by Jay Allan
Ka’adekks.
Six of them, to be precise, and each holding a chain that led a procession of eight shackled beings behind them. Ka’adekks were slavers; this was something that everyone knew and, inexplicably, many governments turned a blind eye to. The fact they were leading their main export through Deshja’s main ring was slightly out of the ordinary. The species was fiercely xenophobic, so one would only see a Ka’adekk working with or associating with one of its own kind, but they were equal opportunity when it came to whom they would kidnap and sell. They were usually a bit more discreet than this, though.
Jason moved his way up to the edge of the crowd, not a difficult feat as nobody wanted to get too close to the parade of misery, and watched with interest as it was his first chance to see a Ka’adekk up close. They bore a remarkable resemblance to depictions of a certain god from Ancient Egypt on Earth, but he couldn’t remember which one. All he could remember was that it was tall with a jackal’s head. The Ka’adekks also were quite tall, easily over seven feet, with broad shoulders and striking, canid features. They all wore elaborate armor that left their long arms bare and a flowing headdress that started at their scalp and was draped down their backs.
As the last Ka’adekk passed, he smiled largely at Jason, though given his features it was more likely he was showing his teeth in challenge. He strolled by with the chain casually over his shoulder as the last group of terrified abductees shuffled after. The second to last one made Jason’s blood run cold. She looked up fearfully from under a tangle of black hair and made eye contact with him, stumbling as she did.
She was human.
Her faltering steps caused the last being in line to mutter a curse and kick her, all the while looking fearfully up to see if the Ka’adekk had noticed. The woman kept her gaze locked on Jason, her eyes pleading and tears streaming down her cheeks. After they’d rounded the corner, the crowd began to murmur angrily, suddenly finding their indignation now that the Ka’adekks were too far away to hear them. Jason barely noticed; his heart was pounding so hard he could hear it and for a split-second he considered going after them with the small blaster he had tucked into his waistband.
He quickly abandoned the plan. There were six armed, and armored, Ka’adekks against his one tiny blaster, and the species was no pushover when it came to hand-to-hand combat. Now wishing he had brought Lucky along, Jason considered going back for his crew, but he needed to know where they were taking the captives. Deshja was an enormous complex.
“You! Where would they take those slaves?” Jason demanded harshly of the first being he could get a hold of. The alien stared at him, dumbfounded. “NOW!”
“Th-th-they have a ship docked on a lower docking arm. It’s been there for weeks,” the alien stammered. “They bring new captures in on these smaller ships and then transfer them to the larger one.”
“And you people just let them parade slaves through here?” Jason said, his anger rising.
“We have no choi—”
“Bah!” Jason snorted in disgust, tossing the smaller being. It was only then he realized he’d actually picked the alien up while questioning him and had just flung him across the corridor.
“If you are planning on doing something foolish, you don’t have much time,” a deep, calm voice said from behind him. Jason spun and had to crane his neck up to look into the iridescent, almost glowing eyes of a grey-skinned being wearing a nondescript cloak. “This will be the last load. They will undock and the mothership will be on its way. The ship is docked on Epsilon Arm, Dock Seven. As I said, you haven’t much time.” Jason stared at the alien for a moment, trying to gauge its sincerity.
“My thanks,” he said finally before turning and sprinting in the opposite direction the Ka’adekks had gone. He tried to raise Lucky or Crusher on his com unit, but the device wouldn’t connect to the station network and the bulkheads were blocking a direct signal from the underpowered transmitter. He pocketed the device and concentrated on running. If he could make it to the maintenance hangar deck, he would then have a straight shot down to the docking arm complex. At a full sprint, he was counting on the fact that he would get there well before the slowly trudging captives and their indolent masters.
He blasted through the security checkpoint, still at a full sprint, practically throwing his credentials in the startled guard’s face as he continued on toward one of the outer docking berths. As soon as he rounded the last corner, a grim smile turned his mouth up at the sight that greeted him. The powerful gunship looked dangerous, even still perched on her landing gear and ensconced within the hangar.
“Phoenix, open up,” he said into his com unit. “Burke, one-one-seven-seven.”
With no audible acknowledgement, the marker lights flashed once and the rear ramp descended to the deck with a thud. He leapt up the ramp and ran through the cargo bay, waiting impatiently as the heavy blast door to the armory slid open. Once in the armory, he pulled out a newly installed rack from the wall and began hitting switches.
“Please be worth what I paid for you,” Jason muttered as the brand new powered armor unit that hung in the rack began to twitch as power coursed through its systems. Unfortunately, he barely had any time in the new armor and none of it was in an actual combat scenario. But, even with the slight tweaks from a talented geneticist, he was no match for even one Ka’adekk without the advantage the armor would give him. With it, however, even the six he’d seen would have to get very lucky to take him down. In theory, at least.
He quickly stripped out of the fatigues he’d been wearing around the station and donned the active, form-fitting layer that would help regulate his body temperature and wick away any moisture. With a heave, he got himself positioned to slide down into the lower half of the armor and slid his arms backwards until his hands slipped into the gauntlets.
“Close me up,” he said, activating the startup sequence. The armor twitched once and then closed in around him, deploying the helmet as it did. There was the brief moment of claustrophobia he always felt before his neural implant completely interfaced with the armor’s computers and he could “see” through the external sensors of the helmet. Status displays began popping up in his field of vision and the air in the helmet began to circulate.
Once all his systems showed green across the board, he stepped down out of the rack, his armored boots slamming into the deck of the armory. He turned to the rack on the forward bulkhead and considered his weapons … what could he take that would even the odds up, but not alert the station security? He was painfully aware of the time ticking away so he grabbed two heavy plasma pistols and attached them to his hip via the magnetic anchor points. After a moment’s consideration, he also grabbed a wicked-looking plasma rifle with an attached grenade launcher. So much for being subtle.
The grenade launcher was capable of firing up to ten grenades without reloading. They stacked into the barrel on top of each other and were fired electronically. Jason quickly loaded ten heavy stunners into the barrel, checked the status to ensure they were active, and anchored the weapon onto his back. After one more look around, he stomped out of the armory and back down the ramp into the hangar.
“Phoenix, close up, security protocol beta,” Jason said, ordering the gunship to raise the ramp and set a defensive perimeter with non-lethal weaponry. He retracted his helmet, waiting as it collapsed and folded back behind his neck as he looked around the hangar to see if he’d been followed during his insane run through the security station. He was alone, save for the mess of parts on the work benches where Twingo hadn’t cleaned up before heading to the bar.
He set off at a quick jog out of the hangar and back through the security checkpoint, startling the wide-eyed guard once again. The docking arm complex was the lowermost point on Deshja and there were more than a few ways to reach it, some more obvious than others. Omega Force had moved some illicit cargo through the commercial space station on more than one occasion and Jason was well aware of some routes that security
never patrolled or monitored. Before he got out of range, he deployed his helmet and opened a com link back to the ship.
“Set up a looping message to all crew com units,” he instructed. “Message is as follows: Return to the ship and get it ready to fly as quickly as possible. I’m going to try and disable a Ka’adekk cargo ship docked at the lower complex. End message.”
“Message acknowledged,” the computer told him. “Beginning com loop now.”
He picked up the pace and raced around the outer ring of the hangar deck, glad it was night hours and the corridor was relatively deserted. The sight of a fully armored being at a full run was bound to get security called sooner rather than later, but he planned to be well out of sight by then. What he didn’t plan on, however, was running head on into an enormous alien that stumbled out of one of the side corridors without warning.
The collision was horrendous and Jason heard a bellowing roar just before he was kicked hard enough to send him sprawling across the deck. He rolled over in time to see a pissed-off, and fairly intoxicated, Galvetic warrior stomping toward him. He held his hands up to try and wave him off. He’d seen that look before. Even as he was lifted off the ground, he retracted his helmet so he could identify himself.
“Crusher! Damnit, it’s me!” he said, causing his friend to pause in the middle of what looked to be a move that would have sent him flying back the way he’d come.
“Captain?” Crusher asked, now clearly confused. “Where did you get that armor?”
“It’s the new unit I bought last month, I’ve just never used it yet,” Jason explained. “Can you put me down, I’m sort of in a hurry.”
“Doing what? Why are you so heavily armed?” Crusher asked, setting Jason down and fingering the end of the heavy plasma rifle still anchored on his back.
“There are a group of Ka’adekks running slaves though here,” Jason said in a hurry, moving along the passage and forcing Crusher to follow along. “One of them is a human woman.”
“And you’re going to go stomp some Ka’adekk ass?” Crusher asked hopefully. “This night isn’t a total loss. Let’s go.”
“Crusher, you’re drunk as hell right now,” Jason said in a pained voice. “There is a whole ship—”
“Hey!” Crusher nearly shouted. “I can take on any number of those rangy feks, drunk or not. Here … gimme one of those blasters.” Jason had stopped and was now smacking Crusher’s hands away as he kept making grabs for the plasma pistols anchored to his thighs.
“How about you head back and get Lucky?”
“How about you quit wasting time and give me a weapon,” Crusher countered. “You have three plus a grenade launcher.” Jason sighed at the inevitable and detached the pistol from his left hip, handing it to Crusher grip first. The warrior snatched it, expertly checked the status and charge, and then slipped it into his waist band.
“We’re using the service tunnels that lead down to the docking complex maintenance bay,” Jason said, resuming his run with Crusher in tow. “After that we’ll need to figure out how to board the ship.”
“Sound plan,” Crusher said simply. Jason looked over and saw that the jarring impacts from running were beginning to make his friend regret volunteering. He could also see the warrior’s cheeks puffing as he began to breathe hard at the fairly slow pace. It was only another eight-hundred meters to the service hatch, so Jason cranked up his speed and hoped Crusher’s incredible metabolism would begin to burn off enough of the alcohol during the run that he wouldn’t be a liability when they reached the Ka’adekk ship.
They were soon at the access hatch that would let them into the service tunnel system. The keypad next to the sealed hatch was arranged in an octagonal pattern and the digits indicated the hatch system was designed by a species that used a base-eight numbering scheme. While interesting, Jason had to laugh at the code—”0000”—that was still valid since the last time he’d used it. As the hatch popped open with a clunk and swung inward, he figured the ridiculous access code was probably the default from the contractor and Deshja’s security office had never bothered to program in a new one. It was both typical and fortunate that most species Jason had met so far seemed to share the universal constant of bureaucratic incompetence.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“I was feeling great before,” Crusher said, burping into his closed mouth and grimacing as he swallowed it down. “Not feeling so great now, though.”
“Just try not to shoot me when we get to the Ka’adekk ship.”
“I will try my best,” Crusher said in a serious voice that worried Jason.
They quickly made their way to the steep stairwells, so steep that Jason thought of them as ladders, and began moving down into the lower decks. It was a twelve-deck sprint down those stairways until they would reach the lower docking arm complex. They were two flights from that goal when Crusher, following Jason, finally made a misstep and went tumbling down. The three-hundred-and-twenty-pound warrior smashed into Jason’s back and sent him flying. This armor detected the impact and automatically deployed his helmet and then locked up all his critical joints. The armor smashed into the stairs creating a horrendous racket, not to mention plenty of damage to the stairs themselves, as Crusher bounced off his back and continued on until collapsing in a heap on the landing below.
Once the armor detected the danger of hyperextensions and a fractured spine had passed, it unlocked the joints and allowed Jason to stand up. Crusher, having no such protective equipment, was rising much slower, shaking his head to clear it.
“Nice job,” Jason said sourly as soon as his helmet retracted away.
“Almost made it,” Crusher shrugged, looking around for his plasma pistol.
“Let’s just try to make it down without alerting everyone on the station that we’re sneaking around in the maintenance tunnels,” Jason said, picking up the pistol and handing it back to his friend. “Come on … we need to pick up the pace.”
They hit the deck and raced down the adjacent access tunnel that would let them completely bypass the main security checkpoint as well as the secondary guard post that was at the entrance of Epsilon Arm. After that it should just be a straight shot and, hopefully, an easy infiltration onto the Ka’adekk cargo hauler.
After another ten minutes of scurrying through the access tunnels, they came to another unmarked hatch. Jason keyed the release and eased the door inward so he could peer down into the corridor. In a stroke of unbelievable luck, the gangway leading onto the Ka’adekk ship was a short thirty meters up the enormous, arched corridor. He watched the one sentry for a moment before concluding that he didn’t appear to be in any rush to seal up the hatch in preparation for departure.
“The ship is still here,” Jason whispered over his shoulder, slipping the hatch back closed a bit more. “I can’t tell if they’ve moved all their prisoners down here yet though.”
“Give it a few minutes,” Crusher rumbled, the alcohol on his breath almost making Jason gag. “If that guard looks like he’s moving into the ship, we’ll make our move.”
Crusher’s instincts ended up being correct. It was a short time later when the heavy bootfalls and rattle of chains indicated the procession of captured slaves was coming down the corridor. The Ka’adekks marched past the hatch, now yanking cruelly on the chains and looking generally impatient with the smaller beings they had shackled together. Jason waited patiently as he saw the raven-haired human woman walk by. He’d been gone long enough from Earth that he couldn’t be absolutely certain of her age, but it couldn’t have been much over twenty years old. She also appeared to have Eastern Asian features, possibly Japanese, judging from her skin tone and eyes.
“Is that her?”
“Yes,” Jason said, “and keep it down. These dogs have excellent hearing.”
“Not over all that racket they’re making,” Crusher said, burping in his ear again. Jason resisted the urge to vomit and saw that his friend was right again. They had all
stopped and were loudly joking with the guard as he walked among the new acquisitions, making comments about what sort of work each would be good for. “Here’s the plan,” Crusher continued. “Once they get them up the gangway, I’ll walk out first and take out the single guard. As soon as he goes down, I need you to come up as fast as you can and cover our ingress into the ship itself.”
“How is that a good plan?” Jason asked incredulously.
“You’re wearing full armor and carrying a cannon on your back,” Crusher said. “You won’t get within twenty meters before he challenges you, and not within ten before he sounds the alarm. Trust me.”
Despite Jason’s grave misgivings about sending his friend out there while still obviously intoxicated, he did make a good point. “Be careful,” he said. “And if it looks like it’s going sideways, dive over to the far side of the corridor and I’ll light his ass up from here.”
“Got it,” Crusher said. “Just don’t get over-eager and blow a hole in my ass before I can get out of the way.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Crusher replied. He pulled Jason back from the hatch and eased it open so he could see out. “It looks like the prisoners have all been loaded and the guard is back out there alone. He’s also pacing around, so I’m guessing he’s waiting on the call to board before they button up and detach.
“I’m going in.”
Crusher stepped purposefully out of the hatchway and walked toward the distracted guard, stuffing the pistol into the rear of his waistband as he did. Even though he was still actually quite intoxicated, he seemed to be really playing it up as he lurched unsteadily down the corridor.
He was within fifteen meters before the guard noticed him and turned, bringing his hand to the weapon slung behind his back. The Ka’adekk narrowed his eyes speculatively at the obviously drunk Galvetic warrior. Jason could almost read the alien’s thoughts: he was just a gate guard at the moment, but capturing such a prize as a Galvetic warrior would move him up the ladder quickly. Crusher continued on as if he intended to walk right past the guard, who allowed him to approach to within less than five meters before making his move.