Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2)

by B. V. Larson

  To me, it resembled something like the toothy head of a barracuda on a long, sinewy neck. But instead of scales or smooth skin, the beast was shaggy with matted fur.

  The neck convulsed, and the teeth crunched down. After a few tries, it choked down the marine, swallowing the body-shell armor, gun and all.

  “That’s it!” I shouted. “Light this thing up!”

  All of us began to fire then. We concentrated our weapons on the head, which was hopefully a weak point.

  Releasing a thunderous howl, the head dipped and tried to get Morris. He rolled away and came up firing in a new position.

  Deciding my own pistol was useless, I drew my saber. Switching it on, I found it lit the region in a reddish glow like a torch.

  The monster stopped trying to eat Morris and turned toward me instead. The light of my power saber, rippling with force, had made me its target of choice.

  There was nowhere to run. I was between two tree-like legs—of which it had at least six. The neck coiled and then lengthened again, reminding me of a striking snake.

  I knelt, activated my personal shield, and thrust my blade toward the gaping mouth.

  The blade touched the creature’s tongue before those teeth reached me. There was a snapping sound, and the smell of burnt meat filled the forest.

  Bellowing, the creature reared up, then struck again, enraged. I stared in the dark, hoping it had weakened.

  Was it weakening? Yes—a rolling shiver convulsed through the assemblage of its massive form and it paused. The pounding fire of two rifles, peppering the neck, body and skull with burn marks, had taken a toll.

  The second strike came then, and I was snatched up in those vast jaws. A sickening sensation filled me, and I realized I was being hoisted aloft. The teeth were crushing down, but they weren’t penetrating my shield as yet.

  Forming a ball with my body, I endeavored to thrust and cut the inside of the monsters’ mouth. It convulsed around me, and I recognized the unmistakable signs.

  I was about to be swallowed whole.

  -25-

  The monster’s throat gaped, and I almost slid down into the acid-bath churning in its stomach. I knew my only possible move was a single thrust up into the monster’s brain, and I went for it.

  I couldn’t brace my feet, as I was riding the rolling, burnt chunk of meat that served the creature for a tongue.

  Taking my best shot, I stabbed upward. My thrust never reached the creature’s brain, but it did quite a bit of damage to its olfactory region. What saved me, I think, was lacerating the sinuses.

  Choking and coughing, it spat me back out. I crashed to the ground with jarring force and lay there with the wind knocked out of me, coated in disgusting fluids.

  The monster, snorting and shaking its head, ran off into the forest. It crashed through the trees and trumpeted in rage and pain as it went.

  I remained where I’d fallen until Zye came and helped me to my feet.

  “Are you injured?” she asked, running her hands over me.

  “Stunned, but alive,” I said. I rolled to my knees so I could begin wringing slime from my clothes and wiping it on the turf.

  “Captain!” Morris shouted. “This way!”

  Not knowing what the trouble was, I envisioned a full herd of additional monsters. Zye and I rushed toward his voice.

  We broke through a copse of brush to find Morris standing over Jkal and two of his compatriots. He had his rifle leveled in their faces.

  “Here they are,” the Marine Commander said. “They came back to gloat. To watch us die.”

  I walked unsteadily toward Jkal and put the tip of my glimmering blade near his throat. He watched the power sword with naked fear.

  “Don’t kill,” he said. “Humans don’t kill humans. It’s forbidden.”

  “Really?” I asked. “But it’s acceptable to lure your fellow man into a cave and summon a monstrous beast to devour him, is that it?”

  “The serpent was hungry. We fed it. Better you than one of us.”

  I nodded. “Very logical. Now, it’s time for you to start talking to us, Jkal. Or I’m going to have to damage you.”

  “Don’t kill. It’s—”

  “Yes, yes, I heard that part. But I won’t kill you. A brush with the tip of this weapon usually isn’t fatal. It isn’t pleasant, however.”

  Zye came up and squatted near us, watching. She didn’t turn away. She didn’t seem squeamish at all. Betas were a stoic people. They neither relished giving pain, nor avoided dispensing it when effective or appropriate.

  “The Beta,” Jkal said. “That’s why we did it. You’re in league with them. We know it.”

  I glanced at Zye. “You know about Betas?”

  “Of course. We’re not fools. We’ve been trapped here for generations, but there are a few old ones who still teach us of the neighboring colonies.”

  “Where’s your leader?” I demanded. “The one you were going to take me to.”

  Jkal licked his lips, then shrugged. “I’m the only leader here. These few are all that survived in this town. All the other nearby towns are empty.”

  “What about the women and children you mentioned?” I asked. “Where are they?”

  He shook his head. “Not anywhere near here. Maybe some live on the far side of Sapphire. The Stroj took all of them from our village. They come every year in the summer heat for a hunt. Those who are slowest, the weakest—they don’t survive.”

  I lowered my sword and switched it off.

  “You believe me?” Jkal asked.

  “To a point,” I said. “The Stroj did come through this system. We saw their ships exit hyperspace here. We were following them until we lost them in this system.”

  Jkal licked his lips again and got up into a crouch. I sensed he wanted to run, and I barely had the heart to stop him if he did.

  I believed he was telling the truth about the Stroj. They were hunting humans on these worlds, taking them like trophies. That explained a lot.

  What I knew of the Stroj led me to think these worlds would be attractive to them. They’d found fast-running prey full of tricks. I suspected immediately that Jkal and his crew had been left behind to provide further entertainment. Perhaps the Stroj allowed them to run free here. There were probably knots of survivors on all three of these worlds. The Stroj liked to track wild game. They would enjoy nothing better than a pack of feral humans who could be hunted and used as a source of fresh body parts to adorn themselves.

  “Hmm,” I said, “can you tell us exactly when the Stroj are due to come back?”

  “Any time now,” he said. “This is high summer. We watch the skies every day.”

  Looking around, I felt a chill in the night air, but said nothing. I suspected that on Sapphire, summertime was a relative thing.

  “Jkal, have you ever heard of a Captain Lorn?” I asked.

  His face paled. “Are you in an alliance with that devil? Is that why you came here, to sell us to the—”

  “No, no,” I said. “I’m merely asking the question. When I said we’d followed a Stroj pirate to this system, I’d meant Lorn.”

  Jkal looked more frightened and worried than he had when I’d put the tip of my sword to his throat.

  “We know Lorn. He’s worse than the Gi. Don’t trust any promise he makes you.”

  I smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. Obviously, he’s come here before. How often?”

  “I have to get back to my camp now.”

  “Not so fast,” Morris said, prodding him with the barrel of his weapon. “Answer the Captain’s question.”

  “Let him go,” I said, standing up straight and stretching my back painfully. “I doubt he can be any more help.”

  “One moment with him first, sir?” Morris asked.

  Glancing at him, I nodded.

  Morris grabbed the man up and dragged him to a collection of stones where one of the marines lay, crushed and mangled.

  “This isn’t all fun and games to
me, Jkal,” he said. “If I get my way, I’ll kill the lot of you for this. Now, run off before the Captain changes his mind.”

  Jkal and his companions vanished into the dark forest with pounding feet.

  With a heavy heart, I helped Morris carry the body of our fallen comrade. After a ten minute hike, we reached the pinnace.

  The tiny ship’s door yawned open. Rumbold was gone.

  “They ransacked the ship,” Morris said. “I bet they ate Rumbold or something.”

  “He’d be a tough old bird,” I said. Straightening and looking up and down the abandoned streets, I called loudly for Rumbold.

  After a few echoing shouts, a figure appeared.

  “Sorry Captain,” he said. “They surprised me. I opened the hatch when they said you were injured. Their leader—”

  “Yes, I know,” I said. “He’s quite persuasive.”

  “I slipped away while they were busy taking our foodstuffs and our gear.”

  “Are you hurt?” I asked him.

  “Only my pride, sir.”

  “Very well. Let’s lift off from this accursed planet.”

  Moments later we soared up into the high thin layers of the atmosphere. The entire experience had been sobering, but in a way, it was also understandable.

  The degenerate people who still clung to life on this world weren’t a friendly bunch. Maybe half of what Jkal had told me was a lie. Probably, there were women and children somewhere, but he didn’t want to reveal their location. I couldn’t blame him for that.

  They’d survived decades of Stroj hunts. What kind of a man could keep breathing under such circumstances? Only the meanest of men. A rodent on two legs.

  Trying to forgive them for their trickery and thefts, I thought about what had been visited upon them—the suffering they’d undergone. That was the true evil.

  The more I thought about it, the more I came to blame Captain Lorn and his band. They were the ones who had to be dealt with harshly.

  In my mind, a plan began to take form.

  -26-

  When we reached Defiant, I ordered my helmsman to take us out of orbit. After one last look at the blue-white beauty of the world, we left Sapphire behind.

  “Where to, sir?” Durris asked from navigation.

  “Find the closest bridge entry point,” I said. “I don’t care where it leads.”

  Durris frowned, but he did as I asked. “This one,” he said, tapping at a glowing point on the screens. “We can exit the system here.”

  “Set a course for that bridge. Get underway, helmsman.”

  Durris got up and approached my chair. “Sir, that bridge leads to an undetermined endpoint. It might be terminal. There are a few others, much further out, that are on the Connatic’s star charts. They lead to known systems—places with markets to trade, colonists we can talk to.”

  “No,” I said. “We’re not done with this star system yet. Set the course.”

  Confused, he returned to his boards and did as I asked. Soon, the ship’s powerful engines rumbled, and we were pulling away toward the distant breach point. As it would take a full day’s flight to reach it, I got up and left the command deck.

  I was in a sullen mood when a knock came at my office door.

  “Enter,” I said.

  Lady Grantholm stood revealed when the door swished aside. Her brow was stormy.

  “Where are we going?” she demanded.

  “Nowhere.”

  “What kind of nonsense is this, William? I know you suffered a death on the planet, but that isn’t any—”

  “No,” I said, “that’s not why I’m brooding. I’ve got a plan, and I’m executing it right now.”

  She came inside fully, sat in the chair opposite mine, and stared at me expectantly.

  I said nothing in response.

  “Well?” she demanded. “What is this vaunted plan of yours? Why should I approve of it?”

  “We’re not in a diplomatic situation,” I told her. “We’re soon going to engage in combat. That places me in command.”

  “Really?” she demanded. “I don’t see it that way. There are no enemy ships nearby. There are only a few pathetic colonists, huddling on these forgotten worlds. There’s never been a more obvious diplomatic situation on this mission. I demand that you turn around and allow me to talk to the people you’ve made contact with.”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  Her face flushed with anger. “Listen, William Sparhawk. There will be a full court of inquiry when we return if you persist in these power struggles. Our orders are clear. Must I read them aloud to you?”

  She pulled out a computer scroll and began tapping at it.

  Leaning forward over my desk, I plucked it from her fingers. After glancing at it I dropped it on my desk.

  “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “What’s gotten into you, William?”

  “Aunt,” I said, “I want the answer to a question of my own. How did you know the true names of these planets before we got here?”

  That stopped her for a moment. The anger on her face faded, and she scowled at me.

  “I hardly see how that—”

  “Sapphire, Jade, and the burning ember named Ruby? What a coincidence it must be that you knew them all.”

  She eyed me with a pursed mouth and furrowed brow, but said nothing.

  “These three worlds weren’t named by you,” I told her. “They were named a century or more ago by the people who landed here. But I’ve scoured our databanks. There’s no record of these planets. No record of these colonists. I demand that you explain how you knew the names of these worlds, and what else you might be holding back.”

  She sat back, glaring at me. After a moment, her face softened a little.

  “Let’s put our cards on the table,” she said. “Why are we flying toward a system exit point now? Why would we dare to enter an unknown bridge? And why do you claim we’re in a combat situation?”

  “We’re moving toward an exit point because it’s my belief there are Stroj hiding in this star system. I’m trying to flush them out. Now, answer my questions.”

  Pursing her lips even more tightly, she nodded. “All right. I accept your explanation, although I see no evidence of these Stroj.”

  “The enemy ships are self-described pirates. They’re deceptive and stealthy. They also know we can beat them in a fight. They’re hiding here, somewhere. The colonists told me Lorn comes here regularly at this time of year. I believe they’re waiting for us to leave.”

  She leaned forward and put her hands on the table between us. “You actually spoke to these colonists? Some of them have definitely survived?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else did they say?” she demanded.

  “I’ll make a full report after you tell me what you know of this place.”

  She flopped back again. “You always were a difficult child. When you first stood up, do you know that you didn’t want to sit back down again? You gripped a table fiercely for over an hour until your mother finally dragged you away from it.”

  Rolling my eyes, I gestured for her to get on with her story.

  “Very well,” she said stiffly. “As you may know, I’m what they call an oldster. I’m not as young as I look.”

  “Really?” I said, doing my best to hold back any hint of sarcasm. She was correct in that most people believed her to be no more than a century old, while the family knew her to be twice that.

  “There’s no need to be rude,” she said. “But it’s true. The records of my birth were lost in the Cataclysm, and I never share the true date. Let me assure you, people would be shocked if they knew the truth.”

  That part I did believe. I nodded and waited.

  “There were many colonists coming and going in the old days,” she said wistfully.

  I could tell she was looking down through many decades of life.

  “Many young people followed the colony reports closely, some of us even made it a
pastime. News came back, oftentimes secondhand, of new planets and worlds being discovered and inhabited. When I first saw this place, I recalled the names of these worlds. The planets are so beautiful, just as they’d been described to me so very long ago.”

  “All right,” I said after a pause, “I believe that part.”

  “You should. It’s the truth.”

  “Very well. But what I’m more interested in goes deeper than that. Some people on Earth knew of these places, even after the Cataclysm. Why didn’t Earth reestablish her connection with these lonely outposts? Why did we wait so long? Why did we sleep for a century and a half?”

  “That’s harder to answer,” she said. “The Cataclysm disrupted everything. After we rebuilt our homeworld, there was a natural tendency to retreat from the stars.

  People blamed our explorations—rationally or not—for our hardships. There was no longer an appetite for expenditures of any kind in space.”

  That rang true to me as well. There had been, throughout history, pauses in humanity’s natural urge to expand and explore. The Chinese, for example, had sent out huge ships to discover Africa before Christopher Columbus had even been born. But they’d quickly tired of the expensive practice.

  Similarly, after a few missions that led people to set foot on the Moon, the United States had failed to follow through. It had taken a full century after those early forays for anyone to push into space with vigor again.

  “There’s more to it than that,” I accused, “isn’t there?”

  “Well, yes,” she said. “The Great Houses of Earth had little appetite for exploration. Rediscovering the colonies might give people… ideas.”

  Nodding, I smiled tightly. “Right. The ruling class might not survive exposure to democratic ideas echoing back from the colonies. Wasn’t that the main reason for ignoring the stars?”

  She shrugged noncommittally.

  I stood up and paced, gesturing with my hands in anger. “In the meantime,”

  I said, “worlds like these were abandoned—places that you’d personally heard about when they were first discovered. Don’t you think we’re at least partly to blame for the mess we’ve found out here, Lady?”