The Kasari Nexus (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 1)

by Richard Phillips

  None of that mattered. Jennifer had a metal bar through her chest. Raul found himself swept away by her visions as she rapidly replayed the events that had brought her to this point. The mental download left him struggling to breathe. Hell, he could even feel her pain.

  The knowledge that too few of the Rho Project nanites remained in her blood to allow the doctors to remove the metal bar from her chest pummeled him. She was dying.

  Raul wiped away the tears that streamed down his face with both hands. This was complete bullshit. He had the technology on board this ship that could save her. He damn sure hadn’t made the batch of new nanites just for himself.

  He focused his thoughts, making them strong enough to penetrate the growing haze he felt in Jennifer’s head. His neural net scanned her visions until he found the part he was looking for. There it was, Jennifer looking hotter than anyone he’d ever seen, marching into an underworld stadium at the side of General Dgarra, who now stood at her bedside. He’d made her his ward. He cared about her. Good enough.

  “Jennifer,” Raul projected, “don’t you dare fade out on me! I need something from you and I need it bad.”

  “So bossy,” she breathed into his mind.

  “I need you to use those telepathic and empathic powers of yours to link my thoughts to Dgarra’s. Can you do that for me?”

  The feeling of fatigue that came through their mental link made Raul sag in his captain’s chair.

  “Can you?” he repeated.

  She didn’t answer, but he felt her gather her resolve for one final effort. Then Raul’s reality dissolved around him.

  One second General Dgarra was staring down at Smythe’s closed eyes and the next she opened them, her gaze locking his with a frightening intensity. He tried to look away but found his mind completely disconnected from his body, only dimly aware that it stood by the surgery table in some distant and barely remembered place.

  Instead his reality coalesced inside an alien room where a human sat suspended in midair, leaning back as comfortably as if he reclined on the emperor’s couch. Smythe’s exhausted thoughts touched his mind.

  “I’m sorry to startle you like this but I have very little time and even less strength. This is my human companion, Raul Rodriguez. He commands the hijacked Kasari vessel we call the Rho Ship.”

  Dgarra felt her attention shift to the Raul human.

  “Raul, I would like to introduce you to General Dgarra, a mighty warlord, first in line to the Koranthian throne, and someone I care for deeply. I believe that, with our help, he can defeat the Kasari on this world.”

  Smythe paused and he felt her martial her strength. “Gentlemen, I will hold this link open as long as I can, but I suggest that you keep your discussion brief.”

  He felt Smythe’s presence depart. Dgarra shifted his attention back to the Raul human, recognition dawning. This was the legless being he had seen floating through the air in the drone video of the high meadow where he had first seen Smythe. But the differences in this human’s appearance were startling. Now he had legs, an eye that no longer extended from a metallic stalk, and a skull that did not show his brain.

  Dgarra felt the mental link falter as the shock of the Raul human’s new appearance registered on Smythe. But then her concentration steadied.

  Dgarra watched as Raul rose from the invisible chair and turned toward the mental projection Smythe had created.

  “General. I wish we had more time but Jennifer is dying.”

  The human’s statement held a sadness and desperation that matched Dgarra’s own.

  “I know.”

  “I can save her, but I have to get to her first. I need you to provide me with a landing location that is close to her and a guide to escort me the rest of the way. Can you do that?”

  Dgarra paused to consider this startling proposal. Raul was offering to land the starship at a place that was under Dgarra’s control. Further, he was volunteering to place himself at Dgarra’s mercy. And all he was asking in return was to be escorted to Smythe’s side. The thought that this human might be able to save her flooded him with hope.

  “I can. How do you want me to describe the location?”

  “Jennifer has temporarily linked our minds. Just visualize it and I will know.”

  Dgarra recalled an image of the location in the mountains where a massive triton-steel door blocked the entrance to a huge opening into the cliff face.

  “I will command that this door be opened for you to land. Once your ship is inside it will be closed again to shut out the storm. You understand the risk you are taking by trusting me, correct?”

  The human grinned. “I don’t trust you. But Jennifer does and that’s good enough for me.”

  Dgarra nodded. “Then let us do this.”

  As soon as the words left his mind, the vision faded and Dgarra found himself back in his body. A glance down at Smythe’s form quickened his heart. The effort she had just expended had clearly weakened her.

  Dgarra turned and issued a set of stern orders to his captain. Then as the warrior raced away to carry them out, the general directed his powerful stride toward the high-speed railcar that would take him to the designated portal.

  “Have you completely lost your mind?”

  VJ’s voice merely echoed the question that had formed in Raul’s own head. But he didn’t have time to argue.

  “Shut up and plot a course for the landing portal.”

  “As you wish.”

  Unbelievably, she’d just performed a perfect imitation of the hero’s voice from a classic movie, the phrase he always uttered whenever his lover asked him to make a horrible decision.

  “Just get us down there as fast as possible.”

  The Rho Ship engaged its gravity distortion engines, lifted off the moon’s surface, and accelerated. But the trajectory was odd, with no chance of intersecting the planet. Instead the ship picked up a velocity vector that was all wrong.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Raul asked, his irritation boiling over.

  “Just what you ordered,” said VJ. “Watch and learn.”

  When the Rho Ship shifted into subspace, the change startled Raul. The neural net told him what VJ was attempting and that knowledge bubbled beads of sweat onto his brow. He’d expected to make this trip using the gravity distortion drives to bring them down through the atmosphere. But the Kasari would have detected that.

  If VJ could correctly calculate the tolerances, this method would allow them to pop out of subspace very near the cliff opening. The maneuver she’d just performed had given the Rho Ship a velocity vector that would precisely match the angular velocity of the planet at the point where they would be arriving in the next few seconds . . . some seriously impressive shit, assuming it didn’t kill them.

  Raul wrapped himself in a stasis field cocoon and held his breath, not that either of those measures would do any good if this went wrong.

  VJ’s voice echoed in his mind. “O ye of little faith.”

  By the time Dgarra ran into the huge portal that also served as a hangar for a squadron of Koranthian airships, the big Kasari world ship had landed and the portal door had re-closed.

  “Status?” he asked the captain who commanded the armed warriors who surrounded the vessel.

  “General, the ship has remained closed since it landed.”

  “Tell your men to stand down and march them out of here, double-quick. I do not want to see any weapons.”

  The order may have surprised the captain but he was far too disciplined to show it. Within moments, the hangar was cleared of soldiers. Immediately thereafter, the side of the cylindrical ship opened, lowering a ramp. Moments later, Raul strode down it, carrying a metallic vial in his left hand.

  He extended his right hand toward Dgarra. It was odd but the open-palmed gesture seemed to be some form of alien salute, intended to show that the hand held no weapon. Dgarra copied the gesture and felt the much smaller hand attempt to grip his, much as a child would gr
asp his mother’s.

  Thankfully, this was the end of the awkward niceties this human expected.

  “Let’s go,” said Raul. “I don’t think we have much time.”

  Dgarra looked at Raul, dumbfounded. “You speak Koranthian?”

  The human made some sort of motion with his shoulders. “Not really. But Jennifer does and, when she linked to the Rho Ship, that knowledge transferred. I’m always linked to the Rho Ship through the nano-crystals embedded in my brain, so I know what it knows. Watch.”

  Raul gestured toward the Kasari starship and, as Dgarra turned his gaze toward it, the ship shimmered and disappeared, using the same cloaking mechanism Dgarra had observed in the lakeside meadow.

  Dgarra shook his head. The wonders these humans had brought to Scion might never cease to amaze him.

  “Then let us go.”

  The trip back to the field hospital took less than half a span, but the passage of time filled Dgarra with dread that they would arrive too late. To his credit, Raul made no attempt to talk, seemingly lost in his own morbid worries.

  When they reached the hospital, Dgarra led the way at a run that sent those in his path scrambling out of the way. The human appeared to have no difficulty matching his pace. When they reached the room where Smythe was being treated, Dr. Trabor met him at the door, a small shake of his head indicating the prognosis.

  “I’m sorry, General. I’m afraid you’ve arrived just in time to say your final farewell.”

  Dgarra stormed past, shoving the doctor aside. “Out of my way.”

  When he stepped up beside Smythe, he saw that her face had taken on a waxy hue and her eyes seemed to have sunk back into her head. Each breath rattled in her throat as if it would be her last. But she was still fighting.

  Beside him, Raul spun in a circle. Spotting a partially full syringe, he grabbed it and squirted its contents onto the floor. Then he jammed the needle through the malleable material on one end of the vial and pulled a viscous amber liquid into the syringe. Raul tossed the vial aside, sending it clattering across the floor, and jabbed the needle into her chest at the site of the injury, injecting half of its contents into her body with one push of the plunger.

  On the bed, Smythe’s form convulsed as the nanites attacked the fatal wound.

  “Hold her down!” Raul commanded. Dgarra moved to comply.

  In a series of rapid movements, Raul injected the rest of the serum into her arms and legs that had been battered by falling stones. With each fresh dose, her convulsions grew more intense. Dgarra utilized all his strength to hold her in place. On the opposite side of the surgery table, Raul dropped the empty syringe and moved to help hold her down.

  Her convulsions ended so suddenly that her stillness pulled a startled hiss from the general’s lips. When he looked down at her face, so quiet and peaceful, he dropped to one knee and leaned forward to gently touch his forehead to hers in a warrior’s farewell.

  Only when he raised his head did he see the wide grin on Raul’s face. As Dgarra rose to look down at Smythe, Raul spoke, his voice full of relief that spread to Dgarra.

  “You can cheer up now, General. She’s breathing.”

  Then Dgarra asked the only question that mattered. “Will she survive the removal of the rod from her chest?”

  “She’s survived worse and with a lot fewer nanites than I just injected into her body. But we need to pull it out now, before the nanites completely heal the wound around it.”

  “You mean cut it out?”

  “Better yank it out quickly. The nanites will do the surgery once it is removed.”

  “I don’t recommend that,” Dr. Trabor said.

  Dgarra looked down at Smythe’s naked body, seeing her lesser wounds healing before his eyes, the ragged edges around the bar knitting themselves closed as he watched.

  Dgarra grabbed the bar where it exited her chest.

  “Hold her shoulders down,” he told Raul, who moved behind her head to comply.

  “Ready,” Raul said, his face having gone pale.

  Dgarra placed his left hand on Smythe’s chest to keep it from moving, gritted his teeth, and pulled the bar free, feeling her warm blood cover his hands. He tossed the hated thing across the room and refocused his gaze on Smythe. For several moments, her breathing and heartbeat faltered, as did Dgarra’s own. But when both stabilized, he released the breath he’d been holding in a loud exhalation.

  At the end of the operating table, Raul released his hands from Smythe’s shoulders, placed them on the sides of her cheeks, and bent down to gently kiss her forehead as his tears dripped onto her face. Dgarra watched this display of affection, forced to restrain himself from swatting the human male across the operating room.

  His sudden anger at Raul was replaced by an even greater fury at himself. By the dark gods, what was wrong with him? Without allowing his mind to answer that question, Dgarra turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

  CHAPTER 27

  Janet ran with an easy stride that befitted a two-time NCAA pentathlon champion. But on this night, she tasked it more than ever before. She couldn’t run like Mark . . . no one could match what his neurally augmented body could deliver. But she could certainly hold her own with Jack and Heather.

  Mark and Heather were sprinting toward the entrance to the cul-de-sac where they would get Robby’s attackers’ attention while she and Jack were swinging wide to come at the safe house from behind.

  To her left she heard Mark open up on full automatic, followed by Heather when he paused to swap magazines. The screams of those who took that fire in their backs sounded even louder than the roar of the gunshots. Then Janet and Jack rounded the last house on the right side of the street and swept into the flank of a dozen gangbangers that were jammed up, waiting their turn to wedge through a three-foot-wide hole that had been crowbarred through the back door.

  She and Jack engaged them with rapid-fire semiautomatic shots, the 7.62mm rounds from their SCAR-H rifles finding a fresh head with every shot. The shock of this unexpected attack sent the surviving four racing for the far corner.

  The sound of gunfire from inside the house told her the bad news. An unknown number of gangbangers had engaged Robby from within.

  As the last of the running gangbangers fell, Jack dropped the assault rifle and his go bag and leaped forward, sprinting toward the battle that raged inside the house. Leaping over bodies, he dived through the hole and rolled, coming up with the combat dagger in his left hand and the 9mm in his right.

  The man in front of him swung a pistol in his direction just as Jack’s bullet punched out his left eye. But Jack didn’t pause, lunging sideways to cut another man’s throat. He followed up with a bullet to the downed man’s temple as Janet entered the room and raced past him toward the gunfire at the top of the stairs.

  As he squeezed the trigger on his AR-15, sending a fusillade of bullets toward the man who’d just climbed into the room, Robby felt pain blossom in his chest. He tumbled backward onto the floor, his weapon flying from his nerveless fingers as bloody bubbles frothed his lips. His vision blurred but he saw the grinning man step toward him and aim his pistol at Robby’s head.

  The boom was louder than he expected. The fact that he had heard anything surprised him. Maybe this was the time-slowing-down thing some people said happened when you were dying. But then he saw that the man’s face was gone. It seemed like he stood there forever, before limply slumping to the floor.

  Then his mom was by his side, her face filled with fear and agony as she tore open his shirt. He heard her suck in a breath and tried to do the same, but the endeavor didn’t pull much air down his windpipe. In his peripheral vision he saw more bloody bubbles billow from the hole in his chest. His dad had called it something during Robby’s training. A sucking chest wound. He was drowning in his own blood and apparently there were too few nanites in his body to deal with the trauma.

  As if he were a separate person, he heard his own voice bubble wetly
from his lips.

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  Then as she applied pressure to the wound and cooed encouraging words telling him he’d be fine and to stay with her, his mom, along with the room, faded into black.

  The volley of gunfire Daniil heard coming from several blocks northwest of his current location sent an electric thrill surging through his body. This wasn’t the haphazard shooting of a looter’s night out. There was a serious fight going on down there. That meant that The Ripper had run into some trouble, or more likely, trouble had run into him.

  “That’s our fight!” he yelled at Kamkin, who continued to direct his men’s movements with whistle signals. “We need to get down there now.”

  For once, the major didn’t argue. A pattern of staccato blasts sent his commandos running forward, although they managed to maintain their tactical formation as they moved. People saw them coming and got the hell out of their way. Those who didn’t, died.

  He glanced at Galina, moving through the semidarkness with quick anticipation, a huntress unleashed. Somewhere down below The Ripper called to them, a call that Daniil wanted to be the first to answer.

  “Jack! Robby’s hit.”

  Jack’s legs launched him up the stairs and then up the drop-down ladder and into the small attic to confront a scene from his nightmares.

  Surrounded by several bodies, Robby lay sprawled with blood streaming from a gaping wound in his chest. Beside him Janet pressed her fingers to his left carotid artery.

  Her terrified gaze turned toward him.

  “His heart’s stopped.”

  The words tried to freeze Jack but he forced himself to focus.

  “Chest compressions. Now! Don’t stop until I get back.”

  Janet reacted immediately. She pressed down hard, sending a small geyser of blood shooting out of Robby’s chest. She moved her hands, placing her right palm directly over the wound and continued. From the blood spreading on the floor underneath Robby’s back, Jack knew the bullet had passed all the way through.