“Hm,” the voice replied, “give me a moment to see. Do you have a way for me to contact you back?”
“No,” Pingrit said, “I’m at one of those government pickup places. Kind of had to hold one hostage.”
“You contacted me from a Federation linkup?” the voice said in a panic.
“Is that what this is?” Pingrit asked innocently. “Is that a problem?”
“Is that a problem?” the voice screamed. “You really are as stupid as they all say, aren’t you? You might as well have given them my coordinates and asked them to drop by for a search and seizure. No, I can’t pick you up. No one is going to pick you up. You-know-who is pissed that you not only didn’t get payment upon delivery but that you disappeared with his matter transporter. You’d better hope you stay stuck down there because if you ever show your face in any of his systems again, you’re dead. Consider that information a favor. You won’t be able to contact me back on this frequency because thanks to you, I’m going to have to change it and probably move. Idiot!”
The frequency went dead, and the screen returned to the contact panel it was before the call. Pingrit did not seem to care. He sat back in the chair looking to all the stars like a man defeated. His eyes darted back and forth. Defeated in this battle he may be, but he was not down yet. His mind was rolling.
“I’m still getting off this planet,” he said, and he raised his weapon to the women. “I think it’s high time one of you needed to go home. We’ll start with the one that needed deporting anyway.”
Michelle knew this was not going to work, but neither Talia nor Karafa said anything. She was not sure how much the women knew about the systems in this house, but she was sure they were going to allow this to take as long as possible especially if there was any hope of Turner showing up with Blake and Perry.
Michelle slowly walked to the tube as Pingrit walked around to the control side. Talia stepped forward.
“I probably need to turn it on and calibrate,” Talia began, but he interrupted her.
“No, it has a very obvious ‘on’ button, and there is a calibrate right here,” Pingrit said. “It even says to calibrate now. This is very user-friendly.”
“Yes,” Michelle heard Talia mumble. “Whole place is so freaking user-friendly. We should protest that.”
Pingrit opened the door for her to step into the tube. Michelle slowly stepped in once more. Lights whirled around here, and the machine opened.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Pingrit said. “You’re actually from Earth. How in the world do you know so much about all this?”
“Well, you know,” Michelle stammered, “We Terrans have our own department that deals with off-worlders. We’re not completely ignorant. I mean, a massive ship just dropped in, took a little ship, and left. You think we can just let that happen without some governing body being aware of it?”
“I can buy that,” Pingrit nodded. “Now, how can one of you two summon a ship for yourselves?”
“But we’re not allowed to leave yet,” Talia protested. “It’s a rotation of three Terran months.”
“Family emergency,” Pingrit said. “Do what you need to for a family emergency. Or scan yourselves. I don’t care. One of you is getting me out of here, and it better happen tonight.”
“Tonight?” Karafa said. “There’s no way. The ships only come during the night, and we only have a few hours before sunrise. No ship could get here from central command that fast. You know that’s where you’d be going, right? Central command?”
“Not if I can help it,” Pingrit said. “A prison ship would not be hijackable, but one that would come for either of you? They won’t suspect a thing. Now, request to go home.”
“Turner has to do that,” Talia said, but looking at her face, Michelle suspected Talia might be lying about this point. They spent all their time here while Turner did not. It would almost seem like they would need more authority than he did. But looking at Pingrit, she could see the frustration mounting.
“Fine, step into the tube for identification,” Pingrit said. “I want to see what happens for myself.”
Talia blanched. She looked at Karafa who seemed equally powerless. They appeared to know what would happen, and they were not keen on allowing it. With Pingrit waving his weapon around, however, they seemed unwilling to risk it going off in their direction.
Talia approached the tube slowly. Michelle could see the wheels turning, but there did not seem like there was anything she could do. Pingrit held all the cards. Talia reached out to press a button on the door, but Pingrit stopped her.
“No, let me get that,” Pingrit said as he pressed the very clearly marked “open” button. “I wouldn’t want anything going mysteriously wrong by someone who knows it as well as you. I’m not an idiot.”
“Of course not,” Talia said. Powerless to do anything else, she stepped into the genetic reader tube, and he closed the door behind her. He pressed the button clearly marked “Scan,” and lights flashed around her. Moments later, the lights stopped, and the door opened by itself.
“Oh look,” he said. “It tells me you're from Sarakis. I hear it’s nice.” She only stared at him, annoyed. “It even says right here ‘summon transport.’ I’ll bet all I need to do is press this button, and transport will come barreling over here to take us to Sarakis. Isn’t that right?”
She pursed her lips and nodded in response.
“Now, unless I’m mistaken,” Pingrit continued in a very condescending tone, “and I don’t think I am, that would mean when I was trying to get you to do this exact thing, and you told me it was not possible, you were lying. Isn’t that true?”
Talia nodded once more. Pingrit nodded curtly and walked over to her. Without warning, he struck her on the side of the face. She whirled around and hit the ground. Michelle gasped as tears formed in Talia’s eyes, but she resisted crying.
“The next time you lie to me,” Pingrit yelled angrily, “either one of you, you get a shot in the head. Do I make myself clear?”
Talia nodded and glanced to Karafa who was staring at Talia intently and also nodded.
“Now,” Pingrit continued, “I want that ship to land without any interference or warning from either of you. Are they going to request permission, approach vectors, that sort of thing?”
Talia and Karafa both nodded.
“I better hear one of you telling him only what they need to know and nothing more or the next ship that gets summoned with be a hearse! Now get yourself off the floor, and both of you stand in the corner by the back doors.”
Talia stumbled to her feet, still nursing her cheek which was bright red from being struck so hard. She walked to Karafa who held her as Michelle followed them to a corner of the room near the back doors and sat down to wait. Michelle hoped that Turner would be back soon, and he would be able to end this. They had failed.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Turner entered the driveway of the house where the hub was located and found the gate destroyed.
“Well, he’s definitely been through here,” Perry said. Turner shut off his headlights as they drove slowly down the driveway to the house. Turner veered off the road into the yard to pull up next to the garage and obscure his taillights from the house.
“Once we get inside, we need to have a plan for getting to him,” Turner said. “This house is big, and there are enough ways to get around that we might be able to surround him or at least, confuse him enough to take him down.”
“Will he have been able to summon a ship?” Blake asked.
“He couldn’t, and we know that Michelle can’t,” Turner explained, “but if he had Talia or Karafa get into the scanner, then yes. Neither of them has a criminal record so no red flags would be thrown. A ship would come to take him to either of their home worlds.”
“Would it come tonight?” Blake asked.
“At this hour?” Turner asked. “I don’t believe so. I suspect he is stuck until tomorrow.”
“You be
lieve so,” Blake said.
“Well, those ships are queued up,” Turner said. “Their destination is dependent on where they fall in the queue. For a non-Federation world, like Earth, it would come out when its time came, but if the landing zone is in its daytime cycle, the pilot will requeue it for that evening and move to the next destination. They never pick up multiple passengers from multiple worlds. They pick up. Drop off. Check the queue for the next destination. If one were dispatched right now, and they happened to be close enough, there is a chance. It is never guaranteed. We have waited three days for a queued ship, and we’ve had one show up within ten minutes. I would call the average time to be the following evening.”
“So we’ll need to subdue him and keep him down until tomorrow?” Perry asked.
“No,” Turner said. “We’ll need to subdue him, cancel the request, and then summon a prison ship which comes much quicker. They don’t care about day and night.”
“You’re not afraid of being seen?” Perry asked.
“Let me tell you something funny about Terrans,” Turner said. “Their favorite word is ‘fake.’ I have seen videos of legitimate craft from worlds that I could identify on YouTube, and every single comment says the video was faked. They know someone who can do that. They can see the strings. They can see the whatever it is they would make it with. If someone videoed the entire landing, had close-ups of disembarking and reboarding, and the whole take-off sequence, no one would believe it. I’ve seen videos of non-human races that eventually came to me, personally, and every comment says it is fake. These people won’t believe anything they don’t understand. Their minds won’t accept it. It’s all fake. So police ship in the middle of the day? Bring it on. Get this guy out of my house.”
“That aside,” Blake said, “what do you suggest for a strategy?”
“There are stairs in the kitchen leading upstairs,” Turner said. “We just need to make sure he isn’t looking that direction. He probably won’t be. The kitchen is pretty out of the way, but it is visible from the central area. One of us can stay in the kitchen. The other two should go upstairs. There is only one other stairway, but there are some openings from the upper area down to the den area which are out of the way. My thought is that if we try to take him from three directions at once-”
“He’ll only have the chance to shoot one of us?” Blake asked.
“Well, he’ll be distracted enough not to have the chance, I hope,” Turner said. “It’s risky not matter what we do.”
“Why don’t you just stun him?” Perry asked. “Didn’t you have a stun gun or something?”
“I did before Talkisan took it from me back at his ship,” Turner said. “He still had it when he left.”
“No backup in your car?” Perry asked.
“It’s parked over there,” Turner replied, pointing to the front of the house, “and he still has those keys. We don’t have a lot of options.”
“So no weapons cache in the house then?” Blake asked.
“Only in the main room,” Turner said, “and I wouldn’t call it a cache as much as a secure drawer. We don’t exactly want people sneaking weapons out.”
With some nods for understanding, they exited the car and walked to the garage door. Blake selected a key from his electronic lock pick and easily opened the door. They all quietly entered the house and closed it behind them. They moved to the door to the house’s interior and did the same thing.
It entered into what appeared to be a laundry room connected to the kitchen. They walked to the kitchen door and found that the kitchen was mostly open to the massive living room where their computers were placed except for a large serving counter that somewhat obscured the view. Turner gestured to them that the stairs leading to the second floor were on the other side of the wall where they presently sat. All they had to do was circle around it.
They carefully looked into the living room and found Pingrit standing silently looking into a corner. His right hand held his gun resting against his shoulder. He occasionally glanced outside, but most of the time, he watched the corner. Blake gestured for Perry to wait in the kitchen while he and Turner traveled up and around. Perry nodded and snuck through the kitchen to behind the serving island.
Perry turned and gave them a thumbs up, and with Pingrit still involved in his corner, Blake and Turner crept up the stairs. After they had gotten high enough, Blake stole a glance to the corner and found Michelle, Talia, and Karafa all huddling there side by side. Pingrit was holding them prisoner.
He padded the rest of the way up the stairs to Turner. The second floor closest to the kitchen was little more than a walkway over the living room with only a railing between Pingrit and them. Softly, they crossed over the living room always keeping their eye on him. Michelle was the only one to notice them, but she tried to keep her reaction subtle. Pingrit did not move.
Blake and Turner reached the main stairway. Turner pointed a little further down where the wall was open on one side with some bedroom doors on the other. The hall kept going further to another room before it turned a corner.
“Are you ok jumping down there?” Turner whispered so softly he was really only moving his lips.
Blake nodded. He crept a little further down until he reached an overlook to the den. He crawled over the railing and lowered himself as far as possible into the room before he released and landed softly on his toes. The room was entirely unfurnished, so if it came down to hiding, this would be a terrible place to do it. He hoped that if they needed to hide, some of the other rooms would have more options. For the moment, however, everything was going according to plan. The den was open to the outside hallway, so he crept to the edge of it. A single electronic boop sounded nearby. Blake searched his memory for what it was.
The Guide came in useful for strange little things like this as it was not something Blake, personally, would have heard to this point. Accessing memories like this always took a moment though much like a computer searching its memory. He finally recalled it was the sound a stun weapon from this era in the Federation about the time that stun weapon hit him in the chest, and he subsequently hit the floor.
* * * * * * *
Michelle had noticed Blake and Turner sneaking along the second-floor walkway from the kitchen. She was surprised to see them up there, but since Pingrit was standing only a few feet from her, she tried not to show it. Whatever he was doing, he was not really watching her or the other two women. His head was cocked to one side, and he appeared to be staring at the wall above their heads.
Moments after Blake and Turner passed by, Pingrit suddenly rolled his eyes and walked to the kitchen. He tossed aside his gun and pulled a different weapon from his belt. He fired a single shot into the kitchen, and someone in there hit the floor. Michelle was surprised, but then she gasped as she realized that he had shot Perry. He casually walked to the entryway of the house and fired again. Turner collapsed onto the floor.
He walked down the main hall and fired once more. She figured that could only be Blake. Pingrit strolled back into the living room.
“Dealing with you people is exhausting,” Pingrit said. “You sneak onto my ship and think I don’t know you’re there. They sneak into this house and think the same thing. You know what I want? I want to go home. I want civilization again. I want to bask in the light of my own sun. Why won’t you people just give me that?”
“Because you killed a man to get it,” Michelle said. “Because you struck a girl to get it. Did you kill my friends too?”
“No, they’re only stunned,” Pingrit said. “My gun hasn’t had a charge in years. I couldn’t kill a rat with that thing.”
“It was an act?” Michelle asked.
“A good one to be sure,” Pingrit said. “It got me here. The stun gun belongs to your Mr. Turner. I don’t care what happens to any of you. I’m just done here.”
Michelle looked at Talia and Karafa. She tried to convey through her expressions to attack him. She figured that he onl
y had a stun gun, so he could not kill them, but perhaps a couple of them could actually take him down. She used to be pretty scrappy before she had children, and she figured she was angry enough to have a chance. Pingrit was only moderately paying attention to them at this point. With the three men unconscious, his attention was divided between the women who were awake, and the men who were not.
The looks back from Talia and Karafa said they were willing. She looked at Pingrit who appeared to be getting impatient, but he knew there was nothing anyone could do. Talia had said she could not make it go any faster and Karafa flat out stated that they probably would not arrive until the following evening.
“I need to use the bathroom,” Michelle said.
“The bathroom?” Pingrit asked.
“The toilet? The restroom? I need to pee.”
“She’s been squirming over here for awhile,” Talia said. “You haven’t noticed?”
“She’s been moving around so much, I almost have to pee,” Karafa said. “But I don’t.”
“You can’t hold it?” Pingrit asked.
“For how long?” Michelle demanded. “They said there probably wouldn’t be a transport until tomorrow evening. You want me to wait all day? I don’t think I can do that.”
“I’m going to have to go at some point,” Talia said.
“Do you know where it is?” Pingrit asked.
“No,” Michelle replied.
“I’m not letting you go together,” Pingrit said. “Tell her where it is.”
“Around that corner, first door on the right,” Talia said.
“Be quick,” Pingrit said. “I’m watching you.”
Michelle nodded and gave a quick glance to the other two. They nodded as well. Michelle hoped that meant that they were ready to help her in this. Otherwise, it was definitely going to hurt. Slowly, Michelle got to her feet. She smoothed out her blouse and took a deep breath.
“What are you waiting for?” Pingrit demanded.
“Sorry,” Michelle said. “I’ve been sitting for awhile.”
The Off-Worlders Page 13