The Alorian Wars Box Set

by Drew Avera

  “What was that about?” Brendle asked, rubbing his neck from where his collar had chaffed his skin. Never mind the fact he was a little embarrassed to be man-handled like that.

  “You’re an idiot,” Anki said. “You stood there looking stupid when an armed man told you to drop your weapon. I just saved you. That’s what that was about.”

  Brendle looked where she was aiming and the man poking his head out from behind the ship. “I told you I didn’t want to shoot you, but you didn’t drop the gun, and I saw you were a Greshian. I thought you were going to kill me,” the man’s voice quivered. It was fear, Brendle recognized it.

  “He’s not armed any longer,” Anki said, moving the gun to aim it directly at Brendle. “Come out from behind the ship and speak to me directly.”

  So I guess she’s in charge now, Brendle thought. He saw out of the corner of his eye the man peeking around the corner. Brendle looked at Anki and eyed her warily, the rise in his eyebrows saying I thought we were through pointing guns at each other, and she just shrugged.

  “You, you’re not Greshian,” the man said it like a question. The weapon he carried looked too heavy for his small frame. That might’ve been why he missed, Brendle thought.

  Anki laughed, it was the first time since he had met her that she made a sound other than mild regret at not killing him. The sound of her laughter made Brendle smile, but not too big considering the fact she might not have decided whether or not to pull the trigger yet. “I promise you, I am the farthurest thing from Greshian you will ever know,” she said.

  Brendle thought about looking offended, but it wasn’t a good time. At this point he wasn’t sure he qualified to be considered Greshian anymore either.

  “I don’t want to shoot a woman,” the man said. “Won’t you drop the weapon too?”

  “Yeah, drop it,” Brendle whispered, a coy smile showed his teeth. Anki just glared at him.

  “I tell you what. I will lower the weapon, but I will not drop it unless you do the same,” Anki replied.

  “He’s not going to go for that,” Brendle started to say, but Anki shut him up by driving the business end of the gun hard enough into his face to cause his lip to bleed. “Ouch,” he said louder than necessary.

  “Shut up,” she sneered. She looked back at the man in hiding and said “Do we have a deal?”

  The man peeked around the corner again and watched as Anki lowered the weapon to a more neutral position. He followed her move, allowing his own weapon to rest at hip height. The man watched Anki lower the weapon to the ground and he matched her movements until both guns were resting safely on the ground. Anki grabbed hold of Brendle and shoved him away from weapon. Away from the danger of my taking it up again and doing something stupid, he thought she might say.

  “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it,” Anki said. Brendle could see the satisfaction of neutralizing the threat without having to fire a shot in her eyes. There was smugness to her look that border lined on condescending, but it was also endearing. He liked the way the lines of her face came down to accentuate her lips. It was like despite the fierceness of the warrior she was, there was a softness she didn’t want people to see. That was his perception anyway. If nothing else, she struck him as peculiar, but that just made her all the more interesting in his opinion.

  “Who are you?” the short man said as he came from around the ship. Fully erect, Anki was at least a head taller than him as they stood on level ground. Brendle thought it might have been the shade of the ship, but his skin was an ashy gray color, which made his yellowish eyes look like tiny stars against the darker canvas of his flesh. The tattoo of a bird-like creature was etched into the bald skin atop his head and Brendle wondered if it might have been a religious thing.

  “My name is Anki. This Greshian is named Brendle. We mean you no harm,” she said.

  “He was armed. Are you his prisoner?”

  “I am no one’s prisoner,” Anki assured him.

  “Is he your prisoner then?” The question was a bold one.

  Anki turned to look at Brendle and she looked on the verge of laughter.

  Not to be pushed into a corner he couldn’t get out of, Brendle said, “We haven’t come to terms on that actually,” Brendle said, trying to ease his way into the conversation. Anki rolled her eyes. “But like she said, we don’t mean you any harm. We just hailed you because we need a ride off this moon and back to some kind of civilization. If you can provide a ride for us then we would really appreciate it,” he finished.

  The gray man eyed them warily. Even though they were unarmed, the man was afraid of them. Brendle knew it was because whatever world he came from had at least heard of the Greshian Empire. Was there nowhere in the Alorian Galaxy where the word Greshian didn’t evoke fear and loathing? “My name is Deis,” the man said. “My husband and I escaped our world from your people. Everyone we know is dead. How can we trust that you won’t kill us?”

  The words hit Brendle like a kick in the chest. “You have my word no harm will come to you,” he said. He meant every word of it too.

  Deis shook his head, Brendle could tell it wasn’t enough. The furrowing of Deis’ brow preceded his words. “Your word means nothing to me, to us. Your people, your empire of lies, slaughtered our world. Why should I trust you?”

  Brendle looked at Deis, not knowing what to say. The man spoke the truth and he didn’t have any right to try and refute it. The Greshians took everything they wanted, he knew it just as well as the Anki and Deis. The only difference was he once was the heel stepping on the throats of people like Deis and Anki. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t that man anymore. He wondered if they would understand that he gave up his life to not be that person anymore. As Brendle stood lost in thought, trying to find the right words to say, another gray man stepped from around the ship and stood behind Deis. Brendle watched as the other man moved in, whispering into Deis’ ear.

  Deis’ eyes widened.

  The second man looked a lot like Deis, though he was skinnier and slightly taller. He also didn’t have any visible tattoos, though his jacket and pants covered more flesh than Deis’ wardrobe. Brendle remembered that Deis said he had a husband, this man was presumably him. Deis turned to whisper into his lover’s ear, about what― Brendle could only speculate― but their conversation had put Deis more on edge than he had been before.

  “What’s wrong?” Anki asked.

  Both men had fear in their eyes as they looked at Brendle and Anki, but the fear wasn’t directed at the people standing before them. It was because of something else. “My husband, Malikea said our ship has been pinged by another warship. It seems that entering this moon’s atmosphere triggered our transponder to emit a signal and I was too concerned with not crashing the ship to pay any attention to it.”

  “Who is it?” Anki asked. Dread crept into her voice as well. All this fear made Brendle suddenly more uncomfortable than he was when Anki had his own weapon pointed in his face.

  Deis looked at them with a forlorn expression on his face and said, “It is called GNS Telran. The Greshians have found us.”

  21

  Anki

  Brendle said something vulgar under his breath while Deis and Malikea held each other, dread in their yellow eyes. Anki ignored the fear coursing through her veins, but it wasn’t something she was trained to do. This form of coping with the danger was something more primal, more dangerous. A thousand thoughts flowed through her mind, each one a calculated risk which would ultimately result in their destruction. How do you stand up to a Greshian war machine, a world-killer?

  There was movement to her right and she finally realized Brendle was reaching for his gun and stuffing it back into his holster. He said something, but she wasn’t paying any attention, only the dull thudding sound of her heart beating in her ears captured her thoughts. The shock of the situation seeming to remove her ability to think clearly. The next instant she saw Brendle standing in front of her, shaking as if the ground w
as quaking beneath his feet. It took a moment for Anki to realize the shaking was a result of him grasping her arms and trying to get her attention.

  “―got to go. Anki, we’ve got to go,” he was shouting when she finally shook the veil from her mind. His grip was strong, but not tight enough to hurt.

  “All… all right,” she stammered. The world came back into focus, the thud of her heart in her ears, the vision of Brendle and the other two men hustling towards the airlock of a ship that looked like it had seen better days. Every fiber of her being said this is a deathtrap; you’re going to die, but she followed anyway. She didn’t have a choice. Or did she? The three men stopped when they reached the bridge. It was dark, almost dead. The ship must have been shut down. She wondered if Deis had shutdown after landing or if Malikea did so when the Telran found them. That didn’t matter now because it was too late, shutting down the ship didn’t make them invisible, but she doubted either of the Lechun men knew that.

  Brendle was saying something to Deis, or was it Malikea? He was pointing and barking orders, the men were trying to handle whatever task Brendle had given them, and Anki felt useless. She knew she shouldn’t feel that way, she knew she could help. She had been on a ship before she joined the Luthian Navy. She had skills usable for this kind of work, but she didn’t know what needed to be done. “What do I need to do?” her question sounded meek to her own ears, all of the confidence she demonstrated as a fighter meant nothing in the face of this kind of danger. It was ridiculous, and she knew it, but somewhere her confidence had been shaken and she was struggling to find it. She dared not wonder if she would ever find it again. Brendle didn’t hear her, or didn’t care. He looked caught up in his own thoughts, the actions of a man trying to save himself from the destruction he knew he didn’t have the strength to stave off. Anki took a deep breath and shouted this time. “What do you need me to do?”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the shouting woman. It was quiet enough she could hear her breath whistling lightly through her nostrils. A grin showed on Brendle’s face and he said, “Do you know how to run a prelaunch sequence?”

  “Yes,” she answered. It was true, or at least it was a few years ago when she was salvaging Luthian ships. This one was different, though.

  “Good. I don’t suppose you know how to bypass a launch sequence so we can skin out of here do you? We don’t really have time to sit out in the open like this.” Brendle was talking from the other side of the console, his hands rapidly moving about the surface as he tried to bring the ship back to life.

  Anki looked at Brendle. He was hiding the desperation she knew must be going through his mind. She had never bypassed a safety parameter on a ship before, but she had salvaged a dead vessel by rerouting all of the safety protocols to a dummy switch. It worked like a bypass at the time, she thought. “I can try,” she answered.

  Brendle inhaled sharply before responding. “Please do, and hurry. The Telran is minutes away from this moon’s orbit. If we can get airborne, then I think we can make it to the other side of this rock and takeoff with a nice barrier between us and them.”

  Anki nodded and went to work. The ship was structurally sound, but corrosion was beginning to form on the unpainted surfaces. Moving around the bridge, she noticed a console with the name Replicade etched in an embossed pattern over the plated metal that didn’t seem to match the rest of the aesthetics of the ship, though. Someone changed the name of the ship, she thought as she removed the console and stuck her hands in with the rat’s nest of wiring. It had been a few years since she worked salvage, but it was hard to forget some things once you’ve done them enough. She found the wiring going to the launch computer and tore them from the bulkhead. It wasn’t the nicest way to treat the ship you hoped might save your life, but it was the most efficient way to get the bird in the air. Her fingers found the red and black wires going to the drive motor and twisted them together. She felt the electricity course through her fingers painfully, but she ignored it. Electrical burn treatments could wait. This ship needs to get airborne, NOW.

  All around them lights began to illuminate, casting shadows in areas where several diodes had gone dark. It was apparent that upkeep of the ship hadn’t been a priority to Deis and Malikea. She wondered if they even knew how to maintain a ship. It was obvious neither one made a very good pilot, based on the landing she witnessed.

  “How’s it coming?” Brendle asked. His fingers were darting across a screen, the glow of it illuminating his face in a pale blue.

  “The drive is on,” she answered. Not only were the lights on, but she could feel the gentle jostling of the ship as the drive hummed deep in the Replicade’s bowels.

  “Yeah, I’m getting engine data and flight controls now. Everyone, hold onto something,” he ordered.

  Anki looked at the other men as Brendle took control of their ship. The Replicade shifted, tossing everyone into a dizzy dance as they tried to maintain their balance. It was a rough ride. It would make for a rougher crash, Anki thought, and this time she wouldn’t be cushioned in crash gel.

  There was a forty-five degree pitch sending everyone forward. Anki slid on her legs and caught a console with her shoulder, half knocking the breath out of her. It hurt, but she shoved the pain aside. From her new vantage point she could see the screen Brendle was using to fly the ship. He was fighting to maintain altitude, but she knew, based on the terrain, he was trying to stay low enough to avoid detection. She wondered how many times he might have tried these evasive maneuvers. It occurred to her he might never have; usually ships fled the Greshians. She had never heard of a Greshian fleeing from another fleet of ships.

  Brendle swore as the Replicade rolled hard left. For a second or two, gravity lost control of their bodies. The force of it took control again as they slammed hard to the deck. If the Greshians don’t kill us, then all the jostling the ship is doing might. “Have you ever flown a ship?” she asked, not realizing she was yelling at him.

  Brendle turned to face her, his face a paler white than it was moments ago. His eyes were piercing, but gentle. “I’m not really a pilot,” he said. There should have been a shrug that followed, something that said he was kidding perhaps, but instead there was the sound of an explosion shaking through the hull of the ship. It crossed her mind that it didn’t much matter if he was a pilot or not. Things weren’t going in a very favorable direction for anyone onboard. Anki swallowed down fear and steadied herself against the ship’s console as another turbulent roll shook the deck beneath her feet. A klaxon sounded and for the second time in a single day, Anki knew she would die.

  22

  Brendle

  Feeling like you were about to die did two things. First, it made you appreciate each breath that separated you from the last. Second, it made you want to fight harder to extend those breaths. For Brendle, the only thing he could do was think fast and pray to the gods he could pull something from his sleeve to keep from dying. Thinking was easier said than done with the distraction of the crew screaming for their lives behind him. Was the turbulence scary? Of course, but maneuvering the Replicade wasn’t something he was familiar with and he needed maximum concentration to keep her aloft. There were too many peaks protruding from the moon’s surface that threatened to tear the hull of the ship from its frame. Never mind the fact that targeting lasers were painting the Replicade red.

  Brendle drove the pitch downward, saying a silent prayer that the ship would not scrape against the rocky terrain and rip them apart. The downward plunge caused gravity to fall away for a moment. If not for the console, Brendle might have floated away from the controls, unable to bring the ship back under control, elevating lift, promoting another few precious seconds of life for him and the ragtag crew screaming behind him. A cliff appeared on the screen ahead of the ship. He reversed the maneuver, veering skyward, shoving gravity back towards the deck. He heard the sound of bodies striking steel, the shouts of anger or fear in the background. He couldn�
��t tell which because it all sounded the same through the filter of the beating heart in his eardrums.

  He heard his name, but it was a distraction. He ignored it, shoved it away as his eyes focused on the screen, the controls, the imminent death behind them. The Replicade shuddered under them, quaking and jostling through the thin atmosphere of a useless planetary body. His hands fumbled at the screen, reacting to stimulus as it appeared. He didn’t question anything, just reacted. He was in his own world, shunning the despair emitting from the voices behind him.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

  “You’re killing us!” Malikea screamed. There was blood on his face and hands as the grey-skinned man pointed in Brendle’s face.

  Brendle didn’t have time for this so he turned back around.

  The hand gripped his shoulder again, forcing the only response Brendle could muster from the stimulus. As his body turned, his hands reached for the throat of his assailant. Pale fingers gripped tightly and lifted the man from the deck, feet dangled as a mouth gasped for air. Brendle had no intention of killing him, but he had to do whatever it took to save the ship. The idea of one man dying to preserve the group came into his mind. Disgusted, he shook the thought away and shoved the man towards the bulkhead, turning to face the screen again. He knew if Malikea was smart, he would give Brendle space to work.

  Malikea’s reaction was anything but smart.

  He charged Brendle, driving his shoulder into Brendle’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Everything began to fade for a moment as Brendle gasped for air. A fist was driven into his face before he even realized he was on his back. Everything was tinged in shades of bluish black and the taste of iron was on his tongue. Another strike on his face caused his head to bounce off the deck, the cold thud of his skull hitting a surface with no intention of being merciful. Brendle had to do something, control the ship as it launched skyward, exposed and burning hard. There was only one thing he could think to do to control the situation. He drew his weapon and drove it under the chin of his assailant.