Far From Home: The Complete Series (42 page)

A mighty ship roared overhead.

“Dana!” Jessica yelled.

Dana shook her head. She started to step back into the jungle. “I have to go!”

Jessica reached out. “Dana! Not yet!”

The ship hovered overhead. The jungle consumed Dana. Then the pyramid rose into the air. The ground seemed as if it would break apart around her. The pyramid turned, then with a loud crack, as if a hurricane had been suddenly extinguished, it was gone.

The dark returned.

9.

“She’s coming around,” Gunn said.

Jessica’s eyes opened, then closed. They fluttered open again and stayed that way. She sat up.

“Are you all right?” Jirn asked her.

The back of King’s head smarted. “I’m fine … I think,” Jessica said, ” Just a little fuzzy around the edges.””’”

“What happened?” Gunn asked her.

King accepted the Chief’s help getting up off the floor. Jirn handed her the stick.

Everything rushed back to her. The jungle. Her conversation with Dana Oriz. It was like waking suddenly from a very deep, but vivid, dream.

“I’ll explain everything,” she said. “Jirn, do you have a ship in the vicinity of the planet we left before coming here?”

“I believe we do, yes.”

“Can you make contact with them? Could they do some reconnaissance?”

“Yes. I’d have to get clearance …”

“Please do it,” King said.

“What’s all this about? Are you okay?” Gunn asked her.

Jessica shook her head. “No. No, I’m not.”

* * *

An hour later, Jirn showed Captain King the telemetry from a vessel in the area. From a distance it managed to conduct observations on the alien planet.

“No sign of a pyramid at all,” Jirn said. “However they did detect several Naxor ships leaving the planet.”

“So it was real,” King said.

Chief Gunn and Jirn exchanged puzzled looks.

She walked to a nearby viewport. Outside were only stars. The
Defiant
lay on the other side of the station, and the planet glowed beneath them. But here, in this direction, stars and nothing else.

Where are you?
Jessica thought.
Where are you now Dana?

10.

“Beg.”

Hawk shook his head. “No … no …”

“ASK me to kill you … .”

“Never … it’ll never happen …”

“Death will be a release.”

CLLLLAAAANNNNGGGG!!!!

Another blast of the painful sound. It pulsed from one side of his head to the other.

“Do not fool yourself, Captain. You cannot hope to keep this up,” General Carn said in a flat voice. “You may not realise it, but the sound is getting increasingly louder as we go on. Thankfully I am impervious to its destructive abilities. However you are not. Eventually the sound waves will cook your brain.”

The pain subsided as the echo of the abrasive sound faded from his ears. Hawk drew long, ragged breaths.

“Eventually you will come around to my way of thinking. Eventually you will see for yourself, Captain, that there is no use in resisting me. You will beg me to kill you.”

Hawk couldn’t speak. His whole body ached.

“Lost for words, I see,” Carn said.

Hawk continued to look at the spiral. Stars sparkled in front of his eyes.
I’m close to blackin’ out
, he thought.

“Perhaps this calls for a different method of persuasion,” Carn said. He motioned to someone else in the room to fetch something. The General stood with his arms crossed. “Your outlook is entirely wrong. I hope that, with the right impetus, you will see that everything I tell you is true. Despite what you already believe. That there is no hope, only surrender.”

The General stepped back. A Naxor grabbed Hawk’s left hand above the shackle. Hawk felt something cold against the tip of his index finger.

“What … ?”

“Ask me and I will give it. Beg for death. Will you, Captain?” Carn asked.

Hawk wanted to give up. To give in and ask for what he craved. An end to his misery. But there was still some part of him that just couldn’t.

“Get lost.”

General Carn shook his head. “You will learn the hard way. Now tell me Captain, since you seem reluctant to ask for release from this nightmare … what do you know about the black pyramids?”

Hawk strained to see his hand. The Naxor held a metal instrument over the tip. At a nod of Carn’s head the Naxor clamped down with the device. It cut the end of his finger clean off. The blade crunched through the bone. Hawk screamed, every blood vessel standing out on his neck.

In front of him, the General chuckled.

11.

“Keep up. Weapons at the ready,” Greene said.

They moved from one rock outcropping to another. The basalt slopes were difficult to navigate. Built along one side of the dead volcano was a long white structure. It had a flat area where they could see vehicles parked. The team made their way around the treacherous shards of scoria as they headed towards it. Below them the base of the volcano was shrouded in thick, heavy mist.

“Another hundred metres,” Selena Walker said. She pulled her own gun free from its holster.

Greene shot her a look. “Easy. Remember, nobody does anything unless I say so.”

“The side of the compound facing us seems to back onto a corridor of some kind,” Ensign Maisey said. “I’m reading a hollow area behind there. It extends for over thirty metres.”

They stopped at another series of ragged boulders. Sulphurous steam rose from nearby.

“We’ll use timed detonators to breach the compound. From there it’s stack and file. We sweep the whole building, take this end and work our way through it,” Greene said. “We don’t stop till we find Hawk.”

“Shall I contact Captain Praror, sir?” a Krinuan soldier called Lexin asked.

“No. Observe radio silence for the moment. When we’ve made progress we’ll give Praror an update. Now let’s move.”

12.

Hawk let loose a blood-curdling scream as another fingertip was severed. He barely felt his own hot blood gush down his hand for the heavy throbbing emanating from his butchered digits.

“I’m tellin’ yuh,” Hawk gasped. “I don’t know nothin’ about these pyramids. Yuh askin’ the wrong guy.”

“I think not,” Carn said. He meshed his gloved hands together. “You’re holding back something, and I want to know what it is.”

“Yuh wrong,” Hawk said.

“No. You are. I will not stop, Captain. Even after I’ve squeezed every last drop of resolve from you, broken your spirit … I will continue until you hang there, perished. All you can hope to do is advance the process.”

Hawk didn’t say anything.

The General grabbed his face, his grip hard. “Tell me what you know. I must unlock their secret. It eludes me. Tell me how they work.”

Captain Nowlan just shook his head. “I can’t … I don’t know …”

Carn squeezed Hawk’s face so tight, Hawk thought his jaw would crack apart. “TELL ME …”

Just then an enormous explosion rocked the complex. The General staggered back. He steadied himself and pointed a finger at the two Naxor in the room with him.

“Get out there now.”

They left without a word. The door closed behind them.

“So yuh wanna create an empire for yuhself, huh?” Hawk asked him.

The General shook his head. “You really don’t get it, do you? I have sworn to devote my life to the expansion of the Draxx Dominion. To the spread of our rule. The Naxor are simply my allies, assisting me towards that end.”

Hawk licked his lips. “How can yuh still swear allegiance to the Draxx when yuh so far away? Don’t you see it’s a lost cause?”

Sounds of weapon discharge outside in the hall. The General didn’t pay them any attention.

“Your friends have arrived to rescue you, I suspect,” Carn said. “It is no matter. Any effort at resistance to my will is a futile gesture. What you do not understand is that the Draxx Dominion lives or dies with the Queen. My Queen.”

Hawk frowned at him.

“When you destroyed Prince Sepix, you failed to notice my own ship leave moments before. The Prince carried a very precious cargo …”

Hawk’s eyes widened in astonishment. “Yuh can’t mean …”

“This war has only begun. In this new Galaxy, with my help, the Queen will forge a new dominion. We will bring balance through terror. Balance through domination. Balance through fear.”

Carn pulled his sword free from the sheath. With a swift movement he whirled about and cut clean through the chains holding Hawk from the ground.

Nowlan clattered to the deck.

Carn aimed the end of the blade at him. “And you … I’m far from finished with you …”

13.

“Move!” Greene yelled.

Maisey took the lead, firing into the Naxor guards. Pilion filed in next to him, covering his flank with weapons fire as Maisey pushed through the long corridor. Through the thick, dusty smoke he could see the Naxor running left and right, and he dropped several with angry bursts of fire.

Commander Greene followed with Selena Walker. They both took up positions against a wide column on the other side of the corridor.

“Cover me, Walker, Lexin,” Greene told them.

Selena fired over his shoulder as he unstrapped several grenades from his belt. He activated them and, one after another, chucked them down the corridor.

“Get back!”

Maisey and Pilion hugged the wall nearest them as the grenades went off, a cacophony of small explosions.

Greene leapt out, weapon in hand. “Charge!”

He ran down the corridor, firing at the surviving Naxor still getting to their feet at the other end. One managed to fire, the blasts of energy whirring past Greene’s head before he could fire back.

Walker darted out from behind Greene and fired at the Naxor. The alien was blown back by the force of the hit to his chest. Lexin picked off two Naxor with his crossbow.

“Pilion, you take the other cells. Surface charges!” Maisey ordered.

Ensign Pilion nodded his compliance and started to attach tiny charges to the cell doors lining the right side of the corridor while Maisey focused on those to the left.

Greene told Walker to take cover on the other side of the corridor. He took cover with Lexin. Greene looked back to see Maisey and Pilion attach the last charges to the cells, twelve in total.

He looked ahead. Another twelve to go.

Maisey took up position behind Selena Walker. Pilion rushed up behind Greene and Lexin.

“On my mark! Three … two … one!” Maisey yelled. He depressed a trigger in his hand. Pilion did the same. All the cell doors behind them blew wide open.

Alarms sounded everywhere around them, a deafening thunder of high-pitched screams.

“Walker, with me! You two, check those cells!” Commander Greene ordered. “Lexin, hang back a bit and pick up the rear. We don’t want any Naxor circling back and surprising us.”

He pressed on with Selena. More Naxor ran into the corridor. The two of them squatted and fired.

Greene heard the footsteps of Maisey and Pilion behind him. “Any luck?”

They both shook their heads.

“Half of them empty. One had a rotting corpse in it. The others, they’re all too scared to even leave the room,” Pilion said.

“Quick let’s get these now,” Maisey said.

The two ensigns set about slapping charges to the other cell doors. No more Naxor appeared to challenge them, though Greene and Walker maintained a defensive stance. Maisey and Pilion ran back to them. They depressed their triggers. The doors to the cells blew open.

“Better check them before -“

A blood-curdling roar bellowed from one of the cells. Selena Walker looked terrified as she held her pistol out in front of her.

“What the -” Pilion wondered aloud.

A set of claws appeared from a cell at the far end. They grabbed the side of the door frame, then the rest of the creature presented itself.

Twelve feet high, four black eyes set into leathery, red skin. Giant muscular body, with a long tail furnished with spikes. Its mouth was a metre across and filled with row after row of razor sharp teeth.

It spotted the four of them and let loose another earth-shaking roar. Commander Greene flinched despite himself, then he remembered the weapon in his hand.

“Commander!” Lexin said. “It’s called a Tonabous. A very dangerous creature! It will kill us all.”

Greene nodded. “I didn’t come here to die. Open fire on that thing!”

As Maisey, Pilion and Lexin started to fire at the creature, it dropped its head and charged them, oblivious to the hits striking its thick, heavy body.

Lexin backed up, continuing to fire. The Tonabous knocked Maisey and Pilion clean out of the way. They barrel rolled to either side as the creature lifted its head in time to snatch Lexin up in its mouth. It shook Lexin from one side to the other. The Krinuan scrambled to pull himself free from its jaws, but to no avail. The Tonabous threw him against a wall. His head exploded on impact, brain matter and blood flying everywhere.

“Get back!” Greene shouted at the others. He fired into the creature.

Nothing seemed to touch it.

Pilion got to his feet and joined Greene and Walker. Maisey took longer to get up. He lifted his weapon to fire at the Tonabous, but too late. It was already upon him.

“No!” Greene was pulled away from the grizzly scene by Walker and Pilion. They made a quick check of the cells nearest them as Greene stood there, unable to take his eyes off of the horror before him.

The Tonabous bit Maisey in half. The Ensign let loose one final scream. The creature dropped him to the floor. Then it turned its attention to the Commander.

14.

Another explosion rocked the room, but this one came from the door itself. Carn lunged at Hawk, where he lay defenceless on the floor. The chains connected to his legs and arms coiled about him like metal tentacles. The General still managed to pull Hawk to his feet with only one hand.