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

  A burst of bright light sizzled against an invisible shield, a lucky strike that attracted a heavy concentration of fire. But as the firing continued, there were no signs of another direct hit, giving Dgarra hope that Raul had finally escaped into subspace. He shifted his attention back to the battle at hand, issuing the command that dropped the stasis shields that protected all of the Koranthian disrupter and laser batteries, directing his artillery to concentrate their fire on the gathered Eadric brigades that threatened to breach his lines.

  As he had hoped, the answering artillery fire was greatly diminished from what his forces had experienced before the Rho Ship’s attack. Now, robbed of the bulk of their artillery support, the Eadric assault faltered. With a word, Dgarra committed his combat reserve, a burst of pride swelling his breast as he watched fresh Koranthian warriors pour from their caverns to sweep the exhausted Eadric assault troopers from their positions. Dgarra ordered his artillery to shift their firing farther behind the enemy lines to avoid killing his own warriors.

  He felt someone step up beside him and turned to see Smythe standing there, her black-and-purple uniform crusted with the dried blood that had also plastered her short-cropped brown hair to her skull. Despite her appearance, Smythe’s eyes were alert as she peered at the battlefield displays projected on the command center’s far wall. Her return was a small thing, but at the end of this long day, one more thing to be thankful for.

  “When you fell during the battle,” he said, “I feared that I had lost you.”

  Smythe turned toward him, a slow smile spreading across her human features. “I take it that Raul’s attack succeeded.”

  “You ordered that action without consulting me.”

  Smythe’s shoulders lifted slightly in one of her odd human expressions. “I can’t order Raul to do anything. I merely requested the air support, and he agreed.”

  “It could cost us the Rho Ship.”

  “If the Kasari and their allies were to overrun your position, the ship wouldn’t matter. Since I wasn’t able to communicate with you, it seemed a worthwhile risk.”

  General Dgarra stared down at this impressive human female. In certain ways she reminded him of his younger self: idealistic, aggressive, and utterly fearless. Time and again she had proved herself worthy of his trust, worthy of the risks he’d taken for her. Not only had she saved his life, but she had also delivered on her promises to instruct Dgarra’s engineers in alien technologies.

  But trust was the least of what he had come to feel for her.

  Even now, the general did not fully understand his emotions. He just knew that he felt better in her presence, and whenever Jennifer was apart from him, an emptiness ate away at his soul.

  Despite his best efforts to hide these feelings, he could see in her eyes that she knew.

  And maybe he was imagining things, but she seemed to return his fondness.

  He had never met a potential mate with this combination of attributes. The fact that he now found himself attracted to this strange alien female went far beyond odd and was utterly incongruous with his upbringing. The very idea of weakening the Koranthian bloodline, assuming that interbreeding was even possible with a human female, amounted to high treason. In every instance where a Koranthian had mated with another race, the sentence had been the same: death by cleansing fire.

  Purging these thoughts from his mind, Dgarra turned his attention back to the Rho Ship.

  “What is Raul’s status?” he asked.

  “Give me a moment.”

  Smythe removed the iridescent headband from her cargo pocket and placed it on her head. After several moments of concentration, she frowned and returned it to her pocket.

  “I’m not getting a connection.”

  “What would cause that?”

  “If he made a wormhole jump, it might have taken him out of this headset’s range.”

  Dgarra had come to recognize the look on Jennifer’s face whenever she doubted her words.

  “And if that is not the case?”

  Her eyes narrowed and locked with his. And in that look, he detected a deep, contagious dread.

  “Then Raul’s gamble may not have paid off.”

  CHAPTER 6

  A wintry blast howled down from the high Andes, the wind-driven sleet stinging Jack Gregory’s face as he strode through the Tiahuanaco ruins toward the skeletal remains of the Kalasasaya Temple. Janet, Mark, and Jim “Tall Bear” Pino walked into the teeth of the storm alongside him. It was still day, but the clouds had grown so thick that an early twilight had taken hold.

  Jack shifted his eyes to the big Navajo man who wielded major influence in the Native People’s Alliance, watching the wind whip Tall Bear’s long black hair straight out behind him. Months ago, Tall Bear had used his influence to gain approval for the dig to recover the Incan Sun Staff, and it had been his urgent message that had brought Jack here from New Zealand, accompanied by Janet and Mark. None of this would have been feasible without Robby and Eos having blocked all efforts by international intelligence agencies to locate the Smythes and their allies or to penetrate their network of shell corporations.

  Two days ago, the archeological team had broken through the rubble in the collapsed cavern beneath the temple and had uncovered the Sun Staff, placing the site on lockdown pending Jack’s arrival.

  A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold worked its way up Jack’s spine as he approached the hole in the Kalasasaya Temple’s stone wall. Jack pulled a flashlight from his utility vest, switched it on, and stepped through the cantilevered doorway in the rough stone wall. He didn’t need the extra light. Except for the widely spaced drop lighting that had been fastened to ancient wall sconces, the cave that stretched out before him appeared almost exactly as he remembered it. Noise from the gasoline-powered generator echoed through the passage, carrying with it a profound sense of violation of this place where Manco Cápac, the first Incan emperor, had been handed the Sun Staff.

  Jack switched the flashlight off and returned it to its pocket as Janet, Tall Bear, and Mark joined him inside the tunnel.

  “And now, if you’ll follow me,” said Tall Bear with a broad grin, “I have something wonderful to show you.”

  Jack followed his NPA host, feeling a tightness in his chest that he knew Janet was also feeling. A dozen years ago, he and Janet had fought their way down this very passage. Down in these warrens beneath the Kalasasaya Temple, Khal Teth, a.k.a. Anchanchu, had cast Jack into a waking dream that had almost gotten himself and Janet killed. As a result, she had doubted his sanity and treated him with caution. Now this place was about to tear them apart yet again.

  Within two dozen feet, the tunnel narrowed as they passed through the section where the collapsed ceiling had been cleared and braced. The path soon widened again, and they passed by side tunnels on the left and right before rounding a bend to enter the main excavation.

  Jack stepped through the opening into the altar chamber and halted in surprise. The archeological team had done amazing work, completely clearing the rubble from the right side of the cavern, uncovering the intricately inlaid, three-tiered golden dais atop which the Incan Sun Staff stood erect.

  The altar rose from the floor to a height of six feet. Its elaborately carved and inlaid surface channeled and amplified the ambient light. But it was the Sun Staff, vertically mounted at the rear of the altar, that put a lump in Jack’s throat and pulled a gasp of recognition from Janet’s lips. The length of the head-high silver staff had been densely etched with complex symbols, terminating in a golden orb composed of delicate rings connected to a clockwork interior.

  Mark stepped forward to join the other observers who had stopped at the base of the altar, kneeling to examine the intricate engravings on the first of its three levels.

  “Is this solid gold?”

  “Not like any on this planet,” Tall Bear said. “Its properties have been modified in a way that is far beyond our technology. Neither it nor the Sun Staff were da
maged by the ceiling collapse. During the excavation, one of the workers accidently clipped the edge of this dais with a diamond drill. Didn’t even leave a scratch.”

  Jack’s eyes remained locked on the Sun Staff that had filled his dreams. Janet’s hand slid into his, squeezing hard. But when he glanced at her, she didn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she kept her eyes focused on the Sun Staff, as though, by force of will alone, she could reduce the hated thing to slag.

  For a time, the group stood in silence. Then Mark spoke up.

  “Tall Bear and I are going to step outside to give the two of you some private time with the artifact.”

  The Navajo leader extended his hand to Jack, who released Janet’s to grip it, only to find himself swept into a bear hug. The scene repeated itself with Jack and Mark. Then, without any further words spoken, the two men walked out of the cavern, leaving Jack and Janet alone before the altar.

  Janet watched the exchange of hugs between old friends, unable to keep the tears from her eyes. Her body felt like it was shutting down, as if someone had plunged an ice pick between her shoulder blades.

  If there had been one consistent theme in her life, it was the belief that if she didn’t like her circumstances, she could take action to change them. She had tried everything she could think of to convince Jack that Khal Teth could not be trusted, that the Altreian criminal was playing him. She had even enlisted Robby, Eos, and Heather to help her. But Jack had never trusted Khal Teth’s motivations. He just considered them irrelevant to what needed to be done in order to save humanity.

  Janet had failed to shake her lifelong conviction, a fact that had left her in this state of shock and helplessness, unable to stop Jack from going to the one place where she could not accompany him.

  He turned to her, and it was as if she were seeing him for the first time instead of the last. At their first meeting, Jack had opened the door to his German apartment and put a gun to her head. Now he’d just done it again.

  She wanted to hit him. She wanted to hold him and never let go. The warring impulses left her immobilized, frozen.

  Jack didn’t wrap his arms around her, didn’t try to pull her close. He simply took her hands in his and held them as tears flooded his brown eyes and cut trails down his rugged face. The laugh lines that she’d always loved had suddenly become crow’s-feet, deepened by the shroud of sorrow that hung between them.

  “I love you.” His lips formed the words, but no sound escaped his mouth.

  Janet sucked in a shuddering breath, placed her arms around his neck, and buried her face in his shoulder, feeling his powerful arms crush her body to his. She turned her face so that her lips brushed his right ear.

  “You damn sure better find your way back to me.”

  Then she pulled away, turned, and strode rapidly out of the chamber, without a single glance back in his direction.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jack stood alone in the altar chamber, watching as his soulmate walked out of his life forever. But she hadn’t left him—he’d done that to her.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gritted his teeth, and turned to face the Altar of the Gods, unleashing the rider within. Shrugging off the lethargy born of depression, he climbed the three high steps that carried him to the Sun Staff. A dozen years ago, Klaus Barbie’s bastard son had almost completed arranging the golden orb’s rings into the code that would open the portal. With very little of the pattern left to enter, Jack reached out with both hands to cup the orb, twisting one ring after another. One final twist of the topmost ring sent a surge of energy through the base, up the silver staff, and into the orb.

  It started as a low vibration that rose to a high-pitched hum. A dim glow leaked from within the crownpiece, growing in intensity until Jack was forced to squint. Beneath him the altar shifted, the top tier sliding toward the nearest wall, carrying Jack along with it and revealing a four-foot-wide ramp behind him that led down into darkness.

  Jack released the orb and turned to examine the opening as Khal Teth’s gravelly voice filled his mind.

  “Be ready. We have awakened the one who was sleeping.”

  The fact that Khal Teth had managed to speak directly into his mind instead of having to communicate through a lucid dream caught Jack off guard. He immediately decided their direct link must be a side effect of his manipulation of the Sun Staff. Regardless, he went with it.

  “Won’t the Altreian be prepared for me?”

  “He expects humans to eventually solve the riddle of the staff and to open this portal, humans whose minds he can easily dominate. My presence will come as an unpleasant surprise.”

  Jack forced the tension from his body, lifted the Sun Staff from its slot atop the altar, and walked down the ramp, letting it light his way. Several paces down, he heard the altar slide and close off the entrance behind him, cutting his last link to the world he had known. There was no stone in this passage. The walls and ceiling were of the same strange metal as the ramp, something he recognized from Mark’s and Heather’s descriptions of the interior of the Second Ship.

  He considered drawing his HK from its shoulder holster but resisted the urge. He doubted that the waiting Altreian would respond favorably to an apparent threat. Up ahead, the passage leveled out, then stopped at a bare wall. Behind him an unseen door quickly closed, sealing him in a room the size of a jail cell and elevating his heart rate. Then the light from the Sun Staff’s golden crownpiece winked out, leaving him in magenta-colored semidarkness.

  What the hell?

  Another door whisked open, and then he understood. This was the Altreian equivalent of an airlock. A dozen feet in front of him, an Altreian stood waiting for him as if Jack were a distant relative who’d been expected to drop by for a visit. Very similar in appearance to the way Khal Teth had appeared in Jack’s visions, the Altreian was somewhat taller than Jack, standing perhaps six and a half feet, with an oddly handsome face and skin mottled red and black. His pointed ears were swept back along his bald head, and what appeared to be gill slits could be seen along both sides of his neck. But the dancing red glint in those large black eyes was what held Jack’s gaze.

  Then the being was in his mind, delving for any secrets that might be buried there and seeking to take control of his body. But Jack had endured years of fighting for mastery of his own mind against a former member of the Altreian High Council, and if Khal Teth hadn’t been able to break him, this underling damn sure couldn’t.

  Jack felt Khal Teth’s mind join the fray, saw the Altreian crew member’s dark eyes grow wide, and cracked a mirthless smile.

  “Not today, bitch,” Jack said as he stepped through the doorway. “Not today.”

  For the first time in millennia, Khal Teth felt the touch of another Altreian mind—the one thing he had been counting on. Isolated from his own body, he did not have the psionic strength to reach out and dominate another of his own race. But Broljen, the research-vessel commander, had linked his mind to Jack’s in order to dominate this long-anticipated visitor. And by so doing he had opened a mental door that allowed Khal Teth in.

  Broljen seemed surprised when the human was able to resist his initial attempt to take control of his mind, but when Khal Teth latched on to that link, it galvanized the Altreian commander.

  Unfortunately, the contest wasn’t going as Khal Teth expected. What was wrong? He should have been able to sweep this underling away with ease, but instead he found himself in a back-and-forth struggle, and, with every passing second, his opponent gained confidence.

  A new thought occurred to him. He lacked sufficient connection to a physical body to provide substance to his mind attack. Khal Teth was a mere ghost of his former self, and he needed Jack’s assistance.

  Khal Teth shifted his focus, eschewing the attack in favor of erecting a block around Jack’s mind, a defensive maneuver that only encouraged his opponent. Nevertheless, it would buy time for him to establish a tighter connection to his human host.

  “
Jack, I need you to let me take complete control of your body.”

  Jack’s mental response radiated waves of anger. “Like hell.”

  “I have to establish a stronger link in order to dominate this Altreian’s mind.”

  “How about I just shoot him in the head while you keep him busy.”

  His rising frustration at the negotiations almost caused Khal Teth to lose focus, something that would end them both.

  “If this vessel detects that its last crew member is dead, it will send the request for the planet killer. Right now, I need your help.”

  After a moment of hesitation, Khal Teth felt Jack’s mind relax into a quasimeditative calm. He reacted immediately, taking advantage of that opening before Jack could reconsider. The physical intensity of the experience far surpassed any of Khal Teth’s previous connections to the host. Jack’s body felt both powerful and heavy at the same time. Khal Teth flexed his fingers and then clenched them into fists so tight that he felt his knuckles pop as Broljen tried to take control of the human.

  This brain was human, but all sentient species had the inherent structure for telepathy. But like the human ability to wiggle ears, few knew how to initiate such a feat. Khal Teth knew how to take advantage of that inherent psionic capability.

  Activating a particular region of Jack’s brain, Khal Teth gripped the smoky tendrils of Broljen’s thoughts, forcibly extracting them from Jack’s head. Broljen’s presence squirmed to free itself, but with each passing second, Khal Teth’s mental grip grew stronger. As his mind fully connected with Broljen’s, Khal Teth allowed the commander a glimpse of his true identity.

  A low moan escaped Broljen’s lips, his body overcome by a tremor. The Altreian’s eyes bulged, his gill slits fluttering along both sides of his neck. He staggered back two steps before Khal Teth’s will brought him to a complete stop. Then, having locked the commander in place, Khal Teth delved deeply into his mind, extracting control codes.

  Then Khal Teth walked over to the nearest of the five command couches and laid the Sun Staff atop it before turning to follow the commander out of the chamber. At long last, his banishment was almost at its end.