Page 28 of Narzek
The ship quaked again. Cayla squirmed to reach into her pocket for her com. Pushing a hand through a hole in the webbing, she held it so she could see the small screen.
There was a view of space, and several Sargan warships had blinked into the Ryosa system. Apparently, the whole setup was a trap, a concerted effort to take down the Farseek Brigade. So far, at least they weren’t outnumbered because of the two Alliance Raptors in the system with the Farseek Dreadnaughts. The Sargan’s main advantage was the fighters that poured from the launch bays of the single battle carrier.
As soon as the Sargan battleships started blinking in near Ryosa, all of the Farseek and Alliance ships that were strung out through the system moved in. Until they arrived, Dread Ten and Seven were taking a beating from multiple enemy vessels. Soon, all the warships in the star system were engaged in battle, slinging torpedoes and energy beams back and forth.
All were maneuvering to get the best angle with a chance to disable their adversary. Every direct hit to their shields weakened them a bit more, sending vibrations through the whole ship, shaking it hard enough to dislodge Cayla from their bunk had she not been harnessed in. It had made her drop her com a couple times, but it got caught by the harness where she could easily retrieve it.
Cayla knew she didn’t really want to die but accepted it could happen. The months she’d had with Narzek were probably the happiest of her adult life. She couldn’t let herself believe that’s all they would ever have.
She closed her eyes and thought back over their time together, sweet tender moments, shared laughter, the passion of their lovemaking. She couldn’t let herself believe that was ending so soon. If she could just hold him one more time…
Narzek’s first aware moment, he couldn’t understand why his head was pounding with pain. He blinked a few times before opening his eyes and found he was looking up at the sky through the view plate of his helmet. It had darkened to shield his eyes from the blazing sun overhead. He really needed to get up off the ground. He wasn’t entirely sure how he had gotten there in the first place.
He flexed his muscles as he prepared to lever himself up. Everything hurt as though he had been body-slammed repeatedly to the ground. Or dropped from the sky.
He groaned. That was it, he realized. They were all dropped from the sky when the shuttle crashed, not just crashed, it was shot down by a missile launched from the ground.
Narzek vaguely remembered giving the order to close their helmets as they were going down. He would be dead had he not been armored for combat. The force of being slammed to the ground could still have caused a concussion and internal injuries.
“Body scan,” he ordered from his onboard computer.
“Concussion with extended loss of consciousness, internal hemorrhage from liver and spleen, bruising, nanites injected on impact have stopped blood loss, medications injected to aid healing and reverse concussion. You can now safely ambulate.”
Despite what his armor computer told him, it still hurt to move or even breathe to deeply. Probably the crash didn’t do his lungs and heart any good either, but the nanites would fix the damage. They always did.
Cayla would probably blanch if he ever told her how many times he had been injured in the war and how badly. Their armor didn’t always prevent them from getting hurt but kept them from getting killed most of the time. Then the onboard nanites and meds took away the pain and fixed the damage.
He sat up slowly and requested an analgesic for his pain that would not cloud his brain. It looked like they’d landed in the desert. The ground was rocky with sunburnt vegetation that dried after the rainy season was over. He could see the bodies of his team strewn around like discarded toys and pieces of the shuttle among them.
Chapter Twenty-One
As Narzek stood, he saw the pilot compartment of the shuttle about a hundred yards from where the rest of the shuttle lay. He started pinging their communications channel to see if he could rouse any of the rest of his people while jogging to the intact pilot compartment. He had to pry the door open because there was no power to open it.
Both men were unconscious, but the impact on their bodies had been minimized by airbags that deployed when the craft hit the ground with excessive impact. A scan showed they each only had minor injuries.
At that point, Narzek pinged communications on Dread Ten to report.
“LC, we have a shuttle searching for you. I have just sent them your coordinates. All of our ships and the Alliance ships are engaged in battle. We can’t safely bring you up right now.”
“Understood,” Narzek replied, unable to quell a frisson of apprehension that rippled through him.
“Commander Legatu asks if your team can complete your assignment.”
“Affirmative,” Narzek replied. “As long as we don’t get shot down again.”
“Dread Seven Shuttle Two knocked out that rocket launcher, and they will be there to back you up. We need to know ASAP if there are any slaves to evacuate.”
“Will do, Pardantu out.”
In the time it took the shuttle to arrive, Narzek got all his people on their feet and looking for their rifles that were strewn over the ground as they were.
Although he was thinking it, he didn’t say it out loud. How did the Sargan’s know to set a trap for them at Ryosa. All of their communications were encrypted, and they hadn’t reported their plans to anyone.
During their shuttle trip back to the industrial complex and slave quarters where they were headed before they crashed, Narzek mentally reviewed the list of who could have passed their plan to the Sargans. Someone on any of the ships currently in battle, the Consortium ships, and theKurelliscould have found an opportunity to send out a coded message.
He couldn’t believe any of those present would have betrayed them. Someone onKurelliswas most likely. There were a lot of people they freed that came with little verifiable history. They knew there were Sargan defectors among them, but some of them could have easily lied.
The missile launcher was dead, but a company of Sargans had apparently tracked them and were lying in wait for them at the industrial complex. With only handheld weapons and substandard armor, they weren’t much of a challenge for two units of Farseek Warriors. The fighting was over in less than a span, and only the Sargans were casualties. They collected those that were still alive and let the med droid attend to them. While the pilots stood guard.
