by T. R. Harris
Adam could tell by his expression that Vosmin didn’t know how to react when Sherri spit in his face. If he followed the context of the conversation, he would have realized it was an insult; however, at other times the exchange of bodily fluids, especially from the mouth, had been observed to be an sign of intimacy among Humans. Either way, Vosmin remained neutral with his reaction as he turned and walked away.
Sherri was incensed. “I think the bastard enjoyed that!”
“Aliens,” Adam began, “you can’t live within them, and you can’t kill them fast enough to save your universe. Ain’t that always the case?”
Chapter 2
6
Andy Tobias spent a sleepless night after speaking with the leaders of the Union. At first they had protested, not believing the full impact of his alarm. But then more sensible minds prevailed. They would follow his recommendations, at least to a point. All military facilities would be placed on high alert and assets called up. They would even ground most civilian traffic, yet only in the immediate vicinity of the latest Sol-Kor activity.
It was a start.
Yet that wasn’t what kept him awake that night. It was the fact that he’d abandoned Adam, Sherri and Riyad to the bloodthirsty—literally, in this case—aliens. When he could stand it no longer, he walked the ship, now in twenty-four hour mode with cycles of day and night. Even then, the passageways were crowded and he grew tired of the constant “Evening, Admiral,” and the awkward salutes from boots who didn’t remember you don’t salute while below deck.
He found solace in the observation dome, yet even then he wasn’t alone for long.
It was serious when even the stunning presence of Arieel Bol couldn’t pull him from his depression. “I, too, could not sleep,” Arieel said as she stepped up next to him. “After learning the fate of Adam and the others—along with my inability to contact them—I have been beside myself with grief.”
“You know I would have done something if I could’ve, but I have an entire fleet to consider.”
“I fully understand. You do not need to explain to me.”
Andy slammed his fist into the clear plastic of the observation window. “It’s their damn numbing beam! If it weren’t for that, we’d have no trouble smashing these alien bugs underfoot.”
“Then let that be your goal, Admiral.”
“What?”
“Finding a way to counteract the beam.”
“We’ve tried, but we can’t even duplicate the damn thing in order to test countermeasures.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Arieel said with a frown. “I know my people have requested permission to salvage what remains of the Sol-Kor vessels from your last engagement. Surely there will be ways to reconstruct the beam from what we find there.”
Tobias was shocked. The ravishing alien was correct, of course. Tons of debris was now floating in space, left over from the one and only battle they’d had with the Sol-Kor. There might even be entire beam assemblies still intact within the wreckage.
“That is absolutely brilliant, Arieel! If the beam can be recreated, do you think your scientists can find a way to counter it?”
“It is what we do, Admiral Andy. The device utilizes the powers of Mislin and Sufor, as does everything in all universes. Once created, the beam can be defeated. Of that I am sure.”
“Your people are already on-site?”
“That is my understanding.”
“Just tell me what you need—anything—and it’s yours.”
“I will leave that to the experts. What I truly desire is the rescue of Adam Cain…and the others.”
“Don’t we all.”
“Then let us go do it.”
“I told you, I have the fleet to consider.”
“I mean let us go do it. Your fleet has departed, so the Sol-Kor will not be expecting a smaller rescue mission. Adam Cain once rescued me from certain death—it is how we met. I now wish to return the favor.”
“Even if I go, I can’t let you come with me. Damn, you’re the leader of an entire race of people.”
“I will go, Admiral, or else…”
The lights suddenly went out in the observation dome, the air beginning to be pulled away through ceiling vents. Arieel had taken a deep breath before initiating the purge, so she was okay. Andy, however, was caught off guard. He gasped momentarily for breath and then smiled.
“I get your point, Arieel. You can take care of yourself.”
The lights popped back on and the air returned to the room. “This is something I must do, Admiral.”
“Same here. A small, tight-knit strike force should be able to get in and out without too much fanfare. We might even be able to take out the array like we did the last one.”
“We do not have much time.”
“Agreed.” Then Andy took a moment to admire the glory that was Arieel Bol. “Beauty, brains…and courage. That’s a deadly combination,” he complimented.
“Hopefully deadly to the Sol-Kor. I now follow you, Admiral Tobias.”
Chapter 27
Energized by the prospect of actually doing something, Tobias scoured the large launch bays of the Abraham Lincoln looking for the perfect strikecraft for the mission. He already had three other men in mind to join him…and Arieel—who in spite of what she believed, would be held in reserve and not allowed to participate in any actual rescue operations. That is what SEALs do, and although out of practice by a good decade or so, Andy was sure all his training would come back to him when needed.
He found what he was looking for in a small survey vessel designated an AR-45. As the name implied, it was forty-five feet long and designed for aerial reconnaissance. It was lightly armed, yet Andy had already decided to pursue the destruction of the array from the ground with backpack explosives. A strange vessel entering enemy airspace was bound to generate a response, and unless he had backup, the chances of a successful air raid on the array were slim to none.
No, this mission would have to be stealth all the way.
The good thing about the AR-45 was that it carried a civilian transponder. It wasn’t strictly a military craft, so, even if detected, it might go ignored rather than the Sol-Kor lighting up the region around their facility just to repel a single civilian starship.
As was often whispered at the conclusion of most military planning sessions, the saying, At least that’s what I hope will happen, echoed prominently in the admiral’s mind as he moved to the next phase of the operation.
He found the other three members of his team were chomping at the bit for some action themselves. They were all SEALs as well, veterans long before the program was shut down for a more unified special forces effort based more on space operations than the Sea-Air-Land operations of their original charter. Unfortunately, nowhere in the old acronym was the word Space to be found. That changed with the new reality, along with the entire training regime.
Although his recruits were all over forty-five years old, they were hard as nails and courageous to a fault. None had worked with Adam in the past, yet they all knew his reputation, and now, as they loaded explosives and armaments into the small spacecraft, they were overheard joking about the bragging rights they’d get for saving the life of the great Adam Cain.
Andy didn’t have to tell them that their chances of finding Adam—and finding him alive—was on the south side of impossible. Maybe against a normal enemy things would be different. But these alien bastards didn’t conquer their enemies—they ate them! That changed the entire dynamic when it came to prisoners of war. To the Sol-Kor there were no prisoners, just their next meal-in-waiting.
The new members of the team had heard of Arieel Bol, yet none had seen her in person…until now. Andy pitied them as they tried hard to maintain their most respectful demeanor as she came aboard, her ample assets testing the tensile strength of the shimmering blue outfit she now wore. Andy knew she wasn’t dressing to impress—this was what Formilian women wore to the Laundromat, for Christ�
�s sake. Besides, the poor girl couldn’t be held responsible for the gifts nature had so abundantly provided for her.
Still, it was fun to watch the reactions of his men. Even after she entered the ship and left them alone outside to finish the loading, they were still too stunned to even engage in typical male crudeness.
“Now that that’s over with,” Andy said to them, “how about we concentrate on the mission.”
“With pleasure, Admiral,” said Master Chief Howey Timmons, oldest of the team with the exception of Tobias. “I can’t even comprehend something like that, so I think I’ll just try to ignore it.”
“Good luck with that, Chief. Better men than you have tried and failed. But you should also know she’s really a sweet girl, and smart as a whip.”
Petty Officer First Class George Owens overheard the conversation: “Smart as a whip…a whip with big-ass ti—”
“Stow that, Owens!” Tobias ordered. “That’s a member of your team you’re talking about.”
“Why didn’t we have anything like that back in the day, Admiral?” the chief asked.
“Because we didn’t know about aliens.”
“Damn, I forget she’s not one of us.”
“In her case I’d make an exception,” the third recruit commented. As the youngest among them at only forty-six, Chief Jacob Loreto considered himself something of a ladies’ man. That belief had just now been expanded to include alien ladies.
“Let’s wrap this up,” Tobias said. “We launch in fifteen. Make sure you all have this out of your system. It’s a small ship, the last thing you want to do is offend the supreme being of the Formilian race. She has skills none of you could even imagine.”
Owens opened his mouth to make another crude comment but Andy shut him down with a dagger-like stare. After that it was all asses and elbows as the team finished the loading.
Even though his team exuded extreme confidence and courage, they also knew there was a good chance that some—if not all of them—might not return from the mission. Yet like so many times in the past, they boarded the ship and dogged the hatch without hesitation.
It was game time.
********
It took the AR-45 six hours to backtrack along the path of the fleet before reaching the glowing mass of stars of GC-1745. With Chief Loreto at the controls, they steered a path under the massive cloud—rather than through it—and entered the small void area inside the cluster from a direction two hundred degrees out from where the fleet had been first detected.
The cluster was known to the Union more for its mineral wealth than for any inhabited planets in the region. Most of the stars here were too young for their planets to have developed advanced civilizations, yet their young age also served to keep surfaces churning, cycling coveted metals and minerals for relatively easy extraction. The background of GC-1745 would help with their cover story if detected—if the damn Sol-Kor were even aware of the cluster’s history.
The gravity trail of the SES Falcon was easy to trace, and soon the team had identified the planet where the alien portal device would be found. Tobias had all power turned off, only passive sensors at work, as the ship made one quick orbit of the planet. It didn’t take long to spot the huge construction site. There were no other signs of intelligent life on the planet, so the array stood out like a Las Vegas billboard, proclaiming: Here it is! Here it is!
They entered the atmosphere on the opposite side of the planet from the array and skirted the forested surface for three thousand miles before landing about twenty miles from the array. Tobias activated the small homing beacon synced to the emergency pack the woman Ophelia Naidu should have with her. Whether she would know how to turn on the comm link was anyone’s guess. She didn’t seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed.
To his surprise—and relief—the signal came back.
“Where are you?” Tobias asked as the scared and dirty face of the woman appeared.
“Where am I? I don’t know where I am. I thought you were supposed to know?”
Andy turned to Master Chief Timmons, who played with his nav console for a moment before nodding.
“All right, we have your location. Are you secure—safe?”
“For now, but it gets really cold here at night. I don’t want to go through that again.”
“Well, just sit tight for another couple of hours. We’ll pick—”
“Another couple of hours! You’ve got to be kidding?”
“Just stay where you are. We’re going after Cain and the others first.”
“And what if you get killed? What happens to me then?”
“Frankly, Ms. Naidu, at that point I wouldn’t give a damn.” Andy was still upset with her for outing the location of his fleet.
“Why is everyone being mean to me?”
Tobias just shook his head. “I’m cutting the link now. Stay where you are and do not—I repeat—do not try to communicate with us until we make contact with you. Do you understand?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good, Tobias out.”
“That is Mr. Tarazi’s new mate?” Arieel asked over his shoulder.
Andy nodded. “I just hope she’s worth it. Now gear up. We have a hike ahead of us. Arieel, do you mind watching the shop while we’re gone?”
Her eyes grew hard. “I understand you expect to use exo-walkers to cover the twenty miles quickly?”
“That’s right.”
“How effective will they be with all their controllers frozen?”
“I see your point, Arieel. On second thought, why don’t you come along? I was just kidding about you staying behind, by the way.”
“Of this I am sure.”
********
Five minutes later the five members of the rescue team were fully encased in rigid plastic exo-skeletons designed to help the already physically-superior Humans become even more superior. They also wore breathing masks, and had weapons and backpacks of explosives strapped to the rigs as well.
The units were electronically controlled and had internal navigation, so for the first three-quarters of the short six minute sprint through the forests of this unnamed world, the team just sat back and enjoyed the ride. But as they got closer to the site of the array, they took over manual control and became more careful with their approach.
The huge towers could be easily seen now, reaching far above the horizon and into the sky. Andy got the impression that these masts were a little taller than those built by the Klin, and they had a sleek, efficient look about them that the others lacked. When arriving in a new universe, the Sol-Kor had to deal with what they found; however, once here, they could bring in their own millennia-long expertise. Andy was sure they could not only build an array faster, but they probably had more transport capabilities as well once done. This made the admiral nervous. The Sol-Kor were infecting his galaxy like a swarm of locusts, and it would be very hard to change that.
Staying hidden within the thick pine tree-like forests, the team approached the site from the south, entering the wide valley where the array sat on level ground. The forest ended at a meadow of tall, wispy grass, and there they shed the walkers. Next, they began attaching their gear to MOLLE packs while stocking up on extra ammo for their M-91 assault rifles. Most of the Human military still preferred projectile weapons to the bolt launchers. They often had more range and could penetrate barriers, whereas flash bolts normally just spread out on the surface. Also the M-91’s carried magazines of sixty-four rounds each and an under chamber of eight M-4 grenades. The most you could get out of a Xan-fi flash rifle was a super-charge of twenty-four bolts before another power pack had to be inserted.
The team was greased up, including Arieel, and even though the tac gear was designed to fit big, muscular dudes, the Formilian still had trouble containing all her everything inside her uniform. As a compromise, she left the top four buttons on the vest unfastened, which brought a momentary hesitation from the rest of the team before they got back down t
o business.
It was nearing dusk, which meant it had been a full day and half since Adam and the others had been captured. Now, as the rescue team crawled on their bellies through the tall grass of the meadow, Andy was thinking primarily of Plan B: the destruction of the array. Unless there was good reason to keep the prisoners alive, he wasn’t expecting to find good news regarding that part of the operation.
“This should be close enough, shouldn’t it, Arieel?”
“Yes. I have been detecting Gifts—the devices—for a while now. They are stationery, and even though I sense them, that doesn’t mean their hosts are still alive. No one is answering my inquires.”
“Is there anything you can do to get their attention, like yell into their brains or something?”
Arieel’s eyes lit up. “I can use some of the ambient energy in the atmosphere to overload the Gifts momentarily. That will create a shock that…if they are still alive…will surely be noticed.”
“Do it.”
“Yes, sir!”
********
Sherri was the first to complain. After all, they had been kept in the cold, uncomfortable hangar for over twenty-four hours without food or water, and when it came to relieving themselves, decorum had flown out that window hours ago. Now under the watchful eye of the guards, they each moved to a designated area as far away as the guard would allow to use as the restroom. Yet now it was the food and water situation that was becoming serious.