The Titan Mystery – Part 3

The Titan Mystery – Part 3

“I’m detecting movement!” One of the team members shouted out. She was only small but her voice in the com system was loud enough to make eveyone wince.

“Which way?” Seanna bellowed back.

” About two hundred metres ahead” she shouted back, quieter this time “Moving towards us at approximately 7 kilomteres an hour”

“That’s a jogging pace!” KcKinley hissed.

“Arm weapons!” Seanna ordered. “Aim to injure not kill!” She added. At once everone pulled out thier arm, either a plasma rifle or small hand weaponand looked ahead. Wiating. Watching.

“I can’t see anything Jearo!” Seanna hissed at her team member.

“It’s definitely there!” Jearo shouted back. At that point the deck ahaead of them lit up, a huge bang sounded out, every one of them was thrown back and onto the floor. For what seems like an age all of them stumbled about, as if dizzy. Unable to hear anything thay all asked about each other but couldn’t hear. McKinley helped up Seanna who was holding her head.

“Come on, up you get” he puffed as he helped her to her feet “It’s just got interesting mission commander.” He smiled at her “What’s next?”

“You’re staying here commander and don’t you dare move! Jason, you and your team stay here and guard him and Tranquility!” She bellowed. “Where is he now Jearo?”

“Running away fast!” She shouted.

“All of you with me” the hole in the floor where the explosion happened offered easy access to the underfloor tunnel the unkown had used “Down here, let’s go!” Seanna jumped down the hole and was heard running away, rifle pointed ahead the rest of them piling in after her, trying to keep up. KcKinley stood there, watched by Jason and four others. He looked at Jason “Good this isn’t it?” He sat on Trnaquility’s ramp “I think it’s going to be a bit quiet now! That’s not what I was hoping for!” He said glumly.

In the service duct, Seanna was gaining on the person in front. They looked human, but in the dim light it was hard to see. Only the narrow light from her rifle let her see anything. Darak was overtaking her, he was a big guy and Seanna was hoping he might take the lead in securing their unkown bomber “I’ve got this chief!” he puffed as he ran past, “Try and keep your light on him!” Seanna pointed her light up to guide him. There was no need, suddenly a bulkhead appeared and their unkown went flying. Hitting the metal floor with a crash and tumbling.

“Secure him now!” Seanna bellowed. Darak was already on him, Seanna was there seconds later. Darak was man handling him into a safe place, Darak Got his arms and sat him him. Making sure he couldn’t move. The next few seconds saw the rest of the team catching up, puffing as they stopped to get their breath. The catured unkown seemed very human, moaning and struggling to breathe he gasped.

“Get off me Darak you oversized…”

“How do you know my name?” he snapped back. The man was gasping, the darkness yeilded little detail on him as he hid his face from the target lights of the rifles. “come on!” Darak insisted. Seanna looked round, her face suddenly dropped as if she had seen a dean man.

“Let him go Darak!”

“What?” He snapped “Are you -”

“Let him go I said!” She yelled. “Pick him up!” Darak with obvious discontent pulled him up. Trying to hide his eyes from the glare the man winced. He was scruffy, his hair long with an unkept beard. But there was no mistaking it was McKinley. Everyone gasped and were then silent looking in disbelief.

“Jason” Seanna got onto the com system with a little hesitattion, she was unsure what to say “Is McKinley still there?” Seanna waited for the  reply.

“Sure, why wouldn’t he be?” he replied.

“Never mind, keep him there will you?” Seanna replied dismissively

“No problem.” Seanna cut off the com link.

“What’s going on commander?” Seanna asked the scruffy and beaten down vervion of her commanding officer. “Why did you just try and blow us up?”

“If I was trying, do you think I you would be stading here now?” Seanna looked perplexed “I needed you to get away from him”

“Who?” Seanna asked.

“Him… me. The idiot that has to come along for the fun ride!” He bellowed out, waving his arms.

“Why are… you a problem to… you?” Seanna asked, now more curious than anything.

“We can’t be in the same place at the same time, if we do then time will fall apart and God know what will happen.” the withered and old McKinley was ranting on, obviously distressed “I was hoping that he wouldn’t be here – you guys were my ticket off this ship. I’ve been on here ten years and I don’t want to be on here a second longer!”

“What made you think we would let youtake our spacecraft so you could get away?” Seanna asked.

McKinley sneered “You don’t know what’s going on? Just like last time – you’re clueless. You have no idea what you’ve walked into”

” Then educate me” Seanna asked him, sitting on a bulkhead.

“You have walked onto a time experiment, a death trap quarantined hunreds of years in the future which apprears at random points in time thatno one can predict”

“Why is this a problem for us?” Seanna asked “We just need to find what’s doing this and shut it down.”

“Just like that?” McKinley scoffed ” I could have done that years ago!”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Seanna.

“Becasue you can’t – you’re all going to die trying to get away from here. None of you will though. You all die and leave me here with no way out!” The anger in McKinley’s eyes was wild, his time alone must have sent him mad. Seanna suddenly felt in the pit of here stomach the feeling that he might actually be right.

©Simon Farnell 2016

 

This story is part of Rachael Ritchey’s blog battle, the category is Science Fiction and the theme is:

Ticket

Rules:

1. 1000 words max
2. fictional tale (or true if you really want)
3. PG (no more than PG-13) Content – let’s keep this family friendly!
4. Your story must contain the word(s) from the theme and/or be centered around the theme in a way that shows it is clearly related
5. Go for the entertainment value!
6. State the Genre of your story at the top of your post.
7. Post your story on Tuesday, by 11:59 PM PST
8. Use the hashtag #BlogBattle when tweeting your story, put a link back to your #BlogBattle Short Story in the comments section of this page, and/or include a link to this page in your own blog post (it creates a “ping-back” which will alert me and our friends to your #BlogBattle post)
9. Have fun!

Read all the short stories and vote! Winners are announced the Monday following. 🙂