“If the Emperor doubts my courage—” Venturi said.

  “It is not a matter of courage,” Nee said. “You excel in the Lokhar trait. You have valor indeed, Orange Prince. Do you have battle cunning, though?”

  “Do you?” Venturi asked.

  Maximum Princess Nee hissed like a wet cat. “Have a care, Admiral. I am the Emperor’s representative. Speak to me as if you were speaking to him.”

  “I am the Supreme Lord Admiral of the Avenging Arm of Lokhar,” Venturi said. “The Emperor himself gave me the commission.”

  “And I am here to tell you that the Emperor has taken it away.”

  “You cannot do so while I am on my own vessel,” Venturi said. “You know the laws and customs of—”

  He fell silent as the princess produced a scroll tied with a purples ribbon and stamped with a purples seal. “Take this, sir,” she said, stepping near and handing it to him.

  With a trembling hand, Venturi reached for the scroll. Then he paused.

  “Look closely,” Nee said. “This is the Emperor’s seal. I know you recognize it.”

  Venturi’s raspy tongue appeared. He seemed stricken. “This cannot be. The Emperor gave Orange Tamika the commission to wander hyperspace, searching for the Jelk homeworld.”

  “That was then and this is now,” Nee said.

  “But—”

  “Instead of banishing you to death,” Nee said, “the Emperor sent you into the limbo of hyperspace. Who would know that your task served the Great Maker? It is amazing. Now everything rests on the operation of this combat mission. The Emperor realizes he cannot trust Orange Tamika to see it through.”

  “You are rash to speak so here on my vessel,” Venturi said.

  “I am to be the new Supreme Lord Admiral of the hyperspace flotilla,” Nee said.

  “With Orange Tamika crews?” Venturi asked.

  “What difference does that make?”

  Venturi stared at the scroll, still unable to take it from her paw. “What is your plan of combat?”

  “You cannot ask me that,” Nee said.

  Venturi’s head whipped up, and his eyes shined. “I do ask you,” he said. “I was to lead us to victory and death. The Creator granted me a boon, with the humans as the tip of the spear.”

  “Yes, the humans…” Nee said, turning to me, sneering. “The Emperor would find it revealing indeed to see a human sitting at the table of a strategy session. You do not obey the old ways, Venturi. You taint everything with your blindness. There are ways to die and there are ways to live. You know neither.”

  “I stand by my question,” Venturi said. “And I swear by the—”

  “No, no,” Nee said, waving her paw. “I will not indulge you in dramatics. This is a simple change of command. But, in order to speed the process, I will tell you that I have a completely different battle plan in mind. First, we will rid ourselves of the human scum. They will do nothing but float in hyperspace as an object lesson to the Kargs.”

  “We need the humans to complete our holy task,” Venturi said. “The oracle has spoken.”

  “The Emperor says what and when the oracle has spoken. You are not in primacy. Now, take the scroll.”

  “You still have not told me your plan,” Venturi said.

  “Bah!” Nee said. “To take these valuable dreadnoughts and throw them away in a suicide mission is folly of the worst sort. We will await the first Karg wave, destroying them as they exit hyperspace and attempt to adjust to our space-time continuum.”

  “Madness,” Venturi said. “This is madness. The Kargs will bring billions of vessels—”

  “That is mere superstition,” Nee said. “Now, take the scroll. You have no more options left.”

  “Sure he does,” I said. I’d heard enough, and I realized it was time to act. Maybe that’s why their so-called oracle had told Venturi to come and get me personally.

  Maximum Princess Nee turned slowly, and her garments rustled in an ominous manner. “The savage actually address me? This is blasphemy.”

  “That’s right I address you,” I said. “What grounds do you have to say the Kargs lack billions? Admiral Venturi has solid proof.”

  “Silence your creature,” Nee shouted, “or I’ll silence it for you.”

  “Commander Creed,” Venturi said.

  “Hold it,” I said, standing now. “I’m a Lokhar ally. I am a sovereign individual. I joined this expedition to destroy the portal planet. I—”

  “Guards!” Nee screened, with her hands clenched into shaking fists. “Kill it! Rid me of this Orange Tamika filth.”

  The three purple-clad guards with silver helmets, the three carrying laser rifles, hurried forward. I’d heard more than enough. If this she-devil gained command of the flotilla, the Lokhars would attack our Commando Army. While my troopers were good, I didn’t think they could take on ten million tigers.

  Like a gunslinger from the Wild West, I drew my silver-plated .44 Magnum. With a deafening boom, I blew a hole in the first purple Lokhar guard. He catapulted onto his back as smoke drifted from the barrel of my gun. I think the loud noise startled the other two guards. Besides, they were royal guards. Had they ever been in desperate action before? I doubted it. In quick succession, I blew away the other two so they also clattered onto the floor.

  The Lokhars watched in stunned amazement.

  Maximum Princess Nee snarled with rage. “How dare you murder my guards? They have been with me since my commencement. You will—”

  She didn’t get to finish. Realizing that this was the tiger Emperor’s daughter-wife, I turned sideways and lifted my magnum deliberately. I had to make sure. As if at a firing range, I pumped three .44 caliber rounds into her body. She tumbled backward, spewing chunks of Lokhar meat and blood, landing on her back, quite dead. The scroll landed nearby, unopened, with specks of blood soaking into it.

  Lowering my arm, I opened the cylinder and dumped shell casings onto the floor. Then I reloaded and snapped it shut.

  Things were about to get interesting.

  -18-

  I’d learned a few things about Lokhars these past weeks. As physical specimens, few could match them. Maybe the energy keeping them running cost in other areas. I’m talking about mental agility.

  Now tigers, like people, had large gradations in abilities. You had smart people and dumb ones. The Lokhars were the same. The Maximum Princess Nee had struck me as more quick-witted than the rest. Those standing in shock in the strategy session chamber I saw as having their minds in neutral. The engine could be revving like crazy, but it wouldn’t move any wheels because the gears weren’t connected. I think their minds were spinning, but they couldn’t articulate whatever was going on inside their gray matter.

  I’d just saved the mission from certain disaster. Now we could all jump into hyperspace and get ourselves killed at the portal planet. We might even stop the Kargs while we died. Would the Lokhars be grateful to the trigger-happy human? I didn’t give that a high probability. In fact, the old adept would likely demand my skinning. I had a gun, but there were an awful lot of tigers in here and I only had so many bullets.

  It was time to act. I had the initiative, and I planned to keep it.

  “Stay behind me,” I whispered to Ella. Then I began backing toward the door.

  The tigers were all staring at the dead princess. Marshal Danyal must have had good peripheral vision. Her head swiveled around in a rusty manner. She gazed at me with blank eyes. Something stirred there, though. Seeing me moving must have kicked in a basic chase instinct.

  With a roar, Marshal Danyal bounded at me. She literally leapt onto the table, jumped onto the floor and charged fast and hard. I hadn’t expected that.

  BOOM!

  Her head disintegrated as it snapped back. Lokhars were big and heavy, though. A .44 Magnum load only had so much stopping power and no more. She died, but her body kept coming, sliding across the floor at me.

  I sidestepped the body, and I wondered if her aides were about to charge en masse. I wouldn’t be able to shoot fast enough to stop all of them. I had to think of something else to do.

  “The Creator has spoken to me!” I shouted. I didn’t know what else to say that might stop them in their tracks.

  That did it, though. An aide that lurched toward me paused, blinking with incomprehension.

  I heard a tiger ask, “Can the Creator speak to a human?”

  The ancient adept took the question to heart. He bowed his head as if in prayer.

  In those few seconds, I reached the main door. “Get ready,” I whispered to Ella.

  “Even with the zagun,” she said, “we’ll never reach our quarters.”

  “You don’t think I don’t know that?” I whispered. If the tigers went crazy, one hundred troopers without symbiotic armor, or even with it, would not make it back to the Commando Army.

  I opened the door.

  “He’s escaping!” a different adept shouted.

  “No!” I said. “I’m calling in the guard.”

  Tigers stared at one another. They must have wondered why a human would summon the admiral’s guards. This human wouldn’t. I was going to summon my own.

  Poking my head through the door, I said into the antechamber. “Princess Nee has demanded to see my zagun. Troopers, hurry in here.”

  Both human and tiger guards stared at me. The walls were soundproof, so I doubt any of them had heard the gunfire.

  “Hurry!” I shouted.

  My troopers understood that. They started for the doors.

  “What of us?” the Lokhar senior guard asked.

  “You are to remain vigilant,” I said. “Princess Nee spoke of your alertness. She is pleased with you.”

  I had no idea if that would work, but it did. The senior guard stood more proudly. So did the Lokhars nearest him. Meanwhile, my zagun, with the Zaporizhian Cossack Dmitri at their lead, marched into the strategy chamber.

  “Do exactly what I tell you,” I whispered to Dmitri.

  He had a crew cut, a sweeping black mustache and wide Slavic features. He was muscular and was as tough as they came. We’d first met in Antarctica aboard a Saurian-run lander.

  The tigers in here were losing their shocked expressions. Maybe seeing so many armed humans among them helped speed the process. Even with my hundred, there were more of them here. They were also bigger, but not stronger, faster nor armed.

  “He slew the Emperor’s daughter-wife,” the ancient Esteemed One said. “We all witnessed the terrible deed. He must die.”

  “I just saved the mission,” I said.

  “You slew in cold blood,” the Esteemed One declared.

  I laughed sourly. “You didn’t happen to hear Nee order her guards to kill me?”

  “Supreme Lord Admiral,” the ancient one said. “I beg you to order the human’s death.”

  “Order his death!” the mass of acolytes shouted in perfect unison. It gave the old one’s words power.

  “You just killed the Maximum Princess Nee,” Venturi told me.

  “And thereby saved you a load of heartache,” I said.

  Once again, Venturi stared at the dead princess. What was he thinking? He seemed smarter than the average tiger. That was a plus. But would it be enough?

  Ella sidled up to me. “I hope you have a plan, Commander. This is about to get ugly.”

  She was right, and I didn’t want to go nuclear. I didn’t want to poison things between our races by murdering the high command. But I couldn’t see how I was going to make it back to our quarters without doing something drastic. I needed something that would hold the other Lokhars at bay. The answer popped into my head.

  The shining globe would do it, right? It was a holy object. Yet if I held it in my grubby humans hands, that might make the tigers berserk with rage anyway.

  I grabbed Dmitri by the arm and dragged him beside me. With my lips an inch from his ear, I said, “Do you see that old tiger in the orange shimmering robe? The one that’s talking smack?”

  “I see,” Dmitri growled.

  “We’re grabbing him and taking him with us. He has a holy object on his person. Make sure it says with him.”

  “What if other tigers try to interfere with me?” Dmitri asked.

  “First push them away. If they persist, kill them.”

  Admiral Venturi spoke up. “Commander Creed, you must order your guards away. Then you must summon mine. You will lay down your weapons and await Lokhar justice.”

  I didn’t want to make my play. You have to believe that. The Kargs were real. The portal was real. To fight among ourselves was crazy. To let them kill me would even be stupider. Yet I had to give sweet reason a change.

  “Listen to me, Admiral. The Kargs are still coming through the portal. They’re going to invade our universe. Are you going to let your Emperor make a foolish decision that kills everything?”

  “He besmirches the beloved Emperor,” the Esteemed One said. “You must do your duty,” he told Venturi.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you serious? The Purple Tamika fool sent his daughter-wife to unseat you. The head tiger is a fool. Screw him and his ideas.”

  The Lokhars began to murmur in outrage. A few started shouting for my death.

  “You have no idea what makes Lokhars tick,” Ella told me. “You’re not going to talk them out of anything.”

  “You have to impound the princess’s racer-vessel,” I told Venturi. “Then you have to complete the mission and save our space-time continuum.”

  “I must read the scroll,” Venturi said in a lifeless voice. “The Emperor has sent me a personal missive.”

  “Now!” I shouted at my zagun. “Let’s do it.”

  I started across the chamber for the Esteemed One. Dmitri and Ella followed, and with them came my one hundred troopers. The tigers must have suspected my intentions. A few charged my men.

  Instead of shooting the Lokhars, a shoving match ensued between them and my men. As the tigers weighed more, they had the advantage, and forced the zagun inward.

  “Knock them down!” I shouted.

  Neuro-fiber enhanced speed together with steroid-68 increased strength caused mayhem. There were meaty, hard-hitting smacks and Lokhars sprawled onto the floor. More tigers threw themselves into the fray, charging us. This wasn’t going to work.

  “Shoot to kill!” I roared.

  Troopers unslung carbines, leveling them into firing position. Lasers sounded with a distinct combat noise. Tigers crumpled onto the floor with smoking holes in their foreheads and chests, and that started a panic. Lokhars surged away from my zagun, giving us the opening I needed.

  I dashed to the head of the table and beyond, scooping up the scroll. As I did, Dmitri grabbed the old adept. My troopers surrounded the two, forcing the acolytes away.

  “Listen to me!” I roared. “Listen!”

  The Lokhars were too busy shouting and cursing us. I shoved Admiral Venturi hard so he stumbled against the nearest wall. Then I pressed the klaxon switch. It blared with noise. When I released it, the screaming and Lokhar shouting had ceased. Tigers panted, though, watching me with hate-filled eyes.

  “Here’s how it’s going to be,” I said.

  No Lokhar gave me his attention. So I jumped onto the table, and I swept my .44 at the crowd lined against the walls. They looked at me then.

  “Good,” I said. “This is going to be short and sweet. Even though your Emperor’s bitch ordered me dead, I still consider myself allied with Orange Tamika. Defeating the Kargs trumps everything. Unfortunately, Lokhar intelligence hasn’t impressed me much, certainly not today. You’re overemotional and relic-crazed. Nevertheless, we can still do business together. But I need to keep you from killing me until you regain your senses. I’m taking the Esteemed One with me, together with the stone of God.”

  Lokhars wailed in anguish, and I could feel a charge building up in them, like a giant plasma cannon building up a heated shot.

  I fired a round into the ceiling. The magnum was deafening. Bits of construction dribbled and fell in chunks onto the table. One busted apart, sprinkling smaller driblets around it.

  “I’m a savage, remember?” I shouted. “If you come at me, if you try to kill my troopers, I’m going to blow apart the stone of God with my gun. Then what, huh?”

  That got their attention. The babble tied down, and the tigers stared at me with blank eyes. The evil I threatened to commit—at least in their eyes—was so terrible it probably hardly made sense to them.

  Admiral Venturi stepped forward. He spoke with a hoarse voice. “You cannot mean such vile sacrilege. The stone is the oldest and most holy artifact in Orange Tamika possession.”

  I scoffed, “You doubt my willingness to do it? Dmitri,” I said.

  The stocky Cossack hustled the old adept near.

  “I implore you,” Venturi said. “Do not do this.”

  I pointed at the admiral with my magnum. “I want you to have the stone of God. I’m not going to touch it. You have my word on that. After we reach the portal planet, I’ll return the relic and the adept to you.”

  “You will destroy it,” Venturi said, sounding desperate.

  “As long as you treat us as allies, I will do nothing to the artifact. I’m taking the Esteemed One with me so he can hold the stone. If you attack us, though, know that we will smash the Forerunner relic and kill as many Lokhars as we can. We will start by killing him,” I said, pointing at the old adept.

  “What are your final intentions?” Venturi asked.

  “They haven’t changed,” I said. “We’ll still march to the Forerunner artifact in the portal planet. We’ll fight with the Lokhars with all our strength, battling the Kargs. The princess threatened to kill all the humans. Do you remember? She said the Emperor gave the order. Maybe you think that’s seals the issue. You can bet I don’t. I’m not under the Emperor’s command. If he tries to kill us, I’ll kill his as I’ve already done. I would do it again a thousand times over. Look at her body and think about that. Play fair with us, Supreme Lord Admiral, and we will play fair with you. Try to harm us, and we’re going to unleash the biggest load of whup-ass you’ve ever seen.”