David chatted with Skye as they ran. “We have two tasks to complete now, get past the next ambush, and then find the princess.”
“I don’t think that that will be the end of it, David.” Replied Skye.
“Yeah, I know. But right now, I just want to focus on what needs our immediate attention.”
Druk swooped low overhead and landed on the icy rocks just ahead of them. “We have a problem David,” she gasped.
David was concerned, not so much about the new problem, but Druk’s gasping. That rang alarm bells. “What’s the problem Druk?”
“This extreme low-pressure system has reduced my soaring altitude. This is as high as I can fly.”
The group bunched up around them, staying close in the hope of keeping warm. Skye formed a shield around them just in case. She immediately felt the drain of the energy requirement.
David looked at his map display and saw that they had just gone through five thousand eight hundred metres. No wonder they were all struggling.
There was a strong gust of wind and suddenly large ice particles were bouncing off Skye’s shield.
Druk turned her back to the wind and endured, looking David right in the eye. “I have failed you David, right at the critical moment. I cannot go on.”
“You most certainly haven’t failed us Druk, without you, we would not have got this far. We will go on, wait for us.”
With that, David kept walking, he walked out of the shield and felt the hail sting his exposed face. He looked back at Grandpa Jack who was one step behind him. His beard was covered in icicles where the moisture from his breath had frozen on it. He had a wicked grin on his face.
“Still having fun then Grandpa Jack?” David grinned back.
“Sure. Aren’t you?” he laughed.
David just shook his head. “What are we going to do about the last Death Squad Guy Grandpa Jack? Any ideas?”
“Yes. I do. But why don’t you tell me your plan first.”
David thought for a moment. “There’s a clue in Raj’s last report. I think there is a fair chance that he has just about frozen to death by now. The only reason that we are ok is because we have kept moving. I think we should send Lauren ahead to creep up and see if she can spot him. She is SAS after all.”
“Great plan,” said Grandpa Jack. “Lauren, David agrees with our plan, how about you move out now.”
“Ok, you guys just back off the pace a bit, let me get ahead so I can get stealthy. We know where he is, so it shouldn’t be that hard. See you soon.” Lauren ran ahead.
David thought that she looked like a gazelle as she moved effortlessly over the rocky ground.
The hail turned to snow, and the visibility dropped even further. Lauren was going to have to get very close to this guy to have any chance of even seeing him. Luckily, she had saved an offline map to her heads-up display. Assuming he was in the same spot, she should be able to creep right up close. At least he was going to have the same problems seeing her coming.
Ten minutes later she was coming down the slope through the fresh snow above the Ethiopian’s position. He was tucked into a little hollow between two large boulders at the base of the slope. From his position, he could see where the group would cross the base of the glacier. Lauren could see a rifle barrel pointing out across that field of fire. The barrel had an accumulation of snow on it, which she thought was most unusual for a professional sniper.
Lauren stopped and looked around. Raj definitely would have picked up a second heat signature. In this cold, a warm body shows up like a beacon on infra-red. She got down flat on her belly and slithered closer to the edge, trying to get a visual. She didn’t want to push snow down on top of him either, that would give the game away.
She drew her tactical knife from the sheath on her right thigh, placing her hands on the edge of the ledge. She launched herself with her legs, up and over in a high arc. As she did this, she twisted through one hundred and eighty degrees so that she would land on her feet facing the enemy.
As she landed, she used her left leg to shove the barrel of the sniper rifle sideways and brought the knife in her right hand, which was in an underhand grip, up to the enemy’s neck.
Lauren stopped, a centimetre short of the knife severing the guys left carotid artery. The guy flinched with wide eyed fear as he realised he was about to die. But Lauren had sensed that something was wrong. There were no hands on the rifle. Sure, he could have been keeping them warm in his pockets, but that wasn’t in keeping with the reputation of an NAU Special Forces member.
Lauren looked into the guy’s wild eyes, one green, one blue. It was the only part of the wrapped up face that she could see. What seemed like an eternity had actually only been a few seconds, when she realised that she was looking into a woman’s eyes.
“Shit, a decoy.” She said to herself. The woman nodded her head in confirmation. Lauren checked behind her, making sure that no-one was sneaking up behind her.
She realised that the woman’s hands were tied behind her. Lauren grabbed her shoulder to move her aside so she could cut her bonds and release her. The woman’s eyes went wide with fear again as she realised what Lauren was doing, she tried to warn Lauren, but it was too late.
As Lauren pulled her gently sideways, she heard a snick that sounded suspiciously like the pin of a grenade being pulled out behind the decoy woman. The bastard had booby trapped her. Everything moved in extreme slow motion. Lauren could see the grenade tied to the woman’s hands, the pin had been anchored to the rock. She couldn’t pull her clear of the grenade, as it would come with them and still kill them both. She probably had two seconds left.
At the same time, Lauren realised that she couldn’t die here, she had to find the guy and neutralise him before David arrived. He’d be standing back waiting for the blast, then he would come in to make sure the job was finished. She couldn’t let that happen. But neither could she use this poor innocent woman to shield herself from the blast.
Involuntarily, her knife hand swiped at the zip ties binding the woman’s hands and the grenade together. Blood sprayed everywhere as she had no time to be careful with the blade. The spray of arterial blood from the woman’s wrists froze instantly upon contact with the air, it rained back down like red snow.
Lauren grabbed the woman by the front of her jacket and pulled her up and over her in another arc, rolling at the same time, so that Lauren landed on top of her. Hopefully her smartsuit would hold her body together after the blast.
Lauren’s weight knocked the breath out of the woman just as the grenade exploded.
Lauren’s world went black from the concussive blast of the grenade. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t hear a thing. But then she realised that that must mean she was still alive. She had to get back on her feet before the death squad guy moved in for the kill. He wouldn’t be far away, and now she had lost a very important sense, her hearing.
Luckily there had been a slight hollow that the grenade was sitting in, which meant that most of the blast was focused upward. Most of what hit them was rock fragments, rather than the shrapnel from the grenade. Her body actually felt ok, just stunned. Lauren was trying to move, but all she could focus on was her mental image of the decoy woman’s eyes. Then it dawned on her.
“Fifteen,” she gasped.
Lauren lifted her head to look at fifteen’s eyes again. She needed confirmation that she wasn’t imagining things.
What she saw in those eyes wasn’t the relief that she expected to find, but wide-eyed fear focused at some point behind Lauren.
Lauren realised that the guy must be right behind them, she had seconds to live. But she knew that there would be no gun shot, he couldn’t risk alerting the others. He would use his wicked carbon fibre blade, which meant he had to come in close to finish the job.
She stayed focused on Fifteen’s eyes. Her fear would let her know the exact moment to act. Lauren could feel the hilt of her tactical knife still there in her right hand, jamme
d between her and Fifteen. She kept that grip light, just as she’d been taught by the SAS. If you keep the grip too tight, you can force the blade to get stuck in bone if you hit one. A loose grip would allow the blade to deflect around bone and find the softer parts that would stop an attacker.
Lauren knew she would only get one shot at this. When she saw Fifteen’s eyes widen even further, she knew it was time. She rolled and saw the white clad figure dropping into the hollow, the same way that Lauren had come. She must have snuck right past this guy. He led with his wicked black knife and at that moment Lauren knew she had him.
All his momentum was behind the knife, heading for her. As she rolled, Lauren’s left arm knocked his knife hand to the side. In the same movement her own knife hand drove up and found the soft space just below his ribcage.
At that exact same moment, a giant blue scaled head appeared from the right side of the hollow and came down over the guy’s head and torso. Druk’s jaws clamped around the guys chest and whipped him into the air with a crack that almost tore him in two. She spat him back out into the snow and just looked at him in disgust.
“I thought you couldn’t fly any more.” Lauren gasped as she slumped back into the snowy hollow.
“I might not be able to fly, but I can still walk. I can’t believe I managed to sneak up on you like that. Talkin about stealthy.” Druk chuckled. “But I do prefer to burn them, biting tastes bloody awful. Pardon the pun.”
She then noticed the cold black knife sticking out of Lauren’s shoulder. Lauren passed out, still lying on Fifteen’s winded body.
The others arrived, carefully walking into the gruesome scene. Skye and Jack rushed to help Lauren.
David and Flynn helped Fifteen. Removing her balaklava, Flynn realised that her mouth had been taped shut. “Sorry about this,” Flynn said as he ripped the duct tape from fifteen’s face, leaving an instant red and angry mark. They helped her up and wrapped some cloth around her wrist, securing it with the duct tape. It was still bleeding fiercely.
David was really just kneeling there, looking into Fifteen’s eyes, trying to fathom the strange feelings he was having. There was a distinct connection between them, but David couldn’t reconcile some rather large questions.
“How is it that you are here?” David said accusingly to Fifteen. “I don’t understand.”
Before she could answer, the sound of stone dragging across stone came from the wall of the little hollow. More snow fell into it from above and then they could see the rock wall moving to one side revealing a warmly lit cavern behind it. They all stood back as a little old lady walked up to the entrance and beckoned for them to come inside.
David looked at the staff, “Well, It Looks Warmer Than Out Here.”
“Make sure the camera is rolling,” David said quietly to Flynn who acknowledged him with a nod.
They picked up their wounded, and helped them into the warm cavern, stepping over the piled-up snow at the door.
The door was big enough to allow Druk to enter, but she held back, David turned to query her. “Is everything ok Druk?”
“I think so David, my gut says that you have found the princess. But my days of being trapped in a cave are over. I won’t go in.”
“I understand. But perhaps you can be more useful out here. Can you do your best to maintain an uplink between Lurch and Raj? I think we should keep sharing all that we learn.”
“I will do my best, but I don’t know if Lurch will be able to transmit from inside the cavern. Have him upload everything he has to me now. I will fly Lauren to Paro for help, then I’ll come close to get updates and then take them to where I can transmit to Raj.” Lurch had been listening and immediately started uploading a large data file to Druk.”
They all spoke quietly to Lauren who had regained consciousness and looked to be in terrible pain. “My suit has run out of nanites. So, I am going to have to get help. The blade will have been poisoned, there isn’t much time. I will get Raj to drop me back in as soon as I am better, don’t worry.”
The cavern door started to slide shut, David stepped in, never taking his eyes from Lauren’s until the door finally separated them.
He turned to find the old lady standing right behind him rather creepily.
David looked down at his staff. “So We Meet Again,” he read.
“Indeed,” said the old lady. “Indeed we do.”
Chapter 50
“Not Lucky Sir”
Two hours and eighteen minutes after they had sent their first contact package, Communications Officer Madeline Andersen, received an incoming data packet. She had already anticipated some kind of response and had deliberately set up a system to capture the packet to a data card that was totally isolated from the fleet network. She wasn’t taking any chances.
“Sir?” Madeline commed to Owen, “I have received a data packet from our ‘visitors’. I have a non-networked data pad here that you can view it on. It shows compatibility with our systems sir.”
“Go ahead and open it Maddy.” Owen replied, “We’ll be right there.”
The command crew filed onto the bridge to see Maddy looking ashen faced with the terminal in her shaking hands.
“Sirs,” she said, standing up from her terminal. “The data package had a virus or worm encoded within it. It tried to reconnect my data terminal to the network, but luckily, I had removed the hardware from the unit, making that impossible. I’ve managed to clean it up and have the basic file ready to replay for you.”
“Thanks Maddy, let’s see what we’ve got shall we?” Owen was really thinking about the last two hours of conversation that the command group had just finished. There were a lot of thoughts going around, not many of them positive.
Owen looked at the screen and paused. Frozen on the screen was an image of a being who looked remarkably similar to humans. That old fable of beings evolving on similar worlds being vaguely similar physically had never held water for Owen. But here he was, looking at a being who was clearly bipedal, like humans, with a head not unlike ours as well. It had two eyes and a weird beak like mouth. Owen could not see arms, but they could be behind it.
Maddy pressed play.
“Commander Owen Matson, I am Envoy Reshnina of the Yrammus. The owners of the planet you have claimed. This planet has been terraformed from a bare rock world into what you would call, a trap. A trap for sentient species. You will find that by now, we have infected and taken control of your computer systems, you will not be able to leave or take any action against us.”
Owen looked over at Madeline who confirmed that that was not the case.
“So far, you are probably thinking that that’s not so bad Hmm? You didn’t want to leave this perfect world, well not yet anyway. But you are wrong commander.”
“We notice that you have brought other sentients with you. This is most interesting, we have never collected aquatic sentients before.”
“So, there is a price to pay dear Commander Matson. And the price is this. We collect sentient species. A shuttle is on its way to your location. You will provide twenty-five breeding pairs of your ‘human’ species onto the shuttle within one of your hours of the shuttle landing. They will be brought to our little research fleet here, and will then be taken to our intergalactic zoo for research and display. They will not be harmed.”
“In exactly one rotation of your planet around the sun, we will return. At that point we will collect more specimens, including the aquatic species you have introduced. Should you fail to deliver on any of our demands, your species will be removed from the planet, and the trap re-set.”
The group stood in stunned silence.
“Well I suppose that answers that question then. The one about this world being too perfect,” chuckled Owen.
“Lucky we came prepared eh?” said Evan.
Russell chimed in, “Outstanding work Maddy, you saved our butts. Make sure no more of their data packets get through.”
“Maddy, record a response from
me please.” Owen asked.
He thought on that for a moment, “Actually, cancel that idea. There will be no response. Allow the shuttle to pass through the shields and let it land. I don’t want to tip our hand just yet. I want an armed boarding party posing as the donated specimens. Let’s capture that shuttle and see what we can learn from it and its crew. Evan? That’s your gig please.”
“Got it,” Evan responded. He and Molly left the bridge in a hurry. He asked for forty-eight security trained colonists to meet them in the armoury. Twenty-four men, and twenty-four women.
“Maddy,” Owen continued, “I want constant updates on the expected arrival time of that shuttle. To the whole crew. I also really want to know where the signal to the Yrammus, letting them know that we were here, originated from. If they have the capacity to re-set the planet if we fight back, we need to neutralise that threat.”
Land Of The Thunder Dragon Page 27