TONE IT DOWN A BIT, STARLO.
I’m trying to act normal. Gimme a break. Grays are dumb, but they aren’t dumb enough not to pick up on our silence. Telepathy isn’t exactly a secret among the stars. Especially if they did their research before they hit this place, which they probably didn’t, but you never know.
WHATEVER. JUST TRY NOT TO ACT LIKE THE UNIVERSE’S WORST SOAP OPERA ACTOR.
Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve watched the Holo Net, Ryze thought sarcastically, though he didn’t know if the Gelerris could pick up on sarcasm through thoughts.
“Come, come,” Eradice said. “Here is the briefing room. It’s a mess, but we’re trying.” She punched a code into the keypad by the door and it whooshed open. A silver table sat in the middle. Boxes of supplies were stacked all around in no particular order. Sitting on one of the boxes was another unfamiliar type of alien.
Is that Alfis? Ryze thought to Blue.
YES.
He’s the brawn?
YES.
Ryze had to stifle a laugh. The alien sitting on the box was the farthest thing he’d seen from a warrior. It looked like an oversized version of the pet hamster he had when he was a boy. All poof and fluff. Two large front teeth jutted out and over his bottom lip. His wide eye stared harshly at them.
“Alfis,” Eradice said, “our guests have arrived. This is Ryze Starlo. Human bounty hunter extraordinaire. And of course, you know Blue.”
“Greetings,” Alfis replied, raising a small hand to wave. Then his eyes darted to his right at a pyramid of stacked crates. As he waved, he held up a finger and nodded his head in the direction of the stacks.
Ryze was way ahead of him. Using his visor’s scanners, he picked up four heatsigs there, and another three behind the crates a few feet away from it. Their weapons were outlined an angry red, which meant they were charged and ready to fire.
THEY’RE NERVOUS, Blue said. NERVOUS IS NOT GOOD. THEY’RE MORE LIABLE TO SHOO—
“Drop your blasters and put your hands up!” a gruff voice called from behind the crates. Three gray, oblong heads popped up. Their guns were trained on the new arrivals. They wore mottled armor, almost none of it matching. If Ryze had to bet, he would’ve guessed most of that armor had been stolen from bodies these Grays had killed during their raids. Raids much like this one.
Slowly, Ryze drew his weapon from the holster on his belt, set it on the floor, and began to do the same to for his flayzer on his back. “All right, all right, we don’t want any trouble.”
DON’T SHOOT THE CRATES, Blue said. THEY’RE FULL OF EXPLOS—
But it was too late. Before the words could even register in Ryze’s head, he had drawn the flayzer and was pulling the trigger. A fiery beam sliced through the air, orange-yellow. He had aimed for the head of the pirate who’d spoken, but the pirate anticipated the shot and ducked out of the way before he’d have to change the listed height on his starcraft license. Instead, the beam seared through the crate and hit whatever explosives it contained.
The explosion wasn’t large by normal standards, but in the confines of the small room, it might as well have been a Battler ion bomb.
Ryze, Blue, and Eradice flew backward, a tangle of arms and tentacles. They crashed into more crates. Not exactly the most comfortable of landing spots.
Alfis had the sense to dive beneath the table. It shielded him from the worst of the flames.
For some of the pirates, being in such close proximity of the blast proved fatal.
“Sir? What was that, sir?” Spex said into Ryze’s earpiece. The sound of the AI’s voice jolted him from slipping into unconsciousness. He scanned the room. Through the smoke, his visor picked up two of the Grays’ waning signatures. A third one was dead nearby, and Ryze didn’t need a scanner to see that. To his left was an arm…and part of a leg....and maybe the torso.
“Spex, a little busy right now…” he replied.
“I’ll let you get back to it, sir. Oh, and do be careful.”
Ryze turned to Eradice and Blue. “You guys okay?”
“I-I think so,” Eradice answered. She sat up and rubbed her head. Streaks of soot stained her cape, and her hair was all over the place.
“Blue?” Ryze asked.
WHAT DID I TELL YOU? THERE WERE EXPLOSIVES INSIDE—
“Sorry, but you should’ve told me way earlier.”
HOW ABOUT I TELL YOU THAT ONE OF THE PIRATES IS CURRENTLY TWO FEET AWAY WITH A LIGHT KATANA IN HAND—
Ryze spun around. Through the smoke, which the Gray pretty much blended into, he caught a glimpse of the shimmering blade, its surface reflecting the orange and red of the small fires that burned around them.
“Shit!” Ryze yelled, rolling out of the way just as the blade struck the crate he had been leaning against. The crate was made out of a tough alloy, but that didn’t matter. The weapon sliced through it as if it were made of paper. No doubt it would’ve done the same to Ryze’s armor.
And flesh.
And bone.
Dodged a bullet there, he thought as he aimed his flayzer again. He could hardly see through the smoke, but it didn’t matter. He would shoot anyway.
So he did.
The pirate screamed as the bolt hit him. He fell through the smoke like an apparition, holding his midsection and squirming. Nice shot, he told himself, now on to the next one.
Speaking of—
“Watch out!” Eradice yelped. She was pointing behind him. Ryze spun around. Too late. A towering Gray speared him in the midsection with its shoulder, pinning him to the floor. Ryze’s gun was Gods knew where, and the Gray currently had his spindly fingers wrapped around his neck. Even through the armor, Ryze felt the alien’s strength. The material buckled and pressed into his windpipe. He didn’t understand how such a skinny being could be so vicious.
“Uh…a l-little…help!” he wheezed.
ON IT! Blue shouted. WAIT—NO, A LITTLE OCCUPIED MYSELF HERE. ERADICE, ON YOUR RIGHT!
Great, Ryze thought.
The snarling Gray squeezed harder and harder, Ryze’s face mask reflecting in large, black eyes. He wondered if it would be the last thing he saw—himself choking away in the psycho alien pirate’s eyes—before he blacked out and never woke up again.
“Sir, vital signs are ailing. Shall I—” Spex began saying in his commlink.
“Not now!” Despite this, he wedged his fingers beneath the Grays, trying to relieve some of the pressure. It did very little, the bastard was too strong. Plan B, he thought. His pinky slipped to the controls on the underside of his wrist. He mashed the buttons, hoping he'd hit the right one.
The sound of the jetports on his heels spewing fire told him he had.
Ryze flew back with a controlled but explosive burst, and the Gray tumbled off of him.
Somehow, before he got on his feet, the pirate was already coming at him full-speed.
“Gimme a break,” he wheezed, bracing for impact.
Fists up, eyes narrowed, Ryze was as ready as he ever could be—which was to say not ready at all.
To his right, Blue had one of the last Grays wrapped in his tentacles. The pirate flailed and snarled, shouting in a language not even Ryze’s translator could pick up. Eradice danced around Blue and jabbed the pirate. It seemed to do about as much damage as tickling.
Currently, though, Ryze had other things to worry about. The Gray charging him was about five feet from collision. A multitude of options whirled through his head. Another burst from the jetports? Duck? Slide out of the way and trip the pirate? Fight? They all seemed like they’d fail, but what else could he do? Not try? Give up.
No. Ryze Starlo didn’t surrender.
So he kept his fists raised and prepared to be bulldozed by a seven-foot tall alien.
“Come on, you smelly son of a bitch!” he shouted, bringing a fist back and readying a punch, but he never got the chance to throw it.
Out of nowhere, a blur flashed by and slammed the Gray down to the ground. A sound like
tearing fabric followed instantly. Ryze took a step back. He was trying to get a better view of what just happened, because he didn’t have the slightest idea. It was only when he saw the blood that he realized the Grey had been cut in half. And there was a lot of blood.
Alfis stood over the alien’s upper half. Sticky blue liquid covered his fuzzy hair and clothes. The eye Ryze had thought of as somewhat doe-like was hard and sharp. The little guy’s chest puffed out.
Ryze’s mouth dropped open inside of his helmet. “What the f—”
“You’re welcome,” Alfis said. He raised a hand and gave Ryze a thumbs up. At the end of each finger was a long claw as sharp as anything he had ever seen.
Alfis then bounced to the right, where he helped Blue take the other Grey down. Eradice screamed in horror when Alfis’ claws slashed through the pirate’s armor and flesh, and one of the poor bastard’s arms dropped to the floor with a meaty clunk.
I’ve seen some weird stuff in my times, Ryze thought, but this has definitely gotta be near the top of the list.
“Sir, there’s one more,” Spex said. “He’s fleeing out of the northwest exit as we speak.”
Ryze located his flayzer. Its stock sat in a growing puddle of blood from the dissected Grey. “Blech,” Ryze said as he bent to pick it up. He shook it a few times, spraying blue goo in every direction, then he turned and bolted northwest.
WAIT! LET HIM GO, Blue said. LET HIM CONTINUE HIS LIFE WITH THE DISHONORABLE BURDEN OF COWARDICE.
“Pirates don’t give an elanty’s ass about honor!” Ryze shouted back. “I’m gonna kill him.” He plunged through the exit, but when he entered the corridor, he saw no one. His scanners didn’t pick up anything, either. The pirate was gone. A few seconds later, a ship’s engine started and the hangar door ground open. Ryze rushed in the direction of the sound, but to no avail. From the threshold, he watched as a beat-up craft ascended and punched through the stars.
The pirate had escaped.
Six for seven ain’t bad, though, he thought. Damn pirates are almost worse than bounty hunters. “Almost.”
“Sir, I take it you are okay?” Spex said.
Ryze headed back to the briefing room. He stepped around splotches of more blue blood the fleeing pirate left behind.
“Yeah, I’m good, Spex—for the most part, at least. But the next time I’m invited to a base overtaken by Gray pirates, remind me to decline.”
“Yes, of course, sir.”
Fifteen
Ace Silver tried fixing the old communicator on the abandoned world but to no avail. The fight between him and Akyra had destroyed what was left of it. There was another communicator inside the Thrathan’s ship, but it was technology he didn’t wholly understand and required a passcode in letters and numbers that meant nothing to him. He had spent the last six hours trying to break in, hoping to get in touch with someone—anyone. The one time he got a voice on the other end, the person spoke Thrathan doggerel. It was a short conversation, to say the least. Gods, he was done with Thrathans. Forever. Once he was back in the God-King’s good graces, he promised to bomb the worthless planet himself.
But he doesn’t want you, son, the voice of Ace’s father said. You’re the one who’s worthless. At least the Thrathans contribute to the galactic society, and the God-King likes them. He doesn’t like you.
“Shut up!” Ace said. “Get out of my head.” He was walking toward the small home in the distance, each step bringing him closer to the dead man on the path. His only hope was that the man had something to communicate with. He needed to let the God-King know he was okay, and that he was coming home. Most importantly, he needed off this rock.
He approached the dead man’s body. His eyes stared at the darkening sky. Ace knelt and brushed the lids closed. “I’m sorry. If it were me, I wouldn’t have killed you. Just tied you up or something.”
The pesky voice of his dead father spoke again: Would you have? I doubt it, kiddo. You love spilling blood as much as any Thrathan does. Admit it.
Ace ignored this. Or at least he tried, and all of about two seconds later he was talking to the voice—himself—again. “I’m not a bad person. I’m a good person. Shut up. Shut up!”
Oh, yeah? How do you figure?
“I’ll prove it to you.” Ace turned from the path. Despite the pain in his body and the overall lethargy he felt, he walked toward the fields. The sky grew darker by the time he reached the girl’s body. She was lying face down in the dirt. The bugs had already gotten to her; they crawled over her back and under her skin.
Ace bent over and picked her up. He put her over his shoulder and trekked back to the house.
Aw, look at you, Ace. My boy, I’m so proud. How sweet. What do you think you’re gonna do, dig these strangers a grave? In your condition? You can barely stand.
“Yes,” Ace answered. “I am.”
Why don’t you start with the millions you’ve killed? Hmm?
Ace didn’t answer because he didn’t have an answer. Even if he did, what good would it have done? He wasn’t talking to anyone but himself, right?
Gods, he hoped so.
When he reached the man, his legs nearly gave out on him. His burns felt fresh. Scabbed-over wounds had busted open and leaked blood. Still, he kept his footing and eased the girl down to the ground next to her father. Out of breath, he sat down. “Pretty close to death myself,” he said. “Need a break.” He didn’t lie back so much as he fell, and before his head settled in the dirt, he was unconscious.
He slept well for the first time in a long while. It was amazing what not having to keep one eye peeled while sleeping could do for you, but when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t sure where he was for a long moment. The dream he had was pleasant. In it, he was a young man again, on the battlefield, fighting a battle on the planet Zeyep. Corpses piled all around him, smoking holes in their alien abdomens courtesy of his blasgun.
Awake, he brought his blistered hands to his face. Wrinkled, scabbed, old. He was no longer the young warrior of the past. He had, as his father might’ve said, gotten soft.
Ace turned his head toward two dead bodies. He gasped, the sight giving him quite a jolt. Then it all came back to him: the abduction, the pain, the torture, the drugs.
Don’t forget the rejection, son.
Ace furrowed his brow. The voice of his father was somehow…different. He turned his head and saw that he wasn’t alone. His father leaned against a rusted hunk of metal in the house’s yard.
“Dad?”
Something like that, he answered. The voice was still inside his head, but he could see the man as clearly as he could see the ground in front of him. You’re really losing it, son. Look at you!
“How are you here?” Ace asked.
“I’m not. I’m your imagination. You’ve got a high fever and more than two of your wounds are infected, almost to the point of it being better if you just cut your right leg and left hand off.
“So am I still asleep—”
“You are.” The apparition leaned down in front of Ace’s face. So real, he could smell the booze on his father’s breath, could see the wiry gray hairs of his eyebrows, the deep wrinkles around the corners of his mouth. “And if you keep sleeping, you’re not going to wake up.”
Ace lay back again. “Just a few more minutes. That’s all I need.”
“You need food and water. And you have to get inside somewhere. A pack of wyrmwolves are coming this way as we speak. They smell the girl and her father.” The apparition reached down and gripped Ace around the shoulders, fingers tightening. “Wake up, you bastard! Wake up!”
Ace’s eyes snapped open. He was covered in dirt, lying next to a shallow grave in front of the house. He had dug it, but he didn’t remember doing so. The sky was full dark now, the air chilly. Ace’s stomach cramped with hunger, his mouth as dry as the papery skin of his burns. His body ached, stiff, but the wounds didn’t bother him as much as they had earlier. He looked around for the ghost of his father an
d saw nothing. Good, that’s good, he thought. Maybe I’m not going insane after all. Just a dream.
He looked down at his hands. The dirt was caked beneath his nails and in the lines of his fingers. Okay, then how sane am I?
Slowly, he rose. The grave wasn’t completely covered, so he shoveled more atop the staring faces of the dead father and daughter. He would go inside and find something to eat, that sounded like a plan. Maybe sleep again, this time on a real bed instead of the hard ground or the floor of a Thrathan starship. Still slowly, he shuffled toward the house, down the path, past a rusty holobox, its red flag sticking up at the dark sky like an accusing finger, and then ambled up the porch steps. That was when he heard the soft growl coming from the house’s shadows. Ace stopped, his senses pushed into overdrive.
The air here stank of wild animal. How had he missed it in the first place? I’m old and dying, that’s how.
To his left, on the porch, one red eye revealed itself, a floating orb of malice. The wyrmwolf began snarling and growling.
“Easy, now. Easy,” Ace said. He tried standing straight, but his spine was too twisted, and he couldn’t brace himself for an attack. His blaster was out of reach. No luck there.
Quickly, he scanned the porch for a weapon. Nothing.
Sharp nails clicked across the wooden planks as the wolf advanced slowly.
Ace backed down the porch steps slower than he’d ascended them. The wolf followed, emerging from the shadows. The moonlight illuminated the dripping maw of the creature. It was one of the ugliest things Ace had ever laid eyes on. Sharp, yellow fangs protruded from dark lips; one red eye, like a dying sun, stared from the middle of its face. One of its ears was missing; what was left of it looked like a torn piece of paper covered in congealed blood.
Ace reached for one of the spindles on the porch railing. He wasn’t sure if he had enough strength to break the wood, but he would certainly try.
Then the wolf’s legs bent, ready to spring.
Ace may have aged, may have lost some of his step, but there was one thing he hadn’t lost, and that was his ability to slow down time when in the heat of battle.
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