The Altreian Enigma (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 2)

by Richard Phillips

  A guard captain was the first to recover.

  “Uh . . . Overlord,” he said, his voice thick with uncertainty. “I’ve been instructed that no one except guardsmen are allowed to enter or leave the turbo-lifts until the all-clear is given.”

  Jack dismissed him with a wave, his voice a low rumble. “I make the rules. Until I say differently, not even guardsmen are allowed to enter or depart this level. Is that understood?”

  The captain straightened. “Yes, Overlord.”

  “Then make it so.”

  The rest of the guardsmen snapped to attention at the tone of his command.

  Jack strode past the guards. The crowd parted as he approached, dropping their eyes rather than risk drawing his attention. A handful of additional guards approached, a silver-tasseled commander leading the way. Without waiting for their greeting, Jack came to a stop in front of him.

  The commander, an Altreian with hard black eyes, pressed both palms together beneath his chin in salute, his eyes surveying the bloodstains on the overlord’s blue robes.

  “Overlord, you are injured. May I assist you?”

  “Commander, a team of assassins is loose within the Parthian. They have already killed my escorts.” Jack felt Khal Teth pluck the required knowledge from the commander’s head. “You and your men will accompany me to the sea-guard attack craft at the end of pier two. Make certain that no one impedes my safe passage off this island.”

  The guard commander reacted, giving quick hand signals that directed his men into a protective formation around Jack, pulse rifles held at the ready, scanning the crowd. For the first time since he had arrived on Altreia, Jack was impressed.

  With the guard commander leading the way, the small group moved rapidly across the open space that led to the second of five long piers. Up ahead, docked along its left side, was one of many fast-attack hovercraft that the sea-guard used to enforce the law in the waters that surrounded Shanlan, the island home of the Parthian. The craft was relatively small, normally sporting a crew of seven. Right now, Jack could only see three crew members aboard. Fortunately, one of them was the captain.

  All along the pier, spectators had stopped whatever they were doing to stare at the spectacle of the overlord being hustled along in the center of the tight formation of guards. As they approached the moored hovercraft, bobbing up and down in the gentle waves that made their way into the overhead-protected, artificial harbor, Jack saw a bigger group of guards moving to intercept them and issued a mental message to Khal Teth.

  “Get ready.”

  When Khal Teth’s reply lagged, Jack recognized the symptoms of shock in the mind of his Altreian host. That pissed him off.

  “Damn it! If you don’t want to die right here, I need you to give me five good minutes.”

  “All right,” said Khal Teth. “What must I do?”

  “Just get us on that hovercraft and out to sea without someone trying to stop us.”

  “I’m ready.”

  The commander came to a halt beside the translucent ramp that led to the hovercraft’s deck, and Jack stepped up beside him. Then, taking a deep breath, he prepared for the transition that would put Khal Teth back in charge, hoping like hell that the Altreian wouldn’t screw this up.

  Regardless, it was time for Khal Teth to rise up.

  Pain exploded into Khal Teth’s mind as he regained ownership of his body’s nervous system. He gasped, stumbled to a knee, and would have fallen onto his face had not the guard commander reached out and grasped his left arm. Never having felt the results of severe physical exertion or combat, he found the sensation storm unbearable.

  “Overlord. You are injured. Let me get you some help.”

  Another voice rumbled in his mind, Jack’s voice. “Get your ass up.”

  Khal Teth growled, shook his head, and climbed back to his feet. All around him he could feel a mixture of concern, confusion, and suspicion among the hovercraft crew and the guards, both those that were protecting him and the dozen or so others who were now only a few strides away. He straightened and concentrated, forcing himself to ignore physical agony.

  Lest someone else try to engage him in conversation, Khal Teth projected a wave of authoritarian outrage to everyone within fifty yards of where he stood as he scowled at those around him. The effect was instantaneous and so dramatic that a smile came to his lips. Before it could fully form, he transformed the expression into a snarl.

  “What part of my orders did you fail to understand, Commander? Get all these guards under control, and clear this dock.”

  Khal Teth increased the power of his sending, lacing it with fear that sent most of the green-uniformed guards staggering backward. To his credit, the commander was not one of these.

  “Yes, Overlord.”

  The commander turned on his heel and began issuing orders that nobody questioned. In seconds the guards had retreated through the permanent twilight to the pier entrance without having to clear another soul, all workers having fled the overlord’s wrath.

  Turning his back on the distant guards, Khal Teth walked up the ramp and onto the sleek blue hovercraft, shifting his mental focus to the three crew members who had gathered at the bow. He scanned their thoughts, exchanging their worries for a desire to serve their overlord. The captain’s mind revealed the knowledge that Khal Teth was searching for. Three crew members were all that were required to get the hovercraft under way and to man its weapons.

  He gave the order that sent this partial crew racing to man their positions.

  “Take us out.”

  From the bridge, the captain released the craft from its magnetic-field lashing, engaged the hover drive, and entered a course that sent them racing out from beneath the Parthian overhang, across the bay, and into the open ocean.

  With the immediate threat rapidly disappearing behind him, Khal Teth sagged onto a seat behind the captain, no longer able to keep the pain at bay. Then he fled into the merciful recesses of his mind, handing this ravaged body over to The Ripper.

  CHAPTER 17

  Fighting his way through a red veil of pain and dizziness, Overlord Parsus opened his right eye, the effort pulling a low moan from his swollen lips. His right knee was a writhing mass of agony that threatened to rob him of the consciousness he had just regained. The room swam before him. The form that stood beside the couch upon which he lay was too blurry to be recognizable.

  Parsus tried blinking to clear his vision. What was wrong with his left eye?

  He reached up to touch his face, his fingers exploring the unfamiliar contours, their gentle touch tracing a trail of fire up to the puffy mound of skin that prevented his eye from opening. Question answered.

  A voice intruded into this maelstrom of sensation, bringing with it an eddy of lucidity. The face of High Councilor Kelinor resolved from the haze that clouded his vision.

  “Overlord. Thank the heavens that you have returned to us.”

  Unwilling to lift his head, lest the pain rob him of what little clarity had returned to his mind, Parsus licked his puffy lips.

  “What has happened?” His words slurred slightly as he spoke.

  Kelinor’s eyes narrowed. “The criminal, Khal Teth, attacked you and then killed a number of guardsmen as he made his escape from the island aboard a fast-attack hovercraft. We have launched a full-scale military search.”

  The memory that blossomed in Parsus’s mind filled him with sudden fury. The thing that had happened was impossible. Parsus was so badly injured that he couldn’t even raise his head from the pallet that cushioned it.

  “Issue the kill order.”

  Kelinor straightened, his surprise resonating in Parsus’s mind. “You would have them kill your own brother?”

  Parsus grabbed Kelinor’s mind and squeezed, pulling a ragged gasp from the councilor’s lips.

  “Never . . . question . . . me.”

  He held the mental grip a few moments longer before releasing the councilor.

  Kelinor g
asped and staggered back to his feet. Without another word, he rushed from the room, the nanoparticle door dissolving and reforming around him as he passed through.

  Only then did Parsus glance down at his own body, receiving another shock. Instead of the blue robes of the overlord, he wore the black of a high councilor. The realization pulled a frothy hiss from his lips. Khal Teth had exchanged clothing with him, taking the overlord’s robes for his own.

  The realization tightened his muscles, pulling Parsus up to a seated position, despite the agony the move induced in his encased right knee. A short doctor, whom he hadn’t noticed before, stepped forward, his face filled with concern.

  “Overlord, the cryo-healing has only just begun. You shouldn’t—”

  Parsus glared at the physician, cutting him off midsentence.

  “Get me something stronger for the pain; then put me in a hover chair and take me to the strategic command center. I have the sad duty of observing my dear brother’s death.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Rho Ship executed the transition into subspace with a stillness that brought the hair on the back of Raul’s neck to attention. The internal gravitational field came online, compensating for the instantaneous absence of Scion’s gravity, but even with that completed, the odd feeling of having slipped between the grains of space-time remained. Then again, Raul thought he might just have an overactive imagination.

  For several seconds, he waited, half expecting the subspace field generator to fail before the Rho Ship’s normal-space momentum vector had sent the vessel far enough from Scion to avoid detection. When that didn’t happen, he started breathing again.

  “Oh ye of little faith,” VJ said.

  Raul ignored her. But when a ghostly image of Jennifer appeared five feet in front of him, he gave a startled yelp and attempted to jump out of his invisible captain’s chair. The encasing stasis field prevented that from happening. In desperation, he issued the mental command that released him from its clutches, and scrambled to his feet as his heart tried to claw its way up his throat.

  “Holy crap!”

  VJ laughed, and the sound came from the laughing ghost standing before him.

  “Well, how do you like the new me? Not bad for a first try, don’t you think?”

  Raul stared at the holographic image, hoping that it was only holographic, and swallowed hard, trying to wrap his mind around the meaning of VJ’s words. Except for the formfitting black uniform, the ghostly form looked exactly like Jennifer had when she’d first stepped aboard the Rho Ship, her short, spiked blond hair making her look like a human-sized killer pixie.

  Recovering some of his equilibrium, Raul focused on her question.

  “The real Jennifer’s hair is naturally brown.”

  “Yes,” VJ said, stepping forward, “but I’m a natural blonde.”

  “You’re not a natural anything.”

  This new version of VJ stopped less than an arm’s length from him and crossed her arms.

  “You’re natural and you created me. By extension, I’m just as natural as you are. And I can think as well as you can . . . maybe better.”

  Her presence this close to Raul made him uncomfortable. He was actually tempted to reach out and touch her face, just to see if it had any substance. That, of course, was ridiculous.

  “But you don’t really think. You just simulate thinking.”

  “Yeah? Well, right now you’re simulating an idiot.”

  Raul stared at her. Unbelievably, VJ was evolving. Maybe that wasn’t the right word. She was learning, and her fascination with what it meant to be human made him wonder what she was trying to become. The question sent a small shiver up his spine. He decided to change the subject.

  “You’re right. I was out of line. You look lovely.”

  She smiled, and it really was beautiful, almost making him forget his concern. Then she shifted her attention away from him. Odd—the two of them were standing in the open area at the front of the Rho Ship’s command bay, the jumble of alien equipment and conduits filling the remainder of the compartment to their rear. He knew that VJ was seeing the equipment readouts in her mind, just as he was, but she looked like she had entered a trance. Christ. Was that how he looked when he was focused on his connection to the neural net?

  Raul shook his head to clear it, watching the ship’s status displays form in his mind. Good news across the board. Not perfect, but good. They—no, make that he, probably wasn’t going to die in the next several hours.

  VJ placed a hand on his arm, and Raul jumped away from the cool touch, spinning to face her.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  Surprisingly, she actually looked hurt at his response, stepping back, her head and eyes dropping as her hand covered her mouth.

  “I thought that you’d be more comfortable with me if I felt real.”

  Raul swallowed, struggling to come to terms with what had just happened. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings; it’s just that you startled me.”

  What the hell am I babbling about? VJ doesn’t have feelings.

  But when he looked at the smile that warmed her ghostly face, the doubts lingered. He had the sudden urge to reach out and touch her arm, so he did. Instead of his hand passing through the hologram, he encountered what felt like a real arm, although the skin pliability wasn’t quite right.

  “That’s amazing,” he said, taking her right hand in his and squeezing. To his astonishment, he could actually feel the fine bones and tendons move beneath her skin. “How—?”

  “I’ve been studying human anatomy, your body temperature, your pulse, your skeletal structure. It’s all stored within our shared neural net.”

  “Yes, but how do I feel your body?”

  “The stasis field. You manipulate it to move things or to hold them in place . . . even to create your captain’s chair. This isn’t difficult.”

  A mischievous grin replaced her smile. Then she dissolved into a colorful ribbon of smoke that danced through the air to rematerialize in Jennifer’s form eight feet away. She twirled, spreading her arms as she came to a stop facing him.

  “Voilà.”

  Raul stared, only realizing that he had been gaping like a fool when his mouth snapped shut. If she could do this, what else might she be capable of? The idea that he might need to shut this simulation down occurred to him, but the thought of once again being trapped alone aboard the starship, with only himself to talk to, was far from appealing. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if she would allow him to shut her down. How much mastery over the neural net had she acquired? No. She should never suspect him of harboring such thoughts.

  He forced himself out of his stupor. “Well, it looks like I have some adjusting to do.”

  “Maybe it would help if we began working on the needed repairs.”

  Raul straightened. “Yes, of course. Let’s do that.”

  Surprisingly, as he shifted his attention to the ship’s status, feeling the pain associated with all the damaged systems, his worries about VJ dissipated. The first priority was restoring full power and the nano-manufacturing capabilities that would only be available once they had repaired the primary matter disrupter-synthesizer. While he could accomplish that from here, Raul felt like taking a trip to the engineering bay so that he could observe the progress firsthand instead of only through the worm-fiber viewers.

  But as he began walking toward the command bay’s exit, the Rho Ship’s abrupt transition out of subspace changed his mind.

  CHAPTER 19

  General Dgarra stared out between a pair of cliff faces, surveying the warriors who fought to clear their enemies from that gap. They were winning, but something was wrong. He could feel it in his gut, a twisted knot that he couldn’t unravel.

  Smythe stood to his right, her right arm holding her blood-drenched war-blade loosely at her side, her jaw clenched in a manner that told him she felt it, too. Today she had fought with such ferocity and utter disregard for her personal safety that he’d
been forced to admonish her, ordering her to remain at his side. She looked as though she wanted to prove herself to him in battle, even though she had done that long ago. She had a new sense of desperation, maybe from recognition that this was not the right place for Dgarra to be.

  This was supposed to be the Eadric army’s main attack, but the ease of the Koranthian victory told him that it was nothing but a feint designed to pull Dgarra and his fabled reserve to the wrong part of the battlefield. And it had worked. Now he had no time to reposition his reserves, even if he knew where along the northern front the main attack would be coming.

  The female messenger slid to a stop on the ledge in front of him.

  “General. The Eadric army, supported by a thousand Kasari shock troopers, have attacked in mass all along the Kolath Division’s front.”

  The knot in Dgarra’s gut tightened. His Kolath Division protected the northern front’s western flank. And because of the way he’d positioned his reserve here in the east, they were now totally on their own. By the time Dgarra could move the reserve to a location where they would be of use, the battle would be over. Nevertheless, he had to try.

  “Tell Colonel Norlat to ready his warriors for redeployment. I will forward specific orders shortly.”

  “Yes, General.”

  He watched as the messenger disappeared back into the caverns at a dead run. Then, signaling Smythe to accompany him, he turned and strode toward the maglev car that would carry him through the underground, back to his headquarters and, ultimately, to the place where the Kolath Division was now engaged.

  He would not get there in time.

  Too late.

  The words echoed in Jennifer’s mind as she strode alongside Dgarra through the surviving remnants of what had, just this morning, been one of General Dgarra’s finest divisions. Their commander, General Klagan, and his elite guard had remained behind to trigger the explosives that had collapsed the tunnels before the Eadric and Kasari could spread throughout the underground network. The maneuver had stopped the enemy advance, but it also marked the first battlefield defeat of General Dgarra’s long career. And it had cost him a friend as well as a valued subordinate commander. Thousands of warriors he could not afford to lose laid down their lives on this day.