Then Sherri stepped forward and looked at the two aliens. “You know them?” she asked Adam.
He grinned. “Yeah, this is Kaylor and Jym, the two aliens I told you about who saved me from the Klin ship.”
“Aliens?” Jym said. Adam patted him on the shoulder. He could tell Jym was still sensitive about being called that.
“What are the two of you doing here?”
Kaylor looked suspiciously at both Riyad and Sherri, and then sat back down on the cot. Jym did the same. “We were on a run off New Regian when a Juirean cruiser tracked us down and brought here.”
“Why’d they do that?”
Adam saw Kaylor’s jaw tighten. “All they kept asking about was that blasted computer core again. We told them we didn’t have it, that the other Juireans took it. They kept asking if we had accessed any of its data. We kept saying no — until they threw us in here. I’m afraid they are going to use torture on us next if we don’t tell them what they want to hear.”
“But how did they even know who you were? I thought all the records were destroyed?”
“I don’t know how,” Kaylor kept eyeing Riyad, watching the pirate as he moved to the only sink in the room and began to wash some of the dust off of his face. Sherri waited her turn to do the same. “But they found out somehow. What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story, but let’s just say the Sileans may not be too happy with what we did to Kroekus’ headquarters…”
“Kroekus!” Jym screamed. “You haven’t upset Kroekus, have you?”
“Upset might be on the milder side of things,” Riyad said stepping up to stand next to Adam. “I’m assuming he’s still alive.”
“Now you have Kroekus after you? And here we are again in a cell…with you!” Kaylor’s temper flared, but he quickly calmed down when the third Human stepped up in front of him.
Adam shook his head. “Don’t worry about Kroekus. What are the Juireans doing here — and why so many of them?”
“I can probably answer that,” Riyad said as all eyes fell on him. He went on to quickly relate the story of the battle off Dimloe and his subsequent arrival on Silea.
“So there were more Humans?” Adam asked, stunned by what he heard.
“I told you so,” Sherri said. “Those strange men I first met did not seem right. Could they be the same ones who fought the Juireans?”
“No doubt,” Riyad said. “But their leader blathered on about how they were the ones running the show and only using the Klin for their own purposes.”
“That’s bullshit,” Adam stated. “Something’s not right here.”
Sherri stepped next to Adam and squeezed his arm. “You know what we have to do. We can’t stay here much longer. We have to get to Zylim-4-”
“Zylim-4?” Riyad blurted out. The other two Humans turned towards him, shocked by his intensity.
“”You’ve heard of the place?” Adam asked.
“Well, yeah. It’s a mining colony. Radiation everywhere, that’s all.”
Adam studied Riyad’s face for a moment before turning his attention back to Sherri. “Yeah, we’ve got to get out of here and back to my ship. Once the Juireans find out who we are, and track down the Cassie 1, we’ll be trapped here on Silea.”
“So what’s the plan, Admiral,” Riyad said sarcastically.
Adam shot him an angry look. “Well, I supposed we could do the old ‘you hide in the rafters,’” he nodded to Sherri, “while the two of us fake a fight to attract the guards, then we over-power them’ plan. I’ve seen it work in the movies dozens of times.”
“What are you talking about?” Kaylor inquired from his seat on the cot.
Adam turned to him. “Just stay where you are and watch. Be ready to move when I say so.”
“We’re not going with you this time!” Jym protested.
“So stay here, and let the Juireans torture you to death. It’s all the same to me.”
Then he turned and nodded to Sherri, who effortlessly jumped up and grabbed one of the power conduits that trailed across the ceiling. She wrapped her legs around it and clung there, looking down at Adam, smiling.
Then Adam whirled around, and landed a powerful right cross directly on Riyad’s chin. The pirate fell back against the wall and slid down to the floor. And then Adam was on him. He pulled Riyad’s face close to his. “That’s for strapping a bomb on my ankle and then trying to kill me.”
After that, the real ‘mock’ fight began. They punched at each other, yelled and cursed, and overturned cots, basically anything to cause as loud a ruckus as they could.
After a few seconds, the bolt on the door slid aside and the heavy metal door swung open. Two Silean guards, armed with shock-sticks, entered and rushed toward the two men fighting on the floor. As they passed below Sherri, she let loose with her legs and swung down, striking the two guards in the back with her feet. That was all that was needed. The two lighter-weight aliens flew hard into the concrete wall of the cell and collapsed.
Adam and Riyad rushed over quickly and disarmed the guards, and then the three Humans moved to the door, Adam with a shock-stick on one side, Riyad on the other. Then Adam turned to Kaylor and Jym. “You coming?”
After only a moment’s hesitation, they lifted from the cot and ran to the door.
Adam had paid special attention to the route they took inside the building as they were led to the cell. So outside the cell he turned left in the hallway and led the group to another closed door at its end. This door was not as secure as the cell door, and when Adam opened it, he was instantly confronted with three uniformed Sileans, who stopped in their tracks with shocked looks across their faces.
Not bothering to shock them with the electrified rod, Adam simply used it as a club, and in a moment the three guards lie unconscious on the floor. None of these guards carried bolt weapons either, just more of the shock-sticks.
The five escapees ran down the now-deserted hallway until Adam passed an open door on his left. He stopped abruptly, and the other four crashed into him, like some scene from a Keystone Cops movie. Recovering, Adam backtracked to the room.
As he entered, Adam saw the window, large and displaying the outside ground-level of the building. Hoping the glass wasn’t shatter-proof, he hefted a chair from behind a desk and threw it into the window. The glass shattered, and then using the shock-stick, Adam broke away more of the glass so they could all simply step through the opening and onto the grassy ground outside.
No alarms sounded, so they moved quickly through the dark shadows of the Silean night until they reached the main street running along the front of the building. There were several transports parked along the side of the street, including a decent-sized panel truck-looking vehicle.
They moved to the truck and Adam tried the driver’s side door. Luck was with them; it was unlocked. All of them quickly jumped in, Adam in the driver’s seat, Riyad riding shotgun, while Sherri and the two aliens climbed in the open rear cab.
Adam had never hot-wired an alien truck before, so he leaned down to look under the dashboard. Then Riyad reach over and pressed the start button directly above Adam’s head. Adam heard the electric motor begin to whirl. The two of them stared at each other for a moment, until Adam grabbed the center toggle and pressed it forward.
They were on their way to the spaceport and the Cassie 1.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ransin stood before the large monitor in an office of the Silean Security Center and shifted nervously as Giodol addressed him. He wasn't particularity nervous about speaking with Giodol; they had had a working relationship for several years now. It was the large, blue-haired Overlord behind him that made him nervous. This would be Lord Yan’wal, whose reputation was known throughout the entire Expansion.
The raid on Kroekus’ headquarters had gone more-or-less according to plan, and the Humans had been extricated unharmed. They had been placed in a cell with the two other beings from Adam Cain’s past, and had even managed to pick up another Human somewhere along the way. It was obvious the female was the other one from Castor, the second assassin who had checked into the rest facility with Cain. What her contribution would be to the plan remained unknown. All Ransin knew was that she was a Human, and therefore a major threat.