“Don’t even think about going anywhere, it won’t be long before we arrive at Hakor. Once I deliver you I shall be on my way.”
I breathe in deeply, “you really think that they are going to give you what you want? You really think that they are just going to let you go freely, all you are is a loose end, one that they are probably going to cut.”
“I already have a ship to get where I need to go; all they need to do is provide a set of coordinates. That won’t be so hard, besides; even if they don’t I have a plan.”
“Really, and what's that?”
“It’s a virus that will infect their computer system. If they don’t give me what I want then I will take it and leave regardless.”
“Why wouldn’t you just do that right now, why take the risk?”
“They promised to tell me the best course of action to be submitted into the society.”
“It can't be that simple.”
“Oh but it is. All I have to do is find the right people and tell them the right things and I will be living like a king for the rest of my life!” He laughs triumphantly, raising his arms up in the air as he does so to prove his point, maybe he’s practiced it in the mirror and thought it makes him look like some sort of powerful god.
An alarm starts to beep over the ships internal intercom.
“Ah perfect, they’re right on time,” T-Rave leaves the room without another word.
There’s nothing to do now but wait, whenever they decide to move me they’ll most likely have to untie me to do so, hopefully with that window of opportunity I’ll be able to make an escape.
I’ll either find a way off the ship or die trying.
****
T-Rave walks at a brisk pace towards the starboard airlock, which is where the Hakorian party will be boarding to take Mavrik, and then deliver what they promised.
There are many things going through his mind, if what he’s doing is the right course of action. It’s too late now though to second guess himself, he’d crossed over that line a long time ago.
The airlock in front of T-Rave hisses open as the air from the other side finally escaped from its confined space.
Three Hakorian soldiers walk out.
“Do you have him?” T-Rave presumes that it’s the leader that’s talking. A giant scar traces over his face.
“Of course I have him. Now, before we start handing anybody over I need to know if you have my compensation ready.”
“When we ssee the man you will ssee the coordinatess,” He hisses through his tightly closed mouth.
“Follow me then,” T-Rave leads them deeper and deeper into the ship, back to where Mavrik’s being held.
The party reaches the door to the cargo room where Mavrik is, T-Rave reaches up and opens the door.
Mavrik looks up at them, his eyes burning with rage. He must’ve been through enough these past few days, only to be imprisoned again.
The Hakorian leader detaches a device that’s strapped to his hip and points it towards Mavrik, “sscanning now for identification verification,” the little machine beeps at him. “That’ss him, we have a possitive match. Give him what he wanted,” he points at T-Rave, “and sstart trucking thiss meat over to the sship, we leave within minutess.”
T-Rave looks over at Mavrik, “guess you were wrong buddy. Everybody wins, except you, and Terra for that matter,” he grins.
Mavrik lets out a scream of pure rage; he puts as much effort as possible in this one last attempt to break free of his restraints. By the looks of it if he tried to put any more energy into trying to break free his arms might’ve popped. Given the sight of his vascular arms it looked as if they are about to burst.
“That man iss just a mountain of musscle; will it be easy to move him to our sship?” The Hakorian asks T-Rave.
“That’s your problem now isn’t it? Just sedate him or something, now hurry up and make the transfer,” T-Rave holds up a data pad, “download them directly onto this if you would be so kind.”
T-Rave glances back over his shoulder to Mavrik, Hakorians are closing in on him with some sort of hand held device, it looks like a shiny black stick. The tip of the stick touches Mavrik on the right shoulder. He yells out loudly in pain, his whole body shudders. By a quick observation at what the device does T-Rave quickly figures out that it’s some sort of electrical weapon.
The two guards untie the now completely slack Mavrik, picking him up from underneath both armpits and dragging him along the floor.
The alarm goes off again unexpectedly.
T-Rave glances quickly at the Hakorian leader, “expecting anymore friends to show up?”
The Hakorian shakes his head. Things are probably just going to get interesting.
****
My eyes are still watering from the pain that I’d just received from the hands of the Hakorian, whatever he jabbed me with feels like I’d grabbed and held onto an electrical super conductor. If I didn’t have the standard military haircut my hair would probably be standing completely on end.
It happened not even a minute after I was taken out from the room when the alarms started going off. The first time around it’d signaled that a vessel was approaching.
From what I overheard them say just seconds ago, they aren’t expecting any reinforcements. Suffice to say this might be my prime time opportunity to try to escape. I hope the alarms are signalling that another ship is approaching, and quickly to.
The ship buffets to the side, luckily, it knocks the two Hakorians that are escorting me off balance. One of them goes into the wall and the other one just wavers on the spot for a second or two, trying to regain some stability.
I think quickly, will the odds be in my favor if I try to break lose? I think taking a risk will be in order, after all my parents gave me a special name, maybe it’s time that I live up to it in every moment.
I shake free of the Hakorian that’s still standing, his hand lets go unwillingly of my arm. Letting out a loud but short cry I charge the Hakorian. My left shoulder hits him squarely in the chest, sending him down to the ground.
The second Hakorian who had time to stand up just begins to notice what I’m doing. He doesn’t react fast enough though, before he can do anything to stop me or aid his fellow comrade I pounce on him quickly from behind.
My hands are still bound from when I was in the chair, seeing as there is rope connecting my hands together it makes the perfect makeshift garrotte. I’m also lucky that the Hakorians have similar body workings as a human, the fact that they have an airway in the same spot makes this part much simpler. It doesn’t take long for the Hakorian to start gurgling from the lack of oxygen, not much longer after that does he finally fall down onto his knees and down to the floor. He remains still.
The other Hakorian must’ve been winded pretty good to stay down that long, I release the other one and walk up to the Hakorian to finish the job. He’s still lying on the ground, by the looks of it he’s trying to take in deep breathes of air. His inhales and exhales are ragged at best though; by the sound of it I’d broken some of his bones from the tackle. I grab his head and twist it violently. His neck breaks with ease.
The ship lurches again; a deep grating sound. Another ship must be trying to dock in the port airlock tube.
I rush through the ship and try to make my way to the opposite airlock. It’s surprisingly big, easily twice the size of Comets End.
Just as I’m comparing the size I pass by a viewport looking out onto the port side of the ship, what’s even more coincidental is the ship that’s trying to Dock. Comets End’s come to save me, with Jayon at the helm no doubt with hopefully a few marines with him. I didn’t notice before what lies beyond Comets End. It’s a planet, a dark greenish planet; Hakor. Somehow, we’d traveled an immense distance in only a day or two, if that.
The ship lurches yet again, this time it feels as if something’s detached from the ship. It can wait though, for now all I have to do is let Jayon onboard.
&
nbsp; I reach the port airlock; I see three people through the circular viewport. I quickly check to make sure that the airlock is properly pressurized. I open the door; Jayon comes clambering out, along with two marines.
“You just can't resist gettin’ captured now can’t ya?” He laughs at me.
“Let’s just get this done, there is still one Hakorian left, T-Rave is also here.”
“I know, we got reports that T-Rave has left us. That little bastard, I never really liked him.”
“How long has it been since I was captured?”
“Only a day,” he gestures for the marines to take point.
They hurry along the wide hallways, rifles cocked upright.
The floor beneath us shakes violently for a second.
“What do ya suppose that was?”
“Felt like something detached from the ship. Shit, we gotta hurry,” I quickly pick up my pace and head towards the starboard airlock.
“What?” Jayon says as he tries to catch up.
We get to the airlock; it’s too late though. The Hakorian vessel’s already jettisoned from the ship. I watch as the ships main rear engines blaze into life, the ship’s soon only a little blip in the window. By its main directional path, it’s heading back to Hakor.
My eyes catch the sight of blood on the ground. It’s red blood mixed with the greenish Hakorian blood. What happened? Had they both fought it out and one of them survived? Who had survived though? Who’s on that ship now?
“What do ya think happened?” Jayon says, reading my mind almost.
“Something bad, my guess is that someone was lucky to be alive. We should follow them and destroy the ship before it lands.”
“No need for it son.”
“What do you mean?”
“A plan was devised before we were sent out. The Hakorian fleet has stopped all attacks on Terra when we left, we don’t know why they did. Before I left, the military managed to get a ship with a several Thopium enhanced bombs onto the main flagship.”
“Are you saying we won?”
“Not yet, but I hold the key to make that so. Want to know the extra special part?”
I nod impatiently.
“They loaded up the Comets End with similar devices. Before we docked to this ship we fired those devices into one of the deep, deep canyons on the planet. All I have to do is send one transmission to blow them both up simultaneously.”
“Why are we waiting then?”
“Use that thing in your head boy, what do you think will happen if we blow up an entire planet when we are this close to it? We would go down in flames and be forgotten forever.”
My minds racing, “follow me, we need to get to the bridge.”
“I like you’re thinking, we need to hurry though, we can't be sure whether or not the fleet over Terra will resume its bombardment.”
The airlocks aren’t too far away from the bridge, we make the journey quickly. I open the blast door to the bridge. The bridge itself has a pilot’s seat in the middle of the room with several other seats branching off to the sides, most likely different stations that control different functions of the ship.
I sit down quickly in the pilots chair, a set of holographic controls rise up from the seats sensors. “Ok, this should just be like flying my speeder back home. Let’s see,” I quickly scan through the controls, “ah, rear thrusters. Wait, those are sublight engines, doesn’t matter, activating sublight engines to max power.” I hit the icon and increase the speed to maximum efficiency.
It’s a good thing that I’m sitting in a chair; otherwise I would’ve gotten blown backwards from the immense amount of thrust.
“What about Comets End?” I ask Jayon; by the look on his face he doesn’t seem altogether too concerned.
“She will hold on tightly to the docking clamp, don’t worry she’s been through worse.”
We fly in what one can only guess to be a straight line towards Terra for several minutes, hoping that it’ll be a large enough amount of distance in between the planet and us.
“It’s all yours,” I say to him.
Jayon reaches into one of his vest pockets and pulls out a small black cylinder, “General Weber, this is Cofield, you have a go, I repeat; you have a go. Blow them all ta hell for us.”
I pull up the rear security camera feed. The planet’s still there though.
“Are you sure those few nukes would be enough to take out an entire planet?”
He nods at me seriously.
Then all of a sudden, the entire planet is a giant ball of light. The signal must’ve taken time to travel the distance. I’m surprised that it didn’t take minutes for it to reach us.
The planet’s gone, in its place is a giant explosion, the entire planet’s been turned into billions of small pieces, flying outwards at an alarming rate. What’s ahead of the chunks of planet is a massive wave of energy, kind of like a star at its supernova phase.
I hope that we’ll be far enough away.
One of the ship stations beeps at me, then an automated female voice activates.
“Detecting large amounts of highly unstable energy. Activating shields.”
I feel the floor of the ship hum for a second; it feels as if the entire ship’s vibrating as the shields activate. I look over at Jayon, who’s making some sort of odd noise.
“What?”
“My ship isn’t protected. The shields won’t transfer over the docking tube,” Jayon bolts out of the bridge; I don’t even have to think about where he’s running to.
I stand up quickly and run after him, over the centuries men have done stupid things trying to prevent something that they can’t avert.
By the time I reach Jayon he’s already fumbling at the airlock controls. I tackle him to the ground in order to stop him from probably throwing away his life.
That’s when the shockwave hits us. I land on my rear, Jayon follows suit seeing that I’m still holding him.
“No, I must get on board her!” He shouts.
“It’s too late Jayon, she’s gone,” I stand up, I help hoist the trembling Jayon up. We peer out the window, only to see destruction. Comets End is adrift; it’s been detached from the docking tube. The port wing’s missing as well as a large chunk of the top part of the hull. Open flames are coming out the top, only to be instantly extinguished by the lack of oxygen from the cold hard vacuum of space.
We stare at it for a second or two, only to be momentarily blinded an instant later as the ship can’t handle the losses anymore. It explodes into a million tiny pieces; the rubble peppers the hull of our ship.
We’d survived the blast of both the planet blowing up and the end of Comets End. Now all that we have to do is fly this tub home, hopefully nothing got damaged during the shockwave.
Tears are steaming out of Jayons eyes, that ship had been his entire life, now it’s gone forever in the blink of an eye.
We walk back towards the bridge, Jayons head’s in his hands the entire time.
The two marines are waiting for us at the bridge.
One of them walks up towards me, “Sir, there are two sets of coordinates in the system; one of them is the ships previous destination. We can't figure out what the other one could be for though.”
My heart skips a beat. T-Rave mentioned that he was getting coordinates as a reward. He must’ve transferred them to the ships navicomputer before he died in the explosion.
That meant that I’m the only human that possesses the coordinates of the planet where the Hakorians originated from. Endless possibilities race through my mind, for now though all that I can think about is getting home. I’ll leave the coordinates in the computer for the time being. I’ll come back to them though. I promised Syreena that I’d leave the army, and I’ll do just that. My plan to save her is still intact and possible; they will hold the key to her life.
Fifteen
Day 36: Cycle 3: Period 2: Year 2397
The jump home doesn’t take overly long. Well, in the sen
se that a day is not that long of time. Compared to how slow it had been flying to Hakor the first time that I’d been captured. This time however seems instant.
When we come out of hyperspace over Terra what we see makes our jaws drop, the entire Hakorian fleet is in millions of different sized pieces, all floating about in low orbit. I don’t even know all the details to how we’d survived the attack of an alien race, I’ll call it lucky; others on the other hand will call it pure human intellect and beating the odds. I’m more humble than that though.
After we land on Terra -back at the underground complex- me and Jayon go down to the briefing room and talk to General Weber.
We fully debrief him about the mission out in space. What Jayon had said previously about Major Ravenson was that they were monitoring his movements and actions for some time. Long before he and his team had rescued me. Weber also congratulates us in our success, for the destruction of the planet and the fleet. We’d been welcomed home as War Heroes.
It’s too good to be true though, and I’d promised my wife that I’ll leave.
“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Weber exclaims.
“I want out, I did my planet a service; I’m done. I made a promise Sir, I intend to keep it.”
“Where will you go?”
“I have a place in mind among the stars.”
That piece of information gives him a puzzled look. He doesn’t inquire further though.
“Is there any way that I can change your mind? We need soldiers like you.”
“Soldiers for what Sir? The war is over and I don’t plan on fighting other humans ever again.”
“Very well son, I can grant you a discharge, an honourable discharge. You are Dismissed Colonel.”
I give him a salute for the last time and start to walk out the door, “it's just Mavrik now General.”
A smile rises on his face. He nods at me.
Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) Page 27
