by Jim Laughter
And then Leatha blinked and it was over. She was back in her room with Rose still sitting there in her chair. The young captain felt drained and was drenched in sweat. She began to speak but Rose stopped her with an uplifted hand.
“Don’t tell me, Leatha,” Rose said gently, handing Leatha a notebook and pen. “Instead, you go and freshen up. Then when you are calm and collected, take this journal and write it all down as precisely as you can. What you can’t describe, draw. We’ll go over them when you are ready.”
With that, Rose got up from her chair and let herself out of Leatha’s room. The young captain stared at the closed door. Getting an inkling of what lay ahead, she ambled to the washroom. As she readied for a shower, the memory/dream still seemed to dance in her head and she could still smell that distinctive odor—them!
Chapter Twelve
The Red-tail commander paced the length of his cell. He had been here waiting for fourteen orbital cycles since being summoned by the Main Hive. Now he awaited their decision of his fate. Because of the fanfare given him immediately after the mission and his installation to a higher level, his failure was not easy to deal with. If he had been just one level lower, he would have simply disappeared and that would be the end of it. But now the Main Hive’s reputation was on the line. A way had to be found to resolve the situation so they could save face. If he could come up with a plan, and if he could present it to them, and if they accepted it, then his survival might be assured. Otherwise he disappear and never be heard from again.
So the commander paced and thought furiously. He mentally reviewed again the history of his project up to the incident that brought it all crashing down. He realized now that he had underestimated humans he had captured. Nothing in his experience prepared him for what happened unexpectedly one day.
He’d been told that it was an unusually hot day for the area the day he visited the planetoid, but compared to his home world, there was a noticeable chill in the air. With all the problems encountered by his workers, the commander had decided to inspect the facility himself to get a better picture of their dilemma.
He also figured that showing up unannounced might help motivate a few slackers to get themselves busy and solve some problems without him having to do everything. Of course, the politicians in the Main Hive called these problems opportunities, but not being a politically correct kiss-tail, he still figured they were just problems.
First, the commander inspected the holding pens where the humans were being kept. It didn’t inspire him much to see them just sitting there waiting for their next ration of processed animal meat. According to his plans, they should be doing whatever it was they did normally; breeding. But they just sat there and stared back at him with sunken eyes. Deciding there was little he could do here, he headed into the project manager’s office.
Here he had more fun. It brought him pleasure to watch the manager squirm under his gaze as he questioned the poor underling about the operation of this farm. The commander already knew the answers to his litany of questions but it provided him some relief to make another suffer. Besides, something useful might just crop up in the process. It was during this interrogation that the alarm sounded, interrupting his enjoyment.
Rushing out of the low building, the commander saw guards rushing about while the humans where cheering. At first he didn’t understand it but then he saw what all the commotion was about. There in the distance, rising up out of the scrub brush in the valley floor was a ship. Even at this distance he could not only discern that it was one of their old obsolete models but that it had been crudely repaired as well. He could not imagine why any of his workers would attempt such a project. Then it hit him - the ship was being flown by humans!
He watched in shock as the ship suddenly sprang forward and made a rough landing in the middle of the compound. The cloud of dirt and dust it kicked up as it slid to a stop among his workers and the humans was blinding. As he choked in the confusion, he heard some of the guards squeeze off blaster shots in the general direction of the ship. But he knew by the sound that these shots were being neutralized by the ship’s protective repulsion field. In the midst of all this, he heard another sound—the pounding of many running feet.
The dust was just starting to thin when he heard the unmistakable sound of a hatch slamming shut. The thrusters of the ship fired and kicked up another cloud of dust as it rose above them. The commander realized they were at the mercy of the ship’s weapons and expected death in a sudden blaze of pain. But nothing happened. Apparently, the ship was unarmed or the humans had not been able to patch together any usable weapons. It hung there for a fraction of a second, then in a flash, shot upward toward space.
Grasping the one chance he had, the commander raced for his own ship while growling orders at his crew. Most were aboard when he dove through the hatch. He ordered it secured and barked orders for his pilot to follow the fleeing ship. As they lifted, he looked out through the front ports of his ship. With horror, he realized that the derelict ship had made off with many of his remaining humans. How they managed to load over two hundred individuals so quickly he didn’t know, but his best breeding stock was racing out of the atmosphere.
As soon as his ship was able, it also sprang upward, its thrusters causing serious damage to the installation, killing many of the remaining guards. Later he would realize that his haste had cost him dearly.
Upward and outward the two ships raced. The commander’s ship was newer and faster, but the patched-together derelict had a considerable head start. The commander considered signaling ahead to have other ships intercept the fleeing captives. But this also invited embarrassment he could not afford, so he dismissed the idea. Better that he catch them himself and return them to his farm for processing. With his fully functional ship it was only a matter of time before he would catch them.
The newer vessel closed the gap until they were almost in weapons range of the fleeing ship. The commander was about to order his weapons operators to target the drive of the fleeing ship when he suddenly realized where they were. He had been so blind in his pursuit of the humans that he failed to realize they were entering one of the intergalactic transit tubes. He screamed orders to prepare for transit. A klaxon sounded and he could hear hatches being slammed shut as he strapped into his own web harness. He glanced toward a viewscreen and saw the fleeing ship enter the center of the swirl that marked the transit tube.
The commander grimaced as he imagined what must be transpiring aboard the derelict ship full of his humans. The forces of the transit tube will tear them apart, he thought as he braced himself for his own ship’s entry. When they got to the other end of this tube, he could destroy the remains and save himself further shame. At least he had enough humans back at the farm to continue with his project. The Main Hive didn’t need to know about this little incident.
But while all this was going on, chaos reigned back at his farm. The remaining humans took advantage of the situation. Most of the guards had been killed or injured by the thruster blast from the commander’s ship. The few remaining guards were disoriented and overwhelmed, killed by a wall of humanity. In minutes there wasn’t a Red-tail survivor anywhere in the entire complex.
Free of their captors, the humans packed into two of the large transport ships parked on the outskirts of the farm. A few of the men who had rebuilt the derelict had jumped out in the confusion of the first landing. These understood the controls from studying the derelict earlier. Now they took command, and soon with every human safe aboard, the two transports lifted for space.
These were the same ships that had carried many of them to this forsaken place. But this time the humans were in parts of the ship where there was webbing to protect them. After lifting, they engaged the weapons so they could better understand their capabilities. Their former prison made a nice target.
The navigation system was simple enough and as they had discovered in their study of the derelict, each ship kept a permanent record of it
s flights. Apparently, the Red-tail pilots depended more on technology than they did individual intelligence. Since the derelict had flown here from the transit tube, the return course and settings were stored in the navigational memory.
The men flying the transports had discovered how to access these files in the navigational system so they could use any Red-tail ship they happened to capture. In short order, the two ships were streaking toward the same transit tube that had just swallowed the derelict and the commander’s ship pursuing it.
After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually only a matter of minutes, the derelict emerged from the far end of the transit tube into normal space. Contrary to the expectations of the commander, the humans survived the trip rather well. The derelict’s navigational system had aimed them correctly into the tube to avoid the worst of the forces inside it. And this time the humans had better protection. They lost only a few people when the repair of one wall had torn loose, exposing them to space. In the maelstrom of the transit tube, they mercifully died before they were even aware of it.
The rest of the survivors breathed a sigh of relief. But there was little time for celebration. They knew they were being pursued. In fact, they were counting on it. Part of their audacious plan was to kill as many of the enemy as possible at blast-off, and then to draw at least one ship of the Red-tail contingent at the farm into chasing them. That would give the others left behind better odds to overcome their captors and make good their own escape. If that worked, it might also provide them some firepower to fight back against recapture, which would be especially important since the derelict had no operational weapons.
Immediately after emerging from the transit tube, they re-engaged the navigational system. From their study of it, the men knew the ship had been in the vicinity of several human populated planets. Reversing the course of the derelict’s last trip should take them to one of them. Otherwise, the humans knew their hopes of survival were finished. Obediently, the derelict leapt ahead.
A couple of minutes later the commander’s ship also emerged from the transit tube. A glance told him that he was in an unfamiliar sector of the human galaxy. He growled inwardly as he considered the possibilities and none of them were good. His only chance now was to make this quick and then return to the tube. He barked an order to scan for the wreckage of the derelict. Minutes ticked by as the scanning equipment reached out again and again, searching for debris but found nothing. That was when the commander realized the humans had somehow survived the trip.
The commander sat down heavily in his command chair and rested his forehead in the palm of his right foreclaw, considering what course of action to take. One of his underlings detected what might be the residual trail of the derelict’s drive system. There was still a chance he could catch up with them and either capture or destroy them. But that might also run him afoul of enemy ships from the Human Mass. The commander was more than aware of his lone ship out here without support or backup.
Just then one of his underlings signaled to him that there was something unusual on the detector screen. The commander glanced at it and saw two of his own transport ships racing toward him. The thought that some of his workers at the farm had managed to come to his aid heartened him. But then he realized they were not following protocol for forming on his ship. If he didn’t know better, they were instead forming up to attack him! At the same moment their weapons started firing at him the unthinkable occurred to him. These ships were also being flown by humans!
In a flash, he sized up the situation. Although he had both a more powerful ship than the two transports, and he had experience using the weapons, he was still at a disadvantage. Add in the factor of possible Human Mass ships being attracted by the weapon’s fire and things looked even worse. It only took him a couple of seconds to make a decision and start barking orders. This was one fight he should avoid.
Ordering the ship into action, he tried to avoid the fire of the incoming transports by swinging the ship in a wide, sweeping curve. He raced for the transit tube as the transports, under inexperienced hands, struggled to match his maneuvers. But he had the advantage and was quickly away before they could complete their turns. The last they saw of him and he of them was when his ship again entered the gray swirling mass of the transit tube.
After exiting the tube back in his own galaxy, the commander ordered his ship to return to the farm planetoid. He steeled himself for what he would find there. The fact that the humans had escaped with two of his transports meant that his entire command at the farm complex was probably dead. And he was right. There would be no hiding this debacle. Now his only chance would be to mitigate this by somehow staging a more successful mission.
Rather than hide the event, the Red-tail commander took the initiative. First, he called ahead to the planetoid even though he knew there would be no response. Of course, other ships would hear him and this would incite curiosity, but it would be in his favor. Next, he approached his farm complex and overflew the facility. There was plenty of evidence of the uprising and the battle that had ensued. The bodies of his soldiers were scattered everywhere just as he expected.
The commander made a point of continuing to send a distress signal out while his crew scanned the area and made visual records of the battle. He made particular note of the damage and the landing field where the humans had stolen the two transports. Then he had his pilot lift much higher to record general overviews of the valley and the surrounding countryside.
At this altitude, the general layout of the scattered scrap, hulks, and derelict ships was evident. What was not evident from this altitude was exactly where the derelict that the humans had first used had come from. This was as he hoped. In fact, even he couldn’t be certain where it had risen from because of all the wrecks and debris that had been dumped there over the years.
The only witnesses were dead on the ground. Because of the proximity to the farm complex, the view his own crew might have had of the derelict coming in was blocked by buildings and forest.
Having made a full record of the complex, he then broadcast for help to the Hive. This would bring other ships which would give him verification. Careful to slant his report to elicit the proper response from his superiors, he then announced that the ships had fled toward one of the transit tubes. He knew an investigation would confirm that fact along with his ship’s navigational log. The only thing he had to worry about was that the soldiers on the detection equipment might report the derelict along with the two stolen ships. That would have to be addressed before they could come under questioning.
The commander ordered his pilot to land and wait for other vessels to arrive before allowing his crew off the ship. Retiring to his own quarters, he then summoned the two soldiers who were the only ones to clearly see the derelict during the chase. Both individuals arrived hastily and he kept them waiting just outside his portal. To add reasons for worry, he ordered his security chief to come as well while they waited.
When the security chief arrived he ordered the two underlings in. Trying not to show nervousness, they reported as ordered. To their surprise, the commander started off by complimenting them on their efforts. He suggested that he would like to promote them to the next higher level and retain their services on future ships, especially if he were to be granted a larger command. That hooked them. Now they would do anything to fulfill his wishes to attain that advancement. To do otherwise would bring shame and possible execution.
That subtle bit of work done, the commander then began to question them about the chase while the security chief recorded their responses. As he had hoped, neither soldier mentioned the derelict in any way. Since his ship did not have a visual recorder on the detector equipment, this took care of any evidence that the derelict even existed. Now he was ready to face his own interrogators and within days he was summoned to appear before the Main Hive.
He already had his responses well-rehearsed. The commander knew he would be held accountable for any mist
akes this interrogation would reveal. Now he had to come up with another plan to capitalize on the whole situation as he carefully portrayed it.
With that in mind, the commander stopped his pacing. How he convinced the Main Hive to let him have another chance would depend on what he planned now. He would have to show them his errors. Many would expect him to try to hide them, but by seizing the initiative, he could diffuse the harm caused by his mistakes to be and show what he had learned from them. That would be reflected in his new plan, a plan that would build from this disaster and satisfy the Main Hive.
Chapter Thirteen
The taskmaster growled while he poured over the scheduled review of his small command. Because this report would eventually go for review back at the home worlds, it made him want to couch his report in as positive a light as possible. But that was proving more and more difficult with each season on this cold alien planet.
When the detachment had been left here on this conquered planet, his situation looked very bright indeed. After the first fleet departed with frozen foodstuffs for the home planets, his detachment had been left with managing the captive human population and rounding up any strays missed in the initial harvest.
While other detachments rounded up other edible creatures for transport, his had the most desirable assignment. Based on the largest land mass where the processing and shipping facilities had been built, they were centrally located with the network of human-built roads radiating outward. He also had at his disposal a surplus of equipment as room had to be made on the returning fleets for the captives. Morale was high so he initiated over flights and search patrols in different sectors.
And success was not long in coming. The patrols used both aerial reconnaissance and surface teams to rout out the remaining humans still at large on the planet. The humans were very disorganized and easy to track and defeat. The taskmaster remembered the days when his caravans of hopper vehicles were interspersed with large groups of captives being herded to the processing and loading areas.
