MBryO: The Escape (4 page)

Left on her own, Melara had taken the opportunity to reboot the bunker’s built-in computer system. The system was outdated, obsolete even by current standards, but serviceable.

A cursory investigation told her there were only two files recorded on the mainframe. The first was a blueprint of the bunker complete with an electronic record of the supplies that had been brought in to complete the massive project. The Terran government had sunk a large amount of money into the development of Nyla 6, only to abandon it when their political climate changed.

What a waste!

Curiously, the other file was encrypted!

Melara couldn’t unlock it without the password. She was able to ascertain that the server had at one time been linked to an off-world mainframe. Networked to a government laboratory on Terra, the system had been offline for decades. The mainframe may have belonged to a government agency that was now extinct.

Her thoughts rested briefly on the building where MBryO housed his failed genetic experiments. Memories of that horrific place caused shivers to race down her spine.

Funded primarily by the Terran Department of Defense, MBryO UNIX was a leading star-tech manufacturer and a big supporter of the MBryO Genetics project. On the surface everything had seemed above board.

Straight out of the Terran Guard Academy, she had been delighted to be assigned to the security staff of the large manufacturing company. She had been there only a few months when she began to suspect that there was more going on at the company than met the eye.

Being a tad young, brilliant and over-zealous, she had taken it upon herself to beef up the building’s security. One of her projects had been to inspect the codes on all the exterior doors before turning her attention to the interior ones.

That’s when she noticed the activity surrounding the private elevator located on the third floor. Two armed security guards, hired from outside the company, manned the desk in front of it at all times.

Her curiosity was aroused and she started wondering why building security wasn’t in charge of whatever secret project had to be taking place behind that elevator. Determined to get some answers, Melara had hidden in the third floor supply closet and simply watched the activity surrounding the elevator.

Lab-coated geeks with glasses, hand-held palm-puters and special name tags would enter the elevator in the morning and emerge again at shift change. On the surface that wasn’t unusual, since much of the work done at MBryO UNIX was classified because of its DOD connections. What did strike her as odd, though, was the fact that the elevator descended to the lower levels instead of climbing to the floors above.

Her curiosity meter overloaded.

As discreetly as possible, she began making discreet inquiries, here and there, regarding the elevator and the workers who used it on a daily basis. No one in the huge complex had any knowledge of any hidden laboratory or secret project taking place in the company, however.

Whatever was taking place
down there was very hush-hush.
And someone had gone to great lengths to keep it that way!

Determined to find some answers, she had hidden in a utility closet until after everyone except the nightly skeleton crew clocked out. Avoiding the motion detectors and cameras would have been impossible for anyone else but her. With her security clearance she had gained access to the building’s schematics beforehand and disabled the security protocols to the lower levels of the building.

Melara knew protocol demanded the guards perform a door to door security check at least once every two hours, so her timing would have to be perfect. As luck would have it, the security check coincided at the exact same time she heard the last of the janitorial staff leave the floor. Her senses were acute as she crept from the closet and crossed the plush carpet to the elevator. Breathlessly, she pushed the button and heard the doors slide open with a subtle whoosh.

As simple as that, she gained access to the secret laboratories MbryO housed below ground. What she found made her wish she hadn’t.

The elevator doors opened and Melara found herself in a series of laboratories dedicated to making chemical weapons. A brief inspection of the floor, told her the glass enclosed cubicles contained enough poisonous gas to wipe out a small planet.

Soberly backtracking her steps to the elevator, she intended to head back upstairs. Chem-weapons had been universally outlawed decades before. Why was the DOD using MBryO UNIX to stockpile them? The ramifications of the project were mindboggling.

Reaching out to close the elevator doors, she realized there were other buttons on the panel. Apparently, most of MbryO’s top secret experiments took place underground.

Knowing she wasn’t going to like what was down below any more than she had the chem-lab, she argued with herself to just walk away and leave the building, never to return. But she ignored the voice of sanity and foolishly pushed the down arrow, holding her breath.

Every instinct she possessed told her she was walking into danger. More than one person had died because they couldn’t resist poking their nose into places they didn’t belong. The DOD didn’t play around.

The elevator opened into a white carpeted hallway, lined with closed doors on both side. Cautiously, she reached for the first door handle she came to.

And that was when she heard them!

All at once the telepathic screams of horror and rage overwhelmed her senses, hurling her towards insanity. Her hands covered her ears, but for some reason Melara couldn’t close out the assault. The pain behind the screams was so terrible she crumpled to the floor, curling protectively into a fetal position.

But there was no way to withstand the mental onslaught. Insanity curled on the edge of her brain.

Then, when she was on the verge of descending into the abyss of mindless terror and extreme shock, she felt tender hands began to soothe her shaking body. The gentle croon of soft words came to her mind, comforting her.

Still in the grip of torment, her blue gaze swung upwards to meet the gazes of the four young people kneeling around her. And miraculously the assault stopped! As if it was blocked by a wall of concrete.

Melara knew now that the telepaths had used their powers to shield her sensitive brain from the pain-filled screams. She would be forever grateful to the four young empaths.

“You will be alright Melara Sivanza,” Sasha had crooned, stroking her red curls gently. “The screams cannot hurt you now.”

As fast as the telepathic assault had begun…it had ceased!

And the rest was history.

The blonde haired, gray eyed female, a vision in white silk, was obviously the most developed of the foursome. She alone spoke the words that Melara sensed they all felt. The three teenage boys were obviously cloned versions of one another, in various stages of development. They, too, were almost colorless in skin, eye and hair color.

With the aid of the four young siblings, Melara explored the rest of what she had dubbed ‘the dungeon below’. She would never forget the atrocities she had seen in MBryO UNIX’s genetics laboratory.

If it was the last thing she did, she would free those poor creatures caged in that awful place. And then she intended to see to it that MBryO’s evil experiments could never be repeated.

Melara emerged from her reverie with a start.

Her slim hand reached out and touched the computer screen in front of her. Just in case, she deactivated the web access. She didn’t want to take a chance on MBryO discovering them through the old computer link.

MBryO would stop at nothing to regain possession of the young telepaths. He had the genetic blueprint to recreate them all now. All he needed was an unlimited supply of DNA.

He could harvest their cell structure living or not.

And with the discovery of Pax Vitar, an empath that evolved naturally on this Zander-forgotten dwarf plane, one with possible ties to the Xenaclons, he would have everything he needed to create an invincible army of telepathically cloned soldiers.

A genetically created army that was expendable and disposable.

MBryO would stop at nothing in his attempts to take over the universe, including the use of chem-weapons. Melara knew he must be stopped. He was insane!

And she also intended to make sure he never harmed the children again.

For the time being they were safe, here on Nyla 6. But sooner or later MBryO would discover their whereabouts and evasion would cease to work.

Then she would have to kill him.

It was Ian who came up with a way to transport the shuttle craft to the bunker.

He followed a service ‘bot to the lowest level shuttle bay. The robot was bobbing and weaving. Preoccupied with watching the ‘bot, he entered data into the diagnostic computer strapped to his hand. Ian hoped to make a few adjustments to his circuit board as soon as he caught up with the poor fellow.

He finally cornered the mechanic drone beside one on the six immaculate workbenches affixed to the walls of the loading bay. Hitting the ‘kill switch’ on the palm pilot Ian deactivated the ‘bot. He looked around the workbench for a spanner intending to crack open the back panel of the robot.

A bulky tarp draped mound nearby caught his eye. Curiously, he reached over and flicked the tarp back to reveal the Rol-plo.

The portable robotic land lorry had been the greatest invention of its time.

Designed for loading and unload interplanetary space-hoppers it was the king of the shuttle bay. Retro-fitted with a set of quadric-jet rocket boosters the flat topped machine could hover over any type of terrain. The robotic arms and legs could move massive machines or lever heavy rockets into the air.

Excited, Ian let out a war whoop.

Zander’s-tar-pits!

His telepathic squeal assaulted the ears of every living being in the bunker. Occupied with various jobs and interests, everyone was spread out across the building. Paralyzed, everyone stopped what they were doing.

“I know how to move the shuttlecraft,” Ian shouted in their ears.

“How?” Joshua queried.

“Give me five minutes and meet me upstairs,” he replied mysteriously.

The life size service ‘bot hung motionless from the waist. Ian opened the circuit panel in the drone’s back and using one of the spanners from the workbench made the necessary adjustment to the circuit panel. The correction made the drone whistled happily as he zipped around the shuttle bay completing the job he had been created for.

Covering the Rol-plo back up, Ian left the shuttle bay with a wide smile on his face.

Under the canopy the forest floor was a complicated maze of ropelike vines, razor sharp grasses and gnarled tree roots. The mission to retrieve the shuttlecraft had taken the better part of four days. From his birds-eye position on the zip line above Pax measured the distance from the heavily laden Rol-plo to the bunker. If their luck held they were only about a klick away from the entrance to the lower level shuttle bay.

The heavy tracks of the Rol-plo cut deep ruts into the fertile loam rich valley. The robotic arms mounted on all four quadrants of the service ‘bot held the misshapen shuttlecraft on the flat deck. The three boys and Melara walked on either side of the big machine, while Sasha rode point on the front of the carrier.

The powerful rocket boosters operated on Terran petrol additives. The jets fired in sporadic bursts from the rear of the vehicle as the powerful machine struggled to maintain a position of mere inches above the harsh terrain. William refueled the machine every so often from the supply of rocket fuel strapped to the undercarriage of the ATV.

The young telepaths worked hard moving rocks and debris from the path of the big machine. When they couldn’t telepathically remove the obstacle, they simply levitated the Rol-plo over it.

Pax could tell that the constant use of their telekinetic energy was draining them all, especially Ian who was the youngest and as such the weakest of the four. Designed to function in a laboratory setting, Ian’s young body was not constructed for physical exertion. As if sensing Pax’s train of thought Melara chose that moment to turn and set the young boy side-saddle on the edge of the Rol-plo, his feet dangling off the machine.

So far the danger had been minimal.

Joshua had placed a mental force field around the small convoy. Pax sensed it was an invisible bubble of some kind that repelled the smaller predators that lived on the valley floor.

William had explained that the force field sent out a vibration that tranquilized the senses of any creature that came within range of it.

There had been a tense moment when the conveyance had rolled within yards of a pack of wild felines. Pax had seen a pack of the leopard skinned creatures bring down a sick eughi once with its needle sharp claws. He shuddered at the memory.

Pax wondered if the bubble would work against a healthy eughi. He hoped they wouldn’t be put in a position to find out. Worried, he could hear the cries of at least two of the big monsters off in the distance.

“We are closing in on the bunker,” Pax sent the silent message to the group below.

“I hope we get there soon! Burgers and root beer would be great right about now!” Ian replied hungrily. Breakfast had consisted of left-over gluto-rations from the day before and that had been hours ago. He was at an age when constant fuel was demanded by his growing body.

“If Joshua can just keep the bubble around us we might be able to avoid that horde of eughi monsters off in the distance,” William added.

“I’m trying Will,” Joshua signaled silently. “But even with support from you three, my energy reserves have been severely taxed by all the levitation we’ve had to do with the Rol-plo. The shuttlecraft combined with the carrier is quite heavy.”

“Just a little further,” Melara soothed tiredly, “and then we can stop.”

The trip had taken longer than they had expected. They had planned for two days, but they hadn’t counted on the size of the shuttle. It had taken them twice that long to move the Ro-plo through the congested forest.

Above, Pax decided to reconnoiter the convoy’s back trail, one more time, just in case.

A full grown eughi could cover a large distance in a short space of time. Their shrieks sounded much closer now. The last thing he wanted was for one of the dangerous monsters to pick up a strange scent and follow it. It would spell disaster for the group of young people, who even now had paused to move a downed tree stump down below.

The zip line hadn’t gone very far when he noticed activity approaching from the direction of the lake.

The pack of wild felines had their noses in the air. In spite of Joshua’s force field traces of humanoid scents were still attached to the crushed undergrowth. They might not be able to see the convoy but the sleek felines knew they were there.

Winged creatures had ceased their whistling as they chose to hide from the pack of predators. And smaller scavengers were scurrying out of the way as the cat-like creatures tracked their prey.

“Zander’s-tar-pits!” he cursed, using the epitaph preferred by his new friends

“Is something wrong?” Melara asked with wary alarm.

As if being stalked by the pack of felines wasn’t bad enough…Pax spotted the herd of eughi trying to outflank the convoy to the west. If they were successful they would emerge on the path ahead of the Rol-plo. The huge creatures were running on all fours…reminding him of pictures he had seen of the big gorillas Terrans kept in zoos.

“Joshua?” Pax called.

“What’s the matter Pax? Are the eughi close to us?”

“Close enough. We’re being sandwiched in. We’ve got a pack of felines on our tails. And a posse of eughi trying to cut us off up ahead so they can ambush us. I’ve never seen them band together before. Usually they travel alone. We have to figure out how to get around them.”

“What do you suggest?” Sasha asked with a concerned look at the tangled underbrush ahead of the convoy.

By this time Pax had zipped to a stop directly over the Rol-plo. The zip basket rocked back and forth on the zip line. His blaster was slung over his forearm ready for action.

“The entrance to the bunker is only a few hundred feet away. I will attempt to draw them off. If I can get them to follow me you should be able to get to the loading bay. Just beware of the felines behind you. Don’t let them outsmart you! Keep your defenses up. So far the bubble has kept you safe, but these are smart creatures. Smarter than the eughi, for sure! The eughi are instinctual, deadly in power and size. But the felines are sentient. They will watch and wait, ready to pounce on any weakness they can find in their prey.”

“You will need some help to occupy those ape monsters!” Melara declared. “Lower the basket, I’m coming with you!”

His first instinct was to object.

This was shaping up to be a mean fight and it was no place for a defenseless woman. He knew how dangerous the eughi could be! But good sense won out. Melara wasn’t defenseless. She had been trained in the Terran Guard. And two weapons were better than one.

The zip carrier barely reached the top of the Rol-plo before Melara had leaped onto the flat surface then used it to execute a perfect front roundhouse flip into the basket. With a glance of admiration he pushed the zip line out in front of the convoy.

He knew the eughi were not friendly creatures. They usually avoided each other like the plague. But in this particular instance they had joined forces to ambush the small convoy.

Pax had always thought the creatures were incapable of strategic thought and communication. Unfortunately the complexity of the ambush assured him his assumptions had been wrong.

Melara knelt in the basket bracing her short barreled laser canon on the wire edge. The laser canon held multiple loads and he knew from watching her in the last few days that she always kept it fully loaded.

Reassured she was ready, his gaze focused on the canopy up ahead. A flock of winged creatures chose that moment to rise up into the atmosphere.

He figured the eughi had chosen that spot to ambush the convoy.

Stealing the element of surprise, Pax chose the nearest junction box to work the zip basket around to the east of the ambush. Deftly he negotiated the turns that would bring the zip basket around behind the eughi.

When they were in position, Pax met Melara’s blue gaze. She inclined her head and waited on him to make his move.

Inhaling slowly, Pax pushed the zip carrier into the canopy above the waiting herd. Sighting down the blaster barrel he began firing into the brown pack of howling eughi.

He heard Melara’s canon buck three times in loud succession. Tree limbs fell as the canon cut them in two, spilling onto the heads of the startled eughi down below.

The element of surprise taken from them the herd scattered in disarray. Several of the huge monsters ducked into the tree line, leaving the fight for the braver specimens.

It wasn’t hard to spot the leader of the pack. Better than seven feet tall when standing on his back legs the silver haired eughi monster didn’t flinch. The surprise attack didn’t seem to faze him in the least. Where others were crouched for cover or running in fear, the silver eughi simply stood his ground, facing the humanoid threat.

His grotesquely muscled arms hung loosely at his sides as he met Pax’s gaze in the canopy above. He roared at what was left of the huge eughi herd, trying to muster a charge at the swinging zip basket. Massive arms swung at the metal carrier suspended from the zip line. Some climbed into the gnarled tree line, while others grabbed the thick ropy vines that clung to just about everything in the forest.

Pax used his blaster to pick off as many of them as possible.

Melara’s canon was blasting away at anything that moved on the ground.

But the eughi leader was savvier than the rest. With a tug of his powerful arms he pulled a heavy vine from a nearby tree and twirled it like a lasso in the air. While the battle raged around him he slung the vine around the zip line and quickly began to climb it. He managed to get a massive claw around the wire and was attempting to pull his way along it hand over hand.

Others tried to follow his example, but Melara’s laser canon was spouting rapid fire. The silvery eughi was almost to the stalled basket when Pax caught sight of him. One hairy arm was clutching the zip wire and the other was reaching for the nose of the carrier.

Trying to remain calm, Pax took careful aim at the monster hanging directly in front of the basket. But just as he was about to pull the trigger one of the other eughi managed to grab the undercarriage of the zip basket.

He heard Melara’s canon recoil loudly. The unexpected movement of the basket threw his aim off. Instead of hitting the monster dead center in the middle of its ape like chest, the blaster fire severed the hairy arm clutching the zip line. The monster fell to the gnarled tree roots below with a bellow of pain his arm a bloody stump.

Seeing a number of their party and their leader writhing on the now blood soaked ground the eughi abandoned their attack. Some withdrew into the forest while others descended upon their fallen comrades, feeding on their carcasses.

Pax looked at the severed hand still clutching the zip wire and swallowed the bile that rose up into his throat. Now that the battle with the eughi was over he became aware of the silent war that was being waged back at the convoy.

A silent scream for help echoed through Pax and Melara’s minds simultaneously. He reached out and hurriedly prized the bloody eughi fingers off the zip line and pushed the carrier back toward the Rol-plo.

Sasha had watched Pax and Melara zip out of sight with trepidation. Joshua and William climbed onto the carrier laser blasters poised and ready. They could hear the eughi posse up ahead and each of them tensed when the sounds of the confrontation echoed across the valley floor.

The strange cognitive link they shared with Pax kept them abreast of the battle taking place only a few hundred yards away from the convoy. Each of them kept silent so as not to distract either Pax or Melara.

And then danger overtook them from the rear as the pack of felines caught up with them.

The Rol-plo ground to a halt as the rocket blasters chose that moment to run out of fuel. The hover jets were rendered useless and the Rol-plo thudded heavily to the ground.

Joshua was thrown from the vehicle. He landed against a raised tree root, striking his head. Knocked unconscious by the blow, the psy-induced bubble disintegrated!

“Joshua!” silently Ian screamed in dismay! Without stopping to consider the consequences he jumped to the ground beside his wounded brother.

Sasha found herself at the mercy of a very hungry pack of felines.

The feline in the lead met her gaze straight on. The leopard printed markings on her side trembled as the female gathered her muscles to spring on her prey.

“No!” silently Sasha screamed fiercely, staring the wild eyed creature down.

Surprised the big cat paused in mid-spring. Curiosity raced through its purring brain. Sasha intercepted the animal’s sentient question “Why?”

“You don’t really want to hurt us! I can feel it!” she assured the mewing creature. Sasha felt more than heard the smirking “Think so?”

The curious feline crouched down on the flat surface of the Rol-plo and simply watched the odd looking humanoids that could communicate with them so easily. The rest of the pack of cat-like creatures did likewise; seemingly content to allow the female to make the decision to attack or retreat.

“Keep talking,” William said, as Pax and Melara swung into position overhead, their weapons poised to pick off the big cats one by one, if need be.

“Melara help Ian get Joshua on the ATV while I refuel,” he added. “Pax?”

“Yeah?”