The Altreian Enigma (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 2)

by Richard Phillips

  Ten feet in front of her, Raul reached the bottom of the ramp. Jennifer felt her foot catch on a broken stalactite that the shock wave had knocked from the ceiling, and tumbled to the ground, the sharp pendant slicing deeply into her left hand as she hit. Before Dgarra could reach out to help her, she scrambled forward, clutching at Raul’s extended arm with her bloody hand.

  At that moment, she tightened her focus, activating her telepathy, and thrusting the protected part of her mind into Raul’s. Knowing that she only had moments until the hive-mind realized what she was doing, she made her message brief.

  “Get back in the ship and get out of here. I’m compromised.”

  Feeling the hive-mind react to shut her down, she passed Raul a vivid image of her pulling the Kasari dart filled with quivering fluid from her neck. Then her consciousness winked out.

  General Dgarra watched Jennifer trip and fall. But when he reached out to help her up, she lunged forward and grabbed Raul’s arm with a bloody hand. The move so surprised Dgarra that he stood frozen as a faraway look transformed her face, only to fade as she collapsed to the ground at Raul’s feet.

  Dgarra regained his senses and kneeled beside her, gently rolling her onto her back as he checked for injuries. What in the name of the dark gods had caused this bizarre behavior? Had she hit her head on a rock when she fell?

  When he glanced up at Raul, he received another surprise. The human was running back up the ramp that led into the starship. Dgarra signaled to Captain Jeshen, and his courier lunged after Raul, only to careen off the invisible wall of a stasis shield.

  Suddenly a commotion behind him pulled Dgarra back to his feet. He was startled to see General Magtal advancing across the cavern toward him, accompanied by scores of his uniformed warriors, blasters held out at the ready while more of his warriors covered the group from a passage in the south wall. Dgarra’s men reacted immediately, forming a protective wall between him and Magtal’s warriors, their own blasters out and ready.

  Ignoring the ramp that closed behind him, Dgarra stepped out through the holographic curtain of the Rho Ship’s cloak. His warriors parted to allow him to pass through them to the spot where General Magtal stood with one of his aides by his side.

  “General Dgarra,” Magtal said, his loud voice resonating in the cavern for all to hear, “in the name of Emperor Goltat, I place you and your pet human under arrest on the charge of high treason.”

  Dgarra stopped two paces in front of Magtal and glared at his rival. “What nonsense is this?”

  Before Magtal could answer, a thunderous boom shook the cavern. As his and Magtal’s warriors dropped to a firing crouch, Dgarra turned, knowing what he would see. Nothing. Only this time he knew that it was not because of the Rho Ship’s cloak. The boom had been produced by the ship’s transition back into subspace.

  When he returned his gaze to General Magtal, Dgarra was pleased to see the look of confusion in the warrior’s eyes.

  “What was that?” Magtal asked. “Where is the Kasari starship?”

  “I do not know what you are referring to. Did you or any of your men observe such a craft when you entered this cavern?”

  Magtal scowled. “I received word from one of your people of the starship’s presence here as my warriors and I debarked our transport from ArvaiKheer. Captain Jeshen. Step forward.”

  When his trusted courier left his side and moved to Magtal’s, Dgarra felt rage replace his consternation at this turn of events. Seeing his expression, Magtal grinned.

  “Do not blame Captain Jeshen. He has proved himself to be a true patriot, placing the good of his empire above loyalty to a traitor who welcomed a Kasari spy into his headquarters, disregarding the advice of others.”

  Magtal stabbed a finger at the spot where Smythe lay faceup on the cavern floor. “The emperor’s personal physician tested the blood on the material that Captain Jeshen retrieved, torn from her pants leg. It was filthy with the Kasari mechanical microbes. There lies the spy who betrayed you, resulting in the deaths of thousands of your warriors. Whether or not you were aware that she is a spy is irrelevant. She played you for a fool. You bear full responsibility for placing your command at risk.”

  For a moment, the cavernous room seemed to fade as the impact of Magtal’s words cut into Dgarra. Could Smythe have deceived him? He had noticed a recent sense of withdrawal in her but had blamed it on the psychological impact of their battle losses. As Dgarra’s men shifted uncomfortably behind him, General Magtal took one step forward, his grim stare locking Dgarra’s eyes to his.

  “So I ask you, General Dgarra, do you surrender of your own accord to the emperor’s order, or do you make me enforce it with violent action?”

  With the weight of his shame threatening to bow his head, General Dgarra spoke loudly enough for his men to hear.

  “I submit myself to the emperor’s will.”

  Magtal gestured, and a female warrior moved to kneel beside Smythe. As Dgarra watched her snap a shock collar in place around Smythe’s neck, Captain Jeshen stepped forward and fastened a second around Dgarra’s.

  When the collar activated, Dgarra managed to remain standing until the punishment stopped, ignoring the blood that seeped from the corner of his left eye. For a moment a hint of awe crept onto his rival’s face.

  Then, at Magtal’s signal, two warriors escorted Dgarra from the cavern to begin the long trip back to ArvaiKheer.

  CHAPTER 32

  When Jack crawled up onto the island where he had trained this body, he forced himself to rise and move away from the black-pebble beach with its scuttling stoneling predators. He had left his bow, arrows, and spear in Trion, but the two ivory knives were still strapped to his thighs. And as he climbed into the tree house he had built during his extended stay here, he allowed his exhausted muscles to relax. He had lost the boots, but his sleek maroon uniform was in reasonably good shape, and since it had protected him from most of the sea-jelly stings, he decided he would keep it.

  “Here?” Khal Teth’s angry voice intruded on his thoughts. “Why did you bring us all the way back here?”

  Jack had known this question was coming. He was just surprised that it hadn’t come before now.

  “Because this is where you and I are going to make a deal, whether you like it or not.”

  Khal Teth laughed. “I can take this body away from you whenever I want.”

  “Go ahead. I look forward to watching the survival expert in action.”

  For several moments, there was no response, although Jack could feel Khal Teth’s rising frustration.

  “If I die, you die.”

  “Yeah, I get that. But since you’ve almost gotten us killed twice now, I’d rather go out watching you suffer than let you keep screwing up your inept attempts at a power grab.”

  “Inept?”

  “You heard me.”

  “And you think you can do better at seizing power over a psionic empire than the most powerful psionic in history?”

  “No. But I know we can do a hell of a lot better if we cooperate. You let me handle the strategy and tactics, and you can back me up whenever I need your brand of firepower.”

  Again there was a pause as Khal Teth considered the gauntlet Jack had just thrown in his face.

  “And if I decline your offer?”

  “Then you get to try to get yourself off this island and back to civilization.”

  “You just made the swim. There’s no reason I can’t do it.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “You know,” replied Khal Teth, “I could agree to your deal and back out once you get us back to civilization.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think you will. We both want the same thing: to put you back in power so that you can fulfill your part of our bargain and prevent the Altreian planet killer from targeting Earth. And I’m the best there is at this type of work. You know it as well as I do.”

  Khal Teth asserted himself, briefly taking charge of his body, before fleeing t
he exhaustion and pain he found there.

  As Jack recovered his control, he stretched out on the woven pad on the tree-house floor.

  “Tell you what,” he mentally replied while yawning, “you think about it while I catch some sleep. You can let me know what you decide upon when I wake up.”

  Then, without waiting for a response, Jack closed his eyes and released his tenuous grasp on consciousness.

  Wearing his shimmering blue robes of office, Overlord Parsus stood at the top of the magenta, purple, and azure dais that rose from the center of the Parthian’s Hall of Lords to tower over the assemblage, Lord Reiath at his side. The midtier lord’s face looked frozen with a terror that radiated outward to the thousands of Dhaldric faces that surrounded the dais. He understood the murmurs that echoed throughout the vast hall. There had not been such a public execution for a score of cycles.

  Parsus sent out a mental pulse that brought the crowd babble to a sudden halt. When he spoke, his voice was picked up by perfect acoustics and carried clearly to all those present.

  “My fellow lords, I stand before you on this day to invoke swift punishment on one who has violated the very foundation upon which our meritocracy rests.”

  He extended his hand toward the trembling lord who stood beside him, locked within the power of the overlord’s mind.

  “Lord Reiath is guilty of the cowardly act of destroying one of his own fishing villages, murdering more than a thousand of our citizens. And why did he do this? Because he feared a confrontation with a mind challenger who might have supplanted him. By so doing, he not only revealed himself as a coward, he denied us the opportunity to judge the talent of this unknown newcomer.

  “Since I assumed the title of overlord more than three thousand cycles ago, I have sought to cleanse our political elite of the corruption that rises from such cowardice and robs us all of the will of the sacred pyramid.”

  He spread his hands, raising his voice so that it reverberated through the hall. “What is the central tenet of the pyramid?”

  The response of the crowd washed over him. “True power rises.”

  “And what is the punishment for those who seek to interfere with that tenet?”

  “Death!”

  The shouted word echoed through the chamber, carrying a sense of anticipation at the spectacle to come. As those echoes died away, the silence that descended was absolute.

  Parsus drew a ceremonial blade from a sheath on his left hip, turned, and offered it, hilt first, to Lord Reiath. The condemned man reached out a shaking hand, then pulled the blade flat against his breast as Parsus walked five steps down, leaving Reiath alone atop the dais.

  Reiath’s entire body quivered and jerked as his mind fought against the will of the overlord, but slowly he raised the inverted blade high above his head, the hilt clasped tightly in a two-handed grip. He tilted his head back until he stared up through the transparent ceiling at the orange plume of the Krell Nebula.

  Then the blade plunged down into his throat, burying its tip deep within his chest cavity as a fountain of blood splashed the white tile at his feet. For several moments he continued to stand, his body locked in place by the power of Parsus’s mind so that it might leave a lasting impression on all in attendance.

  Although the sight gave him no satisfaction, the effect was important. So the overlord once again returned to the top of the dais, letting Reiath’s body collapse at his feet.

  “Lord Velathian!” Parsus called out.

  A striking female in a crimson gown stepped up onto the bottom step of the dais. “Yes, Overlord?”

  “I expect you to name Lord Reiath’s successor within two orbdays.”

  She bowed her head. “It shall be done.”

  Without another word, Parsus turned, descended to the bottom of the dais, and made his way out of the hall as six members of the High Council Guard fell in behind him. In the Hall of Lords, none moved until after he had passed through the nanoparticle door into the hallway that led to his chambers.

  During the twelve orbdays since Khal Teth had finally agreed to Jack’s ultimatum, Jack had built himself a new outrigger and found his way to another inhabited island. But this time Jack had retained control, using Khal Teth to mask his presence from the Dhaldric who oversaw the fishing village.

  Jack had headed directly for the village pier and climbed aboard the Dark Promise, the largest of the fishing vessels docked there. Khal Teth had wanted to bond the crew of six Khyre to him, but Jack had refused, insisting instead that they be freed from their bonds to their current master and allowed to make their own decisions as to whether to accompany him on this journey.

  Two had refused, suspecting Jack of being a renegade Dhaldric who was fleeing from the law. He couldn’t really blame them for that, given his crudely fashioned sandals and the beating that his maroon clothing had taken since his escape from Trion. But over the subsequent orbdays at sea, the others had come to trust this Dhaldric who had freed them from their mental bonds and asked them to take him to the Khyre homeland of Basrilla, the nearest of the two continents on the far side of Quol.

  The crew progressed onward through calm and storm, and with each passing orbday, the mighty magenta orb of Altreia crept lower and lower until it was a maroon sliver on the horizon. For the first time since leaving Earth, Jack experienced a truly dark night. Like most of the Khyre fishing vessels, the Dark Promise was capable of moving just above, on, or below the sea surface. For deep fishing, subsurface field netting was the most efficient. But for high-speed travel, either surface or hover mode was preferred.

  As Jack stood on the deck, gazing at the bright stars, the ship’s captain, Moros, stepped up beside him. The Khyre man’s bald head came only to Jack’s shoulder, but wiry muscles rippled beneath the gray skin of his bare arms.

  “Ripper, you be one strange Dhaldric.”

  Because he couldn’t stand being constantly referred to as Khal Teth and because it wouldn’t do to have that name spread around, he had introduced himself to this crew using his human nickname.

  Jack nodded. “You have no idea.”

  “We be a day out of the port city of Kalathian. Me crew would that I ask something of you before we get there.”

  “Name it.”

  “We would be bound to you.”

  Jack turned toward the Khyre man, wondering if the words meant what he thought they did.

  “I don’t understand. You are all free.”

  The captain leaned against the rail, looking out over the sea as the hydro-jets propelled the vessel through the waves.

  “For now,” he said. “The unbonded be never free for long. We would have you bind us to your service.”

  The implications of what Moros had just told him clenched Jack’s gut. Damn it. Enslaving these people wouldn’t facilitate the coup he would need to pull off in order to replace Parsus with Khal Teth. He could hear Khal Teth’s deep, told-you-so chuckle in the back of his mind.

  Then another idea hit him. “Captain Moros, are the Khyre people able to bond others to their service?”

  The captain turned to look at him, an inquisitive look on his face. “All have the capability. The strong can bind the weak.”

  “But you do not?”

  Moros frowned. “That be the way of the Dhaldric, not the Khyre.”

  “But you are capable of binding me to your service?”

  The captain laughed. “You would break such a bond with ease.”

  “Only if I wanted to.”

  Moros looked confused. “What be the purpose of that?”

  Heretofore, Jack had been playing with the idea of building a free rebel army among the enslaved Khyre. Now a new plan crystallized in his head.

  “I want no part of being your slave master.”

  The Khyre sighed in disappointment. “I feared as much.”

  “But I will make you a counteroffer.”

  Captain Moros perked up. “What be it?”

  “I will bond you, so long
as you willingly consent. In return, I will permit you to bond me. Should either of us desire to break free, all bonds shall be broken.”

  “Such a bonding be no bond at all.”

  “Untrue. We will be twice bound in a pledge of fealty, one to the other. Should someone try to harm you, I will know of it, as will you should someone attack me. So tell me. Do you find this arrangement to your liking?”

  Moros stared up at him, rubbing his pointed chin with his right hand. “I cannot speak for others. But I be willing.”

  Jack reached out to place a hand on Captain Moros’s shoulder and smiled. “Then we have a deal.”

  A broad grin spread across the captain’s face. “Good. Then I shall be first of the Twice Bound.”

  At first, Khal Teth considered what Jack was doing to be both naïve and idiotic. After all, he was wasting time gathering willing followers in the homelands of the Khyre when he could have directly bonded them into his service by the thousands. But the numbers of those who called themselves the Twice Bound continued to swell, thanks to the candidate recruitment and screening efforts of Captain Moros as he guided The Ripper along the Basrillan coast and up its many deep fjords. They had visited more than twenty towns and cities, including Far Crossing, a shipbuilding city situated along the jagged rent that formed the Chasm Sea, which separated the Basrillan and Janiyan continents. During that eight-orbday journey, two amazing revelations had revealed themselves to Khal Teth.

  Ordinarily, the maximum number of people a psionic could place under his control was determined by the combined powers of their minds. A master required a certain amount of power to bond each psyche, a subtractive process that eventually became dangerous. Bind too many and you could lose a mental battle with a Dhaldric whom you could dominate if at full strength. But because their bonds were made willingly, that didn’t happen with the Twice Bound.

  The willful bonding was an additive process. Khal Teth had discovered that the mental powers the Twice Bound granted to Jack increased as each new recruit added his or her potential. And because Jack was in charge during the ritual, the Twice Bound were primarily bonded to him. That produced an odd and disturbing side effect. Whenever Jack yielded mastery to Khal Teth, the channeled power of the Twice Bound weakened dramatically.