Chapter Two: Escape?

“Max, we need more lift!” called the engineer, a young Saurian female with light cerulean-blue scales and dark green eyes.
Maxikirian Thocla grunted as he set the suction on a higher scale. It was hard enough to create a tornado with a one-track mind but even harder to at the same time keep a steady drizzle going on the hills so that a few mud slides could occur. After this he would need a large cup of maclar or something even stronger.

He hoped his sister would see that too, but then she’d never been one to understand the needs of anything organically alive; he had to reminded her continuously when to eat, drink, sleep... but by all the geysers in Hell she was wonderful with machines!

“Max!” Canth said warningly. “You’ll let her slip! Keep concentrating!”

Grinding his teeth Max bunched his fists, straining physically as well as mentally to keep tornado pulling the ship out of the earth. It was beginning to slip, as the mudslides cleared away the soil that kept in stuck. With a long, disgusting sound like glooooooshlph the cargo ship pulled out, sailed straight into the tornado. He dropped it quickly, and the ground shook. Panting, Max flopped down onto the grass, and stared up at the violet sky, now tinged with dark prussian blue, his colour, because night was soon to fall.

“Max? You okay?” Canth stood over him, peering down with a puzzled expression. “Do you need an oil change?”

He laughed weakly. “Kind of, but I think a cup of maclar would be prime.”

“Caffiene’s bad for the system,” Canth said. It was, perhaps, the only thing she swore she knew when it came to living organisms.

“Not today it’s not.” He sat up slowly, holding his head. “Ohhh, if there were such things as aspirins in Limbo I’d have a couple of them as well. Where’s Loki at the moment? I think I’ll report the news.”

“He’s on the other side of the hills,” his sister replied. “Still working on the Dimensional Gateway Generator, like he’s been the last few days.”

Max nodded, and looked glumly up at the hills. No way was he going to walk, so, despite the drain on his energy, he used the only non-weather spell Wraith had taught him: teleportation. He appeared in a burst of purple flame and mist behind Loki, who froze, and then looked around.

He’d changed in the last month. The slash across his left eye had become a pinky-grey Z-shaped scar which, though there had been no damage done to the eyeball, left him with a strangely older look. But it wasn’t just outwardly that he’d changed. He was no longer the constantly worried young teen he’d been before taking over the captaincy of the Ragnarok, as they named the ship. He’d begun to grow up.

Loki scratched his crest - a feature that almost all males of the Nakara line had (Diablo being the only exception), that and the blood red scales - and looked at him with a mock angry frown.

“There you go again, Max,” he said. “Springing from nowhere, you really do want to give someone a coronary, don’t you?”

“Not you, Loki,” Max assured him. “Perhaps a certain sulky-puss over at Dragaunus’s old hideaway, but not you.”

“Go scare Diablo silly as much as you want.”

“You didn’t fall off a chair this time. I’m pleased.”

“So am I,” Loki smiled, “I bruise easily. Now what was it you wanted? I’m kind of in the middle of things,” he added, holding up a salvaged mech-repair, and pointing it at the large mechanical... thing on the grass, which looked something like a seven foot tall cone with two ginormous pincers on the top.

“Oh, I see, you didn’t feel the earthquake?”

“What earthquake?”

Max sighed. “Guilty as charged, case closed.” He sat down beside his friend. “I meant the giant impact tremor which was the result of the Ragnarok’s first landing.”

“You got her out?” Loki asked. “Great!”

“Why does everyone call the Ragnarok a she?” he asked. “It’s a cargo ship, there’s nothing feminine about it.”

Shrugging, Loki replied,

“For luck, I guess. Of course, when all the rennovations are complete,” he grinned, “then she’ll have a much smoother look. She won’t just be a cargo ship, she’ll be part warship as well.”

“This talk of warships is unnerving, especially coming from you. Are we planning to invade some place?”

“No!” Loki shrank back, wincing. “I mean... damn. Look, we’re going to give aid to my brother, that’s all. Dragaunus, that is, not Diablo... he doesn’t deserve anything.” The youth shook his head. “I’m not going to be a part of it, I’m going to find Rhatarl and stay there.”

“I’m not a fighter,” Max admitted. “I’d probably go with you, and bring Canth, too. Anyway I have mixed feelings about meeting my old teacher again. I rather hope Wraith’s dead.”

“Have we had that like of luck lately?”

“Depends on what counts as luck, doesn’t it?” he replied with a wry grin. “I mean, your becoming captain so easily is a piece of good fortune for you, but not for Diablo.”

“I still don’t get why he gave up so easily!”

“Maybe he didn’t want to become more defaced than he already was? No one would take kindly to your death, especially after what he’d done before, leaving you to the Icelot.”

“It still doesn’t make any sense!” Loki growled, his tail thrashing wildly. “He doesn’t care about his popularity! He could have just killed me and forced everyone to continue supporting him. He had that power.”

Maxikirian kept silent. Loki was, indeed, right; Diablo had few scruples, and even fewer morals. If he’d wanted Loki dead, then Loki would not be sitting here talking and Diablo would be in the captains seat... or at least what would become the captains seat as soon as the control room was fixed to work properly. And they wouldn’t have got this far if Loki hadn’t finished designing the plans.

“I don’t think he wanted to risk the possibility that you were the only one able to imagine a realistic ship.” He looked into the hill, wishing he could see through the solid ground to the work team on the other side. “Canth is great when she has a plan of mechanics to follow, but I’m afraid creativity does not feature highly in the genetic make-up of the average Saurian.”

“No,” Loki admitted, dropping the mech-repair and glowering at the confusing apparatus that must be some vital part of the Gateway Generator. “I suppose not. But whatever the reason he backed down, it won’t matter once we’ve got the Ragnarok off the ground and flying.”

“You are strangely optimistic that we will get that heap in the air.”

Loki gave him a dangerous glare. “Look, Max, make yourself useful and get your sister over here, I need her help on this.”

Maxikirian Thocla considered being hurt, but then caught the slight twitch of a grin on the teen captain’s face, and smiled back.

“Very well, sir, I shall take your orders and withdraw gracefully.”

“Great, but do that magic puff of smoke thing again and be warned, you’ll get a Dimensional Gateway Generator slammed over your head.”

Max winced.

“All right, I see you don’t like it.” He sighed. “To tell you the truth it’s more draining than the average healthy jog around the block. I think I’ll take a leisurely walk up and then roll down the other side of the hills.”

Loki grinned as he left.

“Have a good trip, Max!”

Pausing, Maxikirian looked around with an affronted look.

“Loki, as much as I like you I have to tell you that your tongue is going to get you into a lot of trouble some day,” he said, before continuing the walk up the rolling green hills.

Watching him leave, Loki’s chest rose and fell again as he heaved a sigh, and he hugged his knees, glaring at the theoretically impossible mechanism in front of him; it shouldn’t have existed at all, but there it was... or would be, once he got over the theoretical impossibility bit. It was the only thing troubling him - to rip a hole through space and time you needed an anti-matter converter, a powerful, stable energy to harness and a massive electrical charge full of negative ions.

The sorts of things very hard to get in Dimensional Limbo.

All right, he thought, We have the bulyrium, and those crystals are growing fast. It shouldn’t be too long before they’re big enough to use. Stabilizing them will take time though.

He almost sighed again, but realised that it would not do his mood any good at all. Standing up, he decided to take a quick walk - it would free up his mind, if nothing else, and right now what his thoughts needed most was freedom. He walked down toward the lake... okay, they called it that but it was not a lake but a sludgepond filled to the brim with a dark maroon goop. In hot times - there were no seasons in Limbo, it was either hot, mild, or cold - a disgusting smell like old sweaty socks multiplied by a hundred rose up from the lake, and anyone on this side of the mountains had better be wearing noseplugs if it happened. However, the weather was fairly cool today, but not cold, a good temperature if you were cold blooded like their race, although most of them preferred it to be post-global warming.

Loki was not really like other Saurians, and he knew it well; so did everyone else. It was easy enough for him to gain friendship within his race, an attribute not normally given to a Saurian, but even though he was of the Nakara bloodline - his ancestors, the rulers of whole planets! - he hated fighting, was sick at the sight of blood... he shook his head, standing at the edge of the lake. The maroon goo burbled at him, and he sat down on the sandy beachlet, staring at the distorted reflection it gave. With a low moan he put his head in his hands; he needed to think about something else. Something that would get his mind working on the problem.

How was a Dimensional Gateway created? A natural one could form with the explosion of a planet, creating what most races called a black hole, a rip in the fabric of time and space, sucking everything into wherever it decided to lead.

Sometimes whole explorations could be sucked through to another universe, if they weren’t destroyed in the meantime. The black holes had a gravitational force like no other, one which vanished when and if you reached the other side.

But an artificial Gateway... he couldn’t very well blow up a planet! Even though the idea of blowing up Limbo sounded appealing to him right there, he knew he couldn’t do that either. There were many other Saurians trapped in the Cells still, with the B.R.A.W.N. guarding them for all eternity; he didn’t want to be a murdurer! He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be a captain now!

Snarling he slammed a fist into the goo, momentarily forgetting that, unlike water, the maroon glue of the lake wasn’t actually a liquid. It splashed over him, coating him with maroon dye, and, swearing loudly, Loki sprang backwards, slipped on a patch of the gloop and tumbled onto the ground. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, staring up at the sky, a sky once a pale violet but now a deep prussian blue as night-time - or at least Limbo’s equivalent of it - crept up on the day and smothered it to death. By the time Canth’s voice came to his ears, the glittering auroras had already appeared to shimmer and dance in the night sky.

“Loki? Loooki...” Canth’s light blue face appeared in his vision, looking down at him. “Have you got a problem? Run out of energy? A quick pick-me-up with a battery and a couple of jump-start leads should...”

“No, no no no no no,” Loki said, scrambling into sitting positon. He had experienced this ‘pick-me-up’ Canth referred to before and had nearly died from electric shock. Max’s sister just didn’t realise that machines and living beings had entirely different workings. “I’m fine, I’m great. My gears are running in total perfect order.”

“Ah,” Canth said happily. “Had your oil change?”

“Dinner? Nah, I’ve been busy.”

“On idle mode?” she asked sceptically.

“I was working before, I just...” he paused, thinking. “I was just letting myself cool down before I wore out.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Well, you called me for some help? What do you need?”

Loki stood up, and pointed back up at the shadow of the Gateway Generator; Canth activated a tiny floodlight and zoned in on it.

“The Generator? Okay, let’s have a try.” She began walking, that fast, efficiant stride she had which let her sweep over the ground at a pace that Loki rather wished he could have matched just then. He had to jog to keep up.

Canth sat down beside the Generator, and ran a hand over the smooth outer casing, finally plucking off a panel with all the ease of an apple picker at his job. Loki crouched beside her, not saying anything as she worked silently, studying each wire in turn and then placing them back with loving care. Once she picked out a chip, stared at it, and then looked at Loki as though he were an abusive monster.

“How could you? You forced this chip in there! Never, never do that, Loki, it hurts the poor thing. No wonder you can’t get this Generator to work!”

He felt strangely abashed as he watched her return the chip - carefully and gently - back into the socket in which he had, admittedly, used the end of the mech-repair to jam it in the first place.

And after another few moments fiddling with the wiring, changing position of just about everything, she sat back on her haunches and locked the panel back into position, then gave it a pat, as though congradulating a pet for being good while she did its dentistry.

“Okay, let’s fire her up and see what she can do. Is the bulyrium in?”

“Yes,” he replied, stifling a yawn as he did so. “It’s only a small amount, but it should be enough not to, uh, starve it.”

“Good.”

Canth smiled at the Generator, then pulled down the switch. The area between the two pincers glowed brightly, whirled around and a little zap of electricity shot up into the air, opening a portal about two feet in diameter, which sat there, swirling. Loki stared at it; it was only small, but it could be a lot bigger if there was a larger source of energy - which they had, it was growing in the science ship.

“We did it,” he said, softly, before the full impact of it hit him, and he leapt to his feet, screaming, “We DID IT! I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, we CREATED a GATEWAY! Whoooo-eeeeeeeeeee!” He pummelled the air with his fists, dancing a little jig of triumph, ignoring the dumbfounded look on Canth’s face.

“Yes, we did,” she said carefully. “I take it you are pleased with this?”

Continuing to dance, he said, “Canth, if it wasn’t for the fact that Max would electrocute me, I’d kiss you!”

She obviously had no idea what he meant, and was getting agitated by his behaviour, so he quietened down, sitting back on the grass. But he couldn’t keep his tail still and it swished around out of his control.

“It works!” he whispered. “Our ticket out of here as soon as we get the Ragnarok ready to fly again.”

“She should be fine in another couple of weeks, Loki,” Canth said, now back on firmer ground. “You’ll be captaining her not long after then.”

“I hope so, Canth,” Loki said, looking around at Limbo’s Heaven. It had been his home since the escape from Hell, but he wasn’t feeling any doubts about leaving. “I hope so, because I want to go home.”

But now there was peace and quiet. He sat alone on the bridge; it was midnight, but while everyone else was asleep in their respective rooms, he felt strangely restless - perhaps it was just the excitement, but he also had a healthy dosing of worry while he was at it. They were leaving tomorrow, and there wasn’t enough bulyrium for a test-opening of the Gateway. It worked, yes, but whether it would stay open long enough to get them out of Limbo was uncertain, even by Canth. If it closed on them they would all die.

He frowned as his ears picked up a light tapping - such as that made by footsteps on a metal floor - began in the hallway outside the bridge. Tucking in his limbs and tail, he hid like a ball behind the shield of the throne. The owner of the footsteps paused momentarily in the doorway, and then walked forward, coming into Loki’s peripheral vision.

It was Donovan, Diablo’s lead crony - even though it was nearly pitch black on the Ragnarok’s bridge Loki could easily recognise the tall, gaunt figure. Donovan, who was probably the smartest of anyone in Diablo’s gang; but other than being a sneaky, cunning mobster with a fondness for blades, Loki knew very little about him.

Uncurling himself quietly Loki watched as the velociraptor-like Saurian quietly walked up to the control panels and took out a mech-repair and began to take them off.

“Hey, Donny, what’s the password?”

With a small gasp Donovan jerked upright, looking around behind him with alarm. “How did... wait, you’ve been here all night?”

“Guilty as charged,” Loki admitted, hopping off the throne and walking toward the saboteur. “Now, Donovan, care to tell me what you think you’re doing? Scrap that, you’ll tell me or you’ll have a hole through your gullet.”

It was almost totally black in the room, and he sincerely hoped that Donovan couldn’t see that he wasn’t actually holding any type of weapon. The Saurian gave him an angry glare; Loki could feel the hatred through the darkness.

“Diablo has given me strict orders to make sure this ship doesn’t get off the ground,” Donovan said finally. “He wants you to crash.”

“So everyone will lose faith in me? So they’ll go back to his side?”

“Yes.”

“Sneaky older brother, beat me at my own game.” Loki grinned. “Out.”

“What?”

“Out, go away, back to Diablo,” he said, adding, in his most condescending tone of voice, “Shoo.”

Growling, Donovan made his way back to the door. "Strike three you're out!" he hissed. Loki readied himself for an attack but one never came. The Saurian vanished down the hall and a few seconds later Loki heard the sound of the airlock door opening. He quietly peeped around the corner in time to see the Saurian’s tail vanish out the airlock; grinning, he walked over and showed Donovan his empty hands.

“Joke’s on you, Donny!” he said, laughing as he closed the airlock on Donovan’s furious expression. “Oh that was good,” he said to himself. “I feel a lot better now.” He contemplated whistling a tune but since the only tunes he knew were prison dirges it wouldn’t exactly be appropriate.