The Light Blue Jumper Read online

  I heard a strange whooshing noise and looked over instinctively at Zaaro. To my horror, a gaping hole had appeared in place of the jump seat where Zaaro had been snoozing. We had been hit by a stealth bomb and Zaaro was gone.

  37. Zaaro Nian

  I woke with a start. It was very quiet and terribly dark all of a sudden. Perhaps Madam and the rest of the crew had left for the mission. I felt my way around and bumped into what seemed to be a door, but it was locked. Oh dear! They had locked me into some kind of storage area by the feel of it. Why would they do that?. Of course, it must be standard mission safety protocol. I calmed myself. There was nothing to be done but wait patiently for them to return, after completing their mission. I wish I had asked exactly what the mission was. That way I would have had a fair idea of how long it would take.

  I stumbled around in the dark, trying to while away the time. Soon enough, I had to stop though, as it was proving to be fairly unproductive and quite painful. I had managed to knock over an entire cabinet, which rained large musty files on to me. Nursing a nasty bump on my head, I closed my eyes, trying to make sense of my predicament. I was sitting on a heap of paper, which immediately meant it contained top secret information. Paper was a rare and extremely expensive commodity; first on the list of smuggled contraband across the empire. Democracy, I corrected myself, across the democracy. This could be a secret storage site built on the shuttle to house data for IPF undercover missions, I thought, as the whole area was bathed in a flash of light.

  38. Lieutenant Salaar

  Madam was hysterical. Lethalwulf and I were trying to boost our shield strength. In the space of a few seconds, we had lost Zaaro and found the IPF.

  We were being fired at from all directions. No matter what we did, our shield wasn’t going to hold much longer. Our only choice was to evacuate, but where to? We would be stranded in deep space until our oxygen supply ran out, which would be in a time span of approximately three and a half minutes. I looked daggers at Lethalwulf; his only responsibility had been to load the oxygen cylinders onto the shuttle while I went to get Zaaro.

  “Jump shuttle!” I ordered, as the fuel tank exploded. Madam paused in her hysterics long enough to throw me a scalding look and say, “I am in command, Lieutenant! Are you trying to challenge my authority?”

  “No Madam, I had simply assumed you were too busy with your responsibilities as Chief of Hysteria to fulfil your responsibilities as Chief of this shuttle,” I told her.

  “Nobody leaves until I say jump shuttle!” Madam shouted.

  “Very well Madam, would you rather we die in this inferno first and then jump? Just so that the sequence of events is clear in my mind.” Lethalwulf was on the verge of mutiny.

  “I am thinking about the risks! You always jump first and think later!” Madam snapped.

  “Let me explain, either we die horribly in this shuttle right now or in a far more poetic fashion, in infinite space, a few minutes later. Which do you prefer?” I asked her.

  Lethalwulf was expressing his views on the subject of our escape, when our shuttle gave a final groan and exploded into smithereens. Our last snatch of conversation had thankfully convinced Madam to jump, so we had all been unceremoniously ejected on the verge of the final explosion, straight into the IPF’s retractor beam. The last thing I remembered was banging into a hatch before I passed out. Would it kill them to open the damned hatch before they pulled someone in?

  39. Zaaro Nian

  I was having trouble seeing. Maybe I had slipped back into the strange dark dream. Everything was inky black and it was so quiet. I tried to clear my throat, but it sounded alien to my own ears. My attempt ended in a whimper. I forced open my eyes and peered into the darkness. I tried to wave my hand in front of my face, still nothing. Finally I pinched myself to check if I was awake. A trick my wife had taught me. Now, was I awake if it hurt or if it didn’t? I decided I must be awake. I was far too lucid to be in a dream state. Having said that; I did have the feeling of reckless bravado felt by natives of Zaaron only when we dreamed. All in all, there was a fifty per cent chance either way.

  I tried to inch my way forward but I kept stumbling. Why had the storage area become even darker and smaller, so much more awkward to navigate? After all that light, it was most likely a dream. I decided to take charge of my imagination and commanded myself to fly. I couldn’t manage much more than a tiny hop, as my head banged into something. I clapped my hands for light and suddenly, to my great relief, my surroundings were awash with light.

  I was definitely dreaming, which meant I could relax and just let things be. I looked around and realised that I was in a narrow ventilation shaft. I peered down through the holes to see that the door to the sparsely furnished room below was opening. Three burly IPF officers walked in, dragging Madam, Salaar and the Commander behind them! All the more proof that this was a dream. If this were real, Salaar would have made them jump clean of any such dangerous situation.

  I sat back on my heels to watch the show. My inner self was obviously trying to entertain me.

  The officers pushed Madam, Salaar, and Lethal down onto steel chairs and each sat opposite one of them with a steel table in between. Suddenly the lights seemed to get a little too bright in the room. “Why did you destroy our most important secret storage site?” The IPF officers asked each one of them again and again, their voices rising with each repetition. Suddenly I was glad to be in the ventilation shaft, the proceedings in the room below seemed uncannily like the scenarios I had practiced with Lethal. I really hoped no one was about to be tortured, but if they did pick someone, my money was on Madam. She was generally the most unruly and uncooperative.

  “What secret storage site?” Salaar asked, unfazed.

  At that the officers exchanged glances and whispered to one another.

  “There may or may not have been an important secret storage site close to the place your shuttle was last seen approaching, which, along with all its data, may or may not have been destroyed!” one of the officers said.

  “Why was it secret? What did it contain?” The Commander did not miss a beat.

  The IPF officers looked a little uncomfortable with the line the questioning was now taking. “It was not secret per se, as the IPF have nothing to hide. But there were personal and confidential records stored there,” the officer replied.

  “Right, correct me if I’m wrong, you are saying that there was a databank of a private and confidential nature, whose location was unknown, which has probably been destroyed. If it was a secret, how in the world would we have known anything about it or its location?” Madam joined the fray.

  The IPF officers voiced reluctant agreement. “It is true that nobody can access IPF confidential information. We simply do not allow it,” they said in unison.

  “There must be some sort of misunderstanding officers! We are here on a mission to study the spectacular rock formations on planet Tephron, not far from here.” Lethalwulf was as good at lying in my dream as he was during training practice. It was unfortunate his geographical skills left something to be desired. Planet Tephron had absolutely no rock formations of any interest. Tephron was home to just run-of-the-mill, you-can-find-them-anywhere type of rocks. I waited for a shout of laughter from the IPF officers, but it seemed their skills were no better than his. They were actually contemplating the possibility.

  “Where is your companion?” one of the officers asked.

  “Which companion? There are only the three of us.” Salaar was good.

  “Do not deny that a Zaaronian native was on board your shuttle!” another officer protested, banging his fist on the table.

  “A Zaaronian native? Why would we have dealings with the like?” I was offended that Madam had no recollection of me. I had been away but a few hours. Then I remembered that this was only a dream.

  “We picked up his heat signature on the shuttle, do not lie to us!” her interrogator insisted.

  “Maybe there was a stowaway on board.
We had no one else with us,” the Commander said emphatically. After all that I had done for him, accepting him in my lifelong pledge, this was the thanks I was getting. I was no one to him. I cleared my throat to speak and then reminded myself again that it was just a dream. But what a dreadful dream.

  “What is that noise?” one of the officers asked.

  “It’s the ventilation shafts, we haven’t had them cleaned in a while, I’m afraid there are some rats on occasion,” another replied.

  All three officers shuddered in revulsion while I gathered myself into a tight ball, tucking my extremities underneath me. I’m very brave generally, even in the face of mortal danger, but the thought of a rat scampering over my toes, or of many rats scampering in the plural, was enough to make me whimper. I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths and turning my inner self towards pleasing thoughts. Chickens tikkas. I waited for my dream to reflect my desire. Sadly, not a tikka appeared. My inner self seemed to be losing all control over this dream.

  “Either you tell us what you were up to in this quadrant or we call in the Princess and you can explain things to her. She would love to know why you conducted an arson attack on our secret storage site and destroyed all our data.” The interrogators had travelled full circle and gone back to their initial presumptions. There was a reason IPF officers were not known for their intellectual prowess.

  “Arson attack? Aren’t all IPF secret storage sites rigged to self-detonate?” Madam was indomitable.

  The trio looked decidedly sheepish as they shook their heads and said “That is what we tell people. But we had to make budget cuts, self- detonating devices are extremely expensive to procure.”

  “I have nothing to do with this, but I have my suspicions about these two,” Madam said pointing at Salaar and Lethal. “Could you give us a moment so that I can get the truth out of them?”

  “Yes, of course,” they said eagerly and stood politely outside the room while my three fair-weather friends went into a huddle. All I could hear were snatches of “Do you think?” and “Could it mean?”

  I decided to quietly disembark from my rather precarious vantage point and listen to the conversation. I couldn’t make out what they were saying from where I was. Gingerly, I opened the grate and swung one leg over the other to glide silently to the floor. Mid-glide, a series of unexpected events occurred. My sleeve got caught in the grate, causing a jerk, which led to my slipper falling off, and as I scrambled to free my sleeve, my pyjamas, which were the worse for wear, began to slide down. I immediately reassessed my priorities, stopped scrambling and used my free hand to hold them up. I was now suspended by one arm from the ceiling, with the other hand clutching my pyjamas. Thankfully, no one had seen anything.

  “Maybe he managed to get the data before the storage site exploded,” Madam was saying.

  “But what would cause such a far-reaching explosion? Our shuttle couldn’t possibly explode with such force unless it was rigged with explosives,” Salaar attempted to answer his own question. Madam took longer than she usually did to respond.

  “It was probably someone else,” she said finally, and I knew she was right. I hadn’t been anywhere near the IPF secret storage site and our shuttle was an escape pod, with no weapons on board.

  “The worst part is; any one of us could’ve carried out this mission! We didn’t need Zaaro!” What a horrible thing to say! Lethalwulf really was ungrateful. But he had an annoying habit of being right.

  “Remember, this could all just be subterfuge. This may be an attempt to frame us for a false-flag operation.” Salaar had a very warped opinion of the IPF. I couldn’t imagine that they would ever do such a thing, not to their own secret operatives in any case.

  As the IPF officers walked back into the room at Madam’s call, I heard a ripping noise while I sailed through the air and landed squarely on the three of them. The Commander smiled and winked, quite unnecessarily reaffirming his pledge. Salaar seemed startled into immobility.

  “Is everyone all right? Zaaro are you all right? What can I do?” Madam rushed forward with concern.

  I groaned in response. “I am afraid there is nothing you can do. It is damaged beyond repair,” I said, indicating the rip in my sleeve.

  The IPF officers seemed to have been knocked out cold. Salaar, Madam and Lethal took their guns, and we tried to make good our escape.

  “Everyone, follow me!” said the Commander, who had the most experience with prison breaks.

  Madam didn’t object this time and we crept out of the door in single file behind him.

  “Where were you?” Salaar turned and whispered to me.

  “I was trapped in a secret storage area on the shuttle,” I told him.

  “There is no secret storage area on the shuttle,” he said.

  “Well, I was definitely on the shuttle, I didn’t set foot outside.” Salaar seemed utterly confused, so I tried to elaborate. “It was a typical secret storage area, dark, filled with clutter; I kept bumping into filing cabinets and falling over a lot.”

  Salaar was signalling frantically to someone behind me to pipe down. I’m sure it was the Commander who was next in line; he really wasn’t the most subtle of creatures. “I was thrown about so much, look at the state of me!” I said, showing him my ripped sleeve. There seemed to be a piece of paper dangling from it. I yanked it free and crumpled it into a ball. “I’ve got it Salaar!” I said as he tried to grab it. “I’ve had enough practice getting rid of these pesky things,” I reassured him, and was about to fling it across the room towards the waste disposal, when he wrenched it from my hand and shoved it into his pocket.

  Just then I felt a gun pressed into my temple, and a female voice said, “Now if you will all put down your weapons and step this way.” Meekly, I marched with the rest, Salaar in front, me behind him and then Lethal, while Madam brought up the rear. We were shoved through a thick black metal door marked ‘EXECUTION AREA 7’ in shiny gold letters. Oh, my stars! We are going to be executed, without a trial and without formal charges. We have really fallen foul of Space Regulations this time! Severe indeed are the consequences of flouting the law! I battled rising anxiety and tried to hold my breath to ward off the awful stench of charred flesh that burned the back of my throat as I swallowed, the execution area had probably been used recently.

  As we stumbled in through the door, I suddenly remembered that there was still a slim chance this might be an elaborate dream of my making, so I leaned over and whispered this to Madam, hoping it would calm her down.

  “This is not your dream Zaaro!” she said.

  “Someone else’s then?” I asked. “The last time I was in anyone else’s dream was when I wandered into my wife’s and that was totally disastrous!”

  “Empty out your pockets, little creature,” my tormentor ordered. I obliged and produced my toothbrush. I always keep it handy as I am a firm believer in oral hygiene. She whacked me across the back of the head in response and shoved me, along with the others, towards a black wall lined with huge chairs. They were monstrosities, complete with thick leather straps on the arms and near the base, with a low electrical hum emanating from them. I turned around immediately, deciding that no matter who was behind me, she would be less frightening than the chairs. It appeared all of us had the same idea.

  I looked up at a tall slender woman, with long wavy chestnut locks. Physically, she was almost as repulsive as my poor wife. Salaar and the Commander seemed to think otherwise. Both of them seemed mesmerised by her, though she was clearly not a Basiliska, while Madam was making rude gestures and appeared to be sizing her up for a fist fight.

  She moved suddenly towards me with the butt of her gun aimed at my head but Madam intercepted her with surprising alacrity. “You come near him again and I’ll rip you to shreds!” she shouted. The shout woke Salaar from his reverie. “I notice you have no guards with you, Dinaara,” he said to the ungainly female.

  “I can take care of myself, Salaar.”

  S
alaar stood between Dinaara and I. “None of this concerns you. The Zaaronian does not have what you are looking for.”

  “Yes, I don’t. What are you looking for exactly?” I asked, backing him up.

  “Taught a Zaaronian how to lie? Very impressive,” she said begrudgingly.

  “How dare you insult me like that?” I nudged the Commander; he had to challenge her to a duel at the very least but that seemed to be the farthest thought from his presently vacant mind. He was by far the worst slave we had ever acquired.

  “What does she mean, Salaar?” It was Madam’s turn to look bemused. “What is she looking for?”

  “Return the IPF secret data!” the woman screamed.

  I suddenly understood what all the fuss was about. I reached over from my place against the wall, took the small wad of paper from Salaar’s pocket, and handed it to the tall woman. “No need to panic, I’m handling this,” I reassured everyone. “I believe this might be what you’re looking for. I have no idea what it is and what it was doing on our shuttle, and there’s no need to worry about others like it, I left them right where I found them but I seemed to have missed this one.” Instead of thanking me for clearing up the misunderstanding, she grabbed the crumpled up paper, pushed me backwards and made a run for it. Salaar was quicker though. He sped after her and tackled her to the ground, wresting the gun from her grasp. He threw the gun behind him, narrowly missing my head. It skidded to a halt beside my foot. Lithe as a cat, I moved to pick it up so I could aid my friends, but in my haste to grab it, I accidentally pressed the trigger. I couldn’t bear to see the aftermath so I just squeezed my eyes tightly shut and waited for the screams to stop.