phil jones2 (38 page)

'You mean you don't know?'

Samej shrugged. 'I've done tests, but you will be the first person I've tried it on.'

This didn't seem like such a good idea after hearing that, but now that he had the water and pills in hand he didn't feel like he could refuse. 'Alright then, let's get this over with.'

He downed the pills and grimaced at the disgusting water, trying to ignore the bubbles as they soured what would have otherwise been a potable drink. He just hoped this did the trick, otherwise he'd be stuck here forever.

Aside from a brief rumbling in his stomach he didn't feel any different, but the thin hand of Doctor Samej pushed him back down onto the bed with surprising force nonetheless.

Forty minutes, that was how long Samej said it would take. If he could just keep from dying in the next forty minutes then he should become a genius, that was how it worked right?

Now that he thought about it, he was feeling a little dizzy. Perhaps it was best that the good doctor had forced him down like that. No sense in staggering about the sick bay and bumping into equipment like a fool when something was clearly happening. He just hoped that it was positive, he really didn't fancy dying because of a couple of measly pills. Then again it was probably a marginally better way to go than being blasted to smithereens by evil forces beyond his control.

These next few minutes were going to be the longest of his life, he just knew it.

'Are you awake?' the doctor's voice asked.

Terry sat up, taking his time but noting that he felt a little less dizzy after doing so. 'I think so... yeah. This isn't a dream, right?'

Samej blinked at him, as if he was giving the question some serious consideration. 'I don't know... oh no... I don't know! We might be in a dream!' he shouted, flapping his arms about in panic.

Clearly this wasn't a dream then if the Doctor was still acting like an idiot.

'Why do you ask me anyway? It's only been a few minutes. I was a little dizzy there but nothing major.' that was when he noticed that the doctor was still doing his best impression of a startled bird. 'Doctor?'

The flapping ceased for a time and Samej gave him a confused look. 'What? It's been a full hour, I was thinking you'd never wake up.'

'Computer... time.' Terry stated.

Silence gave him time, but it was time to realise that he had been locked out of the computer systems. The image of Smith's face popped up instead, not looking anywhere near as friendly as the computer sounded. 'Mr. Stevens, this is your last warning. Do not ask the medical computer anything further.'

'Understood.' he mumbled. 'Do you have the time on you?'

Smith snorted and the transmission terminated. Whether he had the time or not, the Agent appeared to not want to share it with him.

'It really has been an hour.' Samej said, pointing at a large novelty watch that was strapped to what could only charitably be called an arm due to it not sprouting leaves.

A whole hour had passed and he hadn't even noticed, what was wrong with him?

'Do you mind if I start tests now?'

'What sort of tests?' Terry asked, 'they don't involve prodding me with anything, do they?'

Samej shook his head. 'Not unless you really want to. Some people don't think they've had a proper medical exam unless you poke them or inject them with something.'

The good doctor seemed to have calmed down from his earlier panic and there was now a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes that highlighted to Terry just how much of a guinea pig he was in this scenario.

'Oh all right then, so long as they're painless I'm up for anything.'

Samej didn't do any rustling or rummaging through his various supplies this time, instead he pulled out a set of cards as if he was about to transform into a quiz host. 'I will show you six different cards, you have to tell me what you see on them in reverse order.'

The first he held up was a block of Edam cheese, the second was a magpie, the third was some kind of squid, the fourth a giant hand, the fifth was a circus tent and the sixth looked to be a mug of egg nog. He repeated these back in reverse without any trouble, then again he could probably have done that without any performance-enhancing drugs.

'Very good!' Samej clapped, shuffling the cards and trying again. Once more the result was not in question.

'Okay, so now we need to mix it up a bit more.' he said, pulling out a second set of cards. 'On each of these is a medical procedure, there are twenty of them.'

Terry nodded, and silently wished there were training montages in real life.

Test after test, card after card, it became more than apparent to him that what he was dealing with wasn't sheer chance or simplistic memory tricks. He really was sucking in not only the sight of these cards but the knowledge off them as they became increasingly complex.

Samej put down the final card and clapped his hands together in excitement. 'That's all of them! You did it! Hurrah!'

He thought that was far too much exclaiming for any one man but chose not to voice his opinions, it wasn't like anything he said was going to change the... what he thought was a man... standing before him.

'So does that mean I'm free to go down to Engineering then?'

Samej's elation vanished, replaced by that same mopy expression from before. The doctor appeared to have grown very fond of him, and the thought of parting seemed to have triggered some kind of horrific issue he had with letting go. Was he ever going to let him out of the sick bay?

'You promise me you'll be in touch, right?' he asked, tears welling up in his eyes once again.

'On my honour, I won't forget what you've done for me, Doctor.'

A long sigh and a few squeaks from the shoes. 'Okay. You are free to go to Engineering.'

Remembering his dizziness from before, Terry didn't so much bounce off the bed as stagger slowly. It wasn't the most graceful of departures but it was such a relief to stand a chance of passing through those sick bay doors and getting to witness the ship beyond. He looked back and saw Samej waving behind him, he afforded him a wave in return. After all, he owed the Doctor that much, if not much more.

'Computer?' he asked hesitantly, waiting for the image of Smith to pop up out of nowhere and shoot lasers at him or something.

'Awaiting command.' the pleasant tones resounded about the hallway of the ship.

'Can you show me how to get to Engineering?'

'Affirmative.' the computer replied, and a sequence of green arrows appeared out of the deck plating to guide him.

Well, that was easy enough then, just follow the arrows.

He proceeded his merry way down the deserted corridors and was beginning to grow suspicious of his luck until he finally heard voices from up ahead. Nobody but Doctor Samej knew that he was out of his room, it wouldn't do to be bumping into any of the crew before he made it to Engineering.

'Computer,' he whispered, hoping his voice didn't carry as far as it sounded in this empty corridor. 'I need a hiding place from the voices up ahead.' voices that most certainly were growing louder by the passing moment.

'Please follow the yellow arrows to the shaft beyond.' the computer informed him, and the green arrows he had previously been following were now replaced with yellow arrows that had already started fading back into the bulkhead.

Terry dutifully followed them around the corner, hoping that he wasn't too late and spotting that they led into some kind of open hatch. A hatch that presumably was fit for purpose when it came to hiding from unwanted attention, all he had to do was crawl in and...

The voices he had heard before necessitated his rushing, and he found himself tucked away in a cramped compartment at floor level listening to the sounds of footsteps as they grew closer.

'I still don't understand why you've quarantined him in sick bay, couldn't you just give him some quarters and make it seem like he's more of a guest than a hostage?' came a female voice, talking about him it would appear.

'He's a liability to the ship that we cannot afford, especially when heading into Voravian space when we shall be assailed by far worse than what just occurred.' that would be the unmistakable nasal drawl of Agent Smith, who didn't sound the least bit pleased at being argued with.

'You call him a liability and you still allow Doctor Samej to be onboard? He spent his afternoon going down the corridors on a pogo stick because he said nobody was in need of medical attention.' there was a slight pause then. 'Why are you smiling? Did you give him those extra replicator credits?'

'If a man wants to pogo stick down the corridors in his spare time, who am I to stop him?' Smith asked, the unmistakable sound of humour in his tone.

'You are impossible.' hissed the woman.

'So is this, and yet here we are.'

They had stopped now, both their booted sets of feet right beside his closed entrance that he peered out of while holding his breath.

'I don't think this is impossible.' she breathed at him, drawing closer. 'We're both professionals, it won't get in the way of our duty to the ship. We both knew that when I walked away from you on the Voravian mothership.'

'Very well.' Smith said, clearly not a man of great words.

'Oh you.' the woman said, followed by what sounded like a friendly punch, given that Smith didn't draw his gun and blast her to pieces for making contact with him.

The footsteps receded, but the knowledge of what Terry had just heard didn't. He carefully clambered his way out of the hiding place and crept on toward Engineering with more questions than answers.

As soon as he made it to the computer there, that would all change, he would make sure of it.

Chapter 40

Trifle! Hive! Crumpled!

'
R
eport!' Phil asked in what he hoped was a calming tone. He didn't want to become Darwin and ever since the transmission they had received from the former Captain he scrutinised his every word to the crew.

'The ship suffered a major hit, it looked to be a scout vessel from what the scans are telling me.' Annika said.

'Weapons were ineffective until I applied my modifications, that was enough to prove a deterrent... for now.' Smith added, clearly implying that they wouldn't survive another encounter.

Phil found himself massaging his temples, the stress of this last encounter and being paralysed and incapable of making a decision had destroyed what little confidence he had previously held. But for the response from his well-drilled crew the Voravian scout ship would have destroyed them. 'Any suggestions before we head even deeper into Voravian space?'

'This won't be the last time we encounter a ship of this magnitude, if anything they will get even larger and more numerous as time goes by.' Smith informed him, the usual beacon of hope.

'So what do we do when that happens?'

Silence once more took hold of the crew, apparently they weren't full of ideas as to how to combat this threat. It had all seemed too simple to just fly into the heart of Voravian space and figure everything out, he hadn't realised that they had a way of dropping the ship out of hyperwarp at will. It would seem that the blueish purple wasn't a protection from everything after all. Then again, nobody had told Phil that it was, he had just assumed that nobody could get them out of it since it hadn't happened before.

Assumptions were very dangerous, and more than likely to get him killed if he kept them up.

'Captain you're not going to believe this.' Annika said.

Phil was prepared to believe anything at this point, he just hoped it was good news for a change; based the Lieutenant's tone he suspected he had better be prepared for the worst. 'What is it, Lieutenant?'

'Two Voravian vessels bearing down on our position sir, judging from the damage it looks like it was the one from before but with company.'

Not for the first time, a sinking sensation developed in the pit of Phil's stomach. If the ship barely scraped through an encounter with one of these vessels how was it going to make it through two? He didn't have the pink glove to mastermind any glorious escape this time, all he had were his own wits and if they had deserted him any faster he would have been covered in trifle.

'Awaiting your orders, Captain. Should I open fire?' Smith said, prompting Phil to come out of his own worried thoughts.

Except Phil himself didn't know what to do.

'Captain, we need a decision.' Annika this time.

'Captain Jones, they are closing to within range of their weaponry.' Smith.

The ship lurched forward without any given command, and all three members of the crew stared at the pilot.

'I'm taking us into a nearby asteroid field, hopefully that's enough to put these Voravians off our tail. If not then at least it gives our Captain some thinking time.' RJ said, without turning around to acknowledge that he had just taken matters into his own hands without the Captain's go-ahead.

It appeared that the crew were with him, as nobody made an attempt to gainsay this decision as there simply weren't any other suggestions forthcoming as an alternative aside from hold their ground and be blown into space debris.

The ship tore through the darkness of space and lodged itself firmly within the asteroid field. If the Voravians ships were anything like the ones Trigger had told them about then that should be enough to deter them for a time. The few minutes this dashing gave them soon morphed into a brainstorming session between the members, which is quite a common scenario when your life and the lives of all those about you is put in immediate jeopardy.

'If any of your folks could kindly come up with a back up plan that would be great.' RJ said, still focusing on the approaching Voravian vessels instead of the crew behind him.

'If this were a larger ship I would suggest luring the Voravians into the asteroid field and then detonating it, but we have no warheads beyond basic torpedos and they lack the yield to cause any damaging cascade effect.'

'We can't afford to get caught up in hypothetical scenarios.' Annika said, addressing Smith. 'We could try and continue communicating with them in the hopes that they'll respond.'