by James Wisher
“Humans and Vencar look more alike than I figured, boss.”
Dra’Kor patted Marcus on the back. “No, we don’t. That isn’t Sar’Ken. It isn’t even a Vencar. He was never here.”
The dead man twitched. Marcus scrambled back and grabbed for his weapon. He leveled his blaster, but the body had gone still. A light shot up from the mask and resolve itself into the head of another masked man.
“So you defeated my lieutenant,” the hologram said. “Well done. I assumed he could handle the conquest of a backward planet like Earth. Still, it took the interference of the Vencar to stop us so I suppose he didn't do so badly. You must be disappointed, Dra’Kor, that I wasn’t there in person.”
“I will find you, if not today then another day, if not me then another of us. You will answer for your crimes, Sar’Ken.”
“Perhaps, but not at your hands. You should thank me for saving you and your men a painful death.” The hologram vanished and a rumble ran through the facility.
“We need to go, now.” Marcus grabbed Dra’Kor’s arm and they ran toward the exit. He activated his comm. “Solomon get out of there and meet us at ship, Voidwalker activated some sort of device.”
“Way ahead of you, Marcus. The computer went dead then a countdown appeared on the screen. We’ve got five minutes to get out of here. Iaka and I are almost to the ship. Hurry.”
“You catch all that, boss?”
“I did.” Dra’Kor sounded weak, almost defeated. Marcus had never heard the Vencar sound so down.
The survivor’s ran through the prison. Marcus kept a tight grip on his weapon, but they encountered no opposition. They reached an exterior wall and the soldiers blasted a hole in it. The little group ran out into the exercise yard. They were on the wrong side of the prison. “I don’t think we can make it,” Marcus said.
Two soldiers grabbed him by the arms and leapt. They covered forty feet in a single bound. Half a minute later they reached the ships. Marcus ran up the open boarding ramp. Iaka stood at the top and pushed the button that raised it when he reached the halfway point. He kissed her in passing and raced to the cockpit. Solomon sat in the copilot’s chair and had everything ready to go. Marcus leapt into his seat and pulled up on the controls.
“Thirty seconds,” Solomon said.
The star lurched into the air, not his smoothest takeoff ever. He flew over the unmoving war robot and stopped.
“What are you doing?” Solomon sounded frantic.
Marcus activated the tractor beam. No way was he leaving without something to show for all this.
“Fifteen seconds. Leave it, Marcus. I don’t want to die for a busted robot.”
He adjusted the beam. Come on, come, on!
“Ten seconds!”
“Damn it!” Marcus jammed the throttle forward and they shot away. He reached fifty-thousand feet before the bomb went off. The rear camera showed a mushroom cloud over the prison. It didn’t look like Earth Force would find much tech to scavenge from the prison. “Switch to the belly camera.”
The image of the screen shifted. Tucked up under the ship, held snug by the tractor beam, rested the war bot. “Yes!”
Marcus grinned at Solomon who shook his head.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“The Void ships are gone.” Solomon looked up from his console. “The one in orbit around Mars too.”
“They probably jumped when the bomb went off. What about the two ships on the surface?”
“Still there. Judging by all the life form readings they’re busy churning out masked uglies as fast as they can.”
The cockpit door slid open and Iaka entered. She slumped down in the third chair. “I’m beat. I swear I’ll never complain about the jungle again.”
“I’ve got a hundred credits that says you complain before the end of the year,” Marcus said.
Iaka smiled and shook her head. “No bet.”
On the screen half a dozen hyperspace portals opened. An instant later Earth Force destroyers filled the screen. Marcus double checked the cloaking device and found it still working. He loved Vencar tech. Speaking of which. “Can you get Dra’Kor on the comm? I’m not sure what we’re doing next.”
Solomon tapped away. An alarm sounded. Marcus tapped the glowing button. The readout said the destroyers had powered up their weapons. They weren’t targeting the star, and no Void ships remained, so what the hell did they plan on shooting?
Marcus got his answer a moment later when they began a planetary bombardment. Marcus adjusted the scanners to focus on Earth. The destroyers focused their weapons on the Void ship in the Midwest. The concentrated blasts soon overwhelmed the fortress looking ship’s shield. A few seconds after that it exploded, creating a mushroom cloud nearly as big as the bomb at the prison. That explosion must have killed thousands if not tens of thousands. If they got lucky then they killed most of the Void soldiers along with the innocents. The destroyers flew away toward the opposite side of the planet, no doubt to repeat the process on second ship in North Africa.
“Marcus.” Dra’Kor’s masked face appeared on the screen. “We’re heading back to the cruiser. Are you coming?”
“Yeah, I need to talk to Vlad, and Solomon has a present for you.”
The two cloaked ships sped into hyperspace.
***
“So that’s what happened.” Marcus finished telling Vlad and the others about their adventure. Vlad took a hundred credit coin out of his pocket and flipped it to Tommy. “What’s that about?”
“We had a bet. I said Oliver and his crew would double cross you and Tommy didn’t think they had the guts.”
“They had the guts, I’m sure, but they wanted us to deal with Voidwalker for them. I suspect as badly as Oliver wanted to screw us over he wanted the Void leader dealt with more.”
“And he didn’t even get that.” Vlad laughed. “At least we can go back to Mars without worrying about that black ship.”
“You might want to be careful. After the way you treated Oliver he might be looking for a little payback.”
Vlad grinned. “He’s welcome to try. If he wants a war with me I’ll crush him. I own Mars, Earth Force just handles the administration. Will you come back with us?”
Marcus shook his head. “I’ve had a belly full of Earth space for a while. I suspect I’ll have plenty to do helping to repair the damage to the council’s asteroid. Plus I need to take Iaka back to her research project.”
“I bet your friend is eager to get his hands on that war robot,” Vlad said.
“Solomon’s surprisingly ambivalent about Gruesome. I suspect the fact that we almost got killed retrieving him has something to do with it. Still he’s got three full data chips worth of Void research to study. That should keep him entertained for a while.” Marcus got up out of his soft chair, hugged Vlad and Anna, and shook hands with Tommy.
“Don’t be a stranger, my boy.”
Marcus left the lounge and walked to the airlock where the boarding tunnel connected to his ship. It had been an exhausting few weeks and The Children of the Void were still out there. He shook his head. He couldn’t dwell on the negative. They’d kept the Earth out of their hands and that was no small thing. Any other problems could wait until after his vacation.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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