by T. R. Harris
“Where does this take us?” Riyad said, holding the talkative 2G by the collar of his tunic.
“It will lead to an emergency airlock just above the main staging area.
Moving two abreast, Adam’s force, along with the nine surviving 2G’s, moved along the narrow corridor for a good twenty minutes before coming to a larger room. There was a thin pressure window in a doorway. Adam looked through it and found that they were about forty meters above the main airlock floor. From his vantage point he could see at least twenty-five or more large shuttles with their rear panels opens. These would be the Juirean landing craft. And further on, he could see the FS-475.
There were two Juireans Guards stationed outside Kaylor’s ship. But what he found odd was that there were only five Juireans near the landing craft. He smiled to himself. We must have taken out a lot of the green-haired bastards. They couldn’t even spare very many to watch their ships.
Adam turned to the eyes watching him. He glanced around quickly and found one of the men holding a flash rifle. “Give that to me,” he said.
The man obliged.
Then to Riyad: “Take a squad down between those two shuttles and take out the five guards there. I’ll take out the two by Kaylor’s ship. Move on my shot.”
Then they opened the door. There was a staggered catwalk that wrapped around an outcrop in the old uranium excavation and was hidden from view from the floor of the airlock, and Adam’s men filed down silently. Adam watched as Riyad and ten of the Humans slipped in between the two shuttles. He knew that as soon as a bolt went off in the chamber everyone would be aware of their presence.
Adam moved behind one of the shuttles and began to climb the stair-stepped sides of the old open-pit mine. His side screamed with pain, but he endured until he reached a vantage point about fifty meters from the guards at Kaylor’s ship.
Hefting the flash rifle, Adam rested his right shoulder against the side of the wall and sighted along the barrel. Long-range shots with a flash rifle were not that difficult. The bolts themselves were not overly affected by gravity; their weakness lie in their limited range. This model of XF was good for about a hundred meters. After that, the bolts quickly lost energy and dissipated.
Before taking his shot, waited for Riyad and his men to get into position. Then he lined up the first guard in his site, and pulled the trigger.
The bolt flew true and impacted the guard in the throat. He immediately shifted his sight and squeezed the trigger again. This bolt hit the Juirean in the forehead.
Adam quickly glanced to his left and saw Riyad and his men blast the five other Juireans in flashes of blue-white energy.
Adam keyed his comm unit. “Kaylor, where are you?”
“Oh, thank all the Gods there may be. I’m so glad to hear from you!” came Kaylor’s impassioned response. “Was that you who just took out the guards?”
“Yeah. Me and my army.”
“Your army?”
“It seems this has turned into a rescue mission after all. Meet us at the shuttle closest to your ship.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kaylor and Jym staggered up to the group of Humans, panting and bending over to rest their arms on their knees. The two aliens then slowly looked up…and stopped breathing, as they scanned the ominous scene before them. Glaring down at them were dozens of heavily armed and fierce-looking Humans. Even though they knew they were friends, the two aliens still shuddered at the awesome sight.
Adam noticed their expressions. “Relax, they’re on our side.”
Sherri stepped up next to him. “The Juireans are not going to let Kaylor’s ship off the surface.”
“I know. I’ve got another plan.”
Adam directed Riyad and Sherri to get the men into the nearest Juirean landing craft. Turning to Kaylor, he asked, “Can you fly that thing?”
Kaylor frowned. “I suppose so. It shouldn’t be too difficult. But what about my ship?”
Adam stepped closer and put his hand on Kaylor’s shoulder. “We’re going to have to leave her. It’s the only way we can get out of here alive.”
Adam saw Kaylor turn pale, his eyes growing large. But Jym stepped up next to him. “It will be okay,” the tiny alien said. “We’ll get another one – a newer, better one – when this is all over.”
Kaylor just stared at his ship for a long moment. “She served us well.”
“Sure did,” Adam said. “Now we best be moving.”
Once the Juirean ship was loaded, Riyad closed the rear hatch and Kaylor slipped into the pilot seat. Looking around, they didn’t see Adam.
Riyad keyed his comm. “Adam, where are you?”
“I’m in the Cassie 1.”
“Wait a minute!” Kaylor protested. “I have to leave my ship but Adam keeps his!”
“We need the counselor’s shuttle to get us off the planet. Just follow my lead.”
Aboard the Cassie 1, Adam activated the Juirean transponder and fingered the communication button. “This is Counselor Deslor’s shuttle demanding that the airlock be opened immediately.”
A startled voice came over the speaker. “It will take a couple of minutes to depressurize the chamber. Please wait.”
“Initiate whatever emergency procedure you need to do. The Counselor has been injured and requires immediate medical attention!”
The line was still open to the technician, and Adam heard him yell out “rapid evac!” Then the ceiling began to slide aside. Adam felt like screaming, as the vast metal door appeared to be moving in slow motion.
But finally the opening was large enough for the Cassie 1 and Kaylor’s shuttle to squeeze through. They both activated chemical engines and screamed out of the airlock in a cloud of black and grey smoke.
Once clear of the open pit excavation, Adam initiated a small gravity well. Kaylor did the same, and soon they were streaking for open space.
Adam pulled up a vicinity-readout and on his forward screen a couple of dozen contacts appeared. He quickly scanned the readout. There, toward the end of the Juirean line of ships! Adam tapped his keyboard and a visual popped up. It was a heavy battlecruiser. Class 5. Just what he needed. He steered toward the ship.
Almost immediately a voice came over his intercom. “To the Juirean shuttle approaching, state your business.”
“This is Counselor Deslor’s shuttle and escort. The Counselor has been injured and requires immediate medical attention. Have a medical team waiting in the hold. Estimated arrival, two minutes. Arriving on chemical drive.”
“What? Counselor who? This is highly unusual.”
“Who is this?” Adam demanded. “When the Counselor dies from his injuries I want to be able to report to the Overlord the name of the individual responsible.”
There was a brief silence before the voice came back on. “We are sending a team. Enter through the right landing bay.”
Adam had no idea where the right landing bay was, but he closed on the large cruiser, dissolved the well and reactivated the chemical drive. As he rounded the aft section of the ship, he saw an opening of the lighted bay. He slowed and maneuvered in carefully. Kaylor was right behind him.
Once in the bay, Adam cut the drive and could hear the Cassie 1 screech along the metal floor, before coming to a rest only meters from the interior wall. He felt a slight bump as Kaylor actually ran into the side of his ship.
There go my insurance rates! Adam thought, surprised he could still muster a sense of humor; he figured it was simply out of exhaustion – and the throbbing pain in his side.
Through the viewport, Adam could see a group of Juireans, as well as another being he didn’t recognize, standing on the other side of the airlock door, waiting for the room to pressurize. When it was, the door slid open and the medical crew rushed in. One particular Juirean strolled in slower than the medical crew and stood near the exit door to the shuttle.
Adam climbed out of the pilot seat, picked up an MK-17 and checked its power pack. Then he headed for the
exit.
As the door slid open, Adam stepped out into the warm air of the landing bay, still carrying in it traces of his chemical drive. He could hear the creaking of the engines as they cooled.
The Juirean commander stepped past the medical crew and eyed Adam, noticing the blood stained wrap around his waist. “Who are you? And where is the Counselor?”
“Yeah, about that…” Adam pulled the MK from behind his back and sent a bolt through the commander’s forehead. Then he turned the weapon on the other aliens in the room.
Riyad, Sherri and the other humans came streaming around the Cassie 1, weapons at the ready, Kaylor and Jym bringing up the rear. Adam looked at Jym. “Find us a computer terminal and pull up a schematic. We need to find the bridge.”
The group moved out of the landing bay and into the control room, with some of the men taking up positions to cover the passageways leading in. Jym moved to a console and began to key-in frantically. “To the left and three levels up,” he called out.
Adam moved in behind Jym. “What’s the compliment of a ship this size?”
Jym did some more typing. “About forty-five, not counting combat troops.”
Adam knew he didn’t have to worry too much about combat troops being left onboard. Most, if not all, were down on the surface of Zylim-4. “Jym, show Riyad where the generator room is located. Riyad, take ten men and secure the generators. Kaylor and the rest of you follow me to the bridge.”
They set off down the corridor to the left, while Riyad’s group split off and headed aft. With Sherri and Kaylor on his wings, Adam led his group to the nearest stairway. In the lighter gravity of the Juirean ship, Adam and his men practically flew down the hallways and up the stairs, while Kaylor fell further behind. Adam noticed that Sherri had slowed to stay with him, her MK gripped tightly in her right hand.
At the end of passageway was a double secure door. Not knowing if the bridge crew had been alerted or not, Adam’s team slowed and took up flanking positions. Then Adam fingered the controls to the door and it slid open...
Sitting at the controls, with their feet up on the consoles, were three aliens, not Juireans, and they were completely taken by surprise as the Humans swarmed into the room. Adam’s men literally threw the aliens out of their chairs and toward the rear of the bridge. Others took up guarding positions over the aliens.
Kaylor finally arrived on the bridge. “Can you fly this one, too?” Adam asked him.
Kaylor moved up to the controls and considered them for a moment. “This is a Class 5 starship. It’s a complicated monster.”
“Yeah, but can you fly it?”
Kaylor studied the controls once again, and then looked at Adam. “Of course I can.”
Adam patted him on the back. “Good. Turn her away from the planet on chemical drive. Small bursts, nothing to attract attention.”
Sherri moved next to Adam. “The Juireans are going to notice if we attempt to bolt out.”
“I know,” Adam said. “That’s why I want you stay here with Kaylor and listen in on the comm. Kaylor, be ready to punch it when I say so.”
“Punch what?”
“Never mind.” Adam looked straight at Sherri and smiled. “Keep an eye on him. He means well.”
Adam left the bridge and returned to the landing bay just as Riyad was returning from the generator room. “Doesn’t seem to be very many people home. Guess they’re all down on the planet licking their wounds.”
“Good, come with me.”
Adam lead Riyad and his men into the landing bay. “Try to find anything that will explode.”
Riyad recoiled from the statement. “Explode?”
“Yeah, I need something that will blow up the Cassie 1, and in about ten minutes.”
Riyad looked at Adam as if he’d gone insane. Adam noticed the look. “We need a diversion to get this ship into a well.”
Riyad nodded and began to survey the landing bay. Soon he found barrels that he recognized as propellant for the chemical drives. He called Adam over.
“Great. Let’s get five of these aboard. I also found a repeating bolt launcher.”
In a few minutes, the super-strong Humans had hefted five barrels of chemical into the stateroom aboard the shuttle. Then they set up the bolt launcher aimed at the nearest barrel. Riyad placed a datapad on the launcher and set the timer for ten minutes.
While this was going on, Adam quickly packed a duffle bag of his ‘Human’ clothes, and then went to the pilothouse to program an auto-course for the shuttle.
They left the ship and ran for the airlock. Once cycled through, they watched as the Cassie 1 backed out of the bay with small jets of air. Then the sleek shuttle spun about and streaked off on her last journey.
Adam ordered the other men to begin a systematic search of the ship for aliens, and then he and Riyad set off for the bridge, Adam holding his bleeding side as he went. Riyad had to help him up the last flight of stairs.
“Get ready!” Adam said as he entered the bridge.
Chapter Thirty
Overlord Yan’wal, Commander Siegor and Giodol all stood on the massive bridge of the UN-444. Yan’wal was furious. Siegor had just delivered the latest casualty report from the surface.
“Eighty percent of the Guards have been killed. How can this be? Who are these creatures?”
“Our superior numbers were negated by the confined space we had to fight in. And the Human targeting was especially effective,” Siegor said. He knew this was the end of his career. Even though both of the recent battles with the Humans had resulted in victories, the losses were way beyond anyone’s imagination. Juirean life was far too valuable to be lost in such numbers, and for so little gain. This time, however, the bodies of three Klin had been found, yet that hardly justified the price they had to pay. Yes, the Klin were present, but not in any great numbers.
“Have you heard from your agent?” Yan’wal asked Giodol.
He was about to answer when a technician interrupted. “My Lords, there is a shuttle cutting across our forward position. The transponder is registered as belonging to Counselor Deslor.”
“Deslor?” The three senior Juireans turned to the main screen and saw the tiny speck streak across their view, with the planet Zylim-4 far below.
Just then the point at the end of the streak exploded in a fiery ball of chemical blue and green. “Was it fired upon?” asked Siegor of the technician.
“No, My Lord. None of the ships fired.” Then he looked closer at his screen.
“What is it?” Siegor asked.
“One of the battlecruisers just activated a well.”
The Juireans moved quickly to stand behind the tech. “Which ship?” Yan’wal asked.
“It was last in the line. And it’s gone now.”
“Call the ship, immediately!” Siegor commanded.
After a few attempts, the tech turned to the assembled Juireans. “They are not answering.”
Yan’wal gritted his teeth. “Track their gravity wave. Siegor, send three ship after them. It must be the Humans.”
Chapter Thirty-One
A half hour later, Adam had Kaylor dissolve the well and initiate a ninety-degree turn to port. They proceeded on chemical drive for another five minutes before Adam commanded the ship to go dark, including internal gravity.
As they waited in the dim emergency lighting, holding onto whatever they could to keep themselves from drifting around the compartment, Kaylor noticed an approaching gravity wave. Class Fives were fast and powerful vessels. They disturbed the space around them for hundreds of kilometers. Then the wave streaked by. In fact, all they really knew was that a gravity wave appeared, and then began to quickly dissipate.
After another half hour, Adam had Kaylor initiate another well, and they bolted off. They repeated the maneuver three more times before Adam began to feel confident they weren’t being tracked.
“What now, boss?” Sherri asked after most of the Humans had left the bridge to find sleeping
accommodations, the galley or the head.
“I need to see Jym, in private. Keep Riyad occupied.”
Sherri lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you later if anything promising comes out of this.”
Jym met Adam on the bridge. After he entered, Adam shut the door and pressed the security lock. Jym looked at him nervously.
“Relax, buddy. I just need you to plot a location for me.”
“For Earth?” Jym exclaimed, suddenly excited.
“I don’t know. It could be of any place. And I only have a partial.”
Jym sat down at the massive navigation console, marveling at its sophistication. “Can you operate this?” Adam asked.
“Sure. This is all wonderful stuff.” For the first Adam could remember, Jym smiled.
Adam gave him the coordinates. “You know this doesn’t help much?” Jym said.
He was right. All coordinates for locations in the galaxy consisted of four points. The first was the distance from Juir. The next was from the galactic core. These two sweeping arcs would intersect at certain points depending on which direction one was looking. Since Adam was hoping the coordinates were for the Far Arm, he had Jym plot them out in that direction.
The next part of the coordinates was the direction. This was mainly determined by which section, out of 92, that the destination was in. Adam knew that the last digit was “1.” The Far Arm took up twenty-four sectors, ranging from 12 to 48. That would leave three sectors ending in “1.” As Jym plotted the possibilities, Adam’s heart began to race. A cross section of the Far Arm was materializing. These distances and sectors were definitely in the Far Arm.
But just to verify, Adam had Jym plot out the coordinates in another direction. The reference points fell apart. On the other side of the galaxy the distance from Juir and the Core never intersected. They only did on this side of the galaxy from Juir. These HAD to be the coordinates for Earth.