“Fine, do what you want, Fenli,” said Yul. “But in the meantime we have to act as one, be a team and follow through. You go skylarking out of here after we’ve given them a sob story about the rebels dying, it’ll raise suspicion.”
“Yeah, sure. Then let’s go join the fleet, flyboy, and kick some ass.”
“Move out,” said Yul with a hint of annoyance.
So it was decided. Fenli worked his way toward them, tracking them on holo radar. Miko’s and Yul’s ships threaded their way along the tunnels at quarter speed, with Fenli tagging behind. No Mentera patrols were to be seen. The tomblike spaces were deserted enough. Likely all available locust power’d gone up to join the fleet.
The tunnel widened. A grainy yellow light shone with a trace of maroon up ahead. Dusk was drawing near and now an exit into the dry desert wastes beyond.
Yul exhaled a breathy sigh. In a show of confidence, he gunned the engines, blasting out of the cavern. Miko and Fenli dogged at his tail. Miko caught a last backward glimpse of the cave-like orifice shaped like a giant grouper’s mouth as they banked out. The ships moved across the desolate landscape as one. The horn-studded ridge stayed to their left, showing bone-pit valleys and skull-haunted bluffs.
Miko spied traces of ruins down there, likely former crude stone dwellings of the hybrid locust and squid mutants that once populated this arid world in plentiful numbers. He was not sad to leave behind such a hellhole: the dreaded cliffs, the plains, and the endless dust craters that kept their dark secrets.
Flashes of the nail-edge space chase that had led to their being stranded in the underground labyrinth shot in and out of Miko’s mind. The harrowing escape into the secret bunker of the Masters then the ill-fated refuge in the ancient battle hall. Miko could not help but shudder at memory of Laren, their crew-member, seized by some monstrous squid that lashed out a tentacle from its oversized holding tank. A grisly demise, if ever there was one.
He gripped the controls while Usk labored at his side. Both sat ready to resort to fight or flight tactics should hostile activity swarm upon them. Star stared, as if only half taking in their perilous situation.
All parties of the three-ship convoy held their positions with a grimness reflected by their clipped whispers through the com. Their main advantage was the simplicity of their plan. Just a routine patrol returning from a failed mission to trap the human intruders, now ready to report to fleet command for the upcoming invasion of Quenrix at the cusp of The Dim Zone.
Into the dusky tracts of space the trio followed the brightening beacons that led to the ever growing mass of the space fleet orbiting at 300 miles above Kraetoria. A cluster of ships more massive than any had suspected.
Miko gaped. He felt his heart tumble. This armada numbered in the thousands. Three thousand? Four? Still more were amassing by the minute, as they came out of hyperdrive from various bases throughout The Dim Zone. Their jagged, eerie, green and orange-spangled light streams trailed behind.
Such a variety of ships! Aphid fighters, mantis craft, Zikri war Orbs, large and small, flagships, drone scout ships, assault craft, all spiked like undersea mines and equipped with deadly uro bombs. Mentera LU-destroyers sat at a distance with their weaves of com towers, cargo ports and launch pads, complex structures at the very least. Then there drifted the Mentera slaver ships with holds a half mile long, shaped like zeppelins, huge to the overwhelmed eye, capable of holding thousands of tanks and prisoners.
At the sight of the incoming ships, Miko’s eyes bulged like a drunken man’s.
“Team-leader Mekrich lightfighter VH3… Proceed to vanguard manta leg 3 post alpha, beta. Follow the guide beacon on your display. Take up your position! Likewise, VH4 and VH7. We are to launch to Quenrix in T- 2.”
Yul joined the tail of a squadron of eight mantises and several aphid-shaped fighters on the wings. Miko and Fenli had no choice but to fall in behind, all now dwarfed by the sheer size of the alien armada.
Miko rasped to the others, “We can’t let them unleash that kind of hellish menace on a single human world! They’ll devastate it. Enslave millions!”
“Not much we can do, Miko,” said Yul.
“Where is NOA?” muttered Hresh.
“They don’t even know this alien alliance exists,” cursed Miko. “We’re a hell of ways out in The Dim Zone. We have to alert them.”
“How?” wailed Hresh. “Our signals will take forever to reach a civilized, colonized planet and pass through the light-drive tunnels. Saturnia’s the nearest planet in my estimation. What, a light week away?”
Yul grunted. “Fenli, you hyperdrive into Winterule, the nearest NOA base.”
“Right, and have them check my credentials? Find out I’m a space wayfarer, dodgier than shit? Two price tags on my head, Yul, a man who should’ve been dead 40 years ago sitting in a Mentera tank. Why don’t you go? Or maybe let Miko and his pals do the dirty work? Wait, I forgot. Miko predates me by a couple hundred years—and he’s traveling with a true green Mentera.”
“Quit your wise-assing,” snapped Yul. “Warp in, send NOA a message, then warp back out. Go wherever the hell you want after that. What does it matter? Sounds as if you don’t owe anybody anything and nobody owes you.”
“Easy as all that?” said Fenli.
“Yeah, a cake walk.”
Hresh cleared his throat. “The moment Fenli warps out, we’re all buggered. The Mentera’ll be on us like flies. Remember, we came in from the tunnels as a trio.”
Yul gave an exasperated sigh. “I’ll send the mayday now and hope there’s some explorer or surveyor ship that hears us.”
“Those’re mighty slim odds.”
“Better than none. We’ll hyperdrive out together, as a group, right
