The Phoenix Project (46 page)

    
Elliot led the way into the lift closely
accompanied by a small crowd of people that entered the elevator in an orderly,
but quick fashion. The last soldier made a fast scan of the area and backed
into the elevator. Just as he turned towards the group a flash of emerald light
hit him in the left shoulder. He grimaced in pain and stumbled into the lift.

    
“Go! Deck Twelve!” Elliot ordered as
another shot slammed into the side of the door. The Private complied, closed
the doors, and depressed the appropriate buttons to bring them to the desired floor
while Madison
attended to the wounded officer.

    
A poorly muffled curse emitted from the
area of the control panel. The Private entered panicked commands into his
device connected to the lift’s controls.

    
“Is there a problem?” Elliot asked.

    
“Yes, Sir. The elevator is being called to
another location.”

    
“I thought you could isolate these things
from the network,” Elliot said to the Private’s back.

    
“I can isolate control panels from the
network. This is different because I can’t isolate an elevator from the network;
it’s dependent on it to function. I can bring an elevator to top priority, but
it’s basically the same thing.”

    
“So what’s the problem?” Elliot asked.

    
“Somehow the priority’s been overridden.
That can happen only with someone of a really high clearance. I’m trying to
override his place. Shit!” he said, and smacked the device against the wall. “I
can’t stop it, Sir. We’re about to meet Coalition Brass.”

    
“Weapons at ready,” the Major ordered.

    
The forward rank of soldiers leveled the
barrels of their rifles at the door and waited. The elevator slowed to a halt
and beeped its arrival to pick up the ignorant hitchhiker. The doors opened to
a speechless General Nadine Hanover staring at the large group of Alliance soldiers huddled
in the elevator.

    
“Weapons down!” Elliot exclaimed to his
troops. They obediently lowered the barrel of their rifles at the command. He
pushed past them to the front of the lift.

    
“Elliot,” Nadine said in relief as he
emerged from the small crowd of fatigues and Particle Beam Rifles. “I was
convinced I was about to become a burn mark on the deck.”

    
“The rifles are set to stun.”

    
“Still, thanks for not shooting me,” Nadine
said and felt her shoulders sag from a relieved sigh at the stress exiting her
body. “I am so glad you’re here.”

    
“What’s going on?”

    
“You wouldn’t believe what’s happened in
the last day,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

    
“We’re here to rescue the prisoners.”

    
“You’re on the wrong deck.”

    
“We know we tried Deck Seventeen,” Elliot
said.

    
“They’re not there.”

    
“We discovered that, we were on our way to
Deck Twelve.”

    
“They’re not there either.”

    
Elliot looked at her, nearly helpless in the
defeat he was facing in the near future, and looked behind him at the assembled
rescue squad. Joshua admonished him with a questioning gaze of distrust for the
Coalition General in the hallway.

    
“Can you help us?” Elliot implored, looking
back to her.

    
Nadine regarded him with a riddled gaze of
sadness.

    
“I know what I’m asking.”

    
“It’s not that, Eli. I’ve already made my
choice, but if it was anyone else but you asking,” she said, and put her arms
around him. He responded in kind to her embrace and noticed how tightly she
held him. She reluctantly pulled away.

    
“You’re short on time. I heard the alert
and soldiers are already going to both decks to find you,” Nadine said.

    
“Will you help us?”

    
“Yes, get back on the elevator. I can use
my priority clearance to get you to the right deck,” Nadine said in a hurried
march of words.

    
“Wait, wait, wait,” Joshua said, voicing
the concern of nearly everyone else on the lift. “Eli, how can you be sure that
we can trust her?”

    
“We can trust her or take our chances
wandering the decks looking for about eighty Ferine hostages.”

    
“I vote for the first choice,” Madison piped up from
Joshua’s side.

    
“So do I,” Ranik said.

    
Catching the tall striped Ferine towering
above the other soldiers at the back of the lift, Nadine smiled in appreciation
of his comment.

    
“Private,” Elliot said, “give the General
access to the elevator controls.”

    
“Yes Sir,” he said and smartly stepped
aside. His face betrayed some of the awe the rest of the military ranks were
experiencing at the sight of a Coalition General aiding them in their task.
Nadine took his place at the controls and typed in her clearance code. After a
quick beep of confirmation from the panel, she typed the numbers zero and nine
into the pad and then chose a section number of the deck. The doors closed and
the lift jumped into motion.

    
“The Council specifically instructed me to
tell you where the Ferine were being held. They wanted the Alliance to attempt a rescue but they
wouldn’t tell me why.”

    
“They want us to rescue the prisoners?”
Elliot asked.

    
“I didn’t say that. They wanted you to try.
I suspect that they want you and the Ferine killed in the attempt but I don’t
know why.”

    
“Bullshit, Nadine. Why don’t you tell us
what’s going on?” Joshua demanded.

    
“I’m telling you the truth,” Nadine replied,
looking to where Joshua stood a few feet away. “If I knew I would tell you.”

    
The elevator stopped and opened onto an
empty hallway.

    
“Do you need to take the lead?” Elliot
asked Nadine.

    
“I’m the better choice. I chose a place on
Deck Nine that is usually deserted. I can get you to the prisoners, but there
are people guarding them.”

    
“I’ll take point with you. Don’t worry
about the guards. My men will take care of them,” Elliot said.

    
The two moved to the front of the group and
stepped out of the elevator.

    
“Eli, these are still my people. I don’t
want any of them killed, with or without my help,” Nadine said.

    
They walked as a couple down the corridor
while some two dozen personnel followed behind them. Ranik and Lathiel moved to
the front of the group and walked behind the pair.

    
“We’ve been ordered to avoid fatalities of
any kind. My men will stun them, not kill them.”

    
“Good.”

    
“You didn’t tell me what happened.”

    
“I’ve disobeyed orders,” Nadine said.

    
“You didn’t do what the Council told you to
do,” Elliot said with a deliberate ambiguity.

    
“I couldn’t.”

    
“What changed your mind?” Elliot asked.
They rounded another corner that led to a long dim hallway. It was thankfully,
empty.

    
“You did.”

    
They came to the end of the lengthy hallway
which ended with a major bulkhead and a heavy door blocking the way. They
stopped at the metal impediment to their progress.

    
“I can’t use my access code here. It would
show I was in this area when I shouldn’t have been.”

    
“Private, time to show your skill again,”
Elliot said. He looked to the specialist who had gotten them into and out of a
few situations in the past ten minutes.

    
“Yes Sir,” he said, and accessed the panel.
It slid open with only a brief manipulation by the capable officer. Nadine
peered down a short and wide corridor that abruptly turned a corner barely thirty
feet away.

    
“The door to the holding area is right
around there. There are a few guards but they’ll see anyone coming around that
corner,” Nadine told Elliot in a subdued voice.

    
“Hear that?” Elliot whispered to the Major
who had huddled up along with the rest of the group behind them.

    
“Yes, Sir. I think it’s a good time to use this,”
the Major said. The palm of his hand rested on a small disk shaped device
fastened to his belt.

    
“Are you sure it will work?”

    
“For a minute, but that’s all we need.”

    
“You got the go ahead, Major. Make it
happen.”

    
Nadine looked on in interest at the
conversation. She chose to speak up only once the Major had begun a cautious
walk down the corridor.

    
“What is that?” she asked pointing to the
device on the man’s belt. “It’s not lethal, is it?”

    
“No, it will just be something of a
surprise to those guards.”

    
“Okay,” Nadine said and scrutinized the
scene unfolding in front of her. The Major drew his PBP from its holster and
walked to the end of the hallway, stopping just short of the corner. He pressed
a small square red button at the center of the disc shaped object. To Nadine’s
surprise, the solid glow of a shield flowed over the man’s body, keeping itself
only half an inch from his skin.

    
The Major casually walked around the
corner, and into the eyesight of no less than four sentries standing guard in
front of a large set of double doors. At first they mistook him for a fellow
officer. Their gaze soon fixed upon a weapon being leveled at them, throwing
off their expectations. Before they could raise their rifles, he smartly hit
the first man in the chest.

    
The other three recovered and fired with
certain aim and a firm belief that they were about to fry the Alliance interloper in front of them. To
their shock, the shots briefly glowed green across the body shield and then
faded away. The Major grinned in delight of the expression of surprise and
fired the weapon three times in quick succession. Three bodies thudded to the
floor.

    
“All clear,” the Major said to the rest of
the group waiting around the corner. They advanced around the turn in the corridor.
Elliot looked at his handiwork in appreciation.

    
“Good work, Major.”

    
“Thank—you, Sir,” he replied, and depressed
the button on the device. The shield’s soft humming stopped and the field
around the Major’s body winked out.

    
“Private, if you will,” Elliot said to the
technician and indicated the large set of double doors that were the last
impediment to reaching the Ferine hostages.

    
“Glad to, Sir.”

    
“Ranik, Lathiel, you’d better take the lead
on this one. The prisoners need to see familiar faces,” Elliot said. Once the technician
finished his work, the two walked to the front of the small crowd of officers
and stood in front of the doors. They waited to see the condition of their
friends and associates they hoped were on the other side of the door. Lathiel
secretly guarded himself against the possibility of seeing another empty room.
A beep of confirmation issued from the access panel and the doors opened.

    
The large group of troops let out a
relieved sigh to discover that some eighty Ferine sat on benches and cots doing
their best to cope with the situation. At first, they looked up in mild
curiosity of the latest set of visitors. The process had begun to bore them as
the officers always asked the same questions regarding their technological
abilities and never got the answers they were intent on hearing.

    
The first few nearest to the doors looked
up and believed they were hallucinating when they saw Lathiel and Ranik in
front of a group of well armed Human soldiers crowding the hallway.

    
“Lathiel?” Danniack asked, squinting at the
spotted Ferine at the front of the group.

    
“It’s me, Danniack. You’re not imagining
this,” Lathiel assured him in a relieved voice. At the sound of his voice more
looked up from their conversations and activities to focus on the open door and
the Ferine standing in it. They began to cautiously move towards the door,
suspicious that it may be a trick.