Chapter 2
Life Goes On
Her life had changed greatly when she’d taken her place on this crew her friend Teresa had offered her. The experience she had as a doctor had sealed her position but her other abilities were highly sought after too. Right now she was the only female other than Teresa on the raiding teams.
She’d been a bit of an overachiever starting college at sixteen and med school at eighteen. Her position had been at a hospital in the worst region on Earth. In New York City’s poorest area, she had quickly learned the value of self-defense. Once she’d taken those courses, she’d become addicted to battle skills to stay in shape, self-defense, and to protect others.
Martial arts had become a hobby, but now it would be a way of life as long as she was on this ship. The young Phoenix who trailed after her often, had no place in her life. When she was younger she’d wanted a settled life someday, but that before her world had crumbled. There was no future of with any happiness on Earth. Maybe someday, but not in her lifetime, the Earth would support life again.
Even the help Razar had given had not been able to undo all that the rich men had done and continued to do to her planet. Those were the kinds of men they were now punishing. She’d not been able to save her own world, but she would defend her galaxy. These humans they saw spread autumn leaves on the breeze would eventually propagate the human race and eventually return to a healed planet.
It was what her life was dedicated to and what she would give her all to see happen. Teresa too helped all she could. She had a fund for aiding Earth and those few that remained on the planet. Seaweed that ate the pollution and broke it down had been sent in large quantities to be seeded in Earth’s ocean. Several machines that filtered the air and broke down the chemicals that poisoned it had also been spread around the surface of the planet.
Fast? No, but it would speed up the process and make the planet heal faster. There was no need to help those that were left behind at this point. Regular trade between them and Razar was still ongoing. They had too many females and he had things they needed. Food, medical supplies, clothing, and equipment were traded for those that were willing to go. It was a win/win situation since he didn’t force the females to do anything. They could mate or choose a worthwhile job.
Now here she was training some medics to serve as backups and to fill her position leaving her just on call so she could rest or do other things. Teresa was smart, every position had several backups. The loss of any single crew member could be filled. Everything wouldn’t go to hell even if Teresa was unable to lead for whatever reason. As a team, they all needed to hold up their end, but the team would move on no matter who was missing.
Her com vibrated and she checked for the message. Volunteers? Count me in! The answer came back right away. Accepted. “Guys, you are in charge. I’ve been called out.” She instructed.
Now she headed to the bridge. She wore her black raiding uniform. They all wore them while working in case something like this happened. The meeting room was halfway full. It looked like a dozen volunteers if they were all here minus Teresa and Flicker who probably would stay behind.
“You’re all here now.” Teresa informed. “This is the mission. You will all be flashed to the engineering room on the command vessel. Razar wants the ship taken rather than destroyed. The leader in charge will be sent here and the others will be restrained and imprisoned if possible. This will require hand to hand as you go from section to section of the ship. We are getting close enough to Oison if you have particularly dangerous prisoners to deal with, they can be flashed to Oison’s prison. Everyone clear on the mission?”
“May I asked a question?” Mike asked.
“You may.” Teresa responded with humor.
“To save time, shouldn’t we flash some knock out gas before we go onboard?”
“Do we have some available?”
“We do. It will ease some of the danger too. Most will be out cold. There is a possibility a few might not succumb to the gas.” Mike admitted.
“Sounds like a plan. How much of the ship can we gas?”
“We have enough for half the ship. The places with the most people are the ones we should hit with the gas.”
“Agreed.” Teresa said. “Do it.”
“I’ll go with her to help carry the gas.” Elm volunteered.
Teresa grinned. “You do that. Everyone is dismissed. Com me before you send the gas and again before you leave our ship. Don’t forget to send the camera drone, Oak.”
The plan was a good one and sending the camera drone would not only tell them the enemy ship was accessible to them, but show them where everything and everyone was. Since no plan was perfect, they would proceed with caution. Oak was a solid commander and she was happy he and Elm were with her. They both did that extra little bit that made the difference between good officers and excellent ones.
Those two never failed to volunteer and always seemed to be on those extra missions like this one. They were also tough and Phoenix. That race had secrets she had no clue about. It was tempting to pursue what Elm wanted just to find out more about him and his people. But no, she refused to hurt the sexy young male.
She led the way as Elm followed her to the supply closet in medical. That’s where the canisters of knockout gas were. There was several cases of them. They could be set to go off in a few seconds or minutes later, whatever they desired.
“We’ll start with the section we plan to flash to. By the time we’ve sent all the canisters, it should be safe for us to enter.” She explained.
“This is a great plan. We’ll still be alert, but this gives us an edge. I’m curious if these are just mercenaries or the latest alien threat.” Elm admitted. Hell, she was curious too.
“Let’s grab the cases and get down to engineering.” And that was exactly what they did. The cases weren’t that heavy she thought as she saw Elm lift six easily. She lifted one and decided he must have some serious muscles. “Let’s use this cart to get all we need.” Elm nodded as he set the six cases on the hand cart. Then he got the last six cases.
Now they headed to engineering where the flash device was. It was a super-secret device Razar had made by his scientists. As far as they knew, no one else had that capability. That was another advantage that they would use. The engineer nodded at them and they began the long process of sending one canister at a time to the enemy ship. Each one was sent to a selected area to take out the maximum number of personnel.
When they were finally through, they began to get sent to those areas in pairs. She was sent with Elm, but she didn’t mind. They went first and got the enemy’s engineering. Four males were out lying on the floor. She used two of her cuffs and Elm did the same. Now they moved to an area no gas had been sent. These guys were asleep making them easy targets. It was clear they were the engineer off duty personnel. Maybe they had gotten a bit of the gas because they didn’t wake.
The other teams were getting things done easily too. It pleased her to make such a useful suggested to make this difficult raid easier. Things went well up to a point then they ran into enemies that were awake and aware. “Well that sucks.” She said.
“Indeed.” He agreed. Because it was dangerous to fire weapons on a ship, the fight would be hand to hand.
Slightly outnumbered, he went in swinging. He got a hard hit on the first guy’s head and he went down. Now it was an all-out no holds barred fight. Sweat poured off him but now she was too busy to watch what Elm did. The largest number of attackers headed to him even though she was holding her own. Slowly and with difficulty, they managed to subdue their adversaries and work their way around to more sections.
They stayed in contact with the other pairs until it was clear they had the ship under their control and were able to send the one in charge of the group to Teresa. Several of these leaders were from an unknown alien species. Now they would find out more about them and if they wanted to take over this galaxy simply because they were aggressive and warlike.
Now they weren’t sure what to do, but Oak took charge and put their people on the main consoles and in engineering. He got on the command chair and pulled up information. “I know some of this. The other part of this group plans to circle around like we thought. I don’t believe we’ll be safe until we take the fight to them and seriously kick their asses.” Oak observed.
“That’s no surprise to me. This is a hostile race we’re dealing with. Our new ship is set up strictly as a war ship. Even though some families are onboard, they know they are taking a risk.”
“What brought you to that conclusion?” Oak asked curiously.
“I’ve looked through some of their paperwork in medical and engineering. Only a limited number of families are allowed on board. It’s to limit the risk to their population. They rarely lose and didn’t expect to this time either. The thought among their leaders is that we wouldn’t be expecting them.” She admitted.
“Had we not been leaving on a mission, they might have succeeded. Something needs to be done to improve defenses.” Oak agreed.
“I concur. We’ll have to discuss that later.” She said even though none of the enemy was on their bridge with them. There was no way to know if any of the others could hear them. “We need to find a place where we can sleep and set up a rotation. How long we’ll be here is anyone’s guess. Razar might want us to stay on here long term.” She declared.
“You’re right. Do you want to handle that?” Oak asked.
“I can do that.” She agreed. Now she left the bridge looking for guest rooms.
Some of the females, probably ones with children looked miserable. She’s made things more comfortable for them, but she couldn’t trust them. Feeding and taking care of all these prisoners would not be easy. After checking several rooms, she found some that had no personal items in them. They seemed comfortable enough and she found something on the back of the door that seemed to designate each room as guest or ambassador.
It was surprising that such a warlike people had ambassadors. Next, she followed a map she’d found in one room to the cafeteria. The food seemed similar to what her people and others on her crew ate. Cuffs on the prisoners would allow them to feed and take care of themselves if they were given food and access to the bathroom.
That wasn’t her worry so she did what Oak had asked and marked several rooms for her crew mates to rest in. Now she returned to the bridge. “I found half a dozen rooms for resting. The cafeteria food seems safe as far as I can tell. What are we going to do with the prisoners who need to eat and rest? Especially the small children.”
“Razar is removing them as we speak. Oison was once a prison planet and they have a large prison, several of them in fact. They will be set up to care for themselves and basically locked in. One less worry. Their food will be sent to them from this ship and we will be sent our own food. A crew is being assembled to take this ship over. The leader, who had his family onboard, has stopped his ships from attacking for now.”
“Damn. I’m glad all that is taken care of. This ship may be hard for the new crew to adjust to.”
“It won’t be.” Oak grinned at her. “They will be mostly Phoenix and this ship is similar to some we have.”
“I wasn’t aware your people had any ships.”
“That’s a good thing.”
Yeah, she supposed it was. That would be a surprise to any enemies that attacked. Now they began to take turns resting and she took over the navigation console. The ship barely moved right now just hanging in space. While she monitored the console, she searched through the information available to the navigator. It showed the history of where the ship had been. This was an old ship by any standards and had been all over, but not in this galaxy until recently.
It was a warship, one of the faster and stronger ones these people made. The people were what they called themselves. An odd designation, but it might be they didn’t want their enemies to know who they were or where they were from. On the other hand, they might really call themselves that. Their beliefs were those many warlike groups had. They felt it was their right to conquer and rule all.
They felt superior and wanted to rule all the universe as they found it. As an enemy, they were terrible since their empire covered several galaxies. It was those that rebelled that kept them too busy to send a larger force against Oison for now. That they needed Allies was obvious. The problem were there was no one of any military might as far as anyone knew. The Mazlans had low numbers, Earth had nothing to offer, and the few groups spread around the galaxy had low populations, no technology, and were poor.
If only someone of high moral standing with large numbers, high tech, or any support to give would make themselves known. A crew mate came back after resting and relieved her from her position. She made her way to the room hoping to sleep easily and wake rested.
Because she was tired, she fell asleep easily. While she felt better when she woke, she was not fully rested. There was also concern that plagued her. Although they had gotten the upper hand so far, this was an enemy to watch carefully. Their treatment of captured enemies might not be so good. Rumors had abounded, but they had few facts. Still for there to be so many rumors, there were likely at least some facts.
She got up and made her way to the cafeteria where some people with familiar faces were cooking and serving food from their own ship. It made her glad to have them here. The food was good and many of the things she liked. Eating quickly, she then hurried to the bridge to get her orders. Elm was in charge and he sent her to cover communications. On this ship, it was on the bridge.
Elm was busy on his com talking to crew mates and possibly Teresa. This was a serious thing and attention had to be paid to the jobs each of them did. She watched her job as the hours past until she was relieved. No one seemed to know how long they’d be onboard but all the prisoners were gone and added crew unknown to her had been brought onboard. Her guess was when they had enough people to properly operate this ship, the people she worked with would go back to their own ship.
Once more she went to rest for several hours before returning to the bridge. This time a stranger sat in the captain’s chair. “You may go to engineering and be sent back to your ship. Thank you for a job well done.”
“You are welcome, Sir.” She replied and headed where he’d directed. It pleased her to head back to her own crew. Her room was comfortable and familiar.
“Good to see you.” Elm said as she arrived back onboard their own ship.
“Good to be back. Do I go to medical?” She asked.
“Not yet. Teresa wants us all to meet in the meeting room. I’m waiting for Oak and Ranger. Once they arrive, I’ll join you.”
She nodded unsure what to say. Then she headed to the meeting room as directed. Teresa had snacks set up for them so she got herself a small plate and a couple of drinks. It was a relief to be back. This ship and her apartment on Oison were home to her, for now anyway. Not long after she sat down, the males they’d been waiting for walked in. Elm sat in the empty seat next to her. Admittedly, she was getting used to him.
“I’d like to thank each of you for volunteering for this latest mission and doing such a great job. We had intended to go on a mission but Razar is concerned about this new threat. For now we plan to patrol the area near Oison while he tries to figure out an early warning system. He asked if any of you had any suggestions for him to consider.”