by T. R. Harris
“Your little coup is over, Bill – Billork. Enforcers came with my Marines, so it’s obvious the word is out about who’s behind all this. You’ve brought the galaxy to the brink of war. There won’t be a place for you hide after this.”
Bill laughed. “You foolish Human. You must realize now that the war will happen, whether it was sparked by a conspiracy or not. The Unity Stone is still missing, and I assume you are the only one of your clan who knows where it is. Once I dispose of you, the Stone will remain lost, and the war will occur.”
I pursed my lips. Damn, if he wasn’t right. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Exposing me has done nothing to stop the inevitable,” Bill continued. “Yes, my supporters will lose a leader, and the movement will be set back a number of years, yet we will see what happens at the conclusion of the war. The warring factions will still be diminished and the Amelians will still want the capital back on Amelia. I may not live to see it, but we Zorphin will reclaim our homeworld from the invading aliens.”
I felt a spasm in my left leg. I grimaced and reached down with my hand.
Bill’s two towering guards hopped forward and one of them knocked me to the ground with a kick from his powerful legs. I lay there stunned momentarily, trying to figure what had provoked the attack.
“I have fallen for your tricks before, Jason, and I see you have been operating for the past hour or so with only one shoe. I will not fall for that again.”
Oh, yeah, that. But this time I really did want to massage my leg.
“Do not get too close to him,” Bill ordered his two bodyguards. “He may attempt to strike out at your heads.” The guards backed away out of my reach. A feinted punch to the head would make the Zorphins jump, and Bill knew this.
As I climbed back on my feet, I looked hard at the Xan-fi flash rifles the aliens carried, trying my best to see the power settings. Even though they carried rifles instead of handguns, Level-2 was still the standard setting for the weapons. It doubled the number of bolts they could fire between power packs. Another weakness of flash weapons in general was that the energy level of the bolts bled off rapidly with distance. Against your normal alien, this wasn’t a problem, for even a weakened Level-2 could still kill.
I was dizzy, my right shoulder felt like it was dislocated and my left leg throbbed in time with my quickened heartbeat, but the way I saw it, I was about three seconds from dying anyway.
So I took off running – sort of. My left knee screamed out with excruciating pain with each stride across the platform, and I didn’t know how much longer I could stand it. But my sudden move had caught the armed Zorphins by surprise. Unfortunately, they recovered quickly, and the first flash bolt shot over my left shoulder when I was only about twenty yards away.
I knew Quint had been hit with a glancing Level-1 bolt and that these aliens may have been the shooters, with their weapons already set at the maximum level. I had no illusion that I could run away without getting shot, so here was the moment of truth. Level-2 or Level-1 – live or die.
Another shot went wide right, but then the third hit me squarely in the back.
I fell face first onto the hard concrete platform, the pain of the bolt radiating out from where I’d been hit to encompass my entire torso.
But I was alive.
As I waited for Bill and his guards to reach me, it was all I could do to lie motionless while my back felt like it was on fire. For all I knew, my clothing was, yet somehow I controlled the urge to scream out.
I could hear the rubber soled Zorphin shoes approach. Through squinted eyes, I saw a pair near my head.
“Farewell, my Captain,” I heard Bill say. “I would have wished to have done this deed myself, but alas, I have been robbed of that opportunity. Check him for vitals.”
I felt a large hand grasp my right bicep and begin to turn me over. The guard’s flash rifle was now slung across his chest, hanging down some, held there by a thin strap. As I rolled onto my burning back, I reached out with both hands and grabbed the alien’s weapon, twisting it so that the barrel was pointed up under his chin. I fingered the trigger.
At point blank range, the plasma bolt had the effect of a solid round, striking the brittle shell covering the Zorphin’s skin and causing his head to literally explode, showering me and the other two Zorphin nearby in bloody and sticky brain matter. With the creature’s head now gone, I was able to pull the strap holding the Xan-fi away from the collapsing body, freeing the weapon. My burning back was now causing me such terrible pain that I finally cried out, and at the same time, I brought the rifle above me and sent a second bolt into the chest of Bill’s second guard.
In the few seconds it took to dispatch guards, the alien mastermind himself had had time to recover from the shock of my attack. Now a large, smelly bare foot came crashing down on my face. The back of my head recoiled hard off the concrete of the platform, and for a moment I went numb. The second kick to my right shoulder sent me tumbling to the left, with the excruciating pain actually helping to shock me back to the moment.
I continued to roll, gaining distance between me and Bill, before I managed to stagger to my feet – just as the towering grasshopper propelled himself off the platform and right at me.
My weakened left knee actually helped me to drop back to the surface of the platform on my belly, while Bill soared overhead. I jumped back to my feet.
Now Bill and I stood about ten feet from each other, I in a crouched defensive stance, while Bill bounced lightly on his weird knee joints.
“So a final contest, my Captain, yet this one just between us.”
“Looks like it.”
Bill managed to smile. “You – and others – have always boasted how your race is so much stronger and more coordinated that most other beings. Now it is time to prove it. I have height on you, and from what I’ve observed over the years, quickness as well. You have managed to discover one tiny flaw in our instinctive makeup, but that is all. Winning by deception – as you have done so recently – is not a long-term strategy—”
“You talk too much!”
And with that said, I barreled forward, in my best fullback posture, catching Bill off guard as I laid a shoulder squarely into his front torso. Even though Humans may be shorter than Zorphin, we are built like brick outhouses. So when I made contact with the alien, he was lifted up in the air, with me now firmly ensconced in his midsection.
Bill landed on his back, while I fell hard onto his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. With the alien momentarily stunned, I managed to straddle Bill’s chest before placing a strong right cross against his long, thin head. I heard brittle bone crack – and so I sent my left fist sweeping across his face from the other direction, hearing even more cracking. Bill’s eyes began to roll back in their sockets. He had already taken one severe blow to the head earlier, so it didn’t take a third fist to his face before Billork passed out under me.
Thoroughly exhausted, I rolled off the huge alien, first landing on my back – which was a mistake – before continuing onto my stomach. I could feel the throbbing in my knee and the burning in my back, which seemed to be the most prominent of my many pains, which now encompassed my right and left shoulders, right wrist and strained neck. Other than that, I was in pretty good shape.
I managed to laugh out loud, my lone voice echoing off the empty walls of the subway station.
I was about to pass out – and wouldn’t it be just my luck that while I slept, Billork Kly Gon-Mok came to and escaped.
Chapter 37
As it turned out, there were other pods in the subway system, and Hector and his men – and Miranda – had managed to catch another train to the platform, where they found me unconscious, and with two dead Zorphin nearby – one now headless.
A corpsman nursed me back to consciousness and dressed my many wounds, as the rest of Hector’s squad searched in vain for the missing Billork Kly Gon-Mok.
Even though he had escaped, I found some joy in kno
wing he would need a lot of reconstructive surgery on his jaw before he could speak again. However, just one more hit would have done him in for good. Now that was a missed opportunity.
It was three hours later before I was finally transported back to the central access mound of Bill’s underground lair, which by now was teeming with Enforcers, Velosians, Simoreans and even a considerable number of Humans.
The Velosian policeman/creature Crick was among them, along with the Zorphin Krimious Sin, and even though there were nearly a hundred dead bodies strewn about the complex, the two of them seemed to have only one thing on their minds – where was the Unity Stone?
So when I eventually led a small entourage back to the Enterprise, Miranda exclaimed “I knew it!”
By now, she was in cuffs and under guard by Enforcers. She was placed at the dining table in the salon, with a towering Zorphin Enforcer hovering over her.
Quint had also been patched up by the corpsmen, although I must say the two of us looked more like the losers in the fight rather than the victors.
“So where is the damn statue, Jason?” Quint was also getting impatient. He knew that the sooner I turned over the statue, the sooner the two of us could get to a hospital for some serious medical care.
Miranda snorted. “You said the statue was not aboard the ship, asshole.”
“If you recall, I said I couldn’t say it was true. And that was the truth. If I had told the truth then you would’ve know it was aboard the Enterprise.”
“The Enterprise? Really, Jason?” It was now Quint’s turn to question my naming of the Noreen.
“I suppose you would have named it the Millennium Falcon?”
“For the type of ship it is, that would have been more appropriate. The Enterprise was much larger and carried—”
“Knock it off, you geeks!” Miranda ordered. “Just get the Stone, Jason. I got things to do. I can’t be wasting any more time sitting around here while you play your games.”
I looked at her and frowned. She met my gaze with a look of steely determination.
And then after taking in all the others who were looking at me with anticipation, I hobbled over to the ship’s refrigerator and slid open the lower freezer compartment. Inside was a large block of opaque ice. Taking a couple of small hand towels I’d laid out earlier just for this occasion, I reached into the freezer and withdrew the block of ice. I set it on the dining table in front of Miranda.
“You’re kidding?” Miranda said. She leaned in closer to the now steaming chunk of ice and squinted. “I can barely see the outline. And I know what I’m looking for.”
“It is incased ice?” the Velosian Crick asked. “You placed our most precious artifact in a block of ice!”
“Relax, it’s just fine. Not much can hurt diamond. However, one of its most interesting features is that it becomes nearly invisible when submerged in water – or frozen in ice.”
“We must liberate the Unity Stone!” Crick began to move toward the block of ice, and as he did, he took his weapon by the barrel, intending to use the butt as a hammer.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I said. “Diamond may be the hardest natural substance in the galaxy, but it can still be fragmented if you hit it just the right way. It’s best if we just let the ice melt.”
“Yes, that would be preferable.”
The Zorphin police officer Krimious came over to the block. “I will take custody of the Unity Stone and move it within the complex. We can expedite the thawing process by placing it under a stream of hot water in the Consumptionary.” He took a larger towel from the galley and wrapped the block with it. And then with considerable effort, he lifted the huge cube from the table.
I stepped forward and took it from him. “I’ll take that,” I said, even though every bone in my body ached. “We don’t need any accidents at this stage of the game, Krimious.”
The alien welcomed my help. “That is acceptable. Now let us move into the complex.” He turned to the guard standing over the handcuffed Miranda Moore. “Remain here with the prisoner. Once the statue has been recovered, we shall bring the spacecraft back to Sylox City.”
The entourage then moved out of the ship and into the early morning sunlight of Sylox for the short walk to the entrance mound. I had been up for easily twenty-four hours and couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. But still I managed to stay upright during my hobbled trek back to the entrance mound.
I saw well over a dozen armed military personnel of all races still roaming the landscape, with an untold number of them below ground. A large transport ship had landed about five hundred yards from the Enterprise, so there were even more troops and investigators arriving on the scene.
The Velosian Crick stepped up beside me. “I have just received notice from Council Member Orn that there will be no charges leveled against you. As a fact, he is authorizing a civilian service award to be offered to you.”
I could tell the words he spoke came at a considerable loss of pride, as he barely moved his lips reciting them. I’m sure that if it was up to him I’d be sitting back in the Enterprise, chained up and awaiting transport back to Sylox City, just like Miranda….
Just then I heard a familiar hum and a distance vibration in the ground. I stopped and turned toward the Noreen II.
The guard that Krimious had left with Miranda was now hopping away from the ship at full speed, which was understandable as the dirt on the landing pad surrounding the ship was beginning to lift up and stream into the air. A second later, the ship itself broke the surface, lifted by the invisible gravity-well forming above it.
“Stop that ship!” Krimious yelled to no one in particular. He had very few Enforcers on the surface, and the military personnel in the area took orders from someone else. The few of them who did hear his shout had to cover their eyes against the building dust cloud rising from around the Enterprise.
And then in a blink of an eye my ship was gone.
**********
I stared up into the empty sky feeling ambivalence towards what had just happened. Sure, there just went five million dollars’ worth of magnificent starship, probably never to be seen again. Yet on the other hand, Miranda was gone, too, and hopefully to never face justice inside an alien prison for what she had done.
My conflicted feelings seemed to cancel each other out. So I just sighed.
However, the Zorphin Krimious was still yelling, but now several military officers had picked up the call and were shouting into portable comm units. Soon ships would take flight in pursuit of my ship – and Miranda.
I smiled, knowing that nothing they had available could outrace the Noreen II. Miranda would get away, and in a spacecraft capable of crossing the entire galaxy.
But then a frown replaced the smile. I was confused by the fact that Miranda had so quickly escaped from her bindings and then expertly piloted the Enterprise off the surface of the planet. She had never indicated she knew the first thing about piloting a starship, and watching me over the past few days certainly wasn’t training enough for her to do so, and especially not for the rapid liftoff she’d just executed.
But considering all the other inconsistences I’d witnessed from the mysterious, dark-haired beauty, I knew I would continue to wonder just who was the real Miranda Moore for a long time to come.
The empty sky above told me I might never know the truth.
Epilogue
Fourteen days out from Sylox, Miranda Moore entered a region of space bordering the turbulent Core of the galaxy. This was a part of the galaxy where few ships ventured, as pilots and owners were fully aware of the untold number of unchartered and nearly-invisible black holes inhabiting the area.
By this time Miranda had expertly disabled the ship’s transponder and even tweaked the output of the gravity generators to disguise the distinctive signature of the Noreen II. And then once she was confident she hadn’t been followed, she opened a link through the continuous-wormhole system.
With the considerable distances involved, she still had to wait over ten minutes before the mysterious gravity strings involved in CW communications were able to establish the connection between sender and receiver. As was procedure, it was an audio-only link.
“We have been awaiting your contact,” said the raspy voice on the other end of the link. Miranda had no idea how far away the speaker was, but she guessed he had to be halfway across the galaxy. “I am sure you are curious about the news from Sylox,” the speaker continued. “It is encouraging. The war has been averted and your homeworld appears to be safe – at least for the time being.”
“That is good news. I’ve been out of touch for a couple of weeks and I was beginning to worry. What of the Linorean Foundation?”
“It is dissolving rapidly, with numerous arrests taking place, along with considerable embarrassment in high quarters. Jonk Limbor has taken his own life, and your Mark Wilson is now on his way back to Earth to face justice there.”
“And Jason?”
There was a slight hesitation before the speaker answered, carrying in his tone an amused, yet sympathetic quality. “He has survived quite nicely, even managing to appear on several broadcasts to relate all the adventure and intrigue he has encountered as a result of the crisis. He has become a minor celebrity of sorts, both on Sylox, as well on Earth.”
“And his real estate business?”
“No lasting damage.” The voice hesitated again before continuing. “We will allow his slight exaggerations to continue for a while longer, as long as he downplays your role in this affair. But it is now time to move on.”
“I understand.” Miranda looked at her reflection in the front viewport of the Noreen II. “I hope the change isn’t too drastic. I kinda like my look … oh, and to be twenty-six again!”