Escape from andromeda, p.12
Escape From Andromeda, page 12
part #1 of The Galactic Wars Series
Jac inhaled deeply. "And if the roster doesn't list his guards, and he is traveling with them. . ."
Roxen pulled a face. "What else is not being shown on the official roster."
Jac mulled the information over. "I can hack the computer system and see if there is anything suspicious. Unfortunately, from what you told me about General Tratnox, he doesn't trust computers and has been primarily using written or in-person orders for the last three years."
Roxen nodded. "He was always distrusting of our government and especially those connected with the Science Institute. So, it makes sense he would not want any changes to what the Institute has ordered or authorized being placed into a system that they have access to."
"Alright. How do we find out who is actually on the ship?" Jac asked.
Dispassionately, he said, "We board the Tratnox, Admiral."
A glint in his eyes suggested he was about to say something sarcastic. "Commander First Class Griffnox is just that. A first officer on a military ship. While you, Admiral Jartner, are a military fleet officer, doing a final inspection of the Tratnox before it’s transfer to the new owners."
"Are you out of your ever-loving mind?" Jac shrieked. It wasn’t sarcastic, it was insane.
"Not at all," Leanna assured her. "Ukner can make you look like a Egrean. And with Sergeant First Class Furtnorex as your personal guard and Commander Roxen as your engineering specialist, no one would question our unscheduled inspection of the ship."
“Sergeant Furtnorex?” she asked.
“A military Sergeant First Class would be seen as higher ranking than a Civilian Freighter Lieutenant.” Roxen supplied. “Additionally, Commander Griffnox served with Sergeant Furtnorex and might question her promotion from military sergeant to military lieutenant so soon after returning to the service after a short three-year retirement.”
She glanced from one to the other and saw something she did not like. "What the hell are you not telling me?"
Roxen swallowed. "To be convincing we need to board with a full squad of soldiers."
"Four to eight soldiers. We have that many. Including one other former Soldier Class crewman."
"Not Mimert. He cannot be a part of this," Furtnorex said emphatically.
"Why? In appearance, he’s just like you," Jac said.
She could tell she had insulted the lieutenant and didn't know why. Furtnorex didn't leave her in the dark for long.
"He looks nothing like me. Mimert is a washout, and he reeks of it. And trust me on this, true Soldier Class Egreans, and especially Warrior Class soldiers, would spot Mimert as a washout from a mile away. And there is no way an officer, much less a full fleet admiral, would have one on their personal guard detail.”
She couldn't see the difference but quickly agreed to smooth things over. "Alright, we’ll use the others from the crew."
Roxen slowly shook his head. "No, we need men and women who know how to act like soldiers. The men and women that we have are not soldiers. And no one, especially Warrior Class Soldiers are going to believe even for a few seconds that men like Ostner, Jutternox, Muxner, and Pax are anything but what they are. And they are the best non-soldier soldiers we have."
"What the hell are you three suggesting?" she asked carefully.
"There are trained soldiers in our cargo bays, Admiral. And some of them can be made to resemble Egrean as easily as Ukner made you into one of us."
"Oh, hell no!" Jac cried. "You can't seriously be suggesting that I ask one hundred, and two hundred, and even thousand-year-old soldiers to fight with us?"
"We are indeed suggesting that very thing, Admiral," Roxen said.
She shook her head wildly. "It can't be done! They might be soldiers—from hundreds of years ago—but they don't have the knowledge or ability to go up against people with highly developed intellects, much less soldiers with near genius IQs."
"IQs? " Furtnorex asked.
"P-3's way of measuring a person's intellect," Leanna supplied.
"Oh," Furtnorex replied, "she means BRI."
Leanna nodded. "Same thing. And do I need to remind you, Jac, that you have studied and memorized everything about our world and our history. Your people are not less intelligent than us, they are just ten thousand years behind us in development and education. Once we were as the people on your world are now. Our higher intelligence is not the product of bigger or better brains. It is the result of years and years of selectively educating all our people in a higher, and much earlier form of education. You, yourself, told me, that people of your world from one hundred, two hundred, or a thousand years ago would see you and others of your time as geniuses. But that you're not really smarter than them, you've just had the advantage of higher education at an earlier and earlier stage of your growth."
"What has that got to do with turning the people in the cargo bays into Egrean soldiers?" Jac insisted.
Leanna laid her hand on Jac's arm and this time it did not invoke warmth and longing, it chilled her to the bone. "Jac, we do not have to raise the level of their intellect to do this. We," she waved at the others in the room, "only need to teach them how to act like Egreans. Once that is accomplished, we just need them to be what they already are, soldiers."
Jac sat back in her chair abruptly. "Son-of-a-bitch!"
Roxen pressed. "Then you agree with our plan."
"Fuck you, Commander. Fuck all of you." She slammed her fist down on the table. "Son-of-a-bitch. What the hell have I gotten myself into here?"
Leanna grasped her hand and interlaced their fingers. "Freedom, Jac. Freedom for yourself and for all those people down in the cargo bays."
Jac gazed at their joined fingers. "If this works. Otherwise, I've just murdered every one of us."
Leanna squeezed her hand. "Admiral, you, and those beings in the cargo bays were going to be murdered by General Tratnox's orders anyway. So, if you are going to die, you might as well do it trying to get back home."
Jac snorted. "Good argument." The very argument she had used about her own escape, when she thought she would be doing it by herself. Now, taking the lives of the Frozen and the Egreans who were helping into her hands and endangering all of them, that was another thing.
Leanna patted her hand. "It will work, Jac. It has to."
She shook her head. "Oh, hell. I'm going to have to go talk to them again."
"The sooner the better, Admiral," Roxen said. "We only have just over a week to train them."
"Train them?" Jac asked.
Furtnorex stood up. "They are soldiers, Admiral. But even soldiers need training on how to attack an enemy. And they will need to know how to act like Egreans, which isn't that hard."
Jac’s lips tightened. "Yeah, just act like a bunch of assholes. Which they already are."
They all chuckled, breaking the tension that had built up in the room.
The lieutenant's eyes appeared to twinkle. "True, Admiral. But there are a few mannerisms they will need to perfect if they are going to fool real Egreans"
"Alright, what exactly is your plan?"
The next two hours crawled by as the four of them hashed out a plan of attack and several options if the first one went awry, which battle plans tended to do once the enemy was engaged. And that was the easy part. Now she had to recruit a dozen or so very angry and uncooperative soldiers into helping in a plan that more than likely would get all of them killed.
She would start with her own people. Not that she thought they would be easier to convince. She just wanted to have this first attempt in her own language without the use of a translator. For most of them. There were four men in the Earth bay that would need to use a translator to fully understand what she was about to propose to them.
She arrived at bay seven and asked the guard if there had been any problems with the Earthlings. There hadn't been, so she prepared herself and told him to call for backup if he heard any loud noises. With that she unlocked the door and opened it enough to squeeze through.
What she found were the twelve people gathered in small groups about the bay. The twentieth century Americans were the largest group. The Scottish men were huddled on one side of the bay while the English soldiers were doing the same on the other side. The two medieval knights were at the back, sitting on the floor near each other but didn't appear to be talking to one another. And just inside the door sat the two women, a nineteenth century lady and a modern 1930s woman, engrossed in a deep and cheery conversation when Jac stepped through the door.
They all stopped what they were doing and stared at her. "Can I have your attention?" she announced loudly.
"You have it," Captain Payne called out.
"What can we do for you, Admiral Morgan?" Lady Sara asked at the same time.
"I need to talk to all of you," she announced. "And I'd appreciate it if I didn't have to yell the entire time. Could you all gather in one spot?" She repeated the request in French and in what little Gaelic she remembered.
"Why?" Captain Payne snarled.
"Do you want to get home, Captain?"
He refused to answer, but Lady Sara, in the sweetest and most sarcastic voice Jac ever heard said, "Yes you do, Captain. So, why don't you be a good boy and come over here so the rest of us can get back to our homes."
Jac could tell he wanted to berate the woman, but the others around him began moving toward the front of the bay and Jac. Lady Sara and the other woman, Betty Hooper, stood up and faced Jac. When the men arrived, a few tried to push them to the rear of the gathering group, but neither Lady Sara nor Betty Hooper had any intentions of being moved.
At one point, one of the British soldiers reached out to grab Betty and pull her backward when Jac and the two women glared him in to releasing her.
"Touch them, and you will answer to me," Jac told him quietly.
He slowly withdrew his hand and took a half a step back from the women.
"Okay, we are here. What is this about?" Payne asked, a notable quiver of annoyance in his voice.
Jac ignored him and located the French and Norman Knights. She held up the hypodermic shot with the translators she had brought along and explained in French to them that if they allowed her to place something near their ear, they would be able to understand what she was about to say to the rest of the group at the same time. They both hesitated but complied with her request.
"Can you understand me?" she asked in English. They both flinched as if the translator stung them.
"Oui," they said, and it came out as yes.
"Good, good."
She glanced at each of her audience’s faces. Some were angry, some confused, and a few curious. "How do I put this in terms all of you will be able to understand?"
"Just spit it out," Payne barked.
"Easier said than done, Captain. You are from a time when airplanes existed, and rockets ships were starting to explore the space around our planet." She waved at the men behind him. "Two of the men here may have seen or heard of hot air balloons. While the rest of the men here have never seen or dreamt of the idea of man leaving the surface of the Earth. Yet all of you, I presume from my own experiences, remember being taken up in a craft you had never seen before, and coming face to face with creatures you never knew existed. Is that correct?"
Most everyone nodded.
"For those of you that have never imagined flying like a bird or leaving the world you had known your whole life, I can only say that all of us are now on one of those specks of light in the sky we call stars. It is hundreds of trillions of miles away from our homes. In short, we are all a very, very long way away from our homes."
Jac was having trouble reading the multitude of expressions on their faces as what she was saying settled in at various degrees among them.
"For the moment, where we are is not the important issue or what I want to talk to you about. How we get home is."
One of the big Highlanders pushed his way forward. "And jist how do we do that, lassie?"
She gazed up into his blue eyes. "To put it in the simplest of terms …" She waited expectantly for an introduction, and he caught on quickly.
"Laine MacKechnie, ma'am. Of the MacKechnie clan."
She nodded. "Laine MacKechnie, to put it in the simplest of terms, we are currently on a…a boat. A ship. A ship that is in space." He frowned, so she verified. "Very, very, very high in the sky, Laine. And although this ship can get us partway to our homes, it cannot get us all the way there as it is not built for such a long journey."
"Aye," he said. "I get that we need a bigger ship to get us home."
"Not bigger, just built for making the long journey."
"Aye," he replied.
"And where do we get this better built," Lady Sara started and glanced around, "ship to get us all the way back to our homes?"
Jac replied. "As it happens, we are currently…docked near a…a shipyard that builds all kinds of ships. My second-in-command knows of a ship that can, in fact, get all of us all the way home."
"Why do I hear a big but in there?" Captain Payne said.
Her lips tightened. "The ship is called the Tratnox and has just finished its trial runs. It is…seaworthy and ready to fly."
"Again, I hear a but in there," Payne persisted. "What are you not telling us, Admiral Morgan?"
She heaved a sigh and plunged in. "The Tratnox is not currently manned by its crew. But," she got in ahead of Payne's retort, "she is manned by a number of soldiers. We are not sure how many and are hoping to take her without a fight."
"Aye, but ye needs to be prepared if one comes. Is that the way of it, lassie?"
"Don't you have a troop of soldiers on this ship," one of the British soldiers asked.
"Your name?" Jac asked.
"Lieutenant Morrison Crowl, ma'am. Eighty-seventh foot."
"Lieutenant Crowl. The Oxsefatable, the ship we are currently on, has a small detachment of soldiers. But she is a cargo ship, not a warship. The Tratnox is a warship. What is called a Galaxy Class Jump Warship. The kind we need to get home."
She kept emphasizing the part about getting home to drive in the need for collaboration and teamwork among them.
"Stop pussyfooting around the subject, Admiral," Payne said less heated. "We are all soldiers here." He glanced at the women. "Well, most of us are. What do you need from us?"
"I have about one week to turn as many of you as are willing into Egrean soldiers. Or to make it so you can convince an unknown number of Egrean soldiers and their commander that you are an elite squad of Egreans attached to my command."
"Ye is wantin' to sneak onboard their ship and take it 'afor they know it," Laine said.
She spoke through clenched teeth. "If we can." She made eye contact with each person before continuing. "Because if we have to fight our way onboard, Laine MacKechnie, there is a chance a lot of us are going to die. And if that happens, there is an even better chance that none of us will ever see our homes again."
CHAPTER 10
Jac had learned a long time ago that facing the unknown was the hardest thing to do. It was the basis of a lot of prejudice and hatred on Earth. She was battling that as she headed to the other cargo bays, currently housing the rest of the Frozen. The crew of the Oxsefatable had tried to separate the beings by galaxy, solar system, or planet. Unfortunately, these beings came from worlds they were not familiar with. Their efforts were farther compounded by the fact they also came from worlds or times that did not know about space travel.
She decided to confront those beings first, figuring that they would be the hardest to convince, addressing the humans from her own time last, as they would be the easiest. Jac first stopped and spoke to Humnor Vanic and Wender Benkcie from the planet Alitan within the Milky Way Galaxy. She didn't know if astronomers on Earth had given their solar system a name yet, so she used the one they used, the Alitan Solar System. Humnor was a fighter pilot with a small country on the planet. While Wender was similar to a university professor on Earth. She lived and worked in a country that was currently at war with Humnor's. Both had readily agreed to help, but as a soldier, only Humnor fit the mission criteria.
In appearance, Alitans were nearly identical to Earthlings, yet there were enough differences that they had been housed separately from the Earthlings of her time. In fact, both the Alitans and Earthlings had been housed in crew quarters instead of one of the cargo bays the Frozen had been placed in.
Despite her initial misgivings about speaking to the Frozen from different worlds and times, her talk with them had not gone any harder than it had with the Frozen of Earth. Relieved and filled with confidence, she headed for her last meeting with her fellow abductees.
"There is no way in hell we are buying into this fantasy," Navy Lieutenant Davis Slutter said. "All this," he waved his hand wildly about, "is some kind of movie set. Those people are just actors wearing stage makeup. And that giant you showed us is just another actor in prosthetics and a silicone mask."
She confronted Air Force Lieutenant John McNeal. "You believe the same thing?"
"It is a lot more believable than being abducted by aliens from another world, another galaxy."
She glanced from one to the other. "And the last year? All the tests and experiments run on you by white-skinned, white-haired people who did not speak English or any known language on Earth?"
"Torture, not experiments," Slutter insisted. "And the only questions those people asked me were about the strength of our military and our readiness for war."
Jac blinked at him. "Soooo, you believe you have been abducted by what, a foreign power and that they are trying to trick you into giving out vital information on our military?"
His face contorted with fury.
She snorted. "And I guess that makes me a Russian or North Korean spy."
"Chinese. Iranian. Who knows. You might even be working for our own government and trying to see if we'll reveal secrets about our military," the lieutenant said.
"Seriously? For over a year, dozens of little albino men and women in lab coats have tortured you and Lieutenant McNeal and you think they are fucking Russians?" She glanced from one to the other. "Good God almighty, they drew a damn blank when they abducted you two. And all this time I thought the men and women who flew our fighter jets were smarter than the average American."
