by Jan Domagala
“Excuse me, Artie did I just hear you correctly about our quarters and stuff?” Torres asked.
“You did Lieutenant.”
“Why?” asked Cooper also mortified by the intrusion.
“Isn’t it obvious guys, this isn’t merely our transport, this is more like a base of operations cum temporary home,” Riley said.
“Indeed Captain, you are correct. General Sinclair did envision the Pulsar as your home base away from Earth. I hope you’ll be comfortable here,” Artie said.
Riley looked at the faces of his team and said, “If this is gonna be a problem we can sort it later. Right now we’ve a job to do, so let’s get to it. Convene in the ready room in fifteen minutes.”
21
Jared Saladar was on board his personal battle cruiser, an ex military light battle cruiser he had purchased from an arms dealer over five years ago. Having spent an awful lot on refitting her she had become his base of operations and his home. His years in the military had given him the experience to run his present business, which was to hire himself and his select team of ex professional soldiers, out to governments, corporations or private individuals for missions that were, to say the least, delicate, whereby it gave whomever hired them plausible deniability. In short, they handled jobs no one wanted to soil their hands on. They did it extremely well and charged extortionate fees.
Over the past five years, he and his team had worked for several clients in both the Confederation and his previous employer, the Alliance. For almost five years, he was the leader of an elite team of black ops specialists with the Elysium Alliance Black Knights under direct control of the late General Solon. The methods the late General employed clashed with Saladar’s code of honour which caused friction between the two of them, which finally led to the latter’s expulsion from the Black Knights. Saladar turned the black stain on his career bio into an advantage, setting up his own team and working independently meant he could work for whomever he pleased, picking the jobs he wanted and not doing something that would trouble his conscience just because he was ordered to.
Taking the news of the death of his old boss as a sign of change, he hoped whoever inherited the mantle had a stronger ethical compass.
Saladar was in his comfortable quarters when the familiar tingle alerted him to a call coming in. Routing it through to his holo-vid unit, a face appeared in the centre of his room, floating like some three dimensional apparition. It was the face of Emperor Arat’s aide Leto Valdez. Saladar would not work for anyone who kept their identity from him, thinking that if they kept that a secret from him what other useful data was being kept from him.
“Emperor Arat has instructed me to pay whatever your fee is, to give you all the information we have available and finally to inform you that should you take the commission and fail he would hunt you down and have you killed,” Leto Valdez said.
“You can go ahead with the briefing, Valdez,” Saladar replied, ignoring the warning.
“What about your fee?” Valdez asked.
“We’ll come to that when I know what the mission is. My fee is non-negotiable by the way and paid, half up front and the rest on completion.”
“No doubt you’ve heard of the Tartaran Battlefield.” Valdez said after a pause, he didn’t like the measure of control he was giving up to the mercenary but it was a necessary evil.
“Yes, it’s a Forbidden Zone governed by Interstellar Treaty Laws between the Confederation and Alliance and home to a colony of Outlaws.”
“Prince Aswan chartered the Colonial Queen recently and for reasons unknown to us at this time, she took a detour to the Battlefield. Her last known position was inside the Zone close to the Battlefield and as of fifteen hours ago, we’ve not heard from them. The Emperor cannot send in his Shock Troops for fear of bringing down the wrath of the Confederation and Alliance on to our planet.”
“Whereas we can go in, bring out the Prince and no blame will attach itself to you or the Emperor, is that it?” Saladar interjected.
“You have a grasp.”
“I’ve been doing this for a while now so I should have. We can give you plausible deniability, right?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, here’s the deal. Twenty million, ten up front now, the rest on completion. All the data you have on the charter and I want a complete list of who he took with him.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because for every one of them I locate and bring back you’ll pay me an extra million, for those I don’t bring back you’ll pay the million to the next of kin. This too, is non-negotiable.”
“Everything you ask for will be done.”
“Once the funds are transferred, I’ll leave for the Zone. I’ll report to you when I have something to report,” Saladar said then broke the connection.
22
The climb down from the top of the tree where they initially crashed wasn’t as hard as they first thought. The branches were interconnected to such a degree that hand and footholds were therefore plentiful and they soon reached the floor.
“Let’s see if there’s anything we can salvage from this mess,” Kurt said as he surveyed the wreck of the lifeboat.
Natasha entered the crumpled forward section of the craft through a hole in the port side buckled hull section. Looking around she searched for something they could use.
“Do you think they’ll come down after us?” she asked Kurt when she saw him checking for weapons.
“I couldn’t say for sure, but its better that we be prepared. Who knows what we’ll meet down here. There might be indigenous life forms, animals or insects, birds, we just don’t know. What we do know from the initial reports is that this planet is an ‘E’ class planet. I have no idea what has happened here during the war or since but one thing’s for sure, what they told us about this place is no longer true. I don’t know if things have changed since the war or if what they told us was a lie but I intend to find out.”
“Why would they lie to us?” Natasha asked.
“Probably to keep the truth from us,” Kurt offered.
“I don’t follow, the truth, what truth?” Natasha replied perplexed.
“Don’t be naive girl, governments lie to the population all the time, it is a necessary fact of governing. The masses don’t need to know everything, if they did there would be panic in the streets,” Aswan said after overhearing the conversation.
“He’s right, I hate to admit it, but he is,” added Kurt sadly.
“Then what do we do when we find this truth? Presumably whoever has kept it from us won’t be too happy about us finding it and I would assume they would want to prevent us from telling anyone else,” she said.
Kurt held up his Sig and said, “Exactly!”
With a firmer grasp of the situation, the three of them continued searching the wreckage. When they had found everything they would need that they could carry and distributed among them, they set off leaving the lifeboat behind.
The forest around them was filled with a veritable rainbow of colours from the different plants that littered the ground. Ferns and trees of every description were all around reaching up far above their heads. What at first had seemed like a complete cover of foliage they now saw not to be the case as light streamed down through the trees to light their way.
Sounds of the forest were more noticeable to them now as they walked in silence and they could pick them all out. Insects scurrying along the floor, birds in the trees, even the sounds of larger animals moving through the forest that were, as yet, unseen. These sounds urged them to travel in silence.
Kurt led the way followed by Natasha who kept an eye on the Prince, every now and then turning to check on him to ensure he was okay as he brought up the rear.
“Just where are we going exactly?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“I want to see if we can find any sign of anyone ever being here,” Kurt replied softly.
“How do you think wandering aimlessly throu
gh the forest will accomplish that?” she asked with just a hint of sarcasm.
“I’m actually following a set of tracks, quite fresh and made by something quite large.”
“How large?” Natasha asked and she looked at the trail they were on and saw what he meant, large oval footprints, which looked to be made by some four-toed big cat.
“Hard to say, but I’d guess bigger than anything of this kind that we have on Earth or any of the colonised worlds we’ve seeded with life forms. It seems to be a feline of some sort but I can’t even tell how many legs it has,” Kurt said as he continued following the trail.
“What do you mean, you don’t know how many legs it has?” she asked and Kurt pulled up to show her.
“It’s been a while since I did any tracking, we all learned how to in basic training for Recon Delta but see here how the prints are close together, almost overlapping,” he said pointing to a series of tracks on the forest floor, “it’s hard to tell if they’re a normal feline configuration or something else.”
“Something else?”
“Yes, well they’re certainly not bi-pedal that’s for sure but I can’t tell if they have four, six or more legs. From the size and depth of these tracks though I can tell that they must be big. I’d say around twent feet or more.”
“Are you kidding me, a big cat that may have four or more legs and around twenty feet long, and you’re tracking it! What the hell for?”
“Curiosity I guess, but we need to see what the indigenous life down here is like, if it is indigenous that is. If it isn’t, finding out what its like might give us an idea of what this secret they’ve kept from us is about.”
“How so?”
“Well this cat we’re following is like nothing we’ve seen on any known world. If it’s not indigenous someone put it here and I for one want to know who and why.”
“There’s another option you’ve not considered.”
“What, that its a product of the war, that the radiation left over from the war somehow genetically mutated any life forms down here? No I don’t think so, it would take longer than the time lapsed since the war for any radiation to affect the indigenous population on a genetic level. No I’m leaning more toward possible experimentation. I have some experience on that subject, trust me, and if it is that then we have to find out and stop them.”
“Well if this creature is as big as you say, we’ll never catch up to it.”
“You’re right, it could be a problem, but I don’t think so somehow.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s in that clearing up ahead.”
Natasha came to stand next to him and looked where he was looking. About forty yards ahead of them the forest thinned somewhat and a clearing appeared. In it was the creature they had been tracking.
A huge, sleek creature with a mottled coat of fur that helped it to blend in with the forest stood there. Two eyes were situated at the front of it’s enormous head as all predators had, but this one had two more set’s of eyes. One set at each side and another toward the back gave the creature, they assumed, an almost three hundred and sixty degree angle of sight although they couldn’t figure out how the brain would process all the visual data.
Built like almost all cats it was long and sleek but this one had two sets of forelegs and another two sets of hind legs. It’s tail was long and whipped constantly from side to side as the huge beast sniffed the air, it’s ears pricking up at every sound. It was as tall as a man at its shoulder and from this distance, it looked to be around twenty to thirty feet from nose to the tip of its tail.
When it turned to look in their direction, it opened its huge maw of a mouth and roared showing its huge fang like teeth.
“Oh shit!” Natasha said as she realised it had seen them.
“Run!” Kurt said as the great beast came at them.
23
The Wildfire Team soon had their gear squared away and were ready to begin the mission.
“Artie take us to the edge of the Battlefield but keep us cloaked,” Riley said as he sat down at the table in the ready room.
“Will do Captain Riley,” replied Artie.
Riley watched the viewscreen as the hyperspace window opened up in the Pulsar’s path. The large starship passed through the window into hyperspace and emerged through another window back into normal space close to the system where the Tartaran Battlefield was situated.
“I want full sensor scans of that entire area Artie. I want to know exactly what we’re facing here,” Riley said as the rest of the team joined him taking their seats around the table.
“Right away sir,” Artie said.
“What have we got Cap?” asked Vance.
“Just waiting on sensor scans to see what we’re facing,” Riley replied.
“How do you want to play this Jake?” Torres asked.
“We need to locate Stryder. If his tracker is still active we may be able to use that to find him. I just hope the Prince and Nat are with him.”
“Artie, do you have access to Recon Delta tracking codes?” asked Cooper.
“Yes sir,” replied the AI
“See if you can locate Kurt Stryder, Artie,” Riley said.
“Running scans now sir,” Artie said as the AI got to work.
“Okay Artie, what have we got?” Riley asked.
“Sir we have a complex of reconstructed starship husks. I have The Colonial Queen stationary, three hundred yards from said complex. On board the complex are twenty seven life forms. On board the Colonial Queen is a small squad of just ten life forms.
“There are a number of small attack craft armed with pulse cannons and missile launchers. The main complex is well armed with pulse cannons and a variety of missiles. One of the attack craft is heading for the planet’s surface, there are seven life forms on board,” the AI replied.
“And Kurt Stryder, have you located him yet?” Riley asked.
“Where the hell did these Outlaws get all this firepower from?” Torres muttered.
“What?” Riley said not quite catching her comment.
“Nothing Jake, just thinking out loud,” she replied putting the unanswered question to the back of her mind for later.
“Sir I have a location for Captain Stryder and he is not alone, he has Natasha Garvey and one other with him, Prince Aswan. They are down on the planet’s surface and moving fast, they are being followed by a large feline type of creature.”
“Sounds more like they’re being chased rather than followed,” Riley said.
“Cap, we’d better move fast on this one. They’re being chased by a large cat and they have seven Outlaws also heading their way,” Vance said urgently.
“Artie, we need to get down there, we’ll take the forward section. Monitor our life signs and stay in touch through an encrypted channel,” Riley said.
“Wait, how can you identify those other two with Stryder, Artie? I understand you would recognise him from his tracking chip but how do you know the others?” Torres asked.
“I have intensive records of Confederation personnel stored in my data banks along with the latest generation of facial recognition software. I can pick out a face on the surface of a planet from a high orbit using just a partial, even retina scans or fingerprints or d.n.a. from evidence left at a scene such as saliva or blood,” replied Artie.
“Wow! that’s amazing,” observed Cooper.
“You shouldn’t lose track of us then when we go down there then, no excuses Artie,” Riley said.
“You have no need to worry sir,” Artie said.
“He was joking Artie,” Torres told him.
“Okay guys, we’ll need enough firepower to take with us, you can guarantee that those seven Outlaws will be armed to the teeth,” Riley said.
A wall at the side slid open to reveal several racks filled with Sig P999’s, Rokk 50’s, Remm assault rifles, an assortment of battery clips, grenades and knives.
“Will these be enough for your
needs sir’s?” Artie asked.
“Wow our very own toy store,” commented Torres with a broad smile that was mirrored by Vance and Cooper.
“Seems the General has thought of everything,” Riley said. He joined the others at the racks as they strapped on knives, holstered a Sig P999 each and picked out other items they might need. As he busied himself he said, “Artie open a battle com channel with Stryder.
******
The forest whipped past them as they led for their lives. Branches of trees plucked at their clothes as they ran headlong through the forest, their only thought, survival.
The enormous feline gracefully ran after them closing the gap with almost every step of its eight powerful legs.
“Tell me again why we were tracking that thing?” Natasha said breathlessly as she ran alongside Kurt.
Just as he was about to answer, a familiar tingle in his NI alerted him to a call coming in.
“Kurt Stryder, this is Captain Jake Riley, we are monitoring your progress and we’re here to bring you home sir. Can you give me an update on your sit-rep, please?” said a calm reassuring voice.
“If you’re monitoring us, you know we’re a bit busy right now. Just get the hell down here and help us,” Kurt replied.
“Excuse me?” Natasha said.
“Someone’s here to help us,” he replied. The three of them were not looking which way they were running, just ran and ran.
Suddenly, the forest opened up before them, disappearing from around them as a chasm slashed across their path.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Natasha as the three of them pulled up short right on the edge.
“We’re screwed!” screamed Aswan.
“Where do we go now?” Natasha asked as she fought to keep her panic from taking control.
Kurt took in their situation and assessed all their options in a single glance. “We climb,” he said.
