Illegal Aliens (21 page)

Strolling about, Captain Keller noted something wrong with the room and turned to address the rating who was climbing out from under the table.

“Excuse me, sailor.”

“Hassan, sir,” the youth said, with a flash of gleaming white teeth. The Arabic teenager stood, dusted himself off and then hastily saluted. “Abduhl Benny Hassan, sir. Spacer First Class. Engineering Division.”

“Yes. Fine. Thank you. Where are the chairs?”

Hesitantly, the technician pointed to a pile of flat cardboard boxes leaning against the wall near the door, their edges indenting the wood panel holograph. “That's them, captain. I thought I should do the table first, in case you wanted to establish a preliminary psychological zone of authority about yourself for the meeting.”

Keller could only stare at the boy.

“Just trying to help, sir,” Hassan smiled.

“Appreciated,” the starship captain said. “Carry on.”

While the youth went busily to work with pliers and screwdriver, Captain Keller reminded himself that his crew was the best Earth possessed. Instances such as this were sure to become commonplace. God help him.

While waiting for his staff to arrive, Keller leaned against the edge of the table and began to toy with the good-luck piece he kept in his shirt pocket: a silvery metal coin about the size of a Swiss franc, or an American half-dollar. The front bore the emblem of the United Nations of Earth, the reverse had a six-pointed star with a circle in its center, the universal symbol for 100% Pure Thulium, Honest! It was the first such coin minted, and just prior to lift off, the remaining members of the FCT had scratched their initials on the disk wishing him luck. Keller appreciated the gift, although the Swiss astronaut knew that when numismatists heard about this event, purists among the coin collectors would curse their names forever.

The door to the Ward Room swung open and in walked Lt. Sakadea. The Marine was dressed in a tan duty uniform with a holstered laser pistol, his black hair still damp from a shower. Keller forgave the man for that minor breech of military etiquette, as he knew exactly how sweaty you could get working inside a powersuit. Dag Keller had endured long training sessions in them himself.

Next came Prof. Rajavur in a three-piece charcoal gray suit and holding a mug of that drain cleaner he had the audacity to call coffee. The diplomat was closely followed by Dr. Van Loon in proper ship's uniform and finally Trell, who scowled when he saw there were no chairs.

“Somebody put you in slow motion, Abduhl?” the little alien chastised.

“Hey chief, I only got two hands,” Hassan complained from inside a jungle gym of chair legs, struts and seat backs.

At that announcement, Trell puckered his face and burst into laughter. Ha! Two hands. Just wait till he tried that joke on an Oolian!

Captain Keller cleared his throat. “Okay, gentlemen, take your  . . . ah, assume your places.”

As the officers and civilian positioned themselves about the table, it occurred to Dag that his ship was a true cross selection of every racial sub-species that the planet Earth had to offer. With the notable and understandable exception of Greece.

“Here's your seat, sir,” Hassan said, wheeling the chair over.

Keller thanked the man, and after adjusting the spring tension, sat down at the head of the table. “Let's have your report, Master Technician,” he directed.

“Our initial plan has failed,” Trell told them sadly. “Due to the amazing throat capacity of The 16, the HN cube was damaged and can not be repaired.”

Shocked murmurs greeted that news.

“So the raid was a bust?” Lt. Sakadea asked, removing his cap and stuffing it into a pants pocket.

“Female milk glands were not involved,” the alien denied. “However, we did manage to transfer all useful information in the Gee's cube to our own blank.”

“And?” Captain Keller prompted.

Trell made a face. “We received only six complete set of navigational coordinates. There were hundreds of partial coordinates, but I decided to filter those out as they were worse than useless.”

“How so?” Van Loon inquired.

“We might jump out of hyperspace and land on the planet we aimed for. At ten thousand kilometers a second. Or worse, arrive inside the world.”

The Dutch physician was forced to agree that either set of circumstances would seriously hinder their mission.

“Couldn't we finish the partial integers ourselves?” Prof. Rajavur asked, taking a sip from his new cup which bore the legend: ‘I HELPED DEFEND THE EARTH FROM ALIEN INVADERS, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY COFFEE MUG’.

Amazingly, Trell told them yes. Dirt, ah, Earth, no, Terra (the official name) had excellent calculating machines. The computers aboard the starship were some of best he had ever seen, considering their lack of sentience. Working together they won't take more than a lunar rotation for each coordinate.

“A month we can not afford to waste,” Keller said sternly. “Okay. We have six places to try and find a HN cube. That doesn't sound too bad.”

Trell waved his hands in a pattern of negation. “Its worse, sir. Two are possibilities, one is an unknown, and the rest are totally undesirable.”

“What are the three we can't use?” Van Loon asked curiously, when a hooting siren split the air.

Frantically, everybody tried to recall their training sessions and identify the noise. Fire? Flood? Vacuum? Engine overheating? Breach in the hull?

“Jailbreak!” Lt. Sakadea cursed, as he tumbled backwards over a half-built chair, rolled along the floor and dashed out the door in a single motion.

* * *

Shouting a bold war cry, the avantor kicked aside the remains of the door to her cell with a clang, and stepped through the opening. The durasteel lock was still hissing faintly, reduced to molten scrap with a single psychokinetic blast by a trick that her grandma had taught her.

With a snort of contempt, the Gee ripped off her paper hospital gown and proceeded naked down the hallway searching for The 16.

Momentarily, her attention was caught by the sounds of frantic movement in a nearby cell. But when the guardian of the galaxy looked in through the grill, she saw that it was only some humans cowering behind the cell's sparse furnishings. Timidly, they waved hello. The avantor's eyes narrowed to slits as recognition hit her and they ducked back down out of sight. Oh, them. She moved on.

Through the grill of the next door, Avantor spied a room full of equipment stolen from her ship. No uniforms or weapons though, mostly it appeared to be medical supplies. How odd.

The following cell yielded her goal, but the Gee's delight turned to horror as she saw her primary assistant lying unconscious on a bed. The mystery of the medical supplies solved.

Disposing of the door took only a moment and she rushed across the room. The 16 lay peacefully sleeping on a waveless waterbed, covered to his neck in white sheets, the contrast lending a bit of color to his cheeks. On a small table nearby was a RDP monitor, and a blood plant whose leafy vines reached under the covers.

Softly calling his name, the avantor knelt on the floor and touched his hand. His pulse was strong, breathing steady, but telepathically the woman felt the disorientation in his mind and the soreness in his stomach.

Her facial features burning with shame, Avantor remembered that she had done this to him with her fumbling words, and realized that he had almost died. Ingesting a HN cube would kill a professional Choron weightlifter.

Dimly in her mind, she could feel his disjointed memories of the operation, dominated by images of the bald human doctor struggling to remove the cube. But the golden female felt no gratitude for the act. The Dirtlings had been more interested in getting the cube then in saving a life.

Drastically, she revised her escape plans. The 16 was too ill to move, so Avantor would have to take over the vessel. Training video #460/B—“How To Capture A Starship When You Are Naked, Unarmed And Alone” , flashed through the woman's mind and she reviewed the pertinent points. Check. This shouldn't take more than 900 seconds.

Leaving the door ajar, she left the cell and turned to see a guard in powerarmor clumping her way.

“Wait!” Private Furstenburg shouted over the external speaker of his suit. “We need to—”

Talk, was the word he was going for. But the Gee cut him short with a psychokinetic bolt that slammed the hapless man backwards, embedding him into a steel bulkhead and really putting the inner forcefield cushion of the powerarmor to the stress test. With a tremendous groan, the battered Marine went limp, but stayed where he was, both metal boots dangling inches off the deck.

Like a glorious golden halo, the avantor's long hair flared out from her body by the secondary static electric charge of the mental blast, and her magnificent bosom was heaving from the exertion, but she did not stop to catch her breath. The main door to the brig proved to be a simple magnetic lock/dead bolt/pry bar combination and moments later she stepped into the outside corridor.

Ready for anything, the two uniformed guards in the passageway relaxed and holstered their guns when they saw whom it was exiting.

“Are you okay, lady?” the first Marine asked, and the other started to doff her uniform jacket to give to the naked woman.

Then like golden rods of steel, the avantor shot out both of her fists to crash into the humans’ jaws and the guards toppled to the floor. As Avantor bent down to take their energy weapons, the turbo lift at the far end of the hallway opened and out came Lt. Sakadea and a squad of soldiers in powerarmor. Four Marines in the center of the group were lugging a length of sewer pipe with a glowing crystal sphere on the end. The sight of which made the Guardian Of The Galaxy go pale. Oh Void.

Halting some ten meters away, the soldiers pointed the cannon-like weapon at her and the ball on the tip began to glow with power.

“Avantor, don't do it. We can explain everything,” Lt. Sakadea said in his most soothing tones. “There is no need for violence.”

“Szorklop!”
the warrior spat, pulling the two laser pistols free from the guard's holsters.

It was then Kurt realized that neither of them was wearing translators. A critical mistake. Damn, nothing else to do.

“Riflemen, hold your fire!” he cried. “Cannoneers, let her have it! Full force!”


STOP THAT


With a shudder, the Gee dropped the guns and stumbled backwards into the brig under the point blank blast of the
STOP THAT
cannon liberated from her own ship. Gasping for breath, she fell sprawling to the floor. Lt. Sakadea grinned in satisfaction and started forward.

But then, struggling to her knees in a most provocative pose, the avantor focused her awesome mind powers, and blew a hole in the wall alongside the cannon crew, bits of steel ricocheting off the armor of the Marines. She scowled in annoyance. Missed!

Grimacing slightly, Kurt touched his stinging cheek, his hand coming away covered with blood. Okay, goddamn it, this was enough of that crap.

“Cannoneers,” he shouted. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”

It took five more of the psionic blasts, each hitting the Gee like a baseball bat, but at last Avantor slumped unconscious. Only the fingers of her right hand managed to cross the threshold of the door, which was a whole lot further then anybody had ever dreamed she would get.

As the Marines cautiously clunked into the brig, and a medical team came running out of the elevator on the left, a low moan sounded over their suit radios.

“Where's Furstenburg?” Lt. Sakadea asked.

It didn't take the soldiers long to find their bruised friend. Freeing him from the wall was another matter entirely.

* * *

“Status report!” Captain Keller demanded gruffly to his wrist transceiver.

“Avantor is back in her cell, sir,” said Sakadea's voice. “A maintenance crew is repairing the damage she did, the ST cannon has been positioned in front of her cell door and wired to the lock. The next time Lady Godiva tries to take a walk, she won't get very far.” He paused. “We also gave her a jumpsuit and a translator.”

“Acceptable, lieutenant,” Keller said. “Report back here to the Ward Room as soon as you’re finished.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” With a click the soldier signed off.

“I warned you about the Gees, my Captain,” Trell reminded the human. “Nobody has ever successfully kept one prisoner.”

This interested Dr. Van Loon. “You’ve tangled with them before?”

“Yes, when I was with Leader Idow.”

“Meaning no disrespect, Trell, but why were you with that bastard? I have come to know you fairly well and you’re not the criminal type.”

Prof. Rajavur knew the answer to that, but remained silent and let Trell tell his tale.

“I was with Idow by necessity, not choice,” the alien said calmly, not offended a bit by the question. His tour of duty aboard the
All That Glitters
was not the high point of his life, but neither was it something he was ashamed of, even though very few of the memories were pleasant. Then his face brightened as he remembered that Boztwank was dead. “My parent was a gambler, but to my misfortune not a very good gambler and got deeply into debt. The only honorable solution was selling me into slavery to pay the bills.” Trell dilated his nostrils. “Not an unusual practice on my world.”

Captain Keller raised an eyebrow. “Parent, singular?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, indeed,” Van Loon chimed in, unable to resist the temptation to wax didactic. “Trell's people, the Mormanzumas, don't procreate by fertilizing an ovum in a female like us, but by budding. That is controlled cellular fission which results in a duplicate being. But not a clone. The new entity has its own unique personality.”

During this, Trell averted his eyes and blushed. Sex talk always made him uneasy.

“Interesting,” Keller mused. “Then why does he look so human? Trell, did your race evolve from primates as we did?”

The alien wiggled his ears, as he had no idea. His race was not interested in history, only technology. Nobody cared who did what to whom or when, unless it resulted in an invention.