by C. G. Mosley
“In terms of damage?” Roger asked, trying to keep up.
Hightower nodded.
Roger thought a moment, then answered. “Alpha, Bravo, Delta and Foxtrot.”
“Good, get Delta and Foxtrot ready to go up immediately,” the Captain replied as the metal doors in front of them slid open to reveal the bridge.
“You think it’s the Kaloians?” Madigan asked.
Captain Hightower nodded, but said nothing. He made his way straight to Jake Crosby.
“Who is hailing us?” he asked, very matter-of-factly.
Jake pulled a hand over the microphone and leaned back. “He says he means us no harm, but he only wants to talk to the captain.”
“Is he a Kaloian?”
Jake shrugged. “I don’t know sir.”
Hightower gestured for him to put him through. Jake nodded and flipped a switch.
“Identify yourself,” Hightower said.
“My name is Amus,” a deep voice answered. “I mean you and your ship no harm, but I wish to speak to the captain.”
“My name is Harry Hightower. I am the captain of this ship,” he replied. “Are you a Kaloian?”
There was a chuckle. “No, I am not,” he answered. “I am from the planet Avax.”
Hightower tightened his jaw and glanced over at Madigan. The colonel’s lips were a straight line and he shrugged.
“Okay, Amus,” Hightower said. “Forgive me if I’m a little skeptical but I’d be remiss if I didn’t inform you that we’re prepared to destroy your ship if we feel threatened.”
There was a long pause. “Captain Hightower, as I said, I mean you no harm. You appear to be a foe of Supreme Regency and in my view, that makes you an ally to the Avaxians.”
Hightower rushed over to the switch in front of Jake Crosby and turned the speaker comm off. “Another race of aliens?” he asked, directing the question at Colonel Madigan.
“Harry, if he is what he says he is, this is the break we’re looking for,” Madigan said.
“And if he’s not?” Hightower asked.
“Then we do exactly what you said,” Madigan replied. “We destroy him and his ship.”
Hightower flipped the switch again. “Amus, how do I know I can trust you?”
“I suppose you don’t,” Amus responded. “But if you’d have me, I’ll come on board so that we can discuss the matter in person if that would make you more comfortable.”
Roger looked on as the captain crossed his arms and sighed deeply. He could see that the decision he was about to make was a big one and it weighed heavily on him.
“Sir, if I may,” he said suddenly.
Hightower reached over and flipped the switch again so that Amus would be unable to hear. “Go ahead Stellick,” he said.
“Sir, I’d suggest we sent up a squad to patrol the space around us if we allow this person on board,” Roger replied.
The captain nodded. “Good idea, do it,” he said quickly as he flipped the switch again. “Amus, you are to bring your shuttle in through the starboard launch bay. I am warning you that you will be met with armed guards. They will not harm you unless you give them a reason to.”
“Very well,” Amus replied. “You have my word that I will cause no trouble or harm to anyone on your vessel.”
“And you have my word that you’ll be treated fairly as long as you stand by that,” the Captain said. “I’m ending this transmission and will see you shortly.” He flipped the switch for the final time and looked to Madigan.
“Merrill, I want twenty armed men there to meet this…alien,” he said anxiously.
“I’m on it,” Madigan replied as he turned away to see that it would be done.
“I’m sending up Foxtrot to watch the sky,” Roger said as Madigan shuffled past him.
Captain Hightower moved toward him and leaned forward so only Roger could hear. “Should I trust him?” he asked, obviously still torn on the decision.
Roger was taken aback by the question as it was highly unusual for Captain Hightower to second-guess any decision he made.
“Yes sir,” he whispered. “I don’t see that we have any other choice here. As the colonel alluded to, this may be the break we need.”
Deck Chief Tim Reed and Charlie West were among the twenty men armed with assault rifles that awaited the mysterious shuttle’s arrival. They looked on through the bay windows as a small, oval-shaped vessel glided into the bay. The shuttle came to a lazy stop, hovered a moment, and then slowly lowered until its landing skids contacted the metal runway.
“If your safety is on, now’s the time to take it off,” Tim said as he readied his weapon. “No one fires unless I give the command.”
The other men nodded, some rather nervously, but all were focused on the task at hand. After the launch bay pressurized, the shuttle was motionless for almost a full minute before a door on the rear of the vehicle finally hissed open and lowered downward to form a ramp. A strange being exited the shuttle and Tim Reed felt his heart race.
The alien was humanoid and of average height, no more than six feet in height. Its skin was as blue as a midday Earth sky.
“What the hell is that?” Charlie asked, his mouth agape.
Tim squinted as he tried to make out the approaching alien’s facial features. It seemed to have eyes as dark as midnight and no nose to speak of. The mouth was similar to that of a human’s, though the lips were a darker shade of blue. There was no hair atop its head. The clothes the alien wore were surprisingly similar to those of Earth, and they resembled military attire. A case of some sort dangled from his right hand.
“Welcome to the SC Titan,” Tim said, keeping his rifle pointed at Amus’ midsection.
“Thank you,” the alien said politely. He took note of the numerous guns pointed at him and slowly raised his hands. The case rose too.
“What’s that?” Tim asked, nodding toward the case.
Amus smiled, revealing two rows of pointed teeth. “This is the proof I need to show your captain so that he will trust me when I say I am his ally,” he said.
“Place it on the ground beside you,” Tim commanded.
The alien complied, then quickly returned both his hands above his head.
“Charlie pat him down and grab the case,” Tim said.
Charlie moved cautiously toward the mysterious alien and kept his gun pointed directly at him until the toe of his boot tapped the case. He gently kicked it aside and then proceeded to pat over Amus’ clothes, top to bottom.
“He’s clean,” he said, taking a step back and reaching for the case.
“Alright,” Tim said, taking a deep breath. “Amus, we’re going to escort you to a room where you can speak with Captain Hightower. We’re going to check inside your case before we take it up.”
Amus’ smile disappeared and though he did his best to hide it, there was evident uneasiness on his blue face. “Very well,” he said. “Please just make sure it gets back to me as soon as possible. Much of the documents in that case are written in a language I’m certain you will not be able to decipher.”
“We’ll take good care of it,” Tim assured him, and he then gestured for Charlie and a couple of the other armed men beside him to take the lead on escorting Amus to the elevator. “Take him straight to the conference room. I want two of you with a hand on him at all times and two of you to keep guns pointed on him. The rest of us will take the other elevator and meet you up there.”
Charlie nodded, and immediately grabbed Amus under his left arm. “Let’s go,” he said, and pulled him rather forcefully.
“Again, you have nothing to fear from me,” Amus said, pleading.
“We’ve heard that one before,” Charlie quipped.
Once Amus was safely on the elevator, Tim raced over to the other one and quickly made his way to the top deck. There, all of the armed men escorted the alien into the conference room and forced him to have a seat. Only then did Captain Harry Hightower enter the room, followed by Colonel M
errill Madigan.
“Captain Hightower, I presume?” Amus said cheerfully.
Hightower raised an eyebrow as he noticed the Avaxian’s blue skin. Though the Kaloians were aliens, at least they looked the same as Earthlings. Seeing a humanoid being that truly appeared alien was a bit of a surprise.
“And you are Amus,” Hightower replied, his tone flat. “Do you have a last name?”
Amus looked at him curiously, then smiled slightly, revealing his pointy teeth. “No, on Avax everyone has a different name so there is no need for a last name.”
Colonel Madigan chuckled and looked over at the captain. “Every single being on his planet has a different name?” he asked, as if Amus were no longer in the room.
Hightower cleared his throat and shook his head ever so slightly as if to say, Don’t be rude…
“It’s alright, Captain,” Amus said, noticing the interaction. “I know it may be hard to believe, but it is true. No living Avaxian is allowed to have the same name.”
“How many people are on your planet?” Hightower asked.
Amus looked down at the table in front of him glumly. “I’m afraid our numbers are dwindling significantly,” he stated sadly. “There are less than eighty thousand of us now.”
Captain Hightower moved to the chair nearest him and sat down. “What is happening to your people?”
Amus looked up and showed his teeth again. “The Kaloians,” he said bitterly. “They believe they are the supreme race. It’s why they refer to their own government as the Supreme Regency. The Kaloians have one desire…one goal.”
“To eliminate every other race in the galaxy,” Hightower said.
Amus nodded. “I suppose you’ve gotten a taste of what I’m talking about.”
Suddenly, Roger Stellick appeared at the door with the case in his hand. “Captain, we’ve looked it over and there is nothing dangerous in this,” he said, holding the black object up.
“Give it back to him,” Hightower said, glancing back at Amus. “I hope you understand why we’re being so cautious.”
Amus held a hand up and Hightower noticed that he only had three fingers and a thumb. Each digit was adorned with a small black claw. “You don’t need to explain, Captain,” he said as he eyed Tim Reed and the other armed men around him.
“How did you find us?”
“I’m a scout for Bothian and Avaxian Federation military alliance,” he answered. “I was on a reconnaissance mission. Our satellite radars picked up four fully loaded Vindicator ships moving near the Katoo Asteroid Belt two days ago. Our spies had recently alerted the Federation about the new construction of a Hyperspace Teleportation Gate near that very sector. We had to find out what was going on, so I was sent to check it out.”
“They sent you alone?” Hightower asked, surprised.
Amus nodded. “I’m the most experienced spy the Federation has—and I prefer to work alone.”
“So, you were there when we came through the gate behind the Pinnacle?”
“I was,” Amus confirmed. “I was hiding on an asteroid monitoring everything with my ship’s sensors. At first, when I saw the size of this ship, I figured it must’ve been a newly developed Kaloian vessel that we were unaware of, but then the battle ensued…and I knew.”
“You knew what?” Hightower asked, leaning forward.
“I knew you were from Earth,” Amus answered. “The Kaloians have aspired of visiting Earth for quite a while. So much so that they sent one of their most decorated captains, Malcolm Steiger, on a decade-long voyage to enter your solar system so that he and his crew could construct a gateway that would allow a fleet of Kaloian ships to return and overtake Earth.”
“Your people have known of this plan?”
“We’ve known about it for years, but considering the distance between our solar systems, we didn’t know if they’d ever get desperate enough to make the voyage to Earth. It seems that they did.”
Madigan stepped forward. “Desperate? Why were they desperate?”
Amus shrugged and then frowned as he returned his gaze to the wooden table top in front of him. “We think that you may have a resource that they deeply desire.”
“What resource?” Hightower asked, intrigued.
Amus shrugged again. “We don’t know what it’s called but…” he paused as if he were trying to consider the right words. “It gives them…an ability.”
“What ability?” Roger asked as he too took a seat near the alien.
“I think you Earthlings refer to it as telekinesis,” he answered.
There was an awkward silence in the room. Captain Hightower crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He looked over at Madigan.
“You mean they can move things with their minds?” the Captain finally asked.
Amus nodded. “Yes. They can move an individual with ease. They could pick up any of your men and throw them high enough in the air to kill them once they’re dropped. They can move extremely heavy objects and crush you. We’ve even heard of rare instances where one of them was able to affect the trajectory of a star ship.”
“This sounds like a science fiction movie,” Roger said, awestruck. He then looked to Hightower. “Sir this would definitely explain the incident that occurred on board the Titan between one of our men and the Kaloian.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking, Harry,” Madigan chimed in.
“How?” Hightower asked. “How can they do this? What resource would give them this ability?”
Amus sighed. “Again, we are not aware of exactly what the resource is,” he said. “What we did know was that they were getting a lot of it off the Kalo moon, Jara. We think they discovered it about twenty-five Earth years ago. They would gather the resource and process it into some sort of liquid that they drink. They refer to it simply as the elixir.”
“Wait,” Roger said suddenly. “Captain Malcolm Steiger told me that Jara had become overrun with some sort of creature—he said it was similar to insects on Earth. He said that creature eventually made its way to Kalo and had forced his people to leave their planet.”
“Ha!” Amus said, slapping the table in front of him. “About 95% of what you were told about Jara is a lie.”
“Well please enlighten us,” Madigan urged.
“There is an insect-like creature on Jara. It’s called a Jutrian crab, and the Federation put them there for the sole purpose of overtaking the entire moon and making it nearly impossible for the Supreme Regency to harvest their precious resource. The Jutrian crab is a nasty creature with large mandibles capable of severing an individual in half. It also is known to devour almost anything in its path and turn entire planets into vast wasteland. Whatever the Kaloians were after, it was the Federation’s hope that the Jutrian crabs would snuff it out—and it appears that they did.”
“But this forced them to look for their resource elsewhere,” Hightower said.
“I’m afraid it expedited their voyage to Earth,” Amus admitted. “For the Federations role in that, I am truly sorry.”
Roger looked to Captain Hightower. “It was only a matter of time,” he said.
Amus continued. “I’m afraid that one of the Supreme Regency’s most well-known strategies is that they will trick and lie their way to get an adversary to trust them—then they crush them. It’s what happened to Avax and it is what happened to the planet Botha. The betrayals resulted in many deaths and enslavement of many of our peoples. Botha and Avax were once enemies. If anything good came out of what the Kaloians did to our races, it’s that we are now fierce allies.”
Hightower drummed the fingers on his right hand across the table as he thought. “Amus, we need to get our ship back home. We’re aware that there are other gates throughout the galaxy. Can you—or the Federation—help us not only find one, but also operate it so we may return to our solar system?”
The Avaxian alien frowned and shook his head somberly. “We’d need a Kaloian star chart to find all of the gates,” he answe
red. “Most of their starships have at least one. It will be a difficult object to acquire.”
“Would the Federation consider helping us?” Hightower asked, a hint of desperation in his voice.
“That depends,” Amus answered.
“On what?” Madigan asked.
Amus looked over at the colonel and again showed his pointy teeth. “On whether or not you are willing to help us.”
Chapter 21
“Physically, you’re fine,” Dr. Phoebe Holtz said.
She was seated on a small black-padded stool with wheels, her legs crossed and a clipboard resting across her lap.
Harlan Wolfe was resting on the edge of the examination table in front of her, his feet dangling inches above the floor.
“Of course, I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been telling all of you that.”
She scribbled something on the clipboard and then looked up at him, her green eyes sparkling just above the rims of her reading glasses. “Yeah, well you guys and gals tend to fib a little when it comes to your health if it means keeping you in the cockpit.”
Howler rolled his eyes. “If I say I’m good to go, then I’m good to go. The sooner I can get back in the saddle and take out some of the Kaloian bastards, the better,” he grumbled.
“Just because you’re okay physically, doesn’t mean you’re okay mentally,” Dr. Holtz quickly reminded him. “It’s my job to give you clearance in both areas.”
Suddenly, Howler appeared somewhat worried. “Mentally, I am okay,” he said, a bit of annoyance in his tone.
“No, I don’t think you are,” Dr. Holtz replied, staring directly at him. “You blame yourself for the loss of Cooper and Ben.”
“No,” he snapped, and his face flushed red with obvious anger. “I blame Christian Smith for what happened to Cooper and Ben. They didn’t have to die. I was supposed to be the one to die.”
Dr. Holtz pushed back with her feet so that the stool would roll back toward the wall behind her. When she found it, she leaned against the wall and tossed the clipboard onto the counter beside her. “Harlan, are you really going to blame Sabre for saving your life?”