Maxim Bryant’s icy blue gaze collided with his.
“Ah…at last! We’ve been expecting you, Elias Abrams!” The voice oozed like melted butter through the laboratory’s speaker system.
“Move away from her,” Elias ordered through the glass barrier.
Raising his blaster, he sighted down the barrel. A red pinpoint of light appeared in the center of Maxim’s high forehead.
“I was wrong to underestimate you, my friend,” Maxim smiled benignly up at them, apparently unmoved at the threat of being shot. “Your mental defenses are exceptional. Very similar to the ‘Old One’! Xenaclon warrior, I presume? You aren’t swarthy enough to be Barriosi.”
Not waiting for a response, Maxim answered his own question. “No, it’s definitely Xenaclon. I must congratulate you; you have one of the few minds that I cannot penetrate at will. With some sort of misguided connection to this one, I assume?”
“Drop the scalpel and move away from the medi-bed. Or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Elias grated.
Under no circumstances would he give Maxim Bryant the satisfaction of knowing how important Freezhia was to him and his people. Killing her would guarantee the extinction of the Xenaclon race.
The deadly tone in Elias’ voice assured Pax that Elias meant every word he said. His tone seemed to have no impact on the man down below them, however.
Pax examined the balcony, looking for a way inside. The observation deck was built in a hexagonal shape. Elevator doors were built into the wall down below, allowing the MBryO UNIX lab assistants to wheel the gurneys in and out of the cloning center. The elevator led directly down to the chem-labs located in the basement. They did not come up any higher.
Discarding that route into the lab, Pax searched for another way in, other than simply jumping through the thick glass panels in front of him. Quickly scanning the area, he spotted the door leading down into the lab on the far side of where Elias was standing.
He calculated the time it would take to descend the steps into the lab against the mere seconds it would take for Maxim to use the laser scalpel on the hapless female lying below. The need for caution won out. He would have to let this play out Elias’ way.
“And risk endangering our friend here with flying glass? I do not think so,” Maxim returned, still smiling. “I suspect that you will do everything in your power to avoid harming her… correct?”
Looking into Elias’ stern face, Maxim allowed himself a smug smile. Maxim enjoyed having the upper hand, for once, in the mental game of hide and seek the two had played so adroitly during the past six years.
“You should not have returned, Elias Abrams. Security was alerted the instant you entered the building through the turbine. We have monitored your movements very closely. I must thank you for bringing my sons back to me. My sources tell me that Terran drones are, even now, closing in on the area where the stolen spacecraft disappeared. It will not take them long to discover where the rest of my family is hiding. They will surely be returned to me in time.”
“MBryO will never get its hands on them again,” Elias growled.
“I admit, it was a brilliant plan, Elias,” Maxim droned on as if he had never spoken. “Too bad, it is destined to fail.”
“There will be no escape for you, your young accomplice there, or the beautiful Captain Sivanza this time. It is she piloting the space-hopper hovering in the atmosphere above us, am I right? I am sure she is preparing to pick you up, as we speak!”
Maxim rattled on, reveling in the sound of his own voice and the psy-anger he sensed radiating from Elias, yet did not show on the man’s stoic face. “Even now Terran Guards have been deployed to the launch pad atop the building, waiting to apprehend her and effectively cutting off your escape.”
At that very moment alarms began to echo throughout the building. As Pax watched the cameras mounted discreetly along the walls swiveled toward them.
He figured Terran Guards were now covering all the hallways, not to mention the exits into and out of the building. With a whir small holes opened in the ceiling and warning lights descended through them. Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the sterile white walls, signaling an intruder alert.
“Zander’s-tar-pits,” Pax bit off. He was tired of waiting. And he really didn’t like the ugly gleam in Maxim’s blue eyes when he mentioned Melara’s name.
Like a hypnotist wielding a spinning amulet, Maxim seemed to have mesmerized Elias with his lilting speech. He was rooted to the spot and now that they had been discovered time was of the essence.
Not so, Pax. Aiming his blaster at one of the empty incubators lining the far wall of the laboratory, he squeezed the trigger.
Things happened pretty fast after that.
The incubator disintegrated, shooting streams of green mucous into the air, covering the pristine surfaces of the equipment close to it. Surprised, Maxim dropped the laser with a clatter and covered his head protectively as thick glass fell through the air.
Pax carefully squeezed the trigger, firing systematically at the floor close to Maxim’s feet. The man must have had nerves of steel because he never flinched. He did back away from Freezhia, however.
Pax was careful not to aim any higher for fear of hitting the too-still form lying on the medi-bed. Unfortunately, the shots drove Maxim closer to the elevator doors, instead of pining him down as Pax had intended.
At the sound of ricocheting bullets, Elias’ feet came unglued at the diversion. He raced across the balcony to the laboratory door and jumped down the stairs. The elevator chimed closed as he reached the medi-bed.
Maxim was smart. Withdrawing from the scene had been his wisest move. Elias was sure he had only retreated. He would rally his troops and try to stop them from leaving the building.
Slinging his blaster over his shoulder, Pax simply climbed onto the shattered balcony panel in front of him and jumped down into the laboratory.
It was some twenty feet from the observation deck to the parquet floor below. But Terra’s gravity was much lighter than the gravity on Nyla 6. It probably had something to do Nyla 6’s moons. Wasit was much closer than Terra’s moon. He landed easily on all fours, much like that of a large cat.
The red and blue warning lights spun from the ceiling in time to the earsplitting shriek of the security alarms.
“We must go, Elias,” Pax straightened and walked through the green slime to the medi-bed. He spared a glance for the other incubators lining the laboratory walls. There were some disturbing sights inside the jelly-like filling. He pulled his gaze from one eerily intelligent blue eye peering back at him through the neo-natal unit and gently prodded the older man.
“Melara will be here soon. She will be flying into an ambush by MBryO’s security guards. We must find a way to warn her.”
Elias visibly pulled himself together. He needed his wits about him if they were to escape the building with their lives. Shifting his own blaster to his shoulder, he leaned over the medi-bed and picked up the small figure.
She was incredibly light from years of cruelty and persecution suffered at the hands of Maxim Bryant. Mentally, Elias vowed to put an end to the man’s cruelty and see to it once and for all that he harmed no one else.
Inclining his head, Elias motioned silently for Pax to lead the way up the stairs to the balcony elevators. His weapon ready, Pax did so. The broken keypad made entry to the elevator doors easy. The blinking lights and alarms added urgency to their steps.
Their presence had already been discovered. Pax saw no need to disguise their retreat.
The original plan had been to join the others in the air vents and climb to the roof together. But by mutual consent, he and Elias decided to take the shortest route to the landing pad. The alarms and lights were sure indicators that something had gone wrong with their plan. Pax was sure the others continue to make their way to the roof.
The elevator ride seemed to take hours when in reality it was mere minutes. The alarms grew louder as the d
oors slid open on the rooftop of the MBryO UNIX building.
Pax assessed the situation in one glance. Stepping forward he sank to one knee, his blaster firing at a platoon of Terran Guardsmen waiting on them, armed and ready. They were hunkered down behind a row of hastily erected concrete girders located between them and the landing zone.
Reflexively, Pax fired the blaster, covering Elias as he carried his limp burden to a nearby metal casing housing one of the building’s many exhaust fans. The guards, mostly fresh out of cadet school, dived behind the concrete girders for cover as bullets rained down on them.
From the corner of his eye, Pax caught sight of Joshua and William crawling out of the air conditioning vents across the way. Hurriedly, the two reached behind them to help a rag-tag menagerie of humanoid mutants out of the vent behind them.
When the last mutant emerged from the shaft, Joshua led the way across the rooftop to an exhaust fan similar to the one Pax and Elias were using as cover. William was bringing up the rear, behind an odd looking set of youngsters.
The boys crept from one object to the next in an attempt to lead the group as close to the landing zone as possible. They would have to move quickly, as time would be of the essence when the space-hopper arrived.
Occupied with the battle that rage about them, no one noticed when a minute later, the snout of a snarling black wolf scampered out of the vent and onto the rooftop. Fangs bared, the winged animal lunged and then soared through the air to the nearest metal casing big enough to protect him from the blaster fire.
The sound of beating wings suddenly filled the air.
Right on time, Melara neared the launch pad in the space-hopper, unaware that she was flying into the middle of an ambush. The belly of the ship barely touched the launch pad before she threw open the cargo hold door, the engines still running.
The hole in the side of the ship beckoned to them. Unfortunately, the Terran Guard was held a position between them and Melara and the ship. They used the concrete girders to steady their blasters and a barrage of blaster fire was issuing from the nozzles of their weapons.
Both groups hiding behind the exhaust fans were effectively pinned down and cut off from the space-hopper.
The elevator chimed once more. A furious Maxim Bryant, and a half-dozen Terran Guards, stepped out. Pax’s heart sank as they aimed their blasters at him and Elias as well. Unless they surrendered, it was just a matter of time before they were cut to ribbons in the crossfire.
Melara stepped out of the space hopper, creating a diversion by throwing one, then two, hydrogen powered grenades in the direction of the concrete girders. The resulting explosion destroyed the barriers, sending debris and several body parts into the air. Her blaster strafed red in the darkness as she fired at the guardsmen that were left.
Turning, Pax focused on Maxim and his guards, sending some back inside the elevator and some flanking to the right and left with their blasters returning his fire.
Maxim simply strode forward, his psy-talent creating a shield that kept the bullets from striking him. Once again Pax was reminded of an avenging angel as he crossed the rooftop.
“Go,” he told Elias silently, nodding in the direction of the space-hopper. “I’ll be right behind you.”
On cue, Joshua ushered the group of strange looking mutants accompanying him toward the open cargo doors. Once more William brought up the rear.
Carrying his burden as gently as possible, Elias followed suit, careful not to get between Melara and the Terran Guard. No sooner than he was inside the ship than he gently deposited his burden on one of the sleepers.
Rushing forward he took a seat in the cockpit, relying on Joshua and William to help the others into the ship and assist with fastening their seatbelts. In the back of his mind he realized the ship seemed far more crowded than when they had entered Terra’s atmosphere earlier that evening. The added weight could affect the space-hopper’s ability to take off.
Outside, William finished helping Janus up and into the cargo bay. He was about to crawl inside himself when he felt arms snag him from behind, pulling him backwards out of the ship.
Struggling, William turned and looked into the bloody face of a Terran Guard. The boy could have been no older than his brother Joshua and his face was pitted and bleeding where shards of concrete had struck him after Melara had detonated the hydrogen grenades.
He grasped William by the front of his shirt with one pitted hand and held a wicked looking knife in the other. In one smooth motion the boy slashed downwards, aiming at William’s chest.
An angry growl stopped him, as the winged-wolf creature lunged through the air, knocking the cadet sideways onto the rooftop. Unexpectedly finding himself released, William stood there frozen to the spot, as the black creature lunged and soared once more, landing atop the fallen guardsman. His fangs bared, the creature ripped the boys’ throat open in a split second.
Growling, the wolf looked back at William and psy-talent tickled the edges of his mind as the creature said, “A life for a life! My debt to you is paid. We are even now, human!”
“William,” Joshua called anxiously from the open cargo bay. “You must hurry. We need to go!”
“Are you coming with us?” William asked. “We go to a place where those like us are protected.”
An unexpected feeling of sadness emanated from the wolf. “There is no one like me, human.”
With that, the wolf bounded into the air, his black wings spread wide as he soared into the sky, out into the darkness beyond.
William watched him disappear from the rooftop before turning back to the space-hopper. Joshua grasped his arm and pulled him inside as the ship lifted off the launching pad, hovering a few feet in mid-air.
Inside, a warning light on the console alerted Elias to the fact that the ship had reached her weight limit. If they did not lift off now, the overloaded ship would never make it back to Nyla 6.
Grimly, he pushed the button that closed the cargo bay doors just as William and Joshua found a sleeper and fastened themselves in. Grasping the stick, he activated the rocket boosters and launched into the atmosphere, leaving Melara and Pax behind.
Across the way, Melara watched as Maxim advanced on Pax’s position. Psy-talent flew from the man’s outstretched arms, tearing the blaster from Pax’s hands and sending it crashing over the side of the building, out of sight.
Desperate to reach him, she sprayed the space in front of her with bullets. The remaining guardsmen in front of her ran for cover, scurrying out of the way of her blaster fire.
“Pax,” she yelled, firing at Maxim. “Come on! We need to go! Run!”
Pax leaped over the casing of the exhaust fan and did as she bade him. In the distance, he watched astonished as the space-hopper lifted off the building and careened off into the night sky. Elias had abandoned them on top of the rooftop.
Her weapon empty, Melara threw it aside, watching it clatter across the rooftop. Reaching down, she picked up two discarded blasters lying beside one of the concrete girders.
“Let’s go!” She tossed one of the weapons to him and ran to the edge of the rooftop. When she leaped over the side of the building, he was right behind her.
The screech of Maxim Bryant’s fury echoed in their ears as they jumped through the air, landing on the metal turbine housing below, with twin thuds. Once again Terra’s lighter gravity worked to their advantage and after landing successfully, they used the thin metal alloy to catapult down to the grass below.
Bullets dogged their every step as Pax and Melara raced side-by-side, across the crowded construction site. Breathing heavily, they sought refuge in the cover of the dense forest.
Chapter Nine
“Wait, Elias!”
William yelled frantically at the edges of the older man’s mind. “We must go back! Pax and Melara are still down there.”
“I am sorry, William,” Elias replied aloud, even though everyone on board had some degree of telepathic psy-talent. “It
is too dangerous. We are exceeding the planet-hopper’s weight capacity, as it is.”
“But, Pax and Melara are in terrible danger! Our father will not hesitate to hunt them down and kill them.”
“We must stick to the plan,” Elias returned, his hands busy with the blinking dials and knobs in the cockpit.
“Pax and Melara are aware of the alternate rendezvous schedule. For now, we must concentrate on getting these people to safety as soon as possible. We have to leave Terran airspace as quickly as possible if we are to evade the Terran Guard and keep them from discovering our destination.”
“How is she doing, Joshua?”
Elias called over the sound of the engines thrusters as they exited Terra’s atmosphere. He made himself concentrate on manning the controls instead of turning to look at the unconscious form strapped in the sleeper console behind him.
“Her vital signs are critical, Elias. The medi-bed is doing everything it can to help her. She is just very weak.”
Maybe, too weak, Joshua thought privately, his shield held tightly in place to keep anyone from reading his thoughts. He did not know if Freezhia could survive an eighteen hour trip through hyperspace, even in the confines of the sleeper.
“William let me know if her condition changes. As soon as we reach the next star system I will plot a course to Nyla 6. Until then, Joshua, I need you to take the co-pilot’s seat. You will need to monitor the radar screen. We need to be on the lookout for any rogue Terran drone ships.”
Joshua left the sleeper and took up a position in front of the radar screen. A spinning dial circled the screen every few seconds. So far it appeared they had evaded detection.
“Where is this Nyla 6?” Janus asked. His psy-talent was incredibly strong, but not nearly as strong as his dark haired twin sister.
“Will we be there soon?” Jenasus questioned.
“Nyla 6 is a dwarf planet located in the Lyastra System,” Joshua answered them. “And we will travel several hundred light years from Terra over the course of the next few hours. It will take approximately a day and a half in Terran time,” he added.
MBryO: The Escape Page 11
