Waiting (6 page)

Friar said, 'We
know you are more scientist than military, Jay Jay. But in my book
you've more than proved yourself as our leader and captain. If I do
become captain, it will be with deep regret at losing you three.
But if you aren't off that planet within forty-eight hours, I will
assume command, hopefully temporarily, and try to rescue you. That
being the case, if you are alive and stuck for whatever reason,
watch out for me and I'll be with you as soon as possible. Try to
set off an emergency flare to help me find you. Ok?'

Jacobs nodded
at Clifton.

'We understand,
Joe,' said Clifton. 'The signals breaking up completely. Time to
go.'

'Good luck,
Sam.'

'And to you
too, Joe. Over.'

'Over.'

The shuttle ate
up the miles across the void of space, Spero filling up the screen
with its swirling mass of dense clouds with the hundreds of
lightning flashes illuminating the way like a guiding beacon.
Clifton put them in orbit as Lee, back in her uniform, worked her
equipment. But even as they closed in on the planet, it became
abundantly clear that with every passing mile, they had little hope
of penetrating the fierce storm. Eventually it was decision
time.

'This is it,
Jay Jay,' said Clifton, pointing out the obvious. 'Is it even worth
our while orbiting?'

Jacobs looked
at Lee, still attempting to demand the impossible from her
equipment. 'Nothing, Anne?'

'Not a damn
thing, captain. But it is still worth a couple of orbits. Perhaps
we can find an area of lesser intensity and get our shuttle
through.'

'Fair enough,'
said Clifton. 'Here we go.'

Still outside
of Spero's atmosphere and the storm, Clifton put the shuttle into a
slow orbit. The intensity of the storm did indeed vary over the
surface of the planet, but even at the areas of comparative calm
still beat off all of Lee's attempts to penetrate it. A second
fruitless orbit had both Lee and Clifton staring at Jacobs for his
orders. Reluctantly the order came.

'Right. Get
fully suited and strapped in. Get ready for a very bumpy ride.'

They snapped on
their helmets and checked oxygen and pressure. Jacobs sat next to
Clifton and Lee took one of the three empty rear seats and they
buckled up.

'I'm heading
for the northern pole,' said Clifton. 'Slightly less storm
activity. As bad a place as any.'

Minutes later
they were above the northern pole, and if the storm activity was
indeed less, it was only marginally so. 'Ok. I'm going to turn off
anything we don't need to land, including the ships radio. They're
isolated systems. That should help protect them. The suits function
independently so they should be ok. Hold on tight, because here we
go.'

Clifton made a
target of the pole and the shuttle was racing towards it. Even
before they hit the outer atmosphere, the lights of the control
panels flashed, several extinguishing permanently. The very air
inside the shuttle seemed to become electro-statically charged,
crackling with energy. Then the shuttle began to shake, slightly at
first, then it intensified.

The screen
filled with the deadly storm, lightning like nothing encountered on
Earth raked the clouds of swirling yellows and whites. So thick was
the cloud cover, nothing of the planet's surface could be
discerned, not even the tallest peaks. The screen flickered and
went blank, the shuttle flying blind. Calm under pressure, Clifton
flicked on an auxiliary circuit and they had visuals again.

'Losing
directional control,' warned Clifton. 'The shuttle is fighting
itself to function. Turning off everything now. Hopefully the storm
will lessen as we approach the ground.'

It didn't. The
free-falling shuttle was buffeted as a small toy would be, gravity
doing the work of pulling the small vessel onwards. Down they went,
spinning uncontrollably, Lee and Jacobs hardly daring to open their
eyes, Clifton waiting for the slightest lull, ready to restart the
controls.

'I daren't
leave it too long,' said Clifton. 'I'll give it another ten
seconds, then I'll fire everything up.'

Clifton's
countdown was the longest ten seconds they had ever experienced. As
the shuttle was hammered by the storm, they were well aware that at
any moment, their plunging descent could end abruptly. As their
fingernails dug deeper into the arms of the seats, the shaking of
the shuttle reduced.

'I'll take that
for a good sign,' said Clifton, his fingers working the
controls.

The screen lit
up and through slightly thinner clouds they could make out the
range of ice covered mountains protruding through the northern
ice-cap.

'Thrusters not
responding,' said Clifton, unable to keep the anxiety from his
voice. 'Come on, damn you.'

The twin plasma
drives stuttered into play then died again. Then they had spasmodic
power and Clifton endeavoured to direct their flight.

'We're going to
hit that peak,' said Lee.

'Not if I can
help it,' said Clifton. 'Hang on.'

The icy black
peaks filled the screen and it seemed crashing into them was
inevitable. Clifton had other ideas and using a combination of
skill and willpower had the shuttle on a course level with the
ground, but still heading for a huge mountain peak. With seconds to
go before impact, the shuttle began to veer away, but the lightning
around them interfered with the manoeuvre. They skimmed over the
mountain with the slightest of margins, and they remembered to
breathe again.

'Heading south,
I think,' said Clifton.

The shuttle
seemed to have a life of its own, Clifton trying to coax obedience
from it with only partial success. Close to the undulating ground,
the cloud cover varied considerably and their visibility ranged
from zero to almost nothing. The shuttle headed towards the warmer
equator, in and out of the raging storms.

'I'm putting us
down while I still can,' said Clifton. 'Brace yourselves.' Clifton
searched desperately for any level ground, and after passing low
undulating valleys slowed the shuttle down. 'Preparing to
land.'

As Clifton
slowed the vessel down to almost a landing speed, they plunged into
heavy yellow clouds again and was struck by lightning which blacked
out the shuttle and down they went.

Chapter 16

'Remember. No
killing. Naylor. Are you listening to me?'

'Err, Yes sir,
Captain. Try not to kill them.'

Five-feet-four
Captain Bridget Loretti reached up and grabbed the straps of the
shoulder utility belt of six feet five Corporal Stan Naylor. 'I
mean it, corporal. We need these alive to screw info out of them.
They're worth more alive than dead, so no going in all lasers
blasting.'

'But we gotta
defend ourselves, captain.'

It was like
talking to a plank, thought Loretti. 'Sergeant Villiers. I'm
relying on you to stick with Naylor. Keep him on a short
leash.'

Sergeant
Natalie Villiers was almost as tall as Naylor, with the toughness
and experience to match. 'Yes, captain. Naylor. I will break
something of yours if you don't behave. Get me?'

'But what if I
wound one of them? They shoot at me, I'm entitled to defend
myself.'

Loretti said,
'Go for any of their limbs if you really have to. Hit anything
life-threatening and you'll find yourself in big trouble. Ok?'

A huge grin
spread across Naylor's face, apparently happy with what he
considered to be a reasonable compromise. So far he had a perfect
record of doing harm to the enemy and although he preferred clean
kills, slicing off legs and arms with lasers still counted.

'Ok, captain,
sir.'

Still doubtful
of Naylor, Loretti said, 'Ok. Mount up.'

In the
underbelly of the spider class fighter were five stingers, jet
propelled individual machines armed with missiles and twin lasers.
Loretti, Villiers and Naylor sat on one each, leaving her pilot Jan
Sparrow and two laser cannon shooters in charge of the ship.

Loretti said,
'Lieutenant Sparrow. Be ready to grab us out of here. You know what
to do. On three.'

On three, the
stingers dropped out of the bottom of the fighter. Their jets took
the highly manoeuvrable machines through the air away from the
fighter and towards the intended target. From the rooftop of the
seriously damaged building, a lone marksman was firing at them. The
distance was still too great for the sniper to hit the fast moving
targets, but Loretti, Villiers and Naylor took a zigzagging course
to make sure they weren't hit by fluky shots.

The marksman
was an expendable item so Sergeant Villiers fired her missiles at
the enemy hidden from sight. Her shots weren't expected to be
direct hits but to strike the building where he lay with the
intention of burying him in the rubble. Large fragments of concrete
and glass were blasted away and rained down on the war battered
streets below. A final shot from the marksman streaked high in the
sky as the falling masonry cascaded onto the man, a cloud of dust
signalling his death.

Loretti ignored
that and dipped her stinger low, only to find further laser power
lashing the sky towards her from two different directions on
different levels of the building. The spider's thermal imaging
sensors had already located the targets so Loretti knew exactly
where she had to go.

'Get in a line
behind me,' said Loretti. 'Give them less of a target.'

Villiers fell
in just a couple of yards behind her captain with Naylor lining up
precisely behind his sergeant. At two hundred miles per hour,
Loretti aimed for the huge darkened plate glass window, one of few
still intact, smashed it into a million pieces with a shot from her
lasers, showering those inside with the shards.

They
entered through the space where the window once
was, into the huge open-plan office space. A red laser shot missed
Loretti's head by a whisker, but caught Villiers stinger, sending
it and the sergeant crashing into a wall. Loretti and Naylor fired
warning shots at the barricade their enemy hid behind. Naylor
landed his stinger, dived off it and raced to Villiers, grabbing
her hand and dragging her away to the back of a steel and concrete
support pillar.

'Are you
ok?'

'I'll live.
Nice job, Naylor.'

Ignoring her
bruises, Villiers took up a kneeling position with both hands
around her laser but she had only a rough bearing on the enemy.
Bringing the roof down on them would be self-defeating as they
wanted them alive and it would also probably bury themselves, too.
She could see Loretti was also taking cover behind a similar pillar
and appeared to be unharmed. It was a stand-off with nobody going
anywhere.

'I could try a
stun grenade,' suggested Naylor taking one from his shoulder
utility belt.

'We're too
close to them. We'll be knocked out as well.'

Naylor said,
'Then we need to draw them out.'

'Good idea.
I'll ask them nicely shall I?'

Naylor
shrugged. 'It was just a suggestion.'

A laser rifle
shot struck the corner of the pillar above Villiers' head showering
dust over her. 'We have each other pinned down.'

'No shit,
sergeant.' Naylor returned a single shot at the barricade.

'And that
achieved what exactly?' asked Villiers.

'It made me
feel better.'

'Well do it
again. The captain wants to join us here.'

Loretti made a
running dive as several shots narrowly missed her, and she rolled
to the back of the pillar as Naylor distracted the enemy with a few
shots of his own.

'Enough,
corporal.'

'Yes, sir,'
said Naylor putting his weapon away.

Loretti said,
'We need these alive. Three of them if we got it right.'

'Plus four more
two floors above us,' said Villiers.

'Salamandra is
the man we want and he should be here with us on this floor behind
that rubble,' said Villiers. 'We established that from his D N A
profile on the ship's sensors. The others are just his personal
bodyguards. If we get all three, great, but concentrate on
Salamandra. '

'So how do we
winkle him out?' said Naylor.

Another shot
singed Loretti's thigh. 'Shit! I may just go over and drag the
bastard out. What the hell was that?'

The noise above
their heads shook what remained of the building.

'Hey,' said
Naylor. 'Don't look at me. I never moved a muscle.'

'There it goes
again,'said Villiers.

Now the noise
wasn't above them but closer to home. In the far corner of the huge
room to the side of the rubble shielded enemy, the door shattered
into a thousand pieces. A smoke grenade was dropped and the thick
fog obliterated everything.

'What the...?'
said Loretti.

Two indistinct
shapes, low to the floor, rolled over and laser rifles scattered
beams of death all around them. One shot his weapon through the
smoke above the barricade as the other wriggled his way to the
front, reached over the rubble, grabbed somebody and dragged him
over, dropping him heavily on the floor holding a weapon to his
head.

'Party-time
over. This one yours?'

'I'll sign for
the package,' said Loretti. She grabbed the hapless general by the
ears and smacked him solidly on the nose to render him unconscious.
'I'll open it later. And you are?'

'Lieutenant
Staples. The one pointing his rifle at our enemy is my good friend,
Sergeant Willis. Do we wipe them out?'

'Unnecessary,'
said Loretti. 'Those guards will do nothing as long as we have
Salamandra.'

'Nice to know.'
Staples got to his feet and slowly walked over to where Willis held
Salamandra's guards on their knees with their hands on their heads.
'You lot. I give you a choice. Stay here and play with us on our
terms, or go out minus your weapons into the big wide world and
take your chances.'