phil jones2 Page 10

  'Technically it's possible Captain, and it's certainly what I'm hoping for.'

  'I wouldn't hope too much, Lieutenant.' Smith cut in. 'The impact alone may have been more than their bracing for it could take, it may look very... distasteful inside.'

  Annika attempted a shrug, which wasn't easy with the new suits they had been encased in. 'Alive or dead, we need to make the attempt.'

  'That much is evident, now keep your eyes open.'

  Annika muttered something in response but it wasn't picked up by her helmet.

  The sheer size and ponderous tilt of the craft as it lay there immobilised on the jungle floor reminded Phil of a documentary he had seen on beached whales. He hoped the entrance hadn't been concealed and they wouldn't have to blast their way in. There was no telling what strange creatures such a noise would attract from this planet teeming with life.

  His fears were proven unfounded in a short space of time as Smith signalled up ahead. There was a small opening within the hull that led into a darkness that didn't look at all inviting.

  Unhooking one of the plasma rifles from his back, Smith touched a few buttons and a white beam of light designed to alleviate fright rather than cause it shot forth. He pointed this squarely at the entrance and drew steadily closer, beckoning Annika to follow him and the others to stay where they were. He had to make this motion several times before Phil understood, lacking Smith's extensive military background.

  'Place your scanner inside the vessel, that should bypass the hull plating and tell us if there were any survivors.' Smith instructed her.

  Annika seemed less than enamoured at being told how to do her job, her scanner was already out before Smith had said as much. Nevertheless she complied, easing her way into the now-illuminated entrance and scanning the area while tapping a few buttons.

  'There are...no life signs, Agent Smith. You were correct, they're all dead.'

  'It is as I feared then, we shall have to send a signal back to Admiral Burroughs and let him know of this Voravian mother ship, then we need to figure out how to get off this planet without it pursuing us right back to Earth.'

  They started to head back to the ship, and had nearly made it to the ramp when they realised they were a man short.

  'RJ? What is your position? Come in, RJ.'

  A brief silence had them worried, then the familiar crackling of the communications system came in. 'Captain, I think you might want to see this, I'm just south of your position on the edges of the jungle.'

  Phil hurried over when he spotted him. Well, relatively hurried, in that he arrived a minute after everyone else and panting like a dog in a hot car.

  'What is it... RJ?' He asked between breaths, noticing that the pilot still wore his hat underneath his helmet.

  'While you were scanning with your sensors and determining that there was no life nearby, I used my peepers the old fashioned way and spotted myself some footprints leading on into the jungle.'

  'So some of the crew could still be alive?' Annika trilled, her enthusiasm bubbling over.

  'Not just that, take a look at this.'

  He gestured to his right, and there was no mistaking it. A second set of footprints, that certainly didn't look human.

  Chapter 15

  Waffles! Anchovy! Ummph!

  Trigger watched on as Captain Darwin attempted to adjust his belt and once again rediscovered that he was tied up.

  'My, my me. We are in a dilly of a pickle now, aren't we Cadet? I can see why those chaps we sent to scout before didn't fare so well.'

  The oft-mistaken Ensign sighed as much as he could given his bound and precarious situation. He had long since given up the pretence of the command structure with the Captain but his words still seemed to have no effect on the man. Darwin heard what he wanted to and that was that.

  'You there, Waffles! Let me down from this blasted thing this instance!'

  The creature that Darwin had decided to call 'Waffles' looked up at the man and grunted. It had gone from standing stolidly at its post to increasingly vocal irritation at the Captain's attempts to communicate with it.

  Trigger thought that it was altogether an entirely bad idea to provoke an armed guard while deep in hostile territory and captive to their every whim. Then again, Trigger wasn't the Captain, he was a mere Cadet. Ensign. Damnation.

  He had no idea what his captors had in mind with them but judging by how they had disposed of the rest of the crew he was beginning to get some very bad ideas. He only hoped that somehow Darwin had a daring plan that would prevent them from getting killed. Even dying in a crazy escape attempt was better than remaining here at the whim of some strange aliens on this hostile world.

  'Do you have a plan, sir?' Trigger asked, wondering if Darwin would completely ignore his direct questions too.

  'Cadet, I am already formulating the means of our escape. Ordinarily this tricky situation would be easy for one such as I to escape from, unfortunately with you in tow I will have to do my utmost to keep you alive.'

  Trigger felt somewhat relieved that the Captain had considered him in his plans, he had fully been expecting his superior officer to use him as a human shield.

  Two more of the strange pink creatures grunted their way out of the trees and into the clearing, they were shoving a huge pot on some kind of rolling wooden platform. Trigger's fears were confirmed when he found they had been suspended directly above it, they were the main course.

  'It looks like we've got a matter of minutes before those creatures decide to eat us, sir. Not to rush you, but now would be a very good time to enact your daring escape plan.'

  Darwin didn't seem to pick up on the urgency and panic in Trigger's voice, humming some grand tune under his breath and pausing on occasion to test if the ropes were still constricting him.

  'It appears that we are still bound, Cadet. Fear not, I am certain that a situation to escape shall present itself in due course.'

  It was in that sentence that Trigger felt the terrifying moment where the world opened beneath his feet and threatened to swallow him whole. Trigger had already feared handing his safety in its entirety over to the hands of the Captain, who so far had displayed all the aptitude of a wet anchovy wrapped in chains and shoved into a waterless tank.

  Trigger was allergic to seafood, and took its every attempt to poison him personally. He wracked his own brain for a potential escape from this situation, usually something it was adept at informing him of. This time it was a blank, occasionally interspersed with images of a bodiless grave. Thanks brain.

  The steam rose up now, one of the creatures had started heating the pot with some sort of laser. They had even less time than he had anticipated, just great.

  'Cadet, I want you to watch this carefully. You can tell all your friends back home about the day you were saved by Captain Darwin.'

  A faint, entirely irrational hope flickered in Trigger's heart at these words of bravado being sent forth with such an authoritative tone. His brain promptly stifled them by reminding him that their basis was also tied up and suspended over a cooking pot.

  'Hey, Waffles. I think you and I need to talk.' Darwin called over to the creature, who had resumed its complete ignorance of the man and was focusing on heating the pot with a hungry intent.

  The Captain cleared his throat once more and the change in his voice was palpable.

  'Waffles, that's a direct order from your Captain... You need to set that hot tool down and focus on other... devices.'

  Trigger blinked in disbelief as the creature complied, sidling over a little closer to where Darwin hung.

  'My, my me.' Darwin crooned. 'In all my interstellar adventures and my many... passionate affairs, never have I been bedazzled by a beauty of such flawless magnificence.'

  Was he... Was he flirting with that thing?

  Darwin's lids closed ever so slightly as he scanned every inch of the creature's body. 'But then, you come from a rough and wild planet, where the passion and will to survive an
d dominate exudes from every pore.'

  Waffles grunted in agreement, its previous task completely forgotten.

  'You'll forgive my friend here, he's not overly bright and couldn't hope to understand a race as primal and powerful as yours. He is but a creature of fear, a scrawny wretch that could not lay a hand upon your duplicitous form.'

  Trigger was pretty sure that wasn't the word the Captain was looking for, nevertheless it seemed to be having a positive effect on Waffles, causing the beast to edge even closer to the bound form of Darwin. Where was the man going with this thought?

  'I am your bound captive, to do with as you please. I am yours by right of conquest, and before you devour me and I reside inside you, perhaps I could...'

  He stopped listening at that point, but couldn't help but taste the vomit that had risen to the back of his mouth. Darwin really was going to try and seduce his way out of this situation.

  That was when the Captain's ropes suddenly came loose, a small knife glinting as it sliced through them.

  'Surprise, Waffles!' the man bellowed, leaping onto the lip of the bubbling pot and sending the boiling water straight into the creature's eyes with a grace that belied his portly size.

  The beast howled and dropped the heating laser, which Darwin quickly swept up into his hands, expertly tapping a few buttons and sending a blast straight through the creature's midriff.

  The gun wasn't the only thing that the Captain swept up into his arms.

  'My love, it wounds me to wound you so. I know that a single shot cannot kill but the loss of my heart will inevitably do more harm unto thee than any laser blast could.'

  Waffles made a faint whining noise of assent.

  'I know, I know.' Darwin replied, as if he understood every word. 'I must leave this planet for a time, but fear not. When forlorn love has reached its peak and your loneliest days are upon you, look to the stars for my arrival. Your Darwin will surely return.'

  With a sigh, Darwin let the body slump to the floor as the creature lost consciousness.

  He looked up at the still-suspended Trigger in mild irritation. 'Now really isn't the time to be hanging around, Cadet. We have to flee this planet immediately!'

  Without any prior warning he shot through the rope that held Trigger, sending him sprawling to the floor with no way to protect himself.

  'Ummph.' the Ensign said, his air driven out of him from the impact.

  'Come on man, to your feet!' Darwin cried, whipping the gun out over him and cutting deftly through the cords as if they were mere projections to disrupt.

  Trigger couldn't believe it, his Captain was actually going to save him!

  Then the rustling came from the trees on all sides of the clearing. At least seventy pink bodies tore out into the open and all of them appeared both armed and angry.

  'Oh dear.' remarked Darwin.

  Chapter 16

  Hunch! Unnnghhhf! Sloshing!

  Smith led the team cautiously as they traced the steps deeper into the heart of the tangled jungle. He seemed to think that even though there had been survivors, the fact that they had yet to return to the ship and that they had been followed were ominous signs.

  'What made you decide to check for footprints in the first place?' Annika asked RJ over the intercom.

  'I had a hunch.' the pilot replied, then was silent.

  'A hunch?'

  'Yeah, a hunch. Like, intuition, a gut feeling. I trust instincts more than any complex scanning equipment and they've kept me alive this long ma’am.'

  Phil listened as Annika mused over this morsel of information. Clearly the chief science officer was a very logical person and had little time for gut feelings, yet it seemed to Phil that they had served RJ well so far.

  'What do your instincts tell you about the tracks we're following, RJ?' Annika asked.

  'Silence.' Smith hissed. 'We can't afford idle chatter over the comm systems, lest it distract us from a lethal assault.'

  Phil peered into the gloom of the surrounding jungle, waiting for the imminent attack that Smith seemed so certain would happen. It would appear that there was nothing yet, which as far as Phil was concerned was just fine. He had now been in enough near-death situations to last him a lifetime, one that wouldn't have any length at all if he kept getting thrown into them.

  As Smith had commanded, the company had cut all chatter over the communications systems and were now just as alert as Phil was. They pressed deeper into the jungle and waited for the attack that Smith seemed to think was so imminent.

  Nothing happened until they came across the bodies.

  They were strewn in a haphazard fashion, as if they had made some attempt to flee but had been cut down, it wasn't a pretty sight and Phil's stomach roiled in complaint.

  'It looks as if the injuries were caused by primitive energy weapons, sir.' Annika stated as she toed one of the bodies over and inspected the wounds. 'Judging from the placement of the strikes they were cut down as they fled and then left here to die.'

  It was a grim assessment, and didn't bode well for their hopes of finding the rest of the crew.

  'Could this be the last of the survivors?' Smith asked.

  'Negative commander, the footprints we came across indicated more than just this group. It looks like whatever was following them finally caught up.'

  RJ shook his head at the grisly scene, apparently the bodies had been here for a while now as the jungle life had already decided to feast upon them.

  'Whatever's left of the Scavanger crew is in mighty trouble, we better high-tail it after them.'

  'You want us to return to the ship?' Phil asked.

  RJ looked at him. 'I said high-tail it after them.'

  His commanding officer nodded at him. 'Yeah, like we high tailed it from that Voravian mothership and ended up here in the first place.'

  The pilot sighed and chose not to pursue the matter any further.

  'We press on.' Smith replied. 'Knowing Captain Darwin's luck he's probably somehow still alive in this mess and being pursued by every sentient creature on this forsaken planet.'

  The more he heard his number one talk about this Darwin character, the more Phil wanted to know about why he held such a grudge against the man. The Scavanger's Captain must have been made of tough stuff to survive out here where his crewmen had perished. That Smith was so certain of this lent credence to that belief.

  'We're not going to bury the bodies?' Annika asked.

  Smith shook his head. 'We don't have time, they'll soon be at one with the dirt anyway. Every second we waste debating this puts ours lives at further risk, whatever dismembered these crewmen could easily still be lurking nearby.'

  It was a compelling enough argument for the communications blackout to resume, though neither RJ nor Annika seemed overly pleased at Smith refusing to bury his comrades. Phil had mixed feelings, while he felt it was somewhat cold to snub them like that, he really, really didn't want to be eaten by some giant monster. No thank you.

  The path widened slightly as they continued down it, spotting the occasional faint boot print that suggested there were still a few people from the Scavanger that had made it out this far.

  That's when they heard a faint rumbling on the horizon, as if the ground itself were quaking from some seismic shock. Yet there was no trembling of the earth that would precede such an event, which suggested that something else was making the noise. Something very big and very loud.

  Oh dear.

  'I think we should turn back.' Phil stated over the comm.

  Smith was pointing his gun at the path ahead, but he made no motion otherwise.

  'It could be the crew from the Scavanger returning...' Annika said into the void as the rumbling grew louder, but even her voice was doubtful.

  'At the rate of acceleration I'm guessing that running isn't an option here.' RJ supplied, pistol in hand and also aimed at the horizon.

  Phil had experienced many bad feelings in the last day or so, this had to be right up
there with the worst of them. He knew that whatever reared its head would undoubtedly cause them no end of trouble.

  'Fall back.' Smith said quietly into the intercom, as if expecting the oncoming stampede of feet to overhear him. Fortunately the audio systems built into their helmets amplified his voice over the rising tide of sound.

  Ordinary Phil would have taken issue with being given orders by his number one but this command seemed utterly sensible.

  Except that Smith wasn't complying with his own directive.

  'Aren't you coming with us?' Annika called back to him loudly, forgetting the helmet.

  'I'm going to try and hold them off and buy you enough time to sprint back to the ship.' Smith replied gravely. 'If I can make it back before what's following us does, Hanniman will undoubtedly have the ship primed and ready to go.'

  It seemed an unnecessarily heroic sacrifice on Smith's part and totally out of character from what little Phil knew of the man. On the other hand, none of the crew were in any position to disagree with his volunteering to save their lives and they soon set off in the opposite direction.

  'What do you think he has planned?' Annika asked as she ran alongside an already breathless Phil.

  'I have no idea.' Phil wheezed.

  'Seems a damn-fool idea to stay behind in the first place, I reckon.' RJ chimed in.

  'I can still hear you.' Smith cut across him. 'The helmet's range is...remarkable. I shall give you reports when I come into contact with the force generating this noise.'

  Phil briefly had visions of Smith giving a stoic running commentary while performing indescribably awesome feats of badassery and standing over the corpses of vanquished aliens. He felt a twinge of jealousy at the man for being so damn heroic.

  Then he remembered that all of this was very real and he could well hear the man's death rattle instead.

  'How far are we...from the...ship?' Phil managed.

  Annika tapped her helmet in an odd fashion and a small screen flashed up on the underside of her visor. 'If we continue our current rate of flight then my estimate is that five minutes will take us within range of the ship.'