Aurona, page 49
Her tears started to well up. “But we worked so hard to build that place, Adam, all of us! It was beautiful! It was an abstract sculpture! It was … home!”
“I know, I know! And we only got to sleep in our new quarters for one night! But all that stuff is just ‘stuff’ and can easily be replaced! Listen,” he said firmly, turning to her. “When our crew actually sees us and knows we’re alive, I’m positive it’ll encourage them. They must be thinking I was dead after I was zapped at point blank by that Razah.” His countenance darkened. “On the other hand, those stinkin’ outlaws have taken a lot of our crew as hostage to God knows where. The shields and cloaking device on our starship are engaged and nobody has a clue where they are.”
She was trembling. “Do you have a plan?”
He sighed deeply. “Don’t worry, Elena, plans formulate and evolve on the fly. I’m a lot different now, hon, somehow extremely aware. It could be a synergy of the Razah’s jolt and a lot of extra time baking in the Neuron Resuscitation Chamber….”
“Baking, Adam? Now really.”
He grinned. “Hey, whatever happened inside that contraption, it seems to have accelerated the long-term effects of the Rasheen in my brain. Somehow I can see ‘the big picture’: it’s kind of an aerial shot of the whole situation. So, looking down from this new perspective, there’s something extremely important we have to do right now.”
“What?” She wiped the tears from her face.
He lifted her chin and gazed deeply into her eyes. “After we encourage our crew, we gotta come right back here to this island and see Roson again. This whole unfortunate turn of events has put a huge dent in my plans. Now that I can, ah, ‘see’ things more clearly, there are some gut feelings and educated guesses I need to explore in depth. One of them is vital and a key to locating and rescuing the hostages. It just can’t wait! Roson’s our only hope, the only one with any real answers!”
Elena lowered her eyes. “I-I don’t know how to tell you this….”
“Tell me,” he interrupted. “I think I can take anything now.”
“Roson’s going to die, Adam. She told me. In only a few years.”
He reflected a moment. “Well, we’re all going to die someday….”
“No, she’s just been waiting for us to get here!”
He squeezed his eyes shut, his fingernails biting into the chalk railing. After a moment, he lifted his head to look around. “Well, she just can’t go! What’s gonna happen to this island, to this beautiful atrium? The whole place is gonna go to pot real fast without her here! It’s her life! It’s her home! She….”
Elena cupped her small hand over his mouth. “Shh,” she whispered, pointing discreetly over the edge of the railing, “those old ears are still pretty sharp. She’ll hear you! And remember, all that stuff is just stuff.” She motioned downward with her eyes. “They’re almost done with her speed tubes, Adam. They’re coming up right over there!” She stood on her toes to point to a spot near the base of the Motherlode tree.
“What are you trying to say?” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
“You may have figured it out already, but I’ll take a chance and give it to you straight: in a strange way, we’re Roson’s, ah, only children, so when she goes, this place, this island, will be….”
He caught his breath. “No way!”
Once more, she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Shh! Don’t argue,” she whispered, “it’s all settled! It’s in her will! She wrote it down five hundred years ago!”
There was a loud thump behind them. They spun around to see Duron stumble out of the elevator. His dark eyes widened in relief. “So here you are! I have been trying to figure out which balcony you were on,” he slit-smiled. “By the way, Adam, your range has improved and dramatically so. I was down on the beach outside when you were up on the roof!” He beamed like a proud father. “As you have requested, we will now make all necessary arrangements to accompany you with our security forces to Prima. When you return, you and Roson can work together on the details of your upcoming mission….”
“Whoa, whoa!” Elena stopped them both short. “Ah, what ‘mission,’ Adam?”
“It’s okay, hon,” he reassured. “Our first stop is definitely Prima. Really.”
“What kind of mission?” she persisted. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
He held up a hand. “Yes, I’m fine. And I won’t be alone: You’ll be with me.”
She opened her mouth to speak, thought a moment, and then pressed against him. “Whatever you say, I’ll do; I’m with you all the way. I-I’m not losing you again.”
Duron was beaming. “The elders agree, Adam. I must admire your sound decisions: your people will indeed be safer underground with us; in fact, I will personally take charge of their evacuation and Prima’s salvage operation.” He looked up with a start. “I must hurry now! The Elders are waiting for us down on the beach. The security forces have been mobilized and the SeaSpheres are forming even as we speak!” Distractedly, he hustled into the elevator. “Come down as soon as you can, both of you. Maybe I can….” The sound of his voice was cut off as the elevator door closed.
Out of nowhere, a mind-message suddenly flooded Adam’s consciousness with stunning visual scenes and a running, runic narrative. A continent away, near the edge of what was left of the once-vast desert of Arrix, a Bandor worker had just discovered an enormous, jumbled pile of goods that had been dumped out of the stolen starship. He threw aside the Motherlode sapling he’d been planting at edge of the expanding rainforest. Hastily taking off his coolant gloves and rebreather unit, he planted his feet firmly in the grass and pressed his fingers to his temples to announce his find.
Duron stumbled back off the elevator, wide-eyed. “So soon?”
Adam turned to him, equally excited. “Yes! Incredible, Duron!”
“They just dumped out everything?… Everything?”
“I guess anything that wasn’t nailed down. The stuff took up too much room.”
“But the pods, too?”
Elena pulled slowly away from them. Right out of the blue, they’d started talking in some sort of code. She glanced back and forth, trying to piece their cryptic conversation together.
“All but twenty!”
“Twenty sleep pods? But why?”
“Think a minute.”
Duron pondered. A light dawned. “Ah, more room for the gold! Then they go!”
Adam smiled. “Correct. But then, there’s….”
“Guys, guys! Stop!” She’d had enough. Inserting her small body between them, she tugged on Adam’s sleeve. “Tell me, what gold? What’re you talking about?”
Adam glanced at Duron, shrugged, then filled her in. As the story about the serendipitous find tumbled out, her mouth sagged.
“So now what?” she pressed.
Duron slit-smiled. “We simply amend our original plan, Elena. Even as we speak, my people have a large fleet of SpeedSleds and salvage barges on the way to the scene in Arrix to recover all the goods. I have given the order.” He turned his eyes toward Adam. “Ah, when you finally come back to this island, do not forget to ask Roson for two of her newest models of the SeaSpheres. They have been greatly improved with some kind of probe accelerator. And please remember, she may not be in the best of condition.”
“My wife knows her, Duron.” Adam shrugged lamely. “They’re, ah, friends. Elena can help me if things get out of hand. We’ll just have to take the chance.”
Chapter 27: EVACUATION
Down on Prima’s fan-shaped wharf, some of the remaining crew had hastily transformed the entry foyer into a hospital. Several figures moved about quickly, purposefully, completely focused on the urgent task at hand. They’d modified bits and pieces of medical equipment that had been confiscated from Elena’s research labs, and long tubes now stretched between Kron and Peter to connect their circulatory systems. Only with the aid of a direct transfusion could he hope to survive.
Shortly, Kron began to stir. As Joelle slid a respirator from his throat and propped his head up on a pillow, his eyes opened a slit. She bent bent over him to change his dressings, busily snipping and peeling away the dark, blood-encrusted wrappings and letting them fall in a stiff pile to the floor. Todd watched Joelle in fascination, his almond eyes following her movements, his small hands mirroring hers in the air. He was snipping too, adding his imaginary bandages to the pile.
“Hi, everyone,” Kron whispered weakly. “Sorry about the mess.”
As Tola pulled his chair closer, a very excited Todd hopped onto his lap. “Mess? What mess?” He thumped Kron on his arm. “The only mess I see is you, buddy!”
Kron reddened and quickly turned his face away to gaze out of the huge front window. “I-I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t stop ‘em!”
“C’mon, man. It’s not your fault. You were ambushed and overpowered!”
Kron’s disjointed memories suddenly fell into place. “So where’s Adam?”
There it was: the question was out, and they glanced nervously at each other. Tola coughed. “Ah, well, the last time we saw him, he was still breathing.”
Kron’s eyes widened in alarm. “What happ…?”
“Whoa, settle down.” Tola pushed him back against his pillow. “It was a Razah, not a bullet. We were following him and Elena back from Meseo, but he’d turned on his Advanced Autopilot and was way ahead of us. Then this Razah came out of nowhere. Adam was trying to save Todd when he dropped his Stifler and everything backfired. Your little Todd here blasted the Razah and threw him off-target just before the beast winged Elena with a stun, and….”
“Whoa, whoa,” he interrupted. “So where are they now?”
Tola shrugged. “To tell you the truth, we don’t know. Duron and the elders took them both away. They mentioned something about an island.”
“Crud,” Kron fretted. “So all our leaders are who knows where, and I’m knocked for a loop? This is great. You know, I suspected they were here all along….”
“They?” Peter interrupted. “There’s someone else? Who do you mean?”
Joelle glanced over her shoulder. “Dexor and his three stooges, who else?”
Kron shook his head. “No, no! They’re just small-time wannabes. I saw a lot of other weird faces, aliens that I’d never seen before! Their leader was really ugly, a scarred dude with this huge hood, griping and whining something about a ‘long trip.’”
Peter pulled back, alarmed. “What? Nobody else came with us to Aurona, unless….”
“You’re puttin’ it together, man,” Kron rasped. “We had a stowaway! That hooded guy was on the ship with us for seven hundred years! Believe it or not, I think Dexor and his gang may have brought him aboard.”
“No way!” Peter sat up, yanking strips of tape from his arm.
“Yes way,” he returned. “Remember all the confusion in that old warehouse on the morning we left Earth? I’m sure that’s when those goons snuck him aboard!”
Peter swung his legs to the floor. “So what did you see this morning?”
Kron grimaced in pain as he pushed himself into a more upright position. “Well, I heard these banging noises coming from Adam’s commander’s quarters and started running down the East hall,” he scowled. “Someone was boasting his head off, and when I came around the corner, they just started pouring out of the door and yelling. Before I could say a word, someone popped me! I-I must’ve had no pulse when they checked or they’d have finished me off right then and there!”
Joelle pointed out the window. “I heard this crackling noise and then saw our ship take off,” she stated matter-of-factly. “They engaged the cloaking device, too.”
“That’s right,” Peter affirmed. “Poof…. Gone!”
Kron clutched his chest. “But-but Adam and I are the only ones who know how to work those controls! Do you know what that means? They got the holodiscs, too! They know how to run everything! Everything!” As he lay there moaning, a concerned Todd reached out and laid his small hand on his arm.
Tola had been quietly contemplating. “The Bandors said the same thing down in Meseo, so our stories line up. Now let’s be objective and think like Adam. He thinks differently… no, way differently than most of us. What would he do here?”
Joelle dropped her laser scissors with a clatter. “Well, I don’t know what he’d do, but I’m sure how he’d feel! Hurt! Betrayed! Deeply betrayed, like all of us!”
“Amen to that,” Tola nodded. “But he wouldn’t let his feelings stand in the way of clear thinking, would he? Let’s assume those creeps had no serious weapons aboard, just small stuff like rifles, handguns, and Stiflers.” He tapped on Kron’s chest. “They did commission a bullet for that job, right?”
“Yeah,” Kron returned, hesitantly, “so what are you driving at?”
“We got one big thing in our favor: they dropped our only crate of Stifler rechargers in all the confusion. It was lying on its side near the communications tower, and it looked like it was still full!”
“Wow!” Kron brightened. “Hallelujah! They’ve got no juice!”
Tola shrugged. “But the creeps still have the big advantages, though: one, our cloaked starship, and two, about a hundred hostages! They can land completely undetected anywhere on the planet and force our friends into slave labor!”
Peter moaned. “And they took Ariel, too! They’re unstoppable! If they’re spotted, they can literally disappear!”
There were some banging sounds and a lot of rustling behind them. They turned to see Joelle off in a corner helping a few women sort through rumpled piles of clothing and debris. As they paused to peer out forlornly into the empty courtyard, Todd busily kept up the pace, randomly making piles of his own.
Tola hiked Kron’s blankets back up over his chest. “The women are right: the best thing we can do is to follow Joelle’s example and salvage what we’ve got left.”
Joelle glanced up, scowling. “Just look at this mess! Why’d they have to pull everything out of Elena’s closet and dump it out here? There are some lacy items a girl just … needs!”
Kron raised a brow. “Well,” he grinned, “don’t give up, Joelle, we all may still get our, ah, things back. Anything’s possible here, anything.”
Todd raised his small voice. “An-ting!” he echoed.
Peter chuckled. “I’ll vouch for that!”
Joelle stood on her toes, wiping the inside of a blackened window with a piece of torn clothing. “So what’s next, guys? You three seem to be putting this puzzle together faster than any of us. It’s up to you, and….”
“Hey, what’s that sound?” Peter interrupted, cocking an ear. As a clamor of shouts arose from the pier, he ran over to the front window. “They’re here! Adam and Elena are climbing out of … huh? What kind of weird contraption is that? A bubble? This lake connects to the ocean? And-and look on the horizon! A whole lot of Bandors are coming toward us, and they’ve got a fleet of starships exactly like ours!”
Five titanic saucers were skimming toward them over the surface of the lake, their blue lasers fanning out and penetrating the surface of the water to the lakebed to establish their positions in the air. They stopped as a unit and hovered noiselessly, then one pulled away and touched down smoothly on the shoreline.
“Adam’s back? Starships?” Kron reached out feebly. “Lemme see….” As Joelle wheeled his bed to the window, Todd excitedly hopped aboard.
Peter’s focus returned to the bubble. “Wow, it’s … gone! What was that shiny thing?” he said, pointing. “The outside just dissolved and the gold blew away in the wind! All that’s left is some kind of disc and a black box!”
As the group poised to run, Kron called out weakly, trying his best to appear controlled. “Keep me posted….” Forlornly, he watched them scoot out the door. Todd wasn’t interested at all; he sat ensconced on the foot of Kron’s bed, eyeing his bandages and comparing them to his own.
Kron held out his arms with a lopsided grin. “C’mere, you little squirt!”
“Who, me?” Peter twirled around, a finger poised on the face of his wrist programmer. “Just kidding, man,” he said, laughing. “Hey, I’ll shoot you a text!”
A sea of white-robed Bandors flowed out of the saucer into the city, mingling with the remaining slate blue-uniformed crewmembers. Side by side they poked as a team through the rubble, shooing away Aeronautas and stripping Prima of equipment and people. Soon it resembled a ghost town, gaunt and lifeless in the sun.
It didn’t take long for Kron to get his text. Peter’s dictated words scrolled by: “Hey, you! We’ve just been informed that we’re going underground! Duron’s in charge. See you shortly….” The message was hardly off his screen when the old one was at the door, slit-smiling. As he stepped aside and waved an arm, Adam and Elena entered right on his heels with the crew pouring in behind them.
The best of the Bandor physicians were waiting for Kron in one of their starship’s hospital bays, instruments in hand and translator buttons activated. Wasting no time, they quickly lowered an arched rectangular frame of intricately woven gold wires over his chest. There was a large opening in the middle.
Kron raised his head off his pillow. “What’s this?” he whispered, nervously eyeing the contraption. “You left room to, ah … cut?” Seeing Joelle and Todd lingering outside the door, he leaned aside and gave her a subtle shooing motion.
Duron nervously turned to Joelle and repeated Kron’s gesture. “Sorry, Joelle, it is best that the little one does not see.”
A Bandor doctor activated the display. As he tapped a row of virtual buttons, ghostly, out-of-focus images began to float in the middle of the rectangle. In an odd way, they seemed almost abstract and organic in form, yet disturbingly familiar.
Kron bit his lip, watching the doctor’s long, slender fingers play like an artist over the impossibly complex controls near his elbow. As the blurred forms slowly coalesced into solid shapes, his eyes riveted in shock on the moving mass of tissue that made up his inner body. “M-my guts!”
