Vendetta (Olly versus the Mechanoids Book 1) Read online

  The alarms went silent as the Alue and three necrue joined the colonel. "Sir?" Murph asked.

  "Do any of you know about this mechanoid named Iona."

  Trent, Parker, and Maddy said, "No, sir," while Murph looked down at the ground and nodded.

  "Murph, you and I will talk later. Mersa! The exercise is on hold. Rescue protocol!"

  "Nana! Marcus on point! You two get us to the crash site. Trent, bring up the rear and no stragglers! Move out, double-time!"

  The team change course and jogged toward the location of the EPIRBs. Kalana caught up with the Colonel. "Sir?"

  "Yes, Captain?"

  "Permission to speak with Sergeant Murphy, sir."

  "Kalana, you can talk to Murph whenever... Oh, you mean about this mechanoid thing? Yeah, that would be best. Permission granted."

  "Thank you, sir." She slowed so that Murphy could catch up to her. "Hey, Murph."

  "I assume the Colonel wants me to tell you what happened back in the day."

  "If you don't mind."

  "I was there, hidden in the Area 51 Computer system when the two mechanoids arrived. One was dead, and one was alive." He then told her how a getaway driver from New York saved the world.

  She stared at him in total disbelief.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The pod's occupant landed on the cave floor and slid down to a sitting position.

  "Does anyone have any water?" he asked the three beings standing in front of him. They stared at him, so he made motions of drinking from a bottle.

  Daphne grabbed a bottle from her pack and nervously handed it to him.

  "Thanks," he said before drinking half of it. "Um, what the hell are you?"

  She just stared at him.

  "Great. She doesn't understand English," he noted.

  "I do," Karl replied. "My grandparents still speak it along with German."

  "Grand parents? OK, you're human, but this one's got scales and your buddy has a tail, pointed ears, and the craziest eyes. What am I dealing with?"

  "You’ve never seen an elf or a draco before? How long have you been in the pod?"

  "Good question. My name is Oliver Wilson, and I'm a civilian pilot with the United States Air Force. Nice to meet you."

  "Karl Weber. This is Nico Worley--he's an elf--and she's Daphne Iko, a draco." Karl said something to his friends. This started a heated discussion between the three. Finally, Kurt hushed his friends, then asked, "Oliver, the United States Air Force was disbanded almost two centuries ago, so my friends are skeptical..."

  Olly reached into his uniform's breast pocket and extracted a card which he handed to Kurt. "My ID."

  Kurt took it, scanned it, then handed it back to Olly before giving his friends the results. They gasped. Daphne reached down and poked Olly before jumping back out of his reach. Before he could say anything, a robot landed between him and the kids.

  "Margaux! How nice of you to drop in."

  "Have they hurt you?" she asked while keeping her eye on the frightened teenagers.

  "Nah, though I think I scared them. Margaux, why can't they understand English and when was the Earth invaded by elves and dracos?" he asked while leaning his head against the pod.

  "I think I can explain that," a voice said. Olly opened his eyes and saw the blackest human he had ever seen. He was standing next to another elf, a gray alien, a winged dragon, two beings that looked dragonish, something that looked like a horse's head on a human body, and three others that defied description, but were holding the kids. Olly smiled, then fell into a dead faint.

  "Too much?" King said as Kalana, Mersa, and Parker ran to Olly's aid.

  "You think?" Margaux admonished him.

  ###

  "Olly! Get in here and get some dinner!" someone called from the dining room. It was Sunday which meant the whole family was in attendance. Olly checked his clothes to make sure he looked good before running down the stairs. He ran into dining room, but stopped and screamed when he saw the room full of aliens from a hundred worlds sitting around the table.

  "What's wrong, Baby," one wearing an apron asked. He turned and screamed again when he saw her tail waving behind her back.

  ###

  Olly opened his eyes and saw an elf taking his pulse while her tail gently swayed from side to side. "Ah, Mr. Wilson, welcome back to the land of the living," she said.

  "Did I die?"

  "No, but everyone thought you did."

  "Oh. Can I ask you a question?"

  "Sure."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "My name is Captain Kalana Grenor, MD. I belong to the Elf Marine Expeditionary Force. Does that help?"

  "No. How long have I been in stasis?"

  Kalana looked at someone behind Olly. He turned and saw the big, impossibly black guy with colonel stripes standing behind him.

  "Tell him, Captain."

  Kalana sighed. "Around 250 years, give or take a decade."

  "250 years. That's a lot, isn't it?" He felt panic building.

  Kalana felt it too. "Olly, look at me. You're fine and these people are here to protect you. You have no worries. You are absolutely safe."

  He looked at her and saw worry in her eyes; worry for his welfare. He started to relax. "I'm OK, just a little overwhelmed. Where's Margaux?"

  "Here buddy," she said as she stepped into view, only there were two of her.

  "Help me up," he said. The colonel and captain helped him to his feet. He stood there and stared at the two mechanoids. "Nice trick, Margaux. You should start your own magic show."

  She hurried over and carefully hugged him. "Moron! This is Reton. He's a mechanoid from the nebula, and he's trapped here just like me."

  Olly shook Reton's hand. "Sorry to hear that, dude."

  Reton shrugged. "I was lucky that these good people found me."

  Olly stopped and stared as Mersa walked up. "What?" she asked.

  "Nothing. A few hours ago, I was dealing with wingless reptoids and pale Nordicans. By the way, did those bastards ever return?"

  "Nope." Margaux spat the answer out like an errant insect. "They left us to rot."

  Olly grimaced, then he saw the kids. "Colonel, what happens to them?"

  "They're trespassing on government property. We'll call local law enforcement when we're finished securing the area."

  "They saved me from eternal incarceration or a horrible, dark death. Could you just let them go?"

  King raised an eyebrow. He then looked to Kalana for comment. She shrugged. "No one knows they're here, sir."

  "Fine. You may release them on their own recognizance, Mr. Wilson."

  Olly walked over to where the kids stood. "The Colonel said you three can take off. He reached into the leg pocket of his flight suit and withdrew a Nordican walkie-talkie. He signed the back of it and handed it to Kurt. "This might be worth something," he said.

  "Damn!" Kurt said while the other two whistled.

  "One word of advice. Don't get caught! Now, get the hell out of here."

  Daphne ran up to him and gave him a peck on the cheek before she and her two friends hurried out of the cave. He turned back to the group. "Now what? I seem to have misplaced my century," he said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kalana sidled over to where Margaux stood as King talked to Olly. "His ID card lists you as next of kin, so I can talk to you about this. I'm worried about his state of mind. Most normal people would be ready for a strait jacket if confronted by this, but Olly is rolling with it."

  "Captain, Olly was chosen for this mission partly because of his ability to deal with rapidly changing conditions."

  "Partly? What's the other part?"

  "He's one of the most powerful telepaths to ever be born on Earth. That's how he could interface with Iona's body so easily. Sure, he used Dr. Gray's telepresence interface, but Olly's psychic abilities made it possible for him to run Iona without the aid of a giant set of computers or multiple pilots."

  "The problem the Olympians continue to have with the Annihilator-Class dreadnoughts," Kalana noted. "They need eight pilots and thousands of people to run those behemoths."

  "And Olly could do it by himself

  "Does he know?"

  "Yep. The Nordican doctor told him. You know what his reply was?"

  Kalana shook her head.

  "He patted her on the arm and told her she needed to see a shrink ASAP. It seems that Olly doesn't believe in ESP. He calls the whole sixth-sense thing a load of hooey."

  "I'm an elf and I have a psychic link with my twin brother. Marcus and Nana have a 24x7 link..."

  "And he probably hears them, but his mind is running in a thousand directions, so he ignores the conversation. That's why he fainted; he overloaded. Now, put him in the control seat of Iona and he can make her dance on the head of a pin because it takes all of his attention and concentration to run her." Margaux looked over at Mersa and Glean having a conversation. She saw Olly approaching them. "Watch the dragon and the horse," she said.

  Olly walked over and stood next to the two team members. He looked at Mersa, then Glean. Mersa noticed him first. "You have a problem?"

  "Even a blind man could see how in-love the two of you are. I don't understand why people waste their time hiding things that don't need to be hidden." He shook his head and walked away, his mind a million miles away from what he had just told them, while Glean and Mersa just stared at him in shock.

  "See? He used to do that with the Area 51 staff. Drove them crazy."

  She looked at the mechanoid. "Can he read your mind?"

  "Yes. The only reason I'm copilot is as a backup. The brass was worried that they'd have an out of control ship to contend with when his brain exploded. Olly is unique and I'm glad to have him back in my life." r />
  Olly walked up and looked at Margaux with a vexed look. "What happened to Iona after I died?"

  "I don't rightly know. I left the Air Force and opened a roadhouse about twenty miles from here. Never heard from anyone involved with the project again. Why do you ask?"

  Olly looked up at the ceiling of the cave. "We might need her." Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at him.

  "Why?" Kalana asked. "Why might we need her?"

  "Because somethings coming, and it's very, very angry."

  ###

  At a nearby base hospital, Colonel King sat in the waiting room and read a gossip magazine while he waited for Kalana and a team of specialists to finish examining Olly. Meanwhile, Team 1, sans Sergeant Trent, under command of Gunny Mersa were performing a search for more wreckage in the area around the cave. King had ordered Trent and Murphy to find any information pertaining to the location of Iona.

  "Colonel King, any word on Olly?"

  King looked up and saw DCI Gabriel Adon standing next to him. He got up and shook the Detective Chief Inspector's hand. "Gabe! Good to see you. How's the family?"

  "They're all doing well. How's Esme doing?"

  "Good. She's loving the new life on Degreb. Do you know Oliver?"

  "Yeah. Busted him once for grand theft auto. Then I took his place on a run..."

  "Not that run..."

  "Yeah. He was supposed to drive Jimbo and his goons to the diamond heist. The rest is history."

  "If he had been driving that day, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Damn, that's heavy."

  "So, how is he?"

  "Physically, he's doing great. Mentally, I haven't got a clue. He keeps talking about something coming, something very angry."

  "Kalana's his doctor?"

  King nodded. "She's got a team of Venlanten royals in there giving him the once-over."

  "Space Command find anything?"

  "Space is clear out to two light-years, but they can only check real-space. Interference is obscuring the views of other-space and hyperspace. Something to do with a nova in another quadrant. The navy has set sentry bots in the Oort cloud, so we'll get a short warning." They sat down. "Gabe, do you know anything about this psychic thing?"

  Gabe shook his head. "Nada and neither does Priscilla. My wife's Katalan heritage doesn't include ESP. I've been told that some individuals can tap into a yet-to-be-discovered domain of space-time which contains information about the multiverse in totality."

  "What?"

  Gabe shrugged. "Really, I'm just a cop from New York who happens to be a cyborg. I don't understand soul-ripping Venlantens or twin-linking elves. I don't even bother playing the lottery."

  "I hear you. Is Team 2 out at the site?"

  Gabe nodded. "Queen Lansing pulled out all the stops. She's got the best cyber-specialists on Ventos Prime combing the old Area 51 records for any information on the whereabouts of Iona. How the hell do you lose a dead mechanoid the size of a Ticonderoga-class cruiser?"

  "A what?"

  "Sorry. That ship is over 250 years before your time. Think Protector-class war ship."

  "I just got this image of a cruiser captain telling her first officer to remember where they parked."

  "Good one..."

  "Hey, Gabe," Kalana said as she walked up to the two friends. "Sir, we finished with the exam."

  "Have a seat. So, how is he?"

  "Physically, he's fine. There are no ill-effects due to the extended time he spent in stasis. Mentally, I'd say he's preoccupied. The Venlantens confirm that he is picking up a life force in deep space. This life force is getting closer. What's more, there's something in there with him."

  "Define 'Something.""

  "It's at the edge of Venlanten detectability and it's not being picked up by the scanners."

  "What is it?"

  "We don't know, but we're keeping an eye on it. Meanwhile, he's fit for duty and antsy to get back to work..."

  "Officer Adon?"

  They turned and saw Olly standing there staring at Gabe. "Hey, Olly, it's been a while," Gabe said as the two men shook hands.

  "How the hell are you doing? How did you get here? Why do you look so much older than me?"

  "Long story short, I was injured on the job, sent to Area 51, put in cold storage, then woke up almost thirty years ago. I'm now a Detective Chief Inspector married to the police commissioner. Her name is Priscilla, and we have two daughters, Rista and Saffron. I work as a consultant with the Space Marine Corps."

  "Damn. What are the odds of us meeting here and now?"

  "Astronomical. Look, I've been briefed on what happened. Trust me, things can get a little hairy, so just try to roll with it. You definitely need to come over to the house for dinner. Pris makes one hell of a roast beast."

  "Beast?"

  "Yeah, kind of a cross between a cow and an armored truck. Tastes good, though."

  "Sure. That would be great."

  "Good. I'll get back with you when this op is over. I've got to get back to work."

  "Good seeing you again."

  "Good seeing you, too. Bye." Gabe walked out of the building.

  Olly turned back to Kalana and Colonel King. "Colonel, Doc gave me a clean bill of health, so I would like to join the search efforts."

  King glanced at Kalana and raised an eyebrow. "He's fit, and he knows to tell me immediately if something seems amiss, right Olly?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Just in case, though, we've given him a subcutaneous sensor which will monitor the parts of his brain responsible for ESP. It will alert us if those parts show a sudden rise in activity."

  "Olly, Margaux told me you think ESP is hooey."

  "It is, but the doc's tail did the happy dance when I told her she could inject me with that sensor-thing. Who am I to stop a happy-dancing tail just because I think this is all nonsense?"

  Kalana looked to the sky for divine guidance.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A command tent had been set-up outside hangar 18, the now abandoned storage area where countless aircraft had been stored over the years. Colonel King and Kalana walked in to find Murph, Parker, and Nova in their natural form while helping a dozen techs search for the missing mechanoid. King found Mersa sitting next to a console, staring at a screen with her hair up in an unkempt bun while chewing on a stylus. Around her were several half-drained cups of coffee.

  "This reminds me of the old days," King said while he sat down next to her. He grabbed one of the cups and drained it. "Yep, just like the old days."

  Kalana shuddered.

  Mersa smiled. "Yes, sir, just like the old days."

  "Sitrep, Gunny."

  "The Cube transmitted over all records from the time period that Olly, Margaux, and Iona worked here, including a batch which detailed the battle they had with the invader. Olly should receive a medal for what he did; it's right up there with DCI Adon's actions with regards to the philogistan outbreak. I'm amazed that there are no reports of a massive orbital explosion in any news feed from that day."

  "The CIA and NSF were very thorough in cleaning up would be my guess. So, where's Iona?"

  "The last time Margaux saw her, she was stored in Hangar 22 for repairs. Unfortunately, Margaux left soon after due to an argument she had with Director Conrad Curtis."

  "A seven-foot-tall robot just leaves a top-secret base?" Kalana asked.

  "The United States government owns everything within fifty miles of the Area 51 fence line," King explained. "They agreed she could go as long as she stayed on the reservation, so to speak. She bought a defunct diner and reopened it. It's been a fixture around here for conspiracy nuts for over two centuries. You would not believe how many selfies of people standing with her at the roadhouse are floating around the InterWeb," Mersa added.

  "Why have I never heard of this?" Kalana wondered.

  "It's kind of a fringe-thing, ma'am," Mersa informed her.

  "Gunny, have we checked H22 yet?"

  "Yes, sir. There are remains of an old Alue saucer in there, but no sign of Iona." Mersa's fingers flew over the keyboard. "This is interesting..."

  "What did you find, Gunny?"