Fugitive From Asteron Page 5

  As I approached the space center I saw the dense pattern of dots and shadows formed by the lights, people, and vehicles beyond its fence. Although my identification card had not been programmed for entry that night, I was determined to get in. The combined power of sentries, gates, badges, barbed wire, motion detectors, search lights, alarms, face scans, and other security measures was said to make the space center impenetrable. My task was to cut through all of it.

  My plan was simple. It involved one of the vehicles called frogs that serviced the spacecraft. The frogs moved along the ground. Then when they reached an impediment, they leaped into the air to continue aloft. The size of a truck but with an oblong shape, these vehicles transported supplies, equipment, and personnel in a car behind the driver’s cab. Security prohibited the frogs from leaving the confines of the space center. However, one did.

  A security commander himself broke the rules, I had one day discovered. He used a frog as his personal car, and he left the space complex with it several times a day. Because his frog bore the red stripes of a commander’s vehicle, it could leap into or out of the complex at will. Who would challenge his movements? His subordinates at the gates? No, only those eager to appear at the Theater of Justice, because on Asteron, people never questioned their superiors. The commander, I had learned, left the space center to visit a tree, a dead one, a leafless mass of rotting black bark in a nearby empty field. One night I had investigated and found that the hollow trunk of the tree was not empty at all but filled with bottles of Asteron’s favorite contraband: whiskey. My plan was to hide near the commander’s beverage, await a visit by his frog, then climb inside the car in the rear for the ride back into the complex.

  I walked to the dead tree just off the road and picked my hiding spot in the shrubs. Soon the squatty, six-wheeled frog came clanging down from the sky.

  The commander, a short, rotund, neckless man, shaped remarkably similar to the frog he piloted, exited the driver’s cab along with a fellow officer.

  “I’ve never worked such long shifts or saw so many spacecraft readied at one time,” said the commander, reaching into the bark for a bottle, then taking a long draft.

  “Nor I,” said the other, joining him.

  “I wonder what Feran is up to.”

  “Something that brings food, I hope.”

  “Or that takes away bodies to feed. Thousands of troops are leaving in two days.”

  “Maybe they will die in battle.”

  “We can hope.”

  While the two commanders sat on the grass in front of the frog, I waited for them to imbibe enough to dull their senses. Then I quietly slipped through the back door and into the car. From among a few implements strapped down in the car, I grabbed a wrench to use as a weapon. Then I stayed clear of the windows and waited. Finally, the stench of alcohol floated over me from an open window, marking the commanders’ return to the driver’s cab in the front.

  All I had to do now was protect myself from injury as the commander made the frog rise from the ground, then hit it again with a thump, rise again, and then swerve dangerously. We finally descended from this brief but treacherous journey, my head banging on the floor of the car during the commander’s wobbly landing. The two officers dismounted from the cab and walked away. A glance out the window showed that I was inside the gate, past security, and near Feran’s ship. I had to act quickly before the commander made another visit to the tree.

  I slid out the back door with the wrench hidden up my shirt sleeve. I saw the engineering wonder that was Feran’s spacecraft. Its smooth, black body shined in the moonlight. Its nose curved down and tapered to a point. Its sleek wings drew back in sharp lines that fanned out into sweeping curves. Its tail rose up and arched back. The vessel look like a bird of prey poised to face a strong head wind.

  Keeping my head low and the hidden wrench close to my body, I walked toward Feran’s craft. In preparation for his arrival, the ship’s door was ajar and a stairway with a platform was positioned outside of it. Just as I was about to jump up the steps, an officer patrolling Feran’s ship blocked me. I knew him.

  “Arial!”

  I stopped.

  “What are you doing here? You have no orders to work tonight.”

  “I respectfully suggest, captain, that I do have such orders.”

  The guard’s face reddened, because we were not allowed to contradict a superior. “We will see about that!” He reached for his pocket device to check the schedule.

  I startled him with a move unthinkable by anyone planning to live past the hour. I slid the wrench out of my sleeve, and with one decisive swing I pounded his skull. His eyes closed and his body fell to the ground. In two leaps I ascended the six steps to the door of the spacecraft. Within a moment, I was inside!

  To the back of the metal entryway were the living quarters and cargo bay. To the front, beyond an open sliding door, was the moonlit sparkle of instruments that formed the flight deck. I would go to the deck and watch the alien perform the home run, then wait for the guards to shoot me. That was the plan.

  But once inside the shining electronic world that had always held me spellbound, a different vision suddenly pulled my thoughts from the craft, and from the planet itself, carrying me into the vast, mysterious sky. A composed figure on a scaffold looked at me with hope. A soft voice whispered about a place with flowers. A sweet presence I could not resist dissolved my bitter despair.

  Suddenly I realized what I had subconsciously wanted to do all along—what I had dreamed of doing every time I had ever been in this spaceship. I would not sit and wait to die. I would start the engines and blast my way out!

  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 s
ealed 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 w
aited, 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.