Chapter 27

Rachel

Lok and I circled the spaceport at a wide trajectory, waiting to see what kind of enemy fire we'd draw if they had anything left to throw at us. "You think they're just scared to send fighters up, or do you think they're out?" I asked.

Lok grunted. "I would imagine that all their fighters are on their way to my home. If that is the quality of pilots they have, I do not fear for my people, I fear for theirs."

"Got that right," I said feelingly. This was starting to all feel too easy, and I voiced my concerns to Lok. Lok, who was by no means stupid, often acted as if it wasn't a warrior's job to think, only to eliminate the enemy. What he said after I stated that everything was too easy made me totally reevaluate his reasoning skills.

"According to the 'game,' as you've explained it, their warriors could all be cowards. Their entire force could be demolished, and it would not matter. As long as Crayak's team can succeed in killing Princess Amni'bel, they win. The entire planetary assault could be nothing but an elaborate diversion," Lok reminded me primly.

I could have slapped myself. "So us heading back to Xylen is a dumb idea. We're here, and as of right now, we're totally uncontested. Marco and I can infiltrate anywhere by morphing a bug, then go to battle morphs and kill their leader."

"Yes, sun-hair, but we do not know who their leader is," Lok reminded me.

I thought it over. We were in a pickle. What was the best way to deal with being in between a rock and a hard place? Blow up the rock, the hard place, or both. "Follow my lead, and pretty soon we'll know what we need to know," I said.

"Ta-tu, Rachel," Lok said, swinging his fighter into formation with mine and accelerating to attack speed. My idea was to do a fly-over of the spaceport at top speed, too quickly for them to fire anything accurately at us. If they had anything left to throw at us, the aggressive pass at their starport would have to make them launch their fighters to play tag. If that was the case, Lok and I would deal with it. I was assuming that they were all out of fighters, though, and after my first pass I figured I was right. My communications indicator lit up, and I grinned.

"What do you want to bet they're calling to surrender?" I asked Lok.

"No takers," he said.

"Well, ignore it. We're going to make our negotiating position a little stronger. On the next pass, split up from me. We'll cross over each other right on top of that bigger cruiser and drop a couple missiles into it. Any crew or workers left hanging around after our first pass are too stupid to live," I told him.

After Lok and I split the mile-long battle cruiser in half with some well-placed missiles, the communications button flashed faster and squawked insistantly. I grinned again. "See what they want, two," I told Lok. He grunted and took the call.

After a minute, his voice came over my helmet speakers. "They will unconditionally surrender, but only face to face to the human leader – you," he told me.

I balked. "The only possible reason they want me on the ground is because they'll have an advantage. As soon as we get out of these fighters, we're as good as dead."

"We can accept their surrender and possibly find out who their leader is, or we can use all of our missiles and drain our shredder batteries into the starport and hope we kill him that way," Lok said. Something in his voice told me he would rather not carry on in the latter fashion. I know I wasn't about to slaughter thousands of anybody to get one person. That would be a lot like the terrorists on Earth walking into a crowded bar and blowing the whole damn thing up to get at one target.

When I didn't reply, Lok came up with a suggestion. "Land in an area that doesn't have anywhere for ambushers to hide. They only want to meet with you, so I will remain in my fighter and orient my guns towards their greeting party. That should be sufficient to discourage them from doing anything foolish."

I shook my head. "That sounds too simple to work." I slowly changed my mind. "On the other hand, that's probably a virtue. Find me an LZ and trasmit the orders to them. Tell them I only want to talk to the person in charge."

Lok complied and directed me to an open area on the rocky terrain a good mile west of the starport. I landed and immediately wished for a shower – my hair was frowsy, I was sweaty, and I just felt all-around gross. I guess there were more important things to deal with than personal hygeine, but as I climbed out of the cockpit, I furiously wished for at least a toothbrush.

True to his word, Lok hovered twenty feet above me and kept his guns aimed at the tank-like vehicle rapidly approaching my fighter. It stopped about a football field shy of my position, and a human-sized creature stepped out and jogged out to meet me.

I almost started laughing. The horrible, terrifying Trunsk turned out to be little more than an oversized lizard that walked on two legs, like the Geico lizard. He was maybe a head taller than me, and his face looked more like a frog than a lizard. He was naked and obviously unarmed, and I was so amused that I extended my hand toward his to shake it.

He drew back from my hand as if it were a snake, and hissed a bunch of stuff at me. Lok, who was listening in through my suit's communicator, said into my earpiece, "He apologizes for not touching you. Their skin secretes poison deadly to most mammilian species," he informed me.

"Thanks for the warning," I said dryly. "Does he understand English?" I asked.

"Yes, though his vocal cords are not capable of speaking it," Lok replied.

I looked the reptile in the eyes. "Okay, buddy, here's the deal. You tell me who is in charge here and where I can find them, and then you go run back to your office and chill. We're done with you and your spaceport – just give me a name."

His mouth opened wide, revealing sharp teeth and lots of slime, and it snapped shut viciously. After a bunch of his snake-talk, Lok translated. "He says the Prime Minister lives in the city of Krassh, north of here. He warns you not to attempt to contact him. He claims that his starport is underdefended because of the war, but assures you that there is no possible way you'd get anywhere close to the capital. He advised you to go home while you still can."

I laughed in his face. "Your fighter pilots are terrible," I told him bluntly. "Three of us killed off a squad and a half of them with ease. Your anti-fighter guns got lucky and scored a hit, but the pilot survived. You're not really in a position to assume anything about me."

"The home defense corps pilots are trainees," Lok translated. "They were merely to delay you. Four full wings of experienced pilots are based in Krassh."

"I think you're bluffing, but it doesn't even matter," I said. "Because we're leaving now. Thanks for your help, and I hope you can put your spaceship back together again." I climbed into my fighter anxiously. If there was going to be an ambush, now would be the time to spring it. The starport master, apparently unfazed, galloped back to his tank-thing, and Lok and I shot away towards Marco's canyon. "What do you think?" I asked Lok.

"He is telling the truth, mostly," Lok said. "He would not have told you where the minister is unless it was adequately defended. He expects you to try and fail."

"It's adequately defended against starfighters," I corrected him. "Not against morph-capable humans used to guerilla warfare. Marco and I are going to have no problem wiping them out," I said. A beeping noise came from my computer, an alarm I was unfamiliar with. I heard it echoed in Lok's fighter over his microphone. "What does that mean?"

"It's the sabotage alert!" Lok shouted. "Eject!" he punched out of his fighter, and I quickly followed suit. Lok was ten times braver than I was – if there was any chance he was going to save the ship, he'd have taken it.

I watched soberly as our fighters streaked towards the ground. I wondered if Lok had made a stupid mistake – there seemed to be nothing wrong with the fighters, other than the fact that they were without pilots and flying towards the rocks. My fighter inverted, and I saw something flash red on its belly an instant before it brightly incinerated. Lok's fighter followed along almost instantly. "Spiders," Lok spat, and he explained without prompting. "We have a similar design – small robotic bombs that latch onto power sources. When we got low enough to the surface and stopped moving, they must have attatched themselves to our energy cells. The starport is probably loaded with hidden spiders – I should have known," he berated himself.

"Hey, it really doesn't matter," I told him. "We weren't going to use the fighters on our mission anyway," I reminded him. We both set down gently and shed our anti-gravity descent apparatus.

"That's true," he conceded. "But how are we supposed to get home?"

I opened my mouth to answer, and shut it when nothing came to mind. 'Oh well. I'm tired of being the leader. Marco can figure it out as soon as we find him,' I thought cheerfully.