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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 225: Brown 364
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 154
Derek pulled the repulsor knife from his pocket. He didn’t know what kind of weapon Mordenslice had, but it had killed Mister Justice, and he would not be surprised if it could seriously damage his metal ones. He walked forward through an open arch into a cavernous space. Apparently the interior of the ship was all one large room. Poor design, he thought, but then, Mordenslice did not have the advantage of real-world testing of his ships. The villain was standing at a control panel, flipping switches and reading meters.
“Good evening, Doctor Cutter,” Derek said.
Apparently too distracted to realize that he had been addressed by his other name, he glanced over.
“What do you want, boy?” he snapped.
“Mostly to save you from your disaster. This ship will never reach orbit.”
“What do you know about it?”
“Oh, not a lot, I guess. I’ve been on three–no, four–working spaceships, worked with the computers on all of them, and piloted two. I’ve also studied advanced physics and astromechanics. You just can’t get enough lift to achieve escape velocity in this, and I doubt you can stabilize the ascent, either. It’s just poor design.”
Turning from his work, the doctor said, “Nothing I build is poor design.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Derek replied. “That computer of yours–well, I only got a glimpse of it, and the use of superconductors to speed connections was certainly clever, but the components are just too far apart to do the calculations quickly enough. Had you waited another few years, you could have taken advantage of the development of integrated circuits, transistors etched on silicon chips microns apart instead of scattered around the room. Your system can’t make corrections fast enough, and the farther the ship is from the computer the more important those corrections become and the slower the response time of the system.”
Angrily, Mordenslice turned back to the control panel, flipped a couple more switches, and the ship shuddered. It was launching.
“You’re going to crash,” Derek said.
“We’ll see.”
Derek nodded. He didn’t particularly want to fight this villain, but if he was going to abort the launch he didn’t have much time. Should he attack?
Suddenly the villain lunged at him, some kind of powered blade in front of him. Derek barely had time to activate the knife and parry the attack, then do a diving roll to his right and back onto his feet. He whirled around to see Mordenslice turning toward him, so he readied himself for another attack.
“I killed Mister Justice with my MegaScalpel, but it’s too tight in here for that large of a weapon, so I will use my Staff Energy Bayonet. Normally I would affix that to my Energy Rifle, but Justice destroyed that, so–” The villain charged again; Derek rolled under his blade and slashed through the power suit’s right legging. The wound beneath was bleeding.
Mordenslice glared at him. “You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he said. “This suit is impervious to human weapons.”
“Well, this is a Chlorophyte blade,” he answered, “or at least, that’s what they called themselves in the last universe in which I met them. Before that I just called them Little Green Men.”
“How does it work?”
“I think my friend Joe could explain it. All I know is it generates kinetic force in a focused blade shape. You could surrender now,” he said, “or we could continue fighting and see whether your superior battle armor can overcome my well-practiced skill.”
Mordenslice apparently decided, as he charged forward again. The man wasn’t stupid, Derek knew, and he was unlikely to use the same tactic after failing twice; it just wasn’t clear what he might do this time. Derek cartwheeled to his left, which was the right choice, as Mordenslice angled his attack to where he would have been had he again rolled right. This put the man’s back to him, and he raced forward, flipped the blade around, and went to stab him in the back.
Unfortunately, in flipping the hilt he had to release the activation button, shutting off the blade momentarily, and by the time he managed to depress it again in the reverse position the tip of the hilt was too close to the target, and the safety prevented it from releasing the blade. He drew back intending to activate the blade and strike again, but Mordenslice pushed backwards into him, knocking him off his feet. He managed to do a backwards roll back onto his feet, but his opportunity was lost as the villain was again charging toward him. He again parried the incoming blade, and kicked below it, hitting his foot against the power armor which hurt him more than it hurt Mordenslice, but did put his enemy off balance for a moment. Derek managed to slice the man’s arm, again damaging the power suit.
This caused him to wonder whether there was a way he could disable the suit. Cutter was genuinely a paraplegic, and Mordenslice’s ability to walk was undoubtedly a function of the suit. The problem was, there wasn’t any obvious power supply or control system to target.
Was it mind-machine interface? he wondered.
Suddenly the ship tilted. Mordenslice looked fearful, broke off the attack, and raced back to the controls. “We’re slipping out of the launch stream,” he said.
Derek shrugged. “I warned you.”
“Wait,” the frantic yet still arrogant scientist said. “I can fix this.”
Derek smiled knowingly, but let the man try. After all, Derek was confident he couldn’t do it, but it would be better if Cutter realized that for himself.
Suddenly the man’s demeanor changed. He stared at Derek and shouted, “This is your fault!” Then he charged.
The ship tilted more, putting both combatants off their footing. They recovered, now standing on a sloped floor, and Cutter charged again, apparently flying to accelerate. Derek was downhill, but managed to push himself upward. He activated the knife and stabbed it into Cutter’s neck, at the same time feeling Cutter’s blade slice into his belly. Both men collapsed on the deck, bleeding profusely, and sliding toward the far wall as the tilt increased.
He was not long for this world, but the villain’s plot was foiled.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
