“They’re doing that for us?” I asked, bewildered.
“No, for their murdered comrades,” Rax said. “The last two Tosks were under the others after the initial enemy mass beaming. They faked death as the Gigantopithecuses searched for survivors among the fallen and shot them. One of our diversions cut that part of the alien kill operation short.”
“What’s going on?” I said. “Are these giant apes Communists?”
“That is a non-sequitur question.”
“Not at all,” I insisted. “At the start of the German invasion of Russia during Operation Barbarossa in WWII, the NKVD operatives murdered all their political prisoners as the Russian Army retreated. The Germans found hordes of dead prisoners in the prison cells, shot through the head or the neck.”
“I am uninterested in Earth history, particularly at this point,” Rax said. “The fact I am trying to drive home—”
Loud booms drowned him out as the deck under me shook.
“The enemy is attempting another breach,” Rax said. “Logan, please collect yourself. I must attend to this—”
“I have to speak to the Tosks,” I said.
“It is too late for that. We shall be lucky to escape the station ourselves.”
“Escape to where? What’s the plan?”
“There are two operations taking place. Now, please shut up, Logan. I must concentrate in order to do this correctly.”
Rax fell silent, although the outer booms and deck shaking continued.
“There,” Jenna shouted. “Pick him up. Put him inside the floater.”
“What’s going on?” I shouted.
“We’re leaving,” Jenna said. “We’re transferring to Ceres.”
“In the Asteroid Belt?”
“We’re going to try. Rax says the aliens are jamming the transfer nodes. That’s why the Tosks are going outside for a kamikaze attack—to give us a window to flee.”
I felt hands guiding me as I walked up a floater ramp with Jenna beside me. My head hurt, my eyes didn’t work right and the last Tosks were leaving to fight to the death, buying us—I didn’t know what exactly.
None of this was turning out how I expected.
I sat in a corner with my arms wrapped around my up-thrust knees. I leaned my forehead against my knees. I heard people shouting, the floater engine engaging and nothing else.
From outside our floater, I heard clangs, blasts and—
“There.” That was Rax. “The Tosks sold their lives dearly. We shall know in a moment if it was in vain or not.”
I looked up. My eyesight was still blurry. What had the gas done to me? Would I remain this way forever?
I felt tingling all over.
“We are transferring,” Rax said. “I deem that we have—”
I cocked my head to hear the rest of what he said. I froze then and became highly uncomfortable, itchy and panicky. I tried to move, but I couldn’t, nor could I breathe. Rax was supposed to make sure we had all taken long-distance transfer shots. Transfer tech was wild and crazy. In a beam of sorts, our disembodied and unassembled molecules and atoms speared at the speed of light from the Saturn station to the one on the dwarf planet Ceres in the Asteroid Belt.
Because of their relative positions in the Solar System, the present distance from Ceres to Saturn was 7.99 AUs, or approximately 1,200,000,000 kilometers. Now, light travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second. That meant we spent more than an hour in our frozen, beam state.
I had over an hour—closer to one hour and six minutes—of this unmoving horror. All I could do was think, dread and fight a wild desire to rub my nose so I wouldn’t sneeze.
It had been like this going out, but we had each taken shots to prevent the frozen-horror feeling during the long transfer.
I was no longer me, but a ray of something akin to light. If the station process worked on Ceres, if the transfer pads activated, if Rax had done it correctly—
I wanted to shout and rave. I wanted to hit things. I couldn’t move, though. Sure, I could have kept ranting for as long as the transfer took, but finally, the tingling sensation returned. The Ceres transfer pads reconstituted my atoms and molecules into flesh, blood and bone as well as reforming the floater.
I sagged onto the floor or floater deck, gasping, breathing and laughing shortly. Some of the passengers began to cry. A few raved. A few laughed like me, the better-balanced individuals.
I opened my eyes. I could see again! The transfer process seemed to have been just the thing to conquer the gas effects.
What I saw almost paralyzed me. We were a pitiful few: fourteen people and Rax. The laughter proved to come from the Director of CAU, which gave me cause for concern, as Lord Beran the Antaran had dreadfully misused the Director over a month ago. Some of us had wondered if the Director would ever regain his full sanity.
Fourteen people, when over fifty CAU personnel had originally—
“Logan,” a voice said over a loudspeaker. “Would you come up here please?”
I climbed to my feet, approaching the pilot screen. Rax was slotted there. He was in a cellphone-like sheath.
Jenna was strapped into a nearby seat.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
“Notice the screen,” Rax said.
I looked at the screen. It showed a demolished inner chamber with parts of it on fire.
“What happened?” I asked.
“That is what we must determine,” Rax said. “I am open to suggestions.”
Jenna looked up at me, waiting.
I stared at the screen, wondering if we would have to transfer back to the Saturn station because the entire Ceres station was on fire.
-9-
“How long is this going to take?” Jenna asked a short time later.
“I do not know,” Rax said.
I was in the process of donning a bulky, fire-retardant spacesuit. It was heavier than it looked. Two CAU men helped me put it on.
The Antaran floater was not that roomy inside, about the size of a big semi-trailer on Earth, with upper seats for the gunners on either end. A CAU agent sat in each bubble canopy, watching the burning transfer station.
“The floater isn’t a regular spacecraft,” Jenna told Rax. “It doesn’t have an airlock. How do you propose getting Logan outside?”
“Fire rages in the transfer chamber,” Rax said. “That implies oxygen. We shall lower the ramp and walk out.”
“What if it’s poisonous air outside?” Jenna demanded. “He’ll survive, but the poisoned air will kill the rest of us in here.”
I picked up the helmet. “She has a point, Rax.”
“Very well,” the crystal said. “We will transfer outside.”
“The transfer units out there are still working?” Jenna asked suspiciously.
Rax did not respond.
That finally got me thinking again. “Do you know why there’s a fire?” I asked Rax.
“I have a suspicion, yes.”
“Did our long-distance transfer cause this?”
“I deem that most likely,” Rax said.
“Then, if you transfer now,” Jenna said, “the whole station might blow up.”
Everyone in the floater turned to look at Rax.
“Logan, please pick me up,” Rax said.
I should have known the little crystal was about to pull a fast one. I guess I figured he wanted me to hold him up so he could speak to everyone. In retrospect, that was foolish idea.
“Put the helmet on Logan,” Rax instructed the two CAU men helping me.
I suppose they had become used to taking orders from Rax while fighting the Gigantopithecuses. They now put the helmet on me.
“Twist it into place,” Rax said.
The helmet clicked and locked.
The spacesuit took over for me, hissing air so I could breathe. I felt claustrophobic wearing the helmet and stamped around in a circle.
“Careful, Logan,” Rax said through an interior helmet speaker.
“Rax,” Jenna said. My helmet had outer pickups and I could hear her just fine. “You can’t transfer safely now, can you?”
“Listen, Jenna,” Rax said. “You will transfer to the Deimos station. From there, I suggest you attempt to transfer onto Earth. If you all remain in the floater you will have a thirty percent chance of all making it.”
“Rax—” Jenna said, her voice rising.
I didn’t hear the rest, as I froze for a split second. That let me know I had transferred. I reappeared outside the floater. Flames licked nearby—I heard their crackling—and I saw explosion damage on the nearest bulkheads.
Rax was in my right gloved hand.
“What are we supposed to do now?” I asked the little crystal.
Before I could answer, the floater began to grow dim. A second later, it became transparent and then it disappeared altogether.
“Jenna transferred without us?” I shouted.
“Duck,” Rax said.
“Huh?”
“Duck before it is too late.”
I heard the urgency in Rax’s voice, and I ducked. An explosion washed against me, and I staggered to the right as something metal flew over my head.
“To your left, Logan,” Rax said. “Dash into there.”
A hatch opened, and I stumbled and staggered in the spacesuit through the open hatch. It slammed shut behind me. The sounds of fire and further explosions diminished.
Ceiling lights began snapping on, showing me that I’d entered a long and undamaged corridor.
“Are you doing that?” I asked Rax.
“Correct. If you wish, you can place me in the spacesuit’s hip holder.”
I searched, found it and slid Rax in, snapping the lock into place.
“Excellent,” Rax said. “I do believe our odds for success have grown considerably better.”
“What about the others?”
“Did you not hear what I told Jenna? She is on her way to Deimos.”
“You mean the little moon around Mars?”
“That is correct.”
“You transferred them there?”
“Of course,” Rax said. “Why are you asking that in such a distressed manner?”
“You didn’t ask them if they wanted to go.”
“They all wish to return to Earth. I have heard many of them say that. From the Deimos station is their best chance of doing so.”
“So why did you transfer me out of the floater first?”
“You must survive, Logan, as must I.”
“Now just a dog-gone minute,” I said. “We’re not transferring after them?”
“On no account,” Rax said. “Our odds for reaching Earth would only be thirty percent, at best. We must use a safer method.”
“Hey, Rax, I’m not getting you. You’re operating in the dark again.”
“That is correct and proper, as I am the only legal Galactic Guard representative here. You had temporary Guard status only.”
“I still do.”
“I am not so sure of that anymore. I have begun to believe that the GGS Dreadnought Ocelot was destroyed by foul means.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“If I am correct, it might be years before another GGS dreadnought comes to the Solar System.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. You think you’re going to work behind my back like you used to do because a Guard dreadnought didn’t show up when you thought it would?”
“I do not care for your slurs and insinuations, but essentially you are correct.”
I laughed darkly. “Forget it, Rax. Bring the floater back. We’re going to take our chances with them.”
“Logan, I do not think you perceive the reality of the situation. A Guard dreadnought may have been destroyed through foul means. That is a terrible Galactic crime. Worse for you, the destruction might have occurred in or near the Solar System.”
“So what?”
“So, the criminals would surely go to great lengths to cover such a crime.”
“Meaning?”
“Killing everyone on Earth so they could not report about the crime,” Rax said.
I let that sink in. “You’re sure about that?”
“Not one hundred percent certain, but enough that I believe it is in your species’ best interests that the two of us reach Earth alive.”
“Okay… So, what does that mean for you and me out here?”
“Ah,” Rax said. “That is an excellent question, as now we come to the heart of the matter. Are you ready?”
“For what?” I shouted.
“Yes. I believe you might be. Do you recall the alien underwater station in the Arctic Ocean?”
“Duh,” I said.
“What does that idiot sound signify?”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“That was not my question. Are you quite all right?”
“Look, Rax—oh, forget it.”
“You are no longer interested in the mission?”
“No! Rax! We’re talking at cross purposes.” I inhaled deeply, holding my breath, exhaling slowly and repeating the process. I did this several times.
“Ah, you are attempting to calm your nerves,” Rax said. “Yes. I applaud your effort. For a second there, I thought you had lost it.”
“I think I get it,” I said. “There’s an ancient Polarion station somewhere in the Asteroid Belt. We’re going there…to do what, though?”
“Well, yes and no,” Rax said. “There is an ancient station, but I am uncertain whether we can signify it as Polarion.”
“That’s new.”
“No. The station is very old as I just said. I am unsure whether it is operational or not.”
I wanted to rub my forehead out of exasperation, but the helmet was in the way. “Why not just tell me the plan, huh?”
“That is what I am attempting to do, but you keep interrupting.”
I inhaled deeply again. “There’s an ancient station nearby—” I prodded.
“That is a relative term, of course. The station is actually quite far.”
“Oh. How far are we talking about?”
“That will depend whether the sleds are still in storage or not.”
“Run that by me again.”
“Let us check for the sleds, see if they exist or not and if they have enough fuel for the journey.”
I blinked several times and finally nodded. If the sled idea didn’t work, the only way back to Earth would be by using the burning transfer station that might or might not still be functional.
Sometimes, I wished Rax were biological so I could beat the tar out of him.
-10-
It turned out the temporary Ceres Antaran space station possessed several sleds. They were in the station’s vault, however, which was presenting something of a problem for us.
They were not ordinary snow-sleds, but big objects the size of 60s-era sports cars. On each sled, there was an area for a space-suited Tosk to lie down. The space vehicle had handlebars and a thruster throttle like on a motorcycle. The problem for us was moving the sports-car-sized sled or sleds up ladders and elevators to an airlock so we could get them outside. There was an emergency opening down here, but presently resting against planetary rock outside.
“How did you know about these sleds anyway?” I asked.
“It was the price for allowing the last two Tosks the floater for their kamikaze attack.”
“Wait. The last Tosks paid you with information to do what you needed them to do for our escape?”
“They did not see it that way, naturally.”
“Rax,” I said, “you could sell sand to Arabs.”
“Is that a slur?”
“No. A compliment to you as a salesman.”
“You consider me as a superior sort of merchant, and that is a good thing?”
“Forget it,” I said. “We have sleds but—oh, I’m beginning to see the solution. We have to unmoor the station from Ceres so we c
an shove the sleds out of the emergency lock.”
“Yes. That would work. Let me think. Ah, I doubt Antarans from the Institute will be back to your Solar System any time soon.”
“Why would that matter?”
“The station is their property. They might demand an accounting from us in court for our damage to it.”
“This is illegally placed property, as the Solar System is restricted space. I doubt their allegations would stand up in Galactic Court.”
“I must say, Logan, it is uncanny how you have started to think like a Galactic Guard agent. Perhaps our association is having a positive effect after all.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Do you know how we can unmoor the station?”
“You are right, of course. We must hurry. Undoubtedly, the pirate vessel has begun acceleration for Earth. The captain might even know about the Ceres transfer station and attempt to capture us if we delay here too long.”
I hadn’t thought about the Gigantopithecuses since reaching Ceres, but I guess he was right.
The mule’s part of the work for the next six hours was up to me, and I had to hoof it up and down ladders, testing controls for Rax until we were finally ready.
Fortunately, my helmet had a tube with concentrates on the other end. Unfortunately, it was Tosk paste and tasted horrible. I sucked it all down, however, as I was still ravenous. There was a second tube with water. I had already drunk my ration and was beginning to feel thirsty again.
I won’t belabor you with the procedure, but the station blasted off Ceres until it began to rotate away at what seemed a leisurely rate. I was running low on air by then, having almost used up my final tank.
It took Rax time to locate new tanks and a room with oxygen so I could climb out of the spacesuit and outfit myself with extra concentrates and water.
Rax had found a wireless station connection so he could plug himself into the main controls. After studying the Asteroid Belt through station sensors, Rax declared that he was ready to make the space journey.
“You see the ancient station?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he said. “But I see the location as it was described to me.”
I’d stocked my spacesuit for a lengthy voyage and maneuvered three sleds to the emergency vault opening. When it blew open, I could push the sleds directly into space. Rax had shut off the gravity stabilizers so everything was weightless. Practicing moving the sleds had shown me that weightless maneuvering was a tricky business.
Invaders: Dreadnought Ocelot (Invaders Series Book 4) Page 5