Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

“Oh my god,” she said. “B-but his merc guild benefit was only 100,000 credits!”

“There’s a special clause for this war,” he said. Rick passed with the support module, nodding to her as we went. “Good life to you, ma’am.”

Out on the street, Rick put down the module as Sato summoned another flyer. “That was a very generous thing to do,” he said to Sato.

“It seemed like the right thing.”

“That was a lot of our credits, though.”

“We’ll find more if we need them. We have a shuttle to catch.”

* * * * *

Chapter Seven

The robotic handling system moved the shuttle onto a cradle, which then moved it to a debarkation port. Rick was the second out, right behind Sato. The shuttle had been half empty on its hop from Detroit to Tokyo.

One of the few advantages of alien occupation was not having to explain Dakkar. Earth had once been a difficult place for aliens to visit, especially unusual ones like the Wrogul. Now, however, one of the first things General Peepo had done was to remove any and all restrictions against the movement of alien species on Earth. The reason was to take a blowtorch to any Republic regulations that might give legitimacy to someone wanting to stop her mercs from moving around. However, it benefited Rick and his group by allowing them to take Dakkar anywhere with impunity. The local customs literally couldn’t say a thing.

At the Tokyo Starport, they saw a pair of Besquith sitting at a sushi bar eating their way through the befuddled chef’s repertoire. If the sushi chef hoped to chase the werewolf-like aliens off by using the hottest sauces he could find, the man was in for a surprise. Besquith could digest steel. It was unlikely a ghost pepper would even cause them to raise an eyebrow.

Since they’d had to declare Dakkar, the Wrogul had ridden with them. The cost of three seats wasn’t that much anyway. The suborbital shuttle routes around the planet were largely still operational, with thousands of ships zipping back and forth. It was cheaper to keep them flying than to ground them and disrupt the schedules.

“It’s a good thing we weren’t coming through the starport,” Rick said as he carried the module down the ramp. Behind them, a Japanese customs agent glared at their backs. Sato speaking his language and looking like him hadn’t helped in the least. Luckily they’d studied the current laws and simply refused to answer any of the questions. Their Yacks checked out, leaving customs no choice but to allow them in. “These fake Yacks are going to bite us in the butt sooner or later.”

<How can a computer identification bite you in the posterior?> Dakkar asked over their pinplants. Rick had begun wishing Sato had never turned on the Wrogul’s comms before leaving Detroit.

<It’s a figure of speech, a metaphor,> Sato explained.

<Your language is sometimes confusing,> the Wrogul replied.

“Says the glowing octopus,” Rick whispered to Sato with a chuckle.

“They’re exotic, remember?” Sato said. “Any resemblance their mental processes have to ours is purely learned patterns.”

Rick nodded in understanding. After they’d left Lea O’Connell’s house, Sato had wanted to know what Dakkar had been planning to do when he reached for her.

“She appeared to be in mental anguish over her mate’s death.”

“She was,” Sato confirmed.

“I was going to remove all memory of him.”

“My god!” Rick stammered as they rode their flyer. “How would that help?”

“She would no longer be in pain.”

“And she would no longer remember her husband and the good times.”

“Or the bad,” the Wrogul insisted. “I believe this balances out.”

“That is not your decision to make,” Sato told the young alien, which ended the conversation.

Rick wondered on their flight from Detroit if Dakkar was considering these moral issues, or if it had simply stopped thinking about it. Sato was quite right, the Wrogul didn’t think like a Human. Of course, his very presence with Sato was living proof that the alien didn’t have any sort of moral code to justify its action.

He remembered that there were Wrogul working in lots of places doing pinplant and surgical work. He’d heard it was the Wrogul who’d adapted pinplants for use by Humans. He shuddered at the thought as he considered what the aliens could do if they ever became mad at Humans.

“We going to be here long?” Rick asked Sato.

“I don’t think so.” He examined the taxi landing as he used the local Aethernet to summon a ride. “We need a hotel for a short time so we can keep Dakkar out of trouble while I follow this lead.”

“From the box in Houston?” Rick asked.

Sato nodded. “Leaving our Wrogul friend unattended is not an acceptable option right now. So I’ll go on this one alone.”

“Not an option, sir.”

Sato turned and looked at him. “I think I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not convinced of that,” Rick admitted. Sato’s eyes narrowed as the flyer he’d ordered came in for a landing. “We’re both in the same boat; we’re both suffering from memory loss and intermittent recall. You’re being led down a rabbit hole by your memories. Who’s to say which ones are real and which aren’t?”

Sato took the key out of his pocket and dangled it before Rick. “Are you saying I’m imagining this?”

“No, I’m saying you don’t know what comes next. We’re on Earth because of a hunch. We went to Houston on the same hunch. Now we’re halfway around the world, based on a key you found in a storage box. What does it mean? What will you find there?” He’d told Rick about the museum the key was linked to, but not what it meant. Rick had researched the museum, and it was mainly Japanese history of space flight starting with JAXA, on through first