Chapter Twenty-Seven
The
FS-475
, with the counselor’s shuttle still riding piggyback, arrived at Zylim-4 and zeroed in on the settlement of Locin-Annan. After the customary inquiries regarding destination and purpose, they were directed to the main airlock elevator located at the bottom of a vast pit, easily covering a diameter of twenty kilometers or more. Adam watched as they descended, marveling at the thousands of stair-stepped layers of rock that had been excavated over the decades. This must have been a truly rich deposit of uranium ore for the miners to have caved out such an expansive area. And then they’d moved underground, finding even more of the precious metal.
Adam had only been slightly surprised to learn that nuclear was the major source of all alien power, even with the advanced technology of the Juireans – as well as all the other members of The Expansion. No exotic concoctions such dilithum crystals or anti-matter2. Just plain old atom-smashing – or fusing – which was one area of nuclear science that far exceeded Earth’s level of expertise. Small fusion reactors provided the main power for the gravity drives, otherwise the generators would have been football-stadium-size for even the smallest internal ship gravity wells.
So uranium was vital to the operation of the galaxy. And Zylim-4 was full of the stuff.
The
FS-475
set down, and when the gravity drive was shut down, Kaylor and Jym immediately began complaining about the gravity, especially Jym. He refused to lift himself out of his seat at the nav console. Instead he set his forward screen to pick up any activity outside the ship, and didn’t move.
Slowly, the ship was lowered into the main airlock. Adam panned the external camera around to see if he could notice any unusual activity. Seeing none, he turned to survey his troops. He almost burst out laughing.
After donning the pressure suits with their diffusion screens, the trio then strapped various holsters and bandoliers on their bodies, containing pistols and grenades bulging out from their waists. Next they slipped over-sized blue tunics over the whole mess, making them all appear to be about fifty pounds overweight and out of shape. Finally, even though the temperature outside was a steady and comfortable seventy-two degrees, they slipped jackets over their tunics to hide the two flash rifles each they carried, as well as the knapsacks of additional power packs for the MK’s.
Adam thought it would be a miracle if they got away with this…
Once the pressure and atmosphere in the massive airlock had been stabilized, Kaylor struggled over to the cargo hatch and keyed in the open code. He was panting already from the high gravity, and Adam just patted his back as he stepped out onto the ramp. “Hang in there, Kaylor. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Adam saw the confused look cross Kaylor’s face, as the phrase ‘hang in there’ was roughly translated. Yet he clearly understood the second half of the comment, and said, “I don’t know how long we can take this. How did your kind ever survive under such horrid conditions?”
With Sherri positioned between the two men, the trio set off across the vast stone floor of the airlock for a smaller set of doors to their left. A few New Rigorian natives appeared in the main airlock, technicians of some kind, each riding exo-suits and paying no attention to them.
There was a simple in/out panel at the door, and once pressed, the door slide open. They stepped through and into another, smaller airlock. This room opened into a soaring warehouse chamber, filled with crates, wheeled fork-lift-like vehicles and dozens of empty exo-suits. Adam realized then that life on Zylim-4 must be hell for the workers. It was obvious they would have to rotate in and out, if they weren’t of the rare heavy-gravity breeds, which he knew, undoubtedly, existed in The Expansion.
Through his limited experience, Adam had found that most of these heavy-worlders were classified as little more than beasts of burden. It seemed that the heavier the gravity, the dumber the natives. This was another feature that set Humans apart from other creatures in the galaxy, making them even more unique. Most of the ‘civilized’ races in the galaxy accepted the fact that heavy-worlders would be stronger then they, but they always considered themselves to be smarter, quicker and more coordinated. That was until they met a Human…
“Does this place look familiar?” Riyad asked Sherri.
She looked around. “Maybe,” she said. “You’ve seen one warehouse, you’ve seen them all. This
could
be the one I was in.”
“Follow me,” Adam commanded. “Here’s the tunnel to the elevator.”
The three of them walked confidently down the center of the tunnel, aware that they were probably under surveillance even now. After a few minutes, two young men in blue tunics appeared out of a side door just in front of them, and turned up the tunnel. The two men appeared to be in their own conversation and didn’t pay any attention to them. So they followed.
As they came upon the elevator, the two men stopped and punched in a code; the doors open and they entered.
Adam and his group slipped in behind them.
As the doors closed, one of the men pressed the single button, and then, for the first time, began to scrutinize the other three, seemingly overweight Humans in the elevator. His eyes focused on Sherri, then on Riyad and Adam.
“What are you doing with this female?” the curious one asked. His companion also then began to take notice.
“She’s a breeder,” Adam answered. “But there’s something wrong with her. We’re taking her to the hospital.”
The two men continued to stare at them. Finally the lead asked, “Where have the two of you been? You are unkempt. Don’t let the Senior see you like this.”
“Don’t worry, my friend. We can’t wait for a shower and a shave,” said Riyad, flashing his most disarming smile.
A look of shock spread across the men’s faces. “Who are you? You are
not
2G’s!”
Sherri reacted first. She whipped out an MK-17 from within her tunic and sent level-one bolts into the guts of both men. The brilliant flashes, and residual smoke from burning flesh, quickly filled the metal room.
“What the fuck, Sherri?” Adam yelled.
“They’d made us. I should have had the two of you shave and cut your hair before coming in here.”
Riyad rushed to the bodies and quickly frisked them. They were unarmed. “This is going to be hard to hide, especially if there are more of them waiting when the elevator opens.”
They didn’t have to wait long to find out. The elevator was slowing to a stop. The three Humans positioned themselves, each on one knee, MK’s level at the door. To their relief, there was no one outside as the doors opened. Sherri stood in the opening, keeping the door from closing, as Riyad and Adam swept into the passageway and scanned both directions. No one.
There were various doors on either side of the corridor, and the two men began slipping their hands into the recessed sections. The third door on Adam’s side slid open. He jumped in, weapon ready. It was an office of some kind, small, and with no one home.
Quickly, Adam and Riyad hoisted the two dead men into the room and shut the door. Then they resumed their walk, Sherri in the middle, just as before.
This passageway was very wide and tall, tall enough for wheeled vehicles to move freely through it. After about two minutes, a vehicle did come their way, driven by a young man with short blond hair. As he passed, he nodded at the trio, and to their relief, kept going.
From the schematics, Adam knew there were other passageways on either side of the main corridor, and soon they came to an intersection leading to one of these tunnels. They decided to get off of the main thoroughfare and try some side streets. The computer room should be about half a click beyond their position, just off the main chamber. They could meet up with it from one of the side passages.
Suddenly Sherri stopped. “I know this place!” She ran to a side opening and looked inside. It was a large room with a dozen or so exam tables, like in a doctor’s office. “This is where they examined us.”
There were four other men at the far end of the room, but they paid no attention as they looked in. Adam grabbed Sherri by the arm and pulled her back into the corridor. “Relax,” he said. “Keep cool. We only have a little ways to go—”
“Adam!” Kaylor’s voice shouted in his ear.
Before he could respond, alarms sounded everywhere. Other men began emerging out of side rooms and began running down the corridor past them. Adam and Riyad lifted their weapons, but then lowered them quickly as everyone completely ignored them. The four men in the exam room ran past them as well. Adam grabbed one by the arm before he passed. “What’s happening?” he cried out.
The other man was so agitated that he answered immediately, “It’s an attack alarm. We’re under attack.” Then Adam released him and the man quickly joined the others as they ran down the passageway.
The three of them slipped into the exam room. “Kaylor, what’s happening?”
The alien was on the comm immediately. “Juireans! A whole lot of them. In landing craft,” the alien yelled, panic in his voice. “The airlock opened and about twenty-five ships dropped in. The lock is closing now…I see troops leaving the ships. There must be hundreds of them!”
“Can you get out?” Adam asked.
“No. The lock is closed. But we can’t stay here either.”
“Get into environment suits and off the ship. They’re going to come for you if you stay. And if they open the lock again, you’ll die without the suits. I need you to find a safe vantage point and let me know everything you see.”
“We will. But there are a lot of Juireans, and they all look like Guards! This is not good!”
“Just calm down, Kaylor,” Adam sensed the alien was on the verge of a full-fledged panic attack. “Get to someplace safe and we’ll come and get you when we can.”
Adam turned to his two companions. They had heard the conversation as well. Riyad spoke first. “This calls for a change of plan, I believe.”
Adam turned to Sherri. “Do you have any idea where the captive men were kept?”
“I’m not sure, but we could hear them from the barracks we were in. And that was right through…here!”
Sherri dashed off through the exam room before Adam and Riyad could react. Pulling the flash rifles from under their coats, the two men set off after her.
Sherri ran through a number of smaller rooms until she came to a door leading to a long room full of empty bunks. “This is where they kept the women,” she shouted back at the men as they entered. Then she turned and swept past them and out of the room. She turned right in the hallway and quickly disappeared around a corner.
Adam and Riyad had caught up with her just as she reached a door and threw it open. The trio skidded to a halt in the doorway, staring open-mouthed into the room.
It was a barracks alright, with about a hundred beds – and the room was packed full of men. They were all standing, wearing old orange tunics, many of them sporting long beards and scraggly hair.
An older man near them stepped forward. “What’s going on? We can hear the alarms.”
Riyad noticed as several of the men began to move toward them with intense stares. He held his flash rifle at them, and they stopped.
Adam noticed the movement, too. Then he made a command decision. He lowered his own rifle and stepped forward. “I’m Petty-Officer Second Class Adam Cain, United States Navy SEALs. We’ve come to rescue you.”
Sherri and Riyad jerked their heads in his direction. Riyad leaned toward him and whispered. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Adam whispered back, “We need an army to get out of here. And here it is.”
The men in the room all surged forward and surrounded them. The older man spoke again. “What’s going on here? We know this isn’t Earth. How can a SEAL team be out here to rescue us?”