Allies (Warriors of Karal Book 5) (12 page)

The planet below looked very similar to Earth: it had blue oceans, green land, large swathes of it. And as they entered the atmosphere the computer readings told them that the air was breathable. Being oxygen-rich, it would have been a perfect planet for humans to settle on, but he imagined there was an indigenous species living here. And that was why this was the rendezvous point. One of their allies must live here.

“Do you know where exactly we are going?” Petra asked, peering out of the window, her eyes wide as she took in the huge forests that filled the screen. It almost seemed impossible that there would be room for them to land; he had never seen a planet with quite so many trees.

“The coordinates are taking us to what seems to be a clearing. Although at the moment it looks like one of your Earth parking lots.” And he was right; as they got closer the sun shimmered off various shades of space vessels, their metal skins reflecting the light of the sun, almost blinding them as they began their low descent.

He landed the ship and saw the relief on Petra’s face that they were finally down on firm ground. He didn’t think it would matter what planet they were on; she had been going stir-crazy on the ship. He knew that their journey through the wormhole had just magnified her feelings about being in space. And he had to admit, he was also more than ready to stand on firm ground and be able to walk more than twenty paces in any direction.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and was heading for the back of the ship, and he smiled at her eagerness. “You do realise that you’re about to meet a lot more aliens than you would ever have imagined.”

“But I guess as long as they are allies I’ll get used to it. And I am, after all, the daughter of the President of Earth.” She smiled at him and then looked shy. “That’s at least what I’m telling myself. I’m going to feel a bit out of my depth.” She came back towards him and kissed his lips, taking his hand. “But I guess as long as we are together, I’ll cope.”

They went to the back of the ship and he pressed the button to lower the ramp. Before it touched the ground, they were both walking down it, breathing in the fresh air, letting it fill their lungs. And it was fresh. This planet was new; it didn’t smell as if they had any industrial manufacturing at all. That was probably why the forests still covered most of the land; nobody had got round to chopping them down yet.

They reached the end of the ramp and set foot on the green grass. A couple of Karalians could be seen coming towards them. He shielded his eyes from the bright sun and looked closer; Okil and Torac were approaching. In that moment, he knew that the situation must be dire for these two Karalians to have been sent here. Especially Torac: he was leader of the guards, leader of the warriors, and Niko was now in no doubt that they were going to war.

“Niko, you got the message from the probe, I’m so pleased, we need a warrior with your piloting skills,” Okil said

Torac added, “We could do with the extra ship.”

“What exactly is going on?” Niko asked as Petra stood silently by his side.

“Did you read the information sent to you?” Torac asked.

“Yes, I did. And I gather that we’re going to try to finish the Hrokili once and for all. They have been causing a lot of trouble across this sector?”

“Yes,” Okil said. “We found a planet that is hospitable to humans.” He looked at Petra now, and gave her a smile. “It’s a beautiful planet, so I’m told. And there are no indigenous people there, so it means that we can make a new colony. Take many of the people from Earth and relocate them there.”

Petra smiled widely, not really knowing what to say. Her eyes filled with tears, but she managed to express her feelings. “I was born with this weight on my shoulders, knowing that my species would die out unless some miracle happened. Only when the Karal arrived on Earth did we have any true hope. There had been talk of sending a few thousand people off into space on ships, just to ensure that the human race survived. A desperate attempt to ensure we did not become extinct. But it was a very big gamble. Especially when we are not capable of going into deep space.” She wiped her eyes, and her voice was choked when she continued, “Thank you. For the humans on Earth, I’d like to say thank you to the Karal for sending out these missions.”

“You sound like your mother,” Okil said. “You were born to be a diplomat.”

Petra blushed. “I’ll never be my mother.” And before he had a chance to say anything else, she added, “And I don’t think I’d want to be like her.”

“I understand what you mean,” Okil said.

Torac spoke up now, his voice hard. “I think that is enough of the niceties. Now we need to get down to the basics of what we are trying to do here. We have many allies, but none are as technologically advanced as us. So most of the work will lie on our shoulders. But we have never shied away from that before.”

Okil spoke now, “Yes, we should go and join the others, our Hier Ruler is giving a speech.”

“You mean he’s here?” Niko asked, surprised.

“Yes. He decided that this was more important than anything else our species has ever done before. We are on the brink of filling our duty to the humans, we are on the brink of our species being complete once more. The first Karalian child has been born, and as we hoped, it is a girl. And now he sees it as his duty to bring peace to this sector so that the humans can have their colony.”

“Female child?” Petra asked. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“There was a mishap in decon’ with the first female who came to Karal. In trying to heal her, she ended up with Karalian DNA in her system. It led to her conceiving a female child,” Okil said, his eyes far away, as he imagined what this meant for their species. “We will always be eternally grateful to the human race. And so we have come to war.”

The four of them made their way past all of the space cruisers, all different shapes and colours, some of them made of materials he had never seen before. When he looked at Petra, he could see she was staring too. Sensing her nervousness, he took her hand and squeezed it, earning himself a weak smile.

“When you said about all the aliens here, I don’t think it truly sank in. But seeing all of these strange spaceships, makes me realise just how many other aliens there are out here in the universe. And they are all so much more advanced than humans. We can only dream of going into space, while everyone else here has already accomplished it. We always thought that we were so advanced, and yet we are not. It makes me feel as if we are still cavemen.”

“Don’t feel so bad,” Okil said. “Wait until you meet the indigenous species of this planet, they have no technology whatsoever, and are covered in fur. Which is why the Hrokili have continually taken advantage of them.”

“So what is the plan?” Niko asked. “I take it there is a plan.”

“Oh yes, Niko, there is a plan. And you have arrived just in time to be part of it.” They walked through the forest a little way, to a clearing where there was a gathering of other races. And before them stood the Hier Ruler. He had never seen Lytril look quite so fierce; he had allowed his colours to flow freely across his face, when normally he kept them under complete control. It gave him the appearance of a warrior, and Niko could see that he had his allies in his thrall, and he was ready for them to do his bidding

“Do you really think we can pull this off?” Petra asked Niko, as she helped him carry the device on board the cruiser. They held one handle each, of the weapon they were going to use to defeat the Hrokili. She looked down at it as they placed it in the cargo hold. “It just seems so small.”

“When you are a warrior, you learn that sometimes it is not brute strength that brings your opponent to his knees. It is using the exact manoeuvre that you need that defeats your opponent; you attack their weakness. And in this case, it is the Hrokili’s technology that keeps them safe. Once we land on the planet and deploy this, that technology will be useless, and if they are as frail as they have been described, they will fall easily.”

“I hope you’re right. That we can rescue the slaves. And put an end to this.” She stood up straight, and nervous butterflies fluttered around her stomach. But there was excitement there too. One of the Karalian warriors, Garth, had described to her the planet Lilith, and now she couldn’t wait to get this phase of the operation out of the way, so they could journey there.

Okil was to be given the role of ruling it, although he would still answer to the Hier Ruler, and she thought he was a good choice. She liked him, he was more human than she could have imagined. And he had an obvious love of her species, and the Karal respected him too. It was only when he had told her that he was been sent there as a punishment, that she had the smallest of doubts about him. But then Niko told her that Okil was only being punished for helping a human child.

“Come, we need to hurry. The rest of the fleet is launching. We must rendezvous with the Hrokili ship in orbit, and then we will follow it to the Hrokili’s home planet.”

“I still can’t quite believe that we going to use their own ship against them.”

“It’s what we’ve already been doing. From what Rikka has been telling me, Karalian warriors have been using it to search this sector of space, hunting down any other Hrokili ships they can find, and destroying them. A little bit like your Trojan horse myth.”

“I like that,” she said. “It seems a perfect way to get revenge. Considering they tried to trap one of the Karalian cruisers by sending out a distress signal.” All in all, the Hrokili seemed like a thoroughly disgusting species; she supposed there had to be one in the universe.

She looked over at Niko, and realised once again, that the Karal were only one or two steps away from being like the Hrokili. In the past they had kidnapped women when they needed them to breed with, not ever thinking about the repercussions of their actions. They took what they needed in order for their species to survive. And she was pretty sure that was what the Hrokili did too. They had been described as frail, as if they could be broken in two with bare hands. So what did you do, if you wanted your species to survive? You took what you needed.

She was sure that the human race would do exactly the same thing if given the option. If the Karal had come to their planet and her people had been able to overpower them, she was fairly certain that they would have just taken the Karal’s cruisers and gone off into space themselves.

She knew from what was being said, that this was what the President had planned, on more than one occasion. But the Karal had thwarted him at every turn; she could see why the Hier Ruler had been so keen to back her mother in her ascendance to the presidency. And she felt a surge of pride that such a man, who had banded together all these allied alien races, had put his trust in her mother.

It made her feel guilty again, to think of the way they had parted. But that was in the past; she had to look to the future now, they had to look to destroying the Hrokili.

Niko was already seated, and she sat down quickly and did her seatbelt up. Niko was already powering up the engines. And she felt the familiar tremble as the cruiser juddered before he released it into space. They climbed out of the atmosphere, rocketing forward and then headed for the Hrokili ship, which loomed huge in the distance. But nothing had prepared her for how big it really was. The closer they got, the more terrifying it looked. She had been told that it was filled with cells, in which the Hrokili would imprison their captives, using electrical prods to keep them in order. And now the Karal were going to use this against them.

This was what the whole plan hinged upon. The device that was in the hold of the cruiser would emit an electromagnetic pulse, which would wipe out their weapons and any ships in the vicinity. It would give the allied aliens, mainly the peace loving Tikira, who were being transported to the Hrokili planet on the huge Hrokili ship, a chance to burst out and go and rescue the slaves.

While this was being carried out, the Karal and the Wambano would work together to put a defence grid around the Hrokili planet, that once activated, would mean they would never leave. It was to be programmed to only ever let Karalian or Wambano vessels through.

As they neared the Hrokili ship, it was already moving away; they were on a tight schedule. Everyone had to work together, and quickly: they needed to act before the Hrokili had any idea what was happening. Niko positioned the cruiser so close behind the Hrokili ship that it was all they could see. He used the computer as guidance, and they powered off across the universe towards their foe.

“How much further do we have to go?” she asked. They have been sat behind the Hrokili ship for an hour now, and it did nothing for her nerves. She hated not being up to see anything, and not knowing what was going on.

“There are about ten more of your Earth minutes until we begin our descent.” Niko checked the computer monitor. “At least as far as I can tell, there are no other Hrokili ships coming to intercept us.”

“Is that something you were expecting?” Petra knew that he kept a lot of things from her, information that she might find worrying. Part of her thanked him for it, but part of her wished she knew everything.

“We were not sure. The Wambano have been monitoring the Hrokili for a long time and know how many spaceships they have. The Karal have so far managed to bring down six of them; the one in front of us is number seven. As far as we know there are another three. But whether they are on the planet or out in space, we have no idea. But once we get down there, we will know what we are dealing with.”

“That doesn’t exactly make me feel confident.”

“You should be. There is enough fighting power between us, that we should be able to bring them down, no matter what they throw at us.”

“But not without casualties.”

“No. Not without casualties. However, we have surprise on our side. The ship in front of us has been programmed to digitally look like one of those that has been destroyed, not the one we captured. This should give us a chance to get onto the ground and deploy the device before they know what’s hit them.”