Voyage of the Dawn Rider

Chapter 13

Voyage of the Dawn Rider 11.

By this time, both of us were very low on ammunition and plasma charge packs; it was pretty much, what was left in our weapons. As I cautiously opened, the door to what we hoped was the bridge, an alien darted out, Lieutenant Dall immediately grabbed him, picked him right up and drove his fist right into the creature's face, which put him down for the count. "I'm pretty sure it's still alive, we've got a live specimen for Elansa and my father now," he said. I indicated the door, "Ready?" "As I ever will be I guess," remarked Dall. We positioned ourselves on opposite sides of the door, since the Lieutenant had the shotgun, he opted to go first. I reached over, and pulled open the door. Immediately he began blasting, I swung around and charged into the room I saw three aliens already down; I destroyed two off to my left. An alien raised his pistol to shoot the Lieutenant, but Dall threw his shotgun at the alien catching him across the face, knocking him down. The Lieutenant quickly drew his pistol and drilled another creature right through the chest pitching him backwards. Both of us were primed, but there were no more aliens to shoot. We continued to aim our weapons around the room, but they were all down. Realizing we had won, both of us began to laugh nervously, "I can't believe we made it all this way and we're not hurt," observed the Lieutenant. "Well," I said, "that little maneuver was only good for one time, I wouldn't try it again even on a bet. You Know Lieutenant, I just a little bit curious when you came aboard the Dawn Rider, I figured you must have pulled all sorts of strings to get a place, on this mission. But you know, I'm just damn glad you did!" "Thank you Captain," replied Lt. Dall, but it was a whole lot easier than you think, speaking for myself, I'm glad I'm here as well." Addressing the other member of our "team," "Nessa," I thought, "Are you OK?" I felt a rustling in the pouch as a small face peered out. "Eeeeek!" screamed in my brain, "What happened to you two, are you hurt?" "No, I…" I suddenly realized what caused her to scream. Both of us were covered in blue blood, pieces of alien body parts and gore my nose also started to register a foul odor as well.

We used pieces of alien uniforms to wipe what we could off ourselves, "Let me see if I can raise the Dawn Rider from here," I said. Going over by a window, I tried calling Magiere. "Captain Demlin to the Dawn Rider, do you copy?" Suddenly the chief's deep voice came back, "Thank God you're alive captain, you've got a bunch of people about to turn blue down here, we can start breathing again." "Listen chief, we've secured this ship, we'll go down to the hanger and try and figure out how to get you aboard. I must warn you however, whoever comes better have a strong stomach, this place looks like a slaughterhouse, and we're pretty sure there may be some live ones still running around up here. Oh! And tell Elansa, Dall and Leah, we've got a couple live ones for them to practice on." "Copy that, cap!" replied Spanner, laughing. The lieutenant had some cord in his pocket, and proceeded to bind the alien he slugged, as well as the one he threw his shotgun at. He tied them with a noose around their necks fastened to their wrists, so that every time they struggled, they would choke themselves. If they had been anyone else, I would have forbidden it, but after what we saw, I really didn't care. The prisoners made strange squeaking and clucking noises, but their wails were unmistakable. The Lieutenant found bits of uniform and stuffed the wadded up pieces into their mouths to end all the noise,

"What are we doing captain," inquired Lieutenant Dall. "Are we keeping this ship, or what?" "Keeping it…At least for now," I replied, "If it's at all possible, I'd like to get this "baby" home somehow, I'm sure a million people would like to get a look at it, you're people being no exception." The Lieutenant's face brightened, "Would that be possible, no disrespect sir, but you Issethians seem to have a lock on all space technology." I studied him for a moment, "Listen Lieutenant, this ship is as much a prize for you Pyyrraian's as it is for us Issethians. I have the ear of the queen; I'll make sure your people get a crack at it as well." Dragging his prisoners along, we carefully returned to the hanger area, "Help me try and find where you make that hatch open," I said. "Sorry captain," replied Lieutenant Dall, "You forget, my country has no space technology, how should I know what to look for?" I let that one go, and looked around myself. Finally locating what appeared to be some sort of control room overlooking the hanger bay. It was a sealed room, so I had the Lieutenant join me, as I figured out how to open the lower bay doors. The pup was well away from the doors, so I did not need to worry about dropping it into space. Opening the massive doors, I contacted the Dawn Rider and told Maguire what I wanted to do. "Bring the Dawn Rider inside, it looks like there is enough room in here to turn around, I want the "rider" facing out, getting the pup back inside of the "rider" might be somewhat of a problem, at best, I'll have to put on a suit, open the doors, then get to the pup, and enter the Dawn Rider out in space." "How much room is actually in there captain?" asked Magiere. "Not a lot, don't forget, we're dealing with creatures slightly smaller than faeries so there isn't a lot of headroom in here." With that, I opened the outer doors thus allowing Magiere to bring our ship inside, scorching the hell out of the interior of the hanger bay as she turned the "rider" around. Once down, I closed the doors and made sure the room regained its atmosphere. The Lieutenant and I went down to meet the rest of the crew, when everyone came down the ramp they gasped at the Lieutenant and I. I mustered a sheepish shrug, "Sorry, things got a little messy, both Magiere and Elansa gave Dall and I that classic "feminine" look "men!" Yanking his two captives forward, Lieutenant Dall said, "Got a couple "live" ones here for you, but a word for all of you, don't go poking around we discovered some rooms I'm warning all of you to stay out of, for your own sanity if for no other reason," said Dall. Both Magiere and Elansa looked at me, "The Lieutenant is right they were performing some rather horrible experiments up there, Oh one other thing, keep those two well restrained at all times, that is an order."

My crew then began to take in their surroundings, and it upset them greatly. Bodies of the aliens lay everywhere, twisted and torn, looking like piles of discarded dolls. The pervasive stench of death was starting to clog the air, Spanner merely took it in stride, but for Magiere and Doctors Leah, and Dall, this was something they had never experienced up close before, it wasn't going down well. "Elansa," I said, "I require your assistance up stairs, I was wondering if you could protect the door with a spell of some sort, we don't have anybody to spare, and I don't want those little aliens trying to get in there, and fooling around with the controls, doing something to harm our ship." "Lead the way captain," she replied. The moment we came around a corner, my fears were realized, a creature was indeed, trying to open the door. Immediately Elansa gestured with her right hand, and whatever she did, picked up the alien and slammed him so hard against the bulkhead, a large splotch of blue blood and brain matter patterned the wall where his head hit. She let the body drop, as we stood there for a moment. "Remind me never to piss you off," I stated matter-of -factly. .She stood in front of the control room door, mumbled a chant traced the door with her finger. I could see a slight "shimmering" in front of the door. "Simply say, "Enter" while facing the door, captain, and it will open."

While we were up there, I took a moment to thank her. "Elansa, I want to offer an apology," "Oh, and for what?" she inquired. "For bringing Nessa." "Well this is interesting, please continue captain," she replied. "Well you know at first, I was not real happy you brought a pixie on board, well uh, things have changed," I said. "I'm extremely proud to call Nessa a part of our crew, she saved our lives not only mine, but the Lieutenant's as well. Furthermore, she is becoming an exemplary crewmember. In fact, those I wasn't sure about at first have been rising to the challenge; include yourself in that category as well. Everybody seems to have their own particular talent and all have been really showing their "stuff." this whole crew is really making me proud, now all we have to do is live long enough to enjoy it." "Thank you captain," replied Elansa, "Needless to say I had my pre-conceived notions about you as well; I too have been pleasantly surprised." After we returned to the Dawn Rider, Elansa as well as the two doctors elected to stay back and start a preliminary examination of out two prisoners. I went aboard the ship to get something when I saw Nessa flitting about. Calling her over, she began to hover in front of my face. "I just wanted to say Nessa, You done good today! You really done good. Stand up and take a bow little lady, you saved our lives, you've not only met, but far exceeded every expectation I originally had about you, and Nessa, I'm extremely proud to call you a member of my crew." She continued to hover in front of my face, then swept in and kissed me on my cheek. "Thank you captain, you don't know how much that means to me, you're the first Elf who has really taken me seriously, and that's all I ask, to simply be accepted, you have, and I thank you for that," "I think Lieutenant Dall really appreciates you're being there for us as well." "I know," flashed in my brain, "He's already told me, says he's even going to make a special pouch that will protect me better." "Well isn't that wonderful," I thought. "Well carry on then," I said. Spanner and Lieutenant Starle were the only ones to accompany Lt. Dall and I back to the bridge. As we stepped over the bodies, Spanner off-handedly said, " You two certainly leave a messy battlefield, don't you?" I think it was about this time I was starting to wish Elansa had a spell for making all these bodies disappear

My first order of business was to stop the ship, drop things down to reduced power and go from there. All of us started going over the various controls trying to figure out what controlled what. The chief came to the conclusion that the colors of the indicator lights were reversed from our standard pattern, yellow was OK or "go" light blue was "stop" we saw no green and yellow we weren't quite sure what it meant, it didn't seem to indicate "caution" like we were used to. The levers and control buttons were set up for small hands, and ones that only had three fingers and a thumb. The computer read-out screens displayed a language we couldn't even begin to get a handle on, but we kept "plugging" away. Finally, after much trial and error, we were able to bring the ship to stop, as well as operate the scanner screen. Spanner also located the computer mainframe, and a terminal. He then went to work opening up the terminal access and hooking up a portable analyzer. When the computer was given commands, the analyzer ran through the various responses. Basically, the device "hacked" computers to get past any secret passwords. Lt. Dall watched our back, lest any unwanted visitors suddenly appear, he also traded witty comments and remarks with Lt. Starle. At one point, we were forced to gather up the bodies of the dead aliens and pile them in a side chamber, away form us, as they were getting underfoot, as well as the smell they were beginning to radiate.

We kept struggling with the problem, every time Magiere would hit on a good idea we found it didn't work. Spanner was at his wit's end. While we were taking a break, and trying to come up with a solution, Lt. Dall wandered over and began to look at one of the readout screens. Standing there for a moment, he looked at me and said, "Sir, I may be just a dumb human, not knowing anything about these computers and such but some of these characters look familiar." "Why, what do you mean Lieutenant?" He continued to study the screen a bit longer, then said. "When I was little, some friends and I wanted to create a code we could write stuff in so nobody else would know what we were talking about. My dad was involved in the languages department at the university at the time. He "created" a code for us utilizing elements of a very old language once used a long long time ago on Pyrra. Well sir, a lot of these characters look very similar." A thought entered my mind, "Just supposing? Lieutenant, please get your father up here right now!"