by Trevor Gregg
Hours later, they began to see a faint glow coming down through the shaft above. Soon after they began to hear a faint murmur of voices.
“We should get in position now, Benjam,” he recommended. His breathing quickened and anticipation burned in his stomach.
Benjam scaled the ladder until he was just below the grate, Kyren waited below him. Soon the murmur of the amassing crowd began to filter down to them. Benjam fidgeted nervously.
“Patience Benjam. Be ready for the distraction. When they arrive, that’s when we move. No sooner, no later. Got it?”
Benjam gulped, “yes.”
Kyren put his hand on one of Benjam’s tentacles. “You can do this, be brave for Elarra, my friend.”
Benjam let out tiny squeak, whether in affirmation or just from fear, he couldn’t tell. Suddenly, a cacophony of cheers, jeers, and heckles rang out from above, but Kyren was unable to make out any individual voices.
“Wait for it…” Kyren urged an agitated Benjam.
All went quiet above, and Kyren began to fear the worst. What if Geri and Alis couldn’t get back in time? Should he and Benjam make their move now? Should they do what they could now, rather than sit back and wait for Elarra to die?
No. They had to stick to the plan, it was their only chance to escape with her. Even if they snatched Elarra from her doom, they still had to escape the planet. Their plan was the only way. So he took a deep breath, and waited.
He strained to hear a single voice speaking above, catching only every few words, unable to discern the meaning. And then heard it, the distant rumble of an aircraft flying low, thrusters purring. Geri and Alis had made it. Almost time! The sound grew louder and louder, yet still he waited, holding fast to Benjam’s tentacle.
The thrusters’ roar had built to a crescendo and Kyren determined the shuttle should be nearly overhead. “Now!” he screamed, releasing his grasp on Benjam’s tentacle. The brontian exploded upward, surging into the metal grate covering the drainage shaft, but it refused to budge. Benjam strained and groaned, and still it refused to budge. He gave one final heave and it broke free with a “pang!” Benjam surged up and out of the shaft with a mighty “Raaawwwrrrr!”
Kyren scrambled out behind him and tried to take in the situation as quickly as possible. He knew he would only have moments to act, so he swung his head around. Tharox’s shuttle was buzzing the amphitheater, causing the liadi in the stands to scatter. As he whirled he spotted Elarra up on the stage. Several guards surrounded her, and she struggled with another liadi, a boy with a sandy brown bob.
They whirled and danced, Kyren spotted a chrome syringe in his hand. Elarra had his wrist and she was driving it toward the boy’s face. Seeming to get past their hesitation, several of the guards attempted to get ahold of Elarra. She spun and forced the boy’s hands over, planting the needle deep into the thigh of the first to approach. The alien being went rigid and fell to the ground, twitching and frothing at the mouth. The others were about to grab hold of Elarra when Benjam wound up, drawing back the heavy metal grate, and hurled it toward the stage.
The heavy cover took out two of the guards, granting Elarra an escape. She spotted Kyren and they locked eyes for a second. Then she leapt off the stage right at him. He caught her and bolted for the stadium’s exit, Benjam squiggling hot on his heels.
They sprinted out through the arched entryway into the street beyond, only to be greeted by a line of guards, weapons raised. A speeding vehicle screeched around the corner, tracks grating across the pavement. It righted it’s course and barreled straight into the crowd of guards.
Bodies went flying as the vehicle Saeli had transported them in earlier mowed down the Council’s guardsmen. It screeched to a halt and the gull-wing door flew upward. Tharox leaned out and offered his hand. Kyren pushed Elarra forward and Tharox helped her scramble aboard.
Then he and Benjam crammed in next and the door closed abruptly, as more guardsman flooded from the stadium. Small arms fire ricocheted off the vehicle as it sped away.
15
Double Vision
The vehicle’s engine roared and Elarra scrambled into her seat, just as the vision hit. Her world faded away as the alternate reality came into view.
Elarra was in what must be a spacecraft of some form. Alarms blared and bathed the deep blue metal walls with alternating red and orange light. The inlaid golden circuitry glittered when the lights flashed off.
She watched as several Crevak pirates led Tharox, wrists cuffed by digital binding straps, down the corridor. There was an urnak who appeared to be leading the way, followed by a lizard faced thevar, a demonic looking dimak, and a squat, ugly creature she suspected was a praxon dwarf.
Each Crevak peeled off, until Tharox was alone with only the urnak. They led him into an auxiliary room, where a hideous ushok waited. The door closed behind the exiting urnak, and Tharox was alone with the ushok.
The ushok selected what appeared to be some sort of torture device and approached Tharox. They began to struggle, but it seemed the ushok was overpowering Tharox. Suddenly, Tharox said something and the binding straps disengaged. Then the ushok died as Tharox broke its neck, its one pupil within the great eye dome atop its head flaring in surprise.
The vision ended, but instead of returning to herself again, another one began.
She saw herself, creeping down the blue metal corridors. Crevak pirates approached, a motley crew of hideous aliens, with vicious looks on their faces. Somehow, they didn’t see her, though, as she flattened herself against the wall.
Some sort of invisibility, perhaps? Although she wondered how such a thing would be possible. Continuing on, she encountered a crowd of raxi guarding a door at the end of a corridor.
She watched as vision Elarra threaded her way through the raxi. Approaching the door, she watched herself pause momentarily, then key the switch to open it.
The vision ended before Elarra could see what was beyond the door. She looked out the window as their vehicle sped on. Saeli stood on the sidewalk and waved as they passed, smiling a gentle smile.
16
Destruction Derby
Benjam was overjoyed. They had saved Elarra, and he didn’t even get shot in the process. They weren’t safe yet, he knew. But for the moment, they had a reprieve while speeding down the nearly empty city street.
“How are we doing, DS-eight? Have you picked up their communications?” Kyren asked the bot.
“Affirmative, I am monitoring their frequencies. It appears they are mobilizing the entire Liadi Guard to intercept us. My telemetry indicates we will be intercepted before reaching the city’s edge.”
“Aaaah!” Benjam wailed. “What are we to do?”
“Keep going, don’t stop for anything,” Kyren ordered the bot. “They’ll kill us on sight, it’s the only move they have left.”
“Please buckle in, the ride may become violent,” DS-eight instructed.
Benjam struggled with the restraints. It was obvious that they weren’t meant for a creature of his physiology. So he abandoned the fruitless quest and looped his tentacles around the seat and through the belts. He realized Tharox was watching him, a slight wry smile on his lips.
Shivering, he recalled his previous encounters with Tharox. It felt as if it were an entirely different life. He had died after all, hadn’t he though? It had sure seemed like it, Kyren had told him what he saw. Yet here he was. And Elarra too. And Tharox, too.
So what did it mean? This Tharox had helped them. No, that wasn’t entirely descriptive. He had saved them. Then he flew them across the galaxy, and didn’t seem to want anything in return. But the Consortium, he still seemed to hate them for some reason. He looked up just in time to see another vehicle, this one with huge tires, careening toward them.
“Collision in three… two… one…” DS-eight counted down.
The vehicles swerved at the last second, sideswiping each other, metal scraping on metal. Their transport shook and shuddered as they pass
ed. Benjam looked out the rear window to see the large truck turning around to come after them.
“Oh dear, they’re coming back,” he said as he watched them gaining.
“We cannot outrun their vehicle, it has superior speed,” DS-eight said in response.
“Then don’t,” Tharox said, pounding one metallic fist into another. “You got that gun ready, kid?”
Kyren pulled out the pistol and checked the chamber. “Yeah, good to go,” he said, but Benjam heard the uncertainty in his voice.
“I’ll hold on to you while you try to shoot out their tires. Okay?” Tharox instructed.
Benjam quailed as Kyren leaned out the door just after it flew open. Tharox held him around the waist, allowing him to use both hands to aim. Kyren began firing, but to Benjam’s dismay, the vehicle began swerving. No bullet found its mark.
“Shit!” Kyren cursed, leaning back in.
“DS-eight, call the shuttle and let them know we aren’t gonna make it. They should make for the ship and get away while they can,” Tharox said to the bot.
The bot paused for a moment, then replied, “negative, they have refused to evacuate.”
“They will not leave us, any more than we would leave them,” Elarra said.
Benjam was surprised, she had been so quiet since they had saved her.
“So what do we do? They’re gonna get us!” Benjam wailed, pointing at the approaching truck.
A guardsman was leaning out the window aiming a rifle. Shots rang out as windows shattered. They all crouched low as bullets streamed around and ricocheted off DS-eight’s back.
“Prepare for impact,” the bot warned, as everyone attempted to grab on to something while still staying low.
Their vehicle hit the barrier ringing the edge of the city with a thunderous impact. Somehow, it managed to smash through the barrier without killing them all. With dismay, Benjam saw the truck emerging from the cloud of dust behind them. They began to track over uneven ground, the ride growing incredibly bumpy.
“Prepare for rendezvous, dead ahead,” the bot said while pointing to a large field on the edge of a forest.
Benjam flinched as a shadow passed overhead, then the shuttle came into view. It yawed and banked, touching down in a tight spiral, barely bouncing. The door flew open and Geri leapt out, Tharox’s huge plasma rifle cradled in her arms.
“Woohoo!” Benjam cheered.
The tracks ground to a halt and the doors flew open. Benjam scrambled out the door after the others. Shots began to ping off the fuselage next to him, so he picked up his pace, slithering at top speed toward the shuttle.
The guardsmen’s truck came into view and Geri began firing. The gun was too large for her to lift to her shoulder, so she fired from the hip. Orange-hot bolts of destruction streaked into the truck. The engine blew and one wheel separated from the vehicle, continuing onward, rolling past the shuttle. The guardsman in the window was thrown from the vehicle, landing with a crunch and not rising.
Benjam was the first to board and gave Alis a wicked grin, “Fancy flying, that was! And in the knick of time, even!”
Alis returned his grin and turned back to the controls, ready to launch them back into the sky. More shots ricocheted off the fuselage as the remaining raxi had extricated himself from the truck and began to fire. Geri popped off several quick shots from the plasma rifle, then ducked back inside the shuttle. Dropping the rifle, she locked the door as everyone jumped into their seats.
17
Burnout
Kyren leapt into the seat and fastened the flight harness, glancing back to make sure the others were following suit. He knew it was a matter of moments before Alis would have them rocketing skyward. The others had just barely buckled in when she hit the thrusters and they shot into the sky.
They began to rise rapidly, Alis keeping the thrust at max. Suddenly an alarm began to flash and chirp from the control panel.
“Shit! Tharox, that’s the weapons lock alert, right?” Alis called out.
“Yes, it is. We don’t have any countermeasures though,” he replied grimly.
“Mom, any ideas?” she pleaded.
“Hold on,” Geri unbuckled and scrambled forward. She leaned over Alis shoulders and fiddled with the controls. “Inbound missiles, I read two. They seem to be primitive heat-seeking models, I detect no active targeting.”
“Good, get buckled back in, mom.”
“I hope you’ve got a good idea Alis,”
“Everyone hang on, this is gonna get rough,” Alis cried out.
Then Kyren’s stomach lurched as the shuttle’s thrusters were abruptly cut off. They began falling, Kyren grateful for the harness preventing him from flying into the roof of the shuttle. He watched out the main window as two missiles, streaming contrails of white, shot past.
They fell for what felt like an eternity before Alis kicked the thrusters back on, slamming Kyren down into his seat, the g-forces causing him to nearly black out. He thought they were safe, but moments later heard the warning alarm again.
“Damn, one is still locked on,” Alis stated coolly. She dumped more energy into the thrusters, pushing Kyren down, his vision shrinking to a darkened tunnel.
“Just… a… little… more…” he heard Alis grunting out.
He managed a glance to the side and saw both Elarra and Geri blacked out, heads lolling, just before he lost consciousness from the g’s himself.
Kyren came to, and realized immediately that he was weightless. Quickly taking a inventory, he noted that he was intact. Glancing around showed him his companions had all survived, each in a similar state of grogginess.
“Alis, are you okay?” Kyren called out, releasing his harness buckles and pushing forward.
She turned and smiled, then grimaced. “That was unpleasant.”
“How did you manage to evade that second missile?” Tharox rumbled.
“I didn’t know that I could. But your shuttle was capable of more thrust than I thought. We had just enough time to reach high enough orbit that the primitive missile’s scramjet engine failed.”
“Masterful, how did you calculate the thrust vector so fast?” Benjam chimed in.
“I didn’t calculate anything, I just hit the throttle as hard as I could. Dumped all the exhaust vectors back into the main thrust. Then I recycled the hadron collider’s output and fed that back in too. By the way, we have another problem.”
“Oh dear, what now?” Benjam said with exasperation.
“Well, with all of that, I kind of burned out the shuttle’s engines,” Alis said sheepishly.
“So now we’re stranded in orbit, eh? With limited life support and no way of reaching the ship?” Geri asked despondently.
“Not necessarily. If the comms are still working,” he looked to Alis questioningly, “then I can radio Isa, she will come to us.”
“Hey, I didn’t touch the comms!” Alis retorted.
Tharox communicated with Isa and minutes later the Radiant Star came to them, settling over the shuttle and sealing onto the docking hatch. Tharox climbed the ladder and entered the ship, Kyren followed.
“We need to get away from here. I don’t know what they have in the way of warships these days, but if we linger we may encounter more trouble,” Elarra said as she climbed aboard, taking Kyren’s outstretched hand.
“Isa, please jump us to the nearest star without a gate system,” Tharox commanded.
“Jump in five…” and Isa began counting backward.
Kyren grabbed ahold of the nearest console and braced himself for the impending jump sickness. Isa’s counting hit one and Kyren lost himself, unable to make sense of his surroundings for moments.
“Okay, what now?” Tharox questioned, after they had all recovered. “I’m probably a fugitive from the liadi now, as well as the Consortium. I’d be best suited to get rid of you folks at the next stop.”
Kyren saw Alis’ ears fall in disappointment.
“But I’m not going to do tha
t. I’m willing to take you to wherever you need to go.”
“Which raises a question. Where do we go?” Kyren asked bluntly.
“Benjam, would you be able to better understand the effects of your time bomb with more research?” Elarra questioned.
“Yes, I believe so. There are experiments that I could run that could help me to understand the effects of timeline interference better. If I had access to my design matrix I would have the requisite computing power necessary for such simulations.”
“Then we need to return to Regalis, to your lab Benjam,” she replied decisively.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, time bombs and all. But if you need to get to Regalis, I suppose I could take you,” Tharox rumbled back. “Isa, plot a course for Regalis. Avoid warp gates and inhabited systems, of course.”
“Course plotted, ETA seventeen hours, twenty-three warp jumps,” Isa responded.
“That’s going to be awhile. Let me show you to the bunks. There’s only three so you’ll have to take shifts,” Tharox said while leading them aft.
Kyren noted the peeling paint and dead overhead lighting. The ship was clean but definitely had not had much maintenance. The hallways were cramped, the sleeping quarters equally so. Three bunks lined the wall of the hallway-sized room. They were full of parts and gadgets.
“Sorry, let me move those,” Tharox said embarrassedly, moving to scoop up the various pieces of gear and relocate them to the floor.
“Isa will handle the piloting and navigation,” he said, but was interrupted by her.
“And of course if you need anything, or just want to talk,” Isa began.
“Enough Isa, give my guests some space,”
“Sure, but you know, we’ve never had guests. Not since…”
“Enough!” he barked angrily.
“Sooorry.”
“She’s not sorry,” Tharox said quietly to them.
