Deep Yellow
Authors: Stuart Dodds
Tags: #addiction, #action adventure, #prisoner, #game show, #alienworlds, #laser gun, #clue solving, #female action lead, #space police, #chase action
by
Stuart F. Dodds
Copyright 2015 by
Stuart F. Dodds
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or
used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written
permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses
permitted by copyright law.
Published by Stuart F.
Dodds
ISBN:
978-0-9932065-2-8
For
further information, please visit
http://www.deepyellownovel.com/home.html
Smashwords Edition,
License Notes
Thank you for
downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property
of
the author, and may not
be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial
purposes. If you
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To mum.
***
Thanks to my wife Jayne
for her help, encouragement and patience and my children for their
love and support.
***
Cover design by Rachel
Bostwick and Stuart F. Dodds.
Contents
Chapter 8 - Mapping the
alien world
Chapter 20 - Space Corps
Special Forces
Chapter 21 - Covering
the basics
Chapter 23 - The
Holographic World
Chapter 24 - Inspector
Sturlach
Chapter 27 - The First
Challenge
Chapter 31 - Death
equals profits
Chapter 32 - Tinker
Holdings Ltd
Chapter 34 - Information
received
Chapter 36 - By the
White Tower
Chapter 38 - You know
your problem?
Chapter 39 - It’s all
going well
Chapter 42 - It's only a
gameshow
Chapter 50 - Making
arrangements
Com
man
der
Sturlach
Flexing her hands, she shifted in her seat and
pressed the fire button. Seeker missiles tore through the air,
vaporising the defence drones.
Dockside was still a
crap hole, Police Corps Commander Brell Sturlach reflected, as she
flew her command skiff around for another run. Little had changed
since her first posting there. Huge dilapidated tower blocks,
supposed “cities in the sky,” now a desolate residence of poverty,
crime, and the forgotten. Despite all the advancements in
technology, people still hung their clothes on a washing line
strung over their balcony.
Dancing her fingers
over various real and holographic buttons, she checked on the
progress of the land transporters. Her two support skiffs flew
alongside. It was early morning, a good time for a drugs raid. The
only people awake would be the poor sods manufacturing the illegal
drugs or the “volunteers” operating the defence pods. Most of the
gang were in oblivion unaware of anything going on around them.
Deep Yellow and other illegal drug ampoules, bottles and tablets
would be strewn all over their apartment floors. Brell hated Deep
Yellow users.
Studying the console
monitors and holographic screens within her cockpit, Brell realised
that the drug gang's defences outside the building were basic. No
sticky bombs, laser splashers, or heavy armaments. Still, caution
was required. The location was a whole floor inside Tower Block
Linear 51, but experience told her that gangs used the surrounding
buildings for early warning systems and defences.
The transporters, full
of Corpsmen and Corpswomen, steadily drove along the grid road, one
behind the other. They were within one kilometre of the target
tower block. Regardless of the obvious Corps activity, local people
walked on the side-paved areas, cabs dropped off passengers, and
auto sleds cabs shuffled around the grids. Off to one side were the
cargo docking areas where large bulk transporters manoeuvred into a
final descent. The stevedore sleds would be getting ready to scan
and store the shipments ready for collection, whilst the security
guards waited for the morning shift to arrive.
A signal chimed on
Brell's console, a heat signal discovered by the community centre
ruins.
"Trans One, two
hundred metres ahead of your position on the left. Possible
armaments." Brell said, via her comms implant link.
"Skiff Alpha, assist
Trans One."
She watched the
leading transporter, Trans One, as it approached the community
centre, remembering her time as a junior Corps officer in the back
of a similar transporter en route to a raid. Two lines of Corps
officers, sitting opposite each other in dark blue uniforms, with
their commander positioned off to one side studying screens. There
would be the usual small talk, jokes, silence, and faces unable to
hide nervous tension. At least one of them would clasp and re-clasp
their laser barrel, looking around at the others. Brell remembered
when a Police Corps colleague had come straight to work from an all
night party. He had not washed and his stomach acid tablets were
not working, so they sent him to sit in the corner. When the “go”
order came, they pushed him out of the transporter first.
Unfortunately, as he jumped the half metre to the ground, he let
off a huge fart. The remainder of the crew, including Brell, had to
run through a cloud of rank stomach gas with every one of them
coughing. Their Commander went red in the face whilst telling them
to pull themselves together without being overcome by the fumes
himself.
Trans One and Skiff
Alpha went to work, firing missiles and emitting laser strikes.
After the dust settled, the heat signals had gone.
"Trans One. Good job.
Will clear target entranceway. Skiff Beta, follow me."
She tensed, relaxed,
adjusted her breathing, and calmed her thoughts. Flipping up
another holographic screen, she made a positive thought.
Command; disengage
auto
.
The engine noise
changed slightly. Brell felt the weight and vibration of the craft
through her joystick. Easing off the anti grav drive, she lowered
the craft to twenty metres above the roadway and surveyed the area
ahead, Skiff Beta following her path. Her intention was to curve
around the target tower block and back passed the entrance, where
she would send in some stunners.
Boom!
The craft suddenly
dipped to the left. Brell compensated on the joystick as best as
she could, but the sudden banking put the skiff onto a collision
course with another tower block.
"Warning, wing damage.
Warning, wing damage," the cockpit announced.
"Skiff Beta. I’ve been
hit. Be careful."
Brell tensed her jaw,
tightened her grip on the joystick, and decelerated. By fighting
the joystick and adjusting the drive, she managed to lift the wing
up to just clear the tower block. Letting out a breath, she saw out
of the corner of her eye, Skiff Beta pelting the armaments that had
fired at her wing.
"Damage report." An
update message appeared. The wing tip had received some minor
damage.
"Auto stabilise, yaw,"
she said in a firm voice.
The skiff balanced
itself whilst Brell settled back in her seat, flying the skiff up
and around the adjacent tower block on the grid. She wiggled the
joystick and felt the skiff responding.
"Skiff Beta, all
okay," Brell said calmly, "all trans, standby for entranceway
stun."
With final screen and
sensor checks made for lookouts, cameras, holo fields, and
pedestrians, Brell swung her skiff onto the grid line leading to
the entrance. Lowering to three metres, the ground streamed passed
until she engaged the sensor assist braking. Balancing the braking
and the anti grav drive, she hung outside the entrance. A stream of
light laser fire emitted from a window midway up the tower block
and splashed against the craft's shields. Another stream joined it
from the next window along. Her main screen brought up a heat
temperature gauge as the left side anti grav drive engine began
overheating. The drive unit started to whine. Adjusting her
concentration, Brell got ready.
Command; stun
pellets
.
Small pellets burst
out and into the entranceway. A cloud of dust billowed back out of
the doorway. Anyone inside, gang member or not, would have
collapsed on the floor, unable to move. Upon waking, a grinning
Police Corps officer would be leaning over them.
"Warning, drive unit
overheating. Warning, drive unit overheating." The temperature
gauge flashed red.
Brell pushed her
joystick for acceleration without response. The sensors had set
both engines into tick over to maintain height only. Another laser
splashed onto the drive unit, which started to melt.
"Danger, drive unit
fail. Danger, drive unit fail." Brell's eyes flicked around the
various warning lights.
A distinct warning
chime sounded. Had Skiff Alpha and Beta been hit? The chime got
louder. Brell sat back, dropping her shoulders.
"Frag it."
The Reveille breakfast
chime continued as Brell pulled off her gaming helmet and placed it
on the desk in front of her. Rubbing her face with both hands, she
stared at the wall, adjusting herself back into the real world:
Cell 752, Wing 90, Association (Women’s) Prison Facility, Planet
Crin, on the outer rim of the Vorsan Galaxy.
90
Brell sat on the privy, rubbing her arm, staring at
the floor. Another day had dawned, same old breakfast waiting for
her. Aside from the bed, chair, table, wardrobe, media console, and
punch bag, she had little personal effects in her cell. The
regulation single shelf held a picture cube, a small plas-glass
sculpture set on a wooden plinth from a craft class and a stack of
personal messages she should have thrown away.
Standing up, she
washed her hands then splashed some water on her face. She
straightened her clothes, yawned, scratched her backside, and
ambled out onto the landing overlooking the communal area. A smell
of disinfectant and cooking wafted up to her. The area for meals
and free association consisted of a large rectangular room on the
ground floor, surrounded by tiers of cells. Psych analysis,
treatment, and holo activity rooms were off to the side, whilst the
guard stations nestled around the entrance door. No one had
escaped; the security and location implant inside each prisoner saw
to that.
