Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1)

by Ian J. Malone

“I don’t believe it,” said a flabbergasted Ryan. “There’s no way Masterson would be stupid enough to—”

  “Apparently he is,” said Katahl, folding his arms over his chest.

  “What?” Lee demanded, like his friends, growing increasingly impatient.

  “It’s Dulaston,” said the admiral. “They’re planning to invade.”

  “How is that even possible?” Wyatt said in disbelief. “I thought they were still months away from gaining enough ground to hit us that deep.”

  “Dear Lord, fellas,” Link crowed beside the Chief. “Myrick System, Brayanna System, Revlyn, Kendara, the freakin’ Oompa Loompa planet! Geez, it’s like an intergalactic game of Scrabble with you people! What the hell is this Dulaston place now, and why is it so godawful important?”

  “Dulaston is the primary hub for the bulk of our deep space operations in that quadrant,” Katahl explained, “in addition to being Kendara’s last major line of defense.”

  “The mine,” Lee deduced.

  “Exactly,” Katahl answered. “If Dulaston falls, Alystier will have an open pipeline to every ounce of Caldrasite on that planet, and we’ll be virtually powerless to stop it.”

  “Sirs, if these readings are correct, they’re redeploying ships from four other systems to mount this offensive,” Simpson observed, and Wyatt pursed his lips while he did the math.

  “That’s what? Twenty, twenty-three ships?” the Chief surmised. “There’s no way they could get a force that size through the security net undetected!”

  “If the last eight hours are any indication, yar security grid needs a wee bit of work,” Hamish muttered next to Link.

  “Look at this,” Ryan noted, pointing to a column of numerical data on the left side of the image. “Those are access codes for Dulaston’s early warning system. They must’ve hacked them out of the security net while they had access, then relayed them back to the cruiser via the short-range system in this Phantom.”

  “I’ll bet you a paycheck that’s what they were after on the Parkwood, too,” added Wyatt, “but science ships don’t normally have that level of access.”

  “Meaning what?” Danny posed, and Ryan stood up straight beside Noll.

  “Meaning, with this information, they could’ve circumvented every buoy in the network, just like they did today, and dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the planet without any prior warning whatsoever. By the time our people got airborne, they’d have been sliced to ribbons!”

  “Bridge, this is Katahl,” said the admiral, spinning around on his heels and tapping his earpiece. “I need the XO in my ready room right away, and open a line to the president immediately, priority code Katahl, Alpha-1. Noll, Ryan, Wyatt,” he said, turning for the door. “You’re with me.”

  “Wait just a damn second,” Lee barked, catching Katahl by the arm to halt him in his tracks. “What about Mac? She’s out there, along with your precious fighter, and for the moment, we just so happen to know where both are. So what are we doin’ about that?”

  Caught off guard by Lee’s irreverent tone and demeanor, though totally empathetic to what he was feeling, Katahl turned to face him.

  “Listen, Summerston,” he explained. “I wholeheartedly plan on keeping my promise to help you find Miss McKinsey, but it’ll have to wait for now. You have to understand the timing of this situation. These access codes are changed every 12 hours, and the Alystierians know that, which means whatever they’re planning, it’s going down in a matter of hours, not days. With that said, they have no idea that we know any of this, thus giving us a real opportunity to catch them off guard. They’ll jump their 23 ships into Dulaston space, but rather than meeting a simple orbital security detachment, the bulk of the ASC fleet will be standing by, ready to face them head-on. Therefore, given everything that’s at stake, this has to take priority over a rescue op for one person and a prototype fighter.” Katahl placed a hand on Lee’s shoulder. “I know that’s no consolation to you, but it’s just the reality of the situation.”

  “Admiral, what if the 51st stayed behind,” Ryan offered. “We could mount the rescue op which only puts you out five bodies in the cockpit.”

  Katahl shook his head. “I’m sorry, Captain, I really and truly am, but I’m gonna need all hands on deck for this one and unfortunately, that must include the flagship squadron of the flagship herself, if nothing else but for morale. The same goes for you, Keith,” he said to Noll.

  Incensed by Katahl’s total lack of flexibility, though still understanding his meaning, Lee tried to relax well enough to compose a logical, rational response.

  “Admiral Katahl, sir” he began. “I want you to know that I completely understand your decision, and it makes perfect, logical sense. You’re the commander of the entire Auran fleet, and you have to make choices—the gravity of which none of us can begin to fathom—that affect the lives of not only the men and women under your command, but those of your entire world. As such, any rational person has to acknowledge that the protection of an entire civilization will always take priority over the life of one, single individual, regardless of who he or she may be. I get that, but here’s what you need to understand about us.” Lee rose to his full height. “Mac is family, plain and simple, and if she was here, with one of us out there, she wouldn’t have wasted any time with this quaint little discussion of ours. She’d be in a cockpit right now, halfway to Myrick 4 already.”

  “Damn straight,” the others agreed.

  “So gettin’ down to the point,” Lee concluded—his expression every bit as firm as his resolve. “I would rather rot in hell for all eternity than to have to go home and explain to her parents why they’ll never see their little girl again. One way or another—if it’s the last thing I do—I will bring her home. That’s my priority. Now I realize that we’re not enlisted ASC personnel, and that gives us little or no right to demand anything from you. So I’m just gonna ask. Will you give us the tools that we need to get the job done ourselves?” He paused. “With all due respect, Admiral, you owe us that much.”

  ****

  Initially taken aback by the pure lunacy of the request, Katahl glared at the man who, up until three months ago, had not only been an untrained civilian, but one from a completely different world. Even now, in spite of everything they’d learned, they were nowhere near prepared for something like this.

  Still, Katahl could tell that regardless of his answer, there was nothing he could do or say to change their minds, though in truth, he really didn’t want to. Reiser had said from the beginning that one of the things that made this group so incredibly special was their devout sense of loyalty to one another, and he’d seen that fact play out time and time again during their training. So as much as it went against his better judgment, the ASC fleet admiral knew he had no right to deny them.

  “You realize that what you’re asking is all but suicide,” he noted.

  “It’s only suicide if you let the other fella pull the trigger first, sir,” Lee countered.

  “Are you prepared to beat him to it, Lee?” Katahl pressed, the seriousness of his implication thick in his voice. “Because that’s exactly what you’ll need to do in order to survive this, and take it from me, son, there is no kind of training—in this world or any other—that can prepare you for that. Have no illusions, you will be forced to take another man’s life before this is all over—probably several of them. Are you ready for that?”

  Unable to care less about an ethical debate at this point, Lee ripped the bandage from around his head and glowered back at the admiral.

  “Very well,” Katahl exhaled a reluctant sigh. “You have a go. Coordinate with Captain Ryan and the sergeant major to assemble your plan, then report to Staff Sgt. Wilson in the armory. He’ll give you whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Lee said, bolting alongside the others for the door where Ryan and Noll were already waiting.

  “Hey Summerston?” Katahl called once more. “Bring your people home saf
e… all of them. Ruah?”

  Lee offered him a grateful nod. “Ruah, sir.”

  Chapter 27: Wheels Up

  Fighting back the wave of nausea that swept over her—not to mention the migraine that could’ve split a boulder in two—Mac struggled through the haze to regain consciousness and recall the last few hours. There was the mission, which they’d achieved, followed by the blast of light from the ship, then the horror of her abduction… but what came after that was the problem. She remembered being dragged by the hair from her cockpit—plus the excellent shot she’d landed to the nads of one of the Alystierian soldiers doing the dragging—but then something struck her on the back of the skull, knocking her to her knees. After that came a sharp pinch in her neck, followed by a sudden rush of numbness through her extremities, and then blackness. Then she awoke here. But where was here… and how long had she been here?

  Startled by the touch of cold steel against the bare skin of her back, Mac’s eyes went wide with the surge of panic that rippled through her body, and with an instinctive jolt, she lunged away from it, only to be snatched back down by the restraints around her wrists and ankles. Jerking violently to free herself, she soon settled back down onto the table to take stock of both her situation and her dingy surroundings.

  Much to Mac’s chilly chagrin, her flight suit had been removed, leaving her entire upper body exposed with the lone exception of a black sports bra. Thankfully, though, her lower body was still covered by the navy fatigues she’d worn beneath her uniform. For the moment, she was alone—strapped to a metal table at the center of what looked like an interrogation room, however, the spotlight overhead made it tough to see much more than that. Most of the chamber was shrouded in shadow, but if the level of scarring and mold on its concrete walls and floor were any indication—plus the staleness of the air that reeked like damp socks and dead rats—no one had been here for a very long time.

  “Sir, she’s awake,” a reptilian voice hissed beyond the rusty door ahead.

  “Excellent, Captain, I’m on my way,” a radio responded.

  Shortly thereafter, the door swung open, and a tall, well-built soldier dressed in a gray uniform with Captain’s bars entered. Sporting a shaved head and grizzled, stubbly features, he was a young man—maybe 29 or 30—not that Mac paid much attention to his face after spotting the assault rifle dangling over his right shoulder. Behind him trailed a short, balding, fat man in a lab coat, whose thin, stringy hair and rodent-like features would’ve ordinarily been the antitheses of intimidating, except for the fleeting effects of the drugs still lingering in her system—effects she was pretty certain he was responsible for.

  Still, it was the final man to enter who caught her undivided attention.

  Tall and slender, he was older—late 50s, maybe—with pale, ghostly features, a razor-sharp jaw, and thick, silvery black hair… though it was his steely gray eyes and signature black uniform that she recognized on sight.

  Hoping to mask her fright in protest, Mac gave a final, defiant snatch against her restraints before falling back to the cold metallic plank beneath her.

  “My apologies, Miss, but please try to calm yourself,” Masterson said in a warm, inviting tone that almost sounded genuine. “I can assure you that, unless you’re considerably stronger than you look, there’s no way out of those restraints. Besides,” he mused, “all necessary unpleasantries aside, I’d prefer you think of yourself as somewhat of a guest here.”

  “Yeah, real homey,” Mac quipped, feeling a nervous bead of sweat forming at her brow. “Very Gitmo… you treat all your guests with this level of hospitality?”

  “Well, different guests require different accommodations,” he added, amused by her zeal. “In your case, I wasn’t entirely certain what to expect when you awoke, and contrary to what you might be thinking, no one here wishes to see you injured, particularly given the number of questions we have regarding both your craft, and your identity.”

  “Is that so?” she grumbled, watching Masterson disappear into the shadows and return with her wadded blue flight suit.

  “Indeed it is,” he continued. “Though let us begin with the latter, shall we? What is your name?”

  “Lois frickin’ Lane!” she gritted.

  A white-hot pang flashed through Mac’s cheek when the bald soldier’s hand bristled across her face, unleashing a tidal wave of throbbing pain through her skull, and drawing a trickle of blood from her lip. Cringing at the sight of his forthcoming second strike, she watched in surprise as Masterson caught the captain by the arm and whirled him aside.

  “That’s enough, Captain,” warned the commandant. “Your point has been made.”

  Then, ordering the bald man to the back of the room, Masterson pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed at her red-stained chin.

  “My sincerest apologies for Captain Hourne’s behavior,” he offered, tucking the cloth back into his coat pocket. “As exceptional an officer he is, he does have a tendency to get ahead of himself at times. Now, where were we? Oh yes, your name… Lois frickin’ Lane, is it?” He chuckled. “Colorful, to be sure, and yet why do I sense that you’re being somewhat less than truthful with me?”

  Reaching into the chest pocket of her flight suit, the commandant produced Mac’s confiscated dog tags and jingled them in front of her nose.

  “You would be unwise to lie to me again,” he warned, flipping the tags into his palm to read their inscription. “Are we clear… Miss McKinsey, E.?”

  Feeling her skin crawl at the sound of her own name, Mac managed a nod.

  “I find it curious that you have no rank,” Masterson puzzled, showing her the top tag. “Normally, these would read Lt. McKinsey or Major McKinsey, but not yours. You’re simply a Miss. Why is that? Moreover, where do you hail from?” He pointed to the stars and stripes on her sleeve. “I’ve never seen this nation before. Where is it? And what is a…” He squinted at the embroidery. “Renegade?”

  She looked away and said nothing as he tossed the uniform back into the corner, then returned to her tableside.

  “All of this,” said Masterson, “combined with the very interesting fighter we seized from you, strikes me as a little odd, Miss McKinsey. So I will ask again,” he concluded, his expression turning baleful now. “Who are you?”

  “Piss off!”

  Mac’s eyes slammed shut when Hourne bounded toward her, fists clenched, though it was the hand around her ponytail that took her by surprise, snatching her back by the scalp and pounding her head against the table with a violent, metallic thud. Instantly, the wooziness returned.

  “Let me be perfectly clear about this, my dear,” Masterson said with a cold nonchalance that barely registered annoyance, much less anger or frustration. “It’s most definitely in your best interest to tell me what I want to know, otherwise this pleasant little exchange of ours will quickly deteriorate into a very, very bad set of circumstances for you, and you alone.”

  She winced as the commandant enunciated his point with another rip at her scalp.

  “Now,” he pressed, “you’re obviously not like the other prisoners who’ve been strapped to this table, nor is that fighter anything like its Auran Thresher counterparts that I’ve destroyed by the thousands. The question is, how and why are you and it connected? So, Miss McKinsey E., or whatever your name is… enlighten me with the answers, and please…” He tilted his head. “Be clear.”

  A fresh wave of terror poured through Mac’s body at the sight of the fat man beside her—his chubby hand already poised with a fresh needle—and she jerked reflexively away from him, only to be slammed back to the table by her restraints. Was this the same drug they’d used to knock her out before, or something new to make her talk? If it was something new to make her talk, how long would she have before it kicked in—and what would she be at risk of saying when it did? The Mako, the Mimic project, Earth… her friends? Who or what would she unwittingly betray first?

  She wasn’t trained for this
!

  On the other hand, what if this wasn’t something to make her talk? What if Masterson had already figured out that he had everything he needed in the fighter, and he was just screwing with her now?

  Mac shuddered at the possibility, in part because she’d never been so scared in her life, and in part because she knew that these kinds of sick tactics were by no means beyond him. If that were the case, she would be expendable, and if she was expendable, what would that mean for the syringe that now loomed alarmingly close to her forearm? What might that mean for her family back home… or the people she’d never see again… or the things that she never got to do, or say—important things that should’ve been said so very long ago, but weren’t because the time wasn’t right, or she wasn’t ready to say them, or he wasn’t ready to hear them, or any number of other stupid reasons that couldn’t be any more trivial or pointless in the here and now.

  Struggling against everything inside of her that wanted to completely lose it and plea for her life, Mac fought to wrap her frantic mind around the situation and the facts. It was all about facts right now.

  Fact: she was being held prisoner by the Alystierians who’d abducted her, though probably not aboard their ship, judging by the look of her cell, but rather at some remote location. Fact: for whatever reason, she was being interrogated by the one and only Alec Masterson—not some crony captain or underling master sergeant, but the Alystierian commandant himself. For whatever reason, that had to mean she was a priority to them. Fact: he needed information that only she had—or so he thought—which meant that whatever this was, it couldn’t be an execution, at least not yet, not while she still had perceived value.

  Summoning every ounce of courage she had, Mac fought back her overpowering instincts of fear and tucked them carefully behind her best facade of self-assured strength and confidence. Her teeth clenched and her muscles tensed, she pulled as hard as she could against the restraints and leaned up to face her captor, seething at him with a look of pure, unfettered disdain.