Trojian Horse

Roue was in a desperate bind. He found himself hiding in a tiny compartment in the floor which could be described as stifling at best, and the thought that perhaps this job was not worth the trouble had crossed his mind several times as he lay contorted in it. He shifted uncomfortably in the compartment trying to find extra space for his legs that he knew did not exist. There was no other alternative but to wait it out. Several minutes passed and he heard no movement on the deck above him. The moment to find out if he had successfully evaded the Dracien squadron was here. He waited until the very last second when he could no longer contain himself any longer before venturing out into the open. A little peep at first then he unfolded himself onto the floor above. Sliding the metal grating back in place he crept off in search of an exit.

Not only had he not obtained what he had come here for, he was stuck in a ship with no clear exit, two of the things he hated most, not finishing the job and going in blind. The Dracien were pure evil in his eyes and considering the enmity that existed between him and them they would relish the chance to punish him if they caught him. They would do it slowly, trying their best to capture every single moment as the life ebbed out of him. Their senseless agenda to enslave or destroy the galaxy even managed to drag a supreme neutral such as himself into this pointless war which was very far from over the way he saw it. The Dracien were officially the worst scum the universe had to offer in his opinion.

This encounter with them had been too close, filled with too many uncertainties and very costly. It had cost him nearly two thousand ansers just to be here and that kind of spending was not good for business. Almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong, and he had nothing to show for it. He clicked on the communicator that stuck out of his ear.

“Iris, get me out of here.”

“Hang in there, a squadron is marching down the corridor. Wait for my word,” a voice in his ear informed him.

“Okay, make it quick. I’ve been here too long already. I don’t like this.”

“I’ll get you out of there Roue, trust me.”

“I’m worried you didn’t talk me out of this to begin with,” he said. “This is crazy! What are we even doing here? I don’t doubt your ability though Iris, we’ve been through too much already to doubt your ability to get me out of bind.”

“What is it then?”

“It was all too easy. I don’t like that. It’s a lot of things but it’s never too easy. Especially considering I didn’t find what I came for.”

“I’m not really sure how to respond to that.”

“You wouldn’t. I’m the one who’s always out here getting fired while you relax out there playing puzzles or whatever it is you do to unwind.”

“You know I’m incapable of relaxation…oh, you’re joking. What a time to be attempting humour Roue.”

“Trying? I’m hilarious, you know this.”

“Move now, left down the corridor and the third door on your left. Then wait for my command.”

“Got it,” Roue said scurrying down the corridor and barely making it through the door before a squadron appeared in the direction he had come from and hurriedly marching past him.

“We both know I’m the funny one in this relationship Roue,” Iris said when the coast was clear.

“Sure, if you say so. You’re definitely not the greatest at timing.”

“Where would you be without me huh?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe sipping some dariks on a moon-base somewhere, spending my hard-earned ansers. You forget it was your idea that we go on this ridiculous crusade. You and your warped sense of morality.”

“And I still stand by that. It was the right thing to do. Now we just need to get back to the Georas and find out what happened,” Iris replied.

“Okay sure, how much longer till I get out of here.”

“Put your breathing apparatus on. There won’t much time to prepare it from here. An exchange of weapon fire is inevitable. It’s back into the corridor, turn back right then straight down through the door right at the end, down the steps and through the door right at the bottom. You’ll be moving in three, two, …”

Roue ran out of the room with his breathing apparatus covering his face, weapon cocked and held up to his head ready for action. He made his way down the steps without incident and through the door at the bottom feeling optimistic that Iris had perhaps gotten it superbly right this time around. He leapt through the door and found himself in a storage room. From what he could gather of the position of the room he was just above the landing bay in this ship which meant there was a means to access an airlock which accompanied landing bays on Dracien galactic cruisers. A portal to the outside.

“Okay, I’m here.”

“I know. I always know.”

“No gun fight. Maybe you got it wrong this time.”

“I doubt that. I really do.”

There were rows upon rows of shelves which terminated at a door right at the end of room, a door he was headed for, a door that meant freedom from this stink. He walked on, his pistol cocked and ready. He thought he heard movement in the corridor he had just left. He ducked behind one of the shelves closest to him. Before long there was a loud shuffling, grunting and plenty of hissing. They knew he was there though he couldn’t be sure how when he had taken such pains to avoid detection. Something about this whole situation did not feel right to him. He heard one distinct voice hissing his name. He did not really understand drasken, the language of the dracien, but he knew a threat when he heard one. Unfortunately for him, the dracien were very dependable when it came to carrying out their threats. This would go down as one of his less stellar works.

‘It is imperative that we get it’ they had told him after having bawled his disapproval of the entire business for hours. ‘The fate of the galaxy, and possibly the universe hangs in the balance’ they retorted and Iris did the rest. He was a thief and a smuggler not a fighter, especially not in wars he preferred to stay out of, and he knew he should not be in a position where he had to fight his way out of anything. If he had stuck to his resolve he knew he would have been safely counting all the ansers he had been paid on recent jobs, possibly considering retirement at this point. Damn Georas he thought. This war had cost him too much already and threatened to cost him his life. That was it. If he managed to get out of this one alive he was done. He would let them know then fly off into the loneliest, but habitable, part of the galaxy he could find.

He peered around the edge of the shelf and saw the squadron approaching him, carefully looking down each row of shelves before proceeding down the next row of shelves. The shelves themselves were filled with sealed containers of various sizes which afforded him a reasonable amount of cover but he knew he had to keep moving.

“Anytime you’re ready Roue. Another squadron is approaching and you’ll soon be miserably outgunned,” Iris said, breaking his stream of thought.

“Sure, I’ll just have a quick chat with my friends over here,” he replied. The fastest way to the door was running in front of the shelves, in full view of the enemy. He stretched his legs in anticipation of the running he would have to do then sped out of the row of shelves screaming and firing at the squadron as he ran.

“Not even if we landed on the hottest sun in this system!” he shouted in response to the grunting and hissing that followed his assault.

He was not about to go out without a fight. More hissing and grunting and a hail of laser beams was flashing past him as he ran. One shot passed uncomfortably close and he thought he felt a sting in his back. There was no time to give himself a check and he ran on, occasionally looking back to see if he had managed to shoot one of the dracien and check how many were in pursuit. On one such occasion he saw another squadron join the fight. He turned his back to them and ran faster. The door was just a little way off now. He heard shuffling in the direction of the door he was headed for which promptly slid open and a handful of dracien guards appeared in front of him to block his exit. Damn Georas he thought.

He fired several shots wildly behind him and fired a lot more shots at the guards standing in front of him and managed to clear a path ahead of him. The few remaining Dracien guards who had somehow escaped his hail of gun fire scampered away on his approached. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought they had given up with very little in the way of a fight. He could always trust the Dracien scum to cower away from a fight. Running through the door, he turned left, headed for the hatch which he promptly opened. He sealed himself in the hatch then pressed the button to open the hatch. He was promptly sucked into the abyss of space outside the ship. The hisses faded away and all that remained was the silence around him and the voice of Iris in his ear. The hulking form of the dracien galactic cruiser drifted further and further away from him. Somehow, he had made it out. Looking around he eventually spotted his ship hovering toward him beneath the Dracien ship. There were only a few minutes of breathable air left so it turned out that leaving the ship close to the Dracien ship with the cloaking shield on had been a brilliant idea. At least the Georas were good for something, the cloaking device had worked splendidly. He floated toward the ship and crept into the air lock and safely into his ship.

“Morning Iris,” Roue said, a wry smile on his face. There was no real concept of morning out here in space. All the rules that governed normal life on the surface became quite fuzzy out here. In a lot of ways all species eventually found a way to measure time, distance, and speed, among other things, in a way that was comfortable for them.

The ship burst into colourful life as soon as he entered.

“Morning Roue. Took you long enough.”

“We’ll talk about that some other time. Believe me.”

“Reeger should have had the Thalios. There is no logical explanation except, well, only a couple of very troubling ones,” Iris replied.

“Yeah, I know. He should have. I have a feeling I can’t shake about this whole mission.”

“Yeah, you mentioned.”

“Hard to explain.”

“Well….” Iris began then tailed off.

“What?” Roue asked seating himself in the cockpit.

“It would appear you have sustained an injury Roue. Get in the medical pod. It looks quite bad.”

“I didn’t even feel a thing.”

Roue looked perplexed then patting his shoulder he felt the blood trickling out. The shot had gone clean through him leaving an oozing hole that was bleeding quite severely.

“Let’s get out of this area. They’ll be after us Iris.” Roue said. “Keep the cloaking shield on until we jump to light speed then open a jump-gate. We need to put a lot of distance between us and them.”

“Already pulling off and preparing to jump to light speed. Calibrating the jump gate. Destination Georas.”

Roue felt the ship jerking as they took off. That was unusual.

“We are taking fire Roue. With the cloaking device one of our deflector shields is on low intensity.”

“Remove the cloaking shield then. They may be guessing but they’ve got enough firepower to keep guessing until they blow us into a lump of metal. Keep calibrating the jump gate.”

“Deflector shields on. Your rate of blood loss is becoming critical, medical pod now. Please!”

Iris had a habit of being overly pushy for a computer. Perhaps this time she was justified. Roue felt himself getting dizzy, his eyes getting blurry, his movements becoming increasingly sluggish as he dragged himself to the medical pod.

“Get us out of here Iris,” he said just as the door to the medical pod slid shut and his eyes closed. He felt the ship jerk forward and that was the last thing he remembered as they hurtled off into vastness of space.

Something was wrong. Just as Iris was opening the jump gate, a blind shot from the galactic cruiser hit them with just the right amount of force to throw them off the correct trajectory. There was no time to correct, preservation of life was more important. They would have to jump out of hyperspace at the earliest opportunity then they could figure out how to get back to Georas when Roue was awake. In an instant, they were zipping away at light speed then in the next instant they had disappeared into hyperspace with a huge flash.