Superdreadnought- The Complete Series

by C H Gideon

  The pair slunk casually down a back hallway as Security ran past, no one having put together the similarity in robes yet. Jiya hoped they never would, and they could get through the casino and to the bottom floor before anyone was the wiser.

  “Hey, you there!” someone shouted. “You’re not allowed back there.”

  Jiya chuckled. I should have known better.

  Two security men came toward them as Jiya and Reynolds made their way toward the set of elevators at the end of the hall. Two more men were posted in front of the doors.

  “You need to turn around, folks,” one of the men nearest the door told them, stepping forward with a hand out, palm up. “Authorized personnel only.”

  “You take the front, I’ll take the back,” Reynolds passed using the comm chip. Jiya winced and covered it with a cough.

  Jiya nodded and pulled her hood back, acknowledging the approaching man. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she told him, holding her pace. “I was looking for the restrooms.” She grimaced. “I really have to go…bad.”

  “They’re back the other way, ma’am,” he replied, pointed down the hall, “You’ll need—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled. “Heard you the first time, asshole.”

  Her hand shot out and grabbed the man’s wrist. Before he could react, she bent it backward and spun into him, pressing her hip into his upper thigh. She flung him over her shoulder and head over heels he flew, thumping heavily onto the floor, breath exploding from him along with his consciousness.

  Reynolds shot down the hallway and met the two men coming from that direction. He drove a metallic fist into the first man’s jaw. There was a loud crack like a branch breaking off a tree, and the man dropped like a sack of mud.

  The second man didn’t even get a chance to shout. Reynolds backhanded him into the wall and the security man grunted and slumped to the floor, wide-eyed but staring at nothing.

  Jiya closed on her second target as Reynolds took care of his. She feinted a punch high, then dropped, sweeping the man’s legs out from under him. He cursed as he fell, reaching for his weapon. Jiya didn’t let him get anywhere near it.

  She scrambled across the floor and drove an elbow into the man’s face, followed by a second and a third. Powered by the armor, the blows slammed the man’s head into the floor. With nowhere to move to lessen the impact, the man was out in a flash. His arms flopped to the ground as consciousness fled his body.

  “Nicely done,” Reynolds told her as he came alongside and started digging in the man’s pockets. He pulled out a keycard and grinned. “Going down?”

  Jiya got to her feet and winked. “Sure, why not?”

  Reynolds triggered the elevator, and the door opened immediately. The pair stepped inside and waited as the door eased shut.

  The Muzak system bombarded them seconds later.

  “Oh, dear God,” Reynolds muttered. “What have I done to deserve the orchestral version of Bananarama’s Cruel Summer?”

  “I don’t know what a Bananarama is, but I kind of like it,” Jiya told him, nodding her head to the rhythm.

  “Ten thousand light years away and the universe clones Bananarama. It is a cruel summer indeed.” Reynolds shuddered. “We’re going to have to discuss your position as first officer if this is the kind of music you enjoy.”

  Jiya grinned, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what they might be facing below as the elevator dinged away floors. “It can’t be this easy, can it?”

  “Don’t jinx it,” he replied, “but probably not. Security’s distracted upstairs, which is the only reason we’ve made it this far.” He motioned to the obvious camera in the corner of the elevator. “I’m blocking this thing right now, but they’re going to notice shortly. We can expect a welcoming party once we reach the lower level.”

  “So we go out hard and fast?”

  Reynolds nodded. “As good a plan as any. The hallway opens to both sides of us if Comm didn’t screw up the blueprints for the place. We need to go left once we’re out of the elevator.”

  Jiya nodded. “Got it.”

  The song played on until the last ding sounded. Jiya and Reynolds moved to opposite sides of the elevator and crouched, waiting. She triggered the cloaking device Takal had installed in her suit and grinned when Reynolds blinked in her direction.

  “Uh, that’s interesting,” he said.

  “Takal’s little experiment,” she told him, amused by the look on his face as her voice came out of nowhere.

  “Nice,” he told her. “How long does the effect last?”

  “I guess we’re about to find out,” she answered as the doors crept open slowly.

  As soon as there was enough room to get out, Reynolds bolted out, and Jiya followed.

  A dozen security officers stood at the ready in the hall, weapons out.

  Reynolds slammed into the crowd, which had clustered too tightly together, and drove the mass of them into the wall at their backs. Weapons fired but the blasts went wild in the chaos.

  Invisible, Jiya unsheathed her Kami blades, remembering Reynolds’ warning, and slashed left and right at the same time. She cut through the barrels of two of the security men’s guns without them even seeing her. Explosions erupted as the men tried to fire at Reynolds, the blasts throwing the men into their companions.

  Reynolds was a whirlwind of fists and feet and elbows, plowing through the officers. A couple managed to get off shots on him, but other than scorching his robes, they did nothing to the skeletal frame of his android body.

  They were only able to fire once.

  He slammed into them, breaking bones before knocking them unconscious. Jiya took out the last few who’d managed to stumble out of the mass of their companions. She launched herself at them, sheathing her blades at the last second, exchanging thrusts for punches.

  She caught the first in his gut, bending him over double, then drove her armored knee into his chin. The impact reverberated up her leg with a satisfying thud. He went out without even seeing her.

  Then the suit flickered, and Jiya knew she was visible again.

  “Doesn’t last long,” she commented as she went after the second guy. “Bummer.”

  Able to see her now, the second officer slipped her punch and grinned at her, so she kicked him in the head. He slid down the wall and crumpled on the floor.

  Reynolds went through the crowd and broke all their weapons in half. “Can’t be too sure,” he told her as she looked at him questioningly, and waved her down the hall. “Come on, it’s only a little farther.”

  Jiya chased after him. At the end of the hall, there were two doors, one on each side. Reynolds pointed left, then right.

  “Servers and neural device.”

  “Who gets what?” she asked.

  He grinned, showing metal teeth. “I’m going after my credits. You shut the device down.”

  Before she could argue, he kicked the door open and ran inside. Shots rang out, and the thwap of metal hitting flesh sounded right after.

  Jiya kicked her door in and charged in low, expecting armed resistance. Instead, there were three techs in the room. They cried out in terror and threw themselves into a huddle in the back of the room.

  “Don’t hurt us!” one screamed.

  “They made us do it!” another called.

  Jiya ignored them, her eyes immediately drawn to the massive orb set in a cradle in the middle of the room. It looked like a giant eye, an inner black circle surrounded by lightning. It flickered and flashed, the brilliant lights dancing and caressing the clear glass orb that contained them. She stared at it for a moment, her gaze drawn inside before she realized it.

  “No, you don’t, you glowy bastard.”

  The annoying hum from earlier pushed hard against her skull, vibrating it, so she knew that this was the device. She circled the cradle and spied a number of cords running from it, obviously powering the thing, given their size.

  She thought about slashing the cords, but she realized that
would only make it easy for the techs to repair. No, she needed to make a point.

  Jiya unsheathed one of her Kami blades and stabbed the orb right in the center, whipping her arm around and slicing sphere in half. Sparks flew as the blade tore through the strange material. Flashes of energy lashed out and fizzled as the glass gave way beneath the blade.

  Then she slashed it again crossways, and a great slab toppled to the ground, shattering. The current flickered once, twice, then stopped as the shards bounced across the floor.

  She turned to the techs cowering in the corner. “Is there another of these somewhere around here?” she asked.

  They shook their heads in unison, and given their terror, she believed them.

  She slashed the cradle once, cutting a huge chunk from it, and spun on her heel, marching out into the hall. Reynolds was there waiting for her.

  “You get it handled?” he asked.

  “Yup. You?”

  He nodded. “We’re good to go.”

  “Then let’s gather up the good guys and go home.”

  The pair darted down the hall toward the elevator. The security men still crawled about on the floor, moaning and groaning and trying to gather their wits. The AI and Jiya stepped over them and entered the elevator, hitting the button for the main floor.

  An instrumental Adam Ant’s Stand and Deliver played them up.

  Geroux circled the casinos for what she figured was about the twentieth time. Security had chased her, but because of the large number of patrons milling about, caught in the haze of gambling thanks to the device, they hadn’t drawn their weapons and made it a real fight.

  As such, she just kept running around, lashing out and dropping an officer or two here and there, kicking and punching and doing her best to keep Maddox in sight.

  For his part, the ex-general simply righted his chair when he got the chance and sat at the table, waiting for the dealer to start up again. The entire time, he had a weird smile on his face. It looked almost painful at this point, even macabre, given the circumstances.

  Geroux faked left, then darted right as another officer came for her through the crowd, and she pushed her way out of a cluster of people. It was then that she caught sight of Maddox again.

  Only this time, the smile was gone.

  He glanced around as if he’d just woken up, obvious confusion on his face. It was clear he barely had any idea where he was. He stumbled out of his seat and away from the table.

  She noticed that the rest of the patrons were free of the device, too.

  What had been an almost unbearable hum of pleasantries and excitement turned instantly into a muddled bustle of complaints and uncertainty, the crowd lost and unsure of what was going on. Like Maddox, the people had no clue what they’d been doing or for how long, it appeared. They’d been slaves to the device.

  A good number of people slumped to the ground in apparent exhaustion. The device had fueled their adrenaline for so long that they were ready to pass out when it let them go. She hoped they would be okay.

  Geroux dodged another of the security officers, knocking him into the awakening crowd, and ran to Maddox’s side.

  “You ready to get out of here?” she asked him.

  He stared at her as if she were a ghost. “I…uh…”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, grabbing his arm and tugging him toward the exit, not giving him a chance to clear the cobwebs.

  With all the patrons becoming aware at once, the security team had forgotten all about her in their efforts to corral the sudden exodus of their cash cows. Announcements came over the loudspeakers, offering all sorts of deals and offers to entice them back, which only added to the confusion. Those well and truly hooked without the device pushed against those who’d broken free of the fugue and only wanted to leave, creating a total mess.

  Geroux joined the latter, and she and Maddox slipped outside and down the street unnoticed.

  Ka’nak raised his trembling fist to throw one last blow only, to have the breath knocked out of him. He face-planted in the sand, barely managing to roll to his side and suck in a weak breath.

  “Do you yield?” the warrior towering over him asked.

  Ka’nak lifted his eyes to the man and wondered how the hell he’d gotten there. He remembered signing up for a fight when he and Geroux had come to the pits, but he couldn’t recall much after that.

  If the agony scouring his body was any indication, he’d been fighting nonstop since that first one.

  Every breath hurt, and it was clear he had several broken ribs. His hands ached like they’d never ached before, and two of his fingers on his right hand were bent backward in a way they were never supposed to bend. He groaned and rolled onto his back.

  “Do you yield?” the warrior asked again.

  Ka’nak mumbled something, too much blood in his throat for it to be comprehensible, and offered the man a shaky thumbs-up.

  The crowd roared around him, vibrating the sand beneath his feet.

  His apparent opponent scooped him up and stood him on his feet, and it was all Ka’nak could do not to scream.

  “You are a true warrior, my friend,” the man told him through bruised and swollen lips. “I have never had a challenger like you.” He patted Ka’nak on the back, once more sending agony shrieking through the Melowi’s body. “Should you ever want to meet me in the pit again…go fuck yourself. I’m not doing that.”

  The warrior shambled off, limping, cradling one of his arms as Ka’nak stood there, stiffened wounds the only thing keeping him from collapsing.

  Once he caught his breath, he stumbled toward the exit, only to fall into a heap. The pit’s medical crew raced to his side, tossed him on a stretcher, and carried him out. He slumped onto the cot when they reached the medical bay and let them do their jobs, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision.

  An indeterminate time later, he heard a voice he recognized. “Get him on the shuttle,” it said. “We’ll patch his pathetic ass up in the Pod-doc.”

  And that was all he remembered.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jora’nal paced before Rasaka, letting his subordinate’s report resonate. “Are you sure of this?” he asked after several moments.

  “I am, master,” Rasaka answered. “There is no doubt that the craft that attacked our scout ship is from the Etheric Federation, newly arrived in this sector of space as reported by our spies on Lariest. It is the SD Reynolds.”

  “What’s it doing here?”

  Rasaka shrugged. “I don’t know, but it took the time to ransack the scout ship’s databases after it killed everyone onboard. It appears to me that they are looking for something.”

  “For us,” Jora’nal confirmed with a growl. “They are looking for us, Rasaka.”

  “But why?”

  “That I do not know, but I feel in my bones that they are hunting us. All of our kind, the Thra’kali,” Jora’nal told his follower. “They fear our gods, Rasaka. They fear the power of Phraim-‘Eh and his siblings. They fear what we might become.”

  “Then we must do something, master.”

  “We must indeed,” Jora’nal answered, “and we shall.”

  Jora’nal went back to pacing, rubbing his chin as he walked. At last, he stilled and turned back to his follower.

  “Gather our people and make ready,” he told Rasaka. “If they are coming for us, we will meet them on the field of battle. The Federation will rue their insolence, daring to seek us out.”

  Rasaka bowed low and left the room to do his master’s bidding. Jora’nal waited until he was gone to begin his pacing again.

  He had heard through Etheric channels that the Federation was expanding its reach, but he hadn’t expected them to spread so far. Yet, here they were, invading his territory and destroying ships in search of them.

  Jora’nal couldn’t let that affront stand. He would wipe the Federation ship and its crew from existence. The mystical Kurtherians would see, should Phraim
‘Eh wish to further bless them with an introduction.

  “Well, that was fun,” Reynolds muttered as the crew gathered on the bridge after they’d returned from Dal’las Tri. “How about we avoid getting caught up in a neural web trap next time around, huh?”

  Maddox groaned. “I feel like I’m hungover, but I didn’t even have a drink. Not that I know of, at least.”

  “You spent enough to have had a million drinks,” Tactical accused.

  Maddox grimaced. “Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I won’t be trusted with the funds from now on.”

  “While it doesn’t let you off the hook,” Reynolds told him, “I stole all you lost back from the casino, as well as some additional cash for the inconvenience of our having to go down there and kick ass to get you and Ka’nak back.”

  “I’m not sorry,” Ka’nak muttered, fresh out of the Pod-doc. “Mainly because I don’t remember doing a damn thing wrong.” He grunted. “I did, however, appear to win a whole shit-ton of credits while I was blacked out and punching people in the face.”

  Jiya nudged him in the side.

  Ka’nak groaned. “Which I’ll gladly contribute to the ship’s fund for disobeying orders and running off to fight—despite my not having any control over myself,” he said, glaring at Jiya. “Happy?”

  “That sounded sincere enough,” Jiya told the Melowi warrior.

  With a quick salute, he strolled from the bridge.

  “While we don’t have a clear indication as to who empowered these people down on Dal’las Tri, there’s nothing to indicate it was those Kurtherian bastards,” the XO remarked.

  Reynolds grunted. “That’s a shame. We could have nuked them from orbit.”

  “Only way to be sure,” Comm followed.

  “Indeed.” Reynolds grinned. “Anyway, I guess we move on and check the next system.” He waved to Helm. “We’ve decoded some of the information we grabbed from that Thra’kali scout ship, and it points to the Loran system as a possible location where we might find Kurtherians. Set a course, Helm, and let’s see if any of this intel pays off.”