Extinction Wars: 02 - Planet Strike Read online

  “You give me hope, Commander Creed. I hadn’t realized—well, never mind. It probably wouldn’t make sense to you. Perhaps some of you, warriors such as yourself, at least, can work with us. The others we tested…”

  I could feel N7 watching me.

  The android did so for good reason. I hated the idea of Lokhars testing humans. Sometimes, though, one had to swallow his pride. Sometimes, one had to go Starkien and get sneaky. I decided that as long as I was in Indomitable, I would act with tiger formality. I had to remember they were inordinately religious, too. Did the two go hand in hand? I didn’t know.

  “Here is how we will proceed,” Sant said. “I suggest we familiarize ourselves with each other. I will…hmm…coach you on the correct way to address the High Lord Admiral. He is ultra-conservative in bearing and dignity. He is a Lokhar of immense gravity. It would be unwise to use any of your informality and primitivism with him. Can we agree to that?”

  “I’d like to know your objective, Doctor Sant. Why has the Lokhar Pride attacked Earth one minute and now believe we’ll help you the next?”

  “The reasons are excellent as I’m sure you’ll agree once I tell you.”

  “So tell me.”

  Doctor Sant might have. Before he had the opportunity, the door slid up. N7 and I turned around.

  Tigers in elaborate dress uniforms and bearing baroque rifles marched into the chamber. Like WWI-style German soldiers, they had single spikes on their helmets. It made them seem nine feet tall. Then I realized these tigers were bigger than the ordinary ones.

  “Indomitable’s Imperial Guard,” Sant whispered. “You must be on your best behavior, I implore you.”

  I wondered why that should be. The guards marched into the room, about thirty of them. They marched in perfect unison, parting around us until they encircled N7, Doctor Sant and me. Only then did the High Lord Admiral make his appearance. The tiger swaggered into the football-sized chamber. He wore his fancy braid and carried an ornate baton like a Sixteenth century marshal used to hold when artists painted his portrait.

  The admiral halted, studying me as one might a trained pit bull.

  Doctor Sant spoke in a ringing voice, “Bow low, Commander Creed, for you are in the presence of Prince Venturi of Orange Tamika, the High Lord Admiral of Dreadnought Indomitable, an Explorer First Class and a soldier of the combat school of Sha-karn.”

  -11-

  I didn’t bow. I didn’t even incline my head. This bastard had ordered the death of my father and the Earth. I’d sooner stick my Bowie in his chest than grant him the slightest honor.

  “My apologies, Prince,” Sant said. “I haven’t yet had time to teach him the correct protocol.”

  “Time isn’t the issue,” Venturi said in a gruff voice. “Besides, he is a killer and a savage. Protocol means nothing to such as him.”

  “Perhaps—”

  Venturi raised a heavy paw. Lokhar fingers were blunter than ours were and shorter. Well, not in actual size, but in proportion to their larger bodies. He had three different fleshy pads on each finger, without hair. Like a human finger, there were three parts or joints.

  The doctor fell silent.

  “I am well able to defend my honor,” Admiral Venturi said. “If I desire, my guards shall beat the offender to death. Nothing in fact would please me more…except obeying the suggestions of the oracle.” He regarded me. “It is the only thing keeping you alive.”

  I waited, wondering what this oracle had said that would keep the tiger from killing me.

  “It appears to understand patience,” Venturi said. “That is a useful trait in a killer.”

  “Why don’t you make your pitch,” I said.

  “Now see here, Commander Creed,” Sant said. “You cannot speak to a prince of the Orange Tamika—”

  “We will make allowances today,” Venturi told the doctor. “The sands of fate run against us. We have no more time for useless arguing.” He made growling noises before regarding me. “I find you offensive, human. Your stench, your arrogance and your buffoonery all conspire to enrage me against you. For your disobedience of my order concerning the Starkiens, I should rend you limb from limb.”

  I eased forward onto my toes, ready to draw my Bowie and attacked. If it hadn’t been for the defenseless freighters racing to the Sun in an attempt to escape… I eased back onto my heels, waiting.

  “Instead of gratifying my desires,” Venturi said, “I will show you a marvel that confounds League scientists, holy adepts and emperors alike. It is a terror from beyond time, and I’m gambling your primitive mind has the wit to understand its significance.”

  The prince or admiral aimed his baton at the ceiling and pressed several buttons on the end. Half of the chamber darkened. Within the gloom, a holoimage of the Altair Object appeared against the background of stars. The Forerunner artifact was torus or donut-shaped as I’ve said before, with a black hole in the center. I’d been told the First Ones had constructed it ages ago. An asteroid maze orbited the object. On the circling rocks, the Lokhar Fifth Legion waited. To them this was holy space, the artifact venerated in the name of the Creator.

  I don’t know where Venturi got the footage, but he replayed the combined Starkien-Android-Assault Trooper attack against it. He used speeded images, slowing a few times to show a particularly savage conflict. Starkien ships expelled masses of assault boats, which closed against the maze and disgorged sled-riding troopers. All the while, Lokhar lasers beamed from asteroid domes, destroying attackers. The footage brought back bitter memories. Thousands of assault troopers perished that day, although Lokhar legionaries died, too. Finally, legionaries retreated toward the center Forerunner artifact. Then it happened again. The object brightened like something from Heaven before growing fainter and fainter. Finally, it disappeared, taking a number of Fifth Legion soldiers with it.

  “You witnessed a miracle,” Venturi said in a rough voice. “The Jelk Corporation desired the artifact and went to great lengths to acquire it. Instead of allowing that to happen, it would appear that the Creator summoned the artifact home. Those who know about the sacrilegious assault believed such an event occurred, or the majority did anyway. What else could have caused a miracle?”

  The Forerunner artifact had been troubling me for some time. What did it do? Why did the Jade League venerate it as something from the Creator if the First Ones had built it? And finally—

  “Why did the Jelk want it?” I blurted.

  “Eh?” Venturi asked, tearing his gaze from the holoimage to scowl at me.

  “He does not understand his breach of protocol, Lord,” Sant said. “He deserves a beating—”

  “Cease,” Venturi said. “Having him in my presence is belittling enough. Yet if I can stomach his nearness, I can endure his apish chatter, too, I suppose. He thirsts for knowledge, which is a sign of intelligence after all. We can be grateful for that.”

  “Yes, Lord,” Sant said.

  “Here I am an admiral, Doctor. I am not on homeworld at court. It is against the diktat of Purple Tamika for you to address me as nobility in this place.”

  “Yes…Admiral,” Sant said. “I am abashed at my conduct—”

  “Cease,” Venturi said. “We have no time for strict formality.”

  Doctor Sant bowed his head.

  Venturi regarded me. “As to your question, I believe the artifact has spawning implications.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Indeed,” Venturi said. “Hmm… I spoke with Naga Gobo before he perished. I found the encounter demeaning but useful. You might be interested to learn that the Starkien knew you had turned a Jelk incorporeal.”

  “You know a lot,” I said.

  “The Lokhars and then the Jade League have warred against the corporation for generations. Yes, we know the basic nature of the Jelk. In essence, they are energy beings able to house themselves in bodies of flesh and blood. The holy adepts believe Jelk crave sensations.” Venturi studied me. “I
do not know if you have the capacity to understand this, but: the Jelk did not originate in our universe, but came from outside it.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Do you mean they originated in a parallel universe?” N7 asked.

  Venturi’s head whipped about as he stared at N7. The tiger growled low in his throat and hunched his shoulders as claws appeared at the end of his fingertips. “Keep your machine silent or I will destroy it.”

  “N7,” I said.

  The android nodded his understanding.

  It took Venturi a few moments to settle himself. He tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves, brushing the orange chevrons sewn there. Finally, he resumed talking. “If you can understand the concept of parallel universes, yes, that will be sufficient. Jelk are others in the worst sense of the word. How they crossed from one space-time continuum to another, we do not know. It happened eons ago. Certain theorists claim the Jelk visited the early worlds, astounded at the life forms there, bewildered at flesh, blood and bones. Through a process of trial and error, the energy creatures built bodies for themselves a particle at a time. Some holy adepts think the Jelk first possessed or inhabited our ancestors’ bodies and only afterward desired their own forms. In any case, in order to reproduce, a Jelk splits his energy in a similar manner as a single-celled organism or an amoeba. However, they cannot do so under normal conditions in our universe. They must stimulate whatever their space-time continuum did that allowed them to procreate. Our most learned scientists believe Jelk need powerful constructs like the artifact in order to render itself into two. As far as we know, these two spawns are granted the newness of vigor and desire of youth, but they maintain the knowledge of the older, single being.”

  “How does the Forerunner artifact help them split?” I asked.

  “Firstly, our scientists do not know the Jelk must have the artifact for this. It is a theory, albeit the best we have to date. That is one of the primary reasons the Jade League guards each artifact with military power. We must unite in order to keep the Jelk from growing more numerous.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “After watching Claath change and burn his way free of the battlejumper I’d agree they’re as alien as can be. If the artifact can help him spawn, and Claath went for it, that would imply he needs to split or has a growing desire for it.”

  “Yes, of course,” Venturi said. “It is an obvious deduction.”

  “So do you know where the artifact went after it disappeared?” I asked.

  Venturi stared up at the ceiling.

  Doctor Sant cleared his throat before addressing me. “It would be more seemly if you waited for the prince to give you this information. To grill him as if he were a recruit…” Sant shook his head.

  Raising the baton, Venturi clicked more buttons. The asteroid-ship wreckage of the Forerunner battle, Starkien vessels and the entire Altair system faded into darkness. Slowly, a fuzzy world holoimage appeared in its place. The planet had a metallic sheen and jigsaw puzzle lines as if someone had bolted it together. Several, glowing, meteor-sized shimmers circled the spheroid.

  “We do not know if the Jelk preplanned the event,” Venturi said in a softer voice than before. “Imperial scientists and holy adepts have multiple opinions on the subject. The truth is we do not know how this happened.”

  I wanted to ask, “Know what?” The information pouring out of the tiger was too interesting, though, for me to want to jeopardize it. I wish Ella could have been here to see this and give me her opinion.

  Venturi lowered the baton and stared at the fuzzy, metallic-looking spheroid. Its fuzziness was in the sense of bad TV reception, as in the days of rabbit-ears antenna.

  “As I’ve said before,” Venturi told me, “I am going to gamble on your intelligence. Why otherwise would the oracle have spoken about you? It is a mystery, one among many, I might add.” He cleared his throat. “The Jade League has been on the defensive against the Jelk Corporation for many generations. We have fought them to a standstill in places. In others, in the past few years, we have gone onto the offensive.”

  “Admiral Venturi,” I said. “During my time in corporation service, I heard otherwise. Claath told us the Jelk hadn’t taken the offensive for generations.”

  “I’m not surprised he lied to you,” Venturi said. “You were Jelk slaves, and they are masters of disinformation and misdirection. Now do not interrupt me again. It’s too irritating and disrupts my concentration.”

  He breathed heavily, and I noticed the honor guards watching me more closely.

  Finally, as he breathed normally again, Venturi began speaking in a low voice. “There are those of us who believe we should attack the corporation vigorously. Among those, Orange Tamika has argued the hardest for hammering assaults and we have filled the most command slots in the exploratory arm of Lokhar space service. We captain the dreadnoughts, the few we have. They are the largest vessels in known space, and there is a reason for their size. We have the engines, the power-plants and space-tearing components that let us enter hyperspace.”

  Venturi eyed me. “Do you know what hyperspace is?”

  “I do not,” I said.

  “No doubt your machine could tell you,” Venturi said, “but I will do so. Hyperspace lies between the parallel universes. Some suggest that hyperspace is a parallel universe all its own. I do not accept that. Rather, in hyperspace, the separation between the universes weakens. The most knowledgeable concerning the Jelk believe they used hyperspace to reach our space-time continuum. Based on the theory, our dreadnoughts search for the rent in hyperspace so we can find the original Jelk homeworld. Once found and the homeworld studied, many adepts believe we will have the knowledge to destroy the Jelk forever.”

  “Are the Jelk devils?” I asked. “Is their parallel universe Hell? They sure seem like demons.”

  “That is a quaint proposal,” Doctor Sant said.

  “And at this point in the discussion, also meaningless,” Venturi said. “The point I’m trying to make is that we have a working knowledge of hyperspace. The First Ones were said to possess that understanding. After studying ancient holy texts of the First Ones, pious adepts first proposed hyperspace. The scientists told us that tampering with hyperspace would be dangerous, given it existed. If there were enough universes, whatever could exist would exist, and thus, we shouldn’t attempt to reach them at peril to ourselves.”

  Okay, I thought. What does that mean in reality?

  “I am of the opinion that your attack against the Forerunner artifact triggered a defense mechanism in it,” Venturi said. “It must have known you were Jelk slaves, although that is a supposition.”

  I wanted to ask how a construct could know that, but refrained. Maybe I’d learn the answer by listening.

  “Where did the artifact go?” Venturi said. “I believe you asked that. We might have never found out until too late, but fortunately, Indomitable was in hyperspace at the time. Hyperspace…it is a strange and terrifying place. The laws of motion work differently there. It is nearly impossible to navigate in any meaningful manner. Can you imagine my amazement when my signal’s officer told me she was receiving Lokhar distress calls? I ran to her side, hovering over her instruments as she replayed the signal. It seemed impossible. This was hyperspace, but the call grew in strength as we homed in on it. Finally, we realized the distress signal came from the Lokhar Fifth Legion, the one guarding the Altair Object.”

  Venturi shook his head, and his eyes had a far-off look as if he stared at a distant point in the past that only he could see. “We increased velocity and the signal became clearer. A centurion of Orange Tamika spoke to us. He told us about the sacrilegious assault in the Altair system and the artifact’s vanishing. Several hundred legionaries survived the artifact’s transfer and reappearance at its new location.” The admiral growled, and glanced at me. “The centurion asked what you might have in his place, wondering if he’d been transported to Hell for the sin of losing the battle.

 
“I told the centurion he’d come into hyperspace. He told me he saw no space at all, but gleaming metal and incomprehensible machines.” A raspy tongue appeared in the admiral’s mouth. “It took us days of ship-time to reach them. During the interval, the legion’s last adept used his holy book to decipher some of the planet’s commands. The symbols were in ancient script that only the most studious adepts learn.”

  I wanted to ask the prince, “What planet?” but held my tongue.

  “The implications of his words were clear,” Venturi said. “The surviving legionaries were in yet another construct of the First Ones. This one, however…”

  The admiral raised the baton and pointed at the fuzzy object. “The aliens attacked before we could reach the portal planet. They used jamming equipment, and almost cut our contact with the centurion completely. We would never have found the hyperspace planet if contact had been cut too soon. The planet was and is the only one of its kind that I or anyone else I know has seen or heard of. As far as our garbled transmissions could make out, the Forerunner artifact from the Altair star system had appeared in the center of the planet you see up there.”

  The admiral paused. “I heard the centurion say the Altair Object had fit into the construct as a hand fits into a gauntlet. It would seem by his words that the First Ones had constructed the Altair Object as a key for the portal planet. The implications are terrifying. It means the First Ones must have built the planet, if that really is an entire world. We never got near enough to know precisely. To my eye, the planet looks metallic, like a construct through and through. And the centurion said they were in the center of things as one would be in the center of a world-spanning engine.”

  “You spoke about aliens,” I said. “They kept you from the planet?”

  “You swung around Indomitable before docking your assault boat,” Venturi said. “You must have seen the damage.”