by Frank Carey
Horus raised an eyebrow before taking the crushed appendage in his hand. Instantly, it was like new.
"Thanks. OK, we have a problem. You three are myths, which means you just can't drop into the party and start slinging thunderbolts."
"Sire, he's right. Much has changed since you were imprisoned," Athena said.
"How long ago was that, exactly?" Gus asked.
"Approximately one thousand years," Horus noted. "He got too close to the statue."
"It is designed to give immortal children what you would call a time out," Athena said.
"You were on Earth?"
"No, Olympia. No immortal has ever visited Earth," Zeus explained. "Those were myths perpetrated by the inhabitants of this planet."
"Yep, no way you can be allowed into the wild all willy nilly. Athena, how did you get here?"
"Your InterWeb."
Gus thought for a moment. "Can you sense my ship? It’s up on the roof of the Security Building."
"Yes, I see it. Rather spartan, isn't it?"
"It flies and the coffee maker is broken in. Can you three go there and hang out until I get back?"
"Sure... Would it be OK, Sire?"
"Yes. What is coffee?"
"There are several bags in the cupboard with instructions taped to the pantry door. Start him out with blond roast,, then work your way darker," he suggested.
Athena nodded. "This way, sire," she said as the three disappeared into the dark basement, leaving Gus alone with the unconscious Juno. He shook his head. "I should want to kill you, yet I feel nothing. I think I need to see a shrink."
Just then, the room filled with agents including Themis. She knelt down next to her sister. As she checked the woman's pulse she saw the crumpled blaster. "What happened here?"
"She pulled a weapon on me, so I disarmed her, but not before she was able to activate the house's perimeter defenses. She said she had a shuttle on the roof."
Themis nodded. "We got it. What about the statue?"
Gus retrieved the figure from under a piece of container and handed it Themis. "Not a scratch on it."
Themis took the statue and held it as if it were a newborn child. "Thank you,” she said with tears in her eyes. "We will have a feast...!"
"I'm going for a swim and maybe pick up a snack in the process. I would appreciate it if you could pick me up at the next bridge."
"It's freezing out," one of the guards noted.
"On Stora, we would call this a spring day," he said as he walked out of the building and headed to the water while the others just shook their heads.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kel woke up to find Nayla shaking him. "Time to get up, Kel. We've arrived."
"What? Damn, I must be tired. Are we getting ready to head to the planet's surface?"
"The station isn't on the planet; it's in orbit around the planet, dead ahead about a click."
"Have they seen us?"
"No, Doctor, they have not," Dash explained as he walked out of the Bridge and over to a console. "I activated the cloaking system before dropping into real-space."
"Rex, get Percy in here," Nayla ordered.
"Yes, ma'am," he replied before running off to fetch the young gun runner.
"Dash, any sign of ship traffic?"
"Two ships docked and nothing inbound. The place looks quiet, too quiet if you ask me."
"Percy! What's the normal crew complement of your family's space station?"
"Space station? What space station?" he asked.
"Gracie!"
"Yes, Captain," she said as a hologram of the station formed in the center of the room.
"Recognize this?" Nayla demanded.
"That's the Algernon. It was parked in orbit around a white dwarf two light-years from here."
"What do they do on the Algernon?"
"I don't know. All I know is it wasn't here a week ago."
"How do you know that?" Maeve asked.
"Because I made a delivery to it a week ago, and it wasn't here. It was two light-years from here."
"This isn't good," Dash noted. "Gracie, run a surface scan of the planet. We're looking for a building or buildings."
"Working... I have found a complex of buildings currently passing underneath the station. Power levels are zero. No life signs detected."
"What about the station?" Nayla asked Dash.
"Gracie, drop the cloak and scan the station.”
"Station and attached ships are not registering any power output. No life signs on ships. One life sign present on station. It is diffuse and of an unknown type."
"Diffuse?" Maeve asked.
"Yes, the signal spans half of one deck."
Dash walked over to Percy, his crystal pulsing rapidly while his tail darted from left to right. "Kid, did your people have a way to stop that thing? You know, like if it got loose, or someone let it loose by mistake?"
Percy's eyes pleaded with Dash. "Mom will have my hide and use it for a coat if I tell you."
They all turned when Kel coughed. He grabbed an apple from a bowl on the table and held it out at arm's length. While everyone watched, he breathed fire on it, instantly turning it to a cinder before dropping the glowing turd into a trashcan.
"OK, OK! There's a code you transmit on 5.8 gigahertz."
"And that code is?" Kel asked as he grabbed a pear.
"I DON’T KNOW!" Percy yelled, fearing for his life.
Kel looked at him. "Who does?"
"They're stored in encrypted storage aboard both the planet-side and orbital stations per standard operating procedures. There are ten codes—one for each existing samsar along with a few spares. She doesn't like having those things hanging around for long. Look, I wouldn't be doing this if I had a choice."
"Kel, enough with the flame thrower," Dash said. "Kid, what would you be doing if you had your way?"
"Merchanting. That's what I went to school for. Mom thought I was wasting my time, so she pulled me into the fold before I could get my license.”
"Kid, how long have you been haulin’ merch through the black empty?"
Percy dropped the slouch and stood tall. "Five years, Captain."
"What the hell are you..." Nayla demanded, but stopped when Dash raised his hand.
"Percy Negrue, I offer you a full share of this haul and guaranteed employment for a standard probationary period of one year. Do you accept my offer."
"For real?"
"Aye, for real. You accept and you work for me. We'll work on getting your papers. Meanwhile, your ma and your family can't touch you. Do you accept?"
"Yes, sir, I accept."
"Good," Dash said as he spit in his own palm, then held it out. Percy grabbed it and shook it with gusto. When they finished the ritual, Dash reached under a counter and pressed a button. They heard a whine as a rack of weapons raised up out of the floor, weapons which ranged from knives to large caliber energy weapons.
"Are you kidding me?" Nayla asked.
"No, I'm not kidding. We need to find that code, and Percy is the only chance we have of doing that. I refuse to take a civvie into a dangerous situation, but crew? Crew needs to earn their pay. Right, Second Mate?"
"Aye, Captain."
Rex nodded approval. Maeve, on the other hand, was incredulous. "Percy, what the hell happens if you see this samsar?"
Percy grabbed a pulse rifle and slapped a power pack into it, then in one fluid motion, he powered it up and took the safety off. "I kill it, ma'am."
"Yep, this will work,” Rex said as he grabbed something nasty looking and brought it on line. "What are we waiting for?"
Nayla got her game face on. "Dash, get us docked as far away from that life sign as possible. You and Gracie will stay here and be ready for immediate dust-off. Kel, you'll monitor our life signs. If they go out, Dash will detach, set a quarantine buoy, then get the hell out of here."
"Yes, ma'am," Kel said. He hated to stay behind, but saving his mate was his priority.
Dash walked over and kissed her hard on the lips. Finishing, he said, "I had to do that."
She smirked and returned the kiss, possibly harder. Finishing, she said, "So did I. Let's move out!"
###
The team knew something was wrong the minute they entered the station with weapons and scanners at the ready. Many stations used potted plants to augment the oxygen supply and this one was no exception. Pots lined the corridor floor and trays near the ceiling, only the plants they contained looked like they had spent years in a desiccator. Not just some of them, but all of them.
"Our friend has been busy," Maeve noted. "Scans show this corridor as being sterile. You could perform brain surgery in here and save thousands in pre-cleaning costs."
"Percy, you said something about a nanorobot cloud?" Nayla asked as she checked her scanner.
"Yeah, and real nasty. One of my uncles said the bots are stored in something the size of a hand grenade. Once they hit the outside, the bots hunt down anything living and use it as a power source. They were deliberately designed to leave bodies as a terror generator."
Rex interrupted them. "Umm, not to be a wet rag, but my scanner shows that large life form in that general direction."
They continued down the hallway until they reached a room marked "Server Room—Keep Out!" Maeve tried the door and found it unlocked. After a scan of the interior, she pushed the door open and turned on the lights.
"It’s show time, Percy," Nayla noted.
Percy sat down at a terminal and typed commands into the keyboard. The screen lit up with what looked like a file structure. "Ah, here it is," Percy said. "Transferring codes to Gracie. Now, let's see why the station is where it shouldn't be..." Hmmm. It seems the samsar is popular with the military types. Mom's engineers created several versions of it and one of them got loose on-planet. Currently, it's confined to the station, but that won't last long.”
"So, that's why it was evacuated," Nayla asked.
"Something nasty got out and started to eat the staff," Percy said as he read something on the screen.
"Where the hell did your people come up with this idea?"
"They found an artifact on some dead planet. It contained something, something that didn't like being scanned. One of the engineers got a little heavy-handed with the scan settings and zapped whatever was inside. He died instantly. The creature disappeared, but not before the survivors were able to do a complete scan of it."
"This creature, what was it exactly?" Maeve asked.
"A cloud? Smoke?"
"And it killed by sucking the life force from a living being?"
"That's what I've been told. Mother thought it would be perfect for terror-inducing attacks."
Maeve, Nayla, and Rex just stared at Percy in shock. Gracie, though, had a lesser tolerance for horror. "No offense, but I find you mother to be offensive," the computer said over the open comm.
"She has her moments," Percy replied.
"Where is the samsar now?" Nayla asked after killing the link to the ship.
"Why?" Maeve asked.
"I want to see it."
"Staging Area Six, out the door, then two lefts. Big, double-door with all sorts of nasty warning signs. You can't miss it.”
Maeve grabbed the young major by the arm. "Listen, sister, that thing needs to die, right?"
Nayla broke loose of her grip. "Of course. Now, let's grab our stuff, go have a look-see, then get the plark out of here." It didn't go unnoticed by Maeve when Nayla reactivated their comms. As the major headed to the door, Maeve leaned over and whispered into Rex's ear, "Watch her."
"As I have been since she boarded the ship," he replied. "What should I do if she tries to get a sample?"
"Destroy it. If she loses a mitt, then so be it. I've seen some wonderful prosthetics in just her color."
"Copy that."
Standing by the door, Nayla tapped her ear piece. "Zephyr actual, this is retrieval team. Do you copy? Over."
"Retrieval team, this is actual. We receive you five by five. What is your status? Over."
"We're heading back, but have one stop to make. Prep for immediate dust-off when we arrive, over."
"Copy that. Zephyr actual standing by."
###
Dash stared at the speaker and worried about the people in the station. Setting his shoulders, the captain grabbed the preflight checklist from its hook on the side of the console and started at line one. Just then, Kel walked onto the Bridge. "What's up?" Dash asked.
"Gracie, can you scan the area on the other side of the station?" Kel asked
"Working... There is a ship docked to the room the samsar is currently occupying."
"How did we miss that?" Dash asked.
"I think the samsar was shielding it from our scans," Kel said. "I was double-checking my readings when that appeared. It's possible the creature is running low on energy.”
"Wait a minute," Dash said while tapping a stylus on the console's surface. "If it was hiding something from us, then it..."
"It knows we're here," Kel yelled. "Gracie, emergency recall all channels!”
"Unable to send. All channels being jammed."
Kel's fingers flew over the control board. A diagram of the station appeared. Off to one side was the diffuse cloud representing the samsar. Approaching it were four dots. He cursed in a language not heard in two hundred years, though his meaning was perfectly clear.
"What the plark are they doing?" Dash demanded as he accelerated the take-off preparations.
"My cousin is looking for a souvenir," Kel noted. "And she's going to get herself and her companions killed in the process."
"Gracie, try rotating the comm frequencies. Kel... Kel?" Dash turned and saw he was alone. "Gracie, prepare for lift-off. Real-space engines to standby. FTL engines to standby."
"Aye, aye Captain."
"Gracie, continue to monitor life signs. Notify me of any changes."
"Aye, aye, Captain! Sir, Dr. Hardy has left the ship. He seems to be very angry."
"As he should be. I don't know which one Nayla should be more afraid of, Kel or the samsar."
"Orders, sir?"
"We watch and wait."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nayla and her team entered the dark room with scanners and weapons ready. They could see shapes around them, some tall, some long. There was a lot of them. "Packing crates," Percy noted.
They stopped. "I hear something," Nayla said.
"So do I," Rex said as he slowly turned to his left. "A humming noise about twenty meters away in that direction," he said while making a chopping motion with his left hand.
Percy checked his scanner. "That's the samsar," he whispered.
Slowly, carefully, they approached the location of the weapon, their weapons held at the ready while Percy held a comm unit programmed with the ten destruct codes. They made their way around a stack of crates.
"Oh my God," Maeve said as she looked up. Towering over them was a cloud of dense black which shifted as they watched. Suspended in mid-air were three bodies that it was feeding on, each with a rictus of fear, terror, and pain locked on their faces. The creature reared up as it prepared to continue its feast on new, fresh prey.
Nayla swallowed hard as all thoughts of getting a sample went out the door. "Percy! Kill that damn thing!"
"I'm trying, but nothing's working!" He said as he pounded the comm unit. The creature watched him as a cobra watched a mouse.
"Rex, get them out of here," Nayla screamed as she stepped between her companions and the samsar, raising her weapon and firing in one fluid motion.
The blast, large enough to hull a freighter, had zero effect on the samsar. Instead of dying or disappearing in a cloud of vaporized nanorobots, the thing shrugged off the blast as it turned to face the young Marine.
Without a word, Rex grabbed Percy and Maeve, then leapt toward the exit, covering the twent
y meters in an instant. On the way, a wind passed them as it made its way to the samsar. The wind was named Kellen Matu Hardy, and he was angry.
Kel landed between the samsar and Nayla in a classic three-point stance. He stood up, extended his wings, and screamed the battle cry of the Basili, a call not heard in thousands of years, while breathing a jet of fire which would make a ship's afterburner's proud. He screamed until no air was left in his lungs as he prepared to die.
The samsar exploded, every minute component of it going out in a blaze of glory.
Kel reached around, and in one motion, grabbed Nayla and pulled her to his chest as he knelt to the ground. He wrapped his wings around them both just as the flame front engulfed them.
###
Rex and his two charges landed outside the door as it slammed shut. Moments later, the station rocked as an explosion could be heard coming from staging area six. Maeve ran up to door and screamed, "Kellen! Nayla! Dammit, we have to get this open..."
The door slid open and Kel emerged holding a very angry Nayla with one arm. He was singed, parts of his clothing actually smoking. Nayla, on the other hand, was untouched, though incensed enough to spit nails. "You big goofball. What the hell were you thinking landing between me and that thing," she yelled while cuffing him. "I'm the Marine, dammit! I'm supposed to save you. Your wife would have my hide if something happened to you while saving me." she yelled.
"I should have let that thing eat you," he yelled back, "but then I would have had to explain to your mother how her daughter had suddenly gone stupid!" He reached into her pocket and pulled out the sample collectors she had stored there. "Care to explain this major?" he demanded while crushing it into a tiny ball.
"We may face that weapon one day, so a sample would be highly useful for finding a way to stop it!" she yelled back.
Maeve ran over, and with Percy's help, patted out the few remaining fires. "What the hell happened in there?"
Nayla patted-out a fire on Kel's sleeve as she slid to the floor. "Kel happened. He huffed and he puffed and he flamed the samsar. Percy! What the hell happened?"
"I only got through three codes before it attacked. My gods, did you see that thing? It was like watching a serpent!"