“Tell Nee to open the cryo chambers. We have to find one of them with passing knowledge of the wormholes,” Tom said.
After a brief pause, the Zilph’i albino replied, “Very well. Shall we expect your return soon, sir?”
“On my way.” Tom smiled at Captain Shu. They might not have any idea what was preparing for them across the void, but at least they had an exit plan.
____________
Yur paced the maintenance room. The rest of the crew were out and about, mostly on leave for dinner, others set upon menial tasks around the ship. Yur was waiting for the orders. She’d sent him a message last night, warning him to be prepared.
Now, seeing the wormhole outside the ship, Yur felt his efforts had led them to this moment. The legendary Concord vessel Cecilia was beside them, and Yur considered the treachery he was going to embark on. If they caught him, he’d be called a traitor to the good Concord. He’d heard rumors the Prime was on the ship, along with Admiral Hudson. How could he detonate the device with the chance their ship might be destroyed?
His benefactor claimed it was nothing so dire, and the fact that she had to be on board with him eased his mind slightly.
He held the small communication device, his hip aching as he walked from one end of the room to the other, a scattering of tools covering the tables, chairs, and work benches. It would be over soon, and he was glad, because he didn’t think he’d be able to deal with the pressure forever.
____________
Tarlen felt more alive than ever as they hurried through the grass and into the forest. He’d seen trees before on Greblok, but nothing like these majestic, healthy behemoths. Greblok’s versions of trees were skinny, short, and lucky to have a handful of gray leaves sparsely covering the branches. These rose high into the sky, so tall that Tarlen was able to walk beneath their boughs.
“Over here,” Treena said. She moved with such ease, even running, he struggled to keep up with the commander. So did Reeve, and she dallied behind them a hundred yards away. The metal ridge rose from the ground ten feet, and Tarlen stopped short of it as Treena walked around the rectangular perimeter.
“The drone images show the doorway should be this way,” Treena said as Reeve arrived. The Tekol woman was panting and reached for some water from her pack.
Tarlen stared at the wall in front of them and ran a hand along it, feeling the rough, bumpy dark surface. “I feel a lip here.”
There was no visible handle, but Treena pressed on the spot Tarlen had indicated, and something clicked before the sizeable door hinged open. Tarlen stepped around the swinging entrance and followed the others onto the fake grass. Instantly, it felt different on his bare feet, and he unslung his pack, putting his boots on again.
The open space within the walls was at least a hundred feet wide and slightly longer, and Tarlen walked to the center, where Treena was crouched. She was tugging on something, a metallic handle, and with great effort, she tore open the grass. Beneath it was a hatch.
“How did you do that?” Tarlen asked the woman. She wasn’t that much bigger than he was, and there was no way he could have ripped the ground open like that.
“Lucky touch,” she said with a smile. “Reeve, your turn.”
There was a keypad, and Reeve pulled something from her pack, setting it on the device. “Whatever was here is long dead, but I think I can bring it to life.” She used her tablet, the device glowing soon after. Tarlen heard a hum from below them, and the hatch slid open a minute later. The Concord had so many amazing tools. He wished his father was here with him so he could see how much technology was out there. Greblok really was a backwater planet, by every definition. At that moment, he wished he could trade this experience to be home, safely before the attack, before he’d ever heard of them trying to join the Concord.
“What is it?” he asked, peering through the opening to where Treena shone a light.
“Stairs,” she said, glancing at Reeve.
“Fine, Starling. A quick in and out, then we find Brax. Deal?” Reeve offered.
____________
Brax woke in the middle of the night with the strangest feeling in his gut. He’d been dreaming of home. Back on Nolix, they studied hard every day of the year, but occasionally, their parents would take them to the beach, where they played in the water.
Reeve would always try to discover new things under the sea, while Brax preferred to soak up the sun, letting the sand slip between his toes as he played Tuuka with his father. He’d dreamt of a specific moment where he’d been lounging on the beach, his father dozing in a chair beside him, his mother reading some scientific document like always.
Reeve had screamed from the water, and Brax had rushed to her aid so quickly, he’d nearly rolled his ankle. It turned out she’d thought something had bitten her, but she’d only stepped on a rock. For a moment, he’d been so afraid, his own foot in pain. That was the first time their bond had affected him. Twins were rare on Tekol, and because of it, they’d been offered the best schooling and grants; their parents couldn’t have been happier.
Reeve always claimed she could feel his emotions more than he could hers, but now he stared at the ceiling and swore he felt astonishment: not from him, but from Reeve. And it was close. He sat up slowly, looking around.
Gone were the soft cries and soothing conversation. It was a few hours from daybreak; even the insects were quieter now, their mating rituals satisfied for the night.
“Reeve?” he asked so quietly, the words were silent. He concentrated, trying to feel her emotions again, but it was gone as quickly as it had hit him.
Was it just the dream or was she really nearby? He sat there for another five minutes, still feeling nothing. Eventually, he relaxed into the bunk. Instead of trying to sleep, he stayed calm, ready for action. If his sister was really on the planet, he would be prepared.
He glanced over at Penter, the man’s chest rising and falling evenly, and considered waking his new friend, telling him a rescue might be arriving sooner than later. He decided to let the man rest. He was going to need it.
I’m here, Reeve. I’ll be ready.
____________
The stairs went for a hundred or so feet below, leading them into a cavernous room. “You’d think they would have opted for an elevator,” Treena said, activating her tablet’s light feature.
Reeve clipped a portable light onto her holster strap, and the space became illuminated quickly. “Let’s be glad there were stairs. We have no way of powering this place up.”
“What is this?” Tarlen asked.
Treena tried to make sense of what she was seeing. It was gray, smooth-surfaced, and there were colored markings along the floor, leading to different doorways along the far walls. “It looks like an old underground base of some kind. Let’s take a peek.”
Reeve stopped in her tracks, and Treena heard her mutter her brother’s name. “Brax… he’s alive. I could feel him.”
“I thought that was only a rumor. The whole Tekol twin thing?” Treena asked.
“Not really. We haven’t ever been very strong, but I know him, and I think he senses I’m here. We have to find his camp,” Reeve said.
“We will. After we explore for a few minutes,” Treena said, and Tarlen was already running off, looking at a complex diagram along the wall. She wasn’t sure why, but she needed to understand what they were currently inside. The idea of leaving this strange underground base so soon didn’t feel right.
“Commander Starling, I think it’s best…”
“Look!” Tarlen’s shout startled Treena, and she moved to his side, looking at the image displayed on the wall. “It’s a city.”
“What’s he talking about?” Reeve asked from behind them.
Treena ran her eyes over the diagram, seeing the various colors indicating levels. “He’s right. Reeve, look, there are corridors connecting the various neighborhoods.” She pointed to one near the middle of the image. There was a green dot beside a long
passageway. “I think this shows where we currently are.”
Reeve moved her light across the wall, smiling. “And if we follow this corridor, it takes us directly to the slave camp where Brax is. Right here, it has to be. Each of those many outbuildings we saw from the orbital imaging is on this map. They must be using the entrances to the underground city as pens for the slaves.”
Tarlen stared back with big eyes. “Does that mean the Statu are underground too?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Treena said, searching for the orange level. That took them to the nearest outbuilding, where she suspected they’d find Reeve’s brother. The door with orange markings was only twenty feet away, and she headed there, finding a handhold along it. She tugged it wide, and listened for sounds from down the corridor. It was silent. That was a good sign.
“Try to be as quiet as you can. Reeve, lower your light level and be prepared to deactivate entirely. With any luck, we’ll be there very soon.” Treena stepped up a few more stairs, these ones hard and metal. Her bootsteps were louder than she would have liked, and she attempted to move with more stealth. Reeve, who was lighter because she wasn’t filled with electronic compounds like Treena, moved noiselessly behind her. Tarlen may as well have been a ghost.
Treena found her bearings, the corridor reminding her of the old relic spaceships from centuries ago. The halls were curved, no computers sat recessed into the surface, and it went on for as far as the eye could see.
Before things like gravity generators and faster-than-light engines, space travel had been nothing like it was today. The very first human starships had been long, gangly things with sealed corridors between rotating centrifuge circles. These corridors were spacious, high enough for someone eight feet tall to cross without burden. They moved quickly, their lights softly guiding the way along the passageway’s unchanging appearance.
Treena had an idea. If these led to each of the sites, what if they could bring the Greblok slaves down to safety? It would take a difficult and coordinated effort, and with the looming threat of the incoming warships, she wasn’t sure they had time to put it all together. Even if they could gather all of the Bacals, they didn’t have a ship capable enough for a mass evacuation. It wasn’t going to work. Her best move was to stick to the plan. Rescue Brax Daak and retreat, bringing information to Constantine.
The kilometer or so passed quickly, and soon they found another door on their right.
“This is it. I bet it’s directly underneath the building Brax is inside,” Treena said.
Reeve closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “He’s up there, I can feel it. I think he knows I’m here.”
Treena grabbed her gun, holding the XCR-14 as if it weighed nothing in her hands. It was too large a weapon for most humans, especially someone her size, but she wielded it with ease. Tarlen blinked hard at her and pulled his own handheld PL-30, swallowing as he glanced at it.
Reeve held her own compact gun and nodded to Treena. “Let’s find my brother.”
Treena opened the door and heard the surprised clicks before seeing the waking Statu come to life inside the room. They were tall, dark exoskeletons, just like the figures in the cryo chambers on Constantine.
Before thinking, she fired at the two she could see.
Twenty
Brax felt his sister’s emotions filling his mind, and he stood, staring toward the floor. She was close by, and everything he felt said that she was underneath the room at that moment.
The sliver of moonlight had moved across the room as the night passed by, and it settled along the wall now, where a Statu armored guard stood as rigid as a statue.
He watched it for another moment, seeing that it didn’t move at all. Was it asleep? He crept low to the ground, his hip hardly above the rows of bunks. A man woke as he moved, his eyes going wide, and Brax placed a finger to his lips. The man nodded his understanding.
There was only one guard inside the room with them, but Brax knew there were a few more lingering around the slave camp. He’d seen as many as ten, he thought, but it was hard to tell them apart without getting a closer look. They all wore the old dented armored suits, making it even more difficult to differentiate them. Right now, he didn’t care. He only needed a weapon. He’d been waiting for an opportune moment to arrive, and this was it.
There was a narrow path between the bunks along the room’s wall, and he took it, heading toward the unmoving guard. He noticed another form moving through the room in the dim light, and he prayed it wasn’t another Statu. He only had one shot at this.
Brax was big, but he tried to hide behind the bunk nearest to the Statu, crawling along the floor toward the guard. Its crude gun hung on a strap over its shoulder, and he reached out, grabbing its leg, pulling it to the ground with a strong effort. The room exploded in noise as the armor clanged against the wall, then on the end of a metallic bunk. The gun scattered away, and some of the slaves were running away from the altercation, absently kicking the weapon and Brax’s hope for freedom with it.
Brax was on top of the dazed enemy and he grabbed the helmet, using all his strength to bash it into the hard floor. The guard flailed, trying to shove Brax off him, but Constantine’s chief of security was stronger and better trained in combat.
The doors opened, sending a breeze through the stuffy room, and as the guard under him went limp, Brax saw a blast coming from a newly-arrived guard. He rolled over, using the lifeless man under him as a shield, and he heard Penter shout, “Everyone down!”
Gunfire was everywhere, beams cutting through the stale air, and when Brax emerged from behind his shield, the guard he held was dead, and so was the one at the doorway. Penter had the first gun in his hand, and he raced to the door, tossing Brax the other weapon.
“You think I was going to let you fight them alone?” Penter asked with a grin.
“I’ll thank you later,” Brax said, stepping over the fallen Statu. “Everyone stay put!” he told the gathering crowd.
“What do we do?”
“Why have you doomed us?”
“Get him!”
Brax hadn’t expected this from the Greblok slaves, and he hated himself as he aimed his gun toward the few advancing people.
Penter spoke up, standing beside him. “If you’re really Bacal, stand down. This man is trying to help you.” That seemed to do the trick, but a few mutters carried over the worried conversation.
Brax spotted Abbil cautiously walking toward him from the rear of the room. Her eyes were wide and fearful. “Abbil, I need you to keep everyone calm and quiet until I return,” he instructed her.
She didn’t reply as she approached. Instead, she stared at the two dead Statu guards.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“I hear you,” she said softly.
“Good.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this.” He turned from her and toward the door. “I think there’s a room underneath us. We need to find it,” he whispered to Penter as they exited, weapons up in case of more guards arriving. Outside, it was eerily silent. The moonlight was bright, and Brax witnessed no incoming party of Statu looking for retaliation.
“A room? What makes you say that?” Penter asked as they ran around the structure, staying close to the exterior wall.
“Let’s call it a hunch,” Brax told him. He’d seen the guards entering around the corner, and he paused, aiming the odd weapon before stepping past the edge.
“There’s a doorway,” Penter said.
They tiptoed through the entrance, finding the narrow room empty. As expected, there was a staircase leading into a basement. Brax pointed at it with his gun, the handle vibrating as he gripped it. It emitted a low whine as he lowered the barrel and took the lead down the steps.
Brax stopped, hearing muffled noises erupting from behind another slab. He raised a hand, telling Penter to wait. When the sounds stopped, he kept moving, pressing his palm against the door. Slowly, he pushed it open. The spac
e was dimly lit, and there were at least six dead Statu on the floor. Across the room, a figure emerged from the shadows, and Brax ducked as a blast hit the wall right above his head.
“Stop! Reeve, is that you?” Brax called from his crouched position.
“Brax?” his sister’s familiar voice asked, and he felt a surge of happiness course through him from across the room. He stepped out as she locked her PL-30 into its holster. She ran to him, jumping on him as she hugged him firmly.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant Commander Daak,” Treena Starling said as she stepped into the light.
“Sorry about almost shooting you,” a kid said. He was wearing a Concord Fleet uniform, but what was a junior officer in training doing on a rescue mission?
“Tarlen? By the Stars, it really is you!” Penter said, moving to the boy’s side and tousling his hair.
“Penter, you’re alive! We found a city.” Tarlen grinned from ear to ear.
“Now that the reunion is done, can we get the hell out of here?” Starling asked, and Brax saw the boy’s face drop.
“What about my people?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, kid. We have to leave them.”
____________
“There’s no turning back, Captain Baldwin. You are aware, correct?” Ven asked.
Tom sat in his captain’s chair, the bridge crew noticeably different than when they’d started this venture. A week as leader of the flagship, and he was already missing… almost everyone.
“I’m aware, Ven. Thank you for your concern.” Tom glanced to his side, where Yephion sat staring toward the wormhole in the viewer. A female Statu was behind him, clutching the seat’s headrest with a firm grip. Not much separated the two sexes as far as Tom could tell, but he was no xenobiology expert.
“Impulse speed, set course for the wormhole.” Tom gave the order and saw there was an incoming message from Cecilia. It appeared on the viewer, Captain Shu’s image covering half of their screen.
Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Series Page 21