Hollow Moon (41 page)

“Never mind her!” snapped Fenris. “Where is the Raja?”

“I’m here,” declared Surya, moving into view. “What do
you want, Fenris?”

Fenris trembled slightly and the holovid screen revealed
beads of sweat upon his brow. When he spoke again, his careful words were
filled with the quiet desperation of a man who knew the consequences if he did
not accomplish his mission.

“My dear Raja,” he said slowly. “Taranis and Kartikeya
were ready to give you the throne of Yuanshi, yet you cast them aside. It is
not your fate to hide away like a rabbit in a hole. I beg you to accept your
calling and return with me to Lanka.”

“You tricked me!” exclaimed Surya. “Endymion found the
brain-washing device at the conference. You wanted me as a phoney figurehead to
use in your rebellion!”

“Yes, I saw your friend’s broadcast,” Fenris growled.
Next to him, Hanuman gave a wry grin. “You have every right to be angry. We
have not treated you with the loyalty and respect that a future Maharaja
deserves. Come back with me and Yuanshi will be yours!”

“Put the gun down,” said Quirinus, his voice stern.

“You are in no position to give orders,” retorted Fenris.
He lifted his other hand to the holovid lenses and showed them the small device
in his grip, his thumb poised over its single red button. “Indeed, you would be
wise not to cross me at all.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Quirinus.

Without warning, the image on the screen flickered and
they were suddenly confronted by the haggard and grotesque countenance of a man
poised to give them nightmares. The face of the dark-clad figure was disfigured
by metal skull plates, from which a tangle of tubes emerged to run down over
the back of his seat. A haze hung in the air, partly obscuring the bubbling
vats and laboratory equipment visible in the background. Of those watching from
the flight deck of the
Platypus
, three
of them instantly guessed the man’s identity. Quirinus, shocked at how time had
taken its toll, knew without a doubt.

“Taranis!” he exclaimed. “But how?”

“Who gives him beauty tips?” Ostara muttered, her face
curled in disgust.

Ravana stared in horror at the gnarled figure on the
screen. After all she had heard about the mysterious priest, she had been
expecting a warrior-like firebrand preacher, not someone who looked like a
crippled mad scientist. The priest pointedly ignored herself, her father and
Ostara and instead fixed his steely gaze upon Surya.

“Raja Surya,” Taranis declared, his tone cracked but
strong. “I have been watching your progress for a while. You disappoint me, my
prince.”

“What do you want from me?” asked Surya, his voice
wavering.

“You speak as if afraid of what I offer,” Taranis
remarked. “What I desire is for you to embrace your destiny! Your public spat
with the fool Kartikeya is regrettable though not unexpected, for he is a man
of limited vision. Great things are in store for you, but you must heed those
who seek to guide you.”

“That doesn’t really answer Surya’s question,” Ravana
interjected.

Taranis turned and looked at her coldly, not at all
impressed by her interruption.

“The girl who cried wolf,” he said. “Perhaps Fenris
should have silenced you at the start. You are yet another who failed to heed
their calling, my so-called Ravana.”

Ravana looked startled. “How do you know my name?”

Taranis ignored her. “Fenris will take you back to
Lanka,” he instructed Surya. “The peace conference may not have ended the way
we planned, but fate has decreed this encounter and fortuitously provided the means
to depart this wretched asteroid. The time has come for our disciples to take
the word of the greys across the five systems!”

“I do not understand,” Surya protested weakly.

“You’re not the only one,” mumbled Ostara.

“Fenris will collect you shortly,” Taranis replied. “We
will meet soon enough!”

The holovid screen went blank, then switched back to
showing Fenris and Hanuman on the flight deck of the
Sun Wukong
. Fenris looked slightly stunned and Ravana was left
with the impression that he had not expected Taranis to personally intervene in
such a way. Nevertheless, he soon regained his composure.

“Captain Quirinus!” Fenris barked. “Prepare to be
boarded!”

“Don’t be foolish,” snapped Quirinus. “I will not permit
our ships to be linked whilst you have a gun to Hanuman’s head. I suggest you
request landing clearance from Wak and we’ll continue this conversation on the
Dandridge
Cole
.”

“I don’t think he was asking for your permission,”
Hanuman said cautiously. “Ganesa was trying to warn you. Fenris has planted a
bomb on your ship.”

“What!?” cried Ravana. “A bomb?”

As one, she and her father looked at the panel covering
the AI unit, removed by persons unknown whilst the
Platypus
was at Hemakuta and hurriedly shoved back into place
by Ravana after they left Yuanshi orbit. As quick as a flash, Quirinus tugged
at the panel and pulled it free, leaving it to float away across the cabin. The
computer had given the all-clear prior to take-off. It had not occurred to
either of them that something may have been placed inside.

Looking now, Quirinus cursed as he spied an unfamiliar
orange cylinder attached to the console power feed. The device was small, yet
positioned in such a way that when detonated would leave the
Platypus
incapacitated but otherwise undamaged.

“Crap,” he muttered. “There’s something there alright.”

“You should listen to your friend,” said Fenris, showing
them what they now guessed was the bomb trigger, his thumb still hovering above
the red button. “I order you to power down your ship and prepare for boarding.
We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

“Taranis said he has been watching my progress,” Surya
murmured, looking warily at the holovid screen. “How is that possible?”

“Do you want to meet with him and discuss it?” Quirinus
asked Surya, glancing up from where he had been peering into the hatch.

Surya shook his head. “Not on your life!”

“There’s your answer,” Quirinus told Fenris. “Your prince
wants nothing to do with you or your mad priest. Put the gun down and behave.”

The watchers on the
Platypus
suddenly saw a third figure move quietly out of the
shadows behind Fenris and Hanuman, unseen by the two men. Ganesa had a nasty
bruise forming around her right eye, but her glare was defiant. In her hand,
cautiously held at arm’s length, was what seemed to be a bundle of rags.

“This is your last warning,” Fenris declared, holding up
the trigger in his hand.

“There’s innocent people aboard!” exclaimed Ravana. “You
can’t be serious!”

Fenris opened his mouth to reply. His next words were
lost as Ganesa lunged forward and clamped her hand across his face. With a
gurgled cry of disgust, Fenris tore off his safety harness and tumbled from his
seat, releasing the plasma pistol as he scrambled free. Caught by the force of
his departure, Ganesa reeled backwards in the zero gravity.

Hanuman had not moved. Still strapped into his chair, his
gaze went to the pistol and pair of socks spinning lazily above his head. The
pilot reached up, plucked the gun from the air and pointed it at the fallen
Fenris, who had come to a halt entangled in a rack of spacesuits. Ganesa
ricocheted off the ceiling, twisted and grabbed a handrail.

“Are those my dirty socks?” asked Hanuman. He sounded
offended.

Seizing his chance, Quirinus ducked into the maintenance
hatch and gingerly began to undo the wire clips securing the bomb to the
console power conduit. On screen, Fenris scrambled free of the rack and faced
the holovid cameras once more. The trigger device remained in his grip.

“Go to hell!” Fenris spat, ignoring the gun in Hanuman’s
hand. “The lot of you!”

“No!” cried Ganesa, lunging towards him.

She was too late. With a final determine grimace, Fenris
pressed the button.

“Father!” yelled Ravana.

A sudden explosion ripped through the console of the
Platypus
. Quirinus flew across the cabin in a shower of
sparks, then the flight deck was plunged into darkness as the lights, controls
and holovid screen went dead. The deafening noise of the blast gave way to
Ravana’s anguished cry as she frantically scrambled to her father’s side. Hers
was not the only scream, but the wail of anguish burbling from the wrecked
console was a cry of pain from the
Platypus
itself, born from the blackened tendrils of the AI
unit.

“No!” screamed Ravana. She reached for her father’s
unconscious form.

The emergency lights came on and the darkness was
replaced by a smoky red glow. Ravana’s heart sank when she saw the bloody mask
that was her father’s face, but he was alive and breathing. She barely noticed
the pain in her own shoulder, but could not ignore the red globules floating
from her blood-soaked sleeve where she had been caught by a piece of shrapnel.
Ostara and Surya also sported cuts and bruises but it was clear Quirinus had
caught the worst of it. Ostara grabbed a fire extinguisher and had just doused
the minor blaze in the console when a panic-stricken Miss Clymene appeared at
the entrance to the flight deck.

“I turned on the coffee machine and something went bang!”
she exclaimed, then saw the wounded Quirinus. “My word! What happened?”

“Fenris happened,” Ostara said bitterly. “He planted a
bomb on the
Platypus
.”

“A bomb!” exclaimed Miss Clymene. She pulled herself down
next to Quirinus and with an expert touch checked his vital signs. “I have a
little medical training,” she reassured Ravana. “Saint John Ambulance, Newbrum
division. I don’t think your father’s injuries are life-threatening, but he is
losing blood. How long before we get to your asteroid?”

“We’re less than twenty minutes away,” Ravana whispered,
sounding distraught, then looked at the damaged console. “I need to check the
controls. We may not be able to land.”

The kilometres-wide lump of rock that was the
Dandridge
Cole
loomed dead ahead. Following earlier
manoeuvres, the rectangular airlock of the dock had been perfectly aligned and
horizontal as they made their final approach, but this was no longer the case.

“Land?” said Ostara, looking through the windows. “I
think we’re going to crash.”

The next twenty minutes saw a flurry of activity aboard
the stricken
Platypus
. Zotz, Endymion, Bellona
and Philyra were evicted from the bunks in the carousel to make room for the
injured Quirinus. Bellona too had some training in first aid and quickly dealt
with the minor injuries amongst the crew with what medical supplies were
aboard.

Although reluctant to leave her father’s side, Ravana
knew she was the only one who had a chance of guiding the stricken spacecraft
into dock. She took her seat amongst the floating debris on the blast-damaged
flight deck and feverishly tried to coax the flight systems back into life.
Helping her was Zotz, Endymion and Surya, the latter doing his best to maintain
contact with Ganesa on the
Sun Wukong
via
his headcom. With all systems down, this was currently the only way the crew of
the
Platypus
could relay messages
to Wak on the
Dandridge Cole
.

It did not take them long to notice that the passenger
carousel had also lost power and was slowly coming to a halt, taking away the
artificial gravity inside. Ravana realised it was this that had upset their
carefully-calculated final approach; they were still on course for the dock
airlock but the decelerating carousel had affected the spin of the
Platypus
, which had subsequently fallen out of synch with the
spinning asteroid ahead. The latest message from Wak, via Ganesa, brought more
bad news.

“Wak says he’s struggling to reach the dock airlock
controls,” relayed Surya. “The control room was abandoned when the
Indra
left and the lifts are not working.”

“Drat,” muttered Ravana. She looked down to where
Endymion and Zotz were busy untangling burnt cabling beneath the console. “How
are you two getting on?”

“We’re reconnecting some of the feeds now,” Zotz replied.
“We should be able to power up the AI and maybe the holovid. We’re lucky life
support is undamaged.”

“The AI unit?” exclaimed Ravana. “That should be enough!”

“No it won’t,” Endymion told her, looking glum. “The
interface between the AI unit and the console has been destroyed. At best it’ll
give you someone else to talk to.”

“Wonderful,” muttered Ravana.

Ahead, the hollow moon filled the view through the
flight-deck windows. Compared to a planet like Ascension, the
Dandridge Cole
was an insignificant speck of rubble, but
to the occupants of the rapidly-approaching spacecraft it was huge.

“Done it!” exclaimed Endymion. He withdrew his head from
the access hatch.

Ravana brushed her fingers across the flight controls,
but there was no response. However, she could hear a faint hum from a speaker
and hesitantly pressed the switch to summon the AI unit.

“Ship?” she called, bracing herself for disappointment.
“Status report.”

There was a timeless pause, then a voice drifted into the
cabin quite unlike anything she had heard before. It was the voice of the AI
unit, but ghost-like and dreamy. Further along the console, the holovid screen
was also flickering into life.

“Did you reboot me?” the AI unit asked. “I feel…
disconnected.”