The Chosen Race (Space Empires Book 2)

by Caleb Selby

  “I grow impatient with you,” she said gently, her voice hinting at a growing weariness. “Get me off the ship, now!”

  “Why?” Carter asked, not knowing what else to say.

  Tropnia’s beautiful eyes suddenly went black with what could only be described as a living death. Her soft countenance hardened. Her lips turned downward. “Because it’s gone!” she finally yelled holding up a small glass vial.

  Carter was startled. “What’s gone?” he asked.

  Tropnia shook her head. “The Grimsin!” she snapped, as if Carter knew what she was talking about. “I was given so little at the last rationing and now it’s gone! I’m sure everyone got larger shares than me, I’m sure!”

  Carter looked at her curiously. “Maybe we can find more?”

  Tropnia shook her head, angry at such a stupid suggestion. “There is no more! At least not yet.”

  “Maybe we can find something else?” suggested Carter. “What is it? Medicine?”

  Tropnia reached out and rubbed a single finger down Carter’s neck, outlining his carotid artery. “The only substitute to Grimsin is blood.”

  “Blood?” Carter asked, nervously stepping away as images of the dried carcasses flashed in his mind.

  “Yes, blood!” she snapped. “And it’s a miserable substitute, especially your kind! It takes hundreds of you to equal but a single drop of the Grimsin and even that doesn’t compare!”

  Carter took another step away from Tropnia, realizing somberly that her desire to escape the Defiant was, in part, to procure a new source of blood. The sobering revelation came with the information that he had found her weakness and the reason she temporally needed him. She wanted to get off the ship but she couldn’t do it on her own.

  “How did you get here?” asked Tropnia, using her alluring, gentle voice that once again warmed Carter from head to toe and dulled the memory of her outburst from just moments ago. “I need to know, Captain. Please tell me.”

  “We came on a B-18 transport and boarding vessel,” replied Carter, focusing his mind intently on the fact that Tropnia was a hideous monster and not the ravishingly beautiful woman his eyes were telling him she was.

  Tropnia’s eyes grew with hope. “Take me there!”

  “Why...why not use one of the shuttles?” Carter forced himself to ask, purposely trying to engage in conversation to allow the last survivors to reach the vessel themselves and escape.

  Tropnia shook her head in feigned pitiful desperation. “I’ve tried. The hangar is locked down and emergency bolts are in place. There is no way to open the doors without an override key. Take me to your B-18 before it’s too late!”

  Carter reluctantly nodded and gestured down a corridor and the two began to walk. They made their way through the ship in silence for sometime. Carter of course had no intention of actually bringing her to the boarding vessel; but he knew the moment it was apparent he was leading her on, she would slay him. They were just crossing over the third bulkhead amidships when Tropnia casually slipped her hand into Carter’s. Carter was instantly overwhelmed by the touch of her skin against his.

  “Do you mind?” asked Tropnia with a smile.

  “It’s…it’s fine,” Carter struggled to answer as he tried once more to remind himself of what Tropnia was but finding it harder with each passing moment.

  “Stop fighting it,” Tropnia finally said when Carter came to a standstill in the middle of the hallway. “It’ll be much easier if you just do what I say.”

  Carter hesitantly nodded and then turned sharply to go down the corridor leading to the boarding vessel. Now in Tropnia’s control, Carter felt as if he were a spectator in his own body. With each step they took in the direction of the boarding vessel, Carter felt more and more helpless until he slowly released the struggle in his mind and blacked out.

  They were just passing the shuttle bay doors and nearly to their destination when Commander Drezden stepped out from behind an alcove and stood resolutely in their path. His hands rested confidently on his hips, his chest lifted up and his posture domineering. Although he was unarmed, his countenance bore all the dignity of being at the head of an army lined up in battle array awaiting the word of their leader to unleash their furry. So imposing was his presence that Tropnia found herself wondering what trap she was walking into. As her thoughts went to work analyzing the new situation, her hold on Carter’s mind faltered. Carter stumbled back against the wall and slid down to the floor. He gasped for breath, his mind still reeling as he tried to reestablish reality from the deception.

  “You’ve been betrayed, Tropnia,” Commander Drezden declared with authority.

  “What do you speak of?” Tropnia replied, her curiosity roused at hearing Drezden speak to her so directly.

  Drezden took a confident step nearer Tropnia, his commanding gaze not leaving his adversary’s eyes. “You were placed in the Second Fleet by someone who knowingly sent it though a minefield. Figure it out!”

  Tropnia shook her head. “They...they knew I would survive!” she answered back without conviction. “I am stronger than your pitiful race! Ten fold stronger! A hundred times stronger!”

  “Are you also an idiot?” exclaimed Drezden followed by a laugh. “They didn’t know you would survive! Your death was a collateral investment by someone that didn’t want or need you anymore!”

  Tropnia opened her mouth to once more refute Drezden’s accusations when it hit her. The tiny seed of doubt she had harbored for years suddenly grew and blossomed into an undeniable truth. Her mouth closed and her eyes grew wide as she pondered it. She then nodded slowly as the veil in her mind slowly lifted and for the first time she realized she had been duped by a master. “Defuria,” she said quietly, her rage building within.

  Carter glanced up from the ground where he lay just as Tropnia’s beautiful form shed away and she appeared as the hideous Unmentionable she was.

  “Betrayed and alone or not, I will drink your blood and relish in your deaths!” she growled as she took a slithering step nearer Drezden, her mighty tentacles reaching toward him.

  Suddenly, the hallway trembled violently. Drezden fell to the ground and even Tropnia struggled to stay erect. Yet as quickly as the rumbling started, it stopped.

  “Sounds like your ride just left,” remarked Carter realizing the B-18 had dislodged from the Defiant. He smiled at Tropnia with defiance, contented that Drezden’s and his own sacrifice had helped to save several lives.

  “I’ll rip you apart!” Tropnia roared as she rapidly approached Drezden. Three of her unsightly appendages were mere inches from his throat when the Commander raised something up that tied about his neck. Tropnia stopped abruptly and looked at what Drezden held. “What is that?” she demanded.

  Drezden slowly returned to his feet, removing the card from his neck but still clutching it tightly. “This is my access keycard,” he answered coolly. “It gets me everywhere I need to go on my ship. It also happens to be the only keycard that can override the shuttle hangar lockdown making it the only ticket off my ship.”

  Without hesitation, Tropnia snatched the card from Drezden’s grasp and promptly inserted it into the key slot adjacent to the shuttle bay door beside her. Nothing happened. She removed the card and tried again. Still nothing.

  “It doesn’t work fool!” she said, throwing the card to the ground. “Enough of your games!”

  Drezden shook his head and laughed. “How did you pass as a fleet Commodore for eleven months? Did you even read the orientation manual?”

  Tropnia’s massive mouth opened, revealing her daunting teeth. She then took a half step closer to Drezden, well within striking distance.

  “It’s biometric!” Drezden snapped with a roll of his eyes. He then retrieved the card from the floor and held it up for Tropnia to see. “It only works when I’m holding it!”

  Tropnia closed her glowing m
onstrous eyes and laughed, her pointed teeth flashing as she did.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Carter as he finally regained his feet and tried to plan his next move.

  Tropnia shook her head and her tentacles squirmed with excitement. “What is to stop me from relieving you of your hand and using it to hold the card and open the door?” she blurted out.

  Drezden locked eyes with Carter and then looked intently at the utility rack bolted securely into the wall behind him. He nodded slowly before turning toward Tropnia and answering. “Nothing at all.”

  He had barely finished his answer when Tropnia slashed out with one of her mighty tentacles, effortlessly severing the hand holding the key card. Drezden didn’t even have time to scream before Tropnia had thrust the bloody appendage toward the door brandishing the card. The pins within the mighty doors slid out and the great slabs of metal parted. As they separated, a powerful vacuum from within the hangar overpowered Tropnia and Drezden and pulled them toward the doorway. Tropnia clung onto the doors with all her might while Drezden clung to her, barely holding on with his only good hand. Carter, understanding Drezden’s timely warning, held onto the secure utility rack with all his might, gasping for breath in the rapidly depressurizing corridor.

  “Surprise!” Drezden yelled.

  “What…have you done?” Tropnia screamed as her fragile hold on the doorway slipped. “You’ve ruined everything!”

  Drezden looked up into her deadened eyes with a look of triumph on his face. “Get off my ship!” he yelled and stomped on one of her tentacles.

  “Not…without…you!” Tropnia screamed as her hold on the door slipped out of her weakened and partly frozen tentacles and she succumbed to the vacuum of space, taking Drezden with her.

  The moment they entered the hangar proper, both Tropnia and Drezden froze together. The two conjoined adversaries then floated out of the ship and into open space.

  Carter’s hold on the utility rack began to slip as the lack of oxygen coupled with his freezing hands began to take their toll. His eyes finally closed and his fingers relaxed their grip. He nearly partook of Drezden’s frigid fate when a hand took hold of his forearm and pulled him. The physical contact prompted him to squint an eye open. He was amazed and shocked at the sight he saw. Arteena held him tightly with one hand and with the other, held onto the hand of another shipmate behind her. Over and over the human chain repeated until it crossed the threshold of a nearby bulkhead, and a life saving secondary airlock. Slowly, painfully, the line of heroes pulled and tugged against the ravenous appetite of space and the cold death that awaited any that entered therein.

  Somewhere during the epic struggle Carter passed out, half expecting to never wake again. Several minutes later however, he slowly came to, amid the coughs and gasps of his rescuers gathered round him. As his consciousness returned further he realized that every person on the ship had stayed to help him, including his last Raider teammate and the two bridge officers together with the dozen survivors he had found in the cargo hold.

  “I...I told you to leave,” he said with a smile while looking at Arteena.

  Arteena rubbed her arms up and down while she tried to get a handle on her shivering. “I don’t often do what I’m told,” she said with a smile and a shrug.

  “Good thing,” Carter said as he stood to his feet. “I like not being dead.”

  “I figured as much,” added Arteena.

  Carter smiled and then looked around. “I need to get to a fleet link. I need to talk to Fedrin.”

  “This way,” Arteena said and led the Captain out of the room.

  CHAPTER 11

  Mentor, Comrade, Friend

  “All right Ma’am,” a deep voice from behind her suddenly spoke up. “Drop your pistols and raise your hands...slowly.”

  Reesa had no choice. She slowly undid both of her thigh holsters and let them drop to the floor one at a time. She then raised her hands.

  “Now turn around,” the voice commanded harshly. “And no funny stuff. I won’t think twice about blowing your cute little head off your shoulders.”

  Reesa swallowed hard and slowly turned, coming face to face with an imposing Sentinel. He was clad in black dampening armor and held a compact lydeg firmly in his right hand. A helmet and accompanying visor concealed his face. “Who are you and what are you doing out here?” he asked roughly. “These halls aren’t for refugees.”

  “I know,” Reesa answered with a nervous smile. “I’m lost. I was trying to find my way to the North West super bunker. Maybe you could help me?”

  The Sentinel shook his head, evidently not buying Reesa’s hastily prepared deflection. “How did you get those weapons in here? Weapons are strictly forbidden in the bunkers!”

  Reesa glanced at her holsters on the ground as if she had never seen them before. “Those aren’t mine,” she said with all the convincing power of a child with chocolate smeared on their face denying the theft of cookies. Reesa couldn’t help a small smile at her absurd answer.

  The Sentinel wasn’t amused. “Let me see your token pass and ID card,” he demanded.

  Reesa thrust her hands into her pockets and returned with nothing, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t you know it! It’s just my luck. I left both of them in my evening gown hanging up in the closet in my Imperial Suite. If you give me a quick minute, I’ll go grab them for you...” her words trailed off as she took a casual half step away.

  The Sentinel looked at her in disbelief and then casually glanced over his shoulder and then peered further down the passageway behind Reesa. “Is anyone going to be expecting you anytime soon?”

  A figure suddenly appeared from a dark alcove behind the Sentinel several feet away. Reesa couldn’t make out who it was but the slow and methodical approach it took behind the Sentinel implied that they were not friends and thus a potential ally for Reesa.

  “I asked if anyone is going to be expecting you anytime soon?” the Sentinel snarled again, this time taking a threatening step nearer Reesa.

  “Tons!” Reesa replied, attempting to keep the Sentinel’s attention fixed on her and not on the newcomer. “I’m hosting a charity luncheon this afternoon in the North West bunker, that is, if I can ever find it. You’re welcome to come if you want. We’re raising money to help preserve the western peninsula sand dunes.”

  The Sentinel looked at her curiously, unsure if she was unbearably insolent or just insane. Neither answer mattered much to him. He took yet another step closer to her and as he did, the black armor plates and face concealing helmet seemed to vanish away and in their place was the all too familiar yet sickening sight of an Unmentionable. The creature’s glowing, unblinking eyes looked upon Reesa with unabashed hunger. Several tentacles began to reach for her and the beast’s mouth opened with anticipation of feasting on her life giving blood.

  Reesa was frozen in fear. Although her adapter equipped lydeg lay at her feet, she could not find the will to reach for it.

  One by one the long appendages lay hold of Reesa, gently pulling her toward the open mouth of the Unmentionable. Reesa did not move. She couldn’t.

  “That’s it,” the vile voice of the beast uttered in a serpentine, echo-filled voice. “Don’t struggle my dear. It makes the blood taste simply awful when you struggle.”

  Reesa closed her eyes, preparing for the gruesome end. Yet just as she had given up, the coiled tentacles enveloping her body went limp and she immediately regained control of her mind. She opened her eyes and looked up at the Unmentionable standing mere inches from her face. The grotesque mouth was still open, still prepared to feed but it would never happen. A large knife was plunged to the hilt into the creature’s fleshy head. A thick black fluid, which must have been blood, oozed out from the wound and a faint gurgling noise emanated from within the creature’s open mouth as it slowly surrendered it’s desperate hold of life. With little effort, Reesa push
ed the demonic being away from her, cringing at the direct touch of the creature’s shriveled skin. It crumpled to the ground in a heap of distorted flesh and continually oozed blood. As the creature fell, the figure that Reesa had spotted moments earlier, but had nearly forgotten about, could clearly be seen.

  “Hello, Reesa,” Professor Jabel said with a kind smile as he leaned onto a cane feebly and held out a hand to her. In a daze, Reesa took the elderly man’s hand and stepped over the repulsive corpse, trembling at the thought of what had nearly happened to her. Once safely at Jabel’s side, she looked up at him intently, her hands still shaking. His discerning eyes seemingly acknowledged the obvious truth of the moment. Kebbs was not with her and the Origin Codex was nowhere to be seen.

  “How did he die?” he asked after a quiet moment, his own voice faltering at the question

  “Like a hero,” she answered after a pause and then suddenly began to sob.

  Jabel hung the crook of the cane over his wrist and put his grandfatherly arms around Reesa and held her close, letting her work out the emotional torment she had suppressed for days while trying to simply survive.

  “Are you ok?” the Professor inquired as he let her go several minutes later.

  Reesa rubbed her red eyes with the back of her hand, feeling embarrassed by her outburst but also relieved that she had finally worked it out of her system, at least for now. “They got the Codex,” she finally said, still drying her eyes. “We had it...Darion had it but we lost it when Krohns attacked us and killed Kebbs. I’m so sorry, Professor.”

  Jabel shook his head. “There is no reason to be sorry child. You did your best; you all did your best. What more can be asked of you than that?”