Connection (10 page)

“Yes ma’am. Twitchy?”

Twlise was standing at the corner of the doorway. “You talking with Cassandra?”

“Yes. She said I needed to sleep.”

Twlise didn’t say a word. She took me by the hand and led me to a small room with a narrow bed. She pushed me toward it.

I looked at her and climbed in after just taking off my shoes. I was exhausted. I felt her curl up against my back and was out like a light.

I felt like I hadn’t slept ten minutes when I awoke to light coming in the small window. Twlise was gone but I smelled something delicious cooking. I went down the hall to a bathroom and refreshed a bit. Washed my face and ran a finger around my teeth – my mouth tasted like I had washed my socks in it. I’m sure I smelled like a goat but didn’t take the time to find a shower. I headed toward the good smells.

“Morning everyone. That smells delicious. What is it?” I asked and everyone just looked at me and didn’t say anything. Then, I realized I’d said that in English – so, “Morning. What smells good?” I said it in the local patois I had been learning.

“It is ^#@#,” Twlise said. “Along with ^#@**.”

I didn’t catch either words but it looked like some type of corn grit cake fried in oil with strips of sausage. I knew it would raise my cholesterol but I would have eaten a dead rat at the moment and this smelled wonderful.

Twlise smiled a lovely smile at me and put down a plate. The utensils were the same as an Earth prison ‘spork’ but made out of stainless steel. The fried cake was delicious and I wondered what type of oil it had been fried in because it didn’t smoke. The sausages were some smoked meat that made me want to lick my plate. They drank citrus flavored water with the meal. Coffee was sorely lacking but it was not to be. There were some bread sticks that the diners dipped into little ceramic bowls by each setting. I tentatively nibbled a piece of bread – it was okay but when I dipped it into the little dish and tried it…it was like honey and pepper sauce. It nearly seared my tongue but it left a taste that was exquisite. I gulped down some water as everyone all laughed at the newbie.

I told them how delicious everything was and they looked at me like I was crazy. It was like telling someone from southern California that it’s a pleasant day – it is so commonplace that they take it for granted.

I told them I could sell a freighter full of foodstuffs from here if we find nothing else to trade.

We were starting on the slates and chemical naming conventions when Cassandra broke in over my communicator. “Robert. I am hearing a lot of Prath and military radio traffic and they are mentioning coordinates near us. I think one of our scientists must have told someone he was supposed to rendezvous with LeEck. I do not know how they pinpointed our location.”

“How long do we have?” I said and those around the table looked at me funny with me apparently talking to myself.

“I think the first units will be there in about three hours,” she said. “Hold up a slate and your Dex so the cameras can see their faces when you tell them. I think I can discern which one is a collaborator.”

“Who told others that you were coming to meet Professor LeEck?” I asked while holding the cameras pointed at their faces. Four of them looked shocked.

“It’s the young one Robert,” she said and he looked guilty as sin. You didn’t need neural linguistics to tell.

I pointed at our number five alternate – the young scientist we substituted for the older one. “He told people we were meeting LeEck. The Prath and military are sending a large number of…people here.”

All the people started talking at once. I slapped my hands down on the table and they shut up. “We have three
hours
before they are here.” Cassandra translated that into LesMan time units and I said that. “I suggest we all travel to Xale. They will throw everyone but him,” I pointed at the young scientist – didn’t remember his name. “Everyone but him in prison.”

I turned to the pilot, LeAt. “I need one of your people to vouch for me and show me where to land where I can get refueled. It will take me about five
hours
to get to Xale.” Cassandra translated the time units for me again and I told the group. “Twlise. LeEck. I’d like you to join me if you would unless you are prepared to hide somewhere else on this planet.”

LeAt spoke up. “LeToms. I think your usefulness with the Prath is done. Mother has wanted you home for years. What do you think? Would you help him? We have room for everyone.”

Two of the scientists said they’d stay. They thought they’d be able to get away. The young scientist started to ease toward the door but LeAt punched him hard under the ear and he hit the floor like a sack of rocks. He was still breathing – I raised my left index finger to show approval. LeEck gave his keys to one of his colleagues. They hugged each other and he gave them the contact information for one of his associates who would help them.

I turned to Twlise and she looked torn. I walked over to her, put my arms around her waist, and looked her straight in the eyes. “Would you come with me?”

“It is terrible to think I will have to leave my home – everyone I knew – all the familiar things to go to some other world. It scares me so.”

“You can go with the two scientists? I am afraid the Prath know you were with me.”

“I will go with you,” she said in almost an inaudible whisper. “I don’t want to be away from you.”

I went over and grabbed LeAt’s upper arm. He turned toward me and looked really surprised. “Be careful. I will make sure your brother is safe,” I said and LeAt nodded.

LeAt had quite a few spacesuits with bulky helmets. LeAt gave his brother one. LeToms put that on and could hardly sit in the seat in Cassandra. I had my flight suit and original helmet. I had two Mars suits that were at least, pressurized. They had some micrometeorite protection and communication features built in, plus the helmets were more lightweight. I gave them to LeEck and Twlise and helped them struggle into them. They’d never seen Velcro and zippers and it was awkward the first time. LeToms suit had fittings that twisted in place. He looked like ‘Robbie the Robot’ in the 1956 Forbidden Planet movie. Twlise looked like a goddess in a space porno. The silver suit fit her very well since it adjusted to the individual wearer. LeEck seemed fascinated by the suit adjusting to fit him and its communication and environmental features.

We boarded the ships after stripping the buildings of any clues we could readily wipe. The fuel trucks had left in the dark. The buildings were dark and cold. We took all the trash from our occupancy to the freighter. LeAt said he’d jettison it where it’d burn up in the atmosphere.

The four of us boarded Cassandra. I took the left front seat; LeToms took right, with Twlise behind me, and LeEck behind LeToms. Cassandra contacted us on whatever radio frequency we were set to and warned us of imminent takeoff.

We taxied out to the end of the runway and punched it. I tried to keep the G’s pretty low because I didn’t know how LeEck would stand it. He seemed to eat it up – loved it – who knew? Some people love it and some hate it. LeToms had his jaws and eyes clamped shut. The seat frame would have crushed with the grip he had on the frame. Twlise had a rapid pulse – Cassandra said her vitals indicated she was just excited. I thought that was a good sign. I didn’t want anyone throwing up in here – I had had that happen once on a weightlessness familiarization flight I had been on. Nasty is not descriptive enough and life threatening in a suit. Glad we missed out on that. I had Cassandra tailor the views to stabilize and adjust for spin as we rotated upside down – wanted my guests to have a good view. They said some new words that I wanted Cassandra to teach me – everyone needs swear words from as broad a context as possible. I was sure I’d need them in the future.

I told Cassandra to insert us on minimal fuel use route to Xale and watch for Prath – I didn’t want to have another abortive encounter. The freighter – they didn’t name them which struck me as peculiar – they were another species though – it launched soon after us but we left them way behind. We were well on our way to Xale and LeToms was explaining to Cassandra where they should land. We had a crude map of Xale that Cassandra had acquired but it was like in crayon with few details. I should have photographed the maps on the freighter but hindsight is twenty-twenty. We rapidly approached the Jovian planet and saw Xale silhouetted against the massive gas giant. Xale was blue-green with lots of areas of water – no huge oceans.

Gravity on Xale was supposed to be a bit less than LesMa – Earth had a bit more gravity than both, which gave me an advantage in strength and reflexes. Twenty years of martial arts training gave me an advantage in close-in fighting. I still had the rifle and pistols I had acquired on LesMa and had thousands of shooting hours. I also had a ‘hell with you’ attitude that gave me an advantage over those trying to be ‘law abiding’. I was a bit concerned that the lower gravity would make me shoot a bit high since under stress I would feel the weight of my firearm and automatically adjust. Being able to see better in low light than the locals gave me more advantage too – I’d need everything I had.

Cassandra came on – “I hear a concentration of military signals emanating from what could only be a big base west of where LeToms suggested we land.”

I acknowledged with an unobtrusive “Uh huh.”

“There are some prime small asteroids near our flight path.”

“Uh Huh.”

“You want to get LeToms to invite the base commander to where we will land to discuss surrender terms.”

“Uh huh.”

“I then drop a rock and destroy that base.”

Pause…I thought about it. Fuck ‘em. “Uh huh.”

“Moving into position to nudge the first of two asteroids. We can use the laser tractor for fine tuning.”

“Uh huh. LeToms,” I said.

“I want you to call the commander of the base to meet us at the landing site to discuss surrender terms. Tell him to have only a small support group or there will be no surrender,” I said.

“What! What are you talking about? You can’t surrender? It would destroy everything we’ve been working for. I told LeAt not to trust you,” he said and reached over to grab me.

I grabbed his arm and twisted his wrist in an aikido lock – just shy of breaking his arm. “I was not going to surrender TO him. I was going to take him hostage to trade for my copilot,” I said calmly as LeEck and Twlise were saying not to hurt him.  “Do you want to remove that military base? Really get rid of it?” I asked.

“Yes,” LeToms gasped. “Let me go. Yes. That base is what keeps us from having total independence.”

I let go. “Touch me again and I’ll rip that arm off and feed it to you. You understand me. Get on the radio and get the commander to meet us. Then call your friends on the surface and get us backup. I do not want to kill the commander. We need him to deliver the message.”

Cassandra opened a channel on the encrypted military band. “Who is calling on this frequency? This is a restricted channel.”

“This is LeToms…formally of Prath service. Get your commander on the radio now. I want to discuss surrender. I am on a ship that will soon be landing at Slath Shallows spaceport. Get him to meet us with a small contingent. We will be landing as soon as he acknowledges he is close. He will be able to see us as we are in an all black ship of unusual design. Confirm receipt. He has but a short time to forestall an attack on your base.”

“How many troops at the base?” I asked LeToms as we moved into a geostationary, equidistant orbit.

“There are only one thousand but they have heavy weapons and aircraft. They have bombed our cities whenever we attack them. They confiscate our produce; stop our ships when they can. There are rumors they misuse locals – young females. They set their own prices and merchants are ruined. We have tried to attack them but they are too strong and they extract a heavy price. You have no weapons on this ship.”

“Do you think he will come?” I asked.

“Yes. He is arrogant. He certainly doesn’t fear anyone on Xale – he’d just destroy a town. He is called ‘the butcher’. His name is LesTo. Do you still want me to call? There are but a few who will be willing to confront LesTo…I will call our resistance. How do I contact them from here?” LeToms asked.

Cassandra spoke to LeToms and they managed to get on a frequency that allowed contact with the resistance on Xale. The contact on the surface was very suspicious and wondered how they could be contacted from high orbit. LeToms explained that he was LeAt’s brother and LeAt was coming back. LeToms told the contact to be ready from now until dusk. Cassandra accelerated the ship into a different path that soon had the ship paralleling a twenty-three meter wide asteroid of nickel-iron. Cassandra used the high power laser on different points on the asteroid. The outgassing of the hits redirected the path. A smaller asteroid accompanied the large one. Cassandra used a polarized laser as a tractor even though it could only apply grams of force. Varying the polarization allowed Cassandra to minutely redirect the small asteroid.

Cassandra said through my subdural communicator, “Okay boss. Hope we know what we’re doing…I set your Dex to show the countdown. I’d have trouble stopping it now. You want to come in high over the military base. What do you think…landing twenty minutes before the…event? I don’t want to give ‘the butcher’ too much time.”

“I think that is fine,” I said aloud in English. I turned to my passengers. “I am going to fly over the base – very high and land at Slath Shallows at this time.” I said and Cassandra displayed the time in local characters and did the countdown ‘til landing. “Contact your people LeToms and tell them when we are landing. I need them to protect us for just a short time.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing but LesTo is ruthless. Your surrender will not get you anything but shot.” The comm system came to life with the ground contact. LeToms told the contact when they would be arriving.

The flyover of the military base was anticlimactic. A ship as small as the Cassandra obviously didn’t worry the base. We did knock out their radars and communications. It was so nice having more advanced tech than your adversaries.

We came in fast and taxied to the end of the field so anyone coming to us would give us a bit of a warning. The first to get to us were three guys from the Xale resistance. I must say they were underwhelming. They looked nervous.

“Hello. I am Robert from Earth. I have allied with LeAt and will shortly destroy the military base to your west. I need you to cover us if the Butcher comes to meet us. You will need heavier weapons as I expect they will bring armored vehicles. Do you have weapons to defeat armored vehicles?”

“Yes. We have seen three armored vehicles enroute from the base. We have a few anti-armor weapons but those vehicles are difficult to target and have enormous firepower,” said the elder resistance fighter.

LeToms greeted him. “I suggest you set up an ambush here. My brother believes in this man and it may be our last hope for a long time. We stand here or not again.”

Robert turned to LeToms and thanked him. “If the butcher, LesTo comes. I will stand in front of you with my hands behind me like I am bound. Hold my arm ‘til they come to conversational distance and let go of my arm. We will take him prisoner. Do nothing – do you understand. Do nothing until you see me act. Do this for me – for your brother.”

“He will just shoot you,” LeToms said.

“I deal with this type of people all the time in government. He will talk with me first before shooting to show us how powerful he is. He will send two people before him to control me, the prisoner, so he can proclaim his superiority in your face. His armored vehicles will have their weapons aimed at my ship. I will deal with that and take him prisoner – hopefully alive.”

“Cassandra. Target their vision ports with your lasers. Also, target any ground troops other than the leader if I miss. Aim for his hand if he raises a weapon. He will probably be left-handed. Keep LeEck and Twlise on board.”

“Copy. I detect the vehicles coming now.”

Robert kissed Twlise and clasped LeEck on the shoulder. “Xale will soon be free or we will be in deep Zhast.”

LeEck laughed and LeToms came down the ladder to stand behind me with a handgun drawn and pointed toward me. I had my hands behind me and Cassandra had conveniently pointed a bright light at us – silhouetting us as three armored vehicles rolled up. They looked similar to old, Russian BTRs – eight wheeled troop carriers with a heavy firearm on top. I chuckled but LeToms seemed terrified.

We stood there a minute or two before three men got out of the second vehicle. One strutted and the other two had some type of sub-machine gun. The strutting one stopped a short distance away and motioned the other two forward. “So this is our vicious alien and his mysterious ship. I have been…”

I brought my firearm up and shot the two approaching soldiers between the eyes just as Cassandra released multiple bursts from the laser and burned out the eyes of anyone viewing the scene from the armored vehicles. The resistance soldiers were a bit slow on the uptake but finally shot the rear two vehicles. The butcher went for his sidearm and Cassandra burned his weapon off his hip – cauterizing two of his fingers on his left hand in the process. I walked forward to the first vehicle and heard the people inside screaming. I climbed up on top. The hatch was open and the soldier manning the machine gun on top was clearly dead – fried. The hatch was open and I leaned in and ended the screaming with three more quick shots. I motioned to the resistance fighters.

They ran up – clearly elated yet terrified of repercussions. I walked over to LesTo – the butcher. He started screaming at me and I backhanded him hard enough to flip him over. I didn’t want to kill him. These Xale resistance fighters hadn’t learned the lesson settlers did on Mars. You cannot make half gestures to a world government. You have to wake them up. The population on LesMa hardly thought about Xale – that was clear. I intended to get Skip back. If I had to end a planetary revolution in the process – or start a war – sounded like a plan.

LeToms and the resistance fighters held LesTo and he started to wind up again – threatening their families and their cities. I drew my hand back again and he shut up for a minute. “You learn slowly. Your military is not welcome on Xale any more. You will not stop Xale ships any more. We are now allies with Xale and will not allow it.”

“I see one being – not a man. Some @#^**@. I will wipe this moon clean of your filth. My military…” he said.

I reached forward, took two of his fingers on his right hand, and broke them. He screamed.

“Do not threaten us again. You have many bones to break and I do not like you. Your military? Which way is the base from here?” I asked LeToms. He pointed to the west.

“If you will all face the base I will show you my response to LesMan military.” I started counting down in LesMan (Twlise would be proud). “Eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one.” There was a flash that lit up the horizon. The darkening sky was bright as day for a moment. I then started counting again for the ground shock. We felt the ground tremble. It was a bit longer before the thunderous crash and wind assailed us. The dust in the sky where the base had been was rising in a dark ominous cloud.