My Other Car is a Spaceship (35 page)

A
satchel landed between them with a thump and exploded in their faces, killing one guard instantly and blowing the other back against a testing console, mortally wounded. Moments later, behind a volley of blaster fire, four prisoners raced through in pairs, two left and two right, covering the room with their weapons. Felmendar raised his tentacles, trembling as much from Bronn’s Syndrome as from fear.

“What-what do you want?”

The human who seemed to be in charge replied, “Haven’t you guessed? If you want to save yourself, I suggest you leave now before we blow the warheads.”

“But— If you do that, you will contaminate the entire fortress.”

“That’s exactly the point. So I suggest you scram now and find yourself a protective suit and head for the hangar. There’s gonna be a mass exodus once people realize what’s happened.”

Felmendar nodded. “I thought as much. I cannot let you do that. There is too much at stake here. If you look over there…” he pointed, “you will see that I have set a five minute timer on that warhead. If I do not deactivate it, it will go off, killing you and your people.”

The human glanced at the timer and frowned. “What’s the point? Whether you blow it or I blow it, it’ll serve the same purpose.”

“Not at all. You want to blow up the warheads and scatter radioactive dust about. That is a relatively slow process, which would give you and your people time to escape. What I have done is set the warhead to detonate
—with a force of 200 kilotons. This deep inside the asteroid, the force of the explosion would be unable to escape outward. Instead, the shockwave, pushing a superheated wall of subatomic particles ahead of it, would be forced to expand out through the corridors and tunnels radiating from this point, incinerating everything and everyone in its path. None of you, or anyone else in the fortress would survive. Is
that
what you had in mind?”

The human frowned again. “But why would you do that? Y
ou’d be killing more people than we would, yourself included.”

Felmendar shrugged. “I am dying anyway, within a few months. What I am doing here is more important to me than my life.
I am doing it for my family. As for killing people, through my actions in repairing the previous warheads I know I have contributed in the slaughter of thousands of innocent people.”

He looked down at the ground, unable to face the human. “What are a few hundred more not-so-innocent ones?”

The human raised his weapon.

“Killing me will not help you, nor will threatening me. I would rather die and
thereby kill you all than let you stop my work. Go now and save yourselves, or we
all
die. You have only three minutes left until the warhead detonates.”

The human looked at the timer again, this time with calculation.

“Do not attempt to disable the timer. The warhead has a failsafe switch that will detonate immediately if the timer is not correctly shut down and safed.”

The sounds of weapons fire coming from the corridor outside the lab heartened the Foren.
They cannot stay any longer. They will have to accept my bluff and leave now.

The human seemed to waver momentarily before coming to a decision.

“You don’t seem to realize that we have no objection to dying, if it means destroying this fortress. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to come to that. Tep! Place the explosives on the warheads as planned.” The Thorian rushed to the first one and unslung the duffle from his shoulder. “Set them to go off a few seconds before the warhead timer. Use
all
the explosives. Someone must know what we’re after, so they shut off the ventilation system. We’ll need a bigger blast to spread the radiation far enough to do any good.”

“But-but—” Felmendar sputtered.

“Yes, sir,” Tep responded. It took only seconds to accomplish. “Done.”

“Good,” the human declared. “Let’s get out of here. You’ll have to come with us…what’s your name?

“Felmendar. Dr. Felmendar.”

“Dr. Felmendar, then. We can’t have you undoing our work here.” He grabbed one of Felmendar’s tentacles in a fist and pulled him relentlessly toward the door.

Before they got there, the others outside the door backed in, firing around the corner of the doorway.

“Kalen!” one of them shouted. “They have us pinned down. There are too many of them to get past.”

The human called Kalen sighed. “Crap. I
knew
it was going too well.” He glanced back at the timer: 2:24 left.

“This way.” Hal pointed to the right as they ran. A head poked around the corner and Hal shot at it, sending it ducking back.

“We’re halfway to the
bridge and no one’s tried to stop us yet,” Mynax responded with a growl. “Isn’t this a heavily armed pirate ship?”

“Yeah, it does seem odd, but
…gift horse and all that. They may not even know we’re aboard—or they could be waiting for us around the next corner.”

“Great. Thanks for putting
that
thought in my head.” Mynax flashed a tight grin and gripped his blaster all the tighter.

A shout from
behind followed by a blaster shot past Kelmalar’s shoulder ended any doubt they’d been discovered. Mynax fired back over his shoulder. Now the trio ran full tilt for the bridge.

Seconds later they arrived
, weapons aimed. Hal barely had time to register the splendor of the pirates’ flagship, from polished brass railings to antiqued wood paneling and wall-hangings that gave the impression of canvas sails, before Captain Tro and pilot MosVeksal emerged from their respective cabins.

“What in Jendor’s
name is going on here?” Then he recognized Hal. “You! How—?”

Hal pointed his weapon at the
captain. “Long story. Suffice it to say that we’re in control of this hanger and your ship. If you do as I say, you will live. If not….” He shrugged.

“Oh, a
nd I am to believe that you will not kill me, kill all of us pirates, out of vengeance for how you were treated, how your friends were killed in the attack on this fortress? You expect me to believe that you will simply let us go?”

Hal shook his head. “I never said anything about letting you go. You all have committed crimes
and you’ll be tried in a court of law. Besides, in a little while there will be a rather nasty explosion here in the fortress. I suspect you wouldn’t want to be around for that anyway.”

The Melphim
captain frowned. “Explosion? What do you mean?”

“You have at least one nuclear-tipped missile aboard this ship, don’t you? Well, I propose to use it.”

Captain Tro’s eyes bulged out. “Are you
insane?
You would die in the explosion, too. We all would.”

Hal smiled. “Not the way I have it planned.”

“Besides,” the captain continued, “you do not have the control codes to arm and fire the missiles.”

“Missiles. Ah. Thanks for confirming that you have more than one. But we won’t need the control codes. You see, I brought along a specialist. Someone who participated in the retrofitting of the Unity ships to accept nukes. She knows everything she needs to know to reprogram the missiles.
”

Hal took a moment to break radio silence. “
Squads 2 and 3, fall back to the ship. Giffen, you know what to do. You have two birds to cook for dinner. Squad 1, keep the guards bottled up in the shack for now.”

He turned back to the
captain. “Now, you will grant me pilot’s access to the ship, and Mynax here captain’s access, and disable your own pilot’s access.”

“I will not.”

“This isn’t a negotiation, Captain. You’ll do as I say, or you’ll die right here, right now. Your choice.”

Tro shrugged. “Kill me if you will, but that will not gain you access to the ship’s controls. Then your plan will fail. Either you will not be able to fire the nuke, or you will die in the attempt.”

“One way or another, Tro, we
will
fire the nuke, even if it means our lives. So how much do you value your own? Are you really willing to die for Penrod?”

Tro shrugged again. “Does it really matter? If I give you what you want, I will be executed for my crimes anyway. We are merely discussing the time of my death; there is no doubt as to the outcome.”

Hal nodded. “Perhaps so, but what about your pilot here? Has she been loyal to you? Is she your friend as well as an exemplary pilot?

Tro
opened his mouth to respond, then hesitated.

Hal filled the silence.
“You could spare her life by cooperating. I could put in a word on her behalf, that she was merely following your orders. We both could.” He jerked his head at Mynax, who nodded in return. “That might be enough to save her life.”

“Do not listen to him,
Captain,” MosVeksal broke in. “He is trying to trick you!”

“I’m willing to give you my word as a Unity officer,
Captain. I will do everything on my behalf to spare your pilot. She will still do jail time commensurate with her crimes, but she will live.”

“Same here,” Mynax chimed in. “I give you my word as
the new commissioner of the Merchants’ Unity.”

Tro stood in silence for a moment. “Very well. I will give you
both access to all ship’s systems, and deactivate Mos’ access and that of the other pilot, in exchange for mercy for them and the rest of the crew. No less than that.”

Hal looked at Mynax, who nodded in agreement. “Deal. Order all of your crew
to disarm and head to the holding cells you use for prisoners. I want no one roaming around but my people. Use the intercom. No tricks, or I’ll shoot your pilot here.”

“No tricks. On m
y word as captain. There are few left aboard, and I do not think most of them are armed anyway.”

“Oh?
” Hal’s eyebrows rose. “Why not? I wondered why we had such an easy time of it.”

Tro grimaced. “Not long ago, I received a call from Tarl Penrod ordering me to send my crew to him to help him suppress what sounded like a palace coup.
Apparently your friends have stirred things up here and set Penrod and his second-in-command at each other’s throats. Most of the crew has yet to return from shore leave. That left me with only a handful, else you would not have gotten this far before being cut down.”

“A palace coup, eh? Interesting.
It’s good to hear that Kalen has been productive in my absence. Now, please proceed.”

Capain Tro did as he’d promised, granting
Hal and Mynax full access. This allowed Hal to monitor the internal sensors, to ensure that the crew did as they were told. As there can be only one captain per ship, giving captain’s authority to Mynax meant ceding his own.

The rest of Hal’s team locked the
ship’s holding pen doors, securing the six members of the crew who remained aboard ship. Then two of the team came for Tro and MosVeksal, taking them below and securing them as well.

Hal and Mynax now had full control of
Queen Anne’s Revenge
, and in a short while—when Giffen Moritha Brih was done working her magic—they would have control over two nuclear missiles as well.

Now
came the tricky part. How were the nine of them supposed to find and retrieve Kalen and the others while still holding the ship?

Sonn and Berjelar stood at opposite ends of the corridor, keeping watch as Sue affixed the explosive to the wall alongside the door, where the sonic lock controls were. Sue knew there wouldn’t be time to use the calibrator, so she’d left it with Nude, just in case. The lab was going to blow any minute. If she was going to get the prisoners to safety—or at least a chance of survival—she had to get them out
now
.

She moved
six paces to the opposite side of the door from the explosive and triggered the remote. The blast wasn’t big—it didn’t need to be—but it did the job. She rushed back to the door and slid it open by hand. Nine beings of assorted species awaited within, most with shocked or terrified expressions on their faces.

She waved them toward the door. “Hurry, if you want to live!”

Some hesitated, but when they saw the others begin to run they did the same.

“This way,” Sue called over her shoulder. “Sonn, let’s go!”

She heard the heavy footsteps of the Sestran coming up behind the group. They reached Berjelar and the dozen prisoners they’d previously released. Only six of the just-released prisoners were armed; those were all the blasters Sue’s team had to spare.

“All right ev
eryone, this is a jailbreak. We are heading for the hangars. With luck, the rest of my team will already be there and will have a ship waiting for us. If not, we will have to help them steal one. Only nine of us have weapons. You three…” she pointed, “you guard the rear.” She selected three others. “You stay in the middle, guarding our flanks. The rest of us…” meaning herself, Sonn, and Berjelar, “will take the lead. Everyone stay together. We will not have time to go back for anyone who gets lost or lags behind. If anyone gets hurt, the rest of us will have to help them keep moving. Carry them if we must.”

She paused for a second to look over the frightened, confused, or determined faces. “I know it is a lot to take in all at once, but we have no time for explanations. In a few minutes, this fortress will be rendered unlivable, so we all have to leave.
Now
.” She saw some heads bob in agreement. “Good. Let’s go!”

She turned and led the way at a trot. Near the back of the group
, a tall human did his best to hide his neatly-trimmed black beard and the fresh blaster burn on his cheek.

“Kalen! We have to get out of here.
Now
!” Tep Movoo looked at the timer again. Only 1:58 left.

“I’m open to suggestions. They’ve got us trapped in here. There’s no back door and a bunch of guards are holding down the end of the corridor.
If we’re not out of here in a minute, we’re all dead, but if we try to leave sooner, the guards down the hall will cut us to ribbons.”

Tep shrugged helplessly.

“Smoke!” someone shouted. Indeed, billows of white smoke poured in through the doorway following a double bang.

“Get ready for a charge,” Kalen yelled.

He and the rest of his team took cover wherever they could.

“Kalen! Hurry, while they cannot see what they are shooting at.” The voice came from the
other
end of the corridor.

“Nude! Is that you?”

“None other. Now hurry. The flash-bang grenade was too far from them for full effect, and the smoke grenade will not last long.”

“Let’s go!” Kalen hissed to the others. “Stay low, and keep firing. We can’t let the guards come up behind us in the smoke. You too,
Felmendar. I’m not leaving you behind to mess with the explosives.”

“But—!”

Kalen grabbed a tentacle and pulled. The smaller, lighter Foren had no choice but to follow.

“Now run!”

Kalen glanced back at the timer as he dashed for the door.

1:12.

“Now that we hold the ship,” Mynax asked
his pilot, “how do we rescue the other prisoners?”

“I was just wondering that myself,” Hal replied. “I’m the only one who can fly this ship, so I have to stay here.
The solid rock would block my remote access if I went much beyond the hangar. But I’m also the only one who knows where Kalen and the others were hiding—assuming they haven’t moved on by now. If they’re still hiding, you probably won’t have any more luck finding them than the guards did. But at least you know what Kalen looks like. You’ll have to head up the rescue team.”

Mynax nodded. “Of course. But it would help if I knew where to start.”

“I wish I could tell you exactly where they are, but….” Hal shrugged. “Using the ship’s transmitter I tried to reach Kalen through his implant, but no go.”

A deep rumbling
accompanied the shudder that afflicted the bridge. Both men jumped.

“What the hell?” Mynax said.

“That’s an explosion—a big one. My guess? Kalen. It might make your job easier, if he and his people are out and about. But you’d better hurry. There’s no telling where he’s going or how long he’ll be visible.”

Mynax nodded.
“We’ll leave immediately.”

“Good. I’ll hold down the fort.” Hal opened a radio channel to the rest of the teams, both inside and outside the ship. At this point he wasn’t worried about their radio chatter giving away their position. Surely the guards in the shack had
called for reinforcements already.

“Everyone
but Giffen meet at the fore access hatch, ASAP.” He turned back to Mynax. “Good luck, sir. Hurry back.”

The two men shook hands. Mynax flashed a crooked grin. “You bet.”

Hal immediately powered up the engines into full operational mode. As soon as Squad 1 reached the hatch, he raised shields, protecting everyone inside. He energized the antiproton cannons on minimum power and took aim at the guard shack. A bare-minimum burst obliterated the shack and those within and gouged out a huge chunk of the solid rock wall behind it. Pieces bounced off the ship’s shields.

Then Hal
raised the ship a few centimeters, rotated it, and blew out the airtight doors near one end of the hangar and then the other. Now he had a clear view of the area immediately outside the hangar, including the long corridors leading to the doorways. No one was going to be able to sneak up on the ship from the front, and with sensors fully engaged, no one could approach undetected from outside the asteroid, either. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake the pirates had.

Hal lowered the shields and radioed the team. “I’ve cleared the way for you. Good luck everyone. Keep your heads down.”

After raising the shields again, he watched as the seven spacesuited figures ran through the smoking wreck of one of the hangar doorways.

Kalen and the others raced down the corridor, trying to outrun the expanding cloud of radioactive dust and gasses that emanated from the lab. Strobe lights on the walls flashed and alarms sounded.

Having the air handlers in that sector shut off helped, but the force of the blast blew out large chunks of
three walls, spreading the plutonium dust down the adjacent corridors. In addition, the fires raging out of control in various parts of the fortress created vortexes that sucked air from other parts of the fortress, including the area of the lab. Within minutes, large sections of the fortress would be toxic. As it was, the Kadre had already lost one of their number, cut down by random blaster fire through the smoke. The pirates also winged another the same way.

Kalen blinked and wiped a trickle of blood from his eye. He’d scraped his forehead against the corridor wall when the blast
threw everyone from their feet. “Wait a minute,” he exclaimed, grabbing Nude’s arm as they ran, “where’s Merry?”

“I hid her in a maintenance closet up ahead when I heard the sound of blaster fire coming from your direction. You sounded like you needed help.”

“True enough. But where did you get the grenades?”

“I thought they might come in handy in defense of Merry, so I
pocketed them when we left.”

“You never cease to amaze, me, doctor.”

Nude smiled. “That is as it should be, Captain.” He pointed. “There is the closet where I left Merry.”

“Good. Let’s get her and
get off this godforsaken rock.”

Assuming Fen and his team were successful
in getting us a ship.

Fen Donue, Loc Pordu, Pir Seploo, and Glon’Slouv’Moul—the three Thorians and a Chan’Yi that comprised Team 2—were at an impasse.

“How are we supposed to get in there and take a ship, with that monster standing watch?” Seploo grimaced in frustration. “Every time we
try to get close, it swivels its APCs at us. And with its shields up, there is no way we can hurt it. All we have is blasters and a few grenades.”

Donue shrugged. “I suppose our only option is
to try one of the other hangars and hope we can find an easier target there.”

“But we do not have time for that. Besides, how would we let the others know where we went?
They expect us to be here.”

Donue growled, “If you have a better idea, let me know—otherwise
be quiet and let me think.”

Before Seploo could reply, the sound of blaster fire echoed down the corridor from behind them.
The duo jumped, then turned to listen.

“
Jendor damn it!” Donue cursed. “It is coming this way. We are about to get caught between the ship and the reinforcements. We cannot stay here.”

He raised his voice so the other two members of the team could hear as well. “This position is indefensible. We have to move. It sounds like Kalen and whoever is with him are coming this way, chased by the
pirates. We have to find a position where we can cover for Kalen.”

He paused for a moment. “
Back to the previous intersection! We will wait there.”

“Right,” Pir agreed. The others nodded.

The foursome ran up the corridor, away from the hangar and toward the roar of blasters.

“C’mon, c’mon,
come on!”
Hal fretted.

Hurry it up,
Spelvin. The pirates won’t hold back forever.

He kept a close watch on the external sensors. Every so often a head would poke out around a doorway or someone would run across his field of view. He tracked them with the cannons, but made himself hold back from firing. Unless he actually saw someone he recognized, he couldn’t tell if they were good guys or bad guys.

That could be a problem. If a bunch of prisoners escape and steal guns, how can I tell them from a group of pirates when they come charging into the hangar? The guards wear uniforms, but the other pirates don’t always. Either group would come in here with guns blazing—the pirates because they know we’re in here, and the prisoners because they don’t.

Hal pursed his lips in frustration.
“I guess I’ll have to play it by ear—like just about everything else so far on this mission.”

“Jespin! They seem to be heading for the main hangar. You and your people circle around from Sector Blue Four and cut them off. Velzen! You do the same, coming from Blue Five. Do
not
let them get past you!” Jern Ishtawahl waited long enough to hear the acknowledgments and then cut off the connection.

He had
four guards left with him pursuing the escaped prisoners. They’d picked off a few, but lost several of their own in the shooting. Between the curving passageways and the intersection turns, it was hard to get many clean shots at them. But with Velzen and Jespin hitting them from the rear, that should settle the matter finally.

He snapped off a shot at a shoulder just before it disappeared around a curve, but missed. Then he had to duck back from two blaster bolts that came from the same spot.

He smiled.
Good. Every time you slow down to return fire, it gives my people more time to get into position. You are cutting your own throats.

Spelvin Mynax held up a hand to stop those running up behind him. He listened closely for a moment.

“There’s blaster fire
coming from over that way.” He pointed to his right down a crossing corridor. “There’s a pretty good chance the people we’re looking for are on the receiving end of that. It makes sense they’d be heading for a hangar. The tricky part will be to keep the good guys from shooting at us. Hopefully the Unity insignias on these suits will be visible enough to do the trick. Of course, the pirates will take that as an invitation.

“If someone shoots at us, shoot back. All we can do is hope they’re pirates and not nearsighted prisoners. But with so few of us, we can’t afford to stand around indecisively. You’ve all seen holos of
Captain Jeffries. Keep an eye out for him, and make sure you don’t shoot at his group. Let’s go!”

He took off at a run, followed closely by the other
six members of his team.

That’s not a lot to take on a whole fortress full of pirates.