by Jan Domagala
Jared threw a leg over the roof as he hung onto the ladder and began to scale down it before the Senator could argue some more.
Reluctantly Tovaric followed him onto the ladder and the two of them began the long haul down to the street level.
Half way down a voice from above alerted them to danger.
“Over here.”
Jared peered around the Senator above him and saw a face at the edge of the roof, which was quickly joined by another. One of the men chasing them must have seen them and called over to the other. Jared saw what looked like a pistol in the other man’s hand, which was confirmed when a pulsed plasma bolt struck the wall at the side of them.
“Down… fast…” Jared ordered Tovaric. With the Senator above him he couldn’t return fire without hitting the man he was supposed to be rescuing. The only alternative was for them to get to the ground as fast as they could.
Jared looked down and saw two more figures entering the alleyway from the direction of the street.
“Holy crap!” he said.
“What?” questioned Tovaric as he too looked down and saw the two men running towards them. Both of them had their pistols drawn ready to fire, or at least as a warning. Jared hoped they wanted Tovaric alive and were not working on a ‘shoot to kill’ order. He was relieved when he heard them shout orders for them to come down slowly.
Before the two men could react Jared brought out the Magerov he had already drawn and fired. The first two shots struck the man on the right squarely on his torso knocking him back into the dirt. The second salvo was not as effective as the man had time to move. The second of the two shots Jared fired at him grazed his shoulder sending him spinning to the floor, luckily for the two on the ladder the man’s pistol was sent flying from his hand. This gave Jared time to realign his aim and the third time he fired he shot the man in the centre of his head.
“Right Senator, let’s move it before those two up top either call for more back up or decide they don’t want you alive anymore,” Jared said and he increased his pace down the ladder.
The two of them reached the bottom and headed for the street followed by shouts from the men up top for them to stop. A few poorly aimed plasma bolts struck the ground at their feet as they ran but it was a vain attempt to get them to stop.
A vehicle pulled up at the street entrance to the alleyway and a door opened.
“Get in,” said Mikal Danovic. The car was dirty and battered and had definitely seen better days but it fitted in with the neighbourhood well.
“What kept you?” Jared asked as he pushed Tovaric through the door into the rear compartment. He jumped in himself and Danovic powered the vehicle away from the kerb into a stream of traffic.
“Where to?” Danovic asked as he concentrated on driving the vehicle. It smelt of dried urine and cigar smoke and Jared saw Tovaric curl his nose up as he looked around at the interior.
“As far away from here as possible,” Jared said, adding, “but be careful not to attract too much attention. Where is the shuttle parked?”
“I managed to find a little used private landing field not far from here. Hoppers use it and the occasional shuttle so we should be okay with it.”
“Good, sounds okay, let’s just hope they haven’t locked down every exit point from the city or we may have a larger problem than we were led to believe,” Jared said glancing at the Senator.
They drove for a while passing by other ground vehicles most in the same condition as the one they were in, but there were a few that stood out like a sunflower in a poppy field simply because of their newness. These were obviously government vehicles and had carried those agents who had been trying to capture them. Jared watched as they passed by them leaving them behind as they attempted to form a cordon around the hotel.
“Looks like we cut that one close again Boss,” Danovic observed as he drove away from the area.
“Don’t we always,” Jared said. He glanced at the Senator who was still wide-eyed and in shock at still being alive and relatively free.
“Let’s get to the shuttle my friend, this isn’t over yet,” Jared said.
“And here I was just thinking I could start to relax,” Tovaric groaned.
30
I
Tartaran
“How do we get back up top again?” Zara asked as the pair of them looked around the room they were in.
“I’m working on it,” Kurt replied. His keen eyes scanned the room as his memory replayed the recent events overlaid with a virtual map of the city he had acquired during their time within its walls. His mind was collating all the data, trying to put it into some sort of order so that he could retrace their steps and find a way out of the level they were in.
“There has to be a way to get back up. Whoever built and worked in this city would not build an underground section with only a means of getting down to it without getting back up. It just doesn’t make sense, it’s not logical, so there has to be a way of getting back via another route and reversing that platform,” he said after a while.
“I haven’t found anything yet,” Zara told him.
“Wait, what’s that?” Kurt said as he spotted something.
An elevator door opened as he approached. He figured it must be activated by a remote sensor as he saw no access panel.
“Here we go,” he said as he had a look around the interior. Zara quickly walked over to him and entered the small cubicle. The door closed behind her eliciting a look of surprise from her.
“I know, no controls,” Kurt replied as he indicated the bare wall adjacent the doors.
“It must be automatic,” she observed adding, “once inside it either takes you up or down depending which floor you access it from.”
Kurt nodded his head in agreement but his face was blank as he listened to what was going on around them. He tuned his remarkable hearing to the sounds of people approaching their location. He also was tuned into the city’s computer to see what it was doing. Within a few heartbeats he had a clearer picture of what was happening in the city above ground and also what had taken place in the past when the Alliance and the Confederation had fought over this planet.
“This city is autonomous. Whoever built this placed a failsafe program into the computer and we’re seeing the results of that program as did the ships that fought over this planet five decades ago. We’ll never colonise Tartaran and neither will anyone else. The planet simply won’t allow it,” he said as he disconnected from his search into the computer. His eyes were wide with shock as he saw it all laid out all before him, his face blank as he inwardly reviewed what he had learned. Whether the computer had allowed him to know the facts or not he felt like he had been given a valuable insight into the planet’s history, just enough for them to see what they were up against. It was almost as if the planet had taken him into its confidence.
“We have to stop those troops and get off this planet before something else happens,” he said.
“What else happens?” Zara asked as she grabbed his arm to help him focus on her.
“I’m not sure, just that it will be bad,” Kurt said turning to look at her, his cobalt eyes narrowing as he tried to see something in the distance, but it was just too far to focus on.
“Bad how - end of all life on the planet bad - or what?” Zara wanted him to clarify as she stared into his face.
“You know how the creatures on this planet seem to have a predisposition to hate humans?”
Zara nodded her head for him to go on.
“I think somehow this planet or this city is tuned into that. I don’t know how, it just seems that the indigenous life always knows where we are and are ready to attack and kill us. It could just be that they can sense when humans are near and they instinctively attack any interloper to their domain, but I get the impression that if we don’t leave soon they will attack in greater numbers than ever before.”
“You mean like an all-out attack?”
“Until there is no tra
ce of human life left on this planet, yes,” Kurt said.
“Then we had better hurry,” Zara said as the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened and without waiting she was through the opening and into the upper level of the city.
Kurt followed her as he rallied around, his attention now back on the job at hand. He looked around and through his internal map he found their location.
“We’re not too far from where the Black Knights are,” he said.
“How do you know that?” Zara asked turning to look at him, her brow creasing.
“I’ve got a fix on our location overlaid with anyone else in this city, don’t ask,” he said waving away any further questions from her on the subject as they had so little time.
“Okay, what do you suggest?” she asked instead.
He looked at her and gave her a smile before telling her what he had in mind.
II
“Keep a tight formation, groups of no more than three and spread out. These corridors are small so we don’t want any surprises,” Major Solon said as he led the men deeper into the city. As they reached an intersection he used hand signals to order half his men down one side while he led the rest the other way.
They had passed by the scene of the fight Kurt had with the feline creatures and had gone deeper into the city. Solon kept his eyes focused on the corridor ahead. He knew there was danger here but he had no idea from which direction it would come or in what form. A series of doors presented themselves to the Black Knights as they reached a long, straight section of corridor. Solon indicated that they should split up, a group to each room to clear them.
Confident that they could cope, he led the rest of his men down the corridor to the end where it branched off to the right.
They came to the courtyard area that Kurt and Zara had found earlier. The floor, which had lowered them to the interior, had returned and was in place once more with no sign that it had ever moved. Solon brought his men up at the edge as he looked around. It was as it was when Kurt and Zara had come upon it, overgrown with weeds and discarded by time.
Solon stepped out into the open section keeping close to the edge but far enough past the corridor opening that he could look up and around. The walls stretched up several stories and he could make out walkways that ran around the edge overlooking the courtyard where he stood. Behind these walkways he could just make out on the lower floors doors that led to somewhere, but he could only guess where. There was no sign of life anywhere, not even the indigenous creatures they had fought so hard on their first trip to the surface.
He had no idea what he was looking for; he just knew he had to find it.
He beckoned his men forward.
III
Kurt and Zara waited for the door to open. Three men dressed in combat gear stormed through the narrow opening. Quickly they spread out, one going left, one going right while the last remained by the door to cover the only escape route.
Two bright, intense lights burst either side of the Black Knight guarding the door. The soldier instinctively put up a hand to shield his eyes but by this time it was too late.
Kurt stepped out of the light and punched the soldier to the head. The soldier crumpled and fell to the floor. Zara stepped out of the other light, her assault rifle up at her shoulder ready to fire.
The other two soldiers turned when they saw the light burst behind them and received plasma bolts to their chest. They went flying back and before they hit the ground Kurt and Zara had left the room the same way they had entered.
In less than three minutes they had cleared four of the rooms filled with Alliance soldiers.
Using this same tactic they continued in every room along the corridor. They would suddenly appear in another room amongst the Alliance soldiers and methodically wipe them out. Their appearance was so sudden that they caught the soldiers off guard every time.
Once they had cleared the last room Zara looked at Kurt with a smile playing across her lips as she said, “Good plan. What now?”
IV
The gunfire alerted Major Solon to something not being quite as he had planned, so he called for his men to call in. When none of those groups who had entered the rooms in the corridor leading to the courtyard he was about to enter answered, he stopped.
“What the fuck?” he said under his breath as he looked back towards the corridor, his eyes narrowing in anger. There was only one reason why his men would not answer his call and that was because they couldn’t. Somehow the Confederation forces had eliminated them, but how?
He called the rest of his men, “Use this signal to locate our position and re-join the group,” he said curtly not wanting to give anything away. He knew no one would be listening but he was taking no chances. His men had been neutralised somehow and he intended not to help whoever was responsible with the rest of them by giving out any further information.
Keeping his eyes firmly on the corridor entrance he signalled for his men to spread out in the middle of the courtyard. From that position he hoped they would have a clear view of anyone approaching.
Suddenly a bright light exploded on the balcony above where he was looking. The light was so intense it drew his eyes to it. Unable to turn his head away he closed his eyes tightly to shield them from the pain.
With his eyes closed, the staccato of gunfire alerted him to the sound of his men dying.
V
Kurt appeared on the balcony and opened fire on the soldiers in the courtyard below. His assault rifle hammered out plasma bolts that mercilessly cut down several soldiers below before he activated his SUT once more.
Zara appeared on the opposite side of the courtyard and opened fire just after he had. They worked in tandem never giving the soldiers below time to organise a defence against them. They simply mowed them down where they stood.
Kurt appeared opposite the entrance to the courtyard and as he brought up his assault rifle to fire he saw another group of soldiers run through the opening.
These soldiers immediately saw the threat and brought their weapons to bear on the target.
Without firing a single shot this time Kurt operated his SUT and disappeared once more.
“Abort,” he said into the battle comm. channel he and Zara shared and they both retreated to their alternative location.
31
I
Tartaran
The Legend, Odyssey and Atlantis had taken up positions close to the Cronus and the Potemkin battle group. Not too close as the Alliance ships had no power and without it they had started to drift. They would need to be stabilised soon before they either collided with the other Alliance ships or drifted into the gravitational field of Tartaran. Either option would be a disaster for those on board. Although he knew that was a moot point because if air was not supplied to the crew soon then whatever happened to the ships would not bother any of them because they would be dead from asphyxiation.
Remote links had been fired at each of the Alliance ships, small devices that would allow communication between both Confederation and Alliance ships, and Colonel De Boer was about to co-ordinate the rescue.
“This is Colonel De Boer of Col Sec. We know of your condition and we are here to help,” he said once the remote links were in position. “We are aware of the status of your ships as a result of the EMP from the planet below. You need to get off your ships or you will die. We will send shuttles to escort you off your ships and we will arrange transport back to your nearest base. Every crew member needs to put on an environment suit as our only ingress point will be the docking bay area of each ship. Time is running out gentlemen, we will start the evacuation immediately. God speed,” he said before closing the connection. He knew there was no way they could reply to him as the links were a one-way communication link but he was assured that his words had been heard.
“Okay gentlemen, this is not exactly what we were sent to do but we can’t allow all those souls to perish on board those husks so let’s get to work,” he said. He wa
s facing a monitor that linked him to the bridges of the Atlantis and Odyssey.
He turned to face Captain Biggs who was standing next to him, “We need to contact General Sinclair to update him on the situation here and he can organise the repatriation of the Alliance crews.”
Biggs nodded his head in approval and said, “I’ll get right on it.”
Everything was in place now for a peaceful end to this situation. He just hoped that the forces down on the ground didn’t jeopardise the outcome. It was up to Kurt, Zara and the rest of those he had sent down there to make sure things ended well. He stood facing the forward viewscreen, which showed the curvature of the planet nearby, his hands clasped behind his back. This next phase was something he could take no part in which troubled him for he was used to leading from the front. He had to rely on the competence of his men and in whom he had the utmost respect. That did not ease the troubled feeling that was sitting firmly in his gut, however, it was almost as if he was waiting for something to go wrong.
II
Paradisia
Jared, Mikal and the senator jumped out of the vehicle as they pulled up in the parking lot of the small airfield.
“Over there,” Mikal said indicating the shuttle parked over by the far edge of the airfield.
Jared looked around them, his eyes scanning for any signs of government agents lurking nearby.
“Good choice he said as he urged the Senator across the plascrete towards the shuttle.
“What are our chances of getting away from here without being stopped?” Tovaric asked as he kept pace with the others. His breathing was still laboured slightly but that was due more to the adrenalin coursing through his veins than because of any exertion.
Without looking at him Jared said, “Fifty/fifty I suppose.”
“That’s being generous, I’d only give us around seventy/thirty,” Mikal replied, glancing over his shoulder at his friend with a wry smile on his face. He was enjoying torturing the Senator a little.
“Not helping,” Jared told him as he saw the colour drain from Tovaric’s face.
“Just giving you my statistics. I thought a government official would appreciate accurate stats,” Mikal countered.
