Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) (18 page)

The human or humanoid had elongated features and intensely blue eyes. He wore a platinum headband around his extra-tall forehead. He had a longish nose, a regular mouth and almost no chin. He was white with a sparse amount of dark hair on top of his strange head. A tall collar jutted into view, with a glimmering pendant around his throat.

Hungry for details, for data, Nagasaki peered behind the humanoid. Another manlike creature with similar features walked past. The station appeared to have gravity. Once the being moved out of sight, Nagasaki saw a clear dome farther back. There was a similar humanoid in it, a seated man. The one in the dome pressed the metallic band around his forehead against two discs attached to tubes curving down out of sight.

Before Nagasaki could recover from his astonishment, the first humanoid, the one regarding him, opened his mouth. The teeth were too small, but otherwise ordinary enough.

The humanoid spoke, and Nagasaki found himself leaning forward, trying to listen. No words came, or nothing audible, in any case.

“What are you saying?” Nagasaki asked.

The lips moved again, and a sharp pain spiked in Nagasaki’s head. He winced. The humanoid spoke more rapidly. Still, Nagasaki didn’t hear a thing. Now, however, the pain in his head increased. He reached up and pressed a palm against his temple.

On-screen, the humanoid smiled cruelly, and he appeared to nod to someone Nagasaki couldn’t see.

“Tanaka, why aren’t we getting any sound?”

It was the last thing Nagasaki asked. The humanoid regarded him once more and spoke quickly. No audible words sounded, but the pain stopped in Nagasaki’s head. He nodded after a moment and his sense of unease vanished. He spoke crisply, giving orders to Tanaka and the other two compliant officers.

Teleship
Discovery
rotated so its mighty fusion engines aimed in the direction of its travel. The engines engaged, and a long fusion burn increased as the ship decelerated at three and a half gravities.

The humanoid with the platinum band around his forehead watched through the screen. After Nagasaki performed the braking maneuver, the humanoid raised one of his hands. He had elongated, skinny fingers. The man spoke without making a sound.

In his command chair, Nagasaki grew sleepy. His eyelids sank until they closed. The captain and his three-man bridge crew were out, with the rest of the ship in communication link with the nearing alien vessel.

2

The klaxons stopped wailing but the crushing Gs did not. Cyrus lay in his cot in his tiny cell in the brig, enduring as well as he could.

He’d been in here several days already, having spoken to no one but the marine guard who gave him a meal once every twenty-four hours. He was supposed to be in the brig with Chief Monitor Argon, but he hadn’t seen the man. No doubt the giant was in a nearby cell.

It had been a boring stretch of time. This was little better than solitary confinement. There was no screen, no computer, no e-reader—nothing to help him pass the time.

He’d been doing a lot of thinking, but mostly practicing his mind shield. He’d felt Jasper try to probe him several times, but he believed the telepath had failed each time. His prolonged thinking had led Cyrus to the conclusion that he should learn to act quicker and with greater decisiveness.

At the moment, other than his automatic mind shield, he didn’t practice his psi-powers nor did he do much heavy thinking. He just endured the crushing Gs pressing him into the cot.

How long were they going to—?
Is the ship accelerating or decelerating?
Why would
Discovery
do either?

It was at this point that he felt Jasper again. The telepath attempted another of his psi probes.

A tight grin curved onto Cyrus’s face. Defeating the probe was better than boredom, as it gave him something to do.

Bring it on
.

Whether Jasper read the thought or not, the man certainly did bring it on. The mind-probe intensified.

While on the cot, Cyrus frowned. This psi-attack was different from Jasper’s usual method. Usually, the telepath just bored in with a burst of mind-power. This was more concentrated and lasted longer.

For a moment, he felt bafflement reign in the attacking mind. Then a clot of fury struck.

Cyrus didn’t have time to cry out, gasp, or wince. He clutched the edges of his cot and strove to defend himself. He blocked, even as he felt his shield slipping. The attacking mind gained ground.

“No,” Cyrus whispered. He willed everything he had into holding, using his pent-up anger and fear of the BAD THING to fuel his shield.

In that moment, he received something new. It was a mental image. It showed him a man with an elongated cranium. The man rested his tall forehead and the
baan
he wore against the amplifying discs.

What the hell?

The image faded, but the not the mental attack. Cyrus concentrated, holding the shield. The image… had Jasper just put that in his mind?

If felt real. What was it? Was that an alien?

The surprise weakened his shield and the alien gained ground.

Cyrus nodded grimly. This wasn’t Jasper. An alien attacked his mind. Had the alien been the one to screw with Jasper earlier?

The alien pressed his advantage and Cyrus’s eyelids grew heavy.

Is he trying to put me to sleep?
Why would an alien attempt that? Maybe because
Discovery
was decelerating. If the Teleship had made the final shift, they were in the New Eden system. The aliens must want the Teleship for their own. That’s why they’d brought them here.

Suddenly, the psi-attack ceased.

Cyrus exhaled and he found that sweat soaked his skin. He was exhausted, as if he’d worked out on Venice’s exercise machine. He lay on the cot, trying to order his thoughts, listing what he knew:

They were in the New Eden system.

An alien had just attempted mental domination.

The ship decelerated much harder than ordinary.

“It sounds like the disaster has hit,” he whispered.

Cyrus wiped sweat out of his eyes. Aliens had just tried to batter down his mind. He bared his teeth. Maybe these aliens had destroyed Venice and Roxie, but he wasn’t going to let them destroy him. He would fight to the end. First, he had to figure out what was going on.

The alien wore a
baan
, whatever
that
was. The alien had pressed his forehead and
baan
against amplifying discs. Were those like the tele-ring in the sense that it increased mental power?

Cyrus bet that was the answer.

“Hey!” he shouted. “I need to talk to Jasper. Can anyone hear me?” He waited, but no one answered. “Hey! I’m ready to give up. Tell Jasper he can read my mind. I’ll drop my block for him.”

It wasn’t true, but he figured that should bring Jasper running.

Again, there was no response. He shouted five more times, but it made no difference.

Maybe the others can’t answer.
He grunted. It was the oldest lesson of his life: he couldn’t count on others, just himself. He had to act and he had to act
now
.

Carefully, because of the Gs, Cyrus rolled his body to the edge of the cot. The acceleration made it much harder to breathe. If he tried walking around now, he’d rip a tendon or muscle. He pulled his underwear tighter to protect his privates, drew his knees against his chest, and tied his shoelaces. He eased a leg off the cot and worked down onto his hands and knees. This was a miserable way to travel, but caution was in order under these G forces.

Slowly and methodically, Cyrus crawled to the portal. He hammered against it several times using the bottom of his fist. Just like before, there was no answer. He gathered his thoughts and readied himself. He would be vulnerable to another mind attack as he did this. He would need to work fast.

One, two, three—

Cyrus used his ability, tripped the inner portal mechanism, and the hatch swished open.

He crawled through into the corridor. Pressed against the farthest corner was a soundly sleeping marine. The man was hunched in an awkward position. How could he keep sleeping like that?

The answer was easy: The alien had put the marine to sleep. That would imply others aboard
Discovery
also slept.

Am I the only one awake?

A shiver of fear shot up his back and curled his gut. Jasper would have been in a weakened state after shifting. Might the alien have known that and put their telepath to sleep at exactly the right moment?

First rubbing his eyes, Cyrus craned his neck, checking the other portals. Several had green occupied lights. He crawled to the nearest. The switch was high enough that he would have to work up to his knees.

He used the wall and raised himself. This was definitely like using the workout machine. It was a good thing he was in prime physical condition. He pressed a switch and the portal opened. A monitor lay on the floor. His right arm lay at an awkward angle as if broken.

Cyrus crawled in and shook the monitor. The man kept sleeping.

“Hey! Wake up! The ship is under attack!”

It didn’t help. The monitor didn’t even twitch. He was out for the count.

Cyrus inspected the arm. Yeah, it was broken all right. The pain must be intense.

He would have remained and set the bone, but he knew time was critical. Despite his hurry, he crawled at a deliberate speed and went to the next green-lit portal. He opened it and found another monitor. He found three more monitors after that, each one sound asleep.

I really am alone
. He was used to it, but just like his early days on the streets, fear ate at him. This was uniquely horrible.

At the last cell, he found something different. Chief Monitor Argon lay on the floor with his eyes open.

“Can you hear me?” Cyrus shouted.

The NKV officer’s eyes shifted and focused on him.

Cyrus’s heart beat wildly with hope. Facing danger was always easier with someone else standing with you. It made it harder to act like a coward. Argon must be in here because he could block Jasper at times. Had the monitor resisted the alien’s thoughts?

Cyrus crawled into the cell.

“Special Fourth Class Cyrus?” Argon asked in a dry, raspy voice.

“That’s right.”

“Are you simply in my mind? Are you real?”

“You’re not hallucinating,” Cyrus told him.

“We’re using over three Gs acceleration.”

“I wouldn’t know about the precise amount, but I think we’re decelerating, not accelerating. One thing is sure, it’s hard to walk.”

“Tell me the exact situation,” the chief monitor said.

Argon had been in the brig longer than anyone else had. Likely, no one had told him what had happened.

“Uh, what’s the last thing you remember?” Cyrus asked.

“Captain Nagasaki drugged me.”

Cyrus told him what had occurred after that, how Jasper had taken over the ship. He also told Argon about the sleeping marine in the corridor, the sleeping monitors, and the one with the broken arm.

“I felt someone attempting to dominate me,” Argon said. “I resisted.”

Cyrus plunged ahead and told Argon about his impression of the alien with the elongated forehead.

Intensity radiated from the chief monitor’s eyes. He didn’t question Cyrus about the reality of the impression. Instead, Argon said, “We must reach the bridge.”

“Do you know your way there?” The Teleship was big and had many passageways. Cyrus had never been in the command section of the ship.

“Come. We will crawl there while we can. If the alien mind returns, can you defend me from him?”

“That would be a good trick,” Cyrus said. “But I don’t think so. I can barely defend myself.”

“Let’s hurry then.”

“Sure. I’ll follow you.”

Argon led the way out of the brig, crawling on his hands and knees. The giant wore the same black uniform as the day Nagasaki had drugged him. The garments were rumpled and smelly, but that hardly mattered. Argon crawled through the steel corridors and Cyrus followed. Along the way, they found several sleeping crewmembers and marines.

Argon took a hand laser from one and buckled a belt with extra batteries around his waist. “Do the same,” he told Cyrus.

Cyrus didn’t care for the extra drag, but he knew it was a good idea. After what seemed like forever, Cyrus’s pants rubbed through at the knees. His hands ached every time he set down his palms.

“I need to rest a minute,” he said.

On his hands and knees, Argon looked back at him. Sweat bathed the chief monitor’s face. “Time is critical.”

“I understand. But if the alien mind returns and we’re too tired to defend our brains…”

“That is rational. Yes, we will rest.”

Carefully, Cyrus leaned against a bulkhead as he sat on his butt, letting his muscles rest. Several of his muscles twitched with spasms.

“It’s crazy that these aliens are people similar to us,” Cyrus said.

Argon grunted as he too rested against the bulkhead.

“Do you believe in similar evolution?” Cyrus asked.

“No,” Argon said. “I believe in the Creator and creation.”

“Oh.”

“It is strange that something like humans live in this system—if you correctly ‘saw’ him as he exists.”

“You don’t believe I did see him?” Cyrus asked.

“I believe the mind often sees what it wants to see. It is possible you sensed him in a manner convenient to your own perceptions of the universe.”

Cyrus thought about that. He didn’t think it would have freaked him out if the man had turned out to be a genuine alien. He asked, “If we can’t trust our senses, what can we trust?”

“A logical argument,” Argon said. “Are you ready?”

Cyrus’s hands ached and he didn’t want to crawl on his knees anymore. If he stayed, however, he’d be giving up, surrendering to the BAD THING. His lips tightened. “Let’s go.”

They continued the crawl and found more sleeping people. None showed a flicker no matter how hard Argon shook them.

“Gassing could have done this,” Cyrus said.

“Then why aren’t we gassed?” Argon said. “No. The facts show otherwise. You have mind powers, a reinforced ability to block and I have the strongest
concentration shield on the Teleship. It is rational that you and I are the only ones awake.”