Alien Shores (A Fenris Novel, Book 2) Read online

  “You have,” he admitted.

  “Now I’d like to know one or two things myself.”

  “What is that?” Klane asked.

  “Where did your consciousness go while it was gone?”

  “Oh, that’s easy . . .”

  “Why do you pause?” the girl asked.

  Klane scratched his head, and he glanced at Niens again. The man’s face was blank, with his eyes staring. Despite that, Klane sensed the sudden eagerness.

  “You know,” he said, “I bet it would be a lot easier if big Klane just talked to Niens face-to-face.”

  “I’ve already told you why that wouldn’t be a good idea or why it’s impossible.”

  “I know,” little Klane said. “So why don’t you have Niens turn off the reality field. Klane can get rid of the others, and then Niens and he can talk.”

  She stared at him. “Could Klane defeat all these men with his psionic powers?”

  “I think so.”

  “But you don’t know,” the pay girl said.

  “Not for certain,” little Klane said, knowing he was lying and therefore shifting from foot to foot.

  “You seem nervous,” the pay girl said.

  “I have to pee,” he said.

  The pay girl giggled. “That’s silly. You’re not real.”

  “I still have to go. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  “No!” she called.

  Klane didn’t listen. He hurried into the reality field and crossed over to the other side. There, big Klane lay with his eyes open.

  Little Klane faded, leaving the real Klane staring up at the buzzing field. Why did Niens want to know where his consciousness had been? Did the mentalist deal truthfully with him? Or was it more likely Niens still worked for the Kresh?

  I have to get out of here. I have to get out now.

  30

  “Something must have given us away,” Cyrus said, as he watched a floating APC, an armored personnel carrier, head toward them.

  Together with Skar, he crouched behind a lichen-covered boulder. The others hid farther behind. To their left gurgled the demon river: a blue stream as wide as Cyrus could hurl a rock. They’d almost reached the outer perimeter of the puffer fields before the city. For the last two days, the ten avengers had descended into the canyon. It had been torturous and slow work, and the air became thicker by degrees, easier to breathe, and warmer than the air in the uplands.

  “Vomags,” Skar said, as he peered around the boulder.

  Cyrus felt a tendril of psi-power. He knew what it was: searching Bo Taw. As fast as he could, he concentrated, thinking null, spreading it over Skar and him.

  “Get behind the rock,” Cyrus said in a monotone.

  Skar pulled back and looked at him sharply. “Are they scanning for us?”

  Cyrus nodded. He was too busy to talk.

  “Are we hidden from them?” Skar asked.

  Cyrus nodded again.

  “What about Yang and the others? Are they hidden, too?”

  Cyrus shook his head, and his heart thudded as he thought about Jana. The null almost slipped away from him then. He fought for calm. If he lost it now . . . there, he had the null over them again.

  “They’re searching hard,” Cyrus whispered. “Can’t talk much . . .”

  Skar bent his head, perhaps in thought, then he snapped it up. Lifting his torso, he cupped his hands, aiming where the others hid as he kept the boulder between him and the APC.

  “Split up!” Skar shouted. “Sneak away. You have to act as decoys.”

  “Jana,” Cyrus said in a tortured voice.

  “Keep calm, my friend,” Skar told him. “We must outthink and outfight the enemy. Build the null. I have to study what we’re facing.”

  Cyrus lowered his forehead and stroked it with his fingertips, calming himself, calming. The null continued acting as a mirror, reflecting any searching psi-thoughts.

  “It’s a rover,” Skar said in a clipped voice. “It must have one Bo Taw, maybe two aboard. There likely isn’t room for more. There will be a squad of Vomags. That’s one senior and nine soldiers. They will all bear arms. Ah, they have a stun gun in the cupola. You were right. We must have triggered an alarm. It is as I’ve thought all along. There are too many of us for a commando raid. Only five of us should have entered the valley.”

  They had argued about that during the descent. Skar had suggested only five of them go down all the way. Yang and Grinder had disagreed, and they had carried the vote.

  Skar drew back and took out his pistol. There was a notch at the end of the barrel, made by a primitive several days ago. He had twelve shots left. Then he’d be down to his hatchet. Grinder still had the heat gun.

  Cyrus had a bow. He was an indifferent archer. Fortunately, he also carried his knife. Could he defeat a soldier in a knife fight? Cyrus didn’t think he could beat Skar. Why had the Kresh tinkered with human chromosomes anyway and made these genetic supermen?

  He heard the rover. It made a low swish-swish sound—the antigrav plates working overtime, no doubt. Then he heard a loud popping sound.

  “Relax,” Skar said.

  Something like a heat wave passed overhead. Cyrus looked over, and he saw one of the Berserkers fall to the ground and lie still.

  “Stun,” Skar said. “They must want to capture us.”

  “What gave us away?” Cyrus asked in a labored voice.

  “I’d guess passive ground sensors,” Skar said.

  Cyrus bit his lip. He wished Jana were with them. If the soldiers killed her . . . I hate this waiting. I hate relying on the null. I wish the space marines were here. Cyrus twitched. He had to focus. He could feel the enemy minds sliding over him. Were the Bo Taw frustrated? Did they know an enemy psionic was out here?

  The stun gun went off again, and the rover sounded closer.

  “Lay down,” Skar whispered. “And don’t move. Keep the null in place.”

  Cyrus lay on the damp ground. He didn’t even have a heat gun. What kind of commando operation was this? It was hard to believe humanity lived or died, remained slave or free, on what the ten of them did down here. It could all be over so easily.

  He closed his eyes. The rover was practically on top of them. The swish-swish was louder, and he heard a human shout.

  Cyrus held himself perfectly still. I am null. I am nothing. I am not here. I am a gnat.

  The stun gun fired once more, and he shivered in surprise. Two seconds later, someone from the rover laughed sharply.

  Hatred filled Cyrus’s chest. If they’d just shot Jana—

  “You can rise,” Skar said. “But move slowly.”

  The swish-swish sounds became faint as the rover passed them and headed toward the eight. Cyrus looked up, seeing the tail end of the military machine, a Kresh APC.

  “We can’t defeat that,” Cyrus whispered.

  “Not until they land and begin to collect the captured specimens,” Skar whispered.

  The two of them waited. The stun gun went off eight times. Did that mean the enemy had shot all eight Berserkers? Were the Vomags that efficient?

  “Can two men take a squad of soldiers?” Cyrus whispered.

  “It is doubtful,” Skar said, “but we will try.”

  “Yeah, let’s try.”

  The rover landed with a thud, and the swish-swishing quit. Metallic sliding sounds occurred, and men bearing equipment stomped onto the ground.

  “Are you ready, my friend?” Skar asked.

  For an answer, Cyrus drew his knife. He decided to leave the bow and arrows. They would only get in the way. He figured Vomag ears would hear any twangs. He was back to Milan methods, as if he were an enforcer in the Latin Kings.

  Using the boulders, Cyrus and Skar began to work toward the rover. “Which team do we take ou
t first?” Cyrus whispered.

  Tall reeds swayed between the boulders. The river’s gurgle might hide some of their noises.

  Skar looked at Cyrus. “I have an idea.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Who is guarding the rover?”

  Cyrus shrugged.

  “The soldiers aren’t guarding it,” Skar said. “They’re picking up the stunned captives. The Bo Taw will have remained in or near the vehicle in comfort. We must kill them first. Then we capture the rover and use it to kill or stun the soldiers.”

  “They might kill our friends in retaliation.”

  Skar’s features became flintlike. “We must move fast and capture the machine before the soldiers reach all the fallen. I see no other way.”

  Cyrus’s pulse began to beat in his throat. Jana! “Come on,” he hissed. “Let’s move.”

  Skar gripped his arm. “Listen to me.”

  With a jerk, Cyrus tore his arm free. He had to capture the rover before the soldiers reached his love.

  Who are you?

  With a curse, Cyrus realized he’d let the null slip. A Bo Taw had found him. He struggled for calm. “They know we’re here,” he said between clenched teeth.

  “Who?” Skar asked. “The Bo Taw?”

  The hell with this. Cyrus clutched his knife and broke into a sprint, weaving between the boulders.

  There were shouts farther away. Then an instinctive part of his mind gave Cyrus a moment’s warning. He threw himself to the ground. A pellet hissed overhead and exploded against a boulder, raining rock chips on his neck. Cyrus scrambled back onto his feet. The air was thicker down here than up on the plains. He didn’t tire as quickly. He sprinted so his thighs burned and his feet flew over the ground. He ran into sight of the rover. A soldier stepped out of the back. The opening was like a normal portal on an Earth APC. The Vomag raised his pistol, and then his neck exploded. Skar had shot him.

  Cyrus kept sprinting. One soldier stayed behind. Skar was wrong about that. At least he killed the man. Cyrus vaulted over the twisting, bleeding Vomag and collided with another rushing out. The shorter man was a mass of compacted muscle like a python. Even so, the two of them tumbled into the narrow confines of the rover.

  Cyrus kept hold of his knife, but an iron grip latched onto his wrist. The soldier moved Cyrus’s knife hand away as the man reached for his hatchet. Using his free hand, Cyrus jabbed stiffened fingers at the man’s eyes. The Vomag had catlike reflexes, for he released the hatchet and grabbed Cyrus’s arm before the fingers could dig out the orbs.

  With painful strength, the Vomag tightened his grip on Cyrus’s wrists. In a physical fight, the soldiers would always defeat him. But Cyrus was from the slums of Milan. A hard upbringing had taught him a grim rule: in a life-or-death match, fight dirty to win any way you can.

  Cyrus released the null. In his mind, in that second, he felt the searching Bo Taw, and he felt the psi-master’s surprise. There was only one in the vicinity. That was good.

  Staring eye to eye with the soldier, acting before the psi-master switched tasks, Cyrus used telekinesis. He twisted matter inside the Vomag’s brain. The soldier’s grip weakened, and the man groaned in agony.

  Cyrus wrenched his knife hand free and slid the blade into the man’s gasping mouth. He felt resistance, and put his weight behind it. The knife went in all the way. The soldier stiffened—and then the hidden Bo Taw slammed a psionic bolt against Cyrus.

  The former knife man from Milan groaned at the pain. He struggled to reset the null.

  No. I won’t let you. I see what you’ve been doing. Sleep—

  A physical explosion ended the mind burn. Cyrus blinked, feeling sluggish, struggling to remain awake. Then a tall humanoid with a baan around his elongated forehead tumbled onto the rover’s floor. He was missing most of his face because a pellet had torn it away in its blast.

  As Cyrus shoved up, Skar reached the rover. The Vomag held his pistol and now had only ten shots left. The soldier gave Cyrus a single glance before passing him, heading deeper into the bay.

  “Stay down,” Skar said.

  Why does he say that? I can’t even get up. Cyrus squeezed his eyelids together. The Bo Taw messed with my mind. If I’m going to save Jana, I have to wake up all the way.

  The swish-swish sounds returned. Cyrus could feel the vibration of the antigrav plates under his body and through the palms of his hands. The rear gate began to close. “Jana,” he croaked. He fought his way up, shaking his head, pinching himself until he cried out.

  The gate clanged shut. How was he supposed to get outside to help her, and how was Jana supposed to get in to safety?

  “Hey,” Cyrus said. He staggered to the front, finding Skar in the driver’s seat, looking through a vision plate.

  “Can you drive?” Skar asked.

  “Sure. But we—”

  “I’ll man the cupola,” Skar said. “We must hunt down the soldiers before it’s too late.”

  “Don’t tell me. Show me. Let’s go.”

  Skar shoved himself out of the seat and hurried to an upper hatch. Cyrus knew it had a bubble canopy protection. Skar had told him a few minutes earlier that it was pellet-resistant.

  As Skar rose into firing position, Cyrus settled into the warm driver’s chair. The controls looked enough like the needle-ship’s panel to make them familiar. He tapped in one spot and grasped a control stick. The rover lifted and swiveled hard to the right. It threw the soldier’s torso against the hatch.

  “Keep it steady,” Skar called down.

  “Got it,” Cyrus muttered.

  The extended stun gun went off, and Skar said, “One.”

  It didn’t take long for Cyrus to get the hang of it. The next few minutes became a one-sided battle, with the Vomags firing at the craft. Their pellets sounded like hail, and they proved completely ineffectual.

  “What’s the point of their shooting?” Cyrus shouted.

  When the first outer camera flickered off, Cyrus understood that they were trying to blind them.

  “They’re shooting out the vision plates,” he shouted.

  “Sound tactics,” Skar said. “Do you see . . . 12-BB-32?”

  “What?”

  “Turn on your grid.”

  “How do you—oh.” Cyrus tapped a spot and a grid appeared over the main screen. “What were those coordinates again?”

  Skar repeated them.

  “Yeah, I—hey, one of our team is there.”

  “Hurry to him,” Skar said. “We’re going to change the rules of the game, starting now.”

  Cyrus sped there, and Skar stunned another two Vomags.

  “We have to time this exactly,” Skar said. “Do you see the switch to the right of the screen?”

  “What’s it do?” Cyrus shouted.

  “Opens and closes the rear hatch.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get ready to open it so I can drag Yang into the rover.”

  “Roger,” Cyrus said. He brought the APC beside the inert body, landed, and opened the hatch.

  Skar had already slid down from the cupola. He jumped outside and dragged the big Berserker into the main bay.

  Cyrus closed the hatch and started moving for the next Berserker. He searched the screen for a sign of Jana. As he did, the enemy Vomags shot out another camera.

  “We’re down to two vision plates,” Cyrus said.

  Skar scrambled back into the cupola, stunning another enemy.

  Then Cyrus saw Jana. A soldier stood over her with a pistol aimed at her chest. The enemy Vomag looked up at the rover. It was hard to tell his expression. The sunlight was wrong and the bill of his helmet shadowed his features.

  “Let’s bargain,” Cyrus shouted. “Let’s see what he—”

  The stun gun sounded, and the Vomag slumped bes
ide Jana.

  Cyrus’s mouth became dry. Skar had risked his love, the bastard. He throttled the rover wide open so the APC strained, and he flew over two large boulders.

  “Steady,” Skar shouted.

  The rover wobbled, and it threatened to flip. Cyrus clenched his teeth. And he played the craft, riding out the shaking and shifting, and he brought it down so near his woman that dirt exploded, some of it raining onto Jana’s face.

  “Skar!” Cyrus shouted.

  “I see him,” the soldier said. He shot and missed, the Vomag ducking out of sight too quickly. “It must be the senior,” Skar said. “You’ll have to get her this time while I keep him busy.”

  The rear hatch had already opened. Cyrus launched out of his seat and sprinted through the bay. He darted into bright sunlight.

  Ten meters away and hidden from the stun gun, the senior Vomag appeared, brushing past two tall plants. The man aimed his gun at Jana.

  Cyrus launched himself airborne, thudding onto her body in protective covering. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the end, but nothing happened. He looked up. The senior toppled onto the ground, with a burn on the back of his head and a curl of smoke rising. Cyrus didn’t understand. He hadn’t heard the stun gun go off. A second later, Grinder stepped past the tall plants where the Vomag had been. The former primitive held the heat gun. He had robbed the fallen Vomag and then shot the man in the head.

  Cyrus didn’t have time to worry about that. He lifted Jana, clutching her in his arms, and staggered into the bay. He set her down and dove for the driver’s seat.

  The stun gun went off again.

  “This is bad,” Skar said.

  “What?” Cyrus asked, seeing Grinder hurrying within and beginning to close the hatch.

  “Our friend killed a Vomag. Now the soldiers are butchering some of their captives.”

  “How’s that any different than before?” Cyrus asked.

  “The soldiers held back from murder. Now Grinder has made this a killing match.”

  “I’ve paid back the demon slaves in the only way they understand,” Grinder muttered.

  Cyrus turned, grim-faced, and the next several minutes proved deadly. They stunned the rest of the soldiers, but the enemy killed three more Berserkers.