Prisoner on Kasteesh Read online

  Hands.

  But it wasn’t Salt’s firm, reassuring grip this time. These fingers had the hard, cold feel of metal.

  Snow opened her eyes – to stare straight into the visored face of a White Knight.

  Satisfied that it had roused her, the android guard stopped shaking her roughly.

  ‘Your presence in this sector is unauthorized,’ it droned. ‘Identify yourself.’

  The adrenalin rush of panic brought information flooding back into Snow’s mind. She was in the cargo pod, in the garage. She’d been checking out the yellow canister when she’d fallen. This guard must have found her.

  ‘I repeat, remove your headgear and state your citizen identity code immediately,’ commanded the White Knight.

  Headgear. Snow felt a rush of relief. Of course – she still had her helmet on! Which meant that she hadn’t exposed her real identity. Yet.

  Without further hesitation, Snow went into action.

  The White Knight was stooping over her, having hauled her into a sitting position. Its hands were still gripping her shoulders.

  Snow brought her own arms up between the android’s, swinging them up and out. Her self-defence move broke the robot’s grip. Rocking backwards, she tucked up her legs, then thrust a fierce double-footed kick into the White Knight’s chest. It toppled backwards, clattering against the wall of the cargo pod.

  Snow was on her feet in an instant. She dived through the gap between the pod’s partly opened sides, out into the garage.

  Except that it wasn’t the garage.

  Snow’s sore head spun. Instead of the familiar scene she had expected, she appeared to be in the middle of a large, open hangar. There were numerous people in white uniforms bustling about the area. To her left loomed the vast hulk of a freight-carrying starship, from which cargo pods were being unloaded by a squad of White Knights.

  Her brain struggled to process what she was seeing.

  They must have loaded the pod with me still inside! she realized. While she’d been unconscious, the pod had presumably left the Academy in the Corporation shuttle she’d seen, then been loaded on the freight ship beside her.

  So where on Earth am I now?

  She caught sight of a large transparent section in one of the hangar’s walls and realized, with gut-churning shock, that she wasn’t anywhere on Earth. The strange landscape visible through the window was clearly not terrestrial.

  Snow knew that the Corporation had outposts throughout the galaxy. This must be one of them. Judging by the scientific-looking staff milling about, she guessed it was some sort of research station.

  ‘Halt! You are under arrest!’

  Snow’s confusion had cost her valuable seconds. The White Knight she had knocked down came staggering out of the pod behind her. The sound of its yell drew the attention of its fellow androids and several of the human staff.

  Snow ran. She made it to the passageway leading from the hangar before the Corporation guards could give chase.

  She sprinted along the passage, then darted down another, hoping to shake off her pursuers. This short corridor had no side-branches. It brought Snow to a transparent door, through which she could see the rocky, bluish-grey terrain outside. But she couldn’t get the door to open.

  Snow could hear the pursuing party approaching fast. Without her Armouron suit and tonfa – her T-shaped combat baton – a fight would be futile. She looked around desperately for somewhere to hide.

  A few metres back along the corridor, there was a domed skylight in the ceiling. Snow dashed back to stand beneath it. She squatted, then leaped up to grab the thin ledge around its rim. Clinging on with her fingertips, she hauled herself up, then wedged her body inside the clear dome.

  Only seconds later, the White Knights burst into the corridor. Snow watched them charge past beneath her. She pressed herself up tight against the skylight.

  She saw the guards come to a halt at the transparent door, realizing with a sinking feeling that if she could see them, they would be able to see her when they turned. For the moment, though, they had their backs to her.

  ‘This is the definitely the route the fugitive took,’ asserted the guard with the black shoulder flash – the unit’s captain. ‘She must have activated the emergency exit door. Search outside.’

  One of the other androids took a slim keycard from its belt. It swiped it across a domed sensor and the door slid open.

  Snow’s hand slipped a fraction against the skylight’s smooth surface, making a very slight squeak. The White Knight bringing up the rear turned its head.

  In a flash, Snow dropped to the floor and dashed past the huddle of guards, out through the open doorway. A moment later, they were after her, like hounds running down a fox.

  Snow sprinted desperately away from the research station. She made it ten metres across the rocky ground, then twenty, then thirty. She had no idea where she was running to – only that she must keep going, must not be caught. Thirty-five metres . . . forty . . .

  Then, suddenly, all thoughts of escape were driven from Snow’s mind by an explosion of raw pain that seemed to detonate in her brain. It wasn’t the cry of a voice this time – just a paralysing flare of white-hot agony.

  As Snow staggered forward and fell, the pain suddenly diminished, as though she had stumbled past its point of greatest intensity.

  Her mind still thumping with shockwaves of pain, Snow struggled onto her hands and knees and scrabbled desperately forward across the dusty terrain, expecting to feel the metal grip of a White Knight at any moment. After dragging herself as far as she could from the invisible barrier, she slumped down once more, unable to continue. With difficulty, she rolled over, craned her neck and looked back.

  The scene that met her eyes was like nothing she had ever witnessed before. The White Knights who had been pursuing her were not far from where she had fallen. But for the moment they were paying her no attention. Instead, they were engaged in a violent battle with – what?

  Snow shook her throbbing head, then stared again at the bizarre, alien creature. It was hovering in the air above the Knights, beating huge wings that fanned out behind its long, jointed forelimbs. As she watched, it reared up to slash at the androids with the curved claws of its hind feet.

  It was enormous – at least five metres from wing-tip to wing-tip. The only flying creatures Snow could think of that compared in size were the legendary prehistoric beasts she had read about in the Academy library’s data-files. Pterosaurs, that was it. This strange creature’s featherless, leathery wings, anchored to its arms and sides, reminded her of those ancient monsters.

  But the creature’s resemblance to any beast Snow knew of ended there. It had a peculiar elongated head, which was fringed along each side with a thin, rigid, brightly coloured frill. Its long brow was topped by a bony crest. Its short, thick neck was rooted in bulging shoulders that powered its massive wings. Behind them, its body tapered towards its slim tail-end. Other than the grey membranes of its wings, its outlandish body was covered with thick interlocking plates of some coarse, stony material.

  As the creature wheeled round to attack the group of White Knights from another angle, Snow noticed something particularly odd. Below its narrow eyes, there was no sign of a nose or mouth. And despite the ferocity of its attack, the beast was making no sound whatsoever. It seemed natural that it should roar or screech as it set upon the White Knights. But it was fighting them in complete silence.

  Its assault was so savage that two of the Corporation androids had gone down already and the remainder were in retreat. The creature drove them backwards, until they reached the point where Snow had painfully burst through the invisible wall.

  As the White Knights continued to fall back, the flying creature swooped after them – and its vast body suddenly went rigid. It began to spasm, as though suffering some kind of fit. It veered violently aside and crumpled to the ground, in obvious agony.

  Like it hit something, thought Snow’s aching br
ain. Just like I did. As if there’s some sort of barrier it can’t pass . . .

  The White Knights seized their chance to advance on the stricken creature. But it was quicker than Snow to recover. It struggled into an upright position, standing on its wing-tips, like a primate resting on its knuckles. By the time the first android lunged at it, it was ready. The White Knight went down, wires spilling from its electronic innards, its armour torn open by a razor-sharp wing-tip.

  Three down!

  The other guards retreated warily once more – but only to just beyond the invisible barrier. They seemed well aware that the creature could not get through it from the outside.

  The unit’s captain peered across to where Snow lay. She sensed that it was analysing the pros and cons of trying to capture her while the alien beast was still on the rampage out there.

  It clearly decided against it, for a moment later it gave a swift hand-signal and the remaining White Knights turned and trudged back towards the research station.

  The creature watched the retreating androids until they re-entered the compound. Then it turned slowly, lurching from one wing-tip to the other in its peculiar fashion and fixed its yellow eyes on Snow.

  Chapter 6

  Field Trip

  NU-TOPIA’S NEW SPACEPORT was one of the city’s most impressive landmarks.

  Viewed from above, the giant, round building looked rather like a huge cog, or the wheel of an ancient ship. Each of the short spurs sticking out around its edge led to a separate landing platform. The majority of these platforms were used for terrestrial shuttles – craft carrying people or freight to and fro from Earth’s other major cities. A dozen were reserved for interplanetary vehicles – starships that were coming from, or going out to, some distant galactic settlement.

  The spaceport’s circular structure housed passenger and cargo terminals, shops, a holovid-theatre and much more. It squatted on a wide pedestal base, which raised it about thirty metres from the ground. Transparent elevators climbed the base’s silvered sides, carrying citizens from street level to the bustling terminal complex above.

  The Perfect Corporation had built the port several years ago. It was heralded as a triumph of up-to-the-minute technology and cutting-edge design. The Chairman himself had promoted it as a flagship project – a shining example of the Corporation’s commitment to building a Perfect World.

  In reality, the Chairman had built the spaceport only to increase his control over the lives of Nu-Topia’s citizens. Once it was completed, he quickly saw to it that it became the only way in and out of the city for major transport. Smaller docking stations scattered here and there were demolished. The hidden surveillance systems built into the impressive new terminal gave the Corporation a complete picture of who and what was moving in and out of the city. The people strolling happily around the gleaming new passenger lounges were blissfully unaware that they were under such close scrutiny.

  Most of them were equally unaware of what was going on under their feet. The spaceport’s base did far more than simply support its upper structure. It was inside this lower part of the building, which few people ever entered, that some of the most impressive technology of all was in action.

  The Basement, as it was known by the spaceport staff, was where the complicated business of sorting and loading the endless stream of cargo that flowed through the city’s port took place.

  The whole system was automated. A complex network of interconnecting mag-lev rails filled the entire Basement, leading to and from each of the port’s many dispatch and delivery points. Day and night, cargo pods of all shapes and sizes moved smoothly along the trackway, floating on its invisible magnetic field.

  Right now, there was something else moving around the dimly lit Basement too. Four shadowy forms were slinking between the mag-lev rails, ducking from one ceiling-support pillar to the next – a broad-set old man in a rough tunic, accompanied by three smaller figures in brightly coloured armour . . .

  Rake halted beside one of the pillars and read the large laser-etched number on its side.

  ‘Fifty-eight,’ he whispered, as his companions stole across to join him. ‘This is it. This is where Tea-Leaf said to meet her.’

  Without Tea-Leaf to guide them, the group would have struggled to find their way safely to the spaceport in the first place. Their streetwise friend’s experience of navigating the city by night had really paid off – again.

  Having led them into the Basement via a loose vent cover, Tea-Leaf had now slunk off to try and find out more about any recent activity in Bay Three. She had promised to rejoin them at the specified pillar.

  Just beyond it, one of the mag-lev tracks branched to form a siding. A line of three cargo pods floated motionless on this dead-end section of track. The young knights and their mentor settled down behind them to wait for their friend.

  ‘Just how clacking cool is this system, eh, guys?’ said Oddball.

  He was gazing in delight at the cargo pods gliding silently along their tracks. As he watched another pod pass, he pointed at a small convex disc clamped to its side.

  ‘Every pod has a tag that tells the system which loading bay it’s meant to end up at,’ he enthused. ‘Then there’s a tag-scanner before each track junction, so that the pod is switched onto the right route. Simple, but brilliant!’

  Hoax gave him a despairing look. ‘You need help, mate,’ he said. ‘Nobody should be that into technology. You’re like some sort of ultra-geek.’

  Rake wasn’t really listening to either of them. He was looking around anxiously. He was getting impatient with all this skulking about. He wanted to do something.

  ‘I wonder what’s taking her so long,’ he said anxiously. ‘It’s a bit of a maze down here – maybe she’s got lost.’

  ‘Lost?’ said a familiar voice behind and above him. Tea-Leaf dropped lightly to the floor a few metres away, then strode over to join them. ‘I don’t think so! I’ve spent too much time down here not to know my way around!’

  Rake gave her an intrigued look. ‘How come? Why hang out here?’

  ‘The first time I found my way in, I was just looking for somewhere dry to sleep,’ said Tea-Leaf. ‘But I ran into a gang of tough-nuts from East Two. They’d come in here now and then, break a cargo pod open, then do a runner with whatever was inside.’ She sounded a little uncomfortable. ‘We struck a deal.’ She nodded towards the far side of the Basement, lost in darkness. ‘The pods are all security scanned back there, to check out their contents. I used to hack into the scanner output, so I could tell the East Two boys which pods had stuff worth stealing in. In return, they’d give me a cut.’

  She noticed Salt’s disapproving expression.

  ‘It’s no picnic out here, you know,’ she said defensively. ‘I had to eat.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Oddball, ‘what did you find out about Snow?’

  Tea-Leaf was happy to change the subject.

  ‘There was a ship that left Bay Three at twenty-one hundred,’ she began. ‘That’s just after the SeeBlock scan placed her there. It was a Corporation freighter, heading direct to Kasteesh.’

  Kasteesh. The destination she had written down for Salt. The name that had caused him to react with such uncharacteristic alarm.

  ‘It looks like Snow was on that flight then,’ said Oddball. ‘If she wasn’t, her ID belt would have shown up since. The SeeBlock systems are set up to track anywhere inside the Limits. Snow taking a trip out of Nu-Topian airspace would explain why she’d dropped off the recent scans.’

  Salt gave a heavy sigh. ‘Then we must assume that she is indeed on her way to Kasteesh,’ he rumbled. ‘And we must find a way to follow.’ He paused to think. ‘The chances of our finding another transport heading directly to such an isolated planet are slight. I fear our only hope is to seek a trade ship whose pilot we can bribe to divert course. That won’t be easy.’

  ‘But, master,’ said Rake, frowning, ‘how can we go after her at all? Won’t we be missed back at t
he Academy?’

  ‘Not immediately, Templer,’ replied the old armourer. ‘I anticipated that our recovery of Alida could be . . . complicated. So I took advantage of a friendship to set up a cover story for our absence.’

  Hoax gave a cheeky smirk. ‘Did you now, you wily old devil?’

  Salt remained grave. ‘I have an old comrade, Rajsim, who manages a smelting compound south of the city. Not one of our order, but sympathetic to our cause. As far as Brand and the other Academy supervisors are concerned, I have taken you, Templer, False-Light and Sappar, as well as young Alida, to a four-day training course at the smelting plant. If questioned, Rajsim will know to confirm this story.’

  ‘We’re on a field trip!’ grinned Hoax. ‘Excellent!’

  Rake nodded his head, impressed.

  ‘OK, so we have a little time, at least – just no way of going after her.’

  ‘Whoa there!’ said Tea-Leaf. ‘I know it’s against the odds, but there is another ship setting off for Kasteesh. It came up on the scheduling system when I was checking up on the Bay Three stuff. It’s loading right now – departs from Bay Nine within the hour, in fact. And you’ll never guess whose ship it is . . .’

  The others looked at her expectantly.

  ‘Only the Chairman’s!’ she hissed.

  ‘The executive shuttle?’ growled Salt. ‘Are you sure?’

  Tea-Leaf nodded confidently.

  Salt’s face darkened. ‘Why would the Chairman be going there? Why now?’ he murmured. ‘Still’ – his eyes flashed with purpose – ‘if his is the only ship bound for Kasteesh, we must find a way to be on it when it departs!’

  ‘But how the clack do we do that?’ said Hoax. ‘It’s not like we can just stroll up and say “Excuse me, Chairman, can we have a lift?” His shuttle will have more Kettles crawling over it than any other ship in port!’

  ‘And you don’t even have your armour, master,’ added Rake. ‘If anyone catches sight of you with us, it’s game over.’

  Salt’s Armouron suit was currently unfit for use. It had been badly mangled during the group’s recent memorable encounter with the Armournaut.