Lucien snapped out of it, and fired a stun bolt at King Faro’s chest. It was a direct hit. Electric blue fire crackled over bare blue skin, but the alien’s body didn’t convulse as Lucien expected. Instead, King Faro recovered with a scowl and turned to watch as Lucien’s daughters disappeared backstage.
The alien gestured to one of his guards. “Get them back—alive! And kill the one who took them.” The black-robed alien inclined its head and ran backstage.
Lucien ran after him, discarding his apparently useless stun pistol in favor of the laser rifle dangling from the strap around his neck. He fired a flurry of dazzling red lasers at King Faro as he ran after his kids. Three bolts hit, splashing crimson fire across the alien’s chest—again to no effect.
“You can’t hurt me,” the alien said, and held out a glowing hand to track Lucien. “But I can hurt you. Stop where you are, or I’ll do it myself, and then I’ll kill everyone else—your daughters included.”
Lucien skidded to a stop. A sharp pang of despair stabbed his heart, and it took a physical effort to look away from the spot where Brak had taken his daughters off the stage.
A stampede of metallic footsteps sounded behind Lucien, and he saw King Faro’s gaze drift to the entrance of the shelter. “I was wondering when you would get here!”
Three squads of Marine bots piled into the concert hall, accompanied their human sergeants.
One of the sergeants nodded to Lucien and said, “Back away from the stage, sir.”
Lucien hurriedly side-stepped to get out of their line of fire.
“Get down from the stage with your hands above your heads!” the same sergeant barked, now speaking to the aliens.
“Like this?” King Faro asked, raising both hands slowly, his palms glowing.
Someone shouted a warning. Too late. Two shimmering balls of energy leapt out and hit the sergeant in the chest. Explosions boomed and the room flashed white. When the glare faded, the sergeant’s body appeared bouncing off the far wall of the room, his armor a blackened, molten mess.
The Marines opened fire with a thunderous roar, but King Faro was no longer standing on the stage. The black-robed alien who’d been standing beside him took the brunt of the barrage. Laser fire rippled across his chest, and bullets sprayed shrapnel as they exploded on some unseen shield. Then someone shot a pair of AP rockets—
Skrsssh...
The explosion boomed, and the alien’s chest burst open in a spray of black blood. The imparted momentum shattered the mag-lock of the alien’s boots, sending it tumbling backward.
Lucien scanned the room for King Faro, using his helmet’s sensors to aid his eyes. After just a second, he found the alien’s cold heat signature standing up on the tiers of seating amidst the crowd.
“We’re going to play a new game!” King Faro said, and hoisted a young boy above his head. “The soldiers leave, or I kill the boy.” The kid kicked him in the throat, but the alien didn’t even blink. “Well, Sergeants? What do you say?”
Chapter 12
Astralis
Tyra could hear the thudding of heavy cannon fire and the high-pitched screeching of lasers even through the heavy blast doors of the bridge. A squad of bots and their sergeant stood behind those doors, weapons raised and waiting for the enemy to come bursting through.
“We’re taking heavy losses,” General Graves reported from the holo table. “We’re down five squads and we’ve only taken down one enemy.”
“One squad?” Tyra asked.
“No, just one,” Graves replied.
“What about our reinforcements?” Ellis asked in a panicky voice. “We have a lot more than five squads of Marines on this ship!”
“They’re all too far away to reach us in time, and they have their own lines to hold.”
“If this line falls, none of the others are going to matter,” Admiral Stavos added. “Have the reinforcements fall back to the nearest quantum junctions and jump here now! We’ll try to buy them some time.”
“Yes, sir,” Graves replied.
Tyra watched green dots winking off the table as a group of seven red dots stormed the bridge. Wink, wink, wink...
Now the odds were even. Seven to seven.
Seven to six—one of the enemies fell.
Zero to six—all of the remaining Marines went down as the enemy reached point-blank range. Tyra imagined shimmering alien swords cutting the marine bots and their sergeants to pieces.
Bang, bang, bang.
All eyes turned to the doors of the bridge. The alien’s were knocking.
“Put me in touch with them!” Admiral Stavos ordered.
The comms officer nodded. “You’re live, Admiral.”
Admiral Stavos spoke, his voice echoing out over the ship’s intercom. “This is Admiral Stavos, we have hundreds of squads incoming as we speak. You won’t stand a chance against them. Surrender now, and I promise we will be merciful.”
Silence answered that ultimatum, but Tyra spotted the red dots on the holo table backing away from the bridge.
“They’re leaving!” Ellis said, his voice cracking with relief.
“No,” Graves whispered. “They’re not.” He pointed to the map. The red dots had stopped moving a fixed distance from the doors.
BOOM! The doors shivered and glowed brightly at the seams, as if struggling to hold back a fire-breathing dragon.
“Here they come!” Graves roared. “Take cover!”
BOOM! The doors exploded in a fiery rain of shrapnel. Tyra hit the deck, using the edge of the holo table to hold herself down. A molten orange sheet of metal whizzed through the space where her head had been a second ago.
Weapons fire screeched, and blinding flashes of light tore through the bridge with deck-shaking booms. Marine bots clanked as they dodged and fell. Waves of heat swept over Tyra and an acrid smell filled her nostrils. She risked raising her head to look.
Smoke swirled in the entrance of the bridge, and the squad of Marine bots who’d been standing there floated in a cloud of glowing shrapnel. Their sergeant drifted with them, his face a rictus of horror and pain behind the shattered faceplate of his helmet. It was Sergeant Ikes.
A group of blue-skinned aliens stormed in, swatting away broken pieces of bots like flies. One alien strode to the fore. He wore gray robes and a golden crown. Tyra was surprised to see how human he looked, but his hairlessness and glowing blue eyes were decidedly alien.
“Where is the one who calls himself Admiral Stavos?” the alien demanded in a smooth voice. His accent was strange, but he spoke Versal clearly enough.
“Here,” Stavos said. Tyra craned her neck to see him stand up from behind the holo table.
“Who else is in charge?” the alien asked.
For a moment no one replied. Then the alien thrust out a hand in the direction of the nearest control station. A ball of light shot out and exploded with a blinding flash of light a deafening boom. The control station flew apart, and the man sitting there went flying over the railing to the far wall of viewscreens.
Tyra felt something hot and sharp bite into her thigh, and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.
“I’m in charge of the Marines,” General Graves said, also standing up from behind the holo table, his sidearm in hand, but not aimed.
“Anyone else?”
Tyra raised her hand and gingerly climbed to her feet, making sure to keep contact between her mag boots and the deck. “I’m the councilor of Fallside.”
“Councilor... this is like a lord?” the alien inquired. His voice was gender neutral, but his facial features were decidedly male. “Yes... you are a civilian leader. Where is your king? The one who calls himself Chief Councilor Ellis?”
Ellis made no move to stand up.
“If I have to ask again, someone else will die,” the alien said, his hand already glowing with another ball of energy.
Tyra used her ARCs to find Ellis cowering behind the holo table. She glared in his direction, and General Gr
aves hoisted him up by the collar of his white ceremonial robes. “Here he is.”
The alien licked a set of perfectly straight white teeth with a black tongue and grinned. “Amazing how quickly you will turn on each other, isn’t it?”
Councilor Ellis struggled free of the General’s grasp and planted his mag boots firmly on the deck. Taking a moment to straighten his robes, he walked around the holo table to face the aliens.
“What do you want?”
“You three,” he wagged a long index finger tipped with a sharp golden claw to indicate Stavos, Graves, Ellis. “I will commune with you.” As he said that, two more aliens stepped through the swirling clouds of smoke and debris in the entrance of the bridge. They were identical copies, complete with matching gray robes and glowing golden crowns.
“Commune?” Ellis asked, his eyes skipping from one alien clone to the next. “What does that mean?”
All three spoke as one, “Come here and we will show you.”
Chapter 13
Astralis
Lucien watched King Faro hold the young boy above his head, kicking and screaming, impervious to the those kicks. The boy’s parents snapped out of their shock and began beating the alien with their fists. In response, the alien grabbed the boy’s mother in his free hand and held her up by her throat.
“Touch me again, and she dies,” King Faro warned, nodding to the father.
Both he and his son subsided, and the alien directed his attention to the Marines standing in the entrance of the shelter. “Well? Are you going to leave, or should I start killing?”
Lucien ran through the list of options in his head. Stun weapons did nothing, and it took heavy weapons fire to overwhelm the Faros’ personal shields. With this one surrounded by civilians, the Marines couldn’t risk bringing that kind of firepower to bear. They had no choice.
“Fall back,” one of the remaining two Marine sergeants said. He flicked a quick glance at Lucien, as if to ask, what’s he want with you?
But Lucien was still wondering the same thing. Why had he and his children been singled out? As the Marines left, Lucien’s gaze strayed to the back of the stage. His whole body itched with the urge to run after his children.
The doors to the concert hall slid shut with a swish, and King Faro said, “Looks like it’s just the two of us again. Have you made up your mind yet?”
Lucien’s head snapped around and he glared up at the alien king. “You’re not holding my children hostage anymore, so you can’t make me choose between them and a room full of strangers.”
“I am holding someone else’s child,” the alien pointed out. “But you’re right, it’s not the same thing.” King Faro released the boy and his mother with a shrug, and the father hurried to pull them back down to their seats.
“We will wait until Hassan recovers them.”
Lucien glanced back to the stage, and he took a quick step in that direction, unable to help himself.
“No,” King Faro said. “Let’s see how Brak does on his own. One on one is a fair fight, wouldn’t you say?”
Brak. The alien knew his name, too. Buy time, just buy time, keep him talking, distracted... Lucien thought. Maybe the Marines would come up with something.
Lucien turned to gaze up at the alien once more. “You want a fair fight? Deactivate your shield and face me yourself. No weapons. Hand-to-hand only.”
“I fear that wouldn’t last very long...” King Faro said, and the corners of his mouth drooped in an exaggerated frown.
Lucien was about to argue with more false bravado, but the alien grabbed the back of the seat in front of him and casually ripped the whole thing free of its bolts. The chair floated up in front of him, its occupant still clutching his seat and looking terrified.
“Strength alone isn’t enough to determine the outcome of a fight,” Lucien argued.
“No?” the alien replied. “When your face caves in under my fist, you may have trouble supporting that argument...” King Faro trailed off with a frown. His glowing eyes slid away, and the crowd gasped.
Lucien followed the alien’s gaze to the stage and saw that the black-robed alien, Hassan, had returned. One hand still held his shimmering sword, dragging it behind him, the tip sizzling across the stage, while his other hand, and arm, were missing at the shoulder. He stumbled across the stage with black blood gushing from his open shoulder socket like party streamers. The alien staggered twice and shook his head. It said something in a sibilant language of hisses and sneers.
Despite the gruesome scene, Lucien felt relief spreading in his chest. Brak had somehow gotten the better of Hassan.
“I am disappointed to hear that,” King Faro said, replying in Versal—for my benefit? Lucien wondered. He glanced back at King Faro in time to see the alien leap over the rows of seats and sail down to the stage, propelled by some unseen means—grav boosters? Lucien wondered as the alien king touched down in front of Hassan. The king drew a shimmering blade of his own from a scabbard on his back, and Hassan growled out something else, looking suddenly frightened. The king swung his sword, and Hassan lifted his to parry, but weakly. A sizzle of energy sparked, and Hassan’s blade bounced away, flying out of his hand, while King Faro’s blade sailed on to slice Hassan’s head off.
“Mercy? Death is your mercy,” the king said as the head floated away, its glowing green eyes wide and staring as the light slowly faded from them.
Silence rang, and King Faro rounded on Lucien. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.” With that, he vanished from the stage in a blur of gray robes, moving impossibly fast.
Frek that, Lucien thought, and sprinted after him. Upon reaching the chest-high stage, he deactivated his mag boots, jumped, and activated them again, touching down on top of the stage. His rifle whipped around his neck, throwing him off balance and rocking him back on his heels. He shrugged out of the strap and let the weapon drift free. It was next to useless anyway. Instead, he cast about for Hassan’s shimmering sword. He found it drifting at the edge of the stage, and ran to catch it.
The blade was almost invisible, and no longer shimmering, but as Lucien’s hand wrapped around the hilt, it hummed to life, vibrating against his palm.
It was strange in an age of high technology to be reduced to melee weapons, but Lucien didn’t have time to wonder about it. He ran backstage, using his helmet’s sensors to track King Faro’s cool heat signature through walls and doors.... Lucien ran past audio equipment, through a make-up room, and on down a hall past private dressing rooms. He turned sharply at the end of the corridor and started down another one. King Faro stood in front of a shut door at the end. Lucien slowed his approach, realizing it might not be the best strategy to charge.
“You refused to make your choice,” the alien said as Lucien drew near. “So I’m going to make it for you.” With that, he turned and opened the door, revealing at least five squads of Marine bots and their sergeants. King Faro rushed them.
Anticipating the Marines’ reaction, Lucien took cover, plastering himself to the wall as they fired a blinding, deafening volley of lasers and cannons.
The alien king glowed brightly as his shield deflected everything. He ran through the ranks, sword flashing. Severed bits of bots went drifting out above the chaos, and the alien ran on, unfettered.
The weapons fire abruptly ceased as King Faro burst out the other side of the Marines’ formation. As soon as that happened, Lucien lunged out of cover, giving chase once more. Up ahead he saw that all of the Marines had turned to face the rear now, weapons tracking, but none of them firing.
As Lucien drew near, a familiar, hissing roar reached his ears. Metal arms and legs were a forest, blocking his view, but he managed to steal glimpses of Brak’s naked gray bulk streaking out and slamming into the alien king.
There was a brief struggle before Brak went spinning away, clutching a gash in his side, and hissing in pain. King Faro sailed on, heading for a group of corpsmen attending to a familiar pair of young girls.
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“No!” Lucien ran as fast as he could, but there was no way he would reach them in time. His mind raged: Why aren’t the Marines firing!? But he knew why. They couldn’t shoot without risking the lives they were trying to save.
Lucien hit the ranks of Marine bots, forced to slow down as he waded through their rigid, unyielding lines. “Get out of the way!” he screamed. He was caught in one of those feet stuck-in-molasses nightmares where no matter how fast he tried to run, he couldn’t go faster than a crawl.
One of the corpsmen stepped between Lucien’s children and the alien. King Faro stopped and swung his sword, lopping off the corpsman’s head.
Atara screamed, and Theola stared wordlessly.
Blood streamed from the lifeless body, held erect and swaying on its feet by the zero-G environment. King Faro shoved it aside, and reached for Atara with a glowing palm.
The Marine bots belatedly parted ranks, and Lucien broke free. He pounded across the deck, teeth gritted, eyes wide with rage and horror, unable to do anything but watch as King Faro wrapped his glowing palm around Atara’s face like a squid and lifted her off the deck. Atara’s feet dangled, and her muffled screams stabbed Lucien’s ears repeatedly. He ran faster still, every second a lifetime while Atara suffered.
As he drew near, Lucien thrust out his stolen sword, using his momentum to put some weight behind the weapon. The sword sunk up to its hilt in the alien’s back, but King Faro didn’t release his daughter, or even cry out in pain.
Shoving off from the blue-skinned monster, Lucien screamed and ran him through again and again until black blood streamed from half a dozen slits in the alien’s gray robes. But still the alien wouldn’t let his daughter go. To his horror, Lucien saw one of the gashes in the alien’s blue skin seal up before his eyes.
He swept the sword down through the alien’s knees, and was gratified to see both legs severed and the alien king drifting free in a gushing stream of black blood. Heal that, you frekking kakard! Lucien thought. But the alien king clung to Atara as if his life depended on it, and Atara’s muffled cries were ominously silent now.
Dark Space Universe (Book 2): The Enemy Within Page 8