CHAPTER 9
CAPTIVE
Something wasn’t right. Robbie was certain that he had shut down Cranus when they left, but there were lights on in the bridge section. The faint glow coming from the observation dome was flickering as though someone was walking around carrying a flash light. He took the ship into a close hover above the mountain. Then suddenly, everything went blank. No mountain, no Cranus, no Moon.
*
‘Launch minus 4 hours 30 minutes and counting.’
The read-out on the giant clock at Kennedy Space Centre indicated to the flight crew that it was time to suit up and head out to launch pad 39A, where the newly commissioned shuttle, Olympia, was being prepared for blast-off. In the cargo bay was an experimental space capsule called Persius, designed to be launched from space. It had been constructed to serve as a maintenance vehicle, to remain in orbit at the International Space Station, where its two-man crew would carry out essential repairs on damaged satellites, thus eliminating the vast expense of leaving Earth’s atmosphere. The crew would live and work on the I.S.S. until one of the thousands of satellites that orbit the earth, required maintenance. If they required parts to fix the problem, these parts could be sent up to them in the regular, unmanned, supply rocket. With extra fuel tanks strapped to either side, it could travel to the moon, land and return to the space station. But the target for its maiden flight was not the moon, but the new asteroid that had mysteriously appeared in the night sky.
The normal five-man crew of the shuttle was boosted by the two astronauts who had been training to fly the capsule. Its first flight had been scheduled for the following January, but in view of recent events, they had brought it forward. Commander James Calham and his crew were helped into their suits and taken to the waiting van that would transport them to the launch pad.
“This is the stuff that I joined up for,” said Captain William ‘Flameout’ O’Connell.
He’d acquired the nick name ‘Flameout’ because of the unusually large number of times that he’d lost both engines whilst flying fighter jets. On every occasion, he’d stayed with the aircraft and managed to relight the engines and save the plane. In many ways he was the best fighter pilot that had ever lived, but he had a flair for finding trouble, whether in the cockpit, or in a bar. On one occasion, he broke formation and flew down the Grand Canyon at Mach 2. Witnesses had seen the sonic cone before they heard the roar of the F18. Ordinarily he would have been grounded for such a breach, but somehow he managed to retain his wings and live to fly another day. He was older and theoretically wiser than he had been in his early years. He’d calmed down significantly in the last few years because he had his sights set on space and there was no room for cowboys in the space programme. His dream came true when he was commissioned to test fly Persius and now, he was going into space sooner than expected.
“What do you reckon we’ll find up there?”
“A big rock,” answered his co-pilot Captain Bugsey “Pitcher” Buckhannon, in his deep, monotone voice. He had been named for his ability to down a whole pitcher of ale in five seconds. But that was years ago as a young man, he was a completely different person now; single minded and unable to suffer fools. He was not renowned for his conversational prowess and Flameout was really not looking forward to being stuck in a five metre by two metre capsule with him for several days.
When the shuttle reached its orbit, the capsule would be released from the cargo bay and with the use of thrusters would move to a safe distance from the shuttle and fire its own boosters. It would make a single orbit of the earth using the slingshot to increase its speed and be fired out towards the Moonaki, as it had been named by the crew. On approaching the body, they would fire retro rockets, slow to a speed matching that of the rock and land on the surface. They would then take samples and, using what was left of their fuel, blast off and return to the waiting shuttle.
The duration of the mission was expected to be five days.
‘Lift off minus 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2...1... We have main engine ignition...We have lift off...Olympia has cleared the tower.’
The crew of the shuttle gripped the armrests as the shuttle accelerated away from Earth. Flameout couldn’t believe the level of noise and vibration. How the hell can this bird remain in one piece? he thought, as did everyone on their first hair-raising ride out of the atmosphere. No amount of simulator training could prepare them for the actual experience. This was the first NASA launch that had warranted full television coverage for many years. The attention span of the general public being similar to that of a cod, meant that each successive shuttle launch received exponentially fewer viewers than the last. But this shuttle was very different in design. It was fifty percent larger than Atlantis and Discovery, and therefore sported considerably larger engines. The shuttle itself had only the merest hint of wing surface along the length of the fuselage. This was to reduce drag on launch. The wings would be unfolded from within the underside of the craft for re-entry.
The ground shook for miles around as the solid rocket boosters and the shuttle’s own rockets laboured to haul the two thousand five hundred tons of vehicle and fuel away from the launch pad. Nine minutes later, the shuttle was in orbit and the crew were busying themselves with preparations to launch the capsule.
*
The launch had not gone unnoticed. The Throgloid captain was watching this feeble attempt at space travel.
“If it comes this way, destroy it,” he gurgled.
He was on his way down to the hanger bay to drool over his newly acquired trophy. He snarled to himself in a Throgloid version of a chuckle as he recounted the clever plan that had brought them to this barren moon orbiting the ugly blue and green planet. When the Throgloid fleet had fled Cranus, the Captain returned under cover of sensor block that only worked at sub-light speeds because of the energy that it required. He’d clamped the ship to the underside of Cranus and hitched a lift to the earth system. As they passed the sun, he uncoupled from Cranus and drifted through space monitoring Cranus’ path. When the little ship left the moon for the blue planet he was rather confused. The ugly creature was obviously one of the inhabitants of the planet, but following a survey of the world, monitoring many forms of communication, he concluded that the two ships of his desire had not been built by these imbeciles. But when Cranus belonged to him, he was looking forward to going down there and having some fun with them. Maybe he could add the skull of their leader to his collection. He watched the little ship leave the moon and enter the atmosphere of the planet, fired up his engines and headed for the moon. He formulated a plan of action; to enter the great ship and steal it before the ugly creature returned. His attack group had entered the huge ship using a liberal amount of brute force and a not-inconsiderable level of ignorance. They then located the bridge. But all their efforts to make any of the mystifying equipment come to life had been in vain. It appeared that they would require the ugly creature. So Grrghracksh headed back into space to prepare a trap. When the small craft appeared, he approached it under cover of the sensor block with the hangar bay doors open, and swallowed it whole.
The Throgloid Captain approached the hangar bay door and it slid open. There in front of him was the greatest triumph of his career and his career had indeed been long and illustrious. He was the most decorated captain in the fleet and last year he’d broken the record for slaughter to consumption, previously held by Gorgaff the Kicker. Just wait until they saw what he was about to bring back to the home world. His name would be entered onto the Tower of Invincibles for all of eternity. All he had to do was defeat the small but unbelievably powerful ugly being and work out how to get the gurking thing started. The secret, and maybe even the ugly creature itself, lay inside the little ship over which he was now drawling. It was suspended above the floor by a web of Taglar chains driven into the hull. Robbie discovered that these chains were sealed at the molecular level, making them the strongest substance he'd ever encountered. The Captain walked under the ship, running his hand down the smooth surface as he went. He brought his other fist up against the hull with such force that the chains wobbled and Pardy nearly fell off her perch.
“Come out now and I will make your death an honourable one.” he gurgled.
This was turning into a very bad day, thought Pardy. She wanted to be home with a bucket of buttered seeds and a preening tongue. But she felt sure that somehow, Oli would come to the rescue. How he was going to get to the moon without a ship, she hadn’t yet worked out.
Commander Grrghracksh raised himself a few more centimetres by standing on the tips of his enormous feet and placed his ear to the hull. The next memory that he had, was waking up on the floor with two members of the crew staring at him in a; if he’s dead I want the shoulder kind of way. The shoulder was known to be the best part of a Throgloid, and was considered a delicacy usually reserved for family members or victors and the two crew members were both drawling, in a most unattractive manner at the thought. He leaped to his feet, pushing the two expectant Throgloids away with such power that one of them flew through the air, ending his impromptu journey bent double on one of the Taglar chains. He flopped limply to the floor and the other unlucky fellow picked himself out of the Throgloid-shaped indentation in the bulkhead, making a hasty exit.
Robbie had sent a localised electric current right into the captain’s ear. This would have killed most creatures, but fortunately for the Captain, a Throgloid’s brain is not situated in his head, it’s kept out of harm’s way in the middle of the torso.
Captain Grrghracksh ordered charges to be placed in the middle of the roof. He was going to get into this ship if he had to destroy it in the process. The main prize after all, was the big ship sitting on the moon below. They positioned a stepladder against the side of the ship and the lucky crew member who had been picked for the assignment tentatively climbed to the roof of the ship. He had two explosive charges in his right hand, leaving him the other to climb the ladder. Gingerly, he stepped onto the roof of the ship.
“Put them in the middle,” ordered the Captain, pointing towards the centre of the ship.
The crewmember took one step then suddenly started tap dancing across the top of the ship as Robbie hit him with a bolt of electricity every time his foot hit the hull. He dropped the explosives and the Captain heard their painful trundle as they rolled along the top of the ship, straight over the front, before crashing to the floor. Everyone in the hangar followed their journey till they came to rest against the sidewall. They were all well aware of the instability properties of Throgloid explosives. There was a general sigh of relief around the room. The unfortunate dancing Throgloid pirouetted his way along the length of the ship, producing a sorrowful wailing sound every time his foot contacted the hull. When he reached the front, he flew straight off the end landing in a heap on the hangar bay floor. He probably would have survived the fall with just a few minor bruises. What did for him was the inevitable full-force kick from the Captain, which sent him flying across the hangar, finally slamming him into the wall. He was scooped up by two Throgloids, who carried him to the already overstretched medical centre.
For the next attempt, they attached a harness around the waist of another ‘willing’ volunteer and swung him from a crane over the top of the ship. As he arrived at the centre, clutching the charges in one hand, Robbie directed a highly localise beam of Matter Transform, which cut clean through the rope. The Throgloid slammed down onto the ship where a couple of thousand amps of current awaited his arrival. Following another great performance of a Throgloid River Dance, he landed with a thud on the hangar floor. As his eyes began to focus, he turned his head to realise that he had landed squarely at the feet of the captain who showed his displeasure with a size seventeen to the head.
Finally, they did away with the living element and lowered the explosives onto the ship with the crane and some Taglar chains. The captain roared and everyone evacuated the hangar. He pressed the remote detonation button and the hangar walls shook violently with the deafening explosion. He held up his hand, ordering the eager Throgloids to let him enter first. He wanted to bathe in the glory of his victory. The door opened and he took one step into the smoke-filled room to inspect the damage. He half expected to be greeted by the ugly creature and so he was cradling one of the stolen pulse rifles from Cranus, ready to fire. The smoke was dense and he could barely make out the shape of the ship. With the pulse rifle at his shoulder and a fat finger resting on the trigger, he moved across the hangar. He stepped onto a lifting platform and raised it a few metres from the hangar floor. He was aiming the gun at the roof of the ship, expecting to see a choking alien emerge from the gaping hole, but as the smoke cleared he felt a welling of anger inside him, the like of which he hadn’t felt since his first wedding night.
A Throgloid wedding was slightly unusual, in that instead of marrying for love, they would marry for hate. If a Throgloid warrior hated another warrior to such a level that killing him would not suffice and the eradication of his genetic line was the only way to achieve fulfilment, he would marry him. At the wedding ceremony, all of the members of each family would be present and when the two warriors were joined in an extremely unholy matrimony, the males would proceed to kick every shade out of each other. No weapons were allowed at the ceremony and the fights sometimes lasted for many hours, until all the males of one family were dead. Then the victors would claim the females of the dead as their own. This usually led to a punch up between the remaining males of the victorious family. There were no written rules for this second skirmish, so weapons were permitted and it was usually over pretty quickly.
As the Captain looked up from the black, totally unmarked hull of the little ship, his anger welled up inside him like a volcano straining to burst its cap. Instead of blowing a hole in the ship, the explosion had been directed upwards and had blasted a four metre wide hole in the ceiling of the hangar. As though that wasn’t bad enough, situated directly above the hangar, was the Captain’s room. He watched in dismay as the last of his priceless collection of Throgloid warrior skulls wobbled a few times and then toppled off the smashed display unit, bounced twice across the roof of the ship and exploded into a thousand pieces on the hangar floor below.
It had taken the Captain all of his adult life to collect his trophies. They represented his entire worth, his reason for living and they were all gone. He let out a blood-curdling howl that rattled the sides of the cupboard in which Pardy was hiding.
“Are they inside?” she asked in a fit of panic.
“No,” said Robbie, “They’re finding me to be rather a tough nut to crack.”
The Captain jumped down from the platform and ran out of the hangar to find the gump who had planted the charges, but he was long since gone. He’d found the nearest airlock and released himself into space. It was definitely the less painful option. Captain Grrghracksh raised the pulse rifle to his waist and pointed it at the ship. He didn’t know what this weapon would do, but it certainly looked like it could pack a punch. In his fit of rage, he had turned the power meter to full and he was now prepared to destroy the ship rather than allow it to ridicule him further. Robbie was willing him to pull the trigger. He would be able to deflect the pulse into the heart of the Throgloid ship and when it exploded he would be left floating in space…In theory. But the captain was a strange one. Most Throgloids of old would have not hesitated, but he seemed to be in possession of slightly greater mental prowess than the average Throgloid. He lowered the weapon and stormed out of the hangar.
*
The music was pumping in the club. Oli and the crew were just getting into the mood when Roberta tapped Oli on the shoulder.
“What's up?” he shouted.
Roberta made a strange gesture across her mouth whilst shaking her head, and Oli took that to mean I can't talk here. So he gesticulated for her to follow him out to a quiet area. They reached the chill-out part of the club and had to step across the minefield of bodies and beer bottles spread about the floor to reach an uninhabited section.
“What's up?” he repeated. But she just made the same gesture.
“Okay,” he said. “If you can't speak for whatever reason, tell me with your hands. You know Charades?”
She took Oli to the corner of the room and turned her back on all the people, not that they would have noticed even if a purple pig wearing a pink tutu happened to be dancing in the middle of the room. She held her hand out and it morphed into the shape of the little ship.
“The ship!” shouted Oli, impressed that he'd guessed it with such ease. He was never very good at Charades and would usually get bored long before the game ended. Then Roberta crossed her hands palm down and moved them outwards several times whilst shaking her head.
“Ah...It's not a ship?” he queried.
She held up the ship replica again.
“Yes,” said Oli, “I got that bit. The ship.”
Then Roberta pointed to her ear and shook her head.
“You can't hear the ship? You can't hear the ship!” he reiterated. “What does that mean? Where is it?”
She held out her hands as though to say, your guess is as good as mine.
Oli realised that without a connection to the ship, the drone was unable to talk, because it was Robbie’s voice coming from her. The drone didn’t actually possess the power of speech. Roberta made a gesture of writing on her hand. Oli understood that she wanted a pen and paper to aid communication. So they headed back to the dance floor to find Sara. She never went anywhere without her sketchpad, even in a club. It always amused Oli; where did she keep it in that skimpy little outfit? He shouted to the crew to follow him outside, to an area where they could talk freely and two minutes later they were all on the busy London street outside the club.
“What's up?” enquired Ed.
Oli explained the problem and handed the sketchpad to Roberta, who scratched away for about one second and handed it back to Oli.
He read out loud. “The Throgloids are back! They have the little ship captive on board their vessel. Robbie has been in contact using a very basic radio carrier wave. The Throgloids are blocking everything else. We need to get to Cranus and set up a connection that will allow Robbie to control it from the little ship. You of course, will need to give the voice command and then we can finish what we started a few days ago.”
“You wrote all of that in less than a second,” said Oli, focusing once again on completely the wrong topic. Roberta gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, scribbled something else for a second or two, and then handed it to Oli. Oli scrutinised the image on the page, turning it through ninety degrees whilst simultaneously tilting his head, before finally realising that the word ‘YES’, cunningly emerged from a complex design of leaves and flowers.
“Now you’re just showing off,” said Oli, smirking at the drone.
“There’s only one small problem,” said Oli, not wanting to seem unduly negative. “Cranus is on the moon and we are in London.” Roberta grabbed the pad out of Oli’s hand and wrote again.
“I have a plan. We need to find somewhere secluded. I'll explain on the way.”
They walked along the street, searching for an empty building. Finally after scouring three side streets and one dead end they found an old derelict warehouse. The large, double wooden doors, had a huge padlock and chain securing them. Oli, forgetting for a second who was standing next to him, picked up the padlock, uttered a sigh and started looking around for another place in which to hide. Roberta cupped the padlock in her delicate hand, gave it a little squeeze and it disintegrated. The crew all looked at each other with one silent, unified thought. The door swung open to reveal an empty shell of a building. There were old wooden boxes, smashed glass from all the broken windows, newspapers and a smell that was reminiscent of a city tower block elevator.
“Right, what’s the plan?” asked Oli. Roberta wrote in the pad that the micro-drones making up the figure of Roberta, fortunately nearly all three million could assume any shape they wanted. They would be able to make a single-seat pod transport. Each of the drones was fitted with a micro Graviton Generator, allowing it to fly around the ship to carry out essential repairs. If they combined the power of one million of these Generators, they should be able to reach the moon in about six hours. Robbie would have to stall the Captain until they reached Cranus.
“Sorry guys,” said Oli. “It looks like I'm gonna have to do this one alone.”
Roberta was already starting to change shape. Firstly, she lost all her colour, the red shoes, the mini skirt and crop top and when she was a blank humanoid form, the legs began to dissolve into a puddle on the floor. As more of the body sank downwards, the puddle began to form a bowl shape around the remaining torso and head. The pod that slowly formed was about the size of a motorcycle sidecar with a pointed nose and tapered back end. Roberta’s upper torso sank into the pod and Oli peered in to see it forming a seat and to his delight, two control joysticks similar to the ones on the ship. Four stubby legs appeared from the sides of the pod and lifted it a couple of centimetres off the floor.
Oli was just about to place his right foot into the pod when he stopped.
“Hold on a minute,” he said, speaking into the open pod, “I’ve got a better idea. You know that Mini-Mal surf board leaning against the wall of our flat?”
He assumed the drones had heard and understood. “Well,” he continued, but the pod was already flattening itself into the shape of a board. When it was finished, the board hovered a few centimetres above the ground. There was a small joystick control connected to the board by a length of cable. Oli picked it up and stepped on. He positioned his feet to get a feel for the balance, and then hopped off again. He went round the crew, giving them all big Oli hugs. There were a few tears so he reassured them that he would be fine and said he’d call them all as soon as it was over. He gave the Go-ring a tap and hopped back onto the board which felt as solid as a rock. He waved a final farewell to the crew.
There were no navigation instruments, but the moon was a big enough target to aim for. Oli gave the throttle stick a gentle prod, and the surf board shot forward. The control was a little bit more sensitive than Oli had anticipated, and they shot straight through the brick wall at the end of the warehouse. The explosion of bricks and dust fell away from the board and Oli looked over his shoulder at the crumbling wall, with his four friends gathering in the new opening, shaking their heads and laughing.
“Oops!”
They were hurtling along the narrow backstreet, straight towards a very posh looking furniture shop. He didn't fancy having to explain the destruction of a shop front to its owners, so he lent forward as though he were digging the right hand rail of the board into an imaginary wave. At the same time he put more weight on his rear foot pushing the back of the board down. The board lifted its nose and carved a right hand turn through the air, clearing the roof of the building. He pushed the throttle all the way forward and they shot straight up. He let out a massive ‘yee-ha!’ as London became nothing more than a bright splodge on the landscape. At a height of thirty five thousand feet, they narrowly avoided an AWACS aircraft that had been circling London all night, searching for any sign of the alien craft.
“What was that?” asked the pilot.
“It looked like a youth on a surf board sir,” answered the Second-in-Command. No report was filed.
“Oops,” said Oli, as he fought every urge within him to carve into the wake of the military aircraft and ride the massive wing as it cut through the air. They cleared the atmosphere and entered space. A most odd feeling thought Oli, as he turned the board to follow the surface of the earth. They crossed the North Sea, flew over Scandinavia and into Russia. Eventually, the new moon rose above the horizon. They continued for a few seconds and the old moon majestically slid into view. They left Earth orbit and he pointed the nose at the target. The micro-drones were creating a distortion field around the board to scramble any detection by the Throgloids. They didn’t really need to do that, as the Throgloids were far too busy trying to break into the little ship to have noticed a surfboard careering towards them.
*
“Doctor Branith,” called George, the Radar Operator at the UFO Investigation Department. “I’ve got something on my screen that I think you should take a look at.”
Doctor Branith placed his cup of extra strong black coffee, his staple diet for the last week, on his desk. He pushed the photograph of the black space ship to one side and walked across the technology-packed room to the radar section.
“What is it?” he asked. An unmistakable air of complacency in his voice. Was this going to be yet another meteorite burning up on entry, or maybe a weather balloon entering the very limit of the Earth’s Stratosphere? George played back the recording of a small object moving across the sky at great speed, and Doctor Branith immediately dismissed it as a meteorite.
“I don’t think so,” said George, “mainly because it’s leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and accelerating.”
George explained to his boss that he had started tracking the object over London, it headed out over the North Sea and as it left the atmosphere it accelerated to One hundred thousand kilometres per hour. At that point, he explained rather sheepishly that he had lost contact with the object.
“Was it the ship?” asked Doctor Branith, a newfound animation in his voice.
“No Doctor,” replied George, “the object was only about two metres in length with a mass of about two hundred kilos.”
Doctor Branith immediately ordered the radar scan of space around the Earth to begin. The recently launched RadarX satellite was launched by the European Space Agency to accurately map the trajectories of all the space junk orbiting the planet. It was easily turned around to point away from the earth to scan the void of space. It had taken Doctor Branith a long time and many favours, but he had acquired temporary, free access to the satellite. They began the sweep from the last known position of the object and worked outwards. After just a few minutes, a tiny blip appeared on the screen, heading towards the moon.
“That’s it,” cried Doctor Branith pointing excitedly at the screen. “Now don’t lose it! I want to know where it goes and when it returns.”
He strode back to his desk, looked down at the photo and allowed himself a wry smile.
*
Commander Grrghracksh had ordered a hole to be drilled in the side of the ship so that they could pump poisonous gas into it. Unfortunately, each time the drill tip touched the hull, Robbie sent a highly localised electrical charge to that tiny point. They’d melted four drills and fried four Throgloids before the Captain changed the drill bits for non-conductive material. The drill bit bored its way into the hull and within a few minutes it was breached. The drill was quickly removed and they prepared to insert a hose into the hole. Robbie was a bit short on micro-drones once again, having used most of them to construct Roberta. He had managed to construct a few hundred during his captivity, but this amounted to fighting a rhino with a fly swat. He sent the drones to the hole. They worked quickly, and by the time the hose crew reached the hole, it was no longer there.
“Drill again!” shouted the Captain, ordering another drill team to work on the other side of the hull. He’s a clever one this Captain, thought Robbie. It was almost as though he knew that they were short of micro-drones. As the two holes appeared in the hull, the drones worked frantically to repair one, but they unfortunately couldn’t get to the other one before the hose was inserted and Cargium gas began to pour into the ship.
Cargium had been developed in the last great conflict on Throwgus and had played a great hand in the eventual victory of the Gagmazi tribe. It attacked the central nervous system of any living creature and induced paralysis within ten seconds. It could be absorbed through the skin or lungs, and would even find its way in through a germ warfare suit. The gas was an intelligent virus, and any that had failed to locate a target within ten minutes would self-destruct. Those that found a victim would remain active in the victim’s body until the deliverers of the virus dealt with the unlucky recipient. The victors would enter the area where the paralysed but fully conscious enemies were waiting for the touch of a Grax. Unfortunately, they’d made the virus a little too intelligent and it got to thinking why should I do my job and then top myself? So, on one delivery of the virus, the attackers were greeted by the same fate as the enemy. That particular piece of land was still under quarantine, and the Throgloid warriors from both sides were still lying there waiting for the relief of death. The decent thing would have been to drop a few bombs on them, but th