Invaders_The Antaran

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Who are they?” Debby whispered.

  “No idea,” I whispered back.

  The beastman who’d cuffed us turned me around. Debby followed my example. We were both facing the kitchen door.

  I figured the beastman was going to push us in there. Instead, the door swung open again and a tall rather elegant man stepped through. He had refined features in a long face, with a narrow prow of a hawk nose. He wore what seemed to be a metallic suit, had a holster at his side and had short thick hair like a pelt on the top of his narrow skull.

  As he approached, I amended my first impression. This fellow was not human, although he was clearly humanoid.

  His eyes were too dark, with an intense, burning quality, his skull a bit too long and narrow and his lips just a mite too thin. He appeared supremely self-assured and must have stood a little over seven feet tall.

  He stopped a few feet from me, unhooked a pistol-like device, aimed at my head and pulled what looked like a trigger…

  -3-

  I expected to hit the deck, dead. Instead, a strange vibration struck my brain. I felt momentarily disoriented. My eyesight blurred, and a powerful nausea struck me. My legs weakened, causing me to drop to one knee. My stomach curdled, and finally I vomited up the little bit I’d eaten a few minutes ago.

  At least the horseradish didn’t burn this time.

  Finally, the brain vibration stopped. My eyesight returned to normal. Strength flooded back, and I stood up again.

  “Do you understand me?” the humanoid asked in a commanding way.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he said, putting away—I don’t know. Was that a language gun? I realized I hadn’t answered in English. I hadn’t answered in any Earth tongue that I’d heard before. At the same time, I’d understood him perfectly.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Henry Ford,” I said, lying on the spot.

  He stared at me with his dark burning eyes. I half expected him to come at me like a World War II Japanese occupation soldier. The way I’d heard it, the Japanese officers and general-duty soldiers alike had been fond of slapping conquered peoples across the face.

  We studied each other for a span of five solid seconds. That might not seem like much, but try counting that out and then think of staring eye-to-eye at someone crazy for that long.

  The tall humanoid inhaled, and I had the distinct impression that he was restraining himself.

  “You are ignorant, of course,” he said. “That is to be expected from a denizen of this grotesque backwater world. Know, then, that you have the honor of addressing Lord Beran, a Dominie of the Antares Institute. I have arrived to implement…”

  He stroked his chin with a long index finger. A cruel smile stretched onto his face as if he’d just thought of something interesting.

  “Do you wish me to use a mind probe on you, Henry Ford?”

  “Is it painful?” I asked.

  “Oh, quite. It will also leave you in an imbecilic state for many days.”

  “Then I decline your offer,” I said.

  “Not so ignorant after all,” he said. “Perhaps you wish to amend your original answer before I am forced to implement harsher procedures regarding you.”

  I shrugged. He’d made his point. “Some people call me Logan,” I said.

  “Indeed. Are you referring to the Logan who considers himself a Galactic Guard affiliate?”

  How did he know that?

  “Your surprise betrays you,” he said. “That is good, as that expedites matters.”

  He examined Debby.

  “She used to live in Far Butte, Nevada?” he asked.

  How did this alien know so much about us? Instead of answering him, my stubborn streak resumed. I had to figure out what was going on here.

  “I’m that Debby,” Debby said.

  “Ah, excellent, excellent,” he said while rubbing his long-fingered hands together.

  I glanced at Debby. How had she understood him? Had the alien aimed his language gun at her while I’d been incapacitated?

  “Take her to the transporter,” Beran told a beastman.

  A beastman grabbed one of Debby’s elbows and propelled her toward the kitchen door.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “What are you doing with her?”

  Lord Beran of the Antares Institute cast me a burning gaze.

  “I have read your file,” he said coldly. “You have several annoying mannerisms. This insulting tone you take with me—no, I will not permit it. Attach the training device.”

  A new beastman stepped up with a steel collar. The brute put the cold metal around my neck, snapping it into place.

  “This is an example,” Beran told me, as an odd look came over him.

  Debilitating pain jolted me from the collar. I crashed to my knees, unable to cry out as the agony seared through my body.

  Abruptly, the pain stopped. I panted with my head down.

  “What are you doing to him?” Debby cried.

  I looked up in time to see the beastman with his hand on one of her elbows pushing her faster so she stumbled through the kitchen door and out of sight.

  “You are my prisoner, Guard affiliate Logan,” Beran said in a brisk tone. “My battle thralls have captured you in a stage one raid. Official interrogation will follow soon enough. This is a transition period for you. However, even now, I will not tolerate disrespectful behavior directed toward my person. I am a dominie of the Institute. I recognize that you are still too ignorant to know what that means. That is why I gave you an instructive correction. You Terrans are a physical species, well adapted to pain stimulations. Do not doubt that I will enact strict punishments for further misbehavior.”

  I climbed back up to a standing position. I hated the smug bastard, but rage wasn’t going to help me now. I was wearing handcuffs. A beastman was taking Debby to a transporter. This Lord Beran knew far too much about us. I had a feeling he’d gotten this information from CAU.

  “You are supposed to have a crystalline entity from Rax Prime,” Beran said. “Where is the crystal? I desire to appropriate it.”

  “Ah…Lord Beran,” I said, trying to sound meek, “may I ask why you’re on Earth?”

  “No.”

  “Do you plan to—?”

  “Attend my words carefully, Logan creature,” Beran said, holding up a long-fingered hand, interrupting me. “I will administer more pain if you continue to berate me with queries. I am the master here. You are the prisoner thrall. It is unseemly that you pepper me with these questions. I have demanded knowledge concerning the whereabouts of the Rax Prime crystal. Evasion means you are attempting more deception. This I will not tolerate.”

  “I understand, Lord Beran.”

  “No. You are still evading. I am not asking if you understand. Give me the whereabouts of the crystal. Do it at once.”

  I had a gut feeling then. Lord Beran of the Antares Institute seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Even so, he was an alien criminal who according to Galactic Law wasn’t supposed to be here on Earth.

  There’s a good rule about crime and criminals. Never let a criminal take you to the secondary scene of the crime. What that means is that if a van pulls up and a door opens, and a gunman points a gun at you and says, “Get in here.” The right thing to do is to run like mad. The criminal has greater control at the secondary scene of the crime. He can tie you up and do exactly what he wants at his leisure then. It would be far better to take your chances running as he fires a gun at you out in public. Sure, you could take a bullet. But then he’d drive away, and an ambulance could come and get you.

  The point was that I couldn’t let Lord Beran grab Rax and transport us to his place of security. I had to do anything I could to stay free.

  “The crystal is over there, Lord,” I said, motioning with my head.

  “I desire greater precision as to the crystal’s exact whereabouts,” he said.

  “May I show you, Lord?”


  He stared at me with those burning eyes and finally nodded.

  Meekly, with my hands cuffed behind my back, I started toward the table where I’d been eating with Debby. A beastman followed. I looked back. Lord Beran was watching me impatiently.

  My heart began pounding. It could be that I was about to commit a crazy form of suicide. I didn’t see any other way, though, and I had to remain free. I couldn’t let this Beran win. The training device on my neck assured me of that.

  Besides, there’s another rule I try to live by. Better to fight on your knees than to surrender. It was even better to fight on your feet, though.

  I staggered as my eyesight momentarily blurred. My heart was racing. There were so many things that could go wrong with my plan.

  “Halt,” Beran said.

  He knows, I told myself.

  Maybe I panicked. I don’t know. I lowered my head and I began to run like a madman.

  “Stop him,” Beran shouted.

  The beastman behind me snarled, lunging to grab me. I dodged just enough so that the beastman crashed against a table.

  “This is preposterous,” Beran declared.

  Pain hit then, pain through the training collar around my neck. But I was ready for it this time. I’d been expecting the pain. It still hurt like a son of a gun, but I kept running as hard as I could.

  “Logan!” Beran shouted. “This will cost you dearly.”

  I ran full tilt at the north window of Friday’s Station. I knew it was likely a reinforced window, but this one had taken some beam shots and had already cracked.

  At that point, the pain intensified to what seemed like an intolerable level. I cried out. But I launched myself at the window.

  I hit with my right shoulder. Glass shattered, and I sailed out of the 18th floor of the Harrah hotel tower. I’d jumped hard in order to pass the outer railing and I'd succeeded. As the pain jolted me unmercifully, I began to plummet down toward the pavement eighteen floors below.

  -4-

  I remember falling as the pain caused my muscles to tighten and then cramp at the agony. I thought someone called my name. I couldn’t tell, though. Tears streaked my eyes as I looked down. The ground rushed up at me with far too much speed. This wasn’t going to work. This wasn’t—

  The world vanished. Had I already hit? Was I dead? I didn’t feel dead.

  The pain stopped then. A second later, I reappeared on the transfer dais aboard my Guard ship.

  I sagged in relief. My wild gamble had paid off. By leaping from the 18th floor, I’d no doubt plummeted out of range of the jamming device that kept Rax from contacting the Guard ship. Just what I’d been counting on.

  There are a few of you, I’m sure, who are wondering about my momentum from the fall. Shouldn’t I have hit the transfer dais with the velocity I’d built up from plummeting from the top of Harrah’s hotel tower?

  In a word: no. The teleporting machine took the built-up velocity into account when it made the transfer and shed the momentum.

  “Rax?” I asked in a hoarse voice while I lay left cheek first on the dais.

  “That was incredibly foolish,” the crystal said from my suit pocket.

  “It worked didn’t it?”

  “Just barely,” he said. “You could have just as easily died.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know. What other choice did I have, though?”

  “Few to none,” Rax admitted. “Well, as you say, it worked. You must remove the handcuffs and take off that obscene collar.”

  “Why isn’t the collar shocking me anymore?” I asked, as I worked myself around so I could stand.

  “That dilemma is easily solved,” Rax said. “I have scanned it and found that the collar does not possess a power source. That power likely came from the same machine in the Friday’s Station kitchen, whatever inhibited my contact with the ship.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m curious,” Rax said. “How did you know the radius of the jamming machine?”

  “I had no idea.”

  “You mean you gambled that the jamming signal did not reach as far as the first floor?”

  “Either way, let’s not worry about it. We have to get Debby back.”

  “Logan, I clearly cannot return to Harrah’s until the jamming stops.”

  “I get that. So, let’s get these cuffs and collar off and you’ll drop me back into South Lake Tahoe. I can hoof it the rest of the way to Harrah’s.”

  “We need reinforcements,” Rax said. “I suggest you call the Director.”

  Rax meant the Director of the CAU. I’d never learned the man’s name, simply calling him Director like everyone else did.

  I did some contortions on the dais, working my handcuffed hands around my butt and legs until my hands were in front of me.

  Examining the cuffs showed me there wasn’t any place for a key. Likely, an electric current in the correct sequence would do the trick. I didn’t have time for that.

  Exiting the transfer chamber, I went to my cabin. I had a monofilament blade that could cut anything. I picked up the knife from my desk and carefully cut the cuffs off.

  A moment later, I very carefully inserted the blade between my neck and the collar, and the knife sheared through that as well.

  I tore off my suit jacket and shrugged on a leather jacket. I strapped on the monofilament blade, grabbed an alien blaster and hurried back to the transfer dais.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Using the ship’s sensors I have detected that the jamming has ceased,” Rax said.

  “Great. Put me in Friday’s Station.”

  “I caution against such hasty action.”

  “Cut the crap, Rax. I’m going in. I have to rescue Debby. At the very least, I have to figure out where this slave hunter took her.”

  “Lord Beran could have laid a trap for you and be waiting for you to do exactly this.”

  That was a consideration. Beran had struck me as a crafty operator. The trouble was I hardly knew anything about him. I thought about that.

  “Do you know anything about this Antares Institute?” I asked.

  “As it turns out,” Rax said, “a considerable amount.”

  “Why haven’t you said anything then?”

  “You were preoccupied. But this is the correct idea. Let us think through all the angles—”

  “Transfer me,” I said, getting worried about Debby again.

  Rax never sighed, but he paused pointedly before saying, “I suggest that I remain behind. If you will take a comm device—”

  “Forget it. I’ve wasted enough time. Transfer me, Rax. That’s an order.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to learn about the Institute?” he asked, hedging.

  “I would, but this is a time sensitive operation. Now let’s go.”

  “As you wish,” he said.

  As I stood on the transfer dais, my molecules began to disassemble and convert to energy so the machine could teleport me back to Harrah’s in South Lake Tahoe.

  -5-

  With blaster in hand, I appeared near the Friday’s Station kitchen door. I’d transferred while crouched low in order to present a smaller target. Immediately upon solidifying, I swiveled around, trying to see if anyone was going to ambush me.

  The place was eerily quiet. There were bodies on the floor, but no one moaned or cried out. I didn’t like the burnt stench drifting through the restaurant.

  I looked around more carefully. No beastmen corpses lay on the floor, although I spied pools of blood where they had been lying.

  In a crouch, I hurried to various human bodies. Each of them was dead. Some of the wounds did not appear as if they should have killed the bearer. Did the beam have a deadly aftereffect? It seemed more than possible.

  “Scan anything?” I asked Rax.

  “I presume you mean of an alien nature,” the crystal said through its speaker.

  “That’s right.”

  “Negative,” Rax said.

  “
Not even in the kitchen?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I swore softly as I hurried to the kitchen. The cooks and assistants were all dead. Some salmon had badly burned on a grill. I saw no sign of beastmen, Lord Beran, Debby or any alien transfer device.

  “Isn’t there anything we can use as a clue?” I asked.

  “We could examine the beam burns,” Rax suggested.

  I stepped beside a cook, a fat man with a surprised look frozen on his dead features.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “The cells near the burns are all disrupted,” Rax announced.

  “What does that mean?”

  “That this was a highly advanced beam weapon. It did not simply destroy through intense heat like a laser. It also caused cellular disruption.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “It confirms the idea that a dominie of the Antares Institute is behind the attack.”

  “Tell me about the Antares Institute.”

  “I suggest I do so at a different location. The local authorities are likely to arrive soon. We do not want to be here when they do.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Answering police questions isn’t going to rescue Debby any faster. We have to call CAU.”

  “I highly recommend that you allow me to remove us to the Guard ship. We are facing extremely dangerous adversaries. We cannot afford a misstep.”

  “Give me a minute for one more look around,” I said.

  “I suggest you use speed, Logan.”

  I did. I scoured the kitchen, moved to the dining area and looked under tables, rechecked the dead, picked up several of Kazz’s empty cartridges and finally stood by the window where I’d jumped less than a half hour ago.

  It was hard to believe I’d really jumped. Just staring out of the broken window to the ground below gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  “Take us back,” I said quietly.

  Rax did not reply. Instead, I stood aboard the Guard ship a moment later.

  Woodenly, as it sank in that I’d lost Debby again, I walked out of the chamber and up the short hall, and entered the piloting room.

  The ship was underwater by several feet, just enough to stay out of a curious observer’s line of sight. We were about one hundred miles west of San Francisco.