This impinged his idealism and he decided he had to make adjustments. His mother had been a politician and though she had ideals she was not an idealist. He tried to learn from his mother’s attitude.
Jonathan’s wool gathering ended when he heard Bob call out, “there it is. Kookli sure knew how to draw a map.”
Kookli had spent several years outside her stasis pod. Nominally to be one of the fortunate slaves to do the important work in maintaining the operation of the big ship. But the truth was that her father wanted her and her mother near him. He had spent less time in stasis because of the necessity to create a global catastrophe and other needs and had aged more than his contemporaries. Tarksha felt he would not live long enough to roam upon Terrferman.
Kookli then had the run of the big ship from infancy intermittently until she could actually help her father or at least look like she was helping Tarksha. The stasis pod did not work well for those still growing. Mature females were given a drug to avoid menstruation though still had to leave stasis at times for the body to adjust to normalcy.
The mind had also to be kept busy so learning programs were subliminally introduced. Kookli thought that many who had spent years in the pods probably knew scores of languages and trades.
“Hey Bob,” said Terry. “Just follow that ship into the hangar.”
Bob nodded. The hangar entrance was very wide. Probably could fit five transport ships side by side. As the other transport ship entered into the hangar Bob piloted his transport to nearly match the other ship. Bob glided along side but slightly behind the other transport as they entered into the hangar.
Bob had to quickly turn to the left. He had retracted the front window shield once in outer space which made viewing the scene better than watching the monitors. Bob was able to see the other ship and follow it. The docking quays were on either side of a long flight. Jonathan assumed it to be over one hundred meters long. Bob chose a quay in the middle left and guided the transport to a stop. The other ship had parked further in.
There was a small door on the right side of the main chamber. Easier to use than the ramp and they decided they would exit the ship through that access. When they could move. They all sat and gathered themselves mentally, physically and emotionally. They contemplated what they had done so far and what they hoped to do. It was eeriness personified being on an alien ship in outer space.
There was a knock on the front window. Those in the cockpit were startled. A slaver was saying something. Bob reached behind and patted his neck and shrugged. The slaver pointed to the transport side access. Bob nodded in understanding.
Jonathan went back into the main cabin and said, “We have company. No one talk until he’s in here.” Jonathan went to the door and opened it.
Jonathan stood aside as the slaver entered. He closed the door slowly.
He never finished what he was going to say. Turk had blasted him the moment he had a clear shot. The slaver was dead instantly.
“He’s probably from the transport ship that just came in. There’s bound to be another one or two of them. Tim, Turk and I will go and check it out. Hawk and Keoni back us up.”
Jonathan had dressed himself in the jodhpurs and a shirt from the first dead slaver. He hoped he could pass as a slaver leading two slaves. The three left by the side exit. They came to the other newly arrived transport ship. No one was in the cockpit as Jonathan walked past. As he turned past the front of the ship he could see several slaves standing inert by the side access. Jonathan placed his hand on his neck and rubbed it. He didn’t know if it would tell the next slaver his implant was not functioning properly but it had worked once already.
“Something something something communication something?” A slaver came out of the side portal. “Something something Birksha?”
Jonathan nodded and pointed toward his transport. The slaver stepped past Jonathan walked around the front of the transport. When the slaver could not be seen from the front cockpit window Turk shot or beamed or blasted him. Jonathan did not have to look to know the slaver was dead.
Jonathan assumed there’d be a third so he went through the access hatch and into the main chamber of the transport. A slaver was trying to place a ring around a young blond woman, who looked to be in her early twenties. Her feet were shackled and her hands strapped in wrist restraints above her pinned to the metal hull of the transport.
The slaver turned and saw Jonathan and straightened, “something something something,” and the slaver leered at the young woman.
Jonathan nodded and walked over to him. He saw no other slaver only slaves and a few humans who were restrained.
As Jonathan neared the slaver the slaver turned back to the woman and had his hands on the ring. Jonathan unhooked his ray gun and fired at the slavers neck. The slaver crumpled and was dead before he hit the floor.
The woman had opened her mouth to scream but Jonathan fiercely hissed, “stop. Be quiet. We’re from earth and we can take you back there. Just be quiet so no other slavers come.” As he finished speaking Turk and Tim brought in the dead slaver that Turk had killed.
Jonathan turned back to the woman, “do you speak English?”
She curtly nodded her head, “a leettle, I from Rumania.”
Jonathan nodded. “I’m Jonathan. This is Turk and Tim. We can take you back to Canada. Is that all right?” as Jonathan attempted to disengage her manacles.
She thought for a second and nodded again.
“Are all these people from Romania?”
She nodded.
“Well, at least you’re alive. You’ll be okay.” Jonathan turned to Turk and Tim. “You stay here. And try to free the rest of ‘em. I’ll get the other team.” They nodded and went to work.
CHAPTER SIX
As Jonathan looked out the open door of the ship which Tony Schollander would fly back to earth another transport ship glided past and sought a place to park. Jonathan turned to Turk and almost didn’t catch him as he started to leave the ship.
He knew what Turk was wont to do.
“Turk, let’s use the team. No going rogue or heroics okay. We need to work together for maximum effectiveness…this is about our surviving…to fight another day.” Turk’s glare turned to understanding. Jonathan was thinking since Turk had witnessed Kookli’s mother’s murder he was a man possessed. Maybe obsessed. All Turk seemed to want to do was kill slavers.
Jonathan put his hand on Turk’s shoulder, “it’s okay. We’ll get ‘em.” Jonathan looked back into the main cabin and satisfied himself all was safe there.
All fifteen restrained Romanians were young attractive women. None had been enslaved before the transport ship had lifted off for the mother ship in orbit above earth. Now no longer bound they helped to disarm and shackle the slaves the slavers had brought with them to Romania.
The B team was in the transport getting ready to fly out. The A team was there because it would’ve been too conspicuous to be on the flight deck hovering around.
“Tim. Tell Tony to wait. We may have some passengers for you.” He turned to his team although Bob had remained in the first transport with Big John.
“Terry and Turk you’re with me. Keoni and Hawk back us up.” Jonathan left the ship and Turk and Terry followed. They didn’t have far to go. The newly arrived transport ship was only four berths from them. They could hear one of the lesser slavers though they did not know what language he was speaking.
Jonathan rounded the front of the ship and was encouraged no slaver was in the cockpit. He saw two slavers by the open portal on the side of the transport. He waved to them as Turk and Terry came into view. Jonathan turned and gave the come-on wave as he stepped to enter the transport.
One of the lesser slavers placed his hand on Jonathan’s left shoulder. Jonathan motioned to the two trailing. As the slaver looked over Jonathan’s shoulder Turk had his ray gun out. Turk fired. Jonathan hopped into the transp
ort unhooking his ray gun. The other slaver was bending over and finishing up the touches of placing a ring around the neck of a young man.
The slaver turned when he realized that Jonathan had entered and not one of his fellow slavers. Jonathan fired and the slaver dropped to the floor.
Before Jonathan could check on him one of the real slaves started to unhook his ray gun. Jonathan shot him. It hurt Jonathan to shoot a slave but he had no choice. The slave could not reason and would follow orders only from a Peed. It seems the slaver had given the command to shoot Jonathan before he died. Keoni and Hawk entered the transport with ray guns drawn.
Other slaves had begun to unhook their ray guns and both Keoni and Hawk found targets. Jonathan wondered if he had actually killed the slaver and bent over him and fired at this neck. The slaver’s legs jerked. Now he was dead. The rest of the slaves stood motionless.
Keoni and Hawk cautiously went and disarmed the rest of the slaves. Turk and Terry came in carrying the dead slavers. Jonathan had to turn away. He had fucked up!
He hadn’t killed the slaver outright and now there are three dead slaves and he could have gotten one of his friends killed or injured. He was so disgusted with himself it took Keoni’s slap on his back to bring Jonathan to the here and now.
“Right. Okay. We need to get the restrained ones out to the other transport ship and the slaves who are alive they can take as well.”
“Jonathan I hate to bring this up but do you think that slaver could have communicated to any other slavers?” asked McNeill.
“I’ve been wondering that as well. The A team needs to set up ambush at the entrance to this hangar. If no one comes then we go ahead with our plan. If we have to get into a fire fight than we should be ready to take off as soon as it’s safe.”
Jonathan directed Keoni, Hawk and Terry to the entrance. “See about defensive positions.”
He told Turk to get the B team to help bring the humans and the slaves over to the Tony’s transport and to fly out as soon as possible.
“Does anyone here speak English?” Jonathan began to unshackle the nearest one.
Several nodded their heads but only one spoke, “I, we, Rumanians.”
“You wouldn’t mind going to Canada, would you?”
“No. We want to live…we not want be slaves.”
The B team came in. Jonathan hardly had to direct them since they knew want they needed to do.
“Remember to have Tony play the static just in case,” he said to Tim as he and Turk went out to meet up with the other three.
Jonathan and Turk hurried to the hanger entrance. Terry and Hawk were coming back down the long corridor. Keoni had moved some crates near the entrance and stacked them for protection from ray gun blasts.
“Jonathan,” said Terry, “there’s no one coming to this hangar as yet. The slave pods aren’t far…if the slaver would have communicated with other slavers I bet we’d be seeing armed slaves right about now. Anyway, the lift to go up isn’t too far.” And he pointed.
“Terry could you control the transport enough to shuttle it into the entrance?”
McNeill nodded, “good thinking. It would block up it up perfectly.”
“Okay, why don’t you go to that one and get it ready. We’ll wait for a little while to make sure we’re going to be alone.” Terry went off to the ship closest to the hangar egress.
“Okay, if we have to fire I want to take the lead slaver or the one on our left. Turk you take the second slaver or the middle one and Keoni you take the third or the one on the far right. Hawk you back us up. That way…”
“Yeah bruddah, good idea.”
They waited. And Jonathan decided to wait a little longer. Maybe until Tony’s transport had taken off.
Turk was starting to get antsy so Jonathan told him he wanted to wait until Tony was on his way. They didn’t have to wait much longer as they could see a transport ship begin to back out of its berth. Looked to be the second “puddle jumper.”
“What?”
“Let’s call it a puddle jumper,” Turk said.
“Why?”
“It was used in a show I liked.”
“Puddle jumper?”
“Yeah. Sounds good doesn’t it?”
Jonathan turned to Keoni who shrugged, “didn’t see dat show. Fine wit me.”
“Okay. Number 2 puddle jumper is off.” Jonathan looked around but before he could waveTerry out of the transport ship they heard voices. Jonathan took a peek.
“Looks to be three slavers. They’re not paying any attention. Don’t think they’re here for us so…”
“So we kill the bastards.”
Jonathan sighed and Keoni shrugged again. “Okay. One two three right?”
“Gotcha,” Turk nodded.
The voices grew louder as the slavers approached. None of the four knew the language although Jonathan wondered if it wasn’t Romanian. Now that he had time to listen he thought he detected words from a romance language.
Jonathan reflected this mother ship seemed to have Romania as its fief. At least Romania. How much more of the area? He wondered how many mother ships had been brought to the planet.
The three slavers came through the corridor and had reached the entrance. They paid no attention to their surroundings. The A team let them walk into the hangar. The slavers walked past the crate and had their backs to Jonathan, Keoni, Hawk and Turk. As the space increased to ten feet the four blasted the slavers. The slavers fell and the four went over to make sure they were dead. They were.
McNeill came out of the transport. They didn’t know at first what to do with the bodies. It was pretty far to puddle jumper 1 so they decided to hide the bodies behind more of the crates which were stacked not far off.
The three finished stuffing the bodies behind some crates and had headed into the corridor. They stopped short.
“Shit.”
They could see a dozen or so slaves standing still in the corridor.
“Damn it. We can’t leave them there. We’ll have to take them to where Bob…”
“You mean puddle jumper 1.”
“Right. Back to puddle jumper 1. Let’s go and disarm them.”
Taking the slaves’ ray guns presented no problem. However, to get them to walk on their own proved impossible. The A team had to pull each one forward. This did work but it was very time consuming and they decided to stash the slaves in the second puddle jumper from the hanger entrance. They still might have need of the closest one.
They took a moment to wipe their brows of the sweat and straightened their clothes. The breathed deeply and went into the corridor again and hoped this time no one else would be found there. Fortune if not smiling at least grinned.
They reached the lift. They walked into the lift which had features similar to an elevator. A large elevator. It could easily fit twenty people. They stood in the lift.
However, the controls were not so similar that they could quickly figure them out and they stood staring at them.
“Any suggestions?” asked Jonathan.
No one nodded or spoke.
“You think there might be stairs?” asked a rather dubious Hawk.
“Kookli never mentioned stairs. I never got around asking her how these lifts worked.”
They stood and stared. Jonathan was about to wing it when the lift door closed. After the door closed the lift rose. At least it felt like it went up. Jonathan arranged his team so a cursory glance would look like his slaves were behind him. Keoni and Hawk at the back had their ray guns out but concealed just in case.
The lift stopped and the door opened. In stepped a slaver with two slaves. He nodded curtly to Jonathan who nodded back.
The slaver turned and twisted the dial. The slaver looked back at Jonathan as the door closed. Jonathan nodded. He hoped the nod would convey they were going to the same place. The lift rose once again.
Jonathan had a brief twinge as Turk popped into his mind. He hoped Turk could contain himself.
He could not take the chance to turn around to look meaningfully at Turk so he silently willed him to remain calm and not blast the slaver.
The silence was at first difficult. Humans, especially Americans hated prolonged silences. It made humans uncomfortable for some reason. As Jonathan considered this he became more relaxed and he thought his team was at ease as well. He sensed the slaver was relaxed. Jonathan was beginning to have some perception for the slaver culture. He understood there was little conversation between slavers who did not know each other.
Jonathan’s eyes wandered a little as he contemplated the need for humans, at least those on earth, to fill up quiet times. As his mind reflected he could tell out of the corner of his eye one of the slaves behind his master looked at him rather frankly. This was odd and Jonathan was a bit nonplussed.
He wasn’t sure how to react. Slavers certainly would take no guff from any slave but he had not experienced any slave who had an emotive affect. He didn’t think the slave knew that Jonathan had seen his expression since one of Jonathan’s best traits as an athlete was his peripheral vision.
Yet he wasn’t sure he should take the chance. However, he decided to wait and see where the lift took them. Jonathan also thought Hawk and or Keoni would have seen the slave’s intent gaze and would be ready if anything happened. Jonathan stifled a sigh and relaxed.
Jonathan had not been counting floors, decks he supposed, as the lift passed them. Whatever floor, deck, they stopped at would be a mystery to him at this point. He had to suppress a laugh that he and the others would be wandering around an alien and enemy space ship with absolutely no idea where they were, where they were going or how to get there.
The lift came to a stop. The slaver was first to move and nodded to Jonathan who nodded back and let the slaver and his slaves depart first. The one slave looked at Jonathan from the corner if his eye. This was unnerving and Jonathan didn’t know what to do but follow on the heels of the departing threesome.
They found themselves in a large room with wide halls leading off in five directions. The slaver went straight for the most left door. No one else was around. Jonathan slowed up to put more space between the A team and the slaver. He felt a bump on his shoulder. Turk pushed past and decided the issue.
Turk quickly strode to the slaver and blasted him in the neck. He turned the ray gun on the slave who had looked at Jonathan so oddly, for a slave that is. The other slave was standing motionless.