Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was cold in what used to be the city center. The deep dark that engulfed the streets was ice cold, and eerily quiet. Captain Aaleg shivered in the cold. This was the last place he wanted to be, and was getting impatient. Greel sat next to him in the dark.
“We should not have come here.” Greel whispered.
“You know as well as I do that we didn’t have a choice.” Aaleg whispered back. The both of them continued to scan the streets.
“We won’t live through this.”
“We’d be dead already if we hadn’t agreed to it in the first place.”
“You’ll be dead soon enough.” Aaleg and Greel leapt to their feet as three klisks emerged from the shadows. They were all over fourteen feet tall, and armed to the teeth. The first klisk walked into the light that Aaleg and Greel were shining on them.
“Which one of you rats is Aaleg” he demanded. Aaleg stepped forward and pointed a finger in the large klisk’s gut.
“What took you so long? You were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago.” Aaleg sneered. The klisk swiped Aaleg’s hand away.
“Just give me the information.” Aaleg waved at Greel, who carried out a small armored box and gave it to Aaleg. Aaleg turned to the klisk.
“A small unit will be landing near a city the Humans call Miami in a week. The group will consist of a couple of science experiments that our employer would like you to eliminate.”
“What about the Hunt?” The klisk asked.
“It’s been arranged to happen on the other side of the planet, you won’t see any of them anywhere near here.” Aaleg told him.
“And our payment?” this time a klisk in the back spoke up.
“Ah yes” Aaleg said, holding up the small box to the first klisk, “A little early payment from our employer.” The klisk grabbed the box out of his hand and handed it back to the two klisks behind him.
“Is there anything else?” he asked the two Conar.
“Just make sure you finish the job” Aaleg said, as he and Greel started down the street. The klisk watched them walk away. When they were finally out of sight, he returned to the other klisks standing on the other side of the street, where they had retreated to when he gave them the box. As he approached the klisk holding the box looked up at him.
“Jaal, what does this mean?” He asked, holding the box open to the approaching klisk. He reached the box and saw a large klisk hand in the box. He quietly shut it and tucked it under his arm.
“Jaal, you know they will not release our family” the other klisk said.
“Yes, Makaa, I know.” He said with a sigh.
“What are we going to do?” Makaa asked.
“We do as we have arranged. We kill the unit.” Jaal stated flatly.
“And the two Conar?” the other klisk asked. Jaal looked back toward the street where he had just seen Aaleg and Greel disappear. He turned to face his companions, nodded to them and then the three set off quietly, on a hunt of their own.


Atrius sat alone in the dark, quiet bridge. The only sound was the periodic beeping of the passive scan analysis, which he scanned briefly each time an update came in. Seventeen ships. There were five Conara ships in system when they jumped in. Not to strange for a new system like this one, which the Conara claimed a little over a year ago. Once they had gone black, Dannis had ordered everyone to see what information could be obtained that would explain what was going on. Where was Sentano? How come the unit was now under the direction of Admiral Hooblabah? Who was this new Admiral? So many questions, and after two exhausting days of looking, no answers. Just ships. The first of the newcomers arrived only 12 hours earlier, and they just kept coming. Large Cuet class destroyers, small Kluut class scout ships, even four Grand Cruisers, the personal battleships of four Admirals. The scanner beeped again. Atrius looked over the readout, and wasn’t surprised to find that three more ships had jumped in. He checked the ID signatures for each ship. Two Cuets and a Grand Cruiser. Another Admiral. He checked the signatures against the fleet database and found that all three ships belonged to their new commander, Grand Admiral Hooblabah. Atrius swung his chair around to the communications station. He punched in a code on the transmitter, and pressed the page button.
“What’s up?” Dannis asked.
“Our dearest friend Admiral Hooblabah has entered the system.”
“Is he alone?”
“Two Cuets. But who knows how many of the other ships are in allegiance to him.”
“All right, I’ll be up in a minute.” Atrius turned towards the scanner again and continued to stare at the large screen showing the bulk of the system.
Dannis came on the bridge fifteen minutes later. Atrius glanced up at him, and seeing who it was beckoned him over.
“What have you got?” asked Dannis.
“Since Hooblabah jumped in we’ve had twenty four new arrivals. That places the total ship count to forty four ships.”
“What in Osidus’ name is going on? Any more Admirals?” Atrius quickly looked over a chart that he had brought up on another screen.
“According to Fleet information, we now have 12 Grand Admirals here.” Atrius said.
“What is going on? Is the entire Conar fleet mobilizing?” Dannis asked to no one in particular.
“I think I finally figured out what’s going on.” Atrius and Dannis both turned to face Garrick, who had quietly entered the bridge without them noticing. He walked over to a computer next to Atrius and began pulling up information. Dannis and Atrius both crowded around him to see what was going on.
“I’ve narrowed it down to one of two things. First, either the entire fleet is going to war, or Second, we are witnessing a Hunt.”
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to war, we would have heard something about it from other sources,” Dannis stated, “so I think it’s got to be the Hunt.”
“This is bad news.” Atrius whispered.
“What do you mean?” asked Garrick.
“Well, the Hunt is held when there is a vacancy on the council.”
“So what makes that bad?” Dannis asked impatiently.
“Well, have you heard of any Admirals dying? They certainly don’t retire.” Atrius stated. “The only Admiral that we have heard of being ‘unavailable’ is Sentano.”
Dannis and Garrick looked at each other, and then at Atrius.
“If that is the case, and let’s hope it’s not, then we need to be very careful.” Dannis said quietly. “We can’t act up or cause any unwanted attention to come our way. Garrick, get me anything you can get your hands on that will tell us where Hooblabah stands on the qwell projects. Atrius, gather the rest of the crew.”


The three men huddled quietly behind the burned out husk that was once a truck of some kind. Luckily it was dark deep in the city center, thanks to the massive ruins of once used buildings that were still standing like silent sentinels to a bygone time. But the men weren’t paying attention to the buildings. Captain Kelly White and his two Lieutenants had followed a pair of the demons into the city. A patrol had spotted their ship landing earlier and had alerted them to their presence. It had seemed that the Demons had forgotten about the Florida peninsula after the first occupation of Miami. Or maybe they just didn’t care, but either way, they seemed to have went to other places around the globe. So when a demon ship had landed in a vacant lot a few miles from downtown Orlando, everyone took notice.
It was a small ship. A shuttle of some kind, and when Captain White saw that only two of the Monsters were on board, he quickly dispelled any thought that this was the first of a larger presence. As the two Demons left the ship and headed into the city, the Captain chose two of his best men to accompany him, and then followed them. They had stayed a good distance behind them for the first part of the journey. They were still a mile away when the Demons stopped in the middle of what used to be a major intersection in the downtown district.
“What are they doing?” asked one of the Lieutenants.
“It looks like they are looking for something” replied the Captain. He was the only one with a working set of binoculars. He watched as the two Demons looked around the intersection, and then walked over towards the burnt out remains of a corner convenience store. He watched them step through what used to be the front window of the shop and could see them as they sat, apparently waiting inside the store.
“They’re waiting for something.” He said to the others.
“Maybe they’re waiting for us? Do you think they know they’re being followed?”
“No, I don’t think they know. Well, if they do know, they‘re more worried about what they‘re here to meet than about us.”
“Should we try to get closer? It’s going to get dark soon, and then we’ll loose them.”
The Captain silently considered his options. He knew that the Major would want to know what these two were up to, but he wasn’t too eager to get closer to the damn things. He handed the binoculars to the young man on the left. “Verrucci, what do you think?”
Verrucci was a small Italian that the Major had recently brought into the Captain’s group. He had proved himself to be quite a tactician, as well as a fighter and Captain White had quickly come to trust him. The Italian surveyed the scene for a moment. “I agree sir, we need to get closer. There is a burned out truck a block from the store on our side of the street. It looks like we could get there with minimal risk of being seen. As long as we’re quiet.” The Captain looked again, and after making some mental notes on cover, he shouldered the binoculars and led the two of them towards the truck.
That was an hour ago. The two Demons had been getting restless, especially in the last ten minutes. The three men could now here them grunting to each other in some type of grotesque communication. Captain White swore to himself. It would sure be easier to figure out what was going on if they could understand anything the damn things said. He pulled out a small notepad from his pocket and started jotting down some things he did know.
First, he doubted that the Demons were aware of any presence of resistance, especially seeing as they really didn’t try too hard to stay unnoticed. Second, the uniforms they were wearing were not like anything he had seen, but they did have the same logo on the sleeve as the ship they came in, so it was safe to say they were probably stationed on a ship. That made their presence here even more suspicious. Third…
He didn’t get to the third note. At that momen Verrucci grabbed his arm so hard he had almost yelled at the man, but the look on the Italian’s face quickly erased any thought from his mind. Verrucci and the other Lieutenant were looking straight ahead, eyes wide, mouths open. They both appeared to be frozen on the spot. White slowly turned to look in the direction when he saw them. Three HUGE beings, at least 13 feet tall, and all of them were well armed. He had never seen anything like it. From what he could tell, they were silvery-grey in color, had no hair, and a small face set low on the head. And they were massive. Captain White watched in awe as one of the new monsters approached the two demons. The conversation that followed was in a different language than the two Demons had used together, but it was still incomprehensible to the Captain. He watched as the Demons produced a box to the newcomer, who gave it to his companions and continued talking. And then he heard it. At first he didn’t recognize it, but then it was there. Miami. The Demon had said Miami. It was a little different, pronounced by a mouth that had never said it before, but the more he thought about it the more he was sure. Miami. His train of thought was broken up as the two Demons gave one last look at the newcomers and then headed back in the direction they had come from, obviously heading back to the ship. The three beasts watched them walk away, and then conferred with each other, while looking at the box. Apparently they weren’t happy with what was in it, and after a brief discussion, they started off after the two Demons.
They were walking right toward the car. The Captain didn’t know what to do, and Verrucci and the Lieutenant were both still staring like deer in the headlights. At that moment, the first beast stepped up on to the curb, saw the three humans, and stopped. It looked at the Captain and his companions in a very quizzical manner, its head tilted to one side. The other two noticed their companion and came to look at what he had found. Verrucci and the Lieutenant had come to, and both were trying to cower as inconspicuously as possible into the gutter. The lead monster walked over to the three of them. It kneeled down (its head still at 8 feet) looked intently at the three humans, and then reached out and grabbed the Captain by the arm. Bracing for a crushing blow, he was surprised when the monster didn’t rip his arm off. Instead, it lifted him to its face level and looked at him eye to eye. It had black, piercing eyes. The two of them started at each other for a moment, when one of the other two monsters tapped the kneeling one on the shoulder, grunted to it, and pointed in the direction the two demons had gone. The monster put Captain White back down on the ground. It looked at the three humans, gestured them to be stay there and be quiet (at least that’s what they thought it wanted them to do), and then the three beasts headed off very quietly down the street.
Captain White and his men sat there not making a sound for fifteen minutes. Finally, the Captain got up quietly, and gestured for the others to follow him. They quickly headed down the street away from the visitors. The more they moved, the more he could gather his wits. He was glad it was dark, because his men couldn’t see that he’d lost control of his bladder when the thing had grabbed him. Little did he know that they were all thinking that same thought.