by James McEwan
St. Claire was in the best position to take the shot. He pointed his weapon at the man’s head. “Look buddy I don’t want to kill you and you don’t want to be dead so put the gun down and let’s talk.” St. Claire wanted to try to talk this man down and give him a chance.
“I will never surrender! I am ready to meet the divine and bask in their glorious light! Are you?” He said as he swung his weapon towards St. Claire.
“Not yet” St. Claire said just before squeezing the trigger on his laser pistol. The bolt passed through the man’s medulla oblongata or what snipers like to call the Apricot. It sits at the base of the brain and is where the spinal cord attaches to the brain. It is the one shot that, if done right, will sever that connection and keep the guy from being able to react. Like pushing the button that was in his other hand.
The man’s head snapped back and his body dropped like a sack of potatoes. Senator Rosenberg stood there shaking with fear unable to do anything. Not even cry out. St. Claire and Senator Carpenter moved to secure the body. St. Claire walked up to Senator Rosenberg with his pistol still drawn and pointed at the body of the dead man. He looked Senator Rosenberg straight in the eyes and said calmly, “Your welcome.”
“Dom, this guy’s wired to blow,” Senator Carpenter said as he checked the body.
“Got it,” St. Claire said as he holstered his weapon. He then put his arm around Senator Rosenberg’s shoulders and said, as if talking to a child, “Come on let’s get you out of here.” He then guided her out of the chamber.
St. Claire took charge. He got everyone out of the building and within a half hour the building was completely evacuated and the police had taken over the scene. St. Claire stood outside the building watching as an EOD (explosive ordnance deposal) team made up of specially built robots entered the building.
“I guess I should have come with you as it seems it was much more exciting than you thought it would be,” a voice came from behind him. St. Claire turned to see Kára.
“Just a little,” he said as she gave him a hug. “And I hear you are the hero of the day,” she said before kissing him.
He returned the kiss then pulled back, “Just did what needed done. Now come on let’s get the hell out of here and go see Ruby.” With that, they departed for the Eden.
Chapter 11
Thad made his way to the address on the paper that Lars had given him. It turned out to be a hotel of sorts. It was right next to the slave market and it was where all of the auctioneers and other personnel that ran the slave market were quartered while they were there. The building was plain like the rest of the buildings in the town. No flair, no fun. Just gray and boring, but then again, Thad wasn’t here for a vacation.
He entered the lobby and walked up to thin greasy haired man at the desk. Thad stood at the desk and waited. The man never looked up but just kept looking at the porn vid on his tablet. Finally Thad slid the paper from Lars in front of the man’s face. “I’m looking for the name on the paper.”
The man looked at the paper and then without saying anything or looking up he pointed to a man sitting at a table in the bar that was across from the front desk. “Thanks,” Thad said as he turned and walked away. The man waved his hand, but never looked up.
The man at the table looked like he was in his mid-forties. He was neither a big man nor a small one. He just was about average as a man could be. He was working on a tablet entering sales numbers. He had a half full glass of beer on the table next to his tablet. Thad approached him and asked, “Are you Nash?”
The man looked up from his work, “Who’s asking?”
“The man who is going to decide whether you are going to live or die, depending on what you tell me,” Thad said as he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Really, who do you think you are to come in here and threaten me like that?” The man asked clearly not intimidated.
Thad picked up his beer and poured it out on the man’s tablet then he placed it upside down on the table, “I’m here for some information, simple as that. You tell me what I want to know and you live. If you don’t I’ll kill you with that beer glass. Now, are you Nash or not?”
The man was beginning to think that Thad was insane and that kind of scared him, “No I’m not Nash, but I know where he is.”
“That’s a good start,” Thad said breaking a smile for the first time which unnerved the man even more.
“He’s one of four auctioneers that work for me and he’s on the block selling slaves right now,” the man said.
“Thank you, but I have a confession to make,” Thad said.
“What?” The man said confused.
“I lied,” Thad whispered.
“About what?” The slaver asked.
“About letting you live.” Thad said just before moving with his inhuman speed. He picked up the beer glass and used it like a battering ram. He slammed it into the man’s sternum. He struck at the base of it where a small triangle piece of bone called the xiphisternum lies. The bone broke free and sliced through the man’s diaphragm. Once cut, the diaphragm muscle couldn’t work properly and the man was unable to fill or empty his lungs. The man grabbed his chest and gasped for air that would never come again. While he squirmed, his lips started to turn blue and he finally slumped over the table.
Thad set the beer glass down on the table, stood up and walked out of the bar. A man at the bar who had witnessed the whole exchange turned back to the bar tender, “I wonder what that was all about?”
“Probably a disgruntled customer, happens quite a lot,” the bar tender said as he refilled the man’s beer.
Thad, who normally was cool and calm and a man who always thought through every action, found himself incredibly angry. Angry at the slavers, angry at the Ralnai, angry at the whole damn thing. His wives had been sold as if they were cattle. He wasn’t going to let this stand any longer. He had to do something. And something was what he did.
As it turned, out this world had an abundant supply of natural gas and they used it everywhere. Thad walked around the building until he found what he was looking for. The gas main. It was a large pipe that stuck out of the ground and entered the building in the back. Thad used his DDSD to render up an explosive charge. He set it on the pipe and switched on the remote trigger. He didn’t need a transmitter or a button to set it off, because of his implant he could set it off just by thinking about it. He made sure he was not thinking about it now.
He left the hotel with his little surprise ready and made the two block trek to the slave market. When he got there, there were two men standing naked on the block being sold. The auctioneer was busy running the auction. This gave Thad an idea and he spent the next few minutes setting charges around the market.
Once he was done planting those little surprises Thad returned to the auction block. The sale had concluded and the auctioneer was getting ready for the next sale when Thad approached him. “Hey you. Get back with rest of the buyers, this area is off limits,” Nash barked at Thad.
Thad of course ignored him and walked up to him. He grabbed Nash by the back of the head and slammed his face into the auction block and then pulled it back, “You Nash?”
“Yes, just don’t hurt me again and I will tell you anything you want to know. Just tell me what you want know!” Nash said groveling already.
The Ralnai guards saw what was taking place on the auction block and started to make their way towards the stage. Thad saw them coming and he sent the detonation signal to all of his little surprises. He started with the closest and smallest and worked his way through to the big one at the hotel. In a flash Thad sent the market into chaos with explosions all around. Ralnai and human slavers were blown apart or shredded by shrapnel. Thad had been extremely careful about where he planted his charges. He didn’t want to kill any of the slaves. However, as it is when working with explosives, things don’t often go as planned. Unfortunately, some of the slaves were hurt or killed in the chaos.
When the
hotel blew up it was also a little larger than Thad had predicted and he and the auctioneer where knocked down by a blast wave that flattened most of the buildings in the two block radius. Smoke and fire filled the air and the Ralnai that had been heading for the stage were now busy running to deal with the aftermath of the explosions. Nash picked himself up and tried to run but Thad ran him down and slammed him to the ground.
“I don’t know what you want! Please just don’t kill me,” he pleaded with Thad.
“Oh, but you do,” Thad said as he showed him the hologram of Fiona. “They’re twins, there were two of them, who did you sell them to?”
He looked at the hologram and he remembered. After all, how could he forget such beauty, “Yes, yes last night.”
Thad was running out time and patience, he slammed the man’s head into the stage floor and lifted it back up, “Who and where!” he screamed at the man.
“Tor Tran-kor, I sold them to Tor Tran-kor, he has a villa a few miles outside the city, now please stop hurting me,” he begged.
Thad stood up and pulled his pistol, “Don’t worry, no one will ever hurt you again.” Thad shot the man in the back of the head killing him instantly. The smoke was getting thick and it was getting hard to breath and Thad needed to move as things were going from bad to worse as more buildings caught fire.
At Tor Tran-kor’s villa the twins were outside sitting by one of the many pools talking with Lex about their escape plan when the ground shook and they herd the boom of the hotel explosion. Lex jumped to and looked towards the city, “What was that?”
Fiona looked and saw a black plume of smoke raising in the distance, “That would be our husband and I think he’s pissed.”
It confirmed their suspicion when they were herded back into the harem room with the rest of the women. Sitting on a bench was Eve. She jumped up and ran straight to the twins and they toward her. They collided in a mess of hugs and kisses.
“It’s so good to see you,” Eve said hugging the two women.
“Hey, what about me?” Rod asked as he sat up.
Freya stood there hands on her hips, “You?!? I should kick your ass, but after the two months I had,” she relaxed and walked over to him threw arms around his neck and hugged, “I’m glad to see your face.”
“I take it Thad is with you somewhere?” Fiona asked.
“No he went on ahead and doesn’t know that we have been captured. I keep trying to reach him but they’re jamming me. I would hack their system if they were using Wi-Fi, but it seems that these Ralnai are smart and using hard lines or they’re not using any electronic communications.” What Eve didn’t know was that she was right, during the three or four days of the slave market all wireless comms were jammed and no off world communication was allowed.
Meanwhile back in orbit the Gemini was doing its best to say hidden and wait for Thad to call for extraction. But every warrior knows that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, especially when the enemy is lying in wait for you.
Hiding behind the planet’s moon was a large force of twenty Ralnai ships just waiting to catch a glimpse of the Gemini. Finally they caught the ships position and they came in force. The crew of the Gemini didn’t want to run and abandon those on the ground. However, they had their orders from Thad. If they were in trouble to run. They were to head for Earth and rejoin the fight. He had told them no heroics and it was not worth dying over.
The Ralnai ships moved in fast and the Gemini pilots tried to jump in to hyperspace, but the Ralnai had blitzed them and they were over whelmed. Two missiles got through their defenses and knocked out the hyperspace engines.
Faced with certain death as the Ralnai ships didn’t seem to be looking to take prisoners. They chose to go out fighting, and fight they did. The Gemini was faster and smaller than the Ralnai ships and she used it to her advantage. The battle was fierce and fast as the Gemini killed two ships right from the start. She took a pounding and kept coming back for more. She might have been a small ship, but she was well armored. Twice the pilots ran between two of the Ralnai ships and watched as they fired on each other while trying to hit the Gemini.
The Ralnai only fell for that trick twice and moved off and only sent one ship in at a time to engage in close combat as the rest of the ships took up positions around the Gemini to keep it from escaping. The Gemini fought hard and killed half of the Ralnai ships before they were too shot up to continue. Most of the crew had been killed and only one pilot was still alive and he was going to be damned if he was going to let him blow him out of the black. He pushed the nose toward the planet and gave it everything the Gemini had left.
The Ralnai ship gave chase and fired on the little ship as it dove for the planet’s atmosphere. Parts of the Gemini were blown off as the Ralnai fire chewed her up. She entered the atmosphere at the wrong angle and with no shields. Her speed was far too fast for entry as she slammed into the atmosphere and burned. The Gemini burst into a massive ball of fire and broke apart sending several flaming debris down to the planet’s surface.
Thad who was on foot running for the villa looked up to see flaming balls streaking across the sky and he thought that this sight cannot be good! He had no idea that we was looking at remains of the Gemini and her valiant crew. With nothing he could do, he continued his jog towards his target and hopefully his wives.
Chapter 12
Lex approached Fiona and Eve, “I’m sure you are happy to see your friends, but we need to accelerate our plans. We can’t wait for your husband. Apparently, he blew up the slave market and the Ralnai are out for blood. Even Tor Tran-kor can’t keep you safe. She pointed to Eve They know that you are with the man who just murdered a lot of Ralnai and a good number of slaves, and they also know that you are all friends. So, you can see that they are going to want to come and skin you alive. And if they succeed, then my best chance to get the hell off this rock evaporates. So, if you don’t mind, we need to leave right now why we still can.”
“Okay Lex, what do we do?” Fiona asked.
“First, we need to get out of these things,” she said as she slipped a small black bar out of her bra. It looked crud and homemade. She held it up to Fiona’s slave collar but nothing happened. “Shit, they must have changed the coding, just give me a minute I will figure out the new sequence.”
Eve reached up and took her collar into her hands and pulled, it snapped apart as if it was made of paper. “Will that do it?” She asked.
Lex was a little shocked at Eve’s strength, “Ah, yeah that will work.” Eve smiled and she tore off Fiona’s and the others. Lex whispered to Freya, “I’m glad she is on our side.”
“Oh honey, you haven’t seen anything yet,” she whispered back.
“What about your friend with broken leg?” Lex asked.
“Eve will carry him,” Freya said. As if on her command, Eve picked Rod up fireman style and said, “Lead on.”
“Okay, wait for it,” Lex paused, “Should be any second now.” She didn’t have to say anything else as the room was plunged into darkness. Lex had memorized the layout of the villa. It was one of the first things she did when she got there. She had counted every step and now she grabbed Fiona’s hand and led the way. Fiona grabbed Freya’s hand and followed. Eve could see and didn’t need to follow Lex, but she fell in line anyway.
Most of the internal rooms of the villa had no windows, for no apparent reason, and it wasn’t until they got near the outside walls that there was any light from the setting sun. It would be dark soon and they needed to be away before power was restored and they were found to be missing.
Lex led them out a back service door, where they were met by Commander Cotton Paw. She took one sniff of Eve and hissed. “What are you? You’re not human. You are not even alive.”
“Later,” Lex said as she led them away from the house.
Commander Cotton Paw wasn’t sure of Eve so she walked along side of Fiona who said to her, “I take it we have you to thank for th
e power outage?”
She purred, “Yep, piece of cake. There systems are so simple it will be a while before they figure it out and get the power back on.”
“Lex, dear, how are we going to find Thad?” Fiona asked.
“Not sure, but…”
“I know one problem at time,” Fiona finished her sentence for her.
“Yep, and for now we should be quiet since we are almost there,” Lex said. They walked the rest of the way in silence until they came to the wall that surrounded the property. “I figured we could climb the wall, but with your wounded friend that might be a problem.
Eve set Rod down, “Not a problem. Why go over when we can go through,” she said as the plasta-flesh on her right forearm split and the internal force blade extended. The edges lit up with the soft green force field that gave it its cutting ability. Eve went to work on cutting a hole for them to walk through.
“She is full of surprises isn’t she?” Lex said as she watched in awe.
“More than you know,” replied Fiona as Freya helped Rod back onto his feet.
Eve finished cutting through the wall and gave it a push and the cut section fell over. She retracted the force blade and made a flourishing wave with her arm. “This way,” she said.
The sun had dropped below the horizon and it was pitch black and creatures of the night had come out to hunt. While Eve had been cutting the hole in the wall Lex had retrieved the satchel that she had stashed near the wall. She had managed to steal three flash lights and some food for their journey. Eve, however, didn’t need a light as she could see in infrared.
