The Sparse Lands by J.W. Murison

Author:J.W. Murison [Murison, J.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07TTFBCTJ
Goodreads: 51028800
Publisher: Amazon
Published: 2019-07-01T18:00:00+00:00

A fierce but low key argument had already sprung up by the time he reached them.

‘Shut up!’ Charlie snapped. He knelt and lifted the Modloch’s hair. ‘He was tortured into doing this. Look.’

They were all familiar with the marks. ‘Did he say anything?’ San asked.

‘He thanked me for saving him.’

‘For saving him? You mean the children?’

Darrick took a deep breath. ‘No, for saving himself, his honour, his family. A deed like this would have cost him everything. He and his seed would have been eradicated from existence and history.’

‘He told me that aliens had hurt him, he couldn’t stop himself. He didn’t die from the wounds I inflicted on him, something blew in his brain. That haemorrhaging isn’t normal. I suggest you do a joint post-mortem as quickly as possible.’

Charlie stood. ‘Wait a moment.’ He connected to Babes and got her to run the scanning program again. He scanned the front of the corpse and then rolled it over. It picked up a bug in a button. ‘This guy is bugged.’ He cut the button off, and held it up. Just then he picked up a high pitch sound, he tossed it away with a snap of his wrist, it only flew a few feet before exploding with a loud pop. They all ducked.

‘Bastards.’ Charlie cursed.

Darrick laid a hand on his shoulder, ‘You okay?’

‘Aye, they almost got me there.’ Charlie took a step towards San, ‘Which of your allies knew you were coming here today?’

‘My allies.’

‘Which ones?’

San’s eyes flickered closed for a brief second, ‘Vison.’

‘He wouldn’t dare.’ Pan growled.

Both seniors glowered at him. Pan felt a moment’s discomfort. Charlie saved him.

‘I think your son needs a hug, he is looking to his father.’

Parental concern took over and he marched to his son, who broke free from his mother and rushed to him. Pan picked him up.

Darrick swung his attention to Charlie, ‘What’s going on here Charlie?’

‘Looks like a set up to bind the Ranagata to the cause. I think he was supposed to kill the grandson, problem is, he kept swinging his attention from one child to the next. It could have been one of yours Darrick.’

‘How can you know such a thing?’ San demanded.

Charlie took a step closer. ‘I am a member of the Earth’s Goodwill Ambassador’s guard. I am also his chief interrogator. I study something called body language.’

‘I have never heard such rubbish.’

‘Let me demonstrate. How many ships do you have? Five thousand, eight, ten? We have already established that Vison has about the same number. What about the Haspsopot? Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five, thirty?’ Charlie nodded and turned to Darrick. ‘They can sally forth with a force of about fifty thousand ships, maybe a little more.’

San was flabbergasted. ‘What are you?’

‘I thought I had just established that.’

‘This is the man who caught my cousin. I rewarded him with lands and a home on one of my planets. You cannot lie in front of him San. That is why he is here today.’ He turned to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.