Michael and Pryce had beat Jarek and Rachel on board too, and were seated in a pair of chairs by one couch, probably all too happy to step out of the chaos of HQ for a few minutes. Pryce looked harried but unhurt. Michael looked like he might fall out of his chair from exhaustion at any moment.
They all turned when Jarek and Rachel walked in.
“Broto,” Johnny said, “that’s gonna make one badass scar.”
“Right?” Jarek said with far more enthusiasm than he felt.
He wasn’t exactly excited about the disfigurement Golga had left him with. He was hoping it might manage to heal without leaving a garish mark. But if he did have to come out of this with facial scars, at least they probably would be pretty badass.
And he still had both eyes. Hard to complain about that.
“So what’s up, guys?” Jarek asked. “Are we celebrating a victory well won?”
“You call that well won?” Alton asked.
“Hey, someone’s gotta give us credit for the day’s victories,” Jarek said. “Zar’Golga? Problem solved. Surprise attack on HQ? Averted. Necessary evil alliance with the raknoth?” He wiggled a hand in a so-so gesture. “Eh. Progress was made. Not bad for a day’s work.”
“And the unstoppable force coming to destroy this world and everything on it?” Alton asked.
That silenced everyone for a solemn few seconds.
“I didn’t say it was a perfect day,” Jarek finally said. “Jesus, guys, small victories.”
Haldin’s lip quirked in a small smile.
Johnny pointed at Jarek. “Him. I like the way he thinks.”
“That makes two of us, guy,” Jarek said, raising a solitary fist in Johnny’s direction.
Johnny raised his own fist to meet Jarek’s long-distance fist bump.
Franco stirred as if suddenly remembering something. “You two sit,” he said, beginning to rise. “I’ll bring more chairs.”
Jarek raised a hand and plopped down against the smooth wall with a contented sigh. “No worries, man. All set here. Unless…”
He glanced up at Rachel, but she settled down against the wall beside him with a contented sigh of her own.
“So where do we stand, Captain Buzzkill?” Jarek asked Alton.
The raknoth frowned at him. “The humans will never trust my kind. Or any humans who freely choose to work with them, I imagine.”
Jarek searched the vaults of his cavalier chipperness for something to defuse the troubling sentiment. But that vault was empty—had been all along, really. He was tired, and he hurt, and at the end of the day, Alton was right.
No matter what monsters might be coming for them, humans and raknoth wouldn’t be holding hands and skipping into the sunset anytime soon. The only thing they’d really managed to do today by ending the fight “peacefully” was probably to alienate most of the Resistance. And ensure everyone would stay alive long enough to be available for bountiful slaughter once the rakul arrived on Earth.
Small victories, right?
“They don’t need to trust the raknoth,” Haldin said. “Not at first, at least. If everyone can just make it to tolerating one another”—he cocked his head—“and if we don’t all die off the bat, trust can come later.”
The look that passed between Alton and Haldin gave Jarek the impression that Haldin was speaking from experience after whatever had transpired between them on Enochia. It was easy to forget, and still pretty hard to believe, that these people had fought to protect their own world from the raknoth only to fly across the galaxy with one of them to do it all again.
“We probably could have gotten a better start,” Rachel said. “This is a two-way street, and Krogoth didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet of friendship to the Resistance back there.”
Haldin nodded. “We have a lot of work to do.”
Johnny made a face. “Ah, diplomacy. Our greatest strength.”
Haldin smiled and pointed at Alton and Franco. “That’s what we brought these two along for.”
Franco arched a decidedly sage eyebrow at Haldin from over steepled fingers, a small smile pulling at his mouth as he received the compliment. Alton looked less flattered.
“We wouldn’t happen to have any idea how long we have to do this work, would we?” Pryce asked.
Alton shot a speculative glance at Michael and shook his head. “Not with any real accuracy. At any time, the twelve could be scattered well across the galaxy, and possibly beyond. Depending on location and just how furious they are, we could be looking at anywhere from days to years.” He gazed through the deck, thinking. “If the nest ruptured three days ago, judging from what little I felt of Kul’Gada’s message yesterday, my best guess is that we’re only looking at a few weeks before at least he arrives.”
“Kul-whadda?” Jarek asked.
“Kul’Gada.”
Beside Jarek, Rachel tensed at the word.
“Am I correct in assuming ‘Kul’ is a fourth title?” Pryce asked. “Above Zar?”
Alton nodded. “It is the title of the rakul and the highest station of our people, though a Kul can only loosely be called one of us. If we translate to your years, Kul’Gada, the youngest of the twelve, is well over 10,000 years old.”
Jarek processed that for a few seconds. Across the room, Pryce’s mouth cycled open and closed half a dozen times as probably three hundred times that many questions fought to escape his head.
Jarek raised a hand.
Alton stared at him for several seconds before he finally shook his head and extended a hand to Jarek in invitation.
“I have a feeling I’m not gonna like the answer to this one,” Jarek said, “but, uh, has anyone ever actually taken down one of these rakul guys?”
Tense silence stretched, the earth crew all leaning forward in anticipation. The way the Enochians’ gazes all dropped to the deck gave Jarek all the answer he needed.
“Only once,” Alton finally said. “By the oldest of my kin.”
“And what happened to that guy?” Rachel asked.
Alton’s smile was utterly devoid of humor. “He became Kul’Gada.”
“And I take it that meant no sympathy for the little folk anymore?” Jarek asked.
“Not so much,” Alton said. “In fact, it’s the opposite, if anything. Ascensions to Kul clearly don’t happen every day. Or millennium. I would imagine Kul’Gada feels the need to prove himself even now. He’s certainly acted like it over the past 2,000 years.”
“Sounds like a swell guy,” Jarek said.
“But at least he demonstrated it’s possible to kill a rakul,” Pryce said.
“It is most certainly possible,” Alton said. “For all their power, the rakul are flesh and blood. On the inside, at least.”
That raised a few eyebrows.
“And on the outside?” Jarek asked.
“It varies,” Alton said. “Some have become amalgamations of the many species we’ve conquered over the millennia, strengthening their bodies over time while we are forced to start fresh with each new species we infiltrate.”
“Right…” Rachel said quietly.
“Creepy,” Jarek agreed.
“It’s one of the ways they’ve kept us subservient all this time,” Alton continued. “By the time any of my predecessors thought to first question the way of things, the rakul had already grown too strong.”
“Double creepy,” Jarek said.
“But killable,” Haldin said.
“Right,” Johnny said. “All we gotta do is unite a bunch of scared humans and the blood-sucking monsterrr—umm, guys who blew their planet to ashes and get everyone ready to rumble with a dozen alien warlords who’ve basically never suffered a loss.”
“So yeah,” Jarek said slowly. “A bit of work to do, then.”
“Who doesn’t like a good challenge?” Elise asked.
“Well,” Pryce said, glancing from Alton to Haldin, “as our resident experts, what do you believe to be our best shot from here out?”
> “We’ll begin reaching out to the other raknoth on Earth,” Alton said, looking to Haldin and Franco for confirmation. “There are several clusters of my people scattered across the planet. We’ll try to convince them the only hope is to join forces and rally here to face the rakul together.”
Jarek looked at Rachel. “Guess that means we should focus on getting the party started right with Krogoth and Drogan.”
Maybe they could even get Mosen to help them bridge the gap with the raknoth, provided the ruthless bastard had any pull with Krogoth’s new regime—and especially provided Alaric didn’t shoot Jarek in the face for even suggesting such a thing.
Maybe he’d wait to mention it, at least until he had a functional faceplate to protect him after word got to Alaric.
With Fela’s missing faceplate, his thoughts turned to his wrecked ship, sitting abandoned in the middle of Yankee Stadium.
He and Pryce—and mostly Pryce if he was being honest—had some heavy-duty repairing to get to. A lot of work to do indeed.
Jarek sighed and leaned back to rest his head against the wall. When his shoulder brushed against Rachel’s, he paused, waiting to see if rejection would strike again and she’d withdraw from the contact. He felt more than saw her uncertain sideways glance. Then, quietly, she shifted and settled more comfortably against his side.
So it was gonna be like that, then.
Jarek met Michael’s soft frown with an easy smile then settled in to take a few deep breaths and enjoy the contact while the others continued talking plans. Then his comm decided to buzz and ruin everything.
“Call from Alaric, sir,” Al said in his earpiece.
Jarek scooted around so the others would be behind him and in frame. “Share it with the class, Mr. Robot.”
Jarek’s comm holo sprang to life to reveal a battered-looking Alaric standing in the council chamber, which was empty but for the muffled bustle of voices and activity that carried through the doors.
“We’ve got rubble,” Alaric said without preamble. “The kind it’d be handy to have a big strong exo to clear out.”
“Well don’t beat around the bush, Alaric,” Jarek said. “Was there something you wanted?”
Alaric scowled. “Get down here and help unless you all have something better to do.” His hard stare shifted over Jarek’s shoulder to the others. “What are you all doing, by the way?”
“Just trying to save the world,” Johnny called. “You know how it goes.”
“We were discussing our best next steps in facilitating a human-raknoth alliance,” Haldin added. “We’re happy to move the discussion to HQ as soon as everyone’s ready.”
Alaric shook his head, his scowl deepening. Jarek half-expected him to give a strong Hell no, or something of the sort, but when he spoke it was with defeated acknowledgment.
“I can’t believe it’s come to this.”
No one in the room seemed to disagree with the statement.
“Not that I’m particularly excited to suggest it,” Alaric continued after a stretch, “but the logistics of this half-assed alliance might at least be a touch easier now that we have a Resistance Commander on board.”
Jarek studied the stoic expression beneath Alaric’s grizzled beard.
“You?” he asked finally.
Alaric nodded.
“Can’t imagine Sloan approved that decision,” Jarek said.
And he had a feeling he knew why.
“Sloan is dead,” Alaric said. “Enemy forces breached into his room from above. Looks like the blast took him.”
That earned a moment of silence, which Jarek willfully refrained from breaking with something along the lines of Good riddance.
“He wasn’t the best man we lost today,” Michael finally said.
“No,” Alaric said. “He wasn’t.”
Jarek had never seen Alaric look so tired. For a second, he thought about asking if Mosen had made it through the fight safely in his cell, but that wasn’t liable to do Alaric’s mood any favors.
“All right.” Jarek stood and showed Alaric a casual salute. “I’m on my way, cowboy. We’ll get HQ squared away and then worry about the end of the world. See you in a few.”
Alaric looked a shade surprised, but he stifled it quickly enough, said a gruff, “Thank you,” and cut the call.
Jarek looked back at the others. “Anyone up for strengthening alien goodwill with a bunch of twitchy Resistance fighters?”
They shared a look and all rose to their feet. Jarek pulled Rachel to her feet, and, together, the party began the short trek out of the ship and back to HQ.
As they went, Jarek found himself wondering where along the line things had changed to the point that he was the one leading the march to go help the same Resistance that had been willingly hiding Fela from him not even a week ago.
Sideways, apparently.
Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn’t the same Resistance they were marching to the aid of right now.
Because everything had changed, hadn’t it? For now, at least.
And all it had taken was the threat of extinction.
Jarek wasn’t about to paint a big red R across his chest, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to thoughtlessly toe the line and give any of them the Sir, yes sir, but there was no denying it anymore. After years of trying to do the right thing from a distance, he’d finally picked his side. He was as much a part of this now as any of the soldiers scrambling around in the tunnels below.
He was still his own man, and always would be. But for the foreseeable future, being his own man meant fighting for the Resistance—and for the rest of Earth too.
Tomorrow would bring new struggles. In the weeks to come, there would be squabbles and fights. Friendships would be shaken, alliances forged and broken. Most likely, people would die—maybe a lot of them. And even if everything went to plan and raknoth and human somehow came to stand together without friction or animosity in a few short weeks, at the end of it all, they still had to face their retribution.
The rakul were coming.
But for today, at least, they were alive. And it was time to do something about it.
Prologue
After nearly a thousand years spent traveling the universe, Nan’Cagor had yet to grow comfortable with the feeling of being in deep space, though he could never quite place the exact thing that so unsettled him. There was the silence, of course—the deep, nearly complete absence of any sound but the faint hum of the ship’s systems and the stirring of their cargo, audible to his ears even from several compartments away. But it was far more than that. It was the feeling of the profound nothingness that stretched out in all directions around them, as far as his mental senses could reach.
It was the Void, and it was unnatural.
As far as Cagor was concerned, feet—or tentacles or whatever else that century’s host body happened to be sporting—belonged on the ground or in the water. Wings in the air weren’t so bad either. But no matter what, he was sure that life should be firmly rooted to the gravitational pull of a proper planet, not floating in the vast emptiness of space.
Still, he’d take space travel any day over the doom they’d left behind. The only question was whether they’d brought enough food to avoid simply falling into the slower doom of the cursed blood sickness. Apparently he wasn’t the only one thinking about feeding.
“Cagor,” Al’Krastor called. “Food.”
The crimson glow of Krastor’s eyes was paler than usual. Cagor nodded to his superior and went to assess their stock.
The sounds of their cargo grew more audible with each step down the dim oval hallway, at least until he drew up to the hatch and the room beyond went abruptly silent. He availed the hatch with his mind, and it jumped to his will, peeling off to the side to reveal the large compartment currently acting as their pantry.
He stepped into the room but paused at a whimper from the small girl to the right. The girl and her mother both cowered when he looked their way, silent tears
streaming down the older woman’s face while the younger one tried to bury her frightened sobs in her mother’s lap.
“How many times must I tell you?” Cagor said. “You are not in any danger here. You need not cry and cower every time we come.”
The mother only stared back at him with bloodshot eyes and flowing tears.
Cagor sighed, a mannerism he’d picked up from the humans. He looked around, taking in their sad stock. They weren’t the finest Earth had had to offer, but the twelve humans would have to do. Pathetically short life spans, disease, inbreeding—these were all problems Cagor and his companions would no doubt have to address at some point, but it was better than nothing.
And right now, he was hungry.
He pointed to one of the men brooding in the corner—one of the older, weaker specimens in the group. “You. Come with me.”
The man’s face pulled into a snarl, and he spat on the floor by way of reply.
Cagor rolled his eyes (another human affectation) and reached out with his mind. The old man promptly went bolt upright, hopped to his feet, and marched over to Cagor as if he’d been possessed by the spirit of blind obedience.
Of course, it was only Cagor himself that had possessed the man.
Cagor turned and left the room, his new puppet following eagerly at his heels. The hatch crawled shut behind them, and Cagor headed back to the front of the ship with their dinner in tow.
Al’Krastor eyed the tribute distastefully when they entered, but he didn’t hesitate. As soon as the old man was within reach, Krastor grabbed the human’s arm and bit delicately into his forearm with a bored look. The Al slurped up a few deep gulps of the blood flowing from the bite before gesturing their third, Nan’Solga, over for his turn.
Cagor suppressed the protest on the edge of his tongue and waited his turn. Solga was only a Nan himself, equal to Cagor by every right, yet Krastor continued to favor the bastard over him in every way.
No matter. For now, it was enough to be alive.
Solga finished his portion and waved Cagor over. Cagor took the old man’s arm and drank his fill. Then, with a careful shift of thought, he released a flood of healing factors into his saliva and set to work licking the man’s wound shut. His skill at healing wasn’t particularly admirable among his kind, but nonetheless, the wound was mostly closed when he stepped back a minute later. It’d be fully healed within one of Earth’s day cycles. Not that they’d be needing to feed again from this one so soon. Each of the three raknoth didn’t need more than a few gulps every couple of days, and they could easily rotate their feeding stock to keep the humans fresh and healthy.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 52
