Star Watch (3 page)

They turned and entered another corridor. The air was humid, hot and sticky. And the deck was gritty beneath his feet—as if there was a beach nearby and nobody had remembered to wipe their feet. The corridors were wide, like the chairs, and everything else, too, aboard this Pharlom ship. Leon pegged the Pharlom walking in front of him to be several thousand pounds … easily. The problem was guesstimating where his heart was located. How the hell could he even ball park it? So he didn’t try. He studied the placement of the body armor and saw where each section of armor was loosely strapped in place. Perhaps in battle they tighten these things up a little. Leon also paid attention to ridgelines of his rock-like skin. Big sections, like continents—like tectonic plates that moved on their own, as the big creature walked. In between those rocky plates would be his only access to the soft organics within. With well-practiced efficiency, Leon pulled a slender-bladed knife from a hidden sheath at the back of his collar. Garbon … or Carbon must have detected the movement because he slowed, turning his large girth around to face Leon. Leon didn’t hesitate—he drove the blade of his knife up at an angle where his armor gapped open—in between the lower torso and his chest tectonic plates … once … twice … three times.

Chapter 3

Alchieves System

Pharlom Command Warship
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Leon jumped back as the Pharlom creature staggered, stumbled, and fell face forward onto the deck. He was fairly sure the huge creature was dead, even before hitting the deck. He was also fairly sure the racket from its fall could be heard all the way back to the bridge. Leon moved quickly, removing an energy weapon side arm from the Pharlom, who now looked more like a pile of rocks than anything else. He hesitated, looking both ways, up and down the corridor, preparing for others to come running at him any second. No one came. Leon examined the weapon in his hand. It was immense—suited for someone with fingers the size of bananas. He placed two fingers over the trigger and tested his grip. It would have to do. Leon took one last look at Garbon, or Carbon, or whatever the hell his name was, and hurried down the corridor.

He knew exactly where he needed to go. One thing in Leon’s favor—the Pharloms typically designed their vessels with only one primary deck. They didn’t like stairways. You wouldn’t find an elevator on board, either—their enormous weight prohibited its usage. The ship was an oblong sphere, so Leon kept moving down the curved corridor toward its wider stern section. Eventually he knew he’d run into the flight deck. There he’d find a ship. Unfortunately, though, the Pharloms weren’t much on using smaller, individual-type space vessels. Their girth alone prohibited them from getting in and out of small spaces. But Leon did notice there were other vessels about when he’d first arrived, more like excavation and utility vehicles stored within the ship’s flight deck. He wasn’t sure if any of them were space faring, and only hoped he’d have time to find out.

Leon felt through the soles of his shoes the unmistakable pounding of multiple Pharloms on the move up ahead—the deck vibrated as if dual pile drivers were approaching. A klaxon alarm blared and he heard the computerized voice of an AI. His internal nano-devices were already translating, as the sectional coordinates of his current position were given out. He looked for somewhere to hide—a hatchway or an intersecting corridor … anything. What he found was neither right nor left, but overhead, where a wide support girder ran the width of the ship.
How
do I get up there?
From the deck to the beam, he guessed, was about ten feet. Taking large, quick steps backward, he took a deep breath and ran. He angled toward the side bulkhead and jumped, using his right foot to push off halfway up the bulkhead. That gave him the extra few inches he needed to reach up and grab the girder with the fingertips of both hands. He hung there, swaying back and forth for several seconds, expecting to see Pharloms come into view around the curve of the corridor any moment. He managed to pull himself high enough that he could reach one hand up, and over, the cross beam, which gave him enough of a secure handhold to pull his torso and legs up. The girder was no more than nine inches across but it was wide enough for him to lie down sideways. Leon had no sooner pulled his legs up on the beam when three Pharloms appeared. He knew from experience they were all out running. Any other species would see him lying up there, pretty much in plain view—but these rock people didn’t have a neck to swivel. They slowed … here were the coordinates the AI had most recently indicated for his position. They passed by beneath him and thundered on. As soon as they were around the bend, he jumped down and continued toward the stern.

More Pharloms were looking for him. Twice, Leon needed to repeat the same maneuver—jumping up, grabbing onto, then lying on an overhead support girder. Eventually, he was certain, they would see him. He figured he’d already traversed a quarter mile when he heard, in the distance, noise coming from the flight deck ahead. He slowed his pace and stayed close to the bulkhead. At a wide hatchway, he peered around the corner.

Leon had wondered about his relatively easy escape—the lack of any real initiative by the Pharloms to apprehend him. All that was answered now. The Pharlom ship was no longer in space; in fact, from what he could see through the wide open doors of the flight deck, they were already on the ground. Beyond the doors was the misty-blue world of Trom. They’d landed at the edge of a city. From his perspective, Leon guessed it was the capital city of Cammilon. No less than two hundred Pharlom soldiers, each loaded up with immense packs, and equally immense energy rifles, were methodically heading off the ship onto Trom soil. The invasion there had begun.

Leon was not new to war … to battle. As early as his teens, he’d been involved in the Craing War … personally killing hundreds of Craing, or those they’d sent into battle on their behalf. He’d also been wounded and nearly killed. As a Seaman in the Allied forces, he’d served under several commanders, most notably Admiral Perry Reynolds. He was taken under the admiral’s wing from age seventeen on, and had learned much, until the small destroyer he was assigned to was hit by three consecutive plasma blasts and forced to make an emergency crash landing onto a desolate, pretty much uninhabited planet nicknamed Genocide 5, or more commonly Gen5. Leon, the only survivor on board the mangled destroyer, suffered a broken arm and ankle. Gen5 became his home for nearly a year. Marooned, he learned to hunt the local game, which he called
rippers
; nastily mean, rodent-like creatures, with abnormally large canines … they were an acquired taste. After thirteen months, his NanoCom saved him. Since all communications equipment on board the ship was destroyed, he not only needed a space vessel to come within range of the desolate planet, he needed, too, to connect with someone also fitted with a NanoCom. As it turned out, Sean Doogin, a scraggly old U.S. petty officer who’d gone AWOL from the Allied forces five years earlier, rescued him. Leon, in no hurry to return to fighting the Craing and feeling more than a little abandoned by his Allied cohorts, partnered up with Doogin for two years. He was introduced to a life he’d had little awareness of previously. Much of space’s commerce took place in what was referred to as the Gray Sleeve. There was nothing for the right price that couldn’t be acquired via the Gray Sleeve. A dark underworld where, to Leon’s surprise, one could not only make a good living but have the adventure of a lifetime in the process. Sure, it was dangerous. Doogin found that out six months earlier, when he was killed fleeing the premises of a Bagram officer’s living quarters. He’d become quite fond of the officer’s wife and both were killed that evening. Leon inherited Doogin’s somewhat beat up ship, called the
SpaceRunner.
Twenty-five years old, the ship had good bones, was ridiculously fast, and had some cool state of the art features. At the moment, Leon wished he weren’t still a light-year’s distance away from his ship.

The Pharlom soldiers were gone—headed for the city. The planet would be ravaged for its natural resources, but first cleansed of its inhabitants. From what Leon knew of the Tromian people, they were good traders, avoided war, and definitely didn’t deserve what would be happening here.

Leon brought his attention toward the vehicles parked along the periphery of the flight deck. They were all large—beat-to-shit excavation tractors, along with several general transportation vehicles. One was definitely space worthy: an old Alliance delivery scout. He’d flown aboard the same type of shuttle countless times when serving in the military.

Just then Leon realized he wasn’t alone on the flight deck. He heard the ratcheting sound of a projectile weapon being readied. The Pharloms still used what was the equivalent of a machine gun type weapon, and a large one was now pointed directly at his head. He raised both hands—one of which was still gripping the overlarge plasma pistol.

Without thinking, Leon dove to his right, behind a grouping of stacked, large metal canisters. The Pharlom immediately began firing. The ear-shattering noise, from large caliber projectiles ricocheting off the metal canisters, the deck, and the bulkhead behind him, was near deafening. Leon half crawled, half ran out from his hiding place into the open. He was dead, anyway, if he stayed there another few seconds. Holding the pistol in both hands, two fingers over the trigger, he fired in the general direction of the Pharlom. The weapon bucked in his hands with incredible force.
This is an impressive weapon
, he thought, trying to reel in his aim while he ran. The Pharloms weren’t the quickest bunch when it came to close-combat fighting and that was Leon’s saving grace. He dove again, as more rounds sparked off the deck plating where his feet stood only two seconds earlier. Leon continued to fire, even as he landed hard on the metal surface. He kept his fingers tightly pulling on the trigger and, like chipping away at a boulder with a hammer, big chips of the creature’s rocky exterior fragmented off, flying into the air. He brought his aim up to the rocky creature’s head area and continued firing. Its bowling ball-sized head exploded into a dust cloud and the Pharlom’s body clanged down in a stony heap onto the deck.

Leon was already up and running toward the delivery scout. The entrance to the vehicle was through a side hatch. It was open and Leon ran inside without slowing down. Making an immediate right turn he stood at the controls. There were no pilot or copilot seats and the controls were a jury-rigged mess. Obviously configured for a Pharlom’s big hands, it took Leon several moments to figure things out. With the primary drive whirling up to speed, Leon pulled back on the controls, got the old delivery scout up off the deck, and turned in the direction of the open bay doors. He goosed the small ship forward, out into the Trom sunlight.

There were fifteen or so other ships, positioned on the landscape below him, on the outskirts of the city. Hundreds of Pharlom soldiers were advancing through the streets. Leon brought the delivery scout into city space, not really knowing why he didn’t simply escape … head for the upper atmosphere. Perhaps it was because he, himself, felt partly responsible for the Pharloms being here. He looked down through the observation window and saw Tromian resistance—men and women firing on the approaching soldiers … making a stand. A woman—a mother and her two small children—ran from a building. They were holding hands and clearly terrified.

“No … don’t go that way!” Leon yelled aloud. But it was already too late. All three … the mother and her two small children, turned the corner and ran headlong into the path of three Pharlom soldiers. They were struck down with heavy stone fists and, like insects, stomped on with gargantuan boulder-like feet as the Pharlom soldiers then continued moving further into the city.

Chapter 4

Alchieves System

Delivery Scout, Planet Trom, Skies Above Cammilon City

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Leon soon realized he wasn’t alone in the sky above Cammilon. Another Pharlom warship, this one a small attack marauder, was systematically firing its primary plasma weapon down into the city below. Several miles away, a tall building, which had withstood several direct strikes already, suddenly fell—massive edifice pieces crashing onto the crowded streets.

He watched as more and more Tromians frantically poured into the streets from neighboring buildings. Leon’s anger turned to fury. There had to be a way to help … to do something!

He kept the rickety delivery scout hovering, several hundred feet up, in an alleyway between two skyscraper buildings, as he continued to watch the marauder. Every second he stayed hiding … doing nothing … hundreds, if not thousands, were being massacred. He had an idea—one possibility—bouncing around in his head, but he quickly shooed it away. It was insane … suicidal. But nothing else was coming to mind. What
was
working for him, in his favor, was the fact that his nano-devices would allow him to communicate with that Pharlom marauder. He could probably pass himself off as one of their own. The Pharloms had proven to be fairly dim-witted. Added to that, he was flying one of their vessels. But would he be granted permission to enter their flight deck?

Currently, the attack marauder was concentrating its weapon fire on a distant bridge. Vehicles, not unlike automobiles back on Earth, were stationary—a massive traffic jam pileup. People were running, trying to escape the inevitable. Similar to the destruction of the tall building moments before, the center of the bridge disappeared in a flash, causing the supporting ends of the structure to precariously lean in, then to fall forward into the river below. All that remained was a spiraling plume of black smoke.

A decision was made on the spot; Leon needed to get on that marauder. Somehow he’d commandeer it and do what he could to protect this besieged city. He was likely to get himself killed in the process … there was very little doubt about that.

He spent the next minute trying to figure out the delivery scout’s communications system. After three separate tries, he reached the marauder’s communications officer. Access to the flight deck was granted, but he’d need to hurry … they were leaving as soon as the city was leveled.