Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (97 page)

"We
found
something in the last solar system," the Leonid captain growled. "We were documenting the data, like we were
supposed
to do, not just rushing from solar system to solar system, trying to be the first ship to lay claim to Earth!"

Raphael decided he’d better put a stop to their bickering before things came to blows a second time.
They
didn't know about Lucifer's rebellion, or the fact the Alliance had fractured and Jophiel was no longer their Supreme Commander-General, but that didn't mean the long-standing hostilities which had caused that fracture to occur in the first place hadn't followed them into the uncharted territories where, despite complete radio silence, those frustrations still found a way to manifest.

"There will be
no
laying claim to Earth!" Raphael said. "That planet belongs to the Eternal Emperor and no one else!"

"
He
just wants to get there first so he can name it after himself," the Leonid captain rumbled deep in his chest. Raphael noted the way the big lion unsheathed his claws, itching to continue the fight.

“You know the rules of the naming conventions." The Centauri captain pawed the deck. “He who gets there first, wins."

The briefing room filled with the musky scent of a Leonid who was about to mark his territory, never a good sign, especially as the
Light Emerging
was -
his-
command carrier. Now he understood why Jophiel had always acted like an ice queen. It was time to channel his best impersonation of
‘The Destroyer’
and assume the reins of command.

"There will be
no
renaming Earth," Raphael's voice rose harshly. "The indigenous people of the planet Mikhail crash-landed on call their homeworld Earth, so that is what we shall call it from now on!"

"Earth?" both captains said at the same time. They looked at one another and chuckled.

"Why name your planet after a handful of
cré
?" the Centauri captain said, using the direct Galactic Standard translation of the name which approximately meant 'dirt.'  "Might as well call it mud-pie..."

"Or silt," the Leonid captain said.

"Or Leonid dung," the Centauri captain poked his nemesis in the shoulder with a guffaw.

"Hoof crud."

"Paw toe-jam."

"That's ENOUGH!!!" Raphael bellowed
like some great, angry bull. He flared his golden wings like a raptor, trying to make himself appear bigger than he really was. "Do you two think this mission is a
joke?
"

"No, Sir," both captains said simultaneously. They glanced at one another and sniggered.

Raphael didn't know what was worse. When they fought each other? Or when they decided to gang up on
him
and undermine his command?

"I realize we've reached that point in a deep-space mission when things begin to drag," Raphael said. "But I set the search grid at exactly twelve light-years apart for a
reason
. That's the maximum distance our instruments can detect signs of an atmosphere. So while you two were having your little pissing contest, you missed scanning the planets in
three
different solar systems, each one of those systems which might be Earth and we'd never know it because
you two
dropped the ball!"

Both men looked down and shuffled, duly chastised. Raphael gave them his best stone-faced expression. He'd been getting a whole lot of practice lately trying on different facial expressions and postures, not one of which felt natural. Leading these men was turning out to be about as easy as training Uriel's pet gorock to
'stay.'

"Now
you
go back to that planet and finish your report on the indigenous, pre-sentient population," Raphael ordered the Leonid captain, "so I can report it back to the Eternal Emperor."

The Leonid captain twitched his tail with displeasure.

"And
you,
" he wheeled to face the Centauri,
"you
will backtrack to Cygnus X and survey those three solar systems so we can make sure we didn't cruise right past Mikhail!"

"But our instruments are useless there thanks to the radio interference of the black hole!" the Centauri commander said. "We'll have to search each planet on foot. It will put me behind the other ships by two days!"

"Then you'd better order every man on your ship to go down
with
you!" Raphael said. He stretched upwards, wishing fervently the man wasn't nearly twice his height. "Which means, thanks to you, your men will get no shore leave the next time we find a habitable planet!"

Both captains grumbled and strode out of his office, side by side, good-naturedly complaining about
him
instead of each other for a change. Raphael waited until the door shut, and then grasped the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. Ow! Not that he'd ever assumed command of a fleet would be easy, but he had a new appreciation for Supreme Commander-General, no, now
Private
Jophiel.

He pulled out his small, hand-held portable flatscreen and queued up the picture he always carried of Jophiel holding their son.

"How do you do it, Jophie?" he asked, peeking from the haze of his brain-splitting migraine. “How do you deal with all these egos?”

A mechanical voice informed him Colonel Glicki was at the door.

"Enter!" Raphael called.

The door slid open and in strode Glicki, one of his oldest friends and de facto commander of the
Light Emerging
while he coordinated the movements of the larger search armada.

"Tell me you have some good news?" Raphael asked.

Glicki paused, tilting her heart-shaped green head to indicate such good news was, these days, at best a myth.

"Would you settle for some awful news, Sir?" Glicki asked.

Raphael sighed and ran his fingers through his short, golden hair, grown too long and shaggy from too many responsibilities and not enough time to make a trip down to the ship’s barber.

"Who found it and how bad is it?" Raphael said, already knowing from the concerned hum of Glicki's gossamer under-wings that not only was the news bad, but truly terrible.

"The
Alliance Phoenix
followed that subspace radio signal they'd reported earlier," Glicki said.

Raphael leaned forward, his heart pounding. Glicki's hard exoskeleton was poised in a posture which indicated concern. Had they found Mikhail, only to discover he'd been killed? For weeks now he'd had a terrible, gut-wrenching feeling every time he thought of his best friend.

"What did they find?"

"Remnants of a Free Marid supply base," Glicki said.

Raphael’s relief was short-lived as the humming of her wings grew louder. Okay, not Earth, but something had her worried.

"And…?" Why did she hesitate? What had they found there?

"They'd been eaten," Glicki whispered. She tilted her green antennae in two different directions, a Mantoid gesture of horror and revulsion. "Not too long ago, by our estimate. Perhaps seven weeks?"

"Eaten?" Raphael felt a sense of dread. "Was it wild animals?"

"The base was on an asteroid," Glicki said. She tapped her flatscreen and then shoved the device into his face, her wings humming the entire time. "Here. This says it all."

Raphael stared at the horrific image on the screen. From the way the creatures had been strapped to a makeshift cross-shaped feeding pole and the large chunks of flesh carved out of their bodies, it left no doubt in his mind who the murderers had been.

"Tokoloshe," Raphael said. "What are they doing all the way out here?"

"Everything we know is from a hand-written journal we found tucked under the base-commander's pillow," Glicki said. "All the data-storage devices on the planet have been destroyed."

She pulled up images of the journal, an idiosyncrasy few technologically advanced cultures indulged in anymore. It was written in an encoded version of the native Marid language, the language
all
Marid had spoken until Shay'tan had conquered their motherworld, now only spoken by the Free Marid Confederation. Raphael scrolled through page after page of notes about what cargo had filtered through the base, what ship had dropped it off or picked it up, the date and location, and some random notes including musings about disciplinary issues and how sorely he missed his family. It was a professional smuggler's journal, written in a code Raphael could translate because he was an intelligence officer and had been forced to learn the code.

"Give me the short version," Raphael said.

"We decoded his last few journal entries," Glicki said. "He resupplied a shuttle which
claimed
to be from the
Prince of Tyre
seven weeks ago."

Both of her antennae pointed straight at him.

"The
Prince of Tyre
?" Raphael blurted out. "That ship went missing…"

He trailed off. He and Glicki both knew darned well when the Alliance Prime Minister had purportedly met his death, along with the entire crew in a border dispute on the Sata'an/Alliance border.

"…eight weeks ago," Glicki finished for him.

Raphael glanced over to a picture he kept hung on his wall of Mikhail, their arms tossed carelessly around one another, covered in mud after winning the three day Iron Man competition. If the Tokoloshe found their way to Earth before
he
did, that would open a whole new world of problems that would make Sata'anic possession of the planet appear tame.

He calculated the distance in his head, how far they were from the Tokoloshe Kingdom, the distance from the Alliance, and how far they were from the disputed borderlands where Lucifer had purportedly died.

"Impossible," Raphael said. "Even if the
Prince of Tyre
traveled here with her interstellar warp drives pushed to their limits, there's no way they could have gotten here in seven days."

"Nine," Glicki corrected. "According to the date the base commander wrote in his journal, whoever they rendezvoused with, they met with them nine days after Lucifer was reported dead."

Raphael stared at the images of the handwritten journal. Nine days. It would take two weeks to travel that distance for any known ship except a living needle-ship to make that journey. Whoever had rendezvoused with the Free Marid smugglers, not only had they bamboozled them out of their trade goods, but then they had likely doubled back to kill them.

"What did the
Alliance Phoenix
do with the bodies," Raphael asked.

"We have no way to get them back to their families without breaking radio silence, Sir," Glicki said. "Given the other developments within the Alliance."

"Yes, you're right," Raphael sighed. "Entomb the bodies within their base and send a priest down to say the death rituals."

He flipped back to the screen of the dead one more time, his stomach lurching as he stared at their remains. It sure
looked
like a Tokoloshe ritualistic sacrifice, but some of the details were off, including the fact the bodies had not been completely devoured, only stripped of flesh as though someone wished to inflict as much pain as possible before allowing them to die. Either way, someone had gone through a lot of trouble to implicate the cannibals.

"Could you ask the crew to also leave some sort of memorial?" Raphael added softly. "Gather names of the victims if you can. I'll forward them to the Emperor on the next scheduled needle and let
him
figure out if he wishes to notify the families."

The Free Marid might be little more than smugglers, but once in a while they also acted as allies.
Nobody
deserved to die that kind of death.

"It's already done, Sir," Glicki said. "The
Alliance Phoenix
captain ordered his men to burn the feeding poles as soon as they finish burying the bodies."

"Did you alert the fleet to be on the lookout for ambushes?"

"I did, Sir," Glicki said, "but at only twelve light years apart, I doubt even a dreadnought would risk taking on one of our ships. I've ordered net control to increase check-ins to every half hour."

"What would I do without you?" Raphael asked.

"Shoot your body out the nearest airlock," Glicki said. She whirred her wings in a half-hearted attempt at laughter, but
neither
of them felt like laughing in light of this latest horrific development.

"Get the bean counters on the supplies lists," Raphael said. He handed her back the flatscreen. "Have them plug whatever rendezvous times, dates and locations the base commander wrote down into our search grid, and also have them analyze the supplies. Perhaps some good can come of this if it helps us narrow our search parameters?"