heads, the three Humans rose from behind their tables and sent a dozen bolts slamming to the front row of guards. Then they ducked back under cover as more bolts came their way.
Adam still had the MK Sherri had tossed him. He pulled it out of his holster and bent the barrel with his bare hands. Then he set the level to three and pressed the trigger. When the weapon began to heat up, he flung the MK over the table and into the crowd of guards. As the lower-setting charge built up, the weapon finally discharged, yet with the barrel bent, the electric charge compressed even more and exploded with the force of grenade.
The explosion sent the bloody parts of a dozen more guards raining down on the room.
“That was pretty cool,” Sherri said. “You’ve got to teach how to do that sometime.”
Adam just smiled and nodded back.
The doorway was clearing, so they set off for it one at a time, the other two covering while the forward person took shelter behind more overturned tables. Down this hallway were stationed several more guards. Riyad and Adam blasted three more before the rest retreated.
Adam knew they were getting close to the side of the building, and because of the Silean habit of putting the most important facilities on the ground floor of their buildings, he knew they could be out on the street once they found any exit.
Just then the entire building shook to its core, a deep rumbling sensation, and smoke began to billow down the hallway toward them. They retreated back into the cafeteria as the very ground continued to tremble. Taking shelter under some of the tables that had not been overturned, they managed to gain cover just as a section of the ceiling came crashing down on them. There were deep-base booms from heavy weapons, as more smoke, dust and debris filled the air. Then intermittent pops from flash rifles, answered quickly by a chorus of much heavier booms, followed then by a deathly silence.
There was movement in the hallway outside the cafeteria, and Adam chanced a glance in that direction. He saw a squad of massive creatures enter the room, each decked out in dark, full-body armor and carrying double barrel blast rifles which Adam had only heard about but never seen. The troops rushed in and circled the tables where the three Humans hid, leveling their weapons at them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You there! Stand up and surrender your weapons,” one of the invaders said.
Adam held the flash rifle above his head with both hands and then tossed it aside. The others followed suit. Then they all slowly rose to their feet, their hands above their heads. They were covered with white dust and pieces of wallboard and ceiling tiles; Sherri coughed.
The armored troops all had clear masks over their long heads, with great manes of light green hair cascading down their backs. Adam had only seen these creatures in videos, but he knew they were Juirean Guards. And there were nine of them standing in the room. He was not even aware that there were nine Juirean Guards total in the entire Fringe.
“Jaoger, your squad take these three to the staging area. The rest of you scan for others,” their leader commanded. Then three of the Juireans stepped forward and began to prod the Humans toward the hallway.
They were led outside the building, past considerable debris and damage and placed in a holding area surrounded by more Juirean Guards, as well as least a hundred Rigorians. Troops came forward and placed handcuffs on them and told them to get in line. There were easily two to three hundred other creatures in the holding area, some looking perfectly clean, just confused and scared, while others were bloody and barely able to walk.
Looking up at the building, Adam saw that nearly half if it was gone, having collapsed in on itself. If it had been any taller than four stories, Adam was sure they would have been crushed in the collapse.
The three Humans stayed as close to each other as they could as they were herded forward toward a tall Juirean standing next to a much shorter creature with a smooth, featureless face, yet with a strange shimmer to his skin. When they came forward, the featureless being held up his hand.
“You are not Silean,” he stated, glancing down at a datapad. “What race are you?”
Riyad was in the lead, so he answered, “Humans. We’re Humans.”
“What was your business in the building at this hour?
Sherri spoke up. “We were just there on a trade mission when all of a sudden everyone started shooting.” She batted her eyes at the alien and hoped he could comprehend the sincerity in her voice.
“You were armed,” the alien stated.
“We were just trying to defend ourselves.”
The alien tapped on the datapad, then turned to the Juirean. “Have these three segregated from the Sileans until we can verify their story.”
The Juirean nodded, and then called for another squad of Juireans and Rigorians to load them into a transport.
The Humans didn’t say a word to each other during the ride into the city center and to the government facilities, but their eyes communicated a lot; they would lay low and keep up the facade Sherri had begun until they saw a chance to escape.
At the central prison building, the three were taken into a formidable looking building with thick stone walls and thin-slit windows. Their handcuffs were removed as they were placed in a cell with a single secure metal door and a small window set in it — no metal bars in this cell. The door slammed shut and they heard a sold metal bar slide across the outside. The Silean’s are much more serious about their jails than were the Nimorians, Adam thought.
“Oh no! Not you!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The voice cried out from a corner of the cell, and Adam instantly recognized it. He turned from the cell door and stared open-mouthed at the two beings seated on a cot at the far end of the room. It was Kaylor and Jym!
Then Riyad stepped out from behind Adam. The effect was instantaneous. Kaylor shot to his feet, while Jym literally tried to climb the back wall to get away.
“Calm down!” Adam called out to them. He stepped up to the cot and placed a hand on Jym’s shoulder. “Everything’s going to be alright. Don’t worry about him,” he said nodding back at Riyad. “He’s not going to hurt you.”
Then Sherri stepped forward and looked at the two aliens. “You know them?” she asked Adam.
He grinned. “Yeah, this is Kaylor and Jym, the two aliens I told you about who saved me from the Klin ship.”
“Aliens?” Jym said. Adam patted him on the shoulder. He could tell Jym was still sensitive about being called that.
“What are the two of you doing here?”
Kaylor looked suspiciously at both Riyad and Sherri, and then sat back down on the cot. Jym did the same. “We were on a run off New Regian when a Juirean cruiser tracked us down and brought here.”
“Why’d they do that?”
Adam saw Kaylor’s jaw tighten. “All they kept asking about was that blasted computer core again. We told them we didn’t have it, that the other Juireans took it. They kept asking if we had accessed any of its data. We kept saying no — until they threw us in here. I’m afraid they are going to use torture on us next if we don’t tell them what they want to hear.”
“But how did they even know who you were? I thought all the records were destroyed?”
“I don’t know how,” Kaylor kept eyeing Riyad, watching the pirate as he moved to the only sink in the room and began to wash some of the dust off of his face. Sherri waited her turn to do the same. “But they found out
