phil jones2 (53 page)

'They knew we were here.' Smith said by way of explanation, though Terry wasn't entirely sure that was the case. There was a mean streak about the man right now, as if his previous incapacitation had him looking for payback.

More growls silenced any further conversation between the two, this time they came from the area near the open double doors. Through unspoken agreement, everyone floated after Annika, trying to ignore the large globules of blood that were now occupying their space courtesy of Smith.

The light revealed a door, and the lack of air was starting to make things go fuzzy around Terry's sight. Perhaps that was why the Voravians weren't chasing after them so much, they were too busy trying to save their own scaly hides to worry about mere intruders.

Light illuminated their shadows dancing upon the wall ahead, the Voravians that had discovered them were armed and shooting at them.

'Evasive manoevuers!' Smith cried, spinning crazily as one of the energy bolts flew past him and returning fire immediately.

Terry wasn't entirely sure what manoeuers he was expected to do, but leaving as little as possible of him to be hit by Voravian fire seemed a sensible enough decision to him. There was no other possible dodging until he came to the wall, he was entirely exposed even if the lack of gravity slowed the projectiles and made shooting him difficult.

Except for that one large energy bolt coming directly toward him.

He stared at it for a moment and then frantically looked about for the wall... he wasn't going to reach it in time. He also doubted that the Voravians were shooting to stun now.

Just as he was about to close his eyes and prepare for the inevitable, a bolt came from over his shoulder and collided squarely with the oncoming Voravian blast, sending it richocheting away into one of the bulkheads in a blinding cornucopia of light. The shot had come from Agent Smith, who had taken the time to save him even as he shot at his foes.

'We are even now, Engineer.' came the man's haggard wheezing as they floated toward opposite walls.

'Just a little further, one more push!' came the breathless yet encouraging voice of Annika. She was correct of course, they could make it through these doors and out into the room where presumably the escape pod remained. How accurate the scanner was when the pod wasn't generating any power and could have been moved remained to be seen.

There was also the small matter of his finding it increasingly difficult to breath. Every push off the wall of this room had sent a familiar burning sensation through his lungs and limbs. If he were one of his clients he'd have been advised to stop several minutes ago before passing out. Trying not to panic about losing consciousness, Terry kept his breath as regular as possible given that he was being shot at by aliens aboard their mother ship.

The shooting was much more erratic than before, it would appear that the average Voravian physiology required more air than its human counterpart and the creatures that had previously been shooting at him were now asphyxiating.

An errant blast caught him on the shoulder and sent him spinning wildly into the wall, the worst part being that instead of pain he felt nothing at all. He knew enough about the body to realise that this was shock and that was a very bad thing indeed. He thought he vaguely heard Annika shouting at him, and looked up at the doors that appeared to open in slow motion. What was it he was supposed to do again? He saw Annika frantically waving at him, but didn't know whether it was some elaborate attempt to dodge the incoming fire or if she needed his assistance. Best to kick off this wall and find out.

A smile broke out over her face as he kicked the wall and went sailing toward her, apparently whatever issue she was having had been fixed, unfortunately he couldn't reverse course back to the wall on account of the lack of gravity. He pushed his hands out over his face and tried to get rid of the dark specks that were blocking the way to the round thing that everyone else was heading toward, but they wouldn't go away. Guess he would just have to shoulder them out of the way.

He looked his shoulder and realised that it wasn't there any more. Well, that was bothersome, he'd have to use his head to push these dark specks that were blocking his path.

Making it to the round thing, he avoided all the other bright lights that were arcing past him and followed the rest of them inside, shutting the door after him with his... Oh, he didn't appear to have an arm either. Luckily he had a spare one of those, so he shut it with that instead.

Smith and Annika were both staring at him, did he have some food on his face or something? No, wait, that would be silly, he hadn't eaten anything since arriving on this nice ship.

Some of the blasts hit the pod and bounced off it harmlessly, then everything was getting very small and they were in space again. Annika crawled over to him with a concerned look on her face, but he had no idea why. Everything was muffled and there was a high pitched sound and... oh, look at that...

He pointed out the window and nobody else seemed that pleased at the pretty sight. All the lights on the Voravian vessels had come back on, like a great big green Christmas tree in space.

Then he saw even bigger lights come out of the mother ship right toward them. How nice! They were going to share some of the light with their little pod!

They didn't have a choice in the end, as the lights were replaced with the blue-purple of hyperwarp and then at last the darkness of complete unconsciousness for what was left of Engineer Stevens.

Chapter 49

Fishy! Fish! Fish!

C
aptain Semaj languidly lounged upon the command chair, safely tucked away from the terrors he had experienced in the Engineering section. His crew complement of a house cat somewhere near said section and a floating cheesecake hovering beside him in the cockpit was all he required in life provided the replicator stayed online.

A beeping noise intruded into his thoughts, cutting through the classical music he was blaring out of the communication speakers.

'What the bleep is that bleeping noise?' he profanely gesticulated at his increasingly delicious-looking companion.

The cheesecake turned, something that Semaj felt wasn't entirely necessary but chose not to question. 'This indicates an incoming transmission, Captain.'

'You mean...' he paused, his eyes beginning to water and his hands starting to shake. 'Someone wants to talk to me?'

'Yes, Captain.'

'On screen, Commander Cheesecake!'

The view screen's current image of a pond with bass fish unhappily swimming about in it as they attempted to evade a line was replaced with the sweat-streaked features of a man Semaj had never seen before.

'Who the devil are you?' the man asked, his snarl replaced with a look of utter bewilderment.

'Can I help you, friend?' Semaj replied, hoping that by calling the man his friend they'd get off on the right foot.

The man repeated his question, growing increasingly red in the face and a small vein popping out to say hello. Semaj wondered if the vein would be his friend too, he needed something squirmy that the fish would go after in the game...

'I am Captain Semaj of the good ship...' he stared at the cheesecake in askance.

'Captain, the name of the ship is the...'

'Never mind that!' bellowed the rather unfriendly man. 'What have you done with Jones and the rest of his crew?'

Semaj shrugged. 'I dunno... want to go fishing?'

The man blinked. 'What? What do you mean you don't know?'

'It's just that it's not very fun fishing by yourself. Cheesecakes aren't very good at fishing either on account of having no arms.'

'What in blazes are you talking about, man?' the man practically howled at him.'Where is Captain Jones and his crew?'

'I told you already!' Semaj shouted back at him, growing frustrated. 'I don't know where any of them are! Now are you going to go fishing with me or not?'

'This is Captain Darwin of the SC Scavanger, we were being chased by Voravians until something shut their power off. I assumed Jones had to be involved somehow.'

'So you're the ship that all those other ships is after! That's where the escape pods were heading f...oops.'

'Aha!' crowed Captain Darwin. 'So that's where Jones and the rest of the crew are! They're out trying to stop the Voravians!'

'No, no, you see, that's where...er... you're totally wrong!' Semaj stuttered to halt. 'So what about that fishing, eh?'

'And they left an idiot in control of their ship!' Darwin continued, talking to himself. 'With one fell swoop I shall destroy both Jones and his crew without sacrificing a worthy vessel.'

'Thank you.' the cheesecake said.

'You're welcome, computer.' Captain Darwin responded in kind.

'What did you call me?'

Darwin's attention was drawn back to Semaj. 'Eh?'

'I said... what did you call me?' the acting Captain repeated, his tone low and menacing.

The other Captain clicked his fingers. 'Ah, yes. An idiot I do believe!'

'Terminate transmission!' Semaj yelled at the view screen, resulting in a series of startled bass reappearing instead.

'Computer, set course for the SC Scavanger, maximum hyperwarp!'

'Yes Captain.' the computer obliged, realising that now wouldn't be a good time to complain about being shouted at unless it liked having a few less wires.

When it had judged that the Captain had cooled down, the computer gently prodded him with the obvious reminder.

'Captain, in order to reach the Scavanger it is required that we fly through the Voravian fleet.'

Semaj nodded. 'Very good.'

'Sir.' the computer persisted in its sweetest tone, trying to be as respectful as possible. 'in order to fly through the Voravian fleet...'

Acting-Captain Semaj held up a hand to silence the protestations. 'We shall deal with that problem when we get to it. How far out are we at maximum hyperwarp?'

'Two minutes, Captain.'

'Oh. We were that fast?'

'According to my calculations you spent the ninety-four percent of the three hour journey fishing on the view screen, sir. You caught five fish, a new record.'

Semaj allowed himself a wicked grin. 'Strap yourself in, computer. We're about to go out of the fishing pool and into the fray!'

'Captain, that metaphor is actually...'

'He who fishes most, fishes first!' declared Semaj.

'Captain, may I remind you that the chance of my navigating the ship on auto-pilot is one-thousand, eight hundred and...'

'You won't be navigating the ship.' the doctor said, not taking his eyes from the screen. 'I will!'

The pause from the computer was enough to indicate that it was aghast at this decision. 'The chance of your successfully navigating the ship are...'

Semaj laughed. 'Transfer all controls and functions of the ship into this fishing game in the following manner.'

The computer listened on as Semaj detailed every precise mechanism to it and how it was relative to the game. It did not stop to ask how any of it made sense, it simply complied with the orders.

'Controls will be transferred as soon as we drop out of hyperwarp, Captain. Have a nice day.'

Semaj still had that grin on his face as he stared intently at the bass fish. 'Oh I will computer, I will.'

'Captain Darwin sir!' a young Lieutenant cried. 'We have picked up two other ships on our sensors, one is a shuttle coming from the Human Genome station and the other is Captain J... I mean, the traitor ship.'

Darwin looked at Anne in askance.

'I have no recollection of a shuttle outbound from the station. It looks like an escort shuttle used for carrying dignitaries to and from other ships. It shouldn't be this far out into space.'

Darwin waved away the Lieutenant. 'We have no time to worry about all these other ships, just make it to the station so they can fire the weapon!'

'Aye sir, approaching the station in five minutes... Captain!'

He let out a huge sigh at further intrusion. 'What is it now, Lieutenant?'

'The traitor ship sir, it's moving to attack the Voravians!'

'Of course it is, Lieutenant, its pilot is an idiot as we just saw.'

They dropped out of hyperwarp and made immediate contact with the station, any second now the Voravian fleet and the one ship that had decided to attack it would be dropping out of hyperwarp. Not that any of this mattered of course, as soon as the hyperwarp bubble ceased the primed weapon would target the fleet and incinerate it.

The mass of green ships shot out of hyperwarp, now within firing range of both the planet and the Scavanger. Closely tailing them came the small vessel controlled by the idiot with pink hair and the floating cheesecake of a computer.

Time to destroy them all then.

'Give the signal.' Darwin said to Anne, trying to sound as professional and heroic as possible in spite of just sitting there and doing nothing.

Any second now, yes. Then goodbye Voravians and hello promotion for saving the planet. He wondered if he'd get a ticker-tape parade. After all, he was a far better face for this victory than some stodgy old Engineer with his finger on the button like Hanniman.

Yes, now that the weapon was warming up and preparing to incinerate all that was left of the hostile invasion fleet, he could rest assured that things would be just fine. All he had to do was remain patient, not his strongest suit but then again some things even he found were worth waiting for, right?

Absolutely any time today, the huge beam would shoot out of the station and envelop these oncoming Voravian vessels powering up their weapons to destroy him.

'Something is wrong.' Anne said next to him, and his stomach dropped.

'What do you mean, wrong?' he blustered. All semblance of professional veneer dropped in the face of almost certain impending doom.

'They should have fired the weapon by now!' Anne replied, her voice scaling up and sounding panicky for the first time. 'They should have fired it! I don't understand!'

Their engines were all but burnt out from their previous fleeing, there was nowhere left to go.