by Rob Buckman
“Lock and load people, they’re getting lethal.” He was right. Something struck the roof beside him, leaving a ragged hole.
Janet located the shooter, and her aim was better than his; she let loose with a short burst. The sound of ripping cloth told Scott she’d opened up, and he shot a look over his shoulder to see a figure plunging off the rooftop of a nearby apartment building. It wasn’t often Janet missed her target, even at that distance, and especially not this time. It looked as if they’d finally changed their minds about violence and developed a lethal weapon of their own, or stole the plans for something his people developed. Now all they had to do was teach the idiots how to use them, not stand out in the open and try to shoot someone like the fool who’d just died.
Reaching the shuttle he raced up the ramp and placed the old lady on the couch, checking on the other as they gently placed Mary on the second couch and started administering first aid. Just in case, he pulled a needle rifle out of the rack and slipped a magazine home, tapping the base to seat it.
Switching on, he heard the rotary bolts spin up as he ducked out the hatch, scanning left and right. A security wagon was moving in to land. Taking aim at the left power cell, he squeezed off a burst, seeing chunks fly off the cowling. A second burst, and the power cell exploded in a shower of sparks and smoke. The pilot decided it wasn’t worth his life and backed away, slowly sinking out of sight to the ground as he lost lift.
One by one, the rest of his security team came aboard, and backing in, he hit the close control and called out to Kat to take off. She did, feeding full power to the anti-grav unit. Before state security could act, she was up though the circling vehicles, gaining altitude fast before switching to forward flight and running for the coast. The one thing that could stop them was the powerful tractor beams on the security vehicles, but they were only good if they could get within two hundred yards of her, and she wasn’t about let that happen if she could help it. Then they all heard a loud clang against the hull, and felt the craft lose speed.
“What happened, Kat?” Scott asked over the intercom.
“They hit us with something, and I’m losing power.”
“Will she still fly?”
“Hell yes, but not as fast.”
“Just keep going and do your best.” He knew it was a silly thing to say, she would do that anyway; it was just nerves. Kat dodged and weaved her way across the former San Diego, between the tall buildings. Then across the coastline near what was once La Jolla, heading toward Catalina Island. Kat could see more security craft already taking off and knew they were trying to box her in, and wished this was a star-fighter instead of a shuttlecraft.
“Well hello, Lady K, how are you doing?” a familiar English voice asked over the radio.
“Well I’ll be damned!” she yelled. “Is that you, Hawk One?”
“It’s not your local milkman, that for sure,” the voice chuckled. “You seemed to be having a spot of trouble with the local bobbies?”
“You could say that, you English twit, get down here and get them off my back will you!”
“No trouble at all, my lady,” he said, chuckling. “Hang about a wee bit while we get down there.” Kat hung on, looking to see which direction they were coming from, but couldn’t see a thing. She could follow the exchange on her comm unit, though.
“Excuse me, chaps, but you seem to be bothering the lady up front, would you be so kind as to cease and desist,” Hawk One asked politely.
“Who the hell are you?” a second voice asked. It was the security cruiser right behind Kat, and much to her annoyance, it had managed to get a tractor beam onto her tail.
“I’m just a friend of the lady up front, and I would appreciate it if you would back off and stop bothering her.”
“And what if I don’t? What are you going to do about it?” the pilot asked belligerently. Through her rear screen, Kat could see him looking around, trying to see the craft he was talking to.
Then he did, just as Hawk One pulled up on his portside. One look at the deadly black star-fighter was sufficient to convince him he didn’t stand a chance if this guy wanted to get nasty. Cutting the tractor beam, he backed off and turned for home, deciding to let someone else handle this problem, someone with a lot less brains. So did the other security craft when they saw an entire squadron of black star-fighters close in around the shuttle.
After that, it was smooth sailing all the way home, but at a slower pace than she would have liked, finding she could only get Mach 3 out of her now. Upon landing on the pad by the Alpha base med center, Scott found Doc Chase waiting for him with the life support equipment he’d asked him to bring when he radioed ahead. Chase checked the old lady over as they carefully placed her on the gurney, nodding to Scott to indicate she was alive.
“I’ll come by later, Doc, I need to talk to her for a short while.”
“I can’t promise, so don’t make it too long.”
“Got you,” Scott said, walking into the emergency room. “How’s Mary doing?” He couldn’t tell who was behind the mask, but the angry look told him he’d better get out of the OR as quick as he could.
“She’ll live if that’s what you want to know. Now get out,” the masked face snapped. Scott nodded and backed out of the room.
Scott picked up a ride from a passing truck, and a few minutes later stepped into Karl’s workshop-cum-hangar, seeing Karl standing by one of the rings talking to a tall old man with thinning white hair wearing a dirty, once-white jumpsuit, who looked a little worse for wear.
“Professor Ellis I presume?” Scott asked, walking up and holding his hand out. Wherever they’d held him, the man hadn’t been treated or fed well.
“Yes, that’s right, who are you?” Ellis answered, shaking hands, his eyes darting to Scott’s combat uniform and side arm.
“This is the man who gave the order to get you out of that hell hole,” Karl said.
“Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I have to tell you straightaway, I can’t help you with your investigation of the rings,” he said, and nodded, looking at them over his shoulder.
“Oh, I see,” Scott said, not hiding his disappointment. “You can’t tell us anything?”
“Yes, I can tell you a lot of interesting facts about them, and how to build them. But, you see, I don’t know how they work. That’s what I’ve been telling you people all along, I don’t know,” he whispered, on the verge of crying.
“What do you mean, you people?”
“Your security interrogators at the rehab center,” he said, looking nervously at Scott and Karl as though he expected one of them to hit him.
“But we have nothing to do with the SSP.”
“Yes, of course you don’t, that’s what the other men in suits told me, but I still can’t help you.”
Scott looked at Karl and let out a soft sigh. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say. Just then, in walked Nancy “Jugs” Tanner, as the boys had named the shapely marine. She’d heard that before when she was in a rifle company, so she didn’t take offense.
“Hey, skipper. Heard we got the guy who invented these damn things.” Professor Ellis stood stock still, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Hi, Jugs. This is the guy, but he tells me he can’t tell me how they work.”
“Well, shit! Now, what the hell do we do?”
Ellis stammered out, blushing bright red, “Tell … tell me um … skipper, is it? Is she, um … is she a loose woman?”
“Huh?” Scott, Karl, and Jugs all looked at the professor and blinked.
“My name isn’t skipper,” Scott said. “That’s just a casual title I let some marines use,” he cocked an eyebrow at Marine Corporal Nancy Tanner, “when appropriate, that is.”
She grinned at him. “Sorry about that, sir. Slip of the tongue.”
“Yeah, right. Discipline around this place is going to hell in a hand basket. Maybe I should reinstitute close order drill … twice a day if necessary.”
“Aw, come on, Admiral. You wouldn’t be that mean to us lowly marines now would you?” Tanner gave him a pleading look complete with the innocent little girl look. Scott just snorted and looked back at the professor.
“My name is Scott. Scott Drake. And I’m sort of in charge around this place.” He shot Jugs another dark look. “But what do you mean by um … loose woman?”
The professor leaned toward him. “I mean … is she … um … well a prostitute?” He whispered the last word, and Scott could hardly hear him.
“What! Why would you say that?”
“Um … well, she’s walking around barefaced without a hijab … and the way she is dressed … I mean … well …” He stammered to a halt. Scott knew what was coming, because this was one of those word holes he’d kept falling into with President Westwood at first. The light dawned a bit later for Corporal Tanner.
“Hey, what’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” she asked, looking down at her cutoff jeans and tight blouse.
“No, nothing.” Scott grinned. “Here the women are free to dress however they please … within reason, that is. Also, we don’t follow any of that nonsense they practice on the mainland.”
Professor Ellis shook his head. “I believe you. No matter how hard State Security tried to trick me, they would never go so far to try something like … well, having a female dress that way.”
Nancy Tanner gave him a dark look. “Watch your mouth, Professor.”
“At ease, Marine,” Scott said. “I think I know what the professor’s getting at. In his world, no woman would dare dress like that where other men could see her. They’d be beaten, or worse.”
“Oh, I get it. No, I’m not owned by any of these … um … gentlemen around here, if you can call them that, saddling a poor innocent girl like me with a name like Jugs.” She laughed, because Corporal Tanner was about as innocent as Attila the Hun.
“Yes, I can understand that,” Ellis said, then turned to Scott. “And even the way you speak is an indication that you are speaking the truth, Sar Drake.”
“It’s Admiral Drake, but we’ll get to that later. You need to go see your wife in the medical center—”
“My wife! She’s here? What have you done to her?” he demanded, his voice quivering with emotion.
“Nothing,” Scott rushed to assure him. “We took her out of a hospital in San Diego … what you people now call New Tripoli, and brought her here. She’d been … had an accident, and we’re treating her. Would you like to go and see her?”
“Accident, what sort of accident?” he demanded. “What did you do to her?”
Scott could see there was no talking to the man in his present state. “No, no. It’s nothing like that, it’s just … why don’t we walk over there, and you can ask her yourself.”
“Yes, yes, I’d like to do that.” His tone told Scott the man half-expected them to find an excuse so he couldn’t. He followed Scott as he started walking toward the side door.
“You better come as well, just in case, Karl,” Scott said, motioning him to follow. Scott didn’t bother getting a vehicle, thinking it might be better to walk so the old man could see the place.
“You say we’re in New Zealand?” was the first question Ellis had. The old man’s eyes darted about, trying to look at everything at once. The sight of men and women walking and marching around together obviously made an impression, as did the fact more females were walking around with their faces uncovered.
“Yes, New Zealand, and we’ve been here a few years now,” Scott said.
“And you say you’re fighting aliens who are raiding this planet?”
“Yes.”
“I remember hearing about that before they … put me in that place.”
“You’ll have a chance to catch up on the news once you’re well again, all right?”
“Well again! I’m not sick, I keep telling you people that. There is nothing wrong with me!” Angry, Ellis moved away from the group. No one tried to stop him, and hesitant, he continued to walk beside them.
Arriving at the med center, the duty nurse directed them to a room where Doc Chase was standing by the old woman’s bed, talking softly to her. Professor Ellis rushed over, grabbed her hand and placed his head next to her on the pillow, crying. Backing away, Chase came over, shaking his head.
“She meant it when she said she was dying, Scott,” Chase muttered. “Unless I can tank her in the next half hour, and even then it might be too late.”
“Tank them both, Doc, it’s the least we can do,” Scott whispered.
Chase nodded, smiling. “I have two regeneration tanks standing by, just as you ordered,” he said, and then Scott saw Mrs. Ellis beckoning him over.
“Yes ma’am.”
“My husband has something to tell you,” she whispered. The old man looked at each of them, then his wife.
“Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded. “My wife tells me that you are good people, and that you risked your life to rescue us. And for that, I thank you.”
“No charge, Professor, all part of the service,” Scott answered, trying to make light of it.
“I have to tell you, I didn’t invent the rings,” Ellis said. Scott felt a keen sense of disappointment at hearing that. “My wife did.”
“What! What did you say?”
“My wife, Maddy invented the rings. She’s a much better scientist than I ever was, but it’s impossible for a woman to receive any recognition in this world, so she told me to take the credit. That’s what I have been doing all along. She invented everything, it was always her,” he said, beginning to cry.
“Well I be …”
“You want to know how the rings work, and how to build them, don’t you?”
“Yes, we do, but that has nothing to do with the treatment you two are going to get.”
“I don’t care how you treat me, but please look after my wife for me.”
“You misunderstand, Professor,” Chase said, smiling. “We’re talking about regeneration, not comfort. We have a way of reversing the effects of aging,” he explained as Scott went over and took the old lady’s hand.
“Do you remember me telling you that you would be running in the sunshine again?” Scott asked, and she smiled and nodded. “In about six months to a year, you and your husband will be running down a beach in the sunlight, enjoying life once more, with no one bothering you ever again.” He looked up at the professor.
“Do you have a stylus and a recorder?” Maddy asked. Karl produced both immediately. With a trembling hand she wrote something down on the pad, then made a little drawing, before she began dictating into the recorder.
While she was doing that, Chase spoke softly into his wrist comm, and a few moments later a nurse entered with a tray. Chase loaded up a hypospray and looked at his wristband for the time, as if gauging the amount it would take before the shot took effect. At last, Maddy stopped, but whether from exhaustion, or because she’d completed saying everything, they didn’t know. Either way Chase didn’t wait; coaxing the professor onto the second bed, he injected both of them.
“All right you two, out you go,” Scott said gently. “I have work to do.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You are a very good person, look after that lady of yours, and the baby.” She closed her eyes.
Reaching down, he kissed the old lady on the forehead as she drifted off to sleep. “You sleep now, and I’ll see you in a while.” He doubted she heard him because she was already asleep.
“What do you think, Karl? Do we have something?”
“Let me get back to the hangar, and I’ll let you know later today,” Karl said, looking at the pad and scratching his head again. “Damn, I hope they both make it, Scott, they could both be great assets to us.”
“I’d just be glad to see them enjoying themselves on a beach somewhere.”
Karl looked at him oddly for a moment, then nodded, understanding where Scott was coming from. The couple had just gi
ven them their life’s work, and nothing more would be asked of them. It would be up to them if they wanted to contribute something more. If not, then that was all right as well.
CHAPTER FOUR: …"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on
the sheep without mercy."… LTC (RET) D. Grossman
“Gentlemen, we have a problem.” Randolph Roberts looked around the circle of the holographic pit. It appeared he was surrounded by eight people, each sitting on one of the couches on each side of him. They ranged in age from their late forties to one who was over one hundred. Two, besides Randolph, were dressed in conservative business suits, while the others preferred less formal garb, such as colorful robes or the togas a few were dressed in.
