The Belt Loop_Book Two_Revenge of the Varson

by Robert B. Jones

  He came around his desk and joined her at the display case. “I wish I could convince myself that it was that simple. I have a feeling the roots go a lot deeper. A plan for simple revenge could have been carried out in a terrorist fashion any time they wanted to. They can alter their operatives to look like us, they know how to use explosives, we’ve seen that. But since they seemed to be targeting personnel from just one ship, and that ship is captained by someone they know and hate, with an executive officer that pretty much destroyed their final gasp in the war, I think this thing begs us to ask more questions and get more answers.”

  Mols turned to look at him. “Put that way, I agree, Uncle Vinny. Let me see what else I can find out before you ship the Christi’s crew to Bayliss. Give me twelve hours and let me see what I can do. I’ve got my entire staff sifting through details and documents from all over the colonial systems. It takes time to assimilate data from so many differing sources, you know.”

  He reached over and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Twelve hours, Niki. Then we’re out of time.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and headed for the door.

  “Make me proud,” he whispered to her back.

  Then he turned his attention to making travel arrangements for his own staff.

  Chapter 27

  After waiting for hours for the right combination of events to take place, after patiently suffering the withering stares of his two captors, Yorn was ready to strike.

  Since his last toilet visit he had been waiting for the guard with the gun to be the same guard with the knife. Eventually that scenario played itself out and after rubbing his wrists almost raw the seasoned military man was ready to turn up the heat a notch.

  Guard Number Two gave the other Varson guard the weapon and headed back to the front of the ship, a routine that had happened some five times now. Yorn reached over and lifted the armrest between the seats and slid slightly to his right. The Varson gave him only a routine look. Yorn inched a little closer. Still nothing.

  Suddenly he yelled and slumped over in his seat and started to convulse, kicking his feet and flopping like a fish out of water. This move got the guard to stand and bend down for a closer look. Yorn stretched violently and arched his back. The guard moved even closer and cast a look forward. It was then that Yorn pushed off the seats with all of his might.

  His head hit the guard squarely on the point of his chin, propelling the man back and down. His gun clattered away. Yorn flipped over and rammed him again. Bone on bone.

  The guard was out for the count. Yorn scrabbled around in the man’s pockets until he found the knife, the one the man had used to cut his bindings for his last toilet visit. He quickly got the blade opened and sawed through the ropes on his wrists. Next he freed his feet and went after the gun. He found it under the row of seats directly behind him. He looked at the weapon and felt its heft in his hand. It was a simple projectile piece with shells in the handle grip. There was a selector switch on the side of the gun and Yorn operated it several times until he was satisfied the thing was in the proper position to fire when the trigger was pulled.

  He pulled the unconscious guard into the row behind the one he had been in initially and bound the man with the severed ropes that had held his own wrists and feet. Then he resumed his seat and waited for the other Varson guard to return. Once the man entered the cabin he would not be able to see that Yorn had the upper hand, the gun and the knife, before it was too late. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Guard Number Two cycled the forward hatch and started his lazy gait down the aisle. He paused for a second and looked around. He was looking for his partner. Just before he was abreast of the row Yorn was in, the commander stood quickly and clocked him on the side of his head with the stolen gun. The man went down but he was not out. Yorn advanced on him but the guard reached out with one of his long Varson legs and swept at his feet. Yorn hopped but his timing was a fraction of a second off. The sweep took one of his legs out from under him and he went down to the deck. The guard scrambled to his feet and moved in. Yorn raised the weapon and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing.

  “Not loaded, stupe,” the guard hissed. Then he lunged at Yorn.

  His move had been anticipated and when Yorn raised his hand to diminish the impact of the leaping Varson, the man’s eyes doubled in size when he saw the knife in the human’s hand. Unable to stop his forward momentum, the Varson landed squarely on the knife and the blade plunged into his chest. He coughed up a gurgle of blood and his eyes slowly closed half way. Yorn pushed him over to the side and sat up. He hadn’t really wanted to kill the man, but now there was nothing he could do about that. He would just have to wake his partner up and start with him, try to get some information out of him.

  Wary of the fact that there were others on this ship, more than likely forward behind the hatch, he quickly dragged the other alien to the rear of the cabin and deposited his body behind the last row of seats. Then he returned to the unconscious man and slapped him hard several times. The man’s nose was broken and his face had already started to swell.

  It took two minutes to bring him around. Yorn propped him up in one of the rows with his back to the outer bulkhead walls. When the alien man was awake enough to speak, he uttered a clacking string of curses in his native tongue. Even though his Varson linguistic skills were pretty much non-existent, Yorn figured that he had just been cursed out.

  “Shut up and listen. If you don’t, I will slit your throat. Nod your head if you understand me.”

  The alien did not move. Yorn flicked open the knife and leaned into the outer seat. “Okay. Have it your way. Say goodbye friend. You’ll probably run into your buddy back there when you reach the other side.”

  The Varson captive struggled with his ropes to no avail. One advantage of being a real Navy man, Yorn thought, was that you knew how to tie really good knots. “You wait. No kill. Wait,” the man choked out.

  That’s better. “Now tell me, where am I? Where is this ship taking me?”

  “To Haayit. You call Bay-list,” the man said.

  Okay, next question. “Where are the shells for this weapon? Do you have them?”

  Yorn wagged the gun in his other hand.

  “My pant. Side of pant. You find.”

  Expecting a trick of some kind, Yorn leaned in a bit closer. He tucked the gun into his waistband and used the free hand to pat the man down. Sure enough, he found a magazine for the weapon. He pulled it out of the alien’s pants pocket and then stepped back. Next he retrieved the gun and slammed the magazine home.

  “Why was I taken?”

  The man shook his head. Tiny droplets sprayed out of his fractured nose. The swelling was increasing and soon the man’s ruptured blood vessels would start to leak back down his windpipe and into his lungs. Yorn had to step up his interrogation before the alien drowned in his own blood.

  “Are you trying to say you don’t know why I was snatched or are you indicating you don’t understand the question?”

  “I no unde-stan, what you mean.”

  “What reason? Why did they take me, bring me to this ship?”

  The alien struggled again and coughed up a mouthful of blood. The Varson blood was reddish-orange and tinged with pink bubbles. “You bad man, the Torgud want you. Crime gainst people.”

  “Who is this ‘Torgood’ person? Is he driving this ship? You understand, is he pilot of this boat?”

  The alien laughed slightly and that caused another round of coughing. Then the man spit out a gout of blood and shook his head. “You kill his broth. His famly. During war.”

  So. All of my sins remembered, Yorn thought. What the hell? Somebody goes to all the trouble to kidnap me over some imagined war crime? It just didn’t add up.

  Yorn pressed on. “How many man on this boat?”

  “Many, many, many man. . .” the Varson said with diminishing strength. Yorn leaned in for better clarity.

  Using his last reserve o
f energy, the alien swiftly raised both knees in an effort to knock Yorn over. The commander was too quick for him and lurched out of the way. The Varson started mewling loudly just then.

  Yorn reached out and cut his throat.

  * * *

  “What do you mean he disappeared?”

  The woman stood on shaky ground. Her name was Meelir and she was a major from Inskaap’s Intelligence Directorate. Her problem at this moment was telling Bale Phatie that her boss was nowhere to be found. She had been one of the operatives that was in the restaurant yesterday when Yaguud was dispatched.

  “He told us to clean up Yaguud’s traitorous remains and that he had some follow-up information to track down. Well, sir, he was clocked into the directorate, stayed only three-quarters of an hour, then left for unknown destinations. He never returned to the building.”

  “Did you check his dwelling? What about the locator I had you put in his vehicle?”

  Major Meelir shifted her weight from foot to foot. She was not used to being interrogated, especially not by the Piru Torgud. “We checked for him at his home. The locator turned up on the fender of a city bus, your eminence. Either he was the victim of foul play or he has fled the Domain.”

  Phatie slammed his fist down on his desk. Several of his assorted toys and mementos bounced and fell over. “I want you to stop every vehicle, hold every ship, intercept foot traffic if you have to, but I want him found, major. No excuses! I want him found!”

  “Yes, my eminence. But right now, without Inskaap or Yaguud, we are leaderless. We do not have a very large department.”

  He stormed around the desk and whipped out his ceremonial sword. But this time it was not to praise one of his subjects. He stopped hard on his left foot and pivoted quickly to his right. His sword made a hissing sound when he brought his arms around.

  “And now, major, you are headless as well,” he said, “and your department is even smaller.”

  Phatie wiped his blade on the front of Major Meelir’s uniform and replaced it in its sheath. He walked back to his desk and hit his communicator. “Lieutenant Niithe, send someone in here to take out the trash. And locate Vice Admiral Janth Resuur. I have a mission for him.”

  Chapter 28

  The armed escort for the crew of the Christi consisted of twenty vehicles dispersed randomly between the six cars carrying the precious human cargo. The trip from the NAVFLT complex to the spaceport took twenty minutes and when the moving wall of vehicles arrived at the private entrance below ground the cars containing Captain Haad and his crew stopped directly in front of a set of security doors while the ones containing heavily-armed Shore Patrolmen created a barrier against any stray traffic both ahead and behind the military convoy.

  Har Hansen thought the ride from Nova Haven to the spaceport was perhaps the most radical thing he had done in his life if he didn’t count his alien encounters. He was in a car with his mother and that policeman, Sergeant Royal. Their vehicle was the fourth one to pull out of the convoy and grind to a halt in front of the security doors and once out, they were hustled inside by some serious looking SP’s.

  Captain Haad, Commander Gertz and that Lieutenant Mols were waiting inside the terminal when Har and his mom and Ken Royal arrived. They had been in the first three cars. They waited for Diggs, that guy Noname Gant and Commander Mason to join them before they all headed en mass to the shuttle. There was no fooling around with papers and orders for them; Admiral Geoff had cleared the party all the way through, even at the Port Authority up in orbit. Har was impressed with the efficiency these guys could display if they finally put their minds to it and took these alien threats seriously like they were supposed to.

  Finally all of the team was assembled and ready to go. Four big marines pushed floaters with all of their gear and clothing and stuff up the ramp behind them when they arrived at the shuttle. It took a few minutes for everyone to get settled and seated, for the cargo to be stored in the little flat hold in the belly of the boat, and for Har to finally pick the seat he wanted to spend the next hour in. He tried all of them much to his mother’s chagrin. She was just about to corral him when he finally plopped down on a seat at the very back of the boat and immediately twisted his legs around so that the unoccupied seat next to his would remain so.

  Max reached down and fastened his lap straps for him. He looked up into her dark eyes and just smiled. He was living the life right now and all of his imagined adventures paled in comparison to the reality he now enjoyed.

  Max and Ken Royal took the seats one row in front of Har but across the aisle from him. In front of them Milli Gertz and that Mason guy. Har stretched up his torso so he could see over the rest of the seatbacks and place all the passengers with their seating arrangement. Just something he wanted to know for his own benefit. Two rows beyond Gertz and Mason sat Diggs and Gant. On his side of the boat in the second row he saw the captain and Lieutenant Mols. She noticed him staring and twirled her long fingers at him. He ducked down and looked out of the observation port at the bowels of the spaceport and wondered when he would return to Elber Prime if ever. Nice place to visit, he thought, but only homeless people would want to live here.

  He listened to the stupid announcements presented by the Military Airlift Command and was glad to hear they were concerned for his safety. He felt under his seat for the flotation device when instructed and looked overhead at the stowed containment suits and the collapsible helmets, to be used should an “unscheduled” decompression strike without warning. Who in their right mind would even schedule a decompression with live humans in the ship?

  Finally he shut his mind down and watched the lift off.

  * * *

  When Yorn eased the hatch open he braced himself for another round of hand-to-hand combat. He held The Varson gun high and pushed the hatch all the way forward.

  He was in a vestibule of some kind, a narrow metal walkway enclosed by racks and racks of non-functioning alien equipment. The display screens were blank, the indicator lights dark. There was another hatch some meters ahead of him and as he side-stepped his way forward he lowered his weapon. He looked to the rear. Nothing. Four more steps put his shoulder right against the hatch and he leaned his head to the side and pressed his ear to the cold metal. He heard nothing.

  Yorn extended his empty hand and felt the hatch with his fingertips. A thin pulsating vibration worked its way up his arm. Slowly he disengaged the locking lever and nudged the door open. The forward control deck. Two seats and a control stack with throttle and navigation yokes protruding from the deck. But no pilots.

  He entered the cockpit and pulled the hatch closed behind him. What in the hell was going on? This ship isn’t even under power. Then he looked at the forward screens. Blast shields were down, all of the observation glass covered. Perplexing, he thought. Where were the “many man” the guard had told him about? Had he been too trustful? This boat was dead and he had been duped into thinking he was on a ship heading for Bayliss. Twenty-plus years in the Navy and he had fallen for a clever bit of deception from a dying man. That bit of knowledge did much to snap his mind back to full alert.

  After searching the little cockpit cabin and finding nothing but an outdated log book and a stack of Varson magazines with scantily-clan Varson women in various titillating poses, Yorn decided he needed to either find a way out of this trap or do a better job of discovering where he really was. He looked over the controls of the ship and decided not to play around with any of them.

  Retracing his steps, Yorn returned to the main cabin of the flitter. He walked past the two dead aliens and reached the aft bulkhead. If there was a way off this boat, it would be behind this wall he figured. He had seen no other places that would have served for a main hatch. Cautiously, he lifted the handle and peered into the darkness beyond.

  A cargo compartment. Storage lockers, air tanks and environmental suits. Varson suits. One thing did catch his eye on one of the shelves: a flashlight.

  He made a men
tal picture of the layout of the compartment and quickly shut the hatch. In darkness he felt his way over to the equipment shelves and walked his fingers along one shelf until he found the light. He shook the cylinder and the weight told him it had a power supply. He felt for and found the stud and turned the light on. It took him several minutes before he found the entrance/exit hatch, a large roll-up affair at the very back end of the boat. He also found a smaller hatchway that lead to the dormant engine compartment. He noticed the bulkhead separating the cargo bay with the power plant was triple walled, similar to standard Colonial Navy practices.

  With gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other, he tried a few different control slabs on the side of the roll-up door until he found the correct one. When the door started its upward crawl, Yorn turned off his light and retreated a few steps into the darkness. He steeled himself for what was coming, what was outside this ship. His instincts told him that he would not be looking at vacuum but he still glanced over at the alien evo suits and quickly wondered if he could fit into one. And if he could, did he know how to make it work?

  Since there was no outgassing he quit worrying about the alien evo suits and returned his concentration to the scene that was unrolling before him.

  Well, I’ll be damned, he thought, I’ll be double-damned.

  He stepped forward and beheld the hangar bay of a Varson warship, a place he had been before.

  A place of danger.

  * * *

  “Admiral Resuur, I want you to find him and bring him back to Canuure, even if you have to search the entire galaxy to do so,” Phatie said. He was sitting in his office behind his desk and his mood was foul as usual. Resuur pounded his chest and acknowledged the order. His eyes kept returning to the dark stain on the floor beneath his boots.