“Yes, sir. Shoot if they try anything?"
The starship commander considered the suggestion. “Only to wound, Lieutenant. For the present, we need the Bloody Deckers."
* * * *
Surrounded by a squad of metal guys holding mother big rifles, the street gang was escorted from their cell in the brig to a Ready room where the convicts were allowed to change from their zebra striped prison fatigues into tan military jumpsuits with a nice wide belt and these really bitchin’ combat boots.
So far, this trip had been an easy gig for them. The food was great, and their quarters were luxurious compared to the 10X15 cell at the Pelican SuperMax Security Prison where they had been serving their 97 consecutive life sentences. Bad place that. The gang had to do some serious head busting before they were finally safe from kissing their own shoes. Geez, you try and conqueror the world just once and some people go crazy.
“Hey, prof!” Drill called, zipping up the front of his jumpsuit and shrugging to straighten the shoulders. “We doing this gig naked, or what?"
“There are plenty of guns for you in the shuttle craft,” Rajavur stated from behind a wall of armed Marines. “But be very careful how you use them. Computer sensors in the weapons prohibit them from firing at any ship personnel. If you attempt to use the guns to remove your bracelets, both the weapon and the bracelet will explode."
Clenching and unclenching scarred fists, Hammer frowned at the smooth ceramic bands on his wrists. The ganglord looked meaningfully at Drill, but the locksmith sadly shook his head. These things had been welded onto them by some weirdo alien device, so there was no mechanism for him to pick. Besides which, they were supposed to explode if the gang left their cell without authorization, or went down a proscribed corridor, or hit the bracelets too hard, or did anything clever. They were good and trapped. Nothing to do but go along with the scheme and wait for a lucky break.
“What about knives?” Chisel asked, struggling to lace a boot, his mind almost overloading with the effort to remember the kindergarten poem: ‘First you build a house, then the man goes inside...'
Lt. Jones had been expecting that request. “There is a box in the shuttle craft with a hundred assorted knives, hooks and hatchets for you."
With a yank, the boy finished tying the knot and stood up straight. Only a hundred? He guessed it would have to do.
When the street gang was finished with their ablutions, an unarmed Marine gave each man a heavy leather pouch.
Frowning curiously, Drill peeked inside. “What is this stuff? Canadian money?"
“Subway tokens?” Chisel guessed, sniffing a coin.
In response, Jones started to explain the intricate history of thulium, then decided against it. “Space dollars,” she told them.
Nodding in acceptance, Hammer tucked the bag into a hip pocket. “That's cool. Chump change, folding cash, or serious bucks?"
“Think of them as flat diamonds."
“Wow,” Chisel gushed, drooling slightly. “We're rich!"
Unnoticed by anybody, Drill palmed a coin and dropped it into his boot.
“You understand the plan?” Prof. Rajavur asked, when the gang had stopped fondling the money and was under control once more. Or rather, what passed for control.
Running a hand over his hated prison crewcut, the lord of the street gang snorted in contempt. “Yeah, yeah. It don't take no nuclear genius to cook this scam. We go to the bar, act tough, get to see the boss, buy this cube thing and come back here fast, or else."
Then in spite of the guards and the fact that this situation reminded him of a classic World War II movie, Hammer took the opportunity to add, “But I don't like being a freaking errand boy, you old fart, and if this wasn't earning us full pardons, my gang wouldn't do spit, you needle dick bug jumper."
After RporR the insult stung. “I understand, Melvin,” the older man replied. “Now, shut up and go board the shuttle before I order your left hand blown off for insubordination."
The ganglord turned red at the use of his proper name, then broke into laughter and strolled from the room with his chuckling gang and Marine guards close behind.
Relaxing only slightly, Lt. Jones exhaled and holstered her laser pistol. “Nice bluff, sir."
“I never bluff a man who has nothing to lose, Lieutenant,” Prof. Rajavur said coldly. “Hammer could have done the job just as well with only one hand and he knew it."
It was then the Australian officer decided that someday she simply had to play poker with this man.
* * * *
“Negative again, sir,” Ensign Hamlisch reported calmly, even though he was boiling inside.
The scientist hated to fail in anything. This tenacious attitude had cost the man several friends over the years, but earned him the Noble Prize in Physics at the astonishing age of twenty-five years old.
Acknowledging the report, Captain Keller drummed his fingers on the cushioned arm of his chair a few times and then loudly slapped the plasti-cloth covering. “Okay, Master Technician, how do we locate this place? Do a radar sweep of the entire solar system?"
“Conceivable,” Trell admitted, chewing a finger. “But usually, you do not find them, they find you."
“Meaning?"
“We hover above the fourth asteroid ring and broadcast a low power message. Upon acceptance of our transmission, Buckle will send out a tracer beam."
He nodded. Good enough. “You heard the man, Lilliuokalani. Proceed."
“Affirmative, skipper. What frequency should I broadcast on, Master Technician?"
As Trell rattled off the string of integers, the Hawaiian adjusted a slide and flipped a toggle switch.
“Is there a code phrase, or password I should use, sir?” she asked, fingers poised above her keyboard.
The alien waved a pattern of negation. “Just say something nasty about the Gees."
“Aye, sir.” The Communications Officer typed a brief message on her keyboard and hit the Enable key. A minute later, she announced incoming coordinates.
The captain woke from his musing. “That was fast. What did you say to them?"
Ensign Lilliuokalani blushed. “I said we liked to decapitate Gee babies and fornicate the neck stumps."
Keller stared at the woman.
“Too verbose, sir?” she asked politely.
“No, that was fine, Ensign. Just fine.” Mentally, he made a note to have Van Loon keep an eye on her. Then he glanced about the room. Where was the physician anyway? Oh yes, still in the lab. The man was starting to live down there. He wondered what the good doctor was doing?
Following the directions, the Ramariez reversed course and began to move counter to the asteroid flow. The plain of tumbling mountains flowed beneath them like an impossible river of stone, an endless avalanche to nowhere.
“Why is it we can't find them?” CPO Buckley asked, his brogue deliberately asserting itself. “Faith, with our sensors we should be able to locate a single freckle in Ireland."
Trell talked for quite a few minutes, and the translator box on his belt said the word: disguised.
“Disguised how?” Captain Keller asked. “Camouflage? A jamming field? Or is it some sort of cloaking device that bends our scanner beams 180 degrees around the target?"
Once more the alien Technician launched into a short science lecture to try and clarify the complex physics involved, and his translator replied, “Yes."
The Swiss officer scowled. Might as well talk to the avantor.
“Navigation, please change course, port by keel by stern, 2,000 meters,” Lilliuokalani directed, touching her wireless earphone.
“Affirmative,” Ensign Soukup replied making the corrections.
Penetrating the effect of the cloaking device, there appeared on the main viewscreen a mile long asteroid covered with strings of lights and metal domes. In orbit about the jagged rock were a dozen starships of various shapes and sizes, every one of the vessels solid white.
“Strange how close we were
to this place from our phase-in point,” Soukup observed, logging the data in on her astro navigation chart. “Captain, do you think the Gees know about this place?"
“You would have to ask Avantor,” Keller replied sternly, and this time nobody volunteered to do so. There were lots of easier ways to get seriously hurt, such as playing catch with a greased bottle of nitroglycerine in a munitions factory during a lightning storm.
“Place us in a parking orbit about the asteroid, Mister Soukup,” the captain directed. “But with plenty of room to move if we have to leave in a hurry."
“Aye, sir."
Keeping a hand on his console, Buckley swiveled about. “Skipper, may I recommend we go to Yellow alert?"
Captain Keller smiled tolerantly. He had once been a chief petty officer, too. “I was just going to do that, Buck. Ensign Lilliuokalani, yellow alert."
Throughout the ship, the command was relayed. Then Keller gave a bone-cracking yawn that was copied by the several members of the bridge crew. “And for God's sake, have the galley get some coffee in here!"
* * * *
Sitting significantly alone in the middle of the Launch Bay #2 was a slim, flat bottomed plane whose gleaming white hull was made of seamless Deflector Plating. In bold lettering, the name Leonov was stenciled on her round bow.
Seemingly unaffected by the sophisticated beauty of the craft, the Bloody Deckers stomped on board the shuttle. Ready for treachery, the Marines did not relax until the hatch of the vessel was tightly dogged shut and the air evacuated from the launch bay.
Under normal conditions, the craft held enough seats for a crew of three and ten passengers, but the extraneous chairs had been removed, and ribbed plastic cargo trunks installed to take their place.
Like kids at a birthday party, the gang tore into the trunks. Aside from translators, medical kits, food packs and other such useless stuff, the convicts found three laser pistols, with shoulder holsters. Groans greeted the familiar sight of the woven metal force shield belts, but cheers meet the unexpected prize of bulletproof vests.
The promised guns proved to be Uzi machine pistols equipped with acoustical silencers. The gang worked the bolts and checked the clips with experienced hands. These highly illegal weapons were what had earned them the right to claim Central Park as their turf. Uzi's and the Bloody Deckers were old friends. The new AK-74 assault rifles were very nice, but much too big to hide under a leather jacket.
Chisel squealed with delight at the sight of the knife collection, and plunged his hands into the box unconcerned by the razor sharp steel. Hammer let the boy grab the Bowie knife sitting prominently on top and chose a standard switchblade for himself. Drill took two Japanese butterfly knives and Chisel appropriated everything remaining. When finished, his pockets, boots and sleeves bulged with edged death, and his body weight was increased by twenty percent.
Smiling contentedly, the bucktoothed lad smoothed out his clinking clothes. This was the first time he had been properly dressed in a month.
Insatiable as always, Drill began roaming about the vessel searching for cigarettes. He started with the cockpit. It was as far as he got. “H-hey, chief!” the locksmith called, his voice wavering.
Feeling more like a man now that he had a gun in his hand, Hammer ambled on over and froze in his tracks. There, welded to the front of the dashboard, with no attempt made at subterfuge, was a really huge mucking metal egg plainly labeled as a bomb.
“These guys play for keeps,” the ganglord whispered in sincere admiration.
“YES, WE DO,” a feminine voice said from a speaker under the control panel. “NOW PLEASE STRAP YOURSELVES IN. WE ARE BEGINNING FINAL APPROACH AND WILL LAUNCH SOON."
“Then what?” Hammer asked. The street punk hated to do what he was told, but was not stupid enough to disobey.
“WE WILL LAND THE SHUTTLE AT THE APPROPRIATE SPOT AND TURN THE MISSION OVER TO YOU."
The Bloody Deckers nodded. Great, that's when they could make their escape.
“WE WILL BE KEEPING A CONSTANT AUDIO AND VIDEO SURVEILLANCE ON YOU VIA OUR SCANNERS,” continued the voice. “BUT YOU WILL BE AUTONOMOUS. WE WILL INTERVENE ONLY WHEN YOU SHOUT FOR HELP. IF YOU DO, THEN STAND BACK.” There was a pause. “AND WE MEAN THAT LITERALLY. STAND BACK."
* * * *
“Understand?” Lilliuokalani asked into a microphone. The Deckers murmured vague assents from a speaker on her console. “Acknowledged then, Ramariez out.” She released the thumb switch and returned the microphone to her console.
“Ready to go, sir,” the ensign reported.
Keller crumpled his drained coffee cup and stuffed its Styrofoam corpse into the disposal slot in the arm of his chair. “Take them out, Mr. Soukup."
“Aye, sir,” the woman said, plugging a miniature joy stick into her console and then flipping a switch. Watching the computer graphics on her tracking monitor, the ensign thumbed the button on top of the joy stick and the shuttle launched.
Under the adroit control of the expert pilot, the shuttlecraft maneuvered out the landing bay, the thick hullmetal doors silently closing once it was past. Little more than passengers for the journey, the street gang watched in total fascination as their ship jetted through the black velvet of space and gracefully entered the mouth of a dark cave on the pointed end of the asteroid.
In contrast to the rough exterior of the giant asteroid, the tunnel they were in was a smooth tube with a gravel floor and a high, vaulted ceiling. Seven different colored light bars, like grandiose fluorescent tubes, lined the entire length of the roof and pulsed in computer binary to guide the ship in.
Slow and careful, the LEONOV moved through an awe inspiring parking lot of assorted shuttlecrafts; balls, cubes, and pyramids everywhere. Most made of white metal, but some appeared to be ceramic, a couple glass, and one in the back was obviously constructed of riveted wood. A big blue ship they passed was shaped like a clam, another like a football helmet. There was a four story tall baseball bat covered with tiny windows in which fish swam by, a Christmas tree ornament perfectly balanced on its tear drop tail, and even a good old fashioned flying saucer with a sign on top consisting of a broken triangle bisected by a sine wave. Only Trell knew that to be the sad universal symbol of FOR SALE, BY OWNER. Probably an unlucky gambler who had lost everything at the VisPar tables. That was how his own parent had gotten so deeply into debt.
* * * *
On the main viewscreen, Captain Keller noted creatures moving freely about the ships and was surprised to see they were not wearing spacesuits of any kind.
“Is that landing area pressurized?” he asked.
“Affirmative, sir,” Ensign Hamlisch replied, already running arpeggios over the touch controls of his scanner console. “Some kind of low energy force screen covers the mouth of the tunnel and keeps the atmosphere in."
“Interesting. Chief, start calculations on a jamming field to neutralize that screen."
Buckley smiled at the prospect. “Aye, aye, sir!"
* * * *
Finding a vacant berth between a corkscrew and a doorstop, Ensign Soukup landed the shuttle and prudently shut off the engines. As the whine of the ion thrusters died away, the gang climbed out of their seats and grouped in front of the airlock. They hesitated before exiting, so Ensign Soukup cycled open both doors simultaneously from her console.
“GET MOVING,” the voice ordered.
The Bloody Deckers glanced at each other and shrugged. What the hell, if this sissy sounding Ramariez guy wanted them dead, there sure were easier ways to do it than marooning them here.
“Come on,” Hammer said, slapping his friends on the shoulders. “Let's go kick some alien butt, Decker style!"
Lacing their courage with bravado, the gang shouted their name like a war chant and exited the shuttle.
TWENTY-FOUR
Disdaining to use the automatically extending stairs, the youths hopped to the ground, the gravel crunching beneath their Army boots.
Looking around, the
Deckers spotted a slow-moving conveyor belt running down in the middle of the parking lot, going from the distant mouth of the tunnel to a nearby rock wall. The Deckers smiled. They knew about these people-mover things from robbing folks at airports. Hitching up their pants, the gang boldly stepped on the corrugated strip, and they were whisked away through a blossoming interface into the heart of the asteroid.
Bright lights and noise were the first things the gang registered, but as their big city trained reflexes took effect, they soon were able to discern an incredible hodgepodge of the town laid out before them. As far as they could see, there were buildings and structures of every conceivable description: from ramshackle igloos and ivory towers, to steel skyscrapers and brick outhouses. Almost every one had an electric neon sign of some sort. Indeed, a couple of the more garish buildings were neon signs and had tiny wooden houses hanging out front.
The street was nothing more than a branching path of raw asteroid stone that meandered through block after block of architectural anarchy; twisting and turning like a snake on drugs.
And the people ... !
The streets were filled to overflowing with a mixture of circus and zoo, combined with a Grade B Horror flick and a fancy dress masquerade thrown in for flavor. As true city dwellers, the pedestrians marched where they liked, when they felt like it, and paid no attention to each other, even when they collided, which was often. Street venders hawked bizarre goods on every bustling corner. Pungent steam rose from vents in the street, fogging the air. Cryptic alien billboards dotted the rooftops. Somewhere, angelic choirs could be heard singing, throbbing drums pounded from a rattan doorway, flutes and a trombones battled for supremacy inside a paisley tent and modulated screams came out of a concrete pillbox with iron bars on the windows. In the distance, there came an explosion and a tall spire of crystal noisily crashed out of sight. Nobody seemed to notice. It was a hundred New Year's Eves rolled into one, augmented by a small war and amplified through the fevered brain of a colorblind madman.
“I like it,” Drill said with a broad grin.
Basking in the open air, Hammer agreed. The place was okay. It was sort of like that movie about the android hunter. And better yet, not a cop was in sight.
Illegal Aliens Page 27
