Paws and Planets Page 10

  There was silence, broken only by occasional loud bangs and thumps as items dislodged in the descent settled.

  Against all the odds, they had made it; they were safe, for the moment.

  Jim Cranston and Stuart MacIntosh’s eyes met, each mirroring the other’s relief at a job well done.

  The challenge of getting the colonists to Rybak had been accomplished, now they must all meet the challenge of survival.

  * * * * *

  EPISODE 4 – PRISON SHIP

  When the WCPS Electra crash-landed in the southern continent, those aboard had an experience that was nothing like what had happened on board the WCCS Argyll; not for them the cushioned drop on to boggy soil. Their desert landing-site was hard and uneven and the Electra ploughed through the sand dunes, plunging up and down and skewing from side to side, like a bucking wild horse in a rodeo.

  Captain Peter Howard and his bridge crew fought a hard battle to keep the ship on an even keel, hoping they would make it without killing everybody in the process.

  The crew’s families had been all strapped in to minimise potential casualties but not so the thousands of convicts. They were warned and had taken what steps they could, but it was too much to hope that all would escape without serious injury. The individual cells, constructed three high and four deep in the cargo holds, were not built to withstand landing pressures and many men were crushed to death before the Electra came to her abrupt stop, her nose wedged deep inside a particularly large dune.

  Once the ship had settled there was a tense moment as the duty crew caught their breath; some even pinched themselves as a reassurance that they were still alive and that the landing hadn’t been a dream. Peter Howard let out an explosive snort. His repertoire of snorts was legendary and this one was more loud and expressive than anyone within earshot had heard before but when he opened his mouth to issue his first order since planet-fall, the words came out much as normal.

  “Johannes, kill the engines.” Chief Engineer Pederson did, reflecting sadly that this was the last time. They were dirtside for good. Like the crew of the Argyll, they knew that there would be no possibility of returning to their own sector of the galaxy. Now they must deal with the double problem of surviving on this strange planet and of how to cope with the twenty thousand criminals who’d arrived with them. At least for the moment these men were safely locked away, at least Peter Howard hoped they were.

  “Check the secure doors,” he ordered.

  “All secure sir,” was the reply, to his immense relief. The last thing they needed was a prisoner breakout. The men would stay locked inside their blocks for now. The automatic food dispensers would continue to operate and the guards (of which there were no more than two hundred and who were thus outnumbered a hundred to one) would not volunteer to enter the cellblocks at this juncture and Peter Howard had no intention of ordering them to do so.

  Each cellblock held around five hundred men, the prisoners had their own tiny cells and all were free to move around the block’s communal area. Basically they were left on their own to live any way they chose. The guards only entered under dire necessity and then heavily armed.

  “Message from the family section sir,” reported the signals rating, “no serious casualties, just a few bumps and bruises.”

  Peter Howard took a further deep breath. “Start the evacuation procedures.” There was no time to lose. The bridge crew had already begun the process by shutting down the flight consoles and were picking up their readied packs before exiting the bridge. The environmental specialist was approaching him with data about conditions outside.

  “Atmosphere and weather as expected sir,” reported Shelley Lambert, “and as hot as a furnace.” A career officer, Shelley had never in her wildest dreams expected to do anything else but spend her working life in space. In fact, she had spent her life in space, on one ship or another, a daughter of a Spacefleet career officer (Spacefleet called them their ‘grandchildren’). She was doing extremely well to transfer her energies and knowledge to an analysis of the planet itself (having confined her expertise since graduating to shipboard environmental issues), but the report her Captain received was top class. Occasionally glancing at her handheld datbox unit to make sure her information was correct, she continued, “and the riverbank we were heading for is a hundred and sixty miles east of where we are. We overshot the designated area, but with the tractors and other vehicles we should still be able to reach the river by nightfall.”

  Peter Howard smiled with satisfaction. They had been very lucky not to have overshot the site by a lot more. He turned to his Number Two, Commander Todd.

  “Get them started Camilla. The trailers are packed ready. We want to get out of here and away from this ship before the prisoners work out how to circumvent the security locks and escape from their blocks. I know the power has been augmented and the batteries should hold out for at least three to four days, but let’s not take any chances.”

  During the journey to the planet both crew and guards had discussed their situation and a plan had been accepted after much argument. Some of the guards wanted to send the men to sleep permanently, but this had been vetoed by the crew as being an act tantamount to murder. The officers hoped that this decision would not come back to haunt them.

  In fact, opinion was still divided and Peter Howard was positive that the argument would rumble on for some time to come. As their Captain he had tried to stay neutral and his personal preferences he kept to himself. To cold-bloodedly send into permanent sleep some twenty thousand men went against all that he had been taught and what he believed to be right. The death penalty had been abolished, finally, on Earth in the late twenty-first century. Peter Howard believed that summary execution was not the answer to society’s ills and he knew that there were some good men amongst the prisoners. What couldn’t be avoided was the fact that these were vastly outnumbered by the not so good.

  Once freed, what would the convicts do? How would they behave towards their former guards, the crew and their families? The guards and the majority of the crew were not optimistic. They believed that they would be attacked and killed. They couldn’t take the chance, but they couldn’t summarily execute the men either, that would make them no better than the convicts themselves.

  So, when crew and guards left the ship with their families, stun-gas would be pumped into all the convict blocks. This would give them a minimum of two days head start before the effects wore off. Enough food for seven days had been left for the prisoners and by the time it was finished, it was hoped that the crew and families would be far away.

  Camilla nodded in assent. A tall woman of thirty-five, she was an experienced ship’s officer, had been slated for a ship of her own before the disaster. She was also incredibly attractive. Her dark hair was cropped short as was the norm for space-crew but the hairstyle did not in any way detract from the classical beauty of her face. The escape of these twenty thousand criminals was most definitely not something she fancied staying around for. Her chances, and those of the rest of the crew, especially the prison guards and the other men, were not good if the prisoners managed to get their hands on them. Twelve years incarcerated in a cellblock was not conducive to good relationships.

  Shelley Lambert left for her duties on the surface after a last look round the bridge and the two senior officers looked at each other with sober expressions.

  “That’s it then,” said Peter Howard, “Good luck.” He nodded briefly, indicating that he was leaving the execution of the evacuation plan in her capable hands. He and another three crew-members, including the senior engineering officer Johannes Pederson, had another duty to perform. Knowing well that the convicts harboured in their midst many hardened yet extremely clever men, it had been deemed prudent and sensible to remove the power-core that powered the ship’s engines and bury it in a ravine deep inside the desert. As Captain he felt it was his duty to lead the team. They would set out at once to transport the core to the chosen spot and usi
ng the machinery available to them (a high-powered drill specifically designed for ore mining), dig until they reached the desert bedrock. Once the core had been deposited, the hole would be filled in. Within days the site would be indistinguishable from any other.

  Only the team would know where its final resting place was and only Peter and Johannes Pederson would know its exact location on the grid-map. The engineers had already finished the delicate process of dismantling the casing, thanking all the stars in the sky that it was a comparatively new model. The core was not a large object, nor was it massively heavy. Two men could carry it easily, at least for a short distance but in the wrong hands it could become an incredibly lethal device. Therefore the engineers went about their task with a caution born of wisdom, latest model of not, they were of no mind to blow themselves and all that inhabited the surrounding area into many thousands of little pieces. They hefted it out to Peter Howard’s vehicle and strapped it in with due care, only then speeding off to join the convoy preparing to leave for the river.

  As Peter Howard left his bridge for the last time, intent on seeing how his family was faring before he departed, he turned and looked back. Camilla caught his eye and waved. The bridge looked so empty and forlorn as if it knew it was being abandoned and somehow managed to fill his senses with an aura of acute sadness. He knew he would never return.

  Peter’s away-team was long gone by the time Camilla completed her final checks and keyed in the ship’s deactivation codes. The stun-gas did its work. The noise and rioting in the convict blocks had stopped as soon as the gas took effect. The ship’s batteries would continue to run for some time before they too ceased to become effective. It had been estimated it would take almost a week before the desert sand clogged up and covered the solar power panels that enabled them to recharge.

  As she walked down the ramp that final time and her booted feet hit the hot sand she was racking her brains as she went through a last minute mental check-list. Had she remembered everything that they would need? They had stripped the ship of items that could be carried easily, but had to leave the bulky and heavier objects behind.

  The smaller members of the livestock community had been trussed up and had left with the trucks. The larger animals such as the adult cows and oxen would have to remain behind, there was no room for them on the convoy vehicles and they were far too slow walking on the hoof. Water and feed had been left for them. It was hoped that they would make their own way to the river. The six horses (two of whom were in foal) were being ridden to the river by their handlers, they should be able to keep up with the convoy, if not, they would be let loose to fend for themselves; there was no other choice.

  As she squinted through the haze at the clouds of dust in the distance that were the only evidence of the convoy’s passing, she could only hope that they could get far enough away before the angry prisoners woke. Shelley Lambert had forecast a mild sandstorm over the next twenty-four hours that would obliterate any tracks, not that it would be difficult for the prisoners to work out where they had gone.

  One vehicle remained beside the ship, its engine purring sweetly. Technically, the vehicles had the power to keep going indefinitely, the batteries would recharge each day via their internal solar panels. Not too much of a problem in this sun, but the mechanics did not know how the desert sand would affect the engines themselves. She worried about Peter and his team in the large jeep and mobile driller out on their own many miles in the other direction and hoped they would make it to the rendezvous. Camilla hefted her pack on top of the other boxes and packages on the back seat and climbed into the front. She had a job to do. She sat up straighter and indicated to the driver to set off. Until the Captain returned it would be up to her to get them all to safety. Although tempted, she did not turn and look back at the Electra as they sped away, her home for the last fourteen years. The ship represented the past; Camilla intended to look towards the future, convicts or no convicts.

  The only casualty within the convoy as it made it’s ponderous way towards the river was inanimate – a truck filled with foodstuffs cropped from the ship’s fresh produce area had stalled whilst cresting a large dune and flatly refused to go any further. Its contents were distributed amongst the other vehicles and the truck abandoned. They did not have time to stop and fix it. For the occupants of the remaining trucks it made for a tight squeeze, but there were no complaints. Even the children were on the whole, as silent as children could be, they were affected by the tension transmitted by the adults who were very well aware of the fact that they must get as far away as possible before darkness fell. They had no doubts that they would be hunted down. The convicts would make for the river too, it being the only potentially habitable place within striking distance of the ship.

  A false trail was laid under the directions of Camilla. It led to the south and it was hoped that some at least of their unwanted ex-shipmates would head in that direction. The prisoners would also be on foot, the only suitable vehicles having been taken already and the other ones disabled.

  After an arduous journey they reached the river and after a night spent beside the riverbank, the convoy headed north, moving as fast as they could through the rough terrain. Because they kept taking detours away from the riverbank where rocks and thick foliage made vehicle passage impossible, the six horses were more than able to keep up. The riders probably saw more of the countryside than those in the trucks. They had travelled a good distance by the end of the third day.

  Camilla speculated on what was happening back at the ship. The sleep-gas should have worn off by now.

  * * * * *

  It had. The convicts had woken from their enforced sleep.

  Elliot Murdoch, de facto leader of Block A, rubbed his eyes groggily as he regained consciousness. He felt woozy and not a little sick and lay on his bunk for a few minutes trying to work out what had happened. Realisation did not take long.

  “Stun-gas,” he muttered, just before he began to retch, this being the normal human reaction to a gas dose. The sound alerted another of the inmates who was keeping a watchful eye outside Murdoch’s cell door. In the cellblocks friends guarded each others’ backs at all times.

  A face loomed above Murdoch, who with a start reached for the knife that he always hid on his person. He had used it more than once during the last twelve years.

  As he recognised Smith’s voice, his hand relaxed. Smith was a friend, not like other members of the criminal fraternity incarcerated with him in Block A.

  “So you’ve woken up at last,” Smith announced. “Not before time. They must have stun-gassed us to keep us quiet. I’ve got some men working on the doors. There’s no sign of the guards.”

  “If they have gone and left us,” Murdoch growled, “I’ll make them pay for it. They’ll have taken all the best stuff for themselves too, I guess.”

  He raised himself to a sitting position and swung his legs off the bunk, dislodging the story discs he had been listening to when overcome by the gas. They fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

  “Get the doors open now. I want to know the worst.”

  The doors were prised open and the occupants of Block A, as predicted by Peter Howard, spilled out into the desert sun. So much for the calculations that they would remain incarcerated for at least twice that long. The hot sun gradually drove them into the shelter of the ship and they spent the remaining daylight hours roaming through its holds and corridors, hunting in vain for the guards and crew, helping themselves to any possessions left behind.

  “They’ve all scarpered. Every last one,” growled an irate Murdoch that night. He was leader of Block A by virtue of his immense strength and sheer bloody-mindedness. An assassin by trade and proud of it, he owned most of the brains in his carefully selected coterie. He had run his block like a martinet. From the guards’ point of view, Block A had been the least bothersome of them all. After the initial eradication of those whom Murdoch perceived as a threat to his emerging power base (this hap
pened during the first few months of their journey when a number of bodies were presented to the guards for disposal) he had organised the remaining men incarcerated with him with military precision. The men of Block A obeyed him (and his cronies) with almost mindless respect, but it was a respect born out of fear.

  Smith wondered if he should venture a comment.

  “Least they’ve left us some food, at least enough to be going on with. Do we unlock the other doors now?”

  “Later. Make sure those inside understand that we’re in charge first. Don’t want to have to fight them off.”

  “Hold G has managed to break the seals of the inner doors,” Smith mentioned. “They may well be out by morning.”

  “Strengthen the power to the outer ones,” he ordered , “but they don’t matter, I’ve always wondered why they were shipped out with us. Mostly pen pushers and paedophiles.”

  His lips curled with dislike. These latter were normally segregated for their own safety from other long-term prisoners, being considered the lowest of the low in the convict hierarchy. Murdoch fully agreed with this dictum.

  “Weak minded the lot. They’ll soon realise what’s good for them and do what they’re told.” He paused for a moment then added in a voice full of venom, “or else.”

  Smith grinned, showing an untidy set of brown and mismatched teeth and beckoned two of Murdoch’s inner circle over. He was very well aware of what ‘or else’ meant. A man who possessed little if no morals, Smith was a killer, pure and simple. He enjoyed watching men die.