Chapter 21: Bombs Away

~~ December - Week 53 ~~

The Firefly had to alter their course in order to bleed off their speed.

Being down a fore drive meant they had to increase the size of their loop to approach Futura to bleed off more speed. They still hadn’t gotten the other engine working. The drive engineer said they didn’t have replacement parts for the engine.

Their spares were still sitting on the dock at the space station. The replicator hadn’t been loaded with them, and he’d have to bastardise one of the aft engines to get it going.

Captain Manning informed the navigator that he had been told the Ulysses was in the system and he knew they would need all speed possible to make their getaway. The navigator was very worried that it may actually be at Futura when they arrived.

They had planned to do several micro-jumps to get in the system, but they had to get the speed down first. He hadn’t told the crew of his plans to take a transporter to the surface to bomb Futura.

When they got the hails from the Dragonfly, the navigator had told his crew to ignore them, saying they had their own mission to complete and were not in a position to help them. He was hoping the Ulysses would have to go to their rescue so the warship would be out of his way.

They were close enough to pick up transmissions and to access the local net system. They picked up a news report of a damaged ship in the system and that the Ulysses had indeed gone to its rescue.

They elected for one short micro-jump at their current speed. They could then bleed off the rest of the speed as they got into orbit. The jump was as bad as the others had been. The shaken and tired crew started talking about downtime once they got to Futura.

The pilot, Bindi Bibi, reported the Captain’s tight look and non-committal answer to the rest of the crew when he had asked about downtime. One of the drive engineers, Jarid Simala, decided it was time to have a closer look at what they had taken on board when they had met with the transporter before heading out of Earth’s system.

He reported an hour later to the other crewmembers that they were the new ‘Z’ bombs. The crew was starting to become very worried about the real mission. They had been told they had to go pick up some dignitaries from Utopia, not bomb it.

When they confronted the Captain, he got angry and told them to do their bloody jobs and let him do his. It was the navigator, who threatened them if they didn’t. None of them liked the older man or his superior attitude.

He gave all of them the creeps, and they had tried to stay out of his way as much as possible over the previous five weeks. Many had commented on the Captain’s deference to the man, and how he had become surly and short-tempered during the trip.

Bindi had commented on seeing the Captain one time after the navigator had been in his room. He told the others that he had a lost faraway look that creped him out. He had listened at the door the next time he spied the navigator enter the Captain’s room.

He heard the man tell Captain Manning to strip and realised the slapping sounds and grunts that soon followed were the results of the occupants having sex. He didn’t think the Captain was a willing participant.

Bindi knew Manning had a wife back home and had told him often in the past how he was looking forward to getting home to her. When he saw the Captain a little later, he had that same faraway look Bindi had observed before. He was now even more worried.

At long last, the ship was in orbit around Utopia. The crew was astounded by the images coming back from the probes around the planet. The size of Futura amazed them, and they all wished they were able to go down to the new town or even one of the other cities they saw on the planet.

The navigator told Bindi to get Transporter 3 ready to go down to the planet and to ensure the cargo they had picked up was on-board. Bindi found Jarid and the electrician Calvin Pane and asked them to help him.

They removed the four bombs from the crates. Then they hide them in one of the empty storage rooms. They were surprised by how small yet heavy the missiles were. Calvin reprogrammed the access to the storage room.

He and Jarid put some lead ingots in the crates, they made sure the lids were well nailed down and then put them on the transporter. They hoped the boxes weren’t accessed until after the transporter left.

Bindi then directed them and the rest of the crew to make themselves scarce. The crew locked themselves into one of the other transporters. Calvin switched off all their minders but activated the comms on the transporter, so Bindi could contact them.

The ship didn’t have any other weapons on board as far as they knew, and Bini hoped that Captain Manning and the navigator wouldn’t kill him as they needed him to activate the on-board systems if they planned to leave in the transporter.

Bindi was sitting in the pilot’s seat when the navigator came in. “Where the hell is Jarid?” he asked.

“In his room as far as I know,” Bindi replied.

The man’s eyes narrowed, and Bini felt a shiver of fear slid down his back. He found his eyes locked onto by the navigator. He couldn’t look away. “Where is he?” the man asked again tightly.

Bindi found the answer was on his tongue and he bit it to try and stop it escaping his mouth. The intense sharp pain broke the lock, and he was able to look down. He was panting hard and could taste the blood in his mouth. “I don’t know.”

The man pulled out a baton from his side, and Bindi found it under his chin. “You lie,” he said in cold anger. Bindi shook in his seat as the baton released a charge into his system. The pain was blinding and intense.

“Are the crates on the transporter?” the man growled out. Bindi nodded, yes, still shaking.

“Are they still sealed?”

Again, Bindi nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said when realised the navigator wanted a verbal reply.

“Are you lying?” the man said.

Bindi looked back into his eyes, “No, sir, the crates are sealed.”

“Is the rest of the crew hiding from me?”

Again, Bindi nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Why are you still here?”

“Someone has to monitor the ship, sir. I don’t want it to crash,” he replied.

The navigator read the truth in his words. He thought of pursuing where the rest of the crew was but decided it didn’t matter. He stopped that thought only to think, ‘Unless they planned to jump him.’

“Did they damage the transporter?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir. It was in working order when I left it. I did a system check, and it was okay,” Bindi hastily said, not wanting to be zapped again.

“The Captain and I should be back in four hours. This ship had better be here when we do.”

He leant over and typed a code into the system. “This will allow only one aft drive to work, to make sure,” he said. While he wasn’t planning on coming back, it didn’t hurt to have a plan ‘B’.

“I need to know where the crew are hiding. I don’t trust them. As I fully intend to leave, I don’t want them trying to stop me. I can make this extremely painful, or you can simply tell me.”

Bindi swallowed and paled further. “They won’t stop you, sir, they are hiding. They just don’t want to go with you,” he said trembling as the baton dug into the side of his neck.

“You will take me to them. Get up,” he said.

Reluctantly Bindi complied, only to find himself on the floor writhing in pain as he had been zapped again.

“Get up and take me to them,” the man ground out.

Holding his ribs, Bindi gingerly got off the floor and headed for the lift. He led the navigator to the third transporter and opened the door. The two men headed up the ramp. The cargo area was empty, and Bindi was directed to open the door to the crew area. It too was abandoned.

“Where are they?”

“I left them here honest; see the comm is still on.”

“Let’s go check the other two transporters,” the man said tight-lipped.

“Captain, make your way to the transporter bay,” he said into his comm.

They checked the second transporter, but it too was empty. They approached the third, the one that had been prepped for flight. This one was empty as well except for the crates. The navigator checked them over. They were sealed tight. “Captain, stop off at maintenance and bring some podgy-bars with you.”

“Okay,” came back the surly reply.

The navigator turned to Bindi, “So where are the rest of the crew?”

“Honest, I left them in the first transporter I don’t know where they are now. They must have decided to move after I left,” he said.

The older man read the truth in the younger man’s eyes and voice. He didn’t know where they now were. It was smart of them to move after he had left them. You can’t tell what you don’t know.

The Captain turned up and gave the navigator the podgy-bars and then headed into the cockpit. He ran a system check and reported it all seemed in order.

Bindi found himself being sent back to the helm to evacuate the room and open the doors. He quickly left them and headed up to the helm. He happily evacuated the chamber and opened the bay doors.

He watched the monitors and saw the transporter drop out of the belly of the ship and fire up its engines to head to the planet. He opened the general ship’s comm, “They are gone guys you can come out now.”

No one answered him. “Guys, they are gone,” he said again, getting worried. Suddenly, he felt he wasn’t alone and turned to find a very tall man standing behind him and started badly.

“Hi, sorry to scare you, mate. Your friends are safe,” the man said.