A Galaxy Divided
Cosmic Outlaws #2
Spencer Maxwell
Copyright © 2019 by Spencer Maxwell
Cover Design © 2019 by Erik J Anderson
Edited by Sonya Bateman
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions email: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work.
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This one’s dedicated to everyone who isn’t afraid to look up at the stars and dream
One
The Behemoth broke through Cryton IV’s atmosphere not long before sundown. This was no regular Dominion Battler, either. Possessing a hundred times the power of any other craft in the fleet, as well as the ability to destroy half of a planet at the mere touch of a button (which it had done so on more than one occasion), the Behemoth was a fitting vessel for the God-King of the Celestial Dominion.
The twinkling lights of the city grew closer, displayed on the main bridge’s viewscreen. The God-King didn’t smile, laugh, or shout any orders, and his face was business as usual; but as the Behemoth descended, he thought this of the planet: Quite pretty. It’s a shame I’ll have to burn it all down.
As expected, a transmission came through. No peace tonight. The messenger on the other end spoke in the language of the Hunil.
One of the Battler’s comm officers replied in the same dialect. The two went back and forth, and the God-King understood it all.
The Hunil had said bringing Dominion ships to the planet was an act of warfare, that they were not under Dominion control.
Not yet, but you will be soon. Smirking, the God-King spun around, his crimson robes swirling, and he said, “Ready the weapons and aim for that power ring. Let’s show the Hunil scum how poor a decision resisting would be.”
The viewscreen zoomed in on the ring above the main city. It supplied the power to nearly everything on the planet, which was mostly barren aside from a few heavily populated metropolises.
“Yes, sir!” a younger man said. He was the ship’s weapons-master, and completely expendable. If he failed, he would be thrown out of the airlock the next time they entered open space.
“Fire when ready,” the God-King said.
“Ready,” the weapons-master said, raising a hand to the crew controlling the targeting system. “Fire!”
Two bursts of red light streaked through the dark sky at a velocity the human eye couldn’t track. But as the will of the Essence coursed through his veins, the God-King followed the streaks as if they moved in slow-motion.
The ring’s upper left half exploded in a flurry of fire and smoke. On the comm, the Hunils screamed and yelled in their barbaric language.
Half of the city lost lights. They could hear the crashes in the airlanes below without traffic signals to guide them.
“Wonderful,” the God-King said. “Tell them we will not hesitate to destroy more if they continue to be uncooperative.”
The communicator had paled and now looked slightly squeamish.
Good, the God-King thought. You should. I surmise that at least five hundred of Cryton IV’s citizens are now ash and broken corpses. You had a hand in this as much as any of us. There’s no room for weakness in my Dominion.
Despite the obvious aversion to his task, the comm officer relayed the message, having to shout over the Hunils’ own shrieks and pleas. He had proved his worth…for now.
The God-King turned to his current second-in-command aboard this Battler—not Ace Silver this time. Wherever that imbecile is, he thought, I hope he’s suffering. “Keep the ship in the sky and ready my transport. I will need a battalion of our finest soldiers.” He clenched his teeth.
“But sir,” the second-in-command said, “they’ll kill you. Let someone else go in your stead—”
The King raised a hand, cutting him off. “They will try, but they will not succeed.” He flashed his unnatural eyes at the officer. They glowed a violent red, brimming with malice and rage.
The officer stood at attention and brought a hand over his brow in a salute. “Yes, sir!”
As he waited, watching the continued destruction of the power ring through the view screen, the God-King stroked the fractured rock atop his staff, feeling the Essence surge through him, and he thought: If you want something done right, you must do it yourself.
Below, the city burned, and a new war had officially begun.
Two
The floor shook beneath Ryze Starlo’s feet, and a distant explosion followed soon after. He almost dropped his helmet, which was currently resting in the crook of his armored arm. He, Jade, and Wylow were coming up the elevator to the ground floor, where Ryze’s ship, the Starblazer, awaited them, repaired and as shiny as the day it had come off the assembly line.
“What the hell was that?” Jade asked.
“Probably a crash. It’s getting dark. Lot of drunk drivers behind the wheels of their speeders right now,” Ryze answered. “Crytons love their booze.”
“Yes,” Wylow agreed. “This planet does seem to enjoy leisure.”
“Translation: Bugs know how to party.” Ryze laughed, but in the last however many hours they’d been on Cryton IV, his opinions of this particular insectile race had changed drastically. Ty proved to be more resourceful and helpful than Ryze could’ve ever imagined. It was almost unbelievable…
A vibration from his wrist. “Sir?” Spex’s voice chimed through his helmet, broadcasted for all of them to hear.
“Talk to me, Spex.”
“That was no crash. I am picking up transmissions saying that was a terrorist attack.”
“Terrorist attack?” Jade repeated. “By who?”
Ryze knew. He mumbled, “Damn” under his breath and put his helmet on, pressing the button that sealed it to his armor.
“Why are you suiting up? Ryze, what’s going on?” Jade questioned.
“That explosion was pretty close, huh?” he said. “Seems like someone ratted us out.”
“No way,” Jade argued. She looked at Wylow for confirmation, but all the queensguard could do was shake her head. “Ty and his people wouldn’t do that.”
“Three million frags is a lot of dough, and Ty cares about money above all else. I told you we shouldn’t have trusted him.”
The elevator suddenly jerked to a stop as a muffled boom sounded outside on the ground level. Lights flickered above them, but the red buttons on the control panel winked out and stayed dark.
“That was here,” Wylow said. “They just hit the hangar.”
The helmet hid his face, but Ryze was snarling. He felt his cheeks growing hotter. They better not have hit my ship. I’ll kill every last one of them if there’s so much as a new scratch on her.
“Wylow, we’ve got more pressing things to worry about,” Jade said. “The elevator’s dead.”
She was right.
“Sir?” his AI said.
“Yeah, Spex?” he replied. “I’m here.”
“Intercepted transmissions are saying it’s a Dominion attack.”
“The Dominion.” Ryze punched the dead buttons. The elevator didn’t move. “You don’t say…”
“I detect a semblance of sarcasm in your voice, sir. Am I correct in assuming so?”
>
“One hundred percent, Spex. Make sure you remind me to give you a gold star when I’m back on the ship.” He popped the casing off the elevator’s controls. A mess of tangled wires fell out. He put a couple together, got a spark but no movement.
“A gold star, sir? What would I do with a gold star? I don’t understand.”
“It’s when you do something good—you know what, never mind. Tell me what we’re dealing with on the surface. Is it the same Battler that was hovering over Xovia’s capital city?”
“I don’t believe so, sir. According to the transmissions, this one is called the Behemoth. A quite fitting name, judging by the video feed I’m looking at.”
Ryze’s veins filled with ice. He stopped fidgeting with the elevator’s controls. He was not the only one in the elevator who had heard the name of that ship; he knew this because equal looks of terror crossed Jade and Wylow’s features.
“He’s here,” Jade said, barely audible. “Why?”
“He must really want that thing around your neck,” Ryze said. “Doesn’t matter. We gotta get outta here before we can really get outta here.”
“Step aside, Starlo,” Wylow said, butting in next to him, her scent drifting through his breathing filter.
“I got it, don’t worry,” he said.
“No, you don’t.” Wylow grabbed the mess of wires and ripped them out completely.
“Whoa, what are you doing?” Ryze said, breathless. He took a step back and almost removed his helmet. “Were going to be stuck in this thing forever now. We’re pretty much caged animals that the God-King is gonna put down—”
But the power kicked back on with a hum. Ryze suddenly felt like he was floating as the elevator rose at lighting speed.
Then, with a soft ding, the doors opened on the ground level hangar.
Ryze bent over, hands on his knees. “Oh man, I’m gonna puke, and that would really suck considering I’m wearing my helmet.”
Jade laughed. “See? Wylow knows what she’s doing.”
“Yeah, yeah, bigger problems now,” Ryze said, pointing up and ahead. The hangar bay’s shields were up, but the plasma barrier looked like fracturing glass. No way it would last much longer. “We need to get to the ship and get the hell out of here. Now!”
Cannons and guns fired from a transport on the other side of the shields. It had made a landing spot in the middle of a civilian road. Flipped hoverers and dead bugs lay among the ruins. Streaming from the cargo hold of the ship were, if Ryze had to guess, about forty cybersoldiers. Different models than the ones he’d seen in war or on Xovia a few days back. Really brought the big guns here, huh? Ryze thought. We’re celebrities. Look, Momma, I made it! Just not how you’d expect… He turned to Jade. “Any chance you can use that magic shit to get us out of here?”
Jade closed her eyes and strained, wrinkling her features. Her face grew redder. Releasing a great burst of breath, she said, “Nope, got nothing.”
“Now’s really not the time for jokes!” Ryze yelled.
“You don’t get to say that, Starlo!” Jade barked back.
“Everyone, calm down!” Wylow interrupted. “Let’s go.”
Shots from the cybersoldiers’ blasters rattled through the air and echoed off the hangar bay’s walls, making each one seem like thunder.
The bugs fought valiantly back with their own weapons. Their ability of flight came into good use. Ryze saw an unarmed bug in his greasy coveralls rise into the air with four heavy tools in each hand. The bug whipped them at the soldiers, causing them to be distracted long enough for a different bug to take them out with an array of beamblasts.
From his visor’s HUD, Ryze mapped the distance to the ship. A yellow waypoint with a trail of broken yellow lines popped up. The number was one hundred and thirty-eight yards.
One-thirty-eight. Not bad. A little more than the length of a bontoball field. That’s easy, Starlo, you can do it. “But can I?” he wondered aloud. It had been ages since he played bontoball. He was certainly not as fast as the young man who’d once crushed his way to two platoon championships in the Xovian military academy, breaking many of the opponents’ bones and a handful of academy records in the process.
“You can, sir,” Spex said. “I believe in you.” Sometimes it seemed the AI could read minds. He was eerie like that.
“Spex, can you fire up the engines and come to us? I know I ask you to do that a lot, but now would be a really good time to follow my orders.”
“Scanning, scanning...” Spex said. During these moments, he actually did sound like a computer.
Jade and Wylow looked on eagerly, hoping for the best. It would make getting out of this predicament a lot easier than fighting their way through.
We’re gonna have to fight, Ryze thought. We always do.
And like clockwork, Spex said, “I’m afraid I cannot make it, sir. There are too many dangerous objects within the ship’s proximity. I would risk total destruction of not only the ship, but of everything within a block’s radius.”
Ryze glanced at the hangar’s shields, thinking maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Take the God-King down with them all. But he’s probably sitting pretty in his Battler above, laughing as he literally squashes bugs. The shields were still holding up, but for how much longer?
“You think?” Jade said bitterly to the AI.
“Hey, queenie!” Ryze said, “I swear I’ve told you this before, but the only one that gets to sass Spex is me and me alone. Got it?”
“Right…it’s just, I’m a little frazzled right now, if you can’t tell.”
Wylow put her hand on Jade’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, we’ll get out of this—”
“I don’t mind if she sasses me, sir,” Spex said. “I quite like—Oh! My calculations…there is another way!”
“Hit me,” Ryze said.
“I can connect with the hangar’s network, override the capacitor, and open the sky entrance. That will give the ship enough room to hover with its engines warm and ready.”
Ryze waited.
Spex stopped there.
“Okay,” Ryze said, “but how the hell are we going to get up to you? I can’t carry everyone on my thrusters. And taking multiple trips is out of the question.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do all of your thinking for you. You are on your own in that respect.”
Ryze nodded. “Looks like we’re running for it, gals.”
“Also out of the question,” Spex said. “I am terribly sorry, sir. I really am. When the shields break, which they will, the odds of you making it through the hangar entrance at a running pace unscathed are infinitesimal.”
“Way to boost morale, Spex, but I was talking about us running to you.” Ryze motioned to a box of crates across the way. Wylow and Jade nodded, both understanding.
Ryze took off first.
Hey, maybe he was moving as fast as he had as a young man on the bontoball field. That’s what it seemed like, anyway. In reality, however, he was far from that speed, but fast enough.
Ryze slid the rest of the way, and he was now out of sight of any cybersoldiers. Unless they were scanning…but it seemed they had their metal hands full.
The bugs, fighting with all their strength, were keeping them busy, but the shields—
On cue, they broke with an electric crackle. The transport ship pushed forward. It was too big to fit inside, so it parked at the entrance, blocking them in.
The place is probably surrounded, Ryze thought. Guess they’re smarter than I give them credit for. He had to turn the volume up inside his helmet to hear over the crackling sounds of the beam fire and screams. “Spex,” he said, “how’s that whole opening the roof thing going?”
“Almost there, sir. The code is more complicated than I anticipated.”
“If you’d seen what Ty has stored below the hangar, you would understand.”
“And…there!” Spex said.
A distant shape distracted Ryze from the roof. He zoomed in o
n his HUD. Among the bodies lay Ty. Crumpled, missing two of his four arms.
Ryze’s own limbs suddenly weighed an extra two hundred pounds. Regret? Is that what I’m feeling? Stars, I don’t like this. He zoomed in closer. Though the smoke hung thick in the air, the bug’s eyes were plainly open but saw nothing. There was a dribble of blood at the corner of his mouth and a growing puddle around him.
Ty was certainly dead.
Ryze would say nothing to the women. They didn’t need any more heartache. Jade and Wylow had taken quite a liking to the bug, and though he might not admit it to himself, Ryze had started to like him, too. There was something respectable about a go-getter, especially one who did most of his business on a planet ruled by insane people, such as the Hunil.
The grinding of the opening roof and the rain of rust snapped him back to the moment. A night sky full of stars and red and white light from speeding civilian vehicles revealed itself. A beautiful sight, for sure, he thought, but there was no time for admiration.
With a burst louder than the discharging blasters, the Starblazer’s thrusters shot yellow flame, toasting three unfortunate cybersoldiers who happened to be in the way in the process, the fire so hot, the alloy melting on the spot.
“Nice one!” Ryze shouted. “All right, you guys ready—?” He looked around, expecting Jade and Wylow to be right there with him, but they had already taken off and were running across the bay. What in the hell? Guess I was a little too slow for them after all. Getting old, Starlo, you’re getting old.
As he watched them, Wylow dodged a barrage of blaster fire, tucking into a roll and stopping behind the cover of a mostly dissected one-man starcruiser. Jade didn’t seem to care if she got hit at all. She ran toward a downed bug and picked up a blaster. The cybersoldiers held such a weapon with one arm, as easily as a handgun, but for Jade she needed both and it seemed far from easy for her. She aimed toward the God-King’s transport and railed off five or six shots, each one driving her back.
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