The three men stopped talking while the empty semi-trucks pulled away from the docks and the next round of trucks took their place.
“I’d say it’s not safe out there to be traveling alone,” continued the cowboy. “Our best bet is to backtrack into the city. Try and pick up a load and head inland across the Mohave Desert.”
“Sounds good to me,” said the beard.
“Me, too!” said grungy. “I’m in the next rotation to unload. I’ve got two more stops to make here outside Los Angelos, and then I’ll bobtail it east myself. If you guys want to go on ahead, I’ll catch up around the San Bernadino turnpike.”
Nodding, the cowboy and the bearded man strode across the parking lot where the empty semi-trucks were lined up waiting for the gates to swing open.
Pax had heard all he needed to. Turning, he realized that Melara had caught the conversation as well.
“Melara,” he whispered silently. “We need to get inside the warehouse. When the forklift driver backs down the ramp, we need to make a run for the truck.”
With a nod, she skirted the edge of the chem-tank. After a quick glance at those milling around the warehouse yard, she dashed into the maze of empty wooden pallets, efficiently making her way to the front of the yard. Luckily the cackling poultry didn’t draw attention to the suspicious figures sneaking through the shadows.
“Now, Melara!” Pax psy-whispered.
He tilted his dark head, indicating the door of the brightly lit warehouse. The forklift driver had backed down the ramp, spun around with a loaded pallet and headed into the vast depths of the warehouse.
Without another word, Melara stepped into the shadows on the far side of the big rig, pulling her blaster from beneath her scarf.
But instead of making a dash for the back of the trailer as he expected, she reached up and depressed the door handle to the snub-nosed cab. Cracking it open, she maneuvered inside, skirting the front passenger seat and sliding into the sleeper section.
“Hurry up,” she silently beckoned.
Pax spared a brief glance at the forklift driver’s back. He would turn around any second now. Mentally shrugging, he too made a dash to the side of the big rig. He had barely snapped the door shut, slid inside the sleeper, the curtain pulled to behind him, before he heard the machinery winding up the ramp for the last time. Then he heard the sound of the forklift backing out and the rear doors jarred shut.
It was cramped and dark inside the messy sleeper. The smell of old alcohol and dirty laundry filled the chamber. Pax’s nostrils flared in distaste. Blasters ready, they waited.
The driver climbed up into the seat reaching for the round steering wheel. That was when he became aware of the business end of Melara’s blaster as it found its way through a slit in the curtain and nudged the back of his unwashed head.
“Close the door,” she ordered quietly. “Gently,” she advised with another nudge of the blaster.
“What do you want?” Grungy asked, looking straight ahead. The knuckles on his hands showed white they were gripped the steering wheel so tightly. “I don’t carry cash!”
“Relax,” Melara soothed. “We aren’t here to harm you. We just need a lift through that gate over there.”
“I don’t know who you are, or what you think you’re doing,” Grungy began, disgruntled. “But I can’t run the risk of those guards finding you in my truck. This is a good gig. I don’t want to lose my job. I’ve got a family to feed, you know?”
Pax pulled the thumb-sized rock of Myconeum out of his pocket and handed it to Melara.
“Maybe this will change your mind.” She reached her fist through the curtain so that he could see it from the corner of his eye. She opened her fingers to display the silvery marble.
Grungy’s head started to swing around to examine the sight of so much Myconeum in one spot. The most he had ever possessed at one time had been a few flecks of dust. That one marble-sized rock was worth a fortune.
“No! Just look straight ahead,” she ordered.
“We both know that this is worth more money than you’ll make in two lifetimes. Now, you get us through that gate…take us where we want to go…and it’s yours!”
The driver held still for a moment, his mind calculating the value of the Myconeum verses the consequences of getting caught helping, what he supposed were two Barriosi natives, escape the squalor of the detention center.
Greed won out.
“Get back behind the curtain,” he said. “The guards do not pay much attention the trucks returning through the fence. But there is always a first time.”
“I am glad to see you are willing to cooperate with us,” Pax drawled, just to let Grungy know that there were indeed two threats at his back, should he decide to alert the Terran Guards.
“For that much Myconeum, I would make a deal with the devil, my friend,” Grungy replied with a reckless grin that Pax could hear and feel rather than actually see from his hiding place inside sleeper.
Reaching forward Grungy started the big rig, revved the powerful engine and eased her into gear. Rolling forward, he edged the nose of the semi into the convoy of trucks waiting for the gates to swing wide. It was just his luck that he was the last one to be finished, thereby placing him last in the line.
Using his rear view mirror, his greedy eyes remained on the retreating feminine hand holding the Myconeum until it was out of sight. He breathed a rueful sigh of relief when the black nose of the blaster pulled back behind the curtain as well.
The effects of the whiskey had left him the minute he climbed into the truck and realized the weapon was aimed at him. He wasn’t willing to take the risk, that if things went wrong, his passengers would hesitate to shoot.
The line of trucks began to roll through the gates. Looking straight ahead, he followed the convoy out of the warehouse yard, past the Terran Guards and out onto the barren desert highway ahead. He set his mind on reaching his next destination, which was the sprawling city of Los Angelos.
He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he saw the gates to the Barriosi growing smaller and smaller in the side mirror attached to his door. Letting it out with a whoosh, he reached up beside his head and pulled the chain connected to the truck’s bull horn.
He started to relax as the blast reverberated up and down the convoy of trucks ahead of him.
Mimosa sat in the faded chair, her fingers weaving rough reeds into one of the pretty baskets she made and traded for fruit and vegetables in the market place. She had begun the task just to keep her hands busy and her mind off what she knew must be taking place at the warehouse on the southern end of the barrio.
Using her powerful psy-talent she sent feelers into the complicated maze of alleyways. She was older and stronger than anyone else in the burg, her talent much more advanced than her sons and grandsons. One of her many psy-abilities was something she called her ‘inner eye’. It was an incredible ability to leave her body and ‘see’ through the eyes of someone else.
She sighed in relief the instant that Melara and Pax left the confines of the Barriosi.
Her second sight instantly changed directions when someone lifted the lid to the manhole on the hillside. As she watched, a shadow slipped inside the tunnel leading to the cellar.
Knowingly, Mimosa’s eyes sought the bevy of pictures sitting atop the fireplace, focusing on the cameo of her grandson, Maximillian.
Taking a deep breath, she set the basket on the battered table in front of her. She had been preparing for this moment for many years now. Standing, she closed her eyes, and summoned all of the psy-ability she possessed.
She inhaled the psy-talent rushing through her veins, feeling it center in the tips of her tingling fingertips. Putting her palms together, she slowly pulled them apart. A burning blue ball of psy-talent formed in front of her. Carefully she squeezed the blue fire back inside her hot palms.
Then, she simply waited.
The cellar door opened into the kitchen, footsteps echo
ed through the empty house.
She was unsurprised when the angelic appearance of Maximillian de Hoya appeared in the doorway. With one part of her mind, she admired his flowing, diamond-studded, white robes and tumbling halo of silvery hair. The angelic affect was marred only by the sneer of his sculpted lips and the flickering blue psy-current spilling from his soft, white hands.
Mimosa could tell that Maximilian could no longer contain his psy-talent. It was bound to be out of control to leak from his fingers in such a way.
“How kind of you to wait up for me, Grandmother,” Maxim Bryant greeted her with a deceptively cordial smile. “As always, you are looking very…old…and tired, my dear.”
“And, you look just as flamboyantly insane as always, Maximillian,” she returned his insult just as cordially.
“Where are they?” he snarled, dispensing with all pretenses of familial love and respect for the old woman who had reared him.
“Who?”
“You know who! Capitana Sivanza and the Barriosi whelp she came here with!”
“You are too late!” she told him triumphantly. “They have already escaped the barrio.”
“You demented old fool,” he snarled. “You greatly underestimate my intelligence, if you think I will let you make a fool of me and get away with it!”
“And you underestimate me,” Mimosa told him indignantly, “if you think I will let you continue with this grandiose and evil plan of yours.”
In a blur of motion, Mimosa’s gnarled hands raised the ever-growing ball of blue psy-talent. Just as fast, Maxim’s hands rose toward her. Like gunfighters of old, both Maximillian and Mimosa knew it was a duel to the death. Those watching and listening from the crowded Barriosi alleyways, held their breath to see who would emerge victorious between two most powerful Barriosi ever born.
Simultaneously, streams of psy-current met psy-current. The room exploded with blue light as both grandmother and grandson unleashed their lethal psy-talent.
It was dark in the forest. Melara and Pax made their way through the underbrush to the lighted picnic area. Using the shadows of the tree line they examined the pavilion area.
After the escape, Maxim had extended his search far beyond the perimeter of MBryO UNIX. Sure that they would not be so foolhardy as to return to the property, Maxim had left the park unguarded.
Cautiously, Pax used his psy-feelers to make doubly sure the coast was clear. Finding no cause for alarm, Pax eased out of the forest and into the security of the dark pavilion. Melara followed cautiously on his heels, her eyes raking their surroundings for signs of life.
They had said farewell to Grungy just outside the city, preferring to make their own the way to the rendezvous spot.
Pax had a mental image of the grinning truck driver as he tossed the silvery rock of Myconeum up in air and caught it deftly. Then, with a jaunty wave and a smile, he had pulled the big semi back onto the highway, and left them there in the mid-day sun.
Melara had led the way to an abandoned movie theatre on the outskirts of the city. They had eaten some of the jerked beef and dried fruit that Mimosa had insisted they take with them when they left the Barriosi. They had curled up together on the littered stage and napped until darkness fell upon the city.
Melara had woken before him and left the safety of the theatre without disturbing him. She had returned with a stolen motorcycle, complete with a sidecar. Pax had taken one look at the small confines of the bullet shaped attachment and stubbornly shook his head. There was no way he could fold his long legs inside.
Smiling, Melara had climbed inside, resting the blaster on the hood in front of her. Straddling the bike, Pax revved the engine and shot down the back alley behind the disserted theatre.
He had enjoyed riding the powerful motorcycle, liked the wind on his face and in his hair. It reminded him of riding through the tree canopy back on Nyla 6.
His spirit was momentarily assailed by homesickness.
He pushed his yearning aside and started looking for a place to hide the motorcycle and sidecar. He pulled the contraption behind an old abandoned shed, out of sight of the road. They made the rest of the trip through the forest on foot.
Now hiding inside the dark pavilion, they waited for the time to pass. Every second dragged.
Right on time, the sound of rocket thrusters descended from the sky.
In relief, Pax watched the space-hopper land in the center of the park. When the cargo doors slid open, Melara and Pax made a dash across the manicured grounds, scrambling inside the waiting spaceship. William and Joshua’s smiling faces greeted them as they reached down and helped them inside.
Whooping with joy, Melara handed Pax her blaster and gathered each of the boys close and hugged them both very tightly.
Grinning in satisfaction, Elias lifted off into the sky with a whoosh, leaving Terra for what he thought was the last time.
Miles away in the Mohave desert, the lid to the iron manhole clanged open against the rocky hillside. Maxim Bryant stepped out of the tunnel, his hair and clothing singed from the explosion. He was bleeding profusely from a wound that stretched from his chin to his cheekbone.
Wiping away the dripping blood, his furious gaze flew skyward as the space-hopper streaked across the sky.
Snarling in hatred and rage, he turned and struck the huge boulder that disguised the manhole cover. It exploded in a million pieces, completely covering the secret entrance to the Barriosi.
Then with his burned hair streaming out behind him like an avenging angel, he strode down the hill.
Waiting at the bottom of the outcropping where he had left it was one of the DOD’s new hover-tanks. Leaning against the side was his driver and newly appointed watchdog, Reginald Stout.
The man looked up as Maxim approached, surprised by the man’s charred and bleeding appearance.
Reginald Stout never knew what hit him, as blue fire flew from Maxim’s angry finger tips. Blue current caught him full on in the chest, lifted him upwards, and shook him like a helpless ragdoll, held high in the air.
When Maxim was satisfied the man would not be telling anyone of the defeat he had suffered at the hands of his enemies, this night, he used the current to fling him to the desert floor. He lay there, face down and lifeless.
Stepping over his discarded body, Maxim climbed into the hover-tank and drove away, leaving his carcass for the desert animals that would strip the cooked flesh from his bones.
Exactly one month later, a space-hopper and Terran space shuttle landed at a pre-agreed upon spot out in the Mohave Desert. An old crone, dressed in an ankle length skirt and cavernous apron, limped out to meet it. Behind her was a crowd of rag-tag crowd of swarthy individuals of varying ages and sizes. This was just the first such airlift planned over the next few months.
Leaping out of the space-hopper, Pax ran to meet the elderly woman. He lifted her injured body gently into his arms and carried her to the waiting cargo doors.
“It is good to see you my son,” Mimosa de Hoya told him with tear filled eyes. “I knew I could depend on you to return for us.”
“I have you missed, my grandmother,” Pax told her sincerely. “Now I will take you home to Nyla 6.”
Epilogue
One year later…
Wasit’s bright orange light cast a honeyed glow upon the forest canopy down below the bunker. Pax Vitar leaned back against the mountain, his mass-blaster resting upon his jerkin clad knee and gazed up at the star lit sky above.
As he watched, a eughi climbed to the top of a neighboring mountain. Rising up on his haunches, he looked across the tree tops at Pax. Then roaring angrily, he beat his hairy chest with his one good arm, before turning and lumbering down the cliffs.
Sighing in resignation, Pax refused to let the eughi’s instinct to kill and destroy affect his mood. The time would come when he and the big hairy monster would meet again. And when they did, Pax intended to be the victor.
A whole year had passed since the night t
he Terran space ship had entered Nyla 6’s atmosphere. The bunker was a hive of activity these days. Ian’s robots hummed through the hallways, making sure everything ran well.
Barriosi children ran laughingly through the living quarters and also, the school room that was overseen by Joshua. William had forged an alliance with the twins, Janus and Jenasus. They had the same affinity for science labs as he did.
No longer was Pax alone on the planet. And no longer was he alone on his favorite ledge.
“Mind if I sit with you?” Melara’s silvery voice called to him as she rounded the cliff to find him sitting in his favorite spot.
“No, of course not!” he smiled, moving over so she could share the small ledge with him.
“I can understand why you love this place so much,” she told him with an open smile. “It’s so lovely, not to mention peaceful!”
He and Melara had come a long way since their journey through the desert. Pax set his blaster down and putting his arm around her pulled her close to his side. He kissed the top of her bright head, enjoying the smell of her shampoo.
“As much as I love this place, I love you more,” he psy-whispered in her ear. Smiling she nestled closer.
Supremely happy, Pax’s mind wandered back to the events of the previous year.
Everything had happened so quickly.
First the ship had crashed, and then came the unexpected arrival of Elias Abrams and his crazy plan to rescue his Xenaclon queen. Pax could still remember the rush of psy-power upon his senses as he and Melara made their dangerous escape from the rooftop of the MBryO UNIX building.
The fates must have preordained the desert meeting with Mimosa. He had learned so much about his Barriosi ancestry from the feisty old woman.
They had returned to the Terra several times in the preceding months. Many of the Barriosi had transplanted to Nyla 6. Some of the younger ones had remained and Pax knew that they were planning a revolt against their Terran captors. It saddened him that so many of his young cousins were so intent on war.
MBryO: The Escape Page 18