Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3)

by David G. McDaniel

  She felt her head spin. Dramatic, world-shattering things were in play. Not much had changed in that regard; she was still at the crux of monumental events, same as she had been from the moment Zac arrived in the woods behind her house, but as everything continued to escalate she wondered when her life would ever be any less epic. If it ever would. Would calm ever again prevail?

  Satori let the discussion go. Resigned herself to what would be, at least for now. Jess squeezed Zac’s arm. She could tell he wasn’t worried. And why should he be? At least in the short term, for this mission, there was nothing to fear. He was a Kazerai, indestructible under these circumstances. Nothing on Earth could stop him. He was stronger than a hundred men, battle hardened from the wars on Anitra. In fact he almost looked eager.

  But she was looking ahead. Wondering just how difficult Lorenzo would be under interrogation. Would they truly be able to make him lead them to the rest of the Bok? If not, what then?

  And as she thought of this she realized her mistrust of the Bok had only been growing. As they talked about it, making preps for the kidnapping, she’d come to want Lorenzo far more badly than seemed natural.

  She found she wanted the Bok very badly indeed. And everything they were hiding.

  * *

  “You fell there.” Jess highlighted an area of the display, zooming in. “That’s where you popped out over the woods.”

  Zac pointed. “And that’s your house?” He sat with her alone in the Reaver’s small observation room, chatting and looking over the Earth below. One wall was filled with a wide viewscreen that appeared, for all its display technology, exactly like a clear window, looking out from orbit, and they sat together up against it, leaning toward it the same as if peering through real glass. They’d ended up in the small room, chatting like a couple of teenagers and she had to keep reminding herself, as it was easy to forget, caught up as they were in such fantastic events, that she and Zac were teenagers. Just two crazy teens, way out of their element with a mind to change the world.

  “Yeah.” She gazed at the highlighted area around her home, no real details visible at that magnification. Little brown and green roofs dotted the carefully manicured landscape of the affluent neighborhood, curving tastefully along friendly lanes and cul-de-sacs. “I’ve been afraid to look any closer.” The ship’s optics could drill down tighter, but it was easier to hold at this range. Nani had been scanning close-ups since they got there, but Jess didn’t want to see any closer. It was already hard enough.

  After a moment of silence she realized Zac was staring at her. She turned to him.

  “What?” she laughed nervously.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

  “Doing what?”

  “Getting everyone to go along with this plan. To kidnap the leader of the Bok.”

  “Me? It was Nani’s idea.”

  “Yeah, so.”

  She turned it back on him. “You were the one that jumped on it.”

  “It’s what I thought you wanted.”

  “Liar.” He was so handsome, sitting there in the soft glow of the Earth. He was always handsome, no matter what he was doing. There was one scar left from his fight with Kang, one visible at the moment, anyway, nearly healed, on his cheek just above the stubble of a beard. Somehow it made him look even sexier.

  “So why?” he persisted.

  “I don’t know,” she couldn’t hold his gaze. “I don’t actually know. All I know is we’re doing the right thing. It’s like I told Satori. I mean, we need to keep finding out. The way I see it we’ve only raised more questions with all this, not solved anything.” She turned her gaze back to his. “Why not keep going? If we stop here, go back, things are still going to happen, only without us involved. We might as well stay out front. We need to. Besides, if we don’t do this now we lose what might be our only opportunity.”

  He accepted that. Then sat there looking at her until it became nearly unbearable. She looked away again and he asked: “Where will ‘back’ be?”

  She had no answer.

  “After it’s all done,” he said. “After this is all sorted out, what then? Where will you go? Where will you make a life?”

  She searched his face.

  And it was his turn to look away.

  Make a life? She looked at his eyes as he, in turn, stared out at the Earth. Ice blue eyes, so sharp, so reflective at that angle they were hard to read. But she saw a certain longing in them.

  “I don’t know.” She swallowed. “What about you?”

  Though they’d both made declarations of their love, being with him still felt like a first date. Like so much had yet to be determined. Like the awkward phase was a long way from over. Of course it did, and of course it was. Though they’d been through Hell together, there was a lot of getting to know each other left to do.

  “I’ll go wherever you go,” he said quietly, then fixed her gaze. “If that’s what you want.”

  She took his hands, feeling the warmth of his strong palms. Tried to clear her head. For a moment she had a hard time rectifying this current, shy Jessica with the one that stood and fought. Why was talking to Zac so hard sometimes?

  “It is,” she said. “A life with you is my dream.” She made herself be stronger. “One day we’ll have that.”

  Zac smiled. “I can’t wait.”

  Her heart fluttered. She loved him so much. Very nearly said it right there; really, nearly, very nearly almost poured her heart out, gushing like a big romantic, saying things that would be too much for the moment, but held short. Right then it would’ve come out way too emotional. It wasn’t the time for that sort of passionate pronouncement. Zac knew how she felt. Instead she decided to lean forward and give him a kiss. A quick peck, right on the lips, and as she pulled back she smiled.

  Zac laughed. “Can you imagine? You doing the dishes and me mowing the yard?”

  To that she gave a sly grin. “Who says I’d do the dishes?”

  He laughed again. “Ok,” he conceded. “Can you imagine me doing the dishes?”

  At that her grin expanded. “Would you wear an apron, rubber gloves—the whole bit?”

  Zac smiled and agreed wholeheartedly. “Absolutely.”

  And she laughed and kissed him again.

  CHAPTER 21: CHANGE OF HEART

  “We now know how powerful the other ship was,” Voltan stood before his queen. Cee watched him calmly, even as he began to annoy her with his rising insistence. “We’ve had time to analyze information from the encounter, and what we’re now certain of is that what we faced out there was one of our own. A starship from the last Dynasty.” He gave particular emphasis to this. “That makes it near a thousand years old. And, from what we can tell, more powerful than our own. It would take five of ours to match it. Five!

  “We don’t yet know enough of this to make such a rash decision. Please, heed my warning.”

  “The vessel was handled clumsily,” Cee told him. She sat in her throne, trying to remain unconcerned, trying not to be baited by his council. “From everything we know it was manned, not by warriors or ancient Kel, but by someone who knew little of its operation. Their use of the odd, Fetok-style language is proof enough. Whoever flew that ancient ship found it, probably. That they only bothered to gather the other human then flee is further reason to believe this is no more than an anomaly.”

  “An anomaly?” Voltan acted stunned. “We encounter one of our own ships, a starship from our distant past—from the last Dynasty before our ruin—and you would count it as no more than an anomaly?”

  Cee thought to put him in his place, to send him away. But it was only the two of them in her cavernous, domed throne room, and at times the rantings of her Praetor brought insight.

  “That is exactly what it is. Forgotten, lost somehow through the ages, discovered on the world which Kang calls home, by his people, restored by them, brought into operation. They then followed him here. Nothing more.”

  “Speculation. T
hat explanation is no more than Kang’s own guess as to how it came to be. The beast knows for sure no more than we. Why stake so much on his claim? It could be a trap. He could be leading us to ambush.”

  Cee allowed herself a chuckle, finding the notion silly.

  “Why? To what end? And further, How?” Then: “Kang is not making this up, my Praetor. He genuinely has no idea, and the mere fact of that should assure us of its truth. How could he exist on a world where those ships were common and not know of it? That it was a hidden, forgotten derelict is the only explanation for its existence. Were it otherwise the armies of his world would surely now be landing on ours.”

  “Perhaps they prepare for that even now.”

  “Your arguments go nowhere. Where is the brilliant mind of my Praetor?”

  “Too many fantastic improbabilities have occurred in too short a time. We have not spent near enough effort on the evaluation of this action. To have our scientists work feverishly to dissect this device, to learn its use and apply it to our own craft, so that we might then fly off at once to this monster’s world and throw ourselves upon it …

  “Madness.”

  Cee had been before the War Council. The backing of their greatest commanders was hers. She was sure there was dissention, there must be quiet discussions at some level, talk of the risk of undertaking such a blind attack, but in all the reception of her plan and the device was overwhelming. So many saw opportunity, furthered by the secret desires they no-doubt harbored to appease her, to gain favor. Voltan was in the minority, yet he had been valuable in too many things not to hear his advice.

  “There is little doubt of what Kang claims,” she said. “We will not find a world of advanced warcraft ready to destroy us.”

  “It could be a world filled with others like him.”

  She paused. “I will grant you that. It is possible he lies to us in that regard. He could hope to lure us to a world filled with super beasts, which he could lead to overthrow us.

  “However I do not intend to engage whatever awaits us on the ground. We will conquer his world from above, and in that action discover exactly what we face. If it is more like him, we destroy the world utterly and him with it. If it comes to that, that is what we do.

  “Whether that bears out or not, if we unlock the secret of this Icon—as he calls it—then the stars are ours. Either way, the Kel win. My dear Voltan, this marks the beginning of Empire.”

  She knew, could tell, her Praetor saw full well the possibilities locked in that one device. The “Icon” that flung Kang and his foe across unknown light years of void, the technology of which no doubt also powered the ancient Kel intruder; these devices, these Icons, had been crafted toward the end of the Great Wars. The Kel knew vaguely of them. Used by the rebels of that time to move individuals or small groups from place to place. All were lost following the Wars, when worlds fell into darkness—including, and perhaps most especially, Kel—but with the discovery of this one it appeared all had not been lost. Some must remain, somewhere out there, and here was one that connected right there in the Kel star system, on one end, at the other to an ancient human world ripe for conquest.

  And Cee would have it.

  * *

  This Icon connects over Jessica’s home on Earth, Lindin reviewed the details of his upcoming attempt, knowing that once he went there was no coming back. Not to safety, at least. It returns over Osaka. Airborne exit points at both ends, too high for a man to survive the fall. Thus, even if, upon arrival at Earth, he decided against this crazy idea, when he returned it would be right over the heart of the enemy. At the moment he was safely in a mountain hideaway, in his own land, far enough from any real threat. Twist this, he held the Icon gingerly in his grasp, and I leave it all behind. I transfer in a flash. Across enormous distance, to another world altogether. And a return that puts me directly in danger. As yet he had no idea how he would escape Dominion lands when he did return. One man, high-ranking leader of the Venatres, avowed enemy of the Dominion. Square in the middle of their capital. Whatever waited on the other end was mystery enough, though he had less fear of that.

  I can’t do this.

  No matter the strength of the impulse driving him, there just wasn’t enough sound planning behind it. The pendulum had swung and he was back to doubt. No matter how he tried to make the idea work, it was too much whim and not enough real possibility. Don a suit of Skull Boy armor and leap off to an alien culture? Rummage around for clues belonging to a girl who stole a starship? Come back to the land of the enemy, clear across an ocean? Somehow find refuge and make it all the way back here?

  He looked around the prep room he’d assembled, not having clued anyone to his intentions. A suit of Skull Boy armor stood to the side, waiting, mighty rail gun strapped to its back. The Icon was there, in his hands, a little slippery now that he’d begun a cold sweat. Other provisions he expected he’d need, ready to be fixed to the powered armor. He looked at his strained expression in the chrome surface of the Icon.

  Wondering how he’d let such a childish notion take him this far.

  “Sir?” a voice on the room’s intercom startled him.

  “Yes?” Carefully he set it down.

  “The president is on.”

  For an instant he thought his boss had somehow learned what he was up to. In a way Lindin was on house arrest, waiting for tensions with the war to ease enough to facilitate a thorough investigation into what happened with the starship, along with his role in that fiasco. If the president knew what he was about to do …

  But he wouldn’t, of course, and the worried thought passed—replaced by other speculations. Why would the president be calling? Why now?

  “I’ll take it in my office,” he said and left the room.

  On his way up he sorted through a myriad of possibilities, none gaining much traction. The president may have taken it upon himself to contact him directly to discuss the incident with the starship, man to man, friend to friend. They knew each other from decades of public service in different quarters. Private conversations with the president weren’t unusual, though they had become increasingly infrequent over the years.

  Lindin passed through alternating busy and near empty halls, arriving shortly at his office. The door closed behind him as he entered and went to his console.

  “Yes, sir?” he said as he flicked it on. The president turned to the screen from talking with someone else. President Felana was a thin man with gray hair, a long neck and severe features, though at sixty-something he was quite robust. At the moment he looked concerned and, Lindin thought as he began speaking, a bit …

  Intrigued.

  “We have an interesting development,” he informed him. “The Dominion has requested a summit.”

  The way he said it, with little preamble and no buildup, didn’t register at first. Then the full import of what that meant hit Lindin and he sat slowly.

  “A summit?”

  “Yes,” the president alternated between having his attention on him and other things developing off-screen. In fact, now that Lindin noticed … there was a high degree of activity taking place at the presidential office.

  “This came to us yesterday,” he said. “We’ve been evaluating sources and confirming. A time and place has been arranged. I would like you to attend.”

  Lindin steadied himself. Moments before he’d been in the midst of trying to follow through on a hair-brained idea to go to Earth. Now it seemed a decision had been made for him.

  “Of course,” he said. “This is good news?” He nearly shook, the combination of what he’d been about to do and the promise of this new twist hitting him all at once. What was I thinking? What if I’d gone?

  “Yes,” said the president. “We believe so. The stated purpose of the summit is to negotiate an accord.”

  Lindin flexed his hands, mind turning to this prospect.

  If true, this was historic.

  Monumentally so.

  He maintained his p
oise. “Departing from your location?”

  “Yes.”

  Lindin nodded. “I’ll be on my way.”

  The president’s attention was being drawn evermore to the activity taking place on the other end.

  “Very well,” and he signed off.

  Lindin leaned back.

  This would take priority now.

  * *

  Kang gazed out over the Kel capital from high above, standing at the windows of a soaring tower. He’d been given these chambers as his quarters, shown a high degree of respect over the last days and even what might be considered hospitality for the war-like Kel. In turn he’d been doing his best to reciprocate with his own civility and decorum. Playing along. Controlling his urges. Finding it not as difficult as he expected, in that the Kel so closely mirrored his own way of thinking. They valued power, brutality; awarded it with rank and privilege. Upon his insistence, appearing before their War Council with the Lady Cee, he’d been able to persuade them. They saw in him the epitome of their culture, and though the Kel projected a veneer of beauty—aesthetics he most assuredly did not—he was nevertheless, despite the horror of his outer shell, a shining example of the power and brutality they so idolized. With this newfound civility he had quickly become a symbol of hope. Their existence was stagnant. He promised new birth.