by T. R. Harris
McCarthy tried to think fast. “We’re moving Lord Hydon to a safer location,” he called out to the Overlords. They hesitated.
“No, they are not! I am being taken prisoner,” Hydon countered almost immediately.
“Alert security!” one of Overlords yelled, his voice echoing off the metal walls and ceiling of the chamber, only moments before a bolt from McCarthy’s own MK entered his body just below the neck. A flurry of other bolts sent the remaining five Juireans to the deck.
But now the dozens of other Juireans in the chamber were focused on McCarthy and the other Humans. The team moved out, hugging the side of the curving wall, heading toward the corridor leading to the barracks.
“Stand back!” McCarthy commanded, “or I will kill Lord Hydon.” He insisted on using the prefix ‘Lord’ to make his captive sound even more important, hopefully giving the troops second thoughts about opening fire.
“Disregard my welfare—” Hydon began to say, just before McCarthy smashed the butt of his MK into the side of the Elder’s mouth. Teeth broke and blood sprayed out, stunning the Juirean into silence.
The team continued to move closer to the corridor leading to the barracks, while a phalanx of Juirean Guards took up a position in front of them. When they reached the corridor, McCarthy scanned the hallway and found it empty. They moved inside.
McCarthy grabbed Hydon by the arm, freeing up the two men who had been holding him so they take up defensive stances; down on one knee, flash rifles held securely against their cheeks. Together, the team shuffled farther down the corridor, as dozens of Juireans began to fill the narrow opening with too many unguarded bodies.
“Open fire,” McCarthy said calmly, and his four marksmen began to send bolt after bolt into the mass of aliens. The Juireans in the front rows – those who weren’t killed immediately – tried to retreat, but where blocked by the crunch of other bodies from behind. Soon, over twenty Juireans lay dead, forming a very effective berm across the width of the hallway.
With two of McCarthy’s men providing suppressing fire, the other three – with Hydon – scrambled down the length of the hallway. Once at the entrance to the barracks, others from the team provided cover for the forward two as they ran for cover. Answering bolts were now coursing down the corridor, but all the Humans made it to the barracks safely.
Adam made a quick count as McCarthy’s men reentered the room. Damn, they all made it back – and with Hydon.
There was a second exit from the barracks leading to the mess hall. All the various barracks in the complex were located next to this huge room. Across the mess hall were other corridors leading to the bunker’s life support facilities and workshops – and to the room where the small submarine-like craft was located.
A few aliens were in the main mess hall – not Juireans – when the Humans entered. These creatures wore the uniforms of cooks and attendants, so they were not part of the defense force called to action when the alarms sounded. McCarthy’s men sent accurate bolts of blue energy into their bodies without hesitation.
With McCarthy leading the way, Adam and his people were shoved along behind him by the members of the Englishman’s team. Hydon was now with the last group, used as a shield for when the Juireans burst into the mess hall, however, they were all through and into another hallway before the Juireans managed to form a following party. Moments later McCarthy entered the room with the boring pod.
On the floor around the long, fifteen meter tall craft were four dead Juirean Guards. Baker stepped out from the entrance of the craft, coming face-to-face with McCarthy. “Sorry, we couldn’t wait any longer. We had to take them out.”
“Well done, Zack. Now everyone, get on board.”
Just then a barrage of electric-blue bolts streaked into the room. Even though level-two bolts were more of an annoyance than a threat to Humans, level-ones were deadly; three of McCarthy’s men went down from level-one bolts to the back.
McCarthy’s remaining force of seven armed Humans was still enough to keep the prisoners under guard and Hydon subdued. The Juirean Elder still had not fully recovered the blow to the mouth and was groggy, his head wobbling as he was thrown into one of the hard plastic seats lining the fuselage of the craft.
The boring pod did indeed look like a small submersible, long and rounded in the front. Yet running along its sides were wide tracks like those found on heavy equipment – bulldozers and such – and along the rounded front were several large laser arrays. The interior was one single compartment, with the pilot seat located in front of a large monitor. There were no windows in the compartment, either in the front or along the sides.
Once everyone was inside, McCarthy dogged the hatch and moved to the pilot’s seat. He took a moment to scan the controls and then looked back into the compartment. Spotting Kaylor, he moved back into the compartment and grabbed the alien by his shirt, pulling him into the pilot’s seat. “Can you drive this thing?”
“I don’t know,” Kaylor said as he looked over the controls.
McCarthy placed the MK to Kaylor’s head. “You better figure it out quick. You’re no use to me unless you can.”
Kaylor was familiar with just about every control panel currently in use by the Juireans. He pressed a button, which he knew would activate the generators, and immediately his monitor lit up showing an image of the shiny metal wall the craft was facing.
“Good,” said McCarthy. “Now get us out of here.”
“What do you mean? We’re underground!”
“This thing is called a boring pod. It’s supposed to be able to move through rock,” McCarthy explained. “So start boring!”
Kaylor saw a bank of six uniform control buttons all colored green. There was Juirean writing under them, and from the little Juirean he could read, he believed they said something like heat or melt control. He flicked them all on and was rewarded by a brilliant flash from the monitor as the laser arrays beamed out a massive blast of intense heat. Within seconds, the wall before them had melted, opening up a circular tunnel that grew longer as the lasers continued to send out torrents of intense light. Red molten lava began to flow prodigiously into the chamber where they sat, filling it with an ever-deepening layer of fiery, viscous liquid and incinerating all the Juireans who had followed the Humans into the room.
Kaylor gripped the steering control arm and pressed forward. The craft lunged forward and into the tunnel, which was still being formed by the constant beams from the lasers. The interior compartment of the pod was now filled with a deafening roar as the tracks lining the pod began to scrape against the solid rock sides of the tunnel. A waterfall of lava could be seen flowing down the forward wall of the tunnel and disappearing under the craft. Kaylor experimented with a knob on the side of the monitor and the image switched to a rear view. The lava was flying up behind them like the plume from a jet ski and sticking to a wall that had already formed behind them. They were now inside a bubble within the rock, moving forward at what seemed to be a respectable speed.
Kaylor glanced over his shoulder; McCarthy was still there, looking at the monitor, which Kaylor had switched back to the forward view. “Where to? I have no idea where we’re going.”
“See if you can find a navigation function of some kind.”
Kaylor was already pressing buttons and turning knobs. Finally, the screen was replaced with a green-lined representation of the surrounding bedrock, showing layers indicating the various thickness and makeup of the strata they were moving through. Another adjustment and the view expanded.
In the center of the screen was their present location, with an orange line trailing out behind them, clearly showing where the tunnel met up with the underground bunker. Adam could see the monitor past Sherri’s head, as all the others in the compartment were fixated on the screen. When Kaylor moved the perspective out a little further he could now see the edge of the Kacoran Plain. The line they were presently on was about half way down inside the mountain – and they were heading
straight for the edge. Adam could just imagine them break through the side of the cliff and plunging half a mile down to the boulder-strewn base of the mountain….
McCarthy saw the possibility, too. He pointed to a place at the base of the mountain. “Steer us down here.”
Kaylor experimented a little more with the controls, first making the path of the craft climb some toward the surface. The controls seemed to be counterintuitive, but soon Kaylor had them figured out and Adam could feel the pod take a steeper angle in its forward track. Looking at the distance they’d already traveled from the bunker, and compared to where they were headed, it should only be about half an hour before the tiny craft would be popping out at the base of the Kacoran Plain.
Chapter 18
Shortly after Jonnif’s fleet had headed into the Volousian Discourse – the circuitous route near the galactic core – four large troop carriers had been dispatched from Eilsion, following the fleet. They had just now arrived on station, three in orbit around Juir, and the fourth above Bal and the energy module plants which covered much of the planet’s surface.
The forty thousand Kracori ground forces these transports carried would be the cleanup crews for the two conquered worlds. They would form into hundreds of killing squads and scour the surface for survivors.
Their task was made easier on Juir by the centralized planning that had taken place on the planet over the centuries. There were now only seventeen-hundred mass cities dotting the entire planet, with kilometers upon kilometers of vast open spaces between them. Except for maintenance stations and energy sites, no private settlements were allowed in these open areas. All the invaders had to do was strike at the cities, and then clean up the aftermath by strafing the long lines of refugees fleeing their burning cities.
By the time the ground troops had arrived, some huge tent-cities had been set up outside a few of the settlements far removed from Juir City. But these, too, would be easy targets for the cleanup crews.
After suffering through incredibly cramped conditions for the past two months, the Kracori were ready to strike down upon the surface and eat anything they came across – and it had already circulated throughout the troops just how delectable was Juirean flesh. To calm the growing tensions within the ships during the trip, Kracori commanders promised all their warriors as much of the tasty flesh as they could consume, most of which would be just lying on the ground cooked and waiting to be eaten. This pacified the Kracori warriors, at least for a while. Now their stomachs growled for the real thing.
Jonnif stood on a leading edge of the cliff overlooking the smoking remains of Juir City as the first of the shuttles streamed down from the sky. They came on gravity drive, ripping up the surface in great clouds of black, ash-infused dust. Soon ten thousand Kracori would be fanning out across the area, just as twenty thousand more would cover other parts of the planet. Jonnif had no false illusions. Even after the massive bombings had killed over half the population of Juir, it would still be many long months before the last Juirean would be extinguished from just this one planet alone. But if the attack on Earth proceeded according to plan, the Kracori would have all the time they required.
Mininof approached him with a datapad and a scowl. “What’s wrong?” Jonnif asked.
“There has been seismic activity detected within the mountain.”
“This mountain?”
“Yes … and it’s moving.”
“I do not understand.”
“Monitors are picking up something moving through the rock. It’s small, barely noticeable, but it could be an excavator of some kind.”
“Hydon – he is trying to escape!”
“My thoughts as well; by All-Ludif, he will not succeed.”
“Where is this excavator headed?” Jonnif had already turned away from the cliff and was headed back to the camp, a grouping of a dozen large tents that had been set up around his spacecraft and served as the headquarters for his command.
“It is cutting a path toward the base of the mountain, on the city side.”
“Send a transport and a contingent of warriors. How long until they reach the edge of the mountain?”
“Only minutes, Jonnif.”
“Send any ground forces we may already have in the area. He may be traveling with a small group and they could be hard to locate in all the confusion around the city. I do not want to lose him.”
Chapter 19
McCarthy’s men are good, Adam acknowledged. He had been watching them for the past half an hour, and even as the location of the small boring pod drew closer to the edge of the mountain, they never took their eyes off Adam and the other prisoners. Even if they had, Adam wasn’t sure what he would have done, not here in the confined space of the pod. One errant rifle blast and the vehicle could be disabled, encasing them forever in a tomb of solid rock, hundreds of meters thick. But now the pod was nearing its exit point. Adam was relieved; he had never been claustrophobic before, but this was pushing it.
When they eventually burst out into the open, the only sensation was the sudden reduction in the god-awful screeching sound they had endured for almost forty-five minutes. The monitor in front of Kaylor still showed the graphic display of their route, but soon the Belsonian switched the views and the compartment flooded with daylight from the screen. The tiny craft continued to crawl along on its lower tracks down a fairly steep grade until it eventually settled out onto a grassy meadow, near a grove of trees with white and red buds showing through leaves of green.
McCarthy leaned closer to the screen, scanning for any signs of Juireans or Kracori outside. Seeing none, he turned and ordered Carter Thomas to crack the hatch.
Immediately, the compartment was filled with the smell of smoke – and not the pleasant, wafting-through-the-pines kind of smoke – but rather an acrid mix of burning rubber and ozone. They were also nearly consumed by a blast of intense heat from outside.
Adam and his team were hustled outside and moved away from the incredibly hot hull of the boring pod as quickly as possible. It was obvious the pod wasn’t designed to be opened so quickly after making a passage, at least not until the exterior had time to cool. Parts of the craft were still covered with rapidly-hardening clumps of lava, still glowing a hypnotic, iridescent red, and the tracks of the vehicle were rapidly being cemented into monuments of stone as the lava entwined within them cooled. Adam realized the craft had been designed for one-time use only. Once its journey was complete it would be impossible to break the stone cancer which had infected nearly the entire exterior and all exposed components. The craft had done its job. Now it was retired, to forever become part of the landscape at the base of mountain.
The group moved into the grove of trees and Adam’s team were ordered to sit on their hands on the cool grass, while Hydon was segregated and placed with his back against one of the trees, Michael Amarillas watching his every movement with a flash rifle leveled at his chest.
Adam took the opportunity to survey their surroundings. The grove of trees appeared to be large and grew thicker the further it spread from the rock-strewn cascade of boulders near the base of the Kacoran Plain. Off to his left, Adam could see a small creek running into the grove, fed from the myriad of small waterfalls painting the walls of the cliff.
Directly ahead of him and through more trees, Adam could barely make out the jagged skyline of Juir City, a towering plume of black smoke sending a quilt of dark shadows on the ashen ground below. He had only had a moment to glimpse the expanse of the millennia-old city from the top of the Plain when he first arrived, but he knew it had once been a thriving metropolis of several million beings. Now it was gone, replaced by a graveyard of burned out buildings, their defiant remains jutting skyward at radical angles and all a uniform, oily gray in color.
The stench of death was everywhere.
Adam looked at Sherri and saw her near tears. Even though these were Juireans who had died, they had still been living beings, the vast majority of them simply going
about their daily activities with no diabolical or evil intentions. This was genocide in its most-naked form, not hidden by any pretense other than to kill until there was nothing left to kill.
Adam could hear McCarthy and Thomas talking, trying to figure out what to do next. After a moment, they decided to wait until the pod cooled and then see if any communication equipment inside still worked. They were fortunate that it was late afternoon; it would have been more difficult to guard the prisoners in the murky greyness of the Juirean night. With three moons populating the sky, and a brilliant swatch of stars from the galactic center – thousands of times closer here than on Earth – the night on Juir was never truly dark. However, the time of day was not one of the things either man considered when they made their escape from the bunker.
Hydon had recovered from McCarthy’s blow to his mouth, at least mentally. The side of his face and mouth had swollen up so much that the Juirean could barely spread his lips, and when he tried, his face contorted in pain. Still, he managed to speak. “You are foolish to trust these Kracori. Humans are their enemy, too.”
“Shut up Hydon,” McCarthy ordered. “I’ll take my chances out here over rotting to death in your bunker. And I have news for you: we’re not going to be welcomed back by our fellow Humans, either.”
Adam saw Hydon frown, not understanding the comment.
“What he means is that he and his men are traitors. They’ve been working with the Klin for years,” Adam explained.
“That’s right,” McCarthy said. “So you see now why the Kracori’s offer of amnesty was so appealing. And the credits for Cain and his people certainly won’t hurt, either.”
“How can you be so alone all the time?” Sherri asked. “Even if you do survive, you’ll have no home, not even a race of beings to belong to.”
“The only race I belong to is the race of Me, missy. I’m the only one who really gives a damn about what happens to me. I’m just being practical.”
