Scrapyard Ship (28 page)

Jason assessed his brother who was slowly getting to his feet. He’d be thirty-eight now and there were a few grey hairs at his temples. “When we were young kids, I was about six, you were eight, I stole something from your room. Something important,” Jason said.

“You stole my G.I. Joe. And up until now, you’d never admitted it, you shit,” Brian said, with a friendly scowl.

It was his brother Brian. But how? Jason wondered to himself. He stepped aside and let his brother pass through. Out on the concourse, a small craft sat with its gangway lowered.

They found one of the few unturned tables and sat across from each other. Jason had removed his helmet and waited for his brother to say something.

“Sorry about the whole charade, having to attend my funeral and all. I guess seeing me here, still alive, brings up a few questions.”

“You think?”

“I’d always suspected something was fishy about dad’s disappearance, or so-called death. So when he contacted me, I wasn’t completely surprised. Although when he told me he was fighting aliens thousands of light years from Earth, well, that did shock me. His intention was to bring you along as well. The Alliance needed officers, and Dad needed people he could trust.”

“So what happened, Brian? Why the hell are you here? Why are you with the Craing?” Jason asked, clearly disappointed.

“I’m what you’d call an emissary. I negotiate with other humanoids on their behalf. But to back things up a little, I was captured by the Craing two years after I’d joined the Alliance. I’d been through HyperLearning on The Lilly, trained as a space-fighter pilot and eventually given a small battle cruiser to command. Two months later a Craing warship stumbled upon our small fleet and obliterated it. I spent months in one of those confinement cages. As far as I know I was the only survivor.”

Jason looked over the dancing flames of the caldron at the center of the table and raised his eyebrows. “What kept you from being barbecued like everyone else?”

“I think it was my big mouth.” Brian hesitated before continuing, as if looking for just the right words to say. “Let me be perfectly clear here, right from the get-go, Jason. I’m not a traitor to the Alliance, and especially not to Earth. Dad might not see it that way, but I’ll let you decide. Fair?”

Billy, standing near by, gestured to his helmet. Jason held a finger up for his brother to hold on for a second. With his helmet back on and able to see his HUD again, Jason could see that additional contacts, mostly hybrids, had taken up positions across the catwalks at their backs. They were now flanked from both sides.

“Go ahead, Brian, tell me how you’re not a traitor to your planet and family.”

“I’m not, in fact, just the opposite. Do you think it’s an accident the Craing have stayed away from Earth these last few years? Not only did they want to infiltrate earlier, they planned to make Earth their seat of power. To them, Earth is the jewel of the galaxy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve manipulated them to divert their fleet elsewhere, gone so far as to instigate wars hundreds of light-years away in distant sectors.”

Jason shook his head, not seeing it. “Why haven’t you escaped, gone back to the Alliance or even Earth?”

“As a Craing emissary to a humanoid race on another planet, one similar to Earth, I fell in love. She was my counterpart; she was negotiating for the survival of her people. She came to realize that I was working on her behalf far more than for the Craing. Although the natural resources of her world have been plundered ruthlessly, the people there have gone untouched. I live on this planet, Jason. She’s now my wife, we have two kids.” Brian looked at Jason and shrugged, almost apologetically.

“And let me guess, the Craing use that as constant leverage to keep you as their emissary?” Jason asked. Brian simply shrugged again, seemingly resigned to how things were.

“So what do you want from me, Brian?”

“I want to keep you alive, Jason. I want to continue to protect Earth. And I can do that if you let me. Let me do what I’m good at. I have the emperor’s ear.”

“So you don’t know,” Jason said, more of a statement than a question.

“Know what?”

“The Craing destroyed The Lilly, with Mollie, Nan, and Dad on board. I’ve lost everything I care about. What could you possibly offer me now?”

Brian’s mouth fell open. It was a while before he spoke again. “I’m so sorry, Jason, I didn’t know.”

“Oh, and I wouldn’t put too much faith in the emperor’s ear thing, The high point of my day was watching Traveler here use his heavy hammer to flatten his ugly skull.”

“He’s here, on board now?”

“What’s left of him,” Jason said, nodding his head.

“I knew he was with the fleet, but I had no idea he was here. Jason, you have no idea what you’ve done. What you’ve done to Earth.”

“I did what you should have done the first time you were in the emperor’s presence,” Jason replied, “and by the way, Earth’s their next stop.”

Brian got up and turned to leave, then turned back to his brother. “I’m sorry, truly I am. But there is nothing I’ll be able to do for you now.” With that Brian turned and left through the Grand Sacellum’s front doors.

How could he? Even indirectly helping the Craing was unthinkable. Jason felt sick at the thought of his brother continuing to do the Craing’s bidding.

“I’m not going to sit here and wait for them to come through the front doors. What do you say we cause some trouble?” He got up, checked his weapon’s charge level, and headed for the rear of the Grand Sacellum.

* * *

He counted about one hundred hybrid contacts strategically positioned on the lower level catwalks—presumably with their pulse weapon sites trained down on anything on the move into the open courtyard below—cutting off access to any of the eight lifts. At first it looked hopeless, no way out. But under closer scrutiny the lift shafts did have heavy metal-sided bulkheads, and the lifts themselves seemed to be fairly well-shielded from the hybrids.

“Traveler, Silent Hunter, we need to get onto the lifts without getting ourselves killed.” He scurried over to several overturned tables. “Can you break off all but one of those table legs?” Jason asked, pointing to the solid rock, twelve-foot diameter tabletop. Traveler grunted, and the two of them put their heavy hammers to use until a single table leg protruded from the back of the table.

“Perfect, now let’s do the same thing with the other table,” Jason said, seeing a rough, though ludicrous, plan come together in his mind. With a rhino-warrior positioned behind each table, along with three SEALs, the warriors lifted the tables onto their rims. Using the table leg as a lever—together, they began to roll the tables forward in the direction of the courtyard. With the two teams huddled behind both tables, they slowly made their way out into the open.

Plasma fire erupted from above but couldn’t penetrate the solid rock tabletops. Jason was the first to trip and almost got himself killed when he momentarily fell beyond the table’s protection. But once they’d all gotten into the rhythm of jumping over the table leg as it came around, things started to go a bit smoother. Staying clear of the open cutout was also tricky and if it weren’t for their hardened combat suits several legs may have been blown off. Jason’s group made it to the first lift. The second team had another few moments of rolling to do.

Jason heard Billy, who was part of the second team, spew a string of derogatory comments over the comms, something about all the crazy shit Jason comes up with. Once in front of the lift, their next problem was keeping the table upright. It took a few tries before the rhino-warriors simply spun the table in place and the leg was back at the bottom, providing enough coverage while everyone ducked into the lift. Jason turned the mechanical lever for the lift to move upward. According to his HUD the top decks were clear of combatants. Plasma fire continued to pound the lift’s heavy metal doors as they progressed past the lower decks. At Deck 8, Jason stopped the lift and opened the doors. He checked his HUD, and then peeked out. It seemed clear, but the hybrids were already clambering into the other lifts below.

“Can you disable those lifts before they reach us?” Jason asked, looking over to Traveler and Silent Hunter. Without answering they headed off down the catwalk, heavy hammers raised high. Looking out at the wide-open corridor, Jason realized he was back where he had started. His father’s cage had been somewhere close to this same spot. Dark smoke rose in the distance. Billy and the other team joined Jason on the catwalk.

Jason tried to reach the two SEAL teams holding the bridge again without any luck. Behind them were the thousands of Deck 8 confinement cages that stretched miles into the distance. He avoided looking into the cages. Mealtime preparation for the Craing had come and gone and only partial body parts remained. The catwalk deck plating shook in accordance to Traveler’s and Silent Hunter’s heavy hammers going to work on the lift mechanisms, bending guide rails, smashing pulleys, and dislodging cables. At least for the time being, they wouldn’t be dodging plasma pulses. Their relief was short-lived though. Three Serapins were headed their way from the other end of the catwalk. Their approach should have been indicated earlier; something was wrong with his HUD.

According to his readings, the rapidly approaching icons were just the tip of the iceberg; at least ten more were headed their way. The catwalk was wide enough for Jason, Billy and the other four men to stand side-by-side. With weapons raised, they waited for the raptor-like beasts to come close enough to target accurately. At fifty yards, they opened up on them. Short bursts had little or no effect; only combined sustained plasma blasts from multiple weapons had any real effect. The fallen Serapins were quickly trampled. At ten yards out, Jason’s team walked backwards as they fired. Three Serapins lay dead on the catwalk, ten remained.

At this near-distance, the beasts pace had slowed some. Smoldering black burn marks covered their bodies. Ever determined, they trudged forward, their large jaws snapping with anticipation. At five yards, Jason and the others dropped their rifles and accessed their Ka-Bars. Mallory, the SEAL to Jason’s left, was the first to die with most of his upper torso disappearing into a Serapin’s mouth. As its jaws gnashed and tore at the still-kicking SEAL, Jason brought his Ka-Bar down onto the Serapin’s skull, killing it instantly. With hands slick with blood, Jason found it nearly impossible to get a solid grip on the hilt of his knife. Jason and Billy continued to fight on, side by side, just as they had done countless times before. But now, exhaustion had set in. Jason realized this would be their final battle.

Together they would die here fighting the Serapin. As the realization set in, he was perfectly fine with that. That is until both he and Billy were picked up and thrown several yards backward. Hammers raised, and this time hand-held plasma weapons firing, Traveler and Silent Hunter engaged the Serapins. Another SEAL had gone down in the meantime. Billy, still sitting on his ass, looked over to Jason.

“So we do all the work and they barge in and take all the credit. I see how it works.” In the end, the Serapins would be defeated, but not before Silent Hunter lost most of his horn and Traveler an ear.

“Billy, have you been able to contact the bridge teams—or any of the teams, for that matter?” Jason asked

“Not since the train. HUDs acting weird too,” Billy said. He’d removed his helmet and wiped the sweat from his face. “What’s our next move, Cap?”

Jason took in the scene around him. They’d all taken off their helmets and were leaning up against the confinement cages behind them. The two rhino-warriors, Petty Officer Rizzo, Billy, and Jason stared across several hundred yards to other decks and identical confinement cages. There had been constant movement over there, just two levels down, but no one noticed.

Perhaps it was exhaustion, but when Petty Officer Rizzo’s shoulder gushed red in a bright flash, and plasma bolts erupted all around them, there was no place to hide or run to, or anything to take cover behind. If it hadn’t been for their hardened combat suits, they would have been killed in seconds.

Jason and the others scrambled to replace their helmets and reach for their side arms. Their plasma rifles were back down the catwalk where they’d dropped them. The assault was nothing short of a long distance firing squad. The two rhino-warriors were back on their feet.

“We will face this last battle with honor, not on our ass,” Traveler bellowed, while firing his hand-held plasma weapon across the corridor. Jason, Billy, and injured Rizzo got to their feet and stood with the rhino-warriors, firing until their weapons grew hot in their hands. Increasing black scorch marks erupted on the front of their suits. Jason took a direct hit to his helmet—a horizontal crack splintered across his visor. Rizzo went down first, followed shortly afterwards by Billy. And then there was nothing but black.

Chapter 24

The Lilly had shifted back, and was now positioned right in front of them. Billy stirred, looked up, and grumbled in Spanish, “¿Qué coño?”

Jason sat down next to his friend, took off his ruined helmet, and watched as the flight deck doors began to open. The Lilly’s forward and aft pulse cannon snapped into place and quickly dispatched a maelstrom of plasma fire onto the Craing and Craing Hybrids on the opposite lower decks. Within seconds, the guns were secured back inside The Lilly’s hull. Only now would he let his thoughts go there, to the realization of what he’d almost lost, and now, inexplicably, had regained. His thoughts turned to Mollie, Nan, and his father. And then to Dira.

* * *

As soon as Jason was back on board, he ordered The Lilly to shift further down the corridor, closer to the Dreadnaught’s bridge, and pick up the remaining SEAL teams and rhino-warriors. Their fighters and two shuttles were now on board as well. Billy and Rizzo were rushed to Medical. Traveler and Silent Hunter were too large for the MediPods, but preferred, anyway, to return to their natural habitat in the Zoo, where they could have their wounds attended to by their own kind.