Lazarus - Part XVI + Coda Part I -> IV - (really) THE END
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:32 pm
If you've stumbled on to this thread by accident then you need to go ->here<- and play catch-up otherwise you'll think I've literally and figuratively lost the plot.
To everybody else - thank-you for walking the path by my side - I've had a blast!
Part XVI
The BCC was gone! A sea of tumbling fragments and a rapidly fading cloud of burning atmosphere was all that remained.
Noooooo! Up! Up! Up! Tight right! Tight Right! Come On!!! Down! Left! And still the menacing, pulsing, putrid purples and greens of a Thargoid ship all but filled his rear viewer. Sickly pulses of laser fire splashing across his quickly depleting rear shield, while his own accurately targeted rear Ingram Beam laser seemed to have no affect on the chasing octagonal menace.
He hit the injectors to try and break the attack but such was the density of swirling ships and tumbling debris that a glancing blow to his forward shield from an unidentified chunk of burning hull plating depleted them by almost half. He was forced to kill the injectors fearing that he would fly himself to his own doom and in an instant the Thargoid was back on his tail.
He pulled hard around the huge bulk of a Military Anaconda which was venting burning atmosphere from several hull breaches, its plasma turrets firing in seemingly random directions at the swirl of small Thargon fighters that surrounded it. A momentary respite, a few scant seconds for the extra energy unit to pour power back into his depleted shields, a few seconds for the boiling coolant to bleed away some of the heat from the blistered tip of his Beam laser, a few seconds to lick away the sweat from his top lip and to take a breath.
The hateful, spinning and pulsating octagon emerged from behind the Anaconda and Janus noted that a couple of the Navy ship's plasma cannons pummelled it as it passed while he weaved and dodged the immediate bristle of laser fire emerging seemingly from every facet of the chasing ship. Come on Lazarus, come on!
He put a couple of squeezes of Beam dead centre, before the overheat protection system denied him and the whine of the straining cooling system indicated that he would not get another chance for several seconds yet. If he lived that long, of course.
Suddenly and surprisingly the Thargoid ship exploded, two Kraits emerging through the blindingly bright cloud of vapour. Janus thought he recognised the decals on at least one of them and a brief tight-band comms message confirmed his suspicions.
“The boss say we keep you safe, difficult to have life debt with a dead man. Complicated. Not good for his Chi-cra.”
At least two of the remaining three of Treee'ggaar's escort fighters had come to his aid. Janus took another breath. I wonder what Chi-cra is? Sounds like a medical condition.
The reprieve did not last long, more Thargoid ships and fighters appeared to pour into area around the station in a seemingly never ending stream and Janus, found himself ducking and weaving and cursing and firing and screaming at a pace he knew neither Lazarus nor he could keep up for very long. Janus had no idea if Treee'ggaar's escorts had his six or if he had theirs for he lost sight of them both almost immediately.
Smoke began to fill the cabin and the lights flickered while a steady stream of new warning lights illuminated on the main console as time and again his shields were depleted and another stroke of deadly Thargoid fire etched a scar in the hull of his ship. Lazarus had never behaved more beautifully, he had never flown so well, but he knew that he and his ship were outclassed and out gunned and at any moment he was going to die. The inevitability of it, the certainty of it brought about a strange sense of calm.
The silhouette of a Navy Behemoth against the Diso sun gave him a brief flush of hope and a flash across his viewer of newly arrived and undamaged Galcop Vipers From the main stations, I guess a few seconds later as he pulled a tight reactionary turn away from the needles of fire peppering his port side, might have given his heart a chance to beat one more time had the turn not been completed with the Constore station filling his forward viewer.
The station was burning, fires flaring from several blackened hull breaches along its entire length, its rooftop avatar torn away, ad-ring shattered and non-functional. Briefly flailing human detritus tumbling from shattered viewports.
Oh by all the Gods. What a mess. What a-
Lazarus suddenly lurched and began to roll violently. He hadn't seen or reacted in time to his assailant and in the blink of an eye it was all over. Something deep within the heart of Lazarus exploded and then fell silent, the engines cut out, every warning light on the console turned instantly red and Janus was hurled to the deck as his pilot's chair was torn from the floor plate. He fumbled with his straps but after a brief moment of panic was free and in the flickering lights and smoke filled cabin it took a second for him to orientate himself and identify the hatch to the escape pod and he made a dash towards it.
Then he found himself crashing back to the decking, his left boot catching on two bolts protruding from the deck plate.
Noooooooo!
As he scrabbled to his feet he was flung backwards as the hatch and the escape pod beyond were vaporised by another Thargoid laser blast. The noise was utterly deafening but in a moment all was silent as the sound carrying atmosphere vented almost instantly through the breach. Janus instinctively clung to a support beam as the gaseous contents of the cabin rushed past him to freedom.
Saved by those fricking bolts. Who could have imagined it? he thought as he watched the Brandy dispenser pour its final drink, the contents boiling almost instantly away in the vacuum as both the glass and he were pushed towards the breach by Lazarus' dying breath.
He watched, detached from events, as his free arm reached up and snatched something dark and familiar from the detritus that rushed through the shattered cabin towards infinite space.
He pulled the Remlok mask over his head, or was this just the memory of a three year old Janus watching a big dark bird doing this very thing for him almost fifteen years earlier?
Deprived of oxygen Janus felt rather euphoric and gaped in awe through the transparent face mask at the two figures stood in front of the breach smiling serenely down on him. It had been such a very long time! Mummy! Papa!
He released his anchoring grip and stretched out his arms towards them. He was lifted up and carried forward, ready and wanting to embrace them and then, there was only darkness.
Coda – Part I
Inside a newly equipped medical centre on-board the Sainsboory's Constore which floats a little distance from Diso's Witchpoint Marker there is the stirring of life where many thought there should be none.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.
Oh? Pain?
Can you be dead and feel pain? That seems a little unfair...
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain...
A medical computer detects the change in brain wave activity and releases tiny amounts of drugs directly into the blood stream that feeds the brain. This time however, there will be no enforcement of a coma, these drugs are to ease the transition from near death back to life. Whir-whir-click go tiny pumps, the sound picked up by fragile ears.
...What's that? Oh the pain. The P- Oh. Actually, no. No, pain. Am I inside the Remlok still? You hear about the hallucinations, the dying brain, the final few seconds dragged out to seemingly last a life time. But if this is it, then I am clearly lacking in the imagination department.
There are two other occupants in the room, one of them, from its vantage point, stood near the doorway, speaks. “I think the slumbering hero stirs my dear.”
I recognise those avian tones. Daddyhoggy? How unexpectedly dull.
The third and final occupant lifts her sleepy head from the chair that has refused to make itself comfortable in the four days she has occupied it. “Really? Should I call for a medic?”
Tina? Well that's more like it!
“No. Let me do that. You are much easier on the eye than I am. I think perhaps the first thing he should see is you. After all it is your name, not mine, that he has mumbled over and over again for the last twenty-four hours is it not?”
The door slides open and the bird slips away. He does not need to make the medical team aware of their patient's change of condition, the computer did that even before Daddyhoggy noticed the less subtle, outwards signs. Daddyhoggy knows this, but he leaves nonetheless. Three is a crowd after all.
Tina rises from the chair and sits on the edge of the bed, carefully avoiding a multitude of tiny tubes and wires, going to and coming from the figure lying in the bed. She strokes his brow above a battered and swollen eye then leans down to place a gentle kiss upon dry and still bloodied lips. She has read childhood fairy-tales from Old Earth and the irony of the situation is not lost on her and despite her emotions a smile briefly touches her own lips. “Wake up my Prince,” she whispers into an ear that has not been fully repaired, some of it will still be missing for the next few days at least, while tiny 'bots coursing around his system rebuild him from the inside.
Damaged and ultra-sensitive lips tingle at the touch of the others. Eyes slowly open. Light pours onto retinas that have not seen activity for four days and there is briefly a searing pain and sea of swirling colour before brain and eye settle on a happy equilibrium and the medical computer detects the distress of its patient and dims the lights of the room accordingly.
Wow
This is not the glamorous, beautifully presented hostess that Janus met a lifetime ago, but a tired and dishevelled young lady without make-up or any of the normal trappings of her profession. Despite this, she is the most beautiful sight Janus has ever seen and his face breaks out into a huge grin. This action unfortunately breaks many of the new bindings that are holding his partially reconstructed face together. The intense pain causes the grin to be replaced by a wince but as automatically supplied pain-killers kick in the smile, albeit slightly more restrained, returns to the young man's feature.
Even as the medical team rush in and quickly fuss around him and fix his artificial skin he cannot take his eyes off her, he cannot even bring himself to blink lest he miss even instant of her.
If I wasn't in so much pain, I'd say this was a dream.
The medical team, satisfied with their work, finally leave the pair alone again.
Tina returns to the edge of the bed and speaks again. “The hero returns from the dead. Praise be.”
Janus is confused, he would have wrinkled a brow but the medical team have ensured that enough drugs have been pumped into his face to prevent such a movement, he will not be allowed to break the artificial skin again.
“Hero?” he croaks out. Licking his sore lips and swallowing a few times for lubrication he tries again. “I'm not a hero,” he rasps, although the embarrassing croak has gone. “I got my arse kicked. Poor Lazarus, didn't have a prayer against those Thargs.”
Tina is smiling, but Janus doesn't know why. “Then let me show you,” she says. “If you're up to it of course?” she adds.
He nods dumbly. He has no idea what she's talking about, but if it looks like she might hang around for a bit if he agrees, then agree he does.
Seemingly of their own volition three holo-3D projectors drop down from the ceiling of the medical centre and between them they form an image that floats above the bed where Janus lays. He cannot move all he can do is watch. Watch and be amazed.
Coda – Part II
Janus does not recognise the opening scenes of the holo-vid although the emergence of those terrifying pulsing octagonal discs from wherever they hide away in Witchspace sends an involuntary shudder through his body. He is relieved to have a momentary distraction as Tina, gently and skilfully avoiding his tubes and cables, climbs on to the medi-bed and settles down beside him.
The sound of the Thargoid Attack warning alarm makes him jump even though he realises in an instant that the sound is from the holo-vid. Tina's arm stretches reassuringly across his chest and perhaps is there to anchor him to the bed, to prevent an instinctive bolt for the exit.
As the camera tracks the first wave of Thargoids the Constore slips into view. This must be the view from one of the Navy ships. Lucky they were here. What did those guys in the bar say about the Socelageians again?
The bright flash of light from the first silent explosion lit the room as the nearest Thargoid to the camera vanished in a volley of off-screen plasma fire. This must be shot from one of the Navy Anaconda's then
Now the view began to swirl as the ship began to manoeuvre heavily as it suddenly became the focus of the Thargoids aggression. Other ships appeared in the shot, it was hard to tell but they appeared to be Navy Asps and Sidewinders charging in to blunt and bloody the nose of the Thargoid thrust towards the Light's Fantastic. Janus was amazed how quickly so many of them fell to the green streaks of death emerging at all angles from the spinning Thargoid ships. It was obvious that even a Navy spec Sidewinder was no match for them at all. Janus found he was counting how many ships vanished in a cloud of vented atmosphere and burning plasma but couldn't continue after twenty, it was just too awful. Why? Why such a futile, ill-organised counter-attack? It was suicide!
The view-point of the camera suddenly changed to something mounted on the Constore itself and Janus had his answer as tens and then scores of ships poured from the docking port of the Constore in haphazard succession. Time. To give us time. Time to get out, to have a chance. Thank-you.
Tina snuggled closer, the pressure of her arm across his chest increasing fractionally. Huh? A ship emerged from the docking port, a sleek and beautifully equipped Boa Class Cruiser. In a moment it was gone, caught between three beams of green light, the pilot didn't even have time to react, probably still disorientated by the break pattern over the shields as the ship emerged from the docking port. Oh. Janus felt himself shy away from the viewer and for a moment his heart seemed to stop as the holo-vid showed the familiar shape and paint job of a much loved, and suddenly deeply missed, Cobra Mark III. “Hello old girl,” he heard himself whisper to the image being projected into the room. Tina hugged him a little tighter in response.
The next few minutes were all too familiar, although, seeing them from a multitude of angles and cut-aways and panning shots was almost too surreal to cope with. This footage had clearly been put together by some-one and Janus had no idea why. It was deeply disturbing that his life and the life of his ship was somehow entertainment for the masses. Why is Tina showing me this? Perhaps I wasn't up to it after all.
As Janus watched, familiar events, such as having his arse saved by Treee'ggaar's two escorts, gave way to ones he had no recollection of. Even if this footage had been put together from all the Galcop cameras available it was clear that with each passing moment the number of twisting, weaving, firing and dying ships in the background of the shots focussed on Lazarus was dwindling rapidly. There was almost nobody left in the battle fighting the Thargoids. Janus watched as Thargoid after Thargoid fell to Lazarus' deadly strikes, while all the time bucking and twisting through a web of green death from the overwhelming number of humankind's deadliest of foes. I don't understand. I don't remember any of this. I just remember trying to stay alive. Did I do this? Did I really fight and kill so many Thargoid ships? He was trembling, he knew what was coming and he didn't think he could face it. In the projection the final moment of Lazarus' existence was caught on camera. Her shields gone she was skewered by a beam of green. She seemed to swell around the point of impact, splitting open like a metallic flower bud, along hull plates and sub-surface conduits. An engine blew out, streaming fiery plasma into the void. Janus held his breath, somewhere in the distance, in another world now, an alarm began to sound in response to his lack of respiration. In the projection the cockpit area of Lazarus was vaporised in a flash of green and then it was gone. The image frozen for a moment and then faded away as the projectors shut down. Janus took a deep sobbing breath and, despite the weight of Tina's arm and a broken and drugged system, sat up in the bed. Tina rose with him, her eyes locked onto his.
“There's more?” he asked angrily. “You see me... You see me... fall?” The words choking him.
Tina nods silently, tears are streaming down her face.
“You've watched Lazarus die?” There is venom behind those words. He is angry, distraught. He thought that somewhere, somehow, this dream he had, of him and this girl. This girl that he cannot love because he has known her only for a few minutes, and yet knows that he does, might somehow feel the same for him. But it cannot be true and that hurts. It hurts more than the battered face and broken body because that pain can be held at bay by drugs.
Tina shakes her head, she is speaking too, but there seems to be a buzzing in Janus' ears and the room is filled with new and more urgent sounding alarms. She places a hand on each of his cheeks, she is all but shouting at him now but as the tiny pumps fill his blood stream with a concoction of pain-killers and suppressants he finally hears her. “Lazarus did not die! Do you understand? Lazarus did not die! I wanted to show you why you are a hero. Why everybody on this station loves you, why I love you! You were the last civilian ship, you helped save us all. Janus, something amazing has happened, something nobody can explain. You will see. I promise!”
She guides his head down gently to the pillow as the drugs take control and he is lost to her again. She allows herself to be pushed away by the medical team who have rushed back in to tend to their charge. She ignores the glare from the chief doctor and looks across to Daddyhoggy who is stood in the doorway.
“It will be a shame,” notes the bird, “if, in your excitement to share with him the gift he has apparently brought to us all, you kill him off. For what I suspect you have planned for the two of you I can think of only two systems where it is still legal if one of the party is a corpse.”
Tina flushes red but the bird only shrugs and waddles away, his suspicions confirmed.
On the bed, cocooned by the carefully selected cocktail of drugs and medications Janus is vaguely aware of being prodded and poked and manipulated. He doesn't care, he is busy replaying what Tina said, although he cannot recall anything after Why I love you too.
Coda – Part III
Janus awoke from a dream, a dream where he was a hero, where an astonishingly beautiful girl loved him and where his ship sat expectantly in its docking bay waiting to travel amongst the stars. It was a good dream.
He opened his eyes.
Oh.
The disappointment was all but soul-destroying. The lights of the medical centre brightened automatically in response to his change of state. The harshness of his confinement, his reality, illuminated with depressing clarity.
He was alone. He'd always been alone, but for the first time he cared, for the first time he didn't want to be. He'd even been abandoned by the medical equipment. He appeared to have the same number of tubes and cables but now they plugged into a small plain grey box sat by the side of the bed.
Stiffly he leaned across to where he was plugged in and tested the weight of the grey box. It wasn't that heavy, he could probably carry it, work out how to remove the tubes later. He paused briefly and looked down where he suspected his feet where hidden beneath the crisp white sheets. He wiggled his toes. Good start, perhaps he could walk right out.
“Thinking of leaving us?”
Janus jumped, like a guilty schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He glared at the big black bird stood in the entrance to the medical centre.
And then she was there too, sliding elegantly into the room, slipping around Daddyhoggy, dressed comfortably but smartly in something fashionable and expensive looking. Excitement crackled from her like electricity, she was positively buzzing as she bounded to the side of his bed and placed a lingering kiss on his lips.
She stepped back and placed a delicate hand beneath his chin and gently closed his mouth as he stared at her somewhat dumb-founded. “Not a good look,” she said with a laugh. “Do you think you can walk as far as the grav' car?” she asked pointing out through the window of the medical centre to the corridor beyond where a small four man intra-station transport waited.
What the hell is going on?
Her brow wrinkled at his lack of response but the smile hardly diminished. She grasped his hand and tugged him away from the bed. “Come on, it's not far.”
And in a moment he was up. He needn't have worried about carrying the small grey box, it lifted into the air as he moved and bobbed along side as he took his first tentative steps towards the car. Tina pressed to his side, one arm wrapped around around his waist.
“Don't forget,” said the doctor as they passed, “the med-pack is supposed to be for emergency use only. Eight hours. No more!”
Janus has no idea where they are going as he settles back into the unexpectedly comfortable seat of the grav' car. It moves at a rather sedate pace, sharing the corridors with the rest of the populace of the station, most of whom are on foot. He notices as they pass that there are people pulling on the sleeves of other pedestrians, pointing as the car passes. They are pointing at him. Beside him Tina is buzzing, he can feel her trembling with... what? Excitement? Expectation?
As they travel it as if word has got out, people are waiting, pointing, occasionally they wave, or nod or tip a hat, or flap a wing, or flick a tail in acknowledgement.
Janus sinks back into his chair, but the chair resists, there is no crevice into which he can crawl, so instead he looks out of the view-ports that line the corridor sections and into the blackness of space beyond. He catches his own reflection and recoils, it is swollen and blackened. And she has kissed this face, twice at least! I wouldn't touch it with a plasma destabiliser! But beyond his reflection in the blackness he sees a ship and is amazed and confused and envious in equal measure. It carries the Sainsboory's logo, it's the same size and approximate shape as one of the station's Sidewinder fleet, but it is utterly gorgeous. He almost falls out of the car trying to keep the ship in sight as he passes beyond the view-port. Tina grips his arm and if he thought she was excited before now she is a cup of bubbling Aonaian lethal brandy by comparison.
People are clapping. They have stopped what they are doing and they are clapping as the grav' car trundles past. By the gods can this thing not go any faster! There is nowhere to go, no way to run, he watches as his arm rises into the air and waves back at their applause. Traitor!
Finally the car exits the main corridor section and leaves behind the clapping masses and Janus realises where he is. This is the top deck overlooking the enormity that is the central cavern of the station's docking bay, and it is full. Completely and utterly stuffed with ships. Janus has never seen so many ships in one place.
It takes a moment or two but once Janus is over the enormous quantity of ships he notices that amongst the ship designs he recognises there are a large number of more beautiful ships, curved and sleek and wondrous. But these are not alien ships, each has some fundamental characteristic that makes it it easy to identify. Sidewinder, Asp, Boa, Python, Anaconda, Cobra Mark One, Viper... His eyes dance around the docking bay, settling on, identifying and then picking out the next until they settle and lock onto one ship in particular. This ship is clearly their destination. His throat has gone dry, his heart is pounding in his chest. He ignores the grey box beside him as it bleeps out a series of what he presumes are warnings about his health.
“Lazarus?” he whispers. “Lazarus?”
Tina has buried her head in his chest and is hugging him more tightly than ever. Even Daddyhoggy, who has remained still and silent until this moment nods his head in affirmation of Janus' whispered hope and replies “Apparently yes.”
But this is not his Lazarus, that much is obvious. While the paint job and insignia are identical, the ship they adorn is a marvel of sublime engineering. This isn't a ship it's a sculpture and yet despite the change Janus cannot help but know somehow that this is indeed his Lazarus. He is off the grav' car even before it comes completely to a stop and cables pull briefly tight as the med-pack struggles to respond to his new found exuberance.
He is in the cockpit of the ship in a moment, the flow of corridors between the cargo ramp and this place seemingly the most logical of routes. When Tina runs into the room behind him he is doubled up with laughter, an outstretched hand and extended finger are pointing at something on the floor.
“What is it!” she demands.
“They... left... behind... the bolts...” he responds between great bouts of laughter. “It is Lazarus! Have you missed me old girl?”
In response there is a whirring from beneath the Astronavigation console and the brandy dispenser drops two perfectly poured drinks into the collection port. At this, Janus collapses to the floor overcome by his own emotions and laughter.
Tina has to wait quite some time before Janus is ready to talk. This wasn't exactly how she'd planned this moment to go.
**
Janus sits on the floor of the cockpit of the ship he thought he'd lost with his back pressed to a bulkhead and a glass of half drunk lethal brandy clutched in one hand. Tina lays with her head in his lap, feeling quite giddy, wondering how anybody manges to drink more than a sip of whatever came out of the drinks dispenser.
“So let me get this straight,” he says slightly more loudly than a completely sober man might, “not every ship is converted when it docks, but nobody knows why.”
“Well, if you'd been listening you'd have heard me say that we have a theory about that. We think it's the interaction between Lazarus' nanobots and the energy from the some of the Thargoid lasers. They seem to kick the 'bots into super-dooper mode and for some reason they do this,” she waves her hand around the cockpit, trying to encompass the whole ship, “to the superstructure and internals of the ship.”
“So after I was rescued and the Navy Behemoth and Galcop vipers turned the battle Lazarus, who hadn't blown herself to smithereens was dragged in here for what? Scrapping?”
“No actually,” responded Tina, sitting up. “To be patched up as best we could and to be used as a monument to your heroism!”
“Oh. Well yes-”
“You should have died. You shouldn't be alive Janus. I am very glad that you are, but you shouldn't be. Daddy thinks some of Lazarus' nanobots are inside you too, fixing you, may be changing you, making you better like they have the ship.”
Janus wasn't sure how he felt about that and changed the subject in an effort not to think about it. “Why do you call him 'Daddy'?” he asked.
She smiled and took a sip of brandy she didn't really need. “Do you think you are the only orphan Daddyhoggy has taken under his metaphorical and literal wing? Well you're not. He rescued me too.”
“What from?”
“What do you think? 'Love you lots for only ten creds',” she said suddenly in a strange sing-song voice.
“Oh.”
“Yes, 'oh' indeed.”
“But I thought, given the nature of the Level 23 club, that, erm...”
She leaned forward and silenced him with a kiss. When she broke away, she replied, “Before you embarrass yourself any further - I own the club, I don't work there, not in the traditional sense anyway.”
“Own?”
“I have a silent partner, but in essence, yes, the club is mine.”
“But you met me, that night, dressed-”
She kissed him again. “Dressed to impress,” she said when she broke the contact for a second time. “Did it work?” He nodded silently. “Good. Those Thargoids really almost screwed up my plans for me and you.”
“What? A candlelit dinner?”
She smiled a wicked, naughty smile. “Well eventually we'd have got round to dinner.” She kissed him again, but this time neither 'came up for air' for quite some time.
**
When they returned to the grav' car Daddyhoggy tipped his head to one side. “You look a little flushed. All is well?”
“Remarkably well, considering,” replied Tina with a grin.
The bird made that strange noise Janus now knew to be laughter and he could not look the bird in the eye as the grav' car pulled away from Lazarus, to deliver Janus and his box back to the medical centre.
In an effort to change the subject Janus posed a question to the pair of conspirators. “So why are the other ships changing when they dock here too?”
Daddyhoggy was quick to answer and Janus suspected that this was his theory and he was keen to share. “The nanobots from Lazarus' broken hull somehow 'leaked' into the docking bay of the station. It had taken a lot of damage from Thargoid lasers too and I think that is the key. Ships that change when they dock here are the ones that at some point have taken actual hull damage from a Thargoid laser. I think it leaves behind an energy signature that the nanobots somehow instinctively react to and have to change.”
“But they're just repair 'bots! What does the OO have to say about all this?” Be polite, wave at the nice clapping people.
“They don't have the missile repair technology yet,” replied Tina, “they're working on it, but they don't have it. They don't have a Commander Tanaka working for them and they didn't have any ships in this system at the time indicated by your logs either. We checked, we hacked their computers just in case they were lying, but they're not.”
“Then... how? What?”
“We don't know,” replied Tina and the bird together.
“What about the Navy? They must be very interested,” asked Janus. Yes, thank-you. And you, yes, thank-you. Keep waving, keep waving
Tina glanced at Daddyhoggy, who shrugged, before she replied. “They've tried to, erm, acquire Lazarus twice since she transformed. First time, they just offered us a huge sum of money, the second time, when we turned the creds down, they tried to steal her.”
“What!?”
“Don't worry, that's not going to happen again,” responded Tina, placing a reassuring hand over his. “If they try it again they get banned from docking at the station and they want the transformed ships as much as anybody.”
“But how can you enforce that? They could just-”
“Walk right in and take over?” Janus nodded. “No they can't. We have thirty Elite Pilots and their ships on permanent stand-by and ready to fight and a live newsfeed on continuous broadcast down to Diso itself. If we're attacked or jammed the whole system will know about it and nobody wants this station in Military hands. Well, nobody except the Navy and Galcop of course.”
“How can you afford to hire thirty Elite ranked mercenaries? That's just crazy money!”
“We charge one thousand Creds a time to dock,” replied Daddyhoggy, somewhat nonchalantly given the figure just mentioned and Janus wondered if the Linguistic Enhancer had made an error in translation.
Janus scanned the docking bay just as they were about to exit. “But there has to be a thousand ships in there!”
“And more will arrive tomorrow and that's how we pay for 30 Elite pilots and the systems most advanced holo-vid transmission system.”
“And you've done all of this in four days?”
The pair nodded together. “We have a lot of contacts,” Tina replied.
“And embarrassing holo-vids,” noted the bird somewhat more honestly.
Coda – Part IV
“So,” pondered Janus, as he climbed back into the bed of the medical centre, “pilots are turning up with old ships in the hope they've been damaged by Thargoids at some point in their past and will be converted by the nanobots? That's one hell of a gamble!”
Daddyhoggy waited until the young man was settled and the doctor began to quietly transfer the cables and tubes from the portable system back to the one situated by the side of the bed. “If their ship is not converted we take the docking fee off the price of their next maintenance overall if they have it done here. Several ship maintenance companies have already moved in and are paying treble the rent we were charging last week and are happy to do so.”
“Win-win” replied Janus.
The bird shrugged. “No, just win. The house always wins in the end.”
It was Tina who noticed the puzzled look on the doctor's face. “Is everything all right doctor?” she enquired nervously.
“Not sure,” mumbled the doctor in response as he peeled back one of the skin covers that covered over a cable as it went into Janus' own skin. “Ah,” said the doctor holding up the cable end to his eye.
“Shouldn't that be in me?” asked Janus.
“Generally that is considered the best way to administer intravenous drugs, yes” replied the doctor somewhat nervously. “Although apparently you no longer require it.”
A little more peeling back of skin tags quickly revealed all but two tubes had been exorcised and the small puncture wounds almost completely healed.
“I can't see you needing to be with us after tomorrow,” noted the doctor as he gathered up his now spare tubing and almost ran from the room.
The three people remaining in the room fidgeted somewhat nervously before Janus did his best to carry on as before. “Are these converted ships any better than the ship they were originally. I mean are they faster, better shields, more energy efficient?”
Tina was still watching the doctor leave so it was Daddyhoggy who answered. “No. No. No and no. Pretty much exactly the same.”
“What!” exclaimed Tina, suddenly re-engaging in the conversation. “Exactly the same? Don't you get it? It doesn't matter what the performance is like, it's all about looks!” She held an exasperated hand to her forehead. Janus suddenly felt foolish for even bringing it up. “These ships have turned the ship market on its head,” continued Tina. “Nobody wants a new ship of the old classic designs any more. The stars are full of old ships, millions and millions of them. Everybody wants one of these new ones and the only place you can get one is here. The price of new ships in Chart One have plummeted and the price of a thirty year old Cobby Three is four times that of the equivalent new ship. The older the better! The older it is the more likely it is that it'll have encountered a Thargoid or two in its time and taken a bit of a pasting along the way.”
“So if the ship manufacturers aren't selling new ships any more they'll go bust. This single quirk could ruin everything.”
Tina was shaking her head. “You're doing cute but dumb terribly well,” she chided. “It's just a marketing opportunity that's all. Cowell and MgRath are already starting to re-equip all their new Cobby Threes, Military Laser front and rear, q-mine, shield enhancer and an extra energy unit both with over-ride switches and a fuel pod. It's marketed as a Thargoid hunter, they've asked if they can advertise here. We've said yes of course, our revamped advertising hoardings will cost a fortune after all.”
Janus held up a hand of his own. “Look, I'm obviously very tired, but why? I don't get it.”
A slow deep breath later, Tina continued. “You fly out, pick a close system and force a mis-jump.”
“Force a mis-jump?!”
“Don't interrupt! As I was saying, you mis-jump, go toe to toe with the Thargoids, kill off all but one, turn your extra shield enhancers off – take a bit of a knock, turn them on again. Kill the last Thargoid off, settle back thinking of the profits you'll make until the fuel pod has refuelled your internal tank and then jump back out to normal space and head for Diso.”
“But that's madness. There's no such thing as a little knock from a Thargoid! With your shields down something vital might get hit. Trust me I know!”
“And then Cowell and MgRath sell another new ship to another sucker who wants to try his luck at getting rich quick.”
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed,” replied Daddyhoggy, “but there is an up-side to even this unfortunate and tragic possibility.”
“And what could that possibly be?”
“For the first time we are taking the fight to the Thargoids. It's not just the Navy now and their rare capitol ships or the terrified trader caught in a mis-jump with no hope of survival. Now tens, hundreds, we suspect even thousands of ships are deliberately mis-jumping and fighting the Thargoids in their own territory, much as they've been doing to us. Chart wide we hear there is already a noticeable drop in Thargoid incursions into Galcop held systems.”
Janus nodded thoughtfully but then failed to cover up a sudden yawn as a wave of exhaustion washed over him.
“I bore you?” mocked Daddyhoggy.
“I am so sorry.”
“No need to apologise. I jest. You are healing remarkably well, but you have been through a lot, you need to rest. I will visit again tomorrow. Good night Janus.”
Janus and Tina watched him sweep out the door leaving them alone. “Daddy's right, while it was fun, I definitely took a lot out of you today... so to speak.” She leaned down to where his head was propped up and kissed him. “Goodnight.”
And then Janus was alone once more, but he didn't have time to worry about it, he was asleep within seconds.
Outside in the corridor Daddyhoggy waited patiently for his young ward to join him.
“We make a good partnership,” said Tina as they walked along back towards their respective quarters, breaking the short, contemplative silence.
“This is true. However, I believe the partnership between you and young Janus will be better. More, hmmm, substantial. Besides, you have outgrown me and need someone else to mother, bully and cajole into taking on your crazy schemes. It is strange how these things work out. I have many plans, but that you and Janus should meet was never one of them and yet I am happy that it has turned out this way.” The bird stopped. “Well, unless you require me to walk you to your quarters then it would seem that we have arrived at my room and I will bid you fare-the-well.”
Tina looked around, as if slightly lost. “Yes. Good night Daddy. Sorry, miles away.”
Daddyhoggy tipped his head to one side and clucked his strange laugh. “I suspect in fact you are no more than a few hundred metres away, and so it should be.” He placed two feathery wings around her and hugged her tight before releasing her and he stepped into his room, leaving her alone in the corridor.
She stared briefly at the blankness of the closed door before she could here Daddyhoggy's native dialect drift through the divide, a lullaby he had sung to her when he first took her in. She wandered back to her room, singing the same tune as she went.
**
Free of the Linguistic Enhancer, Daddyhoggy's own true voice rang out, a haunting if tunefully series of trills and coos and whoops. The tune, his own variation on a Soreisbeian hatchling lullaby, filled the room. The final phrasing of the second verse initialised the log in script to the access terminal secreted away in his quarters. The start of the third verse was the code to turn the holo-projectors on. As he sang, more and more levels of access on the screens were displayed. It would seem that Tina and her silent partner, the owner of Quasar Holdings now owned Light's Fantastic outright, Sainsboory's having accepted the generous offer to pull out and allow the L23club to expand to fill the whole of the station. Of course Quasar Holdings was but the retail and property section of the much larger Magma Construction Corporation, which, if you knew where to look was only one arm of the much larger Elite Nanotech Research Machines. The most recent projection revealed that shares in all these companies were rising well as were those for Gravimetric Inc., ENRMs parent company, in fact the company which through careful acquisition of its rivals and second-to-none field shaping technology had become the single supplier of all Gravimetric field generators throughout Galcop.
Satisfied Daddyhoggy stopped singing. The data from the projectors vanished from the air as they shut down in response to the silence.
It was hard sometimes, to remain silent, but Soreisbeians were a thoughtful people, long-term planners. He did tell Janus he had a certain way with Gravimetric Field shaping and felt positively naughty in doing so. One day, he would tell them all.
Before retiring for the night he noticed that he'd received a secure comms message. It was tempting to access it but he was very tired and on reflection he decided the message from Tanaka could wait until morning...
THE END!
To everybody else - thank-you for walking the path by my side - I've had a blast!
Part XVI
The BCC was gone! A sea of tumbling fragments and a rapidly fading cloud of burning atmosphere was all that remained.
Noooooo! Up! Up! Up! Tight right! Tight Right! Come On!!! Down! Left! And still the menacing, pulsing, putrid purples and greens of a Thargoid ship all but filled his rear viewer. Sickly pulses of laser fire splashing across his quickly depleting rear shield, while his own accurately targeted rear Ingram Beam laser seemed to have no affect on the chasing octagonal menace.
He hit the injectors to try and break the attack but such was the density of swirling ships and tumbling debris that a glancing blow to his forward shield from an unidentified chunk of burning hull plating depleted them by almost half. He was forced to kill the injectors fearing that he would fly himself to his own doom and in an instant the Thargoid was back on his tail.
He pulled hard around the huge bulk of a Military Anaconda which was venting burning atmosphere from several hull breaches, its plasma turrets firing in seemingly random directions at the swirl of small Thargon fighters that surrounded it. A momentary respite, a few scant seconds for the extra energy unit to pour power back into his depleted shields, a few seconds for the boiling coolant to bleed away some of the heat from the blistered tip of his Beam laser, a few seconds to lick away the sweat from his top lip and to take a breath.
The hateful, spinning and pulsating octagon emerged from behind the Anaconda and Janus noted that a couple of the Navy ship's plasma cannons pummelled it as it passed while he weaved and dodged the immediate bristle of laser fire emerging seemingly from every facet of the chasing ship. Come on Lazarus, come on!
He put a couple of squeezes of Beam dead centre, before the overheat protection system denied him and the whine of the straining cooling system indicated that he would not get another chance for several seconds yet. If he lived that long, of course.
Suddenly and surprisingly the Thargoid ship exploded, two Kraits emerging through the blindingly bright cloud of vapour. Janus thought he recognised the decals on at least one of them and a brief tight-band comms message confirmed his suspicions.
“The boss say we keep you safe, difficult to have life debt with a dead man. Complicated. Not good for his Chi-cra.”
At least two of the remaining three of Treee'ggaar's escort fighters had come to his aid. Janus took another breath. I wonder what Chi-cra is? Sounds like a medical condition.
The reprieve did not last long, more Thargoid ships and fighters appeared to pour into area around the station in a seemingly never ending stream and Janus, found himself ducking and weaving and cursing and firing and screaming at a pace he knew neither Lazarus nor he could keep up for very long. Janus had no idea if Treee'ggaar's escorts had his six or if he had theirs for he lost sight of them both almost immediately.
Smoke began to fill the cabin and the lights flickered while a steady stream of new warning lights illuminated on the main console as time and again his shields were depleted and another stroke of deadly Thargoid fire etched a scar in the hull of his ship. Lazarus had never behaved more beautifully, he had never flown so well, but he knew that he and his ship were outclassed and out gunned and at any moment he was going to die. The inevitability of it, the certainty of it brought about a strange sense of calm.
The silhouette of a Navy Behemoth against the Diso sun gave him a brief flush of hope and a flash across his viewer of newly arrived and undamaged Galcop Vipers From the main stations, I guess a few seconds later as he pulled a tight reactionary turn away from the needles of fire peppering his port side, might have given his heart a chance to beat one more time had the turn not been completed with the Constore station filling his forward viewer.
The station was burning, fires flaring from several blackened hull breaches along its entire length, its rooftop avatar torn away, ad-ring shattered and non-functional. Briefly flailing human detritus tumbling from shattered viewports.
Oh by all the Gods. What a mess. What a-
Lazarus suddenly lurched and began to roll violently. He hadn't seen or reacted in time to his assailant and in the blink of an eye it was all over. Something deep within the heart of Lazarus exploded and then fell silent, the engines cut out, every warning light on the console turned instantly red and Janus was hurled to the deck as his pilot's chair was torn from the floor plate. He fumbled with his straps but after a brief moment of panic was free and in the flickering lights and smoke filled cabin it took a second for him to orientate himself and identify the hatch to the escape pod and he made a dash towards it.
Then he found himself crashing back to the decking, his left boot catching on two bolts protruding from the deck plate.
Noooooooo!
As he scrabbled to his feet he was flung backwards as the hatch and the escape pod beyond were vaporised by another Thargoid laser blast. The noise was utterly deafening but in a moment all was silent as the sound carrying atmosphere vented almost instantly through the breach. Janus instinctively clung to a support beam as the gaseous contents of the cabin rushed past him to freedom.
Saved by those fricking bolts. Who could have imagined it? he thought as he watched the Brandy dispenser pour its final drink, the contents boiling almost instantly away in the vacuum as both the glass and he were pushed towards the breach by Lazarus' dying breath.
He watched, detached from events, as his free arm reached up and snatched something dark and familiar from the detritus that rushed through the shattered cabin towards infinite space.
He pulled the Remlok mask over his head, or was this just the memory of a three year old Janus watching a big dark bird doing this very thing for him almost fifteen years earlier?
Deprived of oxygen Janus felt rather euphoric and gaped in awe through the transparent face mask at the two figures stood in front of the breach smiling serenely down on him. It had been such a very long time! Mummy! Papa!
He released his anchoring grip and stretched out his arms towards them. He was lifted up and carried forward, ready and wanting to embrace them and then, there was only darkness.
Coda – Part I
Inside a newly equipped medical centre on-board the Sainsboory's Constore which floats a little distance from Diso's Witchpoint Marker there is the stirring of life where many thought there should be none.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.
Oh? Pain?
Can you be dead and feel pain? That seems a little unfair...
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain...
A medical computer detects the change in brain wave activity and releases tiny amounts of drugs directly into the blood stream that feeds the brain. This time however, there will be no enforcement of a coma, these drugs are to ease the transition from near death back to life. Whir-whir-click go tiny pumps, the sound picked up by fragile ears.
...What's that? Oh the pain. The P- Oh. Actually, no. No, pain. Am I inside the Remlok still? You hear about the hallucinations, the dying brain, the final few seconds dragged out to seemingly last a life time. But if this is it, then I am clearly lacking in the imagination department.
There are two other occupants in the room, one of them, from its vantage point, stood near the doorway, speaks. “I think the slumbering hero stirs my dear.”
I recognise those avian tones. Daddyhoggy? How unexpectedly dull.
The third and final occupant lifts her sleepy head from the chair that has refused to make itself comfortable in the four days she has occupied it. “Really? Should I call for a medic?”
Tina? Well that's more like it!
“No. Let me do that. You are much easier on the eye than I am. I think perhaps the first thing he should see is you. After all it is your name, not mine, that he has mumbled over and over again for the last twenty-four hours is it not?”
The door slides open and the bird slips away. He does not need to make the medical team aware of their patient's change of condition, the computer did that even before Daddyhoggy noticed the less subtle, outwards signs. Daddyhoggy knows this, but he leaves nonetheless. Three is a crowd after all.
Tina rises from the chair and sits on the edge of the bed, carefully avoiding a multitude of tiny tubes and wires, going to and coming from the figure lying in the bed. She strokes his brow above a battered and swollen eye then leans down to place a gentle kiss upon dry and still bloodied lips. She has read childhood fairy-tales from Old Earth and the irony of the situation is not lost on her and despite her emotions a smile briefly touches her own lips. “Wake up my Prince,” she whispers into an ear that has not been fully repaired, some of it will still be missing for the next few days at least, while tiny 'bots coursing around his system rebuild him from the inside.
Damaged and ultra-sensitive lips tingle at the touch of the others. Eyes slowly open. Light pours onto retinas that have not seen activity for four days and there is briefly a searing pain and sea of swirling colour before brain and eye settle on a happy equilibrium and the medical computer detects the distress of its patient and dims the lights of the room accordingly.
Wow
This is not the glamorous, beautifully presented hostess that Janus met a lifetime ago, but a tired and dishevelled young lady without make-up or any of the normal trappings of her profession. Despite this, she is the most beautiful sight Janus has ever seen and his face breaks out into a huge grin. This action unfortunately breaks many of the new bindings that are holding his partially reconstructed face together. The intense pain causes the grin to be replaced by a wince but as automatically supplied pain-killers kick in the smile, albeit slightly more restrained, returns to the young man's feature.
Even as the medical team rush in and quickly fuss around him and fix his artificial skin he cannot take his eyes off her, he cannot even bring himself to blink lest he miss even instant of her.
If I wasn't in so much pain, I'd say this was a dream.
The medical team, satisfied with their work, finally leave the pair alone again.
Tina returns to the edge of the bed and speaks again. “The hero returns from the dead. Praise be.”
Janus is confused, he would have wrinkled a brow but the medical team have ensured that enough drugs have been pumped into his face to prevent such a movement, he will not be allowed to break the artificial skin again.
“Hero?” he croaks out. Licking his sore lips and swallowing a few times for lubrication he tries again. “I'm not a hero,” he rasps, although the embarrassing croak has gone. “I got my arse kicked. Poor Lazarus, didn't have a prayer against those Thargs.”
Tina is smiling, but Janus doesn't know why. “Then let me show you,” she says. “If you're up to it of course?” she adds.
He nods dumbly. He has no idea what she's talking about, but if it looks like she might hang around for a bit if he agrees, then agree he does.
Seemingly of their own volition three holo-3D projectors drop down from the ceiling of the medical centre and between them they form an image that floats above the bed where Janus lays. He cannot move all he can do is watch. Watch and be amazed.
Coda – Part II
Janus does not recognise the opening scenes of the holo-vid although the emergence of those terrifying pulsing octagonal discs from wherever they hide away in Witchspace sends an involuntary shudder through his body. He is relieved to have a momentary distraction as Tina, gently and skilfully avoiding his tubes and cables, climbs on to the medi-bed and settles down beside him.
The sound of the Thargoid Attack warning alarm makes him jump even though he realises in an instant that the sound is from the holo-vid. Tina's arm stretches reassuringly across his chest and perhaps is there to anchor him to the bed, to prevent an instinctive bolt for the exit.
As the camera tracks the first wave of Thargoids the Constore slips into view. This must be the view from one of the Navy ships. Lucky they were here. What did those guys in the bar say about the Socelageians again?
The bright flash of light from the first silent explosion lit the room as the nearest Thargoid to the camera vanished in a volley of off-screen plasma fire. This must be shot from one of the Navy Anaconda's then
Now the view began to swirl as the ship began to manoeuvre heavily as it suddenly became the focus of the Thargoids aggression. Other ships appeared in the shot, it was hard to tell but they appeared to be Navy Asps and Sidewinders charging in to blunt and bloody the nose of the Thargoid thrust towards the Light's Fantastic. Janus was amazed how quickly so many of them fell to the green streaks of death emerging at all angles from the spinning Thargoid ships. It was obvious that even a Navy spec Sidewinder was no match for them at all. Janus found he was counting how many ships vanished in a cloud of vented atmosphere and burning plasma but couldn't continue after twenty, it was just too awful. Why? Why such a futile, ill-organised counter-attack? It was suicide!
The view-point of the camera suddenly changed to something mounted on the Constore itself and Janus had his answer as tens and then scores of ships poured from the docking port of the Constore in haphazard succession. Time. To give us time. Time to get out, to have a chance. Thank-you.
Tina snuggled closer, the pressure of her arm across his chest increasing fractionally. Huh? A ship emerged from the docking port, a sleek and beautifully equipped Boa Class Cruiser. In a moment it was gone, caught between three beams of green light, the pilot didn't even have time to react, probably still disorientated by the break pattern over the shields as the ship emerged from the docking port. Oh. Janus felt himself shy away from the viewer and for a moment his heart seemed to stop as the holo-vid showed the familiar shape and paint job of a much loved, and suddenly deeply missed, Cobra Mark III. “Hello old girl,” he heard himself whisper to the image being projected into the room. Tina hugged him a little tighter in response.
The next few minutes were all too familiar, although, seeing them from a multitude of angles and cut-aways and panning shots was almost too surreal to cope with. This footage had clearly been put together by some-one and Janus had no idea why. It was deeply disturbing that his life and the life of his ship was somehow entertainment for the masses. Why is Tina showing me this? Perhaps I wasn't up to it after all.
As Janus watched, familiar events, such as having his arse saved by Treee'ggaar's two escorts, gave way to ones he had no recollection of. Even if this footage had been put together from all the Galcop cameras available it was clear that with each passing moment the number of twisting, weaving, firing and dying ships in the background of the shots focussed on Lazarus was dwindling rapidly. There was almost nobody left in the battle fighting the Thargoids. Janus watched as Thargoid after Thargoid fell to Lazarus' deadly strikes, while all the time bucking and twisting through a web of green death from the overwhelming number of humankind's deadliest of foes. I don't understand. I don't remember any of this. I just remember trying to stay alive. Did I do this? Did I really fight and kill so many Thargoid ships? He was trembling, he knew what was coming and he didn't think he could face it. In the projection the final moment of Lazarus' existence was caught on camera. Her shields gone she was skewered by a beam of green. She seemed to swell around the point of impact, splitting open like a metallic flower bud, along hull plates and sub-surface conduits. An engine blew out, streaming fiery plasma into the void. Janus held his breath, somewhere in the distance, in another world now, an alarm began to sound in response to his lack of respiration. In the projection the cockpit area of Lazarus was vaporised in a flash of green and then it was gone. The image frozen for a moment and then faded away as the projectors shut down. Janus took a deep sobbing breath and, despite the weight of Tina's arm and a broken and drugged system, sat up in the bed. Tina rose with him, her eyes locked onto his.
“There's more?” he asked angrily. “You see me... You see me... fall?” The words choking him.
Tina nods silently, tears are streaming down her face.
“You've watched Lazarus die?” There is venom behind those words. He is angry, distraught. He thought that somewhere, somehow, this dream he had, of him and this girl. This girl that he cannot love because he has known her only for a few minutes, and yet knows that he does, might somehow feel the same for him. But it cannot be true and that hurts. It hurts more than the battered face and broken body because that pain can be held at bay by drugs.
Tina shakes her head, she is speaking too, but there seems to be a buzzing in Janus' ears and the room is filled with new and more urgent sounding alarms. She places a hand on each of his cheeks, she is all but shouting at him now but as the tiny pumps fill his blood stream with a concoction of pain-killers and suppressants he finally hears her. “Lazarus did not die! Do you understand? Lazarus did not die! I wanted to show you why you are a hero. Why everybody on this station loves you, why I love you! You were the last civilian ship, you helped save us all. Janus, something amazing has happened, something nobody can explain. You will see. I promise!”
She guides his head down gently to the pillow as the drugs take control and he is lost to her again. She allows herself to be pushed away by the medical team who have rushed back in to tend to their charge. She ignores the glare from the chief doctor and looks across to Daddyhoggy who is stood in the doorway.
“It will be a shame,” notes the bird, “if, in your excitement to share with him the gift he has apparently brought to us all, you kill him off. For what I suspect you have planned for the two of you I can think of only two systems where it is still legal if one of the party is a corpse.”
Tina flushes red but the bird only shrugs and waddles away, his suspicions confirmed.
On the bed, cocooned by the carefully selected cocktail of drugs and medications Janus is vaguely aware of being prodded and poked and manipulated. He doesn't care, he is busy replaying what Tina said, although he cannot recall anything after Why I love you too.
Coda – Part III
Janus awoke from a dream, a dream where he was a hero, where an astonishingly beautiful girl loved him and where his ship sat expectantly in its docking bay waiting to travel amongst the stars. It was a good dream.
He opened his eyes.
Oh.
The disappointment was all but soul-destroying. The lights of the medical centre brightened automatically in response to his change of state. The harshness of his confinement, his reality, illuminated with depressing clarity.
He was alone. He'd always been alone, but for the first time he cared, for the first time he didn't want to be. He'd even been abandoned by the medical equipment. He appeared to have the same number of tubes and cables but now they plugged into a small plain grey box sat by the side of the bed.
Stiffly he leaned across to where he was plugged in and tested the weight of the grey box. It wasn't that heavy, he could probably carry it, work out how to remove the tubes later. He paused briefly and looked down where he suspected his feet where hidden beneath the crisp white sheets. He wiggled his toes. Good start, perhaps he could walk right out.
“Thinking of leaving us?”
Janus jumped, like a guilty schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He glared at the big black bird stood in the entrance to the medical centre.
And then she was there too, sliding elegantly into the room, slipping around Daddyhoggy, dressed comfortably but smartly in something fashionable and expensive looking. Excitement crackled from her like electricity, she was positively buzzing as she bounded to the side of his bed and placed a lingering kiss on his lips.
She stepped back and placed a delicate hand beneath his chin and gently closed his mouth as he stared at her somewhat dumb-founded. “Not a good look,” she said with a laugh. “Do you think you can walk as far as the grav' car?” she asked pointing out through the window of the medical centre to the corridor beyond where a small four man intra-station transport waited.
What the hell is going on?
Her brow wrinkled at his lack of response but the smile hardly diminished. She grasped his hand and tugged him away from the bed. “Come on, it's not far.”
And in a moment he was up. He needn't have worried about carrying the small grey box, it lifted into the air as he moved and bobbed along side as he took his first tentative steps towards the car. Tina pressed to his side, one arm wrapped around around his waist.
“Don't forget,” said the doctor as they passed, “the med-pack is supposed to be for emergency use only. Eight hours. No more!”
Janus has no idea where they are going as he settles back into the unexpectedly comfortable seat of the grav' car. It moves at a rather sedate pace, sharing the corridors with the rest of the populace of the station, most of whom are on foot. He notices as they pass that there are people pulling on the sleeves of other pedestrians, pointing as the car passes. They are pointing at him. Beside him Tina is buzzing, he can feel her trembling with... what? Excitement? Expectation?
As they travel it as if word has got out, people are waiting, pointing, occasionally they wave, or nod or tip a hat, or flap a wing, or flick a tail in acknowledgement.
Janus sinks back into his chair, but the chair resists, there is no crevice into which he can crawl, so instead he looks out of the view-ports that line the corridor sections and into the blackness of space beyond. He catches his own reflection and recoils, it is swollen and blackened. And she has kissed this face, twice at least! I wouldn't touch it with a plasma destabiliser! But beyond his reflection in the blackness he sees a ship and is amazed and confused and envious in equal measure. It carries the Sainsboory's logo, it's the same size and approximate shape as one of the station's Sidewinder fleet, but it is utterly gorgeous. He almost falls out of the car trying to keep the ship in sight as he passes beyond the view-port. Tina grips his arm and if he thought she was excited before now she is a cup of bubbling Aonaian lethal brandy by comparison.
People are clapping. They have stopped what they are doing and they are clapping as the grav' car trundles past. By the gods can this thing not go any faster! There is nowhere to go, no way to run, he watches as his arm rises into the air and waves back at their applause. Traitor!
Finally the car exits the main corridor section and leaves behind the clapping masses and Janus realises where he is. This is the top deck overlooking the enormity that is the central cavern of the station's docking bay, and it is full. Completely and utterly stuffed with ships. Janus has never seen so many ships in one place.
It takes a moment or two but once Janus is over the enormous quantity of ships he notices that amongst the ship designs he recognises there are a large number of more beautiful ships, curved and sleek and wondrous. But these are not alien ships, each has some fundamental characteristic that makes it it easy to identify. Sidewinder, Asp, Boa, Python, Anaconda, Cobra Mark One, Viper... His eyes dance around the docking bay, settling on, identifying and then picking out the next until they settle and lock onto one ship in particular. This ship is clearly their destination. His throat has gone dry, his heart is pounding in his chest. He ignores the grey box beside him as it bleeps out a series of what he presumes are warnings about his health.
“Lazarus?” he whispers. “Lazarus?”
Tina has buried her head in his chest and is hugging him more tightly than ever. Even Daddyhoggy, who has remained still and silent until this moment nods his head in affirmation of Janus' whispered hope and replies “Apparently yes.”
But this is not his Lazarus, that much is obvious. While the paint job and insignia are identical, the ship they adorn is a marvel of sublime engineering. This isn't a ship it's a sculpture and yet despite the change Janus cannot help but know somehow that this is indeed his Lazarus. He is off the grav' car even before it comes completely to a stop and cables pull briefly tight as the med-pack struggles to respond to his new found exuberance.
He is in the cockpit of the ship in a moment, the flow of corridors between the cargo ramp and this place seemingly the most logical of routes. When Tina runs into the room behind him he is doubled up with laughter, an outstretched hand and extended finger are pointing at something on the floor.
“What is it!” she demands.
“They... left... behind... the bolts...” he responds between great bouts of laughter. “It is Lazarus! Have you missed me old girl?”
In response there is a whirring from beneath the Astronavigation console and the brandy dispenser drops two perfectly poured drinks into the collection port. At this, Janus collapses to the floor overcome by his own emotions and laughter.
Tina has to wait quite some time before Janus is ready to talk. This wasn't exactly how she'd planned this moment to go.
**
Janus sits on the floor of the cockpit of the ship he thought he'd lost with his back pressed to a bulkhead and a glass of half drunk lethal brandy clutched in one hand. Tina lays with her head in his lap, feeling quite giddy, wondering how anybody manges to drink more than a sip of whatever came out of the drinks dispenser.
“So let me get this straight,” he says slightly more loudly than a completely sober man might, “not every ship is converted when it docks, but nobody knows why.”
“Well, if you'd been listening you'd have heard me say that we have a theory about that. We think it's the interaction between Lazarus' nanobots and the energy from the some of the Thargoid lasers. They seem to kick the 'bots into super-dooper mode and for some reason they do this,” she waves her hand around the cockpit, trying to encompass the whole ship, “to the superstructure and internals of the ship.”
“So after I was rescued and the Navy Behemoth and Galcop vipers turned the battle Lazarus, who hadn't blown herself to smithereens was dragged in here for what? Scrapping?”
“No actually,” responded Tina, sitting up. “To be patched up as best we could and to be used as a monument to your heroism!”
“Oh. Well yes-”
“You should have died. You shouldn't be alive Janus. I am very glad that you are, but you shouldn't be. Daddy thinks some of Lazarus' nanobots are inside you too, fixing you, may be changing you, making you better like they have the ship.”
Janus wasn't sure how he felt about that and changed the subject in an effort not to think about it. “Why do you call him 'Daddy'?” he asked.
She smiled and took a sip of brandy she didn't really need. “Do you think you are the only orphan Daddyhoggy has taken under his metaphorical and literal wing? Well you're not. He rescued me too.”
“What from?”
“What do you think? 'Love you lots for only ten creds',” she said suddenly in a strange sing-song voice.
“Oh.”
“Yes, 'oh' indeed.”
“But I thought, given the nature of the Level 23 club, that, erm...”
She leaned forward and silenced him with a kiss. When she broke away, she replied, “Before you embarrass yourself any further - I own the club, I don't work there, not in the traditional sense anyway.”
“Own?”
“I have a silent partner, but in essence, yes, the club is mine.”
“But you met me, that night, dressed-”
She kissed him again. “Dressed to impress,” she said when she broke the contact for a second time. “Did it work?” He nodded silently. “Good. Those Thargoids really almost screwed up my plans for me and you.”
“What? A candlelit dinner?”
She smiled a wicked, naughty smile. “Well eventually we'd have got round to dinner.” She kissed him again, but this time neither 'came up for air' for quite some time.
**
When they returned to the grav' car Daddyhoggy tipped his head to one side. “You look a little flushed. All is well?”
“Remarkably well, considering,” replied Tina with a grin.
The bird made that strange noise Janus now knew to be laughter and he could not look the bird in the eye as the grav' car pulled away from Lazarus, to deliver Janus and his box back to the medical centre.
In an effort to change the subject Janus posed a question to the pair of conspirators. “So why are the other ships changing when they dock here too?”
Daddyhoggy was quick to answer and Janus suspected that this was his theory and he was keen to share. “The nanobots from Lazarus' broken hull somehow 'leaked' into the docking bay of the station. It had taken a lot of damage from Thargoid lasers too and I think that is the key. Ships that change when they dock here are the ones that at some point have taken actual hull damage from a Thargoid laser. I think it leaves behind an energy signature that the nanobots somehow instinctively react to and have to change.”
“But they're just repair 'bots! What does the OO have to say about all this?” Be polite, wave at the nice clapping people.
“They don't have the missile repair technology yet,” replied Tina, “they're working on it, but they don't have it. They don't have a Commander Tanaka working for them and they didn't have any ships in this system at the time indicated by your logs either. We checked, we hacked their computers just in case they were lying, but they're not.”
“Then... how? What?”
“We don't know,” replied Tina and the bird together.
“What about the Navy? They must be very interested,” asked Janus. Yes, thank-you. And you, yes, thank-you. Keep waving, keep waving
Tina glanced at Daddyhoggy, who shrugged, before she replied. “They've tried to, erm, acquire Lazarus twice since she transformed. First time, they just offered us a huge sum of money, the second time, when we turned the creds down, they tried to steal her.”
“What!?”
“Don't worry, that's not going to happen again,” responded Tina, placing a reassuring hand over his. “If they try it again they get banned from docking at the station and they want the transformed ships as much as anybody.”
“But how can you enforce that? They could just-”
“Walk right in and take over?” Janus nodded. “No they can't. We have thirty Elite Pilots and their ships on permanent stand-by and ready to fight and a live newsfeed on continuous broadcast down to Diso itself. If we're attacked or jammed the whole system will know about it and nobody wants this station in Military hands. Well, nobody except the Navy and Galcop of course.”
“How can you afford to hire thirty Elite ranked mercenaries? That's just crazy money!”
“We charge one thousand Creds a time to dock,” replied Daddyhoggy, somewhat nonchalantly given the figure just mentioned and Janus wondered if the Linguistic Enhancer had made an error in translation.
Janus scanned the docking bay just as they were about to exit. “But there has to be a thousand ships in there!”
“And more will arrive tomorrow and that's how we pay for 30 Elite pilots and the systems most advanced holo-vid transmission system.”
“And you've done all of this in four days?”
The pair nodded together. “We have a lot of contacts,” Tina replied.
“And embarrassing holo-vids,” noted the bird somewhat more honestly.
Coda – Part IV
“So,” pondered Janus, as he climbed back into the bed of the medical centre, “pilots are turning up with old ships in the hope they've been damaged by Thargoids at some point in their past and will be converted by the nanobots? That's one hell of a gamble!”
Daddyhoggy waited until the young man was settled and the doctor began to quietly transfer the cables and tubes from the portable system back to the one situated by the side of the bed. “If their ship is not converted we take the docking fee off the price of their next maintenance overall if they have it done here. Several ship maintenance companies have already moved in and are paying treble the rent we were charging last week and are happy to do so.”
“Win-win” replied Janus.
The bird shrugged. “No, just win. The house always wins in the end.”
It was Tina who noticed the puzzled look on the doctor's face. “Is everything all right doctor?” she enquired nervously.
“Not sure,” mumbled the doctor in response as he peeled back one of the skin covers that covered over a cable as it went into Janus' own skin. “Ah,” said the doctor holding up the cable end to his eye.
“Shouldn't that be in me?” asked Janus.
“Generally that is considered the best way to administer intravenous drugs, yes” replied the doctor somewhat nervously. “Although apparently you no longer require it.”
A little more peeling back of skin tags quickly revealed all but two tubes had been exorcised and the small puncture wounds almost completely healed.
“I can't see you needing to be with us after tomorrow,” noted the doctor as he gathered up his now spare tubing and almost ran from the room.
The three people remaining in the room fidgeted somewhat nervously before Janus did his best to carry on as before. “Are these converted ships any better than the ship they were originally. I mean are they faster, better shields, more energy efficient?”
Tina was still watching the doctor leave so it was Daddyhoggy who answered. “No. No. No and no. Pretty much exactly the same.”
“What!” exclaimed Tina, suddenly re-engaging in the conversation. “Exactly the same? Don't you get it? It doesn't matter what the performance is like, it's all about looks!” She held an exasperated hand to her forehead. Janus suddenly felt foolish for even bringing it up. “These ships have turned the ship market on its head,” continued Tina. “Nobody wants a new ship of the old classic designs any more. The stars are full of old ships, millions and millions of them. Everybody wants one of these new ones and the only place you can get one is here. The price of new ships in Chart One have plummeted and the price of a thirty year old Cobby Three is four times that of the equivalent new ship. The older the better! The older it is the more likely it is that it'll have encountered a Thargoid or two in its time and taken a bit of a pasting along the way.”
“So if the ship manufacturers aren't selling new ships any more they'll go bust. This single quirk could ruin everything.”
Tina was shaking her head. “You're doing cute but dumb terribly well,” she chided. “It's just a marketing opportunity that's all. Cowell and MgRath are already starting to re-equip all their new Cobby Threes, Military Laser front and rear, q-mine, shield enhancer and an extra energy unit both with over-ride switches and a fuel pod. It's marketed as a Thargoid hunter, they've asked if they can advertise here. We've said yes of course, our revamped advertising hoardings will cost a fortune after all.”
Janus held up a hand of his own. “Look, I'm obviously very tired, but why? I don't get it.”
A slow deep breath later, Tina continued. “You fly out, pick a close system and force a mis-jump.”
“Force a mis-jump?!”
“Don't interrupt! As I was saying, you mis-jump, go toe to toe with the Thargoids, kill off all but one, turn your extra shield enhancers off – take a bit of a knock, turn them on again. Kill the last Thargoid off, settle back thinking of the profits you'll make until the fuel pod has refuelled your internal tank and then jump back out to normal space and head for Diso.”
“But that's madness. There's no such thing as a little knock from a Thargoid! With your shields down something vital might get hit. Trust me I know!”
“And then Cowell and MgRath sell another new ship to another sucker who wants to try his luck at getting rich quick.”
“Oh.”
“Oh indeed,” replied Daddyhoggy, “but there is an up-side to even this unfortunate and tragic possibility.”
“And what could that possibly be?”
“For the first time we are taking the fight to the Thargoids. It's not just the Navy now and their rare capitol ships or the terrified trader caught in a mis-jump with no hope of survival. Now tens, hundreds, we suspect even thousands of ships are deliberately mis-jumping and fighting the Thargoids in their own territory, much as they've been doing to us. Chart wide we hear there is already a noticeable drop in Thargoid incursions into Galcop held systems.”
Janus nodded thoughtfully but then failed to cover up a sudden yawn as a wave of exhaustion washed over him.
“I bore you?” mocked Daddyhoggy.
“I am so sorry.”
“No need to apologise. I jest. You are healing remarkably well, but you have been through a lot, you need to rest. I will visit again tomorrow. Good night Janus.”
Janus and Tina watched him sweep out the door leaving them alone. “Daddy's right, while it was fun, I definitely took a lot out of you today... so to speak.” She leaned down to where his head was propped up and kissed him. “Goodnight.”
And then Janus was alone once more, but he didn't have time to worry about it, he was asleep within seconds.
Outside in the corridor Daddyhoggy waited patiently for his young ward to join him.
“We make a good partnership,” said Tina as they walked along back towards their respective quarters, breaking the short, contemplative silence.
“This is true. However, I believe the partnership between you and young Janus will be better. More, hmmm, substantial. Besides, you have outgrown me and need someone else to mother, bully and cajole into taking on your crazy schemes. It is strange how these things work out. I have many plans, but that you and Janus should meet was never one of them and yet I am happy that it has turned out this way.” The bird stopped. “Well, unless you require me to walk you to your quarters then it would seem that we have arrived at my room and I will bid you fare-the-well.”
Tina looked around, as if slightly lost. “Yes. Good night Daddy. Sorry, miles away.”
Daddyhoggy tipped his head to one side and clucked his strange laugh. “I suspect in fact you are no more than a few hundred metres away, and so it should be.” He placed two feathery wings around her and hugged her tight before releasing her and he stepped into his room, leaving her alone in the corridor.
She stared briefly at the blankness of the closed door before she could here Daddyhoggy's native dialect drift through the divide, a lullaby he had sung to her when he first took her in. She wandered back to her room, singing the same tune as she went.
**
Free of the Linguistic Enhancer, Daddyhoggy's own true voice rang out, a haunting if tunefully series of trills and coos and whoops. The tune, his own variation on a Soreisbeian hatchling lullaby, filled the room. The final phrasing of the second verse initialised the log in script to the access terminal secreted away in his quarters. The start of the third verse was the code to turn the holo-projectors on. As he sang, more and more levels of access on the screens were displayed. It would seem that Tina and her silent partner, the owner of Quasar Holdings now owned Light's Fantastic outright, Sainsboory's having accepted the generous offer to pull out and allow the L23club to expand to fill the whole of the station. Of course Quasar Holdings was but the retail and property section of the much larger Magma Construction Corporation, which, if you knew where to look was only one arm of the much larger Elite Nanotech Research Machines. The most recent projection revealed that shares in all these companies were rising well as were those for Gravimetric Inc., ENRMs parent company, in fact the company which through careful acquisition of its rivals and second-to-none field shaping technology had become the single supplier of all Gravimetric field generators throughout Galcop.
Satisfied Daddyhoggy stopped singing. The data from the projectors vanished from the air as they shut down in response to the silence.
It was hard sometimes, to remain silent, but Soreisbeians were a thoughtful people, long-term planners. He did tell Janus he had a certain way with Gravimetric Field shaping and felt positively naughty in doing so. One day, he would tell them all.
Before retiring for the night he noticed that he'd received a secure comms message. It was tempting to access it but he was very tired and on reflection he decided the message from Tanaka could wait until morning...
THE END!
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