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The six remaining members of the murder squad were sitting in their small apartment lamenting their last attempt to stop the departure of the Blazer Explorer.
“This is the last time that we can meet together, for soon the authorities will find out that Gaudi lived in this apartment. Because of this, we will have to throw caution to the wind and make a series of attacks on the captain of the starship, its owner, the ship itself, and its crew. One of the first things we must do is to dispense with these beards, if they are able to get on to us then they will be looking for men with beards, and not clean shaven individuals.” Rohr Javari said to the five other men around the table. “But that is for later, right now I am going to give each of you detailed instructions on your part of this new operation, and on how you are to carry out the task assigned to you.” He first turned to Leor Amharic.
“You Leor are to go after the owner of the starship, use explosives against his house, his car, his offices, but kill him.” Javari said to the holy man. “Retz can assist you. As soon as this meeting is over, pack all of your things and check into a small hotel, somewhere very quiet; tell them that you are here on holiday. Carry out your attack as soon as it is possible to do so, we cannot fail again, our families are depending upon us.” His final words reinforced just why all of them were on Earth, and each of them there acknowledged the sentiment. Next, he spoke to Colum Branis.
“I will kill the captain of the starship and you Colum will assist me.” His final instructions were for the remaining members of his team.
Marat, Pilaf, you two can target the ship and its crew. Nothing can be allowed to stand in your way. The total annihilation of anything and everything to do with this proposed trip must be our one and only aim now. It will hopefully send a clear message to every earthman that that particular sector of space is off limits to them.” Rohr said.
Rohr slammed his fist down onto the table in an attempt to vent some of his anger at being turned into a suicidal murderer, the others around the table looked at one another, startled by his actions. He slammed the table again, but this time his intent was to show the others the measure of his passion, unfortunately his heart wasn`t in it, for he would rather be home with his family rather than killing aliens who had done nothing to him. The other men smiled sympathetically at him, they knew his thoughts and wished only to be done with all of this murder and violence, that and to be able to head off home to their families.
“Marat, Pilaf, I suggest you carry out your part of the attack by commandeering one of the many large and powerful building vehicles that are being used not too far away from the space port, that should get you through the perimeter fence and give you protection from the security guards. Ram the machine into the side of the starship then board it, and then kill everyone inside and outside of it. Make your attack in the morning of the day after tomorrow.”
Javari didn`t mention escape to Marat or Pilaf, these two men would quite obviously not get the chance to escape the security men of the space port, who would be all over the area as soon as the attack started. Pilaf Sunnis was the last member of the murder team; he was aged thirty-five, of medium height medium build and was rather plain to look at, the perfect team member. He too had family back home and they were his reason for being here.
“Of course you two will also have to find lodgings elsewhere, as will Colum and I. Take one of the large assault rifles with you together with one of the grenade launchers, they should ensure that you reach the starship and so complete your task.” Marat and Pilaf both acknowledged his words of advice with a quick nod of their heads.
“Leor, Retz, I will leave you to think of ways to accomplish your task, just ensure that you are successful, it doesn`t matter if other people are hurt in the process, just kill Blazer. You two can take the last of our explosives and also an assault rifle, just in case you get the chance to use it.” Leor Amharic and Retz Pula also acknowledged his instructions with a curt nod, nothing more.
“Colum and I will take along the remaining two Assault rifles when we go calling on the captain. Remember that no one is to return to this apartment for any reason. I know that I have no need to repeat my earlier words about the need to succeed this time, so I will only say good-bye my friends and go with god. Those that survive these attacks know where to go, the safe house in Georgia, there they will await further orders from our commander.”
Marat Palau and Pilaf Sunnis soon found a cheap motel quite near to the spaceport and settled in for the night. The nights were the worst for Sunnis, for his dreams were filled with the sight of his family dying in the fire that had roared through their small house while he had been working a night shift in the steel works. Thirty people had died that night, all trapped in the small tightly packed houses of the town centre. They had been so happy to live so near to the shops, and the other amusements offered by the town centre. Unfortunately, the narrow streets that they adored had been one of the causes of their death. The fire had jumped from one side of the street to the other side, fanned by the strong spring winds and helped by the poorly constructed buildings. He vowed that his brother`s family would not suffer such a fate and so had volunteered for this mission, in any case what did he have left in life to live for?
The next morning found the two men checking out the building site that bordered onto the spaceport, and in particular the heavy building machines, and of course the security at the spaceport. It soon became obvious that the security on the building site was minimal, while the optimum time, at least for this one morning, was around eight in the morning when all of the crew of the starship were aboard the craft and the heavy building machines were not in use yet. Their chosen machine was a large bulldozer with an extra-large blade measuring fourteen feet by six feet, and the whole machine weighing one hundred thousand pounds. It was indeed a large and very heavy piece of machinery. The two killers proposed waiting until one of the operators of these massive machines arrived, and then making him operate their machine or else be killed by them. They had watched that first morning as one such operator had come by just after the nearby church clock struck eight o`clock. The only drawback to the plan was the slow speed of the dozer, at most twelve miles per hour. However, the starship was only half a mile from the perimeter fence, and the dozer only ten yards from its own security fence. This meant that the machine could be crashing into the side of the sleek starship within less than three minutes of being hijacked, and this should give the two killers a good chance to complete their own part of the mission successfully.
Leor Amharic and Retz Pula had also found a small motel to stay in, and so were comparatively safe from being discovered by the city`s authorities. They had been ordered to kill John Blazer one way or another, and they had decided to put a multiple plan together with the hope that if one plan failed then one of the others would not. For the first of their plans to work, they had to gain entry into the luxury apartment block where John Blazer lived. They staked out the front entrance during the next morning and noticed delivery vans going down the slope that was on one side of the building, it went down to an underground garage and so was formed a second plan. On the slope there were no CCTV cameras, the only one was at the barrier at the bottom of the slope. Therefore, when the next vehicle slowed to request admittance through the barrier, the two men were able to slip inside the vehicle, as the delivery driver hadn`t bothered to lock the rear doors of his vehicle. While he was parking, they slipped from the rear of the vehicle and hid behind the line of parked cars until the delivery vehicle left. It was the middle of the afternoon and they guessed that they would have to stay hidden for some time before their task was finally completed, should they be discovered then they would have to kill again.
They knew that John Blazer hadn`t left the building that day, and they knew that he used a private elevator to access his penthouse flat. This made it a simple matter to set up the explosive device by first concealing the explosive within a litterbin hanging on th
e wall near to the elevator, with the trigger device attached to the frame of the elevator. When the doors opened, the movement would set off the bomb with a four-second delay to ensure that their victim took the full force of the explosion.
They also knew which limousine belonged to John Blazer, and if for some reason he survived this trap then they would get him on the second attempt. A bomb was attached to the underside of the car, which would be triggered by the vibration of its door being slammed shut, John Blazer was as good as dead, and all they had to do was send flowers to his funeral.
Rohr Javari and Colum Branis had also moved into a small motel, it was set high on a hill on the other side of the space port, and it was here that they discussed their own problem, how to kill Richard Charlton. They soon found out that this might be difficult, as he had moved into the sleek starship and hadn`t moved during the first day of their stakeout, which was from a point two miles away from the starship. Rohr Javari and Colum Branis now decided to launch an attack this morning, to divert attention away from their comrades who were also due to launch their own attack on the starship itself. When these attacks were made, John Blazer was sure to leave the safety of his penthouse apartment and travel across to the spaceport to see the carnage caused by their twin attacks, and then he too would die from one of the various plans put into action by the third of the team of assassins.
On this very morning, Richard Charlton did appear for five minutes, to walk around the hull of the sleek starship to give it his seal of approval, but then he returned inside to help ready the starship for its journey of exploration. The maintenance team supplied by John Blazer had finished repairing the outer hull of the starship, and now they were awaiting the new airlock that was due to be delivered that morning. When this was installed, everything would be ready for the launch of the starship deep into the vastness of the galaxy. The large transporter carrying the new airlock supplied by the Boeing Corporation finally arrived at the spaceport, just as the city awoke for the start of a new day. Peter Reynolds had driven across to the large gates to show the driver the way to the Blazer Explorer, and it was moving slowly across the space port, and ahead of him the driver could now see the sleek silver starship, soon his work for the morning would be over and he could then head back home to Pennsylvania.
Marat Palau and Pilaf Sunnis were waiting patiently for the operator of the heavy dozer to appear which is what he did at eight thirty. He stood and looked up at the heavy dozer. However, before he could climb aboard it he was waylaid by the two killers, he froze when he saw the two hand Phasers that were in the assassins hands. The construction man also took in the heavy assault Phaser rifle over Marat Palau`s shoulder and the grenade launcher carried by Pilaf Sunnis. However, it was the two hand Phasers that his attention was most centred.
“OK don`t shoot, I`ll do whatever you fellows say.” The construction man yelled.
“Good then you will live to see your family again. Get up on this machine and start it up.” Marat Palau ordered. As the driver did as he was ordered, the two killers joined him.
The heavy machine started up with a roar and was soon rumbling away as the driver awaited his next instructions. Why these two men were intent on stealing this slow moving machine he couldn`t guess, he only wanted to survive whatever it was and get to see his family again.
“Move this machine through the perimeter fence and then across the road and into the space port.” Marat Palau ordered. The monster was soon through the first of the wire fences and then crashing through the next one. Marat Palau had seen how the driver steered the machine by moving the heavy metal lever left or right, now all he needed to know was how to raise the large steel blade at the front of the machine, which the operator soon showed him.
“Now get off this machine and disappear, for you see you do get to live to see your family again my friend.” Marat Palau said rather morosely. Which is more than I will do, he thought to himself. The driver immediately jumped clear from the heavy dozer and ran back into the construction site, to disappear amongst the heavy machinery parked there.
John Blazer wanted to see the arrival of the new airlock from Boeing, but decided against using his limousine after the attempts on his life, and those of his friends. He decided to take his terrestrial shuttlecraft, which was parked on a pad outside of his penthouse apartment. He flew this across to the spaceport, and thereby negating the carefully laid plans of his would be assassins, he landed beside the Blazer Explorer. He was just being met by Richard Charlton, who was now carrying a hand Phaser for protection against any sudden assault on the starship and its crew. His attention was attracted by a loud roaring noise and looking across saw the heavy dozer bearing down on them. A bolt of energy whistled by his head to explode against the hull of the starship, it came from one of the men on the dozer; he had a powerful Phaser rifle that was aimed at him.
Two miles away from them, Rohr Javari and Colum Branis were also springing into action, they had cut out a six feet section of the wire security fence that went around the perimeter of the spaceport, and they were driving fast towards the starship in a jeep. Colum Branis was firing his heavy assault Phaser rifle at the security guards with deadly effect, for two men collapsed to the ground dead before they even realised what was happening. The distance between the charging jeep and the starship was diminishing fast.
At the starship, Richard Charlton looked across at John Blazer. “Get back into the shuttle and take us across to the dozer, we should take that out first and then worry about the guys in the jeep.”
The two men dashed into the shuttle, which was taking off a moment later with John Blazer at the controls. Richard Charlton hung on to the doorframe with one hand while holding his hand Phaser in the other. Blazer took the shuttle skimming low over the concrete spaceport to put the huge blade of the dozer between them, for the blade had now risen to cause as much damage to the starship as possible. It was partially screening them from Leor Amharic, who had to lean sideways while trying to line up his heavy assault Phaser rifle on the fast approaching shuttle.
“I`m going to veer sharply left and up Richard, be ready to fire at them, here we go, now!”
The shuttle shot out of the cover of the huge steel blade of the heavy dozer and Richard Charlton had a clear view of the two men operating it, he was ready to fire but Leor Amharic had been caught by surprise, and Richard Charlton was quite a good shot. A powerful energy bolt left his Phaser and it whistled through the air to knock Amharic down from the dozer. He landed hard against the ground while above him the fast moving shuttle swung round to come across the rear of the dozer. Although Palau tried to get a bead on the shuttle with his hand Phaser, he could not aim accurately and control the heavy dozer. The energy bolt fired by him whistled by the shuttle as another energy bolt left the Phaser of Richard Charlton, who with no real opposition was able to take out Marat Palau. This unfortunately left the dozer charging forward towards the sleek starship with no one at the controls.
“John, take me over the machine and I will drop down onto it and stop it before it hits the Explorer.” Richard Charlton yelled through the interior of the small shuttle to John Blazer.
It was as John Blazer was manoeuvring the shuttle over the charging dozer that a high-powered energy bolt screamed in to explode against the hull of the shuttle, knocking it sideways and Richard Charlton fell painfully down onto the charging dozer badly bruising his body in many places, and cracking at least one of his ribs.
Rohr Javari steered the jeep in a line that would meet the charging dozer. His aim was to kill Charlton, and then to board the starship after the dozer had ploughed into it. John Blazer flew low over the racing jeep causing both men to duck down out of the way; Richard Charlton looked on and prayed that his friend would not be hit by one of the energy bolts that were even now whistling by the fast moving shuttle. However, regardless of the fact that his life was in danger of ending, John Blazer brought the fast moving shuttle round in a tight circle to tear back t
owards the racing jeep, causing Javari and Branis to concentrate on it and not on the other fast moving vehicle that had suddenly appeared from their left hand side. It had a desperate Peter Reynolds inside of it, and as he finally got into range, he pulled out his own hand Phaser, for all the crew were wearing one now, and would be until the starship finally took off. He fired a bolt of energy towards the jeep that was rapidly moving towards the slow moving dozer and Richard Charlton, it narrowly missed Rohr Javari who didn`t even notice it. Peter Reynolds had been hidden behind the hull of the Blazer Explorer until a few moments before, but now one of the energy bolts that he had sent the assassins’ way screamed in to hit one of the wheels of their jeep destroying the tyre in a loud explosion. The jeep veered off course, skidded in a scream of torn metal and concrete, and toppled over, metal screamed as it slid along the concrete but it soon came to a halt. The assassins dazed but not too badly hurt picked themselves up from the floor, having been thrown there, and now realised that they were in trouble. Peter Reynolds brought his own vehicle to a halt and was safely behind it. He opened fire once more, his shots whistling by their heads. If that wasn`t enough the crew of the Explorer were running towards them with Phasers held tightly in their hands, and the space ports security vehicles were also rushing their way. Rohr Javari screamed out an oath in his own language and charged towards the crew, but before he had taken just a few steps, Peter Reynolds had taken him out. As for Colum Branis he simply stood up and fired shot after shot at the crewmen, how he missed them they couldn`t tell, but a fast moving shuttle flown by John Blazer crashed into him and killed him instantly.
The day before and well away from the spaceport, John Blazer had recently asked the janitor of his block of luxury apartments to replace a leaking kitchen faucet, but it was today that he received a replacement. Being based in the basement of the building, he pressed the button of the elevator that would take him directly to the penthouse of John Blazer. As the door opened it triggered the bomb which exploded but it didn`t kill the janitor for he had walked into the safety of the elevator, but four seconds later it did kill the man who had just parked his car in the basement garage and was walking across towards the other elevator. He died without knowing anything about it; his body was thrown through the air to land heavily on the sleek limousine belonging to Blazer. The thump of the man`s body hitting the vehicle caused the bomb fitted to the underside of the limousine to explode as well, the explosion destroyed the two vehicles next to it and caused the sprinkler system to turn on as the fires caused by all of these explosions triggered the system.
The explosions were heard at the space port, and from the direction of the blast John Blazer feared the worst, another attempt had been made on his life except he wasn`t at his apartment building at the moment. Richard Charlton got down from the dozer and winced, the cracked rib was causing him some pain.
“Richard, are you alright?” John Blazer asked, worried that his friend had been injured during the terrorist attack, for John Blazer couldn`t think of any other group who could be behind the series of attacks on them.
“I think that I might have cracked a rib when I hit the dozer, it will be alright though, I`ll go over to the hospital and get them to sort me out.” Richard complained.
“No you won`t Richard, I`ll take you over to the Collingswood clinic, we can get you fixed up there, and then go up and see how David is.” Blazer said.
Blazer then moved towards the dead terrorists to see if he recognised any of them, but he did not know any of them.
“As soon as the ship is ready Richard you must take off, otherwise someone else is going to get hurt.” Blazer smiled as he realised what he had said. Richard agreed with a nod of his head and a smile of his own, but then added some thoughts of his own.
“I would have liked to check out the ships systems after all the trouble that we have had, just in case something was missed in the rush to repair the ship. However, I too will be thankful to be away from here this time around. I will just have to settle for giving the systems a thorough going over during our flight through the inner solar system. Then if we do find anything that is not ok, we can land at the Mars spaceport and finish our repairs. Thankfully its orbital position is on our way just at this moment.”