Target: Earth (Extinction Wars Book 5) Read online

  “That’s what I said.”

  Sixty Abaddon clones! Sixty First Ones. Sixty beings with the same potential for evil as Abaddon. He’d been the worst monster in galactic history, and now Jennifer had made sixty more?

  She must be mad to think she could control all of them. Heck! Shah Claath hadn’t been able to control us humans with the shock chips and by having every advantage. Whatever Jennifer had become, she lacked the same potential for greatness, good or bad, that each of her clones possessed. Well, not all of them.

  “Was that when you made an idiot Saul?” I asked.

  “No, I did that later,” Ifness said abruptly.

  I looked at him. What did that mean? “You…you trapped an adult clone and turned him into Saul?”

  Ifness shrugged.

  I shuddered again thinking about what Ifness had done. “I’ll have to check Saul’s cranium, see if there are any surgery scars,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” Ifness said. “There are cranial scars.”

  “You cut out some of his brain?” I asked, unable to keep the horror out of my voice.

  “Does it matter?”

  I wanted to push away from the table in disgust. The hitman wasn’t just ruthless; he was vile. But I needed him. Therefore, I needed to bury my outrage, at least for the moment.

  “You were telling me about the pocket universe,” I managed to say.

  “Brain surgery to an Abaddon clone troubles you?” Ifness asked.

  I said nothing.

  “Huh,” he said. “Who would have guessed? Then again, look what Abaddon did to Jennifer.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Exactly.”

  “One of Abaddon’s clones got his just desserts. So what?”

  “A clone shouldn’t pay for the sins of his father,” I said.

  “You have a better way of getting revenge?” Ifness asked.

  “I do.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  “You reverse what the criminal did.”

  Ifness snorted. “You’re too softhearted, Creed. Abaddon wasn’t a criminal. Ultimately, he was a failed conqueror. Everyone hates those, while everyone reveres the victors. It’s the same old story throughout the universe. Losers are bad, and winners are good.”

  “Why not tell me about the pocket universe?” I said.

  Ifness shook his head. “Maybe that’s why you’re an effectuator and I’m a hitman. I don’t have any illusions.”

  I said nothing, hoping to wait him out.

  “The pocket universe,” Ifness said, seemingly switching mental gears. “Without Holgotha, we never would have made it through to it. I won’t bore you with the technical details. Your brainiacs can figure that out later from your AI. We made a dimensional portal and crossed to the other side.”

  Ifness exhaled, shaking his head in remembrance of what seemed to have been an ordeal. “Their void or space is nothing like our space. Here, it’s a vacuum with particles of dust or bits of debris. There, it’s like the middle reaches of…” He plucked at his lower lip. “What do you call your largest gas giant?”

  “Jupiter,” I said.

  He snapped his fingers. “The void in the pocket universe is like piloting a submarine through the gaseous substance of middle-level Jupiter. Gas giants are—”

  “I’m aware of a gas giant’s composition.”

  “Oh. Sure. I wasn’t trying to say you weren’t.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyway, that’s what the pocket universe’s space is like. The Plutonian planet floats in that. That means the planet is much denser than ordinary. It’s not as dense as a neutron star, but it’s damn dense and rather small.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re saying space there is like traveling…underwater on Earth?”

  “No. Not that much pressure and not through a liquid. I said gas, thick gas in some places. For instance, if a spaceship tried to go too deep in an Earth ocean, the outside water pressure would crumple the bulkheads.”

  “Plutonian ships are more like submarines?” I asked.

  “I seem to have given you the wrong idea. The gaseous pressure doesn’t grow or become greater as you travel through the substance. It’s like your space, only over there it’s filled with gas. Think of it as an extra-thick nebula.”

  “What gas?” I asked.

  “Its own Plutonian gas,” Ifness said. “The gas isn’t found on our periodic table. I think that’s why Plutonian ships don’t have force fields. No one’s force field—I mean your battlejumpers—is going to work in the pocket universe’s heavy gas void.”

  “That’s not good,” I said.

  “Not good for you,” Ifness said. “It’s great for the Plutonians.”

  “What else?” I asked.

  “It’s easy to get lost there, much harder to use your sensors. Sonar works best. Of course, missiles aren’t as useful. It takes a lot more push to travel through the compacted gas. Many beams will fizzle over distance there, especially lasers.”

  “That’s just great.”

  “On the plus side, it’s hard teleporting over there.”

  “Come again,” I said.

  “Your T-missiles will be useless. The Abaddon clones can teleport some but not nearly as far as they can here. That’s good, because they’ll find it difficult to swarm one ship at a time through teleportation. Even Holgotha is severely limited in his teleporting abilities over there.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “And you don’t want to be too close to an explosion,” Ifness said. “The gas helps spread shockwaves. The Plutonian explosive device is far deadlier in their space-time continuum than here.”

  “It sounds like a horror show over there.”

  “Now, you’re understanding. Now, you’re starting to see why I wanted out of that madhouse. It’s a strange realm, Creed. It’s warping Jennifer. It’s warping her elite guards, too.”

  “You mean the Abaddon clones?” I asked.

  “Of course. They’re her chosen ones.”

  “And the Plutonians?” I asked.

  Ifness pursed his lips. “Jennifer has only woken a fraction of them. There are millions more on their planet. There are many more of their spaceships in mothballs.”

  “What about Holgotha? Is he still there?”

  “He is,” Ifness said.

  Something about the way he said that alerted me. I tried not to show it, though. “Is Holgotha still in Jennifer’s good graces?” I asked.

  “As far as I know,” Ifness said.

  My gut told me the hitman was lying. Why should he lie about that?

  “So…how do we win?” I asked.

  “Depends on what you think winning is.”

  “Destroying the Plutonian ability to keep striking our worlds,” I said.

  “Easiest way to do that is to kill ‘em all.”

  “Suppose Earth Force agrees with you?”

  “Then you nuke their planet from a safe distance. You don’t want the gaseous void to take the explosions and rebound them against you.”

  “How big is the Plutonian defensive fleet?”

  “Maybe twice the mass of what you faced a few days ago, and…”

  “And?” I asked.

  “The mother of all Planetary Defense Satellites,” he said. “You’ve seen nothing like it anywhere. If you think Plutonian warships are bad, this thing is one hundred times worse.”

  “Is that an exaggeration?”

  “Since you don’t believe me, you’ll have to see for yourself.”

  “You think we’re going into the pocket universe after what you’ve said?”

  Ifness scoffed. “Creed, if you don’t go, you’re going to lose eventually. It’s either kill the Plutonians or be killed by them. You have no other options.”

  I sat back, realizing it was time to talk to Diana and the others about this.

  -66-

  Ifness asked if he could join me. I told him no. He said it would be better i
f he came, but he declined to provide a reason why.

  That made me suspicious. I had the damaged light cruiser travel to Earth orbit, while I instructed N7 to remain in stealth mode on the GEV until further notice.

  Did I have a premonition? Maybe. I don’t know. I left the Thistle Down and headed down to New Denver in a regular shuttle. Halfway through the atmosphere, an emergency alert blared inside the cabin. I was sitting up front with the pilot. It was proving a bumpy ride through the atmosphere. Then the comm squawked.

  “Creed? Creed, are you in the shuttle?”

  The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  The pilot looked at me, a young woman fresh out of the academy.

  I switched on a viewer. It showed an awful sight. A huge, donut-shaped Forerunner artifact was less than half-a-kilometer from the OT light cruiser Thistle Down.

  I cursed. I couldn’t believe this.

  Worse, huge missiles lofted from Holgotha’s hull. The missiles sped for Earth. Jennifer, or her side, anyway, was using the artifact as we’d used it as Star Vikings over ten years ago. I did not like this reversal.

  “Creed,” the voice said over the comm.

  Then it hit me. It was Jennifer. I knew it was a trap, but I answered anyway.

  “This is Creed,” I said.

  Jennifer’s image appeared on a small screen. She’d braided her long hair, and her dark eyes seemed to stab into my soul.

  “So, Ifness did not lie,” Jennifer said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Orcus, or his brother, stepped into visual range, holding aloft a beat-up looking hitman. Ifness’s eyes were puffed shut, he was bleeding from several cuts and was missing most of his left arm. There was a tourniquet on the stump.

  “He’s going to tell me everything,” Jennifer gloated. “So, his treachery is not going to help you in the slightest.”

  “Jennifer,” I said, “don’t do this.”

  She laughed in a sinister way, and I heard something behind me.

  I whirled around in my seat, and two Abaddon clones wearing dark garments appeared. They had teleported, obviously. And just as obviously, Jennifer had used the comm to pinpoint my location.

  The pilot looked back, too, and screamed. Fortunately, for me, the pilot lost concentration, or she made the most perfect choice of her life.

  The shuttle plunged for Earth.

  The two clones fired at me, one beam punching through the shuttle’s skin from the inside. The other shot shattered shuttle controls. Then both clones, who had already been on their way up due to the plunging shuttle, struck bulkheads.

  I don’t think I’d ever thought faster in my life. I’d taken to wearing the super-tech Abaddon force axe. I tore it from my hip, unbuckled from my seat and launched myself at them. As I flew through the cabin, the activated force axe sizzled with red power lines.

  The first Abaddon clone shouted a warning to his brother. The red power lines seared against the first clone so blood and gore sprayed everywhere, including against my face. The blood blinded me. I slashed all around, cutting—

  I tumbled head-over-heels from the shuttle cabin, having created an opening with the axe.

  Then, the craziest thing happened. An Abaddon clone appeared near me, trying to strike a blow as we fell. I don’t know how I dodged, but I did.

  The clone teleported away, and appeared above me for a second try.

  At that moment, the pilot must have regained control of her vessel. She beamed against the clone’s back. The massive creature arched in pain. That stole his concentration.

  I made a full-eagle spread with my body, slowing my descent just enough, and seemingly rose toward him. In reality, I just fell to Earth slower than he did. While passing him, I hacked with the force axe, killing the clone.

  At that point, a beam slashed through the heavens, hitting the shuttle, destroying it as a coherent vessel as pieces tumbled away.

  Luckily for the pilot, she ejected in time.

  I waited for another beam to stab from space, killing me. When it didn’t come, I expected more Abaddon clones to teleport near me, trying to capture me for Jennifer. That did not happen, either.

  Instead, with the force axe in my hands, I plummeted to Earth, with no parachute on my back to help me. Given a few more minutes, I would strike the surface and end my existence in this present reality.

  -67-

  I deactivated the force axe, slapping it back onto my hip. Then I spread myself as wide as I could, hoping to buy myself a few seconds more of life.

  I was over land and couldn’t spot any large body of water. Not that striking water would help much given my velocity. Still, I was hoping for a miracle.

  My eyes watered even though I kept them slit and used my fingers to shield them, peeking between two fingers.

  I was over the Rockies. Well, at least I’d die in the old United States of America. I’d started out as an American and would die as one. Then I noticed specks. They seemed to zoom up at me from the ground.

  I turned around to look up at the clouds. I couldn’t spy any beams or missiles racing down. I did not see any more Abaddon clones popping into existence around me.

  I’d like to be able to teleport like that. Once, with a Ronin 9 T-Suit, I’d done just that in space.

  I rolled around to look at the nearing mountains. The specks had grown. They seemed humanoid. Then I realized that space marines wearing jetpacks were zooming up to save me.

  The wind tore away my laughter. I might survive this yet. I waited as they grew larger.

  Soon, two jetpack-suited marines reached me. One grabbed me, steadying me in the air. The other quickly fit a parachute onto my back, only snagging the straps once. I helped him out.

  They tugged, slapped my back. I nodded. Each of them jetted away from me. They must be running low on fuel.

  I pulled the ripcord, and the most beautiful chute in the world spread into existence. It yanked me up short, and then I began to float and sway toward the approaching mountains.

  I kind of lost it, then, lost it in a good way. I started whooping with laughter—all my pent-up emotions at dying so young gushing out of me. Winston Churchill had once said there was no greater feeling in life than being shot at, and having the shooter miss. Well, I could top that. There was no greater feeling than plunging to your death, and having space marines zoom up and slap a parachute onto your back so you floated down light as a feather.

  It was awesome.

  I touched down, running down a slope, tripping and rolling around and around. I was entangled in the parachute lines, but soon worked free. I was in a glade between spruces. A startled deer took off.

  As quickly as I could, I gathered the parachute, bundling it up and putting it to the side. I sat on the grass afterward, taking delicious gulps of air.

  It felt good to be alive.

  I looked up at the clouds. Jennifer was up there, and she’d just tried to capture me.

  I cursed, jumping to my feet. Had Ifness told them about the GEV and Saul in the stasis tube?

  If Jennifer grabbed my GEV—

  “Come on,” I said to myself. Someone needed to pick me up.

  On a screen, I’d seen the missiles launched from Holgotha. Those had looked like big missiles meant to carry hell-burner warheads. Had Earth Force intercepted them in time? Was the world burning or about to burn?

  As much as I loved being alive, I was starting to die from the curiosity of it all.

  I saw a shuttle—a new one—zooming toward me. Did they see me? I started waving. Then I wondered if the better question was if they were good guys or more bad guys.

  I kept waving anyway. If it looked like they were going to make a strafing run—well, I hoped they didn’t. I waved like a fool. The shuttle’s stubby wings wobbled back and forth.

  I stopped waving and plucked my longish handle.

  In minutes, the shuttle was above me, using VTOL jets to land on the slope. My gut clenche
d. What if Abaddon clones stepped out?

  That’s not logical, I told myself. They would have already teleported to me. Heck. They could have teleported to the pines, set up sniper rifles and shot me.

  The shuttle thumped onto the ground. My stomach tightened even more, and a ramp extended and a hatch opened. Three marines wearing combat armor clanked down. Police Proconsul Spencer followed. He had a gun in one hand, pointed at me.

  The marines circled around, each with a Bahnkouv laser rifle aimed at me. These were probably part of a police SWAT Team, not military space marines.

  I wondered what had happened to the jetpack marines.

  Spencer came a little closer to me, but not too close. I’d already put away the longish handle in order to seem less threatening, and so he wouldn’t realize I had a priceless weapon on my person.

  “I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you alone,” Spencer said.

  I waited.

  “Hands up, please. I don’t want any misunderstanding between us.”

  -68-

  I raised my hands, still waiting, wondering about his angle. Was he a traitor to Diana, to Earth?

  “What just happened?” he asked.

  “You saw it,” I said. “You tell me.”

  Spencer shook his head. “The time for games has ended. Holgotha appeared. It launched missiles.”

  “That’s wrong,” I said.

  “Interesting,” Spencer said. “Explain, please.”

  “Whoever is using Holgotha launched the missiles.”

  “How do you know that?” Spencer asked.

  I opened my mouth, but then I closed it with a snap. “You have a point. I don’t know. I’m guessing.”

  “You believe Jennifer is responsible?” he asked.

  “Why ask that so sarcastically?”

  He waggled the gun, although his eyes remained on me. The SWAT members, by the way, never moved a muscle. I couldn’t see their eyes behind the visors. I didn’t have to. Their Bahnkouvs would kill me just as dead if they beamed.

  “This all seems too…contrived,” Spencer finally said. “I think it’s a trick. You got tired in the galactic core. No one knew you out there. So, you decided to come home and take over. What better way to do that than to manufacture a crisis that only the great Commander Creed could solve.”