Shakedown Read online

  Still Lisa refused to answer. As Steg levelled his blaster at her, Kurt stepped quickly forward.

  ‘I did all the plotting. I told the Captain we’d got nothing to lose by attacking you.’

  Steg was still covering Lisa. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I was considering it,’ said Lisa levelly. ‘Then you came up with your offer and I accepted. I’ll keep my word – if you keep yours.’

  Steg swung the blaster round on Kurt. ‘You wish to kill me?’

  ‘It seemed a pretty good idea.’

  Astonishingly, Steg reversed the blaster and handed it to Kurt. ‘Then do so.’

  Kurt raised the blaster, levelling it between Steg’s eyes.

  ‘Do it now,’ said Steg. ‘If you have the courage. You can certainly kill me.’ He nodded towards Vorn, who had drawn his blaster and was aiming it at Kurt. ‘Perhaps, if you are lucky, you can even kill Lieutenant Vorn before he kills you. Then you will have two blasters, and only a few leaderless troopers to deal with.’

  Everyone in the crewroom seemed frozen and the silence was endless.

  ‘Well,’ said Steg. ‘Why don’t you shoot?’

  Kurt stared into the burning red eyes. He lowered the blaster.

  ‘I don’t like the odds.’

  ‘But I do!’ shouted Nikos. Burning to redeem himself, he sprang forward, snatched the blaster from Kurt’s hand, aimed point-blank at Steg and fired.

  Nothing happened.

  Nikos stood there, staring in shock at Steg, who stepped forward and took the blaster from his hand.

  ‘There is a concealed safety-control in the butt. Touch it and the weapon will not fire. Touch it again – and it will,’ Steg raised the blaster and shot Nikos down.

  The close-range blast to the heart smashed Nikos to the floor, killing him instantly.

  Mari ran to the body, and threw herself down beside it. She looked up in horror. ‘He’s dead,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s dead...’

  Steg gave Kurt a contemptuous glance. ‘In every group of prisoners, there is one who is dangerous, one who may have to be killed. I did not think it was you.’ He holstered the blaster and looked down at the dead Nikos. ‘He at least had courage.’

  ‘He died a glorious death,’ said Vorn admiringly.

  Mari’s sobbing became a hysterical shriek. ‘You killed him, you monstrous bastard, you killed him!’

  She hurled herself bodily at Steg, who flicked her casually aside. She collapsed by Nikos’s body, screaming and sobbing.

  ‘Can this female be quieted?’ asked Steg wearily. ‘Or must I kill her?’ Clearly, it was a perfectly serious question.

  Lisa ran to a medical locker, extracted an instant hypo, knelt by Mari and touched it to her arm. Mari slumped back, instantly unconscious.

  ‘Move her!’ snapped Lisa.

  Kurt picked up Mari’s limp body and carried her over to a bunk. Zorelle followed him, settling Mari in the bunk and covering her with a metal-foil blanket.

  Returning, Kurt went over to Nikos, hoisted the body over his shoulder, and carried it to a bunk in the inner sleeping area, as far from Mari as possible. Closing the connecting door, he rejoined the others.

  ‘We have wasted enough time,’ said Steg. ‘We must set to work to find the Rutan – even though our forces are now reduced.’

  ‘You reduced them!’ said Lisa Deranne.

  Steg’s forces were about to be reduced still further. In the dimly lit engine room, a solitary Sontaran trooper stood on guard over the power drive. The body of another trooper, the one found inside the power unit, still lay in the corner.

  A faint blur of light drifted into the engine room, and sank into the body of the dead trooper. The dead Sontaran glowed faintly. After a moment, he stirred and rose stiffly to his feet.

  The dead trooper lurched across the engine room towards the sentry. In a ghastly, croaking voice he said, ‘Go! I will stand watch.’

  ‘My orders are to stay on guard.’

  ‘Go!’ repeated the other trooper.

  The stiff movements, the strange voice and the faint glow were enough to alert even a Sontaran. He peered at the advancing trooper, and suddenly recognized him. ‘No! You are dead! You are dead!’

  The second trooper lurched forwards and clamped his hands on the other’s shoulders. ‘Yes. And so are you.’

  There was a sudden crackle of energy. The bodies of both troopers glowed for a moment and then fell to the ground.

  After a moment a glowing sphere arose from their bodies and floated towards the power drive.

  In the crewroom, Steg was telling his human volunteers about the enemy they faced.

  ‘The Rutan is a polymorph – a shapeshifter. It can take on the form of its victims. It feeds directly on energy. If its power is low, it may simply reanimate a corpse. But at full strength it can take on the shape of the entity it has destroyed – at least for a time.’

  Zorelle gave him a horrified look. ‘Wait a minute. Are you telling me this thing can look like anyone? Like one of us?’

  ‘Only if it has destroyed the original. It must kill to copy.’

  Lisa looked uneasily at her companions. ‘But how do we tell if someone’s a copy or not?’

  ‘If you encounter the Rutan disguised as one of you – you will know.’

  ‘How?’ asked Zorelle uneasily.

  ‘It will kill you.’

  There was a moment of thoughtful silence.

  Then Lisa said, ‘If we do find this thing – disguised or not – what do we do?’

  ‘Retreat towards either the engine room or the airlock, drawing the Rutan after you.’

  ‘Terrific,’ muttered Kurt. ‘Live bait!’

  ‘Why those places?’ asked Lisa.

  ‘That is where my remaining troopers will be concentrated. We shall wait in ambush to destroy the Rutan.’

  There was a crackle from the com-unit on Steg’s neck-ring and he heard Vorn’s voice. ‘Commander, there is a message from the trooper sent to relieve the guard on the power units. He found two dead troopers. Nothing else.’

  ‘The creature has re-energized,’ snapped Steg. ‘We must double the guard upon the airlock. It will try to steal our assault craft and escape.’ He turned to the others. ‘The Rutan is at its strongest and most dangerous. We must find and destroy it without delay. Come!’

  Lisa glanced across at Mari, lying motionless beneath her blanket. ‘What about her?’

  Kurt shrugged. ‘Leave her here. She’ll be safer than we will!’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I’ll lock the door.’

  They followed Steg out. Lisa went last, closing the door behind her and locking it from the outside.

  On her bunk, Mari slept peacefully.

  Steg led Vorn, a Sontaran trooper, and Lisa, Kurt and Zorelle to a corridor junction in the centre of the ship. Lit only by dim working lights, the corridors were filled with sinister shadows.

  ‘Lieutenant Vorn will mount guard on the power drive. I shall join the guard at the airlock. These are the two danger points. The Rutan needs power and it needs to escape. The rest of you will search your assigned sectors.’

  Steg went off in one direction, Vorn and the trooper the other. Lisa, Kurt and Zorelle watched them go.

  When they were out of sight, Lisa turned angrily to Zorelle. ‘If we survive this, I’ll deal with you later.’

  ‘Leave it,’ said Kurt wearily.

  ‘All right,’ said Lisa. ‘Let’s go.’

  They moved away.

  Surfacing a little from the narcotic, Mari moaned and stirred in her bunk. A faint glow oozed under the locked door and flowed across the room. It moved across to the door that led to the sleeping area and slid beneath it.

  For a moment all was silent. Then the connecting door sprang open revealing Nikos, his face faintly glowing. He stalked across the room, knelt beside Mari’s bunk, and bent to kiss her lips. A pulse of light flashed between them and Nikos disappeared.

  Mari lay back in her bunk, st
aring into space, her face and body glowing.

  Moving along the dimly lit metal corridors, Lisa, Kurt and Zorelle reached another, larger junction.

  Lisa looked round, getting her bearings. ‘We’re supposed to split up here.’

  Suddenly Zorelle said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, I can’t take any more of this, I really can’t. You can go on with this monster hunt if you like. I’m going back to the crewroom. I can look after Mari, she really shouldn’t be left.’

  Lisa looked hard at her. Zorelle was clearly terrified, and she wouldn’t be much use in Lisa’s future plans.

  ‘All right. Here, you’ll need this.’ She handed Zorelle the key-card for the crewroom door.

  Zorelle took the card and hurried back the way they had come.

  Kurt looked at Lisa. ‘Well, do we split up?’

  She grinned fiercely at him. ‘Do we hell.’

  ‘You don’t buy Steg’s deal?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘About as much as you do.’

  ‘We’re not going to hunt the Rutan?’

  ‘Hunt it?’ said Lisa. ‘We’re going to help it!’

  Lisa had been over every inch of the ship during its conversion. She knew every connecting ladder, every hatch, every passageway. She moved to a nearby hatch and lifted it, revealing a metal ladder leading downwards.

  Kurt followed her along a maze of corridors and walkways and then through another hatchway into a large, darkened area.

  ‘Where are we?’ whispered Kurt.

  ‘Back of the engine room. Wait here.’

  She slipped silently along the wall until she reached a large control-wheel. Not far away, past the banks of machinery, she could see Lieutenant Vorn and a trooper guarding the power units. She spun the control-wheel to maximum, and hurried back to Kurt. ‘Come on!’

  ‘Come where?’

  ‘The front door.’

  ‘What front door?’

  ‘Just come on!’ hissed Lisa fiercely, and pushed him back through the hatch.

  In the crewroom, Zorelle had changed back into her silvery ball-gown, put on a more than usually elaborate make-up, and was finishing the third of three very large drinks.

  Tipsily she toasted her image in the mirror. ‘If I’m gonna die, then at least I’ll do it in style.’

  Suddenly she saw someone in the mirror. She turned and was amazed to see Mari advancing towards her. Mari’s face had a strange, fixed expression, and her skin was a sickly green.

  Zorelle swung round. ‘You really don’t look yourself, darling! Should you be out of bed?’

  Mari didn’t reply. She moved slowly closer.

  ‘I said should you be out of bed?’ repeated Zorelle. ‘I’m not,’ whispered Mari.

  Zorelle blinked. ‘Of course you are,’ she said, her voice slurred. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Are you still delirious? I know Nikos’s death was a shock but you must pull yourself together.’

  ‘Someone’s in the bed,’ whispered Mari. ‘Come and see.’ She led Zorelle to a nearby bunk and pulled back the blanket. Zorelle looked down and saw the blood-soaked body of Nikos.

  Zorelle gasped and looked back at Mari who was suddenly very close. Her hands reached out and touched Zorelle’s face. There was a crackle of energy and light pulsed between them.

  With a scream, Zorelle fell back.

  15

  Showdown

  In the engine room one of the power units was throbbing alarmingly. Lieutenant Vorn regarded it with dismay. Clearly something should be done about it – but he lacked the technical knowledge to do it.

  The throbbing grew louder.

  Vorn was just about to adopt his usual remedy and refer the problem to Commander Steg when the human female who was the ship’s captain ran into the engine room.

  She stopped and listened to the throbbing. ‘What’s happening?’

  Vorn demonstrated his usual unfailing grasp of the obvious. ‘The power drive is malfunctioning.’

  ‘It’s the Rutan,’ said the Captain. ‘It must still be in there. We can trap it. I’ll open the inspection hatch.’

  Vorn was too excited by the prospect of capturing the Rutan to question her logic.

  Drawing his blaster, he watched as she opened a glass-fronted waist-level inspection hatch, revealing a blaze of light.

  ‘It’s here, in the heat exchanger,’ she called. ‘Come and see!’

  Slow-thinking as he was, Vorn had a well-developed sense of self-preservation. He turned to the Sontaran trooper.

  ‘Go and check!’

  Drawing his blaster in turn, the trooper approached the glowing hatchway.

  ‘Look inside,’ urged the Captain.

  Something about her eagerness aroused Vorn’s suspicion. Was the Rutan really there, or was it some trick? And if the Rutan was there, how was he to deal with it without getting himself killed? Suddenly Vorn saw the perfect answer – a typically Sontaran solution.

  ‘Thrust her into the heat exchanger,’ he ordered. ‘While the Rutan is killing her we can destroy it!’

  Obediently the trooper rushed at the human female. To Vorn’s amazement, she met the advance head on, twisted her body, and used the trooper’s own momentum to send him hurtling through the blazing hatchway, slamming the door behind him.

  There was a terrible sizzling sound and a horrible scream. The writhing trooper appeared on the other side of the safety glass, screaming soundlessly, head and hands already melted into a shapeless blob.

  Vorn levelled his blaster. ‘You have killed him. Now I shall kill you.’

  Before he could fire, the female sprang forward, grabbing the blaster and pushing it upwards. Vorn smiled grimly. No human could hope to match a Sontaran for strength. He began wrenching the blaster from her grasp.

  When the weight of another human body thudded into his back, and a human arm curved around his neck, Vorn was still confident of victory. He managed to turn his head a little and caught a glimpse of the strain-distorted face of the human called Kurt.

  He would kill them both.

  Even as he was desperately trying to throttle Vorn, Kurt knew that the task was hopeless. The Sontaran’s neck was too thick, his strength too great. With or without a blaster, Vorn was more than a match for them both.

  Locked together, the three bodies crashed into the engine-room wall. Kurt hung on desperately. Once Vorn broke free he could easily kill them both in turn.

  Something moved under Kurt’s foot and he nearly fell. Looking down he saw Robar’s tool kit. Releasing Vorn, Kurt bent and snatched up a long-bladed screwdriver, inserted it into the circular aperture at the base of Vorn’s neck and thrust it home with all his strength.

  Vorn gave a horrible bubbling scream, went rigid, and crashed to the ground, taking Kurt and Lisa with him.

  Slowly and painfully they disentangled themselves, got up and leaned against the wall, totally exhausted.

  ‘How did you do that?’ gasped Lisa.

  Kurt struggled for breath. ‘The – Dentist told me. Probic vent...weakness...screwdriver.’ He held up the screwdriver, still dripping with thick, Sontaran blood. ‘It works!’

  Lisa stared at the screwdriver, eyes wide. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ She straightened up, suddenly aware that the throbbing in the air meant that the power drive was approaching danger level. ‘I’ll close down the drive.’

  Commander Steg stood by the open airlock door, a sentry beside him. He touched the com-unit in his neck ring.

  ‘All patrols report in.’

  Silence.

  ‘Report!’ snarled Steg.

  More silence.

  Just the faint ping that signified there had been no reply from any of the other Sontarans on the ship.

  Steg considered for a moment. Brushing the sentry aside he stumped down the airlock tunnel towards the door that led to his own ship.

  Armed with the blasters of the dead Sontarans, Kurt and Lisa hurried along darkened metal corridors towards the airlock.

  A familiar shape stepped
out of a narrow doorway ahead of them. It was Robar, face pale, eyes staring. ‘Lisa!’

  Lisa stared at him unbelievingly.

  ‘Kill him,’ said Kurt urgently. ‘Kill him!’

  Lisa seemed paralysed as the agonized figure lurched towards them.

  ‘Lisa, my dear, it’s me. I’m hurt, help me!’

  Instantly Lisa raised her blaster and fired. The Robar-shape dissolved into a glowing sphere and vanished down the corridor.

  Lisa caught Kurt’s enquiring glance.

  ‘Robar never called me “my dear” in his life,’ she said. They went on their way.

  The assault craft’s armoury was a circular metal chamber, its walls lined with weapons of every kind. The dim red lighting was reflected in Steg’s eyes as he studied the assortment. He selected a semi-transparent metal cylinder packed with complex machinery. His hands moved expertly over the controls set into its base.

  Drawing the standard-issue officer’s blaster from his belt, Steg put it down. He opened a locker holding a number of smaller weapons.

  When all was ready, Steg carried the cylinder out of the armoury and left the ship. Closing the door behind him, he moved along the airlock tunnel and put the cylinder down close to the door at the other end.

  He stepped out of the airlock and found himself facing Lisa and Kurt. They were covering the Sontaran sentry with their blasters – as he was covering them.

  The sentry glanced at Steg, who was apparently unarmed. ‘Commander?’

  ‘Kill them!’ roared Steg.

  The sentry fired, just as Kurt and Lisa dived apart.

  The Sontaran’s first shot missed. Kurt blasted him down before he could fire a second.

  Without even a glance for the dead sentry, the final casualty of his defeated assault force, Steg backed away towards the airlock door.

  ‘I shall leave now,’ he said calmly. ‘You and the Rutan have defeated me between you. I leave you to each other.’

  Kurt stepped forward, blaster raised. ‘Ask me now if I want to kill you.’

  Steg raised his hands. ‘Would you kill someone who is quite unarmed?’

  ‘You did,’ said Lisa.

  ‘I am a Sontaran. Humans have different standards.’

  ‘Don’t count on it,’ said Kurt grimly. He aimed his blaster – but he hesitated all the same.