by Geoff North
Chapter 39
He could see forever. The sky was unending.
There were no walls blocking his view, no cramped cabins and artificial lighting. The biggest open area Hadar Cen had ever been in was fighter garage 1.
Until now.
He was on a balcony attached to the one hundred and fiftieth level of a two hundred story building in the city’s center. Sharell surrounded him on all sides, its steel towers and glass spires were even more magnificent to behold standing within their midst.
He knew he was a prisoner, and realized prisoners of war sometimes didn’t make it home. But it was hard to forget that he was the first man from Earth to step foot on an alien world. He could be dead before seeing his first sunset, but no one could take that away from him.
Jule Adeen had remained with him the entire way to the city from the interrogation facility, pointing out historical Pegan landmarks on the city’s outskirts, and within Sharell itself. Hadar had nodded through it all, remarking how interesting everything was, but he hadn’t absorbed a single word of it. His mind was stuck on two thoughts:
He could see forever. The sky never ended.
“It’s all still a little overwhelming, isn’t it?” Jule was seated at a small table a few feet away. “I’m sorry about the restraints. It’s standard procedure.”
Hadar hands were secured to the four-foot high balcony railing. “I understand.” She made it sound as if holding visitors from other worlds against their will was an everyday occurrence on Pega. It’s how they treat all prisoners, he realized. Hadar leaned forward and peered down. A few vehicles were parked along the streets, but there was little to almost no activity. What movement he could see was like observing insects crawling within a grid. It made his head swim, being so high up. He pulled back again, slowly. “I guess there’s the worry of me jumping and ending my life.”
“Yes, that was considered.”
“It’s the farthest thing from my mind, believe me.” He rattled the chains lightly. “Please, I promise not to do anything stupid.” Jule’s eyebrows furrowed inwards. She pinched her lips together at one corner of her mouth. She’s considering it, Hadar thought. “I have no desire to commit suicide—not now, not after seeing all this.”
“You won’t try and throw me over?”
“What good would that do?” He looked past her to the two armed guards standing behind the balcony’s glass door. “Your friends there would shoot me first before I could lay a hand on you. Trust me, Jule—I don’t want to die, and killing you won’t get me back home any time soon.”
She went to Hadar and released him from the cuffs. “You still consider Ambition home. I couldn’t stand living inside a space ship my whole life. Co-operate with my people, and Sharell could become your new home. We transferred you here to show you what that could be like.”
A small ship appeared on the skyline and rumbled towards them. It flew slowly past, less than fifty meters above Hadar’s head, and then vanished around the building on the opposite street. It emerged again half a minute later, and swung around another building on the next block. Hadar spotted a second vessel weaving around towers more than a kilometer away. Neither ship seemed to have any particular destination in mind; they were looking for something, or perhaps on some kind of routine patrol.
Hadar rubbed his wrists and looked back up into the clouds. “I’ll cooperate the best I can… without endangering my people. I think we may have been wrong about Pega—I’m beginning to see that now. Maybe after some time, our people could come to some kind of agreement. But you’re right about Ambition. It’s home. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
They went to the table and sat. “Can I get you anything?” She asked. “Food or drink?”
Hadar shook his head. He hadn’t eaten a thing since the since the salty porridge crap at the interrogation building. “Those things—the beings I encountered when I first woke up. They aren’t like you… they aren’t like anyone else I’ve seen here. What are they?”
“I can’t go into much detail about that, Hadar.”
“They tortured me, got inside my head. Are all Pegans telepathic?”
“I can’t read your thoughts. There are no mind-reading Pegans.”
“So those grey things aren’t Pegan?”
Jule smiled. “Enough about them.”
“Then what about me? Why have I been brought here? If I’m a prisoner, then this is an awfully nice jail cell. Has something happened?”
That thoughtful-looking pinch of her lips returned. “It’s like I said, this could end up being your new home, this world, this city. A lot’s happened since your arrival here. Ambition attacked our ships, many Pegan lives were lost.”
“So that’s that.” Hadar leaned back in the chair. “We’re officially at war with each other. You’ll never allow me to leave here.”
“There may be hope. Contact was finally made. One of our vessels was received aboard your ship a few hours ago. We’re still awaiting word on how it went.”
Hadar did indeed feel hopeful. The majority of Ambition’s crew may have bought into the ages-old prime objective of destroying a civilization they knew practically nothing about, but not her Captain. Hadar had never heard the man come right out and say it, but there had been rumblings amongst the senior officers for years that their commanding officer would rather talk to the Pegans instead of annihilating them. They whispered that he had no guts. Hadar didn’t see it that way at all. If any man could achieve peace with the Pegans, it was Ly Sulafat.
They sat out on the balcony and watched as the sun began to set. The sky turned orange, streaked with bands of crimson red. It painted the stone towers and glass buildings around them in shades of pink. One of the guards came out and placed a tray on the table containing two steaming plates of food. A woman wearing a tight-fitting white dress followed, carrying a bottle and two glasses. She poured what appeared to be wine into each of them. “Enjoy your meal,” she said with a smile before slipping back through the door.
“I have to admit,” Hadar said smelling the food before him, “you know how to take care of your prisoners.”
“It isn’t everyday we receive guests from other worlds.” Jule glanced at a decorative device strapped to her wrist. A clock of some kind, Hadar presumed. She’d been looking at it more and more as the day went on.
“Is there some place else you’d rather be?”
“I’m sorry?”
Hadar shrugged sheepishly. “An old Earth expression. I saw it on a movie once. Never thought I’d get the chance to say it.”
“Yes, your movies.” She sipped her wine. “I’ve seen some of those broadcasts. It was required training. I didn’t find them very entertaining.”
He remembered the war footage he’d been forced to watch while strapped in the chair. “There’s more to us than violence. The broadcasts you saw make us seem much worse than we are. We call that propol… propu—”
“Propaganda,” She finished for him.
“Look at you, a woman from Pega teaching a man from Earth his own language.” They both laughed at that. He tried the food. “This is… really good.”
They finished their meals and sipped at their wine. Jule kept looking at the device on her wrist. The sky darkened deep blue, and Sharell began to light up around them. The first stars appeared overhead.
Hadar took his glass and went to stand against the balcony railing again. “It’s just as beautiful in the dark.” A crescent of silver had begun to rise over a distant chain of mountains. “Is that Oread?”
“Mantus,” Jule said, walking over to join him. She pointed to the tiles at their feet. “Oread is in that general direction at the moment.” She glanced at her wrist again.
“You’re worried about the meeting on Ambition.”
“I thought we would’ve heard something by now.”
“No news is good news.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Another old Earth saying.”
One of the guards knocked at the glass door behind
them causing Hadar to jump. He’d almost forgotten where he was, and why he was there. Jule went inside and conferred with him.
Both guards returned with her. “I’m afraid it’s all bad news, Hadar. We’ve just received word one of our representatives was murdered aboard your ship.” The cuffs had reappeared in her hands. “I’m sorry it’s come to this. I believe you’re an honorable person.” The guards were pointing their weapons at his chest.
Hadar offered up his arms and Jule snapped the cuffs in place. “Where… Where are you taking me now?”
“To a more secure location.”
“Not back there. Please, not back to those grey things.”
“I truly am sorry.”
Chapter 40
“I look ridiculous,” Hail grunted.
Kella pulled up on the yellow suspenders of his work uniform and tilted her head to one side. “Yeah, I have to agree.”
“At least yours fits. I’m too skinny to pull this off. They’ll see right through us.”
They had rummaged through a dozen workers’ lockers for the clothes, heavy boots, and helmets. Kella had even gone so far as to rub dirt into their faces for effect.
“Not if we look like we belong, and pretend we know where we’re going.” She pulled the map they’d lifted from the wall from an interior pocket and unfolded it onto the floor. Kella groaned as she settled down onto her knees. “Damn, that hurts.”
“Maybe you should let me clean that wound out again.”
“The wound’s healing up just fine. It’s my knees. They feel like broken glass after squatting on that toilet for two hours.”
“Yeah, that last guy… who would’ve thought aliens could suffer from constipation?”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore.” She tapped near the top of the map. “We’ve already set out in the wrong direction. We should’ve turned right down that first service corridor after the mechanical bay instead of going left.”
“How can you make any sense of this thing at all? Everything’s labeled in gibberish.”
“You don’t have to know the language to understand the diagram.” She followed the excavation tunnel line where they were now to one of the bigger open areas shown on the map. There was a series of diagonal lines shown as strips of long dashes running throughout it. “This is where we’ll find a ship.”
“How can you tell?”
“Look at the angle of all those lines. It’s a two-dimensional image trying to represent a three-dimensional world. Those are runways, not all that different from the gorge we landed into.”
Hail started nodding slowly. “Yeah, that makes sense, but there’s a problem.” He ran his finger along the excavation tunnel line, all the way over to Kella’s underground ship terminal. “Judging from the scale, that’s at least thirty kilometers away. How are we going to get there on foot without being seen, or worse, run over?”
A minute later they were standing in the shadows of the main excavation tunnel, waiting for one of the big eight-wheeled vehicles to thunder by. “This is crazy,” Hail said. “Are we just supposed to walk out in front of the next one and wave it down? We’ll be squashed flat.”
“We’re not going to stand in front the thing, we’ll jump on the back. They won’t even know we’re there.”
Hail wanted to point out that she was still recovering from the wound in her side. He never got the chance. The noise came up on them fast, followed by bright lights. “You go first,” she yelled over the roar.
A wall of dust blew against them, Kella pushed Hail forcibly outwards after the fourth six-foot high tire passed by. There wasn’t time to think things through. Hail ran after the machine, he reached up and found the edge of its rear gate. He pulled and jumped at the same time. Gravel and rock poured into his face, but he held on, throwing one leg up over the gate. He heaved with all of his strength, and rolled himself into the trailer.
“Help!” He heard Kella scream. “Can’t… pull myself up!”
Hail wiped dirt out of his eyes and saw her fingers clutching at the edge. He grabbed onto her wrists and pulled her in. Kella landed on top of him in the rocks. His arms were still wrapped around her—their faces almost touching. Hail kissed her.
She pushed him away. “Are you crazy?”
“But I thought… back there… after I bandaged you up—”
“There’s a time and a place for things like that—holding on for your life in the back of a moving vehicle filled with rocks isn’t one of them.” She sat up and rested her side cannon on her lap. “Let’s find a way out of here before dealing with all that other crap.”
Hail remained on his back a while longer, staring up at the tunnel ceiling, and wondering what it was about women he just couldn’t get. The vehicle churned on.
Chapter 41
Vin slapped Rastaban hard across the face. “You bastard. You’re a traitor!”
Rastaban turned away from her and went to the edge of his bed. He sat, and sunk his head into his hands. “I thought I was doing the right thing… bringing the Seven back was our legal obligation. It was their mission in the beginning to finish. You have to believe me. No one was supposed to get hurt in all of this, and I sure as hell didn’t want anyone to die.”
“You can’t tell that to Kella, Hail, and Kraz. They’re already dead. Hadar will probably be joining them soon, too.”
Vin didn’t know where else to go after Chort and his armed men had shown up and murdered one of the Pegans. Argus Cor and the other officers gathered in the bay’s observation room had remained behind and watched as their Captain was led away. Vin had fled. Nash was in on the mutiny—Sulafat’s most trusted advisor. He’d handed the side cannon off and allowed the murder to happen. Vin’s world had turned upside down. And now her best friend had admitted to being a part of it all.
“I wanted to tell the Captain,” Rastaban said. He was almost sobbing. “Tor threatened me in the Black Hole, said he’d kill me and Ma if I didn’t keep my mouth shut. I’m so sorry, Vin.” He looked up at her. “What can I do? How can I make any of this better?”
She sat next him. Rastaban was guilty of many things, but he wasn’t a murderer. “You can start by telling me everything about this secret council of yours.”
Rastaban took a deep breath and began to tell his story. “The Council was formed shortly after the failed Turnback Revolution way back in 2369. A group of second generation crew members—the sons and daughters of the highest-ranking officers—began meeting regularly and discussing how to make sure another uprising didn’t occur again on the way to Pega. They only wanted to keep order, see Ambition’s sole objective was met.”
Vin interrupted him. “To annihilate an entire species.”
“I never said their intentions were noble. They were following orders.”
“The orders of the Seven—Ambition’s first command crew.”
“Yes, Admiral Lennix, Major Weston, and all the rest. Most Council members never believed they’d ever be revived from their frozen state… We were just keeping their memories alive—meeting like we have been for centuries, one surviving generation after the other.
“But then Chort’s father came along about thirty years ago and said he wanted to bring them all the way back. Chort’s an ass, I’ll admit it, but his father was a genius. He began what everybody on the Council believed was a hopeless task… trying to repair the cryonic revival systems. Algen Leo dropped dead of a heart attack twenty years into his secretive project, but Chort took over the work. Enough of that genius must have rubbed off on the son.” He stared into Vin’s face. “He’s done it… He’s brought them all back.”
“It’s not right. They can’t just take control from Captain Sulafat and the others.”
“By rights, this ship is still theirs to command, Vin. The Captain is no longer running things.”
Vin stood and started pacing back and forth in front of Rastaban. It was either that, or slap him across the face again. “You’re a member of this council—yo
u went out on that scouting mission knowing full well you were going to provoke a war.” She watched him slump down a little further. “But you just told me you want to help make things better. What could you do? How could you help me take back this ship and put the Captain back in command?”
“Whoa, wait a minute. I never said anything about trying to stop them… I can talk to the Council, maybe even try and arrange a meeting with Admiral Lennix to see if they can go easy on Sulafat, but anything more than that would be attempted mutiny.”
“Meet with Lennix? Are you joking? He doesn’t know you.” She saw an open com-pad on his disorganized desk. She typed the Admiral’s name into a search field and an image of Ambition’s first commander popped up. “Look at the bastard. Believe me, he looks even scarier seven hundred years later. Do you seriously want that for a leader?”
Rastaban shrugged and threw up his hands in frustration. “Vin... it’s difficult. If it were any other man…”
Her eyes opened wide. “Wait a minute… You’re a direct descendant of one of the Seven. He will know you.”
“Yeah, I figure he will.” Rastaban flopped down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Admiral Lennix is my great, great, however-many-more-times-over great grandfather.”
Vin wouldn’t allow him the time to get any more comfortable. She grabbed onto the front of his shirt, and hauled him up to his feet. “No more feeling sorry for yourself. You’re going to have that meeting with Lennix, and we’re going to clean up this mess together.”
“Didn’t I tell you we should stop seeing each other just a while ago?”
She pushed him towards the door. “I don’t take rejection that easily. Now move.”
Chapter 42
Tor’s fighter shot out into space and slowed to a near halt four and half kilometers from fighter garage 2’s open bay door. “Bring us around for a better look, Chief.”
The General’s pilot, Chief Foma Austrin, did as she was told, and maneuvered the ship a hundred and eighty degrees. They watched as Ambition’s remaining force of two hundred and forty fighters flew out in pairs and assumed formation around the General’s lead ship, Raze.