The Legend of the Hyper-Worm

By Colin Litten-Brown

His relationship in tatters and heading for self-destruction, William Corder feels as if he has no purpose in life. Little does he know that across the galaxy alien beings are taking a strong interest in his destiny. Believing the human to hold the key to an incredible secret they hire Gideon Blank to track Corder down and discover what he knows, aided by clues in an ancient book that mysteriously predicts exactly what Corder will do.

The Earth is in the grip of a global depression, employment is rare. It is only through the support of his benefactors in the Avery-Hart Institute and his few friends that Corder clings on to his job as his world collapses around him. When the opportunity comes to travel to Egypt Corder sees it as a means for him to begin the slow process of rebuilding his life emotionally. The trip, like his boss is not, however, all it seems and yet everyone seems set on Corder making the journey.

Out in the desert something waits which will hurl Corder into an adventure beyond his wildest imagination, far away from the world he knows, as he becomes embroiled in The Legend of the Hyper-Worm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467890670

Colin Litten-Brown

Colin Litten-Brown has misspent the last twenty-six years of his career developing household and personal care products. He has the following books published: The Gates of Atopia, Williams’ Wonder Wax, The Warriors of Atopia, The Legacy Conspiracy, and The Legend of the Hyper-Worm. The Cult of the Hyper-Worm is his latest work. He still develops household and personal care products mainly to keep the house tidy! Colin lives in Kent, England, with his wife, Jennie, and his three children, Mia, Josh, and Iona.

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© 2012 Colin Litten-Brown. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/23/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9066-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9067-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

OTHER BOOKS BY

COLIN LITTEN-BROWN

THE GATES OF ATOPIA

WILLIAMS’ WONDER WAX

THE WARRIORS OF ATOPIA

THE LEGACY CONSPIRACY

INTRODUCTION

I opened the introduction to my first book, The Gates of Atopia by stating This is a book that has been thirty years in the writing. That was not literally true I have to confess as typically for me, having spent so long trying to write a book the one I ended up penning for my debut was not actually the one I had intended. It was not all that far away, however, I simply expanded the story from the original three volumes to five and started with the new bit.

This, however, is the real deal. This is for me where it all started and after thirty years of mucking about the story you are about to read bears little resemblance from those scruffy hand-written pages that I still possess from my youth. There are elements that have survived, characters and scenes that were all too engrained in my heart to brush aside but having now published two novels in the series there were certain alterations that were not only necessary but indeed, as I see it, expanded the scope of the story into areas I had never previously envisaged. One of the casualties was my original lead character, Geoff Maxwell who, having lived with me in my mind for so long sadly fell at the last to be replaced by William Corder. Still, in my mind the person is the same, even if he did have to put up with a sudden name change after all this time.

The Legend of the Hyper-Worm is the start of a new story arc though still connected to the mythology of the Atopia books and takes the narrative far further than explored before. I have avoided taking my stories too far into space so far, preferring to concentrate on those tales that would hopefully appeal to a slightly wider audience than the traditional science fiction fans. Now, however, it is time to go truly off-world and it was a wonderful sense of freedom to do so. Writing Earth-bound stories require a particular sense of detail to capture the realism but extra-terrestrial has its own challenges. In this scientific age where so much has been written about other worlds it is very hard to let your imagination run wild while at the same time retaining some level of credibility and believability in what you write.

For me this has also been an interesting book to write, completing it as I did as my wife fell pregnant with our first child, Mia, a situation which certainly curtailed the hours of free time I had to write. I have never been a particularly organised person but there is nothing like a little bundle of joy in your life to focus your thoughts and to make you realise that every free moment is precious. This is not to say that my writing career is over, far from it but I do now have to work fiction around feeding! Balancing this with a full-time job in product development makes life interesting to say the least. Still, the pleasant surroundings of rural Kent are soul-refreshing enough to keep me sane!

As always, I hope you enjoy my latest book.

Colin Litten-Brown February 2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This one is to everyone I have met who helped me to get to where I needed to be in life and to Jennie and Mia who have helped me to get to where I wanted to be. I also want to thank Robert Forde for the shameless plug in his new and first book and am happy to return the favour – having read and corrected a rough draft of The Journey of Love and Hope for him I can certainly recommend it when it comes out.

PROLOGUE

From space the planetoid appeared to be calm and serene but Gideon knew that it was anything but. His sensor reading indicated that the atmosphere was a mixture of methane and nitrogen and a few other trace gases, laced with the hydrogen fluoride that also made up the small oceans that clung to the surface.

It was an inhospitable place but despite this there was life, almost entirely in the corrosive seas and at best of rudimentary intelligence but life none the less, defying the harsh environment to cling on to some form of existence.

The rapid rotational period of the desolate sphere gave it fierce weather patterns, the equatorial winds especially reaching incredible velocities. These powerful storms, carrying as they did the fine silicate sand that drifted in abundance had carved the rock into a strange labyrinth of caverns and canyons, their walls softened and moulded by aeons of abrasion.

It was into one of these gaping valleys that the ship had fallen after it had crashed. The dark impact scar was visible on the landscape even from orbit. Of the debris field there was no sign. The strong winds had already removed all but the heaviest chunks of wreckage.

From the safety of his ship, Gideon examined the site. There were so many crevasses and canyons it was not a great surprise that the ship had ended up at the bottom of one. Judging by the angle of impact the pilot had desperately tried to glide the ship in with whatever power and controls remained and had almost done it.

The initial crater was shallow but spoke of an impact that was too great for the ship to survive. Whether the crew had lived through this was unclear but it was easy to trace what had happened next.

As it had struck the diamond-hard ground the ship had split into two pieces. The forward section had continued to plough its way forward, shedding chunks as it went until it inevitably encountered one of the many holes in the ground into which it had fallen heavily.

The drive section had fortunately cart-wheeled in a different direction, ending up behind a low ridge before it had detonated, the massive uprising of rock protecting the rest of the ship from the nuclear blast that had otherwise devastated that part of the plateau and turned much of the surrounding rock into molten glass that had cooled into a vast series of concentric rings.

Gideon focused his sensors to the remaining section of the ship, running a full-spectral examination of the wreck.

It took only a matter of moments for the results to appear in his mind, amplified by the tiny implant that allowed him to connect directly to the ship’s systems.

Life signs registered as zero apart from the traces of bacteria inside the hull. This was bad for the crew as it meant that they had not survived the crash, though by the condition of the wreck it was not a great surprise. It did make life easier for Gideon, however, as he was not in the rescuing business.

The presence of bacteria was encouraging as it meant that at least some of the internal compartments were intact and had not been scoured clean by the ravenous wind.

Several active power monitors showed up, mainly isolated systems such as emergency power to doors, lights and life support but again they indicated that the core of the ship was, at present, resisting the relentless attack by this planet’s environment.

He knew the design of these deep-space freighters well. They were well-built and designed to counter most situations. Plying the space between the most remote systems meant that in the case of emergency there was little chance of rescue or rapid assistance. Any situation they encountered they would have to deal with themselves.

Any situation, apart from this, of course.

The crash damage and subsequent environmental erosion made any external examination of the ship useless. Any clues as to why she had gone down were long gone and only the flight data recorder, if it survived, would have the answers. With all external features destroyed, the uplink antennae were long gone and the only way to access the data would be to do so directly into the data recorder itself.

What this basically meant was that he would have to go down to the ship without any idea why she crashed. It was not a good tactical situation.

Eventually he knew he was going to have to enter the wreck, the information he sought was hopefully still safe in one of the intact compartments from where the clear tracer signal emanated. It had been his intention to intercept the ship in space and meet with his contact while the ship was in-flight. While unorthodox it would give him the jump over the competitors who would inevitably be after the same information, waiting as they would be somewhere beyond the next beacon for the ship to enter its home system.

Every sense in Gideon’s body screamed trap! For this ship to suffer such a catastrophic event right at this particular time was too much of a coincidence for his liking but the fact that the information pod was still on board indicated that whatever had occurred, this at least had not been retrieved.

The beacon would be constructed in such a way that opening the pod to retrieve its contents would neutralise the signal and given the random fractal nature by which the signal was generated it would be impossible to replicate. For whatever reason, the information pod was still there and still intact. If the ship had been brought down deliberately, it was for another reason entirely.

As was his way, Gideon had run a full sensor sweep as he had entered the system but apart from the residual energy trail of the stricken freighter there was no sign of any other ships. The star system was unremarkable, like tens of thousands in this part of the galaxy. The records showed that it had been charted by one of the slow, monotonous robot drones that several of the civilised species had in their time sent out to explore their local neighbourhood but beyond the most basic information on the planets and their moons it had concluded that this system held nothing remarkable that merited any follow-up missions.

Even the semi-sentient amphibious life-forms had not been of sufficient scientific interest to merit further study, though the remoteness of the system probably made such a trip just to see a bunch of aquatic hominids not cost-effective. The creatures were developmentally similar to mammalian cave-dwellers and showed some rudimentary use of tools both in the water and on their rare forays onto land but they were far too undeveloped to make direct contact with. They had no doubt been catalogued and filed for some future generation to investigate.

It was a pity, Gideon thought, as he personally found them fascinating.

The system had been deemed so unremarkable that none of the planets had names, merely various numerical designations from one or more local star catalogues. There was every chance that the freighter and now Gideon’s ships were the only ones to have ever stopped at this remote, nameless world.

For the crew of the freighter this world had only one name, Death. For Gideon it was Danger. He widened his sensor search, covering a wide radius around the crash site and searching for anything out of the ordinary.

His sensors were good, the best that money could buy, in fact, but he was not arrogant enough to assume that they were unbeatable. The ship was probably the most advanced vessel in the whole of the civilised part of the galaxy, constructed and upgraded over the years with new systems, equipment and functions that Gideon received in return for his rather unique services.

Money was nothing to him beyond what it could buy and he preferred to work for specific technologies. Take, for instance, his last undertaking, a simple assassination for which he had received a prototype of a new environmental suit that was functionally far beyond anything he had seen before. The adaptive fabric would allow him to enter a far wider range of environments than he could with any other single suit and with a much greater freedom of movement than his regular bulky equipment would allow.

It was well-timed, judging by the harsh conditions on the planet below. While he had an encounter suit that would survive the planet’s atmosphere it was semi-rigid and not conducive to reacting to any unforeseen circumstances.

For a long while Gideon sat, staring out of the view screen at the bluish planet below while he pondered the situation, darkening the cabin lights as he thought deeply.

Finally, content that he had mapped out every eventuality in his mind he rose and left the flight deck to make the required preparations.

His examination of the weather patterns had indicated that the wind was driven by the weak rays of the distant star but that at sunset there was a lull.

As no civilisation to his knowledge had perfected a practical matter transference system he had no choice but to land the ship, deciding not to take a shuttle down in case he hit any unexpected turbulence.

Buffeted by the relentless winds in the upper layers of the atmosphere the ship juddered and shook as it descended on its gravity-nullifying pads, the navigational computers adjusting every microsecond to keep their descent as smooth as possible.

The ship was too large to set down in the canyon so Gideon had selected a target area just beyond the jagged cliff-face on the other side from where the ship had crashed. The surface here was still smooth and hard, scoured clean of any protrusions and obstacles such that it was like landing at a spaceport but without the incessant voices and commands from ground control.

The ship touched the surface just as the blue sun set over the horizon and darkness descended. As if someone had flicked a switch, the wind dropped and all was still apart from the thin haze of dust that gently settled to the ground, sparkling in the floodlights that were already glowing brightly on the ship’s outer hull.

Gideon paced around the cargo deck of the ship, acclimatising himself to the suit, his body feeling strange within it.

Interesting. He thought as he stared at his own reflection in a polished wall panel, the darkened visor making him faceless. This would take some getting used to.

Checking that the life support systems on the suit were correctly adjusted he picked up the tool box in one hand and his handgun in the other.

It was time.

At the touch of a control the cargo ramp dropped silently, revealing the dark world beyond. Light poured from the ship, refracting through the translucent rock and giving the impression that they were sitting on ice.

As Gideon stepped from the bottom of the ramp he felt his leg slide. The rock was so smooth that it was nearly frictionless, especially with a layer of incredibly fine dust on the surface to lubricate it.

He adjusted the traction on his boots and strode forward confidently. Up ahead, the edge of the chasm was obvious, a ragged line that cut across his path revealing nothing but darkness beyond.

Using his hand-scanner he checked the rock below his feet, making sure that the landing had not in any way impaired its structure. It would not do to cause a rock-fall now and bury the ship he had come all this way to find.

The edge of the cliff was criss-crossed with a number of micro-fractures so he halted some way back, activating the portable gravity-nullifier in his backpack so that he floated gently over the edge, hanging for a moment above the cavernous drop below.

Activating a flare-bot, he programmed it to fly slowly downwards. He watched as it gently floated away, its pure white light bouncing eerily down the chasm as the beams caught on the infinite facets of polished stone.

The ship emerged from the gloom below as the simple flying robot stopped above the ship, bathing the whole area in light. The reflections from the wall more than adequately illuminated the underside.

Nothing moved but Gideon performed another scan anyway.

Eventually, he commenced his descent, keeping the gun held steady as he dropped and his senses on full alert, as far as was possible within the confines of the suit.

From this vantage point he had his first true view of the ship and realised that he had arrived just in time. At several points the outer hull was nearly gone and as soon as the panels failed the inner hull would be at the mercy of the wind. It was just fortunate that the ragged open-end of the ship was pointing away from the direction of the gale otherwise it would have been scoured clean on the first day.

There was no point trying to open any of the airlocks. Not only were the external mechanisms destroyed but the hatches themselves were probably sand-sealed. With this in mind, Gideon floated around to the rear of the vessel where it had been torn in half.

The ship was a mess. Supporting girders and beams had been twisted and rent, both torn apart and melted by the force of the impact. The same shock had blown inwards, crashing through bulkheads as it ravaged a large part of the rear sections of the ship. It looked like a plastic model kit that had been held in a naked flame and melted.

He ran the scanner over the ruined ship, searching for a way in. Now he stood here the likelihood of finding an entrance was looking even more unlikely than any of the regular airlocks and he might have to resort to burning his way through the hull.

This posed its own problem. To burn through the hull would take time and there were only a few hours before the killer winds would return. When they did they would take advantage of any breach in the resilient hide of the ship to blast its vulnerable innards.

If he could not find a way in soon he would have to return to the ship and think of an alternative.

The scanner had passed over ninety percent of the rear portion of the ship when it found the way in. Wasting no time, Gideon floated over to where the end of the access tunnel was. In the initial impact one of the main supporting ribs running the length of the ship had bent upwards, effectively blocking the tunnel so that when the impact explosion had ripped through the decks it had been diverted, protecting the tunnel as its energy was channelled elsewhere by the huge metal beam.

Although still blocked at this end, the scanner showed a void just beyond that linked with the surviving compartments of the ship.

Without hesitation he reached for a shaped charge from his toolbox and floated up and over the bent end of the supporting beam. Beyond there was no sign of the tunnel amongst the twisted and melted metal but that did not matter. The scanner had indicated that it lay just beneath the surface debris.

Setting the charge, he floated back behind the supporting rib. If it could survive the shock of impact it would certainly protect him from the paltry explosive he had just set.

As the timer counted down he closed off the audio receivers in his helmet and darkened the visor.

With no sound, he felt rather than heard the blast, watching as two plumes of debris flew either side of the beam that protected him.

Restoring his hearing and removing the filter from his visor he flew back and was pleased to see the gaping end of the tunnel, its thin walls splayed outwards like the mouth of a huge metal snake.

Still cautious, Gideon sent a tiny flying surveillance droid into the tunnel to look for other unexpected obstacles or, more worryingly, booby-traps. In his mind’s eye he tracked its progress, watching the output of the camera as the image played out in his head. There was considerable damage to the tunnel as would be expected but it was passable.

When the droid was deep enough into the ship he instructed it to locate the nearest hatch which it did within seconds. The active power indicator on the mechanism glowed faintly as the droid extended a probe to touch the activator.

Grinding in protest, the hatch slid partly open before juddering to a stop in its bent frame. The droid quickly scanned the hole, determining that it was big enough for Gideon to pass through before flying through itself.

Despite the immense amount of devastation, lights still glowed feebly in the ceiling. The ship was sitting at an angle such that the floor sloped up to the right and forwards. Gideon instructed the probe to make a full sweep of the immediate area which it did, detecting nothing out of the ordinary.

It was time for Gideon to go in himself. Crawling through the narrow tunnel he really began to appreciate the subtle design of the environmental suit and to see why it had attracted him so much.

The access tunnel was not meant to be traversed by anyone wearing more than normal clothing and the race that operated the ship were themselves bipedal and of a similar height and build to Gideon. Had he worn one of his conventional spacesuits he would have never fitted in this tight space.

Clipping the scanner to his arm he fed the output directly onto his helmet, preferring a head-up display rather than direct neural input at this stage. He wanted to keep his head clear in case of trouble.

Gideon moved slowly. He had plenty of time and there was no sense in rushing. Haste, in his experience, usually resulted in mistakes.

The light from the surveillance drone shone through the partially opened hatch, marking his destination and he hauled himself through the confined gap. With a bit of brute force he was able to encourage the hatch to open up a bit further making his passage that much easier but it was still a tight fit.

Finally, standing on the sloping deck, he searched around for some indication as to where he was.

His scanner had the layout of the ship and it did not take him long to find a series of markings on the wall that correlated with a location on the schematics.

Contrary to popular fiction which always depicted the command centre of ships on the top and front, this vessel kept its most vital areas deep within the core where they were most protected.

It was ironic that the forward sections of the ship which had survived the impact were mostly uninhabited, comprising mainly of sensor arrays and deflection grids that repelled the myriad of interstellar debris that would otherwise atomize the ship at flight velocities. A mote of dust hitting the hull at nearly the speed of light would be devastating enough, anything bigger would mean disaster.

Of the habitable sections, logic had won through and the command centre and surrounding chambers were still intact, though by no means unscathed.

It was a scene of carnage that met Gideon as he forced the door to the command centre open.

Most of the consoles had been uprooted and flung against the forward bulkhead where they now lay in a jumble amongst the crushed remains of the crew. He was glad that the suit did not allow smells to enter as he had no desire to experience the odour that must have filled the chamber.

Of the few panels that had survived, one still glowed with power and he moved across to it, checking the flickering readouts. Like all control panels on this type of ship, its function could be adapted to any use. This meant that in times of disaster, each panel acted as a redundant back-up for every other.

Gideon accessed what was left of the internal sensor grid and ran a quick examination of the ship.

It was as he had suspected. In the few days that the ship had been on the planet the hull integrity had reduced rapidly. If the next day did not signal the total destruction of the ship it would happen the day after.

Most of the computer control was gone but with a bit of effort he was able to re-route the circuitry to access the flight data recorder.

A menu appeared on the panel in a language that was alien to him but it did not matter as the format was obvious by the icons associated with each database.

As well as log entries there were readings from each of the critical ship’s systems but the database he was most interested in was the sensor logs.

As he accessed the database a second menu appeared and he selected the external visual systems. When the sub-menu filled the screen he took the assumption that it was listed in chronological order and accessed the final entry.

The image he got was shocking, the ship already in free-fall towards the planet, fire blasting from the hull as it dropped into the atmosphere at too steep an angle. With a sense of morbid fascination he watched as the ground rose rapidly to greet the ship.

At the point of impact the scanners all went dead.

Gideon selected the previous entry. It showed the ship heading towards the blue planet and as he rotated through the images he found the scanners that were directed towards the hull itself. Towards the area that could have been described as amidships there was a gaping hole from which plasma fire still billowed and sparked.

He recognised the pattern, it was the result of some form of projectile explosion and the way the hull plates curled inwards was unmistakable. Whoever had fired the shot had known exactly where to hit the ship in order to cripple it but not destroy it. That no second shot had been forthcoming had made the intent clear, to force the freighter to make planet-fall rather than continue on its course.

On the screen, he watched one of the multiple images as a distress buoy was launched. It had been that beacon that had alerted him to the ship’s situation in the first place but only because he had been closing on her position.

It was the previous entry that confirmed what he already knew. In the distance, a small ship had been picked up by the sensors and by the look of it the vessel was a ship of war. The original structure had been heavily modified to incorporate many more weapons and the engines showed signs of upgrading as well.

Without warning, the small vessel fired on the freighter, sending a self-guiding torpedo inexorably towards its target. Try as they might, the crew were unable to evade the weapon, the freighter simply not having the manoeuvrability to escape the missile. What happened next, however, was strange. Having dealt the fatal blow, the attacking ship moved away and left the area.

Gideon smiled darkly. He had recognised the attacking ship and there could only be one possible explanation for its strange behaviour.

With the press of a button he downloaded the ship’s logs onto a data block before turning his attention to his scanner. The signal from the information pod was nearby, somewhere within the command centre.

It took only a moment to zero in to what was evidently the captain’s position, a small raised ante-room that looked out across the bridge and from where the captain could conduct private business.

Of the captain there was no sign, his corpse undoubtedly crushed with all the others in the front of the chamber. His room was a mess, personal effects strewn and smashed all over but against one wall a heavy door remained resolutely shut.

Ah! Gideon thought. The safe. Where else?

It was, like the rest of the ship, an old and standard design and Gideon had the mechanism open in seconds. Within the large safe were the expected piles of currency, weapons and sealed data blocks that would be expected on a vessel of this type. On the lower shelf, however, was the space reserved for any valuables the few passengers they might carry would want to store.

The information pod was the only item on this shelf and Gideon reached for it carefully, checking the safe for hidden traps as he did.

The pod was roughly cylindrical in shape and about the length of his forearm. On one end, an orange light glowed and throbbed as the beacon repeated its simple broadcast.

There was no code, no security, the pod was simply designed to be opened by the first person who desired to do so. It’s only function was to protect the contents until this time, being constructed such that it would resist extremes of temperature, the vacuum of space and most reasonable destructive forces.

Gideon activated the opening mechanism and watched as the orange light stopped pulsing.

So, you have finally found it!

He whirled around as the voice echoed around his helmet.

What? the voice continued, can’t you see me?

It took Gideon only a moment to realise that the voice was coming through the helmet speakers.

Yes. There was a hint of mirth in the voice. I’m not actually there at the moment. In fact I am only just entering this miserable system.

Jax! Gideon thought. He had known the ship instantly as being that of one of his rivals. Jax was not what you could call subtle.

So how do you like my handiwork? Jax asked. Pity about the crew but then again they were always going to be expendable.

I have the pod, Jax. Gideon said. I can be back in my ship in no time, what makes you think I care about anything you say?

Oh, I don’t think you will be getting back to your ship any time soon. Jax sneered.

Gideon whirled around but the room remained still.

Do you really think I would believe that you have set any booby-traps, Jax? Gideon called out as he scrutinised the room. You haven’t even been here; I have seen the sensor records.

True. Jax replied. True, but who said anything about sabotaging the ship? He let the comment hang in the air for a moment before continuing. So tell me, Gideon, how is your new environmental suit shaping up?

Gideon glanced down at the grey fabric. My suit?

A rather impressive design. Jax continued. I thought it would be your kind of thing.

Turning the scanner on himself, Gideon began to examine the suit carefully.

The sad thing is, Jax continued, these prototypes can be unreliable, especially when it comes to the seals.

The scanner beeped an alarm as he heard the hiss of the suit depressurising.

I wanted you to know it was me. Jax snarled, his voice dripping with contempt. You have crossed me too many times Gideon, I warned you at our last meeting that I would kill you at our next. It took me a long time to come up with the plan but I knew when I came across it that you would not be able to resist such a remarkable piece of technology as that suit. It was a simple matter then to modify the atmospheric seals to self-destruct on my command and then engineer that simple assassination job for you to dutifully earn your prize.

Gideon frantically opened the tool box, searching for anything that might help him.

Nothing in there is going to help you. Jax sniggered. Oh, did I mention I can see through your helmet’s scanners? It’s a pity I cannot see your face but I will get the pleasure of seeing the last thing that you ever see. It is ironic; you would have been able to survive in that room until you cut your way in and let the air out.

Jax you bastard! Gideon hissed but at that moment the seals breached completely and the suit came apart around the neck and wrists. His lungs filled with the planet’s primordial atmosphere.

As Jax watched on his monitor, Gideon dropped to his knees, choking in agony before pitching forward. The helmet scanner smashed as it struck the captain’s table and the image went black.

Goodbye Gideon. Jax sneered. Leaning back, he glanced at the chronometer. There was still plenty of time to make planet-fall and retrieve the pod before sunrise. He would ensure that the hull of the wreck had a few strategic holes punched through it before he left, the planet would obliterate any evidence.

He smiled victoriously. Having watched Gideon’s progress from the moment he had activated the suit he knew his every move. The fool had taken no precautions, laid no traps of any kind and, as expected, was working alone. Now he was dead there was nothing to stop Jax simply walking in and taking what he wanted unchallenged.

This suited Jax admirably being, as he was, a coward at heart.

Throwing caution to the wind he made a direct approach to the planet, dropping straight through the atmosphere until he reached the crash site.

As he did not have the advantage of the personal gravity nullifier he set his ship to hover directly above the chasm, dropping a line so he could lower himself down. He wore the same type of suit as Gideon, though this one was in fully working order. Although his physique was somewhat on the bulky side he still managed to worm his way down the access tunnel and through the hatch without too much effort.

He had memorised the route while watching Gideon’s progress through the ship so knew exactly where to go.

As he entered the command centre he stopped to admire the bloody carnage he had caused, his mouth turning into a smile as he stared at the mangled heap of bodies.

Losers! he hissed, turning to ascend the few steps to the captain’s office.

Everything was as he expected it to