by Dave Lemel
Jack strode the length of the hall in a trance. Li glared down at the writhing Bopecan curled into a ball at his feet. He kicked him once in the back. He stepped over him and joined Foggen and Jack at Ben’s side. The trio lifted him up and dragged him into the freezer.
Foggen called for a pod, and one promptly flew down through the hole above. He placed the pod on Ben’s chest and activated it. The pod expanded and encapsulated him. Foggen sent it back up through the hole to the cruiser.
The three silently made their way back up through the hole and into the cruiser. Foggen stared straight ahead as he fired up the engine. “Jack, you have one more thing to do.”
“What?”
Li held up a hand and gestured with his thumb repeatedly as if he was pressing a button.
“Oh! Right, right.” Jack flipped the cap on the little black box he was clutching. He flipped a small switch, then pressed the button inside.
The cruiser jolted slightly from the shockwave below as Foggen lifted it off the surface of the orbiting station.
Chapter 27
Lombargnor and Todd sat side by side, strapped into the dual control consoles at the heart of what used to serve as the Star Marshal Headquarters briefing room. The Cains sat side by side behind them. “Reinforcement ships are right on schedule, sir,” Todd stated while manipulating a section of hologram by the left hand side of his console. “As long as orbit team succeeds in their assignment, we will be progressing as planned.”
“They’re lifting off now.” Sasha pointed at the bottom right monitor of the five nearly coating the wall in front of them. “See? Just fired back up and now moving independent of the marshal dock.”
“Call is coming in now,” said Lombargnor as he opened comms. The two screens flanking the upper half of the massive center monitor switched from data readouts to reveal the interior of the orbit team’s cruiser. Foggen and Li were sitting in front, draped in somber expressions. Jack sat alone in the back, staring sideways out the window back in the direction from which they had just taken off.
“Assignment achieved,” stated Foggen flatly. “You are a go, ground team.”
“Excellent work, orbit team,” replied Lombargnor. “Mission Commander Cain, please contact the reinforcement convoy and confirm ground assault is a go. Orbit team, Marshal Jordan will be transmitting the ID tag for a lander that will be jettisoned by one of the carriers on approach. Lock onto that tag as soon as you receive it. This is going to become extremely chaotic very shortly. The carriers will be jettisoning thousands of ships upon arrival. Some will engage Vikard ships in orbit. Others will head immediately for the surface. You must locate and follow the lander matching that ID tag to the surface.”
“Understood,” replied Foggen.
“Foggen,” said Todd, “where’s Ben?”
Foggen shook his head ever so slightly. “We lost him.”
“What? Whaddaya mean you lost him? Where? Is he still on the dock? Did you guys leave him behind?”
“No, he—” Foggen choked on the words that he had intended to follow with. He shook his head sharply and cleared his throat a few times.
“Foggen! What is going on? Where is Ben?”
“He did not make it,” said Li. “He did not survive.”
Simon gasped as all color flushed from Todd’s face.
“What happened?” asked Sasha.
“We had just finished placing the charges,” Foggen began. “Ben had been standing guard at the point of entrance we made to the comms room from the freezer. We were nearly to him when he was blasted from behind. It was Pritzley. Shot him right in the back at close range with a Vikard cluster blaster.”
“Was he alone?” Lombargnor asked as the humungous bay doors of the Vikard transport ship yawned open. The briefing room ship began to levitate and then ascend towards the opening. “Pritzley, I mean. Was he accompanied by any Vikard, or did he happen upon you all by chance?”
“He thought he spotted a cloaked cruiser from a window he was looking out not far from where we landed. He went to check it out alone. Found us.”
“Did you apprehend him?” Lombargnor inquired. The heptagonal, now clear of the shipping vessel it had arrived in, adjusted its trajectory toward the Earth’s surface.
“Not exactly,” replied Foggen.
“Why not?” Todd spat out.
“Because he gutted him like a fish,” Li responded.
“Oh,” Todd finally said, breaking the stunned silence that had followed Li’s response.
“The reinforcement carriers are arriving now, sir,” Sasha said. “Fighters and landers should be jettisoning within seconds.”
“This is tragic news indeed,” stated Lombargnor as he piloted their ship downward into the Earth’s atmosphere. The shield field began to glow from the scorching heat. “Ben Thurston was a wonderful marshal and man. Loved by nearly everyone who happened to be fortunate enough to cross paths with him. Especially the three present on this transmission who served with him aboard the Henrietta. Unfortunately, we presently do not have the luxury of time to properly mourn him. We are at a crucial stage of our assault. We all must find a way to temporarily push this heinous development from our minds and focus.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Sasha. Todd nodded slightly, as did Simon.
“Understood,” said Foggen finally. “The lander we are tracking jettisoned just now. Good luck, ground team.”
“To you as well,” Lombargnor responded as the front edge of their ship penetrated the surface of Lake Michigan. The transmission ended, and they plunged deep into the heart of the great lake.
Chapter 28
“Let me out here,” Kyle said as the truck approached a large barn coated in faded red paint at the end of a gravel road. “I’ll open the doors. Y’all park inside. I’ll wave the rest of the vehicles in too.”
Jasper slowed and stopped the truck. Kyle jumped out, ran up to a set of big white doors, and walked them open. Jasper lifted his foot off the brake and coasted inside. The interior was nearly empty save for a stack of hay bales at the far end. Jasper parked the truck near a side wall, turned it off, and he and Jerry climbed out as the remaining vehicles piled in.
Once everyone had exited the vehicle they had been traveling in, Jerry pointed at Kyle. “Everyone, this is Kyle. Kyle,” Jerry waved his hand back through the barn, “everyone.”
“Welcome,” Kyle said, nodding once. “Entrance to the bunker is right over here.” Kyle shuffled over to the hay bales piled up along the rear wall of the barn. “Gimme a hand moving these.” He climbed up the center of the stacks and began tossing bales out and away.
Once he had cleared a spot all the way to the ground at the center of the pile, he waved Jasper down. “Through this door,” he indicated, brushing aside the remaining pieces of straw to reveal a slab of metal that looked like it would be more at home on the entrance to a bank vault than the floor of a barn.
Kyle entered a sequence of numbers and letters on a large dial embedded in a giant spoked wheel at the center. He spun the wheel until an audible “thunk” emanated out from it. He yanked the door and Jasper joined him. Together, they swung it upward on its hinges. A well-lit staircase constructed of what Jasper guessed to be aluminum descended into the Earth below the barn.
“Lead the way,” Jasper said as he wrenched his neck in an attempt to get a view that revealed further down the passageway at the bottom.
“You guys first,” replied Kyle. “Get everyone into the tunnel and wait for me. I gotta shut this behind us.”
“Everybody down this staircase,” shouted Jerry from the top of the hay bales.
Jasper headed down first as Jerry helped people over the bales and into the stairwell. Finally, the only two that remained in the barn were Jerry and Kyle. Jerry stepped off the hay bales and down the stairs. The hall at the bottom was more like a tube. Well lit, just like the stairwell that descended to it. Despite the few dozen men and women inside, it was nearly dead silent.
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nbsp; Kyle made his way down and pointed past the assembled mass. “Head down that way. I’ll give you guys the grand tour.” He and Jerry squeezed by the line of people in the tube-like hall. Once they were clear, Kyle led with Jerry and Jasper right behind, followed by the rest of the crew.
“How big is this place?” asked Jasper as they rounded a corner to an even longer hall.
“Big,” replied Kyle. “Mom’s a bit of a prepper.” He turned as one side of his mouth curled into a sly grin. “And by bit, I mean she’s completely obsessed. Pretty sure she cares more about this bunker than me and my sister.”
“Comin’ in handy now, at least,” Jasper responded.
“True. And don’t tell her I said that about me and my sister.” He pulled down on the handle at the door they had stopped at and swung it inward. The area inside was spacious. Jasper guessed at least fifteen hundred square feet. Long tables with benches filled most of the interior, and the walls were lined with counters, cabinets, and doors.
“This is where we eat,” said Kyle as everyone filed in. “The door behind me leads to all the rooms we sleep in. Got a dozen of those. Each has about four people per room right now, but they could fit more.” He began walking toward a door opposite the one they had entered through. “This one leads to the hangout room and gym.”
Immediately through this door, the hallway widened significantly. Directly ahead a large arched entry dominated the other end of the hall. Children laughing and screaming as well as an occasional bark could be heard coming from the other side of the arch.
Once they had made their way through, Jasper counted nine kids and two dogs, one mutt and one black lab, chasing each other. He guessed the kids ranged in age from two to ten. Large sofas and chairs were everywhere. A pool table and ping pong table sat along one wall. A massive, fully stocked bookshelf covered another.
“We spend most of our time in here when we’re underground.”
Jerry flicked his head upwards. “How is the ceiling so much higher in here?”
“This room is located directly underneath a large hill. Mom really took advantage of the natural contours of the farm as much as she could when she built this place.”
“It’s quite impressive. How many total did you say are living here currently?”
“Never said. Forty-nine total. There’s never a time when all forty nine are down here though. At least a few are topside at all times keeping watch. We could easily sustain more. My mom makes those decisions. This is her baby. She makes all the rules.”
“Won’t be any need to make one with us,” Jerry responded. “We’ll be on our way soon. Speaking of, do you think we could set up some charging stations in the barn for our vehicles?”
Kyle’s face lit up. “Yeah! I’ll help! I love playing around with power delivery systems. That’s what I was supposed to be going to school for in the fall.”
“Sure, kid.” Jerry gestured back towards the doorway. “Lead the way.”
“They can hang down here if they want,” said Kyle as they made their way out of the large domed room back into the hall. “Or some of ’em or whatever. Up to you.”
Jerry stopped and turned around. “Why don’t you all take a little rest in this lounge area. Kyle here has been hospitable enough to offer it up, and I think we would be wise to accept the offer. I just need the charge team to come with us. The rest of you stay here for now.” Jerry clapped Jasper on the back. “You too, soldier. Get in there and lay down on one of those couches for a bit. You got bags under your eyes darker than that black lab’s hindquarters.”
Jasper smiled thinly and shuffled back the way he had come.
Jerry nodded at Kyle. “After you.”
Chapter 29
The seven-sided craft torpedoed through the water toward the Wisconsin coast. The four occupants sat in stunned silence. Finally, Lombargnor spoke. “One minute to tunnel entrance.” He entered a series of commands into a small screen on the right-hand side of his console.
A ways ahead, where the bed at the bottom of the lake sharply rose toward the surface of the water, an enormous tube emerged from the muck. A door at its end slid open, pass-through gel covering the entrance it had revealed. The ship plunged through. The door slid closed behind it, and the tube retracted back into the muck.
The immense tunnel gently sloped upward. Lights projecting out the front of their craft gleamed off the dingy, slimy walls. The slope gradually flattened out as the ship entered a hangar-type area in the shape of a big, empty cube. Lombargnor set the vessel down and slowly rose from his seat. “We transfer vehicles here. The remainder of the tunnel from here to Star Marshal Base is far too narrow to pilot this ship through. Everybody out.”
“What will we be using?” asked Simon as he unstrapped and stood up.
“Cruiser. Marshal Jordan and Marshal Cain’s was loaded into a bay on the exterior of this ship. We will travel in that until we approach the underground area of Star Marshal Base. At that point we will continue on foot.”
The four exited down the ramp from the heptagonal vessel as Lombargnor entered commands into his link. The door to the bay containing the cruiser opened, and Todd shook his head. “That was our last conversation,” he muttered under his breath.
“What was?” asked Simon.
“Ben and me. We talked for a bit as he was prepping the cruiser and getting it loaded in there. That was the last real convo I’ll ever have with him.”
“Well…” Simon placed a hand lightly on Todd’s shoulder. “Let’s go avenge him.”
Todd’s eyes bugged out. “Avenge him? How exactly?” He shook Simon’s hand off. “The Bopecan that murdered him is already dead. There ain’t any Bopecans left at Star Marshal Base from what I’ve heard, and that’s where we’re headed.”
“This again?” Simon groaned. “Seriously? Right now?”
Todd inhaled sharply and pointed at Lombargnor. Sasha leaped at him, grabbed his hand, squeezed it, and stared into his eyes. “Todd, you never even would’ve met Ben without the Bopecans. If they never came to Earth, there’d be no star marshals. No Henrietta.” She not so lightly slapped his cheek twice. “Don’t you dare go there right now. No way. Ben would be right here with me to shake some sense back into you. Foggen was his best friend. That skinny little Bopecan got more than adequate revenge for all of us from what I heard up there.”
Todd swallowed hard and nodded.
“Isn’t she the best at slapping some sense back into people?” Simon gazed lovingly at his wife.
“Shut up and fire that cruiser up,” she replied. “Let’s get moving.”
Todd called for the cruiser. It hovered out of the apartment it had hitched a ride in. As it settled down beside them, the doors opened upward, and Simon dove into the back. “Go ahead, boss. You take shotgun with those four long legs. I’ll sit back here with the wife.”
“Mission Commander Cain,” said Sasha, sliding in next to him.
“Of course,” Simon said with a grin. “Mission Commander Cain and I will sit in the back. Hey.” He tapped Lombargnor as he climbed into the passenger seat. “What about Shelly? Should we send her ahead for a little recon?”
Lombargnor nodded. “Excellent idea, Marshal Cain. Please do so immediately.”
Todd slid in and closed his door as Simon instructed Shelly to begin making her way up the tunnel ahead. Their trusty turtle-shaped hover droid popped out of her home at the rear of the cruiser and floated off into the darkness.
Chapter 30
Jerry directed traffic as vehicles still in need of charging swapped into the makeshift stalls they had set up. The now fully charged ones were being lined up to face out the huge white barn doors. His filthy olive green jacket was sharply yanked from behind, and he turned to identify the source.
“They’re coming,” said Kyle, panic pouring from his eyes. “Drone swarm headed dead at the farm from the south. Spotter said two minutes tops.”
“Where’s your mom and the rest of ’em?”
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br /> “On their way here, but I don’t know if they’re gonna make it.”
“Open the doors,” Jerry said to Kyle before raising his voice. “Swarm coming! Grab a weapon and get ready to fight. We gotta provide cover as the rest of those folks race back here.”
A few men and women immediately took positions at the sides of the opening doors. Others tossed hay bales around in an attempt at creating some cover. The remaining few ducked behind vehicles with a view out to the gravel road and fields.
“Which direction is that?” Jerry asked, pointing out the door.
“Dead south,” Kyle replied without breaking his focus from the skies or blinking. “I see something. On the road, way out and moving fast. See the dust kicking up?”
Jerry nodded. “I see it.”
“That’s what it looks like when someone’s driving fast toward here, but—” He paused and strained to see clearer.
“But what?” asked Jerry.
“Well, usually you hear tires crunching and kicking up gravel too. I don’t seem to hear that. Do you?”
“No.” Jerry squinted and leaned further out through the doorway. “It’s not a vehicle. That’s why we don’t hear it.” He moved as quickly as he could all the way out the gaping doorway, his head swiveling side to side. “Where are they?”
Kyle jumped out beside him, frantically looking around. “There!” He pointed toward the farm house a few hundred feet away around the side of the barn. His mother Lydia was leading the group as they crested a hill behind it and raced for the barn.
“They’re not gonna make it,” Jerry stated flatly. “Is there another way into the bunker?”
“Two,” replied Kyle.
“Trust me! Just tell her to get down one of ‘em now!” Jerry craned his neck to scan the skies. “And there’s the swarm. It’s too late.” He grabbed Kyle by the arm and pulled him back inside the barn as the first blazing red pulses crashed into the walls inside and out, exploding in brilliant flashes of light then flame.
