Birthright: Book I of the Temujin Saga (12 page)

Sam shook his head. “Replodia.”

Temujin blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Planet Replodia,” Sam elaborated. “Alexander was supplied with three Replodian operatives to aid him in his fight against you. I happen to be one of those operatives.”

“You are an alien?”

“Correctamundo,”
said Sam.

“Let us assume for a moment that I believe you,” said the Khan, setting down his glass. “What is it that you wish to gain from this transaction? Nothing is free.”

“I want a job,” said Sam. “And the chance to put foot to TDC ass.”

“Is that all?”

Sam grinned. “That’s it.”

The Khan smiled. “I think we can accommodate you.”

“Good deal.”

“My lord.” Sukh stepped forward. “We do not need this foreign dog’s... assistance. My troops—”

“Troops?” Sam said. “Oh, right. You mean that Kindergarten I met outside. Those saps couldn’t conquer a Sunday school picnic.”

Sukh cursed in Mongolian and pulled his sword, exposing a few inches of polished steel.

Temujin held up a hand. “Stand down, Captain.”

Sukh stepped back and slid the blade back into its sheathe. He bowed his head, his eyes flicking up to glower at the Replodian.

Sam sneered. “Sit, Sookie!
Goooood
boy.”

“Silence!” Temujin barked.

Sam held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Now,” said the Khan, his voice laden with anticipation, “the child’s name.”

“You got it,” said Sam. “The kid’s name is
Alexwalulllilmmm
.”

Temujin blinked. “What?”

Sam shook his head and tried again. “His name is Alex…
Alexwallllrooob
.
Alexweerrrebeelll
. Damn it!”

“What is it?” demanded the Khan. “Give me the name.
Now!
”

Sam gritted his teeth and snarled, “I can’t!”

“Why not?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. Something’s not allowing me to answer the question.”

“Forget the name,” the Khan bellowed. “The location.”

Sam nodded. “Okay. He lives just outside of
Bowaaaarooom
.
Banawerp
. He lives in
Iwerum
.” The Replodian swore and tore at his hair.

“What is the problem?” Temujin growled. “Why won’t you answer?”

Sam shook his head, clearing the growing dizziness. “It must be some kind of hidden subroutine in my programming. I’m unable to divulge sensitive information about my host organism.”

“What?”

The entire room began to shake with Temujin’s anger and the unfinished glass of wine sitting atop the sarcophagus shattered. Chuluun and Sukh covered their faces until the invisible wave of power finally subsided.

“It’s probably some kind of failsafe to keep me from talking in case of capture and torture,” Sam explained.

“Let us test that theory, shall we?” Temujin reached out with his mind and bore down on Sam’s skull with his power.

Sam scoffed, “That won’t work on me, pal. I’m not human, remember? This isn’t even my true form.”

“Then let us try more conventional methods. Chuluun!”

The Mongol general drew his sword and advanced on the Replodian. Sam drew a crudely constructed pistol with dual nozzles protruding from the barrel and fired a warning shot past Chuluun’s head. Two chemicals — one red, one blue — combined in midair into a stream of purple gel that burned through the silk curtains and exposed an ugly, cracked concrete wall on the other side. The gel sizzled as it ate through the masonry, sending plumes of acrid smoke up the wall.

Sam adjusted his aim directly between the general’s eyes. “One more step and I’ll melt your face off, Jackie Chan!”

Temujin pointed at the pistol. “What is
that
?”

“You like it?” Sam kept the pistol trained on Chuluun. “I made it on the freighter that carried me across the Pacific. It’s a little crude, I’ll admit, but it’s really amazing what a few spare parts and some common household chemicals can do in a pinch.”

“Can you make more of these weapons?”

Sam nodded. “No problem.”

With a wave of the Khan’s hand, the two Mongol officers sheathed their weapons. The warrior king stepped toward Sam, a smile spreading across his face.

“Perhaps you
can
serve me after all.”

Part III: Quintin

Chapter Twelve

Folaxian System, Folax Alpha 5 - Planet Rhen’fa

September 25th - Three Years Later

Kreeg Bonwoppa swatted the baka leaves aside and ran as fast as his four insectoid legs would carry him. His breath came in ragged gasps as more leaves slapped him in the face, stinging all sixteen of his eyes. As the edge of the forest came into sight, he looked over his shoulder. No one was following him.

He slowed to a stop and, when his breathing returned to normal, allowed himself a low chuckle at the expense of his would-be captors. The fools. Those worthless hacks at Hunter HQ had sent a child after him. A
human
child no less. No human could outrun a tarnak.

He was startled by a loud rustling in the trees above him and scanned the leafy canopy for a moment. A winged creature erupted from the foliage and screeched overhead. Kreeg exhaled. For a moment, he’d actually thought the little punk had caught up to him.

Ridiculous.

As he turned to exit the forest, a bipedal figure dropped out of the trees in front of him, silhouetted against the red starlight filtering through the trees. A pair of glowing green eyes burned from the figure’s shadowy face.

Kreeg took a step back. “Impossible!”

“Kreeg Bonwoppa,” the figure said, continuing in Phaedojian, “you are under arrest for the murder of Hunter Ian Manson and escaping from Moebius Penal Colony.”

“Screw you, flesh-bag!” Kreeg’s mandibles clicked tauntingly. “You’ll never take me alive.”

The hunter took a step closer and Kreeg could plainly make out the human’s long red hair. He was young. It was impossible to make an educated approximation of his age, since he had only seen a few fully developed humans. The hunter he’d killed, Manson, had been much older than this brat.

The kid smirked. “Who said my orders say anything about bringing you in
alive
?”

“You can’t kill me!” Kreeg staggered backward. “Your job is to retrieve me and take me back to prison. I’m unarmed. You’re not allowed to use lethal force in capturing a fugitive. You won’t get paid.”

The human shrugged. “When pursuing a hunter killer, things tend to get mixed up. Warrants disappear. Orders get misinterpreted. The fugitive goes missing. You know how these things go.”

Kreeg’s multiple eyes blinked spasmodically and he took another step backward. The hunter compensated with a long forward stride, his hand slowly moving toward the laser sword sheathed on his belt.

“Stay back,” warned Kreeg.

“Surrender!” said the human. “And I might make this quick.”

Seeing no other way out, the tarnak fugitive unfolded the razor-sharp serrated appendages concealed in his arms. “I said stay back!”

The hunter deepened his stance and stared at the limbs, which had been used by primitive tarnaks for catching and tearing apart prey. Since becoming “civilized” and joining the Federation, however, the appendages had become redundant. Recently convicted tarnak criminals underwent surgery to remove them, but grandfathered-in convicts like Kreeg Bonwoppa were allowed to keep them. This was unfortunate, because Bonwoppa used them to kill Ian Manson when he decided he had seen enough of Moebius Penal Colony.

“Looking to add another murder onto your sentence, Kreeg?” The human drew the energy sword, his thumb poised on the igniter switch.

“I’ll kill a hundred of you if it means not going back to Moebius,” Kreeg snarled. He lunged at the hunter with a screeching battle cry.

The human leapt into the air and flew over the charging tarnak, surprised by the sudden burst of speed. As his feet touched the ground, he flicked his thumb and a white-hot beam projected from the sword’s hilt. Kreeg turned around on his insectlike legs and clicked his mandibles threateningly.

“I think you’ll find that my head doesn’t come off quite so easily, Kreeg,” said the hunter.

The tarnak raised his appendages and shrieked as he lunged in for the killing blow. Ready this time, the human sidestepped the attack and sliced both appendages off with an upward swipe of the energy blade. Kreeg squealed and staggered to a halt, staring down at the smoking stumps. The tarnak fell to what passed for his knees and sobbed pitifully as thick, gelatinous green goo seeped from the wounds. A shadow fell over him, and Kreeg looked up into the hunter’s cold, accusing eyes.

“Please,” Kreeg whimpered. “Show mercy. Please.”

“Kreeg Bonwoppa…” The hunter raised the sword high over his head. “You have been charged with escaping from a Federation penal colony, murdering a hunter, theft of a long-range Federation spacecraft, and resisting arrest. I hereby summarily sentence you to death.”

“You can’t do that!”

The hunter shrugged. “I’m making this up as I go.”

Kreeg closed his eyes and cringed as the white-hot blade sizzled through the air and sliced through his neck.

Chapter Thirteen

Moebius Penal Colony, Moebius Alpha 2, beta 3

Hunter HQ

Moebius Penal Colony, located on the second planet from the giant blue sun — likewise named Moebius — was a volcanic rock, with a high sulfur content atmosphere and mercury pools and seas that stretched for hundreds of miles. There were no sentient beings indigenous to the lava planet, and any prisoners able to survive unprotected on the surface were sent to the frigid D’mak Tel prison on Moebius Alpha 12.

Moebius prisoners were protected from the harsh elements by powerful heat shields, and were given insulated suits while working within the obsidian mines. The prisoners’ complaints that the suits were defective, and only blocked a minuscule amount of heat, fell on deaf ears. The headquarters of the hunters, a Federation-funded interstellar police force, was located on the planet’s third moon, where — thanks to ample thermal shielding — the heat was a bit more tolerable.

Claims agent Yimza Noofra looked up from painting the raised scales on the back of her hand as the door to the shuttle dock opened. She rolled her yellow reptilian eyes as the red-haired human stepped through the door with a canvas bag gripped tightly in his hand. The bag was wet, and a foul-smelling green substance dripped from the bottom, leaving a sticky trail on the freshly buffed floor. This made the third time today that a hunter had made a mess in her office. The human reached into the bag and, gripping it by the antennae, pulled out a severed tarnak head and placed it on the counter with a wet
splat
.

“Quintin MacLaren collecting the bounty on Kreeg Bonwoppa,” said the hunter.

Yimza stared at MacLaren for a moment before producing a handheld scanner and passing it over one of Bonwoppa’s dull, lifeless black eyes. After a few seconds, the file flashed onto her screen and she checked the severed head on her desk against the file photo on the monitor.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“No kidding.”

Yimza scowled. “He was supposed to stand trial for new charges.”

“He resisted arrest,” said MacLaren. “How’s
that
for a new charge?”

Yimza glared at him before turning her eyes back to the screen and keying a short sequence of commands into the computer. She regarded him with a suspicious gaze as the machine buzzed ominously.

“There’s no record of any Quintin MacLaren in the payroll database,” she said.

MacLaren stared blankly at her. He obviously hadn’t been expecting this.

Yimza reached for the intercom switch. “I’m going to have to notify security.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said a male voice from the open doorway to Yimza’s left. “Transfer the bounty to my account. I’ll see that he gets his money.”

Yimza eyed the new arrival with almost the same amount of disdain she had shown for MacLaren. He was also human, with thick black hair and the same emerald green eyes as the younger man. He was dressed in the standard black jumpsuit, with an I.D. badge clipped to his chest that read: Long, Robert J.

“This is most irregular, Officer Long,” said Yimza.

Long nodded and stood at the junior man’s side. “Cadet MacLaren is training under Officer Boudreaux and myself.”

“
Cadet
MacLaren? Last time I checked, it’s against department policy for cadets to go on runs alone.”

“It is,” said Long. “Cadet MacLaren was under my indirect supervision. He made the kill, so he claims the bounty.”

Yimza cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“That’s what I’m putting in my report,” said Long. “Now are you going to pay the bounty or do I have to file a grievance with your lieutenant?”

Yimza gestured toward the severed head. “The mark is dead.”

“The cadet defended himself accordingly,” said Long. “The mark was a known hunter killer.”

Yimza hesitated for a moment, but then began punching keys. “You’re on thin ice here, Long. Next time I won’t be so generous.”

Long cast the cadet a covert glance. “Neither will I.”

The computer beeped and Yimza read the report, “There. Your account has been credited in the amount of 15,000 Federation Credits. Would you like a receipt?”

“No, thank you,” replied Long. “Come on, Quintin.”

The two hunters exited the claims office through a side door. Yimza looked at the slimy severed head on her desk and punched a button on her terminal. A moment later, her voice filled the entire station.

“Sanitation to Claims, please.”

A thick glob of the green goo dropped onto the floor with a nauseating
plop
.

Yimza keyed the public address system again. “Bring a mop.”

*****

Robert Long was old —
really
old. In fact, he had forgotten his true age. Whenever Quintin asked about his friend’s past, he would tell him stories of love, loss, and countless adventures, but there were lots of gaps. Often Long would pause and struggle to remember details of even the most significant things. However, he
never
forgot details about the wars in which he’d fought.