continued from above....sorry about my lateness, but I recently got snowed-in at a friend's house, who happened to have the complete X-Files on DVD. So my free time turned out to NOT be free time...yeah.
Chapter Nine
The Price
*Phase 2, Hyperoxygenation*
Chanted the feminine computer voice. During the launch, all personnel had been put into an induced sleep, aiding the computer in protecting them from acceleration pressures and other unforseen traumas. Jake's head ached, the type of ache that said he'd been in a topple-down-a-ravine-into-a-stony-river type of sleep. He felt heavy, and when he opened his eyes, his vision was fuzzy.
He was still in his pod.
"Eh, we must have arrived," he thought aloud. If all had gone according to plan, then the cloaked fleet was being autopiloted into position around a paralyzed planet. He had no desire to hurry the process.
*Phase 3, Stimulation*
"Ouch!" he mouthed. A needle had sprung from some unseen inner orifice of his pod, and injected itself into his arm. The next moment, it was gone. After a few seconds, he felt life coming back to him. It started like a pervasive caffeine, working its way from core into his limbs, and clarifying his vision. He squinted out of the faceport of his acceleration pod, and only then did he get the first impression that something was wrong.
The light level outside of his pod was dim and diffuse, and accompanied by sporadic flashing. Could the ship be damaged? Or might there be an electrical malfunction? Regardless, he was comforted by the sounds of the other troops awakening in the pods adjacent to him.
Jake unstrapped himself and fumbled for the inner catches on the pod hatch. There were four of them on the inside, controlled by a computer which would open the door, presumably in a minute or two.
He found the upper latches and flipped them. He reached down as far as he could and barely managed to reach the other two. He flipped one with some difficutly, but the other one wouldn't budge.
"Dammit," he cursed. Then more loudly, "is anyone out there? What's going on?"
He saw a green LED light up to his left. A caption underneath read 'HATCH'.
"Okay, so the computer will open it. What's it waiting for?" Jake looked out of the faceport again, and his heart sank into his feet. A massive shadow was moving into position in front of his pod. From his perspective, Jake could only see legs and lower-body armor. It was waiting.
"Guys, something is wrong here!"
*Phase 4, Release*
Jake's eyes widened.
"Release?! No! Shit, no release, no! no!" He spastically scrambled to lock the upper latches. A light horn sounded from the computer, and the last switch sprang open. The tyrant stepped back, giving the door room to open.
Jake shoved his hand into the hatch handle, and locked an upper latch with the other. The tyrant roared with rage and smashed at the faceplate, rocking the pod and shattering the glass. As fast as he could, Jake switched hands and locked the other catch.
All around him he heard screams has row after row of pods opened and the occupants were impaled and slashed, almost as one person. They didn't stand a chance.
No, no, no, no, no.... groaned Jake through the bedlam. Outside of his pod, the tyrant raised a claw and aimed it at the faceport. With only six inches of room in which to move, Jake had nowhere to run.
The claw shot forward. Jake twisted to the side, but it still clipped his ear before jamming in the faceport. The alien pulled it out and tried again. Jake ducked in the other direction, but the tyrant was just as smart. It aimed for the place it hit first, and Jake's head was in the way this time. No one in the bay heard the scream.
**~**
On the command bridge, Marty wasn't faring much better. The computer had awoken him ten minutes earlier than the troops because of his command status. He had stretched and walked out of the room, wondering why the lights were flickering. When he reached the bridge, he saw why.
The transport had deccelerated to late, and as a result had run aground on the outer crust of Homeworld.
Marty rubbed his eyes, attributing the motion in his peripherals to be sleep artifacts. He was wrong. Dumbfounded, he gazed out of the sweeping forward viewport. There was motion all right. A bounding sea of aliens was undulating around the crashed ship, pouring into every breach.
It didn't matter that the mission had failed. Mec-2 Marty didn't even register that fact, and that I suppose was a tribute to his training. With sudden clarity, he realized, "I gotta get to the weapons locker!"
He turned and dashed off the bridge, back toward the cargo bay that housed all of the acceleration pods. The other troops should be awakening right now. As he sprinted down the corridor, he heard yelling and roaring.
"Oh God, I'm too late..."
At the archway into the hold, he paused. Large shadows were passing along the floor on the other side of the arch. He ducked out of view, hoping that he hadn't been seen. A sudden concussion rocked the vessel.
What the hell was that? thought Marty, as he fought to keep his balance. A second disturbance shook the ship violently. As cautiously as he could, he peered around the bulkhead into the hold.
His eyes met a scene of total horror.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. Limbs and digits had been severed, bones exposed, and blood splashed across the deck plating. Several dozen dretches were scattered around the bay, feasting on the arms and hands that Marty had shaken with such assurance only thirty-minutes ago.
Stunned, he slumped back into his hiding place. They were defeated. They had been tricked or lied to. Even if the launch had gone all to hell, the Hivemind was supposed to have been disabled by now, unable to issue orders or mount an effective defense.
"My weapon....I have to get to my weapon..." he tried to focus himself. "The big ones have moved on. Another crash, maybe. Just dretches left, just dretches...."
He visualized the route he'd need to take to get to the nearest weapon locker. It was through the archway, then dead left across the hold, then left on the wall.
More tremors exploded nearby. Marty got up, dug in, and swung out into the bay. Immediately he lost his balance in the pool of blood and tumbled to the floor. The dretch nearest to him turned and saw him.
With a rabid chirp, it let go of its food and charged him. It crossed the ten feet between them in a second with two jumps. Barely able to kneel up in time, Marty threaded his fingers together and swung from the side. His fists met it about a foot from his face, and it glanced off and into the adjacent wall, splatting to the floor. Incapacitated, it sqeaked for help. Marty fought back onto his feet and started skipping over the bodies of the dead.
Lethargic from their gorge, the other aliens were slow to realize the threat. Marty reached the locker five seconds before they did. Being lowly dretches, they didn't know that, for a desperate and experienced human, this was an eternity in which to grab a weapon, change his mind, pick another one, and swing around with a vengeful witicism to end them.
With well practised hand, Marty one-shotted each dretch as it got to him, shotgun shells splashing at his feet. He killed eight of them, them switched to another shotgun in his left hand, dropping the unloaded one. More dretches were torn apart with a bang, their innards mingling with the red human blood on the deck.
Having emptied his second weapon, he scanned his approaches quickly. Only one more dretch was poised on a nearby pod, reluctant to rush him. Marty reached behind him into the locker and pulled out a service blaster, which he holstered in his belt and patted meaningfully.
The dretch screeched and scampered away, presumably exiting through the same breach in the hull that it had entered from.
Left alone in the dimness, Marty exhaled and pulled another shotgun off the rack. After strapping an ammo pouch onto his hip, he stared off into the darkness.
"Damn, wish I had a flashlight..." he said aloud.
He heard a croak about a stone's throw away.
"Who is that?"
Again, he heard the sound, though now he made it out to be a hoarse chuckle.
"A survivor!" he realized. He reached for a flare and lit it. With the weapon in his other hand, he started off from the wall.
"Where are you?" he called.
"Over here!"
"That's helpful."
"Two rows....your left...." came the weak response.
Marty made his way down the rows, finding the one referenced. Suddenly, he realized that this was the location of his former squad. Raising the gun and shielding his eyes from the flare, he looked down the row. All the pod hatches were open, save one. When he reached it, he put down the flare and looked into the pod.
"Oh my God, Jake! Your eye!"
"nnnn scare me....what?....doesn't look....." Jake seemed to be on the edge of consciousness. Marty ran back to the locker for some medkits. He got back to Jake undisturbed. The shaking of the ground, which Marty had by now guessed was support fire from the rest of the fleet, had started to fade into the distance.
"Hey, open your pod, I've got your fix," said Marty.
"Fix, hah," mumbled Jake. There were two clicks as he unlocked the hatch. With a hiss, the door pivoted upwards, and the occupant slid onto the floor. Proping him up on his lap, Marty popped the cap off of the medical injector and gave Jake a shot in the arm.
"This won't bring your eye back, but it should help with everything else. You just need to hold on."
"OK."
Marty shot him with a second medkit. The fast-acting concoction started to bring Jake around.
"Oh, oh, it hurts! I can't see!"
"At least you're alive. That's more than you can say about anyone else on the ship. What are you carrying in that good-luck charm of yours? It worked."
"Jealous?"
"Come on, stand up, we have to get to the bridge. I have to get on the horn and try to contact the rest of the fleet, find out what happened and if there's anything to be done about it."
"Okay, let's go," Jake replied. He leaned forward, and stood up shakily. Wiping blood from his good eye, he waited for Marty to lead the way. As Marty passed him, Jake smiled.
"You were saying something about a flashlight?"
"It was a moment of weakness."
"Doesn't matter. It was worth it."
"Here, hold this." Marty handed him the flare. They made their way out of the hold, back into the corridor and toward the bridge. The absence of resistance was almost uncanny.
"Here we are," said Marty, as they reached the command bridge. He walked over to a console and tried to make sense of it.
"I usually have a subordinate to work this stuff...here, catch." He tossed the shotgun over to Jake. Jake caught it with his free hand. Marty raised a brow. "See? Who needs both eyes?"
"I sense a nickname in the works," said Jake sarcastically.
Marty closed his eyes, remembering the days of his basic training. The pertinent information came back mingled with the impertinent, and he had a job of filtering it out. Within five minutes, he had opened a channel to the flagship.
"CS Midas, this is Remdann LSP-522, do you read me?"
"This is the Midas, it's a relief to hear your voice. We thought you were done for."
"So did I. May I speak with Admiral Becker? I'm Martin Spen - "
"Becker here. Go ahead."
"Yes sir. Status report: We have maximum casualties. The ship has run aground and there are only two survivors. What happened?"
"It looks like the decceleration coordinates were faulty for our troop transports. All but three have crashed. We're doing everything we can to mount a rescue operation, but we're under heavy fire. The Hivemind is still alive."
"So our mission is a failure..."
"Not so. Our support fire has driven the masses away from your transport. If you can get to one of your shuttles, you might just make it to the inner planet safely."
"The inner planet? What for?"
"Mec-2, I'm about to give you some classified information. The Hivemind was supposed to be disabled by a person who made it to the inner core. Regardless of what you think you know, you can still save the day for all of us. You're behind enemy lines, you'll make it through. I'm sending the coordinates to your ship's mainframe. Your new objective is to locate the beacon of the shuttle that our operative has, and to aid him in detonating his device. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir. Receiving your files."
"Godspeed, soldier. Over and out."
"Jake, get over here, we have a mission." Marty waved.
"So I've heard."
Marty worked more controls.
"Damn, the mainframe-to-shuttle interface is fried. We need a portable device to take these files with..."
"Will my phone work?" suggested Jake.
"Why are you carrying your phone?"
"It's not against regulations, it's turned off."
"Yes, it'll work. Plug it in here, these are the files that need transferring." Marty indicated a screen and moved to another one. "I can prep a shuttle from here, so it'll be running by the time we reach it. What's wrong?"
Jake had frozen still, looking at the display of his phone.
"Are the files transferred yet?" queried Marty, again.
"Yes, but it's asking if I want to overwrite existing data..."
"Which file?"
"The shuttle ID file."
"Why would that already exist on your phone?" asked Marty, juggling his attention with warming up the shuttle.
"Hell if I know," lied Jake.
"Well it must be a glitch. Overwrite it, just to be safe."
"OK, done. All ready here." said Jake, pocketing the phone.
"Good, our dropship's powering up in the bay. Let's go. We have a battle to save."
"Right behind you." said Jake, tossing his weapon back.
They jogged down a different corridor, and stopped at the end. There was no threat in sight. They went down more corridors, past erupted consoles that spewed sparks and smoke. When they arrived in the small shuttle bay, they breathed a sigh of relief. The dropship was intact and ready to depart. Marty stepped over to a wall console and pressed some controls. The outer bay door began to open upwards.
"What's the atmosphere like?" asked Jake.
"Intel says it's got more oxygen than Ventas, and that's already more than Earth had. It'll be tough leaving." He was practically raking weapons from a wall locker into a carrying bag.
"Grab those ammo cases, we're out of here." he said, as he walked up the ramp of the shuttle. Following behind him, Jake paused as he heard a tap on one of the bay's access hatches.
"I think I heard something. Behind us." he whispered loudly. Marty threw down his burdens and gripped his shotgun in a readiness position. The tapping came again, right on the door they had just entered from.
"Jake, take this." Marty reached behind him into a case and pulled out a helmet. Jake took it and, sliding it on, switched on the integrated scanner.
"It's human, unarmored!" he blurted out.
Marty ran down the ramp and over to the door. He unlocked it and stood back. The door slid open and Gill staggered out into the bay.
"No way!" cried Marty, grabbing him by the shoulders. "How did you make it?" Behind him, Jake laughed too with relief.
"Throw me a medkit and I'll tell ya," said Gill. Facilitated, he injected himself and leaned backwards with a sigh.
"Are you wounded? How did you live?" pressed Marty.
"Well, long and short of it, I hid under John."
"You bastard! Was he alive?"
"If he was, he didn't say anything." Gill made his way up the ramp. "The goon that was gonna jump me was sloppy. Pounced right at me but hit mah pod. I pretended like I was all crushed and slid out. John pretty much fell on top of me."
"Bastard. Coward."
"Lay off. It's not like he was a better shot or anything."
"Look just get in the ship, OK? We have a new mission, and you get to take point. Don't look at a superior officer that way, get in there!"
Gill ducked in and took a seat. Jake and Marty followed, and the ramp closed in behind them.
"I have flight training, I'll take this." said Marty, strapping himself into the pilot's chair. Jake took a seat across from Gill and buckled in. Marty lifted off, and they flew out of the wrecked mothership and over alien terrain.
"There's a sort of tunnel into the planet about four clicks from here. We'll descend that way." Marty said aloud. "Hey Jake, bring your phone over here, I need the our target's specs."
Jake slid the phone across the floor and Marty picked it up, without looking from his controls. He plugged it into the console, and the shuttle read the file out onto the main display.
"We'll know we've found him when we find a contact matching this on the inner planet."
"Found who?" asked Gill.
"My mission," replied Jake.
"You mean OUR mission, don't you?" corrected Marty.
"Oh, yes. Our mission." Only Jake knew that the person they were to meet and help was Hal Corrdino, aka "Richard Loon". Omi had been right. Richard had been taking flights to this world, to prepare for the invasion. Jake didn't mind setting off the device, but he would make sure that Richard never left.
That's right. I don't care what they say, I don't care if they catch me in the act. That man killed my best friend, and now I'm going to serve it cold. Oh yes, this is it.....
to be continued below.....
2 more chapters
