The Talisans used the fallen trees from Layda’s clean out for ground cover. I wasn’t sure it offered any advantage, as our blasters sent the debris flying, spreading our deadly fire over a larger area. The bolts from the Talisans were not as powerful, but a nearby strike could result in a nasty wave of mud mixed with splinters from the fallen trees and shrubs.
As the Talisans advanced to within two hundred meters, our lower turret cannon came back online. Layda fired in a relentless barrage, first stopping the advance and then driving the attackers backward. It was a confidence boost that was needed, but a boost that quickly ended as a new gunship strike permanently disabled the starboard ion feed.
A bloodied and blackened Jallis stumbled out of the ion wall, collapsing on the ground just outside. Garrett jumped from his hole and dragged the unconscious Feldon back through the gravity wall and onto the ship. Layda was waiting to lend a hand.
Garrett ran from the ship’s hold, diving back into his hole. "We have to take out those gunships, or we are dead meat!"
I replied, "I have reaction time that is slightly better than yours. Fire an occasional bolt over this way into the jungle, and I will see if I can get a hit on one of those ships."
Garrett yelled back, "Take it! They are due any second! I’ll cover your back!"
I turned and took aim at the top of the tree line, waiting for a ship to cross from behind me into my sight. The gunships were traveling fast. I fired at the first ship to pass. It came perfectly overhead and into my sight line. I squeezed the trigger only to see the ion bolt emerge too late. The gunship had moved back over the treetops.
I lay back in my foxhole, needing a moment to think. As I looked down at my blaster, and then at my arm, it hit me. The sensors on my arm pad were better than those on the Heap. I popped up a holo-display and enabled the sensor screen that would show the approaching ship.
I smirked as I thought of the genius use of the sensor. I would be able to see the incoming ship, and its trajectory, before it zipped over our location. I waited for the first indication of a gunship, noted its direction, and lay out for a shot. As the ship screamed overhead, again pounding the Heap, I squeezed the trigger on my multi-blaster.
My timing was perfect. As the bolt entered the tail end of the ship, a fireball emerged. The Talisan gunship dropped rapidly, crashing into a far hill.
Garrett screamed out, "Awesome! One more and we can get this circus under control!"
Over the next ten minutes, I missed with my repeated shots. It became apparent that my first hit had been more luck than skill. The Talisan troops continued their advance. Now at only 150 meters, our foxholes were in danger of becoming our graves. A partially recovered Jallis and a still-hobbled Layda then emerged from the cargo hold with newly assembled blaster rifles. Jallis joined Garrett while Layda dove into the hole next to me.
As Layda rose up, even with death knocking at our door, I had to laugh. "Hahaha!"
I wasn't sure why it had struck me as so funny at the time, but the minor distraction brought with it a renewed spirit. Layda gave an angry look as she pulled the trigger repeatedly on her blaster. One side of her face was covered in the black, muddy soil of Telfor. Only the bright white of her eye offered a sharp contrast.
Layda snarled. "Just get that last gunship, will you! That thing has been picking us apart!"
I fired off five rounds in succession, stopping an onrush of Talisans who had moved to within a hundred meters of our position. The Talisan blasters all went silent as the slavers squatted out of sight.
Garrett yelled. "I don’t like this! Get ready for a final push!"
Several seconds later, the Talisans all rose at once and fired. The ground surrounding us heaved and flew into the air. The hull of the Heap just behind us twanged and popped with the relentless barrage that the Talisans were unleashing in their attempt at a final assault. I popped up, taking out two of the advancers as Layda took out another three with a single shot.
Garrett rose and fired, ducking back down just as three bolts slammed the back side of his blaster-made foxhole. It was soon apparent that we would be overrun. I rolled out of the hole and ran, diving through the gravity wall and into the cargo hold. After a fifteen-second sprint to the front of the cargo hold and back, I emerged with a second ion rifle in my right arm. The pain in my right shoulder felt like the shrapnel had been shoved into it for a second time as I squeezed the trigger time and again, diving back into my blaster hole with a hard roll.
Layda popped up, taking out two Talisans that had made it to within thirty meters of our backs. Garrett and Jallis stood, firing in a similar manner, taking out three Talisans who had come in equally close.
Layda yelled out as she stood and fired, "Looks like we are gonna die here, but I’d rather die here free in this mud than digging for Talisan profit in those mines! Thanks for all you’ve done for us, Knog Beutcher; a million Feldon spirits shall praise your name!"
The sensor on my arm pad showed the Talisan gunship to be sweeping in for another run. I took aim and attempted to time my shot as it shot overhead. My timing was off as it had been before, but the gunship was trailing heavy smoke. As it turned skyward in a last attempt to flee, a heavy ion bolt cut it in half, the two pieces shattering in a cloud of smoke and fire.
A sleek ship then slid out from over the tree line, the powerful ion cannon on board targeting the Talisans on the ground as they turned to flee. It was Go! He had tracked our location from the signal on my arm pad!
Garrett and Jallis stood and fired at the fleeing Talisans, as did Layda. I just stood in disbelief. We were doomed, and yet somehow saved in the nick of time by a green ship mechanic that had little to no experience in life!
After circling the tree line and annihilating the remaining Talisans, Go set the Jess down beside our blaster holes. A triumphant savior emerged from the hatch of the Jess with a smile on his face.
Go held up his fist. "Please, whatever you do, don’t make me go back to being a ship mechanic! That right there, what I just did, that is what I was meant for!"
Garrett laughed. "As far as I’m concerned, you can be the ace pilot of whatever army we raise to fight these slavers. You couldn’t have timed your entrance any better if you were trying to be dramatic. We were finished. It was over. Five more minutes and we would have been nothing but compost for this jungle!"
Garrett walked over and slapped his forearm against Go’s, holding tight at his elbow as he smiled. Go returned the handshake with a grin.
Garrett gazed at his ship. "She looks good. No problems?"
Go replied, "She handles like a dream. I’ve never been in anything like her."
I said, "No issues with the portal sweeps?"
Go nodded his head. "No, I mean yes. I wasn’t able to make the jump to SS226. They weren’t buying my credentials. I had to leave the station I was at and travel the rest by normal flight. That’s what took me so long."
Garrett pointed up. "Are there any Talisan ships still up there?"
Go nodded. "There are five. Only one was a gunship."
Garrett turned in my direction. "I’m going to take them out before they have a chance to run. If we are lucky, we might catch half of the Talisan leadership up there. If they haven’t already turned to run, I’m sure they are preparing to."
Garrett patted Go on the shoulder. "Come on, your day isn’t done yet." Go looked back and grinned as he followed Garrett onto the Jess.
As the sleek, stealthy personal craft shot up through the high, thin clouds of Telfor, I looked back at Jallis and Layda. "You two are a mess. You look like you have been wrestling galligs. Hahaha!"
Layda shook her head. "You dove and rolled in this stuff. Why aren’t you covered in mud as well?"
I smiled. "Just careful, I guess. If those gunships didn’t kill off that shower in the captain’s cabin, you should go clean yourself up. Jallis and I will see if there is any possibility of repairing the Heap."
Layda turned back to look at th
e heavily damaged outer hull of our upside-down ship. "Wow, they did a number on her. I’m kind of liking the thought of her flying again, though. Do what you can, she is the flagship of the Free Feldon fleet!"
Jallis smiled. "We will bring her back."
Garrett and Go returned an hour later. Four of the Talisan ships had been caught and destroyed; the fifth had gotten away.
Garrett stepped up into the Heap. "How does she look?"
I replied, "Not good, but there is a possibility that she will survive. If we can get these ion conduits patched, we can get her out of the mud."
Go looked over the work we were preparing to do. "No, no, no. You can’t use that for patch tubing. If it fails, you run the risk of burning out this entire side! If that happens in space, you can kiss it all goodbye."
Go frowned at the thought of doing mechanical work. "Oh, get out of the way. I’ll have this patched in a few hours. After that you can…what’s this over here? You aren’t planning on leaving it like that, are you? That’s suicide!"
Jallis shrugged and stepped back. "Hey, I’m in construction, I build buildings, we do it like that all the time."
Go gave a look of consternation. "I bet your buildings don’t fly, do they? And I would also bet they don’t have to take the rigors of space. Just get away from it. I’ll make these repairs. You two would just get yourselves killed."
Jallis laughed. "We’ve been trying to do that for the past week. And we would have succeeded if you hadn’t intervened."
Go shook his head. "Look, if you want to help, if you want to learn something, hand me that cutter over there. This has to be chopped off clean before attempting a refit."
I chuckled as I turned to Garrett. "He’s a good kid."
Garrett nodded. "He cleaned the entire inside of that ship on his way back here. He was complaining that I was tracking mud onto his clean floors. But I will tell you what, he did a thorough job of it. I will give him credit for being good at what he has undertaken so far. I looked over the flight videos of his approach and kill of that gunship. It was textbook. The kid is a good pilot as well."
I sat down on a bench in the cargo hold and slowly moved my shoulder around, wincing in pain each time it reached a certain position.
Garrett looked over the outer bandage. "You got some dirt on that. You might want to clean that out."
I brushed what dirt I could off the bandage. "Gruntas aren’t prone to infections. It will be fine until I can get to a surgeon. That cauterizing job you two did was kind of amazing. I haven’t seen that used before by my people. We have drugs and materials that are applied in a surgical setting for deep wound repair. Our normal healing time is about half that of Humans."
Jallis turned back. "Yeah, we are the same. I think that soft flesh they call skin is their weak link."
Garrett pulled his head back. "Hey, let’s not be ganging up on the Humans here. I’m sure we have our good points as well. We did fight and win to create the AMP, after all."
Jallis laughed. "You also gave us the New Alliance!"
I said, "The New Alliance isn’t all Humans. Of the twelve families, only seven are Human."
Go turned back towards us with a huff. "Your arguing is not helping my concentration. Isn’t there anything productive you three can do?"
Garrett smirked. "He saved the day once and now he's in charge?"
With Go’s interjection, we each got up and began the tasks required to piece the Heap back together. Layda emerged from her cleanup, and Jallis was sent in. By the time the Telfor sun had fallen behind the surrounding hillsides, all four of us had cleaned ourselves up, rebandaged, and settled in for our first good night’s sleep. Go took sentry duty in the Jess while we slept. The following day, we would free a planet!
Chapter 18
As the sun dawned on Telfor, we rose and got to work. The conduits were repaired and the ship raised from the mud and set down properly on its landing gear. As Garrett worked to repair the top turret, I pulled up maps of Telfor that Garrett had scanned in during the weeks before while he was observing. We had the location of every mine on the planet and were soon mapping out our intended assault plans.
The cargo hold of the Heap would be emptied and loaded with Free Feldon fighters. The Jess would go in, disabling the outside guard positions, and the free fighters would follow up by taking prisoner or killing every Talisan they could find. There were more than eight hundred mines that needed liberation. We hoped that when the inevitable became clear, the remaining Talisan guards would simply give up.
As it turned out, without orders coming in from their fleet, the guards gave up without a fight. Within three days, at final count, we had taken possession of more than three thousand blaster rifles. During the AMP days, that number would have rivaled the total number of blasters in the whole of Omega. An army that had been trained and outfitted with such could easily take control of the sector.
As we flew along in the Heap, I began to think back on the AMP. There had been no war since its creation. There were no armies and no military. Except for the wormhole portals, movement between stars remained a long task. It was thought that there would certainly not be a threat between galaxies, but someone, somewhere else, had apparently figured out the secret of the wormhole portal. A secret that had been hidden away from us.
The citizens of the six galaxies had been at peace for two thousand standard years. Blasters had been limited to the security forces. Those forces had only needed to handle small events such as between rival towns when it came to high profile sporting events. It was police work. A military had not not required.
Now, however, the Orwallians had seen fit to sell blasters to whoever came calling. Rebellions and revolutions were beginning to take place. Whole populations were being enslaved. The security force no longer had the means to quell any but the smallest outbreaks of unrest.
With enough credits, and with the right connections, a common criminal could now get his or her hands on a blaster. The availability meant the six galaxies were becoming violent. The two-thousand-year-old no-weapons policy was now showing its one weakness. It was quickly becoming apparent that with governments in chaos, and with ion weapons outlawed, only outlaws would have ion weapons. The common citizen had few options when it came to self-defense.
We set the Heap down on the plateau of the mine where we had been enslaved. Nearly two million Feldons, and a handful of other species, had been liberated. We now had a new problem that we had not planned for: the logistics of feeding and governing two million freed slaves, many of whom were in need of medical attention. Managing the aftermath was not going to be an easy task.
Jallis began a conversation. "There are farms on this planet that were used to feed part of this populace. We also have the planet of Effica to claim if anyone no longer has a home to return to. I would also like to start the Free Feldon army, train for an assault, and go after the Talisans on their home world. It is time that those cannibals were taught a lesson in what it means to be a captive."
Layda replied. "Maybe it’s time we think bigger. The Talisans love to fight. If we achieve their home world surrender, maybe we can enlist them into our army. You know, have them fight and die for us."
Jallis winced. "Are you nuts? What Feldon is going to fight alongside a Talisan? They made us cook and eat our own flesh!"
Layda shook her head. "That is only rumor. And even so, why put our own people in harm’s way, if we can send the Talisans instead? Would you just have them all put to death?"
Jallis stood in disgust. "They are certainly worthy of it. How many Feldons did they kill?"
I stood and placed my hand on Jallis’s shoulder. "Please, just sit. We have to feed your people first. What happens next will be up to all the free Feldons and not just the two of you."
Jallis settled himself and sat down. "Layda, I would first like to apologize. This is a simple discussion, and I shouldn't have gotten so heated."
Layda smiled. "We are discussing the l
ives of our people. It’s only natural that we be passionate about it. No apology is necessary."
I shook my head. "OK, now that we have that settled, I say we start at Mine-44 and work our way through each of the mines, giving them a comm channel to communicate with us. We need to go out and get ships that can transport these people back to their homes, and we will need food to keep them alive until we can find sufficient transport."
Layda spoke. "The Talisans brought us all here. They must have transports."
I replied, "If I take Garrett and Go to the Talisan home world to negotiate a surrender, would the two of you be able to coordinate feeding your people and keeping them in line until we returned? If a surrender happens, I will make every attempt to send every transport I can this way."
Jallis replied, "I don’t think we have any other choice. If you three can accomplish that, we can begin to move our people home."
Garrett came into the cargo hold. "The top turret has been repaired. I would suggest you get a team together to help you with patching the hull; there are an awful lot of holes."
I stood. "We have a new mission, Garrett. You, I, and Go are going to pay a visit to Dallex. Our goal will be to get them to surrender on peaceful terms, and to join with the Feldons, if needed, to take this sector away from the Governor. We have three thousand blasters now, and with the firepower of the Jess, it shouldn’t be an issue."
Garrett smiled. "Get me back in my ship, and I will be happy to help."
Go entered the conversation. "If it’s all the same, since Garrett will be taking back his ship, I would like to stay here to work on the Heap. If this is going to be the flagship of the Feldon fleet, it is going to need a lot of work. The hull design and plating aren’t bad, but they could be greatly improved. I think I would be most useful here. Besides, I can’t go back to the security force on SS241 after disappearing for several weeks. Malcom would see to it that I was locked up for it."
I nodded. "I’m certain they could use your expertise right now. Help them in any way you can."
OMEGA Guardian Page 18