Revenant

by Raymond Bayly

  Their eyes never stopped moving,

  and they were ready for any threat.

  She thought the woman had spotted her but then she had looked away.

  That was enough for now,

  she had to get back to Kree,

  she would meet the crew soon enough.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTYSEVEN

  Last Call

  The Team spread out and slowly made their way across the dock area towards the elevators,

  hands on guns but nothing drawn.

  The air was tense, and it showed on everyone’s face.

  As they approached the bank of elevators,

  Blake motioned to Shira

  “Take a position to the left of the elevators and cover us.”

  Shira nodded and moved off.

  He then nodded at Rom

  “Take a position to the right,

  let’s make sure anyone coming out of that elevator wanting trouble doesn’t get the drop on us.”

  Rom grunted approval and moved towards the right.

  Blake found a set of crates giving him a good vantage point when the elevator doors opened but still offering cover from weapons fire should he need it.

  Rom had his hand on a pistol that looked more like a cannon than a handgun,

  if he hit something with that,

  it would leave a hole a large truck could drive through.

  A few workers who were talking amongst themselves approached the elevators and then caught a glimpse of Rom who shook his head and drummed his fingers on the holster of the massive weapon.

  Suddenly the workers found someplace else they needed to be.

  Blake watched with a sense of pride as his team scanned the area and knew if anything short of a bug moved suspiciously it would last about as long as a candy bar in a fat farm.

  Blake touched a button on the earpiece and spoke “Davi, how is the loading coming,

  and can you tell if our landing caught any undue attention from other ships in the area?”.

  Davi responded quickly,

  the edge of excitement in his voice was quite obvious

  “Oh Captain these creatures are wondrous absolutely WONDROUS. You should see the different species,

  I am right now in trade with a creature that calls itself a Maxwalan for some of its bile and secretions,

  the price is a little high,

  but I truly feel it will be worth it should we make it back to Earth and I am allowed to publish my findings.” Blake sighed

  “Davi, no magic beans okay,

  we need that money, and how about you answer everything I just fucking asked you about that didn’t pertain to gross secretions from an alien.”

  He shook his head,

  he would have to talk to Davi about combat protocol and radio discipline at some point,

  well should they live through this little adventure. “Sorry Captain, I will ensure it does not come out of the ship bank, as for the cargo, it’s loaded, quite an efficient setup they have here I must say.

  No ships have queried us or raised shields or guns since our landing.

  So, it appears we are in the clear,

  now if I could just get a small loan to…”

  Blake cut him off.

  Staying near his cover spot,

  he scanned the area to ensure they were still alone, and no uninvited guests had arrived.

  He didn’t like it,

  the cat creature seemed to have vanished without a trace, she didn’t belong and was lurking right here at their docking bay,

  as if she knew they were coming.

  His intel told him that at the very least an all-points bulletin had gone out for a ship resembling

  The Derenge. ,

  “Captain two lifts are on their way down,

  one is empty,

  and the other apparently has two occupants.”

  Rom announced over the Com,

  Blake stopped for a moment and thought,

  then he hit his earbud,

  “Rom grab the first one that lands if it has people, escort them out we don’t need to hurt anyone who isn’t looking for a fight but get them out quick.” well they were here,

  so, there was no point in being subtle now.

  Someone sooner or later was going to come and check out the ship,

  he would rather have them follow their trail than try and take the ship with only Davi on board.

  He was sure Morgan could take care of the ship if it came to that.

  He didn’t like leaving it in the dock.

  But they had gone over the scenario of leaving it in space and taking the Specter down.

  The smaller ship would have garnered more attention and leaving the Nismel floating out in space making it an easier target for boarders with limited ability for the team to return and repel said boarders.

  Plus, with the ship here and secure after purchasing and loading cargo from on world companies

  the dock workers would be a little more resistant to someone breaking into a ‘paying customers’ ship on their dock.

  The elevator dinged and snapped Blake out of his thoughts.

  The lift doors opened,

  and there to greet the two dock workers coming back from lunch was Romulax.

  “Excuse me gentlemen would you kindly fuck off and allow me to take this lift up?”

  He said nicely, then he smiled,

  with two rows of white razor-sharp fangs leering at the two workers,

  oh, it was a sight to behold.

  The two workers scuttled out of the lift and ran,

  full tilt away from the area.

  Ever since coming aboard,

  Romulax was learning English,

  the translators did a great job translating one language to another,

  but he liked learning new things,

  and he took to English curse words like a fish to water.

  He was very proud when he managed to use one correctly.

  “Good use of Fuck Rom, Excellent job”

  Blake said to the large Doxvern.

  Romulax beamed

  “It is such a versatile word Captain; I can’t help wonder why it isn’t used in every sentence.”

  He said, still beaming.

  Blake shook his head smiling while climbing into the lift.

  “I have often thought that myself Big Guy”

  Shira who was coming up from her position behind the boxes just shook her head.

  “Can we just get to this bar before we start garnering more attention?”

  Blake looked at the two of them one of whom was wearing a pair of swords that could make a rhino piss himself and shrugged at Shira

  “I don’t know I think we are keeping a low profile.” Shira just stared blankly at him,

  then glanced at the still retreating and screaming dock workers and then back at Blake.

  “Yeah we are the poster children for subtle”

  and then she hit the button to close the lift door.

  As the lift slowly made its way up the station towards the higher levels where the promenade was Blake, Shira and Rom checked their gear, ensured everything was strapped down and easily reachable.

  “Anyone have any idea why no one was at the dock to meet us,

  I mean I expected some sort of reception,

  but other than the cat lady we seemed to have been left alone,”

  Blake pondered as he checked the knives at his back and guns strapped to his leg.

  “It is possible we came in under the radar, but I am more inclined to believe that someone might have misled the group giving us the ability to dock, though if this is true then you can believe that it won’t last long and soon we are going to know how many and who is looking to cash in on our bounty”.

  Rom stated,

  a bit distracted as he checked his swords and guns. “I am thinking our friend the cat lady might have something to do with it,

  I m
ean she was doing recon,

  she definitely didn’t belong down there and wasn’t a worker yet when we got close,

  she was able to slip away,

  that was someone with an exit strategy,”

  Shira said watching the door as lines of light crossed the small windows noting the passing of floors as they ascended.

  The lift gently came to a halt on level 2,

  The information coming through the small nanite window on Blake’s eye told him they had reached the level that would take them to their destination. He took a deep breath and motioned to Rom and Shira pointing to the edges of the lift.

  Shira stepped out of the lift giving the corner a wide birth,

  allowing her to see if someone was directly next to it, as well as allowing her a vantage point towards her field of fire.

  Rom stepped back from the corner and hunched down,

  putting himself below the regular sightline of where a person would be aiming and peeked around the corner.

  Both looked back at Blake and gave a small nod. Blake stepped out and swept his gaze over the corridor,

  it was empty without a soul in sight,

  and that bothered him.

  He had never been off planet before,

  but like every place crowded by beings,

  he was sure the chances of the corridor being empty was somewhere around

  getting hit by lighting repeatedly,

  while Hitler and Manson sang a Grand Funk Railroad tune,

  played on matching accordions.

  “Keep frosty guys, this doesn’t look right,”

  Blake said pitching his voice low but still loud enough that the team could hear him.

  The corridor was a long hallway that Blake could see angled upward,

  he guessed like the rest of the station it wrapped around the cylinder spinning creating in essence artificial gravity,

  the station was so big you could barely tell you were in a giant tube.

  The corridor itself was 30 feet wide and 50 feet tall and just stretched on into the distance.

  He could see small carts and doors going off the main corridor and what looked like kiosks along the hall leading towards other sections of the station.

  There was not a soul in sight,

  Blake could also make out merchandise knocked off of racks,

  and shelves spilled onto the floor like someone had made a hasty retreat.

  Blake pointed these out to both Shira and Rom, then with a quick hand gesture ensured his two teammates knew to keep their eyes open.

  Yup, it was a trap and not a small one from the look of it.

  Blake just needed a minute to figure it out.

  How would he do it?

  The start would be the lift,

  they would have to put people into the areas leading off the corridor,

  this would cut off their escape,

  and then people forward to press them back, basically creating a killing box.

  Now the question was,

  did they want them alive or dead?

  Blake didn’t want to find out.

  He pitched his voice low but loud enough, so his team could hear.

  “Everyone else seeing this,

  we are stepping right into a trap?”

  Shira was against the wall on the left using a wall ridge as cover.

  “Yeah, the problem is it's obvious,

  a little too obvious actually,

  I would guess they have people in the rooms there and there.”

  Shira pointed down the corridor to the first and second doors on each side.

  Rom nodded

  “How do we want to play this Captain?”

  Blake thought for a moment and then nodded his head,

  “Loud and Proud,”

  he said pitching his voice up a bit.

  He pulled out his carbine and shot two wires that were holding up a sign above and in front of them 20 feet up.

  It took a couple of shots but then the sign came crashing down,

  and two people that were using the catwalk on the rear side as cover screamed as they came crashing to the ground along with it.

  The sign read ‘Drunger Lounge, 1 mile’

  once the nanites got done translating it.

  As soon as the sign hit the ground

  gunfire erupted from the left and right

  where the hallways moved off of the main thoroughfare all three launched themselves

  for cover as plasma and lasers began to punch into walls and kiosks all around them.

  Orders were bellowed,

  and the first thing Blake noticed was he couldn’t understand them.

  “What the hell,

  why aren’t the damn nanites translating what they are saying?”

  Blake yelled He could barely hear Rom’s response over the gunfire.

  “Local audio scrambler,

  it's scrambling what they are saying in our direction,

  so, we can’t understand and react,

  it’s a clever tool when you don’t have a com net like we do”

  Shira was shooting down range at the beings as they popped their heads out.

  One or two of the races Blake recognized.

  He saw a few of the walrus people and more of the cat people.

  “I think this is Empire sponsored,

  I am seeing races from those freighters,” he said.

  Rom and Shira voiced affirmatives that came through his ears,

  now that the gunfire had reached a manic pace, they had to resort to the earbuds to be heard.

  Rom saw the doors on either side of the hall,

  the ones closest to them open,

  he flipped his carbine to the launcher and hit the left door with a plasma grenade while Shira did the same to the door on the right.

  Both corridors exploded raining pieces of metal and body parts over the opposing force down the hall, those who were not smart enough to keep their heads down met with kinetic rounds from Rom and Shira’s weapons.

  Both crouched back down to reload when the second doors slammed open,

  and aliens poured out of them running and trying to put down cover fire at the same time.

  A mixture of energy and kinetic rounds peppered the area around the group.

  Some nearly hitting Shira and Blake as they peeked around the corner of their cover to get a count of enemies.

  It appeared to be a motley crew of several mercenary bands.

  He hit the button on his collar and felt the cold metal as the helmet came out and its segments locked into place the electronic earpieces sharpening footsteps and shouts but lowering the effect weapons fire had on his ear,

  it was the best noise canceling tech that Blake had ever experienced.

  Once done the eye areas lit up,

  and information screens began to turn on,

  giving him locations of his teammates,

  and on probable hostiles,

  as well as options for different vision types and information on his hardware.

  Blake let out a small whistle and told his team to put on their helmets.

  Once both did,

  Rom looking the most intimidating as his had to accommodate for his horns,

  as soon as both of them had donned their helmets, Blake watched as their connections turned green on his screen letting him know they were all now connected to their own local battle-net.

  “Damn impressive work,”

  Shira breathed

  “we are going to have to give Davi a nice bonus for this.”

  Blake shook his head.

  “Do we have to tell him how helpful he was?

  He gets all emotional and shit.” Blake whined

  “That is only because he seeks your approval as our leader” Rom said as he raised his rifle and felled another enemy,

  “and you should give it to him more,

  he is very sensitive about it.”

  Blake huffed out a curse

>   “Can we, oh I don’t know,

  get back to the damn firefight and hold this little daytime talk show session for anytime fucking better than now?”

  Blake pulled two orange grenades from his belt, activated and threw them down the hall.

  Within a few seconds,

  a large cloud of orange gas exploded from the grenades and then instantly solidified,

  trapping Twenty of the beings within the wall of synthetic amber.

  The others on the opposite side began firing at it causing cracks in the wall.

  Rom and Shira both tossed plasma grenades, hitting the side of the wall closest to the enemy, sending shards of the amber-like material like rockets peppering

  them and killing more than a few.

  Blake nodded his approval.

  “Alright, enough playing around, let’s get in this fight, and if we could take a couple alive for questioning, that would be awesome,”

  Blake said, pointing his carbine down the corridor and advancing at a brisk pace firing as he went.

  As with before, he felt the surge of feeling through his nerves and time seemed to slow down

  he saw the beings running

  and ducking for cover,

  but they were going slower now allowing him more time to aim and take shots.

  He had standard sabot ammo in the carbine,

  but he could see the holes blossom on the enemy legs and torsos as he shot.

  He had the time to appreciate the hits before lining up for new ones.

  He saw bullets and plasma bolts pass by him, giving him enough time to dodge and duck as he moved.

  Those that came in contact with the coat or the armor chest piece seemed to disperse causing a sight discoloration to the armor and aside from a little heat to the area hit,

  nothing.

  He was able to advance with no injuries.

  “Damn, Davi, you are a fucking genius,”

  he said to no one in particular.

  Out of the corner of his eyes,

  he could see Rom on his right and Shira on his left doing the same.

  As they reached what was left of the amber colored wall,

  Blake dropped his carbine causing it to hang on the tactical sling and pulled out his knives from the sheaths on his lower back.

  Using a voice command, he lowered his weight and as he jumped,

  activated the gravity repulsors to launch himself over the wall, and straight into hell.

  CHAPTER