The alien on the far right of Eli’s assigned zone lifted a weapon, but Eli was prepared and the Ginny quickly turned the threat into a gray spray of scattered flesh and blood. He scanned his zone for additional threats but saw only cowering figures. Several had their “arms” in the air and their finger-tentacles splayed in surrender. On a subconscious level, he heard the sounds of his fellow soldiers eliminating threats in their assigned zones. Those sounds abruptly ended and he heard announcements of “clear” before issuing his own “all clear.”
The Shiale Rangers were now in possession of a Zrthn space craft.
The question was, what would they do with it?
Chapter 24
Lieutenant Colonel Becca Conway sighed and turned to the next page of the training report. When she accepted the position as commander of the Shiale Ranger Battalion, she had envisioned so much more . . . excitement than what the job actually offered. Instead of leading her troops on dangerous missions that were crucial to the security of the Alliance, she spent her hours worrying over personnel issues and readiness reports. The latest mission to Rhino-3 was the most interesting thing to happen in years, and here she was—left behind while the least senior captain in the entire Alliance Defense Force got the call to action.
She was wondering how young Captain Zero was getting along on his first assignment when she heard the unmistakable sound of weapons fire erupt from the front of the building. She raced to the window in time to see a small group of Minith soldiers—her soldiers—step across two prone forms. The two forms—one human and one Minith—had previously been guarding the front entrance, but now lay dead or dying. And their attackers were entering the foyer just down the hall.
“What the flock!”
A thousand questions ran through her head, but she pushed them aside as she sprinted to the weapons cabinet at the back of her office. She was a firm believer in “hope for the best, prepare for the worst,” and the worst demanded she arm herself. Her fears seemed to prove accurate as the firing continued down the hall and grew closer. She had just finished locking and loading a pulser rifle when the doors to her office slammed open.
She turned, aimed, and fired the weapon in a single, practiced motion. The well-aimed burst struck Captain Akko, the leader of Charlie Company, in the torso and slammed him backward into the two Minith rangers trailing behind. The trio fell and Becca advanced. She cast a quick look past them and saw the red and purple blood splatters that marked the deaths of her support staff. They hadn’t been armed, so had no chance at defending themselves against whatever madness drove these three. That quick glance of confirmation took a fraction of a second and was all the proof she needed.
She returned her attention to the two remaining Minith attackers. Subconsciously, she noted they were bringing their weapons to bear on her, but the conscious part of her—that part that drove her warrior instinct and controlled her trigger finger—took precedence. Less than a second and a half separated the first trigger pull that killed Akko from the second and third pulls that dispatched the other two traitors.
She put a follow-up burst in each body to be sure, then rushed past their crumpled forms to check on her staff.
* * *
Drah was seated comfortably behind his previous senior officer’s desk. He was receiving a steady influx of reports from the key leaders he had set into motion. Most were positive, with announcements that his forces were in control of the key installations around Telgora, including the mines, the Alliance human headquarters building, and the primary space landing facility. The latter was key to their success, and its capture had greatly relieved the stresses he had been feeling since putting his plan into motion.
There were only two apparent failures.
The first was his expectation that all of the Minith on the planet would rally to his battle cry and join the movement for emancipation and dominance. While his leaders had managed to sway a great number of their brothers to the cause, most—a full 80 percent—of the Minith on the planet had declined to commit themselves to the cause . . . yet. Instead, they expressed a desire to sit back and observe which way the tide flowed before taking a side.
He raged at the shortsighted weaklings, who refused to reach out and grasp their freedom from this sham of an alliance. With their backing, taking over this planet would have been a leisurely pace around the room. Without them—well, supremacy was still a foregone feat, but one that would require a bit more work. As long as they didn’t take up arms against the movement, he would succeed. Notes would be taken, however, on where each warrior chose to stand. When the fighting ended, settlements would be made accordingly.
Yes, he would pit the thirty-thousand Minith warriors that now followed him against the human’s fifteen-thousand without any worries over the eventual outcome. With Oinoo’s ten thousand Zrthn troopers added into the fray, the odds became even more tilted in their favor. Thanks to the surprise element of the uprising, a quarter of the human force on Telgora—five thousand soldiers—had already been killed or captured. The remainder were scattered across the planet, running from the Minith, hiding from their fate.
The second apparent failure was their inability to seize the Shiale Ranger Battalion headquarters. The force assigned to assault and take that location had yet to check in, and several second-hand reports indicated that the human sheep, Colonel Conway, was still in control and had neutralized their advances. Oh well. He could hardly expect perfection, and in the larger scheme, the facility was minimal. Two of the battalion’s ranger companies were off-world at the present time, which limited the danger. He would merely circle back around to her when he solidified his holdings elsewhere.
He put the failures out of mind and turned his attention toward more urgent matters. Now that the mines and the spaceport had been seized, the time had come to direct his forces against another major target of his movement to reclaim planetary dominance.
It was time to search out and destroy the Telgoran natives that lived beneath the planet’s surface. Those ignorant bean stalks had been a thorn in the paw of the Minith for decades. Removing the thorn would be a pleasurable endeavor and would serve to sate the blood lust of his soldiers.
* * *
Once the Zrthn ship’s command center was secure, Aank was brought forward. The engineer began speaking to the eight remaining Zrthns and immediately validated Eli’s suspicions regarding who commanded the ship. The sky blue tint covering his body made the ship’s captain—Senior Leader Ootoon, Aank discovered—the obvious choice.
At the Waa’s urging, and after verifying the ship would stay safely on course without their direct interaction, the remaining seven squids were removed from and taken to a holding area on the bottom deck. It would be good to give the Zrthns a taste of the pens.
Once Ootoon was alone, Aank went to work.
The high-pitched back and forth between the Waa and the Zrthn sounded like a replay of the earlier interrogation. Aank asked his questions, and the Zrthn repeated the same information back in response to each.
Name: Ootoon.
Ship name: Captive Taker One.
His position: Senior Ship Leader.
To Eli, the repetitive nature of the Zrthns responses was clear. The same sets of squeak-squeals were uttered in the same fashion and cadence. He wondered if Benson, or the others in the room, picked up on the subtle nuance of the alien exchange. If anyone did, they gave no indication. The fact that none of them had ever heard a Zrthn speak, much less understood what they were saying, probably helped in that regard. The important thing, though, was that Aank was able to read the mental responses that Ootoon unknowingly provided.
Aank mentally passed his questions—and the Zrthns unspoken responses—to Eli, as they were intercepted.
What is the purpose of this ship? Aank asked. The ship is a captivity ship. It facilitates the capture, retention, and disposal of enemy forces, he relayed the Zrthn’s response.
How many ships are in your group?
What is the purpose of the ships in your group?
How many fighters are on your ships?
Who is your force leader and where is he now?
What are your leader’s orders?
What is the goal of your force?
That response grabbed Eli’s attention, and he projected a query to Aank.
He said they are supporting an overthrow, Aank, Eli interjected into the stream of mental questions. That would mean someone else is leading the overthrow. Can we find out who?
Eli, I cannot ask him a question based on information obtained through a mental response. To do so would reveal that I can read his thoughts.
Ugh. I hadn’t thought of that. Sorry.
Eli struggled with a way to ask a question that might reveal the appropriate response, but realized it didn’t really matter. There was only one answer that made any sense, and he didn’t need to read the Zrthn’s mind to know what it was. The Minith was the only force on Telgora that would attempt such a move.
Aank, ask him how he communicates with the other ships.
How do you communicate with the other ships?
“What the—” Eli muttered before he could stop himself. Benson gave him a questioning look and shrugged as if to ask What? “Sorry, I just had a thought.”
Eli turned to the Waa engineer and asked, “Aank, what have you learned so far?”
In Earth Standard language, Aank quietly relayed the information he had obtained from the Zrthn for the benefit of the other rangers in the room. When Aank relayed the bit about “face-to-face communications,” Eli stopped the engineer and keyed in on the piece of info that was of immediate interest. If the reply they got back from the Zrthn was what he hoped, they had a way to move forward.
“Aank,” Eli asked out loud, again for the benefit of the other troops. “Ask how their face-to-face communications work.”
“Yes, Captain,” the little green alien replied in his quiet voice. He turned back to the Zrthn and resumed his squeak-squeal speech.
Five minutes later, Eli had his answer. He also had the vague beginnings of a plan. To implement it, he would need every available soldier he could gather.
“Benson, send word to our guard at the portal. We need Lieutenant Tenney over here as quickly as possible.”
Chapter 25
Becca Conway was pissed. She had spent the last fifteen years of her life preparing herself and her troops for battle. The fact that it was her troops that had initiated the attack against her and her staff went against everything she believed in. In her view, the three Minith had no sense of honor and deserved a far worse death than the one she had given them. With the exception of Sergeant Boyle, who had been in the back room, all of her staff had been killed in the assault.
Now, she and Boyle were in route to the nearest human units—a series of basic training battalions three kilometers away. Fellow human soldiers would be there, and she planned to enlist their aid in repelling what appeared to be a limited Minith coup. She termed it a “limited” coup because of what she learned on her first stop, which had been to Charlie Company of her own Shiale Ranger Battalion. She wanted to find out why the leader of the company—her previous subordinate—had attacked his commander and her staff. What she learned only added substantial fuel to the raging fire that now drove her. Akko and his two followers were part of a larger group. And that larger group’s plan was to take over Telgora.
Fortunately, not all Minith were fully on board with the plan. The three traitors had tried to co-opt the rest of the ranger company but had failed. That was good for Becca and Boyle, and was likely the reason they were still alive. The unfortunate news she had learned, however, was that while not all Minith were willing to join the coup, they also weren’t willing to help stomp it out, either. For most, the preferred course of action was to sit back and wait for a winner to emerge, then pledge fealty to the victor. Not for the first time, she cursed the fact that a large part of the army she belonged to was made up of alien beings that couldn’t be trusted to act in a predictable manner.
So, for now, she would ignore the Minith who sat on the sidelines. Instead, she would focus on those who were carrying the flag of Minith insurrection and aggression.
Peace help those poor flockers, she thought as she ran around the corner of the first basic training building. This was the unit where Eli and his fellow armored recruits had trained, she noted.
The absence of human recruits, and their Minith sergeants, was the first indication that something was not quite right. Normally, the area would be filled with activity as the soldiers went about their daily tasks and activities. As a result of the stillness, she assumed the coup had reached here and slowed her movement to match her sudden caution. She moved to the side of the building and peeked into the first window she came to. An empty barracks room.
She moved farther along the building, carefully scanning the area around her and Boyle. The young sergeant had never experienced battle, and she was pleased to see he was mirroring her movements. She inspected each window she passed but found the same thing in each. No sign of anyone. She reached the front entrance and debated whether to enter the building or move on to the next. This particular training facility was set up in a quad-type settlement: four long buildings, built corner-to-corner in a box fashion, with an open area—the quad—in the middle.
A sudden flurry of shouting came from the quad area. That pushed her into motion. She rushed into the building and passed through the entryway. Boyle kept his position behind as they entered, and she scanned the area, alert for the unexpected. No one. She then quick-walked past the central corridor and approached the doorway on the far side that led to the quad. She flattened to the side of the double door and looked out.
The first thing she noticed was the crowd of recruits seated in rows on the flat sand ground of the quad. Then, she noted the armed Minith soldiers. There were five in total, one at each corner of the quad with another in the middle of the group. The shouts were coming from where the Minith in the center stood. He had a pulser, and it was aimed at a knot of recruits, who were struggling to hold back one of their own, who seemed intent on attacking the alien.
She recognized the Minith from the vid of Captain Zero’s assault on the tower. Sergeant Brek. It figured he was in on the conspiracy.
All eyes were focused on the skirmish, so none missed it when Brek pulled the trigger of his weapon and fired indiscriminately into the group.
The action caused an uproar from all of the seated soldiers, who were obviously being held against their will. As she watched, the two recruits nearest to the murdering alien jumped up and rushed the Minith. Each was cut down in turn, but it didn’t stop other unarmed recruits from joining the one-sided battle. She felt a conflicting rush of emotion that was filled with pride, sadness, and shame. Those emotions were quickly replaced by the anger that she had been feeling since this whole thing started.
“Let’s go, Boyle,” she said over her shoulder as she pushed through the doors that led into the quad. Her finger was already applying pressure to the trigger of her weapon. “You move left, and I’ll go right.”
Her first shot was good, and she felt a surge of satisfaction as Brek was thrown backward in a spray of purple, alien blood. She remembered that splash with some degree of familiarity. She had killed more than a few of the large aliens nearly a dozen years before on Waa. She had been a sergeant during the
Peace Wars and led a squad of untested, human soldiers against the Minith. They had beaten the aliens then, and she was convinced they would do so now.
Her second trigger pull produced another purple splatter as the guard on the far corner was dispatched. She had to admit, it was an excellent shot. The distance made it tough, but the fact that he was facing the doorway and had seen her take out the Minith in the center made him the necessary second target. She didn’t wait to see the body crumple. Instead, she twisted her body to the right and drilled a shot into the large, green alien posted at the near corner. He was just turning toward her when her pulse round caught him in the chest and flung him away from the humans he had been tasked to watch over.
Once her side of the quad was cleared, Becca turned to the left and looked for how Boyle was getting along. She noted that the nearest Minith on his side was falling backward, a large hole in his torso. A slight twinge of pride slipped through her anger, and she turned just in time to see the last Minith at the farthest corner of the quad get swarmed by a dozen soldiers. Despite his larger size and stronger frame, he succumbed to the numbers and went down. His rifle was wrenched from his grip and was quickly turned on him, successfully ending the melee.
Although it still couldn’t surpass the anger that coursed through her, the initial pride she had felt grew just a bit larger. She didn’t know what week of training these recruits were in, but they definitely had the proper mindset for what she needed.
* * *
Oinoo received confirmation from his Minith lackey on the ground that all was ready, and he wriggled his tentacles in gleeful anticipation. After decades of having to work through intermediaries, and being forced to submit to irritating contractual necessities, the agsel deposits that filled the planet below would soon belong to him. No longer would he or his pod need to comply with the contracts negotiated with these backland heathens in order to obtain the valuable ore. Instead, he would be establishing contracts of his own. Contracts that others—pod and nonpod—would have to agree to and obey.
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