Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1)

by Robin MacMillan

  “A report on the installation or the report on how the mission went?”

  “Just a report about the installation and the full working order of that Phantom. I know that there is no way possible that it would be able to get there within ten hours. Even with a Hyperspace jump it would still take days to get there.”

  “Yes Sir,” he gives a quick nod and salute to the commander then turns back to face his desk.

  Bel'Ock walks towards the lift doors, the floor plates on the lift begin to shake as the repulsors fire up. Bel'Ock stands there, just looking at the doors, thinking about how the other sentient races had banished his people.

  Back when the particular regiment of Akkessians had been caught for trying to overthrow the Cities political infrastructure, Instead of success their syndicate had been caught, in response to that, the Minolian and Yaekesh council members had voted to banish them and declare the entire syndicate group as outlaws to the city. What happened after that was the Akkessians had been loaded onto a transport ship that was then launched into deep space.

  According to galactic records and the unit of time that the city operated on; the banishment had been initiated almost two thousand years ago. The transport ship had been launched into a sun, well; the coordinates were set to go on a crash course with the sun. Little did the other races on the Citadel know that halfway through the journey to the sun the transport had lost power, due to flying through certain types of radiation that had been discharged from a red giant. The Citadel council didn’t foreseen this variable and didn’t put precautions into place.

  The Citadel council is now unaware of the newly formed Hakorian race that is very, very pissed off. They’ll soon be informed of the threat that they thought had been destroyed thousands of years ago.

  The banished ones that were on the transport had varied from profession to profession; there had been soldiers, and scientists, and many, many others. It took them two thousand years to rebuild their technological advances that they made in the past on the Citadel.

  Bel'Ock lets out a long sigh, everything that happened had occurred long before his time, Hakorians lived for centuries, some of the elders among the fleet were closing in on a millennia. There’s no way to know if the facts about what happened so long ago are accurate other than the recorded written word. No living Hakorian today could remember anything about the banishment.

  The lift doors open, Bel'Ock steps onto the command bridge.

  “Commander, the subject is on its way, the cargo ship will still be a while, but they just wish to report that they are nearly twenty two days out. They expect no delays.”

  “Tell them to keep an eye out for anything unusual. We don’t want anyone sneaking up on them when they’re not looking.”

  “Yes Sir,” Hakaer pauses, “message sent, should I have a report on the latest Thopium shipments sent to your quarters?”

  “Yes, do that right away,” Bel'Ock goes through the bridge and opens the door to his private chambers. The transport that’s being used to ferry the human will soon be in for a surprise. It doesn’t matter to Bel'Ock who brings him in; in the meantime it’s just for his own amusement. Just as long as he’s brought in at some point, Bel'Ock has all the time anyone can ever ask for.

  He leafs through the reports on the Thopium deposits that are being mined on Terra; by the looks of it they have enough Thopium to make only six of the drive cores.

  Time. It’ll all take time to achieve their goals. Soon enough Bel'Ock will be standing in the legendary Citadel, with the heads of all the council members at his feet.

  Ten

  Day 24: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

  A single tear runs down her cheek. My heart is racing, she can't possibly be gone.

  That’s the only thing that runs through my mind during my imprisonment. I awoke cycles ago; a deep throbbing had come from the back of my head. It was then that I remember what had happened. I’d been asleep when everything had happened, my wife had been killed and I had been taken hostage by Hakorians.

  Now here I am, locked in a very dark, filthy room, within the first ten days it felt like I was going blind, after being locked in the dark for so long your eyes stop working properly.

  Every minute of every day though I close my eyes and think of Syreena. The one thing that I look forward to in my solitude is sleep. I can dream of wonderful things, it’s nice for my mind to play tricks on me when I’m unconscious. Every time I close my eyes I can see her, only an arm’s length away from me.

  When I wasn’t sleeping I was crying, trying my best not to think about what happened. But that’s impossible. Tears streak down my cheeks as I realize that the best thing that ever happened in my life was taken away from me. There is no explanation to why it happened, only that I failed to protect the woman that I love.

  Anger. Rage. Revenge. Sorrow. Those are the emotions that I wake up to every day. I will get my revenge on those that destroyed my life, even if it means destroying who I am in the process. What is life without love? I wouldn’t know now, I don’t have love anymore. All those feelings are gone…robbed from me, stripped away from my mind and body.

  Nothing I can do can change what happened. All I can do now is escape, if not from this ship then from this body.

  The room that I’m in seems to be of average size, the ceiling is low, if I stand up and jump my head hits the ceiling. The only source of noise that I can hear is the air filters that continuously recycle the oxygen supply in the room.

  “Prissoner, sstep back from the door,” a voice comes from the ceiling speakers.

  I step back and place my back on the far end of the wall. I probably didn’t need to step back, a high charged current shield blocks my path to the door, even if I did try to escape I wouldn’t get very far before getting shocked unconscious.

  The door opens at the far end of the room, a green misty light shines in, the light wraps itself around a hulking silhouette.

  “Time to eat, enjoy,” the Hakorian says, dropping a large bowl of glob just past the shield. My face splits open in a frown -only to fool the guard into thinking that it’s the worst time about my imprisonment. This particular meal was supposedly the most disgusting food that they have, it’s actually very tasty. A mix of what one could call gummy porridge and salt- the Hakorian notices my face. “Don’t like it then don’t eat it, get hungry enough you will eat anything,” he turns and goes back through the door, the green light fades away to nothing.

  At least they had the decency to use a subtle color, the green I guess makes it less bright, making it unlikely to completely blind their captor whenever they decided to turn the lights on. It was like getting up in the morning when it’s still dark out and then your parents coming in and turning on the lights to surprise you on your birthday, which always blinded you for a few seconds.

  Once the door shuts and the shield deactivates I race to the bowl of food that’s lying on the cold metal floor, all of the meals that they provided me with are the same. Not much to live on, it probably isn’t doing my system any good eating the same meal every other day.

  If anything, today is going to be the same as all the other days; long, dark and boring. There isn’t even anything to keep myself occupied, all I’m able to do is keep my body in the best physical shape It can be in with no equipment. Bit by bit I know I’ll begin to lose my mind though, no matter how much I work out or just count the time pass by.

  The one thing that keeps me sane is the thought of getting out of here and obliterating all those that took my life away from me. This ship will be the first thing to go.

  ****

  Day 25: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397

  Pain, enormous amounts of pain are emanating from the right side of my mouth. My jaw will be joining my broken nose soon; nothing good can come out of a broken jaw, but a broken nose can be seen as ruggish to some people.

  “Now, let’ss try again, tell me the sshutdown codess of your sshipss weaponss ssysstem,” the Hakorian bea
ting me says.

  All I do to reply is laugh; blood is running down the corner of my mouth. I know what’s going to come next before it even happens. The Hakorians hand impacts my abdomen, all of my oxygen that’s in my lungs comes rushing out into the air, along with flecks of blood. I sit there, hunched over in my chair, trying to breath. It feels like I can't though, as if my lungs can't store any more air -which was none at all- my body however has gotten used to the constant beatings I received during my time in captivity. After a short period of time my consciousness retreated into the deepest part of my mind, I think about Syreena; in all my time here she’s been the one that’s kept me alive. Thinking of her alone gives me the will to survive, and the will to numb the constant pain.

  “I’ve been out of the loop for a long time, they’ve surely changed any codes that I might’ve been given.” I look up into the Hakorians face and smile, “you’re just wasting your time, you and all the other interrogators. Or is it just you that’s been coming in here, it’s so hard to tell, you all look so alike,” I smile a bloody grin at him; his beady little black eyes look like they’re shaking themselves from the rage that must’ve been going through his mind.

  A fist comes down upon my jaw again, I can feel one of my teeth break. I spit out a mouthful of blood, I can't see where it went on the floor, but I can hear the small clatter as a bit of my tooth hits the floor.

  “Sso, you admit that you have the codess then?” He cracks his knuckles.

  I shake my head, blood drips from my mouth down into my scruffy untrimmed beard. A single tear runs down my cheek, what hope is there of me getting out of here, the best option that I can think of is just getting killed, or stop eating, either one’ would do the trick.

  “Get up, and face the wall.”

  “I’m tied up you idiot, unless you can stand while sitting down you’ll just have to show me your secret.”

  The Hakorian slashes down with his hand at the rope that’s tied around my legs, the claws on one of his fingers runs down the side of my leg. Hot blood runs down to my feet.

  “Now, turn around and face the wall.”

  I look at him; something behind him catches my eye, “why don’t you turn around?”

  He stares at me in confusion, his upper lip is twitching. He raises his gun and jabs me in the middle of my chest, “turn…around.”

  I smile with closed lips, I crouch down into a ball as fast as I can, covering my head with my arms.

  The Hakorian had a startled look on his face right before his head explodes from a shot fired at point blank range. Blood is splattered all over my shoulders from the explosion. Behind the barrel of the gun is a man in what looks like s.m.a.r.t. gear.

  “Thanks, you have perfect timing by the way, who knows what he was about to do.”

  “Just doing my job Colonel.”

  My eyes open wide, “Captain?”

  He chuckles, “you never could drop the formalities could you? Oh, and it’s Major now by the way.”

  I grab him by the shoulder, a look of urgency gleaming in my eye, “my wife, what about Syreena, were the medics able to resuscitate her?”

  He unseals his helmet.

  “Easy there,” he shrugs off my hand from his shoulder, “yes, they did manage to revive her.”

  There, that’s the best thing that I’ve ever heard in my life, it’s the only thing that I could ever want to hear. My heart leaps back into action, I feel the pace quicken almost instantly. “Don’t be too anxious though to get back.

  My heart skips several beats, “why, why shouldn’t I be?”

  T-Rave opens his mouth a tiny bit, searching for words that’ll have the softest effect.

  “The medics did revive her yes, but she’s been in an extremely fragile state. She hasn’t awoken from her coma since she got into the hospital, it’s almost like she has just lost the will to live, the medics have no idea what's wrong with her,” he looks at me; his expression has a look of sadness and concern.

  T-Rave reaches over his shoulder and unclips a rifle from his back plate; I catch it as he tosses it to me.

  “Now, why don’t we get you home?” T-Rave seals his helmet back on and turns around and starts to head out.

  “How long have I been gone for?”

  “It’s been over two cycles.”

  My mouth drops open, “Syreena’s been in a coma for two cycles?”

  “Well, I’m not sure how she is doing now, I’ve been away for so long in the attempts to make it out here, it took quite a while to reach you Colonel.”

  “So you’re saying that she might not be in a coma still?”

  “It’s possible; the flight to get out here took us over twenty days.”

  Something doesn’t add up there, “you’re saying that it takes them nearly four times as long to traverse the distance that we can make?” If so, that is a huge advantage on our part.

  “Yeah, that’s why they need the Thopium, to increase the energy output of their engines. We already have that kind of technology, just nowhere near the speed of light.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “You’ve been out of the loop for quite some time Colonel; we have learned a great many things in your absence. I won’t get into the details now, we should really get going.”

  We go as fast as we can through the dark corridors. After we exited the room in which I had been held in, everything seemed exactly the same. Dark and foggy. It smelled very bad as well, As if some form of creature had died and they didn’t bother cleaning it up.

  There is little resistance as we go along, Hakorians died by the multitudes; they aren’t exactly expecting to be attacked in their own base of operations in the middle of deep space.

  I tap T-Rave on the shoulder, signaling him to stop and take a rest, my body has the feeling that it’s going to fail on me, right here and now.

  I look at my surroundings. There are several dark hallways that fork off in multiple directions. A panging sound is coming from one of the corridors. “Did you say that you came here alone?”

  “I never did.”

  “Do you have a whole squad with you then?”

  “Almost two.”

  “Really? The General spared two squads to come and get me?”

  “Pfft, not just for you,” he scoffs.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is not a prisoner ship, it’s a cargo ship. We ran trace scans when you were loaded up, this place is full of Thopium tanks.”

  “You saw me get loaded onto here when I was still on Terra?”

  “Not with our own eyes, we were tracking your movement through satellite. By the time we got to your location you were already deep in space.”

  All the bits and pieces of information that I’d received in the twenty or thirty minutes since I’d escaped are beginning to fall together into one big picture.

  “Get down!” T-Rave shouts.

  Too late though, he didn’t say it soon enough. I feel immense amounts of heat radiating from my left shoulder blade.

  Pain follows soon after.

  I look over my shoulder, what I see shocks me, a large chunk of flesh is missing, in its place is a black cauterized mess. My body’s screaming out in agony, my vision goes blurry, my knees weaken and I fall to the ground.

  I look up from the ground in time to see T-Rave swing his rifle around towards the Hakorian. I can't hear as the rifle discharges. The Hakorians chest bursts into light. What remains of his stomach is a gaping hole that you can peer through.

  Next thing I know is an arm wrapping itself around my waist, trying to hoist me up from off the ground. My eyesight is getting even blurrier; eventually I can't see anything clearly beyond the reach of my arm. “Don’t worry; you’re going to be fine Colonel,” I hear T-Rave say.

  Everything goes black, I know what’s coming next, my mind has a split second to register that my body’s going to fail on me.

  ****

  Day 26: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397<
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  My eyes slowly open; my head’s throbbing yet again, as if someone’s been trying to hammer nails into my skull…with a spoon. I look around the area that I’m in, I’m lying on a grated floor; rubber padding covers most of it.

  I blink hard several times in an attempt to get rid of the silver spots that are drifting all over my field of vision.

  “Where am I?” I manage to slur out. There’s no response.

  Pain shoots up my arm.

  There’s something taped to my shoulder. I reach around with my good arm and feel my wound gently. Someone had bandaged it up, probably moments after I’d gotten shot and then blacked out. I test the range of motions that my arm’s capable of.

  I shout out in pain as the charred skin under the gauze rubs up against more damaged skin.

  I prop myself up using my arms -trying my best to ignore the fresh wave of pain- I see what’s leaning up against the wall opposite me. Gun racks.

  Wherever I am, it’s definitely not a hostile environment, no captor would be foolish enough to hold their prisoner in the armoury. I take a quick glance around the room, looking for an exit of some sort; there’s a door to my left that connects to a hallway. I walk towards the door, as I walk the ground begins to shake. I stumble and grab the wall beside me to stabilize myself. The lights flicker around me for a second or two before shutting off completely. “Emergency lights activated,” a female voice says, it echoes through the hallways.

  Pale red lights come on and illuminate the hallways to some degree; it has an eerie look to it, as if the hallways that I’m walking down are from some sort of horror movie. I hear shouting ahead, someone’s giving out orders of some kind, I’d need to get closer though to distinguish the voices. I know now that I’m on a military vessel; I recognize the female voice that had come over the intercom. That could only mean that after I blacked out T-Rave had gotten me to safety, and that I’m now on a ship headed home.