by C. M. Kane
Defender of the Gods
C. M. Kane
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my mother, Valda Bryant. An amazing woman who has never stopped believing in me, something I find quite remarkable.
It’s also for the dreamers, those crazy passionate souls who dare to try, despite the odds.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Well I have to start by thanking my mother, Valda Bryant, and my sister Lyn Lougoon, both of whom also doubled as beta readers for this, the last book in the trilogy. They never gave up on me, so I never gave up on my books. Thanks also to Heidi Commons, for her constant encouragement and can do attitude. She helped me realize that sometimes you just have to ignore the naysayers and go for it; and that by putting myself out there I had already won.
The cover was once again done by, Les, at German Creative, who is utterly tireless in her efforts to please. I could not have asked for a better person to work with.
Also to my niece, the very beautiful Candice Hutchison, who agreed to pose as Tae, my heroine, she has turned into my muse.
Another thank you goes out to Jason and Marina at Polgarus Studio. They have taken care of me and done all the formatting in this trilogy, despite my panic attacks and whining.
Lastly, but most importantly, I wanted to thank you, the reader, especially if you have been following Tae on her little adventure from the start. You have no idea what a thrill it’s been to read your comments and reviews. I am so hoping you like this last book in the trilogy. Well I guess that about sums it up except for; read on.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2016 by C. M. Kane
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
First Edition 2016
C. M. Kane
Cover design: Les (German Creative)
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
COPYRIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Authors Thank You
Chapter 1
He stood silently, closing his eyes and ears to the shouting around him. He let the words she had said echo through his still stunned mind. He needed to understand, to comprehend the sheer magnitude of her statement. Knowing of no other way he resorted to the warrior training from his far distant youth in an effort to restore calm to his now chaotic thoughts.
They’re coming!
So innocuous, so simple, just two seemingly harmless little words was all it had taken to bring his Universe to its very foundations.
He was Zeus, supposed leader of the Gods. Gods - Hah! The girl, Tae, had somehow known the truth; she had called him a Titan. Somehow she had found out about his and the others origins, and once again she had managed to escape them. That in itself was a truly remarkable feat. A mortal, and a seventeen year old Terran at that, had once again escaped them with apparent ease. Ever since he had first taken an interest in her, she had continued to confound and surprise him. She had survived the Island on Terra, or Earth as she called her planet, where she had done the impossible and freed Loki from his prison - a very welcome surprise.
Whilst there she had proven her abilities time and time again, by systematically eliminating every obstacle that stood in her way. Then she had been kidnapped from this very ship, and despite being badly beaten she had still managed to save both himself and Loki, as well as several other Gods, all while defeating their enemy at the same time.
Then only a few scant hours ago she had turned up to save them all yet again, after he and his two brothers, along with Odin, Thor, Loki and Ares had walked into a trap set by Hera to destroy him! She had somehow managed to not only find, and Captain, the only known Dreadnaught in existence; but she had also destroyed Hera!
To add to that, she even had managed to have Hera’s fleet Captains agree to the rules of the outcome of the battle, those same Captains were now sitting frozen in this room with him awaiting their fate.
And just now, when he had so audaciously thought to take the Dreadnaught away from her, she had simply made fools of them all by escaping again. This time however, she had left him with some devastating news before her departure. She had told him of the Oracle Cassandra’s warning, and Zeus knew she spoke the truth, he felt it in every fiber of his being.
They’re coming!
He had spent several millennia trying to forget his past, first by burying himself in the modifications of the existing races they were finding in their new realms, along with those servants who had come with them. Then, when the new races were finally perfected to their liking and the rejects discarded to Tartarise, he had buried himself in an endless supply of sex to ease his boredom.
He had tried very hard to never to think of either Cronus or the Titans- his race– ever again. No, they had left their homes, their people, and their former lives, forever. Everything and everyone they had known was now behind them, and he never liked looking backwards, the memories were too painful. What was done was done. He had thought they were safe to start afresh; finally they could build the galaxy of their dreams.
How could he have been so naïve? How could he have been so colossally, stunningly, stupid! Hera had assured them that no one could ever follow them to this Galaxy. She said that she had destroyed all evidence of how to create a portal device. But, either Hera had lied- not surprising given recent events- or the remaining Titans, which formed the vast bulk of their race, had invented another device over the intervening time, and now?
They’re coming!
What had Tae said? Become the leader you once were, become the man who led his people away from both the Titans, and their insane leader Cronus, to the safety of this Galaxy. But what exactly was he now? He asked himself in the quiet of his mind. Was he simply a shallow fool who was so busy screwing anything that moved that he had allowed his own people to rebel against him, as she had implied? She had told him to listen to them, to swallow his pride, to become what he once was again; the question was, could he? Could he become the man he once was, did he even know how to?
They’re coming!
Looking at himself honestly for the first time in millennia, he finally acknowledged the truth. He had tried to ignore, to bury the man he was, right along with his past. To
make matters worse, he wasn’t even sure why. Perhaps he didn’t want to be reminded of all the death, all the pain, all the feelings of guilt for those friends and comrades that they had lost when they had escaped. He had even gone so far as to forbid Thanatos, Apollo and the other Captains with him from exploring anymore new worlds. He wanted peace, he’d told himself, he was tired of war. But was that the truth? A long buried fear now swirled up from the recesses of his memories, demanding an answer.
Yes, in the stillness of his mind for the first time, albeit very reluctantly, he admitted his fear to himself. He was frightened that maybe; just maybe, he was more like Cronus than he ever wanted to admit. What if he too turned into a megalomaniacal tyrant and ended up subjugating his people as Cronus had done! What if he became the very thing which he and the others had sought to escape from so long ago? He still felt the battle lust with-in him, it was as strong as the day he had left the Titans domain, and it was that which worried him.
He now realized that he had turned to sex as a way of burying his feelings, but they would not be ignored, they were a part of him, and in all this time they had never receded. He had even set about trying to ignore or forbid anything that might force him into a full scale war again, including further space exploration, he just wanted… what?
To play it safe? To make sure he never faced his own inner demons?
He finally realized that for millennia he had been pretending he was something other than what he was.
Did he really think to deny the Warrior with-in him? The warrior, who he was only now admitting, was at the very core of who he really was. Was he really that big a coward? More importantly, was it too late to turn away from this chosen path and back to his core self?
Question after question demanded answers, until finally; he was left with the only one that mattered. Could he let himself become who he truly was again, and damn the possible consequences?
He examined the question fully. He still practiced religiously. He still fought when he had to, or when his own notoriously short temper got the better of him. He doubted very much whether anyone even knew of his own inner struggles, he knew he was still a Warrior to be feared. He just wasn’t the same one he was when he had first arrived here.
Slowly it dawned on him that by denying the others Captains their rights to explore new territories, he had already acted as Cronus would have; and now he was reaping the consequences of that gross stupidity. So, what was the worst case scenario? What would his friends and family do if he really did start to morph into another Cronus?
After a moment’s thought he knew. They’d warn him, and if that didn’t work, they’d kill him, simple. Neither his brothers nor Loki and his family, or any of the others for that matter, would stand for anything like that, that was why they had made their own governing laws in the first place. He could live with that, so really, why was he even worried about it in the first place? These realms were not like those of the Titans, and he’d never been like Cronus, except in battle, when he too became a relentless killing machine, but if truth be known, weren’t all the Warriors here now much the same in that respect? Battle was after all, battle.
The thing that set them apart from their forbearers was the fact that they could control their battle lust, they also recognized beauty, the innate rights of other life forms to exist, and they wanted to create. That in itself was foreign to the older Titans; they simply warred upon everyone– including themselves– relentlessly. He had family and friends, he had law and order, they had created something good here, something worth fighting for, worth dying for, and now his people needed him as never before.
With his newfound clarity he realized just how colossally stupid he had been to allow these unfounded fears to gain a hold of him. The woman, Tae, had opened his soul to exactly who and what he was again. He could now move on from the caricature of himself that he had let himself become. Once again Tae had saved him, whether she knew it or not.
They’re coming!
A smile slowly spread across Zeus’ face.
Let them!
Chapter 2
Xirra was waiting patiently for Tae to climb through the small hole she had melted in the side of the Olympus. As soon as she was through she set some permasteel in the short tunnel to fill it, when it had hardened she returned to her pilot’s seat, strapped in, and turned to Tae.
‘We have a small problem,’ she said as she started the jumper, disengaged from the Olympus, and lifted straight upwards.
Tae looked at her expectantly, just as voice came over the com system.
‘Unknown jumper, this is your last warning, you will power down your engines to thrusters only and move to Hanger bay one, failure to comply with our orders will see us fire upon you!’
Tae’s breath left her in a whoosh. ‘Shit!’ She quickly looked at Xirra who was watching her expectantly. ‘I think it’s time to see exactly what this jumper can do don’t you?’
Xirra grinned and nodded. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
With that she opened up a line to the three fighter jumpers that were now surrounding them, and with the same playful smile answered them with a cheeky. ‘Now where’s the fun in that? C’mon boys, if you think you’re good enough, then let’s see if you can keep up.’
With that she pressed her thumb down on the acceleration button, but instead of trying to get through the jumpers as they would have expected, she dived, straight back down at the Olympus. Tae’s eyes widened as she hung onto her seat, she then started to pray fervently that Xirra was as good a pilot as Adam had assured her she was. Her maneuver bought them a little breathing space before the surrounding jumpers took up the chase. What followed took Tae’s breath away. Xirra was not only good, she was superb!
She proceeded to weave their jumper in and out of the massive pulse cannon arrays of the Olympus, always keeping her speed at what Tae thought of as, borderline suicidal, as she used their jumper’s powerful maneuvering thrusters to steer. This allowed them to gain precious time on their pursuers, as well as stopping the Olympus itself from firing upon them, they were simply to close for their big guns, and their smaller ones couldn’t lock onto them long enough to fire safely without damaging either their larger weapons, or the pursuing jumpers. Unfortunately it didn’t stop the gun controllers from starting to move the guns around as they were flying towards them in an effort to force them upwards again. Xirra simply let out a whoop and continued on at her breakneck speed.
Tae’s head was spinning; she was feeling a mixture of exhilaration, nausea, and mild terror, as Xirra sped around sensor arrays, probe ports and the smaller guns that were attached at intervals to the ship. By the time they reached the edge of the battleship and started into clear space, Tae thought she might be ready to heave, her stomach was so knotted.
‘Now comes the testing time,’ said Xirra frowning.
Tae’s eyes widened. What in all the seven hells does she mean, NOW, comes the testing time? What was that we just went through? She found out the answer to her questions when the com-panel sprang to life again.
‘This is the Olympus; you will turn your jumper around and surrender to our forces or be destroyed.’
Tae looked at the com display facing them; they were now heading outside of the Force field of the Olympus and were travelling at the approximate top speed of a normal jumper.
‘Ummmm, shouldn’t we be going a little faster,’ said Tae glancing at Xirra with concern.
‘Xirra shook her head, ‘not yet, I want to draw them out as long as possible, they don’t know about our improved speed and maneuverability. If I can put off using it as long as possible I’m hoping they won’t be able to reprogram their pulse cannons firing controls before we can escape to the other surrendered ships. Then they’d have to fire on them if they want to hit us, and as you know, they have their force fields down, so I doubt they’d risk it. We’re just lucky they didn’t change the coding to stop us getting safely through their own force field or it w
ould have been a very short chase. I do love an idiot.’ She smiled at her own joke and glanced over at Tae, taking in the white knuckled death grip she had on her seat.
‘Don’t worry, I talked to Adam before we left and we came up with this contingency plan, just in case something like this happened. He’s positioned Brightmoon above and behind the other fleet. As soon as we enter her outer space doors, Brightmoon will head at top speed to the portal.’
Tae’s eyes widened in surprise, ‘Then let’s go home,’ she said with a sickly kind of smile. Xirra kept her eyes on the display screen in front of her, absorbing all the differing readings coming in. She saw the pursuing jumpers break off the chase, followed soon after by one of the Olympus’ pulse guns target, then lock onto their jumper.
Xirra pressed down hard on the accelerator button and swerved to starboard. Their jumper leapt forward causing the shot from the targeting gun to miss them by a very short twenty or so meters.
Tae gulped, Xirra on the other hand started laughing maniacally, Tae glanced over at her friend and saw a look of wild delight and concentration on her face; she actually seemed to be enjoying herself.
Another shot from the Olympus missed them, this time by a slightly closer margin. Tae regretted this immediately as the near miss encouraged Xirra to put their jumper through a series of zigzagging and rolling maneuvers. Somehow, despite the inertia that space provided naturally, the tuvarnan woman managed to use the jumper’s maneuvering thrusters to create what Tae thought of as- a vomit inducing ride. Tae continued to cling to her seat silently, not wishing to distract her friend from her job of keeping them alive. Unlike Xirra, who seemed to be having the time of her life, Tae was in a state of mild terror.
Finally their jumper reached the relatively safe vicinity of the fleet once loyal to Hera. The Olympus could not fire upon the jumper without the risk of striking one of the other ships, and with their shielding down they were defenseless. Tae knew they were not out of danger, if just one of these Captains fired upon them they were toast.
