All on the bridge stared at him.
Holding the Icon carefully, uncertain as to what might trigger it, he went to the forward screen and began looking for Horus among the vast backdrop of stars. So that he might set his puppets off on their next objective.
And as he searched the starry depths alarms began to sound.
* *
Bianca retched. It was a dry sound, punctuated by groans from Willet and Nani. Through squinted eyes Jess saw Satori heaving forward in her chair.
The leap through quantum space was disorienting, to say the least, more even than it had been using the Icon, but it was over in an instant.
Nani was checking controls. A massive purple planet had appeared directly ahead, quite suddenly. One second they were clenching in nervous anticipation, looking out at Anitra and its moon in the distance as Nani told them to hold on and … those worlds shimmered and shifted, replaced abruptly with a vastly different star field and the purple gas giant. Now everything held steady. A new view, a new location.
One very, very far from where they’d just been.
Jess struggled to orient. An influx of information was already grabbing Nani’s attention. Alarms. At first Jess thought the warnings meant something went wrong, but the ship was whole and—though the sudden appearance of the giant purple world was shocking—nothing seemed broken. And though expecting it, for her it was a double shock to recognize the scene from pictures on the laptop. Photos taken by travelers from Earth who made the same transition to that very spot, confirming with icy reality that the contents of the laptop were no myth. Not that she’d doubted it, but here it was, live and in person, and it was very real. What she saw before her was just like in those images. They’d gone to the right place. This would’ve been Zac’s first stop.
But something was wrong.
“There’s another ship,” Nani practically gasped, not believing what she was seeing.
“What?” Jess and Satori spoke as one, looking to the blonde scientist as she herself looked in disbelief at the information pouring in. The alarms weren’t shutting off. The Reaver was telling them things were not right.
They were not alone.
Jess staggered from the captain’s chair and went to Nani’s station, looking back and forth, at the vastness of space outside the dome, left to right, top to bottom, trying to see anything against the brilliant backdrop of stars. Trying to find the ship Nani was talking about.
Trying to find Zac.
Did he make it?
“Another ship?” She scanned the myriad displays, digital readouts, signals, images moving and rotating on screens at Nani’s station. The Kel information was hieroglyphics as far as she was concerned but Nani knew it cold. “Like, another starship? Like this one?”
Now Satori was standing beside them. Each trying to understand what they were looking at, glancing at the starry expanse outside to see if any visual confirmation would appear. Though the Kel text was meaningless, there were now graphical elements on the displays that were unmistakable. The computerized outline of another starship, different in aspect from their own but just as lethal in profile.
Nani poured over the flood of data. Responding to inputs, tapping out instructions, fingers grazing the touch displays with fluid comprehension, having practiced with the Reaver’s systems to the point of perfection. If she understood the controls, however, she was utterly confused by what they were telling her.
“It’s another starship,” she confirmed. “There’s another ship out there.”
* *
“What is it?” Kang whirled from the commander to the vast viewscreen at the front of the bridge, trying to grasp what was suddenly transpiring. At the first sound of alarms he’d assumed it was some new effort to be rid of him. As if they were alerting all hands the monster was in position and execute Plan B now, or some such nonsense. It didn’t concern him overly—he knew there was no way they could stop him—but it gave him pause and he wondered once more if they might be working up some way to self-destruct or otherwise eliminate themselves and, hopefully, he with them. Blow up the ship, blow up the monster. They seemed to possess the sort of warrior mentality that would do such a thing.
But those thoughts were supplanted rapidly by the realization that, to his surprise, their abrupt leap into action did not concern him at all. It was an outside threat, and for an odd moment it was as if he was forgotten. He stood there among them, holding the Icon, a spectator as they hurried to respond to the blaring alarms, warnings, changes in lighting and all else that indicated danger. Was there a problem with the ship? Was there about to be a catastrophe?
He found himself actually stepping to the side, making room so they could do their job without the impediment of his presence. He assessed what he could, listening to them bark orders in their curt dialect, peering at information scrolling across screens and trying to learn what drove them. At length he was able to determine the cause for alarm was external. Some sort of intruder had arrived. Someone else from Anitra? Another Icon?
But it wasn’t another individual, or even a group. It wasn’t another Icon being used to bring more people.
It was another spaceship.
Like this one.
He saw it now as they called out directions, the commander hurrying to stand beside him—out of necessity, not out of any desire to come near—pointing to the large forward viewscreen, issuing orders as a section of space was magnified and there, sitting motionless against the starry backdrop, was another craft. Shiny black, outswept formations at the rear like wings that gave it a deadly profile. In many ways it looked more menacing than the one Kang was aboard. He wondered how big it was, and whether it was the enemy of the alien warriors.
Was there about to be a battle?
Would he die in a fight between starships?
From the responses of the crew on the bridge, however, the arrival of the ship was more a surprise than anything. He observed them. These were not the reactions of warriors coming face to face suddenly with a known threat.
These were the reactions of people who had no idea what was happening.
CHAPTER 8: RESCUE
“They’re moving on us!” All at once Nani was frantic. “What do I do?!” Her rising reaction only made the knot in the pit of Jessica’s stomach clench tighter. For the first time Nani was at a loss as to what button to push or what control to activate. Jess scanned the lighted Kel panels, their incomprehensible glyphs scrolling madly, wishing there was some way she could help. Satori, too, looked pained at the feeling of uselessness. Jess could almost see Satori’s fingers twitch, as if wishing for a trigger, a joystick—something, anything with which to take action.
But were they sure they were in danger?
“Can you tell if they’re hostile?” Jess asked. That seemed more the source of Nani’s panic. She had no idea what to do. It wasn’t a lack of knowing how to do it, once a decision was made. She just needed a nudge in the right direction.
“Are they moving fast?” Jess looked back and forth between the readouts and the view of space outside. Still no visual of the other craft. “Like, getting ready to attack?”
Nani managed to work through a few controls. “Here,” she tapped an input and turned to the domed screen. Everyone looked with her, watching as she brought a section into magnification and there it was. The other ship came into sharp relief, dark against the colorful curtain of stars.
It certainly looked hostile.
But then so did theirs.
From that perspective the purple gas giant nearly filled the image, and soon the alien craft was moving in front of it, heading across its colorful bands at a slow clip. A sleek, dark blot against a canvas of violet hues.
“Wait.” A new alarm caught Nani’s attention. “They’re sending signals,” she worked to process everything at once. She was running the whole ship, Jess realized, and if they ended up in an actual firefight Nani was it. She wondered if Nani would snap. A leisurely passage through
space was one thing; the intensity of battle would be something else altogether. Nani was on her own.
And for a moment Jess reeled; caught herself with a hand on the console. They were aboard a starship, in deep space, in another star system, around another planet, in a standoff with another starship.
This was no movie.
She gripped the console harder and made herself stand straight.
This is real.
Nani cursed, something Jess had, so far, never heard her do. She fumbled with the controls then got the results she was after. “It’s a little larger than us and more massive. From what I can tell it’s less advanced. Definitely weaponized. Lots of weapons, energy signatures. It’s a warship.” Then: “… wait a minute.” Now her expression changed, briefly, to one of curiosity—a scientific reaction, it seemed—then quickly back to alarm. Jess watched her intently, as did the others; hanging on her every word, her every change in expression, her every movement as the brilliant scientist, their only hope of salvation, poured through what was becoming a cascading overload of information.
“Hold on,” she continued to tap inputs, check results and pull up queries. Everyone gathered closer, one nervous eye on Nani, the other trained on the deliberate passage of the alien warship, its dark outline cutting an ominous path across the cloud-striped surface of the giant planet.
Nani sat back all at once. “Impossible.”
“What?”
“What is it?”
“The signals,” she turned her full attention to the closing ship, away from the blinking controls, “the language they’re using.”
Everyone looked at her, a silent Yes? hanging in the air.
Slowly Nani shook her head.
“It’s Kel.”
Jess felt her mouth drop.
“Kel?”
The others were also stunned. “Same as the language of the people who built this ship?”
Nani nodded, not believing it either. “Different,” she said, glancing once at the screen before her to confirm. “A little different, but definitely Kel. They’re broadcasting in Kel. I’ve sent no signals. There’s no way they could’ve extracted our language base.” Her disbelief was clear. Jess felt it too. How was any of this possible? Even within the context of the utterly fantastic, which was no doubt the nature of the adventure they were on, how could any of this make sense?
Jess heard herself ask a logical question:
“What are they saying?”
Nani turned back to the controls. So stunned was she by this discovery that the scientist in her—which was to say the real Nani—had returned and was in danger of becoming consumed with this new mystery. Forgetting they had a bigger issue to be solved.
“Um,” she bit her lip as she tapped and dragged, piecing together the information she had so far. “Hold on. It seems their general intent is … It’s an order,” she looked up, growing concerned again. Frightened Nani was back.
With a vengeance.
“They’re ordering us to surrender and prepare to be boarded.”
* *
Kel warlord Eldron took a deep breath and held it, watching the activity on the bridge around him. This duty rotation had gone from boring routine to history-making—and not in a good way—and it just kept getting worse. As if the rampage of the beast had not shaped things in ways that would have repercussions for all time, now an alien spacecraft was sitting out there, having popped into existence at the same spot where the beast materialized. All Eldron could think was that it was a ship full of them, and the idea of that sent chills up his spine. So far the alien ship was just sitting there, not responding, but Eldron’s burning impulse was to blow it out of space without further consideration and worry over the consequences later. The question was, could they? Scans indicated it was made of materials more advanced than their own. The data they had suggested it would likely break under a sustained onslaught, but retaliation would surely come before that end was met.
Furtively he glanced at the beast, standing there holding its shiny prize. No doubt the thing that brought it. If that ship had more of these monsters aboard then engaging with the intent to destroy was the smartest thing he could do. What other advanced devices did they possess? And would shooting the ship out there send the beast into a rage? Probably. But that didn’t matter. As long as they had time to finish the job. Already Eldron had been debating setting a course for the gas giant and flying straight into its core, ending their lives and the life of the creature in one fell swoop. The best thing he could do would be to finish it right here, right now.
“Charge weapons,” he ordered, keeping a nervous eye on the horned monster. So far it just stood there, watching.
“Weapons online,” came the reply. His crew were running through all information they could gather, sending signals to the intruder to stand down and prepare to be boarded. The alien ship remained unmoving. Completely unresponsive, just hanging there where it arrived; brazenly ignoring them, as if they were beneath its notice. Eldron had no intention of risking a boarding. Nor did he expect the intruders even understood what was being ordered. There was no protocol for such an event, but he was determined to stay the aggressor until he figured it out.
Then he would destroy it.
“Sir,” one of the crew got his attention. The bridge was a flurry of commands and relayed information, the beast so far watching from the wings.
Eldron looked to his crewman.
“They’ve begun a signal array of their own,” the man checked what appeared to be an influx of new data. “Hitting us with what looks to be a communication dump. Almost like a translator routine.” He paused as he confirmed more readings. “It’s a blast. A massive flow of data. Alien language paired with … hold on.” Others near the station looked at what was streaming in, this development slowly becoming the new center of attention.
Then: “It’s Kel, sir. It’s a translator dump of Kel and another language.”
Eldron hesitated, but only briefly. “Put it through.”
And a garbled voice came from the speaker. Quiet fell over the bridge as what sounded like a female repeated a few key words in a strange tongue.
“A translation to Kel is part of the stream,” the operator informed his commander. “They’re saying they mean no harm.”
Eldron noticed the monster had, at hearing the female voice, straightened. Quite dramatically. The yellowed beast stepped forward, now fully involved in what was going on, horned head cocked toward the source of the sound—as if the words spoken by the voice coming over the speaker had meaning.
As if it were a revelation.
* *
“No change,” said Nani. “Weapons are powered up. Closing.” She checked the feed. “I’m broadcasting on the same channel they used. They have to be receiving it. I’ve sent them an entire cross reference between our language and theirs. Nothing. So far no response.”
“We have to find Zac,” Jess insisted. Already the problem of the alien craft had distracted them from the real objective. Aliens could wait. Zac, however, would not last in the cold depths of space.
If he was even here.
Did he make it through to Earth?
Did they both?
At once she began dreaming up other possibilities. What if the alien craft captured him?
What if they killed him?
Then, the terrible, impossible misfortune of it:
How is there a frickin alien ship—a Kel ship—right here?!
“Can you see him?” She tried not to voice the mashup of anger and terror she was feeling but failed. “Is he out there?” How did she allow herself to become so sidetracked, even for a second? Even by something as significant as this.
Nani spared a moment to shift efforts, dialing in other adjustments, directing her focus away from the other spacecraft—of which they knew about as much as they could—to search for a human form.
“Got him,” she said almost immediately. Jessica’s heart leaped into her thro
at. He’s here!
But that meant …
“Reading at these coordinates,” Nani zeroed in on the scrolling figures. The tension among the small group was palpable. The approach of the warship, whose intentions grew more ominous with each passing second, the unfamiliarity of everything, now coupled with the discovery of Zac …
Jess blurted: “Is he alive?” The intervening pause as Nani checked for that answer was unbearable. She found her hands actually shaking.
“I think so,” came the answer and Jess shuddered all over, the tension of that fear falling away.
Even as new fears continued to take hold.
“Only him,” Nani reported. “I have life signals. No sign of Kang. And … no sign of the Icon.” She turned from the console. “It would appear Zac got left behind. Kang and the Icon are gone.” Then: “Kang could’ve made it to Earth.”
“Get Zac,” It sounded like an order but Jess didn’t care. It was an order. “Go. Hurry.”
And Nani set them in motion. The screen-in-screen image of the approaching warship remained framed at one edge but the view on the rest of the dome shifted as they swung abruptly away and accelerated toward Zac.
“Could that other ship have captured Kang?” Bianca wondered aloud.
Satori was incredulous. “Captured him? I don’t think anyone is going to ‘capture’ Kang. Besides, why him and not Zac?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Jess. “We have to rescue Zac and get out of here. Kang is long gone.” Then, with the same volume of fear in her voice but speaking more to herself: “It’s exactly what I was afraid of. Kang got away. Kang is on Earth.”
Nervously she looked at the dark vessel on approach, becoming increasingly well-defined against the purple backdrop of the gas giant. How fast could it move? If attack was its objective why didn’t it just leap at them and pounce? Or open fire? According to Nani it was filled with weapons which were active, in a ready state, continuing its methodical march toward engagement, even though they’d sent a return signal saying, basically, they meant no harm. A friendly signal, in a language the aliens should understand. Now the Reaver was suddenly on its way to get Zac. Would the other craft speed up? Pursue?
Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3) Page 8