Star Viking (Extinction Wars Book 3) (21 page)

“The Purple Tamika Emperor speaks against me,” I said. “It will cost him dearly.”

Ras Claw grew thoughtful. He turned away, mumbling to himself. Then he peered at me sidelong. “The Emperor has great honor, the greatest among all the Tamikas of the Lokhars. It is why Purple Tamika choses who will wear the crown.”

“This is no doubt true,” I said.

“Do you claim I lie?”

“No. You fought too well to be a liar.” I laughed. “I would not honor you if I believed you lied.”

Ras Claw shifted on his pillows, sitting up, regarding me solemnly. “When I take your head, Commander Creed, I will clean every tissue from it. I will polish the skull with gorgon oil. After carving your name onto the bone, I will present it to the Emperor as a gift. I am sure he will set it in Purple Tamika’s Hall of Honor.”

“I’ve never heard of this hall,” I lied. “It is important?”

Opening his fanged maw, Ras Claw laughed hoarsely. “It is only the soul of Purple Tamika. Within the hall lies the great purple tapestry, woven from the fur of past emperors. In the hall are the many ancient trophies, the sacred fetishes: Pre-Space armor, a thousand tattered banners, scrolls and declamations, fragments of rock, bone, steel and charcoal, vials of dried black blood commemorating battles and Purple Tamika valor. In the center of the hall lies the undying fire. For ten thousand years it has burned.”

“Huh, how about that,” I said.

Ras Claw refused to let me deter him. “Your skull will reside in the hall throughout the ages. Because of the mighty deed of gifting it to the Emperor, I will regain my honor and my soul before I die.”

“Your soul?” I asked.

“Without honor, no Lokhar is anything. With honor, any feat may be attempted.”

I backed away from Ras Claw, sitting in the room’s single chair. “I plan to keep my head,” I told him.

“Which will make my feat all the more singular,” he assured me.

I gave the tiger a wintery grin. “While keeping my head on my shoulders, I would like to see this Hall of Honor. It would surely be a sight.”

“You will never see it,” Ras Claw declared.

“Because you’ll kill me before that?” I asked.

“That is one reason. The other is that no one but high-ranking Purple Tamika warriors and vestals are allowed inside the wooden walls.”

“You’re telling me the hall is old?”

“Ancient,” Ras Claw said. “After the Forerunner objects, it is the most heavily guarded place in Purple Tamika control.”

“Oh,” I said. “In that case, maybe I’ll have to force my way into the hall.”

The tiger shook his head before wincing and closing his eyes. “It would sully the honor of Purple Tamika if you set eyes upon the trophies and fetishes. The present Emperor would be forced to step down for one of his brothers. No, Commander Creed, you will never see these things, but your skull will sit there.”

It was my turn to give the Lokhar an unblinking stare.

He opened his eyes and bristled under the scrutiny. “Have I dishonored you by speaking these truths?” he asked.

With a start, I shook my head. He’d given me an idea. “No,” I said. “You have given me many sad thoughts to reflect upon.”

“Why sad?” he asked.

“Because we humans lack a hall of honor of our own,” I said.

“I am not surprised to hear this. You are Earthlings, little better than beasts of the field. You lack a single Tamika. How then could you have a hall of honor?” He yawned, and I could see that he was exhausted.

“Sleep, Ras Claw. Regain your strength. You are going to need it soon.”

“We will fight again?” he asked hopefully.

No
, I thought to myself.
You’ll need your strength so Ella can discover from you the location of this Hall of Honor
. It sounded like just the place for a Star Viking raid. That meant the tiger would have to go under the Jelk machine at least one more time.

I left Mars Base to inspect the Luna defenses. For the journey, I went in a new patrol boat,
Achilles
.

The warship had narrow corridors but a large enough cargo bay to hold a gym. There, I met the new captain, a woman upgraded from an arban leader to a patrol boat commander.

Zoe Artemis had dark hair and darker eyes. She was slender with small breasts, boyish hips and a deadly quickness. She was lithe like a lynx. Her beauty rested in her eyes and the shape of her triangular chin.

One of my command maxims was to reward initiative and thought. Both were too rare. In having her troopers restrain me on Sanakaht, Zoe had shown both in large quantities. Humanity only had a handful of warships. Therefore, I wanted proven doers in charge of them.

We needed every force multiplier we could get.

After finishing my calisthenics, I toweled my face and watched Zoe hit a heavy bag. Her
thuds
rocked the bag. Her snap-kicks made it swing.

“Nice,” I said.

“I hope you don’t want to spar, sir,” she said.

I shook my head.

“I’d like to thank you again, Commander, for this chance.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I said. “Your initiative won you the opportunity.”

“Well…can a woman be grateful?” she asked.

Did the look in her eyes offer me more? It was possible.

“Why don’t you show me around the ship,” I said.

We talked about Sanakaht as we toured the engine room, the particle beam generator and finally ended in the control room.

It had five people in a semi-circle facing a viewing port. Zoe’s chair was behind them. Outside in space were a thousand stars with Earth and Luna among them. To the left, the Sun blazed.

Zoe turned to me. The top of her head reached as high as my shoulders. “Can I ask you a question, sir?”

“Please,” I said.

“Do you think we can hold the solar system?”

“You need to be more specific,” I said.

“No. That’s my question. Can we hold Earth against invaders?”

“Probably not,” I admitted.

“Will you fight here no matter what?” she asked.

“What’s on your mind, Captain?” I noticed the others at their stations listening carefully.

“What’s more important, sir?” Zoe asked. “Holding and possibly dying at our home or surviving as a people?”

“Surviving,” I said.

“Like the Starkiens survive?” she asked.

“If we have to,” I said.

Zoe pursed her lips. “I tend to agree with you, sir. Then I think about Admiral Saris bringing her battlefleet or the Starkiens swarming here again. It makes my blood boil thinking of them chasing us from our home.”

“I agree,” I said.

“We need more warships, sir.”

“We need more people. We need our planet back. It will be generations until we’re anywhere close to having billions again.”

Zoe scrunched her brow in thought. Then she brightened. “The Jelk stole enough humans in the past. Why not open up the Earth to those outcasts and let them settle here?”

Her words struck in my heart. My lost girlfriend, Jennifer, hadn’t been born on Earth, but in Jelk space. The alien abductors had taken her mom and dad during World War II. There were countless others like her. The Jelk had visited our world for centuries. The little red aliens had millions of tame Earth-descended humans. The Jelk had come to Earth the last time to pick us wild people, the barbarians that would make good soldiers. Maybe with training, we could turn the tame, civilized slaves back into fighters. For sure, their children would learn the hard arts needed for remaining free.

Laughing, I squeezed Zoe’s shoulder. “That’s an excellent idea. If we win through all this, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

The patrol boat captain grinned. She looked even prettier as she smiled.

I noticed several of the bridge crew still watching I hadn’t taken my hand away. Zoe raised an eyebrow. Before I released her, I squeezed her shoulder a second time.

Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have done that. Jennifer remained Abaddon’s slave. Until I’d freed her, how could I love another woman? Yet, that had been seven years ago. How long did I have to mourn Jennifer?

With a start, I removed my hand. No one spoke for a time.

Finally, Zoe cleared her throat. “Can I ask you another question, sir?”

“You bet,” I said.

“What will we do when Admiral Saris shows up? I mean, you do think she’ll show up, don’t you?”

“The Emperor threatened us with a crusade. Eventually, the Lokhars are going to want a pound of flesh for what we did on Sanakaht.”

“Will the artifact help us again?” Zoe asked.

“We shouldn’t count on it,” I said, remembering what Holgotha had told me.

“So either we need more warships or allies.”

“That about sums it up,” I said.

She thought about that, soon asking, “Who among the Jade League will fight against the Lokhars?”

That was the question. I’d been racking my brain about it for some time. Ras Claw had given us a possibility. If we raided this Hall of Honor and stole all the loot, would Felix Rex Logos make a deal with us to get it back?

Did Orange Tamika have any warships left? If they did, would they be enough combined with our paltry numbers to make a difference? I had a feeling Orange Tamika did not have enough. That’s why Doctor Sant walked the worlds, trying to drum up aid through his preaching.

I left the bridge, feeling worse than before. The Lokhar had a crusade building against us. How did we build one of our own against them that mattered?

Half a day later, the
Achilles
braked as we neared Luna.

Two Earth Council cruisers and a missile-ship orbited the dead planetoid. At the Lunar North Pole waited ex-Saurian missile launchers and laser cannons. Intermingled among them were shorter-ranged Lokhar particle beam accelerators. This was our fortress. It possessed greater firepower than any three of our starships.

I bid Zoe good-bye and used a thruster-pack down to Luna. Floating in the void gave me time to think. I set my course for the Lunar North Pole. Afterward, I studied the blue-green ball of Earth in the distance.

Look at our homeworld. It was so beautiful, like the greatest gem in the universe set off by the blackness around it. The automated factories down there churned every hour. Diana had a crew using the scrubbers we’d taken off Sanakaht, burning away bio-toxins. Given enough time, we’d make our sweet home habitable again.

That was one of my great goals. Then, I had to defend Sol. How could we do that? I liked Zoe’s idea to bring all the human waifs back home and train them to think like free people. Most of them were presently slaves or servants of the Jelk, as Jennifer used to be.

Who exactly did the Jelk Corporation fight a thousand light years away from here? I would have liked to know. With a shrug, I realized I’d have to save that for another day, another war. First, mankind had to survive a holy tiger crusade.

We need numbers. We need hordes of warships
. I grimaced, shaking my head. It was an impossible problem.

No!
I told myself.
That’s BS. You have to think, Creed. You’re missing something vital. What is it?

Maybe I needed to consider this logically. We were few and faced many. The other aliens thought of us as animals. We needed allies, but who would join us?

Other desperate aliens might throw in their lot with us. But why would they do so if we were weak?

The Forerunner artifact is the key
, I thought to myself.

Felix Rex Logos had once been the commander of the Lokhar Fifth Legion. We assault troopers had helped to decimate them. Holgotha had transferred rather than letting Starkiens reach its surface. All the artifacts hated the baboons. That was funny, because the Starkiens desperately wanted their own artifact. One of the reasons was to wipe away the ancient shame of losing theirs. Thus, Baba Gobo—

My jaw hung open. I had it. I knew the answer to one of our problems.

Chinning on my helmet radio, I hailed the
Achilles
. Soon enough, Zoe appeared on my HUD.

“Captain,” I said.

“Yes, Commander?” she asked.

“Hold your position,” I said. “I’m coming back up.”

“Sir?”

“Once I’m aboard, we’re heading back to Mars Base. Commander Creed, out.”

I chinned off the link and throttled my thruster-pack to full acceleration. Instead of floating down to the Moon, I shot back up to the waiting patrol boat.

***

Several days later, I strode through Mars Base with Zoe hurrying to keep up. I’d kept to my own quarters during the trip back, carefully considering every angle.

At a three-meter fountain in the middle of the dome, I met Ella and N7. Dmitri and Rollo were both out on patrols. The orange-skinned dome spread out over us with squat buildings pressed together on the ground. Sunlight shined through the shielding material. I could feel the heat on my neck. The geyser of water sprayed down onto the main basin. Goldfish swam in the water. It was good to see them, reminding us of better days.

“I have an idea,” I said in lieu of a greeting.

Ella looked tired with bags under her eyes. “I’m sorry, Commander. I have bad news for you.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“Ras Claw is dead,” she said.

“What? How?” I realized it truly saddened me losing him. Maybe fighting Ras hand-to-hand had caused me to gain respect for him. “Did the Jelk machine kill him?”

“No,” Ella said. “He did it, strangling himself.”

“Why?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“He didn’t want to confirm the coordinates to the Purple Tamika Hall of Honor.”

That left me blinking. Ras Claw must have realized I’d tricked him. I should have known he’d figure that out in time. Well, I couldn’t do anything about it now. He’d simply become another causality in the Human-Tiger War. I had to concentrate on victory, which meant steeling my heart one more time.

“Did you get the location?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Ella said.

“No. You have to know. It’s vital for my plan.”

“I have
a
location,” Ella said. “Since Ras Claw slew himself, I don’t know if it’s the
right
planet. Either he killed himself in shame, realizing we’d tricked him, or he lied about the location and killed himself to keep us from forcing the true location from him.”

That could be a big problem. But I didn’t want to thrash it out this second. “Okay,” I said. “That might put a serious kink in my plan. I still have a new idea. Are you ready for it?”

The others nodded.

“Simply put,” I said, “our problem is a lack of numbers. We don’t have enough warships to give a big fleet pause. That means we need more. We need allies.”

“We’ve been over all this before,” Ella said.

“Right,” I said. “Now I realize I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. I’ve been thinking about how to persuade Jade League members to join us. But I doubt any of them are going to listen to humans.”

“You finally realize that no alien cares you rode inside the artifact,” Ella said.

“You’re dead wrong,” I told her. “They’re going to care, but maybe not enough. We need more persuasion. Usually, a person has to have a great desire. That’s the fulcrum you use to change their key ideals.”

“Are you speaking about Orange Tamika?” N7 asked.

“That’s one group,” I said. “We have to find Doctor Sant and tell him the situation. Yet there’s another large group of aliens with a desperate desire—the Starkiens.”

Ella stared at me a second before she laughed. “You can’t seriously mean them. Everyone hates the Starkiens.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And why do they hate Starkiens? Because the baboons destroyed their artifact. The Forerunner objects all hate Starkiens, too, and won’t let them near any of them.”

“What is your idea?” Ella asked.

“To find Baba Gobo and make a deal with him,” I said. “If the Starkiens will gather their flotillas, I’m betting that would make a tremendous fleet. If it’s big enough, that might slow down Admiral Saris when she shows up. And that might give us enough time to raid the Hall of Honor.”

“Commander,” N7 said. “The Starkiens are notorious double-dealers. If you allow them in the solar system—”

“They can never enter the solar system in any depth,” I said. “That would risk having the artifact depart and spoil everything.”

“Then what good is your plan?” Ella asked. “The Starkiens want to win an artifact, and you can’t give them one.”

“No,” I said. “That’s exactly what I
can
give them.”

“You’re not making sense,” Ella said.

I turned to Zoe. “Would you be willing to take me to Epsilon Indi?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.