Ravin

by Tufo, Mark

  “I… I don’t think I can do that.”

  “Beth, do you know it’s this animal who is responsible for all the carnage that has gone on here?”

  “I know, but more killing is not the answer.”

  “Alright Beth, then I’ll put this weapon down and we’ll negotiate. I’m sure Mr. Supreme Commander will be willing to hear me out. Right before he serves me up with a nice brandy.” After a moment’s hesitation she pointed the muzzle directly at his mid-section. Whether or not she would pull the trigger I didn’t yet know. I grabbed as many rifles as I could possibly handle and still be able to fire if the need arose.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Deb and Steph rounded the corner to see our little Mexican standoff. Beth had the gun pointed at the commander, I had an armful of rifles. At least twenty guards were against the far wall, probably debating a quick rush on me and I had another ten or twelve guards behind me deciding on their own course of action. Steph saw the jam we were in and immediately grabbed a weapon for herself and Deb. A couple of the bolder girls also came and grabbed a weapon.

  “Now listen, ladies,” I said, trying not to sound condescending. “These things have no safety and a hair trigger, do not point it at anything unless you are going to shoot.”

  Stephanie yelled, “Like this?” and proceeded to blow holes in five of the guards.

  “Uh, yeah, something like that,” I said in shock and a little admiration. I nudged the commander in the back. “Tell the guards to lie on the ground before she takes out some more frustration.” The commander now realized he had more to worry about than just me and lost some of his original swagger. He spoke, they knelt. I bet the commander, having witnessed the savagery of the ‘lesser’ sex, wished he had also pitted them in the games, they would have made for some entertaining viewing.

  “Does anyone else smell fried chicken?” Steph asked. She looked up from her still smoking barrel.

  “Yeah it does smell a little like KFC,” I answered with a sick grin.

  “Oh that’s so gross.” Beth was turning a little green. Apparently, her jaunt on this ship hadn’t been nearly as brutal as the rest of ours. She still seemed to have some of the refinements of civilization hanging about her. The rest of us didn’t have that problem.

  “You tell the guards if they so much as peek a snout around that corner we’re going to blow the rest of their friends away.”

  “Friends?” the commander said. Wow, they didn’t understand friends; I guess I couldn’t play that card.

  “I’ll blow the rest of their fellow soldiers away.” That he understood.

  I wasn’t sure if they weren’t showing themselves for fear of getting their leader hurt or their compatriots, but either way they never rounded that corner. We slowly made our way around the curvature of the ship, continually running into armed guards waiting for the chance to pounce. But we weren’t exactly defenseless and more importantly we had the king of all hostages. At least half of the women were armed and I do believe they were more likely to use them than myself.

  CHAPTER 46

  Outside of Venus Airspace

  “Colonel, I believe the main ship is attempting to hail us!” Captain Emerick shouted from his seat. He said it a bit too loudly but it was too late now. And besides, who else except the people on his ship would ever know?

  “Well, what are they saying, Captain?” The colonel was a little impatient, it had been a long journey and the end was in sight. The mother ship could be seen from a thousand miles away.

  “I’m not sure, sir, it seems to be a repeating message and it was on one of our lesser used frequencies. I’m just waiting for it to restart.”

  “Let me—”

  “Wait, here it is.” The captain piped in the message over the intercom system.

  “American Hu-mans of the Space Shuttle USS Liberation.” Well, the colonel thought, apparently they had been listening to their comms with Earth.

  “We are the Progerians from the planet Aradinia. We regret we have not yet made ourselves known to your general population. We feared your primitive species might riot if we came unannounced. We took random crowds from across your globe to let them see us for who we are, so these new emissaries could spread the word about us on your planet. We thought it might be easier for your primitive minds to accept an alien species if you heard it from your own kind.”

  “Well, at least they’re not arrogant,” the colonel snorted. He got a few laughs from his crew but the unsettling alien voice over the tinny speaker did not match the words being heard.

  “We welcome you and your crew aboard our ship. We will prepare a feast in your honor. Please reply once you have received this message and follow the grid coordinates to the proper docking location.”

  “Colonel, what are we going to do? They could be leading us into a trap.”

  “Captain, if they wanted us dead they could have done it the moment we left Earth. Let’s play their game for now; if we don’t like it we’ll change the dealer. Hail them back, tell them we gladly accept their invitation. And then dial up Houston for me.”

  “Yes, sir!” the captain said. Hope had surged a little in the captain. Perhaps they were a friendly, albeit arrogant species. Maybe they weren’t bent on global destruction like so many of his fellow countryman believed. He sincerely hoped so.

  “Sir, I’ve got Houston on the line.”

  “Hello, Houston.”

  “Hey, Colonel, how are things going up there?”

  “Well, we just received a message from our new friends.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “That would be affirmative. Seems they have invited us for dinner.”

  “Did you say dinner?”

  “Roger that.”

  “Any idea what’s on the menu?”

  “As long as it isn’t us I don’t care.”

  “You know the risks of docking?”

  “Yes, I know the risks.”

  “We don’t want them to see our present until the right time.”

  “Sir, I don’t think this is a refusable invitation.”

  “I’m not saying that, Colonel, but you may want to take great care.”

  “General, I know this is an unexpected turn of events, but maybe they are who they say they are. If not, well then our present might be better delivered inside than out. They may acquiesce once our package is delivered.”

  “Colonel, you are aware of the consequences?”

  “General, we’ve been through this a thousand times. We are all volunteers in this endeavor.”

  “Roger that, Colonel. Give me a call from the inside. I’d love to know what kind of hosts we are dealing with.”

  “You and me both, General. You and me both. USS Liberation out.”

  CHAPTER 47 – Journal Entry 29

  Inside Mother ship

  We huddled as close to the outer bulk as possible. It was impossible to tell where exactly the next guard station would open up. We had already fried three guards that had absolutely no idea what was going on. They were probably coming from an all-night card game. They stepped out from one of the opaque doorways and seemed as stunned to see us as we were to see them. Stephanie blew two of them away before I even saw them. Tanya took out the third. It happened so fast they hadn’t even begun to reach for their weapons.

  “Wow, these weapons really are incredible,” I said as the third of the guards fell. “Hey Supremie, how long do these things last?” I wasn’t sure if he’d answer a direct question so I thought if I irked him in any way he would answer me out of arrogance.

  “Why should I give you any more information than you already have, dumb hu-man?”

  “Because, Mr. Supremie, you can answer me now or you can answer me after Stephanie here takes off one of your hands. I bet that wouldn’t go over so well with your council, would it? That whole thing about showing no weakness and all. I’d hate to see you removed from your lofty post because of an injury you could have avoided.” I wished they sweated
because I just knew he would have been. He may have been in life or death battles before, but they were in his youth and I can almost guarantee he had never before felt so powerless.

  “They’ll last roughly three of your Earth years with regular use. The more or less they are used will affect how much time.”

  “These don’t need to be reloaded?”

  “No, they are completely self-sufficient. They are disposable, to use an Earth term. When the energy cell within them dies, the weapon is recycled.”

  I was truly amazed. If these were the small arms weapons they gave to their guards what else must they have in their arsenal? I would’ve loved to have gotten my hands on some of the ‘big guns’, so to speak.

  “Is there any sort of indicator light?”

  “Indicator light?”

  “Something to tell you when the cells are getting low.”

  “The last hundred or so shots will turn from the cobalt blue color to a brilliant red. But we do not have weapons over two years old in our fleet, just to avoid such a problem.”

  “I guess that’s lucky for us.”

  “Quite,” said the Commander coldly.

  * * *

  “Captain Emerick, could you come over here please?”

  “Sir, we are just about to land in their bay, I’m not sure if I should just leave Bootie over here by himself. I’d hate to start an intergalactic incident because the lieutenant bounced our ship off their helm.”

  “Captain, I think the lieutenant will be alright for a minute. There are a couple of procedures I would like to go over with you.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  “Besides, I watched the lieutenant in the simulator, he only bounced the ship off three or four asteroids. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”

  “Sir, it was five.” Everyone got a laugh.

  “Captain Fitzy, I want you and Captain Emerick to hide in the cargo area with our gift. I will leave my comm. button on.” He duct-taped over the talk button. “If it sounds like we are in distress or they try to take this ship while we’re out of range, you know what to do.”

  “I know, sir. I’ll say a prayer for all of us.”

  “Well, we should be a lot closer to Heaven from here, hopefully God will respond fast.”

  “Good luck, Colonel.”

  “It’s not luck we need Captain, it’s faith.”

  Inside the ship

  We inched our way along the corridor until we finally came across the bulkhead leading to the bay doors. Unbeknownst to us at this time, the Space Shuttle USS Liberation was entering the ‘Julipion’ as she was known on board. Prayers were being answered, I just don’t believe it was those of the crew of the Liberation. I did not like the exposure that walking into the docking area left us with. And the Genogerians had no intention of letting us off this ship. There had to have been at least a hundred of them, probably more but I couldn’t see over them to tell. It was more than a little disconcerting to have that many guns pointed at us.

  “Girls, I need three or four of you to point your weapons directly at the commander.” I was trying to take control of the situation as quickly as possible. Some of the women looked mere moments away from full-fledged panic. The last thing I needed was some of them shooting indiscriminately or running away at full tilt, or possibly just falling over in terror. As it was, my gut wanted to crawl up into my throat, and I would’ve joined it given the chance.

  “Ladies, now! We have got to stay cohesive; I need three or four weapons trained directly on the commander. If they open fire I want him to be the second one to fall.” Tanya and a couple of others pulled their gaze away from the guards and leveled them on the commander.

  “Now it’s your turn, Mr. Commander. Tell your men to back away slowly and if they kill me or anyone else in this little party of ours, you will die next. Now!” I spat into his face. He complied but it was clear he did so reluctantly. It seemed to me it was taking way too many words to convey this message. I wanted to cuff the commander upside the head but that definitely would have started an all-out fire fight.

  “That’s quite enough, Commander!” I said softly into his ear.

  “But I’m not done,” he said indignantly.

  “If they haven’t got the general idea by now then your guards are a little thicker than I thought.” He was not thrilled I had made him stop, but these handy-dandy pulse weapons when leveled at your head make for very strong persuasion.

  The commander may have lacked the ability to recognize sarcasm but he was by no means an idiot. He had risen to his position of power with wits and strength and I had no doubt he had some sort of elaborate plan set, but for the life of me I could not figure it out. Everything was happening so fast, it was difficult to comprehend what was going to happen five seconds from now much less five minutes.

  “Mr. Supreme, it is time for us to select a ship,” as I rudely shoved him toward the vast array ahead.

  “I cannot pilot a ship big enough for all of us by myself,” he said routinely. And so here it was. One way or the other he was going to get one of his men on board.

  “No, your Supremeness, you’re just going to have to give me a crash course on how to fly.”

  “I can do no such thing, my men train for years before they are allowed to pilot one of these ships. If you are my co-pilot we shall surely crash and burn. And that would be such a pity after how far you have made it.” Was that sarcasm? “I am going to need one of these guards to co-pilot the ship.”

  “Ah, see your Lordship, there is your first mistake.”

  “What?”

  “I know for a fact these guards are no more than guns for hire for you and your kind. There is no way any of these Genos would be allowed to train for one of these ships. The only thing they would be allowed to do would be to ride in one. And I have a feeling it would be in the far back.”

  “Very good, Mr. Talbot, you are very crafty for a hu-man.” The disdain almost poured out of his mouth, but I accepted the compliment anyway. I in no way expected that to be his last ploy but it at least gave me a few more moments of breathing room. We shuffled our way in a very tight knit cluster. One grenade would have taken out the lot of us. We were at this instant completely surrounded, as we shuffled along so did the guards, whose numbers seemed to be rapidly growing as news of the event undoubtedly passed through the ship. We were in a circle about fifteen feet across and the aliens gave us another fifteen feet on all sides. It was a strange sight and had I not been dead smack in the middle I would have thought it very humorous looking. As we moved forward one step the guards in front of us moved back one step and the guards in the rear moved up one step. I had no idea what kind of ship we were heading for—for all I knew it could be the equivalent of an alien tractor-trailer, but it looked plenty big enough for us all. It was roughly the size and shape of three standard sized school buses melded together. It wasn’t pretty, but as long as it flew I didn’t really care.

  “Commander, tell your men to make a clear path to ship straight ahead. I don’t want anyone in front of us or we start blasting a path.” The commander spoke and like the parting of the Red Sea we had a clear path straight to the ship.

  “Steph, get a couple of the girls and go ahead and check to make sure the ship is clear.”

  “Gee, thanks—would you like me to get you a cup of coffee too?”

  “Steph, I love you, but could you please do as I ask? I’m a little busy.” She smiled; I think she was enjoying this. I guess being somewhat in control of your destiny was a lot better than having no clue what was going to happen to you and having no control over it whatsoever. So Steph and a couple of the women went up to the ship, and after a few tense moments they came out and gave the all clear sign. I had a couple of ladies stay at the bottom of the gang plank and guard the entrance while the rest of us made a hasty retreat into what I supposed was some sort of troop transport. I had turned to tell the women at the bottom to come on up before we closed the hatch when all hell broke l
oose. I heard it way before I saw it, a trap door in the floor of the transport had flipped open and a guard sprang out. It was too late for me to do anything in my defense; his weapon was trained right on me and I was looking over my shoulder at him with my weapon still pointing out of the ship. So close, I thought to myself, so damn close. At least the women would still have a chance. He fired; my mind was racing so fast I was able to watch the blue spark of death heading straight for me. Unfortunately, my body wasn’t nearly as fast as my brain or I would have been able to dodge the sucker. I hoped the pain wouldn’t be too bad. And then when I thought the charge would strike me, it didn’t. I had been in motion the entire time and was able to bring my weapon to bear on this new assailant and I fired true. His head just melted away; there was a spinal column jutting up from his shoulders and not much more. A few of the women began to scream and ran toward the hatch. I was yelling at them to stay in the ship, when I realized with great sadness who they were running toward. Stephanie had seen the trap long before I had and had raced to place herself in front of the shot. She had been hit and I could tell before I even got close she wasn’t going to make it. The women at the bottom of the hatch were yelling up to us, near hysteria in their voices. The guards were shouting, they were looking as if to make a rush. I wanted to cradle Stephanie in my arms, but we had other pressing matters at the moment.

  “Liliana, Francesca, start firing!” I yelled.

  “What?” They both seemed on the verge of tears. I ran down the plank, gun blazing. A few of the bolder guards had been within a few feet of the landing when I cut them down. The girls finally began to open fire and within seconds dozens of the guards had fallen. They were beginning to make a Genogerian death wall in front of us, so much so the other rushing guards were having a tough time getting around their fallen comrades. We just kept the guns blazing.

  “Deb, get the commander to shut the hatch!” I screamed. She didn’t move, she was still holding Stephanie in her arms. “Deb, now or you’re going to be holding a lot more than just her.” I think that finally sunk in, she moved quickly, grabbing Steph’s gun as she went. My guess is she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. The guards got sick of making a mad death rush to the hatch, so they began to open fire. Francesca died fast; she had a mere moment to lament her stomach wound before she was struck for the second time square in the chest.