MadCap's Fiction Corner - Jenny Journeys: "The Ghost of the Warlord" (Chapter Two)

The Runner was making its way rapidly back to the drop zone. That, unfortunately, was not to be the end of their troubles that day. Settling in with their now sixth passenger, Jones was already looking worriedly at the sensor display.

"They're still coming up on us."

"I'm picking up one... no, two craft."

"Why are they coming after us? The salvage is back that way!"

"Well, they're following us and we'll have to deal with it." Jones said. "Kraisem, how close are you to completion?"

"I'm at 97%. We're about done here."

"Get ready for a pick up. Keep tracking our coordinates."

"Got it."

"Keep your eyes peeled, fellas." Jones said. "Caitlinson! Make sure the transmitter is active. Last thing we need is Kraisem going blind right now!"

"Right, uh... sorry, Captain." Andrew said, slipping the device into one of the pockets of his suit and moving to check the device in question at the rear of the craft. He had just been attempting to link into the net to scan through any important information - using only the one image he had taken of the woman. The results were still pending, the connection being poor and the picture he had taken only showing a bit of her face. Perhaps, when they got back to the Champlain.

"Is there a particular reason you took a picture of me?" Andrew had opened up a panel on the transmitter and had begun maintenance checks when he heard Jenny's voice from behind him, turning to see the suited woman looking at him with a wary glance through her visor.

"I... what? No, I didn-"

"Pretty sure you did." Jenny said. "You had that little scanner and you took a picture of me. Why?"

"Captain asked me to." Andrew said after a moment. "Ordered, actually."

"Okay. Again, why?"

"You crashed in a stolen-"

"Borrowed."

"-stolen spaceship and ranted on for five minutes about where you'd been and then introduced yourself by one name." Andrew said.

"Runs in the family, really." Jenny commented.

"It's understandable that he's a bit nervous."

"Do I make you nervous?" Andrew was caught off-guard by the question, turning a few dials and then closing the panel.

"No, not really." He said. He called up to the front of the Runner. "Transmitter is five by five, Captain."

"Excellent!" Jones called back down. "Strap in, looks like we're going to have to lose these guys..." The passengers barely had time to brace themselves before the vessel accelerated. Nevertheless, from the readouts, the two craft coming after them were still advancing.

"Captain, I think-"

"Not now!" Jones snapped, watching as the two dots on the sensor grid drew ever close to its center - their position. The man twisted and turned the craft around, beside, and even through the occasional mound of debris, but it seemed that nothing was going to dissuade their pursuers. "Damn it!"

"Captain, they're coming up-"

"We have visual, Captain!" Jones looked back at the sound of one of his men shouting over the roar of the engines, seeing what they all saw. A pair of silver spheres jetting across the landscape after them.

"Sontarans. Lovely."

"Sorry, must have followed me out." Jenny said. "What can I do to-"

"Shut up." Jones said. "You can shut up. That's what you can do." He turned to the others. "Alright, Sontarans. Got a code of honor, right? We can work with that. Sending out a surrender message."

"Wait, what?" Andrew asked. "You can't be serious, they'll gun us down!"

"We're unarmed opponents." Jones said. "Pretty sure that they'll think that's dishonorable. Can buy us some time. Kraisem, get ready to roll."

"Got it. Give me three minutes." The surrender signal was sent out and the comm system on the Runner clicked on almost immediately.

"You will surrender now for the glory of the Sontaran Empire! Cease your acceleration and prepare to be boarded!" Jones did as requested, bringing the Runner down onto as even a plane as he could and cutting off the engines. The two Sontaran scout vessels landed shortly after, the front of viewport opening up, a ramp descending, and from out of it stepped an armored figure with a laser rifle in hand.

"I am Lieutenant Soric of the Third Sontaran Battle Fleet!" The Sontaran introduced himself.

"I am Captain Panegyric Jones of the S.S. Champlain III." Jones said. "If I recall, the Sontaran Empire does not have jurisdiction within the Milax system."

"Mind your tongue, human, or I shall carve it from your neck and keep it as my trophy for your insolence!" Soric's voice came projected through his sealed helmet. "The day will come when the Milax system, it's moons and satellites, are all conquered for the glory of the Sontaran Empire, but that day is not today. We seek a criminal who has stolen vital medical supplies from one of our outposts."

"Well, we haven't seen any criminals around-"

"Silence!" Soric barked an order. "We are aware of the fugitive's status as we are aware that you left their crashed vessel. If you are in cooperation with them, you will be liquidated as well. For the glory of the Sontaran Empire."

"Yes, yes, I see." Jones nodded slowly.

"Captain, I'm in position."

"Well, I'm afraid that we'll just have to find that out another day." Jones said as the Champlain roared into view overhead, hovering over their position. "Goodbye!"

"Halt!" Soric ordered, leveling his rifle, but far too late as the tractor beam from above descended and took up the Runner and her crew, much to the frustration of the Sontaran Lieutenant below. The group emerged in one of the large bays of the Champlain amidst all the wreckage that they had cleared from the mine shaft entrance.

"Well, now this is a nice change of pace!" Jenny commented sarcastically.

"Kraisem, get us out of here!" Jones yelled at the top of his lungs.

"I'm on it, Captain." They could feel the vibration of the deck plates as they managed to step out of the refuse.

"Get to your stations." Jones said. "Caitlinson, take the new girl with you."

"What me?" Andrew asked.

"Excellent. Knew you'd be up for it. Go." Jones said, heading for the staircase that led up to the observation deck and into the ship proper. Andrew turned to Jenny.

"You know anything about engines?" He asked her as he pulled off his helmet.

"That they exist? Certainly." Jenny said, pulling off her own helmet to reveal a ponytail braided blonde head of hair. "I know a little bit of patchworking, but that's just come through trial and error. They never really trained me for that."

"They?" Andrew asked with a raised brow, but then shook his head. "Never mind. C'mon, let's get to the engine room." The walls within the Champlain were a cream color as a compliment to the dark reddish-brown exterior. Every floor was metal and footsteps could be heard clamoring all over from their current position. Andrew led the way up to the engine room, which was a stark silver in contrast to the cream and reddish browns all around it in the other places Jenny had seen on the ship. A hodgepodge mess of equipment, scrap, and even Andrew didn't know what else was littered all about. At the center of it all was the slipspace drive, which was currently... "Offline? What? Why?" He moved over to the comm receiver and, pressing a button, called up to the bridge. "Caitlinson to Kraisem. Have we sustained any damage?"

"Negative. We're already out of range of those potato heads."

"Then why is the slipspace drive offline?" Andrew asked. There was a long pause.

"...what?"

"The slipspace drive. It's offline. Why?" Andrew asked. Another long pause.

"...what?! How?! What?!"

"Caitlinson, see what you can do. We're reading it as off here, too." Jones' voice came across the comm system. "Kraisem, get us in range of the moon and we-" The transmission was closed from the other end. Andrew sighed as he looked back to that column of metal that would be normally glowing that bright sky blue color when active.

"Great. Just great." Andrew shook his head.

"What could have made the slipspace drive go off?" Jenny asked.

"Almost nearly nothing." Andrew said with a grimace. "Captain Jones doesn't want to spend the credits to get the upgrades for it, but I've been managing to keep the thing running well enough for a while now. It was doing fine before we left." He leaned against the railing around it. "There's got to be something I missed..." He moved over to the computer terminal, moving through the user interface to find the command to run a diagnostic.

"So you're an engineer?" Jenny asked.

"I'm a lot of things." Andrew said. "That's what Captain Jones hired me for, though. Engineering. Also, salvage."

"I see a lot of scavenging going on like that." Jenny said.

"Well, that's the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire for you." Andrew shook his head.

"Empire?"

"Yeah. The Empire." Andrew said, looking up from the computer to look at her. "...you do know about the Empire, yeah?"

"Of course, yeah." Jenny said. "I just don't get why you called it that?"

"What? The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire?" Andrew asked.

"I mean... there's more than just humans running about. And you work on a scrap ship having to steal from junkyards to make a living. Not really sure that's particularly great or bountiful." Jenny said.

"I guess not." Andrew shrugged. "Maybe it was just something that someone thought sounded cool and it just stuck. Plus, it gets a little better when you get to the Core Worlds. Or so I'm told, anyway."

"You've never been to the Core Worlds?" Jenny asked.

"No. I never have." Andrew shook his head. "I don't think anyone onboard has besides maybe the Captain. What about you?"

"Oh, no. I've only ever been to three planets." Jenny said, shaking her head. Then, she thought about it for a moment. "Well, technically four, but one of those was in a virtual reality state."

"So... what? You stole a rocket from... somewhere-"

"Borrowed. And I came from a planet called Messaline. Or I was born there, anyway. Sort of." Jenny said.

"You keep saying things like that. Sort ofs and all being all vague and dodgy. Is Jenny even your real name?"

"Why wouldn't it be my name? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, it's just... Jenny. That's it?"

"Says the man named Caitlinson?" The blonde raised a brow at him. "Caitlinson. That's it?"

"It's Andrew, actually. Andrew Caitlinson."

"Caitlinson? Your father was named Caitlin?"

"Mother, actually. Never knew my father." Andrew said, checking the instruments around the slip drive. The diagnostic was still running. What was taking it so long?

"Flip that and you've got me." Jenny said. "Only knew my Dad for a day. I don't even have a mother."

"You mean you don't know who your mother is?" Andrew asked.

"No, I mean I don't have one." Jenny said.

"Don't be ridiculous! Of course you have a mother!" Andrew scoffed. "Everyone human has a mother."

"I'm not human." Jenny said, a grin on her face. Andrew looked back from the monitor at her for a moment, then he laughed.

"Good one."

"No, really. I'm not human at all. Not a drop of human in me. I'm all human'd out." Jenny said.

"Then what are you?" Andrew asked.

"I'm a Time-"

"Caitlinson! How's the diagnostic going?" Jones' voice crackled over the comms again. Andrew went over and once more pressed the key to open the transmission.

"Finishing up, Captain. I think our connection is having some subspace interference. It was messing with the scanner on the planet." Andrew reported.

"Keep me posted." Jones said, cutting off the transmission once again. Andrew sighed as he came back over to the computer monitor.

"Alright, while that's going on, I want to run a check on the main engines." Andrew said, using the touchscreen interface to go through the various options. "...and hang on a minute."

"What is it?" Jenny asked.

"Someone's locked out the slip drive. Remotely." The young man's brow furrowed at the screen, showing just that.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that somebody doesn't want us leaving."

"Could it have been the Sontarans?"

"Doubt it." He shook his head. "Those potatoheads don't have this kind of technology, least of all just two of their scout ships having it."

"So, it's-"

"Someone onboard. A member of the crew would have had to have done it, from where the time stamp is at the drive failing." Andrew quickly moved over to the comms again. "Captain, the diagnostic isn't finished, but I think we're the victim of some sabotage." He paused, but no response came. "...Captain?" Again, no response came. "Something's wrong... something's very, very wrong." The doors of the engine room closed with a slam, Andrew and Jenny both running over to them. "Oh, no no no no!"

"Hang on, where's the power panel? I can hotwire it back open." Jenny said.

"Over there. I'll keep trying the overrides." Andrew said, getting to the control panel for the door and trying his combination as well as others, but all were rejected. Then, the power to the panel simply gave out. "Oh, that's bad. That's really bad."

"Working as fast as I can." Jenny said, having pulled open the panel underneath him and had begun to fiddle with the wiring. As she did, they both heard the vents above opening up to cycle the air again. Instead of the normal burst of recycled air into the room, a greenish smoke began to billow out from it. "What is that?"

"I don't know, but I bet it's not something we want in our lungs." Andrew said, heading over to the hazmat containment unit and digging around for a pair of mask, finding only one and finding it broken. "Oh, great! Great!"

"Just a minute..." Jenny muttered, still working the wires. A shower of sparks coming from it as Andrew could feel his chest tightening as he unfortunately inhaled the first wisps of the very foul-smelling smoke.

"They must have escaped the planet!"

"Impossible!" Soric declared. "We would have picked up the slipspace disruption as they left the system!" The two Sontaran battle spheres had been circumnavigating the planet and had found nothing of their quarry. It was as if this ship, this Champlain, had simply disappeared entirely. "It is some sort of cowardly trick! We will find them!"

In the Lieutenant's mind, he was already returning with the thief having been annihilated and he would be returning to a promotion to Group Marshal for his valiant efforts in this war. The medical supplies were lost, certainly, but justice would have been done and the slight to the honor of the Empire would be avenged. Easily enough done.

"Make another pass and meet back at the rendezvous coordinates." Soric ordered the other sphere. "I shall contain the Fleet." His three-fingered hand began to manipulate the controls for the communications array. "This is Lieutenant Soric calling the Third Battle Fleet! Third Battle Fleet, do you read me?" Silence followed. He transmitted again. "This is Lieutenant Soric callign the Third Fleet. Do you copy?" Again, silence. "Private Styril, transmit a message to the Third Fleet informing them of our current position and situation." Even a message to his subordinate was met with silence. "Private Styril, I command you to answer at once!" Still no response. The Sontaran Lieutenant's brow furrowed and he piloted his pod over the curve of the planet where he had seen Sytril's pod disappear.

It was then that his sphere's sensors started going haywire, his instruments picking up a slipspace rupture. However, rather than a departure, it seemed to be an arrival. A behemoth of a ship slipped out of the rupture, re-entering realspace as it did so. The long, almost cylindrical vessel was immediately recognized by Soric as one of the Human Empire's capital ships.

"Human Empire vessel! Identify yourself and prepare to be destroyed for the-" An ion cannon was fired from the ship, Soric able to see as it completely atomized Sytril's pod from existence. "...glorious!" The cannon's second beam then took his ship and his life in all of a fraction of a second.

The entity seemed to swirl within the large containment unit. To outside eyes, it appeared as just that - a kind of black smoke that was vaguely shaped like a humanoid within the almost opaque container.

"Master?"

"You may speak." The entity's voice was hoarse, yet bizarrely manic. 

"We have arrived at Milax Five per the transmissions sent out by the crews of the Champlain and the Cook." The subordinate reported. "They have cleared out the area around the two Mine Shafts as instructed."

"Then we are one step closer to my ultimate goal. Excellent!"

"There is more, my Lord."

"Well, do not delay! Tell me!"

"One of the passengers onboard the Champlain. They are a Time Lord. All of our scans confirm it, there is at least one Time Lord presence onboard the vessel in question."

"I did not suspect that he would arrive so soon." The entity mused on this. "I want them brought to me. Alive and unspoiled."

"Our agent onboard the Champlain is doing just that right now."

"Excellent! Prepare the laboratory. As soon as they are within our grasp, their body will be mine!" A hand pressed against the divide between it and the rest of reality around it. 

"Our agent onboard the Champlain is already moving to retrieve them."

"Excellent! Excellent! Then nothing will stand in my way..."