Part V – Tag

This is Part V of the serial space western The Ghosts of Blackmoon Rift. It is also available for download in RTF format here. Or click here for a complete listing of episodes.

Egan Torr had a number of compact pieces of equipment secured in the pockets of his conservative gray jumpsuit. Not least among them was a tiny-yet-powerful LED lantern. Still, afraid that its fifty-million candle-power beam might attract unwanted attention, he blundered forward in the dark. Jagged metal edges seemed to reach out at him from every shadow, and nameless things crunched and squelched underfoot.

Part V – Tag

 

Previously: Young archaeologist Egan Torr is trying to break cyborg pilot Crash’s ship out of the junk yard of a hostile local named Black Dan so that Crash can fly him to Blackmoon. But Crash has disappeared, as has Torr’s other companion Miss Kitty, and Torr is all alone in the dark trying to collect teleportation tags with which to spirit away the ship.

Realizing he was holding his breath again, Torr forced himself to let it out. As he did so, his eyes fastened on a blinking red light. Closer examination revealed it to be his first tag dart. He pocketed it with a chuckle. This wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Torr advanced steadily up a rising mountain of junk, threading his way between burned out plasma turbines and disintegrating anti-matter seals. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found that the glow of distant floodlights was all that he needed to see his way.

He was striding along confidently, when he heard a movement behind him. He froze and listened. Something rattled in the yard below him. It’s just junk settling, he thought. No cause for concern. No one else would be foolish enough to be in a junkyard in the middle of the night.

All was silence. Torr took a deep breath. He turned to go on. And then a vibrating clang made him leap a good half meter into the air.

Torr stumbled against a piece of fuselage, trying desperately, quietly to keep it from sliding while he regained his footing. He stood still, panting. There were footsteps approaching – not the furtive ones of someone who knows that they might be overheard but the deliberate ones of someone who simply doesn’t want to draw undue attention to themselves.

He thought furiously. If they didn’t know he was there, he could surprise them. He had no weapons, but he had his LED lantern. He could whip it out and blind them, then run. Or better yet, tackle them and hold them down for questioning. That seemed like a good plan – something Miss Kitty might do. Crash would probably attempt to intimidate them as well. Torr could try it. If it didn’t work, he could just hold them down until either Crash or Kitty arrived to help.

Torr carefully opened the pocket that held the lantern and palmed it. He turned slowly, then lowered himself into a crouching position, poised to spring into action. He listened. Whether by chance or design, the footsteps were definitely headed toward him. They were only a few meters down the path. In moments, they would round the corner and whoever it was would be close enough to see Torr, even in the near-dark.

Torr sucked in his breath and steeled himself. The footsteps came closer, rattling on plastic sheeting, then rustling on fiber-optic cable. They paused for a moment. Had the stranger detected him? No, he was moving again. He was coming! Torr saw movement at the end of the narrow alley. He thrust his lantern forward, stood up – and bolted.

Torr pelted up the path through the maze of junk. The stranger gave a shrill “Hey!” and then tore after him. Torr smacked heedlessly into a permacrete barrier, blundered through some plastic strips, and kept going. Sharp things reached out at him and plucked at his jumpsuit, but he ignored them. In the distance he could see a light shining from the other side of the junkyard. He steered toward it.

The ground ahead of him was littered with tires. Torr had never been particularly athletic, but he cleared the first one with ease and began jumping across them. Behind him his pursuer was less successful, and Torr heard muffled cursing. But his moment of brief satisfaction cost him; he failed to look where he was going and his foot snagged the rim of a tire, flinging him headlong into a pit.

Torr lay panting at the bottom of the pit and wondered what they did to trespassers in junkyards out here. Chucked them out into space, he expected. He’d heard spacing was the punishment for virtually everything in the Badlands.

He heard heavy footsteps, and then a dark silhouette peered over the edge.

“Professor Torr?” asked Kitty Rowland, “is that you?”

. . .

“Professor, if you apologize one more time I’m gonna tie you up and leave you here,” said Miss Kitty. “Let’s just forget about it, okay?” Torr nodded sheepishly. “Now look, we’re almost to the impound lot. Between us we’ve got more than enough tag darts. Let’s get over there and find Crash and his ship – assuming we haven’t already alerted the entire junkyard to our presence.”

The two picked their way across the rest of the yard with extreme caution, but no guards or systems seemed to be alert to their presence. Ahead of them lay an open gate to the impound lot, which was discouragingly well-lit. Torr’s heart sank.

“How on earth are we going to sneak through that?” he asked.

“One hitch at a time, Professor,” said Miss Kitty. “We gotta worry about that critter first.” She pointed to a massive pit bull sleeping smack in the middle of the gateway.

Torr groaned. “Why does it always have to be dogs?” he asked. “Why can’t people keep junkyard cats?”

“Okay,” said Kitty. “We can’t sneak past the dog. He’ll smell us before we ever get close. But I know a better way. The trick with a dog is to act like you belong.”

“My dear Miss Kitty, we very definitely do not belong. We are stealing a ship out of a junkyard at midnight.”

“The dog don’t know that.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That we just stroll right up, real casual, and walk on in.”

“We just walk past the dog?”

“Yep. But it will only work if we act natural. Don’t hunch your shoulders and make your arms all rigid like that. Stand up tall. And try to breath normally, for crying out loud.”

Whistling jauntily, Miss Kitty stepped out of the shadows and ambled nonchalantly toward the dog. Egan Torr followed her lead with slightly more chalance.

“Now don’t you look at that dog, Professor,” Kitty said in a conversational tone. “Just ignore him.”

“I’d like to know where he is,” said Torr, “so I can avoid tripping on his teeth.”

“Keep your voice level like mine. Don’t make any sudden movements.” They were walking right by the dog now. Torr was desperately trying not to look, but he could feel the animal’s eyes boring holes into him. He risked one glance down. The dog was staring back at him. It growled.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay -” said Kitty, in not quite so conversational a tone as before. “Just keep walking -”

The dog growled again. Then it barked. Then it charged.

Torr and Miss Kitty dashed forward. Torr could feel hot breath on his heels. He stumbled through the gate – and a chain snapped taut behind them. At the end of its leash, the dog began barking furiously.

“That’s torn it,” said Kitty, “He’ll wake the whole place. She glanced about, looking for guards. Torr’s attention was still fixed on the dog.

“Miss Kitty,” he said, “I admit that I’m not very familiar with real dogs. But are its eyes supposed to glow like that?”

Miss Kitty looked at the pit bull. Its eyes were burning red like LEDs, the ground around it glowing. She took an involuntary step backward. The dog barked again, a harsh, mechanical bark. Then it opened its slobbery mouth and said in a familiar growl, “Well if it ain’t the greenhorn. Just couldn’t stay out of my horse manure, could you boy?”

To Be Continued…

(Part VI is here.)