Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (18 page)

“Take it as slow as you like, Rachel,” Scott whispered. Rachel looked at him then, and tears were running down her cheeks.

“Admiral, it’s … it’s a fucking food processing ship.” She let go then, all defenses down, and wept.

“Oh my god!” was all Brock could say as it dawned on him what she meant.

“The kids!” Rachel screamed. “They were processing the kids for food.” She pounded the arm of the chair. “Bastards, motherfucking, slimy bastards,” she screamed, her fist striking the arm, punctuating each word. In fury she flung the glass across the room, smashing it against the far wall. “And I let the cocksuckers get away,” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

For a moment, it felt as if someone had reached into Scott’s chest, wrapped cold fingers around his heart and squeezed. “Brock, get a team together with Pete. Be careful how you pick the people, and I want this documented, now!” he snarled. “Every last stinking detail.”

“Wait! There are some of them alive, I think,” Rachel said between sobs.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re zombies, and some of them aren’t human, or at least from what I could tell.”

Scott looked at Brock and nodded. “Take care of them, get them to Doc Chase and Kessler as soon as possible.”

“God damn right!”

“Maybe he and that mad gnome can do something for them.”

“Yes, sir, I’m on it,” Brock said, vanishing out the door.

Rachel asked, “Did you capture any of the aliens onboard any of the other ships alive?”

“Yes, we did. What about on the mother ship?”

“Killed every last one of them,” she snapped. “I kicked a few of the motherfuckers to death myself.…” She stopped and let out a gasping sob. “I wish I had kill …” She couldn’t say more, but Scott knew what was she was going to say, and felt the same way.

“Good.” Scott could feel the repressed fury in his chest as the enormity of what she was saying sank in.

“Where are the ones you captured?” Rachel asked, her eyes hard.

“In the security area, why?”

In answer, Rachel stood and pulled out her side arm. It was clear she was in no mood to be reasoned with, so Scott walked beside her as she headed for the prison. The guard challenged them, and Scott quickly identified himself and the captain. He knew what Rachel was going to do, but then again, so was he.

“Sir, can I help you?” the guard commander asked as he came running out. The young lieutenant was one of the new people, and he didn’t like the look on Scott’s or the ship captain’s face, or the fact she had her side arm out.

“You will stand aside, Lieutenant, and let Captain Haas conduct an interrogation. We need to get these prisoners to talk, now!”

“Yes, Admiral, but …”

“Do you want to live to see the sun come up tomorrow, sonny?” Rachel asked in a bleak voice.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Then get the fuck out of my way!” she snarled, and he did. The rest of the guard team fingered their weapons nervously, wondering what to do.

“I’ll take full responsibility for this,” Scott said, taking them off the hook. “Open the cells and let them all out into the exercise area.”

“All at once, sir!”

“That’s what I just said, wasn’t it?” he growled.

“Yes, sir, but that’s against the ru … yes sir.” Scott’s look was sufficient to send the man running for the control center. He hit the master locking control and opened the entire cellblock at the same time. Scott and Rachel passed through five separate security doors and entered the exercise area. Slowly the lizard-like aliens came out of the cells, curious as to what was going on. From his pocket, Scott pulled out the translation disk Doc Chase had given him, and hung it around his neck.

“We are here to ask you some questions,” he said in a loud voice. “If I don’t get an answer, this woman will start shooting each one of you until someone talks to me.”

“We will tell you nothing,” one of the aliens in a red cape hissed. The translator indicated the alien had said more, and the device didn’t work on the last part of his sentence, but Scott was betting it wasn’t nice. Before he could say anything in return, Rachel went over to the nearest alien and shot him in both kneecaps. The impact of the needle round drove him back against the wall, jerking and flapping his arms. He hit the wall and slid down, keening in pain and leaving a reddish-green stain behind him.

“Now then, who would like to talk to me?” Scott asked. The aliens were jabbering away so fast to each other, the translator didn’t work well. They started backing away, with some rushing back into their cells. “Anyone?” he asked again.

Rachel didn’t wait; she walked across the yard and shot the wounded creature in both arms, shattering the elbows. She turned, and shot another one in the back as he tried to run. The round’s impact drove him into the cell, but she followed, and the ripped-cloth sound of the weapon discharging could be heard.

“This will get you nothing,
darth
(food animal)” the translator murmured as the red-caped alien hissed out the reply. Brave words, but the creature’s eyes were wide, the crest on his head flat again his skull, suggesting fear. “Without your weapons you are
mucklar
(prey).”

Scott let go of his anger, and realized why these aliens had that suggestion of a smile on their faces every time someone tried to talk to them: you don’t talk to food. Scott took out his side arm and handed it to Rachel. “Keep them covered.”

“You can count on it, sir!”

“All right, big mouth, I have no weapon. Come and show me how tough you are,” Scott said, walking toward the one with the red cape. This one had to be some sort of a leader, but no one had been able to discover of what.

“It will shoot me if I do,” the alien snarled, its snout jerking toward Rachel.

“You don’t have to worry about her, just me,” Scott said. He went down and back up, leaping into the air, spinning as he did.

The side of his extended foot caught the alien along the side of its face, knocking it sideways. Stumbling to recover, it gave out with a spitting roar and charged. Scott faded to the side, slamming his fist into the alien’s side as it passed. The alien roared again, in pain this time, and with lightning speed whipped around and struck at Scott. By now, his senses were in overdrive, and it appeared to him the alien was slowing down. He put this down to the two solid hits it took rather than anything else, so when the creature turned and struck again, he saw the clawed, four-fingered hand coming at him long before it connected.

He shifted his body, gripping the wrist, and twisted, hearing something crack. It was the bones in the alien’s forearm, accompanied by its hoarse scream in his ears. Holding the broken arm, the alien moved away from him, turned sideways, and Scott delivered a side-snap kick to the knee joint. The alien dropped to the ground, moaning in pain, the knee joint shattered. Scott stepped back and time sped up to normal as he looked around at the others.

“Anyone else think I’m food?” he snarled, lips drawn back. There was no answer. “Now then, who’s going to talk to me?” The other seven aliens looked at the one on the ground, still hesitating. Rachel shot two more, reloaded her side arm, and pointed it at another one. It put its hand out before him, as if to ward off the approaching death.

“I will tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Talk and you die,” red cape hissed through his pain, “then your offspring, then your eggs and your mates!”

Scott reached down, easily lifting red cape off the ground by its throat. “And who is going to tell them, you?” he asked, squeezing his hand. The alien gagged, eyes bugging out of his head, the one good hand clawing at the steel vise around its throat, leaving bloody gashes behind, but the grip didn’t loosen.

“Don’t kill it yet, Admiral, it might have some information we need,” Rachel said. Her words penetrated the red mist in Scott’s brain and his hand relaxed.

The alien fell to the ground, gasping for air, scrabbling backward away from Scott. To the alien, Scott was some monster out of sleep images it had as a nestling, something that came to steal its soul because it didn’t have one.

“You had enough Rachel?” Scott asked, looking at her.

“For now, Admiral, for now. Let’s get this piece of garbage inside and ask it some questions.”

“Right,” he agreed. “You lot! Back in your cells, now!” he barked, and the alien scuttled away. “Not you, asshole, you are coming with me.” He reached down, grabbed the red cape, and dragged the struggling creature back into the security block. Finding the interrogation room, he picked it up and threw it in one corner of the room, sealing the sliding door.

“Having fun are we?” Doc Chase said, coming up behind him at a run.

“Did Brock tell you?” Scott asked.

“Tell me what?” Chase asked testily. “First, you tell me why we’re shooting and torturing prisoners now.”

“These aren’t prisoners anymore, they’re dead meat. If I don’t kill them, then the rest of the people on this fucking island will.”

“Jesus, Scott! What the hell has got your panties in an uproar?”

“We found out why they’re taking children, Doctor!” he yelled in Chase’s face, nose to nose.

“All right, you tell me why, and what justifies this sort of behavior.”

“They process them for food,” Scott said in a soft voice, backing away.

“Say that again!” Chase grabbed him and jerked him back, not believing.

“These … creatures,” Scott said, unable to think of a better word for them. “They take the children off this and probably other worlds, and process them for food.”

Chase was silent for a moment at the force of emotion in Scott’s choked-out words, then began turning away, saying, “Shoot the bastard.”

“After we get answers to some questions.”

“Give me the questions and let me ask,” was his grim answer. “You’ll have your answers in less than an hour.”

“No question of the ends justifying the means?” Scott asked as he turned to walk out.

“In this case?” Chase snapped. “None whatsoever.”

“Good, do what you have to do, then go get drunk.” With that, Scott left the building.

The interrogation went on for hours while the children, both human and alien as it turned out, were brought down from the mother ship. By dawn, word had spread and more and more people knew what was going on, but they were ordered not to spread the word, yet. It would be hard to keep the lid on this news, but it was critical they did until after the funeral. Which was a somber affair, carried off with military precision, but Scott’s mind was elsewhere, planning what he would say to the president and the World Council, when he got the chance. Any reservation about using their children vanished the moment he found out what the aliens were doing. It also suggested that some members of the World Council knew what they were doing as well. Just the thought that a human would knowingly involve himself in something like this made his stomach cramp. After the piper and the bugler had completed playing the traditional tunes and taps, the parade broke up, and he cornered the president immediately.

“We have to talk, sir, as soon as possible.”

“I agree, I want a full update on the battle and everything,” President Westwood said, a grim look on his face. There was something else on his mind; that was obvious. Scott had the same shuttle standing by, and they did a repeat of the fishing trip, ending up on the same beach, but in a different location. Since Westwood typically dressed in clothing more suited for the Middle East, Scott though the plain woven garment seemed to suit the president better than it had Brock, Kat, Hiro, and Pete.