"Alec, No -" called Phil in a vain attempt to stop Alec.
But Alec had already made his maneuver. He ducked and turned, avoiding the brunt of the spear that was pointed at his back, and kicked the soldier who was directly behind him above the knees sending it staggering a few steps back.
Sanders, grinning, joined in the fighting stance. "C'mon, lieutenant! Three against two, it's gonna be a cinch. And we've fought hand to hand with these guys before, they suck."
"You don't have to join in, Lieutenant, Sanders, but I am going to save Lindsey," Alec told them.
"Alec, you are a pain. Fine, let's get on with it," said Phil as he curled his hands into a fist.
And the three men readied themselves as the two soldiers came at them...
*********
"They're trying to escape! They heard you, Lindseymiles!" Garullo was telling the girl what he is seeing in his mind's eye currently.
"They are? I'm gonna get rescued!" She cried gleefully. She could hear muffled thumps, groans, and yells from outside. It went on for about 5 minutes.
"The soldiers are down! They are coming to our door now!" Garullo announced.
Standing infront of the doorway, Lindsey held her breath in anticipation. As the hatchway slid open, she opened her mouth. "Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! You have no idea how -" she stopped mid-sentence seeing the familar faces, dumbfounded and unsure what to think.
"You - guys???"
"LINDSEY!" The guys burst into gleeful grins with their arms opened wide.
"Wait- what?" She said as she stared at their uniforms. "You're WDF? I don't understand..."
"We are here to rescue you!" Sanders exclaimed.
"Oh! Of course- thanks," Lindsey realised that more than anything she is just happy to see people from back home, let alone people she knows...and Alec.
And her heart leaped up. "Oh my God! you have no idea how happy and relieved I am right now! But - but...I don't understand - I thought you were students from Harvard!"
"Um, I had to tell you that for the 'mission'," Alec started to explain.
"A mission?"
"It was our cover for a mission, Miss Miles. A top secret WDF mission," Sanders jumped in.
Lindsey was wide-eyed in confusion...about everything that has been happening so far and what she had been discovering lately. She felt like being dropped in the middle of a tornado and being caught up in the whirl. She pursed her lips, nodding to herself and deciding to take everything in stride until she can piece everything together at the end of the day.
"That's enough, men," Phil interjected.
"But lieutenant, surely we can tell her everything now. She is in on this now -" Alec protested.
"Now is not the time for such discussion. We need to work out what to do now," Phil said.
Alec turned to Lindsey at that. "It's quite a long story, Lindsey. Right now, we are here to rescue you and get you out of here," said Alec.
She smiled at that and Alec felt deeply rewarded for all his decisions so far. He was smirking inside of him.
"Oh yeah - how do we get out of here? What do we do now?" Sanders said, responding to Phil. "We don't know how to get out of here and how to get back to our planet. For starters, we were ferried into this old ship from their mother fortress. Our spacefighters are being kept in the mother fortress. How do we get back to them to fly back to Earth!"
"First things first, men. We need to retrieve, Miss Kinski. She remains to be the mission...and maybe retrieve the professor, as well. We have to have a plan," Phil said to everyone.
"But lieutenant, you were already ready to abandon her when we were out there in space!" Sanders remarked incredulously.
"Circumstances have changed. With their interest on her, we need to at least try and get her back. HQ might not be forgiving,"
"Who's Miss Kinski?" Lindsey suddenly asked in her preoccupation.
The flyboys all gawked at her.
"There are four of you who came?"
Alec and Sanders looked to Phil to take this one.
"Um, no, yes, Miss Miles. Miss Kinski is our military obligation...she is our mission," he said dismissively to her then turned to Alec and Sanders. "We have to go find her now,"
Lindsey then watch them chatter in their own little world.
"We are not oblivious to the fact that it's not going to be easy, but we will retrieve her at all cost,"
"Lieutenant, one main concern is that we don't even know if she was taken into this ship. She might be in one among the thousands of these aliens' other space fortresses out there," Alec was explaining.
"She is in this ship," a tiny, male voice rose from out of nowhere. They have been oblivious to little, antennae-eared, bluish skin, humanoid until now. The men all gawked at him.
"Oh! This is Garullo by the way. He is an alien," introduced Lindsey.
Evidently, they don't need to be told that.
"Not among these aliens?" Phil asked uncertainly.
"No. He's from a different planet,"
"Wow! ET! " Sanders mused.
"Nel planet of the Netar galaxy," Garullo filled in.
The three soldiers' faces opened up with amazement, seemingly waiting for more details.
"Well... he is a space navigator hired by these aliens to locate our planet. He was the one who alerted me of your presence on the ship with his powers,"
"Yes, we are the best in the universe!"
"Why is he here with you now?" Alec asked.
"And what powers are we talking about? added Sanders.
"And what does he mean that Miss Kinski is here on this ship?" Chimed in Phil.
The alien offered the story. "I am Garullo from the Planet Nel of the Netar Galaxy - a galaxy that is (proceeded to give a large number) light-years away from your planet. We are a race of navigators and explorers because of our mapping sensors that allows us to see the spaces around us from great distances - depending on one's ability. I happened to be one of the most skillful. I was hired by the Zhinras to locate your planet using this ship that was abandoned here thousands of years ago as a beacon. I located this ship and as instructed restarted the engine and that's how they were able to track it and located your planet with it. But I saw the horrible things they were doing to your planet - they are bad people. I tried to escape to report everything to the Gestal Network but they caught me and kept me captive in one of their main spaceships and that spaceship needed to be repaired and so they had to dock it here for the time being and that is how I ended up here,"
The Earthlings nodded, stunned but at the same time satisfied with the info.
"This is all too-weird..." commented Sanders ,shaking his head slowly.
"It is nice to meet Lindseymiles' fellow earthlings," Garullo remarked, his antennas wobbling and flicking as he said so.
"It is nice to meet you too," Alec responded, extending his hand amiably but then awkwardly withdraw it immediately after realizing that maybe Aliens don't do handshakes. It was Sanders who thrust his hand without hesitation. Garullo took it. "A handshake! Lindseymiles taught me this. It's your way of greeting!"
Sanders was laughing. "This is so cool!"
"So hang on-" Phil wasn't having the social mood. "So this mind map ability you are talking about, this is how you know Miss Kinski is here?"
"Yes, I can see another girl held captive in this ship,"
Phil looked up at everyone. "That's our girl," And back down to Garullo, "Can you lead us to her?"
"Yes, I can," Garullo answered briskly. "An old man who I believe is the professor you are talking about is also here,"
"Kinski? Great! We might just be able to pull off a rescue and escape plan here," Phil exclaimed ecstatically.
"Yeah, looks promising, I guess" observed Alec.
"Except again how do we get out of here and fly back to Earth without our ships?" Sanders pointed out.
"I can help you with that," that was Garullo. "The ship I arrived in is still docked in the hangar of this ship. I can fly you all back to Earth with that."
"Yeah, awesome! Time to bust out of here!" exclaimed Sanders, then a paused. "Oh but there are alien soldiers around! How are we gonna get through them all of them? I don't think we can hand to hand fight them all!"
"Let's grab what we can find!" Alec said as he sprinted for the sword monument in Lindsey's room. "This old sword here should still be handy,"
"Oh but, Alec -" Lindsey began to say - to tell him that the sword is immovable - but too late, Alec had slid it out nicely with one hand.
"Strange - I could have sworn this sword was a little rusty," Alec uttered, looking at the gleaming-like-new sword in his hand.
Lindsey was awestruck - her mouth ajar. "H-h-how did you...I could have sworn-"
But no one was paying attention.
"And we can use these - better than nothing," called Sanders, holding up the spear and the trident that he picked up from the aliens they knocked down earlier.
"Perfect!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "Let us go! Garullo please lead the way!"