by T. R. Harris
The speaker cracked. “Sherri, it’s Riyad. I’m at the embassy.”
It was Adam who spoke first. “Dammit, Riyad, you may have a vested interest in sticking around here, but we don’t. Ten days is long enough—”
“Ophelia’s ship is overdue,” Riyad shouted. Gone was his usual lightheartedness and calm demeanor. “It was carrying a delegation to the mining world of Qwinness about twelve light years from here.”
“Was it part of a convoy?”
“No, they figured a trip that short didn’t require one.”
“How long have they been overdue?”
“A full day.”
“That long?” Sherri asked. “That’s longer than the whole trip would take, and you’re just now learning about it?”
“It’s a Human ship and the Que’l aren’t used to so much traffic in their space.”
“What are they doing about it?”
“Nothing, that’s what they’re doing.” The frustration was evident in Riyad’s voice. “They say it’s a Human matter. I’ve been trying to link with Andy, but he’s out of pocket at the moment, and the people I’ve talked to say to give it another day or two. It could just be mechanical problems, they say. I tried to explain to the landlubbers that having mechanical problems in interstellar space isn’t like fixing a flat on the four-oh-five.”
“Did you tell them about the black ship?”
“No; that would have only confused them more. I was hoping to talk with Andy. He knows more about that than even we do.”
“Get over here, Riyad,” Adam Cain ordered. “It’s a pretty good bet we’re going to miss the convoy, so we might as well run over to Qwinness and see what we can find out.”
Sherri’s eyes met his, a look of worry on her face, yet she didn’t protest, at least not yet.
“Thanks, Adam,” Riyad said. “We’ll just have to be extra careful, and at least we have some idea what to look out for. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
When the link light went out, Sherri continued to stare at Adam.
“What was I supposed to do?” he asked when she remained silent. “Besides, this is often how great and heroic adventures begin.” He cast his most-devilish grin her way, hoping….
Unfortunately, Sherri Valentine had long ago grown immune to his charms. “I’ll be sure to have that carved into your tombstone, Mr. Cain—if I live that long.” Her smirk was as sarcastic as her comment. “Great and heroic…yeah, right!”
By the time Admiral Tobias was located and linked through, the Pegasus was already beyond the boundary of the Unisid star system and entering an expanse of open space stretching for twelve light years before reaching Qwinness. There were no other systems between the two points, so very little traffic was present. It was like that dark, deserted and scary path on the way to grandma’s house….
“Dammit, you guys really do like pushing your luck! You not only go unescorted, but you actually go out looking for trouble.” Andy was livid. “You know it will be my ass if the three of you get killed. Even though I keep telling everyone you’re not the heroes they make you out to be, no one listens me.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have written that book about me,” Adam said with a wink.
He saw the Admiral’s mouth fall open briefly, then he snapped it shut again. “I told you, the book isn’t about you; it’s about me!”
“Relax, Andy,” Sherri said. “He’s just yanking your chain. Now, can we get any kind of backup at all?”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you? Do you know how many ships it takes to escort a convoy? And after the Joining Ceremony, I have convoys heading out from Unisid in all directions—all except yours. Listen, Riyad, I’m really sorry about your girlfriend—”
“She is not my girlfriend!” Riyad interrupted. “Well, not yet. But we’re talking about a missing Human ship here, with over fifty passengers and crew. Someone has to go looking for them.”
“You’re right, of course, and if this was any normal search mission and you were just another crew, I’d say go for it.”
“Andy, we’ll be careful,” Adam finally cut in. “And from the reports I’ve seen, all the attacks have come on stationary targets, not ships in gravity-wells. We should be safe until we dump out.”
“And then what?” Tobias asked, already knowing the answer.
“Then we play it by ear.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Tobias shook his head. “I can’t stop you—not the famous Adam Cain and crew—but I am going on record as being opposed to this mission. I’ll send a squadron your way as soon as some ships are freed up. It may take as long as a week.”
“Hey, Admiral,” Adam said with a smile. “If we’re not back on Unisid in a couple of days, then don’t bother sending help.”
Andy Tobias didn’t say another word, but he did send Adam a nonverbal message before breaking the link. It was the Human gesture of brotherhood, as the Que’lian Drunage player Dravis had called it.
He flipped him the bird.
186
“It does have a similar shape as the Human ship,” Vosmin was saying. “And it is by itself. Yet still I hesitate….”
“Because you do not trust my pulse?”
“That is my primary concern, especially since this is a strain that has shown the ability to kill Sol-Kor.”
“My pulse will incapacitate them. It will with any strain with similar electronic brain function.”
It was Vosmin’s turn to have some fun at the expense of Panur’s ego. He knew the list of most sensitive topics that could irritate the A’nor mutant and expressing a lack of confidence in one of his devices was at the very top. For all his superior intelligence—as well as his lifespan of several thousand years—Panur was still quite immature. When this weakness revealed itself, Vosmin was able to get the scientist to do his bidding without the normal resistance.
“Are you willing to risk your life on the effectiveness of your pulse beam? Oh, I forgot, you can’t be killed.”
“I can be killed, and you know it Vosmin. I just can’t die. There is a difference.” His last sentence was drenched in condescension.
“Still I hesitate—”
“Then don’t harvest them,” Panur interrupted. “If you are so concerned about the capabilities of the Human strain, then allow me the opportunity to study them first. That will answer all your questions and settle any doubts. After that we will know whether the Humans are a threat to the Colony or not.”
“Your study may involve the killing of some Humans so you can investigate their brains and physiology. At that point, it would be you directing the harvest.”
“I understand that. But it will be for a greater purpose, and not just to satisfy the rumblings in your stomach.”
“Either way, the individuals will be dead. I do not think they will care much what purpose their deaths may serve, just that they will be dead.”
“You are playing with me again, my Lead, I do see that. But I’m as curious about these Humans as you are hungry.”
“Make quick work of your study, Panur. We must know more about this strain, as we must also learn about the rich variety Boslef found aboard the large ship. One ship at a time is enough to satisfy the needs of the crew, yet we have an entire Colony to feed. We must find the growing fields before we call in the reapers.”
“Just be sure to focus the pulse properly. I cannot be held responsible for operator error.”
The Pegasus II was a special ship, equipped with eight focusing rings, which was unheard of for a ship her size. Once clear of the gravity influences of the Unisid system, Adam kicked the vessel into high gear, creating an intense gravity-well only a few hundred yards beyond the forward tip of the ship. Feeling confident in his statement that the beamships only attack once a ship drops out of a well, he cut through the emptiness of the Yellow Transit—as the Que’l called this route, for what reason, he didn’t know—and was nearing the Qwinness star system six hours later.
<
br /> “Standby,” he said to the two people on the bridge. “Here’s where it can get dicey.”
Riyad was at the weapons station, his finger on the trigger of the fully-charged plasma bolt cannon, while Sherri sat at the navigation station with the comm linked in. She would be looking for any trace of the passenger hauler the moment they returned to normal space.
“Here goes.”
Adam dissolved the well and immediately the blue and white streaks that had been the stars returned to steady points of light, with one much brighter than all the others. This was Veliss, the home star of the planet Qwinness, and it lay directly ahead.
“Anything?”
“Damn,” Sherri said. “That didn’t take long.”
“Yes, the Valley Forge is off our starboard quarter, about a half a light-year out.” Riyad sounded completely deflated, since the contact still showed energy output, yet with no movement on their part, either. The ship was drifting among a cluster of small icy bodies that made up the outer boundary of the star’s planetary disk.
“Pegasus to Valley Forge, please acknowledge. Pegasus to Valley Forge, respond.” Sherri only tried a couple of times, not wanting to fill the bridge with the sound of hopelessness in her voice. Eventually, she turned to Riyad. “Sorry. According to what we know about this suppressor beam, the victims do go peacefully.”
Riyad didn’t respond. Instead he remained at his station, his fingers still ready to react to any hostile contact.
“I’m moving in closer,” Adam said to break the awkward silence. “We should be able to dock with the port just above the bridge. Did you want to stay aboard and monitor the screens, Riyad?”
“No, I’ll go aboard with you.”
“I’ll stay,” Sherri volunteered.
Sixteen minutes later the Pegasus was secured above the larger vessel, clamped to a courtesy access for passenger transfers. A ladder dropped to a reception area just aft of the bridge. Adam and Riyad were dressed in environment suits, even though all indications were that the ship was fully intact, air-tight and functioning.
When the hatch opened and the air from the Valley Forge entered the airlock, it wasn’t what Adam had been expecting. He had been expecting the smell of death—whatever that entailed when no bodies would be present. But prodigious amounts of blood did have its own particular smell, and he wasn’t detecting any of it.
Riyad dropped to the deck first, his MK-47 Advanced Bolt Launcher in his right hand and ready. He swept the reception area for, well, anything; bodies, blood pools, hostile aliens. Instead all he found was an empty room.
Adam was soon at his side. The two men looked at each other with raised eyebrows.
“Let’s check the bridge first,” Adam said. “If anything took place aboard, it would have culminated there.”
It was only fifty feet to the entrance of the bridge, and when they entered Riyad let out a sigh. There was no one here, but more importantly, there were no blood pools or drag tracks, either. The room was clean, the air conditioning operating, and with all the boards alive and active.
“Comm,” Adam said, and Riyad moved to the station. This was where security recordings would be stored and Riyad was pulling up tracks within seconds of taking the seat. He scrolled through the static image of the bridge recorder, watching the time stamp run backwards at a rapid pace. Soon a day had passed, and then another. And then suddenly there were people and activity in the recording. He stopped the track and rewound it to a point where time seemed to stand still on the bridge. Adam leaned in closer for a better look.
The eight men and women on the bridge were definitely under the influence of something. The ones in chairs remained seated yet stared blankly forward with their mouths open slightly. The ones standing now wobbled slightly in place. One man lost his balance and fell forward. His reactions were too slow to break his fall, and he hit hard on the side of a console before tumbling to the deck. He remained on the floor with his eyes open, mouth agape, yet with no expression of pain on his face.
“Any other tracks?”
“Yeah, plenty. This isn’t a Juirean ship, and unlike them, we seem to revel in recording our every move.”
Riyad scrolled through the inventory of available recordings until he found one for the huge dining area aboard the ship. The Valley Forge appeared to overbooked, with a literal flood of people now milling around the room in zombie-like fashion. Riyad was able to zoom in on the image and concentrate on specific areas of the mess hall. When he found what he was looking for, he enlarged the image even more.
It was a blurry image of Ophelia Naidu. Riyad checked the time stamp. Forty-one hours ago.
“Fast forward to when the aliens came aboard,” Adam requested. Riyad took a moment longer looking at the image before complying.
Just as in the Juirean recording, the black-armored creatures arrived uncontested and moved within the drug-addled passengers and crew as if they were ghosts and moving at a speed that rendered them invisible. The black figures carried the same long, sword-like weapons as they had aboard the Juirean Class-Four, but this time they didn’t activate the blades and begin lopping off heads. Instead they began to forcefully herd all the people from the ship and into three waiting shuttles, one attached to the same scuttle as the Pegasus was now, with two others sharing an aft access port.
“This tells us two things,” Adam began. “One is that they’re probably still alive; for what reason, I don’t know? And two, there is another beamship in the area, and the Tarazi crew didn’t destroy the only one.”
“Where there’s another, there’s always more. And now without a doubt, you can see we’re just as vulnerable to the suppressor beam as were the Juirean and the others.”
“But this time they didn’t kill the crew and passengers. That is significant.”
Riyad grunted. “Maybe they just want their meat to be fresh. Their freezers may be full from previous raids. I don’t hold out much hope for their fate, my friend.”
“Hey guys, you may be interested in something I just found.” Sherri had been monitoring their cameras, so she saw what they saw. Adam’s heart jumped when Sherri first broke in, but now he calmed down. It didn’t sound like she was raising an alarm.
“I found a trail leading away from here.”
“What kind of trail?” both Riyad and Adam asking in unison.
“A gravity trail, stupid. It’s very faint and like nothing I’ve seen before. But with the sensors set at their highest gain looking for trouble, I would have missed it otherwise.”
Adam and Riyad looked at each other with wide eyes. “We’re on our way back!” Adam cried out. “Prepare to disengage the moment the airlock is secure.”
“Aye aye, Captain Cain. Let’s go track down some blood-thirsty aliens and show them what happens when they mess with Humans.”
“That’s the old Sherri Valentine I know and love. Gung-ho and ready for action.”
“You’re not talking about sex again, are you?”
“Now that you mention it….”
“Splash some cold water on it you two,” Riyad said as he and Adam raced through the deserted starship and scaled the waiting ladder. “We have a damsel in distress to rescue.”
“See, Sherri!” Adam said. “I told you this was the start of a great and heroic adventure.”
‘Yeah, whatever. Now move your tight buns; breakaway in five seconds.”
The trail was indeed faint and unlike anything Adam had seen before. Gravity waves are fairly easy to spot and consist of ripples in space leading out from the path of the starship. This signal, however, was more like tiny blips in the space-time continuum, forming a dot-like pattern that seemed to grow stronger and tighter the further it ran from the Valley Forge. This told Adam that they were getting closer to the black ship, and at the pace of the increasing density of the blips, it was obvious the Pegasus was much faster than the alien vessel, at least in this instance. The Pegasus was balls-to-the-wall and the alien ship may be simpl
y taking a leisurely pace back to their base, planet or whatever they called home.
Adam couldn’t dispute Riyad’s earlier assertion that the aliens may simply be maintaining the herd for future use. Again, the armor-suited creatures had left the Human starship without taking anything except the people. From his experience, he knew that all the ships, weapons and communication equipment now used by the Humans—and others of the Expansion—where the most-advanced to be found in the galaxy. And if these aliens didn’t care a lick about that, then what level of technology did they possess? It was obviously more advanced than even the best the Humans, Juireans—and by extension—the Klin had to offer. This made him nervous, since here were the three of them rushing headlong toward an enemy who could more than likely squash them like a bug. However, he did know that the alien ships and bodies could be destroyed. It’s just that he doubted it would be that simple in a standup fight, not when the black aliens could see it coming.
That was why he slowed the Pegasus once the blips began to come in tighter groupings and a star system appeared along the direct path of the aliens. Other systems had been bypassed, yet with one the course didn’t deviate.
“Any information about this place,” he asked Sherri.
“I’ve been searching. Nothing so far. It’s toward the outskirts of sector 2-4-2, and clearly within Human space. It’s a wonder we haven’t had contact with these things before.”
Riyad shook his head. “Their force seems too small and the mission too narrow for this to be coming from a planet full of armored aliens. This is more like an exploratory operation, and maybe a prelude to a full-scale invasion.”
“Invasion, for food?” Sherri asked. “That would be pretty, well, dumb.”