Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (46 page)

Even though the body was badly burned, and covered in soot and blood, he had no problem identifying the body of his friend, Elias Johnson.

Clutched tightly to his body, as if to shield it, was a smaller body that once had long black hair. The small girl was also badly burned, but her face had been pressed against Elias’s chest and was remarkably untouched by the horror of her passing. Although Ty didn’t know her very well, he recognized little Andreya Stavros. They hadn’t made it to shelter in time.

“We just found them.” Luke said softly. “Part of one of the walls of the Admin building had collapsed, they were under it.”

Ty closed his eyes in an effort to stop his emotions from overwhelming him. “Does anyone else know?”

Luke nodded. “Andrea called Laura, I sent a couple of Marines with Andrea to escort Laura over here. Most of the Marines know by now, it was a squad of Marines working with a drone that discovered them. The Marine that took the other girl from Elias dropped off the girl, and went back to help him and the other girl. The Marine’s suit beacon is what called the squad. He was under there with them. He survived, but is feeling really guilty.” Luke gestured to another room with a closed door.

“You need to call Ian, Luke. Elias and he were very close,” Ty said. “I’d call him, but I think it should be you.”

Luke nodded. “I think everyone here was his friend. There were a few of us that were close to him. Jim Beecher is with Laura and Andrea, and I called you. Other than Ian, we were the ones closest to him,” Luke said. Ty could tell the big man was barely holding it together.

Ty reached out and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “For what it’s worth, Elias died a hero, Luke, he tried to save Andreya, and he
did
save that other girl. If it hadn’t been for him, it would have taken us too long to find the children, and we would have lost both of them. Just try to remember that.”

Luke nodded, and Ty excused himself. “I need to go talk to that trooper and try to get him to understand that what happened wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

Luke looked down the hall at the door. “If it will help, tell him I’m going to recommend some kind of reward for him. He had the same thought as Elias, just not as quickly, if he wouldn’t have already been moving in that direction, none of them would have survived. All three would have died when the shield generator blew.”

“Do we know why the girls didn’t run for the shelter when the alarm sounded?” Ty asked.

“Young Jessica Walter was the other girl. She told us they hadn’t heard the alarm. They did hear the shield generator come online, but thought it was just running its daily systems check. Apparently, they played up there a lot,” Luke explained.

“I think we might have to designate certain areas off-limits to the little ones,” Ty said. “I’ve over-heard a lot of people talking about leaving, since the community has been all but destroyed. Is there any truth to that?”

Luke nodded. “There is some speculation about it. Once we get all the bodies located and accounted for, and a solid damage assessment, we’ll have a meeting to talk it over. Right now is not the time for major decisions like that. We need to recover first.”

Ty looked down at the body of his friend lying on the table. “Not all of us are going to recover for a  long time. Elias will be sorely missed. Would you like me to be there when you call Ian?”

Luke sighed. “Yeah, I think it would be better if we were both there. We need to hurry though, Beth will be arriving soon, and as soon as she knows, Ian will.”

“I’ll go talk to my Marine, and come right back,” Ty said. “We can call him then.”

Luke nodded his agreement, and Ty quickly left the room. As he stood there, Luke again looked at the burnt face of his long-time friend. “Dammit, Elias! Why did it have to be you?”

––––––––

F
.S.S. Star Dancer

Geo-sync orbit over Talos, New Mexico

Earth, Sol System

––––––––

“S
ir, you have a priority call from Councilor Belden,” the communications officer said.

“I’ll take it my ready room,” Ian said wearily. “Major Dancer, please send a copy of our recent history to the Talosian ships. I’m sure they would like to know what we’ve been doing here.”

“How far back do you want me to go sir?” Star asked.

“Start at the attack on the planet Talos. Send them everything that’s happened to date, that way they’ll understand our actions, and the actions of the former crew, better,” Ian ordered.

“Yes Sir,” she replied.

“Jenny, you have the con,” Ian said as he stepped down.

“I have the con, Sir,” Jenny replied, but she looked very concerned. “Ian...” she said softly.

He stopped and looked back at her expectantly.

“It... it isn’t good news,” she said.

He looked at her as if waiting for her to finish, but she didn’t. With a sense of foreboding, he walked to his ready room.

He sat down at his desk and activated his comm, putting Luke and Ty up on the big monitor in the room.

“Ian, I have some bad news,” Luke began, but faltered. Ty put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. Looking back at Ian, Ty spoke.

“Sir, Elias Johnson was killed trying to save the life of two children during the attack. He took temporary shelter behind one of the walls of the admin building when it was hit. The wall fell, crushing him and one of the children, both perished.”

Ian was stunned. Elias was dead? That shouldn’t have even been possible. “How was he still outside when the attack came? Weren’t the civilians supposed to be in the shelters?”

“Yes Sir, and most of them were. However, the two girls were missing. We had to physically restrain their parents from staying out and looking for them. I had two squads assume the search for the girls, but Elias had already headed for the place he thought they might be. He was right. He grabbed both children, and ran for the admin building to use its elevator to get underground – it was the closest. One of our Marines had the same thought, but started later. He met Elias coming down the hill, took one of the girls, and used the speed of his suit to get her to safety. He returned for the other girl and Elias just as they took shelter behind the wall. He was buried with them when it collapsed. It was his beacon that drew a rescue party. Elias and Andreya Stavros died instantly, the Marine broke his back and suffered several crush injuries from trying to hold up the building,” Ty explained. “I’m very sorry, Sir.”

Ian nodded but took a moment to get his emotions under control. Elias had been like a father to him after his parents had passed away.

After a moment, Ian looked back up at his two friends. “Luke, Ty, you both need to know we have company up here. For now we assume they’re friendly. Two Talosian Heavy Cruisers, ships almost identical to Star Dancer, only belonging to the survivors of the destruction of the home planet. I don’t know much more yet, but they have offered their assistance.”

“I was wondering about the extra troops running around down here. I remember getting a brief message about Talosian troops coming down, but I thought they meant your Marines. Then I saw all the shuttles, and knew something was up. There were too many shuttles, and a few of them looked like upgraded assault shuttles,” Ty said.

Ian nodded. “For now, they are under our command, so use them as you need them. As soon as the rest of the Caldarian fighters and carriers in the system are dealt with, I’ll be meeting with the Commanders of the new ships. I should have more of an idea then about what’s going on.” Ian stopped and closed his eyes. Elias’ death was trying to overwhelm him, but there was still work that had to be done before he could let himself grieve.

“Ho...” he had to clear his throat. “Uh, how are Laura and Andrea doing?”

“About as well as can be expected. Beth is with them now, I asked her not to call you since Ty and I wanted to be the ones to tell you,” Luke replied. “She got here only a few minutes after we found them.”

Ian nodded. “I appreciate it. He was...” Ian was again cut off by his throat tightening. “He’ll be sorely missed. Do you want me to contact Stephanie?”

“No, I’ll handle that, if her mother hasn’t already. Ian, we may have another problem,” Luke said. “There are several military units stationed outside our shield now. I’ve already had demands from government agents to be allowed into the compound. They are demanding to know what our connection to you is. Frankly, my people just don’t want to deal with it. A lot of folks are for simply packing up, and leaving.”

Ian felt his heart thump, and his face must have registered his surprise, because Luke immediately held up his hand. “No, not leave
us
, leave the
planet
. Most want to move to the moon or the ship. There has been mention of making a colony someplace, like Mars. They just want to leave.”

“Oh,” Ian replied. “I don’t know if we actually have room for everyone up here yet. But I’ll check and see. For now, I’d increase patrols, and ignore the investigators. We’ll figure out what to do after the smoke clears and we have a better idea of what’s left.”

Luke nodded. “That’s pretty much what I’ve been telling folks. Ty already tripled the guards, and there is a full platoon of armored Marines stationed at the main gate.”

“Sir, Colonel Petrie also took his remaining people back outside the perimeter. I told him he was welcome to stay, but he said that they still had an obligation to the United States. I got the feeling that we’ll be getting a bunch of new recruits when their terms are up,” Ty added.

“They’ll be more than welcome. What about their wounded?” Ian asked.

“Once they’re cleared by medical, I’ll contact the Colonel, and arrange to get them back to him. I would just let them out the gate, but I don’t think they’d be taken back to their unit,” Ty said. “The troops that served with us, have been ‘detained for questioning’ already. I’ve half a mind to go out there and rescue them.”

Ian shook his head. “We can’t. They made this choice, they are going to have to live with it. We can’t fire on Earth forces or we violate our oaths.”

“I know,” Ty said. “I just hate to see that happen to anyone.”

Ian sighed. “Do you need anything else down there? Supplies, more medical, anything?”

“No, we got a handle on it. Now that we got the main reactor fixed and restarted, our own replicators are back online. I do need to know if there is room for our people up there, also, I have something to tell the council,” Luke said.

“I’ll have Doctor Punjab call you, Luke. I’ll also ask Jenny how many folks we can take on board. I’ll have the survey department begin looking for a suitable place to build something on Mars, but we might want to wait for the final analysis of Atlas in the Centauri system,” Ian said. “Either way, I’ll get them working on it.” He paused. “We’ll handle the funeral services later, depending on how much grief the intelligence services cause us.”

They ended the call because they all still had a lot of work to do. Ian sent a note to Dr. Punjab to have him contact Luke Belden about available room for the refugees from Talos, if they voted to abandon the settlement.

That done, he returned to the bridge. Jenny looked at him. “How bad is it?”

“Do you remember that sweet little girl that jumped into my arms at graduation?” Ian asked.

“Oh no!” Jenny said putting her hand over her mouth.

Ian nodded. “Elias was rescuing her when a building fell and crushed them both. Elias is gone.”

“Oh Gods! Stephanie’s going to be heart-broken! I don’t think she got to tell him she was pregnant!” Jenny replied

“Jen, I need you to talk to your mother, and find out how many people we can take onboard. There is a possibility that the people of Talos will vote to leave the planet, and we’ll need to have room for everyone. I sent a note to Doctor Punjab to do the same, so you might want to coordinate with them. I also need to talk to the survey folks about colonies.”

“Colonies? Where?” Jen asked.

“Well, maybe a temporary one on Mars, but I was thinking more of the Planet Atlas in the Centauri system. It’s relatively close, so we should be able to protect it as well as Earth. We’re going to need to build a shipyard anyway, and that would be the best place for it, unless we do it right here, and the people of the planet might take exception to that,” Ian replied.

“Well, the Talosian ships finished off those carriers and fighters, they’ve recovered their fighters, and are on their way in system. They should be here in a couple of hours,” Jenny reported. “Commander Serena sent a thank you note for the information you had Star send. She will try to have it reviewed by the time they get here.”

Ian nodded. “I should try to do the same with their history since the destruction of Talos.”

“I can help you with that, Sir. However, you would have to take a nap,” Star suggested.

Ian shook his head sadly. “I think sleep is going to be a problem for a while, Star. I appreciate the thought though.”

“Actually, we can use the device we used on you when you could not sleep before. If you would go and lie down in your ready room, we can get started,” Star suggested.

Jenny nodded her agreement. “We really should try to not alienate the Talosians, we might need the allies.”

“Okay, you have the con, again, and I’ll go take a nap. Star, please join me in my ready room,” Ian agreed.

“I have the con. Rest well, love,” Jen said.

Ian walked to his ready room again, this time, Star followed him. Although she was a hologram, and could have simply appeared in the room, she was trying to make her presence more like that of a human.

As Ian stretched out on the couch, Star got the device from the replicator. “Have you reviewed this information yet, Star?” Ian asked.

“Yes Sir. It is truly amazing that they managed to survive after the destruction of so many worlds, and the loss of the home world. However, they now have a new home world, and have reestablished the alliance. They have also formed an alliance with the rest of the races that had been fighting the Caldarians.”

“Sounds complicated. I’m sure I will enjoy the story,” Ian said as she sat the device on his brow.