Hell Fighters From Earth Book 2

by William C. Seigler

“What!” Fitz was stunned. “Who?”

  Cee brought up a screen which showed the mounting mushroom cloud. Fitz fought to unfreeze his mind.

  He wrote: Are there any other spacecraft anywhere around here?

  Suddenly, his mind was ablaze with the voices of the pilots and Cee. Communications silence was shot to hell, and he knew it. Then it hit him, he was not wearing his headband. Fitz fought to keep his focus and keep his mind from going numb. This cannot be happening!

  “Get us out of here!” Fitz heard Cee shout in his head.

  Then Fitz could see the reason. Climbing out of the atmosphere was a huge spacecraft: an enemy spacecraft.

  The little ship changed course at blinding speed and was gone, hopefully before the rising enemy became aware of their presence. Everyone on board felt the change in acceleration as the scout shot back into space and away from the planet.

  “We are making the calculation for escape.” It was an unfamiliar voice in his head.

  “No!” Fitz called out.

  Everyone turned to look at him. He spoke the words. “Just find a place to hide and observe what happens. We must find out what is going on and what has happened to the Legion.”

  “Do as he asks,” said Cee.

  “What is the ship doing now?” Fitz asked.

  “It appears to have entered an orbit around the planet,” responded Cee.

  “They are not pursuing us?” asked Fitz.

  “It appears they are not,” Cee replied.

  The tiny ship swung around behind a small planetesimal, really just part of a larger debris field, and sat down.

  “Captain, please power down as much as possible,” Cee instructed.

  He turned to Fitz who asked out loud, “How is this possible?”

  “I am afraid you have stumbled on one of our most closely guarded secrets. Come, we will take tea.”

  “Tea, there is no time for tea!” shouted Fitz.

  Cee turned and with a sternness Fitz had never encountered before dealing with a Grey, his mind filled with Cee’s words. “Now is the perfect time for tea; now is what tea was made for. Come.”

  Fitz followed in stunned silence with Betrothed close at his heels. Once seated with the tea in preparation, Cee spoke to his fiancée.

  “I am sorry my dear; I should not have involved you in this,” he said as the words filled Fitz’s mind.

  “It is nothing,” she responded. “It is my pleasure and an honor to serve the ….”

  “Please, no,” said Cee, raising his hand. He looked at Fitz. “All this hero worship, as you call it, is very new to us. I am having considerable difficulty adjusting to it. How do you humans handle it?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Fitz aloud. He felt more comfortable this way, saying the words and speaking to Cee as if he was speaking to another human. Then he had it, what had been so disconcerting about the Cee on the rescue mission.

  When Fitz spoke with Cee, it was almost like a conversation with another human. It just felt right, not like what he had encountered in training and during his brief time as a direct contact. Was all this just put-on, a ploy to keep humans and Greys separated?

  Fitz had tried to study what was known about their culture, but there was not much, mostly warnings on how to deal with them and what not to do. Now they were partners in crime, and the thread that bound them together, as strong as any cable, was a down-earther named Denver Smith.

  “Can your pilots tell if anyone is approaching our position?” asked Fitz.

  “They are not actually my pilots, they …” Fitz’s mind was suddenly filled with the awareness that Cee knew he was just babbling. “Yes, unless it manages to come at us with this small planetary body exactly between us.”

  “Is there any way I could set out some sensors over the curve of this body?” asked Fitz.

  “No, no there isn’t; we have none aboard,” Cee responded. “I must prepare the tea.”

  “Why is it acceptable for us to communicate now, and not before?” asked Fitz.

  “It is not, but if anyone is close enough to intercept, the damage has been done.”

  Fitz thought on this as Cee prepared the tea. “Yes, but what about the headband?”

  “Oh, that.”

  There was only one way that someone could be out this far, far enough to hear Cee’s thoughts. Someone in the Grey command structure knew what had happened and that the Legion was in desperate straits. Fitz started to get angry.

  “You can hear our thoughts without the headbands, couldn’t you? I assume some of your people have been watching the Legion and us; what have you been planning?”

  “See, I told you it is the perfect time for tea. In all the time I have been associated with you, I have never seen you so out of control. Come drink, there is much to discuss.”

  The tea seemed to do the trick. Fitz could not tell if it really was the tea or just that they said it worked. What else had they not told him or any of the humans?

  “Cee, can you tell if there are any of your people out this way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If they can hear you, can’t you hear them?” asked Fitz.

  “I had not thought of that.”

  “I had not suspected your people to be so well versed in guile,” said Fitz.

  “We have had good teachers.”

  It was Betrothed, Fitz was sure of it. She sounded defensive, as if Cee was being attacked.

  “We have an entire specialty devoted to the study of human deception, though few of us actually understand it. You use your minds and tongues as tools, tools to further your own ends,” she added.

  “Specialties?” asked Fitz.

  Cee touched her arm, which seemed to calm her.

  “Oh yes, it is one of the specialties which have evolved to understand and deal with human beings,” she added. She sipped her tea, as she and Cee sat close.

  A different voice filled Fitz’s head. “The Reptilian vessel has jumped out of the system.”

  Fitz could feel the company relax.

  “I believe we should proceed with caution,” remarked Cee.

  “If they are aware of us and are planning something, they will hatch it out soon,” added Fitz. “We should get into position to observe the planet.”

  “Yes.”

  Cee spoke to the pilots, and soon the spacecraft lifted up, expertly maneuvered around the tiny world, and sat down in a small crater. They would be hard to find, if anyone were looking for them.

  An hour passed. There was no sign of any activity.

  “What else have you not told us?” asked Fitz finally.

  “Much, I am sure, but Friend of the People, there is only so much I have been told, or might be allowed to divulge. What are your people hiding from us?”

  “Nothing … that I know of.”

  “I am sure you are too far down in the command structure to know many important secrets, but it does not take genius to discern that the death of your leader was done by your own people. You kill your own, with such wild abandon,” Cee remarked with almost detached academic interest.

  “It is a strange thing. You even isolate yourselves from your fellow humans and view them as less than human. This is strange to us as well.”

  “It is strange; I must admit.”

  Then Cee said to the flight crew, “Take up high orbit and let the planet rotate under us.”

  “At once.”

  “What are you hiding?” asked Fitz.

  “What are you seeking?” answered Cee.

  What are you seeking? Those words bounced around in Fitz’s head as the spacecraft maneuvered into the desired position.

  “I am trying to find the Legion,” Fitz finally said. Then in quick succession, he added, “Until the Legion was shipped out, I was trying to find
out who killed the Prime Minister.”

  “I didn’t mean you personally,” said Cee. “What do your people want?”

  “They wish to live separate from the rest of humanity, and build lives that can be lived without interference.” Then he added, “Now we are trying to stop the monsters who wish to exterminate us.”

  “‘They’, you said ‘they’,” said Cee. “Not we.”

  Fitz smiled sheepishly, “Yes, I guess I did.”

  “Your people have spread throughout your star’s system. What else do you need? You even have a new Earth.”

  “Well yes, but without your help, it could not be colonized.” Wait a minute, without the Greys, New Earth would not be as important.

  “Why are you so determined to keep the secret of the jump drive to yourselves?” asked Fitz.

  “Why are you so determined to get the secret?”

  “I don’t know; I really don’t. With the jump drive, we would not have to …” Then it hit him.

  “With the jump drive, we could go anywhere in the galaxy we wish. We would not have to depend on The People for transportation to New Earth.”

  “Look how you treat your own species. With the jump drive in your possession, how would you treat us?”

  “They would never hurt the Greys,” protested Fitz.

  “Never?” asked Cee. “Never is a long time, my friend.”

  “Never … a long time? I don’t understand.”

  “One must wait forever to ensure that something never happens, and forever is a long time.”

  “Uh, yeah, I see your point,” Fitz conceded.

  “You might desert us and leave us without transportation to New Earth. You could just leave us stuck in our own star system without ways to resupply New Earth,” Fitz added.

  “That possibility exists,” said Cee. Then he added, “But we would never do that.”

  Fitz could have sworn that he saw a grin cross Cee’s inscrutable face.

  “So is that it? Both our peoples get along well enough and have learned to work together, but we really don’t trust each other,” asked Fitz.

  “That would be my guess, especially when the leadership of The People see how you treat the other humans.”

  “We recruited the Legion from among them, they fought for us, and then we abandon them to the enemy. Am I right in assuming that your leadership is aware of what has been done?”

  “Almost certainly, how could they not know?” responded Cee.

  “Yes, how could they not know?”

  “That, along with the murder of your Primary Minister, they must know the depths of Separatists’ treachery,” added Cee.

  “Given that, how could we ever hope to gain their trust?”

  “I do not know that you can,” said Cee.

  “Therefore, discovering the secret of the jump drive would be of the utmost importance. Assuming we are on the right track, how does any of this play into the Prime Minister’s death and the intentional destruction of the Legion?”

  “Find that answer, and we might have the answer to this whole mystery.”

  “Yes, we might, but for now, we have a job to do.”

  “Find our friends,” said Cee.

  “Yes, and now it’s even more imperative that we find them quickly.” To himself he added, if they are still alive.

  There was no sign of enemy ships. Finally, Fitz could stand it no longer.

  “We must proceed to the planet,” he said aloud.

  “Yes, I concur,” Cee added. He then spoke to the flight crew and quickly the ship sped toward the planet. They could find no evidence of Reptilian presence.

  “There is too much radiation to get near the place where the nuclear device went off,” Fitz heard in his mind. Then a sadness and even embarrassment filled his mind.

  “One is sorry for not being careful enough in our communication,” added Cee.

  “Think nothing of it. Either the Legion is alive, or they are dead.”

  “Sir, forgive one’s humble self for disturbing the honorable Cee, but we have something on long range,” said the voice of the ship’s commander.

  Fitz and Cee exchanged glances. “Cee, they call you ‘Cee’?”

  “It is difficult to explain. In the distant past, a warrior delighted in a name given him by his enemies and took it as his own. A great bridge-builder, a peacemaker between warring tribes would take on a name his friends gave him. Both were great honors.

  “We do not use names as you do, simple designators. Names carry pride in one’s doing, in one’s going. In the old days, that was the thing. As time went by, we became more civilized and more sophisticated, we no longer saw the occasion for this tradition.

  “It is a bit awkward, but one’s humble self has brought back these things to the minds of The People. I had no desire to become so public; People act different. It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Many of our own people revel in this sort of fame,” said Fitz.

  “Yes, that is what we understand. But I must confess, I do not understand.”

  “Now your people expect you to revel in it?”

  “I do not know what they expect. As I believe our friend Denver Smith would say, ‘There was a job to do, so I did it’. It seems so simple when he says it,” confessed Cee.

  “Yes it does, but I can’t explain why. He does have a way about him.”

  “He does, and so does his mate.”

  “Mate?” asked Fitz.

  “Yes, of course, the one we went to save after the Legion’s first battle against the Reptilians.”

  “Oh yes … that. Who authorized that rescue?”

  “I did.”

  Those were his only words. These two words told Fitz volumes. It was not thought in their nature nor in their command structure for any individual to make a command decision. It was vanishing in Separatist’s civilization as well, but that was not what shot through Fitz’s brain.

  Then it was true, one of the little buggers had taken initiative. He did not know they could.

  “Is your view of us so limited?” Cee asked.

  Oh man, I don’t need the headband; I forgot.

  “Yes, I took initiative as our ancient custom demands.”

  “Ancient custom?” asked Fitz.

  “Yes, I’m a historian; at least I was before being trained to work with humans.”

  “A historian, really?” asked Fitz.

  “Oh yes, it seemed a reasonable career change, from studying history to making it.”

  “I can see your reasoning, and I’m beginning to think much of what we were told about you was bull.”

  “Bull, you mean the animal?”

  “Well, maybe not all, but your people no longer appear to be what we were trained to expect.”

  “Yes, I am discovering that about you as well. With the exception of how you act toward the humans on the surface, you are not what we were told to expect.”

  “Is taking initiative common among your people?” asked Fitz.

  “No, is it common among yours?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Didn’t think so,” responded Cee.

  “Only I don’t think our people are ready to accept it in yours. In fact, some might be threatened by it.”

  “Someone among your people murdered your Prime Minister. Now that’s initiative.”

  “That’s not exactly what we are calling it,” said Fitz.

  “No, I suppose it is not, but it is; don’t you see?”

  Fitz had to think about it a while. “Things are not going the way you want them to in society, so you do something to change its direction.”

  “Something extreme, something that will shock society to its core,” added Cee.

  “Something that would get rid of the Legion’s stronge
st supporter and the Legion itself.”

  “Can you identify the people most opposed to forming the Legion in the first place?” asked Cee.

  “Yes, we have already done that.”

  “Are they the same ones who might benefit the most from the annihilation of the Legion?”

  “Yes,” answered Fitz.

  “Then you have your murderer. Now all you need is the proof.”

  “Proof is what we were working on when the Legion was spirited away.”

  “Who was behind their being sent away?” asked Cee.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I can guess.”

  “The same people who would benefit the most from your leader’s death and the death of the Legion? There is one thing that is not clear. Without the Legion, how did they hope to win the war?”

  “The Me 147,” mumbled Fitz.

  The mumble was a shout to Cee. “I have heard rumors of a new weapon. Are they true?”

  “Yes, they are true, and it is an effective weapon, but it cannot clear a planet of the Reptilians. We found that out during our reconnaissance of the planet the navy had supposedly cleaned out.”

  “Tell me, my friend, who owns this fantastic, but not entirely effective weapon?” said Cee.

  “It was developed by Admiral von Karlstad’s command, apparently in secrecy.”

  “Why in concealment would they do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Fitz. “What I do know is that Schiller was vehemently opposed to the formation of the Legion. He and the Admiral work closely together. They lead a faction that wishes to control Parliament.”

  “Faction?”

  “Yes, a subgroup of the leadership which wishes to gain control, the Schiller-von Karlstad faction. They were behind the joint mission that was destroyed by the Reptilians.”

  “All roads lead back to the same people, interesting. Is it correct to say that they were the second most powerful junta after the slain Prime Minister’s?”

  “Yes, easily.”

  “Is that what your ancestors were running from? asked Cee.

  “You mean, the killing, the corruption, the power mongering, and the constant warring, yes that is what they were escaping.”

  “Don’t you see, you were trying to escape yourselves, but that cannot be?”