Chapter XII: . . . into the fire!

One of the security guards stepped toward Rick with a pair of handcuffs. He allowed the cuffs to be put on, still stunned by the sudden turn of events. "Who are you?" he managed to ask.

The small man smiled. "I’m Sheriff Hank Ketchem, and these are my deputies, Helkar and Koche. I’m in charge of Salkar security. Come on, boys, let’s get him back to the station so I can inform the Stellar Patrol that we have the pirate Silver under arrest." He turned and headed back to the line of buildings in the background. Koche gave Rick a shove on the shoulder to start him moving, and they walked towards the small town on the edge of the spacefield, Rick between the two large deputies.

The walk back to the station took about five minutes. The startown on this planet consisted of one main street with three cross streets. There was a sign at the end of the main street where it joined with the expanse of the space field, hanging off the side of the control tower. "Welcome to Salkar, Planet of Opportunity. Businesses and dealer inquiries welcome."

The buildings were all prefabricated, made out of structural foam. Not pretty, but long lasting and serviceable. There had been attempts to paint them, but the nature of the foam made the paint hard to stick, so there was a lot of peeling paint on most of the buildings, revealing the original color of the industrial construction foam.

The police building was no exception. It had been painted white, but the paint was cracked and flaking, revealing the orange of the emergency shelter brand of structural foam used to construct the sheriff’s office. Rick was led inside, and they took the cuffs off of him. Sheriff Ketchem pulled out a large white envelope. "Okay, son. Empty your pockets onto the table."

"Look, there has got to be some mistake, sheriff." Rick pulled out his wallet and opened it. "See, I am Lieutenant Rick Raygunn of the Stellar Patrol. I’m on a secret mission to track down and arrest the pirate Blackcoat, who passed by here not to long ago."

Ketchem took the wallet, and examined the ID. "Well, son, if what you say is true, then there is nothing for you to worry about. If your mission is secret, who can we call to confirm it?" He looked up at Rick, one eyebrow cocked.

"Commandant Gunn of the Lunar Academy, sir. She’ll confirm this for me."

"Well, I’ll call her and settle this. But until I get confirmation, you’ll have to wait in the cell." The sheriff removed the ID card from Rick’s wallet, and tossed the wallet into the envelope. This was followed by the rest of Rick’s possessions, including the wrist comm unit and his belt. Then he was placed into the last one on the right of three cells in the back of the building.

Once Rick was secure behind the forcefield of the cell, one of the deputies left the building and the other sat down at a desk and placed his feet up on the desk. The sheriff disappeared into a room off to the side. Rick noticed that the sheriff’s name painted on the door, and decided that it was his office. Rick sat on the edge of his bunk, and decided that today was not turning out to be one of his better ones. He hoped that his mother would reply to the message soon, but with Salkar so far away from Earth, it will take twenty-three hours to get a reply, providing that his mother got the message right away.

The only other one that could help him was Colonel Darren, but if Rick asked for him, that would blow his cover. Rick decided that it would be better to stay quiet and wait until he heard from Earth rather than risk the Colonel’s cover. Rick stretched out on the bunk to wait.

Five minutes later, he was up and walking back and forth. He would pause and stare out the forcefield every so often, and then would walk around the tiny cell. It was incredibly boring. The deputy, Rick thought his name was Koche, looked up occasionally at him, then turned his attention back to the reader pad he had resting on his legs. Rick stared at the pad for a few minutes. "Hey, Koche."

The deputy looked up at him. "Whadda you want?" he growled.

Rick indicated the pad. "Can I read that when you’re done?"

Koche shook his head. "Sorry, guy. No electronics allowed in cells."

Rick sighed. "Got any hardcopy I can read anywhere?"

The deputy shook his head. "We don’t have a lot of paper here. Everything’s on-line."

"Great." Rick sat back down on the bunk.

The deputy got up and turned on a holographic entertainment unit. He turned it to face the cell Rick was in. "Here. You can watch the holovision." The screen started displaying ads for various products. "We get all the channels off the galacticomm network. Any requests?"

Rick sighed. He was never much of a holovision watcher. He shrugged. "News or something, please?"

"Sure." Koche flipped through the channels until he came to the network news channel. He adjusted the volume, then returned to his desk.

"Thanks," said Rick. He laid down on the bunk and propped his head up with a pillow, and watched. There was nothing special going on, just the usual sensationalist stuff that was of low interest to him, but was key to picking up subscribers.

Two hours later, Ketchem came out of his office, and walked over in front of Rick’s cell. Rick stood up as he approached. The sheriff scratched his head. "Well, Silver, Raygunn, or whatever your name is, A SP ship is on its way to pick you up. They have no record of you as an SP officer. They should be here in a few hours. Then you’re their problem." He smiled at Rick, and glanced over at the holovision. "Make yourself comfy. We’ll bring you supper in a little while."

`Great,’ thought Rick. `Well, once they get here, we can get this cleared up. They can certainly confirm my identity with Earth, anyway.’ He sat back down and watched more holovision. They brought supper to him in the evening. It was bland, but it felt good in his stomach. Eventually he fell asleep.

A commotion woke him up. He looked out, and the other deputy was there, and two uniformed SP officers. Rick got up and walked to the forcefield. Helkar was holding some ID, and speaking to the officers. "The sheriff will be right here. He wants to talk to you before you take the prisoner."

The two officers glanced at Rick, who smiled at them. Rick didn’t know who they were, but he was glad to see them. Rick looked around the office. The holovision was still on, but the volume was too low for him to hear more than a muted voices. The deputy handed the ID to the officers, who examined it. One was a Commander, and the other was a lieutenant. They didn’t speak or approach Rick, apparently content to wait for the sheriff to arrive.

It didn’t take long for Ketchem to arrive. He invited the two officers into his office, where they stayed for about ten minutes. When they came out, they headed for Rick. Rick stepped back from the edge of the field as not to pose a threat. The Sheriff looked over at Helkar. "Let him out, Matt. These boys got him now."

Helkar pointed a remote at the cell, and the confinement field switched off. Rick walked slowly forward, and breathed a deep sigh as he left the cell. He saluted the commander. "Lieutenant Rick Raygunn reporting, sir."

The Commander casually returned the salute. "We’ll see about that. I’m Commander Glass, and this is Lieutenant Harlow. Is that your interceptor on the field?"

"Yes, sir. Assigned to me by Commandant Gunn," stated Rick.

"It was reported stolen from the Lunar Development lab. Harlow, the cuffs." The lieutenant produced a pair, and secured Rick’s arms behind his back. The Commander turned to the sheriff. "Thank you for your help, Ketchem."

"Always willin’ to lend a hand, Commander." The sheriff handed the other lieutenant the envelop containing Rick’s personal possessions, and beamed as Rick was led out of the office by the Stellar Patrol officers. The town streets were dark, with only occasional lights giving off small pools of brightness. The night sky was brilliant with stars, and two moons floated above the landscape.

"Commander Glass, I didn’t steal the ship. Contact my moth. . ., I mean, Commandant Gunn. She assigned me the ship, and gave me the orders to investigate the actions of the Pirate Blackcoat."

"That’s what you told the Sheriff." They stopped in a pool of light near the field, and the Commander turned to face Rick. "Look, I don’t know who you are. Your name and ID doesn’t even show up on our records. So, Raygunn, or Silver, we are adding impersonating an officer in addition to everything else. That ID was good. Apparently good enough to get into the development labs. You have a lot of questions to answer, mister."

`This has got to be some sort of bizarre joke,’ thought Rick as they continued towards the field. There was a bright flash that blinded Rick for a second, and he heard the familiar whine as a blaster bolt cracked past him. He felt someone shove him down and heard another couple more shots. He blinked his eyes, and as he was starting to make out images again, he felt two sets of hands roughly grabbing him and pulling him up. He heard the hum of a vibroknife, and felt the cuffs drop from his wrists.

He turned to face his rescuers, but all he could see were dark figures, masks or something pulled over their faces. All he could tell in the dim moonlight was that they were humanoid. They pulled him along into an alley. Rick glanced back, and caught a glimpse of the two SP officers lying on the ground, their uniforms glowing from the blaster bolt hits. He was pulled around a corner, and was shoved into the back of a four door vehicle, resting on a gravity field. As soon as Rick and his two abductors were in and the door closed, a third figure, sitting in the driver’s seat, powered up the turbines, and the gravspeeder took off, heading away from both the town and the spacefield.

Rick wasn’t sure what was going on, but the shooting of the two SP men weren’t going to help his case any. These people were making things more difficult for him. "Hey, what’s going on? Why did you shoot them?"

"Shaddap." Rick couldn’t tell which one said it. The interior of the vehicle was black. The only light now was dimly coming from the control panel in the front seat, and from the light of the stars and moons. Rick could see that they were following a preprogrammed course, plotted by the computer. Occasionally dark clumps of rocks zipped by the windows, causing Rick to wince.

After a half hour, the view of the stars and the moons suddenly vanished, plunging them into total darkness except for the control panel. It indicated they were in a tunnel of some sort, and there was a distinct descending motion. This continued for another few minutes, then the vehicle came to a halt. Lights came up, slowly enough to allow everyone’s eyes to adjust. Rick could see that they were in a large chamber, and they were sharing it with a ship’s shuttle. It was long and black, about two- thirds the length of his interceptor.

They got out of the gravspeeder, which was painted the same kind of dull black as the shuttle. He noticed that one of his new captors had possession of his personal effects envelope. They started walking toward the shuttle, pushing Rick along. Rick noticed that the dark-garbed figures were armed with official SP issue M4MP blasters. Another figure, also dark-clad, head to foot, appeared through a hatch off to one side and waved to them. Rick’s group turned and headed towards the waving figure. Once he saw that they were approaching, the waving figure vanished back through the door, but left it open.

Rick stumbled a little as he was pushed forward, and they entered the room on the other side of the doorway. There were several black-clad figures there, but there was a very large one standing in the middle of the room, watching as Rick was brought it. Rick could see that this wasn’t a humanoid. It was obviously an Erscan, and Rick’s stomach started turning sour as he realized which Erscan it had to be.

The black-clad Erscan pulled off his mask to reveal a familiar, eye-patched face with a toothy grin. "So, again we meet, Raygunn. And I promise you, this time you will not get away," announced Blackcoat.

"You know, Blackcoat, you sound just like a holovid character. What do you want now?" asked Rick. "I’m getting tired of all of this shadowcloak and vibrodagger stuff. What’s going on?"

Blackcoat laughed. "I want you, for stealing my, uh, captive, stealing a lifepod, and generally making a nuisance of yourself. I want revenge."

"For what? Get real, Blackcoat. That’s a kettle calling a pot black." Rick noticed Blackcoat’s puzzled look, but didn’t elaborate. "You want me for just that? What about the frameup on Jameson Three? Why are my records missing from the SP? Why shoot those SP officers in the middle of a street with a Star cruiser in orbit?" Blackcoat’s expression became more puzzled with each question.

"Enough!" roared Blackcoat. He turned to his men. "You shot SP officers from a starship?"

The two that brought Rick into the room looked at each other, then at Blackcoat. They shuffled their feet back a little. "Uh, gee, Blackcoat, it was dark. You just said to shoot whoever was with him."

"Imbeciles. Now we have a starship angry. That was NOT part of the plan." Blackcoat turned and went over to a comm unit against the wall. He activated it, and tuned it to a news frequency.

". . .rmed and dangerous. Repeat. Armed and Dangerous. The space pirate known as Nick Silver, alias Rick Raygunn, escaped a few minutes ago after killing his Stellar Patrol guards. He is wanted for Piracy of a Stingray class starship, violating Flight control, deaths of SP agents and civilians on Jameson Three, and now for the cold-blooded murder of two SP officers." Rick’s description followed. The news channel repeated the announcement one more time, then started another story. "We have also learned that the free trader, The Vegan Queen, was officially declared missing after a brief distress call was received. The Stellar Patrol is searching the last known area of space for her."

Rick’s heart dropped. Jamie was on that ship. Images of her in bed, then the last time he saw her boarding the Vegan Queen on Jameson Three, flooded his mind. He sat down on the floor, and covered his face.

Blackcoat looked over at the young man. `Humans are so strange sometimes,’ he thought.

The light was dim in Andrea Gunn’s office on Luna. She sat in her chair, legs tucked up underneath her. A holostill of Rick taken shortly before he departed rested on her desk. He and Wilma were playing volleyball on a beach in Fort Lauderdale, for the traditional spring break. He looked so alive, so full of promise. Now,. . . Andrea’s head fell forward, and tiny sobs escaped her. "Forgive me, Rick."

Wilma was on the Bridge of the SPS Feist when the order came in. The captain briefly glanced at her as he read the text of the message, then slowly crumpled the thin, reusable plastic sheet. He activated the intership intercom. "Attention, all crew. We have new orders. We are to delay our journey to sector seven. A full scale search has been ordered for this area of space. Rick Raygunn, former lieutenant, is wanted for piracy and murder of both SP officers and agents. He is considered armed and dangerous. Our orders are to," He paused briefly, refusing to make eye contact with any of the bridge officers. "We are to shoot on sight. That is all."

Wilma felt her stomachs tie themselves in knots. She shakily stood up and addressed the captain. "Captain Hemdael. Permission to leave the bridge." The captain nodded his permission before she finished. She rushed off, and into the turboshaft. She barely made it to her shared cabin and collapsed on her bunk, the tears finally emerging in full force. "Why, Rick? Why did you do it?" she cried into her pillow.

To Be Continued...