by Don Foxe
“Do we find the girls and go, or take out the bad guys first, in case something catches their attention?” Elie asked.
“Bad guys,” Coop said. Never leave a mobile enemy behind you.
They travelled down a stairwell, moving from the galley to the middle deck. Slowly, they entered a short hallway with two doors; one left and one right. According to Sparks, the one on the left held four sleeping Zenge. The hallway was not lit. No light would enter, warning those inside of the door opening. Coop did not see hinges, and hoped nothing would squeak. He manually pushed the door aside, into its pocket. He entered, Elie second, knives in hands. Coop closed the sliding door, closing them inside with the Zenge.
Elie skirted right, and he shimmied left. The first Zenge slept on his stomach. Coop drove his knife into the base of its skull and up into the brain. He worried about death throes, but the alien simply died in its sleep. The second one slept on its side, facing away from Coop. He reached around with his left hand, to wrap his inhumanly strong fingers over its snout. He held the head firmly and drove the surgical blade into the brain.
Elie finished her first target, and neared the second, when something caused it to sit upright on the bunk. She did not hesitate, driving a knife into its temple. With her re-engineered strength, and the well-made blade, the bones of the skull shattered as the blade plunged through. She wiped her blades on the bunk’s blanket.
The two in the engineering section proved more difficult.
Hoping surprise remained on their side, they entered quickly. A Zenge was seated at a console, across the room from their entry point. Elie threw one blade, catching the alien square between its shoulder blades. She launched herself at him, the second knife in hand. Coop engaged the other alien, this one rising from a console seat to the right of the entry. He pushed the heavy, squat reptile against the bulkhead, and sliced it from belly to head, stepping aside as entrails fell onto the deck. The dying Zenge tried to bite him with its double row of teeth. Coop drove his knife under the Zenge’s jaw, stapling the mouth closed with the blade. When he let go, the creature collapsed, joining the muck on the deck.
Meanwhile, Elie pushed her target’s head forward and down onto the console. She completed the kill when her knife entered the base of the skull. She removed both blades, wiped them on the alien’s jersey, and replaced them in their sheaths.
“Did you have to gut him?” she asked Coop. “The smell is awful.”
Coop shrugged. He headed for the stairwell connecting the lower cargo area to the upper storage deck. On the Parrian vessel taken from the Zenge during the Star Gazer battle, this deck had been converted to cells. The same hasty redesign was used here.
“Sparks, can you pinpoint your sisters?” Coop asked. “I have sixteen cells filled with bodies.”
“From your current location, they are forty yards in, and twenty feet left,” came the reply.
Coop paced the distance, bringing them in front of the second cell.
He unclipped the torch, and started to cut the cell-door lock, when a hand reached through the bars, grabbing his wrist. “What do you want?” A deep voice demanded.
“We’re friends, ASillamentrae and ASpatric sent us to get their daughters, AStasaei and ASarasha." Coop could easily have broken the grip, but allowed it to stay, trying to avoid an alarm.
“And the rest of us?” the voice asked.
“Good question,” Elie said, standing beside Coop. “What’s the plan, Coop? Take the girls, and leave the rest?”
“Well, honestly, that was the plan,” he admitted. “Sir, if you will let me go, I can remove this lock. It appears we need a new plan.”
The hand released Coop’s wrist, who used the plasma cutter to slice through the lock.
“I’m AStasaei, and this is my sister, ASarasha,” a shadow among shadows said to Coop and Elie. “Did you say our parents sent you?”
“Storm, do you copy?”
“Copy.”
“Talk with your sister, while Elie and I have a conversation.” He handed his bracelet to the shadowy AStasaei.
The humans moved to the far wall, sat on the deck, and removed their helmets to talk in private. After a few minutes, Coop returned to the cell. “May I have the bracelet, please?” He accepted the com unit from a shaky hand.
“Storm, please have everyone listen. You hacked the cargo ship we captured during the Star Gazer battle. Can you do the same to the eight here?”
“Yes, especially since ASparquila is here. He’s better than I am,” she replied.
“Once the two of you are in, can you lock down internal doors? We need to isolate the Zenge in sections away from the cells,” he explained.
“Can do,” Sparks replied. “If the door has an electronic lock.”
“Can you jam communications, and engage engines and flight systems from Demon?”
“We can, but why?” Storm asked.
“We came to get your sisters, and we will, but there are 810 other people on this ship. Probably as many on the other seven,” Coop said.
“7,011 total,” Sparks said aloud. “7,825 including the ship you are on, and both of you. Not counting guards.”
“We’ve been covert long enough,” Coop told everyone. “We were going to attract attention sooner or later. We may as well do it big. Mags, do you copy?”
“Go for Magpie,” came the quick response.
“Distribute plasma cutters to everyone on board. Storm and Sparks are going to fly these eight cargo ships out of here to someplace outside the fence where they can set them down. Storm, you have five minutes to pick a spot. When they land, the six of you will exit Demon. Select a ship each, before you exit. Storm will deploy the rear ramps on the Parrian ships. You go in, and up the rear stairs. Use torches to cut the locks, and get everyone out. Direct them into the surrounding area, away from the Zenge camp. Elie has this ship, and I will take the ship landing closest to this one.
“Magpie, put out any personal weapons stored on board. Leave them MRE’s, food supplies, water. Keep enough for ten of us to get back to RYS. And Mags, we are on rapid response and removal. I hate to leave those people on their own, but there is no other choice. When our people return to Demon, get us airborne. Plan on sweeping back toward this base. Take anything we can out of the air, assault anything on the ground to hamper pursuit. Then make haste off the planet, and out of the system. Copy.”
“Copy. Magpie, Out.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Coop shouted loudly to ascend the growing murmurs. “Please wake everyone up, and everybody grab hold of something, or each other. We are flying out of here. The flight will get rough, and the landing rougher. Once we land, exit the cells, head down the stairs, out the back of the ship, and run as fast and as far as you can.
“I wish we could do more, but until we can return with more help, this is the best we can do.”
As he finished, the hover engine whine alerted everyone they were about to take flight. God only knew what the captives in the other ships thought happening. The cargo vessel lurched up and tilted, before leveling off and flying. Everyone heard laser rounds hitting the exterior hull. The sentry guards attempting, in vain, to bring the cargo ships down.
Ten minutes flight time, by Coop’s chronometer, they tilted forward, and landed hard, scraping along the ground. Elie turned on lights. Coop located the stairwell exit. He bounded down the steps, and out the back ramp before it fully lowered. A second cargo ship landed within feet of him. He skirted it, ran to the back, in, and up to the second deck where captives screamed for answers.
“Listen,” he yelled several times before people quieted. He repeated the instructions given the first cargo ship prisoners, and started cutting locks. Storm or Sparks had interior lights on, making it easier for people to find the stairwell. By the time he opened the final cell door, most of the others had emptied. The line to escape moved orderly.
He heard laser cannon rounds fired outside, but could not get through the line in fr
ont of him any faster to investigate.
He exited the rear cargo bay in time to witness a Zenge shuttle craft limping away, fire blazing from its port engine. Demon’s top-mount cannon glowed red at the tip.
Another five minutes elapsed before everyone riding Demon convened at the fighter’s ramp. Mags tossed weapons out the back, along with anything else she thought might help. After freeing captives from the cargo vessel nearest Demon, she had rushed back to the cockpit to fight off the fast-reacting Zenge shuttle, which had followed them.
Thousands of Fellen melted into the woods surrounding the area the eight cargo ships and Demon slammed down on. Trees lay crushed beneath several of the space ships.
“In,” Coop ordered. “Call out names as you pass me.”
“AStasaei . . . ASarasha . . . Silla . . . Patric . . . Storm . . . Sparks . . . Sky . . . Elie." Mags in the pilot’s seat made nine. Coop, ten and final, entered and hit the emergency close for the ramp. “All in, go!” He called to Mags.
In the time needed to seal the door between cargo and galley, Elie strapped into the co-pilot’s seat, and Storm harnessed into the com-tac chair. The remaining family members huddled on the deck, holding one another. While the crew prepped for a surprise visit to the Zenge base, Coop opened a storage bin, and removed a 125-foot rope kept on board for emergencies. He tied the rope off, ran it around and through the Fellen on the floor, providing them with something to hold onto if the ship started bucking.
He tied off the end of the rope, then settled to the deck, alongside Sky.
Mags and Elie, on reaching CHangoria 2, opened up with all guns. No other ships had left the ground. Everything air-worthy became the primary targets. The wing mounted laser cannons made short work of the non-shielded, ship-to-planet shuttles. The lower-mounted railgun slung kinetic rounds into buildings, blasting them to shards. The wooden shards became deadly missiles. It was doubtful a search group would come from this base to follow the escapees anytime soon.
“We’re heading up” Mags called back. “I need to clear the exosphere at 6,000 miles before I can engage space-fold.”
Storm reported, “A mothership is almost on top of us. Both battlecruisers have left the polar caps, and moving to intercept.”
“They will get close enough to fire before we can escape,” Mags said. “Evade or intercept, Captain?”
“You have a dozen nuclear missiles, correct?” he asked.
“Affirmative,” came Mags’ reply.
“Take down the mothership. Hit it with railgun kinetic rounds to bust up their shields, and lay a missile in each hole. Six ought to do it,” Coop said from the floor, wishing he was in the cockpit.
“Course altered.” Mags tried to keep everyone informed. Though the prospects of their small ship taking on three behemoths scared everyone, the play-by-play, and the professional manner the crew displayed, kept everyone calm.
“We have intercept course with the mothership. Fifty miles out, and closing. They are firing laser cannons, and pulse loads. Brace for hits, and hold on while I juke as many as I can.”
At twenty-five miles, Mags fired the missiles. The missiles traveling much slower than the kinetic rounds Elie prepared to trigger. Elie waited, ran the calculations, determined time required for the railgun projectiles to hit the huge ship, and fired. The kinetic rounds disrupted the mothership’s force field seconds before the torpedoes arrived.
“Six nuclear explosions within the mothership,” Storm reported. “There is absolutely nothing left. I read dust. The two Mischene battlecruisers have stopped . . . actually, they have reversed direction. Seems they are afraid of big, bad Demon.”
“We space-fold in ten minutes,” Mags told them. “Nothing but clear skies ahead.”
She engaged space-fold on the mark, course set for the edge of the solar system. It would take three hours less time than coming in from Gaea. No longer covert, speed became the more important factor.
Mags and Elie remained in the cockpit. Coop took the com-tac console, providing Sky and Storm space to reunite with the others.
The two younger girls were in rough shape. Dehydrated, malnourished, shaken and shaking. Months in captivity extracted a heavy toll. Sky and Storm held back tears as they bundled the girls into separate bunks. Elie hooked IV bags from med-storage to speed rehydration, and added nutrient drops.
Coop opened the nearly empty cargo bay, and set out anything comfortable he could find for people to lay on. With the youngest safe and sleeping, the other three escapees curled onto blankets, and soon slept.
Seventeen hours later, away from the system star’s gravitational influence, Elie, back in the pilot’s seat, set course for the Rys’ system. The return trip required twenty-four hours in space-fold, and another ten to eleven hours from the rim to Rys itself. They had ten people in a ship built for three.
In space-fold and safe, everyone wanted to take part in any conversations. Two could sit in the cockpit seats, one at com-tac, three around the galley table, and three on bunks. Leaving one to sit on the floor.
Storm fussed over the two girls, making sure they had plenty to eat. Obviously going without proper nutrition for the past few months, she intended to mother-hen them with food. Elie kept the IV’s going, with added vitamins and supplements. She tied them off on the bunks, above where the girls would sit. While it was impossible to be far from anyone in the cramped quarters, neither wanted to be out of sight of their family, or separated from the comfort of the group.
Much to Coop’s embarrassment, and to Elie and Mag’s utter delight, Storm explained how she and Sky ‘earned’ their nicknames.
“Not true,” Coop protested. “No one had to have sex to earn a nickname. No one had to have sex for any reason.”
“You had no reason to have sex with both of them?” Elie asked innocently. “Did you feel obligated?”
“No, I did not feel obligated,” he said.
“Is that why you started calling me Elie after we had sex?” she asked. “I had been Elena my entire life. How many nicknames have you awarded?”
“Star is a nickname, and I didn’t have sex with her,” he protested. “Sparks is a nickname, and I didn’t have sex with him. Sky and Storm gave Star, Silla, and Patric their nicknames. Nicknames are easier to say.”
“Isn’t Sparks the nickname given to every radio operator in World War Two?” Mags asked. “Not exactly original, Coop. You meet a galaxy-class communications engineer, and you nickname him Sparks.”
“His name is ASparquila,” Coop returned. “Would you prefer I call him Sarsaparilla?”
“What’s sarsaparilla?” Sparks asked.
“Root Beer, a kid’s soda drink,” Mags said, making it no more clear for the Fellen.
“Can ASarasha and I have nicknames?” AStasaei asked from her place on the bunk.
“Can we have sex with Coop?” ASarasha asked.
Unified, eight voices responded, “NO!”
“No, you cannot have sex with Coop,” Sky said, less vehemently. “I’m afraid he belongs to Storm, and me. He can, however, give you nicknames. Storm and I, at a later date, will pay the price.”
“For that kind of payment, these better be good,” Mags said from the co-pilot’s seat. “And, boy, was I ever right about coming along on this trip?”
“Fine,” Coop said, looking at the two lovely girls who suffered and endured. AStasaei appeared more sullen, and stayed more to herself. Asarasha acted as if she had been on an adventure, but stayed close enough to touch someone, unless asleep.
“AStasaei, I nickname thee Stacey. ASarasha is henceforth called Sarah.”
The two girls, joyous over their Earth names, repeated them back and forth to each other, laughing.
Silla reached across the table, taking Coop’s hand in her’s. “Thank you,” she said. Not for the nicknames, but for the laughter they brought.
Storm unfolded herself from the floor and moved to Coop. She kissed him on a cheek, and asked, “What’s henceforth
?”
CHAPTER 28
“Sparks,” Coop kept his voice low, to not disturb those sleeping. “How sure are you Mischene controlled the battlecruisers?”
“We do not have translation baselines for Zenge,” the communications expert told him, “but we do have it for the races in the Aster system, including the Mischene. The communications from and to the battlecruisers were in Mischene. They tried to mask the signals, and the messaging encrypted, but they used Fellen technology. My family developed a lot of their communication system’s components.”
“Did you learn anything?” Coop asked.
“Not much,” he admitted. “They transmitted orders, or set flight patterns. I got the impression they realized their coms were vulnerable to compromise. After all, they were invading Fell. Many of the messages arranged private, in-person conferences. I also saw Mischene at the bunker.”
“What were they doing there?” Elie asked. The impromptu meeting taking place between the cockpit and the com-tac station. Elie and Coop sat in the cockpit, and Sparks at com-tac, facing them.
“There were only a few, but they appeared to give the Zenge orders,” he replied. “Mischene are easy to identify, with their white hair and dark skin. They wore Mischene fleet uniforms. Black with silver markings, and those high, shiny boots. I saw a lot of those uniforms while installing updates to their communications arrays three years ago. Stand-offish bunch. More about orders and orderly activities. I also met people from Aster Farum 2. They were friendly, and enjoyed conversation.”
“Sparks, Demon’s databanks contain the information we gathered regarding the Zenge. Most of it came from your sister and cousin, or the files downloaded from the Star Gazer. There is data on attacks, eye-witness accounts, stories and even speculations in the data base. Can you pull those records up?” Coop asked.
“Easy,” the Fellen said. “Anything specific you need?”
“See if you can put the systems attacked in chronological order, from the earliest suspected Zenge incursion to the attack on Rys. Don’t factor in Earth’s solar system. That happened as a result of a chase from Osperantue, and not a true invasion,” the Captain said.
