Fugitive From Asteron (6 page)

Chapter 6

Escaping air hissed as I clamped the hatch shut like a tomb.
I rushed to the front of the plane, the clanging of my steps amplified in the
metallic passageway. Then I stood in awe before the dense electronic network of
the flight deck.

A dizzying pattern of instruments
encircled me, framing the windows, paneling the walls, and arching overhead. A
rush of blood heated my face as I slid into the commander’s seat and felt my
fingers on the controls. I forgot about engaging the auxiliary computer and
watching the video of Alexander. Instead I called to mind the engineer’s access
codes for the main computer, which I had gone to great lengths to capture on
past occasions when I had serviced the craft. Now I entered those codes in the
system, compressing my life into one final, desperate act.

Suddenly the spaceship pulsed with
electronic sounds and flashing monitors. Charged with a new energy, I raced
through the computer’s menus, searching for the start-up procedure.

The main screen responded,
displaying a series of steps to start the engines. Did I have enough time? At
any moment the fallen captain outside would attract the attention of others,
and the pink tinge of dawn on the horizon beyond the windshield warned me that
Feran would soon arrive for his departure.

I heard banging on the ship’s door.
I slipped on my headset and turned on a control to hear what was going on
outside the craft and to communicate if I chose. A familiar voice came through
the earphones. “Who is in there? Answer at once!”

It was my superior, the supervisor
of the cargo carriers.

“Who are you?” He continued. “I
order you to answer!”

I said nothing.

“Very well, I will call the
commander.”

“And let him think . . . I
cannot handle . . . one idiot worker . . . who
thinks he is an astronaut?” I recognized the voice of the officer I had struck,
his words coming in short breaths as if he was just regaining consciousness.

“Captain, are you okay? Let me help
you to your feet.” My supervisor softened his voice to the fawning tone he used
to address those who outranked him. I heard him rushing down the stairs to
assist the guard. “You have a head wound. Here is a handkerchief.”

“Forget about me!” The captain’s
voice was stronger now. His angry tone told me that he was shaking off the
effects of my attack.

“Someone has sealed himself in the
ship, captain. I was about to call—”

“You will not bother the commander
with this trifle, unless you want to explain how
your
worker locked
himself inside!”

“
My
worker?”

“Arial.”

“Arial? He has no permission to be
here now.”

I heard the captain climb the
stairs to the hatch. I recognized the electronic buzz that his weapon made when
he cocked it, and I felt a familiar knot form in my chest.

“Can you hear me in there?” said
the captain. “Open this door, pig, or watch me blast in and wash the floor with
your guts!”

“Wait!” I spoke into the headset’s
microphone. “If you damage Feran’s ship, you will delay his mission. He said that
anyone who interferes with his journey will be dealt with
firmly
.”

The pause that followed told me
that the captain was reconsidering the matter. “This is an outrage! The
insurgent is
your
charge,” he finally said to my supervisor. “You have
allowed a common laborer to threaten the security of the planet. Now seize him
or face arrest!”

“But captain, sir—”

“You will force this door open and
serve me the traitor’s head.”

“Of course, captain. No need to
point your gun at me, sir, really.” My supervisor’s smooth voice began to
trembled. “I am honored to have the privilege. However, with you being such a
superb patriot, perhaps you should have the opportunity yourself of rescuing
the ship. There might be a reward—”

“Hold your tongue and force the
door.”

“Why, certainly, captain. My only
concern is for you. Feran’s craft will be damaged, and he has demanded that no
one disturb his mission. The record will show that I gave no order to the idiot
Arial to work this shift. Indeed, he was to be transferred out of my department
today. The record will also show that he . . . well,
slipped by you, sir. Now, if you add this incident to the one last week when
you left your post and the commander reprimanded you . . . well,
I assure you, captain, I will speak in your favor when you are tried at the
Theater of Justice.”

As I worked feverishly to complete
the start-up procedure, I heard the captain swear furiously.

“And none of the other spacecraft
are ready to launch today,” I added, “so you will delay Feran’s mission if you
damage his prized ship to spill my worthless guts.”

“The idiot is
your
worker!”
The captain screamed at my supervisor. “He is
your
charge. You must
seize him before he starts the engines, which he is surely attempting to do.”

“If I am an idiot, as everyone
claims, then I lack the brains to start the ship,” I said, “so you have time to
open the door with the combination.” An electronic keypad on the outside would
release the lock if they knew the code to use, which they apparently did not. I
hoped my suggestion would buy time.

“Captain, sir”—my supervisor
pleaded—“the commander can get us that combination from the flight director. Then
we will not have to damage—”

“Shut up!” the captain replied. “I
will not have you call my superior and have him think a rebel got by me! Get
the engineer. He knows the combination.”

With Feran’s policy of giving no
one person too much information, I was not surprised that the guard was
ignorant of the door’s locking combination. By Feran’s design, the security
force had access to the exterior of the ship but lacked knowledge of its
controls, whereas the engineers could enter and operate the ship but had no
access to it without the guards’ authorization.

Meanwhile, I was still tackling the
computer’s checklist for starting the engines. I knew Feran’s ship could be
flown in two different modes, as a spacecraft or as a plane. I had observed
occasions when he used the aircraft engines for takeoff so that he could do an
aerial survey of sites of interest to him before engaging the rockets for
propulsion into space. I found that for his pending flight the ship was set to
take off in aircraft mode. This meant I could block out all the rocket
gadgetry, which I did not understand, and focus on the plane’s aircraft
controls, which were familiar from my training.

The activities continued on the
platform outside as the engineer, Dakir, arrived.

“Dakir, there is an insurgent in
Feran’s spacecraft,” shouted the captain. “Open the door at once with the
combination!”

“Captain, the rules prohibit me from
opening the door without my superior’s authorization. Let me call her—”

“No!” screamed the captain. “No
superiors need to know what we are doing here! I will not risk my standing when
we can settle the matter simply with you opening the door. Now!”

“But . . . but captain—”

I heard another familiar sound: the
smack of a fist striking a face. A cry of pain followed, then kicks, then more
punches.

I completed the checklist and
waited to hear the power charge. Nothing happened. A snag! Sweat from my face dripped
onto the instrument panel.

Dakir gasped. “I have my orders.”

“Your orders are no good now. There
is an insurgent inside who must be captured!”

“My rules say nothing about an
insurgent.”

“Forget your rules and open this
door!”

“But captain—” Dakir’s voice was
barely audible. I heard the low pounding of more blows, then a violent spasm of
coughing.

I wondered what step I had missed
in my haste. I reviewed the opening checklist, matching its instructions to my
instrument settings. I suddenly realized something. I found a control that was
set for the ultra-high speed used for space travel. Because the aircraft
engines operated at a minute fraction of that speed, I corrected the setting
and again started the fuel flow to the engines. This time they whined in
answer.

“Now get up and open this door or
be shot!” shrieked the captain.

I heard a terrible moan, then a
helpless voice reduced to a whimper. “Yes, captain.”

I felt my hair growing strand by
strand while I waited for the ship to gain sufficient power for takeoff.

The voices and sounds I heard next
told me that Dakir was having difficulty rising to his feet after the beating,
so the captain pulled him up and shoved him against the door.

My supervisor shouted at Dakir. “Hurry,
you imbecile, or we will all go to the Theater of Justice!”

The beep of the first number Dakir
entered on the keypad shot through my headset like a bullet.

But it was I who spoke next. “None
of you will go to the Theater of Justice.”

“Because in three seconds I will
kill you!” said the captain.

“Because in two seconds you will be
burned to death by the engines. Good-bye!” I yelled, fastening the buckles of
my harness.

Only Dakir had the quick reflexes
to heed the warning I gave them. He stopped entering the code, and from my
window I saw him jump off the platform and land clear of the explosion. The
others remained, forming two columns of burning flesh in the exhaust of the
engines as I lifted straight up in a vertical takeoff. I looked down on the space
center for the last time. I took the ship higher, and I caught sight of the
crescent shape of an outdoor theater.

“Good-bye, Reevah,” I said to the
silver tinge of the stage in the last gray moment before the dawn.

I pitched the nose of the craft
high and climbed into the new day’s sky. Suddenly a sleek projectile was
ripping upward through the sky, closing the distance between us. From my
military training, I knew it was a missile launched at my craft. Like a hungry
beast, it would stalk me, find me, and devour me—unless I could activate my
ship’s rockets. I called up directions, turned switches, flicked controls,
pressed buttons, talked to the computer, ordered it, begged it. But no rockets
fired.

A flashing light and a high-pitched
whine from the instrument panel signaled that the missile had locked onto my
ship. Without rocket power to propel me out of the weapon’s range, my only
chance was to outmaneuver it. I needed to change direction suddenly to try to
lose the missile. But I had to wait until it was close, very close, so it would
not have time to correct.

I waited, staring at its dark
streak of exhaust cutting across thin pink clouds of dawn. I waited, clutching
the stick so tightly that my arm became a network of pulsing veins. I waited,
my predator growing from a small object in the distance to a menacing presence
closing in on me. Now!

I turned, I dived. I saw the
missile pass me overhead. Flying too fast to correct in time, the weapon
overshot me. But the audible alarm persisted because another projectile was
coming at me, and another behind it. I tried to adjust to the capabilities of
the new craft while fighting off these weapons.

I turned hard again, pushing the
blood into my legs and the gravity meter into the danger zone. I veered, and
the missiles veered. I looped. They looped, staying with me. I made a series of
tight turns, and one weapon finally passed to the side of me and vanished in
the distance. But the one behind it corrected. I took the ship into a dive to
gain speed, then turned again. Suddenly the dawn began reversing into a fuzzy
night sky on the edges of my vision. I tried to focus the missile in the center
of a shrinking field of sight.

“No!” I cried aloud.

My violent maneuvering was taking
its toll on me, and my vanishing sight was a signal I could not ignore. I had
tunnel vision.

I was about to lose my sight, and then
consciousness, from pulling gravity forces that were too high. I urgently
needed to stop my insane maneuvering, but I had no choice with the missile
about to strike. I turned again. My vision shrunk further as gravity sucked the
blood from my head with a pull of many times my normal weight. The high-pitched
alarm still buzzed in my ears as the missile tenaciously stayed on me. I turned
again.

Then my head dropped and my eyes
closed. A moment later, I awoke to find myself spinning out of control, with
the ground closing in fast. I grabbed the controls and struggled to recover.
Finally, I managed to stop the rotations and level the craft before it hit the
pavement. I climbed quickly and at last reached a point of peace. The trailing
missile had failed to intercept. The alarm was silenced at last! I loosened my
grip on the stick. I felt my first moment of peace. But not for long.

The alarm shrilled once again as
another missile raced toward me. I turned hard, but the stubborn rocket stayed
with me. I could see it at the center of a tunnel that was closing. My
shrinking vision was about to be swallowed by eternity. To lose this missile
meant pulling more
g
’s and blacking out. To stay conscious meant flying
steady and waiting for the weapon to strike. How did I want to die? Crashing to
the ground in a fireball or blasted to smithereens by a missile? More warning
lights flashed on the flight deck, and a voice inside the computer addressed
me.

“Four seconds to impact,” the
female voice said tonelessly. “Three seconds to impact.”

I could maneuver no longer. Instead
I had to increase my speed to outrace the weapon, but the craft would not
oblige. I tried to manipulate the controls to ignite the rockets, but I heard
nothing except the high-pitched whine of the missile alarm.

“Two seconds to—”

Just then a tremendous explosion
jolted the ship. It no longer responded to my controls. Its nose turned
straight away from Asteron as the sky behind me ignited with flames. A most
amazing force had suddenly seized the craft and catapulted me away. The rocket
engines had ignited! The missile, which moments ago had almost touched my
craft, now trailed farther and farther behind. The computer informed me that I
was on an automatic, pre-programmed flight route, and yes, I was indeed in
rocket mode. Feran’s ship had been set to fire its rockets and to begin an
automatic flight route just after takeoff—none too soon for me.