by Wilson Harp
Alex could hear Grieg and Curtis coming from the hangar to the barracks as they left. He knew that Jeffries would be in charge by the time they got back.
When they entered the med bay, Levin made his way to one of the cabinets and opened it. Alex watched as he sorted through the different medicines stored there and then found what looked like a small suction cup.
The Pelod took the device and put it over his mouth. He began coughing and fell to his knees.
Manny placed Davison on the low table and moved to help Levin. The Pelod placed the device over his mouth again. This time he didn’t cough, but looked up at Manny and smiled.
“There is something in our lungs,” he said softly.
This was the first time in days that Alex had heard either of the Pelod speak.
Manny started going through the other cabinets. Alex figured he was looking for another of the breathing devices.
“Ramirez, look at this,” Liao said.
Alex looked where the Chinese soldier was pointing on the monitor.
Alex saw a field of stars and parts of stone and debris.
“External camera?” he asked.
Liao nodded. “I believe so. There are two angles. See.”
Manny was looking over Alex’s shoulder.
“I think I can figure out where we are, Alex.”
“Great, Manny! You sit down and work on that. Liao, let’s see if we can figure out any of these numbers.”
“Gunny, you and Liao need to come to the barracks now,” Jeffries said. Hopkins and Grieg were behind him.
“Sure, what’s going on?” Alex asked.
“We are leaving. I have Singh, Curtis and Hu getting Adams and Fleischer on board the supply ship. I looked at their flight controls and nav system and I’m sure I can fly it.”
“Were you able to drop the mosar field?”
Jeffries shook his head. “No, and I don’t think we will be able to.”
“I won’t leave Manny and the others behind,” Alex said.
“This isn’t a request or suggestion, Sergeant. This is an order. Report to the hangar and board that vessel.”
Alex spread his feet and stared into Jeffries eyes. “No, sir. I’m staying here. If we can get a message out, we might be able to get help to us.”
“Dammit, Ramirez!” Jeffries said. “You are a by the books man. You know why I have to do this.”
“Just leave me here, then. Send someone when you get picked up. If the Otina return, they can’t get through the mosar field. And if they do, I can hold them in that entryway.”
“I’m staying with Gunny,” Hopkins said.
Jeffries threw his arms into the air. “Ten minutes into my first command and I have a full blown mutiny on my hands.
“Fine. If that’s the way it is then that’s the way it will be. Ramirez, I will be putting this in my report. Hopkins, they probably won’t ask much about you, but if they do, I won’t sugar coat it.”
Hopkins nodded and slipped into the med bay.
“Good luck, Gunny,” said Grieg. He smiled and reached his hand out.
“Good luck to you, too, Grieg,” Alex said as he shook hands with the Norwegian.
Jeffries shook his head and then motioned to Liao and Grieg to follow him.
Alex turned around and saw Manny staring at him.
“Why, Alex?” Manny asked. “You can leave. You too, Hopkins.”
“I wouldn’t leave you, Manny. First, you are my friend. Second, you never leave a man behind if you can help it,” Alex said.
“I agree,” Hopkins added. “The others may not have seen you and the Pelod as part of our team, but you were. If we hadn’t learned the override code from the Pelod, we wouldn’t have been able to escape. That right there makes them part of the team. It’s not right that they were to be left behind.”
Alex looked over at the Pelod. They both were wearing those little suction cup like masks over their mouths and noses. Davison was still lying on the table, he seemed to be breathing, though. Something Alex hadn’t been sure about in the last couple of days. Levin was sitting on the floor. He watched their conversation with no visible emotion. His eyes showed interest instead of lethargy. Whatever those little masks were, the Pelod seemed to be responding well to the treatment.
“Alex, I can see the hangar opening,” Manny said. He was looking at one of the camera angles on the console. The edge of the hangar door was visible on the left side of the screen. It slowly opened and the nose of the supply ship could be seen.
Alex and Hopkins walked over to see their fellow prisoners escape their prison.
“I sure hope they find someone soon,” Hopkins said.
“I hear you,” Alex muttered. “Not looking forward to the Otina finding out what happened here.”
The door to the hangar was fully opened and the ship started forward slowly. Alex knew he had made the right decision, but he felt more than a little helpless relying upon a rescue at this point. There would be no escape for him, this time.
“God speed,” Hopkins said as the supply ship filled the screen. The ship turned away from the camera and started to accelerate away from their prison.
Two bolts of light appeared from off the left side of the screen and the supply ship started ripping apart. Manny bellowed in fear and surprise and Hopkins’ jaw dropped open. Alex couldn’t move. He watched in horror as the vessel disintegrated and the men who were so close to escape perished in the cold emptiness of space.
Chapter 14
“Golding, I need a med team here, on the double,” K-man yelled. He heard the whine of the heavy weapon as it charged up for another blast.
“Lippor, you keep Greenaway behind that pillar. Do you hear me?”
Lippor pulled the wounded tech behind the thick metal pillar and covered him protectively.
K-man flipped his scope onto infrared and prepared to jump into the open.
“Phillips. Lester. Cover me!”
K-man dove into an open area of the ground as two of his men popped up from behind cover and sprayed the heavy weapon position with a sheet of lead.
K-man was still sliding when he got a good look at the position through his scope. He sent a .50 caliber round straight through a narrow opening and into the head of one of the Otina firing on his team.
K-man’s scope spotted another figure through the dust and debris and his finger squeezed again. The Otina dropped, but K-man knew that he had missed his mark. There was a wounded alien along with one on the other side of the weapon.
He scrambled to his feet as he saw the weapon turning towards his position. Two steps were all he figured he had before the weapon would fire again. He was right. Even as he threw himself toward a half closed doorway, he felt the shards of metal and mineral slam into his back from the blast of the weapon.
He bounced off the door and back into the open. He hoped that none of the Otina soldiers decided to pay attention to him. He tried to turn over, but his body wouldn’t move.
He heard the shout of some of his men and the clatter of automatic weapons ripping into the hardened defenses. He had wondered if the Otina would ever modify their defenses. He had hoped that they wouldn’t. But today, on this raid, they had shown that they were capable of anticipating the human’s attacks.
Heavy weapons had been stripped from the surface and had been situated inside the facility. One of his squads had been ripped to shreds when they got caught unaware. He had led his team into the same situation, but Lippor had heard the whine of the weapon before it fired and had cried out a warning.
Two other squads were facing similar weapons throughout the compound.
“Colonel, we are taking heavy fire from the ground,” Manning’s voice cut through the chatter.
K-man managed to roll onto his side. The whine of the heavy weapon had not started again which gave K-man hope that his men had knocked out the position.
“The Colonel is down,” Lippor said. “No. Wait, I see him moving.”
“Kiskaliski here,” K-man said as he moved to the door he had bounced off of. It hurt to speak, but it hurt to even move. “Lift off and hover. Get the Nightingale out of range. Commanders, get your men into the compound. Once there, let our boys in the air know they are clear. Scooters, pour down death when you get the signal.”
K-man jerked as a pair of hands lowered him to the ground.
“Easy sir, going to put you on your stomach.”
K-man recognized the voice. It was one of his medics. He couldn’t remember his name. He saw the rubble and debris that littered the floor. The pain in his body was intense, and yet he didn’t think he had taken any major injury. He was able to move after all.
He realized he was lying down. He could hear the medics speaking. There were two of them now, he was sure. Then the pain started easing up. That felt better. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
When he opened his eyes, he was shocked at how bright it was.
“Unfortunate timing, Colonel.”
Doctor Preston was pulling a light away from his eyes.
K-man blinked against the light and tried to sit up. He felt the restraints cut into him.
“You are strapped in tight, Colonel,” Preston said. “Had to do some work on your back. I was really hoping you would be out until we could move you to a bed.”
“What happened?” K-man asked. He remembered the heavy weapon. He couldn’t remember much after that.
“You dove into the open, fired at a heavy weapon, drew its attention, and survived. At least that is the way it was told to me.”
“How are my men?” K-man asked.
“You need to rest. We’re going to move you onto a bed now, so just try not to speak while we unstrap you and get you comfortable.”
“Will I be okay?” K-man asked as two men started to remove the restraints.
“No damage to your spine, and minimal injuries to your back. The armor held up well and you were hit with shrapnel for the most part. You will be sore for a good long while.”
“I need to get back to my team.”
“No, you are going to spend the next couple of weeks here, under my supervision. Your XO and aide will be in tomorrow to brief you, but you are my patient and my patient will be getting rest.”
K-man gave in to Preston’s orders and tried to relax. The drugs that filled his veins encouraged him to close his eyes and sleep. He knew he should, but he was worried about Greenaway. He had seen his young tech’s head snap back when he was hit with a large piece of shrapnel from the initial blast of that gun.
The men who were unstrapping him lifted his body carefully and set him onto a portable bed. He looked over to see the surgical table that Preston had him strapped to. It was essentially a frame with leather straps that held the patient in place. The frame could rotate and swivel into any position, allowing the surgeon to work smoothly when a patient needed multiple procedures.
“How long?” K-man muttered.
“Two days on the table,” one of the men said. “Had to keep you there until the wounds from your back started healing.”
K-man blinked. When he opened his eyes, he knew he had fallen unconscious. He was in one of the few private rooms in the medical facilities on the Berlin.
He tried to sit up, but it hurt too much.
“Do you want to sit up, sir?” Lippor asked.
“Yeah, see what you can do about that,” K-man said. His lips felt dry and his throat was parched.
He felt the bed start to rise and after just a few inches he saw Lippor standing at the end of the bed pressing a button. Soon, K-man was reclining in a comfortable, sitting position.
“Thanks, Lippor. Is there anything to drink?”
Lippor walked over to a side table and picked up a bottle of water with a straw sticking out of it. He handed it to K-man and waited.
K-man drank and gave the bottle back to Lippor.
“That was nasty. What was in it?” he said.
“Something new they are trying. Supposed to accelerate the process of healing from severe burns.”
“How bad are they?” K-man asked. He knew the doctor told him he had been hit with shrapnel, but he didn’t know he was burned.
“Quite a few third degree spots where your armor melted into your skin, but mostly second degree. About seventy square centimeters of skin had to be removed over all,” Lippor said.
K-man winced at the words. He was sure that one of the bags hooked up to his arms was full of drugs. He also understood that the threat of keeping him in bed for two weeks was serious.
“What happened with the operation?”
Lippor held up a folder stuffed with paper. “All in here, sir.”
“I can’t imagine what we are doing with folders of paper, Lippor. Can’t we get everything on data chips now?”
“We can,” Lippor said. “We just don’t. Paper still makes people feel important.”
K-man was going to make a comment about computers when he thought about his tech.
“What happened to Greenaway, Lippor?” K-man asked.
“He’s alive. Won’t know more until the swelling goes down. I spoke with him yesterday, but he was still out of it. Drugged out of his mind.”
“How bad was he injured?”
“Broke C-3 and C-4 vertebrae. Paralysis from the neck down is what they are afraid of. Keeping him under for the most part and letting his body heal.”
“How many did we lose?”
“Thirty four dead, seventy five seriously injured. That includes you and Greenaway.”
“You seem to have come out without a scratch.”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“You’re going to turn out to be another Ramirez if you keep being that lucky,” K-man said with a smile.
Lippor looked away. “Nah, no one is like Ramirez.”
He fished out a stack of forms that was paper-clipped together.
“But speaking of Gunny Ramirez, here is what I have been waiting to talk to you about.” Lippor held the stack up for K-man to read.
“Private Barry Mitchell? Who is he?” K-man asked.
“He’s the last person to see Ramirez.”
K-man leaned as far forward as he could as he reached to take the paper with a weak hand.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir. He was sitting right next to Ramirez when the ship was hit by the Otina. Said that he saw Ramirez and an Iltia’cor named Mantriq being put in the cryo-tubes.”
K-man flipped through a couple of the pages. Just general background information.
“What do we know from him?”
Lippor took the pages from K-man. “Sorry, told the doc I wouldn’t let you get too involved. What we know is that Ramirez, Manny and Mitchell and three others were taken from the ship. One was with Mitchell. A businessman from Osaka. He died some days before the raid according to the Otina records.”
K-man leaned back. Even holding the papers and flipping through them seemed to strain his arm and eyes.
“I want Mitchell brought to me,” he said. “I need to question him.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir. You get some rest.”
K-man nodded and then felt himself drift into sleep.
It was five days later when Mitchell was well enough to be wheeled into K-man’s room for a debriefing. Others had questioned the young private, but K-man wanted to speak with him personally. Salazar had held off on naming a new lead ground commander for Earth System Defense forces, so technically K-man was still in charge; as long as that was the case, he wanted to gather as much information about this mission personally.
K-man was flipping through a couple of reports when Lippor knocked on his door.
“Come in,” he said. He pulled his headset down to rest around his neck and turned off the music.
“Colonel, this is Private Mitchell,” Lippor said as he stepped out of the way of a wheelchair being pushed in behind him.
“Private Mitchell, this is Lie
utenant Colonel Kiskaliski,” Lippor finished the introductions as the nurse locked Mitchell’s wheelchair into place and left the room.
“Good afternoon, Private,” K-man said. Mitchell’s eyes had the thousand yard stare. It was common with soldiers who had seen a lot of action, but K-man knew it was also symptomatic of someone who had suffered torture.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Mitchell said. He spoke slow and soft, as if he put thought into each sound.
“I’m sure you have been asked a lot of different questions about what happened to you, but I would like to know what you can tell me about Gunny Ramirez,” K-man said.
Mitchell looked at K-man and furrowed his brow. “I don’t know. I only saw him for a few minutes. He wasn’t taken to the same prison I was.”
“The last time you saw him was on the Iltia transport?”
“Yes. Well, no. The last time I saw him they were putting him in the cryo-tube. I had started vomiting and the Otina pulled me away from the tubes. After I finished, I looked back to where they pulled me in and they were putting Sergeant Ramirez into a tube.”
“How did he look?” K-man asked.
“He was unconscious. They just strapped him in. He had a few burn marks along his side where they zapped him. Manny looked like he had been zapped a few times as well.”
K-man looked over at Lippor. “Manny? Who is Manny?”
“Mantriq,” Lippor said as he flipped through a folder. “He is an Iltia’cor that Ramirez was assigned to shepherd around. Part of our reconciliation efforts with Iltia.”
K-man turned back to Mitchell. “Tell me about Manny.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. He is the only Iltia’cor I have ever spoken to. He seemed very nice and was interested in where I was from.”
“What did he do when the attack started?”
Mitchell shook his head. “I’m sorry, I won’t be much help there, sir. I must have hit my head during the initial impact. I remember speaking with Manny and then opening my eyes on the Otina ship.”
“You say you saw burn marks on Manny from the shockers?”
“Yes, sir. He had two marks on him that I remember seeing.”
