Marathon: The Complete Series (Books 1-9) (Complete Series Box Sets), page 65
part #1 of Marathon Series
“What will that accomplish?” Blake Clifton asked from behind Eckhart’s podium. “You can’t leave pockets of Regiment staff under guard across the galaxy. Leaving them alive will only give them a chance to fight back.”
Eckhart raised his eyebrow at his friend. “Are you encouraging me to kill them all? I’m surprised at you.”
Clifton shrugged and looked away. ‘I’m just saying it’s inconsistent with your mission.”
“We’ll blow every ship on the planet. They won’t be able to leave, and then we won’t have to guard them. Besides, every alien on the fringes will be looking out for renegade Regiment Earthlings. The Regiment staff will be much safer if they stay here.” Eckhart stepped off his podium. “Put us down with the others, Rixby. I’ll be right back.”
“Are you going to talk to the command staff?” Coleman DeWalt asked. “Do you want me and Clifton to come with you?”
“Not yet. Stay here. I’ll handle this.”
“They might be more considerate if they see you with more Earthlings,” Clifton pointed out.
“That’s exactly why I want them to see me with aliens. I want them to understand they aren’t facing an Earthling crew.”
Eckhart walked off the bridge and passed Squids on his way to the elevator. Squids had been unusually retiring since Eckhart had taken Aistenz’s mantle. Maybe Squids didn’t know how to act now that his long-time boss was dead.
Then again, so many crazy things had been happening since then, Eckhart hadn’t had a chance to discuss Squids’ position with his new majordomo.
Eckhart made a mental note to touch base with Squids as soon as the Atera left Guzion. Every leader needed his righthand man, and Eckhart couldn’t ask for a better lieutenant than Squids.
He stepped into the elevator, and to his surprise, four huge Iawei accompanied him. Eckhart didn’t notice them on the bridge while the battle was going on. Their hulking forms made him feel puny, and all four carried massive pounders bigger than Eckhart’s chest.
“What are you boys doing?” Eckhart asked. “I don’t remember assigning any new people to the bridge.”
“Squids assigned us,” the biggest Iawei boomed. “He assigned us to be your bodyguard.”
Eckhart burst out laughing. The idea of him having a bodyguard shouldn’t seem so ridiculous, especially after one of the fringe criminal syndicates had already tried to assassinate him.
The Iawei didn’t seem to think it was funny, though. They faced front, and when the elevator opened on the landing platform, the four Iawei flanked him on all sides.
They followed him down to the ground. The three remaining battlecruisers of Aistenz’s fleet formed a glistening line in the sun.
More alien ships descended to land around the Atera. Eckhart’s throat tightened when the Marathon zoomed overhead, rotated once, and lowered onto its landing gear.
Smoke billowed from one engine housing, and part of the Marathon’s hull had been scorched by plasma burns. The hatch opened and two people came out: a Bion wearing a gas mask over her face, and a tall, thin, lanky alien who looked both young and old at the same time.
Eckhart bit back a grin and nodded toward the ship. “What happened to you? Are you losing your touch?”
“You wish, Eckhart,” Alice snarled through her mask. “We’ll need a fresh load of Celdian after that battle.”
“Get in touch with Squids and help yourself. In fact….” Eckhart waved at the other alien craft assembling all over the station. “We can probably help ourselves to the Regiment supplies while we’re here. You can take charge, Alice. Make sure all these ships get refueled and rearmed for the next assault.”
Alice stared at him with her black, sightless eye sockets. “Me! You want me to do it?”
“Why not? Are you doing something else?”
“The Marathon…”
“Yes?” Eckhart prompted. “What about it?”
“It’s…small. The Marathon isn’t big enough to command all these ships. The fringe aliens would never stand for it.”
“I’m not talking about the Marathon. I’m talking about you. I need people commanding this army for me. I need people I can trust. Rixby is on the Atera and Dallas is handling the ground troops. You take over the air force, Alice.” She gaped at him for a minute and then turned away. “You can handle that, can’t you?”
She didn’t answer, but Innyria laughed. He clapped Alice on the back, which was a hell of a lot more intimate a gesture than Eckhart ever would have dared to make. “I told you you’d take over this operation one day. So whose ass are you gonna kick first—besides mine?”
“Who are they?” Eckhart jutted his chin at four aliens hanging around the Marathon’s hatch.
They were all Sataad, a scaly, semi-reptilian race with large, glassy black eyes and no visible mouths. They wore no clothes except that each one wore a sidearm. Those guns reminded Eckhart curiously of the weapons he’d left behind on the Marathon.
“They’re our new crew,” Innyria replied. “When we left the Atera, Alice took me back to Parilia like you told her to. When we got there, the whole place was buzzing with the news that you were going after the Regiment. The Chosen and the Immortals were all mobilizing every ship and fighter they could muster. These four wanted to go, but they weren’t attached to any gang, so they were grounded. They overheard us talking about coming back to rendezvous with you, and they asked if they could sign on.”
“How have they been shaping up since then?” Eckhart asked.
“They’re a massive pain in the ass,” Alice growled. “None of them knows how to fly.”
“But that doesn’t matter, because you know how to fly, don’t you?” Innyria countered. “Alia is brilliant with the records—almost as good as Rixby—and Chara is one hell of a shot. She never misses.”
Eckhart studied the four Sataad. “Are they all female?”
“Kogor is the only male.”
“They’re useless,” Alice grumbled. “Taking them on was a big mistake.”
Innyria only smiled at her. “They’ll learn. We all had to start somewhere.”
Eckhart couldn’t stop looking back and forth between Innyria and Alice. They were sure getting along well, considering how much Alice had bad-mouthed Innyria when he first joined the Marathon crew.
Eckhart had never seen anyone—not anyone—treat Alice with such obvious affection. Innyria acted positively warm toward her. Eckhart and his crew never dared to do that. Alice always acted so prickly toward all of them, even toward Eckhart, whom she considered her closest friend.
Just then, Dallas trooped over. “The station is secure, Eckhart—all except the command staff. The ground troops are stationed around the pilot’s barracks. None of those fools is going anywhere, but we thought you’d want to deal with the command staff yourself. None of the aliens want to go inside.”
“I’m coming. You have your orders, Alice. Get these ships resupplied. If you have any problems, check in with Rixby on the Atera.” Eckhart turned away to join Dallas. “Are the command staff armed?”
“They have a few security guards posted inside with sidearms. The control room was protected by cannon towers, so the command staff might have thought they didn’t need weapons.”
“So no one’s even tried to communicate with the command staff?”
Dallas chuckled. “No one will admit it, but I think these fierce aliens are as afraid of Earthlings as the Earthlings are of them.”
“I guess that puts me in charge.” Eckhart halted outside the command control room. “How do you feel about coming inside with me? Are you afraid of a few Regiment officers carrying sidearms?”
“I’m not afraid. I’ll come if you want me to.”
“I’d better face them alone first just so no one gets any trigger-happy ideas. Do me a favor, though, will you?”
“Anything, Eckhart. Just name it.”
“Stand out here and scan the control room while I’m inside. If you see anyone getting twitchy or moving their hand toward their weapon, come inside and diffuse the tension.”
Dallas laughed much louder. “I’m quite sure my presence will increase the tension rather than diffuse it.”
“You’re probably right.” Eckhart patted Dallas’ enormous shoulder. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Eckhart. You’re going to need it.”
Eckhart opened the door and stepped into the control room. About thirty men waited for him inside, all of them holding up their hands in an attitude of surrender.
They stared at Eckhart with huge eyes, and they all looked petrified. No one moved. None of these people posed a threat to him. They really were just as afraid of the fringe aliens as the aliens were of them. The situation couldn’t be more comic.
Eckhart took a deep breath. “You can all put your sidearms here on this workstation, and then you can put your hands down. We aren’t here to kill you.”
The officers exchanged glances and slowly started to lower their arms. They came forward one after another and deposited their guns under Eckhart’s eye before they returned to their places. Some raised their hands again, checked themselves, and lowered them.
Once they’d all disarmed, Eckhart drew in another steadying breath. “Now here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to move you all over to the pilots’ barracks. A bunch of your boys are waiting over there and they’re under alien guard. Once we secure Guzion, we’ll destroy every ship on the planet, and then we’ll leave you alone. You’ll be left to your own devices for the duration of the war, but you won’t be able to leave Guzion. Is that understood?”
“You mean,” one captain ventured. “You aren’t going to kill us?”
“I wasn’t planning to. If you don’t provoke the aliens, you should all survive the war and make it back to Earth and your families when this is all over.”
The officers frowned and looked at each other. “But…you’re an Earthling,” one of them pointed out.
“Is that relevant?” Eckhart asked. “I’m on the alien side. That’s all you need to know. Now I want your assurance that you’ll all cooperate and not try anything once you get outside.”
“Why would we try anything?” someone else asked. “None of us wants to die.”
“Just do as I ask and cross to the pilots’ barracks. Don’t do anything that the aliens might see as a threat. Understand?”
The officers nodded. “All right,” Eckhart began. “Let’s all line up here by the—”
A high-pitched whine caught his ear and he cocked his head to listen.
The officers all looked around, too. Some checked the nearby workstations, trying to locate the source of the noise. “What is that?” Eckhart asked.
“I’m not sure.” A lieutenant fiddled with the controls. “I can’t locate it and I can’t turn it off.”
Eckhart went to the man’s side and saw at a glance that the lieutenant was telling the truth. The station’s instruments gave an accurate assessment of the situation outside. Nothing showed up that might cause the noise.
“Wait here,” Eckhart told the man. “I have a friend outside who can—”
He started toward the door to call Dallas inside. He made it four steps when the whine spiked to a shriek, and the next instant, the control room exploded in an unholy ball of fire.
2
Alice ducked when a ground-shaking boom rocked Guzion Station. She froze when she saw the control room in flames and Dallas crouched at the edge of the fire.
Alice charged into a full run. She would have run straight into the blast, but Dallas launched to his feet and grabbed her. He muscled her away with his overpowering strength. “No! You can’t go in there!”
“Eckhart!” Alice thundered “Eckhart!”
“There’s nothing you can do!” Dallas hauled her another twenty feet back before he slackened his grip. “It’s over.”
Alice shook him off, but he blocked her path with his huge armored bulk. “What the hell happened? You were supposed to be guarding him.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything,” Dallas snapped. “He’s the one who’s supposed to be in charge of the rest of us.”
“So you let him walk right into a trap? You’re supposed to be his friend, Dallas!”
“I scanned the building the whole time he was inside. He disarmed the whole command staff. He was never in any danger.”
“Then how do you explain this?!” she bellowed. She waved at the fireball that didn’t diminish with the passing seconds.
Dallas turned around and inclined his head to one side. He was scanning the fire even now. “There was no sign. I can’t explain what happened.”
“That isn’t good enough!” Alice barked. “What are we supposed to do now?”
Dallas sighed. “He was my friend, too, but there’s nothing we can do. Get back to the Marathon. We have to—”
“To hell with the Marathon!” she roared. “Screw the Marathon! I don’t want the damn Marathon! I want Eckhart, Dallas!”
Dallas waved her away. “Come over to the Atera with me, then. We need to see Rixby and Bing right away…and Squids.”
He stepped around her to where Innyria waited for them. Innyria turned to accompany Dallas back to the Atera, but Alice didn’t move.
Her sightless eyes picked up chemical fluctuations in the fire. Datrium, Triorium, and a few other explosives combined into a searing inferno that might burn for hours. It blistered Alice’s cheeks, but she didn’t leave.
She struggled to stop herself from rushing into the flames to search for Eckhart. She couldn’t bring herself to accept that he was dead, not after all the years they’d spent together on the Marathon.
He’d saved her life and she’d saved his, too many times to count. Even after he gave her the Marathon so she could be free, she never fully believed that she would ever be very far away from him. He couldn’t be gone. This world couldn’t exist without Eckhart in it somewhere.
She drifted into a daze watching the chemicals swirl before her eyes. They calmed her enough to make her notice something strange. “Dallas!”
“What?”
“Look.”
“This is pointless. Let’s—”
She spun around, grabbed his arm, and dragged him back to where they both stood a moment before. “Look, Dallas.” She turned him so his helmet faced the fire. He inclined his head one way and then the other. “Do you see that?”
“It makes no sense,” he muttered. “It’s impossible. Maybe the fire was too hot. Maybe…”
Innyria came up behind them. “What’s going on?”
Alice whirled away. “Eckhart is alive. Come on, Dallas.”
Dallas fell in at her side. They both set off at a rapid clip toward the Atera. “How can you be sure he’s alive?” Innyria asked. “No one could survive that fire.”
“There were no bodies in the flames,” Dallas replied. “Burning bodies give off a very distinct set of chemical indicators. It’s unmistakable, and my scanners have been programmed to detect them even at solar temperatures.”
“Charming,” Innyria muttered. “Really heartwarming, man.”
“The blast came from underneath the control room,” Alice went on. “That’s why Dallas didn’t detect it priming to blow while Eckhart was inside. The charges were hidden underground.”
“Are you saying the Regiment mined its own control room?” Innyria asked. “Why would they do that?”
“To stop anyone from taking control of the station, of course,” Dallas replied.
“But they would have killed their whole staff,” Innyria pointed out.
Just then, Clifton and DeWalt came running over. “What…what happened?” Clifton panted.
“Go back to the Atera and find Squids,” Dallas ordered. “Tell him to bring Rixby, Bing, and Akkek to the bridge conference room on the double. We have a situation.”
“I’ll say we do,” DeWalt’s voice cracked. “Eckhart is dead. This is a disaster.”
“He isn’t dead,” Alice snapped. “He’s been captured by the Regiment.”
Clifton and DeWalt both stopped dead in their tracks while Dallas, Alice, and Innyria kept walking. Alice didn’t turn around a second time.
Someone stole Eckhart, and for that, they deserved to die. No one messed with Alice’s friends and got away with it. Eckhart was always too kind and soft to be much of a criminal overlord, but that didn’t mean anything.
Clifton and DeWalt recovered by the time Alice, Dallas, and Innyria entered the Atera. The four young Sataads from the Marathon and four enormous Iawei that Alice didn’t recognize met them there.
“Who the hell are you?” Alice asked the Iawei.
“We’re Eckhart’s bodyguards. He told us to let him question the command staff alone. We’re responsible for this disaster. Squids will turn us over to the disciplinary staff for punishment.”
“You aren’t responsible for anything and no one is going to be punished for anything,” Dallas replied. “Eckhart isn’t dead, and if you’re responsible for his safety, you can help us get him back.”
Alice led the way to the elevator. She didn’t see how the Iawei could get inside it with the rest of the Marathon crew, but before she got there, the doors opened.
Squids burst out wringing his hands. “What are we going to do? This is terrible! We just lost Aistenz and now this! We need to appoint another leader immediately. Alice—”
“Eckhart isn’t dead,” she interrupted. “He’s been captured by the Regiment and we’re going after him, so we’ll need all the resources you can give us.”
Squids froze. “Are you sure? The fire…”
“We’re sure,” Dallas replied. “Come upstairs, Squids. We need your help…and bring Bing up there, too. We need to tell him what’s happened.”
Dallas stepped into the elevator with Alice and Innyria. The three of them took up all the space, and they rode up to the bridge.
“Where do you think they took him?” Innyria asked on their way up.
“Another Regiment station, of course,” Alice snarled.
“Or Earth,” Dallas suggested. “They’ll want to make a spectacle out of a prisoner as valuable as Eckhart.”
