Satori wasn’t happy with that, but right then there wasn’t a whole lot of anything to be happy about. If they could buy themselves some time to think … for the moment that was all they could ask for.
Bianca threw a bit of optimism into the equation. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Wherever they are, Zac will protect her.”
Satori hoped that was true.
**
Zac burst through another wall and arced onto the upper parapets of the castle, Icon in hand. He landed beneath the bright afternoon sky in a cloud of ancient stone dust, stood straight and scanned the entire roof, peering into every shadow, every corner, every edge, every recess and nook where one of the Bok might be seeking refuge. Deeply he took a pull of the heady, clean air. Their gun emplacement was in sight; ruined at his hand. Aged battlements and weatherworn surfaces. The bodies of those who’d manned the gun earlier. Others he’d killed that day. Otherwise …
Nothing.
He’d scoured the castle from the inside. Rushing as only he could, ripping through its entirety, room by room, hall by hall on an absolute rampage, wreaking havoc among the fleeing Bok. In the face of his fury they’d turned to children, terrified, even screaming—not just yelling but actual shrieks—in a panic to escape the fate that was now certainly theirs. This impossible, man-like whirlwind of death, sweeping through them like a vicious, supernatural storm. Why he’d allowed such a surge of rage to run unchecked, why he’d killed every single Bok he encountered he now questioned, but the results themselves were unquestionable. Whether reasonable or not, the deed was done.
The Bok were dead.
He turned his powerful eyesight to the surrounding hills, to the grassy meadows around the castle, and as he glanced across the charred remains of the bright green car he and Jess drove earlier that day, looking past the spot they hid, where they cringed beneath a berm, weathering the barrage of the giant machinegun, he felt a bitter ache rising hard in his chest.
And reminded himself:
That was why.
That was why he killed the Bok.
Because they took everything from him.
He looked at the Icon in his bloody hand. If the Bok he interrogated was lying Jess could be anywhere. On Anitra, or even somewhere on Earth.
If he wasn’t lying …
Jess was somewhere they’d never been.
A blue Saturn.
Maybe Nani could decipher this one. He turned the Icon slowly, curved surfaces reflecting his distraught image.
Never thinking the end would come like this.
He looked up.
There were no Bok left. The castle was purged. None made it to any exits, none made it outside. He looked further. No sign of passage, no one slipped out and ran afield. Further still, into the far hills, raking the countryside with vision as sharp as any binocular, up the rocks, to the farthest peaks.
Nothing.
He’d killed them all.
Then …
An unnatural glint, not far away, beyond the hill at the base of the entry road.
Someone was there.
He jumped from one side of the roof to the other and stood. Peered closely. The form out there moved and he saw another behind it.
Others.
People were hiding out there.
**
Kang watched the other ship with keen vision, seeing only larger details as even with his extreme eyesight the vessels were small at that extreme range. The three on approach. The ancient one, likely holding his nemesis. The Kel destroyers sent to intercept were nearly on top of it, drawing so close he wondered what they intended. So far they weren’t shooting it. So far it hadn’t moved. He spared a quick glance across the bridge at Voltan, who continued to be more consumed with directing the early steps of preparation for conquest than in sparing a moment’s attention to deal directly with this threat. Was he doing it to spite Kang? Surely it was important enough to warrant Voltan’s full focus. According to what they knew this vessel was one of their own, from the Kel’s distant past. How could that not consume them? Kang’s fury had given way partly to confusion. It made no sense. Convincing him Voltan must, in fact, be treating this with calculated inattention; a tactic to apply an additional layer of control to the monster, Kang. Either way, for now the commanders of the intercepting destroyers were running that show, even as Kang silently debated how to turn this infuriating game of psychology to his advantage and take charge.
He turned back to the object of his desire. Perhaps they were going to try and board it. If Horus was on there—and Kang saw little reason why he would not be, unless he’d been deposited on Earth—in which case Kang would find him and kill him with his bare hands—if Horus was on there he felt sorry for the Kel trying to take that ship over. Most curious was why the ship continued to just sit there. Was it more powerful than they estimated? Was it unafraid? As before, as back in the Kel system, during the first encounter, it made no immediate change of any kind. Maybe everyone was down there in the smaller craft?
Could that be? Could it just be sitting there empty?
Then it moved.
Suddenly.
So suddenly; with such velocity it was instantly forward and away, outstripping the destroyers sent to nab it and for that first split-second they simply remained where they were—stunned, as was Kang, not expecting anything that abrupt—left in the dust by the fleeing intruder.
“No!” he lunged to the screen as if to stop it himself. Even as he did the destroyers tore out after it, ripping like glinting bullets after the other, streaks that were thousands upon thousands of tons each, covering a vast stretch of space and out into the invisible beyond in an instant.
Too late.
Ping! A sharp flash of oblivion against the black of space and the other craft was gone. The destroyers passed a second later through the very spot, powerless to follow. They had no way to know where it went.
It could be across the galaxy. Back at Anitra. Anywhere.
Kang snorted; a loud sound, like a horn, freezing the air. He turned to face the entire bridge. Everyone looked to him. No longer doing anything else they’d been doing. Monitors scrolled information, readouts glowed and flickered, the fleet continued its relentless march toward invasion, but for that moment, for those handful of Kel on that bridge, time stood still.
They knew what the craft meant to him. They knew the gamble their commander, Voltan, had taken.
Kang fixed him.
And all realized in that terrible instant they should’ve listened.
CHAPTER 4: DETECTION
Drake’s mind buzzed in an empty lack of comprehension as he watched the man flying through the air toward them. It was definitely a man, at least in shape, arms out, silhouetted against a clear blue sky; sailing through the top of a curve and heading down. The small form had appeared atop the Bok castle moments before, come to the edge, appeared to look directly at them and …
Jumped.
To the ground, it seemed in that first instant; to his death, most assuredly, as it was many stories to the grass below. But in that first instant there was a trick of the mind, the strange realization that the plunge Drake saw, the leap into space and rapid descent powered by gravity and physics and all the things a lifetime of experience—of living on this world—told him was what he should be seeing was not, in fact, what was happening.
The man was flying.
Or, now that he was nearly upon them, not flying but, rather, leaping. He wasn’t flying, though both concepts—flying and leaping that far—were equally wrong.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Drake and the other Project agents shook off their collective paralysis and shoved backwards in a stumble as …
WHUMP! the man hit beside them with the force of a sack of bricks. Grass and dirt ejected from the impact; the man stood before anyone could move and had the closest, Bobby, snatched up by the collar. That fast. Guns came out, too late—Drake’s included—and the man
kicked the two closest away with his bare feet before anyone could react, doubling those men over in agony as they snatched at what were probably broken hands. Impossibly fast kicks; a blur that would’ve made Bruce Lee’s head spin. Involuntarily Drake looked to the side. The guns were airborne, flying off to parts unknown, broken pieces twirling into the far distance.
“Don’t,” the man said. “Those piss me off.” Drake lowered his gun slowly, at that point not believing it would do any good anyway. His other agents did as well. And it was at that moment Drake noticed two things, both of them possibly as shocking as what he’d just witnessed:
First, the man held one of the shiny teleportation devices in his free hand. Just like the ones the girl took.
Second, Drake recognized him.
“You’re …” he spoke without thinking, mouth slack and on autopilot as his voice faded and dropped. And as recognition dawned he saw the man, in that instant, recognized him too.
“Drake,” the man said his name. Drake’s mouth fell open wider. He could feel the cool air drying it, whisking away all the spit and making him want to swallow, to smack his lips, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. All he could do was gape. When they spotted this guy with Jessica in the club he was an unknown. Still was, though they now, as of this instant, had the added info that Jessica’s mystery companion was a freak of some sort, beyond anything that possibly made sense.
Maybe that explained other things.
“From the club,” Drake managed, voice hoarse. “You were with the girl. Jessica.”
The mention of it pained the man.
Drake tried to get a handle on the situation. He looked around at his team. At Bobby, who didn’t struggle. Superman had his collar bunched so why bother? Everyone was talking so maybe this would work out.
Right?
Drake locked eyes with the intruder. Dark hair. Ice-blue, glinting eyes. He even looked like Superman. Younger. The guy wasn’t very old at all, actually, now that Drake saw him up close, though he was bigger than most full-grown men. A man-boy. Tall, broad; dark hair and the start of a beard, strikingly handsome features and those bright blue eyes. Superhero physique. He was shoeless and shirtless, wearing only torn pants and, with the stubble of the beard, tangled hair and splotches of dirt and blood flecked everywhere across his bare skin … looked like a Viking berserker. Like he’d been in battle for days. Only the intensity of those eyes belied that. He was focused. Determined in a way Drake had never seen any man.
And this was like no man he’d ever seen.
Something about the way the guy reacted made him think Jessica was in trouble. “Where is she?” he asked. And suddenly Drake had the idea that, even if the man knew where she was, he would never let anyone near her. And in that same moment saw that, here was a guy who was utterly lost. Drake never really suspected Jessica of being involved with the Bok, or even knowing of them before now, and this guy, he could see, knew nothing either.
How the two of them got involved in this massive operation …
Superman held up the chrome device. “Where does this go?”
Bobby, only just now seeming to notice the device for himself, craned in the man’s grip, straining to look at it in his outstretched hand.
“So they did have one,” he made no effort to disguise his satisfied awe. Drake looked at his teammate, collar held tight in the grip of the other, head wrenched to the side and staring wide-eyed at the shiny device. Wondering if Bobby’s reaction was wise.
Too late now.
“Where does it go?” the super guy brought it closer so Bobby could see. For an instant he looked hopeful.
“Where did you get it?” Bobby wanted to know. “Did they have it in there?” He looked to the castle.
“I’m asking the questions,” the man reminded him. “Now tell me,” and he cinched Bobby higher, taking his comments as indication he knew something. “Where does this connect?”
“We don’t know,” Bobby remained remarkably calm; resigned to the fact he could do nothing right then and so refusing to get worked up. Drake admired him for that. “We didn’t even know if they had another one or not. We were hoping they would.”
“What do you know about it?” the tall stranger asked with false patience. “Tell me what you know.”
Bobby shrugged—a remarkable action in his current position. “We don’t know anything,” he said. “Just that we thought the Bok might have one.”
Drake saw the man’s frustration gather a fresh head of steam. They’d had no time to run much analysis of the photos of him from the club but so far he hadn’t come up as a state player. In fact, so far they had no record of him at all.
Drake decided to be as frank as possible. “Jessica had one too,” he got his attention. “I’m sure you know that. We also had one. We went for hers, back in the States. When we did she ran. As you may or may not know that didn’t go well. She got away with not only her device but ours. Those were the only two devices we were aware of at the time.
“But we thought the Bok might have another. And so we followed through with this operation here, intending to find out and, lo and behold, Jessica shows up. At the club, with you. All hell breaks loose.” He thought to say, where she blew yet another operation and, once again, we were left with squat, but elected a more diplomatic tack: “The Bok got away and we thought she did too.
“Now here you are, demonstrating power I can’t—won’t—begin to try to explain. You can’t be a robot because, one, I’d know about it and, two, even a frickin robot couldn’t do what you just did. And so to answer your question, and officially as of this moment, we know shit.” What else could he say? Diplomacy could only be faked so far.
For a moment he thought to mention the tablet, now being studied back at the safe house, see if this guy knew anything about it—suspecting that he did—but decided he’d said enough for the moment.
Bobby picked up where Drake left off. “But the Bok should know something. I assume you got it in there,” he looked at the device and nodded to the castle. “Someone knows something. You just came from there. Can you give us anything to go on? Maybe we can help? How many Bok are in there?”
But his words only made the man’s gaze cloud over. His brow grew heavy and he shoved Bobby back, releasing him. Based on what he probably could’ve done it was a gentle shove, but Bobby stumbled and fell nonetheless. Drake grew nervous. Everyone just sort of stared at the guy. Did they say something to make him more angry? Was he going to kill them?
“Listen,” Bobby dusted himself off and stood, continuing the conversation as if there had been no change. “I don’t know whose side you’re on, or what you were doing in there, but maybe we can help. If you want to help us, we could go back in. Round them up. With what I know we can get answers …”
The man looked at Bobby, hard, and Bobby stopped talking. Something bad happened in there and Drake could tell all at once that the guy regretted it. He couldn’t resist a glance in the direction of the ancient castle. He didn’t linger, though, and turned back to the man, tensing in deadly anticipation of what might be coming. The man crouched, Drake held his breath, the others unconsciously took small steps back and …
The guy leapt. Up and away. Blasting into the sky, high, up and over, landing a hundred yards afield where he hit and bounded again, that time on a flatter arc that carried him further, nearly all the way out of sight … where he hit and jumped again, over a distant hill and was …
Gone.
Drake looked at his team. Feeling the breeze, hearing the quiet of the empty field. So stunned it felt like whole minutes before he could make words come out of his mouth.
“Did any of that really just happen?”
**
“We’ve re-acquired the signal,” came a report from among the bustle on the bridge of the Kel flagship. Kang had the crew on edge, no longer willing to simply grind his teeth and watch. Now he was driving them to action, and they were finally honoring his demands.
The other ship had gotten away and the smaller fighter on the world below took to the air, fleeing just above the ground, heading no one yet knew where. The ancient cruiser was gone, in a way they could do nothing about, so for now Kang had put that impossibility from his mind—at least enough to focus on the fighter below, which might yet lead to clues. Or even to Horus.
He processed the random report, shouted from one of the consoles.
“Near the system’s main gas giant,” the operator clarified, pouring over an incoming stream of information. “Our destroyers have a confirmed detection at that planetary orbit. Jupiter, in the core language. The enemy craft just reappeared there.” The operator looked across the bridge at Voltan, who stood near Kang listening. “They stayed in-system.” Kang held his translator wand tightly, consciously easing his grip lest he break it. He strained to hear every word right then, to process every bit of information being sent.
“They only jumped in-system?” Voltan queried, frustratingly slow in his assessment. Even now that Kang had amped up his intensity Voltan refused to be baited. He was going along, yes, but in doing so maintained that air of pacing, of control Kang was determined to break.
“Yes, lord. Commander of the destroyer task force is asking if they should continue pursuit.”
“YES!” Kang shouted and they all cringed. As one; a room full of pale, elfin heads, black and white hair pulled tight into ponytails. After that initial reaction none moved and Kang hated their warrior stoicism.
But Voltan continued to walk a fine line.
“Of course,” he said. “Pursue. Engage and board if possible.”
“Destroy it!” Kang spat, pointing across to the operator relaying orders. “I want that ship destroyed!”
To his surprise Voltan was suddenly in his face, directly in it, spitting back with his own fury.
“Quiet!” he yelled and Kang held, finding himself momentarily shocked with Voltan’s action. For an instant of counter-reaction he debated killing him right there and struggled with the urge to do so. Very little reason restrained him in that moment. The reaction passed, and while Voltan resumed a measure of his former, collected self—perhaps with a new edge of fear as he realized the full import of his outburst—Kang remained poised for action, muscles corded with barely contained power.
Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4) Page 3