“My guess is that if Abaddon dies the whole thing falls apart,” Rollo said. “He must rule by force, through fear. Eliminate the fear and his lieutenants won’t know how to work together. That might cause the Super Fleet to break into smaller, more manageable pieces.”
“Especially if the Jelk are already gone or in disarray,” Ella said.
“Is that the idea?” Dmitri asked me. “We storm the Super Fleet as…” The Cossack stopped talking as he saw me shake my head.
“What is the range of the T-suits again?” Ella asked.
“One billion kilometers,” I said. “That’s greater than the distance from the Sun to Jupiter but not as far as Saturn.”
“That all seems too risky,” Ella said. “We transfer beside the Super Fleet, teleport onto an enemy ship and what? The five of us attack inside a giant battlejumper? What can five people do?”
“Five ninjas,” I said.
The others stared at me.
“Do you know what a ninja is?” I asked N7.
The android shook his head.
“They were a clan in Feudal Japan,” I said. “They were trained assassins that slew their targets stealthily, often inside an enemy fortress.”
“You mean like the Shi-Feng,” N7 said.
“I guess,” I said.
“The Shi-Feng were Lokhars,” Rollo said. “Creed is talking about human assassins. Ninjas,” he said to me. “We slip aboard a battlejumper, grab a Jelk and teleport away with him or it. No one is the wiser.”
I nodded.
“There’s a problem with that,” Ella said. “One, our transfer vessel is the size of a moon. That will be hard to hide. Two, we can’t see ahead to where we are transferring. For all we know, we’ll teleport into the middle of the Super Fleet. We’ll be lucky at that point to transfer away before any of them can board us.”
“I will add to the dilemma,” N7 said. “It is essentially the same problem but on a different scale. Let us begin with a battlejumper. Where on the ship does a particular Jelk stay? We teleport to a place, but instead of Jelk we find armed Saurians. We could spend a considerable amount of time on the battlejumper trying to locate the Jelk. According to what you’ve said, getting him into his energy state will take time and effort. Even then, we will need precious time to complete the process. By that time, the Santa Maria may be under heavy fire, possibly crippled. I would suggest that Abaddon will recognize the Santa Maria as soon as he sees it. He will immediately attempt to capture it, as the transfer vessel is a tremendous prize.”
“It’s good that we’re talking about this,” I said. “I’ve already thought of something because of it. A good strategist turns a weakness into a strength or the bait for a trap.”
“What’s our weakness?” Dmitri asked.
“Ella and N7 have already told us. The enemy will recognize the Santa Maria the moment it appears. If we’re right about that, Abaddon will immediately attempt to capture the moon-ship. We have to use that against them.”
“How do we do that?” Ella asked.
“I don’t know. But one of us has to come up with an answer and fast. I saw the Super Fleet in the Gemini Tao System. It was headed to the jump gate leading to the Epsilon Five System. We don’t know exactly which route they’ll take to Earth. We’ll have to start guessing if we take too long to make our assault.”
“We can’t attack blindly,” Ella said. “And we need to practice our assault. We have to know what we’re doing. This time, we can’t just wing it as we have so many other times.”
“I have a proposition,” N7 said. “We lack precise transfer capabilities. Holgotha possesses that trait. We should enlist the artifact’s help.”
“How could we motivate Holgotha to do that?” I asked.
“Offer him a large supply of Jelk as power sources,” N7 said.
“He already has that.”
“He had it according to what you told us,” N7 said. “Abaddon’s insertion into our space-time continuum must have changed the power balance, particularly after the Jelk allied with him. This is a new era. Perhaps Holgotha will see this and act accordingly.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, nodding. “That’s not bad.”
“I think it’s too risky,” Ella said. “We need to remember that Holgotha has rarely acted as expected. We would have to implicitly trust the artifact. I know I don’t.”
“Me neither,” Rollo said. “I’m tired of trusting aliens or alien AIs. This time, it’s our show. Let’s sweep them all off the board.”
“We still need a plan that turns our weakness into strength,” I said.
“Screw it!” Rollo said, slapping the table. “We do this how you stormed onto the lander in Antarctica. We don’t think this out too hard. We appear in the Epsilon Five System and attack a battlejumper. If there’s no Jelk, we go to the next one. By the time we have a few Jelk, Abaddon will have made his move. Maybe he’s heading for us by then. Maybe he’s going for the Santa Maria. What we do is go in and start killing. Either we get him or we don’t.”
I stared at the First Admiral. He wasn’t always this angry. He’d never been the same after the Jelk Corporation service.
I turned to N7. “You’re right. We need precision. For this to work, we have to make surgical strikes.”
“So we attempt to enlist Holgotha to do the transferring?” N7 asked.
“No,” I said. “I have something else in mind. Let’s see what the rest of you think of this…”
-27-
The key to this was to remember what we had become. The Curator had said every hand would be turned against us now. I suspected that meant the Forerunner artifacts would be in the forefront, suggesting others declare us rogues or outlaws. We had become worse than the Starkiens in their nomadic days.
I had another reason for doing it this way. We knew where everything was in the Solar System and could therefore make near-perfect transfer moves.
Dmitri and I wore our bio-suits. I’d chosen him for this round because he remembered using a T-suit.
We each eased into one. As I said before, the T-suits were like one-man, exo-skeleton tanks. We needed our living skin for several reasons. One, it made us a little bulkier. Given our greater than normal size because of our beefy muscles, we were just about the right fit for these. Tubes attached to the living skin. Receptors sparked with ignition in other places. The last armor plate swung shut, as if enclosing us in a coffin.
The T-suit had various weapons systems, including a small antimatter firing mechanism. They were tiny grenades with unbelievable wallop. My suit had a beam weapon in one arm and a big cannon that fired explosive rounds in the other. The arm cannon fired super-dense shells that made lead seem like feathers. Each suit could launch missiles that packed thermonuclear power or radiated an EMP blast.
I checked my visor, making sure all the hookups were in place so I could control the T-suit from here.
Butterflies roiled in my gut. I went over every suit and weapon feature, rechecking each several times. Finally, I signaled N7, who stood in the chamber with us.
The android raised a hand unit, no doubt telling Ella we were suited up and ready to go.
“What if we teleport into a wall?” Dmitri asked me.
“I thought I told you. The suits have an anti-matter feature. Instead of materializing in something, the suit will bounce you so you’ll appear near it instead. Have you tested your locator tab yet?”
“Yes.”
“Move it around some. Get used to it.”
I moved mine, seeing in my visor the targeted teleportation location. With this, I could look into any place on the Santa Maria, even in the reactor cores. This must be like Holgotha’s far-seeing ability, only with a shorter range. We could see as far as one billion kilometers away, the limit of our teleportation range. I had no idea how far Holgotha’s far-ranging sight was.
“This solves one of our problems,” Dmitri told me. “We can locate a Jelk on a battlejumper and Abaddon on a Karg v
essel with this process.”
“Provided they’re within one billion kilometers and we pick the right spot. It still means wasting a lot of time searching a ship room by room.”
N7 signaled me by waving an arm.
I opened a channel. “Is Ella ready?”
The android nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “So are we. Anytime she wants to do this, I’m game.”
N7 waited, listening to his comm. Finally, he held up his hands with all his fingers spread. After a few seconds, he put a finger down, then another and then a third. The countdown had started.
“This could get ugly,” I told Dmitri, “because I’m not backing down.”
“Never thought you were, Commander,” the Cossack said.
N7 only had three fingers up now. Two, one…the Santa Maria transferred.
I felt a momentary disorientation. It took two long blinks before my mind returned to normal. I wondered if that would ever change. I checked my teleporting scanner, seeing the asteroid Ceres, a hundred Starkien starships around it, and Holgotha gleaming like a great metal donut not too far away from them.
“We’re going to pop directly into his speaking chamber,” I told Dmitri.
“I haven’t found it yet,” he said.
“Remember the feature that links you to my scanner?”
“Right! I’m looking for it—ah, found it. I’m linked to you, Commander.”
“Good. Let’s go,” I said, pressing my teleport tab. My suit buzzed, building up power, and a second later I vanished from the guts of the Santa Maria to reappear inside Holgotha. There was a rush of displaced air and a slight jar, as I’d appeared a centimeter off the floor. I stumbled, but caught myself quickly enough. The chamber was dark. Luckily, I’d brought my own light, using a big helmet lamp.
“You’d better start speaking, Holgotha,” I said. “I have antimatter bomblets in my dispenser. If you don’t talk quickly enough, I’m going to pop into various chambers, setting them off inside you.”
The wall began to vibrate. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed indignant.
“This is gross negligence on your part, Commander Creed,” the deep voice said. “You should know that I have already alerted Baba Gobo of your presence in me. He is preparing his war fleet to attack. Soon, the Starkiens will maneuver toward the Survey Vessel. You will have to surrender at once if you wish to save your companions.”
“You’ve got it wrong, artifact. Today, I’m going to tell you how it’s going to go. And you know what? I’m going to enjoy doing it.”
“You are rash, Commander, and too direct and simple. Don’t you realize that your companion-in-arms is absent?”
He was right. What had happened to Dmitri?
“I sense your frustration,” Holgotha said. “You have no idea how superior I am to you. You are a gnat compared to me.”
“Are you going to call me a beast next?” I said.
“You might as well be one in comparison to me. I imagine you don’t even realize what I’ve done. It’s called a dampening field. You cannot teleport out of me. You are trapped until I decide on your punishment for this final affront.”
I manipulated the T-suit, rolling an antimatter grenade onto the floor.
“What are you doing?” Holgotha demanded. “Are you demented? You will die in the blast.”
“We’ll both die,” I said. “That’s better than having to listen to you pontificate about your superiority until you bore me to death.” I rolled a second antimatter grenade onto the floor.”
“You must cease this insanity at once.”
“Shut down the dampening field or I’ll blow us up.”
Two seconds went by. “It is done,” Holgotha said.
A moment later, Dmitri in his T-suit appeared beside him.
“I couldn’t see anything on the artifact,” the Cossack said. “Then, I could see again. Do you know what happened?”
“I do,” I said. “But you have to let me talk to Holgotha.”
“Da, Commander.” The huge T-suit took up its station beside me, its weapons blinking at the ready.
“You’re doing just fine,” I told Holgotha, feeling cocky. This felt better than I’d imagined it would. I hadn’t realized until this moment how sick I’d become of the artifact’s insufferable arrogance. “Before you know it,” I added, “I’ll pick up the antimatter grenades, and we’ll be pals like old times. First, though, you have to tell Baba Gobo to stand down.”
“You cannot get away with this, Commander,” Holgotha said. “All the artifacts will help the loyal races to slay every human in existence. Unless you surrender to me, you are dooming your species to extinction.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I implore you to listen to reason,” Holgotha said. “Don’t you understand the sacrilegious nature of your act?”
“Hey. Before you get all righteous on me, you should know that I’ve been to the Fortress of Light.”
“Please, Commander, that is obvious. You have a Ronin 9 Teleportation Combat Suit. There is only one place in the galaxy you could have acquired that, and that is the Museum.”
“How do you know about the Ronin 9?” I asked. “The Curator said he was the only one who remembered them.”
“The Curator is very old, Commander. He is senile. Surely, even someone as dull as you recognized that.”
“Words,” I said.
“Facts,” Holgotha said.
“Do you want Abaddon to win?”
“It is not a matter of his winning. The First One longs for the old days of his supremacy. He does not realize there is another way to achieve the goals he desires. He is also not aware that I am recording everything for the day the Creator asks for an accounting.”
“Why do I have the feeling you’re lying?”
“You are so blatantly egocentric, Commander. Haven’t you realized yet that it is immaterial what you think or feel?”
“Dmitri,” I said. “Go back to the Santa Maria and find out what the situation is with the Starkiens.”
“Yes, Commander,” Dmitri said. His suit whined as it built up power, but didn’t teleport.
“You will remain here in me for a time,” Holgotha said smugly.
Maybe the artifact figured I was bluffing. I wasn’t. I activated the first antimatter grenade. Nothing happened, though. I took another look at it in ultraviolet. I saw a hazy shimmering field around the red-hot grenade. That was interesting.
“I have already deactivated the grenades, Commander. I merely humored you long enough to open channels with a quorum of artifacts. We are going to judge you and the human race. You will be found wanting, of course. Then, we shall destroy the lot of you as should have been done when the Purple Tamika Emperor sent the dreadnaught the first time.”
I didn’t believe him about having deactivated the antimatter grenade. According to my T-suit, he’d put a dampening field around it. I was betting that took power, and would take power until someone shut off the grenade. The dampening field keeping me from teleporting would also take energy. Therefore—
I spun around in the heavy T-suit. I raised the beam weapon of the mini-tank, hosing it against an interior bulkhead until it glowed red-hot. Then, I rapid fired several super-dense shells into it. That proved too much for the bulkhead. The shells tore holes into it, and a strange fluid leaked out from the other side.
I built up speed, clanking with each step. Then, I struck the bulkhead with force so it sank away from me. Gripping metal seams with my T-suited hands, I ripped the bulkhead apart and thrust myself into another chamber, pushing against a tide of sluggish liquid.
I hadn’t expected that. In retrospect it made sense, though. The First Ones had developed strange technologies. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the tech was unrecognizable to me. Whatever this stuff was, I had become a human wrecking ball. I kept telling myself that if I failed here, it was over for everyone. After we humans were gone, Abaddon would outthink the artifacts. I m
ean, if I was going to bet on someone, I’d bet on the devil against super-logical machines. Thus, I had to beat the machines in order to beat Abaddon in the final match and save our galaxy from his wrath.
This chamber was like entering another universe with different physical laws. Glowing, globular jelly-like matter drifted by in a sea of the sluggish liquid. I waded through it in my suit. One of the globular, wobbling things drifted near. I grasped it with both hands and tore it apart.
The sluggish liquid stirred more at that, with tinted colors bleeding from the torn thing.
I found Dmitri in his tank-suit beside me. I showed him what to do by grabbing another wobbling thing and tearing it as well.
The two of us began to do that. Before long, Dmitri motioned, pointing in the distance. I nodded. Three shark-like objects hissed through the liquid at us.
I tried the T-scanner, found another place inside Holgotha and teleported there. Dmitri did likewise. It would appear Holgotha’s dampening field had weakened just a little. That was good to know.
This chamber had a hundred crystals glowing in strange colors. Lines of light shined from one crystal to another. I figured they were power lines.
I charged a crystal formation, swinging my fists so I could save ammo for later. I shattered crystal after crystal. Dmitri did likewise.
I raised my metal fist to pound another crystal to shards when a small object hovered before me. It bobbed up and down, reminding me of Key.
On impulse, I opened channels with the thing.
“I am ready to negotiate,” Holgotha said.
“Is the dampening field off?” I asked.
“You teleported,” Holgotha said. “Thus, it cannot be on.”
“You know I was unable to teleport off you. Is the dampening field off?”
“Not yet,” Holgotha admitted.
“Your allies are trying to storm my transfer ship, aren’t they?”
“It isn’t your ship, but the Curator’s.”
“You broke the rules a long time ago,” I said. “So, don’t bother spouting off to me about them. And before you start to moralize again, you should realize that I know we’re the little killers. You mess with us at your peril. In the past, you were wise enough to stay on the sidelines and watch. What changed your mind this time around?”
Fortress Earth (Extinction Wars Book 4) Page 16