Smith's Monthly #5 Read online

  Then in her ear she heard “Now!”

  She felt the bump of the docking with the airlock on the other side.

  The red light beside the airlock stayed red for a maddeningly long three seconds, then snapped green.

  She cycled the airlock open.

  On the other side men and women ran at her. Most were in stained clothes that clearly looked as if they had been living in them for longer than Mattie wanted to think about.

  And the smell of human sweat and fear clogged her nose.

  She backed up to the main corridor, pointed, and shouted, “Down the hall, doors at the end. Fast as you can! Then get down and hold on!”

  Every one of them ran past her, never questioning even for a second.

  “Ten more seconds,” Red said.

  She moved up to the airlock.

  Finally one man staggered in. “I’m the last.”

  “Clear!” she said to Red and hit the airlock close button.

  A second later she felt the ship disconnect with the station.

  She glanced at the time. “One minute and seven seconds.”

  The man who smelled of grease and body odor leaned against the wall, panting.

  She glanced at him and he nodded his thanks.

  “Thank us when we get everyone out alive,” she said, pointing down the hall to the large storage room where everyone else had gone. “Tell everyone to stay down. It might get rough before we’re done.”

  He nodded and did as he was told.

  When he went in, she made sure the door was closed and locked, then quickly put a dampening field on the room to make sure no weapons or explosives could be set off or signals sent out.

  After a short scan it was clear there were no weapons or explosives or anything in that room but a lot of dirty and terrified people.

  But she didn’t trust anyone at this point, so she left the dampening field on and headed back toward the control room with Red.

  As she entered, she could see that they were speeding away from the station, heading for the passenger liner and the other ship they had knocked out. And the station and ships were still there and intact.

  “How are our passengers,” he asked as she dropped into her chair and brought up the image of the large room full of fugitives sitting and laying on the floors.

  “Smelly,” she said, glancing over at him. “But at the moment alive.”

  “About all we can ask for at this point,” Red said, smiling.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  MATTIE WAS AMAZED at how good she felt. They had managed to get to all four disabled ships and get everyone off without a problem. Right now they had a ship-full of very dirty, tired, and happy soldiers and civilians from a dozen different second sector planets.

  Red had them headed at top speed back through the hole in the curtain nebula. They both knew the fleet was just rounding the edge of the nebula near the Bodie Station.

  In thirty minutes exactly, those ships of both fleets on both ends of the nebula curtain would be blocked completely from all incoming and outgoing signals and just as she and Red had done, ships would quickly unload the crews.

  Then the ships would be blown out of space.

  “We’re clear of the nebula,” Red said.

  On the screen the stars of the second sector became clear, filling the viewpoint.

  Both of them, without a word, gave a report to the Sector Force and to Innocence Inc. Then they heard the good news.

  Without fail, every hostage had been rescued without a casualty. All three hundred families.

  Mattie couldn’t believe how she felt at that moment. Elated, satisfied, and completely grinning from ear-to-ear. She had not believed it was possible.

  And they had saved the Sector Force as well.

  “Tell our passengers,” Red said, smiling at her with just as wide and happy a smile.

  “I think both of us need to do that,” she said.

  She moved over beside him and clicked on the communications link that opened a channel to all of the rooms where they had locked the crew.

  “Your attention, please,” she said and everyone in every room turned to them.

  “My name is Mattie Silks with Sector Force and this is Red Simms, the cofounder of Innocence Incorporated.”

  At learning their names there was a buzz around each room, but Mattie just waited for a second and everyone gave her their attention again.

  “We are very happy to inform you that all your families have been rescued from General Jarvis’s henchmen and hired guns. And also all the families on the ships still headed for the station and for the Three-Planets Alliance. A rescue operation will be starting in just a few minutes to get them off those ships as well and then, as General Jarvis wanted, all the ships will be destroyed. Only none of you will be on them.”

  There was massive cheering and hugging in all of the rooms and she and Red both just sat and watched the celebration.

  After they calmed down, she asked for their attention one more time.

  “After we have unloaded you all at the Bodie Station, we will be going after General Jarvis to make certain he can never do this again. If you have information about that passenger liner, the crew with him, or the destination, please let one of the officers know who will be helping you at the Bodie Station and they will get the information to us.”

  As everyone nodded and looked tired and relieved, Mattie finished by saying, “Welcome back. We should be arriving at Bodie Station within two hours.”

  Then she cut the link.

  Red looked at her with a huge smile. “Great idea to get information from them.”

  “If they have any,” she said, leaning back in her chair.

  “We’ll get him,” Red said.

  She said nothing. She hoped he was right, but after spending all this extra time, she wasn’t so sure any more.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  RED WATCHED SILENTLY with Mattie the rescue of the other crews from General Jarvis’s doomed fleet, then watched as the now empty ships were blown out into(?) space by numbers of ships from nearby planets’ military.

  “If Jarvis is watching at all,” he said, “he’s going to think his ploy worked.”

  “I sure hope so,” she said.

  Red looked at the woman he had fallen for. Now that the rescues had been pulled off, her only focus was on the target. And so was his. But if she stayed in this mood, it was going to be a very, very long trip out into The Emptiness.

  They sat in silence for a short time and for the first time, Red felt uncomfortable with the lack of talking.

  “Carson would be proud of all this,” Red said, finally, thinking of his friend. “The two organizations he worked for, that he believed in, working together to save thousands of lives.”

  “It wouldn’t have gotten started without him risking his life and giving his life,” Mattie said.

  “I know,” Red said, the feeling of sadness just below the surface. “And now we go get General Jarvis and make him pay for taking our friend’s life.”

  “And so many thousands of others before this,” Mattie said. “The reason for the Sector Force target on him.”

  Red nodded, then he turned to Mattie. “I want to watch you kill him for Carson.”

  She smiled at him for the first time in hours. “Deal.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  IT WAS ONE of the longest twenty-five hours Mattie had ever spent on any space station ever.

  They had docked, let off their passengers, then had a meeting with Chief Lovell, who said that numbers of the General’s crew were coming forward with information they might use.

  So as they had their supplies loaded, they talked with many who had information about the General’s passenger liner, how it had been modified, who the crew were, and so on.

  It seemed that everyone on board the liner were General Jarvis loyalists who had been with the general since his empire collapsed. And that there were just under one hundred total.


  She and Red learned where the General’s living quarters were, where the control room had been moved to, what types of engines and environmental systems were on the liner, and so much more.

  It had been worth the extra time to interview everyone, but it had driven Mattie crazy. She knew that with every passing minute the general was getting farther and farther out of reach. They had to catch that passenger liner before any of this information mattered at all.

  On the next to the last interview, however, her mood brightened completely.

  “He’s headed toward the Single Cloud,” an older man named Hustorn said. He had a beard and had showered and been given fresh clothes, but clearly he hadn’t eaten well in the last six months.

  Mattie looked at his file and saw that he had two grown children and some grandkids, all of whom had been threatened by General Jarvis’s people.

  “And how do you know that?” Red asked Hustorn.

  Mattie quickly brought up the Single Cloud information on her pad.

  “I’m a navigator for the Three-Planets Alliance,” Hustorn said. “I was taken by the general and forced to help his people set the course on the big passenger liner. They are not a bright bunch on that ship.”

  He shook his head in disgust and Mattie couldn’t help but smile at him.

  “So why do you say that?” Red asked, pulling up a map of the known areas on the other side of The Emptiness on a screen in the room. It showed the Single Cloud group as well. A bunch of stars close together and seemingly on the edge of The Emptiness.

  “Because even though the Single Cloud group of stars look to be closer on an image like that, they are actually four months travel time farther away and don’t have a livable planet among the thirty systems in the small cluster.”

  Red looked puzzled.

  Hustorn smiled. “The Three-Planets Alliance is on the edge of that Emptiness. Trust me, we know what’s on the other side of it. Turn that image ninety degrees and you’ll see the optical allusion.”

  Red did and suddenly the Single Cloud group of stars was a distance from the edge of the Emptiness.

  Mattie really laughed. “And you didn’t tell him that, of course.”

  “Not a chance,” he said, smiling. “I figured if I was going to die, he and his idiots might as well too.”

  “Why are they going to die?” Red asked, now really shocked and still staring at the star field on the screen.

  “Because they don’t have the food supplies to get to the Single Cloud at the speed that ship can go and the number of people on board. Let alone go any farther.”

  “Our information tells us it’s a pretty fast passenger liner and was modified to be even faster.”

  Hustorn again just smiled. “You can’t kidnap a person’s family and get good work out of anyone.”

  “You sabotaged the ship?” Red asked, looking stunned.

  “I wouldn’t say sabotaged,” Hustorn said. “Me and a few of his most trusted kidnapped mechanics just slowed it down some is all.”

  Mattie looked at him and knew that Hustorn wasn’t telling them everything.

  “And?” she asked, smiling.

  “We also sort of made sure about a year’s worth of food supplies would spoil very, very quickly.”

  Both she and Red just broke into gales of laughter and after a moment Chief Lovell came into the room to see what was wrong.

  Mattie was laughing so hard she couldn’t even begin to tell the Chief what was wrong.

  Hustorn just sat and smiled.

  Finally Red indicated that Hustorn should tell Chief Lovell and then the Chief started laughing. Finally the chief managed to get out another question for the smiling Hustorn.

  “How much food do they actually have?”

  “They should realize their problem about twelve weeks out,” he said. “They will be out completely by week sixteen or so.”

  “So,” Red said, “you made sure they wouldn’t have any real speed in the ship, then made sure they would be far enough out into the Emptiness that they would starve even if they tried to turn around and come back.”

  “Pretty much,” Hustorn said.

  “You two need to hire this man,” Chief Lovell managed to say as he too just couldn’t stop laughing.

  Finally Red said, “Chief, can you put Hustorn here and his engineer friends in my suite while they wait for their familes to join them. Let them stay as long as they like. On me.”

  “You got it,” Chief Lovell said.

  “Come on,” Mattie said. “Looks like we got a dictator to put out of his misery.”

  “Not too fast I hope,” Hustorn said.

  “Oh, trust us,” Mattie said. “It’s going to be slow and painful and really, really fun to watch.”

  “Wish I could be there,” Hustorn said.

  “Get in line,” Chief Lovell said.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  MATTIE SAT WITH RED in the control room as they went through the hole in the curtain nebula once more. If she never had to go through this radiation-intense area of space again, she would be very happy.

  On the other side, she saw what she was expecting, but it still surprised her a little. The ships they had rescued the crews from were gone, destroyed completely with nothing remaining but expanding fields of floating metal.

  The abandoned space station was mostly gone as well, and all the ships that had been docked there had vanished into a large cloud of debris.

  She and Red both took some scans of the area before moving on toward The Emptiness, making sure nothing had been missed. General Jarvis had made sure that no one would find any evidence of his little plan.

  After scouring the area, they both worked on scanning outward as far as they could as they moved out into The Emptiness. Red had a very powerful scanner on his ship and with the help of knowing in what basic direction General Jarvis’s ship had headed, they were able to spot their target after only an hour.

  That made Mattie almost giddy with happiness and relief. She had been so afraid that the effort to save all the hostages would cause them to lose General Jarvis. But it seemed like they hadn’t.

  It took another hour, but they finally confirmed it was the passenger liner. “How fast is it moving?” Mattie asked, worried that their sources were wrong.

  “About the same as a normal passenger liner,” Red said after a moment. He turned to smile at her. “In other words, moderately slowly compared to what it should be doing. Seems the sabotage worked.”

  She loved when he smiled at her and gave her good news at the same time.

  “Price of the help you hire,” she said, smiling back at him.

  “Or kidnap as the case might be.”

  She laughed, feeling better and better by the moment. “How long until we catch them?”

  “Reasonable speed so we take no chances of engine failure, four weeks. Another week to come in slower and cloaked.”

  She nodded. “That’s only a few weeks before they discover they will be running out of food.”

  Red nodded, smiling.

  “Perfect timing,” she said, laughing. “We can pace them and just watch and listen.”

  “A perfect plan by me to start with,” Red said. “So, are you ready for an adventure?”

  “Are you saying that hanging around with you for six or seven weeks or longer will be an adventure?”

  “I can only hope so,” he said, giving her that evil smile.

  “Then get us on the way,” she said. “I’ll be in the shower if you’d like to join me.”

  With that she kissed him and turned and headed down the hallway laughing at the stunned look in his face.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  MATTIE COULDN’T BELIEVE how she felt. The days with Red were wonderful. They settled into a routine she couldn’t believe she enjoyed. She did her exercises every morning alone in his full gym. Then helped him with breakfast.

  He kept his promise to teach her how to cook and by the second week she flew solo on an e
asy dinner of game bird and rice. It actually tasted good and she and Red both ate their entire meal. She had gone into the meal making Red promise that if it was bad, he would cook them something in replacement. He had promised, but thankfully hadn’t been held to that promise.

  Every afternoon they worked out together as Groff martial art masters, sharpening their skills.

  They often napped and often had sex. But the intensity had grown into a longer, more intense love-making.

  Over meals they talked about each other’s families, history, and goals. Over one dinner she learned about his first fiancée named Sarina who dropped him and changed his life in the process.

  Mattie was very grateful that the woman had been a total idiot. But she said nothing.

  And a couple times they talked about Carson. Good conversations, remembering a friend and a good man.

  But even with the great routine and company, the actual nothingness of The Emptiness slowly wore on Mattie, as well as their inability to even come close to figuring out a way to board that passenger liner without putting their own ship at complete risk. If they had been close to a number of star systems, that might not have been a problem, but this far out into the emptiness, it was another matter completely.

  Help would be a very long time in coming, if ever.

  Behind them, the huge curtain nebula had shrunk down to nothing more than a tiny light after a couple of days and then had completely vanished. The entire second sector of millions of stars was now nothing more than a white hazy cloud stretching out in a slowly narrowing band.

  Ahead there was nothing but more blackness.

  And the General’s fleeing ship.

  She had been on an ocean on a planet once that had felt like this. The smaller ship she had been on had developed engine troubles and been dead in the water for a number of hours until rescue came. It had bothered her more than she ever wanted to admit that she couldn’t see any land in any direction. She was a good swimmer, but being so far out that land was not visible had really bothered her.