“Forget about the machine. I’ll talk to him one on one.”
“Old-fashioned persuasion techniques?” asked Ella.
I almost told her I wasn’t a torturer. I doubted she thought of herself as one, either. So it wouldn’t help if I implied she was.
“One on one,” I said. “It will be just the tiger and me sitting across a table. Sometimes, a straight talk is the best way to see how someone thinks.”
Ella appeared dubious. “Well, in that case, I can have him ready to speak in…hmm, ten hours.”
“Good,” I said. “It’s a date.”
-19-
“He’s more dangerous than you realize,” Ella told me.
She and I peered through a two-way mirror. The tiger in question—Ras Claw of the Shi-Feng—sat on a chair behind a table. It looked like an old-fashioned police interrogation room.
The tiger was taller than average, about seven and a half feet. He had wide shoulders and narrow hips, an athletic looking Lokhar specimen. A bare line in his stomach showed stiches where Zoe Artemis had sliced open his gut with a laser. He stared at the two-way mirror.
Ella pointed that out to me. “Whenever the door opens, he becomes tense. It’s as if he’s waiting for you.”
“I believe that once he realizes who you are in particular, the tiger will attempt to kill you.”
I nodded absently, realizing I could use that to my advantage.
“You’re not listening to me, Creed. The Lokhar is a killer, one of their fighting specialists. He’s a hand to hand expert.”
“So what?” I said.
Ella Timoshenko knew me better than most people did. She might have divined my thinking.
“Do you really believe you can defeat him that easily?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Sometimes, you’re not realistic,” Ella said. “With his internal bionics, he’s probably stronger than you are.”
“Do you even know how much I bench?”
“He weighs more, too,” she continued, ignoring me. “Worst of all, he has his claws.”
“I’m faster.”
“If that’s true,” Ella said, “it’s not by much.”
“He’s been drugged lately and badly cut. How good can his condition be?”
Ella waved her hand dismissively. “In his mind, we’ve dishonored him. Losing the stomach bomb—you can’t understand his shame. He’ll do just about anything to wipe away his humiliation. Assassinating humanity’s leader—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said. “I’m not humanity’s leader.”
“I know you keep giving the Earth Council spaceships. For some reason, you don’t like the idea that you’re the one who wins or loses it for us. But for good or bad, Creed, everyone knows you’re leading us to victory or to destruction.”
I swear I could feel the weight of that pushing down on my shoulders. I was just the chief Star Viking, though.
“Whatever you do,” Ella said, “don’t let him know who you are.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said.
“Are you really sure you want to go through with—”
“Enough already.” I motioned to the attendants to open the cell door.
“I wish you’d let me handcuff him first,” Ella said.
“Oh,” I said, “before I forget. There’s one thing. Whatever happens, don’t enter the room to help.”
Ella gave me a hard look.
“Those are my orders,” I said.
“What are you planning, Creed?”
“Watch through the mirror,” I said, “and you’ll find out.”
***
The bigger attendant opened the door, although the man stayed out of sight of the Shi-Feng assassin.
I stepped into the doorway, stopping to stare at the tiger.
He grew tense, glowering, but making no move to get up.
I moved into the room and listened to the door shut with a heavy whomp and a click. Finally, I put my hands on my hips.
“What’s your problem?” I asked in Lokhar.
His eyebrows rose in surprise. I don’t think he expected me to know his native tongue.
“I’m Commander Creed, the leader of the Forerunner Guardians. When I enter a room, you need to stand in respect.”
The tiger stiffened. I could almost hear Ella cursing outside the chamber. I wasn’t supposed to let the tiger know I was important. Well, I had a different agenda. This was warrior to warrior. Let him come at me if he wanted. I’d kick the stuffing out of him and earn his respect in the process.
I waited, but he remained seated.
“Fool,” I said. “Don’t you know that your Emperor once served in the Lokhar Fifth Legion?”
“I am not a fool,” he rumbled.
A normal person would have respected his obvious deadliness. I was anything but normal.
Laughing, I pointed at the shaven line on his belly. “Do Shi-Feng warriors normally lose their gut-bombs?”
The tiger moved with startling speed. With a roar, he hurled the table. It was heavy, made for abuse. Even so, the table splintered against the wall. Almost before the breaking sounds reached me, the tiger assassin leapt.
Ella had told me about his bionic strength, that he was stronger than me. Because the mechanical parts had been embedded so deeply in his muscles, to remove them would have killed him. Thus, we’d left them intact.
The juggernaut of a killer sailed at me. Titanium-tipped claws appeared out of his fingertips. He slashed as he landed, his eyes blazing rage.
I’d already decided to be elsewhere, spinning away like a galaxy-class kung-fu artist. The claws left streaks in the metal, ripping steel like tinfoil.
The tiger whirled around to face me. “You have erred, human. I am Shi-Feng.” The titanium tips of his right hand touched the fur of his chest. “Today you will learn what Shi-Feng means,” the tiger finished.
“I already know.”
He tilted his head as if questioning me.
“Jack squat,” I told him.
“You speak alien words. What do they mean?”
“That you won’t do a thing.”
His roar hurt my ears. All over his body, the fur stood on end. He launched himself, moving like a bullet.
It was the deadliest game of tag I’d ever played. I dodged, twisted, threw myself backward, forward and once smashed a right cross against his snout. That snapped his head back and made him stagger, giving me the opening to slide away from those claws.
Gingerly touching his nose, he hissed, “I do not understand. Why can’t I cut you?”
I turned my left side to him. The cloth showed rips with blood dripping from them. “You touched me,” I said. “If you keep trying, you might do it again.”
“You want me to attack you?”
“I get it now,” I said. “You’re one of those bright tiger boys, aren’t you?”
“Is this another insult?”
“Wow. You’re a real Einstein.”
He cocked his head.
“That means a smart human,” I said.
After that, Ras Claw kept coming. Soon, he panted so froth shot from his snout and blood trickled from the stitch-holes in his gut.
My chest heaved. But I was in better shape than him. I’d rested these past days and eaten well. He’d had his mind probed after sustaining heavy wounds.
“You will die,” he said.
“Don’t tell me about it. Show me. Otherwise, I’m going to believe all Shi-Feng are hopeless braggarts.”
He did try. His leaps had less force, and his swipes came more slowly than before.
Then I decided to go on the offensive. With carefully controlled attacks, I hit him in the face, in the chest and against his arms.
In retaliation, he slashed a single claw across my forehead, drawing blood that dripped into my eyes.
“You are a clever fighter,” he said. “But I am the superior warrior.”
Backing up, ripping off my shirt, I shredded it and bound
my forehead with a strip. Then we fought some more. With a hammer blow, I broke his right wrist. Flipping him, I darted in fast and stomped on his left ankle, listening to it crunch.
He never made a sound. Slowly, he stood, balancing on his good one.
I panted with sweat covering my skin.
“You are a warrior,” he said grudgingly.
“I am the Forerunner Guardian of the artifact that has told me its name.”
He blinked several times, finally nodding. “I have seen the impossible. Yes. You did transfer with the artifact. Why has it done this for you? I cannot understand.”
“Because your Emperor has dishonored his name,” I said.
“I do not believe this.”
“Why then has an animal learned the name of the former Altair Object?”
“This is a mystery. I…suspect Kargs had a hand in it.”
“You are a fool who lost his bomb,” I said. “You know nothing.”
For the first time, I saw defeat in his eyes. He hung his head. “I have lost my honor,” he said. “Today an animal has defeated me in honorable combat.”
I believe that I’d finally reached the needed psychological moment. “Ras Claw,” I said, “you’re an even greater fool than I realized.”
He studied me, finally asking, “Why would you say this?”
“Because I’m not an animal,” I said. “I’m a man, superior to any Lokhar. The reason the artifact told me its name is that the machine of the First Ones realizes my superiority.”
He scowled. “This…this cannot be.”
“It is,” I said. “My victory proves my righteousness. That you have lost your honor proves you served a heretic.”
His head dipped lower. “I am shamed,” he whispered.
Stepping closer, I saw the movement of his eyes. Ah, Ras Claw had a final ploy in mind. I would have to let him try it before I could proceed with my plan.
“A new era has come to the galaxy,” I said boastfully. “The Lokhars are losing their place of privilege. That is why the Shi-Feng have failed to slay me.”
“Ah,” he said. “You must be right.
I took another step closer. Raising my arms, I looked away. He must not have realized I watched his reflection in the mirror.
With a howl of agony, Ras Claw launched himself at me a final time. My hands blurred as I shifted. Using his momentum, I flipped him hard, hurling him against a wall. He hit and crumpled to the floor. Then I rushed in, stomping on his other ankle until I heard a crack.
He groaned.
“Sleep, Ras Claw,” I said, moving in, hitting him as hard as I could in the head.
He slumped unconscious onto the floor.
***
When Ras Claw came to, he lay in a bed in a sealed chamber. Ella’s people had set his broken bones and put intravenous-tubes in his arms. A medical monitor watched over him, beeping from time to time with flashing lights.
At his first groan, I looked up from my chair. I’d been reading reports. Dmitri had spotted Starkien scouts in the Epsilon Indi system. That put them several jumps from the solar system.
What were the Starkiens doing so close to Earth? I had a good suspicion as to their motives. Too bad Dmitri couldn’t have told me their leader’s name. Was it Baba Gobo or someone else?
“You,” the tiger said in a soft voice. He glanced at the tubes in his arms, noticing the casts. “Why have you done this for me?”
“Because that’s what a warrior does,” I said.
“You claim warrior status?” he asked.
“Who’s lying in the bed, and who is sitting in the chair?”
He cocked his head in what appeared genuine puzzlement. “A warrior helps his defeated foe?”
“A warrior honors another warrior, particularly when the defeated foe gave the victor a worthy fight.”
Ras Claw watched me with an unblinking stare. “No. I have lost my honor. I am no longer a warrior.”
“Do you mean you did so by losing the bomb in your belly?”
“You speak crudely,” Ras Claw said, “but accurately.”
“I think you’re wrong. You fought valiantly. You have retained your honor.”
On the pillow, he moved his head from side to side. “I am bigger, faster and stronger than you are. I should have won.”
“There is no should have in a fight,” I said. “There is only what is. You are taller. I am both stronger and faster. More importantly, I am smarter than you are.”
“This may be true,” he said.
“Yet, I’m supposed to be an animal.”
Again, with his unblinking stare, the tiger watched me. “No. An animal would not have put his defeated foe in a hospital bed.”
“This may be true,” I said, mimicking his former words.
He stiffened, saying, “I must warn you, human. Once my bones mend, perhaps before that, I will attempt to kill you. If you come too close now, I will try it here.”
“The warning does you credit, Ras Claw of the Shi-Feng. I respect you more because of it.”
Frowning, he said, “You are not like the others who toy with my mind.”
“I am Commander Creed. I am the human who rode in the Forerunner artifact to bring ruin to Sanakaht.”
“This is something I do not understand,” he said. “Why should you have picked my planet to attack?”
“Because the Purple Tamika Emperor was in the star system,” I said.
“How could you have known he was there?”
“I am the one to ride the artifact. I know many things.”
His eyes widened as if with superstitious fear. Finally, he nodded. “You have ridden the artifact. It is a great mystery. Yet, who can speak against the one the artifact has chosen?”
“The Purple Tamika Emperor speaks against me,” I said. “It will cost him dearly.”
Ras Claw grew thoughtful. He turned away, mumbling to himself. Then he peered at me sidelong. “The Emperor has great honor, the greatest among all the Tamikas of the Lokhars. It is why Purple Tamika choses who will wear the crown.”
“This is no doubt true,” I said.
“Do you claim I lie?”
“No. You fought too well to be a liar.” I laughed. “I would not honor you if I believed you lied.”
Ras Claw shifted on his pillows, sitting up, regarding me solemnly. “When I take your head, Commander Creed, I will clean every tissue from it. I will polish the skull with gorgon oil. After carving your name onto the bone, I will present it to the Emperor as a gift. I am sure he will set it in Purple Tamika’s Hall of Honor.”
“I’ve never heard of this hall,” I lied. “It is important?”
Opening his fanged maw, Ras Claw laughed hoarsely. “It is only the soul of Purple Tamika. Within the hall lies the great purple tapestry, woven from the fur of past emperors. In the hall are the many ancient trophies, the sacred fetishes: Pre-Space armor, a thousand tattered banners, scrolls and declamations, fragments of rock, bone, steel and charcoal, vials of dried black blood commemorating battles and Purple Tamika valor. In the center of the hall lies the undying fire. For ten thousand years it has burned.”
“Huh, how about that,” I said.
Ras Claw refused to let me deter him. “Your skull will reside in the hall throughout the ages. Because of the mighty deed of gifting it to the Emperor, I will regain my honor and my soul before I die.”
“Your soul?” I asked.
“Without honor, no Lokhar is anything. With honor, any feat may be attempted.”
I backed away from Ras Claw, sitting in the room’s single chair. “I plan to keep my head,” I told him.
“Which will make my feat all the more singular,” he assured me.
I gave the tiger a wintery grin. “While keeping my head on my shoulders, I would like to see this Hall of Honor. It would surely be a sight.”
“You will never see it,” Ras Claw declared.
“Because you’ll kill me before that?” I asked.
“That is one reason. The other is that no one but high-ranking Purple Tamika warriors and vestals are allowed inside the wooden walls.”
“You’re telling me the hall is old?”
“Ancient,” Ras Claw said. “After the Forerunner objects, it is the most heavily guarded place in Purple Tamika control.”
“Oh,” I said. “In that case, maybe I’ll have to force my way into the hall.”
The tiger shook his head before wincing and closing his eyes. “It would sully the honor of Purple Tamika if you set eyes upon the trophies and fetishes. The present Emperor would be forced to step down for one of his brothers. No, Commander Creed, you will never see these things, but your skull will sit there.”
It was my turn to give the Lokhar an unblinking stare.
He opened his eyes and bristled under the scrutiny. “Have I dishonored you by speaking these truths?” he asked.
With a start, I shook my head. He’d given me an idea. “No,” I said. “You have given me many sad thoughts to reflect upon.”
“Why sad?” he asked.
“Because we humans lack a hall of honor of our own,” I said.
“I am not surprised to hear this. You are Earthlings, little better than beasts of the field. You lack a single Tamika. How then could you have a hall of honor?” He yawned, and I could see that he was exhausted.
“Sleep, Ras Claw. Regain your strength. You are going to need it soon.”
“We will fight again?” he asked hopefully.
No, I thought to myself. You’ll need your strength so Ella can discover from you the location of this Hall of Honor. It sounded like just the place for a Star Viking raid. That meant the tiger would have to go under the Jelk machine at least one more time.
-20-
I left Mars Base to inspect the Luna defenses. For the journey, I went in a new patrol boat, Achilles.
The warship had narrow corridors but a large enough cargo bay to hold a gym. There, I met the new captain, a woman upgraded from an arban leader to a patrol boat commander.
Zoe Artemis had dark hair and darker eyes. She was slender with small breasts, boyish hips and a deadly quickness. She was lithe like a lynx. Her beauty rested in her eyes and the shape of her triangular chin.
Star Viking (Extinction Wars Book 3) Page 19