What May Come

Please see chapter 1 for author's notes.

Chapter 7: Time to Go

Radu stepped back from the door at the gesture of one of the armed men, trying to maneuver between them and the human. Harlan was better with spur-of-the-moment plans, if he could distract them for that moment…

"Against the wall!" the leader snarled. "Don't try anything!"

Harlan moved forward beside Radu. "Under arrest by who? Where's your warrant?"

"We have the guns, kid. We don't need a warrant. Against the wall with the other one…and don't try anything. These things can drop and Ashrach in his tracks, they're certainly strong enough to stop you."

Radu suspected that the Ashrach comment had been directed at him and didn't try and correct the man's assumption. There were three of them total—humanoid, but with green-tinted skin and oddly elongated arms ending in four-fingered hands. He didn't recognize the race, but that didn't really mean anything. The part that did mean something was that their arms were holding rather nasty looking weapons. He complied with the man's order and backed up against the wall as Harlan did the same.

"So are you going to shoot us or what?" Harlan demanded, ignoring the glare his crewmate gave him for the suggestion.

"Not just yet…the Spung were pleased to see your ship here, I imagine they wouldn't mind retrieving more of the crew." The speaker gestured one of the other two forward. "Bind their hands. And don't bother tying anything you two, they're made of castroginium."

They bound Harlan first with the metallic ropes…just his hands, and in front of his body. He was pushed forward, into the center of the room near the third guard as the man with the bindings moved toward Radu. Radu held out his wrists at a sharp gesture, turning it into a powerful shove at Harlan's shouted "Now!"

The man who'd come forward to tie him hit the wall hard enough to fall stunned, and Radu reached for the speaker. Harlan had kicked him in the back, sending him forward, and his gun was within arms reach. The inertial dampening gloves Radu wore were designed to keep him from accidentally applying enough pressure to bruise someone or break things; they weren't designed to prevent him from exerting his full strength if he chose to do so. It didn't take anywhere near full strength to crush the barrel of the weapon. He repeated the procedure on the weapon of the one who'd hit the wall. Harlan had disarmed the last guard and delivered a neat two-handed chop to the neck of the speaker, who'd stayed on his feet after loosing his gun. Radu turned back as the man hit the floor. "Harlan, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. You?"

"I'm not hurt." Radu tugged at the cables binding Harlan's arms, but couldn't break them. "We better find a knife or something."

"Don't worry about it." Harlan tugged at a piece of the wire with his teeth, and sure enough it began to unravel. "I noticed the same thing about the ones Warlord Shank tied us up with…they might be unbreakable, but they're also too stiff to tie very well. The knots come right out. Especially since they were nice enough to leave my hands in front of me."

Radu nodded, and then looked at the men on the floor. "Should we call security, or…"

"I don't know. I don't think I want station security involved though, just in case. Maybe we should wait until we're on our way off the station and send an anonymous message or something…that way someone will know what they tried to do, but nobody can drag us down to the offices for some kind of 'official' investigation."

"All right. Let's wait for Jacie down the hall, just in case some others come." Picking up the bag holding what little supplies they had, he followed Harlan out into the corridor.

They only had a few minutes—a few very tense minutes—to wait, before Jacie reappeared with one bag slung over his shoulder and carrying a second. "What are you doing out here?"

"We had company," Harlan replied. "We need to contact station security before we take off."

"And I was trying to scare you, huh?" Jacie said dryly. "Come on, if it was the Triiad they won't wait long before sending another team." He turned, heading back down to corridor in the direction he'd come from. He turned off fairly quickly however, leading them down to a much smaller dock than they'd been working on. He knocked on the hatch of the first ship they came to. "Aslinn?"

"Jacie?" The redhead appeared at the near hatch. "Good timing, I was about to call you. Just got word from Myanmar, there's a launch window in half an hour that we can have. We owe him some repairs on his sailship when we get back."

Jace made a face. "We could always get killed."

"I'm laughing inside. Really." Aslinn waved at the other two to come in. "Come on, you can toss your stuff on one of the bunks."

Radu glanced again at the ship before he entered, and noticed Harlan doing the same thing. It was a different design than most of the ships he was familiar with…a blocky 'body' coming to a pointed tip, with protrusions off the front that he assumed were the laser cannons Aslinn had mentioned. Fins extended from the angled front, on which engines were mounted. It wasn't very large…perhaps a hundred feet long and maybe a quarter less than that wide, even including the fins. The size wouldn't have bothered him as much, if it wasn't fairly obvious that the hull paneling didn't match in a lot of places, and there were places that bore scorch marks that were less than reassuring. He wasn't the best at engineering, but even so he was glad he didn't have a better view of the engines.

"We'd better get the ship locked down," Jacie commented as they stepped inside. "They had some visitors while I was picking up our stuff."

"Damn. Good thing we're launching soon then."

"Where's Commander Goddard?" Radu asked as they stepped—cautiously—over the hatch threshold. There were entirely too many exposed wires above his head for his peace of mind—Andromedan hair was flammable. Harlan was ignoring wiring above, and watching the wiring and piping that ran alongside, some of which was making crackling and grumbling noises that were apparently audible even to a human.

"He's in the bunkroom," Aslinn supplied, standing in the corridor. "This is the main hall of the ship. Directly behind me…" he reached over his shoulder to pat a blast door, "is the commands post. The next door down is the bunkroom, the one after that is the rec room, and that door at the far end leads to the holding bay. Bathroom is on the interior, connected to the bunkroom and the rec room."

Harlan frowned. "What about food?"

"We've got a quasi-galley in the rec room, and some rations stored. Not the best variety, but they'll do in a pinch. I was going to hit the commissary and pick up some fresh stuff as soon as you got here, make it a little more edible, but..."

Jacie glanced at the chronometer. "I'd rather be ready to move as soon as we get the call. Get out of the bay, even if we can't really launch."

Aslinn took the bags from him. "Com's yours, I'll show them how to strap in and then recheck the hatches. Come on."

That was directed at Harlan and Radu, who fell in behind him. Harlan glanced up at their guide. "You said it would be a day before we got to the other ship? The one that's taking us into Spung space?"

"Yeah. We'll be skirting the edges, and meeting up with a Centauri deckship at Marduk.

"What's a deckship?" Radu asked curiously. He was familiar with the ship types in the Andromedan fleet, and had at least a passing knowledge of most of those the UPP possessed, but 'deckship' wasn't a term he'd heard before.

"They're huge haulers. Like carriers, except not designed to hold fighters. You use them to move smaller spacecraft…planetary shuttles, short-range transports, that kind of thing. Much more efficient for something like a colonizing operation, or stocking a station, than flying each ship out individually. Less fuel use, less wear on the ships, that kind of thing. We call them deckships because that's all they are. Three or four decks, full of ships. Apparently they've got room for us to dock the Rockhopper and will carry us as far as we need to. Well, as long as where we need to go follows their flight path…otherwise we'll have to take off on our own."

"Yeah, but we don't know where we're going," Harlan pointed out.

"Hopefully we'll find out…the Rockhopper is actually what we use to receive In'Tssai transmissions—station security being what it is, we figured that was safer—so with a little luck Jacie will hear from someone who knows what's happening to your crew before the Centauri get to their destination and turn around to head back out. And if not…" He shrugged, opening another blast door and entering the bunkroom.

Radu wondered just how many people they normally evacuated at once—there were three bunk beds and two couches, as well as several trunks.

Goddard sat on the lower bunk nearest, reading something off a compupad. "Commander?" Harlan asked.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you come in." He stood, putting the pad down. "Aslinn gave me some star charts with known Spung installations on them…there are enough similarities between most of the sites that we can come up with some general plans. I doubt they'd just leave the others on the Christa, especially if they're waiting for scientists—or Warlord Shank—to arrive. You brought our things?"

"What we had," Harlan confirmed. "We had a run-in with a couple of thugs…we're both all right, but we need to leave a message with station security before we leave."

"After we leave," Aslinn corrected. "We can tightbeam it back, but it'd be best not to give anyone an excuse to detain us." He tossed one of the bags onto the upper bunk on opposite Goddard and the other onto the one jutting into the center of the room with its head beside the first. "Jace and I will do launch prep. Once we clear the station, we'll be taking one of the slingshot launches…save the engines some. You'll either want to lie down and put on the bracing straps—" he pulled a net-like object from one side of the bunkbed and demonstrated quickly how it latched onto the opposite side to pin a person in place, "or sit on the couches and use the harnesses. They're built onto the seats...just sit down and flip them over your shoulders; it'll be pretty obvious how they latch. Be a bumpy ride for about ten minutes, and then you can get up and move around. The stabilizers aren't the best though…we usually at least partially strap in before we sleep, and if you're going to be sitting for awhile it doesn't hurt to at least pull the harness down even if you don't fasten it. I've gotten dumped on the floor a couple times."

A door beyond the bunkbed across the center of the room opened, and Jacie stuck his head in. "Best check the hatches now, for once they're moving ahead of schedule. I'm about to bring up the engines."

Aslinn nodded. "I'll start with the cargo hatch and work my way back to command." He turned back to the three from the Christa. "One of us will give you the grand tour as soon as we're out in space, until then just hang out here."

Goddard nodded as he exited, and then looked over at Harlan and Radu. "Let's strap in, and you can tell me about this 'run-in'."

Radu and Harlan took seats on the couch in the back of the room, while Goddard moved to the one at the head of the bunk he'd been sitting on. The harnesses were easy enough to figure out—it looked like they'd been taken from standard single-seat fighters. "Jacie went to tell Kyldarian about the change of plans and get their stuff, and when we heard a knock on the door we thought he was back," Harlan began. "But— what's that?"

A sputtering noise could clearly be heard in the background, trying to rise in pitch but falling back. After the third or fourth attempt, a steady drone was finally reached. Radu pinpointed the location of the sounds easily enough, and then remembered the outer layout of the ship. From the look on Commander Goddard's face, he'd reached the same conclusion. "I think those were the engines coming online."

The drone was suddenly replaced by a roaring sound, and Radu covered his ears reflexively. "Ah, man," Harlan muttered. "the whole ship is vibrating from those things. It's a good thing there's no sound in space. Can we hold off on the rest of the story until then?"

Goddard nodded, much to Radu's relief. He had no desire to try out-shouting—or listening to his crewmate out-shout—the engines' roar.

Apparently when they'd said launch time was in about half an hour, they'd meant the slingshot launch, because only a few moments later Aslinn's voice came over the comm. "Please make sure you're strapped in, we'll be clearing the station in the next five minutes, and making our way to the launchers. The noise will stop as soon as we clear the bay atmosphere, I promise."

True to his word, a few moments later the ship began to move, and after a quick jolt the sound ceased, although there was still a faint vibration. "My ears are still ringing," Harlan muttered.

"No kidding," Radu responded just as quietly.

"Why don't you finish telling me what happened on the station?" Goddard cut in.

Radu was content to leave most of the tale to Harlan, answering what questions he could when the commander asked him. Not that either of them could tell him very much…they didn't know who the men had been, or anything about them except that they were planning to sell the two of them to the Spung.

"You did well," Goddard assured them as they finished. "Honestly, I doubt you'd have been able to find out who they were working for, unless you let them take you back to him. Which would not have been a good idea under the circumstances."

"Yeah, well, I just hope no one on the station has the guts to come after us," Harlan commented.

"We're next in line for the slingshot," Aslinn's voice sounded. "Brace yourselves."