phil jones2 Page 15

  That was when he began to feel a tugging on his hand, a sensation he couldn't understand given that nothing had come into contact with it.

  Then vaguely, as if through the depths of a muggy dream, Phil remembered that previously there had been a glove attached to his hand. That none of this majesty he felt such awe for was real, and as he did so it slowly faded, to be replaced with an aching and indescribable sense of loss.

  The box appeared once more, its chime a slow reverse as it powered down. The pad that one of Phil's hands grasped for so eagerly refused to activate without the other. The glove prevented this from transpiring, much to his anger and frustration.

  'Why won't you let me go back?' Phil wailed at the glove, tears streaking down his face at being forced away from something so glorious and beautiful.

  The glove gave him no answers, a swift tug nearly pulled his arm out of its socket and sent him staggering down the corridor once again.

  His eyes feasted upon the glittering cases that were slowly unveiled from the crackling grasp of claws. Each one was more impressive than the last, a honeyed treat or pearl glistening with temptation that made his feet and neck struggle against the will of the glove with every step.

  It wouldn't give in to its owner's desires, resolutely leading him onward with a singular will that seemed oblivious to the increasingly amazing boxes that Phil's eyes passed over.

  Then the boxes ceased altogether, and the glove slowed in response as if it had become as uncertain of the future path as Phil was.

  A single figure stood ahead of them, beckoning him forward, which explained why the glove had stopped him in his tracks.

  Beautiful wouldn't have done it justice, he felt a strange strangling sensation as his heart tried to crawl out of his mouth at the mere sight of her.

  Perfect alabaster skin that looked as if it had been poured over her creamy white thighs that led up to a slit in a revealing red dress. It wasn't just any red dress though, it had a distinctly sixties vibe to it and a single golden badge indicated its science fiction origin. She was a Trek goddess.

  'Hello, Mr. Jones.' she purred at him, her sultry voice sending tingles over his body in questionable areas. 'your Horgon is showing.'

  Phil was too entranced to notice.

  'So how about you come join me and I'll show you the true meaning of Pon farr?'

  The glove tightened urgently around his hand and the thought came into his head immediately. 'You're not a Vulcan.' was the response, but it seemed to come from far away and with more than a hint of uncertainty about it.

  'Am I not?' she replied, her voice washing over him like liquid silk as she swished her hair back to reveal the points of her ears.

  The glove was now strangling his hand. Those ears definitely hadn't been like that before, there was something very off about this whole thing.

  She seemed so real though, if he could just reach out and... The glove clamped down so hard that he yelled, giving it a look of irritation.

  'What is it you want?' he shouted at it, waving it exasperatedly up and down in the vain hope of dislodging its grip.

  The glove remained unsurprisingly silent, with no further thoughts coming unbidden to his head. He looked back at the woman to devote his full attention to her once more.

  She had changed.

  It was only perceptible for the briefest of moments, but that slight flicker in what he saw was enough to dispel Phil's illusion. A man who spent his life staring at screens expected a certain degree of consistency, and this simply wasn't doing it.

  'You're just another computer simulation.' he sighed, 'nobody really wants to spend that kind of time with me.'

  She pleaded with him, begged him to stay and offered all kinds of wonderful things. If he had been any other man he would have gladly accepted, the glove was already dragging him away though. He knew it wasn't real, that it was just another representation of reality being beamed in to him, no matter how realistic. Just like every other day.

  He barely noticed the other claws unfold as he passed them by, so wrapped up in his own sadness was he. Eventually the sounds ceased and he noticed a large circular door ahead of him. Reality beckoned, and Phil was through with make-believe.

  He just wished he knew if it was him thinking that or the glove.

  Chapter 23

  Thrashing! Chamber! Problem!

  'Urgh, my head.' Darwin groaned, rising in the medical bay with some effort. 'what the devil happened? One minute we were escaping from that beastie and the next I find myself aboard this vessel.'

  His doctor came out from the corner of the room, a look of concern on his face.

  'Well, doctor? What's the prognosis? You really do have the worst bed-side manner I've ever seen. Aren't you at least going to ask me how I'm feeling?'

  Hanniman shrugged at him. 'You've already told me exactly how you feel, we don't have time to nurse you back to health. The crew needs you.'

  As if transformed by hearing the need in the man's tone, Darwin transformed from petulant whiner into invincible Captain.

  'What is it that's required of me?' he bellowed, swaying slightly as he pulled himself upright into a position of readiness.

  Hanniman frantically lowered his hands in the hopes of silencing the boisterous man. 'Quietly Captain, the Voravians will hear us otherwise.'

  'Voravians!' Darwin shouted at the top of his voice, spinning wildly about the room as if drunk. 'where? Where are they?'

  The temporary chief of medical staff looked on at his patient with deep concern. Was this man in any fit state to help anyone or had that knock on the head taken more out of him than he'd admit?

  'Captain, we are deep in the bowels of the Voravian sphere, they captured us and sucked us in somewhere before taking the rest of the crew. For some reason they haven't checked the medical bay yet. I'm useless with a blaster so you're our last hope of getting out of here.'

  A report of the situation seemed to sober the man up slightly, that or he was beginning to get a semblance of his bearings back.

  'So you're telling me that I'm the last hope of mankind as we know it?'

  Dr. Hanniman wouldn't go that far with his assessment, but he could tell from the look on the Captain's face what he was expecting to hear. 'Yes sir, it is you alone who can save us and all of mankind.'

  Darwin's chest visibly puffed out in predictable fashion, and a confident smile spread across his face. 'We'll show those devils what for, won't we doctor...?'

  'Hanniman, Doctor Hanniman, Chief Engineer temporarily in charge of sick bay.'

  'Well Hanniman, we shall give these lizards a damn good thrashing, you and I!'

  He cleared his throat at the Captain, but Darwin wasn't listening.

  'With you to guard my six the green-skinned bastards will be so much target practice once we stab at the heart of their own invasion fleet!'

  The Engineer-come-Doctor finally got a word in edge-ways now that Darwin had finished pontificating on future feats of heroism. 'Sir, I won't be going out there with you, I'm useless with a blaster. I'd be more of a liability than an aid, but I can help you from the ship.'

  If the Captain comprehended this he wasn't making any signs of it.

  'What I'm saying sir is that by attaching a communications chip to you, I can relay information to you directly without distracting you too much from taking out any Voravians you come across.'

  Darwin mused over this morsel of information for precisely two seconds, then nodded his head in agreement. 'Very well then, insert your damn chip and be done with it. I need to make my way to the armoury.'

  Hanniman smiled at him. 'I took the liberty of installing it already while you were unconscious, knowing that it would come down to this anyway.'

  The Captain sighed. 'I hate doctors.'

  This surprised him, as he was expecting more a fight from the man considering his reputation. He watched him make surer steps now and followed him out of the sick bay door and toward the armoury.

 
'The helmets on the hazard suits have been known to impair vision, we'll be needing you sharp and focused throughout the course of this mission.' he explained to the Captain as he suited up. 'I'll be with you at all times and monitoring your progress using the ship's sensors, which have mapped out the various corridors and intersections.'

  'Have they been able to detect the crew's bio-signatures?' Darwin asked, using up his single allocated sensible question of the day.

  'No, while we can detect the overall structure of the sphere it's still jamming our life detection systems somehow. I'm afraid you're going to have to find the crew yourself. I don't need to tell you that the chances aren't great, sir.'

  Darwin held up his hand, silencing the man. 'Never tell a Captain the odds. I'm ready to depart!'

  The ramp of the ship descended slowly as he made his way down into the heart of the Voravian sphere. Hanniman seated himself in what had been Annika's chair and fired up the computer, tasking it with monitoring Darwin's every move.

  'Can you hear me, Hanniman?' the Captain's voice crackled as the ramp closed with a faint click.

  'Yes sir, loud and clear. You may proceed with your rescue operation.' he tried to stay positive in the circumstances but he wasn't expecting anything short of a gruesome death for the man, regardless of his reputation.

  'I appear to be in a large green chamber, some kind of port that our starship has been docked into. There seems no immediate signs of an exit for a craft of this size, but there is a tunnel that leads out and further into the sphere.'

  'Affirmative, Captain. Take that tunnel, it should lead out into a second chamber. From there you can begin searching for the rest of the crew. I just hope the Voravians have them in captivity nearby.'

  Darwin continued describing the tunnel in great detail to him, inundating him with every possible piece of information relevant or irrelevant. Was this really the stream of nonsense that Annika had to put up with from every away team she didn't feature in?

  Then silence cut in.

  'Captain, do you read me?'

  It took some time before there was a response, and Hanniman was about to ask again before it finally came through.

  'I have made contact with the enemy.' was the swift reply.

  It hadn't taken them long to discover their first enemy then. He supposed that he shouldn't be that surprised, considering they were trapped inside the giant sphere most likely containing millions of them. Hanniman shuddered at that thought, expecting the lizard creatures to swarm out of the cracks in the ceiling and surround him at any moment.

  'How many of them are there?' he asked Darwin over the intercom, wondering what the man's next move would be.

  'There were six of them.' the Captain replied, already proceeding directly into the chamber.

  It slowly started to dawn on him what the silence had been. 'were six of them?'

  Darwin snorted. 'You couldn't tell, considering the amount of fight they put up. A truly pathetic bunch really.'

  So maybe the rumours did have an element of truth in them after all.

  'You shot them all in the seconds you spent not responding to me?' Hanniman asked, unable to keep a little incredulity out of his tone.

  'What do you think I am man? Some sort of buffoon? I shot them as I was talking to you.'

  It took a moment for him to register what Darwin had just told him. Had the Captain really been blasting the Voravians as he spoke about making contact with the enemy?

  'These new blaster models have a tendency to heat quickly, hopefully there won't be lizard scum in every chamber or my gloves will start to melt!' he let out a laugh at this and proceeded into the next chamber.

  Hanniman heard it briefly then, the blaster shots as they rang out. They must have been muffled by Darwin's conversation previously, this time his full attention was on his opposition.

  'There were eight more in that chamber, some of them were more alert having heard the previous blasts. I'm going to keep heading down this passageway and see where it leads.'

  He watched the small dot that represented the Captain continue to pass down the corridor, all pretence of stealth seemingly forgotten.

  'I must say Engineer, this whole stealth business is much easier than I was led into believing. Why I could get used to these more covert missions!'

  His chortling over the comm was cut short by the sound of a blaster flying very close to his person.

  'Hanniman!' came Darwin's strained voice over the static of nearby blaster fire. 'We may have a problem!'

  Hanniman smiled at his alarm. 'Captain, there are a number of things you have to know before we continue.'

  Chapter 24

  Goat! Pinball! Goop!

  RJ and Trigger on the other hand, knew the meaning of stealth. Having successfully navigated their way clear of the pit, they had managed to infiltrate the sphere without being seen. Their lack of blasters may have explained their decidedly more reticent approach.

  'So how exactly are we supposed to find our way back to the ship then?' Trigger asked for the fourth time, beginning to wear RJ's patience considerably.

  'For the last time, I don't know how we're going to get back to the ship. We've just got to keep moving and hope that some opportunity presents itself. For all we know the Voravians may have taken us hundreds of miles away from the vessel, what with the size of their floating space ball.'

  Clearly this did not offer Trigger the reassurance he was seeking, as the panicky little man continued to fidget by his side and leap at any shadow.

  RJ admitted that some degree of caution was certainly merited, but having a man who jumps at everything made it impossible to tell what they should really be jumping at. Like a pinball that kept trying to break out of the casing instead of heading toward the real threat of the paddles.

  'So we're just supposed to keep wandering and hope that we'll maybe come across our ship magically parked and waiting for us?' Trigger asked, his fear temporarily giving way to sarcasm.

  RJ stopped walking and rounded on him, causing the shorter man to launch himself afro-first into the ceiling of the low corridor they were passing through. 'Do you have a way out for us that you've yet to inform me of, Ensign?'

  'I don't know!' Ensign Hawkins wailed back at him, doing a very poor job of composing himself. 'I just want to get out of here. Is that so much to ask?'

  He waited for the inevitable stampede of lizards to come hurtling down the corridors and blast them into tiny pieces, but nothing happened. Where were the Voravians?

  RJ continued cautiously down the abandoned corridor and a few explanations came to mind. The lizard creatures could all be concentrated in an entirely different part of the ship, there could be far less of them spread out over the ship than he suspected, or something had distracted them...

  An muffled explosion sounded from nearby, causing the excitable Trigger to leap vertically once more and start high-tailing it in the opposite direction. A second explosion hit as RJ grabbed the man by his collar and prevented him from fleeing.

  'I reckon something is attacking those varmints or I'm a one-eyed goat.'

  Trigger nodded at him uncertainly. 'So why are we not high-tailing it out of here?'

  RJ smiled, the man was using his own language to appeal to his sense of self-preservation. 'Anyone that opposes the Voravians is a friend of ours.'

  'Anywhere there's giant explosions is a place I don't want to be!' Trigger countered, speaking so quickly that RJ barely understood him.

  'And anyone who has the weaponry to cause a giant explosion is far more likely to last against a Voravian attack when found than we are.'

  Trigger stopped trying to run now that the thought of increased protection had been put in his head. RJ offered him a comforting smile and strode on toward the direction of the noise, not looking back to see if the Ensign would follow. He knew that there would be nothing more terrifying to the man than being left alone in this giant space ship.

  They continued forward with s
ome urgency now, perhaps further realising their own unarmed state thanks to the weapons discharge and the proximity of the Voravians as a result of the fire fight.

  As they rounded a bend in the corridor the shooting became deafening, unless RJ was deeply mistaken that was a standard issue Star Command blaster making that noise.

  Captain Darwin ducked behind the bend and sent three more blaster shots at the Voravians. By Jove they were a snappy bunch! You'd think that he'd captured them by the anger they were displaying at his having the audacity to attack.

  Then two figures from behind came rushing up and he wheeled and trained his blaster upon them, eliciting a familiar shriek that was distinctly un-Voravian from one of them.

  'Cadet! Damn you! Don't sneak up on me like that!' he roared as he whirled and sent a few more blaster bolts in the direction of the pursuing ememies.

  'There's far more of these blighters than I anticipated, and they nearly got the better of me back there. We're going to have to retreat back to the ship.'

  RJ unclipped the plasma rifle from Darwin's back, and before the man could say a word he rapped out a combination of buttons and sent a beam soaring through the air and straight into the ceiling, collapsing it entirely.

  'Well, at least we have time to think of a way out of here on our way back to the ship!' Trigger said, teeth chattering in fear at having witnessed the explosive rifle again.

  Darwin eyed RJ with a mixture of anger and respect at the man's handling of the rifle.

  'A commendable shot and quick thinking, that man. Sadly I'm afraid that the way back to the ship was through the tunnel your friend just blasted.'

  Smith watched the black substance creep closer as Annika finally tore herself away from him and left, which she clearly should have done long before.

  There was a strange sense of finality as he watched her recede down the corridor and out of sight, he knew that was the last time he'd ever see anyone alive again.

  The black goop seemed to have a mind of its own, defying gravity by crawling up the sides of the walls it spilled out of as well as tugging itself across the floor of the cell.