Part XIII – Safe and Sound

This is Part XIII 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.

The Void Where Prohibited opened her mouth and screamed. Every nut and bolt on her slender frame danced in agony as at maximum thrust she sought to slow her descent through the thick blanket of atmosphere.

“Hang on tight!” shouted Crash, pulling back on the controls with all his might.

“What do you think we’ve been doing,” Miss Kitty shouted back over the din. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the arms of her seat.

“I wasn’t talking to you!” Crash returned. He reached across his console and punched a sequence of keys. The heads-up display, which had been displaying the series of jagged peaks which they were just managing to miss, rotated its perspective to reveal a map of the landscape. “Okay, baby, just over this ridgeline and then down we go, like a stone skipping across the lake.”

“The great thing about stones is, they don’t fly,” said Miss Kitty through clenched teeth.

Crash ignored her. “Just a little more, then we’ve got a nice, open valley to land in,” he coaxed, easing the controls forward a little. The Void had leveled out some, although they were still shedding altitude rapidly. Ahead of them loomed a broken line of crags. Torr would have wept to see it, but he had long ago given up looking out the viewport, and was curled around a strut with his eyes shut tight.

Miss Kitty’s, however, were not. “Are we gonna clear that ridge?” she demanded.

“Sure she is, ain’t you sweetheart? Just a little further, a little further…” The ridge swept up toward them with alarming speed. They were even with the highest peaks. Now they were below them.

“Uh…” said Miss Kitty.

Crash hauled the controls to the right. A little gap appeared between peaks. “Here we go!” he said triumphantly. The Void dipped into the gap. Blue sky was ahead of them. Then the ship jolted sickeningly as something clipped hard earth. There was a loud crack and then the ship bounced skyward.

“What was that?” demanded Miss Kitty.

“Aiiiiiiii…I’ve got her!” yelled Crash. “We’re clear now.” The nose of the ship tilted back down. A valley spread out before them – along with the town that occupied the center of it. “Son of a thrust vector!” swore Crash.

“We can’t land there!” said Miss Kitty.

“I hope everybody’s gone out for a Sunday drive,” said Crash, “because we don’t have a choice.”

There was a ding and then the emergency systems kicked on again. “Collision imminent,” said an infuriatingly calm computer voice. “Beginning countdown to impact.”

“Ack, I’ll shut it off!” said Crash.

“Three seconds,” said the voice.

“Maybe you should just drive,” said Miss Kitty.

“Two. One. Whoops!” the voice said in its most cheering tones, as they clipped the roof of a building. Shingles went flying everywhere, and then the Void Where Prohibited plowed into the middle of Main Street.

Crash was upside down. He flexed, found he couldn’t really move, and then saw that it was because he was tangled up in his harness. After fumbling for a moment, he pulled out a pocket knife and slashed free of his restraints. He toppled down onto the cracked viewport. A luminous green button shone above him. It read, “Release.” With a shaking hand he reached up as high as he could and pushed it. There was a hiss, and sunlight poured into the cabin even as a cloud of smoke poured out.

Crash pushed himself to his feet as he stepped through the hatch. Taking a stride forward he raised his fist to the sun and let loose a loud, “Yes! I’m alive!” In the heat and brilliance of that light he could have wept.

A shadowy outline darkened the sun. He shaded his eyes. “Who goes there?” he asked.

“Crash?” said Egan Torr uncertainly. “Is that you?”

“Professor? What are you doing out here?”

“Well, I don’t really know. I just opened my eyes and here I was. Well, there,” he said, pointing to a spot on the ground.

“Oh,” said Crash, somewhat deflated. “Well then, where’s Miss Kitty?”

“Miss Kitty?” Torr and Crash looked at each other in sudden horror. They turned back to the upside-down spaceship, still billowing black smoke. “Miss Kitty!” shouted Torr.

“I’m right here, you dolts,” said Miss Kitty behind them. “I saw sunlight and crawled towards it. So, what now?”

The question was answered for them as in the distance they heard a voice cry, “Help!”

Wallace/Fetch was thrown to the ground as the spacecraft clipped the roof of the building. Seconds later there was an explosive crash, and then silence.

“What in the galaxy was that?” said Murphy.

The man jumped back to his feet, ran to the end of the alley, and peered out. He scowled. “It’s the Feds!” he whispered. “I’m gone, holo-boy. Don’t think I won’t be back for you though. And when I come back, I better like what you have to say.” He gave Murphy a withering glare. Then he dashed off in the opposite direction from the explosion.

Murphy counted to thirty and then started calling for help.

Torr found him first. As the other two were looking in buildings across the street he stepped into the alley to get a closer look at the destroyed building, and saw Murphy.

“Freeze, pardner,” said Murphy, brandishing a pistol and giving his golden mustache a laconic twirl.

“Ah, Miss Kitty…” said Torr.

“Yeah?”

“I’m being held at gunpoint by a man who’s about half a meter high.”

“I’ll be right there.” Kitty and Crash came dashing up. “What on earth?” she said.

“Hey,” said Torr, blinking. “That gun isn’t real. You’re a hologram!”

“That’s no hologram!” exclaimed Crash. “That’s Mad Murphy! Murph! What you been doing with yourself, man? And why are you two feet tall?”

“Ah, well your friend here is right,” said Murphy. “I actually am a hologram. I’m a simulation of Dr. K.A. Anderson Murphy. Who, I take it, you know?”

“Oh yeah! Mad Murph and I go way back. We were at Kepler University together. What’s Murph been up to? Haven’t heard from him.”

“Oh, well, you know, he stays pretty busy being full of awesome.”

“I know what you mean! I’m pretty full of awesome myself, and it’s like three full time jobs.”

“What brings you to this godforsaken rock?” asked Murphy.

“Well, I’m a pilot,” said Crash. “These two are looking for a man named Wallace.”

Murphy blanched.

There was a long silence after Murphy had finished telling his whole story. Egan Torr was the first to break it.

“This is not good news,” he said. “This Wallace fellow has clearly become highly unstable. I’m not sure he’ll be any help to us.”

Miss Kitty chewed her lower lip. “I dunno,” she muttered. “He didn’t have no split personality back when I knew him.”

“That was a long time ago, though,” said Torr.

“I guess…” she said doubtfully.

“It is, nonetheless, fortuitous that Mr. Murphy is here, and that this Fetch left behind his hoversled.”

“How so?” asked Crash.

“I believe that I can interface my data store on the location of the Engineer artifact with Mr. Murphy’s projection device. He can help us locate this… item. That is, if it’s alright with you, Mr. Murphy?”

“Please, just ‘Murphy’ is fine. And I’d love to be useful. I haven’t done a thing but get dragged around since I got here. I don’t suppose any of you need any expert mentoring, do you? No? Too bad.”

Miss Kitty was more cautious. “Fine,” she said, “but how do we know Murphy here is on the up and up? Maybe this Fetch character left him here as a trap for us?”

Murphy snorted. “Yeah. Fetch knew that you’d come flying through our roof at any minute. Told me to wait here and distract you while he looted your ship for undamaged parts.”

Crash winced. Miss Kitty frowned deeply, but said nothing.

“Well, it’s getting late,” said Torr. “Hadn’t we better make some sort of camp for the night? And then tomorrow we can start on the trail of the lost Engineers!”

“No way!” said Crash. Torr blinked in surprise. “I mean, I’m all for bedding down for the night, Professor. But this is your wild goose chase. You’ve already held out relevant information on Ghost Ships from Miss Kitty and me. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just the pilot on this trip. And tomorrow I’m gonna take that hoversled and go find parts to fix my ship. There’s gotta be some kind of half-way civilized place around here where I can get a new stabilizer fin.”

“The Wallace ranch house is your best bet,” said Murphy. “There’s a couple of old caretakers there that can help you, and you’ll reach it long before Fetch, assuming he’s still on foot.”

“First things first,” said Miss Kitty. “Let’s get supplies out of the ship and get a fire going. Before we start arguing about tomorrow, I’d like to get through the night with no surprises.”

“Fair enough,” said Crash.

The last light of the sun had fled behind the hills when the ship pulled up to the Wallace ranch house. It settled its bulk onto the gravel drive with a hiss. A chain of bulky tanks was strung behind a tiny forward cabin, with thrusters bolted all the way down its length. A hatch in the cabin popped open, and a limber figure in a long coat swung out.

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. McKenzie,” said the figure.

“I told you miss, call me Mac. Always a pleasure to help a lady. You sure this little ranch house is the place you were looking for?”

“I’m sure,” said the woman.

“Oh, hey! Don’t forget that shiny shooter of yours!” The long-haul pilot reached behind his seat and pulled out a long, finely-honed rifle that glinted in the starlight. He handed it to the woman, who accepted it coolly.

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Energy Weapons thanks you for your cooperation, sir,” she said. “Have a safe and pleasant journey.”

To Be Continued…

(Part XIV is here.)