The ship was now effectively disabled and out of the fight — and it would remain so for a very long time.
Mission Accomplished!
The team moved back to the shuttle through the main umbilical and Kaylor slipped into the pilot seat. He keyed a communication button. “Jym, come in. We’re on our way to you.”
“May the Gods be revered,” Jym’s voice screeched though the speakers. “Is Adam Cain with you?”
“I am, Jym. Thanks for asking.”
“It is the reason we came here,” the tiny alien stated flatly.
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you.”
“Have I upset you in some way?”
“Nah, just glad to hear your voice.”
“Docking in ten minutes, Jym,” Kaylor said, interrupting. “Open cargo bay doors.”
“Already done and waiting for you.”
Chapter 41
The recharge shuttle slipped into the cargo bay of the JU-224 with barely a meter to spare on the side. Since the vessel was of special use and design, once the team had offloaded, they disabled the communications on the shuttle, freed the original recharge crew and let them take it back down to the planet. In half an hour they would be out of the system and heading for the Fringe.
Once safely away, the team met in the common room to hear Adam’s story of his capture and imprisonment. Sherri had to fight back the tears as she looked at the scar on Adam’s left check, near the jawline. He had suffered the injury while in the jungles of Hyben, leading the Juireans away from her. As his story went, Adam was treated for the wounds to his leg, side and face and then allowed to heal up — before the Juirean Guard Jydle began torturing him, just for the fun of it.
The Juirean had read his dossier and had concluded from it that it had been Adam who had been responsible for the deaths of Overlord Oplim and Counselor Deslor nearly three years before. But on top of that, he also believed Adam had lured the Juirean fleet to the planet Earth, where they had suffered their greatest military defeat — ever. So in Jydle’s opinion, this insignificant little Human was the cause for more Juirean death and destruction than since the time of the Klin Deception. That event had brought about the Unification Wars on Juir, and the deaths of millions of his fellow Juireans four thousand years before. Now Adam Cain had unleashed the greatest threat to Juirean existence since the founding of their civilization.
Yes, torturing the Human was cruel and uncivilized, even for a Juirean. Yet, according to Jydle, it would be his only chance to exact his own limited form of revenge on the Human before being assigned his fate at the hands of the Council. Jydle wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this pass him by.
“It looks like I’m the one who got the last laugh, however,” Adam said, summing up his story with the execution of Jydle. “I had a pretty good idea that either you would rescue me, or I’d find some other way to escape. And when I heard that the ship was stopping for a recharge, I knew it was now or never for the rescue part. Thank you all,” he said sincerely, fighting back his own emotions. “You risked a lot to save my sorry ass.”
Sherri took his hand and squeezed it hard. “Hopefully our part in this war is coming to an end. Kaylor’s been monitoring the war reports on the newscasts, and it looks like we’ve taken over the Fringe and the next two sectors already. There’ve been three major battles, and we’ve won them all. Once back in the Fringe, we should be safe.”
“Good,” said Adam, smiling at all the others assembled in the room, including Kaylor and Jym. “I’m sure we could all use a very long vacation-”
Adam saw Jym suddenly lean forward from his position at the auxiliary control station in the common room. It wasn’t a full pilot’s station, but he still had access to all the ship’s monitoring systems.
“What is it, Jym?” Adam asked. All the others in the room suddenly looked his way.
“I just picked up large gravity wave just at the edge of our monitors. No, actually it is three of them.”
“What direction are they traveling,” asked Kaylor as he moved up behind his co-pilot. “Parallel to us, same direction.” He turned his head to look up at Kaylor. “From the refinement, they look to be Klin signatures.”
Adam joined the aliens at the station. “What are they doing this far into the Expan-”
Suddenly, alarms sounded throughout the ship, as the automatic evasion program took over. All those in the common room were thrown to the left from the inertia as the ship jerked to the right. Jym clung desperately to the control console and pulled himself back into the seat. “We have an incoming bolt from directly behind us. Impact — now!”
The ship whipsawed violently as a deafening roar rose up from the aft section of the ship. Adam felt his stomach rise up in his throat as the gravity wells dissolved and weightlessness overcame his senses.
“All drive and gravity systems are offline!” Jym yelled. “We are powerless to evade or withstand any subsequent hits.”
As the eight beings in the room grabbed onto anything they could to keep from floating away, they all waited for the final blow, for the bolt that would penetrate the hull and send them all to oblivion. But as the seconds turned into minutes, nothing happened. After about three minutes, they all began to crawl their way through the weightlessness toward the pilothouse, switching from handhold to handhold as quickly as possible. Five minutes after the attack, they all drifted into the bridge.
Through the forward viewport, they could all clearly see three very large disk-shaped spacecraft, sitting off their forward bow, lit only by the glow from the distant Zinnol star and the conspicuous portholes ablaze on their silver hulls. They were about half a kilometer distant and making no further hostile moves.
Kaylor pulled himself down into the pilot’s seat and strapped in. He scanned his instruments. “The shot was apparently designed to cripple us — which it did quite effectively. We are at their mercy.”
“Can you contact them?” Tobias asked, now drifting above Kaylor. “Find out what they want?”
“I can try-” Kaylor was cut short when a light flashed on his console. “They’re contacting us!” He flicked the switch.
“This is Ship Master Ludl Vizon, of the Klin. Your vessel has been disabled and all occupants are ordered to transfer to the center Klin ship once your personal belongings have been secured. Use your ship’s shuttle for the transfer. You will have fifteen minutes to leave the ship, after which time it will be destroyed. Do not bring weapons of any kind with you. If you do, the perpetrators will be immediately executed. You have fifteen minutes from now to leave the ship.”
The transmission ended; everyone in the room looked at each other, with all eyes eventually focusing on Adam.
“If they wanted us dead, they would have blown us to vapor. I say we gather our things and get the hell off the ship.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Lt. Tobias. “Just grab what you can and let’s all meet at the cargo bay in ten minutes. It’s going to be harder to maneuver in zero-g, so don’t waste time with a lot of personal shit, just the essentials.” He then made eye contact with Tindal and Rutledge. “And no weapons; I think they’re serious about that.”
Everyone nodded and then began swimming out of the pilothouse and toward their individual quarters. When Adam reached his quarters, he found most of his belongings were still there from when he had been part of the JU-224 crew several months back. He snatched a pillow from mid-air, pulled off its slipcover and began cramming clothing and his toiletries into it. He didn’t have very many other personal items aboard the ship, leaving the few things he did have back on Viemon-2 in the Fringe.
He was the first one to reach the cargo bay, but by the time he had opened the shuttle door and floated into the pilothouse, everyone else was there — everyone except Jym. Kaylor keyed a comm button. “Jym, where are you?”