by James McEwan
“By all means, let’s get the Hell out of this place,” Collin said as he followed Amanda into the hallway.
Colonel Grunt and Hunter had not gotten far before running into their first problem, a walking patrol for the detention area. The four Fabians didn’t last long as the Marines got the drop on them. However, the firefight set off the alarms and now the area was about be swarmed by armed troops.
They searched room to room looking for the Emperor with no luck. They found nothing but empty rooms until they rounded the corner that lead to the officer’s detention area. There they caught a glimpse of Sasha leaving a room followed by an LPM-48 heavy combat robot. They didn’t have any idea it was Archie inside that bot and fired on it.
The laser bolts were no match for the armor on the robot. All it did was leave two nasty burn marks on the paint. Archie stopped and turned his weapon on the two men. He targeted the two Marines and was about to fire when he recognized them and held his fire. Kára however, didn’t know who they were and powered up a rather nasty bolt of energy. She was about to toss it at them when Collin yelled out, “Stand down they’re friendly!”
Kára let the energy dissipate while Collin pushed passed Archie. He ran up to Grunt and gave him a big hug, “Jim you’re alive!”
“Yes Sir, I’m a lot harder to get rid of then they thought,” he replied as he hugged the young Emperor.
“Good to see you’re still in the fight Colonel,” Amanda said as she too was happy to see the two alive. “Where are the rest of your men?” She asked not knowing about the ambush.
“We’re all that are left Admiral,” he replied to her question.
“I’m sorry to hear that Colonel, they were all good men. Right now we need to get to the flight deck. We have a car waiting to get us out,” Amanda said.
“Understood,” Grunt said. “Mind if I take point?” he asked.
“Be my guest,” she said as she pointed down the hallway.
High above them St. Claire sat in the pilot’s seat waiting while Ruby sat next to him asking questions about the controls and how they all worked. He was happy for the distraction as the stress of waiting was over whelming. He was impressed with just how smart the little girl was. He had no idea just how smart and nor was he aware of her powers. He was in the middle of explaining how to program the navigation computer when Ruby stopped him. She was pointing to a large group of armed security guards coming toward them. “Uncle Dom,” was all she said.
He looked up and thought, ahh shit, this can’t be good. “Stay here I’ll deal with this,” he said as he opened his door. He knew he was out numbered and out gunned. The only advantage on his side at the moment was his mouth. St. Claire had fought his way out of many bad situations, but he had talked his way out of even more.
He stepped out of the vehicle and kept his hands where they could be seen. “Hey guys,” he said as the guards surrounded him, “What’s going on?” St. Claire asked.
His answer was met with the butt of a rifle and he was pushed to the ground. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” One of the guards demanded.
“Take it easy there bubba; I’m just a driver for a car service. I picked up some officer, dropped her off, and was told to wait,” St. Claire said hoping they would buy his lie.
The same guard who was asking questions was now on his comm link getting instructions, “Got one guy in custody, says he’s a driver. What do you want me to do with him?”
The comm crackled and then a voice said, “Command says shoot him and take his body for processing.”
St. Claire heard the order and made the choice to go out fighting. If he was going to die today it was not going to be on his belly, it would be on his feet fighting. He took a quick look around and planned his last attack. However, just before he was about to strike he heard Ruby, “No!” she said loudly. He turned his head to see her standing next to the vehicle her little hands balled into fists and firmly planted on her hips.
The guards were shocked to see Ruby and the one who seemed to be in charge lowered his weapon, “What did you say little girl?”
She looked at him with fire in her eyes, “I said NO!” she screamed.
St. Claire had seen some strange things in his time and travels, but he had never seen anything like what he was witnessing now. All of the guards dropped their weapons and grabbed the sides of their heads. St. Claire looked into her eyes and he could swear the deep grey eyes turned a bright red and a golden ring formed around her irises. He was transfixed by her and it was as if time seemed to slow to a crawl. The guards screamed and dropped to their knees. Blood started to pour from their noses and then from their eyes, ears, and mouths. Then as if on cue, they dropped to the ground one by one. Their eyes were completely blown and red with blood, all of them now dead.
St. Claire slowly stood up and looked around at the dead men, “Well that’ll work!” Then Ruby squeaked. He turned to see her running towards a small woman with black hair dressed in a skintight black body suit. He recognized her right away. She was the spitting image of Doctor Hammer’s wife, at least when she was young. Thad had told him about what happened in this dimension. He walked up to the woman who Ruby had jumped up on and wrapped herself around. “You must be Eve, Thad’s friend,” he said with an out stretched hand.
She shifted Ruby to her left side so she could shake his hand. “Yes, and you must be Mr. St. Claire.”
“You know who I am?” He asked a little surprised that she knew who he was.
She smiled at him, “Of course I know who you are. I keep track of all Thad’s friends. In fact, didn’t you think you got through the red tape to get your license a little too easily?” She asked.
“Yeah I kind of wondered about that,” he replied.
“It’s no coincidence that you were here on this planet at this time. I thought Thad might need some help and I wanted to make sure you were close. I just didn’t know how much help he was going to need,” She said.
Ruby interrupted, “There’s something different about you Auntie Eve. I can feel you. I can’t understand your thoughts, but I can feel you and something is very wrong.” What Ruby didn’t understand, and neither did Eve for that matter, was that Ruby was now able to read Eve’s thoughts and emotions. She couldn’t understand her thoughts because it was all in machine code, a language she didn’t yet know.
“Yes dear sweet thing, something is very, very wrong and I don’t know how to tell you,” Eve didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence as they were interrupted by the sounds of weapons fire. They turned to see the source of the sound when the glass doors from the building to the flight deck burst. The glass shattered and flew in all directions as a body in the black uniform of the enemy smashed through the glass and landed heavily on the deck. He slid several feet before coming to a bloody stop. Mortlock stepped through the broken doorway and looked up to see Eve, Ruby, and St. Claire. He smiled and waved.
Eve looked at St. Claire and he said, “Let me introduce Mortlock the destroyer.”
“His moniker suits him quite well,” she replied.
At that moment just above the planet the Damocles and its small fleet of ships dropped out of hyperspace and opened fire. Having the element of surprise, they got off the first shots. The mag cannons on the Damocles cycled as fast as they could and shot after shot landed. Ships were torn apart. The enemy tried to raise their screens and power their weapons, but thanks to a virus that Eve had uploaded into the enemy’s battle net the second they started transmitting news of the attack the virus activated, shutting down their defense and weapons systems.
However, not every ship was on the same network. With so many ships from so many races there was no way to synch them all. The unaffected ships quickly maneuvered to fire, and return fire they did. The ship-to-ship battle was so intense that the light from the exploding ships and the laser fire could be seen from the surface of the planet. The sky flashed as if it was experiencing a large meteor shower.
The Damocles led the charge and in return took a lot of fire. Although the screens were taking a hell of a beating, they were at least holding for the present. Her hex tubes were white hot from the volley of fire she was putting out and had to stop to cool. Her ship-to-ship missile banks had run dry, as she had launched them all in the first salvo. She still had her lasers and the mighty mag canons, which were dealing out death and punishment as fast as they could.
Her sister ship, a titan class destroyer the UTFS Majestic was just off their port side. She was blazing away, her guns spitting out death as well, when several massive impacts pushed the ship closer to the Damocles. A second set of impacts blew several huge holes completely through the ship. Six mag canon rounds passed through the Majestic and over the bow of the Damocles. One round grazed the deck tearing off plates of armor but not penetrating the hull. The bridge crew watched in horror as the Majestic went dark and then exploded into several pieces. The metal that made up the hull burned providing its own oxygen. It was like watching magnesium burning underwater just without the bubbles.
“What in the hell did that?” Wesson barked.
“It came from that ship over there,” one of the bridge crew said as they pointed to a ship that was about three times the size of the Damocles.
“Holy mother of God,” Wesson uttered, “That’s the Valor!”
“Sir?” asked Piper, his first officer.
“I can’t believe they finished it,” he paused before explaining, “The Valor is the first of the superclass battle ships that the fleet was building. She was supposed to be the flag ship of the fleet, except now she’s on their side.”
“I’ve never seen a ship so big,” Piper said looking at it on the screen.
“Well we need to get the hell out of the way as it’s trying to target us next,” cried out the weapons officer.
“Helm I want you to ready a hyperspace jump, but wait for my command,” Wesson ordered.
“What coordinates do you want me to input Sir?” the helmsmen asked.
“These,” Wesson said as he punched them into the nav com himself.
“Sir they have us targeted!”
“Hold,” the Captain said.
“Sir they’re firing,” the weapons officer cried out.
“Hold,” he ordered. Every last one of the crew trusted this man with their lives, and never more than right now. Even so it was hard not to contemplate a person’s end in a time like this and there was plenty contemplation going on, as well as a few unspoken prayers.
“Now!” Wesson ordered loudly, but with calm determination.
The Damocles opened a slip space window and jumped to hyperspace, just before the six mag canon shots dealt them the same fate as the Majestic. On the bridge of the Valor, the captain was so confident in his ships abilities that he was sipping tea while sitting in his command chair. He didn’t feel anything could touch his ship so he had not ordered his ship’s crew into pressure suits. A mistake that would cost him dearly.
“I always knew Wesson was a coward, look at him run,” the Valor’s captain said. He was about to make another comment about Wesson when the proximity alarm sounded. Before he could do anything else, the front of the bridge disappeared and he was sucked into the vacuum of space. His blood boiled and burst from every orifice in his body. Death wasn’t quite instantaneous and he suffered greatly before the end.
The Damocles had run, but not far. They pulled off the shortest hyperspace jump in history, reappearing just to the other side of the Valor. Wesson had done the math spot on and put his ship just inside the Valor’s heavy screens. With nothing to deflect his mag canons; he targeted the bridge and fired.
The guns belched their deadly cargo and they watched at almost point blank range as the bridge and most of the upper deck of the ship disappeared in a mass of fire and twisted debris. Not sure how badly damaged the Valor was Wesson ordered them to fire again, but the rapid decompression and ongoing venting of the Valor’s atmosphere acted like thrusters and pushed the ship down towards the planet and out of the sites of Damocles’ guns. The second broadside missed, screaming harmlessly over the top of the wounded beast.
Even though the start of this fight had been going their way, the enemy had more ships and they were moving in now. Most of them had found and fixed the damage done by the virus and they were now giving more than they were getting. Wesson ordered all ships that were too damaged to fight and still had a chance still to withdraw from the conflict.
The Valor had been wounded even more than they had thought as it continued to fall towards the planet. Caught in the planet’s gravity the crew of the Valor fought to keep the wounded ship from crashing down into the planet’s atmosphere. It was a losing fight as the Valor slammed into the upper atmosphere and began to burn. Wesson watched from his bridge as the ship that was the crown jewel of their fleet burned and died at his hand. He was sad for the loss of the ship and the crew, many of which probably never had a choice. The ship broke up into several large chunks and finally passed out of view.
Down on the planet’s surface Amanda had made it to the waiting vehicle. In the fight to get out, Colonel Grunt had been badly wounded. He was carried to the car by Archie. His Marine went to work on him with the vehicle’s limited first aid kit. With the extra bodies, there was not enough room inside the vehicle so Archie and Kára elected to ride on the outside standing on the loading rails and holding onto the vehicles equipment rack.
Amanda grabbed Eve’s arm, “Come on Eve we need to go.”
However, she pulled away from her, “Amanda its Thad.”
“What about him? I was told he went after the twins,” Amanda said sensing a change in Eve.
“No, I don’t have time to explain, but he’s dead. I don’t know how they did it, but they killed him and I have to retrieve his body,” Eve said with passion and anguish in her voice.
Amanda’s heart broke, “Dead how?”
“I’m not sure, but there’s no way I’m going to leave him to be made into one of those… things,” Eve said.
“You know?” Amanda asked.
“Yes, I found the data when I was poking around in the system. I know his whole plan and it has to be stopped. But first I have to get Thad’s body back,” Eve replied.
“Okay, bring him home,” Amanda said with tears in her eyes.
“I will,” Eve said as the air between the two women cracked as a laser bolt passed by. “Go, I’ve got this,” Eve pushed her into the car and slammed the door. St. Claire didn’t need to be told twice. He mashed the throttle and pulled back on the stick. The vehicle lifted off leaving Eve standing on the flight deck, her long black hair flowing in the wind. She picked up a laser rifle from one of the dead and her eyes flashed red again.
Laser bolts burned the air around her and she stood firm. She registered each target with the speed and accuracy that only a machine could and advanced while firing. Each shot dropped an enemy soldier, while each hit she took flared off her armor. By the time she got to the shattered doors, her rifle was empty and there were still at least a dozen soldiers alive and ready for a fight.
Eve dropped the empty rifle and stood still, her eyes still blazing a bright red. “Okay boys, who’s first?”
Thinking that she was unarmed and her small stature would make her easy to take down two men ran toward her, rifles pointed at her. She waited until they were within arm’s reach. They were screaming at her to get on the ground, but she didn’t move. One guard moved around behind her and lowered his weapon. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to push her to the ground. Eve grabbed his wrist and pulled.
The guard felt his shoulder dislocate with a loud pop, and being afraid she was going to tear off his arm, he went limp like a rag doll letting her toss him over her back and into the other man. The two men landed on the ground in a heap.
Eve moved like lightning. She grabbed a force bade from one of the downed men and in a few seconds had waded through the rest. By the time the two w
ho she had left alive were able to get back to their feet everyone else was dead and Eve was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 40
Seven had taken Thad’s body to the medical center and placed it on a gurney inside the cold storage of the morgue. There was only one medical tech on duty at the time. Being fleet headquarters there wasn’t much need for medical services with several good hospitals nearby.
“Guard this one with your life,” Seven ordered the tech, then turned and stalked away.
The tech replied with a, “Yes sir,” to an empty room. He picked up his tablet and continued to read a classic novel from the early 21st century. It was a work of fantasy fiction, not well read in its day but later becoming very popular. The book was The Curse of Truth by John McEwan. He was well entrenched in the story, so much so that he didn’t notice a slight simmering in the air behind him.
While the tech read a man seemed to materialize out of thin air. He was small in stature and seasoned in age. He wobbled a bit, “Wow, that was a great deal rougher than I expected,” he said.
The unsuspecting tech heard the man’s voice behind him and he let out a scream that was worthy of any horror vid scream queen.
“Who the Hell are you and how did you get in here?” the tech demanded.
The little wrinkled old man smiled, “Calm down lad. I’m a doctor and I have come to attend my patient. Now be a good lad and go lock the door. I really don’t want to be interrupted.”
Not knowing what to do or think, the tech followed orders and went and locked the door to the morgue. He returned still trying to sort out in his mind what exactly was happening. “Ah doc, you know that guy is dead, right?”
“Temporary,” he replied over his shoulder as he opened his black bag and started to remove some kind of scanning device that the tech had never seen before.
“Excuse me Doc? Isn’t death kind of permanent?” he asked looking over the diminutive doctor’s shoulder?
“Well yes and no, it really depends on who you are and who your doctor is. In this man’s case death is just a temporary inconvenience. Now be a good lad and go over there and read your book and be quiet. I have work to do,” the doctor said as he pointed to the corner. Thinking this was the strangest thing he had ever seen the tech complied and sat back down in the corner with his book.