Lathiel swiped the stolen I.D. card through the slot in the reader, and hoped it would give him access.
Success, a green light blinked on and he quietly entered the armoury.
There in the small room, barely larger than himself, and only dimly lit he noticed a rack of ten dusty looking pulse rifles and two heavy machine guns, together with a dozen or so combat knives.
It was prudent of the E.D. F to arm their transport crews, especially since the spate of Krenaran attacks on E.D. F transports in the last month, attempting to disrupt E.D. F supply lines. However, this time it allowed an assassin of the calibre of Lathiel to gain the upper hand.
The Krenaran agent weighed up the weapons, he had learned that the heavy machine guns were more powerful and had a faster rate of fire. However the pulse rifle was more accurate at range, he picked up a pulse rifle and grabbed two combat knives.
Lathiel had no idea whether he would actually use the pulse rifle or not as he was a master of close quarters fighting and could use those twin knives to devastating effect anyway.
After retrieving the weapons, he left the armoury as quietly as he entered and headed for the bridge.
After making it back to the elevator, he keyed in deck 1 for the bridge and was soon on the spartan looking command centre of the entire transport. He could blow the docking latches and launch the ship right now if he wanted, however a renegade ship like that would attract far too much attention and peregrine fighters would be swarming over his bow within minutes, better to wait until the transport gets under way officially.
As he looked over this dingy excuse for a command centre he noted the different stations, there was the rudimentary ships pilots console, the operations station, and the rather worn captains chair. Around the walls of this rectangular room were some small displays, there was a door to the side of the bridge that read ‘captains quarters’.
He tried to open the door, however it had been locked out, instead he tried the pilots console, Lathiel needed to know where this ship was going. Hopefully the pilot had already plotted a flight plan into his console.
Lathiel accessed the console and found that indeed he had, this transport was heading to Barnards star to pick up medical supplies from a small facility there, and would be departing delta base at 09:00 hours tomorrow morning. It’s a shame it will never make it there, he thought with an evil smile.
The Liberty was hurtling toward Earth at plasma factor 6.5, the ships maximum speed was plasma factor 7, however Kinraid had advised Michael that if they attempted that speed, the Liberties already weakened hull could start to give way.
“ So, how does this morphos x drug work?” Michael asked Dalvosh.
“ It is the result of several years of research in perfecting the ultimate assassin. It is secreted by a gland contained within Lathiels rib cage, it causes him extreme pain whenever it is used, but allows him to assume any humanoid form at will.”
“ So he could walk right into this command centre and change into any one of us.”
“ Yes, however he would have to have some form of physical contact first.”
“ Like what?”
“ A pat on the back, a handshake, that sort of thing,” Dalvosh replied. “However he does have one weakness.”
“ Which is?” Vargev asked after listening in to the conversation.
“ His basic D.N. A structure remains Krenaran, and it can be picked up by any scanner capable of scanning D.N. A sequences.”
“ Like a Solarian scanner,” Eldathar cut in.
“ Exactly, that was why the Solarians present at Perseus picked him up,” Dalvosh said nodding.
“ Lucky for us we ‘ave a few of those Solarian scanners aboard,” Kinraid said.
“ What’s our status?” Michael asked.
“ The ship’s still in a bad way, te’ damage we took getting into orbit will have to be repaired before we set down on Earth otherwise we will simply burn up in te’ atmosphere,” Kinraid replied.
“ We’ll have to make repairs on-route, we don’t have time to stop at a repair facility.” Michael said as he pressed a control on his wrist comm. “Alexander to Logameier.”
“ Logameier here captain, I’m a little busy right now, what’s up?” replied the chief engineer, who was busily strengthening the weakened bulkheads around the destroyed torpedo launcher.
“ Can you re-configure some Solarian scanners to be usable by humans?”
“ I’ll have a couple of the Solarian technicians take a look at them. Might I ask what for?” Logameier asked rubbing sweat from his brow, it was still warm in here from the heat build up after leaving the atmosphere. He really didn’t need more tasks right now, it was taking every last minute of his time keeping the Liberty from falling apart.
“ It’s going to help us hunt some assassin,” Michael smiled.
“ I like the sound of that captain, I’ll get some Solarian techs right on it.”
“ Good man,” with that, Michael ended the transmission.
“ Anything else I need to know about?” Michael asked, his hopes buoyed a little now that they had a way to track this little chameleon.
“ Apart from the fact that Lathiel is lethal with both close combat and ranged weapons, and can melt into the background virtually anywhere, I can’t think of a thing,” Dalvosh replied with a hint of sarcasm, he knew the humans were out of their league in dealing with Lathiel right now.
“ Riiight, nothing to worry about then,” Michael replied, his hopes cruelly dashed again.
Vargev restrained a slight chuckle, he was actually beginning to like this Dalvosh. However on second thought, nope, he hated all Krenarans equally.
“ Can’t this thing go any bloody faster?” Michael asked, wanting to vent his frustration at something.
“ Sorry captain, not without further damage to the ship,” Eldathar replied from the pilot’s chair.
The Liberty continued hurtling through the star-lit blackness of deep space.
Next morning Lathiel awoke early, he had stowed away in a dark disused area of the cargo hold, between some unknown crates. This frail Terran body ached from sleeping on the cold, hard floor. He slowly got to his feet, his eyes had developed a kind of crusty, powdery deposit in the corners either side of his Terran ‘nose’. He had no idea what it was but knew that it irritated him, and so he rubbed at them with his finger, at once this annoying deposit had cleared.
He felt lethargic, and shook his head to release the fuzzy feeling, gradually feeling a little better and slightly more alert.
Making his way out of the cargo hold, he found that the ships crew or prey as he liked to think of them, had returned as they nonchalantly strode down the corridor past him completely oblivious to the danger he represented. Although his appearance altering drug caused him immense pain, he liked being able to pass unnoticed, being able to slip through virtually any net, all he had to do was kill someone, something which came very easily to him.
11. The mystery of transport blue-177
Lathiel knew there would be problems, with such a small crew everyone knew everyone, so he had to keep to himself as much as possible. Since everyone was busily getting the ship ready for departure, he decided that he would hole up in a cramped, confined, gloomy maintenance access corridor on deck six for the time being.
“ Hey Siccio!” One of the crewmen shouted.
Crewman Siccio walked over to him, “whassup Frankie?”
“ You seen a weird looking guy walking around here lately?” crewman mike ‘Frankie’ Franklin asked.
“ Nope, not a thing, why do you ask?”
“ I saw a guy before, coming from the cargo hold. Never saw him before in my life.”
“ It’s probably one of the loaders from the station, you know how people get moved about in this dumbass war, besides I heard something earlier about some new guy transferring over, might be him.”