Teeth & Claws: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 10) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  End notes

  Michael-Scott Earle

  Chapter 1

  She wore a long ocean blue dress that hugged the upper part of her body and breasts like a second skin before descending down her right leg almost to the floor. She wore a glittering diamond anklet above her high heel shoe on her left leg which was left exposed by the garment. Her hair was half braided and half flowing, but woven into the blonde locks were red roses that contrasted against her blue dress and eyes perfectly. A tight diamond choker was the only other piece of jewelry she wore, and it sparkled just like her eyes when she saw me.

  “Damn,” I sighed as I stepped away so she could enter my room. “You look incredible. I should have worn something nicer.”

  “You look great,” Paula said as her eyes roamed down my uniform. It was of Vaish design and made with thick black cloth and silver trim that might have actually been metal.

  “I just need to grab a gun down at the armory, and then we can go,” I told her as I wrapped my fingers around her bare arm and then gestured back toward the door.

  “Uhhh, Adam, are you sure you want to do this?” she asked as she bit her upper lip slightly and glanced down from my eyes to my chest.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You and I haven’t spent much time alone together. Thanks for having dinner with me.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But Eve and Zea and Mad--”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll see Eve and Zea later tonight.”

  “But we are leaving tomorrow,” Paula said with a shrug of her slender shoulders as we stepped into Persephone’s bridge hallway. “I just don’t want to take any time away from them.”

  “It’s fine,” I repeated as we reached the elevator. “I don’t want you to worry tonight. You, Kasta, Zea, and Eve are going to have a rough few weeks ahead of you, so just enjoy tonight. Madalena has arranged this dinner and entertainment for us.”

  “Alright.” Paula gave me a half smile, but I could tell she was excited about tonight.

  As soon as we had docked at the Odin Geirr, the four women had trained with Madalena non-stop for two weeks while Sivaha and I coordinated the movement of our combined armada with the admirals. My friends were going to begin their rite tomorrow morning as soon as they awoke, and then a few hours later, the remaining crew of Persephone would enter warpdrive for the Idonan Blood Overlord Clan system.

  Since Persephone was the fastest vessel in the entire navy, she could leave last and still hit the system at the same time as the others. There was actually a bit of math involved since some ships didn’t have warpdrives, some had them but they had long resets, and everyone’s engine speeds were different. Fortunately, this wasn’t the Vaish’s first rodeo, and as soon as I worked out exactly when I wanted to be in Idonan space, it had been easy enough to do the calculations to tell me how many ships could get there in time.

  I was taking eighty percent of the Vaish navy. It was over two hundred thousand ships, and the sheer number of men and women at my command was a bit staggering. Madalena, Sivaha, and our admirals didn’t know exactly how many ships Idonan had, but they were one of the least powerful of the clans, so the guess was that they had around sixty thousand. It was still exponentially more than the Jupiter Navy could ever dream of having, but it would be a rough battle if they decided they wanted to contest my demands.

  “You seem preoccupied,” Paula said as we walked to the armory. “Something going on with your sister and Yu?”

  “No,” I said with a sigh. “I haven’t thought much about that asshole lately. We put him in the brig and he has ten guards watching him shit in a bucket all day.”

  “And your sister?” Paula asked, but then she waved her hands and smiled apologetically. “I don’t want to pry, but I know you both have been arguing about Yu.”

  “We are going to talk more about it before I leave,” I said. “She’ll come around. She just needs to be away from Yu for a few more weeks. Honestly, I’m thinking about all the shit I have to do in the next few days. And no, that doesn’t mean I want to cancel dinner with you. I’m looking forward to this.”

  “Ahhh, okay,” she said. “But do you really need to bring a gun? This is your battle fortress. Who would want to attack us here? Don’t you have an armed escort everywhere you go?”

  “Yeah,” I said as we entered the room. “I just don’t feel comfortable leaving Persephone without one.”

  The armory was stocked floor to ceiling with a variety of guns, ammo, armor, and equipment. Lux was standing in the corner with a data tablet, and she gave us both a smile when we walked in. I hadn’t really assigned tasks to Madalena’s crew when they came aboard Persephone, but the pig-tailed Valkyrie had gravitated to handling all our weapons and training the gunners.

  “Can I get you something, Adam?” she asked.

  “Just need a pistol, we are going to the castle.”

  “Your usual?” she asked as she set down her data device and walked over to the pistols.

  “Something smaller is fine,” I said. “I don’t expect trouble.”

  “Understood,” she said as she pulled a medium sized matte black pistol from one of the shelves, checked to make sure it was loaded, and then slid it into a belt holster. Then she put two magazines in the belt and then presented the bundle to me with a bow of her head.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “When will you switch to pulse weapons?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “As soon as I hit the range with them. I played around with them on Nordar 13 - a during my trial, but I haven’t spent enough time with them to truly feel comfortable using them as my weapons of choice.”

  “Ahh,” she said. “I can accompany you to the range if you wish.”

  “Sure,” I said with a bit of surprise. Lux had begun to warm up to me in the last few weeks, but I hadn’t expected her to want to go shooting with me. Then again, she was a Valkyrie, and the main focus of her existence was serving Odin in battle. She was submitted to Madalena, who was submitted to me, so I figured it would have been a matter of time before she grew to accept me as her king.

  “Do you need anything, Paula?” Lux asked the blonde engineer.

  “Oh, no,” Paula replied as she waved her hand. “I’m good.”

  “Understood,” Lux said with a nod and then she turned back toward me.

  “We’ll leave you to your work,” I said to her, and she nodded once more before Paula and I left.

  A few moments later, we were in Persephone’s hold and then exiting down the ramp. A group of six heavily armored warriors waited for us at the bottom of the ramp, and they escorted us to a waiting hovercraft sitting nearby. Then we were flying across the floor of Odin Geirr’s harbor and heading toward the inner city of the battle fortress.

  “Crazy to think that this is all yours,” Paula said after we had taken one of the roads through the inner city.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “What is the population of the Vaish?” she asked as a group of people walking beside a building waved at us.

  “A little over twelve billion,” I said. “
Twenty-one or so now that Sivaha is Vaish. I think Kuroda’s kingdom has four or five billion, but we haven’t quite figured out how to integrate them, or if we even should.”

  “Holy shit.” Paula whistled and then let out a little laugh. “You are like Alexander.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “I’m not really trying to conquer anything, but the end is justifying the means here. The SAVO are going to rip open the throat of this galaxy if we aren’t all coordinated, and the Nordar are the best vehicle to get us in a position where we can fight back.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “Besides being born warriors, they also have great technology and work ethic. Kasta and I have really gotten along with the crew.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “I’m very thankful you both came with me.”

  “We are, too.” Paula smiled at me, and then she brushed away some blonde hair that strayed onto her beautiful face.

  We made it to the glass-looking castle a few minutes later, and the guards ushered us away from the hovercraft and into the entranceway. Once inside, a large man dressed in rich velvet clothes introduced himself as the royal skald and led us into a splendid feasting hall.

  “I was delighted when the Prime Valkyrie asked for me to entertain you, my king,” he said once Paula and I had sat down beside each other at the end of a massive oak table. “I was supposed to be present at your crowning, or at least during your marriage ceremonies, but I do understand you have been busy.”

  “That’s fine,” I said as I shrugged at the man. He was a bit shorter than me but just as broad in the chest, and I surmised he was as much a warrior as he was a singer.

  “The Prime Valkyrie said you wish to keep this dinner ‘simple,’ so I have arranged for a seven-course meal while we perform some selected work from the Codex Regius.”

  “Sounds good,” I said as I smiled at the man. I still wasn’t quite used to being a king, but I’d always enjoyed plays and movies.

  The skald made another bow, and then a pair of servants entered carrying silver platters. They set down plates of smoked salmon, pickled vegetables, small loaves of baked bread, and trays of butter. Once the food was placed, the servants poured Paula and I each glasses of aquavit, and I raised my glass to her.

  “Skal,” I said.

  “Skal,” she repeated as we touched glasses and drank.

  The “water of life” burned pleasantly as it tumbled down my throat, and the slight taste of rye, fennel, and dill was left as a pleasant aftertaste, but Paula coughed a bit and then cleared her throat.

  “That’s something else,” she said as she dabbed the corners of her eyes with a cloth napkin.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It has a little kick.”

  “Little?” she laughed as she set down her napkin and used a fork to place a slice of salmon on a thick piece of bread.

  On the other side of the feasting hall was a raised stage. The room was maybe thirty meters long and twenty wide, and it was a bit weird to be the only ones sitting at the massive table, but the six guards still stood at attention behind us, so it wasn’t as if we were totally alone. Then the lights above us started to dim, and we turned our attention to the stage.

  The skald walked out dressed in a dark gray robe. He carried a spear in his hand and then he bowed to the side as a beautiful woman with long brown hair was carried on stage atop a couch by four muscular men. She was set down, and then almost immediately began to sing to the skald in the Nordar language. The four men who had carried the couch circled around the duo three times, and then they moved to the back of the stage where they picked up a small harp, skin bass drum, pan flute, and a strange looking metal horn that was twisted around like a drunken snake.

  The men started playing at the start of the second stanza, but the sounds of their instruments were muted behind the vocals between the man and the woman’s trade-off of lyrics.

  “Do you have any idea what they are saying?” Paula asked after we watched them perform for a few minutes.

  “Nope,” I said, “but I’m kind of getting an idea that the woman is a seer, and Odin is asking her how the world will end.”

  “I’m not sure if they are supposed to be acting, or just singing,” Paula said, “but look at their faces. He is angry at what she is saying but is pretending not to be, meanwhile, she is a bit haughty. Doesn’t Odin have a missing eye?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The skald doesn’t, but she keeps pointing to her eye. Maybe she is telling him that he needs to tear it out or something. I think he did that in the legends.”

  We made it about halfway through our platter of smoked salmon when the act ended. I was unsure if we were supposed to clap, but I did anyway, and the two actors took a bow.

  Servants came to take away our half-eaten plates of smoked fish and to refill our glasses. The next round was a green salad, and we toasted to each other as the group began another song.

  Their performance was beautiful, but I wanted to focus my attention on Paula, so I turned to her and asked her about her work with the drones on Persephone. I knew that the woman was a genius, but I had never asked her many questions about the repair tasks she performed, so I wanted to understand more about her passion.

  “The drone systems on Persephone are excellent,” she began. “As are the Vaish ones that we added. The only real change I’ve had to make is adding the cranium remotes so Kasta can pilot them easier.”

  “Cranium remotes?” I asked as I took another sip of aquavit.

  “Ahh, that’s a bit of slang,” Paula laughed. “She has the remote in her skull, so when I work with the drones, I have to make sure that their controls work. I can often add onto them since she’s capable of executing more commands per second than a human can.”

  “Can you give me an example?” I asked.

  “Sure,” Paula said as her blue eyes sparkled. “Let’s take the fighters. They had vertical take-off and landing capabilities with their twin ion engines, but the rotation of the engines only allowed for a fifteen degree differential between them so that the human user wouldn’t make a mistake and tear the drone in half from conflicting thrusters. Kasta won’t make that mistake though and changing the possibility of rotation means she can pilot the fighter in more agile situations. She can easily perform rotational twists on the Z-axis while the drone moves on the X-axis. Hell, she can do that and then shift to Y-axis coordinates. The cool thing about drones is that we don’t have to worry about humans being on board.”

  “So no g-forces to worry about?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Paula leaned forward and took a small sip of her alcohol. “With the Elaka Nota spider drones, I adjusted their legs so they were capable of independent movement.”

  “They weren’t before?” I asked.

  “Yes and no,” she replied. “When the pilot moved them in a direction, the navigational software would figure out the best way to get the legs over the terrain. The advantage of their design is that it really is an all-terrain land drone. It can go places the knight drones can’t reach, and it can get there quicker. However, I adjusted the software so Kasta is able to use the legs just like a real spider, so it can make melee attacks with them, tilt to the side, strafe with a front pair while back-peddling with the other legs, or vice versa.”

  “Kasta really is a secret weapon, huh?” I asked as I winked at her.

  “She’s a pain in my ass sometimes,” Paula laughed, but then her smile faded from her face and she stared into my eyes. “I’ve been avoiding talking to you about the thing that happened in the infirmary.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It wasn’t your doing, and I’m fine.”

  “If you had been a woman, and she a man, then it would have been rape.” Paula shrugged. “She is her own person, but she lacks a human’s sense of morality.”

  “She’s a pretty advanced AI.” I shrugged. “People are hardly perfect, so I don’t expect a computer to be.”

  “We worked on it,” Paula sig
hed. “She still doesn’t quite understand that she did something wrong.”

  “She doesn’t?” I laughed.

  “Well, she knows Eve got really mad, so she’s not going to do anything like that ever again, but she doesn’t really think it bothered you.”

  “Hmm,” I said as I thought again to the infirmary and Kasta’s attempt to have sex with me while I was befuddled with the catnip.

  “I’m not really angry,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe I should be.”

  “You should be,” Paula laughed. “I’m glad you aren’t, but every time you don’t draw a line in the sand with her, she just moves closer to you.”

  “Is that her fault though?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” Paula said. “It’s her fault.”

  “But you made her,” I pointed out. “She’s one of the most sexual women I’ve ever met. Did you build her that way? Or did she evolve that way on her own?”

  Paula took a deep breath and then turned back to her salad. I waited for her to answer as she took a bite, and I could almost see the gears turning in her head.

  “I guess I made her that way,” she finally said. “Or at least, I made her able to learn and become her own person.”

  “Was Kasta the name of the sister that you lost?”

  “Yes,” Paula said, but then she blinked her eyes a few times and took a long drink from her glass.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up old memories.”

  “It’s okay,” she said as she smiled at me. “Both of them are gifts the universe gave to our race, but one was lost.”

  “You gave us the Kasta I know,” I said. “It wasn’t the universe.”

  “I suppose so,” she said with a shrug. “It might not have ever happened if she hadn’t-- ahh doesn’t matter.”

  The song ended, and we clapped again. The musicians and singers bowed, and the servants came to exchange our plates for the next course. This was boiled potatoes with steamed fish and a creamy dill sauce. The portion was a bit small, so I didn’t think it was the main course. However, it smelled wonderful, and we quickly raised our glasses before we began to eat.