Valiant (Jurassic War Universe Book 1)

by Kristoff Chimes

  “Two...”

  He swallowed hard and tried not to look down. Instead, he looked up at the swirling clouds directly ahead. Parting like a vortex into which he would soon vanish.

  “Three.”

  Blasting out of the vortex, a silver spaceship cut through the cloud and soared up the sheer cliff face. Gun turrets swung around to face Dax and pumped out blue bolts of plasma.

  The ship’s name plate glistened in the light of the plasma fire: Yinkaid.

  Dax shoved Fyre to one side and they fell back heavily.

  Rows of strafing fire cut through the Vanguard legionnaires. The ship swooped over Dax’s head and performed a sharp one eighty. Returning for another strafing. Dax pushed Fyre behind a rock and they waited out the attack.

  The cries of Vanguards pummeled his senses. No matter how much he hated the Vanguards, this slaughter turned his stomach. He laughed as he cried with the prospect that maybe somewhere deep inside him humanity resided. He heard a small voice in the back of his head mocking that hope.

  The strafe attack ended. The silver ship performed a landing sequence on the far side of the bluff. Dax’s ears rang. Almost bleeding with silence.

  He peered from behind the rock as the landing ramp lowered and the rear exit doors slid open. A young boy stood at the top of the ramp. Next to him two human women stood. A blonde and a brunette.

  As soon as the landing legs hit the ground and the ramp clanged against the rock, the boy ran down the ramp and threw himself into Bron’s arms.

  Dax ran to Codi. “Glaw flying this thing?”

  Codi Nodded.

  The Yinkaid rose into the air and hovered above their heads.

  “Who are these women?” Bron asked.

  “Jess and Francesca. We met them at the casino.”

  Bron blinked. Hard. “I don’t want to know anymore.”

  Jess and Francesca jumped down from the ramp and walked over to Dax.

  “Heard all about you, Commander,” Jess said and blew a mood gum bubble.

  “From Glaw?”

  She shook her head. “From USFI High Command.”

  She saluted. “Major Jess Jones, of USFI deep cover division. And this,” she indicated Francesca, “is Colonel Francesca Franks.”

  “What’s your mission on Vanguard, Colonel?”

  “Need to know.”

  “Anything to do with the disappearance of Hermes?”

  Jess Jones shook her head. “El-Hex is our target.”

  “The gangster?”

  She nodded.

  “Quite a party you’re having,” Francesca said. “Did we miss the best part?”

  “It’s barely started.”

  As the Yinkaid rose higher, five blue streaks of plasma fire shot out of the clouds and tore the ship in half.

  Shards of metal tumbled down on Dax.

  CHAPTER 87 - THE DEATH OF GLAW

  Dax and Myf helped pull Glaw out the burning wreckage of the ship. With Van Cleef and Thor’s help they dragged Glaw clear of the exploding engines.

  Dax shook the Ursu. Glaw remained unconscious. Dax checked a pulse.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” Dax said, “he’s gone.”

  Myf fell to her knees and punched Glaw’s solid body. “I hate you,” she shouted. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Codi pawed at Glaw’s face.

  Fyre pushed Codi out of way.

  “Why waste tears?” she asked. “Don’t you know water is scarce on this planet?”

  “They’re not tears,” Codi said. “They’re saltwater mixed with a secret ingredient.”

  Fyre removed a leather cord from around her neck. On the end of the cord dangled a blue crystal. She placed it on Glaw’s forehead and then placed her hands over Glaw’s heart.

  The crystal began to glow. She closed her eyes and visualized Glaw’s soul escaping his body.

  “Return,” she said. “Your work is not yet done here.”

  She watched as the glowing energy of the crystal sang to her. It traveled into her body. She felt her body shiver with the energy. She visualized it flowing down her arms and into her hands.

  When she was sure she could contain the energy no more, she pumped at Glaw’s heart. He jolted.

  She pumped at his heart once more. She began to sing in a whisper. Ancient words that mirrored the energy of the crystal. Words outlawed in Vanguard. Banned from being sung in the gin the presence of anyone not of Vanguard heritage.

  For this reason alone, she knew they would not allow her to leave the planet alive.

  Glaw’s lips trembled. “Heard there’s a party to crash?” he said.

  “Glaw!” Codi shouted. “You’re alive.”

  “It’s magic,” Codi said and hugged Glaw.

  “How superstitiously quaint of you human,” Fyre said and shook her head. She returned the necklace around her neck. “Sophisticated sound waves technology enhanced and funneled by this jewel.”

  “Sound waves?”

  “They help amplify the psychic connection to the soul.”

  With Myf’s help, Glaw sat up. “Got to get me a crate of those things,” he said. “What do they retail at?”

  “It is extremely rare,” she said.

  “Everything can be negotiated.”

  Fyre shook her head. “Somethings are priceless.”

  “Every thing’s got a price,” Glaw said.

  Myf glared at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “‘Every thing’s got a price?’” she asked. “Like friendship? Like bailing on me when things got tough?”

  “I didn’t mean--”

  “And that’s your problem Glaw,” Myf said. “You never mean anything. You never intentionally act. You just roll with the punches until the good times roll your way. Can’t you take anything seriously?”

  She turned her back on Glaw and walked away.

  “I came back didn’t I?” Glaw asked. “That’s got to mean something, right?”

  “Maybe,” said Dax. “But unless we can contact Valiant, or unless you got a plan to get us out of here, then it looks like this is our last stand.”

  Glaw shrugged and shakily stood. He stared out across the clearing at the foot of Temple Mountain. He listened to the wind and tried to imagine the way it sounded back home on Ursu when it rocked the honey hives hanging from the bows of trees in the dark forest. He couldn’t separate his memories of the smell of honey from the smell of charred flesh rising up from the clearing.

  He swallowed hard. “I never wanted to be king,” he said. “All that responsibility for billions of lives terrified me. That’s the reason I ran away. Now what I wouldn’t give for a chance to rule my kingdom. Instead, I’m going to die on an alien planet far from home.”

  He turned to Dax. “But I’ve still got fight left in me. If you’re game, we can give them Vanguards a bloody nose. Go down fighting?”

  Dax nodded. “Is there any other way?”

  CHAPTER 88 - IGNIS SANGUINEM

  With the twin suns climbing over the horizon, sentry duty ended Dax’s resolve. Exhaustion dropped Dax to his knees and forced his eyes closed. He succumbed for a just second to the seductive bliss of shutting out the scene of charred bodies. If only he could blot out the stench of congealing blood and barbecued flesh.

  He knew any Vanguard Legionnaire needed only a few seconds to scale the cliffs to his position and slash his throat. But he accepted death as something welcome.

  “Commander, they’re gone.”

  Dax jolted awake. He looked up at Valkyrie’s blood stained and smoke-blackened face.

  He swallowed hard to lubricate his parched throat. It felt like gargling sandpaper.

  “Gone?”

  “The Vanguards. All of them.”

  Dax blinked hard and shook his head. He knew he must be mishearing. He clicked his thumbnail against his forefinger to test his hearing. All seemed fine.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Scouts are coming back. A
ll report the entire bluff is vacated. I think we...”

  She fought back tears. “Commander, I think we won.”

  Dax forced himself to stand and leaned against a Vanguard spear for support.

  He stumbled around the bluff and stared out across the river leading to the ocean. Not a sign of a single Vanguard legion. He turned to Valkyrie and nodded. Too exhausted to smile.

  Dax rolled his neck and felt a knot of tension crack.

  “Form burial parties. Separate the Vanguard dead from our own. Collect weapons.”

  “You think they’ll be back.”

  “To collect their dead.”

  “It will take days to bury our dead.”

  “Burn them.”

  Valkyrie nodded.

  He called after her. She turned to him

  “When that’s done you can arrest me, as you wish.”

  She glanced up at the sky. “I don’t see much chance of any rescue, do you?”

  He felt the energy of a lifetime of words, orders, hopes and dreams drain out of him. He remained silent.

  He watched hundreds of people climb down from the lower bluff and search the circle clearing for their loved ones. He watched the marines organize teams and drag dead Vanguard into a large pile of bodies. His eyes felt unable to take in so much soulless activity.

  Fyre, Codi, Bron and Myf joined him on the widest bluff overlooking the clearing on one side, and the ocean on the other. The contrast with the blue and crimson balls of fire gliding across the ocean and the peace of the dead struck him.

  “You did it,” Bron said.

  “We did it.”

  Dax glanced over to Fyre. She stared out across the lower bluff to the far side of the rock circle.

  He studied her eyes as they grew wider. “What is it?”

  “Can you hear that?”

  He listened to a faint chanting. It grew louder with each second. Like a choir of voices rising in intensity and increasing the tempo.

  “Dax, call them back,” she said. “Now!”

  The circular ridge of the clearing glinted with the suns reflecting off ten thousand Vanguard legionnaire helmets.

  “No!” Bron yelled and gripped Codi’s shoulder. “It can’t be.”

  The legion rose head and shoulders above the ridge.

  “They’re singing?” Dax said.

  “Taunting us,” Bron said.

  Myf nodded. “Mocking us.”

  Fyre laughed. Dax whipped around to her. “What’s so damn funny?”

  “They are neither mocking, nor taunting us,” Fyre said. “Hear their words. Feel them.”

  He strained to hear. He couldn’t make out the dialect, but he felt the meaning.

  “You mean they’re--”

  She nodded. “They are saluting the brave human warriors who lasted the night of ten thousand legionnaires.”

  “So they’re letting us live?” Codi asked.

  Fyre’s smile waned. “Vanguard’s politicians will not allow us to live. They will unleash the legions upon us, one last time.”

  Dax peered out through binoculars into the dawn light. Shadows moved across the rocks. Thousands of them.

  “They’re coming.”

  CHAPTER 89 - DIVERSION

  Valkyrie approached Fyre with unease. Fyre’s intense eyes unnerved her. She avoided them.

  “Look, whatever the rights and wrongs of your politics,” Valkyrie said, “we’re all in this situation together. OK?”

  “Is that an apology, Captain Valkyrie?”

  Valkyrie shrugged. “It’s a request for help in this final assault of your people.”

  “I am not battle trained.”

  “Whatever you know about their tactics is more than me and my squad. So far we’ve been lucky. They could have bombed us. Wiped us out in minutes. But they didn’t.”

  “It wasn’t luck,” Fyre said. “This is holy ground. Only hand to hand combat and ancient weaponry is permitted.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Valkyrie said. “We didn’t know this. Help us please.”

  “And if I do, you’ll forget about arresting Dax?”

  “Don’t ask me to neglect my duty, ma’am.”

  Thor and Van Cleef and the few remaining marines stared at Fyre.

  Fyre stared out into the dawn sky as she listened for careless thoughts.

  “Tell me first how you have so far engaged with the Vanguard assault,” Fyre said.

  “They move so fast,” Valkyrie said, “and in such unpredictable patterns we’ve resorted to laying down wide suppression fire in the vain hope they just run into the bullets.”

  Fyre turned back to Valkyrie. “Their ground assault is a diversion. I suggest you continue as you were, but look to the sky.”

  “The sky?”

  “That is where their decisive assault will come from.”

  Valkyrie avoided her intense eyes.

  “Here they come, Captain,” Van Cleef shouted.

  Weaving in and out of the rocks and gullies, legionnaires sprinted faster than Valkyrie’s marines could shoot.

  Valkyrie gave the order to retreat to higher ground. The final battle would be the highest bluff that sheltered the remaining passengers under a large over hanging outcrop.

  The sky lit up. A ship cloaked in a cloud of subtle pastel lights glided across the sky. Blue beams of plasma shot out of the ship and blasted the mountain above the sheltering passengers. The outcrop sheared off and plummeted into the crowd below.

  “So much for religious protocol,” Van Cleef said. “Captain, they’re burying us alive.”

  CHAPTER 90 - ALL HAIL GLAW

  The Vanguard assault ship exploded. Passing through the cloud of its debris, three vast ships landed in the clearing at the foot of Temple Mountain. The troop ramps crashed down onto Vanguard legionnaires.

  At the top of the troop ramps, the doors slid aside. A cacophony of roars emanated from the ships as giant shadows assembled and sent a chill through Dax’s body.

  “I don’t believe it,” Glaw shouted. “It can’t be.”

  “Who are they?” Dax asked.

  Glaw bounded down the mountain path, sweeping Vanguards out of his way. Dax chased after him.

  A herd of T.Rex appeared at the top of the ramps. Their riders in gleaming armor charged their T.Rex down the ramps and into the Vanguard legions. The T.Rexes carved a wide path through the legions until they came to the foot of Temple Mountain.

  The Vanguards began to flee. But here was nowhere for them to go. The T.Rex herd surrounded them.

  As Dax caught Glaw at the foot of the mountain, he realized their saviors had no mercy.

  The slaughter ended with the lead T.Rex rider directing his beast to slow and stop before Glaw. The rider lifted the visor of his armored helmet. A Polar Ursu’s snout protruded through the opening of his helmet.

  Glaw stood in the path of the Ursu herd.

  He held out his wrists and sank to his knees.

  “Spare these humans and I shall come quietly,” Glaw shouted and lowered his head.

  “You know these Ursu?” Dax asked Glaw.

  Glaw said nothing.

  The lead Ursu rider glanced around him at the other riders and then looked down on Glaw.

  He stood up in his saddle and beat an armored fist against his chest armor where his heart would be.

  He shouted, “All hail, Glaw, the true King of all Ursu.”

  The chant of hail Glaw echoed around the clearing.

  Glaw glanced up in surprise. “You mock me?” he bellowed.

  The lead rider removed his helmet and shook his head. “We honor you.”

  “I’m a fugitive with a price on my head,” Glaw said. “Did not King Barrex send you to bring me back to Ursu in chains?”

  The lead rider spoke to his second in command. A bundle was handed to him which he tossed to the ground and let it roll to Glaw’s feet.

  Glaw dropped his arms by his side and stooped. He cautiously unwrapped the bundle
. He dropped it and stepped back.

  Dax stared down at the severed head of an old Ursu. Its cloudy eyes stared out with fear. Upon its head sat a bloody gold crown.

  The lead rider forced his beast to kneel. He leapt from the saddle and took the crown from the severed head.

  “Lower your paws Glaw Brynmor. Chains are not needed today,” he said and placed the crown on Glaw’s head. “All hail, Glaw, of house Brynmor, and rightful King of Ursu.”

  A hundred T.Rex riders lifted their visors and roared.

  Glaw took the offered paw and shakily stood. He glanced at Dax.

  “How does a lowlife scum-ball smuggler become a king?” Dax asked.

  “Beats me,” Glaw said. “Hey, who you calling a smuggler?”

  The lead rider knelt before Glaw. “I, Tanax of house Polar swear allegiance to you, my king.”

  “Dude,” Glaw said, “you need to convince me I ain’t delirious. And maybe explain this before I ask my friend Dax here to shoot me in the foot to wake me up.”

  “We received the Arena of Death broadcast of your speech,” Tanax said. “The Ursu houses united in uprising back home.”

  “All of them?”

  “Some resist,” Tanax said. “It is imperative you take your throne now.”

  “Back to Ursu?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  Glaw caught Dax’s eye. “I guess this is where we part, dude.”

  CHAPTER 91 - CRUCIFIED

  “My father’s missing,” Fyre said.

  Dax borrowed a pair of binoculars from Valkyrie. From the high bluff he scanned the perimeter.

  “Glaw, we should check for any survivors.”

  Glaw yawned. “I’ve done my charity bit for the day,” Glaw said. “I need a long, long sleep. Six months should do it.”

  Dax focused on a steel wheel. A dozen Vanguard legionnaires hoisted it up in place. It seemed similar to the one erected above the Colosseum. Its sharp spokes rotated slowly in the air, some forty feet above the ground.

  Two men were lashed to it. One man on either side. Their arms stretched up to the point of snapping off their limbs across the ‘V’ shape in the center.

  A Vanguard crucifixion.

  Flaming arrowheads embedded deep into their limbs. As the wheel turned, a breeze fanned the flames along the spokes.