by T. R. Harris
McCarthy came to a wider-than-normal doorway and paused. “This should be a larger waiting area outside the prison section,” he whispered to Adam. “I don’t detect any flash weapons present. With most Kracori in this part of the building armed, I’m hoping that means the room is empty. We’ll use it as a staging area if it is. I’ll go first.”
He twisted the handle to the door and opened it a couple of feet, just enough for him to peer through. He looked both ways with his nightvision goggles and then turned back to Adam. “Clear,” he said. He then moved inside and turned to his right.
Adam followed, and a second later the entire team had entered the room. From what he could see the room was empty, with a series of four-foot-high partitions forming a semi-circle in front of them. The hair began to rise on the back on his neck ... just as floodlights suddenly filled the room with blinding light.
Adam and his team peeled off their goggles, but by then the damage was done. It took another couple of seconds for their eyes to adjust to the light. And what they saw when eyesight returned sent their spirits crashing.
An entire line of Kracori soldiers had revealed themselves from behind the partitions, holding what appeared to be projectile weapons aimed directly at them. Adam quickly scanned the line of massive gray aliens until his vision focused on Nigel McCarthy, standing at the end of the line next to a purple-sashed Kracori, his goggles up, a sinister grin on his freckled face.
“Game over, Mr. Cain,” McCarthy said. There was movement in the corridor, and five more Kracori entered behind Adam and his men, each carrying the same kind of projectile device. Since this kind of weapon didn’t rely on electronics to operate, Adam had been unable to detect them with his ATD. It also meant that the Kracori knew they were coming and how to prevent detection.
His blood began to boil and he took a quick step towards McCarthy. The Brit raised his own M4 and placed the barrel firmly against Adam’s chest. His Kevlar vest would have probably stopped a round from the weapon, even at this distance, but it would definitely crack a number of ribs, and might even stop his heart. Adam stopped in his tracks.
“Don’t do anything foolish ... any of you,” McCarthy said. “The Kracori want you all alive, at least for now.”
“You rotten, traitorous asshole!” Andy Tobias yelled. “You’ve done it again.”
“I believe it was you, Admiral, who said it best: I wouldn’t be welcomed back on Earth, no matter what I do here. So you see, my future lies elsewhere, and the Kracori have been kind enough to offer me ample financial support for my new endeavors.” He then leaned in closer to the red-faced, wide-eyed leader of the team. “Did you really expect me to help you Cain? You’ve been fucking with me for years. Now it seems that your life is worth a lot of money. The Kracori have long memories, and it’s funny, but they blame you for their loss of Juir and of their bloody Legend in the eyes of the galaxy. It seems like everywhere you go entire races come to hate and despise you. It’s a singular talent of yours, it seems.”
“The same for you, McCarthy!” Adam spit out.
Dozens of huge Kracori soldiers suddenly swarmed over the team, jerking away their weapons and pulling the packs from off their backs. In a panic, Adam thought of Sherri.
Sherri, get away! McCarthy’s fucked us again! he mentally cried out through his ATD.
A group of Kracori knocked him to the ground and pinned his arms to the floor while McCarthy stepped forward and placed a boot against his neck. He bent down while pulling out a black-bladed commando knife and cut away the tac vest on Adam’s left side. “Turn him on his side,” McCarthy instructed the Kracori. And then he reached down and felt the skin under Adam’s armpit.
Adam knew what was coming, and he struggled against the force of the Kracori. These aliens were just as strong as Humans, and his attempt to break free failed miserably.
“Relax, mate,” McCarthy said as he felt the cigarette-long bump under Adam’s skin signifying the location of his ATD. “This is going to hurt like a bitch.” McCarthy then proceeded to slice open Adam’s skin along the line of the bump; Adam grit his teeth but refused to cry out, not giving McCarthy the sadistic satisfaction he was hoping for. But then when he reached inside the incision, grabbed the ATD with his fingers and pulled, Adam let out a guttural moan that brought a wide grin to McCarthy’s face. The Brit then threw the small metallic device to the floor and stomped a heavy boot upon it, smashing it to pieces.
Suddenly Adam felt nauseous, not only from the pain of the cut but also from the loss of contact with the ATD. He struggled to keep his mind focused, to keep from blacking out. It was to no avail, especially when McCarthy raised his boot again and brought it down swiftly to the side of Adam’s head.
Chapter 11
Sherri Valentine recoiled from the intensity of the words exploding in her mind. She wasn’t used to telepathic communications, and especially not of this intensity. But the burst of words only lasted a moment, and then all went quiet, a particularly deep quiet that made her uneasy.
Get away! McCarthy’s fucked us again!
Adam! What do you mean ... are you there?
When only silence prevailed, Sherri began to panic. She turned to Trimen who had noticed her head jerk when Adam’s message first came through.
“We have to get out of here,” she said forcefully. “Adam says McCarthy’s fuc—betrayed us again.”
Trimen and Sherri were in the comm room of the Volseen ship, along with five of the other Formilians, all silently manipulating power-grids on the surface of the planet below. Two other Formilians were on the bridge of the ship.
Trimen pressed a button on the console in front of him. “Galemous, do you have any contacts closing on our location?”
“Yes, several. Large ones as well,” came the immediate reply.
“Break orbit and begin evasive maneuvers,” Trimen commanded. “I am proceeding to the landing bay.”
He stood and grabbed Sherri by the arm. “We must evacuate the ship immediately,” he stated calmly as they left the comm room.
“What about the rest of your men—I mean your Formilians?”
“They will provide us cover.”
“We’re going to leave them?”
“I am the Second Celebrant. My position must survive. They will do what they must to protect me.”
“And you’re okay with this?” Sherri allowed herself to be pulled along by the weaker alien, even as she expressed disbelief at what she was hearing.
“Of course,” Trimen answered. “My position is more important than their lives. They know that and it is accepted. Please stop thinking in Human terms, Sherri.”
She was silent the rest of the way to the landing bay, but when they entered and headed for one of the escape pods she found her voice again. “They’ll detect us leaving.”
“We will wait until the ship is taking fire and on the verge of being destroyed, then we will become part of the debris field from the exploding ship. My comrades will detonate the ship when we are ready.”
She didn’t know what to say. The other seven Formilians were about to commit suicide to protect their Second Celebrant, the second-highest male ranking in the Order of Life and Light on the planet Formil. Sherri thought this probably wasn’t too different from Secret Service agents protecting the President—when there was a president. She allowed herself to be placed inside the small capsule as Trimen guided the tiny craft towards an escape portal.
Trimen toggled a comm switch in the small pod. “Galemous, we are in position. Increase the pressure in the landing bay. When the time comes we will use the expelling atmosphere to eject us from the ship. I am powering down now.”
“Yes, my Lord. May Mislin and Sufor guide your light.”
“Acknowledged.”
Sherri was stunned by the complete lack of emotion in the conversation, and yet she was grateful that she had been included in Trimen’s determination to survive, if only to preserve his rank within the Order. Yet as she sat in t
he near-darkness of the pod, illuminated now only by the feeble light entering through the solitary porthole, she sought to make sense of Adam’s last message. She kept trying to make contact with him, and when that failed, she tried the others in the team. Nothing came back.
If McCarthy had betrayed them to the Kracori, then all was lost. They were four Humans on a planet of angry and bloodthirsty aliens, aliens with a particular dislike for Humans. They had walked into a trap, and now would suffer the same fate as Riyad—and with the Juireans only days away from reaching the Nebula.
Tears began to escape from her eyes when the reality of the situation hit her ... and when the emotions became too much to contain, she began to sob loudly.
Trimen placed a hand on her leg. “The mission was problematic from the beginning, Sherri,” he said in a feeble Formilian attempt to calm her. “McCarthy has been a rogue element from the beginning, as evidenced by his history with both Formilian and Human. In light of that, these results are not totally unexpected.”
“Just shut up for a minute, Trimen!” Sherri yelled. She didn’t want to be rude to the handsome alien, but his words weren’t helping. “Just let me deal with this in silence—”
Suddenly the ship began to rock violently and they could hear loud drumming sounds coming from all around them. And then came a thunderous boom ... and the tiny pod was shot out into the blackness of space at such a speed that Sherri thought she would be crushed. But soon the acceleration stopped and she found herself experiencing the dizzying effects of weightlessness. Through the tiny porthole, she could see they were tumbling, as shiny metal debris could be seen with each pass of the pod, glittering with yellow and white light. But then the sparkling debris began to separate from the pod, becoming dimmer and harder to see. A few minutes later they were gone.
All was dark in the pod, except when the angle was right, Sherri could see a sliver of the planet Elision off in the distance. Without powering up, the pod would remain in the vicinity of the planet, possibly even to be captured by its gravity well resulting in a fiery freefall to the surface far below. They may be away from what remained of the Volseen ship, but they were far from safe.
Distracted by her need to survive, Sherri had stopped her crying. When the light from the planet appeared again, she could see Trimen sitting emotionless next to her.
“So how long are we going to keep tumbling like this without power?” she asked.
“Until the internal temperature becomes such that we have no choice but to power up or die,” the Formilian answered calmly. “By then we will either be clear of detection, or we will die anyway from the cold. I say another hour or so would be our limit.”
Again, Sherri was amazed at the cold, calculating demeanor of the alien. But he was right. Either they would be clear of the Kracori monitors, or else they will be blown to pieces by flash-cannon when they powered up. The next hour would determine their fate.
Unfortunately, the quiet of the pod gave Sherri plenty of time to ponder the fate of Adam and the rest of her friends on Elision. The reverie allowed the sad realization that all the people she had loved and cared about over the past ten years or more were down on that planet. She suddenly felt very alone.
In the darkness and growing cold, Sherri Valentine didn’t even have the willpower left to be angry at McCarthy. Trimen was right about that, too; something about a tiger and his stripes came to mind. Yes, they should have been expecting this from the beginning.
Chapter 12
Consciousness returned to Adam Cain, not in a peaceful reawakening from a blissful slumber, but rather from an excruciating spasm of pain in his side. He tried to open his eyes but was confused when the pain that aroused him was replaced by a drum-like throbbing coming from his forehead. He tried to relax and let sleep reclaim him, but that was not possible. He was in too much pain from too many quarters.
Foreign hands helped him roll over as a not-soft-enough pillow was propped behind his aching head.
“Welcome back, Captain,” a voice said out of the blackness. He willed his eyes open, and was rewarded with a dim light barely illuminating the room he was in.
“I’m going to kill that motherfucking Englishman,” he said in a raspy voice.
“Get in line.”
Admiral Andy Tobias was sitting on the small cot next to Adam, his shirt off and with a blood-soaked remnant of his green combat tee-shirt tied around his chest, wrapping just under his armpit. A quick survey of the other men in the room saw that they all had the same wrappings, including him.
Tobias saw Adam notice the bandages. “Yeah, those things didn’t last us very long. And I was just getting used to my fancy remote control gizmo.”
“Is everyone else okay ... other than that?”
‘For now.” Adam saw Tobias grin. “It was a bitch getting the ATD’s cut out of us, but we’re all right now. You’re the only one who got knocked the fuck out. I don’t think McCarthy likes you very much.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” Adam grimaced as he tried to sit up straighter on the cot. “Where are we?”
“Same place—the Kracori equivalent of Lubyanka Prison.”
“How long ... how long was I out?”
“They took our watches, but I’d say a good two hours.”
“Where’s McCarthy?”
“Hell if I know. He’s all chummy with the Kracori again. He looked in on you a little while ago. I think he wants to make sure you don’t die, not until he’s had a chance to screw with you some more.”
Rutledge and Tindal were seated on separate cots, dabbing at their wounds with expressionless faces. “I’m sorry I got us into this,” Adam said, “especially after McCarthy showed up.”
Chief Rutledge looked over at him with a glare as piercing as a laser. “If I recall, we showed up at your doorstep and forced our way in. No one made us come. This is part of the job.”
“That’s right,” John Tindal added.
Admiral Tobias placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself—”
The door to the room suddenly swung open and Nigel McCarthy entered, flanked by two large Kracori with flash weapons at the ready.
“Ah, you’re awake!” he said with genuine enthusiasm. “I must learn to control my temper otherwise I could end up breaking all my toys.”
“Fuck you, McCarthy!”
“Now, Mr. Cain, language such as that is unbecoming an officer and gentleman. Let’s get past all that. I have a gift for you, one I’m sure you’ll appreciate.” He nodded to one of the Kracori, who then moved outside the cell and returned a moment later with a slumped-over figure in a wheelchair. It was Riyad Tarazi.
The other three Humans rushed to his side while Adam remained on the cot, too dizzy to move. The Kracori let them take the chair away and pull it further into the room. Riyad lifted his head, revealing a bruised and puffy face, along with a coarse, black beard looking scraggily and dirty, spotted with clumps of dried blood.
“I know traffic this time of day can be a bitch, but even then, what took you so long?” he managed to say, the corners of his blood-caked mouth attempting a grin.
John Tindal, the team’s primary corpsman, began a quick evaluation of Riyad’s condition. “Nothing seems to be broken,” he said while looking Riyad in the eye. “Severe dehydration and malnutrition mainly ... and of course the beating.” He looked up at the nearest Kracori. “Don’t you feed your prisoners here?”
“That is a waste of resources,” the gray alien answered. “Keeping you all alive is a waste of resources.”
“Now, my Ludif, you must not talk like that,” McCarthy said with good humor. “These are some very important guests of your Langril. You must keep them alive so he can have his pleasure with them.”
The alien just grunted.
“I should have known better than to trust you, McCarthy.” Adam said. He looked at the pitiful figure of his friend Riyad Tarazi and fought instant nausea.
“But Mr. Cain, I did every b
loody thing I said I would do. I got you to the surface of Elision safe and sound. I even got you to the place where Tarazi was being held. I told you the rest was up to you and your team. I can’t be responsible for your gullibility and incompetence.”
“Why did the Kracori even talk with you? They’ve been trying to kill you for three years. They almost succeeded when the Phoenix was destroyed—”
McCarthy laughed, the satisfaction he was experiencing in seeing Adam’s condition showed on his face and in the near-bouncing energy of his body. “The Kracori didn’t destroy the Phoenix—I did, with the help of Captain Henderson, of course. I made the ambitious soldier an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he took it.”
“Then you also killed Dawson!” Adam said, this time attempting to stand. Tobias held him to the cot.
“Henderson and I discussed bringing him in and letting the two of them share the glory of revealing the Elision coordinates. But Captain Henderson wasn’t feeling very generous that day. I didn’t care either way; I just wanted my freedom.”
“And so the Kracori know it was you who revealed the location of their planet to us; you’re the reason they’re about to be attacked. Why aren’t you dead?”
“Because the Kracori are a pragmatic race. They understood why I did what I did. I may have made them nervous as to when I would reveal the location of Elision, but it was inevitable that the location would be found out. They’ve been preparing for it for years. And as it turned out, the Kracori hate you more than they hate me. You were the one who robbed them of their Legend, their opportunity to rule the galaxy. You made them look weak in the eyes of the Expansion. To the Kracori, that’s a little more serious offense. Oh, and I also told them the Juireans are coming, and will be arriving before the Humans. That was something they were very glad to learn.”