STOWAWAY TO THE STARS

Larry felt a cold chill down his spine at the sound of the guard’s voice. Shit, they’d got so close. But he was determined to keep on fighting until the end.

“Ignore it and keep going,” he whispered to Karen.

The voice came again, “You two, the woman with the long hair. Halt right now or I’ll shoot.”

Larry reluctantly came to a stop, and his hand slid toward his supply of mini-grenades.

“Hands in the air and turn round, slowly now.”

He abandoned resistance for the moment and turned with his hands raised. Karen, taking her cue from him, did the same. A guard approached with a large laser rifle aimed at them.

“You, woman, you know all female hair’s gotta be covered in a bonnet. Lemme see your ID slips.”

Larry cursed his stupidity. He should have given Karen the other woman’s bonnet as well as the coveralls, but he had assumed she wore it because she worked in a lab. The woman in the car he’d hijacked earlier didn’t have her hair covered.

The guard examined the holographic pictures on their ID slips. Larry looked for an opportunity to fight, but the man buried the rifle into Larry’s ribs all the while he was standing close.

“These ain’t pictures of you,” snapped the guard. “And your coveralls don’t fit ya either. You must have something to do with the security breach over at the front gate. You’re comin’ to see the chief security officer. Turn round and face the wall while I get an escort.”

They faced the wall and heard him call over his radio. “This is guard Fratzin at the entrance to the D P area. I got two suspected terrorists to take to security. I need an escort to bring ’em in, and tell ’em to bring a woman’s bonnet an’ all.”

Karen whispered, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault, I shouldn’t have come.”

Larry whispered back, “Do not blame yourself. I should have realized the bonnet was part of the uniform. Just remember your promise this morning if they interrogate you.”

Fratzin shouted at him, “NO TALKING!” and slammed the rifle butt into the small of his back. Larry grunted and clenched his shoulder blades against the pain.

The escort arrived, two more soldiers also armed with laser rifles. Fratzin gave Larry a perfunctory search, found and pocketed his ship’s remote but missed his hidden store of equipment. As Larry had predicted, he took the opportunity to grope Karen while searching her. Larry saw the look of fury on her face. For a moment he feared she would retaliate, but she bit her lip and the look passed.

Fratzin gave her a grubby bonnet and told her to cover her head. Larry expected that the soldiers would try to manacle them. He mentally geared himself to fight when they got close enough, but clearly the soldiers felt arrogant or confident enough not to bother. They simply marched them to the security office, covered by three laser rifles. Larry bided his time.

On the long walk back through the base, they partly retraced the way they had come. Being under guard enhanced the feeling of gloominess of the spartan corridors. They were devoid of daylight for the most part and lit, like his cave on Hideaway, by unseen lighting that in this case was only barely adequate. There was still a lot of activity about, probably a continuing effect of their earlier breach of the walls.

Finally, they arrived in the relatively luxurious office of the chief security officer. It had a large window on the right looking out over a parade square, nicely decorated walls and a high ceiling. The pleasant room contrasted with the stark position that they were in. The two escort soldiers stood to attention to the side, close by the window. Fratzin covered the two prisoners with his rifle, making them stand in front of the security officer who was seated behind a large desk that faced the door. The desk had an air of fussy tidiness, a few papers stacked neatly in the middle, two computer screens on one side, and a vidphone on the other.

Fratzin waited until the officer finished talking on his vidphone. He was not in the best of moods.

“Colonel Prenstall, Sir, I found these two wanderin’ round near the D P area with false passes, and the woman with her hair uncovered.”

“Excellent work,” said Prenstall. “They must be the two intruders that the computers picked up, slipping in through the small breach at the back of the base. There must be a connection between them and the big blast at the front. Take them straight down to the interrogation suite and get answers out of them fast. Use whatever methods are necessary.”

Larry snatched a quick look at Karen to see how she was holding up. She was glaring defiantly at the officer and gave a flick of her head, even though her hair was tucked away under the dirty bonnet. It was an instinctive habit that she did often to flick her hair over her shoulders, but he had come to associate it particularly with a gesture of triumph or defiance.

Larry assessed their situation. This was as good an opportunity as he would to get. The door was closed, the two escorts were relaxed by Prenstall’s apparent dominance over them, with rifles no longer at the ready. The guard behind was making the usual mistake of being too close. At the worst, if he failed, they would be killed quickly rather than tortured.

He sank to his knees, groveling to Prenstall. “Oh please, no, don’t beat us up. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Take the woman if you like, do what you want to her, but please don’t hurt me.”

Fratzin was taken aback. He started to drop his rifle, trying to cover Larry on the floor while still covering Karen, who remained standing defiantly upright.

Larry gauged that he was clear of the line of the rifle. He braced himself on the floor and erupted upward. His left hand stabbed out to catch Karen on her hip, thrusting her out of the line of fire. His right hand shot upward to grab the rifle stock, driving it up out of harm’s way. As it went, it painted a line of fire up the wall. It narrowly missed Prenstall, who dived for cover behind his desk.

Larry’s left hand continued up and round behind him. The side of his palm caught Fratzin a crunching blow right in the throat. The man gasped, and one hand started toward his damaged larynx. Larry continued his turn, bringing his left hand to join the right on the rifle. He wrenched it from the guard and twisted it round toward the two escorts.

The two soldiers had the time to stop Larry’s rebellion, but his distraction technique worked the way he planned. They were fatally slowed by the need to change their mindset from amused contempt at the groveling prisoner to awareness of the danger. They paid the ultimate price as Larry fired first, raking them both with a beam of fire from the rifle. Now behind Fratzin, who was choking for breath, Larry thrust him sideways and away from Karen.

“FACE DOWN ON THE FLOOR, NOW!” he screamed at the man.

As Fratzin lowered himself, Larry swept his gaze around the room, checking for security cameras. He spotted two of the unobtrusive little lenses tucked away in opposite corners of the ceiling and blasted them with the rifle. But the computers would already have picked up the disturbance. He would have to deal with that as soon as he could.

Before that he had to get control of the current situation. Prenstall was bound to be armed with a standard officer’s laser pistol. He raked the top of the desk with a brief burst, adding the stench of burnt plastic to that of burnt flesh and paintwork, and shouted, “You, behind the desk, Prenstall was it? Don’t think of trying anything. Slide your pistol out, and let me see your hands above the desk. Do it now, or I’ll burn the desk away from in front of you.”

Two or three seconds passed, and Larry was getting ready to give another warning burst when the pistol skidded out to one side of the desk. Two hands appeared above it, followed by the rest of the man.

Fratzin was still only on his knees, clutching his throat, and Larry pushed him with his foot and shouted, “I said face down. And you,” he gestured at Prenstall, “turn round, back to me. Get out from behind the desk and join him on the floor.”

Slowly the officer complied.

****

When Larry had started groveling to the officer, Karen had been stunned into immobility. Her initial reaction of amazement had turned to a sickening contempt, and disbelief that the companion she had begun to admire for his courage and vitality was showing this different side.

The feeling had not lasted long. Larry’s push had left her pressed against the side wall, a dumbstruck spectator to the explosive turn of events. A sense of overwhelming relief flooded over her. Larry was not a coward after all. He had been employing the distraction technique he had used on her a few days before.

She brought her attention back to their still precarious position as he called to her. “Karen, can you get that pistol and bring it here? Keep out of my line of fire.”

Still trying to adjust to the changed situation, she ducked down to pick up the pistol and handed it to Larry. He took the pistol in his left hand, propped the rifle against the wall, and switched to covering the prone men with the pistol.

“Do you feel all right?” he asked her. “It takes a bit of getting used to, seeing someone gunned down in action.”

She did not feel all right! She felt terrified. She had come to terms with the certainty that she would be killed before this ended. She had kept going only by concentrating on her determination that when it happened she would die bravely. For once her instinctive habit of covering up her feelings was serving her well. Now she felt as if she might be sick, but she nodded weakly.

“Okay, can you take that rifle? See the pad on the side, that’s the firing mechanism. Keep these two covered while I check the other two. If you feel squeamish, aim it at their legs.”

She hesitated for a moment, still fighting down the feeling of nausea over seeing the soldiers shot. She steeled herself by recalling the way the guard had groped her earlier, and picked up the weapon.

****

Larry was relieved to see the determined way Karen took the rifle, and despite his suggestion, he noticed that her aim was straight at their bodies and her grip on the rifle was firm. In a moment’s distraction, he compared her to Annek. He could not have envisaged her taking the rifle in that determined manner – but then he didn’t imagine she would have insisted on accompanying him on such a dangerous mission in the first place. He had a sudden pang of guilt at the unfavorable comparison with his dead trainee, and dragged his mind back to the job in hand.

He locked the office door to avoid possible interruption, then checked the two escort soldiers carefully, wary in case they were shamming. One was dead, the other badly injured. He took his needle stunner from its hiding place and administered a two hour stun to the injured man. Beyond that, the guy would have to take his chances.

Larry felt bad about the killing and injury. They were simply soldiers doing their jobs, but on the other hand, he was in no doubt that they would have followed instructions to torture Karen and him in the interrogation room.

He turned his attention to the two remaining captives and thought how to make the most of their position. He had long experience at dealing with unpredictable situations on planets that he investigated, making and changing plans as things developed.

An idea came to him. He extracted two of his lowest-power mini-grenades and registered them with his remote detonator. Then he approached the prisoners, where Karen was patiently standing guard, and rolled Fratzin over.

He showed the guard what he had, jammed his laser pistol into the man’s thigh and said, “Swallow it, or I’ll start burning up your leg until you do. If you do as you’re told, and things go well for me, you get to live.”

Fratzin’s response was not quick enough for Larry’s liking, so he moved the pistol and gave a quick burst on the floor high between the man’s legs.

“Okay, okay,” he said hastily, and took the pea-sized grenade, struggling to swallow it down his damaged throat.

Larry checked his mouth carefully to see it was really gone, holding the pistol to the man’s stomach at the same time. “Don’t even think about biting,” he said.

Larry repeated the exercise with Prenstall. This man cursed and swore and needed a small burn before he acquiesced. Then Larry showed them his detonator.

“Those are minimum strength mini-grenades, but they’ll let daylight all the way through you if I set them off. Your lives depend on us getting out of here alive. If we do, I promise you’ll live, but any trouble and you get taken out first. It’ll be an unpleasant way to die, so you’d better do everything you can to get us through. If either of you want to be heroes, say now and you can have a clean death instead of an ugly one. What’s it to be?”

They both nodded vigorously.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m giving my slave detonator to the lady. If you fancy trying anything, you’ll need to take us both out before either of us can trigger those grenades.”

He dug into his trousers and made out that he was passing something to Karen – except that her hand closed on nothing. As he did so, he spoke rapidly, again in English. “Play along with me, I’m bluffing. They will be less likely to try anything if they think there are two detonators.”

The briefest look of surprise flickered across her face, but she seemed to recover as he spoke and acted as if she was holding something hidden in her hand.

Larry examined the rifles of the dead and unconscious escorts. He decided to stick with the one he’d used already, but he took the power pack from one of the other rifles and pocketed it. He also retrieved his ship’s remote control from Fratzin.

He found two plastic wrist ties in the kit of the dead escort and used the laser pistol to carefully burn almost through each of them. Next, he took the laser rifle back from Karen and removed its power pack also, again pocketing it, and gave the rifle to the startled guard.

“You’ll be back on guard duty again in a minute,” he told the man, “but this time it’s all for show. Stay down till I tell you to get up.”

He spoke again to Karen, this time in Universal. “Put your hands behind your back. But hold on to that detonator.”

He took one of the ties and fastened it lightly around her wrists. “There, that looks as if you’re restrained. Yet if you need to get loose, a good jerk will easily snap it.”

He tucked the pistol into the back of his waistband out of sight underneath the coverall that he was still wearing. Holding the detonator concealed and with one finger on the discharge pad, he prodded Fratzin none too gently.

“Okay, you can get up now. I want you to bind my wrists with this other tie. Make sure the burnt section doesn’t show. Not too tight, I don’t want it snapping before I’m ready. And go gently, you don’t want to squeeze my fingers on this detonator.”

As soon as Fratzin had put the tie on to his satisfaction, he said, “Listen carefully, both of you. You will escort us, as your prisoners, back to the data processing area. If anyone argues why we’re going there, or why we haven’t more guards, anything at all, you’re lives depend on sorting it out. I suggest you use a cover story that we’ve sabotaged some equipment and you’re forcing us to show you where it is. But use a different story if you like – just make it believable. Bear in mind at all times what’s nestling in your guts, it only needs a bit of pressure on either of our detonators. There are no tricks you could get up to, such as trying to grab us or taking us the wrong way, that will end well for you. Any questions?”

He took the glares he received as a negative and continued.

“Fratzin, hold that rifle and try to cover up the fact that it hasn’t got a power pack. Prenstall, look as if you’re in command. Karen, we need to look disconsolate and frightened. Can you manage that?”

She nodded. “That is easy. It’s exactly how I feel!”

“Right, before we go, Prenstall, get on your vidphone. Tell whoever needs to know that there’s been a disturbance in your office and the cameras got taken out, but you’ve got it under control. Make sure that we can be seen behind you in captivity, but make sure it doesn’t pick up those soldiers on the floor. And with our fingers twitching on the detonator buttons if anyone tries to take us out later, it wouldn’t be clever to send any coded messages.”

Prenstall hesitated and Larry snapped, “Remember, if I have to blast you, it will make a hell of a mess, but you probably won’t die instantly and it won’t be pleasant. So do it!”

For a moment he thought the officer would refuse, but he backed down and made the call.

“Okay, we’re ready. Let’s go.”

Their journey was a long one, retracing the route they had so recently covered under guard, through the gloomy corridors. It was quieter than their earlier journeys, but they still saw plenty of people about. Most of the time they were ignored, until they met another officer who asked Prenstall what he was doing. Fortunately he appeared satisfied by the cover story about sabotage.

Just when they were getting close to their destination, a little way before the point where Fratzin had captured them earlier, two soldiers blocked their passage with upheld hands.

“I’m sorry Colonel, this area is strictly prohibited to anyone without special clearance,” said one of them.

“That’s all right soldier, they’re under my guard. We suspect that they’ve sabotaged some equipment and after suitable persuasion they’ve agreed to show us where. So let us through.”

“I can’t do that Colonel. You must know that. Without clearance they can’t come through.”

Prenstall looked back at Larry and raised his eyebrows.

Oh shit, you stupid idiot, don’t look at me like that. You’re supposed to be in command, not asking me what to do. He hung his head and ignored the officer. Prenstall slowly turned back to the soldiers and visibly squared his shoulders.

“I haven’t time to go through formalities to get clearance. This is urgent. Stand aside, or you’ll be on a disciplinary charge.”

“You can’t put me on a charge for obeying orders, sir.”

“Are you going to let me through, or shall I have you arrested?” Prenstall said in a ragged voice.

“Arrest me if you must. But they were your orders in the first place.”

“Yes, you fool.” Prenstall was practically screaming. “And now I’m countermanding those orders. Stand aside or face the consequences.”

His hand moved toward the flap of his holster that should have housed his laser pistol.

What sort of moron are you? I’ve got your pistol. You’re going to blow this apart.

Just before Prenstall could get the holster open the soldier gave a shrug. “Okay, I have witnesses. You’ve countermanded my orders, it’s your responsibility.”

He stood aside but stared suspiciously at Larry as he passed. Larry was acutely aware of the laser pistol tucked in his belt, making what seemed at that moment to be an enormous bulge under his coverall. He felt as if he was walking on eggshells until they rounded the next corner without a challenge.

As they approached the data processing area the tension became intense. Sweat trickled down his face and back. He looked at Karen and wondered how she was managing to cope. She was as white as a sheet, her face pinched and drawn. Being scared in a situation like this was inevitable. What mattered was that she kept going in spite of the stress.

No further confrontations occurred, and at last they arrived at their destination and stood outside the locked door of the data processing area. Fortunately, in this area the corridors were empty.

Larry turned to Prenstall. “Okay, let’s get inside.”

“Oh, you can’t get in,” replied the officer. “It’s always secured from the other side. No one gets in without advance clearance from the technicians inside.” He surveyed Larry impassively.