Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [95]
“I suggest you make a verbal recording of the message,” Char-Kane said, pointing to a small device he took to be a microphone. “We will send that.”
“Right, sure.” Why hadn’t he thought of that? He was irritated by the fact that sometimes the Shamani woman seemed to be one or two jumps ahead of him.
He tried to imagine a proper protocol, but in the unprecedented circumstances he just ended up sending a straightforward message:
To JCS USA, United Nations Command, USSS Pegasus; all Terran stations.
Broadcasting from Planet Batuun, Eluoi Empire.
Human captives taken on Mars by hostile Eluoi force. Transported here against our will. Roster: Twelve SEALS, Detachment Alfa, ID code zulu-zulu-tango. Civilians David Parker and Doctor Irina Sulati. Engaged with enemy forces; seeking transport home. Send the cavalry!
He signed off with “Lt. Thomas Jackson, USN—SEALS.”
Char-Kane pushed a lever forward, and the hum of power rose to a bass thrum that they could feel through the floor. The coil around the transmitting shaft pulsed with color, blue fading to white. There followed a single crack of sound, almost like a gunshot, and immediately the background noise settled back to the earlier hum.
“There. It is sent,” the Shamani woman said. “Now we should leave here.”
“Wait,” Jackson said. “Can we access their main databases from here?”
“If you mean the main computer, records, and so forth, yes,” she replied, glancing nervously at the outer door to the command center.
“Then I want to look in the database and find the prisoners, my ensign and Dobson, as well as Parker and Dr. Sulati. Will that information be in the machine?”
Char-Kane grimaced but then shrugged. “It is possible,” she agreed.
“You said that you guessed they would be brought here to this pyramid, and we all watched them fly here. If they’re in this very building, I’m not leaving until we make every effort to bring them out.”
“Very well.” The consul de campe sat down at the console and began to type rapidly. Leaning over her shoulder, Jackson watched as a bewildering array of information scrolled past on the screen.
“Here!” Char-Kane declared suddenly. “They are in an isolation cell in a workers’ containment facility, set for transport away from here along with other prisoners—the same Assarn, I fear, that Olin Parvik came here to try to rescue. There are some five thousand of them ready for departure, most classed for slave labor on distant planets in the Eluoi home systems. Your people are not to be slaves but instead will be studied by Eluoi scientists.”
The very idea made Jackson sick to his stomach.
“Can you find them? Locate where they are in this place?”
The woman looked toward the door, and Jackson shared her nervousness, expecting an interruption at any time.
“I will look,” she said.
She looked. She found.
To Jackson’s immense satisfaction, she was even able to print out a map.
Several dozen gold-braided Eluoi officers stood at attention as the gleaming steel doors to the communications center silently whooshed open. Char-Kane’s reminder—“Look straight ahead; acknowledge no one!”—still echoed in Jackson’s ears. He took it to heart, stalking out of the large compartment like an old Roman emperor.
The officers lined both sides of the corridor and snapped palm-out salutes as, trailed by the Shamani consul, the SEALS lieutenant marched between them. The Eluoi didn’t venture to speak; apparently, they just wanted to make themselves available in case they were needed.
They very much were not needed, Jackson thought to himself. He proceeded to the transport station, relieved to see a car waiting for them. The doors slipped to either side as the pair approached. The two of them stepped inside the car, and Jackson didn’t exhale until those doors again slid shut. Only then did they take seats, feeling small in the large car.
Char-Kane pushed a button, and the transport moved laterally, then swiftly turned down a tunnel that descended straight down. The chairs switched orientation as the floor dropped away, but the sudden