The Altreian Enigma (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 2)

by Richard Phillips

  As her knees buckled, Jennifer reached for her own sidearm, but her arms failed to respond, even to catch her as she tumbled forward onto her face. Why weren’t her nanites countering whatever was happening to her? And why had Dgarra’s courier betrayed her? None of it made sense.

  The pain intensified so it seemed to Jennifer that she was being eaten alive from the inside out, as if ants were burrowing beneath her skin and crawling through her organs. She tried to scream but merely slobbered, her body involuntarily curling into a fetal position, consumed by tremors that rattled her teeth. From the corner of her left eye, she saw the big-booted feet of the courier step up beside her.

  “General Magtal sends his regards.”

  The kick that followed lifted her from the tunnel floor and into the wall. The impact broke bones within her body, but the additional pain failed to register.

  Damn it, Jennifer, she told herself. Focus. Kill this prick.

  Jennifer steeled herself, walling away the pain, and reached out with her mind for the traitor who had done this to her. As she gathered her anger for one violent mental assault, she felt something.

  What was it?

  Her broken wrist was knitting itself back together. Thank God. The nanites were finally getting their microscopic acts together. And the pain was fading as well.

  Good. It was payback time.

  But when she rolled to her knees and looked up, the courier was gone.

  Wait.

  There it was again, that odd feeling beyond the healing of her body. Her mind had touched something vaguely familiar. Then she remembered. It was the same sensation she had experienced when she invaded the Kasari shock trooper’s mind, as if she was being watched, connected not just to an individual but to an assemblage of minds.

  What the hell? She hadn’t yet made a mental connection, certainly not to a Kasari.

  As rising panic threatened to rob her of her ability to think this through, her eyes caught sight of the dart she’d pulled from her neck. It lay on the ground where she had dropped it, a half-dozen feet from where she now knelt. Jennifer forced herself to stand, marveling at how fast her wounds were being repaired. Once again her eyes were drawn to the dart. She stepped forward, bending down to retrieve it.

  Even in the dimly lit tunnel, the sight was crystal clear to her augmented vision—a transparent vial connected to an inch-long needle. The viscous fluid in the bottom of that vial raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She concentrated, stilling the hand that held the vial, but still the goo quivered as if alive. With dawning certainty, she knew what she was staring at.

  And from a place deep within her brain, many minds spoke to her through a single voice, a phrase that froze her soul.

  “Welcome to the collective.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Jack Gregory opened his eyes inside the tight confines of the chrysalis cylinder, his mind flooded with alien sensations. He flexed his fingers and toes in this unfamiliar form, noting with displeasure how weak all the muscles were. Even though this body had been kept in suspended animation, its weakness wasn’t due to atrophy associated with long sleep. This was the result of an indolent lifestyle in which physical fitness played no role, just one more thing Jack would have to deal with if he was going to have any chance of preventing Earth’s destruction by an Altreian planet killer.

  The darkness inside the cylinder was absolute, but when Jack moved his hand across the smooth outer surface, feeling for the control pad, a pale-blue glow filled the small chamber, giving the shiny metal the look of a ghostly portal to another world.

  Although Khal Teth had assured him that the chamber would reanimate this body upon the return of a conscious mind, the confirmation was welcome. The design factor was built into all chrysalis cylinders. Through the ages, the Altreians had learned to link their minds, not just to each other, but to their artificially intelligent computing systems.

  Since this cylinder had been programmed to prevent Khal Teth’s mind from reentering his body from the interdimensional prison into which it had been cast, the High Council had given no thought to his escape. Such a thing was impossible.

  Jack entered a command and waited for the top to open. Swinging his legs out, he sat up and then climbed to his feet. The experience was disorienting. Accessing the memories stored in Khal Teth’s brain, Jack remembered this small room within the vast center of government the Altreians called the Parthian. The Klaxon he had just triggered pulled Jack back into the now, just before Khal Teth forcibly took charge of his body.

  Again Jack’s mind spun as he attempted to reorient himself. He had known that Khal Teth planned this all along, but Jack just hadn’t expected to be expelled so easily. The experience left him frustrated and, strangely enough, claustrophobic, as if he were strapped in a transparent barrel as the current carried him toward Niagara Falls. Just as Khal Teth had described the experience to him, Jack could feel and see everything. He just had no control over the outcome.

  Jack felt Khal Teth’s mind shift away from the sound of the alarm, the sensation dragging him along in a mental search for nearby minds. They were there by the thousands, most negligible in their strength. But a few dozen were running toward the chamber. The sensation was odd, swiftly changing as Khal Teth shifted his attention from one Altreian to another, momentarily touching their thoughts, seeing through each of their eyes as he evaluated the gathering threat.

  Jack felt the thrill of being restored to full power course through Khal Teth’s mind and savored the prospect of the coming conflict as if he were going to be a direct participant instead of merely along for the ride. All of those who approached were elite members of the High Council Guard, many of whom were powerful psionics themselves. A sneer curled Khal Teth’s lips as he strode across the dimly lit room that housed the lone chrysalis cylinder.

  When Khal Teth stepped up to the spot at the portion of the wall where the nano-material door should have allowed him passage, he reached out a red-and-black-mottled hand and pressed his palm against the cool metal surface. There, reflected in the shiny surface, Jack could see his new appearance.

  He saw the familiar face and body of Khal Teth, wearing the shimmering black robes denoting his former position on the High Council, the same ones in which they had entombed him. The hood was swept back, revealing the dark eyes with their burning flickers of red in a slender face, its skin mottled red and black. His head was hairless, with pointed ears swept back tight along the sides. The gill slits of his neck lay closed, but Khal Teth’s narrow nostrils flared as he pulled in a deep breath and centered his mind.

  Outside the closed portal, a half-dozen guards had already gathered, their stun batons flaring with blue light, visible to Khal Teth’s invasion of their senses. Suddenly all but their captain backed up against the Parthian’s transparent outer wall. A slow shudder passed through the captain’s body as he fought to resist the inevitable.

  Then he lowered his baton, stepped up to the nanoparticle door, and entered the unlock code, stepping aside to let Khal Teth emerge through the cloudlike consistency of the nanoparticle door. Then, to Jack’s amazement, the captain and his men charged to confront several newcomers who had just come into sight around the bend in the gently curving corridor, their batons flaring into action. Khal Teth strode behind them, the folds of his black robes whispering disdain for all who opposed him with each long stride.

  CHAPTER 11

  As the alarm sounded throughout the Parthian, the overlord felt the brief mental disturbance from a mind that Parsus had not felt in thousands of cycles, one he’d believed he would never encounter again.

  Apparently the impossible had happened. His twin brother had escaped.

  The council guard would respond, but they would not be enough to stop Khal Teth. Only the combined will of the Circle of Twelve, a dozen of the thirteen members of the High Council, could accomplish that. Fortunately, the requisite council members were present inside the Parthian on this day. Parsus merely had to ass
emble them to enable the confrontation that would put his beloved brother back inside his eternal prison. He only hoped that his guards could delay Khal Teth long enough to enable him to pull the necessary pieces into place.

  Khal Teth moved along the gently curving outer hallway, the numbers of guards he had turned to his side growing to fifteen as they left the more troublesome of their lot dead on the floor behind him. Although Khal Teth could certainly have dominated all whom he encountered, he was saving his strength for any member of the High Council whom he might encounter, most particularly Parsus.

  He let his eyes take in the beautiful view that the transparent outer wall provided. Low on the horizon hung the magenta-colored brown-dwarf star, Altreia. It provided most of the heat for this Earth-sized, watery world, upon which the Altreian system’s population had evolved. Higher in the twilight sky, the orange Krell Nebula’s lacy tendrils seemed to reach out in longing embrace of Quol’s purple moon.

  Since recovering his memories, Khal Teth had despaired at the thought he might never see this beautiful view again. Jack Gregory had restored those memories to him. Jack had made this homecoming possible. Khal Teth supposed he should be grateful. But Jack was just a tool of destiny, Khal Teth’s destiny. A useful tool and nothing more.

  Reaching out with his powerful mind, Khal Teth swept the Parthian, seeking Parsus. As he passed by the warren of side passages that led into the great internal maze of offices and meeting halls surrounding the grand amphitheater where government decisions were finalized and broadcast to the masses, he noted the thousands of government minions who now cowered behind their nanoparticle doors, on lockdown until the alarm quieted. They felt him touch their minds and shrank away, thankful that they remained beneath his notice.

  His search failed to find any members of the High Council—not surprising since they would have shielded their minds from detection moments after the alarm sounded. Although he could certainly sweep those guards aside if he focused on a room-by-room search, he had neither the time nor the inclination to make such an effort. Now was the time for escape from this building to a place where he could initiate the plan that would sweep the current government from power.

  A sudden disturbance to his front gave Khal Teth pause. The guards under his control had come to a complete stop, parting to let someone pass. Unable to believe his good fortune, Khal Teth lengthened his stride, walking directly toward the one he’d been hunting. Parsus strode toward him as well, his features eerily similar to Khal Teth’s, the result of their shared genetic makeup. But instead of the black robes of a member of the High Council, Parsus wore the blue that bore the insignia of the overlord.

  Khal Teth shouldn’t have been surprised that his brother had accomplished the act for which he had been imprisoned. Apparently Parsus had been successful in the assassination of Valen Roth and the usurpation of his position. That Parsus now presented himself to Khal Teth was absurdly rich. Had he grown so overconfident over the millennia that he imagined himself the superior mind?

  The two came to a stop three paces apart, each staring into the other’s eyes, inner fire licking the black orbs.

  “You surprise me, my brother,” said Parsus, his voice as cold as his expression.

  “And you, me. May I take it that Valen Roth succumbed to ill health?”

  “A tragic accident. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Doubtless.” Khal Teth felt his lips curl. “Kind of you to personally confront me. I would not have thought that your style.”

  Something tugged at the back of Khal Teth’s mind as he felt Jack try to grab his attention, but the Altreian pushed the feeling aside. His human rider would soon discover that he would never achieve the level of influence that Khal Teth had achieved over him.

  “Actually, I came to escort you back to your cell. I do not know how you managed this escape, but your brief glimpse of freedom is now at an end.”

  “Is it?”

  Khal Teth parried the mental thrust from his twin, the tentacles of his own mind entangling those of Parsus and squeezing. Parsus staggered backward half a step before righting himself, drawing on a hidden power that freed his mind, leaving Khal Teth struggling to understand what had just happened. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? The realization hit him hard. He wasn’t naturally clairvoyant. No Altreian had that ability. Khal Teth had only gained his power to see future timelines as a side effect of having his mind trapped in an interdimensional prison. Now that he had returned to his body, that talent was gone.

  As understanding flooded over him, he staggered forward, barely preventing himself from falling. Khal Teth’s stunning escape had thrown the entire Parthian into panic, but somehow Parsus had anticipated his actions and had assembled the other eleven members of the Circle of Twelve in one of the adjacent rooms. And Khal Teth had walked right into his trap, allowing himself to be engaged in a conversation that had allowed the circle the time it needed to spring the ambush.

  No! Not again.

  But even as his mental scream brought a sympathetic smile to Parsus’s lips, Khal Teth felt something move within his mind.

  Jack’s mental voice carried with it the rage that Khal Teth had come to recognize.

  “Give me control, damn it.”

  Feeling the last of his will slipping away, Khal Teth reluctantly unleashed The Ripper.

  Jack exploded into the weak form, allowing his rage to power it forward, delivering a kick into Parsus’s right knee that shattered bone and dropped him, screaming, to the floor. The mental vise that had frozen Khal Teth dropped away. Jack kicked the overlord in the face, then grabbed the stun baton of the nearest guard, twisting it free from her hands and whipping it around to bash in the skull of another.

  The dying Altreian tumbled to the ground, sending a pistol-shaped weapon spinning across the floor. Jack ducked under a swinging baton, hearing the crackle of its electrical discharge as it swept by his face. Diving onto the floor, Jack grabbed the pistol and rolled, pressing the mechanism that Khal Teth’s memories identified as the trigger. A series of individual energy pulses leaped from the gun, striking down four more guards as they attempted to bring their own weapons to bear.

  Those that remained on their feet scrambled away down the hall, firing wildly from both directions, sending deadly blasts over Jack’s body and into their compatriots on the opposite sides of where he lay amid the fallen bodies.

  Jack scrambled across the floor to the unconscious body of the overlord, grabbed a fistful of his robes at the throat, and dragged him through an open doorway into an inner hallway, pausing at the entrance just long enough to send several more energy bolts in both directions along the passage he’d just exited.

  Turning, he saw an open doorway to his left and dragged Parsus’s body inside an office that showed signs of hasty departure. Ignoring the outcry from his protesting muscles, he stripped the overlord’s blue robes from his body and then pulled Khal Teth’s black robes off over his head. Counting down the time he estimated it would take for the guards to work up the courage to charge the hallway, he quickly slid into the blue robes and then tugged the black one onto Parsus’s unconscious body.

  Jack stowed the pulse weapon in one of the blue robe’s pockets. Then, taking a deep breath, he relaxed into the meditation that would release his hold on this body. His mental message to Khal Teth accompanied his exhalation.

  “Your turn.”

  The snapback that returned control of his body staggered Khal Teth. Pain such as he had never before experienced left him dizzy, gasping. What had Jack done to him? All his muscles had seemingly been shredded and ripped loose from attachment to bones and tendons.

  A sudden slapping noise pulled his attention to the guards charging toward the office. The first reached the door, swung his weapon in, and froze, confusion clouding his features as he raised a fist to halt those behind him.

  Khal Teth gently touched his mind, implanting a strong sense of recognition.

  “Overlord,” t
he guard said, “are you all right?”

  Ignoring the question, Khal Teth gestured at the unconscious form of Parsus, clad in a black robe, his face so badly swollen that it was unrecognizable.

  “Captain, take this prisoner to a holding cell and make sure he is kept heavily sedated. Keep him that way until I assemble the High Council to deal with this matter.”

  “Yes, Overlord.”

  The guard captain issued a sequence of rapid commands that ushered two other guardsmen into the room to seize the unconscious Altreian and roughly drag him away. Then the captain once more turned his attention to Khal Teth. But before he could utter a question, Khal Teth cut him off.

  “Leave me now, and attend to the fallen.”

  The captain spun on his heel and exited, barking orders to his subordinates. Although Khal Teth knew that this guard could have relayed those orders mentally, telepathic interactions took extra focus and could be a source of distraction for targeted parties. Whenever possible, verbal intercourse was still the preferred method of communication.

  Suppressing a groan, Khal Teth forced himself to walk out into the hallway without limping. He turned into the outer hallway, exuding an aura of authority that caused all the guards who remained standing to lower their eyes as he swept past them. With his mind heavily shielded, Khal Teth focused on the task at hand, reaching the nearest building exit without further interference.

  With every step, the pain he felt got worse, making concentration difficult. While his appearance was very similar to that of Parsus, he knew that the ruse would not survive a direct encounter with a member of the High Council. Soon one of those members would make his or her way to the holding cell where Parsus’s unconscious body had been taken. And in his current, weakened condition, Khal Teth lacked confidence that he could summon the mental acumen to defend himself once they discovered the truth.