Fred McCarthy knew he was in serious trouble the minute he walked into bay 16, seeing the man and Andorian woman standing there looking at the crates he should have disposed of a couple of days ago. But with the bonus provided by Nash, he had been on one hell of a bender, returning to work only at the threat of being fired by the Chief of the Port.
His head pounded from the worst hangover in years and the pressure of this...gun in his side by the white haired man was going to leave a nasty bruise to be sure.
Marcus kept the gun hidden from view as the three of them made their way down the corridor to bay 69B.
A group of Star Fleet officers passed by them, deep in conversation. All Marcus could make out was the words "Washington" and "Sneak attack"
But Delilah was able to listen in for a much greater distance as the men passed them.
She tapped Marcus on the shoulder and whispered. "We've got to leave..Like right now."
"Why?"
"Just start powering up the systems the minute we're aboard."
Marcus trusted her judgment and nodded.
As they were about to enter the docking bay another group of men walked by, but one of them took extra notice of the threesome and stopped.
'Hey is that you Delilah?" he called out. His friends stopping and staring.
Delilah snapped her head around, staring at the young man, he looked vaguely familiar. But....
"Yea, Delilah Blue...it is you. Don't you remember me.? Crawford... from the Palladin."
Suddenly she did recognize him, and with it a flood of very unpleasant memories.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. He looked at her cocktail dress and the expression in his face was unmistakable.
"Traveling...We're just leaving as a matter of fact."
Fred started to squirm in Marcus grip. But the nozzle of the gun pressed so hard he was sure he was going to break a rib.
One of Crawfords friends coughed and made a motion to signal he needed to hurry along.
He took a step closer and lowered his voice. "You know.. I always thought you got a bad deal from Old Man Tasker. A lot of us did.
Now she was mad and the words spilled out before she knew it. "Well, no one stood up for me then. Where were you when I needed you?"
The mans face turned red. "You're right...you're right. Look" he glanced up at Marcus and Fred. "If I were you. I'd be getting out of here real soon. And if your heading for the Amanda Corridor, I'd think twice."
"What are you talking about?"
He started to turn. "Nice to see you. You take care now." he said to loud, obviously for his friends sake more than hers.
Marcus jerked Fred along and in minutes they were aboard his ship. He bound Fred to a chair and stuffed a gag in his mouth as Delilah started bringing systems on line.
"What was that about?" Marcus asked coming up to join her in the cockpit.
"Later. We need to leave now. Fighting has broken out between the Federation and the Phoenix Defense Forces."
Marcus clicked the comm to Port control.
"This is Phoenix flight A469 requesting immediate departure clearance, do you copy?"
There was a pause and then came the reply. "uh....A469....standby."
"That doesn't sound good."
"No ...it doesn't" Marcus replied. He started disengaging the holding clamps.
"What if they make us stay?"
Marcus turned to her. "You want to stay here?"
"Hell no."
Port control came back. "Phoenix flight A469... Uh...you're instructed to power down and stand by."
"Last chance." Marcus asked.
Delilah didn't answer, but reached over and powered up the impulse engines to full.
"Copy that Port control" Marcus answered, just as he whipped the nose of the craft around and shot out of the docking area."
"Phoenix Flight A469, you are ordered to return to base...do you copy."
Marcus closed the channel. "I don't think I'm going to need to hear anymore. Going to warp."
The stars turned to streaks and in a moment they were cruising at warp 5.
He watched the scans, hoping they wouldn't bother with a chase of a ship so small. He was disappointed when the blip of a small Federation Warship appeared.
"Their coming." he said.
"Can we go any faster?"
"Not fast enough."
"So now what?"
Marcus pulled up the navigation charts, desperately looking for some place to hide.
Like a miracle he found it. "Changing course to 78 Mark 45. There is a system with several gas giants, each has dozens of moons. If we can get there ahead of them..."
He increased speed to the ships max, Warp 7.
"How long can you maintain this speed?"
"Half hour max.'
"And how far behind us are they?"
"Just a little more than that. If they don't increase speed more than warp 7."
Fifteen minutes later they dropped from warp just a short distance from the fifth planet out. It made Jupiter look like a basketball and dozens of moons could be seen shining in the dark.
It took only seconds for Marcus to make a choice and he turned the ship at full impulse.
The moon was almost the size of a small planet, its atmosphere a rolling cauldron of clouds. The Marque fighter disappeared beneath the top cloud layer and Marcus continued his decent.
"How far down you planning on going?"
"Don't know yet."
She started trying to make out the surface features on the scanner, their forward window just a blank white of fog.
"Sensors are have a hard time, must be some kind of ion interference." she reported.
"Bad news is we're blind. Good news is they will be too."
Suddenly alarms started sounding. "Ground proximity alarm...shit" Marcus swore.
They were much lower than they had realized. The alarm got louder.
"Any reading at all?" Marcus asked.
"hang on....hang on. Water. We're over a body of water."
"Perfect." and Marcus cut back the power and nosed the ship down.
They hit the surface at half impulse speed, the jolt causing systems to crash and more alarms to sound.
They could feel the forward motion come to a stop and Marcus started shutting systems down. In moments the only sound was their breathing, the cockpit filled with the aroma of burn circuits.
"Now what?" Delilah asked sinking into her chair,
"Now we take a break. Give our pursuers a chance to give up and go home."
"And this mess?" she said pointing at all the dark screens and indicators.
"Well..... We fix them. It's not like we don't have a mechanic aboard." he replied looking at Fred, who's eyes were now the size of dinner plates.
Marcus Dinn
Owner of RICKS and Oz
Phoenix Colony
Phoenix Federation
Lieutenant Commander Dr. Delilah Blue
Medical Officer, USS Prometheus
