by Hatchett
Just like she planted invisible markers in people she met, she did the same with the controlling AI unit inside the Laakuu craft.
Joshua had explained to her that the AI unit looked a bit like a golden crystal ball which was burning inside, and it hadn’t taken long for Jess to find and identify it. Within minutes she instinctively understood how the unit worked and saw it as clearly as if she held it in her hands.
Thankfully, the shuttle coming towards them was the same one that she had grown to know, and more recently begun to ‘talk’ to as it passed by. She could ‘hear’ it now as it approached their location from the East, a confusing mass of ever-changing signs, sounds and frequencies for anyone unaccustomed to it.
“It’s uncloaked. There are two guards on board,” Jess advised, having taken the information from the AI unit. “The guards are armed, but currently not shielded.”
Jason and Andy prepared the tasers they had brought along, just in case they did need to remove the guards’ personal shields. They could have used one of the EMPs they’d brought along, but they didn’t want to accidentally hit the shuttle or the AI unit inside.
While they were doing this, Matt prepared the three sub-machine guns they had brought along, making sure the selector was switched to single shot and that there was a round in each chamber. Joshua produced four small silver balls, ready to use as restraints on the two guards.
“Nearly here,” Jess said, as she raised her hands and cupped them together.
Jess instructed the AI unit to switch off and block all communications and all tracking equipment. Time would tell if she’d done it properly, but it was too late to back out now.
As she felt the craft near the woods in which they were waiting, she instructed the shuttle to slow and land in the open ground between herself and the target barn. She knew they needed to move quickly now that the comms were down, but at the same time she couldn’t rush things and make any mistakes.
A few seconds later the trees were shaken as if by a gust of wind as the silver shuttle swooped low over their position before turning slightly and lowering itself to the ground. The landing supports morphed out of the underside as it landed just a few metres in front of them.
It was the first time that Jess, Jason and Andy had seen a shuttle up close and personal and they couldn’t fail to be impressed by it despite all the coaching provided by Joshua.
The outer surface of the ship was shimmering in the moonlight as Jess instructed the AI unit to open a door.
The skin peeled back as instructed and a ramp flowed down to the ground.
They waited for what seemed like hours for the two Laakuu guards to appear in the doorway, look around and then look at each other. It seemed like they were talking to each other, then they both glided down the ramp to the ground, still looking around and clearly confused. They probably wondered why the journey had been much shorter than usual and why they had landed in the middle of nowhere. They probably assumed that the shuttle had malfunctioned because they hadn’t shielded before coming down the ramp.
Jason and Andy set aside the tasers, doubting that they would now be needed, and grabbed the sub-machine guns handed over by Matt.
They all looked at Jess and she nodded.
As Jason, Andy, Matt and Joshua left the cover of the trees, Jess sent suggestions to the two Lukaku guards to close their eyes and hold out their arms.
Without realising what they were doing, they carried out the instructions automatically.
Joshua passed his left hand over the four silver balls in the palm of his right hand and watched as they glowed blue, rose into the air and sped towards the two guards, morphing into long, silver-blue gossamer threads as they went. The threads snaked around the guards’ wrists and ankles then the ends fused together, and the threads contracted until the guards’ hands and ankles were bound tightly together.
At that point, the two guards opened their eyes, wondering what had just happened, and got the shock of their lives. Standing in front of them were three armed humans, a Laakuu in human form with silvery flecks in his eyes and a young woman with glowing yellowy eyes.
“We need to move quickly,” Jess ordered.
Joshua grabbed the two guards and pushed them towards the ramp as Jess ‘suggested’ to the guards that they get back on the shuttle and do as they were told.
“Good luck,” Jason shouted.
“You too,” Jess replied, smiling ruefully.
Jess followed Joshua into the shuttle and watched as he conjured some seats for them and added further restraints for the two guards. Joshua then relieved the guards of their weapons and handed them to Matt before taking a seat. Jess instructed the shuttle to take off and gave it directions to another barn on the other side of the M4, which they had scouted the previous day. They would stay at this barn for a few hours to make sure the shuttle couldn’t be tracked.
As the shuttle took off, Jason and Andy melted back into the treeline to wait.
49
Thaejah had just got back to his room when a flashing holographic screen appeared in front of him, emitting a noisy alarm which he quickly muted.
‘What now?’ he thought to himself. It had been a long day and he was tired. He just wanted to lie down and sleep.
He looked at the screen, a frown appearing on his face. A shuttle had disappeared. So what? He considered ignoring the alarm and just go to bed because it was bound to be a false alarm or malfunction, but then he considered what would happen if it wasn’t a false alarm and he’d done nothing. Kinaejah wasn’t the most forgiving person at the best of times, and if someone dropped the proverbial ball, then nothing but serious pain or even death awaited them.
He checked the screen and saw that the shuttle had disappeared halfway through its journey to Cardiff. Thaejah looked at the time. It was roughly two hundred and ten kilometres from London to Cardiff as the crow flies, and the shuttle’s scheduled journey was just half an hour at cruising speed.
Thaejah saw that the shuttle had disappeared three minutes ago, so assuming it was just the comms that had gone down, it should arrive in twelve minutes time. He decided to wait and see if it arrived in Cardiff. The last thing he wanted to do was set hares running for no reason.
Thaejah sent a communication to Cardiff to tell them to let him know if the shuttle appeared and wiped away the screen before going into his bathroom to wash and prepare for bed.
As he was drying himself off, another screen materialised in front of his face confirming that the shuttle had not arrived.
“For fuck’s sake,” Thaejah muttered aloud.
He passed his hand across the screen, directing a Battlecruiser to check the area where the shuttle had disappeared, then wiped away the screen and climbed into bed.
50
“How long do you reckon it will take for them to react?” Matt whispered, eyeing the open ground in front of him.
“Who knows? Those fucking things can move fast so it could be anytime or never,” Jason whispered back.
“Never? There’s no way they won’t investigate,” Andy butted in.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Jason said, picking up the EMP. “Just pray this thing works.”
“Well, if it doesn’t, we won’t know much about it because we’ll already be dead,” Andy replied.
The three of them kept watch on the open ground, lost in their own thoughts and praying they hadn’t signed up for a suicide mission.
A few minutes later they felt the branches above them rock backwards and forwards as if hit by a gust of wind.
“Here we go,” Jason whispered, bringing the EMP up to his shoulder.
The shielded Battlecruiser swooped into view, circling the farm buildings from a height of thirty metres, obviously scanning the area for the shuttle or any movement.
It then dropped down until it was ten metres above the ground and slowly circled the farmhouse then the smaller barn before moving across to the target barn and hovering on the far side
from where the men were hidden.
The rear of the craft morphed open and half a dozen orbs emerged and shot off in different directions. A couple headed for the farmhouse and a couple to each of the barns, punching their way into the buildings before starting their search.
“Come on, come on,” Jason muttered under his breath.
“Can we hit it?” Matt asked quietly.
“No, it’s too far away,” Jason whispered back. “It has to be in the open ground just in front of us. And we could do without those other things flying around.”
They watched as the orbs eventually returned to the Battlecruiser and morphed back inside the structure. The Battlecruiser remained stationery for a few seconds as if pondering what to do next, then rose a few metres in slow motion and began to cross over the roof of the target barn, heading in their direction.
“Now!” Jason ordered.
Andy flicked the switch on the detonator he had been holding and the target barn exploded in all directions, debris smashing into the Battlecruiser’s shields and bouncing off. The resulting fire was similarly diverted around the shields, just like the flames on the nose of a rocket as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Battlecruiser shot towards them before executing a rapid one hundred and eighty degree turn to face the barn, its rear now pointed towards the trees where they were hiding.
Jason aimed and pulled the trigger on the EMP and the pulse smashed into the rear of the Battlecruiser from less than twenty metres, flowing all across the Battlecruiser’s outer skin and ripping away the shield and destroying the mechanics inside the craft.
The Battlecruiser hovered for another second or two before falling like a brick to the ground with a massive crash, the earth vibrating with the impact.
“Now!” Jason ordered.
Andy aimed the RPG that had been passed to him by Matt and pulled the trigger.
There was a whoosh as the rocket shot across the short distance and pierced the side of the Battlecruiser before exploding inside.
As soon as Andy had pulled the trigger, all three men had ducked down behind a fallen tree, and it was just as well as shrapnel exploded into trees all around them, carving large holes and grooves in the bark. Then they felt and heard more debris as it rained down from above, setting some trees on fire.
The three quickly checked there were no injuries, grabbed their equipment and bolted for their SUV, swerving around the burning hot Battlecruiser.
They jumped into the SUV and Jason turned the ignition and gunned the engine. He turned in a circle then stomped on the accelerator and shot back down the track they had arrived on.
“How long do you think we’ve got?” Matt asked breathlessly from the backseat.
“Ten minutes tops,” Jason replied.
“At least we’re still alive…for now” Andy noted, looking in the side mirror at the flames still shooting into the sky behind them.
51
Jess sat in her seat with her eyes closed. She was still aboard the commandeered shuttle stationed in an abandoned barn a few kilometres away, watching through Jason’s eyes as events with the Battlecruiser unfolded. A small smile crossed her face as the Battlecruiser went up in flames and she opened her eyes.
Joshua was sitting in a seat across the other side of the shuttle and opposite the two captured guards. There were talking in their own guttural language, but Jess was able to understand what they were saying just by picking up on Joshua’s thoughts. She could tell that the guards were accusing him of being a traitor and Joshua was vehemently arguing his case.
Jess sent a ‘well done’ message to Jason then sent a brief update to Harry. Then she closed her eyes again and sighed with relief. The worst was over… for the time being at least. She was just pleased that no one had been hurt. It had all been her idea and the others had followed without hesitation. She was responsible for them and wasn’t sure how she would’ve felt if any of them had been injured, or worse. Except Joshua, of course.
It was clear the Battlecruiser had had no idea where her shuttle was, but to be on the safe side, they would stay where they were for a few more hours, before heading back to The Manor, where they could really check out the craft they had just stolen.
Jess felt that this was the turning point they had all been waiting for.
She sent out a probe to the woman she had met earlier in the tunnel. Rosy needed to know what was happening.
52
Thaejah was awoken from his sleep by an alarm ringing above his head.
He opened his eyes to find a holographic screen hanging in mid-air above his face and flashing. He glanced at the time and saw that he’d only been asleep a few measly minutes.
‘What the fuck now’, he thought to himself, annoyed at yet another interruption.
He was wide awake a few seconds later when he saw that the Battlecruiser he had sent to investigate the disappearance of the shuttle had also gone missing.
He quickly got out of bed, the screen automatically rotating so that it was still directly in front of his face at all times, then quickly forwarded the alarm to Kinaejah.
Within seconds a weary looking Kinaejah’s face filled a corner of the screen.
“What’s going on?” Kinaejah demanded, rubbing his eyes.
“We seem to have lost a shuttle and Battlecruiser,” Thaejah advised.
“What?!” Kinaejah thundered. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” Thaejah admitted. “I got an alarm that a shuttle from here to Cardiff had disappeared, and when it didn’t arrive in Cardiff, I sent a Battlecruiser to the last known location to see if it could find out what had happened.
“So, what did happen?”
“I don’t know. The Battlecruiser has also disappeared.”
Kinaejah was wide awake now.
“Get a drone up in the sky in the area, then get a dozen Battlecruisers on the scene. I want to see for myself what is going on.”
Thaejah did as ordered, and they both sat in their respective rooms watching their screens as the drone and Battlecruisers shot across the sky.
As ordered, the drone positioned itself at a thousand metres above the farm and started scanning the nearby area while the Battlecruisers held back at a safe distance.
Both Kinaejah and Thaejah could clearly see three fires burning on the ground below, one of which was a large area of trees, but they couldn’t tell what the other fires represented until the Battlecruisers were given the all-clear to move in.
After a couple of minutes, the drone confirmed that it couldn’t find anything of concern and the Battlecruisers shot into the area, primed to take out anything that moved. They moved in and around the fires and buildings, trying to work out what had happened.
Kinaejah ordered one of the Battlecruisers to take a closer look at the two separate fires and it soon became clear that the first of them was just an old wooden building. The Battlecruiser then moved across to the second fire and it was immediately clear that the remains of a Battlecruiser was sitting amongst the flames.
“How did this happen?” Kinaejah asked, shocked that somehow one of his Battlecruisers had been taken down. A very worrying turn of events.
“I’m seeing this for the first time, the same as you,” Thaejah pointed out, and immediately regretted his words.
“Well, you should have been watching when the first Battlecruiser moved in. You’ve just lost me a shuttle and Battlecruiser and you’ll pay for that.”
Thaejah wondered how he could possibly be responsible for the shuttle but kept his opinion to himself. Kinaejah was clearly annoyed and now was not the time to debate responsibility. Admittedly, he should have taken more interest in the Battlecruiser’s search, but he had just been so tired.
Thaejah pondered over what might have happened, and as far as he could see, there could only be one explanation - both craft had been attacked and could only have been taken down by humans.
After a few more minutes ruminating
, he thought he might have a good idea what had happened, but not how it had happened. They had somehow stopped and destroyed the shuttle as a trap, then, when he had sent the Battlecruiser to investigate, they had somehow destroyed that as well. But, how could they stop a shuttle in mid-flight, and even more worrying, how could they destroy a shielded Battlecruiser?
Thaejah explained his theory to Kinaejah as he continued to watch the footage from the site with a furious expression on his face.
“Recall the Battlecruisers,” Kinaejah ordered.
“What? Surely…” Thaejah began.
“RECALL THE FUCKING BATTLECRUISERS!” Kinaejah screamed.
Thaejah did as instructed, his claws flowing in a blur across the holographic screen.
“Give a global order that all craft need to be above a thousand metres when flying, unless they’re doing something specific. If these fucking humans have found a way to shoot our craft down, then I’m betting they need to be close and won’t be able to reach that high. Keep the drone in the area and find these bastards. We’ll discuss the next steps in the morning.”
Neither Kinaejah nor Thaejah got much sleep that night.
53
Jason had driven the SUV away from the farm as fast as he dared, hoping that the Laakuu wouldn’t be quick enough to get eyes on them.
His original intention was to drive towards Marlborough and find somewhere to hide out until it was safe to return to The Manor, but by the time he remembered the blocked tunnel under the M4, he was already on the road heading directly towards it.
He couldn’t waste time or risk turning back and taking another route because the Laakuu might already have craft in the vicinity. So, he had no choice but to continue and pass through the tunnel, hoping that the humans occupying it didn’t want to blow their brains out now that Jess wasn’t with them.
He slowed as he reached the entrance and was surprised to find a reception committee standing in the middle of the road. He saw that the tarpaulin had already been moved aside and he was being directed inside.