Getting Away By Bill Clearlake Copyright (c) 1996 by Bill Clearlake He crouched low behind the steel storage tanks near the launch area. His panting breath tore at his lungs and his heart pounded as if it would tear itself free from his chest and take on its own life. He wiped burning sweat from his eyes and glanced around. The sound of sirens was closing in from all around and above. Seachlights slashed the darkness. He ducked as the bright light of a police hover swept across the green-painted surfaces. Twenty five yards in front of him, across the tarmac, some workmen were finishing up work on commuter ship. It had the "Moonways" logo emblazened along the side and was probably being prepared for early morning travellers who would be heading for the space station or the moon bases beyond. He'd been a shuttle pilot on such trips, but was forced into retirement. He thought his reflexes at the age of thirty-five were just as sharp as they has always been, but the retirement age was mandatory for shuttle pilots. In fact, he'd been a very good pilot and even though he knew that he would have to quit flying he was hoping that the certification board would take his perfect record into account -- but no. But that was two years ago. Two years of boredom with a wife who nagged at him constantly about wasting his life. She suggested retraining programs, hobbies, anything to get him out of the house and back into life. She signed them up for counselling but he refused to go. "I don't need no goddam doctor!", he shouted, "I just need a ship!" But he was grounded and would sit in front of the televiewer all day and most of the night, flipping from channel to channel, not really absorbing anything -- just filling the empty hours of his empty life with noise. She started in on him again. This time she was angry. She started shouting at him. All he could see was her angry, accusing, nagging mouth, opening and closing. Her veins bulged and her finger wagged under his nose. His ears burned with her whining drone, and finally he just had to shut her up. He looked around again. The workmen were walking away from the ship. One had his tool box in his hand. He was talking with the other man who was shaking his head in disagreement. One last look around. The sirens were getting closer. He could hear the sweal of rubber tires now. There were two hovers above -- searchlights flashing. He heard car doors slam and running feet. "Now or never", he thought, and darted across the tarmac. The light from one of the hovers caught him and a loud voice called out, "Stop, you are under arrest! Stop and put your hands on your head!" He ran faster. The workmen turned and ran towards him shouting. He grabbed the first rung of the ladder and scrambled upwards to the hatch. Policemen were running towards him from every direction. A sweaty hand pulled the latch and the hatch opened. The workmen were waving their arms and screaming frantically. A shot rang out from above and the bullet ricochet off of the hatch just inches above his head. He pulled the hatch open and swung himself inside. The last thing he heard was a workman shouting, "No! Don't! It's not..." But he pulled the hatch to, slung himself into the pilot's seat and snapped on the safety harness. A voice came over the transmitter, "Surrender this vessle immediately! You are under ar..." He switched it off and powered up the main engines. From the window he could see people scattering in all directions to get clear of the blast. Bracing himself, he switch on the booster rockets. He felt himself pushed back into the seat as if a giant hand were crushing him. Soon the ship broke free of earth's pull and he felt light and comfortable again. He noticed bits of wire and insulation floating about the cabin and felt annoyed at the sloppiness of the workmen. He leaned the seat forward and instinctively typed in the coordinates for one of the mining camps on the far side of the moon. He knew the foreman there and knew they were always short-handed. The work was hard and dangerous, but the living environment was luxurious even by Earth standards. The mining camps were a refuge of last resort for those at the end of their ropes from bad marriages, bad breaks, or bad trouble. He himself had flown some of hunted, haunted fugitives to these voluntary prisons where meeting your daily quota is the price you pay for anonymity and a better life -- or life at all. Realizing that, in his rush, he hadn't done a pre-flight check, he looked over the control panel's gauges. A chill went through him. Two gauges were in the red. Fuel and life support were both at minimal levels. He ran a diagnostic. There was something wrong with the electrical system. The ship was under repair and hadn't been refueled from it's last trip. His takeoff had consumed almost all of the remaining fuel. There wasn't enough fuel left for a safe moon landing. In fact he had enough fuel for only one course correction. The oxygen tanks had been emptied to prevent an accidental explosion while the electrical problems were being worked on. The only breatheable air was in the cabin. He would run out of oxygen in just a few hours. "It's not...", he said to himself, remembering. He closed his eyes and sighed, completing the sentence slowly, "ready to fly." A course correction could take him to the International Space Research station. Once there though he would be taken into custody, tried, convicted and... he shuddered at the thought of the punishment given to murderers. Over the years, an outraged public had eroded away the notion of a "Cruel and Unusual Punishment". He would be made the victim of his own crime. He would be taken to the brink of death and revived over and over until his own will to live had been strangled out of him. He would die of hopelessness and stark, raving terror at the hands of trained professionals. Even madness wouldn't save him. "I'll take my chances", he thought and programmed in a final correction that would put him in lunar orbit. He looked around the ship for supplies. There was no food on board. No water. Fortunately, the zero-g toilet was functional. The waste converters were down though -- again, no water. He found that the backup batteries for lighting and heating were disconnected. He wired them into the grid and checked the gauges. The backups had been used and were down two-thirds. He had enough power for fifteen hours -- fifteen hours of a thirty-hour flight. He turned off the lights and set the heating to sixty-two degrees. He strapped himself to the floor where a heating coil lay underneath and tried to sleep. He'd done all he could. After what seemed like a few minutes, he awoke shivering. The heating system had shut off. Main power was offline. He climbed back to the console and switched on backup power. He went back to his spot on the floor. Hours later he lay shivering and gasping in the icy darkness. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a pen knife. He scratched a single word into the metal floor. Three days later, a cargo ship docked with the obiting shuttle. The captain came aboard and found a single frozen corpse on the floor. The ship's surgeon examined the body. "Asphixiation", she said. "Do you think this is the guy IPol is looking for?" "I'm certain of it", the captain replied. He pointed his flashlight to the word scratched into the metal floor. It read, "Justice". rigged@slip.net