The Project

Chapter 42

The Project Chapter 42

"We have a special department within our security agency that deals with this sort of thing," said Deev Mocon, but they are located back on Golia, but I can send a request for their services."

"No," replied Alex, it would take too long. If that asshole want's my rifle, I'll give it to him but it might not be in a way he likes. I am banking on the fact that he doesn't understand its true capabilities. Look, we're just wasting time here, let's get going." They had to wait for Bria to get her gear form the hostelry and meet them at the ship. While they waited, Alex asked Stapkas about what he had in mind.

"Well I like the part about coming at this fellow with superior firepower, however I'm pretty skilled at negotiating , and quite honestly Alex, I was hoping I would get a chance somewhere along the way to practice my skill."

"Look!" Replied Alex, there is a girl's life involved here. If I have to, I'll kill this guy and anyone who gets in my way. For now though, we'll try it your way, if we come in all cloaked up and appear right in front of him maybe we can bargain from a position of strength."

"I had something like that in mind as well," replied Stapkas, "But I really want to talk with this Stenuck fellow, but between now and the time we get there, you're going to tell me all about this weapon of yours."

Alex brought out his AR, took it apart, demonstrated how it worked, along with describing to Stapkas the ammunition, and how it fired.

"Interesting," observed the Ruddorian. "So you say these bullets have quite an extensive range?'

Yeah," replied the teen. "They are also quite powerful, I was afraid they might go through the hull when I was shooting at those raiders.

"Well I doubt these bullets as you call them would penetrate a ship's hull. However they might damage controls as well as life support equipment," observed Stapkas.

"Why do you think Kiggham would want this, has he ever seen it operate?"

"Not to my knowledge," replied, however when I was on Deneva, I had occasion to kill several wild animals they call shadox. They look like barbongs which are found on Ussen Ommo but they run around like dogs." Both Tiag and Stapkas looked puzzled until she brought up an image of a barbong on the computer.

"Yeah," exclaimed Alex, "Something like that. Anyway I impressed the locals killing as many as I did, apparently they had never seen guns like mine before. It's possible that Stenuck heard about it and thinks the only way is to hold Kelly for ransom."

Then Bria spoke up.

"There are certain bands of "nomads" on Doradus as well. They like to hole up in the mountains too, but it's mostly because they shun civilization for some reason. For anyone venturing into their "area's," they will charge a toll, however some of the more imaginative ones will offer their services as a guide and will keep some of the more dangerous animals from bothering you. They will steal from travelers now and then, but most people heading up into the mountains already know what to expect so they're prepared to play the "lurker's" games."

"Is that what you call them?" Asked Stapkas. Bria nodded, "Because they're fond of lurking near critical bridges and narrow passes waiting for the "toll."

"Has your father ever done anything about them?" Asked Stapkas, Bria shook her head.

"Oh once in awhile he'll send a few of the constabulary up to talk to them, especially if they have stolen from somebody, but like I said, it's a sort of "live and let live," situation. In some ways they do more harm than good, so we generally leave them alone which is all they really want anyway."

"Well perhaps this Stenuck character is the same way," speculated Tiag.

"We can only hope," replied her brother, "In any case I want to do a full reconnaissance before we decide what to do."

"Are you going to see the queen first?" Asked Alex.

"I've been thinking about that," replied Stapkas, and as much as it would be proper protocol I'm afraid word of our arrival would gat back to Kiggham. If we set down right in his "front yard" completely by surprise, he won't have had time to formulate any plans.

I'm also betting on the fact that he has no doubt ever seen a starship, especially one landing totally unseen right on his doorstep, might just be the edge we need."

"Well let me give this some more thought," said Stapkas, "It would appear that we are dealing with a very non-technical people who are possibly viewing this rifle of your's as some sort of "magical" weapon."

"Could be," replied Alex, "They claim to have a lot of magic on that planet, and I'll be the first to admit that I've seen things I can't explain."

"Don't discount the magic," added Bria, "I'm willing to bet that we on Doradus have just as much magic as they do on Deneva, we're all Tuatha Dè Danann, just different "tribes." Stapkas looked at his sister,

"Something tells me that we are going to have to spend some length of time on Deneva and Doradus. Bria, we would be very honored to meet your parents." Bria's face lit up,

"Well I'm sure they would enjoy meeting you as well."

During the flight, both Ruddorians dug up everything they could find about Deneva, as well as anything Alex and Bria could add.

"I really hate not stopping to see the queen first," lamented Stapkas, "But I'm afraid our only edge will be the element of surprise."

As they approached the planet, Stapkas made contact with Zeb Kifire explaining the situation they were in and the fact that they were heading straight for Stenuck's suspected stronghold.

"I'll let the queen know," he replied, "She won't be happy about it but under the circumstances…"

The Witchfire Mountains were larger than Alex had thought, but thanks to the advanced scanner technology it only took a little less than two hours to locate a promising site. Concentrating on a "hidden" valley, with a small mountain stream. Hovering at close to five thousand feet above the valley, high enough so that anyone below wouldn't hear them they were able to pick up several life signs of people below. Because of fuel concerns, they could do this for roughly one hour but it was enough. Then Alex had a thought.

"Let's go check out the backside of this mountain, if I was Kiggham, I'd make sure I had a "back door" to my hide-out."

"Good idea," he replied. It took some concentrated effort but they finally found it through the thermal imaging of the scanner. Using the eye device on his translator, Alex was able to pick out a faint trail.

"There it is," he pointed. "I don't think it's an animal trail, they don't just stop like this one does, and hey look, look at the scanner, isn't that someone standing down there?"

They were hiding under a small grove of trees, but the imaging revealed them as a living being.

"Gotcha!" Exclaimed Alex,

"So what are we going to do about the escape exit?" Asked Stapkas.

""That's easy," replied Alex, we wait until it's real late at night, then blast half the mountain down on that exit, Mr. Stenuck might be more inclined to see things our way when he discovers his "escape hatch," is gone."

They located a small rough area that was reasonably flat, and didn't appear to be accessible by foot to wait until the early morning. Everyone took the time to get a little sleep before the attempt to rescue Kelly went down. Alex had a hard time sleeping thinking about Kelly, especially the very real chance that this thing could go "south" and she could die. He and Stapkas had briefly discussed the possibility, with Alex telling him,

"If something should go wrong and Kelly dies, we uses those plasma cannons of your's and bring the whole f*****g mountain down on them!" Stapkas was horrified by Alex's determination, but finally agreed that's what they'd do if it should come to that.

"You're willing to wipe out all those people just for your friend?" He asked.

Alex looked him dead in the eye and replied.

"Payback is a b***h Stapkas; you told me you wanted to learn about us humans? Well, if something should go wrong your fault, Stenuck's fault, nobody's fault, wiping those bastards out won't bother me a bit!"

"Relax Alex, just give me a chance, I know what I'm doing."

"All right, you're on, but I'll be up in that turret with those guns trained."

A little while after midnight they lifted off and re-located their previous position over the escape trail as well as what was no doubt the rear entrance. The thermal imager also picked up what appeared to be two shapes that indicated they must be a couple guards. Stapkas slowly turned the craft to face the mountain, as he centered the aiming ring on a rocky outcrop. Without further ado, he opened up lashing the rock with intense cannon fire blasting rock in every direction. As hoped, a rockslide began bringing tons of rock down over the entrance, and obliterating the trail as well as anyone who had been standing nearby.

Quickly moving around to the other side, he set the craft down in front of what reminded Alex of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, only these were being lived in along with several smaller structures on the valley floor in front of them. Another last-minute problem was quickly solved when Bria offered to call Kiggham out since no one else knew Elvin.

"Once I get up close to him it's a simple matter of translation," admitted Stapkas, "However calling him out from inside the ship is another. Bria also volunteered to go with him to help with words the translators might have trouble with.

"You never told me you could speak Elvin," said Alex. Chuckling, Bria replied.

"You never asked. Even though we have only a tiny elf and fairy population on Doradus, it's still practically a second language for us."

By now the stronghold was awake with lights coming on and signs of people running around. Calling out over the loud-hailer Bria announced.

"Kiggham Stenuck! Show yourself and yourself only. My name is Stapkas Slykhor, representing Alex Russom, the friend of the earth girl you have taken. It's time to talk, we are sitting our here directly in front of the cave entrance. If you haven't been told as yet, you're back door is permanently closed. Step out here Kiggham, and let's talk."

By now the whole area was in a complete uproar when Stapkas told Alex,

"We can't fire these weapons while cloaked. I'm going to de-activate the cloaking system, so once I do that, you fire a short burst up towards the face of this mountain, but don't do it where rock debris will fall down and hit anyone, do you understand?" He said he did, then waited until he saw a shimmering, and the ship suddenly appear. Apparently there must have been some of Kiggham's men nearby, for they spotted the ship appear, quickly scrambling out of the way as Alex opened up with the turret guns.

Greenish-gold pulses of light streaked up to the mountain causing rock to explode outward, falling down into an un-inhabited part of the settlement.

Nothing happened for almost twenty minutes making them think the bandit leader wasn't going to respond, but then a small light could be seen approaching stopping roughly twenty feet away.

"Well here we go," announced Stapkas, his sister gave him a hug and wished him luck. With Bria at his side, the two slowly walked down the ramp.

Using the image magnification on the gun sights Alex was able to closely observe the meeting. Because of this, he was able to give Tiag a little better description of what was going on. Kiggham Stenuck appeared somewhat larger than the elves Alex had seen on his previous visit to Deneva. He appeared to have a very short and close cropped beard, and short hair. Because of the dark, it was hard to tell much more about him with his face often shaded in darkness. He did see Stapkas gesture to him using the arcane hand signals, which Stenuck returned. All three people stood for several minutes in apparent conversation, then squatting down on their hams drawing with their fingers in the dirt.

Alex watched carefully for anyone trying to creep up on Bria and Stapkas, but everybody was staying put. All three people continued to squat, drawing in the dirt, making occasional hand gestures with no apparent progress being made, finally Bria stood up and slowly walked back to the ship. Coming up the ramp, she loudly announced,

"Alex, get out here! Kiggham wants to talk to you, oh, and bring that rifle of yours." This didn't sound good but then he had an idea, quickly dissembling the rifle, he removed the little cotter key that held in the firing pin, as well as replacing the twenty round magazine with a five round one he had brought. He also removed the micro dot sight and replaced it with a screw on iron sight; Bria was waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp.

"What took you so long?" She hissed.

"Taking out an insurance policy!" he shot back. "What's this guy like?" He asked.

"Can't really tell," she replied, he's Elvin of course, he knows about you and that rifle of yours. He's claiming that Kelly is fine and that she wasn't really taken against her will, says it was all an effort to get you to come here."

"That's sure a strange way to go about it," replied Alex. As he drew closer, he could see another man standing there but he had a hood over his head making it impossible to tell who or what he was. As he came closer Kiggham held out his hand for the rifle which Alex reluctantly handed to him. Then quickly looking it over he handed it to the other man and in passable English said,

"Well Roy is this what you've been telling me about all these yarns?" Before Alex could react, the stranger examined it while Kiggham held a small flashlight over it. The stranger fondled the weapon then pulled back the charging handle it like he had one all his life.

"It's been a long time since I held one of these," came out of his mouth in perfect English.

"How is it you have one of these son," he then asked.

"My dad gave it to me for Christmas, they are very popular, every one has one now, say just who are you?"

The man threw back his hood and exclaimed,

"Name's Roy VonDran, late of the United States Marine Corps, and the good old US of A." He then looked at Kiggham and added.

"Guess we owe these folks some answers, c'mon everybody follow us."