Allies (Warriors of Karal Book 5) (13 page)

They sat in silence, until he turned and said to her, “We are about to begin our descent.”

The ship in front of them seemed to tip at a horrible angle, and as it did, she caught a glimpse of the planet below them; it was grey, with swirling gas clouds around it. “Will we be able to breathe on the planet?”

“Yes, we can breathe, just. Although it would be poisonous after a long period of time. But we will not be getting out of the cruiser.”

“So the slaves the down there, they don’t have a very long lifespan?” It was a statement of fact, and it brought home to her exactly what they were trying to achieve here. To take other people as captives was one thing, but to give them death sentences, to shorten their lives by slowly poisoning them, was terrible. And she reconciled her feelings towards the Karal.

They might have kept females in captivity, but at least they were kept healthily, and had a good life expectancy. But then she knew she was just being biased.

The descent down to the Hrokili home world was a difficult one. The gas clouds dragged at them, trying to pull the cruiser away from the Hrokili ship. He fought to keep it close enough that they wouldn’t be seen, but not so close that they were in danger of being destroyed if they crashed into it. The ship juddered all round them, and he was reminded of the wormhole once again and when he glanced across at Petra he knew that she held the same fear. Having her here with him, made him feel those same emotions. He had never been scared before. When he had gone into battle previously, he had always been with his fellow warriors, and if they fell, there was nobody really left to miss them. Not after their fathers had died.

But now it was like he was part of something bigger, and he didn’t want to lose any of it. So he placed both hands on the control, and fought to keep the cruiser on the correct course. He could do this, he would succeed.

And then the computer beeped, the signal coming through from the Hrokili ship that it was time for them to part. The idea was that the cruiser would land separately. Then both ships had to switch off their engines, before the EMP was released. In that way, they should be unaffected.

He guided the cruiser to the left of the Hrokili ship, seeking out somewhere flat for them to land. Above them, the Karal and the Wambano ships would be preparing to get into position, so it was adamant that the EMP was set off soon. Then he would send a signal, telling the others that it was all right to proceed.

He saw a clearing and headed for it; it was just big enough for them to land. Which was the idea. He hoped that if they landed in the middle of nowhere, even if the Hrokili managed to launch their ships, they would not be able to find the cruiser in time to disrupt them from their task. If that happened, it would put the whole mission in jeopardy.

That was the one problem with the plan; they were facing so much of the unknown. The EMP needed to stay on the planet in case it had to be used again on a lower range. It could be used to keep any ships from taking off. But alternatively, if the Hrokili found them and took it, they could use it themselves, and expand the wave to knock out all of the cruisers that were in space setting up the grid. Hell, it might even be used to disrupt the grid itself and all their plans would be for nothing. He didn’t like to think of how many people would die if this happened.

“Hrokili ship grounded. Engines off.” The computer’s voice spoke to him, and this was their moment to act. They were both ready, their seatbelts off. He switched off the ship completely. All he held was a flashlight for them to see by as they headed to the back of the ship. They went to the cargo hold and he pressed the button to release the electromagnetic field. There was no sound; the only way they knew it had worked was when the flashlight he was holding went out.

All around them was darkness, and he heard the sharp intake of breath from Petra and knew that she was scared. But he also knew how brave she was to have insisted on coming with him. And he could think of no one else he would rather be with at this moment. Even if that meant she was in danger.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now we wait.” They had their instructions: they were to maintain radio silence and not to switch on any instruments at all. In this way they hoped that the Hrokili would never find them even if they had the technology to do so. But it was an unbearable wait.

“So how do we know if they’ve succeeded?” Petra asked him.

“We listen.” He looked up above them into the darkness, and then he said, “The Hrokili ship will be unmissable when it goes into orbit. That is our signal to move.”

“And what if they need another pulse from this?” And he knew she was pointing at the device.

“We will know.” He reached out into the darkness and found her hand and they stood there together listening. “The Wambano have told the other allies where they can find the slaves. There is nothing else we can do.”

As a warrior he had spent many hours, many days, just waiting, it was a natural thing for him. This time even he was nervous; they were blind and almost dead with their systems off. And he longed to go back to the control deck and switch on the communication channels and allow the computer to tell them what was going on. But he also knew it was imperative that they kept quiet, that nobody knew they were here.

And then in the distance he heard it, a sound like an explosion. “That is our signal.”

They fumbled their way back to the control deck. He just hoped that the ship would restart. He pressed the button and was relieved when he felt the power surge through the system as it rebooted. He turned to her and smiled. “Let’s go home.”

That wasn’t strictly true: they were supposed to leave the Hrokili planet and once they were sure the grid had been activated, they were to rendezvous back on Tikira. But he’d take it!

The systems were up and running, and he switched on the communication channel but remained silent as they launched off the ground. He’d never been so pleased to see a planet disappearing beneath them. But as they cleared the blanket of cloud surrounding it, and hit a clear patch, he could see that there was going to be trouble. In front of them, there wasn’t one Hrokili ship; there were two.

He flicked the communication switch and spoke into the radio, hoping that the enemy ship was not on the same frequency. Then he realised he didn’t know if both of them were enemy ships. “Niko 5823. Do you read me?”

“Niko, good to hear you; we need some assistance. We are running heavy.”

“What are you going to do?” Petra asked. “We don’t have any weapons to take them on.”

“Is the defence grid ready to activate?” Niko asked into the radio.

“They are just waiting for us to get off the planet. But the other ship will be faster than us.”

Niko knew exactly what he had to do. “I need a signal. Identify which ship you are.”

“Will do.” The computer picked up the radio wave from the furthest ship, and he could see it was slower, struggling to get into orbit, while the other Hrokili ship was racing towards them. But then it veered off, setting a course directly out through the planet’s atmosphere. And Niko knew he had to act quickly. Or all their plans would have been in vain.

He throttled forward, the cruiser juddering with the force of trying to pull against the planet’s gravity at this speed. He turned to Petra and said, “I need you to go and get the EMP.

Her face paled. She looked at him but she nodded and got up, not asking why he needed it. But then, there was only one reason. He was going to use it to bring down the Hrokili ship. He just hoped his plan would work.

Don’t think, just do it
, she told herself as she went to the cargo hold and grabbed the device, pulling it along the ground, she headed back to the control deck. She knew what he had in mind, and she knew that it would probably be the death of them.

But at least all the slaves in the other Hrokili vessel would be free. In this moment she understood why her mother had done the things that she had. It was an act of self-sacrifice. And where she had often thought her mother was selfish to want to be President, she realised now that in fact it was selfless. She’d given up everything she knew, everything she loved, after the death of her husband, to bring about the downfall of the President, the man who was so corrupt that humans didn’t stand a chance with him still in power.

“Here, what do you want me to do?” she asked Niko, struggling to meet his eye, not wanting to see the pain there that would mirror her own.

He bent down and looked at her, his finger going under her chin and tilting it up. “Petra, we can do this together. If we get the timing right, we will escape this.

She shook her head. “Please don’t give me...” She pulled back away from him, but he grasped her hand.

“I mean it. This is what we do. You need to turn the dial so that the EMP is at a very close range. The only ship we need to hit is the Hrokili ship in front of us. But the problem we have, is it will knock our ship out as well.”

She nodded. “I realise that.”

“So what I need to do, is get above it. We need to be high enough above the Hrokili ship that when I switch off the engines and we fall, we are in range to kill their engines, while our equipment is not damaged from the wave.”

Hope surged inside her. He did have a plan, one that didn’t involve them plummeting downwards along with the Hrokili ship and exploding on the ground.

“What do I have to do?” she asked.

“First of all, you have to lift up the latch there. Yes, that’s it. Now, you see the dial? You need to turn it back to five hundred feet.” While she adjusted the settings, he flicked a switch on the computer screen and spoke to the computer. “Computer. I need you to work out the velocity and distance we will fall when I switch off the engines.”

He peered at the screen as figures flashed up, reading it quickly before looking up at the Hrokili ship in front of them, which was now becoming uncomfortably close. The other Hrokili ship was falling away; she couldn’t even begin to think how many people must be on board for it to affect it so much. She knew they had to get this right to stop the awful Hrokili. “Are you ready?” he asked her.

“Yes.” They could do this. They would survive. She was not ready to die out here in space, especially on an alien planet. She had a life to lead with Niko and she was determined that it would be a long life.

“On my mark,” he said, as the Hrokili ship continued its ascent. He powered forward, passing it, and then checking the computer screen before telling her, “I’m going to switch the engines off now.” He flicked the switch and everything around them died. And she felt them immediately begin to fall while he counted. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Mark.”

She flicked the switch and the EMP sent out its signal. The Hrokili ship stalled and then it began to fall along with them. There was an unbearable moment when the ground came up to meet them and she wanted to yell at him to switch on the engines.

And then he did, and they seemed to hover in mid-air while the Hrokili ship continued to fall. He throttled forward, and they were heading towards the outer atmosphere at an angle to intercept the other Hrokili ship, which was moving so unbearably slowly, she wondered if they were going to make it out at all.

Then they burst out into the nothingness of space, but it wasn’t nothingness, it was filled with other ships that were deploying what looked like beacons, positioned to form a grid. And as they cleared the grid, she heard over the radio, the signal for them to be switched on.

Almost like a spider spinning its web, lights lit up like a halo around the planet, and she slumped down onto the floor, all the energy gone from her, as the adrenaline slipped away. They had done it. They had succeeded. The universe was now a safer place, and humans would have a new home.

She sobbed, her breath ragged, as she tried to control herself. But she couldn’t; it had all become too much. Then, in amongst her sobs, she felt a hand on her back, stroking her, soothing her, as if she was a child. And she felt his emotions flow into her, as if his colours streamed through his fingers and into her body.

Somehow, he managed to put his hand under her arm, and pull her up into her seat. “Put your seatbelt on, Petra. Just in case the Hrokili have any more surprises for us, I’d prefer it if you were strapped in.”

Working on autopilot, she pulled the two straps around her, and listened to the satisfying
clunk
as it slid together. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes, as she concentrated on her breathing, in and out, in and out.

She wasn’t sure if she dozed off on the way back to Tikira, but before she knew it, the cruiser was tilting forward, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the beautiful planet before them. The Hrokili ship had already got there and this time, instead of orbiting in space, it was descending through the atmosphere. They followed, and she watched the planet like a jewel, sparkling in front of her, and then they were landing next to the Hrokili ship.

Niko stood up, his seatbelt swiftly undone, and he came to her, kneeling in front of her and holding her tight, his hands trembling as he undid her seatbelt and gathered her to him. She rested her head on his shoulder and just held him, feeling his colours. It was so comforting she wanted to stay like this forever. She was done with excitement. All she wanted to do was go back to Karal with him and breed his son; life would be so simple. And after all that had happened over the last few months, she desperately wanted simple.

After several minutes, he stood up and urged her to look out of the window. “This should make you feel better. This is what we did it for.” She followed his gaze, and saw the stream of aliens, so many different species, departing from the Hrokili ship. No wonder they had struggled to get off the ground; there were hordes of them. Three hundred or more, at least, and he was right, it did make her feel better, but it didn’t stop her wanting to go home.