"How long?" he demanded.
Brindle considered her answer.
"Since the Valderians boarded us. I made an arrangement then."
Snark could barely contain himself from hitting her.
"Did you ever believe in the quest?"
"Oh yes! I believed the Stone existed. It would be valuable to all sorts of parties, especially the Brotherhood who wanted it so badly."
She shrugged again.
"Did you…"
"It was fun while it lasted," she said, and smiled.
He choked on his words, so didn’t say anything else. Three fists balled up, but he managed not to hit her.
He focused on Jamie.
Where was he?
Eighty Seven
Jamie came awake slowly. He could feel he was lying on hard ground, and could feel some plants, or grass around him. He could smell leaves and soil. The soil was pungent with something. Rotting vegetation, or rotting something at least.
He rolled onto his back, his backpack propping him up somewhat. A weak sun was shining through clouds. The ground was wet as well as redolent, and he tried sitting up. He felt sick, leaned over to one side, and vomited into a clump of grass.
He could remember the bright light, the void, the force pulling him and Anna apart, and losing Anna’s grip.
He cursed. Where was Anna? He’d let go. He’d been clinging on, but the force was too strong. He’d let go. He cursed himself.
They'd chosen love, but been separated? Why?
He sighed. The fight with Vasily. He'd been judged, and obviously found wanting. He could have just put Vasily down with a minimum of blows, but instead, he'd let his anger loose, and pounded the man. It hadn’t even been a fair fight. The 'gods' had been shown his 'truth' lay in his fists.
He sighed again, and rose shakily to his feet. He was wearing the clinging jumpsuit still, and his weapons were in their holsters. He pulled off his backpack, and felt in the pocket for the ring. It was still there. It was still warm from Anna’s touch, and he comforted himself with the thought this was true. He tried fingers, until it slipped comfortably onto one.
But where the hell was he? And where was Anna?
He looked around. He was standing on a high hill, amongst standing stones. He recognised them easily from the cave on Perdita, and the Standing Stones on the dog planet. But these were smaller, and more worn, and there were many missing pieces to the circle. And there was only one circle, not two.
There was nothing else. The wind on the hill picked up, and he shivered. He was alone.
But he knew he was no longer on Scylla Prime.
He had to find out where he was.
He started down the hill.
Eighty Eight
Warspite had one thing left to attend to.
The last fleeing ship was attempting to escape. He listened to Paulus exhorting the crew to make the ship go faster, but there was nothing they could do.
While the Battleship overtook the fleeing ship, ignoring the fire coming from it, Warspite made his way to the armoury. His suit shifted to a belt and he took it off. The special AI body underneath attached the belt around the left arm of the combat suit, stepped into the back, the back closed, and Warspite backed the suit out of its charge alcove. He shifted the suit back into his usual body shape, now considerably bigger than before.
From the racks, he took down a meson streamer, and attached it to the holster on the back of the suit. He pulled down a pulse rifle as well, and moved out into the cargo deck. A trolley took him to the front airlock. He cycled into the lock itself, had the airlock remove the air, and opened the outside doors.
The enemy ship was a long way below, with only the front section showing to him.
Warspite jumped.
Long seconds later, after having opened a small hole in the shields so he could drop through, he landed on the aft hull of the ship, making a clang which must have been heard inside.
He walked towards where he knew the nearest airlock was. At the outer mechanism, his finger protruded a probe through his suit, and he plugged into the door controls. The outer door opened, he moved inside, closed the door behind him, plugged in again, and aired up the airlock. He opened the inner doors, and moved into the ship proper.
Valderian soldiers stared at the huge figure as he moved towards them, and after a few seconds, began to fire at him. His pulse rifle was connected to suit power, and its recharge rate was now much faster. Warspite gunned down the soldiers one by one, ignoring the hits on his suit.
He methodically made his way through the ship, gunning down the remaining crew.
On the bridge, he found an ugly looking bird creature, and a small crew of Valderians. The pulse rifle fired, and soon there was only an ugly looking bird creature, with its beak opening and closing without making any sound.
"Brother Paulus I presume," said Warspite through the external speakers.
"What… what are you? You can't be human, you're too big."
Warspite shifted the belt back to an armband, revealing the combat suit underneath, and Paulus cringed.
"Human in a combat suit. This is what we use when combat droids are not enough."
"How many of you came on board?"
"Just me."
"One of you killed the entire crew?"
"Only one was needed. Besides, I wanted to meet you before you died."
"Who are you?"
"Admiral Warspite, of the Kingdom of Hunter's Run. I have a message for you."
"I don’t want to hear it."
"Of course not. But you're going to anyway. This is what happens when you make war on the Kingdom, or on our friends and allies. This is what you get for all the misery you fanatics cause across the sectors, the deaths, the torture, the lives corrupted and lost. You lose."
"The Brotherhood will prevail in the end."
"Nope. And certainly not today."
"Are you going to kill me now?"
"You are going to die. But not just now. I'm going to give you a few hours to contemplate your sorry existence, and make peace with whatever god you believe in."
Warspite walked over to the helm control, pulled the body out of the seat onto the floor, and plugged in. The ship changed course until it was now pointing directly at the center of the sun. He code locked the controls so the course could not be changed, unplugged, and turned back to Paulus.
The bird was making an attempt to appear nonplussed, but wasn’t quite making it.
Warspite turned away, and began walking towards the engine room.
"You're just going to leave me here?"
"Yes."
He paused, and turned back.
"This is how we say goodbye to scum bags like you."
He gave Paulus the bird, turned, and continued on.
He kept walking back to the engine spaces, where he holstered the pulse rifle, and pulled off the more powerful meson streamer. He aimed it at the engines, and systematically cut everything to pieces. The engines died, and the ship remained ballistic at the same speed. He roamed the ship, methodically destroying manoeuvring control junctions, coms, space suit racks, and all of the escape pods.
A salvage droid was awaiting for him at an airlock when he finished. It took him back to a droid airlock at the rear of the cargo deck, and he walked the suit into its alcove. The back opened, he stepped out, retrieved his belt from the suit's arm, and shifted back into himself.
A grin on his face, he walked back to the bridge. The ship slowed, allowing the crippled ship to pull ahead. He watched it head relentlessly into the sun for a short time, before turning his ship around to return to Scylla Prime.
Eighty Nine
Warspite hosted the post battle party. It was supposed to be a debriefing, but he didn’t see the point. The ship's contingent of security droids were all looking like crew, even to the extent of appropriate rank insignia for the job they were pretending to do.
Seasprite had docked alongside after retrieving its g
round party using Warspite's shuttle, with the combat droids being picked up by a Python Dropship. He was leaving both with Seasprite, since their shuttle had been destroyed.
Gruff and Hover were both shuttled over using Tranquil's shuttles, while Tranquil docked on the other side of Warspite, and walked over. Warspite and Tranquil met the Admirals together, and made the introductions.
Gruff looked confused.
"Why is the ship and my name the same?" asked Warspite, grinning.
Gruff and Hover both nodded.
"We often name our ships after their commanding officer," said Tranquil.
"Lack of imagination?" asked Hover, with a smile.
"No," said Warspite. "It implies we consider the ship and its Admiral or Captain, to be one entity. To refer to one is to refer to both. Only by including the rank do we differentiate."
"I'm not sure I want a ship called Gruff," laughed Gruff.
They all laughed, and Warspite led them into the ship.
On the way up, they saw a Dropship in the hanger, were shown the combat suits, droids, and heavy weapons in the Armoury, and had a short demonstration of the bridge displays. Both Admirals were practically drooling at the end, and mentally composing how to demand their governments make formal alliances with Hunter's Run, so they could get some of the technology they'd seen in action.
The party was held in the main conference room, which had been turned into a party room, with the main table pushed back against a wall, and the chairs arranged into groups, with a few casual sofas brought in as well. The table now held a selection of food and drink suitable for everyone.
Anna was sitting on one of the sofas, staring out through the glass wall, looking at the stars. The great panorama of pin pricks of light reminded her of the caves, and the glow-worms. The glow-worms had been random, but the stars formed patterns, which she felt had an order and purpose. She smiled, and then frowned.
She was reluctant to leave the Scylla system. What if Jamie was still there somewhere? The others had said he would have tried to contact them if he was alive, the comnavsat would have spotted him if he was above ground, but she refused to give up. They'd scanned endlessly, with no results.
They had the Stone, but without Jamie, it was meaningless to her. To have found love with him, only to have it taken away so soon, was devastating.
Sissness had as usual, started to analyse the images she'd taken of the symbol, star chart, and text. Anna was sure it was to do with the Amulet. While the Stone had power, it was not able to be directed without the Amulet. She was assuming together they formed the ‘Talisman’?
While the others were preparing to leave, Anna was making up her mind what she would do next. She had to find Jamie, even if there were no clues to what had happened when they’d been torn apart in the void. She also had to find the Amulet and complete the Talisman. Otherwise, what would it all have been for? She couldn’t believe it was meaningless. There had to be a purpose and direction, like the stars surrounding her.
She thought about her visions. They'd helped make sense of the past, and helped them find the Destiny Stone. The clues the ‘gods’ had left had also helped them to come to Scylla. And they now had a new clue to start the search for the Amulet of Truth.
But there was one more vision she couldn’t place in the events up until now, and which seemed to be of the future. The cold evil. She still had no idea what it was, or when it would come.
One thing she felt sure, was they were all connected. There was a purpose. To inform, but also warn.
She felt a presence, and turned to the doorway. It was Snark. She smiled at him. Maybe he was her ‘Talisman’. He was grumpy from having spent a few hours in a care-unit, as she herself had also, but he was also loyal, tenacious, and a great friend.
"It’s time to go," he said bluntly.
Anna nodded, but turned back to look at the stars. Snark sat next to her.
"I’m sorry about Jamie," he started awkwardly. "He was my friend as well. I miss him."
Anna nodded again, but couldn’t speak.
"We’re heading back to the Cat Homeworld. While it’s back-tracking a lot, we need to consolidate again. We need to make repairs on the way, and agree on next steps to find the Amulet." He paused. "What do you want to do?"
Anna swallowed, as she didn’t trust herself to speak without crying. Finally, she managed.
"I want to find the Amulet," she stated firmly. "But I also want to find Jamie." Snark looked doubtfully at her. "I know you think he’s gone, but I don’t. I can’t accept it. I won’t."
Snark nodded.
"I’ll help you, all the way," he said firmly.
Anna smiled.
"Thank you. It means a lot."
Snark smiled as well.
"I still have my quest. And Grandmother won’t leave me alone until we have all of the pieces of the puzzle solved."
"We’ll solve them, I know we will."
"We’d better. Grandmother can be annoying, when she’s got a bee in her bonnet."
Anna smiled weakly.
"Bloody Mop heads!" he cried. "Always making things difficult."
He smiled, and looked out at the stars.
The quest continued.
Snark will return.
Acknowledgements
Thanks goes to Kalen O'Donnell for the cover design for this book.
Special thanks to KJ Colt and Rumpy, for the perfect photo of Snark.
A Message to our Readers
From Elspeth Anders: I hope you've enjoyed reading my second novel. More adventures with Snark are coming.
From Timothy Ellis: As usual, I’ve had a lot of fun with this book. There is more in this story to come, so I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed the writing.
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A.I. Destiny
Admiral Jane
Queen Jane
Snark books co-authored with Elspeth Anders
Snark's Quest
Destiny Stone
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Hero in Darkness
Hero to the End
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PC Games
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Short Stories
Was that you?
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Spiritual
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The Wisdom of the Ages Volume 3.
Destiny Stone (A.I. Destiny Book 4) Page 33