Tales of the Outbound Chapter 4 Part 5: Great Balls of Fire Alun was not happy that once again Nik had him flying his star freighter like it was a class A starship. But IIWII (cca) and now he had to deal with it. They had intentionally come through the planet’s atmosphere on the far side from where they planned to land. This gave them the most time to run sensor sweeps and look for danger. Not finding any, they now were moving towards the landing zone - an old abandoned base of some sort. “File down!” Jimbo said excitedly. “Index down and synchronized.” Richards replied. “Ok, I’m going to open it in debug and step it through the program.” Jimbo said. “There’s no time for that Jimbo! Run the damn program and get the nav up!” Richards said as if she meant it. As if to emphasize her point, Olivia called out on the com. “Passing ten guys this doesn’t look good! Come on do your computer stuff and make this happen.” “Ok, OK, I’m running it now! Compile complete, try it now Olivia!” Jimbo yelled. freedoor told Olivia to try just before Jimbo’s com call. With no time to think, she pulled back on the controls. “No Go!!!” She shouted. “Passing FIVE - brace for impact!” “Shit, I didn’t rekey the index, Try it now!” Jimbo yelled. Olivia pulled back on the controls and, for the first time, they responded. Without saying a word, she put the Orchid into a barrel roll left, lifting the Orchid over the height of bay one, but she held it and, when the roll was finished, the Orchid flew right into bay one only clipping the right wing ever so slightly coming to stop just one meter from the back of the bay. Dr. Kathryn DeShaw, better known as Kat, had her people to the ship before it stopped. Bay 2 was opened and the wounded were moved as if the medical staff had done this sort of thing a hundred times before, which was the case, Kat drilled the response team to a fine edge, and now all the hard work paid off in spades. The injuries were minor, mostly cuts from flying mutant parts, but they would all be taken care of. Kat keyed the com. “Bridge this is Kat, Bay one is secure and wounded are on the way to sickbay.” “Good job Kat” Jerry said. “Now, if you can find the away teams and have them report to conference room 222 as soon they get cleaned up I want to have a chance to debrief them.” Jerry finished. “Roger Jerry, but be advised it looks like we have a guest, a mister Butler has joined us.” Kat reported. “Oh, that’s interesting, when was someone going to tell me? Never mind, Kat, you look him over and, if he passes the screening, send him up too. Bridge out.” Kat found the away teams slapping each other’s back and smoking cigars on the back part of bay one. “I hate to break up the party, but the captain said he wants both away teams in to conference room 222 as soon as you get cleaned up.” Kat said. “Well Butler, looks like you get to meet the Captain after all.” Richards said.” And then Kat said “Oh, not so fast, Butler needs to come with me first for a little check up.” And the cat calls that followed could be heard from one end of the Outbound to the other! “Wow what a great valley to fly up. I love the way the ridge lines just point you in the right direction.” Alun said. “The base should be just over the next ridge line at the head of this valley. If it matters, which I don’t think it does, since no one is here, we will use runways two-seven-zero Right and two-seven-zero Left to set this big monster of a ship down on.” Nik told Alun. “Ok roger that, runways two-seven-zero Right and two-seven-zero Left, ahead ten. Starting landing procedure now.” Alun said in a cool, Canadian kind of way. Mel, Lesh and Chris had just finished moving the twenty two cases of Bodineian brandy on to Mel’s starship when Chris, glancing back down the runway saw it first. It looked like the whole ridge line was moving up as if some huge volcanic action was forcing the ground to swell. Then it became all too clear, it was a ship, and a big one, and she was coming in to land! “RUN!” Chris yelled, as she took off towards the side of the runway. Lesh was about to bring her down with his detachable jaw to keep her from escaping when he too saw the huge ship coming in on top of them. “RUN MEL!” was all he said. He was too late; Mel was already way ahead of him following Chris. The ship came in over them and blocked out the sun. The reactors blast knocked the three one hundred meters into the brush along the runways. The landing gear of the freighter crushed Lesh’s shuttle and bent the nose of Mel’s starship. Dust and debris flew everywhere. “Great landing Alun, let’s go see what we got here.” Nik said, and they all moved towards the hatch.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 12:27:55 +0000
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