“Subject?” Dax said and dropped to his knees.
Ben’s rotting fingers gently scraped Dax’s face.
“What have you done to my baby boy?” Dax said.
“We developed a serum,” Nia said. “It’s halted the decay. But we still have... work to do.”
Dax gently wrapped his arms around Ben and wept onto his face.
“Da... da.”
“Yes, Ben, Dada is so sorry for abandoning you to this. Please forgive Dada.”
Dax felt Ben’s tears fall and burn his face like acid. He held him closer.
Max whimpered and nuzzled Ben’s feet.
Dax heard footsteps and looked up at a small group of figures in power-armor. The lead runner stopped and raised her tinted visor. He recognized her.
“Blok?”
“Dax,” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
“You said you wanted Max to meet your son,” she said. “We brought him along.”
“We?”
Another figure raised a visor.
“Doc Ransom?”
“The lieutenant, with Captain Grint’s permission, suggested I might want to seek redemption through my admittedly rusty knowledge of genetics.”
Doc Ransom walked by Dax and held out his arms to Nia. They hugged.
“Are you a sight for old and sore eyes, Nia?”
“Hi, Doc,” Nia said.
“Will you have me on your team?”
“My team is lost. It’s just me and Alex. We could do with your help.”
“Alex?” Blok asked. “Alex Blok?”
“Yes,” Nia said. “Do you know him?”
Blok’s eyes popped wide. “Where is he?”
“Working on the serum,” she said and pointed to a dusty spaceship.
Blok flung her helmet to one side and sprinted up a troop ramp and into a large cruiser.
“Alex?” she shouted. “Alex?”
She found an intercom console on a wall and hit the button. “Alex? Alex?”
She waited. A shadow appeared. She spun around and looked up into her brother’s eyes.
“I got your calling card,” she said.
The man blinked as if seeing a ghost. His mouth moved, but he could utter no words.
“It’s me, Oksi.”
His solemn face broke into a smile. “Valiant, she’s--”
“Safe,” she said and threw her arms around him. She choked back tears. “Everything is fine... now.”
Alex peeled her arms off his neck. “No, Oksi,” he said. “Nothing is fine. There’s something I else I didn’t get a chance to warn you about.”
CHAPTER 105 - FOR THE MONEY
“Dax,” Rage said and pointed to the new arrivals. “Like you to meet fellow warp-ghosts. Bo-sun, Becky Rune, Wesley Jackson, Tess Child and Harley Link.”
“How do you know each other?” Dax asked.
“It’s a long story, Wesley Jackson,” said and shook Dax’s hand. He looked over Dax’s shoulder to Rage. “You told him, Colonel?”
“Not had a chance, yet Wesley.”
“Told me what?” Dax asked.
“About Siorus,” Rage said. “He was one of us.”
“A warp-ghost?”
“Correct.”
“But why would he want to sabotage himself?”
“The longer you remain a warp-ghost,” Rage said, “the easier it is to understand.”
“He was acting alone?” Dax asked.
“On that we’re not sure.”
Dax turned to Nia. “Walk with me.”
They strolled away from the parked spaceships and out of ear shot.
“So we need to get you and Ben off Mars,” he said.
“Agreed,” she said. “But we need to continue our work. Find a cure for Ben and all the others. Wherever we go, no one can ever know. Not even you, Commander.”
Dax looked across at Ben and Max playing and felt a pain in his chest. They seemed to be playing fetch with one of Ben’s rotted fingers.
The back of Dax’s left hand began to itch. He glanced at the console message running across his contact lens.
The message read: Lupos intelligence file decrypted.
A video played over his contact lens. Two figures stood in shadow. A billion stars formed the backdrop through a glass dome observation deck which seemed to Dax much like that of USF Valiant.
“You’ve been briefed on the Vanguard Priest’s prophecy of seven?” a man said and his voice seemed so familiar, but Dax couldn’t place it. He ran a voice recognition algorithm.
The other shadow nodded. “My money?” asked a woman. Her voice, though disguised by static, seemed familiar.
“Held in escrow until the Vanguard’s mess is cleaned. Nothing must be traceable back to me.”
“You want them all eliminated?” asked a woman and again her voice, though disguised by static, seemed familiar.
“Only if they reach Mars,” said the man in the shadows. “Make sure they never leave that planet with what they discover there.”
“Understood,” the woman said. “And what of Siorus’s failure?”
“Ingratiate yourself with Rage and Dax. Accompany them to Mars. Seize the ghost-warp sphere. Kill them all.”
“Understood.”
“Fail me like Siorus and know this: there is no galaxy where you will be safe from us.”
The first rays of a sunshine reached over the horizon of planet and illuminated the pair. Dax paused the footage and zoomed in on their faces. He recognized Admiral Finnean and Captain Argyle Valkyrie.
Dax swallowed hard and silently cursed. He reached for his plasma pistol. But he realized it was laying in the dust a hundred feet away. He forced all his willpower to avoid looking at Valkyrie. He slowly, as casually as possible, began walking toward the pistol.
As if attracted by the magnetism of his willpower, Valkyrie walked over to him.
Their eyes met. Without meaning to, he felt himself read her thoughts and felt the stench of her treachery on his skin. But without possessing the subtle training of a Vanguard, he realized he had alerted her. That she now knew he suspected her.
She drew her weapon and shouted. “Everyone stop and listen. No one is getting off this planet.”
“What the hell are you talking about Valkyrie?” Rage said and stepped forward.
Valkyrie swung her plasma rifle around to Rage and shot him in the stomach. He dropped to his knees.
“Why, Argyle?” Rage asked. “What was your price of betrayal?”
“The fate of Earth and mankind is sealed,” she said. “I’m simply doing what I must to survive.”
“For the money?” Dax asked. “Who’s your pay master? Finnean?”
She turned to Dax. “I’m glad you got a chance to reunite with your son. Now say goodbye to Ben for the last time, Commander.”
CHAPTER 106 - TRAITOR’S BULLET
Van Cleef felt his stomach twist into knots as he stared at Valkyrie.
“You were one of us,” he said. “Bound to us in blood and in so many ways.”
Valkyrie turned to Van Cleef as he sprinted across the dust and raised his plasma rifle.
She squeezed her trigger and cut him down. He tumbled backwards into the dust.
“Argyle,” Dax said, “as a warp-ghost you have a unique chance to set all things right. No one else gets a second chance like we do. Give it up now, and we can strike a deal.”
She shook her head. “I’ve tried. It’s a curse, Dax. We are given a second chance, yes, but a hundred chances are all cursed to fail. One way or another, the more we change the past, the more our future remains the same. Surely you’ve learned that much?”
She raised her rifle and aimed it at Dax. “Did they not tell you the Vanguard priest’s prophecy?”
Dax shook his head.
She laughed. “Of course they didn’t.”
“If I’m to die,” Dax said, “tell me.”
“That’s just it,” she said. “The p
riest prophesied that the leader of the seven must die to find all his answers.”
She squeezed her trigger and two shots rang out. Her rifle jerked upwards. Dax felt a searing pain in one shoulder. A look of confusion crossed Valkyrie’s face as she half turned toward a troop ramp.
Blok stepped down from the ramp. Smoke billowed out from the barrel of her plasma pistol.
Valkyrie slumped to her knees. Her face hit the dust. Blood pooled from her mouth into the dust.
Dax looked across to Blok.
“For a moment,” he said, “I thought you were going to shoot me.”
“For a moment I was.”
He gritted his teeth with the searing pain of the plasma eating through his armor. He ran to Valkyrie.
Bubbles of blood spurted from Valkyrie’s lips. Dax cradled her head in his lap.
Ransom knelt over Valkyrie. He checked her injuries. He met Dax’s gaze and shook his head.
“Why, Argyle?” Dax cried. “You had everything going for you. Career. Respect. Did our friendship mean nothing to you?”
“There’s nothing left for me on Earth, Dax,” she said in painful rasps. “Life there’s doomed.”
“We can beat them,” Dax said.
“No Dax. After the Vanguard prophecy of seven completes, it gives way to the prophecy of three.”
She reached up to him and clawed at his face. “It curses us all. I had no choice. Forgive me...”
“What are talking about?” Dax cried. “What is this prophecy of three?”
She stared up through a cloud of blood.
He felt for a pulse. Nothing.
“Damn it,” he said and closed her eyelids. “I needed her alive.”
Rage walked over. When Ransom fussed over him, Rage grimaced.
“Power-suit med-bots neutralized the plasma, Doc,” Rage said and waved Ransom away. “Thank you.”
Dax looked up at Rage. “You think your people can make ready one these ships for take-off?”
Rage nodded. “Harley Link,” Rage said and pointed to a large black man. “Best engineering officer in the fleet.”
“With this scrap yard, maybe if we cannibalize parts from a dozen ships,” Link said, “we could get a functional, no frills ship ready for flight in a week.”
“Need it yesterday,” Dax said.
“Commander even with the help of Tess and Bo Sun--”
“I can give you an hour, no more.”
“Commander, I understand the urgency for your son--”
“You understand nothing, Link.”
Harley sighed. “Maybe if we had the--”
Dax felt inside his armor and retrieved the sphere.
Harley’s eyes lit up. Dax tossed it to him and Harley caught it.
“An hour it is, Commander.”
Linked nodded to Tess Child and Bo Sun and together then ran up the ramp of the nearest ship.
Dax turned to see Van Cleef kneeling over Valkyrie.
Dax walked over to the marine sergeant and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your captain,” he said. “I guess she had good reasons for her actions. We’ll never know.”
“You let me believe Olsen’s death was my fault,” Van Cleef said and spat in Valkyrie’s face. “What turned you into a traitor?”
He stood and met Dax’s gaze.
“She had us all fooled,” Dax said.
“Whatever you need,” Van Cleef said as his eyes reddened and he snorted back his feelings. “Space marines got your back from here to the gates of hell, Commander, and beyond.”
Dax nodded. “I may call upon you all for just that.”
***
One hour later, Dax stood with Ben and Max.
“Daddy needs you to go with Nia and Doctor Ransom,” he said. “They are going to cure you.”
Ben threw his arms around Dax. “Daddy, come.”
Dax needed all his strength to keep it together.
“I can’t, Ben. Daddy has to save the galaxy from the bad people who did this to you.”
“Dada save Mom?”
Dax looked down into Ben’s wet eyes.
Dax felt the stench of the lies that festered on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed hard.
“Mom’s gone to a better place. Safe from harm. Safe from the bad people.”
Ben looked down at Max. “Max, come?”
Max barked and wagged his tail.
“Sure, Ben,” Dax said. “Max come.”
Nia put her arms around Ben and led him away up the ramp to a ship.
Dax shook hands with Doc Ransom. “I’ve been looking at her work, XO,” Ransom said. “She’s brilliant. Perhaps the best I’ve seen.”
“Can it be done?”
“A full reversal of the disease? With time, perhaps. But however long it takes, I’ll see it through.”
“Good enough, Doc.”
They shook again.
Nia returned. “Can’t tell you where we’re going. Or even give you a way to contact us. You understand?”
He nodded. “I’ll wait for your call.”
“It could be... years.”
“If there’s anything you need, anything...”
She nodded. “Colonel Rage’s team is helping.”
“You trust them?”
“I’m helping them with their unique affliction. Again, it could take years of research. So for now I trust them, yes, we’re safe.”
They shook hands and Dax watched as she returned to her ship with Doc Ransom.
“Dax,” Blok said and walked over with a young man. “This is my brother, Alex. He’s the one who warned me about Valkyrie.”
“And that’s not all,” Alex said. “Commander, I have evidence of a consortium responsible for the Vanguard experimentation on humans. I’m prepared to testify.”
“It may not come to that, Alex.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even if we get off this planet alive and make it to Valiant, there’s the small matter of the Mars Defense Force. The best of the USF, Ursu, Lupos and Vanguard warships. If we don’t convince them to stand down, ours will be the shortest lived rebellion in galactic history.”
CHAPTER 107 - VALIANT’S DILEMMA
Hannibal stood to attention in front of the holograph of Admiral Finnean. Beyond the holograph out though the large window of Valiant’s conference room, the sleek gunmetal grey of her sister ship, Invincible, sliced through the Martian horizon.
“I’d ask you aboard, Grint,” Finnean said “But this is not a social call.”
Hannibal remained silent. He knew he’d only have one chance to influence Finnean through the seething rage that seemed to be consuming the admiral.
“Grint, I’m ordering Valiant to stand down. Deny landing privileges to the incoming shuttlecraft heading toward you. Or face destruction from the Mars Defense Force.”
Grint’s beard itched like a nest of fire ants. It felt on fire. He couldn’t hold it in any longer. “You’d really fire upon one of our own, Admiral?”
“You brought this on yourself, Grint.”
“Admiral, Valiant is on a humanitarian mission. We have two thousand civilian survivors of Hermes on board. All of them casualties of experimentation by Vanguard.”
Finnean’s eyes narrowed. He looked away as if someone else were in the room. His shoulders slumped. A moment later he looked back to Hannibal.
“Comply, or have their deaths on your conscience, Grint. Finnean out.”
His hologram resolved to static.
Hannibal scratched at his beard and glanced at the hologram of Blok’s broadcast from the shuttle Medea 5. He glanced over her shoulder at the others in the cabin of the shuttlecraft.
“You want to speak with the XO, or Colonel Rage, Captain?”
“No, Lieutenant, I want your expertise. Who else was in the room with Finnean?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Don’t give me that. Find out.”
Blok manipulated her hologram console a
nd brought up a replay of the moment Finnean had glanced away. She zoomed in on the reflective surface of Finnean’s retina. She enlarged the image of his eye to the size of the cabin wall.
“Algorithms will clean up the image, Captain.”
Slowly the blurry eyeball rendered into a clearer image. They watched in silence.
Finnean’s eyeball showed the clear image of President Xylo Arc. She let it hang in the air a moment before ending the footage with a violent sweep of her arm.
Hannibal turned to Blok. “Got any influence on your future mother in-law?”
“I’ve not spoken with her since Alex...” Blok swallowed hard. “With your permission, Captain I could try to--”
“Do it. Now.”
“Blok swiped the back of her left hand over the hologram console and initiated a direct Q-NET video call.
A grey static ball appeared in the center of the room. Hannibal stepped out of the field of the cameras to avoid being seen.
“She’s not answering,” Blok said.
“Keep trying.”
The static ball resolved into the image of Xylo Arc.
“Madam President, what--”
Xylo Arc looked up with tears in her eyes.
“Betrayal from one’s only remaining child is as painful as it is inevitable.”
“Madam President--”
“Forgo formalities, Xylo, please, Oksana,” Madam President said. “I know what Alex has done.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “What can I do for you?”
Blok felt her hands ball into fists behind her back. You can damn well call off your attack dogs...
“Xylo, we’re on a humanitarian mission to--”
“You were all dead the moment you rescued them. Better to have allowed them to serve a greater humanitarian cause.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Is captain Grint listening?”
“No, he’s--”
“I know when you’re lying, Oksana. After all I’ve known you your entire life. No matter. All long range Q-NET broadcasts are blocked. No one will know how close you came to causing the most atrocious genocidal disaster in the universe.”
“But it’s you, Xylo. You’re doing this. I can understand Sol Morlok’s motivations, but how can you be behind the hijack of Hermes? How could you betray the human race like this?”
Valiant (Jurassic War Universe Book 1) Page 43
