by GARY DARBY
Alena came up and said, “Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve gotten everyone out of the compartments on this level. The Navy commander says he’s got a full accounting of his crew.”
Dason nodded toward Alena and said to Jadar, “Sir, this is Star Scout Lieutenant Alena Romer. Alena, this is my uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Jadar Marrel.”
At Alena’s name, Jadar stiffened. “Alena Romer, the daughter of—”
“Colonel Ri Romerand?” Alena answered in a hard tone. “Yes sir, I am.”
From behind came a gruff and demanding voice. “And where is your father?”
As Alena turned toward the questioner, Jadar said, “Lieutenant, meet Colonel Shar Tuul, acting Chief of Staff for Star Scout Command.”
“My father is dead,” Alena replied to Shar’s question. “He died on Marsten’s World.”
With a shuddering breath, she said, “Fighting a Faction assassin and saving myself and Scout Thorne.”
Dason glanced from his uncle to Shar Tuul, saw the hard stares and quickly said, “That’s true; I witnessed what happened. The assassin was going to kill Alena and me. Colonel Romerand gave his own life to save us. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be standing here today. Of that I’m sure.”
Just then, Zane appeared at the doorway and said, “We’ve got all of our people, and we’re ready for the next move.”
Jadar turned to Shar with a questioning expression. “You take the lead,” Shar ordered. To Alena, he said firmly, “You and I will speak later.”
With a jerk of his head, Jadar said, “Let’s get out of here.”
Meeting in the corridor, Jadar and Zane conferred among themselves. “We’ve got three Mongan weapons,” Zane stated. “And that’s all. But there’s two Imperium ships sitting in the hold of this vessel.
“My thinking is that our best bet is to make a run for them before the Mongans catch on to what’s happening.”
“Do we know how to get to the hold?” Jadar asked.
“No,” Zane admitted, “we don’t, but I’m not for just sitting here waiting for the Mongans to come along and zap us with their bug light.”
“Neither am I,” Jadar replied. He gestured toward the passageway and asked, “Is everyone out and have you checked all the compartments?”
“On this level, yes,” Zane returned. “I can’t tell you if there are more captives on other levels.”
Jadar gave a nod at Zane’s answer and said, “We’ll make for those ships, and if we’re able we’ll check for other prisoners on our way. But first we’ve got to get our hands on some weapons. After that, we’ll—”
Dason, who had listened with an attentive expression to the conversation stepped forward and interrupted the discussion. “Sir, there is another alternative.”
“I’m listening,” Jadar quickly responded. “But make it fast. We’re short on time here.”
Dason turned to Alena. “This is your second time aboard a Mongan ship. Think you could get us to their bridge?”
She bit on her lip and shook her head at him. “Other than telling you that I believe it’s on an upper deck, no.”
“What are you thinking, Dason?” Jadar asked.
Dason was quick in answering, “What if we took this ship? Think of the possibilities that a captured Mongan warbird would have for us . . . And the Imperium.”
Exchanging glances, the three senior officers remained silent, though each wore an expression of doubt toward Dason’s idea. Jadar said, “Pretty dicey, Dason, I don’t think we have the forces to do as you suggest.”
“It may not be a matter of how many fighters we have,” Dason countered. “The Sha’anay captured a Mongan vessel with only three warriors. I think we can do the same.”
He gestured toward Zane and said, “The crew from the Argos makes for our ships. We scouts attempt to take this ship. Splitting up gives us a better chance that at least one group is successful.”
Jadar stood with fingers slowly rubbing his chin and considered Dason’s bold scheme. “I seem to recall a military axiom warning about splitting your forces and diluting your firepower.”
“And I seem to recall something about nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Dason responded.
He motioned toward where the three Mongans lay on the deck. “Seems that they tend to underestimate what we humans are capable of doing. This isn’t the first time that they’ve been surprised and outfoxed by supposedly inferior beings.”
Jadar asked of Shar and Zane, “What do you think?”
Shar’s response was immediate. “I admit at first I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but the more I think about it, the more I’m warming to the notion. If we could pull it off, it would be a treasure trove of intelligence.”
He motioned toward the bulkheads and said, “We could take it apart and glean every bit of technology possible, maybe even find a way to counter their weapons.”
Zane was quick to add, “At the very least, our heading to the ships will create a significant diversion, might draw their attention away from our real objective.”
“All right, let’s give it a shot.” Jadar replied. He gave Dason a quick smile. “After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
To Zane, Jadar said, “If you make it to the ships, and we fail in our mission, don’t hesitate to blast out of here and to get away. No sense in losing all of us on a lost cause.”
He gestured toward the Mongan weapons. “You take two of these, and we’ll keep one.”
Jutting out a chin toward the prone Mongans, he said, “And, I’d appreciate it if you’d haul them off with you, too. We might not get the ship, but the Imperium might be able to make use of them.”
Zane replied gruffly, “Understood.”
Dason spoke up to say, “Sir, may I make a suggestion?”
“Make it fast,” Jadar replied hurriedly.
Dason turned to Dani and whispered in her ear. Her eyes lighted up in surprise and she said to Dason, “Yes, it just might work.”
Dason turned back to Jadar, “Sir, I recommend that Dani accompany the navy crew. She can—”
Before he could finish, a loud squawking sound erupted throughout the passageway. “Uh, oh,” Jadar said, “I think someone’s on to us. Commander, your group goes belowdecks; we’ll go up. Let’s move!”
Within seconds, the Navy crew, along with Dani, had scooped up the three Mongans and rushed down the corridor.
Jadar gestured toward the prone dogs. “What do we do about them? I hate to leave them here; they could wake up and follow our scent.”
Alena hefted the tube weapon and said, “I’ve got an idea.” She held the cylinder out, took aim, and pressed on the handle.
A brilliant blue wall of light shot out and enveloped the two canines. In a flash, the dogs disappeared. Alena turned to Jadar with a little smile. “I think that solves that problem.”
“Where did they go?” Jy asked with wide eyes.
Alena gave a little shrug and said dryly, “Beats me, maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll reappear in the middle of a Mongan dinner party. After all, they did say that the dogs were hungry.”
“Nice thought,” Jadar said. “I like it. Let’s go.”
The five trotted down the corridor in the opposite direction from the Nav crew with Alena and Dason in the lead. “You’re pretty handy with that thing,” Dason said to Alena. “How did you figure out how to work it?”
“Three buttons on the butt end,” she explained. “I saw the Mongan press the top one when they zapped you, so I had a fifty-fifty chance that one of the others would activate the teleportation beam. Just so happens, it’s the second one down.”
“I wonder what the third button does?” Dason questioned.
“I don’t know,” Alena muttered, “but I’m not about to press it. For all I know it’ll teleport all of us to who knows where.”
Dason took out his LifeSensor to see if he could get any readings. Seeing the display’s wild fluctuations, he said in frustration, “The signal’s t
oo fractured; I can barely get a lock on us.”
“Meta-metals are breaking up the return signal,” Alena replied. “We’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way, with eyes and ears.”
She and Dason paced ahead of the group. The squawking sound had stopped, and the ship was quiet except for an occasional whirring sound that came from the metalwork over their heads.
After a few minutes, they came to a passageway that branched to their left. Alena started to go past when something caught Dason’s eye and he said, “Wait up a second.”
He hurried down the corridor until he came to what had caught his attention. He waved for Alena to join him.
“Stairs?” she stammered. “These people can teleport from a planet’s surface to an orbiting ship and they have stairs?”
“Go figure,” Dason muttered as together they stared at the narrow, circular staircase that sat nestled into the bulkhead. Dason leaned into the stairs and peered first downward and then upward.
“It looks as if the shaft goes down for several more decks, but I think it only goes up one more level, but I can’t tell for sure,” he explained to Alena quietly.
“See any movement on the stairs?” she whispered.
“No,” Dason replied. “But I think we should go easy, we could get trapped between decks. We’d be pretty vulnerable.”
She peered at Dason and asked, “Your alarm bells going off?”
“No,” Dason answered, “just saying what I think.”
Alena turned and gestured for the others to join them. She pointed at the stairway and said to Jadar, “You wanted to go up, these do, but it might be only one flight.”
Jadar leaned over and surveyed the staircase. He turned and said, “Okay, go.”
Dason took a cautious step out on the metal landing and in silence made his way up the short flight of stairs. When he reached the next deck, he raised his head over the lip and surveyed the passageway.
He gave the “all clear” signal and the group followed him to the top. The stairs opened out to a large landing and stopped. Dason had been right; the stairs went up only one flight.
In a low crouch, the group knelt on the landing and surveyed the long crosswise passageway. Straight across was a connecting corridor that opened to a second transverse passage. “Which way?” Alena whispered to Jadar.
“I—” Jadar began when a squawking sound, accompanied by a sharp squeal sounded in the air, followed by a second and then a third.
“Uh oh,” Shar said, “I think someone’s been discovered.”
Dason whirled at the sound of pattering footsteps coming from the corridor. They were caught out in the open!
“Down!” Jadar ordered, and all five scouts threw themselves against the wall and hunkered down. Alena brought the tube weapon up and trained it in the direction of the hurrying footfalls.
In the opposite lateral passageway, three Mongans scurried by, not once glancing toward the scouts who were all but in plain sight. The Mongans rushed up the corridor, leaving the five a little startled at their luck.
“I guess that means it wasn’t us,” Shar commented.
“No,” Jadar replied grim-faced. “I just hope that our comrades weren’t discovered until they had made it to the ships.”
Alena turned her head and spoke over her shoulder, “Follow those three?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” Jadar replied.
In answer, Alena and Dason rose together and hurried to where the two corridors joined. Dason eased his head around the corner for a quick peek. “Clear,” he whispered.
The group eased down the corridor, with Jadar and Shar edging along one wall, and Dason, Alena, and Jy sliding along the other.
Once again, the shrill squeal sounded three times, the sound waves echoing down the corridor. Up ahead the corridor bent at a slight angle, and they could see that it ended at an oval door.
Without warning, the door swished open and out strode the three Mongans. For an instant, both parties stood transfixed in place, then one of the Mongans raised its weapon.
Alena didn’t hesitate and whipped her tube up at the same time. Two walls of blue light sped toward each other. The instant they touched there was an enormous explosion.
The shock wave threw Dason backward down the corridor. Arrows of hot metal shot through the passageway with a roiling wave of intense heat that caused Dason to recoil and spin onto his stomach, his head buried in his arms.
Dazed, Dason pulled himself up off the floor, coughing at the choking black smoke that wafted in tight curls from ceiling to floor.
With halting steps, he lurched toward a moaning Jy and helped the him to his feet. Dason shook his head to try to rid himself of a ringing in his ears.
He spun in a full circle, trying to get his bearings in the dense smoke until he saw a figure emerge from the dark grayness. “You two, okay?” Jadar asked.
“Yes,” Dason responded. “But I don’t see Alena or Colonel Tuul.”
Jadar reached out and turned Jy around. “Colonel Tuul is behind you, Jy, go help him. Dason and I will try to find Alena.”
Coughing, the two swatted at the rolling waves of dark haze trying to see through the whirling vapors as they made their way forward.
Virtually blinded by the smoke, Dason didn’t see the large piece of twisted metal that he kicked with his toe of his boot. The bent metal skidded across the deck, its sharp edges making a scraping sound until all at once, the noise stopped just a few meters in front of the two.
Seconds later came a distant clank from metal striking metal.
Jadar put his hand out to hold Dason back. “Hold on, that didn’t sound right.”
“No, it didn’t,” Dason answered. “There’s a hole in the deck just ahead.”
The two eased forward until they could see where a draft sucked the curling smoke downward. A jagged outline in the floor led to blackness. The huge hole stretched from the corridor’s one side to the other.
“This is about where she was standing,” Dason mumbled.
“Doesn’t mean she fell in there,” Jadar replied.
Dason started to turn when he heard a low moan. For just an instant, as if a dusky curtain had parted, the haze lifted. Alena teetered against one wall and then began to fall toward the ragged hole.
“Alena!” Dason yelled and stretched out in an arcing dive to grab Alena just before she slipped over the cavity’s lip.
He clung with fierce determination to the semiconscious woman, keeping her from toppling into the wisp-filled hole. Jadar’s two strong hands reached out and pulled them both back from the metal chasm.
Dason helped lift Alena into Jadar’s arms, and they moved away from the dark void. They found Shar waiting farther down the corridor where the smoke wasn’t so thick.
As gently as he could, Jadar propped Alena up against a wall. For a moment, her eyes fluttered open, and she tried to take in a deep breath but instead began coughing and sputtering.
“How is she?” Shar asked as he bent over her.
“Don’t know yet,” Jadar responded.
“She was a lot closer to that blast than we were,” Dason said in an anxious voice.
Just then, Jy came running up. “We’ve got trouble,” he stated. “I think someone turned those dog things loose. They’re coming up the passageway.”
Dason reached out to Jadar and said, “Those Mongans came out of that compartment, could be an entrance on the other side.”
Jadar scooped Alena up and ordered, “Dason, Jy, find that door and make it quick.”
The two young scouts sprinted down the transverse corridor to the central passageway and darted around the corner. A minute later, they found what they were looking for, an oval portal.
They ran to the doorway and found it ajar. “That explosion must have jammed it open,” Dason said.
He poked his head through the opening. What he saw caused him to give Jy a lopsided smile. “We may have hit pay dirt. This could be the bridge,
and I think it’s empty.”
They turned at the sound of heavy footsteps. Jadar came around the corner with a limp Alena in his arms. Dason and Jy sprinted back to help Jadar carry Alena the last little ways.
“Where’s Colonel Tuul?” Dason asked.
“He stayed behind to watch for the dogs,” Jadar muttered. “Does that door lead to a compartment where we can hide?”
“Better,” Dason replied, “it might be the ship’s control room.”
Jadar glanced at him with raised eyebrows as he set Alena down on the floor and squeezed through the portal opening. A moment later, he was back at the opening and said, “You just may be right. Hand her to me.”
Dason and Jy picked Alena up and managed to slide her through the opening to Jadar. “Dason,” Jadar ordered, “go get Colonel Tuul and bring him back here. Jy, see if you can get the door’s mechanism to work so that we can close the door.”
Dason turned on his heel and sped down the passageway. He flung himself around the corner and ran head on into Shar. “Turn around!” Shar snapped. “They’re coming and coming fast.”
The deep snarls and growls coming from the passageway told Dason that the pack was almost on them. He whirled and raced up the corridor, just behind Shar.
He looked over his shoulder just long enough to see a brown and black flood of pure viciousness course around the corner. Ahead, Dason could see Jy trying to get the door to budge, but it wouldn’t move.
Jy took one look down the corridor before disappearing from sight only to reappear a second later standing just inside the doorway.
Shar reached the portal and pulled himself into the compartment. Dason hit the opening shoulder first and tried to squeeze past the obstructing hatch, but he wasn’t fast enough.
A wolf mouth closed on his ankle. Dason yelled out in pain as the fangs bit into the flesh. The canine’s furious tugs on Dason’s leg almost pulled him out of the opening and into the corridor where the snarling pack could fully attack.
In desperation, Dason hung onto the door’s edge and kicked at the dog with his other leg. Just as he felt his hands slipping off the edge, strong arms grabbed Dason’s arm and belt.
