by J. K. Mabrey
"I just thought, there's a robot flying the ship, how strange. Pretty soon they'll take all the jobs away and what use will there be for us?"
"Until they can shoot, they won't replace anyone," Charra said.
"Don't worry, I'm sure there's a model coming out preprogrammed for combat," Zavik said. "Complete with armor plating and the latest, greatest, rifles."
"That's comforting," Brax said. He lost his balance and swayed as the ship reached cruising speed.
Chapter 14
They could feel the Rinada slowly descending. It came to rest softly on the ground and the ramp opened. The whine of the electric motor pushing it down was drowned out as Dani's voice echoed through the open room over the intercom. "We're down. The warehouse is dead ahead from the ramp about fifty yards."
"No sign that they saw us?" Zavik asked.
"Nothing's changed with them," she said.
They ran off the ship and she lifted back up immediately. Yellow grass came up to their knees. It danced before them in the light breeze. They crouched down for a little cover, each taking their weapon off of safety. The Rinada skimmed the surface closely as it made its way away from the warehouse, gaining altitude as it got further away.
"I'm into their systems," she said. "I think I can operate the doors and cut the power. I'll keep monitoring their network to see if anything changes."
They were facing the long side of the warehouse. Three large doors stared back at them. The building was dark and eerie. It looked abandoned, probably what the slavers wanted. A small patch of gravel sat in front of the doors and a ladder scaled up the right side of the building. Zavik could see small cameras perched above the doors. The cameras would have to be disabled before they could go in. There was no light coming from the warehouse, none even peeked through the cracks in the doors.
"Dani, can you disable the cameras above the doors?" Zavik asked.
"Give me a minute," she said. "No, Rudy, just put her down over there. Yes, that's fine. Careful! Zavik'll kill you if you...humf, scratch it."
"Sounds like he's doing good," Brax said to Zavik.
"Is it ok?" he asked.
"You didn't really like the wings being symmetrical, did you?" she asked.
"The vertical stabilizers!"
He heard Rudy's voice over the comm. "They appear to be unharmed, but…bent." Zavik's eyes flared. "Not to worry, though. It's easily fixable unless some of the cooling lines were ruptured. In that case, it'll need to be replaced, could be expensive. The ship should still operate effectively with the other one."
"Ten thousand simulations and he crashes on his first landing," Brax said. "I'm not so worried about a robot takeover after all."
"Never mind that for now,” Dani said. “Ok, I put the cameras on a loop of the last ten minutes. If anyone's watching them, they won't be able to see you."
"Let's go," Brax said.
Zavik shook the Rinada out of his mind. He needed to focus on the task at hand. He'd kill Rudy latter. They made their way to the warehouse, still crouched down below the grass as they moved in unison. The building was covered in metal sheeting. It didn't look too sturdy or thick. It wasn't a place the slavers thought they'd ever have to defend. It was meant to go unnoticed and unaccounted for. The slavers probably had a good relationship with their last supplier of power cores and never worried about being turned in or sold out. It was just a bad twist of fate that the Ascachi gave up their location.
They leaned against the siding next to the door. "Ok, Dani, now the rear door," Zavik said.
A few seconds went by and the door slowly lifted. It got about a quarter of the way up and they darted in under it. Zavik squeezed the handle of his pistol as he rounded the opening, drawing the gun up to his face. The small room was empty. Zavik kept his grip tight. The door lowered itself down and closed with a louder thud than Zavik liked. He lowered his gun to his side. There were two doors leading out of the room. One opposite the outside door and another to their left. Zavik thought about how this was one of the rooms they brought slaves through when they got off the ships. He felt cold and dirty, as if being there made him an accomplice of the slave trade. His stomach turned on itself. Brax had a similar expression on his face, but an underlying anger hid most of it. Charra looked like he always did, disappointed there was no one to shoot. He kept his rifle clutched in his hands and anchored to his shoulder.
They went through the door opposite the main opening and stood in a narrow hallway. It was dimly lit by a few overhead lights that projected a cone of yellow onto the steel floor. The short hallway connected with a longer hallway that ran down the length of the building. The three hangars connected to this main hallway through similar hallways. The corridor continued to the right and also ahead. The way they wanted to go was ahead, that was where the exhaust fans were, and where the power station would be.
Two voices suddenly echoed down the hallway. They pressed themselves up against the wall, each readying their weapon. Zavik knew that if they shot whoever it was, the others, however many there might be, would hear, and their plan would be thrown out the window. Footsteps joined the voices as they got closer.
"Which one was it?" the first voice said.
"Traga said the third bay door had a malfunction," the second replied.
"Malfunction? Shouldn't he call Riker for that? I don't know how to fix a door."
"He just wants to make sure no animal got into the loading cell."
The voices drew closer. Charra was standing at the edge of the smaller hallway, Zavik behind him, and Brax was opposite Zavik on the other wall. Zavik brought his pistol up to his face, his hands were rocking back and forth with the beat of his heart. They were coming to their door, and they were going to be caught.
Suddenly Charra crouched down and put his rifle down softly. The footsteps grew louder, they were right at the edge of the hallway. Charra sprang up, both arms reaching around the walkway. His two hands grabbed two heads. A muffled scream and stomping boots could be heard just before a thud. Charra slammed their heads together and their limp bodies collapsed to the floor. He dragged them into the corner hallway and laid them in front of Zavik and Brax.
All Zavik could say was an astonished, "Good work." The two bodies were Savins, Slavers. Charra had knocked them out, but they wouldn't be out long. "Let's keep going."
Brax just stood there when they started to move. "Should we just leave them?" he asked.
"What else can we do?" Zavik asked.
He brought his gun up to one's chest and said, "We can finish them off. It's what they would do, or worse."
"We're not like them," Zavik said. "We're not cold-blooded killers."
"It wouldn't be cold blooded. It would be what they deserve."
"They'll hear your blaster," Charra said. It wasn't often Charra was the voice of reason.
Brax lowered his gun. His face was rigid and full of anger, like these Savins had offended him personally in some way.
"We have to move," Zavik said.
They crossed the hallway and went through the door on the other side. The room was open and stretched to the high ceiling. A low hum from two large fans on the outer wall resonated in the room. A heat exchanger sat in front of the fans allowing excess heat to be drawn out of the building. On the right wall was a cage of supplies.
Zavik went to the cage. The door was locked by a metal padlock. He slammed his gun down on the lock, it sparked but didn't budge. Charra tried pulling it but all he did was bend the door frame. It remained locked.
"If we shoot it they'll hear," Charra said.
"They might not if you turn the power down," Brax said.
"Worth a shot," Zavik said. "We have to get in there one way or another."
Zavik turned a dial on the rear of his pistol to the left. He fired a shot at the lock. It was a thin bolt, red, but much more opaque than usual. The blast was loud and reverberated around the room. It was quieter than a full power blast, but not as quiet as Zavik would have liked. The l
ock fell to the floor with a clang. It was a twisted and scarred black heap of metal.
There were dozens of crates stacked behind the cage. They each took a stack and began riffling through them. Zavik pulled a crate down and opened the top. It was full of blaster packs. He threw it to the side and grabbed another one. It had a stash of Perizian weed. Drugs. It could be used to get high, or to sedate someone, a slave, perhaps, Zavik thought. He threw it to the side as well.
"Here!" Brax said. He slid a crate Zavik's direction. It was filled with power cells. They were cylindrical metal canisters that were about a foot long and took both hands to wrap around. They were mini fusion reactors, capable of powering a house or tractor for months. Each crate held eighteen power cells and they needed a dozen crates for Garos. Brax sorted through the other crates in his aisle and found other crates of power cells. Charra and Zavik helped him finish off the search. They stacked the twelve power cell crates they needed to the side and each just stood there.
"How are we going to move them all at once?" Charra asked. "I can carry four, but no offense, I don't think either of you can do that."
"No, I can't put those on my shoulders," Zavik said, "and they're too big to carry in my arms."
"There's got to be something around here to help move supplies," Brax said. "No way these slavers carried them in." In the corner of the room was a lift. Brax powered it up and it levitated itself off the ground. "Here, stack some on here."
They piled eight crates on the lift before it started to sag. They decided to carry the other four. Charra grabbed three and Brax one. Zavik maneuvered the lift out the door and into the hallway. They crossed the opening of the large hallway. The two Savin slavers were still on the floor in front of their hangar. Zavik stopped at the door to the loading dock. Charra walked up behind him, but when Zavik turned around Brax was nowhere to be seen.
"What happened to Brax?" Zavik asked.
Charra looked behind him and said, "He was right there."
"Damnit." Zavik pushed the lift up against the door and left it there. He went back to the cross-section of the hallways. There was a door just to the right that was open, a crate was left just outside the room. Zavik drew his gun and stepped inside. Once inside his arms dropped along with his jaw. The entire room was a caged prison from the ground to the ceiling. There had to be over two dozen cage cells in the room. Over half of them were full. There were Rovun, Chokmnd, Savin, Iriquios, even two humans in the room.
Each captive was curled up in their cell, their heads barely lifted when he walked in. A few were looking at Brax with heightened interest. A putrid smell lingered in the air and it started to upset Zavik's stomach. He felt ashamed that his first thought was that he wanted to get out of the room as quick as possible
Brax was walking through the maze of cages. "Brax," Zavik said in as loud a whisper as he could.
Charra came up behind Zavik and said, "What the hell?"
"What are you doing?" Zavik asked when Brax looked his way.
"They're slaves," Brax said. "They will be slaves, whenever someone buys them."
"We have to go," Zavik said. "We have a job to finish."
"I can't just leave them here," Brax said, his head shaking as he looked at each one of them. "It's not right."
"I agree, but we didn't come here to free slaves."
"They're not slaves yet," Brax said. "They're just being held until someone buys them."
"What if no one buys them?" Charra asked.
Zavik wondered that too, but he knew he didn't want to know the answer.
Brax pointed to a Rovun in a cage next to them. He was the skinniest and frailest Rovun Zavik had ever seen. His face looked like he was about forty, but his body resembled an old Rovun resting on his deathbed. He was curled into a fetal position and his head was buried between his arms.
"The ones that aren't sold fast enough die. The slavers don't take care of them, they don't feed them. They don't care for the sick or the old..." he looked at a cage with a small Iriquios boy in it, "or the young." he put his hands on the cage. The boy flinched and backed away. His body was shaking as he stared them down.
"Scum," Charra said.
Zavik didn't know what to do. He knew he'd feel guilty if they left these people here, and he didn't think that was an option Brax would allow. For some reason, Brax wanted to do something about these slavers. He had that in mind from the start. Brax wanted to come with them and took a keen interest in the mission since the target turned out to be slavers. Zavik didn't know why, and right then he didn't care. He just knew they had to do something to help.
"What do you want to do?" Zavik asked. "If we let them out, they have nowhere to go. The slavers will either kill them or beat them back into their cages."
"I know," Brax said. He was still walking between the cages, looking intently at each prisoner. "I have to kill them."
"What?" Zavik asked. "Kill whom?"
Brax stopped and looked at Zavik with a furry that could have burned the building down. "The slavers. I have to kill the slavers."
"Wait a minute, we have no idea how many there are."
"I don't care how many of them there are," Brax said, "I'm going to kill them all."
"What will we do with them?" Charra asked. "They won't all fit on the Rinada. Where will they go?"
"Dani can contact the local authorities," Zavik said. "They'll know what to do with them. They'll be able to get them the help they need."
"Yes, the locals will take care of them," Brax said. "Help get them back to their families."
"What do you think, boss?" Charra asked.
"He's right," Zavik said, "we can't just leave them here. It's just too cruel."
Zavik radioed Dani over the com. "Are you ready for pickup?" she asked. "You were supposed to be out of there two minutes ago."
"We've had a slight change in the plan," Zavik said.
"Slight?" Charra said in the background.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing's wrong," Zavik assured her, "we just found the slaves."
"Oh, no," she said.
"We have to help them," Zavik said.
"Zavik, you need to get out of there," she said. "It's dangerous. If you're captured, you could be killed or they could try and sell you."
"If we're captured you can contact the authorities. Mike, the Councilor. Someone will help."
"That's an awfully big risk to take," she said.
She was right. It was a big risk. The smart thing to do would be to leave, tell someone about the compound and let them come clean up the mess after they're gone with the goods. Especially for a bunch of slaves, he thought, but that wasn't fair. They weren't just a bunch of slaves, faceless and abstract. They were real people. Someone knew who they were. Somewhere, someone was looking for them, or maybe they'd already given up hope that they'd be found. By now, some were just a number in the system, a statistic to be read about in the news or the yearly report on disappearances and the connection to the slave trade. They weren't dead weight that should be tossed away because helping them was inconvenient or risky. No, they deserved better than that. Especially for what they had already been through.
"Dani, contact the authorities on Jeyago. Inform them about the location and what's going on. Tell them that there are about the be a couple dozen people who need medical attention."
"Ok, Zavik, I'm on it. Let me know when you're ready for pickup. Be safe."
"We will," he said.
"I hope she doesn't get someone corrupt," Charra said.
"Me too," Zavik said. "Brax, you lead point. We'll cover you."
"My pleasure," Brax said and turned his attention to the hall. He opened the door and two Savins, the two that were knocked out earlier were running down to the other end of the hallway. Brax let out three shots from his blaster and both Savins collapsed in a rage of screams. They moved through the door and started down the hallway.
"They must all be at the other end of the
building," Brax said.
An alarm suddenly blared in Zavik's ear. The main lights went dim and were replaced with a shallow white light running down the hallway. It barely illuminated the path. A door at the end of the hallway opened and rapid blaster fire poured down the hallway. Zavik ducked behind the corner on the left, Brax took the right and Charra pulled himself up behind Brax.
"There's no way to move down the hall with all this fire!" Brax said.
"I've got an idea," Zavik said. He radioed Dani and told her to open the main hangar door. He waited about ten seconds for a replied confirmation. The firing stopped suddenly. "Now! Move!"
Zavik and Brax marched down the hallway crouching low while Charra swept across with his rifle fire. They reached the walkway leading to the second door and dove behind the wall. Zavik turned his gun around the corner and fired off four shots until Charra could join them.
"I think I got two of them," Charra said.
Zavik peaked around the corner and saw two more bodies lying behind the two they already killed. A blast hit just above his head and sheared the wall apart. Concrete rained down on his head. It smelled like burnt hair where the blast hit. Charra pulled a grenade from his vest and tossed it around the corner. Zavik heard screaming just before a deafening blast rocked through the corridor. His ears rang from the concussion but quickly subsided. Dust and dirt were blasted back down the hallway and stung his eyes. He breathed in a shallow breath covered by his sleeve.
"Ah, this I like," Charra said.
Brax turned the corner and motioned them to follow. The door was blown apart. The above section had collapsed and the frame of the door was cracked and destroyed. There was no one there as Brax ran through, jumping to clear the stack of ruble that filled the doorway. Zavik heard firing immediately as he followed. They were in the main hangar room. It was almost twice as large as the smaller hangars and encompassed the entire height of the building. There were eight Savins in the room. Three others lay dead near the doorway.
Brax took cover behind a crate to the right and Zavik found a wide support column near him to hide. Four of the Savins were out in the open, the others were behind a small transport skiff that was docked in the room. Charra entered the room with one rifle in his hand. He quickly unslung the other and swept across the room with both rifles firing. He took out two of the Savins standing in the open and sent the other two diving for cover. Zavik unloaded his pistol on one of them and caught him in the knee with a shot before another blast hit the side of his head causing him to collapse to the floor. Brax fired rapidly at the other Savin and just missed his side as he reached a support column.
