COLOSSUS: Departure Read online

  “Holy hell, Jeeves. They are frikin spiders, except they are the size of the wekas.”

  “Spiders don’t have shells covering their topsides, Colonel. I believe those shells as you called them are actually an exoskeleton, but they are arachnids of some kind.”

  “Biggest frikin arachnids I’ve ever seen. Those damn things would give a new meaning to pest control back on Earth.”

  Jak felt the mountain move to the left of his position and he looked in that direction and saw something that surprised him. A large group of Battledogs riding wekas seemingly came out of the mountain.

  He knew there had to be a hidden entry there or else the Battledogs could walk through solid rock. A tall and wide camouflaged sliding door opened and slid on metal rails and back into a recess in the mountain.

  Jak thought there is a lot we don’t know about the Nawi as they keep surprising the hell out of me. Just as ya think ya know a Nawi, something else hidden pops out.

  The Battledogs, at least a hundred of them, positioned themselves about ten yards apart down the river bank, all the way to the livestock pens The mounted Nawi soldiers didn’t have their favored long spear in their hands. Instead, they had longbows hanging on their backs and an arrow quiver strapped to their left leg.

  “Those Battledogs have bows and arrows with them,” Jak stated to Jeeves.

  The two men watched as every mounted soldier pulled out an arrow at almost the same time. They put the arrow across the bow and notched the arrow.

  Jeeves’s keen eyesight focused in on the tip of the arrow and saw the tip was not like any arrow he had remembered seeing. On the tip of the arrow was a round, three-inch-long head, that vaguely resembled the small grenades used in hand-held grenade launchers used by the United States military several hundred years ago.

  “Those aren’t common arrow tips, Colonel. I’m making an educated guess that they are some type of explosive or incendiary device. The Nawi seem to be far more innovative than either of us has given them credit for.”

  “Copy that, Jeeves. Let’s just hope whatever is on the tips of those arrows can penetrate those shell coverings.”

  When the mynah was still fifty yards from their side of the river, two loud horns sounded from several hundred feet above the lookout positions Jeeves and Jak were standing in. The horn’s sound came from two Nawi soldiers blowing into some kind of animal’s curved horn.

  The horn’s sound stopped and in the next instant, many of the spider-like creatures were being pummeled by round, purple colored stones the size of soccer balls. Jak tried to see where the stones were coming from but the area was too high above him.

  The stones did their job and killed many of the mynah, but now they were too close in and the stones were flying past them, so they stopped raining down. Looking down below and watching the mynah advance was Hopus and Dubois.

  Hopus had taken the general up to the Nawi’s catapult station and took command of the firing of the catapults. The catapults were stationed on a wide cut out area of the mountain and there were four in total. Each catapult was manned by three Battledogs. One loaded the stones, one adjusted the throwing distance and one fired the stones upon Field Marshal Hopus’s order to “loose.”

  “Will the mynah cross the river, Hopus?”

  “Yes, they will cross. Each time they come they are determined to feed on Nawi’s weka and loota. We must go now and help warriors kill mynah.”

  With the spiders getting close enough to start jumping in the river and without saying a word, Hammer and Jeeves stepped down from the lookout and ran to see if they could take out a few of the huge spiders.

  Noona had returned to make sure Mita, Admiral Allen and the rest of the group were where they were supposed to be. Satisfied that they were, he told Mita he was going back to stand with his emperor and left.

  As soon as he left, Allen said, “Mita, I can’t stay here hiding like a schoolboy. I have ordered some of our fighter ships to come to the aid of all Nawi, against the invaders. I need to see the battle that’s taking place so I can order the ships to begin firing.”

  “We wish you would stay here, Admiral Allen, but we understand a warrior’s thoughts. Please be careful.”

  Just as the admiral was only a few steps from the large entry doors guarded by two Battledogs, Jak and Jeeves came down to the lobby level and joined their admiral.

  “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen, Admiral. Huge spiders the size of the biggest boar hog I’ve ever seen while hunting them on Earth.”

  Allen hadn’t seen what the creatures looked like yet and from what Colonel Hammer just told him, he was chomping at the bit to see them.

  When the three Humans approached the guards and asked them to open the doors, they refused. Allen asked, “Now what the hell are we going to do?”

  Colonel Hammer was about to make a scene when he heard coming from somewhere in the lobby, Hopus’s voice.

  Hopus said, “Open one door, Jumani, but only enough to let we and his friends pass, then close it again.”

  When they got outside the doors there was carnage going on. The Battledogs on the horses were shooting their arrows and were hitting the mynah swimming across the river. Each arrow when it hit its mark caused a blazing red and yellow ball which surrounded its target and made the sound of a powerful electric current being discharged.

  The mynah let out high-pitched squeals and began thrashing about until the charge dissipated, leaving the mynah rolled upon their backs lifeless and floating down the river. Several had made it across the river and the spiders took to standing on their hind legs, and in that position their huge fangs became visible.

  Eight or nine of them jumped on the Battledogs knocking them off their mounts and began killing them. General Dubois, Colonel Hammer, and Commodore Jeeves began shooting the attacking mynah with their blasters, which saved several more Battledogs from a horrible death.

  Many mynah had made it to the pens and had broken the pens down. They began piercing the frightened animals with their large fangs. Each spider wrapped two of their middle legs around the dead or dying weka and loota, and headed back across the river with their prey in hand.

  The Nawi had done the best they could to spear many of the invaders and a few of them were killed along with the spiders.

  When Admiral Allen saw the Nawi being overrun, he called the leader of the wasps, which was Captain Jeff Teaser.

  Allen ordered Captain Teaser to come down and start blasting the mynah. The squadron of combat wasps was in the mix in a matter of seconds after Allen’s command. The twelve wasps began their runs and started blasting the mynah with their ion cannons again and again.

  The mynah was quickly being annihilated and began to head back across the river when Captain Teaser saw a rather large group that had made it across and was only twenty or so yards from entering the protection of the forest.

  He powered the wasp’s thrusters to full power and dove at the large group. When the wasp’s target indicator signaled with a flashing red triangle, he released a powerful plasma bomb, then pulled the wasp up sharply.

  The bomb hit dead center of the fleeing mynah and left a pile of twisted, singed, mass of legs, body parts, and shells. The battle was over within a minute after the combat wasps made their attack runs. All that was left to do now was to collect the bodies of the brave Battledogs that lost their lives in order to protect their brethren and one of the Nawi’s food sources, as well as their precious wekas.

  Chapter 14

  Admiral Allen had asked to see the emperor again after the battle. Hopus took the admiral to Nulashin’s quarters and Noona ushered them in. Nulashin seemed to be sad and Allen could understand why, so he quickly told the emperor why he came to his quarters.

  “It has been a long and trying day, Supreme Emperor Nulashin, and I wanted to tell you that we are going to go back to our ship for a while. As a show of respect for those brave Nawi that lost their lives in the battle with the mynah. I feel it necessary for
us to leave Yopa for a short while in order that the Nawi have time to bury their brave warriors and to allow time for proper mourning.”

  Nulashin slowly stood from his wheelchair and motioned for Allen to come closer. When Allen did, he reached up as the admiral bent over slightly and put his hand on the back of the admiral’s neck, and the two leaders gently touched their foreheads together. Allen figured it was the Nawi way of shaking hands or something equal.

  “We thank Supreme Admiral Allen for his gracious consideration of our losses. Please be free to call on Nulashin again after Nawi’s mournink is done, which will be for three full periods. Until then be safe on way to starship.”

  On their way back down to the lobby where all of the admiral’s people were waiting, Hopus said something that caught Admiral Allen off guard.

  “Maybe after our mournink period is done, Hopus would like to go with Colonel Hammer to visit Admiral Allen’s starship. Do you think we could do that?”

  “Of course you can, Field Marshall Hopus. I’m sure it would give Admiral Allen great pleasure to show you Colossus.”

  “Is that the name you give to your starship.”

  “Yes, it is. We Earthings like to give our starships names.”

  “Hopus favors the name Colossus.”

  The first priority Admiral Allen assigned himself to take care of back on board his ship was to talk to all the Colossians about the alien race on Planet Yopa. He decided to address them over the shipwide monitors because he knew they would have many questions that he couldn’t possibly answer during his informative, but short address.

  Before finishing his address, he informed the populace that he was putting together a team of people that would hold scheduled meetings that would answer their questions, and before signing off, he told them that one special Nawi would be coming on board to visit and that he hoped everyone would treat that Nawi with the utmost respect.

  Allen sent out a message to all of his executive staff that there would be a meeting in Room Forward the following morning. The reason he wanted the meeting was to inform those that hadn’t participated in the visit to Yopa on what they might expect their roles would be in furthering the relationship with the Nawi in the near future.

  The next morning when the meeting had concluded, Admiral Allen excused everyone in the meeting with the exception of those that had been down on the planet. Allen also asked Rear Admiral Petrov to stay behind too.

  After everyone that wasn't invited to stay for the continued meeting had left he asked for the remaining few to take a seat at the conference table. Allen wanted questions answered by his most trusted.

  “First I would like to hear Commodore Jeeves’s assessment of the Nawi.”

  “I found them to be quite intriguing, Admiral. Though they qualify as being intelligent aliens they are still a few hundred thousand years short or equivalent in relation to the level of intelligence displayed in that of Humans.”

  “Well, Commodore, you should have said equivalent to ‘most’ Humans because I know of a few that aren’t nearly as smart as the Nawi,” Colonel Hammer said.

  “Let’s keep the tone of this meeting strictly professional, Colonel,” Allen said while admonishing Jak. General Dubois cocked his eyebrow and slightly tilted his head to the left while looking at Jak and Jak saw him staring at him.

  Jak got the admiral’s message and decided it would behoove him to remain out of character, at least in the presence of the Fleet Admiral.

  Colonel Hammer could be a very persuasive individual in his day to day dealings with problems such as battle strategies, working his way through life’s sudden and unexpected twists and turns that had been thrown at him over the years.

  He could also be stern and completely and undeniably serious when times called for it, but in general, he loved humor, laughing and people that could appreciate banter and those that could give back as well as take his sometimes warped sense of humor. Jak knew the Human race hadn’t had too much to laugh about over the last 100 years but he didn’t see any reason for them to not keep their sense of humor about them.

  “General Dubois, same question.”

  “As you know I didn’t get much time to do any conclusive evaluations prior to the attack from the mynah, but after watching them in the midst of battle I have to say I was quite impressed with their tactical skills. I dare say if the Nawi were given some modern weapons they could handle most threats that come to them from alien races.”

  “I agree, General, but as you well know our protocol won’t allow us to supply highly advanced weaponry to any aliens. We at USC had agreed on that early on and knew any such meddling could very well cause a tactical imbalance among races.”

  “Colonel Hammer, same question and don’t hold back, and that’s an order, Colonel.”

  Jak silently, and invisibly gulped before answering his admiral thinking well, he ordered me to answer as me and not to placate, so here goes nothing.

  “I think we would all agree that finding an intelligent race so soon on our journey through space is quite unbelievable. But to find during our First Contact, the Nawi, and their planet Yopa exceeds most of our realistic expectations. Not only did we find an intelligent race, we found a friendly one.

  “And, with that being said, I have to express my concern for their future welfare.”

  “Interesting, Colonel, please continue.”

  “Well, sir, as an example, we learned the Nawi had some time in the past been attacked by a vicious alien race called the Hive. If not by the coincidence of the Daakie being close by I’m sure the Nawi would have been decimated. Probably to the point of extinction.”

  Looking at the admiral, General Dubois asked, “If I may, Admiral.”

  Allen nodded in the affirmative for him to speak.

  “Colonel Hammer, I have had the same thought myself, but then I asked myself, how in the hell have they survived this long? I don’t think their species has survived for over a million years simply because of a luck of the draw.

  “But, I would love to be able to find out who taught them how to make those explosive charges the archers had on the end of their arrows. Well, maybe they weren’t explosives, so to speak, but I could damn well classify that whatever was on the tips of those arrows incapacitated, then killed those giant damn spiders.”

  “Admiral, I don’t believe the Nawi are advanced enough to make such a weapon. During your meeting with the Supreme Emperor did he happen to say anything about any other alien races besides the Dakkie that over the years had paid the Nawi a visit or two?” asked Hammer.

  “Unfortunately our meeting was cut short because of the mynah attack, and after the battle, he looked as if he was tiring and I thought it best to visit at a later time. I don’t want to grill Emperor Nulashin, and if we don’t for right now, that will be fine. Hopefully, we will be able to get back to Yopa and then maybe we can ask more questions. Did you have anything else, Colonel?”

  “Yes sir, I do have something else. We didn’t have the opportunity to survey the gemstone cutter’s area because just as we got into the room the mynah attacked. But to the General’s point about the Nawi and their tools and weaponry, I’m absolutely sure I saw some kind of hand-held knife or blade that put off a bright blue arc, and it cut through a small area of the mountain wall like it was butter.

  “It seems to me like there is more to the gentle Nawi than we thought, Admiral. I’m beginning to think there is a vast number of things we don’t know about our alien friends. But you did tell me to speak freely, so I’d like to know how long do you think we will stay before continuing on with our mission of finding humanity’s next home?”

  “I don’t have an answer to that just yet, Colonel. But just in case anyone here is wondering the same thing about continuing our mission, the Colossus will not be playing a role of godfather to any planet or alien race unless called upon to aid in any kind of attack detrimental to the alien race’s survival.

  “Our mission remains clear a
nd that is to find a new planet to call home. I do however feel it is important for us to try to get some coordinates on the location of planet Daak, the Daakie homeworld. We should all be excited about learning more about the Daakie and I think it would be advantageous for us to have them educate us on the vicious Hive species.

  “I have one more subject to address and that is our protocol on the day Field Marshal Hopus pays the Colossus a visit. The entire ship will know a member of the Nawi is coming to see their space-bound home and meet its inhabitants. My first directive is we will not be parading Field Marshal Hopus around this ship willy nilly.

  “His security is priority one. I want your plans on how we will accomplish an enlightening and pleasant visit for the Field Marshal. I want a specific team to work on his schedule from the time he steps on board until we get him safely back to Yopa.

  “Admiral Petrov has the command of Colossus for the next twenty-four hours. I, on the other hand, am going to be informing the USC about our remarkable discovery. I will deny saying this, but I’d much rather be commanding my ship.”

  There were immediate smiles from his subordinates and a slight cough from Colonel Hammer.

  “I appreciate you all for attending this meeting, but now we have work to do. Dismissed.” As the staff started to leave the conference room Admiral Allen said, “Colonel, a minute of your time, please.”

  Chapter 15

  Hopus looked anxious and a little nervous while sitting in his assigned chair on the shuttle before take off to the Colossus. Jak was sitting next to him and silently observing Hopus’s reactions to his surroundings.

  The Field Marshal was wearing a black armored chest plate with matching forearm, and shin covers. Everything on his battle gear was polished, and diamonds and sapphires in his rank channel were glistening brilliantly. Jak started thinking look at the general sitting there looking like the proud and fierce Battledog commander he is, Wow! I just hope ole Hopus knows how to tell me where planet Daak lies. My immediate order from Allen is to find out. Strange that the admiral doesn’t seem to want to bother Nulashin about it.