Diane and Kelly ran after Colin as he passed three huge anti-air defenders to their right. Their turrets swiveled rapidly from left to right while their lasers and missile launchers aimed at the sky while firing at the attacking Brelac fighters. Colin stopped when he noticed a trooper with long red hair walking from in between two of the vehicles. He held a sinister smile on his face as he waved his hand. It was the same trooper that they had passed in the corridor in the stadium just before Major Lawson and the others in the command center were killed. Getting a better look at this man, Colin noticed that he had a portly build and piercing red eyes.
Colin stopped and pointed at the trooper. “You!” he shouted.
The trooper stopped waving but continued to smile. He laughed. Then his body took on a bright red glow as it began a strange transformation. He got down on his hands and knees while growing a long tail which burst through his camouflage pants. Two long insect legs sprouted from both the left and right sides of his body, ripping through his camouflage shirt. As his body continued to glow, his uniform and boots caught fire and began to burn away. His glowing skin became a chitinous shell with a metallic coppery sheen. His thick torso became thinner, with two long ovoid growths on his back. His hands grew larger, with his fingers sprouting long, sharp claws. His legs became reverse-jointed. In the absence of his boots, his three-toed feet grew long claws. The hard shell of his large, round head bore long sharp spines in place of his red hair. Unblinking red eyes sat above a circular mouth with sharp teeth and fangs behind mandibles. Two long antennae waved atop the shell of his head.
The glow of the creature’s body continued to grow in intensity until its features were almost obscured. It was obvious to Colin that the creature’s glow was not just a light show. This thing was generating an intense heat energy that was starting to burn a wide area of the grassy field. Troopers at the left and right of the creature, caught in its intense glow, burst into flames while screaming in loud agony. These human torches soon collapsed to the ground as their bodies burned to ash within seconds. Even the anti-air defender to the creature’s right was not immune to its deadly power. The rear section of the vehicle took on a bright red glow from the intense heat and burst into flames. Agonized screams erupted from within the vehicle. A circular hatch opened on top of its turret, and a flaming trooper made a desperate attempt to climb out of the vehicle, falling to the ground.
With its transformation complete, the creature thrashed its tail from left to right, then began to crawl toward Colin, Diane, and Kelly.
“Look out,” said Diane as she brushed past Colin. Aiming her laser rifle at the creature, she opened fire. Her shots hit the creature on its face and back, merely causing it to take a few steps back. It remained unhurt by the assault.
Kelly stepped in front of Diane and aimed both his hands toward the glowing creature. He released a stream of fiery energy that struck it on its face and sent it tumbling backwards. Then the creature leapt into the air while four broad insect wings spread out from beneath the oval growths on its back. With its vibrating wings creating a deep humming sound, the creature rose and hovered in the air.
“Oh great. This freak can fly!” Kelly cried out.
Troopers on the ground at the left and right began to open fire at the flying creature, but their combined firepower was useless against it. Colin raised his hands to see how his power could fare against this flying menace. With his hands both glowing blue with electrical energy, he fired twin bolts that both struck the creature’s body with a burst of sparks. The creature was knocked back and fell to the ground, bouncing twice before it came to rest. “Thank God it’s vulnerable to electricity. But it still has that burning glow.”
Another explosion ripped through the already collapsed section of the stadium wall several yards behind where the creature lay. More stone and metal debris collapsed to the ground among a rising cloud of smoke and dust. Any moment Colin expected to see swarms of howling Brelac troops climbing over the mound of debris and charging onto the stadium grounds. A loud humming sound came from the sky above, and a strong gust of wind began to push down on Colin and the others. He looked up, surprised to see a huge triangular ship descending down to the stadium. Then a second ship began to descend alongside the first. Relieved, Colin yelled, “The ships from the Twenty-ninth Squadron are finally here!”
Before anyone had the chance to celebrate the arrival of the rescue ships, two red streams of energy flew across the air and struck one ship on the side. Blue flashes erupted as the streams hit the ship’s defensive shield, causing explosions on the hull. Colin looked to his right and spotted the source of the enemy fire. Two Brelac soldiers carrying rifles with long barrels emerged from the cloud of dust and smoke from the collapsed stadium wall. They fired at the ship again. The power of their weapons penetrated the ship’s defensive shields with ease and caused two more huge explosions against its hull.
Brelac psycho-gunners. That’s all we need!
The psycho-gunners were joined by a mob of other Brelac troops, howling fearsomely as they charged forward, firing plasma weapons. Several yards away, dozens of Protectorate troopers formed a defensive line and returned fire to try to hold back the Brelac advance.
In the sky overhead, a trio of Brelac fighters strafed the troopers with a hail of heavy plasma fire. The remaining two anti-air defenders rolled forward and swiveled their turrets, raising their guns to fire rapid bursts of laser power at the enemy fighters.
Emerging from the cloud of smoke came another menace – the metallic, spiny monster that Colin, Diane, and Kelly had encountered back at the Chimera. Letting out a roar at the top of its lungs, the creature ran forward through the horde of charging Brelac troops and headed toward the line of human troopers. The troopers bombarded the creature with multiple laser fire but only managed to shoot off small fragments of the metal blades that covered its body. Several troopers backed away as the creature approached, but a few failed to move fast enough. The creature swiped its arms at the troopers as it passed them by, and its long claws slashed into their bodies, severing limbs and knocking them to the ground.
The creature continued its charge. It passed by the fallen troopers and continued to run as the other troopers fired laser bolts into its back. The creature ignored the assault and kept running until it reached one of the anti-air defenders. It leaped up onto the turret and began slashing at the huge gun barrels with its claws. With four quick swipes, the creature put deep gashes into both gun barrels. Two more swipes severed one of the barrels from the turret. Three more swipes severed the second. As the gun barrels dropped to the ground, the creature slashed the base of the two rectangular missile launchers, leaving deep gashes across the launchers while exposing several sparking wires.
The creature stood atop the vehicle and roared, looking directly at Colin, Diane and Kelly. Colin raised his hands and fired two electrical bolts that knocked the beast to the ground with a blue flash and a burst of sparks. He felt apprehensive as he watched the creature hit the ground. Why does this seem too easy?
The creature stood back up and gnashed its teeth as it looked back at Colin. Then a blue bolt of energy flashed out from the creature’s body, with two more bolts following in quick succession. Colin’s uneasy feeling flared up into a dire premonition. “Get down!” he shouted to Diane and Kelly. Kelly dove to the ground as Colin jumped on Diane and forced her to the ground. Still looking over at the creature while lying on top of Diane, Colin was shocked when its body exploded with a loud boom. Swarms of the metal blades that covered the creature flew in all directions like shrapnel from an exploding grenade. Dozens of troopers unfortunate to be in the vicinity were struck by the deadly hail of metal. As he watched their bodies fall, Colin felt a sharp pain burning in his left shoulder. He heard Diane let out a yelp. Colin looked at his shoulder and found a twisted metal blade embedded there. Diane squirmed beneath him. “Get off me!”
Diane sat up, dumping Colin on his back. He looked over at her and saw two small metal
blades stuck in her right forearm. Getting up, he glanced at the spot where the creature had exploded and was amazed to see that it was still alive, standing in a thin cloud of white smoke. Its body was no longer covered by the sharp metal shrapnel. Its skin was now smooth and silvery, and its body was also thinner than before. The creature shook its head, then staggered toward the anti-air defender it had disabled earlier.
Colin’s attention was diverted to Diane when he heard her cry out in pain. “What the hell is this?” She grabbed one of the small blades sticking in her arm and pulled it out. She tossed the blade to the ground and pulled out the second one. Colin watched in amazement as Diane’s arm stopped bleeding, and the wounds quickly sealed.
“How the hell did you do that?” Colin gasped.
“It’s easy. Try it,” Diane urged. She reached over and yanked the metal blade from Colin’s shoulder. Colin yelped in pain.
Kelly rose up. “Are you guys okay?”
Colin didn’t answer. His shoulder ached, but he was concerned about the creature undergoing its strange transformation as it reached the anti-air defender. It swiped its hand along the side of the vehicle’s metal body, and a long strip of metal disintegrated under its touch. At the same time, long blades of sharp metal began to sprout up across the creature’s torso. The creature swiped its hand across the side of the vehicle again and again, making more long strips of the metal hull disappear and simultaneously reappear as sharp blades growing out all over its body until it was once again covered from its head to the tip of its tail with metal shards. The creature let out a loud roar and charged forward. At the same time, Colin saw that the creature’s partner had recovered from his attack and was now flying in their direction, its body still glowing with deadly energy. The spiny creature moved with surprising speed, drawing closer. Diane fired her laser rifle, and Colin fired an electric bolt, but it leaped into the air and avoided their attack as it hurled itself at Diane.
“Look out!” Colin shouted. He stepped back and raised his hands to fire another bolt at the creature, but hesitated because Diane was too close. Diane stepped back as the creature landed on its feet just inches away from her. The creature took a slash at her with the blades of its right arm, slicing through the barrel of her laser rifle. Diane stepped back, holding up the rifle to shield herself as the creature slashed at her with its left arm. Its long forearm blades cleaved her rifle in half with a single stroke. Diane staggered back further, still holding the two halves of her weapon. The creature took two more swipes at Diane, but she deftly avoided them by mere inches.
Kelly stepped forward, thrusting out his hands and creating a large blue wall of energy between Diane and the attacking creature. The creature began slashing at Kelly’s shield wall. It let out angry grunts with each swing but failed to penetrate it. Then its partner, the flying insect, dove down to join in, still emitting its deadly glow. Colin raised his hands and fired twin bolts of energy at this menace, but its aerial agility let it easily dodge to the left and right to avoid them. On the ground, the blade-covered creature ran back away from Kelly’s shield wall as the large insect made its decent, folding its wings beneath the shell coverings on its back. It began crawling toward Kelly’s shield wall. Kelly reinforced the shield wall, making it thicker, but was surprised when the creature made contact and penetrated it with little effort. The only effect that Kelly’s shield wall had on this monster was to cause its body to glow brighter and hotter. Colin could feel the intense heat searing the skin of his face. He and Diane stepped back, raising their hands and turning their heads away. “Fall back!” Colin shouted.
A beam of energy struck the ground near the left side of the creature. A resulting explosion went off and threw the creature into the air. Colin looked over to his left to see that the beam was fired from the ship that was being assaulted by the psycho-gunners. There were flames belching out from a large hole on the side of the ship’s hull. Beams from the psycho-gunners continued to strike the ship, as well as the second ship that hovered next to it. A group of six Brelac fighters flew overhead and fired down on both ships. Soon they were joined by more fighters. Their plasma bolts caused blue flashes when they struck the ship’s defensive energy shields. Both ships retaliated by firing their laser cannons simultaneously at the fighters and the Brelac forces on the ground.
Colin looked around but lost track of the spiny monster. The line of Protectorate troopers was now starting to fall back while continuing to return fire at the Brelac. Then a third Protectorate ship made its descent and began firing down at the Brelac forces below. The other two ships began to make a slow landing onto the stadium field.
Colin turned from this scene and looked about for the two monsters that he, Diane, and Kelly were trying to fend off. Amid the confusion of smoke and troopers rushing about, there was no sign of them. Colin took this as an ill omen. “Keep your eyes open for those two creatures. They could be anywhere,” he warned Diane and Kelly. Colin was startled when someone grabbed his left arm. Pain shot through his wounded shoulder. He turned and saw Everton.
“Your ride’s here!” Everton said in a loud voice.
“We can’t leave. We have to find those two monsters,” replied Colin. “They could give us a clue to our investigation.”
“Your investigation will be over if you guys don’t get on that ship,” Everton warned. “There’s barely enough room for everybody, and it will be standing room only. I’ll see that you get on board. But we have to hurry.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find a way out. Now let’s move.”
Colin knew that Everton was right. While the ships were here he, Diane, and Kelly had to take this opportunity to leave. As for the two creatures, Colin did not know if they had left the area or were waiting in hiding for a chance to strike. Wherever they were, Colin was not looking forward to facing them again. But in the back of his mind he knew that, during the course of this investigation he, Diane, and Kelly would not have to look too far to find those monsters. Somehow these creatures would find them.
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Chapter 9
Jim Norton opened his eyes and awoke with the hope that the past several days had just been a bad dream. He hoped he was aboard a ship that was flying light years away from the space debris field where he’d been sent to retrieve those damnable items for Vendetta. Instead, he was still sitting against the wall on the hard metal floor as a prisoner within a remote Carp Technologies research starbase. His hands were still restrained behind his back by thick metal wire. The large laboratory in which he was imprisoned featured two long black counters against the left and right walls. Both counters were cluttered with beakers and racks of test tubes filled with chemical solutions of different colors, as well as computers and various electronic instruments with glowing red touch pads.
Lying on the floor in front of Norton were the limp corpses of three lab technicians dressed in their white boots and coverall uniforms. The technicians’ bodies were reduced to shriveled near-skeletal forms, with their sightless eyes still open and their teeth frozen in a grimace of agony. Two black hoses ran from each corpse’s torso and forehead to a small panel on the left side of a four-foot-tall metal cylinder resting in front of them. This was the object that Norton and his team were supposed to locate and bring back for study. Succubus.
Before the mission, Norton had been briefed regarding the nature of this object. He knew it was dangerous, as was the robotic monster, the Deltan, that stood at its side. But he was told that it was supposed to be inactive. The information that he received was inaccurate. This demonic machine, along with its hulking minion, still had power enough to take control of the entire starbase, cutting off all communications to the outside and slaughtering all of its personnel. Now the question running through Norton’s mind as he looked up at these two evil machines was ... what would they do next?
Norton reared back, startled by the image of a large red eye surrounded by white brain m
atter appearing above Succubus. Then he heard a deep gravelly voice projecting from the machine. “My power levels have increased by an additional twenty percent. I now have sufficient power to resume holographic projection function.”
Norton thought that paying this machine a compliment might help to improve his dire predicament. He opened his mouth to speak and managed in a quivering voice, “Great. Glad to hear that you’re getting better. Is it possible for you to let me go now?”
“No,” Succubus answered bluntly. “You are still useful to me.”
“How? As a pilot? Can’t you get your friend here to fly you to where you need to go?”
“I am currently in no need for the skills of a ship’s pilot. If properly linked to a ship’s systems, I can fulfill that function on my own. But since you are the only surviving human left intact aboard this station, I’ll need you for a much greater purpose.”
Norton was relieved to hear that his importance to this machine was keeping him alive. “A greater purpose? Like what?”
“I intend to make use of this station’s robotic’s facility to repair and upgrade the Delta Nova unit standing before you. As well as create new units. To achieve that end I need access to a viable supply of organic tissue for mass reproduction and integration with the Delta Nova hardware.”
Norton was no longer relieved. “Organic tissue? I don’t like the sound of that.”
“My primary need will be cerebral, neural, and small sections of muscular tissue. All other tissue will be discarded.”
Norton was flooded with fear. There was no doubt now the process Succubus proposed would prove fatal to him. “Why do you need my tissue? You have all these other guys here.”
“These corpses are useless to me in that regard. I needed their tissue to re-nourish my own organic matter, which was heavily damaged, as well as that of the Delta Nova. They are nothing more than spent husks now. You are the only human left alive aboard this station.”
Assassination Anxiety (The McKenzie Files) Page 11