“So,” said the man. “Zeus has finally come to get us.”
2
Lee Pearce sat on the edge of a small bench in the basement room of the Elna Academy and rubbed his ankle. The bladed stilt apparatus that enabled him to impersonate a two meter tall alien lay on the ground beside him. He had needed to reapply the sapphire make-up that had changed his skin color as well as the bony ridge and head cap to complete the transformation. Now, after spending the last few hours escorting the human refugees out of the city of Elna disguised as a slave buying priest, he had finally decided to take a break.
He looked around the cavernous room, seeing that his task was nearly completed and the room almost empty. There were only about twenty more humans left to take to the rendezvous location about two kilometers outside the city on a flat hill. His Felinoid first officer, Farthing, was absent, having left with Wellick to escort a group as evening fell. He checked the chronometer sewn into the sleeve of his shirt and groaned as he realized it was time to put the leg extensions back on.
“Mister Marin?” Lee called towards the group of people still waiting to be taken out. “It’s almost time; get your people ready.”
The man waved to Lee in acknowledgement and started to gather the other refugees up. The man had identified himself as a Lieutenant Commander in the former Confederate Fleet Service. He had explained that he and the others had been the crew and officers of the Ceres class vessel, the Lubira, attached to the carrier group of the Zeus. According to Marin, the ship had fallen behind during a battle with the Ch’Tauk almost a year ago. Lee had explained that he had discovered the carrier Baal at almost the same time.
Lee locked down the leg extensions and pulled the hem of his long robes down over them. He had found the foam rubber feet fashioned at the end of the blades amusing, but necessary. Doctor Demsiri, his Chief Medical Officer on board the battleship Resolute had cast the feet from molds had taken from Lee’s own feet and enlarged them. It had taken him some time to get used to looking down and seeing blue toes.
“Captain Pearce?” Marin said, approaching Lee. “We are all ready to go. Ensign Hirsch has fed the baby and he has quieted down.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Lee replied, looking from the man to the young woman. She was holding the infant close, wrapped in the remains of a gray Confederate uniform. Lee had been shocked to see that the humans, who were being sold as slaves only a few hours ago, had included ten children. Some had been born just after their capture and the newest born only a few days before he had found them.
Lee stood and steadied himself against the wall until he had his balance. He then pulled his robes back over his shoulders and corrected the hood on the back of his neck. He waved over to Tuxor, who had been speaking to a dark skinned man who had moved away from the group. The Karisien nodded back with his large head and broke off his conversation with the man. After a year with the big amphibian, Lee had learned to recognize when the man was agitated and he saw the signs in him now.
“Any word on Heyerdahl, Tuxor?” Lee asked the big alien. “Have these folks heard of him?”
“No, Lee,” replied Tuxor. “My new friend said that he had overheard Mursoon saying something about the Ch’Tauk and a human who had been travelling with them, but he just thought it was rumor. I am beginning to think that the man is dead and that we are chasing swamp gas.”
Upon freeing the prisoners of Harpy Station a year ago, Lee and the Resolute crew had been searching for one man who was missing from the prisoners that they had freed. Tuxors colleague and friend, Melaina Petros, had informed Lee that the man was a high energy researcher who had developed a powerful weapon that only he had understood. Even the man’s research partner, another Karisien, had been unable to duplicate the plans with any certainty.
“Well,” said Lee. “We’re not going to find him here. Let’s get these people moving.”
Lee and Tuxor started gathering the people tighter and herding them over to the hidden doorway in the wall. He reached up to a point which would have been head height to him without his leg extensions, but now reached barely mid-chest. He rapped on the wall hard three times, waited and then repeated the noise. It took only a moment for the crack to appear on the wall and the door to slide open. As the door slid open, Lee looked at the gruesome face of Henry Moore.
The man had tried to reapply the make-up to his face but had made a mess of the procedure. Lee had eventually told him to leave the rest of the blue make-up off and just go with the smudged, uneven coloring and facial prosthetics. He had pulled the robes over his head and stayed in the small anteroom while the teams moved the former slaves out through the city. Now Lee was glad that the man would be accompanying them on the final trip.
“You look terrible,” Lee said. “But we need you anyway. We are ready to go.”
“You know this stuff will never wash out right,” Henry replied, pointing to his blotchy blue face. “I’ll be scrubbing blue dye out of my beard for a year.”
The former head of the security force on board the Terran Princess had accepted the rank of Master Sergeant in Lee’s armed force aboard Resolute. He had taken the rank in stride and began to train with the guards on board the battleship. Before the invasion, Henry had been a Lieutenant in the Combined Confederate Military, but had told Lee he preferred a non-commissioned rank instead.
“I hate paperwork,” the man had said and that had been the end of his career as an officer. Lee could not have imagined anyone he would rather have on a mission like this one, though, officer or not.
The line of people began to tread through the small room and up the stairs with Henry in the lead and Tuxor following behind the Ensign and her newborn. Lee followed Henry and stepped out into the corridor after the man had opened the upstairs door. The Academy was brightly lit, but there were not many people present. Mursoon, whose body was now stashed in his own storeroom to rot, had been right about the people of Elna. The school had been nearly deserted the entire day, enabling Lee and his team to sneak nearly five hundred people out of the city and up to their rendezvous point.
As the group moved out of the museum like hall of the academy and out into the street, Lee heard Tuxor shouting religious vases to the apparent slaves that they were moving. Lee thought that most of the litany sounded genuine, but some of the passages were clearly made-up by the amphibian on the spot.
The procession moved through the busy streets of Elna, moving slowly to keep the illusion that they were a religious order and that the slaves were nearly exhausted. Curiously to Lee, the people of the crowded city seemed to purposefully ignore the group of humans as they passed. He knew that his own race had been made into the pariahs of the galaxy, but he had never really experienced the complete disregard the aliens on the street showed to them. He felt ashamed to be wearing the blue make-up and wanted to wear his own skin proudly, despite the danger to these people, but knew that it would do no good. The Ch’Tauk had turned a once proud civilization into a refugee group, scattered across the galaxy.
As they passed by a stall selling a foul smelling concoction that the locals ate like dessert, the infant began to cry. Tuxor quieted down his shouted rhetoric and turned his attention to the child and his mother. The young woman was cooing to the baby, but the infant’s cries became louder in her arms, attracting a few annoyed looks from the locals. Tuxor tried to reach out to the child, singing in his deep voice to try and calm the little boy down, but it seemed that the sight of a two meter tall frog terrified the child and he screamed louder.
Lee tried to quicken the pace of the group, but Tuxor and the woman began to fall behind. From the corner of his eye, Lee spotted ta group of police walking purposefully towards the big alien. Tuxor seemed oblivious to the danger, still trying to sing a lullaby to the little boy. Lee turned and headed back towards his friend. Tapping Henry on the shoulder and pointing, before he left the lead.
“Brother Tuxor,” Lee shouted over the sound of the nearby barkers attempting
to sell their wares. “Just leave the child behind and take the mother. This one is too much trouble.”
Tuxor looked up at the sound of Lee’s voice, only now noticing the approaching police. Although slavery was a widely held business practice in Elna, it was still technically illegal. Tuxor stood to his full height and stopped singing. The ensign tried to rock the child to sleep, but the infant continued his wailing unabated.
“You there, what are you doing to that child?” called the policeman in charge. “Can’t you keep that damn human larva quiet? There are business people trying to sell here.”
Lee pushed through the crowd to stand close to Tuxor. He had never tried to move so fast on the stilts and he wobbled as he tried to come to a top. He realized that he must look drunk to the police as he swayed next to Tuxor.
“Gentleman, Bless you,” Lee said to the lead policeman. “We are but simple pilgrims to your city. We are sorry about the child but you understand how servants can be. These humans replicate so quickly…”
“She is your servant?” asked the policeman. “Let me see her papers, please.”
“Papers?” Lee asked, patting his robes and trying to look innocent. “I wasn’t aware that we needed papers for our servants, here. We are but a humble order of monks and…”
“You should have been issued papers for these vermin when you moved through the spaceport,” replied the man. “Unless you didn’t arrive by spaceport.”
“We didn’t arrive by the Elna spaceport,” Lee tried to improvise. “We came into the city by public transit and the place where we arrived didn’t give us any papers.”
“I think you are lying,” said the policeman. “I think maybe you are slavers, transporting these humans illegally out of Elna.”
“Now look,” said Lee with mock indignation. “We are a religious order and if you will just step over here into the light I will be glad to show you our papers for this servant.”
Lee and Tuxor took the young woman by each arm and ushered the four policemen out of the middle of the busy street and into the lighted eaves of a nearby shop. Lee had seen that the shop was nearly empty at this time of night, with most business being conducted in the street. Lee continued to pat down his robes, trying to appear as if he had simply misplaced his papers while Tuxor reached into the woman’s arms and pulled the child up to his own chest. The child quieted as he was drawn upwards and Lee briefly thought that it might be the sign of a future pilot.
“Now, where are these papers you say you have magically acquired,” asked the policeman, looking over to his companions in expectation of a bribe.
Lee’s mechanical hand shot forward, catching the lead officer just as he began to turn back. The extended arm gave the punch an increased impact, sending the man flying backwards into his fellow officers. Lee and Tuxor pushed the ensign forward as they began a loping sprint out of the shop. The bladed extensions attached to his legs gave Lee a long stride, but he needed to pace himself so that the young woman could keep up. Tuxor held the now quiet infant carefully in his arms as he ran through the crowded streets.
Lee heard the police officers regroup and begin to follow them into the maze of shops and vendors in the street. Lee pressed a hidden switch on his extended arm and called to Henry Moore by radio.
“Sergeant,” Lee called. “Where are you? We’ve got trouble.”
“I figured as much Captain,” Henry responded from the radio. “You attract trouble.”
“Not now, Henry,” Lee yelled, trying not to stumble over the girl as they rounded a sharp corner. “Where are you and the rest?”
“We’re about halfway across the bridge leading out of town,” Henry said, sounding worried. “I can come back for you.”
“No,” Lee ordered. “It’s too dangerous. Just tell everyone I’ll be late for dinner, okay?”
“Got it, boss,” replied Henry, signing off.
“Tuxor,” Lee yelled, starting to lose his breath in the chase. “We need to get out of town. Can you remember the way to the bridge from here?”
“Yes, Brother Woolaf. I believe I can.”
The amphibian turned sharply down a side street, still clutching the baby. The child had not uttered a sound during the entire chase and Lee knew that the kid would grow up to be a pilot, now. The ensign, meanwhile, was struggling to keep up. Lee realized that the woman must be near collapse after her ordeal. He looked behind them and saw the police had now been joined by another group of four and they were all keeping up. He reached down and scoped the woman up in his arms, almost losing his balance in the process.
The woman seemed to collapse as he drew her in tight to him. The added weight bent the blades on his stilts tighter and he found the muscles in his legs beginning to burn. The police began to advance as his strides slowed and shortened. He looked ahead and saw the street ahead open up and a narrow bridge stretch out before him. Tuxor had already reached the near edge of the bridge and turned to look for his captain.
“Go!” Lee shouted. “Go now!”
The Karisien paused only a moment and then turned back to continue running across the bridge. Lee was breathing heavily now and the fire in his legs was creeping into the rest of his body. Although the mechanical arms were able to cradle the woman’s body with less effort than if he was using his own arms, but his shoulders and back were now threatening to give out under the extra strain.
As Lee ran out onto the bridge, his legs finally gave out. He fell hard, rolling the woman away as he fell as he hit his shoulder on the pavement. It was the same shoulder he had nearly dislocated during the battle with Baal a year ago and he felt he may have torn the injured joint fully this time. He tried to stand, but the police who had been following him formed a half-circle, effectively cuts off any means of escape.
“Okay,” Lee said, holding up his uninjured arm in a gesture of defeat. “You win. I can’t go on.”
The policemen looked at his upraised hand in confusion. Lee realized that the mechanical rig had broken in the fall and now hung at a ninety degree angle to his body. He would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation had he not been in so much pain.
“Now,” said the lead policeman, a bruise forming on his face. “We will take you back to our headquarters and you will tell us who you are and what you are doing here.”
Lee nodded to the man. He tried to reach up with his other arm to disconnect the extension, but the pain was too much. Instead, he pulled his feet up and tried to stand. The soldiers raised their weapons towards him as he struggled to stand. Lee noticed that one of his feet was missing and it made it very difficult to stand.
“Okay, officers, I’ll come along,” he said. “But I warn you, if you make me late for dinner, you’ll have to explain it to her.”
“To who?” the policeman asked, looking at the ensign who was struggling to stand beside Lee. “You want us to apologize to this mewling insect?”
“No,” Lee said, feeling a rumble beneath his feet. “To my girlfriend, Alice.”
There was a roar behind Lee and a rush of warm air as a Peregrine class fighter leapt up from under the bridge. Its hull was a gleaming silver with only a dark, evil face marring the otherwise smooth finish. The paired cannon barrels on each wing glows a fiery orange as they swung around and aimed at the police.
The men screamed and stumbled as they tried to run away. The fighter followed the lead policeman as he ran back towards the city in panic. Lee turned to look at the silver ship. As the police retreated into the maze of the city, the ship turned back towards Lee and the ensign, its cannons darkening. Lee heard the click as the external speakers came online.
“You’re late for dinner,” said Alice Bennett in a booming explosion of sound. “We’re having fish and you need to wash up.”
3
Stepping up onto the ramp leading into the shuttle, Lee felt apprehensive about their escape. Although the escort by two of the Demon squadron had kept any further trouble from following them closely, he knew that
the fighter craft were bound to have attracted attention for Alzerack’s air defense forces. He scanned the skies overhead for any sign of aerial pursuit, but saw none. He tapped the keypad by the door and heard the hatch seal behind him.
“Let’s go,” he said to the pilot in the forward compartment.
The man nodded and began to activate the anti-gravity system for lift-off. The shuttle had been set down on a short plateau outside of the main city of Elna. It was one of two that had been ferrying passengers off the planet since Lee and his team had found them. Once, these ships had been brightly colored and equipped with food and beverage dispensers as part of the embarkation to a luxury cruise ship. Now the shuttle was painted dark gray and the amenities had been stripped out in favor of a more powerful shield and engine system.
Lee felt the ship begin to rise before the inertial compensators adjusted and the ride smoothed out. He settled into the basic jump seat that they had installed after removing the spacious and comfortable couches that once adorned the interior of the ship. As he glanced around the inside of the compartment, he saw the group of refugees that he had helped as well as the previous group that had gone with Wellick and his first officer, Farthing. He did a quick head count of his crew and passengers and crew to ensure that everyone was on board and safe.
Tuxor had settled near the back of the cabin, still holding the infant in his long upper arms. He was trying to sing to the infant as the mother rested in a seat next to him. Farthing was studiously recording the names and ranks of the passengers as he walked down the cramped center aisle. Wellick appeared to be playing some sort of word game with a young man seated about halfway between Lee and Tuxor. Occasional snorts of laughter could be heard floating up from the two.
“It looks like everyone is on board, Captain,” Henry Moore said, settling into the seat opposite Lee. “I think we got all of them this time.”
Lee looked at the man and shook his head. Henry had pulled away most of the make-up and prosthetic from his face, but the blue tint had remained in blotchy circles all over his face and neck. Lee hoped that he had done a better job of removing his own disguise, but had very little hope of it. He had ditched the stilts and arm extensions over the edge of the bridge after Alice had rescued him and used what remained of the robes to wipe off the make-up. He could still see, though, a patch of blue on the end of his nose that stubbornly refused to go away.
Resolute Omnibus (The War for Terra) Page 26
