phil jones2 (20 page)

It took a moment for him to register what Darwin had just told him. Had the Captain really been blasting the Voravians as he spoke about making contact with the enemy?

'These new blaster models have a tendency to heat quickly, hopefully there won't be lizard scum in every chamber or my gloves will start to melt!' he let out a laugh at this and proceeded into the next chamber.

Hanniman heard it briefly then, the blaster shots as they rang out. They must have been muffled by Darwin's conversation previously, this time his full attention was on his opposition.

'There were eight more in that chamber, some of them were more alert having heard the previous blasts. I'm going to keep heading down this passageway and see where it leads.'

He watched the small dot that represented the Captain continue to pass down the corridor, all pretence of stealth seemingly forgotten.

'I must say Engineer, this whole stealth business is much easier than I was led into believing. Why I could get used to these more covert missions!'

His chortling over the comm was cut short by the sound of a blaster flying very close to his person.

'Hanniman!' came Darwin's strained voice over the static of nearby blaster fire. 'We may have a problem!'

Hanniman smiled at his alarm. 'Captain, there are a number of things you have to know before we continue.'

Chapter 24

Goat! Pinball! Goop!

R
J and Trigger on the other hand, knew the meaning of stealth. Having successfully navigated their way clear of the pit, they had managed to infiltrate the sphere without being seen. Their lack of blasters may have explained their decidedly more reticent approach.

'So how exactly are we supposed to find our way back to the ship then?' Trigger asked for the fourth time, beginning to wear RJ's patience considerably.

'For the last time, I don't know how we're going to get back to the ship. We've just got to keep moving and hope that some opportunity presents itself. For all we know the Voravians may have taken us hundreds of miles away from the vessel, what with the size of their floating space ball.'

Clearly this did not offer Trigger the reassurance he was seeking, as the panicky little man continued to fidget by his side and leap at any shadow.

RJ admitted that some degree of caution was certainly merited, but having a man who jumps at everything made it impossible to tell what they should really be jumping at. Like a pinball that kept trying to break out of the casing instead of heading toward the real threat of the paddles.

'So we're just supposed to keep wandering and hope that we'll maybe come across our ship magically parked and waiting for us?' Trigger asked, his fear temporarily giving way to sarcasm.

RJ stopped walking and rounded on him, causing the shorter man to launch himself afro-first into the ceiling of the low corridor they were passing through. 'Do you have a way out for us that you've yet to inform me of, Ensign?'

'I don't know!' Ensign Hawkins wailed back at him, doing a very poor job of composing himself. 'I just want to get out of here. Is that so much to ask?'

He waited for the inevitable stampede of lizards to come hurtling down the corridors and blast them into tiny pieces, but nothing happened. Where were the Voravians?

RJ continued cautiously down the abandoned corridor and a few explanations came to mind. The lizard creatures could all be concentrated in an entirely different part of the ship, there could be far less of them spread out over the ship than he suspected, or something had distracted them...

An muffled explosion sounded from nearby, causing the excitable Trigger to leap vertically once more and start high-tailing it in the opposite direction. A second explosion hit as RJ grabbed the man by his collar and prevented him from fleeing.

'I reckon something is attacking those varmints or I'm a one-eyed goat.'

Trigger nodded at him uncertainly. 'So why are we not high-tailing it out of here?'

RJ smiled, the man was using his own language to appeal to his sense of self-preservation. 'Anyone that opposes the Voravians is a friend of ours.'

'Anywhere there's giant explosions is a place I don't want to be!' Trigger countered, speaking so quickly that RJ barely understood him.

'And anyone who has the weaponry to cause a giant explosion is far more likely to last against a Voravian attack when found than we are.'

Trigger stopped trying to run now that the thought of increased protection had been put in his head. RJ offered him a comforting smile and strode on toward the direction of the noise, not looking back to see if the Ensign would follow. He knew that there would be nothing more terrifying to the man than being left alone in this giant space ship.

They continued forward with some urgency now, perhaps further realising their own unarmed state thanks to the weapons discharge and the proximity of the Voravians as a result of the fire fight.

As they rounded a bend in the corridor the shooting became deafening, unless RJ was deeply mistaken that was a standard issue Star Command blaster making that noise.

Captain Darwin ducked behind the bend and sent three more blaster shots at the Voravians. By Jove they were a snappy bunch! You'd think that he'd captured them by the anger they were displaying at his having the audacity to attack.

Then two figures from behind came rushing up and he wheeled and trained his blaster upon them, eliciting a familiar shriek that was distinctly un-Voravian from one of them.

'Cadet! Damn you! Don't sneak up on me like that!' he roared as he whirled and sent a few more blaster bolts in the direction of the pursuing ememies.

'There's far more of these blighters than I anticipated, and they nearly got the better of me back there. We're going to have to retreat back to the ship.'

RJ unclipped the plasma rifle from Darwin's back, and before the man could say a word he rapped out a combination of buttons and sent a beam soaring through the air and straight into the ceiling, collapsing it entirely.

'Well, at least we have time to think of a way out of here on our way back to the ship!' Trigger said, teeth chattering in fear at having witnessed the explosive rifle again.

Darwin eyed RJ with a mixture of anger and respect at the man's handling of the rifle.

'A commendable shot and quick thinking, that man. Sadly I'm afraid that the way back to the ship was through the tunnel your friend just blasted.'

Smith watched the black substance creep closer as Annika finally tore herself away from him and left, which she clearly should have done long before.

There was a strange sense of finality as he watched her recede down the corridor and out of sight, he knew that was the last time he'd ever see anyone alive again.

The black goop seemed to have a mind of its own, defying gravity by crawling up the sides of the walls it spilled out of as well as tugging itself across the floor of the cell.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, removing his shades and hanging them from his uniform by a single leg of the frame. He was resigned to his fate, he only hoped that in perishing with dignity in this impossible situation that he had managed to save Annika from a worse fate.

The substance was hot, he could feel it radiating heat as it drew close to his foot. The temptation was to simply dive into the pooling darkness and get it over with rather than have it creep up on him, at least then he would be in control of the exact moment of his demise.

There was a faint clicking sound, and the humming of the forcefield ceased. Smith turned and stared incredulously at the open space with a raised eyebrow before diving to safety.

He was out of the cell. He was safe. He could pursue Annika.

A large, scaled hand clamped itself down upon his shoulder and thrust him back toward the room. He rebounded off the reactivated forcefield and fell to the floor in a daze, watching as the Voravian keyed in a few buttons to some wrist-mounted computer and then smacked at it angrily with his fist when the field refused to deactivate.

Smith tried to reorientate himself but found that he was completely helpless, the clawed hand raked down his neck and started dragging him down the corridor and deeper into the giant ship.

Annika blinked away tears as she rounded the corner and out of the sight of the pulsing forcefield and her failure to rescue Agent Smith.

She had never even known his first name. Throughout this crazy adventure they had been thrust into together she had never thought to ask, and now he was gone.

Clearing her throat, she stiffened her resolve and marched onward, she couldn't sit here and be sorry for herself because of what had happened. Smith himself had he been here would have demanded they press forward and kept a modicum of professionalism in doing so.

Now if only she knew where she was going.

Aware that the ship was vast in size, Annika surmised that there were any number of possible locations for her to have ended up. If only she had access to a set of scanners or equipment with which to aid her analysis, then she could determine where their own ship was. There was no doubt in her mind that the materials used by the Voravians to construct this gargantuan vessel were vastly different from those that comprised a Star Command ship. The sensors would have picked up on that instantly, if she had been in possession of any.

She sensed there was no sense in regretting sensors that she didn't have the sense to have throughout this nonsense. She had to stay true to her survival training that she had acquired from the cargo ships prior to joining Star Command, out there on the frontier you only had yourself to look after. It was simply a regression to that place in her life, albeit inside a massive ship rather than the vast emptiness of space.

She kept close to the walls, knowing that it probably wouldn't make much difference if a Voravian were to spot her. Having seen reports of the lizards she didn't fancy her chances in hand to hand combat.

She froze as she heard the sound of feet plodding their way around the corner. Lowering herself into a crouching position, she launched herself just as the first of the Voravians came into sight.

They landed in a flurry of limbs, and she was quick to disarm the thing of its blaster, pinning it between her legs and preparing to level a shot at its face.

'Well hello there!' the creature exclaimed with a sleazy grin. 'Aren't you a feisty one?'

With a growing horror, she realised who it was that she had just straddled.

Trigger watched on in disbelief as Annika, who had appeared out of nowhere, slowly disentangled herself with great difficulty from the clutches of the amorous Captain Darwin, who didn't seem to be helping all that much. Eventually RJ bodily lifted her away from the man, handing Trigger the plasma rifle.

He felt the warm pulse of it in his shaking hands, trying his best not to point it at anyone or drop it. He had vaguely seen the power of this gun and the thought of discharging it now quite frankly terrified him. Trigger didn't fancy flying fifty feet in any direction, that was for sure.

'Where's Agent Smith? Did you encounter any Voravians from back where you came?'

Annika shook her head, but said no more, apparently this Smith character hadn't made it. Trigger had more than a suspicion that whatever trial they had faced, it had been beyond the man.

RJ also seemed to note that something had gone terribly wrong, he put a comforting hand over Annika's shoulder and to Trigger's surprise she didn't flinch away. His touch was nothing like Darwin's, that was for sure.

'We're going to have to go back the way you came, Annika.' the man said with his sympathetic Texan twang, completely ignoring Captain Darwin's attempts to lead them and the potential Voravians doubling up to hunt them down. 'Are you ready to do that? Because we're going to need you here.'

She nodded at them and they set off after Darwin, leaving Trigger alone with the plasma rifle.

He thought he heard the sounds of digging claws, but didn't have any chance to verify this as his flying feet had soon caught up with the rest of the crew. Nobody said a word about his reappearance and he began to feel increasingly invisible, as if he were back on the Scavanger all over again.

As they wound through the corridors Trigger found it difficult to believe that the Voravians hadn't found a way around the blockage that RJ had caused. Surely there were other corridors that led here? If there weren't, then they had no way back to the ship.

The corridors seemed to close in on him, as if threatening to swallow him whole unless he ran screaming from them. He couldn't leave now though, these people were his only protection from the Voravians. If he were to abandon them then he would be toast in a matter of moments, he knew it.

They all proceeded forward with what seemed to Trigger like a minimum of caution and a leisurely pace, as if they were out for a stroll instead of being pursued in the heart of enemy territory by possibly man-eating green things.

Okay, so perhaps he had made the last bit up, his point still stood though!

A giant siren went off and pulsed through his ears painfully, making him jump vertically as he was wont to do. Well, it made sense for somebody to sound the alarm now that they had escaped.

Strange hissing and gurgling noises came over what sounded like an intercom, then died off as soon as they had arrived. Had their position been spotted? Were they on the brink of being intercepted and blown to pieces?

They rushed around the corner and he heard Annika let out the slightest of sighs, he could feel the waves of fear and sadness come off her like some odd radiating particles. It did his own tensions absolutely no good whatsoever, though they were temporarily abated by the confusing sight that lay ahead.

There was a hissing noise that sounded nothing like a Voravian and originated from ahead where a black slimy mess was puddling over the floor plating of the corridor. The fumes were heady and Trigger couldn't help but cough, then wondered if they were poisonous and if he had doomed himself by following these people.