The seven men came into view in the light cast by Malachi, and Tamar could see that he had disarmed them all.
"The next person who touches what is mine will die. Are we clear?" He growled as he flowed over to Tamar's side.
"I am not yours, mister." Tamar poked him in the ribs with her elbow playfully.
"Yeah, I know, but they don't know that, do they? Besides, it sounded cool, didn't it?"
"We have an alien and a hybrid down here guys, four years and now we're lost." The man who'd been asking the questions now sounded defeated.
"Look, I'm not an alien, okay, not all alien, and this one," He patted Tamar on the top of the head affectionately. "Is with me, so you don't have to worry about her eating any of you in your sleep." Tamar growled low in her throat. "On second thought, you might want to keep your bedroom doors locked.
"Very funny." Tamar kicked him in the shin, scowling up into his face.
"Then what are you? If you jumped all the way down here, there is no way you're human."
"My name is Malachi Joseph Prey, and I was born in the year twenty-two eleven, and anything more than that will have to wait for another time. My companion is hungry and tired, so we need a place for her to sleep and eat. Once that is done, I will tell you anything you want to know."
"I would rather have those answers now."
"And I would like your name, and since you are in no place to demand anything from me, I would advise you to show us a room and explain how many people are here."
"Fine, I don't know what you are, but since we're not all dead right now, I'll take you at your word." The man spun and with a sharp hand signal, the other six men turned and filed towards the single door cut in the stone.
"I'm Steve, Steve Kitlag. We have about four hundred people down here. When the aliens started their invasion, I got as many people together as I could and brought them here. I'd been stock piling supplies down here for years, water too." Steve lead the way into the deeper darkness past the doorway and Malachi felt Tamar's grip tighten on his arm.
"We've been down here for over five years now and no one's found us, and now you two show up. Are you sure no one followed you here?"
"Yep, three Rougarian fighters saw us come in here, okay they saw us heading towards the main tunnel. I'm quite sure none of those three pilots saw us enter here though." In the darkness, Steve turned on Tamar.
"What do you mean, none of them saw you? Do you know what you've done? You lead them right to us."
"No, what I said was they saw us head towards the entrance. None of them saw us enter."
"And how do you know that? If they were flying over head, they must have seen you come in here."
"No, they didn't."
"How do you know that?" He took a step towards her, but she didn't even flinch.
"Because they were all dead before we came in here." Her answer was calm and cool, and with the deepest confidence.
"Dead, how?" The shock in his voice was plain for all to hear.
"He killed them." Tamar patted Malachi's arm as if her statement were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"You've got to be kidding me. I've seen those things in action. We've got nothing that'll even touch them. You're telling me that you destroyed three of them?"
"Not me, him." Tamar nodded her head at Malachi.
"How?" The awe in his voice made Tamar smile.
"Oh, he has his ways." She hugged his arm and smiled, never feeling as close to him as she did in that moment.
The tight passageway ended after about ten yards, opening into an enormous cavern. Blackness covered the ceiling, it being so high overhead that the few widely spaced lights did nothing to illuminate it. The room contained various excavation equipment, loaders, shovels, graders, everything a large mining operation would need.
"Where do you guys get your power from? There's no way you could run cables down this far without someone noticing. Besides. Where would you get the power?"
"We were lucky enough to find that the company that ran this mine had discovered a small underground river. So they built a hydroelectric power generating station down here. It's not very big, and we really don't have the parts or the tools to get it running at peak efficiency, but it runs our lights." Steve waved his hand over his head. "Such as they are, and sanitation, so we are thankful."
"Maybe you could show it to me later. I'll see what I can do with it." Malachi said. Steve arched an eyebrow.
"You can fix things too?"
"Like I said, I'll see what I can do with it. I used to tinker with my dad's old cars when I was a kid. I might be able to fix it, or not. You never know."
Steve led them through the dimly lit room to another passageway. After a few more turns, he motioned to a hole cut in the stone.
"This will be your room, and in case you're wondering, yes, I will be posting a guard at the end of the hall. Take it as a precaution."
"I would expect nothing less. But I assure you, you have nothing to fear from us." Malachi was laying on the talk pretty thick, Tamar thought. If he wanted to, he could kill every person down here. Only that wasn't that kind of person he was and she knew it. When it came to battle, he was as unstoppable as a hurricane. But away from the necessity of it, he was one of the most gentle people she'd ever met. It still astounded her that this one man contained that much power, yet showed it so infrequently.
Looking around the room, Tamar saw, in the dim light from outside it, that it contained a small table, a couch, and only one bed. That fact alone brightened her spirits the more she thought about it.
"Looks like this is our room." She tuned to face Malachi. "The only thing I want to know is, how long are we going to have to stay down here?" When he didn't answer, she began again, then stopped.
Malachi was standing motionless, his head tilted towards the ceiling of rock.
"Hey, anyone home? I asked you something. How long are we going to be down here?"
"Longer than I thought." His head tilted down, his gaze locking on Tamar's. "The nest just jumped out of the system. We have no where to go."
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"Captain, we've got an incoming single seat craft heading towards Mars. At its current course it will be passing into the sensor shadow in," The sensor officer took a second to double check his readings. "Forty-three minutes."
"Central, get the crew to general quarters. All the non combat personnel are to get to the quarters and stay there." As the Captain spoke a loud persistent alarm began to sound throughout the massive ship, accompanied by Centrals voice.
"All personnel report to your battle stations. Any non combat personnel get to your quarters and stay there. This is not a drill." The message repeated itself a dozen times, then fell silent.
"How long before we're at a safe jump distance?" Captain Prey asked his ship.
"One hour, sixteen minutes. We are almost ready to break orbital lock and commence inner system burn. Once clear of the Mars gravity signature, we'll be clear to jump." The Captain hit a button on his console.
"Lieutenant Commander, I want you to launch every fighter we have. We won't need any bomber, so take their pilots and fill out your fighter squadrons. If the aliens get wind that we're back here, I have a feeling they'll launch a strike while they get their ships underway. I'm going to need you to break up any attack and buy us time to get out of here. We have seventy-five minutes until we can jump."
"Got it, sir. I'll be clear of the Nest in a few seconds. I'm on the catapult right now."
"Good, I'll monitor you from here, Captain. Out." He cut the channel and leaned back in his chair.
With a bit of concentration, the silver suit that surrounds him interfaces with the entirety of the ship. He could feel every system, every beat of its vast fusion core, even its sensors. They became a part of him and him them. With this new perspective, he could see each fighter as they exited the ship and began to form into different squadrons.
All this was possible because of the suit he wore. There were three of them, the original, and two that were cloned from the first. He and his Lieutenant Commander, each wore the cloned version. His weapons officer wore the original. Why Central had thought it a good idea to bond that suit to Malachi, he would never be able to fathom. The man was calculating in a way he couldn't understand. It was like his thought processes reached two steps ahead of any situation, weighing variables and finding ways to exploit every move someone made. He was also aloof, an introvert of introverts. If left to himself, he would have as little interaction with anyone. It wasn't that he was mean, or unlikable, heck there were women all throughout the crew that would love to get to know him better, but he would have none of them. He never even gave them a second glance. To him, they were just a waste of time. And now that he'd been bonded with that suit, he was more remote than before.
"Could you please explain to me again why you bonded that suit to Malachi?" He asked Central over their secure communication channel. He knew that Central could handle any conversation with him, even as it completed the preparations to get the ship underway.
"As I told you before, Captain, I did not bond that thing to him. I tried to bond it to you. Once I lower the containment field in which I had it, it was it that selected the Commander. Before that time, it had displayed not one thing that would have clued me in that it was alive. Every scan I did told me that it was nothing but a piece of metal, sure, metal with very special properties, but metal none that less. Only after it came within range of the Commander did it show its true nature. It latched onto him and would not let go. Any attempts on my part to remove it caused his heart rate to decline to hazardous levels.
Why are you asking me this? I've already told you everything that went on at that time."
"Because now we have one of the most deadly men, I've ever known down on the planet, all by himself. We have no idea what kind of trouble he might cause down there."
"Sir, if I might say. The only ones you have to worry about down on the planet are the aliens."
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