Overdrive (26 page)

Piha Watson was
having a bad day. Not a bad morning or a bad evening, but a bad day. The sort
of day you wished you’d never been arsed getting out of bed. As soon as he had
he regretted it.

Eating his
breakfast, he’d received a message from the bank informing him that they were
cutting his credit. What the fuck?, he’d thought. What idiotic petty bureaucrat
organized those sort of messages to be sent out first thing in the morning?
Anyway, that had put him off breakfast. His wife, Maria, wondered what was wrong
with him. He didn’t tell her. Heavily pregnant, she had enough to worry about.

As he was walking
out of his small two bedroom apartment in the Travolta chamber, his twin boys,
Luke and Sam, had run after him. Money they’d wanted. Some field trip to see
the Nova burst. Two hundred credits. He couldn’t afford it but it broke his
heart to see disappointment on the twins faces. He transferred the money over
to them, hugged each in turn and wished them a good trip. The boy’s faces
beamed.

More money
troubles. On his way to work, one of his regular clients cancelled. Said they
needed a faster ship. Something about people wanting their meals before the
Nova burst. He’d told the client he could do it but they laughed in his face.

“In your ship?”

“Why not?”

“Its a piece of
shit. You’re lucky your meal packets don’t go floating into space.”

He’d cut the
connection in disgust. Certainly his ship needed a bit of work. Unknown to most of his clients, his ship had failed its space worthy registration. He
wasn’t about to tell them and prayed every time he went out that he wouldn’t
encounter Fever’s constabulary.

His ship,
Hot
Tucker,
delivered field sealed meals to the townships located on New
Jupiter’s surface. So far, there were 5 settlements on the planet, heavily
fielded, but dependent on Fever’s infrastructure for survival. And food.

Piha had once had
a contract to deliver meals to all 5 settlements. After problems with his ship,
he was forced to cut that down to 2. With his latest loss, he was only
delivering to one settlement, and that was only making him a slight profit,
having been forced to cut his profit margin to undercut his competitors.

He sighed heavily.
Arriving at Fever’s huge spaceport chamber, Piha decided to walk. Besides, he
couldn’t really afford to hire an AG cart.

There was a lot of
activity in the spaceport today. Looked like some sort of fire had broken out
as well. Accessing the news reports, he found they were full of coverage
relating to a recent bout of explosions and dead bodies discovered in Studio
54. A ship had been destroyed in the docking bay as well, killing and injuring
a number of old age pensioners.

Having more
pressing matters on his mind, he dismissed the reports and entered his docking
bay. By now, the catering people should have delivered the meals. He felt his
mood lighten slightly in anticipation. The sight of his ship always cheered him
up. Despite its many problems, it was an old friend. Besides, it was completely
paid off and fully ensured. Actually it was insured for far more than it was
worth. He’d toyed with the idea of having an unfortunate accident, but
dismissed it out of sentimentality.

Rounding the
corner, he stopped dead. His mouth fell open in surprise.

His ship,
companion and source of funds, was gone.

◊

“Is this the best
you can do?." Crystal shook her head in disgust. “Its a pile of shit."

“I’d like to see
you come up with something better on short notice," replied Logan
defensively.

Crystal glared at
him and left the bridge of
Hot Tucker
in a huff.

Tarquin looked up
from the modifications he was making on one of the consoles. “What’s up with
her?”

Logan shrugged.
“Beats me.”

“I will if you
don’t get me security access to the AI.”

“Yeah, yeah.
Almost there.” He shut his eye again and bought his burglar program on line.

Using their hired
AG cart, they had followed the catering people to this ship. After watching the
freighter being loaded with field enclosed meals, they had waited until there
was no one around before Logan had used his burglar program to access the hatch
way. Felix and Walter had gone aft, carrying the Overdrive between them.

Tarquin opened his
comms channel. “How's it going Felix?”

Felix’s face
appeared underneath his eyelid. “Almost there. Give me another 15 minutes to
finish the installation and run a self-diagnostic.”

“Ok. But hurry it
up. There’s less than an hour before the Nova.”

“Gotchya.”

Tarquin cut the
channel and resumed his modifications.

Logan opened his
eye. “Done,” he announced. “You should have full access now.”

Tarquin grunted.

“What exactly are
you doing anyway?”

Tarquin looked up
from underneath the console. “For your information, I’m trying to modify the
field matrix in order to squeeze a bit more juice out of it. Is that alright
with you? Do you mind if I get back to work now?”

“Hey, go nuts.”

Tarquin was about
to return to work when he saw the frown of puzzlement on Logan’s face.

“What?”

“I was just
wondering what the chances are of us getting out of here and outracing the Nova
burst before trying to use a relatively untested device and move into a
dimension that only a handful of people have actually witnessed?.”

Tarquin turned
back to the console he was working on. “Oh, is that all. I thought you had
something important to say.”

◊

“How's it going?”

Felix looked up
from what he was doing on the Overdrive.

“A lot better if
people stopped asking me that.”

“Sorry," said
Crystal in mock offense. “Just curious.”

“Well, you can be
as curious as you like once we’re out of here.”

“Fine.” She turned
to go.

“Crystal?” She
turned her head around again to face Felix.

“Yes?”

“You’re pretty
sexy when you’re grumpy.”

She winked and
smiled before leaving the engineering section and joining Bruce and Ram Terry
IV in the storage compartment.

Hot Tucker
was a small ship with the bare minimum in
life support and fixtures. Obviously designed for brief sojourns, it lacked a
lounge or accommodation facilities. Just as well, thought Crystal. If they were
in the same condition as the rest of the ship…She cringed.

Logan probably
couldn’t have picked a worse ship to steal. The
Hot Tucker
was a cargo
ship. No trimmings or extras, just your basic freighter.  Most of its
rectangular, uninspiring 100 meter length was taken up with cargo space –
currently filled almost to bursting with pre-prepared meals. There was barely
enough room to stand, let alone sit. What little remained of the ship was taken
up with your basic pre-requisites for space flight – a bridge and an engine
room (if they could be classified as such). It didn’t look like any maintenance
had been done on the ship for some time. In fact, thought Crystal, they’d be
lucky to actually make it out of the space port, let alone the system before
the Nova hit.

Back in the
Engineering section, Felix returned to his work. Walter was crouching beside
him, handing him tools and generally making cheerful and annoying comments. If
that wasn’t enough, a think layer of grime covered every surface, making it
difficult to recognize even the most basic item he’d studied in his
undergraduate years. To top it all off, the cramped conditions certainly made
it hard to work properly, what with Walter taking up precious elbow room.

He bumped against
Walter as he tried to get to an access panel on the outdated Slipdrive.

“Do you mind?”

Walter beamed at
him and tried to hand him a tool he didn’t need. “Not at all.”

Rolling his eyes,
Felix managed to get it open. Walter looked on enthusiastically from over his
shoulder.

What a mess, he
thought. He’d be surprised if anything in this ship worked at all.

The Overdrive had
already been secured above the standard Slipdrive. That the Overdrive could be
connected to and used in conjunction with a Slipdrive was one crucial bit of
information that the employees of Nebula Inc had neglected to inform anyone,
other than themselves, of. In fact, their employers, The Church of the Holy
Lamb, unknown until Felix stepped onto Fever, had suggested that they leave one
crucial element out of the data package. It turned out they left out two – the
modifications made by Felix after the first meltdown had never been received
either.

He closed the
access panel. “I’m almost finished here,” he said to Walter. “You can go back
and join Crystal, our Gorilla friend and Ram Lambshanks if you want.”

“Are you sure
there’s nothing else I can do here?.”

“I think you’ve
helped me out enough for one day.”

“Well, its a
pleasure sir," Walter said happily, getting to his feet. He rubbed his
swollen eye and mumbling something about his old joints, left the room.

Felix made a
connection between his AI and the one possessed by the Overdrive. Sending over
his password, the Overdrive came on line. All systems, according to the readout
displayed under his eyelid, were green. He smiled with satisfaction.

“Tarquin?”

“Here”

“She’s ready to
fly.”

◊

Tynan and his
squad of borrowed Templars had kept their distance from Felix and his band of
merry travelers. They were close enough however, to witness the departure of
the two female Shepherds. Tynan sent three of his men to take care of them.

Curiously, after
loitering around the wreckage of the
Debacherous Weekend
for a while,
Felix and his friends left, heading for a less salubrious area of the
spaceport. Tynan and his men followed at a discrete distance and watched as
they gained access to an old freighter, the
Hot Tucker
. He reported this
turn of events to Sammael.

“What are my
orders Lord?”

“Return to your
ship and prepare it for take off. We will monitor Fever’s departure log and
follow this ship as it leaves. There’s no way it can elude our Valkyrie.”

“We could capture
them now?” he suggested hopefully.

From under Tynan’s
eyelid, he could see Sammael frown. “No. The Shepherds maintain a certain
amount of leverage on Fever. The local authorities would no doubt have been
warned of our activities by now and I understand there’s already a police
presence in the Spaceport. Do not attract attention.”

“Yes Lord.”

Sammael cut the
link.

Tynan sighed
heavily. “Bollocks.” He’d hoped to get the Overdrive himself and ensure his
elevation. Things weren’t working out as he hoped, but then again, he could say
that about the whole mission. Perhaps an opportunity he could exploit would
present itself. And maybe the Overdrive would fall into his arms and Gabriella
would beg him to shag her. Yeah, right.

Somewhat dejectedly,
Tynan took his Templars and trudged back to his ship.

◊

Tarquin bought the
Hot Tucker’s AG and small maneuvering thrusters on line. The ships ancient AI
reported a few basic maintenance drop outs as it wobbled out of its docking
cradle.

“We’re up and away,"
he reported. “That’s something I suppose.” He turned to Logan. “How long have
we got?”

“Twenty minutes
until Nova burst.”

“Oh joy.”

He asked for and
received departure clearance from Fever’s central AI and turned the ship
hesitantly towards the spaceport’s exit field. The asteroid’s departure log
noted that three ships had requested immediate departure as soon as the
freighter lifted from its cradle.

Ram Terry IV
trotted into the tiny bridge. He looked up at the two men sitting in the
control seats.

“I believe I’ve
just made it difficult for anyone to follow us.”

“How so?” asked
Logan.

“I’ve instructed
Fever’s authorities to deny any departures after ours. Justifiable considering
most ships will be unable to reach safe distance in the time left.”

“Most ships?”
asked Tarquin. “I don’t know if this one really qualifies as such but we should
be able to engage the Overdrive within the next 10 minutes.”

The ship was
briefly bathed in a blue glow as it passed through the exit field. Tarquin
brought the Ion drive up to full power.
Hot Tucker
crawled away from the
asteroid.

“Ah, Tarquin?,"
said Logan.

“Yes?”

“You might want to
bring the ship up to full power. We haven’t got long you know.”