“Me, too.” Mason walked to the door. “Ready, sir?”
“I am.”
“All right, let’s go have a chat.” Mason kicked in the door.
Hangar Bay, Peskall’s Pretties, Planet Moorhouse
A giant earthmover as big as a two-story house rumbled past as Sergeant Kennedy and Sergeant Crouch approached the entrance to the building. Like an oversized hangar, the facility had rolling doors that expanded to close the huge entranceway; however, all of them were retracted, and the bay yawned open in front of them.
Kennedy paused and scanned the gigantic space. A beehive of activity, there was something happening across most of the interior. Five of the enormous earthmovers were parked on the left side of the hangar in various stages of disassembly; three of them had scaffolding set up alongside, with aliens conducting maintenance on them. Although mostly Caroons, flashes of other colors indicated the presence of additional races as well.
A number of activities were underway on the right side of the bay. Some Caroons performed maintenance on smaller vehicles and moved stores on pallets from pile to pile, according to some plan of which only they were aware.
“What are we supposed to be looking for?” Sergeant Crouch asked.
“No idea,” Sergeant Kennedy replied. “Anything out of the ordinary.” He indicated the left side of the bay with his MAC rifle. “For example, that looks like routine maintenance to me.”
“Except for the fact the trucks are bigger than my freakin’ house back home. That part is out of my ordinary…but yeah, it looks pretty routine to me.”
The workers continued about their business as the humans walked through, coming and going through doors on either side of the hangar. In most cases, the aliens generally ignored them unless the humans got in their way.
A flash of blue as a door opened on the right caught Sergeant Kennedy’s eye. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “Down!”
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Five
Caroon Outpost, Planet Moorhouse
Mason kicked the door; it shattered and flew inward in a number of smaller pieces. “Oops. Looks like their door malfunctioned.” He got down on his knees and entered the hallway beyond. “Kind of dim in here.” He turned on an external light, illuminating the space as if it were a sunny summer day on Earth. “Here we go.”
Mason crawled further into the building, stopping at the first set of doors.
“The manager is at the end of the hall,” Nigel noted from behind him.
“Yes sir. I’m just not a fan of leaving armed aliens behind me. Or armed humans, for that matter.” Bracing himself, he punched in the door on the right with a single blow.
“You could have seen if it was unlocked,” Nigel said.
“I could have,” Mason replied; “I just didn’t want to.” He looked into the office. “Empty.”
Mason turned back to the door on the other side of the hallway. “Just for you, sir,” he said as he pushed the handle that opened the door. “Locked.” He punched it in. “Oops.”
The second set of offices were also found to be empty once Mason punched in the doors. He opened the door at the end of the hallway, and Nigel heard a scream from the room.
Nigel squeezed past the Mason. The room was empty. “Where did the secretary go?” Nigel asked.
“It’s hiding behind the desk, I believe.”
Nigel walked around the desk to find the Caroon secretary huddling under it. “Come out!” Nigel ordered. “Where’s your boss?”
The alien said something inaudible and neither moved nor looked up.
“I said, where is your boss?”
The secretary mumbled something again, but didn’t come out.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Mason said. He entered the room and walked across the room on his knees. “If I may, sir?”
Nigel shrugged. “Be my guest. He doesn’t seem to want to talk to me.”
Mason leaned forward, lifted the desk off the alien, and threw it to the side. It crashed into the wall, splintering the desk and making a hole in the wall. He grabbed the Caroon by its cloak and lifted it to its feet, spinning the alien around to look into the ‘face’ of the CASPer. “Colonel Shirazi is speaking to you,” he said. “I suggest you answer him, or I’ll get angry.” Mason spun the alien back around to face Nigel.
“Thanks, First Sergeant.” Nigel looked down at the Caroon and didn’t need to be an exobiologist to see the creature was terrified…or a really good actor. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to tell us where your boss is, or are we going to have to take you back to our base with us?”
The alien didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then he pointed toward the door to the manager’s office. “In there,” the secretary said, its voice barely more than a whisper.
Nigel walked to the door and put his hand on the latching mechanism.
“Sir, that’s my job,” Mason said. “I’m the one with the armor.” He guided the alien toward one of the corners of the room with a light push that sent him sprawling. “Stay there, and Private Handley, make sure he does.”
“Yes Top!” Private Handley replied.
Nigel moved to the side, allowing Mason to open the door. It was unlocked and Mason threw it open. A laser bolt reflected off his chest, the pistol it came from not powerful enough to penetrate the armor.
Mason crawled into the room, then stood up and walked over to the manager, who stood looking up at where the CASPer’s head would be, its mouth half open and the pistol hanging loosely in his hand. Mason grabbed the pistol and pushed him back into his chair.
“You can come in now, sir,” Mason called. “The little bastard would have shot you if you had opened the door.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Nigel asked, entering the room.
“I…I didn’t mean to…,” the manager cried. “I just heard the commotion…the crashing…and thought you had come back to steal all our gems. When this…this thing…opened the door, I thought it was some kind of monster and shot it.”
“Some kind of monster?” Nigel asked. “You’re telling me you’ve never seen a CASPer before?”
“A CAS—, CASP—, what did you call it?”
“A CASPer. Never mind, I don’t care if you’ve seen one. All I care about is the location of my sister.”
“Your sister? Why would I know where your sister was? I have only just seen you for the first time and do not know who your sister is. My contact with your kind has been limited to you and the members of your company who signed the contract to defend the plant.”
“My sister’s name is Parisa Shirazi, and I believe you do know where she is. When I was here earlier, I asked where Parisa was and you asked who that was. If you didn’t know her and, as you say, your contact with humans has been limited, how would you know she was a person rather than a place or a thing?”
“I wouldn’t know that. Nor do I know it now. I imagine that what you are asking about is nothing more than a figment of the universal translator. In my language, we use the same word for who, what, and where; the only difference is the thing being asked about. If it is a person, the word translates as “who.” I’m afraid that is the cause of the confusion. I simply do not know who, what, or where a Parisa Shirazi is and therefore, the universal translator cannot render my speech correctly into your language.”
“Huh. What do you think, Top?”
“I think he’s full of shit and making this up as he goes along, sir. I’ve never heard of anything like that with the translator.”
“Just because you haven’t heard of it,” the manager said, “doesn’t make it any less true. You say Parisa Shirazi is your sister. I do not know who she is.”
Nigel walked over and spun the manager’s chair around to face him. Nigel bent over to look the Caroon in the eye. “I’m only going to ask this one more time, and then things are going to get ugly. Where. Is. My. Sister?”
“I don’t know.”
Nigel’s
brows knitted as he stared at the manager. Finally, he straightened and turned to Mason. “First Sergeant, did you injure him?”
“I pushed him into the chair, sir, but I don’t think I hurt him.”
“He’s missing part of his ear. You didn’t do that?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Well, he didn’t have time to go somewhere else, so if you didn’t do that, who did?”
“Uhhh,” the manager said, “it must have happened when I…when I fired my pistol. It must have ricocheted and hit me.”
“Right,” Nigel replied. “I’m not buying that. First Sergeant, does that look like a laser wound to you?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t.”
“I didn’t think so either. So, Ka-Tal, either you cut part of your ear off doing your administrative work here, or you went somewhere else while we were gone. As we didn’t see you on the street, and you didn’t pass us coming back in, there’s another exit from this office. Would you like to tell us where it is, or would you like my first sergeant to bounce you off the walls for a while first?”
The manager’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
Before Nigel could say anything else, a voice came over the radio. “I’ve got bugs in the hangar bay!” Sergeant Kennedy reported. “Looks like the better part of a squad of MinSha! We could use a little assistance or we’re going to be overrun.” He paused. “No! Don’t—”
An explosion that could be felt in the manager’s office rocked the building.
“All patrols go to the hangar bay to assist Sergeant Kennedy,” Mason ordered. He took two steps forward and grabbed the lapels of the manager’s tunic in an armored gauntlet. Setting his feet, he lifted the alien off the floor and shook him. “MinSha? Where did the hell did MinSha come from?”
“They’ve…they’ve been here all along,” the manager said with a squeal. “They arrived here a year ago, right after the Besquith took over your base. They…they had weapons! We had to obey them or they would have killed us all!”
He struggled to break free from Mason’s grasp, but the armored suit was far stronger. Nigel stepped forward and slapped the Caroon across its muzzle.
“I’ve heard enough,” Nigel said. “Where’s the other door out of here?”
The manager stilled, going limp in Mason’s grasp. Without a word the alien pointed at a bookcase on the back wall of the office.
Mason dropped the manager, who landed in a heap, and strode to the bookshelf. The trooper ripped the bookshelf away from the wall with his augmented strength, and Nigel ducked as books flew across the room.
The bookcase crashed to the floor, revealing a door with a number of peepholes behind it. Without waiting to be told, Mason stepped forward and yanked open the door.
An armed grenade spun slowly to a stop on the floor in the narrow passageway beyond.
Hangar Bay, Peskall’s Pretties, Planet Moorhouse
“Down!” Sergeant Kennedy screamed. He pushed the other soldier behind a pallet of tires and dove back out of the way as the first MinSha fired its laser rifle. The bolt glanced off his leg armor, doing no damage. Kennedy crashed to the ground and rolled behind another of the pallets.
Lifting his MAC above the stack of tires, he fired a spray of rounds in the direction of where he had last seen the MinSha. Judging by the wet, squelching noise he heard, at least one of the rounds struck home; several others whined off as ricochets.
He checked Sergeant Crouch; the trooper was already shooting his laser rifle at the MinSha.
The other creatures in the hangar bay all seemed to be running away. Hopefully, they weren’t going for their weapons or this was going to well and truly suck. They were pinned down behind the pallets by an unknown force of bugs, with no way to get to a more defensible position. They needed help.
“I’ve got bugs in the hangar bay!” Sergeant Kennedy radioed. He took a peek over the pallet then ducked back down as several MinSha fired at him. “Looks like the better part of a squad of MinSha! We could use a little assistance or we’re going to be overrun.”
He looked to Sergeant Crouch for confirmation the trooper had heard his transmission; the soldier was unlimbering the flamethrower attached to his right arm.
Kennedy rose and fired several more rounds over the top of the pallet. One of the MinSha went down as the MAC round struck it in the neck and nearly tore off its head. A laser round struck his right shoulder, partially melting his armor.
As he ducked back down, he saw the drums on one of the pallets the MinSha were using as cover. At least one bore the universal symbols for “flammable” and “explosive,” and that drum was spraying its contents out from a pair of MAC-round holes in its side. If Sergeant Crouch hit that with the flamethrower…
“No!” Kennedy yelled, his mike still set to radio. He rose to run to Sergeant Crouch and took a hit in his torso that spun him around. He reoriented as Sergeant Crouch stood up and activated his weapon. “Don’t—”
The hangar erupted in a cataclysmic detonation.
* * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Six
Manager’s Office, Peskall’s Pretties, Planet Moorhouse
Mason threw the door shut, but the grenade detonated before he could latch it. The door blew in, slamming into Mason. Pieces of door and shrapnel peppered his suit, and the force of the explosion staggered him backward several steps. Although Mason’s suit saved Nigel from the blast and shrapnel, the explosion was deafening in the small space, and he had a hard time hearing through the ringing in his ears.
“Damn it,” Mason said, flailing one of his suit’s legs. “I’ve got a bunch of yellow lights on my suit, and my right knee is out. Private Handley, get in here! You’ve got point. Go find whoever threw that grenade and kick his ass!”
“Sure thing, Top.” The manager scurried out from the path of the trooper as he marched to the door. He held his MAC out the door and fired a burst. When he didn’t receive any return fire, he stepped into the corridor.
“No one out here,” Private Handley said.
“You mean the grenade just threw itself?” Mason asked.
“No; whoever threw it must have run away. The passageway turns after about 30 feet.”
Nigel saw movement; the manager was scurrying toward the door. Nigel ran over and grabbed the manager’s collar. “Where are you going?” he asked. “I’m not done talking with you. You still haven’t told me where my sister is.”
“If she is still alive, she is down that passage,” the manager whined, trembling all over like a frightened Chihuahua.
“Good,” Nigel said. “We’re finally getting somewhere. Now you’re going to take us to her.” He began dragging the Caroon to the back door out.
“No!” the manager exclaimed, digging his claws into the bookshelf as they passed it. “I will not go! He will kill me!”
“Who?”
“Tranayl, the MinSha commander. He’s down there and he’ll kill me!”
“Sir, we don’t have time for this bullshit. If both your sister and the MinSha are down there, we need to go!”
“You’re right,” Nigel said. “Let’s go.” He started toward the door but turned back around. “And if anything’s happened to her,” he added, “I’ll be back.”
Cell Block, Planet Moorhouse, Kepler 62 System
Parisa sat on her small bunk, her head in her hands. She had to break out while her brother was close, but how?
She heard a swishing noise and looked up. Tranayl hurried past her cell without stopping.
“Hey!” Parisa cried out. “Where are you going? You look like you’re running away. What? Is my brother kicking your troops’ asses?”
The MinSha commander stopped as if he had hit a wall. “I almost forgot about you,” he said as he turned and approached the cell.
“So you were running!” Parisa laughed. “I should have guessed. For the record, I told you my brother would come.”
“I wasn’t running. I was withdrawing to a better loc
ation to regroup. And, as far as your brother goes, you’ll never see him.” The MinSha drew his pistol. “You have now outlived your usefulness, as I told you would happen.”
He fired twice, striking her in the chest with both shots. Parisa fell to the floor.
Hangar Bay, Peskall’s Pretties, Planet Moorhouse
Clang, clang, clang. “Hey, you okay?” It sounded like someone was talking through a foot of water. Indistinct and barely audible. Clang, clang, clang. That was loud and clear.
Sergeant Kennedy managed to open an eye. Sergeant Stephanie Freese looked down at him and tapped his suit with her armored gauntlet. Clang, clang, clang.
“I’m awake,” Kennedy said. It took a lot more effort to say those words than he would have thought possible. As his vision focused he saw his control panel looked like a Christmas tree of red and green lights, with a few yellows thrown in for variety. Most of the systems below his waist still worked, but everything above it was either non-functional or only partly operational.
“Man, you should see the dent in your armor right by your head,” Sergeant Freese added.
“’S okay,” Kennedy replied. That explained why everything was going in and out of focus. Concussion. “I think I have the same dent in my head.” He tried to roll over to get up, but had a hard time with several of the suit’s motors not working.
Sergeant Freese helped him to his feet.
“Any more…MinSha?”
“Naw, man. Whatever you guys blew up in here killed them good. All we saw were a few pieces.”
“What about Sergeant Crouch?”
“He didn’t make it. A piece of pipe got blown all the way through his suit. He’s dead.”
“Shit.” Kennedy surveyed the hangar. It was trashed. Everything near ground zero for the blast was just gone, including the concrete flooring in a radius of about 20 feet. The pallet of tires he had been behind had slowed the majority of the pieces headed at him. If he hadn’t stood up, he’d probably have been okay. He could see the pipe that impaled Sergeant Crouch. Yeah, he was dead. Damn it.
Asbaran Solutions (The Revelations Cycle Book 2) Page 28