by Dan Decker
He snorted. This isn’t the technology of my fathers, he thought. If anything, it might be made so that a human touch keeps it from working.
It was a pity that he’d been in too much of a hurry to watch the ramp as it closed. If only he wouldn’t have been so busy killing Hunwei at the time.
He had scoured the ship, fighting and killing half a dozen Hunwei and several turncoats. He’d also found other human captives in addition to those that had been brought aboard just before he’d rushed into the ship.
They all stood in the back of the hold now, murmuring quietly among themselves.
A clanking sound came from the direction of the ladder. Adar spun, blaster at the ready.
He growled when he saw what was going on. “Get down from there, Hucky.”
The boy flashed him a grin. “I promised to remain still for a couple of minutes. It’s already been waaay longer than that.” The kid continued to climb the ladder towards the next level of the ship.
“Hucky,” Melynda said, covering the distance in a few quick steps. “Down!” The boy continued to climb higher, heedless of his mother.
Adar had found the mother and son in a room on the third level of the ship. Something in her surprise at seeing him had been unsettling. It was as if she’d been expecting somebody else. She’d quickly covered it with a look of relief and had followed Adar.
Who was she waiting for?
Adar had a suspicion but hoped he was wrong.
Melynda was tall for a woman, yet still a few inches shorter than Adar, with high cheekbones and eyes that had probably trapped a vast number of men. Her dark hair hung past her shoulders, her light colored blouse and wavy dress made him think she’d been on her way to a celebration when the Hunwei had taken her captive.
Or perhaps she thought that her saviors had arrived.
It had been years since Adar had encountered somebody from the Kopal. If his suspicions proved to be true, Melynda wasn’t the first attractive woman he would have known to join their ranks.
Hucky couldn’t have been older than five or six, he had light brown hair that contrasted with the dark brown of his mother. His face was a match for hers, and both had the same tan skin that was common in Neber.
After the two had joined up with him as he’d scoured the ship, it had been difficult for Adar to keep an eye on them while also staying on the lookout for danger.
Hucky would have run on ahead numerous times if Adar hadn’t kept grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him back. Adar had calmly explained he hadn’t finished going through the ship. After that, Melynda had taken hold of Hucky and kept control of him for a time.
She hadn’t been as worried about his safety as she should have been.
Even now, as she moved to intercept the boy, her attitude would have been better suited to an outing rather than a struggle for their lives.
The kid had the energy of several young boys plus a pack of puppies. In another circumstance, Adar might have been amused by Hucky’s antics, but the last thing he needed was the boy making distractions.
Or worse, broadcasting their presence. He almost opened his mouth to warn against other Hunwei or turncoats onboard, but he had been over every inch of the ship several times. Hucky and Melynda had been with him for much of the way. He was certain that the only enemies on board were dead.
On the other hand, it was better not to risk it. Who's to say that there weren’t hidden compartments he hadn’t found?
“You both need to keep it down,” Adar said, his voice a few notches above a whisper. “This isn’t the only door on the ship. If other Hunwei come aboard or some are in hiding, we don’t want to make our presence obvious.”
The boy continued to climb higher, talking loudly while he did.
“Look how high I am!”
Kura had set Lars on the grated floor, and he was watching Hucky with a smile on his face while clapping his hands together. A laugh escaped the toddler’s lips.
When Adar glared at Kura she shrugged as if to say, what’s the harm?
Another of the women—Helda—glowered at Adar. She folded her arms as she scowled.
Was it his imagination or had she been staring at his blasters? He could have sworn he'd caught her reaching out to touch Kura's blaster as well. He'd taken a step towards Kura but stopped when Helda had reached out to tickle Lars. Had she noticed he was on to her and changed her plan?
The short-haired woman was taller than most and quite hefty. She probably weighed more than Adar. If she were to attack him, he would be hard pressed to do anything short of killing her. The impatient look on her face was impossible to miss.
I shouldn’t have told them I thought the ship was clear. When he’d come back with Hucky and Melynda, they’d all been cowering in the corner. Kura had been enough on edge that he was glad he’d looked down the ladder to catch her attention before descending. Otherwise, his sudden appearance on the ladder might have sent her into a frenzy that would have left him maimed or worse.
Adar slung his blaster over his back, it clattered against several others as he crossed the hold to the ladder. Grabbing the ladder with one hand, he yanked on the boy’s leg with the other.
Hucky let out a squeak as he lost his grip and swung down into Adar’s waiting arms.
Adar had been prepared to give the kid a stern warning, but the smile on Hucky’s face turned into laughter.
“Again?”
Feeling his frown melt, Adar cleared his throat and reinforced his face into a full scowl, which just made the kid laugh all the more.
“Again! Again! Again!”
“Keep it down,” Adar hissed as he pushed the kid into Melinda’s waiting arms. She wasn't happy, her glower was split between Adar and Hucky.
Confounded woman, Adar thought. Probably upset that I touched her son. Well, if she isn’t careful, he’ll bring the Hunwei down on our heads. Where will we be then?
Adar had always been wary of other people around his son when Jorad had been a boy. Adar could sympathize with Melynda’s concerns, but if Jorad had been acting the way Hucky had been, Adar wouldn’t have frowned about somebody else helping. Assuming, of course, Adar hadn’t been around to handle the situation.
Maybe she thought she had been taking care of it. Adar could see that perspective as well but would continue to corral the kid while they were in danger, even if she voiced her objections.
Several of the other women spoke in a low conversation as Adar passed by them as he once again approached the door, his boots clanking on the metal grates. The hold was well lit by panels in the ceiling above. Other than a few objects that hung from the ceiling that he couldn't begin to understand, the ceiling, walls, and floors were bare. He didn't see any levers, buttons, or anything else that signified what made the mechanism of the door work.
Adar felt along the door again, this time pausing to push against it while paying close attention to see if cracks formed along the outlines of where it should be.
Nothing happened.
When he got to the end of the texture that indicated the end of the door, he continued on, pressing against the wall, hoping to make a hidden panel or something appear.
Derren’s tablet hadn’t had any obvious controls. It just created an illusion that floated in the air. Adar hadn’t had time to try to puzzle out what had made that work either.
Bleeding Melyah. There had to be a way to make this thing work. Once he’d exhausted everything he could think of, he decided to return to the room that looked like it had been the command center, if the ship even had such a thing.
“I’ll be back soon,” Adar said. “Keep up against the wall until I return.” He pointed at the wall parallel to the ladder. Without waiting for a response or giving them a chance to argue with his order, he went up the ladder and entered the level above.
Unlike the floor below, this had been broken into a hallway with rooms on either side. He resisted the urge to cover his nose as he moved. Some Hunwei had burned to
death here. And he had thought the smell was bad outside.
He supposed it was a lucky thing the ship hadn’t caught fire.
He hadn’t stopped to do a proper examination, but it looked as though the ship was mostly made from metal.
But that doesn’t mean the ship won’t burn, he thought as he remembered the group of Hunwei that had burned together at such a high temperature their armor had caught fire and fused together.
Adar passed a particularly large Hunwei he had killed earlier. The Hunwei’s helmet had rolled off, and the monster’s fat blue tongue hung out of his mouth, dripping saliva onto the floor. The Hunwei had taken a partial blast to the side and had kept on coming. It hadn’t been until Adar had put two large holes through the Hunwei’s chest that the beast had finally stopped moving.
As Adar stepped around the body, careful even though he knew the Hunwei was dead, he stopped to examine the damage the Hunwei had suffered. He was curious to see if the silver metal substance had tried to cover the wounds in the same way it had worked on the turncoat he’d killed with the dagger. Covering his mouth while he held his breath, he peered into one of the ragged holes and saw that silvery stuff ringed the outside of the wound. He was unable to tell if it was part of the armor or if the healing metal had stopped after somehow knowing that the wound had been a mortal one.
He wondered what other surprises the Hunwei had for them as he walked down the hall towards the command center. There were other bodies in the hall, but these Hunwei had been killed by the tower. Both of the blasters belonging to the fallen Hunwei had been destroyed by the fire. Smoke still hung in the air. He found more of the hazy stuff in the command center, along with several more corpses.
The command center had four seats big enough for a Hunwei. Adar hadn’t tried it out yet, but he guessed his feet wouldn’t touch the ground if he were to sit in one of them. Before each of the seats was a table. He approached one of these first, figuring that the tables were somehow the key to controlling the ship, and touched the tabletop. It was made from a substance he didn’t recognize. While it was hard, it lacked the feel of either wood or metal or glass.
The table lit up, and buttons appeared underneath a translucent screen. Each of the buttons had blocky symbols that at first glance looked the same. As he studied them, he noticed subtle differences and realized that no two were alike.
He gingerly touched the table surface. It looked like glass, but the feel was wrong. He applied pressure with his hand and doubted it would shatter if he were to take a brick to it.
“Confound it all!” He stared at the screen for a couple of minutes without making any progress in determining what each button would do. He tried pressing one, it lit up when he touched it, but nothing happened. He pressed several more to the same effect.
Practically banging on the surface now, he touched a bunch in rapid succession and was unable to get anything to change. Cursing, he removed his sword and swung it down onto the tabletop.
A spiderweb fracture appeared, but the surface and the table were both still intact. Adar closed his eyes while taking deep breaths.
What were you expecting you fool? He thought. It’s obvious the technology wasn’t made for a human. He sheathed his sword and leaned against the edge of a chair, feeling like a child using the chair of an adult, and studied the tabletop. He pressed the buttons again, each lit up as it had before, but it accomplished nothing else.
I didn’t send us hurtling into space, I should be grateful I suppose. Melyah knows what I would have been able to do about that. He was surprised at how angry he was that he couldn’t get it to work. The Arches and Derren’s tablet had set him up to believe it would just be a matter of poking around to get things moving.
A part of him had hoped that given enough time they would be able to figure out how to fly these ships, even though he’d known it to be irrational. Snorting, he decided to try touching the table several more times and wasn’t surprised when nothing happened.
“They’re waiting for you,” Hucky said. “I think some are about to cry. They’re not strong like my mama. Others are mumbling about you giving them orders.”
Adar regarded the young kid with wary eyes. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with anybody that claimed to be Kopal, but he couldn’t get past the lack of fear in the boy’s face and the strange way his mother had reacted when Adar had found them. Regardless of whether or not Adar’s guess was accurate, there was something more going on here than was apparent.
“How do they open the doors?” Adar asked while studying the boy.
“How should I know?” Hucky moved towards one of the chairs and tried to pull himself up into it. When he realized that he couldn’t touch the top, he jumped and snagged onto the end of the chair. His hands slipped, and he fell on his rear. A smile split his face, and he tried again.
Shaking his head, Adar turned his attention back to the controls. There hadn’t been any hint of deception on the kid’s face. Five-year-olds weren’t normally good at lying, so Adar decided the kid really didn’t know.
Perhaps Melynda had told the boy they were going on an adventure. That could explain his attitude and the sense of wonder he had about everything.
After several more attempts to get the controls working, Adar gave up and moved to a glass case that was built into the wall of the ship.
Some blasters hung on the other side. In addition to those Adar was familiar with, there were other weapons as well. Some were smaller. One was more than double the size of the blasters Adar had been picking up off the Hunwei bodies. If anything the Hunwei had would be able to do damage to a ship, this would be it. He itched to get it outside and try it on a departing Hunwei ship.
When he’d gone through the ship earlier, he’d stopped here but hadn’t been able to find the latch to get the door open.
He ran his hands all along the sides of the glass, hoping the case would open on its own, but of course, nothing happened.
“Hey, look at this!” Hucky said.
An image had appeared above the table in front of Hucky, who stood on his seat, leaning forward so he could touch the console.
“Get back from there!” Adar said, covering the distance in a step and yanking the boy away from the image. He shoved Hucky into a corner. “Stay there. If you’re not careful, you’ll launch us into space or do some other fool thing.”
The kid’s face split into a grin and Adar shook his head, turning back to the display. Something in the kid’s expression had said that was exactly what he wanted.
Adar couldn’t make any sense of the display. Swirls of color spun around on their own accord, reminding him of kites that he’d played with as a kid. He moved until he was within an inch of the display and shook his head.
He would have assumed that an image similar to the ship would appear, allowing him to guess at some of the controls. He’d been hoping for something that would be more intuitive, but had no idea what to do with this.
“What did you do to get this to show up?” Adar looked at the kid, who’d been inching away from the spot where Adar had put him, a smug look on his face.
Hucky shrugged. “I just touched it.” He looked at the one Adar had shattered. “That one didn’t like your sword, bet that's your problem.”
Suppressing a growl, Adar spun back to the swirling colors and was about to touch one of them when they disappeared.
“Bleeding Melyah!” He touched the tabletop, and nothing happened. After fiddling around with it for several more minutes, he turned to find Hucky with his hands pressed up against the glass as he stared at the blasters on the other side.
“I told you to stay.” Adar picked up the boy and put him in the chair. “Show me exactly what you did.”
“I don’t remember for certain.” Hucky leaned forward as if he was about to fall and caught himself on the console. “I was just pressing at the buttons.” As Hucky moved his fingers across the glass top, Adar held his breath, coiled like a spring, inte
nding to move the kid away as soon as the colors appeared again.
“It’s not working like it did last time,” Hucky said, pushing himself off the table with enough force that he was able to stabilize into a standing position on the chair.
“Get down from there.” Adar went back over to the blasters, unsheathing his sword while he did. “Find some cover.” He waited until Hucky had hidden behind a chair before turning back to the case.
A brief hesitation swept over Adar and then he swung his sword into the glass.
It shattered. He pulled his blade back before it connected with the wall on the other side. Using the hilt of his weapon, he broke out the rest of the glass with a small smile on his face.
It felt good to be making some progress.
After sheathing his blade, he tried to pull down the largest blaster and found it was heavier than he’d been expecting. Now that he got a closer look, he realized it was more than three times bigger than a normal blaster and weighed almost as much as a man. It must be made of something different than the blasters Adar had been using because three normal blasters would not be that heavy.
He’d planned to lug it outside when he left the ship but now thought better of it. It was too heavy to carry far, and he didn’t want to leave it in the open for just anybody to find. He pushed it back into place, wishing he had Jorad or Karn with him. Two men would have been able to move it without much of a problem.
He went instead for several of the small blasters, which almost fit comfortably into one hand. The trigger guard was too far away from his finger so he wouldn't be able to fire it without the other hand. At first, he didn’t see a secondary button on the weapon until he closely examined the grip and saw there was a long section that depressed when his hand was wrapped around it. He stuffed two into his belt.
I’ve exhausted all my other options, he thought. It’s time to throw caution to the wind.
Hucky was back on one of the seats, fiddling with the control panel.
“Come on,” Adar said, swinging the boy down from the chair. “I think I know of a way off this death trap.”
