Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (38 page)

“Habraum.”

He turned and recoiled. Marguliese was
right
behind him. “Warn a lad when you do that?” he griped.

“I did.” The Cybernarr pursed her lips. “A word.” She moved briskly to the transport’s rear. Habraum looked after her a moment, unsure of what this meant, but followed nevertheless.

“There are concerns,” Marguliese began softly once they were away from the group, “regarding Mhir’ujiid’s duplicity.”

Habraum sighed, already tired of this. “I’m not losing sleep over Tyris’s issues.”

“Not just Tyris,” she countered. “Khromulus, Khal, V’Korram. And Sgt. Fiyan, of course.”

Habraum leaned against the side of the transport in surprise, but exuded a calm veneer. “Unless it’s open insubordination, everyone’s entitled to their opinions, Maggie.”

Marguliese drew closer, arms folded. “Have you been compromised by Mhir’ujiid’s torture?”

Habraum didn’t need long to answer. “I won’t say it didn’t wallop me. But look at the info she’s given us on the Ghebrekh. The lass genuinely wants to help.”

The Cybernarr fixed her eyes on Habraum, matchless in radiance even by the sparkling xephrite mines. “She has been resourceful.” Marguliese’s nearness, barely a few inches, increased. And Habraum felt a little too comfortable with that. “Yet she is hiding data, specifically regarding those stone pillars.”

Habraum wrinkled his nose again, the cave’s stink as pungent as ever. “You cross-checked other occurrences of those structures?”

“Affirmative.” Marguliese tossed back her long ponytail, a human fidget to stave off suspicion from non-Star Brigadiers about her true nature. “At each location, Ghebrekh suicide bombers have appeared.”

Habraum’s heart dropped. “Including the Thasque attack?”

The Cybernarr nodded.

He sucked his teeth heatedly. “These pillars could be a type of transmatter, or a big coincidence.”

Marguliese arched an eyebrow. “Unlikely.”

“I know,” Habraum finally admitted after a long, pained moment. A murderous growl followed by laughter caught his ears, Khrome pulling a prank on V’Korram.

Marguliese’s next words drew his attention back to her. “Normally you defend your decisions more evenly. But these past few days, you have been abnormally confrontational.” The Cybernarr studied her superior officer. “Is it due to your past captivity and the Ttaunz’s bigotry, or another element?”

The Cerc distractedly ran a gloved hand over his bald scalp. “Another element like what?”

“Like Captain D’Urso,” Marguliese replied without pause.

Habraum narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What’s Sam to do with this?”

Marguliese looked around. “I understand you two have
altered
the parameters of your relationship.”

Habraum stared at her. Of course Marguliese knew. She noticed every minute detail about everything. “
Wow,
Mags. You make it sound
sexy
.” He glanced about warily before whispering, “Yes, Sam and I are…something. So?” He could taste the defensiveness bubbling up his chest.

“Intimate relations with team members can compromise decision-making,” Marguliese continued analytically as if discussing cake ingredients. “Perhaps recent quarrels or substandard sexual performances on her part have preoccupied you—”

“No and NO.” Habraum pushed off the transport, appalled. “Those never affect my field decisions.”

“As I assumed,” Marguliese replied without remorse. “I had to consider all probable scenarios.”

The pair fell silent again, and Habraum refocused on the mission. “Still no energy readings, meaning Ghuj’aega’s invisible until he powers up again. We need a backup plan.”

Marguliese titled her head up slightly. “What do you propose?”

Habraum scratched his chin. “Mhir’ujiid gets info from the N’noa, then we drop her off in Quud territory. After that, we’ll upload the data Lily and V’Korram found to the UComm satellites orbiting Faroor and sync them to our transport—” he began.

“Then execute a global search for any tribes with mixed ethnicities,” Marguliese finished for him.

Habraum smirked. “Exactly.”

The edges of her lips teased at the hint of an impressed smile, a rare thing. “I will notify the team.”

He caught Marguliese by the arm. “No, I’ll do it.” He strode toward the group.

Suddenly, a sharp, incessant bleep grabbed everyone’s attention. At first, Habraum stared blankly at the vehicle. Then Khrome darted forward grinning. The Cerc returned the smile.

A shocked Khal jutted his head out of the transport’s interior and put the event into words. “Big-time spike in temporal/spatial energy readings, guys! Ghuj’aega’s on the move!”

No need for backup plans,
Habraum mused victoriously. “How much time?”

Khrome shrugged. “Between a few nanoclics to several macroms.”

“We’re heading out!” Habraum bellowed. As everyone boarded, he called Tyris on his wristcom.

“Way ahead of you, Captain.” Tyris dashed out of the cavern he had entered earlier, with Uyull and Byzlar hard at his heels. “Khrome made sure this thing activated our wristcoms if we were too far out.”

Behind everyone else came Mhir’ujiid. “We’re going to finally get Ghuj’aega?” she gushed eagerly as she scurried up, and a small pang of guilt twisted the Cerc’s stomach. “We’ll see. Get in,” he ordered over the transport’s sharp alarm, following Mhir’ujiid inside before the door shut behind him. As the detection alarm bleeped relentlessly, the mood inside the transport hummed with tension.

Uyull, Fiyan, and Byzlar sat checking weapons. V’Korram cracked his knuckles, looking surly. Tyris reclined, gazing at nothing. Lily and Marguliese sat side by side; the former fidgeting, the latter still as a statue. Khal sat hunched over, his cockiness gone. Khrome clacked away at several consoles.

Habraum took this in from his helm seat.
Just another Star Brigade mission.
Still, even after over seven years, the anticipation before battle was intoxicating.
The Cerc allowed himself a smug grin.

Mhir’ujiid sat nearby staring a hole into Habraum, clearly sensing something was off. He couldn’t focus on that—not with Ghuj’aega so close.

“Whoa!” Khrome broke the silence, startling Khal. “This distortion is bigger than the Thasque one.”

“What about the origin points, Lieutenant?” Marguliese asked.

The Thulican’s round eyes scanned a holomap before him. “I’m seeing two smaller loci of exotic energy. One’s very unstable. Up to you, Captain.”

Everyone turned toward the Cerc. Habraum weighed both options quickly. The unsteady occurrence could be Ghuj’aega, but if the locus died prematurely, who knew what damage would be done to the transport—and everyone inside. “The steady one.”

Khal eyed his Thulican teammate keenly. “You sure this will work?”

Khrome scowled at him. “I’m the Khrome-daddy. So ‘Yes.’”

Khal rolled his eyes as the Thulican entered a final code. “Next stop…Inorskii Fields.”

Mhir’ujiid jerked around. “Inorskii Fields?” The transport began vibrating and abruptly jerked forward, making Habraum’s teeth rattle. An instant later the shaking stopped, as did the alarm.

Everyone was looking rather shaken. “Khrome?” Habraum asked, stretching his jaw out.

“Oh yeah, the exotic energy here is off the charts. Now let’s see—” The Thulican activated the transport’s main viewscreen from his seat for everyone to see. His proud smile vanished. “What the—”

Liliana frowned and asked the query on everyone’s mind, “Uh, what are we looking at?”

Habraum slowly rose to his full six foot five height and peered closer at the viewscreen.

All he came up with was, “Huh.”

“The wait is over.” Ghuj’aega stood alone at the tent entrance, a gaunt silhouette against a dark, crimson night.

Taorr lay sprawled. Every part of him ached. “The wait for what?” he rasped, his throat parched.

Ghuj’aega’s eyes glittered a deep violet. “Your death,” he replied, as if it were obvious.

Taorr actually felt relief instead of fear. Accepting his fate, he wearily rose to his feet.

If only he could have seen his parents or even his brother Gaorr again. And Mhir’ujiid… He filled his head with thoughts of her, steeling himself for the end.

Ghuj’aega sneered at something near the tent’s far end. “Quite the appetite, boy.”

Taorr closed his eyes in self-disgust, refusing to acknowledge the picked-clean forearm and finger bones behind him. “Just get this over with.”

Ghuj’aega shook his head. “Not yet.” Clasping both his hands together, a warm light grew between them, chasing away shadows. He spread his arms wide, stretching the swirling crimson bubble far wider than himself or Taorr. When the massive energy sphere fully formed, Ghuj’aega stood aside. “After you.”

Taorr gaped at the bubble, but entered without protest. A brief tingle passed over his skin. As soon as Ghuj’aega followed him in, a hard yank from inside his stomach jerked him forward like before—everything blurring past in streaks of blood red.

The jerking sensation soon faded, but the Ttaunz flew forward and face first to the ground. He lay there with no intention of getting up. Fear clung to Taorr like skin, keeping him glued to the sphere’s floor. At least the nausea wasn’t as strong as last time.

“On your feet,” Ghuj’aega ordered.

Knowing he was near death, the threat of violence had almost no sway over Taorr. Regardless, he lethargically pushed up off the ground. They were still inside Ghuj’aega’s crimson bubble. But the surrounding vistas outside were new... For the first time in days, he felt something besides terror or pain.

“Where—” the Ttaunz caught himself. “
When
…are we?”

To his shock, Ghuj’aega smiled happily. “Faroor as it was,” he breathed. “And as it will be again.”

Taorr recognized the warmth of Herope’s pinkish light, Faroor’s trademark rock formations and mountains, and the rolling hills blanketed with reddish urbrui. But the architecture of the buildings below him as he and Ghuj’aega floated past in their sphere…none looked familiar. Even the air tasted different.

Taorr saw a sprawling metropolis of stone, glass, and metal. Some buildings appeared simple and blocky, others resembling colossal mirror-like cylinders. The tallest structures only reached skyscraper height, none resembling any Ttaunzian or other Union species’ architecture. The streets below displayed bustling veins of vehicles—none
hovering
off the ground. He’d seen holographic constructs of ancient cities like this in historic holobooks, but from other planets... “This can’t be my world,” Taorr whispered.

“It never was
your
world,” Ghuj’aega reminded cruelly.

Taorr bit his tongue, choosing to get more information instead. “How far back are we?” he asked, the question sounding preposterous to his own ears.

“Over four thousand years,” the tattooed Farooqua replied.

Taorr dropped to his knees. “What—
how
?” His mind tried digesting that statement…and couldn’t.

The surroundings had mesmerized Ghuj’aega, but he still had the attention to answer. “I hadn’t fully mastered time travel yet. Now, I have. We are just out of sync. No one sees us unless I make it so.”

“Why four millennia?” Taorr looked again to the crimson skies, strangely seeing no sign of Qos.

“On this day, the
true
Farooqua died.” Ghuj’aega studied Taorr’s confusion and snorted. “You won’t find your moon up there.”

Taorr immediately looked back down at him. “Why not? Where is Qos?” Ghuj’aega stared ahead mutely. Their energy sphere dipped lower, speeding through rows of majestic towers. One swift turn later, the Ghebrekh had steered them to an off-white building shaped like a spike shooting skyward.

“We’re here.” The Ghebrekh terrorist’s words came out in a low snarl.

Taorr caught the dark look shrouding Ghuj’aega’s angular features as he spoke. His violet eyes pulsed brightly. Suddenly, the fear eluding the Ttaunz over the past day returned like a gut punch.

He had so many questions his brain hurt. But the son of Maorridus Magnus remained silent, rising to his feet and putting on a brave face as they approached the spike-like building.

Habraum stood with hands on hips, glaring at the military transport’s viewscreen that displayed Inorskii Fields. Confusion ruled every thought. He and his team should have been facing the Ghebrekh. Instead, the Cerc and his Brigadiers faced some vacant rolling valley. The only thing out here was a chain of interlocked buildings, each structure sporting domed tops pulsating against the dark, velvety skies.

“Are we where we should be?” Habraum asked brusquely.

“Yes.” V’Korram scanned over his group of holoscreens diligently.

“Then where are the Ghebrekh, and what the
hazik…
is that?” the Cerc angrily gestured at the viewscreen.

“I see buildings,” Khal said, the look on his handsome face echoing Habraum’s befuddlement. “But other than the energy readings, it’s as if nothing is in that vale.”

“Cloaking technology, obviously,” Marguliese added.

Fiyan walked forward. Her craniowhisks twitched wildly. “Which most buildings don’t have unless they’re secret government facilities or illegal.” She turned to Khrome. “Is it emitting energy?”

Khrome shook his head. “Not at all. But the whole area has the most concentrated readings I’ve seen since Thasque. This complex, or where it should be, is sucking up energy like a sponge.”

Habraum clenched his jaw, attempting to absorb this. “Why?”

“Who knows?” Khal shrugged. “I mean, Khrome can’t be the only one to discover its temporal and spatial properties.”

“Can’t we just transmat back to the xephrite mines?” Lily asked.

Khrome shook his head. “Since there’s no exotic energy there, no. And I’m no longer detecting that second unstable reading.”

Marguliese scanned over the screen quickly. “The building’s design is undeniably Ttaunzian, using a blend of obsolete architectures derived from before they settled on Faroor. No doubt to avoid association if detected.”

Byzlar stared at her. “You got all that off a building you’ve never seen before?”