The Tigrens' Glory (32 page)

“This better be good,” he grumbled.

“It will be,” Garen said with a grin, clapping one hand on Doc’s shoulder as Trey reached for Darlene. 

***

Xaqana-Ti exited her ground transport before it had come to a full stop and ran toward the entrance to the Palace Hive.  She shoved her way past the sentries, scrambled across the lobby, and turned into the formal meeting room called the Court in time to see the Queen Mother enter from the far end.  Her sisters stood together in the middle of the room, speaking softly to each other, but now was not the time to worry about their foolish political maneuverings.

“Before the satellites went down I received a transmission from one of my fuel transports,” she announced as she hurried toward them.  “A Jasani task force has reached Xantara.”

“You lie,” Zarnia-Te accused loudly.

“Why would she lie?” the Queen Mother asked, reaching the center of the Court at the same time Xaqana-Ti did from the other direction. 

“She always lies,” Zarnia-Te spat.  “There is no proof to her claim, yet you take her side as ever.”

“Our power plants have been destroyed, as have our satellites.  Isn’t that proof enough?” Xaqana-Ti hissed furiously.  “We must set aside our differences and see to the future of the Xanti!”

Zarnia-Te glared at Xaqana-Ti through glowing eyes as she lowered herself, then raised her body high, then lowered it again in preparation for attack.  Xaqana-Ti prepared herself, understanding in that moment that Zarnia-Te was utterly insane, but the attack never came.  Instead, Zarnia-Te leapt in the opposite direction, landing on top of the Queen Mother.  Within seconds Zarnia-Te had the larger, but much older female on her back. 

Xaqana-Ti’s first instinct was to defend their Mother, the Supreme Queen of all Xanti.  None of the guards standing around the perimeter of the room could move against any queen, so it was up to her.  At the same time, she knew that was exactly what Zarnia-Te expected her to do, and had certainly planned for.  She would not make things so easy for her traitorous sister. 

Instead of racing to the Queen Mother’s aid, she attacked Narliq-Li without warning.  It took no more than a few seconds to sever her smallest sister’s neck with a vicious twist of her mandibles.  She immediately leapt to the floor, her full attention focused on Zarnia-Te. 

“Do you realize that you’ve just destroyed our race?” Xaqana-Ti demanded when she saw that the Queen Mother was dead. 

“Do not be so dramatic,” Zarnia-Te snapped as she climbed down off the Queen’s body to face her youngest sister.  “It is down to the two of us.  The winner will become Supreme Queen.”

“No one will become Supreme Queen, fool,” Xaqana spat.  “The Queen Mother’s sting is required to enable the new Supreme Queen to lay four female eggs.  By killing her before she could perform that very necessary task, you’ve exterminated our entire race.”

Zarnia-Te stilled for a long moment.  Then she began trembling, her legs tapping rapidly on the floor, her eyes looking more crazed than ever as they darted around the room.  “You lie,” she said, but there was no conviction in her voice.

“You never did pay attention to your lessons as a youngling,” Xaqana-Ti said.  “Now, all Xanti will pay the price for your ignorance.”

Zarnia-Te spun around to look at the still body of the Queen Mother, her mind struggling to process the enormity of what she’d done.  A low, moaning sound escaped her, cut off in an instant when Xaqana-Ti chose that moment of inattention to attack.  Seconds later, Xaqana-Ti climbed off of a forever silent Zarnia-Te, and walked toward the Queen Mother’s body. 

Removing the stinger intact was a delicate procedure, but Xaqana-Ti was no longer in a hurry.  In just a few minutes the future of the Xanti would reside with her alone, and she was confident in her own ability to keep herself alive.  She’d go deep into the Queen Mother’s tunnels and nest there, safe and secure, while the Jasani did their worst.  When the Xanti rose again, under her rule, her first act would be to cleanse the Thousand Worlds of the humans and other loathsome, pink, four-limbed beings that infested it.  Beginning with the Jasani.

As she worked she wondered at Zarnia-Te’s stupidity.  How could she expect to become the Supreme Queen without even bothering to learn the process by which that was accomplished?  Granted, she’d lied about the procedure being taught to them as younglings.  It was, in fact, a carefully kept secret, and for good reason.  But that was no excuse for ignorance.  Xaqana-Ti had learned the truth, therefore her sisters could have, if they’d but tried. 

Once the stinger was properly removed, Xaqana-Ti paused to savor the moment.  She’d planned and plotted for so long, yet had never for an instant expected it to come about on this day, in this manner.  It was almost anticlimactic.  Almost.

***

Doc, Darlene, Garen, and Trey arrived in the crowded Pinnacle on board the
Ugaztun
seconds after leaving the
Vyand. 
Doc’s bushy white eyebrows rose as he looked around at all the people standing in front of the viewport on one side of the circular room.  Aside from themselves and the Dracons, the Lobos were present, as were the Katres, the Gryphons, and the Falcorans.  Since all of the Consuls had their own ships, it seemed odd to Doc that they were all in one place.  He saw three huge men standing at one end of the viewport that he didn’t know and assumed, correctly, that they were the Tigren.

“There’s a place for you right here,” Garen said, guiding Doc and Darlene forward to join the others with an unobstructed view of the viewport, and the darkness beyond.

“What’s going on?” Doc asked Garen in a low voice.

“It’s a long story,” Garen said.  “We’ll give you the details later.  For now, just watch that little spot of light out there.  It’s the asteroid where the Tigren, and thousands of others, were held in hibernation tanks.” 

Doc looked where Garen was pointing and saw the object which looked tiny in the distance.  Darlene reached over and clasped Doc’s hand, giving it a careful squeeze.  Garen patted him on the shoulder, then walked away.  “Do you know what’s going on here?” he asked Darlene quietly as he looked around at the row of people watching through the viewport.

“No, but I have an idea,” Darlene replied.  “Let’s just watch.”

“The all clear signal and an image of Princess Gloriani has been sent to Tek of the Garakai,” Garen announced from the Control Dais in the center of the room. 

“We’ve received an acknowledgement, as well as a request that we accept data from the Garakai,” Val said. 

“Granted,” Garen said.  “Accept download when ready.”

“Aye,” Val replied.  Except for the Dracons’ voices, the room remained silent, all eyes on the asteroid.  “Download complete,” Val announced.  Then, a moment later, “Looks like everything the Xanti have done for the past ten thousand years.”

“Send a confirmation of receipt, and a thank you,” Garen said.

“Aye,” Val said.  Doc looked away from the asteroid to the dark red planet that was many times larger.  Xantara.  He tensed, his hand tightening around Darlene’s. 

“The asteroid’s graviton engines have engaged,” Val announced.

Doc’s brows rose as he glanced over his shoulder at the Dracons.  The
asteroid
has engines?  What in the nine hells was going on here?  A squeeze from Darlene turned him back around.

“They’ll push the engines as hard as they can to build up as much speed as possible,” Trey said loud enough for everyone to hear.  

“Then what?” Kyerion Tigren asked curiously.  Doc thought that was an excellent question and waited impatiently for Trey’s answer. 

“They’ll aim to hit dead center,” Trey replied.  “The kinetic energy of the impact will result in an explosion and shock wave that will melt the entire crust of the planet down to the mantle.  No living thing on that world will survive.  Not even bacteria.”

“Why did Tek tell you to watch for navigational errors?” Kirk asked.

“As a race, the Garakai can no more commit genocide than the Jasani can,” Garen said.  “What Tek, Minka, and Ri are about to do will appear to be an accident in the eyes of their home world.  They’ve done all they can to make it clear that their actions are theirs alone, a personal choice they’ve made because they feel personally responsible for what the Xanti have done.”

Doc’s heart leapt in his chest and he looked over at Darlene, who was smiling at him.  He grinned back, then focused on the asteroid again.  Never in his life would he have believed he’d be happy to see an entire civilization wiped out, but that had been before the Xanti had destroyed his world, Albion.  They’d also destroyed Narrastia, Ugaztun, Arkandu and who knew how many other worlds and civilizations.  For the safety of every other world in two galaxies, this was necessary.  But not all of his reasons were altruistic.  In truth, he’d been hoping and praying for this moment since the Xanti had murdered his wife, his children, and his grandchildren centuries earlier.  He wasn’t the least bit ashamed to admit that he didn’t want to miss a moment of the Xanti’s extermination.  In his opinion, it had been a very long time coming.

“Tek said the primary queen lives deep below the surface,” Kirk Tigren said as the asteroid picked up speed, moving faster and faster toward Xantara.

“Won’t matter,” Trey said.  “Given the size of that asteroid and the speed it will be going when it hits, no tunnel will be deep enough.  Every bit of rock and soil on that planet is going to be liquefied.  There will be nothing left of Xantara but a red hot ball of lava slowly cooling in space.  There won’t even be a solid surface to stand on for at least another 50,000 years.”

“A fitting interment for the ten thousand souls lost in that trophy case,” Garen said.  Soft murmurs of agreement filled the room.

“Damn, that thing’s moving faster than I expected,” Trey said a short time later.  “This’ll be big.”

***

Aiming carefully, Xaqana-Ti plunged the Supreme Queen’s stinger into the exact center of her lowest segment.  The pain was enormous, but she’d expected that and bore it in silence.  When the pain ceased, signaling that the process was complete, she pulled the stinger out and dropped it carelessly to the floor.  Without a backward glance at the empty husks of her mother and sisters, she left the Court and made her way out of the Palace Hive to perform the ritual victory song of the new Supreme Queen.  The moment she stepped outside she reared up on her hind legs and threw back her head, preparing to sing her triumph to the skies.  Her voice froze in her throat as she spotted an enormous dark mass falling from the heavens.  She never had time to wonder what it was.

***

A soft gasp rose in the Pinnacle when the asteroid reached its target.  A gigantic orange-red plume shot so high that it broke out of Xantara’s atmosphere into space.  At the same time, a white-hot area surrounding the point of impact began to spread in an ever-larger circle of destruction in which even mighty mountain ranges softened and liquefied, transforming the cold, dark red earth of Xantara into a mass of white, yellow and red seething lava.  Within minutes their view of Xantara was completely molten.  It wouldn’t be long before the entire planet was engulfed.

 “So ends the Xanti,” Garen said.

“And none shall mourn your passing
,” Lariah added, quoting from the Oraculum of the Arkandu. 

Doc’s eyes burned, though he wasn’t sure exactly why.  Joy?  Relief?  He sighed as something deep inside of him relaxed for the first time in centuries.  The Xanti were finished.  Never again would they do to others what they’d done to him, his family, and his people.  His loved ones had been avenged at long last, and he could now, finally, let them rest in peace, as they deserved.  From this moment on, he could look to the future with a clear mind and a whole heart.  He turned to Darlene and wrapped his arms around her. 

“Can we go home to our children now?” Lariah asked Garen.

“Yes,
Sharali
,” he promised, pulling her into his arms.  “Very soon.”

Chapter Twenty Six

Doc and Darlene stood side by side, studying the medi-display over Cade Tigren.  Doc had to keep reminding himself not to grin whenever he thought about the destruction of the Xanti while he examined the Tigren, but it wasn’t easy.  The Dracons had explained all that had happened with the Garakai, with occasional comments from the Tigren thrown in.  He’d wondered, for a moment, if any of his own people had been imprisoned within those hibernation tanks.  He suspected there had been, though he’d never know for sure. 

“I’m amazed by how healthy the three of you are,” he said after switching the display off.  “Seven thousand years is a long damn time.  I’m not even sure how the hibernation tanks themselves lasted that long.”

“The Garakai are an extremely advanced race,” Garen said.  “They’re all healthy?”

“They need rest, hydration, and nutrition, but otherwise yes, they’re fine,” Doc said.  “How are your magical abilities?” he asked Cade.

“Coming back,” Cade replied, hopping off the table to stand with his brothers.

“Don’t push yourselves too hard too soon,” Doc said.  “Keep in mind that your bodies have to get used to being used again.  If you experience any dizziness, nausea, weakness, unexplained pain or anything else unusual, let me know right away.”

“We will,” Kyerion said.  “If we’re finished here, we would very much like to see Glory.” 

“Of course,” Doc agreed after a questioning glance to Garen, who gave him a brief nod in return.  Doc led the way through the exam room, up a hall, and into a room that held a row of healing tanks.  Unlike the hibernation tanks that the Tigren had been in, these tanks were horizontal, and rectangular.  They were also connected to medi-displays providing detailed readouts on every aspect of the patients’ condition.    Doc led them to the one holding Glory.

The Tigren looked into the tank, shocked to see Glory’s familiar face lying beneath the glass.  “Why is she in a tank?” Kyerion growled. 

“This is a healing tank,” Garen explained.  “It’s what’s keeping her alive.”