Means of Escape (Spinward Book 1) Read online

  Spinward

  Volume 1

  Means of Escape

  by Rupert Segar

  Text copyright © Rupert Segar 2013

  Cover photograph copyright © Pete Lawrence 2013

  To my wife, Jane for her love and support

  Table of contents

  Chapter 1: The Ship

  Chapter 2: Expansion and Contraction

  Chapter 3: A Big Personality

  Chapter 4: Absent Aliens

  Chapter 5: Spinward

  Chapter 6: The Age of Exploration

  Chapter 7: Fugitives

  Chapter 8: Columbus, Alliance frontier

  Chapter 9: In the court of the Emperor

  Chapter 10: Justice

  Chapter 11: The Roads Less Travelled

  Chapter 12: The Court comes to Columbus

  Chapter 13: Beginnings

  Chapter 14: The Library, Willow

  Chapter 15: Explorer Spirit II

  Chapter 16: The Doorways

  Chapter 17: Trouble in Paradise

  Chapter 18: The Emperor’s Progress

  Chapter 19: Jail

  Chapter 20: The Secret Paths

  Chapter 21: Royal Progress

  Chapter 22: Destination Chimera

  Chapter 23: Dragon

  Chapter 24: Heaven and Hell

  Chapter 25: Devastation from space

  Chapter 26: Truth or Dare

  Chapter 27: Devastation by land

  Chapter 28: Stowaway

  Chapter 29: The Door Opens

  Chapter 30: David and Goliath

  Chapter 31: Keeping your head

  Chapter 32: Reunion

  Chapter 1: The Ship

  High above the surface of the planet a brilliant tiny white bubble appeared growing almost instantly until it was over 20 metres in diameter. All at once, the bubble ruptured releasing a torrent of radiant energy as a ship burst into existence. The flare of intense light and electromagnetic radiation quickly subsided as the capacitors on board the craft absorbed the huge excess energies. Dwindling waves of flux rippled round the ship’s smooth surface and gently dissipated. Gripped by gravity, the ship dropped towards the planet.

  Art King was still groggy following the transition from hyper-flight but he could tell something was very wrong. Lights were flashing right across the control console. Some of them Art realised he had never seen before. His eyes focused on the gravimetric display and the numbers underneath, numbers which were counting down at an alarming rate.

  “Ship, we’re on top of a planet,” he screamed, “Do something.”

  Art reached forward for the two joysticks but before he could grab them the levers began moving of their own accord. For an instant, Art felt a twisting motion and judder, then the inertial compensators came fully on line.

  “On course for anti-gravity landing at Proteus Spaceport,” said the mechanical voice calmly. Art stared at the space just above the console in front of him, the position from which the ship’s voice seemed to emanate. The computer seemed to be taking a lot of decisions which worried the young pilot.

  +

  In the planetary defence control room, two hundred and fifty kilometres below, alarms sounded and three giant wall screens lit up. There was confusion and fear among the operators. Gravnometric detectors and had picked up the tell-tale signs of a ship coming out of hyper-flight. Ground based radio antenna registered an EM burst in near space. The duty controller swore then explained his amazement,

  “The thing’s right above us, come out of nowhere,” he said.

  “We’ve got it,” yelled a radar operator “It’s in orbit about two forty … hey, it’s not in orbit, the mother’s heading straight down.”

  “Lock on missiles,” shouted the duty controller.

  A tall man in a dark uniform with a stun gun in his hand moved with authority to the centre of the control room. “Everyone stand away from your consoles, now!” He said in a clear calm voice.

  “What? This thing’s …” was all the duty controller could say before he slumped to the floor along with the woman at the missile control console beside him. They were both unconscious and began twitching violently. Everyone else stopped and looked briefly at the two convulsing bodies before staring at the Colonel from the security service. They all knew and feared the man known as the Emperor’s enforcer .

  “Now I have your attention,” said Colonel Garth with a threatening grin. “I want all the logs wiped. This craft was never here. All the data blocks dumped. Now!”

  In silence, the operators obeyed as Colonel Garth pulled out his communicator and spoke one word.

  “Cleanse.”

  +

  Chief Engineer Yelena Kolowski was breathing hard as she pushed open the outer door of the airlock. She had been realigning the main flux generator at the spaceport, a job that required a full multi-layered insulation suit. Yelena always felt claustrophobic wearing the padded silvered suit with its tiny eyehole goggles.

  Now she felt sick in her stomach as well, for peering into the main hanger, Yelena saw the bodies. Even through the steamed up lenses, she recognised the blue tinged rigour in their faces. Vargas was a hallmark of the occupying troops; their standard response to any riot, strike or protest was to release canisters of the gas. Vargas killed almost instantly but within minutes the gas itself decomposed into harmless residues. Yelena pulled off her headgear and smelt the tell-tale whiff of sweet peaches. For a moment she looked about, looked at her colleagues bodies lying twisted and still. She felt her emotions rising. These were more than just workmates, they were her friends, almost her family and now they were dead. Yelena could feel an oppressive sense of hopelessness and paralysis developing. She pulled herself together marshalling her emotions. I’m going to get through this. I’m going to survive. More than that, I’m going to get even!

  On the far side of the hanger, a long line of vid-screens hanging over the workbenches all came on together. Yelena realised a spacecraft must be approaching the landing zone. Yelena asked herself a series of questions a series of questions Is it the mystery ship? How could it be? Did it turn back early? Then, fear and adrenaline flooded through her as she saw the distorted but distinctive outline of a Kargol trooper on the other side of the opaque entrance door.

  +

  Sitting in the sole pilot’s seat, in fact the only seat on board the mystery ship, Art saw the numbers displaying altitude were now counting down at a slower pace. His immediate panic over, Art realised something else was seriously amiss.

  “Ship, we came out of hyper-flight within two hundred kilometres of Nova Terra. That can’t be done.”

  “248.7 km above mean sea-level to be precise,” answered the ship “We did because I can.”

  “Ship, we were supposed to see if we could emerge within the inner system, not on top of the bloody planet. Look, hyper-flight doesn’t work when space is bent by gravity. Everyone knows that. Don’t you know that?”

  “Mine works anywhere, Art,” said the mechanical voice. Art thought he detected a twinge of pride in the ships artificial voice.

  “Landing in five minutes thirty. No communications from Proteus. Trying all channels.”

  Art was now seriously flabbergasted. Although young, only 25 years old, he was regarded as one of the best pilots in Spinward sector of the Empire. Art had been commissioned to fly what he was told was an experimental spaceship. He had not been hired exactly, more shanghaied. No one turns down an Imperial Commission especially when it comes from the Emperor’s enforcer , Colonel Garth. The ship was clearly not a new experimental craft either. There were no designers or scientists, just a bunch of spaceship monkeys, engineers with spanners and
PhDs, tinkering with what was obviously a very old ship.

  He had heard that when the engineers first came on board, some of the displays had not even been in Anglo-Terran. Distances were not given in meters, kilometres and light years, in fact the figures were not even digits but were instead in some indecipherable squiggle. One technician offered an explanation saying it was an ancient Arabic script but seemed incapable of looking Art in the face while he was speaking to him. The man was clearly embarrassed, either making it up or just lying. Then the design of the craft was slightly odd, even uncomfortable. The single pilot’s chair was just a bit too wide and was moulded to the floor just a little too far away from the console. Then there was the weird pillow in the solitary cabin. It may be a mere domestic detail but the pillow was an integral part of the mattress and it was small with a big hole in the middle, and it was really uncomfortable.

  On top of all this, the ship’s Artificial Intelligence seemed to have a personality of its own. Since the Great Plague, which destroyed nearly all machine intelligence throughout the human occupied galaxy, no one had built machines with personalities; it was regarded as far too dangerous. Most machines had the ability to talk, even fridges, microwave cookers and drain covers. They could tell you that you were low on soya milk or warn of a blockage in the sewer system. This ship’s speech, however, seemed to be more than just the product of clever programming and a large library of stock phrases. Art felt there was a real almost tangible intelligence behind the voice.

  Now this mysterious machine was telling him that all the laws of hyper-flight could be ripped up. They had materialised just outside the atmosphere of a planet, rather than one hundred million kilometres away. All the history of hyper flight said a jump into the upper realm could only take place where space time is relatively flat, not right above a gravity well. Art was trying to make sense of it all when he was interrupted by the ship’s AI.

  “There is still no communication with Proteus but I am now monitoring the spaceport. Art, I believe we are under threat.”

  “What do you mean? What are you monitoring?” asked Art beginning to feel seriously unnerved.

  “Let me show you. Plug in, Art.”

  Like all pilots, Art had tiny widgets in his brain, processors and receptors that allowed a closer link with the machines he piloted. On the trip out from Terra Nova, Art had noticed that his connection with the ship had been more intense than anything he had ever experienced. When they had jumped to hyper-flight, in the flat gravity space between Terra Nova and the first of the system’s gas giants, he had felt as if he was part of the craft. He could see and sense the ship shifting through the Upper realm, the domain of hyper-flight. Instead of the usual distant pinpricks of light, local stars looked like nearby islands in a calm sea. Jockos, the nearest star, was a full six light years away, a trip that normally took ten hours or more. The ship plied the Upper realm and made the journey in seven hours. Art remained plugged in for the entire journey, transfixed by the vision of space he shared with the ship.

  As planned, the ship arrived in the Jockos system, jumping back into normal space well away from any planetary bodies. Although slightly groggy from the transition to normal space, Art saw they were in a perfect orbit around the sun, exactly at the spot he had selected.

  Art had reluctantly disengaged from the ship’s sensor web. He felt some sort of affinity with the craft. However, Art’s orders from the Colonel Garth were clear: he was to spend ten hours eating and sleeping and then fly straight back.

  On the second day of the expedition, Art had plugged in to plot their return trip. He had ‘seen’ his return destination in the Terra Nova solar plane and had pinpointed a place for jumping back into normal space. He had chosen a region halfway between the sun and the orbit of the biggest gas giant, well away from Terra Nova or any other planetary mass. Art was part of a complicated sensor web which allowed the pilot to control the craft. Most hyper-flight travel was controlled by very sophisticated computers because of the need to balance so many different forces within the flux. Pilots, however, would set destinations and routes, either manually or by entering the sensorium. To Art, in the sensor web, it was as if he picked up a chess piece and placed it on a vast board. However, just towards the end of the return trip, another hand had moved the marker closer, much closer to the planet.

  “Plug in, Art,” repeated the ship, jolting Art out of his pondering.

  “Ship, did you change our emergence point?” asked Art.

  “Why walk when you can fly?” said the mechanical voice. “Was not the purpose of our experimental voyage to see how far and fast I could go?”

  “Great!” exclaimed Art, “Now, I see you’ve got a mind of your own, and you expect me to plug in? What are you going to do, take over my brain?”

  “Please, you must plug in. I can monitor much but cannot always interpret. Please, Arthur, this I know, if you do not link with me now, you may not survive. Landing in 2 minutes 25. Please, Arthur, connect.”

  The pilot leant back hesitantly, his spine pressed into the back of the strange seat but he kept his head tilted forward, his red platted locks hanging in front of his face. Slowly and reluctantly he tilted his head back to the padded rest until his widgets connected with the ship’s systems.

  Art was propelled into a prismatic vision of Proteus Spaceport. The ship had, it seemed, connected itself to every camera and sensor in the port. The kaleidoscope of images baffled the pilot at first until they began to sort themselves out. As Art focused on one image, the selected picture enlarged and more data was added. The others faded into the background. The ship seemed to have a way of condensing time and summarising what it had seen over the past couple of minutes. A map of the spaceport unfolded. There were the paths taken by two groups of soldiers, both heading towards the landing zone. There was another trooper marked on the map just by the engineering hanger and inside there were other symbols. Art’s attention lingered on the symbols and he quickly wished he had not concentrated on the images. They indicated the position of twenty four dead bodies. Art felt revulsion but then he noticed another symbol. Someone, one of the engineers, was alive.

  +

  Yelena was by a workbench close to the side of the entrance as the soldier came in. The door opened and she reached for a long handled magnetic wrench. The trooper entered his rifle to the fore. He pointed it at Yelena.

  “You should be dead,” he said, complaining. “Well, if vargas won’t kill you, this will.”

  He gripped his rifle and aimed straight at Yelena’s head.

  +

  “No,” cried Art. “That’s Yelena.”

  Plugged into the ship’s vision, Art heard the trooper speaking and viewed the scene from at least three terrifying different perspectives. He watched helplessly, expecting to see Yelena’s execution. Instead, he saw the soldier double up. Art knew from the suddenly muffled silence that the audio feed had almost been completely muted. Nevertheless he could still hear the white noise screeching out of the troopers implanted earphones. He imagined he heard and felt the crunch of the wrench as Yelena hit the soldier over the head.

  “Thirty seconds to landing,” said the ship. “A simple thank you would suffice.”

  “Why do we have to land?” cried Art.

  “We do not have to land immediately but my energy reserves are low. I will need to re-charge general systems within two hours and if we want to go anywhere I must take on flux.” Said the AI

  “Well, just hover for a minute! I need to think.”

  +

  Yelena looked down at the prostate body of the trooper. The man looked dead. Even though she had been threatened with a summary execution, she still felt guilty.

  The vid-screen over the workbench by Yelena blinked on and Art appeared.

  “Yelena, are you all right? Yes, good. I can see you. Now this is what we want you to do …”

  +

  Colonel Garth was only a few seconds away from Proteus Spaceport and hi
s flier was decelerating fast. The image on the screen in front of Garth showed the ship hanging just 50 meters above the landing zone apron. There were two groups of soldiers with rifles and anti-craft rocket launchers. A few aimed at the craft. Garth swore under his breath then opened a comm channel.

  “Colonel Garth here. If any of you troopers fire on that craft you’ll be fed to my dog, in bite size slices. No rough stuff till the ship lands and the pilot ...”

  In the flier, the speakers erupted in a howling gale of white noise. Garth was reaching for the off button when he saw his troops blown off their feet. The ship above them turned about and headed towards the large engineering hanger at the end of the apron. Some sort of weapon was fired because the whole front wall of the hanger dissolved into pieces. The ship descended, wheeling through 180 degrees and slid backwards into the now open sided hanger.

  Colonel Garth’s flier crossed the perimeter fence of Proteus airport. He was skimming about three meters above the ground. He slowed over the fallen troopers. A few were on their hands and knees struggling to get up but most were prone on the apron. He landed halfway between the fallen forces and the hanger. Through the gaping hole in the remains of the wall of the hanger, he could see the front of the ship and, beyond, huge arcs of electricity lighting up the interior in brilliant flashes. The Colonel suddenly felt afraid. He keyed his communicator to a different frequency. It was time to call the cavalry. A few seconds earlier he had been ready to garrotte any soldier who fired on his precious craft. Now he was prepared to destroy the curious alien ship rather than lose control of it.

  +

  Yelena was in the dark when she heard the explosion. Shards of metal battered the outside of the locker into which she had prised herself. As instructed, she counted to ten and then pushed the door open. A ship roughly fifteen metre long was resting inside the hanger. Directly opposite her, an airlock opened in the side of the ship. A large metal iris dilated. Something else was happening at the rear of the craft. There was a clang of metal on metal and a buzzing sound.