A New Threat
Page 15
The whole crew was probably at the bar. Pirates usually worked for one of three things: drugs, alcohol, or money to buy one of the first two. That was one of the things that bugged him about this mission. These pirates were organized and working for a common goal, and none of them seemed to know exactly what that goal was.
No one was on the bridge when he got there either. He had expected to see Loker, since he wasn’t at the bar. For a moment he toyed with the idea of going to find him but decided that might seem suspicious. Jake decided to find an excuse to stay on the bridge for a while and see if Loker would show up eventually. The panel under the communications station on the port side of the bridge hung open. He sat down and looked over the wiring for a moment before he saw the problem.
After he fixed the communications station, he tightened a handful of loose bolts and fiber connections all over the rest of the bridge, as well as connecting a handful of light fixtures. He had just put the cover back on the last light when the door to the bridge slid open and Max Loker strode in.
Loker paused. “Hey… Jake, was it?”
Jake checked to make sure the cover to the light was secure before he answered. “Yeah.”
Loker walked over to the captain’s chair and plopped down. “You’re not out enjoying yourself at the bar with the rest of the crew?”
Jake shrugged. “I was there earlier. The thought of loading cargo all day tomorrow with a hangover didn’t seem appealing. Besides, I’m here more for the money and adventure than the amber fluid.”
“Hmm.” Loker leaned back in the chair. “You seemed to have quite the reputation as a drunk on Alpha Centauri Station.”
Jake laughed. “I bet I do. Drinking is only my hobby between jobs. Being off one’s face in deep space is a good way to end up dead, mate.”
Loker threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, it is at that, isn’t it? I checked with people who’ve employed you before and they all said the same thing.” He looked around. “I see you’ve managed to brighten up the bridge considerably.”
“Yeah,” Jake shrugged, “didn’t want to get drunk. Didn’t want to sit around bored either. I also fixed the comm station. There was a bad splice in one of the fiber bundles. Anything else you need done while I’m ‘ere?”
Loker shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, we’re heading out to pick up a passenger tomorrow. Tell you what. Show up in the engine room to keep an eye on things there tomorrow morning at say, oh, seven-thirty-ish. We’ll be pushing the engines pretty hard.”
“No problem, mate.” Jake threw a mock salute and left the bridge.
Alkask, the Great Forest
Hrrarr re-appeared on the other side of the clearing so quickly that Tomed almost doubted that he’d disappeared at all. Before he could say anything, Bast and Rrrark stepped through. Tomed walked up to the rock. The air grew thicker with every step.
He ran his hand around the fallen tree, then the rock, and then the tree opposite it. Even though he didn’t feel a breeze on his skin, the sensation of one blew through the gap between the rock and the tree.
”Do you feel that?” Tomed asked.
“I don’t feel anything.” Major Hood replied.
“Yeah. I bet Nilre feels it.” Tomed looked at her.
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the opening.
“Hey, this is weird.” Tomed motioned for Nilre and the Major to join him. “This tree isn’t lying on the rock—it’s connected to it.”
Major Hood jogged up next to Tomed and peered at the tree. “Yeah, that’s weird. I still don’t feel anything strange though.”
Nilre tapped Tomed on the shoulder. “Bast wants to know what’s taking us so long. She says Hrrarr is growing impatient.”
“Oh.” Tomed turned away from his inspection of the rock. “Well, guess we’ll take a look at it later.” With that, he stepped through.
A wall of air compressed in front of Tomed and pressed past him, then shoved him forward. He stepped into a clearing almost identical to the one he left.
“It took them long enough,” Hrrarr grumbled—softly enough that Tomed almost didn’t hear him.
Tomed stepped toward Bast and turned as he felt the air ripple behind him. Nilre appeared in the clearing, followed by Major Hood and the rest of the marines.
“We are not here to gawk at the clearing. We must hurry.” Hrrarr turned and led the way down the trail at a fast trot.
Tomed’s belt comp beeped. He pulled it out and glanced at it—and then did a double-take. The map showed they had moved half-way across the forest. Tomed shook his head and put his belt-comp away. He’d have to remember to ask Rrrark about the Clearing later.
Hrrarr came to a stop and turned to face Tomed. The khaal is just ahead. There are four of these ‘pirates’ doing something to the wall. The rest have not yet arrived.
Tomed turned and made a series of hand gestures to Major Hood. The major lifted his hand above his head, raised four fingers and then waved his arm forward. Four of the marines lifted their blasters and crept ahead of them into the forest.
After four muffled shots, Major Hood returned from the head of the trail. “We got ‘em. They were planting explosives on the wall.”
“The pirates?” Tomed asked.
“Stunned. They should be out for an hour or so,” the major said.
Rrrark raised his head to look behind the major. “We should drag them inside the khaal. Others can watch them while we take out the rest of the pirates.”
Major Hood nodded and waved to the four of the marines behind him. “They’ll take care of it.”
The marines saluted and headed back down the trail.
Hrrarr snorted and continued down the trail. “The rest of them are this way.”
He led them into a clearing at the edge of the khaal, turned left, and skirted the khaal before taking a right down another trail. After several minutes at a brisk trot, he slowed to a crawl and proceeded noiselessly.
They are just ahead, he whispered telepathically.
Tomed turned and made a series of hand motions to the major and the rest of the marines.
Major Hood nodded and waved a hand forward. The marines fanned out in different directions and were soon hidden among the trees.
Nilre and I will try to jam their weapons while the marines attack. Tomed crouched down behind a tree.
Hrrarr growled something, and Bast and Rrrark spread out. Tomed crept forward. Muffled voices intoned ahead. He dropped into a crouch and ducked behind the tree in front of him. Waist-high ferns provided cover as he crawled forward.
Tomed pushed a fern slightly to the right to see into the clearing ahead. The pirates had felled several trees to expand the clearing and set up temporary shelters. No wonder Hrrarr sounded so angry. A small building made from fallen logs with a roof of pine branches stood in the center of the compound. Tomed cast his mind forward into it.
Four men stood in the building and looked over a paper map that showed the layout of the forest they were in and the nearby khaal. None of them wore a uniform of any kind—that didn’t really surprise Tomed. What did surprise him was three of the four men had shoulder patches from three different pirate groups, and the fourth wore none at all.
Tomed withdrew his mind from the cabin and quickly scanned the rest of the group. They watched in the direction of the party that was planting the explosives. Tomed slid back into the ferns and pulled his belt-comp from his thigh pocket to type a quick message to Major Hood.
He quickly received a reply: “Attack at the signal.”
Tomed telepathically passed the message to Nilre and the Meskka.
Movement at the far edge of the compound caught his eye. A marine crawled toward a group of pirates clustered around a shuttle. Tomed shifted his vantage point a few centimeters. A man inside the shuttle was handing out plasma rifles to the crowd outside.
The marine placed a charge on the opposite side of the shuttle and creep back to the cover of the woods.
&n
bsp; Tomed cast his mind forward and disabled the power source for some of the plasma rifles. He could only do one at a time and it took quite a bit of concentration. He almost jumped when the shuttle exploded a moment later.
Pirates ran in every direction in an attempt to get away from the shuttle. A handful of them attempted to locate the cause of the explosion. Tomed quickly overloaded the power cell in the rifle of a pirate nearest the cabin, which caused it to discharge and kill the man in front of him.
That diversion didn’t have the effect Tomed was hoping for. A guard at the front of the cabin shot the pirate down and directed the rest of them to fan out into the woods. Tomed sighed and continued to disable as many of the blasters as he could.
Bast stayed near Rrrark as they followed Hrrarr down the trail to where the pirates were. Rrrark paused at the edge of the northern hunting area. She stopped next to him and gasped. Most of the hunting area had been cleared. Stumps covered a large area of ground, and a small cabin made of logs sat in the middle of the cleared area.
Her rear legs grew weak and she sat down hard. Why would these… these… vermin do this to her home? She sat there in shock until the pirate shuttle exploded.
Chaos swept across the clearing. Pirates scattered in different directions. A few of them shot at each other, but most of them had noticed the marines and charged toward them, firing blasters as they ran.
A slow rage filled Bast when a blaster bolt tore through the marine to her left. It wasn’t enough for these vermin to steal from their own kind and kidnap ambassadors. Now they were destroying her home, killing trees that were hundreds of years old, and trying to kill her friends, too.
Her fur bristled, she bared her fangs, un-sheathed her claws and roared as loudly as she could, before launching herself at the nearest pirate. She sunk her fangs into whatever part was closest to her mouth and jerked her head to throw him away from her.
Another pirate raised his blaster at her. She swiped at him as hard as she could. Her claws shredded his weapon. She hissed and snapped her jaws shut. The delay caused by her hissing allowed the pirate to escape. With a leap, she caught him in a few strides and sank her claws into his back. After a deep breath, she assessed the battle. Rrrark dispatched one of the vermin off to her right. Hrrarr had jumped into a whole swarm and was tearing through them. She didn’t see Nilre anywhere. Tomed ran after a group attempting to flank Hrrarr. She ran to help.
A blaster discharged off to Tomed’s left with a whine. He popped up to look. Some of the pirates had found a group of the marines. Plasma blasts flew in and out of the woods. The smell of burnt wood and human flesh drifted toward him. Tomed quickly disabled a few more of the pirates’ rifles and ran to assist the marines.
He stopped a few meters away and scanned the ground. Tomed scooped up a small stone and forced power into it. It warmed quickly, and then he threw it into the center of the group of pirates. The stone exploded just before it hit the ground and caused a shockwave that tore through the pirates. Tomed swayed on his feet. That took a lot more energy without enhancement. He shook his head, grabbed another stone, and ran to join the marines.
One of them had a nasty scorch mark on his forearm. Tomed placed his hand over it and healed it enough so the marine could function. He slapped a bandage around it before he ran out into the clearing with the rest of the marines.
A group of pirates charged them. Tomed extended his senses and overloaded a circuit in one of their blasters. Its owner cried out in pain and dropped it. Tomed sprinted ahead of the marines and grabbed one of the pirates by the arm, wrenched him off his feet, and spun him in the air as he waded into the center of the group of pirates.
The marines caught up and took out the rest of the group. Tomed scanned the battlefield. A small group of pirates stood apart from the rest. They walked with jerky movements and fired randomly into the crowd. Tomed smiled—Nilre’s work, no doubt. He heard a scream off to his right. Hrrarr chased a group of pirates. The big Meskka flung them into the air with his teeth and claws as he caught them.
About twenty pirates came up behind Hrrarr and spit into three groups. One group stayed behind him; the others spread out to either side. Tomed scooped up more stones. He took in a deep breath and concentrated his power inward to propel him as he ran toward them. He stopped a few meters away and dumped power into the larger of the two rocks he carried and tossed it into the fray.
He aimed a fist at the back of one of the men just as the stone exploded. Several of the pirates turned toward Tomed as the man he hit crumpled to the ground. Tomed bellowed and dodged blaster bolts, taking out as many of the pirates as he could with his fists.
He fought his way to Hrrarr’s side as more of the pirates concentrated their attack. Tomed again started to disable blasters as Hrrarr tore apart any pirates he could get close to. Tomed charged the second stone when a plasma blast nicked his right shoulder. From the smell of singed fur, Hrrarr had trouble dodging the blasts as well. Tomed tossed the stone into the crowd and leapt in after it.
He threw the body of the last pirate aside and heard Hrrarr roar behind him. Blood dripped from the Meskka’s shoulder. The crumpled remains of a pirate lay beneath him, a blaster still clutched in the corpse’s hand. A pirate stood ten meters in front of him with a blaster aimed directly at Hrrarr. The pirate laughed as he squeezed the trigger.
Tomed summoned all the strength he had and jumped as the pirate fired. The blast caught his right palm. Tomed forced his will against the plasma beam and roared as he forced it outward. The orange beam started to dissipate but still crept down his arm.
“TOMED!” Nilre’s mental shout echoed inside Tomed’s head. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING PULLING THAT KIND OF FOOL STUNT WITHOUT AN NTO!”
Tomed groaned. “I’m all right.”
His arm was still in one piece but the skin turned black in spots.
Bast stood above the body of the pirate and looked over her shoulder at Tomed. She met his gaze, gave the body a savage kick, and turned to the forest.
Nilre appeared at the top of the hill and ran toward Tomed. “Are you all right?” She knelt at his side.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he glanced down and flexed the fingers in his right hand. “A little worse for wear, though.” He grinned.
Nilre blew her breath out in exasperation. “You!” Then softer, “I’d attempt to heal it, but...”
“I’ll be fine,” Tomed told her as he stood to look over the battlefield.
Rrrark carried a pirate by the neck as he trotted toward them. Two marines exchanged fire with the last of the pirates. Bodies of pirates covered the clearing with dead marines interspersed between them.
“Any survivors?” Tomed asked.
Major Hood frowned. “Looks like Rrrark has one, plus the ones we caught trying to blow a hole in the city wall. It doesn’t look like any more. With a small force like ours, we did good to survive.”
Rrrark had made his way to where the others stood and dropped his prisoner. Nilre bent down to the unconscious man. “This is the same man who kept us prisoner on SeQish.”
“I thought it was,” Rrrark said. “I have a few questions to ask him, and I thought you might too.”
Tomed turned and started to walk back into the forest. “Well, let’s get him to the ship.”
Major Hood raised his blaster and jogged ahead. “I’ll take point. Can’t be too careful in a battle like this when no one has an exact count of the enemy.”
Tomed nodded and fell in behind him. He paused a few steps later. “I think—”
A blaster bolt flew out of the forest. Major Hood slumped to his knees. Another bolt of plasma followed the first. Tomed jumped forward without a thought and raised his right hand to block the beam that streaked toward the major’s head.
Tomed cried out in agony as the bolt connected with his already injured palm. He focused power into bending it aside. It wasn’t going to be enough. He used his last ounce of strength to shove his arm to the side.
Hrrarr was in front of him and looked into his eyes. Tomed blinked.
“I’m okay... I think,” Tomed slurred his words, despite his effort not to.
He lifted his right arm and forced himself to look down at it. A blackened stub was where his elbow should be. The world blurred again.
Chapter 10
Vincent home, Earth
Andrea Vincent smiled as she placed the last few items into her suitcase. It had been forever since John had taken her and the boys on a vacation. Six whole years since the last one. And that was just a weekend trip to the lake—and John had taken calls and worked on projects the entire time. Andrea sighed and pushed the thought out of her mind as she zipped her luggage closed and lifted it off the bed. This was going to be different. A real vacation to the Paradise colony. She pulled the suitcase along behind her as she walked down the hallway to the stairs. She paused at each of the boys’ rooms to peek in and check on their progress packing.
Jonathan III sat on the floor engrossed in a book. A suitcase sat beside him, half filled with wadded-up clothes. Andrea smiled and tiptoed past the door to check on Fred. He sat on top of his suitcase. The arm of a Teddy Bear stuck out the side.
She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle before she continued on to deposit her suitcase by the door. What was she thinking? There was no way they could manage by themselves. She’d have to go back and help the boys pack.
Entryhall of the Mer-ahsh palace, Alkask
Bast paced in front of the door to the Council room. The Great Council was in session debating what further interaction the Meskka should have with the aliens, if any. Master SarrOw had just debriefed Bast. Rrrark was with him now, and after he was done, her master would give his report to the Council.