Chapter 44 - Rescue
Keleb told what little he knew, that Tymos and Kryslie were recaptured and taken off in a flying craft and Jonko had transmitted into the ship to free them. He finished by saying, “The aircraft went east.”
“I will try to reach them,” Tymoros stated. Reslic looked around, alert for trouble. He hadn’t liked Keleb’s mention of mutants, even though one of that kind had told them how to find this place.
“What happened to you, Keleb, after you went off in the night?”
“Jon and I went off after the abductors and saw them put Tymos and Kryslie into one of the ships. There were six small ships landed not far away. Tymos sent us direction and distance and a picture of where the pilot was going. Jon followed, and I waited to see why the last two ships stayed. The crew returned carrying heavy equipment. I followed Jon, caught up with him near morning, since we had to transmit in stages to get to the place. They had Tymos and Kryslie out in the open under a glowing green force dome, but also heavily guarded.”
“Outside,” Reslic considered aloud.
“Yes, sir, Jonko thought they were checking to see if you could find them.”
“What did you do?” Xyron directed Keleb back to the main narrative.
“I remembered Tymos saying about the missing scout group. I thought they might be near by, so I went to see if I could find them. As soon as it got light, I saw the top of a glowing white dome above the trees and went to see what it was. People – aliens – just walked through it, so I did too. There was a huge ship there, a squat shape of dull grey metal. The front half was sitting on the ground, and the back half was supported on struts, and there was enough room under it to walk upright.”
“Did you get inside?” Xyron asked.
“Yes, I overcame one alien and took his clothes to put over mine. I went in but didn’t see very much, and then I thought I sensed…”
“Go on,” Xyron urged.
“I’m not really sure, but I was drawn down to what I think was the security section. I think I felt some of our people, but …” Keleb realised he had no memory of events after then. “I can’t remember now. I was caught, I think. And then I woke up here with Jonko.”
“We had word that Tymos and Kryslie had met up with mutants,” Reslic said quietly.
Keleb shook his head. “Jonko mentioned mutants, and that Tymos and Kryslie had agreed to let the aliens get them again…”
Gentle nudges distracted Keleb again. The hoppers were back.
“What do the little creatures want?” Xyron asked quietly, so as not to scare the creatures.
Keleb crouched again, and looked at the creatures. The scenes were the same. He didn’t understand the importance, but thanked the creatures and stood again. “They are just giving me two images of a place, but I cannot tell where it is or what it means.” He tried to find words to describe the scenes.
“It seems they want you to go to those places,” Xyron suggested.
“I don’t understand,” Keleb admitted.
“The hopper creatures are able to communicate any danger they sense to others of their kind. Normally, as you know they are very timid, but at least one of them must have learnt that one of our kind was in danger or in trouble. In you, they sensed a kinship with them and tried to warn you in their own fashion,” Xyron explained. “If we can learn where that place is, I believe we will find your foster cousins.”
“Xyron, we are being watched,” Reslic warned. He was calm, as if the threat was not great.
Xyron, who was nearest Tymoros, nudged his fellow Governor, breaking his concentration. They both unobtrusively drew weapons before turning to face the same direction as Reslic was.
“Come out, child, we will not hurt you,” Reslic invited.
The leaves of one particular squat leafy bush stopped moving. A very pale face pushed out from amongst the leaves, and red eyes stared at the three adults, as if comparing them to a memory. The child that emerged was visibly trembling.
“Promised us they did, to help!” the child slipped into the common dialect of the mutants. “Promise we did, them to help. Them your kin. Honour pledge you!”
“I will honour all pledges made in my name and by my kin,” Tymoros spoke, his soft voice positive. He made a gesture and the three Governors holstered their weapons and drew their flowing robes to hide them.
“What did you want to tell us?” Tymoros prompted, looking at the child’s pale features and realizing what he was.
“I heard you call to them!” the child began. “My father heard you call them. He can tell you where your kin are if you can help him. It is a sacred place of our tribe.” The child had recovered some of his confidence and switched from the mutant dialect, which was a simplification of the main Tymorean dialect, to the pure form.
“Where is your father, child?” Tymoros asked urgently.
“Follow me!” The child ran back towards the hill. The Governors followed at a trot, filled with a sense of urgency. The crossed the flat flood plain and saw the path leading up to the dark hole in the hill. When then child went straight in, they followed more cautiously, with weapons ready. The afternoon sunlight only reached a short way in, but it was enough to see the nearest prone mutant.
Tymoros continued in, as he could see well in the dark, and when he felt the strength of the aura he drew on it and the walls of the cave began to glow faintly. He saw the child squatting near one of the unconscious figures, and while Xyron examined that figure, he checked the condition of all the others. Reslic watched from the cave entrance.
Xyron knelt down beside the mutant leader and touched his forehead. The man flinched involuntarily, but moments later he began to move as the paralysis left him.
He inched up into a sitting position and tried to back away.
“Am I to be your prisoner again? I owe you thanks, but …I have no wish for your hospitality again…I will fight you if I must to protect my people.”
Xyron assured him, “These of your people will recover in an hour or two.”
“Ah…why are you here?” the mutant dared to ask.
“Your son requested our help, and told us that you could help me locate my children,” Tymoros explained. “You know who I am.”
“Yes, and your children convinced me you meant no harm, but I cannot forget…but, ah…if I tell you where to find your missing ones…will you leave?”
“If that is your wish,” Tymoros agreed with a slight nod of his head.
“Not all of my people trust your kind, even though I have placed us at the command of your kin. Still, it does not matter; they will obey me. I learnt from the leader of a neighbouring tribe that your kin escaped from the thing that flies and were directed to a safe place. If you come back outside I will show you the way.”
Out in the daylight, the mutant followed a barely discernable track to the top of the mountain. He stopped and pointed to two distant peaks.
“There is a pass between the twin peaks, the road from there leads down onto wide plains. A guide will wait for you there to guide you further. He is leaving his village now and will be there in moments.”
“I am in your debt,” Tymoros acknowledged. “I do not know your name.”
“My name is Mithas,” the mutant admitted. “You owe me nothing. I pledged to help your kin, that my people may earn their help.”
“You will have it!” Tymoros promised.
“We will earn it!” Mithas said sharply. “I must return to my tribesmen and wait for them to wake.”
Mithas and his son walked away from the Governors and Keleb. When they were out of sight, Reslic transmitted the remaining four people to the distant location. Reslic had a transmitter a great deal more powerful than the one Keleb had lost.
As promised, the guide was waiting; a squat, well-muscled mutant with a strangely shaped face. He was a parody of the normal human form and clad in a shapeless brown tunic. Yet the Governors felt in him the same telepathic awareness that the mutant leade
r Mithas had possessed. The guide was startled by their unannounced arrival and was clearly nervous.
From the pass, the high plains were visible and not featureless. The mutant gave their next coordinate.
“If good your eyes, marks you see beyond river,” the guide began. “Brown, growing not. Centre one, rock hollow. Find you they will!”
Tymoros acknowledged the reference with a slight bow, making no mention of the fact that the mutant carried an alien weapon. Reslic had been studying it as the man had been talking. He said nothing aloud and kept his thoughts shielded.
The mutant backed away after giving his message but he did not go far. He watched with fascination as the Governors vanished.
On the ground, the plain seemed featureless as they materialized on a rock platform; the surroundings apparently deserted. The Governors sensed the nearness of mutants and of their own kind and scanned the area. The first indication of life came when a head appeared from the ground a mere six feet away; they had seen no sign of a hole.
The mutant turned and looked at them.
“Come you have, here open. Come.” This mutant was like a rock carving, but he had that spark of telepathic awareness.
The Governors walked to where the head had again disappeared and saw the narrow chasm that they could only enter in singe file. Keleb coming in last saw the place that the hoppers had visualized. They had known of this place on the other side of a mountain range! A hopper skittered past his feet and he knelt down to attempt to reach its mind. Several mutants watched with open-mouthed amazement as the hopper turned and hopped back towards the royal stranger. Keleb maintained a silent communication for a few minutes then released the hoppers mind. As the hopper moved back to its hole, Keleb moved thoughtfully and walked to where the Governors were kneeling beside the resting figures of his friends. Jonko came to him.
“You are looking well again foster brother,” Jonko spoke casually, noting Keleb’s look of preoccupation.
“I am well, as I should be,” Keleb answered. “Yet I have a sense that some of our kinfolk are not.”
“Tymos and Kryslie will be well,” Jonko misunderstood Keleb’s concern. “Though they were weakened after bringing you back from deaths edge. I was afraid they would be incapacitated by the alien’s treatment for much longer.”
Keleb was distracted, trying to make sense of the new vision he had received from the hoppers.
“Fire in the sky,” he murmured. Then he answered Jonko’s comment.
“I don’t fear for our friends, but for… Was I that close to death?”
Jonko nodded. “Yes! Why?”
Keleb shook his head as if to wake up. “Then perhaps there will be time to save them!” Keleb brushed past Jonko and ran the short distance to where Tymos lay.
The Governors had gone to where the mutants had made beds for Tymos and Kryslie. Jonko had been curtly dismissed as Tymoros and Xyron leant over the almost comatose children. Reslic stood guard, carefully observing all around him and ready to lend his power if needed. It seemed that just the proximity of the Governors had roused the children. Kryslie opened her eyes and struggled to sit up.
“Father!” she said weakly but with obvious relief. “They used their paralysing ray and one of their filthy drugs.”
“It would seem that they were taking no chances,” Tymoros remarked helping her to stand. “However the drug is almost fully metabolized and your power prevented the paralysing ray from having all but a slight effect. The residual stiffness will go if you walk around for a time. Why did you let them capture you again?”
“Father, it was the only way to prevent the aliens from learning that the mutants were now our allies. They learnt that we were stronger than they expected, but now they will think we are still vulnerable and not develop stronger weapons to use against us.”
Kryslie, walking with Tymoros, noticed Keleb approach Tymos who was only just standing unsteadily, and being supported by Xyron.
“Tymos, you must help them!” Keleb was saying urgently.
“Help who, Kel?” Tymos asked, trying to comprehend what Keleb was meaning.
“The scout party, I think. I saw…” Keleb stopped speaking, but was projecting a vivid mental picture.
The picture was of a brilliant flash, an all-prevalent sense of burning, and a darkening of the sun. A face, a Tymorean face and a long view of the body dressed in tattered brown clothing.
Tymos gave a sharp intake of breath and drew in a surge of power that let him throw off the residual effects of the alien’s treatment. The hopper vision had been vivid.
“I may be able to help some of them,” Tymos said catching Keleb’s urgency. He sent Kryslie the image as he went to Reslic.
“The alien ship, it blasted off,” Tymos told the Governor.
“Yes,” Reslic confirmed. “It is as well that you were not on it.”
Tymos ignored the rebuke. “Kel got a vision of bodies, near where the ship was. I can take you there.”
Reslic activated a communicator, listened to a report, and gave terse orders.
“We sent a flight of jets to overfly the coordinates that your new allies gave us. They engaged some of the enemy craft, before those craft turned spaceward. All that is left where the big ship was is a huge charred area.”
Tymos glanced at Keleb and saw his tortured expression. “We need to go to the site. Some may still be alive.”
Kryslie had also thrown off the last of the alien drugs. She went to Keleb, aware of the mental torment of his returning memories, and the sense of failure in being unable to help the missing Tymoreans.
“It’s not your fault, Kel. You tried to save them,” Kryslie willed Keleb to believe her. “If you must blame anyone, blame that Kellex. He is an evil fiend. I will not forget what he did to them, and to you.”
She sensed Keleb’s nausea as he recalled being tortured.
“They wanted to know about you,” Keleb whispered.
“It’s over, Kel, and we are alright, and so will you be. We will settle with Kellex later, Help us now…”
Kryslie held onto Keleb and drew him closer to Xyron and Tymoros. Tymos gave Reslic the coordinates to the edge of the forest, near where the alien ship had been.
Kellex exalted at the report relayed to him by the mutants. The ugly ones had caught the obscene whelps of the High King – the foolish, infantile, know-it-alls. When he had them again, they wouldn’t escape. He would take the ship into space and see if they could escape from there – if they survived long enough to try.
He sent for one of his elite aircrews, and considered how to have his revenge for the humiliations those whelps had inflicted on him.
While he waited for the crew to report, he gave orders to prepare the ship to lift, and to have all his team leaders report to him for interim assignments. His second-in-command arrived promptly to oversee the take off preparation, and Kellex ordered him to recall all the aircraft.
The elite aircrew arrived and Kellex gave details instructions for the handling of the prisoners captured by the mutants. He wanted the whelps thoroughly helpless, and his mind was full of malicious delight when he specified the procedures. As an after thought, he warned his crew to be alert – someone had helped to free them before. If they caught anyone trying to free the whelps, that traitor was to have the same treatment.
Then his team leaders either reported in person or via communicator. Those still in the field were told to dig in and await further instructions. Some of the teams on rest cycle were told to terminate the slaves and dump the bodies outside.
The time waiting for the crew to confirm that they had the prisoners, seemed interminable. He paced the bridge of his command ship and snapped at the crew. His own boasts of being able to neutralise all the High King’s whelps were haunting him. He needed success – now!
Some of the other Warlords were making snide comments amongst themselves, and his ranking within the council of Warlords was in the balance. Those other warlords didn’t
believe him about the High Kings offspring. They all thought his old mentor had been senile or hallucinating when he had foreseen the actions of the red headed whelps.
All his fears dissolved when the aircrew reported success and gave an estimated return time of twenty minutes.
In exactly that time, Kellex strode down to the docking deck to wait…and wait…
“Where is that aircraft?” he roared at the flight controller. “Contact it!”
A shiver of dread slithered down his neck, when the call went unanswered.
“Have another aircraft overfly the area between here and that mutant cess pit,” Kellex ordered.
The flight commander obeyed at once, activating one of the just refuelled craft.
Kellex began to pace the docking deck until the flight commander approached again.
“Warlord, Sir. Wreckage was observed at coordinates….Blackened fragments are spread over a wide area, suggestive of an explosion.”
“Send out a salvage crew,” Kellex directed, hiding his anger. “Look for bodies.”
He strode back to the command deck, hoping that the two whelps were dead, but hearing in his mind an insidious voice that was telling him they had escaped again.
“How?” He demanded of that voice. Had one of the four-man crew been a traitor? Had some Tymorean been immune to both the gas and the green force field? Had one or more of the mutants…no, they hated the royals. How?”
He paced the bridge, considering his options. He had to know if those whelps were alive. Yes! That was it! His little toy. What was his name? Scary? Zacary? The perfect use for that creature. Odds on, as soon as they could, those whelps would be dragged back to the estate. His toy would surely get to hear of it.
Kellex went to his command chair and adopted a semblance of relaxation. He reached out with his mind and found his toy, and relished how the creature hated his mental touch, but could do nothing about it.
“Where are the elder Prince and the Princess?” he asked his creature, and wasn’t surprised to hear they were apparently still on tour with the king.
“Can you get to the young Prince?” Kellex asked. He was less pleased to hear that his creature was being watched, and the baby was well protected, even at night.
“Who protects it?” Kellex asked. This time he sensed his creature was angry about something, and he demanded to know why.
“The President’s whelp?” Kellex mused. “You and he don’t like each other…I can teach you how to get back at him.”
Kellex almost laughed when his toy revealed all his stored up resentment, and wanted to know how to get the Reslic whelp in trouble.
When he finally freed the mind of his toy, the creature had his instructions, and was anticipating sweet revenge on Stenn Reslic.
In a much better mood, Kellex gestured to his second-in-command and ordered, “Send Xan to me.”
When that message had gone, Kellex requested a progress report on the countdown to launch. That report satisfied him.
Xan arrived, his uniform regulation neat, and he was eager for instructions. He bowed correctly and waited.
“The royal brats escaped again. The plane I sent to get them, crashed on the way back and the crew are probably dead. Go and talk to your mutant friends and find out if they saw any other people around who might have helped the escape. I want to know who helped them, and I want to know where those brats are. I am certain that they got away. I want them found before the Governors find them. The brats need to learn respect for others and I intend to teach them.”
“If they are smart they will head straight back to the palace, Sir,” Xan suggested.
“If they are smart. My little toy reckons they were only looking for a chance to escape the estate. They were not raised to be obedient little children, but came from off world or were raised in some isolated place. If you are quick, you should be able to find them. You are to take control of two squads - one from here and one that is at camp epsilon. Take whatever weapons and communications gear that you think you will need. I will be lifting the ship very soon, so you will need to report to Zorrex in the northern base. If you can’t keep them alive and controlled, you must kill them.”
“Yes, Sir,” Xan agreed crisply. His first reaction was pride and elation at being given such an important task and he kept that thought in his mind to hide his second reaction. He didn’t like the idea of killing children.
“The squads, the rest of the gear and horses will be at camp epsilon – go at once.”
Xan was just leaving when the emergency klaxon began its raucous noise. The message blared into a pause. “Enemy aircraft approaching, vector seven theta. Eta 10 minutes.”
“Get going!” Kellex snapped at Xan. “You have three minutes to get off this ship before it launches.”
Xan trotted off, and was almost bowled over by Commander Jordan, one of Kellex’s wards.
“Action stations,” Kellex bellowed into the comm. “Start take off sequence now.”
To Jordan, Kellex directed, “Tell all the ships that are not docked to prepare for space rendezvous at location beta. They are not to engage the enemy.”
Jordan went to a console and began to send the orders. In a short time, he was able to report that all teams had responded. Kellex merely grunted.
“Where are those craft from, Sir?” Jordan dared the question.
“Never mind where!” Kellex snarled. “They are Tymorean aircraft. Keep track of them. We need five minutes to lift and make space.”
Kellex was too busy with the necessary strategic retreat to ponder where the aircraft had come from. They shouldn’t even be here. Not once in the twenty years he had been observing this world had he seen aircraft. They were unknown quantities.
Despite Kellex’s ranting, the ship took longer to be ready than he demanded. As soon as all the console lights turned green, he gave the command to launch. By then, the Tymorean aircraft had arrived and they knew exactly where to aim. “Defence screens holding,” Jordan reported. He was exhilarated by this first piece of action. “The enemy are veering off.” A few minutes later, he said, “Our aircraft are being attacked.”
“Tell those fool pilots to follow orders,” Kellex told Jordan as he ran to his command chair and strapped in for launch. “And those pilots are to report to me when they rendezvous – if they survive their idiocy.”
Kellex watched tensely as his planes turned upwards and made for space. The Tymorean craft were slow to follow and stopped pursuit at the edge of the atmosphere.
“They can’t follow,” Kellex crowed. He stopped speaking as the juddering of the initial lift phase gave way to increasing acceleration.
Far below the rapidly rising space ship, trees flattened by their landing and pushed into the ground were now burning furiously, and the trees around the site were singed and smouldering.
The Tymorean Trust Book 1 - Power Rising Page 47