by James Palmer
“Only two guards?” Mark turned his head towards Red and asked.
“Two that we can see on scanners and I’m sure there are more walking around out here. Plus, don’t forget we were attacked in the air. I have a feeling that was just a patrol.”
“Yes,” Mark answered, “a patrol that didn’t check back in as of yet.”
“You don’t think they know their men are down?” Eddie asked, incredulous.
“No. Do you see any activity here? Any men running in and out of this place? I don’t see anything. Those two guards at the door are not even really paying attention to what’s going on around them. They’re relaxed.”
“Good points, Mark.” Red hissed.
“So do we charge them?” Ariel whispered.
“Why not?” Mark replied quietly.
Mark turned and looked up at Red as they were all bent low hiding in the trees shadows and foliage. “What do you think? Spread out and shoot them down?”
Red stood there a moment and then shook his head side to side in reply. “Something’s not right about this. This is almost too inviting.”
“You think it looks like a trap?” Ariel asked.
“Why don’t you tell us Ariel?” Eddie nodded towards the double doors.
She closed her eyes and mentally reached out with her telepathy a moment. “Nothing.” She spoke quietly as she opened her eyes.
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” Mark asked warily.
“I’m not reading anything. Nothing from those men. It’s like they are not even there.”
“Maybe they are not.” A new voice intruded upon them as bright lights suddenly blazed to life about them. “Lower your weapons and you won’t be harmed. Resist and we’ll just take your bodies inside.” A figure walked forward towards them from outside the ring of lights that now blinded them. Then his face came into focus quickly.
“You.” Mark snorted as he stood up, the crew following his example.
“You’re that officer, or whatever you are, who tried to take us at the spaceport. I thought we killed you?” Red asked smiling.
“Not quite.” The alien replied as he fired two quick energy blasts from the pistol in his right hand into Red’s chest, dropping him to the forest floor like a sack of meat.
Ariel inhaled sharply as Red’s body spasmed a few times, then lay there on his back with the two holes in his chest smoldering. The alien turned sharply and ordered, “Leave him. Get the rest inside. We have to sort this all out, don’t we?”
Chapter 9
“So, somehow you survived a point blank blast from a starship’s wing canon. Even set on its lowest setting you should have been killed. And yet here we are all talking to each other. This is all very interesting.” Mark commented, his face set grimly.
“My existence is none of your concern, but I will tell you that was my predecessor who you killed with your ship.”
Ariel turned towards Mark; he grinned slightly and almost imperceptibly nodded. She faced front again. Mark, Eddie and Ariel were seated with their hands bound before them in what could only be called an interrogation cell beneath the ground, down a long subterranean corridor that curved below the ground almost from the moment of entry at the concrete door platform above.
“You Earthmen are quite extraordinary. You muddle around on your own world for centuries and leap to worlds within your own solar system, then in no time at all, at least cosmological time that is, you suddenly decide you want to play with the big boys and join the rest of the universe. The gall of you beings. You are a minor race, nothing more. You do not deserve to be out amongst the stars with your betters. You have not matured enough yet as a race. You should not be flying amongst the stars for centuries to come. Your unmitigated gall as a species, well I find it personally appalling.”
“I’ll make sure to relay your message when we get home.” Mark replied.
“Your sarcasm merely reinforces what I have just said, human. You are a belligerent race of little people who think to leap amongst the stars and soon after you would seek to run the whole damned universe.” The purple skinned officer waved both his hands in the air as he spoke.
“You’re a little overdramatic, dontcha think?” Eddie snickered.
“You find your predicament funny? What am I to do with you people? We tried to send you all off, to make you turn around. We’ve done everything we could to discourage you, and yet here you are. Perhaps if we send your pieces back to your home world that would serve as enough warning not to come back out of your system, what do you think?”
Mark laughed outright then as he stood up within the small cell and walked over to stand face to face with his tormentor. Nearby the guards surrounding them tensed and fingered their weapons as they watched the confrontation begin to escalate.
“I personally think, salad head, that killing us and sending our pieces back could be the very worst thing you could do for your own races survival. If you think killing us and using us as an example is going to scare humanity, you have no idea who or what you are dealing with. All you’ll do is begin an interstellar war with the absolute most war-like race you have ever encountered. Man has fought man for so many centuries over everything from religion and politics to who owns what and who should be standing on which side of the street and when. Believe me, provoke us. We’re just looking for a whole new races ass to kick.”
“Salad head?” The alien murmured to himself in shock, looking stunned at the insult.
“All of that and that’s what sticks with you?” Eddie sat back and laughed.
The alien tormentor turned towards his subordinates with their guns trained on the crewmen. “Kill them all.”
Mark turned towards Ariel, “Now.” She nodded and leaned forward, her eyes rolled up into her head as she furrowed her brow. Instantly the three guards and their master dropped to the ground holding their skulls and screamed in agony.
“Did you think your Quel was the only one who knew how to play mind tricks? He may have taken Ariel by surprise once, but she has no trouble using his own tricks against you. She’s been doing mind assaults like this for a long time. She’s more than just a mind reader; she’s the most powerful telepath on my planet. Something else you can hold against us I suppose. Enjoy your pain; you’ll be unconscious in a few more seconds.”
As if on cue, the four aliens dropped to the ground, insensate, and shuddering. Ariel stood then, stumbled and almost fell to the ground, but Mark and Eddie jumped to her side, catching her and holding her up.
“Relax Ariel, you were fantastic as usual, leave the rest to us.” Ariel nodded as a trickle of blood ran down from her nose. She sat back upon the bench as Eddie tried to get the keys off the jailors belt to their binders.
Suddenly the door at the end of the hallway exploded with a rumble that shook the whole cavern.
“Dammit, he could have waited a few more minutes.” Mark fumed.
“Hey I’m glad he’s coming now, at least he can help get these cuffs off.” Eddie replied.
The sound of a blaster discharging echoed down the hall as the aliens could be heard scurrying between the escaping threesome and the doorway in fear, after a few more blaster bolts.
Abruptly Red appeared in their doorway, his blaster still smoking.
“Get these things off of us,” Eddie yelled.
Red snorted and smiled, “In trouble without me again, huh?”
“Just help us get these cuffs off,” Mark grumbled. “Ari, were you able to find him while I talked to this mook?”
Before she could reply, a vaguely familiar voice shouted from several cells further down the hall, “Who’s down there? I hear perfect English, not like these morons talk. Are those earthmen I hear?”
“We don’t need a translator for that, do we?” Eddie chortled.
“No, not this time.” Mark replied, “General is that you? Where are you?”
“Johnson? Is that you? But how?”
They ran down the hall to the General
’s cell where the bedraggled, heavy set man stood holding onto the bars before him. His clothes were filthy and torn, as if he had been there for a long time in captivity.
“Stand back sir, we’ll get you out of here.”
“Harrumph, it’s about time, too.” The older man grumbled as a blaster bolt from Eddie’s recovered gun struck the lock on his cell door, obliterating it. The haggard looking old man stumbled out of the cell on legs long unused by his imprisonment. He had a heavy white beard, no longer just his bushy white mustache. His hair was unkempt, and he needed a shower, badly. But then he smiled slightly, “I’m happy to see you clowns.” He growled as Red grabbed him and helped him to walk towards the doorway.
“We have to get out of here. This place is going to be teeming with guards any second.” Mark commanded.
As if in response to his statement, blaster bolts started ricocheting off the walls above their heads. Behind them came the sound of running footsteps, followed by more energy bolts.
“Eddie, Red, buy us some time.”
“You got it boss.” Eddie nodded as he un-holstered his gun once again. He and Red ducked down on opposite sides of the roughhewn walkway, behind jutting stones. Eddie pointed at the light panels overhead and Red nodded. Both men began firing at the overhead lighting, throwing the cavernous walkway into blackness.
Heading towards them out of the blackness came a score of men, with weapons that had glowing muzzles that got brighter as they charged up to fire.
“Aim above the muzzles.” Eddie shouted to Red above the din of the ricocheting blaster bolts continued onslaught.
“Will do, squirt.” Red replied as both men laid down a blanket of energy bolts, strafing the cell blocks floor again and again. Screams of injured and dying men shrieked out from the darkness as Red and Eddie began backing up towards the entrance.
Red touched the communicator built into his uniforms right sleeve. “Boss, get us outta here.”
Outside the facility, Mark touched his uniforms communicator and replied, somewhat frantically “I’m working on it, Red,” he paused a second, “Danny where are you? Now would be a good time…”
“On my way, Mark!” Dan replied as the Stargrazer banked wide overhead, turning the night sky to day with its powerful lights. The ship paused in midair then silently dropped to the ground vertically as a side door slid away, from inside Dan shouted, “Let’s go! Move it!”
Johnson and Ariel raced into the ship, half dragging the General with them, a few seconds later Eddie and Red backed out of the devastated doorway below, firing back into the underground facility with every step.
“Move it!” Shouted Mark from the ships door, as he waved them in. Blaster bolts ricocheted about them as the men threw themselves into the ship. An instant later the door shut behind them as the Stargrazer was already climbing towards space.
Everyone buckled into a seat as the ship raced through the sky, ascending like a meteor in reverse.
“Look out!” Ariel shouted, pointing as two big, heavily fortified ships came into view just as they cleared the last vestiges of atmosphere and shot into the eternal darkness of the void.
“They’re shootin’ at us.” Dan rumbled as he banked the ship hard astern, then dove down, and quickly up as it spun around and around narrowly avoiding a stream of seemingly never-ending, deadly, energy blasts.
“Get us outta here Danny!” Mark ordered through gritted teeth, as he held onto his control console.
“Whattaya think I’m tryin’ ta do?” Dan replied with a shout.
“Eddie! Return fire, Now!”
“Already on it!” Eddie squawked as he fired the small ships guns again and again.
“Those ships aren’t as big or as heavily shielded as that one we fought in deep space, our blasts are actually scorin’ hits.”
“Yeah, but Eddie, there’s a lot more ship out there trying to hit us then there is here trying to hit them, so I repeat, Danny, get us out of here!” Mark yelled.
The Stargrazer screamed through space, arcing first left then right, then straight up as both bigger ships slowly turned to chase it, until with energy blasts splashing off its shields and skin, the Stargrazer suddenly flipped over and dove directly at the attacking ships, accelerating directly between them. Eddie continued to fire at them both until once alongside both ships Danny hit the hyper-warp and the Stargrazer disappeared in a splash of light.
“Those two ships will be after us in a minute.” Red grunted.
“I know, Ari, try to get in touch with the Cagliostro. We need her fire power.”
“Cagliwhatstro?” The General grunted “What the hell is a Cagliostro?”
“It’s my ship.” Mark replied.
“Is that what you named her? Why the hell would you name that bird such a stupid name?” The old General laughed.
Mark turned on the old man, annoyed, “It was the name of a sixteenth century alchemist and sorcerer. No one believed he could do what he claimed, just like none of you believed the Cag would break the light speed barrier. But guess what, you old pain in the ass, the Cagliostro not only broke the light speed barrier, it obliterated it. That ship, and this one as well, by the way, isn’t only faster than light, its thousands of times faster. And if not for me and that ship you’d be living out what’s left of your life in a cell on that dustbowl of a planet.” Mark finished.
The General looked at him with vehemence; steam was practically coming out of his ears. But then he suddenly softened and looked away, not wanting to match his eyes to Marks. “You’re right son, I do owe you my life. Without you and your ship I’d have died there. I’m sorry.” He raised his eyes finally and met Mark’s, “I have a feeling this whole adventure is far from over too. I think we may have a long way to go. I also know I’m not the only one who owes you. The whole damned planet will if you can pull this off. You’re literally going to save the world.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence; General, but we’re a very long way from home.” Mark turned toward Ariel, “Any word from the Cag yet?”
“Nothing Mark. Not a peep. I’m looping the hail, and hoping it gets through to them as we get closer.”
“Red, what about our company back there?”
“I see them, but they’re not gaining on us.”
“Alright, Danny don’t spare the horses, full throttle and keep it pinned.”
“I’m doing that now Mark, but honestly, we’re running an untested ship here, and I have no idea how long we can keep her going all out.”
“I do, I designed this ship and its engines. I know what it can handle, even if the specs don’t show it. We can handle it. We have to. We got lucky back there. If those two big bruisers catch us, we’ll be done for.”
Chapter 10
“I think they’re gone.” Mark announced, as he turned and faced Ariel, who sat next to him.
For eight long hours the chase had continued, with the Stargrazer running its engines full out, overrunning the specs they were designed for, just to ensure the crews survival.
Ariel nodded, and smiled slightly, “Thank God we lost them. That was getting to be tedious.”
“I don’t know if I would have termed it that way, but yes, I get your meaning.” Mark replied and relaxed a bit in his chair.
“How’d you know?” Ariel asked Mark, who sat at the ships controls flying the Stargrazer while Danny took a few minutes rest.
“Hhmm? How’d I know what?”
“That Red was alive. You weren’t the least bit surprised when he came bursting in guns blazing.”
“Eight hours later and now you ask me this? That’s easy. The suits we’re all wearing. I told you they were bullet and blaster proof, at least to small weapons fire.”
“What about the burning holes I saw after he got hit?”
“That’s how the uniforms work. They convert energy and displace it. It’s all part of the design. With bullets it’s a matter of converting the kinetic energy, with blasters it’s displacing th
e energy and shunting it off. It’s a great system.”
“Okay I get that now, but what about that alien boss back there, he said the guy we shot with the Stargrazer’s gun was his ‘predecessor’. What did that mean?”
“Yes what did that mean?” The General asked as he entered the cabin from the sleep quarters in the back.
“Not sleeping General? I’m surprised.”
“Believe me, son, I’ve gotten enough rest the past few months in that hell hole. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you talking about that little gestapo wannabe. What was that about?”
Mark grinned and took a deep breath, “He was a clone. So is your replacement by the way.”
“What? What are you talking about? They cloned me? When?”
“Probably months ago, maybe longer. All they needed was a stray hair or some skin follicles. They made another you, without a mind of course, and programmed him to do their bidding. That’s how they were hoping to stall us, and stop my FTL drive from ever being completed.”
The General sat back in his seat, looking stunned. “Bastards,” was all he said.
“What was all that with the terraforming about?” Eddie asked as he entered the control cabin.
“Think about it, what did that mountain range look like to you? At least a small section of.”
“I don’t know.” Ariel answered.
“Virginia.”
“Huh?” Eddie barked.
“Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains, west of the seat of our government. They recreated the Blue Ridge Mountains and built a base under them. Guaranteed that same base is under the real Blue Ridge and has been there for a long time. Far enough from DC to avoid detection, unless it’s under close scrutiny, but there’s been no reason for that, and close enough to feed the fake General orders and for him to have a place to report to only a short distance away.”
“My God, we’ve been infiltrated.” Abruzzi groaned.
“It’s worse than that General, if they replaced you this was just the tip of the iceberg. They could very easily have replaced the President, the joint chiefs, congress, anyone. This was a carefully orchestrated assault that took years to implement. That means they have been watching us for a very long time.”