Fire Storm by Chris Ward

Author:Chris Ward [Ward, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AMMFA Publishing
Published: 2018-04-09T22:00:00+00:00

18

Lia

‘Cover me, Stomlard. Harlan, just stay still. Hopefully they won’t notice you.’

‘My programming says I should feel offended by that—’

‘Shh!’

The hatch lowered. Lia took a few steps forward, the blaster held against her shoulder. No enemy in sight, but that meant nothing. There could be automated weapons trained on them. The official Intergalactic Code of Communications said no free space station could refuse the landing of a ship offering peace, but her own crew had broken that code on multiple occasions. Caladan had always maintained that rules were only made in order to be broken.

An automated system had authorised their landing request, a docking code matching their offered landing code which had allowed the hangar doors to open and let them into a wide landing bay. They were yet to receive a true response, human or otherwise, from the lighthouse bridge, but all Lia hoped for was enough time to find the tracker Kyle Jansen’s men had hidden on the Matilda and finish the repairs they had begun in Tantol.

She tentatively peered out, then hurried down to the hangar floor and took up a defensive position beside one of the Matilda’s claw-shaped landing feet. From the shadow of her ship, she looked out across a wide, empty hangar. Lights and breathable air told her the lighthouse’s systems were operating, but there were few other clues as to what had happened out here in deep space to cut off the lighthouse’s transmissions.

Where was the crew? Why had no one contacted them or come to escort them off the ship?

‘Let’s go,’ she said, waving to the others. ‘On second thoughts, Harlan, you stay with the ship. See if you can connect with the lighthouse and find out what’s going on.’

‘In my current form that’s impossible—’

‘Try anyway. It’ll keep you busy. Come on, Stomlard.’

Harlan5 lifted an arm. ‘May I point out that you are paying Stomlard to work on the ship, not defend you in battle.’

‘Do you see any battle? I need him to carry whatever loot we find. Now hurry up.’

As they headed out across the hangar floor, Stomlard grinned. ‘I can see where your reputation came from.’

‘Which one?’

‘All of them.’

Lia sighed. ‘You just can’t get the droids these days. And when you do, they spend the whole time arguing with you. Now, in your opinion, what do you think is going on here?’

‘The crew has abandoned the lighthouse, perhaps headed to a nearby planet. I couldn’t tell you why.’

‘Even with their transmissions scrambled or blocked, they would be able to live for years on their supplies. Why leave?’

Stomlard shrugged. ‘These lighthouses typically have a crew of less than a couple of dozen. Everything is automated. It’s possible there weren’t many people here in the first place.’

‘There would have been some, though. They wouldn’t have let a strange ship dock without at least requiring clearance before disembarkation.’

They headed out of the hangar and into the lighthouse’s labyrinthine corridors. Lia kept the blaster at her shoulder for the first few minutes, but soon it felt pointless.

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