Action
Münster steepled his fingers and blew out a breath of stale, synthetic air. He felt like he’d been in the satellite a month. It was making him fidgety. He was always uncomfortable out in space. He much preferred having his feet on solid ground, rather than on a bulkhead with a frigid vacuum and face-pealing monsters on the other side.
He leaned back in his swivel chair, considered the men he had to work with. These were the operatives who had remained loyal to him and not Whitlock when he went rogue. Twelve in all, gathered around an octagonal conference table. Spread out on the dark surface were numerous Galaqtiq atlases.
After “talking” to Rat, he had learned where Trevor, Ian, Blade, Corcey and Penny had fled to, taking the transporter with them. They had picked an ideal spot: two years away, and logistically out of reach.
He had key people working on that angle, of course, but he knew it would be a while before they got any results. In the meantime, he thought it best to fully assess the situation.
“The Party has completely wigged out over the assault on Party-members Rat, Sara, and Lester,” Queen Clam Dip campily reported. “The three are in the Party’s intensive care ward, under heavy security.” Inspecting his cuticles, he added “there’s no way to get near them.”
Münster nodded. “Do they know who’s responsible for this yet?”
Phudggpacher shook his head, causing the shadows to play tricks with his make-up. He had spent an hour in front of a vanity designing the effect. “No, darling; so far they haven’t been able to match any of our names with the descriptions given.”
"I understand that they are offering rewards for information," the voice modulation of Saladrin seated at the table. "It might be wise to tell them that Whitlock was behind the thing entirely. The Party will go after him, then, which will grant us some time."
Münster nodded, laced his fingers together. “A good idea, but this isn’t the right time yet.”
A wiry thin human with black hair and smugly “cute” features commented on that. “Well,” he drawled, rubbing his hands together, “we’ve still got one agent in Whitlock’s team. I got together with her last night,” and he allowed himself a gloating, reminiscent smile, “and she told me that Whitlock’s as stuck as we are right now.”
Münster allowed himself a faint smile. He was glad that he was running more than one surveillance on Whitlock. He certainly had more faith in Lab Rat than in anyone stupid enough to shack up with Cuddles.
On the back wall, the com panel beeped, and the pilot spoke over the open p.a.
“Coming out of warp now,” came the voice, thick with Hamaddi vocal chords. “We’ll be at New Ra’Math in ten minutes.”
Münster acknowledged the information with a short grunt. After interrogating the three Party members, Münster deemed it prudent to leave the quadrant at once. The satellite docked with his own private command ship, and he and his complement were already one system away before Party security (Tusk, as a matter of fact, looking for Corcey to get drunk with) found Sara and Lester. Münster was keeping himself as mobile as possible, at least until he could figure out how to get to what most star maps listed as SEB 91222. But now that Galaqtiq QomTeq had officially surveyed it, the new star maps would list their objective as SEB 91222.5/21 . It was the twenty-first moon of the fifth planet. Last (assumed) whereabouts of Trevor, Ian, Corcey, Blade, and Penny.
The agent next to Cuddles the Cute One took a loud slurp of qoffee to get attention. He actually bore more than a passing resemblance to the man on his left, but since neither of them had the same names, it was surely a cowinkeedink.
“I think we should eliminate Whitlock before he eliminates us.”
Saladrin: "Too risky, and more importantly, too time-consuming."
“Time consuming?” he asked, wide-eyed. “We’re not doing anything now but playing hide-and seek.”
Before Münster could settle the issue, the pilot spoke again over the p.a.
“Sir, we’re getting a sub-space coded transmission. Looks like it’s from Lab Rat.”
Münster smiled, causing ghoulish shadows to caress his pockmarked face. He pressed several buttons, and the viewscreen came on.
“Stop your grinnin’ and drop your linen,” Lab Rat said with a broad, synthetically perfect smile, “ ’cause have I got some good news for you.”
Münster decided that it had better be good news, for Lab Rat to risk contacting them so soon.
“I’m listening.”
On screen, Lab Rat looked around, then whispered, “I’m on the orbiter, so I don’t know if this line is clear...”
In the cockpit, the pilot (listening in, since he was still a loyal member of Münster’s inner circle) reached over to the qommunications console, and flipped a red toggle. There was a beep, and a yellow light flashed once to signal it’s activation and self-test. It then remained dormant, having determined that there were no taps or unwanted listeners on the frequency.
“You’re clear,” the pilot said into his headset, then reverted half his attention to flying the ship.
Lab Rat smiled again, and held up his hand. He was wearing leather gloves with the finger-tips cut out. Wedged between two of them was a red credit card.
“This has all the details,” and he waved the card back and forth slightly, “but here’s the Cliff’s Notes version. Whittler’s isolated the phenomenon that flung that first ship out there four years ago. He’s preparing to go out there himself.”
Münster found the concept of Leonard Whitlock leading the expedition himself somewhat amusing, but decided it prudent to take the effort seriously. “When?”
“Four days. Oh, and there’s a catch. You have to be exactly where the ship was, and at the same time.”
Münster nodded. “We’ll dock with the station immediately and get you.”
“Gotcha. See you in ten minutes.”
“Right. Got all that, Fritz?”
Fritz was the pilot. Münster first met him in The War, and the Hamaddi—still learning Human—kept mispronouncing the word he used to describe their commander: schizophrenic. The name stuck more on Hamaddi than the Human C.O.
“Gotcha,” Fritz said into his headphones, noting long range sensors picking up the orbiter. “You know, you’re lucky we moved to New Ra’Math and not White Light. We can make the rendezvous from here in three days, but we would have missed it leaving from White Light.”
Münster nodded, looked at his men.
“Okay, we have four days to prepare while we’re on the way. What can we get there on time?”
The Cutsie’s non-brother leaned forward. “Not a whole hell of a lot, but even then almost none of it inconspicuously.”
The Saladrin spoke up next. "I recommend against taking a large complement anyway."
Queen Clam Dip found this unusual. “Oh? I would have thought that we should have as many rugged bodies with us as possible.”
Münster nodded at the Saladrin. “You’re both right. We don’t know what we’re getting into, but going in with a large group of popcorn wouldn’t be the best idea. They’d just teleport out at the first sign of danger. We should arm ourselves to the teeth, and just the thirteen of us go in.”
Münster looked around to see what everyone’s opinion of this was. Unlike Whitlock, he was open to suggestions. In this case (as was usually the case) everyone agreed with him. Not that there was much choice: the launch window negated most preparations time.
“Okay, then.” and he took a deep breath. He needed to psyche himself up as much as the twelve others. “I want you all to realize one thing about this. Unless we succeed in getting that teleporter, this is a one-way trip.”
That said, the overhead lamp promptly came crashing down, flashing with bright sparks as the bulbs broke on the table.
Off to the side, a voice muttered, “told ya so…”
Another voice cried, “Cut!”
[want to read the rest? email me]