“Gods! What happened to you?” he gasped as she ran past.
She ran on. She was losing blood. Jaxx fired again, but the shots sounded further away. She didn’t realise that one of the seven bullets she’d fired had torn flesh from Jaxx’s thigh, slowing his pursuit. She concentrated hard on stopping the flow of blood from her wounds, but she couldn’t completely control it.
There were woods to the right of the Kirk. A muddy path that led towards newer, uglier houses where her old car was hidden. She ran through the mud, gasping for breath and crying from the pain that filled her entire body now with wave upon wave of agony.
She realised that she might not escape. The very thought was terrifying in a way that almost made her vomit. Her body was failing. The pain was so intense she could barely hold in her screams.
The wild garlic – farlla the Enrileans called it – was growing thick on either side of her as her feet sloshed through the mud. She could hear someone shouting not far behind her. It didn’t sound like Jaxx. There were other voices, further away. Someone screamed somewhere.
Then she felt a rushing sound in her ears and darkness closing around her like a strong, swift fog. She had presence of mind to jump into the wild garlic before she passed out.
Her body lay there, barely concealed by the white flowers and green leaves. She remained conscious for about thirty seconds after collapsing, even though she could not move or hear or see anymore. Finally, her senses departed completed with her final thought being one of terror that Hazer Jaxx would find her.
Jaxx was losing blood from the wound in his thigh, but not enough to threaten his life. The wound was messy and painful, but Jaxx was on his feet and still reasonably mobile. He had reached the edge of the narrow woods, but was not really sure if this was the way that the woman had fled. Then he saw the blood on the ancient wooden log that had once been a gate post and knew that she had passed this way.
He looked around for the girl. An old man was slowly walking in the direction of the small village shop. There was nobody else in sight. Jaxx stepped into the wood, his feet sloshing and slipping in the thick blackish brown mud. For the first time, he felt pain from his wound. He touched his hand to the area just below his hip, wincing as he explored the area with his fingers. But there wasn't as much blood as he expected.
His fingers tightened on the worn wooden grip of his grandfather’s pistol. The revolver was ready to fire. It didn’t have a safety catch. When he pulled the trigger, the hammer would strike the pin of the first bullet and ignite the small explosive in the 12mm flat nosed bullet and send it rocketing towards its target.
Her footprints were obvious to him now. There was a curious banana shaped design on the sole that appeared in many of the imprints he followed. There were other footprints, but they belonged to boots that were much more appropriate for these old woods. The young woman was wearing soft, white shoes decorated with the letters Nike on the side of each foot.
He could see that she’d left the path. His dry lips parted as he steadied the revolver, getting ready to shoot. The footprints in the mud stopped and the wild garlic was crushed and disturbed. He sensed that she was nearby.
He fired the first shot before he knew why. His trigger finger jerked and blasted off the first bullet. Only then did he register the white flowers moving and the grass rustling. He could hear her gasping, concealed somewhere in the wild flowers. With a shiver, he realised he was close enough to hear her ragged, uneven breathing.
Three bullets left. He cursed under his breath.
He stepped off the path and waded through the farlla towards the moving flower heads. His hand had the revolver held right out. He couldn’t miss. But, at the same time, he wasn't about to underestimate the stranger.
The breathing stopped abruptly. He moved quickly, certain that she’d sensed his approach. But when he stepped into the flattened patch of green and white all that remained of Carol Hayes was a large dark pool of blood.
Hazer Jaxx spun round, his gun following his line of vision. He scanned the ground at his feet and then further outward, in arcs, for long seconds.
The sun peeked out from behind the thin grey clouds. Streaks of bright yellow sunlight made their way through the thin branches of the five hundred year old trees. Jaxx held his pistol aimed towards the ground where he imagined the strange woman to be hiding.
There was a rustling to the left. He whirled, firing a bullet as his trigger finger twitched with the tremors that were making his body quake. He cursed himself, silently, for wasting a shot. The bullet was not even close to the fleeing target. She emerged, sprinting, from behind a bleached white, long dead tree. He couldn't mark her with the revolver as she ran, almost stumbling, across the narrow path to reach the cover of a massive Auldre tree. Jaxx raised his gun and held his finger over the trigger. He steadied his arm with the tight grasp of his left hand and fired a single bullet. It tore a branch from the tree as she ran between it and another, taller, Auldre.
There was shouting now. Three or four voices, some nearer than others. All of the voices seemed to be coming from the Kirk. He discounted the idea of anyone coming to his assistance. His leg was stiffening, but he was still able to run. A quick glance confirmed that he was not losing enough blood for the wound to be life threatening. He slipped on the mud as he re-joined the path. Falling to his knees, he almost shot himself in the stomach but managed to push his index finger forward against the guard and away from the trigger. It took him about three seconds to get back onto his feet and he wiped the clay mud away from his handgun as he ran along the grassy edge of the path in pursuit of his target.
The girl had managed to get ahead and was now out of sight along the winding downhill path. Jaxx appeared in time to see her pulling the cover from a shining, orange coloured object. She saw him and dropped the dark tarpaulin. Jaxx ducked as she aimed her weapon towards him and squeezed off six bullets in rapid succession. Her bullets missed him. As she started to reload the weapon, Jaxx ducked out from behind the tree.
He was too late. He realised that the shining orange object was a vehicle of sorts, but unlike anything he’d ever seen before. He was out of bullets besides the one left in the gun’s chamber – and he was saving that until he got closer. He ran in crouching, painful trot towards the strange vehicle and clutched the pistol to his chest. The little vehicle's engine came to life with a high pitched whine that quickly became an inaudible ultrasonic shriek. Jaxx sensed what was about to happen. He stopped running and drew a breath, steadying the revolver in both hands. He could see Carol Hayes behind the glass of the orangey red coloured contraption. Her hand pulled weakly at the door and it closed with a metallic clunking sound. He aimed his last bullet right at Carol Hayes’s face and squeezed the trigger. The powerful revolver bucked in his hand, but the bullet bounced harmlessly off the windscreen. Before he could do anything else, the 1976 Triumph TR7 shot upwards into the sky almost faster than he could see. He looked up to follow it, but the sunlight blinded him.
TWO
2140AD - The 3rd Imperial Dockyard, Relathon.
Kopp glanced across to Lieutenant Hunn. Hunn nodded, hugging his energy weapon close to his chest. Marr and Purrden did the same. Kopp’s eyes were wild with excitement. He had such an incredible sense of euphoria that he wanted to smile or even laugh out loud, but he knew his subordinates would think him insane if he did.
They were younger men than he was. Marr was obviously afraid. His drawn expression gave it away as much as his white knuckles. Hunn was cautious – coldly calculating, Kopp thought – but he did not share the same terror as his companion. If anything, Hunn’s demeanour was a little too relaxed.
It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Dawn would come at five o’clock. The first workers would arrive at six o’clock. Until then, this part of the city should have been deserted. For the most part, the intelligence report had been correct.
“We’re here,” Kopp did not stop himself stating the obvious, “Thirty
minutes early. That’s good.”
The building was a large, rusted and weathered tin walled structure. This was the industrial west side of Jann Linn city. There were many of these large structures. Within them, it was suspected that spacecraft for the Relathon Defence Forces were being constructed. The structure that Kopp’s team had arrived beside was the largest of the six buildings at over a hundred metres tall.
“Bigger than we thought,” Hunn spoke too loudly, irritating Kopp, “Sorcerer class, perhaps.”
Kopp gave Hunn a penetrating glance, silencing him. He raised a hand and stabbed to the right with his thumb. Across the road – under a blinking streetlamp – a night watchman was smoking a pipe. Kopp cursed himself quietly, but Marr and Hunn had not noticed the man either. It was a miracle that the guard had not heard Hunn's bellowing, Kopp thought.
“Where in the name of the Gods did he come from?” Hunn whispered.
“Keep your voice down, fool,” Kopp hissed, “He sneaked out of building alpha a few seconds ago. He’s the night duty man. Some low key security, or something. Once he’s finished his cigarette, he’ll go back inside. If not, I’ll take him out from here.”
Kopp’s weapon was a short barrelled next generation bullet gun. It was fitted with a fairly effective noise suppressor. At this range he knew that he could kill the security guard quickly, silently, easily. But that would be messy, untidy and unnecessary. Kopp raised his weapon to his eye. Through the multi-function scope he studied the Relathon. There was no hint that the man was aware of the alien assault team hiding just across the way. He was smoking a cigarette or cigar, stealing furtive glances back towards the structure that intelligence had designated “alpha”. Commander Kopp had a gut feeling that more Relathons were inside that building.
Kopp watched the guard suck his cigarette to a tiny nub. Then he tossed it into the darkness before retreating back to the building. Kopp lowered his weapon and clicked the safety catch back on.
“Okay,” he said, “Let’s get moving. Follow my lead and stay sharp. I don’t want any mistakes. Keep it tight, then we’ll get back to the rendezvous point.”
Commander Kopp had never set foot on Relathon soil before. Only a handful of Enrileans had ever travelled to their neighbours in the solar system. The three major governments of the Relathon people had despatched many more ships towards Enrilea, but most of them had been turned away by the Imperial guard. Kopp’s clandestine mission represented the first time any Enrilean had visited Relathon in ten years. But nobody would ever know they had visited Relathon – assuming that the mission went according to plan.
“Delta” building had several doors. Two of them were on the other side of the building, a quarter mile away. When open, the football field sized airships originally built here could glide in and out of the buildings with ease. The smaller doors were for the ground crew and maintenance staff. The door around the corner from Commander Kopp’s team was the only one of the smaller doors left in place. The others had been sealed from the outside and were no longer in use. It was a security precaution, Kopp decided, lending a little more credibility to the Enrilean suspicion that weapons of war were being constructed within these buildings.
Kopp’s rifle was slung over his back. The rifle's barrel had been designed with stealth in mind and was virtually silent when used. In his right hand he now held a specialised handgun. It had four barrels, each loaded with heavy bullets intended to inflict massive damage on impact. Kopp and his team approached the door as one. It was locked with a familiar looking padlock and chain, rusted with age like the rest of the building.
Kopp turned to Marr. The older man was already stepping forward to destroy the lock with his molecular acid spray. The rusted metal turned blue black as the clear liquid from the pen sized aerosol soaked the padlock and chain. Then the padlock fell away, turning to dust. Marr took hold of the chain to prevent its remains falling to the ground noisily. Kopp nodded his approval. and surveyed the area. Beyond the massive hangar lay only darkness and the dark outline of Jann Linn mountain’s rounded summit. At the top of the mountain, Kopp imagined that he could see lights. But he wasn’t sure and there was no time to look through his rifle’s scope. Marr was already on his way into the old building.
Hunn stayed outside, crouched in the darkness guarding the small door with his energy weapon ready to fire. He scanned the perimeter carefully through the night vision and heat sensitive scope, not flinching when the door clicked shut behind him.
Inside, Kopp and Marr were completely blind. The massive building was completely unlit and there were no windows. Relathon’s three moons did not provide very much light. One was roughly a third the size of Earth’s moon whilst the others were much smaller and difficult to differentiate from the brighter stars and planets in the night sky. But Kopp and Marr had night vision goggles and these came to life with the touch of a combat gloved finger.
Kopp looked up. He had expected to find something in the hangar, but it was empty. Intelligence had suggested that a huge starship would be docked here, ready to join the secret fleet that the empire suspected was being put together. But there was no large spaceship. Besides ancient, decaying boxes and bundles - there was nothing at all.
“Well that was a disappointment,” Marr grunted.
“We've got the wrong building,” Kopp replied, “Let’s check out alpha.”
They left the hangar. Neither man noticed the tarpaulin covered object that was hidden in the far corner of the building, or the hole that had been cut into the corrugated metal wall behind it. But Kopp was looking for something much, more larger.
There were at least two men in the alpha building. Even this was unexpected. Intelligence had suggested that the buildings would be completely empty during the festival week. Both men had come out together for a smoke, although Kopp suspected that more men might be inside. The guards spoke casually and openly, their voiced loud in the quiet night. They weren't expecting any trouble, Kopp mused, and they weren't ready for trouble if it found them. This in itself began to increase his suspicion that this was a wasted journey.
“If we’re going to see inside that hangar, we’re going to have to kill all of these Relathon,” Hunn said, breaking his concentration.
Kopp nodded soberly.
“We could start the war ourselves,” Marr whispered.
“As if it’s not coming already,” Kopp snapped, “We’ll be knee deep in their blood before the end of the year, I’ll wager that. This mission is...,” he didn't finish the statement. He didn't feel that he needed to. Also, to do so would have been... somehow... incriminating.
The two Relathon night-watchmen were killed within an instant of each other. Kopp’s silenced assault rifle shot one man through the chest whilst Hunn’s energy weapon blasted the other man’s heart with a high temperature electrified plasma charge that stopped his heart even before the heat burned it out of his body. The guards fell to the ground loudly. To Kopp’s surprise, the door of alpha building opened almost immediately.
“Guys?” a voice called.
Kopp was running towards alpha building, staying out of the light. Marr had stayed where he was. Hunn was with Kopp, his weapon rustling behind his superior as it rubbed against his soft cotton uniform. Both men made little sound as they sprinted together towards the open doorway.
There were three men inside the building. As they emerged, Kopp imagined that he saw a firearm in one of their hands. It looked like a short barrelled automatic pistol, but then he realised it was just the light from inside the building creating false shapes out of shadow. Before Kopp realised what was happening, Hunn fired his energy weapon point blank into the man’s face.
The Relathon’s head exploded with a loud popping sound, showering his colleagues with scalding blood and tissue. As his knees buckled, the nearest of his co-workers screamed in agony. His cry pierced the night like a dagger, echoing on even after another two blasts from Hunn’s weapon had incinerated his chest and most of the org
ans there.
“Shit,” Kopp snapped, still running.
Hunn fired again, striking the third alien in his shoulder as he turned to run back into the building. This time his energy weapon did not strike its target. The Relathon disappeared back into the building, closing the door behind them as Kopp and Marr stormed towards it. Somewhere in the distance – about a quarter mile away – Kopp heard a voice call out. There was a strange sound too. A dog barking, he realised. Somewhere in the night, the outskirts of the city had awoken.
His automatic weapon destroyed the alpha building door lock with a quick ten round burst. The lock – an electronic kind built into the door itself– sparked and sputtered, but the bullets had ripped through the heavy steel bolt behind the mechanism and the flimsy, coated steel that held the bolt in place. Marr’s combat boot smashed the lock as Kopp stepped aside. The kick alone would have smashed the door open, Kopp mused. But it didn't matter. They were inside.
The shattered door opened to a small room about ten metres square. Three of the walls had glassless, empty windows looking into the total darkness of the hangar. In the middle of the room there was a square table with chairs. There were playing cards and coins set out on the table. A game was in progress. Directly in front of Kopp there was another doorway that he assumed lead further into alpha building. This was where the third Relathon had run to. Kopp raised his weapon as the security man struggled with the lock. He fired the remaining ten bullets in a ragged line from the old man’s neck down to the base of his spine. The weapon made a subtle chattering sound as it discharged. The sound the bullets made as they tore into the man’s body were considerably louder. Some of the bullets went right through the Relathon and the door he'd been trying to open. The man gave a quiet, gasping moan as he slumped to the floor, his scrawny tobacco stained fingers still fumbling lifelessly at the door handle.
Outside, the dog barking was louder still. The animal was closer. Kopp wondered if it would discover Hunn and, if it did, whether Hunn would be able to kill it before it got to him. He shelved the thought. There wasn't enough room in his mind to worry about everything.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 5
