I'm so sorry this is taking so long, but I've been sick and in the hospital for a few days.
I hope you're still with me and enjoy this one. All I have to say is don't give up, and wait till the next chapter to see the real vengeance come into play. THERE WILL BE BLOOD!
Also, keep your eye out for the Massive Valentine from the good people (COUGHS and SPUTTERS) of the ~The CABAL~. Some of the best writers in fanfiction (who for some reason let me join them, think "Dinner For Smucks). You are bound to find some great stories, something for everyone, well maybe not for that guy over there, but for everyone else!
The Eagle Has Landed
Channing One Shuttle
One hundred and six nautical miles from the moon
06:25 hours ship time
The moon loomed large in the main portals of the shuttle as the sleek black craft approached its luminous surface. Ashley had extinguished all external running lights as well as most of the internal ones, which along with the ships stealth design made the ship all but invisible. All four of them scanned the horizon looking for the other two ships. They would have to time the two ships, and wait till they rounded around to the dark side of the moon before they could approach and lock themselves in orbit.
Sam whispered, she didn't know why since sound doesn't travel in space, but she whispered, "Got 'em."
They all crowed around the porthole and watched as the two ships came into view in the same orbit one above the other they watched them as they slowly drifted by and disappeared from sight, and began to time how long till they passed back around to them again. It took twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds till they rounded into view again. When it went back around the darkside again Ashley slid their shuttle into a polar orbit that had them traveling across the darkside as the other ships rounded the lightside and vice versa.
"For you three to get down unseen you're gonna have about twenty-two minutes to safely sit the lander down," Ashley stated, "I've input the coordinates into the guidance computer. I got you as close as I could, but you'll still have about a ten minute walk to the emergency hatch. The hatch isn't guarded and has no alarm because till we got here there wasn't anyone to break in and nowhere to go if you broke out. The hatch opens into a service corridor two floors below the main floor control room and Channing's private quarters. The floor immediately above will be labs. Now most of the time the base rotates to give it some gravity, so be careful when you get inside, it can throw you for a loop. I wish I could give you guys a better idea of the layout, but I just never spent much time inside."
Freddie leaned down and kissed the top of her head, "Ashley you've been an angel to us and done plenty already. You just be watching for us and keeping out of sight, we got this."
The group floated back through the ship toward the landing bay. Al stopped at his cabin and explained to them, "I've got to pee like a racehorse," be with you in a minute. They continued toward the bay as Al entered his room and retrieved a manila envelope that he had found in the small desk beside the "bed" and removed the necklace that held his and Natalie's rings and carefully placed it in the envelope along with a note he had written earlier. He sealed it wrote Freddie's name on it and then retrieved two things he had managed to hide and keep with him when they boarded the ship, a Cuban cigar and a refillable Zippo lighter and placed both items in one of the jump suits many zippered pockets. He floated back to Sam and Freddie's cabin and placed the envelope in one of the clear plastic pockets attached to the far wall. He placed his hand on the pocket and felt the slight bulge of the rings and patted them, "Soon baby, real soon," he turned and floated out the bulkhead and made his way to the landing bay.
"We were just about to send a rescue party," Freddie grinned as he finished putting his spacesuit on.
"There I sat, all broken hearted, thought I'd shit, but only farted," Al sing-songed his reply.
"T.M.I. old man, T.M.I., so you ready for this?"
"More than you'll ever know boy."
Al pulled Ashley close to him and gave her a very passionate kiss and told her, "Thanks for one of the most sublime and fantastic encounters of my life doll. Perhaps we call "talk" again on the way home."
"I'll keep the hammock nice and warm for you," Ashley raised her eyebrows at him with a smile.
Al turned around and looked at Freddie and raised his eyebrow, "Old man this sonny boy," and he grabbed his package.
"Touché."
.
Twenty minutes later, with Freddie at the controls, the lander left the ships bay and began its decent to the lunar surface.
"This is a secure channel Freddie so no one can hear us," Ashley's voice cackled over the headset, "Remember, you only have about twenty-two minutes to make touchdown."
"Roger that," he turned the craft, following the prompts from the guidance computer, as he spoke.
The small craft looked like a fly speck as it approached the lunar surface. Freddie gently worked the controls, firing short burst of the maneuvering jets, slowing the craft down as the slight lunar gravity began to take hold of them. The surface reminded Freddie of an endless beach where the tide never came in and you could never get a tan. He had always thought of the moon as a black and white place where color had been banished into the void, but he found that that wasn't true. To be sure the full range of the color chart wasn't in evidence, but there were many different shades and hues of white and black as well as gray.
"Looking good Freddie," Ashley crackled over the com, "rate of descent is fine, you're twenty-six miles out and thirty-two miles down."
"Roger, homing beacon looks good, twenty-six out and thirty-two down," he repeated back to her, "coming up on quad-jet roll in t-minus two minutes and counting."
"Roger quad-jet roll in t-minus two minutes and counting. You could make a career out of this if you wanted to," Ashley chuckled in his ear.
"I think I'll pass, but thanks for the vote of confidence Ashley," he laughed back at her.
There were no seats in the lander; Freddie and Sam were in the control center, Velcro booties holding them in place as they worked the controls. Sam was monitoring the flight systems while Freddie flew the craft with Al standing behind them watching in wonder as the lunar surface approached.
"When I was born, the idea of going to the moon was nothing more than science fiction and all airplanes were prop driven, and now here I am at eighty years old about to land on the moon," Al's voice had the whimsy of a young child on their first visit to Disney World or receiving their first bike, "I' can die a happy man now, I have truly been everywhere."
"Still got a little unfinished business to take care of before you check out Al," Freddie reminded him.
"Don't worry son, ole Al still has a few tricks up his sleeve, and I owe Dessler some payback."
"Thirty-two out and twenty-eight down," Ashley reported in.
"Roger that, thirty-two out and twenty-eight down."
"Looking good Freddie, trim your acceleration back by one-third and begin to lower the legs."
"Roger trimming acceleration by one-third and lowering legs."
The tiny craft began to slow its rate of decent and the landing legs began to unfold from the underside. They had reached the halfway point of extension when the tiny craft lurched suddenly and warning lights and alarms began to sound in a cacophony of noise that shattered the calm in the control center. The craft began to twist toward the left and it seemed that nothing that Freddie did at the controls could make it stop.
"Freddie," Ashley's concerned voice crackled over the com Set, "what's going on, you're going into a left handed spin at a very high rate of speed!"
"I don't know what the hell happened Ashley," Freddie raised his voice as he fought to bring the craft under control, "we felt some kind of shudder and the whole control system went south on me."
"Oxygen level and pressure are dropping Freddie," Sam said with an urgent tone as she scanned the readouts and tried to get a handle on the quickly multiplying problems that kept popping up on the panels.
"Christ Freddie," Ashley's tone became panicked as she processed the information from them, "I think a micro-meteor may have struck the ship. Get your helmets on NOW! You don't have much time, the oxygen leak is the cause of the control loss. Freddie you have got to do whatever you can to keep from going into a flat spin. Flat spin equals dead, got that, flat spin equals death."
As Sam locked his helmet in place Freddie was busy quickly firing the thrusters in quick bursts, trying to get the craft out of the ever increasing left handed spin that it had gone into, "Got any tips on how to do that Ash cause what I'm doing ain't doing a damn thing doll."
"I can't tell you much stud, but you're flirting with gimbal lock, and you know that means sayonara to the whole shooting match," Ashley couldn't hide the grave concern in her voice.
The rotation of the ship had become more pronounced even during the short exchange between the two pilots, making Sam begin to feel like she was on a tilt-a-whirl at a caravel. She was locked in a hopeless battle to shut alarms off and keep Freddie updated on the instruments as the chaos escalated by the seconds. The oxygen level was still dropping and now fuel levels were also. Sam could see something she had never seen in Freddie's eyes before, fear, pure unadulterated fear. 'He can't get this piece of shit under control and he's scared, oh Jesus,' the thought ran through her mind in a flash as she noticed that he was closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
"Freddie, what the hell are you doing?" she almost burst her own eardrums as well as everyone else's with her shout.
"Silence, stretch out with your feelings Luke, use the force," he said with a calm demeanor as he began to quickly twist his wrist, firing the thrusters in short almost micro-bursts as the craft quickly approached the surface of the moon.
Ashley watched as the spin seemed to get worse and felt a knot building in her stomach. She noticed the chronometer and that in less than ten minutes the two shuttles would be coming 'round the far side and then Nico would be alerted that they were alive and here. 'Won't matter at this point if they crash on the surface,' she thought.
Al couldn't help but notice that the lunar surface was now the only thing visible through the viewports. He could make out details on the surface and even spot small rock formations as the spun. He was forced to stand back and let the couple handle everything because there was no room for him to move forward and help. The alarms were now sounding so quickly that Sam had given up trying to keep up with them and now only watched the fuel gauge as it dropped with each jerk of Freddie's hand.
With his eyes closed and his mind focused on the feel of the lurching craft, Freddie finally achieved an almost Zen like state with the ship and began to change his attempts at gaining control of it. He slowly began to roll the ship end over end while turning into the spin and accelerating as he did so. It looked like he had lost control of the craft to everyone else, but he knew, he could feel, the craft was beginning to slow in its spin and become easier to control.
"Jesus Freddie," Ashley was in full panic mode now as she watched the ship begin to turn end over end, "you've got to get it under control! You're tumbling now, five miles from the surface, six minutes till Nico's ships 'round the horizon, do you copy?"
Freddie said nothing. His mind and body locked into the heart of the lander as he slowly brought the heaving wild beast under his control. The fatal spin began to slow and Sam finally began to catch up with and silence the alarms. Freddie began to fire the thrusters and stop the roll he had placed the lander in as they began to kick dust up from the surface.
"Freddie, the fuel is almost used up baby," Sam informed him with a worried tone.
"Everybody hold on this is going to get real hairy," he stated as he finally brought the craft out of the roll and fired the retro's to slow them down, causing more dust to rise off the surface.
"I'm passing out of range Freddie," Ashley crackled on the comm., "One minute till Nico's ships approach, good luck…," she faded out into static and her final words were lost to the void.
Freddie fired the retro's one more time to slow them down and heard the sound of it sputter and die, "Ladies and gentlemen please buckle up and return your flight trays to the upright position and keep hands and feet inside till the ride comes to a complete stop," Freddie smirked and turned toward Sam and blew her a kiss, "we will be walking because we are hell and gone from the landing zone. BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The lander legs, they had never extended all the way, caught the leading edge of a boulder and snapped one of the spidery legs off causing the ship to lurch forward and twist to the right. With no atmosphere to help glide and no fuel to help control it, the ship was a dead stick and just bounced hard as it made first contact with the moon. Part of the right side of the lander sheered away like the skin on a grape as the thin metal became caught on the rocks. The lack of sound gave the whole crash the effect of a film with the sound effects not yet added to the reel. Most of the equipment in the ship that had been torn loose when the skin ripped floated free about the cabin and then drifted out the sizable hole in what now looked like a wounded insect. A large piece of what was when set up a core drilling experiment broke free and struck the back of Freddie's oxygen pack, denting it and causing a small hole in the tube that ran from the pack to his suit before continuing on and ripping another hole in the left side of the craft's skin, the tail end of the bit catching on Freddie's suit, pulling him with it as it left the ship. His tank tore another section of skin off as he grabbed the ragged remains of the hole, tearing layers off his gloves in the process, and braced as the ship impacted again with the surface, this time with him leading the way. He lost his grip, the thin metal slicing deeper into his gloves, and with a grunt was under the ship and gone from sight.
Sam screamed and reached for Freddie as he began to drift out the hole but try as she might she couldn't catch hold of anything and was forced to watch as he struggled to hold on to the ragged hole in the left side. Their eyes locked and for a brief second he sent all the love he had for her out through the stare as well as a heartfelt goodbye as the ship bounced and he was lost from view. Sam opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out, she was just locked in a soundless scream that tore her soul apart as tears flowed up her face to float around the inside of the helmet like transparent pearls.
After the second bounce the nose of the craft rose and the entire thing rolled over and the top of the ship struck the surface, causing Al and Sam to break free of the Velcro and careen about the remains of the cabin. The ship continued to slide on its roof, instead of bouncing back up, ripping it open like a can opener. After thirty feet the ship struck a large boulder and crumpled like foil paper before coming to a full stop. Al and Sam collided with the forward cockpit remains and then settled to the ground, unmoving.
.
Sam swam up from the thick black blanket of unconsciousness with the sound of Ashley's voice crackling of her headset, "Answer me damn it," the worry was clear in her voice, "Freddie, Sam, Al, Goddamn it answer me."
Sam attempted to raise her head, but when she did it sent a jarring pain from the base of her skull down her spine and out to different parts of her body, and she moaned loudly and laid her head back down.
The moan was loud enough that the mic picked it up and transmitted it to Ashley, "Sam, is that you? What the hell happened? Is everyone ok? What's your status?" she asked in rapid secession.
"Christ, Chillax Ashley," Sam grumbled as she fought the overwhelming pain in her body to sit up and take a look. She noticed that the lights on the control panel were all dead except for one red flashing cyclopean warning light that slowly went red then dark every two seconds. The rest of the wall that the control panel was attached too was rolled back like a sardine can lid, as was the other side and the roof. If the moon had atmosphere she would imagine the whole ship would have burned up by now. As she looked she noticed with a start that she was alone and began to call for Freddie and Al. In a split second the crash came back to her and she screamed their names as she fought, pain and all, to pull herself up and leave the ship.
As she walked outside the ship through the large hole that used to be the left side of the lander, she saw a solitary figure walking towards her carrying what looked to be a helmet in its hands. As the figure got closer to her it raised the sunscreen on the helmet and she fell to her knees with a sob.
Al looked every bit of his eighty years as he stared at Sam, unable to find the words to say anything that felt like it would matter. Even at the station he had never really allowed himself to imagine that Freddie could have died, it wasn't something he could wrap his head around. He hadn't expected to find anything when he went after him except him sitting some place with his shit eating smirk on his face making some crack about having a ship roll over him. The helmet with the cracked faceplate and what looked to be blood in it had caused a chill to run through his body and an ache in his heart. He was almost thankful that he hadn't found the rest of his body, it might have driven him insane if he had.
He bent down and pulled Sam into an embrace, setting the helmet down beside him. He could hear her sobs over the com and as best he could through the suits he tried to massage her back.
"I'm so sorry baby," Al felt the tears begin to flow in his own eyes; "we have to go now honey. He would want us to finish this for him, and that's what we're gonna do. When this is over we'll come back and get him, I swear to you we'll get him."
Sam heard Al and also Ashley, but only as distant phantom voices that she couldn't understand. 'No Freddie, please, you can't leave me like this. What am I going to do without you baby?' she thought, and then the memory of the talks and fun they had had and all the love they had made together began to flow through her mind like a gentle eddy of warm water at high tide, pushing the sadness away for a moment.
"Ashley Freddie is dead," there was a hollow tone in Sam's voice as she spoke; "Al found his helmet with the faceplate cracked."
"Jesus honey I'm sorry," Ashley felt a lump in her throat as she spoke.
Sam's despair quickly turned to pure murderous rage as the events of the past few days played back in her head. 'Channing, this is all that sick bastards fault,' the image of his rape of Freddie lit the gallons of pure unadulterated rage in her small frame and sent it out all over her body, making her sweat, 'I'll grind that puke into the fucking ground and piss on his bloated corpse before this is all over.'
"Ashley, we're gonna need your help finding the escape hatch," she had the inflected tone of pure hate in her voice, "I have no idea where the hell we are or how far off the landing zone we are."
"I'll have it for you in thirty seconds," she said as she typed in the request in, "Ok, got it. Wow you guys aren't that far away, in fact you ended up closer that we had intended. You're about a five minute walk from in now. I'm about the swing around the dark side again, but the little screen on the left sleeve of the suit, do you see it?"
"Yes"
"I'm sending the directions to it. It'll act like a GPS for you guys and get you there. Sam, cut that motherfucker to pieces!"
"I intend to! Thanks Ashley."
"Good luck and I'll talk to you later. Good luck Al."
"I'll pass it along, his suit com works, but he's not hearing you for some reason."
"Freddie was a good man Sam and he loved the hell out of you," Ashley was still crying as she talked, "if I don't hear from you two I give you my word I'll fly this bitch into both of those ships before I let them leave orbit."
"Thanks Ashley, for everything, Godspeed to you."
Sam turned to Al and they both began to walk away from the crash site toward the escape hatch. The hatch turned out to be only a six minute walk the ship. They found tracks that helped lead them right to the hatch. Sam bent down and turned the wheel on the hatch and pulled it open. She went down the ladder inside followed by Al, who closed it and sealed it back.
They stood at the bottom of the ladder and looked around the semi-circle room. On the right side, running waist high, a bank of computers and valves were blinking and flashing. Directly in front of them, taking up most of the wall, was a large metal door with a clear viewport about five feet from the floor. Sam studied the control board and then threw a few switches and the door slid open.
"Age before beauty," Al waved his arm for Sam to step into the chamber.
"Just remember to get your colostomy bag in before the door closes," Sam shot back at him as she walked in.
Sam closed the door and activated the controls to pressurize the chamber and flood oxygen in. The red light on the door at the other end of the chamber turned green and they walked through.
Sam removed her helmet and took a deep breath and smiled. Al did the same and they removed their suits and found a closet that held another suit with moon dust on it and stored theirs there. The hatch at the end of the room opened into the service corridor Ashley had told them about.
It took them several minutes to orientate themselves to the gravity that the base was generating from spinning on its axis. They both had spent so long weightless that it was difficult to adjust to it again. Sam scanned the corridor and noticed that it stretched forward about one hundred feet and then curved to the right. They cautiously made their way down the hall, as quiet as they could. At the curve, Sam poked her head around the corner and noticed that a large white door stood alone at the end of the little corner and a wall vent was located by it.
Sam pointed to the vent on the left side wall near the door, "Shall we see if the charming Mr. Channing is in?"
"Yes, I think so; it would be impolite to just barge in on the man's place if he isn't home.
After they removed the vent, Al lifted Sam up so she could look into the room. It was furnished in the gaudy style that Channing seemed to like. Satisfied that no one was home, Sam climbed out of the vent and used her dark powers of lock picking and they entered the apartment.
"Channing sure loved the seventies didn't he," Al laughed quietly as he studies the lava lamp and the black light poster of Bruce Lee on the wall behind it, "Bet you five bucks he has a disco ball that lowers from the ceiling and some platform shoes in his closet."
"I'm gonna hang his ass in a closet after I'm done with him," Sam felt a new wave of tears well up in her, but she fought them down.
They heard sounds of someone coming down the hallway and quickly dashed into one of the many doors in the room and found themselves in a closet that, ironically, held a pair of platform shoes.
"I fucking knew it," Al whispered and chuckled.
"Ssshhh," Sam hissed as she peered out of the small crack in the door from where she hadn't shut it all the way.
Channing and Tony entered the room laughing, "… hours and we shut the rotation off and mix the Diesosaline and make my Sodie and then we can head home," Tony was rubbing Nico's shoulders in a very seductive manner while Channing spoke, "We'll leave Dessler here, I'll give him the Hess woman and her retard son to play with and by the time he notices that we're all gone, he and his brother's neo-Nazi scientist geeks will be stranded here with no way off. That freak is too much of a loose cannon to keep around anymore."
Sam bristled when he said the name Hess. 'No, no way,' she thought to herself, 'Melanie and Jackson are in Montana, he must be talking about someone else.'
Channing sat down in a leather chair that like everything else in the room was fixed to the floor, and swiveled the seat around and faced the video screen as Tony entered something into the computer.
Dessler's room, Sam thought it could only be his with the swastika on the wall and the portraits of torture and Hitler on the walls came into view.
He was visible in the lower left corner of the screen, shooting up, a look of ecstasy on his face, "What do you want Channing?" Dessler said in a revolted tone as he saw Tony rubbing Nico's shoulders.
"I'm done with the Hess woman," Channing took one of Tony's fingers and began to lick and suck on it, just to get under Dessler's skin, "pity I couldn't have had her sister join us now that would have grand, but Benson and her were just too much trouble."
Al's hands clamped down over Sam's mouth and waist like a vise, holding her quiet and still, "Not now and not here doll, but soon," he whispered in her ear.
Nico turned to the closet and laughed, "Mrs. Benson and Mr. Mundy, I'm sorry for your loss, Benson was a fine piece of ass."
The closet door opened quickly and several guards stepped in and grabbed them both and pulled them out roughly. Sam tried to lunge at Nico, but the guard struck her with a stun stick and she went to the floor holding her side.
"Really, did you think I was so stupid that I wouldn't have spotted you on your way down?" Nico slapped Al and kicked Sam in the back, "I heard the whole crash and the touching news that your dear hubby had shuffled off his mortal coil. How do you like the way I let you know about your sister and the feeble minded soul that was her son. I thought it was rather ingenious myself. Your sister was very good; the two of you should be a blast. Sorry about your mother though, she was a real tiger. Dessler had a ball with her, though sad to say little Hess just couldn't take seeing his "J'Mam- maw" getting the "Dessler Treatment", a pity really, but now I'll get to watch you kill him. I'm going to let you test my Sodie for me after it's mixed and then after we," he rubbed Tony's crotch, "use you and your sister, I'll let you kill the retard and your sister," He had picked Sam up now and was staring into her eyes, eyes that had gone wide with fear, "Now you really see how this is going to end my dear," he licked her face and turned to the guards, "Take her to the lab and the old fucker to Dessler, sorry old man, but you are just really in the way."
The guards led them out in silence. The only sound was the sound of Nico laughing as he whistled "Born This Way".
It coming to a head! THERE WILL BE BLOOD!
Remember to keep your eyes out for THE CABAL Mass Valentine's Day posting, coming soon. My Story will be called, "Baby's Got Blue Eyes"
Also check out my joint story with Annierocket, Other Fish, But Not You, we're working hard on it and should add a new chapter soon.
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