Blood Thirsty (Tri System's Edge Series Book 2) Read online

  “But I can help. I wanna help,” Dal insisted.

  Kalla gently placed her hands on his shoulders. “I know you do, and I appreciate that you came all this way, but if the general really has any Vie, you’ll just get in the way.” She hated the look Dal gave her when she finished speaking. She knew she’d hurt his feelings, but she also knew he didn’t understand how dangerous the Vie were.

  “So I came all this way fer nothin’, then?” he said with a frown.

  Her head dropped and she stared at the floor. “Dal, I promise I’ll explain things more when there’s time. But right now . . .” She paused, searching for the right words. “If Murphy’s right, and we do find the general, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Dal stood up straight and looked her in the eyes. “I ain’t scared. I’m ready to fight . . . fer Tuck,” he said with conviction.

  Kalla smiled and shook her head. “Dal, I know you mean well, but this isn’t your fight. Besides, I bet Murphy could use the company. Please, just stay here with him. You’re both safe here.” Not interested in continuing the conversation right now, she turned and took off running, knowing he’d never be able to keep up with her.

  C

  HAPTER 16

  “Warning. Self-destruct in T minus five minutes,” the ship announced.

  General Quinn watched through the glass as the captain’s escape pod shot toward the planet off in the distance, and when it disappeared from his view, he turned toward the escape pod he’d intended to use.

  “No!” was all he said, and then he rushed back into the corridor.

  “Warning. Self-destruct in T minus four minutes.”

  The general could already see the blast door to the bridge when the four-minute warning blared out over the intercom, and he started running toward it. But just before he reached it, noises from behind caught his attention—Vie were in the hallway, and they were on his tail.

  When he reached the door, both hands instinctively dropped to his sides and grabbed ahold of his pistol grips. Then in one fluid motion he pulled his guns from their holsters, spun around to face the Vie, and slammed his back against the door. Smiling, he pulled the triggers in unison unloading them into the oncoming creatures.

  The thick smoke from the gunfire filled the air in the corridor, creating an eerie scene as it swirled under the flashing warning lights. The general stood still and held his breath for a moment as he ascertained the damage. He paid careful attention, making sure there were no signs of life, before finally exhaling again.

  Convinced there was no more threat, at least for now, he quickly ejected the spent magazines and let them fall to the floor. Before they hit the floor, he’d already holstered his guns and retrieved two full magazines from his belt. One at a time, he pulled each pistol up from its holster and reloaded.

  He glared down the dim hallway one last time, making sure it was still clear, then turned and opened the blast door. He hurried inside and shut the door behind him.

  “Warning. Self-destruct in T minus three minutes,” the ship’s intercom warned.

  He rushed to the captain’s chair, sat down, and turned toward the control console. Taking his time, he calmly reached toward a keypad and typed in the override code.

  “Self-destruct deactivated.”

  “That was a little too close,” he muttered, as he slouched in the chair and sighed. But his thoughts did not wander. He needed to decide what to do next and began to look around the vacant bridge.

  All the stations where his crew should be were empty, and while a part of him wanted to be angry that he was alone now on the massive ship, he knew it was his own doing. He couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it all.

  His laughter grew louder and echoed through the room but gradually morphed from a laugh into a yell. Turning to the nearest chair, he threw his fist at it, breaking the back of the chair in half. He stared at the damage he’d caused, looked at his clenched fist, and suddenly became very curious.

  Through all the chaos of making it back to the bridge and stopping the self-destruct, he’d completely overlooked the fact that although he’d been infected, and should have turned into one of the Vie, he instead felt just fine. In fact, he felt more than fine, and as he continued to fixate on the broken chair, he began to wonder what else he could do.

  He had, after all, injected the remainder of Kalla’s blood into his body, and since it hadn’t killed him or turned him, the only logical answer was that it had changed him. It had made him more like her. It was a conclusion that he felt compelled to confirm immediately.

  Looking around the bridge again, his eyes located a steel railing that circled one of the control stations not far from where he stood. The general walked toward the railing and slowly reached out with both hands. He grabbed hold of the rail, wrapping his fingers around its smooth metal surface. Without hesitation, he began to apply pressure, and with his bare hands, he twisted the metal as though it were clay. He released his firm grip and pulled his hands away to reveal the aftermath. The sight brought a big grin to his face. “Astounding,” he blurted out.

  The general held out his hands and clenched them into fists, then opened them again. He felt no pain or fatigue in them at all, and his smile widened. What a normal man could have done only with the help of tools or machinery, the general had done with his bare hands. Purely by accident, he’d become the very thing he’d been trying so hard to create, and he could hardly contain himself.

  Wanting to further test his new abilities, he scanned the room for something bigger and more challenging, but as he turned around the room, the viewport caught his attention. Through it, he could see the planet Svati Prime, and he was reminded of the fact that he was still in space, on a partially disabled ship that was full of monsters.

  He wondered if it were even possible for him to navigate such a large ship without a crew. It wasn’t something he’d ever imagined he would have to do, and yet here he was. As the thought sank in, another quickly joined it. How much damage have the Vie done to the ship? He knew they’d done damage to the comms, but what else had been affected?

  The general made his way back to the captain’s chair and sat down. On the touchscreen of the control console, he pulled up the ship’s diagnostics program and initiated a scan. He read the screen as it listed the results of each scan, making a mental note of the most critical. Life Support, 90 percent; Engines, 98 percent; Navigation, 64 percent; Communications, 5 percent.

  He shook his head as he stared at the screen. “All from an infection,” he said. “I guess Vespe-Keda is out of the question now.”

  From the damage reports he’d just read, he knew the odds of the ship making it very far on auto pilot alone weren’t good. He also knew that he wasn’t about to pilot the ship alone into enemy space. It would be a suicide mission, which meant the Directive planets worth attacking were simply out of range.

  The general leaned back in the chair and massaged his forehead as frustration overcame him. For the first time ever, he had in his possession an almost unstoppable weapon. The Vie were fast, strong, and very aggressive, but without a way to control or contain them, they were of little use to him. The only thing he knew for certain was that he just couldn’t stomach the idea of letting a ship full of such a rare and valuable commodity go to waste.

  It also dawned on him that his new abilities had had no noticeable effect on his mind, and the more he wrestled with his thoughts in search of a solution, the more frustrated he became.

  He stared once more out the viewport at the planet in the distance. The slow rotation of the tiny globe was almost hypnotic, and after several minutes, his eyes felt heavy. He leaned back against the headrest, shut his tired eyes, and fell asleep.

  He soon found himself standing alone in an open field, surrounded by thick, dark fog. Turning in all directions, he determined that he had no idea where he was, or which direction he should go, so he began to walk straight ahead. Not long after he started walking, the sour ste
nch of death filled his nostrils, and he sensed that he wasn’t alone.

  “Who’s there?” he called out. But he was met by more of the same eerie silence that had accompanied him all along. “I know someone’s there,” he insisted, still sensing that a presence was nearby. Yet no evidence could be seen or heard.

  The general turned in a full circle, straining his eyes for the unknown presence, but he found nothing. His heart rate increased, and he could feel beads of sweat building on his forehead.

  “What is this!” he yelled. Why are you doing this?” The sound of the last word he spoke faded into nothing, and a fear unlike anything he’d ever felt began to grow inside him. His hands instinctively reached for his pistols, but he found only empty holsters.

  The fog seemed to move around him, but nothing was there. He let out a scream and dropped to his knees, and that’s when he first heard the sound. It was faint at first, a muffled groan. But as the volume grew louder, the sound began to change. It wasn’t biological, it was electronic. He listened carefully and could hear a sequence of beeps, repeating over and over.

  The noise continued to grow louder, until he thought it would drive him mad. “Enough!” he yelled, trying to plug his ears with his fingers. But nothing he did had any effect. Then, out of nowhere, a loud crash caught him off guard, and the jolt shook him awake.

  After rubbing his eyes, he realized he was still sitting in the captain’s chair on his ship.

  “Time to wake up,” he mumbled. He reached up toward the ceiling and yawned. Then he noticed the beeping sound again. The general leaned over the control console to find that another ship was approaching his, and the beeping was an automatic proximity warning.

  He typed a sequence of commands to override the warning, shutting it off. He then reviewed the data log and pulled up images of the approaching vessel. “Impossible,” he said in disbelief as he stared at the image of the ship. The muscles in his legs tensed up as though ready to launch him to his feet, yet he remained frozen, fixated on the virtual display that projected just above the control console.

  A smile grew on his face, and he jumped to his feet and rushed toward the viewport.

  C

  HAPTER 17

  “Sir, I’ve made multiple attempts to establish communication with the vessel, but I’m not receiving any response.”

  “Send a warning that we will fire if they don’t respond,” Captain Jonas Wolfe ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Wolfe listened as his communications officer hailed the large battleship one more time. In spite of his many years of service in the Directive navy, he still hated those moments just before a confrontation, and right now, he could feel in his gut that something was about to happen. His muscles tensed up as he gripped the armrests of his chair and waited for the outcome of his last order.

  It had been a long time, but he’d done battle before with a ship like the one being hailed, and it hadn’t gone his way. Two other ships from the fleet had arrived just in time to prevent what might have been a huge disaster resulting in the death of thousands, including his own. He thought of that event now as he stared at the large ship on his screen.

  “Sir, still nothing,” the communications officer reported.

  Captain Wolfe took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Is there any indication they’re preparing to attack?” he asked.

  “None, sir. We only get static on the comms. Seems no one’s home, sir.”

  “Who abandons a perfectly good ship?” the captain responded. He squinted his eyes, trying to make sense of it all.

  “Sir,” another officer interrupted. “Should we send a team to investigate?”

  There was a brief silence before the captain finally replied. “Let’s hold off a bit longer. If their intentions aren’t friendly, I’d rather not the risk losing any lives if we can avoid it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “However, I want all battle stations on alert and all available fighter pilots ready to deploy.” He thought again briefly about his last encounter with a ship like this. “If they start something,” he continued, “we’ll have a big fight on our hands.”

  After he gave the order, Captain Wolfe could sense a change in attitude among the crew on the bridge. There was tension in the air, and aside from any necessary chatter, the room became quieter than usual.

  “Keep hailing them,” he ordered as he stood up from his chair and headed toward his private office just behind the main control room. “Commander, join me please,” he insisted, as he briskly walked past his second in command.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  In his office, the captain walked around the desk and sat in his chair, facing the doorway. “Shut the door behind you,” he said as his commander entered. “Take a seat.”

  The commander sat in a padded chair on the opposite side of the desk, facing the captain. “What is it, sir?”

  “We may have a situation on our hands,” Wolfe began. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, unable to shake the worry he felt.

  “Sir, permission to speak freely.”

  Wolfe forced a smile. “Please, Tom, you can drop the formalities. You know there’s no need for that here.”

  “I know,” the commander replied with a grin. “But you looked tense and I thought it might lighten the mood, make you smile.” His own smile faded slightly. “But why so tense? Do you know something I don’t? Because that ship doesn’t seem to be a threat.”

  Wolfe leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “Tom, I’ve seen a ship like that before,” he said. “It was quite a few years ago, inside Directive space. Wasn’t too far from Vespe-Keda, which still amazes me to this day. I was assigned to patrol the area. We weren’t prepared for battle. I mean, who’d be crazy enough to attack a ship so close to the capital planet? They had to know reinforcements were close by. But it happened.”

  “Yeah, I remember hearing about that when I was in the academy,” Tom said. “Some rogue ship that just disappeared.”

  “Right, but before it disappeared, it fired on my ship.” Wolfe paused for a moment and looked away, thinking about what had happened that day. “We weren’t expecting it, but more than that, we weren’t expecting the damage they caused. I was naive enough to believe we were unbeatable, but that one ship . . .” He turned and made eye contact with the commander. “I’ll just say that if not for the other ships in the fleet, I don’t think I’d be sitting here telling you this story.”

  Tom looked surprised. “That had to have been twenty years ago, but you’re saying that ship out there was the one that attacked you?”

  “I don’t know, Tom. All I can tell you is that it looks an awful lot like the one I remember. And what bothers me even more is the fact that it’s just sitting there. I don’t understand why it’s just sitting there.”

  “Then, Jonas, what are we doing here? Let me send a team to check it out.”

  The captain shook his head. “No, not yet. I don’t want to start a fight if we can avoid it. That might send the wrong message.”

  “Alright, point taken,” Tom said with a nod, “but I don’t think waiting around is the right answer, either. If things go bad, reinforcements are too far away. Either we send a team to check it out, or we leave and come back with the fleet.”

  Wolfe nodded. “There’ve been rumors about a militia. Some of the outer planets have reported run-ins with a growing force, but we’ve yet to find them. What if this is that militia? What if we can bring them in?”

  Tom leaned back in his chair. “Are you serious?” he asked, in a raised voice. “You just told me about a ship . . . maybe this one . . . that almost took out one of our own, almost killed you once, and you want to take prisoners?”

  “Tom—”

  “No, you brought me in here because you wanted my advice, so I’m giving it to you. Let’s get out of here and come back with the fleet.”

  Captain Wolfe folded his arms, and with some irritation stared ba
ck at his friend. “Sometimes I can’t stand you, Tom,” he said, cracking a smile.

  “Well, the feeling’s mutual,” Tom replied.

  “Alright, mark their current position, tag them with a locator beacon, and get us out of here. We’ll go meet up with the fleet and decide what to do before we come back here. Sound good?”

  “You’re the captain,” Tom said with a grin.

  ~

  “Kalla, you better get up here,” Davis said over the intercom. “I’ve picked up a signal from another ship.”

  “Let’s go,” she said to Jarek before leaving the cargo hold and heading toward the cockpit. Davis hadn’t said anything about it being the general’s ship, but she hoped it was. They still didn’t have a solid plan for getting aboard, or how things would go down when they did, but she figured they’d work out the details along the way.

  “They’re hailing us,” Davis said to Kalla and Jarek.

  “Open up a channel,” she said. “Let’s answer and see who it is.”

  “What if he’s there, though?” Davis said. “He might recognize our voices.”

  She stood up from the chair and turned to Jarek. “He’s right. Guess you’re up.”

  Jarek, leaning against the back wall of the cockpit, didn’t move. “You really think he’ll recognize your voice over a comm?”

  “I don’t know,” Kalla said, “but do you want to take that chance?”

  Jarek stared back with a look of discomfort and said, “Alright. What do you want me to say?” he asked while slowly approaching the captain’s chair.

  “Start with ‘hello’?” Davis offered.

  Jarek smirked and grunted something unintelligible, then he pressed the comm button on the control panel. “Hello?” he said.

  “This is Commander Wood of the Directive fleet. You are inside known hostile territory, and are hereby ordered to dock for inspection.”

  Jarek swiveled the chair around and stared at Kalla. “That can’t be good.”