by Mel Todd
"Portal forming," Rarz said quietly and she turned back to look at him. Miguel breathed out what she would have sworn was a sigh of relief.
"Zimmer, you hear me?" He asked as soon as the circle quit growing and remained steady.
"Loud and clear, Chief," Elaine's voice came through the coms with little if any distortion.
"Come on through. We've got work for your charge." He glanced around as he talked, eyes locking onto the big window.
"Rodger. Coming through now." Elaine responded and the com clicked off.
"So if we control it from here, where do the Kaylid get released?" Zhen asked slowly, even as Toni spoke.
"Got it. Changed the code to get in. Wait, what?" Toni turned to stare at him, and then at the huge window as did McKenna.
With her stomach clenching tight, McKenna stepped forward and looked out the huge window. It overlooked a huge warehouse bay, like standing at the top of a ship's hold and looking down, stretching out farther than she could see. Up close a bunch of canisters hung in front of her, and she could see Kaylid hanging there, limp and lifeless, but at the top of the container a green light shown.
I really hope that means they’re alive and just asleep or in stasis.
The room they stood in was isolated. There was no way to get to any of the people in those containers into there from here. So where would they be released?
"So where do they get out at?" Miguel asked. He had moved forward to look out the window with McKenna.
"At the station down there at the bottom. There should be two to three Kaylid there to get them out, provide basic treatment, and hand them their orders," Cass said as she walked out.
"Fuck." Miguel swore harshly. "And there are how many of these storage things?"
"Ten on this ship," Perc responded almost instantly. "Each one with a capacity of 100,000 beings."
Miguel glanced at him and shook his head. "I hate rushed missions, things get overlooked and assumed." She glanced back at the Bravo team that had completely arrived. Cass had moved over to the computers that were flashing lights and started to tap on the display systems.
"Okay, all the information I have is working. I can order them decanted, and inject the drugs in their system before they’re released from the jars. Now from what the information in here says, the drug should keep them down for about thirty-six of our hours. After that they’ll need water, food, and tending—which I'm assuming means waste disposal, urine, etc." Cass spoke but didn't look at anyone, focused on the boards.
Miguel stared out the window, looking down at the far corner where McKenna could see a receiving bay for the canisters. They seemed to be sucked in via another tube she couldn't see.
"How long does the process take?" Miguel asked, his voice distant.
"The room can handle up to four at a time, and from injection to decant it takes about three minutes." Cass hmmm'd a bit, still tapping on icons. "I think I can drop it to a minute as we don't want them fully aware, but note this is me guessing, a lot."
Miguel swore again softly. He glanced back at the open portal, then at the room down blow. "This will take days. Even at a minute each, if these holds are full and there are ten? That is a million beings. It will take us weeks."
A hush filled the room as that sank in, and McKenna wanted to scream.
Cass spoke up. "The ship is about seventy-five percent full. They’re stuck with the same constraints we are. From what I can tell, they have a pile of shifters sedated and waiting to be put in these things." Her voice dripped with distaste as she said that. "And as fast as they’ve been moving, they still have lots of room. But they have multiple rooms and ships. We know how many they came with. Figure some have been killed. Each of these control rooms can control two storage units." She hit a button and the other wall, the one that had been solid went clear and displayed a unit that was about half full. "They've been loading up for a week, but we can unload faster than they can load." Cass chewed on her lip as she tapped. "At a rate of four per minute, if we do all ten rooms, with someone in each control room, it will take," she paused and her shoulders sagged, "about six days."
Miguel fell silent, and McKenna felt herself tense, as if waiting for an explosion. Instead, he leaned against the wall, eyes closed. "Rarz, I assume people won't float through your portals. They have to move through them themselves."
The Drakyn blinked. His mouth opened, then closed. "I do not know. I am unaware of any tests regarding that functionality."
"First, let's test that ASAP. That will affect a lot of plans."
Everyone looked around but the room didn't really seem to have a lot of loose objects.
"Use one of the Kaylid laying there," Perc suggested.
McKenna shot a look at him, but he just shrugged. "Worst case they lay there on the swirly portal floor."
Okay he has a point. Dammit why can't I just not care?
"4B, try it." Miguel hit the com. "Charlie, we're running a test, be ready to receive a body." The soldier picked up the body and laid it on the portal floor. McKenna watched it, curious.
It lay there and Miguel sighed, but before he could say anything Rarz spoke. "Let me try something." He started muttering scientific sounding stuff in the mindspace about feedback, quark rotations, shifting electrons, and other mumbo-jumbo. While she understood the words, she had no frame of reference for what they meant, though Cass listened intently, nodding a bit. If felt like he didn't realize he was broadcasting as the flow of words was almost faint in the mindspace, something she'd never experienced before.
"That should work," even as he said the words the body was pulled into the tunnel and disappeared. Shocked, McKenna looked first at the tunnel then the dragon.
Damn. Every time I start to feel comfortable with him, he gets scary again.
"Charlie, you get the body? What shape is it in?"
The words came back through the com. "Unconscious but fine. Medics say steady heartbeat and no marks. I assume this is the work of the stun guns?"
"I refuse to call them that, but yes." Miguel looked at the portal thoughtfully. "That might save us time getting them out."
"If I understand your plan, Chief," Rarz started, and McKenna turned to look at him but she sensed what he was going to say. "You wish to have a portal opened in the room for them to throw the bodies in to process as fast as possible."
"Yes, that was what I thought." Miguel looked at him warily and McKenna closed her eyes, some vague lessons learned on the ship filtering in.
"Then while it is a good one, there is an issue. I can only open one portal at a time."
His words fell into the room like bricks into a still pond.
"Shit." Miguel said softly. "Okay, let me think for a minute."
McKenna found herself stepping towards the portal and noticed Toni drifting over, too.
~You feel it, too?~ McKenna kept the line tight, but she saw Rarz raise his head even as his clawed fingers beat out a pattern on his biceps.
~Yeah. Like I should be able to understand it. Control it. It pulls to me.~ Toni admitted, though she kept moving her eyes from the portal to the door to Rarz in a constantly changing pattern.
~Do you think we could? Learn, I mean?~
Toni shrugged, but turned to look at Rarz. "Can we use these, create them? Do what you do?"
Everyone in the room stopped to look at her. Then their attention snapped to Rarz.
"Could you teach them? Teach anyone?" Miguel demanded and McKenna noted the other three shifters all staring at him with rapt attention.
"In theory I may be able to. Toni for certain, McKenna probably." He lifted a hand before any of them could react. "But it would take months if not years to teach them to even open a pinprick one, much less something of this scale. So for your current purposes, the answer would be no."
Miguel scrubbed his face with his hands and McKenna felt sympathy for the man, even if he was an ass. "Well then, folks, we're going with plan C. We're taking over the ship."
Canada has offered help to the United States. They have taken over shipping food to depots in the northern states. The shuttle attacks in Canada have been minimal. The common opinion that with most of their population so spread out, it isn't worth the effort. The food has been met with relief in some of the states, especially with deliveries so sporadic, but this is a stopgap measure. While food is still being harvested, unless the factories that process it up start up soon, most of it will rot. The next few years might be very lean. ~ TNN Invasion News
She must have heard wrong. There was no way he could have just said that, could he?
"I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?" How her voice came out calm and clear she had no idea. They didn't know how to fly a ship.
Before she could get too far down a path of trying to figure out how to fix it, Miguel spoke again.
"This is a two-fold plan. We’re going to get as many people out of here as we can, but we may not have time to do it, especially if that other ship shows up. Plus, there’s the risk that if they find us on the ship, they may give the order to destroy the planet and give us no choice. We need to get take over the ship, get all the shuttles in, and then use them to free people if necessary. Worst case I'll get fighter pilots or hell, video game junkies up here and we'll do kamikaze runs. But we aren't giving up that many of our people nor are we going to let them destroy our planet."
"Kamikaze?" Rarz said a bit haltingly. McKenna could almost see him running through what they had watched gleaned from Earth's internet.
"Sacrifice yourself to slam your ship into another ship," she provided quietly. His head jerked up and he looked at her with wide eyes.
"Rarz, I'm making the assumption that there won't be any more of your people coming to help?" Miguel said, as he glanced at the alien in their midst.
"I was the volunteer, the sacrifice if you wish. There are many on my world who do not believe this will work. I had a belief in you and Ash, so I said I would come."
Miguel sighed. "Swear, why does America always get allies that want proof first? Fine. Elaine, get Cass to teach you what you need, then leave two people up here. Toni, show them how to lock the door when we leave. We’re taking two groups out to secure two revival rooms." He pinned Cass with a hard stare. "I assume you can tell which ones were recently put in storage versus those that have been there a while?"
"Ummm," Cass hit a bunch of icons, then a smile bloomed over her face. "Yes, both of these chambers were mostly empty when they started, so the majority should be from Earth."
"Good. We'll see how physically far apart they are. Anyone speak either Mandarin or Cantonese?"
Everyone signaled no. "Frag, this is going to make this very difficult as a significant majority should be from China."
"You said the coms work through the tunnels?" Toni said her voice flat.
"Yes, you saw." Miguel answered with a distracted tone.
"What about phones?" Toni pressed her body tight against the wall.
"Umm, let me check." He pulled it out and called a number. A minute later he closed it. "Yes, called my house, answering machine answered."
"You have an answering machine?" Perc blurted then turned away, as if embarrassed he'd said anything.
"Is that important now?" Perc shook his head at the demand, so Miguel turned his attention back to Toni. "So why does that matter?"
"Call our kids. They got loaded with Mandarin, Arabic, French, and one or two others. They can talk to people via the phones. You can do the other things with other translators."
Miguel tilted his head then nodded. "Good idea. Elaine, can you arrange that? Get Charlie team coming through with a bunch of spare phones. We can pass out numbers over the coms when you get them."
~Kids, did you get that? We need you to translate; tell people it’s okay, that we're rescuing them. I hate to ask, but I know you can do this.~ Toni's voice held an odd mixture of emotions that McKenna didn't even try to decipher. Dealing with her own was hard enough, but via phones Charley and the others should still be safe in the hotel, there was no reason for them to move.
~Yes! We'll help. Telling Carina now. She'll spread the word.~ Jessi all but bubbled with enthusiasm and they could feel the same from the other two. That McKenna understood. Doing nothing had to be the hardest thing ever.
Toni nodded at Miguel who had been talking rapidly with Elaine Zimmer. Two people were assigned to Cass and she repeated stuff and pointed things out. All in all, they stood there another five stress-filled minutes listening to the occasional steps outside the hall.
"They’re going to sound the alarm soon. Those bodies weren't hidden," 4B's mutter didn't help.
[Maybe not.]
McKenna jumped. Wefor had been so silent lately that her words surprised her.
~Why do you say that?~ She could feel all the Speech users listening intently.
[The information that exists in my database about Elentrin culture suggests, that though rare, assassination is not unknown for promotion opportunities. And flesh wounds from knives are the most frequent means. Using any other weapons is considered gauche.]
McKenna relayed that information and Miguel snorted, as did half the other soldiers in the room. "I'll use their stupidity to my advantage any day. But we can't expect our luck to last. Elaine, you ready?"
As they waited, the other Kaylid had been transported down to earth too, but if McKenna had to guess, it took more effort than normal from Rarz. But she didn't know enough to pry right now.
"Yes. Charlie 2B and 3B are staying here. They'll stay in touch via coms, though you do realize no one has tested if those will work once we’re on the other side of the ship." Elaine managed to state the concern without sounding challenging.
I'll have to ask her how she did that later. I can never pull that off.
"I know. I'm hopeful, as tech has worked so far, but worst case, pay attention to the windows. You know hand signs, use them."
Elaine grunted out something that might have been a laugh. "Why do I think I should ask if you have semaphore flags tucked somewhere on your person?"
He cast her an arch look, then turned to Toni. "They know how to lock it?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go. We need to get to those two rooms, pull in Charlie team and secure them. Then we have a ship to take over." Miguel's teeth flashed yellow under the lights and McKenna shivered.
~No one should sound that gleeful about taking over a ship.~
~Are you kidding? This is the sort of thing men like him dream about. Not having to worry about government sanctions, congress second-guessing him, nothing. He gets to play pirate with full approval of Earth.~ JD chuckled in the mindscape, even as he turned and faced the door where everyone else had lined up.
"Open it," Miguel whispered. A few taps from Toni and the doors whispered back open. With a smooth movement she slipped back into her place in the lineup.
Miguel nodded at everyone and they set out at a quick jog. They moved through the almost silent halls, but now time was at a premium. When Perc signaled someone coming, he just nodded and picked up his pace, his weapon at the ready.
They hit an intersection and three groups were headed towards them. A solo Elentrin, a group of two Kaylid, and another group of three Kaylid running up the hall. Miguel didn't hesitate firing at the Elentrin first. The being collapsed, but before it hit the ground, he had already sited next his target. The Kaylid reacted, but Perc had fired once and 2B had fired at the solo Kaylid, which left one more who had hit a button on the wall. It was subtle and barely there, but already a pale blue light began to flash in the ceiling. Miguel cursed, pulled the trigger and the last enemy became a limp figure on the floor.
"No time now, we need to move. We need to get people in defensible locations, get one portal open and then get to the bridge. Move," he barked as Perc indicated which direction they should head.
"Rarz, go ahead and change into your version of the warrior
form. We can use the shock and surprise at this point, or at least it can't hurt."
"Elevator up ahead." Perc reached the door and McKenna glanced back to see JD and the other two Alpha company members watching behind them. The bodies were a trail of breadcrumbs in their wake.
"Locked," Miguel said. At this point they weren't bothering with coms. None of them were far enough apart and Cass and the rest of her Bravo group were being kept in the middle, protected, though from Cass's wide eyes and rapid breathing, she looked ready to shift into something better suited to protect herself.
Without being asked Toni moved up to the door and opened it. "I'll need to enter codes when we’re inside, I'm having to override each time because we aren't in the system. Everything is bio-locked and our life signs aren't in the database. I basically know all the process to add new crew members, but only from their bridge I guess, or the security room. We don't have time now to do that. It takes a bit." Her voice remained low as she finished messing with the panel. The door opened in front of them and they slipped it.
McKenna didn't know if she should be surprised or weirded out that it looked like any other elevator she'd ever seen. A panel lit up showing the levels, each one highlighted in a different color and the Elentrin script. It took a minute, but the script became understandable as they squished tight together.
"We want this one," Toni said even as she hit a blue-green button near the bottom.
"Can you prevent it from stopping at any other floor?" asked Miguel. He and Perc stood near the front, while JD put his bulk between Cass and any possible attacks.
"Not in the time we have available." Toni's response seemed distracted as she had her head tilted to one side with her eyes closed. McKenna wanted to ask what the plan was when they got to their right place, but a chime sounded and the lift slid to a halt.
Without thinking, she lowered herself down, even as those in front raised their weapons. The lift froze, the doors slid open to the blue alarm still going off. Two Kaylid and an Elentrin looked at them, but this time there wasn't surprise, but anger and hate from the Elentrin. Miguel had been ready, and he pulled the trigger before McKenna had a chance to do more than interpret the expressions before they sagged to the floor.