by Ian Cannon
Marching quickly down the line of prisoners, Ben said, “Listen everybody, no time to explain. We’re here to get you out. There’s a ship docked and waiting. Once everyone’s on board we’ll blow the docking platform and run. Got it?”
A chorus of yeahs, yesses and grunts of new optimism flittered through ... along with Rogan’s hushed bloviating. Toggin peeked out through his matted hair with his silver eyes gleaming through the dim and said, “How do we get there?”
Ben said, “Like this.” He thumbed the transport switch on the first sphere and tossed it.
Toggin grunted, “What in the snog’s log is—” VWAP!
Ben called to everyone, “It’s disorienting at first, so shake it off. Tawny?”
They met eyes from across the chamber. She nodded with a devilish grin and they began very quickly moving up and down the line of prisoners, transporting them off one at a time— vwap-vwap-vwap-vwap!—leaving their energy cuffs hanging uselessly from the prison walls.
Tawny came to Oonta Goomba having to straddle over each of his big Prax-Noossian legs as they splayed across the floor. She murmured, “How ya doing, big fella?”
“Gabba looey rumpa!” he grumbled from a deep, bottomless gullet before she patted him on his enormous barrel belly and sent him off—VWAP!
“Yeah, I feel the same way,” she said in response.
Ben came to Vekter Ramm who didn’t look any worse for wear. That debonair, playboy smirk seemed to be tattooed on his face. Ben started to transport him away but he said with his usual, charming cool, “Good to see you, Benjar. Been a while.”
“Yeah, you too. You ready?”
“Get the others first,” he said. Ben looked into his one good eye with a pause. Vekter nudged his chin at him, said, “I’m going to help you get Sympto.”
Ben settled back, absorbing his statement. He asked, “What do you mean?”
“They took him. He hasn’t come back.”
“What’re they doing to him?”
Vekter looked over at Rogan guiding Ben’s gaze over. Rogan continued his aimless blathering, rolling his head around and around on his shoulders like a mongoloid. Veketer said, “That.” They looked at each other. Vekter said, “They’re testing some mind machine.”
Ben sneered quietly to himself, his frustration growing, turning to fury. Through clenched teeth he said, “Where, Vekter?”
“Don’t know. Somewhere in the factory. It’s enough to stain a Molos lilly though, ain’t it?”
Ben stabbed a look into him, that madness starting to show. Stain a Molos lilly? That hardly covered the anger that wormed through Ben’s guts at the moment. This place was no different than Sarcon. More prisoners. More torture. He was going to end this once and for all. He held up the sphere and thumbed the transfer feature. “Vekter, you’re getting to the ship.”
“Benjar—”
“I need you to get them home with or without me.” With that, he tossed the sphere and …
“You might wanna think about—” VWAP.
Ben seethed for a moment drawing in a large, fiery-mad breath. He sensed someone standing behind and spun around. Tawny stood silouhetted against the pasty light of the hatchway. She stared down at him stabbing with her eyes. She said, “You mean us?”
Ben stood flushed in sudden shame. He’d failed to even consider his wife.
She rolled her eyes pathetically and murmured, “I’m with you, Benji, all the way.”
He blinked and gave her an apologetic look. The consensus was mutual. They couldn’t leave without Sympto. But first …
Ben moved to Rogan and eyed him pitiably. “Rogan,” he said, “I’m getting you home.”
Rogan rolled his head over to look up at Ben and gave him a big, drunken smile. “Hi, Benji …”
VWAP!—“I hate when he calls me Benji.”
“Hmm,” Tawny concurred. “If you include Sympto, we have two balls between the three of us, Benji.” Ben flinched and looked at her. She held one transport device in each hand. She corrected herself, “Spheres.”
“Oh, right. Two spheres. That’ll do,” he said sharking his gaze toward the hatchway. It was time to blow this joint. “Let’s go.” Tawny stuffed the spheres into her pack and followed, both poising their weapons forward. They hit the hatchway and paused, eyes sharp, constantly scanning down the corridor for movement in the distance. Shadows. Voices. There was nothing.
Tawny motioned him forward and Ben took the lead padding quickly down the hall with both guns drawn, one forward, the other leading at his beltline. At the far end of the tunnel the foundry hub approached, sounds growing as they neared. They came to the end where it opened into the high cavern. Distances spread out above and below. Ben came to a stop taking shelter behind a bulkhead and looked around. That small army of combatants still trained below, their voices rising up in combat cadence—hoo-haw-hoo-haw.
“Up there,” Tawny whispered over his shoulder and pointing her weapon directly up.
Ben followed her inference to that cantilevered structure suspended by big, curving buttresses. It was different in design than the rest of the foundry. The foundry was a hard, steel world crafted through angles and lines, everything dawning the geometry of industry, simple and basic and stamped together in some big offworld construction operation. But that large, suspended observation room had a clean design gaining its architecture and construction through curved streamlining with ovular, wrap-around viewports at its front. It was a recent addition to the foundry. There was something very … scientific … about that place.
He looked back at her and said, “Testing some mind machine.”
She nodded.
That was a laboratory up there, a place of scientific experimentation. If Sympto was here, that’s where he’d be.
Ben planned their next moves in his mind, looking hard. Cross the catwalk. Up that stairway. Across the admittance rise. To the laboratory. He checked for clearance. No one was around. He nodded, looked back, said, “Cover our six.”
She nodded.
“Let’s go.” He was off on the quick, bolting stealthily down the catwalk in clear view of the foundry with Tawny following right on his heels constantly scanning behind, scoping her rifle back and forth on the run. They hit the stairs without hesitation and bolted up to the top of the place without incident. They emerged onto the uppermost level, halting at the crosswalk and looking left and right. Everything seemed faraway below, but the entrance to that lab was directly before them at the end of a flying, steel ridgeway. Ben flicked his blaster motioning her to follow quickly, and they crossed the catwalk onto the extension bridge.
As they neared the lab, Ben could see the room was secured by a big round hatch with narrow windows designed to match its curvature. He pulled to a slow stop coming to the lab entrance wondering how to open the door. He peered inside the room.
Tawny met him there with her eyes peeled on the world around them, watching for approaching danger. She said, “What is it?”
Ben took a slow step back saying nothing. It caught Tawny’s attention and she glanced at him. “Benji?”
Without warning, the circular hatch beeped on auto-engage and wheeled open on its track. Tawny and Ben stood in the entrance staring forward through faces growing shocked. They were right. It was a laboratory—clean, white, utilitarian and technological. At its center was a big, humming machine designed to house a humanoid in a tube, drawing the subject forward and back in its clutches. A wheel of light shimmered around the tube’s entrance indicating a scanning device of some sort. And somebody lay inside. He couldn’t tell who, but he didn’t have to guess. It was Sympto.
Standing in front of the machine with his arms crossed over his mechanized chest and staring directly at them through that cycloptic visor was Specter. Ben flinched at the sight of him.
The sound of a rocket blasted from the foundry’s lower floors rising up and coming fast. A manotaur slammed down on the extended ridgeway blocking Tawny and Ben off from any th
oughts of fleeing.
GuardKing moved forward to flank his sire with his lance held in a grip. His cape and sash flowed across his body. Ben’s eyes went into angry slits. He sneered, “You’re the red man.”
GuardKing shifted his stare to look at him.
Ben said, “You tried to kill our friend.”
GuardKing’s lips canted into a mean, little grin. “I have a feeling I’ve killed many of your friends.”
Ben’s hand glided to his blasters. Both of them. “And I have a feeling I might just kill you.”
GuardKing merely grumbled laughter under his breath.
Specter raised a hand. His voice cut the air in its cybernated overtones, “I should have known you’d come to me.”
Tawny raised her weapon fast, but Ben shot a hand over and halted her motion. He said, “Not yet.” She lowered the rifle and Ben focused on Specter—the very sight of the man sent a shiver down his spine and into his boots. He was the twisted collision of technology and nature. Whatever was hidden under that mechanized suit was certainly the grotesque malformation of a biological lifeform. Ben shook it off. He was here to free his people … or go on a rampage. Either eventuality would be just fine. He sneered, “Let him go.”
Specter turned profile signaling to someone behind. Jinn-Junn initiated the machine’s tube drive and the body slipped out on a moving table. He released the cuffs and lifted their subject to his feet. Knees collapsed and Jinn-Junn was forced to stand him back up.
Yes, it was Sympto. He stood limply with his head falling straight down, long ears hanging flaccidly from his head and swinging toward the floor.
Specter snarled, “Is this the reason you’re here? To free your people?”
Ben snuffled meeting this monster’s constitution head on and said, “Among other things.”
That mask swung subtly side to side. “You’ve already failed.” Calling into an arm communicator he said, “The subject vessel—is it still docked?”
“Affirmative, Sire.”
Specter’s mask turned slowly to beam directly into Ben as he said, “Here’s where you discover how futile your attempts are, Benjar Dash.” Back into his comm, “Destroy that ship.” Pointing a finger at Sympto, he growled, “And kill him!”
Jinn-Junn stepped away from Sympto. GuardKing leveled his staff with a twisted enthusiasm and said, “With great pleasure.” He moved to Sympto grinning. Ben shot a look at Tawny who returned his stare. They had to do something, and they had to do it now!
Ben whipped both blasters bringing them up … and was met by GuardKing’s staff with an unnatural speed. It suddenly glowed and hummed with the same stun technology as the Krutt’s weapon. Both blasters ripped from Ben’s hands before he could get a single shot off and dropped to the floor. In the next instant GuardKing had him reeling backward into the manotaur showering him with lightning quick bludgeons from some rare lunar martial artform. Ben slammed back, blinked, shook his head and launched a counter strike of his own, but it was futile. GuardKing had him pinned against the bot by the throat before he knew what had happened.
“Benjar Dash,” he said with an even, calm malice. “My master has been patiently awaiting your introduction for a long time. I pictured it would go something like this … my hand around your throat.”
Tawny attacked with a scream. GuardKing unleashed on her with a flurry of blocks and reposes, lifted a boot and slammed her across the lab. She sprawled across the floor and in the blink of an eye, watched one of the spheres tumble from her pack and start rolling away. She slapped a desperate hand for it.
Ben lurched forward but the manotaur’s iron clutch gripped him at the shoulder and forced him to his knees making him growl in agony. GuardKing allowed the moment to settle and turned back to face Ben. He slowly unholstered the Kruual blaster at his hip and put it to Sympto’s head. Ben’s eyes widened. He struggled to get up, but the bot’s grip was too strong. It forced him down and made him wince in deepening pain.
GuardKing flashed glee at his hopelessness, reconsidered the blaster and put it back into its holster. “No,” he said. “Too clean.” He unsheathed the sword from his back with the sound of a hiss and drew the blade across his sleeve allowing it to glint sinisterly under the lights of the lab. “Perhaps this would be more appropriate.”
Ben jerked in the bot’s grip still on his knees. “Let him go!” he snarled.
GuardKing snickered, deepening Ben’s loathing. He said, “Failure, I’m afraid to say, is your only option here, Benjar Dash.” GuardKing drew a deep breath to collect his focus and initiated a sudden, perfectly-balanced pirouette strike bringing the blade fully around in a lateral motion right for Sympto’s long, exposed neck.
VWAP—the Iotian disappeared as the blade came fully around. GuardKing ended the maneuver as quickly as he’d executed it with a flash of interest on his face. Sympto was gone. He wasn’t there. GuardKing looked back at Tawny who chuckled delightfully, tossing the final transport sphere up and down in her palm.
“Clever,” GuardKing said.
Everything cooled. Tawny assessed the situation quickly. It was bad. She and Ben were separated. He was across the room being locked in the big, iron clutch of the manotaur. She stood several paces away. GuardKing stood in between.
Ben cried, “Tawny, go!”
GuardKing leveled the spear at Ben’s head with a flash and barked, “Kill him if she transports!” An automated projectile weapon initiated with a jerk at the manotaur’s shoulder and swiveled down at Ben’s head.
GuardKing nodded with slow, malicious glee.
Tawny took a step back. It was a game of leverages.
“Tawny!” Ben yelled. “Go!”
She shook her head glumly. She couldn’t leave. Not without her husband. Her eyes danced from Ben to Specter, back to Ben. She said without voice—I’m sorry.
Ben’s face flushed white. He knew his wife. He could sense what she was about to do. He was two moves ahead of her.
In a single, blindingly quick motion, she dropped the sphere to the floor, unsheathed her own knife, dropped to a knee and slammed the blade into the ball severing it into halves with a tiny shower of sparks.
Ben screamed, “No!”
Tawny got back to her feet, relenting. They were captives now. They would have to get out of this the hard way. Period.
VWAP—Vekter Ramm found himself standing with his hands extended over his head in the same slumped-over pose he had been transported from the dungeon in. Only now, he wasn’t supported by energy cuffs. His knees buckled and down he went. Shaking it off and looking around he found himself in the Karbatt cruiser surrounded by disoriented Guilders. The big Prax-Noossian swayed from side to side like a drunken freighter pilot while the sound of Tiffa Nora’s muffled voice screaming, “Get off me!” rang out from underneath Rennick the Shark. The fat man lay prostrate on the floor. All three hundred pounds of him. Fortunately, He and Tiffa weren’t only co-pilots. They were lovers … of a tenuous sort … but that fact did nothing to lighten his load. Rennick shook his head and rolled over allowing his woman a huge breath. She got up cussing mad.
“Sorry, babe.”
“You bulby-bottom lug!” she growled.
“What—I couldn’t help it,” he grumbled punily.
Vekter shook his head clearing away the euphoria of a transport jump. He had been in the dungeon not three seconds ago. Now he was here. He knew exactly what had happened. Benjar Dash transported him away from the prisoner dungeon in mid-sentence. Vekter grinned half angry, and muttered, “Damn that Benjar …”
He looked up. The Krutt vessel’s control panel spanned out before him, unmanned. He shot to the pilot’s chair. This was haul-narse time. Licking his lips, he glanced across the panel unsure of what to do, how to get the drives started.
Toggin joined him at the next panel, his long, ropey hair dangling in his face. The controls were all color-coded nubs. He whipped his locks back as he shot a look at Vekter and said, “What are these? These ar
en’t regular-like controls.”
Vekter started initiating commands blindly, punching the nodules in random sequencing. Nothing happened. “Systems panels,” he murmured. “Need systems panels.”
Toggin poked at the nubs with a finger harder and harder before slamming both fists down. “How do you make them go?” He was a Denubrian contract laborer. Not known for patience under pressure.
ZebX, the biod assembled from factory parts at the Sarzi production fields, stepped between them, all six and a half feet of him. His body assembly was a series of flexion points at the jints and torso, all of which constantly bled some sort of poly-organic lubricant. He beeped and booped with sharp direction.
Toggin barked, “Back off, droid thing!”
ZebX turned its cylinder head to Vekter and beep-booped some more.
Vekter ignored, still chancing across the controls. “Is it this?” He drew his hand across a slider nob. Nothing happened. “Nope.”
“Beebo-zerrr!” ZebX whined out.
Underneath the noise, Toggin grumbled, “Too many colors. I don’t like colors,” still mashing buttons uselessly.
“Beebo-zerrr!”
Vekter still ignored, thinking, thinking. They had to get out of here. Time was of the essence. Not knowing how to run the getaway vessel was no way to die.
“Beebo-zerrr!”
Vekter glanced up at ZebX. The biod was wildly trying to tell him something. An idea! Vekter looked at the panel and yelled, “Go engines!”
A six-foot VR control panel blossomed into view showing the vessel’s engine control cluster. It made Vekter chuckle urgently. “Okay,” he said reading the screen. “There!” He poked a drive icon and the engines went—BOOM!
Everything jerked. “Haha—we got juice, boys!” Vekter yelled to the back.
“Oh, Vekter,” came Sindra Klaire’s playful, singsong voice. Vekter looked over to see her sitting at a secondary station manning a big 3-D machine-gun-style repeller weapon. An entire targeting array splayed out before her showing the gun’s real time reticle display. She had a devilish grin on her face as she said, “We got rail gunnnns.”
