Chapter 7 - Aftermath
By Alden Bates
The Nosferatu II spun as it entered the planet's atmosphere, metal
spars cutting through the cloud layer. A mistimed retro fired,
knocking it into further gyrations.
Rock spires jutted out of the mists blanketing the planet
surface; jagged teeth waiting to bite into the ship's hull.
The forward pylon sheared off on an outcrop. The ship shook
under the blow, then crumpled as it hit the ground. The mesa it
crashed onto was more or less solid rock, peppered with spiky
protrusions. The Nosferatu slid along the ground, creating a furrow
in front of it.
Finally it wedged between two protrusions. The mist swirled
back around it, and everything was still...
Rakaar attempted to sit up, bashed his head against the console he
was under, and swore loudly.
"Is argh!" Krimda shouted indistinctly from somewhere. "Is
Reklonian lowering the lofty tone again?"
"Since, at the current point in time, said lofty tone includes
half the bridge being caved in, yes," said Rakaar.
"We's run aground, mateys!" Grinker was offering a hand to Mel
and a hook to Chris, both of whom were just getting past the shock
of having hit a solid object at some speed and were approaching
the what-do-we-do-now? stage.
"Is everyone all right?" Mel asked. "What about Thella?"
Rakaar busied himself at the readouts which were working and
broadcast a message across the ship for all crew members to report
in. Naturally all of the Sloathes were OK. Being largely fluid
anyway, a mere buffeting and impact did not concern them. A trip
to the medical bay revealed that one or two of the Pakhars had
sprained limbs, and a Martian had cracked her armour, but otherwise
they'd been incredibly lucky.
"Which is more than I can say for the Nosferatu II!" Mel added.
Eltave was fussing about the bay, pausing to apply a pressure pad to
her arm.
Chris was sitting sadly beside Thella's bed. The young woman
was breathing easily, obviously a lot better than when they found
her.
"Is big sleep thing," interposed Eltave on hir way past. "Coma,
wotchacall."
"How is she?"
"Let's see," Eltave exuded a tentacle from behind hir upper ear
and swiveled the medmonitor. "Dem bones is fixing nicely. Blood
stick in thing -"
"Transfusion," Chris corrected.
"- transflusion go round and round and round and round and -"
Eltave caught hirself. "- round in arteries no problem. Body
organs starting working and stuff. Is getting better, happy days,
yes?"
"Good," Chris stood up and joined Mel, who was talking to the
Martian.
"Not long," Ssele answered Mel's question, waving a bandaged arm
minus its armour.
"Good, we'll need all available hands to help us repair the ship."
"Mel," Chris said. "I don't think we're going to be able to.
The Nosferatu is totaled."
"'Ere!" Glitz protested. "I hope you're not intending to go down
after them? Only, if you are, I demand to be let off at the
nearest inhabited planet before you do so."
"There is no time to indulge your whimsies." The figure waved a
claw. "We are going to land. They are exactly where we want then."
"If I had a Grotzi for every time you've said that... Look,
if you're heard what I've heard about Seldric Four you wouldn't go
within twelve parsecs of the place. The planet is a death trap!"
"What are you hiding? What is down there?"
"Well, I don't know, do I? No one's ever returned from -" a claw
struck him, sending him reeling to the floor. The grating left a
crosshatching mark on his cheek.
"Not good enough! We will land, find the pirates and take the
crystal from their dead bodies!"
Krimda bent down to inspect the hull. Frergle, who currently
favoured the shape of a large beach ball with the front portions of
a frog imbedded in it, was surveying the view, such as it was.
"Mist! Lots of mist! Go built mist man, throw mist balls and
suchlike."
"Is silence," Krimda cut in. "Silly Sloathe is thinking wrong.
Is not make balls out of mist, is make balls out of ice cream!"
Frergle sat down and thought about this for a bit while Krimda
carried out a solid examination of the hull. The older Sloathe
formed little hands at the ends of its wings (it still looked like
a pelican, though its rubber ring had deflated during the crash.)
and tugged at one of the panels.
"Frabulations! Is still firmly attached!" Krimda produced a
small clipboard and made a mark on it.
"Woo hoo!" shouted Frergle, bouncing off the gangway. Krimda
turned in alarm, but it was only a drop of a metre or so. Frergle
began bouncing parallel to the hull, whooping and bobbing in and
out of the low mist.
"Is silly sausage!" Krimda shouted at hir. "Is dangerous!"
Frergle whooped all the louder and started moving away from the
ship. Krimda would have suspected that the other Sloathe had been
imbibing intoxicating substances, but there weren't any on board.
Frergle whooped again, vanished beneath the mist and didn't come
back up.
Krimda waited. There was complete silence, far longer than
Frergle was capable of sustaining.
"Frergle?" Krimda called out.
The silence rolled on.
"Frergle?" Krimda called again, slightly more frightened.
There was a disturbance. The mist began swirling, spinning in
little whirlpools. Something just below the surface of the mist
was moving swiftly and silently towards Krimda.
The Sloathe yelped and made best speed towards the nearest
portal. Sensing the haste, the whatever began moving faster, mist
churning in its wake.
Krimda reached the portal and frantically span the locking wheel.
The damp atmosphere had left a film of slippery moisture, and the
hir digit-analogues had to work extra hard to get the wheel turning.
The something was almost at the edge of the gangway.
Krimda gave the wheel a final turn and began swinging the door
open.
Something reared out of the mist, towering over the decking.
Krimda gave an almighty scream, darted in and swung the door shut,
spinning the locking wheel frantically.
There was huge hollow banging noise that knocked a great dent in
the door and almost deafened Krimda. The Sloathe huddled in the
nearest corner and moaned softly.
"Is shock!" Krimda was screaming from the stretcher. "Is horror!
Is greebly things with multiple legs going 'Meep!'"
"Pull yerself together man," Grinker spluttered, teetering on
his peg-leg. "Is calling yerself a pirate? Gibbering and heartily
flobbiling."
"Squarck!" Grinker's parrot said. "Pieces of seven!"
"Cheapskate!" Grinker shot back.
"Is silence!" shouted the stretcher, getting heartily sick of
the carry on. Grinker promptly shut up.
"Thank you." Chris was accompanying the stretcher party down one
of the corridors to the medical bay. So far Krimda's team was the
only one to experience any difficulties, and Mel was on the bridge
coordinating the rest in an effort to assess the extent of the
damage.
Chris recalled his basic Adjudicator skills for questioning a
victim. "OK, Krimda. In your own time, what happened to Frergle?"
Krimda lay there blinking for a time. "Was looking at nice hull
piece and Frergle go bouncy into mist."
"OK, then what?"
"Frergle argh monster big foop radish werblewerble ftang!"
gibbered Krimda and, breaking free of the restraining straps,
flapped off down the corridor.
"Thar she blows!" Grinker shouted as it set off in pursuit
together with Chris and the stretcher, who was looking put upon.
"My ship!" Glitz looked dismayed at the orbital picture. "They've
broken her! I paid... well, it's the principle of the thing,
innit?"
"Cease your prattling," the alien leader snapped. "I am
pondering."
"Leader!" piped up one of the technicians at a console.
"Didn't you hear me? I'm thinking."
"What your subordinate is trying to tell you," put in Glitz.
"is that we are being pulled down towards yonder planet."
The leader looked at him grumpily, facial proboscis twitching.
"We were going that way anyway."
"Ah, just so long as you know what you're doing."
The entire Nosferatu crew assembled on the bridge. The only
crew members absent were Thella, who was still sick; Frergle, who
was missing presumed eaten; Krimda, who was still slightly batty
and kept turning into a complete set of golf clubs and singing
about giant paper clips; and Eltave, who was in the medical bay
tending to Thella and Krimda.
As Mel explained, the situation was grim. They had crashed on a
hostile world, destroying most of the starflight induction panels
in the process. The panels would have to be replaced, but anyone
doing so ran the risk of encountering one or more of the creatures
which lurked outside.
Plus they had no idea what Glitz and his allies were up to.
"And even if we do replace the panels," Mel added with
uncharacteristic pessimism. "we don't know if the ship is
structurally sound enough to take off."
She paused, collecting her thoughts and over-viewing the daunting
task ahead in her mind.
Chris stood up. "I'm volunteering to replace the panels. I'll
need someone to help me."
Rakaar waved from where he was sitting on a lump of metal
plating which had crushed his best chair. "This is, of course,
a deadly dangerous and life threatening task from which we're
unlikely to return. You can count me in."
"Me too!" waved Ssele.
"Want to help!" Lathra shouted, dangling from a loose railing.
There was a general murmuring from the rest of the crew; They
wanted to know what they would get to do while Chris and his
team were out having fun.
"Good," said Mel. "We need to repair pretty much most of the
bridge..."
Chris glanced around the store room and selected the biggest gun he
could see. It had a barrel which was wider than it was long, and
a bunch of flashing red lights.
Rakaar snorted and slung a plasma rifle over his shoulder before
locating a trolley for the panels.
Chris lifted the first panel - three thin metal squares, a metre
long on each side and fixed together through the middle with a
thick cylinder - and Ssele helped him lift it onto the trolley.
"It's times like this," said Rakaar. "That I really wonder why I
became a pirate."
"Why did you become a pirate?" Chris assisted Ssele in lifting
another panel.
Rakaar shook his head. "I don't know; that's why I keep
wondering."
Ssele hissed with laughter.
The alien ship bucked as it was dragged down.
It pulled hungrily at the warship, giving a sneer-analogue at
the futile efforts of the creatures within to halt their descent.
Its servants were already surrounding the other ship, waiting
for Its signal.
Stretching out Its consciousness, It could see the ants scurrying
inside.
The leader clung to the command chair with all four claws.
"You see!" Glitz was shouting over the noise of the straining
photon drives. "If you'd listened to me, we'd still be safe!"
The leader pointed at claw at him. "This germ offends me. Kill
it."
Glitz gulped as those on the bridge with free hands sung their
blasters around to aim at him.
Chris looked nervously around at the mist swirling about the
ship. Rakaar was holding the other end of the damaged panel while
Chris removed the screws with a sonic screwdriver. The big gun lay
at his feet. Ssele was positioned in the middle of the panel,
holding it so the screws would be easier to extract.
"Right," he said. "On the count of three, lift."
The mist behind Chris began to churn unseen.
"One, two, three!"
They all lifted together and the panel popped off its supports.
At that point, a huge mouth of razor-sharp teeth reared up from
the mist, speeding straight towards Chris.
Part 8