Ed and Pol both froze and slowly turned their heads. Three Klatt soldiers stood four metres away, two of them pointing rifles at them while the third, who seemed to be in charge, leaned casually against the adjacent landing strut holding a translator. He smiled and wiped his brow with a small towel that he draped back over his shoulder.
‘Don’t know how you can stand these warmer planets, Mr Virr,’ he said. ‘You certainly messed up our plans for this lot, didn’t you?’ he added, waving his hand around at the rows of parked ships.
Ed noticed they wore the same uniform as the soldiers they’d killed earlier and hoped they were still ignorant of that detail.
‘How d’you know my name?’ he asked.
All three soldiers chuckled at that.
‘Ah – we all know you, Edward Virr,’ the casual one sniggered. ‘That gullible idiot Groxl kidnapping you was a crucial part of our operation. Quite how you managed to dissociate yourselves from the two officers that shared the lifeboat with you, I don’t know. Am I to understand I won’t be needing to reprimand them?’
Ed and Pol stayed silent.
He nodded.
‘Good, saves me a job. Now if you’d be so kind as to disarm yourselves slowly and carefully. Unfortunately, my soldiers haven’t got their weapons set on stun like yourselves. That was your biggest mistake, you see. The caretaker on the cruiser woke up and operated his emergency transmitter under the scales on his wrist. From then on we watched you and were about to come and pick you up, when you in your wisdom decided to come to us. We just hung around until you got here.’
‘Did Groxl tell you everything about me and how I messed with his ship?’ asked Ed.
‘Ah, yes, how you used some sort of beam to disable his drive and weapons systems.’
‘He told you all about it did he?’ Ed asked again, this time standing up and looking around. ‘I hope you brought more than two soldiers with you.’
‘Why? D’you think I’ll need them for one human and a scared whatever she is?’ he asked, nodding in Pol’s direction and folding his arms across his chest confidently.
‘Because those two have faulty weapons,’ said Ed, swinging his laser rifle around from his back.
Ed watched as the soldiers’ eyes went wide as two dull clicks sounded and they both glanced down at their rifles in puzzlement.
‘Oh, dear and whoops,’ said Ed, as he fired three times.
The three soldiers spasmed and slumped to the ground. The senior one still had a look of utter disbelief on his face as they dragged them up the ramp of an adjacent troop carrier that Pol had opened up with her DOVI.
‘I’m glad we weren’t next to those cruisers,’ Pol moaned, cuffing the bodies to the seats inside. ‘Getting these three fat bastards up into an airlock would have been a bitch.’
Ed snorted a laugh.
‘That’s another Andyism – and a good one,’ he said, smirking at Pol.
Next he turned his DOVI onto their wrists and destroyed the small transmitters. ‘Thanks for the info, won’t be making that mistake again,’ he said to the unconscious senior soldier and patted his face.
‘Back to plan A?’ asked Pol.
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Let’s find the dome power supply and give it the good news.’
It had taken them another half an hour after closing up the rear door of the troop carrier to get within a stone’s throw of a group of buildings seemingly in the centre of the dome. One concrete structure caught Ed’s eye. It was in the middle of everything else, considerably taller than the others and had a large gold-coloured dome on the top, glistening in the hazy refracted light penetrating the shield a couple of kilometres above.
‘That has to be the shield emitter,’ said Pol, following Ed’s gaze.
‘It’s certainly a pretty favourable candidate,’ he replied, closing his eyes and feeling out with his DOVI. ‘Bugger,’ he said, opening them again. ‘It’s shielded.’
‘We could wait until it’s dark and sneak in,’ said Pol.
Ed pointed at all the floodlight pylons surrounding the central area.
‘It’ll be brighter than daylight with all that lot sparked up,’ he said. ‘We need to find a way of getting over there without detection.’
‘The buildings are looking a bit shabby,’ said Pol. ‘It wouldn’t take much to demolish them.’
She nodded and stared at the vehicle park a few hundred metres away.
He followed her gaze before turning to regard her dubiously.
‘You mean drive a truck through it, don’t you?’
She grinned malevolently and raised her eyebrows.
Ed sat back on his haunches, looking between her and the truck park.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘What have you done with the shy nervous Pol I used to know? Bloody good idea though.’
‘That one eighth in line looks promising,’ she said, pointing at the largest truck.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I had my eye on that one too. It’s tracked as well, which could help.’
‘And armoured,’ she said. ‘Just in case that gold thing was to drop on us.’
Slowly making their way around to the far side of the truck park, they bided their time until no soldiers were visible then sprinted across the fifty metres of open ground. Ducking down between the vehicles, Ed tried the handle of a hatch on the right-hand side of the larger truck. It clunked open an inch and stopped. Grabbing it by its edge and heaving produced a loud squeal as it reluctantly swung fully open. They both froze for a second.
‘Inside quick,’ Ed whispered. ‘Someone must have heard that.’
Ed helped Pol up inside and jumped in behind her, dragging the hatch closed, producing yet another ear-splitting squeal. He clamped it shut and waited while his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom.
‘Something tells me this vehicle has been here a while and maintenance hasn’t been a priority,’ said Pol, sliding her hand along the top of one of the seats and showing Ed the thick layer of dust dislodged.
‘Oh crap,’ he said, peering over the front seats at a barely discernible dashboard. ‘We might have picked a scrapper. There’s years of dust in here.’
He crawled over the back of the driver’s seat set in the centre of the vehicle and behind a thick plexiglass front screen that along with everything else was greyed out with a layer of dust.
‘Can’t see a damn thing,’ mumbled Ed. ‘Never a car wash handy when you want one.’
‘Shall I pop out and get a bucket and sponge?’ Pol replied, as she attempted to follow Ed over to the front of the vehicle.
He turned to look over his shoulder as a leg bumped into him followed by a stream of curses.
‘Shit fuck piss,’ she grumbled. ‘I can’t get over there with you in the way.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Ed. ‘If we can’t get this thing running, we’ll be getting straight back out again anyway.’
He found an old rag under his seat and used it to brush the dust off the front console. Pol suddenly made a bellowing noise behind him, making him jump just as a shadow swept past the side window.
‘What the hell was that?’ he said, turning.
‘I sneezed,’ she said, as he heard the hatch behind him squeal again.
He swung around to look over his other shoulder to find a Klatt soldier with a surprised expression peering in. Pol grabbed his arm, yanked his head inside the vehicle and smashed her rifle into the side of his head. He slumped unconscious and before he slid back outside again, Pol dragged him in with her and the hatch sealed shut again.
‘Are there any others?’ Ed asked.
‘Well, you’re the one next to the windows,’ she grumbled, wrinkling her nose. ‘And now I’ve got even less room back here with this smelly bastard.’
‘Shit,’ Ed mumbled under his breath. He reached over and pushed a lever across that bolted the driver’s door, then turning back to the controls he decided he’d better hurry up. There had been a large switch top right that had caught his eye a moment ago. It was red and only had two positions. Holding his breath, he turned it to the second position.
The dash lit up and a low whine emanating from somewhere behind and below them began building in intensity.
‘Sounds promising,’ said Pol. ‘The power cell’s still got juice then.’
Ed grabbed the two joystick controls in front of him and gently pushed them forward. The vehicle twitched and vibrated alarmingly. For some reason it wasn’t moving, but the shaking had at least dislodged some of the dust on the front screen.
‘Hand brake,’ called Pol from behind.
‘Thank you, Sherlock,’ Ed growled. ‘Just where the fuck is it?’
He started randomly pressing things that seemed to make no difference at all.
‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘It’s got to be here somewhere.’
‘What’s that button on top of the right stick?’ asked Pol, peeking through the gap.
The vehicle suddenly leaped forward a metre as soon as he pressed it.
‘A-ha, here we go,’ he said, looking up out of the screen just in time to see a Klatt troop carrier pull up in front and a stream of soldiers pile out from the rear.
‘Ah shit,’ said Pol, from over his shoulder. ‘Ram it out the way, we can’t go backwards, we’re blocked in.’
‘Make sure your hatch is locked this time,’ said Ed, as he rammed the joysticks forward and the heavy tracked vehicle leaped forward, seemingly glad to be released from its shackles, and bowled towards the side of the troop carrier.