by T. R. Harris
The lower center buttons provided lift, causing the ship to shoot away from the building in a cloud of grayish smoke billowing from underneath. The shiny vessel reached the edge of the terrace—before smashing through another section of decorative railing and tumbling over the edge.
Adam was thrown to one side, held in the seat only by his waist harness. He inhaled sharply as his stomach rose up in his throat. The gray cloud disappeared in the viewport, replaced by the blur of the building racing past. Adam figured he had about forty stories to learn how to fly the alien spacecraft.
Automatic gyroscopes kicked in and the ship leveled out, but it was still falling.
Adam began to press every button he could reach. At one point the ship lurched to a stop, nearly breaking his back in the process. But then another button sent the ship racing for the ground once again. Desperate to find the button he’d hit before, Adam performed a piano concerto on the keyboard with his panicked fingers.
He finally hit something that made a difference.
The view outside the ship became mired in a tornado of debris. It only lasted a second before the view cleared and stars greeted his welcoming eyes. He’d activated the gravity drive. Fortunately, the well had formed above the ship and not below….
Adam retraced his keystrokes, and soon had a rudimentary understanding of the controls. They were logical, if he’d just had the time to think about it. The lower center buttons controlled the chemical drive, the upper buttons the gravity well. The outer row gave him pitch and yaw, while another set activated the various screens placed before his station.
On one of the screens he saw the shrinking image of the planet Formil. He was in space, which was a start. Now he just needed to find where in space.
He scanned the other screens. There was a proximity panel showing dozens of contacts painted in red. The rest of the screen was taken up by a haze of small blue contacts. These would be Expansion ships, numbering in the thousands, while red indicated the invaders—whoever they are. All the contacts were clustered in an area close to the planet.
All except one.
This rogue light was moving at incredible speed for the outer system. Adam shifted course, lining up on the departing Aris starship. He experimented with the buttons along the top of the panel, until he found a key he could press repeatedly, increasing the depth of the well. He was still inside a star system, so he had to be careful. The stronger the well, the more miscellaneous space junk would be drawn toward the singularity. Scooping up a generous portion of an asteroid belt would flood the well, causing an overload. He wouldn’t survive the resulting explosion.
Fortunately, he was pretty familiar with the Formilian star system. He cranked the well up higher, knowing he was beyond the plane of the ubiquitous ring of unformed planetary debris most star systems contained, usually at the boundary between the rocky inner planets and the outer gas giants.
He was gaining on the Aris starship.
Of course, he had no idea what he’d do once he caught up to them. He considered his options. He could fire on the ship, knowing that Lila would survive any explosion. But then he’d have to locate her frozen body within the expanding sea of debris. And that was assuming he could destroy the glowing starship in the first place. The Aris had a million years of evolution over any of the current so-called superior races in the Milky Way. He may be in way over his head this time.
But he was gaining. That was encouraging, and if he knew the controls better, he would have calculated an intercept time. Instead he had to eyeball it.
That was until all the power in the starship cut out.
The alien craft fell out of the gravity-well with a flash, as emergency lights snapped on, bathing the pilothouse in an eerie yellow glow, accentuated by starlight filtering in through the viewport. Adam pounded on the control panel, but to no avail. He was dead in the water…and the Aris were getting away.
Something caught his eye through the viewport. A huge mass moved across the starfield, occasionally lit by a flare of reflection on a silver hull. It was a starship, but one larger than any he’d ever seen, except for a Klin Colony Ship. But this one wasn’t spherical. It was oblong, with the emphasis on long.
Tiny flares erupted from a section along the hull, as a squad of mosquito-like ships formed up and came his way. Adam leaned back in the seat, enjoying the zero-gravity the ship was now experiencing with all its systems down. He released the safety harness and floated in the waterless sea.
So much for peace and tranquility in the galaxy, he thought sardonically. We now have a new war with a new enemy, and without Lila around to lend us a hand.
45
As quickly as the armor-clad aliens had arrived, they departed. Trimen and other Formilians fired at the departing figures, taking a few out before they boarded their ships and streaked off into space. The relatively few warships in the system gave chase, until recalled to help secure the planet against a possible secondary assault.
Trimen found Sherri and Riyad in Lila’s chambers, looking for Adam.
“He left to chase after the Aris,” Trimen informed them.
“The Aris? You mean like Zee’s Aris?” Sherri asked.
“That’s what I said. Yes, they still exist and have absconded with Lila.”
The moment of stunned silence spoke volumes. “They took…Lila? How was that even possible?”
“She was encased a blue halo. She could not move.”
“The Aris are three billion years old,” Riyad pointed out. “To them, Lila’s probably as advanced as an amoeba.”
“What does that make us?” Sherri asked. “And Adam raced off after them? What an idiot.”
“She is his daughter,” Trimen pointed out.
“I’m not criticizing his motivation, just his judgement. The Aris went through a lot of trouble to get her.”
Riyad looked over to where the body of one of the light-brown aliens laid dead. “I would have thought the Aris would be a lot different than us.”
“Those are not Aris,” Trimen said. “They are something else, not associated with them, according to Adam.”
Sherri shook her head. “You mean two separate groups of aliens—forgive me, Trimen—attacked at the same time, and they don’t know each other?”
“Apparently, again according to Adam. We shall learn more when the survivors are interrogated.”
“I’d like to get in on some of that action,” Riyad said.
“Where’s Adam now?” Sherri asked.
“Unknown,” Trimen replied. “Come with me to Defense Command. Our journey of discovery is only just beginning.”
Technicians highlighted the path Adam had taken from the government building. It ended a quarter of a light-year away, yet still within the range of hundreds of scanners operating in and around the Formilian star system.
“How big was that thing?” Riyad asked.
“Converted to Human measurements, three-miles-long by half-a-mile in diameter,” answered the alien tech. “There was only one of that size within the attacking fleet, yet another fifteen were half that size. The smaller attack vessels were discharged from the large one.”
A Juirean Overlord was standing with the group. “A response force is assembling near LocVer. Ninety Juirean ships are included. I would expect the Humans to contribute as much, along with the other major species in the Expansion and beyond.”
“Who’s in command?” Sherri asked.
“We are,” stated Sando ra Todd firmly. “The attack occurred in Expansion space and against a member planet.”
“Formil is not just a member of the Expansion,” Trimen pointed out. “We are the seat of government. Formilians should take the lead position.”
“You have very little experience in space warfare. And with your abominable leader missing, there is no reason for the Juireans not to reassume control of the Expansion.”
Several creatures spoke at once, turning from their screens to bark at one another.
&nb
sp; Riyad lifted a chair and slammed it on the floor. The loud crack got everyone’s attention. “Knock it off, all of you. This is bigger than any one race, or one empire.”
The Juirean glared at him. The Overlord was one of the few higher-tier officers to survive the Human’s attack on the facilities atop the Kacoran Plain. Riyad had played a major role in that event, a fact the Juirean acknowledged through the hatred in his eyes.
Riyad ignored him. “We have reports that the aliens—let’s call them invaders—took members of nearly every race in attendance. It appeared to have been a coordinated operation. They had the capability to destroy the ships yet destroyed none. All they took were people.”
“Including the mutant,” the Juirean reiterated.
Riyad hesitated revealing the fact that the Aris had taken Lila, and not the invaders. As far as he knew, the Juireans had no knowledge of the Aris. They were already feeling inferior enough after the spanking the Humans and Lila had laid on them. Knowing that another race of immortal super-beings was around would probably push them over the edge.
“Yes, and that only serves to underscore the fact that the invaders are a major force to be reckoned with. They took individuals from both the Expansion and the Union, and everything in between.”
“What is your point, Human?” the Overlord bellowed.
“My point? Just that this needs to be unified operation. The invaders had only sixteen capital ships, plus a couple of hundred of the small carrier-borne attack craft against several thousand of ours. They had to know most of our ships were non-combatants. That was why they sent so few. I believe this is only the front-guard of a much larger force.”
“I concur,” said Balonoc Sur, the Que’l representative to the celebration. “I have received reports that the invaders were able to overload the electrical systems of my ship, after which they boarded and left with four random members of the crew. Furthermore, a Library search has turned up no matching species to the invaders. They are an unknown race.”
“Then maybe…so are we!” Sherri said, her eyes growing wider as she spoke.
The Juirean turned to her and growled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean they may not know anything about us, all of us. That’s why they only took people. Maybe they want to learn what we’re like, what we’re capable of.”
“What they have learned is that they can attack us with impunity,” Sando said.
“Maybe not,” Sherri continued. “As Riyad said, they had to know the bulk of the ships around Formil weren’t warships. Otherwise they would have come in with guns a-blazing and in lot larger numbers. Now they have samples of almost eighty percent of all the advanced races in the galaxy. If you ask me, this was a pretty slick move on their part.”
“If what you say is true, then this is just a prelude to a more serious military incursion,” Trimen added. “Once they learn more of our capabilities and makeup, more tactical attacks will take place.”
Riyad headed for the door. “Two can play at this game. Trimen, you mentioned prisoners. Where are they? I think it’s time we stopped guessing and go get some real answers.”
Nine of the invaders had survived their wounds, with four in relatively good condition—at least good enough to suffer the interrogation from aliens that had no concept of Human rights.
Riyad was a Human, but he also wasn’t bound by any moral code when it came to getting answers, at least not on the planet Formil. He was itching for a little resistance from the captives.
The first prisoner was brought in and placed in a chair in what looked like a typical police interrogation room. Trimen was with him. The Juirean Sando ra Todd insisted on being present as well.
Riyad studied the alien. He stood a little over six feet tall and with a stocky build. His skin was a uniform light-brown, and his eyes glowed gold like nothing Riyad had seen before. He would have remembered an alien like this. The body armor had been removed and now the alien wore just a simple single-piece off-white garment with thick stitching and a coarse texture. He had a bandage around his right arm and wrapping his shoulder.
“Can you understand me?” Riyad asked. From the reports he’d received, it had been established the aliens had translation devices somewhere on or in their bodies. This was an innocuous question meant to get the ball rolling.
“Yes.”
Riyad grinned, displaying his exceptionally white teeth to the alien. He noticed a slight recoil, from which the alien quickly recovered. Good, he can be scared, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.
“They call me Riyad. I am a Human. What is your name and race?”
The creature was more defiant than submissive with his answer. “I am Third-Player Level-Two, Ossen six forty-two Kallen-Noc of the Nuor.”
It was Riyad’s turn to recoil. “That’s quite a name. What does all that mean?”
The alien frowned. “I do not understand the question.”
“I mean, you have names and numbers.”
“Yes. I am the six hundred forty-second Nuorean to be named Ossen since the creation of the Kallen-Noc Blood-Team.”
“What’s a blood team?”
“Do you not have Blood-Teams?”
“You mean like a family, descended from one to the other?”
“That is correct.”
“Good.” Riyad leaned closer to the table, displaying his threatening teeth once more. “Now, Ossen, where the hell did all you Nuoreans come from, and why did you attack us!”
Ossen focused on Riyad’s savage look. Once over his initial shock, the alien appeared…excited. “You display the characteristics of a level-one challenge. Your immunity points would be high. I wish to engage you in a full challenge, as soon as my injuries heal. You must grant me the time. It is in the rules.”
Riyad sat back. “What rules? What challenge are you talking about?” Then it hit him. “You want to fight me?”
“Of course, you are an immunity challenge. That is why we are here.”
“Here? From where?”
“Suponac.”
“What is Suponac?”
Ossen furrowed his forehead. “Suponac…the Suponac Galaxy.”
Riyad’s jaw fell slack. The Juirean Sando took over the questioning. “You come from another galaxy? How is that so?”
“I do not know. I am a crewmember, a player of the third-degree. I do not understand tech.” He eyed the eight-foot taller Juirean and his massive mane of pale blue hair. “You may carry even more immunity points than the…the Human,” Ossen said, his gold eyes seemingly on fire. “I challenge you as well, yet in separate events, of course.”
Sando stood up straight and thrust out his chest. “I accept your challenge!”
“Back off, Sando,” Riyad ordered. “We’re not going to grant this creature his wish, at least not yet. Ossen, why did you take only individual members of our species?”
“Those were our orders.”
“Yes, I know, but why?”
“I would assume to assign immunity points.”
“What are immunity points?”
Ossen slowly scanned the faces of the others in the room. Then he nodded slowly. His tone when he spoke again was like that of a patient school master to a slow student. “Immunity points are given for challenges of alien species. The higher the challenge-factor, the more points.”
“I still don’t understand,” said Riyad. “What do immunity points give you?”
Ossen smiled. The expression surprised the others in the room. “Immunity points protect against loss of possessions in standard challenges. Depending on how many one has accumulated, a Nuorean could lose some or none of his acquired possessions beyond Basic, even in defeat.”
“How do you gain immunity points?” Sando asked.
Ossen’s gold eyes met the Juirean’s yellow orbs. “By killing aliens…like you.”
The unrestrained Nuorean shot to his feet, jumping on his chair and at Sando’s head a split second later. Riyad noticed the alien grimace
as he lifted his injured right arm, but still he managed to imbed a stiff finger into the Juirean’s neck. Blood spurted from the wound, even as the much larger creature grabbed Ossen and tossed him across the room.
In mid-air, the Nuorean righted himself and bounced away from the wall in a springboard-like manner and straight for Riyad. He lowered his head and planted it into Riyad’s stomach, driving air from the Human’s lungs and sending him crashing to the floor.
Ossen turned his attention to Trimen next.
Just then the door to the interrogation room flew open and Arieel Bol rushed into the room, a sparkling ball of crackling blue light leading her way. With a flick of her hands, the hot ball of electricity slammed into Ossen’s chest, sending him backwards. The front of his tunic caught fire; he swatted at the flames until they were out.
By then Arieel was standing above the Nuorean, another orb of hot static electricity held menacingly above her right hand. The alien cowered in fear.
“You…are a sassour—a demon!” Ossen cried out.
“Yes I am! Now tell me: Where is my daughter!”
“Daughter, as in Blood-Team female? I know nothing of this. We took only males.” The fear was evident in the alien’s eyes, a level of terror that had been missing when confronting the males in the room.
“Yes, the female Lila.”
“I repeat. I know nothing of this.”
Riyad came up to Arieel. “Calm down, Arieel. His people didn’t take Lila.”
The knowing tone in his voice made Arieel stop and turn. “Then who did?”
Riyad glanced at the Juirean then back to Arieel. “The Aris did.”
“Aris!”
“What are the Aris?” Sando asked. The Overlord had a section of his official robe pressed against the still oozing hole in his neck.
