Helix Wars (50 page)

The lift door slid open and Kranda peered out. “The way is clear. After me.”

They turned left and ran. They were back in a service corridor, similar to the one they had taken on the outward journey: wide, with a monorail track set to one side.

They couldn’t be far from the interworld ship.

Then their luck ran out.

Three armoured soldiers appeared around a corner thirty metres ahead. They were fitted with helmets and visors, and Ellis surmised that it was these devices which rendered the varnikas visible.

The troops cried out, shouldered weapons, and fired.

Ellis found himself ducking and returning fire. Beside him, Kranda did the same. One of the three Sporelli yelled and fell backwards, his head a smoking ruin. Another was hit in the chest, knocking him off his feet. As Kranda approached, yelling, she finished him off with a swift blast to the head. The third Sporelli was backing off, but not as fast as Kranda was advancing. The Mahkan lashed out and sent the soldier reeling backwards.

“
Turn right, proceed for fifty metres, then turn left.
”

They did as instructed, sprinted for another hundred metres, came to a T-junction and stumbled into a second contingent of Sporelli soldiers coming from their right. This time there were six of them.

Kranda yelled, “Turn left, Jeff, and
run
!”

“But...” Ellis began.

But Kranda had already turned right, towards the six soldiers, yelling a blood-curdling war-cry as she laid down a barrage of laser fire.

Ellis turned left and ran, knowing that Kranda would have been enraged had he not done so, but at the same time hating himself for running away.

He stopped. He heard a cry behind him, whether Kranda yelling out loud in pain or triumph, he could not tell.

Without thinking, he turned back towards the source of the noise and sprinted.

Seconds later he came across a scene of carnage. Kranda’s outline stood amidst a swill of blood and body parts. She had accounted for at least three Sporelli troops, though it was hard to tell as not one of the corpses was whole.

Along the corridor, six more soldiers were advancing, firing as they came.

Ellis dropped into a crouch and fired, accounting for the leading soldier. Kranda barked, “Human, I thought I told you to go!”

“And I ignored you, Mahkan!”

Ahead, six more Sporelli rounded the corner and joined their colleagues.

Kranda let out a blood-curdling yell and sprinted towards them, firing all the while. Ellis remained where he was, picking his shots and trying to avoid winging the blur that was the madly careering Mahkan.

Ellis fired and wept, watching as Kranda was struck at least once by a bright blue laser vector. It seemed to slow her not at all, and the result, when she reached the knot of Sporelli soldiers, was shocking to watch. She hit the soldiers running and they seemed to explode in a burst of body parts and geysering blood.

Ellis advanced warily, staring past the carnage for the first sign of Sporelli back up. Seconds later, it came. While Kranda was still meting out tough justice, fighting hand-to-hand with a particularly stubborn Sporelli, three soldiers appeared further down the corridor. Ellis picked one of them off, but the second dropped to his right knee and fired what looked like a portable rocket launcher.

The ball of fire missed Kranda and exploded through the door of an elevator behind the Mahkan, showering her with molten debris. She roared and returned fire, accounting for the Sporelli with the launcher but coming under fire from another soldier.

Ellis watched, frozen into immobility, as a laser beam struck Kranda in the centre of her chest. She staggered backwards, arms outflung, and Ellis yelled and surged to his feet as he saw, with terrible inevitability, what was about to happen.

Kranda reeled backwards towards the open lift-shaft, teetered on the edge and tumbled from sight.

Ellis surged forward unthinkingly, firing at the Sporelli soldier as he ran. The beam struck the soldier, knocking him backwards.

Ellis stopped dead. An eerie silence filled the corridor. He turned quickly, checking the corridor back and forth. There was not the slightest sign of living opposition, just a battle-scene of flesh, blood and bone.

Weeping, he ran to the lift-shaft and peered down.

“Kranda!”

No reply.

The shaft was pitch black. He summoned the varnika’s light-beam and played it down the drop, but the shaft was so deep he could not make out the bottom.

He opened communications and pleaded with Kranda to reply, but all he heard was the fizz of static.

Numbed, Ellis turned and ran.

4

“
T
URN LEFT AND
proceed for seventy metres, then turn right.
”

He careered around the corner, sprinting at full speed. His vision blurred and he realised he was weeping for Kranda.

He ran the hundred metres and was about to follow the machine’s instructions and turn right when he suddenly realised where he was. He had passed along this corridor earlier, coming from the interworld ship. To his left was the corridor that led to the amphitheatre. He felt a quick surge of hope.

He turned left and sprinted. He would check the amphitheatre first, and if, as expected, Calla and the others were not there... then he would try the interworld ship in the hope that she had returned.

He came to the portal that gave onto the amphitheatre. He passed through, stopped in his tracks and stared around. The central area was empty, and only two or three Sporelli personnel still occupied the lower tiers. He turned, dived through the portal and sprinted along the corridor. Minutes later, though it seemed to be much longer, he came to the sliding door accessing the hangar. The Sporelli interworld ship squatted on the deck, two guards stationed at the foot of the ramp.

He had the element of surprise on his side. He took aim and fired two shots in quick succession. The guards crumpled silently. He raced across the hangar, sprinted up the ramp and entered the ship, climbing to the flight-deck and pausing on the threshold.

He had harboured the hope that, by some miracle, Kranda had survived the fall... and maybe even made it back to the ship. He opened his com-link to the Mahkan and said, “Kranda? Kranda, do you read?”

The only sound was the hiss of static, and he chose to interpret the lack of response as bad reception within the starship.

Other than the Sporelli flight engineer, bent over a com-terminal, the flight-deck was empty. He backed out, checking the adjacent crew cabins, but drew a blank there too.

He exited the ship, heart pounding with desperation, and ran from the hangar. He had a vague idea, possible only if he could find a Sporelli.

The amphitheatre
...

His breath coming in ragged spasms now, he sprinted back along the corridor.

Varnika
, he thought,
translation mode
, and he instructed the smartcore to render what he said into Sporelli.

He came to the portal. He passed through, gave no thought to the dangers involved, and leapt up the tiers towards the quietly chatting Sporelli. He grabbed the closest, a small woman who screamed in shrill alarm as he hoisted her from her seat and carried her kicking towards the portal.

He turned. The other Sporelli in the amphitheatre were moving cautiously towards him, one of them drawing a side-arm. He hoisted his laser in his free hand and fired a warning shot, calling out, “Remain where you are, and she lives!”

They halted their advance and Ellis pushed through the portal.

“Your captain,” he said to the woman. “Where is she? Take me to her!”

As his words were translated into Sporelli, the woman screamed again, terrified at being abducted by this invisible force.

“Take me to your captain,” he said, “and you’ll live. If you refuse, I’ll kill you.”

He heard the varnika translate his words into Sporelli, and they had an immediate effect on the woman. She stiffened with fear and stuttered something. Seconds later he heard the translation, “The next level down... the stateroom. Take the next elevator...”

He carried her across the corridor and entered the lift. They dropped. Seconds later the door swished open. “Where now?”

“Left. Along the corridor, then turn right.”

He tightened his grip on her and ran, drawing another alarmed cry from the woman as he followed her directions. A wide door barred the way.

“This it?”

“Yes... the stateroom.”

He lashed out at the sensor, but the door failed to respond. Holding the woman around the waist with one arm, he aimed his laser and fired at the mechanism. It turned to slag and the door stuttered open. He pushed through. Three Sporelli guards approached the door, drawing weapons. Ellis fired, accounting for the first two.

The third one rolled and came up firing. The beam missed the woman’s head by a fraction and Ellis returned fire. The soldier fell.

He saw Calla, backing into a corner with alarm. Beside her was President Horrescu in his carriage. Next to the cowering tyrant was the starship captain, her face a mask of shock. He wondered, briefly, where Commander Yehn might be.

He considered his options and came to a decision. He flung aside the Sporelli woman, set his laser to stun and fired a brief blast at her torso.

Across the room, the Sporelli captain took a step towards him, squinting in his approximate direction. She spoke, and a second later his varnika translated: “Who...
what
... the hell are you?”

“No time for introductions,” he said. He raised his laser and fired.

The woman gasped and fell to the floor, spasming.

He strode across the room, tipped the feebly protesting president from his carriage and held him like a shield. He was as light as a child and felt, in Ellis’s grip, sickeningly boneless. “You struggle, Horrescu, and you die. Understood?”

“Who are you?” the tyrant gasped.

Ellis laughed. “Would you believe that I’m a puny human?”

Horrescu began a tirade, but Ellis applied pressure to his neck. The tyrant gasped in pain and fell silent.

“Calla! Follow me. Keep directly behind me at all times, okay?”

Trembling, the Phandran nodded.

With Horrescu dangling listlessly before him, Ellis led the way from the state-room and made for the elevator. He dived inside and slapped the ascent command. A long minute later the elevator door opened and he stepped out and turned right, looking over his shoulder to ensure that Calla was with him.

He hurried along the corridor towards the hangar.

The little party, he thought, would present a strange sight to Sporelli eyes: a tiny, angel-like Phandran following a decrepit, airborne octogenarian.

They came to the hangar doors and pushed through. Ellis led the way across the deck and up the ramp to the flight-deck.

Two Sporelli were seated before the viewscreen, and turned in alarm when he burst into the chamber. A third stood frozen beside a com-console.

Ellis snapped at the president, “Order them to prepare the ship for departure.”

The president nodded nervously and relayed the order.

Calla approached him. “Perhaps the president might persuade the Sporelli to cease the attack,” she began, then stopped as she apprehended his thoughts.

Ellis smiled. “We’ll take him into custody – but the starship will be attacking no one.”

He set the president down against the wall, where he slumped to one side with an expression of shocked despair.

Ellis looked around the bridge, trying to discern the disorganised fractal blur that would signify Kranda’s return. He saw nothing. He opened communications, and again received only a white-noise of static.

“Kranda...” he said to himself.

The pilot reported, “Ready for take-off.”

“Wait!” Ellis snapped.

He asked his varnika, “How long since we planted the blasters?”

“
One hour, fifty seven minutes, three seconds and counting.
”

Less than three minutes before detonation...

He swore. “Okay, get us out of here!”

The interworld ship lifted slowly and swung on its axis.

“There is just one problem...” said the Sporelli pilot.

Ellis stared at the viewscreen. Before the ship, the great hangar door was sealed.

Ellis swore. “Does this thing have weaponry?”

“The very latest –” the pilot began.

“Then use it!”

A dazzling lance of light flashed out from the nose of the ship, striking the riveted panels of the hanger door in blinding actinic starburst. When Ellis’s eyes adjusted to the glare, he saw that the metal was blacked and bowed but still intact.

“Again!”

This time the pilot allowed the lasers to play across the hangar doors for a full minute. As Ellis watched, the metal glowed molten then exploded outwards to reveal the welcome vastness of deep space.