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

  Yes, these two had escaped out of High Station 3. It had been cleverly done, with aid from the vermin, the Humanity Ultimates in the slums.

  “Excellency,” Dez Rek said, “time is critical.”

  Chengal Ras gazed at her. She would persist. She was a climber, indeed. He had gauged her wrongly. That was unusual. He had a gift for reading Kresh and for reading cattle, too. Apparently, she did not understand that she could go farther riding his tail to greatness. She was an egotist. He knew the signs well, because he was a full-blown egotist himself. Under normal circumstances, the Hundred would have long ago ordered his destruction. He had hidden his gross egotism through what the highest considered buffoonery.

  The Race could not long survive many category-one egotists in their midst. Chengal Ras had destroyed several category-two egotists in his time. One such was still in his employ, although not on Valiant. That was too bad.

  “I do not wish to appear insistent,” Dez Rek said. “But time is limited, and these two are level-three hazards. They could possibly implement the Grand Rebellion as written by the Second.”

  If the pilot tried to dazzle him with her knowledge, she failed dismally. Chengal Ras had not only read about the Grand Rebellion, he had added an addendum to it that had won him critical acclaim. In fact, it had propelled him from 110th to 109th. It was likely Dez Rek was aware of the addendum. A climber usually knew her selected target. Therefore, what was she hinting at?

  “You are rational and rigorous,” Chengal Ras said. “I would reward you for your insight.”

  The other two Kresh turned away from their stations to glance at him in surprise.

  “The ribbons I’m wearing are too paltry to show my proper appreciation,” Chengal Ras said, indicating those on his body. “I would bring you a red.”

  A red indicated many codex points. An accumulation of codex points was how one gained rank. He could only give her points out of his own vault. Therefore, Kresh only paid out points in a miserly manner.

  “I . . . do not comprehend,” Dez Rek said.

  He knew she did not because he had just acted out of character. He was counting on a climber’s greed to blind her long enough for him to act decisively. “It will take two minutes.”

  “I will contact Jassac Central in your absence,” the pilot said.

  “No. You will patch me through only while in my presence. One, I would have them record the codex points as I award them, as that is the proper ceremony. Two, it is my responsibility to tell Jassac Central of the danger.”

  “This is true—” Dez Rek stopped abruptly. She had almost insulted him.

  “Two minutes,” Chengal Ras said.

  “Of course, Excellency,” Dez Rek said. “I await your commands.”

  Chengal Ras stalked toward the hatch, with his talons scraping against the deck plates. He kept from glancing at the others. They might recognize his unease if they saw his eyes. This was a new step for him on his road to the Hundred. He knew that once he reached the exalted state, that he would attempt to gain entrance into the Ten. Still, to do what he planned . . . it was difficult for him. It would set him on the hard path to the top. Yet he must take it, for he refused to be denied preeminence. He would win, and he would do it at all costs.

  This was a prime warship. The personnel were his best. He would miss them, including the crack soldiers, the Vomag cattle, and his best Bo Taw.

  He should have taken a different Attack Talon.

  Chengal Ras hardened his resolve as he entered a lift. He rode it down to a seldom-used corridor, strode to his special single-ship, and climbed into it. The hatch clanged shut behind him. Seconds went by, and sudden acceleration pressed him against the upright couch as the single-ship launched out of the Attack Talon and into space. He waited.

  “Excellency,” Dez Rek said over a comm unit. “I have you on my scanner. You have left Valiant. May I ask why?”

  “The answer should be obvious,” he said. He pressed a switch, and he waited a few moments longer.

  “Excellency, I can only conclude—”

  Dez Rek never had a chance to finish her thought. Attack Talon Valiant’s nuclear-powered engine detonated. Everyone aboard the ship died in the blast, including the three Kresh in the control chamber.

  Chengal Ras exhaled sharply, riding ahead of the spreading radioactive zone. He had done it, and it felt evil to him. He shuddered and wished there could have been another way. Dez Rek had badly miscalculated and forced him to this. He sighed, and he pressed a beacon, summoning aid from Jassac Central.

  Now he would hunt the two cattle on his own. He could not let them get away. It would be harder with the 73rd watching him, but he would outwit any who thought to thwart his rise to power.

  He had made his own study of the Grand Rebellion. The addendum he’d written had propelled him from 110th to 109th. Yet he had left out the most important finds. These he used for himself, as well as the underground network of Resisters. Oh yes, he planned to use them in the furtherance of his goal of attaining the Hundred and then the Ten. If he could, he would even reach for First. Chengal Ras, First of the Kresh.

  To gain such an exalted rank would take great cunning and heightened cheating. It might even take a massive disruption of the Fenris System. Possibly, it could weaken the Kresh hold on the Chirr planets.

  Chengal Ras was willing to gamble because he would do anything to rise. His will for power was absolute. He was the egotist of egotists, self above all.

  His leathery lips slid upward, revealing his gleaming teeth. He was Chengal Ras, and he would use these Humanity Ultimates to remake the rankings into something more to his liking.

  5

  Cyrus Gant expected death at any moment. The atmosphere might help them a little, yet he doubted it was thick enough to distort a military laser.

  They rode the antigravity sled, the small vehicle shaking wildly as if trying to loosen his grip around the pole. Then the bottom of his foot became hot, concentrating on the ball of his left sole.

  “Do you feel that heat?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Skar said.

  Apparently, the soldier didn’t have any more time to speak. His gloved fingers kept playing over the controls. Cyrus didn’t know what Skar did exactly, but it had kept them alive so far.

  It might have been beautiful, the fast descent toward the surface, but he kept wondering if he was about to die. Towering, stony peaks stood beside vast, slashing valleys like those on Mars or the Grand Canyon on Earth.

  Lights glowed in some of the valleys. That seemed to indicate high technology. The upper plains looked bleak, a red desert of windswept stone, sand, and dirt. Seeing that the system’s sun was so far away, he wondered what kept the planet warm enough for people to survive here.

  The heat coming through the sole of his boot became too much. He switched feet, and he nearly lost his grip on the pole while making the exchange.

  “Let me explain the sled’s workings,” Skar said.

  “Why? You’re doing fine.”

  “I must leave you, my friend. The sled—”

  “If you step off this thing, I’m stepping off it, too,” Cyrus said.

  “That does not make sense,” Skar said. “You must warn your home system of the Kresh. I wish to aid you in that.”

  “Are you tired of living?”

  “No. That is not—”

  “I didn’t think you soldiers believed in suicide.”

  “Why do you attempt to belittle my sacrifice?” Skar asked.

  “Work the sled,” Cyrus said. “Ask me philosophical questions once we’re down.”

  The antigravity sled shook even worse than before. The heat under Cyrus’s foot became unbearable. He switched feet again. Skar adjusted the controls. Whatever he did made it worse. Smoke began billowing out of the antigrav plate. The machine lurched, and lurched
again, taking them down faster.

  “It cannot handle two of us, not at this velocity,” Skar said.

  “Burn it out. Make the bastard work for its death.”

  Skar stared at him through his bubble helmet. At last, the soldier shrugged. He adjusted the controls, and Cyrus nearly shouted at the heat burning through his sole.

  The smoke intensified, and the next lurch almost threw him off. Then, moment by moment, the smoke went from black to gray to whitish, and then it became a trickle. The heat dissipated, and a grin spread across the soldier’s face.

  “I’m eating up battery power,” Skar explained. “We may not have enough juice to land.”

  Cyrus watched the mountains, and then concentrated on one range in particular, the one closest to them. A huge zigzagging crack showed the valley beside it.

  “I can steer for a time,” Skar said. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  What made the most sense? Then Cyrus had it. “Yeah,” he said. “If you see any primitives—humans—land near them.”

  “You wish to land near a clan on the uplands?” asked Skar.

  “Exactly,” Cyrus said.

  “I can see nothing from this height.”

  “I realize that. So steer for the plains.”

  For the next few minutes, they floated down toward the surface. The sled lurched again, and a high-pitched whine began. It told Cyrus they were farther down then he realized, deep in the atmosphere. Clearly, the sled didn’t have long to live.

  The mountain range, seemingly underneath them, shifted to the left. The same thing happened with the deep valley.

  “How far away from the mountains do you wish to be?” Skar asked.

  “Two days’ march, I guess,” Cyrus said.

  The antigravity sled began swaying back and forth like a swing. The trickle of smoke increased, and it became black-colored again. If the sled gave out, they were dead. It was as simple as that.

  “Too bad we couldn’t have landed the needle-ship,” Cyrus said.

  “We live,” the soldier said.

  Something about that, or the way Skar said it, struck him as funny. Cyrus threw back his head and laughed. Yeah, he lived all right. Despite everything, this was just plain cool. He rode an antigravity sled down from space. If he couldn’t enjoy this, then what could he enjoy? The aliens had shot their ship to pieces and he was still alive. Screw them, anyway.

  “Are you well?” Skar asked.

  Cyrus looked down at the nearing red plains. He spied a field of boulders and then tall, spindly grass. “I’m great!” he shouted. “We’re going to make it, my friend. We escaped from High Station 3 and we reached the damn planetoid. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s fantastic.”

  “The odds were against us, certainly,” Skar said.

  “We’re going to win,” Cyrus said, as fierce resolve beat in his chest. “We’re going to warn Earth. I don’t know how, but I know I’m not quitting, ever. If we can jump off orbital wreckage and land here on the surface—”

  The antigravity sled gave the worst lurch yet, and it dropped.

  “What just happened?” Cyrus shouted.

  “You cursed us,” Skar said. “You celebrated before the victory had been achieved. That always brings bad luck.”

  Cyrus watched the ground rush up. At the same time, Skar’s hands blurred across the controls. The antigrav plate shuddered, shuddered again, and the thing billowed smoke. Yet it floated again.

  “All we need is another minute,” Cyrus said.

  Skar must have worked a miracle. The ground floated up toward them. Then, through the smoke, Cyrus noticed movement in the distance.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “What do you see over there?” He dared to point.

  Skar twisted around. “Natives,” he said. “I count five primitives with spears. They’re racing here.”

  Neither man had time for speech after that. The antigravity sled plummeted the last one hundred feet toward the rock-hard surface below.

  Cyrus knew they were traveling too fast. Fifty feet, forty, thirty, twenty—

  “Jump!” Skar roared.

  The soldier sprang off the sled. Cyrus followed a second later. Relieved of their combined weight, the antigravity sled slewed to the right, and it moved more slowly. Cyrus fell. His stomach tightened and he tried to ready himself. The jump had thrown him off, though. He struck with his side, bounced up, and hit again. He groaned in agony, twisting on the ground. What had he broken? His entire side felt as if it were on fire. He tried to breathe, but his lungs locked. He groaned again, twisted again. Then Cyrus Gant blacked out from the pain.

  Cyrus’s eyes fluttered as an odd, dusty odor permeated his nostrils. His entire left side throbbed and felt numb at the same time. Breathing was a chore.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Cyrus wondered who spoke to him. He was disoriented, dizzy, and—oh. He was in an alien star system. He had landed on an Earth-sized moon. The air was cold, crisp in his lungs, and it tasted different from anything he’d known. He was on a foreign moon in a different star system. He might be the first human to have reached another world like Earth.

  Well, no, that didn’t make sense. The first colonizing ship from the solar system would have held the first people to do that.

  His eyes finally came into focus, and he saw Skar staring down at him. The soldier had shed his vacc-suit and he wore his brown uniform with red shoulder taps. Skar had a thicker chest than anyone Cyrus had known. In reality, the soldier didn’t really have a neck. With his helmet and alert eyes, Skar seemed like an alien, especially with those gorilla-like arms. He had a sidearm and a short-handled axe dangling from his belt. Cyrus recalled the first time he’d seen Vomags, inside the belly of a Kresh military vessel. He was glad the soldier was on his side.

  “Can you understand me?” Skar asked.

  “Yeah,” Cyrus whispered. He noticed Skar had twisted off the bubble helmet—he could breathe the planetary air. So, Cyrus took off his own helmet, figuring the air was good.

  “The natives approach,” Skar said. “You must get up.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Are any bones broken?”

  “Maybe. I hurt like hell. Does that count?”

  “No,” Skar said. “Broken bones—”

  “I’m joking. How about helping me out of this suit?”

  Skar reached down and pulled. Cyrus yelled and flinched from the contact. The soldier frowned. “I will try again, more slowly this time.”

  “Yeah,” Cyrus wheezed.

  Bit by bit, Skar, with Cyrus’s help, removed the vacc-suit. There wasn’t any blood, nor did any bones stick out of his flesh. That was good, right?

  Cyrus wore a sidearm and had a High Station 3 knife. It wasn’t a vibrio-knife from Earth, but it had good balance, at least.

  The big test came a moment later. With Skar’s help, Cyrus climbed to his feet. Standing made his left side throb even more, and his neck had stiffened into near immobility, but at least he could balance on his own two feet.

  “Spit,” Skar said.

  Cyrus wondered what for, but he did it.

  Skar examined the spittle on the red ground. “I don’t think you have internal bleeding,” the soldier said.

  “That’s something.”

  “What are your plans for the natives?” Skar asked.

  “Let me sit down,” Cyrus said. Without moving his head or neck, he managed to sit on the ground. He leaned on his right side and sipped from the canteen Skar handed him. After capping it, he moved his eyes and looked up at the wispy clouds. He could hardly believe they had come down from outer space to land on dirt. He would have laughed, but that would have pained his left side too much.

  “How come you’re not hurt?” Cyrus asked.

  “I have space d
ropped before,” Skar said. “It was part of my training.”

  “I bet you landed on your feet like a cat.”

  “What is a cat?” Skar asked.

  “How far away are the natives?” Cyrus asked, ignoring the soldier’s question.

  Skar shaded his eyes from the rising sun. “I can see their dust.”

  Cyrus managed to twist around. Yeah, he could see dust, too. In a little while he saw the outlines of men. Yeah, they were headed this way.

  “How did you see they had spears earlier?” Cyrus asked.

  “My helmet had a HUD. It shorted out, unfortunately.”

  “We get all the luck, don’t we?”

  “We live,” Skar said.

  The crash had welded Cyrus’s neck muscles into place. There was no way he would try to nod in agreement. That didn’t matter now, anyway. He had to think. Cyrus closed his eyes and opened them thirty seconds later. “The way I see it, we have one clue. We know the Anointed One’s name. I’m hoping Klane is older than a baby. The Reacher never told me how old he’s supposed to be now. I guess there are many things the Reacher never explained. But if Klane is the hero of this holo-vid drama, the big savior of the human race, he must have done a few things already to show his greatness.”

  “What kind of things?” Skar asked.

  “Good question. I have no idea. I’m just speculating.”

  “I see,” Skar said.

  “Unfortunately, that’s all we have. That’s our clue: the name Klane. I’ll ask them if they’ve heard about him. If they have, I’ll ask how we can get ahold of him. If they haven’t . . . we’re crap out of luck.”

  “We wait for them, then?” Skar asked.

  “What’s troubling you?”