End Boss

by Bryan Nyaude

  “Cheer up, Den,” Dalla said, taking off her helmet and wiping off sweat from her forehead. Her tender slim cheeks resonated with glow of slight glitter. “It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

  Maybe! But I just couldn’t let such actions slide by me again—so I did the unthinkable and disconnected my AI from the ship’s main grid, leaving the ship’s default system in control. I just couldn’t risk something like that happening again to us. I bent my back down and placed the AI module into my thick plate pocket.

  “Remind me never to go on your bad side,” Dalla snickered in a smart comment. She gently tilted away from us and left the compartment, elegantly.

  “How far do you think we traveled, so far?” Rick asked me, looking at the screen map.

  “Probably less than 80 miles, at best; thanks to our incident we are definitely behind schedule,” I replied and took off my helmet.

  I scratched my head for a bit, before sitting down, my eyes looking at the operations monitors frequently. On this planet, we couldn’t afford to relax or act reckless. It was a hostile alien planet and we barely knew what was going on. But, perhaps, Rick knew something.

  “What did Ali tell you about this assignment?”I turned my head towards him.

  “Who is Ali?” he asked, looking confused.

  Right, he didn’t know about that. I was the only person who called him Ali. It was likely that he was using another persona name on the ship. Only I knew he was an alien and was probably best to keep it that way.

  “I mean, the man who saw us off,” I responded, tilting back towards the monitor. “I forgot his name.”

  “Oh, you mean Dr. Sagets?” Rick suddenly laughed, sitting down on the other operational seat next to me. “Well, nothing really, he told us to operate in stealth and try to get the job done without being seen. It was odd though, I got the feeling he was hiding something important about the mission. I really don’t trust him.”

  “I see,” I sighed out loudly, placing my head between my hands. My only clue to the truth had turned out to be a dead-end. Just what was he hiding?

  “Wait, Den, I just figured out something?” Rick said, shacking like he was scared. “If we only traveled for 80 miles at best and found this many terror beasts, then that must mean the others at the main ship are at risk as well. They can’t fight off a horde of those small and large creatures.”

  I felt my fists clench tightly. He was absolutely right, although I didn’t want to admit it. It was absolutely possible that the creatures were already headed that way as we speak.

  “What do you think we should do?” he asked me, while trying to sound tough.

  I could feel the fear in his voice so clearly, but what could I possibly say to him that could comfort him? It seemed every possible answer I could possibly think of only boiled down to the worst case scenarios.

  “We continue as planned,” I said slowly and closed my eyes, drifting off. “We will just have to believe Ali and the others will manage.”

  6

  “Wake up, Den,” someone shook me so hard it startled me.

  “We got trouble.”

  Just when I was starting to have good night’s rest, with no strange dreams, something had to get in my way. I yawned and opened my eyes slowly—only to see Dalla, and she was standing in front of me, with a gun in one hand and a dagger in the other. What was it now? I just wished for one day of peace and quiet, but apparently, even that was hard to come by. I got up slowly while yawning out even louder. There was a faint, lingering aftertaste in my mouth that didn’t seem to go away.

  “One of those little terror beasts is on board the ship,” she whispered to me and handed me a proton burst handgun. “I don’t know where Rick is, he is not answering his com link.”

  “Really,” I said, sounding surprised

  This was indeed a sticky situation; those little buggers were trouble enough, but finding one in this ship was going to be more difficult than I thought. There were vents and tight corners for the creature to hide anywhere aboard the ship. Suddenly, the lights in the ship went off which freaked me out. Without hesitation, I put on my helmet and switched to night vision mode. The generator inside the ship came online as the ship stopped and just hovered in the air.

  “What do you think caused that?” I whispered to Dalla quietly, looking around.

  “Okay, that’s a stupid question,” she whispered back to me moving towards the door breathing slowly. “I already told you, a terror beast got inside our ship.”

  We had a loud thump on the cockpit hatch door and we moved slightly back, with our guns up. Something was pressing smoothly against the door. Dalla paced towards the door and hit the automatic control switch on it. I heard the door start to open as my heart beat fast and adrenaline rushed through my body. It opened all the way, but there was nothing there; it was too dark to see. Out of the blue, I spotted something fast and small whish towards Dalla in barely a second.

  “Get it off me,” she yelled, her hands struggling to pull away the little bugger off her.

  I moved away from her and aimed at the little creature on her head. With the way she was moving back and forth, I couldn’t shoot without risking her life in the process. I ran towards her, instead, and began punching the little sucker as hard as I could with my left hand. All those boxing lessons I took for a week were paying off; although, I wasn’t sure if any of my punches were having any effect. Finally, the little guy let go off her helmet and jumped onto the controls. “I’m gonna blast you up,” Dalla screamed, raising her gun directly at it.

  “Wait, Dalla, don’t shoot.”

  Quickly, I stopped her by pushing her gun away, before she could fire it at the small terror beasts. One shot of her proton blaster and the controls would be destroyed, which wasn’t exactly what we wanted.

  “I see you guys have met my new pet,” Rick said, walking towards the small terror beast. Surprisingly, it dashed towards him and landed on his head without killing him. Dalla and I looked at each other, confused to say the least. This wasn’t happening now, was it? I strolled towards him, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. It seems my eyes were not deceiving me, which I found rather disappointing. Apparently, I wasn’t seeing things at all.

  “You can’t be serious are you, Rick?” Dalla hissed, literally taking the words out of my mouth. “That’s a freaking terror beast on your head and we need to destroy it.”

  “Yeah, Rick,” I added, raising my stun blades up into the air. “Hold still for a little while and I will have that little sucker down soon.”

  “No,” Rick screamed and moved out of the way so fast I could barely see him. “Huggers is not like the others, he is different and gentle. We can’t just kill him because he is an offspring of our enemy.”

  “You named it Huggies? And how do you know it’s even a male? For all we know, it could be a female,” Dalla commented, sighing deeply.

  “No, his name is Huggers and he is a male, end of story,” Rick screamed, holding the little terror beasts like it was a pet.

  “That’s not the point here,” I intervened, getting between them, looking directly at the terror beast. “That thing in your hands is trouble and it needs to be destroyed now. If you want a pet, I promise to get you one as soon as we get back to earth. Now let me kill it.”

  “Try it if you can,” Rick growled, pointing his other revolver on my forehead directly, with an insane look on his face.

  Darn, I backed off slowly and peacefully. I couldn’t afford another hit from his weird guns. For all I knew, his other gun was even more deadly than the first one. “Suit yourself, but if that thing poses a threat to any of us, I’m going to shoot it without hesitation.”

  Rick put his gun back into his armor and commented, “if that should happen, I will personally do it.”

  Sure, that would save me a lot of trouble, but could he really do it? He looked like the type to emotionally cling onto people and objects, like his life depended on it.

&
nbsp; “You have to forgive my brother,” Dalla whispered to me as soon as Rick left. “Our parents never allowed us to ever have pets or anything, just leave him like this for a while and I’m sure he will come to his senses soon.”

  Maybe, if I knew one thing about attachment, it was that those who got too attached never let go of what is that they were fond of. I was an example of that because I kept chasing over a girl who left me four years ago to no end. I got too attached and part of me yearned to chase after her to the end of the world, literally speaking of course.

  “What do you think happened to the ship’s alternate power?” Dalla asked, checking the controls.

  Her words snapped me back to reality, instantly. It was indeed unusual for the lights to go out for this long.

  “Probably, that little bug did this,” I whispered to her while signaling her to follow behind me as my back up to the control module compartment.

  The whole ship seemed to be out of power, which was rather stranger, considering the fact that a nuclear fission battery powered the ship and those things could last for centuries.

  “Look at this,” Dalla whispered and stopped completely. She bent down and showed me a circuit that had been fried. “I think we sustained a lot of damage from that blast earlier.”

  “Perhaps, you are right,” I replied, shifting my weight back to my front foot.

  I began to move again and Dalla followed behind me, with both our guns raised as we paced to the ship’s power room. One of the lights kept flickering on and off as if the ship was drastically losing more power.

  “Maybe it’s time you put back your AI into the ship,” Dalla whispered so softly I barely heard it.

  No, who knows what would happen if I did that? For all I know, it could destroy the ship. We got to the power room and noticed smoke coming outside. The whole compartment was dark as charcoal.

  “This isn’t good,” I commented, running into the compartment, worried. “Why didn’t we notice this earlier? What should we do?”

  I turned towards Dalla, who seemed to have quite a bit of knowledge on this type of stuff.

  She looked at the circuits for a while, resting her chin on the palm of her left hand—her right arm tinkering with the wiring systems. I walked past her and observed the nuclear battery cables alongside the wall. One looked damaged but the rest seemed okay.

  “I can’t fix this, not without risking the lives of everyone on board,” she said, typing some instructions into one of the circuit boards that was still intact. “The best I can do for now is shut down the power, and we can use the generators to land down somewhere for the day.”

  What? That plan seemed dangerous. Wasn’t there any other way to fix it without landing on the ground? For all we know, there were even more terror beast on the ground lying and waiting for us.

  “We can use the camouflage system on board to hide ourselves, so freeze out,” she smirked and left the compartment.

  I watched her leave and nodded silently. Her plan could work; although, I doubted for a while if the ship had a stealth mode system applied into its mainframe. With one glimpse around the room, I exited the compartment and went back to the ship’s main room. Dalla was there already, typing in some encrypted commands into the main system. The process of shutting down the ship’s power system seemed rather aggravating, by the looks of it. I didn’t dare bother her while she was working. Instead, I leaned next to her and watched her silently. I popped my fingers, annoyingly, thinking how far off schedule we were. Nothing seemed to be going as planned.

  “Find a location free of tree and debris, we are going to crash this baby down,” Dalla chuckled, buckling into one of the seats close to her. “I have shut down all of the ship’s main power and the generator will only last thirty seconds, so use the power wisely.”

  What, was she kidding me right now? No one could pull off that miracle. I could barely even steer a ship that great. I looked at her, startled and confused, my heart beating very fast.

  “Why me, Dalla? Why can’t you do it yourself?”

  “Because my brother and I don’t have our licenses to operate ships yet, we are still minors.”

  “Really, could have fooled me.”

  I felt the ship suddenly start to lose altitude as it took a massive nose dive. My back tightened as I was pushed against the seat and dashboard. I quickly struggled up and held tightly onto the seat as hard as I could. “Oh great! Now what else could go wrong?”

  Dalla and Rick were turning out to be a bigger eyesore than I anticipated. It seems that they were permitted to keep guns, but were not allowed to drive? This was some messed dilemma they had me under. I gazed fiercely through the front window and saw the ground getting closer. It was going to take some miracle to get us out of this situation. As fast as I could, I dragged myself in and clamped the seat belts on. There wasn’t much time, meaning every second counted.

  I took over of the ship’s control dashboard and recalibrated them to my own personal standard settings. With both hands, I grabbed tightly onto the steering wheel and pulled it back hard, trying to level the ship. As expected, it was no easy task. It felt like I was trying to pull out a ton of armors. The backup generators gave a silent jolt and died out completely.

  “This is it,” Dalla screamed, holding tightly onto her seat.

  “Brace yourself,” I replied, turning the wheel a hard left.

  The ship screeched, making a breech, slow plunge, but it was already too late. We struck the ground so fast, we barely knew it happened. There was a loud clutter of metal ripping for a really long minute, and then utter silence. I felt my head hit against the dashboard, it was painful. Fortunately, the rumbling vibration stopped, making the worst possible scenario more bearable. I pulled myself from the uncomfortable position and sat up straight, with my hands on my face.

  “Is everyone okay?” a voice spoke, accompanied by some static noise.

  It was Rick; he didn’t sound too good, judging from the tone of his voice. Bit by bit, I took off my helmet and inhaled large amounts of air. Dalla wasn’t moving, but I could see she was faintly breathing. She had a pulse and her vital organs seemed to be working normally. I stood up and observed the status of the ship. It seemed over, but we couldn’t take any chances yet.

  “What happened, Den? I was sleeping, and then suddenly, I heard a loud thump and I was on the ground,” Rick said coming into the control room. “Is Dalla alright?”

  Rick was limping and holding onto his right arm. I turned my head up and noticed something above his head. So the little bugger was still alive, even after all that?

  “Yeah, your sister is alright, just not conscious,” I replied and signaled him to help me carry her to the other room.

  Together, we carried Dalla into a vacant compartment; however, it was a much more difficult task, considering how heavy she was in her armor.

  “I think my sister put on a lot of weight,” Rick laughed, trying to be funny.

  “No, don’t say that,” I whispered, signaling to get him to shut up.

  Who knows what would happen if she heard him say that. I definitely didn’t want to find out for myself. As slow and carefully as possible, we carried her to a bunk and laid her there, being silent as not to awaken her.

  “What should we do now?” Rick asked, slowly sitting on the bed, next to his sister, filled with frustration.

  The little terror beast came and sat on his lap like a small puppy. Honestly, the thought of shooting the little bugger with a horde of bullets did occur to me—it was almost too hard to resist.

  “Well, can you fix a nuclear fusion engine?” I asked, tugging my shoulders down. I could feel this cramp slowly crippling down my spine.

  “Nah! Probably not,” Rick chuckled, scratching his head gently, with his eyes closed. “I never had any interest in engines unlike my sister. Times like this, I wish she was awake.”

  “You can say that again,” I agreed with him. “The best we can do now is salvage every important
piece we can find and guard the ship until Dalla wakes up.”

  Rick nodded and we both geared up our weapons and equipment, ready to go out. I looked one time at Dalla and smiled faintly. As long as she was alive, we would make it out of this mess somehow.

  “Let’s leave her here.”

  Before leaving the ship, we made some minor modifications and turned the ship to camouflage mode, in order to hide it from intruders. Although, the mess around the crash debris around us made it pretty hard to truly hide in plain sight. Rick and I made our way, stealthy, around the pile of burnt grass and trees, picking up what salvage parts we could take. The wind blowing gently against us was strictly riveting, as it kept getting in our way.

  “Go this way and I will circle around,” I spoke with slight signals and quickly left.

  There was a slight lingering sensation of tension rising in the air; I had experienced this type of nervousness at least four times in my life. I looked back and forth, while making my way down the side of the ship. Sadly to say, I didn’t find anything useful except debris and ashes from the crash. The wind blew up again, and this time, stronger than before; it was enough to make me shield my head for a few seconds. It stopped completely without warning, leaving me in a state of shock. What was up with this planet and freaky weathers? All of a sudden, I heard a rustle in the trees and I quickly raised my gun up, checking in all directions.

  “I think, I hear something, Rick. I’m heading towards it now and don’t turn off your com link.”

  There it was again—the rustle in the wind only got stronger as if something big was running fast through the grass. I looked everywhere as my heart pounded even faster, adrenaline rushing throughout my entire body.

  “Rick, I think we got trouble,” I whispered through the com link, as I backed up slowly.