A Year Underfoot Read online

  And, sealing mine as well, if I couldn’t find a way off the doomed ship.

  Through the flames I caught sight of the Emperor and his entourage slipping off the bridge and onto the deck lifts. There was only one place for them to go now and that was to the escape pods that were housed deep below in the forward hull of the ship.

  I dropped back into the vent and the ship pitched to the right. The angle at which the vessel lurched allowed me to slide down the shaft quickly, speeding my descent and saving me valuable time.

  As the levels flew past, I knew the intersecting shaft was coming up fast. I did all I could to soften the impact, but I landed with a thud just the same and began to slide forward once more. A feeder tube leading to the main down shaft was coming up fast. I couldn’t afford to miss it. If I did, I might never find my way back.

  A red glow signaled the exchange up ahead and I dug my heels in as best I could. The effort slowed me down enough to allow me to change shafts and continue on my way.

  The great ship shuddered violently and continually, signaling a breach of the hull. It was all over for her now.

  I had done it. I had taken the beast out.

  However, I didn’t have time to savor my victory.

  I had company.

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who escaped the bridge via the airshaft. One of the smaller Threak had been on my tail the entire time. It wasn’t until the shaft pitched back to a near vertical ninety degree angle and he came crashing down on top of me did I have a clue he was even there.

  Side by side, we plummeted in darkness, fighting each other as we went. He had the dual advantage of size and strength, but I had the inside position and I wasn’t about to fight fair. I thrust my thumbs up into his eyes and gouged away as he tried to squeeze the life out of me.

  All the while, the ship was creaking and quaking, and explosions were effortlessly tearing the vessel apart. The shaft we were hurtling down was no longer attached to the ship’s infrastructure, and as a result we were both getting bounced around and beaten up on all four sides as well.

  The great ship shook and shuddered and shook some more and the ventilation shaft slapped back and forth between the deck floors accordingly. In the course of the tussle my adversary fell ahead of me, and I once again I resorted to digging in my heels to slow my progress.

  He was falling headfirst and never saw it coming,–there was another intersecting vent dead ahead.

  He hit the horizontal surface hard, – hard enough to snap his neck on impact and hard enough to dislodge the ventilation shaft from its mounting brackets. By the time I arrived at the intersection, he was already dead. The ship pitched forward once more and he began to slowly slide down the shaft and, eventually, out of sight.

  I followed right behind his lifeless body.

  The ship slowly rolled to near ninety degrees once again and I was grateful for the move. It dropped the dead Threak’s body straight down the shaft and his weight, nearly four hundred pounds, was heavy enough to send him crashing through the air vent below.

  The pinhole of light coming up grew larger and brighter and I dug in my heels and hands and skidded to a stop. I’d reached my destination. I sat perched on the edge of the vent looking down on the escape pods the Threak had buried deep in the forward bow of the ship.

  There were three pods left. Six had already been jettisoned, and of the three remaining, one had sustained major damage and didn’t look as if it would fly. That left two. Two pods.

  Up above, in the shaft–I heard a rumbling and I knew what it signaled,–incoming. Something, or someone was falling down the shaft and would be on me in a matter of seconds.

  Down and to the left, a support beam had been wrenched from the ceiling and lay at a forty–five degree angle to the wall, propped in place by the wreckage of a destroyed escape pod. It was a healthy leap, thirty to thirty–five feet to the narrow beam, and another one hundred feet to the ground should I miss my mark.

  I hung from the mounting bracket and swung my body out over the lonely void. As I leapt for the beam, I felt a rush of air at my back. Whatever it was falling through the vent had come through, but I didn’t have the time to look. I had my own issues to deal with.

  I hit the beam dead on, which wasn’t the best spot to land, my momentum nearly carried me off the side, but I held on and swung my legs back onto the surface and proceeded to scoot down the incline as quickly as I could.

  The ship’s shudder was nearly constant now.

  The bucket of bolts was on its last legs.

  I hit the flight deck running. I ran for the nearest pod and pulled myself in through the hatch and wasted no time sealing it behind me. The control panel was the same I’d seen before, in the both the visions and in practice, and I wasted no time locating the “disengage” button.

  So long, suckers.

  I pressed the button and waited for the drop.

  Nothing happened.

  A volley of plasma rounds burned through the shuttle bay’s blast door and dozens of troopers poured into the compartment and rushed for the escape pods. A half of a dozen troopers surrounded my pod, and, I have to say, the shock and rage registering across their faces as they pounded on the glass was one I’ll never forget. The fact of the matter was, that most of those who served on the mothership had never laid eyes a human before. They’d only seen the images and heard the reports. I was their first and last contact with humanity.

  Glad to have been of service.

  Seconds of frantic pounding on the release button eventually worked its charm and I heard a snap, then felt the weightlessness of free fall. I looked up, and indeed, I was falling away from the dying ship.

  I felt the initial surge of the engines, the extension of the wings and I grabbed for the flight stick, but it had a mind of its own. The pod was on autopilot.

  I’d have to remedy that situation.

  My crash course in symbol recognition had taught me well. I overrode the auto–controls and took over full command of the pod in no time at all.

  I broke off to the left and rolled toward the earth. The other two remaining escape pods had dropped away as well and were sitting off to my right. For the moment, they lay still, but I knew that wouldn’t last for long.

  Looming overhead, the underbelly of the mothership was rocked by explosions, each one greater than the last. The hull tore open and a gaping wound opened up mid–ship that was never to be healed. The mothership’s demise was imminent.

  I nosed the pod earth side and pulled back on the stick. The winged pod slipped forward and I shot off for home. Running my hand up and down the alien flight panel, I found the terrestrial navigation files. On the touch screen, I pulled up the west coast of the United States and locked in the Southern California coastline.

  I pitched the shuttle pod to thirty degrees and held firm the flight stick. I was heading home.

  The other two pods were having none it, nor were the squadrons of warbirds hanging helplessly around. The jig was up, – I’d been discovered.

  At least, I’d gotten a good jump on them.

  I dove for the planet with a couple of dozen warbirds on my tail. They were armed to the teeth, their weapons hot, and they had me dead to rights. And, even though I was streaking through the mesosphere at 30,000 miles an hour, I was a sitting duck. There was no way I could out run them, not a chance.

  I waited for the inevitable.

  But, fate had other plans.

  The mothership exploded!

  The skies lit up a flaming red, and a shock wave extended violently from the center of the blast.

  The warbirds closest to the ship, those still outside the Earth’s realm stood no chance. They were blown apart by the sheer magnitude of the wave, and those entering the upper atmosphere, well, they suffered a much hotter, but an equally devastating fate.

  I’d been spared. I’d ducked low enough in the stratosphere to be spared the brunt of the blast. I was still in the air, still in control, bu
t then again, so were a handful of my pursuers.

  I broke hard left and dipped at a harsher angle to the earth. A trail of plasma fire dotted overhead and a trio of warbirds fell in line behind me. I increased my angle of descent and hoped for the best.

  Ten thousand feet. Way too hot, way too steep.

  Balls of plasma exploded around me. I broke hard right, then back hard left before pitching the craft up in an attempt to slow down. The ground was coming up fast, much too fast, and the warbirds opened up with everything they had. The skies lit up around me, and the ground below exploded in rock and flame. There was no escaping the barrage. The shuttle quaked with each successive strike, and fires broke out all around me, but through it all, the stubborn little craft held together.

  I reversed the engines and rolled hard right. If the maneuver worked, – and the ship held together, I’d drop at an awkward angle through the cloud cover, giving myself a few extra seconds to run low and fast while the fighters reconfigured their firing solutions.

  I broke through the marine layer at two thousand feet, much closer to the ground than I cared for. I pulled back hard on the stick and the craft flattened out and screamed ahead. Despite the beating she had sustained, the pod streaked north along the southern California coastline like a champ.

  I dropped another fifteen hundred feet and reversed the engines once more. I buzzed the water at five hundred feet and looked for a spot to ditch.

  The fighters had caught up and the next salvo of plasma fire did the trick. The engines exploded and the craft peeled away around me. I was ripped out of the cabin and found myself hurtling through the air as the remainder of the pod exploded behind me.

  I don’t remember hitting the water and I don’t remember washing up on the shore.

  However, I do remember laying face down on a beach.

  And, I remember being wet and cold, and I remember struggling to breath.

  I remember staring at my right arm, but being unable to move it.

  And, I remember Bagman hovering over me. He was alive!

  “I thought you were dead.” I said.

  “Nope, the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” He said with a smile and when I heard his warm cackle of a laugh I knew I’d be all right.

  My next memories are of silhouetted figures, fading in and out of the haze, speaking in a roller coaster–like cadence of soft whispers,–filtered through a mask of incoherent static.

  I could hear them, but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Who were they? Where was I? I couldn’t hold my concentration long enough to find an answer.

  I faded in and out for seven days before waking up for good one week ago today.

  As far as the mothership goes, well, she’s no longer with us. Good riddance to bad rubbish. When she went up the blue skies turned a pale red and within hours word came crackling over the airwaves that the Emperor’s flagship had been blown to Hell, – and, by a human, nonetheless. A human! The news set off celebrations all over the world and knocked the Threak back on their heels, all in one fell swoop.

  It was a good day.

  How this shapes the Threak moving forward, only time will tell, but I’m under no illusions this will chase them away. They’ve come too far to turn tail and run away. The worst may still be ahead of us. I may have won this battle, but, make no mistake, this is going to be a long, hard fought war.

  So be it.

  I’m not going anywhere.

  Bring it on!