Ask them what I’m supposed to do when I find him.
Ella sensed Avearan relaying the message to Chloe and Michei. She couldn’t help but laugh every time she listened in on what was going on with her body—hearing her voice speak with an accent that almost sounded Russian.
“Say his registration number, one-one-five-five, and that Michei has mission critical information,” she heard Michei’s voice speak.
Kalis, with a glowing smile, approached Ella; she wore a lovely black dress and held a data pad in her hands, ready to take her order. “Have decided you what you’d like to try?”
She hesitated for a moment; after all, she didn’t really come here to eat, but to meet Kalis’s father. But at the same time, didn’t feel comfortable straight up getting to the point. According to Michei, Telan’s life might be in danger.
Her finger aimed toward a random menu item on the pad before her. “Uh…yeah uh this.” Play it safe, act like she came to enjoy herself before getting to the point. Make things look normal and legit.
“Without the vegetables sides, I take it?” Kalis said, while keying in her order.
Say yes, Hashmedai can’t digest plants very well, Avearan’s thoughts echoed.
Kalis walked way to take other orders from waiting patrons while Ella fixed her sights on the kitchen staff, trying to figure out which one was Telan. There were about six Rabuabin men cooking food, all of them dressed in the same dark orange attire and apron. There was no way to tell who was who; Kalis will have to point him out. No worries, she’ll ask the next time she returns, which was part of the plan anyway.
In the meantime, she picked up the menu and tried to figure what the hell she ordered in the first place. Speaking Rabuabin was one thing, reading it? It looked like chicken scratches with random ovals above and below some of the text.
Gunfire ripped apart the ceiling, as three armed men with magnetic rifles stormed in without warning. The gunshots caused her to leap from her chair, dropping the menu and her drink onto the floor. “Shit!” she yelled in English, which also happened to be the language the gunmen were speaking…English as they ordered everyone to get their hands up and face the wall. Well that rules out them being Linl, must be human…only how did humans make it out here? Jazz was supposed to be the only one who ventured to this part of the galaxy.
Screams and panic ensued as the three gunmen now had the weapons drawn toward everyone as they were pushed into one corner.
They speak the human language, Avearan thought.
Let the major and Michei know what’s going on.
“We got a psi here!” one of the gunmen said, pointing at Ella in Avearan’s body.
All three rifles were now drawn and pointing in her general direction. The gunmen slowly closed the gap between them and Ella, one of the pulled out a slave collar. “If I even get the hint of an object moving without anything touching it, she dies!” another gunman stated.
Standing with the rest of the patrons, cooks, and service staff, a possessed Avearan’s hands rose up to surrender herself. Toward the entrance, there was a glimmer of hope that stepped in, hope from an unexpected source. Phylarlie, the assassin who was hell-bent on slaying her not long ago, briefly uncloaked as the gunmen were fixated on Ella. Phylarlie’s index finger hovered before her lips in shush motion and vanished into her stealth stance.
You see that? Ella thought.
Give me control, Avearan thought back.
I think she wants to help.
I don’t care; give me control of my body. I’m not dying ’cause of you being too weak to do anything! If that slave collar gets on me, then it’s over.
Avearan kept her gem in her pouch strapped around her waist. Ella already had Avearan’s hands raised in the air, making a sudden reach for the gem with three tripper happy gunmen pointing their rifles carried too many risks. Never mind the fact that those high velocity bullets will not just kill her but everyone standing behind her after they rip through her body.
Stop hesitating! Switch us back, I’ll be fine, Avearan thought.
Her hands lunged downward to her pouch. “Oh shit,” she muttered as she saw one of the gunmen react.
… … …
►► ESV Winston Churchill, Earth Orbit
► Sol System
Instantly, Ella’s thoughts crossed the cosmos once again, landing back in her body aboard the Winston Churchill. She threw her body to the floor, which was going to be her next reaction before the gem switched her mind back. She quickly got back to her feet and said, “It’s me, Ella. Avearan went into fight.”
Chloe’s fist slammed against the wall. “Damn it…we need to hurry this up,” she said, turning back toward the two downed guards. “Someone is paging them; it won’t be long before someone comes down to discover why they aren’t responding.”
“I can go back in,” Ella offered.
“Don’t. You might be jumping in at a bad time,” Chloe said.
“Not to mention you don’t know how to use her psionics,” Michei added.
… … …
►► ESV John F. Kennedy, Asteroid Belt
► Sol System
Delakirnei’s sermon aboard the John F. Kennedy’s Radiance chapel ended. Its human worshippers, UNE personnel, all stood up to their feet in unison and left to carry out their assigned duties aboard the ship.
Duties he assigned them.
Delakirnei tapped his earpiece communicator and then gave the transmission his followers were all waiting for. “Ready?”
“Bridge team ready,” said Commander Cartwright.
“Engine room team ready,” said Chief Louis.
“Habitat ring team ready,” said Dr. Simmons.
“Flight deck ready,” said Lieutenant Edmonds.
“Let’s go,” Delakirnei ordered. “May the gods’ light shine upon us all!”
… … …
Delakirnei teleported onto the bridge of the John F. Kennedy and floated above the central hologram. His tiny Vorcambreum quickly began to point to the various bridge crew members who rejected his offer to convert to the Radiance religion, none of them saw the bombardment of purple plasma balls hurl down toward them. Some were burned alive by the insane heat of the blast; others were hit with too many plasma blasts and were straight up vaporized. One ensign left behind a pair of legs still sitting at his post while two crew members’ faces melted.
Commander Cartwright assisted, unholstering his ePistol and unloading round after round of bullets into the heads of those deemed unfaithful, leaving Captain Brigs, who looked on in terror, for last. His entire bridge crew was killed in matter of seconds.
“Captain Brigs!” Cartwright said, stepping toward him with his magnetic boots. “Bow before me, pledge your undying allegiance to the gods and your life will be spared.” Brigs lifted a necklace of the holy cross from under his uniform and kissed it in defiance of Cartwright’s wishes. “Have it your way,” Cartwright said. Four bullets from his ePistol ripped four golf-ball-size holes through Brigs’s chest, bending his body over backward as his magnetic boots kept his legs in place. Large beads of weightless blood and smoking chunks of flesh floated away from him in a straight line. “XO has the conn,” was all Cartwright had to say as he, Delakirnei, and three others loyal to their cause took control of the ship’s systems.
A similar massacre went down in other areas of the ship. Dr. Simmons led a team of five that swept every section of the habitat ring, gunning everyone down. Most of the crew was asleep in their quarters when his team overrode the door locks and riddled their bunks with bullets. Every bedsheet and pillow dripped with blood or had body parts shot off by their weapons.
Several engineers managed to escape the death party from the engine room and floated into the main corridors of the ship. Unbeknown to them, the habitat ring wasn’t safe; those who tried to escape there were gunned down the instant the doors swung open. Delakirnei and Cartwright’s teams performed a deck-by-deck sweep extending from the bridge a
ll the way down toward the engine room, picking off the last of the fleeing engine room crew. Their bloody and hole-filled bodies floated and tumbled throughout the ship.
Marines and flight crew got the worst of it as most of them were ordered onto the flight deck for an inspection or performance drills. As soon as the green light was given, Lieutenant Edmonds opened all sections of the flight deck up, blowing everyone out into space. Only transports and fighters remained as they were still chained down via magnets. Hijinks, Orbital, and Hammer, who were still in their flight suits, held on to the landing gear of one fighter craft as they slapped their helmets on, there was no time to activate mag boots as a result. The unforgiving vacuum of space tried its hardest to pull them out.
“Oh hell!” Orbital screamed as Hijinks lost her grip and became the next person who got taken by the cold grip of space. “Hijinks!”
Hammer saw her spiral past him, heading out toward the hangar bay doors leading to the asteroid belt. His hand reached forward to grab her, and contact was made. But the force of her being dragged out caused his grip around the landing gear of the fighter he was hanging on to loosen as well. The two of them ended up outside the ship in the vacuum of space; Orbital was alone.
Hijinks’s and Hammer’s bodies continued to spiral out of control along the underside of the John F. Kennedy’s hull. All they saw was the star-filled blackness of space, asteroids, the John F. Kennedy, and more space. The imagery kept changing; none of it were things they wanted to see. Hijinks’s spiral resulted in her impacting against the hull of the ship. Violent and uncontrollable tumbles continued until a small maintenance hatch handle happened to slap into her hands.
She was stable; Hammer, however, wasn’t. His trajectory sent him spinning toward her, fast. It looked as if he was going to crash into her and knock her back, sending them floating into space again. She did her best to spin her body around and reached out to grab him, hoping her save attempt would be more successful than his had been. It was.
The two of them were safe and secure, Hijinks holding on to the handle, while Hammer was holding on to her. In the distance the two saw the bodies of hundreds of marines and pilots floating away from the hangar doors, their faces covered in frost from the coldness of space. A mass grave of brave men and women who only wanted to protect the human race from the Hashmedai Empire—it appeared Radiance was going to be added to that list now.
“Lass, we just seriously survive a mutiny?” Hammer asked.
“No, not a mutiny,” Hijinks replied. “Did you hear what they were chanting?”
“Aye…that was some pure Radiance shit.”
“It’s the heretics,” Orbital transmitted toward them. “They have humans in their ranks now.”
… … …
Delakirnei and Cartwright returned to the bridge of the John F. Kennedy. A holographic window appeared, displaying the status of all their teams. And the status of the crew not loyal to their cause. Cartwright grinned. “We have control of the JFK,” Cartwright confirmed.
“Setting course to Earth,” Delakirnei said and connected his psionic mind with the John F. Kennedy navigational controls.
… … …
Hijinks saw the hangar bay doors shut, effectively cutting them off from Orbital and the rest of the ship. She cursed several times under her helmet and asked Hammer, “Know a way back in?”
“You really want to go back into that lass?”
“Just look.” She pointed behind them; there was a faint glow forming from the aft section of the ship. “We’re about to go into sublight speed.”
His head cocked toward where she was pointing, and he confirmed the engines were powering up. “Oh, fuck me.”
“Don’t know about you, but I can’t hang on to a ship traveling at half the speed of light very well.” She looked upward to the maintenance hatch that had saved the two of them. “Give me a hand with this.”
… … …
►► Silver Raven, Northern Mexico
► Sol System
Half an hour power nap, Jazz was glad to get it. It wasn’t just for the rest, but a chance to be alone with his thoughts. The year he spent living among aliens, he wanted nothing more than to return to Earth, see and experience what had changed during his two-decade cryo sleep, see if anyone he knew from life had survived the invasion. And so far, he’d done none of that, and it seemed he probably never would. If this operation failed, he could be dead. Hannah had said herself that his healing powers couldn’t save him from everything and hinted it wasn’t exactly going to be around forever. If he succeeded? They would have to flee Earth, this time for good. While never knowing if his family was alive. Hell, who was he kidding? Most of them lived on the East Coast, which had been trashed during the opening days of the invasion.
He forced his body out from his bed and exited his room. Human room temperatures were set for all areas of the ship with the exception of the cockpit. Eupiar had moved herself and her laptop into the cockpit, taking a seat next to Veloshira, who surprisingly hadn’t killed anyone, yet. Destiny sat on one of the lounge chairs, drinking from a water bottle she had swiped from the last safe house they were at. It reminded Jazz of how dry his mouth had become; a drink of water wouldn’t be a bad idea right now.
He sat down, joining Destiny with a bottle of water of his own. Its chilly and revitalizing flow caused his body to become numb briefly. “Yo,” he said to her after downing his gulp.
“Dollon would have loved to have had a ship like this,” Destiny said, looking around.
“We just got it recently. It’s not bad so far.” And the first ship I’ve been on that has had a fucking bedroom.
“Ah, so I guess you haven’t fucked any sexy alien girls in this ship yet then, uh?” Her question was completely unexpected. “Don’t look away; you couldn’t go a month without visiting me back in the day!”
He thought back to the good old days, when Destiny had been a cute, young Las Vegas escort, and those crazy, sticky, wet, and passionate nights when she was his, for the right price. She was the only escort who was totally cool with the idea of him hanging out when she wasn’t working. As he recalled, that was how he had met Kroshka, when the two thought she was the weird girl from Europe. Fast-forward to today: Destiny was a terrorist, Jazz was an assassin, and Kroshka was next in line to be the empress of a galactic empire.
“I got my own place on Morutrin Prime for that,” Jazz finally said with a smirk.
“So you are a xenosexual like myself. I knew it.”
“The fuck?”
“You only peruse alien partners,” she said. “I gave up on human men years ago, Hashmedai dudes only.”
She was right; Jazz had not had sex with a human woman in a long time. Ironically enough, the last human he was with had been Destiny, just before the invasion. Every woman he bedded after that had been Hashmedai; Linl; and, thanks to Kalis, Rabuabin. Damn, he thought. Kalis was quite possibly the best sex he had had in life too.
“Got something for you guys!” Eupiar shouted from the cockpit.
Destiny stood up from her seat and said, “Let’s go. You can tell me all about the sexy alien girls you boinked later, Kirk.”
Ice cold air hit Jazz and Destiny as they entered the cockpit. Eupiar was surrounded by at least seventeen holographic windows. Veloshira was sloped over in her chair, impatiently waiting for the all-clear to go.
“Managed to take a peek at their network before getting chased out,” Eupiar reported, and then her hands flipped through the windows that orbited her as if they were physical files. Finally she found the one she was looking for and made a heavy swipe, sending it flying toward Jazz and Destiny. “The president is on Earth Ship One en route to Beijing to give a speech.”
“All right, so what’s the bait?” Jazz asked.
“There is no bait.” She had lifted up a window from below her, bringing it into her sight. “This is a virus, the same one that shut down the HLF base a while back.”
Destiny
’s arms crossed upon hearing that. “I thought it was totally purged. How did you get a copy of that?”
“Does it matter? This is the edge we need!” Eupiar exclaimed. “I’ve uploaded it to Earth Ship One and the UNE security systems in Geneva including its automated drone defense network around Earth Cube.” A new and larger window projected, showing the status of the virus as it worked its way into the systems mentioned. “I’m tracking Earth Ship One now. With any luck they’ll take notice of the problem and be forced to turn around and make an emergency landing.”
“I’ll update Vel. What about Hannah?” Jazz said.
“I got the whole floor plan to the EISS HQ right here,” Eupiar said, swiping the window with said floor plans toward Destiny. “She’s being held in some kind of underground psionic holding cell.”
“Psionic holding cell? That doesn’t make sense,” Jazz said.
“Guess they know of her unique skill of predicting events,” Destiny concluded.
“Alisha ain’t no psionic. No way Hannah would be one,” Jazz said.
“What about her father?” Eupiar asked.
Jazz pounded at the thought, and then gave his answer. “He’s an asshole, so no.”
“They’re turning back. They’re fucking turning back!” Eupiar said as one of her screens flashed an alert.
“Let’s do this!” Jazz said and began to relay everything that was said to Veloshira in Hashmedai. Veloshira’s hands quickly inputted a series of commands, and the Silver Raven began to rumble slightly as it lifted off into the darkened Mexican skies.
“Eupiar, this is going to be a one-way trip by the way,” Jazz said. “If you want to get off and be with your family—”
“I sent my brother an e-mail,” Eupiar said, keeping her focus on her screens.
“Eupiar,” Destiny said.
“You guys won’t be able to finish this without me,” Eupiar interjected. “So let’s just focus on that, OK?”
Uprising of the Exiled (Splintered Galaxy Book 2) Page 40