Chapter 5 - It Doesn't Make Sense
Bang! A dull metallic clanging sound reverberated through the pod. Tara jumped convulsively. I may be dead - but apparently I can still have the crap scared out of me. Oh good.
"Looks like we got picked up." Taura's voice was calm, a little distant. The Pod began to move at a sideways angle, pulled by an outside force.
"Tractor beam, said Taura, "they're being pretty careful. That's hopeful." The pod continued to move through space.
"Can't we tell who it is?" said Tara.
Taura shook her head. "Only one way we're going to find that out," she said calmly. The pod began to vibrate. "I take it back - we're being pulled through an atmosphere, so it must be Bathory. Things are going to get pretty hot in a moment."
Tara felt a strange tugging sensation, as though her stomach was moving sideways; after a moment her feet touched the floor, and she grabbed the wall beside her, startled.
"Time to strap ourselves in," said Taura, pressing herself back into her bunk.
Tara backed gingerly into the bunk space, remembering to place her hand over the plate this time. But before the webbing engaged, the pod changed direction abruptly, and the gravitational effect shifted 90 degrees. With a scream, Tara fell, face downward, and smacked into the immobilised form of Taura in the bunk that was now abruptly below her. In a moment, Taura disengaged the webbing, pressed a firm arm against Tara's back, and engaged it again, cocooning them together. The pod reversed direction a split second later, and Tara gasped as Taura's weight pressed against her from above, then swallowed bile as the pod shot forward, driving all the blood in her body abruptly downward. A moment later the pod moved abruptly sideways again, then back. The webbing creaked, a little, and Tara imagined for a panicked moment what would happen if it snapped, and the two of them were thrown about the inside of the pod like a pair of dice in a tumbler.
"Somebody's trying to soften us up," growled Taura. "Not so friendly after all."
The pod landed with a clang, then shuddered to an abrupt halt. The dizzying gravitational forces steadied, and it became apparent that the pod was lying horizontally, Tara and Taura dangling helplessly from what had now become the ceiling. Tara imagined them falling. It was only a distance of about seven feet, but she was going to be mashed between the wall, which was now the floor, and 300 pounds of Super Soldier. Not good.
But the pod hadn't finished moving. It rolled abruptly, 180 degrees, and then settled in a screech of metal.
"Seems we survived." Taura was lying on her back on the floor, Tara on top of her. She reached out a large hand, and released the webbing covering them both. Tara looked down at her, feeling the trembles of shock rolling through her. We made it, somehow! She scrabbled hurriedly to her feet. "Sorry I landed on you. Are you okay?"
A strangely fey grin rippled across Taura's face. "Yeah - yeah, I think I am." She felt the back of her head gingerly, then winced.
"You got quite a bump," said Tara anxiously.
"Oh, my head is all right," said Taura. "Solid bone." She twisted, and looked up at the pod hatch. "It would be really smart to get out of here before anyone shows up with a gun."
"I think you're right," said Tara.
Taura heaved herself painfully to her feet, bent almost in two, and staggering a little, and then stamping her legs on the ground, and slapping her arms against her chest. "First things first," she said, and reached into her pocket, drew out a handful of ration sticks, and offered one to Tara, who took it without comment. Tearing the foil from the first bar, Taura limped to the hatch, and released the seal. She put her hand on the underside, and heaved.
They were outside, in a field of tarmac that was covered in roiling smoke, and a rain of debris. Another pod lay beside them, also cracked open, the interior steaming slightly. Taura set off at a steady lope, and Tara stumbled after her, trying to readjust to gravity, and to the sudden, unexpected chill in the evening air. Within a few yards the smoke began to clear, and the view opened before them. A long empty stretch of gray, marked into bays, and runways, with hangars, and parked vehicles dotted across it in the distance. They stumbled to a halt.
There was a gentle whirring sound behind them, and Tara turned. A flat bedded cart loaded high with baggage was approaching them, puffing along unaffected by the chaotic scene only feet away.
"We have a ride!" said Taura, and took two quick strides, then swung herself up on the pile of baggage. Tara ran after her, panicky, and flung herself in a tangle of arms and legs, onto the pile. The bags began to slip underneath her, and a heavy arm fell across her back, and scooped her neatly into a safe position. A couple of cases, dislodged by her scrambling, bounced off the cart, and Tara regarded them guiltily. Lost luggage - I hate it when that happens to me. And now I'm causing it!
She shifted position, as Taura's arm released her, and looked back at the ship - rising huge and awkward above the billow of smoke and dust, grounded where it was never meant to land, among what looked like the remains of a warehouse, under a sky itself beginning to turn grey with the approach of dusk.
"Well, we missed the spaceport, but we hit the yard of the shuttleport," said Taura thoughtfully. "Someone in the space traffic control office with their hand on that tractor beam is a genius." She grinned down at Tara, the sunshine glinting off her burnished dark hair, and picking out the bruises, and dirt, all over her face, then hugged her suddenly. "This is crazy fun," she said.
Tara's face was crushed up uncomfortably against Taura's chest, making it hard to breathe. Fun?! She just got kidnapped, and beaten up, and nearly killed - is she crazy?
Taura released her abruptly, and looked around, eyes glowing. "Now we just have to look for a chance to slip away. Soon as we get inside the baggage claim we hop off - okay?"
"Okay," said Tara nervously. And here was the baggage claim, most likely - large and boxy, with six shuttered doorways in its side. As she watched, the second left shutter began silently to lift, and the baggage truck veered gently to aim itself toward it. There was a faint glint of silver from something just inside.
"Taura," she said nervously. "Do you see someone just inside that door?" Taura's head swivelled abruptly to stare. The baggage train trundled serenely forward. Tara peered forward apprehensively. I thought I saw something, but... Taura reached out a huge paw, grabbed Tara by the shirt front, and rolled from the cart. Tara felt a stinging sensation in her cheek, and saw a bolt of blue fire from the corner of her eye. The suitcases they had been resting on burst into flame.
And then they were rolling across the tarmac. Sizzles and hisses sounded all around, and in a confused blur of motion Tara saw two men detach themselves from the cover of the doorway and run towards them, still firing. Blue uniforms and a patch with a stylised cat's head on it... oh great, now we know where the guys in that other pod got to.
She felt herself being jerked to her feet, and began to run, stumbling to regain her balance. She could hear shouts, and screams behind her, and the whirr of an engine - as the port security's attention was attracted by the fireshow. Taura pulled her into the lee of some kind of huge metal cylinder, and a second later a hover car shot past them, lights flashing. One of the two men went down on one knee, and fired directly at the car. There was a crackle of blue light, which splashed off the car's carapace like water.
"Armoured," said Taura, with satisfaction in her voice. "Now he's in trouble."
And as she spoke the car spat a bolt of fire, which enveloped the man in a ball of flames. His companion turned abruptly, and ran the way he had come, ducking into the cover of the doorway entrance, just as second bolt of fire shot in his direction, and hit him squarely in the back.
Someone somewhere must have hit an emergency switch because now all six shutters on the hangar were rolling upwards. The hover car swung through the nearest gaping entrance, closely followed by two more police vehicles, klaxons blaring.
Taura drew a deep breath, "Okay," she said, "now we run."
Tara wheezed to a halt. It seemed they had been running forever. As dusk fell they had run across the tarmac, past yards full of piles of mysterious freight and supplies, around anonymous buildings, and a huge fuel dump, up ladders, down steps. When they met with a fence Taura had simply ripped her way through it, and she had followed breathlessly behind. Eventually, as night closed in, they had left the shuttleport and begun to pick their way through scattered shops, and houses, until they were moving rapidly down a main street, and then a smaller one, and finally this dark alley full of looming shadows and pungently unpleasant smells.
And now, she could run no more. Her lungs were bursting, her vision was blurred, and as she doubled over sweat ran off her nose to plop onto the pavement beneath her.
"I'm done," she said. "No more."
"It's only another two blocks." Taura stepped up to loom anxiously over her. "We're so nearly there."
"So nearly where?" said Tara. "Seems like I've spent the last two days just running after you, never knowing why, or where, or what the hell I'm doing!" She ended on a shout, and a cough, and bent double again.
"Oh," said Taura. There was a pause. "I'm sorry. I forgot there's so much you don't know. We - that is the Dendarii - have a safe address just around here for covert ops. That's where we're going. There's a shower there," she said encouragingly, "and food."
"A shower?" Taras looked down at her filthy, blackened self. "For a shower I think I can do two more blocks." She stepped forward again, her legs trembling under her, and with Taura loping silently at her side like a giant shadow, she moved wearily forward into the darkness.