Phantoms

by T. R. Harris

  Another alien stepped up to them. His weapon remained in its holster, identifying him as a supervisor, not a soldier.

  “First-Stansi,” Aligart greeted. “I present you with the Human renegade Adam Cain. He has come to Sasin in an attempt to rescue the prisoners recently brought to the Sector. Second-Level Kali TeraDon Fief should be notified.”

  The skinny, anemic-looking creature stepped closer to Adam, brown eyes scanning him up and down. “And yet he was captured, rather than carry out his mission. You have done well, Aligart. The Gradis recognizes your singular feat.”

  The boss alien produced a communicator and spoke for a few moments. He appeared satisfied with the conversation.

  “Secure the prisoner and take him to the detention center. TeraDon will arrive momentarily. Guards give special attention to this one. He is rumored to be quite dangerous.” Jaoni turned to Aligart. “Accompany me. I wish to hear more details. If this is indeed Adam Cain, your feat will be rewarded.”

  Aligart gave Adam a furtive, nervous look as he walked off. Adam smirked. If everything went according to plan, the lizard-creature’s fame would be short-lived. He would be blamed for bringing the fox into the henhouse, or the alien equivalent of the proverb. After that, who knew?

  No fewer than six mean-looking guards watched Adam as he was marched into the building. He offered no resistance. Instead, he took in all the features of the oddly-shaped structure. He would need to know the way back out.

  While still in the entry lobby, Adam was approached by a tall, broad-shouldered alien in a tailored leather uniform with a security vest attached.

  “Are you sincerely Adam Cain?” This would be the one they called TeraDon Fief, Adam reasoned, and he didn’t wait for an answer before holding a datapad to Adam’s face. “Yes, the identification is positive.” He smiled. “You have come to save your friends; you obviously have failed. In light of the past troubles you have caused the Cartel, my superiors will be quite pleased to learn you have been apprehended.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Adam said. “How are the others? Have they been hurt? Now that you have me, you have no reason to hold them.”

  The square-jawed alien frowned. “I am confused.”

  “They’re just minor characters, nothing to you. You’re obviously after a bigger target.”

  “And you believe that target to be you?” The grin on the alien’s face made Adam nervous.

  “Well, yeah. You mean I’m not?”

  “I had no reason to believe you were within a thousand light-years of Sasin when my quest began. I regret to sour your self-importance, but you have never been a consideration in my operation.”

  “I haven’t? So why the others? They’re nobody.”

  “That is the concern of my client, not yours. He has his reason for seeking your associates. And as far as I can recall, he has never mentioned your name. He may not even know of your existence.”

  Now it was Adam’s turn to be confused. “How could he not know who I am? I’m Adam Cain. What rock has he been living under for the past twenty years that he’s never heard of me?”

  The alien continued to smile. “I do not fully understand the references you make, but I can see you are insulted. That is good. You now know the galaxy does not revolve solely around you. There are still creatures who have had the good fortune to have never heard your name.”

  Adam was speechless.

  “Do not concern yourself, Adam Cain. The client will soon be here, and out of respect, I will inform him of your capture. He may include you in the contract simply through your association with the others. However, in the year I have worked with him, I fail to see how you could be of any value to him. Yet to the Cartel, you will be most-welcome. Guards, take the prisoner to the holding cells. Place him with the others.”

  TeraDon pulled out a communicator. “Locate Lord Te’moc,” he said as he turned away. “I have a report to make.”

  Te’moc? Did he say Te’moc? Adam thought as he was led away.

  This was strange. The name was familiar, but not only that, but he could also visualize the creature; modest height, with a proportional Prime build and skin made of tiny scales of an olive hue. Adam could even hear a voice in his head. The memory was vivid, if sparse.

  Adam shrugged it off, thinking this Te’moc character was either a Cartel member or some other mobster he’d met somewhere in his travels. Adam didn’t care. He wouldn’t be hanging around long enough for a reunion.

  19

  The holding cells were on the third floor with a pretty straightforward path back down to the main floor and the exit, assuming they would go out the front when they escaped. Adam couldn’t linger once he found the others, for a couple of reasons. First, the enigmatic Te’moc character was on his way to do Heaven knows what with them. And secondly, the hovercopter outside the building would eventually be moved. If that happened before they made their escape, they would face a trip of a couple of klicks to reach the Cartel spaceport, and undoubtedly with the entire Cartel force after them.

  The looks on the faces of Tidus, Monty and Summer were priceless when they saw him. Adam smiled and winked as the guard opened a cell next to Monty and placed him inside. The trio was about to explode with suppressed questions before the guards finally left.

  “It is quite a surprise—”

  “What the fuck, Adam!” Monty exclaimed, interrupting Tidus and cutting more to the chase. “How did you know where to find us?”

  “He didn’t find us,” Summer corrected. “He was brought to us. There’s a difference.”

  Adam looked across the corridor to a smirking Summer Rains. “Actually, you guys are the talk of the town. When I got here and found your ship being cannibalized, I asked one of the local talent what happened to you. He was more than willing to talk to me.”

  “You’re saying you planned this, to be captured and brought here? I don’t see how that’s helping too much.”

  Adam was at the front of the cell, surveying the locking mechanism. As it was with most technological societies—including the Cartel and the planet Sasin—electronic locks were favored over clunky metal keys. As Adam scanned the inner workings of the lockbox with his ATD, he almost snickered at how easy it would be to override the system. It was the same with all the cells. They could get out, that wouldn’t be a problem.

  Tidus watched Adam, the truth coming to him only seconds before the others. They knew of his ATD and what it could do. Now Adam’s plan became clear.

  “Good work, Captain Cain,” Monty said from his cell. He didn’t elaborate in case they were being monitored.

  Adam walked over to the bars between his cell and Tidus’s. “We’ll need a few guards.”

  “For their weapons?”

  Adam nodded. “We also have to hurry. Someone is coming to get you—us. He could be here any minute.”

  “That would be the client TeraDon mentioned.”

  Tidus went to the front of the cell and began hammering on the bars with his fist. “I demand an audience! I have complaints. As a Juirean, I have certain rights within Expansion territory.”

  It didn’t take long for two guards to make their way into the holding area. As usual, they were each of a different race. Adam sized them up. Each was taller than the Humans, but not Tidus. Monty and Summer had also migrated to the front of their cells, standing next to the doors. Adam reached into each lock with his ATD and deactivated the mechanisms. There was no sound as they unlocked, nor did they slowly squeak open to alert the guards. Even so, the prisoners were free to leave.

  Next Adam scanned the firing controls on the MK bolt launchers worn by the guards. They were MK-17s, with four spare battery packs each on their utility belts. The last thing Adam wanted was to shoot his way out of the building. But he also didn’t want anyone else shooting at them.

  “Silence, Juirean,” said one of the guards stepping up to the cell. He wasn’t dumb. He stayed out of arm’s reach of the seven-foot-tall alien. “We have b
een told you have no rights here. And neither do the Humans. For once, your kind are the slaves, rather than—”

  Tidus and the others received the go-ahead nod from Adam. Now Tidus calmly pushed the cell door open, much to the chagrin of the mouthy guard. For a moment, he was too shocked to draw his weapon, leaving the other guard to react. He pulled his MK and pointed it at Tidus. The targeting computers still worked in the guns, but not the firing circuits after Adam severed them with his ATD. The weapon vibrated, indicating a target-lock.

  “Hold! You are commanded to return to your cell,” said the armed guard. “Brons, alert the floor.”

  Brons—the guard initially frozen in fear at the sight of Tidus—was just coming to his senses. He backed away and drew his MK. When the other prisoners nonchalantly stepped from their cells, both guards began to frantically trigger their weapons. One would think that after the first ten trigger pulls—and no release of plasma bolts—the guards would have realized their weapons were dead. But still, they worked the triggers, backing away more until they were laid out cold by an angry Monty Pitts and an amused Adam Cain.

  There was no doubt both guards were dead before they hit the floor.

  “Are you boys done playing around?” Summer asked. “What say we make like a tree and get out of here?”

  Monty and Tidus retrieved the weapons and power packs as Adam reached in with his ATD and reconnected the electronic relays in the devices so they’d fire again. They left the cell block after that, not bothering to hide the bodies.

  The team sprinted into the next room, ready to confront any additional guards, but the receiving area was empty. Then Summer suddenly bounded to the top of a counter and jumped behind. She disappeared for a moment before coming back up, proudly displaying her shiny red and white compound bow and quiver of arrows.

  “Now we can leave.”

  As far as Adam could tell the building didn’t have elevators; that would have been too elaborate for to the bare-bones buildings. But there were three sets of open stairs, one at each end of the hallway and one in the middle. They slid over to the left side and began to make their way down. Adam had his ATD working, detecting the presence of power packs within flash weapons. They were a good marker for the location of the troops. The stairway was clear to the ground floor.

  This was where it would get dicey. He detected eight energy weapons active on the floor; three stationary and five mobile. Although he was a little rusty with wholesale operation of his ATD, twenty seconds later he had all the nearby weapons deactivated.

  “What now, chief?” Summer asked as she slid up beside him at the base of the stairs. They pressed against the side wall, out of sight.

  “We have to get outside. There should be a hovercopter about fifty meters out in front. We’ll use it to get away.”

  “Should be?”

  “I just left it there about fifteen minutes ago. Hopefully, they haven’t moved it yet—”

  “You! Who are you?”

  The voice came from the stairs above them. Adam turned, noticing a pair of Cartel members… not wearing weapons. No weapons, no power packs to detect.

  Before he could react, Summer was sprinting up the steps. He didn’t know she could move so fast and with such balance. Neither did the two Gradis. She lowered a shoulder into the pair, knocking them forward on the steps. Straddling one of them, she let loose with a blinding flurry of lefts and rights, smashing the face to a pulp. The second alien was trying to get away, crawling on his hands and knees up the steps. He almost made it to the top before Summer landed on his back, took his head in her hands and twisted it halfway around.

  She crawled off the body without even breathing hard.

  Adam was next to her. He looked down the stairs and saw Monty and Tidus quickly shift their gazes from him and back out into the lobby. They weren’t shocked; they looked embarrassed.

  “What the hell was that?” Adam loud-whispered. “You were like a wild animal.”

  Wiping the blood from her first victim on her pants, she slipped past him and down the stairs, commenting as she did so how much the Cartel had pissed her off. It felt good to vent.

  Adam stood for a moment, staring down at the trio. There was a lot they weren’t telling him. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to follow up. Now there were two bodies blocking this set of stairs. That would be discovered sooner than the dead guards in the cellblock.

  “We have to move,” Monty said when Adam rejoined the group. He seemed more anxious to face a dozen Cartel soldiers than Adam’s accusatory stare.

  “Okay, all the weapons are deactivated, but not their comms or vocal cords. So we casually stroll out like we belong here. With the variety of aliens in the mix, hopefully, no one will notice.”

  They got halfway to the door before someone did. A blue-haired, seven-foot-tall Juirean walking with three Humans wasn’t something one expected to see—anywhere. Eventually, someone noticed.

  “Stop,” said a security guard, the frown on his partner’s face matching his. “Do you have authorization to be here?”

  Tidus took the lead, leaning in over the shorter alien. “Of course we do. Why do you ask?”

  Adam lingered at Tidus’s side while Summer and Monty continued toward the door.

  “I…eh, it just seemed….”

  “Seemed what?” Tidus demanded. “Are you of proper rank to make such determinations as to what seems a certain way or another? Perhaps advance more in status before making assumptions for which you are not qualified to make.”

  Tidus strode off, dismissing the two guards with a wave of his hand. Adam rushed after him.

  Monty and Summer were already outside the building. The front door was solid, so Adam had no idea whether the hovercopter was still there until he stepped outside. He grimaced, wishing he could have called after father and daughter to tell them to slow down. They were fast-walking in a beeline toward the aircraft. Nah, that’s not obvious at all, Adam thought. But then Tidus joined them. At this point, they were almost running.

  Adam glanced behind him, not surprised to see some of the Cartel people take notice. Summer and Monty reached the copter and climbed in, crowding into the back, neither one volunteering to take the pilot seat. Not even Tidus when he joined them.

  Adam was at a full sprint now, which, with his enhanced Human strength was definitely out of the ordinary. Now everyone noticed.

  He stopped at the open door, gawking at the sight inside. The craft was designed for three people; a pilot in the front and two in the back. Summer and Monty were scrunched down in their seats, with Tidus struggling to force himself between them. It wasn’t working. He half stood, leaning forward over the back of the pilot’s station, while his ass was shoved in the faces of the two Humans.

  Adam crowded in, forced to sit with his face pressed against the windshield by Tidus’s upper torso. If that wasn’t bad enough, Adam only had fifteen minutes of watching Aligart pilot the craft. He’d never actually handled the controls to know how they felt. And now he would have to use his right hand to grip the steering controls without being able to see the stick.

  With his left hand, he pressed a button he knew would turn on the propellers. Another small joystick on the front dashboard controlled the speed of the rotors. He cranked the level to full, hearing the blades whine as they cut into the wind. He held the control stick in a neutral position, which would hopefully allow the craft to rise straight up off the ground. It worked, but a lot slower than Adam was expecting.

  “We’re too heavy!” he heard Summer yell.

  “Well, shit. What do you want me to do?”

  “Give it more power!”

  Adam twisted his head as best he could to look at the throttle joystick. That’s when he noticed a secondary lever he hadn’t seen before. It was a kind of gear shift. He worked it and heard the whine of the props quiet down. Then he pressed the stick again.

  This time the craft gained altitude faster, clearing the level of the detention
building.

  “Stay low,” Monty yelled. “Otherwise, it will be easy to target us.”

  “Make up your damn minds!”

  He pulled the directional control in his right hand to the left and slightly forward. The hovercopter banked left and sped off toward the boundary of the Cartel Sector. He had to pull back a moment later as the craft came precariously close to the ground. Fortunately, this was the buffer zone between the buildings and the boundary, so there was nothing to hit…except the ground. Once they made it to the city, that would be another issue.

  They gained a little altitude and more speed. Only Tidus was able to move his head to look behind them for any pursuit. There didn’t seem to be any… not at the moment anyway.

  TeraDon was used to the appearance of Te’moc by now, having spent a standard year with multiple contacts. So was his assistant Calan. But for the other Cartel members who made up the entourage, he took a little getting used to.

  He was of standard Prime height and build, yet what set him apart was the series of mechanical attachments to his body, running from his feet to his head. Exo-skeletons were common throughout the galaxy, as species fought against oppressive gravity on hundreds of worlds. But this was different. The prosthetics were surgically attached to his body, even filling gaps between limbs in several places. It was as if he had been sliced into pieces at one time and then reassembled, without all the original parts. However, the level of technology for the skeleton was exceptional, allowing him to move with fluidity and confidence which spoke of a lifetime of practice using the attachments.

  TeraDon had often wondered how much of Te’moc was flesh and blood and how much was machine? He couldn’t tell how far the metal extended into his body. Perhaps his skin was just for show, and that underneath he was all machine.

  TeraDon never pushed the issue. In fact, he had never had a personal conversation with Te’moc. Everything was business. He knew who he worked for and where he came from, but beyond that, the representative was a mystery.