"Actually, Universal law accepts any wills written at time of crisis," pointed out Dr. Hendricks.
"Great," she said, "anyone got a piece of paper and a pen?" she asked.
"Well of course you would have to have someone left to attest the will, and that seems unlikely, no?" the funny Doctor said.
"Are you trying to be funny, Doc?" asked Jason.
"I thought it was a jolly good go," he replied.
"Well stick to what you're good at, huh?"
"Oh, don't be such a meany," Julianna told Jason and then told the Doctor, "I thought it was a good one, though somewhat too true for my liking."
"Can we have some faith in the back?" asked Jason testily.
"Well sorry," they gave back in unison and grinned at each other.
"The point," Jason pointed out annoyedly, "is that Freddy asked us to make him disappear, not kill him."
"You said that bit," said Milk taking a corner, "but how are we going to do it without Freddy knowing?"
"Dunno. Just take him with us?"
"Well you better get on that because here comes his garage."
They pulled up and got out. The garage was small with an open front and stuffed with a car, a 1983 black and metallic grey customized GMC van and various car fixing stuff. Protruding from under the car was a pair of denimed legs.
"We're looking for Jimmy Jazz," called Milk.
"Ain't no one by dat name here" came a voice, but Jason watched the legs tense.
"How about Robert Johnson?" asked Julianna.
Suddenly the body rolled out from under the car on a wheeled sled and the arm popped up holding a laser pistol at them. Chase was ready however and held his own pistols, one at the man's head, one at his groin.
The man lying there was black with short dreadlocks.
"Hello, Jimmy" said Chase.
"Well I be damned, Chase Darkstaar, back at last."
"Can we put the guns away?"
"Of course, mon," he slid his gun away and Chase did the same before helping his old friend up. "Didn't t'ink dis day was gonna come, I tell you. Lot's changed."
Chase looked around. "I can see."
"Yep, a diff'rent man stands before you since last we met."
"Same same, listen Jimmy, we need to talk; you're in trouble."
"Freddy No Fingers?"
"Yeah."
"OK, oh hey dere, Doc, how you bin?"
"Good thank you, Robert. I see business is ticking over."
"You know me, Doc, I gets by," Jimmy said.
"You two know each other?" asked Julianna, there was always a new twist.
"Indeed, when I come this way to catalogue the finds at Peskini, Robert comes along and looks after Jason's ship."
"Jason?" asked Jimmy.
"Robert?" asked Chase with equally raised eyebrows.
"As I say, I changed, brudder, I in love dese days, found myself a piece of Fiddler's Green."
"Which is what we need to talk about," pointed out Milk.
"Come, come, let us talk in de office."
***
As they came to the end of their explanation, Cantor and three henchmen, two Tarancort, one Merrick, walked to the end of an alleyway opposite Jimmy's garage.
"You two stay here and watch," he said to the Humans, "you go up to the roof so you can see where they go if they escape. I shall move around to the back of the garage."
With that he disappeared lightning-fast across the road.
"Merricks were not built for climbing," complained the Merrick while the others snickered.
***
"Go wit' you? No, mon, we plan to elope, so we do," Jimmy said.
"Yeah, and if we hadn't bumped into Freddy, you'd be dead already, so can we not postpone the whole elopement thing for a bit?"
"You mean you weren't on your way to see me?"
"What? Er, no."
"So I look afta your ship for five years and you weren't gonna come even t'ank me?" Jimmy asked hurt.
"Look, he had his memory wiped and it's a long story and can we go, because I bet Freddy's men are around," cut in Milk quickly.
"Real shabbus," Julianna added. "Freddy wants you to disappear, so disappear and we can find your love in a month or so. Just let Freddy think you are gone."
"She will t'ink I left her," Jimmy said gloomily.
"And imagine her surprise when you turn up again, when she finds out it was all for love," said Jason. "You can have your whole life with her in a few months or lose that life in a few hours when Freddy finds out we didn't knock you off."
"It be a fair point," conceded Jimmy.
Cantor crept away from the window and phoned his boss.
"They're not going to do it, boss, they're going to take him away with them."
"Then kill them all, you fool, why bother me with such information?" his boss came back angrily down the line.
"Yes, boss, sorry boss."
Cantor got on the radio to the other three and they all loaded up their machine guns.
"Fire on my order," whispered Cantor as he crept back and looked in the window. They were no longer in the office. "Open fire."
The five of them were back in the garage and Milk saw the henchmen first.
"Down," he shouted as rapid fire laser blasts burst into the garage.
"De van! Get in de van!" Jimmy shouted over the din.
Milk and Chase pulled out their guns and returned fire, the machine gun fire stopped and Jimmy reached up and pulled open the sliding side door of the van. The machine gun fire started up again and everyone was once again prone. Chase couldn't see where the shooting was coming from and fired wildly.
"When they reload, go," he commanded and kept firing.
The firing stopped once again and everyone jumped up and bundled into the van before Jimmy slammed the door shut as the firing recommenced.
"Guess Freddy didn't trust us after all," Chase said pushing his hair out of his face and holstering his pistols.
"A master of the obvious," pointed out Milk to a disdaining look.
Jimmy started to climb into the front seats, but Chase grabbed him.
"Oh, no you don't, you may be a gifted engineer, but you can't drive worth shabbus. I'm driving."
"Tis my van, mon."
"Valkswagon, there won't be much left of it if you drive," Chase said and pushed Jimmy over the seat into the passenger side. He then climbed over into the driver's seat.
"Where are the keys?" Chase asked searching around.
"On de workbench," Jimmy replied deflatedly.
"Valkswagon."
"I'll get them, you boys give me some covering fire," said Julianna.
Milk and Hendricks crowded behind the side door and waited for the firing to stop. As did they slid the door open and opened fire as Julianna raced out of the van. Freddy's henchmen had begun to cross the street and were caught, not only by surprise, but in the open. They dived to the floor as laser beams shot over them.
Chase, leaning out of the driver's window, spotted the Merrick on the roof getting ready to fire and started blasting that way too. Julianna was frantically searching the workbench until she found three sets of keys, scooped them all up and dashed back to the van, leaping in as the door slid shut with a bang. She gave all the keys to Jimmy who sorted them out and handed one to Chase who started the engine with a tremendous rev.
The henchmen were back on their feet just long enough to dive out of the way as the van burst out of the garage and screamed down the street.
Cantor was straight on his radio and before the van had got far a car and two motorbikes were in pursuit. Chase careened the van around a corner as people started shooting from the car and even the motorbikes were armed with submachine pistols.
Traffic was light, but people were unused to high speed driving on the terra-roads and Chase had to weave around the pootling traffic. They were even less used to high speed fire fights and one car was hit as Chase swerved around it; said car went up i
n flames and skidded onto the sidewalk and into the front of a shop selling fireproof furniture which promptly also went up in flames.
One of the motorbikes pulled up next to the van and steadied his gun as Chase swerved left and hit the motorbike, sending it off the road and onto the sidewalk. The car was pulling up behind the van with someone hanging out each side with machineguns.
Dr. Hendricks, looking out the small round windows in the back doors, suggested, "A bit faster might be best."
"Got it, Doc, everyone hold on," called back Chase and hit the brakes.
The car smashed into the back of the van sending the one gunman who hadn't got back in flying. Chase then hit the gas and the van flew forward and around another corner barely missing an oncoming bus.
The motorbikes were again catching and started unloading onto the van. Chase tried to ram one of them, but the bike dodged; the other bike was on the other side and Milk whipped open the side door and unloaded a laser clip into the bike. He hit the rider twice and the bike four times, the front wheel flew off and as the bike bucked forward the rider went flying through the back window of a taxi. The other bike was shooting up the side of the van and blew out Chase's window.
"We gotta get to de skyway," Jimmy helpfully pointed out.
"I'm working on it," replied Chase ducking more laser shots.
"The car is back behind us," mentioned Hendricks, "perhaps we should shoot at it."
"Good idea," said Julianna as she climbed over to the back doors.
"Hold on," shouted Chase as they hit the spiral on ramp to the skyway. Everyone went flying around the back of the van and the motorbike was forced behind the van, just in front of the car.
They hit the fast flowing traffic of the skyway amid horn blasts as Chase made his own gap in traffic. Now in the wide straight lanes the shooting could really begin and the shooters in the car leant out of windows and let rip.
Chase dodged the van in front of a large lorry.
"I'm going to open the back doors," shouted Julianna, "When I say, dodge back out in front of the car."
"Gotcha."
Milk braced himself and got ready to fire, Julianna got her gun out and leant over to the door handles.
"Ready?" she asked Milk
"Ready."
She slammed the doors open and shouted at Chase who swerved out in front of the car and Julianna and Milk unleashed a torrent of laser on the car, blowing out the front window and crucially hitting the driver.
The car swerved left and then right and then careened left hitting the high barrier with such force that it flipped completely over and crashed down through the roof of some poor sod's house.
The motorbike rider didn't like this much and came behind the van and started shooting. He razed the inside of the van before Milk could get the doors shut and collapse to the floor. The rider then came around the side to line up a shot at Jimmy in the passenger side, but as he did, Dr. Hendricks flung the side door open and shot him in the helmet with Milk's dropped gun. The biker swerved away and skidded into the central barrier, flipping himself into the lane of oncoming traffic. Amazingly he slid across all four lanes of traffic without being mowed down and hit the side barrier where he lay alive, but in all sorts of pain.
Hendricks pulled the door shut and Chase accelerated as he saw police lights appearing in the distance.
"Oh, no, no, Milk? Milk? Milk's been shot," Julianna shouted.
"Here let me look," said the Doctor.
He knelt over Milk who was laying on the floor, a small pool of blood spreading underneath him.
"We need to get him to a hospital," cried Julianna.
"No, that wouldn't be wise, would it?" asked the Doctor.
"No, it wouldn't," replied Chase slowing down, "but what can we do for him?"
"Get him back to the ship," said Hendricks poring over Milk's body
"What can we do at the ship? He needs a doctor," insisted Julianna.
"People generally believe I have my doctorate in Archaeology," explained Hendricks still pressing and poking Milk, "and I do, but I was a doctor of medicine first. The thing was that no one really wanted a Laikan for their doctor, people are prejudiced by looks, you see?" he looked up at Julianna and she nodded. "It didn't matter that I was the best in my field, no. So I started practicing in Ictopia, treating shady people who couldn't go to hospitals without questions being asked."
"So you can help him?" she asked with tear filled eyes.
"Oh yes, of course, it's not as bad as it looks, he's a big man. Just get us to the ship as quickly as possible, Mr. Darkstaar."
"Still working on it," Chase answered looking in his mirror.
The police still hadn't caught up with them. Maybe hadn't even spotted them, he hoped, as he slowed down to the speed limit so as to not attract any more attention.
About the time Chase and the gang were taking off from the space port, Trillo and a group of assassins were exiting the star-gate.
"Do we still have them?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, they are not too far ahead of us."
"What shall we do?"
"Just follow them," Trillo answered his men. "They can evade us much easier in space. We wait until they land and then take them."
He smiled to himself, he may have lost the last battle, but Chase Darkstaar's luck could not hold out forever, and when it broke Trillo would be there to administer the final laser shot. He would watch Darkstaar's eyes as the light went out of them and then he would take those eyes as a trophy.
Back on their ship and heading for Peskini, Dr. Hendricks was patching up Milk who had already recovered well due to him being one hell of a big Indian. Julianna sat next to his prone figure and mopped his brow.
Jimmy Jazz sat and moped in his chair, he was thinking of his love and how she would soon be told that he had run off without her. He had changed his ways, he had become an upstanding man, left his past behind. He sighed. But his past had caught up with him in the shape of Chase Darkstaar.
Jason himself was thinking about all that was going on as he flew the craft through black space. Not so long ago he had been an amnesiac writer and now he found that the inspiration for his writings were not imagination, but forgotten memories of a Universe he used to terrorise. Already on this crazy little adventure he had pulled a small group of people in with him and put their lives at risk by doing so. Now one was laying shot, one was heartbroken, one had nearly been raped. Only Dr. Hendricks seemed to be enjoying himself and Jason wondered if the Doc lived completely in the real world. Academics rarely do.
The immediate problem was that it was far from over, in all the tumult Jason was the only one who remembered that they hadn't had a chance to check for a tracking device on the ship. He knew that even now the Laikans were most likely following them. Would they already be in the galaxy? Was Trillo leading them? Yes, he thought, most likely; he doubted that a mere grenade would have finished off Trillo. And, of course, by now Freddy would know and be seething revenge. He was in this galaxy too, Jason remembered. Great, two people out looking for revenge in the same galaxy, it was going to get a lot worse before it got better. If it would ever get better.
He set the autopilot and swivelled in his chair. There was the Doc still bandaging Milk, who looked as pale as an Indian could, but Jason could see the strong rise and fall of his large chest and there was Julianna, her dark red hair falling over her worn face. And here was Jimmy, a forgotten best friend, who now sat glumly. Robert Johnson who had been known as Jimmy Jazz, descended from Caribbean slaves. The British had originally brought them, along with Indians, into space to continue to serve them, but then had learned about equality from the rest of the Universe and quickly let them all go their own way, equal partners in the UTN.
Chase had never had much stomach for the Caribbeans' accent, they had deliberately kept it as a way to keep their ancestry alive, to remember where they had come from and from what circumstances. Not such a bad thing to be different (con
sidering Victorians were mostly white, English people) and bring something unique to the Universe. Indeed it was they that introduced the Universe to Bob Marley and there is now a saying that 'there are two types of peoples in the Universe, those who like Bob Marley and those who have yet to listen to him'.
"Jimmy," said Jason quietly and his friend looked over at him, "I reckon I've got a lot of explaining to do."
"I reckon so, mon."
So Jason started explaining everything.
The first thing Andrew Forster thought on entering the room was how dimly lit it was. In the centre was a circle of comfortable chairs, all but two of which were filled. Sir Jeffery led him over to one of the free chairs and sat in the other.
"Welcome back, Sir Jeffery," Hopkirk welcomed.
"Yes, welcome back," added Fong-gan from his fish bowl.
"How is Earth?" asked Mark the Oncolutian.
"We should greet our new member before continuing with business," said Hikcet, the Grey.
"Yes, of course," said Mark and extended his terrifically long arm over to Forster who shook it, "Welcome to the council, I am Mark."
"Pleasure to meet you, sir," Forster replied, "my name is Andrew Forster."
"Indeed, we all know about you, Mr. Forster, it is you who does not know us. I am Hopkirk, I am an Enthusian. We as a race have no real corporeal bodies so we chose to model ourselves on wise and stately Humans such as Aristotle and Socrates."
"And I am George, I am an Albertine. My race is descended from the rhesus monkeys your own country sent into space."
"Really?" amazed Forster. "That's incredible."
"You will find a lot of things incredible for a while. I am Fong-gan, I am a Carute. We are from the water planets of the Naam galaxy. We travel in these HoverSpheres as we cannot survive out of water."
"That's an amazing piece of engineering," Forster exclaimed, "how does it work?"
"There is much time for such answers, but for now I am Hikcet, you are no doubt familiar with my race, we are, what you call Greys."
"Yes indeed, many people have spoken of meeting your race, but no one believed them."
"Seeing is believing," spoke Hopkirk, "now let me quickly explain the machinations of this council. There is the Minor Council that has representatives from all the races in the Universal Trading Network, and every two years six of those races form the Great Council, which is what you see before you. Much is debated in the Minor Council and it is the job of the Great Council to take aboard all these arguments and then make a decision. The Great Council's word is always final."
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