The Last Frontier
by: Marina Twelve and Thomas R.

Retribution   part 6

 

It would take six hours to make the four jumps necessary to get Retribution within striking distance of the star that the Syndicate called Axel. Melissa and Bainbridge would do the actual jumps, leaving Leslie well rested to pilot the ship through the most difficult part of the journey.

She would have to dodge any scanning fields or other detection devices that the Syndicate had set up in the vicinity of the system to detect intruders. Leslie would also have to get the ship down to the surface of the moon where the mine colony was located, and move in close enough to be able to assault the facility from the ground.

All of this would have to be accomplished without being seen by anyone. The elements of stealth and surprise were their only advantage. They would be a small army of six against perhaps, hundreds of well-armed Syndicate men.

She had little idea of how she was going to accomplish her mission of getting in and freeing the slaves that worked in the mines. There was just too little information. She only hoped that when the time came, she would have a plan, and that it would be successful.

Leslie wandered over to Zee’s Biotelemetry Station. Zee had already "scanned" the area of next jump and had detected no other craft in the vicinity.

"Would you like another lesson, Leslie?" Zee asked.

"Sure, I’m game." Leslie replied, and sat in the chair.

Zee lowered the sonic chamber over the Captain’s head.

"Now we are going to try something more difficult" said Zee. "Lets see how well you can see actual co-ordinate numbers."

"Finally, a skill I might be able to actually use" Leslie said with a smile.

"Its not easy, Leslie, not easy at all." Zee replied. "Now we are going to see if you could really cut it as a B T.

The Biotelemetric ability resides in the RIGHT hemisphere of the brain. Numbers along with place names, indeed all of what we call proper nouns are only read and interpreted in the LEFT hemisphere."

"OK, I understand." Said Leslie, "So how do we get that kind of information out of the right hemisphere?"

"You develop ‘Tricks’. The right brain is good at seeing art and fancy designs. You try not to see the numbers as ‘numbers’, but as artistic patterns and shapes. Take one digit at a time if you have to."

"OK, What cords do you want me to check?"

"Let’s go for the big one.", said Zee. "Where is Konstantin?"

Leslie stared at the Random field screen and fiddled with the variation controls. Suddenly, Leslie saw what looked like a com screen bearing the three spatial cords.

"I see it!" she said in triumph.

"Do you?" Zee replied. "Read me the numbers."

Leslie looked closer. Indeed she DID see the screen with the cord numbers on it, quite clearly too. But when she tried to read them, she got an unpleasant surprise. "DAMN!", she exclaimed. " I can’t read them! I see them but I can’t read them, its like I’m illiterate or something"

"Look at each digit, Leslie, one at a time."

Leslie tried. It still didn’t work "Im sorry Zee, but . . . "

"See it as a SHAPE! Don’t think of it as a number."

Leslie tried again. She DID see the shape of it. It then somehow registered. "Hey it’s a FIVE!" she exclaimed in triumph.

"GOOD!" Zee replied, "only forty four more digits to go." The X, Y and Z cords were usually expressed in 3 fifteen-digit numbers.

Ten minutes later, after deciphering only three more digits, Leslie grew tired. Zee Signaled that the session was over and resumed her own place in the chair.

"How did I do?" asked Leslie. "I told you that I was not cut out for this."

"Hey, you did fine. Most people can’t see any numbers at all. You could. You just need to practice reading them."

"Yes, perhaps one day we will try it again." Said Leslie.

 

Leslie dropped in on the Doctor. He was busy in his small clinic, unpacking and sorting his instruments. He had been too busy operating the turret guns to finish setting up his sick bay station earlier.

"Are you nearly set up Doc?" she asked.

"Almost," the Doc replied. "You know that I could be arrested for practicing Medicine without a License, if I treat patients in here."

"Not under emergency conditions, Doc, Space Law. Hell, I could treat a wounded crewmember myself,--- and I had to a few times. I have only had a few first aid courses."

"How good a surgeon are you, Doc?" Asked Leslie in a different tone of voice.

"I was the best! I still am, but they forbid me to practice." --- Suddenly Doctor Havelock realized what Leslie was alluding to.

"Seriously, I DON’T recommend it." He said matter of factly. "You have a perfectly healthy, fertile and beautiful body. It would be a travesty to butcher it up in an attempt to regain something you can never have."

"Now you are starting to sound like those Space Command doctors, who have been putting me off for the last eight months." Leslie replied. "You guys just don’t want to change a pretty body that you admire. Well, You don’t have to live in it, I DO."

"It’s not that Leslie." Said the Doc. "If you went through with it You would regret the operation the rest of your life. I know you. You would never be satisfied with anything less than a perfect body, developed to its optimum condition. You HAD that when you were a MAN, and you have it NOW too, only you refuse to accept it."

"Even before any of this sex change stuff happened," the Doc continued, " if you had been castrated, had your physical strength cut in half and had been altered in appearance into a big-butted, wimpy looking guy, you would have been as unhappy with THAT as you are NOW. And THAT’S all this operation can offer you! At least NOW, you are a perfect physical specimen of humanity and you still can have more children, if you choose to."

"So you are telling me to make the best of what I got, and learn to like it? I CAN’T learn to like it! THIS ISN’T ME!"

"The only other solution for you is to try to find the machine that did this to you in the first place." Said the Doc. "It’s the only way that you could become an actual MAN again."

"I have thought a lot about that too," Said Leslie. "There was nearly a seventy percent chance that I would have been killed the first time it was used on me. Konstanin was right, I WAS lucky to have survived the process. I would face the same odds AGAIN attempting to change myself back.---I . . . I really don’t feel THAT lucky. I must admit that I would rather be like I am now than DEAD."

"Give it TIME Leslie. None of us ever choose the sex we are born as to begin with. Again, you had no choice when you were changed. We all learn to do the best with what we have. Half of humanity makes out all right with female bodies. You should be able to also."

*******************************

 

Leslie knew that Doc was right---About everything. She began to realize that her hopes to reverse her current situation, by surgery or other means, were false ones. It depressed her.

She also began to realize that to "embrace Femininity" was a frightening concept. She was afraid that if she gave up her last "links" to her "manhood" she might loose her identity forever. She might become an altogether different person, perhaps one that she did not like or want to be. Leslie Webber, the starship captain, the leader, and yes, "hero" might cease to exist, despite whatever "body" it was contained in.

No, it wasn’t her remaining "masculine pride" that was preventing her from adapting to her new situation in life, but FEAR! Fear that "that woman in the mirror" would absorb and destroy Leslie Webber! Fear that she would become something "less" than what Leslie Webber, even now, was, It was a fear that Leslie Webber was in danger of becoming an "inferior", rather than the "superior" being that she had always been.

 

"That’s what the Doc meant." she realized. "I have always strived to be the BEST I could be. I WOULD never be satisfied with anything LESS."

She had been "Comparing apples to oranges" "Of course, a woman makes an "inferior" MAN,--- BUT the reverse was ALSO true." She could STILL be a "superior" HUMAN, however, no matter what SEX she was!

"Yes," she thought, "I have always been a "special person" and still could be". When she looked at herself in the mirror again she saw herself in a whole new light. She WAS STILL a "magnificent specimen of humanity" even though she was a different sex.

Her mind and leadership ability were STILL there and as intact as ever. She still had the ability and will to defend herself and others. She was NOT "physically weaker" as she had feared, she had simply traded one type of physical strength for another. She simply had to learn how to use her new "strengths" and not lament about what she had given up. Yes! Leslie Webber would Survive! Leslie Webber would triumph!

************************************

 

Melissa informed Leslie that the last jump had been completed. They were now some two hours, by way of reaction engine to the Axel system.

Before entering the system she called the crew together to plan strategy for the next move.

 

"Fortunately, the sensing arrays are spread out quite thinly on the side of the moon that faces away from the planet." Said Zee. "There are several blind spots that can afford us a corridor to the surface."

"That gets us to the surface, "said Leslie, "but how do we get to the other side of the moon?" The mine is thousands of clicks away."

"We shouldn't be detected, so long as we keep within ten meters of the surface or any landforms. That will get us at least to the perimeter of the outer defenses." Zee replied.

"That's still seventy clicks from our objective. It's a mighty long overland trip, even in an ATV. And where will we hide the ship?"

"I'm sorry Leslie, That’s as much as I can make out. Apparently, the owner of the nugget had never been to the mine, he was an outer perimeter defender. YOU will have to take it from there."

"Damn!, "Leslie cursed. "We will have to work with what we can find. Melissa, take Zee's data and plot us a course to the surface."

Leslie piloted the ship along a two degree gap in the Colony's sensor field. They finally landed on the back side of the moon nearly one hundred and eighty degrees from their objective.

It didn't look good. The moon was mostly flat desert. There appeared to be no mountains or significant landforms. Nothing larger than a few sand dunes.

"They will be able to see us coming a dozen clicks away! Said Lesley"

"Don't worry. " Said Zee. The only humans are on the other side of the moon, at the colony. There are only automated sensors out here, and they won't detect anything flying lower than fifty meters. It's night on the other side of the moon, so we will be hidden there too, at least for the next five hours."

Leslie adjusted the altitude control to ten meters and drove towards the other side of the moon. Soon, they found themselves enveloped in semi-darkness. The "Sun" light reflecting off the planet below was bright enough to cause some concern, but there was nothing that they could do about that. They would have to be happy with what cover the darkness gave them.

In the distance, a long barbed wire fence could be seen. Every two clicks was a tall tower with gun turrets mounted on it. This had to be the "outer Perimeter"

Lights could be seen shining from only a few of the towers. They weren't all manned. That made sense to Leslie. The defenders were not expecting any guests. This installation had been kept secret for years. There never had been any intruders, and there was no need for them to be expecting any.

 

Military "discipline" among Syndicate types was lax. And why not? What could one expect from people who have no discipline or self control. That's why they were criminals in the first place.

An EM scan showed no electronic sensing systems in operation. Leslie sat the ship down between two unmanned towers just inside of the fence.

They winched down an enclosed ATV out of a hatch on the bottom of the vessel. and climbed in.

"Where to?" asked doc.

"There's lights on at the tower four clicks away. "said Leslie. " Lets crash their little party and see what they can tell us about the layout of this place."

At the base of the tower was an open door. Music and voices could be heard. A black ATV, with Syndicate markings was parked nearby.

Leslie parked her ATV about 50 meters away. She took Bill and Melissa with her. Doc, Zee and Bainbridge were to stay with the vehicle.

"Bill, You stay close behind me, but out of sight. If I get into trouble, you know what to do. Melissa, you back up Bill and watch our rear."

Leslie Shook her hair loose and began to walk up to the door. "Captain! you’re not just going to walk in there, are you?" whispered a concerned Bill.

"It's about time I learn to put my feminine charms to the test." Leslie replied. "They won't shoot a pretty girl, at least not right away."

Bill stationed himself just outside the doorway, and pressed himself against the wall. Leslie walked in.

The voices stopped talking.

Four "biker looking" men were seated around a table. They each held small com screens in their hands. Each screen was plugged into a small black box in the center of the table. Leslie could see Card faces displayed on the viewing surfaces.

"Deal me in fellas?"

The men stared at her in stunned silence. So far so good. This was working better than Leslie had expected.

"Sure" one of the men said as he stood up and removed his hat. "Please, sit down." He pointed to a chair. He plugged another com screen into the box and pressed a button on top.

Leslie took the screen and watched as five card faces appeared.

The men seemed oddly apprehensive. They were not the leering brutes that she had expected them to be. Something "fishy" was going on.

"Uh. . . " one of the men began to speak. "It's YOUR bet, Ms. Horst."

Horst! Leslie had heard THAT name before. Things were getting creepy. "What's the minimum" She asked, keeping her cool.

"Five!" Another man spoke up. "Here, Ill spot you". The man handed Leslie a red chip." Leslie could see that the man was shaking like a leaf. "Do I have THAT kind of power over men?" she wondered, "No, it was something else".

"Five it is." she said as she threw down the chip.

"I fold!" said another of the men. "Me too." said another.

The next man began to throw in his chip, but hesitated. "Uh . . . Ms. Horst, is Konstantin unhappy with us? I mean . . . You don't mind if we. . . There' very little to do out here and we. . .

Leslie was beginning to figure things out. Horst appeared to have strong connections to Konstintin, and these men knew it . "Everything is fine here boys. I was just checking out the perimeter defenses."

Another man, coming down the steps from the upper portion of the tower interrupted them. He looked like a Syndicate officer.

He took one look at Leslie and stopped dead in his tracks. He quickly removed his hat, and his face rapidly took on the expression of awe and fear that the other men wore upon their countenances.

"Can I help you Kora" He asked.

Leslie looked up and tossed her hair.

Suddenly, the look on the man's face changed. "You're not Kora!" he commented quizzically. "SHIT! It’s Webber!" he exclaimed as he reached for his gun.

Leslie had instinctively reached for her sidearm as soon as the man had appeared on the steps. She was ready for him. She put two three shot bursts into his chest, before his pistol cleared his holster.

The men at the table were dumbfounded. They had no idea about what was going on. They had no time to react as Bill, hearing the shots, jumped through the door with both guns blazing.

All four men were shot dead in their chairs.

"Damn it Bill!" Leslie shouted. She was not concerned about the bullets that had just whizzed past her ears. "You should have left at least one of them alive. Check upstairs, see if there is anyone else in here. Melissa, go with him. If you find anyone bring them back down to me."

While Bill and Melissa checked upstairs, Leslie went to the door and signaled Zee, Bainbridge and the Doc to join her.

They arrived about the same time Bill and Melissa reported that the upper portion of the tower was empty.

Doc surveyed the carnage. "Looks like you two had a bit of trouble in here."

"A few things puzzle me though" Said Leslie. "They all seemed to mistake me for Kora Horst, at least initially. And they also seemed afraid of her."

"She definitely has some relationship to Komstantin, and the men all seemed to know it." Leslie continued. " I'm thinking that maybe she had been his mistress or something."

"Had been?" Bill asked.

"Yes records showed that she died almost four years ago."

"No wonder they were scared of you."

"No, their reaction wasn't right. No one mentioned anything about thinking I was dead. Four years is a long time. Their familiarity with Kora seemed a lot more recent than that.

*********************************

 

"We will take their own ATV into the colony. it will attract less attention than our own" Said Leslie. They had found a map of the facility on the wall. so they had some idea of the general lay out of the area.

There was yet another fence some twenty clicks away, that surrounded the colony proper. There was a small community that housed the guards and two prisoner/slave compounds.

The mine workings lay between the two. There was also a special landing port for the ore carriers near the mine. A conveyor, leading from the workings terminated at the port.

"We need someone who knows the exact layout of the central compound and who can tell us about how many guards we will have to deal with." Said Leslie.

"There should be some guards on the gates of the second perimeter" , Said Melissa. "We could abduct one of them."

"Good idea" Leslie replied. "But we will have to be careful. We don't know how many guards they have at the gate. If he has any friends we must deal with them quickly and quietly."

Melissa drove the ATV down the main road. Soon, as expected, they encountered a gate. The guardhouse, fortunately, looked only big enough to hold one man, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Commander Connor brought the ATV to a stop.

The light from a campfire glowed just beyond a sand dune a few tens of meters away. Leslie could make out the form of a man, sleeping near by.

"Follow me Doc." She said as she climbed out of the vehicle.

She drew her gun and approached the fire. Doc followed on her heels.

She pressed the barrel of the "hundred over ten" on the man’s Temple.

"Wakey, Wakey!" she said in a musical voice.

The man, startled, jerked back his head. He then saw what Leslie was holding in her hand.

The dark skinned man, with the long, stringy black hair, then got angry, and grabbed for the gun. He caught Leslie’s wrist.

But Doc quickly grabbed the man’s own wrist, and squeezed it with his bionic grip until the man let go.

Without releasing his hold, Doc pulled the man to a standing position. He then held both of the man’s hands behind his back.

Leslie was surprised that she had let the man almost grab her weapon. The fact that she could feel that the man had superior strength also disturbed her. She had to be more careful in the future.

But Leslie kept her cool.

"What the Fuck IS this?" the man angrily snarled.

Leslie walked up to him. "We are new here. You look like a man who knows his way around. We just need a little information from you."

"What kind of information?"

" Oh, just the basics, how many guards are posted out here, where the weapons are kept, stuff like that."

"I’m not telling you nothin', bitch!" the man growled.

"You don't have to." Leslie replied. "My BT will scan your mind for the information we need."

"A BT?"

"Don’t worry , it won't hurt a bit"

They draged the man into the cabin of the ATV

Doc Tied the man's hands behind his back and around one of the internal framing columns. Leslie brought Zee over.

There was an immediate shock of recognition that registered in the faces of both the man and Zee. "SHANKA!" Zee shouted, as a look of rage contorted her face.

"My God!, " The wide eyed man managed to blurt out, "HOPA HI!".

In an instant fit of rage Zee clasped both hands tightly together into a big fist and swung with all her might at the left side of the man's face. The blow nearly took his head off.

Doc and Bainbrdge Managed to grab the woman and pull her away. Miraculously, though bleeding from his mouth, the man was still conscious.

"What the hell was that about Zee!" Leslie demanded to know.

"Its Personal!" Zee replied.

"Save your PERSONAL bullshit for later! You have a job to do. Now READ the guy."

The man appeared terrified. "Keep her away from me!" he exclaimed.

Zee appeared to calm down. She placed her left hand on the man's forehead and closed her eyes. "She is a BT." Said Leslie. "She’s only going to read you. If you co-operate you won’t get hurt."

Suddenly, Zee’s hand slipped up and grabbed a handful of his hair, and with her right hand quickly reached under the hood and behind her neck. She whipped out a "Pig sticker" that made Leslie’s old combat knife pale in comparison.

"SHIT!" Leslie screamed!

Fortunately, The Doc was quick. He grabbed Zee's right arm and pulled her back. He squeezed it until she dropped the knife.

 It fell to the floor and into the puddle of the man's urine.

"WHAT THE FUCK'S WRONG WITH YOU ZEE!" Leslie frantically Shouted into Zees face. "If you can't follow orders, I'll send you back to the ship!"

Zee Suddenly broke down into tears.

"He was responsible for this!" she told Leslie between sobs, as she pointed to her head. "Do you want to know what my Lokota name is? HOPA HI, Leslie! Hopa Hi! It means Beautiful hair!"

He has made me a JOKE among my own people! His name, SHANKA!, DOG, fits him like the DOG he is. He has betrayed me! He has betrayed the Lakota people.

"I found out that he was sending the Syndicate a portion of the proceeds from the tribal mining operations in Dakota. Two of his men came by my quarters one night and forcefully injected me with some chemical that caused ALL of my hair to fall out. It never grew back. I had to leave my home in disgrace. I even had to change my name."

"No wonder she was so secretive about her name." Leslie thought. She could see that Zee was obviously too upset to work. Shanka would have to be convinced to co-operate on his own.

Leslie put her face up close to Shanka's "You ARE going to tell us where the weapons and ammunition are kept. If you refuse, or if you lie to us,---- Well, I am sure I can arrange for you and Hopa Hi to have some 'quality time' together."

"You will kill me any way!" the man replied.

"We will release you if you tell us the truth. Yes, we will have to drug you or tie you up to keep you quiet, but we WILL release you, Trust me."

Zee stood upright. "YOU will deny ME MY VENGEANCE, Leslie?!," She protested, "even though I have been helping you get yours?"

"Our fight is with the Syndicate, Zee. Shanka was only their tool. It was The Syndicate that took away that which was most valuable to us, it is only fitting that we take from the Syndicate that which is most valuable to IT. This mining colony! I cannot allow you to jeopardize this mission over a personal matter. Shanka and every one else on this moon will eventually get what they deserve, I guarantee it."

"I suppose that YOUR BODY is NOT a personal matter, is it?." Zee mumbled sarcastically as she walked to the back of the cabin. Leslie decided to ignore the comment.

"Well, Dog man, " asked Leslie, Are you ready to talk, or should I let Hopa Hi give you a new hairstyle?"

"OK, OK Ill talk! What do you want to know?

"How many men does the syndicate have in the colony?'

"A Lot more than YOU have lady, over three hundred"

"Where are the weapons kept?"

"Everybody has their own guns, but they keep the spare weapons and ammo in building three, next to the commander's office."

And where are the workers kept?

"In the two compounds, one for the day and the other for the night shifts.

Leslie nodded to the Doctor.

Doc placed an injector on the man's arm and pushed it in. Shanka immediately lapsed into unconsciousness.

Leslie looked over at Zee, who was sitting on the bench seat looking sad and frustrated. "Am I going to have to worry about you, Zee?"

"I would want him to be fully conscious", she replied. "I could have no satisfaction with him like this."

Leslie reached over and removed Shanka's bear claw necklace. She handed it to Zee. "Here, I know you need some token of your victory over Shanka." Said Leslie. "This is quite rare, I know he prized it. All I got from the guy that raped me was this lousy hat."

Zee forced a smile and nodded her thanks. She put the necklace on.

 

As they were driving an enclosed ATV, with Syndicate markings, they felt fairly safe. There didn't seem to be any checkpoints inside the main compound.

Leslie decided that they should check out the mine itself. it wasn't hard to find, all they had to do was drive out towards the huge ore stockpiles that comprised the only landforms in the immediate vicinity.

The mine was a huge "open pit" affair, an artificial crater, some 30 to 40 meters deep and about half a click in diameter. Assuming that there were 300 guards, who likely worked three shifts, she could guess that about one hundred at a time were guarding the prisoners.

Thirty or so could be accounted for stationed with their automatic rifles along the rim of the crater. Here they would be in an excellent position to deal with the situation if there were serious trouble in the workings below.

With a set of binoculars she found in the vehicle, Leslie peered through the window and checked conditions at the bottom of the pit.

To her dismay, she could see that most of the workers were wearing dirty rags and were excavating the ore with hand tools. There seemed to be at least two guards, one armed with a whip and another with a gun, guarding each "party" of about twenty workers.

There were twenty five groups of workers, which meant that five hundred worked the night shift and that fifty guards could be accounted for in the hole itself. That left about twenty guards to be devoted to other tasks around the operation, such as operating the lifting machinery, maintenance, outer perimeter guards, and the other various tasks that needed to be done around the facility. Yes, those numbers seemed about right.

There were still, perhaps, five hundred more prisoners who worked the day shift. They were likely asleep in the prison camp. It would make most sense that the same 100 guards went out with the same prisoners to work on each shift, So there were only TWO shifts, and not three as she had first speculated.

Only about half the number of guards would be needed to watch the prisoners in the compound, so that left the remaining 100 guards to work the two shifts, using about 50 each for THAT duty.

Assuming that Shanka was telling the truth about the number of Syndicate guards, and that she had figured out how they were being deployed, Leslie could finally get an idea of the situation she faced. Leslie would not simply assume anything, however.

"I'm still not satisfied," she said, "lets go for a little ride."

Bainbridge climbed behind the wheel of the ATV. They drove by the prison camp itself. It consisted of two identical compounds. not 50 meters apart. There were quarters for about 150 to 200 guards, along the outer perimeter of each. The prisoner huts were well within the double barbed wire fences.

There were guards manning the towers of one of the camps while the other seemed deserted. A count of the active guards seemed to confirm Leslie's initial assessment of the situation. "The only personnel in the empty camp would be the fifty or so camp guards, who are off duty and mostly asleep." Leslie surmised.

"The rest of the day shift guards are likely sleeping along with the day shift prisoners. So it looks like only the fifty camp guards of the day shift camp are awake over here."

But there were other buildings outside of the camp. There were more personnel here than just the guards. There were technicians and support people. Judging from the buildings there were at least 100 to 150 of them. They were mostly asleep, being that it was "night", but they still could be a problem.

"Well, Captain," said Doc "have you got any ideas?"

The odds against their success were indeed formidable. they were only six people against almost Five hundred Syndicate personnel. But there were, by Leslie's ‘guesstimation’, at least one thousand prisoners being held here.

The guards would be the ones to offer the only serious resistance, so the ratio would be about Three hundred to one thousand SIX--a possibility, if enough of the prisoners could be armed.

"One of the prisoner groups, either in the mine or in the camp, perhaps, could be liberated, and that force could be used to help liberate the other half." Leslie thought. A plan was beginning to form.

Of course, the commotion, if it was too loud or went on for too long, would attract more guards from the other location to help put down the revolt. So the possibility of reinforcements had to be minimized.

But first things first, They had to lay there hands on a lot more weapons. The liberated prisoners had to be armed. They couldn't just be throwing stones at guards armed with automatic rifles.

The light was still on in what was labeled the "Commander’s quarters".

"Where do you think the weapon's storage shed is?" asked Leslie.

"Shanka said that it was in building three." Doc replied, "next to the commander's office"

"The commander's office IS building THREE", said Leslie. "The weapons must be inside, next to his office."

"If Shanka wasn't lying to us"

"Shanka was too frightened of Hop. . . Zee to lie, he knew that we would turn her loose on him if he wasn't entirely honest with us."

Leslie looked down the quiet street. It was deserted.

"The security around here is terrible" she commented.

She peeped into the commander’s window. He was at his desk, catching up on some paper work. He was alone.

"This all has to be done quietly" said Leslie, as she climbed back into the ATV. "I'm going in by myself".

She removed her leg holster and gun and handed to Melissa for safekeeping. "Now I am going to see how well YOUR method of fighting really works."

Leslie gently knocked on the door. To her surprise, and horror ANOTHER man opened it. For a moment, the game seemed to have been blown right then and there.

Leslie hadn't seen him standing on the far side of the room when she looked in the window. She still had to play along. She had no choice.

"I need to see your C. O." she said to the man. "ALONE, please." The man smiled and stepped outside. He closed the door behind her.

Leslie put on her best "airhead" smile just in time for the commander to look up to see who had entered his room.

"Kora?" he said, then changed his mind "No, you aren't Kora."

"I'm her cousin" Said Leslie, quickly, thinking on her feet. "Some of her friends sent me over here, they thought that maybe you could use a bit of ‘companionship’ tonight, seeing as how you work so hard and all."

Leslie was doing her best to get as close as she could to the man. She didn't like what she had to do to do it. She felt like she was ‘degrading’ herself, but then again, she didn't HAVE to like it, she just HAD to do it.

She saw an opening and sat on the man's lap.

"Now Miss, the man said with a nervous smile, I really DO have work to do,"

"Go right ahead, I am quite comfortable here." She brought her face close to his and closed her eyes.

Then, in one smooth motion, the shive slipped out of the seam of the leg of her pressure suit and into the man's chest. Leslie quickly stood up and the man fell to the floor, absolutely DEAD.

"This was TOO easy" was her initial thought. She then saw Melissa outside of the window. Obviously the other man was no longer a threat either.

Leslie helped Melissa drag the other man's body inside and laid it next to the dead commander. There was a locked door next to the office, but it was easily defeated. Sure enough, Shanka had told the truth. There were several shelves full of rifles and handguns, and a few boxes of grenades.

Bill drove the ATV up to the front door. Doc and the rest began to load the weapons into the vehicle.

By now Leslie had decided that the slaves working the mines would be freed first. The problem now was how to get the weapons to them.

They drove back to the mine site. Fortunately, the black Syndicate ATV looked like it belonged there, so it attracted little attention. Leslie scanned the area once again with her binoculars.

She got another idea. "Doc, I need you to go down there and spread the word among the workers that we are getting ready to help rescue them."

"What'll I tell them? How do you expect to distribute the weapons?"

"They already have weapons!" said Leslie "all they need is a bit of organization and encouragement."

"What weapons do they have, certainly you don’t mean their mining tools?" asked Doc. "Why, the guards would mow them down with their guns, if they even made a threatening move towards them."

"No, something even better than THAT. She bent down, and picked up a rock and threw it."

"STONES?"

"Yes, very effective at short range, and quite deadly, ask any policeman who had to help control a riot. The basic weapon of the people."

"They way I figure it," Leslie continued, " if everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, throws one stone at the gunman guarding their group, and ALL at the same time, it will be all over. The whip men can be finished off with the mining tools."

"You need to go in there on some kind of pretext. Tell the guards that you are a syndicate doctor or something, and that you need to spot check a prisoner or two in each group for some kind of disease or something---- You make something up. Take each prisoner aside and tell them to pass the word to their fellows. That each is to grab a stone and throw it at the gunman guarding them, but only on our signal."

"Which will be?"

"When we switch the lights out. Tell them to keep one eye closed, so that they will be partly acclimated to the dark, when it happens. There will still be plenty of light to see by from the planets glow overhead."

"What about the guards up here on the crater rim?, they could start picking prisoners off if there is a hint of trouble."

"Yes, we will have to deal with them too."

 "Beg your pardon captain," Bill spoke up." I think I have an idea about that. See how nearly all of them are gathered on a line along the southeast rim. That’s so they can have a better shot at the prisoners working on the opposite wall over there."

"Now take a look at this portable light tower that they have set up here.' Bill pointed to the large wheeled device with several floodlights mounted on it, that the ATV was parked near. "Now take a look at where that cable runs. "

The nearly two inch power cable, was laid along a semicircular path just beyond the crater rim and connected to a generator house half way around to the other side.

"Are you proposing that we electrocute them?" a puzzled Leslie asked.

"NO, no" replied Bill. "Look how the men are standing between the rim and the wire."

"I LOVE it!" exclaimed Leslie, Seeing what Bill meant.

"I don't get it" Said Doc.

"You WILL, " Leslie replied with an evil smile.

"Doc, I have one more thing for you to do. You look like you fit in here more than the rest of us. Go tell the first guard over there that we are a maintenance crew and we are doing some repairs on this light. I don't want anyone to get alarmed when we disconnect the cable."

Doc walked over to the nearest guard, some 75 meters away. Leslie watched with not a little apprehension, as the guard confronted Doc and the two began to talk. The doctor waved his OK, and began to walk back to his own group.

"How did it go?"

"Very well actually, the man even thanked me. I heard him radio his partners about it as I left."

"OK, Bill, Turn 'em off. Said Leslie"

Bill pulled the switch. The lights on the tower went out. Of course there were the smaller light towers in the pit left to be dealt with and several other rim towers. Bainbridge would see to turning them off when the time came.

Bill disconnected the end of the thick cable, and drug it about ten meters of so the rear of the ATV. He looped it around a rail, on the vehicle's rear panel, about a meter and a half off of the ground. He secured the cable to the vehicle with several turns of steel wire.

"OK, Bainbridge," said Leslie" you and Bill go out to the generator house and get ready to kill ALL of the lights when I tell you to. Doc, get down there and let the prisoners know what's going on. We have everything ready up here."

Melissa was at the ATV controls now, waiting for Leslie's signal. Zee had been left behind, in the commander's office. Leslie had given her a special task to do.

**************************

 

Doc rode the escalator down into the mine pit. It was a multi bucket affair that raised and lowered personnel and equipment into the pit. Immediately, a guard, who looked like he was in charge, confronted him. He asked who he was and what he was doing there.

"I'm Doctor. . . ‘Locke’, yes, on special orders from Konstantin himself. I am to select a prisoner from each group for, er, uh. . . "Special treatment". . .

"Yes," the guard said with a smile "I understand. Perhaps if a few examples are made, they might just decide to work a little harder"

"I’m just going to select and examine one or two in each group. I won't be taking them with me just now. I'll take their names and we can cull them out in the morning"

Doc removed his sidearm and handed it to the guard.

"Here, hold this for me, son. Can't risk one of them grabbing it and shooting me with my own gun, now can we."

The guard nodded knowingly and signaled Doc to get about with his task.

In the first group, he saw a man wearing the remains of a Space command Pressure suit. He walked over to him, and made sure that they were out of earshot of the other guards.

Doc commanded the man to stand, and had him open his mouth. He shined a light down his throat and pretended to give the worker a simple examination.

"Now listen to me very carefully, " said Doc in a hushed tone "Captain Webber has come back to rescue you"

"Captain Webber! He's alive! I knew that he wouldn't desert us."

"No time for that, now listen! and pass the word along to your comrades.

Doc told the man that as soon as the lights went out, and the guards were wondering what was going on, every man was to grab a suitable sized stone and THROW it at the guard holding the GUN on each group.

Then they could kill the whip men. Webber would take care of the guards on the rim.

Doc visited every group of workers, and left his message. The guards watching had no idea about what he was doing.

When he was finished, the Doc walked over to the escalator again and retrieved his gun from the guard. He pretended to make up a list of names while he waited for the FUN to begin.

Bainbridge found the switches he needed to pull. He told Bill to wait a second. Bainbridge then pulled a card from his head and replaced it with another.

Bainbridge quickly drew the gun from his holster and twirled it confidently.

"I ought to be nearly as good as YOU now!"

Bill gazed in astonishment. Bainbridge seemed to be able to handle the gun like a pro.

"GO!" Spoke Leslie's voice into their headsets.

Bainbridge threw the switches.

Melissa floored the throttle of the ATV.

The lights in and around the pit went out.

One of the guards looked up for a second at the light fixture near him. THWACK! his head was busted by a rock thrown from not ten paces away. It was followed by at least fifteen more, several hit their marks before he hit the ground, but it didn't matter, the first one had killed him.

Most of the other armed guards, in the pit, met a similar fate simultaneously. Only one or two got off a few shots before they too were felled by the onslaught."

The guard standing next to Doc, ran for the "panic button" box on a nearby pole. Doc shot him before he could set off the emergency siren.

With a roar the prisoners charged the remaining guards and whip men. Using shovels and pickaxes to finish them off.

The guards on the rim were alerted by the noise. They stood up and began to take aim.

The cable tied to the ATV began to draw taught. Suddenly it snapped straight, instantly raking across the line of men standing along the curved edge or the crater.

The entire row of guards was swept over the side to fall to their demise at the bottom of the pit.

Bill and Bainbridge ran along the crater edge in the opposite direction, picking off, with their pistols, the few remaining guards who had stationed themselves away from the main group.

In less than a minute it was all over. Leslie and Melissa rode down the escalator and into the pit with the, now jubilant, miners.

Several people there recognized Commander Connor and cheered. They didn't recognize Lesley, but that didn't matter, right now.

Melissa stood up and signaled for order!

"Members of the Proteus crew, front and center!" Melissa Shouted.

About 50 of the five hundred people there pushed forward. Leslie and Melissa recognized a few of them.

"You people are trained Space command soldiers and officers" Melissa said. "You will lead the others as we fight to rescue your fellow prisoners at the other prison compound."

"Were is Captain Webber?" several of the crew shouted. "Where is Webber?"

Leslie swallowed hard. This wasn't going to be easy. "What would the crew think to see me this way?" she thought. "Would they still accept me as their leader?, Hell, would they even buy my story in the first place.?

Leslie nervously stood up. "Crew of the Proteus" she began, " and other former prisoners of the Syndicate. As many of you may have heard, Leslie Webber, Captain of the TCS Proteus, was Captured by Syndicate forces when his ship was taken.

But he wasn't killed. Konstantin wanted to make an example out of him. He wanted to humiliate Captain Webber and destroy his career. He wanted to make sure that Leslie Webber would never be the Captain of a Starship again!

There were a few scattered booos from the crowd.

 

Leslie hesitated and then spoke again " Look at ME! THIS is what he did to ME! I AM LESLIE WEBBER!"

The crew was stunned to silence.

"I come here to tell you that Konstantin was WRONG! He did NOT destroy ME! I refused to be defeated! I have returned to destroy HIM!

The crew began to cheer and the rest of the prisoners then joined in.

"WEB-BER! WEB-BER! WEB-BER!" they shouted.

I freed you with the help of only FIVE other people. I send you out as FIVE HUNDRED! Five hundred soldiers to free the rest of your friends!"

*****************************

 

The freed prisoners rode up the escalator and were handed various weapons from the back of the ATV. There were Pistols, Rifles and various types of hand grenades.

A man walked up to Leslie "Begging you pardon, uh, Captain."

"Go ahead, Saunders." Leslie replied.

"You recognized ME!" the man replied, smiling.

"I could hardly forget my best helmsman, now could I."

"I. . . We just want to thank you, Err. . . Captain Webber. And I speak not only for myself, but for the others here. We STILL consider you our Captain and we will follow you anywhere. Man or Woman, you have done one HELL of a JOB here."

"Well thank you Saunders, you don't know how much that means to me. But the Job is only half over, we still have to finish it."

 

END OF PART SIX

 

 

 

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© 2001 by Marina Twelve. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.