[HANSON STORIES]

The Draedean Threat

{Year- 3090}
{Place- Orbit around the gas giant, Granchegase}
{Habitation- The Trade Ship Gheldeth}

Chapter 13- A Youngling's Misfortune


"I knew your son!" Taylor cried as a last ditch effort.
The being glared at the young man sprawled across her apartment floor, "I have no son."
She dropped her hand atop the palm reader and the lagamorph, who had been leaning against the door with all his might, suddenly toppled into the room, a mass of cursing and snarling following in with him. The fat woman slammed the door shut with her palm, leaving the morpher's weapon out in the hall.
Taylor had since risen from his vulnerable spot on the floor and was standing with his arms held out at his sides, one leg back from the other to better his balance. The morpher grinned at the fat woman and pushed her with all his might so she was no longer in his way and he started for Taylor.
Taylor's hands took on a more offensive position, "You don't wanna mess with me." He warned.
The lagamorph threw his head back and hooted the equivalent to human laughter. Taylor took quick advantage of this and swung his right leg around, slamming it into the fragile-looking knee of the alien who threatened him. A god-awful shriek resounded through the small apartment and the creature tried to strike out at Taylor, missing by a fair distance as Taylor pulled his face back.
Together, they both stood shaking and panting, not so much from the limited excursions, but more out of the adrenaline pouring through Taylor's veins and the equivalent pouring through the morpher's system.
The lagamorph lifted his head, "Come here youngling. Sankt wishes to speak with you." He didn't move at all.
Taylor turned his head slightly, "I don't want to talk to Sankt at the moment, thanks though." He tried to act indifferent as his suspicions arose.
The morpher straightened slightly, "Sankt has commanded that you be brought to him, I don't want to lose out on such a high price on your head because of your stubbornness." He took a step forward, showing the slightest of limps in the knee Taylor hit.
Taylor's eyes lit up at this. So he had injured him. It was no small wonder that the creature had been talking so much. The beings weren't known for their enjoyment of speech and only did so if it benefited them and this one had just spoken more at once then he probably had in his entire life.
"Come over and get me then. I won't make it easy on you though." Taylor smirked.
The lagamorph's shape shimmered a bit as his body took on a slightly more powerfully built look. This display was more for intimidation purposes rather then to give him more strength. Taylor wasn't impressed.
The morpher started limping towards him as Taylor began to back up slightly when all of the sudden an ear shattering "BOOM" sounded off, bringing Taylor to his knees. When he opened his eyes he was shocked. The lagamorph had a hole the size of Taylor's head through the middle of his stomach and through this hole Taylor saw the fat woman holding a very unpleasant looking gun with a large hook on the tip. Electricity sizzled around the edges of the small crater before the lagamorph just dropped like a stone.
Taylor looked up at the woman, terrified that he was going to be next, "I know you youngling. I don't know why he wants you but I'm not about to let that horrible Sankt get you." She stalked over to him and hauled him to his feet with a well-muscled arm, pulling him along until she reached a certain spot in her bedroom. Taylor gulped as she pushed him towards the bed but she turned around and soon the purpose of that strange hook on the gun became apparent as she used it to pull a tile from the ceiling and then reach up into the opening to bring down a rickety little fold up ladder. She turned to Taylor and motioned to him.
The ladder unfolded all the way just as he stopped next to the hulking alien, "Why..."
She cut him off with a sharp slice of her hand to the air, "Don't think I'm doing this for you. I have an old score to settle with Sankt and this is purely for that and that alone. I'm going to regret doing this and I know it. Get up there boy."
She pushed one of the rungs into Taylor's hand and forced him to start climbing by jabbing the hook into his rear end, blunt side up, and Taylor made his climb to the ceiling in haste.
He grunted painfully as he tried to fit his larger body through the smaller hole but the woman took to jabbing him in the rear end with more force to hurry him along. With Sankt involved with this boy it would only be a short matter of time before the lock on her door would be overridden. Taylor's shoulders, hips, and arms were scraped raw beneath his tronflex clothing but he knew this now wasn't the time to worry over petty things like this when Sankt was so close. With one last cry, he wrenched the rest of his body through the hole and pulled his legs up with him. Turning around, he grabbed one of the rungs to pull the ladder back into place and then the tile shortly there-after.
"She must do this a lot." He thought as he set the ladder down quietly.
As he started to crawl away towards the docking bays he heard the unmistakable sound of a Dreadean voice scantly feet below him and the softer, though just as commanding, voice of the fat alien woman who helped him. A brief argument ensued as he slithered away and, out of the blue, a short spurt of blaster shots was heard and the argument went on no more.
"Everybody's dying for me.for me! This has to stop." But Taylor, above all others, knew this was only the beginning and that this wouldn't be stopping for quite some time.
Sankt's gravely voice tried to choke out orders in lagamorph before he grew frustrated and spoke in Terran, "Find the boy! Spread out in the halls and use thermal trackers!"
Taylor felt elated as he took a quick turn around one of the corners. Up ahead lie the ventilation shaft that would take another turn that would take him straight above the hallways, just feet away from his pursuers, and put him in grave danger if he let his guard down for even a second.
Sweat began to pour down his face as he heard the busy bodies beneath the ducts he was hiding in searching for him, calling out to each other for status reports, false alarms sounding occasionally. Every so often a screen would come into view as he passed over it, showing him vaguely to anybody looking up. Taylor was forced to try and avoid this by scooting along the sides of each gray screen. But with one advantage came a disadvantage; the ventilation shafts weren't made for humans or aliens to crawl around in and the welders hadn't taken care to smooth down the jagged metal edges that resulted from hurried welding. Taylor's hands and knees were being minced every three to four feet as he came upon the grating.
He felt his pants get caught on one of these edges and he kept going, hoping that it would unsnag itself but Taylor's luck seemed to have run out. He heard a long ripping sound and looked back for a moment to see a gaping hole in his tronflex.
"Shit!" He slapped his hand over his own mouth as he instinctively cursed at his misfortune.
For a brief heart-stopping moment there was no noise at all. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, nothing blinked. Then one of the lagamorphs hooted a short phrase and a laser bolt ripped through the shaft, scarcely an inch from his face. Taylor squawked, pulling back from the spot, and hurried forward. No time for stealth now! His knees were banging loudly beneath him, bending the metal so those below him could quite easily follow his progress. Shots tore through the thin metal and hit Taylor all over his body. He was half tempted to stop and put his coat on backward so the hood could protect his face but the thought was gone when a bolt of fiery hot energy grazed his unprotected knee. He forced himself not to cry out, not to show any weakness of any sort.
The shooting stopped abruptly with a mighty roar.
"ENOUGH!"
Sankt.
Taylor kept crawling along at a snail's pace but Sankt's voice stopped him.
"Taylor, I know you sold them. I am going to catch you no matter how hard you struggle to remain free. Give up now." He snarled.
Taylor pressed his back against the cold wall and held his knee to his chest and blew on it softly before replying, "Fuck. Off." This said between blowing cool breath on his knee.
Sankt's voice grew louder as he approached, "Here is an interesting fact Taylor, tronflex can't block plasma cannons. Did you know that?"
"I know more then you think I do."
"Ah, so we are talking now, are we?" Sankt sounded amused.
Taylor clenched his teeth, "I'm NOT giving up!"
Sankt heard the conviction in his voice and knew there would be no persuading this boy.
Taylor held stock-still, knowing that if he didn't move there was no way Sankt would have a target to aim at if he chose to shoot the plasma at him.
Taylor screamed and scuttled backwards over the rough flooring as one of Sankt's massive hands came crashing through the vent to the right of him, the way to freedom.
The paneling came crashing down on an unfortunate lagamorph too slow to get out of the way.
"I give you one last chance BOY!" Sankt's scream brought goosebumps racing over Taylor's skin and he didn't have the state of mind to respond.
Deafening silence was all that could be heard for the longest four seconds of Taylor's life before he heard the scuttling of feet and muttering of alien voices.
"Ahhh!" Taylor's voice was drowned out as the paneling fell from his left side. He was now isolated and vulnerable to any sort of attack the powerful Sankt planned for him. Taylor forced his quiet cries to cease entirely so his exact position wouldn't be known. There was still another couple feet of panel on either side of him that hid him from view. He held his hands to his chest as shallow cuts bled slightly onto his stomach and lap.
"So difficult. I can see why you last so long out in deep space. So delicate on the outside but so hard and forceful within."
Sankt was baiting Taylor and he knew it. Taylor could tell he was up to something and had to get out of the venting system and on the ground as soon as he could. There was a three-foot gap between him and safety. Three insignificant feet of open space held him captive. The more he thought about the situation the angrier and more incensed he felt. He HAD to get out of there and it had to be now. He pushed his hair back behind his ear, staining the light colored locks a slight red, and backed up to take the leap.
His feet left the floor just as the metal sheet beneath his feet disappeared.


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