by Paul Tassi
“Set up a link to Xala, and in the meantime, start giving our friend here some fuel.”
“It is greatly appreciated,” Alpha said. “I will ensure your cooperation is relayed to command.”
The comm crackled.
“The storm will not let us connect to Xala, chief.”
The tall one grunted.
“Unfortunate, I should have known. Care to come inside for some nourishment while we wait? It seems as if you have had quite a harrowing journey.”
“Of course,” Alpha said.
The short creature spoke.
“I will assemble a team to sweep the ship.”
Alpha looked a bit unsettled.
“Is that really necessary?”
“Protocol,” the short one said. “Anything from Earth has to be archived and searched with a report sent to command. I believe they are looking for something. Maybe your artifact.”
Alpha thought quickly.
“Yes, perhaps. I am told it is of exceptional importance. Would you mind if I brought it aboard for safe keeping? I am not supposed to let it out of my sight.”
“Absolutely sir, bring it inside.”
The tall one motioned to the short one who grumbled. He began to push the crate, which was on gyroloader, but was still rather unwieldy. He bumped it against the wall, which made Alpha snarl.
As they turned and walked off the ship, Alpha directed his thoughts to Asha and Lucas.
“Check fuel status.”
Lucas thumbed through the communicator controls and saw that water levels were going up by the second. They’d gotten what they came for.
“Stay hidden,” was Alpha’s next command. And soon it was clear why. Six soldiers marched through the airlock. They were only lightly armored, lacking full combat gear like the invasion troops he’d seen on Earth, but they were brandishing power weapons. He glanced at Asha who had her eyes fixed on the monitor. As the team spread out, Lucas split his view into as many screens as he could, trying to keep track of them all. Four were still visible, with the other two veering off to places unknown. The ones they could see scanned the bridge, and two made their way down to the elevator.
The comm crackled back in and Lucas realized that he could still hear Alpha’s conversations, despite no longer being able to see them via monitor.
“Sir, what can you tell us about Earth? Outside of your classified mission, that is?”
Alpha paused.
“It is a wretched place, and the Sorans there are among the most savage I have seen.”
“We heard the raiding fleet was defeated?”
It was hard to tell which creature was talking now.
“We . . . underestimated their resolve, and they were more advanced than the Sorans we encountered on other outlying worlds. We took what resources we could, but the planet is now desolate and useless.”
“Except for the artifact.”
There was a hint of disbelief in the tone.
“Correct.”
“Do you believe the invasion was a mistake?”
“I am not one to speak ill of my superiors, and neither should you, crew chief.”
“Of course sir, sorry sir. I did not mean to imply—”
Suddenly, Asha motioned at the monitors violently. Lucas looked and saw a pair of guards outside the entrance to the armory. He immediately flipped off the comm, and they stood deathly still in silence and darkness. Noah stirred briefly in Asha’s arms.
The door opened and Lucas could hear the sound of claws tapping against the metal floor. He attempted to regulate his breathing as best he could and tried to ignore the fact that back on Earth, he’d been rather claustrophobic. Such petty fears had no place here or now. The soldiers stalked through the room, grunting at each other. Suddenly, the familiar electronic sounds of a keypad rang out. They were trying to open the locked weapons crates. After a few attempts, the harsh tone of rejection kept ringing out, and the soldier barked something at the other, and the two left the room.
Lucas breathed a little easier.
“I don’t like this,” Asha whispered.
He flipped the comm back on.
“. . . and that’s why the [garbled] is docked here. But repairs should be done within the week. They keep the crew onboard at all times however. They are not supposed to fraternize with us off-worlders.”
“This is most unfortunate, because there is a petty officer onboard that is exceptionally attractive. I was stationed with her back on [garbled].”
The conversation was interrupted by another voice.
“Sorry to interrupt sir, but we have made a connection with Xala.”
He sounded nervous. This made Lucas nervous.
“The storm let you through?”
“Yes, the effects appear to be lessening.”
Alpha shot a mental message through the comm.
“If fuel is ready, depart.”
The nervous voice returned.
“They said the item they are searching for is not any ‘artifact,’ but a Xalan. A traitor. They are patching through an image.”
Another transmission from Alpha.
“If fuel is ready, depart.”
Now another voice joined the scene.
“Sir, something must be wrong with the scanners, we are now detecting fifteen Soran life-forms onboard that ship.”
“No . . .”
“If fuel is ready, depart. And detonate.”
The sounds on the comm became a garbled mess, as someone let out a bloodcurdling scream. Alpha? They’d been discovered, and Lucas’s heart thundered in the darkness as Asha let out an audible gasp.
“Subject has been apprehended. Crew chief [garbled] is dead. Take the traitor to level seventeen immediately as we await orders. Contact the highest ranking officer onboard the [garbled].”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Lucas said as he kicked the panel out from in front of him. He stepped out into the light, shielding his eyes for a brief moment. Asha emerged behind him, holding Noah.
“We have to get to the bridge and get the hell out of here,” she said.
“The bridge? We have to get Alpha!”
“Are you crazy? He’s on lockdown with god knows how many of them in there with him.”
“How are we supposed to fly this thing without him? How are we going to make it to Sora?”
“You heard what he said. ‘If fuel is ready, depart and detonate.’”
“You’d just leave him?”
“What choice do we have? And it’s what he’s telling us to do! He said to obey his orders at all costs.”
“We know where they’re keeping him.”
“What, level seventeen? And you know how to get there?”
“We can figure it out!”
Lucas paused to catch his breath. Adrenaline was surging through his system. He spoke again.
“Since when are you one to run from a fight?”
That hit the right note. Asha stood there scowling for a minute. She turned and placed Noah on the ground inside the wall, then reattached the panel.
“For the record, this is insane.”
“Well then you should be onboard.”
Asha set to work unlocking every storage crate around her. Dozens of weapons revealed themselves.
“Take what you need, fast. If we’re lucky, the entire station won’t be alerted yet,” Lucas said hurriedly.
Just then, a wailing alarm sounded.
“Fantastic.”
Asha had her Magnum already loaded up and her hatchet on her belt. She scooped up a few grenades and threw them in a pouch on her hip. Lucas grabbed his knife and sawed-off shotgun. He rifled through the box until he pulled out a Scandinavian assault rifle with a few matching clips strapped to it. Thank god Asha was organized. She pulled out a rather long machete from the box.
“We should go quiet when we can.”
Lucas took his knife and fixed it to the front of his rifle as a bayonet. He wished Natalie was here with him now; the new weapon felt un
familiar in his hands. But they had to work with what they could pull together in mere minutes.
Once they were equipped with as much as they could carry, Lucas shuffled through the monitors. The soldiers onboard were now running all over the place and two were currently marching down the armory hallway toward them. Lucas signaled Asha to move to the door. He put away the monitor display and readied himself for what was to come. They stood on either side of the entryway. The door opened and two soldiers entered the room. Just as their peripheral vision recognized the threat, it was already too late. Asha leapt onto her creature and drove her hatchet through his skull, which erupted with black blood. As the other creature turned in horror, Lucas shoved his bayonet through the back of his neck and he instantly fell into a heap on the ground. Wiping the dark blood from her eyes, Asha spun out into the hallway and Lucas followed. The alarm still blared, echoing down the corridor, reaching from the station itself. The airlock was still open. As they approached the hallway that would lead them to the station, they peered around the corner. Three guards stood there, clutching weapons menacingly.
“Now what?” Asha said, black blood streaming down her neck and chest.
Lucas looked around, and quickly put a plan into action. He aimed his rifle down the adjacent hallway they had just come from and opened fire. The bullets bounced around the hall, as did the echo of the blasts. The three creatures immediately took notice and two of them ran toward the sound. Lucas and Asha stood with their backs on the walls. They didn’t need to communicate to know what to do next.
As the first creature arrived, Asha swung her machete upward and it got about halfway through his head before it caught on a piece of unmovable bone, snapping the blade cleanly from the handle. The second creature met a similar fate as Lucas shoved his rifle into an exposed part of gray skin and ripped the blade upward. The creature fell over with a wail as blood spilled out of its midsection and Lucas smashed the bayonet into his temple.
Suddenly a blast from an energy rifle came ripping through the corridor, and blowing a hole in the wall and knocking them to the ground. The third guard had seen the fate of his two comrades and shot off two more quick bursts in their general direction, again missing the mark as he frantically adjusted the settings on his gun. After sitting idle for months at a desolate station, these soldiers didn’t know quite what to do in such a circumstance. Asha ended the creature’s panicked shooting with a well-placed Magnum round that took off most of his head. The pair of them sprinted through the airlock and found themselves onboard the alien space station.
19
The interior of the station was cavernous, the hallways meant for eight-foot-tall beings with long strides. It was dimly lit, illuminated mostly by the glow of holographic consoles. The alarm coated the area in red pulsing light and echoed off the metal walls at a volume that was almost deafening. Quickly, Lucas and Asha ducked into a nearby room that was mercifully empty. Asha closed the door behind them, familiar with the controls since they were the same as those on their own ship. Lucas scanned the room and found a unit he recognized as a data terminal. As he approached it, a holographic menu system appeared before him.
“What the hell do we do now?” Asha said as she had holstered her Magnum and was trying to wring black blood out of her hair.
“I’m trying to find out how to get to Alpha.” Lucas quickly scanned through the system. He could recognize words, but it was difficult to access data when he couldn’t comprehend large chunks of what he was seeing. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he managed to pull up a three-dimensional blueprint of the station, easy to navigate with simple touch controls.
“Got it,” he said. “We’re on level twelve already, so seventeen isn’t that far. They’ve locked down the lift, but there should be a maintenance tunnel five rooms over that should get us there.”
Lucas shut down the terminal and he and Asha readied themselves to leave the room. They burst out into the hallway and almost collided with a Xalan who was sprinting the other direction. He spun wildly into the wall to avoid them, and when he saw they were human, his eyes widened and he turned and kept running. He wasn’t wearing armor and must have been a civilian or an incredibly ill-prepared soldier. By the time they regained their footing after almost being bowled over, he was already rounding the corner. They ignored him and pressed forward, past four more doors.
When they came to a fifth, it was already open. Peering inside, they could see a team of Xalans standing around the locked storage crate that contained the nuke. It was the room Alpha had been taken to when he first boarded the ship. A tall, dead Xalan lay on the floor and blood pooled around their feet and the crate. They were scanning the storage container with small electronic devices and wearing protective suits that were apparently supposed to shield them from whatever danger lurked within.
Asha turned to Lucas with a worrying look in her eye.
“Those crates are strong, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
She gave a rare half-smile, reached into her bag, and pulled a pin on a grenade.
“Oh shit.”
The group inside had just enough time to notice the bouncing metal object before it exploded and tore through the five of them. Smoke shot out of the doorway. As Lucas and Asha entered the room, three were motionless on the floor with assorted limbs missing. One writhed around on the ground, howling in agony, and another was stumbling wildly around the room, blood pouring from the eye holes of his protective suit. Asha silenced the one on the floor with her axe as Lucas emptied a three-round burst into the chest of the blinded creature who crashed into the wall and ceased moving. The crate sat in the middle of the room, scorched but undamaged. The fact that they were not incinerated along with the rest of the station indicated the risk of the grenade had been worthwhile.
They quickly shut the door and Lucas scanned the room for the entrance they sought. It took him a few minutes, but he managed to find the symbol for “repair” and pried off a panel revealing a long downward tunnel.
“This is it,” Lucas said, staring into the abyss.
“After you,” Asha replied.
There were loud bangs on the door behind them, prompting Lucas to disregard his misgiving and climb into the dark passageway. The opening was much too small for a Xalan, and would barely even fit them. Maintenance must have been done by some sort of robot. Asha followed him in, securing the panel behind her so as not to give away a probable path. Lucas imagined the station was in such a state of chaos, they wouldn’t be able to organize anything like a coordinated search effort for at least a few minutes longer.
The pair of them grasped at pipes and wires and slowly lowered themselves down. Lucas activated his comm and hooked it to his stained shirt. The glow lit up the tunnel and he was able to see the Xalan symbol for “13” on a panel in front of him. Only four more to go.
Suddenly, the comm spat out some static and he could hear voices. He hadn’t turned it on since they’d left the ship, and it hadn’t occurred to him it would still be active. Two creatures spoke.
“The traitor is from the [garbled] clan? Were they not obliterated during that Soran raid?”
“I thought the same, but apparently he shipped out to Earth with the invasion fleet.”
“What is he doing on a ship with all those Sorans?”
“I do not know, but I am assuming that is part of his treachery. A science team is inspecting that object he brought onboard with him. They do not want to relocate it as it might be a trap.”
Suddenly Alpha’s voice broke through. It was weary and hoarse, a reflection of his mental state.
“Detonate . . . Detonate.”
Lucas slipped and slid down the tunnel until he caught himself on a tangle of wires. Alpha’s voice continued.
“Perhaps you are dead, as the station should be vaporized by now. I am sorry, I have failed you.”
The other voices broke in.
“It seems High Commander [garbled] himself ha
s been hunting him across the galaxy.”
“Personally? Has such a thing ever happened before?”
“Not that I know of. Do you believe the station will receive a reward for his capture?”
“I would hope for a placement on [garbled]. That would be reward enough.”
“I would prefer my own ship.”
“An amusing fantasy.”
“Detonate . . . Detonate.”
Lucas climbed lower still.
“At least we know he’s still alive,” he said
“So this suicide mission still has some sort of purpose to it,” Asha replied.
Lucas’s hands were coated in a mixture of grease and blood, and it was getting increasingly hard to hold onto the sides of the tunnel. Asha slipped and her boot struck him in the forehead. He gritted his teeth but said nothing. They were only one level above the detention floor.
“Quiet now; we don’t know how thin these walls are,” Lucas said as he switched the comm off.
The alarm was barely audible now; it seemed to be confined to the upper docking floors. Lucas heard growling in the adjacent room, and lowered himself down another few slippery rungs.
Finally the jagged glyph for “17” appeared in front of him. He grabbed Asha’s calf, halting her descent. Slowly, he unhooked the panel and gently swung it outward. Light flooded into the tunnel and Lucas squinted.
The room in front of them was empty outside of some shelving units and a pair of holographic screens. Lucas stepped cautiously onto the floor and Asha followed him out. He wiped his greasy hands on his dirtied cargo pants and drew his sawed-off shotgun. Asha clenched her Magnum with both hands. Her entire upper body was caked in dried black blood. Lucas imagined he probably looked the same.
As they crept into the hallway, they could hear the familiar guttural sounds of Xalan communication, though there was no way to tell how many there were. Lucas unhooked the knife from the rifle slung on his back. He spit on it and wiped it off on a clean patch of his shirt, which was not easy to find. He held up the blade and used the mirrored surface to see the hazy shapes of creatures in the next room. He held up four fingers to Asha, who nodded. She reached into her pack for a grenade, but Lucas raised his hand to stop her. In the cloudy view from his knife, he could make out that Alpha was strapped to the far wall to the right of the guards. Cuffs held each of his upper and lower claws in place, and even his neck was encased in a brace. Lucas couldn’t tell the extent of his injuries from the murky reflection, but it was clear further use of explosives was out of the question.