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From: simon_48@hotmail.com (Simon Wagstaff III)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 Mar 2003 18:09:18 GMT
Subject: {ASSM} HURTLING PLANETS Ch 7 a new-wave space opera by Simon Wagstaff III
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 23:10:03 -0500
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HURTLING PLANETS
A NEW-WAVE SPACE OPERA by Simon Wagstaff III
PART VII

	THEY GRAZE THE PHOTOSPHERE OF THE DARK SUN. The pirate ship BLACK
CROSS has a huge propulsion system and every bit of it is redlining.
The gravitic drag of the hypermassive object sends shudders through
the hull and deforms the course, already cut too close, even further
into the trace gases surrounding the sun. Sabor's anguished mind-voice
booms out in their heads. "You're too close, man! Veer off, save Marka
at least."
	"Don't preach free will and then shove at me," grunts the reformed
pirate Charles Soaper as he gingerly nudges a control. "You wanna see
close? Get ready to duck," and he shoves the slider all the way over
before Sabor can reach for him, sending BLACK CROSS at a sharp angle
through the edge of the huge glowing mass at hyperspeed -
	-and Sabor can SEE the ship with his new body's eyes, and he reaches
desperately for it, for Marka and life, and tries to jump, then to
JUMP -
	-and falls back on the bed in the ship's cabin, screaming as his body
is carried helplessly away from his mind in the dark sun. He jerks
upright, staring at his hands, slapping his own ugly face to be sure
it's real. Somehow he is also aware of the thing in the star staring
from behind, of Marka's thoughts, of Soaper's struggle with the ship's
controls. He reaches out with his new power and slows the ship to
normal hyperdrive, pulling it onto a controllable course, still
staring at his own hands and the graying hair on their backs. He is
still part of the creature, or it is part of him. He calls it to him
now and it leaps easily free of the dark sun, perching insubstantially
on the hull of BLACK CROSS.
	Marka has run from the control room and now opens the cabin door,
finding Sabor standing stunned. She hugs him and rubs her breasts
against his face, his arms go out to her like a drowning man to a
rescuer. As she strips, alternating between crying and kissing him, he
thinks over and over, 'I'm still human, still a man, still myself. I
still have my honor.' But as he fucks Marka tirelessly into the hugest
orgasm of her life, he is horrified to find himself casually twisting
her newly freed mind a bit as she comes, making her experience
exquisite pleasure until she faints sweetly under him. How long? he
wonders. How long until only the monster is left, toying with people
as it did at 4BWA? Who created that base? How long has it been crewed?
Were the humans there only toys, distractions for the beast's
passions? He gazes at the unconscious woman beneath him.
	When she awakens, he will have to tell her and Soaper the bad news.

	HIS TRACTOR BEAMS CAN HARDLY STOP HER SHIP. Captain Dennis has found
the Alliance gig AMATEUR falling through dark nothingness. No one
answers, no power shows on the scans. Fallen from extra-galactic space
back into the neighborhood of the double star, the gig has an awful
momentum built up. Dennis has pulled it out of its trajectory into a
huge u-turn as his own gig's tractors strain and overheat, but he has
steadily reduced its velocity to match his own. In a powered suit
giving him the strength of several men he forces the airlock and
enters the lightless craft. He opens his faceplate when the air proves
breatheable, cold and rancid but full of oxygen. He sees a dead man as
soon as he enters the main hall, sees two more in the bathroom ahead.
None of the bodies is Ensign Powter. He pads along grimly, too late to
kill anyone here. He'll take her body back if he can find it -
	- and finds the body of Koko Powter standing in front of him, clad in
a grimy t-shirt. She stares madly at him and coos "Captain Dennis,
aren't you supposed to be naked in my dreams?" She poses in a
seductive way, then gasps, "This isn't a dream, Powter. Attention!"
She snaps to a ragged attention, breasts jiggling as she sketches a
salute. "Powter trying to report, sir. They got me with a gas first,
then shot me with something called Encef that's wrecking my brain,
except it's kind of neat sometimes and I have to talk to you about
that part, and I let 'em all fuck me while I got a chance to put soap
in their food and kill 'em while they were sickin'. But they just
wasted all the fuel out so I turned around and decelerated till it was
gone. I beat 'em, Captain. They're dead an' I'm just stupid. I'm
STUPID, Dennis. God." Her eyes roll up and she faints.
	Dennis leaves her there, almost running to the airlock. With the
powered suit he retrieves the extra fuel and exchanges the tank in
AMATEUR. He powers it up and sets its automatic pilot on course for
the nearest Empire world, then throws all the ugly corpses out the
airlock. He carries Powter directly into the autodoc of his own more
advanced and expensive gig CESTUS, knowing that it is still only a
small 'doc compared to the one on REACHER. He spends a tense hour
cleaning up nasty stains in AMATEUR where the bodies lay, and in
Powter's bedroom. Then he blows AMATEUR loose and sends it away on
autopilot and sets his own ship to follow the projected course of
REACHER, staying within refuel distance of Empire bases enroute. He
gets out of the huge power-suit and sits prayerfully by the coffinlike
autodoc, watching the lights. There is still a chance, he tells
himself. A chance to redeem his awful mistake, to heal his internal
breach. Captain Dennis stares at the blinking lights.

	ALL THE NEWS IS BAD. Rakkar Gandat stands at the thick viewport,
staring worriedly at the stars.
	The starscan shows nearly a thousand years since the log entry noting
the passage of the crew into suspended life. A thousand years of
staggering undead through a mindless routine, the habits of life
undone by the shrivelling, preserving chemicals. There are no signals
on the frequency of the Black Fleet, no signals anywhere in the
language of the Secret Men. Instead, Earth humans are everywhere in
space, their cheerful signals filling the frequencies with English and
French and Spanish and Swahili and German, languages Rakkar can
translate only with help of computers. Every planet is broadcasting,
and what they speak of is war, war against other humans. Newscasters
speak bitterly of the failure of Terran Empire and Planetary Alliance
to come to terms, of the senseless fighting and the lack of grounds
for belligerence.
	"We can look for no help," he says into the darkness beyond the
viewport. "We are the last, unless another ship can rouse itself."
	"We were DEAD," says  Anda behind him. "Dead ourselves, until you
roused yourself to save us all. You are the greatest of the Secret
Men, Rakkar. I always knew it. You have proven worthy of our trust,
and all the rest are falling through darkness forever, still walking
from room to room." She chuckles. "But I always knew you were the
greatest of the Secret Men, Rakkar. I knew it the first time I saw you
naked." She reaches from behind him, unfastening and dropping his
pants and stroking his cock. He turns to find her kneeling before him,
eyes bright. "You may be dead again soon, and I also," she says to his
erection. "But you are very alive at present." She rubs her lips on
the end of his penis, then engulfs it with her tiny mouth. Rakkar
sighs and clutches her as her head bobs.
	"If I am grateful for anything, it is you," he sighs. "For a moment,
I feared you had not survived the cranching gas, that this was all in
vain." There is a loud slurping noise and his eyes cross. A silly
smile steals across his grim dark face. "Oooh," he moans, knees
buckling. He sags against the glass of the viewport, mooning the
universe as she licks and sucks.
	Somewhere beyond that port, the rest of the dark fleet falls
endlessly through space, crewed by living dead men.

	ON A LOST PLANET, A MYSTIC POINTS TO THE SKY IN FEAR. His eyes are
red as blood and his face ashen.
	"I don't understand it," he croaks. "My visions are full of bloody
nightmares. A thing which laughs naked in space, devouring minds. A
ball of green fire and smoke, and a burning shoe. The screams of a
dying world, a whole world. Worlds made of gas, of rock, of slushy ice
and poison, flying through night eternal, slaves to human will and I
have seen," he gags and stops, then shakes his head. "I have seen a
ship of the dead, rising in some awful night to put on flesh again and
copulate." He chokes and stops again.
	Fifteen brightly clad lords and ladies stare aghast. He is the most
powerful of the visionaries, a mind capable of destroying their feeble
mindwhips with a slap of his own, yet dedicated to nonviolence and
philosophy by the teachings of his sect. He is seldom wrong, nor
seldom this clear. Tears come to his eyes as he recalls his vision.
	"The ship will come here, maybe they will all come here, all the
things I saw. We cannot hide from their cursed eyes. I see the
landing, the crew helpless in your grips, then it all whirls and there
are only the awful eyes of the thing. It was a man and a beast at
once, and it SAW ME. We are children beside such power, my lords. They
throw worlds as we levitate boulders, and we have no ships." His eyes
are still bloody red. "Long years have we warned you of your evil
misuse of the mindfire. We fireheads were meant to teach, not to rule.
Your hands are bloody over your brothers' cradles and your elders are
returning to find out your deeds." Weeping helplessly, he floats over
their heads and slowly out the large window, vanishing in the sky.
	"All the more necessary," says Orvon Rattray, "that we capture the
first ship to land. We must learn this secret of starflight, and cause
our slaves to build ships. Our ancestors did it once, however poorly.
We all know the story, how the seedship CALIGULA sizzled offcourse and
crashed here in a blaze of radiation, whatever THAT is, and how we
fireheads were born and ruled our parents and so on and on. If they
could do it, we can do it." He threw out his thin chest.
	"I can't do it," said Ernic Matson, looking at his soft pink hands.
"I never made anything in my life. You go ahead, Orvon, and we'll
watch." He snickers ruefully, knowing this is no joke.
	"Can the peasants even read these days?" Armida Conchon inquires,
tossing her hair over one bony shoulder. "They don't seem to have much
spark in them recently. I'm sure you've killed all the big, healthy
ones already. Have you gotten all the smart ones, too?"
	The unpleasant thought hangs in the air like a fart. No one wants to
comment. Finally Garbin Molker raises a clenched fist. "These
sky-peasants will bow before us. No matter who they are, what powers
they wield. They will all bow."
	Armida gives him the same incredulous look she would give a peasant
who questioned her direct commands, then shakes her head. All their
eyes are avoiding the expanse of blue beyond the window.

	THE CREW GAPES AS THE PRESIDENT STROLLS IN. First Chair Chan and
Second Smitley gasp in perfect stereo as a stranger walks into the
control chamber on Captain Harleigh's arm. No ship has passed near
their combat-ready cruiser in weeks, yet here is a strange face.
Stowaway? Or -
	Smitley passes a hand over his panel. There is a quiet warble and a
green laser dot  locks onto the intruder's forehead. "Stand very
still, mister," he warns. "You all right, Captain? He got a gun on you
or anything?"
	Joan smirks. "Turn that damn thing off, you asshole," she barks. "May
I introduce the Honorable Richard Bonforte, President of Diva and our
current guest by means too highly classified to reveal." Smitley
babbles something and the laser vanishes. Bonforte smiles regally.
	Harleigh is like a cat full of cream, in more ways than one. She
smiles evilly at the screens and cracks the knuckles of her strong,
short-nailed hands. "Gentlemen, we are about to break the siege and
drive the Alliance off this pretty world. Smitley, prepare the
code-assault on our Alliance friends." HAMMER has the secret overrides
which will bring the Alliance destroyers under her ship's control long
enough for them to be landed and neutralized. Bonforte's inside
information should allow for a quick mop-up. "Mr Bonforte, if you
please, expose your secrets for us." She grins evilly at Bonforte, who
manages not to leer as the map displays hugely above them. He sketches
out the approximate locations of the hidden tractor/pressor bases with
a light pencil and the computer locates them in seconds from his
hints. The last one is the one where Bonforte himself was held
prisoner; where Doc was testing a weird alien device. Bonforte appears
on a quick video transmission to his still-free fellows.
	Suddenly the computers take over and things happen very fast. Joan
grabs Richard and hustles him towards the lander bay.
	"Come on," she urges. "We're going to get your friend Doc, or else
bomb that base into dust. The Alliance can't have that teleporter."
She drags the president along into the hall.
	Almost at once:
	The Alliance ships begin to land themselves as their horrified crews
fight for control.
	Stun-field generators begin to crash against the pressor fields of
Alliance-held bases as gas bombs and normal explosives tax the
systems. Operators faint at their posts.
	Richard's underground loyalists rise and prevent troops from aiding
the bases.
	Landers burst from HAMMER's underside, carrying squads in powered
armor to subdue the Alliance ships and bases.
	Green lights are flashing as Joan's lander fires out; they have won
most of the battle already in the seconds elapsed as they ran for the
lander. Bonforte is yelling happily at her as the ship tumbles in
space. Captain Harleigh reaches back and locks the hatch between them
and the squad. "Get your pants down, Mr President. We have ten
minutes." she snaps. She is stripping for her power armor, racked
behind her.
	He is already unzipped and smiling, as befits a true statesman and
world leader.

	A PLANET WHIZZES TOWARDS REACHER AT HYPERDRIVEN SPEED. Warren, at the
command chair of REACHER, sees the danger and swerves. Sloshing as it
pivots, the world turns back and flies towards REACHER again. REACHER
opens up on the gas giant with guns that can strafe subcontinents,
blowing big hunks from it until it is surrounded by a streaming cloud
of boiling gases. They play a deadly tag for minutes, computers
matching computers, then a hit on the north pole seems to kill the
empty world's hyperspace motor and it goes flying off out of control.
	"Take that, Santa Claus," grits Warren at the polar display. REACHER
goes gingerly back to following the cloud of controlled planets.
Warren has seen enough to know there is a ship in the center, that
this mighty fleet is under some direction, that its backtrail is a
slaughterhouse. The semi-mythical aliens? Or a new Alliance weapon?
	They follow carefully, unable to afford too many more combats like
the one just past. No one on board is a Dennis, a vom Acht, a
Harleigh; no tricksters and clever strategists to help Warren's
careful progress. Firing off message probes, he follows slowly.
	In the tiny ship, the pilot nods at the picture taped to his console.
"We've got company, honey. Bet they'd like to talk, wouldn't they?" He
stares at his screens, eyes dead. "Let 'em talk," he mutters, punching
a timer as his eyes close.


	THE WORST TIME FOR A FORCED LANDING IS IN A CRISIS. SHE STEPS NAKED
FROM THE SMOKING COMBAT ARMOR. ALIEN CREATURES WATCH IN TREPIDATION.
THE BLACK SHIP FINDS A DEAD BASE AND AN EMPTY SUN.
HURTLING PLANETS
A NEW WAVE SPACE OPERA
PART VII

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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