“Spencer, you’re a genius. Only you could see through my falling through the air like I just did as a ploy on my part.”
“Please,” the Police Proconsul said. “Your allies turned on you. It’s happened before.”
“Oh. Sure. No wonder you’re so good at your job. You invent the danger and fix it. How do I know that’s your special MO? Easy—because you suspect in others what you’re most prone to do yourself.”
The Police Proconsul frowned. “Enough of your word games, Creed. Give me the force axe.”
“What?”
“It’s on your hip. Give it.”
“Are you—?”
As I spoke, a huge Abaddon clone appeared behind a SWAT marine. The clone jabbed the armor suit with a prod of some kind. A huge electric spark zapped the armored marine. The marine in his suit flew ten feet, striking the ground in a jumbled heap.
The other two SWAT marines turned toward the clone. One laser rifle beamed. At the same time, Spencer’s pistol barked.
Neither man hit the clone, for he’d teleported behind another marine. The clone jabbed the marine, and the same mighty shock catapulted the man into a heap ten or eleven feet away.
Once more, a SWAT member and Spencer fired. The clone teleported again, and the marine whirled around, beaming as he did so.
That was smart thinking, but the clone did not appear.
“Stop!” Spencer shouted. He took several steps toward me, aiming at my head. “If you—”
The clone appeared beside me. Spencer fired. The clone dove and tackled me, knocking me down. The bullet hit the dirt beyond me. Then, the two of us disappeared—
And reappeared behind a clump of pine trees. I tried to grapple the clone—he popped away again. I sagged to the ground.
I heard air rushing as he appeared several feet from me.
I looked up from the ground. I recognized the clone. It was Saul, and that baffled me. Saul panted, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked beat, as if he might faint at any second. He had the zapper, a big prod weapon with a power-pack on his back and a line linking them. He must have taken that from my armory of special weapons on the GEV.
He let go of the prod and shrugged off the pack so they both hit the dirt.
“You’re not going to zap me?” I asked.
Saul shook his head.
I climbed to my feet. Part of me said to use the force axe and kill him while he couldn’t teleport away. Another part suggested he’d just saved my life, or saved me from some intense interrogation.
“What gives, Saul? Why did you do that?”
“N7 woke me,” Saul said slowly.
“Is N7 dead?”
Saul frowned, possibly trying to understand why I’d ask something like that.
“N7 is still alive?” I asked.
“When I left he was alive,” Sault said. “But I thought N7 was an android.”
“You don’t think androids are alive?”
Saul shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Did Holgotha, or the people on Holgotha, go after N7?”
“No.”
“They only went after the light cruiser?”
“First, the light cruiser,” Saul said slowly. “Before they could find the GEV, N7 went into deep stealth mode. He woke me up afterward. N7 intercepted Jennifer’s message to you.”
“And…?” I asked.
A little of the exhaustion left Saul’s features as anger appeared. “They hurt Ifness.”
“You don’t like that?”
“Ifness is Saul’s best friend.”
I almost started coughing. The hitman seemed to have done a number on Saul.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “That’s why you’re helping me? You want my help in getting Ifness back from Jennifer?”
“Yes. Saul needs help. Ifness will die unless Saul acts fast.”
“Why didn’t you teleport to Jennifer?”
Saul shook his head. “Jennifer is strong. Jennifer has powerful guards. They would have killed Saul or captured him and made him evil like them.”
Whoa-boy. I didn’t know what to think. I might have seriously miscalculated concerning Ifness and Saul. Had the hitman done brain surgery on Saul or not? If he hadn’t, why had Ifness lied to me about doing surgery?
“Saul, can I check your scalp?”
“Why?” the clone asked suspiciously.
“I want to see what kind of surgery they did to you.”
“What do you mean? No one do surgery on Saul. I am the strongest, fittest First One in the universe.”
“Can I check anyway just to make sure?”
“We are out of time. We must save Ifness.”
“Is Holgotha gone?”
Saul looked up into the sky. He stared for a time. His shoulders sagged.
“We are too late. Holgotha is gone. They go back to small planet. Now, Ifness scream for days. I lose my best friend.”
I must have been out of my mind because I believed the Abaddon clone. First, though, I wanted to see his scalp.
“I have a plan,” I said. “First, I have to check your scalp.”
Saul shrugged, walked to me, bent down on one knee and lowered his head. Like a baboon looking for lice, I moved the thick dark hair on Saul’s scalp. I found no evidence of surgery scars, none at all.
“No one ever performed a lobotomy on you,” I said.
“No! Why you think so?”
“Uh…forget it, Saul.”
Why had Ifness lied about that? The hitman had told me he’d had surgery done to Saul. Had Ifness said that to make himself seem tougher? I couldn’t figure out his angle. But maybe that wasn’t so critical right now.
“Look, Saul,” I said, “you need to teleport us to New Denver. We have to attack the pocket universe as soon as possible.”
“The small planet surrounded by weird gas?” Saul asked.
So Ifness had been telling the truth about that. Maybe the hitman really had had a falling out with Jennifer. She’d come to the Solar System to seize her errant hitman. I needed to reach New Denver before Police Proconsul Spencer did.
“This is important, Saul. I have to get to the Earth capital right away.”
Saul stared at me. He didn’t seem quite as tired as before. “Yes,” he said. “I see what I can do.”
-69-
Before Saul teleported us there, I reconsidered. It would be better to show up in New Denver in strength.
“Can you see the spaceport at New Denver?” I asked.
The clone nodded. How else could he teleport to a place unless he had some mechanism to see where he was going? The same had been true for Holgotha.
“Do you know what Ella looks like?” I asked.
Saul shook his head.
I described her.
The clone got a faraway look in his eyes. I learned this was his pre-sight. Much as Holgotha did with an interior machine, Saul—or a First One—could do with their mind. I didn’t know the range limitation, but I guessed it must in hundreds or possibly thousands of kilometers, but not thousands of light-years like Holgotha.
In any case, we waited until Saul spotted Ella, Rollo and other assault troopers piling out of several landed shuttles at the spaceport.
“Take us there,” I said.
Saul did, creating a surprising commotion among the troopers.
I explained as quickly as I could. Rollo informed me about the bad news. The captured Light Cruiser Thistle Down had been destroyed. Three of the Lucky Thirteen had been aboard it. They were all dead.
The subcontinent of India had taken a hell-burner. Everyone there was dead or dying. Another hell-burner had slashed down between Australia and Antarctica. The sea boiled there. Billions of fish would have already died. Radiation poisoning was likely going to kill millions more humans.
My knees seemed to unhinge. I crashed down onto my butt. Rollo and Saul both hauled me back to my feet. Rollo glared so viciously at the clone that Saul released me.
“You
okay, Creed?” Rollo asked.
“Jennifer,” I whispered. “She murdered millions.”
“She is a monster,” Saul said.
“Shut your yap,” Rollo told him. “Don’t you know she’s his woman?”
Saul peered at me strangely. “Why does she hate you if she is your woman?”
“Creed?” Rollo asked.
I shook my head. I knew what Rollo was asking. Should he kill this Abaddon lookalike for me?
“I still don’t understand certain aspects of this,” Ella said. “Spencer—”
“Forget about Spencer,” I said. “He tried and failed to pump me of info.”
“The Police Proconsul wanted to do more than that,” Ella said.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, still sick to my stomach at the thought of all the murdered people. We had to put a stop to the genocide by taking out the Plutonians once and for all and stopping Jennifer and her band of center-galaxy outlaws. That meant putting aside minor differences among ourselves. Spencer was an opportunistic bastard, but he wasn’t a genocidal maniac.
“Are we ready?” I asked.
“What if Diana decides Spencer has it right?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We need a plan,” Ella said.
“That’s why we’re going to meet Diana.”
“We need a plan about dealing with her,” Ella said. “With Spencer’s latest stunt…”
“We don’t have much choice anymore,” I said. “Neither does Diana. We have the dimensional portal data and knowledge about the pocket universe. They have the battlejumpers. We mix and trade and join forces.”
“I hope Diana still feels the same way,” Ella said. “Millions, tens of millions of people have died today. That has a way of changing people’s minds.”
“I know,” I said. “Now, let’s go.”
***
Our troopers wore their second skins as we piled into cars and vans, heading toward the main Government House in the middle of New Denver.
Soon, we found one hundred hover-tanks waiting in the nearby streets and around the building, with several thousand space-marines in combat armor to help them. General Briggs and Spencer were at the main checkpoint where we stopped the cars.
“Wait here,” I told Rollo before exiting our car.
“You know they could fire cannons at us, right?” Rollo asked.
I detached the longish handle, giving it to him. “Hold onto this, would you?”
Rollo looked at what he held before nodding stiffly.
I climbed out of the car and walked with a thousand lasers and a hundred cannons pointed at me. I was a dead man if Spencer gave the word. Behind me were two hundred assault troopers, including Ella and Rollo. N7 was upstairs in the GEV. I’d told Saul to teleport back to him, but the clone had said he couldn’t because he couldn’t find the stealth ship right now.
The clone was hidden in a van. I’d told Saul to keep his head down.
I halted by the barricade, with marine laser-rifles pointed at me. I had a force-blade knife-handle and a sidearm pistol at my waist. I could see the main spire of the Government House from here.
“Spencer, General Briggs,” I said.
Briggs said nothing, looking at me stiff-lipped. Spencer looked peaked, winded, as if he’d rushed to get here, which was no doubt the truth.
“You must surrender to us, Commander,” the Police Proconsul said.
“Did Diana order this?”
“Your woman appeared on worldwide TV,” Spencer said. “She told us that Earth will cease to exist unless we hand you over to her. She said that she will attack again, in a similar manner, within the next five days. You tell me, Commander. What would you do? Hand you over or watch millions more die in hell-burner holocausts?”
“Do you know what will happen if you hand me over to her?”
“We will survive,” Spencer said.
“Nope,” I said. “She’ll bind me and make me watch while she annihilates Earth. I’m the last chance you have to save the planet. Jennifer knows that. She’s running scared. She wouldn’t have made the threat otherwise.”
“You don’t know that.”
I surveyed the hover-tanks, the space marines and then Spencer with his red-suited security people behind him.
I snorted. “You know what I’d do in Jennifer’s place?” I didn’t wait for the Police Proconsul to ask. “I’d have a teleporting sniper somewhere and shoot you and Briggs. Then, all the space marines and tankers would kill the assault troopers and me. The only reason that isn’t going to happen is that Jennifer wants me alive. Do you understand the importance of that? If you really want to stay alive, capture me and tell Jennifer that you’ll kill me if she launches another hell-burner.”
Spencer became thoughtful. “You could be right. Will you come peacefully into custody?”
“Under one condition,” I said.
He nodded sharply.
“After we have a strategy session in the Government House with Diana,” I said. “Or are you and Briggs staging a coup and taking over?”
The hatch to the nearest hover-tank opened. The Prime Minster in all her Amazonian glory stepped down.
“Spencer and Briggs are not staging a coup,” Diana said, as she approached the barricade. “The Police Proconsul and General have been acting on my authority regarding you. I don’t like anyone trying to push me,” she added. “But your idea…I like it. I’m going to keep you under lock and key for a long, long time, Creed.”
“First, though,” I said, “we have a strategy session in the Government House.”
Diana studied me. She looked at the cars and vans filled with assault troopers. “You sure do believe in brazening it out, don’t you, Creed? You’ve always had the biggest balls of anyone I know. Yes. Let us talk. I’ll listen. I’ll ponder your daring plan, and then I’ll lock you away where not even Jennifer’s teleporting giants can find you.”
-70-
I told them what Ifness had told me regarding the strange pocket universe, the gaseous quality of the void around the planet and star.
“How does the star work?” Diana asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably the way our Sun works here.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Diana said. “Wouldn’t the star ignite the gas?”
“That’s an interesting point,” Ella said.
Diana had agreed that I could bring two of my people with me. I suspect she liked that I’d picked Ella and Rollo, believing the other troopers less dangerous without them there.
“Maybe the gas is less dense near the star,” Ella said.
“I’d think denser,” Diana said.
“Why?” asked Ella, sounding intrigued.
“No particular reason,” Diana said. “That just seems right.”
“We won’t know until we go,” I said. “Ifness’s explanation gives a concrete reason for the inhibiter field, as electromagnetic shields won’t work over there.”
“Good point,” Ella said.
“How can we go there?” Diana asked. “We don’t have a dimensional portal.”
“I know how to construct one,” I said.
Diana and Spencer traded glances.
“When did you learn this?” Diana asked.
“Ifness told me how to fix the damage he’d done to my AI.” I told them about the universal chip I’d inserted into a Plutonian computing machine. “Once I fix the AI, we’ll have the data we need to construct a dimensional portal.”
“What do you suggest we attempt to do after that?” Diana asked. “Are you thinking we go through the portal with the Earth Force battlejumpers?”
“What else?” I asked.
“Maybe with the Starkiens, too,” Diana added.
“Yes,” I said. “That would be the smart move.”
“And if Jennifer pops near Earth with Holgotha while we and the Starkiens are gone?” Diana asked.
“Then we lose the Earth,” I said.
Spencer struck the table with a fist. “Suppose, against all the odds, we win. Why won’t Jennifer escape on Holgotha and burn Earth to the ground for what we’ve done?”
“We’ll capture Jennifer before that happens,” I said.
“How?” asked Spencer.
“I have three phase suits.”
“She has teleporting soldiers,” Spencer said. “That trumps your three phase suits. And don’t say what other choice do we have. We can grab you and hold you—”
“Are you daft?” Rollo shouted, rising from his chair. “That’s a coward’s strategy. You said yourself that Jennifer has teleporting soldiers. Sooner or later, if you hold Creed hostage, they’ll find and kidnap him. Then you’ve lost anyway. The only way to win, to save Earth, is to destroy the Plutonians, the Abaddon clones and…” He looked at me. “Capture Jennifer.”
“Kill Jennifer,” Diana said. “She’s clearly a genocidal maniac.”
“Kill or capture,” I said, “the key is in attacking.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Briggs said. “The pocket universe has a gaseous medium. Maybe we should convert submarine torpedoes. If missiles work sluggishly there, torpedoes might be better. We could even take submarines along as well.”
Silence filled the room.
“That’s a good idea,” I said, pointing at the general. It sounded dumb, but I wanted the general on my side. “Rig subs for the pocket universe. We can put them in the battlejumpers’ assault-boat cargo holds.”
“That’s crazy,” Diana said. “Submarines are a silly stunt.”
She was right, but I said, “It’s a way to add to our ship power. Massed torpedoes, massed PDD missiles, graviton-beam cannons. We know how to fight, where to go, how to get there… All we need now is the desire to roll the dice for humanity’s fate.”
“They have Holgotha,” Diana said. “Holgotha.”
“I know,” I said. “But we have pure hearts.”
“Meaning what?” Spencer asked.
“That we have no freaking choice,” Rollo told him. “That’s obvious. This jabbering is a waste of time. What do you say, Diana? Creed always came through in the past.”
Diana glanced at Spencer.
Target: Earth (Extinction Wars Book 5) Page 26