“I didn’t copy that, repeat your last message.”
“Co…is…t…you?” The voice sounds much clearer the second time.
“Jayon? That you?” I ask.
“Ye…is…”
“Captain, can you clean up the signal anymore?”
“I’ll try, one sec.”
I wait patiently for T-Rave to finish the modifications; hopefully Jayon’s in a position where he’s able to be here within the hour.
“Try that.”
“Jayon, do you read? I’m sending the coordinates now.”
“Coordinates received, given by the location of these I should be there in just under an hour.”
“Understood, see you in the air in an hour, I’m going to leave the channel open in case we need to let you know anything.”
“Alright, Cofield out.”
I pop my helmet back off. Nothing else to do but wait. I turn to T-Rave, “might as well get comfortable, looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”
I let my weight drag me to the ground; there’s nothing better than sitting down after a long day.
****
The sun is warm against my closed eyes. I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, waiting for Jayon to arrive.
The sound of repulsors flying overhead wakes me from my sleep.
The ship is hovering above the wide-open pool of water; with nowhere to land amongst the thick underbrush.
The sun is shining off the hull; I raise my hand to block out the blinding reflection. I can see the ramp opening up from the rear end of the ship; the ship’s hovering a good five meters above the ground. A long rope ladder is thrown over the side; it hits the ground with a thus as the muddy ground absorbs the blow.
Krystil’s head pokes over the ramp, “com’on, we haven’t got all day!” She yells down at us.
I wrap my hand over the rungs of the ladder; they’re slippery under my wet gloves. Rope ladders weren’t good at the best of times, and climbing up one in full body gear makes it ten times worse than usual.
I reach the top of the ladder, my hands grab the metal plating of the ramp, there are little grooves cut into the metal, probably to help people help load cargo into the bays.
A hand grabs my upper arm to help hoist me up, Krystil smiles down at me; it reminds me of Syreena…It makes me miss her even more.
“Thanks,” I nod at her, “I can help him up, you should get back to the Captain.”
A look of relief spreads across her face; she obviously still doesn’t like T-Rave that much.
T-Rave’s half way up the ladder by the time I turn around and peer over the edge of the ramp. I reach my arm down to lend a hand; T-Rave grasps it tight as I help pull him over the ramp.
“Thanks Colonel.”
“Don’t mention it. Come on, we should probably get to the cockpit.”
I walk towards the door that led out to the main hallway of the ship. T-Rave pulls the ladder up and tosses it aside, then he runs his hand up the side of the wall until he hits a switch that closes the ramp. The bay is almost pitch black when the ramp hisses shut.
It’s nice that our helmets have night vision, it would be foolish to have any system like that without that particular function.
The corridor blast door opens, the light is almost blinding as the white hallway is revealed. It seems like it’s been ages since I walked these halls, its most likely been no more than a day.
“Colonel, we’re on a tight schedule, you might want to come to the cockpit,” Jayon’s voice rings over the ships intercom.
We hurry to the cockpit.
The cockpit hatch snaps open; a heated discussion coming from within.
“-don’t understand, we can't do that, if we go through with that then we’d have a death penalty on our heads,” Krystil says.
Jayons head snaps towards the open door.
“What will get you two a death penalty?” I inquire.
“Nothin’ that you need to be concerned about,” Jayon says, almost too quick.
“I like to be concerned.”
“Colonel there’s really isn’t anything you need to worry about,” Krystil pipes up.
“I think you should spit it out, or else,” T-Rave growls out.
“Or else? Who do you think you are? You think you can threaten me on my own ship?” Jayons voice is rising.
T-Rave moved fast, his sidearm bolts into the air, the sound of the safety getting turned off buzzes.
Krystil screams. A rather loud scream for such a small space.
Pure instincts as my own army snaps down and draws my pistol from its holster. Aimed squarely at T-Raves chest.
“Captain stand down!”
“I’m tired of dealing with him; he’s not a true captain, all he is a merc, purchased by the highest payer,” He shouts.
“Well I’m tired of dealing with you! Now, you are going to put down the gun and then you are going to walk out that door and go to the mess hall. Got it?” Anger rising within me.
The fact that T-Rave still has his helmet on probably made him more menacing looking to Krystil and the good Captain.
He stands there for a second, probably weighing his choices; walk away or get shot, hopefully he’s smart enough not to pick the latter.
T-Rave slowly lowers his gun, gives a rude hand gesture to the Captain and walks away.
I sigh in relief, shooting a fellow soldier would’ve made a bad ending for my day.
“Sorry about that Captain,” I lower my gun and holster it, “I don’t know why T-Rave went off like that, he’s usually on a short fuse when it comes to people, but nothing like that.”
I pop my helmet off.
“Maybe he’s a user, I can usually tell,” Jayon says.
“No, I don’t see how that’s possible, the military would know. We do body scans and blood work every half a cycle.”
“Bah, I can still tell a junkie from a normal person.”
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about any of that, it's on my plate, not yours. Now, can someone please explain what the hell was going on before we came in here?”
Krystil looks at Jayon, her mouth twitching.
“How do we know that we can trust you?” She says.
“Well, I just saved his life,” I point at Jayon, “I think that should earn me some points.”
“Alright then, why don’t you sit down?”
“I prefer to stand.”
“Ok then,” Jayons eyebrows went to the top of his head as he said it, “when we dropped you boys off we pulled back so that we wouldn’t be made a target to those fighters. When we pulled back we just landed in a nice flat area and killed all the power. Once we diverted all power all into the new long range receiver equipment that your military Generals so kindly installed into this bucket once they knew that they needed me and my ship,” he continues, “Ms. Aakia and I didn’t think that we would actually pick up anything while we were listening for any broadcasts.”
“And what did you receive?” I cut in.
“Just wait, I’m getting to that,” he eyes me down; he didn’t like the interruption.
“We intercepted a transmission from the base that you infiltrated. Now, the contents of the transmission were encoded using mathematical algorithms, but little do these aliens know that math is a universal language, so it wasn’t too hard to de-code into something that we could understand.”
“You didn’t do anything; I was the one that spent hours and hours trying to crack it,” Krystil exclaims erratically with her arms waving around above her head.
“Alright, alright, she did all the work.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah; can you just continue?”
“Right, the contents were just status updates on the mining operations and other similar cases that are going on around the globe.”
“Well, we already know all that, what so special about it?” I ask.
“It was what the messages contained,” he pauses, “something about a mo
dified drive core for a ship, and very complex patterns -almost like blue prints- except a lot more complicated.”
“Do you think that these patterns are instructions on how to build it?” I ask.
“Possibly, there’s no way to tell; if they are though, do you have any idea what these would sell for on the black market?”
“And you wouldn’t want this information to get out, so you decided to keep it from us, I see.”
“Don’t take it the wrong way, we know that we can trust you now, Jayon just needed some reassurance that you would be able to keep it to yourself.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Just don’t tell Captain Ravenson, ok? The less he knows about it the better,” Krystil says.
“Alright, you have my word. I’m just letting you know that I will have to tell my superiors about this information that you acquired with their technology that they installed onto your ship,” I say.
“I would prefer if you didn’t. We have no idea what the impact could be if this information gets in the wrong hands. Just do me a favor, just don’t let the Captain know, he seems like the thug type that would sell us out for a little bit of money,” Krystil says.
“Thank you Colonel, now, we should get back to business and get us the hell outta here, you agree?” Jayon says, spinning around on his heels and plunking himself down in the pilot’s chair.
“Yeah, we should. I will be in the crew quarters if you need me.”
“Noted, now if you could excuse us.”
“Yeah, no problem.” I head out of the cockpit door and navigate through the hallways until I find the crew quarters. It’ll take a few hours to get back to base, and in that time there’ll be a nice relaxing hot shower to relieve me of some of the pain that my sore body’s in right now.
I should be going to talk to T-Rave, I warned him once already though, I’m going to do it again. All I’m going to do is report him to the General, he’ll be off my hands then.
Eight
Day 11: Cycle 1: Period 2: Year 2397
The trip back to T.A.R. Base feels like it’s shorter than the initial trip. The hours flow by as if they’re sped forward and that time’s been folded. It’s either that or I fell asleep and woke up without realizing it.
I look out the port viewport, the city below me is bathed in light, the sun is reflecting beautifully off the glass sky towers.
The intercom crackles, “prepare for landing,” Jayons voice says.
T.A.R. Base comes into sight through the starboard viewport before long, I almost regret getting here so fast, having only a few hours with no worries is nice. It made being in the military stressful, always having to worry if you’re going to get called to duty at a moment’s notice.
Comets End hovers over the roof of T.A.R. Base, the bay doors open up and the ship descends into the bay room below.
I hear a faint grinding sound as the landing gear emerges from the bottom of the hull, the ship rocks as it makes contact with the floor of the bay.
I’m at the cockpit door moments after the craft touches down, the door slides open and I walk inside.
“Thank you Captain for letting us use this ship as a transport for this mission.”
“Don’t worry about it lad, your military paid me lots of money for the success of this operation. So I should instead thank you. Oh, and Colonel, give ‘em hell,” Jayon says. One of the many traits that I admire in the Captain; he never loses his cool, even situations like T-Rave pointing his gun towards his face. If only all people had that.
“Will do,” I depart the cockpit and find my way back to the entrance ramp. T-Rave is already waiting for me, he hadn’t bothered to thank his host.
“Colonel,” T-Rave nods, “I should check in with the General to give him a quick briefing. I’ll meet you in the armoury afterwards.”
“Alright, tell him about Jayon being so helpful while you’re at it.”
“Uh huh, I’ll do my best,” He gives a quick salute then departs towards a different lift entrance.
It doesn’t take long to get to the armoury, the door hisses open. Shelves upon shelves of used and worn out weapons and armour.
“Anyone in here?” I say loudly, the room has a creepy feel to it, as if something is waiting in the corner. “No…? Alright,” talking to myself is always a good remedy for the jitters.
I find an empty rack by the far side of the armoury, I begin to take off my armour plating and set it on the rack.
My intercom earpiece chirps.
“Woods here.”
“Colonel, you need to get to the briefing room now,” T-Raves voice comes over the intercom.
“Yeah, I’m just in the armoury now.”
“No, I mean now, we have a situation, you need to get here as soon as possible”
“What kind of situation?”
“It's the General.”
“I’ll be up there in a minute, Woods out.” Scenarios are rushing through my mind: assassination, heart attack, vanished. Not all of them end so well.
I don’t bother taking off the rest of my armour, instead I just turn tail and rush out the entrance and back into the lift. The lift doors chime as they open, “welcome, where can I take you?” The female voice says, “briefing room level, room six,” I respond. The doors shut and the lift starts going up.
The ride’s only ten seconds long; with inertial dampeners the lift could go as fast as it could possibly go, making trips as fast as possible to different levels.
The door opens, “have a nice day.”
I step out and find my way to briefing room 6. The door is already open; people surround the entrance.
“Out of the way,” I spread my arms out and push away the crowd to get to the door, “please move people; go back to your work cubicles or something.” making my way through the mob of people.
The door comes into sight; T-Rave’s standing over a person who’s on their knees and facing the wall.
“Captain, what's going on? Who is that?” I exclaim.
“That would be the General Sir,” he says simply.
“What happened? What did you do?” I say.
“What did I do? No, you got it all wrong, it's what he did, it's what he is doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You two have misunderstood this, this is what it-” the General tries to say.
“Shut up!” T-Rave shouts at him.
“You little bastard, do you have any idea what the penalties are for assaulting a superior officer?” The General shouts back at him.
“I don’t think you’re my superior officer anymore Anders, not after what you’ve been involved in,” T-Rave states.
“Can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?” I shout out to everyone around me.
“He’s a traitor to the human race!”
“Murderer!”
“He should be court martialed and executed!” Several people yell at once.
“Wait, wait, wait, slow down. Captain, can you explain this?” I direct my gaze to T-Rave.
“I’ll do my best Sir. When we departed from the flight deck I came down here to give a quick report on the mission. When I entered the room the General was on a Holo-intercom with a Hakorian, the Hakorian was saying something about making a deal and thanking him for his cooperation. That’s when it cut off and the General turned around, he looked terrified. I guess he thought he wouldn’t be caught.”
“I tried to tell him that I don’t know how that got in there!”
“How come the security cameras were offline at the exact moment?”
The Generals mouth is just hanging open, “I…I…”
“That’s what I thought.”
Voices come from outside the briefing room.
“Ah good, security is here,” T-Rave breathes out in relief.
The burly men in security uniforms push their way through the crowd, one’s carrying a shock stick, the other one has stun cuffs in his hand.
&n
bsp; “Get him out of here; lock his ass up in a very small dark room.”
“I’m telling you, you’re making a very big mistake. I’m not the one responsible for this!” The General says, he yelps as the stun cuffs latch onto his wrists.
“The evidence is against you General, you will just have to get a lawyer and explain everything to him and a judge.” T-Rave says.
“This is preposterous!” He shouts back at us as he’s dragged out of the briefing room.
“Now, can you explain in full what the hell happened?” I say to T-Rave.
“That was pretty much everything. Oh, yeah, there was something else in the communique about the destruction of the city, and Terra. So, I’m not sure if that was an actual plan or if it was just talk.”
“Is that it?” I’m surprised; you’d think the General and the Hakorians would have a lot more to talk about.
“Yeah that’s it,” he says, lowering himself into one of the arm chairs by the table.
“Who are we going to report to now?” I ask, it’s probably a question that’s floating on T-Raves mind as well.
“I have no clue, I’m sure we’ll get another military General to take his place soon enough. For now though all we can do is go and take all this smelly gear off. A nice hot shower would be nice as well.”
It surprises me how fast T-Rave switched from being serious and then seconds later sarcastic and completely unaware of what just happened, like he’d forgotten already.
****
After me and T-Rave departed the briefing room we’d gone down to the Armoury, we stripped ourselves of our gear and then headed up to the showers. The hot water felt nice against my bruised and battered body. After we had relaxed a little bit and cleaned ourselves up we’d received a message saying to meet General Weber up in briefing room 11. I guess the military didn’t screw around that much, they most likely assigned a General at random just to finish up the mission.
We open the briefing room door. At the head of the table is a short pudgy man, he doesn’t have the neatly cropped hair like most Generals do. Instead, It’s ragged and uneven all over his wrinkly head.
Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) Page 14