by T. R. Harris
Adam couldn’t see where the curving dome ended, not from where he lay, his black armor and pants now caked in white guano. He reached out and took hold of one of the cords. “I’ll slide down and see how far it is. Luckily, in this light gravity we may be able to drop down to a flat roof below.”
With gloved hands, Adam began to slide down the side of the filthy dome. It was made of metal and offered no footholds along the way. About twenty feet down he could finally see where the curved structure met the top of a rectangular building block, one of thousands that made up the pyramid. The blocks came in various sizes, giving the building its jagged, uneven look.
Unfortunately, the end of the cord dangled a good twenty feet above the roof of the block.
“We’re going to have to drop,” Adam said through his visor comm. “Doesn’t look to be too far, not in this gravity. I’m letting go.”
Adam slid along the metal surface for a few feet until the roof dropped off. He flew off the dome and hit hard at an angle on the level surface. His side erupted in pain again, as did his right shoulder when he tumbled forward. He rolled a couple of times to break his momentum, ending up only eight inches from the edge of the block. He glanced over. It was another fifty foot drop to the next roof.
“Okay, I’m down. Bring as many ropes as you can. We’ve got quite the journey ahead of us.”
One by one, the rest of the team made it to the rooftop, each now sporting a two-tone look of bird shit, white in the front, Sol-Kor-armor black in the back.
“Can we make that jump without ropes?” Riyad asked. “It would be faster.”
“Possibly, but we’d risk breaking or spraining something. Let’s use the ropes first.
The grapples weren’t designed for multiple uses. No way to unhook them from below. After the first four blocks, they were out of cord.
“There’s some conduit over here,” Connors called out. The team rushed over.
Four thin metal tubes ran down the side of the block below them, and they could see where this pattern continued all the way down. “Way to go, Conman. That’s our ticket.” Adam patted the man on the back. “Now, you first.”
The eight commandos had nearly a hundred blocks to negotiate, and before they were halfway down the sky filled with flying vehicles similar to huge quadcopters. At first the activity centered around the dome atop the pyramid, but then soon shifted when it was discovered the Humans were no longer trapped inside the nursery.
Arrows of light danced across the black pyramid. A few moments later the area above them drew the attention of the flying machines. Their black cords had been discovered hanging from the upper blocks. The Sol-Kor dropped down lower along this line, looking for the fugitives.
Lightning-quick, the team raced to the far end of the block they were on, and finding another set of conduit at the corner, began to scamper down another face of the block, a shorter face, far from their original line of descent. To their relief, the Sol-Kor continued searching desperately along the original line, shining their lights and hovering close to the building until they moved further down, below where Adam and the team were hunched at the base of the conduit run.
Windows and doors opened on each block, and troops flooded the roofs of the blocks below them. The Sol-Kor were becoming more frantic, more desperate, as the prospect of losing their beloved Queen’s killers began to sink in. More lights came on within the structure as thousands of Sol-Kor poured out of the doorways to fill each level of the stepped pyramid.
Adam crawled to the ledge and looked over. Most of the activity was concentrated below, all the way to ground level. Fortunately, the Sol-Kor assumed the team had made it further down the pyramid than they had, but that wouldn’t last. Once they weren’t discovered below, the aliens would come looking for them on the higher levels.
Adam pressed himself against the dirty surface of the block as a hovercraft shot overhead, sending up a cloud of brown dust around him. It spun around and settled in a wide area.
“Get ready,” he whispered into his comm. “I’m going to provide a distraction.”
The craft whirled to a stop, and then the canopy opened. Four huge Sol-Kor climbed out, dressed in black armor and carrying heavy flash rifles. Lying on his stomach, with his own black armor facing up, Adam was shielded by the shadow cast by the lights below that were now bathing the pyramid. Suddenly he stood and raised his hands, the front of his armor displaying white to the Sol-Kor.
“Don’t shoot! I surrender!”
The four Sol-Kor were caught off guard, and it was a miracle that in their panic they didn’t open fire. They all turned toward Adam, which gave the rest of the team the opening they needed. They rushed up from behind and planted KA-BAR combat knives into the soft flesh of the alien necks, above the collar of the armor and below the skull.
The men swarmed over the hovercraft.
Adam shook his head. “It’ll be tight,” he said. “Drop the armor and MOLLE packs, keep the beam neutralizers. Time to get to know each other better.”
“That’s not to say this thing can even take off with all of us aboard,” said Mac MacTavish. “I’ll stay behind and cover you from here.”
“Bullshit, Ensign. Now get in!”
It was indeed a tight fit. Although four, fully-equipped Sol-Kor had fit in the cockpit, eight Humans, with their rifles and ammo packs, made for a very intimate grouping. Adam pulled the canopy down, having to stretch to reach the latch. Then with Ensign MacTavish pressed against his back and his knees nearly at his ears, he held the control stick against his chin while he pressed the start button on the propeller blades.
He’d never flown a Sol-Kor hovercraft before, but as it was with all things Sol-Kor, the controls were very basic—just a control stick, and a throttle on the left armrest. Even then, with Rock Johnson’s hard, over-muscled body pressing against his back, he had very little range of motion to move the control stick, and as the over-burdened craft lifted begrudgingly off the block, it skidded forward and impacted the small lip lining the roof.
Adam spun the stick to his right, attempting to keep the hovercraft on the roof, at least until he was sure it could remain airborne should they fly off the edge. But the craft slid sideways until half of it was over the edge, then it began to topple over.
Adam pressed the throttle all the way forward and heard the answering whine of the electric motors as they reached full power. The four-bladed craft slid off the roof and began falling, even as gyros fought to level it out.
Adam threw the control stick to the left and the hovercraft angled away from the building, barely clearing the edge of the next block below as it continued to sink lower and at an ever-increasing pace.
Clear of the closest pyramid blocks, and descending at about a twenty-degree pitch, the propellers were doing all they could to support the load, but it wasn’t going to be enough to break their fall. The craft did possess small wings, and as they gained speed they began to bite into the air, but it only slowed them some and added a small measure of maneuverability. Adam angled the copter further away from the steps of the pyramid, seeing that at their present course they would at least miss the sides completely.
Still, they were falling, not flying.
The ground of the ridgetop raced up toward them and Adam aimed for the edge of the tall cliff. There were huge boulders embedded in blocks of concrete, support for the huge mass of the pyramid, and it was obvious any contest between the rocks and the hovercraft would go decisively in favor of the rocks.
Everyone gasped as the craft skidded past the towering boulders and entered clear space again, dropping like a rock.
As with all good things—including escapes—the Human’s rapid descent from near the top of the huge pyramid eventually came to an abrupt halt. All light was blocked out as the hovercraft buried deep into a gigantic mountain of trash and biological refuse. A putrid odor filled the cockpit as they sank lower, accompanied by the ear-piercing whizzing of a blender on steroids as the ho
vercraft’s propellers minced up huge amounts of Sol-Kor crap all around it. Eventually, the electric motors overloaded and shut down and the craft vibrated to a stop, embedded under several meters of the most foul-smelling stuff any Human had ever encountered.
Adam reached for the canopy latch.
“No, don’t!” someone yelled. “I’d rather die right here than in that pile of alien shit.”
“The longer we stay in here, the worse it’s going to get,” Adam said. And then he sprung the latch.
The canopy didn’t move, at least not on its own, not until several strong arms pushed outward, displacing some of the mushy brown pile on top. A flood of rotten smelling liquid flowed in, carrying with it soaked cardboard, plastic strips, and chucks of brown stuff that no one wanted to consider its origin.
Adam struggled to stand up, fighting to form an opening in the pile above him. Then, finding a foothold on the side of the hovercraft, he pushed upwards, and using his hands, arms and legs, literally swam upwards in the sea of the trash, until his hands found cool air. His head broke the surface, and he took in a deep breath, followed immediately by his own foul contribution to the ungodly mass of refuse.
All around him, heads began to pop up, covered now in brown, gooey clumps of who knows what. Each man in turn repeated Adam’s stomach purging, overcome by the incredible stench and the putrid taste invading their mouths.
Soon the eight commandos were all on the surface of the mountain of trash, on their backs and staring up at the stars up in the sky.
“Tell me again how this is better than dying?” asked MacTavish.
“I don’t believe anyone said that,” another of them answered.
“If someone had, it would have been a bald-face lie.”
Rock Johnson sat up and looked down the sloping pile of trash at the brilliantly-lit expanse of the spaceport below. “I take it that’s our destination.”
“It’s the only way home, Lieutenant,” Adam said. The base of the trash mountain was a good five hundred feet below. He could see rows of black trucks pulling up to huge bulldozer-like heavy equipment that methodically filled each dump with a single scoop before another truck pulled forward. “Maybe we can hitch a ride with one of those trucks. Otherwise it’s going to be a long walk.”
Chapter 11
The team rolled, slid, and tumbled down the side of the trash pile before eventually reaching the base near one of the bulldozers. From here they could see how truly huge the things were, larger than anything found on Earth, even the behemoths the size of a house and featured in the Guinness Book of World Records. They were also automated, as were the black trucks coming and going. The haulers appeared to follow tracks embedded in the road, forming a continuous loop of vehicles feeding the power plants at the east side of the spaceport. Control towers dotted the landscape to the south, standing two hundred feet tall and with glass tops. From here, monitors kept track of the trash convoy and loaders, ready to deal with any breaks in the routine.
The Humans were too small to be noticed among the mountains of trash and the titanic equipment, but as the trucks were gigantic, none of them could see how they could be commandeered. Their wheels were two stories tall, and there appeared to be no such thing as a cab on them anywhere. They just moved into position, received their single load, and then moved off thirty seconds later.
Adam and the team ran up under the nearest truck, being careful not to end up under one of the massive tires.
“There’s a ladder!” Adam yelled over the roar of its massive electric motors. “I’ll see if I can reach it.”
He took a running jump, and in the gravity of Kor managed to leap up the fifteen feet necessary to grab the dangling ladder. With the rest of the team jogging along below him, he swung up until he could reach the next rung. As he did, a sharp pain spasmed in his side. He lost his grip and fell, crashing to the hard, concrete road with a thud.
“That was graceful, Captain,” Connors said as he helped his commanding officer to his feet. “Let me try.”
The younger, more athletic sergeant first-class made the leap easily, and scampered up the ladder, looking for a release. As suspected, this was a retractable ladder for a small control room used for individual steering in the case of service or a breakdown. Connors dropped the ladder to ground level and the remainder of the team hustled up and into the tiny cab.
When the ladder was pulled up and the door to the cab closed, all the men looked around at each other and wrinkled their noses.
“Maybe we should leave the door open,” Connors suggested. There was unanimous agreement.
The cab was in the center of the underbelly of the huge truck, with monitoring screens and a small steering column set before the single seat in the compartment. The monitors were off, leaving the room with no interior light. Chief Foster pulled a small flashlight from what was left of his utility vest and turned it on. He slipped a red filter over the lens and then set the light on the console in front of the driver’s seat. The light would be impossible to see from outside unless someone was standing directly below.
“How is everyone?” Adam asked, having finally found the time to catch their breath—even if they weren’t keen to take in too much of the foul air in the cramped cabin.
“You seem to be the one most injured, Captain,” Lieutenant Rock Johnson answered. “Besides a few cuts, bruises and burns, the rest of us are still functioning, even Flash.”
Riyad looked around at the rest of the team and displayed his namesake smile.
“Dang, man, put a shade over that thing,” Conner gibed. “We don’t want the hostiles to spot us.”
“Speaking of the hostiles, this truck is headed for one of the power plants, not the spaceport,” Rock pointed out.
“Once we get closer to town, we should be able to find more suitable transportation,” Adam said. “Let’s take the time to service our weapons and inventory supplies and ammo. This thing ain’t over, not by a long shot.”
********
The incredibly slow trek to the power plant was grating on the commandos by the time they slipped down the ladder and sprinted toward a row of dimly lit buildings just outside the grounds of the power plant. Several of the ubiquitous Sol-Kor trucks were nearby. Adam figured one of them would do nicely to get them into the spaceport.
As would be expected when the population was a trillion, there were Sol-Kor everywhere, but most looked single-minded in their movements, going to or from their destinations without interaction or hesitation. If a Sol-Kor exited a truck and headed for a doorway, by God that’s what he did, with no looking around, no stops for a cigarette, no chatting with a comrade.
This made it easy for the team to target a likely truck and speed off without being seen. Adam was in the driver’s seat, and after checking with the team found that only three of them still had their Sol-Kor masks with them. He wasn’t one of them, so he took Mac’s mask without a word of protest.
“Keep the damn thing,” the big officer said. “I’m never going to wear it again, even if it kills me.”
“What is it with you, Mac? You got a death wish or something?”
“It’s not a wish…just impatience. Sometimes I just wish I’d get it over with. Life is becoming a real bother.”
“Hang in there a little longer, will ya? I may need your incredible mass to block a flash bolt before this is over.”
“It would be a pleasure, if I was certain the damn thing would kill me. With my luck, all it would do is piss me off.”
“Get in the back,” Adam ordered. “And please, don’t infect the rest of the team with your cheerful attitude. We’ve got enough to deal with already.”
Having studied Drake’s video surveillance, and after seeing the lay of the land from on top of the pyramid, Adam had a fairly good idea how to get to the spaceport.
A wide, traffic-filled roadway lined the spaceport access, major entrances midway along each side. They would take the road along the north face of the space
port, the one facing the mountain. The other entrances and exits appeared to be designated more for service or cargo, while this one was for general traffic.
He was counting on the facility having minimal security, since this was the main spaceport for Kor, and staffed primarily by natives and the subservient Salifens. He was the only one in the cab, and hid his M-91 between him and the driver’s side door, just in case. He had no idea how this was going to go down, since he’d long discarded his black Sol-Kor armor, and the rest of his clothing was in tatters and covered in a variety of foul-smelling stains. At least in the cab he could lower the window and get some fresh air. The men in the back didn’t have that luxury.
The team had also long since lost their communication visors in the sea of trash, so Adam had no way to communicate with them in the back. There was, however, a small pass-through window from the cab to the back, and it was open now, with Riyad sitting on the other side.
“Here,” said Riyad, passing a swath of black cloth through the opening. “Wrap this around your neck. Leaving the mask dangling around your shoulders isn’t going to fool anyone.”
“Thanks. What’s this from?”
“You don’t want to know—let’s just say one of the men will be free-balling it from here on out.”
“No frickin’ way! You expect me to wrap this around my neck?”
“Hey, it smells better than the rest of you. This is no time to get prissy.”
“Fine, just don’t tell me whose it is.”
“I’ll save that for the talk show circuit once we get home.”
Riyad extended his hand through the opening and gripped Adam’s shoulder.
“I never thought we’d make it this far, my friend. Thank you.”
“Like I said earlier, it ain’t over yet.”
“That’s true, but I’d rather have no one other than you leading the way home.”