“Do it. We sacrifice the old to build the new.” Blel’s voice was grim, and I almost panicked when he called my bluff. But the Empress didn’t. Her palm glowed a fierce red, and she moved to attack him, only he pulled a small handheld gun and aimed it at her with unexpected speed.
He fired, but not before being tackled by a female officer next to him. It all happened so fast, I nearly didn’t see it. The Empress dropped to the floor and I rushed to catch her, narrowly avoiding letting her head strike the hard surface. Her daughter, now free of Leonard’s grasp, ran over to her.
Two groups of Bhlat were forming around the now disarmed Blel. He was being held by the woman who’d taken him down. Tension was thick as they yelled back and forth between supporters of their military leader and the Empress.
I knelt by the Empress, who was breathing. A wound in her side smoked where the ray had blasted her.
“Can you translate?” I asked.
She nodded with a grimace.
“The battles can stop. I’ve already made a deal with your Empress.” I waited while she translated into their rough language. A few kept shouting at each other, but most stopped to listen.
She must have asked them to listen, because soon the room was silent; only Blel’s labored breathing whistled across the bridge.
“I have a way for your people to have water and other resources, and I’ve offered it to her on the condition that we’re no longer enemies. That you stop the genocide of other worlds and take what I can offer you.”
The words translated. Many of them looked relieved or intrigued.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be with your families, instead of fighting and mining planets with resistance?” I had them, I knew it.
Blel started to spout something off in Bhlat, but when they wouldn’t listen, he spoke in English. “Mr. Parker, we are Bhlat. This will never be. We are…” His words were cut short as the sound of a pulse coursed through the bridge. Leonard stood there, pistol raised, hand trembling.
“I’m sorry,” he said shakily. The young man dropped the gun and stood there, mouth open, tears falling down his face. “I’m sorry.”
No one attacked him as they let Blel’s dead body slip to the ground.
One crew member said a phrase in their language and came to help the Empress up. They moved her to the captain’s chair and kept saying it.
“What does it mean?” I asked her.
“Long live the Empress, we bask in her eternal light.” She smiled through sharp teeth, the red galaxies in her eyes twinkling as she looked at me.
Alarms sounded, and I raised my gun in defense, but they had nothing to do with what was happening on board. The wide viewscreen turned on, showing an image of Earth below, and something in the distance. One of the helmsmen ran to a console and zoomed in.
New Spero’s fleet had arrived. They were going to attack this ship.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“What trickery is this?” the Empress asked. Medics ran onto the bridge and started to work on her.
“No trickery. We sent them ahead months ago, as backup. Wouldn’t you have done the same?” I asked, knowing she would understand. “You have their leader, Magnus, on board here. Where are the prisoners?”
She said something to the crew member beside her, who I took to be the first officer, judging by the way the rest of the Bhlat responded to her.
“Tres will lead the way. Dean, you must prevent a war today. I can feel hope in my people. A veil has been lifted. I’ll keep them from attacking your ships for as long as I can. Stop them from coming any farther.”
“We will. It’s best if your fleet evacuates the system. Give me a few minutes to leave the ship first.” I reached and took her hand. Cool slender fingers met my sweaty palm, and she gave it a squeeze.
“Until we meet again, Dean Parker.”
I smiled at her, then at her little daughter, before grabbing Leonard.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and he followed along wordlessly.
We moved closely, with Tres leading the way. No one came to stop us, but I still kept my gun close at hand.
We raced through the ship, the odd Bhlat looking confused as we moved along following their first officer. She held a lot of power, so none questioned her.
We entered an elevator and lowered into the belly of the vessel. When we got off, the surroundings were much different than they had been on the main levels. It was dingy, cold metal walls and floor, with less than ideal lighting. We were in the barracks.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I was extremely anxious to see my friends, but worried that I would find out Mary really was gone. What was I going to do without her? I’d already gone through losing someone I loved, and this time, it was even more different. Our shared trauma and situation had put us in a pressure cooker, and we’d come out together so strong and bonded.
I needed Mary and couldn’t bring myself to see a future without her beside me. Each step we took down the narrow hall felt heavy, the immense weight of what we’d accomplished pressing me down like an increased gravitational pull.
If we didn’t get off the ship and stop our fleet from attacking, we would be inside the enemy while a battle raged on, and no one was going to win that altercation. But a part of me didn’t care anymore.
“Mary,” I said through almost closed lips.
“Dean, are you okay?” Leonard asked as we walked, speaking for the first time since he’d shot Blel.
“I’m fine.”
Tres turned to the right and touched a keypad; the door slid open, revealing five forms sitting or lying on the cold floor in the near dark.
I scanned and my eyes adjusted, picking out Magnus’ and Slate’s large forms, then Clare and Nick huddled together in the corner. Someone lay facing the wall, and I assumed it had to be Patty.
“Guys, it’s me.” I said the words and couldn’t hold back the floodgates. I wanted to run into the room, but I didn’t trust Tres not to pull a fast one and lock us away with them.
“Dean?” Slate asked, rushing over to me. He enveloped me in a big hug, his unshaven beard brushing against my forehead. He smelled like a man who’d been in a cell for months.
“We need to get out of here. Our fleet arrived, and only minutes after we struck a deal with the Bhlat. We need to stop them from attacking.” I said the words, and a flood of emotions hit me. Tears fell down my face, and I wiped them away as Magnus came up to me and clasped my arm in his meaty hand.
“Brother. You did it.” His eyes were wet too, and I smiled at the big man.
Clare and Nick were next, and they hugged me.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said, pulling the Relocator from the small pack strapped to my chest. “Let’s go, Patty.”
They all stood around the entrance of the room, blocking the inside.
Magnus spoke softly. “Dean, I’m so sorry. Patty didn’t make it.”
I reeled. “Then who…”
A more than familiar woman squeezed through the broad shoulders of Slate and Magnus and wrapped her arms around me, kissing me deeply like there wasn’t a care in the world. I felt Mary’s love and passion all intertwined as our lips met, and when we broke apart, I was crying and barked out a confused laugh.
“I thought you were dead,” I said so softly only she could hear me.
Her cool hand rested on my cheek. “Why did you think that?”
“Oh, Patty didn’t tell the Bhlat her real name. When we arrived, she called herself Mary Lafontaine, in hopes it would give them some respect for our group. It made things worse,” Clare said, clearly upset by Patrice Dalhousie being gone.
“I can’t believe it,” Leonard said, wide-eyed, probably conflicted between feeling terrible for killing someone and trying to record everything in his mind for his next comic issues.
Mary was alive, and I was so shocked I nearly forgot what we were doing.
“We have to go. Everyone touch my arm.” I held my arms out, the Relocato
r in my left hand. I nodded to Tres, who kept her distance, and she gave me a grave nod back. With the tap of a button, we all disappeared from the prison cell doorway.
____________
“Anyone know how to fly this thing?” Magnus asked as we made our way from the back of the Bhlat drop ship to the cockpit. The craft was empty, so we didn’t have to fight our way out.
I grabbed the communicator from my pouch and tapped it. “I need to speak with the Empress.” A garbled voice said something unintelligible before the Empress’ weak voice carried over the device.
“Dean Parker, missed me already?” she asked.
“We’re in one of your drop ships. Have them open the bay doors. We’re going to head out.”
“Done. We will leave as promised. Good luck.” She said another phrase in her native language, and the communication ended.
“I think I can muster some semblance of understanding here,” Mary said, and I couldn’t help but smile as she sat there, looking confused at the alien controls.
Slate stood behind her suggesting things, and soon, with Clare chiming in, we had the engines running and Mary was ready to give it a go.
“Say a little prayer,” she said, and I instantly thought of the Theos. Were they still out there? Could they hear a prayer?
She gently lifted a lever, and we moved slightly.
“We don’t have all day,” Magnus said, clearly frustrated.
“Do you want to fly?” Mary asked, and jammed the lever back, lurching us toward the hangar ceiling. She pulled down just in time to narrowly avoid crashing. She cringed and smiled back at us before moving the ship toward the open bay doors. The opening was a couple hundred feet across; a dim green barrier glowed as we passed through it, and into space.
We were free of the Bhlat ship. My tight back loosened for a second before I spotted the gigantic fleet ships coming toward us.
“Damn if they don’t look impressive,” Magnus said proudly.
“When they blow us out of the sky, you won’t think so,” I said. “How do we contact them and tell them to stand down?”
Nick crowded in behind us, and I got a sense of how poorly they’d been treated. He’d lost a good fifteen pounds, and his eyes had a look I’d never seen in them before. “Is there any way to send a message?”
Clare moved into the seat beside the pilot’s chair and attempted to find a communication device. The viewscreen had radar on it: the green lights, which identified the Bhlat master ship and their other orbiting ships, were moving away from Earth. The red lights, showing our incoming fleet, started to move toward us.
“I can’t see how to do it.” Frustration and panic melded together in her voice.
“They’re coming for us. If we don’t tell them what transpired, they’ll chase the Bhlat and break our peace.” I had to think of something. “Magnus, you have the Kraski beams in those ships?” I fiddled with the chain and pendant still around my neck.
“Yeah, you can use the suit’s pins to get access if needed. That’s just an emergency EVA situation…” He stopped his thought, looking at me and grinning. “One more adventure for old times?”
I smiled back, hiding the stress I was feeling. “One more adventure. Did you leave the pack by the pyramid?”
He nodded.
“Mary, we’ll be right back. Magnus and I will get on board the lead warship and get them to stop.”
Our eyes met, and a flicker of hope and exhaustion transferred between us. I mouthed “I love you” to her, and she said it back.
“I’ll see if I can find anything useful in the back,” Slate said, moving out of the cramped cockpit.
“Ready?” I asked Magnus, and touched his arm, hitting the location for the pyramid on the Relocator.
TWENTY-NINE
The first thing we did, when we got the EVA suits Magnus and Mary had stashed near the pyramid, was try to communicate with the fleet in space approaching Earth.
“They’re too far for these suits’ comms to work,” Magnus said, slipping into his suit. Mine was made for Mary, and the fit was tight. They had a little give, so I was able to stand up in it, but not comfortably.
“How do I look?” I asked, serious behind the face shield.
“Like a man that would do what it takes.” I’d expected a joke in return.
“I don’t think Earth has much time either.” The clouds were black, angry, and the air was thin and getting harder to breathe. We needed to get these people off the planet. It was as if all the things we needed to do had severe urgency, but we couldn’t save the people without stopping the fleet from attacking the Bhlat.
With a tap of the Relocator, we were back on the drop ship, and I once again thanked Kareem silently for the gift.
Slate jumped at our sudden appearance. “Look what I found.” They were backpacks with thrusters. The kind of thing I’d dreamt of flying over the farm fields with when I was a little kid, wishing for something more than canola crops and chicken feed. I guess I’d gotten my wish. Now I wanted to swap with myself and live that quiet life.
“How do they work?” Magnus asked, already trying to put it on.
Our suits had the mini-thrusters Mae and I had used to tether the vessels heading toward the sun almost two years ago. Two years.
“Boss, are you with us?” Slate asked, concern on his gaunt face.
“I’m here. Wearing down, and my mind is drifting. Go ahead.”
Slate showed us how he thought they worked, and we had nothing to lose. If we flew up to our approaching ships, they would blast us away. We needed to have some stealth.
“Will they show up on the sensors?” I asked Magnus.
He shook his head. “The sensors are for ship drives and radiation, mainly. Whatever’s fueling these will be so minuscule compared to their search parameters, we’ll be able to slip by with no problem.” He looked to me and shrugged. “I hope.”
That didn’t give me full confidence, but we had no choice.
“I can go instead of you, boss.” Slate looked ready to take my place.
“If you haven’t noticed, I barely fit into this suit. And even though I’m tired, I haven’t been in a cell for months at the hands of an evil alien race.”
“Godspeed,” he said, clapping me on the back, then Magnus. “Make sure you stay out of their range.” With that, Slate left us in an airlock, sealed it, and we opened the doors to dark space.
The jetpack was heavy on the ship, but out here, it didn’t matter. My stomach lurched at being out here again, untethered this time. The huge ships from outside New Spero loomed in the distance, and we had some distance to travel to get there. Our suits were made for this, but I still worried something would happen.
“Let’s test this out,” Magnus said through my helmet’s earpiece. He hit the handheld controls and one thruster fired up, sending him into a slow spin. “Damn it,” he said, adjusting and getting both going. Soon he’d stabilized himself, and he called instructions to me. After a shaky start, we were both close to competent with the packs, and we started toward our target.
“I think they’re moving,” I said, thinking they were getting closer to us faster than our packs were taking us.
“You’re right. Stay the course.”
“What happens if they’re going too fast when we cross paths?”
Magnus laughed uneasily, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer to that. “I have a plan for that.”
I really didn’t like the sound of that.
We moved this way for almost an hour, the ships getting closer each minute. In the distance, there was nothing but the expanse of space, and my mind drifted to the countless worlds out there we could now access with the portals. What was out there for us to discover? I put the thoughts on the backburner as the half dozen warships grew, until we couldn’t ignore them coming toward us any longer.
“There’s not going to be anywhere to grab a foothold on them. We have to beam into them.” Magnus said this like it was n
o big deal. Go for a beer, walk your dog… beam into a warship while traveling in the opposite direction in an EVA suit, with a jetpack thrusting you toward it.
“Is there no other option?” I asked, hoping for a miracle.
“Come in, NS-1007. This is your general. Stop where you are. The war is over. I repeat, slow your thrusters and cease your pursuit.” He waited and said it again, but still received no reply.
The lead ship was beautiful. The sleek exterior was rounded, giving way from the boxy design of the Bhlat ships or the cube vessels of the Kraski. Our people had found a way to incorporate the size of the vessels but mix them with the slim and smooth smaller ships. They were a testament to how far our race had come in a short period of time. And if we weren’t careful, we were about to be smashed like bugs on the warship’s windshield.
The ship grew as we slowed our thrusters.
“Crap. They’re powering up the cannons.” Magnus pointed toward the bottom edges of the ship, where a red light started to glow. “They’re going to fire at the retreating Bhlat.”
“You sure this is going to work? We won’t end up in a wall or out the other end?” I’d used the beam pins on our suit enough times, but not on a target moving so fast.
“The ship’s big. We’ll be fine.” He said it with confidence, but as we got closer to each other, I could see the dread in his eyes.
We were close enough to the lead vessel to see the rough edges that made up the exterior. From a distance, they looked smooth, but up close, they were anything but.
My heart raced as we floated there, waiting for the ship to come close enough to beam into it.
“You’re a good friend. Let’s get this over with and have a Scotch on your deck,” I said, hoping they weren’t my last words.
“Deal. Dean, those years we thought you were dead… were the hardest of my life.” He looked over at me, and I smiled at his unusual emotional talk. “Enough about that. See you in a minute.”
I watched him press the small pin on his EVA collar, and he was covered in green light, the ship now only yards away from us. We couldn’t see inside the ship, but I imagined the looks on a helmsman’s face when they saw two floating Earth Defense suits outside their cameras.
The Survivors: Books 1-6 Page 63
