by Ron Schrader
While Kalla was slipping into her pants, using only the gown she wore for privacy, Davis walked near where she stood.
“I’m Davis,” he said, trying to introduce himself amidst the noise of gunfire in the background. “I’ve seen what you can do, and we need your help.”
As if she was ignoring him, Kalla continued dressing, still facing the locker. With her pants on, she pulled the gown over her head, giving Davis a clear view of her back just before pulling her tunic over her head. Still ignoring him, she fastened the belt around her waist and crouched to a seated position, quickly slipping both boots on. “I’m Kalla,” she finally replied, turning to face her rescuer.
“We need to get out of here,” Davis said frantically, watching her stand and walk toward the door Tuck and Dal were still defending. He watched as she jumped with ease up to the high ceiling above and grabbed some pipes that ran above the entrance and through the wall. Swinging acrobatically, she kicked against the duct panel above the door, knocking it open and launching it inside the large air vent.
Climbing inside, she disappeared from view, leaving Davis to believe she’d just left them to find their own way out. Moments later, the gunfire from the outside went silent, replaced by several screams and loud pounding noises.
The men inside the lab stood silent, Dal cautiously leaning his head toward the large hole in the door. Suddenly the door swung open, sending Dal and Tuck backward in fear, guns now aimed at Kalla, who stood before them.
“You were there,” she said calmly, sneering at Davis as she walked back into the room. “I remember seeing you standing near the general, but you didn’t shoot.”
Davis nodded. “Yes, I was with him that day, and I’ve worked under his command since—well, up until recently. A lot has happened that I don’t have time to explain right now, but I . . . we need your help.”
“And what exactly do you expect me to help you with?” Kalla said in response.
“The slaves in the mine . . .” Davis replied. “Can you help us free them?”
Kalla turned back to Davis, rolling her eyes a bit as she tilted her head to one side.
“All right.” She sighed. “But I need two things from you.” Davis nodded as she continued.
“First, I need some meat.”
“Okay.” Davis nodded, a little confused. “The mess hall. There should be something there. What else?” he asked.
“Help me find my ship and get off this planet!”
Davis agreed, fully intending to do the same, very much in favor of the idea himself.
The three followed Davis to the mess hall, where Kalla quickly located a freezer. Grabbing several large cuts of meat, she went to work eating while the three men turned away in disgust.
“You don’t want to cook that first?” Davis asked.
“No time,” she replied in between bites. “I know how it looks, but . . .” She stopped midsentence to take another big bite.
“No, I get it. You’re hungry,” Davis said, not sure he could ever be that hungry.”
Minutes later she finished eating. “Let’s go.”
Davis nodded and led the way toward the bridge of the ship. “We need to stop General Quinn first,” he said as they ran through one of the main hallways. “Without General Quinn giving orders, most of the soldiers should back down.”
“I’m starting to like you already,” Kalla said with a smile.
~
On the way to the bridge, Kalla quickly and easily dealt with the few guards they encountered, not in a mood to waste time. She remembered now how the general had ambushed her and how he’d killed Jarek in the process. She was going to make sure he got what was coming to him.
Reaching the door to the bridge proved to be a relatively simple task, but getting inside, they soon found, was not. The blast door had been activated, placing almost a meter of extra steel between Kalla and the general, who’s face instantly appeared on a monitor that hung above the entrance.
“Kalla, my dear, it’s a shame that you had to wake so soon from our little experiment,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “Of course, I only kept you asleep for my own protection, having witnessed your strength firsthand, but still, we were getting so close to understanding your secrets. But no matter, the doctor made some excellent progress in his research that I’m sure will be useful.”
“Let me in and I’ll be happy to share my secrets with you—all of them,” Kalla interrupted, showing her teeth to the camera above the monitor while clenching her fists in anger.
“I’m sure you would, I’m sure you would!” the general replied, laughing. “I respect and understand your eagerness to get in, but I think it’d be best if we parted ways now, wouldn’t you agree?” As he spoke the words, large steel doors closed behind them, trapping the group in the hallway, preventing them from leaving the ship. A loud siren then went off while a voice over the loudspeaker began alerting all remaining passengers on the ship to evacuate. “You see,” he continued, “this ship is designed to keep me nice and safe in here while allowing me to vent the atmosphere on the rest of the shi—”
The men stared in surprise as Kalla landed on the floor, followed by a spray of plastic and metal from the destroyed monitor.
“I was tired of listening to that psychotic lunatic,” she said in response to the looks on her companions’ faces. “Let’s figure out a way to get inside before he follows through with anything.”
Before she finished speaking, the ship engines had kicked on. Not planning to let the ship get off the ground, Kalla went straight to work kicking against one of the hallway doors that had blocked them in, doors that were not nearly as strong as the blast doors that protected the general, for now.
In minutes she’d managed to create an opening large enough for them to crawl through one at a time. As she followed the last man through the opening, Kalla began running down the long hallway.
“The engine room!” she yelled back at Davis. “Where is it?” Struggling to keep up with Kalla’s pace, Davis finally stopped to catch his breath.
“Lower level, toward the back!” he yelled as Kalla ran on, turning suddenly and disappearing down a stairway.
With the evacuation alarm still sounding, Kalla’s rush to the engine room was undisturbed as she jumped down the multiple flights of stairs that zigzagged downward, until she finally reached the lower deck of the ship.
The ship started to vibrate as the engine thrusters began the initial burn needed to lift the massive object into the sky. With no time to spare, Kalla ran toward the engine room door at the end of the hallway, flying toward it feet first. The door smashed open to reveal several gigantic motors that powered the large vessel.
Going straight to work, Kalla began jumping through the room, kicking and hitting the various components until at last, the ship having lifted several meters off the ground already, came to a crashing thud on the ground it had just attempted to leave.
With the engine destroyed, Kalla made her way outside the ship, headed for the bridge. Unaware of the harsh atmosphere of the planet, she failed to grab a filter mask before walking outside. Her first few breaths felt more labored than usual, but with each breath she drew, her body quickly adapted to the toxins in the air, healing itself instantly.
Walking alongside the ship, the grounds around were clear of the soldiers who’d been forced to flee for their lives when the giant vessel had begun its launch, allowing Kalla to make her way to the front of the ship undisturbed.
When she reached the bridge, Kalla jumped up to the right side window that spanned several meters of the room. The thick glass, designed to withstand the pressures of space, began to crack as Kalla threw her fist again and again at the same spot. Finally, after several minutes of pounding, the glass gave way and shattered, sending shards of glass across the floor of the bridge.
Jumping inside the window, Kalla found that most of the men on the bridge were still unconscious from the powerful impact of the crash. The
general, however, wasn’t, and he now stood facing her, aiming the Machada pistols he held in each hand toward her.
Without warning, a large bullet landed deep in her left shoulder, followed by a spray of gunfire that forced her backward to the floor.
Kalla watched as he rushed toward a small armory cabinet near the entrance to the bridge and reached into its bent doors. A second later he held a single frag grenade that he engaged and threw toward her. She jumped to her feet and spun around, kicking the grenade back toward the general, catching him off guard.
Just in time, he managed to dodge the grenade as it flew past him and wedged itself deep into the cabinet doors of the armory. The general dove across the room as best he could, just as the explosion went off, igniting other explosives in the cabinet to create a powerful chain reaction that brought the frame of the bridge down on top of him, burying him under the steel rubble.
Kalla picked herself up from the floor, having been knocked down again from the blast, and brushed herself off as she searched for the general. Unable to find any sign of him amidst the twisted metal from the blast, she turned and jumped out the window she’d come in through, off to find Davis and his friends.
Chapter 18
Finally having made their way outside the general’s massive ship, Davis and his companions worked their way back to the tree line, where they would take cover and watch for Kalla.
As the three men turned back toward the ship, they could see large pillars of smoke coming from the rear of the vessel, from the engine room. The landing gear had not been reengaged when the ship came down, forcing the ship to land on its belly, causing the metal frame to twist and even break in sections. All around the smoldering heap of metal they watched as soldiers frantically ran toward the other five ships, thrusters igniting as they prepared to abandon the planet.
Davis was surveying the frantic scene before him when Kalla suddenly came into view. “Over here!” he yelled across the opening toward the ship.
Kalla turned and began a sprint toward them, reaching the clearing in no time.
“We’ve got to work fast!” Davis said in desperation. “The general’s orders were to have all the slaves killed when we left. He also had contingencies that I knew about, plans to destroy the mine should anything go wrong. We have to get to the control center above the mine and stop the detonation.”
“I can get there faster than you can. Just tell me what to do,” she responded, not interested in letting a holocaust take place today.
“There’s a nuke down in the bottom of the mine shaft, but you’ll need an AGV to get down there,” Davis insisted.
“How do I disarm it?” she asked, now trying to rush things along.
Davis looked at her in confusion. “But you need a way down first,” he insisted.
“Focus, Davis! How do I disarm the bomb?” she asked again.
Davis shook his head and looked down at the ground. “I . . . I don’t know,” he replied softly. “Maybe we can’t, but we have to try.”
Kalla looked around the valley. “Do you think you can keep one of those ships on the ground a little longer?” she asked, pointing in the direction of two smaller cruisers that hadn’t taken off yet.
“Well, we can try, but what about the slaves, the bomb?” Davis asked, still very confused as to what she was thinking.
“Leave all of that to me,” she said before turning and making a mad dash toward the mine.
Still confused, Davis could only hope she knew what she was doing. “Follow me, boys,” he said as he headed off toward the nearest cruiser still grounded.
As the three men ran, they happened across a pile of weapons scattered on the ground. Pausing only long enough to take what they needed, the men continued onward, toward one of the large ships.
In the chaos around them, soldiers passed by, paying little if any attention to the three as they ran. Davis knew the soldiers had either seen the general’s ship go down or could now see the fires that blazed where the ship had crashed. If they were smart, they’d get off this planet, what he himself would rather be doing.
Cautiously approaching one of the cruisers, Davis motioned for Tuck and Dal to stay back while he devised a plan. He slowly ran to the guarded entrance of the ship, acting like any other soldier, and ran on board.
Tuck and Dal waited several meters off in the distance, watching for Davis to give them the signal. Suddenly, soldiers began running off the ship in droves, falling over each other as they fought to make their way out. The two natives looked at one another in confusion, trying to figure out why they’d be leaving the ship. Finally, after several minutes of evacuation, Davis appeared at the entrance ramp and motioned for them. The two jumped from their hiding spot and rushed toward the ship, then up the ramp to the entrance.
Stepping inside they immediately heard the alert blaring through the loud speakers, accompanied by the flashing red warning lights throughout the hallway of the ship.
They followed Davis as he entered the engine room and began manipulating a control panel to one side.
“Lucky for us, the general failed to have my clearance revoked on all the ships,” he said, working quickly at the computer. “I was able to use my rank credentials to set a self-destruct that only I could override.”
Tuck swallowed loudly, turning white with fear as he watched Davis work. “You gonna be able to shut it off, right?” he asked as his body turned in preparation to run out the door.
Just then, the lights and warning alert abruptly stopped as Davis turned around with a big smile on his face. “Of course!” he said, proud to have accomplished the task so easily. “Now let’s lock the doors and wait for Kalla to get back here.”
~
Reaching the edge of the mine with little effort, Kalla ran to the nearest arm that held the control center up and climbed her way to the top. Her intention was to make sure everyone was safe and that no one would interfere with her retrieval of the nuke below.
Climbing up to the landing pad, Kalla made her way to the lift that sat out-of-order on the level below. Not even looking for another way down, Kalla jumped inside the shaft and dropped to the floor below, landing gracefully on her feet. She walked toward the airlock and stepped inside. Using a keycard she’d stolen from a soldier on her way to the mine, Kalla activated the airlock, which ran its usual process, opening up inside the control center.
She searched the facility but found it was already empty. Satisfied it was clear, she smashed through one of the windows in the tower and climbed outside. Working her way down, she reached the underside of the building, then dropped to the outer platform below.
She ran across the platform toward the walkway that rounded down into the mine. At each shaft she came across, she searched for slaves, freeing any who were bound and sending them up toward the platform where they could escape the mine.
When she finally reached the main lower shaft, a guard standing just inside the entrance yelled for her to stop. When she didn’t comply with his order, he opened fire, sending several rounds into her body. Only increasing her rage, Kalla rushed the guard, disarmed him, and slipped past as she jumped over the top of him. Then, using the walls of the tight area as a brace, she swung from behind and sent him flying out of the shaft and over the rail.
Continuing onward, she reached the inside, where the cavern opened up to a large room full of slaves and a handful of guards. Catching all by surprise, Kalla rounded the room quickly, giving the guards little time to react, disabling or killing each of them until the attempted gunfire ceased.
Kalla worked quickly to break the chains that kept the slaves grouped together in each area of the room, sending them out of the shaft and onto the walkway, where they moved as fast as their tired bodies would take them, headed toward the top, to freedom.
With the last slave on the walkway and headed toward freedom, Kalla surveyed the darkness below. Unable to see the bottom, even with her exceptional vision, she knew that running the walkway wo
uld take too long and made her decision. She ran back into the shaft that was now empty and grabbed hold of a long stretch of chain, wrapped it around her shoulder, then ran to the edge and jumped into the open hole of the mine.
Now in a free fall, Kalla aimed her feet toward the ground, hoping she’d survive the fall. Seconds later, she could see the ground below her approaching rapidly. Bending her legs for impact, Kalla hit the ground, landing firmly on her feet.
Amidst the dozens of bodies scattered across the dark floor—slaves who’d met their end here—Kalla quickly located the nuke. The large metal device, a box-shaped object with ends that rounded to a point, sat quietly in the darkness.
At each end were large steel handles used to lift the heavy device. She took the chain from her shoulder and found one end, which she snaked through the handle of the nuke, tying it in a knot, then crimping the chain with her shear strength. Taking the other end of the chain, she wrapped it around her waist and again tied it, crimping the metal links together so they wouldn’t come loose.
“If Jarek could do this, so can I,” she said with confidence, remembering how he’d so easily scaled the cliff on Paradise with the crate hanging behind him. She moved toward the wall as the nuke dragged on the ground behind her, attached to the chain around her waist. With a jump, she burst into the air and grabbed hold of the wall, several meters high. Using all the strength she could muster, Kalla began a sluggish climb toward the light above, moving as fast as her arms and legs would take her, the weight of the nuke below a noticeable strain.
Although her climb was slow, she still moved much faster than the slaves making their escape, reaching the top of the mine long before some of the last slaves even reached the platform below.
Kalla’s muscles flexed and strained as she finally pulled herself over the edge, where she collapsed for a moment, the nuke still dangling in the open hole. After a brief rest, Kalla grabbed hold of the chain and slowly pulled the nuke out of the hole and onto the flat ground where she sat. Still exhausted from the climb, she rested a little longer, mentally preparing herself for the next step in her plan: carrying the nuke back to the ship Davis had hopefully delayed.