Star Brigade: Maelstrom (Star Brigade Book 2)

by C. C. Ekeke

  “Shut it!” Habraum growled.

  Tyris was his only teammate to offer something useful. “Good thing Marguliese wasn’t here, right?”

  Habraum made a face. “Right,” he admitted with a sigh. The Cerc looked around the room. Aside from the Honor Guard and the Sulrur Hrakma, sentrymechs guarded every exit. The TriTran showcased PLADECO warships zooming back and forth across Terra Sollus airspace. And aside from Terra Sollus’s defense grid, several AeroFleet command cruisers orbited vigilantly. That didn’t include the Amalgam or the Imperium Star Navy warships. Today, Terra Sollus was a virtual fortress. Habraum then allowed himself to relax. Sam was right. No way would Maelstrom try something today.

  Chairs of liquid metal morphed up from the floor and everyone took their seats. The Star Brigadiers followed suit as Bogosian waved to the crowd and shook Orok Kel’s hand again. He also shook Biros Nor’s hand when the equally large Kedri walked onto the dais. The ovation was immediate and booming.

  Habraum frowned. That ovation, loud as it was, shouldn’t have shaken Andromeda Hall to its foundations. He glanced at Khrome and Sam, who both stared back. “You feel that shakedown?”

  “Thought it was just me,” Khrome answered. “Earthquake?”

  “Definitely felt like a fuck-ton of something.” Sam shook her head. “But not an earthquake.”

  The ovation remained steady. Habraum frowned. The grim sensation in his stomach had returned. “Patch into the Phaeton’s detection systems and find out.”

  “I don’t think we have to, sir,” Liliana pointed to the stage. Vice Chouncilor Morje’Huijadan had darted up on the podium and was whispering something to Bogosian. Any triumph on the Chouncilor’s face quickly melted away. Sovereign Kel and Biros Nor both looked on in slight concern. Bogosian gestured to someone near the front of the crowd and the podium TriTran popped on. What appeared on the screen effectively stopped the ovation, turning it into shocked gasps.

  “Shut me down,” Khrome muttered. Habraum did a double take. Korvanes statues, the massive sentinels sheathed in golden sollunium that watched over the city of Conuropolis for centuries—were walking, all of their eyes pulsating bright green.

  Chouncilor Bogosian looked horrified. These 10 statues strode slowly, crushing smaller edifices, the ground quaking under their tread. As they effortlessly walked through the veins of hovercar traffic, one could see numerous hovercars exploding in tiny orange swells against the Korvanes’ armored shells. And their destination was quite obvious. Andromeda Hall.

  “What is this, Bogosian? You animate your own structures just to impress us,” Sovereign Kel boomed, not looking at all impressed.

  Bogosian turned, almost too stunned to speak. “No—no that’s not it, Sovereign….”

  “Lord Imperator,” Biros addressed his Sovereign. “Why would he destroy his own capital city?”

  “True,” The Sovereign nodded his massive head.

  Habraum had heard enough. “We need to get in touch with UComm and find out what’s this about….” Anything else Habraum was about to say died in his throat. The Amalgam hovered over the trail of the Korvanes statues. Once the monoliths had walked clear of Conuropolis’s outskirts, the space station promptly belched out a wide photon beam, incinerating that part of the cityscape.

  Screams erupted among the Andromeda Hall crowd. The Star Brigadiers rose in stunned disbelief, right as a second beam from the Amalgam sheered through several starscrapers. Habraum gasped, realizing thousands of lives had just been snuffed out. A garden of orange plumes roiled and shot into the heavens. The buildings’ jagged remains crumbled to the ground in avalanches of smoke and fire.

  Chaos consumed the occupants of Andromeda, many swept away by their security, some scrambled on top of each other to flee for safety. To where, no one knew. A horror-struck Bogosian wheeled accusingly on the Kedri Sovereign, as did Habraum and many others. But the Kedri leader looked just as surprised. “I swear on House Kel’s bloodline, the Imperium is not behind this.”

  The Chouncilor never got to respond. Eight Honor Guardsmen appeared out of nowhere, surrounding Bogosian, just before transmatting him away in a bright flash.

  Star Brigade instinctively did their best to guide the terrified and overwhelmed to safety. They assisted UComm officers in evacuating Andromeda Hall in swift fashion.

  The Sovereign, stolid as ever, walking briskly down the dais to his waiting personal guard. He barked at one of his subordinates in Kedri Royal Tongue. The other Kedri shrugged as they transmatted out of Andromeda Hall. Habraum then spied that Biros Nor had vanished, well before the other Kedri.

  “KORVAN HAS DECREED THAT I, KORVAN’S ANNOINTED, PURGE THIS WORLD.”

  The voice boomed throughout the Hall. Khrome pointed to the TriTran that was on. The familiar voice had apparently come from the Amalgam. But it couldn’t possibly be who it sounded like...

  Khrome’s jaw dropped. “No WAY!”

  “WE HAVE NO QUARREL WITH THE KEDRI, JUST THOSE PART OF THE UNION! NOW, LET THIS WORLD BE REDEEMED!” The Amalgam unleashed another massive energy beam, further destroying the once-pristine cityscape. By this time, several spear-shaped AeroFleet PLADECO Deathbird cruisers and a few larger AeroFleet Hammerjacks flew at breakneck speed toward the rogue space station. All of them fired a united salvo at the Amalgam, scorching the air with lethal energy.

  But to no avail. Their volleys struck the space station’s shielding…and fizzled out of existence. The Amalgam’s response was viciously prompt, a sweeping shockwave fanning out from its middle, cutting a swath through the UComm ships. Some barely evaded, most were incinerated on impact. A dark swarm poured like flies from the space station’s belly. It took Habraum less than a nanoclic to recognize fully-armored Retributionaries slicing through already damaged vessels, killing any survivors that ejected.

  He cursed this TriTran’s crisp visual quality, capturing every starscraper that toppled, every resultant roar, snowballing the panicked crowd’s hysteria. A bright blue shield slid around the Amalgam and over the rest of Conuropolis, coloring the skies and decisively blocking out any approaching AeroFleet warships.

  Somehow Maelstrom and his ilk had commandeered the Amalgam, right under everyone’s noses. How could anyone have seen this coming?

  The Cerc’s heart pounded out as much terror as the shrieking politicians around him, his mind a mess. But his team needed him to lead and his Union needed him. He pushed his fears away and steeled his resolve, mutely touching a button on his wristcom. A bright flash enveloped him, converting Habraum’s officer uniform into his white, green and gold-armored field costume. Tyris, Liliana and Khrome all swapped their officer’s uniforms for grey, red and black field outfits.

  “I’m guessing the trade merger’s off?” Sam snarked, ceremonial military uniform morphing into her skintight red and white field outfit with one bright flash.

  “We find the others,” Habraum stated decisively, “then we go to work.” With that, CT-1 fought their way through a fear-crazed mob, toward the bowels of Andromeda Hall.

  “How could you be sso ssssstupid?” Honaa hissed. “What if Marguliese hadn’t stopped you?”

  “I know, I know!” V’Korram paced like a caged beast, his strides long and furious. Marguliese stood silent and statuesque further away, staring out the room’s one viewport. The three Brigadiers were locked in a room two levels below Andromeda Hall’s main foyer, with three Honor Guardsmen outside the door.

  “Sssorry isssn’t good enough! The Brigade’sss good graces can change if the wrong being gets the right info,” the Rothorid glanced at the Cybernarr, leaving the rest unsaid. This holding cell, no doubt, had untold amounts of listening tech within its walls.

  “ I’m sorry,” V’Korram continued to pace, gritting his sharp teeth in palpable shame.

  “Then what were you thinking?! Onthar-Khada knew he could bait you and did exactly that!” Honaa tried calming himself, knowing his yelling wouldn’t better the situation. “With Marguliessse here te
mporarily and othersss leaving, we cannot afford for you to get kicked out for errant judgment.”

  “Who’s leaving?” V’Korram growled, still pacing.

  Honaa almost mentioned his impending departure, but held back. Now wasn’t the time. “Let’sss focusss on getting out of here. And your apology to Sssenator Onthar-Khada.”

  V’Korram flashed him a murderous look. “NEVER!”

  “Thisss isssn’t a dissscussion. Ssstart thinking about what you will sssay.” Honaa strode over to where the Cybernarr stood. The viewport displayed a beautiful panorama of the Diktat District. Rays of Rhyne sunlight needled through the sky’s billowy veil, cascading down across the cityscape with a divine radiance. And the sollunium-hewn Korvanes statues stood guard over Conuropolis’s endless sprawl.

  Gigantic viewscreens broadcasted the current happenings at Andromeda Hall; the Sovereign and the Chouncilor finalizing the trade deal. Beyond the Hall, the colossal Amalgam hovered just under Terra Sollus’s atmosphere, casting a vast shadow over Conuropolis. The sight of the space station explained the thicker crisscrosses of traffic. Honaa turned, finding them distracting. “Marguliessse, anything?”

  “There are trivial intricacies due to Thulican security systems in place,” she replied. Her cybernetic hand was pressed against the wall next to the viewport, no doubt connecting her to the Andromeda Hall’s systems. “But I am in passive contact with Andromeda Hall’s transmission monitors. The Kedri are here. The Sovereign and the Chouncilor are about to sign—” She paused, staring hard at the viewport.

  “What?” V’Korram finally stopped pacing.

  The Cybernarr turned on her heel and strode to the exit. “We must leave,” she said curtly.

  “Marguliese.” Honaa grabbed her by the arm. She stopped and glared back through narrowed eyes.

  “An undetected transmat into the Andromeda Hall,” she yanked her arm away rather stiffly. “Origin and precise destination in the Hall circumspectly cloaked—.”

  “The Korvanes statues!” Honaa and Marguliese both turned. V’Korram stared out the viewport, eyes wide. Honaa strode forth and followed the Kintarian’s gape, seeing only the familiar Conuropolis skyline.

  A twinkle caught the Rothorid’s attention, and he craned forward a bit more. Something was different. Each of the Korvenite monoliths, all at the edges of the Diktat remained stone-faced and immobile. But the eyes of one particular Korvanes, a kneeling sculpture, pulsed with energy. In fact, every single monolith’s eyes glowed eerily. Their entire bodies began to shimmer.

  “How often have the Korvanes statues done this?” Marguliese asked.

  “Never,” both Honaa and V’Korram said. All three eyed each other and headed to the door without another word. Something about this felt wrong to Honaa, prickling his scaly hide. Were the Korvenites acting alone, or colluding with the Kedri? If the latter was true, the whole Galactic Union was in peril.

  “Our commsss won’t work in this room,” Honaa said. “We musst warn the Honor Guardss—.”

  “MOVE!” V’Korram grabbed both Marguliese and Honaa by the necks, tossing them aside. Right when the room’s door blew wide open. Now a smoking slab of warped metal, it smacked into the opposite side of the room with a loud clang. Fortunately, all three Brigadiers had moved clear by then. In the charred and twisted entrance stood five Retributionaries, fully armored and primed to attack.

  Honaa abruptly felt a telepathic drill tear through his mind, just like on Alorum. V’Korram grasped his head and yowled. Marguliese’s movements turned jerky and ungainly as she was obviously affected. With the three Brigadiers disabled, all five Korvenites charged their torso cannons and opened fire.

  22.

  The Retributionaries lit the room up with a barrage of psionic energy. Honaa caught one Korvenite yelling, “[You will be purged from this planet, just like the human scum poisoning this world!]”

  At the same time, the Korvenites slashed at him and his fellow Brigadiers psyches telepathically. The veteran Rothorid struggled to move out of the way. The blasts barely missed his tail, scorching a hole into the wall behind him. Honaa hazily glanced left and right. Thankfully, both Marguliese and V’Korram had enough wits to dodge the blistering onslaught as well.

  The five fully armored Retributionaries stepped into the room, fully peppering the room with energy blasts while upping the intensity of their telepathic attack. Honaa was in agony, half a dozen psychic knives stabbing at his brain. He collapsed to his knees. Right away, two Retributionaries stood over him and aimed fists vibrating with lethal psionic potency.

  An instant later, the Rothorid noticed his pain had vanished and his five attackers were the ones in agony, clutching at their helmets and stumbled around clumsily.

  V’Korram held what looked like a psi-jammer in his hand as he struggled to his feet. Seeing the opening, the Rothorid whipped his tail around—bashing both assailants across the face.

  They reeled as Honaa charged, grabbing their chestplates. Fortunately his phase-shifting didn’t fail him, a small blessing. Ripples of power coursed through his talons into their bodies. The Retributionaries convulsed and collapsed. V’Korram sprang into the air with an arresting backflip, kicking a Retributionary’s masked face. The Korvenite went skidding across the floor into the wall, unconscious.

  One Retributionary fought through his disorientation and rushed at Marguliese. But the Cybernarr was ready, spinning about lightning-quick to roundhouse kick him under the jaw. The blow shattered his helmet into little pieces flying everywhere as he slumped to the floor.

  The last Retributionary cried out in rage and fired wildly. Marguliese ducked and sped forward, a glowing blade extending in her right hand. A quick upward swipe later and the Korvenite slid to floor in two pieces. Honaa and V’Korram gaped at the corpse, sliced open from crotch to cranium. Marguliese retracted her blade abruptly. Her eyes flicked back and forth between her teammates in pitiless fashion.

  Without a word Honaa reached in his uniform’s belt, grabbing his psi-blocker and attaching it to his ear. He tapped a button on his wristcom and his whole form shimmered. The formal Captain’s uniform he wore was replaced by his field outfit. V’Korram followed his action and Honaa smiled. The Kintarian had come to fight. With that, the three moved silently out of the room, with Marguliese in the lead.

  The Brigadiers didn’t even pause to examine the mutilated Honor Guard corpses they expected to find upon exit. No doubt, the Retributionaries had taken them unawares. Honaa cleared that thought from his mind as the trio jogged through Andromeda Hall’s austere lower corridors.

  Crisis alarms blared out of every hallway. Right away, Honaa knew a bigger danger had arrived above. A full-on Korvenite attack? After turning the corner of a long corridor, the three Brigadiers found not an exit, but Biros Nor in the middle of the hallway facing away from them.

  His presence was odd to Honaa. Only certain Union officials had access to these lower halls. Honaa almost called out to him when a brilliant transmat signature flashed, and shapes began to coalesce. V’Korram hissed a shocked curse. The Chouncilor and his Honor Guard?

  Biros held out something in his right hand and fired. A wide scattering beam struck the Honor Guard and knocked them aside, leaving Bogosian completely unprotected. Honaa looked from Marguliese to V’Korram and back at the unfolding scene before them. This was clearly a security procedure to protect the Chouncilor, which Biros Nor of the Kedri Imperium had interrupted.

  The Brigadiers dashed ahead. V’Korram bounded forward on all fours. Honaa crouched low, sticking his tail out flat and straight to move faster, his heart in his throat. Biros stepped over the unconscious group of Honor Guardsmen and looked over his shoulder to acknowledge Star Brigade. He smiled coldly and grabbed Bogosian roughly by the neck. Marguliese, the fastest of the three, would clearly reach him first with V’Korram at a close second.

  The confused Chouncilor grabbed at the enormous hand gripping his neck. “Biros, what are you—?”

&nbs
p; “Shut up Ari,” Biros snapped—but in a mechanical, non-Kedri voice. V’Korram pounced, reaching for Bogosian. But before he could, Biros Nor vanished with the Chouncilor of the Galactic Union in a bright flash. Marguliese and Honaa slid to a stop where Biros had just been. The Rothorid went cold all over. V’Korram, already committed to his lunge, landed amidst the unconscious Honor Guard. He threw his head back and roared furiously. The Cybernarr kneeled down and touched the ground experimentally. Honaa had no time to react to his failure, as his wristcom beeped. “Ishiliba.”

  “Honaa!” It was Habraum. A lot of background interference muddled the transmission. “Terra Sollus is under attack. Notify the Honor Guard that you must assist UComm immediately!”

  Both Marguliese and V’Korram snapped their heads up in Honaa’s direction. He grimaced. “Captain, those Honor Guardsmen are dead, killed by the Retributionaries.”

  “Retributionaries are in Andromeda Hall?!”

  Honaa could barely wrap his head around what just occurred. “And that’sss not the worssst of it.”

  Habraum and Sam listened to Honaa’s story while waiting for Marguliese, V’Korram and him outside of the Hall. The Cerc couldn’t believe it, but knew Honaa spoke the truth. Ari Bogosian taken by Biros Nor. “Right now, we only tell UComm uppercrust.” Habraum instructed CT-1. “Heatstroke, if you will?”

  “Agreed.” Sam took to the air. “Christ, can things get any worse!?” For that answer all, Habraum had to do was look around Conuropolis’s once pristine skyline, ravaged by explosions and flames. Starscrapers once jutting into the heavens, in ruins; the debris crushed under the tread of Korvanes statues striking at anything above their chest level. Retributionaries flanked these monoliths in swarms, firing on scattered groups of hovercars, UComm vehicles and civilians in their way.

  And hovering over the capital city like a dark specter was the traitorous Amalgam, once a symbol of accord between two governments. Now it continued to scorch the landscape. Thick columns of energy, wider than a starscraper, blasted from the Amalgam’s base, disintegrating anything in its path. AeroFleet vessels had no chance against the spacestation. Some fired on the impenetrable shields, others were swatted away like gnats. A few dashed themselves into the shields in hope of breaching them. UComm TerraTroopers and Space Marine Corps did their best to hold back the Retributionaries, but the Korvanes statues coupled with Amalgam’s firepower decisively overwhelmed them.