COUNTERPOINT

CHAPTER 2: THE PILOT

PART 12

By Mayavan Thevendra


After some trial and error, Valerie found the correct key to open the door to Freight Two, and the two of them ventured slowly inside. Kimiko's wandering hands hit upon a lighting panel in the darkness; icy blue beams arced from wall to wall and streaked across the low ceiling. Lying near the centre of the bay were the nine surviving passengers from their shuttle, still very much unconscious. They woke Carol first, and while Valerie went about reviving the others, Kimiko gave her teacher a reassuring grin.

"What? Unh. What's happened? Kimiko?" Spluttered Carol.

"Relax Buxton," said Kimiko, trying her best to look plucky, "we've got it all under control. You'll never guess what's happened."

Carol's eyelids drooped, and as she fell unconscious once again, Kimiko's gaze was drawn to her broken leg; the junkers had tied a flimsy looking splint to it, and had wrapped up her knee, but through the bandaging, Kimiko could see the ugly lump where the bone had pierced Carol's flesh.

"The co-pilot's not here." Mumbled Valerie.

"I guess he didn't make it."

"Look, there's no way they'll be able to make it down to the shuttle hangar by themselves," said Valerie, "There isn't enough time, there's, there's too much of that damn drug still in their systems."

"Well then what the hell are we gonna do?"

"I don't know!"

Valerie wiped a grimy hand across her brow, and shook her head.

"I, I suppose we'll just have to carry all of them down to…wait a minute. Oh, stupid!" she cried, slapping her forehead, "There's a freight trolley close to the hangar, I spotted it when we first got here; we can use it to carry them all, I'm sure it's big enough!"

The two of them wasted no time. Valerie shot on ahead down to the hangar, two levels below, and by the time Kimiko had caught up, she had already located the trolley and was dragging it slowly back. The wheels were rusted and rolled awkwardly, sending the trolley sliding into the sides of the corridor. Even with both of them handling it, they had a hard enough time hauling it up the various service ramps and slopes, that it took them a good quarter of an hour to return to their classmates.

"What the hell is this?" coughed one of the cadets.

"It's a freight trolley you dummy," answered Valerie, "We're going to load all of you onto it, and then get you down to the hangar."

"What's going on? Where, where the hell are we?"

"There's no time," said Kimiko, as she and Valerie began to drag the others onto the trolley, "Look, just trust us, okay? All right? This is not a place that we want to be, now c'mere!"

One by one, the cadets' wilted bodies were arranged onto the trolley, although not without complaint; it was a tight fit to get everyone on, and loose arms and legs had to be tucked in place so that they didn't scrape along the floor. Carol was still unconscious, and Valerie and Kimiko put her on last of all, taking care not to disturb her shattered leg. Using some nearby package binding, they fastened their classmates in place as best as they could, and then with Kimiko leading the front end, and Valerie pushing from behind, the cadets started off back towards the shuttle hangar.

Descending the ramps was far easier than hauling the trolley up them, although it was all the more wayward now that it was fully loaded. Kimiko lost her footing more than once, very nearly ending up beneath its wheels, and several collisions with stationary objects, not to mention walls and doors didn't help in the slightest.

"Will you keep this thing straight?" hollered Valerie.

"I'm trying, but you keep pushing it in the wrong fucking direction!" snapped Kimiko, "Big shot pilot, ya can't even steer a stupid cargo trolley!"

"Oh shut up! Just hurry, we haven't got much time left!"

Once onto the hangar level, they both took hold from behind, and heaved the trolley along the corridor with as much pace as they could gather. A sharp bend brought them skidding to a stop, much to the distress of their passengers, and as they rounded the corner, they travelled into a windowed overpass, which ran directly above the poorly lit hangar. The outer doors were open, awaiting the return of Grill and his crew, as well as whatever new piece of salvage they had laid their hands on. The cadets could see through into the wide space beyond; mottled chunks of grey and murky brown drifted slowly across the blackness: evidently the junkers' base was hidden within an asteroid field, although exactly how dense or large a field, was impossible to tell. The bay itself was a good hundred feet or so in width, enough to service four or five small vessels; at that moment, aside from various heaps of assorted trash and several ship chassis, there was but one salvage boat left, sitting idly on the far side.

"Christ. Let's hope that thing works." Said Kimiko.

Leaving the overpass, they arrived at a working freight elevator, apparently used for bringing up salvage and equipment. Once on the level below, they straightaway found themselves in the hangar's observation booth.

"Look at this mess!"

"Never mind the mess," said Valerie, leaving the trolley, "just look for the bay door controls!"

A grubby control panel fringed by red and yellow warning stripes seemed to Kimiko to be the most obvious candidate. She triggered the door controls; power groaned in the walls around them, and a sudden judder passed beneath them. At the end of the bay, the wide outer doors trembled, and slowly began to slide shut. A red warning bulb on one of the consoles lit up, and a diode panel flashed the message:

DO NOT ENTER HANGAR. REPRESSURISATION IN PROGRESS.

"A hangar this size should take about five minutes to pressurise, I mean, if everything's working properly." Valerie mused.

"Five minutes. Sweet. We'll be outta here in a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes tops, and we'll be long gone by the time those fuckers get back. We got this one in the bag Mailer!"

"Sure, that's if that shuttle over there'll actually fly, and if we can navigate through those asteroids without getting creamed, and if we can find any Confederate ships before we get attacked again by God knows what!" Valerie said, scowling. "We're not out of this yet."

While the hangar pressurised, Valerie and Kimiko checked on the others. Aside from Carol, they were all awake, though still quite incapable of movement; they were now more alert than before, however, and begged for answers to their questions. Kimiko and Valerie outlined what had happened since they had started off towards the rally point at Cid Fleiis, some three days ago; the attack of the winged alien, their capture by junkers, and Valerie's subsequent rescue of Kimiko from her cell. Despite one or two disagreements in the story's telling, the other cadets got the idea, and generally speaking, were quite happy that they had been mostly unconscious though all of it.

"So what now?" wearily asked Cadet Drickson.

"Now?" replied Kimiko, "well, in about another minute, we're gonna get onto that shuttle, and then we're gonna kiss this shithole goodbye."

"At least that's the plan." Added Valerie, sourly.

"God, Mailer, would you please, just try being optimistic? Y'know, for once? This is gonna work, I know it!" said Kimiko.

A series of beeps from the console signalled the end of the repressurisation; the diode panel now read that the bay was safe to enter, and a now audible klaxon at the far end of the bay sent a deep, echoing blast all the way back to the observation booth. The large access hatch along the sidewall was thrown open, and Valerie and Kimiko carefully eased the trolley out onto the floor of the hangar. Debris of all descriptions lay scattered across the rear of the bay, and dozens of ship components lay suspended from clasps and hooks on the walls and ceiling.

"It's weird," said Cadet Palmer as the trolley was rolled towards the vacant shuttle, "but it reminds me of…an abattoir."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Kimiko said quietly. "God, leave it to a bunch of pilots to get cut up about a hangar full of conked-out ships."

The salvage boat looked as though it was in good stead, and the cadets could only guess that it had been left behind because the junkers already had enough ships to bring in their haul. There was no security system, and once the outer seals had been unlocked, the doors to the main hold slid open with little fuss. There was a long passenger bench along each side of the cabin, and each one was equipped with a set of sturdy looking safety straps. Kimiko and Valerie wasted no time, and began to carry their classmates on board, and strapped them into their seats; fortunately there was enough room to put Carol's legs up onto the bench, and once she was securely fastened in, the two of them climbed through into the cockpit.

"Reckon you can fly this thing?" Kimiko asked, settling into the co-pilot's chair.

"Me?"

"My arms and legs still feel pretty rubbery, Mailer. You'd better do it."

Valerie nodded, and gave the flight consoles a quick look over.

"Yeah, looks familiar, should be a piece of cake."

She threw the ignition, and a low rumble grew beneath their feet as the boat's engines began to warm up.

"We're good for fuel," reported Kimiko, "environment tanks are near capacity, power core output's looking good. We've got a working com system too."

"Should we send out a distress signal?"

"Nuh-uh. Let's leave it until we're in the clear, I don't want to risk one of those bastards picking it up."

"Okay. Hey wait. How are we going to open those?" asked Valerie pointing out in front towards the hangar bay doors.

Kimiko stared at them through the window. "We need someone in the booth."

"Can't we do it from in here?"

"I don't know, have a look. I'm gonna go back."

"What?" said Valerie as Kimiko stepped out of her seat, "You can't do it from there! Once the hangar starts to depressurise, you won't be able to get back!"

"Yeah, I know, Mailer, I'm not a frickin' moron, but there's got to be a delay switch or a timer system or something. Stay here!"

Kimiko jumped down through the open shuttle hatch, and sprinted back to the observation booth. As she frantically hunted through the mess on top of the workstations, Valerie's voice came across the wire from the shuttle.

"Satomi? You there?"

"Yeah, I'm here." Answered Kimiko into a nearby microphone, "Find anything?"

"No, there are no trigger switches to any of the booth consoles from here, just radio. You'll have to do it from in there."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Scowled Kimiko.

Amidst greasy scraps of toilet roll, spent bullet casings and a couple of dirty magazines, the manual controls for the hangar pressure systems were nowhere to be found. Kimiko's heart thumped as she began to feel the seconds ticking away.

"Damn it, come on, come on, where are you!"

"Hey, Satomi! Can you hear that?"

"Hear what?" said Kimiko.

"That! It's…adio signal…nterfering with…annel!"

Valerie's words fell away, replaced by static; Kimiko examined the communications console, and saw the reason why - interference from a nearby radio transmission which was being picked up by the base's signal antenna. She flicked through the channels, searching for it, and froze, as she abruptly heard the unpleasantly familiar voice of Grill barking across the loudspeaker.

"…uckin' idiots! I'm go…ill every last one of you shi…umb bastards!", screeched Grill. "I swear to God, if one of you fucks sold us out, I'm gonna rip his spine out, and…ean my…with it! You hear me?"

"Boss, please," sobbed another voice, "we had no idea that ship was rigged…ey came outta nowhere!"

"God damn Krey Ganjes bloodsuckers!" hissed Grill, "If th…ollowed us back here, we're dead meat!"

The hangar pressure warning light suddenly flashed red; Kimiko glanced across at the diode panel - it read:

DO NOT ENTER HANGAR. DEPRESSURISATION IN PROGRESS.

"Mailer!" she screamed, "They're opening the hangar, close the shuttle hatch…Mailer!"