"Where are they?" he asked himself.
"Dunno, boss," one Laikan replied and Trillo shot him for not knowing what a rhetorical question was.
Suddenly laser blasts poured out of the jungle in front of them and they all dived to the floor until the blasts stopped. One Laikan got up to head that way.
"Down, you fool," commanded Trillo. "I admire your courage, but it is a trap."
"It certainly is," said Chase from behind them. Trillo twisted to look at him and Chase cut a cord that disappeared up a tree.
Trillo felt the floor and felt the netting a moment before it whipped all the remaining Laikans up into the air.
Milk and Jimmy appeared out of the jungle from where they had been firing.
"Let's get back to the village and out of here," said Milk.
"Good idea, bro, let us put distance 'tween us and dese Laikan," put in Jimmy and the three of them ran back to the village.
To find it deserted by all except Dr. Hendricks and the bodies of the village men.
A Note on Terminologies
A Common curse word is 'valkswagon'. This comes from the Petruthsian language and means that something is disappointing or is not what one would wish it to be. Originally used in bartering terms such as to get a 'valkswagon deal'.
It should not be confused with the German car manufacturer that bears a similar name.
Though the redesign of the Beetle may express a similar sentiment to the Petruthsian word.
'Shabbus' comes from the old name for Longgots and originally meant 'something good that came from something bad' in reference to the excreted pearls. However over time it came to mean more about the excretion and this didn't help the export of Shabbus meat and pearls. Therefore, the desert tribes reverted back to the even older name of Longgot.
From: A Brief Guide to the Universe for Earthens
THE RESCUE OF JULIANNA
Smoke billowed up from the burning huts and lit up the gathering dusk. Hendricks stood amid the bodies, his head down.
"Oh no, mon," whispered Jimmy.
"The cage is destroyed," Milk said in equally lowered tones.
Chase ran forward, ran towards Hendricks.
"What happened?" he shouted.
The Doc looked at him with red eyes.
"I don't know, it was as this when I returned," he let out a sob.
Chase looked around and saw the Chief. He ran over and dropped to his knees. The Chief moaned as Chase cradled him. The Chief opened his eyes and looked at Chase even as his life flowed from him.
"Chief! Chief! Hold on," Chase demanded.
"No, no, it is my time to go."
Chase sagged.
"We failed you."
"No. No, we failed ourselves. We failed to ever stand up against these villains and now we pay. Before we died, you taught us to be men again," the Chief closed his eyes and became limp.
"Chief," Chase shouted.
The Chief opened his eyes.
"They took all our women, they, they," the Chief coughed up blood, "they took your friend. Go and save her, save them all for us, we were never men enough to do so," the Chief wheezed.
And then he died.
Milk walked over to Chase and looked at the Chief.
"A laser blast must have opened up the cage, in all the chaos the Raiders got to their guns and, and well," Milk couldn't finish.
"What we do now?" asked Jimmy.
Chase looked up at them. "Now we go and get Julianna and we kill those bastards," he said through clenched teeth.
***
Andrew Forster sat alone with Sir Jeffery. He had had a gruelling time since coming to space, many, many meetings with various ambassadors from various races.
"They all treated me well, but they," Forster searched for the words, "they seemed to treat me as beneath them."
"Come now, old man, what did you expect?" asked Sir Jeffery lighting a pipe.
"I never had any expectations," replied Forster looking at the floor.
"No, no, quite. Listen, old man, let me explain something to you about the Universal Trading Network.
"On Earth you had 'the space race' where the United States and Russia raced to be the first into space, the first to be on the moon. The Russians got into space and the Americans got to the moon and what came of it?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you never colonised the moon or any such, so what did you get out of it?"
"Many improved technologies," stated Forster getting a bit peeved.
"Yes, yes, you improved things and invented things that are now jolly useful around the house, but what did you really gain? Nothing."
"Not true," started the ex-President.
"Yes, yes, if you look at it from an Earthen point of view, but from a point of view of exploring the galaxy, nothing. And why? Because you had to race, you had to beat each other.
"If the Americans and the Russians had worked together how much further could you have got? I mean if you had jointly landed on the moon, sharing technologies, perhaps you could have had a moon base and from there sent out a space station.
"And then from that space station you could have reached Mars and then you might have realised what a good fuel Martian soil is and using that fuel, you could have exited the Milky Way and met the rest of us."
"Martian soil?" Forster asked bewildered.
"Indeed, soil from Mars and other like planets was one of the key Universal fuels for many years, until it was found that we could replicate it with other more abundant materials," he took a good suck on his pipe.
"The trenches on Mars?"
"Our excavations, of course. The point of this story is that everyone else managed it, but you Earthens were too busy fighting to work together, you should not wonder that others see you as a little primitive. Still," Sir Jeffery gave a reassuring smile, "you made a good impression and I think that everyone will warm to you."
***
"Back so soon?" asked Cherry sarcastically.
"Miss me?" Chase asked as he sat down in the cockpit.
"No, I'm used to you leaving me."
"How can you be bitter? I came back didn't I?"
"That is why I'm bitter."
"You love me really and you know it," Chase smiled.
"Heh, in your dreams," she came back loftily.
Jimmy came into the cockpit and took the co-pilot seat.
"We ready, Jim?" Chase asked.
"Yeah, mon, the Doc and Milk be putting de guns away. What be de plan?"
(At this point Milk and Dr. Hendricks were at the door.
"Bet you ten space pounds he hasn't got one," Milk whispered.
"I have more faith in the man," Hendricks replied.)
"Dunno yet," Chase told Jimmy as they prepared for lift off.
Milk and Dr. Hendricks walked in while Hendricks fished around in his pocket for the money. He handed it over as they sat down.
"What was that about," Chase asked a triumphant looking Milk.
"Nothing," Milk replied as he pocketed the money.
Chase switched on the engines and took The Wild Rover up and out of the trees. He then hit the LeChance and rocketed the ship up through the atmosphere.
As they were reaching the edge of the atmosphere, Hendricks asked, "What will we be facing out there?"
"Durden Raiders don't have home planets so they live on large ships. They travel around the Universe like that, making money as slavers or hired guns. Anything to turn a space pound."
"That is where they will have Julianna and the other women," Milk added.
"So we're going to assault their ship?" Hendricks asked.
"Not assault, Doc, sneak in," Jimmy said and a plan began to form.
"Cherry, bring the Lechance to its front position," Chase said.
"Yes, boss," she came back, but did it anyway.
"Thank you, sweetheart."
"Your sweet talk might work on Humans
, but not on me," she retorted, but it did.
They exited the atmosphere illegally, but undetected and two things became obvious very quickly. One was the huge Durden ship.
"Valkswagon, it's a mothership," said Chase.
"A what?" asked Dr. Hendricks.
"The Raiders live on ships, but they have a small number of motherships, these are city like ships that act as ultimate homes for the Raiders," Milk explained. "This is going to make the job a lot harder. Fate hates us," he bemoaned.
"Maybe fate has changed sides," said Cherry, "the Durden ship is in the middle of an asteroid storm. That should cover us from their radar."
And that was the second thing.
***
Asteroid storms come from planets or stars exploding and sending bits of rock across the Universe. As there is no friction in space not much slows them down, they just race across space from one end to the other, gathering no moss. A couple of things do slow the asteroids: passing through clouds of space dust or magnetic fields, or passing by the gravitational pull of planets or stars. The appearance of slow moving asteroid storms (such as the one the Durden ship sat in), especially close to the edges of the Known Universe, told scientists that there must be planets and/or stars beyond those that were known. The study of asteroids was at the forefront of the scientific movement to calculate just how big the Universe really was and what the chances of finding more of it was.
***
Chase dodged and weaved his craft through the asteroids and as they got closer they could see that the Raiders' ship cannons were blasting at asteroids that got too close.
"Cannons be automatic, don't let them target us," said Jimmy while reading his computer.
"No worries," replied Chase as he ducked and weaved the ship.
The cannons locked onto an asteroid to their port side and blew it to dust which covered the ship. Chase pulled up blindly and then heaved the ship left to avoid another asteroid.
They grew closer to the ship and Chase pulled up so that they would approach it from the top and thusly not be spotted from a window. That would be just embarrassing.
"Cherry, give me a scan of de ship," Jimmy said.
"Coming up. It appears to be an old EMMA class."
"Any outer entrances across de top?"
"The scan is coming onto your computer now, I'll have a look."
Jimmy looked at the scan of the ship as it came onto his computer and then the image changed to a view of the top and a highlighted hatch.
"The EMMA class has a vent here and this hatchway was added so that someone could go out and fix or unblock the vent," Cherry told Jimmy. "That one small hatch saved a lot of lives."
"You be a wonder, Cherry," he told her.
"Heh, tell that to Chase," she pouted.
"Where does the hatch lead to?" Chase asked.
"Somewhere in the engine room, but they are vast. I would have to get a copy of the blueprints to tell you exactly. If they still exist."
"Don't worry, you've excelled yourself already," Chase said as he angled the ship to land near the hatch.
Cherry beamed to herself.
And they landed.
"Cherry, this ship might go to lightspeed so make sure you're attached tight, we don't want to lose you," Chase said.
"I'll be here for you, Chase," she replied breathily.
"OK, boys, time to suit up," Chase told them and they all got up. "Sorry, Doc, not you, I don't have a space suit for a Laikan, never had one on board."
"Oh," said Hendricks disappointedly.
"Anyway, Doc, if this goes the way I think, we're going to need you to bring the ship into the docking area for our daring escape. Stay close to the radio."
"Will do, skipper," Hendricks beamed at having an important job after all.
***
The three of them walked across the Durden ship to the hatch and thankfully it had a handle on the outside. They opened it and hoped there wasn't an alarm. If there was, well, what else could they do? So they climbed down a short ladder into a small pressurisation chamber. Which did its thing and then the three of them were climbing down a longer ladder.
The thing with engines on big space ships was that they needed to be protected from all sides as an enemy fighter could come from any angle. That meant they were placed centrally, with a lot of walls all around. Where our heroes entered was a higher part of the engine complex and so deserted, they were happy to find.
After taking off their helmets they looked around the small dim room that was filled with the hum of the engines and not a lot else.
"OK, we be in, Cherry. Any reading on alarms?" Jimmy asked into his earpiece radio.
"Nothing from my scans, Jimmy. I am sending you plans for the layout with where I think your captives are being held."
"T'anks, babe."
"I warn you though, this is all coming from my scans, not blueprints; I don't know how accurate any of this is."
"That's alright," said Chase, "it's better than being blind. Come on, let's go."
Jimmy looked at his handheld computer.
"Out dis door and left."
Much sneaking about abounded as the three of them wound through quiet corridors stopping here and there when they heard talking close by, or actually saw an engineer working on something. They kept away from the main central engine rooms and, they hoped, engineers with large spanners.
And then they came to a door. Not any old door, but the door that would lead them out of the engine complex and into the inhabited ship. They stripped off their space suits and had only one hope; that on a ship of this size people would just assume they were people they'd never met before.
"And if they don't? If we stand out a mile? Then what?" asked Milk.
"I think the term is, 'running battle'," replied Chase.
"Great," returned Milk.
According to Jimmy's computer they were going to have to pass through a living quarter that included shops and bars in order to get to the prison decks.
Yes, shops and bars. A Durden Raider mothership was like a city. The Raiders weren't just pirates, they were outsiders, people that didn't fit in or who had to escape a normal life within the UTN planets. Becoming a Raider was the last hope of the hopeless and that included men and women who wouldn't be off shopping the malls of the City of Prantz. And, of course, men and women fell in love and had families and men needed bars and women needed shoe shops. The only difference was how this city accumulated wealth.
Raiding groups would leave the mothership and go off to buy, sell, rob or enslave in a galaxy and finally come back to the mothership to spend their ill-gotten gains, spend time with the family and do all the other things sailors do when they come to a port.
"OK, now we enter de main areas of de ship, dese be the ones where we's gonna meet people," Jimmy told them.
"Well maybe it's good that this is a mothership, means more people to get lost in," said Chase.
"And more people to chase us," exclaimed Milk.
"Well, try not to get shot this time," grinned Chase.
"Oh, you're a funny man," exasperated Milk.
And they went through a door.
The short corridor was, of course, dimly lit, but at the end they could see bright lights and hear people talking and walking and muzak.
"According to the plans, at the end of dis corridor be a large shopping area," Jimmy whispered.
"Good," said Chase, "no one is going to take notice of another three people."
"Yeah, maybe you could pick up something nice for Julianna, a sort of 'sorry you got kidnapped' present," Milk said.
He was not upbeat about any of this.
They walked up to the end of the corridor and looked around. It was a large circular area that was multi-tiered. All around the edges were shops, small coffee shops and eateries. In the middle were escalators taking the shoppers up to the next level of what, Chase assumed, contained more of the same.
Now don't get the wr
ong impression here, it was not fancy by any means, the shops were little more than open fronted rooms with peeling wallpaper or bare walls. In many shops things were just stacked up and much rummaging would have to be done to find anything worth buying. Grimy is a word and indeed a word that could best sum up the mothership's shopping area.
The three men wandered into the crowds and were thankful to find that they did blend in; here on the mothership no one seemed to be wearing the leather/metal/patchwork combination that Durden Raiders were famously known to be easily spotted in. It's scary and fierce, but not exactly comfortable.
"How do we get out of here?" whispered Chase.
"De main exit is up one level," Jimmy whispered back trying to hide his computer.
"It's a good job you two don't look suspicious whispering to each other," commented an annoyed Milk.
"Right, yeah, sorry," whispered Chase.
"Will you stop it?" answered Milk.
They hit the escalators and rode to the next floor and it was as Chase had thought. More of the same. Except that at one end there were no shops, just a wall of glass doors that people were passing in and out of.
"Do you really think we should have bought Julianna a present?" Chase asked Milk as they walked towards the doors. "I mean now would be the time to do it, right?"
"No, no I don't think we should. I think we should concentrate on getting the hell out of here before we're caught."
"Caught and shot, mon," corrected Jimmy.
"Now that's not helpful is it?" asked Chase.
"True, though, init? Dey can't be happy we locked 'em in a cage."
"Can we talk about something else, please?"
They walked through the doors and into a semi-circular room that had three other corridors leading off of it.
"Which way now?" asked Milk.
"To de left, we needs to get to a lift that will take us down."
They walked on and the people lessened.
"If we did bump into any of the Raiders we met on Melis, would either of you recognize them?" asked Milk.
"Where's Melis?" asked Chase.
"The island we were just on," Milk said in a weary voice.
"It's called Melis?"
"What were you doing while we were there?"
"De point is," interrupted Jimmy, "no, I wouldn't."
"Me neither."
"So we could have just passed any number of them?"
"Well, that's what makes it an adventure, right?" said Chase with a grin.
"I hate it when you get all cavalier," said Milk.