Myra,: The start of a galactic adventure. (Dave Travise Book 1)

by Richard Dee

  “That’s for Barnyard’s,” the big man growled. He spat in Rixon’s face and grabbed a handful of Rixon’s hair with one enormous hand. The other swung in a lazy arc toward what was left of Rixon’s nose.

  “Enough,” said Van, and Hook Nose lowered his fist. He let go of Rixon’s hair and he fell again. Van was still talking, “We can settle up in space, Rixon and his little sister will get what’s coming, but this one,” and he indicated me, “this one is not to be harmed. Ricey, have you got it?”

  A serious looking man in overalls carrying a holdall came forward. “Yes, Van,” he said, he produced a bundle from his bag and Myra gasped.

  “Exactly,” grinned Van. “The flux tube from your Padget Inverter. Your Atlon won’t be coming after you, even when the rest of them wake up and untie themselves.”

  “They won’t all be waking up,” Hook Nose announced. “One of them fancied his chances.”

  “Sad,” said Van, in a voice devoid of any sadness. He reached out and took the tube from the man and casually tossed it up in the air.

  Somehow, Myra broke free from the two men holding her and jumped towards the spinning tube, she got a hand on it, but it slipped through her fingers and shattered on the ground. Van laughed.

  “Get them on board; it’s time we were leaving.” We were marched to the ramp. Close up, the hull was pock-marked and looked close to failure. The hold was dirty and chaotic, clearly the crew that Van had assembled cared little for maintenance as wires hung from holes in the panelling and the deck was covered with rubbish.

  Myra looked around and whispered to me, “It’s a mess, looks like it’s all been patched up just to keep it flying.” Her reward was a slap around the head from her captor, after that she was silent.

  They threw us in a small cabin, and we sat dejected as we tried to come to terms with the way things had turned out. Rixon had ripped off the bottom of his shirt and was holding it to his nose, blood was still leaking but less now and he had moved more steadily as we had been marched to our prison. Myra sat in the corner, knees hugged to her chest. She looked frightened. I explored the cabin; it was all so familiar to me.

  There were four beds in two sets of bunks, a desk and a terminal. I tried to set it up but it was dead. I wondered if it was broken or merely unplugged. I bent down under the desk, expecting to see a mass of ripped wiring, but instead I found Van’s first mistake. And something else was playing around at the edge of my mind.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Myra was distraught. “Who’s dead?” she asked aloud. “And what’s going to happen to us?”

  Rixon had recovered a little; he removed the material from his nose. “Try not to worry about it,” he said. “It looks like Dave has a plan.”

  “What are you doing, Dave?” she asked me.

  “You were right about Van,” I answered. “He’s not realised that putting us in here is the worst thing he could have done.” I plugged the terminal in and the screen sprang to life.

  Rixon looked shocked. “You have got a plan!”

  “You have to remember,” I said, “I spent a lot of time on one of these Bishops as a cadet, and one of my tasks was to crawl around and learn the ship. After all, if you’re gonna command it one day; it’s good to know it inside out.”

  “And that helps us how?”

  Well you learn a lot, and I know that this is a junior officer’s cabin, there would have been four watch-keepers in here, and that makes it an important place.” They were showing a lot more interest now, so I carried on. “You can log on to the ship’s computer from here and take over control. It’s a safety thing; if the bridge is compromised you can control the ship remotely from a terminal in a few selected places.”

  There was a noise outside and I pulled the plug, the screen went dark.

  I got up quickly as the door opened. Hook Nose was outside. “Get topside, you lot.” He waved a pistol in our direction and we complied. He backed away as we came out and waved us to walk in front of him.

  I was in the lead and pretended that I didn’t know the way to the bridge, taking pleasure in trying to go the wrong way at every opportunity; he was cursing us by the time we arrived.

  Van was in discussion with someone who I guessed was the pilot. They stopped when we saw us.

  “Ah,” Van wheezed, “are you comfortable? Rixon, I must apologise for your treatment, but clearly you have issues with Lucas.” We said nothing, I noticed that Rixon had had a relapse; perhaps he was trying to fool Van into thinking he was still out of it.

  “Mr Douglas,” he said, I had to remind myself that he was talking to me; I’d forgotten that was my real name. “You’ll be pleased to hear that I have spoken to our man on Basilan. Vlad is on remand pending our arrival, but there is a lot of interest in his story. I got you up here because I thought you might like to watch as we lifted off, it will be your last view of freedom.” He turned to Rixon. “And your last view of solid ground, until you leave the airlock.”

  Myra gasped and Van turned to her. “Don’t be sad, my dear. I will make you very happy, for a while, how long it lasts will depend on you.” She went pale and started trembling. I put my arm around her.

  “Now, now,” said Van. “Hands off, the lady is mine.” Hook Nose dragged us apart and Myra started sobbing. “Oh dear,” Van lisped, “I seem to have broken up the happy couple. Don’t worry my dear; you’ll enjoy being with me more than you would have with him.”

  “I’ll break it off,” she snarled.

  He smiled again. “No you won’t, you’ll behave because the better you behave the longer you’ll live.” He turned back to me.

  “A final thought for you, Finn. We have been paying the real Dave Travis for information. That’s money we would like returned; so perhaps you will give us the passwords to your accounts.”

  I might have guessed that was coming. I played dumb. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Van sighed, an exasperated sigh. He stepped forward quickly and slapped me around the head. He may have been scrawny but he was strong, I tried to move my head with the blow but I was held securely and it stung. “Please don’t insult me; we know you accessed the accounts recently. You even changed the passwords. We watch these things. We have to deliver you to the police in exchange for Vlad; that will take us a few days. We can’t kill you or hurt you too much, but of course you may be injured trying to escape. You will transfer all the money back to us, rest assured. After all, it’s not yours.”

  He nodded to the pilot, who took control and lifted off, showing Navy training in his approach, but I got the feeling that he was not as loyal as Van thought. He looked like a man who was doing what he was told because he had to, not because he wanted to. It made me wonder about the loyalty of the crew. But we would probably have no chance to use disloyalty to help us. Once we were in orbit, I knew that the end would not be long coming. I expected that Van would want to drag it out though. So far he seemed the sadistic type.

  “Well I’m going to eat now,” he said, “and I suppose that I should let you have a last meal Rixon. You can’t go for a walk on an empty stomach.” He paused. “Empty lungs maybe.” There was laughter from Hook Nose and the pilot.

  We were returned to the cabin and food packs were given to us, self-heating and filling, if not tasty. It was a last meal and we knew it. What we didn’t know was how long we had.

  “How much money is there?” Rixon asked. I told him and he whistled. “That would come in handy.”

  “I agree; all I have to do is survive but he’s right of course it’s not mine. And they’ve been paying me since Wishart.”

  “That’ll be Van; he’s slapdash, like I said.”

  “You can bet that he’s been told off by Vlad,” said Myra.

  “Do you think that matters?” Rixon broke in. “You’re still for the high jump. I’ll bet the Chenkos have got hold of the video from the Moth from Dolmen. If they edit it up a bit you’ll be seen arguing with Dror and if you get life you
’ll be lucky.”

  He was right of course, it was a good job that the ideas I had been working on were becoming clearer; the prospect of what was to come had got me motivated.

  “Tell me about the ship,” I said to Rixon, “how did the Chenkos get hold of it?”

  “They found it drifting in space and just took it.” He confirmed what Stu had told me.

  “That’s useful.” There was a chance my plan could work.

  “Why?” asked Myra, who was still trembling, after her comment she was back in the corner, avoiding eye contact.

  “Well the Navy won’t have decommissioned it; that gives me an idea. I expect the Chenkos just took off the secure transmitters and thought that was enough to keep the Navy from locating them.”

  “And isn’t it?” Rixon had recovered most of his faculties. “It’s what I’d do.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not enough, it means they can’t be tracked or remote controlled, but it also means that the ship’s computer will think that the Navy is still in charge.” The plan was coming together in my head, I felt excited; perhaps we could get out of this, if we had enough time.

  “Where’s this going, Dave,” said Rixon. “In case you hadn’t noticed we haven’t much time for the big ideas. Any minute now I’m off for a walk. Get to the point.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  This was the crunch; I took a deep breath.

  “I know Dror’s passwords, and I can remember the Navy override codes for control systems. If the ship hasn’t been decommissioned, then it should accept them as current.”

  “But don’t they change?” asked Myra.

  “Well yes,” I replied, “and once Dror didn’t respond then his would have been cancelled. But that’s the point. They are changed remotely over the web and confirmed by secure message, if the Chenkos only disconnected the Navy uplink, then the download and the message won’t have been received. The old codes should still work.”

  Realisation dawned on Rixon and he perked up. “So we’re in with a chance then?”

  I scanned the room. “We have to be quick; they might come for you at any moment. Let’s see what else they missed, there should be a safety box under the lockers; it’s painted red.”

  Myra had a look and dragged it out. She flipped the lid. Inside was all the safety gear that would see us right. Escape breathing sets, torches and a tool kit. And just to show that Van had no idea what he was dealing with when he took the ship over, a pistol and a wad of cash. “A junior officer’s stash,” I said. “Probably gambling winnings.” Myra put it in her pocket, grinning. Rixon grabbed the pistol.

  “Right, my plan is this; we hack into the systems, lockdown all the collision bulkheads and prepare a shuttle. Then we leave, after programming them to go trans-light.”

  Rixon nodded. “Can’t we just start the self-destruct and blow them up?”

  “The self-destruct is a myth,” I told them. “There’s too much chance of a mistake. There are other ways though.” I plugged the terminal back in and turned the screen on.

  The cursor blinked; Rixon and Myra crowded round. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to pretend to be Dror and sign in.”

  “Let’s hope it works.”

  “I’m pretty sure it will.” I typed and mentally crossed my fingers.

  The screen cleared to a standard interface. “We’re in,” I said triumphantly. “Now I’ve gotta work fast.”

  “Isolate the communications set-up first,” said Rixon. “We don’t want them telling anyone what’s going on.”

  I disabled their transmitter and then, fingers flying, I isolated and locked down the bridge and engine room and all the airtight doors, I was hoping that not too many people were in the alleyways. I got a shuttle online and initiated its pre-flight routines; the engines would be warming up while we got there, ready for a quick getaway. Now I had done that I could relax and finish off. We had time to sort ourselves out; there was nothing anyone outside this space could do to stop me.

  Now the only thing to do was decide on the Bishops’ fate; where could we send them out of the way? Already they must have noticed that they had lost control, not that they could do much about it. I had the manual override reset to a new code.

  “We can open the doors manually as we go, the code is now 02215, as long as there are not too many people lurking. Now where can we send them?” I opened the Nav screen.

  “How about somewhere in the deep patch?” This suggestion came from Myra; the deep patch was an area of the Rim with little in it, just clouds of gas and planetoids.

  “Or we could just blow them up,” said Rixon. “I don’t feel inclined to let this carry on. Whatever happens, Vlad will be inside for a long while and most of his boys are here.” He gently touched his face. “I owe them, for this and for lots more.”

  “I can turn off the cooling for the engine cores, which will do the job. Once I start it up, we only have about ten minutes to get in the shuttle and away. The speakers will count us down.”

  I opened the engine control screen. Van had excelled himself in his ignorance, it was all there. It felt like a big thing, but I could see that just letting them go would not help anyone.

  “Your call,” I said to Rixon, he barely hesitated.

  “Do it!” he answered.

  “Yes do it,” echoed Myra.

  I stopped the main cooling pumps; shut off the primary lighting and password-locked the sequence. Now a ship-wide voice started a countdown, if Van and his boys had been wondering what was going on, now they knew. I could imagine them, all locked in with their own thoughts as the numbers wound back. They had more notice than Dror had had.

  “Now we’ve gotta move; follow me.” I opened the door manually with my new code and a tool from the kit, a long metal spike that went into a small hole in the door. We moved quickly down the dark corridors, lit by blue strips. I knew exactly where I was going and manually opened each airtight door as we passed. They slid shut behind us with a clang.

  We saw no one in the alleyways and after the last door was opened we sprinted across the hangar to the shuttle bay. The countdown continued in the background, relentless in that flat, mechanical voice, ‘Six minutes to engine overload.’

  I opened the shuttle’s ramp and Myra ran in. I was just about to follow her when I realised I was alone, where was Rixon? I turned at a noise.

  ‘Five minutes, thirty seconds to engine overload, restart cooling immediately,’ said the voice. I could hear a lifter start. “Rixon!” I shouted.

  ‘Five minutes, twenty seconds to overload.’

  “Over here, Dave,” he called back. “I found us a profit, if I can just get it unlashed.”

  I sprinted towards him.

  ‘Five minutes, ten seconds; you have one minute to restart cooling pumps.’

  Behind me, Myra shouted, “What’s going on?”

  “Get ready for us, Myra,” I called.

  ‘Five minutes to overload.’

  I reached him; he had a pallet on the lifter and was trying to release the lashing straps.

  ‘Four minutes, fifty seconds to overload.’

  “Help me, Dave,” he shouted.

  “There’s no time,” I answered.

  ‘Four minutes, forty seconds to engine overload.’

  “We can’t leave this, it’s worth a fortune.”

  “More than your life?”

  ‘Four minutes, thirty seconds to engine overload, engine temperature critical, restart cooling pumps now.’

  “Yes,” he said.

  “The shuttle’s ready,” called Myra, even in the dim lighting I knew where I would find what I wanted.

  ‘Four minutes, twenty seconds to overload.’

  I saw it in its stowage, good old Navy; I ran over and grabbed the fire axe.

  ‘Four minutes, ten seconds; overload is now inevitable.’

  Running back I swung the axe, hacking at the lashings; one by one they parted. Rixon lifte
d the pallet, there was one strap left, and it was bar-tight. It throbbed as I sliced through it.

  ‘Three minutes, forty seconds…’ Crackle-crackle ‘… load.’

  The voice sounded distorted, systems must be failing.

  We pushed the lifter and its cargo, a shapeless plastic covered machine of some sort, toward the shuttle’s ramp.

  Van’s voice came over the intercom, interrupted by the countdown; he must have regained partial control of the transmitter. Hopefully he hadn’t sent out any important signals.

  “You bastard, Rixon.”

  ‘Three minutes to overload.’

  “Vlad will get you.”

  ‘Two minutes, fifty seconds to over–’ The countdown stopped.

  We had the pallet on board and the ramp closed with a clunk. Myra was at the controls. “We need to go now,” I said as we sat and strapped in. Her hands flew over the console. The bay depressurised as the doors opened, all the rubbish strewn over the deck and various other things flew out into space. Our acceleration pushed us back into the padded seats as we left the bay; the countdown voice had been replaced by a digital readout on the overhead panel. Our speaker came to life as it entered the final minute.

  “You’ll never get far enough away from a Chenko.” Van sounded faint, like an echo. “Keep looking over your shoulder.”

  Rixon leaned over Myra and turned the speaker off.

  We swung in a lazy arc until the Bishop was a small dark shape in front of us, our eyes on the digital readout. As it reached zero, it shuddered under internal explosions, the hull cracked and tongues of flame spurted out, consuming the last of the oxygen. The shock wave bounced us around a little and sent a rattle of debris over us, marking the end of the Bishop. I realised that I had been holding my breath and let it out with a gasp. I heard Rixon and Myra do the same.

  I felt anger and relief, relief that Van was gone and we were safe, then anger that Rixon had almost spoilt it in the haste to make a profit. Wasn’t his life enough profit out of the deal?