Exodus (The Domus Series Book 2)

by Spartan Kaayn

  ‘This is the way to the hangar.’

  ‘What?’ Park who was closely following Alex heard him mutter something.

  ‘I said that this is the way to the hangar, where they park all their pods and harvesters.’

  Alex hoped to find his way to the slave quarters from the hangar. He pressed on and soon they reached another bend and then the arch to the hangar. The arch was guarded by four alien slobs who were by now on the ground, motionless. All of them had a light staff and Park relieved them off theirs, keeping one and handing the others to his comrades. Alex ran ahead to the hangar, seeing hundreds of pods and scores of harvesters parked there.

  Park came up to him

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘The hangar, the flight deck. I escaped in a harvester from here the last time. I hope I can find my way from here.’

  ‘Way to where?’

  Alex turned back to look at him

  ‘Way to friends. Come.’

  Alex left a puzzled Park behind and ran further into the hangar. As he reached the center of the hangar, he realized that barring a runway that led to the outside, the other five-eighths was distributed in eight neat and symmetrical sections. There was no way in hell for him to remember the way to the slave quarters from there.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I can’t get to the slave quarters.’

  ‘What slave quarters?’

  Alex turned to look at Park

  ‘Human slave quarters’

  ‘Alex!!!’

  Alex turned around to face that loud and booming sound coming from the far end of the hangar to his right. There was the unmistakable outline of the giant form of William.

  Park drew closer to Alex whispering

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘That is my friend, William of Montferret’

  ‘US?’

  ‘No. Europe’ Alex turned to look at Park. There was no need for any further subterfuge.

  ‘Europe, 12th Century’

  Park’s thin eyebrows scrunched together and his mouth pursed to form a question but no words escaped his mouth. Alex patted his shoulder and continued

  ‘All in good time. Come, let me introduce you to my friend.’

  Alex started running towards William and Park after him. William was walking as fast as he could, stumbling along the way. Alex reached him just in time to hold him and prevent him slumping to the floor. He looked out of breath and had a bluish tinge to his face. Alex had been assured that the poison wouldn’t kill humans but on exposure, he was to expect shortness of breath and a fainting spell at the most. Alex held William and reassured him,

  ‘Do not worry my friend. This is our war against them. We have poisoned the air for them. You should be fine. Humans will only be temporarily affected. How is the scene at the quarters?’

  William was visibly relieved and he took a deep breath before replying,

  ‘I knew this was the war you had promised me and I plan on keeping my end of the bargain. The alien ‘Gorts’ are choking on this air. I managed to kill a bunch of them. Others are out there finishing the job. I knew it must be you and I ran to the hangar. I took a guess, hoping that the Harvester drops will lead you here. Poisoning the air was a great move. But we need to finish the job. We need to hunt them down, hunt every single one of them out there.’

  Alex looked squeamish on hearing the bit about killing hapless drugged aliens, but knew that was perhaps what had to be done. They needed to be sure that the aliens had been all finished, every single one of them.

  ‘Where are they? I haven’t seen any till now. I didn’t see one even the last time I was here’

  ‘Oh the ‘Daits’. They are here alright. We need to get to the core areas. They leave these peripherals to the ‘Gorts’ and the ‘Greys’. The ‘Gorts’ are choking away. We need to see what effect it is having on the others.’

  Alex helped William on to his feet. William saw the lighting rod in Alex’s hand and took it from him and squeezed it in the middle. The rod lighted up on the lower end and a red light emanated from it for about a foot in front of it.

  ‘That would do.’ William started walking, Alex and the others flanking him.

  Chapter 36

  Panocide

  June 12th

  Daiityon Mothership

  The gas had been really effective.

  All the Gorts and the Greys were unconscious. William sunk his light dagger into the first Gort he encountered after leaving the hangar. He did that with each and every one he came across, lighting up and plunging the rod into the chest of the Gort, drawing blood and killing them on the spot. They reached the Gort quarters, where there were more than a hundred slobs lying unconscious. He looked back at Alex

  ‘I can’t possibly get them all. All of you get your light daggers ready and get to work’

  It was more of an order, coming from a superior officer on a battlefield and Alex nodded his head. He assured himself one last time that this needed to be done and that it had to be done by them, then and there. He set to do exactly that and all the others followed.

  After a couple of hours of killing every Gort they could find, they came across the first Dait on the ship. It was dead. Alex saw the face of the enemy for the first time, a giant who would stand at more than seven feet and weigh more than 300 pounds, with limbs and tentacles sprawled about it on the ground, pink fluid oozing all around it on the floor.

  William smiled and looked back at Alex

  ‘Thanks for doing this. He is dead. Dead as a Dodo as you would say.’

  Alex nodded his head, feeling empty within, his emotions numbed by the bloodied tip of his light dagger. William moved on.

  The core areas were a fabulous contrast to the drab outer areas. There were neatly stacked rooms with a multitude of gadgets dispensing the choicest of food and drinks, the interiors of the rooms vibrant with a riot of colors that would put any carnival to shame. There were Commune nurseries for the Dait babies, equally decorated and equally fab. There were Dait equivalent of what Alex presumed to be schools, hospitals, theatres, recreation centers, anti-gravity dancing halls and places that were beyond human recognition and comprehension, each of them with dozens of dead Daits now. William had a fair knowledge and grasp of most of these things, having spent thousands of hours at the console beneath the slave quarters understanding the enemy better.

  Alex understood the cost for all that extravagance was human lives, Earth lives and possibly lives on many other planetary systems that had subjugated to the might of the Daits. William read the disgust on Alex’s face,

  ‘Not only us on Earth. The price for this extravagance has been paid for by civilizations on at least seventy habitable planets on five galaxies’ Williams gestured with a wide expanse of his arms, ‘and none of them were bothered by that. The annihilation of entire planets did not trigger a single conscience on this ship.’

  ‘Were they more advanced than us? Yes, they were. Were they any better than us. Probably not. Did they deserve this end? Definitely yes.’

  Before Alex could respond to that, the entire mothership was shaken by a massive jolt that threw all of them off their feet. The ship stabilized after that and William scrambled up to his feet, thought hard and then looked at Alex

  ‘This can’t be good. We need to get to the consoles.’

  William hurried off to an exit and Alex and others followed. William knew his way around and ran to reach the console within ten minutes. The door to the console room slid up as they approached and they entered a large room with lots of screens. All the controls were on the screen and a few on the floor. As soon as Alex entered the room, he saw his first ‘Greys’. They were three of them, lying unconscious on the floor, still breathing. He readied his dagger when William stopped him,

  ‘Not the Greys. They will do us no harm. They are slaves here, just like us and they will listen to reason, unlike ‘Gorts’. Once the ‘Greys’ understand what is happening, I expect them to help
us get out of this ship, back to the Earth. My plan is to kill the Daits, get to Earth and let Greys go back to their home on the ship. They will destroy the ship after reaching their home.’

  Alex agreed with William

  ‘Sounds like a great plan’

  William started working on the console but all they got was gibberish on the screen. Alex looked at William and asked,

  ‘If you say that the Greys will help us, can we get them to do that now?’

  ‘How are you going to do that? They are knocked out.’

  ‘I think I know what will rouse them from their slumber. We will need an oxygen mask. Can we get one of those masks that the slobs…er the Gorts were wearing back in the kitchen?’

  William looked at Park and Park responded,

  ‘Tell me where I can find one. I will get it.’

  ‘There are many in storage at the hangar, just beyond the harvester bays.’

  Park nodded and filed out of the room with two of his colleagues. William continued fiddling with the console to no avail. Alex got his reserve packet of ‘respirocyte-fluid’ out and knelt down to examine one of the passed out Greys. They had a thin neck and thin extremities holding a big head with big deep-set eyes. Alex found something that resembled a large vein on the neck and checked to see that it was present on both the sides. Their skin was devoid of any hair and was soft and leathery in consistency.

  Park returned within minutes with about a dozen masks in their hands.

  ‘Found them just around the corner. Didn’t have to go all the way out to the hangar.’

  Alex took a mask and put it on the Grey’s head. He proceeded to inject the ‘respirocyte-fluid’ into the Grey. Within moments, the Grey stirred into consciousness. Alex propped him on a seat. William switched his light-dagger on and pointed it on the Grey as he came around. The Grey was shocked when he came to and recoiled in his seat. Alex held the Grey’s hands captive behind him and William barked a question at him,

  ‘Do you understand me? Do you understand English?’

  They Grey wriggled his hand and Alex let one hand go free. He brought it to his ear and flicked a tiny deep-seated translator on.

  William continued,

  ‘Do you understand me now?’

  The Grey nodded. William continued

  ‘Good. I need you to understand that we have killed the Daits, all of them on this ship. We do not intend any harm to the Greys. We need your help to get us back to Earth and then you can be on your way to your planet. Do you understand me?’

  The Grey gave a small nod.

  ‘I want to see what is happening in all the other quarters.’

  The grey nodded his understanding and slowly hobbled up on to a seat on the console. He worked on the screen and drew up a few images on the screen. They opened like the pages of a book flipping from above downwards. The grey flipped through the first few images and then indicated that William do the same. The images were live views from different rooms and spaces on the ship. The gas had stopped life in its tracks. There was death everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of Daits lay sprawled all over the ship right in the middle of whatever they were doing.

  The Grey noticed something beeping on a corner of the screen and drew that up on the screen. That was a live image from the exterior of the ship showing a sector detaching from the big sphere of the mothership.

  ‘What is that?’

  The Grey replied in a hoarse voice, muffled by the mask on his face

  ‘That is the second sector departing from the mothership.’

  ‘What second sector?’

  ‘The first sector left after entry into your star system or Solar System as you call it.’

  ‘Where did the first sector go?’

  The Grey looked up to William and replied

  ‘To Europa and Titan. To harvest the life there.’

  William looked at Alex with a blank look on his face.

  Alex nodded his head,

  ‘Yes, I heard about that from the Captain once. He mentioned that the ship had separated into two somewhere near Saturn.’

  William turned to the Grey, understanding the import of Alex’s words and yet angered by what it meant

  ‘How can this sector leave on its own with dead Daits? Is it the Greys?’

  The Grey touched the screen on a few more places and the images from inside the console room of that sector flashed on the screen. The console room was populated by three Greys at the consoles and a couple of Daits standing over them, issuing orders.

  ‘How can that be? Why are they not dead?’

  Alex was equally shocked to see them.

  ‘Do the sectors have different harvester bays?’

  The Grey nodded and explained, haltingly

  ‘The mother-ship is made up of three parts, a hemisphere and two quadrants. All of them are independent units with their own hangar bays’

  Alex knew that the gas-filled carcasses had been spread in geographically diverse locations with the idea that it would allow the carcasses to eventually find a more equitable distribution onboard the mothership. He had to think of something real fast.

  ‘Can you show me a view from inside the hangar in that quadrant? Better show me the harvester dump site, where the harvesters empty their contents’

  The Grey got to work, pulling a few images before locking on what Alex was interested in. There were four harvester dumps in that quadrant, one of which was empty. The other three dumps were more than half full and Alex peered into the images from the dimly lit room. There was no activity there. He could make out the outline of what appeared to be multiple cattle carcasses and a few human bodies but none of the humans appeared to be alive or conscious. Alex had discussed this as one of the possible scenarios to failure. The only safeguard against this was to send in as many soldiers as they could. Clearly, the numbers had not been enough.

  William looked at Alex

  ‘This is not good. We cannot fight them. We are no match to them. Will they attack us here?’

  Alex was deep in thought.

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. They might decide to wrest their ship back from us rather than destroy it by attacking it.’

  ‘Or they might make a run for the quadrant they left at Europa and then come back to get us’

  ‘We cannot take that chance. We need to stop them.’

  William gestured to the leaving quadrant on screen,

  ‘How do we stop that?’

  Alex looked at the Grey,

  ‘Can you stop that from here? Can we hit them with weapons?’

  The Grey thought for a moment and then fiddled with a few characters on the console,

  ‘No. They have isolated themselves. Dait ships cannot hit their own. Unless the Commander over-rides that.’

  Alex looked at the leaving vessel one more time and turned to Alex with an urgency in his voice,

  ‘We need to get to them. We need to get near them. The carcasses are there alright. We need to get there and detonate them. Can you tell me if the Commander is on that ship?’

  The Grey nodded his head,

  ‘No. The Commander generally stays on the hemisphere. He doesn’t go to the quadrants unless on visits and there was no scheduled visit now.’

  ‘Who is commanding the quarter-ship then?’

  ‘The Officer in Charge of rations on the…’

  the Grey hesitated before catching on Alex’s expression for the quadrant,

  ‘quarter-ship’

  Alex was visibly excited now, a plan forming in his head,

  ‘The ration in charge is running the quarter. Great. We need pods. Can you get me a few pods to launch from the hangar with one of us in each? Can the pods get inside that quarter?’

  The grey thought about it for a while. William prodded him with the light mast and the Grey nodded in a hurry, looking from William to Alex and back to William,

  ‘It’s possible. They will have a few autonomous pods of their own guarding their quarter and they are
not programmed to attack their own. It might be possible to get to the hangar there.’

  Alex looked at Park and asked him to gather three others and meet him in hangar in ten minutes. Park nodded and left for the hangar. Alex looked at William and said,

  ‘I have to stop that quadrant or else all our efforts might come to nothing. Sooner or later they will find their footing and possibly join with the other quarter in the Saturn system and come back to get us. I do not know if we can take the fight to them then. This might be our only chance.’

  William nodded,

  ‘What are you planning on doing?’

  Alex looked at the screen and replied, pensive in his thoughts and then took the remote from within his vest,

  ‘I need to get close to them and detonate the carcasses.’

  The Grey looked at the remote in Alex’s hand and then averted his eyes, looking away from him. William caught on, and prodded the Grey once again with the light mast,

  ‘What is it?’

  The Grey looked at William, hesitating to answer. Alex held the Grey by its shoulder and turned it towards himself,

  ‘What do you know?’ and then it struck Alex. After all, he may not need to go to the quadrant at all.

  ‘Can you send the signal there? Can you establish contact and broadcast the signal to them?’

  The Grey hesitated again. Alex continued,

  ‘You need to understand that we are not your enemies here. If we kill them, that is a way out for all of us. We can get back to Earth and you can leave for your planet. We can both be free societies and free people once again. We are not forcing you to do our bidding here, we are asking you to do what is right, what is good for you, what is just for both of our peoples.’

  The Grey nodded his head and extended his hand for the remote. William shook his head at Alex but Alex nodded back at William and handed over the remote to the Grey. He drew a few patterns on the desk in front of him and a circular pattern appeared on the desk. He kept the remote on it and within moments, the screen in front of him filled out in mathematical notations. The Grey pointed towards it to Alex,

  ‘That is the message within.’

  Alex shrugged his shoulders and the Grey continued on with his work. He punched a few patterns on the desk in front of him and went back to the remote to go through its innards yet again. After a while, he looked up at Alex and hesitated,