phil jones2 (43 page)

'I suppose you still think you saved the ship, don't you?' Anne said.

What? Of course he saved the ship, he was the Captain! 'I said steady as she goes and it seemed to do the trick well enough, so it looks like I did.'

The mysterious woman rubbed at her eyes and the bridge of her nose with the thumb and forefinger of her gloved hands. 'You really are that dense, aren't you? I had heard reports, but to see it in the flesh really is something else.'

Darwin puffed out his chest. 'to see me in the flesh is quite the experience, I assure you.'

Her head shot up to pierce him with a lethal gaze, a blade had appeared in her left hand from nowhere. 'Talk like that to me one more time and instead of bruising that jaw of yours I'll carve it out.'

Darwin gulped, he had never faced anyone quite like this before. 'Yes mam.' he mumbled.

'Much better.' the knife disappeared. 'Now that your ship's engines are functional once more, I am here to fix the problems we've been having with the glove since Grand Admiral Burroughs forced it upon your hand.'

He tried to keep his cool after such a casual dismissal of the Admiral's prowess, but it was a difficult ask. Burroughs was the glue that kept all of Star Command together, to gainsay his decisions would have been criminal were this woman truly a part of Star Command and not some damnable secret organisation.

'You don't like me speaking ill of the big buffoon then? It would appear that he might have a protégé then, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.' she offered him a contemptuous laugh and was all business again. 'Now, here is exactly how this glove works, listen closely and carefully...'

Chapter 43

! ! !

H
urtling through space wasn't Phil's idea of a good time. Doing so in a cramped capsule with two other occupants and minimal safety harnesses was infinitely worse. He began to wonder if there was anything they'd be able to do when they reached their destination other than decorate the floor with the collective contents of their stomachs.

A small round window was all the view they were afforded, not that the blueish purple tinge of hyperwarp that the pod barely maintained was much of a view. Their destination was pre-programmed by Engineer Stevens, who had assured them many times over that it wouldn't cause them to crash in a fiery death upon reaching the Human Genome station. He had also informed them that the cloak probably wouldn't give up before they got there. Probably. A word that Phil never liked when his life was on the line. Or when it came to the possibility of food. 'There would probably be some cake' was much more tentative than 'there will be cake'. Now he kind of wanted some cake, but his roiling stomach informed him otherwise in short order.

'How much longer did he say it would be?' he shouted over at RJ, who was similarly strapped up to the far wall of the pod and bedecked in gear that made him look like the archetypal hero for someone who liked both westerns and science fiction horror and couldn't pick between the two.

'A matter of minutes, Captain.' the Texan assured him, not bothering to look up from the gun that he appeared to be programming with a continuous series of button presses. 'keep your wits about you, as soon as the hyperwarp dies impact will be almost instantaneous.'

One of those words that Phil hated just as much as probably was instantaneous. Soon he could deal with but instantaneous was something he couldn't prepare for, especially when it came to crashing directly into a giant space station armed to the teeth with operatives bent upon his destruction. No thank you.

The blue-purple made the seamless transition into the black of space and Phil tried to grip the sides of the pod before remembering that it was entirely spherical. At least he had his harness in place, that would hopefully prevent him from bouncing around like a small ball inside a much bigger ball that was crashing into a giant space station swarming with lethal operatives.

Well, that analogy certainly could have used some work. Phil blamed the stress of the moment.

It was then he remembered what instantaneous meant. A rumbling grind of steel and squealing of resistance as the pod's fragile jury-rigged shields met the outer defences of the station, causing him to lurch around in his harness, which was nothing like the blue beams of the ship and more a simple fibre structure unaccustomed to dealing with such forces.

Phil closed his eyes tight as the rumbling intensified, followed by a large banging sound and finally nothing.

'Captain, we're here. Out, out!' RJ barked, undoing the straps and coaxing Phil through the hatch into who knows what would be awaiting them.

Trigger was already out of the hatch as soon as the impact had settled, coughing and spluttering amist the clouds of debris that had billowed up from the impact. Somehow the atmosphere had been retained in spite of the hull breach, presumably some automated system from the station itself to protect the inhabitants from stray asteroids with cloaking fields.

The door lay a little further down the corridor, having shot open upon impact and handily collided with the two men that had been unfortunate enough to greet them. Phil tumbled out with all the grace of a baby water buffalo and picked himself off the deck plating with no minor degree of unsteadiness. 'Report.' he aimed at Hawkins, who was scanning the corridors in a startled fashion as if waiting for them to be ambushed by squadrons of highly trained troops. Then again, they might just be.

'The hatch appears to have taken out the only occupants of this corridor, sir. Successful landing but we're in the open here and need to get moving.'

Phil nodded, but didn't know which direction to pick. The aforementioned corridor snaked away in a curve that made it impossible to determine which way led to what, and as a result the decision came down to the flip of a coin. Except that Phil didn't have any coins to flip.

RJ appeared with a scanner in his hands, staring up at the alarms that had started blaring upon their impact. 'There are two power signatures of note, one of them appears to be the main Engineering section and the other is entirely unknown. I'm guessing that's their weapon, come on gents, it's this way.' he said, marching off down the corridor with a swiftness that suggested Phil and Trigger comply.

They proceeded with as much caution as they could muster, their haste necessitated by the droning of the alarm in their vicinity. Very soon this whole area was going to be swarming with operatives and if they were found traipsing about it would go very badly for them.

Their unimpeded progress was halted by a door that refused to budge, with no perceived way of programming it to un-budge.

'The station must be in some sort of lockdown after the impact, looks like we're going to have to find a way around.' RJ said, eyeing the walls and playing with the brim of his hat.

Trigger jumped up and down, startling Phil. 'Sir! Sir!' he addressed RJ this time rather than his Captain, and right enough it had been the Texan who had truly taken charge in this mission.

'What is it, Ensign?'

'There's a duct in the wall just to the left of the door. We could crawl in there and it would take us away from both the area of impact and the roving operatives to come.'

RJ nodded in appreciation of the plan, given that there was nothing else to do but come back the way they came it seemed like an exceptionally good idea to get out of sight and hope that the duct would lead them somewhere less dangerous and closer to the weapon.

Phil stared at the duct in dismay. 'Er... I think I see a problem with your plan here.'

'What's the matter, Captain?'

RJ spotted it too now. 'Ensign, you go ahead and scout out the surroundings, find out what's at the end of that duct and if there's any way to get the door open. We'll wait here for your return.'

He blinked back at him. 'What? Me? Go alone into this small enclosed space and...'

'Have you a problem with following orders, Ensign?'

'No sir!' Trigger replied, hurriedly grasping at the vent cover and sliding his way in. 'I'll come back as soon as I find out what's on the other side.'

Phil waved him on and the Ensign went scurrying away into the dark as if his rear end was on fire, he then turned to RJ and waited for the answer to his unspoken question.

'I don't know, Captain.' he replied, eyeing the door as if seeking for some previously unseen weakness. 'Either we get the door open or you're going to have to be taken hostage by these Human Genome folks. I for one don't fancy that much and I really don't want to leave you behind.'

So much for being in charge and a competent leader then. He was just a big lump of fleshy baggage to be carted around on the backs of others. If he was in RJ's shoes he'd probably abandon him too, it was the only chance the other two had of disabling this weapon.

'We're not going to abandon you Captain. If you enter their custody we won't stop trying to find a way to get you out, weapon be damned.' his pilot told him, as if reading his mind.

Phil sighed. 'As important as I am to you, nothing is more important than stopping this war between Star Command and the Voravians. If I get captured that is to remain your primary goal, is that understood?'

'But Captain, we can't just...'

'That's an order, pilot.' Phil snapped in an uncanny impersonation of another bald Captain.

'Yes sir.'

Their exchange was interrupted by the door shooting open, it looked like Trigger had somehow managed to get the door operational after all!

Phil didn't remember much of the next few seconds, finding himself kicking and writhing and being kicked in turn in a tangle upon the floor as a large dark figure struggled with him. A shot rang out and he found his bearings, holding the limp form of the man that had come flying through the door and, unfortunately for him, directly into Phil.

'Are you okay, Captain?' RJ asked, offering him a hand up as Phil slowly disentangled himself from the spaghetti-legged operative.

'I'm fine, RJ. Did you shoot him while he was wrestling with me on the floor?'

The pilot nodded. 'He seemed a bit disorientated from the collision, it was an easy shot after getting my aim.'

'You could have hit me!'

'Captain, I was very careful when aiming.'

Phil shook, and then realised that the door was open for them to proceed.

Except that Trigger wasn't back yet. He could imagine just how the Ensign would react if he were to return to an empty corridor and a stunned operative's body. They couldn't abandon him here to inevitable capture and he could see from RJ's reticence to continue that he was of the same mind.

RJ started stripping the operative in the corridor.

'What are you doing? Phil asked, but didn't get the informative response he had hoped for.

'We have to keep moving, Captain. I have an idea.'

The operative didn't seem anywhere near as frightening now that he had been divested of his gear, though Phil was still completely clueless as to what RJ had planned for the poor man. If anyone were to stumble upon his body they would raise the alert immediately.

'What's going on down there? Why haven't you reported back?' the bundle of clothing asked, causing Phil to jump.

'Looks like the impact was an asteroid, sir.' RJ replied to the surprisingly talkative garments. 'You can power down the alarms.' he winked at Phil after saying this.

'Very well then, we'll send down an Engineering team to assess the damage. Get back to your post.'

The bundle of clothes decided to return to its previously inanimate silence and Phil realised that the alarms had ceased blaring at them. RJ had just bought them some valuable time, hopefully enough for them to retrieve Trigger from wherever he had crawled off to. He stared at the vent and waited, expecting a squadron of operatives to come bursting around the corner any second now.

'What's taking him so long?' he asked with some trepidation to the operative wearing RJ's hat.

He raised his pistol and the man smiled at him, raising his arms. 'Don't shoot, it's me, RJ!'

Phil looked under the hat with suspicion, gun raised, but the man was right. The easy Texan grin and mischievous sparkle in the eyes could only come from one person.

'Why are you wearing an operative's uniform?'

'Look out behind you!' called a high-pitched voice from the vent as Trigger Hawkins came hurtling out with weapon raised and posterior planted on the deck plating.

'Trigger, it's me, RJ.'

Trigger blinked, lowering his gun. 'Why are you wearing an...'

'I already asked him.' Phil cut in. 'Are you going to tell us what it is you're planning?'

'To be honest folks I hadn't got that far ahead. I just assume that they'll be less likely to shoot at someone immediately if they're wearing their uniform than not.'

'Wouldn't taking off the hat make for a better disguise?' Trigger asked.

RJ looked at him as if he had suggested that space was rainbow coloured and Darwin was chaste. 'I'm not leaving my hat behind.'

The Ensign wilted. 'Right you are sir.'

'It's RJ.'

'Yes sir, you can keep your hat RJ... sir.'

'Darn right I can, Ensign. Now let's get moving!'

The pilot crept forward with a feline grace that belied his booted uniform. Trigger and Phil followed behind him in their best approximation of the strange walk he was doing, occasionally stumbling in their attempts to keep the balance and poise exhibited before them.

RJ turned shortly after, eyeing them with an odd expression playing upon his face. 'Is that really the best you guys can do?'

Phil and Trigger looked at each other, noting how they were caught in a motion that looked nothing like RJ's.

'I... Er... Isn't this what you were doing?' Phil asked, somewhat defensive.

'Yeah! You were doing this funny walk thing and we were just copying that!' Trigger added, though Phil could tell from the look he had been given that the Ensign didn't make much of his attempts. A bold thought coming from a man who currently looked like a startled flamingo.