Chapter 28

She was running! From what, she didn't know. All she knew, was it was behind her, always behind her. When she looked, she could not find it. Its heavy breathing was heard, and its breath was on the back of her neck. Pain flared through her body, as she was missing something that was important to her. She was running through a ship, being pursued by the darkness, running through the sterile walls of force screens, it was so close she could feel it. It was behind her, and it reached out and touched her. Turning she raised her weapon and then she saw it.

She stammered its name, "Sha'Karia."

"Yes, child, it is I. Come, our dance must continue, but first let us eat. I know you're hungry! Come join me. I'm very hungry. I can also smell that you're hungry. Come. We shall eat, first. Then we will finish what we started. Follow me, our meal is ready."

Sha'Karia turned and went through a door and into a huge dining room.

She followed the creature into the other room and there was a huge table, covered with dishes of food, in the center of the table was a covered platter. Sha'Karia went to one side of the table and sat on a divan, while a chair was across from her.

Sha'Karia looked over at Sammy, gestured to the chair, and said, "Come, sit and eat. Gather your strength, and then we shall dance once more."

Sammy felt herself walking to the chair and sitting. Her stomach rumbled from the smells of the food. Confused she sat across from Sha'Karia and looked at her as she served pieces of food on her plate.

"I'm confused. If you eat like this, why do you consider my species, and all other intelligent species, as food?"

"Because you are, my dear. Everything is food for something. You eat the lower life forms on your world. You raise the cattle, and birds. The cattle eat the grass, and the birds consume other smaller life forms. Your world and many others were seeded with life, to be used as food for us."

Sammy was loading her plate with the vegetables, and felt her eyes being drawn up to Sha'Karia as she was talking to her, and she asked, "Seeded the worlds? What do you mean? I don't understand?"

"That's because you haven't learned of your heritage child, but you shall. Now do you want some of this tasty smelling meat?"

She reached for the covered platter and lifted the lid only an inch as she looked Sammy in her eyes, and said, "Do you want any meat?"

The smell of roasted meat drifted over to her and made her mouth water. "Yes, please..."

Sammy stumbled back from the table as Sha'Karia lifted the cover fully from the platter, and then she started screaming.

"Sir, my scans show they are all right. Both have some small cuts and bruises, and Ensign Anderson is going to have one hell of a headache from that bump on his head, but I don't..."

He stopped talking, as Lieutenant O'Rourke sat up screaming, with sweat rolling off her body in rivers. Her breathing was coming in gasps, as though she was drowning for the lack of air. Sitting up, she started shaking. Her eyes were staring off into space.

Ensign Nakamura watched Lieutenant O'Rourke scream, and said to Corporal Rodriguez, "Give her a shot. Knock her out, before the T'Lari find us."

Hector was opening his case even as Kyo was speaking to him. Grabbing a canister of meds, he dialed in the sleep medicines and loaded the injector. Pressing it against Sammy's arm, he injected her. Her voice stopped in mid-scream and she passed out.

"Go to sleep, Lieutenant," Hector said softly.

Looking up at Kyo, he said, "If I need to, I can wake her up. I do not know what happened to her, but I would say she is in shock. We need to get her up to the ship, and have Doctor O'Neil check her out."

Kyo listened to Hector, and said, "I know, but right now we cannot go anywhere, until the wounded are stable. We also need to search this area..."

Hearing a noise, he looked up as Lieutenant Driscoll sat up with a groan. Walking over, the Lieutenant, he knelt beside him, and asked, "Sir, are you okay?"

Richard held his head in his hands, and replied, "Damn! Did anyone get the name of that Mac truck that ran me over? And no, I'm not okay. I hurt all over ... So what are the damages?"

"Sir, it's bad. Commander Holstein is dead, along with Sergeant Lopez, Corporal Kearney and Private Johnson. Corporal Duffy, and yourself are wounded. Ensign Anderson has not woken up since we found him, and we just had to sedate Lieutenant O'Rourke. I have Privates MacMathan, and Duffy keeping an eye out for trouble. As to what ran you over, we have not figured out what it is yet. We are thinking some kind of pet or guard. All I know is it killed three of us, and wounded two more, in less than one minute."

Richard climbed to his feet, looking at the creature and he shook his head at the size of it, and asked, "Very good, Ensign, any sign on what we were looking for?"

"Sir, I have been dealing with the wounded and dead. I haven't even checked the scanner. I'll get it, and let you know."

Kyo turned, walked over to his pack, and picked up the portable scanner. He activated it and detected the jamming right away.

"Sir, it's coming from in there," Kyo said.

He pointed to the large room where they had recovered Sammy and Kevin after killing the large scorpion-like creature.

Richard looked at his shattered rifle. He went and picked up a dead soldier's rifle, and activated it.

"Okay, let's check it out," he said as he walked to the open doors.

They stood there and looked around the huge room. Its golden metallic floor was studded with several pillars that were made of a silverish material. Blood was splattered on the floor, along with broken weapons.

"Wow! Fort Knox would want this room."

Kyo looked around the room, and his blood began to run hot. He started sweating as he stood there looking at the floor.

"Sir? Is this gold?"

"Yes, it is. The pillars are silver or platinum. I'm not sure which. There is a fortune in precious metals here. If we still used money, we would be rich."

Walking into the room, he looked at the floor and saw several areas where the floor had been damaged from something smashing onto it, and continued, "Must have been one hell of a fight in here, I wonder why it didn't kill them."

"I don't know, Sir, but when we found Sammy ... I mean Lieutenant O'Rourke ... she was laying on top of Ensign Sanders. It was like she had been placed there, and a pair of axes were crossed over her chest. It was weird, Sir ... like she was being honored, or something."

"Maybe she was. We do not know what type of creature that was. Maybe she fought well, and it decided to let them live ... ah, hell. I don't know ... All I know is it confuses the hell out of me."

Looking around Richard walked back towards the darkened section of the room and stopped, he could see images inside the darkened section, but it was as if no light was going through.

"Now this is weird, the light just stopped right here ... no reason why."

He reached out his hand to slide them into the darkness, and his fingers touched a force field.

"Shit, we have a force field, here."

Ken stood there looking at the main screen, which showed a Marine transport closing on the planet.

"Susan, please raise Captain Curran of the USS Iwo Jima."

Lieutenant Susan Wright turned to her com board, and said, "Right away, Sir."

Keying her com board, she contacted the ship.

"This is the Washington calling the Iwo Jima. Come in please."

"This is the Iwo Jima, Ensign Flanders speaking."

Pressing the com panel again, Susan said, "Ensign Flanders, Admiral Thompson wishes to speak with your captain."

Captain Jehanne Curran came on the screen, her red hair cut short, her green eyes sparkling in the light as she sat in her command chair.

"Hello, Washington, I hear you have a problem that needs fixing by my Marines."

"Hello, Jehanne. Yes, I have a mission for you. I have deployed all five hundred of my Marines in the T'Lari battleship, and we have gained a foothold, but we need your assault troops to rout them. I'm down by almost two hundred Marines. We have also rescued almost five hundred survivors. We are finding them, now, still in stasis. The T'Lari are fighting us tooth and nail for their ship. Since they knew we were here, they have been able to wipe out fifteen squads of my men. We also destroyed their probe launcher and the four probes they launched."

Lieutenant Jinnah Chin, over at the sensor console, was going through the sensor scans and she saw a sparkle in one of the images. Tightening the scan on the image, she gasped at what she saw.

"Sir! You have to see this."

Taking over the main screen, she shunted the image of Captain Curran to a smaller screen.

Ken turned on Jinnah and said, "Jinni what are you doing? That was rude."

Jehanne smiled at Ken's comments and replied, "That's okay, Admiral, she must have a reason. I'm deploying my Marines, now. Iwo out."

The side screen went blank, as several people gasped at what they were looking at on the main screen. Ken turned back to the main screen and there, sitting in the center of the screen, was a ship, it was covered in a layer of ice. The power indicator bars on the side of the screen was what caught his and everyone else's attention. Ken got up, walked over to the screen and looked at the ship.

"My God! Amy, Jessica! To the bridge, please."

Amy and Jessica appeared in their standard sparkling of mist. Amy walked up to Ken as Jessica hung back. Amy looked at the image, and instantly recognized it as Tralcan.

"That is a Tralcan strike fighter. I wonder what it's doing here. I wonder if she is what that cruiser was looking for, several months ago."

"I don't know, Amy, but she has power, and..." Turning to Jinnah he said, "Jinni, are there any life forms?"

Jinnah turned to her sensor, and activated the life detection scanner, "Scanning now, Sir. Sir, I have a weak signal. Someone is alive, there. I would say in stasis, Sir."

Amy turned to Susan and said, "Susan, check for emergency responders for Tralcan ships. Their beacons are in the database."

Susan brought up the beacon list for Tralcan ships, and her sensors automatically switched frequencies to the signal output indicated. Her board started flashing.

"Sir, I have a beacon and an automatic response. Putting it on audio and bringing the language software online."

They stood there and listened as a beautiful voice started speaking.

'This is Kalaria. I'm declaring an emergency. My fighter has been heavily damaged from unknown enemy fire. Port engine is destroyed, starboard engine damaged. The forward part of the ship all the way to the cockpit has taken serious damage. Forward shields are down to seven percent. Rear shields are at thirty percent. Main plasma cannons have been destroyed.'

'My report follows. After the Vengeance was scanned, I was sent to investigate possible alien influence on the human world. Using the stealth abilities of this craft, I descended into the atmosphere and headed toward the location of the scan. While I was scanning, I detected one of their local cars being powered by a hydrogen reactor. This was determined to be alien technology by my ship's computer. Therefore, I attacked, as per our standing orders that all alien influences must be destroyed on the human planet, I should have been prepared for defensive fire but no weapons or shields had been detected in my scans of the vehicle.'

'My scans detected four human life signs. I dove down and attacked. Unfortunately, the car had a pair of laser cannons mounted on the roof. Their first hits dropped my shields to forty percent and the second set tore right through them like they were paper. I estimate their rate of fire at one shot per gun, per second. I started banking my fighter, which is when the forward part of the ship was perforated, at the same time the port side engine was destroyed. I quickly climbed and headed for space, dumping all my power to my rear shields. Damage to the jump engine, and to the power recharger, prevent me from returning to the Vengeance.'

'The solar generator is still working so I'm going to place my ship down on the ninth planet and go into stasis. I hope, no I pray, one day I'll be rescued. If not, may we be victorious against the flesh eaters. Tell my family that I love them and honor them. Please ask them to place a wreath on my mate's graves. This is Commander Kalaria, signing out.'

Amy stood there with the rest of them and listened to the message, and said, "Admiral, she is the one who attacked you out in Nevada. It seems she was following orders to prevent any alien influence on Terra. Do you wish to initiate a rescue?"

"Yes, right away. I'll not leave anyone out there like that."

Turning to Lieutenant Stella Salaneo he said, "Stella, take us to the location of the ship. Amy, prepare to lift the fighter into landing bay one."

Walking back to his command chair he sat down and turned on the com for medical.

"This is Admiral Thompson. We need a decon team and a medical officer to stand by in landing bay one. We have a guest coming on board in a few minutes."

Stella typed the commands into the control panel and the big ship slowly turned and came to a new heading. It descended until it was a mile above the surface. It then came to a stop over the ship. On the secondary screen, as they were pulling away, the Iwo Jima moved into position over the enemy ship, her shuttles belched forth from their landing bays, and started descending into the expanding base that the spiders were building.