Last Flight of the Ark (19 page)

Captain James had said there were seventeen empty cells. That meant two others were still around somewhere. Not enough to put the fear of God in him, but that weapon pointed at Jessica’s head was another matter altogether. It took all his strength to hold back. Kaleb remained in a crouch, barely controlling his fury. His vocal cords locked. Verbalizing what went through his head was impossible. Yeah, but he was willing to bet they only had one queen and she was it. Let them attack. He’d take care of them, too.

“Finish this.” The queen glanced over to the man Jessica had shot. He convulsed on the ground, bleeding from a massive hole in his chest. Though he barely had life left, the guard fumbled and pulled something from his pocket. He rolled over and stared at the sky. In his hand, he clutched a device.

The next moment seemed to reel at quarter speed. Kaleb watched as the man’s thumb pressed down. A microsecond later, light bloomed in the sky as the
Genesis II
exploded. He stared at the show, desperately wanting to believe Melissa had gotten the ship far enough from the
Ark
and they’d survived. But a blast that could be seen from space testified of the worst possible outcome. He could have more than two thousand dead in the stars.

The alien’s arm dropped and his heart stopped. His last breath bubbled from his lips like a horse’s nicker and he gave Kaleb a sinister smile before going still.

The queen gave him a soft smile. “How does it feel, watching all your people die when you’re helpless to stop it?”

He growled again, showing his teeth. She was about to find out when he ripped her throat out.

She pressed the weapon tighter to Jessica’s head, stopping him. “You can’t cure the mutation. We tried. Do you think we wanted to live like this, only able to look and be human by eating humans?” She sucked in a breath, struggling to draw more air. “You’re as doomed as we were. You’ll live, alone and hungry. You’ll endure the pain of exile for a long, long time. A thousand years at least. The mutation will extend your life. Trust me, I’ve been around at least that long.”

She couldn’t be that old. He stared in her eyes, seeing into the depths. Old didn’t begin to describe what he saw. She was ageless, as though her soul were frozen in time. He clenched his hands at his sides, keeping his animal under control. She wanted him to suffer, knew it would be her last revenge.

He couldn’t let her have that. He’d take what future he had, but it wouldn’t be alone, isolated from all he knew and loved. One wrong move and the bitch would kill Jessica. Never had he felt so angry or helpless. A ball of heat swelled in his belly, rolling through his body.

“What is the Earth saying? An eye for an eye? Say good-bye to your mate,” she gasped through blue lips.

Kaleb’s muscles tightened. Pain rocketed from the tips of his fingers and toes to his core. Muscles began to stretch and bones cracked.
No good-byes. Not today
. He sprung.

A hole opened in the queen’s torso. She dropped the laser pistol and toppled forward, landing on the unconscious Jessie. He was on her. He ripped her body off and flung her across the clearing, where she smashed into a stand of trees. She wrapped around a trunk in a broken pile of bones.

He dropped to his hands and knees. Another blast of pain washed through him. His muscles convulsed and stretched. His joints popped.
Not now
. Fur rippled over his flexing muscles and his shirt split up the back. Kaleb shook his head.
The rage
. He needed something to ground him, something to keep him in control. He couldn’t lose control. Who knew what he’d do if the animal took over? Another rush of pain twisted through torso. He dropped to his belly and rolled to his side, curling into a ball.
No
.

More agony racked his body. Burning like lava. Then, seconds from becoming a beast, he heard her voice.

“Fucking bitch killed my sister.”

He turned his head. There she was, his anchor. He panted and focused on her face. Melissa held a sawed-off blaster, the biggest they had on the ship and a nice choice. Fifteen crew members from the
Genesis II
accompanied her. All stared, mouths open. Not exactly the way he wanted to break the news to them, but other than their horrified expressions, they looked okay.

He forced himself to relax. The fur began to pull back into his skin. He didn’t take his eyes off Melissa. She dropped next to Jessica, who groaned when she checked her pulse. “She’s fine.”

Kaleb sucked in a deep breath. Control started to return and his fangs began to recede. He reached up and rubbed his jaw. Hair bristled across his fingertips. Damn it. He’d spend the rest of his life shaving at this rate. He sat up. His uniform was a mess. Grabbing the heel of a boot, he slipped it off and tossed it to the side, and then removed the other one. Destroyed. Worthless. His shirt didn’t look any better. It hung in tatters around his shoulders. No wonder they stared. He probably scared the crap out of them.

“You okay, sir?” Melissa eyed him.

He nodded. The chief medical officer squatted down next to him, dropping his pack on the ground. He pulled out a scanner and began to move over him from head to toe. “It looks like stress triggers a release of adrenaline, which seems to cause some sort of a physical shift.” He reached into his bag for an inoculating gun. “I’ll give you a mild sedative to help you relax. It should ease the shift.” Kaleb grabbed his wrist, shook his head, and nodded at Jessica. “Her first.”

“Very well, sir.” He took his scanner and bag over to where Melissa held Jessica. He touched the knot on Jessica’s head and ran his scanner over her. “She’ll be fine. Pissed when she wakes, but fine.”

He swallowed and the constriction in his throat eased, releasing his frozen vocal cords. “You landed?”

“More like crashed, but yeah, I told you I couldn’t wait. Everyone’s okay. The animals are fine.”

“I want the shuttles deployed and every one of these nests destroyed. She said there were more. You all know the repercussions now.”

The medical officer looked up from Jessica. “We have a little bigger picture of the situation than you do. I now fully agree with what you did. I don’t know that Earth Command will, but you did what you had to, to save us.” He lifted the inoculating gun again. Kaleb shook his head. Damn, he hated doctors. He hated being poked, prodded, and scanned. He wasn’t about to deal with it now. “I’m fine.”

Melissa raised a brow and shot the medic a quick look. Not so fast he hadn’t noticed it.

“When we get back to base camp, I’ll determine that myself.” He dropped the sedative in his bag and slipped that onto his back. “You might be in charge of this mission, but I’m the one who determines if you’re medically fit for duty.” He smiled. “For now, we need to show you something, sir.”

“The city? I’ve seen it.”

“You have to see it, sir. It’s not a city. Wait, there’s a city?” Melissa asked.

“A big one, quite impressive.”

Melissa frowned. “What we found between the crash site and here…. I wouldn’t call it impressive. Sickening maybe. They’ve been taking people from Earth for thousands of years. There’s a building full of relics. It appears to be some kind of slaughterhouse. Unbelievable. Ancient Rome, Egypt, and others I couldn’t place, probably from other worlds. From the pile of bones we discovered outside, it looks like their diet mainly consisted of humans and a similar subspecies.”

“Did you find any hibernation chambers or cryo-cells?”

“No. Lots of remains, nothing alive. The bones come from a people very close to human, perhaps even related to us. They have similar skulls, walk upright, and some even appear human if not for the teeth and slight differences in the skeletons. They have armor, uniforms, and weapons unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The creatures that lived in the city and built that slaughterhouse have been doing this for a long time and it appears Earth wasn’t the only planet they acquired their food from. The most recent weapons and uniforms belong to the command crew, but before that they were harvesting other alien species. My guess is the canines on Earth deterred them.”

“That makes sense.” Kaleb turned toward the city. “If that city is what I think it is, it’s not a city but a ship. You might know it better as Atlantis.”

Melissa furrowed her brow. “Excuse me?”

“They were on Earth once. There’s a building with storyboards, mosaics that tell their history, and they didn’t sink into the ocean. They experimented with mutating their people and it got out of hand. They tried to cure it. Their bizarre form of cannibalism and reproduction is the result of it.”

“That’s the strangest thing I think I’ve ever heard.”

“After everything we’ve seen in the last few days, you think that’s strange?”

Kaleb pinged Earth Command and sat back to wait for the response. It was going to be tricky calling in the cavalry and not alerting the threat at Ursus Station while he did it. He’d no clue how many of the aliens were out there, but he expected an attack and the sooner the troops arrived, the better. His crew and the crew of the
Genesis II
had the advantage of the mutation to stop the invaders, but the colonists and remaining ships were vulnerable.

The hijackers weren’t his only concern. With the colonists en route, he didn’t want to take the chance Earth Command wouldn’t allow them to the planet when they arrived.

They had to land on Terra II and that meant Earth Command could know nothing of the mutation until five thousand pairs of feet touched down on the soil. He’d deal with the repercussions of his actions later, which could be a court martial resulting in a life sentence or death. For now, too many lives were at stake and that meant he had to be deceptive.

He’d have to keep tight control of both the colonies and the
Genesis II’s
crew. Those he placed in command of the packs would have a tough job. The mutation enhanced the senses, but also increased the aggressive nature of any infected. He’d felt the loss of control when his adrenaline surged and knew how easy it was to lose control in the boiling emotions when the mutation triggered the shift.

There could be no slips, violence, or incidents that would draw attention. He’d lay out the laws and enforce them like Hammurabi if he had to. An eye for an eye. No second chances. Every crime would have a specified punishment, and no pardons. The mutants had to understand how grave would be the consequences of their actions: the wrong one could doom them all to death. Kaleb was certain he’d stuck his neck in a noose, but he wasn’t taking everyone with him. He, alone, would be responsible.

He was out of options. There was no way in hell he’d tinker with the mutated cells after what he’d seen. He had to cover it up until it was safe to disclose. He knew he’d eventually have to explain the mutation to Earth Command, but they could make it easier on those he’d mutated if he proved they weren’t a danger to the mission, the colonists, or the planet.

He eyed the blinking light on the communications screen that indicated a connection between Ursus Major and Minor. He didn’t want to pick it up and wasn’t looking forward to the conversation. One more necessary evil. He slipped a headset on and handed one each to Jessica and Melissa.

“Earth Command, this is Colonel Kaleb Titan of the
Genesis I
and acting commander of the Terra II settlements.”

“This is Earth Command. Did we hear correctly, sir? You’re commander of the Terra II settlements?”

“Affirmative. I’m the senior ranking officer on the planet.”

“What happened to Colonel Stone?”

“Dead.”

The com went silent. He fidgeted with the mic and started to pace back and forth in the communications room. What were they thinking? “Earth Command, do you copy?” He ran his hand through his hair and plopped down in the seat. This couldn’t be good. Maybe they’d lost the connection? “Are you still there?”

“This is Admiral Johnston,” a voice boomed from the com. Kaleb jumped. They didn’t mess around. They’d gone straight to the top to Admiral Johnston, commander of the research fleet. “Could you repeat the message you just gave my communications officer?”

“We lost our research vessel, the
Genesis II’s
command crew, and a good deal of the technical equipment in an accident.” He glanced at Jessica and Melissa. It wasn’t an untruth, but it felt like it and he’d never been a good liar. Would Earth Command hear the deception behind what he’d said? They had lost the
Genesis II
. They had lost the command crew—truth, but it was no accident. “The
Genesis I
is also grounded. We had to make an emergency landing on the planet.”

“How many lives lost?”

Kaleb swallowed and took a deep breath. A lot. Besides the
Genesis II’s
command team, Captain Bryant James had also lost his life when the queen and her security officers had intercepted him as he made his way back to the shuttle. He wanted to tell the truth, how Bryant was a hero, how he’d found the hive, located the cells, and helped to save the crew of the
Genesis II
, but if he didn’t lie, more than the command crew could die.

“The command shuttle for the
Genesis II
was caught in the shock wave from an explosion. All onboard were killed.”

“The entire command crew, Colonel Titan? How did this happen?”

Melissa nodded, encouraging him to continue. They’d been over the story at least a hundred times. Every member of the
Genesis I
and
II
knew the details by heart and what was at stake. “The captain and the ten other members of the command crew were the last to leave the
Genesis II
. We had a malfunction with the main power cell in the engine room and had to evacuate the ship.” A possibility, since she’d already had engine troubles from the start. “She blew just as the command shuttle disengaged from the umbilical dock. I’ve got a list of the names, ranks, and registration numbers. We didn’t recover any remains.”