I’ll have to fight, he thought. Even if they don’t kill me right away, they will eventually if they can’t glean any useful information from me regarding their enemy.
On top of that, he knew he didn’t have nearly enough time to learn the language and propose a diplomatic solution to work himself off world. Bloodshed seemed inevitable.
He scowled at the onrushing troops and activated his laser blade.
“I am Hidria,” he growled. “I am fear.”
The confused aliens sought cover as soon as the weapon ignited, unsure what to make of the energy beam, but they quickly regathered their nerve and started firing. Nuri rolled behind the speeder and waited until an explosion outside the building distracted the aliens, then leapt out from behind the vehicle. “I am Death!” he screamed. Ignoring the pain alighting up and down his body, he launched into the nearest alien and sliced clean through its neck, quickly turning the body to absorb blaster fire from the others.
“I am Hidria!” he shouted.
This time, unbridled rage filled him rather than the battle-calm. He roared and tossed his first kill at three alien soldiers clumped together behind a large piece of debris either from Nuri’s crash or one of the explosions on the street. The impact stalled their blaster-fire just long enough for him to pounce on the trio. He stabbed the point of his blade through the throat of the first, spun around to separate the second at the waist, then sliced open the last from gullet to groin in the span of a few heartbeats.
Senseless and savage, his Duri Master snapped. There is no grace in a violent kill.
Just as Nuri turned to confront the rest of the attackers, though, a blaster bolt caught him in the shoulder and sent him sprawling over a mound of debris.
Death, he thought. It was the only word he could manage in his state of shock. White-hot pain seared the left side of his body where the pulse blast had found purchase between tears in his suit. He pawed gingerly at the cauterized wound and hissed beneath the sound of persistent blaster volleys. He didn’t realize that the wound had likely saved his life until he scrambled completely behind cover as a whole battalion of locals suddenly stormed through the opposite side of the building and besieged the invaders with giant, cylindrical cannons.
That doesn’t mean it gets any better for me, he thought grimly. It only ever gets worse.
The wound had sapped most of his combat rage to the point that he felt absurd for his useless bravado, but the fire slowly began to reassert itself as he watched the invaders realize they were flanked, as well.
God, be my strength, he prayed. Be my blade and my resolve.
In the best-case scenario, he was about to be caught in a deadly crossfire between the two armies. Even if he procured a hasty alliance with one side or the other amid the battle—which was itself a practical impossibility—there was still no conceivable way he’d escape the warzone with his life.
If you were truly Hidria, you would manage to escape. You could oppose entire armies on your own.
Nuri shrank deeper into cover as the invaders turned their attention to the battalion at their flank with the aid of flame cannons and blaster turrets mounted on the shoulders of cyborg aliens.
If you cower away from what you know you must do, then you are not worthy to be called Hidria. Hidria place all trust in God and are righteous in their surrender.
A fresh volley of blaster bolts skimmed past Nuri’s head and suddenly the rage was on him again.
“I am Hidria!” he shouted. None of the creatures heard him over the drowning din of battle, but they certainly noticed when he leapt into the middle of the fray with a blaster in one hand and a laser blade in the other.
You are insane, his Duri Master chastised him in palpable disbelief. Your mental degradation is complete.
He started firing before his feet hit the ground, alternating between the invading army and the locals without any clue which direction was ideal for escape. All he knew was a panic unlike anything he’d ever experienced had swept over him. The calm demeanor that he normally possessed in spades during the heat of battle was nowhere to be found.
Foolish. Proud. Insane.
It wasn’t long before he faced more than just the risk of inadvertent crossfire from diving out into the mayhem. Soldiers from both armies quickly aimed their weapons at him and started firing, trying to mitigate the damage he inflicted on both parties. Each was certain he’d allied with the other.
He hit the ground hard and felt his shoulder pop out of socket beneath his armor, but a fresh surge of adrenaline was enough to keep him moving. He let his momentum carry him into a roll with his finger pressed down on the trigger the whole time, landing more shots than he missed due to the tight grouping of enemy forces in the cramped building.
You’re hit, Colt said matter-of-factly.
Nuri tried to ignore her but it was difficult when he felt the impact of blaster bolts beating into him. He knew he was in trouble. He managed to cover himself just enough to avoid any headshots, but it seemed a futile exercise in the end. He was getting hit over and over and his armor wasn’t doing much to dull the impacts. It was only a matter of time before it gave out completely.
I’m going to die, he thought, continuing to fire at both armies out of helpless anger and spite.
Hidria cannot die.
Colt’s suddenly booming voice stunned him enough that his grip on the trigger momentarily relaxed, mercifully drawing the shots away from him. The aliens must have thought he was already dead and didn’t want to waste ammunition hammering his corpse. He still wasn’t completely out of the woods (although he supposed he could play possum long enough to find a window for escape), but it gave the pain of a dozen blaster wounds ample opportunity to fully set in.
Except, it didn’t. When he concentrated on the nerves in his body, he realized that he didn’t feel pain at all anymore. Not even in his shoulder, which he knew without a doubt he’d separated when he hit the floor.
What’s happening? he wondered. Am I paralyzed?
He scrambled to tear free of the armor plating to see if there were any burns from the blaster bolts.
There were, and plenty of them. In fact, his skin was still sizzling where there was enough of it left to sizzle. Most of the wounds had burned all the way to the taut strings of his muscle. By all rights, he should have been dead.
And yet, he felt nothing.
Am I in shock?
Another flurry of blaster bolts caught him, this time in the back of his head and the side of his face. His neck snapped sideways when they hit. He smelled scorched skin and melting brain matter, but otherwise, he was no worse for wear.
He stared up at the peculiarly warped ceiling in disbelief, trying to come to terms with his new invincibility, working out whether it was his entire physical form or solely the nerve receptors in his body.
I may still be dying and just unable to feel the pain.
It seemed farfetched, yet not nearly as farfetched as being shot more than a dozen times from ten yards away and still breathing.
You aren’t dying, Colt told him as he lay there, startled by his own breath and thoughts. You cannot die. You are Hidria now.
He swallowed hard and was awed by the sensation of his tongue sliding against the roof of his mouth. If he couldn’t feel the blaster burns, he thought, how could he possibly feel a sensation as subtle as swallowing?
I am Death, he told himself. I cannot be killed.
It didn’t explain the contrast between his lack of pain and everything else he still felt other than the notion that Hidria could control what they did and didn’t feel, but it was enough to get him moving again with renewed resolve.
I have to leave this place, he thought, rising to one knee and ignoring the blaster bolts flying around him. I have to get to Prime.
His internal clock had begun to tick loudly. He understood he was running out of time to reach the Divine Infinite on the first planet, yet the surreality of feeling the impacts from blaster bo
lts without ensuing agony had pushed him over the edge of sanity. And once he dipped his toe into those deep and poisonous waters, he knew that there was no hope to re-emerge from the trials unscathed.
That time has already passed, Colt told him. You have already been marked. There is no going back from Hidria. You have already been transformed.
Nuri stood to his full height, allowing the blaster bolts to smack into him while he steadied his legs against their impact. It was a cathartic sensation, feeling his body shift and juke with each shot, yet still keeping his feet.
Then I have to get to Prime as soon as possible to learn why I have been deemed worthy, he decided.
He inhaled deeply, then holstered his blaster and swung his laser blade in a wide arc.
More energy blasts turned in his direction. The aliens’ palpable fear mounted in the face of a seemingly indestructible being.
“Hidria!” Nuri shouted. He turned toward the invaders and launched into the front of their line with his blade a swinging blur in front of him.
The soldiers responded with battle cries of their own and concentrated fire in his direction, but they scrambled away when he landed atop two tentacled faces and drove his blade downward through the head of another.
Immediately, the locals saw their opportunity to make a press and triggered the flamethrowers for a full five seconds before stopping to allow the infantry to press forward and assist Nuri. By the time they reached the invaders’ line, Nuri had cut his way through a dozen of the alien soldiers, not even bothering to twist and turn to avoid the shots as they came at him. He just absorbed each impact, dug in with his boots, and fought his way forward with slices, stabs, and hacks. A few soldiers stopped firing altogether when he got close enough to finish them off. They simply stared with crumpled expressions which he assumed were awe or disbelief, and that made killing them a little bit more difficult because it humanized them.
But only a little.
He’d killed more than his share of unarmed civilians with the Called and they’d each borne similar expressions when they met their end. He’d learned over the years to detach himself from the horror of it all, but somehow the sight of these alien creatures stirred enough of an emotional response that he regretted every life he’d taken all at once.
What have I done? he thought, lowering his weapon in despair.
Now is not the time for regrets, Colt reminded him.
He knew it was true and was himself surprised that emotion should hit him while he was still a primary target. Perhaps it was the sight of the aliens’ collective realization that they were powerless to stop the beast among them. Their weapons were useless. Resistance of any kind was hopeless. Even the colonists he’d killed over the years had an idea of what was coming, and must have taken comfort knowing their killer would get his just due eventually because he was mortal. The look in the eyes of these alien invaders was different, he realized, because they faced something utterly beyond their comprehension. It seemed an unforgivable sin to kill a creature with no hope of defending itself.
It never bothered you while you were cleansing planets, Colt said. You killed thousands of innocent women and children. Perhaps tens of thousands.
That was in the name of God, he protested. But in his heart, he realized it was an insufficient justification, and not a true justification at all. He hadn’t killed all the heretics and sinners because God had told him to do it. He hadn’t received a divine revelation detailing how those specific individuals were an affront to God and His Holy Name. Each mission had been mandated by the Duri Order, who claimed to speak for God but who also had not heard from Him directly since the scriptures were written millennia ago.
Why? he wondered, deactivating his laser blade as the battle raged around him. Why am I only realizing this now?
Colt’s form suddenly appeared among the invaders, glowing with such vibrancy that he could see her clearly through the tangle of bodies.
You see now because you are no longer human. You are Hidria. The Duri no longer have a hold on your mind.
The invaders began retreating into the street. The locals advanced jubilantly in turn, giving Nuri a wide berth. It was clear by the way they regarded him as they passed that they would have liked to capture and study him had it not been the middle of a battle, but he met their gazes without fear and they moved on in hopes of trapping the invaders between their two ground forces.
Find a ship, Colt told him, taking his hand and pointing out the window. There is a hangar down the street where you can have your pick of fighters. Don’t take anything too big or you will need a full crew to operate it.
Nuri nodded and stepped through the hole in the side of the building where he’d crashed the alien speeder and inadvertently triggered the skirmish inside. Colt released his hand and sucked backward into the smoke with her glowing eyes still locked on him.
The sound of artillery was deafening. The blaster bolts and energy-cannon rounds formed such a thick cloud that Nuri had to seek shelter against the building even though he was certain the blasts could not kill him. It was too heavy a barrage for him to keep his feet.
They must truly despise each other, he thought.
He’d witnessed the animosity of battle before—certainly none of the colonists he’d killed as a Called soldier had been happy to see him—but the pounding each side had taken and then continued to dish out in equal measure suggested that the two races had been enemies for a long, long time. It did not seem to be a matter of territory or resources, although Nuri admitted to himself that he could have been wrong on that count. The battle had the feel of two clashing ideologies that had been at odds with each other for as long as their species had existed.
Shuffling down the street with modest cover from the building, Nuri worked himself away from the battle’s epicenter. He could see light streaming out from a large, open structure ahead and knew it was the hangar Colt had promised without needing to see any ships. Nothing stood in the way of him hijacking a fighter now. Even if soldiers guarded the vessels, he knew they would be few with so much happening outside the building. Besides, even before he was Hidria, he would have been able to take out a minor guard detail on his own.
The hard part will be learning how to fly one of these ships, he thought.
Again, though, he was confident he would figure it out without much trouble. Now that he was Hidria, nothing seemed impossible.
But how will I get to Prime? he wondered.
Colt hadn’t given him any specific directions on where to go nor explained where he was in the universe. And even with a reference point to gauge how far he needed to travel to return to the distant mountaintop, he would still be missing the coordinates for Prime.
If you are destined to see the Divine Infinite, Colt told him, you will be guided to Him.
Nuri knew better than to argue with her. She would either turn his logic on its head or shoot it down completely. Besides, his perception of Colt as a malevolent being who existed only to complicate his journey had been turned on its head already. He trusted her now as his greatest asset. Even greater than his Duri Master, he supposed, whose voice had all but disappeared from his consciousness in the new reality.
As he suspected, only a handful of locals had been stationed in the hangar. He made quick work of them with his blaster and climbed into the nearest fighter, which was about five times the size of the vessels that the Called used for space combat but was still smaller than any other ship in the massive structure. Unlike the Duri fighters where the cockpit was accessed by ladder and the opening of a glass canopy, the alien vessel required scaling a precariously angled ramp that shot almost directly upward into the ship, then opening a circular hatch by pressing a bright blue button. Once inside, he had to climb an unevenly-spaced ladder and walk a long, narrow corridor to access the controls.
There were two stations in the cockpit (which was more of a bridge than a single-fighter control pod) and he looked each one over carefully before
deciding the console on his left controlled the weapons and the one on the right controlled propulsion. The arachnoids didn’t require seats and were taller than he was even when resting on their legs, so he had to move an empty canister from the rear of the ship to reach the buttons and levers. Once he accessed the console, however, he had little difficulty activating the ship’s drive and gently depressing the propulsion to exit the hangar.
“Where to?” he asked the empty cockpit as the hatch closed automatically and the ramp retracted. He feared briefly that he wouldn’t be able to breathe the concentrated atmosphere the aliens required once the life-support systems kicked on, then remembered that he’d breathed easily enough on the surface. The same would likely hold true on the ship.
Reflex, he thought. Breath was the first thing warriors usually thought about when they boarded the ship of an alien species. Not all aliens subsisted on oxygen—in fact, most of them did not—and one couldn’t be too careful when sealing himself in a foreign atmosphere. But even before the warzone, air hadn’t been much of an issue for Nuri during the trials, and if dozens of blaster bolts couldn’t kill him at point blank, then he didn’t think something as insignificant as breath could destroy him. Hidria were too strong for that.
The Duri say Hidria can even travel through space without masks. Is that true?
Colt appeared before him as he carefully turned the ship so its back was directed toward the battle and then activated the thrusters to begin his angled ascent.
“Yes,” she told him. “Your physical body is breaking away as we speak. Soon enough, it will not exist as you know it and the transformation will be complete. You will be ready to know the true nature of the Divine Infinite.”
“So I’m not ready yet?” he asked. “Even though I’m already Hidria?”
Colt nodded and turned to face the massive viewport looking out toward the stars. “Yes,” she said. “Even though you are Hidria. Your mind is still muddled with the teachings of the Duri Order.”
Colt: The Cosmic Prayer (Hidria Book 1) Page 18