by T. R. Harris
The Overlord abruptly turned away and strode out of the barn, taking his Guards with him.
“What the hell just happened?” Monty said, taking a threatening step toward Adam.
Adam greeted him with a smile. “It seems our friend Mike Hannon had a sudden change of heart. When he found out the Gracilian’s were going to use the money to buy DMCs, he grew a conscience.”
Mike winced. “It didn’t exactly go down like that, not really. I just figured that even if I had a king’s ransom, I would always be looking over my shoulder for the Juireans—and you, Mr. Pitts. But I had something of value I could trade with the Juireans. So, I contacted my good friend Adam Cain, and we cut a deal.”
“How long have you known about this?” Tidus asked Adam.
“Not long, only about ten days. We had to act fast if we wanted to recover the DMCs. We also had to let Mike go through with the theft at the Depository. The Gracilians needed the money to meet Graham.”
“A thousand things could have gone wrong.”
“You’re right about that. We took a chance.”
“It’s not fair,” Monty said. “You should have let us in on the plan. Instead, we had to stand around looking like idiots while Hannon got untied.”
“Don’t take it personally, Monty. You would have done the same thing if you were in my shoes.”
“Don’t bet on it!”
Adam laughed. “Now, how about the two of you give us a hand tracking down the other freighters. I’m sure I can find a little money in the Enforcer budget to pay you for your troubles.”
“We do not accept charity,” Tidus stated firmly.
Monty put a hand on the chest of the huge alien. “Now hold on a minute, Tidus. How little are you talking about?”
Chapter 27
Bactin’s body was beginning to smell. Besides, his corpse was a reminder to the other three Gracilians on the freighter about how close they’d come to being murdered by the savage Human. So, Pontus had the body cast out into space after a brief ceremony in remembrance of their lost comrade.
They had discussed the idea of absconding with some of the stolen credits but did not take it beyond the talking stage. However, when the breath-taking pile of credits began to form in the cargo hold, pulses quickened, and possibilities were bandied about. Only Bactin had the courage to try anything—and it cost him his life.
But the desire was still there in the surviving three Gracilians. They had a Class-C freighter, equipped with the generators required for them to create their own instant wealth. As part of the Gracilian team that accompanied Vodenik and Kovach to the desolate Aris base, they understood both teleportation tech, as well as quantum anchors. They could be just as successful as their brethren.
If they could just figure out how to focus the beams…
“There appears to be an interference of some kind,” Crin announced from the control console. All the Gracilians were skilled scientists and technicians, so the failure to get the beams to work properly was an insult to their expertise.
After leaving the rendezvous point, they bolted away, taking precautions to make sure they weren’t followed. Then at a convenient asteroid field, they stopped to test the equipment. That’s when the problems materialized.
The beams were not aligning, and because of this, they were not focusing on the same point on the surface. At Woken, Pontus and the others saw how the beams were able to target a specific room from three hundred miles in orbit. They were only fifty miles above the surface of a large asteroid, and their results were all over the place. And besides that, the quantum beam was fuzzy and refused to retract fully.
Solon surveyed the data stream for the twentieth time. “What could keep the beam from retracting? Perhaps a blockage.”
“What kind of blockage?” asked Crin.
Solon’s eyes grew wide. “Perhaps there are still credits contained in the signal!”
“In the Q-beam? How is that possible? It is used only for guidance.”
“And that guidance feature is not working. I heard Vodenik announce an anomaly after the main transfer. There could have been an overlap of functions.”
“How?”
Solon scowled at his friend. “I do not know. If I knew, I would fix it.”
“If there could still be credits in the signal, we should send only the Q-beam through the filter. Even if there are no credits, it might clear the line for a reboot of the system.”
Pontus was the team’s unofficial leader. He’d been listening to the conversation and now moved over to join them. “Can you feed the Q-beam through the reassembly program? It was designed only for the teleportation field.”
“I believe so,” Crin said, turning to the controls. After a moment, he looked up. “Yes! The signal is rerouted. Let us see if there is anything in the quantum field to reassemble.”
The Gracilians turned to the open expanse of decking in the middle of the cargo hold, the spot where only a day before half a billion Juirean credit sat. Now, something was happening.
“There is something in the beam!” Solon exclaimed, announcing his intellectual victory.
But it wasn’t credits. Instead, wispy like figures began to be defined, three of them. The shapes were familiar but hard to discern. The reassembly procedure continued for ten minutes before the computer indicated that all matter within the beam had reformed and that the line clear.
“Now the beam should retract,” Solon said, watching the data streams on the monitor.
But Pontus and Crin weren’t looking at the screen. Instead, their attention was locked on the three strange creatures standing twenty feet away.
They were shorter than Gracilians and of a slighter build, but even after the assembly procedure was over, it was still hard to make them out clearly. It seemed as if the harder one looked, the less defined they became.
Are they here? Pontus thought. Or are they ghost images produced by the computer, an echo of some kind.
Then one of the figures turned his head to look at the others. They began to move, and as they did, their images began to solidify. Yes, three figures, sex indeterminant, with smooth heads and wearing identical light yellow robes.
The three Gracilians were on their feet, terrified of the trio of strange creatures. They were no longer ghosts, but real people, people who had been reassembled from a quantum beam … and lived. Pontus and his team were intimate with teleportation technology, knowing that no living creature could survive the process. However, these three did not come from a T-beam. They’d achieved the impossible, emerging from … from where?
“Can you hear me?” Pontus asked, taking the lead.
The ghosts reacted, looking at each other and then answering in a strange tongue the Gracilian’s translation bugs couldn’t decipher.
“We do not understand? Who are you? Where did you come from?”
The aliens—what else would one call them—continued chattering among themselves while occasionally addressing the Gracilians. Then one of them stepped forward suddenly, and with a slender hand, took Pontus by the neck. In the blink of an eye, it ripped away a thick slab of flesh from the side of his face, holding it in its hand while withdrawing the miniature translation bug from the bloody mass.
Pontus grasped for this neck and head as spurts of blood cascaded away. Solon and Crin gasped and ran to his side. But it was too late, the blood loss too severe. Pontus collapsed to the deck, leaving his friends in shock and covered in blood.
Solon looked up at the ghostly figures. “Why did you do that? You killed him! Do you have any concept of what you have done?”
The three aliens gathered around the translation device, staring at it with unblinking white eyes. Then they parted and approached the two surviving Gracilians. Solon and Crin jumped to their feet and shuffled away from their fallen comrade, believing they were next to have the flesh torn from their bodies.
“We understand the concept of death,” said a voice that hung in the air, its source i
ndeterminant. “Who are you? Where is this place?”
Crin and Solon were shocked into silence.
“Do not flee,” said another of the aliens. “We seek information.”
“Then why did you kill Pontus?” Crin yelled.
“To learn your language; all languages. There is an enormous variety. Are these from different species?”
“Yes, they are,” Solon answered. “Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“Understanding is still being processed. We are aboard a vessel of some kind.”
“You were reassembled from a quantum beam if that helps with your understanding,” Solon continued. “Did you come from Woken?”
“We know not of Woken, but we understand the quantum beam.” The alien looked to the others; a consensus reached. “Understanding is coming. We know now from where we came. Where are the Aris? Are you with them?”
“The Aris?” Crin gawked. He wasn’t expecting the question. “There are no Aris, no longer. You know of the Aris?”
“No more Aris?” asked the creature. “Where are they? What happened to them?”
“They died off—at least most of them—three billion years ago. A few survived in hibernation pods, but even they are gone now.”
One of the aliens stepped forward. Instinctively, Crin assigned his gender to be male. Glowing, unblinking white orbs focused on the Gracilian. “You say three billion years have passed since the time of the Aris. How do you know?”
“There have been artifacts found and ancient bases located.”
“And the homeworld?”
“Gone; however, our homeworld is the closest to where the Aris world once existed. We are called Gracilians. We believe ourselves to be the true children of the Aris.”
The alien appeared to smile, revealing emotions Crin did not know the strange creatures possessed.
“You? No, you are not the children of the Aris. Now I ask, where is the Formation?”
Crin was taken aback. He and Solon knew of the Formation, but few others. On Stimmel’s orders, they were part of the Gracilian team that traveled to the ancient Aris base to assemble the mysterious device, although they did not know how it worked or what purpose it served. But now these creatures from the quantum beam just revealed that they know of the device … and more. Crin was sweating profusely, overcome by nervousness. Standing before him was something that should not exist—a killer from a different time and dimension.
“How do you know of the Formation?” he nervously asked. “Very few are aware of its existence.”
“That matters not. You say the Aris are gone, as is their homeworld. Yet you speak of the Formation as if you have seen it.”
“I … we have.”
“Where is it?”
“The last we saw it was at the ancient Aris base. I would now assume the mutants have it. They have most all Aris artifacts.”
“What mutants?”
“They are called Panur and Lila, and they reside on the planet Navarus.”
“That is where the Formation will be found?”
“If it is anywhere, that is where it is. All Aris artifacts are sent there.”
“You will take us there.”
“To Navarus? That will not be possible. We are not welcome.”
“You will take us there,” the creature repeated.
The three alien figures then slid past Crin and Solon and began surveying the control consoles for the T- and Q-beams. Long fingers worked controls, slowly at first, and then quicker, more confident as the seconds passed. Data streamed on the screen. The creatures were confused at first, but comprehension soon followed as the words began to make sense. Crin was mesmerized by the strange beings. They had to be intelligent beyond compare, even more so than the mutants. And they were possessed of strength rivaling the Humans. But who were they?
“This is a teleportation station,” one of the aliens stated. “Extremely crude, yet functional.”
“The question as to function is still open,” Solon replied. “We have not been able to attain focus.”
“That is the fault of the operator, not the equipment—”
A claxon sounded, echoing off the metal bulkheads of the cargo hold. Solon stepped to the control console, intimidated by the proximity of the aliens but needing to get to the computer.
“Pardon, that is a proximity alarm. Vessels are approaching. I need to get to the screens.”
The aliens stepped aside.
Solon took a deep breath as he sat in his chair, trying to gain his composure. Too much had happened over the past few minutes for him to concentrate fully. And now the alarm was blaring in his ears. He shut off the grating sound with the press of a button. A moment later, he linked to the bridge monitors. Two ships were nearby, transponders pinging out the identity of Enforcer vessels.
“How did they find us, and so soon?” Crin asked, leaning over Solon’s shoulder.
“Your vessel is sending out a repeating signal,” said one of the ghostly figures.
“A homing beacon?” Solon said to Crin. “Who would have planted such a device.”
“The Human must have done it. What do we do now?”
“We must surrender.”
“You will take us to Navarus,” said one of the aliens.
“We cannot, even if we wanted to. These are police vessels representing legal authority. Do you understand?”
“Yes, we do.”
“We are outlaws. They are here to arrest us.”
“You cannot let them do that.”
“We have no choice,” said Crin. “We have no weapons strong enough to defeat the Enforcer warships.”
“You have a quantum beam generator.”
Crin stared at the creature. “How will that help? It is a guidance beam for the teleportation field. It is also used as a suspension device, but nothing more.”
“Is that all for which you use quantum field beams? They are weapons. They were designed as weapons.”
“How, how do we use them?” Solon asked.
Crin took him by the arm. “Even if the beam can be used as a weapon, do we dare fire on Enforcers? Our crimes to this point are minor. Let us not make them worse.”
Solon didn’t get a chance to answer before he was shoved out of his chair by one of the aliens.
The alien sat at the station and began manipulating the beam controls. The Enforcer ships were close enough to be visible in magnification, moving in closer than usual as they confronted an unarmed freighter. Now, Crin and Solon watched in horror as, first one, then the other, Enforcer warship had large sections of their hulls ripped away. The destruction moved in swaths, causing catastrophic pressure explosions before chemical propellant ignited. Brief flashes of light blinded the screen before it recovered, showing a rapidly thinning debris field against the black of space.
“The tracking device has been disabled,” said the alien at the computer. He now turned in the chair and looked up at Solon and Crin.
“Now, you will take us to the planet Navarus.”
Neither Gracilian raised a word in protest.
Chapter 28
The team gathered before a large monitor placed on the wall of a conference room aboard the Juirean Class-3 starship. On the screen was a wide-angle view of the main laboratory at the mutant’s research facility. Adam, Riyad and Mike Hannon, along the two bounty hunters, sat either in chairs or on the table, talking with Summer, Lila and Panur on the link with Navarus.
Summer was shaking her head.
“Fifty percent, that sucks,” she said.
“But Adam is going to pay us fifty thousand each for helping catch the second freighter, and another twenty-five for the third one, once we find it,” Monty said. “Apparently, the sneaky Gracilian bastards found the tracking device and disabled it.”
A similar screen was mounted on the wall below the camera in the laboratory, allowing Summer to see the assembled team on the starship.
“I appreciate that Adam, althou
gh I feel a little cheap taking your money since I didn’t help with the capture. I’ll take the Juireans’, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t have anything to do with the freighter, or even Hannon’s capture.” She looked at Mike. “I can’t believe they let you go. You know you’re guilty as sin.”
Mike smiled. “We all are, sweetheart; guilty of something.”
“Yeah, but most of us don’t make twenty-five million for being a killer.”
Mike shrugged and winked.
“Not to change the subject,” Adam said, “but how are you feeling, Summer?”
“Great! Fantastic! The best I’ve ever felt.” She looked over at a worried Lila Bol across the room. Adam’s daughter was standing next to Panur, who sat slump-shouldered at the table. Adam could see he wasn’t faring well.
“I know this is only temporary, but for now, it’s an incredible feeling,” Summer continued. “But I have to tell you, I never realized how stupid I am … about everything.”
“It is not stupidity,” Panur said with a grin, “but ignorance. You are now able to experience life on a different level, seeing what you could not see before.”
“And you, Panur, how are you doing?” Adam asked.
“Admittedly, I have been better,” the mutant answered honestly. “But the end is drawing near.”
“That is correct,” Lila suddenly spoke. “His decline has been much more rapid than before because of the volume of material he transferred to Summer. He is still functioning, but the effects are noticeable. I do not want to prolong the transfer beyond another two weeks if even that long.”
“Is Summer responding?”
“That is hard to tell,” Lila said. “Her cognitive abilities are far superior to where she was before, as are her physical attributes. But we cannot definitively measure the extent of the adaptation until Panur’s brain cells have been withdrawn. The signs are encouraging, but the final verdict will come later.”
“We miss you, Summer,” Monty said. “We’ll be back on Navarus—”
