Echo-1 The Whale

42: Now You See Me...

"Do you have a good hold on him?"

The Sentinel droid, who rarely spoke, managed to get out an, "Affirmative."

"Tighten your grip. He stays with you permanently now. Don't let him go no matter what."

The Sentinel clamped down harder on Mildabbar. He cringed in pain.

"Klorstabgoverblan. Prisoner. Secure."

He might have been able to turn invisible, but he was not able to pull away from the rusty precision claws of the Sentinel. Mildabbar thought it over.

"You know too-too-too much already."

Mox put his stun gun back in its holster.

"Alright, plan B then. Put the Professor back in his box."

The chest cavity of the Sentinel opened and he stuffed the rapidly color-changing Professor in.

"Can you hear me, Professor?" Mox tapped on the outside of the Sentinel. There was no response. "Well, we are going to go back to the Magus. To destroy it completely. Then we're going to come back to the Banga and I'm going to feed you to the whales."

Silence.

"We'll let him think some more. Let's drop off Tim and put the Magus out of its misery."

We went back down to the cargo bay. Mox told Blunt to park us against the hatch as tight as he could go, that we were doing a handoff. The Brick crushed up against the Banga so hard that it embossed the surface of the hull. It was an airtight seal. We opened the airlock and re-boarded the Banga.

The diamond Varan scout ship was landed next to the transports. The two female Varan pilots were standing talking to Uzi.

"Taegu, Macrai!" Mox walked up to them and placing a hand on each of their chests, he greeted them. They, in turn, did the same to him.

I wondered if there was anyone in space he didn't know?

Taegu looked like a living black and white photograph. She was a slender lizard woman with a long mostly black tail. Her sharp contrasted absence of color was made even more remarkable by the brightness of her partner. Macrai had bright blue scaled skin and intense solid crayon red eyes. They spoke in Varan and told Mox of their perilous journey. They said they would tow the transports and that they would be able to get the whales to safety. They would begin immediately.

We went back onto the Brick and carried Tim across. We placed him in the driver's seat of the transport. It was where he liked to be. He suddenly started to panic and pointed forward with all his arms. His broken wings fluttered and broke all the more. We all turned to see what he was looking at and directly in front of us as if out of thin air appeared Faye and Baba. Standing and looking as beautiful as ever, like nothing had ever happened.

Death freaked out and blasted Faye to slimy chunks. Baba moved toward me, commanding Dr. Death to calm down as she glided my way. He lowered his weapon. Everyone froze.

Taegu and Marcai were on the other side of her. A large bright red hood sprung out and crowned around Marcai head. It was some kind of primitive lizard defense mechanism. She hissed at Baba. I could hear the low guttural sound of Trag growling behind me. I could sense Nidi moving and I could sense her fear. Baba took another step closer to me.

"Hands, if you'll be so kind as to give me back my sister's wand."

I stood frozen, stupefied. Uzi stepped up next to me. The white scar ran down his face, his red mechanical eye flashed brightly, his spiky haircut was perfectly in place. He reached under his jacket and brought out a small submachine gun. Not a technologically advanced weapon mind you, but what looked very much like an Earth miniature machine gun. He leveled it at her midsection.

"Your weapons won't work anymore silly man, I thought you knew that already." She stepped closer to him. Everyone was silent, no one moved.

Uzi took a step closer to her. The barrel of his gun almost touching her belly. Uzi smiled at her. "You're supposed to be Baba."

She reached up and touched his cheek.

"Well, I have to tell you, you're every bit as beautiful as your sisters."

He fired all thirty rounds into her and Baba hit the deck. The sound was immense. Shells tinged off the floor as they fell. Smoke and the smell of gunpowder hung in the air. He reached under his coat with his other hand, brought out his knife, and slammed it into Baba who squirmed changing color on the floor.

"Death, scan for her! Sargent!"

Death was not responding. Mox told the Sentinel to bio-match her life form. He acknowledged a lock.

"We have you now, my darling, being invisible won't save you."

Mox smiled his ridiculously big grin. Uzi stepped back. Death was snapping out of it.

"Get rid of this squid, Sargent."

Death blasted her to pieces.

"Are there any more around here?"

The Sentinel was already scanning the area. "Glastroapstz. Negative."

This was a whole new game. We had no idea how many were aboard the Banga.

Uzi turned to Mox. "Ok, so they can turn invisible too. At least we can scan for them."

Mox shot out his tongue, "the internal scanners are under the virus control, the Vedma are listening to everything we do or say, they know our every move and they could be all over the place. We're leaving now and we are going to destroy the Magus once and for all. Unless they tell us how to remove the virus. And now they know that too. We'll see you when we get back if you're still alive."

He grabbed me and pushed me toward the Brick. Nidi and Trag ran with us. Mox was fine with that.

"One good thing, though. If they're invisible, they can't carry any technology. If they could, they would have just shot a virus ray into the Brick. Which, lucky for us, they didn't." He looked to everyone one on the Banga. "Good luck, my fine friends." He gave the group a low bow flourished with a spinning wave of his hand.

The Brick closed its door. They were on their own and so were we.

We went up to the control room. I took the co-pilot seat, relieving Styx. Zandar Vandar Blunt had the Vedma ship on the screen. The forward blast shield covered the window. Mox and X took the seats behind us. Nidi and Trag stayed to the back of the room near the Sentinel droid.

X reached forward and put her arm around me. "How are you hanging in their, Daddy-o?"

I told her I was shaken but still moving forward.

"I heard about your spacewalk without a suit. And about you killing Faye."

I didn't have a response.

"You used the knife, didn't you?" said Blunt.

I wasn't sure how he knew. Then he quoted what the Inuit had told me three years ago.

"The hand of the whale wields the weapon he gives in his death." His big black Gila monster smile made the words ring true. "They knew you would use that weapon. That's why they gave it to you."

He reached down to his chest and touched the bear necklace the Inuit gave him. He rubbed a pointed tooth with his fingers. I had no idea how the pilot of an indestructible galactic spaceship could buy into 18th century Eskimo superstition.

Blunt's focus was ahead of us. "Look at that."