The Tactics of Revenge

by T. R. Harris

  “Let’s go!” McCarthy ordered as he sprinted for the side of the building. Adam was only a breath behind.

  The building was very ornate, with all kinds of decorative quoins and plant trellises adorning its surface. The two Humans began to scramble up the walls, made easier in the three-quarters gravity and their Earth-toned muscles. As they reached the top of the four-story building, they threw themselves over the top ledge and ducked behind it for cover. They could hear shouting and the whining of electric vehicles rising up from the ground below. Adam was sure the Klin were wondering what had happened to thirteen Humans and two aliens in the span of only fifteen minutes. Their search would naturally move to the parking lot.

  The communications antenna took up about a quarter of the vast roof area of the main estate, and Adam could see now how it had been hidden from the front view of the building by a false wall about fifteen meters tall. The antenna itself was very compact, and was a series of three cylindrical tubes surrounding a central spire and connected to each other with side supports. The array reached about twenty meters into the air, with the top third of the antenna painted green to blend in with the backdrop of the forested hills on the other side of the lake.

  The antenna rested on an eight-sided platform that appeared to rest on rollers, allowing for the structure to rotate. McCarthy ran for the antenna. “Place the charges equal distance around the base.”

  Adam moved to the other side of the antenna array and opened one of the satchels. He withdrew a charge containing three wrapped bricks, each about the size of a sleeve of crackers, and after inserting the radio-controlled detonators into the soft material, slipped it into the area between the base and rollers. “This is all well and good, McCarthy, but have you figured out how we’re going to get down from here, what with the whole Klin army running around below us?”

  McCarthy rose up after placing a charge of his own and ran further around the antenna. “I have to admit, when I originally planned blowing the comm antenna, I didn’t think I’d have to do it with the Klin looking for me. This does change things.”

  “So you don’t have a way off the roof?”

  “I thought we’d improvise.”

  Adam placed his last charge and stood up, his arms hanging limply at his side. “So why did you want me to come along with you on this suicide mission?”

  McCarthy pulled a small remote detonator control from his last satchel placed it in his pocket. He smiled over at Adam. “It’s because I’ve always fostered an intense hatred for you, Mr. Cain.”

  “Why? What have I ever done to you?”

  “You have disrupted my plans ever since the first moment you showed up in the Fringe three years ago. I had a pretty sweet gig going here until you came along.”

  “Yeah, about that – why are you working with the fucking Klin in the first place?”

  “They promised me a planet of my own after all this is over with – the planet Earth.”

  “And you believed them?”

  “To a point. Like I said, I never fully trusted them in the first place. But you have to admit, it was a tempting offer.”

  Adam ran to the edge of the roof and looked over the edge. He was looking down at the parking lot and lake beyond. Below, dozens of aliens were now moving about, most armed with flash rifles and looking angry. McCarthy came up beside him and looked over the side as well.

  “I guess they never figured we’d climb to the roof the building,” he said.

  Adam noticed something off to his right. He looked up and saw a long cable running above him; he followed it behind him until he saw that it connected with the antenna at the central spire. McCarthy followed Adam’s gaze as well. In unison, they both turned and followed the cable with their eyes, off the roof and toward the lake. There was a tower located near the lake’s edge where the cable ran, along with several others that came up from the ground, as well as others from along of the roof. The two men looked at each other.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Adam said. McCarthy simply nodded. They ran for the antenna.

  They climbed to the top of the antenna array and Adam took a closer look at the cable. It was about three inches in diameter and made of spun metal. It didn’t appear to carry an electrical charge, at least not on its exterior. It appeared to be more for support.

  “Do you think it will hold us?” McCarthy asked.

  Adam grabbed hold the cable and tested it with his weight. “Looks like it. But what I’m worried about is whether it will break loose when the charges go off.”

  “What choice do we have?”

  “We could have just left the damn antenna alone and gone with the others – that was a choice!” Adam said pointedly.

  McCarthy grinned. “Like they say in America – my bad!”

  Adam grabbed onto the cable and swung his legs up to wrap around it. He then began to caterpillar his way along the wire. Soon McCarthy was doing the same.

  Navigating a cable such as this was all part of routine training for SEALs, as well as other military personnel, even though Adam had often wondered when such a skill would come in handy. Now he knew. However, Adam had not done anything like this for years, so even in the light gravity of the planet, it wasn’t long before his arms began to ache and his shoulders burned.

  They were now off the roof, crawling along the cable a good fifty meters above the ground. Adam chanced a look over his shoulder and for the first time realized just how high up he was. And all it would take is for one of the aliens below to look up and then they’d be sitting ducks—

  A yell rose up from below and Adam once more glanced over his throbbing shoulder. Several of the aliens were now pointing at them and yelling, as more of them came over to join in, these carrying flash rifles. Xan-Fi’s were accurate up to about a hundred meters, yet their charge dropped off dramatically after only about thirty. Even still, with the two of them dangling so high off the ground, suspended on a three-inch diameter cable, it wouldn’t take much to knock them off.

  Soon the flash of bolts began to ping past them; once a targeting computer locked on, that could be all she wrote.

  Adam wrapped his legs tightly around the cable and let go with his hands. As he dangled there upside down, he quickly removed his shirt, and then using all the abdominal strength he could muster, he bent back up until his hands gripped the cable once more. Next he draped the shirt over the cable and began to tie the ends together, forming a loop. McCarthy saw what Adam was doing and understood immediately; he mirrored the maneuver.

  Adam began to twist the cloth, wrapping it tighter around the cable, yet leaving a loop at the end. Once it was about as tight as he could make it, he placed his right arm into the loop and gripped it with his left. McCarthy did the same with his own arm.

  “Blow it!” Adam cried out.

  McCarthy reached inside his pocket and pulled out the small detonator. He flicked the device on with his thumb and then, without hesitation, depressed the trigger.

  The explosion was extremely powerful, hot and loud; the concussion and heat hit them almost instantly, causing them both to lose their grips on the cable with their legs. Now they hung there, held only by the loops in their shirts. And then, much to their surprise, the antenna array did not topple over. Instead, the roof supports surrounding it gave way, and the entire structure simply disappeared into the bowls of the building, crashing in to what would have been the office of the Pleabaen.

  The cable the two Humans dangled from suddenly sprang upward, becoming incredibly taut. Both Adam and McCarthy were tossed upward above the cable, yet their arms, looped within their shirts, kept them from flying off into the air. And then they dropped back down again, Adam crying out in pain as it felt as if his whole arm was being ripped out of its socket.

  And then the cable finally snapped.

  Suddenly, they were both hurtling toward the ground, traveling in a wide arc in the direction of the tower near the lake. At an incredible speed, the two Humans swept over the pa
rking lot about ten meters, with dozens of aliens scrambling to get out of the way. But the arc continued, and they soon found themselves flying back up into the air.

  At the apogee of the arc, Adam found that they were now over the lake and about twenty meters up. Adam released his grip on his right arm and let it slip through the loop in his shirt, setting him free. He tumbled through the air and impacted the surface of the lake with such a force that it momentarily stunned him. The unexpectedly cold water of the lake soon jolted him back to his senses, however, and he sank deep into the icy water until his buoyancy stopped him. He kicked for the surface.

  Adam emerged about ten meters from the shoreline and quite a ways down from the parking lot. A dozen aliens were running across the grass toward him.

  McCarthy suddenly surfaced next to him, a wide grin on his face. “Whoa! That was exciting!”

  Adam didn’t say anything, but instead kicked strongly for the shore. They reached it in a few seconds and stepped up onto a firm mud bank. A car had passed the aliens who were running toward them; it was only second away.

  “I don’t know what good all that did,” Adam said as both he and McCarthy bent over, panting, shirtless and shivering from the cold water dripping from their bodies. The car was just about upon them.

  As the vehicles skidded to a stop, the two Human soldiers spread their legs and brought their arms up in a defensive stance, ready for a fight. They had a pretty good idea that they could overpower anyone in the car; what they had to guard for were the weapons.

  The door to the transport flew open. “Get in!” a female voice yelled from inside – and then Sherri’s frowning face appeared in the doorway. Without hesitation, Adam and McCarthy jumped for the car, diving head first into the rear compartment. Riyad Tarazi, seated in the driver’s seat, then shoved the central joystick forward and the car sped off, just as streaks from flash-bolts zoomed past.

  Adam found himself lying face down between Sherri’s legs; he lifted his wet head up and looked into her eyes. “Later, stud,” Sherri said with a smile. “Right now we have to get off this fucking planet.”

  Both he and McCarthy sat up to find themselves crushed into the back seat of the transport with Sherri, with the massive Carter Thomas in the front passenger seat and Riyad driving.

  “Why aren’t you with the others?” Adam scolded, looking around at the others in the car.

  “We thought you might need a lift,” Riyad said.

  Thomas looked at his boss. “I sent Mitchell along with the others. They’re about ten minutes ahead of us.”

  Riyad steered the car across the grass and around the main building. The antenna had apparently crashed all the way down through the structure, igniting fires as it went, with flames that now engulfing nearly half the building. There were hundreds of aliens streaming from the building now; many covered in blood with vacant looks on their faces. Others still rushed out covered in flames, only to collapse to the ground, writhing in agony.

  A mass of transports clogged the access gates in and out of the complex, so Riyad steered to the left and plowed through the metal fence next to the main gate.

  The crash was loud and violent, as the metal fence bounced off the hood of the car, smashing the front windshield. Glass filled the driver and passenger seats, but Riyad and Thomas seemed unfazed. They simply bushed the broken glass off of themselves, not bothered by the tiny moles of blood now appearing across their faces and arms.

  They were now on a main street and moving as fast as the small electric vehicle would allow. “Where to,” Riyad yelled, the wind whipping into the compartment through the shattered windshield.

  “Turn right at the next intersection. I’ll guide you from there,” said Carter Thomas.

  Chapter 61

  Adam kept looking through the cracked rear window of the car to see if they were being pursued. Fortunately, there was very little traffic in this part of the city and no one was following them. Soon Thomas guided them into a rundown industrial section of the city where he had Riyad stop next to a row building with the truck from the estate parked outside.

  They exited the dented and scratched car and ran through a set of double doors into the building.

  Adam was relieved to see a large shuttle sitting in the middle of a cavernous warehouse, the side entrance to the shuttle open, and Andy Tobias standing in the doorway.

  “Thank god. We were beginning to worry,” he said, eyeing Adam and McCarthy’s shirtless and soaked torsos with a questioning frown as they slipped in past him. “I guess I won’t ask.” The Lieutenant then shut and dogged the hatch behind him.

  Adam followed McCarthy to the pilothouse. One of his men – they had not had time to be properly introduced – was seated in the pilot’s seat. Kaylor and Jym were hunched up against the back bulkhead, looking terrified.

  “And of course, you also have a shuttle.”

  McCarthy slipped into the co-pilot’s seat. “Every contingency covered, Mr. Cain.”

  “How the hell did you get it inside the building?”

  “A little push here, a little pull there.” McCarthy then busied himself with the prelaunch sequence.

  The man sitting next to him soon turned and said, “Primed. We can go at any time.”

  “Do it!”

  Instantly – and from all around them – there came such a deafening roar that all those not piloting the shuttle placed their hands to their ears. The building around them disintegrated in a cloud of dust and debris, as the first of a series of thousands of micro gravity wells formed far above them. The shuttle was drawn into the air, a bright flash of sunlight now blazing through the shuttle’s viewport. The debris streaming up all around them soon disappeared and the city fell away quickly below. Within three minutes, they were in space.

  Kaylor stepped up behind the pilot. “This is a short-range shuttle. It won’t get us very far,” he said, concern thick in his voice.

  “It only needs to get us there,” McCarthy said, pointing through the viewport at the smaller of the two moons of Marishal.

  Adam stepped up next to McCarthy’s seat. “Don’t tell me, you also have starship hidden on the moon?”

  “Nothing fancy, just a little Klin 722 – you probably don’t even know what that is, do you?”

  “I do,” said Kaylor. He looked over at Adam. “It’s like the ships we saw on Calamore, at the Klin base there. Basic, but it will suffice.”

  Adam placed his hand on Nigel McCarthy’s broad and freckled shoulder. “I’m impressed, Mr. McCarthy. Well done.”

  McCarthy looked up at him and grinned. “And that is why the SAS can beat the shit out of a SEAL any day.”

  Adam returned the grin. He would leave that comment alone – for now.

  Chapter 62

  Most beings throughout the Expansion would have been surprised to learn that the Juirean High Military Command was not housed in Malor Tower. Nor was it in one of the five surrounding structures the Tower that made up the Arolus Array high atop the Kacoran Plain on Juir.

  Rather, the structure that housed the supreme military force in the galaxy was located a kilometer away in a non-descript building behind a cluster of limillian trees. If one didn’t know where to look, it could be easily missed.

  One would think this camouflage of the building was intentional, being as it was the headquarters of powerful and secret military activity. In truth, it was not. Instead, for generations the military operations of the Expansion – and the Juireans in particular – had faded into disinterest and neglect. This was no anybody’s fault; it was simply the verities of the times, where peace reigned and dangerous bombast was suppressed by pragmatic need.

  And so it was with eye-opening consternation that Council Elder Hydon Ra Elys traveled the short distance to the building just as the battle of Falor-Kapel was unfolding.

  With Hydon’s already proclaimed resolution to rebuild the Juirean military to its former glory, he was shocked and appalled to see just how much work lay
ahead of him. Even with the recent upgrades made since the beginning of the Juirean-Human conflict, Hydon still couldn’t believe how archaic and out-of-date were so much of the Command’s equipment and processes.

  And the Command was only short walk from the very capital of the Expansion.

  In the darkened room, surrounded by other Councilmembers, a dozen Elites and an untold number of Overlords, the leader of the Expansion had waited for any word of the battle taking place on the other side of the galaxy. Communications would take four hours to reach them, and so far, the only communique had been a cryptic flash from a supply ship well outside the battle zone mentioning something about ‘additional units.’

  What additional units? Whose units? And to what affect?

  So when the first detailed link came through, sent out through space four hours earlier, all the highest and most powerful beings in the galaxy huddled closer to the linking screen for the update.

  An image appeared, of a haggard looking Guard wearing the capes of a ship’s commander. He began to speak very fast. “This is Senior Guard Sevan Ra Vulus. I command one of the three remaining Juirean vessels—”

  Although unaccustomed to spontaneous displays of emotion, most of those huddled around the screen cried out with joy. Even the Elder smiled. He knew this had been a possibility; the forces were just too close to parity. And yet if the Human fleet had been destroyed, with only a few Juirean ships surviving, then that was an acceptable price to pay. The Juirean fleet could always be rebuilt.

  But the Senior Guard was continuing: “The three ships that made it through the meat-grinder have assembled near the third planet in the system. We all suffered considerable damage during the journey. I will soon be transferring my surviving crew to one of the less-damaged ships in order to escape the system.”