Invaders: Dreadnought Ocelot (Invaders Series Book 4) Read online

  The taller and leaner basilisk opened his mouth. He had needle-like teeth. “Help us,” he said in his croaking speech. “The goddess is hurt.”

  “What do you think, Rax?” I asked.

  “Their physiology is almost alien,” Rax said, “it has been so altered from their original human beginnings. I do not know if he is lying or telling the truth.”

  The basilisk cocked his weird head, staring at Rax on my belt. A second later, the basilisk went to one knee as if beseeching me. The other scrambled to do likewise.

  “You are the one,” the first basilisk said in his croaking speech.

  “Is this on the level, Rax?” I whispered. “And what does it mean that I am the one?”

  “I am considering the statement,” Rax said. “Logan. Please ask them to step back.”

  “You heard him,” I told the two. “Get up and step back.”

  The kneeling basilisks looked up at me. I smiled, knowing right there these bastards were attempting subterfuge. I could see it on their mistrusting faces.

  “You will aid us?” the first asked.

  “Without a doubt,” I said. “First, I must speak with—”

  The first basilisk dove at me. If I hadn’t been ready for a trick, he would have likely tackled me at the knees. I skipped back and struck down with my rifle butt. He had a hard skull, but I had greater than ordinary strength. He thudded onto the ground, stunned.

  The second one’s lens began to brighten.

  I shot him, and he toppled over dead with a smoking hole in his skull.

  The first one groaned from the ground.

  My impulse was to fire and kill him, too. But I didn’t want to become a casual murderer. That might sound funny coming from me. I’d certainly slaughtered more than a few of my enemies, but that had usually been in the middle of battle or if I’d logically had no other options.

  This was different.

  “How did you know they were lying?” Rax asked.

  “It was on their faces when they looked up.”

  “I will have to recalibrate concerning basilisks. Kill him, and let us be on our way.”

  “No…” I said, “I have a different idea.”

  -26-

  We marched through the jungle back toward the portal. The surviving basilisk was in the lead with his three-fingered hands tightly tied behind his back.

  I’d also tied my 70s era jacket around his forehead, covering his lens. I figured a smoldering jacket would give me a few extra seconds of warning if he were going to try to beam me. I’d grabbed the jacket sleeves and twirled it like we used to do after showering in high school after a football game. We had done that, of course, so we could snap the wet towels at whoever had cost us the game, or sometimes if we simply felt like making the weaker players jump.

  “I must repeat my warning,” Rax said. “This is a bad idea. If we are trying to sneak near them, the basilisk will give away our position.”

  Using the rifle, I prodded the scaly sucker marching ahead of me against the back. “What’s your name, huh?”

  He did not reply.

  I dug the rifle barrel harder against his back, making him twist.

  “The goddess calls me ‘Servitor,’” he said in his strangely altered voice.

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  “I have no name.”

  “What did they used to call you?”

  He halted, turning around, staring down at me. He was a head taller than I was. “You mean…before the change?”

  “That’s right.”

  His eyes narrowed as if he was remembering. “I was…Chief Priest Bek of the Evening. I attended the goddess when…” He groaned, falling to his knees and bowing his head as if ashamed.

  “What’s troubling you, Bek?” I asked.

  With his head bowed, he groaned, soon shaking his head.

  Using the rifle, placing it under his chin, I forced him to look up. “Did the goddess always look like a cat?”

  Bek shook his head.

  “She looked…normal?” I asked.

  “She was divine,” Bek said. “I gladly served her. I gladly entered…” He frowned. “I am the servitor. I must aid her. She said to bring you back, to force you if I must. I thought…I thought you would not go back. That is why I tried to tackle—”

  “Enough,” I said. “If I wanted lies, I’d ask for them.”

  “Ask him about the Gigantopithecuses,” Rax said.

  “Chief Priest Bek,” I said. “How come you speak English?”

  “The Teacher,” he said. “We each entered before leaving the temple.”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked Rax.

  By a few quick questions and explanations, I learned that Bek had meant the hidden Asteroid station. Ailuros and her basilisks had used the Apollo Lunar Lander to exit the station and fly near the portal. They had done this after Gigantopithecuses had captured the station. According to Bek, the goddess had tricked the giant apes in the station—the temple, in his terms. The great one in the flying temple had not yet come to the goddess’s temple. He meant the Ocelot, of course, by flying temple and Nerelon Brontios by the great one.

  “Does his information jibe with what you know?” I asked Rax.

  “It makes sense,” the crystal said. “I still say we should head for the temple.”

  “The Asteroid station?” I asked.

  “The ziggurat,” Rax said.

  “Oh. No, first we need Ailuros. You spoke about codes. I’m thinking an ancient temple holding a precious artifact is going to have traps.”

  “More than that,” Rax said.

  “Right,” I said. “Having Ailuros help us might be safer than trying to get this artifact by ourselves.”

  “Questionable. It is her temple, after all. She will likely be more powerful while there, able to employ weapons or powers.”

  “Get up,” I told Bek. “Show me the Gigantopithecus camp.”

  “They may have moved,” Bek said.

  “I bet they’ll be easy to track, though. Go on. Start moving.”

  The ex-chief priest climbed to his feet, once more heading back toward the portal.

  “This is rash,” Rax said quietly.

  “Okay,” I said under my breath, letting Bek get a bit more separation from us. “I admit this isn’t making much sense. I’m no historian, but even I know the ancient Egyptians didn’t have lens-men like a modified Bek.”

  “Proto-history,” Rax said.

  “What’s that even mean?”

  “It is the answer to your unasked question: when did these things take place on Earth? In the proto-history of the world. Why do you think there are so many legends about a great disaster or a worldwide flood?”

  “I dunno. Because something bad happened in the distant past, I guess.”

  “Correct.”

  “So, we’re not strictly talking ancient Egyptian history here?”

  “Why did Egypt appear full-blown, as it were?” Rax asked.

  I sighed. “I’m not tracking you on this. Maybe this is a rabbit hole for us just now.”

  “Yes and no,” Rax said. “Ancient Egypt, the history you know, was in essence a culture that copied a prototype or primeval Egypt of much greater grandeur and wonder from an earlier time. Many of those wonders and lands perished during a great disaster in the dawn time.”

  “A disaster caused by Polarions?” I asked.

  “Since that is not germane to completing our mission, I am not at liberty to say.”

  “That’s okay. I want to put a cap on the history lesson, anyway. It’s time we came up with a plan.”

  “I have one,” Rax said, “Plan B. You are deviating from it at present.”

  “Yes and no,” I said, copying him. “I don’t know if Bek is lying or telling the truth. I figure the sooner I know…well, the better.”

  “Bek has told us truths,” Rax said, “but I think he has also lied. The basilisks attempted
to trick you, a cunning move, which likely indicates Ailuros’s hand. They would not have done that without her command.”

  “What about the dead basilisk?”

  “There must have been a fight as we heard evidence of earlier and Ailuros’s side lost. This may have been her peace offering to the Gigantopithecuses: capturing you so they could all return to the Asteroid station.”

  “Yeah. That probably makes the most sense.”

  “I deem it likely that Ailuros is wearing more clothes than last time,” Rax added.

  “What? Oh. So?”

  “Are you heading back to get another look at her?”

  “Come on, Rax. Do you think I’m that horny that I want to leer at a slut wishing me ill, and so soon after my woman died?”

  “I consider it a possibly.”

  “Well, you can forget—”

  “Logan,” Rax said, interrupting me. “Bek is running away. I hear others. It is the Gigantopithecuses.”

  I halted and crouched among some ferns. I’d noticed Bek slyly moving farther ahead. His bolting just now told me what I needed to know. Rax was correct. The basilisks trying to gain my aid to rescue Ailuros had been a ploy to bring me back, making me easier to capture, no doubt.

  How did knowing that help me? Sometimes, it’s good if the enemy underestimates you. One way to have them underestimate you was to make them think you were an idiot or a fool. Coming back like this was the action of a fool, it would seem. Having Bek run away and give them a warning—

  “Time for Plan C,” I told Rax, rising in a crouch and moving in a direction ninety degrees to our former path. I no longer headed toward the portal, but in a parallel line with it somewhere in the distance.

  “This is rash, Logan. We must flee while we are able.”

  “I have you, a locator. They—”

  “Will have scanners,” Rax said. “You will not successfully ambush them as obviously is your intent.”

  “You don’t think I can?” I asked between gasps. “You stopped Nerelon from teleporting us aboard the Ocelot. That was scrambling of the highest order. Now, I want you to scramble their scanners.”

  Rax said nothing for several heartbeats. Finally, “That is a clever idea. I have already begun the tactic. They are near. Do you wish for directions?”

  “Now you’re talking,” I said, sick and tired of running all the time. It was time to hit back and make these suckers sorry.

  They’d messed with the wrong guy.

  -27-

  The Gigantopithecuses didn’t look any smaller than when I’d seen them on the Antaran Saturn station.

  I’d seen them a short while ago in spacesuits—it’s true—but that had been different. I hadn’t seen their hairy selves, just the monster suits and thruster-packs.

  The Gigantopithecuses marching through the jungle did not wear spacesuits. They wore belts festooned with weapons and devices and crisscrossing harnesses with more combat junk like grenades. I’m not sure what some of those dangling items were.

  I spied Ailuros, and I almost held Rax up to prove to him he was wrong. The cat-headed Polarion did not wear the short shift I’d seen before, but a torn blouse and half-shredded slacks. In other words, she was showing a lot of skin and looked hot because of it.

  “She’s Argon’s wife,” I whispered.

  “Are you leering at her again?” Rax asked. “Ah. I see. You are entering a state of high arousal—”

  “Can the pop psychology, Rax. I’m not interested in her. This is all professional scouting. I’m Marine trained, meaning, we’re playing on my turf now.”

  The Gigantopithecuses were spread out in a line, seven of them. Had Ailuros’s team killed three of the giant apes earlier? I spied two basilisks with metal covers over their forehead lenses. Each of them had trouble walking because the apes had attached fetters to their ankles. The chain was a rope each time, so it didn’t make noise.

  I also saw the little traitor Chief Priest Bek. With his hands still tied behind his back, he spoke urgently to Ailuros. Her hands were free, nor did she wear fetters. A big Gigantopithecus walked directly behind her. I had a feeling he was running the operation. He wore an ancient Greek-style helmet with several sprouting antennas instead of a horsetail crest. He also cradled the biggest elephant gun I’d ever seen. Maybe he was expecting dinosaurs. If so, that was the type of hardware that surely could stop them in their tracks.

  Two lead Gigantopithecuses watched hand monitors, scanners, I bet. Rax had to be scrambling their signals. Otherwise, they would have focused on me to their right flank.

  There were fewer jungle trees in this spot, but more Jurassic-era ferns.

  “Rax,” I whispered. “Do you detect their personal force-field generators?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if the force fields will inhibit my rifle’s ray?”

  “For the briefest of moments,” Rax whispered.

  Seven big apes, four carried laser rifles. They made easy targets out there. Killing all of them before they killed me might be too much to expect, though.

  “He’s nearby,” Ailuros shouted.

  The biggest ape—the one wearing the Greek-style helmet—took two steps until he laid a huge paw on her left shoulder. He must have squeezed, for I saw her wilt under the pressure.

  Chief Priest Bek roared with rage, parting the rope bonds behind his back. He jerked my rolled-up jacket off his lens, which already glimmered with light.

  The big ape pulled Ailuros in front of Bek. The lens grew darker. Then the ape stepped beside her—he’d shouldered the elephant gun earlier—and gave Bek the hardest uppercut I’d ever seen. The basilisk caught it under the chin, going airborne for twenty feet until he smacked against a tree trunk. Bek slid down in a crumpled heap, landing with a thud, unmoving.

  He had to be dead.

  The big, helmet-wearing ape whirled Ailuros around, staring down at her as if she were a little girl.

  “You lied,” the Gigantopithecus growled.

  She looked up at the ape fearlessly. “Did you see my servitor? He had his hands tied behind his back. Who tied his hands?”

  The huge ape cocked his head. “Logan?” he said.

  “Don’t you think I want Logan more than you do?” she demanded. “He used me.”

  “He raped you?” asked the ape.

  Ailuros nodded.

  I felt my face heat up. The evil liar! I hadn’t raped her, or even taken her willingly. She might have wished I had, but she was lying through her teeth.

  “You wish him dead?” the ape asked.

  “After you’re done with him,” she said.

  “The Great One wants Logan,” the ape said. “I must bring him back alive.”

  “Don’t you want the greatest weapon ever created?” Ailuros asked.

  “I serve the Great One. I obey the Great One.”

  “Yes, yes, of course you do,” Ailuros said smoothly. “That is why I would think you would want to bring him the mighty weapon.”

  The huge ape rubbed his jaw. “You should not have come to this place. You disobeyed the Great One.”

  “I already told you he sent me after you.”

  “You killed some of my soldiers,” the ape captain said.

  “That was a mistake on my part.”

  “You are a mistake,” the Gigantopithecus said. “We must capture Logan.”

  “I know. I want him worse than you do. Let me scout ahead. Let me lure him to you.”

  “How could you do this?”

  Ailuros ran her hands down her hips. “I have feminine ways,” she said in a sultry voice.

  The Gigantopithecus eyed her, soon shaking his head. “Your servitors failed to convince him that you needed rescuing. You assured me your plan would work. Why should I trust you a second time, especially since you killed some of my soldiers?”

  “Logan needs to see me. If he sees I’m alone, that would be even better. Don’t you understand? He lusts after me. He used me once. He will wan
t to use me again.”

  “Did you not try to fight him?”

  “He was too strong and threatened to kill me. No. I pleased him the best I could so he would let me live. He will want me to please him again.”

  “You are devious,” the ape captain said. “Yes. I will let you walk ahead. But I will have several of my soldiers following. When Logan is near, shout and they will come running.”

  I frowned. That was an idiot’s plan, and I did not think the ape captain was an idiot.

  “First,” the captain said, “I will put this on your arm.”

  “What are you doing?” Ailuros demanded.

  The great ape jerked a thing off his crisscrossing harness and squeezed it onto her upper left arm.

  “That hurts,” she said.

  “It is a tracking device,” the ape captain said. “And it has a bomb attached. If you try to trick us, the bomb will detonate, blowing off your arm and most likely sending a killing blast against your chest.”

  “That’s barbaric,” she said. “I’m a goddess.”

  “By your own words, you are a deceiver,” he said. “If you play us false, I will kill you in this place and tell my master that there was an accident.”

  “You would lie to him?” she asked.

  The towering Gigantopithecus leaned over her as he exposed his yellow-stained ape teeth. “I will kill you, deceiver, and that will bring me great pleasure. I will bring your mangled corpse to the Great One and explain all that happened. He will understand, as he is the understanding one.”

  Ailuros glared up at the monstrous ape before her shoulders slumped. She nodded as if weary beyond belief. “Yes,” she said. “I understand. I will obey you.”

  The huge ape nodded. “Now, we understand each other. Get ready, goddess, and hunt for your rapist.”

  With her shoulders slumped, Ailuros began walking toward the front of the ape line.

  I melted back into the foliage, deciding that I had seen enough. She was liar, a deceiver and a skilled actress. Maybe she had fooled the ape captain that his cunning and ruthlessness had defeated her. I didn’t believe it. She would never surrender in her heart. She would always fight, and maybe that’s why Argon had put her into stasis sleep so long ago.