It took him a serious effort at concentration. Finally, he nodded to himself. “You are Commander Creed.”
“How do you know me?”
“All of Purple Tamika knows about the imp who slew the Maximum Princess Nee of Purple Tamika, the former Emperor’s third daughter-wife.”
I hadn’t heard that name in a while. It brought back memories, some of them good, most of them bitter. The incident had happened during the same trip where I’d left Jennifer behind on the portal planet.
“That happened a long time ago,” I said.
“The Evil One’s imp drew a noisemaker and shot the Princess Nee in front of her guards and many adepts.”
That wasn’t exactly what had happened, well, Tal Feng hadn’t included my reason for doing that. Haughty Princess Nee had boarded the dreadnaught in order to kill all the humans aboard and scotch the critical mission. I’d simply acted fast in enlightened self-interest. It had been my skin or hers, and I’d chosen hers.
“Tell me, Sub-commander,” I said, “who rules the Lokhar Empire these days?”
“How can you not know?”
“Would I ask if I did?”
That seemed like a calculus problem for him. He frowned, finally saying, “The great Purple Tamika Emperor Daniel Lex Rex the Third rules our glorious empire.”
That’s how the interrogation began, questions and answers. Because of the injection I’d given him, the sub-commander no longer had independent will and had also become stupider. Through a torturous process, I learned that Daniel Lex Rex had led an insurrection against the Orange Tamika Emperor Sant. It had involved a vicious civil war. The Purple Tamika had won in the end, mostly because they’d nuked some key Orange Tamika worlds. Such genocidal bombardments went against the Lokhar code when fighting amongst themselves, but winning often absolved the winner of all past wrongs. There was a key side effect to the bombardments. The Purple Tamika tigers had to retroactively come up with a reason for their barbarism. It appears they told themselves they had to do that in order to rid the universe of Commander Creed and possibly the rest of the little killers as well.
Due to their newfound mission—in order to ease their consciences about the tiger-killing bombardments—the Lokhars had reunited the former Jade League. They had preached about the danger of letting the notorious little killers of legend become too strong. Before it was too late—the Purple Tamika Lokhars said—everyone needed to unite to put the little killers back into their cage of a pre-industrial world where they couldn’t murder other races. It had worked, as the Jade League had reformed.
I questioned Tal Feng for over an hour. I learned that humanity had grown too quickly for the peace of mind of the other alien races.
The old Jelk Corporation worlds had held many human slaves. Once the Saurians departed for the old Jelk core worlds, the main Earth Fleet had raced in with Starkien help and liberated almost all the planets. Millions of freed humans had emigrated to Earth, so the homeworld teemed again.
Before Earth could consolidate its Confederation of Liberated Planets, the Jade League had struck with a large battle fleet. Three years ago, the two sides fought a bitter battle in the Altair System. The Jade League had taken heavier damage, but the Earth and the Starkien Fleets had each been smaller to begin with and had been whittled down to nubs.
There was an arms race afterward, with the Jade League out-building the humans and Starkiens.
After the Battle of Altair, the humans had relinquished their claims on about half of the former Jelk Corporation planets they’d tried to incorporate into the new Confederation.
Sub-commander Tal Feng didn’t tell me all this the way I’ve told you. He told me in fits and starts, and by me having to ask the right questions.
I learned one other interesting thing. The Lokhar Emperor Daniel Lex Rex badly wanted me in person to pay for my crimes. He wanted to torture me on the Lokhar homeworld before a vast audience. Accordingly, he had sent an offer. The Terran Confederation could buy back many worlds and possibly peace if they turned me over to him.
None of the Purple Tamika Lokhars believed Prime Minster Diana’s claim that I was no longer around.
“The humans say you left for the galactic core,” Tal Feng slurred. He was getting sleepy and finding it hard to pronounce his words. “But we know that is a lie. The Creator lives at the core. He could never stand Commander Creed’s wretched presence there.”
“How can you say that?” I asked. “Ten years ago, Lokhars saw Creed on the Curator’s Moon-ship.”
“Those are lies,” Tal Feng spit.
“It’s historical fact,” I said.
“The Orange Tamika said likewise, but—”
“Orange Tamika helped humanity defeat the Karg-Jelk Super Fleet,” I said, interrupting. “Even you Purples have to know that’s true. It was a glorious victory for all of us.”
Tal Feng studied me with his squinting, bloodshot eyes. “The Kargs and Jelks weakened the Orange Tamika. The space devils attacked the Orange for their sins so Purple could rise again. The evidence speaks for itself.”
“Only a bigot could say that.”
“Lies,” Tal Feng slurred. “You are Creed, the liar, the imp of the Evil One. The little killers must perish if we are to survive. So have the holy adepts spoken.”
“Emperor Lex Rex is going to try to turn this into a holy war, is he?” I asked.
“Emperor Daniel Lex Red,” Tal Feng snarled.
I eyed him, wondering if the Shi Feng, the old Lokhar secret guild of assassins, had been revived.
It might seem crazy that the Lokhars had reverted to their old ways so quickly after defeating the Karg-Jelk Super Fleet. Yet, history said that such was often the case after a long war. People, and possibly aliens, too, wanted to return to the old paths in order to feel secure again.
Whatever the case, this sounded like the worst possible time for Jennifer and Plutonians to show up to attack Earth. There was a greater war brewing, and it looked like the Lokhars already had all the advantages.
I was beginning to feel that I never should have left Earth. I might have been able to help Emperor Sant defeat this Daniel Lex Rex. Dianna should have thrown aid to Orange Tamika.
I know hardheaded politics says to stay out of other peoples’ civil wars, but in this case, our interests were with Orange Tamika. Why hadn’t Dianna made the smart play?
I shrugged.
I didn’t know all the facts. I knew only a glimmer of them because of what I learned from Sub-commander Tal Feng.
I wondered about his last name. Did that have any relation to the Shi Feng?
“Listen,” I said.
At that point, Tal Feng grinned at me in a nasty way. His eyes bulged outward, and with a groan, he strained against the straps holding him down. He hadn’t tried that except at the very beginning.
“You won’t break free now any more than you could then,” I said.
In the end, I think he knew that, as he wasn’t really trying to break free. I think he was trying to overstrain his heart.
I leaped up and raced for a med machine. If he wanted to die, I wanted to keep him alive. I suspected he possessed a truth he didn’t want me to have.
Tal Feng made gurgling sounds as I shoved the machine to him. As I pulled out tubes, he shuddered and his legs kicked out.
I attached the machine to him anyway and tried to revive him, but I was too late. Sub-commander Tal Feng was dead, taking his secret with him.
How had he died so quickly? He must have had a way to force it. There hadn’t been any poison capsules in his fangs, as I’d checked for that earlier. If he had killed himself, why had he waited so long to do it? Finally, what had he died to hide?
I doubted his sudden death had anything to do with the Shi Feng. I mean, he couldn’t have read my mind that I was going to ask him about the Lokhar assassin’s guild.
In the end, I spaced his corpse with the others. I decided I would deal with one problem at a time. First, I ha
d to stop Jennifer, possibly these Plutonians and then the Purple Tamika Emperor Daniel Lex Rex, roughly in that order.
-10-
As a Galactic Effectuator, I’d learned that there was always something to gum up the works, some new wrinkle or complication that I hadn’t foreseen.
I debated plans and ideas. Finally, I returned to suspended animation. I had a month and a half of traveling and didn’t feel like just sitting around doing nothing. A guy could go stir crazy spending a month and a half all by himself.
Anyway, I woke up in a stasis tube a week out from Earth. That meant I was right on schedule. I revived slowly this time and thus avoided any headaches and hamstring pulls.
I exercised, read various intercepts the AI had picked up during my month and a half and tried to get an understanding of the political ramifications of this new era—new to me, at least.
The Terrans and Starkiens had formed the Alliance against the larger Jade League.
I’ve spoken about the notorious Jelk Corporation before. The Jelk slavers had raided Earth throughout the centuries, kidnapping humans and resettling them on various planets. The Corporation had mainly relied upon an obedient slave race of Saurians to do their dirty work, but they’d used reeducated humans as well.
The Jelk Corporation was gone, of course. As I’ve said, the lizard-like Saurians had left the star systems near Earth and headed toward the old Jelk Corporation core worlds. They’d set up a Saurian Unification, warning other alien races to stay out of their territory.
The various intercepts verified the essence of Tal Feng’s story.
I stayed invisible while traveling in the GEV, passing unnoticed through various star systems, using the jump gates to speed my way home.
The nearer I came to Earth, the more my heart raced. I couldn’t believe how excited I was becoming. I felt like a kid. Couldn’t this ship go any faster?
That caused me to wonder if I’d made a mistake by becoming the Galactic Effectuator. It had been interesting work, but I’d always felt something missing. The one time I’d been truly happy in my life was while leading Earth’s assault troopers against everyone. That had been living, man.
I passed through the Alpha Centauri System, noticing the Starkien shark-shaped warships and the various defensive satellites. I wondered if Baba Gobo was still alive.
As I neared the jump gate that led to the Solar System, I picked up a troubling transmission from an Earth-ship that had exited the gate.
“We’ve been attacked,” the comm officer told the Starkiens. “The Defense Fleet has been destroyed. We request aid in defending our star system in case the raiders should reappear and finish off our homeworld.”
I almost took the GEV out of stealth mode to demand more information. Finish off our homeworld sounded ominous. Had Plutonians attacked?
I accelerated toward the gate. Despite my best effort to get here as fast as possible, it sounded like I might already be too late.
-11-
I cruised through battle debris drifting in the Moon-Earth region. Ever since I’d dropped out of the Alpha Centauri-Solar System jump gate, I’d been monitoring the situation.
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
The debris field indicated a savage space battle had taken place. As far as I could see, there were no Earth-crewed vessels in evidence. Had aliens destroyed every ship of the Defense Fleet? Vast, irradiated scars showed where aliens had smashed the Moon’s defensive systems, annihilating missile silos, launch pads and beam emplacements.
There was something even worse, though. The entire South American continent glowed with a harsh red color. I’d picked up intercepts. Everyone in South America was dead. All the fish in the ocean one hundred kilometers out from the South American shore were dead. Many people in Central America had sickened and died.
This was a disaster. It wasn’t as bad as The Day, when Purple Tamika Lokhars had slaughtered 99 percent of humanity and killed all the plant life. But aliens had struck hard again. Had this been a warning from the Plutonians?
My heart burned with rage. I could hardly think straight. Had the Curator known this was going to happen?
As I sat in my pilot chair, I shook my head. Unanswered questions weren’t going to help. I had to use my Effectuator skills. That realization helped calm me.
I continued, cruising invisibly through the horrific battle damage. The aliens had exploded every Defense Fleet vessel. What—
I sat up, studying my main monitor. I could hardly believe this. I saw a suited…android drifting in the debris.
I’d seen other suited figures. They had all been dead. The space-suited android didn’t breathe, but he might have shut himself off. I might be able to revive him.
I used my scanner, studying the readings. The longer I did so, the more convinced I became that I was looking at N7.
That made sense. N7 would have stayed with humanity. By this time, he would have reached high command, likely a post in the Defense Fleet.
I maneuvered beside the slowly tumbling android. Using a special tractor beam, I locked onto him and gently tugged him toward the GEV. As he neared, a small hangar bay door opened. With the tractor beam, I pulled him through.
The bay door closed and I got up, hurrying to the space locker.
Soon enough, I used a utility robot to remove the helmet. It was N7 all right. I’d recognize the placid, choirboy features anywhere.
I couldn’t believe it. I was grinning from ear to ear at seeing my old friend. Surely, I could reactivate him.
On my orders, the robot lifted N7 and followed me to a special chamber. There, the robot laid N7 on a special table.
I gazed upon my old friend. I could turn him on again and ask him what had happened, but at the last moment, I decided on a different approach. This approach entailed a brutal invasion of privacy, but I was dealing with possible human extinction and saving the woman I’d wronged, the woman I still loved.
I was still the Galactic Effectuator. Maybe I’d been doing this solo work too long. Guesswork had never gotten me as far as precision had. There was another thing. If I didn’t have to, I didn’t want to explain much about the Plutonians. That meant it would be better if I could figure these things out for myself first.
With my Curator-level tech equipment, I found the seal to N7’s braincase. I hesitated, bent my head in thought, and finally gave the order. The robot opened the seal and hooked delicate equipment to the AI-like computer brain inside.
I steeled my heart, went to a special machine and began to manipulate it.
It took me a while. Finally, I managed to break into N7’s programming and see exactly what had happened out there a short time ago.
-12-
The invading vessels created their own jump gate by tearing open the fabric of reality a little over two million kilometers from Luna Central.
From Earth’s side, the first indication that something was wrong was a blast of neutrinos that appeared where nothing had been before. Seconds later, a brilliant oval shape grew into existence. The x-rays and gamma rays emanating from the shape caused watching orbital sensors to blare with alarm.
Shortly thereafter, N7 received orders from an orbital relay station. Without hesitation, the android led his squadron of battlejumpers from the other side of Earth, racing to meet the possible threat.
The squadron crossed the blue-green curvature of the planet in time to see the three enemy vessels exiting the hard-radiation-spewing portal. The android’s first thought was that this was a feint, that the real attack would take place from a different direction, out of a different portal.
What could three small ships do, after all?
The gate—the oval shape—disappeared as the last alien vessel exited it, leaving no trace of its former existence. The three exotic ships were cruiser-class at best, each emitting bizarre sensor readings.
Admiral Max Harold—the Commander of the Defense Fleet—accelerated from his station around Luna. He led nine state-of-th
e-art battlejumpers. On an open channel, the admiral demanded the three craft to surrender immediately.
The vessels ignored him as they accelerated for Earth, jumping to an incredible velocity.
Harold and his captains made swift adjustments, the Luna-based battlejumpers racing on an intercept course for them.
From farther away, N7 brought his six battlejumpers toward the fray. It seemed like massive overkill against the far smaller alien vessels, but everyone was jumpy after the latest ultimatums from the Lokhar Empire.
The enemy vessels closed fast with Harold’s nine bigger ships. From eight hundred thousand kilometers away, the alien vessels fired harsh particle beams. With pathetic ease, the beams smashed aside force fields and punched through hull armor.
N7 studied the sensor readings. This was inconceivable. The Karg moth-ships had used graviton beams, which were inferior to the alien particle beam.
The first of Admiral Harold’s battlejumpers exploded like a grenade, sending hull-plating, interior decking, shattered fuel pods, waste, bio matter and other debris into a growing circumference.
What was going on here?
N7 ordered emergency acceleration. They had to combine forces and hit these three alien ships as one.
Luna Central went to highest alert, launching swarms of fighters, warming up improved laser batteries and readying ship-killing missiles. At the same time, Harold’s remaining battlejumpers opened up with everything they had, launching T-missiles and pouring beam fire at the enemy.
Since there was nothing else he could do yet, N7 recorded the mayhem. The enemy vessels lacked force fields. That was most interesting. It should have meant an easy victory for the Defense Fleet. But the alien hull armor was unlike anything N7 had witnessed before. It was incredibly dense, and there was something intrinsic dampening the beam fire and nuclear detonations that reached the alien armor.
Harold’s battlejumpers did damage, certainly, but only a miniscule amount and at an agonizingly slow rate.
More of the admiral’s battlejumpers ignited, blowing off chunks of ship, while Luna Command fighters exploded like popcorn. The enemy vessels shrugged off the Moon-beamed laser fire as if it didn’t exist.
Target: Earth (Extinction Wars Book 5) Page 4