Solomon Family Warriors II

by Robert H. Cherny

  “I assumed as much. I’ll see you get refueled IF we get home.”

  “Good point. I am doing the math.”

  “Let me know when you are done, because I have another question.”

  There was silence for a moment. Fiona checked and rechecked their munitions load as she tried to guess what Saul was thinking.

  “I’m done. It will work. I will spare you the details. The math is complex.”

  “Send the information to Daisy as soon as we drop out of hyper.”

  “What was your other question?”

  “I know you can land on the water and hide on the bottom, but can you travel underwater?”

  “Slowly. Your grandfather and I used to do that hunting pirates. It takes a long time to cover any distance, and you run the risk of losing the exterior mounted missiles.”

  “I guess it would have been too easy to sneak up on them from under the sea,” Saul mused. “We’ll do the next best thing.” He zoomed in on the map he had open on his display. “Buddy, see this dark area next to the power plant? I think it’s deeper water. The heat from the plant’s effluent should hide our footprint.”

  “Your grandfather would be proud.”

  “If we live. Can you get us there? There is a gap in their defense net on the opposite side of the planet from the settlement. We should be able to descend slowly there and travel near the surface the rest of the way.”

  “Estimated time to arrival, three hours,” Buddy offered.

  “I hope that’s soon enough,” Saul sighed.

  Buddy and Daisy dropped out of hyper exactly where Saul planned only instead of finding a hole in the system’s defenses, he found two geosynchronous tracking satellites busily getting a fix on them. In a matter of seconds, they would alert the entire planet of the arrival of two alien warships. Saul swore under his breath and deployed his laser pods. The laser pods locked in place, and before they were fully up to temperature, Saul fired on the two satellites. He destroyed two defenseless monitoring satellites. They were defenseless only in the sense that they could not fire back, but not in the sense that they were harmless.

  “There are intruder alerts going off all over the place,” Buddy commented dryly.

  “Are there any more satellites near here?” Saul asked.

  “Three to the east and four to the west,” Buddy replied.

  “Rebecca!” Saul shouted, although his regular voice would have been loud enough. “Go kill the three satellites to the east. I’ll take the ones to the west. Welcome to Omaha Beach!”

  “Roger that!”

  “Meet back here when you’re done.”

  “Roger that!”

  Within a few minutes they had created the hole they had been assured existed. Until the interceptors arrived to close the hole again, they would have an access path to the planet’s surface. “Buddy, do you see any evidence of a wet navy?”

  “There are some fishing boats to the north, but nothing looks dangerous.”

  “Rebecca!” Saul had calmed down some. “See that squall line on the horizon? Once we get low enough, aim for it. We are going in under the radar if we can.”

  Buddy sounded a warning. “We have company.”

  “Time to go!” Saul shouted. “Noses up! Back it into the garage! Make sure you take out some bad guys as you go!” They fired the forward thrusters to begin the descent forcing the ship downward toward the atmosphere backwards from their normal method of approach.

  With the P I ships noses up facing the approaching interceptors, their vulnerable propulsion unit was protected, and their entire weapons suite could be brought to bear on the interceptors. Fiona and Saul fought like they had the first night in the simulators at headquarters. Not wishing to waste their missiles, they restricted themselves to only using their lasers. Fiona and Saul accounted for three enemy ships to Rebecca and Sylvia’s one. Two flights of Swordsman interceptors would not be going home. None of the interceptors was able to get within missile range before the descending ships reached atmosphere that was too dense for the interceptors to follow. Buddy and Daisy reached the point where they could shift to level flight. Without being told they made the shift and headed for the cloud bank ahead.

  The rain lashed the ships as they descended as close as they dared to the surface.

  “Saul,” Rebecca asked, “can’t they see us on radar in the clouds?”

  “Yes, they can, but the instant they hit us with radar we’ll know it. On the second sweep we will have triangulated their position. We fire a high power pulse back along the route the radar signal came from and toast the receiver.”

  “And I can do that without you even being aware of it,” Buddy offered.

  “How much further?” Saul asked.

  “About an hour. Why don’t you take a nap. You’ll be glad you did,” Daisy suggested.

  “Right on.”

  THIRD GENERATION - CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MOSES AND AMBROSIA LISTENED with growing fear as their parents were herded into a truck and driven away. The Marines were separated male and female and force marched into what appeared to be a military prison near the flight line. With its huge block walls, Moses had no idea how they would breach the walls and rescue their Marines. He despaired of ever seeing his Marine friends again.

  Once inside the block building, the metal of the building’s structure blocked the signal from the Marines’ transponders to the med ship. Moses knew which building held them, but knew nothing about the interior of what he surmised must be an absolute hell hole.

  Rachel’s “battle group” continued beyond the industrial portion of the space port to the office buildings beyond. Moses continued to monitor their movement knowing that if he lost them, Saul would not be able to find them. Moses knew from his mother’s audio pickups that their captors were being none to gentle with them. Suddenly the signal stopped as if the truck had driven into a tunnel.

  The Swordsman Marine pushed Rachel through the door into a large open room. The room was solid concrete with only one door. There were chains on the walls and instruments of torture neatly stacked on racks below a large window. The Marines stripped them and shackled the men to the walls and the naked women to the tables in the center of the room. The room smelled of blood and death. The remains of their flight suits lay in a pile in the corner.

  Major Emerson Winthrop III entered the room and ordered all but two of the Marines and Gutierrez out of the room. “You will get your chance at them later. I must interrogate them first.”

  Winthrop stood at the end of the table looking down into Rachel’s face. “Well, well, well, we meet again. The woman that killed my father. You will pay for that and so will your friends. Nice loyal friends aren’t they? You know what we do to our prisoners, don’t you? Yes, you do, your grandmother shot one of the guards for raping one of your friends.”

  His tone was sickeningly sweet.

  Everyone in the room steeled themselves against him and the agony they knew was to follow. Their only hope was that somehow Saul and the children would find a way to get them out of this before it was too late, although it looked as if that time had already passed.

  “Oh, but I won’t kill you right away! That would be too merciful. No. You must suffer first. Your soul must be purified by the pain of suffering and by the pain of watching your loved ones suffer. When I finish with your body, I will let my men take their turns while your husbands watch. You will scream in pain until death is a welcome relief, but, see those paddles over there? After you die, we’ll bring you back, again and again and again until we can do it no more or you bleed to death.”

  He laughed, “whichever comes first. You will suffer the way you made the families of those fifteen thousand Swordsman you killed at Homestead suffer. How many of them starved? How many killed themselves like my mother? How would you know?”

  He slapped Rachel across the face. “Oh silly me, hitting a woman when she can’t defend herself. Oh! What kind of coward am I?”

&nbs
p; He slapped her again. Blood trickled down from a gash in her cheek. “Your children will witness your pain.” Winthrop looked around the room. “Gutierrez? Where are the children?”

  “The sniveling brats are still on the ship. I brought you who you wanted. Give me my money, and I will leave.”

  “You left the children on the ship?” Winthrop asked in horror.

  “Yes.”

  “You left the children on a ship with as much fire power as my entire fleet?”

  “They were only children,” Gutierrez dissembled.

  “YOU IDIOT! Two of those so called sniveling brats in possession of that ship are more dangerous than all the people in this room put together. GO GET THEM!”

  Gutierrez handed Winthrop a piece of paper. “Here are the coordinates of the ship’s hiding place. You can send ships.”

  Winthrop glared at Gutierrez his mind racing. “No, they will suspect if I send ships. They will fight. You will go and tell them the mission is successful. You will deceive them again so they let you come aboard. You will bring Marines to take the children. How many children?”

  “A dozen and their two nannies.” Gutierrez slurred the word “nannies.”

  “You will take their transport ship and a squad of Marines and take that warship.”

  “I want my money first.”

  “You shall have it.” Winthrop paused. “Wait!” Winthrop strode over to Gutierrez. “You betrayed them to me. What makes you think I would trust you to not betray me to someone else?”

  Gutierrez’s eyes stood open in fear. Winthrop drew his side arm and placed a bullet between the quivering man’s eyes.

  “Take it away.”

  Winthrop slowly and threateningly wandered the room stopping where Greg was shackled to the wall. “The children are on the ship. That makes you brave old man. You are not afraid to die. But are you afraid to watch your daughters die? And then your wife? Say something old man.”

  Greg stared ahead not meeting Winthrop’s eyes.

  Winthrop punched Greg in the stomach. “Look at me when I talk to you!”

  Greg groaned but otherwise took the punch without complaint.

  “I will kill the lot of you. I will kill you one at a time! No one can save you now.”

  A red faced Second Lieutenant barged into the room. “Major Winthrop! Sir! Two ships have gotten through the perimeter and have reached the surface!” The young man gasped for air.

  “Where are they?”

  “The interceptors lost them, sir. They shot down eight of our ships, sir.”

  “Can’t you find them on radar?”

  “Several radar stations are inoperative, sir.”

  “Is there any pattern to these sudden failures?” Winthrop’s tone was deeply sarcastic.

  “Yes, sir, they are headed in this direction. We have aircraft out now looking for them.”

  “Carry on, Lieutenant. Only next time knock before entering.”

  The young man looked around the room and suddenly paled, choking as if he might vomit. He left quickly.

  “Well, well, well, two ships on the surface. That means the smart ones are here and the rest are still up there.”

  He thought for a moment. The interceptor aircraft will find your foolish children who think they can attack me. They don’t know where you are.”

  He looked back at Rachel. “Or do they? That med ship could monitor your transponders. Could it not? I need to get rid of that ship so they don’t know where to find you. They could look for a long time and you could be long dead. I will send the ship away.”

  Winthrop strode around the room for a moment. “The ship probably has a lock out code. One of you needs to fly it.” He stood over Sabrina. “Well, little bit, you’re too small to be much fun, so you can fly that ship back to the children, and my Marines will bring them to me. You tell them the mission is a success, and they should let you come on board.”

  He turned to the guard. “Release her!” Winthrop called two guards back into the room. “Gather a boarding party. This nice cooperative young lady will fly you to the ship! You will bring me back the children!”

  The Marines saluted and, one on each arm, whisked Sabrina, still naked, out the door.

  Winthrop went around the room table to table slapping each woman in the face. “That is but a taste of what you can expect once I have the time to play with you. I will enjoy that.”

  He left the room. The prisoners heard the lock close behind him.

  The Marines who had brought Sabrina out to of the torture chamber carried her faster than she could have walked to the ship. The Marine squad was already strapped into the back when she arrived. One of the Marines who had dragged her to the ship sat in the seat beside her. The other one headed to the back.

  “Close the door!” Sabrina shouted, pointing to the door that separated the flight deck from the rest of the ship.

  “Why?”

  “Because the ship won’t start its engines if the door is open!” The Marine slammed the door.

  Sabrina quickly ran through pre-flight procedures and took off. The electronic latches engaged on the door the Marine had closed. That was not normal. Normally she would have commanded the latches to close. The ship climbed steadily through the atmosphere and beyond where the sky was blue. The rich blackness of space engulfed them as they climbed.

  A message scrolled across Sabrina’s display. “The Red Sea shall part allowing the children to pass in safety. It will close again to engulf those who pursue.” Sabrina shot a quick look at the Marine next to her. He was staring ahead out the view port. Sabrina glanced back at her display. “Count 10. Close eyes. Hold breath 60. Open eyes. Moses.”

  Sabrina did as she was told. Just as she held her breath she caught a whiff of the disinfectant gas used to clean out the med ships after off loading potentially contagious patients. If she got a single full breath, it would make her nauseous. After a minute, the gas would be fatal. The Marine seated next to her started to cough and within seconds had fallen limp in his seat. Sabrina opened her eyes after the sixty count and saw an airline style oxygen mask dangling from the ceiling. She quickly secured the mask to her face. The gas stung her eyes, but the oxygen flow would keep her from being sick.

  Suddenly a warning light flashed. The aft cargo door ramps had opened. For a few seconds she thought she heard screams, but they went silent. The aft doors never opened in flight. They were intended to quickly load patients up the ramp when sitting on a runway and were not for use in space. The whole passenger compartment was now open to the vacuum. Had these been Federation Marines, they would have flown with their combat flight suit helmets closed, and the loss of pressure would not have bothered them. Sabrina was not sure how many of the Marines behind her still lived. Another warning light flashed. The seating sections were designed as modules on platforms separated by the center aisle. This enabled quick conversion from transportation of ambulatory patients to those on stretchers. Before leaving the mother ship, the seating section could be removed and stored for later use. One of the seating platforms was loose from its attachments and was rolling out the rear door with all the Marines still strapped to their seats. Sabrina felt the ship lurch as the mass of the seating section fell away. The second section was right behind it. Sabrina blinked. Someone intimately familiar with the operation of the med ship had just killed an entire squad of Marines without firing a shot. She looked at the dying Marine in his chair. There was only one person she knew who could have done that.

  The display read, “I have control of the ship. Space the last one. Moses.”

  Sabrina gasped. Moses was the doctor. He did not kill people. Saul was the warrior. He did. The air cleared in the cabin and the aft cargo door closed. Once the pressure had equalized, Sabrina dragged the dead Marine to the lip of the aft cargo door not looking to either side and returned to the flight deck. She grabbed a set of scrubs out of the closet so she would not still be naked when she returned to the ship. She closed and latched t
he door behind her. The cargo door opened and closed. It was not unlike taking out the trash.

  No sooner had Sabrina docked than Elizabeth and Peter hyper jumped. Whoever might have followed them would not find them.

  Sabrina went to Elizabeth’s bridge only slightly worse for the exposure to the disinfectant. Moses and Ambrosia sat on the nearly empty bridge designed for a dozen people in full combat operation. Moses looked like he had aged ten years in the hours since Sabrina had last seen him.

  “Welcome back,” Moses said. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little dizzy,” Sabrina said.

  “That will go away.”

  “Where’s Fiona?” Sabrina asked nervously.

  “With Saul and Buddy. Rebecca and Sylvia are in Daisy.” Moses scanned his display.

  “Where did they go?”

  Moses sounded tired, and this was only the beginning of what would be a long tour of duty. “They blew a hole in the planet’s geosynchronous satellite monitoring net, and that’s where we are going. They took out a squadron of interceptors. We are parking in the hole.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “No, they descended to the surface backwards, tail down like in an old science fiction story.” Moses shook his head in disbelief.

  “Then what?”

  “We lost track of them.”

  “Do you know what Saul’s plan is?”

  “Not a clue, but whatever it is, we need to be closer to the space port, and that’s why we’re parking in that hole they made and defend it. From there we can send and receive ships more easily than from where we were. It’s not like secrecy is important any more.”

  “Right.”

  “Please suit up and fire up your ship. I would love to have all that ordinance punching enemies instead of hanging on a docking port.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Who do you want for your back seat?” Moses asked.

  “I don’t need a back seat.”

  Moses looked at her with a look Sabrina had often seen from his grandfather. “Nobody goes out alone.” It was a simple statement of fact.