In the dim light, Nagasaki grinned. That would be a fine thing indeed. He was the captain. He was the judge on this vessel. The chief monitor practiced security for Premier Lang, and that was a good thing. But now, the chief monitor had overstepped his bounds. Imagine, foisting the ill-bred Special on him named Cyrus Gant. Yes, the lad had saved the ship, but any fool could have done that once the targeting computer took over.
I’m wet nurse to an inexperienced youth. He isn’t even a navy rating. He’s a Special. Who does the chief monitor think he is?
Nagasaki frowned. He had just repented for sedition. Was he going to do something similar now, so soon after eating crow on video for Premier Lang?
Raising the control unit, Nagasaki clicked buttons, changing the view on the screen. He studied the nearest gas giant. It had a ring like Saturn and was in a Saturn-like orbit compared to the star AS 412. The gas giant possessed an Earth-sized moon. Nagasaki clicked the controller again, studying the moon’s atmosphere. This was interesting. The atmosphere was Earth-like. It would be cold on the moon, but it would still possess a breathable atmosphere.
Nagasaki sighed, leaving the controller hanging in the air beside him. He should go to sleep. The battle was tomorrow. The aliens had been hailing the ship, but Argon had forbidden anyone to open channels with them.
That was another usurpation of the captain’s authority. Nagasaki would have ordered the same thing, but it had been his order to give.
Does Argon think I’m a figurehead?
He scowled. Others had once tried to usurp his authority on Argonaut many years ago. He’d taught the ringleaders what it meant to try to strip him of power. Each of them had been bound and ejected alive into space. It was an outdated punishment but well deserved.
Special Jasper had used him. The telepath had twisted their minds and tried to take control of the ship. In fact, the telepath had succeeded, but events had allowed them to regain control.
Jasper will never receive the punishment he so richly deserves.
As he lay on his bunk in the dim light, Nagasaki fumed and played out the situation in his head. If the alien warship won the battle tomorrow, Discovery would be destroyed and everyone aboard would die. Jasper would never realize he’d lost and he would never have to pay the ultimate penalty for his crime. If they destroyed the first alien tomorrow and then escaped the slower warship, Discovery would begin the long voyage back to Sol. Once there, because Earth badly needed Specials, Premier Lang would likely attempt to rehabilitate the telepath. Jasper would go free and never pay for his wretched crime.
The supposedly stray thought in the fold of Nagasaki’s brain came to the forefront. Jasper shouldn’t be able to escape paying the penalty for his crime. That was wrong.
I’m not going to stand for this. First Argon usurps my authority and now Jasper gets to run free again. No. I’m going to administer justice this very night.
Captain Nagasaki pushed off the bunk. In the darkness, he donned his uniform. With his thumb and forefinger, he shut each front clasp on his jacket. He felt weary. His eyes hurt and sleep beckoned. But this needed doing and he couldn’t think of a better time to do it. He grabbed the control unit and shoved it into his waistband. In his mind, the unit was the needler he’d taken from Argon.
The stray thought in his mind was no longer stray but in charge of his actions. He operated robotically, with a glassy stare in his eyes.
He floated to the portal, exited, and swam expertly down the corridors. Despite the glassy look and the stiffness of his movements, he acted decisively. The “needler” in his waistband gave him confidence. If the chief monitor tried to stop him, he would kill the interloper and solve yet another problem.
Nagasaki swam to medical and used his override code to open the portal. He floated toward the emergency stasis locker, reached it, and was in the process of entering his override code one more time.
The main medical portal opened again and Dr. Wexx walked in on the weave. “Lights,” she said.
As the lights came on, Nagasaki made an instant decision, drawing the “needler” from his waistband. “Dr. Wexx,” he said, “you are under arrest.”
Wexx froze by the open portal. “What are you doing here?”
“I have come to administer justice,” Nagasaki said.
“Why are you pointing a control unit at me?”
Nagasaki frowned at his “needler.”
“It’s not a…” He found himself holding a control unit for a wall screen. Something was out of order here and he wasn’t sure what. One thing he did understand, telepaths and alien mind benders could play tricks on a person’s intellect. He was Captain Nagasaki and he had an iron will. He had helped colonize Epsilon Eridani and—
With a karate shout, Nagasaki sprang for Dr. Wexx, sailing across medical.
She pivoted and dived through the portal, closing it behind her.
Nagasaki twisted in midair, bringing his feet forward. He struck the bulkhead near the portal and propelled himself back toward the emergency stasis chamber. He had little time left to effect justice. He needed to move fast before Wexx brought reinforcements.
Reaching the portal to stasis, Nagasaki began entering his override code one more time. Before he completed the code, the main portal opened and Chief Monitor Argon jumped into the room.
“Captain!” Argon shouted. “You must desist at once.”
Nagasaki turned with a snarl. The giant sailed toward him. With an oath, he sprang at Argon. He’d defeated the NKV officer once already. He could do it again. Nagasaki readied himself as they neared each other. He’d trained for years in zero G karate. Size would mean little in this conflict.
“Submit,” Argon said.
“Die!” Nagasaki shouted.
Just before Nagasaki could land his first blow, the bigger, stronger NKV officer grabbed an outthrust wrist and yanked the smaller man closer. With a deft move, Argon turned Nagasaki and wrapped a steel-like forearm around his throat.
“Yield,” Argon hissed into his ear. “Fighting me is useless.”
Nagasaki struggled fiercely. He was the captain. He must administer justice. He would thaw Jasper out and then… then… He couldn’t breathe! The giant crushed his throat, cutting off air. Oh, this was wrong. This was mutiny. He was the…
Chief Monitor Argon applied pressure until Nagasaki slumped into unconsciousness. Then the NKV officer brought the smaller man to one of the medical cots and securely strapped him down.
6
Klane held a new junction-stone as he stared at a boulder in the Wild Rocks.
He stood in the shelter of an even bigger boulder. The thing towered three times the height of a man and cast him in shadows.
Klane stood still, clutching the stone. His features contorted into a stern mask. He wore leather garments like a warrior and a cape of fur. At his feet was a pack of supplies, most of it cured jerky and water. He stood in shadows to symbolize his darkened heart.
The demons had captured the seeker, and they likely experimented on him in the Valley of the Demons. Through an act of unselfish love, the seeker had taken his place. Klane could not allow that. He must rescue the old man, his friend and his father. Klane knew, too, that the seeker needed to cause the transfer. It was important in the Great War against the demons, the plague of humanity.
Klane clutched his new junction-stone, a blue rock smooth with gat-oil. Day and night, he’d poured his hatred against the demons into the stone. He could feel it filled with pregnant power. Now he tested the junction-stone.
He stared at the boulder. Brown lichen covered it and coral-grass sprouted from the top.
A groan escaped Klane’s lips. His arm began to shake and his fingers tightened around the junction-stone. A terrible splintering sound occurred, and the boulder before him splintered and shattered, showering smaller pieces onto the rocky ground.
Klane grunted with exhaustion, and he relaxed as the tension eased from him. He wrapped the junction-stone and put it
away. Wearily, he picked up the pack.
“Where do you go, seeker?”
Klane whirled around.
The hetman stood before him. The big warrior held a metal knife, one fashioned from the broken air-car that Klane had brought down on the night of the Eye of the Moon.
Klane stood before the powerful man, at a loss for words.
“The clan needs you, seeker.”
“I brought death to the Tash-Toi.”
“By killing demons,” the hetman said.
“Does it matter how?”
“Yes,” the hetman said. “The demons are the enemy of men. You killed the enemy.”
“But at a heavy cost.”
The hetman shook his head. “The cost is always heavy to act the part of a man.”
Klane gathered his resolve. “I must leave.”
“You go to your doom.”
“I must rescue the seeker.”
“You are the seeker,” the hetman said.
“He gave his life for me.”
“You are the Chosen One.”
Klane shook his head. “First, I must take part in the transfer. Until that happens, I am only a dim hope.”
“Your words are meaningless,” the hetman said.
“I must go and rescue the seeker. I know I can do it.”
“You are young, Klane. You need wisdom to defeat the demons on their own ground.”
“That is why I must take part in the transfer.”
“You are keeping secrets from me,” the hetman said.
Klane nodded. “They are secrets bound to one of my craft.”
The hetman turned away. “If I let you go, the clan will be without a seeker. If I force you to remain—”
“You cannot force me,” Klane said.
The hetman bristled.
Klane pointed at the shattered boulder. “Can you defeat me?”
“If I drive this knife into your chest, I can.”
Klane surprised himself by saying, “Don’t stand in my way, Hetman. I am off to save my father.”
The hetman opened his mouth, and slowly, he closed it. The big man nodded. “Go with my blessing, Klane. Make the demons pay for their haunting of Clan Tash-Toi.”
Klane was glad the hetman had blessed him. Sighing, feeling more alone than he ever had in his life, Klane picked up his pack.
The hetman moved aside.
Klane strode past him and shouldered the pack onto his shoulders. Then he headed for the Valley of the Demons. He would surely die, but he would die trying to save his father and his friend.
7
As the hour of battle neared, Cyrus sat in the shift officer’s seat on the bridge module.
Chief Monitor Argon sat in the captain’s chair. Nagasaki was in a stasis cylinder and Argon had decided to act in his stead. “Explain the tactical situation to me,” Argon said.
Cyrus watched on his screens as Tanaka spoke.
“The alien warship is sixteen minutes from reaching our primary laser’s extreme combat range: one million kilometers. The enemy vessel exceeds a speed of seven hundred thousand kilometers a minute. It means that once we start firing our laser, the enemy will reach us in less than one and a half minutes. I would recommend a total barrage before that.”
“Our Prometheus missiles will likely be critical to the fight,” Lieutenant Jones said.
“If the enemy doesn’t annihilate them first,” Tanaka added.
“Before that happens,” Jones said, “we should be giving them too much to worry about.”
“I’m not as sanguine,” Tanaka said. “Can we destroy the alien vessel in a minute and a half? At what point will the alien weaponry reach us? Surely, he will strike hard before we can destroy him.”
“I think I understand,” Argon said. “His extreme velocity is a weapon.”
“Not strictly speaking,” Tanaka said.
“His velocity is a tactical advantage,” Argon amended.
“It depends on what the enemy hopes to achieve with it.”
“No,” Argon said. “Everything depends on our survival. We must survive so we can return home and warn humanity of the danger.”
“Do the aliens have Teleships?” Cyrus asked.
Argon glanced at him. “Interesting, we haven’t asked ourselves that yet. Gentlemen,” he said to the lieutenants, “I would like to know your views on the subject.”
“I haven’t spotted anything resembling a Teleship,” Tanaka said.
“If they don’t have Teleships,” Cyrus said. “We can’t let them get ours. Otherwise, they might reverse engineer it, build some of their own, and attack Earth. And given the number of Specials they apparently possess, they could probably field an armada of Teleships.”
“That is rationally thought out,” Argon said. After several moments of thought, his features hardened. “We must be ready to self-destruct if it appears the aliens are about to capture our ship.”
“The approaching alien vessel can’t capture us,” Tanaka said. “They’re traveling far too fast for them to slow down in time to board us.”
“I understand,” Argon said. “But they can cripple us so others can board us later.”
“That’s at least a week off,” Tanaka said.
Argon nodded shortly. “We will concentrate on the coming fight. But it is well to remember that our existence is at stake in an alien star system. They have tried to capture us once. I will not give them a second chance.”
Cyrus swallowed in a dry throat. He didn’t like the idea of initiating Discovery’s destruction. Nor did he like being the lone Sol ship in a strange star system. Everything here was against them.
He watched the approaching vessel hurtle through the system. Tanaka had told him that it was big and shiny, which was strange. Combat ships should be difficult to spot, allowing them to coast toward an enemy while remaining hidden. It suggested to Tanaka that the aliens didn’t feel the need to hide, which should be a clue toward something. None of them had figured out what, though.
Can we win? Would the alien be racing at them like this if they thought they could lose? Do their Illustrious Ones understand shifting? The aliens had to know something strange was going on in terms of transportation. The aliens had been in psi-contact many light years out, drawing them in to New Eden. It would appear the alien leaders wanted the Teleship pretty badly. If the situation were reversed, that’s how Earth’s leaders would think.
“You know,” Cyrus said. “Do you think they mean to destroy us or simply disable the ship?”
“Explain your thinking,” Argon said.
Cyrus told them what he’d just reasoned out.
Lieutenant Tanaka swiveled his chair to look up at Argon. “If our roles were reversed—with aliens in the solar system—the navy chiefs would do whatever they needed to get hold of a starship.”
“Make your meaning clear,” Argon said.
“Cyrus must be right. I don’t think the aliens are going to try to destroy us, merely cripple the ship.”
“In order to capture our Teleship?” Argon asked.
“Yes, sir,” Tanaka said.
“Let us hope that gives us an advantage,” Argon said.
Silence descended after that and the minutes passed in tense waiting.
“It’s time,” Jones said later. “We’d better prepare our lanes of fire.”
“Begin to do so,” Argon said.
At his station, Lieutenant Jones began to manipulate his controls.
In the P-Field and gel cloud in front of the ship, precise explosions cleared lanes of fire, windows for the ship’s lasers.
Cyrus watched and learned, wondering if he would ever have to do something like this again. The first time they’d attacked a stationary habitat. Apparently, the alien space station hadn’t possessed offensive weapons. Now, they were facing an alien battleship. What a crazy thing.
“They’re hailing us,” Tanaka said.
“Ignore it,” Argon said.
“I… I th
ink we should answer this time.”
Cyrus stared at Tanaka in shock. Hadn’t the lieutenant been listening before? What was the man thinking?
“You’re relieved of duty,” Argon said from the command chair. “Exit the bridge at once.”
Tanaka swiveled around to stare up at Argon. “Don’t you see? This is critical. We can avoid death if we just—”
Chief Monitor Argon wasn’t listening. He unbuckled himself, drew a stunner-rod, and leaned down from his chair. His long arm and the rod itself lengthened his reach. Tanaka twisted about frantically in his seat to avoid the tip of the rod. It glowed blue. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t get his straps off and apparently wasn’t thinking clearly enough to turn around and block with the back of his chair. A loud sizzling sound filled the bridge. Tanaka screamed and slumped unconscious.
A side hatch opened and a monitor squeezed into the bridge module.
“Take him to the brig,” Argon said. “Watch him. I don’t know if the alien psi-masters can revive him or not. Tell the others to keep up their concentration shields at all times.”
The monitor dragged Tanaka out of the module.
Cyrus finally understood what must have been going on. The chief monitor had realized more quickly than any of them had. With the nearing alien warship, its psi-master must finally be in range to affect crewmembers without radio linkage.
“Can you fulfill your duties?” Argon asked Lieutenant Jones.
“Yes, sir,” Jones said.
“Occupy navigation,” Argon told Cyrus.
Cyrus slid to the middle chair. He was thinking now, and he asked Argon, “What if the alien psi-master gets hold of Jones’s mind in the middle of battle?”
“Hey!” Jones said. “What are you saying? I’m no turncoat. I won’t go crazy.”
“We need his expertise on the bridge,” Argon said.
“Yeah, we need Jones’s expertise, but if he freaks out at exactly the wrong time won’t that be worse? I mean, better a crew we can trust, even if that crew doesn’t know as much.”
“Quit talking about me as if I’m stupid,” Jones said.
Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) Page 16