Gianni looked at Kieren. “No, really?” She didn’t smile.
So it went that day and the next, although they found that the robots were a lost cause—they were wrecked beyond repair. Each day was a challenge, but they were slowly getting used to their new abilities. The days were filled with honing their skills. James and Kieren quickly taught the other three how to make their heads visible so that everyone could see each other’s faces. Their teamwork improved greatly once they could take visual cues from facial expressions. It seemed a simple fix, but none of them had realized how much they relied on it.
Bhakat surprised them by joining them on the second day. He began learning self-defense from Yvette, lifting weights with James, though on a much smaller scale, and even running with David. James found he could lift a great deal of weight without trying—in fact, they had run out of things for him to lift already. It scared the hell out of him. The others had augmented strength from the stones as well, but none of them near the level of his.
#
Rauph knew it was only a matter of time. The ASPs would be contacting the Tukuli at any moment, and he had to decide what the best course of action would be when they did. He hoped all they would do was ask him some general questions and let them leave, but in the case they wanted to board the Tukuli and search it, he wasn’t sure what to do. He’d imagined some crazy scenarios already: trying to outrun them, having the Humans destroy the ASP ship with their newfound powers, leaving the Humans to their own fate aboard the space port so they couldn’t implicate the Tukuli and its crew. He knew none of them would work. So he sat on the bridge and waited as patiently as he could. After a few days, there finally came a hail from the ASP ship, as Rauph was about to leave the bridge and go to his quarters for his evening meal.
“This is the Galactic Alliance Society for Peace ship Interceptor to the crew of the Talondarian alpha class ship, nomenclature Tukuli. Please respond. Repeat, this is the Interceptor, please respond.”
Janan turned to look at him from his seat before the viewscreen, lifting his brows in question as to what he should do.
Rauph sighed and pushed a button next to his captain’s chair. “This is the Tukuli, responding as ordered,” he said.
“To whom am I speaking?” came the voice from the ASP ship.
“This is Rauphangelaa, owner of the Tukuli. You should be able to verify. To whom am I speaking, please?” he asked.
“Verified ownership,” the voice replied. “This is Commander Ries an na Van, Chief Protector of Sector Seven, Subsector Two. What is your business at the Mandakan Space Port?”
“Repairs to my ship and supplies,” Rauph replied.
There was a long pause, and Rauph suspected the commander was pulling up the space port’s records to see if there were any inconsistencies with the story Rauph had told him. He could feel sweat breaking out on his brow and under his arms, but he knew Zazzil had been in business a long time, and the only way they wouldn’t check out okay would be if Zazzil didn’t want them to. He also knew the ASPs had the sensor ability to perform a full scan of the Tukuli; but they could not, by law, unless they had a reason. None of his reasoning made him feel any better about the current situation.
“Tukuli, you are cleared to depart Mandakan Space Port,” came the voice over the communication system. “Please proceed on your stated course.”
Rauph and Janan both slumped in their chairs in relief.
“Acknowledged,” Rauph said, and then motioned for Janan to turn off the subspace communicator. “Janan, we leave immediately. I want us in nullspace as soon as possible.” He stood up, feeling wobbly from the stress. “I’ll inform the others.” He walked out of the room and down the corridor toward the crew quarters. All of the Humans were located in their common room.
They really are a more gregarious species than the Rajani, Rauph thought. More like the Jirina. The Rajani didn’t tend to come together often in large groups. The Elders only met when a situation arose that needed input from all of them; they preferred to tend to their own affairs most of the time, without interference from their peers. They ran their households and didn’t care about others unless a conflict arose. Rauph considered this may have been why he and Bhakat had been able to get away when the Krahn first attacked. If the Rajani had all been in one place, they may have all been captured or killed.
Rauph could overhear the loud Human named Moretti speaking.
“... can’t tell me you think anyone is going to beat the Yankees this year,” he was saying.
“Tigers might surprise this year, that’s all I’m saying,” came the voice of the one called Morris.
Rauph had no idea what they were talking about, but then, he still didn’t understand a great deal about the Human culture. The conversation stopped when he stepped through the doorway of the room. He was happy to see the portable translator Morris had procured on the space port was hanging from a hook on the wall near the doorway. He had asked James to keep the device close to him, in case Rauph needed to talk to him. He was tired of lugging around the larger, outdated device. He hadn’t thought about finding the collar in his haste to seek out the Humans and was glad he wouldn’t have to. He slipped the translator around his neck and turned it on.
“I have good news,” he said to Officer Dempsey, who had been sitting on a chair opposite the Manidoo woman. “We’ve finally been cleared to leave by the ASPs.”
“Great,” Dempsey replied. “When do we leave?”
“Immediately,” Rauph said. “I’ve already instructed Janan to undock and prepare for nullspace.”
Janan’s voice came on over the ship’s communication system. “Rauph, we have a problem up here. I need you on the bridge.”
In his haste to return to the bridge, Rauph didn’t remove the portable translator from around his neck. He hurried down the corridor to the bridge, where he saw the Tukuli had left the docking station and was now being confronted by the large ASP ship. The commander’s voice was coming over the speaker on the bridge.
“Tukuli, I repeat, this is Commander Ries an na Van of the Galactic Alliance ship Interceptor. You are in violation of Alliance Code T879.”
Rauph knew the code. It stated all ships with Rajani crews or owners must declare themselves when confronted by GA ships. He heard the ASP commander continue.
“Failure to declare yourselves has caused an automatic full scan of your ship,” the commander’s voice said.
Rauph motioned to Janan to keep prepping the ship for nullspace travel. He needed to set in the coordinates for Rajan. Rauph pushed the communication button next to his chair. “Interceptor, this is the Tukuli. What is the meaning of this? You said we were cleared for departure. Haven’t you kept us here long enough?”
“Tukuli,” the commander’s voice came back, “we ran your ship through the GA mainframe and discovered you’re a Rajani vessel. This was not logged on your docking manifest. Neither were the seven unknown occupants aboard your ship in addition to your two registered crew members. Please power down your engines and prepare to be boarded.”
Rauph jumped when Dempsey appeared at his side as he turned off the collar. “What are they saying?” the Human asked.
Rauph hoped Dempsey had not heard the commander’s voice being translated through the portable translator around his neck. He had enough problems to deal with at the moment. “We failed to declare ourselves as Rajani when we docked,” he told the Human.
“And that’s a crime?” Dempsey asked.
“Yes, it is,” Rauph said. “We told you, we’re not a very well-liked species within the Alliance.”
“Apparently not. So what do we do?”
“The Tukuli is not equipped with weapons. There’s nothing we can do, except let them board or try to run.” He watched as the Human thought for a moment, rubbing his hand along the growth of hair along his jaw.
“Maybe there is another alternative,” Dempsey finally said. “Keep stalling them and preparing to leave,” the Hum
an told him. He turned and left the bridge.
#
James knew what he was thinking sounded insane. Hell, he knew it was outright crazy, but it might be the only way they could avoid rotting in some intergalactic prison for the rest of their lives. He ran down the corridor to where the rest of his team was still waiting.
“Yvette, Gianni, come with me,” he said when he got there. “Kieren and David stay here for now, please.” He turned and ran for the main airlock. Once he arrived, he opened the inner door and stepped inside.
“What’s happening?” Yvette asked as she and Gianni caught up to him.
“Step inside and I’ll tell you,” James replied. The two others stepped through the doorway, and James pushed the button to close the inner door. “The ASPs are threatening to board the ship, and we can’t afford to let that happen,” he said. “I need you guys to help us get away.” He looked at the controls to the outer hatch. He’d seen Rauph open the hatch once before, but couldn’t remember at first which button he had pushed.
“You’re turning into a regular criminal mastermind,” Yvette said, smiling.
“Ha-ha.” James rolled his eyes. He finally remembered the correct button. “All right, I want you guys to power up.” All three of them powered up, and James continued. “When I open this door, Gianni, I want you to put up a force shield across the doorway. I’m going to hold on to the two of you, and then I want you to drop the shield.”
“What?” Yvette asked.
“Listen,” James said, “when he drops the shield, I want you to send the largest energy spike you can toward their ship. I think they should have their force field down because they’re not expecting an attack from an unarmed ship. Now hopefully you can damage one of their engines or something, but even if you can’t, the distraction should buy us enough time to get out of here.”
He turned to Gianni. “In case they decide to fire back at us, I want you to put up a shield between us and them as soon as she pulls back. Do you both understand? We need to make this as quick as possible because I don’t know how well our energy suits will protect us in space. I’m hoping they’ll at least protect us from the cold.” James strapped an arm through the cargo webbing hanging to one side of the outer hatch and grabbed both of the others around the waist. As he did so, each of their energy fields flared brightly as they touched one another.
“Guess that means I should push the button too,” Gianni said.
“Uh, yeah,” James said, looking up from where he was bent over, holding onto them. “Didn’t think about that.”
“Right,” Gianni said. “Here we go.” As he said this, a red force field appeared before the outer hatch. Gianni pushed the button, and the door slid aside. “Ready?” he asked, and a second later the force field disappeared, and the air was quickly sucked out of the small room.
James held on, feeling the pull from the vacuum of space, but not even close to straining to hold on to the others. He looked up to see Yvette’s arms pointing out and lances of energy extending from them. He could see the brightly striped ASP ship was still a couple of hundred yards away. Its coloring made it seem like a poisonous fish, its stripes meant as a warning to others, which James supposed was close to the truth. Behind the ship, the planet Mandaka was lit up in orange and reds from the great yellow sun at the center of its system.
“I don’t know if I can reach them,” Yvette said, her voice echoing the strain she was under.
“Pull back,” James said, seeing she wasn’t going to come close. He watched as the lances retreated quickly back into her arms. “Okay, Plan B. Gianni, shoot the damn thing. But let me get out of the way first.” James let go of the other two and stepped away from the door to give Gianni a clean shot.
“Okay, Big J,” Gianni said, pointing both of his hands at the other ship and letting loose with a volley of energy shots. They all watched as the beams struck the ASP ship close to one of its engines. Small explosions erupted from the engine, though they could hear nothing. The fires were quickly extinguished by the vacuum of space, but they could also see the engine was no longer functioning.
“That did it, I think,” James yelled, pointing at the controls. “Close the hatch, Yvette.”
Yvette stood there a moment before finally nodding her head in understanding. She reached over and pushed the button, and the hatch slid closed.
James pushed the button to open the inner door. He dropped his energy field and turned to the others. “Good job, you two. Gianni, I need you to do one last thing.”
“What now?” Gianni said, as both he and Yvette dropped their own energy fields.
“That ship is going to fire on us any second now,” James said. “I need you to put up a shield between us, if you can, until we’re far enough out of their range.”
“If I can?” Gianni said, rolling his eyes.
“Just try, Hotshot,” James replied, and smiled.
Gianni closed his eyes and stood still, his face scrunched up in concentration. James and Yvette turned and ran down the corridor.
“Is he doing it?” Yvette asked, following James down the corridor toward the bridge.
“We haven’t been blown up yet, so that’s a positive sign,” James replied, smiling at her. He was happy they were finally seeing some action instead of waiting around on the ship.
When they reached the bridge, Rauph and Janan were still sitting in their chairs. Rauph stood up quickly and turned on the translation collar. “What did you do!” he demanded.
“Don’t worry about it,” James said. “We need to leave. Now.”
Janan looked askance at Rauph, who stared at James a moment longer and then nodded. The Sekani quickly punched a variety of buttons and smiled at his monitor. “Tukuli has achieved full speed. We’re in nullspace in five, four, three, two ... nullspace achieved.” He sat back and sighed, smiling.
“We need to speak right now,” Rauph said. “Alone.” He looked at Yvette.
“It’s okay,” James said, looking at her. “Why don’t you go tell Gianni to drop the force shield if he hasn’t already.”
“No problem.” Yvette smiled at him and then walked down the corridor.
“Follow me,” Rauph said, walking off the bridge without looking back to make sure James was following.
James looked over at Janan, and the little alien smiled and shrugged. James walked out into the corridor and saw that Rauph had entered the small meeting room they had been using since the trip began. He followed, and Rauph closed the door before turning to face him.
“What did you do?” Rauph asked again, vehemently.
“I bought us some time,” James replied, sitting down on a chair. He was suddenly feeling tired and hungry—a side effect he’d noticed after each training session as well. “We partially disabled their ship so they couldn’t follow us.”
“Partially ...?” Rauph said, and stopped, a confused look on his face. “How?”
“Gianni shot out one of their engines,” James answered, smiling sheepishly. He realized how it sounded.
Rauph sat down on the nearest chair and put a hand over his eyes. “Please tell me we did not fire on an ASP warship,” he said softly.
“It was the only thing we could do,” James said. “We had no alternative.” He felt like adding ‘they started it,’ but thought better of it. Rauph probably wouldn’t get the joke.
Rauph put his hand down. He looked miserable. “I suppose not. The ASPs have long memories, and I fear we haven’t heard the last of this. We cannot worry about future repercussions now. The important thing is, we’re finally on our way to Rajan.”
“And we learned Gianni can be a team player,” James said. “When he wants to be, at least. If not for him, we’d still be back at the space port with interstellar cops boarding your ship and placing all of us under arrest.”
“Yes, of course,” Rauph said, standing. “We shall meet in the morning, all of us, to speak more about this. But for now, I’m afraid I’ve had about as much
excitement as I can take for the night.”
“Good night,” James said.
“And to you, Officer Dempsey,” Rauph replied. He turned off the translator collar, placed it on the table, and left the room.
James smiled. It would be a while before he could go to sleep. He had too much adrenaline in his system at the moment. After grabbing the translator, he headed back to the common room to eat and talk to the others about what had happened. It was a good first start, but obviously, they needed to train better when it came to working together.
Interlude
Tomas had spent too much time in the hospital for his own liking, but now that it was actually time for him to leave, he was feeling apprehensive. His father’s people still hadn’t determined Gianni’s whereabouts, even after more than two months had passed.
The strange thing was, there wasn’t even a rumor on the streets as to what could have happened to his cousin. He had vanished without a trace. He was either facing some serious heat from the Feds and needed to take an extended leave of absence while things sorted themselves out, or he was dead – probably from the same people who jumped Tomas. He was itching to find out who they had been.
The Feds, however, acted like they didn’t know what was going on. Tomas had learned his father’s contacts within the agency didn’t know about any secret deal Gianni had cut or a witness relocation program for his cousin, either.
Which meant the alternative; Gianni’s body would be found in a landfill somewhere, or washed up on shore, or they wouldn’t find it at all. Tomas planned to return to New York as soon as he could. He’d always liked his Aunt Christina. He thought he should be the one to break the bad news to her that Gianni might not be coming back.
Chapter Thirteen
Bhakat was at the wheel of the transport vehicle as he and Rauphangelaa drove back from central Melaanse. Before that, they had visited Rauphangelaa’s farm. It had been a productive day, as Rauphangelaa had talked to his farmhands, letting them know what the Elders had decided must be planted for that growing season.
Rajani Chronicles I Page 19