The Exxar Chronicles: Book 01 - The Erayan

by Neal Jones

  "Tell me more about your father. Was he an overbearing man? Stern? Demanding? Did you join the military because of him?"

  "Yes, yes ... I did. I wanted to make him proud."

  "I don't accept your apology." Paul stood closer to Gabriel, sneering down at him. "Do you really love her?"

  "Yes."

  "Liar. You're a drunk. You've never had a relationship that lasted more than six months. Now you want to marry my widow and be a father to my son."

  "Yes!"

  Serehl's good eye narrowed. "You're a bad liar, commodore." Gabriel cried out as a flash of pain ricocheted through his nervous system. "Who do you see?"

  "P-Paul."

  Serehl smiled. "That's better. What is he saying to you?"

  Gabriel spoke to Paul. "I love her, but she doesn't want me."

  "Because she knows that you aren't ready to be a father. That's what the issue is really about, isn't it?"

  Gabriel turned his face to Serehl. "I don't believe you. Show me Mariah."

  "You are in no position to make demands, Marc. You will have to take my word that she is my captive."

  "Fuck you! Show her to me!"

  "Fuck yourself!" Paul retorted. "Why do you want her? If you don't love her, why do you want her?"

  Pain ripped through Gabriel's body, and he screamed. But then the room was suddenly plunged into darkness as the Tl'Keth's main systems went off line.

  Gabriel continued screaming.

  ( 10 )

  The virus that Criswell uploaded twenty minutes earlier had struck its first blow. Saveck and the other escaped prisoners moved through the dim lighting of emergency power with speed and precision, easily making their way to the PTL shaft and descending to the deck below the one they escaped from. The small arms locker was the second door on the left, but a squad of infantry rounded the corner at the intersection just beyond it, just as the last of the prisoners clambered from the shaft.

  Saveck, Hiller and Ranoss opened fire, catching the enemy off guard and taking out most of the squad. The survivors fell back, disappearing the way they'd come, and Saveck and Hiller continued laying down cover fire while the rest of their team forced their way into the weapons room. The major and commander followed them and sealed the door as best they could without having access to its computer controls.

  "What have we got?" Hiller demanded.

  "Enough to get us to secondary shuttledock," Greene responded, donning battle armor. The suit pieces were two sizes too big, so she was forced to wear just the torso shield.

  In fact, most of the EarthCorps officers could only fit into the chest and back piece, while Saveck, Ranoss and the other Chrisarii took a few more minutes to put on the rest of the body armor. Extra weapons were passed around, including grenade belts and daggers. Criswell looked a little wary when the blade was strapped to her thigh, but Ranoss assured her she would appreciate it when the time came.

  "If you say so," the petty officer muttered. She was pretty sure that since she hadn't had training in hand to hand combat since that one week in her second year at the academy, she would probably be dead before she had the presence of mind to reach for the alien dagger.

  When everyone was ready, Saveck and Hiller forced open the door just enough to toss a flash grenade through. This was immediately followed by a chemical bomb, which spewed clouds of thick, gray gas. The door was forced open the rest of the way, and the assault team - with their masks firmly in place over mouth and nose - charged into the corridor. Saveck and Hiller laid down cover fire while the others doubled back to the PTL shaft and began descending. Deck eighteen was deserted, and everyone scrambled out of the shaft and regrouped.

  Lieutenant Ranoss double checked the readouts on her scanner. "We've probably got a couple minutes, maybe less."

  "You, Hiller and ... you three–" Saveck pointed to a DrayH'M officer and a pair of EarthCorps soldiers "-you're coming with me. The rest of you get to weapons control!"

  "We're going after the commodore?" Hiller asked.

  Saveck gave a curt nod as he activated his scanner. It took only a moment for the device to detect Gabriel's transponder signal, and while the major was mildly surprised that his captors hadn't bothered to remove it, he was thankful for small miracles. "Let's go!"

  The party split up, with Saveck and his team continuing the length of the corridor – Hiller paused long enough to toss a chemical bomb over his shoulder - and the others returning to the PTL shaft.

  ( 11 )

  The bridge was a scene of barely controlled chaos.

  "Report!" Major Ri'Lmor barked.

  "Main power is off line!"

  "Yes, I can see that!" he snapped. "Tell me why!"

  But no one could respond until the emergency systems came up, and even then there were several consoles whose interfaces remained dark. Ri'Lmor strode rapidly to the tactical station where Lieutenant Shadric was glowering at the one readout that he'd managed to pull up on his display.

  "The computer isn't responding to any of my commands! I have no explanation for what's happening, sir!"

  "It's the prisoners! Somehow they've escaped!" This was from Lieutenant Major Vokra, and every soldier on the bridge heard the unspoken accusation. Serehl's hunger for vengeance had doomed his crew.

  "What are your orders, sir?" Lieutenant Mau'Rit was the most junior member of the bridge command crew, and Major Ri'Lmor came to an immediate decision.

  "Are we completely locked out of all systems?" he asked Shadric.

  The tactical officer tried entering in several more commands, and his scowl deepened as he read the error messages. "Yes. None of my access codes are being recognized."

  "A virus." This was from Lieutenant Major Vokra again, and her eyes flashed with nearly unbridled fury at how easily the Exxar-One crew had duped them.

  "But how?" Mau'Rit responded. "We were assured that our systems were impenetrable to attacks of this kind."

  "Almost impenetrable," Ri'Lmor corrected. "And it doesn’t matter now how this was done. We must find a way to get back control of our ship! Our first priority is to restore communications. Find a way to get it done." He turned to Vokra. "Take five soldiers and go after the prisoners."

  "Yes, sir!" She turned on her heel and barked out names as she charged for the PTL. The doors were forced open via the manual operations lever, but the major was certain that Vokra would have torn through them with her bare hands if she'd needed to.

  He turned away from the crew, his mind racing to come up with options while he silently cursed Serehl. Why couldn't he have simply followed orders? Gods damn the man for his selfishness! But that wasn't what caused the cold sweat that now greased Ri'Lmor's palms and brow. What terrified him the most was that this behavior and attitude was out of the ordinary for Serehl. The colonel had not won the battles during the war that he did by allowing his personal feelings and emotions to cloud his judgment. He had built his reputation on being ruthlessly cold and fearlessly logical when it came to planning and instituting tactical strategies. War was a game to him, a conflict of strength, wits and cunning, and he treated the battleground as a playing board; the ships and soldiers as pieces and pawns. Alador Serehl knew his enemy's weakness, knew how to exploit it, and knew at all times which players to sacrifice – if it was necessary – in order to achieve victory.

  And that was what made this whole situation so disturbing, so ... terrifying. Serehl had played right into Gabriel's hands from the beginning. He had given the commodore's crew time to plan, time to prepare, and now the fleet would most likely be destroyed before the Jha'Drok reinforcements arrived. If they arrived at all. Ri'Lmor knew what he had to do, but he also refused to dishonor himself and his warrior's code by displaying weakness to his subordinates. He turned to Shadric, and pitched his voice so only the tactical officer could hear.

  "Is there any to determine for certain that this virus is affecting the rest of the fleet?"

  "No, but it's a logical assumption." He glanced around to ma
ke sure none of the other officers were in hearing range. "Sir, there's only one way that this virus could be so effective so quickly."

  "The raider they captured," Ri'Lmor replied.

  "Exactly. They knew how our systems worked, knew the vulnerabilities in our defense and security protocols, or at the very least, knew how to find them."

  The major frowned and shook his head. "They couldn't have known all of that from a raider. The operating systems of a dreadnought are far more sophisticated."

  "But the model is the same. They also had plenty of time to study it and dissect the technology."

  Ri'Lmor nodded and then walked the periphery of the bridge. He remembered something he had read from a technical manual the year before. There was a way to manually initiate an overload of the central reactor core, but it would have to be done from one of the primary stations in the engineering sector. As he paced, he nodded to each of his officers, exuding confidence and control. They could accomplish this task, but it would take teamwork and patience. It was also going to take a thorough knowledge of the Tl'Keth's maintenance tubes and secondary service junctions. If they moved fast enough, they could outmaneuver the Federation prisoners, especially since the major knew of at least one of their destinations.

  "All right," he said at last, turning to face his crew. "Here's what we're going to do."

  ( 12 )

  "Shit!" Commander Teske jabbed a button on his tac monitor. "We've got incoming! Multiple signatures!"

  "Which direction?" Zar's voice was calm as he gripped his pulser.

  Teske went pale as he glanced at the security chief. "Sir, we're surrounded. They're coming in from both directions." He rechecked his readout. "I'm picking up weapons fire from the lab section, and there's twenty more signatures coming from the corridor. They'll be on us in two minutes or less. There was at least forty that transported into the CSI labs."

  Forty against twenty-five wasn't good odds, and twenty against five was even worse. So this is it, Jerren mused. The Haal'Chai decided my sector was valuable after all. He readied his weapon as Lieutenants Kinsen and Warhicki forced open the double doors. Ensign Cooke stepped up to the plate and hurled a pair of flash grenades into the corridor, one in either direction. Jerren had a sudden, absurd flashback to his seventh birthday. His parents had taken the whole family to the Turecho festival, and one of the major events was a parade. Jerren loved parades, but this one had been unusually traumatic for him because of a clown that had been tossing out harmless fireworks instead of candy. They made a very loud popping sound, not unlike the voices of flash grenades, and one had landed near Jerren. It had scared the shit out of him, and this was his last coherent memory before the Haal'Chai soldiers stormed the security office.

  The battle was mercifully brief. Krael Zar and his men fought with everything they had, but it wasn't near enough. They were attacked from both directions, as the battle in the CSI labs had been short and victorious for the enemy. When it was all over, after one of the Haal'Chai sliced open Jerren's throat, his last thought was how his mother had comforted him. He'd been sobbing like a baby, so terrified by the unexpected noise of the firecracker, and she hadn't scolded him for being so immature. Instead, Taelon had wrapped her son in her arms and murmured a soft lullaby in his ear. She promised him an extra present at his party later that afternoon.

  Jerren wanted to cry again, but there wasn't enough breath left.

  And then it no longer mattered.

  ( 13 )

  Her voice was close to his ear. Marcus Gabriel couldn't see, the room was pitch dark, but he could hear her voice murmuring into his left ear.

  "Do not be afraid, commodore. The Gods are with you now, and you are protected. I am praying for you."

  It took Gabriel a few minutes to realize that it was the Delphic priestess whom he was hearing, and he thought, What the hell? Why not? I've heard from Paul, my father, Ensign Riley. Why not a priestess too? And while we're at it, let's bring back that bully from junior high who I kicked the shit out of and cost his mother a thousand credits in dental bills. The memory was so absurd - Gabriel hadn't thought of that afternoon in a long time - that he laughed out loud.

  But the sound was cut short by the hand that gripped his throat like a vise, and the cold steel against his skin could only be a dagger. "Our time is finished, Marcus Gabriel. I shall now take your life as the lives of my sons and my sons' children were taken from them. And after that I will take the life of Mariah Decev, and then I will destroy your starbase." His voice had been perched close to Gabriel's right ear the whole time, and the commodore could feel the saliva drops from the colonel's mouth as he spat his final words. "This war is not over!"

  That same distant corner of Gabriel's brain that had scorned him for weeping earlier now prepared him for the worst. This was it. He was going to die, and all he could think about just now was that he had forgotten to snatch a few books from his library back home before coming out here. They'd been in his old room at the ranch in Idaho, and there was one in particular that he'd meant to grab, though he couldn't remember the title or why he'd wanted it.

  And then the rest of his brain, the conscious mind that was in the present, was screaming at him to get the hell up, that his arms and legs were free and if he didn't get up now, he was going to die for sure.

  And the priestess was still whispering in his ear, murmuring in the ancient Greek language some kind of prayer. She was reciting it even after Gabriel had forced his body to move, forced his fists to collide with his captor's temple. The blow loosened Serehl's grip just enough to allow Gabriel to propel himself forward out of the chair. He and the Chrisarii sprawled on the floor, and the commodore rolled away, trying to remember where the control console had been in relation to the chair.

  The priestess' voice was still in his left ear, as if she was strapped to his back.

  Gabriel's muscles screamed from the sudden exertion, and he flopped on the floor like a fish out of water. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate, and he was trying to reach the console. Beside it was the tray of miscellaneous instruments, and he was sure that one of them was a scalpel or a knife, or something else equally sharp that could be used as a weapon.

  But Serehl was faster and he pounced on the commodore and drove the blade into Gabriel's side, between his third and fourth ribs. The pain was so intense and so agonizing that there was nothing Marc could do except collapse in Serehl's arms, and the colonel yanked out the knife and thrust it into the prisoner's chest.

  That was the final straw, and Gabriel's tether to reality was broken, snapped in two like a twig. He started to close his eyes, but then the world suddenly exploded as the darkness was lit up with fiery, blue explosions and the sound terminated the whispers of the prayers in his left ear. He felt Serehl's grip on him fall away, and he tried again to stand, but his legs still refused to respond, and then other hands were lifting him, and while he struggled to keep his eyes open, he was fast losing the battle. Did he try to speak? That was his voice, but surely his words hadn't been that slurred.

  Another voice, close to his right ear. "... commodore ... hear me? ... are you ... major, he's ..."

  No, I'm not a major, Gabriel thought. I'm a commodore. My serial number is CS-two-five-four-dash-A-nine-seven-one-four. I'm an officer of the EarthCorps navy. It is my responsibility to resist -

  "Commodore... this is ...-eck. Don't try ..."

  Yes, Gabriel thought. So tired. So tired of trying. It's better this way. So weak. I just need to rest for a little while.

  He remembered nothing more.

  ( 14 )

  PO3 Criswell and the other fifteen officers that escaped from Tl'Keth's brig arrived safe and sound at weapons control. They'd encountered only three squads of Chrisarii during their trek that spanned six decks and fourteen sections. Flash grenades and chemical bombs had taken out most of the enemy, and the seven Marines that Gabriel had snuck onto the command deck in navy uniforms blew away the survivors with letha
l precision. Two of them forced open the double doors that served as main entrance to weapons control, but the chemical bomb that was hurled into the room did little to throw off the aim of the soldiers stationed there.

  The firefight was intense but brief. Three of the Marines were wounded and, while Lieutenant Ccert patched up their injuries with an emergency medkit, Criswell moved to the central console and keyed in a twenty-eight digit code. She held her breath as she waited for the virus to recognize the decryption key, and, for a moment, she was sure it had failed; that they'd made it this far only to lose the battle. But then the console display gave a short, quick beep and main systems came back on line. The lights came up, and the rest of the console interfaces lit up with self-diagnostic reports.

  "I don't fucking believe it!" Criswell muttered.

  "You sound shocked," Sergeant Tyson said.

  "Let's just say that there was about fifty variables that could have - should have - caused this plan to go south, and leave it at that." She started to enter commands, her fingers moving with the same speed and precision with which the Marines had dispatched the Haal'Chai soldiers that had gotten in their way.

  ( 15 )

  "Shit! He's losing a lot of blood, major!" In the glare of the flashlight, Hiller's palms looked as if he'd dunked his hands in dark paint.

  The overhead lights suddenly lit up, illuminating all too clearly the extent of Gabriel's injuries.

  "Jesus Christ!" Hiller muttered.

  They had managed to get the commodore back into the chair, and while the blood wasn't gushing from the pair of wounds, it was streaming in a steady flow that was quickly dripping to the decksole and pooling at an alarming rate. His skin was deathly pale, and the gash in his upper chest had probably pierced his heart or some other vital organ.