Aaen looked up again to suddenly find himself surrounded by what appeared to be several tall, dark figures. He couldn’t get an exact count because it was still so bright in this place. Wherever this was.
“Where-did-the-other-two-like-you-go?” a distorted voice asked so darkly even having to listen to the voice made Aaen feel sick to his stomach. He went three seconds without responding, and then one of the dark figures on his right approached him rapidly and punched him on the right side of his face so hard Aaen’s head jerked sharply to the left, his brain rattled in his skull and his neck immediately felt sore all the way down his throat and in his spinal cord all the way to the base of his shoulders. The feeling throbbed as he gasped hard, and felt the urge to tear from the growing numbness, on the impacted side of his face—an urge he was struggling to hide.
Another blow came from the left—this felt more like a back-hand. Aaen felt his head and neck do the same thing, with the same sensations, but this time in the opposite direction. The pop from this blow was twice as loud, and sharp. H—HEEELP! He cried silently in the back of his mind—his vision continued to blur. He realized the ‘something’ they injected him with before was still in his blood! He was trying to fight it. . .but—
One of the figures said something to the others, then they each approached him so aggressively—he felt the pressures on his arms, wrists, and ankles suddenly release, and then he was picked up by his shoulders so sharply, taken somewhere else in the room, forced to stand up on his feet, and then restrained again like he was on the ship—
Storm led the bridge team to deck one, through the bridge hatch, and then onto the bridge. Their rugged-looking apparel drew the Odyssey’s onboard bridge crew attention to them immediately. The look on Storm’s face was straight, direct, and stone-like. The bridge crew immediately backed away from their stations, noticing the looks on their faces and their pace as they approached them. Jones looked over her shoulder and announced to the rest of the bridge crew, “Captain on the bridge!”
The Shadows set their computers and connective cabling and other gear at the computer stations and connected the computers to Odyssey’s infrastructure. The graphic displays on the computers were technically detailed, visually crisp, and uploaded their operating systems virtually instantaneously.
Storm walked up to the front of the bridge past Smith who was still sitting in the center seat. Smith anxiously and nervously stood aside as Storm took a small palm-sized display from his right-front pocket and moved his hand over the device—every gesture resulted in letters, words, sentences forming on the display in bright green, crisp letters. This was much more effective and less time-consuming than writing with ink.
Smith noted Storm was keeping a brief, concise list of the steps that were taken and progress that was being made as it was happening or reported around him.
In the back of Storm’s mind, and as he was noting on the display, team two was standing by on deck two to deploy. Team two comprised of riflemen, snipers, and demolitions experts, carrying all the combat gear they would need in case force was required to complete this mission. Storm hoped that wouldn’t happen. Smith was silently hoping combat wouldn’t happen, either. They both knew whether or not combat action would be necessitated depended on those they were pursuing who had captured Odyssey’s captain.
Smith folded his arms and stood aside and quietly walked around behind Jones and Sandberg’s stations.
Sandberg was doing okay. He overheard the doctor telling Sandberg something about his nearly ready to be back at his post. Sooner the better.
“Communications, let’s get the comm-link activated.” Storm commanded directly. He relaxed his tone slightly, more than usual. He was talking to a non-special operator. To Hayes’ astonishment, the ‘comm-link’ was more than the ordinary ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground communication channel. The security was so heavily encrypted that only specific receivers can even detect that a transmission had been sent. These guys mean business.
Storm took a ‘radio’ handset from Hayes’ station. The communication channels had to be tested before team two left the ship, and the channels were so heavily encrypted that hostile eavesdropping was virtually guaranteed. They had to make sure any orders Storm gave could be heard clearly. This took five seconds. That, and he wanted to make sure he knew about any new Intel in case there was any possibility that stuff was going to hit the proverbial fan.
Sixty seconds later, Storm said, “Roger that,” and then calmly replaced the handset on Hayes’ station and returning to his standing spot where Smith used to sit. Bad was already going to worse. The aliens’ had been ID’d.
Hayes held her hands coupled in front of her mouth with an obvious look of anxiety on her face. Next to her computer, a Shadow was monitoring every communication channel within Odyssey’s communication range. Group two was dressed in their combat gear and were standing by for the order to deploy. When the order was given, the Shadows would leave the ship en-route to Aaen’s location. Heaven help any tangos between them.
“Comm-link active?” Storm asked the Shadow next to Hayes’ station.
“Affirmative!” he responded immediately.
“Let’s activate the visual link. Team two: standby to deploy.” Storm commanded out loud.
A group of organized indicators on the viewscreen turned from red to green in sequence. In less than a second, the Shadow next to Hayes’ station turned and declared, “Group two is good-to-go, sir. Visual link is online.”
Storm’s fingers moved over his handheld screen as he directly commanded, “On-screen,”
“New Horizon has deployed a recon satellite, sir! Satellite is in-position directly over the tactical zone.” The tactical zone was the general area where Odyssey and Aaen were. The image in the viewscreen changed from the dark-orange-crimson abyss of the lake’s depths (the sun was going down) to the pitch-black of deck two. “Thermal live feed coming in now!” The next sequential commands divided the screen into a crisply gridded series of squares: one orbiting military satellite showed a vast virtually pitch-black area. The image quickly became enlarged on the screen: Odyssey was in the lower-right-hand corner and surrounded by numerous, small and seemingly jagged shards of light over the visible area. In between the field of jagged shards of light were moving thermal subjects.
“Contacts detected!” Another Shadow declared next to Jones’ station.
“Let’s get an I.D. on the tangos!” Storm commanded, fingering another snippet of data into his handheld.
“Roger!” another scan was underway and finished in two seconds. Tactical and technical data appeared around the thermal contacts. “Metallic scans indicate firearms! Hostile patrols, sir!” The Shadow continued rapidly entering scan definitions to acquire more data, then he looked at Storm and declared, “Confirmed! Subjects are Feud terrorists. Patrol pattern indicates a circular route.”
The names of the terrorists appeared next to the tactical screen. Storm’s thoughts turned to team two as he faced forward, thumbing more data into the handheld and commanded, “Team-two: deploy,”
The Shadow next to Hayes’ station snapped and relayed the order.
“Sir! New Horizon is deploying orbital fighter waves. The planet will be surrounded in two minutes!”
“Check!”
“Team-two deploying, sir!”
“Check!” Storm fingered more data into his handheld as he watched the viewscreen as team two’s video feed showed the passage through Odyssey’s hull—he noted the ship’s inner-workings as they proceeded—then they began a brisk swim through the lake (the water chilled as the sun went down; technical data appeared on the video feed), and then team two emerged from the water with their rifles up as the terminator into night passed overhead. They switched to night-vision, panning right and left in front and around them as they began their tactical march to their destination with their weapons up. Their destination was highlighted on their headgear HUDs. A thumb pad on the inside of their rifles would enable them to silently and securely signal Odyssey and New Horizon if any one of them needed to declare visual contact of a tango or acknowledge an order or other radio communication. The Shadows’ HUDs also highlighted each other with a uniquely-colored haze-like effect so even hand signals would be visible, no matter how dark it was in or outside. This feature was automatic and made possible by microscopic sensors in their gear’s lining that was constantly measuring the lighting levels for each Shadow, and automatically-enabling visibility. The data was processed to a micro-super-computer in their helmets and was connected by a woven hard line into their combat suits.
Twenty meters later, team two was approaching a large brush area with trees, bushes, tall grass. . .it was almost a friggin’ jungle—SOMETHING WAS AHEAD! The leading Shadow for the group stopped and raised a fist to their shoulder. Team two immediately stopped in their tracks as a second signal caused them to take a knee in perfect sync. He activated his radio; the transmission filled Odyssey’s bridge.
“Two to Odyssey, confirming visual contact of multiple armed tangos ahead between us and the vegetation surrounding destination.” Team two’s rifles were still up, and a coded infrared beam showed they had already begun acquiring targets.
Storm eyed the video feed, noting where the tangos were, and that they were getting closer to team two, but their patterns weren’t exactly organized. They seemed casual, but attentive with both hands clutching their rifles and looking around intently. They were all wearing combat armor and appeared ready to snap and aim at the first sign of trouble. Storm immediately looked for any sign or other symptoms that the tangos were under control of foreign adverse influence, like drugs or other mind-control chemical concoction. There would be no collateral on his watch. . . No, he noted. These were actual tangos. “Team two, acquire targets. Weapons release on my command.” Storm commanded sharply. Immediately, the infrared beams shifted, quickly resting on their gun sights on target.
*****
