One of my command maxims was to reward initiative and thought. Both were too rare. In having her troopers restrain me on Sanakaht, Zoe had shown both in large quantities. Humanity only had a handful of warships. Therefore, I wanted proven doers in charge of them.
We needed every force multiplier we could get.
After finishing my calisthenics, I toweled my face and watched Zoe hit a heavy bag. Her thuds rocked the bag. Her snap-kicks made it swing.
“Nice,” I said.
“I hope you don’t want to spar, sir,” she said.
I shook my head.
“I’d like to thank you again, Commander, for this chance.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” I said. “Your initiative won you the opportunity.”
“Well…can a woman be grateful?” she asked.
Did the look in her eyes offer me more? It was possible.
“Why don’t you show me around the ship,” I said.
We talked about Sanakaht as we toured the engine room, the particle beam generator and finally ended in the control room.
It had five people in a semi-circle facing a viewing port. Zoe’s chair was behind them. Outside in space were a thousand stars with Earth and Luna among them. To the left, the Sun blazed.
Zoe turned to me. The top of her head reached as high as my shoulders. “Can I ask you a question, sir?”
“Please,” I said.
“Do you think we can hold the solar system?”
“You need to be more specific,” I said.
“No. That’s my question. Can we hold Earth against invaders?”
“Probably not,” I admitted.
“Will you fight here no matter what?” she asked.
“What’s on your mind, Captain?” I noticed the others at their stations listening carefully.
“What’s more important, sir?” Zoe asked. “Holding and possibly dying at our home or surviving as a people?”
“Surviving,” I said.
“Like the Starkiens survive?” she asked.
“If we have to,” I said.
Zoe pursed her lips. “I tend to agree with you, sir. Then I think about Admiral Saris bringing her battlefleet or the Starkiens swarming here again. It makes my blood boil thinking of them chasing us from our home.”
“I agree,” I said.
“We need more warships, sir.”
“We need more people. We need our planet back. It will be generations until we’re anywhere close to having billions again.”
Zoe scrunched her brow in thought. Then she brightened. “The Jelk stole enough humans in the past. Why not open up the Earth to those outcasts and let them settle here?”
Her words struck in my heart. My lost girlfriend, Jennifer, hadn’t been born on Earth, but in Jelk space. The alien abductors had taken her mom and dad during World War II. There were countless others like her. The Jelk had visited our world for centuries. The little red aliens had millions of tame Earth-descended humans. The Jelk had come to Earth the last time to pick us wild people, the barbarians that would make good soldiers. Maybe with training, we could turn the tame, civilized slaves back into fighters. For sure, their children would learn the hard arts needed for remaining free.
Laughing, I squeezed Zoe’s shoulder. “That’s an excellent idea. If we win through all this, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
The patrol boat captain grinned. She looked even prettier as she smiled.
I noticed several of the bridge crew still watching I hadn’t taken my hand away. Zoe raised an eyebrow. Before I released her, I squeezed her shoulder a second time.
Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have done that. Jennifer remained Abaddon’s slave. Until I’d freed her, how could I love another woman? Yet, that had been seven years ago. How long did I have to mourn Jennifer?
With a start, I removed my hand. No one spoke for a time.
Finally, Zoe cleared her throat. “Can I ask you another question, sir?”
“You bet,” I said.
“What will we do when Admiral Saris shows up? I mean, you do think she’ll show up, don’t you?”
“The Emperor threatened us with a crusade. Eventually, the Lokhars are going to want a pound of flesh for what we did on Sanakaht.”
“Will the artifact help us again?” Zoe asked.
“We shouldn’t count on it,” I said, remembering what Holgotha had told me.
“So either we need more warships or allies.”
“That about sums it up,” I said.
She thought about that, soon asking, “Who among the Jade League will fight against the Lokhars?”
That was the question. I’d been racking my brain about it for some time. Ras Claw had given us a possibility. If we raided this Hall of Honor and stole all the loot, would Felix Rex Logos make a deal with us to get it back?
Did Orange Tamika have any warships left? If they did, would they be enough combined with our paltry numbers to make a difference? I had a feeling Orange Tamika did not have enough. That’s why Doctor Sant walked the worlds, trying to drum up aid through his preaching.
I left the bridge, feeling worse than before. The Lokhar had a crusade building against us. How did we build one of our own against them that mattered?
Half a day later, the Achilles braked as we neared Luna.
Two Earth Council cruisers and a missile-ship orbited the dead planetoid. At the Lunar North Pole waited ex-Saurian missile launchers and laser cannons. Intermingled among them were shorter-ranged Lokhar particle beam accelerators. This was our fortress. It possessed greater firepower than any three of our starships.
I bid Zoe good-bye and used a thruster-pack down to Luna. Floating in the void gave me time to think. I set my course for the Lunar North Pole. Afterward, I studied the blue-green ball of Earth in the distance.
Look at our homeworld. It was so beautiful, like the greatest gem in the universe set off by the blackness around it. The automated factories down there churned every hour. Diana had a crew using the scrubbers we’d taken off Sanakaht, burning away bio-toxins. Given enough time, we’d make our sweet home habitable again.
That was one of my great goals. Then, I had to defend Sol. How could we do that? I liked Zoe’s idea to bring all the human waifs back home and train them to think like free people. Most of them were presently slaves or servants of the Jelk, as Jennifer used to be.
Who exactly did the Jelk Corporation fight a thousand light years away from here? I would have liked to know. With a shrug, I realized I’d have to save that for another day, another war. First, mankind had to survive a holy tiger crusade.
We need numbers. We need hordes of warships. I grimaced, shaking my head. It was an impossible problem.
No! I told myself. That’s BS. You have to think, Creed. You’re missing something vital. What is it?
Maybe I needed to consider this logically. We were few and faced many. The other aliens thought of us as animals. We needed allies, but who would join us?
Other desperate aliens might throw in their lot with us. But why would they do so if we were weak?
The Forerunner artifact is the key, I thought to myself.
Felix Rex Logos had once been the commander of the Lokhar Fifth Legion. We assault troopers had helped to decimate them. Holgotha had transferred rather than letting Starkiens reach its surface. All the artifacts hated the baboons. That was funny, because the Starkiens desperately wanted their own artifact. One of the reasons was to wipe away the ancient shame of losing theirs. Thus, Baba Gobo—
My jaw hung open. I had it. I knew the answer to one of our problems.
Chinning on my helmet radio, I hailed the Achilles. Soon enough, Zoe appeared on my HUD.
“Captain,” I said.
“Yes, Commander?” she asked.
“Hold your position,” I said. “I’m coming back up.”
“Sir?”
“Once I’m aboard, we’re heading back to Mars Base. Commander Creed, out.”
I chinne
d off the link and throttled my thruster-pack to full acceleration. Instead of floating down to the Moon, I shot back up to the waiting patrol boat.
***
Several days later, I strode through Mars Base with Zoe hurrying to keep up. I’d kept to my own quarters during the trip back, carefully considering every angle.
At a three-meter fountain in the middle of the dome, I met Ella and N7. Dmitri and Rollo were both out on patrols. The orange-skinned dome spread out over us with squat buildings pressed together on the ground. Sunlight shined through the shielding material. I could feel the heat on my neck. The geyser of water sprayed down onto the main basin. Goldfish swam in the water. It was good to see them, reminding us of better days.
“I have an idea,” I said in lieu of a greeting.
Ella looked tired with bags under her eyes. “I’m sorry, Commander. I have bad news for you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Ras Claw is dead,” she said.
“What? How?” I realized it truly saddened me losing him. Maybe fighting Ras hand-to-hand had caused me to gain respect for him. “Did the Jelk machine kill him?”
“No,” Ella said. “He did it, strangling himself.”
“Why?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“He didn’t want to confirm the coordinates to the Purple Tamika Hall of Honor.”
That left me blinking. Ras Claw must have realized I’d tricked him. I should have known he’d figure that out in time. Well, I couldn’t do anything about it now. He’d simply become another causality in the Human-Tiger War. I had to concentrate on victory, which meant steeling my heart one more time.
“Did you get the location?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Ella said.
“No. You have to know. It’s vital for my plan.”
“I have a location,” Ella said. “Since Ras Claw slew himself, I don’t know if it’s the right planet. Either he killed himself in shame, realizing we’d tricked him, or he lied about the location and killed himself to keep us from forcing the true location from him.”
That could be a big problem. But I didn’t want to thrash it out this second. “Okay,” I said. “That might put a serious kink in my plan. I still have a new idea. Are you ready for it?”
The others nodded.
“Simply put,” I said, “our problem is a lack of numbers. We don’t have enough warships to give a big fleet pause. That means we need more. We need allies.”
“We’ve been over all this before,” Ella said.
“Right,” I said. “Now I realize I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. I’ve been thinking about how to persuade Jade League members to join us. But I doubt any of them are going to listen to humans.”
“You finally realize that no alien cares you rode inside the artifact,” Ella said.
“You’re dead wrong,” I told her. “They’re going to care, but maybe not enough. We need more persuasion. Usually, a person has to have a great desire. That’s the fulcrum you use to change their key ideals.”
“Are you speaking about Orange Tamika?” N7 asked.
“That’s one group,” I said. “We have to find Doctor Sant and tell him the situation. Yet there’s another large group of aliens with a desperate desire—the Starkiens.”
Ella stared at me a second before she laughed. “You can’t seriously mean them. Everyone hates the Starkiens.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And why do they hate Starkiens? Because the baboons destroyed their artifact. The Forerunner objects all hate Starkiens, too, and won’t let them near any of them.”
“What is your idea?” Ella asked.
“To find Baba Gobo and make a deal with him,” I said. “If the Starkiens will gather their flotillas, I’m betting that would make a tremendous fleet. If it’s big enough, that might slow down Admiral Saris when she shows up. And that might give us enough time to raid the Hall of Honor.”
“Commander,” N7 said. “The Starkiens are notorious double-dealers. If you allow them in the solar system—”
“They can never enter the solar system in any depth,” I said. “That would risk having the artifact depart and spoil everything.”
“Then what good is your plan?” Ella asked. “The Starkiens want to win an artifact, and you can’t give them one.”
“No,” I said. “That’s exactly what I can give them.”
“You’re not making sense,” Ella said.
I turned to Zoe. “Would you be willing to take me to Epsilon Indi?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
Ella glanced from Zoe to me. “You’re likely sealing your deaths doing that. I suspect you want to speak directly with the Starkiens in that star system.”
Ignoring Ella, I said, “N7, I want you to come with me. This will be just like old times when we went to see Naga Gobo aboard his flagship.”
The android dipped his head in acknowledgement. Good. He would come. I didn’t want to do this without him.
“This is a bad idea, Creed,” Ella said.
“Those kinds of ideas might be all we have left,” I said. “A Lokhar crusading fleet is likely going to hit us soon. We have to meet it or we’re all dead anyway. Doesn’t that mean taking risks?”
Ella said nothing.
“I think it does,” Zoe told me.
I grinned at her. “It’s settled then. N7, get your kit. We’re going to leave in an hour.”
-21-
It took three jumps to reach Epsilon Indi, which translated to eight days of travel. The longest parts—the light years between gates—took the least amount of time. Moving from one gate to the next in a star system took the most time, accelerating and decelerating.
In a straight line, Epsilon Indi was twelve light-years from Earth.
The system had an unusual feature. Epsilon Indi was a K Spectral Class star, about three-fourths the mass of the Sun with a slightly higher gravity. What made the system interesting were the companions. Binary brown dwarfs—objects with a mass of fifty Jupiters—orbited Epsilon Indi at 1,500 AUs. They were both T class brown dwarfs with a separation between them of 2.1 AU.
We stayed far from the star and the brown dwarfs. So did the Starkien fleet. Yes. They were in the Epsilon Indi system. That made this easier as we didn’t have to hunt them down.
An hour had passed since I’d spoken with Baba Gobo via screen. Almost gleefully, the chief baboon had given us permission to fly out to meet him on his flagship. Since assurances for our safety seemed superfluous, we went without them.
N7 and I wore vacc-suits with thruster-packs spewing hydrogen spray. We sailed toward a large shark-shaped vessel sliding closer toward our patrol boat.
The majority of the Starkien fleet waited in orbit around a nickel-iron planet. Bright lights showed shuttles lifting from the surface. They must have been mining boats, bringing the ore to one of their giant starships. N7 had told me before those were the factory vessels.
In time, N7 and I passed through a bay door into a Starkien ship the size of Manhattan Island. I felt like a flea landing on an elephant. With our packs vibrating, we came down onto a deck. Various star fighters were parked nearby, but no baboons were visible.
Behind us, the bay door slid shut, closing with a clang. It told me an atmosphere already hissed into place. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have heard the sound waves. A hum began, and I stumbled. The place had gravity again, the deck plates turning on.
Just like the last time I entered a Starkien vessel eight years ago, no one greeted us. N7 removed his helmet. I did the same with mine. The air stank like a monkey’s zoo cage. Some things never changed.
“Ah, we’re home,” I said.
N7 gave me a quizzical glance.
“A joke,” I said. “Let’s get started.” My gut roiled with unease. I was more than nervous.
We marched to a bank of hatches. The middle one dilated open. Despite my resolve, I took a deep breath. I shouldn’t have done that. The stink seemed to lodge down near my throat.
The blinking dots leading N7 brought us to a small hatch. It opened, and a greater stink wafted out. That increased my coughing.
N7 glanced at me. I forced myself to stop hacking, nodding for him to go. He led, I followed, both of us ducking in order to enter a far too low-ceilinged chamber filled with Starkien commanders.
This time I could tell. They grinned like predators, each of them gleeful. As before, they wore harnesses and tubular guns. Instead of a table, they sat on low daises, seven important-looking lords. Each had gray or a white-streaked mane. The biggest Starkien had a shiny white mane with horribly red-rimmed eyes.
I walked toward Baba Gobo. That started the baboons hooting and flailing their arms. Two reached for their tubular guns.
I halted beside N7, switching on my translating device.
With a slight bow of my head, I said, “It is good to see you again, Baba Gobo.”
The mighty, high lord baboon took his time answering. He was an alien, but I could tell he dearly loved the situation. I would have liked to know Starkien beliefs concerning torture. It didn’t help that I’d recently watched Ella torment Ras Claw. Was I going to get exactly what I’d given? I hoped not.
“Commander Creed,” Baba Gobo drawled. “This is a welcome surprise,” he said. “You do realize that you shall never leave this vessel?”
For once, I restrained myself from speaking too forcefully. I found that difficult.
“I know that you have a hard decision to make,” I said.
“Me? Hard?” The high lord baboon showed off his yellow canines, glancing at his elders.
They hooted with the best of them. A few jumped up and down on their daises. It was quite a sight. As they grew quieter, Baba Gobo turned back to me.
“I believe today’s decisions will prove easy and enjoyable,” he said. “It is not often that a Starkien’s enemy freely places himself in our hands. My only curiosity is why you’ve become so foolish?”
Star Viking (Extinction Wars Book 3) Page 20
