"Vessel known as Solent do you read?" The voice came from the speakers in the cockpit.
"Charlie what is that?" Kate said and lifted her hands from the controls. She was about to start the ship forward. She waved to Ash and he jogged back from the kitchen.
"I just received this message. That is a human voice, not a translation. Would you like to respond?"
Ash tensed, immediately picturing a human hostage being forced to send the transmission to draw them out of hiding. "Can you make it a video call?"
"Sending the request now." Charlie said. "Accepted."
The woman who appeared on the screen was so pale that she was nearly see through. It was the whitest skin that Ash had ever seen and he felt as though he was speaking to a ghost.
"So it is true. There are humans here." The ghost said reverently in the accent of a Russian of old Earth.
"Who are you?" Ash demanded.
"I am the human scourge that haunts the edges of civilized space. The worst nightmare of every merchant ship captain. I am the leader of the pirate flotilla, Captain Grace Volkov. Pssst, I can see you."
Ash was shaken. Not only was he being contacted by the pirate fleet of humans, they could see him past the stealth cloak. "Captain Volkov you have reached us at a terrible time." He said.
"I can see that. What is your name?"
"Captain Ash Miller. Unless there is some way that you can help us, we need to proceed with our rescue mission. If I survive, we can talk after."
"This world was only a rumor to us, but our fleet has been searching for it for longer than you or I have been alive. This is our salvation. I may be able to help you Captain Miller, if you can promise us a safe place to land when it is all over."
"We only recently learned that other humans even existed and how that came to be. I'm sorry for what happened to you, what the Callidus did, but I can't promise you anything except for our gratitude Captain. We are at our wits end and the only thing that we can do right now is to try to rescue the Callidus that is trapped down there in the hopes that just maybe the syndicate will honor their word and send a fleet here."
Captain Volkov laughed. "You think that those criminals will honor this deal? They will not."
Kate glanced up at him and he immediately understood the unspoken "These are also criminals."
"Captain, how can you help us? We are running out of time. The Sharlah are trying to kill him and the people that he's with. We need to rescue them now!"
"I will send with you, six light fighter craft. When you return to orbit, you will jump to the coordinates that I am sending and we will talk." Volkov said and ended the transmission.
"Everyone keep your suits on, grab your weapons" Ash said over the ship comms. "Kate give us some speed but don't break stealth. We'll drift forward until we hit atmosphere and burn for the surface. Hopefully she's really going to help us but we can't count on that. Charlie, help Kate take us in as hard as possible to the landing zone and touch down long enough to get them. Then I want maximum thrust back into orbit."
"Yes Ash, I can do it. These Sharlah are mighty in force but they are also stupid. There are gaps in their sensor coverage that we can fly through." Charlie said and the old engines rumbled to life.
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Smoke filled the stairwell within minutes of Sharlah igniting the pile of furniture that was blocking it. Connor coughed hard and crawled along the floor, wishing that he was a worm for the first time in his life. Loukios had disconnected the device that provided power to the third floor so the sprinkler system was dead and wouldn't shower the blaze but there was an extinguisher near the top of the stairs. He crawled for it.
Loukios and Liz stood ready with their weapons raised but the battle outside was gaining tempo. More armed citizens had arrived to make a stand and Vista Freight seemed to be their line in the sand. The overreaction to Connor and Liz's actions had brought dozens of Sharlah to the surface and kicked up the hornets nest. The people from the church camp and those who had been hiding all along wanted to collect a debt.
"Cover me!" Connor yelled over the inferno and saturated the burning wood, melting his boots as he kicked red hot pieces to the side when they were extinguished. He grunted and shoved the leather couch from one of the offices down to the landing before rounding the bend and diving back for cover. A red beam zipped past and through the wall behind him as he scrambled back up, coughing with each step.
Loukios frowned his canine face and yelled "That is enough!". He pulled something from his waistband that looked like a futuristic grenade and threw it around the corner with hate. It boomed and sent chunks of concrete through the wall with the same speed of the laser beam before them and Loukios followed.
His dual pistols spoke as he walked the Sharlah down. They hadn't expected to see another being and were caught off guard by his lack of fear and his belligerent curses. The troopers in front who weren't immediately hit by his automatic pulse weapons pulled back and ran for cover
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"You can grab my ass you filthy lizards! I'll castrate every one of you and be home before dinner!" He screamed, the translator seeming to have trouble with what he said.
Connor grinned at Liz and followed behind him. He took a few shots of his own but quickly realized that he needed to keep up with the fox like creature that was clearing a path. Machine gun fire barked from the rear of the building and something exploded. The night sky lit up like it was daytime for a few moments and then faded into black.
"How do your vehicles work human? How do you start it?" Loukios called out and ripped on a door handle.
"You need the key! It needs to be unlocked too." Liz yelled to him and tried another.
"Here! It's a piece of shit but the key is in there!" Connor said and opened the door of a blue pickup truck. "Lets go, get in!"
He fired up the old rust bucket as they climbed in, Loukios in the front seat and Liz in the back. "Can we really just leave them?" She said, looking toward the rear of the offices where the fighting was still fierce.
"My employer will owe you a great debt if you help me. They may even be able to do something for this world. Please, to the landing zone. I'll show you where."
Connor peeled the tires and soared onto the highway at a breakneck speed but the Sharlah were breaking contact with the human militia and giving chase.
"Shit they really want us!" He said and jerked the wheel to dodge a burned out car in the right lane.
"Here, pull off onto this dirt road." Loukios said.
"They're gaining on us!" Liz shouted from the backseat and braced her back against the front passenger seat.
Her sniper rifle boomed inside of the small space and Connor's world went sideways. The muzzle blast hit him like a slap to the head followed by another and then a third. Loukios pulled down on his ears to pin them against his head but had to let go to point to another dirt road.
The truck skidded sideways before regaining traction and a flurry of red bolts slammed into the path that it's tires had just left. A pair of dropships banked overhead and Connor braced for the impact of their weapons. The front of the truck lifted and twisted to the side as the Earth heaved from the impacts. Liz screamed as her body slammed into one window and then the other as the truck tumbled end over end. The dropships adjusted for another gun run but before they could fire, they both erupted into balls of flame as missiles from above streaked into them simultaneously. More missiles ripped into the roadway behind the crash sending the world into chaos. Trees splintered and toppled over and the night sky lit up like the grand finale of a fireworks show.
Connor twisted in his seat to check on Liz, she was lying motionless and facing away from him.
"No no no, not again, not like this." Connor cried out as he ripped at his seatbelt. He reached for her and she groaned in pain. It put him at ease in a strange way, she wasn't dead. "Liz wake up, please wake up."
She turned to face him and her face was a mask of blood. Glass from the shattered window had pressed into her as she bounced into the doors during the roll. She wiped her eyes but it just smeared and caused her to jump in pain.
"We need to go now! We can't stay in here." Connor gasped at his own pain but it seemed that he was lucky, it was just soreness from the seat belt.
"Humans." Came the haunting voice of Loukios. Both syllables of the word came out like a chore, even through the translation device. Connor looked for him but he wasn't in his seat. "Humans. Here."
Connor climbed into the front and that's when he saw a patch of reddish brown fur poking in from the outside of the window. Loukios had been ejected and the old square body truck had landed on him. Connor heard Sharlah who had survived the blast shouting now. They were getting closer, but so was a shining light in the sky. It was growing.
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"We need another round of missiles from the fighters!" Ash screamed to Charlie as the surface of the farm rose up rapidly to meet them. He could see the burning Sharlah armored vehicles and black figures darting around. Many were dead, but not all.
"I have asked for another run and they are returning. Kate start braking at full power now."
"Just do it Charlie, this isn't a training mission." Kate snapped at the AI who didn't reply.
The fighter jets few past the Solent in a brilliant flash of light and metal as they pounded the Sharlah position with both missiles and laser fire before banking back to the sky in an absurd display of battlefield agility.
"We are landing in ten seconds. get to the cargo bay." Charlie said and Ash grabbed his rifle in his armored hands and nodded to Kate.
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Connor looked at the red fur and then back at Liz who was still lying on her side and moaning in pain. One could be the key to gaining an ally against the Sharlah. The other was alone in the world because of his actions yet she still trusted him. He climbed out of his now vertical driver's door and screamed at what felt like another broken rib. He fell to the ground and gasped as the wind temporarily left his lungs. His head was getting foggy but the cool metal of the roof felt good against his face in the moments before the agony as he pushed with everything he had. The truck rocked but settled back onto the midsection of Loukious and he screamed.
Connor did it again and he too screamed as he poured every ounce of adrenaline and hate into his arms and bruised chest and it teetered on it's wheels just long enough for him to let go and rip on the collar of Loukio's jacket. The truck came back down on his legs and he shrieked in pain before sobbing.
"Human please. Please help me." He cried out in fear and agony.
Connor pulled on his alien backpack until it came free and then began searching through his pockets.
"What? What are you doing?" Loukios struggled to get the words out. "I need to get to a hospital. Get me on the ship!"
"I'm sorry, you're not going to make it." Connor said coldly. There was nothing behind his eyes.
"No, no, don't leave me like this." Loukios pleaded.
"I won't." Connor said and raised his rifle once more. He fired and turned Loukios into a horror that he would never forget.
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"They're coming! Shoot behind them!" Ruo screamed and the entire crew opened up on the forest. The few remaining Sharlah fired wildly in their direction but moved for what little cover was left behind their burned out APC.
There was a man carrying a girl on his back but no sign of an alien with them. It was impossible, Ash had just spoken to the Callidus agent. He was alive.
"Where's the Syndicate guy?" Jayded asked on the suit comms.
"I don't see him. Just keep shooting." Ash yelled when he didn't really need to.
Ash and Ruo ran down the ramp to meet the young man halfway and take the girl from him. The covering fire worked but the lapse during their reloads brought return fire. Beams hit the dirt around Ash and scorched the cargo bay ramp but they made it back aboard and took cover in the debris from the wooden crates and the escape pod.
"We're in Charlie, close it!"