A New Reason To Fight: An Intergalactic Romance

by T. J. Brandow

  “There! That has to be the entrance. Follow that hovercraft!” Donna yelled, fearing that their chance to save her mother was slipping away.

  Just as the hovercraft in front of them passed through the entrance, the round doorway on the half-dome entrance began to close.

  “Quickly!” Donna yelled. Dedron managed to gain access to the entrance just before the doorway became almost too narrow for them to enter. It closed behind them, leaving them in darkness. They followed the first hovercraft through a narrower tunnel that took several twists and turns. Finally, the first hovercraft came to a halt in a large, dimly lit chamber where several guards were standing by with laser cannons.

  Dedron and Donna watched as the pilot of the hovercraft got out. After the pilot exited the hovercraft, two guards emerged with a prisoner. It was Donna’s mother.

  “Mother!” Donna said, clutching her laser pistol.

  “Come on, we have a chance to save her!” Dedron said. They got out of the hovercraft and ran to catch up with the guards, but they had already passed through a doorway that suddenly opened in the wall.

  “Mother no!” Donna said as she ran her hands along the wall looking for the edges of the door. “There has to be some way to access this doorway!” she said, not realizing that her hood had come off of her head.

  Dedron heard a noise behind them, so he whirled around with his laser pistol at the ready.

  “Put the gun down, intruder!” a harsh voice spoke. Dedron and Donna looked on in dismay at eight guards who stood a few feet away with their laser cannons pointed at them.

  Donna hesitated to drop her laser pistol at first.

  “Donna, drop your weapon. They have us!” Dedron said as he dropped his laser gun. Donna hesitated for a second and dropped her weapon as tears began to form in her eyes.

  “We almost had her,” she said, fretfully. Two guards came over, picked up their weapons and began to bind both Donna and Dedron’s hands.

  “You will be coming with us. Commander Perbron will be quite pleased when he finds out that we have two Defense Squad members captured,” the guard said. The guards led Donna and Dedron through a series of corridors until they came to moveable walkway that spiraled down two floors. When they reached the bottom floor, Donna and Dedron could see that there were a few others being kept along the wall in small cells that had invisible barriers sealing in the prisoners. There were two humans crouched together in one cell and a Lanthan in the other. The light was too dim to make out their appearances. Donna and Dedron were placed in a cell beside the humans. The guard pushed some buttons on a nearby control panel, sealing up the cell.

  Chapter 12:

  “Great. What are we going to do now?” Donna said as she peered into the darkness of the cell level.

  “I’m working on it,” Dedron said although he wasn’t coming up with ideas at that moment.

  The Lanthan who was in the cell next to them came over to the barrier between their cells when he heard Donna’s voice and began to wave his long, skinny arms. Dedron looked over and realized who it was, all at once.

  “Langur! It’s you! But how?” Dedron said. Donna turned around and smiled at the Lanthan.

  “I was wondering the same about you, but I can probably guess,” he said.

  “We are here to free my mother,” Donna said.

  “Yes, we know. That is why we are here,” Langur said.

  “We? Who else is here?” Dedron asked.

  “In the cell next to mine is Kadija and Laura,” Langur answered. “You see, after we were sent to Gourgan, we managed to capture two high-ranking Remoir. From them we got the information that led us here. We learned of Perbron’s plan to lure each of us in to try and save our loved ones. There was a lot of debate about what to do with the information. General Barron urged us to be patient and not act rashly, a decision that David backed up. After a heated argument, we were divided. Laura, Kadija and myself were in favor of acting on the intelligence right away before Perbron began to call for us to attempt to rescue our relatives. The General, David, and Ken were in favor of waiting in order to gain more intelligence and take a more measured response. We felt like that it was ill advised to wait. The Dark Moon was the closest stop, so we elected to come here first. We were all set to release your mother when a guard got away from us and managed to warn the others. So, here we sit.”

  “Is everyone ok? Did anyone suffer any injuries?” Donna asked.

  “Luckily, no, but now the mission seems more hopeless than ever. I’m sure Perbron is chuckling to himself about how fortunate he is to have captured more than half of the Defense Squad.”

  “As long as we are alive and close together, there is hope,” Dedron said.

  “Yes, there is hope,” Donna said as she thought about a detonator that she had placed inside of her bra for just such emergencies.

  “What are you doing?” Dedron asked as Donna reached inside of her shirt.

  “I just remembered that I put a little something away for an occasion just like this one,” Donna said, producing the vial-sized detonator in her hand for both Dedron and Langur to see.

  “You never cease to surprise me my dear,” Dedron said. “I suppose even the Remoir have the decency not to check a woman’s underwear.”

  “Either that or they weren’t thorough enough to think of it,” Donna said. “All we have to do now is wait for them to open the cell to feed us. When they least expect it, I will activate the timing mechanism on the detonator. We will need to get to the farthest end of the cell to shield ourselves from the blast. It’s not a very powerful one, so it may only be just enough to distract the guards and allow for our escape.”

  “It’s a risky plan, but it may just work,” Langur conceded.

  “I don’t know, Donna. We could end up injuring or killing ourselves in the process,” Dedron cautioned.

  “Dear, if you have a better plan I’m all ears,” Donna said. Dedron didn’t have an idea to share.

  They didn’t have long to wait before two guards came in with some meager provisions for the Dedron and Donna. Donna had set the timer for twenty seconds on the detonator. As soon as the door was opened, she planned on throwing it just outside of the cell. Nothing that Dedron said could dissuade her from trying.

  “Perbron wants you to be healthy so that you will be able to be on a good show for him during your duel, once he arrives,” one of the guards taunted as he put a tray of food on the floor of the cell. The other guard held two laser pistols in his hands, one on each of the prisoners. Dedron decided to provide a distraction, so he took a piece of the chicken that had been placed on the tray and began to eat it. He acted as if he were choking on the meat and fell to the floor. The guards ran over to him, giving Donna the moment she needed. She threw the detonator outside of the cell. It hit the opposite wall and rolled across the floor until it stopped a few feet from the cell’s entrance.

  “What did you just throw out there?” one of the guards asked angrily, pointing his laser pistol at Donna.

  “Sir, we need to get out of here. It’s a detonator!” The guards turned around to exit the cell, but were too late.

  Donna and Dedron moved to the far end of the cell, crouching down with their arms covering their heads in a protective position. The blast was loud and sudden, shattering the entrance to the cell. The Remoir guards were immediately killed in the blast. One of the guards held the access drive in his hand that he had used to open the cell. Dedron took it out of his hand and ran over to Langur’s cell and opened it. Donna grabbed the two laser pistols from the fallen guards. Then, Dedron ran over to Laura and Kadija’s cell and opened it with the access drive. They were both standing by the entrance looking surprised by the blast and shocked to see their former Captain outside their cell.

  “Dedron, but how?” Kadija asked.

  “No time to explain now. Come on, we have to go immediately before this place is swarming with guards!” Dedron said. The five Defense Squad members ran towards the ne
arest exit to the prison level, but guards were already alerted to the detonator’s blast and trying to come inside. Donna threw one of the laser pistols to Dedron and they both fired into the guards, hitting them before they had a chance to understand what was happening. The other squad members each picked up a weapon from the guards they had shot.

  “Time to get into disguise again. Everyone grab a robe from a guard and put it on. It may be enough to get us out of here in one piece!” Dedron shouted. Each one of them grabbed a robe off of the guards and slipped them on as quickly as they could. Then, they moved out of the prison level and onto the moveable stairway that led to the exit. There were other guards that they encountered on the stairway moving towards the prison level, but they did not pay the companions any mind. Finally, they reached the ground level. Warning lights were flashing on each level of the compound, and the sound of sirens filled the air. The Remoir were still unsure of what was taking place, although the guards quickly discovered the results of the detonator and the escaped prisoners once they flooded into the prison level.

  Finally, the companions exited the compound and headed for the abandoned guard post where Dedron and Donna had been before. They stopped here to rest for a second and figure out their next move.

  “What about mother? We can’t get out of here without rescuing her. It’s the whole reason we’re here!” Donna said as they watched the guards swarming in and around the compound they’d just left. Dedron put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close to him.

  “Donna, we have to get out of here. It will be impossible for us to go back in there and save her now. We don’t even know where they are keeping her. There will be another chance!” he said, calmly.

  “No, I have to save her. I can’t let anything happen to her,” Donna said as tears flooded her eyes. Laura came over to try and help.

  “Donna, they are not going to harm her. If Perbron wanted to kill her, he would have done it by this time. He was using her to lure us in, and it worked,”

  Laura said.

  “It worked until you freed us!” Kadija said, coming over to offer some comfort to her comrade. “Laura and Dedron are right. There will be another chance. Perbron will not give up trying to draw us in. You will get another chance to save her.”

  Donna nodded her head, knowing that they were right.

  “Alright, we need to head back to the abandoned mining compound and hope that our cruiser is still there as quickly as we can!” Dedron said. There were two hovercrafts parked nearby that had been left by the guards. They jumped into them and sped off across the desert-like landscape of the moon. A hovercraft full of guards that was headed for the main compound came up to Dedron and Donna’s hovercraft and stopped alongside them.

  “Why are you headed towards the west? We have orders to search for escaped prisoners in the main compound. Turn your hovercraft around!” One of the guards ordered.

  “A few of us have received orders to cast a wide net and search for the prisoners. They have likely left the compound by now,” Donna said.

  The guard pondered this for a second and answered.

  “Very well then. Good luck on your search,” he said. The hovercraft left as suddenly as it had appeared.

  “Good thinking there, dear,” Dedron said.

  “You aren’t the only one that can think on your feet,” Donna stated proudly.

  Finally, they reached the cruiser that was still parked where they had left it. They companions got out of the hovercrafts and got on board the cruiser. As soon as the five of them got to the bridge and strapped themselves into the seats, Dedron spotted several hovercrafts approaching the area.

  “It took them awhile, but I think they figured out what we’ve done. Time to leave this Dark Moon behind,” Dedron said as he continued the launch sequence.

  “Honey, hurry! They are almost here!” Donna said. There were now about ten hovercrafts followed by another cruiser approaching the western outpost.

  “We’re ready! Everyone hold on tight!” Dedron declared. The thrusters of the large ship fired, and the cruiser lifted into the air. The approaching cruiser began to fire lasers at the companions. One of them hit the side of the cruiser making the whole ship shake.

  “I’ve got the shields up now, but we can’t afford another direct hit like that. Everyone hang on!” Dedron said, as he finished charging the ship’s hyper drive. In a flash of streaked blue light, the cruiser left the vicinity of the Dark Moon and disappeared into the vastness of space. The cruiser emerged about four light years away from the moon, but still in the same galaxy.

  For a long time, the companions sat together in silence, stunned by the experience that they had just shared. Donna was still reeling from the disappointment of her failure to rescue her mother. She sat staring back in the direction that they’d come in; her eyes were glazed over. Dedron handed the controls over to Laura and went over to Donna’s chair on the far end of the bridge where she sat alone. He put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Donna, are you alright?” he asked. Donna took a deep breath and turned around to face her lover. She finally nodded her head and buried her head in Dedron’s chest.

  “I will die if any harm comes to my mother. I lost my father to those rotten Remoir, and I’m not about to lose my mother too!” she finally said.

  Chapter 13:

  Although there was some debate about what the Defense Squad member’s next move should be, they finally settled on the decision to so to a neutral settlement in order to shed themselves of the cruiser and plot their next move. Dedron set the ship’s course for a spaceport called Freedland that was only about ten light years from Earth.

  After just a couple of hours, the communicator began blinking. Dedron hesitated to answer the incoming message because he knew it was likely to be Perbron making his latest threat against them or General Barron asking them to return to Earth. He was not anxious to hear from either person. Nonetheless, he switched on the communicator to see which of the two it would be. The all too familiar image of Perbron appeared on the screen.

  “Well, well. I suppose you are feeling a mixed bag of emotions right now are you not?” Perbron scoffed.

  “Since when do you care about how we feel?” Donna said, appearing beside Dedron.

  “I didn’t say that I cared about you, Donna. I was just reveling in the misery that you must be feeling as a result of your failed attempt to rescue your mother. Still, I have to hand it to you. It took guts to infiltrate my compound on the Dark Moon, and then escape from your cell. I must say that our prison facilities on the Dark Moon are quite primitive compared to those on Remoir, but we did what we could. Nevertheless, we still, as you Earthlings like to say, hold all of the cards,” he said gleefully.

  “What do you want?” Donna snarled.

  “The same thing I’ve always wanted, and I’m still going to get it. I have been very patient with all of you, but it has worn thin. I have decided to streamline my revenge plan in order to make things more convenient for everyone involved and to get what I want sooner than I had planned.”

  “Cut the crap and tell us what you want us to do,” Donna said.

  “I want all of the Defense Squad members to come to Planet Remoir to the Hermron Amphitheatre in the city of Gertron. As soon as you are in my custody, the real fun will be begin,” he said as his eyes glowed a deeper red.

  “So if we turn ourselves in you will release our relatives?” Dedron said.

  “That depends,” he said.

  “Depends on what?” Kadija said.

  “Ah, Kadija. I have heard that you are a skilled fighter. It will be a pleasure to watch you in action,” Perbron said.

  “Just get to it,” Donna said, losing patience.

  “Each of you will have the opportunity to fight one of my most fearless soldiers. I will do my best to try and find an even match for each of you. I have someone special in mind for you, Donna.”

  “I want to fight you,” Donna said with a scowl
on her face that would make most people pause.

  “You do not get to make the rules of our engagement,” Perbron said.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” she scoffed.

  “Afraid?” Perbron answered. Then, he began to utter a soft, evil cackle.

  “Afraid to fight me,” Donna said. The even tone of her voice showed that she was completely un-fazed.

  “My dear, I assure you that is not the case. I only wish to make it a fair fight for you. Now, if you will allow me to finish explaining your fate to you, I will continue. There will be several choices for weaponry available to you at the arena.

  If you are successful in defeating the adversary that I provide for you, I will release your loved one free of harm. If you should lose, they will die along with you.”

  “What will become of us if we win?” Dedron asked.

  “My dear Dedron, do you really think I would go to so much trouble just to let you live? No, I’m afraid that remaining amongst the living is not your fate. Perhaps in the next life your Defense Squad can continue its sad crusade.”

  It was difficult for the companions to hide their long faces in response to this news.

  “I see that you find this part of my message disturbing. Excellent,” Perbron said.

  “Yes, well I’m sure that it will please a coward such as yourself greatly to watch others die for your pleasure. Too bad you don’t have the gonads to do any of the dirty work yourself,” Donna teased.

  Perbron began to laugh again. This time it sounded even more sinister than before.

  “You can believe what you want to believe. Either way, you are going to die, Donna Stevens. You have four weeks to make the journey to Gertron. Oh, this is going to be fun,” he said, switching off his communicator.