Alien's Prize

by C. R Corbin

  Alien’s Prize

  by C.R Corbin

  Table of contents

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  More from the Author

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  Chapter One

  I sit on the steps of the ruins, the temple lies

  Jino

  I sit on the steps of the ruins, the temple lies behind me, its stones long wasted and covered in moss.

  There is nothing on this world for me, nor is there anything on here for anyone else. I do wonder if there are others like me out there, if there are others that have come from here and that were now gone. No one quite knows what happened to the place, whether it be an invasion, a disease, no one really knows. All anybody knows is that the majority of the population here is now gone and there's no bringing them back.

  This is the story of Delos and it is not an uplifting one, if anything it is more of a tragedy.

  I landed earlier in the day, my employer had agreed to meet here in order to negotiate since it was mid-way in between my current home in the orbital city of Sixua and his home planet. He was a shadowed man, I don't know much about him, but some could say he was nefarious. I don't care really, he offered contracts and I accepted them without qualm. The only thing that was on my mind was to gain enough of a living to live comfortably, which, admittedly, I already do. I rub my fingers together after lifting some of the soil from the ground of Delos, my fingers grazed the ruined stones and the trees sway. Their trunks looked more like masses of gnarled grass that has been bound together by adhesive sap more than anything else. I could remember the old days when these trees used to be climbed and when warriors used to hurl themselves from them in search of prey. I was a young man then, only about 5 years old in Delosian terms, a little boy that was desperately looking for any signs that he might also grow into such a caliber of warrior.

  And about 6 years later that same little boy was looking around for signs that he wouldn't be left all alone after his family had disappeared...somehow.

  I glared at the temple behind me, its stoic facade betrayed a sense of power that was no longer there. What right did this damn structure have to stay standing while everyone had died in protection of it? It was mostly empty now, there were only a few records inside of the basement as well as some glyphs that were carved into the stone walls. The steps were cracked and weathered by the rain and the winds. Every time I come back here it's as if the chills never leave me, it's as if the world becomes a bit colder.

  And I hate it, I hate it more than anything else. The fact that my home planet was so still and so...lifeless was incredibly discouraging, but I suppose that's the reality of the situation.

  My hands grazed over my plates of grey armor, the suit clings to my body, it has protected me well. Even now when I run my fingers over all the flaws and chips that have accrued from years of battle after taking contract after contract, the feeling of the plates is so...enthralling to me

  The armor told my history, what I had been through and what would come for me, it told me everything that I needed to know.

  My weapons lay on a small rock off to the side, they sit there and glimmer as the rain struck them, running along the silk metal while I glanced them over. I didn't have to fear the rust, there was a thick coat of paint on the metals already, now all that I had to wait for was this bastard who told me he had a job waiting for me.

  It's been that way ever since I was about 11, you go out into the marketplaces and you do whatever you can to survive and oftentimes for a Delosian that meant that you would have to kill someone. It was more than fine with me, our bodies were made for war, made to be hardy, made to be able to rip apart any foe that stood in our way.

  My parents sent me on a one way trip out of this place once everything had gone to parak. I didn't quite know or remember what had happened, but I do remember a stench and an overwhelming fire that consumed my vision. Now, all there is here is the smooth scent of the rain.

  Most of my friends perished within the first year away, they weren't built to be strong, to be ruthless which were qualities I quickly acquired. I still had morals, of course, I was not a savage animal, but I suppose that the difference to most common folk would have been nothing special. It was all in a day after all, all done just to satiate my hunger and shelter me.

  And still, there was something missing.

  I remembered touching the glyphs as soon as I got back and reading the message on the wall clearly. The height of my mating cycle would soon be approaching and I know that I wouldn't be able to find one. There was no way I would be able to find a mate considering the fact that the members of my race are so few and scattered. I could find a compatible species, but there is nothing in the database that says that dream will come true. Even if I do find someone compatible there is a high chance that I am not attracted to them which will leave the mating bond unformed. I had to be attracted to them as well as compatible in order for them to bear my offspring, the heir to whatever legacy that I may have built in this universe.

  But I suppose that all didn't really mean anything in the long run. Life, death, none of it mattered in the face of all of this. After all the Delosians vanished in the blink of an eye and the universe didn't even shiver.

  A legacy, offspring, all of those words kept on decreasing in their value in my eyes, at least they had no worth to me.

  I get to my feet and ponder the question of what would happen when I grew old. As much as I hated it, I did want to find a mate, I didn't want to die a decrepit mercenary that has earned whatever joy that he had through the means of slaying bandits. I wanted something more, something that my parents once told me of. Back when Delos was still populated all mating was consensual and when you found the one it was said that the true purpose of your life began. Up until now, my life has merely been death, it has been chaos, rage, to find a true meaning to all of this would have been lovely, but it seemed like the stars didn't deem me to be fortunate.

  My hands tighten, I stared at the grey metal wrapped around my fingers tensing up. My chest plate glimmers with rain droplets as I looked upwards, my red visor glowed before it retracted and I glanced over at the entrance of the temple. My blue eyes shone as I step up towards the entrance and glanced at the man in front of me.

  He was the employer, but it seemed like he didn't like to show his face.

  He was a small man, almost shaped like a ball with many legs. In the shadows he lurks, unable to say a word until I stepped close enough. I stand across from him under the roof of the temple while the tarp that I have wrapped around my back dripped more and more water off of it. He glances up at me and sniffles before he begins to speak in a rather nasally, yet raspy voice.

  "Jino." he mutters my name, despite his stature and his voice, he was...commanding in a way. It was sort of strange to describe it and yet I had to dip my head in deference as much as it wounded my pride and insulted my sensibilities.

  "What do you have for me?" I growled out, he had kept me waiting so that he could appear theatrically? I had enough of waiting for him. "Another assassination?"

  "Of a sort." he responded and glanced at the little h
ologram that he held in his palm. Instantly this planet beams out of it, it was a small projection that was about as big as my head. The hairs on my back bristle at attention, my horns stand still while my short hair slipped against them. The planet looked more like a desert than a forest, I had experience in deserts, but...they were so lifeless I often avoided them in favor of other contracts.

  That wasn't the thing that perturbed me, however

  It was the price.

  I lifted a hand to my face and stroked my chin while admiring the price tag for this operation, "Ten million credits huh?"

  "You do this for me and you get the prize." he spoke matter of factly. It was clear to me that the amount of money meant almost nothing to him. A million credits could buy you a goddamn continent on some planets, hell in some places would buy you moons. It was an insane amount for me, especially considering the fact that, up until now, I've been doing contracts that were more in the 100,000 range.

  I flicked my hand over the hologram and the report came out, apparently there was a Melphian bandit leader. They were a species that had an incredible amount of fingers as well as an exoskeleton that was said to be harder than iron. That was no issue to me of course, I had overpowered and smashed plenty of them, but the reason that I was being selected for this job was different. I was supposed to hunt down a single man, Yurian, I was supposed to kill him as well as kill whatever followers he had with him.

  And I was the perfect one to do it.

  It was common knowledge that the Melphians were incredibly slippery due to the fact that they can turn practically invisible. Part of it was natural as they could adjust their skin in order to blend in with regards to how much light was shining on them. That was only a matter of camouflage, however. Most species had a counter for this, using special goggles as well as taking the fight to darkened areas, but they are often hard to come by. For that reason the Melphians were incredibly mighty in terms of galactic powers, but I was perfectly suited to fight them because I relied on my other senses.

  I could practically see them using my sense of smell and hearing, they were no different to me than any other manner of enemy.

  "Well what do you say? Get there and kill whatever manner of Melphian that you can and you shall receive your funds...Perhaps even restore this place to some of its former glory." he chuckled in that light tone of his while I glared at the blackened shape in front of me before sighing.

  "I suppose we have a deal." I muttered before tapping a few, buttons on my gauntlet to load the report into my database. There are lines of code that run across my visor before I removed it, it was sort of hard to breathe in this thing even though I wanted to look professional. "Are we done here?" I asked.

  "We are." he responded matter of factly before backing away into the shadows, I glanced as his shape meddled with the wall before he disappeared entirely. I still wasn't sure what the man is, but I was sure of one thing.

  My next destination was a large desert world called Juerin.

  Chapter Two

  Miriam

  The situation was dire, I wasn't going to dispute that fact. The fact that gunfire was now hammering us over and over again while all that I could do was kneel behind some piece of rubble out of concern for my own safety was definitely troubling.

  And I didn't know what we were going to do about it.

  I hoisted my gun up and glared at the space in front of me as shots continued to hammer the rocks. With any luck, this would let up, but I wasn't going to count on it. We had only gotten here about a few weeks before and we were already contending with god knows who. There was no intel on who these bastards were or what they wanted, but I know one thing, they weren't going to let up, they carved away our entire defense force.

  So what could I do in exchange? There was nothing to be done at the moment. At one moment we were resting in the quiet of the desert and in the next, I felt the pulses of lasers hammering us over and over again. It was hell and chaos of the highest order and I wasn't entirely sure that our paltry force was enough to hold them off.

  These strange beams came seemingly out of thin air, we were hammered with bolts of energy and I had already seen several of my fellow scientists fall already. The security force wasn't doing as well as they could have so the scientists had to help as well or else we would risk being overrun. I didn't even really know how to fight, but I knew how to shoot at the very least, it was better than my colleague Steven who tried to fire one and ended up just firing at himself instead. Poor fellow.

  But back to the matter at hand.

  From my estimate we were surrounded and there was little else that we could do. The entire structure of the base had collapsed, but there was still enough rubble so they couldn't simply fire on us at will. I hide behind one of the pieces of rubble, we were surrounded, there was enough coverage to keep us safe for the moment, but I noticed that the attacks were getting far more frequent at least, they starting to hammer us down with even more intensity than they had before and now all that I could do was just pray that I wouldn't get struck or hit by a stray bolt.

  The only way out was if we made a run for it. Between our dwindling numbers and the fact that they were drawing closer, or at least I presume partially, we didn't have a choice, but to just depart as soon as we could.

  "Hold your ground! They won't overtake us!" shouted the commander of the security team as he gets to his feet and roars before firing off as much as he could. He was soon struck in the chest and it charred his armor, I thought that he was fine until I saw the burning hole near his shoulder that rendered his left arm almost entirely useless.

  Their weapons were too advanced for our armor, we didn't even see them so we couldn't really provide a counter-attack, it was more like all we could do was simply hit them on accident after firing off in frenzy for a while. There was nothing that could be done and I hated that fact more than anything. I scowled while glaring at my blaster, I wanted to toss it across the battlefield and scream in frustration.

  And then I felt it, another explosion.

  It occurred behind me and I felt myself rocket upwards before I fell in the middle of the battlefield, my body was tossed like a ragdoll and slammed into to the sands as I felt a rib and an arm break. I wasn't entirely sure that I was even going to be able to function after all of this, but despite my better judgment I got to my feet and began to run. I knew there was no way out now, they had broken our line and all there was now was escape, survival. This planet didn't have too much water aside from stray river beds that came every once in a while, there wasn't much to eat besides wild animals and some plants, but it was a better fate to die that way than to be, butchered by these invisible monsters that kept on pursuing us.

  My feet crunch against the dirt as I thought of the base and all that was left of it. All of my friends were likely dead at this point or maybe even captured if they were unlucky enough. I thought of Evelyn and her obsession with sharks and her attempts to be a marine biologist, but how she constantly complained about her knack for plants instead of fish, and how this was her new position. I thought of Captain Leland and his missing leg as well as his attempts to get away from his nagging wife, that was the only reason that he came here. I thought of Steven who had a not so subtle crush on our doctor and an unhealthy obsession with the burritos that came in the ration packs that we ate. I wasn't entirely sure that I would see them ever again, and so memories of them kept trickling through my mind.

  I had to resist the urge to puke and I almost succeeded, but I ended up opening my helmet against better judgment and vomiting once I got far enough.

  The adrenaline had dulled my pain to the point where I didn't even feel the wounds that I had accrued during my departure such a charred shoulder that was now throbbing wildly. In addition to the fact that my leg was damaged by a stray laser bolt, I didn't even know if I was going to live with these injuries in this desert for long, but I had to will myself onwards, if not to sim
ply survive then to find answers to what had happened to us here. It was a truly dreadful fate that has befallen us and I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to think of it anymore.

  We were simply here on an expedition to track some strange life form readings on this planet, there was nothing else that we were going to do here.

  Who was it that attacked us? They had to be intelligent based on the weapons that they were using as well as their tactics so who the hell were these people that were so dead set on killing all of us?

  I cower behind a rock as I listened in to the screams and the sounds of the blasters going off in the distance. To think that colleagues that I was just eating breakfast with earlier this morning were now sitting there in a pile of their own ashes was a truly harrowing thought and I didn't want to entertain it any longer. The more I thought about it the sicker I became so I simply tried to focus on my breathing and a way out.

  Just find a way to get answers and to get off of this planet. Try to call back to home base...

  My armor's communicator wasn't the best, but it would have to do at the moment. I wasn't protected that much by the suit due to the outfit that I was wearing being a scientist's uniform that wasn't exactly adapted for battle. All I could do was hope and pray to god that someone would pick up once I phoned, that was the only thing that I could do at the moment.

  I began adjusting my gauntlet and typed in the commands, but suddenly I heard something, approaching footsteps. I glanced over the ridge ever so slightly and saw that there was no one...besides these puffs of dirt that keep on trickling upwards as whoever this was made their way towards me.

  I ducked back under the sandstone and quickly grabbed my blaster, my speech became more akin to incoherent ramblings I began to spurt out nonsense into my gauntlet. It was an open broadcast signal since the contacts that I had tried thus far had been silent. I yell as loudly as I could into the microphone for someone to help as the footsteps got louder and louder. I don't care about hiding anymore, I was just too preoccupied with getting someone to save us. They had my trail, they could see the blood from me, scattered across the desert floor and were now coming.