Galactic Axia Adventure 1: Escape to Destiny (11 page)

“It’s like he just disappeared,” Robert said.

“What if he’s hurt?” fretted Agnes.

“Then we would have found him,” answered Mike. “An injured man can’t run.”

“So the bulletin goes out tomorrow?” Robert said.

“Yes,” replied Mike. “But in the meantime, I need to send an update to Our Lady.”

Other matters in the case had not gone well either. Prudence Hornbeck and the judge had both been dealt with quickly. The new director cleaned house at the social agency. However, in spite of the changes, some things remained the same. Dorn had somehow managed to avoid prosecution, although Mike had been able to cut off his government payments for taking care of Delmar.

The warrants against the Hassels were summarily dismissed, as well as several of the other legal suits the former director had initiated. As a result, the caseload in the courts had eased considerably and morale among local law enforcement personnel was definitely high. Still, there was the nagging problem of the missing boy.

∞∞∞

Using the cover of darkness to slide under the fence, Delmar slipped onto the field. He hid his small pack of belongings, straightened his clothes, and crossed briskly toward the nearest freighter. The ship showed her years of service plying her trade, and though the paint looked new, it did nothing to hide recent repairs.

Delmar approached a group of men loading crates into the cargo bay and pitched in to help. No one seemed to notice him as the loading continued, except that the extra strong back was most welcome. The ship was finally loaded and the ground crew sauntered back toward the operations buildings, leaving the regular crew and Delmar standing near the loading ramp.

“You better get goin', boy,” the cargo master said. “We’re gonna lift off soon.”

Delmar didn’t move. “I was wondering if you could use another hand. I’d be willing to do anything.”

The cargo master eyed him suspiciously. “How old are you, boy?”

“Just turned eighteen, sir.”

“Let me go talk to the skipper,” the cargo master said. “You sure proved you’re willing to work.” Delmar waited nervously for several minutes. Eventually two men came back out.

“Let me see some identification, son,” the ship captain said. Delmar showed him the identification card he had received at graduation.

“Looks like you’ve learned something too,” the captain said. “Why do you want to ship out? You in some kind’a trouble, boy?”

Delmar paled but kept the nervousness out of his voice. “I’ve thought about space travel for several years since my mom died. I’ve also had some trouble at home with my older brother and I want a new start.”

The captain eyed him for a moment. The two men turned their backs to Delmar and moved out of earshot. After conferring a minute, they returned. “Okay,” said the captain. “I’ll take you on and assign you to Cargo Master Preston here. This is my ship, the
Malibu
. I’m in command but Mister Preston runs the crew. Now get onboard and let’s go.”

Delmar sighed with relief. He ran over to the place where he had hidden his pack, grabbed it and ran back just in time to follow the two men up the ramp.

“Now don’t get your head full of no fanciful ideas, boy,” Preston said as they entered the ship. “I can work 'em out’ta you before we break orbit.” The hatch closed behind them and within minutes, the
Malibu
streaked skyward.

∞∞∞

Delmar learned quickly and adjusted to the daily routine aboard ship. It became easy to tell morning from afternoon by which of the two levels he was scrubbing. The different patterns of flooring tile were all he needed for a timepiece. Preston worked him steady but not too hard, lest all the work be done and the boy should have some free time. Out barely ten days and the ship glistened from one end to the other and Delmar could see the tile patterns in his sleep.

However, scrubbing the
Malibu’s
floors did not keep Delmar from learning. He kept his ears and eyes open and his mouth shut, the first advice Cargo Master Preston had given him after breaking orbit.

From the disgusted tone of the skipper, he learned there were problems with some of the rods of the bedsprings drive system and their power cells were weakening. They were also having trouble navigating and had to make frequent course corrections, and their communications array was apparently out of alignment. They were not making good time as they planet-hopped and would have to lay over at the next planet for repairs.

∞∞∞

The Red-tail pilot could not believe his luck. He had been on patrol in this sector of space trying to find a likely spot for the cluster to open a new transit tube so they could make hit-and-run raids. This was one of the normal shipping lanes used by the humans of Galactic Axia.

The few Axia ships the Red-tail had seen were the large cruisers and he certainly did not want to tangle with one of those. But this ship was different. From the looks of it, the ship should have been retired long ago. And though he wasn’t familiar with Galactic Axia designs, he was sure the ship coming into his detector range was only running on partial power. The energy fluctuations emitting from its power source were intermittent at best.

The Red-tail powered his scout ship down to avoid detection by the approaching ship.
You never know about these humans
, he thought.
They’re full of tricks and capable of absolute treachery.

The
Malibu
had taken off from Erdinata with a full load of iron ore and supplies for a couple of the inner colonies on Keltus and Olympia. The ship had handled well enough on the first leg of their journey but the skipper knew he would have to put in at Mica for repairs if he hoped to stay in business. His green box power cells were running weak and intermittent, and he didn’t like the way his communications arrays were acting.

Cargo Master Preston came forward to the control room and sat down heavily in the vacant comm chair. He had been recalculating the load weight and distribution variances in the cargo hold all shift since dropping off their shipment of ore at Olympia.

“Something wrong, Preston?” the skipper asked.

“Naw. I just hate haulin' ore,” Preston answered. “Seems to me the Axia shouldn’t put colonies on planets that don’t have enough natural resources to mine their own iron.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” the skipper answered. “But ours is not to reason why.”

“Ours is but to load and fly,” Preston finished the old freighter idiom.

“Where’s that new kid we took on?”

“I’ve got him down in the cargo bay arranging pallets to get the weight right.”

“He’s a good worker. Too bad we’ll have to put him off on Mica,” the skipper said.

“Put him off? Why?”

“Because we’ll be laid over for who knows how long getting this tub repaired. We can’t afford to keep on extra crew just to sit in port.”

“Sure seems a shame,” Preston said. “That boy really knows how to put his back into it.”

The skipper wondered what kind of trouble the Eagleman kid was running from, but he didn’t ask.
After all, I ain’t the kid’s father,
he thought. He’d also left home when he was a teenager, shipping out on one of the old solar sail ships. He remembered it took weeks just to get to the nearest moon, much less another star. So he wouldn’t pry. He would just let the boy take care of his own problems and work them out the best he could.

“You’re just lucky I don’t put you off too,” the skipper said to Preston.

Preston got up from the comm chair and poured a cup of hot coffee for himself from an old coffee pot, then handed a cup to the skipper. “Can’t do it, Skipper.”

“And just why not? You think you’re something special around here?”

Preston sat back down in the comm chair. “Yep,” he answered. “Seein' as’ta how I own quarter interest in this old tub, I’d say you’d have to either buy me out, which I know you can’t afford, or knock me in the head, which I know you won’t do.”

“Got all the answers, don’t ya?”

“Not all of 'em,” Preston answered, taking a sip of his hot coffee. “Just enough of 'em.”

The panoramic view displayed on the main view screen of the freighter showed nothing but open space and bright stars. Regardless how boring the time was on slow runs between the planets, the skipper never grew tired of space or the many wonders each star system held.

Cargo Master Preston sat with this back to the comm screen and detector panel, so he didn’t see the red trace suddenly appear on the detector screen. The signal was very faint and it took two more sweeps of the detector array to trigger the proximity alarm.

The red lights of the proximity alarm began to flash, followed by the shrill wail of the klaxon. Preston sat bolt upright in the comm chair and spilled the coffee he had just poured. The hot liquid seared down his right leg but Preston paid it no mind.

“What is it?” the skipper asked, moving to Preston’s side.

“Don’t know yet, Skipper. Can’t see nothin'.”

The skipper pushed Preston out of the comm chair and sat down at the controls himself. He hated making this run without a communications specialist. But the
Malibu
was a privately owned independent freighter and this was supposed to be a safe route. Besides, he had to cut costs somewhere.

The proximity klaxon continued to blare its warning, the shrill noise cutting through the skipper’s brain. “Shut that racket-maker off!”

Preston flipped a switch on the control panel and the klaxon went silent. At the same time, he glanced out the front portal and saw the Red-tail ship appear out of nowhere. He watched in horror as the Red-tail launched a torpedo at the
Malibu
.

“Incoming torpedo!” screamed Preston.

“Where?” the skipper asked, more calm than he really felt.

“Port bow. Twenty miles.”

The skipper leapt from the comm chair and as if by magic landed in his control chair. With his left hand, he spun the axis ball hard to the left while throwing the ship into full reverse with his right. The ship lurched and then stood still in space. Then with a great wrenching twist that even the inertial dampeners could not overcome, the
Malibu
fell away from the path of the incoming Red-tail weapon.

Preston fell to the floor with the first spin of the axis ball but was now back on his feet. He could feel more that hear the cargo in the cargo bay break away from its moorings and smash against a bulkhead. “I hope that kid got out of the way of that!”

The skipper was too busy twisting and turning the ship to be concerned about what Preston was saying. “Get to the weapons console!”

Preston staggered across the control room to the weapons console on the old freighter. The
Malibu
had once been an active duty ship but that was decades ago, so its weapons compliment was very limited. She still sported the large heat ray that ran along the long axis of the ship. And she still had a few smaller swivel-mount heat rays. But torpedoes were rare, not to mention expensive to purchase in the private sector.

Preston hoped the one torpedo he still showed on the inventory was good and that the launch tube would fire it properly. They didn’t run weapons drills on civilian freighters like they did on line vessels. This was a discrepancy he figured the skipper would rectify if they lived through this ordeal.

“I could use a little help here,” the skipper called out, again giving the axis ball a spin and pushing the throttle bar forward, sending the ship on a parallel tangent from its previous course.

At just that moment, Delmar appeared in the control room doorway. Blood stained his face and shirt from a nasty cut on his forehead.

“What’s happening?”

“Red-tail,” Preston answered. “We’re under attack.” Preston saw the blood streaming down Delmar’s face. “You alright, boy?”

“Yes sir,” Delmar answered. “It’s just a little bump on the head.”

“Get on that comm panel, boy!” the skipper ordered. “Try to get us some help!”

“Yes sir,” Delmar answered. Although he had never actually worked a comm panel before, he had seen one at the spaceport when Mr. Hassel had taken him on a field trip one day. Mr. Hassel had shown him how to use the simple device, especially the emergency beacon switch that would send out a distress call along with their coordinates in space and their identity registration. Any ship within a dozen light years would respond as soon as they picked up the signal.

Delmar sat at the comm panel and threw the emergency beacon switch. Then he picked up the headset and put it on. He pressed the switch on the mic and spoke clearly and calmly into it. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Independent freighter
Malibu
declaring an emergency. We’re under attack by Red-tails. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”

This kid has moxey
, thought Preston.
Cool, calm, ready for a fight. Kind
'
a reminds me of me when I was a pup
. “Good job, kid.”

“Thanks,” Delmar answered. “Mr. Hassel, uh, I mean, my school teacher told me about Red-tails but I never expected to see one.”

“That’s one thing you don’t want to see, boy,” Preston answered. “If you see one up real close, the chances are you’re already dead and fixin' to be his supper.”

The skipper spun around in his command chair and yelled across the room at Preston. “Are you going to fire those weapons or just try to talk that thing to death?”

Delmar could not help but laugh out loud at the skipper’s question. But now Preston was all business. He turned back to the weapons console, and with dexterity that belayed his gruff exterior, his fingers played across the weapons console like a seasoned professional. The axis heat ray fired, sending a searing blast of energy at the approaching Red-tail ship. Delmar could hear the sound of the swivel mount rays firing too but the Red-tail continued to advance, twisting and turning out of the heat ray’s path.

“Have you got a torpedo in your pocket anywhere?” the skipper asked.

“Sure do,” Preston answered. “Can’t tell ya if it’ll light or not but we got one.”

“Then line it up and see if you can get us out of this jam!”