Planetfurry BBS

[DragonWolf_keny]

Well it is long in coming, but I finally have something to present. This is the third installment of my Sci-Fi storyIt’s not yet finished but it is at least to a point where I can give a preview of what’s next.

I hope you enjoy reading it as I have righting it.

Chapter 3
Awakened Freedom

It seemed like a longer stretch of time then they had made it out to be. Almost like a couple of hours, as Kyle and Alex had fallen asleep lying across the seat. I wasn’t really tired because of all the rest I had gotten from blacking out, so I just silently sat there waiting and watching the many patrons of the star port carry on about their day.

Finally, they came out and Lori opened the door, as Derrick woke Kyle and Alex. He said in a relaxed almost confident way, “I’ve managed to get my personal shuttle brought out for us.”

Lori also added, “Now all we need is a pilot, and I don’t trust the port or Derrick.” Derrick tried to look innocent, but failed terribly.

Kyle then said, “If I can rest a bit, I’ll fly it.”

Lori said surprised, “Can you fly spacecraft?”

Kyle answered, “Well I haven’t since I found Alex, but it’s like riding a bike.”

I just said as I yawned, “Then let’s get off of this living hell hole and go far away.”

Then we drove off to the hanger. We arrived, just as they had finished preparing the private shuttle. It was rather more welcoming than the one I used to serve on. It was long and cylindrical in shape, much like a pre stellar aircraft. At the back of it, it had large space engines, and two wing solar wing flaps stretching out from the sides. If it weren’t for the engines, it might have been mistaken for those antiques that could barely even break the planets gravity.

We stopped short of the entry ramp and Kyle got out first with his gun drawn. As we filed out of the limo, I heard a familiar sound. Like guns being caulked and readied. I looked up at the airlock and saw the officer that sentenced me to death stepping out of it.

I yelled, “Get back in the car!”

But I was too late, we were quickly surrounded.

“Don’t move I’ve had to kill a few traitors already ... Now throw down your weapons!” shouted, the admiral

“They’re only traitors if they were loyal in the first place.” I retorted in a fit of bravery and growing anger.

As Alex and Kyle dropped their weapons, he stalked over to me and said, “I should be thankful you hadn’t died. Thanks to your new little friends I may now have the data that they were trying to steal.” He started pacing back towards the others, as he went into an over confident lecture.

Derrick blared out almost stupidly, “you can’t harm a republic senator and you can’t kill someone under republic protection without declaring war!”

The enraged admiral quickly screamed, “I am declaring war! War on chaos… and, I can do as necessary to protect the human order.”

I waited for him to pace towards me, while I was assessing a way out.

He carried on with his speech, “I will of course have to explain your death. Tragic it was, What with the accidental reactor explosion and all!”

Just as he was near me I had had enough. I’m tired of running. I could feel an adrenalin rush coming on as I appeared to feel stronger. Then when he was close enough, I grabbed him from behind, and bit hard into his shoulder badly crippling him. One of his guards tried to hit me with the butt of rifle, but His rifle broke on impact.

I was so strong with one swift flex I let go of their leaders shoulder, grabbed the soldier with my forewings, and hurled him at another guard, which had fired and now killed his own man.

Kyle and Alex picked up their guns and began helping me fight them off., killing one more.

I turned to the next soldier within arms reach. I roared loudly, as he raised his rifle. I just twisted his arm backwards, took the rifle and, fired it at his head. Turning my fury on another soldier, I killed him with the rifle I had just acquired.

The rest ran in horror as I had killed three and injured one in no effort at all, bringing their numbers down to two. The bastard only brought six with him, which was his second mistake.

Throwing down the rifle, I walked over and grabbed the admiral up by the throat, before he could get up and try to run. I held him up to my face. I was taller than him, so he was starting to choke.

“Death to the emperor!” I said, while breathing heavily in his face.

“Don’t kill him yet!” Lori yelled.

I was so angry; I threw him at the ramp, knocking him out cold.

My moth was almost foaming as “I want so bad just to tear him apart” But Kyle held me back and I started to feel the rage leaving me. Kyle started to console me, “its ok! Hey. He’ll get what he deserves in the end.”

I began calming down slowly, as Lori dragged the unconscious officer on board, and out of my site. I breathed heavily as he continued counseling me

“It’s going to be alright!” he stated in a worried tone, “don’t sink to their level.” he added.

I was mad to tears. I looked him strait in the eyes slouching to my knees catching my breath.

Kyle tried to console me by saying, “you have beautiful eyes… you know that?”

I laughed saying, “I’ve heard that they were ugly, just like Me.” we went on board.

As I entered Kyle said, “Let’s go escape from hell.”

“Ill prime the engines, I used to run drop ships.” I stated, as I walked back to the engine room.

I immediately checked for sabotage. Although, I was not really very skilled in starship engineering, I could make repairs but I defiantly wasn’t an expert. Everything seemed to be fine to me, so I began powering up the ships reactor. It was fast for an antique; I expected it to be rather slower.

As soon as I had it ready for start up, I put on the headset for the ship radio and told Kyle, “No surprises I can see, but I still won’t feel safe till we leave earth behind.” I wasn’t too fond of the noises these ships engines make. Kyle of course made it worse by flaring up the thrusters a little early. The feel of ships during take off always made me so nervous.

I could only imagine how it must have felt to be in Kyle’s chair right now. It was a long period of no excitement at all after we left the planet behind, which seemed unusual to me. Why weren’t we pursued? I guessed we must have looked almost unimportant mixed with all the other thousands of other ships coming and going.

I began to feel a bit board and realized I could automate the engines so I could go to the bridge. I was just about to push the idol button, when the emergency alert lights all lit up.

The computer began fluttering wildly. A shrill male metallic voice uttered, “Error, power flow irregular, Error, warning reactor heat level going critical!”

I could not understand it, “what the hell did I do!”

It shouldn’t have been malfunctioning, and then I remembered what that admiral had said during his rant. I quickly began reacting as my training had taught me and disconnected the power manually. Unfortunately I ruined the onboard computer in the process, and the entire ship went dark. I was beginning to get depressed and pissed off at the same time. Thinking about all these attempts to kill me only made me madder. I pounded my fists at the dead control panel screaming in anger.

Kyle came into the room holding a flashlight and asked, “What happened?”

I was so sick of all this fighting to be free. I just looked at him and said, “I should have checked the computer.”

He stated the bright side of it all. “At least we didn’t explode, and it’s not your fault.”

Not that it made me feel any better, but he was right. I just followed him to the passenger deck and sat down in one of the seats on the front row near the others. Alex was sleeping next to a window shivering from the cold. I walked over and gave him my cloak for a blanket, wrapping him in it while he slumbered.

Derrick sitting not to far behind him said, “Such a curious child he is?” I sat back down and said, “I’d imagine he is a lot like Me.” he just changed the subject, “I’m guessing we can’t get away right now?” and I answered him, “No. were stuck here unless I can figure out a way to fix the computer.”

Derrick just muttered depressed, “Maybe my mother was right, I should have married that princess!” then he dropped a hand held computer on the floor, walked back to the back of the ship.

My attention was now shifted on the exact solution to the problem. “Huh?” I picked up the computer and ran excitedly back to engineering, and began attempting to rig up a new ships computer out of it. It worked but I needed more memory.

So I ran up to the bridge, where Kyle was ripping the battery out of the black box. I said as he pulled out his knife, “I think I can get the ship flying again.” he cut the cord to the battery and stated, “that’s great, I don’t need an imperial patrol’s attention so we really don’t need this.” I told him, “Well I need memory more than I do power.” Then Kyle asked, “But I thought the generator was broken why does it need memory?” and I answered as I began borrowing what I needed from the navigations computer, “it isn’t and doesn’t.”

I think I confused him, because he then said, “You lost me!” so I replied, “Just be ready to jump as soon as I can get it back up and running.” and he then asked, “Where to?” I answered again as I left back for the engine room, “the safest place you can think of!”

I quickly ran back to the engine room and began modifying ships computer to use the laptop as a platform to restore most of the ships systems. “It worked!” I shouted with much delight, as everything powered up with a few sparks.

I ran back to the bridge where Kyle was already powering up for the jump to hyperspace. I noticed the navigations computer was automatically set on a destination but I had no idea where.

The ship jerked wildly, as the engines immediately sent us into jump. Kyle was a bit startled but relieved when he said, “well I don’t know where were going, but its better than drifting dead in space.”

I didn’t care I was free. The jump didn’t take long it was only an eight hour flight when the engines kicked us back into normal space. There was a new problem though; the jump used all of our fuel.

Although Kyle wasn’t too unpleased, “well I guess our luck is holding.” he stated as he unbuckled his harness and got up. “Were dead in space again, but it looks like we may not be as unlucky as it seems.”

I was a little confused, what did he mean? He further explained, “I know there is an old abandoned space station here that may be just what we’re looking for.”

I asked him, “is this station an imperial one by any chance?”

He answered, “maybe, but I knew some space pirates that had used it as a hideout once, so maybe we can use it too.”

I asked feeling a bit cautious, “well what if it’s not deserted anymore? And what makes you think it’ll be safe?

He answered, “Well, it’ll still be safer than we are now, and besides even if the pirates are still there we can bargain off our imperial hostage.”

I commented vengefully, “why not kill him and sell them his possessions and uniform?”

He just smirked and said, “well, as tempting as that is, I think he’d be more valuable alive. Besides if we have to, well just bluff our way out.”

I was a little worried about how we would get to the station but Kyle seemed confident so I just went the back with him as he started to explain the situation to the others.
“Well were out of fuel, but were not dead yet! We still have an escape pod, which will get us to a possible safe port I know about.” he yelled confidently.

The others didn’t seem to need any instructions, as Kyle led me to the escape pod. Lori and derrick dragged the admiral aboard as well. I noticed they had tied him up with electrical tape.

Kyle began powering up the pod for launch. I sat down in on one of the couches on the side of the pod. Alex came over and decided to lie down in my lap and fell back to sleep. It was several hours of trav3el before we would reach the port, and I had become tired after all this excitement. So I leaned against the wall and fell asleep as well.