“Dax, can you not see the President was right about you?” Blok snapped. “What next? Sail to Vanguard on the back of your rainbow of dreams?”
“From there you and the others can return to Valiant,” Dax said.
“If Valiant survives,” Blok said.
“That’s up to the old man,” Dax said. “He’ll do what’s best for Valiant.”
Blok reached for her side weapon. She looked at all the others staring at her.
“Please, Lieutenant,” Van Cleef said. “Don’t try anything.”
Blok slid her weapon back into the holster.
Looking at Dax she said, “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“You’ll get another,” Dax said. “Soon enough.”
Dax noted Fyre gazing out through the window at the Vanguard ship. She cocked her head as if listening to something
Hermes rolled another few degrees, and threw everyone into the air.
“If we don’t go right now,” Fyre said, “then it’s all for nothing.”
CHAPTER 47 - VANGUARD JUSTICE
“Welcome, captains,” a Vanguard woman said and indicated they should sit before her in the grand conference room that was a glass dome some two hundred feet high. Beyond the dome, Hannibal noted the effectiveness of the ever shifting camouflage of pastel hues.
In disrupting enemy scanners, they effectively masked a vast array of gun turrets. The largest of them, sat on a metallic dome beneath Hannibal’s feet and below the glass floor. The twin guns were pointed directly at Valiant. Another pair of guns aimed at the Lycaon.
Hannibal stood next to the Lupos Captain Dire. They both faced Sol Morlok and an adjudicating panel of Vanguards. Each of the Vanguard sat on thrones.
A Vanguard woman dressed in a shimmering black occupied the largest throne. Her cloak seemed to throw up various hues of shadows across her face that hinted at high beauty, but just like the ship’s camouflage, it masked as much as it revealed.
She bowed to Hannibal and Dire. Behind her, high up on small platforms, stood Vanguard sentries in power-armor and flowing black capes wrapped around their bodies.
“I am Idris of House Mortuus est Sanguis,” the Vanguard woman said. “I chair this tribunal. You are summoned here for infringement of the Vanguard Peace Accord. You are charged with interference with Vanguard Diplomats. How do you plead?”
“Innocent,” Hannibal said.
“Guilty,” Dire said and sneered, “of loyalty to my race.”
Hannibal wished he had the arrogance to spit in their faces like Dire. But he had a crew of twenty five thousand lives to think of. There was no honor in their deaths. At least, not in the bureaucratic web that these Vanguard were expertly spinning to trap him and Valiant.
Morlok sat next to Idris on a throne that glided up and down, allowing a perfect view of all space. Hannibal thought of it as more like a battle room than a place for a tribunal. Perhaps that was the point.
On each side of Morlok sat three Vanguards. Male and female. Their half smiles were betrayed by their fangs. Hannibal felt more like an object of pray, than an innocent man given the chance to plead his case to his peers.
“The shuttle crew sent to Hermes to transport our diplomats has reported they are missing,” Sol said. “Neither they, nor Valiant’s landing party can be found. Can you explain this, Captain Grint?”
Hannibal shifted uncomfortably.
What the hell is Dax up to?
He avoided the intense glare from the Lupos captain. “I cannot not,” he said.
“The report goes onto say that the Lupos raiding pack is uncooperative,” Sol said.
“And what of the status of the boarding parties?” Idris asked.
“Our own vacated Hermes in the past minute,” Sol said. “The parties from Lycaon and Valiant remain on board Hermes.”
“For what purpose?” Idris asked.
“I can speak only for the Valiant’s rescue crew,” Hannibal said. “For the purpose of saving Hermes from an inevitable disaster.”
Idris nodded. “Seems on face value to be a reasonable response,” she said. “For the demise of Hermes is indeed inevitable. And Captain Dire?”
Dire smiled at the news. “Events born of a miscommunication.”
Sol shrugged. “These things can happen from time to time,” he said and turned his throne to face Hermes.
“Nevertheless,” Idris said, “we must be permitted to demonstrate the Vanguard way of focusing all parties on a solution to our mutual problem.”
The other Vanguard nodded their agreement.
Hannibal felt a tightness in his stomach. “What do you mean?” Hannibal asked.
Idris nodded to Sol. “Proceed, President Morlok.”
Sol glided a hand over his throne’s arm console. He pressed a button on a panel. He opened his mouth and seemed to hesitate.
“Proceed,” Idris said.
Morlok took a deep shuddering breath and let it out with a pained expression.
“I did not wish this, Captain Grint,” he said.
A holograph of a Vanguard Fleet officer appeared before Sol. He bowed before the tribunal of Vanguards.
“Admiral Folant,” Sol said, “proceed as instructed.”
“As you wish, President Morlock.”
Admiral Folant turned to someone unseen. “Fire at will.”
“No, you can’t do this,” Hannibal shouted. He leapt across the glass deck at Sol.
Two Vanguards sentries opened their capes. They extended their capes as they held out their arms and tipped forward into the air. They swooped down from their platforms.
At the last possible moment, they pulled up from their power glide and slammed Hannibal into the glass floor. They held down his head and forced him to stare at the gun turret.
He felt his mind burn with regret. My God! What have I done?
The enormous gun turret whipped around and aimed at Hermes.
“No,” Hannibal cried. “My crew are still aboard.”
They ignored him. He knew he had to relinquish the one secret he didn’t wish any of them to know.
“My President is aboard Hermes,” he shouted. “Killing her brings a war down on your heads.”
“Calm yourself, Captain,” Idris said. “The natural order of Superiority must prevail.”
A stream of blue-white plasma jetted out of the cannon and tore Hermes in half.
“You murderers,” Hannibal shouted.
“The matter is concluded,” Idris said as her throne dropped through an opening in the floor. All the thrones followed suit and soon Hannibal was alone with Captain Dire.
Dire looked down at Hannibal with disdain as Hannibal raised himself to his knees.
“You allow them to break you, Captain Grint,” Dire said.
Dire held out a hand. Hannibal took it.
“You lost good crew members for what?” Hannibal asked.
“A greater loss is the shame you inflict upon their memories. To beg for mercy is not the Lupos way. We take what we desire.”
Hannibal gazed out at Valiant. “I can’t afford to think that way, Captain.”
Dire looked at at the two halves of Hermes burning up in Saturn’s orbit. “The day will come when you cannot afford not to think as Lupos do, Grint.”
CHAPTER 48 - TITAN
Dax’s life-pod punched through the rings of Saturn and fell to Titan in a blanket of fiery debris. The pod was cramped, but he’d refused to allow Fyre and her father to travel separately. Valkyrie and Blok insisted on accompanying him.
“Fyre, if the Vanguard ship hadn’t fired on Hermes when it did,” Dax said, “we’d have been shot down by now.”
She avoided his intense gaze.
“Lucky coincidence,” Dax said. “Right?”
She said nothing.
The pod shook violently.
As Dax moved further into the life-pod he discovered it shared a design similar to Valiant’s bridge, but on a much smaller scale. As he moved
along the aisle between columns of seats, to the end, the life-pod sank deeper into the floor. He took a seat next to Blok at the front and stared at the holographic image of Titan, the ice moon.
A thick orange-brown haze enveloped the life-pod. Dax pointed out they were heading for the south-pole’s swirling gas vortex.
“We need to avoid that,” he said.
“We’re entering Titan’s atmosphere,” Blok said and tapped on the console before her. She assigned the pod’s flight controls to her station.
Dax pulled the seat guards tightly across his chest as the pod burst through a thick layer of cloud. They swept over an ocean.
“If we ditch,” Dax said, “will we float?”
“It’s a methane ocean,” Blok said. “One spark from our engines and you’ll see us land from Earth.”
“Surely there’s not enough oxygen on Titan to support combustion?”
“Sure about that?”
Dax gripped the sides of his station.
“Relax,” she said. “The equatorial desert region, Xanadu is our likely destination.”
“How do you know?” she said.
Blok said. “Pod’s autopilot will be programmed for landing in designated sites,” Blok said.
“Switching to manual control,” she said and gripped the guidance stick with both hands. “Hold on.”
The life-pod glided over a sea of sand dunes.
“Decelerating,” Blok shouted as the life-pod juddered violently.
“What was that?” Dax shouted, aware of the panic rising in his voice.
Blok shot him a look as if to say, ‘do you always need to be in control?’
Console panels exploded with a shower of sparks.
“We collided with debris from Hermes,” Blok said as the internal lights failed and the life-pod dropped out of the sky like a stone.
A thin jet of vapor burst from a pipe and sprayed them.
“Life support systems off-line,” Dax said and searched the holographic image of their life-pod for any signs of the other pods.
“No sign of the other pods,” Dax said. “Do you think they were destroyed?”
“Signal the others,” Blok said. “Let them know we’re headed for the desert region lakes.”
Dax reached for the life-pod’s comms. Fyre grabbed his arm.
“You want to give away out location to the Vanguard ship?” Fyre asked.
“You think they’d send troops to finish us off?” said Dax.
“I don’t think,” Fyre said, “I know.”
Dax let his arm fall to his side.
“There,” Blok said and pointed to a two hundred meter high dune. “If I can get the right angle of descent, we can land safely.”
The internal lights failed. Blok let go of the steering stick.
“Guidance unit is dead,” she said.
In the light from the sparking consoles, Dax met Blok’s eyes. They sat in the near darkness in silence looking at each other while hurtling to the surface of Titan.
An alarm sounded inside the life-pod. “Brace for collision,” Blok said.
CHAPTER 49 - TRAPPED
Dax felt something pressing down on his chest. He opened his eyes as daylight streamed in through a gash in the side of the life-pod. It had split in two. The crash had severed the nose section from the rest of the life-pod.
Dax struggled under the weight of the guidance console pinning him to his chair. Cold air rushed in at him and he realized his power-armor had ripped open. Nano-bots were repairing the damage. His visor display indicated the bots were operating on reduced power.
His breathing felt rasped and heavy.
A pair of hands appeared. They were covered in rapidly forming icicles. Dax knew Titan’s thick atmosphere would block out much of the sun’s life-giving properties. He estimated Von Rha’s exposure would give him mere minutes to live.
Dax’s visor display filtered out the brightness and Ambassador Von Rha’s face appeared to him. He wore a portable respirator unit around his mouth and nose.
“Commander, we’re sinking into a methane lake,” Von Rha said. “Do you understand?”
“The pod’s life support system is leaking oxygen into the methane ocean,” Ambassador Von Rha said.
Dax knew this increased the likelihood of combustion and an enormous explosion. He told himself it was only theoretical. He felt panic rising inside of him.
Dax realized water had risen up to his neck. He tried to speak, but the guidance system was pressing down on his throat. Stars began forming on the edges of his vision. Afraid he would lose consciousness, he blinked rapidly and took a secession of sharp breaths.
It was then he realized the brightness was not from the sun. But from a tall water vortex catching alight from sparks generated by the life-pod’s electrical system. And that the life-pod was rapidly sliding into a tower of flames.
“I will attempt to free you, Commander,” Von Rha said. “On three?”
Dax nodded and raised his knees.
“One.”
The ocean lapped up over his visor. Dax rested his toes against the guidance system.
“Two.”
The water seeped into the gash in his suit and filled his visor. He held his breath.
“Three.”
Dax pulled one arm free and pushed and kicked out against the guidance unit. The pod rolled and dragged both Dax and Von Rha beneath the water line. Still, the unit would not shift.
Dax thought of his wife and son and kicked out harder. Water rushed down his throat. His body convulsed. His legs grew weaker.
A figure dived into the water beside him. A mass of bubbles exploded out at him. From the swirling bubbles, the face of Fyre appeared.
She smiled as she gripped the sides of his helmet and ejected the safety clamps. She pulled off his helmet and forced her lips over his. He felt air rush into his lungs and eject the water.
She grabbed one side of the guidance unit and together they pushed hard against it. But still it wouldn’t move. A glimmer of panic shot across her face.
She looked at her father. He shook his head solemnly and pointed to the surface.
She shook her head.
He motioned to grab her shoulder, but she shrugged him off and raised her hand as if to strike. He briefly shot her a look full of contempt before he kicked out and swam away.
Fyre placed the palm of one hand across Dax’s cheek. Without her lips moving, he heard her voice in his mind: “In the days to come, living with damnation, remember, I do this to save you.”
What do you mean? Do what?
“Macula Sanguinis,” he heard her voice reply inside his head.
Fyre reached down and grabbed his wrist. She raised it to her lips and opened her mouth. Her tongue pushed back her lips and revealed a pair of fangs.
She bit deep into his wrist and seemed to drink his blood. Her eyes rolled back in her head and appeared to glow with an array of bio luminescence colors. Her head moved from side to side as she gorged on his blood.
The sight of a droplet of his blood escaping her ravaging lips and reflecting the tower of flames sent his head spinning in panic and perhaps even madness. He frantically pulled his arm away, but with unexpected strength she held him firm.
When she seemed sated, she raised her head and looked to his lips. She kissed him on his lips ferociously as if feasting. He felt a wave of air roll into his lungs. But something else too.
He felt something joining with his blood. An awakening. A hunger. Burning within.
She placed one hand on his lips.
In his mind he heard her voice joining with a thousand others. Singing out. As if calling to another.
He heard her voice in his mind: “I will return.”
She pushed away and kicked for the surface. He stared at the swirling tower of flames until his lungs filled again with water.
I’m sorry, Ben. This is it!
CHAPTER 50 - HEAVY LOAD
Fyre stood on the bow of the
life-pod and stared up at the sky. She ignored the others as they lay exhausted on the desert dune shore.
“Come,” she said to the sky of thick orange-brown cloud and felt the voices of a thousand strong Vanguard choir magnify and focus her will. “You must hurry.”
Bursting out of the cloud, a spacecraft hovered over the lake. Its descent thrusters whipped up the desert into a whirlwind of lacerating needles. It hovered a dozen feet off the surface. The rear gate doors opened and a ramp swung down onto the desert lake’s shoreline with aloud clang.
A blood curdling roar cut through the sound of the thruster rockets. A vast shadow lunged to the top of the ramp.
She recognized the creature instantly as the recreation of her race’s scientific obsession with mastering every DNA sequence in the galaxy. A creature indigenous to Earth many millions of years ago. Seven tons of sinewy scales, legs the size of tree trunks and able to sprint for long distances at speeds most creatures could not compete with. Its razor sharp teeth seemed capable of shattering a human skull with ease.
But worst of all, were its eyes. They burned with more than the animal cunning of a predator at the top of the food chain. They were the eyes of a king. They burned with a sense of knowing. A hatred.
They saw it as a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur. She saw it as an abomination. But also as a savior.
Its Ursu rider struck the beast with a plasma-whip and forced it down the ramp to the shoreline. The Ursu tossed one end of a chain rope to Fyre. She caught it.
“Secure it to a bulkhead,” the Ursu shouted.
She nodded and holding one end of the chain, she dived back under the water. She swam along the empty busted seats of the life-pod. She forced her mind free of distraction. She knew all that mattered was maintaining the psychic link with the Brethren and the Ursu.
She found a broken wall panel and kicked it out. She then fed the chain through the bulkhead. Pulling it around full circle, she clamped the end to the chain. She tugged hard on the chain. Satisfied it would hold, she concentrated on her connection with the Ursu. Flooding his mind with an overwhelming need for compassion.
She tried to ignore that part of her mind which knew it was too late for Dax.
Valiant (Jurassic War Universe Book 1) Page 25
