Extremist: A Military Archaeological Space Adventure (The Zenophobia Saga Book 3) by Craig Martelle & Brad R. Torgersen

Author:Craig Martelle & Brad R. Torgersen [Martelle, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Craig Martelle, Inc
Published: 2022-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Direwolf descended to the primitive spaceport’s surface facing relatively little resistance. A few missiles—perhaps automated, perhaps manually targeted?—arced up from launch tubes situated on the crater rim surrounding the spaceport proper, but all were easily neutralized by the Direwolf’s shield system. Which had continued to function per expectation, despite the fact neither of the experts on Sankar’s team had been on-hand to do the installation, as they had done on the Blood Moon. Arbai was reassured that the technology could not only be replicated, but replicated with effective results. Enough to deter this band of clumsy aliens as they weakly shot at a ship which outclasses anything their fledgling space yards had ever produced.

Yangis, of course, roared with delight at the ineffectual fireworks display. Such was his sense of humor.

The others were less amused, and more focused—as was Arbai herself—on the job of making actual contact with whichever faction in the apparent fight was the strongest. Arbai and the rest had no use for taking a moral position on the matter. The aliens’ war was the aliens’ war, and so far as Arbai was concerned they could war with themselves forever if it suited them. She was only interested in getting a final bead on whether or not Sankar and his people were in fact present, and if so, how best to locate and neutralize them.

And perhaps, eventually, Yangis might be indulged in his desire to become literal lord over a new world, populated with a serf species powerless to resist him.

For Arbai, there wasn’t challenge in such a feat. Defeating children in a complex game was never hard, and never very satisfying. No. She wanted Hinteran space proper. And if this newfound system of primitives could help advance her toward that goal, as well as put Sankar in her clutches, then it was worth the risk and trial to voyage all this distance.

Once the Direwolf was on the lunar surface—its seldom-used low-gravity landing struts extended to make contact with the fused and compacted regolith, which had been rolled flat to form the pads for the other ships—the shooting ceased. No other vehicles nor vessels approached nor resisted, but the battle itself seemed to be paused.

“Trying to ascertain us,” Wotan guessed. “If I had an alien warship drop down on my landing field, without firing a shot, but shrugging off all of my shots, I’d be confused and concerned.”

“Or they’re just too busy killing each other that we’re a secondary priority for whatever passes as lunar security in this system,” Avugo said.

“No reason it can’t be both,” Wotik said. “Battles are chaotic enough, and now we’re the wildcard in the mix. If I am the boss of this facility, and I still have people under my command, I am trying to not do anything stupid that loses me the advantage.”

“Might as well try to talk to them from here,” Yangis said, and began using the co-pilot’s communications setup to dial in on the radio band.

“Why him?” Wotan asked.

“What?” Avugo responded.

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