“What do we do with this lot?” asked Speedy pointing at the bunch of disconsolate prisoners.
“It’s not our jurisdiction we will let the locals decide and they may not be so keen on their notion of peaceful co-existence after the savagery they have endured. Before we do hand them over we need to get as much intelligence on the local situation as possible.”
Taking their leader and two of the more despondent looking captives out of the line, Boots, Kang and Kyle each supported by another crewman interrogated them with a mixture of threats and kindness. The trio were unwilling to talk not through stubbornness but through fear and Boots had had enough, lifting his dominator he brought it to flame and was just about to cut off his prisoners right arm when the poor man cried ,“I’ll talk, I’ll talk, please put your gun away, don’t kill me.” Their leader looked disgusted but Kyle thought that if Boots had done the same to him it would have had the same result.
All the interrogators met up to compare their results and to validate the stories they had received. It seemed that three different pirate groups had been assigned to raid the villages they passed and they were to seize all the females between 15 and 35, it wasn’t their plan to kill everybody else, they just got in the way or so they said.
The women had been put into one group and were being marched on foot to the rendezvous point by the great lake. It also came to light that the pirates had closed in on the landing party so quickly, because they were using transport discs. These discs were nothing that Kyle, Kang or Winkler had come across before and apparently were a gift from the pirate’s alien allies. When the discs were located by Winkler’s scouts there were found to be 5 of them, each bronze and twenty feet across. They were roofless, had a control console at the front and a pilot seat which would fit two people. The height of the driver’s seat indicated that the normal flyer would be unusually tall. Kyle estimated they would each carry around 25 normal sized people and certainly all the surviving Lillindians.
Boots, Sunshine and Speedy were delegated to pilot three of the craft. Mastering the controls and power system was extremely difficult, until Boots flushed out one of the pirate flyers who reluctantly demonstrated the flight controls. Speedy of course was in her element and she was the first of the novice disc pilots to get their craft airborne, as the other two were struggling to maintain the hover position, Speedy was pulling spins, doing 90 degree climbs and horizontal dives.
Kyle called the craft back in and did a head count of his force while he was waiting, there were 30 Lillindians including Winkler, three of those being walking wounded. All the Seeker of Moons crew were still fit and able, though many of them bore bruises from energy impacts.
After consulting Kang and Winkler, it was decided that using one disc Winkler and 18 fit marines would accompany Kyle, Kang, Shiner, Ploughman and Speedy, to go in pursuit of the women. The other two discs would transport their captives and the remaining marines as guards, to one of the larger settlements to hand over the prisoners. Trilby, who was now only partly sedated wanted to help, it was decided that she would go to explain the situation and to take arms and ammunition which had been captured. Once the prisoners were handed over, the discs were to rendezvous back with Kyle for the attack on the pirate’s spaceship at the Great Lake.
As quickly as they could, they loaded Speedy’s flying disc with the equipment they needed and Kyle’s group waved to the others as they rose into the air and at treetop height headed towards their fate.
Chapter 9
Aliens Encountered
The last thing that Kyle remembered about their departure from the battleground were the two piles of bodies awaiting burial by the captive pirates, who had been organised into a work detail for the purpose. Seeing the small bodies of the Lillindians made Kyle feel sad, there were too many dead, when nothing as yet had been achieved towards his actual mission.
There were other more pressing things to be thinking about and he used his helmet communicator to call up the Seeker of Moons, Bambi was on duty when he called in.
“Hi Bambs, how’s it going up there in the stars?”
“We are ready to come and get you, just give us a call….. Sir,” she added, “are you ok?”
“We have lost the shuttle and around a dozen marines but we are still hanging in.”
“Oh a word of caution, the Admiral is after your blood, he is not happy about the diversion. Probably it’s not a good idea to mention the losses just yet. Try and wrap it up down there as quick as you can and we’ll come in for you.”
“Sure thing, we have some new technology to bring back for you to play with but right now I need any intel you’ve got for the Great Lake area and the immediate sub-space.”
“I’ll send a current synopsis to your pane but briefly we’ve picked up an alien ship, I think it’s the one that jumped the shuttle. It’s landed by the Lake and the craft that brought in the pirates is on the other side of the water. We cannot penetrate the alien craft's electronic defences, so cannot give you anything on occupants, armaments or power plant. On the other hand we detected that the pirate craft has 3 occupants remaining onboard, its’ ionprop-reactor is on constant charge and can lift virtually instantly so they may fly if threatened.”
“Thanks Bambs, if you don’t hear any more from us down here, then abort the mission and return to Berengia, do you hear me?”
“Yes I do hear you but in the last few weeks I’ve seen how resourceful you are, so I know that I will be hearing from you! There is also the small matter of the holiday you owe me, so get back pronto and let’s get this mission completed.”
"Sure thing Senior Engineer Klein, Cassidy out.”
*****************************
It was beginning to go dusk on Edenfall and according to Speedy’s calculations the alien ships landing site was approaching. There was a thin copse to the south of the target area and as planned beforehand, Speedy dropped down behind the wooded area. Hovering a few inches from the ground Kyle and his party leaped over the side rail and landed in the mud, softened by a heavy shower. The Lillindians were already soaked to the skin as there was no cover on the saucer shaped craft but the full size humans in their impregnable suits were oblivious to the rain bouncing off their armour.
Without a sound the disk performed half a rotation and shot away at ground level towards the secondary objective, the pirate ship. This now carried the second assault team consisting of Shiner and Speedy together with six of the marines.
Pushing through the copse Kyle’s team cautiously pressed forward, but it was unfortunate when they disturbed a flock of ground nesting graubergs and the large game birds lumbered into the darkening sky, squawking like their tails were on fire. This caused the group to hit the deck as they tried to hide from the expected enemy fire but none came. They carried on slowly until they reached the edge of the copse from where they could survey their objective.
Kyle lifted his pane in front of his face and motioning his fingers over a screen based telescope icon, he focused on what he could now see was the alien ship. It was black like his own but not matt, it was glossy and reflected the campfire lights from around 40 feet away. The ship was quite large and stood on eight bent legs, with a black ramp bridging the gap from the fuselage to the ground. It had running lights like a human ship but these were green. At the bottom of the ramp on either side were two alien sentries. Kyle adjusted his pane to focus on the left side sentry and here was the first non-human based intelligent life form he had ever seen. According to the scale on the screen of the pane this guy was just short of eight feet tall. Kyle couldn’t help wondering whether this character could play the ancient game of basketball.
Focussing more intensely, he could see that this alien wore silvery armour consisting of linked panels, he could also make out the swirling black cloak attached to the armour’s shoulders. When he looked at the head he realised that this being was truly alien, the head was large and like an inverted triangle but nearly all bone. There we
re two eyes glinting orange and the alien’s mouth appeared to be a wide slit within the bone of the chin. It was not possible to tell if this character had teeth but Kyle was imagining they would not be a pretty sight. What really struck him was the bulge on top of the alien’s head, right in the centre of the crown was his visible brain and this had some sort of blue tinted transparent cover protecting it.
The pair of sentries were totally immobile but the long red rods they leant on indicated they were prepared for trouble.
Kyle did not really have a plan, but he wanted his force to get as close as possible to the group of women prisoners before he sprang an attack. Gradually the line of armoured troops along with camouflaged marines crawled through the scrub and edged nearer to the campfires which marked the boundaries of the raiders’ camp. Winkler reported that his men had counted 6 pirates in pairs patrolling the boundary. Inside the perimeter, huddled together were the women, they were comforting each other but for the most part shocked by the day’s events and their ordeal. There were probably about 60 women from late teens to late thirties and only having the clothes they wore when they were snatched, were soaked by the rain. The other six pirates were resting under a canvas shelter they had rigged against the weather and were partly obscured by smoke rising from a struggling fire they had made.
At the end of this shelter was a seventh pirate Benji, the leader of the Edenfall raid. He was trying to get the astral communicator unit working and was regretting removing it from his ship the Spotted Canary. He was trying to put the Boneheads in touch with Darian Kurko to facilitate the trade of captured women. Within the fringe world zone, the communicator was almost real time but not quite and when he eventually found the co-ordinates for Darian’s palace, the first image through was the back of the tyrant’s head, which turned to reveal an infuriated face contorted in rage and his bulbous eyes appeared to be staring right at Benj.
“Benji, you microbe what’s happening? Why haven’t you reported in before?”
“It’s not my fault Chief, Chilmni and Pinky haven’t got back yet.”
“What do you mean they haven’t got back yet, they should have been back with you a couple of hours ago, they took the flying discs didn’t they, and they’ve got communicators haven’t they? You’ve only got to fight farmers and preachers, you are useless, useless!
I promised the Boneheads 100 females by dusk, how many have been brought in so far?”
“We’ve got 59 but they are good ones, mostly around twenty years old and we should easily get to 100 when the other two groups get back.”
“OK, we are going to have to stall for time, I’ll tell the Boneheads we are handing them over in batches of 10 and they can pay for each group on handover. Get the first two lots ready in 20 minutes and keep trying to find Chilmni or Pinky, send the Canary if you have to and Benji don’t let me down, right!”
The monitor image faded and Benji let out a long breath, Dario is not happy now, I just don’t want to think about it if things get worse.
On the camp perimeter, the two pirates patrolling next to the hiding attackers could be clearly heard as they raised their voices against the continuing rain.
“Where the hell are Pinky and his mob?” said the taller of the two.
His partner replied, “They had better be soon, I just want to hand this lot over,” pointing his thumb at the group of women, “then perhaps we can get off this dung heap.”
The first pirate then came back with, “Benji says, if Pinky isn’t back in another half-an hour he and his clan can rot here. That means there is more bounty for us on handing over the farm girls.”
“That’s not such bad news, let’s hope this damned rain stops now and we can get this deal with the stone faces over.” They continued to chat as they turned at a right angle and sauntered on.
Kyle used his helmet comms to co-ordinate the attack with Winkler and Kang and to apportion objectives. The would be rescuers continued edging forward as a group through the spiky long grass.
Before they could move very far, the evening sky exploded into a thousand shimmering stars as the alien ship launched multiple electronic flares over their heads.
“Damn, they’ve picked us up,” Kyle cursed, this was going to get messy…..
************************************
On the far side of the lake Speedy raced the flying disc towards the pirate transport which was still waiting for the order to collect their comrades returning from their various raids. It was getting late, Pinky and his group had not been in touch for a while, something was wrong and the three detailed to guard their ship decided it was too dangerous to be on duty outside and had retired back into the ship closing the doors behind them.
There was another small group on its way back, commanded by Chilmni but they had been delayed by chasing after a number of women that had managed to escape. Benji over at the rendezvous point reluctantly agreed to wait another hour on top of the half hour he had already given as his deadline.
Speedy wanted to lead the attack, but Shiner reminded her that Kyle had given him Kang’s plan and he intended to carry it through. In accordance with orders Speedy flew the disc directly over the raider’s ship, in view of the occupants and being Speedy, she flew so low she nearly clipped the dorsal communications antennae deliberately. The disc landed behind a group of trees and from the canvas bag Shiner had brought along he produced the pirate’s armoured suit they had captured earlier, he also pulled out three sets of women’s clothing. He did not improve in Speedy’s standing when he asked her to strip off her armour for the zero protection of the dress. She gave him the customary abuse that he had come to expect, but had hoped to catch sight of her figure. Unfortunately for him, she insisted on keeping on her blast resistant all-over body suit, which was not looking its best after the recent battle and it made Shiner concentrate on the preparations for their attack.
The four unfortunate male marines selected to be women, were equally not impressed with having to wear frocks but at least they still had their combat clothes underneath. As the Lillindians were too short to pass for normal adults individually it was planned that they should work in pairs, with the smallest sitting on his partners shoulders.
Once ready, the group set off on foot towards the pirate vessel, the three apparent captives including two very wobbly ones being herded along by Shiner in his borrowed red armour with visor down.
Shiner had heard the former owner of the armour speak and he had a thick rustic accent associated with the fringe worlds; he had been practising it since leaving the last village in case they were challenged but had hoped not to have to put it into practice.
Shiner was holding a Bantari automatic plasma rifle, as favoured by the Walendian pirates, but over his shoulder he hefted his canvas bag, which contained his and Speedy’s dominators along with the weapons of the four accompanying marines and a selection of stun, plasma and smoke grenades.
Just for realism, Shiner poked his charges from time to time with the muzzle of his gun, which caused even more oaths from Speedy and also nearly caused the Lillindian ‘ladies’ to fall apart.
They managed to reach the ramp of the ship and Shiner pushed Speedy forward first, as the only genuine woman, there was a better chance of acceptance by the occupiers if they saw her first.
Shiner rapped on the closed mid-section access door with his gun butt and one of the pirates lowered the external blast screen from inside, so he could look out through the plexi-glass window.
“Muzzy, is that you, where is Pinky and the rest?”
Doing his best to mimic 'Muzzy', whose name was crudely stencilled at the side of his helmet, Shiner rasped in his practised accent, “Ferk knows, these cattle made a break for it about a mile away and we are all trying to round 'em up, am I first back?”
“Yeh, hang on I’ll let you in,” with that the pirate behind the door pressed the door raise button and as an afterthought added “why you still got your visor down?”
; It was much too late a question, as Shiner had already released a stream of electric blue plasma towards the pirate’s legs through the part opened door. Shiner threw the haversack after the 4 Lillindians, who had abandoned the female outer garb and rolled under the gap, eager to get on with the assault.
The pirate at the door was only partly armoured and the plasma blast had knocked him off his feet, allowing the flaming fire to wrap around his body searing the exposed parts before consuming the remainder of the flesh, organ and bone from within.
The remaining two pirates were now running for their lives but without knowing where to run. One of them, hold up in the access chamber to the air lock and was exchanging fire with the Lillindians, dropping one with a plasma pistol, before receiving a titanium bullet to the head from a Lillindian sharpshooter.
It was all too much for the last pirate who dived for the escape tube and being roughly deposited on the grass outside the ship, found himself staring into the short barrels of the carbines held by the two marines who had not taken part in the attack.
The prisoner and the two marine captors entered the ship to see their colleagues clearing up the mess. Speedy and Shiner were changing back into their Seeker of Moons armoured suits.
Speedy was berating Shiner for not being allowed a chance to join the firefight, to the Lillindian soldiers, they must have seemed like an old married couple.
After clearing up the debris inside the armed raider and safely securing their prisoner, the new crew of the 'Spotted Canary' solemnly carried the body of their fallen Lillindian comrade, Peter Torfe to his newly dug grave. The senior marine present was Lead Private Gumm and as they all stood round and placed turf on the top of the grave he began to speak.
“Here lies a small man.
From a far land from a fine clan.
Seeker of Moons (Cassidy's Command Book 1) Page 15
