Galactic Rescue Inc. Vol 2. Outwards to the Stars

Chapter 1

Carl was lifted from his deep slumber by the gentle shaking of his shoulder.

Time to wake-up Carl, said Kate, you’ve been asleep all afternoon, come-on, up.

His eyes opened, painfully, to be met by the devouring beauty of his wife’s stunning features, golden tan and sharp but gentle blue eyes. Her honey blond hair fell from her shoulders and drifted across his face with a dull roar.

A dull roar?

My God. My head’s going to drop off, he breezed, have I been on the booze? I feel terrible?

Not unless you did it behind my back, she answered, shall I get you an aspirin?

Make it three, and some milk to swallow them with please.

He raised himself up onto one elbow and slowly swung one foot from the settee to the floor. The aches were all over his body, right down to the bone, and there was that interminable roaring in his ears. He racked his brain but knew he had not drunk any beer at lunchtime. Perhaps he was coming down with the flu or something.

With noticeable effort he staggered to his feet and turned to look out of the lounge windows. From three floors up the view across Torbay at the English Riviera was always a stunning panorama. Today was no exception. The sea flashed its brilliant blues and whites at him and the emerald green fields, way over beyond Paignton, were pure ecstasy to look upon.

He could see that the red sun was bathing the holidaymakers, down on Torre Abbey Sands, with all the heat and UV they could take. Their faint cries of excitement and pleasure wafted up to him on the warm and balmy South Westerly that was wafting in across the satin smooth surface of the sea.

Carl arched his back in an attempt to ease that ache and dull throbbing sensation. It did no good whatsoever.

His gaze fell upon the flurry of the red-blue and green parrots flying lazily by. He even saw a Hornbill perched in the Scotch pine, in the garden. Taking a surprised step back he turned.

Kate, since when have there been Parrots flying about over Torquay?

Silly, they’re seagulls, not parrots, look. She said, pointing outside.

On turning, he saw that in fact they were seagulls. He was certain they had been Parrots.

I must have been seeing things, he said, and that sea should be grey-green, not bright blue.

There was a flicker and the sea was grey-green and in his peripheral vision he saw a scrabbling movement, not quite seen. He spun to his right and of course, there was nothing but the Scops Owl on its usual perch. That stopped him dead. They had never had a Scops Owl in Torquay. That was in Brunei.

‘What is happening here’, he thought - he suddenly had it and turned to Kate, who was stood stock-still by the door to the kitchen. She had a fixed stare, which was levelled at Carl. Her eyes were jet black, like bottomless pits of evil. He jumped back in shock, but her eyes were that gorgeous blue again.

Kate. Something’s screwy here. He said. We should be in Brunei, not the U.K.

Kate angled her head, questioningly, as she stood by the French windows leading to the patio, with the fishpond and the garden beyond. Carl could hear the budgerigars, in their aviary. It was a hot sultry and humid evening, as were all evenings in Brunei.

The scrabbling occurred again, at the edge of his vision. He turned but couldn’t see the cause of the movement, just like trying to look at the ragged edge of a migraine, most frustrating.

Kate was still staring at him from the patio doors. What was this all about? Where was the Torquay scene of a moment ago? Was he going mad?

The roaring noise intruded again on his hearing and his right wrist irritated.

Looking down he saw he was wearing shorts, a ‘T’ shirt, no footwear, he was certain he had had long trousers and a short sleeved buttoned shirt on, a moment ago in Torquay.

There was no reason for the irritation of his wrist. There was his 50 metre-resist Casio watch, as usual. But that seemed wrong. Where was the two inch long, one eighth of an inch thick, watch he was sure should have been there.

His arms and legs felt like lead, his body a sack of coal; movement was all but impossible.

Kate was staring at him from the patio doors with jet-black bottomless eyes. He felt real fear and a beginning of claustrophobia. Carl couldn’t understand the visions he was having, Torquay one second, blue and then green sea, and black eyes. He was surely ill.

In his inner self, however, he felt perfectly well. There was something external here that was not right.

Kate was staring at him from the patio doors.

Why don’t you sit down, she said, take your watch off and have a rest. I’ll get us some tea.

They never had tea in the high humidity of the tropics.

Do you want Tiger or Anchor? She asked, as if in answer to his inner question.

There was definitely something amiss here, ‘this must be a ruddy dream,’ he thought. ‘Test it.’

Where’s the Chimpanzee, Katy? Knowing full well that they had never owned one.

Here he is. She said, as a chimp gambolled in through the patio door.

Wrong! Carl shouted, We don’t have a chimp. This is all false.

With a flash, the scene exploded into a dozen huge scarlet, eight-foot high spiders, shiny all over as if made of red chromium. Their chitenous claws holding massive projectors concentrated on his skull and left wrist. It was these projectors that were causing the roaring noise, as they spat greeny-yellow energy onto his personal shield. They were hell-bent in rupturing the shield to gain access to his cranium, which would surely boil in an instant if they succeeded.

Carl was totally paralysed, unable to move any part of his body. His eyes were open and unmoving. His heart and lungs were not in motion. Thank God for the atomic mixer of his shield which was feeding his body and, more specifically, his brain, with the much-needed oxygen to enable it to survive.

The massive octopedean spiders were literally jumping up and down, in a very human expression of frustration. One was even running around in circles on the ceiling, above the surface he was bound to.

Carl identified two other surfaces nearby with his wife Katy and comrade Pat Murtagh attached to each. They had the scarlet spiders with projectors, also attempting to penetrate their shields; they were obviously being unsuccessful in their attempts.

His claustrophobia was now reaching a peak; he was unable to escape the tractor beams of blue light from a device over to his left. He recognised this as the culprit of his paralysis and was aware of the exact direction and the complex interweaving lattice of the ray.

His brain had forgotten how to induce movement in his limbs; he couldn’t for the life of him pass any instructions to his body. He was suckered, lost.

His brain was active though; the flow of the ray was not impeding thought.

What was the purpose of the infliction of this incessant torment? He had the answer. They were after removing his shield and jump modules from his right wrist.

‘Got to get out.’ Was his panic stricken thought. ‘Must remain calm and find a way out of this mess.’ How had they got here anyway? Right on cue the memory came to him. They had intercepted radio transmissions, whilst travelling in a Hyperspace Jump. Their ship, Shadow, under the navigational guidance of their friendly computer intelligence, George, had dropped out of the jump and they had seen the construction where they were now prisoners. It had been a mass of interconnecting tubes covering literally millions of cubic miles of space. They had interpreted the scene as being similar to a massive spider’s web. How true!

George had probed the whole structure and could not come up with any semblance of a life force. They stayed and watched it for hours - no signs of life.

Pat had suggested they pull in close and take a closer look. They were outside Shadow, carrying out some EVA investigations, and that was the last Carl could remember, here was the result. Where the hell was Shadow and George?

Carl knew that unless he could move an arm, there was no way he would be able to activate his jump module and crash out of the predicament they had found themselves in. The same would be true for Kate and Pat, they were cold-dead still, just like him.

A scarlet octospider was above him again, hanging from the ceiling, some five metres up. He could see its mouth and eyes and the manipulating arms on its front claws. There were hundreds of twenty-centimetre long arms that the spider could work with.

Without warning the Octospider released its hold from the blue mesh ceiling and, with four of its manipulating arms outstretched, dropped directly towards Carl’s eyes.

The arms came together, two per eye, and stuck the eye surfaces, centred on the pupils.

Carl felt an inner panic but could not even twitch an eyelid. The ends of the arms were gleamingly sharp and struck with an audible crack. It is to the credit of the designers of the shield system, the Yil, that the piercing spikes of those arms had not the slightest effect on Carl’s eyes. They slid off without a graze.

The octospider went berserk and jumped up and down on Carl’s face, which did not help his claustrophobia one iota.

Similar actions were taking place over Pat and Katy and, from the resulting frenzied attacks, were producing the same results. Nothing.

Additional projectors were being wheeled into the cavernous blue room The power packs for the projectors were each the size of an Amtrak Diesel Locomotive. Enormous.

Carl was unable to rid the view of the shiny octospider from his immediate vision. He could not even imagine it was not there and it was becoming more and more furious in its attacks as the moments went by.

‘I am physically paralysed,’ he thought, ‘but I have a full range of thought powers.’

The Shield Module, on his wrist, was coded to his, and only his body, by way of microscopic filaments having grown through every nerve and brain cell in his body. It was a fully integrated part of his human self. It took its actions from all the sensations his body experienced or brain instructed. Perhaps here was the key. The jump module - the personal Hyperspace jump power unit - was part of the shield module. It was connected to his body and brain by those self-same filaments.

Thoughts flowed in his brain. Why not reverse the action of the filaments. Feedback the filaments to the power module to select a jump sequence away from this house of horrors.

He began the process without any idea of how to carry out an operation that usually takes finger pad pressures on the various surfaces of the jump module. He must work from within, identify the internal circuits that receive the imprinted information.

Suddenly his personal Head-Up-Display blazed into life in front of his eyes. It was really on the optic nerves but appeared as if he had a T.V. screen on the surface of his eyes. Slowly there formed a complex maze of circuits and filaments, with miniature glints of activity passing backwards and forwards along the myriad paths.

He concentrated on isolating the jump sequencing and initiating circuits. How to do it?

Slowly at first and then with ever increasing rapidity, individual components and filaments began to highlight themselves. Somehow Carl recognised these as the jump module action circuitry. His brain and the modules were as one, together, partners, each a part of the other.

The automatic process of fixing his present position at a point in space began. The programming of a one light-millisecond jump suddenly lit up on the Hud holo-sphere diagram. He had succeeded. Only the initiation remained and he would be that distance away in less time it takes a photon to pass by.

A pause for thought, such self control, all he wanted really was to exit this hell of creatures and projector cutters.

His shield was audibly screaming as it repelled and absorbed the ultra-pulsing of the projectors. Yilonite was the absorber of all that energy. Yilonite was the power source of all things Yil. The shield, the jump module, and Shadow. The word ‘Yilonite’ had been suggested by Carl to describe the crystal that the alien race, the Yil, had discovered. It was an amazing crystal form that not only refused analysis but also absorbed any form of energy expended upon it. It also gave out any form of energy required to drive any component. Where the power came from or where it was absorbed to was a mystery the Yil had never solved over a period of millions of Earth years.

Carl now knew that the shields under attack would hold firm. He must find Shadow first, and then, somehow or other, come back for Kate and Pat. He used his Hud and fixed the exact spot of the interface connections of Kate’s and Pat’s jump modules. He programmed those into the navigation section of his jump module in the sure knowledge he could now plug in his interface cable to either of Kate’s or Pat’s modules and parallel jump them out of here.

All avenues covered, no problems with the restraints on his body, they would be torn asunder when he jumped.

Chapter 2

Movement came back to his aching body with a jolt. The exhilaration of freedom. The release of tension.

Twisting in space, he faced the monstrous structure of the octospiders, merely a blip in the far distance. He zoomed his Hud up and could make out the rupture in the area of the web he had burst out of.

Suck, the, bones, out, of, that. He stutter-shouted. The shield held no air, which would have been the case with a regular space suit. He only had a lung-full of air to work with and because the shield permitted no air to escape he only had a mouthful of pressure to speak with.

Already his Hud was displaying the movements of Shadow following their capture. Carl noted the exact location where Shadow’s signal disappeared and jumped into that section of the ‘web’. He was, again, instantly paralysed but there was Shadow. There were massive structures clamped to its hull and the noise must have been of nuclear explosive volume. He jumped into the cockpit and jumped again into his seat and, with a series of ‘still’ jumps, activated Shadows jump sequence for a five light-year journey.

Einsteinium physics did not operate on the jump system of the Yil. They travelled sideways in Einsteinium Relativity Theory and Carl and Shadow were free of the paralysis.

I am relieved you are fit and well Carl. Came George’s silky voice.

You were frozen as well George? Carl asked.

Why no Carl, but I was electronically blinded, I could not transmit or receive so I decided to wait for one of you to arrive.

Very confident of you George. How long would you have waited?

It would have had to have been for ever. I had no way of knowing where you were.

Great, Carl said, where was your initiative? Why didn’t you knock that bloody place to bits until you found us?

I had no way of knowing what type of being occupied the structure. They could have been friendly for all I knew.

Ok George, you’re off the hook for the moment.

Carl picked up an interface cable and jumped. The paralysis returned, but he noticed with satisfaction that the connector was well and truly interfaced with Kate’s power module.

The room full of chrome red octospiders was in turmoil. He had entered through a different section of the hull than he had previously left. There was debris flying all over the cavern. He noticed two spiders in tatters spread on the floor, red and blue gore splattered on everything.

‘So these creatures can exist in a vacuum, even though the hull is ruptured,’ he thought, ‘well here comes another rupture.’ And he jumped with Kate, back to Shadow.

Have the mice settle her onto our bed George, he said, I’m going for Pat.

Pat was not where he should have been. For that matter nor was anything else. The Chamber of Horrors was a distinct mess, equipment, floors and walls were everywhere. The place had come apart at the seams. Pat was floating some twenty metres away, still strapped down and still the paralysis beams were operative.

It required three more mini-jumps before Carl could connect the interface and jump back to Shadow.

Both Kate and the Irishman were out for the count. Maybe some differences in the composition of their personal shields.

George, he said, to the nearest Junction right away. Get away from those ruddy creatures. I’m going to see to Kate and Pat.

As instructed. Replied George, and Carl could see the jump lines beginning on the cockpit screens.

The nearest ‘Junction’ was some seven billion light years away, that would take a few seconds to cover.

Chapter 3

So we are agreed. said Kate. We leave the octospiders to themselves?

Agreed. Said Pat & Carl together.

They all relaxed back onto the golden sand, with the hush of the light surf rushing up to within a couple of metres of their toes.

It had been a two week period of gentle hospitalisation at the Junction before either Pat or Kate were totally fit to move out to Xon for a change of scenery.

The paralysis ray used by the spider race had caused physical problems, as well as mental anguish, and the power of Yil medical knowledge had to be fully engaged to bring them all to normality.

Carl had suffered the least and, had it not been for his rise to consciousness, the results could have been a whole lot different.

George was at a loss to identify the ray that had been used. It had never showed up at all on any of his sensors, but even he knew it was there. It had left all his electronic sensory functions inoperative.

As far as my circuits are concerned, George had said, the ray never existed, yet I know it was there. I cannot analyse it because I had no means to detect it in the first place. I am completely flummoxed.

Carl could not help but think this whole sequence of events could have been their last. What had turned out to be a journey of excitement and exploration, showing-off to Kate, had resulted in a near disaster.

Finding Shadow, deep in a hill in Brunei, had been the start. Then activating the Hyper-drive Jump and becoming totally lost in the galactic regions of the universe had led to accepting the personal shield and jump modules and beginning the search back to Earth. On finding their home planet, eventually, they had decided to take Kate along, for the ride, and go out and save the universe. Some rethinking of basic strategies was necessary.

They were all relieved to get out of the Yil Junction and visit this lovely tranquil world of Xon.

George had informed them that it was somewhat different when the Yil had visited it some three million years ago. That was to be expected.

The sun of Xon was Earth type, a slightly more subtle light than good old Sol, more in the red spectrum, but the effect was generally the same.

This small island, one of tens of thousands, was the pure desert island paradise everyone dreams about. The sand was actually soft to the touch, more akin to powdered rubber and the sea was a gorgeous warm, permitting permanent and comfortable immersion.

At the top of the gentle sloping beach were huge escarpments of rugged mountain ranges. They rose, near vertical, more than fifteen kilometres and were covered with near rigid multi-coloured vegetation. The leaves of the vegetation were all round balls and the stems and trunks of the slightly larger groups were totally unbreakable, even those of only one millimetre in thickness.

There was wildlife right the way up the face of the mountains, mainly birdlike creatures of the soaring and sea diving kind. There were other none flying animals, when they had first set down, but these were nearing the tips of the mountains now. They had begun climbing three days ago and were only visible using their Hud enlargement facility.

Shadow was nowhere to be seen, unless a diving exercise was embarked on. It was sat on the ocean bed some two kilometres out to sea.

Anyone fancy some more barbecued fish? asked Pat.

That would go down a treat. Carl replied.

Right, I’ll catch us a few. And with that he began setting up the rod and tackle that George and the servicing robotic ‘mice’ under his control, had built for them.

I still do not understand why you don’t let me send out a couple of mice and have the fish brought to you in a couple of seconds. Came George’s transmitted voice, received by all on the beach, by way of their surgically implanted receivers, set deep in the bone next to the ear cavity and also in their shield-module system.

Where’s the fun in that George? asked Katy.

We enjoy the doubt and fun of catching fish George, said Carl, If you did everything by your computer controlled functions, we would die of boredom. Don’t you see the point?

Yes, of course I see the reasons, but the mice would still be easier. He came back.

You’re impossible. Said Kate.

Pat had waded out some twenty metres and was now casting the fish-strip bait. They all watched and soaked up the sun.

It was good to see Kate back to her usual fit state. Things could have been so different. George had constructed a lovely two piece swimming costume and Kate filled it in the most sensual of ways. Her golden brown skin, shining with health, and her honey blond hair flashed in the sun as she laughed when Pat fell over, as a fish took the bait.

Feels a good one. He spluttered.

The rod was bent over and jerking away as the fish tried its hardest to break free.

The fight was longer than usual but at last the silver glint of the fish appeared some twenty metres from Pat.

Here she comes. And with that the fish made a mad dash for freedom, the wrong way, straight towards the beach. Pat triggered the remote winder on the reel and the line screamed back onto the spool. She’s a beauty and our favourite. He shouted. A quick club to the head and the fish, nearly a metre in length, lay still.

Must be a few kilos there, said Carl, best one so far.

I’ll get the fire started. Said Kate.

The only way to collect ‘wood’ was to cut the trunks of the mountain bushes. This was achieved by using a low power setting on the right wrist-mounted Photon Cutter, set to needle beam. Kate sliced off branches and trunks until she had a good arm-full. It was then a matter of setting the wood up in a neat pile, under the BBQ, and igniting it with a fan spray from the cutter. Pat had his trusty fish-gutting knife and was preparing the fish into decent steaks and fillets.

It’s even better with the fish being this size, no small bones, he said, as he stripped the tough outer skin off of the fillets, who’s the chef today?

I’ll do it. Offered Kate, and so saying she set about positioning the fish pieces over the smokeless coals.

Pity we can’t stay here for ever, said Carl, suppose we could, but no doubt boredom would set in.

You certainly cannot stay here forever. Said George.

Why not? All of them chorused.

Because the rogue planet of this system is due to make a pass between Xon and the sun in four hours time.

What difference does that make to us? asked Pat.

It passes within 500,000 kilometres and causes severe ocean disturbances, tidal waves two or three kilometres high.

Now he tells us. Said Kate. When were you going to give us this little gem of information George?

I wasn’t. I wanted to see your surprise as the water came towards you. He laughed.

You bloody rat, does that mean we have to leave pretty quick? asked Carl.

I think you will see the eclipse of the sun during the next hour and that will be followed by the sea withdrawing from this island at a very high rate, to return three kilometres deeper in about four hours. He continued. Perhaps we should leave just prior to that event.

Well, said Kate, "time enough to enjoy our last Xon BBQ before being thrown out on our ears.

How’s it doing? Asked Pat. It smells great.

Ready in a couple more minutes I think. Get the plates Carl.

Indeed the fish was great, together with some bread, plus a glass of beer that Pat had one of the mice bring out from Shadow. He also had the mouse collect some very small berries from the bushes up the towering green cliff-face.

The sea is on the way out, said