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

by David G. McDaniel

  An Icon.

  CHAPTER 44: DAWN OF WAR

  Drake stared at the charred remains of what appeared to have once been a lime-green sports car, the bulk of it a dozen or so yards off the road, fragments and chunks scattered at a distance. His eye caught a shiny emblem glimmering in the bright sun among the ruins; a prancing horse. A Ferrari. If he had to guess he’d say what turned it into a shredded mess of expensive composites and exotic metals was some sort of anti-aircraft gun. Not just a fifty-cal. Something big. There were signs all over the ground; hundreds, maybe thousands of large bullet craters. Like a jacked-up Phalanx system or something, spewing many, many heavy rounds per minute. The car was complete toast.

  What was most curious, however, was that there were no signs of occupants. Whatever poor rich person or couple had been on their way to see the ancient castle ruins on this gorgeous day, maybe out for a picnic, were nowhere to be found. Maybe they got out and ran before the gun hit the car. He didn’t see how, but that was the only explanation. However they did it, Drake hoped they made it far, far away from that place.

  Bad things were about to happen.

  He signaled two of his team members to close on the hill behind which he hid. The castle sat on a wide expanse of field with no easy way to get close. Certainly they wouldn’t chance the gun system that obliterated the car. They were going to have to call in help, which would mean breaking silence. As yet they did not know the extent of what they were dealing with. This castle was clearly not abandoned as it appeared. Their Bok captive was telling the truth: there were people in there, and they were probably more of his comrades.

  Up ahead was a ravine. Drake and his team left their vehicles back down the road and came this far on foot, donning camo gear before setting out. Still, even with that—and armament—they were unprepared to do much more. Theirs was a top secret, specialized task force, inserted in-country for one purpose: bring back Lorenzo. The idea being that Lorenzo would lead them to the Bok as a whole. Now, it appeared, Drake and his team had achieved their objective without him. They now had a huge lead on the Bok and their whereabouts.

  The Bok castle was right in front of them.

  Following up on that was not part of the original mission. They would need to re-assess how to proceed. Reinforcements would likely be needed.

  But Drake would first see what he could. Learn what he could before breaking silence and going in for the kill.

  * *

  “I've got it.” Nani jumped on a new bit of info and Bianca jumped right with her. It had been a full day since Jess and Zac fled the club and she was about to burst. Neither she nor Nani had slept and the stress was starting to wear on both. The usually calm Nani had been short with everyone, including Satori—who continued to push for an all-out sweep of the whole area in full view—but Nani held everything in place while she drilled through what she could, running code-cracking and password-cracking routines on her console, trying to get the GPS info on the stolen bike.

  “The tracker. Here it is.”

  Bianca watched as she brought up the now oh-so-familiar overhead view of Spain, drilled into the parts they’d been over and over and over again, swept along away from the club, far out over the highway, into the mountains, into an area miles and miles from anywhere they’d looked. She tapped and zoomed, tapped again, centered on an area and stopped. Bianca stared at what was a narrow road winding along the side of a mountain ridge, forest and trees on one side, a deep ravine on the other.

  There was nothing there.

  “There’s nothing there,” she said it.

  “Wait,” Nani checked a few more things and overlaid the signal directly. The blip was down in the ravine.

  “Oh my god,” Bianca’s heart rose in her throat. “Did they crash?”

  “There are no bodies,” Nani was already several steps ahead, checking other info. “That’s the motorcycle,” she confirmed. “Looks like it went off the road here,” she highlighted and marked an area, tracing a line on the screen, “at a high rate of speed, arced over the ravine and impacted the side of the cliff here.” And she dotted that area. Bianca saw signs of an impact, exposed gashes in the rock and a few scorched and broken bushes. As Nani panned around larger pieces of the bike came vaguely into view, down in the trees below.

  Bianca swallowed. “No bodies?”

  Nani shook her head. “No bodies. Zac must’ve pulled them clear. In fact, I think the fact that there are no bodies is proof that this was Jessica and Zac. Zac, at least. No one else could’ve survived that crash.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “No telling. The crash site is hours old, maybe older. With Zac they could’ve covered a lot of ground.” Nani leaned back; exhaled heavily and ran her hands through her hair. “They could be anywhere.”

  Bianca slumped into a nearby seat. Exhausted. Crushed.

  They were no closer now than they had been.

  * *

  Zac inched closer. The tension in the room was a hair-trigger from deadly action. One wrong move and everyone would open fire and Jess would be dead. There were simply too many guns in too small a space. Frantic to get her out of there he imagined move after move that might save her, none workable, none that would guarantee her survival, and so all he could do was inch ever so slightly toward her, hoping an opening presented itself. Ready to at least dive and cover her should the Bok snap. A last-ditch effort that might not work, but it was all he had. For now she was across the room, on the other side of all the bodies, all the guns, and they’d turned their attention back to the gray-haired man near her.

  Not liking what he was saying.

  “She is the one the priestess predicted!” the man shouted, gripping the newly-produced Icon in his fist. “She is the One! You know it! She must be taken!”

  Taken? Zac began to grow ever more uneasy.

  The man continued, as if lecturing children. “This is her destiny! Foretold by the priestess!” He scoffed at them. “You and your New Age. This is not the Golden Age of the Bok! Lorenzo is the beginning of our fall. He’s misled you with his greed. Your greed has blinded you to the truth.” He bore into them, holding their reluctant attention. “You use these gifts for your own gain, denying them to your fellow man—the very reason we exist! The priestess brought us here for sanctuary!”

  “Our ‘fellow’ man has done nothing but persecute us!” one of them shouted. “Hunted us and killed us!”

  “That was a thousand years ago!”

  Zac studied Jessica’s reaction to all this. He noted she’d lowered her guns; only slightly but definitely lax, caught up in the man’s impassioned words. The barrels pointed down as she listened. Zac knew how the beliefs of the Conclave affected her, how she felt about being referred to as a prophet, the harbinger of some past prophecy. Now here was yet another group—a group she hated—calling her their messiah. Or at least the old man was. The others were very much in disagreement. What the man reminded them of was the fact that Jess represented a key part of their legend. Legends that said she was expected; meant to be there. An arrival foreseen by their past priestess, and that they were in danger of ruining that vital prediction.

  And as Zac watched these things unfold he experienced a sudden shift of view. All at once and completely out of place with the danger all around. As if his eyes were opened and a veil lifted, unexpected in that setting yet, in that brief breath of silence as the old man and his furious insistence were on pause, the staredown and the anger of the Bok hanging in the air …

  He saw her.

  Jessica!

  There she was.

  Visible in a way he could not at first seem to grasp. He’d always believed her to be transcendent, of course, at least in a sense; had always known she was something special. But seeing her standing there now, in those old farm clothes, barefoot, scratched and dirty, guns in hand, listening to the old man rant … all those imperfections seemed to fade and, as if the arrival of a fiery sunrise, beaming through a morn
ing haze, she shone. With radiance, with a beauty, an absolute clarity he could not describe.

  It wasn’t that she changed. She didn’t. A camera would not have shown some ridiculous, heavenly aura. He knew that. No one else saw it. She gave off no light, no magical glow, yet …

  He saw her. As he’d only ever imagined. Her true form, perhaps, her true self, and as he saw her a sensation of supreme wonder came over him.

  Followed immediately by the violent, mind-wracking realization that he must protect her. Above all else. She was bigger than all of this, and he must protect her and right now he was failing. No matter the absolute love, the absolute devotion he himself felt for her—no matter what she meant to him, no matter how badly he himself would do anything to save her, to be with her—no matter his own, personal motivation, he must protect her.

  For them all.

  For everyone everywhere, for now and for the future and for all time. On whatever her journey held, from whatever might stand in her way, that she might fulfill the destiny she so ardently resisted and which he suddenly perceived in its full magnitude and yet could not fathom. How he derived such a lucid, unwavering conclusion—now, under such duress—he did not know. He knew only that she was meant for something, and he knew it all at once and with unexpected conviction. You’re meant for something! More than him. More than any of them.

  She must be allowed to continue.

  She must be saved.

  In that, at least, the old man was right, and in one crystallizing instant, an epiphany of the highest order, Zac knew it. What he’d known all along but which now shone for him brighter than the brightest sun. His own role in that destiny, more clear than it had ever been.

  He was her guardian.

  “She must go,” the old man was saying, “that she might free us.” And suddenly the man was close—too close—collapsing Zac’s vision all at once. Jessica, angel, vision of purity, image of power, stood raw again, dirty and helpless as the man put an arm around her, twisting the Icon in the same motion …

  And was gone.

  Bok flew bodily aside as Zac covered the gap in a blur, so fast he hit the spot where Jess was even as the last trace of she and the old man rippled the air; waves of cool wind swirling in the vacuum of their passage.

  Too late.

  He wavered in their absence and …

  Fell to his knees.

  She was gone.

  * *

  “Whoa!” Nani exclaimed. “Hold on,” she leaned forward, responding to an alert that had just flashed at her console. Bianca felt her heart jump, again, wondering how much more she could take. This waiting had her at wits end.

  “That was a QED flash,” Nani was suddenly in action. Bianca came closer.

  “QED?”

  “Quantum device, like the Icon.” Nani was already lost in the evaluation of whatever had just pegged her readings.

  “The Icon?” Bianca leaned over, looking. Who used an Icon?

  “I'm zeroing in on the source.” Then: “It’s not far from the location of the motorcycle crash.”

  Then more alarms went off; like the last only more urgent. More of them. Many more. Bianca sought the cause. This was not good. What was going on down there?!

  “What the ...” Nani checked the new signals. “Those are coming from behind us.” She glanced over her shoulder, looking out the rear dome of the screen in disbelief. Bianca followed. “Inside the lunar orbit.” Nani’s eyes were right back at her console but Bianca kept staring into the depths of space, away from the Earth, a creeping fear crawling over her as she sought the source of the alarms. Everything was a field of black. Suddenly she saw a flash, like a shooting star, then it was gone. Nothing she could make out. Then another.

  No. Wait.

  Something out there glinted, following the flash.

  “What is it?” she asked, sensing Nani’s growing alarm. The chill, creeping panic continued to inch over her. Tingling all over her body. All through it.

  This was not right.

  “Oh no,” Nani's voice sounded terrified and Bianca felt her whole insides go to ice. She turned to Nani. On the screen were several schematics.

  Starships.

  “They’re like the one back in the Kel system,” Nani was utterly dumbstruck. “Dozens of them.”

  She turned slowly to look at Bianca.

  Helpless.

  Face like ash.

  She swallowed, voice hoarse. Managing only to say:

  “They found us.”

  * *

  Kang stood aboard the lead dreadnought looking out. At once surging with impatience, lusting to begin the conquest of his world, excited to finally be here, even as he began to feel ...

  Confused.

  Floating before them in the near distance was a blue world, for certain, covered in clouds like Anitra, only ...

  “Target system locked,” the reports began coming in. The bridge of the dreadnought had come to life following the abrupt transition to this new location. “All ships on station.” More conversations. “We’ve reached the target coordinates.”

  Kang looked around the bridge at the Kel warriors. Their systems, their screens. Green lights, the energy of combat systems prepared for war. He looked back to what lay without. To the side of this blue world in the near distance was a gray/white moon. No other celestial bodies in sight.

  That was not his moon.

  “We’re picking up a diverse language base,” the Kel evaluation charged on, reams of data streaming in, activity on the bridge rising rapidly to a fast pitch. The trip, the switch of location, all happened in a flash, and now they were preparing for the fight. “Predominant language is the one we have on file,” came the confirmation. “Capturing key transmissions now.”

  Kang listened to all this through his translation wand. That world out there, whatever it was—it was not Anitra—was using English to communicate. Sending electronic transmissions that could be intercepted by the Kel. Which meant whatever English-speaking beings were on that world were advanced. But how advanced? And what creatures? Could that Icon have connected ...

  Suddenly it hit him.

  This was the Emperor’s world.

  How had he not known!

  Voltan queried his crew: “Are they aware of us?”

  As of yet the Kel would have no idea this was not Anitra. Soon, though. Very soon they would. And when they did …

  But did it matter?

  Not really, Kang surmised, unless of course the Emperor’s world turned out to be far more advanced than his own.

  “Yes,” came the answer to Voltan’s question. “Detection on multiple levels. A detection network is starting to fire across the globe.”

  Not good so far. Should Kang tell them to back out? Nerves came over him, uncertain fear he’d not felt in a long, long time. If this was not Anitra—and it most certainly was not—then how did he get back? Should he demand a withdrawal and a regroup back at Kel, to re-examine the Icon and discover just what went wrong? Should he tell them what he already knew, before they learned it for themselves?

  “Lord,” one of the voices rose above the din. Voltan turned to him. Kang did too. This voice was more urgent than the others.

  “We have another contact,” the Kel operator reported. “Sharing our space.”

  It took Voltan an instant to process that. “Another contact? A war craft?” Kang could see the commander’s concerns on the rise, no doubt jumping to the conclusion that he’d been right, that Kang’s world had the firepower to defeat them and would be waiting. In Kang’s testimony his world had no starships.

  But he wasn’t lying.

  This was not his world.

  The Kel operator looked up. “It’s the intruder. The ship from the encounter in Raag orbit.”

  Now Kang shook off the last of his worry. He stepped toward the man making the report, halfway across the bridge, holding the wand loosely at his side, forgetting all else for the moment. Voltan too was shocked, though
at the confirmation that this was the ship they’d already encountered his expression seemed to steady. Kang stopped after only a few steps and looked back out the wide forward screen.

  “The ancient … Kel vessel?” asked Voltan.

  Reports were flying, schematics of the craft appearing on screens all over the bridge—just as they had, thought Kang, when the ship first appeared what seemed so long ago, snatching Horus from his grasp and fleeing.

  He recognized it. It was the same craft.

  “Confirmed.”

  He looked to Voltan. Realized he was a little more concerned than was the Kel commander. They of course would’ve expected the ship to run back to Kang’s world. After all, that’s where it was from, right? Only, this was not Kang’s world, a fact which they did not yet know—though they would soon enough—and so for him there was the mystery of why the ship that stole Horus came here and did not go back to Anitra.

  It should, however, be carrying Horus.

  And at the thought of that …

  “Destroy it,” he said. He remembered the wand and brought it up so he could be heard more clearly: “Destroy the ship.”

  The crew looked back and forth between Kang and Voltan.

  Kang turned directly to Voltan. Impatient for action. “I want it destroyed.”

  Voltan nodded that he heard, but was not ready to jump so hastily to this spontaneous command. His next question was to his crew: “What is our assessment of the world so far?”

  “So far technologies are substantially inferior to ours. By an order of magnitude. No serious threat in terms of projectable offense. Thorough communications infrastructure, on a level with ours, but not hardened. It would be easy to bring their communications down as a first step. It appears that action alone would deal a significant blow to their ability to respond.”

  “Any other vessels like the one in orbit?”

  “None detected, lord. That ship is beyond our own, and far beyond anything we’re detecting on the world ahead. It would appear it is, in fact, an isolated example.”