Part VI – Plan B

This is Part VI 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.

“Black Dan,” said Miss Kitty scornfully. “I always knew you were a dirty dog.”

The pit bull yanked at its chain, and snarled with Black Dan’s voice, “You must be that pretty little cowpoke the boys been talking about. Well, I reckon two out of three ain’t bad.” The dog barked harshly, and it took Egan Torr a moment to realize it was laughing.

“Miss Kitty, what’s going on here?” he whispered.

“The explanation is simple, greenhorn,” barked the dog. “Since it’s so dang expensive to genetically reconstruct an entire dog, I just paid for the important parts, like legs and teeth, and the rest I built myself. I have eyes and ears throughout this junkyard. This dog is one of them. Well, two of them. Two of my eyes, I mean. And ears. So it’s like four eyes and ears, total.” The dog pawed the ground awkwardly. “Never mind,” it growled.

 

Part VI – Plan B

 

 

Previously: Egan Torr, Crash and Miss Kitty have broken into Black Dan’s junkyard to steal back Crash’s spaceship so that he can fly them to Blackmoon. Their plan was to use teleportation darts to spirit the ship out of impound, but Crash and Miss Kitty have run into the junkyard dog, which literally speaks with Black Dan’s voice.

“Okay, well seeing as how you’re all chained-up we’re just gonna be moseying off now,” said Miss Kitty, doffing her hat at the pit bull.

“We’ll see about that,” rasped a voice behind them. They turned to see a pair of burly men with no necks to speak of rumbling up behind them.

“Scooter, See-saw,” growled the pit bull, “Why don’t you secure our guests.”

“With pleasure, boss.” The two thugs advanced menacingly towards Torr and Kitty. Torr glanced anxiously behind him, but the remote-controlled bulldog was there glowering at them with its LED eyes.

“You picked the wrong junkyard to play in, greenhorn,” said Black Dan. See-saw, or possibly Scooter, cracked his craggy knuckles and grinned appreciatively. He reached out towards Miss Kitty.

A blast rocked the impound lot. The thugs fell back and looked around in the confusion. The ear-splitting sound became a roar and then resolved into the whine of a jet engine. Alarms were going off everywhere.

“What in the -” said Scooter, or possibly See-saw.

“The ship!” shrieked the dog. “They’re stealing the ship!”

“But boss,” said the thug, “They’re right here!”

“Not them, you idiot. Crash! Captain Zero! He’s stealing his ship!”

The other thug scratched his head. “I don’t see how he can steal his own ship,” he muttered confusedly.

“It doesn’t matter. Go get him! No, not you See-saw! Stay here and unchain me! Scooter, go!”

Scooter bolted away while the other thug dashed past Torr and Miss Kitty toward the dog. “Uh, nice puppy,” he said, kneeling down beside it. Torr and Miss Kitty glanced at each other.

“We really should be getting on,” said Torr.

The two of them dashed across the brightly-lit impound lot. Emerging from behind a low office building, they saw a long, bullet-shaped spacecraft strapped to a trailer, its primary thruster glowing red-hot. The fuselage’s proud chrome finish was scored and pitted, but the name Void Where Prohibited was splashed across its side in bold lettering. A hatch on the top popped open and Crash stuck his head out.

“I thought you two might need a little diversion,” he yelled.

“Are you crazy?” Miss Kitty hollered back over the roar of the engine, “You’ll wake the whole town!”

“Won’t matter much once we’re in deep space,” he said. “You got the darts? Climb aboard!” He reached a hand down to Miss Kitty and swung her up onto the ship in one fluid motion.

Torr followed somewhat more gingerly. “Quickly,” he said, “We need to place these tag darts all over the ship!” The trailer that the ship was strapped to was starting to move under the impetus of the engine, but he knelt and began placing tag darts on the fuselage in spite of his unsteady footing. As Crash and Miss Kitty began to follow suit, a bulldog bounded around the corner. Two breathless henchmen came puffing up behind it.

The bulldog laughed. “Is that your big plan, Crash? You gonna teleport that thing out of here?”

“Try and stop me!” said Crash grandly.

The dog cocked its head to one side for a moment as if listening. Then it said, “I already did.”

Crash frowned. “I have full control over the teleportation cycle,” said Black Dan. “I just disabled it with a press of a button. Did you really think that was gonna work, Crash? Only you could come up with such a Tom-fool idea!” Torr noticed that Miss Kitty was glaring at him. He turned red, and went back to placing tag darts. “Shut off your engine and climb on down,” said Black Dan, “and I’ll make sure that you don’t have any unfortunate accidents while Scooter and See-saw are escorting you to the Sheriff.”

“Not today, Black Dan,” said Crash. “There’s more than one way off this rock.” He turned to Miss Kitty and said, “Get inside now!”

“Crash, what are you doing?” she asked.

“Both of you, go!” ordered Crash, not bothering to explain. Miss Kitty shrugged and dropped down through the hatch. Torr followed suit. He had little time to take in the cramped, cylindrical cabin before Crash swung down behind him and shut the hatch. “Everybody strap in,” Crash said. “This could get bumpy.”

“This could get deadly,” snapped Miss Kitty. “If you hadn’t noticed, your ship is still tied to a full-sized trailer!”

“All the better,” said Crash. “I don’t want to fly her. I want to drive her!”

Kitty collapsed into her seat. “Momma always told me I’d come to a bad end,” she murmured.

Torr strapped himself into the back seat. In front of them, a viewing port slid open in the blunt nose of the Void. Through it, he could see that they were already gaining considerable speed, heading toward the gate to the impound lot – which, Torr noted, was shut.

“You folks had better brace for impact!” called Crash. Torr shut his eyes tightly as the ship shuddered, swayed – and then with a jerk they were through.

“Yee haw!” yelled Crash. Then he frowned. He threw a switch. Then he pushed several buttons. Then he jiggled the control harness.

“Ah, Captain Zero,” said Torr. “We appear to be heading right for that extremely well-constructed permafoam wall. Hadn’t you better turn?”

“I’m working on that,” gasped Crash, hauling against the harness.

“You can’t turn this thing?” demanded Miss Kitty.

“Sure… I can. Trailer… makes it… more difficult…” Crash was straining against the controls with all his might. The wall ahead of them began to shift ever so slightly to the right.

“We’re turning!” said Miss Kitty.

“We’re not going to make it,” said Torr.

. . .

High up on the rooftop of one of the town’s tallest permafoam structures, the woman in the long blue coat calmly watched the Void Where Prohibited speeding towards the wall. The junkyard was lit up like a baseball diamond and sirens were wailing all across town, but she merely inclined her head towards her shoulder and spoke a few words into a small communicator that was concealed there. Then she turned away from the edge of the roof and vanished down a flight of stairs.

. . .

“The professor’s right,” said Miss Kitty with a strange detachment.

“Right… about… what?” panted Crash.

“We ain’t gonna clear that wall.”

“What? That’s crazy! We’re starting to turn and -” Crash looked up and saw the wall looming over them, filling the viewport. It was fifteen meters away, then five. With a yelp, Crash released the controls and covered his eyes with his arms. The ship jerked as the tip of its nose buried itself in the permafoam; a blue glow filled the cabin -

And they were in open space.

It took them a few moments to realize what had happened. Crash had to uncurl from a fetal position. Egan Torr had to open his eyes. Miss Kitty had to refocus on her surroundings. Blackness, punctuated with stars, filled the viewport.

“- what?”

“- are we?”

“- did it work?”

“- the tag darts?”

“- but we didn’t,”

“- Black Dan said,”

“- how?”

And then they were celebrating giddily. Torr found himself wrapped in a bear hug from Miss Kitty, which he gingerly returned. She then gave Crash a friendly slug in his metal arm.

“Crash, you’re still an idiot. But you’re the luckiest idiot I ever met,” she said.

“Yee-haw!” said someone.

Crash and Miss Kitty turned and stared at Egan Torr. The professor blushed. “Well, it seemed like the appropriate thing to say.”

Crash laughed. “I’d love to see the look on Black Dan’s face right about now!” he crowed. Then the console beeped and he frowned. “We’re being hailed,” he said. “I’ll put it on the intercom.”

“Ander’s Gap to Void Where Prohibited. Come in Void Where Prohibited,” said a young boy’s voice.

“This is the Void Where Prohibited,” responded Crash, puzzled. “We read you, over.”

“Is that Julian?” asked Miss Kitty.

“Void Where Prohibited,” said the boy’s voice, “This is the Ander’s Gap Laser Defense System.”

“It is Julian!” said Miss Kitty.

“I have targeted your ship,” said the boy’s voice. “You have been identified as a hostile bogey. My orders are to shoot you out of the sky. Please stand by to be shot, over.”

Crash blanched.

To Be Continued…

 

(Part VII is here.)