Tarizon, Conquest Earth, Tarizon Trilogy Vol 3

by William Manchee

  Chapter 19

  Frantic Chase

  Sgt. Ponde was glad that Rhin had accepted the Chancellor’s assignment. He had the utmost respect for her and knew that together they could do great things. The next morning Rhin showed up with ten other rhutz. When she had put out the call to her kind there were many volunteers, but only a few close enough to report immediately. Sgt. Ponde had managed to round up ten other seafolkens, giving them a team of twenty-two for Tarizon’s first ever RRT.

  As they were loading their gear into the two jet copters assigned to them, Sgt. Ponde received a call on his GC. His face turned grim as he listened. When he lowered the GC he shook his head and looked at Rhin.

  “Well, we have our first assignment,” Sgt. Ponde told Rhin telepathically. “Tehra and Sophilo have been kidnaped.”

  “Sophilo? Leek’s brother?” Rhin asked, unbelieving.

  Sgt. Ponde nodded. “Yes, they were taken twenty loons ago at Marlais Beach and were seen heading north by copter.”

  “Then we must go to Pogo Island immediately and find them. We can’t let anything happen to them.”

  Sgt. Ponde nodded and told the pilots their destination. Soon they were off, flying at Mach 2 over Quori toward Pogo Island and looking down at the vast expanse of the Coral Sea. A kyloon later they saw Pogo Island in the distance. Colonel Tomel met them at the airport a few loons later when they landed. His right leg was bandaged and he looked very uncomfortable. He told them what had happened.

  “Since Pogo is an island they will soon run out of real estate,” Sgt. Ponde said. “What type of copter were they in?”

  “It looked like an excursion copter,” Colonel Tomel replied. “It’s pretty slow and I doubt it could go very far without refueling. I think maybe the kidnapers are taking them to a boat or an airfield and then off the island to a secure location.”

  “Do you have a map of Pogo?” Sgt. Ponde asked.

  “Yes,” Colonel Tomel said, motioning to one of his men, who retrieved the map and brought it to them.

  Colonel Tomel pointed to a position on the map just above Marlais Beach. “They were headed this way, toward Pogo City.”

  “But we don’t know if that’s where they were going,” Sgt Ponde argued. “They could change course at any time. They may have been going that way initially to avoid the Argot military base.”

  He felt Rhin’s voice in his head. “I will ask the rhutz who live on Pogo if they have seen a copter traveling north. Give me a moment.”

  Sgt. Ponde told Colonel Tomel what Rhin had said telepathically. They all looked at her expectantly. A few tiks later she thought, “A copter matching the description Colonel Tomel gave us has been seen following the Oklana River west of Pogo City. The word will be passed to all the rhutz to keep an eye on it.”

  “All right. Let’s go,” Sgt Ponde said and everyone scrambled to get aboard their jet copters. Soon they were in the air traveling north. After a few kyloons they picked up the Oklana River and followed it.

  Rhin was looking out the copter’s window when she suddenly perked up. “They’re heading into the Black Hills,” she thought.

  Sgt. Ponde looked down at his map and pointed to the Black Hills. Colonel Tomel nodded. The Black Hills were named for the lava that poured out of the volcano that created them, which was as black as coal. Mt. Vespius rose a little over 8,000 feet and dominated the central Pogo landscape. The Black Hills were heavily wooded and sparsely populated, the perfect hiding place for the TGA thugs on Pogo Island.

  As they reached the Black Hills, Rhin reported that the copter had landed at a fortified compound twenty-four kylods north of the headwaters of the Oklana River. Col. Tomel informed the pilot and he modified his course accordingly. When they got close to the compound they landed their copters out of sight and discussed strategy.

  “We’ve got to be very careful,” Col. Tomel said. “They’ll kill Tehra and Sophilo if they know we’re trying to rescue them.”

  Sgt. Ponde nodded glumly. “I know. We should let Rhin do some reconnaissance so we’ll know what we’re up against.”

  He asked Rhin if she’d go check out the compound so they could formulate a rescue plan. She responded by taking off toward the compound. Several of her pack followed her. While they were waiting Sgt. Ponde called Lorin.

  “We’ve located them in the Black Hills,” he reported. “They’re holed up in some kind of compound. It’s fortified, unfortunately, so we’re going to have to be careful.”

  “Wow. You found them quickly,” Lorin said.

  “Yes, it helps that there are rhutz everywhere and they communicate with each other telepathically.”

  “I knew getting Rhin’s help would be worthwhile.”

  “That’s an understatement, Madam Chancellor. Anyway, we’ve got the place surrounded, so the only trick is going to be keeping them alive. Does Commander Lanzia know they’ve been kidnaped?”

  “No. Fortunately we’ve lost communication with ES 26 for now. Hopefully when it’s reestablished we’ll have them back safely.”

  “I hope so. Otherwise, he’ll want to turn around and come back.”

  “Yes he will, and I don’t want to fight that battle right now. I’ve got my hands full with the General Assembly. In order to get funding for the RRTs I had to promise to advise them in advance of any operation. In fact, I’ve got to call Senator Drul right now to be in compliance with the agreement.”

  “Okay. Good luck with that. I’ll call you back when I know anything more,” Sgt. Ponde said.

  “Right. I’ll be waiting anxiously,” Lorin said and hung up.

  A few loons later Sgt. Ponde felt Rhin’s thoughts in his mind. “There appear to be at least eight life-forms, heavily armed. Four are stationed at each of the corners of the compound and the other four are patrolling randomly.”

  “Is there any indication they know we’ve found them?” Sgt. Ponde thought.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “How many buildings are there in the compound?”

  “There appear to be three structures. The main house, a garage, and a barn. We’ve checked the garage and the barn but they are not being held there. They’re inside the main house somewhere.”

  “We need to find out where exactly they are holding them and how many people are inside altogether,” Sgt. Ponde thought. “Hold your position until we can figure out what to do.”

  Sgt. Ponde went over to Colonel Tomel and filled him in on the situation. “We need to get a visual inside,” he told the colonel. “We don’t know how many men are in the main house or where they are positioned. It would be too dangerous to go in blind.”

  “How can you get a visual?”

  “We can place a few stickycams at strategic locations,” Sgt. Ponde said.

  “How are you going to do that without being seen?”

  “The nice thing about stickycams is you can place them remotely with a rifle.”

  “A rifle? How do you do that?”

  “A stickycam is a micro camera inside a soft sticky ball. It’s loaded into a specially modified rifle and fired at a targeted window. When it hits the window it sticks. The camera is then activated and a lens protrudes outside the sticky substance and transmits the image.”

  “Ingenious,” Colonel Tomel said. “How long will it take you to get them in place?”

  “Not long. My men are working on it right now. In just a few loons we should have visuals of the living room, kitchen, the downstairs bedroom, and the patio area. We can’t use a stickycam for the basement, however, since there are no windows. We’ll have to sneak someone in to drill a peephole.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Colonel Tomel said.

  “It is. If we’re seen it could blow the entire operation.”

  “Do you think it’s worth the risk?”

  “We’ll try to avoid having to do it, but if that’s where they’re keeping Tehra and Sophilo, then we many have to chance it.”

  One of the seafolken sold
iers came over to Sgt. Ponde with a small video monitor. On the screen was the interior of the living room. Two men were sitting in chairs watching a VC. There were six open bottles of Tekari, food wrappers, and a half-eaten sandwich on a table between them. They both had handguns in shoulder holsters, and there were three rifles leaning against the wall near the front door.

  Sgt. Ponde pushed a button on the monitor and another view came up. It showed one of the bedrooms. A man and a woman were naked on the bed making love. Their clothes were strewn all the way from the door to the bed. Their rifles had been left lying on the bed beside them.

  Sgt. Ponde pushed the button again and the kitchen view came up. Two men were at a table drinking what looked like sankee and talking. A woman was cooking and talking to the men. Two pistols lay on the table between them. He pushed the button a third time and the garage came into view. An ATV large enough for all of them to ride in took up most of the garage. There were also three jetcycles and a small PTV. Nobody was in the garage.

  “Well, no hostages on the first floor,” Sgt. Ponde noted. “Unfortunately we don’t know what the situation is in the basement. I think we’re going to need the peephole.”

  “I don’t know,” Colonel Tomel said. “That’s going to be dangerous.”

  “We’ll wait until it’s dark. Maybe we’ll create a distraction to keep them busy while we drill the hole.”

  “What kind of distraction?” Colonel Tomel asked.

  “I don’t know. I was thinking maybe Rhin could inflict a little pain on one of the guards from a safe distance. His friends will just think he’s ill.”

  Colonel Tomel smiled. “That might work. You better tell Lorin what’s happening.”

  “Right,” Sgt. Ponde said as he punched her number into his GC. She answered quickly.

  “Yes.”

  “Just wanted to update you, Chancellor. We’ve managed to get a visual of most of the rooms in the house where they are keeping Tehra and Sophilo, but not the basement, which is where we believe they are being held.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Well, it’s too risky to go in blind. They will kill the hostages at the first indication of trouble. We need to catch them off guard and be able to get someone in there immediately to provide protection. To do that we’d have to be able to see into the basement. So, to get a camera in there we’ll need to cut a hole through the concrete wall and insert an extension camera.”

  “So do it,” Lorin said.

  Sgt. Ponde explained the risk of doing that, and Lorin agreed they had no other choice. At nightfall, Rhin got as close to the southeast corner of the compound as she could without being detected. She selected the nearest guard and concentrated on his lungs. The guard suddenly grabbed his chest and began breathing heavily. He dropped to one knee, let his rifle fall to the ground, and pushed his com link. He tried to talk but his words came out garbled.

  “What was that, Rugge?” a voice asked.

  Soon another guard came to Rugge’s position to see what was wrong. He saw Rugge on the ground, struggling to breathe.

  “What’s the matter with you?” the guard asked and then pushed his com link. “Something’s wrong with Rugge. Heart attack or something.”

  The house’s front door opened, and the two men stationed on the first floor came out to see what was up. The second and third perimeter guards walked halfway along the wall to get a view of what was happening. While they were thus distracted, a seafolken jumped the compound wall and rushed over to a spot where the landscape sloped downward, exposing a one foot section of the basement wall. He kneeled down and began drilling the hole in the concrete. At the same moment, Rhin and another rhutz began howling.

  The two men who’d come from the house picked up Rugge and brought him inside, where they placed him on a sofa. It wasn’t long before he was sitting up and breathing normally again. Meanwhile, the seafolken had completed his drilling job and returned to report to Sgt. Ponde.

  “The signal should be on line,” he said.

  Someone brought over the monitor and flipped it to the basement view. Tehra was stretched out on a brown leather sofa. Her hands and feet were tied. Sophilo was crying and a woman was rocking him back and forth trying to quiet him. From where she lay, Tehra watched the unarmed woman anxiously.

  Sgt. Ponde looked at Colonel Tomel. “This looks like a good time to go in.”

  Sgt. Ponde sought Rhin’s mind. “I think Rugge needs to have a relapse, then we can go in. There’s nobody in the basement but an unarmed woman. It’s got to be quick.”

  “All right. Give us two loons to get in place. When you hear him screaming, go in.”

  “Affirmative,” Sgt. Ponde replied silently.

  Rhin jumped onto the wall and peered through the window, where she saw Rugge sitting up with his head in both hands. The guards had gone outside again but were milling around on the front porch, talking. Several rhutz and seafolken were moving unseen along the perimeter of the compound.

  Rhin reached in with her mind, found Rugge’s lungs, and squeezed them again. He screamed and began thrashing around. The two guards turned and ran toward the door, but before they reached it, two seafolken had scaled the perimeter walls and with two quick steps, pounced on top of them. Their rifles went flying, and they were out of commission in an instant.

  Two rhutz rushed through the open door and ran hard for the basement. The two men in the kitchen were heading in the same direction. The lead rhutz caught up to the first and sank his teeth into the man’s leg. He fell hard. The second man turned and fired wildly at the rhutz but missed. Then he turned back and had just reached the basement door when the other rhutz jumped on top of him. They both tumbled down the stairs but the rhutz wouldn’t let him go.

  The man pointed his gun and tried to fire, but the rhutz willed the gun out of his hand and it went flying hard against the wall. The rhutz sank his teeth into the man’s neck and twisted viciously back and forth. When the rhutz released him, he wilted to the floor.

  The woman in the basement, still holding Sophilo, moved to a far corner of the room, clutching him tightly. Tehra thrashed around on the sofa trying to get loose. Sgt. Ponde rushed down the stairs, saw the woman holding Sophilo, and approached her cautiously.

  “Give me the child,” he said.

  The woman put the baby in a choke hold. “Stay away or I’ll kill him,” she spat.

  The rhutz walked over and with his mind pulled the woman’s arms away from Sophilo’s throat. She struggled to hold on to the baby but wasn’t strong enough to resist the mental force. When Sophilo started to slip out of her arms, Sgt. Ponde rushed over and caught him before he fell. The woman backed up against the corner as the rhutz growled at her. A tik later Colonel Tomel came down and untied Tehra.

  “Oh, thank you!” Tehra exclaimed. “I thought for sure they were going to kill us.”

  “I’m sorry this happened,” Colonel Tomel said. “It’s all my fault. Are you hurt?”

  “Not seriously,” Tehra said, rubbing her wrist and looking at the burns and bruises the ropes had caused.

  As they were talking, two big spotlights shone down upon the compound. Colonel Tomel rushed upstairs and went outside to see who it was. He read the decals on the copter’s door and realized it was a VC8 News copter filming the scene in the compound. He hailed them on his GC. “Get your copter out of here now! You’re compromising our operations!”

  Suddenly, the garage door began to open. Before it was halfway up, two jetcycles came barreling out. It was the man and woman who’d been making love in the bedroom. Somehow they’d made it to the garage and were trying to escape.

  Two rhutz and a seafolken immediately jumped into the RRT’s copter and it took off after them. The VC8 News copter followed them. Within a few tiks the RRT’s copter was on top of the fleeing kidnapers. The pilot flew ahead and landed, allowing the rhutz and seafolken to jump out. The two rhutz ran up on an embankment that ran along the road, and t
he seafolken stepped out onto the hard surface and waited for the two riders to arrive. When the cyclists saw the seafolken, they slowed and looked around for an alternate route. This allowed the rhutz to pounce and knock each of them off their jetcycles.

  Four bodies went tumbling to the ground as the jetcycles skidded to a stop. The seafolken ran into the middle of the melee. One of the ex-TGA soldiers came up gripping a laser pistol in his hand, which he aimed at the rhutz who’d knocked him to the ground. The seafolken batted it away with a flick of his wrist and hit the man hard across the face. The cyclist’s knees gave way and he fell to the ground. The rhutz had the woman pinned up against a tree. The seafolken came over, pushed her to the ground, and wrapped her wrists with binding tape.

  Overhead, the VC8 News copter rolled their cameras as the prisoners were put into the RRT copter to be taken back to the compound.

  Colonel Tomel went back down to the basement to tell Sgt. Ponde what had happened, then got Lorin on the GC. He filled her in on the raid and informed her that Tehra and the baby were okay. He also told her about the VC8 News copter.

  “If they’d have gotten there two loons earlier they would have compromised the entire operation,” Colonel Tomel complained. “Tehra and Sophilo would probably be dead right now.”

  “That skutz, Drul,” Lorin spat. “I made it clear to him it was a matter of world security. Now he’s going to pay for his ambition.”

  “You think he wants your job?”

  “No, I think it’s worse than that. I bet he’s the traitor who leaked the intel that allowed Rupra Bruda to be rescued. Now I think he was hoping that Leek would be forced to turn around and come home to deal with Tehra’s and Sophilo’s abduction. But he’s just made a fatal mistake. Tomorrow I’ll have Councilor Shilline start an investigation, and it won’t be long before we know the truth. Then, with Drul out of the way, the General Assembly should fall in line behind me. . . . But never mind him; thank Sgt. Ponde and Rhin for me. Tell them they are the pride of Tarizon!”