First up I would strongly suggest that if you haven't read the earlier chapters please do so before reading this one, it will explain a lot of things...
Apart from that, enjoy. BB1212
I woke up in a cave, but it wasn't our normal cave, and I was alone. My body ached as if I had run two marathons in one day, and I could barely move. My fried brain tried to put together what had happened and my first conclusion was that I was dead. But I reasoned that couldn't be it because I wouldn't be feeling that much pain would I?
I slowly pieced it all together. The image that the YW's created was somehow more real than reality. Even though I had been standing in front of all the captives I had felt like I was really fucking Keisha again and it had been in the women's showers in the gym on the Mayflower. But I hadn't cum, and she, or rather they, had. The fact that I was still alive proved at least part of my theory, but I would just have to guess the rest.
I staggered outside and found a small cart. It looked like at least some things hadn't changed, but there was only one YW in evidence, and it was quite a distance away. Not wanting to push my luck I picked some fruit and then ate some. I didn't manage to get much done that day, and then I went back into the cave to rest and recover some more.
But over the next couple of days I slowly got my strength back. I appeared to have suffered no permanent damage during the encounter.
Every night I tried to contact Bira or anyone else on the communicator, but I was totally without success, and after a couple of weeks I was starting to go crazy. I didn't know if anyone else was alive, either on the planet or on the Mayflower, I mean the YW's could have taken any sort of action after they had failed to kill me. My imagination was not a nice place to be living in during that time as the endless possibilities unfolded in my tortured mind.
Suicide was never a real option, but it was one of the demons that stalked me in my nightmares.
'How long?' it would ask me, 'how long before you go insane, before you die, before they kill you? Maybe you should just walk out of the cave without your boots? That's not suicide; it's just a natural end to the torture that you are living through.'
I wondered how many of the men were left if things were going the same way as they had been. I estimated we had been on the planet for about ten weeks now, so at one per day we would have lost seventy of the original ninety seven men who had been brought here. It would be all over in another three or four weeks if we couldn't make a break for it before then.
I got back to the cave one night and Hugh Scrindle was there unconscious on the floor. Hugh had been fourth or fifth on the lingam list, and I knew he was also known as a 'stayer' with pretty good endurance. He was second science officer on the one shift and I hadn't seen him much before we were taken. I went out and picked more fruit, this time keeping my share aside and I went back in when I had two for him.
"You were right Josh," Hugh said shakily after his second fruit. He was obviously not well, but he wanted to talk and I desperately needed him to tell me what was going on.
"How?" I asked.
"When you didn't cum the two YW's... well they exploded, it was disgusting."
"Wow." I couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Gibbo told us about your theory, and about you.. er..."
"Wanking," I said wryly. What a thing to be known for.
"Yeah, so most of us started doing it. We wanted to live. I mean we didn't know if you were still alive when they took you away but even just taking them with us would be better."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"But I'm the first one since you to last it out. There were only eighteen of us left when I was chosen."
"Shit," I exclaimed, it was worse than I had thought. "Gibbo?" I asked nervously and Hugh shook his head sadly.
"Last week," he replied, "but he did talk about your plan with everyone and we all know it now."
"Any contact?" I asked, but I knew what the answer was going to be.
"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "So what is the deal here?"
I told him what little I could and he settled down to sleep again.
Things were getting desperate. Every day I knew we would be losing people, but we had no way to stop it. I spent as much time as I could outside trying to get in touch with the Mayflower, but nothing worked. We picked fruit and we slept. Most of all we worried.
Four days later Neale Chuang appeared and it appeared that he too had survived the YW's. I went out to get some fruit for him and as usual I hit my communicator tag.
"Hello?" I said to the vast empty sky above me.
"Josh?" Bira's voice came back, sounding very surprised.
"Bira," I said with relief, "where have you been?"
"They didn't let me out until the drive was low, and then that happened again this time," she explained. "Why are you on the other side of the planet?"
"I am?"
"Yes, I'm doing what you said and I've pretty much mapped it all."
"Good," I said making a quick decision, "do you remember the mid-air pickups we practiced at our first planet stop?"
"Yes, I..."
"Stand by for three from pretty much right above me," I said quickly.
"But how...?"
"Explain later," I said, and I darted back into the cave.
"What's the matter?" Hugh asked as I rushed back in.
"We're going," I said briefly, and a look of horror crossed his face. I understood, I felt it too.
"Now?"
"Now."
He nodded and we took the inserts out of all of our boots and put the boots back on. Hugh and I stood up on the roof of the cave and lifted Neale's unconscious form between us.
"What if it kills him?" Hugh asked.
"What if we stay?" I replied. He nodded, and we walked out of the cave.
The last step, as they say in the classics, was a doozy. We shot into the air away from the ground, and we tensed up. I have no idea if the YW on guard duty saw us, but if it did it all happened too fast for it to do anything. But the real danger was above us. There was no evidence of an atmosphere on the planet, but I just wasn't all that sure. Were we about to burn up in the same way that things entering Earth's atmosphere did?
"Coming now," I managed to say into the communicator as we plummeted upwards.
"I can't.. wait a minute, yes, I can see you," Bira said triumphantly.
Less than two minutes later we were in the shuttle.
"Josh," Bira exclaimed, with tears in her eyes, "I never thought..."
"Sorry, no time," I grunted as I hastily removed a cover panel from the cargo bay, "power plants and ships are the targets, take us over the nearest one and let's try to hit them all before they realise what is happening."
"With what?" she asked, quickly turning the shuttle.
"This," I said, removing the hidden A5K.
"How the hell did that get there?" Hugh asked.
"I built it from spare parts," I explained, "the YW's only looked for what was on the manifest so they didn't know about this one."
"Wow," Hugh said. I could see I had impressed him.
"Power station coming up," Bira said.
"Give me a shot through the portal," I said, and I poked the end of the A5K through, and said a quick prayer to any god that happened to be listening. I had never tested it after I built it up. The power station came into view and I gently squeezed the trigger.
The power station exploded, flattening everything for miles around and sending billowing smoke across the ground.
"Holy shit," a voice said and I tuned to see Dreea Hewey sitting next to Bira at the controls.
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Hugh agreed, and I grinned broadly. We finally had a way of getting the YW's back, and it was a pretty devastating way at that.
"Airfield next," Bira said, 'about a minute and a half away. There are four airfields and six power stations all in a nice neat line around the equator."
"Sweet," I said, and braced myself.
I took out five big ships at the airfield, and I have no idea how many small ones. The second big one lit up as the A5K sliced it in half and the concussion of the rest going up after it threw me back across the cargo bay and into the opposite wall of the shuttle. I was just sitting there stunned at the wanton destruction.
"Airfield, thirty seconds," Bira announced, and Hugh held his hands out. I gave him the A5K, it was easier than trying to get up in my dazed state.
Less than a minute later Hugh was sitting beside me, grinning from ear to ear, and I took the A5K back. The next three targets were power stations, and I destroyed them all as easily as the first one.
"There are two ships in the air ahead," Bira warned and I saw them approaching and fired, sweeping the line of destruction across from one to the other. One shot straight into the ground, breaking up and exploding on impact and the other was sliced neatly in half and was tumbling as we passed it. The next airfield was coming up and I hit the only large ship left and again the blast took out the smaller ones that were still on the ground. I knew some must have escaped.
The last airfield was virtually empty and I guessed that the aircraft from that one would be trying to protect the power stations.
"Power station, one minute," Bira said, and suddenly I felt my limbs being frozen. All movement inside the shuttle stopped as we screamed toward the power station. I saw a large air ship ahead and could only wait in frustration as it got closer and closer. We couldn't move, but I concentrated hard on squeezing and my practice in the cave saved us. As we came up to the ship my finger moved the tiny bit needed and the A5K spat again. The ship beside us disintegrated, and the concussion blew us way off course, but the girls did a sensational job of saving us from disaster.
"Josh, behind us," Bira cried as another ship approached, but there was no attempt to freeze us this time and I shot it out of the sky with yet another spectacular detonation.
The last two power stations were easy pickings and I was stunned to realise that the first phase of my plan had worked. We had taken out every major target the planet had to offer.
"Take us to where you first heard me," I said urgently and Bira turned the shuttle around. This bit was going to be difficult to say the least.
I started making regular calls on the communicator, hoping someone would be outside the cave as we got close. I was in luck.
"Hello Josh, is that really you?" a voice asked as we approached.
"Adran?" I asked.
"Yeah."
