by G. E. Stills
“There is another way, but it involves risk.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“We need to capture one of the bugs alive. Then if Keish’ar knows of a medical research facility, I can design an apparatus that can tap into the bugs mind.”
“You’re fucking kidding, right? You know how deadly those bugs are. To capture one?”
“I didn’t say an undamaged one. Just one that isn’t dead.”
Rho’naa ended her pacing. “And you can access the bug’s mind? How?”
Drago explained as best he could and the risk to her personally.
She shrugged the personal risk aside. “And you think if we do this you can figure out the null weapon?”
“I’m not certain about that, but I am certain we will know much more than we do now.”
“I’ve got to run this past Keish’ar. First I have to figure out a way to make him think this idea is mine and not yours because he doesn’t even know you exist.”
She glanced down at her state of undress and decided against putting on more than a pair of shorts and her bra. It was hot and muggy today again as usual. It had rained almost every day since she woke for at least part of the day. Rho’naa strode purposely from her room in search of Keish’ar. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was late morning. The chances were good he would be in the common sleeping area because he had been up most of the night taking his turn at guard duty.
As she strode from her room, she reminded herself that she was the only one that had a room of her own. This had not been her idea, but the idea of the group. She was their leader and as such, they determined she deserved separate quarters and the privacy it afforded. Just as she had surmised, she found him along the back wall on his cot sleeping. She nudged his shoulder and he became instantly awake and alert.
“Sorry to wake you.”
“What’s up?”
“We need to talk. I prefer in private.”
“Okay.” He cast off the sheet that covered him and swung his feet over the edge of the cot. Rho’naa glanced away quickly, but not before she noticed he only wore the briefest of underwear. In frustration, she tried to ignore the feeling of desire that rolled through her.
“Okay, I’m dressed, where do you want to go?”
“Follow me,” she said and resisted her sudden urge to take his hand. What the hell is wrong with me?
Drago chuckled in her mind. “Maybe you’re feeling what you’re feeling because you want him. Want him for more than just a friend.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
The left the rocky complex they called home and she strode briskly toward another nearby formation of boulders with him following close behind.
“What’s your big hurry,” he complained.
She didn’t answer. Rho’naa found a boulder that had toppled to the side and leaned against another boulder forming a natural roof. Dropping to her knees she crawled under it and made space for him to join her.
“So?”
“We haven’t made much progress in deciphering the bug language.”
“You woke me and dragged me here to tell me something I already know?”
“I have an idea, but I want to discuss it with you before bringing it up to the group. There’s risk involved and I’m not certain it will give us the info we want.”
“Will you just say what you have in mind and stop being so cryptic?”
Her lips tightened and she bristled. Quickly she glanced down so he wouldn’t see her anger. Sometimes I like him a lot and sometimes I hate him.
“I know why.”
“Shut up, Drago.”
“Tell him the plan.”
She swallowed and plunged into relating the plan.
“Suppose I know about a medical research facility we can use, provided it isn’t overrun with bugs. Suppose we are able to capture one alive. Do you know how to build this mind reading apparatus you describe?”
“Yes. I know things.”
“Yeah I know. You know a lot of things. It scares me sometimes to think of what you know.”
Rho’naa controlled her anger. “So what do you think? Should we try?”
“I say yes. We aren’t making very much progress right now and I remind you that Sto’kan is my planet and each day more of my people are being eaten. I couldn’t live with myself if I thought I hadn’t used every option I had to end that–– no matter what the risk.”
Her annoyance vanished like a wisp of smoke. She took his hand and in a soft voice said, “Then we are in agreement. We’ll tell the group and start planning.”
They strode side by side on the return walk to the living compound.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rho’naa stepped out of the fog still holding Tylee’s hand. Tylee also held hands with Keish’ar. Rho’naa gazed around at the surroundings. The building they were in front of was light tan in color and had no outside windows. There appeared to be only one entrance through a large door beside a small room that put her in mind of one that would house a guard. An eight-foot wall surrounded the establishment and a well-manicured grassy yard.
With Keish’ar leading, they passed the guard desk and went into the building. They entered a small lobby area and crossing the room, went through a door there. It opened onto a long hallway with closed doors every few feet on each side. Glancing in one, Rho’naa saw that it was a type of cell, with a bed, chair and toilet facilities. There were twenty of these cells on each side of the hall.
“What is this place?”
“I guess you would call it a prison.”
“But no bars and from the looks of things outside, not very secure.”
“The prisoners are only here for a few days at most.”
“Meaning?”
Keish’ar shuffled his feet and gazed down at the floor. “We handle our criminals a little different than humans do.”
“In what way.”
He looked into her eyes. “Those judged guilty are sent here or to other facilities like this. During their brief stay here, usually a matter of a few days, they are adjusted then returned as productive individuals to work at government jobs.”
“I don’t understand. Adjusted? How can they be rehabilitated in a few days?”
“I don’t condone the way things are done, but I’m not part of the ruling class in our society so I don’t make the decisions. They are adjusted mentally—”
“Oh my God, are you trying to tell me they undergo brain surgery?”
“Yes. When they leave here, they are incapable of forming original thoughts. They are not much more than biological robots and are assigned to government work gangs.”
Rho’naa saw Tylee shudder at his statement. At the end, another hall crossed the one they were in. Two sets of double doors opened from it. They entered the pair on the left. Judging from the equipment and the bed in the center she determined this must be an operating room. The bed had leg and arm restraints. The back wall was made up of cabinets.
“So will this do?” Keish’ar asked from beside her.
“Yes, although we will need to get rid of the bed. I don’t think it will hold the patient. What about the electronic parts I talked about?”
Keish’ar pointed to the cabinets. “If what you need isn’t in there we’ll just have to go searching elsewhere.”
Rho’naa moved from one cabinet to another while Drago, using her eyes, took inventory. At the end he informed her that all the items he needed were there. She turned to face him. “Everything I need is here. I guess the next thing to do is assemble the probe and get a patient.”
****
Rho’naa crouched behind the wall of the vacant shop peering out on the street beyond through the large glassless window. The other members of her team hid beside her, three on each side. Keish’at knelt on her right dire
ctly next to her. They had studied the movements of the bug patrols at various locations for the past two weeks. This was the third time they had watched from this location and decided it was the place for the ambush.
“Are you certain you want to do this, Bonn’an?” she asked the female Men-gar on her left.
“I’m sure.”
Rho’naa pressed her lips tight in a grimace. Bonn’an was the only female Men-gar of their team and what they planned would put her in major jeopardy.
“I’m the best candidate to act as bait and you know it, Rho’naa,” Bonn’an continued.
“I know, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. You will be terribly exposed.”
“I’ll be fine and if not, well, you can’t live forever.”Rho’naa couldn’t argue that. Each day here they all risked their lives. “Okay,” she address the entire team. “Everyone knows their positions. The bug patrol will be here in a few moments. The creatures are punctual we know that. Remember, we need one of them to live. I didn’t say undamaged, but it needs to be alive. My first shot will be the signal.” She glanced to both sides.
Nodding heads informed her all understood.
“Very well then. Get to your positions.”
Two of her team took positions on the second story of shops across the street from each other, two more hid on the ground floors of the same buildings. Rho’naa crouched in the shadows three buildings down where she planned to approach the vehicle from behind. Stan took cover across the street from her. He would help in the ambush, but his primary mission was to use his teleportation ability to get Bonn’an to safety.
She watched Bonn’an guide a two wheeled vehicle that reminded her of a motorcycle, to the center of the street and lay it on its side. She lay face down beside it, placed her pistol under her stomach and stretched her hands out. In her position, it appeared she had wrecked and been throw from the cycle.
The team didn’t have long to wait. The rumble of the armored bug vehicle soon breached the silence. The car rolled into view from a side street. The armored vehicle had six wheels. The front cab housing the driver and the gunner beside him was enclosed. A large projectile weapon was mounted on the roof of the cab and was accessed by the gunner through an opening in the roof. The area behind the cab had bench seating along each wall and no roof. The sides of the passenger section were armored and high enough to shield the occupants from gunfire outside. The rear contained an armored wall that could be lowered to form a ramp.
Two things they had discovered from observation. The bugs were punctual and they never traveled in groups smaller than five. There were six in this group, the driver, the gunner and four troops in the rear.
We know so little else about them though. Will they check out the wreck and Bonn’an first or will they shoot and then investigate? Rho’naa wished silently into the air they would do the former, otherwise Bonn’an had no chance at all.
They planned to spring the ambush when the bugs stopped and got out to investigate. When the gun battle started, Bonn’an was to scramble behind the cycle. Not much cover, but better than lying completely open in the street. It only needed to shield her long enough for Stan to join her and teleport them both to safety.
I wish we had more than just pistols to use against them. I wish Madra was here with her transmutation ability.
But they didn’t have any stronger weapons and she hadn’t dared put both of her team members with teleportation ability at risk. Stan with his healing ability she considered of greater priority.
The vehicle stopped a few yards away from Bonn’an. One of the troops in the rear scrambled over the side of the car and moving slow for a bug, scurried up to Bonn’an. There were no words exchanged between the investigating bug and the others, but at the same time, it appeared that communication of some type was in progress because the other insects in the passenger compartment moved suddenly to peer around at the surroundings as if they had received a warning.
The bug reached out with two of its legs and rolled Bonn’an to her back. She sprang into action, grabbing her pistol and firing into the bugs face pointblank. Not pausing to see the effect, she scrambled behind the cycle just as the big gun on the armed vehicle began to roar. Projectiles punched up chucks of the street and more imbedded themselves in the cycle.
Rho’naa fired her pistol at the gunner and in satisfaction saw his head vanish in a cloud of green. The big gun silenced. Her shot was the signal to everyone else. The gunners on the lower floors poured fire into the tires to keep the vehicle from driving away. The ones on the second floors pored fire into the open passenger compartment and the bugs there.
The bugs returned fire. The vehicle surged into motion to move slowly forward on flat tires. A well-placed shot burned through the front windshield and into the driver’s head. The vehicle jerked to a halt. One of her team lobbed a bag from his position on the upper floor. It burst on the back of one La’new staining it with red paint and marking it as the one to be spared.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Stan blip into being, gather Bonn’an in his arms, and vanish. She returned full attention to the battle. Though wounded many times, the three remaining roaches lowered the back gate and scurried from the disabled vehicle. The concentrated fire from her team soon reduced two of the creatures to motionless masses oozing green. They shifted fire to the final La’new severing its legs while avoiding head shots and additional injuries to its torso.
The members closed in, throwing a net over it. Using her beam pistol, Rho’naa cleaved through its mandibles. The loss of its legs, mandibles and the net ended the insect’s wild thrashing. Rho’naa released her breath and glanced at her watch. The entire deadly skirmish had taken place in minutes. Keish’ar joined her.
“Our prisoner?” he inquired.
“Alive, but I don’t know for how long. We need to get it to the operating room quick.”
Stan blipped into the space beside her. The look in his eyes told her, but she asked anyway. “Bonn’an?”
“Bad, but stable for now. I stopped the bleeding, but she has a broken leg, arm, and number of bullet wounds on her limbs and torso. She needs more healing than I can give her. She’s in that building over there.” He pointed to the location.
She grimaced and nodded. In rapid-fire words she issued orders. “Keish’ar gather the team and assemble them at Bonn’an’s location. Stan teleport me and the creature to the prison.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being alone there with that thing,” Keish’ar protested.
“We don’t have any choice and besides I’ll only be alone with it for a short time and you know what I’m capable of, now carry out my orders…please.”
Keish’ar nodded and started issuing orders of his own to the rest of the team. She turned to Stan. “We need to get away from here quickly in case they summoned help.” Again, she glanced at her watch. “Tylee will be at the prison in an hour. We need to have everyone there so she can return them to Refuge. Can you have everyone there by then?”
“I’ll do it.” Stan grabbed her hand pulling her with him, then touched the La’new with the other. Moments later, they flashed into being in the operating room. Stan vanished once more for his next trip.
Alone with the creature, she glared at it. “You better provide a wealth of information, you vile thing.” She gathered the probe apparatus she had assembled following Drago’s instructions.
Stan reappeared in a short time with Bonn’an and another member of the team. He brought Keish’ar with him on the final trip. Rho’naa surveyed her team. All of them were wounded, some of them seriously, but thankfully, none appeared to be life threatening.
“That was close,” Keish’ar said. “We didn’t recognize any type of communication device in the vehicle, but there must be something. An aerial vehicle carrying at least twenty bugs arrived just before Stan returned for the final trip. Their re
sponse time is very fast.”
“I hope to have better information once I have this creature’s knowledge,” Rho’naa said.
A fog appeared in one corner and Tylee, holding hands with two others, stepped out of it. Bonn’an was among the first selected for Tylee to take to refuge. Rho’naa glanced down at the unconscious and seriously wounded female Men-gar and grabbed Tylee’s arm. “Please, don’t let her die, Tylee.”
“I’ll do my best, that I’ll promise.”
One of the less seriously wounded members of the team carefully lifted Bonn’an from the floor and touching both, Tylee guided them into the portal. Keish’ar took charge of replacing the wounded members of the team while Stan went from one individual to another doing what he could to heal them. Rho’naa set the electronic box that she had assembled on the floor in front of the La’new. She attached one electrical lead to its head. Squaring her shoulders, she attached another to her forehead and twisted a dial on the electrical box.
Intense pain surged to life behind her eyes as information ripped from the creature started to flood into her mind. Rho’naa’s knees folded beneath her and she sat heavily with her eyes squeezed together tight. “Drago,” she screamed mentally in panic.
“Erecting mental barriers,” he replied.
Foreign thoughts continued to pour in, but the pain lessened to a dull ache. She quickly became oblivious to everything around her. Hours passed. She was only aware that much time had gone by because Drago informed her. Cautiously she opened her eyes to find Keish’ar kneeling at her side.
Reaching out, she squeezed his hand while Drago mentally arranged her new knowledge.
Keish’ar sighed in relief. “Thank the gods. Are you okay?”
She smiled at him. “I’m okay and I have a lot of new information on our enemy La’new.”
“And?”
“The good news. I now can read their writing. They communicate mentally rather than verbally and that is why we don’t find any type of communication devices. They have a hive type social structure. The bug we have here is one of the lowest caste. Not much more than a worker ant. It has—”
