by Kyle, Celia
I stare at the vial in my hand. What a monstrous plan.
Then, it gets even worse.
“You may use the Kilgari prisoner as your lab rat. Good luck, Miss Thrase. Both of our lives depend upon your success.”
My blood runs cold. How am I going to get out of this mess?
Chapter Twenty-One
Zander
The confines of my tiny cell offer me nothing by ways of fashioning a means of escape. For bedding, a solid metal bunk welded to the far wall—too small for my frame and clearly intended for humans—is adhered too tightly for me to dislodge it.
I do have a commode, all one piece and welded to the floor as well. Clearly, no one bothered to clean it after the last occupant, and both the moldy feces stains on the side and the repugnant smell turn my stomach to the point where I could barely bring myself to use it.
Other than that, my room is featureless. The recessed lighting panel is protected by an electrical mesh grid. I found that out the hard way when I tried to pry it loose and was knocked across the room by the sudden jolt of energy.
Once I’d recovered from my nasty tumble, I scoped out every inch of the cell—a difficult task given the low amount of illumination in the dimly lit chamber. Then my fingers had scraped over the edges of a metal panel screwed into the wall.
I reasoned that the panel has been screwed over the lighting controls, making me think perhaps this wasn’t intended to originally function as a prison cell. Welded bedding and toilets are common on star ships, after all. You never know when a stray gamma ray burst is going to take out your gravity drive or your inertial dampeners, after all.
So they screwed this metal plate over the lighting controls so the cell’s occupant couldn’t access the ship’s systems, I suppose. Though from what I can tell, there’s just electricity coming to this room, so I doubt I could hack into the ship’s computer from here even if I could get the panel off.
This ship is clearly of human design, but the bolts holding this panel are of Kilgari manufacture. That doesn’t bode well for me since I don’t have any tools to unfasten them. When I try my fingernail, I wind up cracking it down the middle, a painful reminder that I’m not an Odex.
Sucking on my finger, I regard the panel screws. We used to call this model of screws bites because the ridged indentation for a driver to fit so closely resembles Kilgari teeth. You know, I bet one of my teeth would fit right into it.
There’s no one looking at the moment. Might as well give it a try. Opening my mouth to maximum gape, I attempt to fit one of my front teeth into the bolt’s indentation, but to no avail. Damn, this panel isn’t even secured all that well. Just a little purchase, and I could get it loose.
Then I get an idea. Not a pleasant one, but clever nonetheless if I do say so myself. I decide I can always get an implant to replace my third incisor.
I do the calculations in my head. It takes eight pounds of pressure per square inch to dislodge a tooth roots and all, and I need to make sure it doesn’t get busted off at the gumline. The roots will be my handle for my makeshift driver. I should generate more than twenty pounds of pressure per square inch just by falling forward from a standing position…
Sighing, I stand near the corner of my bunk, and lower myself slowly to line up my shot, effectively doing a push up. Right about there should do it.
I almost lose my nerve. This is going to hurt, a lot, and there’s a good chance it will take more than one try. Then I think of Thrase and our zesty encounter in the lab. She refused to admit her feelings for me. I can’t let myself be killed until we get to affirm our love. Perhaps I’m just being stubborn, but it gives me the courage to proceed with my plan.
Trying to relax my body as much as I can, I take a deep breath, stand in the appropriate position, and let myself topple over.
The impact causes stars to burst behind my eyes, and in spite of my desire to maintain stealth a cry of anguish escapes my now bloody lips. Hopefully they will think it’s an aftereffect of my earlier “torture” at Thrase’s hands.
I stick my finger in my mouth and groan in agony as I investigate the gum line. I got it, roots and all. But where did it go?
Getting on my hands and knees, I pat about the blood-stained floor until I feel something small, sharp, and hard. Picking up my tooth by the roots, trying not to focus on how much it hurts, I go to the panel and thrust the incisor into the indentation on the bolt.
What is it that Thrase says? Eureka? It fits perfectly. Kilgari teeth evolved to be quite tough, so there’s no concern of me breaking it. But the blood slickened roots make for a poor handle indeed. I solve this problem by ripping a bit of my shirt off and wrapping it about the twin curving roots.
Twist, twist—drop, curse. Repeat. For nearly half an hour I work on the bolts, until I have all four of them off. Then I gently pry the panel away, wary of making too much noise.
The pain in my mouth has faded somewhat by the time I get to work. It is indeed an illumination control panel, and while I can’t affect any vital systems it does give me something to work with.
Extracting the small power matrix cell, cutting the wires with my tooth, I get another nasty shock and the lights go out completely. Now it’s pitch black in here, but I have a great memory. I manage to assemble a makeshift taser from the materials gleaned from the panel.
Here goes nothing. I press the trigger stud—which happens to be my tooth—and then the room lights up with a blue arc of electricity. Oh yes.
Even better, I can access the servos, which control the door holding me inside this tiny cell. Taking a deep breath, I activate the opening sequence and prepare for battle.
The door slides up, taking the two IHC “marines” guarding the door by surprise. I jam my taser into the crotch of the closest, and he spasms about before falling to the floor in a crumpled heap, awake but unable to move.
His fellow reaches for the comm on his belt, no doubt to raise and alarm, but I bash my horned head right between his eyes. The guard’s nose explodes into shards of bone and a spray of blood, and I give him a jolt from the taser for good measure.
“You boys don’t mind if I take these off your hands, do you?”
They have those cheap, mass-produced IHC assault rifles, the ones that overheat if you do more than a short three-round burst. But they’ll do for now. There’s no point in trying to steal one of their uniforms. I’m the only Kilgari on board. What I wouldn’t give for a holographic image inducer at the moment.
Alas, I don’t have one of those. Working from memory, I head down to their armory, which is blessedly unguarded. The retinal scanner won’t let me in, so I smash it loose and jury rig the wires to create enough current to get the door open. Then I put the door in maintenance mode so it will stay open and not trap me inside.
Here it is, my gear. Once I’m suited up and armed, I take some of their goodies too. They owe me for my tooth.
Then I step out into the corridor, my weak force pistol in one hand and a spread shot pulse rifle in the other. The first humans I come across aren’t soldiers but scientists. They gape at me, horror reflected in their tiny eyes.
I can’t risk them raising an alarm, so there’s no time to take them out with non-lethal means. Deciding the spread shot is too noisy, I squeeze the trigger on my pistol and strike the first in the chest. He opens his mouth to scream before dissolving into a pile of red goo.
His fellow tries to beg for mercy, but I shoot him before he gets more than a syllable out. I’m not a blood-thirsty man, but it feels good to finally be able to fight back against these cretins who have robbed me and my jalshagar of our freedom.
I have two objectives—one, find Thrase, two, find a means of escaping this ship, be it an escape pod or a shuttle.
Make that three objectives. I also want to kill as many Star Crushers and Project Blue Dawn shortspans as I can. They want a war?
I’ll give them a war.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thrase
&
nbsp; Once I had been left to my own devices, my first order of business was to render the Modine virus inert. A short burst of microwave radiation from the dehydration unit in my borrowed lab space does the trick nicely.
Then I make sure to put the computer console in “training” mode so I can make it produce any figures I want. If Dr. Mal or anyone else cares to check my progress, they’ll discover some promising, but not too promising so as to be unrealistic, readouts from the screen. Who needs Fiona, anyway?
I do, actually because she could probably hack the ship’s controls from here and I could take it over.
Once the sample is inert, and my faux readouts fully prepared, I set about trying to figure out a way of getting a signal off the ship. The shuttle I rode up here was windowless in the passenger compartment, so I don’t even know the model of vessel I’m currently incarcerated upon. I did hear Dr. Mal refer to it as a warship, which doesn’t bode well for the Ancestral Queen even with her recent upgrades.
One thing I do have to say about the Interstellar Human Confederation; when it comes to warfare, they certainly get the job done. I’ve heard other sapient races describe IHC craft as overgunned, overpowered, and overwhelming in combat. Perhaps we, as the smallest and physically weakest sapients in the galaxy, have overcompensated.
Unfortunately, I can find no means of getting a signal off the ship. It would take a quantum entanglement console, which is probably only to be found on the bridge.
Wait a moment… no, there’s another. The room where I had my extremely creepy meeting with the high-powered Earth First leaders. It must have instant communication capabilities, or we wouldn’t have been able to have that meeting in real time.
I have the run of the ship, so there’s nothing holding me back. But when I press the button to open the lab’s sliding metal door, I run right into Dr. Mal, almost literally.
“Thrase?” He blinks several times. “Where were you off to?”
Shit. How do I explain this?
“To tell you the truth, I was feeling a bit peckish. Now that I’m in the fold, as it were, I was hoping to visit the ship’s galley.”
Dr. Mal laughs, and puts his arms akimbo.
“There’s no galley on this vessel. Every square inch of space has been dedicated to two things—warfare, and scientific discovery.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. So there’s no food on board?”
“Oh, there’s sustenance. Most of the ship quarters have a dispensary for a kind of watery gruel made of synthetic proteins. Tasteless and bland, but highly nutritious. All stamina, no fat.”
“You don’t make the prospect sound very appealing.”
Dr. Mal grins.
“I’m only being truthful. But my position in the movement has its fringe benefits. There’s a full working kitchen space in my private quarters. Perhaps… I could cook dinner?”
His eyebrows arch in loaded query, and his leering grin makes it clear that if I accept his offer, he fully expects me to be his dessert. I’m not an espionage agent, but fortunately for me men are dumb. They always believe every woman is interested in them, even if they don’t know it yet.
“That sounds like a capital idea.” I smile widely, trying to keep any ounce of disgust off my face. Dr. Mal is not unattractive, but his dark heart and rotten soul are positively repugnant.
He gestures broadly for me to follow, and I accompany him through the twisting corridors to the lift. Then we ascend to the top deck, where the bridge and his personal quarters are located. The top-most deck is roughly disc shaped, with the bridge taking up one half of the circle and his quarters the other.
When the door slides open, I gape in open appreciation. Mal’s private quarters are just as well appointed as his office had been on M’Kal in the Starcorp building. Plush carpet—blue and green, of course, a terribly tacky pattern if you ask me—velvet upholstery on his furniture, and the aforementioned kitchenette. Dr. Mal takes off his lab coat and dons an apron with the unfortunate phrase “Kiss the Cook” emblazoned in stark white letters across the breast.
“Please.” He gestures at a wine rack protected by its own personal force bubble. “Select a good vintage that pairs well with oyster mushrooms and pasta.”
“I’d love to, but the field…”
“Of course. The pass word is one, two, three, four, five.”
I can’t help but shoot him an incredulous look. That’s the kind of combination any idiot would have on his luggage.
Mal notices my look and laughs cheerfully.
“I know, it’s so simple, but who would suspect a vast scientific intellect such as my own to pick a pass code like that? Besides, if someone makes it into my quarters, it’s because I want them here.”
I’m no vintner, but my parents did run that successful café on Mars. I select a white Pinot—from Earth of course—and take the chilled bottle to the kitchen counter as Mal sets a pot of water to boiling.
“An excellent choice, Thrase…”
We both react when the comms blaze to life overhead.
“Dr. Mal, we have a situation.”
Mal’s face twists into an annoyed sneer.
“I gave explicit word that I was not to be disturbed for the rest of the evening.”
“I am aware, Doctor, but the Kilgari has managed to escape.”
“What? You imbeciles. Can’t you even recapture an unarmed two-dicked alien deviant?”
The tone of the voice emanating over the comms takes on a harsher edge.
“He’s no longer unarmed, sir. He managed to gain access to the armory. The Kilgari has already killed a dozen of my men, and one of the survivors says he’s hell bent on finding the Thrase woman.”
My eyes go wide, and I struggle to restrain a smile from being born on my lips. Dr. Mal slams his fist down on the counter so hard the wine bottle rattles.
“Recapture him if you can, Captain Soandzo. If not, put an end to his little tirade.”
“Copy that, sir. Recommend you remain in quarters until such time as we have dealt with the hostile.”
Dr. Mal puts his hands on his hips and glares up at the comm, though it’s hardly as if the captain can see him.
“Can you do what you claim, though?”
A dark chuckle and then.
“We’re the Star Crushers.”
With that the communication ends. Dr. Mal turns back to me and cocks a pencil-thin eyebrow.
“It seems you were a bit overzealous in your torture of the Kilgari captive, Thrase. He will not relent until he gets his hands on you.”
Ah, Dr. Mal, you’re right in so many ways but wrong in so many others.
“But we’re safe here, of course?”
“Of course.” Dr. Mal picks up his lanyard and dangles it like a trophy. “Once the ship went on alert, the lift system went into security lockdown. Without one of these, the Kilgari won’t be able to move beyond the deck where he’s currently raising chaos.”
“Spectacular.” I pick up the wine bottle, holding the neck in my hand.
“The opener is over there, in that drawer,” he says, indicating the correct spot.
“Not going to be an issue.”
With that I bust the wine bottle over his head. Dr. Mal’s eyes go wide, and a trail of blood runs down his forehead. Then he makes the most awful, guttural scream.
Damn it, I was hoping that would knock him out. Balling up my fist, I strike him in the temple as I’ve seen the Kilgari do in hand-to-hand combat. Eureka, he goes down, folding like a blanket. Then the pain shoots through my knuckles and I cradle my injured hand to my chest.
I give my fingers an experimental flex. Nothing seems to be broken, but it hurts like the dickens. Snatching up the lanyard off the counter, I rush toward the door and out into the hallway.
After activating the lift, I set it to take me to deck eight where the lab imprisoning Num is located. On my way down, the ship goes to full alert, amber colored lights flashing on the walls of the lift car.
&n
bsp; “Attention, all hands.” Captain Soandzo’s voice is tinged with urgency, unlike before. “Report to battle stations. We are under attack by two enemy ships.”
The Ancestral Queen, splendid. Solair is here for the rescue—
Wait a moment, did he say two ships? Never mind, I need to put my plan in motion. I exit the lift on deck eight as the whole ship shudders violently and the lights flicker. I’m tossed to the deck plating, landing hard on my already injured hand, but I scramble back up in an instant.
Zander could probably use backup, and I can utilize the little creature’s unique abilities to our advantage.
Assuming the ship doesn’t blow apart first.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zander
Stepping around the bend in the corridor, amber lights flashing their omnipresent warning of danger, I open fire on the group of Star Crushers waiting outside the lift. One goes down, dissolved into goo by the weak force pistol, while two others have a more painful demise of getting shot in the throat and head, respectively, thanks to my spread shot rifle.
The fourth man goes to draw his weapon, but I shake my head.
“I wouldn’t recommend that, sir.”
He freezes and then stares at his dead colleagues. His hands go in the air instead of reaching for his weapon or a comm.
“Smart man.” I gesture at the gold slashes on his sleeve. “You’re a lieutenant in the Star Crushers, yes?”
“Prepare to die for your crimes.”
“Hey!” he says. “What crimes?”
“You’re a racist human who wants every alien dead.”
“No I’m not,” he says. “Look, I’m wearing a M’Kal mating necklace. My wife is M’Kal. My best man was a Kraaj.”
“Then why do you work for such a racially hostile organization like the Star Crushers?”
The soldier laughs.
“There’s got to be at least a few hundred thousand Star Crushers.”