Dangerous Planet
CHAPTER 2
Actually, Stan did not give a damn about Simon and Neil, but they worked together for years, and he did not want to quarrel. On the way to the wardroom where he expected to see Simon and Neil, Stan spent about two minutes. When he entered the vast room with rows of comfortable passenger seats and small tables next to each other, he discovered that they were really here. Simon was sitting next to Neil, and they were talking quietly about something. Noticing Stan, Simon beckoned to him with a gesture and when he approached, nodded his head to the empty seat. Passengers on board were few, and there were plenty of seats.
"How's the hunter?" Simon asked after Stan sat across him and examined the nearest neighbors.
"All right," he said shortly "Then why did it take so long?" Neil asked.
"Yes, I had got to spend some more time," Stan answered, not wanting to spread much about the incident.
"Shirra," Simon asked with a grin.
"And how do you know her?" Stan was surprised.
"We met once," Simon explained and looked attentively at the man who seemed to be listening to their conversation. He quickly turned his eyes away and looked at the screen. But as the ship was in the sub-space, and there it was dark, he shifted in his chair, and pretended that he was going to take a nap.
"Speak quietly," Simon advised.
"Are you still going to hijack the ship?" Stan nodded in agreement. "We cannot do without it. You yourself agreed to go to the Southern Cross system and try to find the hunter’s fellow. Am I wrong?" Simon looked steadily at Stan and waited for him to reply. "I said," he agreed languidly. "But I do not like this. We can easily get into trouble and crash into a vacuum capsule."
"Do not croak," Neil muttered, while smiling at the pretty stewardess passing by. It was not Shirra. Once she passed them, but when she saw Stan, she did not show up anymore. When the stewardess walked on through the salon and could not hear their conversation, Simon began to repeat the plan, which he knew by heart. "The main thing is not to make a mistake, and at the right time to release a hunter. With his telepathic power, he paralyzes passengers, and at the same time the crew along with the captain. After that it will not be very difficult to drop them all on some planet, and send SOS signals to the base. And when the ship is in our hands we will be able to use it for our purpose without any risk." saying this, Simon paused and looked at them. "What do you think?" "In my opinion, everything is fine," Neil expressed his opinion. "If the hunter does not let us down, then everything will be exactly as you said." "It will not," Simon reassured him.
"The hunter has never let us down," Stan added, who had been trying unsuccessfully to come up with a strong argument in favor of giving up the operation. "Maybe it's time to get a weapon?" Neil suggested. "What for?" Simon was surprised, but he did not give a look. "We are not going to kill anyone." "I know, but I might have to scare someone. I guess the ship probably has protection. What if the hunter cannot handle everyone with the speed that might be required. In my opinion, the weapon will not interfere with us," he concluded. Simon considered his proposal and agreed.
"Stan, are the weapon in the same place?" "Yes, under the hunter's cage. "Go, get it."
"Let Neil go." Stan nodded at Neil and stayed where he was.
"And at the same time you'll see how the hunter is there," Simon added.
"Neil is just leaving," Stan answered.
"He's afraid of the hunter," Simon retorted calmly.
"The hunter is in the cage and not active. Besides, Shirra disliked me and might suspect something. Let Neil go." Stan's last argument seemed to Simon to be weighty, and he gestured to Neil to go into the cargo hold. Neil rose from his chair and leisurely not wanting to attract attention, went out into the corridor.
"How many people are in the control room?" Stan asked after a moment's silence. "Four. With the captain five," Simon replied. "And the six girls." "Hmm, the hunter is quick to deal with them," Stan said confidently. "You should know that."
"True," Stan agreed, nodded his head, and until Neil returned, he decided to rest a little. Although he was against the hijacking of the ship, he was not against the flight to the planet where six years ago they discovered the hunter. All this time they put forward the most incredible hypotheses about the origin and mission of the hunter. Simon, for example, believed that the hunter was on the ship from the very beginning, and if he was not an official member of the crew, but for sure, belonged to those who ruled the crashed ship. When they asked him why the hunter survived while everyone was dead, Simon could not answer, but whenever the argument about the nature of the hunter came up, he cited the incredible vitality and endurance of this creature as an example.
Sometimes Stan, experimenting, did not give a food hunter for one, two, or even more months, and he did well without food, replenishing his energy reserves in an unknown way. All this could serve as a proof of the extragalactic affiliation of the hunter and his masters. Although Shirra was babbling about him and about Marabu, Stan was sure that this had nothing to do with the hunter. As for Neil, such possibilities were not convincing to the hunter, and he always repeated that in the galaxy it is possible to find such strange creatures against which the hunter is, that the fly is against him. At the same time he made a reservation that he personally did not see anything like it.
Stan usually listened to their arguments and arguments in favor of this or that statement with his usual calm, believing that the hunter is most likely a biocybernetic device that flew aboard the ship that crashed. Maybe even from a nearby galaxy. He did not even want to think about those incredible opportunities that, perhaps, will be revealed to them in case of finding the other hunter's brethren. Why then, six years ago, none of them thought of exploring the planet and trying to find someone else's ship. But now everything was different. The equipment was in containers, and they needed only a ship.
"Stan," Simon called quietly.
"What?" Stan opened his eyes and looked at him inquiringly. "Where is Neil so long?" Simon was interested.
For some reason Neil still didn't come back.
"He'll come," Stan replied confidently.
"Can the hunter have managed to overcome the protective shield?"
"It's impossible," Stan said confidently. "Besides, without the code, the hunter cannot move. You know this as well as I do," Stan said, closed his eyes again, and touched the generator and hunter's control unit that was in his inner jacket pocket.
"Even if the hunter strangles Neil a little, it's not so scary," he thought with a smile ..."
Three hours passed. There was one more hour left before the operation began. All this time, three partners sat in their seats and talked peacefully. The blasters, brought from the cargo hold by Neil, safely moved from the case to their pockets, and waited for its time. To ensure that passengers are not bored during a long stay in the subspace, Shirra switched on a dozen large screens, each of which broadcast its own program. To track the action on the screen, you had to put your hand on one of the buttons located on the armrest, after which the brain directly, on the thought channel began to take the selected video. If a passenger, say, is bored or does not like the program, he could easily switch to another one. To do this, it was enough to put your hand on another button. Most interesting, all this was done in complete silence, and a dozen working volumetric screens did not hammer each other and did not interfere with watching the chosen program. Stan also had some fun watching a movie, but suddenly there was an event, which according to Simon classification was classified as unforeseen, and confused them all plans.
* * *
While Stan was watching some video on the volumetric screen, he heard a muffled female scream and the noise of something falling. It made Stan take his hand off the arm of the chair and turn abruptly. What he saw confirmed his worst assumptions. The closed door of the cabin, a meter high from the floor, began to melt with a slight hissing and in a few seconds they saw as the hunter was crawling inside through the hole in the door. It seemed he was looking inside the cabin with interest. His eyes moved from the forehead on either side of his head, and one of them, accompanied by the hysterical yelling of a few women, fell from his head on the floor and rolled to the first row of the seats where the passengers were sitting. Then his eye rolled back to the door where in the hole stuck the hunter and froze there.
"Devil!" Stan squeezed out, feeling the sweat flowing down his back.
"Simon!" he yielded in a strangled voice and jerked his arm sharply. "Hunter got out of the cage!" This sounded crazy, but, unfortunately, it was so. Dozing until this moment, Simon, as if sprung by a spring, jumped from his chair and silently stared at the hunter, who was still hanging on the door on the other side. "Do something," he ordered in a hoarse voice, stepping back. He never dealt with a hunter and did not want to contact him this time. "If he gets out of control, he'll kill us all!" Simon swallowed convulsively and looked at Neil, who was silent and looking expectantly at them.
"I'll try." Stan reached into his jacket with a trembling hand to get out the control unit, but the hunter, who had hovered motionless until then, climbed quickly into the cabin and jumped to the floor. Further events followed so rapidly that it was almost impossible to do anything. Women with hysterical screams jumped from their seats and rushed into the wardroom. The men were somewhat better, but looked absolutely stunned and incompetent. They silently stared at the hunter and backed away from him. Perhaps, everything would end with no harm to anyone, but one of the women tripped over the table's leg and fell a meter from the hunter. The creature from the depths of the cosmos understood in its own way, and the next second the woman was thrown into the air by an invisible force, and then, with an unbelievable blow, she was thrown on the wall.
The crackle of tearing clothes mixed with the crunch of broken bones, and at all directions splashed fountains of blood mixed with brains and entrails. The passengers, who were shocked before, simply became frantic with fear, some of the women, not wanting to be seen by the hunter, fell to the floor and crawled under chairs and tables, while others could not take their eyes off the bloody mess, in which turned their fellow traveler. "Stan, do something!" Simon shouted, feeling how he was about to vomit. He could not stand the sight of blood.
Stan frantically jerked his hand and pulled out the control unit with his pocket torn off. With a quick movement, he pressed a few buttons, but the hunter, rather than obeying and turning into a shapeless ball, tossed aside a few passengers and quickly slipped to the door leading to the control cabin.
"Stan, he'll kill them all!" Simon growled, imagining for a moment what a hunter can do with the crew and what was waiting for them all if it happened. The spaceship will crash into some planet or forever remain wandering in the subspace without control. The perspective was too gloomy. They have to do something to stop the hunter. But how he didn't know and nobody did.
"He doesn't listen to me," Stan said desperately, pressing the buttons on the control unit gruffly and watching the curvy circle on the control cabin's door open, and within half a minute, with a dull sound, fell inside. Ten seconds later, the hunter was hanging by claws at the edge of the hole he had made and pushed his muzzle into the control cabin. Cursing all over in the world Simon jumped over the chairs and with a weapon in his hand rushed after him. But, after running a few steps, he slipped on a bloody woman's kidney, torn by the hunter, and fell down on the floor with a roar. Neil, too, with a weapon in his hand quickly jumped to him and helped him to rise. By this time, the hunter had disappeared into the hole, and only the wet tracks under the door indicated his recent presence.
"Late!" Simon croaked, spitting no worse than a camel. "Hunter will kill them all.
"We need to return him," Neil said excitedly, not knowing how else to do it.
Simon did not have time to answer him. Several shots rang out in the control cabin, followed by a shrill shriek. It was the voice of a hunter. At the same moment, the control cabin door opened, and from there Shirra ran out with a face warped with horror and a nervous tick of her cheek. She quickly slammed the door and leaned her back against it.
"Simon, they killed the hunter!" Stan roared, only now realizing what the shots meant. Seeing that he did not respond, Stan grabbed the weapon, pushed Neil aside and rushed to the control cabin.
"Come back!" Simon shouted after him, but it was too late. Stan walked a few steps next to Shirra, who was still unable to recover, and grabbed her shoulder roughly.
"Out of the way slut!" he roared in fury and tried to push her away.
Shirra put her hands in his chest, but, seeing that he did not back away and tried to bite his hand.
"Oh, you ... bitch," Stan withdrew his hand and grabbed her by the neck. Then he struck her head hard against the wall and dragged her by the hair.
"You cannot go there," she cried, screaming in pain. "Captain for..."
"Shut up!" Stan hit her in the stomach with his foot and burst into the control room. Stopping almost in the middle, he encountered several men who were in tight positions behind the control panel. One of them held a weapon in his hand and, apparently, was full of determination, if it was necessary to use it again.
"Where is the hunter?" Stan said in a choked voice, barely restraining his rage.
"What the heck!" angrily shouted the man with the weapon in his hand, "Who allowed you to come in here? Del, Lick, get him out of here!" he ordered his men.
But before the named guys managed to approach Stan, he quickly examined the room and saw in the corner of the control cabin the shapeless and immobile body of a hunter with several impressive wounds. His head disappeared; two eyes were lying on the floor, while the third was clinging to the claws of a motionless limb.
"Who fired? This is a hunter!" Stan turned to the men, and his face, distorted by fury, made them wary.
True, they did not understand the reasons for such violent behavior, and one of them, unsuspecting, pointed to a man with the weapon.
"The captain managed to finish off this creature before it could reach us," he added with relief and pleasure in his voice. "This monster burned the door and apparently intended to do the same with the hull of the ship," he finished, staring at Stan's face.
"That's for sure?!" Stan screamed.
"Yes," the captain confirmed, and after a moment's hesitation, dropped his weapon. He did not dare to hide it.
Stan responded with something hummed and wanted to rush at him, but someone's strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and tore him off the floor. Imagining that these were the captain's men attacked him, he began to fight fiercely, but Simon's cold voice cooled his ardor.
"Calm down, Stan," he said, holding him more tightly. "I said, calm down. Do you understand me?"
"Is that ... your animal?" the captain asked, stumbling for a second.
"Yes, sir," Neil replied, instead of Simon, who was here, too, and helped his boss to keep the raging Stan. "We caught him on one planet and were about to transfer him to the Institute of Xenology." he smiled tightly and silently struck Stan in the ribs with his fist. "Stop yelling," he hissed in his ear. "If they suspect anything, forget about our plan." "Well," the captain said with doubt in his voice, looking from the dead hunter to the twitching Stan, "it's a pity that it happened, but you must understand us."
"Oh, it's all right, sir," Simon assured him and tried to pull Stan out into the corridor. But Stan, as if something had come upon him, broke away from his tenacious embrace and shouted, referring to the dead, shapeless pile lying in the corner of the control room:
"Hunter, come to me! Kill him!"
"Idiot!" Simon barked and knocked Stan off the ground with one blow of his fist.
At the same moment, the wounds from the shots on the body of the hunter quickly dragged on, the pimple skin moved, and his eyes again got on his back and lined up in a chain. All this happened in a few seconds, and before any of the crew members could understand what it all meant, the hunter came alive and jumped on the captain. With small teeth, he cut it from head to foot in a fraction of a second, like a saw, and not the captain, but two bloodied pieces of meat fell on the floor. The officers, who were in different places behind the control panel, instantly snatched up their weapons and opened a hurricane shooting, which, however, did not cause the hunter who was sitting on the computer's monitor the slightest harm. Under a hail of bullets his eyes disappeared in a massive body, and he began telepathic strikes against the officers who shot at him. The guy, who was closer to him, as if by explosion, had blown to pieces, splashing the control panel and all of them with the fountains of blood.
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