Discovered (A Galactic Battle Series Book 2)

by L H Whitlock

  Brock frowned and jabbed the steering rod into the water. “All right, you got me there.”

  “See, with Lily’s schematics and Alyssa’s engineering, they ought to come up with something good.”

  “You mean something that could get us killed.”

  Gloria laughed. “We haven’t died yet.”

  “Emphasis on yet.”

  “Do you see that up ahead?” Bixom asked, stepping up behind the two.”

  “What?” Gloria asked.

  Bixom pointed to a dull, wispy glow up ahead.

  Brock squinted. “I don… no, I see it, but what…”

  “Maybe it’s just the lights,” Alyssa suggested and took a seat on the raft beside Brock.

  “Maybe,” Brock mumbled.

  “So, Gloria, where, um…” Bixom stared at her for a moment, then walked off and joined May to watch the twins.

  Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “What’s with him?”

  Brock shrugged. “Who the hell knows with Hilians.”

  “I heard that you know.” Lily nudged him in the back as she walked past.

  Brock grinned. “I wasn’t hiding it from ya.”

  Lily stuck out her tongue.

  Gloria laughed and dabbed at her eye, wiping away any smudged liner. How she managed to still have a full face of makeup, he didn’t know.

  “What lovebirds been up to?” Alberta asked. “Brock good love?”

  Alyssa’s face glowed red. “Um… well, I don’t have any reference, but from an analytical and—”

  “Gods! Alyssa, baby, don’t answer a single thing that woman asks you.” Brock pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t have Alberta ruining it for him already; he was just beginning to tell Alyssa how he really felt. He hadn’t even told her that he—it just wasn’t the right time.

  “Whatevs, don’t take order from male.”

  “Seriously Alberta…” Brock growled.

  Alberta shrugged. “I wants to hear analytical.”

  “Alberta, your speech seems to be off,” Alyssa said, saving Brock from humiliation or homicide. He hadn’t yet decided. “I would be quite happy to take a look. It’s probably a simple miscommunication between the two receptacles. I bet—”

  Alberta twisted one of her many earrings. “Don’t touch me, Dollie, unless in bedroom, translation plant A-okay.”

  Alyssa tilted her head. “Unless in bed?”

  Lily snorted and Brock glared at her. “Alberta,” he snarled.

  “I be happy to show, easier to show.” Alberta winked.

  Brock grabbed Alyssa’s shoulder. “Alyssa, baby, I believe we’re on shift to watch the twins.”

  “We ain’t going anywhere.” Tally leaned back on her hands and swayed her legs back and forth, a grin plastered on her face.

  “What I meant was we have to relieve Bixom, he must be getting tired.”

  “Hilians have an extended threshold for physical exertion. It will be several hours before I require a break,” Bixom said.

  “This is true,” Ulrick said.

  Brock growled. “You fucking know what I meant.”

  Bixom laughed and pulled himself up.

  A ball of fire struck the center of the ship, igniting the oil that clung to the raft in flame.

  “Abandon ship!” Gloria shrieked and dove off the side.

  Brock yanked Alyssa back and tossed her overboard. He glanced back to make sure the rest of the team had already gotten off before diving back into the cold, dark water.

  54

  Alyssa swam to the surface and gasped. She let loose a scream as another ball of fire landed a few feet away.

  A line of ships dove and skimmed over the surface. Gloria summoned a shield and two of the ships crashed into the glittering dome. Three others swirled around. Then they turned and showered the water with bullets.

  Ulrick summoned a ball of bio-energy and threw it. It collided with a ship. Bits of the ship blew apart and it crashed into a pillar.

  Something brushed against Alyssa’s leg. She jolted away and looked behind her but she couldn’t see anything through the filmy water.

  “Swim!” Brock yelled.

  “Ahh!” Alberta shrieked as she flew across the area.

  “What the fuck!” Brock yelled as the pilot crashed into the water several yards away.

  Something brushed against Alyssa’s leg. She spun and dug through the water, trying to feel what was beneath her.

  A shield shimmered around Alyssa. She watched the iridescent walls for a moment and found their sparkling hypnotic. A loud thud tore her out of her daze. She whipped around to see a thick tentacle crashing over the top of the shield, curving to its contour. Suction cups on the underside of the appendage clung to the shield, squeaking as it slid off.

  Alyssa’s mouth dropped open to scream but she couldn’t find her voice.

  May crashed into the side of the shield and fell into the water.

  “May!” Alyssa cried out, but something else caught the corner of her eye. She turned her head slowly, as though going any faster would put her into shock. Three large, black, oil-stained tentacles crashed into the water behind her. Ulrick summoned his bio-energy and Brock pelted a tentacle with a round of bullets. Tentacles held Tally in the air. Her head was slumped, her hair a green waterfall, and her body motionless. A single fighter unit crashed into another appendage as it rose from the water. The tentacle wrapped around it and crushed the metal with a simple curl, then tossed it into a pillar. The metal groaned but the platform stayed erect.

  Something wrapped around Alyssa’s ankle and pulled her under. Blackness engulfed her and she tried to open her eyes, but they stung in the polluted water. She was jerked into the air and smashed against the inside of the shield. The tentacle dropped her and she hit the filmy water face first.

  The shield dissipated as a ball of bio-energy struck the tentacle, tearing a hole in its flesh. Blood and chunks of blubber rained down around Alyssa.

  “You okay?” Brock yelled, but he seemed very far away.

  “Ahh!” Gloria slammed into Alyssa. Pain shot through Alyssa’s nose and jerked her back. She sunk, stunned. Gloria grabbed onto Alyssa’s slender suit and pulled her up. The golden-haired woman opened her mouth to say something, but let loose a scream as a tentacle slapped the water beside them.

  The two girls exchanged a look, then they swam. Before they could get very far, a tentacle wrapped around them, crushing them together and raising them in to the air.

  Alyssa watched the team fight the tentacles below her. Lily summoned a ball of energy and threw it. Brock followed her attack with a round of bullets and the tentacle seeped blood and guts. With a second bio-energy attack from Lily, the tentacle erupted in a rain of blood and flesh and retreated beneath the water.

  Gloria and Alyssa were raised higher and higher until the team below looked like nothing more than dolls. Alyssa’s body crushed into Gloria’s with their legs intertwined and Gloria’s cheek striking in to Alyssa’s head with bruising force.

  A ship flew past. A tentacle lunged at it and crashed into a pillar. The platform above shook and tilted, spilling debris into the water.

  A thought came to Alyssa. She opened her mouth to yell but found she didn’t have enough air.

  Gloria gasped next to her as she struggled to breathe.

  “The pillar,” Alyssa managed to croak.

  Gloria’s eyes shifted to the side and her eyes widened with understanding.

  “The pillar!” Alyssa and Gloria croaked as loud as they could. “The pillar!”

  “What?” Brock yelled as he pelted the tentacle that held Gloria and Alyssa with bullets.

  “The pillar!” the two girls yelled, jerking as much of their bodies toward it as they could manage.

  Alyssa caught a glimpse of Tally’s limp body still hanging in the air, her limbs twisted at unnatural angles.

  Ulrick threw a ball of energy at the tentacle and it nearly dropped Gloria and Alyssa.

  “The pi
llar!” Alyssa yelled as the tentacle momentarily eased its crushing force.

  Brock yelled something to the rest of the group and the attacks adjusted to the pillar. Lily and Ulrick struck with their bio-energy and Brock and May worked at keeping the tentacles occupied. The tentacles tossed Alberta back and forth, never letting her hit the water. Alyssa hadn’t noticed it before, but Evin was slowly scaling the tentacle that held his sister.

  The pillar groaned and cracked. Then, with the roaring of metal, it tilted and snapped, spilling half the platform into the water.

  Boulders of metal, skyscrapers, and lights crashed into the water. The tentacle released its hold and Gloria and Alyssa plummeted into the water. They sunk, briefly stunned with the collision.

  Angry, red starlight spilled over them, shining through the thick, oily water. A shadow blotted out the glare and Alyssa spun around to see a boulder crashing into the surface of the water. Gloria summoned a shield around her and Alyssa and motioned for her to follow. Alyssa swam. Her limbs were heavy in the thick water but she forced herself forward.

  She surfaced next to Gloria and the two whipped around, looking for the rest of the team.

  Brock swam their way with Alberta on his back. Her arms hung limply over his shoulders and her head rested on the crook of his neck.

  “Is she okay?” Gloria yelled to him.

  “Yeah, she’s just dizzy from being tossed around.”

  Alyssa’s legs burned and her eyes watered from the glare of the red light on the water. A thick slab of metal protruded up through the surface of the water at a slight angle. Alyssa guessed it must be a least four stories high.

  Gloria covered her eyes with her arm and stared at the metal slab. She gasped. “There! There’s Ulrick and May! They’re on that piece of metal. I think they are pulling Lily up.”

  Brock glanced over at them. “Rendezvous on the slab over there. I don’t know how much longer I can swim.”

  Alyssa nodded and swam toward the others. Her face throbbed from where Gloria collided with her and her body ached from a mixture of being crushed and trying to stay afloat.

  When she reached the metal slab, Ulrick pulled her up then helped Alberta off Brock’s back. Lily lay on her back, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. Gloria collapsed to her knees and lay down on her stomach next to her. Alyssa joined the women. Normally she would have been weary of getting too close to people, but exhaustion and fear had her craving the support of the other women.

  Lily raised her head for a moment, then groaned and let it fall back heavily. “How the hell do you two still look amazing? It is just not fair.”

  “Tells me ’bout it,” Alberta said. The woman’s black hair was tangled over her face and clung to her shoulder on one side. Oil clung to her piercings like strings of seaweed.

  “I look as terrible as the rest of you,” Gloria said with a laugh.

  “Who says look terribles…”

  “Have you seen Bixom and Tally and Evin?” Lily asked.

  “Fucks those guys.”

  “What did Bixom ever do to you?” Gloria asked.

  “Nots Bixom. Just Tally, Evin.”

  “I will go in after them,” Ulrick replied.

  Before they were able to take action, arguing was heard.

  “Come on! You have to come with us, she is no longer. She is dead. I am sorry, but there is nothing you can do. She is somewhere under there but trying to find her will likely get you killed as well. This water is heavy, our time swimming is limited. Keep moving.”

  “You fucking bastard! You killed her! You killed her!”

  “I am sorry for your loss, but you have to cease this search or you will be killed too, she would not want that.”

  Alyssa squinted in the direction of the voices, but the red glare proved just as difficult to see in as the blackness.

  Grunting and splashing followed by bullets echoed in the moist air. Ulrick dove off the edge.

  “Get down!” Brock grabbed Alyssa and nearly threw her onto her back. The air left her lungs as Brock’s body covered hers. He wrapped his arms around her head and tucked in close to her as a ship swooped low, nearly colliding with the metal slab.

  55

  The screech of metal against metal ripped through the muggy air. Brock pushed Alyssa away just as a liquid, metallic spear flattened where they had both been lying just moments before. Alyssa continued to roll until she could jump to her feet.

  Brock stared at a pool of aluminum. It slid around, reaching in all directions. Brock tilted away, unsure of what would happen if it touched him. A piercing shrill rang behind him and he whipped around. Aluminum wrapped around May, expanding until it covered his body. It seemed to shiver with anticipation, or excitement, then there was a sickening crush. The liquid dropped to the ground, releasing a suit of flesh that once resembled May.

  Alyssa shrieked. The blobs shot toward her, slithering like a snake. Brock’s scream caught in his throat. In slow motion, Alyssa dove into the water, the aluminum pool chasing after.

  She’s gone. She’s gone.

  Those two words filtered through his mind over and over again. He was stuck, staring at the spot in the water, waiting breathlessly for Alyssa to surface.

  Muffled noises floated into his consciousness but never penetrated the fog.

  Lily collided with him. He stumbled backward. Sound came to him in a roar of engines and screams, of bullets and eruptions. A metal blob shot past him and fell onto the platform. Clatters of feet rang over the area. He whipped around to see a horde of Developers racing at him. Behind them metal bodies filled the murky water like a swarm of gnats.

  A liquid blob shot at Brock. He dove to the ground and turned onto his back just as the liquid wrapped around a Developer’s metal skeleton. It spread over him until it contained him fully in an aluminum cocoon. Then it contracted with a sickening crunch, but this time instead of bones and flesh it was metal. It released the Developer; his crumpled body fell into pieces and slid down the sloped surface into the water.

  Evin and Bixom pulled themselves up onto the platform. A ball immediately flung toward them.

  “Watch out!” Brock yelled.

  Bixom yanked Evin back by his collar and the ball flew past them and crashed into the water.

  “Did you see Alyssa?” Brock yelled.

  Bixom shook his head.

  “She went into the water. Those metal balls... they... they went in after her.”

  Bixom dove back into the water without another word.

  “Where’s your weird little Developer friend?” Evin sneered as he pulled himself to his feet and brushed at his water-logged jumpsuit.

  “The blobs... they crushed him…”

  Evin looked over at an aluminum pool that slithered over the ground, feeling for its next pray.

  Bullets ricocheted off the metal. Brock ducked and whipped around to see a horde of Developers climbing onto the platform on their hands and knees. They piled over each other, water running off their bodies, their mouths open, revealing circling revolvers. Bullets shot from their mouths, hitting the ground, the water, shooting into the air and even hitting their comrades.

  Brock transformed his arm into his machine gun and funneled his bio-energy. He felt the warmth trickle down his arm and the power surge in his muscles and funneled it into his weapon.

  He let loose a scream as he fired the energized bullets at the swarm of Developers, releasing his anger, his hatred, and his fear that he would never see Alyssa again. The image of her body crumpled like May’s burned in the back of his eyelids.

  The energized bullets erupted on impact. Metal flew into the air, the blast ripping the machines apart. But it didn’t matter; there was another swarm right behind them to take their place.

  Ulrick and Lily fell in place behind him. Ulrick summoned his bio-energy with expertise and attacked. Flames sparked and the blast rocked the platform. Developers flew. Metal limbs rained into the water. Lily held out her hands and f
ocused her energy. A spark of energy flashed in her hands. She snarled and pulled out her E-gun, aimed, and fired.

  A shield shimmered around Brock. Bullets ricocheted against the glittery surface, but then it flickered out. Brock’s stomach dropped. His team was getting tired. Bio-energy wasn’t an unlimited resource and he couldn’t remember the last time any of them rested or ate.

  Alberta stomped across the battle field. Gloria’s shield flickered around her, protecting her from the random bullets that flew by. Her black makeup ran down her pale face. Her wet, black hair hung in her eyes. She smoothed one hand through it, revealing the dragon roaring up the side of her shaved head into her hairline. The pilot stopped beside Brock and yanked his spare gun out of his holster, aimed, and fired.

  “Whats hell looking at?” Alberta asked him with a raise of her eyebrow.

  “N-nothing,” Brock stammered.

  Brock turned to see ships swooping toward the platform, shooting large metal balls at them. Two hit the water and sank, while the others collided with the platform with enough force to nearly knock Brock off balance. The liquid ball shot at him. He dove out of the way. Alberta laid a round of bullets into the puddle. Then it flung itself at her. Ulrick yanked her out of the way and shot a ball of energy at it. The liquid sizzled, then seemed to get larger before flinging itself at the Hilian. Ulrick backed up and fell off the edge.

  “Ulrick!” Lily dove into the water before Brock could catch her.

  A few moments passed. Brock felt each of them in the beat of his heart. Had he just lost two more friends?

  Ulrick surfaced with a roar. “You will not put yourself in danger!”

  “You would have done just the same,” Lily yelled back.

  “I would have done the same, as it is my duty. Your duty is to be safe and listen to your male.”

  “You are out of your bloody mind. I would not let you fight that thing alone.”

  “It could have killed you!”

  “It could have killed you!”

  The two Hilians looked at each other. After a moment, Ulrick pulled Lily into a hard kiss.