The Rescue Attempt
Earth - South Africa - 2013, Tuesday
The Cast
William, Kurt, Grace, Janet, Gordon, Oscar,, Krankel, Sonia, Sam, Rob, Jon, Mandy, Dom Kobios
William and Kurt approached the front of the motel. A couple of weary travellers wanting a bed for the night. Grace, Janet, Gordon and Oscar skirted around to the rear, looking for an alternate way into the building. Krankel was glued to Grace’s side, feeling his mistress’s anxiety.
They didn’t communicate telepathically, not wanting to alert the Zerot. The CIA agents had short range radios that were low tech and likely to stay off its radar.
Kurt reported in, speaking as quietly as possible. ‘No activity at the reception desk. Emergency lighting only, and the no vacancies sign is up. Gordon is sorting the door lock now. Over.’
Oscar replied, ‘We are approaching the rear. There’s a goods access door here. Over.’
Kurt continued, ‘We’re in, there are two dead behind the reception counter. Over.’
They crept towards the door to the conference room, stopped and listened. They heard a scream, followed by an eerie cackle.
‘They’re inside the conference room,’ whispered Kurt. ‘We need to move quickly. Over.’
‘We’re in, there’s a rear entrance to the room,’ Oscar replied. ‘Prepare to enter on our mark. Over.’
Sonia returned with a set of industrial secateurs. ‘I’ve wanted to try these out for a while, but unfortunately, I don’t have a garden. Let’s see which of you is the bravest.’
She went straight to Sam and adeptly slipped the blades around the little finger of his bound right hand. She paused for a few seconds to see him register what was about to happen, enjoying the horrified look on his face. Then her fingers closed.
It was a few more seconds before Sam realised what had just happened. The rush of blood and the sight of the end of his finger lying on the floor seemed to delay the onset of the pain. But when it came, his face twisted and a deep moan escaped from his throat. He was desperately trying to keep himself together, but with his hands bound he was unable to give his wound any comfort. He looked helplessly around at the despair on his comrades’ faces. He came to grips with the pain, but couldn’t take his eyes off his severed finger. His mind started processing the letters on a computer keyboard that he would now be unable to type. He looked up at the Zerot, stalking her next victim, and realised this was just the start of the torture.
Sonia laughed as she strolled around the other three. She was enjoying their undivided attention.
‘And don’t think your little planet will escape a visit from us. One of our planetary violation teams—Cadre 176—was chased away by your grandparents. After being here for two years, I still wonder how that could have happened. They were here orchestrating the Nazi movement. I recall their pseudonyms were Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann and Schroeder. A standard template used many times, with only a handful of failures. But we always revisit; no one survives the Zerot.’
She stopped at Jon. In an instant, she had the secateurs around his little finger, but this time she cut it straight off.
Jon, having seen Sam’s plucky reaction, bit his lip and stared straight back at the Zerot, determined not to react, to deny her any satisfaction. Sonia was ignoring him, though. His gaze eventually came to rest on Mandy. Her determined look surprised him. She stared at him fiercely, the love she had for him manifesting in unspoken instructions telling him to hold it together. A weak smile was his only reply, but that was sufficient for her.
Sonia’s short pointed teeth gleamed in the dull light as her thin lips parted. The Zerot’s smile brought home—to Amanda and Rob at least—the horror still awaiting them.
‘Of course, Cadre 176’s failure was a delight to my team, as they are our nearest rivals in the Killing Games. But, in the vast scheme of things, know for tonight, at least, that the fate of your planet is sealed, and it will be a magnificent destruction. I very much hope to be part…’ She stopped, stood still for a moment, turned towards the door and activated her full body force field.
William and Kurt positioned themselves on either side of the conference room door. Kurt held his Glock 23 at shoulder level, pointed towards the ceiling. William’s laser cannon required both hands. As firepower went, this was the most powerful weapon the group possessed. William whispered to Kurt, ‘Open the door, but let me go in first.’
At the rear door, Gordon was marshalling his group. ‘Oscar and I will go in first. You girls stay out here until the room is secured.’ He grabbed the communicator from Oscar. ‘William, as soon as you hear weapons fire, enter. Use the cannon with discretion.’
Gordon took a deep breath, checked his laser stun setting, then crashed through the door.
Only when Gordon had kicked the door down did Grace feel the magnitude of the evil nature and power of the Zerot. ‘No!’ she cried out. But it was too late. Janet stared at Grace then entered the room herself, her Glock 27 trained straight in front of her.
Gordon picked out the Zerot in the middle of her captives and discharged his gun. A visible glow appeared around the strange, insect-looking creature, showcasing the harmless dissipation of the weapon’s power. He set his gun to maximum and fired again, only to see the same result. The Zerot’s lips rolled back to reveal pointed teeth, leering at his inability to harm her.
Bullets from Kurt’s Glock ricocheted innocuously off Sonia’s protective shield. She turned her attention to him, willing him to turn the weapon on himself. Kurt had no way of stopping his arm turning the gun on himself or his finger slowly squeezing the trigger. William entered through the front but stopped dead in his tracks. There before him was the horrific sight of Kurt’s skull and brains spraying from the side of his head.
As William’s eyes met the creature’s his hands went limp, and the cannon clattered to the floor. He watched helplessly as the Zerot withdrew an object from her belt that flicked open in segments, creating a sword. She started towards him.
The captives, to a man and woman, were shouting at the Zerot and shaking their chairs. Trying anything to distract it. Sonia ignored them, and carried on towards William.
Nothing was stopping the creature. Grace could feel the futility of everyone’s actions. She must distract it. Stepping into the room, she looked straight at it and issued a challenge.
“I can stop you, creature.”
The Zerot turned away from William, blood dripping from its sword, to focus on Grace.
“Ha! You are nothing. Your power is nothing. I will show you power, child.”
Grace’s attention was drawn away from William’s fallen body as the creature slowly began sucking away at her will. She resisted, using everything she possessed to fend off the mental attack. Krankel felt the attack on his mistress too, and as with the troll, felt compelled to defend her.
‘No, Krankel!’
But he was off. The Zerot, seeing the large dog running at her, smiled wickedly and prepared to meet it with its bloodstained sword.
Grace focussed hard and formed a time acceleration bubble; it was all she could think to do.
“Do you try to play simple tricks on me, girl?” It immediately burst the bubble.
But the split second it had taken the Zerot to break the bubble had given Grace a few precious seconds within it, to prepare a wedge node. She deployed it the instant the bubble failed, using all of her remaining concentration to aim it as best she could. I can’t fail Krankel this time. The dog yelped as it reached the Zerot, glancing painfully off the force field. As the sword arced towards the dog, Grace braced herself. It hit the oblique block of pressurised air from the wedge and was deflected harmlessly underneath. Krankel landed with a yelp, winded. Grace felt the alien’s annoyance as it refocused on destroying the Princess’s will.
It crawled deeper and deeper into Grace’s mind, sucking away at her. She resisted, but her resolve was weakening.
Gordon had recovered the cannon and with the Zerot now away from the captives, began firing. But its shield held firm.
Grace was losing. Her psyche was slipping away. She was falling into a well, and the light above her was getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Until…
“Stay with me, sister.”
She felt a new energy, recognising the voice from her training session with the troll. An energy that joined with hers, helping to pull her back to the top of the well.
“Now work with me.”
Her will, combined with the stranger’s, was a brake on the Zerot’s influence. The balance between the two began to equalise then, slowly at first, they began forcing it back. Grace felt the panic in her adversary’s mind, now doubting its abilities. The gentle strength of the stranger held Grace steady. The creature’s concentration was failing, the two-pronged attack too much, and suddenly its control of the protective shield failed, and it blinked off.
The laser cannon now only had flesh and bones in the path of its beam—no match for it at all.
Janet looked around at the carnage in the room. She had never experienced anything remotely like this.
The Zerot lay dead on the floor.
So did Kurt.
Gordon had William’s head in his lap, watching his friend’s life ebbing away.
Grace had collapsed, exhausted. No, more than exhausted. A limping Krankel nuzzled her. When she didn’t move, he lay down next to her.
Oscar had cut the captives free. Mandy and Jon both ran to Grace’s side.
Rob, holding his broken arm, wandered around in a daze, as did Sam, his injured hand tucked under his arm.
She even saw what appeared to be the skin of a human woman lying on the floor.
It was chaos.
How could a single being cause so much devastation? Janet hadn’t even fired her gun, though not because she didn’t try. The captives prevented her getting a clear shot at the creature. She didn’t know what to do. For probably the first time in her life, she didn’t know what to do. She could only stare through tearstained eyes.
She heard a noise behind her and looked. More people were entering the room. Four hazy blue shapes were hurrying to assist the injured. Janet rubbed the moisture from her eyes so she could focus. Vercetians, but none she recognised from Cork.
One went straight to Grace and two to Gordon and William. There was a frenzied exchange between Gordon and the two new arrivals, in an incomprehensible language. The taller of the two, a female, seemed to be giving instructions to Gordon. He deactivated his brooch and gave it to her, reverting to his true form, and helped the other Vercetian pick up William, and immediately carried him outside.
The tall female turned her attention to Grace and the male Vercetian examining her. They conferred, then he picked Grace up and carried her outside. Krankel got up to follow, but the tall female spoke firmly to him, and he cowered back, ears flat, and lay next to Jon.
Jon and Mandy had already stepped back, hoping that Grace would now receive the care they were unable to give. Mandy was looking at Jon’s missing finger. The loss of blood was starting to take its toll on him and he dropped into a chair. The forth Vercetian—who looked to be an elderly male—having stemmed the bleeding of Sam’s finger, began attending to Jon.
The tall female was talking to Rob. She held him by his good arm and led him out of the building.
Janet and Oscar followed.
What they saw outside stopped them dead in their tracks.
Before them, hovering about six feet off the ground, was what Janet assumed to be a spaceship. A dark silver, forty foot diameter sphere, with a heat haze around it. What else could it be? she admonished herself. Two Vercetians were carrying a motionless William up a floating ramp, followed by the male carrying Grace, and finally, the tall female escorting the Trun.
Janet shouted over the low hum of the ship, ‘Where are you going?’
The tall female turned and looked back at her for a moment, attempted to say something, then carried on into the ship.
A few minutes later, she returned. At the bottom of the ramp, she passed the remaining Vercetian who had finished treating Jon, and they exchanged words. The elderly male shuffled up the ramp which retreated after him. The tall female approached Janet, and looking down at her, raised one finger while fiddling with Gordon’s brooch.
Wait, one something or another unit of time, thought Janet. Apparently a universal symbol. The Vercetian activated the holographic image converter and changed into the most stunning human woman Janet had ever seen. Six feet, two inches, and flawless. She turned to Oscar; his jaw had dropped.
She spoke, her soft deep voice again seeming perfect. ‘My apologies. Without the image converter, I was unable to access the speech translator. My name is Dom Kobios. I’m the Chief of Security of the vessel that you see here. It is preparing to take off. I suggest we step back into the building.’ The three of them re-entered the hotel as the noise from the sphere began to increase.
Inside, Janet asked, ‘Where are you taking Grace, Gordon and William?’
‘Those names mean nothing to me,’ replied Kobios. ‘If you mean Princess Tauriar, Seca Mika and Dom Seca, to another of our ships here on your planet, where there is medical help.’
‘To Douglas, sorry, Prime, in Ireland?’ Janet asked.
Kobios cocked her head to the side. ‘How do you know about Bala Prime?’
‘I’ve met all of the Life Team in Cork. I know all about the plight of your people, and the war with your neighbours. Your princess is Grace to us. Gordon was attending to your dead comrade William.’
‘Dom Seca—William— is not dead yet. He is on the edge of death, but is now in stasis in our sphere, until our medic can assess his condition.’
‘Why have you remained?’
‘We have no pilot. Seca Mika is infinitely superior to me, and I need to find my young Prince. We dropped him off about forty miles away. I need transportation to get me there.’
‘Oscar will drive you,’ Janet offered. ‘What do I do with the alien—the weird looking one?’
‘The what?’ replied Kobios.
‘That!’ Janet pointed at the dead creature still on the conference room floor.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Janet.
Amanda joined them. ‘It called itself a Zerot. They’re in the process of taking over your home world. They intend to destroy Earth as well if she,’ she pointed at what was left of Sonia, ‘is to be believed.’
Kobios looked at them, then at the Zerot, then back to them again. She shook her head as if trying to shake her brain into comprehending what was going on. All she managed to do was shake the strange hair into her eyes. She awkwardly pushed the strands away and said, ‘This will have to wait until my team return for me. I need to get my Prince.’
‘I need to go with Grace. Back to Ireland. My mother and father are there with Prime.’ Amanda was looking up at the Vercetian security chief. ‘I need to go on your ship, now. Check with Gordon—Seca—he’ll vouch for me.’
Kobios concentrated, looking at nothing for a moment, in communication Mandy assumed, then she replied, ‘Go. The ramp is back down for you.’
Mandy nodded in thanks to her before turning to Jon. ‘I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.’ Jon nodded to her and smiled. She leant forward and kissed him on the cheek. Lingering, she whispered in his ear, ‘I love you.’ She stepped away, her eyes locked on his, then she turned and walked outside, the others following her.
Kobios made sure Mandy was safely on the sphere before turning back to Oscar. ‘Come then.’ She walked toward the only object that could be a vehicle, then turned back to Janet. ‘You need to get back inside.’ Her tone changed from instructional to questioning. ‘Is this human form an acceptable one for me to integrate into your species?’
Janet replied, ‘Yes, no one will give you a second look, you should blend in nicely.’ She turned to Oscar, closed his jaw with two fingers and with her other hand, gently pushed him off after her.