by James McEwan
The Ralnai used sonic disruptor weapons which worked much like highly focused microwave beams. Unlike bullets or lasers that burn and bash their way through the flesh, sonic disruptors excite the cells and vibrate so rapidly that the heat created often times cooked the victim or caused steam explosions, depending on what was hit and for how long.
Knowing all of this and having faced Ralnai before, neither of the twins wanted to be on the wrong side of those weapons. Freya pulled Masters into the first alley way she could find. Fiona made for the alley way when the Ralnai fired. The beam passed close enough to Fiona’s arm that it cooked a large part of her left upper arm. The fabric covering it was smoking, while her flesh underneath blistered and split open. Steaming hot blood quickly soaked the rest of her sleeve. She let out a yelp of pain, but didn’t stop running.
They ran blindly through the tight alley and when they had reached the other end Freya looked and it looked clear. She pulled Masters out of the alley and into the street. They made it half way across the wide street before two Ralnai grav sled’s swooped down on top of them. Before they could do anything a Ralnai, standing on the back of the sled behind the pilot fired.
It was an electrified net that hit Masters and Fiona. Both of them fell to the ground unable to control their muscles. They lay on the ground convulsing while the voltage coursed through them. Freya was carrying a sub cone machine gun. It was slung underneath her cloak. She pulled it from its hiding place and brought the sites to her eyes.
The two sleds reached an area large enough to turn around. Only one had fired its net so the other one still had a shot and took the lead position as they came at Freya. She stood unmoving in the street and waited until the lead sled was just about on top of her. When she could see the two Ralnai she gently squeezed the trigger and held it.
A long burst of cone rounds tore through the front pedestal console. Some the rounds also passed through the Ralnai pilot. The pilot died before the sled passed over her head. The Ralnai on the back of the sled fired the net a fraction of a second later than Freya’s shot and it missed her by a good foot or two.
Seeing that his pilot was dead he activated his jump jets, but it was too late the sled had rolled to the side and when he punched the jets he came off sideways and right into a building. His head crushed into his neck and the dead Ralnai stayed crushed up against the wall being held up by the jump jets. He stayed until the jets ran dry, and then the body finally tumbled to the street below.
The second sled witnessed the demise of the first so the pilot fearing that she would fire at them veered hard to the left and pulled the sled up. At the same time, the Ralnai on the back of the sled dropped off and used his jets to land. He landed not more than a few steps from Freya. She had emptied the magazine on the grav sled so she was trying to cycle the weapon. She was never good at fast mag changes and now the Ralnai was bearing down on her with a Neutronic whip in hand.
Feeling the pressure Freya slammed the magazine into the weapon and pulled the charging handle, but she was a fraction of a second too slow. The Ralnai powered the whip and let it loose at her. Only the very tip of the whip made contact with her, however that was more than enough. She had seen these weapons cut things clear in half. Fortunately for her the Ralnai had it powered down only to stun, but that didn’t matter to her as it felt as if she were being cut in half anyway.
Thousands of volts passed through her body and every muscle contracted. She went stiff as a board, teetered back and forth, and finally fell over landing on her face. With no ability to stop herself, she landed on her nose. Her perfectly straight nose shattered and blood poured from both nostrils.
By the time she recovered from the effects of the whip Freya found herself sitting on the curb, her hands and feet bound, and blood still draining from her badly broken nose. The front of her clothing was awash in red. Fiona was sitting next to her, as was Masters.
Masters tried to make his case, “Look you can’t do this to me! I’m famous. I have money; I can reward you handsomely if you just let me go.”
Fiona nudged him, “Shut up you idiot!”
“No talking!” a human slave shouted just before using a pain stick on him. The pain stick was nothing more than a glorified cattle prod. Masters screamed in pain until the slave removed the stick. Then to make his point clear, or maybe just for fun, he hit Masters with another blast from the pain stick.
Thad and St. Claire stood on the street just outside the building and looked around trying to figure out which way they had gone. “Which way do you think they went?” St. Claire asked.
“I’m not sure,” Thad answered as he tried to get into the head of Masters in an attempt to understand the man so he could at least make a guess that was somewhat better than mere chance.
“When I was a cop and had to track someone down like this I’d try to get inside their mind and figure out which way they’d have most likely taken,” St. Claire stated.
“Already ahead of you,” Thad said. Then he pointed, “That way!”
“Okay and just what makes you think it’s that way?” St. Claire asked wondering what Thad’s thinking was.
Thad pointed to a fresh plume of black smoke rising above the street, “What do you want to bet that’s them?”
“Not a bet I want to lose. Let’s go,” St. Claire said. Both men took off at a good pace running where they could and walking where they had to.
They reached the source of the smoke and found the dead Ralnai and the remains of the downed grav sled. “It looks like they were here and took out a couple of the slimly bastards,” St. Claire said.
Thad looked around carefully, “Look, there’s blood here.” He got down and smelled the blood, “Human for sure.” Thad jumped back to his feet, “This way!” They followed the blood trail for three more blocks before it came to an end. “Well whoever was bleeding either stopped or was loaded onto some kind of transport.”
“What do we do now?” St. Claire asked his tone littered with frustration and worry.
Thad didn’t answer just threw up a hand and pointed to his head, “Eve.”
Inside his mind, Eve had made contact, “Thaddeus, I have just intercepted a message from a Ralnai patrol stating that they have captured one male and two identical females. Are you and the twins okay?”
“I’m fine, but Masters choose to take a walk and the twins went after him. They must be the people in the message. Eve did they say where they were or where they were being taken?” Thad transmitted back.
“Only that they were at the check point and that they were waiting on transport,” Eve said.
“Eve, where is that check point?” Thad demanded.
She gave him the address of the closest NGE checkpoint. Thad didn’t wait to explain to St. Claire he just took off at a run. St. Claire didn’t ask just fell in behind him and followed. They ran for six more blocks.
Once they were close they had to duck inside a building to avoid being seen. The checkpoint was the parking area of yet another Bob’s fuel tank bar and cantina. Thad thought another one! How many Bob’s are there and how come he never remembered seeing them before Nome? The parking area and the building had been taken over by NGE troops and this one was mostly staffed by Ralnai with a few Fabians that by the looks on their faces were none too happy to be working alongside the walking lizards.
Thad and St. Claire found stairs and ran up them as fast as they could. The building they had run into was only three stories tall. Not all of the buildings in the under city extended up to support the upper city. Once on the roof they would have a better view and be able to make a plan.
They crept to the edge of the roof and looked down. Thad’s heart dropped as he watched his wives and Masters being marched out of the building and lined up next to a shuttle. He could see the blood on Freya and knew who had been bleeding. A male human slave was washing her face and attending to her broken nose.
Thad rolled up his sleeve to expose his DDSD. His fingers worked f
ast across the screen and in a flash of light, a tiny insect like robot materialized in his other hand, along with two ear buds and a small screen, which he passed to St. Claire. “Here, I can access the feed direct,” Thad said.
As the small robot took off and flew toward the check point, St. Claire placed the earpieces into his ears. Thad chose a spot on the shuttle side to land the bug. It was the best place he could get the bug that would give them, eyes and ears.
They watched and listened as another male human slave spoke into a comm, “Report that we have found one human male for the Lord Emperor’s program and two human beauties for the breeders.”
“Shit,” St. Claire said.
“Yeah,” Thad replied.
They continued to watch as the twins and Masters were loaded onto the shuttle. Thad stood up, “I’m going after that shuttle, you get back to Kára and keep to the plan. I am counting on you to get my mother and daughter out safely.”
St. Claire stood up and took his friends hand, “You got it.” St. Claire left just as the shuttle lifted off.
Hell bent on recovering his wives and the idiot Masters, Thad left his weapon on the roof and made his way down to the street. He then walked up to the checkpoint with his hands up. The entrance to the parking lot had two concrete barriers set at opposing forty-five degree angles. Behind each one stood a Ralnai. The one on the left spoke, there was a short delay between his clicks and hisses of the Ralnai speech and the robotic tone of the voice translator that was hung off of its neck. “Stop there puny human!” It commanded. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for some information,” Thad replied as he ever so slowly inched forward.
The Ralnai laughed, at least that is what Thad thought it was doing, it could have been choking, “Do we look like an information station?”
“You’re a cheeky one aren’t you?” Thad asked getting closer.
The Ralnai didn’t seem to care for the question as he raised his weapon, “What do you mean by cheeky?”
“Just forget I said it, it’s just a figure of speech,” Thad said.
This seemed to make the Ralnai even more annoyed. He turned his head to yell to a slave which was exactly what Thad was waiting for. He jumped forward and grabbed the big lizard by the arm and spun him toward the other Ralnai who had been watching everything, but had taken his eyes off Thad as the other Ralnai had moved.
Thad was so fast that the Ralnai didn’t know what had happened. He had just pulled the trigger out of reflex. The weapon discharged right into the chest of the other Ralnai who was very surprised to say the least. The sonic beam cooked him from the inside out and he exploded in a massive steam explosion, showering Thad and the other Ralnai in cooked Ralnai meat.
Thad who had his mouth open when the explosion happened got some of the Ralnai meat in his mouth. He spat it out, but not before getting a good taste, “Damn you really do taste like chicken.”
The Ralnai a little stunned and confused as to why his partner just exploded uttered his last word, “What?” Thad pressed the render button on his DDSD and a force blade materialized in his hand. With a flick of his thumb, the blade hummed and the edge glowed green. Thad slashed twice and the Ralnai’s head rolled off and landed on the ground with a splat. Another Ralnai nearby came charging at Thad who threw the force blade which flipped end over end until it came to rest deep in the forehead between the Ralnai’s eyes.
Next all Hell broke loose as the Fabian soldiers opened fire on Thad and the other Ralnai that were to the right of him. The Ralnai returned fire and Thad who was in the middle made a mad dash for the door of Bob’s. The two sides took hits and this only served to fuel their fight. Thad in the meantime made it to the door somehow without taking a single hit.
He wrenched open the door and dove inside only to come face to face with the largest Ralnai he had ever seen. This guy was just a hair smaller than a Thog the larger dumber and far more dangerous cousin of the Ralnai. Thad could see by the markings on his armor that he was a Battle Master. He must have been the leader for all the Ralnai in the area.
The Battle Master opened his mouth wide to let lose a primal roar. Thad wasted no time, he reached into his pocket pulling out a fragmentation grenade and while the beast was in mid roar, he shoved it into its mouth, “Here, have a breath mint, guaranteed to cure your bad breath permanently.” Thad withdrew his hand and jumped over the bench seat of the booth next to him.
The Ralnai clamped its mouth shut and its hands went up to its throat as he began choking on the grenade. It had become stuck because Thad pushed it as far back as he could and the Ralnai had tried not to sallow it. Thad didn’t stop to watch as he jumped over the seat into the next booth and made himself as flat as he could on the ground. The grenade went off and painted the walls with the Battle Masters upper body.
Thad looked up and to his dismay he was facing even more guns than he could take. He stood slowly with his hands up. He must have interrupted an early morning meeting of NGE Officers as everyone who was pointing a gun at him was an officer of mid to higher rank. In typical Thad fashion he opened up his mouth, “Looks like I’ve interrupted something important here, I think I’ll just be on my way.”
“So what is it going to take to kill you?” A voice came from somewhere behind the wall of guns. A voice that made Thad stop cold. A voice that couldn’t be, a voice that was long dead. Thad stood there and watched as the sea of guns parted and a man passed between them. Across his neck was a long and old scar.
“I asked you, what is it going to take to kill you?” The man said.
“Seven?” Thad managed to utter.
“No one has called me that for a very long time, in fact not since you gave me this,” he pointed to the scar.
“But?” Thad asked.
“How, you ask? That is a story for another time and place. Right now you need to come with me,” Seven said.
“I don’t think so. I’m not going anywhere with you,” Thad said as he counted the threats in the room.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you. You’re good and I know you’re wicked fast, but you’re not that fast,” he said.
“You would be surprised just how fast I can be,” Thad replied. He had accounted for everyone in the room. He knew with Seven right there, there was no way he could take them all. Yet that had never stopped him before and he wasn’t about to let it stop him now.
“Oh of that I have no doubt,” Seven said.
Thad weighed his options and chose to try to negotiate for Freya and Fiona’s freedom. “Alight I will come with you without a fight, however I have one demand,” Thad said.
Seven raised an eyebrow, “A demand?”
“Yes the two women, the twins that were just loaded onto the shuttle, the one that just left,” Thad said pointing to the empty landing pad.
“Yes what about them?” Seven asked.
“You need to have them released. Do that and I’ll come quietly,” Thad said.
“Sorry no can do on that one brother. Have to keep the Ralnai happy, even though they’re now a part of the New Galactic Empire and all that. It’s better to keep them happy then have to waste time and resources. You see they can pick any humans they’d like to have as a slave or slave breeder. In the case of those fiery twins, they’ll make top line breeders, so you’ll just have to forget them. Now I don’t have time for any more of your nonsense,” Seven answered flippantly.
Thad’s hands tensed and anger flushed over him, “I am going to kill you, again you son of a …” Thad didn’t have a chance to finish his statement. The room erupted in blue light and the crack of a stunner sent Thad into darkness.
Seven stood over Thad as he lay on the floor out cold from the stunner, “Bind him and call for my car. I’m leaving immediately as I have more important business to attend to. You all have your orders and I expect you’ll carry them out. I want people on those shuttles by the end of the day. Oh, and someone tell the Ralnai they need a new Battle Master for t
his sector.”
Back at the apartment Mortlock and Kára were filling time by talking about ancient Eli battles. St. Claire rushed in, beads of sweat running down his face, “We have a problem.”
Chapter 35
Every day that passed Eve was able to get deeper and deeper into the NGE network. She was even able to finally setup a stable and encrypted comm channel, which she had been using to pass on intel to Captain Wesson as well as Thaddeus. With the help of Ensign Cory Willis, Eve had even been able to get Archie assigned as one of the two robots that were now guarding Amanda and Ruby.
Carl, in the meantime, had busied himself with arranging and rearranging the galley. He would finally have things exactly how he wanted them, only to decide they were entirely wrong and start over. It was mostly to help keep his mind off the events that had happened and the ones he knew were about to take place, all of which he had no control over. He had just finished fixing himself breakfast and asked Eve for the daily update. “Eve, would you be a dear and give me today’s headlines?” Nothing, Eve didn’t respond, and that was not normal, “Eve?” he asked, “Eve, you there? Everything okay?” again he received no response.
He stuffed a piece of toast into his mouth and left the galley. Carl wanted to find her robot body and see if she could tell him what was going on. He made his way to the bridge where he found Eve sitting at the main control console. Her hands were moving so fast they were nearly a blur. “There you are. Do you mind telling me what’s up?” He asked.
Eve held up a finger indicating that he needed him to wait, and then her hand went back to the control panel. It was obvious that she was busy and Carl was worried as it was go day. She may have been an A.I. using a love bot body, but her facial expressions looked as real as any human being he had ever seen and what he saw now told him something was very wrong.