The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (27 page)

“Right there. I
thought I saw a shadow. Like that door down there closed.”

The two crept
toward the door, guns ready. They quietly positioned themselves one on either
side of the door and prepared to enter. The taller of the two raiders reached
up with his free hand and pressed the green access button. The zipping sound of
the door sliding open startled them both.

The tallest one
chuckled softly at their jumpiness.  “You first,” he said to the other.

His friend shook
his head emphatically.

“Together then.”

His friend
gulped hard and nervously repositioned his body.  The two poked their guns
around the doorway and leaned in to take a look.

“Just a storage
room,” the taller raider remarked.

There didn’t
appear to be anyone in the room, so they cautiously entered, carefully placing
their feet to make as little noise as possible. The walls of the room were
lined with shelves full of various boxes and gizmos, but there was no sign of
any person.

The tallest
raider slapped the back of the other’s head. “Moron. There’s no one here. You’re
seein’ things again.”

“Wait. What do
you think this is?” The shorter raider pointed with his gun toward a corner of
the room. Sitting in the corner was a three legged round contraption with a
seat in the middle.

“Maybe it’s a
toy for little ones to ride in.” He put his hand on one of the control handles
protruding from the console of the metal apparatus. “Ewww.” He pulled his hand
away to look at his fingers. Slimy goo clung to his palm. He turned and wiped
his hand on his buddy’s shoulder.

“Don’t freking
wipe that sket on me! Use your own freking shirt!” The tall soldier pulled away
to look at the goo on his shoulder. “Why did you have to go and do that? It’s
my favorite shirt,” he growled. “Come on. We better find that ooman before the
boss gets mad.”

The two walked
out of the room, and the door shut behind them. A metal container on a shelf
near the back of the room shifted slightly. The lid creaked as it slowly
opened. Four eyes stared out into the empty room.

Pop
.
Sirok flipped the top of the container up and began madly typing into Arya’s
PDU. She must have known that he would have been monitoring communications. It
hadn’t taken him long to track the location of the data unit. And even less
time to completely lock out the bridge and reroute all the commands through
Arya’s PDU. Now he could work to put Nick’s plan into action.

In Bay Two, Nick
was punching a sequence of commands into the bay’s console when he heard the
voice of two approaching raiders. He secured his helmet in place and ducked behind
the console, one hand stretched up, index finger poised over a button on the
control board. He was ready for what they had to bring.

 
Nick
heard the zip of the access door opening. Two raiders stepped into the bay.
Zip
,
the door closed behind them again. If Sirok wasn’t able to get those overrides
in place, he’d be screwed. Nick hit the button and grabbed the base of the
console tightly. The force-field holding the air in the bay suddenly dropped,
and the air exploded out of the open space-door, carrying the two raiders with
it.

Nick hit the
button again, and the field reappeared across the open bay. He could hear the
sound of air rushing in to refill the bay’s atmosphere. A few minutes later,
the pressure was equalized enough for him to make his exit into the outer
corridor. A blast of air hit him in the chest as the access door slid open.

Nick paused in
the doorway to taunt the raider Commander over his com-badge. “Hey, dumbass, I
just spaced two of your henchmen. I sure hope they’re good at holding their
breath.”

In Bay One, the
Commander heard a giggle from behind him. Turning, he saw that his Arisian
captive was awake again. “What’s so funny?”

Arya grinned at
him. “I see your translator nanites haven’t finished processing the human
language data yet.”

Zurkan grunted.
“What did he mean, dumbass?”

Karg replied
“Stupid, moron, idiot…imbeci—”

“That’s enough!
I got it!” Zurkan raised his pistol toward Karg’s head.

“You kill him,
and Nick will destroy those components.” Arya smirked. “Then your precious
module would be nothing more than a pile of worthless space junk.”

“Grrr!” Angered
by her composure, Zurkan turned and stormed away.

The sounds of
screaming and plasma blasts rang from Zurkan’s com-link. Another group of
raiders were dead. Zurkan stopped, his veins boiling with anger. He picked up a
heavy pipe from a scrap heap and took out his frustration on a nearby console.
Sparks flew into the air as he beat the thing with every ounce of his being.
His mother ship was destroyed, most of his crew dead.
This son of a binche
was going to pay! “
Human! Show yourself. Fight me, man to man,” Zurkan
screamed into the atmosphere.

Arya shouted
across the bay to Zurkan. “Oh, you’ll see him soon enough. Right before he
kills you! Come to think of it, that’s
not
soon enough.”

Zurkan had never
been so infuriated in all his life. He turned, intent on teaching Arya a lesson
in respect, but his steps faltered when he caught sight of a figure in the
corridor. The human that had given him so much grief stood bold as you please
in the doorway just beyond the Arisian binche.  Startled to see him there,
the commander froze. Nick waved then turned and walked down the corridor.

“Don’t just
stand there! Go after him!” Zurkan shoved the two remaining raider soldiers
toward the door.

The two ran into
the hallway just in time to see Nick round a bend at the far end of the hall.
They gave chase, racing as fast as they could in their cumbersome armored
suits. As they hit the corner, their feet slipped on a slimy substance, sending
them to the floor with a smack. Their momentum carried them across the slick
floor and through an open doorway at the end of the corridor. A quick blast to
the door control from Nick’s pistol and the door slid shut, trapping the two
inside.

“Good work, Slim…I
mean…Sirok. Now, that’s how you bag a couple of raiders!” Nick shouted in glee.

Inside the room,
the two raiders struggled to get to their feet. The slick stuff on the floor
was like a combination of snot and motor oil. No matter how hard they tried, they
couldn’t get enough traction to keep their feet under them. They finally
propped each other up enough to peer out from the round window in the door.
Nick stood there smiling back at them.

One raider
raised his pistol to the window. Nick tried to warn him not to. “I wouldn’t do
that if I were you. It’s magnetically seal—”

Bang
. In
the blink of an eye, a bolt off plasma ricocheted off the door and around the
room several times. The blast came to an abrupt halt in one of the soldier’s
legs, knocking him to the floor. “You shot me! You Arskhole!” he cried in pain.

“Sure didn’t
need a translator for that,” Nick joked. “Boys, wave bye-bye now.” Nick waved
to them through the window. The standing raider looked at Nick nervously. Nick
smiled. “You’re standing in an air lock.” With a glance at Sirok, Nick muttered
“hit it” out of the side of his mouth.

Sirok grinned
and punched a key on the screen of the PDU. The outer air lock door opened,
expelling the raiders into space.

Nick tapped his
com-badge. “Hey, dumbass, you still there? Two more of your goons just decided
to take a space walk. How many does that leave? Oh…wait…right…I think you’re
all out of minions. What are you going to do now?”

Back in the bay,
Zurkan grabbed Arya’s arm and pulled her to her feet again. She could tell by
the sweaty palms against her skin that the tough, merciless raider was scared.
He had met his match this time. Without his band of goons, he was nothing but a
coward.

“To the
transport. You’re going to fly us out of here, binche.”

“I can’t fly
with my hands tied behind my back. I’m good, but not that good,” Arya quipped.

“Alright, fine.”
Zurkan put his pistol to Arya’s back and, with his free hand, unlocked the
restraints around her wrists. “Just don’t try anything stupid.” He shoved her
in the direction of the transport. In a split second decision, he turned and
took aim at Karg, who was sitting on the floor, chained to a support column. At
least Zurkan would have the pleasure of venting some of his anger on the big
Rakozian beast.

Karg swallowed
hard as he stared at the baskurt’s plasma pistol. He tested the chains that
held him stationary, but it was no use.  He was bound tight.  There
was no getting out of this one. 

“I wouldn’t,”
Nick said, as he stepped through the hangar door, pistol aimed at Zurkan.

Zurkan swung his
weapon toward Nick and fired a shot. To avoid the plasma blast, Nick quickly
dove to the right and hit the floor sliding. His weapon remained trained on
Zurkan as he slid across the shiny hangar deck. But he hesitated to fire.

Zurkan smirked
and took aim at Nick.

Clank.
Arya walloped Zurkan in the back of the head with a tri-tanium pipe. He dropped
to his knees and fell forward onto his face with a painful sounding thud.
“That’s for Kyrk, you baskurt.” She grabbed Zurkan’s weapon from the floor and
trained it on his back. As she backed away, she glanced up to see Nick
sauntering toward her from across the bay, his dark, wavy hair sticking up
every which way as usual. Her heart pounded at the sight of him. As he came
closer, she noticed a teardrop running down his face.

They
simultaneously blurted out what was on their mind, their voices overlapping in
perfect sync. “I thought you were dead!”

A slow smile
formed over Nick’s handsome face as he stared back at Arya.  She chuckled
softly. “Great minds think alike,” he murmured.

Nick brushed the
hair away from the wound on Arya’s temple. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her
eyes never leaving his.  “Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks to you. I really thought
I was done for, until I heard your voice.”

On his way to
unchain Karg, Sirok raced around them in his three legged, metal rover. 
Two of his four eyes peered at them in curiosity as he passed. He zipped behind
Karg and unlocked his restraints. The large chains crashed to the floor as Karg
leapt to his feet.  Within seconds, Nick was jerked off the floor and held
inside the massive, smothering bulk of all four of Karg’s arms.

“Nick! 
You’re alive!  You’re alive!”  Karg bounced him up and down like a
baby until Nick’s head began to ache.

“Karg,
buddy!  Please!  You’re breaking my back, crushing my ribs.  I
can’t breathe in here,” Nick wheezed.  “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but
you gotta put me down.”

Karg stopped
bouncing him and gently put him back on the floor.  Nick massaged his temples
and gasped in an attempt to recover from having the air squeezed out of his
lungs.  Karg stared down at him, waiting silently and patiently. He looked
like a big kid with a new toy.  Nick started laughing.  The
expression on Karg’s face, the long days alone, the stress of thinking Arya had
been killed, it all culminated in this moment of utter release as he stared
into Karg’s big, funky eyes. 

Karg
grinned.  Nick’s laughter began to swell into an all-out,
piss-in-your-pants fit of laughter that drove the air out of his lungs and had
him dropping to the floor on one knee.  Karg chuckled and leaned down to
look into Nick’s face as he continued to laugh.  Nick scrubbed at his eyes
and tried to contain himself, but it was no use.

“I—I’m…j—just so
hap—peeee to see you g—g—guys!”  Nick screeched through his mirth. 
“Oh, God!”  He held his aching sides.  “F—feels so g—good!”

Arya was beside
him, dropping down onto both knees, laughing along with him.  Karg soon
followed.  Sirok maintained a safe distance as he watched the three of
them rolling on the floor, holding their sides in pain as they laughed like
hynangtas.

“Strange
species,” he muttered, his four eyes trained on his crew.

“What’s the
matter, Sirok,” Nick screeched through tears of laughter.  “Haven’t you
ever had a fit of the g—giggles before?”

“No.  I
don’t think I have.  It looks awkward and painful,” Sirok answered.

All three looked
at him for a moment then dissolved once again into screeches of intense
laughter.

“God, I’m so
happy to be back!” Nick crowed.

A splash of
water from Nick’s cup was enough to bring the commander around. “Rise and
shine,” Nick said, kicking Zurkan stiffly in the side with his boot.

Zurkan moaned
and opened his eyes slowly. Karg grabbed him with one hand, yanked him up off
the floor and then set him down hard in a chair.

“Don’t kill me,”
Zurkan pleaded to the group.