“Hard and fast it is…”
The bounty hunter returned to the Hog and dropped the goggles over his eyes. He set a timer on the tracking spheres, commanding them to ‘search and destroy’ in twenty seconds.
“Let’s skip to the good bit, boys.” The Hog exploded into flight, launching Roland into the open desert between the stalagmites and the shack.
The Hog was too loud not to be heard. The gunfire would begin in moments, starting with the sniper no doubt. The flexi-screen showed the trackers redeploying around the building, seeking out the four beings inside and sticking to them.
A round of intrinium careened off the Hog’s engine, creating sparks that flew into Roland’s face. The sniper was good to have even hit the bike at these speeds.
That same sniper was blown out of the top window a second later. As Roland drew closer, he could see the robotic leg and an organic arm tear from the Shay’s body, before every part of it hit the desert floor. A series of small explosions erupted downstairs, shredding doors and shattering windows. Smoke drifted out from every crack in the old shack, when Roland came to a skidding stop that forced a wave of sand into the air.
The bounty hunter was off the bike and striding through the door before the Hog’s engine fully cut out. A swift kick took the door off its hinges and snapped the framework. The moaning to his right caught his attention and he didn’t hesitate to step into the next room. All three of the Shay were prone on the floor, all in different states of dismemberment. One of them was dead for sure, with his head hanging onto his body by a few strands of tissue. The other two had fared better, if missing limbs counted as better.
Roland crouched down, blocking the only one, with both of his arms remaining, from crawling away. “How do I get downstairs?”
The Shay were dazed and could only look at the bounty hunter in confusion. They needed a little wake-up call, or at least one of them did. Roland pulled one of his Tri-rollers from its holster and shot the Shay that had lost an arm and a leg. The alien blood splattered across the other Shay’s face, startling him.
“How do I get downstairs?” Roland repeated.
The alien mercenary blinked several times before answering, “The room… in the back. Translift…”
Roland looked over his shoulder at the adjoining room. “Thanks.” An intrinium round put the Shay out of his misery.
The Translift was clearly the most sophisticated piece of technology in the whole shack. The square floor panel and matching controls on the wall stood out in the room like a sore thumb. Within seconds, Roland was below ground and inside the real safe house. The corridors were sleek and befitting of Conclave architecture. There was even a good chance that his antics upstairs had gone unnoticed, due to the bunker-style walls and ceiling.
There was only one corridor with several doors leading off of it, all closed. It was easy to guess what was going on behind the furthest door on the right. Gor-van was entertaining at least two women, courtesy of Hon Valorga.
It was tempting to just burst in, dismiss the prostitutes and drag Gor-van out by the scruff of his neck. Thankfully, he hadn’t had nearly enough to drink to see that plan through. Instead, Roland checked out the other rooms, stopping to listen with his ear to the door. Nothing. After a quick peek inside the rooms, it became clear that the remaining mercenaries were all together at the far end of the corridor. Luckily, this door had a small window at eye-level. There was six other Shay inside, along with a ship. The hangar must have been directly in front of the shack, though Roland had never seen any evidence above ground to support this. He had been too quick to get off the Hog and breach the building.
With the mercenaries overseeing repairs and maintenance of the ship, Roland returned to Gor-van’s room. The door slid apart in the blink of an eye, revealing two naked Laronians and a third person, who Roland couldn’t identify through their entangled limbs.
The bounty hunter levelled both of his Tri-rollers and spoke quietly. “You two out, now.” The Laronians whimpered and fled without another word, heading straight for the Translift. “Get up you sack a’ shit!” Roland found it hard to identify one Shay from another, but this was definitely Gor-van Tanar.
The Shay laughed to himself. “Very good Mr. North. Very good…”
“Get up.” Roland flicked his gun to direct him out of the bed.
“And why would I do that?” Gor-van relaxed back, exposing his pale white chest and dark veins.
Before Roland could answer, two guns were levelled at his head from either side. The naked Laronians had returned, quiet on their bare feet.
“Perhaps in your line of work as a bounty hunter, you may have heard of the Bolo Twins…” Gor-van held his hands out, as if displaying the smug Laronians.
“Where were you hiding those, ladies?” Roland eyed their hand-cannons.
Their slender, blue arms rose to meet his and relieved him of both Tri-rollers. It was incredibly frustrating to be annoyed and aroused at the same time. He had indeed heard of the Bolo Twins during his short time as a bounty hunter. They were notorious for only taking bounties that were wanted dead, so they could ‘play’ with their catch. Roland looked them up and down and wouldn’t mind ‘playing’ with them for a while - at least he would die with a smile on his face.
Gor-van slowly stepped out of the bed and placed a large red cloak over his body. “I have seen the things you have done to get this far. The blood. The pain. The brutality. Had you worked for me we could have accomplished a great deal.”
“You’re not the one I want.” Roland felt one of the cool barrels press into his temple. “Give me Kel-var and you won’t have to see my brutality up close.”
“Kel-var and I serve a higher purpose. Something your primitive mind cannot comprehend. It’s a shame you won’t get to see the fruits of our labour, human. Our transcendence is going to be quite glorious.”
“Can we play with him now?” the Laronian to his right asked, pleadingly.
“Why not? Just don’t play with him for too long. I want him dead by nightfall.” Gor-van flashed a wicked smile at the bounty hunter and left the room, heading for the hangar.
The twins pushed Roland into the next room, not bothering to put any clothes on. They were gorgeous, murderous and identical - any other day and they would have been his idea of a perfect night or day, or anytime really. It didn’t help that they were naked.
“Now girls,” Roland said with all the charm he could muster, “there’s enough of me to go around…”
“When we’re finished, there’s going to be enough of you to go everywhere.”
As it turned out, there really was enough of Roland to go around. After stripping him down to his underwear and chaining his wrists to the ceiling - why this room even existed he had no idea, but there were probably a few unlucky prostitutes who did - the Bolo Twins went to work on him. As he so often did, the agent turned bounty hunter fell back on his training, or at least he tried to. Roland had been trained to keep any and all secrets in his head, and right now the Bolo Twins had no intention of asking Roland anything. There was just pain, which was a very hard thing to build any kind of resistance to.
At least they remained naked, though Roland’s vision was beginning to blur somewhat. A particularly nasty cut in his left eyebrow was dripping blood onto his eyelashes and the right eye was completely closed off from the swelling. Some kind of vicious, alien eel had been wrapped around his left thigh, where it proceeded to cling to his skin with hundreds of spikes. The blood dripped down his leg and formed a small pool around his foot.
At some point, they had bothered to introduce themselves, but their names escaped him now. He only knew that one of them preferred to use her bare fists, while the other loved to use implements. Between them, they had turned his body into a canvas of blacks and purples with streaks of red throughout. Roland lost all sense of time, unaware of whether he had been in this room all day or for just a few hours.
“I wonder how long humans can h
old their breath for…” the implements twin pondered out loud.
Had Roland been able to muster any saliva, he would have spat on her. As it was, he could only hang there, wondering if he had the strength to lift his feet and break one of their necks.
“Let’s find out,” the other twin replied happily.
The Laronian gripped Roland’s throat and squeezed as hard as she could. The bounty hunter struggled and tried to escape her grip, but he had nowhere to go and the more he moved the tighter the eel constricted around his leg. He could feel his face fill with blood at the same moment his vision got even worse.
The entire underground installation shook when a loud boom resounded from somewhere above them. The lights flickered as more shockwaves ran through the safe house. By now the Laronian had released Roland and turned back to her sister in alarm. The bounty hunter gasped for air, with just enough of his mind to wonder if Ch’len was attacking them. The Rackham certainly had the firepower to bring the whole place down. Of course, Ch’len had no way to power the ship without Roland, and he couldn’t connect to the ship in his current, fuzzy state.
The sound of metal twisting and girders snapping echoed throughout the installation. Gunfire erupted outside the door. It sounded like chaos to Roland, with intrinium rounds striking every surface, as if the shooters couldn’t find their target in a narrow corridor. Roland laughed to himself, somewhat hysterically, at the thought of how universally shit mercenaries were.
The gunfire was quickly followed by screams of agony, not terror. The walls shook at the same moment they all heard a Shay body slam into the reinforced panel.
Are they fighting a gorilla?
After a few more screams and the familiar sound of blood splattering against the walls, the corridor fell silent. The Bolo Twins had each picked up a curved blade and stood in front of the door in fighting stances. They really were as insane as everyone says they are. Roland tried to blink the blood out of his only good eye, intent on seeing the twins die. What happened next was almost too quick for the bounty hunter to register, however, or at least that’s how it felt to his battered head.
The doors were ripped open, as if they were no stronger than tissue paper, folding into the room and cracking the walls. Everything was blurry to Roland, but he could make out the figure in the doorway, clad in black, their frame almost filling the gap. The Bolo Twins lunged forward with the blades held high, but they froze mid-step, before suddenly being cast aside, into the reinforced walls like ragdolls. Their screams were silenced immediately, when they were flung up into the air with enough force to break their necks upon slamming into the ceiling. Their limp forms dropped back to the floor in a heap, lifeless.
“Kalian..?” Roland managed. The twins had been dispatched without the mysterious figure ever moving, and there was only one person who could do that.
The blurry figure in black stood aside, giving way to an angel with red hair. Roland’s vision narrowed as the woman approached, until finally, she was standing right in front of him. The words escaped him, as doubt crept into Roland’s mind about the apparition standing before him.
“You look like hell,” the angel said.
Her breath on his skin was undeniable; the person standing in front of him was real. All the head injuries in the world couldn’t produce a hallucination as real as this one. A small tear broke free of Roland's bloody eye and streaked a clean line down his face.
“Li’ara…”
Li’ara Ducarté smiled, a sight he would deny he missed and turned back to the mystery figure. Roland tried to better his vision and make out Kalian’s face in the doorway.
Li’ara’s features became serious again. “The Shay is escaping. Len, can you track Gor-van’s ship?”
Roland couldn’t keep the expression of surprise off his face. Even through the pain, and the eel was excruciating, he still had a thousand questions he needed answering. The bounty hunter didn’t hear his partner’s response, but apparently, Li’ara could hear the little Ch’kara in her ear.
“We need to go.” Li’ara faced Roland again. “Are you going to be okay?”
Roland fought through the pain to find the wittiest answer he could. “Well, I’m a little tied up right now, so…”
Li’ara looked back at the dark figure, just too far out of Roland’s sight. With a wave of his hand, the shackles around his wrist snapped open and the eel was peeled off and thrown aside with a squeal. Roland groaned in pain and fell to the floor, landing in a pool of his own blood and sweat.
Roland looked up at Li’ara’s beautiful face, her red ringlets cascading over her shoulders. “How are you..?”
The world was becoming smaller and darker by the second, until Li’ara crouched over him, filling his entire vision. Then she was gone, leaving Roland in the dark.
12
Jedediah Holt perched on the end of the desk in his office, just off from the Paladin’s bridge. He looked out of his window and gazed upon the Nautallon, off the ship’s starboard bow. Marvelling at the alien ship was easier than dwelling on the speech he had just given to the thousands of people in the vessel’s hold. Notifying them of the incredible time difference and the developments on Earth and Century had been met with mixed reactions.
There were many who had burst into tears, seeking comfort from their loved ones or simply crumbling to the floor. Though many had boarded the ship with their families, hoping to make a fresh start on Century, there were still thousands who had come alone, or with friends, or were simply working. In one speech they had discovered that everyone they ever knew, loved or cared about was dead and that any descendants they might have had were killed in the Gomar attack.
The captain’s heart broke for them all, especially his crew. Sam had lost her parents, Maloy his wife, Markovich his brother. The list went on. None of them had time to mourn, however, as Captain Fey had advised everyone be put on suicide watch since her people had lost many to this. His crew had been called upon to provide a sense of strength and unity for the civilians to rely upon.
All Jed wanted to do was be alone and weep for his lost family.
His sister Christine and her two daughters, Louise and Elizabeth, were gone, whether they lived a long and happy life or not, they were simply gone. He would never see them again. Christine had lost her husband when the girls were young, leading to Jed having a more active role in their life. He had loved those girls as if they were his own. The three of them must have gone on believing he was dead. It was a despairing irony that everyone on Earth and Century was gone, but those aboard the Paladin were now the ghosts.
He needed time to think over everything and come to terms with life’s drastic change in direction, but Jed could feel Captain Fey’s eyes boring holes in the side of his head. The older captain was sitting on the small couch with her legs crossed; her body posture told of how relaxed she was, as well as superior. Her level of calm was a testament to the kind of life Fey and her people had been living for the last year - and Jed was still trying to wrap his head around everything they had gone through. To Captain Fey, this was apparently just another day.
“It’s not going to sink in overnight,” Fey commented, with the faintest hint of a sad smile. “In fact, it might never sit right with you. This isn’t just a new world I’m asking you to accept, it’s a whole galaxy.”
“A world would make it a little easier…” Jed pinched his eyes, the weight of all the people onboard slowly setting in.
Captain Fey frowned. “We’re working on it.”
Jed’s hand moved across his neck and found the metallic dot behind his ear. He fought the urge to dig his finger in and rip it free of his skin.
“These people, they aren’t like your people. They aren’t scientists or engineers. They aren’t accustomed to living in artificial habitats or looking at the unknown with wonder. They’re farmers, artists, accountants, doctors and most are families. There are at least a thousand children on this ship. Not only do these people have no home
anymore, but they don’t even have a world, a civilisation, history...” Jed could feel his frustration and grief rise to the surface in the form of anger. “The Conclave is beyond massive by your own words! How do they not have space on any world or even a world going spare?”
Fey leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. Jed felt guilty for his outburst; it was clear to see that this particular problem had haunted the captain since their violent entry into the Conclave.
“They fear us, putting it simply. The things the Terran can do, the things Kalian can do. When the Gomar arrived they wrought more destruction in the Conclave than they’d seen for thousands of years. The death toll wasn’t anything like what they did to us, but it was high.”
Jed shook his head in an attempt to get his head around it all. “The Gomar? They’re also the Terran, right?”
“A portion of their society who couldn’t control their abilities. ALF fitted them with Harnesses to keep everyone safe, but all it did was cause a rift that ultimately led to civil war.” Fey’s expression told of how ridiculous it all sounded.
“I’m going to need this explaining at least a hundred more times. It’s hard enough getting my head around the fact that Earth isn’t where it all started, let alone trying to understand some civil war between an ancient race of… superhumans with abilities.”
Commander Vale’s voice came over the comm speakers. “Commander Vale to Captain Holt.”
“Go ahead, Sam.” Jed was happy for the interruption. He could feel a migraine coming on.
“The… engineers have finished and another alien has come aboard. A smaller one. They want to explain what happened to the Paladin.”
“They already know what went wrong?” Jed found it hard to believe that the four aliens had not only fixed the drive but also discovered what caused the massive error.
“Apparently it’s obvious…” Sam replied sarcastically. “They’ve set up some kind of display in the ready room.”
The Terran Cycle Boxset Page 108
