Star Viking (Extinction Wars Book 3) (26 page)

Coming out of the Horus jump gate, we found ourselves half a million kilometers from the planet.

A picket ship twice the size of the
Achilles
hidden in the belly of the
Peru
moved leisurely toward us.

“His particle beam cannons are activating,” Ella told me.

“Hail the ship,” I said.

Ella did so, finally saying, “He wants to know why we’re here.”

“Can you put the speaker on the screen?”

“He won’t agree to that,” Ella told me, “says it is against Horus custom.”

“Tell him we’re gem traders. We had a good season of trade. In order to show our appreciation, we are going to place our three best gems in the planetary shrine.”

Ella relayed the message. Putting a forefinger onto her earbud, she listened to his reply. Finally, she told me, “He likes your story, Commander. The particle beam cannons have gone offline. We’re to proceed to the planet.”

“Is he giving us an escort?” I asked.

“Negative, Commander. I imagine he trusts us.”

I eyed Ella, wondering if that was supposed to be a barb. In any case, the
Peru
headed for the planet.

It soon became apparent that many spaceships orbited Horus, more than we’d expected.

“I’m counting three hundred spacecraft all told,” Ella said.

“Are they all military vessels?” I asked.

“No. Traders, what I take to be yachts, system craft, escort vehicles and a few large battle cruisers and carriers.”

I exhaled sharply, watching the screen, studying the strange world. The desert poles with their visible cracks reminded me of the old Martian canals. There weren’t any on the Red Planet, but in the good old days, people thought Mars did have canals. Some of the oldest pictures showing the planet had them, with artists having penciled them in.

Now, I viewed a world that seemed to have a massive drainage system. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

For the next several hours, the
Peru
headed for Horus.

Ella began picking out the orbitals. They were ugly constructs with heavy armor and big plasma cannons. The Lokhar meant to protect this world.

Soon enough, the largest space station hailed us. The operator gave us a flight schedule to bring us into low orbit. Horus might have old-fashioned log cities, but there was nothing ancient or decrepit about the planetary defenses.

Too soon, the
Peru
braked. In another three hours, we would be in orbit.

“Do you still think we can do this?” Ella asked me.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. We’re going to try.”

Ella nodded.

I stood. “I’m going to get ready.”

“Good luck, Commander,” she said.

Nodding tersely, I stalked off the bridge.

***

As such things went, the
Peru
was a small trader, well able to land on a gravity surface.

Ella asked the space station commander for permission to land at Zelambre’s spaceport. The operator told her we would have to wait several days. Health inspectors would have to board the ship first and clear us.

By now, we knew regular Lokhar customs and had expected this. Fortunately, we had ten stealth pods. They were military grade insertion devices stolen from Sanakaht. Made for bigger and heavier Lokhar maniples, it gave each arban enough space to bring their DZ9 air-cycles.

The
Peru
orbited Horus five times before Zoe brought the
Achilles
out of the transport’s belly. The patrol boat’s sides showed Lokhar lettering. The vessel’s computer held Purple Tamika codes from Sanakaht. We’d been saving that, along with a trick I’d learned in hyperspace from Shah Claath.

The two ships orbited side by side in order to show one radar signature. Finally, zero hour approached. It was night in swampy Zelambre, with first light still hours away.

One by one, we maneuvered the stealth pods out of the
Peru’s
cargo hold and into space. In low orbit over Horus, Star Vikings using thruster packs glided their air-cycles into the drop pods.

Soon, it was my turn. I secured my DZ9 to a rack and then settled into one myself. I wore my symbiotic skin and carried my Bahnkouv along with a Lokhar machine gun and a satchel of sonic grenades.

N7, in his cyber-armor, sat webbed in at the drop pod’s controls.

“Ready, Commander?” the android asked me.

“What does Zoe say?” I asked.

“Everyone is in position, Commander.”

My gut tightened into a tiny ball, squeezing harder and harder. Man, I had to go to the head and take a piss. My stomach seethed, and I found myself trembling with anticipation. I had a bitter surprise for the tigers. Not only would we act like Star Vikings, but the worst sort of vandals, which seemed just in a way.

The word came from an old German tribe called Vandals. In the bad old days of the failing Roman Empire, they had raided the borders. Eventually, the Vandals crossed into Spain and forded the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa. There, they marched on the Roman city of Carthage. They took it, and became the worst sort of pirates—the Vikings of their age. Anyway, a day came when their greatest king, a man named Gaiseric, sailed upon Rome and sacked it. His warriors looted in such a thorough and savage fashion that people coined the phrase, “Looting like Vandals.” In time, the word
vandal
came to mean “wanton destruction.”

I planned on some wanton destruction down on Horus but for a tactical reason. Maybe future generations would curse me, but I didn’t care. I wanted to save humanity, and for that, I would do just about anything. I didn’t give a damn if the Horus tigers had to pay for what other Lokhars had done to Earth. They should have left us alone. That’s all I care say about that.

“Let’s do this,” I told N7. “Let’s show the Purple Lokhars that payback is a bitch.”

***

The stealth drop reminded me of my days with the Jelk Corporation in one particular. We couldn’t see a thing going in.

With cold jets of propulsion so we didn’t give ourselves away with a heat signature, the black drop pod maneuvered for the atmosphere. Internal anti-gravity chutes whined inside the pod. The plunging sensation reminded me of Great America as a kid. I’d ridden the Drop Zone hundreds of times. The ride had gone straight up. Then, it released, and you dropped straight down. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad in the pod if I could have seen outside.

Around me, assault troopers groaned. Others clenched their teeth. We fell and fell toward Horus. Time lost meaning. The plunge seemed to go on forever. Then, with a lurch, the dropping sensation departed. We floated, and the high whining inside the pod ceased.

A ragged cheer went up from the troopers.

“Has anyone spotted us?” I asked N7.

“No radar has touched the outer surface,” he said, with his face pressed against the view plate.

That brought another cheer.

The minutes ticked by. Finally, N7 said, “Landing in thirty seconds. As desired, we’re headed for a vast body of water.”

I waited, and the stealth pod struck the surface. That caused the entire structure to tremble. One air-cycle fell out of its restraints and hit the deck with a crash and raining of parts.

The entire compartment surged upward as if carried by a huge swell.

“There are waves,” N7 said needlessly. “The sides will blow away in three, two, one…”

A sudden shudder caused the sides of the stealth pod to explode outward. I watched one big piece tumble end over end. One hundred meters away, it struck the dark waters with a splash.

At the same time, a wave rolled into our compartment, soaking three troopers.

“Get on your cycles!” I shouted. “Start them up. Get airborne.”

I yanked the release cord and guided my DZ9 in a controlled descent onto the sloshing deck. The entire pod had already begun to sink. More waves rolled toward us. With a jump, I crashed onto the saddle. My thumb pushed the starter. Nothing happened. Around me, other cycles sputtered into mechanical life.

The waves seemed to get bigger and faster the longer we were in the water.

I shoved my thumb against the starter and told the cycle some choice words. That must have done it. My air-mount hummed with sound. I twisted the throttle and the machine rose just in time to avoid the wave.

Unfortunately, two troopers failed to do what the rest of us had. The wave catapulted a DZ9 over the deck and into the soup. It plopped out of sight, sinking. The other cycle slid for the edge but the trooper grabbed it. Using steroid-68 strength magnified by her symbiotic armor, she stopped the machine from reaching the ocean. Straddling the bike, she started it and rose into the air.

The arban leader shouted orders. An air-cycle dipped low, and the stranded trooper climbed aboard as a passenger.

Around us in the storm-tossed sea were other stealth pods. From them rose the wasp-like Star Vikings. In all, ninety-three DZ9s made it. Only one trooper drowned.

“Rollo,” I radioed.

“I know what to do,” he said. Gunning his air-cycle and taking three other troopers with him, Rollo headed for the underwater excavation. Between them in a mesh net, the machines carried a present for the tigers. It was part of our escape plan.

The other ninety cycles hummed as we sped low over the water toward the mountains in the far distance. On one of those plateaus was the city of Zelambre and the selected Hall of Honor.

We’d made the space drop. Now it was time to see if we could hit the city before anyone knew humans were on Horus’ surface.

***

This strike was different from Sanakaht in a number of ways. The biggest difference was the need to travel three hundred kilometers before we struck the first blow.

I led the pack, an air-cycle gang from Earth. The image made me grin for thirty kilometers. Opening the throttle, I flew until my craft shuddered. Below, the ocean whizzed past. Soon, we hit a sandy beach, climbed above plants that looked like palm trees and made the cycles throb with strain as we rode up steep slopes.

It was dark, and thick cloud cover meant no stars. We passed monsters the size of city blocks, slow-moving slug creatures. Lava pits roared with flame fifty meters tall. Darting bat things swooped at me like gnats. Two struck my suit, flopping away as each gave their death-screech. Stupid bats.

“Slow it down,” I ordered.

We were forty kilometers from Zelambre. Horus time, it must have been two o’clock in the morning. Dense cloud cover protected the surface from the star’s harsh radiation. This system’s sun gave off more bad rays than Earth’s did.

The DZ9s skimmed a swamp. I saw the scummy water ripple. Once, giant coils like a Loch Ness monster spun into sight and disappeared just as fast.

“Snakes,” Dmitri said. “I hate snakes.”

I smiled. The Cossack loved old movies and repeating his favorite lines from them.

“No mercy,” I reminded my bikers. “Kill anyone getting in the way. This is one raid that must succeed.”

No one argued. Everyone knew the score. Still, I felt it was good to remind them.

The last ten kilometers showed farmland and bizarre structures. The latter reminded me of the funky statues I used to see on American college campuses. I know. I’m a philistine when it comes to art. I had a simple rule of thumb. Anything I could do wasn’t art. I could fling paint on a canvas. I could twist girders and cement them into the ground. I couldn’t paint like Rembrandt or chisel marble and make it look like a beautiful naked lady. Those things were art. The crap at the end had been the ugliness that the last American upper class had shoveled onto the rest of us and called it beauty.

It seemed like the Purple Tamika Lokhars had the same mental disease.

I gripped my handlebars. On my HUD, the dark log city rose into view. Well,
rose
might be the wrong word. It appeared as a cold, sleepy town with a few of the bizarre artwork statues thrown in.

In the center of town was the biggest log palace that I’d ever seen. If I had to compare it to anything, it would have been the Kremlin in Moscow. The Russians had known how to build with wood. They had those crazy domes and cool spires. Sadly, these days, Moscow was a radioactive crater.

I grabbed a sonic grenade from my pouch. Activating it with my thumb, I dropped it onto the first street. Other Star Vikings did likewise.

Our helmets would stop the debilitating, and in some instances, killing noise. As the DZ9s buzzed Zelambre, we dropped our tiny bundles on a clearly unsuspecting metropolitan suburb.

“Dmitri, now,” I said.

The Cossack ordered his arbans. Almost immediately, missiles roared from under the belly of selected cycles. The small rockets hissed with hellish speed and blasted against the Hall of Honor.

Explosions rocked the log palace. Wood shot into the air. Flames jetted. Fires blazed into existence. More missiles struck.