‘Is everyone all right?’ called Raegar. The responses came in the positive. ‘Damage report,’ he added.
The Raticia had buckled. A large gash down her middle exposed the machine shop. Raegar’s eyes narrowed and locked onto the hologram of the Cenyulone sky. He switched views and settings, searching for the next logical move. Spotting it, he pressed a button and spoke, ‘Attention all vessels. The Raticia has been shot down. Red Group, I want you to gather along the north side of the Nimbus where the defences are still strong.’ An explosion blasted into the side of the bridge. Orange flames ripped through the monitoring stations. Consoles flared and sparked. The forward pane blinked out in a fuzz of flickering squares. Raegar raised his voice into the dying transmitter. ‘Those are my final orders. This is Commander Raegar bugging out. Leadership is to be assumed by Captain Tycull.’
His bridge crew bustled around him. Towards the back, glass seals were broken and the caches of sledge pistols were distributed.
An explosion rumbled elsewhere, vibrating the bridge. A shadow passed over Raegar. He looked up. Through the window, the back end of an invading ship slipped from a sparkling warphole. His view was then obscured by a burst of flame. The Raticia’s energy shield was still in service. Its impact waves rolled across the view.
The fleet commander accessed his personal screens. He flicked through the outer views of the ship. He saw the road on which the Raticia had landed, a wide alley surrounded by tall buildings. The next screen was completely dark. He cycled to the next view to see another warphole. The occurrence stretched open and an enemy warrior stepped through. The creature scanned its surroundings. Others charged in behind. The group fired at the Raticia’s hull, setting off the energy shield. Although the Raticia and its crew were no longer an immediate threat, the enemy continued to attack them. There was something sinister about this pattern of engagement.
Raegar picked up the intercom and addressed his crew. ‘This is your captain. All exits are to remain sealed. All able-bodied personnel are to arm themselves and report to the machine shop. The hull there is breached and must be secured. I repeat, arm yourselves and report to the machine shop.’ Upon ending the address, he strapped on a sledge pistol and joined his crew.
Raegar glided quickly through the rumbling bowels of the Raticia. A heavy vibration moaned from above. The sound shot forward and the ceiling collapsed. Raegar pulled his comms officer back. Detached girders stabbed into the hallway. When the debris had settled they ventured on, weaving through the crawl space with the creaking of metal all around. Through the twisted hallway he found the entrance to the machine shop.
The space was a long room with machines under construction or repair on either side. The vertical gash of the hull revealed the dusty street outside. Armed members of his crew used an out-of-commissioned tank as cover. They leaned out and exchanged fire with the invaders who attempted to swarm the opening from outside. The ship’s power shield also had a hole. The energy snapped and crackled as stray blasts winged its sides.
Raegar stepped down from the twisted hallway and ducked beneath an engine suspended by chains. He went to the tank and crouched with his crew. An officer with floppy ears acknowledged him. ‘Sir, they aren’t letting up. They keep warping in.’
‘No enemy may set foot in this hold,’ Raegar yelled. He pointed at a crew member with a comms device. ‘You, call the armoury; tell them to bring weapons.’
Raegar peered over the barricade. Through the gash he spied an invader, running across the outside of the breach. Pulsefire from several crewmembers missed. The invader took cover. Raegar made out the sparkling dust again, lingering in the street. Another cluster of emerging warpholes.
The commander inched out further and looked at the warship above. Through the glare and the dusty concealment, the black spikes lingered over the Raticia. The warship unleashed another bombardment somewhere else, sending further ripples through the energy shield and wearing down its colour.
A group of invaders charged. Raegar yelled the order and every armed soldier leapt up from cover to join him. The heavy blitz nailed the enemy. The first two dropped. The others returned fire in their advance. A shot hit a surface just forward of Raegar’s head. The officers around him flinched but he locked his deadly gaze, holding his pistol steady.
Sparks and slag splashed off the enemy armour. Another dropped and the last stepped over it. Raegar levelled at its head and kept pulling his trigger. The creature spun to the ground in a swirl of burning smoke.
Howls of victory rose up. Raegar scanned the room. A magnetic traction-mounted cannon sat against the back wall. ‘Are there any engineers here?’ he screamed. A few people signalled their identities. ‘If we are to escape, that warship must be destroyed!’ Raegar pointed. ‘Get that thing working,’ he yelled. A tech team handed over their weapons and set to work, carrying out the order.
Sparks gushed from a blowtorch flame at a wall next to a set of double doors. When it stopped, four people pried the door open from the other side, bearing excess weapons. They dropped down and distributed them.
Down the passage behind, a Huldron lizard stomped on the floor. His pointed head swooped from side to side as he dragged the straps of two armoury crates in its clawed hands. The lizard entered and other crew helped him pull the munitions into the centre of the space.
‘Sssssir,’ said the Huldron, flicking its forked tongue. ‘There issssss more to come.’
‘Well done,’ said Raegar. ‘Take your group and gather as much firepower as you can.’
The crew pried open the crates. The first box had an extractable rack of pulse rifles. Raegar grabbed the handle inside and pulled it up. The rack sheathed out on the rails and locked in place when its bottom hit the crater rim. The second box was full of ammo. Raegar gave someone an order to wheel it to the front liners at the tank. He yelled over the pulsefire and issued further orders, assigning troops to distribute weapons, while organising his front line to better cover the breach.
Twenty-seven
Blood dripped down Tazman’s leg. The adrenaline burst he’d felt earlier had worn off and his chest throbbed. Two sets of restraints landed at his feet.
‘Cuff yourselves,’ spat Leroy. Tazman raised an eyebrow.
Luylla collected the devices and handed him a set. Tazman reluctantly slipped them over his wrists, not taking his eyes off the man ahead.
‘Something wrong?’ said Leroy. He pressed a button on his wrist device and the cuffs tightened.
The control room was in a large rectangular hall, the floor of which was tiled with a smooth stone, cold against Tazman’s feet. A balcony overlooked everything; it stretched round the sides and back of the room, accessible via a set of metal stairs to the rear. Alleys of gold-lined computer stations and equipment faced the huge monitoring screen at the front.
The screen swapped through the shaky images of the surface battle between the Composite defence and the Xoeloid invaders. Included in the mess were various point of views lifted from the targeting systems and sensors of Composite defence vessels, their fighters, missile mechs, mobile defence cannons as well as the holographic tactical radar, which, by its calculations, tied the whole system together. It seemed the hypersat’s superior receivers had been tuned against the Tranquillian Composite.
Leroy sat on a console to their left, across the open path, where he got a decent view of both his prisoners and the screen. The long-coated moron casually pointed his pulse rifle with one hand, shifting focus from the screen to Luylla’s anatomy.
Tazman glanced back to the three Xoeloid dotted about the consoles. Their outstretched hands floated over the equipment. Their eyes were different. Images, and what seemed to be computer code, flashed in them. Having no facial features didn’t stop them from having smug looks on their faces.
The main attraction was at the front, below the screen — a dark spiny mass of a Xoeloid machine, the thing from the forbidden zone in Reelai’s playhouse. Thick power cables grew from it
s base, snaking up to and merging with the computer equipment on the floor.
Tazman turned to Leroy. ‘What’s that mess over there?’ he asked, pointing at the front of the room. It was worth a try. Leroy seemed pompous enough to answer.
The Composite officer was slow to turn, raising his rifle aim sadistically to Tazman’s eyes with a half-smile. ‘That, my friend, is the future,’ he said, clearly having no idea. ‘Insert one Human and you got yourself a warphole.’
‘Human?’ said Tazman. He limped forward, ignoring the pulse rifle.
‘Hey, hey,’ protested Leroy, jumping off the console.
Tazman kept going. He had to know. He spotted the machine’s little window as he had seen in the forbidden zone. A face floated inside. Another limp further and the defining details came into sight. He sighed in hopelessness. He hated being right. Milton was in there, unconscious, restrained in a chamber full of liquid. A tube was jammed down his throat and swelled his neck.
Leroy stepped into Tazman’s path and shoved him with the barrel of the weapon. Tazman cried out.
‘Get back!’ Leroy yelled, in a typical Composite Drill Sergeant voice.
Luylla protested, but was ignored.
Leroy pulled the trigger. Shots pumped out and punctured the stone floor by Tazman’s feet. Tazman stumbled back and fell. He landed against Luylla’s soft yet armoured body; she had moved and provided a cradle with her cuffed hands. She grabbed his sides and helped him up. He put his weight on her machine arm and pushed up to straighten.
Leroy let forth a reverberating cackle. ‘Need your girlfriend to help you? Pathetic.’ He headed back to his place on the console. Luylla grimaced and traced his movements. Her jaw tightened and her artificial fist clenched. When Leroy saw her looking, he winked at her and blew a kiss. ‘You should be with a real man,’ he said widening his legs.
She turned away in disgust. He laughed again.
Tazman wondered how the Xoeloid machine worked. The thick gel cords covering the floor were attached to Weinian computers throughout the room, a merging of technology. He traced a group of them. They started at the front and swirled round to the right, trailing under another clump, before disappearing into the computer alley down on the side. Tazman twisted and leaned back. He spotted them again, looping into view and connecting to the front of a console just behind him. He couldn’t help the cheeky smile that crept over his face.
Tazman glanced at Leroy, who then eyed him suspiciously. The man’s eyes switched down and back up again, as if to say, ‘That’s right, I have a gun.’
Tazman reverted to his serious face, as if to say, ‘You’re crazy, but I won’t move lest you shoot me in the face.’
Leroy smirked and turned back to the screen.
Tazman glanced at his surroundings indifferently, trying not to cause a fuss. Tail, on the other hand, had a different plan.
Across the machine shop, the engine of the portable cannon burst to life. The tech team scurried about, closing its open hatches and manning the cockpit. A path was cleared and the team drove the portable defence weapon through and into the breach. The cannon inched out into the light. Its barrel rose and swivelled to lock onto the looming warship. Scattered energy blasts exchanged at its base as the ground invaders attempted to take it out.
‘Fire,’ Raegar ordered.
A booming thump slammed the eardrums of everyone present. The cannon shaft recoiled. Parts of the gun rattled loose. The blast hit and exploded into the underside of the warship. The mineral-like armour shattered and bounced off the Raticia’s hull. The enemy craft accelerated away.
‘Fire,’ Raegar yelled again.
The cannon blasted a second time, planting another heavy blow to the underside of the enemy ship. The left tracked wheels rattled and broke off, tipping the cannon off target. The third shot skimmed the side of the escaping vessel. Raegar looked out. The cannon had left two overlapping craters. The ship’s surface gave off an organic cracking sound. Small parts of the mineral skin shifted about the holes. The ship emitted a heavy groan. Large spikes grew out from the broken edges. They locked to each other from opposite sides, in a cage-like reinforcement, before sealing and minimising any visible damage.
Something else caught his eye — another warphole. The vortex of glowing dust hung in the sky above and to the left. The space stretched open and warship-grade firepower exploded forth, pelting the surrounding area. The line of fire swept along the road, displacing huge chunks.
‘Fall back,’ Raegar screamed.
Blasts collided with the edges of the shield and its glow fizzled out. The sides of the breach suddenly widened as the blitz chipped away at the unprotected hull. The portable cannon was then caught in the rain. Its other set of wheels popped loose. The rig dropped straight, cracked apart and exploded. One of the engineers caught fire and ran out screaming before being cut down by another hit. Spinning debris shot through the smoke and pulsefire.
The nose of the ship poked through. The barrage of rapid blasts then moved up to the tank. The armour of the vehicle dissolved in flaming pieces along with three of the crew. Raegar and his crew retreated deeper into the hold.
Milton felt his head twitch to the side. The vision had ceased. He saw only black. He writhed in a cramped space. It felt like the blobby cell he’d been in over the skies of the city with the tower. He didn’t know when, how, or where he was but he was sure of one thing: he wasn’t a ghost anymore.
He felt physical pain once again. He was submerged. His limbs were tied down. He opened his eyes; they were irritated and itchy. Everything was a blur. A column of light shone through a small window. Particles of floating debris reflected off the beam. Alien, black cords and hoses dug into his flesh. Something tugged on his head when he turned. The back of his skull was connected to a lead.
The exploits of the Xoeloid flooded into his mind. Milton kicked at his surroundings and tore his head from side to side. The Xoeloid were everywhere. Milton resisted, objected in his will. He hated them for what they were thinking.
Something dragged him back to the familiar thought patterns that were usual for Milton Lance’s mind: family, home, and friends. He gripped onto the thoughts with all his mustered will. He closed his fist, holding to this train of thought and not the thousands that were being forced into him.
He opened his mouth and let out a fierce yell. Bubbles of air exploded forth in the muffled war cry. He shifted again and something came loose from his shoulder. He narrowed his focus. Blurry shapes moved behind the window and he knew where he had to be. A splintering crack cut diagonally across the view. Tiny bubbles of air leaked through the line.
Twenty-eight
Tail whipped crazily from side to side, wrestling with the last cable. The other wires drooped in a tangled clump. The throb of the Xoeloid machine slowed, just like it had done on the safe haven.
Tazman stood compliantly and twiddled his thumbs, trying not to draw attention to tail’s suicidal antics. With a double take from Leroy, however, tail was busted. Leroy leapt from the console.
‘What are you doing?’ he barked, striding towards the mischievous Freegu.
Tazman’s eyes wandered. He attempted a response. ‘Umm.’ He then gave up and swiftly turned to join tail. He got both arms round the cord and jiggled feverishly. ‘Damn stupid,’ he gasped, throwing his weight back. Loose electricity buzzed from the semi-connected wire. The cord gave way. The port cracked and flashed. He dumped the wire on the floor in victory.
When he turned to the front, the butt of Leroy’s pulse rifle ploughed into his gut and keeled him over. He sank at the knees and instinctively crossed his hands over his chest to protect his wound.
Luylla stepped up in protest, curling her metal hand to a fist. Leroy turned the rifle to her chest, his eyes flittering over her body in murderous lust.
‘Not so fast, sweetheart. You and I shall have some extra fun later,’ he said with a wink. Leroy raised a boot to Tazman’s shoulder and rolled him back against
the wire port.
On landing, Tazman’s leg exploded with pain. He gripped his thigh. The hard ridges on the underside of Leroy’s boot hovered over the wound. Tazman begged, offering to reconnect the wires. Leroy chuckled at the plea and applied pressure. Tazman panted hard. The weight increased. He could not help but let out a flaming scream. Tazman grabbed the man’s ankle and tried to lift the leg off.
‘Don’t touch me, simian,’ yelled Leroy, kicking Tazman’s hands away and stomping down again.
‘Leave him alone,’ Luylla screamed and advanced on him.
Leroy cocked the shiny weapon, initiating the energy charge. He swung the barrel to her face. She flinched; he ploughed his boot into her stomach and winded her. Her back landed hard against a console.
Leroy grinned. He shouldered the weapon and levelled his sights to the face of Tazman, who gritted his teeth, bracing himself against the floor.
The green laser sight blinked on and shone between his eyes. The scope lens twisted in and out, adjusting to the range. The demented officer half-smiled. He leaned in and peered down the scope to taunt Tazman for the last time. ‘You annoying little sh—’
A bang shocked the front of the room. Leroy spun. The front mineral hatch on the Xoeloid machine blew off, revolved on its corner and clattered to the floor. Liquid gushed from the opening. An arm burst from the machine, reached back in and ripped out a fistful of black cords.
Milton gagged ashe extracted a tube from his throat. He kicked and swung his leg out, pressed against the edges of the opening and screamed, pulling himself from the cords lodged in his back.
The bombardment stopped. Raegar peered over his cover. The warship fell. The ripples and dust light had disappeared. The front of the invading vessel flipped out, having been severed from its body, and dropped behind a block of buildings.
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