Ancient Birthright (62 page)

Saigg told the story of how he had first intercepted and changed Beldon’s transmission, and how that had led to the establishment of two-way communications between their species. He went on to explain how the humans had arrived on the
Universal Explorer
in
Endeavour
and the deep friendships that developed between the families and individuals.

Beldon took over the story and covered the meeting with Harold Metzler and the team he’d brought to the Moon to develop the program. He thanked the group of technicians who’d come to the
Universe Explorer
to install the huge video screen attached to the wall, so everyone there could watch the television program that was about to begin.

The screen dwarfed any Jumbotron that Beldon had ever seen. Harold Metzler told him he’d called in a favor from the manufacturer to borrow the screen.

Beldon noted the time and gave the signal to lower the lights. The production team had not had time to dub the spoken dialogue into Common so subtitles in Common scrolled across the bottom of the screen so those who did not know English could follow the program.

Two hours later the program ended at the point where the
Universe Explorer
departed Danuaa 3 on its mission to save the colony. Previews of the program for the following night gave teasers of the return of the
Universe Explorer
and the cause of the extinction of so much life on Earth sixty-five-million years ago.

Command Prime Garuu closed the program with a few words, “I hope our species combined future is one of friendship, and open honest relations not only with America but with all the nations of Earth.”

The President joined him at the podium and shook his hand then turned to the audience and seconded Command Prime Garuu’s desire for friendly relations and a mutually beneficial cultural and technology exchange. A video crew videotaped the closing along with views of the audience and those on the stage as they watched Command Prime’s speech and the President’s response. The editors would add this at the end of the second episode along with information on the extended multi-part series that would air within a few weeks and the children’s program that would premier the following week.

Beldon watched as families gathered children and found their belongings before starting the walk back to their quarters. It looked like any large assembly of people on Earth leaving a large auditorium. The same sounds and confusion he’d seen repeated hundreds of times back on Earth.

A maddened scream overrode the ordered confusion. “Nooooo...it ends here. I’m not going to let a fake president and a bunch of lizards stop the vision of a truly great man.” A man dressed in the uniform of the electronics company providing the wall video screen ran toward the President and Command Prime Garuu. Two Secret Service agents moved to intercept him.

Hooker! How the hell did he get here, and what’s he doing now?

Hooker jammed his elbow into the throat of one of the Secret Service agents and crushed his airway. The other Secret Service agent almost got her gun clear, when he punched her in the chest so hard that Beldon heard the air leave her lungs and the crack of several ribs. Hooker pulled the automatic from the agent’s holster and continued across the stage. The other two Secret Service agents were standing on the growthbay floor three feet below the stage, and about eight feet to either side of the podium. Their locations had them out of position to provide immediate cover for the president and First Lady.

Hooker grabbed the First Lady with an arm around the throat and marched her to the podium.

He was talking so fast that Beldon didn’t think many in the audience could understand him. “The real President and I have worked too hard to make America what it should be. We need his guidance and strength to stop the erosion of our nation’s power. When he gets rid of Congress, and starts ruling as the king he’s destined to be, the entire planet will bow before him. One push of this button,” Hooker held up a small remote with a red button and a flashing green light, “and everyone in this room is vapor.” He didn’t notice the large colorful form launch from the top balcony and circle high above the stage.

Hooker turned to the area where Colonel Bitman and the other military personnel were bunched. “You assholes in the military move over to the right and away from the stage. If you weren’t such little girls and worried about your precious Constitution and Bill of Rights, this could all have been over months ago. One move from any of you and I put a bullet in her head. As long as no one tries anything, and we get to that spaceship that brought us here, I’ll let her live. I just need a little leverage to get the real President back in office.”

Hooker began mumbling to himself, but still loud enough for Beldon to hear, “Let her live. NOT! Why would I need her? Once I get rid of this pretender, the real President can resume his rightful place. When I get to that ship, this bitch is dead, and I’m going to laugh my ass off all the way back to Earth as I relive the way these lizards died from the bomb. Look at them, not one of them has the backbone of a worm. Not a hero among them. Come on someone try something. I want to make an example of someone. Put the fear of God into the rest of them when their hero goes down.”

Beldon saw Airman Mayes seated on the stage next to Nadya Vasina. Mayes pushed her behind him for protection. He looked like he wanted to tackle Hooker and smash him through the stage. His eyes locked on the button in Hooker’s left hand, and that froze him in place.

Beldon began moving slowly and quietly, so he could stay behind Hooker. He noticed that Saigg was doing the same from the rear of the stage.

“How did you escape from the FBI?” asked the President.

“A few friends in the right place, and you can do anything. Another one with a little information about a special viewing of a program just for lizard lovers, and it wasn’t too hard to replace one of the techs assigned to install the big screen. I have to admit, when I told the rest of the installation crew that the panel packed with my C4 was malfunctioning, I about lost it when that lizard, Renna, offered to take a look at it and fix it. I just wanted to stomp all those little brats she had with her. That would’ve taught her a lesson on not sticking her nose were it wasn’t wanted.”

“So you have a panel packed with C4 and a remote detonator. What is it exactly that you want?” the President asked.

Dr. Marra Feuua and Nadya were working on the Secret Service agent with the crushed windpipe. He was breathing through a tube they’d inserted below the damage. Nadya freed the agent’s gun and tossed it to Mayes. The female agent with the broken ribs was already gone, and Beldon assumed she would be in surgery within minutes.

Beldon heard a low murmur of sound behind him and heard Ops Prime Caraa Garuu order the connecting door from the growthbay to the launch bay opened. The remaining video installation techs were franticly opening boxes and shipping containers looking for the dummy panel that contained the C4.

The other two Secret Service agents circled in the crowd trying to get a clean shot at the hand holding the remote detonator.

In the confusion on stage, no one noticed Kennan, one of the babies from Renna and Saigg’s recent clutch, running toward the First Lady. He jumped up and climbed her clothes until he was on her shoulder, and in Hooker’s face. Hooker used the hand holding the remote detonator to swat at the baby. Kennan snapped open his dorsal spines and impaled the descending arm. Hooker let out a yell of fury and yanked his arm away, sending Kennan flying through the air to crash into the floor. When Hooker focused his attention on his injured arm, he’d loosened his hold on the First Lady. She slipped out of his grasp and dropped to her knees next to Kennan.

“You hurt him, you monster. He’s just a baby and was only trying to protect me.” she picked Kennan up and smoothed his dorsal spines down so she could cradle him in her arms.

Mayes had a clear shot at Hooker and raised the gun Nadya had given him, but before he could pull the trigger, Hooker fell to his knees behind the First Lady and used her as a shield. The gun in his hand recoiled as the bullet left the barrel. Mayes stumbled back from the impact of the bullet smashing into his chest. The gun Mayes held fell to the stage as the big man’s knees folded, and he dropped. Nadya jumped for Mayes and shielded his body with her own.

“Slide the gun over here, or I swear I’ll put a bullet through this bitch and the lizard brat and a couple more into that piece of meat you think you’re protecting, before you can pick it up,” Hooker snarled at Nadya.

Nadya used her foot to push the gun across the floor, but still out of Hooker’s reach.

Hooker stood and pulled the First Lady, now clutching Kennan in her arms, up with him. “We’re leaving now, and if anyone tries to follow us, I’ll kill these two in front of you before I press the button and ruin the rest of your day.”

Beldon took a couple of steps forward and shouted, “Hooker, you miserable coward. I see you’re still hiding behind a woman. Before you make your great statement for history, don’t you want the pleasure of taking me out personally? From what I saw you do to those two Secret Service agents, you shouldn’t have too much trouble with a puny little geek like me. Of course, the last time it took an entire DHS team to take me down. You have it in you to face me man to man?”

Hooker spun around still holding the First Lady in a chokehold. “Dumas. I should have put a bullet in your head that first day, and none of this would have happened.”

With Hooker’s attention diverted, Nadya began applying pressure to Mayes’s wound and waved several others over to help her drag him from the stage.

“Come on Hooker, I’m right in front of you. Show everyone what you’ve got. Show them your great fighting skills when the person you’re attacking can see you coming. Show us what you’ve got when you don’t have a team of thugs to back you up,” Beldon taunted as he caught sight of a segment of video screen being lifted to the stage and then held in the air so Baany could grab it in his clawed feet.

Hooker screamed as he tossed the First Lady to the side and jumped at Beldon. Beldon crouched, hoping to come up into Hookers midsection and flip him over his back.
I’ve come full circle. Back to fighting bullies that have me so outclassed, I don’t have a prayer of winning. Why didn’t I just keep my big mouth shut?

Before Hooker even got to Beldon, Saigg stepped in front of his friend, and snapped open his dorsal spines. Saigg used his tail to snap Hooker’s feet out from under him and with a twisting thrust impaled him, pinning Hooker to the floor. No luzzon in millions of years had used their dorsal spines for defense or protection from an enemy, but the venom producing glands were still there at the base of each spine and just as potent, as they’d been when they’d evolved. The massive dose of neurotoxin delivered through the hollow tips of the spines locked every muscle in Hooker’s body into rigid contraction including the thumb covering the detonator button.

Beldon stared at the thumb pressing the transmit button, waiting for the explosion and fireball that would end his life and those of his wife and daughter.

“It’s gone,” a voice from overhead said. “I got it into the airlock, and we jettisoned it out of the
Universe Explorer
before it exploded,” Baany said as he did slow circles above the crowd.

Saigg pulled his spines from the now paralyzed Hooker, and Renna came over with materials from the medical kit to clean the blood from them. Dr. Feuua dropped down next to Hooker. She gave him a massive injection of antihistamine so that his lungs could resume working.

The President seemed shocked at the sudden ferocity displayed by Saigg.

Command Prime Garuu looked at the President. “I told you we were peaceful and nonviolent, but I never said we were defenseless.” Prime Garuu bent to help Susan to her feet. She passed the now alert Kennan to the President, so that she had both hands free. “Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?”

“No, I’m fine. I just hope Kennan isn’t hurt.” She took the little one from her husband and snuggled him.

The President grasped Command Prime Garuu by the shoulder. “My friend, I think we are going to get along wonderfully.”

Beldon joined Renna and Saigg. “Thanks, Saigg. You saved my life. I knew I was no match for Hooker, but I knew I had to buy some time for the technicians to find the explosives and get rid of them. I just hoped that one of the Secret Service agents would be able to get a shot at Hooker if he released Susan.”

“I guess it was too crowded for them to take the chance, and there were too many innocent people in the way,” Saigg said. “Besides, I couldn’t let anything happen to my best friend. We still have missing civilizations to find.”

Cindy walked up to them holding a sleeping Soleene. “Let’s get the kids and get out of here. The people in command and the politicians can clean up this mess.”

“Yeah, it’s been a long day. But I think it was successful,” Beldon said.

The First Lady separated from the group surrounding the President and Command Prime Garuu. “Beldon—Thank you. When that madman grabbed me, I thought it was all over. Then my hero here,” she kissed Kennan on top of the head, “saved me.”

“I’m just glad he didn’t hurt you or anyone else,” Beldon said.

The sound of running feet drown out anything else he was going to say as Saigg’s children rushed through the milling crowd. The youngest ones divided their attention with one each scampering up Saigg, Renna, and Beldon.

“Dad that was awesome,” Reedn said, “that was braver than anything my man John Wayne ever did.”

“Baany was the brave one. Just the thought of what those explosives could have done to him while he was moving them gives me the quivers,” Saigg said.

“Hey, Baany. You the man,” Reedn shouted as he held a fist in the air to the circling ptero. Baany dipped a wing in response. “I’m going to see how Mayes is doing. I’ll catch up with you later.” Reedn ran for the door.