Post with 1 note
A dalliance with deadly rocks…
Jan was determined not to be talked round. He had his feelings on the case of the mysterious Doctor Axi, and that was going to be that. It took Rai over half an hour and several failed arguments, including explaining all the reasons why Doctor Axi had been wrongfully accused, how useful his knowledge of ancient technology would be on Tellos and how he could do things with the ship’s drive that Rai could only dream of, before she settled on an unlikely winner.
“You know he used to work for Mr. Graves, don’t you?”
Jan paused in his preparations of the ship’s navigational systems and sat on the edge of the console looking over at Rai in weary feigned interest. “Go on.” he said flatly.
“After the war, before he joined the university, he was developing tech for Graves’ little empire on Mimas. He says they had a ‘falling out’ over nothing serious and Graves tried to have him killed.”
“So why would he help us, or did you not tell him who was bankrolling this expedition?”
“Come on Jan, we both know you aren’t playing this straight. You’re always working an angle or, at least, looking for one to exploit. Doctor Axi could be it!”
“Fine!” Jan relented, “We’ll go check out his floating rock, but if there’s anything more than just a hint of crazy about him… we’re leaving him behind. You get me?”
“Loud and clear, boss!” Chirped Rai, just on the verge of mocking.
“Enough of that. Back to work.” said Jan, turning back to the console and dropping into his chair with a thump.
It had been a terrible idea. Doctor Axi could see that now, how wonderful hindsight was. He should have seen it coming before he had even started the test but he was just so very tired. He had gone through the procedure hundreds of times before but the sweeps had been getting nearer and he was getting desperate.
He had been developing the latest attempt at a viable fuel for the shell that remained of his ship for nearly three weeks. He had scavenged and removed all he could from the vessel in building his temporary home within the little asteroid. This had given him the advantage of stripping away all of the unnecessary bulk of the ship to something that it would take very little fuel to propel and get him to Earth. The new fuel had been more than sufficient.
The mix had been more potent than he expected and the resulting explosion had torn the asteroid in half and sent the remains of the ship off into the path of another oncoming rock. Doctor Axi ruminated on how lucky he had been not to be on the ship at the time as he clung to the wreckage of the asteroid with only an hour’s oxygen in his ancient emergency suit…
You have to hand it to Graves, thought Jan as the newly named Solomon’s Folly barrelled down through a temporary canyon between asteroids, this ship may be a taped together pile of bolts, but she can move! He yanked back on the steering column as a rock came hurtling across their path and the ship responded with a satisfying, if juddering, turn upwards. Or down, Jan had long lost track of Solar North in the maze of fast moving potential death.
He flicked his gaze away from the shifting path to the nav screen, checking the flashing red dot that he was hoping would lead them to Rai’s mysterious Doctor Axi. Jan noticed another blip appear on the screen a little way further out. He was just watching it to fork out where it was heading when-
“Jan look out!” screamed Rai, Jan looked up just in time to see the rock heading straight for him. He swerved and peeled away into another space as the asteroid thundered past and continued on its journey. Rai was sat in the co-pilot’s chair, Alan had been confined to his quarters for arguing that he should outrank Rai due to his length of service. He had then been confined to the galley after complaining that being denied food was barbaric.
“Thanks.” sighed Jan. He indicated to the nav screen. “Come take a look at this, will you? Something just popped up and I think it might be headed the same way as us.”
Rai moved across the cockpit and stood looking over Jan’s shoulder, her hands grasping the back of his chair to steady herself whenever a sudden move would counteract the ship’s gravity. “It’s big. Looks like a TiSec scout ship. My guess is they’re looking for Doctor Axi too. They won’t be able to get there as fast as us through all these rocks.”
“Unless they blast their way through.” Just as Jan spoke there was the flash up ahead as one of the rocks exploded in two.
“That must be Doctor Axi trying to signal us!” exclaimed Rai.
“I think that was too big for a signal blast. Hold on, I think I can see a way through to him.” said Jan and he gunned the engines towards the blast site.
“What do you mean, ‘It was you.’?” Asked Jan.
Rai desperately tried to put the thoughts in her head back in some kind of order now that things had calmed down a little. “Last night, I was thinking about this ridiculous quest of yours and I remembered, I know someone who might be able to help us.” She looked sheepish, “So… I sent him a message. They must have tracked it.”
“Dammit, Rai. You’ve been hiding out here for years, why would you throw that away now? Couldn’t I have sent the message?”
“Well, like me, he’s a pretty private guy. He doesn’t like getting communications he doesn’t know he can trust.”
“Don’t you think we have enough trust issues in our party already?” Jan asked, glaring at Alan, still holding his neck after his confrontation with Jan.
“But, I told you, it wasn-“
“Not the time!” barked Jan, turning back to Rai. “Who the hell is this guy?”
“Doctor Axi.”
“Doctor Axi, The serial killer?” Jan was incredulous.
“Oh, Jan! I’d expect more form you! You know that wasn’t his fault!”
Jan interrupted, his train of thought barely derailed, “Are you part of some sort of fugitive support group?” He paused, having processed what Rai had said, “What do you mean ‘It wasn’t his fault?’ The guy wiped out an entire species.” Jan turned and began stomping up the stairs to the flight deck. “Let’s just hope we don’t here back from him; we might not survive!”
Asteroid M751 was little more than a floating cave, and not much of a laboratory, but this is what Doctor Michel Axi had found himself reduced to. He had never intended to become a fugitive, an engineer and history professor at one of the largest of the home system’s universities, accused of the murder of an entire intelligent species that should never have existed.
When the accident had forced Doctor Axi to leave the University of Titan he had intended to flee to Earth where there was no longer any extradition to the outer planets where he was considered a pariah and would not be as difficult as getting passage out of the system. His journey towards the system’s core had been more than a little problematic.
Eventually, he made it as far as the asteroid belt before the less than capable ship he had secured for himself had begun to die and thus had found himself stranded on M751 desperately trying to develop a new propulsion system to get him to Earth with TiSec bounty hunters sweeping the belt looking for him.
He spent his days floating around his new home, having salvaged some of the less essential parts of his ship to seal the rock’s interior and create somewhat of a liveable atmosphere within the maze-like tunnels, and running various disappointing and repetitive experiments on minerals from the surrounding boulders.
Communication with the outside world was sparse, he gave information on his whereabouts to the few people he knew he could trust. He was rather surprised when he switched on his comms array, performing his five hundred and thirty-ninth daily check, to find a message awaiting him from a former student. With some great trepidation, Doctor Axi opened the message.
Jan spent the rest of the day sulking and silently preparing the ship to leave Mars. He broke his silence temporarily to order Alan and Sophie to assemble a list of supplies the team would need for the long journey to Tellos and the anticipated expedition across the planet’s surface.
Rai thought it best to keep out from under Jan’s feet so she spent the day in the engine room seeing what she could do to update the ship’s long-out-of-warranty engines and generally tightening any loose bolts she could find.
She had compiled a manifest of parts that she could use to cut down their travel time significantly and headed back to the store when her personal communicator bleeped. Normally this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary; she often had requests sent through to her mailbox from the researchers at the base when they were running low on something, but she had started getting them forwarded directly to the store so Sophie could get used to the banalities of day-to-day shopkeeping.
The message could only have come from one of two other sources, either Jan had decided to apologise for his outburst (extremely unlikely) or by some miracle, Doctor Axi had received her message.
She opened the message and found that it contained a long string of navigation coordinates followed by the words ‘…ou environs’ definitely Doctor Axi. Now it was just a case of convincing Jan and finding him before the TiSec did.
Rai deals with an unwanted interloper…
Complications arise as the gang get ready to leave…
Jan and Alan journey to Mars to begin assembling a team for the job…
Page 1 of 2
