The Helavite War (18 page)

When he arrived at the hospital Margaret was
waiting. She alerted the operations deck that Jake was coming. She
asked to be informed immediately upon his arrival.

"I'm so thankful you contacted me," Margaret
said, as she and Jake proceeded through the main doors of the
hospital on the way to her lab. "I never would have thought to look
for you in the Hartin System."

Margaret drew Jake into an empty hospital
room. It was important to get Jake to Arr as soon as possible, but
she wanted to prepare him for the shock she was sure he would
experience when he saw the young Henu. She had to make him
understand that neither one of them could have possibly anticipated
this reaction from Arr. She didn't want him blaming himself for
Arr's condition. She pulled Jake to a seat by her on the edge of
the bed.

"I want you to know before you see Arr that
I believe he will recover provided you will take him back. His
reaction to your leaving him was unprecedented by anything I have
ever experienced. He seemed to have given up the will to live. I
did everything I could. He didn't respond to me. He needs you."
Margaret smiled at Jake. She felt weary to the bone from the
tension of the past few weeks, but so happy now that he was
back.

"I know. Tim was the one who sent me back.
He said the kid was lost without me when I was on Penal Planet #18.
I guess I was so out of it when he picked me up that I didn't
notice." Jake squeezed her hand lovingly as he drank in her
features, her smell, her total presence.

Margaret kissed Jake on the cheek and taking
his hand rose from the bed. "It is so good to have you back."

They went down the hall into Margaret's
study. Arr was lying on the couch in the corner asleep. He had lost
weight, and his hair was dull and lifeless. Jake walked quietly up
to the couch and reached down to stroke his head. There was no
response. He kneeled down.

"Arr? It's Jake." He smoothed his hand over
the young Henu's hair again.

Arr stirred and opened his eyes. Jake
stroked his cheek as Arr leaned affectionately into his hand.

He lifted Arr's head, sat down and lowered
it gently onto his lap. Jake's voice broke with emotion as he wiped
the tears that were trickling down Arr's cheek. "It's going to be
all right. I'm here now. I'm not ever going to leave you
again."

The young Henu burrowed his head into Jake's
leg and softly purred.

Andrew Daily lost his last three shipments of
quillanium, crew and all. He decided with his next shipment he
would use his vast resources to locate the thieves.

Andrew placed an undetectable homing device
disguised as just another piece of ore in the carton. He had the
ship followed by one of his security crews in a small fast cruiser.
They were to keep a discreet distance from the freighter and not
interfere. There were provisions made for the crew of the freighter
to abandon ship at the last moment. The security team would follow
the ore shipment with its homing device to the location of the
thieves' hideout. They would then return with the coordinates to
Andrew.

Andrew's plan went off without a hitch - the
thieves were found - their location mapped. He sent a sub-space
message to Jake for his assistance in rectifying this problem.

Jake made a trip up to the Calpernia to check on
Kay-o and found the message from Andrew. He immediately contacted
him for the details.

This was just what Arr needed. For once Tim
was right. Jake needed to get Arr into a battle. The kid was
getting better each day, but he still appeared apprehensive when
Jake left him. Even a trip to the cruiser to check on the dar-dolf
was met with a long face and a plea to go along. Margaret wasn't
giving him a clean bill of health yet, but it would take them at
least a month to get to Andrew. A month on board ship would be good
for the kid. He needed some time alone with Jake. Some time to get
his bearings again. No amount of Jake's telling him he was needed
would be half as good as Jake really needing him to back him up in
a battle.

Though Margaret saw Jake's point she did not
take the news of their departure well. She wasn't sure Arr was up
to a battle. The shine had returned to his hair, but he was still
under weight and overly tired after exerting himself.

Jake said she'd just have to trust him on
this one. Margaret gave in.

She knew she made the right decision when
she saw Arr's reaction to the news of their departure. It was the
best he looked since Jake returned.

The three of them spent their last night
together. Dinner and a trip to the Imaging Chamber were the main
agendas of the evening. Margaret and Jake wanted to spend some time
alone together, but it wasn't possible. Arr was stuck to Jake like
glue. Late in the evening in the chamber, under a Muldavian sunset,
Arr fell asleep with his head in Margaret's lap. She smoothed the
now glossy hair back from his brow.

"You don't mind sharing me this last night,
do you?" Jake moved in closer, draping his arm over her shoulders
and squeezing her tenderly to him.

"Only a little." Margaret leaned into his
embrace, planting a kiss on his cheek than lowered her head to rest
lightly on his shoulder.

Jake looked off into the distance at the
brilliance of the sunset. "I know I'm a mercenary and always will
be. I know you're a dedicated physician and always will be. I don't
know how it will work, but I want you to marry me, Margaret."

Margaret lifted her head from Jake's
shoulder. She looked deep into his eyes. "We'll figure it out
somehow. Just come back to me."

Later that night, when they said their
goodbyes Margaret hugged and kissed both Jake and Arr. She gave
them both the same whispered instruction, 'Take care of each
other.'

Arr was on his third bowl of Jake's homemade stew.
The month long trip to Madelor was like an elixir to the Henu.
Physically and emotionally he was as good as new.

Jake took some time to explain to Arr his
feelings for Margaret. He also made it very clear to the kid that
he was to be included in all the plans Margaret and he made. Jake
would never break the promise he made on his return to Arr. He
would never leave him again.

They stopped just long enough at Andrew's to
get the full rundown on the situation and the coordinates of the
thief's home base. Jake told Andrew they would check it out and get
back to him within a week.

"This is a lot better than I remembered it."
Arr put the last spoonful in his mouth.

"You keep eating like that and I'll have to
get you your own cruiser so there'll be room for Kay-o and me
aboard the Calpernia," Jake said with a teasing grin.

The computer interrupted Arr's reply.
"Calpernia will be slowing, per pilot instructions, due to
proximity to target in ten minutes."

Jake headed for the pilot platform followed
closely by Arr and Kay-o. The minute Jake looked out the front
viewport he brought the cruiser to a screaming halt and what he
hoped was a nonchalant reverse. The space directly in their path
was full of cruisers in a variety of shapes and sizes. This was a
huge operation. Jake maneuvered the Calpernia behind a small moon
not too distant from all the activity.

It didn't seem as though anyone noticed the
Calpernia. Jake sighed deeply in relief. He thought he was giving
himself plenty of room when he programmed the coordinates into the
computer, but he was not told how large this operation was. The
area looked like a refitting station; it had so many cruisers
around it. Jake couldn't get an accurate count from the peeks they
got around the edge of the moon, but there must have been at least
forty. Whoever these guys were they had stolen crafts from
practically every civilized society known to Jake. This wasn't
something Arr and he could take care of on their own. They would
need heavy reinforcements. This would require an air battle as well
as a later ground confrontation. This was the big time.

If Jake had pursued his reconnaissance just one step
further, if he intercepted a vehicle or went down to the planet's
surface, he may have had second thoughts of pursuing this mission
at all. Andrew Daily had done what no man was ever able to do
before he'd managed to 'tie a can to the tail of the
Helavites.'

This planet was their home base, their
colony, their nest.

The Helavites were a society of alien's
millenniums old. They perhaps were here before any other beings
developed. They were predators, preying on all other forms of life
without exception and they were infinitely successful at what they
did.

Theirs was a unique life form, well suited
for survival of the species. They were relatively alike in size and
shape except for the color of their shells.

On an average they stood approximately six
feet tall. They were humanoid in form in the sense that they stood
upright on two legs, but they possessed four arms. The Helavites
bodies were encased in an armored shell. One plate covered the
chest and abdomen; the other ran up their back from the butt to the
back of the head. The head could be retracted and the rear shell
pulled down over the head leaving only a slit for the eyes. In this
posture there were few things in the universe that could present
any threat to them. The shell could withstand a direct hit from a
blaster. If an arm was lost in battle they could continue fighting
with the other three or two or one. It was reported, though not
verified, that when one lost a leg it could drop to the remaining
appendages and still be mobile enough to flee its assailant. This
however was not often the case. The Helavites were fierce fighters
and rarely retreated.

The only place vulnerable enough to hit on a
Helavite to stop its advance was under the arms where the front and
rear shells missed meeting by maybe as much as six inches in an
adult male. The males could be spotted by the bright iridescent
green of their shells. The females were a dull shade of brown. Both
the genders possessed the same dedication to destroying their enemy
in battle.

In addition to their remarkable shell they
possessed segmented eyes which gave them excellent peripheral
vision. They also had antennas on the top of their head which were
used for low frequency communication among themselves. This gave
them a marked advantage in battle. This form of communication could
be used similar to headsets on humans, but could cover a much wider
range. The Helavites normal audible communication was a series of
clicks, pops and something that sounded like their jaws grinding
together. These particular sounds the human vocal cords were
incapable of duplicating.

The Helavites lived in large colonies. Their
usual homes were a series of tunnels underground with the entrance
made of material stolen from another culture. The entrance could be
as simple as concrete blocks or as strong as quillanium ore. They
built with the materials they had. They were an industrious,
resourceful society.

What they stole but couldn't use they sold
in their floating black markets.

It was their tradition to take slaves from
the species they conquered. The habit was not known among the other
civilized populations of the universe because the Helavites never
left anyone behind alive to tell. They used these slaves in the
tending of their crops. The Helavites grew what they could not
steal. When not working in the fields these slaves were kept in a
separate group of tunnels by the entrance to the fields. They were
guarded by perhaps half a dozen Helavites. The colony had a large
population of slaves.

Upon Jake and Arr's return to Andrew Jake sent out a
coded message to all mercenaries to gather their forces at Madelor.
Tim was the first to arrive.

Tim kept advising caution. He felt they
needed to do further reconnaissance. He wanted Jake, Arr and him to
go in for a closer look before they dragged all the guys into it.
An operation that big wasn't going to go anywhere fast. Tim's
reservations were based on something Jake said, as an offhand
comment, when Tim first arrived. Jake said they hadn't heard any
space chatter between the vehicles surrounding the planet, just
static, a series of pops and clicks. Arr said it sounded too
uniform for regular static, sounded more like something used to
disguise their conversations. It just didn't sound right to Tim.
Why would they safeguard being overheard when they thought they
were in air space that was theirs alone? They'd made no effort to
conceal their physical presence. He didn't want to say anything
until he was sure, but he toured the black market once years ago
when he was young and the noise the Helavites made was hard to
forget.

Eventually, Tim won. The three left Andrew
to greet the rest of the mercenaries as they trickled in and took
Tim's faster cruiser to check out the area further.

They circled around from the back this time
and came in behind the planet unnoticed. The three made a very
cramped ride to the surface of the planet in Tim's pod. Remembering
his trip in the capsule, Jake apologized to Arr.

The sensors aboard the cruiser pin pointed
the main population. They took the pod down far enough away that
they hoped they could sneak up to the main force and have a look.
Tim stopped them before they left the pod.

"Be real careful," he warned in a hushed
voice.

Tim was usually cautious, that was what kept
him alive in such a dangerous field of work for this long, but Jake
thought he seemed overly so today. "What are you worried about
Tim?"

"I got a bad feeling about this. Just be
careful." With that warning he crawled out of the pod and headed
for the closest cover.