Escape 1: Escape From Aliens (15 page)

“You are tall!” Happy said as she too scampered past him. “Like one of our trees!”

He watched the two Ludeen run down the walkway to the giant door to the first airlock chamber where he and Jane had found their tube suits. Happy pointed the red cube at the door and it rose. To her and Mellow’s warbled delight. They ran inside, long pink tails waving wildly. The airlock door slid shut.

Bill looked to Jane. “Next pair of cells?”

She nodded agreement. “Star Traveler, what cells contain the two Mok captives?”

“The cells adjacent to the two Ludeen cells.”

She led Bill up the central walkway to the next intersection with side walkways. “Open an audio link to the chamber to my right.”

“Link made,” the AI said.

Bill moved to behind Jane. He took a position so he could cover the oval door that would open in the white cell to his right, while keeping her out of the line of taser fire.

“Mok captive, I am Captain Jane Yamaguchi, of the human species. We are now in transit to the Ludeen home star. We will travel next to your home world. My fellow human and I wish to see you directly, visit, and perhaps allow you the freedom to roam this ship until we arrive at your home world. Do you wish to come out and visit with us?”

“Freedom desired,” came a low, growling voice that sent Bill to high alertness.

Jane, standing at the intersection of the two side walkways with the central elevated walkway, looked thoughtful. “Mok captive, do you have a personal identifier you can share with me? And are you male or female?”

Another low growl sounded. “My pack knows me as Sharp Claw. I am male. Release me!”

Jane frowned. “Will you be peaceful if I release you from your cell?”

“This one will pursue peacefulness,” Sharp Claw said in a hurried growl. “There is another Mok held captive. Yes?”

“True,” Jane said. “We release captives one at a time.” She looked to Bill and gave him a nod. “Open his door.”

Bill took a deep breath. He didn’t like the sound of this Alien’s voice. Nor how it spoke. But Aliens are Aliens. Not humans. Different worlds, different ways of behaving. Still, these Mok had to be intelligent enough to be worth capturing by a Collector ship. And the holo of them had depicted a being who resembled a walking cougar with yellow fur, golden eyes and white fangs. But this Mok spoke the way a person held captive would speak. He pointed his red cube at the oval door outline and pressed the Open spot.

The door slid up faster than he could blink. Inside yellow light shone brightly. The next moment the Mok came flying through the air to land on the side walkway in a crouch. His golden eyes scanned Jane, then him, then swept the Containment Chamber. “No others are present?”

Jane, who stood just ten feet from the Mok, moved her taser tube so it pointed directly at the crouching Mok. Who wore a belt with long fringes that hung halfway down to his recurved knees. A carrybag hung from the belt. Sharp Claw leaned forward, both arms outstretched, with brown claws on each of five fingers. His paw-feet showed similar claws. Inside his white-toothed mouth, a purple tongue moved as he spoke.

Jane licked her lips. “No one else is present in this chamber. Although the ship mind computer responds to both me and Bill. Why do you ask?”

The crouching stance of Sharp Claw relaxed slightly. He rose up until he was nearly as tall as Jane. “I had hoped to see the other Mok held captive.”

“You can. In a few moments,” Jane said. “Do you Mok know how to be peaceful with people who are different from you?”

Bill let up on the red cube. The cougar’s cell door closed swiftly. The Mok showed no reaction to the sound.

Furry eyelids swept sideways over the critter’s golden eyes. “On our world of Challenge, there are only other Mok. We cooperate with each other. We have . . . tools and devices to make easier our lives. We have spaceships that have traveled to our nearby worlds and to our Rock Field. We understand about other stars, other worlds.”

“Answer my question,” Jane said, her tone commanding.

The Mok looked quickly to her. “You hold a weapon? Why? I know how to be peaceful.”

“I do,” Jane said. “It shoots a red beam similar to the one that paralyzed you. Do you wish to speak to the other Mok captive?”

“Yes!” Sharp Claw said in a hissing growl, his eyes looking over Bill, the central walkway, the chamber and then back to Jane. The walking cougar reached down and untied his waist carrybag. He held it in one paw-hand.

Jane noticed the move. “What is in that bag?”

A purple tongue licked quickly over four long white fangs. “A device for recording. I wish to make a record of this encounter for when we are returned to our world.”

Jane nodded slowly. “Star Traveler, create an audio link to the other Mok cell. Allow the words of Sharp Claw to be heard inside it.”

“Link established.”

Sharp Claw glanced upward swiftly, then back down. He resumed his crouch. “Mok! Outside are two beings who control our fate. Their teeth are small and they have no claws. I am Sharp Claw. What is your pack name?” he growled low.

“Hungry Heart,” came an answering growl. “Sharp Claw, I wish to return to my cubs. Will that happen?”

“A female,” Sharp Claw hissed. He fixed golden eyes on Jane. “Yes, the two beings with me say that will happen. When you come out, be as I am.”

Jane caught his attention and tipped her head toward the other cell door. “Cover her.”

Bill, standing back a bit, moved closer to Jane and aimed his taser tube at the white cell to their left. “Covered. You have the other one?”

“I do.” She paused a moment. “Use your cube to open her cell door.”

Bill lifted his cube and pointed it at the oval cell door. He pressed the cube’s Open spot.

Out bounded another yellow-furred cougar person. Like Sharp Claw, she landed in a two-footed crouch, her arms outstretched with brown claws extended and white fangs showing. Hungry Heart looked around the chamber quickly, then over to Sharp Claw. “Strange these beings are. I arrive as commanded,” she growled low.

Bill did not like either the voice tones or the look of these two Alien people. Who resembled an Earth predator. Different behaviors he expected. The Mok were far different from the Ludeen tree people. Which made sense, coming from another world.

Jane’s attention on Sharp Claw wavered a moment as she took a quick glance over her back at the new arrival.

The attack happened then.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sharp Claw threw his carrybag at Jane’s taser tube, knocking it from her grasp. Then he sprang into the air, clawed hands and paw-feet extended to rip her open.

He reacted.

Bill touched the taser tube firing spot. A red beam shot out and hit the crouching Hungry Heart in her gut. He did not see that as he was already jumping to intercept Sharp Claw before the critter could reach Jane, who was stumbling back, her right hand going down for her holstered semi-auto. Her reactions were good, but not as quick as those of a SEAL.

Impact
.

Bill felt the pain of finger-claws cutting into his shoulders and paw-feet clawing against his knees as he hit the Mok critter just before it reached Jane. Going for his own semi-auto would not have stopped its forward momentum. So he’d jumped.

He lifted his jaw up and bit into the yellow-furred neck of the Alien.

“Urrrr,” came a low growl as the two of them hit the hard metal of the side walkway.

Biting deeper and then reaching up with his hands even as the Mok’s finger-claws ripped down his biceps he got hold of the creature’s eyebrows, pushed inward with thumbs against the golden eyes and ripped outward with his teeth.

“Yayeee!” Sharp Claw squealed as part of his neck came away in Bill’s mouth.

Smashed eye sockets spurted red blood.

Moving his hands down, he got a grip under the long, narrow jaw of the Mok and lifted upward with both hands, forcing its head backward against the metal floor. His knees came up and pressed down on the belly and ribcage of the Mok, who lay under Bill.

Sharp Claw gave a sudden twist of his body and threw Bill to one side.

In a second the eyeless creature was on top of him, reaching down with brown claws for his own face.

Bill blocked the claw-hands with his arms and pressed them apart.

Pain flared in his legs, which he’d pulled up to his belly, as the feet-claws of the Mok ripped down along his calves.

“Fuck!” he grunted as he grabbed the arms of the Mok and pushed them out so the claws could not reach his face. Sharp Claw’s head lowered, white fangs reaching for him.

A red beam flared above the Mok.

His body spasming, the blind critter gave a growling yowl, gnashed his fangs as his purple tongue ran red with his own blood, then he fell against the railing of the side walkway.

Bill kicked away the spasming body, blinked and looked up.

Jane was leaning over him, one hand reaching down to pull him up even as she pointed a taser tube at the jerking body of the Mok cougar.

“Thanks! That bastard had a lot of strength despite the damage I did to him.”

Jane grimaced. “You’re welcome. You saved my life with that leap of yours. Never saw anyone move so fast!”

Bill stood, felt the pain in his calves, biceps and shoulders, and realized he was dripping lots of blood on the gray metal of the walkway. He looked beyond Jane. “The other Mok. She down for the count?”

“Yes! Thanks to you.” Jane put one of his arms over her shoulder and pulled him toward the intersection of the cell walkway with the central walkway. He saw the other Mok cougar jerking wildly on the opposite walkway.

He grabbed the side railing and nodded ahead. “Let go of me. Put that bitch back into her cell. Then the bastard behind us into his cell. Only way to be safe.”

Jane scanned him, frowned at the sight of his wounds, then let go of him. “Agreed. But I’m your captain. And I order you to let me take you to the Med Hall so that damned device in there can fix your wounds! I don’t want you to bleed out on me!”

Bill watched as Jane used her own red cube to open the other cell door. Keeping it open with one hand, she reached down, grabbed a yellow-furred arm of Hungry Heart, and dragged the Mok back inside her cell. She stepped out, let go the cube’s Open spot, the door whooshed down and she repeated the opening and storage of Sharp Claw in his cell. Coming back to him, her taser tube under her left arm, she reached out, grabbed his arm, pulled it up onto her shoulder and began frog-walking him down the walkway and back the way they’d come.

“Damn glad the Med Hall is just beyond the airlock!” she grunted as he leaned more on her due to the drop in adrenaline and shock from the wounds.

“Me too.” Bill pulled loose from her, took a deep breath and walked on his own toward the distant airlock door. “I can do this. Had worse wounds during an insert in Afghanistan. Up in the mountains. Rolled down four hundred feet of sharp rocks after I got shot in my leg. The Taliban who hit me did not survive my return fire.”

Jane put her taser tube into her backpack, then pursed her lips as she walked alongside him, hands on her hips. “I’m sure you have. But wounds are wounds. Blood loss is blood loss. And keeping you alert until we get you into that wraparound healing unit is my main concern right now.”

He chuckled. “I’m still alert. Your cute bod motivates me!”

“Men!” she said it like a curse. Glancing over to him, her dark brown eyes bored into him. “Don’t do the macho thing with me. I’ve known you long enough to see you have some depth. Both of character and of integrity. Now, first, we get you healed up. Then, later after we’ve eaten, rested and chatted with the Ludeen people, maybe we can come back here and talk to some other captives.”

“Very carefully,” Bill said. “Was my fault he caught you like that. I didn’t buy his recording bag thing. Was fighting my instincts. Kept telling myself he was just an Alien, different from us. Don’t prejudge.”

“Different, yes,” Jane said as she held up a red cube and opened the airlock door. “But just as deadly as a human. Bill, follow your instincts in the future. I’ll accept any needed apologies.”

He grunted as the leg pain hit him, then followed her through the airlock room, out its exit door and into the wide hallway beyond. She gestured left at an eight foot high oval door whose outline showed in the gray metal. “Med Hall.” The door opened to her cube. “Inside you go! And you damned well better be able to take off your own pants and shirt. Ripped they are, but I don’t wish to tempt myself.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Bill said as he walked into the large room and headed for a white clamshell like device that sat atop a metal bench. With trembling fingers he pulled his green t-shirt over his head, wincing at the pain, then unbuckled his holster, then his belt. Dropping his jeans and underpants, he walked slowly toward the clamshell. Which was already opening as Jane tapped the control panel at one end. She looked his way, her eyes scanning over his bare body.

“Well, bloody you are, but functional too. Hands, arms and legs work. So climb in, Senior Crewman Bill MacCarthy!”

He took a deep breath, stopped the chattering of his teeth that came with the shock, and grabbed the clamshell lid that was closest to him. He pulled on it and slid over the lid and down into the softness of the clamshell’s interior. Looking up, he saw Jane looking down at him with concern in her face.

“Sleep tight. Heal fast, me boy,” she said as the clamshells rose up to enclose him. She gave him a half-smile. “And yeah, you got a nice bod for a man who just wrestled a walking cougar!”

Darkness enclosed him, then it brightened as interior function lights came on. Things touched him at his calves, biceps, shoulders and belly. The pain eased. He relaxed. Then, faster than he expected, he was out like a switched off light.

♦   ♦   ♦

Back in the Containment Cell Chamber, Bill stood opposite Jane as they made ready to resume their questioning of captive Aliens and possible release into the rest of the ship. It was four Aliens down and 12 more to go of the 16 held captive. On the one hand the two of them had been held captive and hated it, once they realized they were in a metal walled globe measuring twenty feet across and eleven feet high. Cardboard food slabs and fake holos did not make for any semblance of home. On the other hand, Aliens were Aliens and, like humans, they could be unpredictable. Even dangerous. Like the Mok Sharp Claw. Earlier, after his exit from the clamshell healer unit, they’d gone back to the Mok’s cell, waited for the eyeless cougar to grab a food slab from the back of his cell, then they’d opened the door and red beam zapped him. That allowed them to move him into the clamshell, which hours later released him with fully repaired eyes and neck. Another taser zap allowed them to return him to his cell. While Bill was pissed at the Mok for lying to them, still, he agreed with Jane that the critter should be in normal shape when they returned him and Hungry Heart to their home world. But that attack was why neither he nor Jane stood at the intersection of the central walkway with the side walkways that led to white cell globes. Instead, they stood just beyond that intersection and faced the white globe cell on their left. With white taser tubes aimed at the oval door outline of the cell.

“Star Traveler,” Jane called, “What species is present in the two cells near us?”

“The Winglo occupy the two nearest cells,” the AI said.

She looked to Bill. “Ready?”

Bill cradled the taser tube in one arm while holding the red cube door opener with the other. As before they both wore holsters with their semi-auto pistols in them. After he’d been healed, released and eaten an Alien version of beef and pasta noodles with Jane, they’d discussed how to proceed. Not allowing fellow captives the freedom of the
Blue Sky
was not an option. How to do it safely was the issue. He met her gaze. “Ready, Captain. We keep our taser tubes on the first Alien, then I cover the second. Neither of us looks elsewhere until you make the freedom or jail call.”

She gave him a command nod, her expression darkly serious. “Star Traveler, open an audio channel to both Winglo cells.”

“Channel opened,” the AI said.

“Winglo captives, I am Captain Jane Yamaguchi, of the human species. We are now in transit to the Ludeen home star. As you heard me say earlier, my ally and I will return you both to your home star. My fellow human and I wish to see you directly, visit, and perhaps allow you the freedom to roam this ship until we arrive at your home world. Do you wish to come out and visit with us?”

“Visit yes!” came a croaking voice.

“The sky! I need true sky,” said a second croaking voice with a high tone.

“One by one,” Jane said. “Bill?”

He pointed the tiny red cube at the cell to their left and pressed. The white cell door whooshed upward. Like the other cells, yellow sunlight came from within. The holo inside showed a image of a rocky cliffside atop which lay a single toadstool-like platform. The view was soon blocked by a giant critter with leathery brown wings, bipedal body, small fingers on the front edge of each wing, a narrow head, a dagger-like beak and deep red eyes. The Winglo looked at them, then up at the high ceiling. “Open air!”

Jane kept her taser tube aimed at the Winglo. “I am Captain Jane Yamaguchi, a human female. Who are you?”

The Winglo’s gaze lingered on the yellow-lighted ceiling. “My flock knows me as Far Wing.” Its folded leather wings moved forward so one set of wing-fingers could touch its brown-furred chest. “I am the senior male of my family. Which must be wondering where I disappeared to,” he said in a low, croaking voice that the ship mind translated into the English they heard over their ear buds. “May I come out further? Confinement in that horrible cell was like keeping an adult Winglo inside their birth egg!”

“Yes,” Jane said, gesturing with her free hand. “Come out, but stop on the side walkway. In my hand I hold a white tube. It shoots out a red beam like the one that knocked you unconscious. It is for our protection.”

Bill let go the Open spot on the red cube. The door zipped shut behind the Winglo. Who glanced back, then forward.

Far Wing looked over Jane, then Bill, then returned to her. “Without wings or claws or a sharp beak like mine, you ground-runners must surely need protection,” he croaked low. “We have creatures like you on our world, but they have never grown as large as you two. Are there many Humans like you on your world?”

Jane chuckled softly. “Yes, there are. The human population of our world Earth is more than seven billion. We farm crops, catch fish in the seas and use technology to preserve food so all humans may eat.”

The Winglo shook his bony head, which was topped by a yellow crest that seemed solid. “So many! Your world must be very large to accommodate so many!”

“It is large enough,” Jane said, her manner turning formal. “Far Wing, can you Winglo be peaceful to other people who do not resemble you? We have already been attacked by two Mok predators who lied to us. My ally, whose name is Bill, and I do not forget or forgive lies told to us.”

Far Wing slowly spread his leathery brown wings. They stretched out to five feet on either side. He lifted his long yellow beak and croaked a reply. “Yes, I will be peaceful! For the chance to spread my wings often, to soar through the rooms of this sky traveling craft, I and my fellow captive will be forever in your debt!” The red eyes blinked. “If you release us to roam this sky ship, we will defend you against any who try to harm you!”

Jane gave Bill a nod, then fixed back on the giant winged Alien. “Far Wing, I hear you and accept your assurance. Remain there while my ally opens the door to the other cell. Bill?”