Son of Justice

by Steven L. Hawk

  It wasn’t until EJ came along that Benson saw another way of interacting with his fellow recruits and orphans. EJ cared what happened to those around him. He viewed them as a unit of individuals, who shared common goals, rather than as individual units out to protect their own interests. He guided, he tutored, he supported. In short, he showed them what it meant to be a leader, and provided an example for each of them to follow. For most who spent time with their fellow recruit from Waa, it was a life-changing experience that they soaked up and tried to emulate. It also led to Benson’s ongoing internal query when presented with a daunting challenge or some new, undefined task. It was the question he was asking himself now.

  What would EJ do?

  What would Eli Justice do if he woke up and found himself strapped to a table? What would he do if he spied a tall, squidlike alien—Zrthn, he somehow knew—holding a circular cutting tool in one of his slimy, gray, tentaclelike hands? What would he do if the Zrthn brought the tool to whizzing, electrical life, and brought it into contact with his right, armor-covered arm?

  Easy answer.

  Benson flexed his armor-covered appendages.

  The power generated by the PEACE suit easily snapped the straps that held him to the table. The alien, surprised by the sudden movement backpeddled. Once freed, Benson threw his body to the right and landed gracefully on the soft, sodden floor beside the Zrthn with the cutting tool. He didn’t understand the alien’s features well enough to be sure, but he assumed the open-mouthed look that appeared in the middle of the squid’s head was surprise.

  He scanned the room and noticed two other Zrthns on the far side of the table. One had been facing away, and as Benson watched, the soft-looking head spun 180 degrees on the body to face him.

  Freaky.

  The same open-mouth look that Cutter Holder had shown suddenly appeared on the distant alien’s face.

  Yeah, that’s gotta be surprise.

  There was no surprise showing on the third face, though. Instead, Benson noted a tentacle being raised and pointed in his direction. The large tentacle was as big around as his arm, and ended in several smaller tentacles. Those smaller tentacles—his mind registered them as fingers—held a shiny, metal object that was undoubtedly a weapon. The alien seemed to be struggling with it, which was just fine with Benson. He didn’t wait for the ugly guy to work out the issue or to see what type of danger the weapon posed. Instead, he allowed his training, instincts, and armor to dictate his response.

  He flicked his right hand out, plucked the tool from Cutter Holder and tossed it as hard as his armor would allow at Weapon Holder. The cutter had some weight, but the suit handled it easily. The aim was spot on, and Benson watched in repulsive wonder as the tool entered through the front, then exited the back, of the Zrthn’s large, bulbous head. The gory spray of gray that accompanied the tool’s exit splashed freely across Head Spinner, and the look of surprise turned to something else. Fear? Disgust? Anger?

  Benson didn’t really care what the follow-on emotion was. These three had somehow captured him, strapped him to a table, and were about to cut into his suit. That called for a response.

  He pivoted right and put an armored fist through Cutter Holder’s soft dome. The punch was gross, but effective.

  He shook his hand to clear it of the clinging gore and turned to face Head Spinner. The third alien wiggle-walked backward on his leg-tentacles until he was flat against the far wall. His arm-tentacles were stretched out in front of his body, the sides of the thin mouth turned downward, and his head quivered like a bowl of jelly.

  Yeah, that’s fear right there, Benson thought as he moved toward the cowering creature.

  Chapter 20

  Both his pulser rifle and side arm had been removed at some point prior to his being taken into the “examination” room—or what he now thought of as “the Zrthn death room”—so Benson picked up the item that Weapon Holder had aimed in his direction. It was covered in the slimy gray gore of the alien’s head, so he tore a swatch of cloth from the alien’s gray, apronlike covering.

  He cleaned the strange device as much as possible, then inspected it. Obviously, it was an alien design. That much he could have surmised even if he hadn’t known its origin. Somewhat tubular in form, it looked like a length of bent pipe that had no flat edges. Though it wasn’t designed for a human hand, the sizing was such that he could grip it easily. Fortunately, the business end of the weapon was quite obvious. He would have understood which end to point away from his body even if the device had never been turned in his direction. The firing mechanism wasn’t so obvious, however. He searched for a button, trigger or switch that might activate the gun, but came up empty. There was nothing on the device that offered any indication as to how it operated.

  He squatted down beside Weapon Holder’s body and inspected the Zrthn’s “hands,” anxious for a clue. The two tentacles that the Zrthns used for arms each ended in a series of—he counted six—smaller tentacles that acted as fingers. Each finger-tentacle was roughly six inches in length and was covered with tiny suckerlike pads. All of Weapon Holder’s finger-tentacles had been wrapped around the handle when he pointed it at Benson. Benson imitated the grip as best he could with his five armored fingers. He detected some give in the handle and wondered if a squeeze did the trick. He aimed at a spot on the far wall and applied pressure. All he received for his efforts was a tiny “click.” There was no explosion, no laser, no arrow . . . just the click. He squeezed again.

  Click.

  “Crud,” he spat, suddenly angry. He had a weapon, but couldn’t make it work. He pointed it at the gray form lying at his feet and squeezed again, intent on taking his anger out on something.

  The click of the gun was accompanied by an unexpected blast of angry red light that drilled a neat, inch-wide hole in what was left of Weapon Holder’s head.

  “Whoa!”

  Benson pointed the weapon at the far wall and clamped his grip.

  Click. Nothing but click.

  He turned the weapon toward the Zrthn’s body again and squeezed.

  Click. Flash. Hole.

  “Aha!” He pivoted and pointed the weapon at Cutter Holder’s body across the room.

  Click. Flash. Hole.

  Again, at the wall. Click.

  He turned the weapon toward the ceiling, and fired. Click.

  “Now that’s engineering,” he muttered. The weapon was somehow designed to fire only when it was aimed at organic material. That explained why Weapon Holder appeared to be struggling with the weapon. Its internal sensors had apparently registered his armor as nonorganic, which had prevented it from firing.

  That had to be distressing for the Zrthn, he mused.

  Satisfied he had worked out the details of the weapon, he took time to run a systems test, then tried all of his comm channels to see if he could reach anyone. His suit’s systems were fine and working as expected. The comm check . . . well, that didn’t go as well as he had hoped. For now, he was on his own.

  What would EJ do?

  Benson looked around and with a nod, decided to find out what lay beyond the doorway to his left.

  * * *

  Benson opened the door slowly and peered into darkness. He activated the auto-lighting system built into his helmet and the darkness was replaced with a clear view of a passageway. Seeing nothing that would indicate a threat, he poked his head past the doorway and looked to the right. Nothing but a short hallway that ended in a “T” intersection. He looked to the left and saw a longer hallway that ended a hundred meters in the distance. Several doorways and two intersections lay between his position and the end. There was no sign of additional Zrthns.

  He wondered where he was and how he had gotten here. The last thing he recalled before waking up on the table was standing outside the doorway of the comm station on Rhino-3. He remembered reaching for the door handle, pushing the door open—then nothing. If the low-level hum he detected through the floor and walls was any indicatio
n, he had somehow ended up on a spaceship. A Zrthn spaceship. How that was possible, he didn’t know. Right now, he didn’t really care. His primary thought was to try and find another human—preferably one from his unit—and then decide on next steps. If he was indeed on a Zrthn ship, he had no idea how that could ever end well, but one thing at a time.

  He stepped into the passageway and turned to the right. When he reached the intersection at the end of the hallway, he quickly scanned around the corners. He looked first to the left and spotted a glass doorway at the end of a short hallway. The room beyond the glass was dark, but there seemed to be movement on the far side. He then scanned to the right. Another darkened, glass doorway mirrored the one on the left.

  Left or right?

  Doesn’t really matter.

  He picked the left and quickly crossed the ten meters that stood between his current position and the doorway. He stood to the side of the door and peered in as best he could. The electronic lighting systems in his suit didn’t help much, but he soon made out what was moving on the other side. The room was filled with Minith, in a variety of poses. Some stood; others were prone, most squatted. But it was obvious they weren’t engaged in any real activity. They just seemed to be . . . waiting. None were armed, and if he had to guess, they were prisoners of the same Zrthns who had managed to capture him. He debated for a few seconds, then stepped fully in front of the door and waved.

  Nothing.

  He waved again, with both arms. They had to see him. They were in a darkened room while he was in a lit—albeit dimly—hallway.

  Still no reaction from those inside.

  He finally tapped on the glass and waved again. The action caused the nearest of the Minith to look in his direction, but they still didn’t react to his appearance.

  What the flock?

  It was like they could hear him, but couldn’t see him. He suddenly suspected he was tapping on one-way glass. It made sense if they were captives. The Zrthns would be able to observe without being observed.

  Benson considered his options, then turned to the doorway at the opposite end. He paused briefly to scan the long corridor he had originally come from, and seeing it still empty, continued across to the second glass door. Confident that it was similar to the first, he stepped up to it and looked inside the darkened interior. It was similarly occupied, but for once difference. The figures lounging inside were all human soldiers.

  Again, he tapped on the glass, and again, he received a lackluster response. A few heads turned in his direction, but most of the men and women inside ignored him.

  He didn’t have to consider his options any further and immediately looked for a way to open the door. There was no handle or any other mechanism on the doorway itself. A small glass panel was built into the wall beside the door, and he scanned it for a clue as to how it worked. There were six blue circles, each an inch or so in diameter, printed on the glass. A code of some sort? He had no way of knowing. He could probably break through the glass, using his armor, but that was a move he didn’t want to make unless there was no other option. Who knew what kinds of sensors were built into the doorway? Seeing as how it was a cell door, there was a high probability that sensors or alarms were a given. The last thing he wanted to do was call out a large force of squid-soldiers when all he had to defend himself with was a single alien pistol.

  This situation called for stealth and quiet. With that in mind, he turned his attention back to the glass panel. Something about the arrangement of the six circles nagged at him, and he reached out to touch them with his armored glove. The contact caused the panel to light up, and he knew he was on to something. The device was waiting for him to enter a code or—scan a fingerprint.

  That’s it!

  The panel wanted him to place his six finger-tentacles into the circles. The only problem was, he didn’t have finger-tentacles.

  But he knew where he could find a full set.

  * * *

  Twigg squatted against the wall and flexed his muscles one at a time in a ritual that was as old as the Minith race. The exercise was meant to ease the pain of prolonged inactivity while also helping to keep the body toned and ready for battle. He started with his ears and worked downward through his body, flexing, releasing, and flexing each muscle individually, then each group of muscles in turn.

  He was on his sixth repetition, and he was just as tense and anxious as if he hadn’t even tried the exercise. Minith were active by nature. They needed room to roam, pace, and tromp for their well-being. Unfortunately, their captors hadn’t afforded them any such luxury. They were three-hundred-plus warriors, crammed into a space that should hold half that number. And the overbearing dampness only made things worse.

  Twigg added his growl—completely unbidden and irrepressible—to the chorus coming from the warriors around him. Despite the danger, he considered throwing his strength against the doorway across the room. The three crumpled bodies that lay at the foot of the door—victims of previous attempts—were the only deterrents.

  His routine was interrupted by a high-pitch tone, and he opened his eyes to see those nearest the doorway moving slowly back. He had been told early on that the Zrthns wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who stood near the entryway when they arrived. It was a lesson they had apparently learned the hard way—only after two dozen or more of their number had been culled. Still, this was Twigg’s first encounter with the aliens he had heard so much about, so he observed closely, anxious to detect any weakness or opportunity.

  After several seconds, the warning tone ceased and the doorway retracted quietly and quickly into the wall on the right.

  Twigg stood up to get a better view, anxious to catch a glimpse of the aliens.

  When Lieutenant (0) Gale Benson of the Shiale Rangers entered the room, decked out in full PEACE armor, Twigg couldn’t have been more surprised. Or relieved. It appeared as though he wouldn’t have to throw himself against death’s door after all.

  “What took you so long, Lieutenant Benson?” he growled.

  The young human looked in his direction, and Twigg noticed the human lips turn upward. The movement usually indicated human mirth, happiness or sarcasm. He wondered briefly which of the three the man was feeling.

  “Ah, First Sergeant Twigg,” the lieutenant replied with a wide smile and a wave. “Did you miss me?”

  Twigg growled.

  Apparently, the smile could represent a combination of all three.

  Chapter 21

  “So, you’re telling me this is a transportation device and not a weapon?”

  “Yes, Captain,” the small, green engineer replied. He and his partner had arrived on Rhino-3 and performed a complete inspection of the strange doorway. Now, the two Waa stood shoulder-to-shoulder, a seemingly identical pair, except for minor differences in the wrinkles on their faces. Their arms were folded in front of their bodies, with each of their hands tucked neatly into the opposite sleeve of the standard off-white robes the Waa wore. Eli watched as they eerily blinked their large, black eyes in perfect, synchronized unison. “It moves things from here to . . . somewhere else.”

  Eli had to strain to make out the words. It was an unfortunate trait of the Waa that they rarely spoke, and when they did, it was in a quiet whisper. He had grown up around the little green aliens, but hadn’t had much need for direct interaction. Except for his father’s assistant, Sha’n, he had rarely traded more than a hundred words with the fourth contingent of the Shiale Alliance.

  Though most humans would find it strange, he had always felt more comfortable with the larger, more aggressive Minith than with the quiet, diminutive Waa. You knew where you stood with most Minith. They were open with their feelings, and they rarely tried to hide their intentions. The Waa were just the opposite. He could never shake the feeling they were hiding something. They rarely spoke, and when they did, it was never in their own language. He didn’t even know if they had a shared language. He couldn’t deny their intelligence and their a
bility to build and design the most amazing and complex systems—like the mother ships the Alliance used, or even the new armor that Eli now wore. Unfortunately, in Eli’s opinion, they were just . . . too weird and secretive for his liking.

  “And where does it move them to, uh—” Eli was suddenly embarrassed that he hadn’t made the effort to learn their names.

  “I am called Aank. This is Ta’an,” the Waa on the left whispered. The announcement was accompanied by a casual wave of long, delicate fingers toward his partner on the right. The hand was immediately returned to the sleeve opening. “We do not know the exact destination of the device.”

  “The exact destination,” Eli stressed. His knees might have buckled had it not been for his armor as a wave of lightheaded cool splashed across the heat of his suppressed grief. Benson and Twigg might still be alive. “So you have a general idea of where it’s taken two of my soldiers?”

  “And probably hundreds of others,” Tenney chimed in. She was inspecting the strange Zrthn doorway, which still sat in the middle of the comm station where they had found it.