March: A Tale of Salmon and Swedes (The Glothic Tales Book 4) (4 page)

Hold On Tight

‘Welcome aboard,’ the pilot said, as March entered the shuttle through the small hatch and had to bend himself almost in half to make his awkward entry, and then retrieve his small sack from outside.

‘Um, yes, thanks,’ March replied, clearly a little uneasy, as he accepted the pilot’s firm handshake. The headroom inside didn’t allow either man to stand upright, so they both stooped as they made their introductions. The inside of the shuttle was spartan at best, with its bare metal panels riveted together with no thought for design aesthetics, or comfort. Six seats, which were also made of hard metal, sat in two lines of three down the small cabin.

‘I’m Lieutenant Slicketty Clikk.’

‘March Gregorian. Um, you’re Lacertilian then?’ March asked quite needlessly, as he had immediately noticed the pilot’s ever so slightly pale green complexion and his forked red tongue, which was licking rapidly, and habitually, at his lips.

‘Yes I am. Is that a problem, sir?’

‘Oh no. Sorry for being so forward. No, on the contrary, I’m very, um, no, extremely reassured by the fact.’

‘Well, I’m sorry that it’s such an uncomfortable little vessel after your journey on a Glothic Cosmic Cruiser, but I’ll try to make our short trip as smooth as possible.’

‘Have you made this trip before?’

‘Three times, sir.’

‘And you’re still alive, so that’s a relief.’

‘I think we should take our seats and strap in, sir. You can sit next to me up front if you wish to enjoy the forward view.’

‘Enjoy? I’m not so sure, but yes,’ March said, as he followed Clikk to their seats. As they sat down, and Clikk helped him fit and lock his full body harness, March was surprised by the extremely modest instrumentation in front of the pilot’s seat and the fact that there was only a very crude and basic joystick rising from the floor, between the pilot’s legs. ‘You don’t get many buttons to play with, I see.’

‘Oh, you mean the dashboard,’ Clikk answered, as he understood what March was referring to. ‘I only have to make a few minor alterations during our flight, as the craft is controlled in the most part by my Flight Commander from the Hoog’s flight deck.’

‘Right. And is he Lacertilian?’

‘Yes sir, he is.’

March gave Clikk a satisfied, yet nervous smile, and then it disappeared quite quickly as he felt the shuttle moving in sudden jerks.

‘We’re being craned into the missile launcher. It should only take a few minutes,’ Clikk said, as he thumbed through a small black book, which March hoped was his flight plan and not a divine text for prayerful luck. When Clikk looked up from the book, and adjusted a setting on the rudimentary dashboard, March felt relieved. He much preferred to put his life in the hands of someone who used good judgement rather than one who relied on spiritual luck, when being fired from a Hoog destroyer’s missile launcher and shot into space at half the speed of light, right on the tail fire of an extremely nasty ballistic missile. ‘There’s a helmet on your right. Best put it on and fix the visor down to protect your eyes.’

‘From what?’ March asked, as he complied and started to slip the helmet on, while their shuttle was lowered into the eerie darkness of the Hoog’s missile launch chamber.

‘From the flare the missile will create when it opens a gateway into the force field. It will be only a short distance in front of us, so it’s necessary to be protected,’ Clikk said, as he fitted his own helmet.

‘Have you been to Earth?’ March asked.

‘No, well, except for my three fly-over missions to drop off and pick up passengers. You seem a little apprehensive.’

‘Yes, I am a bit, but mostly about the getting there, rather than the being there.’

‘Don’t worry. Once we’re through the force field, it’s all plain sailing after that and then a simple matter of getting you down in the right place.’

‘And where is that exactly?’ March asked, and then tensed as he felt the shuttle shudder violently and heard a loud scraping noise.

‘Don’t worry. That was just our shuttle being attached to the launch vehicle.

‘A missile?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’

‘My mission plan is to teleport you down as close as possible to coordinates, latitude 51.513047, and longitude 0.165457, at oh three hundred hours.

‘And that is where exactly?’

‘I have no information other than the coordinates. Sorry.’

‘I understand,’ March said, although he didn’t really, but decided to sit as quietly as he could, seeing that Clikk was concentrating on his instruments and black book, as his red tongue licked nervously at his lips with greater frequency. If they survived the entry through the force field, there would be time to worry about other minor details, such as where he was actually going, later.

‘Two minutes to launch,’ Clikk said, as March watched the bay door open in the distance in front of them, giving a view of a few stars twinkling beyond. ‘Launch is quite a jolt, so hold on tight to the hand grips on your seat and push your feet as hard as possible against the foot rests in front of you.

‘Does it help?’

‘A bit,’ Clikk replied, as he carefully put his black book into a compartment in his seat arm, closed the metal cover, and then began bracing himself for launch. ‘One minute to launch.’

March could hear the faint crackle of a voice coming from Clikk’s helmet, as he pushed a little harder with his feet and tightened his grip with his hands.

‘Thirty seconds,’ Clikk shouted, as a very loud whining noise started to hurt March’s ears, and a huge thud rumbled through the tiny frame of the shuttle.

‘Copy,’ March heard Clikk say in reply to something that was probably important, but only for Clikk’s ears, and then he swallowed hard on a surprise torrent of bile that decided this was an appropriate time to launch itself up into the back of his throat. The shuttle vibrated violently, first from side to side, and then from back to front. March pushed his feet even harder against the footrests, and dug his fingers into the armrest to steady his body, but it didn’t help at all in settling his stomach, which was now in the throws of performing nauseating somersaults.

An enormously loud, ear drum bursting boom accompanied the feeling March had that his face was being torn off and repositioned on the back of his neck, and that his stomach was exiting his body through his back. He had no time to enjoy the launch and the breath taking view it offered in front of him of Earth, and the moonrise near its northern pole. He only had the time to stop breathing and close his eyes.

He was about to open his eyes, as an eerie silence suddenly fell, and his stomach started inching back into his abdomen from somewhere beyond his spine, but when he heard Clikk shout, ‘hold on again!’ his eyes decided to stay firmly shut, and his stomach abandoned its return mission.

This explosion was much louder than the one that felt as if it had burst his eardrums on launch just a few moments before, and even with his eyes firmly shut, the sudden flash of light seared through his visor and eyelids. He wondered if it had in fact burned off his eyelids. Before he could think further about that, a thunderous jolt had his face once again feeling as if it was being torn off, and this time being sent all the way to the back of the shuttle. He couldn’t feel his feet against anything, and in fact decided he couldn’t feel anything at all – other than terrified.

No sooner had March made this decision on what he couldn’t feel, there was, as suddenly as the booms, explosions and blinding flashes had happened – silence and a floating feeling. Perhaps the kind of peaceful, drifting quietness one would associate with one’s own recent passing. As his eyes flickered, he caught the sight of Clikk’s face, and of his mouth moving, yet there were no words he could hear, only buzzing. He blinked again, trying to focus on Clikk’s face, which was wandering to and fro, around and around, and then bobbing up and down.

March tried to concentrate. He shook his head, blinked some more, and with this, Clikk’s head started to hold more firmly between his shoulders, as his mouth opened and closed.

‘We’re in orbit,’ Clikk said, but March was still trying to get his ears to work, so he didn’t hear this reassuring message. He tried to say, ‘sorry, I can’t hear you,’ but as he couldn’t hear what he had said either, he went back to blinking and shaking his head in the vain hope that it might help.

‘You’ll feel better in a minute. The G forces play a few tricks on your body.’

At least March’s eyes were starting to work again, so even though Clikk’s words were still impossible for him to decipher, his reassuring smile, and the licking of his lips helped soothe a little of the panic. March blinked some more, waited a minute or two, and then managed to focus on Clikk, who was adjusting something on the dashboard.

‘The flight on the Glothic Cosmic Cruiser was more comfortable,’ March said, and was quite surprised to hear his own voice again.

‘Yes, I’m sure it was. You can take your helmet off now, and unbuckle your harness. It will be smooth flying from here on.’

March struggled, but finally managed to get his helmet and harness off. ‘Isn’t there an easier way? I’ve been to lots of planets, moons and even asteroids, but never had to take a flight like that.’

‘It’s the force field. When it was installed, it was probably state of the art, but it hasn’t been upgraded for thousands of years, so it’s one of the very old fixed versions. It’s still effective in keeping things either in or out though, but they weren’t designed for exit or entry, so the only way in or out is to blast a hole in it, and then squeeze a tiny craft through the temporary opening. Newer force fields have two polar gates that are remotely controlled entry points and can be opened to accommodate a craft the size of ten Hoog battleships.’

‘Maybe I should talk to my father about upgrading it then.’

‘I’ll leave that to you, sir. For me, it’s a little challenge once in a while to practise my basic flying skills, so I don’t mind.’

‘But not too often I would imagine.’

‘Ah, yes, not too often though.’

‘Can I stand up and stretch my legs?’ March asked, as he was feeling a little bit better.

‘Sure. I’ll finish up here getting locked into orbit and then make a cup of coffee in a few minutes, if you like.’

‘Thanks, yes,’ March said, but when he stood and looked around the bare cabin of the shuttle, he couldn’t see anything that looked like a kettle.

*****

When safely in orbit, Clikk rose from his seat and walked in a crouch towards March, and then reached under the rear seat on the left, pulling out a green plastic pack. ‘Instant, I’m afraid,’ he said, as he opened the pack and handed March a plastic sachet. ‘Pull the white tab, and it will heat. Then tear off the perforated top corner.’ March copied Clikk as he prepared his sachet, and felt it warming in his hand after pulling off the white tab. ‘I hope you like milk and one sugar, as that’s all it comes in.’

‘Um, fine,’ March said, as he struggled to tear off the perforated tab, but then succeeded and only split a little in the process. He sucked on the small opening, and winced in surprise when the coffee burned his mouth.

‘Have you been teleported before?’ Clikk asked, as he sat down on the rear seat, which was more comfortable than standing stooped over in rear corner of the shuttle.

‘Eh, no.’ March replied, and sat in the seat opposite.

‘It’s not very sophisticated. When I first joined Glothic High Command as a trainee, I had the notion that being teleported was going to be a technical marvel. You know, being dematerialised, and then re-materialised at some distant point in the galaxy. But my first experience shattered my dreams,’ Clikk said, with a little laugh.

‘So, how does it work?’

‘It’s primitive really. It’s simply a hollow, dark laser beam, which can only operate up to a range of a little over two hundred metres. You just get in it, and well, fall, and plop out at the bottom.’

‘And to get back?’

‘Vacuum.’

‘What, sucked back up?’

‘Yes. I must say that in some areas, technology is not making great leaps forward. But then again, there is little use for teleporting, except for missions like this one, so I suppose no one is doing any research into it.’

‘It’s not really teleporting then, is it?’

‘Probably an exaggeration, yes.’

‘So you have to get the shuttle very close to where you’re going to, um, drop me. That might attract a few spectators.’

‘Luckily, our cloaking technology is far better than the teleport, especially at night, so the shuttle will be totally invisible to the naked eye and also to the very basic aircraft detection systems they have on Earth.’

‘What do they use?’

‘Radar.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘It’s a system that uses radio waves that bounce off solid objects.’

‘I’ve never heard of radio waves either, so it must be prehistoric technology.’

‘It is. In any case, our shuttle absorbs all types of modulation, electronic waves and radiation, so unluckily for humans, their radio waves don’t get to bounce off our little craft.’

March pulled his THE from his pocket and entered,
Radar
. He glanced at the images and quickly read the introduction. ‘It’s absolutely archaic technology.’