Antibodies 14

© Copyright BG Taff

Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)

Chapter 14.

After reassuring myself that the two naval craft were more than capable of arresting the fugitive kidnap craft, I manoeuvred Digger to block the approaching rendezvous craft from having a direct line of sight to the kidnappers and the naval commander of the lead warship gave a brief approval over the coms.

“Good move Digger, try and maintain that trigonometry while we prepare a strategy.”

“Copy.” I confirmed briefly to avoid revealing any plan the navy might have.

To this end, I continued interrupting the rendezvous craft’s line of sight but this compelled me to approach closer and closer to the kidnap craft that carried Jamie. Then I heard one of the naval craft warn the approaching ship.

“Unidentified craft approaching the small white craft insinuated between the two naval craft, we must warn you that the craft contains fugitives and a kidnap victim. If you fail to withdraw, we will be forced to shoot.”

The tension mounted as the stranger continued closing the distance and I found myself getting too close to the kidnappers. Eventually the strangers approached so close that I could see the occupants in the forward command cockpit. Even as I watched them, I saw a portal reveal itself and instantly recognised it as a missile port.

In panic, I yanked on digger’s control column and swooped violently upwards as a missile appeared with its nose protruding threateningly from the missile port. I screeched into my coms.

“He’s going to’ shoot!”

Even as Digger lurched upwards with a crushing force, I felt my knees buckle just as there was a deafening bang from somewhere on Digger’s underside. As I recovered my senses; Digger’s hull integrity alarm was screeching agonisingly loud and I lashed out in fright to disable it’s brutal assault on my ears.

As the screeching subsided I quickly scanned my side console to discover that a leak had appeared in my hull. A further check confirmed that none of Digger’s engines had been damaged.

“Thank fuck for that,” I cursed silently as I now found time to learn what was happening to my attacker.

The Navy had not been slow. My attacker had two modest smoking holes in the engine pods and he was slowly losing his antigravity charge. More importantly, his hull integrity was also seriously breached so he was not going into space.

As I recovered my wits, my comms crackled into life again. There was none of the military formality to the message, just a plain language question tinged with concern.

“Spaceship Digger. What’s the damage to your ship?”

I hesitated uncertainly for I knew I had been hit but I had no idea of the extent of the damage. Even as I responded, I was testing various controls and functions. Eventually I replied with some relief.

“I’ve got hull damage and the underside has been penetrated but my engines are all functional. His missile was perfectly accurate and struck the middle dead centre of the underside of my hull but I was already climbing and banking when it struck. It must have impacted at an angle and glanced off to ricochet off before exploding. There is a split in the hull but the explosive shaped charge must have been misdirected by the angle of deflection.

My manoeuvrability is good but I cannot go into space without my space suit.”

“We’ve no intentions of going into space. We just need to capture the kidnap craft. The trouble is, we cannot use weapons on such a vulnerable small craft.”

“Can you not use a gravity tether?” I asked.

“We don’t have them, we’re low orbit patrol ships. We have no hard pads to accept the impact. The bigger ships have them.”

I did a double take for I had always assumed that all naval craft had gravity tethers if only to secure themselves to smaller objects like asteroids and meteors or even just as mooring ropes where there was no dedicated dock. To me, not having gravity tethers was serious shortcoming to any sort of craft designed to go to undeveloped locations and do unusual operations.

Once again, it seemed that Naval craft were coming up short for want of equipment and cash.

“Fur coat and no nickers again,” I muttered to myself with dissatisfaction as I informed the commander.
“I’ve got gravity tethers, two of them in fact to balance any load..”

“Have you got a hard spot to land the fugitive.”

“I’m a cargo ship commander, I’ve got a whole cargo hold.”

The commander replied without hesitation.

“Do it. Now!”

So I did.

ooo000ooo

My spaceship Digger has a capacity of about three thousand cubic metres when my hatches are closed. Consequently, it was no problem to extend the gravity tethers out to the kidnappers craft and slowly reel it in. All I had to do was reverse my ship just as supply boats approach their oil platforms and gently but irresistibly, pull their ‘hover-van’ into the cargo hold. Once it was held down, I simply closed the hatch and asked the naval commander where they wanted the kidnappers delivered to.

He declared that they had no instructions then asked if I had somewhere in mind.

I explained that the kidnappers had kidnapped Jamie from the vaccine research laboratory and that I felt that the vaccine research team would very much like to have Jamie back. I had to explain that Jamie was in no way being detained by the researchers and that she was a volunteer.

There ensued a detailed conversation with my explaining the whole situation. Then; during our return, the naval craft organised a reception committee for when we landed and exposed the kidnappers. As we returned to loiter briefly over the laboratory block a reception committee comprising mostly armed police, ascended to meet us and escort me down to the landing park.
The warship loitered overhead because the landing lark was too small to accommodate two craft of ship size, but the police craft buzzed around digger like wasps around jam. Once I had touched down, I explained to the chief police inspector how the cargo hatch would open and fold back then to be ready arrest the hover-van. There was one little wrinkle I also had to add.

“Officer, your men will have to wear gravity neutraliser suits to operate within the cargo hold because the whole cargo hold is gravity activated so the hover van is pinned down by its own additional weight. It’s a spaceship, cargo security thing.”

There was a pregnant pause from the police inspector then I heard a brief chuckle from the warship’s bridge radio as they savoured my explanation. As the silence persisted the commander interrupted.

“We’ve got spare gravity neutraliser suits and a squad of marines to do the arrest.”

“Okay. Do your best commander but don’t harm the hostage, she’s valuable.”

While the navy boys and their marine colleagues prepared to assault the van I kept in regular contact with their commander who asked.

“Are you able to localised the gravity force within the cargo hold?”

“Sorry commander,” I apologised, “It’s not that sophisticated. It’s main function is just to capture and hold down cargo in gravity free space. I can increase the force if you want but I don’t know how the hostage is secured. If she’s bound over and bent, the extra gee could crush her chest and suffocate her. All I can say is she looked to be laid out in a coffin shaped box when they carried her.”

I watched the commander nodding his head thoughtfully as they contemplated their tactics. As they chatted amongst themselves the commander turned again to me.

“Can you switch the gravity on and off at will?”

“I’ll have to ‘zero’ the settings for this planet, hold on a minute while I adjust the datum level.”

After checking the readings, it was a simple task to negate the normal effects of the Earth’s gravity. The readings were a standard datum second only to the zero settings for space. The commander and I agreed what hand signals he would use and then I watched through my cargo-hold cameras as his men cautiously approached the hover van.

The kidnappers had made a serious mistake by choosing a windowless van to smuggle their hostage because they could not see behind them. Then there were two sharp ‘cracks’ as the marines shot out the driving mirrors to further restrict the kidnapper’s rear view.

Then the commander spoke again to me.

“Can you dim your hold lights; we’ve got night vision?”

“Then I won’t be able to see you, you’ll have to give me your requests over the radio.”

“Okay.” He agreed. “I’ll use the radio.

All I could do then was to sit patiently until his instruction snapped over the comms.

“Gravity off. Now!”

I instantaneously switched it off and was left wondering what was afoot. Then the next instruction barked through.

“Gravity on!”

I complied immediately then the requests alternated every few seconds but I could neither hear, nor see what was going on. Eventually the marine lieutenant explained.

“We’ve got them. Your hostage is bruised but conscious.”

I swallowed uncertainly as I asked.

“How badly is she hurt?”

“Nothing serious from us. She’s got a black eye and a cut lip, but that was the kidnappers. It’s mainly her dignity. You can switch the hold lights on again.”

I did so and immediately saw Jamie sitting on the box beside the hover-van that had imprisoned her, while the Marines were securing the kidnappers, - none too gently either. The marine lieutenant was handing her the radio so I called to her.

“How are you love?”

“Bloody pissed!” She cursed. “It’s secure here now, can you let me into the cabin.”

“Doesn’t the lieutenant want to debrief you?”

“He said he’ll do it after these bastards are sorted. Let me in.”

I released the air-lock door and she stumbled into the command station. There I checked her over and soon after the lieutenant entered looking very satisfied with himself.

“We’ve identified two of the kidnappers, they’re a big catch. The plod are keen to get their hands on both of them. As to the others, we’re still talking to the police. They’re carrying a few bruises and such, but my boys had few old scores to settle from way back. They’ll need a bit of medical attention.”
“I couldn’t care fucking less!” Jamie cursed. “Vicious bastards! Especially that red bearded one. He made a big thing of my transgender stuff. He even asked their boss if he could fuck me!”

“Well, he won’t be doing much for a while. He lost an eye in the fight and his other eye is swollen shut. His red beard tells me he’s a haji.”

“What’s that?” Jamie asked as she handed the lieutenant a welcome mug of tea.

“Oh, he’s been on a pilgrimage to Mecca.”

“Ooh! One of those. Somebody should send his balls to Mecca.

The lieutenant smiled then nodded to me.

“Is there enough tea in that pot for the men?”

“Maybe, but not enough cups I suspect. They’ll have to take turns.

“That’ll work. You can let the police on board now.”

ooo000ooo