“So, you aren’t used to being challenged? We will let you go, as soon as we can leave ourselves, and we’ll be done with your planet. We’ll mark this system as off limits and no one will ever return here. That’s what your leaders want, that’s what they’ll get.” Daksha spoke calmly while the man became more agitated.
‘The people in the village are doomed when he is free,’ Lutheann added unnecessarily.
“If anyone should seek revenge, my good man, it should be us. We can’t have you harming the good people of Fairsky. You know something? They’re afraid, too. They thought we were from Concord, here to punish them for some perceived slight. Is that how you do it? Rule with an iron fist? Anything other than strict obedience is punished.” Daksha backed away from the man.
“Tie him to a tree. Chirit, if you would be so kind as to see what there is to see, look beyond the valley and tell us what’s out there, I would appreciate it. Pace, please check the ship. We need to leave as soon as possible, so how long will that be? Pickles, please find us some water. Cain, Ellie, and the ‘cats, maybe you can hunt something for all of us to eat. Leaper, if you could stay with me, I would feel much safer.” Master Daksha swam toward the ship and floated upward. He used his neural implant to directly activate the ship’s hatch. Chirit winged away, catching an updraft at the edge of the valley and soaring quickly to great heights. Once the Concordian was tied up, the others disappeared on their individual tasks.
Leaper stayed at the bottom of the ladder, watching the man struggle against his bonds. Leaper had put his spear aside and cradled one of the blasters instead. The other recovered blasters went to the humans of the crew as they were fitted exclusively for their hands and not a Wolfoid’s paw, which had fingers but wasn’t quite a hand. He could shoot the blaster if need be, as a test shot into the open valley confirmed. He walked close to the man, hoping to intimidate him until he stopped fighting. They stood and looked at each other.
“We abolished your way of life on Vii some one hundred, thirty-five years ago. My ancestors and those of this crew established the Council of Elders with representatives from all species to lead the people of Vii. They created the pure-heart test that only the ‘cats and the Tortoids can administer. No one who is self-serving or power-mad will ever attain a position of authority over others. It has served us well and will continue as far into the future as we can see. Our way has allowed us to achieve space flight, where we can travel to the stars. Your way won’t get you any of that. I thought you should know. Now, stop fighting against your ropes. The only value you have to us is that we can rest easier knowing that we didn’t kill an unarmed man. Should you free yourself, one of the Hillcats will run you down and rip your throat out. The choice is yours.” Leaper only guessed that Lutheann or Carnesto would revel in hunting a human with misplaced morals.
Leaper returned to his place at the bottom of the shuttle’s ladder, noting that the human had stopped struggling and was sitting still, looking around him as if the Hillcats were ready to pounce. The Wolfoid figured his side task of guarding the prisoner had just become a whole lot easier.
Inside the shuttle, Pace shook his head. “Three more days, Master Daksha, and that’s with us leaving at seventy percent of a full load. That will get us into space, but we’ll run out of fuel as soon as we leave orbit. The Cygnus will probably have to come get us, but right now, I can’t reach Jolly and that concerns me.”
“Me, too,” Daksha replied. “Three days. Is there any way we can hide the shuttle? Can we use their flying machine to help ourselves in some way?” Pace didn’t know. He continued to check the shuttle’s systems. Their approach and landing had been normal and all systems remained operational. They left the shuttle and sealed it behind them.
Their inability to contact Jolly was disconcerting, to say the least.
Chirit showed them the valley and the slopes beyond, leading to a great ocean. He also showed them more of the Concordian flying machines heading their way. Ten more, to be exact. “That’s forty more people, with blasters. We can’t fight that many,” Pace said.
“No, we can’t,” Master Daksha conceded. “Let’s use the woods as cover and work our way toward the village. They have the manpower to even the odds, and they aren’t too happy with the powers that be. But, we’d put them at risk. Maybe hiding in the woods is the best option,” Master Daksha thought out loud.
“Save the ship,” Pace said. “We have to save the ship.”
“We have another shuttle on board that can come and get us. We have to save the Cygnus-12 to have any hope. This shuttle here is useless if we don’t have a spaceship to go home to. Recall everyone and then we’ll head into the woods. Maybe at some point we’ll be able to talk with Jolly, or anyone from the ship, find out that they are okay.”
“What about him?” Pace asked.
“Let him go. We killed the others and won’t be able to hide that. At least he knows the truth of why. Even if he lies, it can’t be worse than any story they’d come up with to fill the void of information. Maybe our ‘cat friends can get into his mind and force him to tell the truth?” Daksha suggested.
“Maybe, Commander. But for now, we need to go if we want to put any distance between us and the incoming Concordians.” Pace used his neural implant to recall the crew. Leaper untied the prisoner and shooed him away, into the valley. The man started slowly, but a short burst from the blaster sent the man running.
The others were too far away for a quick return. With Chirit’s help, they selected a clearing deep in the woods where they could meet and decide what to do next. Pushing the Tortoid between them, Pace and Leaper headed into the forest, taking the same path they had before. They left the bodies of the dead in the valley, lying in the shadow of their shuttle. Their former prisoner was running like a madman toward Fairsky. The landing party plunged into the foreign woods, leaving all that they knew behind them.
Deck by Deck
Allard and Beauchene ran into engineering where their fellow Rabbit was working feverishly on the computer.
“Have you figured a way to lock out the intruders?” Allard asked.
“Intruders?” Briz asked, confused.
“They’re in the ship, Briz! Two of them were on this deck, and they’re killing the crew!” Beauchene yelled.
“Killing the crew!” Briz repeated. He stopped his attempts to find where Jolly had gone and started bringing up the monitors showing the passageways of the ship, starting with those that sensed movement. Seven different screens displayed a total of ten intruders. They were on every deck but Briz’s. He cycled the cameras showing the engineering section and corridors beyond. He stopped when he saw the four bodies. “Our people.”
“And two of theirs,” Allard said darkly.
“So what do we do?” Beauchene asked of the engineer.
“How am I supposed to know?” Briz countered, feeling the weight of the ship’s safety on his shoulders. They watched as two intruders approached the command deck where the captain waited beside the hatch, holding something that looked like a length of pipe. Tandry was away from the door, facing it. Mixial was nowhere to be seen.
‘Captain, you have two men just outside your hatch. They look ready to enter,’ Briz passed over the neural implant. The captain did not respond using the implant, but nodded and firmed up his grip on the pipe.
One intruder stood back while the other activated the manual open on the hatch. It slid aside soundlessly. Tandry screamed and then put her hands up, not taking her eyes from them. The men looked through the hatch, but didn’t see anything as the captain was pressed flat against the bulkhead. The closest man moved tentatively forward, keeping his blaster trained on Tandry. When he stepped through the hatch, Mixial dropped on him from above, scratching and clawing his head and neck. The other man jumped forward, trying to get a clear shot. The captain swung the pipe as if he were attempting to fell a tree with a single swing. The man’s face seemed to wrap around the pipe as the Rabbits watched, h
orrified at the abject violence. Captain Rand let the pipe go as he turned to wrestle the blaster from the other Concordian.
Mixial had done her job well. The blaster was already on the deck and the man bled profusely from the wounds on his head and neck. Both hands dangled from shredded wrists. The ‘cat jumped away, turning when she hit the deck, ready to reengage with the intruder, but there was no need. He swayed and fell, slapping the deck and spraying blood. The captain picked up the two blasters, handing one to Tandry, who had acted as bait to draw them in. She looked as determined as everyone else fighting against the intruders to their ship.
‘I see no others on your deck, Captain,’ Briz switched to the mindlink as he stood up, preparing to leave engineering.
“Wait! We can’t guide them to the other boarders if we leave. The captain and the other two can clear the ship if we just stay here and tell them where to go!”
“I can do that no matter where I am in the ship. I’ve made some adjustments to my implant’s interface. You have laser pistols and we need to help. Look there! They have six of our people trapped on the mess deck and another ten in billeting one deck above us. If we don’t do something…” Briz let that trail off as he brought up the picture of the dead crew in the corridor just outside.
Briz looked from Allard to Beauchene. “The ship is life, save the ship,” he said, grim determination in his voice, his vocalization device conveying his thoughts as he intended. “Let’s get those two who are in your house.” He nodded to the other two Rabbits and they hopped toward the door, happy to have Briz with them. They stopped by their dead crewmates first. Briz choked from the smell as he dug the blasters out from under the intruders.
‘Captain, we’re headed to the garden deck. If you take the stairs down from where you are, wait before entering. The Concordians are near that hatch. We will come in from the other side and flush them toward you. We have two laser pistols and two blasters. These intruders won’t know what hit them,’ Briz offered. The captain acknowledged.
Rand seethed with anger. His ship had been befouled by the inhabitants of Concordia. Members of his crew were dead. Parts of the ship were damaged. Blasters were fired inside his precious and sensitive ship! He would berate himself later on how he’d let it happen, but the first thing he needed to do was secure the ship. Mixial went first, leaving bloody paw prints on the deck as she headed for the stairway. The captain followed and Tandry watched behind them.
The Rabbits bounded up the steps in the stairwell on the opposite side of the ship from where the captain descended. Knowing that the intruders were on the other side of the deck, the Rabbits raced up the two flights and ran through the hatch. Allard and Beauchene went one way and Briz went the other. It took no time before all three groups were converging on the intruders who were digging through the plants and helping themselves to some of the fresh vegetables. Briz fired first from a position behind a small bush. He missed, because he was a terrible shot. The other two were growing more confident. Their shots grazed one of the men. He howled in pain as the two intruders fired back, not aiming, just firing and running away from the threat.
Rand and Tandry stood ready, blasters aimed at the closed hatch. Even though they were ready for it, when it opened, they were surprised, but the Concordians weren’t looking their way. Rand and Tandry fired, their narrow beams burning deep into the chests of both men. The intruders were thrown backwards, landing in heaps where they flopped until death.
Tandry vomited, spraying the captain and the deck before the hatchway. The captain gagged a couple times, then walked through, not looking at the mess behind him. He bent and picked up the men’s blasters. Tandry tried to apologize, but Rand shook his head. “It’s a horrible day for all of us. I hope we never forget the lessons we’re learning here. Briz, how many left and where are they?” he asked as the Rabbits converged on their captain.
“Six. They’ve breached the mess deck, but the crew in billeting is holding them off,” Briz reported.
“Down this stairwell and we come in behind them. Will the others in the corridor see us?” the captain asked. Briz nodded. “Then we need another diversion.” Rand pursed his lips in thought. The garden deck Rabbits fussed over some damaged plants, making repairs as they could, reinforcing the dirt around the roots, and trying to put some normalcy back into their lives.
“If we could flood the deck with smoke, I think that would be to our advantage.”
Briz shook his head, his big ears flopping back and forth. “Since there’s more of us than them, we stand a greater chance of shooting our own people. Maybe we do like we did here. We attack on two fronts. Rabbits from the billeting side and you from this side. You clear the mess deck and we’ll take care of the men in the corridor.”
“You’ll be exposed,” Rand countered.
“Rabbits can run fast, turn sharply. We will make ourselves hard targets.” The captain looked at the scar running across Briz’s chest. His new fur had barely begun to grow out. The small Rabbit looked a mess, but the sparkle in his eyes said that he was determined to wrest the ship from Concordian control. The captain shared the same determination. He held out his human hand and the engineer took it.
Briz called to the other two Rabbits as he ran past, heading for the stairs opposite where the humans stood.
Tandry watched them go. She was spent. Her commitment had shattered with the first man she’d killed. Mixial tried to soothe her. The ‘cat’s first human victim was an ugly mess, and it was right in front of Tandry. She’d watched, but it didn’t become personal until she herself had pulled the trigger. The captain understood as her emotions pulled her to a dark place. Mixial rubbed against her, purring loudly.
“Tandry, I need you with me. I can’t take them alone. We have to do this together.” She sat on the first step of the stairway, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking. She shook her head vigorously as the captain tried to calm her.
‘We’re in place and ready to go. Just give the word,’ Briz passed via the neural implant.
‘Hold on, Briz. We have a slight issue here. Soon. I’ll let you know. Stay hidden!’ the captain ordered.
‘We need to hurry, Captain. I think the Concordians have explosives and are preparing to blast the hatch to billeting,’ Briz said, anxiety creeping into his voice.
“Tandry! We have to go, now.” She continued to shake her head. He grabbed her by her shoulders and roughly pulled her upright. “Ensign!” he snapped, inches from her face.
“Save the ship!” he growled. “We have no time for this. Mixial?” Rand asked. The ‘cat continued to rub against her human’s legs. He shoved Tandry away from him. The captain wrapped his hands around the handles of the two blasters, testing their weight and checking the dial for the settings. Ancient technology, identical to what they had on Vii. Maybe Concordia had a civil war just like on Cygnus VII, halting continued development.
Or maybe they thought they had developed enough, until they saw the Cygnus-12. Greed. Envy. Fear. They were driven for some reason to lie, steal, and murder. The captain drove himself into a rage.
He snarled as he stepped around the ensign, heading down the steps to the next level, where the mess deck was located. When he reached the hatch, he found it closed. As soon as he opened it, they’d know he was there, unless they were looking the other way, which was Briz’s plan. His hand hovered over the manual open switch.
‘I’m in place, Briz. When you go, I’ll count to three and then open the hatch,’ he told them, then added, ‘and good luck, my friends. Save the ship.’
‘Save the ship,’ the Rabbits responded together. Without waiting, Briz activated the hatch and the three Rabbits bounded through then bolted down the corridor. They jerked one way then another as they ran, occasionally jumping off the walls to foil their enemy’s aim. But the two men were working on the hatch, their blasters at their feet. The Rabbits caught them by surprise and they hesitated, taken aback by the mad rush of harmless looking, fuzzy white
creatures. Until the laser pistols lit up. The shots were sporadic, but with the only targets being the two humans crouched before the hatch to billeting, they hit as much as they missed.
When Briz touched the trigger on his blaster, it sprayed a wide flame over the two men. They screamed and batted helplessly at the fire, then they ran down the corridor away from their attackers. They didn’t make it far as the combination of blaster fire and lasers cut them down.
The captain was forcing himself to count slowly. Maybe too slowly, he thought as he heard the screams when the hatch slid open before him. He took two steps into the corridor as the flaming figures fell, burning and dying in the corridor leading away from him, away from the mess deck. The corridor curved upward to his right where billeting was just beyond what he could see.
He had no time to worry about the Rabbits or the other crew. His people on the mess deck had barricaded themselves and were throwing anything at hand to hold their attackers at bay. One man stuck his head into the corridor to see what the screaming was about. The captain fired both blasters, neither accurately, but by waving the tips around, the narrow beam found its target and threw the intruder into the hatch frame, where he collapsed.
“Hey!” a shout rose from within carrying the accent of the Concordians. “Mack!”
Blaster fire splashed through the hatch and into the corridor. The crew inside knew their captain was coming, because he’d let them know by way of their neural implants. They’d built a barricade from some of the furniture, ripping it free from its restraints. With his crew’s limited projectiles, it was surprising that the Concordians hadn’t simply flamed the place and sealed it off. Maybe they decided that they needed a certain number of the crew to teach them how to operate the spaceship, something the captain hoped none of them would do willingly.
But he’d never been tortured. It wasn’t a part of their training. They were explorers, not soldiers.
Cygnus Rising: Humanity Returns to Space (Cygnus Space Opera Book 1) Page 21