The Altreian Enigma (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 2) Read online

  All because of Jennifer’s betrayal.

  She wanted to throw herself into one of the many deep crevices that laced these caverns, to splatter on the rocks below. But the hive-mind denied her even that solace. She was helpless.

  A memory rose unbidden, from the depths of her mind, a memory of another time she’d been this helpless. Medellín. Back then, she’d been so full of herself, so confident in her enhancements, in her ability to manipulate people’s emotions. Why shouldn’t she have been? After all, she had the leader of the world’s most violent drug cartel under her influence. But then she had thrust her mind into a place where it hadn’t belonged, into the soul of Eduardo Montenegro, the assassin known to the underworld as El Chupacabra.

  The memory raised chill bumps on her arms and neck. She had retreated from his mental touch like a child scurrying into a dark closet, praying the monster inside her bedroom wouldn’t find her. That evil had left her paralyzed with fear, totally powerless to resist. Helpless.

  After Jack Gregory and Janet Price had killed El Chupacabra, she had vowed never again to allow her mind to be dominated like that. And she hadn’t. Not under torture inside the NSA supermax interrogation facility called the Ice House. Not even the Koranthian lashings or the agony of the shock collar had broken her will to resist.

  But this . . . to be trapped inside her own mind, unable to prevent herself from betraying the one she had come to care for so deeply . . . This would break her.

  Dgarra placed a hand on her arm, a concerned look on his hard features.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She felt the smile that was intended to be sad but reassuring form on her lips, felt words tumble forward. “I’m sorry that we got here too late to be of help.”

  Dgarra returned his gaze to the wounded and demoralized survivors.

  “The fault is mine, not yours.”

  Inside her head, Jennifer let forth a banshee wail that battered the walls of her mind. If the hive-mind heard that, it paid her no heed.

  Emperor Goltat, dressed in his royal black robes, leaned back on his throne, watching as his guards opened the massive double doors to admit General Magtal. The emperor did not rise to greet him. If this had been a casual meeting or one with a more positive foundation, he would have ushered his guest to one of the two ornate but comfortable chairs set at a shallow angle to each other in the sitting area near the great hearth. But there would be no warmth in this meeting.

  Magtal, dressed in the crimson uniform that signified his house, came to a halt three strides in front of the throne, dropped to a knee on the marble tile, and bowed his head. The twin crown-bones that extended from the outside of each brow over the top of his head were unusually prominent, even among the biggest of the Koranthian warriors. They suited the general.

  Emperor Goltat did not consider that thought complimentary.

  “Rise and speak your piece.”

  Magtal rose to his full height, his face betraying a strange eagerness for one who had come bearing what the emperor knew to be foul tidings.

  “My lord emperor, I am sorry to inform you that General Dgarra has suffered a disastrous defeat along his western flank at the hands of the Eadric army. If you will recall, I predicted that something like this would happen when you placed him in charge of the northern front.”

  “I have already learned of this, and I do not need you to remind me of anything, least of all your prior ministrations.”

  Magtal inclined his head ever so slightly, although the pleasure that shone in his dark eyes remained. “Yes, my emperor. However, I am in receipt of the details of the failed battle and feel it is my duty to pass them along, that you may be accurately informed.”

  “Then make it quick and be done with it.”

  “Reports from the battlefield indicate that, instead of keeping his combat reserve near the center of his lines, Dgarra foolishly moved them behind his eastern flank, leaving his western flank exposed. Having detected this, the enemy pivoted west, striking Dgarra in his weak spot, destroying the entire Kolath Division. Only General Klagan’s heroic actions in detonating explosives prevented the Eadric and their Kasari allies from gaining access to our northern tunnel network. Regardless, the damage is done.”

  Emperor Goltat steepled his fingers as he peered over them into the eyes of his general. “So, you are telling me that despite heavy losses, Dgarra’s defenses held.”

  All traces of pleasure drained from Magtal’s face. “Only by destroying an entire sector of critical subsurface infrastructure and at the cost of one of our elite divisions.”

  “You mean one of my elite divisions. I remind you that war has its costs, especially against such foes as we now face.”

  “That is true. But if this is victory, let us pray that we have no more of them. My problem with General Dgarra has nothing to do with his valor or that of his warriors. Dgarra is a gambler. He commits forces on a hunch, seeking the glory that guessing right might bring. In the past he has been lucky, but today he guessed wrong. This day was inevitable. Now it is my duty to recommend that you reassign Dgarra to your strategic command here in ArvaiKheer. Let me select one of my generals to command the northern front, someone with a steadier disposition.”

  The emperor rose to his feet so quickly that his black robes swirled about him. Although he was not as tall as Magtal, the general seemed to shrink before his sudden anger.

  Emperor Goltat leaned in. “Never lecture me on how to run my military. Do I make myself clear on this?”

  General Magtal snapped to attention. “Yes, Lord Emperor.”

  “Good. Now leave me before I make a decision that you will most certainly regret.”

  Magtal pivoted and strode from the room without a backward glance. Still standing, Emperor Goltat watched the crimson general depart.

  General Magtal strode from the white palace, careful to keep his grim mask in place lest one of the emperor’s guardsmen note the glee that lurked just beneath the surface. Unlike Dgarra, his lord emperor was supremely predictable. Magtal had known that there was no chance that Goltat would take his suggestion, relieve Dgarra of his command, and consolidate all battlefronts under Magtal. But that had never been the purpose of this little confrontation.

  As he made his way back across the compound toward his estate, he picked up an entourage of his elite guard, all wearing the crimson of House Magtal. Even though his words had angered the emperor, he had planted the seeds that would sprout into full-grown weeds of doubt as Dgarra suffered one humiliating defeat after another. And that would happen, thanks to the human female at Dgarra’s side, a traitor of Magtal’s own creation.

  He finally allowed himself the grin he’d been denying. When Dgarra fell, his human pet would tumble to ruin alongside him. Magtal looked forward to breaking her slender neck with his bare hands, assuming that Dgarra didn’t beat him to it.

  CHAPTER 20

  The fast-attack hovercraft skimmed across the ocean surface smoothly, keeping itself a few feet above the wave crests. This averaged out the wave motion, providing a gradual, undulating rhythm to the ride. Jack stood inside the hovercraft’s transparent bridge next to the Altreian captain, staring out at the majestic twilight sky beneath which they raced.

  Khal Teth’s memories answered the questions that rose to Jack’s mind. Directly ahead of the hovercraft, the magenta-colored brown dwarf Altreia filled the lower third of the twilight sky. Being a dwarf star, its soft magenta glow wasn’t particularly bright, but since it shone primarily in the infrared spectrum, it provided most of Quol’s warmth.

  Jack visualized the surrounding binary-star system. With twenty times Jupiter’s mass, Altreia had an orbit that looked as though it was the fourth of thirteen planets that orbited the larger yellow star, Dorial, each orbit taking approximately four Earth years. But since its own fusion engine gave Altreia its beautiful magenta glow, it was a star and not a planet, regardless of how its orbit around Dorial might appear to an external observer
.

  Altreia had nine large orbital bodies of its own, the largest of these being the watery, Earth-sized planet of Quol. For almost half an orbday—the seven Earth days it took for Quol to complete an orbit around Altreia—Dorial was visible, appearing about the same as Earth’s sun would look from Mars. Because Quol was tidally locked to the brown dwarf, Altreia’s position relative to the horizon remained constant. The lacy orange Krell Nebula sprawled above Altreia in the dark sky, framing Quol’s purple moon. Stars were visible, but the magenta illumination dimmed Jack’s view.

  Quol’s tidal lock with Altreia pulled the bulk of the world’s oceans to the side nearest to the brown dwarf, while the bulk of its landmasses were located on the far side. The longitudinal line that separated its near and far sides was a subtropical transition region where hundreds of thousands of islands ringed Quol.

  Following Jack’s instructions, the captain had programmed the autopilot to thread a course among these.

  “Overlord,” the captain said from his left, “I am detecting active scans of increasing intensity from above and behind us, multiple aircraft flying a search pattern.”

  Jack glanced at the navigational display with the 3-D world map that showed the hovercraft’s current location and direction vector.

  “Continue on the programmed course.”

  “Overlord, I estimate the increasing power of their scans will penetrate our cloak within the next three chrom.”

  Jack gritted his teeth. Damn it. They had less than five minutes until the searchers acquired them.

  He returned his attention to the map. “Disengage the autopilot, and bring us to a stop.”

  “Overlord?”

  “Just do it.”

  As the hovercraft came to a stop, the mental count in Jack’s mind reached three minutes. Although he would have liked to have gotten farther away from the Parthian, he didn’t have that luxury.

  “Assemble the crew,” Jack ordered.

  Although Jack could see the confusion in the captain’s eyes, the Altreian officer did as he was told, calling the other two Altreian crew members onto the bridge. As they entered, Jack pulled his weapon and fired, the rapid pulses from the pistol cutting through their bodies and blasting holes in the bridge’s transparent walls. The captain grabbed for his sidearm, but Jack’s third shot took the top of his head off and dropped his body to the deck.

  Jack stripped off his blue robes and soft boots, then secured his pistol within the band of his tight undergarment. Stepping across the dead Altreians, he opened the hatch that led out onto the main deck, dragged the bodies off the bridge, and tossed them into the waves twenty feet below. He returned to the bridge, his bare feet leaving clear tracks through the crimson Altreian blood.

  With the knowledge that Khal Teth had extracted from the pilot’s mind, Jack entered a brief delay into the controls that would reactivate the autopilot’s navigation plan. Then he walked back out onto the deck, took a deep breath, and dived into the seething ocean below.

  The water swallowed him, and Jack let it, surprised at the neutral buoyancy of this slender Altreian form. If what he was about to try didn’t go well, the next few minutes were going to be awfully unpleasant and possibly fatal.

  Jack relaxed, letting the tension dissipate. The water was cooler than he’d expected. Not enough to chill him, just not quite comfortable. He opened his mouth and inhaled and felt a flap in his throat click closed as water was routed out through the gill slits on the sides of his neck instead of into his lungs.

  A smile formed on his lips. It was about time that something went right on this damn alien planet.

  He surfaced, his legs propelling him upward in a merman motion that felt as natural as walking. He let the wave lift him so that he could scan the horizon. As he had expected: no sign of the hovercraft. Not only was it cloaked, but the craft would have throttled up to full speed within seconds of Jack diving off it and then continued toward the next of a series of waypoints as it executed its navigation plan.

  “What have you done?” Khal Teth’s mental voice carried concern that bordered on panic.

  A wave lifted him high enough to see the distant silhouette of land. “Thought we’d take a little swim over to that island.”

  “Even if I had that much endurance, which I do not, a swim like that would take hours.”

  Jack felt his smile widen at his mind-rider’s distress. “Then it’s a good thing that I’m not counting on you to do it. I suggest that you shut up and let me focus.”

  Without waiting for a response, Jack dived beneath the surface. He reached a depth where he felt confident airborne sensors couldn’t pick him out from other sea life, and struck out toward his chosen island.

  Shol Dre, pilot of the Altreian combat airship G371, was part of the squadron that had been assigned this search-and-destroy mission. He hadn’t been briefed on who had stolen the fast-attack hovercraft that his sensors had just detected. He didn’t care. His orders were all that mattered.

  Just then the target indicator disappeared from his mental view. The surface chart told him why. The hovercraft had passed behind one of a group of distant islands, using the terrain to mask its signature.

  Shol Dre banked hard left and accelerated toward the spot where the target had disappeared. As he approached the island, his sensors reacquired the target as it moved out over open water. The laser lock was automatic, and he initiated the firing sequence with a thought.

  A single red beam speared outward, and the target’s defensive systems took automatic evasive action. It did no good. The beam burned through the hovercraft, igniting an explosion that threw chunks of it up into the sky, wreckage then raining down. Shol Dre descended, passing low over the debris field, a part of which remained afloat, transmitting its coordinates along with a live video feed to strategic command. Then he switched sensors and made another pass, looking for signs of life.

  He didn’t find any. He wasn’t surprised.

  Khal Teth watched Jack force his body beyond its limits, unable to turn his attention away from the man that was in the process of killing them both. If there were any way for him to save himself, he would have retaken control, forcing Jack into the role of the rider in his mind. But there was no way he could directly endure the agony that coursed through his nervous system. He could barely tolerate it now, even though being the rider usually insulated him from such physical sensations.

  Other devastating sensations coursed through his body, battling each other for ascendance, fatigue and hunger chief among them. At least Khal Teth didn’t have to worry about thirst, since he was perfectly capable of absorbing water, whether salty or fresh.

  In the years that his mind had been entangled with Jack’s, he had observed the man known as The Ripper drive his human body through extreme pain and discomfort in order to achieve various objectives. But Khal Teth’s connection had been far weaker on Earth. Right here and now, he was having an increasingly difficult time shutting out the sensation storm.

  Khal Teth concentrated, strengthening the barrier that isolated him from his form. As he did so, he vowed that if he somehow survived this situation, he would never again yield control of his body.

  CHAPTER 21

  Jack dragged himself onto the black-pebble beach, his coral-scraped and jelly-stung body leaking blood into the retreating vestiges of the wave that had deposited him here. He let his face sink down until his cheek rested against the smooth stones, felt another wave wash over this body, and felt its backwash tug at him, attempting to pull him back into the sea.

  With great effort, Jack forced himself to his hands and knees and slowly crawled into the dense vegetation just beyond the beach. He slumped back against the trunk of a tree, noting the abundance of purple leaves all around him. He was relieved to rest, even though the rough bark bit into the skin of his bare back and this body felt like it had spent three days being stretched on a rack.

  Once again, Khal Teth disturbed him. “We cannot stay here. We
need to find shelter.”

  “Screw you and the horse you rode in on.”

  “I rode in on you.”

  Jack almost smiled. “You want this body back? I’ll be glad to hand it over.”

  “You should keep it for the time being.”

  “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

  Movement along the beach caught Jack’s attention, and he became instantly alert. As he watched, black pebbles bulged up, first in one spot and then in several others, accompanied by the sound of the small stones clattering over each other as they cascaded down the mounds.

  “What the hell?” Jack asked, scrambling weakly to his feet.

  “Stonelings . . . meat eaters.”

  The image that formed in Jack’s mind of hundreds of head-sized crab creatures stripping an animal carcass bare was confirmed when the six-legged crustaceans started bursting out of their hidey-holes and scuttling toward him. Jack reached for the pulse pistol in his waistband and cursed. The blaster was gone, probably ripped away when the wave swept him over the coral reef that surrounded the island.

  The nearest of the creatures reached for him with twin pincers that jutted out from its carapace like the horns of a bull, and Jack kicked it away, cursing at the cut it inflicted on the top of his bare foot. He considered running, but they had swarmed wide, cutting off escape in a manner that indicated swarm behavior.

  Just freakin’ great!

  A batch of six rushed forward, and Jack jumped, catching one of the lower tree limbs and hauling himself up. At least that was what he intended to do. The muscles of this body—he refused to think of it as his body—let him down.