Adam and his group made it to the Cassie 1 without incident, at which time Kaylor went ballistic.
“What about my ship? I can’t just leave her!”
“Where is she?” Adam asked as he slipped into the pilot seat.
“In orbit. They brought us down in a shuttle.”
Adam thought for a moment. “Good, we’ll pick her up on the way. We can always use more room, and the workshop you have aboard will come in handy.”
Kaylor had no idea what Adam had in mind, but he was happy just to learn that his precious FS-475 was not going to be abandoned. Besides, his whole life was aboard that ship.
They rendezvoused with the FS-475 within ten minutes of reaching orbit, and Adam maneuvered the Cassie-1 over the aft access port. Once the seal was secure, the five escapees transferred to the much larger ship. Adam told Kaylor their new destination.
“Zylim-4! Are you crazy?” the alien protested. “That place is so radioactive it’s about to achieve critical mass just sitting there.”
“That’s where we’re going, nevertheless.”
“Why there?”
Riyad and Sherri had just entered the pilothouse. Adam nodded at Sherri and said “There’s something we have to check out. It could be important.”
Kaylor set about programming in the coordinates, then turned and began stroking the two fingers of flesh that protruded below his ears. “If my nodes dry up from the radiation, it will be your fault.”
Adam had no idea what he was talking about, so he simply ignored him.
Riyad stepped forward.
“So? Why Zylim-4?” he asked. He preferred not to tip his hand at the time, and relay his own beliefs about the planet.
Adam closed to within inches of the pirates face. “I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this situation is completely different from the time you and your goons got the drop on us before. You may have been some big-time terrorist back in your prior life, but here, I have no doubt I could take you.”
Riyad held out his hands. “I have no doubt either, my friend. You are younger, stronger and more traditionally-trained. At the time of our prior association, we were both in a completely different reality. Now we must operate as a team.”
“Nice words, Tarazi. But all I have to go by is your past record. I don’t trust you. I know what your ultimate goal is, and as we get closer to finding a way home, I know you’ll do whatever it takes to make your fantasy come true. And if that means stabbing us in the back, you’ll do it. You’ve done it before.”
Riyad brought his hands up into a prayer position and nodded. “I agree with you, if you only go by our brief encounter months ago. But things have changed. My pirate fleet is destroyed; I have no money and no resources. I am now at your mercy, as well as that of your lovely lady friend,” he said, nodding at Sherri. “I will not be a problem. Rather I can be an asset. But you still have not answered the question. Why is Zylim-4 so important?”
Adam stared back at Riyad. There was a long pause, as Adam weighed the option of trusting him or not. Finally, he bit his bottom lip and nodded.
“When we get there, I’m going to need all the help I can get. I have no choice but to trust you. However, I will be watching you.”
“Perfectly understandable, my brother.”
Then addressing everyone in the room, Adam began, “Zylim-4 is where Sherri was brought when she was first abducted by the Klin. It’s some kind of major base or processing center, and according to Sherri, there are a lot of those weird people there, like the ones you talked about, Riyad — those who committed suicide.”
So I was right! Riyad thought. Zylim-4 is the base. And it was gravity that led him there…
Aloud, he said, “That’s amazing. They must surely know the location of Earth.”
“That’s my hope, but according to you and Sherri, these other Humans are more foe than friend.”
“So what’s your plan for getting us in? Zylim-4 is an inhospitable place, as Mr. Kaylor has alluded. All the living facilities are deep underground and secure. And then there’s the radiation.”
Adam turned away from Riyad and stared out the front viewport. “That I haven’t figured out yet. But once we get there, we’ll be going up against other Humans, not the normal wimpy aliens we’re used to — present company excluded, of course. I will need to count on all of you.”
“Don’t worry, my friend. We are all on the same team now. And you will find that I can be a very good team player.”
After a few hours of planning, Adam called a meeting in the cargo hold of the FS-475.
“Kaylor and Jym have been doing some research on the internet — I mean the Library — and have found quite a bit of information regarding Zylim-4 and Locin-Annan. I’ll let Kaylor fill you in.”
Kaylor sat at the small desk with the monitor embedded in the bulkhead above it. A schematic appeared on the screen. “Locin-Annan is a community of miners and support staff of about 5,000 beings. It’s now located primarily to the right of the main dig where uranium ore has been extracted for about fifty standard years.” He highlighted a large bulb-shaped area to the left of Locin-Annan. “This large cavity is where a very productive vein of ore was mined until it dried up about twenty years ago. Then along this long shaft leading to the area, a cave-in occurred fourteen years ago. Since then, it appears no one has bothered to reopen the passageway.”
Adam stepped up to the desk and pointed at the large cavity. “This is where I believe the Klin and Humans may be hiding. This area is over ten football fields in size, with numerous offshoots. Also, when the mine was operating, there were sleeping quarters, power facilities, storage buildings — and even a small hospital before they closed the place.” He smiled over at Sherri.
Kaylor then highlighted a round area between the settlement of Locin-Annan and the now-deserted cavern. “This large area here was the open-pit mining area until it, too, dried up. The mining companies installed a large air-lock in the lowest part of the pit. This is where Adam believes we should set down. Off of the airlock are various passageways leading into the settlement to the right, and the cave-in area on the left.”
“What I propose,” Adam said, taking over, “is simply a fact-finding incursion. Essentially, we are going in blind, but we’ll go in prepared. And we’re not on a rescue mission, if this is indeed where the abducted Humans are being kept. We simply do not have the resources for a rescue. What we’ll be looking for is the central computer room.”
He lifted a small box. “Kaylor has these small comm-units for all of us and they’ve been set to a dedicated frequency. Since the gravity will be a problem for Kaylor and Jym, they will stay behind in the 475 and monitor any activity.”
Adam then moved to one of the work benches in the hold where he had laid out a whole variety of weapons and other paraphernalia. “Throughout the months, I’ve been collecting as many weapons and other tactical gear I came across — you never know when something might come in handy.” Again he smiled over at Sherri, who beamed a large one back at him. “I have fourteen MK-17’s, two ’27’s, six flash rifles, a dozen slide grenades, four smoke canisters and five pressure suits, which I’ve rigged with one-time diffusion shields.”
“What are those,” Sherri and Riyad asked simultaneously.
“That’s a little invention of mine that will keep a level-one bolt from frying you. But the thing to remember is they’re only good for one bolt.”
Adam then turned to Sherri. “I need you to try and remember everything you can about your escape from the hospital and your movements to the warehouse.”
She furrowed her brow. “It’s been a while, but I’ll try. I do remember sneaking down a long corridor and finding a huge elevator. I got in and looked for buttons, but all I found was a single panel. I pushed it, and the elevator moved. When the doors opened, I was in a huge chamber with another corridor leading off to the right.”
Adam moved back to the desk and studied the screen in the wall above it. The old hospital area was located in the main excavation chamber. He traced a line down the leading corridor, the one with the cave-in. Directly above it was another tunnel running diagonally toward the airlock. “So you could have gone up here and entered this other tunnel. How far did you go down this one before you came to the warehouse?”
“It seems like it could have been ten, fifteen minutes or so. I don’t really know. It seemed really long at the time since I didn’t know where I was going.”
“Did you have to go through any other doors to get in the warehouse?”
“Yes. There was a huge double-door set up. It was partially opened at the time so I just slipped through. I’m sure the doors would have to be operated mechanically. They were too big to be pushed open.”
Again, Adam traced a finger along the schematic until the tunnel met up with a large chamber to the right of the tunnel. The main tunnel continued on into Locin-Annan. “This could be it. This large room appears to have an airlock of its own that meets up with the main one.” The plan was beginning to take shape.
“We’ll set down here,” Adam said, pointing to spot above the main airlock. “With any luck, we’ll be cycled through into the main chamber. Then the three of us will back-track Sherri’s path. We’ll go in through this airlock and into the warehouse, then follow this tunnel to the elevator.” He pointed to a room off of the main excavation chamber. “This is where the main control room for the mine was located before they shut it down. It would make sense for the Klin to have utilized the existing equipment and power sources. This will be our destination.
“Sherri has described these other Humans as wearing blue tunics. Luckily, Kaylor has a fair supply of them. We’ll put them on over our pressure suits and do our best to conceal our weapons.”
Then he furrowed his brow and looked at Sherri. “Besides the group of women you were with, did you see any other women among the Human guards?”
“Come to think of it, no.”
“So we can’t have Sherri just strolling around free as a bird.”
“She could be our prisoner, with us escorting her,” Riyad offered. “That would also justify us carrying weapons.”
“Good idea.”
Adam then scanned the room, looking into the faces of his small team of makeshift warriors. “This can get dicey. We don’t really know what we’re walking into. And we have to be very careful. If the Klin suspect that we’re there to reach the computer room, they may dump the data, and we’ll have nothing. We have about twenty-eight hours before we arrive on site. Get some rest. That is all.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Sherri said, snapping to attention. Adam was slightly embarrassed by her move, but relaxed when he saw her wide grin. He moved over to her.
“Sorry about that. Old habits.”
“Hey, I for one am grateful for your experience. It’s one thing whacking some slothful aliens. It’s another jumping headlong into a hive of other Humans who, according to Riyad, are fanatical in their beliefs and actions.”
“Well put, Private Valentine!”
“Private? Can’t I at least be a sergeant, or maybe even a lieutenant?
“Hell, I’ll make you Captain Valentine. It has a nice ring to it.” Then the smile disappeared from his face. “But this is serious. It will just be the three of us in there against who knows what. And I trust Riyad about as far as I can throw him. Just keep an eye on him.”
“Will do. He does seem to have his own agenda.”
“You would be surprised.”