MISSION TWENTY:

         THE CAPHIAN RAID

      "Quick, watch that other hatch!" Jed yelled over the com link. He watched as another member of his team succumbed to laser fire from the turrets on the wall above the hatch. We've got to get in there before this place is atomized, Jed thought to himself as he reloaded his wrist laser. Another shot slammed into the tisteel crate he cowered behind, which made him glance up momentarily. There was vapor rising out of the metallic floor up to the blue- green translucent dome overhead, but Jed could just make out the lumpy shaded blue armor of the rest of his team. He almost smiled at the sight. The weird variety of creatures that Anar had hired for this mission was almost funny. Phellus, and Izarian, looked strange, to say the least, crouching his eight foot frame behind the six foot stack of tisteel crates. His legs, being slight longer than the rest of his body, were folded in two places, and gave him the appearance of a coiled spring. Leyaklay, a native of the Mekar system, had clawed her furry self up the rear of the crate, positioned her "fire-stick", as she called it, across its top edge, and was firing madly at the laser turrets on the wall. Krid, on the other hand, being an a Avioran, was plastered against the floor with his blaster in hand, and looking anxiously from one hatch to the other, as if suspecting a whole battalion of armed robots to rush in and finish them off. Being the only Terran in the group, Jed felt he was best suited to deal with this kind of defense. Jed half stood and took two steps back while he reached for the cyr-bombs clipped to his belt. Carefully gauging the distance he pushed the activation button and chucked the rectangular shaped bomb over the crates. He was rewarded with a satisfying boom and a subsequent shower of sparks as the circuits running to the laser turrets overloaded, overheated, and blew out the wall surrounding the them.

      "What the flark are you doing?" Phellus roared over the noise.

      "Completing our mission, that's what," Jed retorted as he threw the second cyr-bomb over in the direction of the other set of laser turrets. The resulting explosion silenced the humming of the laser fire that had been spattering the crates for the past few minutes.

      "We could have used those bombs in taking out the force field around the matrix computer. You said so yourself!" Phellus growled as he rose and trudged over to where Jed stood with his arms folded.

      "Look, we need to finish this somehow, and I'm not going to wait all day, while you sit there and decide what to do," Jed replied in a heated tone.

      "No time for argument, we must complete this mission. C'mon!" Leyaklay cried as she bounded over the now heavily dented tisteel crates. The rest of the team followed suit and were out the hatch that had been subsequently damaged in the explosion of one of the cyr- bombs.

      "At least that wasn't a total waste. The bomb, that is. I mean, it opened the hatch quick enough too, right?" Krid piped up in his reptilish voice to Phellus, hoping to quell his large friend's anger.

      "Uh-huh," Phellus grunted. He was not happy about Jed being put in command of the squad. As an Izarian, he felt he should have been put in command of the mission, instead of some greedy, impetuous Terran. Status was measured by height and strength on Izar. Therefore, since Phellus had been the strongest and by far the tallest member of the band that Anar had hired for this mission, he thought it was a given that he should be awarded command of the team. Instead, the puny Terran, and the even smaller Merakan were given the positions of command for the squad. At least, Phellus thought to himself, I'm in charge of weapons. The corridor that they had been tramping down had now grown darker, but soon was sliced through by the lamps mounted on the muzzles of their weapons. Slowly their pace lessened as they crept along. All of their many senses on edge, they became constantly on the alert for the slightest movement or sound that would signal attack.

      "Okay, night vision on, guys," Jed whispered. He touched the side of his helmet and the night vision glasses slid down over his green eyes, making the blue-green metallic corridor many shades of red. The rest of the group did likewise, since the corridor had grown almost pitch black by now. Switching their lights off so they wouldn't attract any unwanted attention, they quickened their pace down the winding corridor, into the very heart of the outpost. After a few minutes, they turned a sharp corner, and bounced right off a static force field.

      "Shoes! They had time to activate the force grid!" Jed cursed.

      "Not surprising, since you two flarkheads stand there arguing at every chance you get," Leyaklay said the general direction of Jed and Phellus.

      "Okay, okay, I get the hint," Jed grumbled, and before Phellus could form an insult to throw at Leyaklay, Jed turned to Krid. "Check out your map. Find out how far the matrix computer is from here. My guess is that we're in the northeast tunnel." Krid touched some buttons on his wrist display and studied it for a few moments.

      "Correct, we're in the northeast corridor on level one a. About two hundred meters ahead of us is the main lift that'll take us to level five, where we'll find the computer," Krid informed him.

      "See anything that might help us take out this field, aside form blasting it?" inquired Jed. Krid punched a few more buttons and after several moments said that there was a group of parallel circuits that ran along the wall about a meter above the floor which, if destroyed, would solve their problem. "Unfortunately, they're coated with a resilient resin that'll disaapate our laser fire," Krid stated apologetically.

      "No problem," Phellus said, as he pulled a glove on his right hand, "I'll just rip `em outa of the wall!"

      "Wait! You'll be fired!" Jed yelled over his com link, but it was too late. Phellus pulled back with a massive arm, and shoved it through the wall as if he was cutting butter with a knife. With a twist and grunt, he yanked the offending circuits, sparking, out of the wall. The force field wavered, and them blinked out. Phellus remained unhurt.

      "It's gotta be the gloves," Leyaklay muttered half to herself. This time the squad wasted no time and loped at a good clip down the corridor. At last they had reached the lift. With Phellus guarding their back, Jed and Krid took up positions at opposite angles in front of the lift. Jed and Leyaklay crouched down and trained their weapons on the doors of the lift, just in case it was booby trapped. Krid extruded a wire jack from his wrist computer, and connected it to a droid access port on wall, about two meters to the right of the lift doors.

      "Almost got it, almost . . .Got it!" Krid said triumphantly. The lift door slid open, and Jed and Leyaklay fired a few rounds into the lift, but soon ceased when they realized it was completely empty. "That's strange," Jed whispered half to himself, "I can't be this easy."

      "I know what you mean, I bypassed the lift controls in record time," Krid said, thoughtfully.

      "More likely they're just a little too overconfident. Dumb Caphs probably didn't think we'd penetrate this far in, so let's get a move on, before they do." Leyaklay added with more than a little confidence in her voice. Krid unplugged his jack from the driod port, and joined his squad in the cylindrical lift. After he pressed a few buttons, the lift began to rise. When the indicator on the lift's access panel neared the fifth level, Jed warned his group to be at the ready. Checking their weapons for power, they moved to up against the walls of the lift and pointed their assortment of weapons at the doors. This time, when the lift opened, they paused and looked around. No one there. In the center of the vast domed chamber was about a ten meter wide column that connected into the top of an extremely complex looking computer. The three shimmering force fields that surrounded the whole column from floor to ceiling, convinced the squad of their final target.

      "To quote a famous sci-fi movie from Earth, `I've got a bad feeling about this'," Jed whispered, eyes wide, and staring around the chamber.

      "Uh-huh," was all Krid could say. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a whole troop of menacing attack droids came racing into the room. Guns blazing, they advanced from the far corner, and came around the central column to fully bear their lasers on the intruders.

      "Look out!" Phellus roared, as he dove to the ground, taking Krid and Leyaklay, who were closest, with him. Jed turned a forward somersault and came up with his wrist laser blasting away. Krid, after recovering from the initial shock, jumped right up, intending to return fire, but he was instantly shot on his ankle and right shoulder. Leyaklay, realizing the need to complete their mission, sprinted to opposite side of the column, where she pulled out a round metallic device which she touched to each force field. One after another, Leyaklay deactivated the force fields, and immediately hooked her own wrist jack into the matrix computer. Phellus, seeing Krid taken down, let out a mighty roar, and with a powerful jump, vaulted himself up onto the wall. Clinging to side with claws, he climbed up to a ledge that ran around the wall of the chamber. With his new vantage point, Phellus brought his turbolaser to bare on the odious droids. The first few blasts took out six droids, which caused the rest to regroup farther back in the chamber.

      "Krid!" Jed called, seeing his companion lying wounded on the floor. "I'll make it. Help into the lift," Krid managed to say through tight lips.

      "I've got the info we need. Let's blow this joint!" Leyaklay cried, as she ran towards the lift. Phellus, hearing Leyaklay's call, fired two last devastating shots into the ranks of the attack droids, before hopping down from his perch. "Krid, how do close the doors?" cried Leyaklay, as she furiously typed at the lift controls.

      "Just do a bypass of the hydraulic subroutine, that should do it," said Krid, meekly.

      "There, got it!" Leyaklay cried with relief as the lift doors slid shut. They ascended in the lift until they reached level sixteen b, where they succeeded in stealing a sleek looking shuttle with the name Zoiks printed on the side.

* * * * *

      "A set up, it's got to have been set up. I don't want to believe it any more than you do, but what else could it be?" Jed demanded, reclining in the pilot's seat of the shuttle.

      "Or maybe, someone betrayed us," Phellus offered. Jed and Leyaklay both turned and looked at Phellus.

      "Are you thinking of who I'm thinking?" Leyaklay asked them both.

      "Anar," they all said in unison.

      "But I just can't believe that Anar would do something like that after all these years," Jed insisted.

      "Maybe not, but he'll have some explaining to do when I see him next," said Leyaklay.

      "Agreed," Jed stated.

      "Until we find you Anar. Until we find you," whispered Phellus, as the weary companions relaxed in their shuttle, grateful for the rest after one eventful mission.

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