Reese tentatively approached the elephant head on. Five feet out he stopped and looked at the animal. The elephant huffed and tried to take a step backward. More huffing sounds. Reese took several more steps until he was close enough to touch his long hanging trunk. He gently gave it a pat. He was saying something, but Nan couldn’t make out his words. The elephant seemed to calm down a bit as Reese continued to talk in a soothing voice.
“Mom!” Mollie said under her breath. She used her wide eyes to gesture toward the other end of the parking lot. “They … are … coming!” she said through clenched teeth.
“I see them. Just keep still while Reese helps the elephant. She looks terrified, we don’t want it to try to charge away.” Nan moved slowly, bringing up and supporting the shotgun with both hands.
Reese was patting the elephant’s thick front left leg, and now, ever so slowly, moved along the animal’s side. Never losing contact, he petted the elephant’s mid-section, and then its hind legs.
Both Mollie and Nan had their attention on the molt weevils. All five of them were up on two tentacle appendages and running. Nan thought they almost looked like people when they moved like that—people without heads.
“Reese! Hurry!”
He’d gotten grease on his hands from the rope hitting the greasy steps. He was having trouble getting a solid enough grip to pull the blade free on his pocketknife.
“Reese!” Nan said, this time with more volume.
He glanced up to Nan and she said the words louder this time, molt weevils!
The elephant too sensed the approaching creatures and became agitated. His trunk pointed upward and a loud desperate honk filled the air.
“Damn it!” Reese said, still wrestling with the knife.
“They’re coming … fifty yards, Reese!” Nan yelled, no longer concerned with upsetting the near-frantic elephant.
Reese resorted to using his teeth and finally got the blade separated from the handle. He locked the blade open and didn’t waste a second before slicing at the thick cocoon wrappings binding the elephant’s two hind legs.
“Reese … Now!” Nan screamed. She brought the shotgun up and aimed it in the direction of the sprinting molt weevils. She couldn’t fire. She knew the spread of buckshot would hit both Reese and the elephant. Nan almost dropped the gun as Gus pushed his way past her. He had a handgun leveled in both outstretched hands and fired. The closest of the molt weevils fell, its legs continuing to gyrate and twitch. Two more shots rang out, but both missed their target.
Gus cursed, widened his stance and took aim again. All four of the molt weevils were almost upon them. With one final pull of the knife, the elephant’s legs were free. Reese and the elephant ran—Reese toward the truck—the elephant back toward the zoo.
With ten feet to go, a molt weevil dove toward Reese. Two of the creature’s tentacles reached out stretching, catching his left ankle, and wrapped around it. The agent went down onto the pavement. Gus ran to the furthest end of the platform and pointed the gun nearly straight down. He fired once, twice, three times. Reese scrambled to his feet and darted to the steps. The other three molt weevils came at him: one from the left, one from the right, and one from directly behind.
Nan knew she had time for one word … she screamed it, “Catch!”
Even before he’d looked up, the twelve-gauge was flying through the air in his direction. He caught it with one hand, flipped it around, and blew the closest of the molt weevils in half. Gus continued to fire until his magazine was empty and the slide locked open. One molt weevil remained alive. It hesitated, then abruptly rushed after the elephant.
Reese got to the steps, retrieved the end of the rope, and pulled himself up to safety.
Chapter 34
Grimes was back in the pilot’s seat with Jason sitting next to her. Their visibility was zero. One or two of the big bugs had climbed on top of the Streamline’s sweeping nose section and hadn’t moved in five minutes. What they did have was a perfect view of the underbelly of a seven-foot-long cockroach. Jason noticed Grimes purposely avert her eyes—first, by making repeated, unnecessary, setting adjustments to the holo-display and, eventually, turning completely around in her seat to speak with Dira, who was seated in the first row behind the cockpit.
They were waiting for a small security team to clear the area so Ricket could get to the access panel and open the portal window. Grimes nearly jumped out of her skin as three plasma bursts blasted the big bug in front of them. Charred and clearly dead, it fell away from the ship. Rizzo gave Grimes and Jason a casual two-fingered salute from below and then fired several more bursts at what, undoubtedly, were more out-of-view bugs. Ricket hurried to the cavern’s back wall and wasted no time entering the access code. Rizzo, Billy, and Jackson provided assault cover against any lurking creatures daring to approach. The portal opened and Ricket and the security team ran back into the ship.
Grimes used the holo-display to position and navigate the Streamline through the portal, just as she’d done back at The Lilly’s Zoo. They entered Halimar in the dead of night, which suited Jason just fine. Jason called back for Gaddy to join them in the cockpit.
Several moments later she stood at their shoulders, and as she looked past them, out to Halimar, Jason could see by her face she was happy to be home. Grimes set the ship down on a somewhat level area of hillside. Jason estimated they were several thousand feet above the open plains below, which were primarily farmland.
“You mentioned something about getting hold of a pocket com. Is this something you can buy, like at a store?” Jason asked.
Gaddy smiled and shook her head. “No. This isn’t Earth. The government issues anything related to communications equipment or devices. We’ll need to steal one.”
Jason turned to look through the forward windshield. In the distance, past the farmland, were clusters of lights. “What do you suggest?”
Gaddy continued to stare straight ahead and then pointed. “That’s the university. Get me in close to the area there and I can grab us a PoCom … that’s what we call pocket communicators.”
Grimes looked at Jason, who nodded his approval. “Don’t run off, Gaddy; we need you to tell us where to go, once we get in close.”
Grimes kept the Streamline close to the ground, but away from homes, buildings, or other structures. By the time they’d reached the school, the sun was just coming up. At a half mile out, Jason thought the university didn’t look much different from any one of hundreds you’d find on Earth: imposing stone structures, grassy open areas, and tall buildings that were probably student dorms. When Jason turned to Gaddy, he saw she’d clasped a hand over her mouth and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“What is it? What’s wrong, Gaddy?”
“Can’t you see what’s happened here?”
Jason looked again and, indeed, now he did see. The walls of the university were pocked with blackened blast marks and what he’d first thought was early morning mist was actually sooty dark smoke. Student bodies lay prone on the ground. Scores of handmade signs, mostly torn and trampled, were strewn around like trash.
“Put us down in the quad area over there,” Gaddy said angrily.
It took Grimes several moments to find an area that was sufficiently clear of the dead before setting the ship down.
By the time Jason got to his feet, Gaddy was already running down the aisle toward the mid-ship hatch. “Gaddy … wait!”
She opened the hatch and sprinted off the ship. Jason tapped Billy’s shoulder as he ran by him: “Bring a team.”
Jason triggered his SuitPac device and followed in the direction Gaddy had run. He saw her twenty yards ahead, bent over a body. It looked as if she were checking for a pulse—a sign of life—then she moved on to another body, and then another.
He approached, but kept his distance. Jason had seen death countless times—he didn’t need to check any of these bodies for life signs. They’d been dead for days. But Gaddy checked them all. Her dee
p, primal, mournful sobs kept him from moving closer. She gently turned the bodies over, one after another … the sobs continued. Billy, Rizzo, Jackson and Traveler joined him, standing several steps back. Only Dira rushed forward, willing to encroach into Gaddy’s now desperate quest to find someone, anyone, still alive.
Jason wanted to tell Dira she needed to activate her own SuitPac, but he knew she wouldn’t listen. She would want to connect with Gaddy on a more personal level. She crouched at Gaddy’s side and checked one young student’s carotid artery for a pulse. She put an arm around Gaddy’s shoulders and pulled her close. They clung together while Dira spoke softly to her—helping to soothe the pain of what had happened here. Eventually they stood and slowly moved back toward Jason and the team. Gaddy stopped in front of him and reached for his hand. She placed a square device in his palm. “This is what a PoCom looks like,” she said, sounding resigned to the catastrophic situation on the campus.
An abrupt sound brought everyone to attention. Jason checked his HUD and saw a moving life icon in the building to their right.
Traveler stayed put, while Billy, Rizzo and Jackson spread out and headed for the building. Then desperate screams stopped them in their tracks. Jason’s nano-devices translated the words: Gaddy! Gaddy! Gaddy!
Multi-guns came up, poised to fire, as a student burst through the first floor doorway. Gaddy ran toward her. “Oh my God … Chala!”
A young female Craing about the same age as Gaddy ran across the quad and right into Gaddy’s open, outstretched arms.
“I saw you from the second floor window. I knew it was you the first second I saw you,” Chala said, sounding out of breath.
“What happened here? Chala, who did this?”
“You know who did this! The emperor’s forces came two days ago … they didn’t even ask the students to disassemble. They just started shooting … students, professors, anyone on campus, shot down without a second thought.”
“How did you survive?”
“I hid. I cowered in a closet until they left last night. When I saw your ship, I thought they’d returned … that they’d come back to kill me, too.”
Jason asked, “Are there any other survivors, Chala?”
She looked up at Jason, but didn’t answer.
“Chala, this is Captain Reynolds. He’s a friend. They’re from Earth … they’re here to help us.”
Jason saw the fear in her eyes. She looked so young, a child, not that much older than Mollie and Boomer.
“I don’t know. Not that I know of.” She turned toward Gaddy. “Can you take me home? I don’t want to stay here by myself.”
Gaddy brought her into a hug. Looking up at Jason, she silently asked him Chala’s question.
“You can come with us, Chala, but I can’t guarantee you’ll be any safer. Truth is, you probably won’t be. As for getting you home, we have a mission to accomplish first.”
“I don’t care … please just get me out of here.”
* * *
Dira brought Chala into the Medical cubicle on board the Streamline and gave her something to calm her nerves. Gaddy sat next to her on the gurney, while Jason sat on a stool across from them.
“Talk to me about what’s happening here, Chala.”
“Here on Halimar?”
“Yes, and the other worlds.”
“You don’t know?”
Jason shook his head. “No, other than that there have been protests—”
“Oh, it’s gone far beyond that,” she said incredulously. “It’s a revolution, Mr. Reynolds.”
“It’s Captain, and a revolution typically involves weapons, a military response …”
“I don’t know anything about that kind of stuff. Why don’t you just turn on the news? I’m only a student.”
Gaddy made an apologetic expression for her friend’s snarky attitude.
As if on cue, Ricket arrived with a virtual notepad. He pulled at a three-dimensional video image until it was several feet wide and was hovering between them. It was a Halimar news report that looked surprisingly similar to a national news report from NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN or FOX, back on Earth.
Jason watched as a montage of dramatic videos provided a clearer example of what was happening on each of the seven Craing worlds. Chala was right to use the word revolution. The Craing masses were armed and, to some extent, even organized. Two separate clips showed government installations set afire, while another one showed government-deployed aircrafts firing down on a charging mob of revolutionaries.
Both Gaddy and Chala were instantly captivated by the reports. They leaned in and wore the same expression … they were proud to be part of the revolt.
“We’re looking at GAX-News, one of the few non-government-controlled stations,” Gaddy volunteered.
Jason’s attention was pulled back to the holographic display. A two-dimensional black and white video clip appeared, showing a triumphant-looking Martin Luther King striding in front of a crowd of people. Just one of his many civil-disobedience marches.
“Earth’s media transmissions continue to be an important influence on our society, Captain,” Gaddy said. “High priest overlords tried to ban such subversive Earth media decades ago, but that only increased our demand for them. Earth remains an important example, an inspiration, to the Craing populace.”
“We only want what you have on Earth,” Chala added. “The basic freedoms your own people experience on a daily basis.”
“Those freedoms came at a heavy price for our people. In some places they’re still paying that price,” Jason said, now viewing miscellaneous images of bare-chested African slaves, bound in chains; battle sketches from the American Civil War; and then sobering World War II photographs of emaciated prisoners held in Nazi concentration camps. More Craing three-dimensional clips then appeared, no less horrific, showing Craing men, women, and children slaves, being beaten by uniformed Craing soldiers. Next, alien beings were being led up a Craing heavy cruiser’s gangway at gunpoint.
Jason shook his head as he watched the next series of video shots. Five elderly smug-looking high priests were gathered around a large round table. Flames rose up from a center caldron. The next shot was a close-up of fire dancing up from a metal grate and what looked like partial human remains—an upper leg and a man’s open filleted chest—being roasted. The final images were wide-angle shots from somewhere in space. Jason recognized the cube-like shapes of a Craing dreadnaught warship formation. Seven massive vessels were converging around a singularly beautiful pink planet. It slowly rotated on its axis, with near-transparent white clouds above its surface. It looked like a painting … a watercolor of varying subtle hues. Simultaneously, bright amber plasma blasts shot out from the warships. Within moments the pretty pink hues changed to dark red and then to dark charcoal gray as all life ceased to exist on that pretty world. Jason flinched when the planet exploded, atomized into nothingness. The seven warships then moved into a V-formation, leaving only empty black space behind.
“At least for us, Captain, our fates have been tied together for many years,” Chala went on. “The emperor … the acting-emperor needs to be stopped. The Great Space initiative is the last straw, so to speak. It disgusts all of us. It cannot be allowed to continue.”
Jason and Dira’s eyes met. He saw her holding back tears. Only a few days ago, her own planet nearly succumbed to the same fate they’d just viewed on the video clip … and how close had Earth, too, come to being destroyed at Ot-Mul’s hands?
Gaddy continued, “The Craing people have looked to Earth as a world example of what can be accomplished when the people unite. It’s a beacon of hope. Right now, this is our time. We need your help, Captain.”
Jason saw pleading in both Gaddy’s and Chala’s eyes. But helping the rebelling Craing citizenry while his own planet lay under siege, infested by creatures that could very well kill his ex-wife, daughter, and everyone else, wasn’t his top priority. Although he certainly felt for the Craing people, his pri
orities were simple—do everything humanly possible to save Earth—his family. No, joining in the Craing’s revolution was not going to happen.
Jason spoke softly, “Then help us find Ot-Mul. He still controls the most powerful military force in the known universe. Destroying him, along with the high priest overlords, will be of mutual benefit to both our people.”
Chapter 35
“You mentioned someone named Zay-Lee,” Jason said.
Gaddy nervously glanced to Chala as if she wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Why would you have anything to do with Zay?” Chala asked her friend, looking confused.
Gaddy gave Jason an accusatory look and then let out a slow, deliberate, breath. “Zay is Chala’s boyfriend.”
Recognition of an awkward situation crossed both Dira’s and Jason’s faces.
“This goes way beyond boyfriend troubles, Gaddy. Whatever you’ve got going on in your personal life needs to take a backseat.”
“I’ll need that PoCom back,” Gaddy said in a flat voice.
Jason held out the cell phone-sized device Gaddy had handed him earlier.
She took the PoCom from his open palm and without looking at Chala, accessed a small display screen, which Jason assumed was some kind of directory assistance. She used the tip of one finger to make virtual connections, one tap after another, until the device clicked several times. Gaddy held the PoCom up to her ear and waited.
Jason heard a muffled voice answer on the other end. Gaddy gave Chala another quick glance and answered, “This is Gaddy.”
His actual words were indecipherable but the excitement in the male’s voice was clearly evident. It seemed Chala too could hear him because her eyes widened and her expression of curiosity quickly changed to one of fury.
Before Gaddy could say another word, Chala was screaming what Jason assumed were Craing curse words. Chala was up on her feet, inches from Gaddy’s face. “How long?”
The Great Space (Scrapyard Ship Book 6) Page 18
