“You do speak Humaniti Common, right?”
John’s head bobbled a weak nod.
“So, answer the question, can you walk?”
"B-but,” the man stammered, “you're a Technocracy dog-soldier. Why help me?"
Molon gritted his teeth and fought the urge to bite something, namely the dim-witted, rude prisoner hanging from his neck. He took a deep breath. This man was a hermit-worlder. He had likely never seen a non-human sophont up close before. Some hermitages even refused to teach that non-human sophonts existed. Distinguishing Lubanian sub-races was way outside this human’s experience, so Molon couldn’t fault him for it. Didn’t make it any less offensive, though.
"Look, pal, dossier says you’re a doctor, that right?”
“Yes,” the human prisoner replied.
“I’m a Lupus Lubanian. Lupus. Wolf, not dog. Basic biology, remember?”
“Yes,” the man nodded.
“Great,” Molon said mustering patience he knew he possessed in short supply. “One more dog crack outta you and you can find your own way home, got it?”
“Sorry,” the human mumbled, still clearly trying to get a grip on the situation.
“Null sweat. Now, you wanna stand here gabbin’ or get out of here alive?"
"Uh,” the man answered, “let's get out alive."
"Excellent choice. Now, for the last time, can you walk?"
“I doubt it,” the prisoner replied with a shake of his head.
“Figures... Here,” Molon said, fishing a black capsule out of one of the uniform’s pockets and offering it to the man. “Take this.”
“What is it?” The man raised an eyebrow.
Maybe he should just deck this uncooperative dimwit right here. No payday was worth this much grief. Carrying an unconscious body might be faster and less frustrating than playing twenty questions in the middle of a rescue attempt. Instead, Molon dug deep and drew up one more cupful of patience.
“An adrenocap,” Molon explained. “Crush it between your teeth and swallow. It’ll help you walk.”
The man paused briefly, peering warily at Molon as if he were still unsure if he was being helped or murdered. After a last, wary gaze, the human bit into the capsule and swallowed.
“Who are you?” the prisoner asked, as he shuddered and contorted his face at the bitter taste of the adrenocap.
“I’m Captain Molon Hawkins, you are Dr. John Salzmann, and that’s all the questions we have time for on today’s episode of Stump the Chump. If you want to see tomorrow’s episode, stop talking and start moving.”
“But,” John’s face fell. “Elena.”
John sagged, dissolving into tears as he put his full weight on Molon’s neck. Molon was concerned the man might have damage to his lungs the way he was laboring to breathe. This was not the time or place for a counseling session.
“Focus!” Molon growled, shaking John a bit. “She’s dead, and if you don’t pull it together, we’ll both be joining her.”
“I understand,” John replied, his voice taking on a clinical, detached tone. Blinking back tears John straightened a little and asked, “What now?”
“When that capsule kicks in, it will feel like a cattle prod up your backside. Your eyes will wanna pop outta your skull.”
“I’m a physician,” John said. “That pill didn’t look like any brand of adrenocap I’ve ever seen.”
“Merc budget, Doc. We don’t buy retail. Trust me, that black beauty will get you on your feet again, quick.”
“I know what an adrenocap does,” John answered with a defensive tone. “I’ve just never personally taken one.”
“Well,” Molon smirked. “You are in for a real treat.”
“I can’t wait,” John replied with a shake of his head.
“Anyway, once it kicks in, we have eight, maybe ten, minutes before you crash...hard. If we aren’t back to the STS by then, we’re dead.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Sorry, Doc. I’m good, but I can’t fight our way out and carry you at the same time.”
Ignoring the guard-issue blaster pistol holstered at his side, Molon reached under his uniform jacket and drew from his rear waistband a .45 caliber automag. He quickly fumbled through another pocket, pulled out a suppressor, and screwed it onto the end of the barrel. Just then, John’s eyes bugged out wildly. Molon felt the prisoner stand up on his own, taking all the weight off Molon’s shoulder.
“There’s your wakeup call. Time to go.”
Molon dashed down the corridor with John stumble-running barefoot closely behind. They took a few turns before coming to a security door. Pausing briefly, Molon swiped a key card through the electronic lock, and the sound of releasing locks greeted his ears. No alarms sounded. So far, so good.
Molon and John rushed through the doorway into a small room beyond. At a table sat two uniformed guards, a Lupus Lubanian and a human, playing cards. Their curious looks went slack as Molon sent a single, silenced shot into the forehead of each guard without breaking stride. John stood staring at the two dead guards.
“You wanna sing a hymn?” Molon growled.
John shook his head.
“Then keep up.”
Molon took off down the corridor with John following behind. The corridors beyond the guardroom were not the rough-hewn stone passageways of the prison area, but smoothly carved and nicely painted halls. Electric lights artfully embedded in the ceilings replaced the bare, dangling bulbs of the dungeon area. The pair of refugees made several more turns before stopping at a large metal door, quite out of place in the otherwise modernized area of the complex. Above it was a sign that read:
HANGAR: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
“How you holding up?” Molon asked as the human swayed a bit on his feet.
“The adrenocap rush is starting to wear off, but I’m okay for now.”
John managed a weak smile. Molon scowled as he checked his chronometer. Six minutes. The adrenocap shouldn’t be wearing off this quickly, but given how badly John had been beaten, it could have been worse. Still, time was running out.
“Hold it together for a couple more minutes, and we are home free. I’m sorry, John, but I gotta grab your neck again.”
“Whatever it takes,” John said through a slack-faced smile.
The human had courage. He might be a little slow on the uptake, but given what Molon had witnessed in the torture room and thus far on their flight toward freedom, John was no coward.
“When I give the signal, you start raving like a maniac. We sell this story or we never see the other side of this door.”
John nodded, and Molon once again grabbed him with his left hand behind the neck with a much gentler grip than before. Angling his body, he put John between the automag in his right hand and the viewing hatch in the metal door. Molon kicked the door with a booted foot.
“Open up,” he growled at the slideable viewing panel in the door. “Inquisitor wants this prisoner moved.”
The metal panel slid open, and a pair of Lubanian eyes peered out through the yellow visor of a tac-helmet.
“I didn’t get any notice about a prisoner move,” the door guard grumbled. His eyes narrowed. “Where are your orders?”
“You want orders?” Molon growled in response. “I got orders, but I ain’t dropping this rabbit to fish them out for you.”
Molon squeezed John’s neck slightly, signaling it was show time.
“Yeah, show him your stinking orders, dog-boy,” John exclaimed, twitching and squirming. “Then we can all howl at the moon together! Bwahahaha! Owwwooooo!”
John added a few barks to the end of the howl for emphasis. Molon could see enough of the guard to note he was a Lupus Lubanian like Molon. Annoying as it was, John got bonus points for the whole dog-boy comment. That was sure to get a rise out of the Lupus door guard.
Molon feigned a pained look as the door guard growled through the viewing panel. The question was, was the guard’s reaction rooted
in annoyance at the racial slur, or suspicion of Molon’s empty-handed excuse? Molon gave him another nudge toward annoyance.
“Look, bub,” Molon said, rotating his wrist and turning John’s back to the door to show the bloody welts from the whip. “You see what they already did to him? And he’s still bouncing off the walls. This pale is either crazy or amped, I tell ya.”
John snarled on queue. Molon was impressed that the severely beaten human even managed to work up enough spittle to look like he was drooling with madness, or perhaps even rabid.
“You want me to turn him loose and fish out the orders, null sweat. Then, once you’ve seen ‘em, I’ll watch the door and you catch this rabbit again. Crazy pale killed six guards before I caught him the first time. No fur off my muzzle either way.”
Indecision filled the eyes looking through the peephole, but the Lubanian didn’t give any indication of opening the door. This wasn’t working. Time for a course adjustment.
“I’ve got another idea,” Molon continued. “Open up. You hold my rabbit, I fish out your papers. Then neither of us has to chase an amped, psycho pale through the compound. Whadda you say, bub?”
The eye panel slid closed. Molon and John waited for what seemed like an eternity before hearing the welcome sound of a metal bar being drawn back on the other side of the door. The heavy portal creaked open, and Molon propelled John through.
As the Lubanian guard scrambled to catch the stumbling prisoner, Molon placed the automag beneath the guard’s chin and fired a round up through his skull. The guard collapsed in a heap as John wobbled, trying to remain on his feet. No one else was manning the door, so Molon quickly closed and bolted it behind them.
“Do you intend to murder everyone we meet?” John asked.
“Probably.”
“Can’t you just render them unconscious or something instead?”
“I’ll take it under advisement. How are you holding up?”
“Fading fast.” John shook his head, breathing hard and steadying himself with a hand on Molon’s shoulder.
“Dig deep a little longer, Doc. Nothing but shuttle techs between us and the STS now.”
“You planning to murder them too?”
“Nah, we’ll need them to cut the STS loose.”
“Thank the Lion.”
“You can try,” Molon replied, “but I don’t think He’s listening.”
Molon tucked the automag away in his rear waistband again, suppressor still attached. He walked John down the short flight of stairs and through the door into the main hangar area. John became increasingly dependent on Molon to support more of his weight with each step. Time was up.
Two “surface-to-space” shuttles were docked in the hangar, Molon’s at the far end and a shiny new Dawnstar STS nearer the door from the guardroom. As the escapees walked past, Molon attached a small ball of clay with an embedded timer to the underside of the Dawnstar STS. He pushed a button on the device and the counter began a ten-minute countdown. Pity he couldn’t take this STS. It was a brand new Sleekline model 3700, with loads of bells and whistles his fifteen-year-old Atmostar 70 lacked. What a waste.
“You grease monkeys finish refueling my STS yet?” Molon growled in a commanding tone at two techs busy attending the far shuttle.
“Yes, sir! Refueled and ready,” the lead tech answered with a salute and a nervous twitch in his voice. They detached the fueling hose and began clearing the area.
“Do I look like an officer, you worthless puke?”
“Um…” the tech quivered his response.
“Don’t call me sir,” Molon snarled, interrupting the tech before he could fully respond. “I work for a living.”
Molon used his muzzle to gesture at the sergeant’s stripes on his uniform sleeve. The techs had obviously been low-ranking enlisted. They looked nervous, not anxious to further agitate an armed Lubanian non-com; just the effect Molon wanted.
“Get set to launch, boss wants this one topside in a hurry.”
The hangar techs scrambled to disconnect the battery recharging lines and release Molon’s STS for launch. Without another word or even a glance at the ground crew, he carried John’s nearly limp body up the ramp and into the shuttle by the nape of his neck. The adrenocap was spent.
Molon dropped John into one of the two passenger seats of the four-seater personal STS. John’s head lolled as he fumbled to buckle himself into the seat with the last shreds of his fading adrenaline boost. Molon had no time to help. He had to leave the human to his own devices.
Pulling his automag from his rear waistband and dumping it into a netted pocket attached to a bulkhead, he hit the controls to close the hatch. Settling into the pilot’s seat, he flipped the controls activating the engines and the shuttle’s communication system. Molon punched the ground control channel into the comms and keyed the mic.
“Control, this is STS niner eight six one seven three requesting clearance to depart.”
“Roger,” came the reply through the comm system. “You are cleared for departure niner eight six one seven three. Have a good flight.”
Freedom rang through the air — the familiar clang of magnetic moorings releasing their hold on the STS. The antigrav-systems lifted the STS clear of the hangar deck. Molon nudged the controls and began edging the shuttle toward the gaping cave mouth linking the hangar to the world outside.
No sooner had the shuttle gone airborne than red lights began flashing throughout the hangar. A klaxon rang echoing throughout the hangar as well as across the comms. Molon’s HUD flashed the message: Clearance revoked, return to dock and power down.
“STS niner eight six one seven three,” came a voice across the communications panel. “An emergency alarm has been activated. I am revoking your clearance until we determine the nature of the emergency. Please return to the hangar deck and await further instructions.”
“… —rry control… —mission… —peat… —tions,” Molon affected his best communication difficulties impression, keying and unkeying the mic along with garbling his voice. Then he switched off the local comms channel completely. So much for a smooth getaway.
Glancing at the synchronized timer on his left wrist, there was only a minute and a half left before the other shuttle blew; surely not enough time to get a flight capable pilot to the hangar, find his little surprise, and launch pursuit. The techs certainly weren’t going to chase him, and he had stalled long enough. He punched up full forward on the thruster controls and jetted toward the exit of the hangar cave. If this backwater dirtball prison colony had force shielding installed at the exit, this flight was going to be short and would end in fiery glory.
Molon sighed with relief as the STS exited the hangar cave mouth without crashing into an energy barrier and bursting into flames. So far, so good. Pulling the shuttle into a steep climb, he focused the aft cameras on the cave entrance receding in the distance below.
Hopefully this backwater prison colony did not have an actual Atmospheric Defense Force with a ready intercept squadron capable of reaching him before he could rendezvous with Star Wolf waiting in orbit. He set the autopilot coordinates for where Star Wolf was supposed to be. A wolfish grin crept across his face as he watched the bright flash on the aft camera display monitor. A fireball erupted from the cave entrance far below as the explosives he had attached to the other STS detonated. No sign of pursuit showed on the radar, but he knew they might not be out of the woods yet.
“You see, Dr. Salzmann,” Molon said, spinning his seat around to face his passenger.
John Salzmann was slumped in his chair, unconscious in a post-adrenal crash. Fortunately, he had managed to get his seatbelt buckled before losing consciousness, or Molon would be picking the hermit-worlder up off the deck.
“That’s just as well. You’ve been through one heck of an ordeal, Doc. At least if we get jumped by System Defense forces before we can dock with Star Wolf and make the jump into voidspace, you get to die peacefully in your sleep. That’s more
than I can say for the rest of us.”
Two – On Course for Tede
Molon opened the hatch of the four-man STS, unbuckled his passenger’s seat harness, and slung the still-sleeping Dr. John Salzmann over his left shoulder. As he exited into Star Wolf’s shuttle bay, Molon spotted the familiar face of Senior Chief Darius ‘Monkey’ Monk, chief of Star Wolf’s deck crew. The deck chief, dressed in beige coveralls, came bounding toward Molon with his usual energy and verve. The olive-skinned human was short and stocky, with vaguely simian features. The sleeves of his jumper were rolled up to the elbow, revealing a thick mat of black hair covering his forearms.
“Welcome back, Cap,” the deck chief greeted him, with an enthusiastic grin and a sloppy salute.
“Thanks, Monkey,” Molon replied, reflexively returning the salute. “Senior chief, give this bird a good once-over,” Molon said, motioning his head toward the STS, “and a bug sweep. She was out of my sight for over an hour, no telling what surprises Dawnstar’s techs might have left behind.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Oh, and reinstall the hidden meson cannon, would you?”
“Sure thing, Cap. Thought you wuz crazy havin’ me take it out inna first place.”
“Couldn’t risk their deckies finding a high TL weapon on what was supposed to be a civvy STS. Still, flying unarmed was like showing up naked to a royal ball.”
This drew a chuckle from the deck chief.
“On it, Cap. Nut’n else?”
“Yeah, there is. Set up a new transponder code, and repaint the hull numbers to match. I left a mess planetside. Dawnstar’s men will be scouring the sector and every known voidspace entry point for this one.”
“Whaddaya think I am, Cap, some kinda boot just outta trainin’ camp? Stirrin’ up trouble’s what you do. Hidin’ your mess is what I do,” Monkey said, thumbing his chest.
“You’re right, Monkey. First things first, though. Get that smug eyesore of a grinning sunburst decal off my hull. My brain hurts just looking at it.”
Star Wolf (Shattered Galaxy) Page 2
