“Agreed,” Sibrex grumbled.
“So, what’re we doing?” Puar asked.
“We’re going back. If we’re wanted criminals, I want to die on my feet fighting, not of boredom.”
“Then let’s go!” Puar shouted.
Sibrex took his spot in the cockpit while Khai took the controls. Puar sat back in the copilot’s seat and did nothing but smile like a six-year-old boy on his birthday.
After a moment of powering up, the Event Horizon Drive kicked in and tore a hole in space time. The Star Splitter entered the micro-black hole and emerged just outside of the Seryys System. At full power, they would be there within a few hours, which was plenty of time to prepare for whatever came their way.
Dah landed his ship in a clearing near a playground. There were five children, surrounded by seven adults, surrounded by six Reapers which were closing in. From the cockpit, Dah used the PA system to get the monsters’ attention.
“Hey, uglies!” he shouted, his voice amplified by the external speakers. “Come and get it!”
The three closest Reapers broke off their attack and lumbered for the ship. Dah opened up with the forward cannons and ripped through the monsters, tearing them to shreds.
“Move!” Dah shouted to the people.
As they started running for safety, Dah ran to the ramp to cover their approach. The civilians were running for their lives, but not fast enough; the Reapers were closing fast. Dah picked his targets and fired. Three well-placed bullets zipped over a child’s head and found their target. The Reaper yelped, stumbled and slid to a halt in a heap. The child tripped and fell forward. His father stopped to pick him up and was instantly pounced on.
“Shit!” Dah growled. He lined up crosshairs on the monster bashing the man. Tat-tat-tat! Three more shots hit home and the monster continued to pound down on the man and his child. Dah flipped the switch on his gun to full auto and squeezed the trigger. Dozens of bullets found their mark and the monster jumped up and started flopping about.
The man and child, bruised and battered, jumped up and started running for the ship. Dah covered their escape and once everyone was on board, he slapped the ramp button and covered the entrance until the ramp was completely closed. The things started pounding against the hull of the ship and a woman started crying frantically!
“They’re getting in!” she cried. “We’re all gonna die!”
“Calm down, ma’am,” Dah soothed. “This ship has a Ti’tan’lium hull. They’re not getting through.”
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump-thump!
“How can you say that?” she screamed. “Are you deaf or just stupid?”
“Will someone please subdue her before I do?” another man shouted.
“Don’t touch my wife, or I’ll lay you out!” another man growled angrily.
“Please, people!” Dah tried to maintain some order.
The woman wouldn’t stop screaming, the children started crying, the men were arguing and Dah’s head was starting to hurt. “SHUT UP!” Dah bellowed at the top of his lungs. The silence that followed was golden. Everyone just stared at him with surprise, anger and fear. He continued in a calm, quiet voice. “Thank you. Now, my name is Captain Dack’Tandy Dah. I have been ordered to evacuate you to Shark Stadium where you will be safe. If you would please take a seat and hang on, I need to make a few more stops and pick up some more people; then we will all get to safety. Understood?”
He got several nods. “Good.”
Dah stalked back to the cockpit and lifted the ship up.
“Captain Dah,” the onboard AI, Amber, spoke. “I am detecting life forms standing atop the hull. Shall I electrify the hull to get them off?”
“No,” Dah replied. “I’ll do it the fun way. Kick in the artificial gravity.”
“As you wish.”
Once the Bolt Bucket was a few yards from the ground, Dah punched it. The sudden acceleration prompted a few surprised yelps from the back and thudding from the dorsal hull to stop. Dah blasted off for the next stop, instantly feeling better about himself.
The Star Splitter had just started re-entry when Puar woke up from his nap.
“What’d I miss?”
“Nothing,” Khai said with his hands on the controls. “We’re here. Sibrex, when we’re in, call Dack on his com unit. I want to talk to him right away.”
“As you wish, Khai.”
Dah landed the ship in the opening of a cul-de-sac where the next SOS had originated. It was quiet. There were people running scared, no monster chasing people down. Suddenly, Dah’s com crackled to life.
“Unidentified ship, this is Lieutenant Bradar of the SCDF. Come about eighty degrees to your starboard and look up.”
Dah complied. “What am I looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
As the ship panned to the right, Dah looked up out the canopy and saw it: a large group of people standing, waving their frantic arms atop a four-story house.
“I see you. Hang on.”
Dah lifted off and hovered over the roof of the house.
“Don’t land!” Bradar warned. “The roof won’t hold the weight of your ship. You’ll have to hover and lower the ramp as close to the roof as possible. From there, we’ll make the jump!”
“Copy that,” Dah said to Bradar, then to Amber. “Try to hold the altitude as steady as possible while I get us as close as I can.”
“Holding…”
Dah got the ship close enough that they would only have to take a long step. “Amber, hold this position.”
“Holding…”
Dah got up and headed for the ramp. When it lowered, Dah could see that roughly ten people were huddled up there. First the children came, Bradar and Dah helped them aboard, followed by the women and then the rest. Once all were safely aboard, Dah and Bradar went to the cockpit.
“Getting pretty crowded back there,” Bradar remarked.
“I know, but I think we can make one more stop before going back.”
“You’re in charge,” Bradar said. “But I’ll help wherever I can.”
“If you can keep the engines hot while I get the people aboard, things will go a lot quicker.”
“Agreed.”
Dah made his next stop. This was one was bad, really bad. There were at least fifteen dead civilians, two dead Reapers, ten living civilians and close to thirty living Reapers.
A passenger walked up to the cockpit unnoticed.
“We’re not landing in that are we?” he asked incredulously prompting the two to jump.
“Yes, we are. Those people need our help. Just stay in the ship and stay out of our way. I promise that nothing will happen to any of you,” Dah said, pointing back to the hold.
The man sauntered back. “I’ll put her down there behind the crowd of Reapers, you get those cannons trained on them and I’ll cover their escape from the top.”
“Got it!”
Dah worked his way to the upper hatch and rode the small lift up. Once on top of the ship, he had a perfect view on the whole thing. The ship was landed in a park. The grouping of people was huddled in a corner where two high-rises met. The Reapers were converging from both sides. There were a few cops using whatever means they had to delay what they thought would be the inevitable. But when the heavy cannons from the Bolt Bucket opened fire and mowed down the several ranks of monsters, hope returned to their faces.
Dah was picking his targets with great care as to not hit the people, and Bradar was picking off the monsters farther away from the civilians. A blood-curdling screech drew Dah’s attention to the port side of the ship and he saw dozens more Reapers incoming.
“Bradar! Port side cannons!” Dah shouted into his mic.
“What? Oh shit!” The port side cannon opened fire mowing down the Reapers approaching from that direction, but it was like throwing rocks at an oncoming wave; it wasn’t stopping them. That’s when Dah heard a huff and thud over his radio and both cannons fell silent.
“Bradar, are you okay?” No response. “Bradar, do you copy? Bradar? BRADAR? Damn! What the hell-”
Suddenly, Dah was rocked to his butt as the ship violently jerked up to the left.
“What the hell is happening down there?” Still nothing. The ship listed to the right and dipped to the left. “Amber, what is going on?”
“It would appear that someone without an ounce of flight experience has taken the controls.”
“Can you stop them?”
“Not without killing whoever is in the pilot’s seat.”
“You have nothing non-lethal?”
“I belonged to a smuggler with no regard for life but his own. What were you expecting, heated massaging seats?”
“Actually, that would be nice.”
The ship bucked and Dah had to sprawl out to stay on top of his ship. All of a sudden, the ship angled up. “Oh! Not good!” Then he heard the engines starting to rev up. “Ah, crap.” Dah said with resignation, his shoulders slumping. The engines fired and the ship literally swept out from under Dah’s feet leaving him to fall the forty feet to the ground. He only had time to think of Bri before lights out.
“He’s not responding,” Sibrex announced.
“Is his com unit off?” Khai asked.
“No. It’s on, he’s simply not responding to my hails.”
“If it’s on, we can track it. Use the sensors to pinpoint his location and send it to my HUD.”
“As you wish.”
Less than ten seconds later, a blip showed up on his radar. Hang on Dack. I’m coming!
The city was a mess from this altitude. Billowing plumes of smoke rose like titans over the city from hundreds of fires at ground level, casting the whole area in a gray haze. Navy bombers swept down streets between high-rises dropping hellfire bombs and flash-frying everything in their path. As soon as Khai tuned into the emergency frequencies, the speaker exploded with chatter. Orders, cries of pain, pleas for help all filled their ears.
“What the hell is going on down there?” Puar asked, his voice full of worry.
“Puar, you see that frequency panel over there on your right?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a button marked ‘SCDF,’ hit it.”
The indiscernible noise was instantly reduced to only a few voices. Though there were still several conversations going on at the same time, Khai was able to pick out key words and one of them made butterflies whirl up in his stomach: “Reapers.”
“Oh no…”
“What?” Puar asked.
“Reapers,” Khai said with dread.
“You mean, like the mythical creatures you see on the ‘Vyyd?”
“No. Like the real ones that are ten times scarier.”
“What are Reapers?” Sibrex asked.
“You’ll know soon enough,” Khai didn’t hide the dread in his voice and for good reason.
“I have picked up on Captain Dah’s com unit and ship,” Sibrex announced. “Come about starboard twenty degrees and proceed forward for six miles.”
Khai could cover that distance in no time. He punched it to full throttle.
Upon approach, Khai could see Dah was in trouble. The Bolt Bucket was angling nose up as if about to make for orbit, but he was still standing atop the ship trying not to fall off. Below there were dozens of Reapers. The Bucket’s engines flashed and Dah tumbled off.
“Shit!” Khai snapped. “Puar, take the stick. Sibrex, contact SCDF and tell them that Captain Dah’s ship has been commandeered by an unknown hijacker, but don’t tell them who you are. Just use the code word “lance” and they shouldn’t ask any questions.” He got nods from both. “Good. Puar, drop to ten feet and I’ll exit the ship from there. Stick around, though. I’m gonna need a quick evac for roughly twenty.”
Puar dropped to ten feet and Khai slapped the hatch button. They bounded out and landed next to Dah’s still body. The Reapers were on him instantly. With his trusted pistol in one hand and a nasty-looking combat knife in the other, he engaged the monsters. In a fluid, multi-attack movement, he popped two bullets into the shiny head of the first Reaper on him, lobbed the head from the second one, drove the barrel of his gun into the mouth of the third and pulled the trigger. It was only ten seconds into his fight and he was covered from head to toe in purple goo.
After his gun ran out of ammo, he went hand-to-hand with the things. Puar and Sibrex could only watch and marvel at his combat expertise.
“Look at him go!” Puar yelled.
“Indeed,” Sibrex agreed.
Reaper bodies started piling up. A particularly nasty and large Reaper approached Khai, roaring a challenge. Khai tilted his head and popped his neck.
“Let’s dance!”
Khai charged the thing, it reciprocated. The two met and a gridlock ensued. Each was trying to bear down on the other. The Reaper’s jaws snapped at Khai’s face several times and Khai’s hands were wrapped tightly around the Reaper’s wrists keeping it at bay. Arms shook with exertion; both growled at each other; Khai was sweating; the monster was losing. Suddenly, Khai became aware that he was surrounded. The monsters were closing in and he was in for a world of hurt.
Another Reaper sunk his claws into Khai’s back prompting a growl of pain and making him drop to one knee. The larger Reaper disengaged the gridlock and reared for an attack. Khai’s reflex package kicked in and he dropped to his stomach to avoid the decapitating blow and having to remove the claws from his back. He rolled to his right and ended up face to face with Dah, still unconscious. Come on, Dack. Wake up already!
His reflex package saved him again. He saw a shadow looming up with a raised hand. Khai backward somersaulted to his feet as the claws dug deep into the ground. The Reaper howled with rage. At that point, Khai realized he was grossly outnumbered and that the group of civilians in the corner of the buildings was dead.
Damn it!
Khai prepared for the inevitable when the ground around him was instantly exploding into pock marks and purple blood. The air was filled with agonized screeches as both Puar and Sibrex opened fire on the swarm. Khai charged forward with a war cry thudding a thunderous kick into the first Reaper he saw, knocking it clean off its feet. Another was leaning down over Dah getting ready to bite down when Khai tackled the thing and drove it to its back. From there he literally pummeled the monster to death.
Breathing heavily, getting up, purple blood dripping from his raw knuckles, he looked for another victim. He found it, another Reaper was snarling at him, bearing its needle-like teeth. Khai wasted no time and knocked them clear out of its face. The monster reeled and Khai kept pushing, a punch to the ribs, a kick to the knee buckling it, a boot to the face caving it in. Two more attacked him from behind. He reached back, grabbing one by the back of the neck, and rolled it over his shoulder to the ground. Then he spun to take on the other one. It was a smaller Reaper and Khai had to grin. He crushed it in the stomach with flat-footed kick. When the monster doubled over, Khai grabbed it by the back of the head and drove its face into his rising knee. By that point, the other Reaper was up and attacking. A barrage of wild rakes hit nothing but air as Khai bobbed and weaved around the attacks. Khai ducked under a horizontal rake and came up with a devastating uppercut that sent the beast sprawling to its back and spitting teeth.
“Khai!” Sibrex boomed over the sound of his own heart pounding in his chest. “If you are quite done, we should leave!”
In his blood rage, he had completely missed the part where Sibrex and Puar landed the ship, scooped up Dah’s body and lifted off. Khai sprinted for the ship, clotheslining a Reaper on the way. The ship was just out of Khai’s jumping range so he employed a little help. As a Reaper was feeding on one of its own, Khai ran up its back, planting three steps and launching off its shoulders. The vertical jump was enough to get Khai high enough to grab Sibrex’s hand and he was hauled in. Dah was lying next to him motionless.
“Dack! You with me?” Khai asked, reaching for
his neck to check for a pulse. Nothing. “Dack? Come on buddy, don’t do this to me!” He started doing chest compressions. “Puar, get us to the military hospital – now!”
Chapter Ten
The Savvy Merchant emerged from the black hole it created near the coordinates Dack’Tander was given. It took four jumps and almost a whole day with a trip around the unexplored core of the galaxy. Immediately, proximity alarms blared in his ear and he was forced to take evasive action as he almost collided with an asteroid the size of one of Seryys’ moons. After some tricky piloting on his part, he was able to find a gap for relative safety.
“Jarv, what the hell is this?”
“It would appear to be an asteroid field of some kind,” the computer’s regal voice came over the speakers.
“I see that, but why isn’t it on the star chart that we have?”
“It stands to reason that the map by which you are navigating is outdated, given that it is several tens of thousands of years old.”
“What is the area of this asteroid field?”
“Scanning…” a moment passed, “Calculating…” another long moment passed. Just as Tander was about to lose his patience, Jarv responded. “Based on the speed and direction of the drift, and the density of asteroids in the immediate area, I’d say approximately 560,935,250 square miles.”
Tander let out a long whistle. “That’s big,” Tander murmured.
“Indeed,” Jarv replied.
“What else is out there?”
“According to the star chart we were provided, there should be a binary star system and a smaller star—possibly a sub-dwarf—less than a light-year out. However, I am detecting nothing of the sort. I’m picking up on the sub-dwarf—which is not exactly where it should be, but I’m also picking up what I believe to be the secondary star which is also way out of its orbit. Most disturbing is that there are no planets in the system.”
“What? How can there be nothing?”
“I am also detecting trace amounts of manufactured metals, but of an elemental makeup with which I am unfamiliar.”
The Seryys Chronicles: Of Nightmares Page 8
