The Battle for the Ringed Planet (23 page)

Running a gauntlet of projectiles and individual figures charging out from the crowds along the road and into May’s bayonet, all three, breathless, began to sprint for their lives.

Between breathes Siiri fired several rounds from the coal black weapon to a group of men rapidly pursuing them, “Torian, if we don’t make it …don’t let them…”

He glanced at May who thrust her weapon into a figure threatening with a spear and took another stab wound in her arm, “We’re going to make it, Siiri!”  

A round metal projectile just missed the blonde haired girl and flew in front of Torian while he turned to fire his rifle at the source on a rooftop sending a bolt of plasma through a man’s stomach. Twisting again, he fired ahead at several strange humans blocking May’s path as she lined up her bayonet. They dispersed. Another projectile struck May in her back spinning her around and sending her sprawling on the ground with her rifle flying from her hands. A figure with a long metal rod with a pointy end moved to impale her but Torian shot him square in the chest. Then he kneeled beside the stricken marine and grasped her hand.

“We’re not going to make it, Space Jockey.”

“On your feet marine!”

Siiri grasped her head and bent over, “Torian! Don’t let them take me!”

“Aye!” Torian pushed May forward and grasped Siiri by her webbing, “Move it!” Then he fired the rifle randomly at the roofs one handed at the pursing attackers, “Run!”

A projectile shot passed him while he turned dragging Siiri with all his might as she began to resist, her eyes bright gold. May threw off her cracked helmet running to help Torian with Siiri.

“Almost there!” he encouraged the other two. Siiri’s eyes returned and she sprinted ahead towards the door in the gate. Resistance tapered off a little as they rushed to the door and Torian pulled out the key and accidentally dropped it as a round metal ball struck the wall beside his head and bounced into May’s chest armor, knocking her down again.

He picked up the key as a crowd began to advance again. Inserting it in the hole and pulling it out the wall section vanished. The three fled rushing out onto the gravel road in pitch-blackness with May leading by the light of Torian’s rifle as he pushed Siiri ahead.

Chapter 16: Transporters

Pacing backwards watching the door and then turning to glance warily at tall rocky outcroppings he ran to catch up with May rushing ahead and Siiri following close, “Clear. Let’s pick up the pace.” Torian was the only one left with a light since May and the blonde girl had lost their rifles. Fortunately, the others with their bright eyes were a dead give away at night, unless they covered themselves with their robes. 

“She can’t take much more, Torian.” Siiri caught up with the heaving marine.

The young man, straining, gripped May’s shoulder, “I know you’ve taken a beating …Siiri, give her a hand, but we have to keep going.”

“I’m all right, Space Jockey.” she spit up blood.

Just then, the flashlight on the rifle lit up two charging figures with pipes and Torian fired the rifle once, but it quit again after that. He raised the weapon to deflect a blow from a long metal pipe. The pipe knocked it away and he grabbed the man’s hand twisting him around, but the other was stronger, pulling the flight specialist down to the ground, and flew on top. The two forms wrestled and the man with glowing eyes clutched his hands around Torian’s throat. Then the man froze, gurgling blood, and falling to the side. A light from the rifle blinded Torian and he covered his face.

“Torian, are you hurt?” Siiri cried out, she bent down next to him and he saw the wet blood on the bayonet. She held out her hand and he pulled himself to his feet, rubbing his neck.

“I’m good, thanks pretty girl, take the lead.” and she walked quickly while Torian put his arm around May’s waist and helped her along.

 “Can you make it?” he asked the marine who was putting on a brave show.

“I just need to catch my breath.”

It went on for the next couple of hours with Siiri taking point and Torian supporting May pushing her to keep going. They heard noises, and swore they saw shadowy figures, but in their exhaustion, it was hard to know if they were seeing phantoms or real assailants. However, nobody attacked them throughout the night on the gravel road bracketed by silhouettes of stony towers.

“Drink,” Torian put the water bottle to the stricken marine’s lips and she gulped.

Siiri glanced back, “The hill is ahead, I can see the tower.”

“Just a little more, May.” she nodded and coughed.

Up the hill, Siiri helped putting her arm around May and they forced their legs to climb the steep angle to the tower.

“Do you think anyone is in there waiting?” the blonde girl with Torian helped the marine sit on the ground while she was breathing heavily.

“Hand me the rifle, stay with her.” he took the rifle with the bloody bayonet and then walked towards to tower.

“Torian …” Siiri called after him weakly. He was back a few moments later helping May up.

“All clear inside and Con is back on,” and the three exhausted survivors entered the guard tower while Torian secured the door. With Siiri’s help, he shoved the office desk against it.      

In the bunkroom they lay May down, pulled off her boots, and stripped off her webbing and armor exposing her bloody combat fatigues.

“She’s been stabbed in the shoulder blade and the arm …” Siiri reached to unbutton the combat shirt but Torian stopped her.

“See the material.” he shined the flash light around the puncture wound where the camouflaged material had bunched up, “the lining on the inside reacts to blood, and squeezes and plugs up the wound, so leave the shirt on there, but check her abdomen.”

Moaning a little, May raised her head, wincing and grinning, “Only she can undress me.” The muscular girl’s abdomen was bluish and black.

Torian checked her with his Con and felt the side of her head that was swollen, “Got a contusion on the head, and bruising …” Siiri struggled getting the almond-eyed woman’s pants off. Her legs were bruised and swollen.

“How am I, doc?”

“You need a painkiller ...” he reached for his med kit on his webbing, but he was out.

“I got one in my webbing, and I got to pee,” May sighed.

He searched her webbing, pulled out the painkiller, and injected her arm while she rolled her head back and sighed.

Siiri disappeared into the bathroom and came out with a round cracked basin while Torian got up, turning away on the other bunk. By the light of his Con, he got out some rations and mess kits from their webbing and began making dinner. When May was finished Siiri helped her with her shorts and brought the basin into the bathroom, closing the door and relieving herself.

“Coffee?” Torian offered, “And dinner, the last of our rations.”

“The coffee first.” He rolled up her pants for a pillow and helped her drink.

“That painkiller really works. I can’t feel a thing now,” she whispered after swallowing and curled her legs up so they did not hang over the edge.

“Well, you rest.” After she sipped, he laid her head back. Siiri came out of the bathroom and Torian passed her a mess bowl, “Rice and crab meat.”

“I’ll feed her …”

“I can eat myself.” May raised her head when Siiri sat on the floor next to the bunk bed with the bowl. After a few bites, May closed her eyes and rested her head back. Siiri brushed back the marine’s long black hair, a few stands sticky with blood from a small cut near the swelling on her head.

While May slept, Siiri crept over to Torian who was busy bent over his Con zipping through virtual screens in the air, “What are you reading?”

“Not reading, deleting all the files and images of the city, the aliens, everything except for the shield stuff.”

“Why?” The blonde girl removed her boots and sat on the bed pulling her legs close. In the dim light emanating from the Con he peered into her eyes, watching for a moment. Tired as she was, she managed a coy smile.

“I want to go home. If they see this on my Con, Intelligence will keep me for weeks. They’re going to find the city eventually, especially when we bring that shield down and they take Kaarina.”

“If they find the city, will they leave me alone?”

“Maybe … but someone leaked information about ‘Colonial Environmental Safety Society’. Remember when I scanned you and part of your brain was locked out? You have abilities, and they know the condition. That’s why they’re here, they want to make super humans and turn the tide of the war.”

Slowly she looked away, “What are they going to do to me if we get to your people?”

“I’m working on that, but you, me, and May; we never went to the alien city. We were lost under the tunnels. She was injured when her ship crashed.”

“Ok,” she touched his shoulder, “I trust you.”

“Thanks.”

“Let’s see your head, hold still,” with soft caring hands she unraveled the compress and examined the wound, “Oh wow, it’s almost healed! I can barely see the cut!”

“The polygel ointment has accelerants. I don’t feel anymore pain.”

“Good.” In the shadows, she beamed with a sweet smile, but then grew serious, “Torian?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened with the shield?”

Sighing with fatigue and putting the Con aside the young man bent over to remove his boots, then sat up and faced the blonde girl, “Jarlan designed it to kill everyone in Kaarina. Every soul.”

“What?”

“It’s difficult to understand, but people were being taken over, and he built some sort of cybernetic shield inside his head with implants to protect himself. The colony was so secret they had very few space vessels to take the people away, and no one visited often. They were all trapped …”

All of a sudden, Siiri’s mouth went wide open and her eyes began to glow. Startled, Torian sat up and backed away, unsure of what to do.

But Siiri held out her hand, “It’s all right, Torian, its Kayla!”

“What does that alien want?” He responded with contempt.

“She wants to know why you are keeping her people a secret.”

Turning away, Torian sighed, “I can’t look at you like that.”

“I know, but she wants to explain.”

“Tell her I don’t care about her city, or her people, I just want to forget all of this, the war...”

“She’s surprised.” Then Siiri added, “Forget everything?”

“Tell her to bugger off. And no, not everything…everyone…” peering at her shyly, “…you know what I mean.”

“Kayla wants to tell you about the shield.”

“All right.”

“She says that at first our minds were closed, like yours, but then Jarlan discovered the transporters.”

“Transporters?”

“The tubes, the colorful tubes in the city that reach to the sky, she calls them transporters, they give off energy, and it effected the people, opened their minds, so that Kayla’s people could transfer inside. They are all disembodied.”

“Take over you mean.”

The blonde girl swallowed, “Yes. The engineers took the transporters to the city, and that’s when the special powers started. Kayla says her people number in the millions, and they could inhabit a human because their minds were opened up by the transporters.”

“Why aren’t you possessed?”

“I’m not fully developed. Jarlan sent me out to the city to die before they could possess me.”

 The young man nodded, “But Kayla still comes to you.”

“Only to visit for a little bit … and sometimes Sarloth; some are more powerful than others. She says the name of the city is Reega. It means Promised Land. Her planet was dying and her people left in giant ark ships. Her ark spend a long time, she says a thousand of our earth years trying to find a home, and when they did, they built the city from their ship…” then Siiri looked up in the dim light and Kayla was gone.

The flight specialist sat on the edge of the bed hunched over in thought and Siiri leaned up against his back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, “Are you all right, Torian.”

“Yeah, I guess they had it bad here.”

“Jarlan must have felt terrible remorse.”

“We have to get you off-world, it will be daylight soon. We’ll head to our lines.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“They’re probably trigger happy. But I think we’ll be Ok.”

She leaned her cheek against his, “Is there war close to Kanata?”

Shaking his head slowly, “No, not really, but we’re losing. Our fleets are spread too thin. We have too many assets to protect, so we can only strike in a few places.”

“What do the rebels want?”

“To leave the Confederation. There is a fleet of warships, called the Immortal Fleet, and they have vowed to destroy all of earth, so more than half of our fleet is guarding the Solar System.”

“Why not just let them leave?”

“Well, mainly because then others will leave, and because some of the rebel worlds commit certain acts and degradations to their populations.”

“So is Kanata safe?”

“Yeah. Pretty much, it’s a core world but far enough from earth,” he clasped her hands that were around his chest, “You know I smell bad.”

“You can’t smell me?”

Then he unclasped her hands and twisted around, “Let’s lay down.” she moved back and lay on her side on the hard bunk devoid of a mattress. Torian rolled up the old musty blanket on the bed into a pillow and stretched out on his back next to her. Then Siiri moved against him resting her head against his chest with one hand playing with his hair.

“I should keep watch … they might try and get in.”

“That probably a good idea,” she whispered, but neither of them moved.

“Are you comfortable?”

“With you …. yes…” slowly she raised her head and let her long blonde hair fall on Torian’s flight suit, “So who was this girl that smelled like lilacs?”

“What girl?”

“You know what I am talking about. Is she waiting for you on Kanata?”

“Nobody waits for 3 earth years.”

“I would, if you really loved someone.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Oh…so there is a girl!”

“Aye, you got me. Leigh Hutton was her name.”