by T. R. Harris
And with all the lights out in the arena, it was a good bet that a powerful electromagnetic pulse had impacted Qidos, along with the beautiful lightshow in the sky.
Adam let out a sigh of relief. He was fortunate he wasn’t trying to land a spaceship at the time. Having all your electronics shut down—if even momentarily—was never a good thing when making a landing approach….
Chapter 28
“Regain power!” Kaylor shouted from the pilot seat. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. There was nothing he could do until then.
“I cannot override the emergency protocols,” Jym cried out. The air in his lungs was being pulled out from the sudden drop the Najmah Fayd was experiencing. Although the ship was the most-advanced in the galaxy, it still fell like a rock when the power went out during the landing approach to Qidos.
Their only hope was that the automatic trigger responses to an electromagnetic pulse would disengage before they hit the ground. All their screens were down, and all the two occupants could see was the brown landscape racing toward them.
In that fleeting moment, Kaylor thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to go out looking for Adam Cain after all.
********
With no message coming from Qidos, Kaylor and Jym had grown restless. They were in the Najmah Fayd at the Krone spaceport, waiting for the telepathic link from Adam, calling for the ship to come pick him up. The hours passed, and still no launch.
Then news came of a major battle taking place in the space between Castor and Qidos. Every vessel in the spaceport bolted for space, either to assist in the battle or to run away. And still the Najmah Fayd sat.
It was Kaylor’s idea to use the confusion of the massive space battle to slip into Qidos space and search for Adam. The ship could leapfrog the battle and appear unscathed in the atmosphere, ten miles above Adam’s monitored location. And then if the area was too hot to land, they could jump out without too much effort. It sounded like a good idea at the time.
When the trans-dimensional starship materialized in the upper atmosphere of Qidos, all hell broke loose. It was hit with a massive pulse of electricity. EMP’s are common in space, so all ships are equipped with automatic shut downs to protect vital circuits from overloading. Once the EMP passed, the systems would reboot.
Normally, a momentary burp in energy supply wasn’t a problem. For ships in space, the worst that would happen is they would fall out of a gravity-well, but then re-enter a few seconds later. The only time an EMP shut-down became serious was when a ship was in an atmosphere and under the influence of a planet’s gravity.
Such as was the case at Qidos.
Starships—including the Najmah Fayd—were not designed to be aerodynamic. They didn’t need to be, so the ship was falling through the atmosphere, rocking back and forth, subject to the air currents it was experiencing. Kaylor’s fear was that the ship would tip over and begin tumbling. At that point it would be impossible to regain stability, even if the power came back on.
They’d reached the point where individual buildings could be resolved on the surface, these being the huge grand arenas of the Nuoreans. If they were getting this close, it wouldn’t be long now….
The screens suddenly flickered on and the hum of the generators vibrated through the hull.
“Power!” Jym cried out.
Kaylor didn’t respond. Instead he activated the chemical landing jets at the same time he created a small gravity-well above the ship. His actions had the desired effect…times two.
The ship screamed to a stop, every joint and weld straining to stay together. With the compensators slow to reboot, the two aliens were slammed into their seats, with every last iota of breath forced from their deflated lungs. Blood rushed to their eyes, blinding them temporarily.
Then the ship was moving again, but this time up, not down.
Kaylor still suffered from the effects of the sudden stop, lacking the awareness to control the jets or the gravity-well. As a result of both systems being engaged, the Najmah Fayd was now racing for the heavens, and heading out into space toward the distant roiling mass of radioactive debris racing at the planet.
The massive nuclear bloom had covered an area of two million miles in diameter, but that wasn’t the full story. All the explosions that created the gigantic sphere had taken place along the outer edge and were expanding outward, as well as inward. Several of huge explosions occurred only eight hundred thousand miles from Qidos, which meant the light took a little over four seconds to reach the planet. The EMP took a little longer, and the radioactive cloud would take weeks to cover the distance.
But Kaylor and Jym were well beyond the atmosphere by now and speeding at near light-speed toward the mass of deadly radiation.
Jym was the first to recover. He was in the co-pilot seat, and barely able to see through his blood-shot eyes. At first the screens made no sense; he was dazed and confused. But then something made him take notice. His senses returned…along with the panic.
“Kaylor, wake up! Wake up!”
Kaylor moved in his seat. “What happened?”
Jym didn’t answer. Instead he reached over to Kaylor’s panel and shut down both the chem and gravity drives. The gas cloud was still hundreds of miles away, so that crisis was averted. However, now they were sitting in space making them an easy target for any Nuorean warship in the area.
Jym took the controls and sent the ship bolting for the surface, this time under control and with full power.
“What happened?” Kaylor repeated.
“EM-pulse, long one,” Jym answered.
“From what?”
For an answer, Jym switched the forward viewscreen to a rear view. A thin line of yellow and white stretched across the expanse of space. “That is what happened.”
Kaylor studied the line. It was too far away to make out any movement, but it was definitely not normal. “Is that a nuclear explosion?”
“More than one, maybe hundreds.”
“What caused it?”
“I would place a bet that the Fringe is now clear of Nuorean invaders, at least for the time being. It would also be clear of allied forces, as well. Nothing could have survived that.”
“And Adam?”
“I do not know, not until we reach the surface.”
Kaylor’s senses returned. He checked his screens and found the beacon for Adam’s ATD. Most of the landscape below was dark, having had circuits tripped by the EMP. Automated systems had come back on, while those requiring manual operation were still down.
There was a huge building below; one of the grand arenas. Kaylor used the camera to zoom in on the area below. His attention was drawn to flashes off to the right of the stadium, with tiny dark dots moving in chaotic fashion. There was a battle taking place, and it seemed to be moving toward the huge arena. Kaylor should have guessed Adam’s presence would initiate such an event. Anytime aliens and Humans mixed there was bound to be trouble.
He shifted the camera to the interior of the arena. There were four beings laying prone on the surface, with only one was still standing. As the ship dropped lower, the solitary creature looked up and waved.
A speaker on the bridge cracked. “Kaylor, what are you doing here?” Adam’s voice was being received through his ghosted ATD aboard the ship and then feed into the comm system. Kaylor flicked on a microphone at his station, not knowing if Adam would hear him.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yep, just find.”
“We took a chance and came looking for you. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Do you see the battle taking place outside the stadium?”
“Yes; it is headed your way.”
“Thanks. There’s an area beyond the set of four white buildings. Set the ship down there and wait. Don’t let any Nuoreans get near you.”
“Were you able to locate Riyad and Sherri?”
“And Copernicus?” Jym added.
They heard Adam laugh, a menta
l expression translated by the computer. “Yeah, all of them. They’re in the fight outside the stadium.”
“Of course they are, where else would they be?” said Jym.
Chapter 29
Riyad, Sherri and Copernicus raced off for the ramp leading to the tunnels under the huge stadium, leaving Adam to face off against the huge Cadre officer. They’d passed an armory earlier, and if the Humans in the barracks were to have any chance of survival, they would need firepower.
The corridors were empty and the trio found the armory without a problem; however, they couldn’t carry enough weapons to arm even a tenth of the prisoners.
“We need one of those electric carts,” Copernicus yelled. “Everyone stock up. There has to be something around here we can use.”
They loaded up with all the flash weapons and power packs they could carry, plus a few long blades which they slipped through the weight-belts around their waists. The belts were locked on, so until they could figure a way of breaking the locks, they were on for the duration.
They ran to the stadium exit and stared off into the fading light of early afternoon. In the distance, they saw the barracks; to the left, the main office building. There were only a few aliens rushing across the dusty ground, while dozens of shuttles streaked for space on columns of white and black lifting exhaust.
There was a hum behind them, and when they turned, all their prayers were answered. Or they would have been if the occupants of the six-seat electric cart weren’t firing at them with flash weapons.
The team split apart, with Sherri diving to her left while Riyad and Coop jumped to the right. They took cover along the tall exterior wall. Sherri reached around the wall and fired into the dimly-lit corridor. Return bolts slashed against the wall or zipped past into the outer staging area.
Riyad and Coop joined the firefight, although none could see what they were firing at. After a moment they stopped shooting and listened. The hum of the electric motor could still be heard, but it was a light, steady sound. The cart was active, yet stationary.
Coop dashed into the tunnel, disappearing into the thick darkness a moment later. Sherri and Riyad waited.
A flash blinded the pair momentarily, followed by the hum of the cart growing louder.
“Don’t shoot—it’s me,” Copernicus shouted. He pulled up in the cart, the front two seats soaked with blood. “Get in; we have to go back to the armory.”
Riyad and Sherri climbed into the seat behind Coop, not anxious to sit in pools of fresh alien blood—even though their once-white uniforms were covered in the stuff. Coop turned the cart around and headed back down the tunnel.
He was leaning forward, looking for something, when he scrapped the side of tunnel with the cart.
“Watch where you’re going, dumbass!” Sherri yelled.
“I would if I could!” Coop shouted back. “Where the hell are the lights on this thing?”
He was right. With all the lights off in the complex—and the Qidos sun about to set—it was almost pitch black in the underground tunnels. Suddenly, a single ray of powerful light shot out from the front of the cart.
“Way to go, Coop, my hero!”
“So now I’m your hero again, and not your dumbass?”
“I didn’t say that. You can be both.”
They arrived back at the armory and Coop angled the cart so the light lit the interior. A minute later they had the back seats filled with flash weapons and power packs. There were two hundred Human prisoners, and even taking everything in the armory, it wouldn’t be enough to supply them all. But it was a start.
********
Five minutes later they pulled up to the first of the barracks. The place was dark. Riyad and Copernicus burst through the doors—and were tackled by a dozen crazed Humans who pressed them to the hard floor with the mattresses and began kicking and punching them with savage fury.
“Stop it!” Sherri yelled from the doorway. “It’s us.”
The mugging quickly subsided. “What the hell?” Riyad said.
“We thought you were Nuoreans,” said one the prisoners. “When all the shuttles started taking off and the lights went out, we thought it was now or never to make a break.”
“You’re right about that,” Copernicus said. “We have weapons outside to help you. There’s a Nuorean force are on their way to kill you. Arm up; we need to warn the others.”
The prisoners poured from the barracks, rushing to the cart and grabbing every weapon they could. Sherri hoped in the driver’s seat and sped to the next barracks, and the next. She was out of weapons by then, although it wouldn’t have made a difference if she wasn’t.
The forth barracks was engulfed in fire, with screaming prisoners racing from the doorway only to be cut down by flash bolts fired from three huge armored vehicles. Someone in the lead truck spotted Sherri on her cart and opened fire. She slid out the passenger side, painting her face and upper torso in a bath of alien blood. She ducked behind the cart as it was buffeted with bolt after fiery bolt.
And then the flame-lit scene was illuminated even more with return fire, a lot of it. It wasn’t completely dark, not yet. However the rain of white-hot plasma bolts lit the place up like Times Square. The Humans were on the march, and they outnumbered the Cadre Nuoreans ten to one. The sheer volume of flashes striking the armored trucks turned the black metal red with heat, forcing the aliens out the back. Many were cut down, but some began lobbing hand grenades toward the Humans to cover their retreat.
More of the desert landscape lit up as the battle began to move away from the burning barracks building and toward the huge arena complex. Fleeing Nuoreans entered the stadium, dodging streaking flash bolts. A dozen ran into the grand arena itself, tossing bombs and firing bolt launchers until other new packs had to be snapped in. The Humans were entering the arena, as well. They still outnumbered the aliens, but not by as much.
A few lights were coming back on, providing graphic context to the horrific scene. The gaunt-faced Humans were reckless in their assault, and paying a price. But they didn’t care. All they wanted was some payback for the abuse they’d suffered under the Nuoreans.
Adam looked around the field and spotted the two swords from his earlier fight with Azon—his and the alien’s. He went to Azon’s.
The retreating Cadre fighters were more focused on the mad rush of Humans coming through the entrance ramps than they were Adam. This allowed him to position himself behind them, poison sword in hand.
A Nuorean came within range and Adam laid the blade across his back. Another turned toward the scream of his companion; Adam knelt and slashed the creature’s unprotected thigh. Two more came within range and tasted the tip of his sword. That was all it would take. After that, Adam was running across the field, dodging flash bolts as he searched for non-existent cover.
The battle lasted a few moments more, until only three Nuoreans managed to make it across the open field and to the exits on the other side of the arena. The Humans were content to let them go. Now they gathered over their fallen comrades or in small groups, helping the injured to the ground to rest.
Adam’s once-white outfit was almost entirely soaked in blood—all of it his. But he was still standing and happy to see his three teammates and best friends cross the arena towards him.
Riyad looked around at the litter of dead aliens, some with their uniforms on fire from contact with the flash bolts. “How do you like your Nuorean, regular or extra crispy?” he asked.
“No preference,” Adam replied, “so long as they’re dead.”
Sherri took his injured right arm and examined the cut. “Are you all right?” The tone of her voice asked the more important question.
“Yeah, I’m fine, really.”
She didn’t seem too convinced. “I can’t believe a little rinse was all it took to clean the swords. I really thought we’d come back here and find you dead.”
“No such luck. You’re stuck with me for a little longer.”
> She looked off to the main entrance ramp to the arena. “Med-kits are in the armory,” she said. Then she snorted. “I’m sure they’re only for injured Nuoreans; they wouldn’t waste them on any of us stinking aliens.” She and Riyad rushed off to retrieve the kits.
Copernicus Smith was limping badly, his formerly white uniform now sporting a leg of white cloth, the other almost completely red. He smiled at Adam.
“You’ve done well—for an old man,” he said. Then the smile vanished from his face and he looked to the sky. “What the hell happened up there?”
Adam shook his head. “The high price of victory, that’s what.”
“A fleeting victory, Mister Cain. They’ll just keep sending in more ships.”
The blazing aurora cast a flickering, greenish glow over the arena and the faces of the victors. Adam made a quick count: twenty-two prisoners were still standing, with another six being cared for by others. They could be packed in the landing bay, corridors and staterooms of the Najmah Fayd and evacuated to Castor. After that, Adam would be free to continue with his mission.
Sherri was back, and she cleaned and dressed the deep cut on his forearm. Then she and the others rushed off to help the others.
“Kaylor, how’s the ship?”
The answer came back through his ATD. “No issues. Very few Nuoreans left in the area—at least live Nuoreans.”
“Good. We’ll be packing the ship with survivors. Should be around thirty. Clear out what space you need. Sherri’s patching up those she can and then we’ll start loading.”
“Understood. And how are you, my friend?”
The computer couldn’t translate Adam’s mental shrug. Instead it only conveyed his words. “Same as usual.”
But Adam knew that wasn’t true.
********
Adam replaced the bandage on his forearm when he saw Sherri making her way towards him. Her forehead was creased, her long blond hair now a tangled, soot-strained mat on her head.
