Unfortunately, due to the thickness and construction of the outer walls of the building, Daniel had to remain inside to receive the report from the robot once it had found the information it was searching for. Thus, he could not afford to directly monitor its progress or control it remotely, but rather he was forced to leave it to its own sophisticated search algorithms and quasi-sentient programming.
Daniel turned his attention to Dex, who was trying to stall the desk guards, apparently with some success so far. He had asked the guards about some records he was supposed to be transferring, and, from the patches of conversation Daniel could hear, they were becoming increasingly insistent upon seeing his authorization.
“[What you mean order not come through?]” Dex asked, raising his voice and slamming his fist down on the desk, playing the role of an angered Vr’amil’een to perfection. “[Bo’reg’tuth need data backups now!]”
The guards both rose from their seats, looming imposingly over Dex, each of them large and well built, even by Vr’amil’een standards. “[You no have orders, you no have records!]” the head guard yelled, leaning over the desk toward Dex. “[You go now before Heth’glug’noor get angry!]”
Daniel hoped Dex’s stalling tactics would distract the guards sufficiently without riling them up enough to get both Dex and himself killed. Considering the hair-trigger tempers of Vr’amil’een, he toed a fine line.
The nanocomputer on Daniel’s wrist vibrated, and, seeing that the two guards were sufficiently enthralled in their argument with Dex, he carefully slid his arm out from under the folds of his cloak and checked the display. The tiny robot had hooked itself into the records computer and had found what it was looking for—faster than Daniel could have hoped—and had already sent him the data. The display on Daniel’s wrist showed the view from the tiny camera embedded in the nose of the spider-robot, a view that was abruptly filled by the snarling face of a Vr’amil’een guard.
Before Daniel could even mutter a curse, a loud, blaring alarm reverberated throughout the building. Showing incredible reflexes, Dex had already lunged toward the bench to his right, diving behind it as he began to fire blue energy beams from his phaser. One of his shots caught one of the surprised Vr’amil’een in the shoulder, doing little but increasing the level of his already impressive anger.
Daniel jumped up and pulled his sidearm from under his cloak, firing toward the desk to keep the guards pinned down as he moved toward Dex and the doorway. Just as Dex began to emerge from behind the bench to follow him out, the pair of doors behind the desk burst open and three armed Vr’amil’een poured forth.
Just before Daniel ducked out the doorway, he could see Dex dive back behind the overturned bench he had been hiding behind. Daniel quickly scooted out the opening, pressing his back to the wall to the left of the doorway. His angle of vision allowed him to see Dex, pinned behind the bench, a hail of bullets whizzing past him.
“[Go, Admiral!]” he yelled, waving his arm furiously. “[Get the hell out of here!]”
The last of Dex’s words seemed to reach the Admiral in slow motion. A surge of adrenaline had taken over his body, and suddenly his mind became very clear and focused. He forgot about the pain in his limbs, the frenetic racing of his heart, and the feeling of dread threatening to engulf him. He did not hear the reports from the Vr’amil’een weapons, and the once pervasive alarm siren no longer rang in his ears.
Diving to his left, Daniel contorted his body into a half-twist, landing on his right shoulder as he rolled across the open doorway. He poured several bright blue beams into the opening, strafing the desk and the Vr’amil’een gathered behind it. Quickly regaining his feet on the other side of the doorway, the Admiral had already pulled the flash grenade from under his cloak. Without hesitation, he flung it into the building, arcing it over the desk and toward the remaining guards.
Daniel covered his eyes as the intense beam of light shot out the doorway, surely blinding the sensitive eyes of the Vr’amil’een. It only took a moment before Dex had rushed out the door, firing his phaser wildly behind him.
CHAPTER 13
The russet buildings whizzed by in a blur as Daniel struggled to keep pace with Dex, running through unfamiliar alleyways and over unforgiving terrain. Several Vr’amil’een guards raced after them, shooting wildly, and though the Admiral did not risk taking his eyes off the ground ahead, he figured by the commotion behind him that there were no less than three guards in pursuit and that they were probably gaining on them.
A new pang in his side unceremoniously added itself to the litany of aches and bruises on the Admiral’s body. Though he had always considered himself to be in fairly good shape, this particular excursion was turning out to be as much as he could bear. He gasped for air, the oxygen-thin atmosphere of Tu’oth’roor feeling empty to his burning lungs. His right thigh had cramped long ago, though the Admiral continued forcing it to faithfully propel him away from his pursuers.
Though Daniel did not feel like his pace was slowing, Dex had begun to pull away, but slowed himself when he realized that the Admiral could no longer keep up.
“[We’ll never make it to the gate, Admiral,]” he said as Daniel pulled alongside him, his words still translated and then retranslated back to English in the Admiral’s ear. “[We’re gonna have to take them out.]”
“[Okay,]” panted the Admiral. At this point, even a firefight with the Vr’amil’een guards sounded better than continuing their sprint.
“[Follow me and stay down,]” advised Dex, turning down a narrow alleyway. The Admiral followed him, and, seeing Dex dive behind a pile of rubble, Daniel did the same, hurtling himself to the ground behind what appeared to be a sturdy, if repugnant, garbage dumpster, the insipid squalor of the entire city nowhere more apparent than in this fetid alley.
Upon hitting the ground, Daniel made an effort to remember how many times he had been forced to throw himself at the rocky terrain of Tu’oth’roor. He could not remember exactly, but it felt like a lot.
Trying to catch his breath, Admiral Atgard struggled to his knees, unholstering his phaser from his belt. He peered out to the right of the dumpster and aimed the gun down the alleyway, peripherally noticing a stream of blood running down his arm from a cut on his elbow.
An instant later, three Vr’amil’een spilled into the alleyway, their short, stout legs working furiously and propelling them toward Daniel’s position at alarming speed. Dex’s phaser began to fire just before Daniel’s did, and several bolts from both weapons struck the lead Vr’amil’een in his bulky torso and wide head. With an anguished grunt, he went down hard, skidding several meters along the broken ground before slumping lifelessly to a stop.
Of the other two Vr’amil’een, one turned and dove behind another pile of rubble, and the other continued toward the dumpster Daniel hid behind, never slowing his breakneck pace. Daniel fired frantically, most of his shots impacting upon the beast’s thick hide, but the monster kept charging, bellowing a great, daunting war cry as he approached to within a single meter of the Admiral.
Just as the giant crocodilian maw began to snap toward the Admiral, two thoughts raced through his mind. The first was that the beast would probably decapitate him with a single bite. The second was that Dex, inexplicably, did not seem to be shooting.
The Admiral feebly flung his arms in front of his face just as there was a loud, thundering explosion and the guard’s head, now close enough for Daniel to feel its humid breath, exploded in a shower of putrid debris. Wiping the gook from his face, the Admiral could see that Dex had fished a heavy blaster rifle from his equipment bag, and the muzzle was trained on the now-headless Vr’amil’een at Daniel’s feet.
A bullet ricocheted off the dumpster near Daniel’s face and he shied away from the edge, readjusting his grip on his pistol. He looked to his right to see Dex pull a concussion grenade from under his cloak and arc it over the pile of rubble the remaining guard hid behind. Covering his face, Daniel both heard and felt the bla
st from the grenade, remaining curled up for several seconds as the debris rained down around him. Finally uncovering his eyes, he saw Dex standing over him, his sidearm already holstered beneath his cloak. “[I think it’s time for us to get out of here, Admiral,]” he said, extending a hand to help Daniel rise wearily to his feet. “[Let’s find somewhere where we can rest for a while.]”
Daniel knew he really meant “where you can rest for a while,” but he was far too tired to even thank him for his discretion.
• • •
The cantina’s putrid odor was revolting, but the Admiral barely noticed. What he did notice was that the booth at which he sat, like everything else in this godforsaken city, was made entirely of rigid, unyielding stone.
Dex came back to the table carrying two large mugs and a plate of some repulsive raw meat. “[Don’t even think about it,]” he admonished as Daniel reached for one of the mugs. “[All they serve in this rat hole is Un’qui’do.]”
The Admiral grumbled under his breath and instead reached for another swig from his nearly empty refrigerated canteen. The cool water was incredibly refreshing, and combined with a few minutes of rest and yet another shot of fluerenzinone, Daniel was starting to feel as if perhaps he would not die of exhaustion after all.
Keeping his arm hidden under the table, the Admiral turned his attention to checking the data the robot had downloaded to his nanocomputer, carefully reading the fleet deployment specs and plan of attack of the Vr’amil’een Armada. Within a moment, his jaw had dropped almost to the floor.
The Vr’amil’een had inside information about the Confederation defenses.
It was, after all, the only way to explain their plan of attack. Once the Indomitable had been destroyed, the Confederation had been forced to recall several ships from outlying systems to defend Earth, leaving some systems all but unguarded. The Vr’amil’een planned to attack precisely the two outposts that were the least defended, but these merely acted as feints for their true assault. They had detailed information on which vessels would be dispatched to defend the outposts, information that was too exactingly accurate to be a mere projection or even a phenomenally lucky guess. They knew exactly which ships would be where at all times, and their plan called for them to come in on an attack vector to Earth that, through some seemingly intentional loophole, would leave the depleted Confederation forces practically ambushed. Not only did they have inside information of the Confederation fleet, they seemed to have an agent on the inside, one with the authority to create this gap in the fleet deployment.
The rest of the report, however, turned out to be far more troubling.
If the timetables scrolling across the Admiral’s display were correct, the massive Vr’amil’een fleet buildup had begun well before the Indomitable had been destroyed, a buildup that would have led to nothing more than glorified suicide had the Indomitable still been around to defend the Earth.
Once again, the conclusion was inescapable. The Vr’amil’een had known that the Lucani Ibron would come. Even worse, they had also known that the Indomitable would be destroyed.
• • •
Dex stared at the Admiral in awe, his grotesque Vr’amil’een visage distorted by the horrified look on his face. Several minutes passed before he could speak.
“[Who do you think it is?]” he asked the Admiral, referring to the double agent. “[How in the hell did the damned Vr’amil’een get a man on the inside?]”
“[I have no idea,]” the Admiral admitted. “[But we have to get back to Earth before it’s too late. The timetable has the assault beginning sometime soon.]”
“[It makes it tougher since Admiral Le Jaunte was abducted,]” Dex whispered furtively. “[Before, he would have been the only one capable of setting up fleet deployment plans, but since he disappeared, ConFedCom has relied on several people.]”
The whining Doppler effect of another approaching siren in the distance cut short the conversation, reminding Daniel that they could not hide in this tavern forever, as much as his aching body wanted him to. Though they had traveled a fair distance from the spot of their firefight with the guards, the police would probably get around to searching this tavern soon enough. Luckily, Vr’amil’een police forces were far more austere than those of humans, owing to the fact that Vr’amil’een society accepted and even condoned a certain level of violence, aggression, and self-reliance among its citizens.
“[We had better get going,]” warned Dex as he covertly poured out most of the Un’qui’do mugs’ contents and threw some of the slop on the floor under the table. “[Our first order of business is to get the hell out of this city.]”
The Admiral nodded meekly and forced himself up from the table, his entire body throbbing in protest once again. He followed Dex through the crowd and toward the cantina’s rear entrance—it was one of the few buildings they had seen that had one. Daniel figured that a rear exit, transcending cultural boundaries, was probably standard in every bar on every planet throughout the galaxy, for precisely the reason they were using it now. As Dex opened the exit door, Daniel silently hoped they had not given anyone here any reason to remember them once the police did arrive.
The door opened into a narrow alleyway, the smell of which was only a slight improvement over the pervasive stench of the tavern. Dex quickly checked his nanocomputer and pointed the Admiral toward one end of the alley, shutting the door behind them. The sounds of police sirens were prevalent, though they seemed to be concentrated back in the direction of their confrontation with the now-deceased Vr’amil’een guards.
The alley led to a small, deserted street, thankfully devoid of police hovercars. The Admiral followed Dex around the corner to the right, walking briskly in the direction of the city gates, not so fast as to seem in a hurry, yet not so slow as to seem suspicious. They still had a ways to go before they would reach the city walls and even farther before they reached the safety of the fighter. Daniel doubted very highly that he would make it half that far.
They somehow made it to the city gates without incident, though the kilometer they had traveled felt like half a parsec to the Admiral’s weary and aching limbs. Thankfully, most of his shooting pains had receded to a single dull, pervasive throbbing that he had almost gotten used to, just so long as he did not have to throw himself at the scabrous, rocky terrain any more.
The alley they had been traveling in ended roughly 100 meters from the wall and the now well-guarded gate. Daniel and Dex crouched behind a wide pillar that supported a sturdy balcony above them, surveying the line of police vehicles and mob of guards who were now thoroughly checking every traveler entering or leaving the city. The traffic through the gate was scarce, however, and the Admiral reminded himself that most of the nocturnal Vr’amil’een were either sleeping or passed out from drinking by now.
“[There’s two heavy tanks, three hovercars, and I can make out nine, no, ten guards,]” Dex reported, peering around the edge of the pillar. “[Not to mention, of course, the gun emplacements in the towers.]”
“[Of course,]” Daniel muttered sardonically.
“[Well, there’s no way we’re getting through that, Admiral,]” he said, shaking his head. Upon seeing Daniel set to work on his nanocomputer, he added, “[Unless you have an idea?]”
“[I do,]” Daniel replied, deep in concentration. “[We’re getting the hell out of here, and if we can’t get to the fighter, then I’m bringing the fighter to us.]”
Dex chuckled. “[You’re insane.]”
“[That’s what the doctors keep telling me.]”
Daniel never took his eyes off the three-dimensional holographic display emitted by his nanocomputer. He remotely steered the ZF-255 out the narrow cave opening and down the slender ravine toward the city, keeping it low and moving as quickly as he could without dashing it to pieces on the canyon’s twisting walls.
Though it had taken Daniel and Dex several hours to walk to the city, it only took the fighter about a minute, even at the reduced speed n
ecessary to safely navigate the treacherous ravine. The Admiral kept his eyes transfixed on the display, even as the muted whine of the fighter’s engines could be heard approaching the city.
Appearing around the last bend of the canyon, the ZF-255 headed directly toward the gun tower to the left of the gate. Before the weapon’s operators could even turn the heavy guns around, the fighter had launched a missile at their position and arced sharply to the right, heading over the gate. Just as the missile impacted the tower, the fighter simultaneously released a bomb above the gate and fired its lasers at the remaining gun emplacement, destroying it and most of the tower. By the time the bomb had gone off, Dex and the Admiral were already running toward the gaping hole in the wall where the gate used to be.
Daniel concentrated on landing the fighter as he ran, mostly following the sound of Dex’s heavy footfalls and barely managing to avoid tripping on the uneven ground, a catastrophe that would have sent both he and the ZF-255 crashing to the ground.
Daniel remotely landed the fighter just beyond the gate, for the first time noticing the blaring alarms and heavy smoke engulfing the area. The charnel stench of roasted flesh wafted to the Admiral’s nostrils as he picked his way through the rubble, emerging on the other side of the bomb crater and madly rushing toward the fighter’s canopy.
Dex reached the ship first and catapulted himself into the cockpit, planting his hand on the edge of the canopy and contorting himself into position behind the pilot’s seat. It took Daniel slightly longer to scramble up the short ladder, but once he was in, he had lifted off almost before the canopy had completely sealed around them.
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