Chapter 3: Silver Bullet
It was a bright morning on the port side of the Apocalypse, and all its associated star ships, as they were flying near to a sun at 6:30 ship’s time. The Baron had been awake for hours, in fact he hadn’t slept. He was observing the interesting subspace find that was in the hanger of level 13.
‘What are you?’ he said quietly to himself, as he was checking panels and looking back up to the curious object.
Jazz was in the great hall. He had been awake since 4, when he found he couldn’t sleep, he had had his nightmares again. as he skewered a sausage with a silver fork Lori leant over to him and said softly (so as not to hurt his head (if he had a headache, that is))
‘Are you sure you’re ok? You look shattered’
‘Mmm…’ he (answered?) with a tankard of coffee to his muzzle.
‘Yeah, Bro, you look bad’ said Spaz.
He didn’t reply, and merely poked at a runny egg.
‘Hey, there’s always next time.’ Said Lori.
She was referring to the supply shuttles that come from Carrotus, containing the rare mineral ‘Hovostone’ which, when electricity is passed through it, it becomes less dense than air, which is what powered the hover boards on Carrotus, but The Baron had found a way of strengthening it to form a very light composite, useful in all of the battle machines, from hover bikes to tanks to allowing star ships to fly over land. That wasn’t the only cargo; however, sometimes prisoners had been taken to the Gaol ships, or enlisted into the army, navy or air force, mainly because their powerful build could see them reach areas that couldn’t be reached without some sort of Jump Pack, or Grav Pack, so they could make excellent Drop Commandos, or Guerrilla fighters. There were special Elite divisions, such as the 405th Airborne, or the 312th Hazardous Terrain Corps, with their own special armour type.
Jazz, though, was not part of those divisions, as he was a Battle Commander, and was in charge of Battle Group 2808α, from the bridge of a ‘Librarian’ Walker; Spaz was the Commander of Mech Division 12, or the ‘Silencers’ as they preferred to call themselves; and Lori was a ‘ShadowKin’ in the Assassin’s league, a very prestigious rank to reach, and the promotions were issued on the grounds of casualties inflicted.
The Royal family, however, were not taken to Gaol, or recruited, merely for the purpose of preventing uprisings, which are always brutally crushed; what’s the point of reducing your workforce anyway? The Royals were confined to the castle, in a shield sealed area, and most of the rest of the castle had become an unnoticed nexus for the occupation of Carrotus. Raw materials were used to create more battle machines, shipped off world in the shuttles.
She offered him a sweet, from their communal bag, but there were only the nasty little ones no one likes left. He selected a horrid little chewy thing. He held it in front of his face, and it burst into flames.
‘Sorry’ said Lori, smiling, ‘I’m not quite used to the whole magic thing’
Spaz snapped his fingers, and a ukulele smashed on the table.
‘Not me either’ he said.
Then, very unexpectedly, the sweet stopped burning, and re materialized, and a slice of bacon un-ate itself. Yes, The Baron was standing in the doorway. He threw a bag of sweets on the table, and said
‘You’d better be careful with that magic, sister’ (The Baron always insisted on people calling each other ‘brother’ or ‘sister’, for stability reasons)
‘You could have ruined my good teak’
‘Yes, Brother, I’ll try’
‘And you, Brother’ he said, turning to face Spaz
‘Yes?’ Spaz said, with a hint of unease in his words
‘You should refrain from that. If we were in subspace that uke would have been a complete set of steel drums. And you would have been certainly killed’
The Baron turned to face Jazz
‘And you, Brother Jazz’
‘Hmm?’
‘The Silver Bullet will be docking in precisely 28 hours from now. You are to oversee the docking as Standing Dock Commander’
He slumped. ‘But that’s dock crew work’
‘Something you prize will be onboard. It would make a world of difference if you are there for the… reception’
Later that day Jazz returned to his quarters and looked at all of his pencil sketches on the desk. He then lay down for a fitful night’s sleep.
The day came and at 18:00 hours he was on the deck, doing his ‘crew work’, muttering to himself how he could be planning the destruction of the remnants of Devan’s fleet, and how it must be a really good reason for him to-
The siren went off; meaning something really bad had gone down. Two hatches opened up in the ceiling of the docking bay and two H-Fighters dropped out, flared their engines full rear and sped out of the hangar, Jazz noticed them charging their Magnetic containment field emitters (MCFEs) as they sped off towards the subspace rupture about 120 miles from the side of the Apocalypse. It was not hard to spot a Subspace rupture. It was a large rippling in the fabric of space, tinted with blue.
H-Fighters make up the main body of the Baron’s air forces; they are basically blunt, curved ended cigar shapes, with two fixed engines at the rear, and 4 rotation-mounted high power cold fusion engines, which allow them to be steered with much greater efficiency than a conventional design, making them unstoppable in dogfights and extremely useful in recovery missions.
The intercom flickered and crackled on the bridge, the voice of a slightly panicky Vekei said:
‘S-r --sup--er-‘s----sh---t to h--ll’
‘Say again!’ shouted the Baron, to allow himself to be heard
‘Re-p-eat superstructure’s shot to hell, we’re burning up’
‘Stand by, hold it together! H will be with you in 5. Tractor beam is up and charging. On in 10.’
‘Thank you sir’
‘The cargo’
‘Sir?’
‘The cargo! Is it intact, man!’
‘Slight power loss in hold. Caskets intact.’
The Baron sat heavily in his chair.
‘That was too close. We almost lost it.’
In the hangar the charred wreck of the Silver Bullet was dropped in by the tractor beam, and the docking pylon attached itself to the hull. The pilot and cargo crew took the wounded, on stretchers to the carrier depot, where a small clawed limb attached to the back of the stretcher, and placed them into waiting life support sarcophagi carted them away to the medi-bay. The antigrav mineral was taken away to the cargo depot where it was contained and taken away to the processing area. Then came the caskets. 10 of them in all, and as dock commander it was his job to check them, which involves checking the life signs and, the relevant data. He had got through 7 but he froze at number 8. The data read
‘Birth name: E. Earlong---permit no. 005237---sent for: ---purpose classified---’
__________________
Man cannot create an earthworm,
Yet he creates Gods by the hundred!
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