Cain's Crusaders (21 page)

Once inside, Adam got his first look at an Armplanese, the creatures who had settled the planet Bor’on. Unfortunately for Adam – and particularly Arieel – they looked very Prime; bi-pedal, tall, slender, with two eyes, two arms and an obvious interest in the ladies – at least this was Adam’s first impression from the attention they paid Arieel as they entered. In fact, Adam could have come in naked and armed with two sacks of explosives with burning fuses and he was sure the natives would not have noticed him. All eyes fell upon the ample figure of Arieel Bol.

There were six Armplanese in the room; two seated behind simple metal desks and the others leaning against a counter that appeared to be currently serving as a cocktail bar instead of its official function. Several containers of intoxicants were littering the countertop, along with the appropriate number of empty, or nearly empty, glasses. All the Armplanese wore the one-piece uniform of the spaceport’s ground crew.

One of the more aggressive – and obviously drunk – natives pushed himself away from the counter and turned to face Arieel. “By the Gods of Mislin and Sufor, if ever there was proof of their existence, then it is in the creation of this mateable creature. Have you ever seen such a fine specimen of foreign flesh before?”

Arieel barely cracked a smile as she looked at the others in the room, all males and all staring at her. Adam pushed himself in front of Arieel, interrupting the Armplanese’s view. “Pardon me, my friends,” he said cordially, “but we were wondering where all the ships have gone? We are looking for a hire.”

The aliens continued to look past Adam at Arieel. “There are no hires; most everyone has gone,” said one of the aliens from behind a desk. “You can’t possibly be her mate,” the creature continued. “You are too small and of a different race. Are you her escort?”

“Something like that,” Adam said, growing annoyed. “Are there no cruisers or class-two’s left in the entire port?” Anything larger than a class-two normally didn’t make landfall, and besides that a larger ship would require more crew to operate. They would have to find a smaller ship, just not too small.

The alien from the behind the desk stood and walked toward the counter to get a better look at Arieel. “Of course there are ships in port,” he said to Adam without looking at him. “I just said there are no ships for hire.”

The Armplanese stood around eight-feet tall, either naturally or from genetic mutation in the lighter gravity of Bor’on. Either way, they towered over Adam, and particularity Arieel, who came in right around five-five – very short for an alien, even a female alien. Her height did not seem to deter the natives. They began to crowd around her.

Just then Adam began to hear a soft whirling sound; it seemed to be in stereo, coming from a variety of directions. Almost immediately, all six of the Armplanese reached for the small comm boxes attached to their shoulder applets. Now each of the boxes had begun to screech, and the irritating sound was growing louder by the moment. The crew fumbled with their boxes, unable to get the sound to stop.

And then abruptly there was silence. “My friend and I are looking for a ship,” Arieel said forcefully the moment the sound stopped. She turned to the one who had been sitting at the desk. “You said there are no ships for hire, but are there ships here of the grade my friend mentioned?”

The Armplanese looked down at Arieel, not liking her demanding tone. “I said there are no ships for hire. What more do you need to know—”

Immediately, all six boxes began to wail again, this time at a level that even sent Adam scrambling to cover his ears. The Armplanese began to claw at their boxes, unable to turn them off or to rip them from their clothing.

And then silence once again.

“What ships are in port?” Arieel asked again. This time all eyes fell on the tiny alien, terror filling the eyes of the Armplanese.

The first aggressive alien’s eyes grew wide, looking at Arieel. “You are her!” he shouted, pointing. “You are the Speaker Arieel Bol.”

The rest of them suddenly sent laser-like glares at Arieel. “Thirty million credits just walked into our hut,” one of the others whispered. And then forgetting all about the screeching that had come from their comm units, they began to close in.

Having been ignored by the aliens long enough, Adam stepped forward sent a right cross into the ribcage of the nearest alien; he had to go for the ribcage because the alien’s head was too tall for him to reach. The blow to the ribs, however, did the trick. The sound of breaking bone could be heard clearly, and the unfortunate creature doubled over in pain, letting out an incredibly loud scream in his own right.

Adam then flipped the flash rifle from behind his back and into his waiting hands, but rather than shoot, he lifted the barrel up and into the throat of the Armplanese who had been sitting behind the desk. This one fell like a bag of cement.

In this particular fight, that was about all Adam would contribute, because next came the loud screeching sound again, yet this time it climbed to such a high pitch and so fast, that Adam fell to his knees, grasping his head in pain. The other four Armplanese, with the speakers of
thece that
their comm-units only inches from their ears, suffered the most. They all collapsed, blood streaming from their ears and noses.

The screeching stopped as abruptly as it began and Adam staggered to his feet.

“I’m going to have a headache for a week after that,” he said. “Wasn’t there anything else you could have done?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not as experienced at the art of warfare as you,” Arieel said, upset at the scolding.

“I could have taken them all,” Adam threw in.

“I thought you wanted my help.”

“When it’s needed—”

“If I knew Human swear words, I would use them on you now!”

“I’m sure you would. Now let’s find a manifest or parking schedule; we can’t waste any more time here.”

A monitor suddenly came to life on one of the now unoccupied desks. Adam rushed over only to find a blur of files already scrolling up the screen. Arieel stood in the center of the room, a far-away look in her eyes. Suddenly the scrolling stopped, and a long list written in the Armplanese language appeared.

“There is a class-two in port,” Arieel cried out. “It appears to be the only one of its size still here.”

Adam could see where the screen was displaying the information on the ship, complete with schematics, yet he couldn’t read any of the writing. “Can you decipher this?”

“Yes,” Arieel replied. “It is an old military escort almost one hundred years old, but it appeared to have passed all of its most recent readiness tests. It is owned by the Armplanese security forces and was ordered to remain in port when the rest of the ships departed. It carries a crew of twenty.”

“That looks like our ticket,” Adam said, moving from behind the desk and heading for the exit. “Where’s it located?”

“Stall 988, about a mile from here.”

As Adam reached the door, he turned to see Arieel still standing over the spread of fallen Armplanese at her feet. She looked up at him, with a look of utter coldness in her eyes.

“I have just erased all the data on the computers within the building so there will be no inventory of the ships that were in port. Yet we also cannot leave these beings alive – they will tell.” She knelt down near the bodies; some were moaning softly, others were not moving at all. “Within two of them, the brainwaves have ceased, yet the other four still have activity.”

Adam hesitated. She was right; they couldn’t leave any way of tracking them.

“I’ll do it, Arieel. You just go outside.” He knelt down beside her.

“No, I want to do it!” And before Adam could react, Arieel had pulled one of the MK-17’s that each of the aliens carried around their waists and pressed the barrel of the weapon against the head of one of the inert bodies on the floor.

“Wait, not so fast!” Adam cried out, but it was too late, at least for one of the aliens. The flash weapon discharged, and the level-two bolt easily penetrated the skull, the heat from the blast cauterizing most of the vessels and leaving very little blood to spill out onto the floor. She moved the weapon to the next one.

“Damn, woman, you’re cold-blooded!” Adam called out.

This stopped Arieel in her tracks before she could squeeze the trigger again. “Why do you say that? These creatures must die if we are to successfully escape, plus they are not Formilian, or even Human. Besides, I have felt the life energy leave their bodies to join with the other free spirits in the room. All are happy with this arrangement.”

“All but these hapless souls,” Adam said. Their eyes met and Adam saw within her dark globes not an ounce of cruelty or sadistic intent. To Arieel, this was almost like performing a religious ritual. She saw nothing wrong with the killing.

Adam backed away. “Be my guest. If this turns you on, go it.”

Arieel stared at him for a few moments trying to decipher the meaning of his last words. Eventually she understood – or just gave up – and proceeded to blast the heads of the other three Armplanese.

And then without a grimace or concern on her face, Arieel Bol stood up and walked out of the room, about as casual, untroubled and nonchalant as could be.

Adam called after her. “Oh and Arieel,” he began, “don’t think you’re doing
me
any favor by releasing my energy back into the wild. I’d rather that happen on
my
terms.”

As they quickly made their way toward landing stall 988, Adam thought of the twenty crewmembers of the ship that awaited them. They would have no idea what was about to happen to them, but it was a necessary evil in order to preserve peace throughout the galaxy.

Adam was also curious what kind of thrill Arieel would get from the casting of twenty additional spirits back into the ether? She was a strange one – dangerous and strange – with a darker side he’d not seen before, where life and death were merely a different state of being. Of course, she had feared for her own life, but even psychopaths sought their own self-preservation….

Adam had been kicking around the galaxy for a decade now and he had encountered dozens of different cultures, religious beliefs and sensibilities, so it was hard for him to judge others, except in relation to his own moral compass. Arieel had been right – the Armplanese could not be left alive. He would have executed them for the good of the mission himself, and yet he would have felt some regret. Or would he? He had done horrible things to some deserving and some not-so-deserving aliens. It was just what he did for a living.

Yet Arieel Bol placed an importance – no, a benefit – on the act of killing. Did that make her more compassionate, or did it make her more willing to commit the act with little or no remorse?

As they neared the squatty-looking craft that would hopefully get them off Bor’on and back to Formil, Adam knew one thing for certain: Arieel
could
be relied upon in a fight to do what was necessary, even if that meant killing at a moment’s notice.

There was only one other woman he felt that about, but she was over six thousand light years away, and probably completely oblivious to his current situation.

“Thirty-million-freaking-credits!
You’re shitting me?”

Kroekus shook his head, a head that took up nearly the entire width of the monitor. “I’m afraid not, Sherri. And I have to say, I am appalled at the response this bounty is generating. My sources put the number of ships out looking for them at over one thousand.”

“And you’re sure they’ve not been found?”

“It would be major news if they had.”

“And it’s been twelve hours since the broadcast went out?”

“Longer than that; it has been twelve hours since they were last spotted in the Siyvelan system, just before they disappeared.”

“How far is that from Belson?”