A second later, the main screen split into images of the two most powerful men in the galaxy. Before Chuumdar could even speak, the Prime Minister started.
“I demand an explanation! You have destroyed six of our ships while they were defenseless!” Puar nearly shouted with rage.
Chuumdar’s face twisted with rage. “You dare feign ignorance?” his voice boomed over the communication channel.
“The only thing that I can tell you is that six of our ships, with their crews, are gone at the hands of your people!”
“Then explain this!” Chuumdar roared, holding up the decapitated head of a man Puar had never seen before. The bridge crew all gasped in horror. Even Admiral Tarr had to look away. However, while looking at whatever else he could, he noticed an almost imperceptible grin on his young captain’s features. Was he actually enjoying what he saw? Puar’s unimpressed retort brought the Admiral back to the here and now.
“That means what to me?” Puar demanded. “All I see is another dead Seryysan by your hands.”
“Yes,” Chuumdar conceded. “I killed him… After he broke into my facility, killed two of my guards here and three more at the shipping depot.”
“Clearly,” The Prime Minister said sarcastically, “this is grounds for murdering thousands of Seryysans, that the acts of one rogue assassin can completely negate three years of peace between our people!”
“It can when this ‘rogue assassin’ was sent by you!” Chuumdar seethed. “Mox! Explain to them!”
Another Vyysarri, Mox apparently, stepped into view of the camera. He held up a piece of paper, clearly a printout of a deployment screen for the SCIIA, Seryys Combat Interplanetary Intelligence Agency, with something that shouldn’t be there, Puar’s signature. “According to this,” Mox stated, “This Orr’Lyyn Orrar was under your orders as an agent of the SCIIA to, and I quote ‘…eliminate Prefect Chuumdar by any means necessary.’ This is your signature, is it not?”
“It… is…” Puar’s brow furrowed in confusion, “but I did not sign that. I don’t even know who this Orr’Lyyn Orrar is! Too many people have died in this war to let something like this plunge us back into it. Please, call a cease fire at least until we can figure out where this guy came from.”
As Puar made his plea, Captain Brandarr slowly slid up behind his Admiral and whispered into his ear, his smooth, melodic voice convincing. “Admiral, now would be the perfect time to counterstrike. If they stand down, we can have the upper hand.”
“No,” the old man countered. “I will not attack without the Prime Minister’s order. Furthermore, I won’t condone any action that will cost more of my boys’ lives. Thank you for your opinion, Captain. Now, back to your post.”
“Yes, sir,” Brandarr said outwardly calm, but inwardly burning with rage.
Tarr came back to the conversation between leaders wondering what had gotten into his Captain today. It wasn’t like him to offer an opinion out of turn, especially one so rash.
“…words carry little weight with me at this point. Whether this is your action or the actions of others within your organization, makes no difference to me. It either means you clearly intend to destroy us, or you’re so inept that you have no idea, or control, of what goes on within your own borders. However, three years of peace is enough for me to take your word at face value. I have called off the attacks on your vessels for now. You have one standard week to provide proof of no deception or I will order the attack to recommence.”
“Admiral?” Puar asked. “Can you confirm that the Vyysarri vessels have stood down?”
Admiral Tarr looked back at his first officer who nodded an affirmative.
“The Vyysarri ships are on stand down, sir.”
“Thank you, Prefect. We will get to work right away on unraveling the mystery.”
Chuumdar didn’t move an inch, keeping the same stoic visage. “Be sure that you do, Prime Minister. It would be unfortunate if things were to escalate. One week.”
And with that, the channel went dead.
“Admiral?” Prime Minister Puar finally slumped in his chair, showing the strain he was under. “I want your best people on this right now. I need to know where the hell that man came from, and how those papers had my signature on them! I will coordinate with Director Grear of the SCIIA planet side.”
“Come hell or high water, sir. We’ll find it.”
“Good. Puar out.”
The screen blanked out and displayed the stars ahead of the ship. Admiral Tarr stared at the screen for nearly ten seconds before he finally snapped out of it.
“Captain,” he called out.
“Sir?” Brandarr stepped to his side.
“I want you to spearhead the investigation. Keep me apprised every hour. If you need me, I’ll be in my quarters.”
“Aye, sir.” Brandarr couldn’t suppress another grin. With him in charge, the investigation was doomed to fail and Warthol’s vision would come to fruition.
Chapter Twenty-Three
It had been two days. Two days of being poked, prodded, catheterized. Two days for the sake of gathering his strength. The IV feeding him blood was just enough to keep him alive, but not much else. It took everything he had to not salivate when that guard’s blood was all over the floor.
Now, he felt strong enough to try to make his escape. But he still had this overwhelming impression that Khai was near, almost like a sixth sense… Or was it a dream… or a premonition? In any case, his first task was to take care of the guards at the door. Slowly, quietly, he slipped out of bed and slunk to the door. The door was closed, so he lightly scratched on the door then stepped to the left and waited. His bait worked. Seconds later, two armed guards entered and immediately were drawn to the empty bed. Sibrex moved quickly, striking one at the base of the skull and dropping him. The second one was going to suffer a far worse fate. Sibrex sunk his fangs deep into the other’s neck.
The blood slid down his throat and found its way to his craving. He fed until he was full and dragged the dead body to the closet behind the gurney and to the left. Once the guard was stuffed in and the door closed, Sibrex took the guard he had incapacitated and flopped him down on the bed. He hooked up the heart monitor and a few others to make it look convincing. Then he clobbered him a couple more times to make sure he stayed out for a while and covered him with a blanket.
Now free, Sibrex set out on an adventure to explore the bowels of wherever he was.
Khai, Dah, Puar, Kay and Brix sat in a holding cell. Dah and Khai were tending to Brix’s and Kay’s wounds. They weren’t doing well. Kay, conditioned to tolerate pain, was in far better shape than Brix. She was bleeding, but they were able to slow it with a tourniquet fashioned from clothes. The bullet had passed all the way through and missed the main artery. Brix was not so lucky. The bullet was lodged in his stomach and he was hemorrhaging. He was alive, but unconscious and fading fast.
“How is he?” Kay asked.
Khai said nothing, just shook his head. All things considered, it was a miracle he was still alive. Khai had seen his fair share of stomach wounds and had seen men younger and tougher than Brix die in hours, let alone days. “He’s tough. I’ll give him that.”
“But what the hell good does it do us, huh?” Dah snapped. “As soon as they realize my story doesn’t check out, they’ll just kill us outright!”
“I’m not going down without a fight,” Khai said. “I’ve had worse odds than this before. Did I ever tell about the time I…”
Khai stopped as he heard something from down the hallway. Dah and Kay heard it too. Khai nodded at Dah who nodded back. They were going to jump the guard the moment he opened the door. But the person who greeted them took the powers of speech away from all of them.
“As much as we all would love to hear a story about your exploits, may I suggest you save it for another time?” Sibrex said. Blood covered most of his face, clothes and hands. They looked at him with… was it disgust? Astonishment? “I had no weapon,” h
e explained. “Until I found these.”
He tossed a duffle bag on the floor and used the key he took off the dead guard just outside the detention wing. Once the door was open, they geared up and got ready to fight their way out.
“How did you find us?”
“It was simply a matter of finding the control room, incapacitating the guards and hacking the system. Once I was in, I found you, disabled the communications array and located the exit code.”
“You never cease to amaze me, Sibrex,” Dah said heartily, happy to see him.
“Well done, old friend,” Khai squeezed his shoulder. “Can you help me with him?”
Sibrex knelt down next to Brix. “His wound is severe and his situation dire. How long has been like this?”
“Maybe two days,” Dah answered, dread filling his voice.
“He is strong. But we will have to exercise extreme caution while we move him.”
Khai picked him up by his underarms, while Sibrex took the legs. Together, with Dah taking point and Kay bringing up the rear limping heavily on her good leg, they made their way to the hangar. Every couple of feet or so, they would come across dead guards along the way.
“You killed all of these guards?” Dah asked.
“Yes. When you have the element of surprise, you have a superior advantage.”
“I’ll say,” Dah murmured.
It seemed like pretty much everyone in the facility was dead or out cold. They met absolutely no resistance the whole way to the hangar. Before they entered the hangar, Khai stopped.
“What?” Dah asked, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
“This was way too easy. Last time, they sprang the trap on us in the hangar.”
“True,” Dah agreed. “What’s the plan?”
Khai made the move to gently put Brix down, Sibrex mimicked. Khai approached the door and when it slid open, he immediately tossed a stun grenade in. The deafening explosion along with the blinding flash filled the hangar. When no screams or shouts of readiness came from within, Khai risked a peek inside. He detected no movement so he signaled Sibrex over. Being the descendant of people living on a world with low-level light, he had remarkable night vision. He also was able to confirm that the hangar was indeed empty.
“Maybe they weren’t expecting this,” Kay offered.
“It would appear that way,” Sibrex agreed. “But we should still proceed with caution.”
“Agreed,” Khai said, picking Brix back up.
They cautiously entered the hangar and the lights came up revealing an empty space. Only a few shuttles sat silently on the hangar floor. All of the shuttles were locked and shut down.
“Take your pick,” Puar said. “Does anyone know how to bypass the security on one of these things?”
“I do,” Khai and Sibrex said at once.
They put Brix down and moved to the same shuttle. It was a large shuttle, big enough for Brix to lie down with his full stature. Within minutes working together, they had the thing open and purring like a kitten.
“What just happened?” Puar asked.
“What do you mean?” Sibrex asked.
“It took you, like, thirty seconds to bypass the security on a luxury shuttle without saying a word to each other! No one else finds that disturbing?”
When his question went unanswered, he simply walked past the others and found a seat on the shuttle.
Once the others filtered in and got underway, Puar asked the question everyone else was afraid to ask. “So, where are we going? We can’t go to Med’s place because he’s probably already evacuated. The city is practically deserted… Oh! And we’re wanted criminals.”
“What about Ken?” Kay asked. “He said that Captain Dah’s brother was out of favors, but that he was forever in Khai’s debt.”
“He does still owe me. Though he probably can’t do anything for us directly, he’s connected all the way from here to the Quarmann Sector. I’d be willing to bet that he knows someone who can help us.”
“I could try contacting my brother, too,” Puar offered. “He might be able to help us as well.”
“I would prefer we contact the Prime Minister before we contact Ken again,” Dah added his opinion. “That guy gave me the creeps.”
“I was hoping to contact your brother anyway to see if he had any leads on who really shot down Brindee’s ship.”
“Two birds with one stone, I like that,” Puar said, pulling out his com unit. He patched it through to the cockpit where Khai was piloting. Puar came to the front, too. The Prime Minister’s chiseled face appeared on the screen.
“Khai! It’s good to see you up and about!”
“Thank you, sir. It’s good to be out of there. Thanks for sending these guys after me.”
“Anytime, General. Now, what can I do for you both?”
“Well, we didn’t get out of there as free and clear as we had hoped,” Puar said. “They knew we were coming. Brix and Kay are badly hurt. I don’t know if Brix is gonna make it much longer.”
“Meet me at my place tonight at nineteen hundred hours. I’ll have one of the best physicians waiting to aid you guys. What else?”
“Do have any information on who shot down my wife’s ship?” Khai asked, hopeful and aching for some good old-fashioned revenge.
“Has no one told you?”
“Told me what?” Khai’s stomach knotted up.
“Brindee survived the crash,” Prime Minister Puar said. Everyone conscious on the shuttle exchanged excited glances at one another.
“What?” Khai almost cried… almost.
“Yeah, I have the survivor manifest right here. She was one of four survivors. A tough girl!”
“Where is she? Is she all right?”
“She’s in stable condition in the ICU aboard the Courage.”
“Admiral Tarr’s ship?” Khai asked.
“Yeah. You know him?”
“Yeah,” Khai said. “We go way back.”
“Anything else?” The Prime Minister had the look of someone who didn’t want to ask that question, but knew it was the polite thing to do.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Khai actually winced, knowing the next bit of news was going to raise the man’s blood pressure. “Warthol was there.”
“WHAT?” he nearly shouted.
“Yeah. And he wanted to know how Dack knew I was there. We told him nothing. Dack made up a story and he bought it, but not before shooting Brix and Kay. Though I don’t think they were expecting us to escape, it was the particulars that seem the most exciting.”
“Meaning?”
“I came out of my coma and saved them,” Sibrex added from the cabin of the shuttle where he was tending to Brix and Kay.
“Is that Sibrex? He’s alive?” Prime Minister Puar was truly surprised by that. “I have your autopsy report filed in my desk!”
“The reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated,” Puar added.
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but do you have any other information that might be pertinent?” Khai looked at his Commander in Chief tightlipped. The Prime Minister sighed heavily, rolling his eyes. “Oh, by the Founders what else?”
“Two things,” Khai said. “There was a Vyysarri assassin after Dah and his party before they found me and I think you should know that Warthol has a Fleet Captain in his pocket. The guy interrogated me about Sibrex’s death. Tried to get me to confess.”
Suddenly, realization struck his face.
“Captain Brandarr!” the Prime Minister gasped sharply.
“I didn’t expect you to catch on quite that quick, but yes.”
“Khai,” Prime Minister Puar said, dread filling his voice. “Your interrogation was publicized on the ‘Vyyd!”
“Figures,” Khai grumbled. “But your reaction was far too dramatic for just that. What’s wrong?”
“Captain Brandarr is Admiral Tarr’s first officer on the Courage.”
“Oh! Not good!” Puar said.
“Prime Minister
, can you patch me through to the Courage?” Khai asked. “I want to speak to Tarr.”
“Of course,” the Commander in Chief said. “Give me a moment to raise him.” A few moments passed and Tarr’s smiling face filled the screen.
“General Khail! It’s good to see you,” the elderly man said. His face took on a mockingly serious expression. “Aren’t you a wanted felon? I saw your interrogation on the ‘Vyyd.”
“That’s open to interpretation,” Khai countered. “Are you alone?”
“I’m in my quarters. What’s the matter?”
“First, I need Brindee transferred to a hospital on Seryys Four. I’m sending you the address now.”
Tarr pushed a couple of buttons. “Done. I have a medic loading her into a shuttle now. She’ll depart in five minutes.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Next you need to detain Captain Brandarr. He’s a traitor. He and Warthol are working together. Somehow they framed me for Sibrex’s murder.”
“But that would mean…” Tarr’s normally cool demeanor betrayed fear.
“What? What’s wrong?” Puar asked.
“There was an attempt on the Prefect’s life. The assassin’s credentials were falsified to make it look like a military action. We have no proof at the moment, but if Captain Brandarr was behind it, he could confess and prevent this whole thing from spiraling out of control.”
“Wait for us,” Khai said. “You’ll need backup. But I don’t want my wife caught in the crossfire.”
“She’s been loaded onto the shuttle and is departing within the minute.”
“Excellent. Give us an hour. I want to get the Star Splitter before we come to you.”
“Roger that, General. See you soon.”
It took less than an hour to get Khai’s ship, drop off Kay and Brix and break orbit when the call came in saying that Brindee was safe and sound at the hospital in the small settlement where Joon lived. Knowing that Brindee was safe, though his heart ached to see her, he pursued his mission and headed for the Courage. She was identical to the Vyysarri and the first ship in the line of Courage-Class starships that were leaving the space docks lately. Khai felt a huge weight on his heart when he saw the Courage. It reminded him of the lives lost on both his and Sibrex’s ships. The event that precipitated this whole disaster was still fresh in both their minds. Khai could see the look of regret on Sibrex’s face, though no one else could.
The Seryys Chronicles: Of Nightmares Page 15
