from those salvos, and transfer it into our drive and weaponry systems. This means that the more we are hit, the stronger we become. The only problem we could have is if they start using conventional missiles or lasers. At the moment, they don’t seem to realise this.”
Vac plunged the ship directly into another enemy formation. The sound of the barrage on the shields paused as the fleet re-calibrated its weaponry to avoid hitting each other. Tom squeezed a spot almost right on top of them in his sphere, and was very impressed to see the effect that the Skagan weapons had on a nearby enemy cruiser.
“These are fantastic guns,” he yelled over the new racket.
“Yes,” Tanda shouted back, “they go straight through any conventional deflector fields. Don’t know how, but neither does the enemy, so that’s a good thing.”
The fugitives were blasting a clear path through the Consortium fleet, when a panel at the rear of the ship blew up, sending a shower of sparks over Kara. She hit a button marked with a cloud legend. A selective jet of foam extinguished the fire and then evaporated. “Phoist,” said Tanda, “that was one of our energy conversion units. It was damaged last battle, and obviously hasn’t repaired itself brilliantly.”
“Methinks it is rather poorly now,” said Vac from the steering controls. “Keep firing, we still have the other one... er correction, had.” Another tremendous barrage had overloaded the second energy converter, and the ship hurled itself sideways. The occupants scrambled back to their seats, and continued with their spot squeezing, trying not to think of the inevitable conclusion of using a great deal of power, without replacing it.
“I think it may be time to use the emergency escape system.” Tanda’s voice was level and calm as she checked the power reserves. “Suzanne, you’re the nearest, can you thump the button with the chicken symbol on it.”
“About time,” Suzanne replied. She hit the control.
Nothing happened.
“Quickly, for Phoist’s sake!” Tanda’s voice started to rise.
“It doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”
“Don’t be stupid, it must work. Oh fucking EU33, you’re right.” Tanda waved her arms madly. “Curse this machine.”
“The circuitry appears to have burnt out when the converter blew up,” said Kara, with a mechanical coolness.
“I’d rather not have been told that,” mumbled Tom. “If you lot have quite finished agonising over the loss of a few bits of plastic, I would appreciate a hand with wiping out this Consortium fleet... if you have nothing better to do that is, like finding escape capsules, and saving all our lives or something.” He tried to fire his guns again, but nothing happened. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think there is much point carrying on.” Tanda was calm again. “Our weaponry power is gone, reserves have switched in to the shields, and we have something in the region of not very long to live, assuming that the barrage continues at its present rate.”
The barrage did continue at its present rate. Tom and Suzanne huddled together, and stared silently at the floor. Vac and Tanda chanted some old Skagan ritual songs about great warriors who shagged, and then got blasted to pieces in the ancient wars, and Kara spent the time idly filing her nails, and whistling tunelessly.
“Power is nearly gone,” she said indifferently. “Goodbye, it’s been nice knowing you all. Shame, I thought we might have had them beaten for a moment. One good thing though…”
“You mean there’s a good thing in this mess?” Tom stared at her.
“Yes, if you think about it, we were wondering if our interference would change the future. We’ve seen the future and it must depend on us being killed here.”
“Is that supposed to make us feel better?”
“Doesn’t it?” Kara grinned.
More sparks burst from the steering console. This time the fire continued to burn, fuelled by the oxygen-rich atmosphere inside the ship. Thick smoke gushed around the cabin, stopping the Skagan chant in a round of coughing. Another hit on the hull caused a long split, and the smoke was sucked out, the force of the draught extinguishing the blaze. For a moment, there was no air to breathe. Their burnt lungs gasped, and then a flying piece of debris jammed in the break, blocking it long enough for the automatic sealing units to work. Clean air flooded back into the cabin, and their lungs expanded again in aching relief.
“That’s enough,” spluttered Tom. “The Consortium cannot be worse than this. I’m going to give myself up. At least you lot can get away.” He shouted at the console, as another direct hit punched through the buckling deflector shields. “Look, we surrender, we surrender!”
The barrage on the hull stopped.
“Naw,” came the voice
of the Military. “We've changed our minds. We can scan your memory, from any bits of body tissue we find floating around afterwards, and we can reverse engineer the wreckage of your ship to develop our own. Why should we go to the bother of giving you an unfair trial, and then executing you, wasting bullets and blindfolds, and damaging a perfectly good wall? Now sit still and don’t fidget.”
The gunfire restarted, and the Skagan shields collapsed. The air in the cabin became icy and putrid, as the life support system shut down. Kara looked round at the haggard faces of the crew.
“Sorry,” she said simply.
Time for a Quick One
Rescue comes in Drachma.
A
s you would expect, the destructive barrage stopped a moment before it was torn apart. The interior of the ship echoed with a deep, exaggerated American accent.
“Attention all vessels of the Galactic Consortium. You are advised to discontinue your attack. We have assumed control. We have assumed control. Surrender your ships, and you will be spared; resist and you will be destroyed.” The voice changed, and became more friendly and quieter. “Except for your vessel of course, Two-Dan. We, your loyal Mucronn subjects, have the pleasure of liberating you from your enemies. Sorry we are a bit late. That one-way system round Alpha-Centauri is a real pig at this time of the morning.”
Tanda coughed. “There are oxygen masks under the seats.”
“Bravo,” said Tom, his voice muffled by the breathing apparatus he already wore. He slumped back in his chair.
“Mucronns? We are not going to surrender to a gang of overgrown light-fittings,” came the haughty voice of the Military through the console. “We will destroy you instead.”
“You are bluffing of course,” said the Mucronn. “We must warn you that our new fleet has been constructed using the powers of creativity and reasoning restored to the new generation by Two-Dan, and outclasses your puny borrowed hulks. Allow us to give you a demonstration.”
Tom watched as the huge blob of a Mucronn ship wrapped itself round a smoking Consortium wreck and swallowed it whole.
“I see what you mean,” said the Military. “Perhaps we can discuss some mutually beneficial solution?”
“What does he mean, Two-Dan?” said the Mucronn.
“I think he wants to surrender, and give up trying to kill us,” said Tom into a communications device, that reminded him of a toy plastic telephone. “Can you hear me?”
“We can hear you, Two-Dan, you don’t have to shout. This is ‘the future’ you know. Technology has moved on from smart phones, and tin cans on string. So what do we do next?”
“Board their ships, take their weapons, and shoelaces to be on the safe side, and then find a nice quiet planet to drop them off at. Of course, make sure it has a breathable atmosphere and fewer than a hundred TV channels. Be nice to them. I expect they were only doing their jobs. You can eat the ships then if you like.”
“Or take them back to the original owners,” said the military, hopefully. “We don’t want to end up paying the rental and the replacement charges for the rest of our lives.”
“Yes, do that,” said Tom. “We don’t want to give any other beings an excuse to invade our galaxy, on the grounds of ‘repossession’.”
“Your advice is always of the highest quality, my lord.”
* * *
“Thanks guys,” said Tom. The last of the enemy ships had been boarded by eager Mucronn warriors. “Can you take it from here? We have to go down to the planet for a rest. I’ve no idea how long this tub will hold together, after the battering it’s had.”
“We’d offer you a lift,” came the reply, but as you can probably guess, a Mucronn frigate is no place for a non-slime-breathing life-form.”
“Thanks nevertheless. Watch out in case there are more Consortium ships.”
“Unlikely, but we will ensure you have no further problems, Two-Dan. Those who are about to engulf salute you.”
Vac set their charred vessel back down on the planet, near the cylinder. It was dark as they disembarked, stretching their legs and gulping fresh air. A few minutes later, there was a roaring like a heavy smoker blowing his nose into an echo-chamber, multiplied by a million, and a Mucronn ship splurged to earth close by. What might have been the Mucronn Overlord (Who can tell? All blobs of grey slime look the same) oozed through a hatch, and prostrated itself. Kara reappeared from the cylinder, slapped a light helmet on Tom and tripped him face down on to the sand. He sat up and looked the Mucronn in the middle.
“Greetings Two-Dan,” it boomed through the communicator.
“Salute, Overlord,” replied Tom after a prompt from Kara. The communicator helmet translated, by flashing brilliant colours round the silent landscape.
“I love your accent,” said Overlord. “What are your instructions?”
“Firstly,” replied Tom, after more prompting from Kara, “track down the machine that’s jamming the Mind Channels and destroy it. Then, I think that if you check the offices and records of a company called OrcommNE, you will find many of your people imprisoned there.”
“We will liberate our comrades, and destroy the oppressors,” said Overlord, majestically. Then he became more jovial. “After that, can we come back and see you for chat and canapés?”
“Of course,” said Tom. “I’ll get the beers in.”
“We will leave a small fleet nearby for your protection, noble Dan. If you need us, you only have to flash.”
Vac sniggered.
The Mucronn ship pulsated a few times after Overlord had climbed back aboard, and then oozed back up to the main fleet like the oily blob in a lamp that Tom once had at home. The fleet hovered in the sky, a mass of brilliant stars, lighting the landscape, and then as one unit, sped off over the horizon. The planet seemed darker than before. Tom shivered, and Suzanne put her arms on his shoulders and kissed him.
“You are fantastic, Pet Rabbit,” she purred, and then with a sideways glance at Kara, “you’ve saved the day for us… again.”
Kara scowled.
After an overnight rest, showers, toilet breaks, and something to eat, the crew stood near the Skagan spacecraft. Tanda stuck her head out of the hatchway. “It seems that our ship drained enough power from the Mucronn vessel to get it restarted, so there’s no point in hanging on for the rest of the systems. The extra power we can absorb here from a few crows and the automatic shoe-horn charger will be fairly insignificant. We must leave you now, and find a neutron star to sit near.”
She jumped down, and gave Tom a passionate hug, squeezing most of the breath out of his battered respiratory system. “There is much we have to do, rescuing own planet, rebuilding our race, so that we can continue the war against the Smorgs, and getting the brewing industry restarted. Now that the Consortium is no more, there is a lot of fun to be had, if not next-day deliveries of consumables.”
“I saw a future...” Tom began.
“A possible future,” interrupted Kara.
“Then the planet has not been despoiled?” said Tom. “We saw...”
“What?” Vac stared pointedly at Kara.
“Nothing,” said the gynoid.
“That’s good, then,” said Tom. “Better still, you may find that the Smorgs have changed somewhat since you left.”
“Oh?”
“They have found a substitute for blood, and I rather think that they will be in no fit state to fight. However, I expect that you will find something else to do, on a paradise planet like that one... other than fight of course.”
“We could get another drama group together, I suppose,” said Vac. He scooted out of the way, as Tanda tried to kick his shins. “Do you mind if we go? We have to start rebuilding our population.”
“No problem,” said Kara. “Good luck, and no,” she fended him off, “I’d rather not say ciao in the Skagan way. We don’t have the time.”
“Neither does Two-Dan,” put in Suzanne, as she saw
Tanda eyeing him up.
Vac shrugged. “When on Romulus...” He climbed back on board, and the ship engines burst into life.
“Can we give you a lift somewhere?”
“No thanks, Tanda,” said Kara. “We’ll stay here, and wait for the mind channels to clear.”
Suzanne gave the Skagan a hug.
“Bye then. Be safe. “Glory, Sex or Death.” Tanda made an obscene gesture, meant to illustrate all three, and disappeared back into the healthier-looking ship.
The Skagan craft rose majestically, and silently into the air, and then the main drives cut in with a sound like super-tankers colliding. Vac blasted the top off a nearby mountain in salute, and the ship vanished into ultra-space.
“I guess the weapon systems are back on-line, then,” said Tom. “Let’s hope they don’t get distracted on the way home. Are you sure Skagos will be okay, Kara? The timeline has been altered hasn’t it?”
“Who can say?” said Kara. “Not my problem. I have a few things to do in the cylinder, so why don’t you youngsters go into town, and have a swinging time, while the mind channels clear.” Kara shut the hatch, leaving Tom and Suzanne exchanging glances. Sounds of thumping and clanking came from within, as she apparently started to rearrange the furniture.
“Come on then. Shall we do what the lady says?” said Suzanne, after a telling pause.
“That’s no lady, that’s a gynoid...”
“Yeah yeah... Come on. Let me see if I can get this Jeeeep thing started. We really should take it back.”
Suzanne set the ‘homing’ system, and the vehicle headed back towards the hotel. “Hopefully avoiding a fine for an overdue buggy,” she said.
Back in town, the streets were slightly less deserted than usual. Already, there was a buzz of excitement concerning the demise of the Consortium. In the market square, a man was selling irrigation kits, and another had a stall of tiny trees, merchandise that had not been permitted under the previous regime.
The Legend of Dan Page 29
