by Will Crudge
“Ma’am, all cruisers have launched!” Silvia reports.
“What’s the word on the destroyers and frigates?” I ask.
“Launching now… We have two minelayer sloops, and two GBE gunships forming a defensive funnel for the Star Fury to launch.”
“Please elaborate on what a ‘Star Fury’ is,” I ask, I kind of remember hearing that name, but I don’t want my preservation of pride to tie up any mental energy that I may need going forward.
“UAHC Air Force battle carrier, Ma’am.” She replies. Now I remember. The ship that played a critical role in the victory at Tangine.
“Gotcha!” I acknowledge. “Midas, we’ll need back-up! Make the call via QET. Any human ship with weapons we can raise!”
“Sending now,” Midas replies.
I look at the screen and focus on the red blips. They’ve begun to break formation. They know their ambush has lost efficacy… But now, what the fuck are they doing?
The patterns of their individual ship movements have become chaotic. It’s as if they’ve got major command and control issues… or perhaps…
They’re not used to a plan failing. They have no contingency… They’re confused. Then the thoughts funnel into my mind. Images… Patterns… the advanced mathematics that transcends comprehension. I decide not to try and interpret any of it. Instead, I let the boundless bits of sublime knowledge dance into my brain case like my cerebrum is a fucking mosh pit.
“Midas?” I ask.
“Yes, Katherine?”
“I have no idea what this means, but I need you to send the enemy formation’s location to the Broadsword,” I say. I gave up making sense of things. I just go with it.
“How did you…?” Midas started to ask but changed his tune abruptly. “Very well, Katherine. It’s done.”
“I need a status on those boarders!” I call out.
“Thirty-three individual pings detected, Ma’am! Marines are on intercept, but there’s been a power disruption to the mag-trains.” An anonymous GBE Space Force NCO reported. If I wasn’t in some kind of mega-ethereal state of consciousness, then his Scottish accent would be making me want to have his next nine babies!
“Pull up a 3D deck plan. I need icons of friendlies and alien dildos.” I order. I sense a few strange looks from across the room, but I don’t let it phase me. Calling an enemy a ‘dildo’ would serve to dehumanize them, and thus establish a lack of respect for their capabilities. I decide that they aren’t human anyway, and we don’t know enough about their capabilities to lose any respect for them. Fuck those dildos!
I see the holographic display populate with a cut-away diagram of the juggernaut. The ship is too big for the splotches of red and blue icons to make any sense. I reach up and use my fingers to zoom the image in. It took several swipes and hand adjustments to zoom in to a useful scale, but when my view clears up, I see the enemy is moving towards the CIC in force.
“Give me an ETA for the dildo party!” I order. Miraculously I keep a straight face. You can take the girl out of the gutter, but you can’t take the gutter out of the girl!
“Ninety seconds!” Silvia reports. I look over, and she’s got her battle helmet on. She’s doing functions checks on a multi-purpose heavy rifle.
I don’t have to meld with Marbles for him to catch on. He’s already found a hardened equipment case and placed it in the center of the main entrance’s vestibule. He kneels behind it and is staring down the sights of his rifle.
“Who the fuck is that?” Anders gasps loudly. I turn to the display. The red blips are steadily getting closer to the CIC, while every blue blip is stuck behind a series of malfunctioning avenues of approach further aft. There’s nothing between us and the enemy… Except for one blue blip.
I tap on the icon, and my eyes can’t believe what they’re seeing
STOP! HAMMER TIME!
“They’re moving quickly.” Samantha, the AI said.
“ETA?” Darius asked as he stood facing the blast door at the end of the corridor. He cradled the gravity hammer in his arms. He kept his eyes glued to the horizon.
“Two minutes,” Sam replied.
“Are you sure you want to stay embedded?” Darius asked. “It’s not too late to pull out of your portable node, you know.”
“Not a chance! I can’t leave you to fend off the unknown by yourself. As it is, I don’t know why you insisted on making a stand against an enemy with unknown close-quarters capabilities.” She scowled.
Darius didn’t know either. He resigned himself to what the universe told him was the best course of action. Even without his superior genetics, he would have been well-prepared to channel his fear into raw focus. He was ready for anything, and he had his favorite weapon on hand.
“This is what needs to happen. The enemy will never anticipate it. Even if I die, they’ll fail in the end.” He spoke as if he believed it. He didn’t know what to believe, in truth. He only knew what he felt inside, and it was as cryptic as anything he’s ever encountered.
“You’ve placed a War Master Candidate in command of the entire fleet, dear! If your keen insights are truly in our favor, then I can’t possibly see the logic in that!” Sam said.
“She’s where she’s supposed to be. Nothing happens by accident. I’ve come to believe that much.” Darius said. He then closed his eyes and spread his focus across time and space. He could see the flickering subatomic particles that made up all matter. He could see hidden spectrums of light dance before his eyes… He could see armored masses with protruding tentacles approaching the other side of the blast door.
“ETA has changed, dear. They’ve sped up!” Sam reported.
“I know. They’re about to breach the blast door.” Darius declared calmly. He adjusted his stance with his left foot forward and brought the gravity hammer upright with both hands. He pulled the handle back towards his right shoulder and smiled when he saw the blast door glow white hot.
“Time to show them the wolf’s fangs…”
Back to Katherine…
I watch as the holographic display zooms in on the chaotic enemy formation. The visual display lets me see the alien hulls as if they were a stone’s throw away. They still haven’t figured out how to respond to the change in plans. Granted, they could be just fucking with us, but I doubt it. Chaos doesn’t care what your species is, I suppose.
“Midas, transmit the following order to all ship AI’s,” I say as I peck away at the little manual interface on my left forearm.
[All Cruisers advance at the discretion of your squadron commanders… Star Fury is OPCON for all fighters… All hulls, all commands… Weapons free!]
“Done,” Midas replies.
“Thank you, Midas,” I say with all humility. In essence, I don’t feel I should be passing orders to Midas at all. He was already five thousand years old before I was born!
“Ma’am, shouldn’t we wait for the command staff, or General Garcia to make contact before we order an engagement?” Silvia asked. I don’t bother turning my head to reply.
“We wait… We die.” I say coldly, as I pick out possible tactical options on the screen.
“Ma’am!” Anders pipes up. “Mwargoth boarders have breached the final blast door. The Fleet Marshal is engaging!” I don’t bother to say anything.
“Marbles!” I call out over my shoulder.
“Can I go now?” He asks in response. He’s like an eager child.
“Do your thing, buddy,” I say with a smile. “I’ll be right behind you with the Zodiacs!”
Marbles lets out an enthusiastic whistle. I don’t know why I chose to take any action. That wasn’t my original plan, afte
r all. But that’s what set we humans apart from our enemy… we adapt and overcome.
I hear the cocking of a ballistic rifle nearby. I turn to see Silvia stomping after Marbles as he sprints out of the main exit. I look over to Anders, as he nervously checks his ballistic pistol magazine. He’s only got a flight suit on, so I can’t expect him to go on the offensive without any armor.
I reach up to grasp my sword. I draw it from the scabbard and head out the door with a brisk stride. I make no eye contact as I leave, but I feel the eyes of a dozen officers and NCO’s burning into me as I leave. I either look like a total badass… or a complete idiot!
“Midas, you have FLEETCON until I return!” I say as I slip out of the entranceway, and into the corridor ahead of me. The Panthers follow right behind me, but they make no effort to move ahead. All three of us are melded, and we are walking as a single entity.
I pass through a few opened blast doors as I make my way aft. Marbles and Silvia must be left them open for me. Doesn’t matter… Right now, I doubt anything is capable of holding me back.
Shadow says directly to my mind.
She’s right. I feel it too. Darius is just ahead. I still can’t see him, but I can feel him all the same. All three of us break into full stride. We hurry down the corridor until I hear the sounds of weapons fire. It was a mix of ballistic, energy, and some unknown type of weapon discharging.
We come to another blast door, but this one is closed. The fighting is on the other side. It’s time to discover how aliens fight.
Back to Darius…
The white-hot blast door melted to slag, and Darius’ view was obscured by smoke and ripples of heat. Everything went quiet for several moments. He wondered if the Mwargoths even knew he was there, or if they were merely waiting for the slag to cool down before they entered the wider junction of the corridor where Darius now stood. Engineering workstations lined the walls in tiny alcoves to the left and right of him. It was by design.
He wanted to lull them into a broader area, and in doing so, he could let the destructive might of his hammer make short work of them. The seconds seemed like minutes. Time slowed down in his mind.
He felt his spine tingle. His pulse quickens. His rage boil.
His brown eyes began to flicker with sparkles of amber, and the hues of dull red. A moment later, his eyes glowed bright red… Primal Rage coursed through his veins. It was a new sensation for him. Scary, but exciting. He had often wondered what it felt like to tap into the Rage but had never experienced it until now. His calm resolve quickly melted away. All he knew was death. All he could taste was blood!
The first two Mwargoths entered the room and didn’t see Darius right away. They were much like Darius was expecting. They walked on a myriad of tentacles, but their midsections were covered in some kind of flexible armored material. Their heads almost seemed to be form fitted into their bulky cores and were shaped like sideways ovals. Their faces were covered in some kind of visor that spanned the full width of their faces, and Darius couldn’t pick out any discernable features behind them.
A third creature slithered into space just as the first two realized that they weren’t alone. They seemed shocked, but Darius had no context by which to confirm it. Tentacles fluttered to secure oddly shaped devices from behind their backs, and reddish pulses of energy were fired in his direction.
With the Rage flowing through him, all of time and space slowed to a crawl. He watched as the pulses of energy flowed towards him, but he didn’t have a care in the world, despite the incoming death beams. He reached out with his palm stretched outward and absorbed a blast with his gauntlet.
Howls and gurgles erupted in response to his defiant stand, but Darius wasn’t going to stand there and wait for them to get wise. He lunged forward, as he swung wide with his hammer.
The concussive impact splattered an oily black ooze across the adjacent bulkhead, and Darius figured it was the creature’s blood. He stopped, planted his feet, and then spun around to his left with his hammer in tow.
The second Mwargoth was knocked back against the bulkhead and then fell into a lifeless blob of metal and green flesh.
A pulse of energy struck him in his chest, and he was knocked backward about five meters. He dropped to a kneeling position and stopped his reverse momentum by reaching one hand to the deck plate while applying pressure. Once he planted, he didn’t bother lifting his head to see what was ahead, but rather he lunged again.
More enemies came through the door. Two, four, six… They came in pairs, and he dropped them in the same numerical succession. Blasts of red energy streamed through the door at him. Some of them struck his armor and glanced off. Others burned the top layer of armor clean off to the frame.
None of it phased the Rage infused warrior. He struck with his hammer until there were no enemies left within his reach. Most of the enemies were still in the darkened corridor beyond the ruined blast door. He pulled out his ballistic pistol and pointed into the darkness beyond.
No sign of movement lay before him. Not a sound was made. But the blast door behind him opened, to his surprise.
Darius saw the barrel of an oversized weapon come into his periphery to his left. He knew the sound of an infantry drone’s servo motors from experience, but this drone sounded much quieter. But the details didn’t matter to him at this point. He was primordial energy incarnate… He had no time for the trivial matters of mortals!
But now there was the sound that emerged from the dark corridor to his front. He saw the flash of red light and squinted to see what it was. Even his internal HUD that his augmented optics provided was at a loss to identify it.
“Grenade!” Marbles shouts as he leaped away. Silvia did the same in the opposite direction, but Darius didn’t move.
A small object was tossed into the room by a flash of green, that could only have been a tentacle, and it bounced on the deck plate before rolling to a stop beside Darius. He lifted his boot, stomped it firmly on top of the device, and glared at the pair of alien eyes he knew must be staring at him from the darkness beyond.
The explosion occurred… Darius still stood.
Flashes of green flesh flooded the room as the Mwargoths charged the three defenders. Ballistic shells ranged out, and red blasts of alien pulse energy responded in turn.
Back to Katherine…
The blast door slides open, and all hell is there to greet us! A red blob of shit flies at me, but I’m so raging right now that I slap that shit down like it owes me money. I see green squid dudes wearing stupid metal skirts gargling and spitting, as Darius smashes them with his hammer, and shoots one in the head with a pistol… Kinda sexy, if I may say so!
Marbles is wrestling with a bulky green fucker who’s trying to disarm him. They’re on their feet… tentacles… whatever… and marbles is losing ground. His strength is likely superior, but he’s limited on appendages for leverage, so he begins to fall back into the bulkhead behind him. I notice Silvia out of the corner of my eye, and she’s been disarmed completely. She’s swinging her fists like a crazy drunk Kung Fu master, and she’s about to be overwhelmed by three family-sized orders of calamari.
<’Panther’ the shit out o
f the greenies who have Silvia!> I tell the Zodiacs. I’ve never seen a panther fight before, so I figure my choice of words should be explanatory enough.
For some weird reason, I re-sheath my sword, and casually walk up to the Mwargoth that is about to hand Marbles his ass. I pull back my right arm, ball it into a fist, and let the Primal Rage do what it wants from there.
All I see is black puss-looking shit speckle my eyes, and before I know better, I’m being pulled down to the floor. I’m not being wrestled, though… My fist is buried into the dead ‘seafood platter’s’ skull, and its limp bodyweight pulled me off of my center of gravity.
“Your eyes!” Marbles says excitedly.
“Yup… Rage is back.” I say as I reach out to grab another slimy fuck-stick. But I’m too late. Ye ol’ gravity hammer splattered it down to the deck.
I glance over at Darius, and I can’t believe my eyes… or rather, his eyes. They’re glowing bright red, and his face is full of hate. Primal Rage looks good on him! Too bad I heard he’s seeing someone at the moment.
All perversion aside, I get grabbed by a slew of tentacles out of nowhere. These fuckers are strong! Stronger than a regular human, at least. Without thinking, I wiggle my right hand up to my sword’s handle and let the Rage take it from there.
Blinding flashes of red, blue, and green fill my awareness. Unlike previous trips down ‘Primal Rage Lane,’ I feel totally at ease. The melding of the Panthers and, by extension, Darius is working. I just hope Darius is doing alright….
By the time I finish my thought, I open my eyes to see the fruits of my labor. Seven dead surf and turf specials lay strewn about the deck. There’s no longer any clean place to step. The slippery black ‘blood-jizz’ of these alien fuckers is everywhere. I scan for enemies, but there are none.
I look over at Marbles, and he’s busy helping Silvia to her feet. She’s totally fine but covered in ‘octopussy-juice.’ The poor kitties are drenched in bodily fluids also. Their black fur hides most of it, but they look like wet alley cats that have just been sexually assaulted by an oil rig.