The hatch on the second ship opened and three Reliance people walked out with their arms raised. The biggest one, a male, immediately started screaming. "We are unarmed! We have defected from the Reliance and seek asylum." Now one of Taleed's people was walking out of the ship after them, looking scared and ready to bolt. "We are alone except for a wounded man in the ship." The man lay down with his face in the dirt, and the others followed his lead.
The ramp from their own ship lowered slowly and Topaz and Poley walked out, both holding weapons.
"Poley, check the ship," Topaz ordered. Poley nodded and ran towards the ship.
"Come on, Haldeed, we may be able to help," Taleed said. Haldeed nodded and together they ran out of the brush to stand beside Topaz, one on each side, trying to look as formidable as possible.
"Ah, boys! You're here right on time. Search these thugs for weapons," Topaz ordered. "I'm warning you, make one wrong move and I blast you to smithereens. So if you're feeling froggy, go ahead and jump. Make my day."
Haldeed and Taleed went to search the four prone people as Poley walked out of the ship carrying three rifles over his arm.
"Are you sure my sister left you in charge, Topaz?" Poley asked.
"Well of course she did," Topaz said haughtily. "Do you really think she would leave
you
in charge?"
"Yes, I really do," Poley said.
"Well
. . .
She didn't, so there."
"My prince," the man of his people said as he prodded him with his stumps.
"Prince!" the big man exclaimed from where he lay on the ground.
"They have no weapons," Taleed reported.
"All right. I guess you can get up," Topaz said grudgingly. "But don't try nothin' or I'll bore a hole right through ya."
They got up slowly.
The big one looked right at Taleed. "So,
you
kidnapped the Prince," he said.
"We didn't kidnap him," Topaz said in an agitated voice. "We
found
him."
"Actually he found us," Poley corrected.
"I was not kidnapped," Taleed said angrily. "Is that what they are saying? That I was kidnapped? I ran away, and they all know it. I run away all the time. Isn't that true, Haldeed?"
Haldeed sighed deeply and nodded his head.
"Is it true that you defected from the Reliance?" Topaz asked skeptically.
"Didn't you?" he asked.
"I asked first," Topaz said with a sly smile.
"Yes
. . .
None of us were very pleased with the whole tainted gold thing, and then our Captain started rounding up our crewmates on the ship and having them spaced for treason. There comes a point when you get tired of being a pawn in their game. I guess for us that time was when we were sent on a dangerous mission because the Captain was mad at us because we all said mean things about him. When he started spacing our friends for doing less than we had done
. . .
Well, we kind of entered the
damned if you do, damned if you don't
category. So here we are."
"How did you find us?" Topaz asked suspiciously.
"We went to the site where the transporter was sabotaged," the woman started. "When we realized you had fired your plasma cannon at least twice, we knew you couldn't have gotten far."
Topaz nodded; it made sense. Their story sounded plausible. You might not rock the boat to pull someone else in as long as you were safe inside, but if you knew there was a good chance you were going down anyway
. . .
"I know this man," the Prince said pointing to the man who was one of his people. "He was a priest. The priests had him imprisoned for blasphemy."
"Yes, we met him in your father's prison," the big Reliance man said. "Why do you bother with this interrogation, though? We know that RJ is with you. Simply have her scan us to see if what we say is true."
"How do you know that?" Topaz asked curiously.
The man reached in his pocket, and both Poley and Topaz raised their weapons to point at him.
The man stopped temporarily. "I'm just going to take a picture from my pocket." He pulled it out slowly and draped it over the end of Topaz's weapon." Topaz reached out and took it. He looked at the picture and then handed it to Poley.
Poley looked at the picture and smiled. He held it up for Haldeed and Taleed to see. "It's a picture of my sister."
"Yes, Tin Pants, it's a picture of your sister," Topaz said with a sigh. "Where did you get it?" Topaz demanded.
"It was drawn by a priest in the village where you attacked the transporter. So where is she?" He asked from the sound in his voice, he didn't really want to see her.
"It just so happens she's not here at the present," Topaz said. He raised his wrist-com to his mouth. "RJ, this is Topaz, come back."
They had just reached a cave. RJ was getting ready to check it out to see if it opened into the ship when she suddenly changed directions, ran over to David and grabbed the binoculars from around his neck. She climbed up on a pile of rocks and looked down into the valley below.
"What the hell is it, RJ?" Levits asked.
RJ didn't answer. "Well I'll be damned," was all she said.
"What? What the freaking hell is going on?" Levits yelled up at her.
"Oh, it would just fucking figure! The minute I leave camp
. . .
" RJ cursed. "What
. . .
Well I'll be damned," she said again.
"God damn it, RJ! Tell us what is freaking going on." Levites demanded, losing what little patience he had.
"Shut up Levits!" RJ screamed back. "I don't know yet."
Her com-link squawked and she answered it. "I'm here, did I just see what I thought I saw? Come back."
"Four former Reliance personnel and a native priest – all defectors. What do you want me to do with them?" Topaz asked.
"Are they for real?" RJ asked.
"Now only you would know that for sure. They seem to be. One of them is wounded – they said in a prison break."
"Is their ship fully operational? As in get us the hell off this planet when the time comes?"
There was a pause, and then Topaz answered. "Yes, fully functional. So I'm asking you again, what do you want me to do?"
"See if there is anything you can do for their wounded man. Have Poley keep watch on them; don't let them have any weapons. As long as we're this close, I'm going to check this thing out. We'll be back as soon as we can. If they even bitch about dinner, shoot them. Don't take any chances. Over."
"Got you, RJ, be careful. Over."
"RJ
. . .
Damn it, what's going on?"
RJ hung the binoculars around her neck and started down the rock. When she got down to the others, she stood in front of Levits and asked, "How am I supposed to find out what's happening and answer you at the same time?"
Levits took a deep breath. He supposed there was some logic in that, but still. . . "I'm sorry. So
. . .
What the hell is happening?"
"Some defecting Reliance personnel have just landed a fully operational skiff in our camp site." She looked at David with meaning. "Now do you see what I was talking about? How can I be expected to make decent plans when things like this keep happening?"
David smiled.
"Well, what the hell are we waiting for?" Levits said. "We no longer need what might or might not be here, so let's get back down this mountain and get off this rock."
RJ, however, was completely ignoring him. Instead of heading down the mountain, she was stepping into the mouth of the cave, flicking on the illuminator on her com-link and looking around. "We're this close; we might as well see what is here. Who knows? We might find something useful."
"You just can't admit that you made us climb up this damned mountain for no good reason," Levits mumbled as they followed her into the cave.
"Well, there is that, too." RJ shown the light on what was obviously the open hatch of a ship. "Aren't you even a little curious about an ancient artifact that keeps sending out a beacon hundreds of years after everyone on it would have been dead?"
"Bitch loves to be right," Levits said looking back at David and Janad. He had just spent the last hour of their climb bitching that there was no ship, just some anomaly caused by bouncing sound waves caused by the accursed magnetic pulse. The same thing that was making it impossible for them to get a long-range message in or out.
They walked into the ship. It was cold and everything was covered in dust. It appeared to be as dead as a tomb.
"How did it get buried in the side of a mountain?" David asked curiously.
"From the way it looks I'd say it hit the mountain with enough force to send the top of the mountain crashing down to cover the ship. This mountain is made up of mostly soft igneous rock, so it wouldn't have been that hard to loosen enough rock to cover the ship. There were definitely survivors, though."
"How do you know that?" David asked.
"Well, besides what we have already talked about – the fact that there is little likelihood of this planet having produced humanoids – there's the open hatch and the cave."
"Huh?" David said not understanding the path of her logic.
"Someone had to open the door and dig out," Janad said to him.
Levits laughed. "Even the primitive is smarter that you are, David."
"They aren't primitives. Don't you get it, Levits? They are the product of two advanced fully developed races. Their brains are at least as complex as yours," RJ said. "Naive to our technology and culture, yes. Primitive? Absolutely not. Have you not noticed how quickly they assimilate our language? How quickly they learn even complex ideas? They are what the planet and some deranged, handless black Frenchman have made them. They have found a way to survive on a planet on which most people would die. They have had their religion hammered into their head from infancy, and yet both Janad and Taleed have decided to go against everything they have ever been told to try and find the truth when what they were being told contradicted the facts. The average Reliance citizen isn't as intelligent as these people are. Remember that while the Reliance has been running breeding programs for generations, so have these people. The difference is that these people have worked on the old tried and true method of survival of the fittest, and that also means smartest. That's why they solve problems so quickly. If you take too long thinking in a battle, you wind up dead."
She stopped suddenly and shone the light on a panel. "Aha!" she said.
Levits looked at it as did the others. "So.. some alien language. I wasn't expecting Reliance. The ship is obviously not of Reliance design."
"That's not just any alien language," RJ said. "Do you know what it says?"
"Well of course I don't, smart ass." Levits answered.
"Well I do. It says
Warning do not open interior hatch when air lock is open
," RJ read. "It's Argy."
"I didn't know you knew Argy," Levits said.
"I learned Argy for the same reason that Janad and her people have been taught to speak Reliance. In case I needed it behind enemy lines," RJ explained. "Most of your special forces Elite speak Argy.
"Then this
is
an Argy ship," David said.
"Yes, it is," RJ confirmed.
"What does that mean?" Levits asked.
"That all these people are hybrids. Argy and human. If it wasn't for the obvious gene tampering that my father did and our difference in coloring, Janad and I would probably be very much the same."
Janad looked around the ship. "If the First Ones came in this ship that would explain why they were looking for salvation to come from the sky," she said.
RJ looked at Levits who looked dumbfounded. "See? Not a primitive." They had entered the flight deck. RJ dusted off the control panel, flipped a couple of switches, and a hum started. The ship started to pulsate, and then the lights all came on and the sounds of computers and fans running filled the air.
"Why would they completely abandon the ship?" Levits asked looking around. "It doesn't seem to even really be damaged. Hell, before all the plants grew over the site it was just covered with dirt and a few rocks. It probably could have flown right out. It doesn't make any sense. This ship is huge and seems to be fully operational. If nothing else, on a planet where metal is rare, why didn't they chop it into spear heads?"
"That's a very good question." RJ looked at the panels as if trying to find an answer there. "The ship would have been a symbol of home and of safety. It's not logical that they would just walk off and leave it. Like you said, if nothing else why not strip it for parts? A chair is a chair whether it's on the deck of a ship or in a tent."
"A ship that crashes doesn't seem very safe to me," Janad observed.