Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3)

by David G. McDaniel

  Nani’s voice snapped her from her dread. “We’re pulling alongside,” she said. “Zac will be out the airlock. Go get him aboard.” She pointed toward the door. “I lit the halls to the bay.”

  Bianca turned to Nani. “I’ll stay and help.”

  “Come on,” Jess motioned for Willet and Satori. They rushed with her to the door and went below, following the trace-lit halls to their destination. Jessica’s mind raced. Their own ship, the Reaver, was a thousand years old. That one out there looked increasingly of similar design. And it was broadcasting in the Kel language.

  Was it fallout from the Great Wars? From a thousand years ago? Was it as old as the Reaver? Or was it newer? Had the Kel rebuilt their Empire? If so how much? Could that ship travel between the stars?

  Would it follow them?

  That was a terrifying thought.

  She ran for the hold below, Satori and Willet in tow. No time for any of that now.

  Zac was out there.

  CHAPTER 9: ESCAPE

  Kang strode side to side, baffled by what he was hearing. The audio message—he assumed it to be coming from the ship out there—was in the Emperor’s language. Anitran, English; the voice of a female, saying over and over: “Attention. We mean no harm. Please respond. Identify.” Repeat.

  Who’s on that ship?

  So far the whole situation had spiraled beyond his comprehension. He couldn’t decide whether to keep watching the alien crew react or inject his own demands into the mix. How was there a spaceship out there broadcasting in English? His first thought was that it followed him and Horus, but that was absurd. Could there have been an alien race monitoring Anitra? Keeping tabs on things until the Icon was used then following to see what happened? Immediately he thought of a dozen more ideas, most of them equally improbable. For some reason, however, the most ridiculous was the one that stuck. That the Venatres had, somehow, developed space travel. In secret, using the info from the stolen Icon, perhaps, and with that technology had come racing after Horus.

  As the idea of that took hold the ship out there began to move.

  Immediately the chatter on the bridge intensified, the alien crew hurrying to action. On screen Kang watched the ship gain speed, accelerate forward, turn and bank sharply—the whole sequence of actions so abrupt as to be alarming. One second it was just sitting there, as it had been from the moment it arrived, the next it was curving away, darting off screen.

  The commander ran to his chair and sat, barking orders.

  Kang bristled. Unsure what was happening, unsure of the intruder’s objective, unsure of everything in that moment but not liking this new development. He noticed it wasn’t coming at them. Rather, it was headed in another direction altogether. Maybe it decided to run away.

  Then he saw it.

  “NO!” he bellowed. Reflexively, loudly—far too loud for the confined space—causing everyone on the bridge to throw hands to their ears and cringe. The commander stood and yelled back at him, furious, forgetting for an instant he was reacting to the very creature that had killed dozens of their number and, for all intents and purposes, taken control of their ship. Kang let his insolence go. He needed to be rational if he was going to get their compliance in such short order.

  Something must be done.

  The intruder was heading straight for Horus.

  “No!” he said firmly, at a lower volume this time, striding over to the giant forward screen and pointing. He pointed to the ship, making sharp gestures, slicing motions, both hands, one—trying to make them understand. They needed to stop what was happening. It looked as if the ship was heading to recover Horus and that could not be allowed to happen.

  “No!” he repeated, frustrated by their distraction. Now, rather than the ship, their attention was on him, on what he was doing, what he might be saying, trying to figure it out—all the while Horus was about to get away.

  Kang pointed frantically, watching as the other ship closed on the tiny, distant, floating form of his arch nemesis. Convinced now the ship was Venatres, and that they had come to retrieve the traitor.

  Surely the aliens could use their guns.

  “Shoot it!” he commanded, gesturing with great urgency to the other ship, knowing they couldn’t understand him but figuring they must understand the basic concept he was trying to convey. He made trigger motions—he knew they had triggers on their rifles—directed at the target—even made rasping pew! pew! noises and an exploding pantomime to simulate firing at the other ship and its destruction.

  Nothing. They continued staring at his ridiculous display.

  Furious, unable to maintain the forced calm, he lunged toward one of the consoles and took it as the man there moved aside. He began hitting controls, searching for any kind of weapons or way to move or attack or otherwise prevent the horror happening before his very eyes.

  But it was fruitless. Something on the console blinked; he activated something, but nothing with any control or usefulness. The man at the console kind of got the idea, though, came closer, made a call to another station across the way, reached and … fired a shot, random, a bright bolt of energy that lanced into space and was gone. Yes! Now you’ve got it! Desperate to turn that action into a result Kang tried to motivate him to action, to an understanding that he must do it again—with aim this time …

  Too late.

  There on screen, as he watched in impotent rage, able to do absolutely nothing to prevent it, the intruding ship closed the final gap on Horus and pulled alongside. Horuses’ tiny form was on the opposite side as it curved to him so nothing could be seen. Tense moments passed, the crew frozen by Kang’s actions, then …

  The intruder leapt away. Gone, into the void.

  Leaving nothing behind.

  Horus had been taken.

  * *

  Jess sat on the floor of the airlock, cross-legged, holding Zac’s head in her lap. The effects of the quantum field washed over her in a buzz of infinity and the accompanying, sickening sensation flowed and went, leaving behind the same yawning emptiness with which she’d become so familiar. The dramatic sensation of fantastic displacement. She shuddered, felt another shudder building and held herself still before she started to shake.

  Satori sat on the deck beside her. Willet too. Before her lay Zac—Zac!—on his back, head in her lap, eyes closed as if he were merely sleeping. Breathing now, unlike when they found him—much to her growing relief. As they worked desperately moments ago to drag his heavy body aboard, lifeless and cold, through the shimmering containment field that shielded the Reaver’s hold from the vacuum of space, feeling the ice on his skin, Satori assured her the Kazerai didn’t really need air and that Zac had probably just shut down. Like in a coma or something.

  So far she was right. Once aboard he started breathing again, came immediately to life and flushed with warmth. Though he remained unconscious.

  “Oh, Zac,” she exhaled, near breathless herself, running her hands through his hair, not caring what Willet or Satori thought. They knew how she felt. She bent forward as far as she could, over him, bringing her face close to his, hair falling all around him, on his chin, his cheeks, draping onto his neck.

  He was whole, if a little bruised, and looked as healthy and as perfect as ever. His skin, icy to the touch just seconds ago, had returned to its natural glow, any remnant of his ordeal in the cold of space already gone. He was warm. He was alive.

  I came for you!

  She felt a thrill wash over her.

  I did it.

  Just like she said she would.

  Zac!

  He was safe. She raised her head a little and stroked his cheek. I love you! She had to catch herself as she nearly cried with the strength of it. It was unreal, just being there with him, now, after everything.

  Nani’s voice over a speaker interrupted the tranquility.

  “We’re here,” she said, the omni-directional intercom in the small room coming from all sides.

  Jess sat straigh
ter and looked around the confines of the airlock. Voiced the first concern on her mind: “Were we followed?” And at the same time realized: We’re back. She’d known the transfer to Earth would be as instantaneous as the other. Still, it gave her a sudden tingle to think they were actually home.

  “Not so far.” Then: “They shot as we were leaving. We probably got away just in time.”

  Then Bianca’s voice: “It’s Earth, Jess.” Her tone was hushed: “You’ve got to see this. It’s beautiful.”

  Satori stood. Willet with her. Reluctantly, after another long moment savoring Zac’s incredible presence, knowing they needed to keep moving, Jess slid his head to the side, being very gentle as she did so—and had the odd, momentary epiphany that it didn’t matter how gentle she was. Zac, so real, so human, she cared for him so much … her impulse was to handle him with such absolute tenderness, especially as he was injured and unconscious, but the fact was she could probably throw his head to the floor, leap up and down on it, bang his skull into the deck, kick it, shoot guns at it—they all could—and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

  The Man of Steel.

  Carefully she set him down and got to her feet.

  For a long moment the three of them stood in a small circle, looking at each other, at Zac on the floor; violet tracer lights and the clean, shiny black surfaces of the Kel airlock a technological mockery of their human imperfections.

  Willet glanced down.

  “Well,” he looked Zac over, “at least now there’s another guy.”

  Satori cocked an eyebrow.

  He held out his hands and Jess could see this was about to be a typical Willet remark. “I’m just saying,” he shrugged. “This ship is full of women. At least now there’s another swinging—”

  Satori smacked him.

  “Watch it,” she warned. “The girls are still in charge.”

  Willet pretended to be hurt. Nani’s voice came over the intercom. “I’ll meet you guys outside the airlock.”

  “Ok,” Jess agreed, speaking to the walls. “We’ll wait for you here.”

  Willet bent to grab Zac’s shoulder.

  “You are going to give me a hand though, right?” He got under one arm. “It’s like he’s made of lead.”

  Satori bent under Zac’s other arm and together she and Willet lifted him. Satori was nearly a foot shorter than Willet, who himself was shorter than Zac, so the arrangement made for an awkward, lopsided drag of Zac’s limp body. Jess was about the same height as Satori, more or less, so there wasn’t much else she could do. For now she put a hand on Zac, steadying his body between them as best she could.

  And with that she fired open the inner door and the motley group stepped into the clean, alien hallway beyond.

  * *

  Lindin couldn’t stop pacing. Striding, back and forth, a fury in his steps that wasn’t diminishing. The rage, the sick feeling in his gut, the numbness in his skull; these things drove him, no direction, no center for their release. His mind raced, his heart raced.

  All was lost.

  Now the girl had taken the starship.

  Jessica.

  Took.

  The starship.

  The emptiness in the cavern, the great, yawning, emptiness; the sheer weight of the void in its absence bore down on him. As if it would crush the breath from him.

  Nani! She was the one with all the control, and she was the one that flew it. Why had he blanked that entire possibility? Why had he never considered it? Never given it an ounce of thought.

  Because of everyone who might, she was the only one who wouldn’t. Timid, hyper-intelligent Nani, and there she went. Whether at gunpoint or not, the fact remained she had the ability to do it because Lindin had never prevented it.

  Consequently the impossible had happened.

  “Close the doors,” he ordered, eyeing the gaping tunnel leading through the mountain to the blue sky beyond. Around him the others in the now-empty space were in a state of confused motion. Bodies ran this way and that, no real purpose to their action. He and his pacing were hardly noticed amid the confusion. Technicians scrambled to find a way to follow his earlier command, to use their equipment and send signals to the fleeing craft, to take control and direct it back. None of that mattered now. The Reaver was gone. Long gone. Tracked to a distant orbit, it then disappeared from scans altogether. No doubt having activated the quantum drive and gone off to whatever destination the girl had in mind.

  Earth. Had to be.

  Jessica.

  As before Lindin found himself furious, apoplectic, seeing red quite literally with his lack of foresight where she was concerned. She was an alien, she was a radical, and once again he’d let her be with little more than a cursory thought as to her observation. Free to roam, free to engage others.

  Free to steal the starship. The whole goddamn starship! Heart of the Venatres’ future.

  Gone.

  No one in the cavern had any idea what to do next, least of all him. Still they ran, checking things, considering other options. The giant doors at last began to close. Moving back toward their notched recesses, smooth in their ancient grooves, slicing off more and more of the sky until, as they sealed tight with a mighty boom, everyone had finally gone still.

  And, for an ironic moment, Lindin realized he’d accomplished exactly what he originally set out to do—and lost everything in the bargain. In his quarters, in a locked safe, he had the Icon. The Holy Relic, so closely guarded by the Dominion for so long. Now he had it. It was all his.

  It’s all mine!

  And he’d lost the whole reason for having it.

  A manic laugh escaped him. He shut his mouth at once, eyeing the fearful faces staring back.

  Such a tangled web. The Icon, taken by Zac under the direction of Venatres double-agents, then used unexpectedly by Zac to go to Earth and return, bringing Jessica with him. Jessica, wild variable who’d managed to direct the actions of others—to the point the entire Crucible was destroyed and much of the Dominion leadership killed. A significant blow. Only, in the aftermath she’d managed to leave, taking that very Icon with her.

  When that happened they were worse off than they’d ever been. At least when the Icon was in Dominion hands they could go after it. With it gone, back to Earth, there was no way they could ever hope to retrieve it. Leaving the Reaver project, for all intents and purposes, completely dead. Nothing more could be done.

  It had taken some time for Lindin to get over the effects of that.

  Then the girl returned. She came back! Yay! As if on a whim. And—and this was the most amazing part—she brought a second Icon. More pieces of the puzzle. Greater understanding of the Kel and their ancient technology, the effects of their past and so forth. It was all starting to come together.

  Hah. As far as Lindin was concerned Jessica was public enemy number one. At first he’d thought Satori might be the one causing all the trouble. After all, she’d let Jessica go the first time. And she’d just now helped Jessica take the other Icon out to Zac, so he could use it to get rid of Kang. Now she’d aided Jessica with the theft of the starship.

  But it wasn’t Satori.

  Jessica was the common motivator in each of those capers. It was Jessica, not Satori, driving each. Satori was, at worst, an accomplice. More likely than not she was just a pawn.

  Yes. Jessica was the one he should’ve been watching. How he, with years of experience in the command of men, then years more as the head of the intelligence branch—tasked specifically with figuring out the human mind and what it might do next, the actions of entire governments—how he could’ve let this happen escaped him. Maybe the girl was some form of angel, as their misguided allies, the Conclave, believed. Maybe she did have some sort of divine hand at her back. As ridiculous as that sounded, it wasn’t much more ridiculous than smart men and an entire government being duped by a teenage girl.

  He certainly had to give it some thought.

  The bigger problem, of
course, was that nearly everyone considered her a hero. Perhaps that gnawed at him more than anything. Only a handful of Venatres knew the absolute critical significance of these Icons. Fewer still knew about the starship. The other 99% of the world knew only that Jessica used the Dominion’s own Holy Relic to bring about the collapse of the Crucible and weaken the Dominion itself. Then, as if for an encore, she saved them; saved the entire world from the brutal reign of an unstoppable beast. Kang. Using the Relic once again to do so. From their point of view she was an angel. One who kept popping in and saving them.

  Lindin realized he’d been grinding his teeth. He made himself stop and look around; take in his surroundings. Most of the technicians and even a few of the guards had fallen into loose groups, talking about what just happened, wondering what came next and otherwise expressing their disbelief. The doors were closed, the cavern empty—so empty—now that the starship was gone.

  “Agnet,” he called the senior scientist. The older man stood with a small group of others in lab coats, debating the impossibility of it all. Agnet worked directly for Nani. Lindin was confident the man knew everything she did.

  He turned. “Yes?”

  Lindin waved him over. Conversations quieted as the others turned an ear toward whatever Lindin might say. He was, after all, their leader, and now that the chaos had passed it seemed as if he were ready to make some decisions.

  He was.

  “The Icons,” he said as Agnet stopped and stood before him. “How much can they transfer? How much mass?”

  It took Agnet a moment to understand the question. Then: “I’m not sure, exactly. We know the girl went with a suit of Skull Boy armor and returned with that plus the other girl. However, we also know from reading the information on the computer device that the agency on Earth tried to use one to move larger masses and was unsuccessful.”