Scrapyard Ship (21 page)

He brought up his weapon, positioned his laser sights right above the creature’s horn, and fired. A burst of blue plasma shot into the beast’s forehead. The rhino-warrior went down like a sack of potatoes.

Nearby, Jason saw Billy had lost his weapon and was dodging a rhino’s horn. Like a matador, he danced this way and that, barely avoiding being skewered. He then took a glancing blow to the shoulder. Fortunately, it didn’t penetrate his battle armor. Quickly, Jason aimed and fired at the beast from across the hold. Three bursts went into the back of his head. The rhino-warrior stopped and stood motionless, almost defying gravity, before there was the inevitable crash to the floor. Billy turned to see who’d saved his life. Seeing it was Jason, he casually saluted his friend, retrieved his weapon, and went right back into the fight. More rhino-warriors were moving into the hold—they were so large, so wide, they needed to enter one at a time. Ten SEALs now lay dead on the hold’s floor.

A hammer struck another SEAL, removing the top portion of his head. Blood and tissue sprayed in every direction. They were taking too many casualties. Then, without warning, something smashed down on the top of his own head—something from behind. He went sprawling to the floor. Jason’s visor had cracked, obscuring his view. His head felt like someone had dropped a dump truck on it. Then he saw the hammer that was again on its way back down. He had just enough time to roll to his left. The hammer struck an inch from his helmet. The sound of the metal weapon hitting the hold’s metal sub-flooring rang out like a gong. The rhino-warrior brought his weapon up for a final blow. Jason kicked out, planting the hardened toe of his boot right where he imagined the beast’s family jewels would be. Obviously, in excruciating pain, according to the look on his face, the rhino-beast took it like a man and held steadfast. Then two blasts from a nearby SEAL made the creature’s head explode, covering Jason in blood, bone, and grey flesh. Jason wiped the mess off his damaged visor.

Something was nagging at him in the back of his mind, something he remembered learning in grade school about rhinos in Africa…Then he had it.

Jason set his comms for the general band. “Be ready to go to night vision, we’re going dark in here. Shoot the lights, all of them!” Jason commanded. In between taking shots at the beasts, the SEALs pointed their weapons up towards the overhead lights. One by one, they exploded and the hold went totally black. Their night vision optics switched on automatically. The rhinos were blind as bats and stumbling around. Several had fallen and were crawling around on all fours. Watching them, it was almost pathetic. Jason felt uncomfortable killing them this easily. Being taken as prisoners would not be an option for these huge warrior-beasts; they’d rather fight to the death.

“Do it quickly. Shooting them right above the horn does the trick,” Jason said, without any malice in his voice. Within minutes the hold was clear. According to his HUD, all other alien life forms on the vessel were Craing. Jason hailed The Lilly and had her phase-shift back to the hold.

Jason, along with the rest of Bear team, headed directly toward the Craing bridge. He commanded another SEAL team to clear the rest of the vessel, round up any remaining Craing, and lock them up in their own cages. As evident from comms reports, the Craing on this ship were somewhat prepared to fight back, yet no match for the battle-hardened SEAL teams. Where the rhino-beasts were true warriors and fought with honor, even passion, the Craing were fearful and cowardly. Any concern that the Craing would self-destruct their own vessels to keep them out of enemy hands was dismissed. It wasn’t uncommon for the Craing, especially the Overlords and officers, to whimper and grovel when apprehended.

Once Jason entered the Craing bridge, he contacted Ricket.

“Go for Ricket,” he replied.

“Remotely, can we navigate this vessel from The Lilly?”

“What did you have in mind, Captain?”

“I want to capture this ship, along with the other two, take them out of orbit and park them back in the Chihuahuan desert. Can you do that remotely?”

Ricket was quiet for a moment. Then spoke up. “I’d need to set up three virtual helm stations, right here on The Lilly’s bridge. To configure that, I’ll have to access their bridge as well as their AI. I’ll be right over.”

As Jason and his team waited, he looked around the Craing bridge. Again, it was dirty and a strange mix of new and old technology. Billy had assembled the Craing bridge officers into a group and sat them down on the floor. They wore the same gold, silver, copper and bronze medallions. Jason took the gold medallion from the Craing leader and placed it around his own neck.

“What can you tell me about the approaching fleet?” Jason asked.

The group of Craing officers looked nervously from one to the other. Finally, the captain spoke. “Please do not harm us. This is a great honor for your people. Understand, the Craing cannot be defeated. Our numbers are too great. We are bringing order all across the universe. Your world will be added to the Craing Empire, subject to serve the emperor’s regime. This planet has been seeded for many years now. It is all but done; the only thing left for your people is obedience.”

Jason watched as the alien spoke. He didn’t shoot the captain, although the thought crossed his mind. What he needed was information. Truth was, Jason didn’t think it would take much effort to convince any of them to spill what they knew. It seemed the Craing hierarchy was about fear and subjugation, certainly not about empowering their lower-level leaders. But that would be for Admiral Crawford and her people to determine.

Ricket entered the bridge, a satchel hung from around his shoulder. He went directly to the helm console and started unpacking a myriad of things, including fiber link-type cables, two small cell phone-size devices, and a larger box that everything connected to, including the helm of the Craing ship. Ricket held two fingers up to his tiny ear and connected to the AI. “Lilly, we’re ready for navigation and systems tests,” Ricket said.

Although Jason couldn’t hear what the AI said back to Ricket from his expression, it obviously irritated him. An uncommon emotional response from Ricket. He really didn’t like the Lilly AI—that was apparent. After a few inputs and settings changes, Ricket turned to Jason. “This vessel is now under the helm control of The Lilly. Not only its navigation, but all systems ship wide.”

Billy’s team added the Craing bridge crew to the other captured prisoners. A small contingent of Allied crewmembers would be left onboard, primarily as a security detail.

* * *

Within ten minutes of being back onboard, they had shifted back into Earth’s orbit to hunt down the other two Craing vessels.

The XO said, “Contacts—the two Craing ships. They’re together.”

“Distance?”

“Five hundred miles out, sir. We’ve been scanned and they’re approaching fast.”

“Make the announcement for General Quarters, XO.” Jason said, now seeing the two Craing vessels come into view on the display.

“We’re taking fire, Captain. Sustained plasma blasts to our aft. Not sure how long shields will last with so much hitting us all at once.”

“Well, it’s about time this ship was put to the test.”

Two Craing warships attacked in earnest, and came at them from two apposing flanks, throwing everything they had at The Lilly.

“Captain, we have plasma fire coming from both battle cruisers. Every gun is firing. Shields are holding at 98 percent,” Orion reported.

“Stay on course, Helm; bring us right up close and personal.” Jason commanded.

“Yes, sir,” McBride acknowledged.

“Multiple new contacts, sir. Craing Drone Fighters.”

The wrap-around display came alive with additional activity. Fifty insect-like fighters emerged from both Craing vessels and quickly moved to engage The Lilly from multiple angles.

“Captain, the fighters are firing plasma as well as small rail-gun ordnances. Shields are holding at 96 percent.”

“Captain, the AI is requesting automatic tracking and firing dispersal to engage the fighters,” the XO inquired.

Jason watched the display as over one hundred ships fired continuously at their hull.

“Gunny, how far out are we from intersecting with either of these warships?”

“Still five miles out, sir.”

“XO, let’s see what the AI does with those fighters. But watch that we don’t engage the battle cruisers. We need them intact.”

Jason felt the bridge subtly vibrate beneath his feet as the big plasma cannons, two forward and two aft, snapped into position. Tracking, the gimbal-mounted cannons spun until they acquired proper firing solutions. Almost simultaneously all cannons fired. The display erupted in a blaze of plasma fire. Within ten seconds the screen was still.

Orion, speechless for several moments, shook her head and then spoke. “All fighters destroyed, Captain.”

“We’re now within two miles of both Cruisers,” McBride reported.

* * *

Jason ordered The Lilly to shift into the first Craing vessel’s hold, and dropped off two SEAL teams. They waited several minutes and then shifted directly into the other nearby Craing vessel and dropped off two more teams. Then they shifted back out to open space. From The Lilly’s bridge, they watched the action unfold from multiple helmet cams on the segmented display. As Jason watched the battles play out, he couldn’t help but admire the rhino-warrior’s unwavering courage under fire and their passion. First on one ship and then on the other, the lights went out. The other alteration Jason had made to his battle plan was to issue secondary weapons: thick, massive projectile handguns that fired multiple narcotic-laced projectiles. This time, he didn’t want to kill the rhino-warriors.

By the end of the day, all three Craing vessels had been captured, without any additional losses on the side of the Alliance. It took a little trial and error navigating the three Craing ships out of Earth’s orbit simultaneously, but once Ricket, McBride and Perkins spent enough time at their makeshift remote control stations, they ultimately were successful and able to shift the ships to the desert outpost.

Chapter 16

The Four Craing vessels were situated in a large circular configuration on the Chihuahuan desert floor. Right in the middle was The Lilly. The Army had been infiltrated far more than the other military branches. Through a blitz of disinformation, they were quickly separating themselves. Admiral Crawford hadn’t wasted any time procuring her own military assets from the Navy, Air Force, and Marines, but not from the Army. In a matter of hours a city of tents and portable administrative structures had popped up all around the periphery of the small fleet of alien ships. Still a mere drop in the bucket compared, in magnitude, to the approaching Craing armada.

Ricket had come up with dozens of hand-held vetting devices: Simply point and click and you’d know if you were in front of a Craing-Human hybrid. With close to six hundred new personnel to the land base, thirty-seven of the military had been hybrids and taken into custody. But tonight was about celebrating their recent victories in Earth’s orbit.

Jason hadn’t seen Mollie and Nan since the previous day and he was excited to reunite with them. In the midst of Jason fighting the Craing, Nan had opted to move herself and Mollie to another two-bedroom suite along the officer’s corridor. As Jason stood under a hot shower he let his mind wonder to Nan. How was she dealing in the aftermath of such a traumatic course of events? Where do they go from here? What about Dira? An interesting woman. Was she a woman? Certainly beautiful in her own regard. She had been working non-stop moving people into the Hyper-learning modules. Even Admiral Crawford had opted to get the procedure over with sooner rather than later. Wearing a towel around his waist, Jason opened his closet where, to his surprise, was a new, all white dress uniform hanging in front of his standard captain’s jumpsuits. In Mollie’s handwriting was a note,
Wear this one tonight, Dad!

Halfway down the gangway Jason stopped and took in the scene. They’d gone all out. Strings of colored lights had been strung high up in-between The Lilly and each of the Craing ships. A band was playing center stage; various crew members from navy, marines and air force units had joined together. They missed a few cords here and there, but for the most part Jason was impressed.

Across the impromptu courtyard, Nan and Mollie were setting out large vats of food on long tables. Both had dressed up for the occasion—Mollie in a floral party dress and Nan wearing a cream-colored blouse and a form-fitting black skirt. The courtyard was bustling with crew and base personnel. The band erupted with their own rendition of
Sweet Home Alabama,
prompting hoots and cheers from the growing crowd. Mollie was up on one of the tables dancing, then singing into a large wooden spoon. Jason laughed out loud and shook his head,
Shy she isn’t
, he thought. Then to his surprise, Nan joined her up on the table, laughing and singing into another spoon, as if they’d rehearsed this bit for hours. A growing crowd of onlookers formed to watch the performance. Nan didn’t notice Jason had joined the group—then their eyes met and held. She continued singing, but now her singing was directed in only one direction, towards Jason.

The song ended to enthusiastic applause. Mollie and Nan continued to ham it up, taking bows and curtsies, and then both jumped down off the table. Mollie caught sight of her father and waved. Nan moved in close, wrapped her arms around his neck, and held him tightly, more intimately than he’d ever remembered her doing, even before they were married. Finally, when they separated, Jason’s expression must have said it all.
Why?
She reached up and took his face in her hands, much like he’d done to her in that Craing cage.

“While laying there on that slimy disgusting floor, hearing the desperate pleas of the others and their horrific screams as they were slowly killed, I was resigned to my fate. Knowing that my time too was coming, I handed my life over to whomever, God maybe… Jason, when I saw you there, crouched before me in that cage, that you’d kept the promise you yelled to me while I was being taken onto that ship… Oh my God, Jason, you came for me. As impossible and inconceivable as that could possibly be, you came for me.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Thank you.”