ALIEN STORY-1
Written by Ruthless
I had been lying on the floor for five hours. We all had. I was cramped now and all my bones seemed to be digging into the hard surface. I didn’t know what had happened to the crew of the space launch, but presumably they were still piloting the craft, because I could feel the faint drone of the space drive below the floor, still making an almost subliminal vibration. The passengers littered the floor.
Sometimes I raised my head to look around. I could see two women ahead of me; they kept their heads down and their shoulders hunched. Nobody moved and nobody spoke. Beyond the two strange women, lay co-workers of mine almost blocked from my sight. Tillisa and Morwen had boarded the space launch with me at Kithera. We had presumed it would be a regular nine-hour hop. But it had become a situation of deadly peril instead.
I heard the hijacker’s footsteps before he came through the door. I kept my head down, the floor pressing into my cheekbone. I tried to look peripherally. He walked slowly among us. I could see him. All I could see were a pair of laced black boots. The boots came closer, unhurried. They stopped just inches from my head. The toes of his boots were pointed towards me.
“You. Yes, you. The man.” His voice was husky, a touch of T’nerstian drawl and quite calm. “Get up, Get on your knees.” His voice dropped, almost to a whisper. “Nobody else move.”
I drew my self up slowly, stiff with tension. He had said there was a mini-nuke attached to the launch. He had the detonator to set it off, to instantly vaporize himself and us in an instant of terrorist immolation. I wasn’t afraid anything I could do would make him set it off. I was afraid of the menace of the small arms that he carried. More than that I was afraid of the calmness in his voice. To me, it was the voice of a man who could do anything.
I got up on my knees, facing him, my chest rising and falling in deep breaths.
He was a black-haired man with eyes as dark as obsidian. He wore fatigues of some sort. I didn’t recognize the uniform; there are so many in the Interstellar Empire. His uniform consisted of trousers with many pockets and a short-cropped jacket. I was facing his lower chest. He slipped the gun down from his shoulder and turned it until the muzzle was leveled with my head.
“Do you want to die?” He sounded curious.
“No.” My own voice was level. It almost matched his voice for steadiness. Despite the fear that was singing through me, there was a part of me completely in control. It was this voice that answered him.
“You are going to obey the orders that I give you. You are going to move slowly. You are not going to try anything which might annoy me. And if you do exactly what I say and don’t annoy me, then I might allow you to live.”
I tilted my face. I looked up at his frightening face. “Yes.” I said. “I am going to do anything you tell me to.”
“Put your hands on top of your head.” He said.
I raised my hands and placed them exactly as he ordered. My gaze dropped again. I could not hold my eyes and face him.
On his belly, below the button fly of the combat pants there was a bulge. I had seen it before. An animal instinct had made me check it out, when this frightening, gun-wielding man had been crowding the terrified passengers back into the cabin, ordering us to lie down on the floor. He had searched us for valuables, patting down over our clothing quickly and efficiently. His hard palm had worked roughly down over my body, my chest, front pockets, back pockets, slap, slap, slap, my crotch. The quick tap had stung. Almost before I had registered it, he had gone on to search a tall blonde Kitherian woman, and I had seen the bulge in profile then. The hijacker had an erection.
It turns him on to point guns at people. Out of the eleven passengers on the launch, by some quirk of statistical probability, I was the only man. The other ten were women. He had his gun pointed at a cabin full of frightened women and it was giving him a hard on. I knew that it could simply be aggression that gave the black–haired man the erection that filled out the front of his trousers, but I thought, “Some of the women are probably going to be raped.”
“Now stand.” He said. I stood.
He had singled me, the lone male out. Why? Because I was a man, and therefore logically the most dangerous to him, the most expendable. The first thought I grabbed at was that perhaps he wanted to fix his hostages more securely starting with me. He was no longer contented to watch them lying on the cabin floor from the monitor on the bridge that gave the crew visual access to the passengers. That could be it. He could be taking me somewhere else, where he would tie me, before he did the same to the other passengers.
Or perhaps he did not want me to be a witness, if he was planning a quick sexual assault on some of his hostages. But that did not make sense. If he had wanted privacy to do a rape, it would have been simpler to force the woman of his choice to go into the back with him.
My mind was running quickly over these thoughts, discarding them as impossible as quickly as I thought of them. We left the cabin where the passengers were scattered like playing cards on the floor. In moments we had gone into the narrow white corridors in the rear of the ship.
What does he want here? I was tautly aware of the gun that was pointing at my back. It was only a few inches from my shoulder blades. A slight squeeze and the shots would rip out. Why here? Why?
Then I saw the sign for the lifeboat, and I thought I understood. He had reached a stage in his negotiations with the Transtellar Corporation where it was time to make a statement. Either he was going to release a hostage or kill one. I was the hostage that he least wanted to keep.
But in the lock beside the lifeboat entrance there was great big egg shaped object. It was about five feet high, and covered in tough cloth, with ropes. It was unlabeled, despite the handling ropes that made it ready for transportation. It was only by chance that I recognized what it was, because I had once seen marines loading for battle at the spaceport in Chneisra a few years before. The great egg shaped object was a field hospital, an autodoc for a battalion, capable of doing surgery of all varieties, the most complete kind of autodoc that they made.
I stopped and stared at the autodoc.
“Open the lifeboat.” His voice came from behind me.
Without looking back I went to the controls that sealed the lifeboat hatch. The door slid open mechanically, revealing a small cabin, which was lined with seats. When it was open I glanced back. My gaze jumped away from the man as swiftly as it flickered onto him. I just could not bring myself to look at him steadily. I was afraid to keep looking at him, afraid that he would find my eyes offensive.
“Take that end.” He said. “We’re going to put this thing in that cabin.”
The hijacker waited until I had gotten a grip on the ropes of the autodoc, until it was between him and me before he slung his gun onto his shoulder. He started to shove the thing from behind, while I dragged it from the front. It was heavy. I could just get it moving, but I could not have gotten it into the lifeboat alone. It weighed at least three -quarters of a ton. But the shape of the autodoc was designed so that it could be manhandled by rocking it forward and so we got it moving.
Getting it into the cabin was harder. I had to back into the cabin. I was not dressed for labor. I was wearing my formal clothes, for traveling and for reading a paper in front of the historical society. My jacket bunched up under my arms as I struggled with the big object. The sides of the autodoc compressed slightly to get it through the narrow entrance. The hijacker appeared to glare at me over the thing as it blocked the entrance, but it was exertion on his face, not anger, as he thrust all his strength against it to force it inside.
Our work was not over once we had got the thickest part of the autodoc into the cabin. The seats were in the way. We had to get it all the way inside and that meant lifting it, getting it on top of the seats. My body was damp with sweat and I was gasping with exertion. I put everything I had into helping the hijacker move the massive thing.
I had sweat on my face and I was done by the time we had the autodoc in the place the hijacker wanted. My arms were trembling with the effort they had put out. It was perched up on the seat backs at the back of the cabin.
“Sit there.” The hijacker gestured at one of the seats in the front row.
I went and sat in it. This meant I had my back to him.
“Put your hands on top of your head.”
I placed them again the way that he ordered, and I rested. I heard him moving behind me. He was securing the autodoc in place, so that it would not roll forward.
He chose me to help him because it was hard work, I thought. And we got it inside the lifeboat, so he’ll be pleased. He won’t be angry. I understood why he wanted the autodoc in the lifeboat. The object was worth millions. It had not been on board the launch when we left Kithera. It was the ransom that he had demanded and got from the Transtellar Corporation for their ship and for the hostages. He had put it in the lifeboat and now he was going to make his getaway.
My chest ached, not with exertion, but with fear. Still I was able to be dispassionate. Was he going to detonate the mini-nuke when he got away from the launch? Maybe. Maybe not. There was no way to tell.
He didn’t hurt anyone. He didn’t rape any of the women yet after all. So, if he didn’t do that, then he’s not so cruel. He won’t blow us all up. In my uncertainty, I was trying to find evidence that would tell me what was going to happen. I was guessing. I knew that I was guessing, going from meagre evidence, but I wanted to think I knew what was going to happen, so I guessed any way.
I heard the faint sound of his steps. He walked around in front of me. He still had some of the tie ropes in his hands that he had been using to fix the autodoc in place.
Now he takes me back to the passenger cabin in the launch again, I thought.
“What’s your name?”
“Iver Trymsen.” I said.
“Close your eyes.” He said.
Jesus, I thought. I closed my eyes.
“Don’t move.”
I thought I might hear the faint sound of him bringing his gun around again, but instead I felt a firm touch where I never expected it. It was on my ankles. It was narrow. It was rope. He was tying my ankles to the seat I was in.
I sat quite still, hands on the top of my head. I felt the ropes climb. They passed swiftly about me and tightened. They passed around my waist. I felt his knuckles turn as he knotted the rope, almost in my groin. The rope tightened. It looped up over my shoulder. I squinted my eyes more tightly shut against the reflex to open them. I felt the man moving, circling me, pulling the ropes.
“Now put your arms behind the seat.”
I took them down and in a moment they too were bound with the tie ropes. I was fixed securely. One last tug, tightening the strand that forced my wrist back against the seat and he was done. I heard him move away.
His relaxed voice seemed to hold amusement. “You can open your eyes now.”
My eyes shot open. Now I did stare at him. There was a faint smile on his lips as he looked down at me. “That’s right.” He said. “You’re coming with me. I need at least one hostage in the lifeboat so that they don’t fire at me as I get away.”
I could not help the widening of my eyes. No question now. My fate was sealed. In the vast gulf of outer space’s darkness, I was going to die. Even if he did not choose to murder me cold-bloodedly, I could never get back to the space launch, to the Interstellar Empire. I would need a ship to get back and the lifeboat was far too valuable. He would never let me go with the lifeboat just so that I could get back.
He sealed the lifeboat door and he got into the seat at the very front of the cabin, the pilot’s seat. I barely took in his actions. I was going to die. Once he got away from the ship I would be no use to him. He might shoot me, or he might space me. I was going to die.
Don’t let your breathing go, I commanded myself. Hang onto it. I made it steady. I hung onto my self-control and I stared at the dark-haired hijacker who was seated ahead of me. A faint whine indicated that the lifeboat was preparing for release from the mother ship. The white bulk of the launch, visible from the screen in front of the pilot’s seat, appeared to drop away. The hijacker kept it in his view screen as he made the distance widen. He had sensors that would tell him what was behind, or around the little lifeboat. I didn’t look at the apace launch. I looked at the back of that dark head. I was looking at the man who would murder me.
In only a few minutes, the space launch had receded until it was a thin white bar against the blackness of infinity. That was when the hijacker opened the communicator.
“These are my orders.” He was talking to the pilot of the space launch. “The switch on your right. –The counter says three minutes. Set it to seven minutes and eight seconds… That’s right.”
His words meant nothing to me. I was looking at the distant white ship now. Gone. I was being carried farther and farther from what the ship meant to me. Life, freedom, safety. My friends.
The hijacker went on talking to the pilot. There were only a few more words. I didn’t follow them. Then I heard the hijacker say. “You can throw the switch. It’s disconnected.”
There was a pause, several seconds. The pilot must have hesitated before she threw the switch. White incandescence flared where the ship had been, a pin prick that silently expanded until the lifeboat screen filled completely with light, until the lifeboat seemed to be facing into a star.
There was no sound. There was no sensation. The lifeboat’s stabilizers compensated for the shock wave perfectly. There was only the bitter blinding light. My eyes snapped tight, squeezed shut, but in the yellow after image of the mini-nuke explosion, I heard the hijacker’s swiftly in drawn breath. It was the only sound in the cabin. I was too shocked to cry out and all the sound he made was the sucked in air. It had a final sound to it. It could have been amazement at how bright the light was, but to me the hiss of his sharp inhalation sounded like satisfaction.
The End of Part 1
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