She said, “Oh, I guess so. We should check in case there are some alive. They might want to attack still.”
I said, “Yes, they might. You better go about getting your breakfast. Thanks again for the offer. I must admit, you are very tempting to me, but I’ve got other things that have to be attended to right now.”
She stepped out of the way as I passed her naked body. It was very tempting to have her, but I knew that it was still the wrong time. I knew we could get the ship repaired and back into space.
While everyone ate a quick breakfast, complicated because the cooks had to deal with a slight tilt, I brought up the subject of the mission I was forming. Quickly I stated, “I need volunteers to go with me to investigate the Ape-oids ship. We’ll be checking for survivors to make sure that they don’t attack us. If there’s only one or two, we’ll attempt to take them prisoner for intelligence purposes to take back with us. If there’s a lot of them, we’ll either disarm them and keep an eye on them somehow until we leave or we’ll have to kill them to protect ourselves. Not everyone can go. If we have to kill them, then I don’t want anyone who might have a problem with their conscience later. It might not be right to just kill them outright, but I will order it to protect the lives of everyone here unless they’re willing to accept and honor a truce in exchange for their lives. Regardless of the circumstances, I would like to take one or two of them prisoner if any are alive.”
I grabbed another bite of my breakfast while hands went up everywhere among the crew and officers who wanted to volunteer for the mission. Then I started selecting volunteers to go with me.
The surgeon came over as I got another bite or two. He said, “I’d like to follow close behind in case my services are needed by a few of their survivors or if there’s a fight.”
“Okay. Shirley! Pick one more volunteer to accompany you and the Doc. You’ll stay far behind us, but close enough in case you’re needed. Got that?” I asked.
Shirley nodded and went to select one more volunteer.
The surgeon replied, “Thanks, Captain. We’ll be ready whatever happens.”
I replied, “If it turns out that most of them survived and they start kicking the hell out of us, you get your butt back to the ship to take care of the people here. Are my orders understood, Doc?”
He said, “Yes. I understand. Take care of the largest group or whatever logic you’re using.”
I said, “Doc, if too many of them survived and they’re armed, you won’t be able to get to us in time. You’ll only have one responsibility left. That’s my logic.”
He said, “I see. Okay. In that case, I’ll return to the ship.”
A few minutes later, my group of volunteers and myself were drawing stinger rifles from the ship’s armory. We checked ourselves and rechecked each other before we finally walked back outside the ship. We then started for the alien ship, visible a few kilometers away by virtue of the smoke that still rose from it. I know that the amount of time I had delayed in starting out had probably given any survivors enough time to get away if they were so inclined, but I wasn’t about to rush my people over to what might have been a hastily constructed trap. By now, the Ape-oids might be thinking that we thought them to all be dead. They might even think that they had successfully killed us. They might be getting careless in that case. Of course, if there were only a few injured survivors, we might have already delayed too long to save any of them with medical assistance, that is if Doc could successfully treat any of them. I doubted that he had any knowledge of their anatomy or physical needs.
We had to skirt around most of the lake to cross where several shallow streams emptied into it. Then we reached the other side of the lake and made our way through the forest to where the alien ship crashed. It took us almost a half-hour to get there. When we could see some of the debris from the alien ship, we slowed down deliberately so that we wouldn’t walk into any hastily prepared traps.
There were survivors. They were quietly waiting in the wreckage of their craft. The odds of that many survivors wasn’t unlikely because of their low altitude and airspeed. What surprised me was that they managed to survive the subsequent explosion and fires inside their ship.
Only a few of them were armed. We dealt with that group first, taking cover and rushing them from different angles while others of our group provided covering fire. There were a few without weapons who had taken positions at other locations. They leaped out to engage in hand-to-hand combat with us at the last moment just when we finished taking out the last of the Ape-oids with weapons.
One of them leapt out at me before the last of the armed Ape-oids fell. I was glad for my physical conditioning as I managed to step back and fire my stinger rifle point blank at him. His hands clasped about the barrel of the stinger rifle, keeping me from using it on another Ape-oid who followed him. I released my hold on the stinger rifle and reached for my stinger in my holster. The Ape-oid was remarkably fast, but mostly he had longer arms than I was used to. He managed to knock the stinger out of my hand just as it cleared the holster. I think he was just as surprised when he realized that I had longer legs as my foot lashed out and hit him in his hairy chest, knocking him onto his back. I reached into my hidden holster and pulled my antique projectile weapon. I flicked the safety on it and pulled the trigger. The sound of my gun discharging caught everyone’s attention because it was so unusual and made them all pause and look. The Ape-oid I shot died as the bullet hit him in his chest where his heart must have been. The rest of the Ape-oids suddenly found themselves facing too many weapons at one time and slowly raised their hands over their heads.
The battle was over that quickly as we took the three remaining Ape-oids prisoner. The handcuffs we brought along, in case we found survivors to take prisoner, were used to secure them. Then we marched them back to our ship. A few of my volunteers remained behind while Doc was sent to the wreck to see if there were anymore survivors who might be saved and to take care of two wounded personnel of ours. I felt lucky that we didn’t have any of our personnel killed. Had the Ape-oids had a few more weapons, the battle might have been more costly to us.
Once back at the ship, each of the Ape-oids was locked in a different room to keep them from communicating with each other. Each had a guard the entire time to keep them under constant observation. I thought about trying my hand at interrogation, but decided that I didn’t know enough about how to do it right. So, I didn’t attempt to interrogate them, let alone learn their language or teach them ours. For the time being, a few simple instructions would have to suffice. We would turn them over to Headquarters when we got back to port.
Frank came over to me a little later. “Dave, I’ve taken a look at the other ship. We can use some of their framing materials to repair ours and then put a skin back on. There might not be anything underneath the skin, but at least we won’t look as damaged as we are. Could make a difference if we’re spotted.”
I said, “Okay. Take what you need from the alien ship. Also, I want you and whoever you take with you to be alert to anything that might be of value to intelligence. Documents, logbooks, textdisks, and so forth. Be careful of booby traps. They had enough time to rig up some and we haven’t combed through anything yet. So far, all we have are prisoners. There might be some more of them alive over there. Do not take chances and do not take the other pilots with you.”