by S. H. Jucha
“After we get the answers to your questions, Advisor, do we go forward or back?” Mangoth asked again.
“Depends on the answer to the questions,” Jessie retorted.
“Then let us get you answers,” Mangoth replied. He set Kractik down. “Stay with the envoy,” he admonished her. Then he plucked Jaktook out of Jessie’s hands and set the Jatouche on his shoulders. “Spray away,” he commanded Jaktook.
Mangoth stepped down from the platform and headed for the ramp. He hoped to find unpacked crates on the second level that might speak to what was being transported.
Jessie kept pace with Mangoth. Kractik was sandwiched between Harbour and Aurelia, who followed close behind Jessie. Devon walked nearly backward, keeping an eye on their rear. He was happy to see that the grays didn’t instantly recover. They remained curled up in tight balls.
On the ramp, the team ran into more grays, but Jaktook’s generator quickly vanquished them. What surprised the team was that no crates were found on the lower deck.
“Could they have taken them below?” Aurelia asked.
“Unlikely,” Jessie remarked, and he nodded his head toward the dome’s exit.
“Agreed,” Mangoth said, having caught Jessie’s idea.
“Are these suits prepared for vacuum?” Harbour asked, eyeing the exit door. She’d no sooner finished speaking than the interior airlock door opened. Three grays entered the corridor without protection. “It doesn’t matter,” Harbour remarked, as Jaktook directed his audio signal at the grays.
“Should one or more of us guard this door?” Devon asked, as Jessie and he grabbed the legs of the fallen grays and hauled them clear of the interior doorway.
“Negative,” Jessie replied. “We stick together.”
The team made their way through the airlock and entered a dimly lit tunnel. It was crudely fashioned of curved metal plating and had a flat deck, which gave it the appearance of a temporary structure. Traversing its length required Jaktook to clear the way of more grays.
“I’d love to know how long the effect of your generator will last,” Devon commented to Jaktook, as the security officer stepped over the curled bodies of two more grays.
“That’s my concern too, Devon,” the Jatouche answered from his perch on Mangoth.
At the end of the hundreds-meter-long tunnel, the team ran into a formidable hatch. It was entirely unlike the tunnel.
Jessie noticed it was seamed together from many pieces, which explained how it had been transported through the gate. He’d expected an activation plate beside the hatch, but there was none visible.
“Down here,” Kractik said, pointing to an indented plate set to the left of the hatch. “Different species,” she quipped, flashing her teeth.
“Ready?” Jessie asked.
The explorers took up positions, and Jessie kicked the indent with his foot. The hatch slid upward, and the team walked carefully into a giant gallery. A dome stretched high overhead and was a hundred meters across. A deep cavity had been drilled in the middle of it, and manufacturing equipment ringed the dome’s periphery.
The din of noise kept any of the Colony species from noticing the team until several grays turned their way to exit the dome. Before Jaktook could stun them, they let out defiant screeches. Then a multitude of grays and tens of red-blacks turned their way.
“Kractik, data record,” Jaktook ordered.
The console operator hurriedly dug out her portable recorder. Jessie turned around and snatched Kractik up to place her on his shoulders, where she had a clear view of the construction.
“Too many,” Jaktook ground out, as he swung his generator wildly at the onslaught of red-blacks and grays.
“Time to go, Advisor,” Mangoth growled. He didn’t relish being pinned to the deck by the weight of a horde of Colony sentients, while they took their time peeling off his helmet and seeking an opening to inject their venom, possibly through his eye sockets.
“Agreed,” Jessie yelled.
Aurelia whirled around and located the plate for the hatch, which had closed behind them. She kicked it with her foot. Rather than wait for it to fully open, she threw her duffel and equipment load under the rising hatch and rolled under it. That was a mistake. Four grays rose up in front of her, hissing their indignation. Aurelia opened her gates and unleashed the fear that the creatures had generated in her. They halted in mid-sway, rearing back on their long frames.
Harbour’s baggage struck Aurelia in the back of the legs. When she crab-walked under the rising hatch, she joined Aurelia in keeping the grays occupied. Devon quickly followed.
Jessie and Mangoth eyed each other, and Jessie tossed his head toward the hatch. “Backing up,” Jessie warned Kractik. The hatch was two-thirds of the way up, when Jessie slipped Kractik off his shoulders. She scooted under and Jessie followed.
Mangoth set Jaktook down, and gently pushed the Jatouche toward the hatch. Then he bent his head and shoulders to clear the hatch.
Immediately, Devon hit the kick plate, and Jaktook kept the Colony sentients at bay, while the hatch closed. The team could hear the angry hisses of the red-blacks and grays on the other side.
Mangoth hoisted Jaktook into position and tapped the empaths on their shoulders. Harbour and Aurelia ceased their sending, and Mangoth strode forward. Jaktook was bringing his generator to bear, when Mangoth smacked the four hissing grays aside.
The team retraced their steps. Mangoth waddled quickly down the length of the tunnel, while Jaktook incapacitated their adversaries.
As the team navigated the tunnel, Jessie called out, “We go back.”
“Agreed,” Harbour said. “We must analyze what we’ve found.”
The far end of the tunnel and the dome’s corridor were crowded with grays. The number was so great that the team had difficulty picking their way around and over the spiraled bodies, quivering from the ultrasonic waves of the generator.
Devon carried Kractik on his shoulders. He walked at the group’s rear, and the two of them searched for red-blacks and grays approaching from behind.
At the ramp, the team discovered grays had piled crates in a blockade to prevent them from returning to the platform. Mangoth set Jaktook down and bade the team stand aside. Then he grabbed crate after crate and threw them off the side of the ramp. Several popped open from the impact, and without being told, Devon kneeled so that Kractik could record their contents.
When Mangoth had created an opening in the barrier, he hoisted Jaktook up. The team made their way to the deck to discover the grays had continued to transfer crates and equipment from the Colony’s dome to this one. Every platform was piled with material in such a fashion as to prevent the gates from being activated.
In addition to grays, tens of red-blacks dotted the deck. Pincers click-clacked, opening and closing, sounding the specie’s defiance.
A tableau was created. The Colony entities waited for the team, which stood at the top of the ramp, to make their move. Jaktook had turned off his audio generator’s power source to conserve energy. He eyed the reserve indicator.
“Envoy, Jessie, I’ve less than nine percent of power for my device,” Jaktook announced quietly.
“How long will that last?” Jessie asked.
“Perhaps twelve or thirteen of your units at the rate I’ve been using it,” Jaktook replied.
“Then we better make this quick,” Jessie said. “Give me Jaktook,” he said to Mangoth, who transferred the little Jatouche.
“I will clear platform three,” Mangoth announced firmly.
“Devon, keep Kractik and stay with me,” Jessie ordered. “We’ll take the side of the platform facing the console. Harbour, Aurelia protect the backside of the platform.”
“Kractik, ready a cube,” Jaktook said, as he switched on his audio generator.
“Everybody ready?” Jessie asked. When he received nods all around, including a finger sign from Jaktook in front of his face, which he didn’t recognize, he said quietly, “Now
.”
When the team moved, their adversaries did too. The dome’s deck became a mêlée, as the red-blacks and grays desperately tried to reach the team, who strove to gain platform three.
Harbour and Aurelia ran in advance of Mangoth, freezing many entities in place. Often Mangoth would reach over the top of the empaths and smack the hissing antagonists aside.
Devon used his equipment bag and swung it like a club to keep the attackers at bay, and Jaktook did his best to debilitate the closest foes.
When Mangoth reached the platform, he grabbed the nearest crate and threw it. Jessie watched the heavy item sail over his head and crush two grays. He recalled the remonstrations to take all precautions to prevent injury to the Colony species until he suddenly remembered that they weren’t in the Colony’s dome. The red-blacks and grays were interlopers here just as they were.
The team could hear Mangoth’s grunts as he hoisted crates and equipment off the platform. He wasn’t pitching the material willy-nilly. He was creating a barrage, lifting items overhead, picking targets, and launching his weapons.
“I’m getting low, Jessie,” Jaktook said in warning.
“Mangoth, clear a path to the console,” Jessie yelled.
“I hear you, Advisor,” Mangoth grunted, and the next crate that sailed overhead caught a red-black in the head.
“Your path to the console is clear,” Mangoth roared.
A clear path was an exaggeration. Mangoth did eliminate most of the adversaries between the platform and the console, but now the path was a jumble of broken and unconscious bodies and strewn crates and equipment.
“We’re going,” Devon cried out.
Jessie whirled around to see that the lieutenant and the console operator had divested themselves of their equipment. It lay on the platform. Kractik clung to Devon’s back. Her sharp nails were dug into the mesh armor of his suit.
Devon was running like a madman, straight across the piles of bodies and equipment without regard to what or who he stepped on. Pincers snapped at Devon’s legs as he passed.
The Colony species turned their attention from the platform to prevent the console’s operation.
Reaching the console, Devon planted both hands on the near edge, twisted his body, and kicked his booted feet to the side. He caught a gray in the head, who was defending the console, and knocked that one into a second gray. The maneuver opened up the console. Kractik leapt from Devon’s back and hurriedly set gate three for operation.
“Done,” she announced.
Devon turned his back to Kractik, and she jumped on. He’d picked up a heavy bar of metal that had broken off equipment that Mangoth had tossed, and he swung it viciously. Unlike Jessie, he’d not thought of the fact that the Colony had invaded this dome. Right now, he didn’t care about the restrictions. He wanted to live, and the hissing and clicking enemy wanted him dead.
At one point, a red-black interceded, and Devon barely had time to reverse his swing and connect with the attacker’s head. Despite the terrorizing moment, he wanted to laugh. With each swing and connection of his bar, he heard Kractik spit her defiance. There was nothing the diminutive Jatouche could do to physically combat the Colony species, but she was going to declare with all her strength that she didn’t fear them.
Devon was close to the gate, when Kractik screamed, “Devon, jump for the platform.”
Kractik’s voice was so shrill that Devon obeyed out of desperation. He dropped his tool and dove. Remembering to keep his body within the boundaries of the platform, he landed on his belly, twisted to the side, and curled his legs up. A split second later, the gate activated.
The team’s nerves were on edge. When the blue light faded in the Colony’s dome, they regrouped and stood ready to repel the red-blacks and grays. Instead, the deck was only partially occupied.
“Most of them must be at the other dome,” Aurelia marveled.
“Descend,” Jaktook ordered, and the team hurriedly stepped off the platform. “Mangoth, deploy the net,” he added.
Mangoth pulled the mesh from his pack, activated the net, and tossed it neatly onto the middle of platform one. It bloomed, covering the entire surface and cascading down the sides.
“Good toss,” Jessie admitted.
“Kractik, hand a cube to Devon,” Jaktook ordered. “Jessie, protect Kractik. Devon, place the cube on gate three. Mangoth, carry me to the ramp. Go.”
Mangoth placed Jaktook on his shoulders. He detoured toward the console, swatting the few grays aside to give Jessie and Kractik access to the console. Then he hurried to the head of the ramp. More attackers were clambering up, and Jaktook used the last of his generator’s power to fell them.
“The cube is sent,” Kractik announced.
“Time to go,” Jaktook yelled.
Mangoth didn’t need any other inducement. He turned and lumbered for the third platform. Kractik tapped the activation panel, and she scampered for the platform, leaving Jessie to hurry after her.
“Would they have time to receive your message, Jaktook?” Harbour belatedly asked, just before the gate activated.
-21-
Team’s Return
The Rissness dome soldiers spotted the cube an instant before the automated weaponry vaporized it. An officer called over his comm to deactivate the defensive emplacement, and in the next instant the team appeared.
“Descend,” Jaktook ordered. “Clear the gate area.”
The moment the team slipped between the emplacement walls, the officer reactivated the weaponry.
“I thought we were going to deploy the mesh, Advisor Jaktook,” the officer queried.
“Already used it,” Mangoth said.
The officer regarded Jaktook sitting comfortably atop Mangoth’s shoulders. The odd arrangement caused the dome’s visitors to stop and stare in surprise. It was unthinkable that a Crocian would demean his status by carrying a Jatouche above him. And a Jatouche ordering other races was no less a foreign concept.
The officer and dome visitors took in the explorers’ armored mesh suits, which showed nicks, dents, and tears. Even stranger were the body fluids that marked the suits of many of them. But most arresting were the harrowed faces of the team.
“Where is Her Highness?” Jaktook asked.
“She is with our guests on level three,” the officer replied.
“Take us there,” Jaktook ordered.
Mangoth lifted the Jatouche off his shoulders and set him on the deck, and Jaktook quipped, “And I was just getting used to riding.”
“No, you were enjoying the lofty view that belongs to Crocians,” Mangoth riposted. The deep rumbling that accompanied his retort was a sound that the Pyreans hadn’t heard before, but the gleam in Mangoth’s eyes cued them that it was his manner of laughing.
The team joined the flow of alliance members down the ramp. Their appearance drew stares until they were able to descend to the third level.
The officer tapped a glyph and opened a door. Then he stood aside.
Henry was the first to spot the team, and he remarked, “That was quick. A dead end?” His next words died on his lips, when he took in the expressions on the teams’ faces, and he softly exhaled, “Oh, for the love of Pyre.”
“Your Highness,” Jaktook said, “we’ve encountered unusual circumstances. We’ve collected data, which we need to analyze. Afterwards, we’ll require the advice of your father and his masters.”
“I’ll have the shuttle readied for Na-Tikkook,” Tacticnok announced, but she didn’t move. She was busy taking in the state of the explorers. They had been gone but for a short while, yet they appeared disheveled, fight worn, and, most of all, harried.
“Which is closer, Rissness Station or Na-Tikkook?” Harbour asked.
“By far, Rissness Station,” Jaktook replied.
While Harbour ordered her thoughts, Jessie asked, “Mangoth, will you stay with the team?”
“These events have surpassed my simple reasons for joining the team, Ad
visor. This has become a grave alliance matter,” Mangoth replied. “I will stay.”
“Good,” Jessie replied. “We need you.”
“What, Advisor, no strike on my shoulder in approval?” Mangoth jested.
“I would have, Mangoth, but you’re wearing a bit of Colony sentient there,” Jessie riposted.
Tacticnok, Henry, Dottie, and Idrian watched Mangoth pick off a bit of shell with flesh attached to its underside. The former two individuals blanched. Dottie gagged, covered her mouth, and ran for the facilities, and Idrian turned a shade of green. As Mangoth passed him to deposit the piece of tissue in the recycler, he quipped to Idrian, “A becoming color, Delegate.”
“What’s the status of the Pyreans at Rissness Station?” Harbour asked Tacticnok.
“As of my latest report, which is a few cycles old, all but two of the twenty were repaired,” Tacticnok replied. “I didn’t inquire as to the time frame for those individuals. Should I?”
“Please,” Harbour said.
“I need to clean up,” Devon announced.
“Agreed,” Kractik added. The two of them were covered with body fluids, and the scent was overpowering.
“And I’m starved,” Jessie added, to which Mangoth grunted in affirmation.
“And I’m dizzy,” Aurelia said.
Harbour caught Aurelia’s arm and lowered her to the pallet that Dottie had vacated. “Tacticnok, we need my crate with the ingredients for greens. Aurelia and I are depleted. Everyone needs access to their own facilities. Then we need to eat and talk.”
Harbour’s orders were rapid fire, and they galvanized the royal daughter. She called the officer on duty, relaying the requests. Soldiers led the team members, except for the empaths to other rooms. They stood by to take the suits and equipment for cleaning. Several soldiers recoiled at the mess that coated many items.
Kractik carefully removed her recorder and kept it with her. It was too precious to let it out of her sight.
Soldiers opened and laid out the items Harbour requested to make greens. She hurriedly set up the Jatouche blender with its power source, rapidly added the ingredients, and mixed a large batch. She poured two cups for Aurelia and her. They were small, and Aurelia finished hers before Harbour had taken much more than a mouthful.
