phil jones2 (19 page)

Chapter 22

Waaaahrghrghhhhoooooohno! Ostrich! Box!

P
hil Jones found himself in a most unfamiliar place. Well, unfamiliar in certain ways and entirely homely in others as he would soon discover.
It was a long corridor with a series of strange looking devices clamped down by darkened claws that seemed to grow out of the walls. Experimentally he took a step forward and nearly fell over when with a crackling sound the claws on his right side began to unfurl, exposing the device inside to his senses.

It was a large dark cube that seemed to pulse gently with a reassuring chime, and for reasons unknown to him he did not flee from its presence. If anything, he felt oddly drawn to it when on a purely rational level he knew to stay away from technology that didn't belong to him at all cost lest he manage to break it somehow. Again. Repeatedly.

Two small pads slowly detached from here-to-unseen crevices within the box and floated toward him, pressing themselves insistently into his palms.

There was a moment of tactile resistance from the glove that should have warned him, then he had left the corridor altogether.

Fat men, or the gravitationally challenged as they prefer to be called, tend not to fare overly well when catapulted into the air. Phil Jones was no exception to this most golden of rules, so when he discovered that he was hovering approximately one thousand feet above the snow-capped peaks of some unknown mountain, his reaction was thus:

'Waaaahrghrghhhhoooooohno!'

After flailing wildly at the air for a time, Phil noticed that his descent was about as rapid as an Ostrich racing team entering a downhill bob-sleigh event. It should have been comically fast but ultimately it never happened.

Taking this factor into account, he gently pushed his arms forward in a swimming motion. The effect of which was to send him hurtling through the air above the mountain with a scream of terror that slowly morphed into one of joy.

'I'm flying!' Phil yelled to the mountains, who seemed largely indifferent to the corpulent avian's progress on account of their limited emotional reception.

'Woooooo!' was Phil's reaction to his conversational landscape, entirely heedless to the rocky surface's lack of grace or social propriety.

It all seemed entirely real, or at least how he'd imagine soaring over the mountains at high speed would feel like.

He passed over great lakes, through teeming mists and down long-forgotten valleys. He zoomed past giant forests that carpeted the distant ground beneath him, staring at the endless natural beauty that surrounded him and letting the cool breeze tickle his chest.

That was when he began to feel a tugging on his hand, a sensation he couldn't understand given that nothing had come into contact with it.

Then vaguely, as if through the depths of a muggy dream, Phil remembered that previously there had been a glove attached to his hand. That none of this majesty he felt such awe for was real, and as he did so it slowly faded, to be replaced with an aching and indescribable sense of loss.

The box appeared once more, its chime a slow reverse as it powered down. The pad that one of Phil's hands grasped for so eagerly refused to activate without the other. The glove prevented this from transpiring, much to his anger and frustration.

'Why won't you let me go back?' Phil wailed at the glove, tears streaking down his face at being forced away from something so glorious and beautiful.

The glove gave him no answers, a swift tug nearly pulled his arm out of its socket and sent him staggering down the corridor once again.

His eyes feasted upon the glittering cases that were slowly unveiled from the crackling grasp of claws. Each one was more impressive than the last, a honeyed treat or pearl glistening with temptation that made his feet and neck struggle against the will of the glove with every step.

It wouldn't give in to its owner's desires, resolutely leading him onward with a singular will that seemed oblivious to the increasingly amazing boxes that Phil's eyes passed over.

Then the boxes ceased altogether, and the glove slowed in response as if it had become as uncertain of the future path as Phil was.

A single figure stood ahead of them, beckoning him forward, which explained why the glove had stopped him in his tracks.

Beautiful wouldn't have done it justice, he felt a strange strangling sensation as his heart tried to crawl out of his mouth at the mere sight of her.

Perfect alabaster skin that looked as if it had been poured over her creamy white thighs that led up to a slit in a revealing red dress. It wasn't just any red dress though, it had a distinctly sixties vibe to it and a single golden badge indicated its science fiction origin. She was a Trek goddess.

'Hello, Mr. Jones.' she purred at him, her sultry voice sending tingles over his body in questionable areas. 'your Horgon is showing.'

Phil was too entranced to notice.

'So how about you come join me and I'll show you the true meaning of Pon farr?'

The glove tightened urgently around his hand and the thought came into his head immediately. 'You're not a Vulcan.' was the response, but it seemed to come from far away and with more than a hint of uncertainty about it.

'Am I not?' she replied, her voice washing over him like liquid silk as she swished her hair back to reveal the points of her ears.

The glove was now strangling his hand. Those ears definitely hadn't been like that before, there was something very off about this whole thing.

She seemed so real though, if he could just reach out and... The glove clamped down so hard that he yelled, giving it a look of irritation.

'What is it you want?' he shouted at it, waving it exasperatedly up and down in the vain hope of dislodging its grip.

The glove remained unsurprisingly silent, with no further thoughts coming unbidden to his head. He looked back at the woman to devote his full attention to her once more.

She had changed.

It was only perceptible for the briefest of moments, but that slight flicker in what he saw was enough to dispel Phil's illusion. A man who spent his life staring at screens expected a certain degree of consistency, and this simply wasn't doing it.

'You're just another computer simulation.' he sighed, 'nobody really wants to spend that kind of time with me.'

She pleaded with him, begged him to stay and offered all kinds of wonderful things. If he had been any other man he would have gladly accepted, the glove was already dragging him away though. He knew it wasn't real, that it was just another representation of reality being beamed in to him, no matter how realistic. Just like every other day.

He barely noticed the other claws unfold as he passed them by, so wrapped up in his own sadness was he. Eventually the sounds ceased and he noticed a large circular door ahead of him. Reality beckoned, and Phil was through with make-believe.

He just wished he knew if it was him thinking that or the glove.

Chapter 23

Thrashing! Chamber! Problem!

'Urgh, my head.' Darwin groaned, rising in the medical bay with some effort. 'what the devil happened? One minute we were escaping from that beastie and the next I find myself aboard this vessel.'

His doctor came out from the corner of the room, a look of concern on his face.

'Well, doctor? What's the prognosis? You really do have the worst bed-side manner I've ever seen. Aren't you at least going to ask me how I'm feeling?'

Hanniman shrugged at him. 'You've already told me exactly how you feel, we don't have time to nurse you back to health. The crew needs you.'

As if transformed by hearing the need in the man's tone, Darwin transformed from petulant whiner into invincible Captain.

'What is it that's required of me?' he bellowed, swaying slightly as he pulled himself upright into a position of readiness.

Hanniman frantically lowered his hands in the hopes of silencing the boisterous man. 'Quietly Captain, the Voravians will hear us otherwise.'

'Voravians!' Darwin shouted at the top of his voice, spinning wildly about the room as if drunk. 'where? Where are they?'

The temporary chief of medical staff looked on at his patient with deep concern. Was this man in any fit state to help anyone or had that knock on the head taken more out of him than he'd admit?

'Captain, we are deep in the bowels of the Voravian sphere, they captured us and sucked us in somewhere before taking the rest of the crew. For some reason they haven't checked the medical bay yet. I'm useless with a blaster so you're our last hope of getting out of here.'

A report of the situation seemed to sober the man up slightly, that or he was beginning to get a semblance of his bearings back.

'So you're telling me that I'm the last hope of mankind as we know it?'

Dr. Hanniman wouldn't go that far with his assessment, but he could tell from the look on the Captain's face what he was expecting to hear. 'Yes sir, it is you alone who can save us and all of mankind.'

Darwin's chest visibly puffed out in predictable fashion, and a confident smile spread across his face. 'We'll show those devils what for, won't we doctor...?'

'Hanniman, Doctor Hanniman, Chief Engineer temporarily in charge of sick bay.'

'Well Hanniman, we shall give these lizards a damn good thrashing, you and I!'

He cleared his throat at the Captain, but Darwin wasn't listening.

'With you to guard my six the green-skinned bastards will be so much target practice once we stab at the heart of their own invasion fleet!'

The Engineer-come-Doctor finally got a word in edge-ways now that Darwin had finished pontificating on future feats of heroism. 'Sir, I won't be going out there with you, I'm useless with a blaster. I'd be more of a liability than an aid, but I can help you from the ship.'

If the Captain comprehended this he wasn't making any signs of it.

'What I'm saying sir is that by attaching a communications chip to you, I can relay information to you directly without distracting you too much from taking out any Voravians you come across.'

Darwin mused over this morsel of information for precisely two seconds, then nodded his head in agreement. 'Very well then, insert your damn chip and be done with it. I need to make my way to the armoury.'

Hanniman smiled at him. 'I took the liberty of installing it already while you were unconscious, knowing that it would come down to this anyway.'

The Captain sighed. 'I hate doctors.'

This surprised him, as he was expecting more a fight from the man considering his reputation. He watched him make surer steps now and followed him out of the sick bay door and toward the armoury.

'The helmets on the hazard suits have been known to impair vision, we'll be needing you sharp and focused throughout the course of this mission.' he explained to the Captain as he suited up. 'I'll be with you at all times and monitoring your progress using the ship's sensors, which have mapped out the various corridors and intersections.'

'Have they been able to detect the crew's bio-signatures?' Darwin asked, using up his single allocated sensible question of the day.

'No, while we can detect the overall structure of the sphere it's still jamming our life detection systems somehow. I'm afraid you're going to have to find the crew yourself. I don't need to tell you that the chances aren't great, sir.'

Darwin held up his hand, silencing the man. 'Never tell a Captain the odds. I'm ready to depart!'

The ramp of the ship descended slowly as he made his way down into the heart of the Voravian sphere. Hanniman seated himself in what had been Annika's chair and fired up the computer, tasking it with monitoring Darwin's every move.

'Can you hear me, Hanniman?' the Captain's voice crackled as the ramp closed with a faint click.

'Yes sir, loud and clear. You may proceed with your rescue operation.' he tried to stay positive in the circumstances but he wasn't expecting anything short of a gruesome death for the man, regardless of his reputation.

'I appear to be in a large green chamber, some kind of port that our starship has been docked into. There seems no immediate signs of an exit for a craft of this size, but there is a tunnel that leads out and further into the sphere.'

'Affirmative, Captain. Take that tunnel, it should lead out into a second chamber. From there you can begin searching for the rest of the crew. I just hope the Voravians have them in captivity nearby.'

Darwin continued describing the tunnel in great detail to him, inundating him with every possible piece of information relevant or irrelevant. Was this really the stream of nonsense that Annika had to put up with from every away team she didn't feature in?

Then silence cut in.

'Captain, do you read me?'

It took some time before there was a response, and Hanniman was about to ask again before it finally came through.

'I have made contact with the enemy.' was the swift reply.

It hadn't taken them long to discover their first enemy then. He supposed that he shouldn't be that surprised, considering they were trapped inside the giant sphere most likely containing millions of them. Hanniman shuddered at that thought, expecting the lizard creatures to swarm out of the cracks in the ceiling and surround him at any moment.

'How many of them are there?' he asked Darwin over the intercom, wondering what the man's next move would be.

'There were six of them.' the Captain replied, already proceeding directly into the chamber.

It slowly started to dawn on him what the silence had been. '
were
six of them?'

Darwin snorted. 'You couldn't tell, considering the amount of fight they put up. A truly pathetic bunch really.'

So maybe the rumours did have an element of truth in them after all.

'You shot them all in the seconds you spent not responding to me?' Hanniman asked, unable to keep a little incredulity out of his tone.

'What do you think I am man? Some sort of buffoon? I shot them as I was talking to you.'